.
* * * * * * MONDAY, AUGUST 7, 2023 ~ VOL. CCLXXXII NO. 31
Last week: DJIA 35065.62 g 393.67 1.1%
What’s
News
Business & Finance
 The yield on the benchmark
10-year U.S. Treasury note has
surged close to its highest level
in more than a decade, lifted
by new bets that a strong
economy could support years
of higher interest rates. A1
 Yellow filed for bankruptcy
and is closing the business, fall-
ing victim to mounting debt in-
cluding a government loan and a
standoff with the Teamsters. B1
 Pfizer is hitting a rough spot
after its postcrisis Covid-19
sales nosedived and while it
waits for new drugs and re-
cent deal-making to pay off. A1
 The oil patch faces a
worsening talent shortage
even as oil-and-gas compa-
nies post record profits, in a
departure from previous cy-
cles in the industry. A1
 Senior members of the
Biden administration are at-
tempting to persuade Can-
ada to drop its plan to im-
pose a digital-services tax at
the start of 2024. A2
 Airlines in the U.S., Eu-
rope and Asia are preparing
to reduce some flights and
routes temporarily to inspect
aircraft affected by the recall
of hundreds of Pratt & Whit-
ney jet engines. B1
 Earnings for the nation’s
biggest companies are poised
to fall for the third straight
quarter, hurt in part by the
decline in energy prices. B1
 Berkshire Hathaway swung
to a profit in the second quar-
ter, boosted by its insurance
division and strong gains in its
massive investment portfolio,
while its cash pile swelled. B3
World-Wide
 A combined Russian and
Chinese naval force patrolled
near the coast of Alaska last
week in what U.S. experts
said appeared to be the larg-
est such flotilla to approach
American shores. A1
 Efforts to forge an inter-
national consensus around
a durable and fair peace
settlement to the war in
Ukraine inched forward af-
ter multilateral discussions
in Saudi Arabia. A8
 Even if Trump violated the
Constitution in pressuring
Pence not to certify the re-
sults of the 2020 election,
that doesn’t make it a crime,
Trump’s lawyer said. A4
 A Pakistan court sen-
tenced former Prime Minis-
ter Imran Khan to prison and
the government indicated
that elections due this year
would be postponed. A18
 A deadline set by other
West African countries for
leaders of the July 26 coup
in Niger to back down and
liberate the nation’s elected
president passed without
armed intervention. A18
 Low water levels on the Mis-
sissippi River threaten to disrupt
commerce for a second straight
year, months after floodwa-
ters tested containment de-
fenses along the waterway. A3
 At least 30 people were
killed and more than 100
were injured when a train
derailed in southern Paki-
stan, officials said. A18
 Died: Charles J. Ogletree Jr.,
70, Harvard Law professor
and civil-rights lawyer. A5
JOURNAL REPORT
Investing Monthly:
Retirement plans could
do better. R1-6
CONTENTS
Arts in Review......A13
Business & Finance.. B2,6
Business News....... B3
Crossword................ A14
Heard on Street.... B10
Markets..........................B9
s 2023 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
All Rights Reserved
WSJ.com HHHH $5.00
NASDAQ 13909.24 g 2.8% STOXX 600 459.28 g 2.4% 10-YR. TREASURY g 23/32 , yield 4.060% OIL $82.82 À $2.24 EURO $1.1012 YEN 141.73
Shootout Gaffes Knock U.S. Out of World Cup Investors
Bet Rates
Will Stay
Elevated
For Years
Economic growth
drives 10-year note
yield close to
decade-plus high
BY SAM GOLDFARB
AND MATT GROSSMAN
The yield on the benchmark
10-year U.S. Treasury note has
surged close to its highest level
in more than a decade, lifted by
new bets that a strong econ-
ROBERT CIANFLONE/GETTY IMAGES
omy could support years of
higher interest rates.
The 10-year yield settled
Friday at 4.060%, according to
Tradeweb, slipping after a
mixed monthly jobs report. But
that was still up from 3.968% a
week earlier and within touch-
THAT HURTS: Megan Rapinoe reacts after missing the first of three flubbed U.S. shots in the penalty shootout against Sweden on ing distance of its 14-year high
Sunday at soccer’s Women’s World Cup in Melbourne, Australia. The 5-4 shootout loss ends the championship run by the U.S. A14 of 4.231% from October.
The recent climb in longer-
term Treasury yields—which
Russia, China Teamed to Send
play a role in determining the
cost of everything from mort-
gages to stocks—comes even as
yields on shorter-term bonds
have stalled. That is a sign in-
Large Navy Patrol Near Alaska
vestors think cooling inflation
and resilient economic growth
will allow the Federal Reserve
to stop raising rates, then leave
them unchanged at least until
BY MICHAEL R. GORDON “It is a historical first,” said the defense of the United Russian and Chinese vessels the end of the year. The yield
AND NANCY A. YOUSSEF Brent Sadler, a senior re- States and Canada. The patrol had carried out drills that in- on the two-year Treasury note
search fellow at the Heritage remained in international wa- volved communications train- closed Friday at 4.791%, down
A combined Russian and Foundation and a retired Navy ters and was not considered a ing, helicopter landings and from 4.895% a week earlier.
Chinese naval force patrolled captain. “Given the context of threat,” the command said. takeoffs from the decks of Analysts call the pattern a
near the coast of Alaska last the war in Ukraine and ten- Sen. Dan Sullivan of Alaska, each other’s ships and a joint “bear steepening,” because
week in what U.S. experts sions around Taiwan, this a Republican member of the anti-submarine exercise in the bond prices are falling and lon-
said appeared to be the larg- move is highly provocative.” Senate Armed Services Com- Bering Sea in which a mock ger-term yields are climbing rel-
est such flotilla to approach A spokesman for the U.S. mittee, said the patrol was a target was destroyed. ative to short-term ones, which
U.S. shores. Northern Command confirmed reminder that the U.S. has en- Since the start of the joint would normally increase the
Eleven Russian and Chinese that Russia and China had tered “a new era of authoritar- patrol, the Russian defense gap between them. Bond yields
ships steamed close to the carried out a combined naval ian aggression” and applauded ministry added, the ships had rise when their prices fall.
Aleutian Islands, according to patrol near Alaska, but didn’t the robust U.S. response. Please turn to page A9 In this case, yields on
U.S. officials. The ships, which specify the number of ships or The Russian Embassy in shorter-term Treasurys months
never entered U.S. territorial their precise location. Washington, D.C., didn’t re-  Ukraine drones attack ago climbed well above those
waters and have since left, were “Air and maritime assets spond to a request for com- Russian oil tanker............. A7 on longer-term bonds—invert-
shadowed by four U.S. destroy- under our commands con- ment, but Russia’s Defense  Oligarchs fight sanctions ing the normal yield curve—be-
ers and P-8 Poseidon aircraft. ducted operations to assure Ministry said Friday said that over war................................. A8 Please turn to page A6
Investors Can’t Quit
‘Barbie’ Tops
$1 Billion Pfizer’s Fortunes
Self Storage
Fall Postpandemic,
‘Barbie’ became the first U.S.
film directed by one woman to
reach the billion-dollar mark. B2
Businesses expect Americans
to keep accumulating more stuff
Barbie box-office
total revenue* CEO Eyes New Deals
Domestic† International
$459.4M $572.1M
BY RYAN DEZEMBER spired droves of would-be BY JARED S. HOPKINS moved on from the pandemic.
small investors to try their Sales from the two products
America’s storage addic- luck, and now the 41-year-old The pandemic showered dropped so much, so rapidly
tion made Mike Wagner a is milking the storage craze Pfizer with record sales. Now they contributed to Pfizer’s
wealthy man. in a new way. His invest- the end of the crisis is drag- overall sales falling sizably in
Wagner quit his physical- ment-coaching business, The ging the drugmaker down. its most recent quarter com-
therapist job the day before Storage Rebellion, costs $297 Its Covid-19 vaccine and pared with the period a year
Worldwide
he bought his first self-stor- a month to join. He charges drug powered Pfizer to more earlier. The company dialed
age facility in 2011. It cost $779 for a video-training $1.03B than $100 billion in sales last back the top end of its expec-
$330,000 and was losing course, with lessons on lien year, the first drugmaker to tations for the full-year per-
$2,000 a month, but he got it laws, valuation spreadsheets break the barrier. Shares formance.
cranking out cash, added and partnership agreements. soared, as Wall Street hailed Shares are down 31% this
units and sold for $1.8 mil- For $995, Wagner will hop on the company for its savvy, fast year to date, a loss of more
lion, the first of several lucra- a one-on-one call for 90 min- and ultimately lucrative pivot than $88 billion in market cap-
tive turnarounds. utes, and $2,995 buys a day- *As of Aug. 6 †U.S. and Canada to taking on the virus. italization. The company’s val-
Stories like this have in- Please turn to page A10 Source: Box Office Mojo But many people have Please turn to page A2
INSIDE
Treasure Hunters Dig Into the Big Oil’s Talent Crisis:
Mystery of Buried Civil War Gold
i i i High Pay Isn’t Enough
A case involving a psychic vision, the FBI
BY MARI NOVIK about the industry’s role in
and nine tons of alleged loot goes to court AND COLLIN EATON climate change, as well as
long-term job security given
Good news from the oil that global economies are
BY KRIS MAHER than 40 years. “It’s definitely a patch: Jobs are plentiful and transitioning away from fossil
major coverup,” said Parada, salaries are soaring. fuels to other energy sources, U.S. NEWS
DENTS RUN, Pa.—Dennis who has the mustache of a The bad news is that young according to executives, ana- Trump indictment
Parada points to a weedy spot 19th-century gambler and people still aren’t interested. lysts and professors.
where he believes the Federal smokes his cigarettes Even as oil-and-gas compa- The trend is a stark depar-
leaves a mystery over
role of Mark Meadows,
Bureau of Investigation dug up down to a stub. nies post record profits, the ture from previous cycles,
nine tons of Civil War-era Tales of lost Civil industry is facing a worsening when the industry’s workforce former chief of staff. A4
gold, worth more than War-era gold have talent drought. ebbed and flowed with the
$500 million, and made stirred imagina- At U.S. colleges, the pool of rise and fall of oil prices.
off with it in the mid- tions for genera- new entrants for petroleum- Between 2016 and 2021—a
Opinion................ A15-17 dle of the night. tions. One caught engineering programs has period when the Brent crude
Outlook.......................... A2
Personal Journal.... A11-12
The patch of ground Parada’s attention shrunk to its smallest size price nearly doubled—the
Sports.......................... A14 halfway up a mountain in 1974 when he since before the fracking number of petroleum-engi-
Technology........................ B4 in western Pennsylvania was working in a boom began more than a de- neering graduates more than
U.S. News.............. A2-6 lies at the heart of the furniture store cade ago. European universi- halved, according to the U.S.
World News..... A7-9,18
treasure hunter’s quest Lost or found in Philipsburg, ties, which have historically Education Department.
to recover the trove Pa., and metal provided many of the engi- The number of undergradu- BUSINESS & FINANCE
> and prove it was snatched from detecting on weekends. The neers for companies with op- ates pursuing petroleum engi- Labor standoffs in the
under his nose. The matter is story in Treasure magazine erations across the Middle neering has dropped 75%
now playing out in federal said a Union caravan with gold East and Asia, are seeing simi- since 2014, according to Lloyd
transportation
court. bars in the false bottoms of lar trends. Heinze, a Texas Tech Univer- industry pose threat to
At 70, he has been chasing wagons headed from Wheeling, Students and high-skilled sity professor. U.S. supply chains. B1
the Dents Run gold for more Please turn to page A10 young workers are concerned Please turn to page A6
 .

A2 | Monday, August 7, 2023 THE WALL STREET JOURNAL.

U.S. NEWS
THE OUTLOOK | By Harriet Torry

Services Go Global in Modern Economy

W
hen Chris Ko- The location of digital-services gig workers, Largest producers of digitally delivered Global exports by type, road, essentially globalizing
erner’s 12-year- as a share of the global workforce in the field* services, share in world exports by year change since 2005 services” and shifting pro-
old son strug- 300%
duction to lower-cost loca-
2019 2022
gled with India 27.0% tions, said Richard Baldwin, a
algebra this 0% 5 10 15 Digitally delivered senior fellow at the Peterson
spring, the Dallas business 14.6 services exports 250 Institute for International
Bangladesh
owner posted an ad for a Goods exports Economics. He noted services
U.S.
math tutor on the jobs web- Pakistan 12.0 Other services being outsourced range
site Upwork. exports 200 widely in pay, including writ-
Minutes later, he and his U.S. 5.6 U.K. ing financial reports, legal
son were on a video call with 150 work, virtual assistants and
a Ph.D. mathematician in U.K. 3.8
data entry.
Pakistan, who asked for $4 Ireland Travel-clothing company
an hour for her services. 100 Scottevest primarily relies on
Philippines 3.3
Koerner’s experience re- overseas labor, for a fraction
India
flects a trend that has accel- of the cost of its former U.S.
erated since the Covid-19
Ukraine 2.6 50 staff.
pandemic: increasing interna- China The company previously
tional trade in digital ser- Russia 2.5 had 20 employees at its
0
vices. Global exports of music Ketchum, Idaho, headquar-
2005 ’10 ’15 ’20
and video streaming, remote *iLabour Project tracks postings on the five largest English-language online labor platforms, and six non-English language platforms. ters doing marketing, ac-
learning and financial and Sources: Online Labour Index (location); World Trade Organization (producers); Global Trade Outlook and Statistics, 2023 (exports) counting and customer ser-
similar digital services rose vice starting at $40,000 a
37% from 2019 to 2022, the For Koerner, hiring a math candidate in a tight labor that’s really good as long as suffered from such shifts, the year plus benefits, said Chief
World Trade Organization es- tutor from Pakistan paid off. market. we keep our own house in or- national unemployment rate Executive Scott Jordan. Pan-
timates. Other services ex- “Within an hour, I had The option of outsourcing der and keep competitive has returned to levels re- demic attrition and the high
ports declined 5%. found, interviewed and hired could help the U.S. economy here,” said Claude Barfield, corded in the 1950s and ’60s. cost of living locally whittled
The U.S. has long been the someone, and they were al- by alleviating domestic- senior fellow at the American Americans found jobs in employees in the Sun Valley
world leader in exports of ready in their first lesson,” worker shortages, said Scott Enterprise Institute, a con- other growing fields, such as area down to two: Jordan
services, including Hollywood he said. Lincicome, a trade expert at servative think tank. healthcare and e-commerce. and his wife, the company
movies, computer software While the pay was a bar- the Cato Institute, a libertar- The economic pie is grow- president.

N
and spending by foreigners at gain compared with the $24 ian think tank. The U.S. un- ing, creating space for expan- ow, online market- “I live in a ski resort, so
American resorts and restau- average U.S. rate estimated employment rate was 3.5% in sion in the U.S. and abroad. places for freelancers, it’s hard to employ people
rants. Still, its share of global by jobs site ZipRecruiter, it July, near a half-century low, The global market for busi- higher educational at- here,” Jordan said.
exports of digitally delivered exceeded Pakistan’s minimum the Labor Department re- ness services is expected to tainment overseas, current Scottevest uses coders and
services fell to 16.5% in 2022 wage of under $1 an hour. ported Friday. In June, there grow 9% this year to $681 bil- technology and employers’ graphic designers in Ukraine,
from 17.4% in 2019, the WTO And his son “ended up get- were 3.6 million more open lion, according to consulting increasing comfort with re- customer-service agents in
said. Ireland, India, China ting a great grade” on the jobs in the U.S. than unem- firm Kearney. mote work mean individuals Albania and Macedonia, and
and Singapore grabbed a test, he said. ployed Americans seeking American companies have and smaller companies can an order-processing worker
larger slice. work. hired workers in countries import labor from abroad, in India. It has one marketing

H
The trend means a differ- iring remote services At the same time, the with lower labor costs for de- too. A national shortage of contractor in the U.S., em-
ent type of American worker workers overseas availability of services deliv- cades. Textile and manufac- accountants prompted small ployed remotely.
faces overseas competition. comes with challenges ered from overseas puts pres- turing jobs moved from the and midsize firms to hire Before the pandemic, “I
While factory workers have including language differ- sure on Americans to gener- U.S. to Asia and Latin Amer- overseas for the first time as never would have trusted a
seen U.S. jobs move overseas ences, data protection, tax ate new domestic jobs to ica in the 1970s and 1980s, they seek workers to audit remote worker in my life,”
for decades, many types of compliance and regulatory provide services that are followed by call-center, finan- U.S. companies’ books and Jordan said. “We had a men-
service workers were more and labor standards. more advanced and of higher cial and tech jobs that went prepare Americans’ tax re- tality that if you weren’t will-
protected because, until re- For some parents, how- value. abroad in the 1990s and turns. ing to make a commitment to
cently, the jobs were done in ever, another benefit is the “The key is, the world is 2000s. While individual U.S. “Covid forced a march that move to Sun Valley, I’m not
person. availability of a qualified job getting more competitive and workers and communities put us 5 to 10 years down the willing to hire you.”

U.S. Warns Canada

Over Digital Tax Plan
BY PAUL VIEIRA
OTTAWA—Canada plans to
impose a digital-services tax at
the start of 2024, a move that
bucks a global consensus on
restructuring international
taxation and has drawn criti-
cism from U.S. officials.
Senior members of the Bi-
den administration are at-
tempting to persuade Canada
SOPHIE PARK/BLOOMBERG NEWS
place, “was a significant con-
cession by Canada” and that
Canada can’t support an ex-
tended pause on digital taxes.
The measures related to
digital taxes are separate from
another global deal, also led by
the Organization for Economic
Cooperation and Development,
to impose a 15% minimum tax
on large companies in each
country where they operate,

to drop its digital tax plan. although the accords are polit-
Leaders in the U.S. and Cana- ically linked.
dian business communities say U.S. Trade Representative
Ottawa’s move would harm Katherine Tai has urged Ot-
commerce and throw the fu- tawa to abandon the levy, and
ture of the North American the U.S. ambassador to Can-
trade deal into doubt. ada, David Cohen, said in an
Pfizer would cut R&D if sales of new drugs don’t make up for falling Covid-19 sales; a research site in Andover, Mass. Canada’s 3% tax on technol- interview published last month
ogy companies’ revenue from in Canada’s National Post that
been using its Covid-19 cash to but they’re asking a lot of contracts and the U.S. is transi- providing digital services to “if Canada decides to proceed
Pfizer’s secure other products for its
lineup. It predicts more than
those products to contribute in
a relatively narrow time frame
tioning to a commercial market.
Doctors are also writing fewer
Canadian users or sales of Ca-
nadian user data would start
alone, you leave the United
States with no choice but to
$10 billion in 2030 sales from before year end,” Barclays an- Paxlovid prescriptions. Jan. 1 and would be retroac- take retaliatory measures in
Covid Rise its $43 billion proposed deal
to buy cancer-drug biotech Se-
alyst Carter Gould said.
Sales of drugs from recent
“A key driver will be the
magnitude of the next Covid
tive to revenue dating to 2022.
Canada’s finance minister,
the trade context, potentially
in the digital trade context, in

Is Over agen, as it leans more into

cancer drugs.
Executives also have other
acquisitions, including mi-
graine drug Nurtec and sickle-
cell disease treatment Ox-
wave and whether it drives peo-
ple to be vaccinated at a higher
rate or not,” Risinger said.
Chrystia Freeland, said last
month that the tax is impor-
tant for Canada’s national in-
order to respond to that.”
A spokeswoman for the U.S.
Embassy in Ottawa didn’t re-
dials they can turn to tune up bryta, have been slow to Pfizer said last week, when terest. spond to requests for further
Continued from Page One the company’s performance, accumulate, said Leerink Part- reporting quarterly earnings, Companies in the informa- comment.
uation has dropped by $144 such as cutting costs and some ners analyst David Risinger. that it should have more clar- tion-technology field can cur- Freeland said Canadian offi-
billion since its 2021 peak. drug research programs. The predicament is custom- ity on future demand for its rently operate worldwide cials remain in talks with their
Pfizer is hitting a rough Yet executing means Pfizer ary for big pharmaceutical pandemic products by the end while concentrating their prof- Group of Seven counterparts
spot after its Covid-19 sales must overcome factors outside companies, which regularly of the year. By then, it will its in their home countries or about a compromise.
nosedived and while it waits its control. The Federal Trade confront the ups and downs of have rolled out its latest in small, low-tax jurisdictions; A number of European
for new drugs and recent Commission is reviewing the patent-dependent franchises. Covid-19 shot through the tra- they then pay relatively little countries, including France,
deal-making to pay off. Add- agreement to buy Seagen, Pfizer has plenty of experience ditional commercial market. tax in the nations where many the U.K. and Italy, had intro-
ing to the straits: the loss of while drugs in late-stage de- navigating through sales drops Should sales fail to materi- of their users are. duced digital-services taxes
an estimated $17 billion in an- velopment must pass testing for impotence pill Viagra, cho- alize, Pfizer is prepared to A global tax accord, agreed before the OECD-led talks se-
nual sales by the end of the and get green lights from the lesterol fighter Lipitor and trim R&D spending for to in the fall of 2021, repre- cured a global tax deal. The
decade, when some of the Food and Drug Administration. other erstwhile juggernauts. Covid-19 and other disease ar- sents changes to how, where agreement included a stand-
company’s biggest sellers, like And Pfizer’s ambitious ex- Playing a role this time is eas, Chief Executive Albert and how much multinational still on new digital-services
arthritis treatment Xeljanz, pectations for launches of new Pfizer’s decision to slim down Bourla said in an interview. companies are taxed around taxes until the agreement
lose patent protection. products might be difficult to and become a growth stock. “We are moving post- the world, but it has yet to be came into force. Pre-existing
The New York-based com- pull off in today’s tightfisted Before the pandemic hit, the Covid,” Bourla said. implemented. The accord aims digital taxes, such as those in
pany has talked up plans to healthcare environment. drugmaker had shed slower- Pfizer lowered its growth- to reallocate the taxation of Europe, are still being applied
increase revenue through a Pfizer has “gotten a lot of growing businesses, losing the rate target for this year, cit- some $200 billion in corporate but would be revoked once the
bevy of new drug approvals things over the finish line, and cushion of their steady cash ing the FDA’s decision to ap- profits across the globe, a accord entered into force. Ca-
and their launches. It also has there’s still some more to go, flows, to focus on higher- prove a cancer drug for a move taken to adapt the tax nadian officials say it is unfair
growth but more volatile pre- smaller patient population system to new ways of doing some European jurisdictions
scription drugs. than the company expected business internationally made can collect taxes from Meta
CORRECTIONS  AMPLIFICATIONS The strategy paid off hand-
somely during the pandemic.
and the federal government’s
recommendation for a new
possible by advances in infor-
mation technology.
Platforms and Google parent
Alphabet but Canada can’t.
Readers can alert The Wall Street Journal to any errors in news articles by Shares reached a record high RSV vaccine falling short of Canada signed on to the The U.S. trade representa-
emailing wsjcontact@wsj.com or by calling 888-410-2667.
of roughly $61 in December company expectations. global deal with a caveat: If tive considers digital-services
2021 as the Omicron variant Recent damage from a tor- not implemented by the start taxes to be a burden on U.S.
spread throughout the world nado to a North Carolina man- of 2024, Canada would impose commerce.
THE WALL STREET JOURNAL and Pfizer shipped billions of ufacturing plant might also its own digital-service tax. The global tax deal might
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Covid-19 shots. Pfizer devel- jeopardize sales, Chief Finan- In Paris last month, 138 not ultimately come together.
Editorial and publication headquarters: 1211 Avenue of the Americas, New York, N.Y. 10036 oped the shot with Germany’s cial Officer David Denton said. countries agreed to a one-year In the U.S., senior House Re-
Published daily except Sundays and general legal holidays. BioNTech. To date this year, the FDA delay in implementation of the publicans warned the Biden
Periodicals postage paid at New York, N.Y., and other mailing offices. The return to Earth has has approved four Pfizer medi- tax accord’s first phase, to administration that the OECD
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$13.5 billion in sales in 2023, expanded uses over 18 months digital-services tax. On Friday, Michael Plowgian, a senior
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down about two-thirds from through the first half of 2024. Canada issued guidance on tax official at the U.S. Trea-
By web: customercenter.wsj.com; By email: wsjsupport@wsj.com | By phone: 1-800-JOURNAL (1-800-568-7625) last year. The company said its An experimental multiple how the proposed digital tax sury, told Congress that ad-
Reprints & licensing: Paxlovid antiviral would bring myeloma drug called elrana- would be applied. ministration officials are
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in about $8 billion in sales this tamab that is up for FDA ap- Freeland said Ottawa’s ear- speaking to their Canadian
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Sales for the products are billion in sales in 2030, ac- tax for two years, even though them from implementing a
GOT A TIP FOR US? SUBMIT IT AT WSJ.COM/TIPS lower this year because govern- cording to Jefferies analyst other European countries kept discriminatory” digital-ser-
ments have purchased fewer Akash Tewari. pre-existing digital taxes in vices tax.

THE WALL STREET JOURNAL.
How river levels on Aug. 3, 2023, compare with the average on
that date from 2018 through 2022
IOWA
Mi
St. Louis
-11 feet
MISSOURI
OKLAHOMA
ARKANSAS
LOUISIANA
TEXAS
Sources: U.S. Army Corps of Engineers;
U.S. Geological Survey
Low Mississippi
Water Threatens
Barge Commerce
Years of drought
have depleted the
river that months
ago saw flooding
BY SHANNON NAJMABADI
Low water levels on the
Mississippi River are threaten-
ing to disrupt commerce for a
second consecutive year,
months after cities along the
vital economic artery saw
floodwaters test their sandbag
barriers and containment
walls.
Water levels in St. Louis
and Memphis, Tenn., are 10 to
20 feet lower at this point in
the year than in 2020 and
2019 due to lack of rain.
Parched soils have absorbed
moisture instead of letting it
run off into the river, though
recent downpours have
helped, said Lisa Parker,
Surf’s Pup! Champ Dogs Ride Waves
CARLOS BARRIA/REUTERS
SWELL: Rosie the Labrador competed at the World Dog Surfing Championships in Pacifica, Calif.
Oklahoma’s Governor Sows Dispute
With Tribes and Fellow Republicans
BY ADOLFO FLORES
Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt is
locked in a long-running battle
with tribal nations in the wake
of a 2020 Supreme Court deci-
sion that held that much of the
eastern part of the state is tribal
territory.
Stitt has maintained that the
ruling in McGirt v. Oklahoma—
in which the Supreme Court af-
firmed tribal jurisdiction in a
large portion of the state—has
led to different rules for tribal
and nontribal residents and
threatens to force the state to
cede state jurisdiction to tribal
governments.
“The tribes are literally try-
ing to take over the state of
Oklahoma,” said Stitt, who since
he took office in 2019 has taken
a more aggressive posture with
the state’s major tribes than his
recent predecessors. He has
challenged existing agreements
with tribes and attempted to ne-
gotiate new agreements, includ-
ing with the United Keetoowah
Band and Comanche Nation, on
gaming fees as well as vehicle
and tobacco taxes.
The governor has run into a
wall of opposition not only from
* * * *
Rock Island, Ill. INDIANA OHIO
-3 feet
ss
sip
is
pi ILLINOIS
River
KENTUCKY
TENNESSEE
Memphis, Tenn.
-14 feet
ALABAMA
GEORGIA
MISSISSIPPI
Vicksburg, Miss.
-14 feet
New Orleans
-4 feet
Emma Brown and Josh Ulick /THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
spokeswoman for the U.S.
Army Corps of Engineers’ Mis-
sissippi Valley Division.
While record snowfall in
Minnesota this past winter en-
gorged the Mississippi when it
melted quickly in April, years
of drought have depleted the
river that courses through 10
states and impeded barges
that traverse it carrying goods
such as soybeans, corn, chemi-
cals and gas.
“We’ve really seen this ebb
and flow—this dramatic ebb
and flow—this last year more
than we’ve seen in years
past,” said Mike Steenhoek,
executive director of the Soy
Transportation Coalition,
which includes 13 state soy-
bean boards.
More than half of soybeans
grown in the U.S. are ex-
ported, the majority traveling
down the lower Mississippi to
the Gulf of Mexico, he said.
The Army Corps is monitor-
tribes but also from fellow Re-
publicans.
Last week, he sued GOP law-
makers, the latest escalation in
disputes over compacts between
the state and tribes that bring
millions of dollars in revenue to
the state each year, most of it
from gambling. Oklahoma col-
lected more than $191.5 million
in tribal gaming exclusivity fees
in 2022 under state-tribal gam-
ing compacts; the state’s budget
was $8.83 billion that year.
After the GOP-majority Okla-
homa House voted to renew cig-
arette tax compacts with tribes
last week, overriding a veto from
Stitt, the governor asked the
state Supreme Court to invali-
date the extension, as well as
others that elected officials re-
cently passed via veto overrides.
“Tribes aren’t trying to ‘take
over the state,’ ” said Jason
Salsman, a spokesman for the
Muscogee (Creek) Nation, the
tribe involved in the McGirt U.S.
Supreme Court case.
Salsman said the 2020 deci-
sion, which deemed tribal terri-
tory in the state extended well
beyond previously understood
borders, offered an unprece-
dented opportunity for Okla-
U.S. NEWS
Barges in Lake Providence, La., last fall, when low Mississippi water levels contributed to an estimated $20 billion in losses.
ing water levels and has 16
dredges operating on the Mis-
sissippi to keep the water
channel and harbors deep
enough for transit.
It has built an underwater
structure called a sill in Loui-
siana, where some communi-
ties including New Orleans
draw drinking water from the
Mississippi, to prevent saltwa-
ter from the Gulf of Mexico
from moving upstream while
water levels are low. The
Corps previously built sills in
2022, 2012, 1999 and 1988.
Low water levels on the
Mississippi last fall contrib-
uted to $20 billion in eco-
nomic losses, according to an
AccuWeather estimate. Some
barges were grounded on
sandbars. Other vessels light-
ened their loads to keep them
from sitting too low in the wa-
ter, which increased transpor-
tation costs.
Tracy Zea, president and
homa and tribal nations to work
together on public safety and
prosperity. But much to the
tribe’s frustration, he said, Stitt
chose divisive political rhetoric.
About 9.5% of the state’s pop-
ulation is Native American, and
there are 38 federally recognized
Indian nations in the state.
Stitt, a member of the Chero-
kee Nation, said he is proud of
his heritage but believes the Mc-
Girt decision thrust the state
into a jurisdictional tail-
spin. “The only way to fix this is
for the Supreme Court or Con-
gress to go back to the way we
operated our state for the last
115 years,” Stitt said.
Senate President Pro Tem
Greg Treat said he was confident
the court would rule in the Leg-
islature’s favor in Stitt’s lawsuit.
Cherokee Nation Principal
Chief Chuck Hoskin Jr. said the
governor’s remarks about the
state being in danger of becom-
ing a reservation are offensive
and defy reality.
“Eastern Oklahoma is thriv-
ing today in part because of the
economic success and invest-
ment by Indian tribes in their
own communities,” Hoskin said
in a recent statement.
chief executive of the Water-
ways Council, which repre-
sents river shipping interests,
is hopeful water levels won’t
be as low as last fall.
The extreme variations in
water levels are affected by a
number of factors, including a
changing climate, nearby land
development, and the recur-
ring cycles of drier and
warmer or wetter and colder
conditions known as El Niño
and La Niña, experts in the
river system said.
The way the river has been
engineered—the addition of
levees, for example—has also
increased flood risks, accord-
ing to multiple studies.
“Climate change is in
there,” said Nicholas Pinter, a
University of California, Davis,
professor who has researched
rivers and watersheds. But
“it’s smaller than the impacts
of levees and navigational in-
frastructure on portions of the
Flexible Work Options Give
Some Employers an Advantage
BY GWYNN GUILFORD
With employers fighting for
a limited pool of office work-
ers, those offering remote-
friendly jobs appear to have
the upper hand.
Companies that allow at
least one day of remote work
each week increased staffing
at nearly twice the rate in the
year ended in May than those
with full-time office require-
ments, according to an analy-
sis of more than 3,600 compa-
nies by Scoop Technologies, a
software firm that tracks
workplace policies, and People
Data Labs, a data technology
company.
The trend highlights Ameri-
cans’ ability to command flex-
ibility, along with better pay
and benefits. It also points to
the staying power of remote
work after daily life otherwise
largely returned to normal as
the pandemic faded.
Workers gain clout
Many workers have the
leeway to demand at least
partially remote jobs because
the labor market is tilted in
their favor. The unemploy-
ment rate fell to 3.5% in July,
the Labor Department said
Friday. That is just a tick
above a half-century low,
showing a limited pool from
which to hire.
Wages grew a historically
high 4.4% in July from a year
earlier, well above prepandemic
rates and another sign of work-
ers’ strong bargaining power.
Many bosses soured on re-
Staffing growth, change in May from a year earlier
By days required in office
6%
5
4 for team meetings and train-
3 4.1
2 Full-time in office
1 and our ability to accommo-
0 Note: Combined, staffing at firms
0 1 2 3 4 5
DAYS
Monday, August 7, 2023 | A3
Mississippi River.”
Companies that use Ger-
many’s Rhine River for transit
have explored low-water
barges and trains to navigate
frequent low-water levels.
Bob Criss, a professor
emeritus at Washington Uni-
versity in St. Louis and critic
of the Corps’ management of
the river, said U.S. goods
should also be moved by rail
because locks and dams used
to make the Mississippi navi-
gable create a slow-moving,
deep channel that has changed
the environment.
“The Mississippi River from
St. Louis all the way to New
Orleans was twice as wide as
it is now,” he said. “It was full
of islands and sandbars, which
are habitat for birds and ev-
erything else.”
Parker, with the Corps, said
it has habitat restoration ef-
forts and is environmentally
concerned. Zea said locks and
mote work last year, saying
flexible arrangements harm
productivity, and required
workers to spend all or most
of their time in the office.
The Scoop analysis showed
that head counts at firms al-
lowing at least one day of re-
mote work increased 5% in May
2023 from June 2022, while
those at fully in-person compa-
nies gained 2.6%, on average.
Separate research also
shows that workers view hy-
brid work arrangements as
equal to an 8% pay increase,
said Nicholas Bloom, a Stan-
ford economics professor.
When Cassandra Wilander
began a job search last year in
Chicago, she rejected listings
that required her to be in the
office five days a week.
“To me that just screams
that they don’t respect work-
life balance and won’t be flexi-
ble with my time,” the 37-
year-old said. She ultimately
accepted a hybrid job last Sep-
tember as a marketing com-
munications strategist at a
commercial real-estate firm.
After working remotely
during the pandemic,
Wilander didn’t want to re-
turn to a daily commute to
downtown Chicago on the “L”
train, which she said can be
unreliable and at times felt
unsafe.
Instead, she wanted a job
that would allow her to work
from home part of the time to
focus on solo tasks and spend
time in the office to collaborate
and bond with colleagues.
“It’s easier to get people to
help you out, versus just being
l remote and in-office work de-
By company requirements
Remote or in-person optional
5.6%
Hybrid (some in-person
attendance required)
2.6
that were remote or hybrid grew 5%.
Source: Scoop Technologies, People Data Labs
.
RORY DOYLE FOR THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
dams benefit other users of
inland waterways.
U.S. barge and transporta-
tion industry representatives
say it is unlikely there will be
a shift to favor land transit
over water. “It’s just such an
efficient way of moving heavy
products long distances,” said
Steenhoek, with the Soy
Transportation Coalition.
About 500 million tons of
goods, worth more than
$158 billion, are transported
on inland U.S. waterways each
year, Zea said. The vessels are
more fuel-efficient than trucks
or trains. One barge can carry
the load of 70 fully loaded
semitrucks.
Farmers whose fields are
within 100 miles of the Missis-
sippi River typically drive
their crops to a grain terminal
where they get loaded onto
barges, shipped to the Gulf,
moved to an ocean vessel and
then sent overseas, Zea said.
someone on a screen saying,
‘Hey, I need your bio up-
dates,’ ” she said.
The share of U.S. job post-
ings advertising hybrid work
arrangements has increased
as fully remote postings have
fallen, according to separate
data from LinkedIn.
The gain in hybrid work
postings is spread across most
industries, said Guy Berger,
principal economist at
LinkedIn. “Some of that is re-
mote switching to hybrid and
some is from companies that
were on-site only increasing
their willingness to do hybrid,
potentially to lure more tal-
ent,” he said.
Lower turnover
Flexible work policies at
Gas South, a retail and whole-
sale natural-gas marketer with
operations in Atlanta and
Gainesville, Fla., have helped
the company expand and im-
prove performance, said Kevin
Greiner, the company’s CEO.
The company employs 425
workers, up from 400 in the
first quarter of 2022, and is
hiring for numerous roles. Re-
tention has improved, with at-
trition at 19% last year, down
from 25.5% in 2019. Greiner
said reduced worker turnover
has lowered training costs,
improved customer satisfac-
tion and increased worker
performance.
Gas South moved to flexible
work for all workers after re-
viewing productivity and em-
ployee feedback. Many employ-
ees at Gas South set their own
schedule, with the balance of
pending on work roles. Execu-
tives are expected in the office
on Tuesdays and Wednesdays,
at a minimum. Call-center
workers are required to come
to the office one day a month
ing.
“The ability to be able to
manage your own schedule
more has become of primary
importance to a lot of people,
date those desires more effec-
tively has definitely helped us
to bring folks into the organi-
zation,” said Greiner.

A4 | Monday, August 7, 2023
ARTIE WALKER JR./ASSOCIATED PRESS
Former President Donald Trump spoke Saturday in Columbia, S.C., days after his latest indictment.
Trump Lawyer Says Violations
Of Constitution Aren’t Crimes
BY BYRON TAU
AND AMARA OMEOKWE
WASHINGTON—Even if
Donald Trump violated the
Constitution when he pres-
sured former Vice President
Mike Pence not to certify the
results of the 2020 election,
that doesn’t make it a crime,
Trump’s lawyer said Sunday.
“A technical violation of the
Constitution is not a violation
of criminal law,” John Lauro,
an attorney for Trump, told
NBC News. He also argued
that Trump’s expression of
concerns about election irreg-
ularities was protected speech
under the Constitution’s First
Amendment.
Lauro’s comments came in
response to a question from
“Meet the Press” host Chuck
Todd about Pence’s claim that
Trump had asked him to vio-
late the Constitution after the
2020 election. Lauro later told
The Wall Street Journal in a
text message: “I did not ac-
knowledge or concede that
President Trump pressured
VP Pence.”
A flurry of interviews and
statements on Sunday from
Trump and his legal team pre-
viewed how they might seek
to defend the former presi-
dent against federal conspir-
acy charges over his attempts
to remain in power after he
lost the 2020 election, a battle
that is also expected to loom
over next year’s contest.
“The government will never
be able to prove beyond a rea-
sonable doubt that President
Trump had corrupt or crimi-
P W L C 10 11 12
nal intent, and that’s what week to propose trial dates.
this case is about,” Lauro said Trump’s lawyers warned
Sunday on ABC. He said that there were significant
Trump firmly believed that volumes of documents in the
election irregularities had led case and indicated they
to inappropriate results. wanted to take their time to
Lauro added that he would review the material and pre-
seek to emphasize that point pare a defense. In response to
during questioning of Pence questioning about timing,
should he testify during the Lauro told CBS News on Sun-
trial. Pence has said Trump day that “in 40 years of prac-
asked him to violate the U.S. ticing law, on a case of this
Constitution by pushing him magnitude, I’ve not known a
not to certify the results of single case to go to trial be-
the 2020 election. fore two or three years.”
Trump and his lawyer both “This case will benefit from
said on Sunday that they normal order, including a
would pursue a speedy trial,”
change of prosecutor
venue for the Thomas Win-
case. “NO WAY Trump could dom urged the
CAN I GET A benefit by judge, referenc-
FAIR TRIAL, OR ing a right in
EVEN CLOSE delaying the trial the U.S. Consti-
TO A FAIR tution that
TRIAL, IN
beyond the 2024 gives defen-
WASHINGTON, elections. dants the op-
D.C.,” Trump portunity to re-
wrote on his solve charges
social media against them in
platform Truth Social. a “speedy” manner. Windom
“THERE ARE MANY REASONS indicated that the government
FOR THIS, BUT JUST ONE IS was prepared to hand over
THAT I AM CALLING FOR A substantial volumes of docu-
FEDERAL TAKEOVER OF THIS ments to Trump’s legal team
FILTHY AND CRIME RIDDEN as soon as practicable.
EMBARRASSMENT TO OUR On Friday, the former presi-
NATION,” he added. dent said in another post on
The statements Sunday Truth Social: “IF YOU GO AF-
came as the Justice Depart- TER ME, I’M COMING AFTER
ment and Trump’s lawyers are YOU!” Prosecutors, saying
expected to offer competing Trump’s social media posts
visions for how the legal pro- raised the possibility he might
cess should play out in the improperly share evidence
federal trial over the charges. publicly, asked presiding
At a hearing last week, the Judge Tanya Chutkan for a
U.S. Magistrate Judge Moxila protective order. The order
Upadhyaya gave both sides a would bar parties involved in
H T G K R F A M 1 2 3 4 5 6
U.S. NEWS
the case from disclosing or
disseminating details of dis-
covery materials, such as in-
formation on witness testi-
mony and subpoenas.
Trump could benefit by de-
laying the trial beyond the
2024 elections. If he wins the
general election, he would re-
gain control of the govern-
ment and could put pressure
on the Justice Department to
drop the charges or stay the
case until the end of his presi-
dency. Or he could attempt a
self-pardon, a move with no
precedent that would plunge
the country into uncharted le-
gal territory.
Both sides are due back in
court on Aug. 28 for a hearing
in front of Chutkan. She is ex-
pected to set a trial date—a
complicated endeavor given
that Trump is already facing
separate criminal trials in
Florida and New York.
Attorneys are also hashing
out the timing of the case
against Trump in New York
over hush money paid to a
porn star and how it will work
around the two existing fed-
eral cases.
As the two sides spar over
that trial date, all eyes will
turn to Georgia where another
indictment of Trump could be
issued in the next two weeks.
Fulton County District Attor-
ney Fani Willis, a Democrat, is
expected to bring charges re-
garding a yearslong probe into
alleged 2020 election interfer-
ence.
—Cameron McWhirter
and Corinne Ramey
contributed to this article.
.
7 8 9 O I X X ***** THE WALL STREET JOURNAL.
Indictment Mystery:
Where Is Meadows,
Ally of Ex-President?
BY SIOBHAN HUGHES didn’t do anything wrong and
that prosecutors came to a con-
WASHINGTON—Mark Mead- clusion different from that of a
ows was the White House chief committee many Republicans
of staff when Donald Trump saw as politically motivated.
tried to overturn the 2020 elec- Trump pleaded not guilty
tion result, but he plays only a Thursday to charges that he
bit role in the document laying conspired to overturn the re-
out the charges against the for- sults of the 2020 election to re-
mer president. main in power. He called the
Meadows talked to Trump charges a “persecution of a po-
several times a day, worked at tential political opponent” by
times to reverse the 2020 re- the Biden administration.
sults as well as to rein in some While Meadows moved to
efforts and, according to con- South Carolina after Trump
gressional testimony, was slow lost, he returns regularly to
to engage on Jan. 6, 2021, when Washington, serving as a senior
Trump supporters stormed the partner at the nonprofit Con-
Capitol to stop the election’s servative Partnership Institute,
certification. The House Jan. 6 which hosts regular, weekly
committee’s report said Mead- meetings of the Freedom Cau-
ows was likely part of a con- cus. The Conservative Partner-
spiracy with other Trump con- ship Institute paid Meadows
fidants to block President nearly $560,000 in 2021, ac-
Biden’s win. cording to the most recently
Last week’s indictment by a available tax filing. Trump’s
federal grand jury only men- Save America political-action
tions Meadows a handful of committee donated $1 million
times, and his level of coopera- to the group that year.
tion with prosecutors remains “I don’t talk about anything
a mystery.
The indictment points to six
people as co-conspirators, and
Meadows isn’t one of them.
Five of the people, though un-
J6 related,” Meadows told NBC
News at the end of July, refer-
ring to Jan. 6, as he entered the
Conservative Partnership Insti-
tute building, which is near the
named in the document, are U.S. Capitol.
clearly identifiable as a circle of In 2021, the Democratic-con-
attorneys and advisers, includ- trolled House voted largely
ing Trump’s personal lawyer, along party lines to hold Mead-
Rudy Giuliani. The sixth is an ows in contempt of Congress
unidentified political consul- for refusing to cooperate fully
tant. with the Jan. 6 committee. The
Meadows didn’t return a re- Justice Department declined to
quest for comment. A lawyer prosecute the case. Meadows
representing him, George Ter- shared thousands of pages of
williger, said earlier this year material, including text mes-
that Meadows has been com- sages, before he declined to ap-
mitted to telling the truth. pear for a deposition or to
Meadows declined to cooperate share additional material, cit-
fully with the Jan. 6 committee ing executive privilege.
but testified earlier this year The indictment cites an inci-
before the grand jury investi- dent in December 2020, when
gating Trump’s actions related Meadows reported that Georgia
to the attack. election officials were “con-
“We don’t know for sure ducting themselves in an exem-
whether he’s cooperating with plary fashion,” only for Trump
the Department of Justice,” to then tweet that officials were
said Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D., Ca- trying to hide evidence of fraud.
lif.), who sat on the House Jan. According to electronic com-
6 committee. A Justice Depart- munications that Meadows
ment spokesman declined to turned over to the Jan. 6 com-
comment. mittee, Meadows encouraged
Meadows’s allies say he isn’t pushing Republican legislators
a co-conspirator because he in some states to send alterna-
tive slates of electors to Con-
gress—responding “I love it”
when one lawmaker acknowl-
edged the plan was “highly
controversial.”
He was at a Dec. 21, 2020,
Oval Office meeting with
Trump and Republican law-
TOM WILLIAMS/CQ ROLL CALL/ZUMA PRESS
makers and tweeted that they
were “preparing to fight back”
against what he called “mount-
ing evidence of voter fraud.” He
told Rep. Jim Jordan (R., Ohio)
that he had pushed for Vice
President Mike Pence to simply
decline to count Electoral Col-
lege votes from some states, ac-
cording to texts that Meadows
Mark Meadows turned over to the committee.
You’re a local.
You’re one of us.
So we want to give you a richer,
more exciting experience. We’ll
share the food that wowed
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 .

THE WALL STREET JOURNAL. Monday, August 7, 2023 | A5

U.S. NEWS

Renowned Civil-Rights Scholar Mentored Obama

BY GINGER ADAMS OTIS
Harvard Law professor and
civil-rights lawyer Charles J.
Ogletree Jr., who counted for-
mer President Barack Obama
among his many mentees, died
Friday. He was 70 years old.
Ogletree was a legal theorist
Clarence Thomas, to performer
Tupac Shakur, whom he repre-
sented as both a criminal and
civil defense lawyer.
Ogletree disclosed his Alz-
heimer’s diagnosis in 2016, and
he soon became a spokesper-
son for the disease to help
spread awareness about the
as a professor and mentor to
generations of law students,
including Obama, who some-
times stayed with his family at
Ogletree’s home on Martha’s
Vineyard during his presi-
dency.
“Michelle and I are heart-
broken to hear about the pass-
turer at Harvard Law in 1984
after previously serving as
deputy director of the District
of Columbia Public Defender
Service, according to an obitu-
ary published by Harvard on
Saturday. He was named a pro-
fessor of law in 1993.
In 2005, Ogletree launched
in Boston, according to Har-
vard. He retired from the law
school in 2020.
In 2022, Ogletree’s family
donated his legal papers to
Harvard Law School.
Ogletree also dedicated
himself to seeking justice for
the survivors and descendants

MATT SAYLES/INVISION/ASSOCIATED PRESS

who rose to in- importance of early diagnosis ing of our friend Charles Ogle- the Charles Hamilton Houston of the 1921 Tulsa Race Massa-
OBITUARY ternational and treatment. tree. He was an advocate for Institute for Race and Justice cre, during which as many as
CHARLES J. prominence for “The most important thing social justice, an incredible at Harvard Law, named in trib- 300 people were killed and
OGLETREE JR. his work is to not be afraid to talk about professor, and a mentor to ute to the civil-rights lawyer hundreds of homes and busi-
1952-2023 championing it, because talking about it will many—including us,” the for- who created the litigation cam- nesses were destroyed. In
racial equality encourage other people to mer president said on social paign that eventually resulted 2003, Ogletree assembled a
and social jus- open up,” he said in a 2017 in- media Saturday. in the landmark decision of team to represent the riot sur-
tice. His clients ranged from terview with Alzheimer’s Asso- Ogletree, born in California, Brown v. Board of Education. vivors and argued for repara-
Anita Hill, as she testified be- ciation, a Chicago-based non- attended Stanford University Ogletree also founded tions for those whose liveli-
fore the Senate as a witness in profit dedicated to helping before moving to Harvard Law the Criminal Justice Institute, hoods had been destroyed.
confirmation hearings for those with the disease. School, where he graduated in where law students are trained Ogletree wrote several Charles J. Ogletree Jr. died
then- Supreme Court nominee At Harvard, Ogletree served 1978. Ogletree became a lec- to represent needy defendants books on race and justice. Friday at age 70.

New Jersey
Is the Last
Holdout on
Self-Serve
At Pump RECYCLING
BY GINGER ADAMS OTIS

New Jersey resident Nyoami

is an important weapon
against climate change
Winterburn knows this: If her
state ever abolishes full-service
gas stations, then baby, she
was born to run.
“I will move out of New Jer-
sey. I’m not kidding. It is one of
the big perks of living here,”
Winterburn said Saturday out-
side a gas station along Route
4 near Englewood.
Fellow New Jerseyan Suni
Brown, who counts having to
pump his own gas as reason to
avoid leaving the state, feels
the same. “I like being able to
sit in the car,” the Englewood
resident said.
On Saturday, a day after Or-
egon revoked its 72-year-old
ban on self-service gas stations,
many New Jersey drivers along
the busy commuter corridor
that feeds into the George
Washington Bridge said they
are proud to be the last state to
prohibit the self-pump.
There’s even a popular bum-
per sticker that says “Jersey
Girls Don’t Pump Gas,” an hom-
age to the Garden State’s 1949
law banning self-service sta-
tions for fire safety and other
concerns.
“I can pump my own gas but
I like to talk to the workers and
give them a tip,” said Eddie
Valle, who fuels up at the same
Exxon station in Englewood on
Route 4 to greet his favorite at-
tendant, Juan Hernandez.
Hernandez, 61, spent his
workday on Saturday bouncing
between two rows of four dou-
ble-sided gas pumps, which
were rarely empty. “Many peo-
ple here know me, they always
come in and say hello. I’ve
been doing this for 18 years,”
said Hernandez. He works six
days a week pumping gas,
earning enough for himself
and his family to send money
back home to Guatemala.
Several out-of-state drivers
who zipped up to the pumps
didn’t wait for Hernandez and
jumped out to pump gas for
themselves. Sean Hodel, from
Virginia, said he didn’t know
full-service gas stations ex-
isted. “I have never heard of
such a thing,” he said.
Hernandez said some cus-
tomers do wave him off, even
though they aren’t supposed to
touch the pumps. “If they say,
‘I got it,’ I don’t mess with
them,” he said.
New Jersey gas-station
owners would consider a 10-
to-15-cent price difference per
gallon if self-service pumps
ever became a reality in the
state, said Ed Kashouty, who
has owned a gas station and
convenience store in Lake-
wood since 1988. On average, S E E H O W R E C YC L E D PA C K A G I N G
C A N H E L P YO U R B U S I N E S S
it costs owners 12 cents a gal-
lon to have an attendant at
the pump, he said.
New Jersey has roughly
2,300 gas stations and conve-
nience stores with pumps, ac-
cording to Eric Blomgren, of
the New Jersey Gasoline, C-
Store, Automotive Associa-
tion. His organization supports
a bill introduced in the New
Jersey Legislature about 18
months ago similar to the law
passed in Oregon that would
require station owners to offer
full-service alongside self-ser-
vice pumps.
Such a change would help
station owners who sometimes
struggle to find enough work-
ers, Blomgren said.

A6 | Monday, August 7, 2023
ALBUQUERQUE FIRE DEPARTMENT/REUTERS
MONSTER FIRE: A column of smoke rose Sunday from a recycling-plant fire in Albuquerque, N.M.
Investors
See Years of
High Rates
Continued from Page One
cause investors anticipated that
the Fed would keep raising rates
to fight inflation and then cut
rates once a recession arrives.
Now, though, almost the op-
posite is happening. Signals
from the Fed that it is at or near
the end of its rate-raising cam-
paign have bolstered shorter-
term Treasurys. But they have
fed the selloff in longer-term
bonds by reducing concerns
that an aggressive central bank
would precipitate a downturn.
“This massive inversion that
we’ve had for a long period of
time was all predicated on the
fact that you were going to get
a hard landing and that owning
long-duration bonds was the
way to protect you,” said Jim
Caron, chief investment officer
of the portfolio solutions group
at Morgan Stanley Investment
Talent Pool
Is New Test
For Big Oil
Continued from Page One
The trend has continued
even as other recent studies
have shown that the average
graduate earns 40% more than
a peer with a computer sci-
ence degree.
That puts students, includ-
ing Hayden Gregg, in high
demand.
The 21-year-old Kansas
City, Mo., native is studying
petroleum engineering at Col-
orado School of Mines. His
graduating class of 36 stu-
dents is down from around
200 in the years before oil
prices collapsed in the
mid-2010s, according to a col-
lege official.
“People are concerned they
won’t have a job in 10 to 20
years,” Gregg said.
Encouraged by his room-
mates and a visit to Texas, he
became convinced that the in-
dustry offers a range of engi-
neering possibilities as it tran-
sitions to a broader mix of
energy sources.
“Even if oil and gas is go-
ing away, I can deploy my
skills in other engineering
fields,” he said.
Jennifer Miskimins, head of
the petroleum engineering de-
partment at Colorado School
of Mines, said Gregg’s gradu-
ating class is benefiting from
a pickup in oil-industry hiring
and many have gotten good
internships. “They’re a hot
commodity,” she said. “I think
this class is going to be sit-
ting pretty.”
Oil-and-gas companies are
pouring money into fellow-
ships and other programs de-
signed to cultivate new talent.
Much of the focus is on white-
collar careers that tend to at-
tract college graduates, but
the trend is broadly true
among the industry’s blue-col-
lar workers as well.
A big part of the pitch is
that the industry is increas-
ingly dynamic and creative,
requiring employees who can
run carbon capture, hydrogen
and geothermal projects, said
Barbara Burger, who served in
several leadership roles at
U.S.WATCH
Management. “Now what the
market’s saying is, well, if
you’re not going to get a hard
landing, then why would I want
to own 10-year notes?”
Strong economic data aren't
the only reason that Treasury
yields have climbed in recent
days. Some added pressure
came late last month, when the
Bank of Japan said it was lift-
ing its hard cap on 10-year gov-
ernment bond yields to 1%
from 0.5%.
That fueled
concerns that
Japanese inves-
tors might shift aren't the only
some cash away
from their sub-
stantial holdings
of U.S. Treasurys
Treasury yields
toward domestic have climbed.
bonds. Then the
U.S. Treasury
Department an-
nounced that it faced greater
borrowing needs in the coming
months than investors had an-
ticipated. That meant the mar-
ket would need to absorb more
bonds just as traders were find-
ing them less appealing.
Still, the underlying condi-
tions for the higher yields have
Chevron and is a senior ad-
viser at investment bank La-
zard.
Part of the challenge, she
said, is that there are more
startups and fast-growing
companies in those fields that
don’t carry the same baggage
as the giants that earn most
of their profits from fossil fu-
els.
“There’s competition in a
way that probably wasn’t
there 15 years ago,” she said.
Burger recently attended an
Numbers of U.S. undergraduate students studying petroleum
engineering have traditionally fluctuated with the price of oil,
but that hasn’t been the case recently.
Change since 1990
U.S. undergraduate enrollments
for petroleum-engineering degrees
Brent crude oil price*
1990
Petroleum-engineering enrollments by degree level, in the U.S.
Doctorate
Master’s
Undergraduate
4,902
2010
*Brent crude spot price a barrel, annual average
Note: 2023 data for Brent crude spot price is an average of daily prices through July 31.
been building for months, with
report after report suggesting
that the economy is on solid
footing even as inflation shows
signs of easing. That remained
true after Friday’s jobs report,
which showed slightly lower-
than-expected job growth in
July but a larger-than-antici-
pated increase in average
hourly earnings.
Investors are ramping up bets
on a soft landing, in which infla-
tion returns to
the Fed’s 2% an-
nual target while
Strong data the economy
keeps expanding.
The implica-
reason that tions of that
scenario could
be profound,
suggesting that
the economy
can withstand
much higher
rates than investors have long
believed was possible.
A prolonged period of higher
bond yields would be a setback
for recent home buyers who
have been hoping for rates to
fall so that they can refinance
their mortgages, along with
others who are waiting to buy
event hosted by Fervo Energy,
a startup that uses the shale
boom’s horizontal drilling and
fracking techniques to develop
geothermal wells for electric-
ity generation. Around 60% of
Fervo’s employees previously
worked at oil-and-gas outfits,
the company said.
To attract workers, she
said, oil-and-gas companies
need to better articulate their
energy transition strategies,
including efforts to carve out
new businesses or curb emis-
Oil price $96.94
2000
14,376
Junior
Sophomore
Freshman
* ****
U.S. NEWS
NEW YORK ARIZONA
Influencer Faces Missing Hiker
Charges After Riot Is Found Dead
Social media influencer Kai An Oregon woman who
Cenat is facing charges of in- went missing on a hike in
citing a riot and promoting north Phoenix has been
an unlawful gathering in found dead and it appears to
New York City, after the on- be heat-related, according to
line streamer drew thou- authorities.
sands of his followers, many Phoenix Fire Department
of them teenagers, with officials said Jessica Christine
promises of giving away elec- Lindstrom, 34, went hiking
tronics, including a new Play- around 8:30 a.m. Friday and
Station. was declared missing about
The Friday event produced nine hours later.
chaos, with dozens of people Fire Department Capt.
arrested—some jumping atop Scott Douglas said drones
vehicles, hurling bottles and and technical rescue teams
throwing punches. were used before Lindstrom’s
Cenat was released early body was found on a remote
Saturday from police custody trail on the north side of the
after being issued a desk ap- Deem Hills Recreation Area.
pearance ticket, which police Authorities said Lindstrom,
issue to require a suspect to who formerly lived in the
appear in court to answer Phoenix suburb of Peoria,
charges. A police representa- was a registered nurse in Or-
tive said he is to appear in egon and was visiting family.
court on Aug. 18. Maricopa County reported
Police said they arrested Wednesday that 39 heat-as-
65 people, including 30 juve- sociated deaths have been
niles. confirmed this year.
—Associated Press —Associated Press
a home. The average rate on
the standard 30-year fixed
mortgage was recently 6.9%, up
U.S. Treasury yields
5.25%
from about 5% a year ago.
At the same time, higher
rates and bond yields would be
5.00
Bear steepening begins
a boon to risk-averse savers and
to pension funds that have been
forced for years to take greater
4.75
4.50 Two-year
risks to meet return targets.
4.25
They would also make it easier
for the Fed to fight recessions 4.00
by giving the central bank more
10-year
room to cut rates when the 3.75
economy turns south.
Optimism recently has ex- 3.50
tended across different mar-
kets. Investors in recent months 3.25
have been willing to pay in- May 5 June July
creasingly high prices for stocks Sources: Tradeweb ICE Close (yields); Freddie Mac (average rate)
relative to what companies are
expected to earn over the next term rates set by the Fed have
year. Valuations have become to fall from their current level
even more stretched when mea- of around 5.5% to 2.5%—
sured against bond yields. roughly their highest point of
One argument made in favor the 2010s—or whether “we are
of stocks, however, is that the moving back toward some-
longer-run outlook for corpo- thing that looks a little bit like
rate profits and economic what we had in the ’90s” when
growth might be improving, rates were consistently higher,
with some citing advances in said Zach Griffiths, a senior
areas such as artificial intelli- strategist at the research firm
gence technologies. CreditSights.
For investors, an important Some, though, note that
question is whether short- market expectations can shift
sions. invasion of Ukraine, Europe is
“That’s a hook for employ-
ees—current and future,”
desperate for new supplies of
oil and gas, though countries
Burger said. “They want to around the world are trying to
know there’s a future in the
actual companies, the indus-
keep fuel affordable.
Darian Kane-Stolz said that
tries and the skill sets they
have.”
The talent shortage repre-
growing up in New York, she
was always concerned with
climate change. She taught
sents a long-term problem at neighbors how to recycle.
a moment when energy secu- When Kane-Stolz, 25, en-
rity—largely dependent on rolled at the University of
fossil fuels for the foreseeable Texas at Austin seven years
future—is increasingly a ago, she felt that joining the
global priority. Since Russia’s petroleum-engineering pro-
800% Undergraduate petroleum-
engineering enrollments
in select U.S. universities
University of Texas at Austin
600
1,200
$111.63 Change since peak –42%
800
400 400
$79.65
0
2010
200 Texas A&M University
1,200
800
0
400
0 want to work in energy-re-
’10 ’20 2010
Texas Tech University
1,200
800
Decline in U.S. enrollments
since 2015 peak 75.2%
400
0 don—formerly housing the
2010
Colorado School of Mines
1,200
800
400
3,563
0 ent is critical to company ef-
Senior
2010
Louisiana State University
1,200
800
400
0
2010
Oklahoma State University
1,200
800
400
0 ford to try and fail,” he said.
2020 2010
Sources: Lloyd Heinze, Texas Tech University (enrollments); Energy Information Administration (oil prices)
.
THE WALL STREET JOURNAL.
PENNSYLVANIA
Gas Utility Settles
In 2019 Blast
The Public Utility Commis-
sion approved a revised settle-
ment totaling nearly $1 million
with a gas utility over a 2019
explosion in western Pennsyl-
vania that reduced a home to
rubble and injured five people.
Canonsburg-based Colum-
bia Gas took responsibility
for the July 2019 blast in
North Franklin Township, say-
ing it had failed to install a
key piece of equipment in the
home while workers nearby
upgraded a gas main. Offi-
cials said the home lacked a
pressure regulator, and when
the new system was engaged
there was a leak that led to
the explosion.
The homeowner, a neigh-
bor and three firefighters
were hurt in the blast, which
also damaged cars and
nearby homes. Columbia’s in-
surance company earlier paid
out more than $3 million to
cover the damage.
—Associated Press
Average rate on a
30-year fixed mortgage
7.0%
6.5
6.0
5.5
5.0
4.5
4.0
3.5
3.0
Aug. Jan. 2022 ’23
quickly, along with the econ-
omy. “All recessions and down-
turns are a kind of slowly-then-
suddenly phenomenon,” said
Matt Smith, investment direc-
tor at Ruffer, whose team has
bought Treasury debt in a bet
that its price will increase amid
a downturn. “We don’t have a
view on when, but we have
that position in reflection of
the fact that we think the Fed’s
tightening will cause a reces-
sion,” Smith said.
gram was consistent with her
desire to have a positive im-
pact on the planet.
Now a BP engineer bringing
wells online in the Gulf of
Mexico, she said the attitude
toward the industry has dras-
tically shifted within her co-
hort. Before she goes out with
friends, she sometimes pre-
pares talking points in case
someone attacks the industry.
“There’s definitely a nega-
tive perception out there,”
Kane-Stolz said.
BP this year launched a
new $4 million fellowship pro-
gram with U.S. universities to
provide students with expo-
sure to the energy industry. It
also said last year that it
planned to double the size of
its apprenticeship program to
2,000 people this decade.
“To achieve our goal of rei-
magining energy, we need the
brightest talent,” a BP repre-
’20 sentative said.
Meanwhile, Kane-Stolz’s
alma mater, UT, is working on
–63.3% adding a new master’s degree
without the word “petro-
leum” to capture a broader
group of students who still
’20 lated engineering, said Jon E.
Olson, the department chair
of petroleum and geoscience
at UT.
–88.1% Other universities are end-
ing their petroleum engineer-
ing degrees or rebranding
them. Imperial College Lon-
’20 Royal School of Mines—shut
its program last year and re-
placed it with one in geo-en-
ergy with machine learning
–87.7%
and data science.
Analysts and company offi-
cials said a steady flow of tal-
forts to build out
’20
infrastructure needed to curb
emissions and develop clean-
energy and low-carbon busi-
nesses.
–89%
“One of the scarcest re-
sources at the moment seems
to be people,” said Aslak Hell-
estø, a business adviser for
’20 Northern Lights, a carbon
capture and storage project
off the coast of Norway oper-
ated by European energy
–90% companies Equinor, Shell and
TotalEnergies.
“This is groundbreaking
technology and we cannot af-
’20 “We need young people with
new ideas and bright minds to
make it right the first time.”
 .

THE WALL STREET JOURNAL. * * * * Monday, August 7, 2023 | A7

Ukraine’s Bid to Retake Bakhmut Falters
Front-line soldiers
describe a stalling
counteroffensive
against Russia forces
BY ALISTAIR MACDONALD
AND OKSANA PYROZHOK
CHASIV YAR, Ukraine—
Some of Ukraine’s biggest gains
in its counteroffensive have
come around the city of
Bakhmut, which Russia seized
in May after months of bloody
fighting. But soldiers near there
say advances have slowed in re-
cent days amid stiff Russian de-
fense and counterattacks, dent-
ing hopes that Kyiv could soon
retake the city.
Ukrainian President Volod-
ymyr Zelensky visited the
Bakhmut front in late July to
hail gains to the north and
south of the city.
Fighting is now focusing
around the town of Klishchi-
ivka, some 5 miles to the south,
and in the direction of the M03
highway to the north. Ukrainian
soldiers say recent gains have
been small, in the face of heavy
artillery bombardments, im-
proved Russian performance on
the battlefield and limited man-
power and equipment.
Ukraine’s counteroffensive,
now in its third month, has
WORLD NEWS
been slow going, bogged down
by strong Russian defensive
positions, mines and helicop-
ter assaults, particularly in
the south. That raises difficult
questions about the scale of
the task facing the Ukrainian
forces.
Progress around Bakhmut in
the east had been faster as
Russia had less time to prepare
defensive positions after the
Wagner paramilitary group fi-
nally took the city. Bakhmut
had become a symbol of Ukrai-
nian resistance during months
of brutal fighting, and Russia is
expected to pour resources into
its dogged defense, given the
city was one of the few gains it
made in recent months—and at
the cost of tens of thousands of
lives.
“It’s a tough fight, and we
need more people and more
equipment,” said a combat
medic, who came for coffee to
a gas station where front-line
soldiers stock up on fuel and
food. “We are exhausted.”
A Ukrainian official last
Monday said Ukraine had in
the previous week liberated 0.7
square mile in the Bakhmut
area. Russia still controls
around 20% of Ukraine.
Officials from Russia and its
proxies have said on social me-
dia that their forces have re-
pelled several Ukrainian at-
tacks. Yan Gagin, an official at
the so-called Donetsk People’s
Republic, a Russian proxy state
that claims Ukraine’s Donetsk
region as its territory, said that
the fighting around Bakhmut
remains the hottest part of the
front line.
“It’s slow, it’s just really
slow,” said Dougie Young, a
Scottish medical volunteer who
has been working around
Bakhmut.
Ukraine has been targeting
Russian positions with its own
munitions, employing West-
ern and old Soviet systems.
At an artillery position
around 4½ miles from the front
line, members of a unit that op-
erates a German howitzer—a
PzH 2000, or Panzerhaubitze—
said they spend much of the day
driving to different positions,
hitting Russian artillery and in-
fantry units. “We pushed the
Russians back around 1 kilome-
ter, but now they are coming
back,” said Andriy, the com-
mander of the howitzer.
Local soldiers say the Rus-
sians are using many more
drones now and appear to have
more than the Ukrainian forces
in the area. Russians appear
to be developing in other ways,
including through encrypting
more of their communications
to stop Ukraine eavesdropping,
an intelligence official said.

Kviv Official Oversees
Efforts to Produce
More Ammunition
BY ISABEL COLES
KYIV, Ukraine—Like any
good boss, Oleksandr Kamy-
shin keeps on top of produc-
tion numbers for the factories
he oversees. But for Kamyshin,
Ukraine’s minister of strategic
industries, it is a matter of life
and death: The figures that
land on his desk every morning
show ammunition output at
dozens of Ukrainian factories.
The availability of artillery
shells could prove decisive in
the next phase of the war with
Russia, and the 39-year-old is
in charge of boosting Ukraine’s
production. Western stocks
have been run down by nearly
18 months of fighting, and the
U.S. and its allies are strug-
gling to increase production.
Any dip in output and
Kamyshin immediately gets on
the phone with the factory
FROM TOP: SERGEY BOBOK/AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE/GETTY IMAGES; JOSEPH SYWENKYJ FOR THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
the invasion. Ukrzaliznytsia’s
trains ferried civilians and
foreign dignitaries including
President Biden, who traveled
to Kyiv last year on a train
dubbed Rail Force One.
But bringing Ukraine’s de-
fense industry up to speed in
the middle of a war is an even
bigger challenge.
Four months into the job,
Kamyshin’s efforts have
yielded results. In July,
Ukraine produced more than
twice as much mortar and ar- Oleksandr Kamyshin, top left, says Ukraine will need years to meet demand. Above, members of a tank brigade repair an engine.
tillery ammunition as it did
during 2022, he said. “Being in charge of a large,
That, however, is less an in- crucial, critical structure for
dication of how much Ukraine your country for the war when
is producing now than how nothing works,” he said.
little it was before, Kamyshin Ukraine’s President Volod-
acknowledged. ymyr Zelensky tapped him as
For now Kyiv is dependent minister in March as the
on Western countries that are country geared up for a coun-
also struggling to increase teroffensive to retake territory
production after running occupied by Russia.

manager to find out what
went wrong. “All of them are
on a direct line with me,” he
said in an interview.
Ukraine’s sprawling arms
industry fell into decline after
the country gained indepen-
dence from the Soviet Union
in 1991. Kamyshin says it is
still hamstrung by unproduc-
tive practices rooted in the
Soviet era.
Kamyshin has delivered be-
fore. As head of Ukraine’s
state railway company, he
kept goods and people flowing
after the country’s airspace
was closed in the early days of
down their own ammunition
stockpiles.
The U.S. recently provided
Kyiv with cluster munitions to
help alleviate a looming short-
age as Ukrainian forces strug-
gle to break through Russian
defenses in the south of the
country. European states, too,
struck a deal in July mobiliz-
ing half a billion euros to boost
ammunition production for
Ukraine—and for themselves.
The war was a year old by
the time Kamyshin was ap-
pointed as chief of the defense
industry, but to him it felt like
the first days of the invasion.
Handcrafted Beauty
Kamyshin’s immediate pri-
ority was ammunition, which
Ukrainian forces are consuming
at a rate of about 90,000 shells
a month, U.S. officials said.
His new team of deputies AN ESSENTIAL STYLE FOR EVERY
includes a new head of state-
owned weapons manufacturer WARDROBE, GLOWING IN 18KT GOLD
Ukroboronprom.
Kamyshin has extended de-
fense companies’ contracts to
year-end—rather than
monthly—and brought in more
firms to gear production to-
ward the defense industry. “It’s
not rocket science,” he said.
—Daniel Michaels
contributed to this article.

Ukrainian Drones Attack Oil Tanker

Tied to Russian Military in Black Sea
BY JARED MALSIN
ISTANBUL—An attack by
Ukrainian sea drones on an oil
tanker on which the U.S. im-
posed sanctions for working
for the Russian military po-
tentially brings the war into a
new phase that threatens Rus-
sia’s vital shipping lanes in
the Black Sea.
The weekend attack struck
the Russian oil tanker Sig near
the Kerch Bridge that links
Russia to the occupied Cri-
mean Peninsula, causing dam-
age to the engine room, Rus-
sian state news agency TASS
reported, citing the Marine
Rescue Coordination Center of
Novorossiysk.
The attack intensifies hostili-
ties in the Black Sea after weeks
in which Russia has heightened
tensions in the region by impos-
ing a de facto blockade on much
of Ukraine’s grain exports, strik-
ing Ukrainian ports and threat-
ening to attack civilian ships on
their way there.
Ukraine in late July issued
its own warning, saying it
would treat ships headed to
Russian ports as potential mil-
itary targets. This was an ap-
parent attempt to turn the ta-
bles on Russia by imposing an
“insurance blockade,” a freez-
ing of commercial maritime
activity that would happen if
insurers refused to cover civil-
ian ships heading to and from
Russian ports on the Black Sea.
Ukrainian authorities didn’t
comment directly on the attack,
in keeping with a policy of offi-
cial silence on their drone at-
tacks in the region. Some re-
ports said only one drone was
involved in the attack.
Vasyl Maliuk, head of the
Security Service of Ukraine,
the country’s main intelligence
agency, nodded indirectly to
the attack in a post on Tele-
gram, noting that it took place
in Ukraine’s territorial waters
and calling such strikes “an
absolutely logical and effective
step in regard to the enemy.
“They should take advan-
tage of their only opportu-
nity—to leave the territorial
waters of Ukraine and our land.
And the sooner they do it, the
better for them,” Maliuk said.
The tanker was under U.S.
sanctions for carrying fuel to
Russian forces operating in
Syria. The Treasury Depart-
ment’s sanctions designation
for the ship said it was linked
to Transpetrochart, a Russian
company that was targeted for
$
599
its role in “facilitating the il- Compare at $795
licit transfer of jet fuel to the
Russian military in Syria.” The
ship had loaded fuel from a
refinery in Feodosia, in occu-
pied Crimea, experts said.
The attack, which came a Our glorious 7" 18kt gold wheat-link bracelet is a
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Following explosions in the Available in 8" $679
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A video of the attack pub-
lished by Ukrainian media and
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The Wall Street Journal’s par-
ent company News Corp,
shows a surface drone gliding
along the water before crash-
ing into the side of a tanker.
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 .

A8 | Monday, August 7, 2023 THE WALL STREET JOURNAL.

WORLD NEWS

Oligarchs Fight Sanctions China, U.S. Take Part

Russia’s business dler has become the first per-
son to challenge the U.K.’s
elite was penalized Russian sanctions regime in
to pressure Putin, court. The former business
colleague of Abramovich
but war still rages claimed that the sanctions
caused his family “serious
BY MAX COLCHESTER hardship” and were dispropor-
tionate, according to court fil-
LONDON—Over a year ago, ings.
the West launched a new for- The billionaire, who holds
eign-policy weapon to pres- British and U.S. citizenship,
sure the Kremlin to halt its also claimed to have never
war in Ukraine: It imposed held a Russian passport and
sanctions on more than 100 not to have seen Putin in per-
leading Russian businessmen son since 2007, according to
and their families, hoping they the filings.
would prod Russian President In its defense, the U.K. gov-
Vladimir Putin to give up his ernment said Shvidler should
expansionist plans. remain sanctioned in part so
So far, the strategy hasn’t that he can apply pressure on
worked. The war still rages Abramovich, who, in turn,
and very few Russian billion- could pressure Putin.
aires have publicly denounced Now that they can’t access
Putin or sold off their Russian their wealth in the West, some
ANADOLU AGENCY VIA GETTY IMAGES
In Peace Discussions
BY LAURENCE NORMAN
AND STEPHEN KALIN
Efforts to forge an interna-
tional consensus around a du-
rable and fair peace settle-
ment to the war in Ukraine
inched forward after discus-
sions in Saudi Arabia among
senior officials from 42 coun-
tries, including the U.S., China,
India and Ukraine.
Ukraine and its Western
backers have pitched the talks
as an effort to rally global
support behind conditions for
ending the war that would fa-
vor Ukraine. Many big devel-
oping countries have been
largely neutral on the conflict.
After the talks in Jeddah
concluded on Saturday, diplo-
mats said there was broad ac-
The meeting’s location on
Saturday carried important
symbolism, as Ukraine, the
U.S. and Europe have pushed
to bolster support for Kyiv in
the global south. Western dip-
lomats have said the kingdom
was picked to host partly in
hopes of persuading China to
participate, as Riyadh and Bei-
jing maintain close ties.
Saudi Arabia is trying to
play a larger role in diplomacy
on Ukraine, after the U.S. ac-
cused it last year of siding
with Russia to keep oil prices
high—thus bolstering Mos-
cow’s finances.
“A lot of credit to the Saudi
hosts for the diplomatic en-
gagement,” a U.S. official said.
Many Western capitals are
deeply skeptical that Russian

assets. sanctioned oligarchs may be- ceptance that President Vladi-

Meanwhile, a handful of come more dependent on their central princi- mir Putin is in-
deep-pocketed oligarchs are assets in Russia and Putin’s ples of interna- terested in pur-
pushing back, intensifying patronage. Many are legally tional law, like The kingdom is suing peace
their legal challenges in U.K. barred from traveling to the respect for trying to play a talks this year.
and European Union courts in West. Ukraine’s sover- Russia has
a long-shot attempt to remove Abramovich, who based his eignty and terri- larger role in shown no signs
restrictions that include travel operations in London for years torial integrity, of backing away
bans and asset freezes. until the U.K. government should be at the
diplomacy on from demands
The legal battles will prove Lawyers for Roman Abramovich claim Western sanctions are didn’t renew his visa in 2018, heart of future Ukraine. such as the rec-
a test of whether Russian keeping him from taking a role in Ukraine peace efforts. is now shuttling between Rus- peace talks be- ognition of its
businessmen can use the sia, Turkey and Israel. Andrei tween Ukraine annexations of
West’s attachment to the rule not really effective from the son Foerster. “We are not at Guryev, who is sanctioned by and Russia. Ukrainian terri-
of law to undermine its own point of view of policy.” that tipping point yet. But it the U.S., redomiciled his hold- Saudi Arabia on Sunday tory, including areas of Ukraine
foreign-policy aims. Western government officials doesn’t mean that we won’t ing company that owns shares said participants had “agreed its military doesn’t control.
It will also lay bare their say the mass sanctioning should get to that tipping point.” in Russian fertilizer giant on the importance of continu- Moscow has sent mixed sig-
key criticism of the sanctions; be viewed as part of a wider Roman Abramovich’s law- PhosAgro to a low-tax zone in ing international consultations nals about the talks. The Krem-
that many of those targeted crackdown on Russia, which in- yers recently appeared in a Russia from Switzerland. and exchanging opinions in lin has suggested it would be
have no sway over Putin and cludes bans of key exports to Luxembourg courtroom to ap- Putin has called on the order to build a common watching closely, but Russia’s
the sanctions, far from apply- the country aimed at crippling peal European Union sanc- businessmen to come back ground that will pave the way Foreign Ministry spokeswoman
ing pressure on the Russian its economy, moves that have tions against their Russian cli- home to Russia. for peace.” called the discussions a hoax.
president, may be pushing dis- also had a limited effect. ent, arguing the designation “Running around with cap There was agreement on Ukraine’s President Volod-
affected Westernized oligarchs They also argue that Rus- prevented him from “interven- in hand, begging for your own pursuing more detailed work ymyr Zelensky pushed his am-
back into his arms. sian businesspeople and poli- ing effectively” as a conduit money, makes no sense and on the global impact of the war, bassadors last week to inten-
“Never before have we seen ticians shouldn’t be allowed to for peace talks between Russia most importantly, it accom- and most countries attending, sify efforts to win global
so many billionaires with such continue with their normal and Ukraine, according to plishes nothing,” he said dur- including China, appeared will- support for Kyiv’s position.
large international footprints lives while the Kremlin, whose court documents. ing his state-of-the-nation ing to meet again in the coming While diplomats talked in
so massively sanctioned all at patronage allowed them to The billionaire former speech in February. “Stop weeks in the current format, Jeddah, Russia launched fresh
the same time,” said George grow rich, presses on with an owner of English soccer team clinging to the past, resorting with Russia excluded, people missile attacks on Ukraine.
Voloshin, a sanctions expert at illegal invasion. Chelsea F.C. also made an ar- to the courts to get at least involved in or briefed on the The biggest difference be-
the Association of Certified The aim is “to start to peel gument that several other oli- something back.” closed-door talks said. tween the Copenhagen and
Anti-Money Laundering Spe- away the support [for Putin] garchs have put before the While high-profile oligarchs The Jeddah talks came after Jeddah meetings was atten-
cialists, an association that because oligarchs have an out- court: that he is being unfairly are pushing back on their initial discussions in Copenha- dance—more than twice as
shares best practices on fight- size political and economic in- targeted for simply being a sanctions in European courts, gen in June. U.S. and European many countries attended or
ing money laundering. Given fluence,” said John Smith, for- Russian businessman and that so far they haven’t challenged officials have stressed that the dialed into Saturday’s talks.
that most of these oligarchs mer director of the U.S. his ties to Putin are over- their U.S. sanctions “for the discussions aren’t negotiations Most significantly China,
aren’t in Putin’s inner circle, Treasury Department’s Office stated. The court will rule in simple reason that they don’t to end the conflict and won’t which was invited to Copenha-
“sanctions are painful for them of Foreign Assets Control and the coming months. think they are going to win,” seek to prescribe specific gen but stayed away, sent a
and their families, but they’re a partner at law firm Morri- Meanwhile, Eugene Shvi- Voloshin said. terms for a settlement. delegation to Jeddah.

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THE WALL STREET JOURNAL.
Record Global Remittances Prop Up Autocrats
BY RYAN DUBÉ
LIMA, Peru—More people
than ever are migrating
worldwide, with millions of
people sending home record
amounts of cash.
But the remittances also
provide critical support to
fragile states and autocratic
regimes that rely on money
earned by their citizens
abroad to keep their econo-
mies afloat.
In Venezuela, a third of
households depend on money
transferred home from the
more than 7.3 million migrants
who fled the country’s eco-
nomic collapse, according to
the Inter-American Dialogue
policy group in Washington. In
Central Asia, where many for-
mer Soviet officials rule, mi-
grants send so much money
that the funds cover their na-
tions’ trade deficits, econo-
mists say. In Nicaragua, re-
mittances have become so
vital to the tax revenue of
President Daniel Ortega’s re-
gime that some economists
say reducing the flow of the
funds would be a form of po-
litical resistance.
“If you didn’t have remit-
tances, the national economy
would collapse,” said Enrique
Sáenz, an exiled Nicaraguan
economist. “And in macroeco-
nomic terms, Ortega would be
in deep trouble.”
The growing flow of money
creates a challenge for those
who to seek to exert economic
pressure on autocratic leaders.
But limiting remit-
tances would hurt the vulner-
able families of migrants who
remain back home and reliant
on money transfers.
“Remittances are one of the
most difficult issues we can
deal with,” said Ryan Berg, a
political scientist at the Cen-
ter for Strategic and Interna-
tional Studies in Washington.
“Nobody really wants to touch
that issue because who would
ever, from a policy standpoint,
try to interfere with remit-
tances as a point of pressuring
dictatorships when we all
know people are suffering.”
MATT LOEWEN/ALASKA VOLCANO OBSERVATORY/ASSOCIATED PRESS
Eleven Russian and Chinese ships came close to the Aleutians, where U.S. craft shadowed them.
U.S. Rivals
Sent Navies
Near Alaska
Continued from Page One
traveled more than 2,300 nau-
tical miles, including opera-
tions in the Sea of Japan and
the Sea of Okhotsk.
A spokesman for the Chinese
Embassy in Washington said
the patrol wasn’t aimed at the
U.S. “According to the annual
cooperation plan between the
Chinese and Russian militaries,
naval vessels of the two coun-
tries have recently conducted
joint maritime patrols in rele-
vant waters in the western and
northern Pacific Ocean. This ac-
tion is not targeted at any third
party and has nothing to do
with the current international
and regional situation,” the
spokesman, Liu Pengyu, said.
The USS John S. McCain,
the USS Benfold, the USS John
Finn and the USS Chung-Hoon
responded to the flotilla,
tracking its movement, a U.S.
defense official said. The four
destroyers were in addition to
the American maritime patrol
and reconnaissance aircraft.
In contrast, a lone U.S.
Migrants from Eritrea, Libya and Sudan in a boat in the Mediterranean in June before being assisted by Spanish aid workers.
Since 2010, remittances to
the developing world have
nearly doubled, rising to a re-
cord $647 billion last year,
more than foreign direct in-
vestments to those countries
and more than international
development aid, according to
the World Bank.
In Nepal, a young and fragile
democracy where remittances
account for close to a quarter
of GDP, inflows from migrant
workers have helped keep a lid
on bubbling anger at the gov-
ernment over its handling of
the pandemic and a recent re-
cession, said Jeevan Baniya, an
expert on migration at the
Kathmandu-based research in-
stitute Social Science Baha.
In Egypt, money sent by mi-
grants provides three times
the revenue the government
takes in from the state-owned
Suez Canal, while remit-
tances to Mexico surpassed the
dollars generated by interna-
tional tourism and oil exports.
The millions of money
Coast Guard cutter was on the
scene when a flotilla of seven
Russian and Chinese ships op-
erated in September near the
Aleutians off Alaska.
Sullivan said that the U.S.
response in September had
been “tepid” and that he had
encouraged a stronger mes-
sage be sent in the future.
The joint Russian and Chi-
nese naval patrols are part of
a broader great power compe-
tition in the Arctic and north-
ern climes, which is increas-
ingly becoming contested
territory.
U.S. officials
also see the in-
creased cooper-
ation between The military
the Russian says the flotilla
and Chinese
navies as a bid stayed in
to counter U.S.
alliances with
international
Japan, South waters.
Korea
other regional
and
partners.
Russian warships and Chi-
nese research vessels have been
observed in the region before.
“But to see these combat-
ants form up in a surface ac-
tion group together and steam
together, that’s what’s rare,”
Rear Adm. Nathan Moore,
who was Coast Guard com-
mander for the Alaska region
until last month, told The
WORLD NEWS
Remittances to developing
countries
$600 billion
500
400
300
200
100
0 otherwise have, and they have
2010 ’15 ’20
Source: World Bank
transfers a year are being
spurred by soaring migration
to the U.S. and Europe since
the Covid-19 pandemic. Mi-
grants are arriving in affluent
countries that have labor
shortages, allowing them to
find higher-paying jobs and
send more money home.
Wall Street Journal about the
September episode.
Adm. John Aquilino, who
leads U.S. Indo-Pacific Com-
mand, which is responsible for
U.S. military operations in the
Asia Pacific, said last month
that the U.S. had already be-
gun watching the current Rus-
sian and Chinese patrol and
was trying to determine
whether they were headed to
the Aleutian Islands, Philip-
pine Sea, Guam or Hawaii.
Joint Russian and Chinese
“exercises have increased, their
operations have increased. I
only see the co-
operation get-
ting stronger,
and boy that’s
concerning.
That’s a danger-
ous world,” Aq-
uilino said last
month at the
Aspen Security
Forum in Colo-
rado.
U.S. officials
have been monitoring signs of
increased cooperation between
Beijing and Moscow. China has
become Russia’s most impor-
tant trading partner since Mos-
cow’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine,
and a report by the U.S. director
for national intelligence says
China has provided Russia with
critical technology that can be
used for military purposes.
.
Monday, August 7, 2023 | A9
Emomali Rahmon maintain his
three-decade-old grip on
power, scholars on the country
said. Navruz Nekbakhtshoev, a
political scientist from Tajiki-
stan who lives in Nebraska,
said the remittances calm
grievances and demands on of-
ficials. The mass outflow of
young people to fund the cash
flow also removes people who
might otherwise challenge the
political status quo.
With Russia’s economy
struggling because of the war in
Ukraine and Western sanctions,
migrants could have fewer job
opportunities, affecting remit-
tances, economists say.
That is prompting Tajiki-
stan and other Central Asian
governments to try to reduce
their dependence on Russia by
JOAN MATEU PARRA/ASSOCIATED PRESS
promoting migrant paths to
other places such as Turkey
and England, said Zachary
Witlin, an expert on the re-
gion at the Eurasia Group.
In fragile, democratic coun-
tries, a large drop in remit-
tances can contribute to un-
rest. In Sri Lanka, where more
money arrives from the
diaspora than what is earned
Remittance inflows, in billions a nation’s gross domestic prod- from tea exports, remit-
uct. The money can reduce in- tances fell by nearly half from
India $111.2 centives to work for those who 2020 to 2022. That contributed
receive the funds, he said. They to a balance-of-payments crisis
Mexico 61.1
can also curb demands on the that drained the country’s for-
China 51.0 government to fix domestic eign-exchange reserves and left
problems that cause migration it unable to pay for imports or
Philippines 38.0 in the first place. service its external debt. Amid
Some of the world’s mass unrest, the president fled
France 30.0
most remittance-dependent the country last year.
Pakistan 29.9 nations are ruled by auto- Elsewhere, a decline in re-
cratic regimes where people mittances could just push
Egypt 28.3 have few economic opportuni- more people to leave as rulers
ties—save for leaving. repress dissent.
Bangladesh 21.5 “These countries have stron- “Remittances can in some
Nigeria ger currencies than they would ways grease the wheel of a sys-
20.1
tem that doesn’t work,” said
Germany 19.3 less inflation than what they Ted Henken, author of books on
would otherwise have,” said Cuba and a professor at New
Roman Mogilevskii, an econo- York’s Baruch College. “A Cuban
mist at the Philippines-based in Miami or Madrid might be
Some economists say Asian Development Bank. worth more to the Cuban gov-
if remittances become too big, In the Central Asian nation ernment just in terms of GDP.”
they can hurt longer-term de- of Tajikistan, money from mi- —Nicholas Bariyo
velopment and create gover- grants mainly working in Rus- in Kampala, Uganda,
nance problems. Connel Fullen- sia makes up close to half the Samantha Pearson
kamp, a Duke University country’s GDP, according to in São Paulo, and
economist, said remittances can the World Bank. Jenny Carolina González
start to become problematic Remittances there have in Bogotá, Colombia,
once they go above 5% to 10% of helped authoritarian President contributed to this article.
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A10 | Monday, August 7, 2023 * * THE WALL STREET JOURNAL.

FROM PAGE ONE

plar landed, and helped people
Mystery of find lost coins in their backyard.
They have appeared on trea-
sure-hunting TV shows. “We’re
The Civil well-known with people that
have like-minded interests,”
War Gold says Kem. “But we’re not Brad
Pitt or George Clooney famous.”
Dennis, the father, said he
has visited the site at Dents Run
Continued from Page One more than 400 times, crawling
W.Va., to the U.S. Mint, then in into the cave, walking over it
Philadelphia, was ambushed with dowsing rods and drilling
somewhere in Elk County. down with a ¾-inch bit that he
Parada said a psychic guided said had traces of gold on it.
him to a location at Dents Run In the cave he found walls
and told him to look for a cave, that seemed man-made and
and he spent months search- burn marks on the ceiling. Arti-
ing. In 2004, he said, he re- facts nearby—a bullet shell, a
turned and found that a wash- whiskey bottle and bones—date
out had exposed an opening in to the 19th century, he said.
the side of the mountain. In 2017, the Paradas started
Within weeks, he started a working with Warren Getler,
treasure-hunting business co-author of “Rebel Gold” and
called Finders Keepers with his a former Wall Street Journal
son, Kem, a police officer. reporter. Getler told them he
The pair has hunted for the believed Confederate sympa-
Holy Grail in Nova Scotia, where thizers allied with a secretive
some believe the Knights Tem- society likely stole and hid the
gold. The Paradas and Getler
say ground-penetrating radar
had identified buried metal and
an additional piece of equip-
ment suggested it had the low
electrical resistivity of gold.
Dennis Parada approached
the Pennsylvania Department
of Conservation and Natural
Resources. After his trail cams
caught state officials at the
site, he worried they would try
to dig it up themselves.
In January 2018, Getler set a
meeting with the FBI in Phila-
delphia. He and the Paradas
brought the test results, de-
scriptions of the cave and a
story from a military archive
describing a government gold
shipment “that came to grief”
in the Allegheny Mountains in
1863. The FBI hired its own sur-
veyor, who brought a machine
called a microgravity meter and
found a large mass with a den-
sity suggestive of gold.
Soon after, in March, Special
Agent Jacob Archer filed a 33-
page affidavit in federal court
in Philadelphia detailing his
meeting with the three men
and those findings. He got a
warrant to seize gold belonging
to the U.S. Treasury—saying he
was concerned the state could
unlawfully claim it.
The FBI brought more than
50 agents and dug down 12
feet, but said it came up empty.
That didn’t satisfy the Para-
das or Getler, who say they
were ordered to remain in Kem
Parada’s Mazda 3 hatchback
during most of the dig.
After being shown an empty
hole, a furious Dennis Parada
asked Agent Archer if he had
taken the gold, according to the
three men, who say they were
escorted off the mountain.
Also gone was any hope of
seeking a hefty finder’s fee.
The Paradas say they have
since spoken to a local resident
who said she saw lights and
heard the FBI working late at
night, while other residents re-
ported seeing armored vehicles dig.” The agency said it un-
in town. “I’ve come to the un-
avoidable conclusion that the
equivocally rejects any claims
or speculation to the contrary.
FBI did take the treasure under Today the Paradas are wait-
cover of darkness,” said Getler.
The Paradas sued the FBI
ing for a judge to decide
whether the FBI has to provide
last year in U.S. District Court more information. “The FBI in-
in Washington, D.C. seeking en-
forcement of a Freedom of In-
sists they found nothing, but
they have gone out of their way
formation Act request. They not to produce any documents
now allege the FBI has failed to that show that they found
turn over certain records and nothing,” said Anne Weismann,
doctored some photos to con- a lawyer for the Paradas. “The
ceal a night dig. thing about this case is stuff
The FBI declined to com- just doesn’t add up.”
ment on the lawsuit, but de- All three men say equipment
nied it kept digging at night. they used previously no longer
The agency told the Jour- shows gold at the FBI dig site.
nal that while geophysical test- But they say new scans show
ing “had suggested a potential more highly conductive metal
cultural heritage site at Dents buried nearby.
Run, that possibility was not At Dents Run, Dennis Parada
borne out by the excavation.” points to an old “hoot owl” tree
The FBI added, “No gold or with a branch bent at a right
other items of evidence were angle, which he said is a trea-
located or collected. The only sure marker. Some 30 feet
items the FBI removed from away, a cast-iron stove lid stuck
the site were the equipment in the ground reads “Red Hot”
and supplies brought in for the and seems to point the way.

Investors Total return*

4,000 % RECESSION

Can’t Quit 3,500

Self Storage 3,000

2,500
Self
storage

Continued from Page One

long training session at his 2,000
home office in New York’s Fin-
ger Lakes region. 1,500
“There is more than enough
All other
wealth to go around in stor- 1,000 property
age,” he said. sectors
For the past quarter-cen-
tury, you could take that to the 500
S&P 500
bank. There are self-storage fa-
cilities around the world, but 0
nowhere have they been more 2000 ’05 ’10 ’15 ’20
popular to rent and profitable
to own than in the U.S., thanks Average rent at move in† Average price paid in
to Americans’ propensity to ac- self-storage deals
cumulate more stuff than they
can squeeze into their homes. $150 a month $100 a square foot
Storage is the rare invest-
ment that has done well in good 140
times and spectacularly in peri- Climate 80
DAVID PAUL MORRIS/BLOOMBERG NEWS

controlled
ods of economic upheaval. Prof- 130 Non-
its exploded during the pan- climate
demic, when bedrooms became 60
120 controlled
offices and basements became
gyms and the displaced items
had to go somewhere. Shares of 110 40
publicly traded storage compa- 2017 ’20 2013 ’15 ’17 ’19 ’21
nies trounced the broader stock
market—and every other real *FTSE NAREIT sectors; share price plus dividends †10-foot-by-10-foot units
estate class—from the late A Dixon, Calif., facility owned by Life Storage, which was bought last month. Sources: FactSet (total return); Yardi Matrix (rent); StorageCafe (price)
1990s through the end of last
year. During the pandemic, they pinch when they search for properties with the fund. dential real estate surged dur- Houston and in 1972 he and Extra Space CEO Joe Margo-
even beat the celebrated “storage near me.” Death, di- The career arc of Prime’s ing the pandemic and deter- partner B. Wayne Hughes put lis told portfolio managers at a
FAANG tech companies. vorce and disaster create de- founder and chief executive, mined storage rents could rise up $25,000 apiece and opened June real-estate investing con-
The question now is mand. So do marriages, babies Robert Moser, shows that stor- significantly and still be a lot the first Public Storage location ference in New York that the
whether the industry is run- and new jobs. age bros can dream big. cheaper for growing families in El Cajon, Calif. firm erred in 2009 when it cut
ning out of room for growth. Storage owners compete Moser, 46, started out in his than leasing an apartment with The idea was to generate in- rates for existing customers.
Workers are trickling back to fiercely to get customers in the fraternity-house bedroom at an extra bedroom or moving to come from inexpensive build- “They didn’t care if it was $75
the office and the highest inter- door. They duke it out online Union College in Schenectady, a bigger house. KKR has since ings to cover the expense of or $100,” he said.
est rates in years are slowing with algorithmic one-upman- N.Y. He showed up the first se- spent more than $400 million holding land while they waited Nowadays Extra Space is-
home sales, a big driver of stor- ship and move-in specials. But mester a licensed real-estate on storage buildings. for it to gain value. The first sues about 130,000 rent-in-
age demand. Self-storage facili- once someone signs up, the agent, wrote his thesis on in- Blackstone, the world’s larg- unit rented to a motor oil dis- crease notices each month,
ties have seen occupancy rates battle for their business is over. come-producing properties and est real-estate investor, will tributor whose wife wanted withholding some for a control
decline from records, forcing “The only thing that com- filed state records requests for own about 80 storage facilities cans out of the driveway. group of a couple thousand to
them to dangle big discounts to petes with an existing cus- New York water and sewer per- once it completes the sale of Volk died in 1996, the year make sure rent increases aren’t
attract new customers. tomer is the trash can,” said mits. An entire 127 it bought after Public Storage made its prompting move outs, he said.
Sharply higher borrowing Spenser Allaway, storage ana- UPS truck of mostly in late stock-market debut. Hughes, Ryan Auger, who got into
costs have torpedoed plans for lyst at real-estate research firm printouts ar- 2020. The buyer son of an Oklahoma sharecrop- the business after the Covid
new storage construction. Green Street. “No one says, rived at his par- ‘The only thing is Public Stor- per, went on to also launch lockdown sank his restaurant-
Shares of the big firms that ‘This sounds like a fun way to ents’ house. that competes age, which rental-home giant AMH Homes technology startup, was im-
store America’s hoard on spend a weekend, I’ll beg my He sorted agreed last following the 2008 housing pressed when a bidding war
month-to-month leases, such as friend to borrow their truck through the with an existing month to pay crash and was one of the rich- broke out around then for two
CubeSmart, Public Storage and and move my stuff into another documents $2.2 billion for est people in America when he storage properties his uncle
Extra Space Storage, are mostly unit to save $10 a month.’ ” looking for ac-
customer is the the Blackstone died in 2021. By then, Public owned near Harrisburg, Pa.
down this year, even as the S&P Even savvy storage investors quisition targets trash can.’ assets after be- Storage had a stock market The eventual buyer paid more
500 has risen by double digits. become ensnared. “I’ve had and spent week- ing outbid in its value of more than $56 billion than twice what they cost to
one six years,” said Christopher ends visiting own attempt to and an indelible, bright-orange build and his uncle came away
Merrill, CEO of $56 billion and photo- buy Life Stor- presence on the American with millions of dollars in
Pandemic boom property investor Harrison graphing properties. Moser age. landscape. profit. “That blew me away,”
Storage executives say busi- Street, which owns 119 storage never looked for a job when he The sale will mean more Auger, 27, said.
ness may never be as good as facilities and is looking for graduated in 1999. His mom than $600 million profit for Auger sketched plans to find
it was between the lockdown more. “I’ve probably paid for borrowed against the family Blackstone’s Real Estate In- Big profits neglected properties, tidy them
summer of 2020 and last sum- the stuff six times over.” home to stake him. come Trust, a fund for individ- Storage is so profitable up, oust freeloaders, raise rents
mer. “In hindsight, we may Appetite for deals remains Moser’s storage buildings ual investors that was stung by thanks to two key factors: to market rates and build an
look at those and say they strong from yield-chasing asset performed so well during the withdrawals earlier this year month-to-month leases, in online presence to draw new
were the best 24 months in managers and YOLO dreamers. 2008 housing bust that he de- when rising interest rates which the rents can be raised customers. The North Carolin-
the history of this business,” Last month, Extra Space paid cided to specialize and sold his dimmed the outlook for com- on short notice, and human na- ian raised money from lawyers
CubeSmart Chief Executive $11.6 billion for rival Life Stor- apartments and trailer parks. mercial property. ture. Most stays outlast intro- and other wealthy people he
Christopher Marr told inves- age, creating the country’s Prime raised $154 million for “When you see a portfolio ductory rates. knew, quit his job as a software
tors at a recent conference. largest storage operator, with its first investment pool and opportunity, that’s where peo- “Statistically, once a cus- engineer and started cold-call-
Self-styled storage bros, who roughly 270 million square feet sold the assets in 2021 for ple get the drool cups out,” tomer stays with us for a year, ing storage owners to talk
post deal details on social me- at more than 3,500 locations. about $750 million to a group said Merrill, the Harrison they end up staying for five them into selling.
dia, record YouTube tutorials University endowments, in- led by a Singapore sovereign- Street CEO. years,” Public Storage CEO Jo- Auger said that with a few
and swap origin stories on the surers, sovereign-wealth man- wealth fund. Last year, Prime Whether the little guys can seph Russell Jr. said. clicks he can send rent-in-
more than 15 podcasts dedi- agers and pensions last year had to turn away investors still compete with Wall Street The 2008 foreclosure crisis crease notices to tenants. He
cated to storage investing, are plowed $2.5 billion into a pri- even after enlarging its third money is an open question. In proved to executives that price recently boosted monthly reve-
now facing a harder slog. vate-equity fund raised by stor- fund by $1 billion, from an the 1960s, American mom-and- didn’t matter much even in a nue at one of the four facilities
Even Wagner acknowledges age specialist Prime Group original target of $1.5 billion. pop investors invented the deep recession. A lot of people owned by his firm Redwood
there isn’t much low-hanging Holdings, the largest ever dedi- Deal makers at KKR, known business. needed a place for stuff from Storage to $35,000 from about
fruit left, like the mismanaged cated to the asset class. Prime for corporate takeovers, Ken Volk, a California prop- the house that wouldn’t fit in $32,000 with little effect on oc-
properties that he used to has already acquired nearly 100 crunched numbers when resi- erty investor, saw one outside the apartment. cupancy.
find. “I’d buy them for a couple He last acquired a storage
hundred grand and then sell property this spring. A cold
them for more than a million a caller Auger hired made 100
few years later,” he said. “That calls a day for three months be-
shouldn’t be possible.” fore finding the interested seller
The bullish case for storage near Huntsville, Ala.
is made by America’s pack-rat Almost all the 22,000-
ways. Market researchers esti- square-feet was leased but only
mate that more than one in 10 about half the tenants were
Americans lease storage space. paying. The facility’s phone
In June they paid an average of rang unanswered. There was
CINDY SCHULTZ FOR THE WALL STREET JOURNAL

about $165.55 a month, down no website. He said it took 48

1% from records in January, but hours to round up the
about 20% more than in June $760,000 cash he needed to put
2019, according to a KeyBanc toward the $1.2 million pur-
analysis of debit and credit chase price. Monthly revenue is
card data. now twice what the old owner
The storage customer is typ- was collecting and Auger esti-
ically described as irrational, mates the property is worth
because they are willing over $800,000 more than he paid.
time to pay far more than the “There’s no way I could
value of whatever they are make that kind of money work-
storing. People are often in a Mabey’s Self Storage in Clifton Park, N.Y. Market researchers estimate that more than one in 10 Americans lease storage space. ing for someone else,” he said.

© 2023 Dow Jones & Company. All Rights Reserved.
WORK
& LIFE
RACHEL
FEINTZEIG
K
eith GunderKline knew
he should get started on
that five-year capital-
improvement plan for
the Ohio housing agency
he directs. Then again,
his inbox was filling up. A staffer
needed help redesigning a form.
Oh, and the air conditioning in
one of the agency’s buildings had
conked out and needed to be fixed.
“I didn’t have to get to that to-
day,” the 69-year-old would reason
as he put off the intimidating re-
port for months, grateful to focus
on the daily diversions.
Administrative busywork, last-
minute emergencies and the per-
formative theater of another use-
less Zoom call so often clog our
calendars. We spend nearly a third
more time communicating with
others than creating things at
work, according to a recent analy-
sis of meetings, email and docu-
ment use from Microsoft.
We complain we’re so tired, or
too busy, with no time to do the
job. Yet part of us is surely re-
lieved there’s no time to tackle
that presentation that would level-
up our career, or the book we’ve
always wanted to write. Examined
up close, the goal is terrifying,
overwhelming, amorphous. Where
do you even start?
Looking important at work of-
ten comes down to moving
through the office in a frenzy, says
Juliet Funt, author of a book
about carving out space for cre-
ativity and reflection in the work-
day. Meetings are social, and our
attendance is proof that we’re
needed. Hybrid schedules mean
many of us desperately want to be
cc’ed on that email, so we’re top
of mind even when we’re out of
sight. And there’s a high that
comes with checking infinite teeny
items off our to-do lists.
“If we fail in little busy activi-
ties, we fail small,” says Funt.
We’ve lost our tolerance for diving
into the big stuff, she adds. “Open
time freaks us out.”
To get back to the important
things languishing at the bottom
of your to-do list, create your own
accountability. Funt recommends
setting a timer for five minutes to
get started on the thing you’re
dreading. Each morning, write
ILLUSTRATION BY SHIRA INBAR FOR THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
your three to five most important
tasks on a piece of paper and keep
it on your desk, returning to it
whenever you have free time.
Imaginary perfection
We often procrastinate when
we’re not confident we can de-
liver. A project that stays in our
mind can stay picture-perfect.
“It’s easier to keep it imagi-
nary,” says Fuschia Sirois, a psy-
chology professor at England’s
Durham University who studies
procrastination.
Doing Pull-Ups
Gives Women
A Fitness Lift
BY JEN MURPHY
T
he pull-up has become the ul-
timate fitness flex for women
in midlife.
This winter, London-based con-
sultant Claire Warner embarked on
a pull-up quest, hiring a trainer with
the goal of being able to do one un-
assisted pull-up by summer.
Pull-ups, says Warner, 45 years
old, are “the unicorn exercise,” add-
ing: “Everyone wants to be able to
do one.” She can now do three and
has set her sights on five.
As women embrace strength
training, executing a pull-up has be-
come a way for many to show just
how strong they are. Social-media
mentions of “female pull-ups” have
amassed millions of views; stars like
comedian Chelsea Handler share
videos of upper-body gym feats,
and executives like Meta’s head of
product, Naomi Gleit, post about
their push-up and pull-up feats.
ADRIENNE GRUNWALD FOR THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
(Her boss, Mark Zuckerberg, posts
fitness photos, too.)
This body-weight exercise, which
taps the back and shoulder muscles,
is challenging for anyone, but can
be particularly daunting for women,
who anatomically tend to have
more lower-body strength.
Kirsten Joyce gave her fitness in-
structor the stink eye when a pull-
up was thrown into her group
strength class at Life Time gym.
She hopped up to the bar, kicked
PERSONAL JOURNAL.
Tips for Tackling Those
Projects You Keep Putting Off
Create your own accountability, or reflect on how a task is meaningful to your personal growth
Make it more tangible by put-
ting up Post-it Notes or pictures in
your office that represent your
dream, she suggests. Picture your-
self at the finish line, and the
steps it would take to get there.
Then remind your-
self why the goal
matters.
In a study from Procrastination
Sirois and a col- can be a signal
league, a group of
participants re- you need to
flected on how a
task was meaningful
do something
to their personal differently.
growth or someone
they cared about.
They ended up pro-
crastinating less than people who
simply focused on a positive part
of the task.
The cost of
procrastination
After being laid off in 2020, Jeff
Krimmel landed a new job quickly.
But his big goal of expanding his
professional network stayed on
and squirmed, then
dropped down, joking
to her instructor: “If I
can just do one pull-up
in my life, then I’ve
made it.”
Joyce, 33, decided to
use the pull-up as her
benchmark for overall
fitness. She started in-
corporating exercises
that work pull-up muscles, like sin-
gle arm lat pull downs and pull-up
shrugs, into her routine.
Her motivation? Mothering three
children under age 5. “I wanted to
be able to keep up with them but
also set an example,” says the part-
time nurse in Eden Prairie, Minn.
In July, after five months of
training, she got her chin above the
pull-up bar and can now do three
with good form.
The pull-up journey
Compared with weighted exercises
like back squats or dead lifts, pull-
ups can be intimidating, says Lex
Dreiss, a trainer at Absolute Power
Fitness in Brooklyn, N.Y.
“As a girl, you’re told that you
have a weak upper body compared
with boys,” she says. “But that
doesn’t mean women can’t do pull-
ups.”
Many people assume the move is
all arm strength, but it’s actually a
back-dominant exercise, says Dreiss.
Traditional pull-ups are per-
THE WALL STREET JOURNAL.
the back burner for years.
“It was just the enormity of,
what does that even mean?” says
Krimmel, a chief strategy officer
in Houston. He pictured attending
weekly networking mixers after
work or asking
strangers to lunch—
and felt over-
whelmed, convinced
it would never work
with two young kids
and a long commute.
To motivate him-
self, he thought
about what would
happen if he never
built a network. He
remembered how
vulnerable he felt when he was
laid off. He pictured how another
career disruption would affect his
family if he didn’t have robust
connections on which to fall back.
“That cost just wasn’t bearable
any more to me,” he says.
Last summer, he committed to
posting on LinkedIn every day.
Maintaining a streak keeps guilt
from bubbling up, he says, and
 Rachel Harrison, 47, recently
achieved her first pull-up after a
bit over one year of training.
formed with an overhand grip,
shoulder-width or wider, and en-
gage the upper back muscles, in-
cluding the latissimus dorsi and
rhomboids, the deltoid muscles in
the shoulders, and the biceps. The
movement also works the core and
grip strength.
Some people try first to do a
chin-up, which is slightly easier be-
cause it uses an underhand grip
versus the pull-up’s overhand grip.
Getting to a pull-up can take
about 12 weeks for someone at a
healthy weight and baseline fitness
level, says Andrew Jagim, director of
sports-medicine research at Mayo
Clinic Health System in La Crosse,
Wis. For someone new to strength
training, 16 weeks is more typical.
Both pull-ups and chin-ups are
body-weight exercises, so someone
who is overweight might need more
time to develop strength before do-
forces him to do something, even if
it’s not perfect. Metrics, like seeing
how many people view his posts,
act as markers to his progress.
A task that
fits their mood
Nearly everything can be broken
down into smaller pieces. At work
on a book, Stephanie Kramer
wrangled all her to-do's—comb
through research papers, schedule
calls—onto various lists each Sun-
day. Then Kramer, the chief hu-
man-resources officer for L’Oréal’s
U.S. business, would tackle the
items based on her mood.
After a long day in meetings
for her day job, quietly writing
down the themes of a coming
chapter helped her reset. If she
felt sluggish, sorting and deleting
book-related emails jump-started
her.
On Friday nights, after her two
young sons were in bed, she’d
work late on deep, creative work.
“I felt very free,” she says, “like
I was in this magic zone.”
ing a pull-up, he says.
Chelsey Wilkins, a trainer at
SoHo Strength Lab in New York,
recommends clients focus on learn-
ing to lower their body weight be-
fore they try to pull it up. She pre-
scribes exercises that work grip
strength and eccentric strength—
where the lowering phase of a
movement is slowed down—like
carefully lowering your chin down
from a pull-up bar.
Dreiss has her clients practice
hollow body holds, where you lie on
the ground, then lift your arms, legs
and head up off the ground until
your body looks kind of like a ba-
nana. “If you’re doing a pull-up prop-
erly your body is vertical in this po-
sition,” she says.
With these key muscles
strengthened, trainers then focus
on technique, using assisted weight
pull-up machines or looping a resis-
tance band around the bar and be-
neath the client’s feet to lighten the
load of the pull movement.
One of Dreiss’s clients, Rachel
.
Monday, August 7, 2023 | A11
Something’s off
Sometimes, procrastination is a
signal you need to do something
differently. Ask yourself why
you’re really putting a goal off. Is
it too aggressive? Is the timeline
too fast or too slow? Do you need
help from a peer to get started?
Drew Bear, a tech worker in
San Diego, was excited to start a
podcast about the intersection of
faith and business. But the first
episode took him 30 hours to pro-
duce. He obsessively searched for
software to speed up the process.
Then he stalled completely.
After months of procrastinat-
ing, he realized the payoff didn’t
feel worth the effort. He had only
about 40 subscribers. He decided
to pivot to YouTube videos,
where he thinks he will reach
more people.
There’s some shame in the fact
that his initial plan failed, the 35-
year-old says. But he’s focused on
his new path forward.
“When you do something
you’ve never done,” he says, “it’s
always harder than you expect.”
Harrison, could effort-
lessly pump out doz-
ens of pull-ups during
her time as a young
gymnast. When her
boyfriend left her for a
personal trainer, she
set herself a goal of
doing an unassisted
pull-up before she
turns 48 this month
and 10 by October.
She’s shared her
progress on Facebook
and Instagram, with
videos showing her
performing aided pull-
ups with resistance
bands looped around
the bottom of her feet,
and doing two unas-
sisted chin ups.
The rewards
Warner, the London consultant,
says her pull-up aspirations were
sparked by a desire to gain muscle
mass and remain independent as
she aged. Muscle mass decreases
around 3% to 8% per decade after
the age of 30. The rate of decline is
even greater after the age of 60.
Harrison, who owns a luxury hos-
pitality firm in New York, has re-
ceived dozens of supportive mes-
sages since she began posting
about pull-ups in May 2022 and has
lost around 35 pounds. With stron-
ger muscles around her spine, her
back no longer goes out and she
can see the striations of muscles in
her shoulders when she wears a
backless dress.
“I’m healthier now than I was in
my 20s or 30s,” she says.
Recently, she finally nabbed her
first unassisted pull-up. “Working
out is like life,” she says. “There are
times you feel like you’ll never suc-
ceed but you need to be mentally
strong and keep trying.”

A12 | Monday, August 7, 2023
BY VERONICA DAGHER
F
or those frustrated with
the lack of existing
houses on the market,
buying from a builder
seems like a simple so-
lution—until it isn’t.
Brand-new homes have be-
come more popular in neighbor-
hoods where homeowners are re-
luctant to put their homes on the
market and forgo their low-inter-
est-rate mortgages.
New-home sales account for
around 15% to 20% of all recent
home sales and could reach 30% in
some markets, compared with a
historical average of 10%, said Law-
rence Yun, chief economist at the
National Association of Realtors.
The price gap between new
homes and old ones has been
shrinking and is the smallest in
nearly 20 years, said Sheharyar
Bokhari, Redfin senior economist.
The median sales price of new
houses sold in June was $415,400,
according to the Commerce De-
partment. That compares with
$410,200 for existing homes, ac-
cording to the NAR.
Builders, fueled by pandemic
profit, are also offering incentives
to help buyers reduce their mort-
gage rate or closing costs.
Hayley and Tyler Dupee recently
bought a brand-new four-bedroom,
two-bath home in Ladson, S.C., for
about $312,000, motivated by the
builder-included incentives such as
a smart-home security system and
window blinds.
“It became a no-brainer to us
that a new home was going to be
the best option for us within our
budget,” she said. The couple gave
up on buying an existing home af-
ter seeing bidding wars and the
pricey renovations needed.
Buyers might be able to move
into an existing home more
quickly but could face expensive
repairs and upgrades. New homes
tend to be more expensive, and
buyers usually need to be flexible
with their move-in date because
of potential completion delays. A
home from a builder usually
comes with some options for cus-
tomization. On average, it takes
more than eight months to build
a house, according to the Com-
merce Department.
With a brand-new home, buy-
ers might misunderstand their
purchase contracts, cut corners in
the wrong places and balk
at delays, financial advisers
and builders say.
Here are five things to
consider when purchasing
from a builder:
1. Which upgrades
are worth it?
Consider what upgrades
are difficult and pricey to
complete once the house is
finished, be it a gas line for
an outdoor grill or wiring
for outlets. These improve-
ments cost less when you
are building the home, said
Angie Hicks, chief cus-
tomer officer at home-ser-
vices company Angi.
A steeper roof can add to
the overall cost of a brand-
new home.
A Cultish Fashion Designer
Is Back, and Fans Are Ready
OFF BRAND
RORY
SATRAN
“IT’S LIKE THE SECOND COMING
of Christ.”
“It’s like the Beatles breaking up
and then reuniting five years later.”
“It’s like a royal wedding, but you
don’t know when it will take place
and it won’t be televised.”
Those are just a few of the play-
ful analogies used by Los Angeles
retail consultant Ramya Giangola to
describe the imminent return of
fashion designer Phoebe Philo.
Philo, a cultish figure who rede-
fined relaxed, individualistic power
dressing for women, is launching
her own eponymous brand this fall.
It’s the first work of hers we’ll see
since she left her post as creative
director of LVMH brand Celine five
years ago to focus more on her
family. One of the few female de-
signers of a major brand, she left
Celine at a creative and commercial
apex. Since then, the famously pri-
vate designer, 50, has been hun-
kered down with her husband and
three children in London.
We have the basic outline: Philo’s
direct-to-consumer brand, which
she owns along with LVMH, is set
to release in September. WWD re-
ported that it would comprise 150
styles of ready-to-wear and acces-
sories, and that Philo muse Daria
PERSONAL JOURNAL.
The Do’s and Don’ts of Buying
Your New Home From a Builder
It is also important to think
about your home’s resale value
when deciding where to spend or
skimp, she said.
Invest in systems that keep
your home running, such as
plumbing and electrical, and in
areas with a high return on in-
vestment, such as the kitchen,
she said.
A simple way to save: Choos-
ing a 36-inch upper kitchen cabi-
net instead of a 42-inch upper
one might cost a buyer about
$600 less, depending on size of
kitchen, said Donnie Evans, presi-
dent of Altura Homes, a home
builder in Dallas.
Werbowy would feature in the cam-
paign. But the new brand hasn’t
done any press or released a single
image. Will it include the big-
enough-for-a-laptop leather bags,
ultra-thick cashmere sweaters, tai-
lored coats and off-kilter jewelry for
which she became known? Maybe.
LVMH and Philo didn’t respond to
requests for comment.
While little is known about the
new brand, one thing is
certain: Philo’s fans are on
tenterhooks for what is
fashion’s most antici-
pated launch in recent
memory. Phoebe Philo’s
Instagram page, with zero
posts, already has
240,000 followers.
When the brand of-
fered an online registra-
tion in July, fashion insid-
ers and A-listers shared
screenshots of their con-
firmation pages to Insta-
gram Stories. Apparently
the first status symbol of
the New Philo Era was a
somber, black graphic
reading: “Thank you for registering.
We look forward to being in touch.”
One of the women who shared
that screenshot was Eva Chen,
Meta’s vice president of fashion. “It’s
very rare to see this level of hype”
on Instagram, she said, comparing it
to big drops in the sneaker world.
Chen predicted that the discourse
would continue once the brand
launches this fall: “I think it’s going
2. Choose which
corners to cut
There are some areas where buy-
ers can reduce costs without com-
promising quality, Evans said.
Evans has shaved about $1,500
off the price of a roughly 2,000
square-foot home he built for cus-
tomers by lowering the steepness
of the roof from 8/12 pitch to
6/12. Roof pitch expresses roof
steepness as a ratio of the verti-
cal rise to the horizontal span,
said Hicks at Angi. A roof that
rises 6 inches in the span of 12
inches would have a 6/12 pitch.
Selecting square corners for
to be one of those Willy Wonka
‘golden ticket’ situations, where ev-
eryone’s going to be seeing the
brand unfold in real time, sharing
acquisitions on [Instagram] Stories,
sharing perhaps when they’re foiled
on purchasing something.”
“I, along with everyone, am wait-
ing for financial devastation, if I can
even land anything,” said Chen.
Budgeting is a central concern
the home’s drywall instead of
rounded ones could save about
$200 in total for an average 2,000
square-foot house, Evans said.
3. Read the fine print
Home builders typically have
some ability to substitute materi-
als based on availability to meet
deadlines.
Read the developer’s contract
carefully and note what choices
can be overridden by the builder
and in what circumstances, said
Emily Irwin, senior director of ad-
vice at Wells Fargo. Irwin has cli-
ents who selected an interior
paint color only to find out that
the builder is exercising its right
to use a different one.
Top-of-the line stoves and re-
frigerators, often displayed in
model homes, aren’t necessarily
included in a standard builder
home, said Jason Katz, a financial
adviser with UBS Financial Ser-
vices in New York City. Ask your
builder what, if any, appliances
are included with your house.
4. Have extra
money ready
Builders often have the right to
increase prices based on material
costs, said Charlene Wehring, a
financial adviser in Bellville,
Texas. If costs go up and buyers
can no longer afford the home,
they will probably lose their de-
posit after backing out of the
deal, she said.
Read the contract carefully
Phoebe Philo, above in 2015,
is set to launch her own
eponymous brand this fall.
for many of those awaiting
the launch, with the dollar-
sign-with-wings emoji as-
suming a starring role in
many of the posts. Philo’s
clothes, whether during her
2001-2006 tenure at Chloé
or 2008-2018 period at Ce-
line, have never come cheap.
By the time she left, $900
was around the entry point
for shoes and simple tops,
and most pieces were well
into the four figures. I can recall the
anxiety of plopping down my Amex
to buy my first Celine piece as a ju-
nior fashion editor: a royal-blue
cashmere sweater at 70% off at
Kirna Zabête’s end-of-season sale. (I
still wear it to this day.)
Ashley Wu, a New York City
writer and longtime Philo acolyte,
said, “I’m definitely not buying any
fall clothes yet, which is unusual for
.
THE WALL STREET JOURNAL.
FROM TOP: PHOTO ILLUSTRATION BY RACHEL MENDELSON/THE WALL STREET JOURNAL, GETTY IMAGES; KELLY HOODWIN
and factor this possibility into
your budget.
Bokhari at Redfin advises set-
ting aside roughly 10% to 15% for
contingency budgeting, depending
on the home’s location, type and
size.
5. Don’t expect
perfection
Buyers sometimes think they
don’t need a home inspection be-
fore closing because their new
home usually comes with a war-
ranty, said Mark Barnes, a Realtor
in Charleston, S.C.
A warranty often covers items
such as materials, workmanship,
system and structural defects.
Barnes recommends buyers get
a pre-drywall inspection since a
home’s problems might not be
discovered until after the war-
ranty period ends.
Hicks at Angi said to get an in-
spection at three points during
the home-building process: before
the foundation is poured; before
drywall is installed, when it is
easier to fix electrical problems;
and at the end, to ensure every-
thing is built to code.
Hicks recommends paying an
independent inspector to check
out the house. Most buyers spend
between $280 and $400 for an in-
spection. It is worth it, she said.
Some of the most common is-
sues that inspectors find are hu-
midity in the home, cracks in dry-
wall or incorrectly installed
siding.
me this time of year.” She said she
was setting aside money to invest
in—she hopes—shoes, sweaters, a
handbag, a coat and “some sort of
beautiful shoe that I’ll be stomping
around in.” She said that as she ap-
proaches 40, a new effortless Philo
wardrobe is perfect timing, as she
loves fashion but doesn’t necessar-
ily want to think too much about
what she wears.
Wu and Giangola, along with
other Philo followers, have plugged
their wardrobes with pieces from
other, similarly refined brands in the
past five years. Both mentioned
Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen’s
quiet-luxe brand the Row, and Wu
likes rising star Khaite as well.
Tommy Ton, a New York photog-
rapher who has extensively chroni-
cled Philo’s fans, said Philo’s place in
fashion is unique. He said her return
is “like calling up an old friend, some-
one that brings you a lot of comfort.”
Granted, this frenzy is somewhat
limited to a privileged fashion few
who are in the know, and attuned
to subtle differences in high-end
cashmere ply. Ton said, “I think this
definitely affects a very small niche
group of women.” Then, he said,
that core group of trendsetters
would influence fast fashion: “You
will see it trickle down to the Zaras
and Sheins.”
Philo’s legacy has been kept alive
FROM TOP: GETTY IMAGES; VICTORIA WILL
through a rabid resale market of her
past pieces. On secondhand sites like
The RealReal and Vestiaire Collective,
Philo’s work for Celine and Chloé is
still a hot commodity. High-end per-
sonal shoppers such as Gab Waller
specialize in hunting down her
pieces. In 2022, French secondhand
platform Resee organized a buzzy
sale of Philo’s Celine work.
 .

THE WALL STREET JOURNAL. NY Monday, August 7, 2023 | A12A

 .

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EXHIBITION REVIEW
Icons Worth a Thousand Words
A show examines the legacy of designer Henry Dreyfuss and the symbols that connect us
BY EDWARD ROTHSTEIN
A
New York
t the very beginning of
the “Symbol Source-
book: An Authoritative
Guide to International
Graphic Symbols”
(1972), the book’s au-
thor and one of the era’s most ac-
complished industrial designers,
Henry Dreyfuss (1904-1972), pres-
ents the same word in Greek, in
Japanese, in Russian and in He-
brew. None can be read or under-
stood if you are only at home with
the Roman alphabet. Even if you
could get a translation, the words
themselves hardly seem to suggest
matters of life and death. But a sin-
COOPER HEWITT, SMITHSONIAN DESIGN MUSEUM
gle symbol instantly crosses cul-
tural and linguistic boundaries,
commanding attention: a skull and
crossbones. In a word, “poison.”
Such is the power of symbols.
And if you open the Dreyfuss book,
which is still in active use a half-
century after compilation, or if you
turn the digital pages on a touch
screen at Cooper Hewitt, Smithso-
nian Design Museum in “Give Me a
MUSIC REVIEW
Renewing
Southern
Stories
BY LARRY BLUMENFELD
I n the American South, music recov-
ers histories, especially of African-
American traditions, and sometimes
reinvents them. Two new releases
(both on Ropeadope)—“Bark Out
Thunder Roar Out Lightning,” from
Chief Adjuah (formerly Christian
Scott); and “Lowcountry,” by a col-
lective with that name—reflect this
truth with force and beauty.
Christian Scott grew up in the Up-
per Ninth Ward of New Orleans. His
grandfather, Donald Harrison Sr., was
a Big Chief of Black Indian culture, in
which ancestral history, personal in-
dependence and community cohesion
are expressed through chants and
declarations, along with hand-
drummed rhythms and elaborate
feathered-and-beaded suits. His uncle,
Donald Harrison Jr., best known as an
alto saxophonist and a standard-bearer
of modern jazz, is also a Big Chief.
Before Mr. Adjuah picked up the
trumpet with which, as Christian
Scott, he has earned widespread ac-
claim, he was immersed in this famil-
ial tradition. (He became a chief him-
self in 2017.) On his new release, as
Chief Adjuah (drawn from his full ad-
opted legal name, Xian aTunde Ad-
juah), he plays no trumpet at all. On
“Blood Calls Blood,” he opens the al-
bum strumming “Chief Adjuah’s
Bow,” a 20-string electric instrument
ROPEADOPE RECORDS (2)
that blends elements of two West
African instruments, the n’goni and
kora, with those of a European harp.
Ninety seconds in, he sings, for the
first time on record: “Listen in the
wind have you learned to hear / The
ARTS IN REVIEW
Sign: The Language of Symbols”—
an exhibition devoted to the Sour-
cebook, its creator, and its legacy—
you will see dozens of icons with
meanings as compelling as that
death’s head.
Dreyfuss’s ambition was to cre-
ate an international language of
signs that could accomplish what
artificial world languages like Espe-
ranto could not. The Table of Con-
tents appears in 18 languages. The
symbols are distilled from a data-
base of 20,000 icons. They are or-
ganized into 26 disciplines and cat-
egories. And even after a half-
century, most retain their power. I
doubt if there is much use today for
an icon associated with whirring
computer tape drives meaning
“Magnetic Tape Unit Occupied”
(looking a bit like an empty film
reel), but is there a driver who does
not understand the sign/label for
“windshield wiper” (a curved two-
dimensional arc with a tilted, off-
center line extending through it)?
To a great extent we are still living
in Dreyfuss’s world.
The exhibition, organized by
Emily M. Orr, associate curator at
voices callin’ to you from yesteryear.”
Mr. Adjuah mines a tradition built
on rhythms and vocals. Here, eight
drummers and percussionists—
whose instruments include a stan-
dard trap set, a “pan-African kit” and
more than a dozen kinds of hand
drums—represent various connected
musical cultures: Joe Dyson Jr., a
New Orleans native, is a rising jazz
star; Weedie Braimah, born in Ghana,
is a master of the West African
djembe. Mr. Adjuah sings on all but
one track.
Honoring one’s lineage is also a
central aspect of this culture. “Shallow
Water,” an anthem of Black Indian
culture, was popularized by Mr. Ad-
juah’s grandfather; his own lyrics to
“Ashé Chief Donald” celebrate his un-
cle’s achievements. His version of the
oft-recorded R&B song “Iko Iko” (here,
titled “Xodokan Iko—Hu Na Ney”)
hews close to how it is sung in street
Cooper Hewitt, draws on the Henry
Dreyfuss Archive, housed at the
museum; it is being publicly ex-
plored for the first time. We begin
by surveying Dreyfuss’s ideas about
symbols, including their ability to
be combined to create new mean-
ings, the way, say, a
red circle with a di-
agonal slash (signi-
fying prohibition) A single symbol
can be placed over a can instantly
car silhouette: auto-
mobiles forbidden! cross cultural
We also see three
icons Dreyfuss suc-
and linguistic
cessfully used on boundaries.
the outside of a
package shipped
from Moscow that
have become standard: An open
umbrella? Keep dry. A broken gob-
let? Fragile. Two up arrows? Keep
upright.
But many of these were not in-
vented by Dreyfuss. He used what
the exhibition describes as an early
form of crowdsourcing, sending out
questionnaires, internationally solic-
iting thousands of designs. Submis-
sions were modified and codified.
Chief Xian aTunde Adjuah, left; members of the Gullah-
influenced jazz ensemble Lowcountry, below
processions,
rich with over-
lapping calls-
and-responses
and organic
shifts of meter.
Mr. Adjuah’s original compositions
are hypnotic—dreamy on “End Simu-
lation,” and with an air of menace on
“Trouble That Mornin’.” The 15-min-
ute-plus title track forms the album’s
emotional core. Here, his custom-
made bow sounds as percussive as
Mr. Braimah’s drums, his singing
proud yet pained, and his lyrics
pointed: “I think you can’t outrun
those fires born of the violence.”
Black Indian tradition has had no-
table crossover moments: In the
1970s, albums by Bo Dollis’s Wild
Magnolias and the Wild Tchoupitou-
las made it visionary funk; Donald
Harrison Jr.’s 1992 release, “Indian
Blues,” distilled it into jazz. Mr. Ad-
juah broadens this reach, and makes
a mesmerizing personal statement
about entwined histories of African
empires, Native American nations,
New Orleans forebears, and his own
life and times.
Dreyfuss also created a symbol
for the entire project, which the
exhibition describes as a “human
figure framed by a triangle, circle,
and square.” It deliberately looks
like a rough sketch—a work in
progress. And unlike Leonardo da
Vinci’s idealized Vitru-
vian Man, in which the
male figure is perfectly
inscribed in a circle
and square, here the
abstract geometric
forms are freeform.
The human simply
stands in the center—
which is one of Drey-
fuss’s principles. As we
see here, when he un-
dertook a redesign of
John Deere tractors in 1969, he
paid particular attention to the hu-
man “interface” and how the ma-
chine would be used; controls were
given distinctive shapes and tex-
tures so they could be distin-
guished by touch alone.
Dreyfuss’s design career could
have played an even bigger role
here. He created products that of-
ten deserved the overused descrip-
Trumpeter Matt White, who is
chair of jazz studies at the Univer-
sity of South Carolina, knew little
about Gullah culture when, a decade
ago, he made field recordings of el-
ders on St. Helena Island. Entranced
by the traditional songs of the Gul-
lah people—descendants of enslaved
West Africans in the Lowcountry re-
gions and Sea Islands of the Deep
South. He kept returning.
Gullah songs have long influenced
American music—from George
Gershwin’s opera “Porgy and Bess”
to the Grammy-winning band Ranky
Tanky. Mr. White aims both to pre-
serve Gullah songs and to reimagine
them. The Lowcountry collective he
assembled is anchored by Quentin
Baxter, Ranky Tanky’s drummer, who
deftly blends the Gullah beats of his
upbringing in Charleston, S.C., with
modern-jazz mastery.
These tracks are set in motion by
Gracie Gadsen and Joseph and Rosa
Murray, who are husband and wife.
They are all “song leaders” in Gullah
tradition, who “line and raise” melo-
dies learned from elders, mostly at
Praise House services. Mr. White re-
.
Monday, August 7, 2023 | A13
 A poster for Henry
Dreyfuss’s ‘Symbol
Sourcebook’
tion “iconic.” He and his firm are
credited with many of the major
telephone designs offered by Bell
Telephone Laboratories, shaping
the look of the instrument for a
generation. His circular Honeywell
thermostats established a standard
that still resonates. He designed
airplane interiors, alarm clocks
and vacuum cleaners. And devised
symbols that would make their use
easier.
But as Dreyfuss knew, symbols
are not timeless representations.
The Sourcebook shows transforma-
tions in images of Olympic sports
between the London Games of 1948
and the Munich Games of 1972, in-
spiring one gallery here. In 1948,
we see, line drawings of sports
equipment took representational
pride of place—boxing gloves, a
sailboat, crossed fencing swords;
but in 1972, schematic human fig-
ures proliferated, always repre-
sented in motion, prepared to lunge
or dive or row.
Even more revealing is the ex-
hibition’s discussion of the familiar
“Accessible Icon” that evolved
from a design by a Danish student
in 1968; it shows a stick figure
erect in a static wheelchair, “as
though waiting to be pushed to a
destination.” It was adopted by at
least 25 countries by 1972 and ap-
pears in the Sourcebook. But just
over decade ago, there was a
“community-based effort” to rede-
sign it as “an empowering image”:
The figure is thickened and leans
forward as if in motion, arms
poised above the wheels.
The exhibition does not suffi-
ciently discuss the proliferation of
symbols in recent decades on com-
puter and phone screens—thus miss-
ing an opportunity to show how new
technologies might deliberately in-
voke antiquated symbols, the way
Apple’s operating systems use a me-
chanical gear for their settings app.
And the show’s extended attention
to the creation of hijab-wearing
emojis and to the activist symbol of
the raised fist are not particularly
compelling.
But in one display, the show
challenges visitors to design effec-
tive symbols from elements pro-
vided, and such challenges lead vis-
itors to explore and inquire further.
What makes for a truly awful sym-
bol, like those on our clothes’
washing labels? And why, as Drey-
fuss himself asked, are there no
satisfactory symbols for “push”
and “pull”? Symbolically speaking,
the show thus leaves us with a
healthy number of question marks,
accompanying a considerable num-
ber of exclamation points.
Give Me A Sign: The Language
of Symbols
Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design
Museum, through Sept. 2, 2024
Mr. Rothstein is the Journal’s
Critic-at-Large.
corded them narrating cul-
tural histories and singing
Gullah songs in their
homes. He then crafted ar-
rangements, for which he
gathered jazz musicians
and, on six tracks, the
Charleston Symphony
String Quartet, in a record-
ing studio. He wove these
elements together, often to
seamless effect. On four
tracks, the celebrated tenor
saxophonist Chris Potter,
who grew up in Columbia,
S.C., becomes another sort
of song leader, his improvi-
sations forming the calls for
other musicians’ responses.
On “Aye Neva,” an old
“shouting song,” Mr. Murray
sings the Gullah phrase “day
come clean” (signaling the start of the
day), repeating it like a chant. Mr. Pot-
ter turns the notes and cadence into a
melodic cell. As embellished by the
jazz ensemble and string players—13
musicians in all—the harmonies
change hues, not unlike a sunrise.
Soon, Mr. Baxter syncopates bass-
drum kicks with beats of his tambou-
rine, an instrument he first played as a
boy in church.
Before any of this music, Gullah
musician and cultural preservationist
Ron Daise recites an original poem,
“Forgotten Moments”: “A history of a
people has been hushed,” he says.
“Progress and short-sightedness are
silencing a heritage.” To end the al-
bum, “Come By Here,” the Gullah tra-
ditional best known as “Kumbaya,”
becomes a ballad, highlighted by Mr.
White’s sweet-toned fluegelhorn set
against pizzicato strings.
With reverence and unhushed
abandon, Chief Adjuah and Lowcoun-
try extend legacies that, however
threatened or overlooked, are still
very much alive.
Mr. Blumenfeld writes about jazz and
Afro-Latin music for the Journal.
 .

A14 | Monday, August 7, 2023 * * THE WALL STREET JOURNAL.

SPORTS
BY RACHEL BACHMAN

Melbourne, Australia
Before July 21, 2021, the U.S.
women’s soccer team stood on a
seemingly unbreakable foundation.
It boasted two consecutive World
Cup titles and carried a 44-game
unbeaten streak into the 2021 To-
kyo Olympics.
On that day at Tokyo Stadium,
however, the U.S. fell apart against
Sweden, 3-0, in its Olympic opener.
It seemed like a fluke at the time, a
moment to brush off. “We got our
asses kicked, didn’t we?” Megan
Rapinoe quipped.
In retrospect, it was the first
sign of a steep descent for the U.S.
It bottomed out Sunday when Swe-
den delivered the death blow, beat-
ing the Americans on penalty kicks
after playing to a scoreless draw,
ending the U.S. dynasty in the
World Cup’s Round of 16.
It was the earliest exit from a
major tournament in the U.S.
team’s 38-year history. Rather than
winning an unprecedented third
consecutive World Cup title and

QUINN ROONEY/GETTY IMAGES

fifth overall, the U.S. women’s soc-
cer team is facing a reclamation
project that could bring a new
coach, an overhauled roster and a
daunting climb back to the top.
The Americans were eliminated
in dramatic and disheartening
fashion. They played a more con- Sophia Smith, center, is consoled by Lindsey Horan, left, after the U.S. team’s penalty shootout loss to Sweden at the Women’s World Cup.
trolled match on Sunday than in

World Cup Run Ends for U.S.

their shaky group-stage games, and
yet Sweden goalkeeper Zecira Mus-
ovic shut down a hail of U.S. shots.
By the time the match went to pen-
alties, the U.S. had failed to score
over their past four hours of game
time or so—a manifestation of their
struggles to put the ball in the net.
The penalty shootout itself high-
lighted the team’s problems. After
misses by Sweden gave the Ameri-
cans a chance to pounce and claim
victory, they faltered. Rapinoe, his-
torically the team’s penalty sniper,
skied her shot over the crossbar. So-
phia Smith missed next. Then Kelley
O’Hara, who entered the game late,
specifically for the shootout, tapped
hers weakly off the right post.
That set up a final blow to the
U.S.’s hopes. The penalty kick from
Sweden’s Lina Hurtig was batted
away by U.S. goalkeeper Alyssa
Naeher. But while it appeared that
Naeher had pushed the ball out of
the goal on a second touch, a re-
view showed that the ball crossed
the line—allowing the Swedes to
prevail 5-4 in the shootout.
The Americans were eliminated after a penalty shootout loss to Sweden in the Round of 16
For 120 minutes, including extra
time, it had been the U.S.’s best
performance in this World Cup.
Players came out energized yet in
control. The U.S. completed 81% of
its passes and fired off 21 shots, 11
of them on target.
The match ended the World Cup
career of Rapinoe, who said before
the tournament that she would retire
at year’s end, and might have ended
that of Alex Morgan, who would be
38 at the next World Cup. The match
also sent its roster of younger play-
ers, like Smith and Trinity Rodman,
into the future with a rough intro-
duction to World Cup play.
The team’s collapse didn’t come
out of nowhere. Back in 2021, the
Americans went on to lose to Can-
ada in the Olympic semifinal and
settled for the bronze medal. Per-
haps more troubling, in the latter
part of 2022, they lost three
straight friendlies. The team’s
shortcomings were already squarely
in focus by the time the World Cup
arrived.
For Sunday’s match, nearly ev-
ery key player from the U.S.’s domi-
nant 2019 World Cup title run—ex-
cept Morgan, midfielder Lindsey
Horan and Naeher—was retired, in-
jured, diminished, suspended (Rose
Lavelle due to yellow cards) or re-
positioned to fill a hole.
U.S. coach Vlatko Andonovski,
hired months after that 2019 run to
steer the world’s No. 1 team, failed
to find adequate replacements, or
to prepare players tactically for a
rapidly improving women’s soccer
world, or both. After the loss to
Sweden, Andonovski deflected
questions about his future. In a
statement, U.S. Soccer said the fed-
eration would conduct a review to
identify areas of improvement and
determine next steps.
When Andonovski announced
the 23-player roster for this World
Cup, it had 14 newcomers to the
tournament, including young for-
wards who started the first two
games alongside Morgan: the 22-
year-old Smith and the 21-year-old
Rodman. Smith, another Stanford
standout, scored two goals and had
an assist in the opener against
overmatched Vietnam.
That turned out to be the en-
tirety of the front line’s contribu-
tions. In the group stage, the three
forwards often looked like talented
sprinters running in their own
lanes rather than a well-rehearsed
trio working together. Rodman
struggled in the U.S.’s 1-1 draw with
the Netherlands and despite play-
ing better against Sweden, failed to
score in the tournament.
A tense 0-0 draw with Portugal
ended with no goals and the U.S.
scraping into the knockout round in
second place in the group. If a late
shot from Portugal’s Ana Capeta
had landed a few inches to the left,
rather than hitting the post, the
U.S. would have failed to even es-
cape the group stage.

The WSJ Daily Crossword | Edited by Mike Shenk

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13
25 Archaeology
find
Biles Makes a Confident Return
14

17 18
15 16

19
26 Group of
troops,
collectively
To Gymnastics Competition
27 Weak spot for
20 21 22 23 Achilles BY LOUISE RADNOFSKY

24 25 26 27 29 Digs by the In a world in which the

shore? most dominant gymnast in
28 29 30 31 Fitting the sport’s history withdrew
32 Fed. herself from the Olympic
31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 biomedical team final after a single ter-
research org. rifying vault two years ago,
39 40 41 42 34 Cash- anything was possible when
dispensing Simone Biles made her re-
43 44 45 convenience turn to competition on Sat-
36 Site for urday.
46 47 48 49 50 Then she smiled, pumped
singles?
her first and danced after
51 52 53 54 55 56 57 37 Environment- confidently landing the most
ALEX WROBLEWSKI/EPA/SHUTTERSTOCK

friendly prefix difficult vault in women’s

58 59 60 38 Carmine or gymnastics history.
crimson “The amount of outpour-
61 62 63 64 65 40 ___suit (retro ing, love and support that I
outfit) had on Twitter, on Insta-
66 67 68 gram and in the arena was
41 Saint’s head
adornment just really shocking and sur-
69 70 71 prising to me, that they still
42 Composer
Satie have so much belief in me,
that they still love me,” Biles Simone Biles returned to competition after a two-year break.
SCRATCH THAT | By Sam Koperwas & Jeff Chen 47 Velvet-voiced said after.
singer Tormé That she was there at all favor of carefully constructed that she looked like she was
Across 31 Young 61 Food- 5 Campfire
Skywalker’s sounding leftovers 48 Tribal healer was always going to be ex- and solidly delivered rou- enjoying herself.
1 “That’s
correct” nickname “Mulan” 6 Goat’s bleat 50 Ruffian traordinary—including to tines, which easily qualified “I was very nervous, so at
33 Stone of dragon 7 Capital of 51 Hearts and her, she said. Biles had also her to compete at the U.S. least if it looked like I was
4 Type of
“La La Land” voiced by darts, for two pulled out of defending her championships at the end of having fun, that’s good. But I
radiation Belarus
Eddie Murphy 52 Shout Olympic all-around, floor this month. Her performance think after every routine it
that gave 35 Send 8 Jewelry item and vault titles in Tokyo, gave her a first-place finish got a little bit easier.”
She-Hulk her elsewhere, as 63 These might just over a “Woo-hoo!”
saying she was disoriented in a field in which none of Biles said that she still
powers to a specialist be given on foot? 53 Battery-
and unable to continue the other returning Olympic felt some trepidation when
9 Forehead 39 Popular a golf course, 9 Pork sausages powered auto safely or effectively. When competitors did all four twisting but that she had
hair cheesy after the ends 10 ___Lingus 54 Beneficial she appeared for a lone final events. started to feel better from
14 Poehler of offering at a of 17-, 25-, 39- 11 Tennis star 56 Imposing on the balance beam, and But she also picked up un- the moment she completed
“Parks and food court and 51-Across Osaka abode took a bronze medal, it finished business, performing her first twisting skill in the
Recreation” 43 2000s teen 66 Fashion 12 Musical staff 57 Some speech seemed that she might well the eye-poppingly hard official competition warm-up
15 Bolt with drama set in designer starter impediments have competed for the last Yurchenko double pike that and heard a roar of recogni-
great speed SoCal Perry 13 Bundle of 60 Awful rackets time. she had been working on tion and support from the
67 From the And it was utterly un- ahead of the Tokyo Games, spectators.
16 Arm’s length, 44 Kwik-E-___ papers 62 Box office
most clear, under bright event and hadn’t done in an arena She wasn’t the only
so to speak (store on “The 18 Letter after success
populous lights, whether she would since the official Olympic Olympic champion on a
17 Alternative Simpsons”) alpha 64 Tell tales
continent again experience the mental warm-up session. comeback mission on Satur-
to veal in 45 Fishing pole 22 Rowing tool 65 Boy condition that had rendered The vault was never day. Sunisa Lee, who won
osso buco 46 Units of 68 Soak up
her physically unable to do named after her because she the all-around crown in the
69 Put into Previous Puzzle’s Solution
19 Have ___to electrical skills she had done comfort- didn’t do it in international wake of Biles’s withdrawal,
words A N D C O F E Y S A P P
play resistance S C R A P E X E C U B E R ably for years. competition. made an emotional return to
20 Himalayan 49 Grocery 70 Requires P A I R E DW I T H E Y R E Would she look like the By the end of the night elite gymnastics after two
land shoppers’ aids 71 Busy hosp. S A P N Y E T A D D S U P gymnast who had been Saturday the gymnast who years of competing in NCAA
P I E R S T I E S cheered in Tokyo simply for had offered no promises gymnastics and a recently
21 Opening for 51 Be brusquely areas L E MA N S S T B A S I L
a coin or a dismissed Down A P I N G G Y R O S N E B
stepping back out in a leo- about her end-goals in a diagnosed kidney condition
TV show C E L T P E R O T P I MA tard in the Ariake Gymnas- comeback was talking about that disrupted her training
55 Page format 1 1945
E E L H E H I M T R A UM tics Centre at all? Or the one the world championships in even days before the event.
23 ___culpa for the conference S I N A T R A AM E N R A who had been undefeated in the fall, while stopping short Performing only on beam
24 Heaps internet site in P I D A Y C L O Y all-around competition since of making any promises for and vault, Lee also con-
58 Body spray Crimea C A E S A R G R U B A R C
25 “Do these R I D S D Y N AM I C D U O 2013, having pushed the dif- the next Olympic Games in firmed her spot for the na-
leftovers brand 2 Some of it I D E A S E A T L E A N S ficulty envelope of the sport 2024. tional championships.
smell okay to 59 “Frozen” is spam A S S N AWE E L M S T to new extremes with her “I feel a lot better now Biles and her coach Cecile
you?” snowman 3 Stand for The contest answer is COUPLES THERAPIST. ability to twist while simul- that’s out of the way,” Biles Landi both said that the
28 Work hard 60 Capital on the 4 Sudden burst Eight Across answers include a two-letter taneously turning? told reporters following the gymnast had only resumed
word or abbreviation (AND CO., ADDS UP, LE
30 “Good point!” Persian Gulf of wind MANS, ST. BASIL, HE/HIM, AMEN-RA, PI
It turned out to be both. event, saying she treated it training in full force after
DAY, ELM ST.). Those two-letter pieces, in Biles toned down some of as a “little win.” her April wedding to NFL
▶ Solve this puzzle online and discuss it at WSJ.com/Puzzles. order, spell the contest answer. her more outlandish feats in She was surprised to learn safety Jonathan Owens.

THE WALL STREET JOURNAL.
OPINION
August’s Surprises Arrived Early
It’s as if they
read my
mind. In 2021
I noted that
surprises of-
ten come dur-
ing August.
INSIDE
Two weeks
VIEW
later, Presi-
By Andy
dent Biden’s
Kessler
Afghan exit
turned into
an unexpected fiasco. I fig-
ured, hey, let’s try again. I
spent the past few weeks re-
searching for a column about
more August surprises. Imag-
ine my surprise when July—
even its last week or so—spit
out a stream of surprises, all
seemingly related. I ripped up
the August column.
Let’s start with unidenti-
fied anomalous phenomena,
the trendy new expression
for UFOs. Former U.S. intelli-
gence agent David Grusch
testified to Congress on July
26 that the U.S. has retrieved
not only UFOs but also “non-
human” biologics of sup-
posed pilots. Any pictures? If
so, wanna bet they’re blurry
and grainy?
I’m in the camp that
thinks the government rolls
out UFOs every time it needs
a distraction. In 2003 the
Central Intelligence Agency
declassified documents
showing that it had made up
stories about flying saucers
shortly after it was outed for
its role in a 1954 Guatemala
coup. Are the UFO stories
being used to distract us
from the Donald Trump in-
dictment or the Hunter Biden
tax evasion?
Maybe UFOs are real. If
so, aliens must possess some
Groundhog Day for Deadbeat Argentina
Margaret
Thatcher fa-
m o u s l y
quipped that
the trouble
with social-
AMERICAS ism is that
“you eventu-
By Mary
ally run out
Anastasia
of other peo-
O’Grady
ple’s money.”
That hasn’t
yet happened to the world’s
most notorious deadbeat.
Last week Argentina
struck a deal with Beijing to
tap nearly $3 billion in yuan
from a currency swap line
the two countries renewed in
June. The announcement, in
which China is playing the
lender of last resort for Ar-
gentina, came two days after
the International Monetary
Fund reached a preliminary
agreement with Buenos Aires
to unlock access to $7.5 bil-
lion. The IMF said the money
is “intended to support Ar-
gentina’s policy efforts and
near-term balance of pay-
ments needs, including obli-
gations to the Fund.” In other
words, the fund is giving
money to its “client” so that
the client doesn’t go into ar-
rears on its $44 billion debt
to the fund.
The arrangement needs
IMF executive board ap-
proval, which may come later
this month. Meantime, Argen-
tina has used the China
loan—and help from Qatar—
to stay current with the IMF.
(Payment in yuan was an
Obama-era enhancement.)
None of this will solve the
fiscal and monetary prob-
lems plaguing the country.
The Politics and Science of Jet Fuel
By Fred Krupp
I
f you’ve flown recently,
you might have seen a
pre-takeoff promotional
video about the airline’s com-
mitment to sustainability. One
airline has even suggested
that its planes will soon be
powered by fruit compost.
Meantime, airline lobbyists
in Washington are trying to
weaken environmental safe-
guards in ways that would in-
crease pollution and waste
taxpayer money. Not all sus-
tainable aviation fuels are
created equal. Some, such as
high-quality e-fuels and fuels
sourced from cooking oil,
could significantly reduce the
climate impact of the 25,000
daily flights across the U.S.
Others, like those based on
sugarcane, could cause defor-
estation and harm the cli-
mate. As officials decide
which fuels will qualify for
tax credits under the Inflation
really cool technology, like
superconductors enabling
quantum-drive engines. Lo
and behold, July 22 saw the
announcement out of South
Korea of LK-99, a room-tem-
perature ambient-pressure
superconductor, surprising
everyone. A video claims to
show the Meissner effect,
levitation via emitted mag-
netic waves as material be-
comes superconducting.
The creators even de-
scribe how to make the lead-
based superconductor. The
first step requires the syn-
thesis of copper phosphide
from copper powder and red
phosphorus. Oops, the Drug
Enforcement Administration
labels red phosphorus a List
I chemical used by illegal
meth labs to convert pseu-
doephedrine into metham-
phetamine. It’s also in
strike-anywhere matches. I
suspect every scientist try-
ing to replicate the room-
temperature superconductor
is now binge-watching
“Breaking Bad” for tips.
Replicating the results will
take time—a few weeks, or
forever as many skeptics
think. Still, room-tempera-
ture superconductors would
usher in an era of magnetic
levitated trains, handheld
magnetic-resonance imaging,
cheap quantum computing
and even nuclear fusion.
In some surprise room-
temperature thinking, on July
24 Elon Musk clicked “de-
lete” on 17 years of valuable
brand building by inexplica-
bly changing the name of
Twitter to X. Why? Well,
with all the UFO fever, some
ex-Twitterers—see what I did
With inflation running at an
annual rate of 115%, there’s
no appetite to hold pesos.
Net international reserves
have plummeted and are
now negative.
Argentina’s central bank is
printing more pesos than the
market wants to hold because
the government, which is
broke, needs them to pay its
bills. This isn’t new in Argen-
tina. Successive governments
have generated repeated
bouts of high inflation for de-
cades. In an August 2019
piece in Forbes, Johns Hop-
kins economist Steve Hanke
summarized the history: “To
list but a few of Argentina’s
major peso collapses: 1876,
1890, 1914, 1930, 1952, 1958,
1967, 1975, 1985, 1989, 2001,
and 2018.”
Since Argentine inflation
began to take off again in
2007 until the end of 2022,
total money supply grew on
average 30.7% a year, accord-
ing to the Ministry of the
Economy. Headline inflation
grew on average annually at
35.1% according to Nicolás
Cachanosky, director of the
Center for Free Enterprise at
the University of Texas, El
Paso.
Capital controls exacer-
bate shortages of hard cur-
rency. Dollars coming into
the country have to flow
through the central bank,
which exchanges them for
pesos. The purchase of dol-
lars for travel abroad or to
pay for imports also is done
through the central bank. It
has more than 10 official ex-
change rates, none of which
reflect the market. The rate
Reduction Act, it’s critical to
get this assessment right.
The global aviation indus-
try is one of the largest
sources of climate pollution.
If its emissions were mea-
sured alongside countries, it
would be the sixth-largest.
No, planes won’t run
on fruit compost, but
they can be made
more sustainable.
For the existing fleet, and
tens of thousands of new
planes slated to enter markets
over the next two decades, an
aviation tax credit focused on
truly sustainable fuels would
spur greener private-sector
innovation and lead to cleaner
and more efficient air travel.
But fuels that are derived
from natural resources aren’t
there?—think it’s an homage
to the TV show “The X-Files.”
Makes more sense than any-
thing else.
On the other hand, this
makes absolutely no sense:
In a world of increasingly
short attention spans, mil-
lions voluntarily filed into
dark rooms to watch back-to-
back flickering celluloids
about dolls and nuclear
physicists—the Barbenheimer
timer ran nearly five hours.
Weird. Meanwhile, the stock
UFOs, brain scans
and superconductors
made it an unusually
interesting July.
market, surprising most,
spent July heading into the
stratosphere. Or was it an
Oppenheimer-like mushroom
cloud?
Even crazier: On July 20,
Google and researchers at
Osaka University released
details of Brain2Music. As it
sounds, it reconstructs mu-
sic from brain activity—yes,
reading your mind. While a
person listens to music,
fMRI, functional magnetic-
resonance imaging, captures
brain waves. That data is
run through artificial intelli-
gence to break down the
sounds into smaller elements
of text, which are then fed
into a text-to-music trans-
former called MusicLM that
plays the reconstructed mu-
sic. Amazing.
They tested the results
with 540 music samples from
at the central bank for retail
is around 290 to the dollar
while in the black market the
rate is about 565.
Off-loading pesos to hoard
dollars is a national pastime
for Argentines, who are
among the world’s most so-
phisticated currency specula-
tors. Investors, knowing that
they can’t put capital into the
country at market rates or
get it out when they want,
tend to go elsewhere. Stag-
nating Argentine economic
growth is no mystery.
Another peso collapse
may be coming as a
presidential election
approaches.
The central bank has tried
to counter its reckless peso-
printing by selling high-
yielding term instruments to
banks. Thirty-day Leliqs, as
these vehicles are called,
now carry an effective annu-
alized rate of some 155%. The
aim is to sop up excess pesos
in circulation.
Yet even with a healthy
Leliq spread over current in-
flation, demand for the cur-
rency is falling. Perhaps it’s
because Argentines expect fu-
ture inflation to be even
higher and they understand
the risks of a further selloff
that would likely trigger a hy-
perinflationary spiral. This is
particularly true in a presi-
dential election year. An un-
expected political shock, such
as the country experienced in
always good for the climate.
Depending on their produc-
tion process and feedstocks,
those fuels can cause defores-
tation, increase pollution and
raise food prices.
Federal regulators should
preserve rigorous environ-
mental standards such as
those set by the International
Civil Aviation Organization to
determine the extent to which
different sustainable fuels re-
duce climate pollution in pro-
duction and use. We need to
make room for promising new
technologies like synthetic e-
fuels made from surplus re-
newable electricity and direct
air capture of carbon.
Washington is right to rec-
ognize that incentives for pri-
vate innovation should be the
leading path toward a cleaner,
thriving aviation industry.
Calls by some in Europe to
limit flights are impractical
here, and the U.S. airlines’
push to grant tax credits to
10 different genres, including
the 1986 Beastie Boys head-
banger “(You Gotta) Fight for
Your Right (to Party).” The
reconstructed output is a bit
grainy, but this is a first step
toward literally reading
minds. All that’s needed is
portable MRI and—wait,
room-temperature supercon-
ductors will enable that.
Coincidentally, or maybe
not, on July 20 a patent ap-
plication filed by Apple was
published for a “Biosignal
Sensing Device Using Dy-
namic Selection of Elec-
trodes.” It looks like AirPods,
except the earpiece has 40 or
50 embedded electrode sen-
sors that could be used for,
get this, “accurate measure-
ments of brain activity.”
Hmmm. Could this read our
minds when we discuss
UFOs? It wouldn’t surprise
me.
All these surprises took
place while I was reading
George Gilder’s terrific new
book, “Life After Capitalism.”
It makes a thoughtful case
for an information theory of
economics based on the no-
tion that wealth is knowl-
edge, growth is learning, in-
formation is surprise, and
money is time. All scientific
and economic surprises are
information and, Mr. Gilder
explains, happen persistently,
or else we’d be living in a
static world.
By the looks of July, we
certainly aren’t in one of
those. July was a reminder
not to be closed-minded. My
only real surprise was that
these surprises weren’t in
August.
Write to kessler@wsj.com.
August 2019, could mean that
when the central bank tries to
roll over the $30 billion in
Leliqs outstanding it won’t
find buyers. In that case a
flood of pesos would hit the
economy.
Argentine authorities are
blaming the monetary crisis
on weather, and the IMF
agrees somewhat. In its ratio-
nale for the latest agreement
to release new funds, despite
the failure of Buenos Aires to
meet “key program targets,”
the fund pointed to the ex-
tended drought affecting agri-
cultural output. Yet it quickly
added that fault also lies with
“policy slippage and delays,”
which seems to be the better
explanation for the mess.
Neighboring Brazil also has
experienced a drought. Yet
Brazilian inflation is running
at 3.19%, comparable to the
U.S. Kudos go to Brazilian
central bank president Ro-
berto Campos Neto—and his
board—who tightened credit
when government spending
threatened to undermine
price stability. The central
bank has held its overnight
lending rate at 13.75% for the
past year despite pressure
from President Luis Inácio
“Lula” da Silva to pursue an
easier policy.
On Aug. 13 Argentines vote
in primaries for presidential
candidates, and this issue is
front and center. Yet promises
of a cure are short on details,
probably because it would
mean upending the long tra-
dition of Peronist populism
that has bankrupted the
country.
Write to O’Grady@wsj.com.
lower integrity fuels would
cause environmental damage
and crowd out cleaner, innova-
tive fuels.
For an example of smart
policies, look to Washington
state, where tax incentives to
promote the alternative-fuel
industry have taken shape. In
May, a Dutch company chose
the state as the future home
for its new biogas plant,
which is set to produce 30
million gallons of sustainable
aviation fuel a year starting in
2028. Last month a U.S.
startup also broke ground on
a Washington plant to make
fuel from carbon dioxide, wa-
ter and renewable power.
The stakes are high. For
the sake of a stable climate
and efficient use of federal
money, let’s not let politics
get in the way of science.
Mr. Krupp is president of
the Environmental Defense
Fund.
.
Monday, August 7, 2023 | A15
BOOKSHELF | By Frank Gannon
Treasure Map
To Nowhere
Anansi’s Gold
By Yepoka Yeebo
(Bloomsbury, 378 pages, $29.99)
I
n the mid-1970s, a charismatic young Ghanaian
named John Blay-Miezah was out and about in London,
New York and Philadelphia. This urbane Penn grad,
now in his early 30s, had an astonishing tale to tell and
an extraordinary deal to offer.
To all who would listen he related how, in April 1972,
he had been in Bucharest at the deathbed of Ghana’s first
president, Kwame Nkrumah. In his final moments, the
exiled leader confided to his tribal brother and protégé
that the long-rumored story was true: Before being over-
thrown by a coup in 1966, he managed to spirit billions of
dollars in diamonds, cash and—most notably—30,000 gold
bars from Ghana to banks in Switzerland. The money was
earmarked for improvement projects in his beloved country
and would stay abroad until some more settled moment
when it could be safely repatriated. Only Blay-Miezah
would know the account numbers and the passwords and
procedures required to
access the treasure.
Blay-Miezah told his
listeners that he was now
ready to carry out Nkrumah’s
instructions, and he was
confident that it would take
only a matter of weeks or, at
most, months to have the
money in hand. In the mean-
time, he was looking for
people to cover his expenses.
He didn’t expect virtue to be
its own reward because, in
addition to the satisfaction of
helping a struggling African
nation, investors were guaran-
teed breathtaking returns: 10 to 1, 20 to 1, even 100 to 1
for every dollar invested. Supporters and investors weren’t
hard to find—ranging from poor widows to former U.S.
Attorney General John Mitchell (on his uppers after release
from prison in 1979). The money poured in.
But there were problems with Blay-Miezah’s story. For
starters, the closest he came to studying at Penn was
working as a busboy at Philadelphia’s Union League Club.
Instead of being at Nkrumah’s deathbed in Romania, he
was an hour outside Philly doing time for fraud at the
State Correctional Institution at Graterford.
The sprawling story of Blay-Miezah’s outsize life and
wayward career is told with mordant aplomb by first-time
British-Ghanaian author Yepoka Yeebo in “Anansi’s Gold:
The Man Who Looted the West, Outfoxed Washington, and
Swindled the World.” Ms. Yeebo identifies Blay-Miezah
with the mythical Ghanaian trickster Anansi. Like the
Monkey King in China, Anansi uses his guile to deceive
and cheat the bigger and stronger. While “Anansi’s Gold”
reflects a daunting amount of research, it reads like a
picaresque novel.
For almost two decades, as Ms. Yeebo chronicles, Blay-
Miezah strung investors along by revealing pesky new
technicalities that prevented him from accessing the money.
Pretty soon a pattern emerged. After endless delays,
investors would be summoned to Ghana (or Switzerland or
the Cayman Islands), where the long-awaited payout was
finally to take place. After a couple of days Blay-Miezah
would disappear. Eventually he would resurface elsewhere,
and the cycle would begin again.
Ms. Yeebo notes that Shirley Temple Black, the U.S.
ambassador to Ghana, saw through Blay-Miezah and tried
to warn others. In a 1975 cable to Secretary of State Henry
Kissinger, she explained the problem: “Those who believe
Blay-Miezah a fraud are worried he might just have the
money and then they would look extremely foolish.”
He knew how to find the billions of dollars that
Ghana’s leader had sent abroad, but first he
needed investors to keep him (luxuriously) afloat.
Blay-Miezah was a large man who lived large. His be-
spoke suits, bejeweled fingers, sleek limos, personal chefs
and penthouse suites added to his mystique instead of
undermining his credibility. He was faithless to his
investors (and to his wife, who was nicknamed “Columbo”
for her ingenious ways of tracking his dalliances), but he
was always faithful to his inner con man. Conveniently
timed health scares were part of his repertoire. Ms. Yeebo
describes him in a hospital with monitors beeping and
an oxygen mask covering his face: “Blay-Miezah opened
his eyes to greet his visitors. One investor proffered the
wad of cash to him. He remained stock-still, apart from
his right hand, which emerged slowly from under the
sheet, clutched the cash, and disappeared back under the
sheet again.”
In 1979 Blay-Miezah saw a way to escape prosecution
and get his hands on vast resources: He would become
Ghana’s president. Unfettered by facts and unconstrained
by reality, he ran as an anticorruption candidate. When it
looked as if he had a real shot at winning, the government
indicted him on charges of bribery, perjury and forgery.
Just to be sure, his name was removed from the ballot.
The guilty verdict and a sentence of nine years in prison
would have been the end of the road for a lesser flim-
flammer. But there were many scrapes and escapes still
ahead. In the end, it was Ed Bradley and “60 Minutes”
that brought Blay-Miezah down. The segment, broadcast
in January 1989, was titled “The Ultimate Con Man.” In
person Blay-Miezah may have been charming and con-
vincing; on the tube he came across as phony and pre-
posterous. Three years later, he suffered a heart attack
and died—or maybe not, as Ms. Yeebo avers. Either way, a
funeral was held, and someone looking very much like him
was buried in Accra in 1993.
While Ms. Yeebo’s narrative is compelling, some of her
postcolonial analysis is debatable. Ignoring the obvious
incentive of exorbitant profit, she writes that Blay-Miezah’s
black investors wanted to “repair the wounds of coloni-
alism” while his white ones saw a chance “to loot an
African country’s ancestral wealth.”
Perversely, the power of Blay-Miezah’s con and the
allure of Nkrumah’s gold live on. In 2009 an official
Ghanaian government commission found no evidence that
the gold ever existed. But avarice springs eternal, and
Ms. Yeebo notes that “right now, somewhere in the world,
someone is telling Blay-Miezah’s lie about Nkrumah’s gold,
and someone is investing in it.”
Mr. Gannon was special assistant to the president in the
Nixon White House.
 .

A16 | Monday, August 7, 2023 THE WALL STREET JOURNAL.

OPINION
REVIEW & OUTLOOK LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

Democrats vs. the Supreme Court Trump’s Conspiracy and Campaign Troubles

D
emocrats are continuing their cam- prejudging a case because there is no such case, Your editorial “Another Troubling prefer several of Mr. Trump’s GOP
paign to discredit the Supreme Court, and there may never be. Trump Indictment” (Aug. 2) says the challengers, especially those with the
election conspiracy “had no chance of bravery to call out the former presi-
and their frequent demand these days The press is portraying comments by Justice
success.” Didn’t it? What if former dent and his threat to democracy.
is “recuse!” They want conser- Elena Kagan last week as a re- Vice President Mike Pence hadn’t GEORGE HAGER
vative Justices disqualified They want to influence buttal to Justice Alito. But her been a hero? One reason a conspiracy Washington
from hearing cases that they which Justices can comments aren’t as far apart to do an unlawful act is illegal is that
fear won’t turn out the way as the spin. “Can Congress do it could succeed. Irrespective of the outcome of the
progressives want. This needs hear certain cases. anything it wants? Well, no,” Former President Donald Trump various indictments, Mr. Trump is
to be understood as an at- she said, as reported by Polit- did more than “lobby” Mr. Pence. He consumed by legal troubles of an un-
tempt to usurp the judiciary ico. “There are limits here, no repeatedly ordered Mr. Pence to vio- precedented magnitude. At the same
and control the Court. doubts.” Do Democrats also want Justice Kagan late the law to overturn an election. time, he is running for president, the
The Democrats’ latest target is Justice Sam- to recuse herself from any case involving Con- After Mr. Pence said he wouldn’t, Mr. most demanding and all-consuming
uel Alito, who had the effrontery to talk on the gressional regulation of the Court? Trump tweeted to the angry mob that job there is. Something has to give.
“Mike Pence didn’t have the courage Mr. Trump, 77, simply can’t devote
record about the Supreme Court and his juris- i i i
to do what should have been done to the care and attention that these con-
prudence in an interview with this newspaper. Which gets us back to the Democratic recusal protect our country and our Constitu- flicting and, frankly, surreal agendas
The article offered a rare insight into the think- demands, and it’s important to understand how tion.” Members of the mob shouted, require simultaneously. Both his de-
ing of one of the Court’s most influential Jus- destructive they are. The decision of which “Hang Mike Pence!” and built a gal- fense and his campaign will suffer.
tices and the third longest-serving. cases to hear, and whether to sit on those cases, lows. Might Mr. Pence have been in- The prudent and statesmanlike re-
Justice Alito also dared to defend the Court is central to the judicial role. If Senators or timidated? course for Mr. Trump would be to
from recent political attacks. This has upset the some outsiders can coerce Justices to recuse EM. PROF. CANDACE KOVACIC-FLEISCHER drop out of the race to focus exclu-
press and Senate Democrats, who are escalat- from certain cases, they are intruding on the American University College of Law sively on clearing his name. Given his
ing. Ten of the 11 Democrats on the Judiciary authority and independence of a co-equal McLean, Va. proclivity for grandiosity, however,
Committee last week sent a letter to Chief Jus- branch of government. Mr. Trump will more than likely sol-
You write that “Democrats want dier on in his quest for a second
tice John Roberts demanding that he force Jus- The canon of judicial ethics sets standards
Mr. Trump to be the Republican nom- term, particularly if he deduces that
tice Alito to disqualify himself from specific for recusal for lower-court judges, though indi- inee.” Well, not this Democrat, and this is his only realistic means of
cases based on the interview. vidual judges typically decide for themselves not most of the Democrats I’ve asked. avoiding a lengthy stint in prison.
i i i when this obliges them to withdraw from a Given the nontrivial chance that Mr. MARK GODES
They claim Justice Alito should recuse him- case. Those recusal standards are merely advi- Trump could beat President Biden, I’d Chelsea, Mass.
self from hearing Moore v. U.S., a tax case the sory for the Supreme Court, and for good rea-
Court has accepted for the coming term. They son. A lower court can easily substitute another
claim it’s a conflict of interest because one of judge in a case. The Supreme Court with only
our interviewers was David Rivkin, who is on nine Justices cannot. Blinder Defends the Supply-Shock Theory
the legal team representing the plaintiffs in the Removing a single Justice can change the
case. Mr. Rivkin is well known to our readers result of a case, or even deny the litigants a In “What We’ve Learned About In- other prices, being sticky downward,
flation” (op-ed, Aug. 2), John Co- don’t fall. That is what happened in
as a frequent contributor on the law who has clear decision if the Court deadlocks 4-4. All
chrane argues that I (“Team Transi- the 1970s, 1980s and 2020s.
also interviewed Justice Clarence Thomas and nine Justices agree on this point. In April the tory Had a Point About Inflation,” op- Second, Mr. Cochrane claims, the
Henry Kissinger for these pages. nine signed a “Statement on Ethics Principles ed, July 20) and other supporters of supply-shock theory “predicts that
The conflict charge is specious. Justice Alito and Practices” stating that “Justices have a the supply-shock explanation of the the price level, not the inflation rate,
said nothing about Moore and wasn’t asked duty to sit that precludes withdrawal from a recent rise and fall of inflation make will return to where it came from—
about it in the interview. If a personal interac- case as a matter of convenience or simply to two mistakes. I beg to differ. that any inflation should be followed
tion with an appellate lawyer is disqualifying avoid controversy.” First, Mr. Cochrane claims, the sup- by a period of deflation.” No. Not un-
for the Justice, then the Justices would have to The statement explained that individual Jus- ply-shock theory is about relative less the prices of the goods afflicted
be hermits. They interact all the time with law- tices, rather than the entire Court, decide re- prices (that’s true), and that a rise in by supply shocks return to the status
yers who argue cases before them. cusal issues. Letting the full Court or a subset some relative price (e.g., energy) quo ante and persistent inflation
The articles recounting the interview with decide on recusal “would create an undesirable “can’t make the price of everything go doesn’t creep into other prices. Nei-
up.” This is an old argument that mon- ther has happened in this episode.
Justice Alito said generous things about his ju- situation in which the Court could affect the
etarists started making a half-century PROF. ALAN BLINDER
risprudence, but that also isn’t a conflict. If it outcome of a case” by selecting which Justices ago, when the energy and food shocks Princeton University
were, Justices would have to recuse from any could participate. struck. It has been debunked early and Princeton, N.J.
case involving the actions of the President who The Senators care nothing of this. Their con- often. All that needs to happen is that Mr. Blinder served as vice chair-
appointed them because they are no doubt cern is with the judicial result. That’s why the when energy-related prices rise, many man of the Federal Reserve, 1994-96.
grateful to that President. “ethics” bill that Sens. Sheldon Whitehouse and
The Democrats also say Justice Alito should Dick Durbin have passed through the Judiciary
recuse himself from hearing any case that Committee includes a provision that would
might come forward in the future concerning make lower-court judges the arbiters of recusal
Mann Replies on Wildfires and Climate Change
Congress’s attempt to regulate the Court. Jus- decisions for the Justices. In “Climate Change Hasn’t Set the tense if we continue to heat the
World on Fire” (op-ed, Aug. 1), Bjorn planet with carbon pollution—and
tice Alito said in the interview that “no provi- This would open the door to widespread de-
Lomborg denies the effect of climate that’s true. Indeed, I emphasize the
sion in the Constitution gives them [Congress] mands for recusal. Left and right would play change on the increasingly devastat- importance of adaptation, in addition
the authority to regulate the Supreme Court— this game, and liberal as well as conservative ing wildfires that we are witnessing. to mitigation (reducing carbon emis-
period.” Justices would be the targets. This would turn In rebuttal, let me quote the Journal’s sions), in reducing our vulnerability
The Justice was stating his opinion on a gen- nearly every case the Court hears into a politi- online news article “The World Bakes to extreme weather in my forthcom-
eral constitutional principle. The question has cal football and ultimately destroy public confi- Under Extreme Heat” (World News, ing book “Our Fragile Earth.”
never been litigated as far as we know. Justice dence in the judiciary. It would be nice if law- July 19): “Punishing heat this summer But as I point out there, “We must
Alito did acknowledge in the interview that yers and judges would wake up to this threat has helped stoke wildfires in places recognize that there are thresholds
Congress can cut the Court’s budget, and it has and defend the Court so Justice Alito doesn’t like Canada, Southern California, beyond which we will simply exceed
changed the number of Justices. But he wasn’t have to do it by himself. Spain and . . . Greece.” the adaptive capacity that human civ-
Mr. Lomborg also misstates my ilization affords us.” This is the real
views, claiming that I’ve asserted cli- lesson your readers should take away
China and Russia Eye Alaska mate action is the “only way” to re-
duce vulnerability to wildfires. He
from the unprecedented summer
we’re currently experiencing.

A
uses a quotation where I was instead PROF. MICHAEL E. MANN
mericans who think the next major war shadow the foreign warships. That’s an im- pointing out that wildfires will neces- University of Pennsylvania
won’t touch American territory might provement from the September episode, when sarily become more frequent and in- Philadelphia
want to take note of the news that China a tepid U.S. response was criticized by Alaska
and Russia conducted a joint Sen. Dan Sullivan.
naval operation last week near A joint naval patrol A spokesman for U.S. We Have Enough Old Colonels Running Around
the coast of Alaska. off the Aleutians is a Northern Command said the
U.S. officials said 11 ships Sino-Russian patrol wasn’t The U.S. military’s up-or-out pro- stay on and fly my helicopter gunship
participated in the patrol near warning and a test. perceived as a threat, but one motion system, including the provi-
sion for some modest retirement-style
for a few more years. The Marine
Corps was wise to give my cockpit
the Aleutian islands. It was day soon it could be. In the
benefits as early as the 20-year point, over to a younger pilot, likely with
the largest such operation an- new era of great power com- isn’t perfect (“The Military Encourages sharper reflexes than mine. More im-
alysts can recall and follows a smaller one in petition, Russia, China and Iran are building an Its Best to Retire Too Soon,” Letters, portant, that young officer might
September 2022. The joint patrol underscores axis to challenge U.S. power. The naval patrol July 29). The basic structure, however, possess the rare talent, that I clearly
the cooperation between the two countries, is best understood as a warning that U.S. terri- has stood the test of time. Combat, lacked, for a high-level command po-
which is extending to military operations be- tory isn’t safe, as well as a test of how the U.S. and even many strenuous, noncombat sition in the future.
yond Beijing’s help for Moscow in Ukraine. (See will respond. positions, favors the young. The last MAJ. MIKE LEACH, USMC (RET.)
Seth Cropsey nearby.) The world is getting more dangerous, and a thing our military needs is a lot of old Virginia Beach, Va.
The U.S. responded with dispatch, sending complacent U.S. political class isn’t educating colonels and captains running
four destroyers and reconnaissance aircraft to the public about the growing threats. around—there are probably too many
as it is—much less a surfeit of older, I Married an Oppenheimer
midrange officers and NCOs.
Before my first date with the man
Why San Francisco Is a Homeless Mecca I would have been delighted to
who was destined to become my hus-
band, a friend whispered to me that

C
alifornia has spent more than $20 billion drugs,” Ms. Breed recently noted. he must be very rich, either in dia-
NATO Alliance Has Enough monds or funds (“The Perks and Pit-
on housing for the homeless since 2020, Since 2016 San Francisco’s homeless budget
yet public encampments continue to has ballooned to $672 million from $224 million, To Worry About in Europe falls of Being an Oppenheimer,” Re-
view, July 29). Alas, he was from
grow. As San Francisco pro- yet the number of homeless in The Ukraine war has revitalized
neither, but after 49 years of mar-
gressives are learning, govern- The city spends $646 shelters has increased by a NATO’s purpose: the defense of its
riage, I consider myself very rich for
ment can build more shelter, mere 736. That equates to member states from external attack.
but that doesn’t mean the
million on shelter, $609,000 in higher annual Before Russia’s invasion, the alliance
the beautiful family we’ve raised, even
if our children, grandchildren and I
but vagrancy grows. was dithering in out-of-area opera-
homeless will use them. spending for each additional still have to correct the pronunciation
tions, like training missions in Iraq
The city of San Francisco person in shelter. This is on top and no-fly zones in Libya, of dubious
of our family name. I hope the movie
released data last week show- of the $20 billion that Demo- will help with that.
importance to trans-Atlantic security.
ing that 55% of homeless individuals rejected crats in Sacramento have thrown at the home- DAHLIA OPPENHEIMER
NATO busying itself in Asia (“Asian
shelter when offered it. Days earlier a giant fire less problem. Boca Raton, Fla.
Allies Have a Role to Play in NATO”
destroyed a housing complex under construc- A 2018 local ballot measure championed by by John Bolton, op-ed, July 24) would
tion. The blaze is under investigation, but resi- Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff increased San Fran- be a strategic distraction.
dents in the area say they repeatedly complained cisco business taxes by some $300 million annu- Outside the U.S., France and the Pepper ...
to the city about fires igniting around homeless ally to build more homeless housing. Yet the tax U.K., NATO’s member states don’t
possess the strength in numbers, ca-
And Salt
encampments. increase has merely given businesses another in-
Mayor London Breed threw her hands up in centive, on top of rampant crime and shoplifting, pabilities or logistics to sail Asia’s THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
congested waters for anything more
response. “We can’t force people to accept or to move jobs out of the city.
than a short period. At best, deploy-
stay in shelters and we’re unable to prevent peo- San Francisco’s homeless epidemic is a result ments would be symbolic.
ple from setting up an encampment in an area in large part of the familiar problems of drug ad- Geopolitical factors should be con-
that was just cleaned. This is the situation we are diction and mental illness. But a particular prob- sidered as well. It’s hard to think of a
in,” she tweeted Wednesday. lem is the refusal to prosecute drug crimes. In more efficient way to buttress the
She’s right. San Francisco is under a federal 2014 California’s Prop. 47, which was backed by Russia-China-North Korea partner-
injunction that bars officials from enforcing laws Gov. Gavin Newsom and other progressives, ef- ship than dragging the U.S.-led mili-
against camping or sleeping in public spaces as fectively decriminalized drug use and shoplift- tary alliance into Asia.
long as its homeless population exceeds avail- ing. Localities can’t use the threat of jail to in- DANIEL R. DEPETRIS
able shelter beds. As we recently explained, the duce addicts to receive treatment. Fellow, Defense Priorities
New Rochelle, N.Y.
Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals has ruled that the Democrats in Sacramento plan to ask voters
Eighth Amendment’s ban on cruel and unusual next year for approval to borrow $15 billion
Letters intended for publication should
punishment creates a right to vagrancy. more to reduce homelessness. Only a progres- be emailed to wsj.ltrs@wsj.com. Please
Many homeless prefer to live on the streets sive could imagine that will this work any better include your city, state and telephone
where they can freely use drugs. “People are than the last tens of billions. How about instead number. All letters are subject to
coming here for so many different reasons in- repealing the misconceived law that is fueling editing, and unpublished letters cannot “My parents tried to rebrand nagging
be acknowledged.
cluding the ease of access to getting these the problem? as consistent messaging.”

THE WALL STREET JOURNAL.
Ukraine Needs American Drones
By Seth Cropsey
C
hina’s recent decision to
restrict exports of drones
will blind Ukraine’s recon-
naissance advantage in the
war with Russia and con-
stitutes an active intervention on
Moscow’s side. The U.S. and its al-
lies should respond by developing
an industrial base that makes un-
manned aerial systems. Failing to do
so would all but guarantee that Rus-
sia gains the upper hand.
The Ukraine war is the first drone
war. Unmanned aerial systems, or
UAS, are crucial to Ukraine’s strat-
egy and are at the forefront of a
transition in military technology
that closes the gap between the po-
tential and actual effect of preci-
sion-guided munitions. Modern mili-
taries have fielded extraordinarily
accurate weapons for decades. First
employed during the U.S. bombing
campaign in the 1972 Easter Offen-
sive in Vietnam, precision weapons
have become increasingly accurate
and long-range. But accuracy is use-
ful only if a target can be identified
and rapidly engaged.
China’s export controls
on the unmanned aerial
systems Kyiv uses will
benefit Russia in the war.
Unmanned aerial systems also are
fixtures of modern militaries, first
used in 1982 at large scale to opera-
tional effect in suppressing Syrian
air defenses in Lebanon. They
searched for long-range heavy guns
during the Gulf War and were used
by the U.S. and its allies as a key
strike asset against jihadists during
the global war on terrorism.
Ukraine’s military success repre-
sents an evolution beyond standard
Western—and, before the current
war, standard Russian—military
practices. Outmanned and out-
gunned, the Ukrainians face an en-
emy with far more cannons, rocket
launchers and ammunition. Their so-
lution, developed since the 2014
Donbas war began, has been to fight
smarter.
The Ukrainian UAS reconnais-
sance system integrates a handful
of weapons with tens of thousands
of small drones, including handheld
machines, larger, four-rotored
What Was Donald Trump Thinking?
Did Donald Trump
believe the 2020
election was sto-
len? Who knows?
Discerning his
thoughts would be
as challenging as
LIFE
breaking into an
SCIENCE
iPhone without the
By Allysia
passcode.
Finley
Yet Mr. Trump’s
attorney claims
the government can’t prove, at least
not beyond a reasonable doubt, that
the former president knew his elec-
tion-fraud claims were false, even if
he had been advised by the vice
president, Justice Department, di-
rector of national intelligence and
White House attorneys that they
were. There might be some truth to
that.
Merely being informed that some-
thing is false often doesn’t change
people’s convictions. A 2019 Ipsos/
Reuters poll found that 50% of
Americans who were aware of Rob-
ert Mueller’s report, which found no
evidence that Mr. Trump’s campaign
colluded with Russia in the 2016
election, still believed that it had.
After the report’s release, 84% of
Democrats still believed the collu-
sion hoax, which had been peddled
by the media and partisans like Cali-
fornia Rep. Adam Schiff. Seventy-
nine percent said they hadn’t learned
anything from the report that
changed their minds about the issue.
Two-thirds of Democrats wanted
Congress to continue investigating.
How are Mr. Trump’s convictions
about election fraud in the face of
countervailing evidence any different
from Democrats’ continued subscrip-
tion to the Russia collusion lie?
They’re not, but psychologists
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A Ukrainian soldier launches a drone.
quadcopters and a handful of fixed-
wing craft. Ukrainian UAS units
drive forward, deploying drones
within a few hundred yards of the
enemy. Starlink satellites transmit
real-time images of Russian units.
This live battlefield data, which the
Russian military struggles to dis-
rupt, is fed back to artillery units.
When a target is engaged, Ukraine’s
drone operators can fire weapons
and assess the battle damage im-
mediately. This system enables
strikes deep into the Russian forces
by deploying long-range artillery
fire to destroy air defenses, elec-
tronic systems, and other high-
value targets.
Every month, Ukraine uses about
10,000 drones of different types.
Loss rates vary. Experienced opera-
tors might take the same drone on
dozens of missions, while infantry
units in hot spots could lose drones
each day of combat. Russia has cop-
ied Ukraine’s system, using the same
equipment, but less effectively. Rus-
sian forces typically use less mobile
but more reliable wired communica-
tions platforms.
Most drones are made for civilian
use. Before the Ukraine war, no de-
fense contractor had the capacity to
supply UAS at the scale required for
combat. Chinese state-backed com-
pany DJI is the world leader, making
up about two-thirds of the global
small drone market. Ukrainian sol-
diers prefer DJI equipment to Amer-
ican and European alternatives,
which cost more and are often less
user-friendly and reliable. A short-
range DJI quadcopter sells for be-
tween $1,000 and $5,000; a medium-
range one for $5,000 to $15,000.
wouldn’t find either surprising.
A wealth of social-science re-
search finds that people are predis-
posed to accept information compat-
ible with their existing beliefs and
knowledge. They are also more likely
to believe things that others in their
orbit do. Curiously, countervailing
evidence often has the effect of en-
trenching a false belief.
“Compatibility with other knowl-
edge increases the likelihood that
misleading information will be ac-
Good luck finding out. But
psychology can help us
grasp why he, like so many
Democrats, clung to lies.
cepted, and decreases the likelihood
that it will be successfully cor-
rected,” explains a 2012 article in the
journal Psychological Science in the
Public Interest.
The idea that Democrats were try-
ing to steal the election by stuffing
ballots and employing other deceit-
ful means was consistent with Mr.
Trump’s belief that his opponents
were out to get him. Democrats had
also lied in the past. Mr. Schiff prop-
agated the Russia-collusion story de-
spite firsthand knowledge that it was
false.
Mr. Trump was also surrounded
by supporters who believed the elec-
tion was being stolen. This convic-
tion fit comfortably with how Demo-
crats had gone to court in the weeks
before the election to change mail-in
ballot rules to their hoped benefit.
These various strands formed a psy-
chologically coherent and compelling
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Chief Executive Officer, News Corp
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OPINION
LIBKOS/ASSOCIATED PRESS
Because DJI is a state-funded entity,
the Chinese Communist Party and
Ministry of State Security have ex-
tensive insight into its exports.
China has disrupted Ukrainian
drone deployment before. Through-
out 2022, it delayed quadcopter ex-
ports to the European Union while
still complying with EU market reg-
ulations and limiting the capabili-
ties of its Aeroscope UAS detection
systems. But with the export con-
trols announced last week, China in-
stituted a review process for any
drone sales that pass a certain
threshold, essentially regulating
ones with military use. The key part
is a ban on military end-use.
Ukraine gets most of its drones
through individual buyers and char-
ities that operate in Europe, mean-
ing after Sept. 1, when China’s ex-
port controls go into effect, it will
be hard for Ukrainian units to get
Chinese-made drones.
This is intervention on Russia’s
behalf. China is unlikely to restrict
drone-technology transfers to Rus-
sia. Even if it does so nominally, it
has almost certainly helped Russia
build a small but useful domestic
drone industry by exporting con-
sumer electronics that Russia can
repurpose into low-tech UAS.
A wholesale ban would over-
whelmingly benefit Russia. Despite
severe attrition, Russia has quantita-
tive artillery superiority over
Ukraine, while Ukraine’s entire ap-
proach rests on integrating drones
with artillery fire and infantry move-
ment. If the conflict reverted to a
20th-century contest between
massed artillery, Russia would have
an overwhelming advantage. Without
story—even if all of the pieces
weren’t true.
“Coherent stories are easier to
process than incoherent stories,” the
journal article explains. “An engag-
ing story from an untrustworthy
source may be remembered and ac-
cepted long after the source has
been forgotten.” While Mr. Trump’s
advisers who claimed that the elec-
tion was being stolen weren’t credi-
ble, their stories were engaging.
Many in Mr. Trump’s inner circle
rejected false stolen-election theo-
ries, so why didn’t he pull himself
back from the brink? “Retractions
rarely, if ever, have the intended ef-
fect of eliminating reliance on misin-
formation, even when people be-
lieve, understand, and later
remember the retraction,” the jour-
nal review explains. One reason is
people “generally do not like to be
told what to think and how to act, so
they may reject particularly authori-
tative retractions.”
The instinct for self-preservation
may also override all facts. Mr.
Trump couldn’t acknowledge he had
lost the election because doing so
would threaten the perception he
had built of himself as a winner. His
ego wouldn’t let him concede defeat.
This need for self-preservation
Notable & Quotable: Donors
From “Conservative Donors: Wake
Up!” by Heather Mac Donald in the
Summer issue of City Journal:
To understand just how confident
Harvard can be in its irresistible ap-
peal to donors, consider one of its
recent windfalls. In April 2023,
hedge-fund manager Kenneth Griffin
bestowed $300 million on the uni-
versity, close to the largest single
donation in the institution’s history.
. . . Griffin is not your usual high-
value donor—not a George Soros,
Bill Gates, or David Geffen, say. He is
a conservative.
(Of course, there is no escape
from Harvard’s diversity obsessions.
Griffin’s gift will itself be managed
according to diversity principles.
Harvard’s financial overseers brag
about having increased the diversity
of their staff and of the external fi-
nancial companies they employ. Pre-
sumably, Griffin selects his own
money managers based on merit, not
on race and sex.)
Griffin could have worked with
the administration to create courses
the reconnaissance edge, Ukrainian
offensives would be impossible. As
Ukrainian counterbattery fire deteri-
orates, Russian forces can simply
grind Ukraine down.
The West can’t sustain Ukraine in
a traditional fight. While Western ar-
tillery capacity is expanding and can
meet Ukraine’s needs without dipping
into stockpiles over the next 15
months, Ukrainian ammunition ex-
penditure is premised on its UAS-re-
connaissance system. The West would
need to supply Ukraine with not
120,000 to 150,000 shells a month,
but closer to half a million, and with
1,000 or more additional guns.
China’s actions demand a recog-
nition from the U.S., its allies and
Ukraine that Beijing is a full, if
stealthy, supporter of Russia’s war.
China has no desire to play honest
broker, nor any interest in seeing a
settlement that respects American,
European or Ukrainian security
concerns.
The U.S. and its allies must act
immediately. Drone makers in the
West are eager to compete with DJI
and other Chinese companies. The
U.S. should repurpose some of its
aid to Ukraine to include quadcop-
ters made by U.S. companies.
The defense secretary can initiate
an emergency program under the
Defense Department’s Rapid Acquisi-
tion Authority. This authority, which
lets the secretary appropriate funds
from almost any source in the Pen-
tagon budget, applies when a “com-
pelling national security need” de-
mands “the immediate initiation of
a project” and “rapid fielding.” The
need is obvious: American support
to Ukraine will fail if the UAS-recon-
naissance system collapses.
The Biden administration has
supported Ukraine thus far by deliv-
ering piecemeal capabilities weeks
to months after its need became ap-
parent. Ukraine has survived thanks
to ingenuity and technological adap-
tation, particularly by using UAS to
improve its artillery. If Ukraine
doesn’t get the UAS support it
needs, Russia will gain the upper
hand, likely by year end. If the U.S.
doesn’t act, it risks handing a deci-
sive victory to Russia—and a geopo-
litical gain to China.
Mr. Cropsey is founder and pres-
ident of the Yorktown Institute. He
served as a naval officer and as
deputy undersecretary of the Navy
and is author of “Mayday” and
“Seablindness.”
may also explain why President Bi-
den continues to deny that his son
Hunter did anything wrong despite
evidence of his misadventures, in-
cluding foreign influence-peddling.
Acknowledging that Hunter is a
scoundrel might also require Mr. Bi-
den to accept—at least to himself—
falling short as a father.
It’s also true that people resist
being told that their actions and be-
liefs are wrong. Messrs. Trump and
Biden are no exceptions. This resis-
tance is especially common among
addicts. In these pages last summer,
I recited the abundant research tying
marijuana use to mental illness. The
piece predictably sent pot-heads into
high dudgeon.
Such resistance occurs whenever
deeply held beliefs are challenged.
Try explaining to progressives that
climate change isn’t going to light
the world on fire and that their poli-
cies will do more harm than good.
All the evidence in the world won’t
convince them they’re wrong.
Human psychology doesn’t excuse
Mr. Trump’s actions and probably
won’t exculpate him in court. But it
does provide an alternative explana-
tion to special counsel Jack Smith’s
allegation that he was trying to steal
the election.
in Western civilization, given his re-
gard for the Constitution. If the fac-
ulty threw a tantrum, as the Yale
faculty did in 1995 at the prospect of
a $20 million gift to strengthen the
humanities curriculum, that eruption
would itself have been clarifying.
Griffin is accustomed to deal-
making. He warned Chicago for
years that he was prepared to de-
camp if it did not control crime.
When it came to Harvard, he seems
to have set aside his business sense
and his beliefs. . . .
Griffin’s gift signals to his fellow
businessmen, including to other con-
servatives, that the path to prestige
still leads through the Ivy League.
And it signals to universities that
they will continue to pay no price
for a political agenda antithetical to
mainstream American values, one
that proclaims racism as the funda-
mental American trait. As long as
this reflexive giving remains the
norm, the project of reforming uni-
versities from the inside out is
doomed to fail. It is time to start
building elsewhere.
.
Monday, August 7, 2023 | A17
Washington
Has Energy
Production
All Wrong
By Harold Hamm
G
asoline prices had their big-
gest one-day increase in a
year on July 25, rising to an
eight-month high, while oil passed
$80 a barrel. More than half a cen-
tury of experience working in the
oil industry tells me that with the
Organization of the Petroleum Ex-
porting Countries doing all it can to
keep prices high, the only way to
prevent them from rising higher is
to produce more oil and gas here at
home.
President Biden has pursued the
opposite strategy. Instead of in-
creasing production, he wants to
mandate that Americans use less—
by banning or restricting the use of
gas stoves, gas heat, air condition-
ing and even cars with combustible
engines. That is a recipe for lower
living standards, higher prices and
a waning of America’s geopolitical
leadership.
Every time government inter-
venes in unpredictable energy mar-
kets, politicians get it wrong. Take
the Fuel Use Act of 1978. The young
Sen. Joe Biden and Rep. Al Gore
were among those who championed
the act, which mandated the use of
coal to generate electricity because
so-called experts were sure the U.S.
was running out of oil and natural
gas.
Biden was wrong to back a
1978 law mandating the use
of coal, and he’s wrong to
push solar and wind now.
Then in 1980 the Carter adminis-
tration spent billions of dollars on
renewable-energy subsidies and
even a business called Synthetic Fu-
els Corp. that went bankrupt six
years later. When Ronald Reagan let
the market work by deregulating
energy, oil production soared and
prices tumbled. No one worried
about running out of oil anymore.
That is, until Barack Obama came
into office. In 2011, when gasoline
prices rose, Mr. Obama said that
“we can’t just drill our way out of
the problem.” He worried that
America was going to run out of
places to drill and that energy com-
panies would want to drill on the
Washington Mall. So instead Mr.
Obama spent millions on now bank-
rupt propositions such as the solar-
energy company Solyndra.
The politicians weren’t paying at-
tention to the amazing shale revolu-
tion driven by such oil and natural
gas companies as Continental Re-
sources. Horizontal drilling ex-
ploded in the late 2000s in the Bak-
ken Shale in North Dakota, the
Marcellus Shale in Pennsylvania,
and later in the Permian Basin in
Texas. America has doubled its oil
and gas output in less than 15 years.
Yet Mr. Biden still says wind and
solar are the future. Let’s be hon-
est. We’ve spent trillions of dollars
on wind and solar, and the technol-
ogy is maxed out. The blades are
about as big as they can get, and
the panels are going to become es-
sentially worthless in years to come
because of new technologies. We
can go on shaping policy over pipe
dreams and flawed math, or we can
choose to put America on a path to-
ward energy independence and
dominance.
We can safely harvest American
energy while protecting our envi-
ronment too. In the past 20 years,
despite large increases in oil and
gas production, annual U.S. carbon-
dioxide emissions from such
sources have decreased, according
to the Energy Information Admin-
istration. Such technologies as hor-
izontal drilling have also allowed a
single well on less than an acre to
reach oil fields miles away in all
directions.
I like to call the shale revolution
the “trillion-dollar swing.” It’s
money that stayed in the U.S., was
invested here, and produced a
bounty of clean, affordable Ameri-
can energy. We’re not going to run
out, not for 100 years or more.
Politicians over the past 50 years
have had a rotten record of predict-
ing the next big thing in energy.
They say the technology for battery
storage and solar panels is improv-
ing, but the same can be said for
fossil-fuel production.
We can all agree that when it
comes to the most valuable natural
resource—energy—it’s far smarter
to trust markets than politicians to
ensure a bountiful future.
Mr. Hamm is founder and chair-
man of Continental Resources and
author of “Game Changer: Our Fifty-
Year Mission to Secure America’s
Energy Independence.”

A18 | Monday, August 7, 2023
Turks Leery of Lira Flock to Istanbul Bazaar
Patrons pour money
into foreign cash,
gold, other assets as
currency weakens
BY JARED MALSIN
AND ELVAN KIVILCIM
ISTANBUL—Deep in the
stone warren of Istanbul’s 560-
year-old Grand Bazaar, a cluster
of traders selling gold and dol-
lars pace the alleyway, murmur-
ing into phones and smoking.
The tension rises as demand
grows. A shout comes from the
crowd: “I’ve got it ready!”
Turks are pouring money
into foreign currency, gold,
cryptocurrency, jewelry and
other assets they see as a safer
bet than the Turkish lira, which
has lost more than 80% of its
value in the past five years.
“There’s an atmosphere of
panic,” said Mustafa Demiray,
39, a currency trader standing
on the edge of the crowd and
clutching two phones. “People
think the price [for dollars]
will go up, so there’s a higher
demand right now.”
The collapse of the lira is
the result of an era of eco-
nomic mismanagement by
Turkish President Recep
Tayyip Erdogan, economists
say. The Turkish leader in re-
Khan Sentenced as Pakistan Vote Delay Looms Activist’s
BY SAEED SHAH
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan—
Pakistan’s halting democratic
journey suffered a setback af-
ter a court sentenced former
Prime Minister Imran Khan to
prison, and the government
indicated that elections due
this year would be postponed.
Khan, the leader of the
country’s biggest opposition
party, was convicted of cor-
Derailment of Train en Route From Karachi Kills at Least 30
PERVEZ MASIH/ASSOCIATED PRESS
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan—At
least 30 people were killed on
Sunday when a train ca-
reened off its tracks in south-
ern Pakistan, officials said.
There were around 1,000
passengers on the train,
which was traveling to north-
ern Pakistan from the
NIGER
Deadline Passes
For End to Coup
A deadline set by other
West African countries for
leaders of the July 26 coup in
Niger to back down and liber-
ate the nation’s elected presi-
dent passed on Sunday with-
out regional militaries
launching the armed inter-
vention they had threatened.
Eleven leaders from the
Economic Community of West
African States at an emer-
gency summit last weekend
said they would consider us-
ing force to return President
Mohamed Bazoum to power.
—Gabriele Steinhauser
A shop inside the Grand Bazaar in Istanbul sells gold jewelry and other precious metals.
cent years has pressured the
central bank into cutting in-
terest rates despite the coun-
try’s high rate of inflation—
the opposite of what central
banks would usually do.
Erdogan has attempted to
adjust course since winning a
close election in May in which
his opponents attacked him
over Turks’ purchasing power.
The country’s newly ap-
ruption and sentenced to
three years in jail on Saturday
by a court in Islamabad, the
government and his lawyers
said. Khan maintains his inno-
cence in this case, as well as
in dozens of other legal cases
brought against him by the
government since he was
ousted from power in April
2022. His party says he faces a
campaign to remove him from
politics. A conviction, if up-
southern port city of Karachi,
along the main track that
runs up the middle of the
country. More than 100 were
injured, officials said.
Rescuers pulled people out
of overturned and mangled
carriages, which had derailed
near the town of Nawabshah,
MOROCCO
At Least 24 People Governing Body
Die in Bus Crash Elects New Leader
At least 24 people died in
a bus crash on Sunday in the
province of Azilal in central
Morocco, marking one of the
deadliest such accidents in
recent years in the country.
Local authorities, cited by
Morocco’s official news
agency MAP, said the acci-
dent happened when a mini-
bus overturned at a curve
while en route to the weekly
market in the small town of
Demnate, in central Morocco.
Authorities are investigat-
ing the cause of the accident.
—Associated Press
WORLD NEWS
pointed central-bank governor,
Hafize Gaye Erkan, and Finance
Minister Mehmet Simsek have
raised interest rates, but too
slowly to get inflation under
control, some analysts say.
The lira continued to slide
after the central bank’s July
meeting, in which officials de-
cided to raise interest rates by
a mere 2.5 percentage points,
a move that slowed the pace of
held, would bar Khan from
taking part in elections.
Khan plans to appeal the
conviction, one of his lawyers
said. Police arrested the politi-
cian at his home shortly after
Saturday’s verdict.
Separately, the government
of Prime Minister Shehbaz
Sharif said on Saturday that
elections, due by early Novem-
ber under the constitution,
would be postponed. Law Min-
in the country’s Sindh prov-
ince, in the afternoon. Cranes
were brought to the site to
lift the carriages, and the
army was called in to help.
Survivors climbed out of
the windows of carriages,
with some searching desper-
ately for their children, local
WORLDWATCH
LIBYA
One of Libya’s top govern-
ing bodies elected a new
head on Sunday, a develop-
ment that could further frac-
ture the country, which is
split between two rival ad-
ministrations.
Members of the Supreme
Council of State, which is
separate from both govern-
ments, voted for Mohamed
Takala to be the new leader.
He would take over from
Khaled el-Meshri, a powerful
figure who had been key in ne-
gotiations over election laws.
—Associated Press
* *** THE WALL STREET JOURNAL.
lysts said the upward revision
was an acknowledgment that
the bank’s current stance was
unlikely to tame inflation,
which is running at 38%.
Erkan said the bank would
lift rates further, and would
adopt a holistic approach to
tackling inflation, including us-
ing other policy instruments
such as quantitative tightening.
Investors and analysts are
concerned that Erkan and
Simsek don’t have a genuine
EMANUELE SATOLLI FOR THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
mandate from Erdogan to do
what is needed to stabilize the
Turkish economy. Erkan
pushed back on those ques-
tions on July 27.
“The central bank of the Re-
public of Turkey is an indepen-
dent institution,” she said. “We
will continue the increases in
interest rates alongside the
quantitative tightening along-
side the selective credit tight-
ening because that’s what the
current situation demands.”
the rate increases and put the Turkey’s economic turmoil
lira under further pressure. has put pressure on the trad-
The decision disappointed ers at the Bazaar, who have
some economists and inves- played a central role in the
tors who hoped Simsek and economy since the vast cov-
Erkan would be more aggres- ered marketplace was built
sive about tackling inflation. during the days of the Otto-
Erkan on July 27 raised the man Empire, more than five
bank’s year-end inflation fore- centuries ago. The shops in
cast to 58% from 22.3%, while the Bazaar are part of a
predicting price increases sprawling global network of
would slow next year. Ana- businesses and banks dealing
ister Azam Nazeem Tarar said Many in Pakistan fear that
the constitution also requires
elections to be held on the ba-
sis of the most recent census,
if the election doesn’t happen
as scheduled by the constitu-
tion, the delay could be far
which means more time will
be needed to prepare, taking
the polls to around February.
longer.
“The future of democracy is
bleak,” said Abid Saqi, a law-
Pakistan conducted a census yer who was formerly vice
this year. The Election Com- chairman of the Pakistan Bar
mission of Pakistan, an inde- Council. “When the entire
pendent federal body, will an- constitution has been put into
nounce a new date for the slumber, I don’t see elections
vote, he said. in the near future.”
television pictures showed. The driver said he wasn’t
“We have made great ef- speeding, the minister said.
forts to make rail travel safe,” Maj. Gen. Muhammad Hus-
said Khawaja Saad Rafique, sain, visiting the site of the
the railways minister, noting derailment, said a preliminary
that the track was in good investigation didn’t find evi-
condition. “We will have to dence of terrorism. Authorities
investigate to get to the root were trying to identify the
cause of this incident.” dead, he added. —Saeed Shah
ITALY IRAQ
Dozens of Migrants Bear Facts Sought
Recovered in Sea In Airline Mishap
Italy rescued dozens of mi- Iraqi Prime Minister Mo-
grants as they foundered in hammed al-Sudani ordered an
the sea or clung to a rocky reef investigation into how a bear
on Sunday after three boats escaped from its crate aboard
launched by smugglers from an Iraqi aircraft as it was set
northern Africa shipwrecked in to depart from Dubai’s airport,
rough waters in separate inci- leaving passengers disgruntled
dents over the weekend. Survi- over the delay.
vors said some 30 fellow mi- Iraqi Airways on Saturday
grants were missing. said it wasn’t to blame for
For years, migrants have the bear’s escape and that
taken to smugglers’ unsea- the aircraft’s crew worked
worthy vessels to make the with authorities in the United
risky crossing of the Mediter- Arab Emirates, which dis-
ranean to try to reach south- patched specialists to sedate
ern European shores. and remove the animal.
—Associated Press —Associated Press
.
in gold and currency.
Mehmet Akif Turker, a 44-
year-old gold trader, sat in his
office at the Bazaar on a recent
morning, his phone and two
slabs of gold on the desk in
front of him. The high demand
for gold should be good for his
business, he explained, but the
turmoil in the economy isn’t.
Turks and other traders
must contend with a complex
web of rules imposed by the
government in recent years to
scare up foreign currency and
keep the country from tipping
into insolvency. Those include
a rule that forces businesses
like Turker’s to convert 40% of
their foreign-currency earn-
ings into lira, traders say.
“In general, in our line of
work, crisis makes money,”
Turker said. “But when the dol-
lar fluctuates so much and the
market is so unstable, it can
bring us profit or it can bring
us losses. We are exhausted.”
Volatility in the economy
isn’t the only driver of gold
sales, vendors say. The pan-
demic also increased business,
said Metin Kocatepe, 54, a
salesman from another jew-
elry shop. “After corona, peo-
ple’s mentality changed.
They’re more relaxed in their
shopping. They say ‘maybe to-
morrow I’m gonna die, I’ll buy
something nice.’ ”
Family Is
Targeted in
Hong Kong
BY ELAINE YU
HONG KONG—Last Monday
at dawn, officers from Hong
Kong’s national-security police
burst into the apartment of
Derek Yuen and Eunice Yung,
the son and daughter-in-law
of a high-profile pro-democ-
racy campaigner who criti-
cizes China’s Communist Party
from perches abroad.
The police seized a laptop
and mobile phone in the raid
and took Yuen and Yung, who
is a pro-Beijing politician in
the city’s legislature, to a po-
lice station for hours of ques-
tioning about the activities of
their dissident relative before
releasing them without
charges, Yung said.
Elmer Yuen, a 74-year-old
U.S.-based activist, is one of
eight overseas critics of China
who are facing arrest war-
rants in Hong Kong after be-
ing accused of national-secu-
rity crimes. He appeared at a
news briefing in Washington
in July and another in London
last Tuesday, discussing his
plans to form an unofficial
government in exile.
Elmer Yuen, who shares his
political commentary in videos
posted online, said the authori-
ties’ actions against his family
members were intended to
pressure him to speak out less
and to halt his political efforts.
“Of course I worry about
my safety and that of my fam-
ily, but our work has a goal,
and a price must be paid,” he
told The Wall Street Journal.
He said he wouldn’t be de-
terred “even if they arrest my
entire family.”
The family and the widely
diverging politics of its mem-
bers have been the subject of
public discussion in Hong
Kong in recent years. They ap-
peared in a 2020 documentary
aired by the city’s public
broadcaster RTHK, and their
story has resonated with
many Hong Kongers in politi-
cally divided homes.
Yung is the vice chair of a
major pro-Beijing political
party. Her husband once joked
that their daughters’ crayons
at home were missing a yellow
one—the color of the city’s
pro-democracy movement—be-
cause his wife had removed it.
After Yung was questioned,
she said she was cooperating
fully with investigators and
hoped her father-in-law and
the other dissidents would be
arrested soon. Yung and her
husband didn’t respond to re-
quests for comment.
Hong Kong’s chief executive,
John Lee, has urged friends
and relatives of the wanted dis-
sidents to share tips and said
they were eligible, along with
other members of the public,
for a $128,000 reward for cap-
ture of each activist.
 BUSINESS & FINANCE
.

© 2023 Dow Jones & Company. All Rights Reserved. * * * * * * THE WALL STREET JOURNAL. Monday, August 7, 2023 | B1
Last Week: S&P 4478.03 g 2.27% S&P FIN g 0.83% S&P IT g 4.14% DJ TRANS g 2.25% WSJ $ IDX À 0.56% 2–YR. TREAS. yield 4.791% NIKKEI 32192.75 g 1.73% See more at WSJ.com/Markets

Truckers, Pilots Turn Up the Heat Troubled

Yellow
Transportation
industry faces
lower-paid weekend driver role
and agreed to ensure that de-
livery vehicles have adequate
Files for
heightened activism
from labor unions
cooling equipment for drivers.
Railroads are promising more Bankruptcy
STU BOYD II/THE COMMERCIAL APPEAL/USA TODAY NETWORK/REUTERS

predictable work schedules so

workers can plan and attend
BY ESTHER FUNG family activities on their days BY PAUL PAGE AND SOMA BISWAS
off.
Surging demands on trans- Recent labor standoffs have Yellow, the 99-year-old
portation workers are fueling irked businesses and, in some trucking company, filed for
labor standoffs at companies cases, resulted in snafus in the bankruptcy and is closing the
critical to U.S. supply chains. movement of goods around the business, falling victim to
The Teamsters, which repre- country. Souring relations be- mounting debt including a
sents drivers at trucking com- tween the Teamsters and Yel- government loan and a stand-
pany Yellow, threatened a low prompted several compa- off with the Teamsters union.
strike shortly before the com- nies to pull their business. The bankruptcy follows
pany shut down July 30. FedEx The slowdown of work at years of struggles for the
pilots recently rejected a new West Coast ports caused some Nashville, Tenn., trucker as it
labor contract promising a ships to take a longer route to tried to address the debt it ac-
roughly 30% raise. Port work- dock at ports along the East cumulated through a series of
ers in Canada staged walkouts Coast instead. To prevent haz- mergers and a $700 million
earlier this year, and dock- FedEx pilots recently rejected a new labor contract promising a roughly 30% raise. ardous and other sensitive ma- federal Covid-19 relief loan
workers at West Coast ports terial from being left unat- during the pandemic. On July
slowed work at container ter- Transportation workers said “We know what we’ve sacri- vice was reached and amid the tended in the event of a labor 30, the company shut down its
minals. they are entitled to a larger ficed to make certain that Yellow threats. “Now is our stoppage, railroad operators operations and laid off a large
The renewed activism fol- share of the corporate profit goods and services are pro- time to be rewarded.” imposed restrictions on han- number of workers.
lows the Covid-19 pandemic, generated during the pandemic vided,” Teamsters General Employers say they are of- dling some commodities days “It is with profound disap-
when demands on train opera- and better pay and recognition President Sean O’Brien said at fering outsize wage increases before a strike deadline. Indus- pointment that Yellow an-
tors, package carriers, and for showing up through the a rally in Atlanta on July 22, and changing their operations try groups have warned about nounces that it is closing after
truckers surged to handle a health crisis when other staff days before a tentative agree- to improve conditions for the damage that potential work nearly 100 years in business,”
deluge of business. was able to work remotely. ment with United Parcel Ser- workers. UPS got rid of a Please turn to page B2 Chief Executive Darren Haw-
kins said in announcing the
filing for chapter 11 bank-

Quarterly Earnings Expected to Be Worst in Years

ruptcy protection late Sunday
in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in
Delaware.
Please turn to page B2

BY PETER SANTILLI S&P 500 quarterly earnings, S&P 500 second-quarter earnings, change from
AND GEORGE STAHL

Earnings for the nation’s

change from a year earlier*
On pace for third straight decline
a year earlier, by sector†
Consumer discretionary 52.1%
Engine
Recall
biggest companies are poised Communications 18.7
to fall for the third straight 75%
quarter, hurt in part by the Industrials 12.2

Reduces
decline in energy prices. Real estate 10.4
The members of the S&P 50
Financials 5.8
500 are on pace to collectively
report a 5.2% decline in earn-

Flights
Consumer staples 5.8
ings, their worst performance 25 Utilities 4.6
since 2020.
Revenue is on track to rise Technology 1.1
0.6% from a year ago, accord- 0 –5.2 S&P 500 BY DOUG CAMERON
ing to FactSet.
Energy companies are pull- –27.7 Healthcare Airlines in the U.S., Europe
ing down the index as their –25 –28.7 Materials and Asia are temporarily re-
results have fallen from the ducing some flights and
2015 ’16 ’17 ’18 ’19 ’20 ’21 ’22 ’23 –51.4 Energy
record-breaking levels re- routes to inspect aircraft af-
ported a year ago. However, fected by the recall of hun-
they remain strong by histori- Quarterly revenue of a selection of S&P 500 companies by sector, change from a year ago‡ dreds of Pratt & Whitney jet
cal standards. engines, leaving the unit of
“Obviously, gas prices were Revenue $10B $100B Evolution of revenue Falling revenue the aerospace and defense
down, but I think refining company RTX facing a poten-
margins are down a bit but COMMUNICATION SERVICES tial multibillion-dollar bill.
ENERGY TECHNOLOGY HEALTHCARE
still in very healthy territory,” Exxon Mobil and Chevron Apple sales fell for the third UnitedHealth Group’s quarterly Google parent Alphabet and Some 137 engines used on
Exxon Mobil Chief Executive each had 28% declines in consecutive quarter amid revenue rose by 15.6%, the Facebook owner Meta Platforms Airbus single-aisle jets will
Darren Woods said on the revenue with energy prices softening demand for company’s largest year-over-year benefited from increases in need to be inspected over the
company’s earnings call last lower than a year ago. consumer devices. percentage increase in seven years. advertising sales. next several weeks, RTX said.
month. –80% 0% 80% That is fewer than the 200
Exxon’s earnings fell by originally expected but still a
56% from a year ago on a 28% Meta problem for carriers that were
drop in revenue. Apple already dealing with staffing
CVS Alphabet
Through Friday, 84% of the shortages and air-traffic con-
S&P 500 companies have re- trol congestion.
ported results for the second UnitedHealth The ability of RTX to con-
Exxon Mobil Microsoft
quarter of 2023, and some big Chevron Group tain and fix the problems has
names remain, including Walt major ramifications for one of
Disney on Wednesday, Wal- *The change for the second quarter of 2023 is as of Aug. 4 and based on a blend of actual results and estimates. †As of Aug. 4
the world’s biggest aerospace
mart on Aug. 17 and Nvidia ‡Excludes companies that have yet to report earnings for the most recent quarter. To avoid overlap, the horizontal placement of some circles is approximated. and defense companies.
on Aug. 23. Sources: FactSet (S&P 500 quarterly earnings); Dow Jones Market Data (selection of companies) Peter Santilli/THE WALL STREET JOURNAL Please turn to page B4

Whistleblowing Took Thieves Target Nike Shoes at Every Turn

Over One Man’s Life BY INTI PACHECO

BY JUSTIN BAER through, but one thing was It is getting harder for a pair
clear: Clothier’s life was falling of Air Jordans to make it all
Peter Clothier checked into a apart. the way from the factory to a
Santa Fe, N.M., hotel in 2017, Whistleblowers sometimes store shelf or your front porch.
alone and suicidal. win widespread acclaim, as Nike goods have been stolen
Drunk on red wine, uninter- when an Enron employee ap- at almost every step of the sup-
ested in the opera festival he peared on the cover of Time or ply chain, from distribution
had come to attend, Clothier when Russell Crowe starred in centers, rail yards and storage
fumed. For years, he had been a movie about a former Big To- trains to FedEx delivery trucks,
trying to call attention to what bacco executive. The U.S. gov- highlighting how retail crime
he believed was wrongdoing in ernment believes in rewarding goes beyond shoplifting or
his corner of Wall Street. He tipsters who call attention to smash-and-grab thefts in
JAKUB PORZYCKI/NURPHOTO/ZUMA PRESS

felt unheard by his former em- misbehavior. This year, the Se- stores.
ployer and the government. curities and Exchange Commis- Los Angeles police in June
Clothier emailed a former sion issued its biggest ever seized at least $3 million worth
colleague, saying he intended whistleblower award, for $279 of Nike products that they say
to kill himself and laying the million. were stolen from a warehouse
blame on other former co- But most whistleblowers near the Port of Los Angeles.
workers. He didn’t follow Please turn to page B6 Inside the boxes were pairs of
an unreleased style of the
NOCTA x Nike Glide, a $160

INSIDE sneaker collaboration between

the sportswear giant and hip-
hop superstar Drake.
Air Jordans are often resold for well above original price, making them a favorite for criminals.
BENJAMIN GIRETTE/BLOOMBERG NEWS

A few weeks earlier, Los An- than $50 billion in annual sales, Executives at retailers such profit. Air Jordans and other
geles County sheriff’s detec- hasn’t disclosed the amount of as Target, Macy’s, BJ’s Whole- designs regularly change hands
tives arrested a dozen people merchandise it loses to theft sale Club and Ulta Beauty for hundreds of dollars above
who authorities say were part and declined to comment for have blamed criminal networks the original price.
of a crime ring that over the this article. for causing problems with their In February, Nike offered to
past year stole around The journey to the U.S. for a inventories and called it an ur- pay for off-duty and more on-
$750,000 in merchandise from pair of Air Jordans starts at gent issue. Reports of cargo duty police officers to address
one Nike store. factories in Vietnam or China, theft across the supply chain safety and theft concerns at a
“The supply chain is under where the sneakers are typi- increased by 63% during the northeast Portland, Ore., store,
attack right now,” said Keith cally manufactured. The sneak- first half of 2023 compared which has been closed since
AVIATION HEARD ON THE Lewis, vice president of opera- ers then have a winding path with a year earlier, according last year. The Portland
Planet Labs, Astra STREET tions for Verisk-owned Cargo- from Asia, with several stops at to data from CargoNet. mayor’s office said the pro-
Net, a theft prevention and re- ports, warehouses and distri- Nike products became more posal wasn’t feasible given
Space and Satellogic Stablecoins are covery network that often bution centers before they ar- attractive targets for criminals staff limitations.
have all cut jobs amid offering less stability collaborates with law enforce- rive in stores or homes. A pair in recent years as reselling lim- Organized retail crime
lofty goals. B4 for Coinbase. B10 ment. of shoes are at risk of being ited-edition sneakers turned groups carry out carefully
Nike, which generates more stolen at each stop, Lewis said. into an easy way to make a Please turn to page B9
 .

B2 | Monday, August 7, 2023 * ***** THE WALL STREET JOURNAL.

INDEX TO BUSINESSES BUSINESS & FINANCE

These indexes cite notable references to most parent companies and businesspeople in

Striking Writers Auction Off Items

today’s edition. Articles on regional page inserts aren’t cited in these indexes.

A Fiesta Restaurant Group B3 Planet Labs.................................B4

Airbus................................................B1
Amazon...........................................B2
AMC Entertainment............B9
Apple.................................................B3
Astra Space................................B4
B JetBlue............................................B4
Berkshire Hathaway....B3,R3
BJ's Wholesale Club............B1
BNSF Railway...........................B2
Blue Origin...................................B4
C U-V
Circle Internet FinancialB10
Coinbase......................................B10
Country Garden....................B10
D-E
DRW Holdings..........................B2
Exxon Mobil.................................B1
F-G
FedEx.................................................B1
INDEX TO PEOPLE
B Gleit, Naomi..............................A11
Bernstein, William.................R3
Bezos, Jeff...................................B4
Bourla, Albert............................A2
Branson, Richard....................B4
Buffett, Warren..............B3,R3
Burger, Barbara.......................A6
C Hellestø, Aslak..........................A6
GameStop.....................................B9 Rite Aid...........................................B9
Garnett Station PartnersB3 Rocket Lab USA.....................B4
H-J RTX......................................................B1
S BY ELLEN GAMERMAN notecards has cleared $5,000.
Hawaiian Airlines...................B4
Home Depot...............................B2 Satellogic.......................................B4 Other items range from a
SpaceX.............................................B4 The “Seinfeld” finale script football helmet signed by every
Jump Trading Group...........B2 Spirit Airlines............................B4 signed by its cast and creators. participating player at the
L T A 2001 People’s Choice Award NFL’s 2023 rookie premiere
Lufthansa......................................B4 Target................................................B1 trophy for “Friends.” The event to the 19th-century
Tupperware Brands..............B9
M chance to appear by name in a swivel chair owned by Robert
Macy's...............................................B1
Ulta Beauty..................................B1
Michael Connelly novel. Evans, the producer and studio
Mattel...............................................B2
Microsoft......................................A11 United Parcel Service..........B1 Writers on strike are auc- executive best known for clas-
N
Verisk.................................................B1 tioning off these prizes and sics including “The Godfather”
Virtu Financial..........................B2 others to raise money for film and “Chinatown.”
Nike.....................................................B1 Volaris..............................................B4
and television workers who are Bidders can vie for a visit
Norfolk Southern....................B2 W-Y
Nvidia................................................B1 suffering amid this summer’s with “Bridget Jones” writer
Walmart..........................................B1
P-R Walt Disney.................................B1 paralyzing Hollywood walk- Helen Fielding over a bottle of
Pfizer..................................................A1 Yellow........................................B1,B9 outs. wine at a swank oceanfront ho-
Auction organizer Kit Boss, tel in Santa Monica. When she
a TV writer whose resume in- was approached about donat-
cludes “King of the Hill” and
“Bob’s Burgers,” has spent
ing to the auction, she says, “of
course I said yes–anything to
weeks soliciting a somewhat support.” She came up with
Munger, Charlie.......................R3 madcap collection of donations the beachfront idea, she says,
Griffiths, Zach...........................A6 Musk, Elon...................................B4 while walking picket lines and because “…what’s not to like
GunderKline, Keith...............A11 P enlisting the help of well-con- about rosé by the seaside.” (A
H Perry, Katie..................................B9 nected friends and colleagues. British winner could meet her
Harvey, Campbell...................R6
Philo, Phoebe...........................A12 The online auction was slated at a London pub instead.)
Hawkins, Darren......................B1 R
Hayes, Greg.................................B4
to close Sunday evening. It fea- There is also a “Connor Roy for
Risinger, David..........................A2 tured roughly 120 lots with President” hat from behind the
Hicks, Angie..............................A12 Rubin, Elaine..............................R2 bids totaling more than scenes of “Succession.” And for

KIT BOSS
Caron, Jim....................................A6
Chen, Eva....................................A12 I-J S $100,000, ranging from memo- fans of “Insecure,” a virtual
Clothier, Peter............................B1 Irwin, Emily...............................A12 Shaw, Alan...................................B2 rabilia to personalized experi- hangout with showrunner
Collett, Mike...............................B4 Ives, Andy.....................................R4 Skloff, Aaron...............................R2 ences with show creators, writ- A signed script of the ‘Seinfeld’ finale was being auctioned. Prentice Penny and cast mem-
D Jordan, Scott..............................A2 Smith, Matt................................A6 ers and performers. bers to be named later. “I’m
L Sparks, Scott..............................R2 The Writers Guild of Amer- of many fundraising efforts in “Saturday Night Live” on 3×5 excited to share how the sau-
Denton, David...........................A2
Drake..................................................B1 Lewis, Keith.................................B1 W ica went on strike in May, fol- recent weeks to support those cards, typing them up and sage was made,” says Penny.
E-G Lucina, Pam.................................R2 Werbowy, Daria.....................A12 lowed two months later by the hurt by the strikes. This partic- later editing them by hand. One popular item already
Elaine Rubin...............................R2 M Woods, Darren..........................B1 Screen Actors Guild-American ular fundraiser benefits the One reads: “If you ever drop sold at a preauction: the
Erb, Claude...................................R6 Malik, Saira.................................R2 Z Federation of Television and Entertainment Community your keys into a river of mol- chance for the bidder’s name
Giangola, Ramya..................A12 Marshall, Will............................B4 Zuckerberg, Mark..................A11 Radio Artists. The clash with Fund, a nonprofit that helps ten lava, let ’em go, because, to appear in a crime novel by
movie and TV studios, net- people working in film, TV, man, they’re gone.” bestselling author Connelly,
works and streamers involves theater and other disciplines. The writer has held on to a who created the “Bosch” char-

Truckers, pany Norfolk Southern.

Teamsters representatives
said that the labor pact with
contract demands about sala-
ries, residual payments and
protections against the use of
Elsewhere, a starry group that
includes Leonardo DiCaprio,
Meryl Streep and Dwayne “The
few hundred such cards. “I’m
not sure I even get the one
about keys in lava, but people
acter of TV fame. The winner,
with an $8,200 bid, wants the
item to surprise his 76-year-old

Pilots Press UPS included provisions that

would stop the installation of
driver-facing cameras. The
artificial intelligence in cre-
ative work.
As the strike continues,
Rock” Johnson has donated
millions to a SAG-Aftra Foun-
dation relief fund.
seemed to find it funny,” he
says. He recently burned more
than 2,000 Deep Thoughts
wife, who is battling cancer.
Connelly, who has auctioned
off about 25 character names

Industries changes were in response to

concerns that their work is in-
creasingly measured against a
there are questions about how
Hollywood’s army of employees
will weather the dry period
Jack Handey had never do-
nated a “Deep Thoughts” note-
card before this auction. He
cards in the fireplace. “Not be-
cause I hated them, but be-
cause I ran out of firewood,”
over the years, is eager to pitch
in. “It’s a very easy way for me
to help out,” he says. “And
stopwatch and that drivers while out of work. The auction originally composed his zany he says. “Also, I hated them.” sometimes you get a good
Continued from page B1 were being surveilled for minor spearheaded by writers is one aphorisms from 1990s-era The top bid for a lot of three name.”
stoppages could have on supply infractions, union employees
chains. and officials said.

‘Barbie’ Tops $1 Billion at Box Office

Lynn Kelley, a business con- “Our focus is on safety, and
sultant who recently published not on surveillance or disci-
a book, said she was worried pline,” a UPS spokesman said.
about a possible UPS strike af- Pilots at FedEx recently sur-
fecting the book’s distribution, prised industry observers by
including large bulk shipments voting down a union-brokered BY CHIP CUTTER Estimated Box-Office Figures, Through Sunday become one of the highest-
for some events. deal that would have raised Sales, In Millions grossing female directors in his-
“There might have been their wages about 30% by 2028. Greta Gerwig’s “Barbie” is a Film Distributor Weekend* Cumulative % Change tory. She is known for her 2017
some delays,” said Kelley, add- Some pilots said that they saw billion-dollar hit. Warner film, “Lady Bird,” and the re-
ing that her book is on Ama- their counterparts at passenger The pink-obsessed comedy, 1. Barbie $53 $459 -43% boot of “Little Women” in 2019.
Bros.
zon, which handles shipping. airlines get higher wages in re- starring Margot Robbie and “Barbie” is the first U.S.
“My concern is even if Ama- cent weeks, and that they were Ryan Gosling, topped more Warner motion picture directed by one
2. Meg 2: The Trench $30 NA NA
zon does use an alternative to also worried about insufficient than $1 billion in estimated Bros. woman to cross the billion-
UPS, everything will be slow job protections. global box-office receipts as of 3. Oppenheimer Universal $28.7 $229 -39% dollar mark globally. The next
because there’s not a lot of ex- FedEx said the voting re- this weekend, according to re- Teenage Mutant highest-grossing film by a solo
tra capacity.” sults will have no impact on search firm Comscore. It is 4. Ninja Turtles: Paramount $28 $43 NA female director, “Wonder
Unions have been pushing service levels. The Air Line Pi- now the first U.S. film directed Mutant Mayhem Woman,” directed by Patty
companies to improve on-the- lots Association, International, by one woman to reach the Jenkins, raked in $823.7 mil-
job conditions. After lobbying which represents FedEx pilots, billion-dollar mark. 5. Haunted Mansion Disney $8.9 $42 -63% lion worldwide, according to
for it last year, major freight and FedEx will return to the Through Sunday, the movie *Friday, Saturday and Sunday in North American theaters Source: Comscore Comscore.
railroads have started offering bargaining table with media- has grossed about $1.03 billion Overall, 53 movies have sur-
short-term paid sick leave—in tors from the National Media- overall in domestic and inter- savvy mix of consumer mar- Hollywood amid continuing passed a billion dollars in
some cases for the first time— tion Board. national markets, making it one keting and a story that is reso- disputes with labor and a shift global box-office receipts, un-
to union workers to ensure FedEx pilots will continue of only about a half-dozen films nating with audiences. Movie- in consumer viewing habits adjusted for inflation, includ-
ample staffing and service lev- working under the terms of since the pandemic to gross a goers have packed theaters that has led many people to ing “Barbie.”
els. “What we found over the the existing contract and billion dollars in ticket sales. across the U.S. in recent weeks stream movies at home. “It seems almost everyone
pandemic—and I think you see aren’t allowed to strike under Christopher Nolan’s World to watch the film, which fo- Only five other films have around the world is talking
this throughout all of soci- federal law. Workers in some War II drama “Oppenheimer,” cuses on the Mattel doll and surpassed $1 billion in box-of- about ‘Barbie,’” said Paul Der-
ety—is that those quality-of- railroad unions last year voted meanwhile, has grossed $552.9 her search for meaning as she fice sales since the start of the garabedian, a senior media an-
life issues become more and against a tentative labor deal, million globally. leaves a pink utopia. pandemic, according to Box alyst at Comscore. “You don’t
more important to folks,” said but Congress and President “Barbie” became a cultural The success of “Barbie,” Office Mojo. get to a billion dollars without
Alan Shaw, chief executive of- Biden stepped in to impose a phenomenon through what an- alongside “Oppenheimer,” has Gerwig, who co-wrote and a movie being some sort of
ficer of transportation com- settlement. alysts have described as a been a rare bright spot for directed “Barbie,” is now set to phenomenon.”

Ham Radio Fans Fight Street on Airwaves

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tuning in to weak radio signals Jake Steinberg/THE WALL STREET JOURNAL High-frequency traders have AUCTIONS PUBLIC NOTICES
so they can chat with fellow been in a yearslong arms race to
hams in faraway places. Hun- old Los Angeles resident, he watts, and many use off-the- execute transactions as fast as PLEASE TAKE NOTICE THAT Michele Vives, the Court-
NOTICE OF PUBLIC AUCTION appointed Receiver (“Receiver”) for 1inMM Capital,
dreds of hams have filed letters likes using his radio to send shelf radios with 100 watts. possible, or risk losing money to CERTAIN ASSETS OF HYLETE INC. LLC (“1inMM”) as well as assets that are attributable
with the FCC opposing the digital data about weather con- “They’re asking for an in- speedier rivals. A DELAWARE CORPORATION
to investor or client funds or that were fraudulently
transferred by 1inMM or Zachary J. Horwitz (“Horwitz”),
traders’ proposal, and some ditions to other hams. He com- sane amount of power,” Fansler An FCC spokesman said: “We The assets to be sold consist of certain
and certain plaintiffs who invested in 1inMM, have
reached an agreement to settle and release all claims
have railed against the plan in plains that the traders are said. “It’s like having neighbors appreciate the importance of intangible assets used in the business of asserted or that could have been asserted against JJMT
Hylete, Inc. a Delaware Corporation, Capital, LLC, JJMT Group, LLC, J.T.H.D. Investments, LLC
YouTube videos. looking to transmit with up to move in with a drum set and amateur radio and make every including patents, trademarks, domain name, or Chi-Town Capital, LLC (collectively, “JJMT”), Joseph
Brock Fansler is among 20,000 watts of power, while guitar. This is going to be effort to ensure spectrum uses website, customer list & other intangibles. deAlteris, Jacob Wunderlin and Matthew Schweinzger
(collectively, “JJM Parties”), as well as their wives,
By Order of Secured Creditor
those speaking out. A 40-year- amateurs are capped at 1,500 blasted all over the planet, with do not interfere with each other.” UCC 9-610 Foreclosure Auction children, respective current and former employers
and certain other entities and trusts identified in the
Location: Online via zoom Settlement Agreement (collectively, “Related Parties”),
Thursday, August 10, 2023 at 11:00am PDT as to any acts or omissions arising out of, in connection

Yellow
with or relating in any way to: (1) the 1inMM Ponzi
Brotherhood of Teamsters. ing, including BNSF Railway, Walmart, Home Depot and Call or email request for more information Scheme; (2) the 1inMM Defendants; (3) JJMT; (4) any
Brian Testo, Brian Testo Associates, LLC investment, loan or transfer of money to JJMT and/or
The company said it would Amazon.com with and Home many other smaller busi- (818) 592-6592 x 101 repayment or lack of repayment by JJMT or the 1inMM
Defendants (“Settlement”). As part of the Settlement,
seek bankruptcy court autho- Depot. nesses. or briantesto@gmail.com

Files for
the Receiver has asked the Court to permanently bar
rization to make payments in- Yellow’s demise also re- Despite swallowing rivals www.btesto.com and enjoin any person or entity from commencing or
continuing any legal proceeding against any of the JJM
cluding wages, salaries and moves a major contributor to several years ago, getting Parties and/or any of the Related Parties asserting any
legal or equitable claim arising out of, in connection
benefits. the Central States Pension union concessions over the

Bankruptcy
with or relating in any way to, 1inMM, the 1inMM Ponzi
Scheme, JJMT or Horwitz, as more particularly described
The company said it has Fund, a multiemployer pen- past 15 years and securing a in the proposed Bar Order (a “1inMM Claim”). All 1inMM
lined up a loan to fund its stay sion fund that received a fed- government bailout in 2020, THEMARKETPLACE Claims will be channeled into a receivership claims
process the United States District Court for the Central
in chapter 11, including selling eral bailout last December un- the company went into a fi- District of California will establish by separate order.
assets. Yellow owns some der a program aimed at nancial tailspin this year as ADVERTISE TODAY Complete copies of the Settlement Agreement, the
proposed Bar Order and other documents pertaining to
Continued from page B1 12,000 trucks and dozens of shoring up near-insolvent re- shipping demand foundered (800) 366-3975 the Settlement are available on the Receiver’s website,
www.1inMMreceivership.com.
The closure means the loss freight terminals across the tirement plans. and an operational restructur- For more information visit: Interested parties may submit written questions or
objections to the Settlement to the Receiver by sending
of 30,000 jobs, including country. Yellow was known for its ing effort triggered a show- wsj.com/classifieds an email to 1inMM@douglaswilson.com by no later than
4:00 pm PDT on September 4, 2023. (All capitalized
22,000 positions held by the Yellow listed 30 unsecured cut-rate prices and moving down with the Teamsters © 2023 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. terms not defined in this notice are defined in the
members of the International creditors in its bankruptcy fil- freight across the country for union. All Rights Reserved. Settlement Agreement or the Motion.)

THE WALL STREET JOURNAL.
RACHEL MUMMEY/REUTERS
Berkshire Hathaway’s annual shareholders’ meeting drew a big crowd to the company’s hometown of Omaha, Neb., in May.
Berkshire Hathaway Profit Rises
Buffett’s company
gets boost from
insurance division,
investment portfolio
BY LAUREN THOMAS
Warren Buffett’s Berkshire
Hathaway swung to a profit
in the second quarter, boosted
by its insurance division and
strong gains in its massive in-
vestment portfolio, while its
cash pile swelled.
The Omaha, Neb., company,
which owns businesses includ-
ing insurer Geico, railroad
BNSF Railway and sportswear
maker Brooks Running, posted
net income of $35.9 billion, or
$24,775 a Class A share equiv-
alent. That compared with a
loss of $43.8 billion, or
$29,754 a Class A share equiv-
alent, a year earlier.
Berkshire’s operating earn-
ings, which exclude some in-
vestment results, rose slightly
to just over $10 billion from
$9.3 billion a year earlier.
Earnings grew at most of the
company’s major units, includ-
ing its insurance-underwriting
operations and insurance-in-
vestment-income unit.
Buffett has long told the
company’s shareholders that
they should ignore net income
and focus on Berkshire’s oper-
ating earnings, which he feels
are a better reflection of how
Berkshire is doing. Accounting
rules require Berkshire to in-
clude unrealized gains and
losses from its investment
portfolio when it reports its
net income.
Berkshire’s Geico insurance
business—which has struggled
in the past year because of ele-
vated claims costs—recorded
higher average premiums,
lower advertising costs and a
reduction in prior accident
years’ claims estimates, Berk-
shire said in a securities filing.
Berkshire ended the second
quarter with $147.4 billion in
cash and cash equivalents,
compared with around $130
billion at the end of the first
quarter. The cash pile mostly
BUSINESS NEWS
contains holdings of short-
term U.S. Treasury bills and is
nearing record levels.
The strong results this
quarter came after Berk-
shire posted a big loss for the
same period in 2022 in large
part because of investment
declines. Last year, stock and
bond markets tanked as the
Federal Reserve embarked on
its most aggressive campaign
in decades to raise interest
rates.
Stocks have risen sharply
after last year’s selloff, defy-
ing any number of risks along
the way. The S&P 500 is up
about 17% this year, including
a 3.1% increase in July that re-
flected gains across all 11 sec-
tors. Investors in 2023 have
brushed off inflation
fears, corporate earnings be-
ing squeezed, the looming
threat of a recession, a stand-
off over the U.S. debt ceiling
and a massive bank failure.
Technology stocks have
been driving gains, and Berk-
shire boasts a more than $175
billion stake in Apple, which
has run up 40% so far this
year.
As a result, Berkshire’s
Class A shares have been hov-
ering near records, bringing
the company’s market value to
nearly $780 billion.
Last week, Fitch Rat-
ings downgraded the U.S. gov-
ernment’s credit rating weeks
after President Biden and con-
gressional Republicans came
to the brink of a historic de-
fault. But Buffett largely
shrugged off the news.
“Berkshire bought $10 bil-
lion in U.S. Treasurys last
Monday. We bought $10 bil-
lion in Treasurys this Monday.
And the only question for next
Monday is whether we will
buy $10 billion in 3-month or
6-month” T-bills, Buffett told
CNBC in an interview last
week.
Berkshire’s share-repur-
chase activity slowed during
the latest quarter. The com-
pany said it used about $1.4
billion to buy back stock, com-
pared with $4.4 billion in the
first.
Monday, August 7, 2023 | B3
Pollo Tropical
Restaurant Chain
Approaches a Sale
BY LAUREN THOMAS
The Pollo Tropical restau-
rant chain is nearing a deal to
be bought by an investment
firm for $225 million.
Authentic Restaurant
Brands, part of New York-
based Garnett Station Part-
ners, plans to add the fast-ca-
sual restaurant operator to a
portfolio that includes sand-
wich chain Primanti Bros., peo-
ple familiar with the matter
said.
The deal for Pollo Tropical
parent Fiesta Restaurant
Group is worth $8.50 a share,
representing a modest pre-
mium to the company’s closing
share price on Friday of $7.86.
The deal is expected to be
made official by Monday, bar-
ring any last-minute snags.
Fiesta shares
have risen
about 7% so far
this year, trail- An investment
ing the S&P firm is seeking
500.
Fiesta’s total to purchase
revenue in-
creased 8.4% in
the chain for
2022 to $387.4 $225 million.
million. The
company swung
to a loss of
$14.6 million, compared with
net income of $10.4 million in
2021, primarily because of
higher commodity and labor
expenses.
The Dallas company owned
and operated 137 Pollo Tropical
restaurants, plus 30 that are
franchised, across the U.S.,
Puerto Rico, Panama, Guyana
and the Bahamas as of April 2,
according to securities filings.
Miami-based Pollo Tropical is
known for serving heaping
portions of Latin American-in-
spired cuisine, including mari-
nated and grilled chicken, rice,
and black beans.
Fiesta used to have a larger
portfolio before it sold the
.
Taco Cabana chain to YTC En-
terprises, an affiliate of a Jack
in the Box, El Pollo Loco and
Denny’s franchisee, for $85
million in 2021 in a bid to pay
down debt.
Authentic Restaurant
Brands is a holding company
that also owns sports-bar
chain P.J. Whelihan’s and
Mambo Seafood. The company
is led by Chief Executive Felipe
Athayde and Chairman Alex
Macedo, both of whom previ-
ously held leadership roles at
Burger King parent Restaurant
Brands International.
Garnett Station was founded
in 2013 by Matt Perelman, for-
merly of private-equity firm L
Catterton, and Alex Sloane,
formerly of Apollo Global Man-
agement. The firm manages
over $2 billion of assets, with a
focus on the
consumer and
business-ser-
vices, health-
and-wellness,
automotive, and
food-and-bever-
age industries.
Some of Gar-
nett Station’s
other current
investments in-
clude the popu-
lar shaved-ice truck business
Kona Ice, auto repair and tire
provider Apex Automotive and
several carwash businesses, ac-
cording to its website.
Despite a general slowdown
in deal-making so far this
year—with a volatile stock
market and higher interest
rates chilling activity—there
has still been a flurry of trans-
actions in the restaurant sec-
tor. Olive Garden owner
Darden Restaurants bought
Ruth’s Chris Steak House for
$715 million. Meanwhile, sand-
wich chain Subway has been
working with advisers toward
a sale that could be completed
in the coming weeks.
 .

B4 | Monday, August 7, 2023 * ***** THE WALL STREET JOURNAL.

TECHNOLOGY WSJ.com/Tech

Space Firms
Struggle to Hit
Lofty Goals
Planet Labs, Astra execute,” said Will Marshall,
chief executive at Planet Labs,
Space and Satellogic in an email to employees the
cut jobs; Virgin Orbit company posted online.
The space industry ranges
filed for bankruptcy from satellite operators that
peddle internet connections to
BY MICAH MAIDENBERG
sprawling divisions of multibil-

PLANET LABS PBC/REUTERS

Newer players in the space
industry are running up
against harsh business reali-
ties. Several space-related com-
panies have been shedding em-
ployees, finding other ways to
reduce spending or have reined
in their plans.
Planet Labs, which uses a
fleet of satellites to capture im-
ages of Earth and sells data
and analytics based on the en-
terprise, said last Tuesday that
it would cut 117 jobs, about 10%
of its workforce.
The San Francisco-based
company earlier this summer
lowered its revenue forecast for
its current fiscal year after
bookings were lighter than ex-
pected, in part because cus-
tomers were scrutinizing their
spending, executives told inves-
tors.
The layoffs aim to refocus
Planet’s operations and rein-
force its push to generate
profit. “We need to focus and
lion-dollar defense contractors
that vie for contracts with the
National Aeronautics and Space
Administration.
Two closely watched space
companies, Elon Musk’s
SpaceX and Jeff Bezos’s Blue
Origin, are privately held. Both
are in expansion mode, as they
develop rockets and start new
divisions.
Like other startups, a num-
ber of space-related companies
in recent years tapped into an
investor frenzy that allowed
them to raise new capital by
merging with so-called blank-
check companies.
Some space-industry execu-
tives have said the deals, which
required less scrutiny than tra-
ditional initial public offerings,
allowed their companies to ob-
tain the capital they needed for
growth.
Astra Space on Friday said
it laid off around 70 employees,
adding to previous reductions.
It also said it reassigned other
Planet Labs uses a fleet of satellites to capture images of Earth, such as this satellite image of wildfire in Athens, Greece.
staffers from a group focused
on rocket launches to support
its spacecraft-engine business.
The company, which failed
last year to complete two
launches for NASA, estimated
it had around $26 million in
cash and securities on hand as
of June 30, down from $201
million the year prior. Astra
said Friday that it was looking
at ways to raise more funds
and that it had raised almost
$11 million from an outside in-
vestor.
Satellogic, another Earth
imagery and data business, be-
gan cutting 18% of its employ-
ees in the third quarter of last
year, citing changes in the
global economy, according to a
securities filing.
It reduced head count by an-
other 8% at the start of this
year. It once hoped to have 111
satellites operational by the
end of this year but now won’t
meet that goal.
“There will be more pain
ahead for many of these com-
panies,” according to Mike Col-
lett, founder of Promus Ven-
tures, which has invested in
space-related companies.
Virgin Orbit, backed by bil-
lionaire Richard Branson, went
public through a blank-check
merger at the end of 2021.
The company tried to build
a business around using a mod-
ified 747 to ferry up a launch
vehicle that separated from the
plane and rocketed small satel-
lites into orbit.
Before it listed, the company
forecast $331 million in reve-
nue this year, and said that
would roughly triple in 2024.
Virgin Orbit struggled to
compete with rivals. A mission
the company launched in Janu-
ary failed, and customer satel-
lites were lost. In March, Virgin
Orbit said it would lay off 675
people, or most of its work-
force, and filed for bankruptcy
shortly after. It proceeded to
liquidate its assets.
Rocket Lab USA, which com-
pleted a listing in 2021, capital-
ized on the demise of its com-
petitor by taking over Virgin
Orbit’s former headquarters and
factory in California. The com-
pany conducts launches and has
a division that sells space sys-
tems, like a craft for satellites.
Last year, Rocket Lab gener-
ated $211 million in revenue,
ahead of a prelisting forecast.
An executive at the company
said at a recent investor event
that getting to positive cash
flow is highly dependent on
Neutron, the larger new rocket
it is developing.
Watch a Video
Scan this code
to watch a
video on China’s
satellite
ambitions.

Engine Hawaiian Airlines said it

would suspend some routes
and reduce its number of
dreds of engines to be re-
moved from Airbus A320neo
aircraft for inspection and
known as Raytheon Technolo-
gies, already has to pay com-
pensation to airlines for older
of customer calls.
“No one is happy,” Hayes
said in an interview last
provided Pratt a way back to
that market, using technology
developed for propeller planes

Recall Cuts flights to deal with engine in-

spections in the coming
months.
possible repair. The recall
adds to durability problems
that have dogged Pratt since it
problems with GTF engines
used on Airbus jets. These in-
clude oil-leak and vibration
month.
Decades ago, Pratt engines
powered the original Boeing
over the previous two decades.
Plane makers were initially
reluctant to try the new type

Flights Other carriers including

Continued from page B1
It will also help decide
whether Airbus can continue
efforts to boost the production
of its single-aisle jetliners. Air-
bus said that the engine prob-
lems won’t affect production
this year, but that it will be
watching for any impact after
that.
Spirit Airlines said last
week it would pull seven Air-
bus A320neo-family jets from
service in the fall for inspec-
tion. More than 40 of Spirit’s
fleet of around 200 jets are af-
fected, and the airline said the
engine problems could reduce
its ability to add more flights
next year.
BENOIT TESSIER/REUTERS
Germany’s Lufthansa, Mex-
ico’s Volaris and JetBlue Air-
ways in the U.S. have said
they are evaluating whether to
cut flights.
Pratt said recently that a
fresh analysis following the
discovery in 2021 of contami-
nated metal parts uncovered
the need for more-immediate
inspection of engines. The
company said around 1,200
engines could suffer cracks
faster than expected.
The company said Friday
that it told customers which
engines would have to be in-
spected over the next few
weeks and which could wait to
be checked over the next year.
What started as a minor
quality concern escalated in
recent weeks to require hun-
introduced its fuel-efficient
geared turbofan, or GTF, to
airlines in 2016. The engines
concerns that have required
extra servicing.
With more than 100 Pratt-
737s, but the manufacturer
lost out to General Electric
and French partner Safran’s
of engine as existing turbines
continued to improve fuel effi-
ciency and reliability. Canada’s
have been popular because powered Airbus jets—around rival turbine for the jet and Bombardier signed up for the
they cut fuel consumption by 10% of the A320neo and A220 the Airbus A320 in the 1980s. GTF in 2007 for its new
around 15% and have low fleet—already grounded by That left Pratt reliant on mak- CSeries jet. The plane was de-
emissions. durability problems and spare- ing engines for larger jets and signed to challenge Airbus and
RTX has sold more than parts shortages that have military aircraft, as well as Boeing in the single-aisle
10,000 GTF engines. Compen- dragged on for years, RTX propeller planes. market.
sating customers for inspec- Chief Executive Greg Hayes in The introduction of the —Andrew Tangel
tions and repairs that take late July embarked on a round geared turbofan to airliners contributed to this article.
planes out of service could de-
lay profitability for the pro-
gram. Some analysts estimate
that it will be 2030 before
RTX starts to recoup its in-
vestment in the engine. It has
taken an initial $500 million
charge to cover the cost of
Bringing Communities
new inspection, repair and
compensation for the first
batch of GTF engines being
of Support to Students
checked.
The company, formerly

Problems have dogged Pratt & Whitney since it introduced its GTF to airlines in 2016.

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 .

THE WALL STREET JOURNAL. Monday, August 7, 2023 | B5

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B6 | Monday, August 7, 2023
Tipster’s
Cause Took
Over Life
Continued from page B1
don’t become rich or famous.
Many destroy their relation-
ships, lose their jobs, turn disil-
lusioned when their big revela-
tions are greeted with
ambivalence. Since the SEC
launched its whistleblower pro-
gram more than a decade ago,
the agency has received more
than 64,000 tips. By late 2022,
328 of those whistleblowers
had received financial awards.
“It’s all the things we be-
lieve or hope are true as chil-
dren—that eventually the
rightness of what they say will
be recognized,” said C. Fred Al-
ford, a professor emeritus at
the University of Maryland who
wrote a book about whistle-
blowers. “When that doesn’t
happen, or even when it does,
the whistleblowing becomes
their world.”
That is what happened to
Peter Clothier.
Clothier worked in a hum-
drum part of finance, manag-
ing proxy votes for mutual
funds run by some of the
world’s biggest money manag-
ers. He started in the business
in 1992, when he was in his
mid-20s, and joined a financial-
services company called Com-
putershare a decade later.
What Clothier discovered
wasn’t exactly jaw-dropping.
For people outside his arcane
sliver of Wall Street, it isn’t
even that easy to explain.
When a mutual-fund man-
ager wants to change the
fund’s mandate or merge it
with another fund, it is re-
quired to seek shareholders’
approval. Companies like Com-
putershare collect those votes
and certify the election.
Most voting shareholders
support the recommendations
of a fund’s board. The far big-
ger challenge for fund manag-
ers is getting enough share-
holders to vote at all. Typically,
without at least 50% turnout,
fund managers can’t proceed
with their proposals.
Around 2012, several of
SEC whistleblower tips
12,000
10,000
8,000
6,000
4,000
2,000
0 Then, in December, another
FY2012 ’14 ’16 ’18
Source: Securities and Exchange Commission
Clothier’s sales colleagues com-
plained to him and others at
Computershare, he said. They
said that competitors had
found a way to ensure they
would almost always find
enough votes.
Computershare clients had
told the salespeople that rivals
like Broadridge and AST would
go to brokerage firms whose
customers invested in a partic-
ular mutual fund and ask them
to commit shares “for quorum
purposes only,” Clothier said.
These additional “unin-
structed” shares didn’t count as
“for” votes, but they could help
the fund get to the 50% thresh-
old, industry executives said.
It didn’t sit well with Cloth-
ier. “These people were on re-
corded lines saying, ‘I don’t
want to vote,’” said Clothier,
now 56 years old.
So he did what thousands of
employees do each year to
clear their conscience and, just
maybe, win a handsome re-
ward: In 2014, Clothier con-
tacted the SEC’s whistleblower
office.
Months went by. No re-
sponse came, beyond what ap-
peared like a form email. Cloth-
ier grew angry and frustrated
and started wondering if he
was crazy.
An SEC spokesman said the
agency “does not comment on
the existence or nonexistence
of a possible whistleblower
submission.”
“We take every submission
seriously and investigate thor-
oughly all credible tips, com-
plaints, and referrals of secu-
rity violations,” he added.
Clothier had always been a
drinker, but it got bad. He
BUSINESS & FINANCE
’20 ’22
Peter Clothier has continued to write to the SEC, copying officials from several states.
started pouring himself three,
sometimes four, strong drinks
after work and then passing
out, hoping to forget every-
thing.
Clothier’s partner ques-
tioned why he couldn’t just let
it all go. It wasn’t so easy,
Clothier would respond. Wall
Street offered financial secu-
rity, and familiarity.
Clothier didn’t have a prob-
lem with his own employer.
Computershare
wasn’t engaging
in the practice
he had flagged. By late 2022,
But Clothier 328
started sending
emails and texts whistleblowers
to his boss and
other execu-
had received
tives, imploring financial awards.
them to alert
regulators
about their
competitors’ behavior. The
messages often arrived late at
night, when Clothier had been
drinking.
A Computershare spokes-
man said the company “con-
ducted a formal review of Mr.
Clothier’s concerns about the
practices of other industry
players when he raised them in
late 2015. The review con-
cluded that there was no fur-
ther action required on our
part. We shared the results
with him at the time.”
Ridge
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“We would of course coop-
erate to the extent one of our
regulators were to approach us
for information in connection
with an investigation into in-
dustry practices. To date, none
have on this.”
A spokeswoman for AST,
now called Equiniti, declined to
comment. A spokesman for
Broadridge also declined to
comment.
Eventually, Clothier and
Computershare
agreed he
should leave. He
got six months’
severance.
But Clothier’s
late-night
emails and texts
continued; his
drinking binges
worsened.
In August
2017, he went
on his Santa Fe trip, where he
emailed a former colleague
that he planned to kill himself.
The following month, another
former colleague alerted au-
thorities, saying Clothier had
repeatedly sent unwelcome
emails. Clothier was charged
with cyber harassment and
spent a night in jail.
Clothier said he completed
three weeks of community ser-
vice at a New York nonprofit
that helps people struggling
with homelessness, mental ill-
UNDER
DISASTROUS CIRCUMSTANCES,
HE COULD FIND A MISSING
CHILD IN THE WRECK AGE.
HARD TO BELIEVE NO ONE
WANTED THIS COURAGEOUS
DOG
.
THE WALL STREET JOURNAL.
like someone finally got it.
He enlisted a college friend,
Christopher Ernst, as his attor-
ney. He also continued messag-
ing the SEC.
Still, no response came, save
one time when an SEC attorney
messaged Clothier to ask him
to resend file attachments.
As 2020 drew to a close,
Clothier started to believe
again that his crusade had
reached its end. It had been six
years since he filed his original
JOSÉ A. ALVARADO JR. FOR THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
SEC complaint, four since he
had left Computershare.
email arrived. This one was
from Craig Weldon, the chief
special investigator for invest-
ment protection at the state of
Delaware.
Clothier spoke a couple of
times with the Delaware offi-
cials, who told him they had
started an investigation. But in
June 2021, one of those offi-
cials wrote to him to say that
“we are unable to further in-
ness and substance abuse. vestigate at this time.”
Eventually, the charge was Soon, Clothier’s communica-
dropped. tions with NYSE officials fiz-
He continued to volunteer at zled out, too.
the same organization, named Unbeknown to Clothier,
Project Renewal, and later though, NYSE officials had be-
found a paid job as a full-time gun to discourage brokerage
counselor, working there until firms, fund managers and
recently. He also joined Alco- proxy-services firms from in-
holics Anonymous, he said, and cluding uninstructed shares for
checked into rehab. quorum purposes in certain
Clothier began to feel him- proxy votes, industry execu-
self again by the end of 2018. tives said. The exchange
At times, though, he caught stopped short of forbidding the
himself wondering about his practice, they said.
old life. Clothier, in one sense, had
He started sifting through won. Industry executives say
annual reports of mutual funds the practice Clothier first
and reviewed their shareholder flagged in 2014 has all but dis-
measures. The filings showed appeared from use. Clothier’s
that some managers were still more recent online searches for
including uninstructed shares examples have come up
in their votes. empty.
In February 2019, Clothier “It’s a small victory,” Cloth-
fired off emails to the SEC and ier said. But for him, it wasn’t
others. This time, he gave what enough. He still feels like no
he believed were more eye- one has been held accountable.
catching explanations. Last month, Clothier re-
Three months later, Clothier ceived a letter from the New
said, he received a voice mail York attorney general’s office.
from the NYSE’s enforcement “While the staff of the Investor
arm. They asked him to present Protection Bureau reviews ev-
his findings in person. ery submission we receive, the
He delivered his presenta- bureau does not act on every
tion in May 2019. Clothier said submission, and, as our investi-
he connected with Tony gations are confidential, we are
Frouge, now the NYSE’s head unable to provide details re-
of enforcement, and sometimes garding ongoing investiga-
other officials multiple times tions,” the bureau wrote in its
that year. July 13 letter. “I’m hoping this
Clothier was relieved. He felt works out,” Clothier said.
Not a real disaster site.
 .

THE WALL STREET JOURNAL. Monday, August 7, 2023 | B7

MARKETS DIGEST
Dow Jones Industrial Average S&P 500 Index New to the Market
Last Year ago Last Year ago
35065.62 t 393.67, or 1.11% last week Trailing P/E ratio 25.53 19.36 4478.03 t 104.20, or 2.27% last week Trailing P/E ratio * 20.27 22.56 Public Offerings of Stock
High, low, open and close for each of P/E estimate * 19.38 17.41 High, low, open and close for each of P/E estimate * 20.75 18.22
the past 52 weeks Dividend yield 2.04 2.14 the past 52 weeks Dividend yield * 1.54 1.58 IPOs in the U.S. Market
All-time high 36799.65, 01/04/22 All-time high 4796.56, 01/03/22
None expected this week

Current divisor 0.15172752595384 Lockup Expirations

200-day moving average 34800 4600 Below, companies whose officers and other insiders will become eligible
200-day moving average
to sell shares in their newly public companies for the first time. Such
sales can move the stock’s price.
33500 4400
Lockup Offer Offer amt Through Lockup
expiration Issue date Symbol price($) ($ mil.) Friday (%) provision

32200 4200 Aug. 11 Aug. 11, ’22 Forza X1 FRZA 5.00 15.0 –76.0 365 days
Aug. 11, ’22 Reborn Coffee REBN 5.00 6.0 –86.2 365 days
Feb. 8, ’23 Lucy Scientific Discovery LSDI 4.00 8.0 –72.3 180 days
Week's high 30900 4000
Feb. 8, ’23 Nextracker NXT 24.00 500.0 70.3 180 days
65-day moving average DOWN UP Feb. 8, ’23 Hesai Group HSAI 19.00 162.0 –41.2 180 days
t

Monday's open Friday's close

29600 3800 Feb. 9, ’23 Mineralys Therapeutics MLYS 16.00 150.0 –16.9 180 days
Friday's close Monday's open Sources: Dealogic; Dow Jones Market Data
t

65-day moving average

Week's low 28300 3600 IPO Scorecard
Bars measure the point change from Monday's open Performance of IPOs, most-recent listed first
% Chg From % Chg From
27000 3400 Friday's Offer 1st-day
Company SYMBOL Company SYMBOL Friday3s Offer 1st-day
A S O N D J F M A M J J A A S O N D J F M A M J J IPO date/Offer price close ($) price close IPO date/Offer price close ($) price close
Primary MIRA Pharmaceuticals 6.01 –14.1 –19.0 ODDITY Tech 50.64 44.7 6.5
NYSE weekly volume, in billions of shares market Composite MIRA Aug. 3/$7.00 ODD July 19/$35.00
t
t

Scan this code

36 Cheetah Net Supply Chain Service 2.66 –33.5 –61.4 Apogee Therapeutics 20.70 21.8 –2.5
Get real-time U.S. stock quotes and track CTNT Aug. 1/$4.00 APGE July 14/$17.00
24
12 most-active stocks, new highs/lows, mutual Hanryu Holdings 6.00 –40.0 –23.1 Nabors Energy Transition II 10.15 1.5 0.4
HRYU Aug. 1/$10.00 NETDU July 14/$10.00
0 funds and ETFs..
SharkNinja 26.90 –10.5 –36.4 Sagimet Biosciences 16.09 0.6 0.9
A S O N D J F M A M J J Available free at WSJMarkets.com SN July 31/$30.05 SGMT July 14/$16.00
*Weekly P/E data based on as-reported earnings from Birinyi Associates Inc.; † Based on Nasdaq-100 Index ParaZero Technologies 1.49 –62.8 –58.6 Bowen Acquisition 10.16 1.6 0.3
PRZO July 27/$4.00 BOWNU July 12/$10.00
Major U.S. Stock-Market Indexes Nasdaq Composite Surf Air Mobility 1.39 –93.1 –55.9 Prestige Wealth 11.39 127.8 110.9
SRFM July 27/$20.00 PWM July 6/$5.00
Latest Week 52-Week % chg t 407.42, or -2.85%
High Low Close Net chg % chg Low Close (l) High %chg YTD 3-yr. ann. Haymaker Acquisition 4 10.14 1.4 0.2 Intensity Therapeutics 6.23 24.6 4.5
Dow Jones
last week HYAC.UT July 26/$10.00 INTS June 30/$5.00
Janover 1.32 –67.0 –65.4 Fidelis Insurance 13.41 –4.2 4.0
Industrial Average 35679.13 35033.76 35065.62 -393.67 -1.11 28725.51 • 35630.68 6.9 5.8 9.3 JNVR July 25/$4.00 FIHL June 29/$14.00
Transportation Avg 16717.04 16257.25 16319.79 -375.53 -2.25 11999.40 • 16695.32 11.8 21.9 17.4
14300 Keen Vision Acquisition 10.09 0.9 0.1 Kodiak Gas Services 19.16 19.8 22.0
Utility Average 937.99 882.55 886.07 -46.67 -5.00 838.99 • 1061.77 -12.6 -8.4 2.1 KVACU July 25/$10.00 KGS June 29/$16.00
Total Stock Market 46010.33 44806.71 44841.11 -1005.38 -2.19 36056.21 • 45969.67 7.3 16.4 10.0 Turnstone Biologics 11.48 –4.3 4.4 Savers Value Village 23.94 33.0 4.5
14100 TSBX July 21/$12.00 SVV June 29/$18.00
Barron's 400 1036.97 1019.59 1020.73 -11.30 -1.09 825.73 • 1036.97 7.1 10.9 12.7
Nasdaq Stock Market Sources: Dow Jones Market Data; FactSet
13900
Nasdaq Composite 14370.91 13881.35 13909.24 -407.42 -2.85 10213.29 • 14358.02 9.9 32.9 8.3
Nasdaq-100 15803.55 15258.69 15274.92 -476.01 -3.02 10679.34 • 15841.35 15.7 39.6 11.2 Public and Private Borrowing
13700
S&P
28 31 1 2 3 4 Treasurys
500 Index 4594.22 4474.55 4478.03 -104.20 -2.27 3577.03 • 4588.96 8.0 16.6 10.6 July
Monday, August 7 Wednesday, August 9
MidCap 400 2733.30 2665.44 2681.58 -35.30 -1.30 2203.53 • 2728.44 7.1 10.3 12.3 DJ US TSM
SmallCap 600 1282.58 1250.28 1259.51 -11.58 -0.91 1064.45 • 1315.82 1.6 8.8 12.6
t 1005.38, or -2.19%
Auction of 13 and 26 week bills; Auction of 17 week bill;
announced on August 3; settles on August 10 announced on August 8; settles on August 15
Other Indexes last week Auction of 10 year note;
Russell 2000 2003.62 1948.70 1957.46 -24.07 -1.21 1655.88 • 2021.35 1.9 11.1 8.9
announced on August 2; settles on August 15
NYSE Composite 16448.00 16059.83 16071.06 -292.20 -1.79 13472.18 • 16427.29 5.2 5.8 8.4
Value Line 596.73 581.41 582.97 -9.26 -1.56 491.56 • 606.49 1.8 8.7 7.7 45800 Tuesday, August 8 Thursday, August 10
NYSE Arca Biotech 5348.37 5172.08 5178.79 -160.36 -3.00 4390.11 • 5644.5 1.6 -1.9 -3.4 Auction of 52 week bill; Auction of 4 and 8 week bills;
NYSE Arca Pharma 879.06 858.60 860.37 -18.69 -2.13 737.84 • 892.45 7.4 -0.9 9.1
45400
announced on August 3; settles on August 10 announced on August 8; settles on August 15
KBW Bank 89.87 86.37 87.90 -1.11 -1.24 71.96 • 115.55 -19.0 -12.8 5.9 Auction of 3 year note; Auction of 30 year bond;
PHLX§ Gold/Silver 128.00 117.95 119.63 -4.64 -3.74 91.40 • 144.37 10.8 -1.0 -9.1 announced on August 2; settles on August 15 announced on August 2; settles on August 15
PHLX§ Oil Service 94.37 91.02 93.16 1.570 1.71 56.08 • 93.94 45.5 11.1 35.6 45000
PHLX§ Semiconductor 3875.17 3658.43 3699.20 -152.56 -3.96 2162.32 • 3861.63 21.2 46.1 18.7
Cboe Volatility 17.42 13.57 17.10 3.77 28.28 12.91 • 33.63 -19.1 -21.1 -10.4 44600
 Nasdaq PHLX Sources: FactSet; Dow Jones Market Data
28 31 1 2 3 4
July
A Week in the Life of the DJIA
A look at how the Dow Jones Industrial Average component stocks
did in the past week and how much each moved the index. The DJIA
International Stock Indexes Commodities and lost 393.67 points, or 1.11%, on the week. A $1 change in the price of
Latest Week 52-Week Range YTD
Currencies any DJIA stock = 6.59-point change in the average. To date, a $1,000
investment on Dec. 31 in each current DJIA stock component would
Region/Country Index Close % chg Low Close High % chg
Last Week YTD have returned $32,300, or a gain of 7.67%, on the $30,000
World MSCI ACWI 689.00 –2.34 550.37 • 707.11 13.8 Close Net chg %Chg % chg investment, including reinvested dividends.
MSCI ACWI ex-USA 306.24 –2.42 244.35 • 314.69 8.9 DJ Commodity 1002.17 -11.31 -1.12 -4.44
The Week’s Action
MSCI World 2986.54 –2.33 2367.69 • 3064.30 14.7 Refinitiv/CC CRB Index 279.46 -1.02 -0.37 0.62 Pct Stock price Point chg $1,000 Invested(year-end '22)
MSCI Emerging Markets 1018.02 –2.41 842.76 • 1052.46 6.4 Crude oil, $ per barrel 82.82 2.24 2.78 3.19 chg (%) change in average* Company Symbol Close $1,000
Americas MSCI AC Americas 1698.19 –2.32 1363.36 • 1742.64 16.5 Natural gas, $/MMBtu 2.577 -0.061 -2.31 -42.41 6.15 16.01 105.52 Caterpillar CAT $276.44 $1,172
Canada S&P/TSX Comp 20236.04 –1.38 18206.28 • 20767.38 4.4 Gold, $ per troy oz. 1939.60 -20.80 -1.06 6.59 2.92 6.91 45.54 Amgen AMGN 243.28 943
Latin Amer. MSCI EM Latin America 2465.13 –3.57 2027.22 • 2570.27 15.8
U.S. Dollar Index 102.00 0.38 0.38 -1.47 1.37 3.24 21.35 Visa V 238.99 1,155
Brazil BOVESPA 119507.68 –0.57 97926.34 • 122560.38 8.9
WSJ Dollar Index 96.70 0.54 0.56 0.15 1.04 0.54 3.56 Cisco CSCO 52.63 1,130
Chile S&P IPSA 3550.61 –0.73 3021.53 • 3629.67 11.9
Euro, per dollar 0.9081 0.0006 0.06 -2.81 0.55 0.79 5.21 IBM IBM 144.24 1,051
Mexico S&P/BMV IPC 53991.42 –1.67 44626.80 • 55534.68 11.4
Yen, per dollar 141.73 0.58 0.41 8.09 0.28 0.44 2.90 Chevron CVX 159.31 904
EMEA STOXX Europe 600 459.28 –2.44 382.89 • 471.74 8.1
U.K. pound, in dollars 1.27 -0.0100 -0.78 5.38 0.20 0.17 1.12 Walt Disney DIS 86.30 993
STOXX Europe 50 3938.55 –2.47 3310.09 • 4079.60 7.9
52-Week
Eurozone Euro STOXX 457.74 –2.69 359.45 • 470.38 11.7 0.20 0.06 0.40 Walgreens WBA 29.86 822
Low Close(l) High % Chg
Euro STOXX 50 4332.91 –2.99 3279.04 • 4471.31 14.2
DJ Commodity 930.59 l 1113.32 -5.14
0.17 0.19 1.25 Nike NKE 108.81 935
Austria ATX 3200.02 –0.45 2647.43 • 3557.01 2.4 –0.003 –0.01 –0.07 Goldman Sachs GS 353.22 1,044
Refinitiv/CC CRB Index 253.85 l 301.75 -0.56
Belgium Bel-20 3731.41 –1.50 3313.82 • 3954.16 0.8
–0.01 –0.02 –0.13 American Express AXP 165.41 1,132
France CAC 40 7315.07 –2.16 5676.87 • 7577.00 13.0 Crude oil, $ per barrel 66.74 l 97.01 -6.95
–0.04 –0.18 –1.19 UnitedHealth Group UNH 502.73 955
Germany DAX 15951.86 –3.14 11975.55 • 16469.75 14.6 Natural gas, $/MMBtu 1.991 l 9.680 -68.04
–0.57 –0.89 –5.87 JPMorgan Chase JPM 156.02 1,189
Greece Athex Composite 1319.52 –1.08 788.46 • 1345.95 41.9 Gold, $ per troy oz. 1623.30 l 2048.00 9.40
Israel Tel Aviv 1851.01 –0.20 1707.57 • 2067.23 3.0 –0.72 –1.13 –7.45 Procter & Gamble PG 155.28 1,044
U.S. Dollar Index 99.77 l 114.10 -4.33
Italy FTSE MIB 28586.37 –3.10 20353 • 29645 20.6 –0.98 –1.57 –10.35 Walmart WMT 158.34 1,126
Netherlands AEX 772.71 –2.71 630.58 • 794.27 12.1 WSJ Dollar Index 94.37 l 105.14 -1.70
–1.26 –1.34 –8.83 Merck MRK 105.00 959
Norway Oslo Bors All-Share 1421.21 1.11 1247.07 • 1476.42 4.3 Euro, per dollar 0.8897 l 1.0422 -7.52
–1.49 –4.94 –32.56 Home Depot HD 326.43 1,049
Portugal PSI 20 6024.10 –2.24 5190.28 • 6273.94 5.2 Yen, per dollar 127.86 l 150.15 4.98
–1.71 Dow
–0.95 –6.26 DOW 54.51 1,111
South Africa FTSE/JSE All-Share 76960.61 –1.97 63263.94 • 80791.36 5.4 U.K. pound, in dollars 1.07 l 1.31 5.63
Spain IBEX 35 9368.38 –3.27 7261.1 • 9694.7 13.8 –2.38 –7.01 –46.20 McDonald’s MCD 287.02 1,101
Sweden OMX Stockholm 829.58 –1.92 690.07 • 886.59 6.1 Go to WSJMarkets.com for free –2.66 –4.61 –30.38 Travelers TRV 168.65 909
Switzerland Swiss Market 11098.48 –1.94 10072.62 • 11595.25 3.4 access to real-time market data. –2.83 –1.77 –11.67 Coca-Cola KO 60.71 969
U.K. FTSE 100 7564.37 –1.69 6826.15 • 8014.31 1.5
–3.06 –5.98 –39.41 Honeywell HON 189.21 892
Asia-Pacific MSCI AC Asia Pacific 166.44 –2.11 134.3 • 170.8 6.9
–3.07 –7.33 –48.31 Boeing BA 231.36 1,215
Australia S&P/ASX 200 7325.30 –1.06 6456.9 • 7558.1 4.1
–3.12 –5.44 –35.85 Johnson & Johnson JNJ 169.04 971
China Shanghai Composite 3288.08 0.37 2893.48 • 3395.00 6.4
–3.13 –10.59 –69.80 Microsoft MSFT 327.78 1,373
Hong Kong Hang Seng 19539.46 –1.89 14687.02 • 22688.90 –1.2
India S&P BSE Sensex 65721.25 –0.66 56409.96 • 67571.90 8.0 –4.14 –1.41 –9.29 Verizon VZ 32.62 870
Japan NIKKEI 225 32192.75 –1.73 25716.86 • 33753.33 23.4 –4.59 –1.69 –11.14 Intel INTC 35.14 1,357
Malaysia FTSE Bursa Malaysia KLCI 1445.21 –0.35 1373.36 • 1518.78 –3.4 –4.88 –11.01 –72.56 salesforce.com CRM 214.59 1,618
Singapore Straits Times 3292.39 –2.34 2969.95 • 3394.21 1.3
–5.69 –6.37 –41.98 3M MMM 105.51 905
South Korea KOSPI 2602.80 –0.21 2155.49 • 2667.07 16.4
–7.07 –13.84 –91.22 Apple AAPL 181.99 1,405
Taiwan TAIEX 16843.68 –2.60 12666.12 • 17334.98 19.1
Source: FactSet; Dow Jones Market Data *Based on Composite price. DJIA is calculated on primary-market price.
Source: Dow Jones Market Data; FactSet.

Consumer Rates and Returns to Investor Benchmark Yields and Rates

Selected rates Currencies
U.S. consumer rates Treasury yield curve Forex Race
A consumer rate against its Five-year ARM, Rate Yield to maturity of current bills, Yen, euro vs. dollar; dollar vs. U.S.-dollar foreign-exchange rates in late New York trading
benchmark over the past year notes and bonds major U.S. trading partners US$vs, US$vs,
Bankrate.com avg†: 6.35% Fri YTDchg Fri YTDchg
Country/currency in US$ per US$ (%) Country/currency in US$ per US$ (%)
5-year adjustable-rate Grow Financial FCU 5.63% 5.00%
t mortgage (ARM) t 12% Americas Vietnam dong .00004213 23735 0.4
6.00% Hillsborough, FL 800-839-6328
Tradeweb ICE 4.00
s
WSJ Dollar Index Argentina peso .0036278.0762 57.3 Europe
The Torrington Savings Bank 5.75% Friday Close 6
4.75 Brazil real .2052 4.8734 –7.8 Czech Rep. koruna .04536 22.044 –2.3
Torrington, CT 860-496-2152 3.00 Canada dollar .7479 1.3372 –1.3 Denmark krone .1478 6.7678 –2.6
t s Euro
3.50 Savings Bank of Danbury 5.88% One year ago 0 Chile peso .001174 851.90 0.4 Euro area euro 1.1012 .9081 –2.8
t 2.00 Colombiapeso .000244 4104.47 –15.3 Hungary forint .002826 353.80 –5.2
Danbury, CT 844-723-2265
5-year Treasury 2.25 –6 Ecuador US dollar 1 1 unch Iceland krona .007588 131.79 –6.9
Star One Credit Union 5.88% 1.00
note yield s Mexico peso .0585 17.0797 –12.4 Norway krone .0985 10.1507 3.5
Sunnyvale, CA 408-742-2801 Yen Uruguay peso .02613 38.2750 –4.3 Poland zloty .2483 4.0277 –8.0
1.00 0.00 –12
PeoplesBank 6.00% Asia-Pacific Russia ruble .01043 95.875 30.0
A S O N D J F MAM J JA 1 3 6 1 2 3 5 7 10 20 30 2022 2023 Sweden krona .0945 10.5805 1.4
2022 2023 Holyoke, MA 413-538-9500 month(s) years Australiadollar .6570 1.5221 3.7
Switzerland franc 1.1455 .8730 –5.6
China yuan .1395 7.1708 4.0
3-yr chg maturity Turkey lira .0371 26.9281 44.1
Yield/Rate (%) 52-Week Range (%) Hong Kong dollar .1280 7.8114 0.1
Interest rate Last (l)Week ago Low 0 2 4 6 8 High (pct pts) Sources: Tradeweb ICE U.S. Treasury Close; Tullett Prebon; Dow Jones Market Data Ukraine hryvnia .0271 36.9500 0.3
India rupee .01209 82.685 –0.1
UK pound –5.1
Corporate Borrowing Rates and Yields
1.2749 .7844
Federal-funds rate target 5.25-5.50 5.25-5.50 2.25 l 5.50 5.25 Indonesia rupiah .0000660 15153 –2.7
Japan yen .007056 141.73 8.1 Middle East/Africa
Prime rate* 8.50 8.50 5.50 l 8.50 5.25 Spread +/- Treasurys,
Yield (%) in basis pts, 52-wk Range Total Return Kazakhstan tenge .002245 445.40 –3.8 Bahrain dinar 2.6522 .3771 unch
SOFR 5.30 5.31 2.25 l 5.31 5.20 Macau pataca .1242 8.0500 0.02 Egypt pound .0323 30.9449 25.0
Bond total return index Last Wk ago Last Low High 52-wk 3-yr
Money market, annual yield 0.57 0.56 0.12 l 0.57 0.32 Malaysia ringgit .2195 4.5550 3.4 Israel shekel .2737 3.6538 3.6
Five-year CD, annual yield 2.85 2.86 1.83 l 2.86 2.16 U.S. Treasury, Bloomberg 4.430 4.440 -4.67 -5.47 New Zealand dollar .6088 1.6426 4.3 Kuwait dinar 3.2538 .3073 0.4
30-year mortgage, fixed† 7.49 7.42 5.43 l 7.49 4.45 U.S. Treasury Long, Bloomberg 4.320 4.150 -15.14 -14.82 Pakistan rupee .00351 285.265 25.8 Oman sul rial 2.5974 .3850 unch
Aggregate, Bloomberg 4.940 4.870 n.a. 44 69 -4.10 -4.74 Philippines peso .0181 55.130 –1.0 Qatar rial .2744 3.645 –0.6
15-year mortgage, fixed† 6.75 6.69 4.76 l 6.75 4.05
Singapore dollar .7448 1.3427 0.1 Saudi Arabia riyal .2666 3.7516 –0.2
Jumbo mortgages, $726,200-plus† 7.56 7.48 5.41 l 7.56 4.48 Fixed-Rate MBS, Bloomberg 5.110 4.850 n.a. 26 88 -5.10 -4.11
South Korea won .0007671 1303.62 3.3 South Africa rand .0541 18.4682 8.5
Five-year adj mortgage (ARM)† 6.35 6.22 4.19 l 6.35 3.11 High Yield 100, ICE BofA 7.994 7.823 350 321 467 4.016 1.659 Sri Lanka rupee .0031143 321.10 –12.6
Muni Master, ICE BofA 3.520 3.328 -3 -17 11 -0.431 -1.501 Taiwan dollar Close Net Chg % Chg YTD%Chg
New-car loan, 48-month 7.26 7.26 5.07 l 7.64 2.99 .03158 31.667 3.3
Bankrate.com rates based on survey of over 4,800 online banks. *Base rate posted by 70% of the nation's largest EMBI Global, J.P. Morgan 7.710 7.541 348 334 478 3.103 -3.901 Thailand baht .02882 34.700 0.2 WSJ Dollar Index 96.70 –0.340–0.350 0.15
banks.† Excludes closing costs.
Sources: FactSet; Dow Jones Market Data; Bankrate.com Sources: J.P. Morgan; S&P Dow Jones Indices; Bloomberg Fixed Income Indices; ICE BofA Sources: Tullett Prebon, Dow Jones Market Data
 .

B8 | Monday, August 7, 2023 THE WALL STREET JOURNAL.

CLOSED-END FUNDS
Listed are the 300 largest closed-end funds as 52 wk Prem12 Mo Prem12 Mo 52 wk Prem12 Mo
measured by assets. Closed-end funds sell a limited Prem Ttl Fund (SYM) NAV Close /Disc Yld Fund (SYM) NAV Close /Disc Yld Prem Ttl Fund (SYM) NAV Close /Disc Yld
number of shares and invest the proceeds in securities. Fund (SYM) NAV Close /Disc Ret Fund (SYM) NAV Close /Disc Ret
Unlike open-end funds, closed-ends generally do not Western Asset Inf-Lk Inc WIA 9.63 8.48 -11.9 14.2 BlckRk Muni Inc Qly BYM 12.38 10.91 -11.9 4.5 Apollo Diversified Cd:C NA NA NA 7.7
buy their shares back from investors who wish to cash Neuberger Brmn MLP & EI NML NA 7.06 NA 14.6 Western Asset Inf-Lk O&I WIW 10.33 8.98 -13.1 12.3 BR MuniAssets Fd MUA 11.00 9.99 -9.2 5.2 NexPointRlEstStrat;A 18.96 NA NA -8.8 Apollo Diversified Cd:F NA NA NA 10.5
in their holdings. Instead, fund shares trade on a stock
exchange. NA signifies that the information is not Neuberger Nxt Gen Conn NBXG 13.12 10.73 -18.2 4.1 Westn Asst IG Def Opp Tr IGI 17.07 16.22 -5.0 4.8 BR MH Qly 2 MUE 11.22 9.65 -14.0 4.3 NexPointRlEstStrat;C 19.18 NA NA -9.6 Apollo Diversified Cd:I NA NA NA 8.2
available or not applicable. NS signifies funds not in NuvDow30DynOverwrite DIAX 16.06 14.36 -10.6 -1.8 Loan Participation Funds BR MuniHoldngs MHD 13.27 11.49 -13.4 4.3 NexPointRlEstStrat;Z 19.20 NA NA -8.6 Apollo Diversified Cd:L NA NA NA 8.0
existence for the entire period. 12 month yield is NuvCorEqAlpha JCE 13.26 12.81 -3.4 1.1
computed by dividing income dividends paid (during Apollo Senior Floating AFT NA 13.17 NA 10.0 BR MuniVest Fd MVF 7.74 6.68 -13.7 4.2 PIMCO Flexible REI;Inst 10.18 NA NA NS Apollo Diversified Cd:M NA NA NA 7.8
the previous 12 months for periods ending at month- NuveenNasdaq100DynOv QQQX 24.43 23.83 -2.5 5.0 BR Debt Strategy DSU NA 9.98 NA 9.0 BR MuniVest 2 MVT 12.04 10.35 -14.0 4.1 PREDEX;I 27.33 NA NA -12.2 Opprtnstc Crdt Intrvl;I 12.06 NA NA 7.2
end or during the previous 52 weeks for periods Nuv Real Est JRS 8.44 7.43 -12.0 -17.7 BR F/R Inc Str FRA 13.19 12.48 -5.4 8.8 BR MuniYield Fd MYD 11.81 10.29 -12.9 4.6 PREDEX;T 27.48 NA NA -12.3 Peak Income Plus NA NA NA NS
ending at any time other than month-end) by the
latest month-end market price adjusted for capital Nuveen Rl Asst Inc & Gro JRI 13.28 11.29 -15.0 -10.6 BlackRock Floatng Rt Inc BGT 12.82 11.99 -6.5 8.9 BR MuniYield Qlty MQY 12.89 11.48 -10.9 4.7 PREDEX;W 27.48 NA NA -12.3 PIMCO Flexible Cr I;A-1 6.82 NA NA 15.6
gains distributions. Depending on the fund category, NuvS&P500DynOvFd SPXX 16.35 15.50 -5.2 1.2 BS SFR 2027 T BSL 14.49 13.08 -9.7 8.8 BR MuniYld Qlty2 MQT 11.43 9.96 -12.9 4.7 Principal Dvs Sel RA A 25.16 NA NA 0.3 PIMCO Flexible Cr I;A-2 6.82 NA NA 15.6
either 12-month yield or total return is listed.
Source: Lipper
NuvSP500BuyIncFd BXMX 13.84 13.25 -4.3 3.8 BS St Cr 2027 Tm BGB 12.48 11.04 -11.5 9.0 BR MuniYld Qly 3 MYI 12.23 10.82 -11.5 4.5 Principal Dvs Sel RA Ins 25.25 NA NA 0.6 PIMCO Flexible Cr I;A-3 6.82 NA NA 15.4
ReavesUtilityIncome UTG 26.62 27.16 +2.0 -9.0 EtnVncFltRteInc EFT 13.16 12.15 -7.7 9.3 BNY Mellon Muni Bd Infra DMB 11.62 11.10 -4.5 4.4 Principal Dvs Sel RA Y 25.48 NA NA 0.8 PIMCO Flexible Cr I;A-4 6.82 NA NA 15.4
Friday, August 4, 2023
Tortoise Enrgy Infra Crp TYG 36.24 29.97 -17.3 0.4 EV SenFlRtTr EFR 12.95 12.14 -6.3 9.0 BNY Mellon Str Muni Bond DSM 6.45 5.57 -13.6 5.0 Redwood Rl Est;I 25.03 NA NA NS PIMCO Flexible Cr I;Inst 6.82 NA NA 16.2
52 wk
Prem Ttl Tortoise Midstream Enrgy NTG 42.09 35.30 -16.1 8.9 FT/Sr Fltg Rte Inc 2 FCT 11.03 9.99 -9.4 9.2 BNY Mellon Strat Muni LEO 6.74 5.99 -11.1 4.8 SS Priv Venture & Gr:D NA NA NA NS Other Domestic Taxable Bond Funds
Fund (SYM) NAV Close /Disc Ret VDivInt&PremStr NFJ NA 12.43 NA 3.7 Highland Oppty & Income HFRO NA 8.42 NA 10.8 DWS Muni Inc KTF NA 8.51 NA 3.9 SS Priv Venture & Gr:I NA NA NA NS AFA MMC;Fndr 9.42 NA NA 9.2
General Equity Funds V Art Int&Tech Opps AIO NA 18.10 NA 10.6 InvDYCrOpp:AX VTA NA NA NA NA EVMuniBd EIM 11.22 9.78 -12.8 4.3 SS Priv Venture & Gr:S NA NA NA NS AFA MMC;Inst 9.46 NA NA 9.2
Adams Diversified Eq Inc ADX 20.25 17.39 -14.1 11.5 Income & Preferred Stock Funds InvSnrIncTr VVR 4.11 3.87 -5.8 13.9 EVMuniIncm EVN 11.11 9.81 -11.7 5.0 SS Priv Venture & Gr;T NA NA NA NS Alternative Credit Inc:A NA NA NA 7.2
Central Secs CET NA 36.93 NA 6.5 CalamosStratTot CSQ 14.82 14.79 -0.2 3.6 Nuveen Credit Strat Inc JQC 5.81 5.04 -13.3 10.9 EVNatMuniOpp EOT 17.98 16.81 -6.5 4.3 The Private Shares;A 39.98 NA NA -6.5 Alternative Credit Inc:C NA NA NA 6.4
CohenStrsCEOppFd FOF 10.82 11.00 +1.7 2.0 CohenStrsLtdDurPref&Inc LDP 19.89 18.24 -8.3 -5.5 NuvFloatRateIncFd JFR 9.11 8.09 -11.2 10.7 InvAdvMuIncTrII VKI NA 8.29 NA 5.0 The Private Shares;I 40.59 NA NA -6.3 Alternative Credit Inc:I NA NA NA 7.4
EVTxAdvDivIncm EVT 24.20 22.93 -5.2 -3.8 CohenStrsSelPref&Income PSF 19.58 18.89 -3.5 -6.8 High Yield Bond Funds Invesco MuniOp OIA 6.18 6.18 0.0 5.2 The Private Shares;L 39.40 NA NA -6.8 Alternative Credit Inc:L NA NA NA 6.9
GabelliDiv&IncTr GDV NA 21.30 NA 3.3 CohenStrsTaxAvPreSecs&I PTA 19.42 18.19 -6.3 -2.4 abrdn Inc Credit Str ACP 6.86 6.87 +0.1 17.4 InvescoMuOppTr VMO 10.61 9.28 -12.5 4.9 Thirdline Real EstateI 10.07 NA NA 6.5 Alternative Credit Inc:W NA NA NA 7.2
Gabelli Equity Tr GAB NA 5.47 NA -1.4 FirstTrIntDurPref&Inc FPF 17.62 15.47 -12.2 -15.4 AllianceBernGlHiIncm AWF 10.64 9.82 -7.7 8.9 InvescoMuTr VKQ NA 9.31 NA 5.0 USQ Core Real Estate:I 26.51 NA NA -10.5 Angel Oak Str Crdt:FI NA NA NA 8.0
GeneralAmer GAM 50.72 41.55 -18.1 10.7 JHanPrefInc HPI 15.16 15.36 +1.3 -10.9 Allspring Income Oppty EAD 7.13 6.37 -10.7 9.7 InvescoQual Inc IQI NA 9.35 NA 5.0 USQ Core Real Estate:IS 26.57 NA NA -10.5 Angel Oak Str Crdt:Inst NA NA NA 8.6
JHancockTaxAdvDiv HTD 20.96 20.06 -4.3 -13.8 JHPrefIncII HPF 15.03 15.42 +2.6 -11.6 Barings Glb SD HY Bd BGH 14.83 13.19 -11.1 9.4 InvTrInvGrMu VGM NA 9.55 NA 4.9 Versus Cap MMgr RE Inc:I NA NA NA NE BR Credit Strat;A 8.68 NA NA 7.0
Liberty All-Star Equity USA 6.41 6.50 +1.4 6.8 HnckJPfdInco III HPS 13.52 14.22 +5.2 -8.5 BR Corporate HY HYT NA 9.04 NA 10.3 InvescoValMunInc IIM NA 11.63 NA 4.9 Wildermuth:A 9.91 NA NA -24.3 BR Credit Strat;Inst 8.65 NA NA 7.9
Liberty All-Star Growth ASG 5.55 5.27 -5.0 -12.8 J Han Prm PDT 11.63 10.97 -5.7 -23.2 BlackRock Ltd Dur Inc BLW 13.71 13.20 -3.7 8.8 MAINSTAY:MKDEFTRMUNOP MMD 16.82 16.85 +0.2 5.6 Wildermuth:C 9.30 NA NA -24.9 BR Credit Strat;U 8.68 NA NA 7.0
Royce Micro-Cap Tr RMT 10.29 9.02 -12.3 5.7 LMP CapInco SCD 14.77 12.70 -14.0 3.9 BNY Mellon Hi Yield Str DHF 2.56 2.23 -12.9 8.6 NeubrgrBrm NBH 11.75 10.07 -14.3 5.1 Wildermuth:I 10.04 NA NA -24.1 BR Credit Strat;W 8.68 NA NA 7.0
Royce Value Trust RVT 16.04 14.03 -12.5 -2.0 Nuveen Multi-Asset Inc NMAI 13.79 11.82 -14.3 0.3 Brookfield Real Asst Inc RA 14.81 17.15 +15.8 14.0 Nuveen AMT-Fr Mu Val NUW 14.97 13.50 -9.8 3.4 Income & Preferred Stock Funds BlackRock Mlt-Sctr Oppty 67.00 NA NA 9.0
Source Capital SOR 43.14 39.50 -8.4 9.0 Nuveen Pref & Inc Opp JPC 7.43 6.56 -11.7 -11.8 CrSuisHighYld DHY 2.11 1.89 -10.4 9.8 Nuveen AMT-Fr Qlty Mun I NEA 12.39 10.62 -14.3 4.4 Alpha Alternative Assets 6.30 NA NA 0.1 BlackRock Mlt-Sec Opp II 69.31 NA NA 9.0
Sprott Focus Trust FUND 8.77 8.19 -6.6 8.9 Nuveen Fd JPS 7.41 6.49 -12.4 -9.6 DoubleLine Inc Sol DSL 11.95 12.14 +1.6 12.5 Nuveen AMT-Fr Mu CI NVG 13.26 11.48 -13.4 4.9
Calamos L/S Eqty and DI CPZ 18.01 15.33 -14.9 0.6 CION Ares Dvsfd Crdt;A NA NA NA 6.9
SRH Total Return STEW 16.69 13.51 -19.1 12.3 Nuveen Pref & Inc Term JPI 18.38 17.88 -2.7 -8.0 DoubleLine Yld Opps DLY 15.31 14.57 -4.8 9.7 Nuveen Dyn Muni Opp NDMO 10.75 10.68 -0.7 7.6
Nuveen Var Rate P&I NPFD 18.71 16.35 -12.6 -14.7 Carlyle AlpInv Pvt Mkt:I NA NA NA NS CION Ares Dvsfd Crdt;C NA NA NA 6.3
Tri-Continental TY 31.62 27.74 -12.3 4.5 First Tr Hi Inc Lng/Shrt FSD 12.43 11.21 -9.8 10.9 Nuveen Mu Crdt Opps NMCO 11.52 11.49 -0.3 5.7
TCW Strat Income TSI NA 4.66 NA 0.5 Constitution Cap Acs A NA NA NA NS CION Ares Dvsfd Crdt;I NA NA NA 7.1
Specialized Equity Funds First Trust HY Opp:2027 FTHY 15.35 13.68 -10.9 10.9 Nuv Muni Credit Income NZF 13.33 11.55 -13.4 4.8
Convertible Sec's. Funds Constitution Cap Acs D NA NA NA NS CION Ares Dvsfd Crdt;L NA NA NA 6.7
abrdn Glb Prem Prop AWP 4.15 3.95 -4.8 -14.0 Franklin Univ FT 7.42 6.87 -7.4 7.2 NuvMuniHiIncOpp NMZ 10.74 10.46 -2.6 5.6
AdvntCnvrtbl&IncFd AVK 12.57 11.72 -6.8 -5.0 Flat Rock Opportunity 18.65 NA NA 7.8 CION Ares Dvsfd Crdt;U NA NA NA 6.5
abrdn Global Infra Inc ASGI 20.70 17.63 -14.8 0.3 KKR Income Opportunities KIO NA 11.86 NA 11.2 Nuveen Muni Val NUV 9.20 8.63 -6.2 3.8
CalamosConvHi CHY 10.83 11.40 +5.3 -2.7 Lord Abbett Spec Sit I:A 9.12 NA NA 7.7 CION Ares Dvsfd Crdt:U2 NA NA NA 6.5
Adams Natural Resources PEO 26.20 22.54 -14.0 20.6 New Amer Hi Inc HYB 7.89 6.80 -13.8 7.9 Nuveen Quality Muni Inc NAD 12.80 11.01 -14.0 4.6
CalmosConvOp CHI 10.26 11.15 +8.7 -1.5 Lord Abbett Spec Sit I:I 9.12 NA NA 8.5 CION Ares Dvsfd Crdt;W NA NA NA 6.7
ASA Gold & Prec Met Ltd ASA 17.52 15.00 -14.4 0.8 Nuveen Global High Inc JGH 12.84 11.55 -10.0 11.0 Nuveen Sel TF NXP 14.29 14.45 +1.1 3.9
Ellsworth G&I Fund Ltd ECF NA 8.66 NA -3.8 PGIM Global High Yield GHY 12.57 11.31 -10.0 11.0 Variant Altrntv Inc:Inst 29.22 NA NA 9.2 CNR Select Strategies 12.78 NA NA 0.0
BR Enh C&I CII 19.33 18.57 -3.9 6.8 PIMCO MuniInc PMF NA 9.69 NA 5.6
V Conv & Inc NCV NA 3.43 NA -4.5 PGIM High Yield Bond ISD 13.68 12.26 -10.4 10.1 Variant Impact;Instl 27.49 NA NA 11.3 First Eagle Crdt Opps A 23.56 NA NA 9.4
BlackRock Energy & Res BGR 14.28 12.42 -13.0 17.2 PIMCOMuniIncII PML NA 8.93 NA 6.2
V Conv & Inc II NCZ NA 3.02 NA -3.0 PGIM Sh Dur Hi Yld Opp SDHY 17.17 15.23 -11.3 8.4 Convertible Sec's. Funds First Eagle Crdt Opps A2 23.51 NA NA 9.1
BlackRock Eq Enh Div BDJ 8.85 8.21 -7.2 -1.6 Pimco Muni III PMX NA 7.74 NA 5.8
V Div Inc & Conv ACV NA 20.02 NA -1.6 PioneerHilncm PHT 7.73 6.75 -12.7 10.2 Calmos Dyn Conv and Inc CCD 20.06 20.77 +3.5 -0.2 First Eagle Crdt Opps I 23.47 NA NA 9.99
BlackRock Enh Glbl Div BOE 11.57 9.96 -13.9 3.4 PioneerHilncAdv MAV 9.07 7.79 -14.1 5.6
V Eqty & Conv Inc NIE NA 21.36 NA 12.1 WstAstHIF II HIX 4.74 4.95 +4.4 11.9 PionrMuniHiIncOppty MIO 12.31 10.70 -13.1 5.7 World Equity Funds First Trust Private Cr;A 10.22 NA NA NS
BlackRock Enh Intl Div BGY 6.11 5.30 -13.3 9.3
World Equity Funds Western Asset Hi Inc Opp HIO 4.25 3.81 -10.4 9.3 PioneerMunHiIcm MHI 9.78 8.42 -13.9 5.7 ACAP Strategic:A 17.68 NA NA 6.4 First Trust Private Cr;I 10.25 NA NA 4.8
BlackRock ESG Cap All T ECAT NA 15.73 NA 12.5
abrdn Emg Mkts Eq Inc AEF NA 5.31 NA 5.1 Western Asset Hi Yld D O HYI 12.43 11.79 -5.1 9.5 Putnam Mgd Inc PMM 6.39 5.88 -8.0 5.8 ACAP Strategic:W 13.21 NA NA 7.2 Franklin BSP Pvt Cr:A 10.27 NA NA NS
BlackRock Hlth Sci Term BMEZ 18.35 16.11 -12.2 2.0
BlackRock Hlth Sciences BME 41.97 39.75 -5.3 abrdn Glbl Dyn Div AGD NA 9.39 NA 3.1 Other Domestic Taxable Bond Funds Putnam Muni Opp PMO 10.90 10.08 -7.5 5.4 CalamosGlbTotRet CGO 10.32 9.55 -7.5 5.6 Franklin BSP Pvt Cr:Adv 10.28 NA NA NS
-3.8
BlackRock Innov&Gro Term BIGZ 9.44 8.09 -14.3 -4.3 abrdn Tot Dyn Div AOD NA 8.13 NA 5.7 Allspring Multi-Sector ERC 9.91 9.46 -4.5 8.9 RiverNorth Flx Mu Inc II RFMZ 15.14 14.23 -6.0 7.5 Cantor Fitzgerald SI:A 10.36 NA NA -1.9 FS Credit Income;A 11.87 NA NA 7.2
BlackRock Res & Comm BCX 10.94 9.62 -12.1 13.4 Allspring Gl Div Oppty EOD 4.87 4.35 -10.7 -2.7 Ares Dynamic Crdt Alloc ARDC NA 12.69 NA 10.0 RiverNorth Mgd Dur Mun I RMM 15.99 15.42 -3.6 6.9 Cantor Fitzgerald SI:C 10.31 NA NA NS FS Credit Income;I 11.90 NA NA 7.4
BlackRock Sci&Tech Term BSTZ 21.46 18.36 -14.4 -7.2 BlackRock Cap Alloc Term BCAT NA 15.35 NA 8.6 BlackRock Mlt-Sctr Inc BIT 14.48 14.91 +3.0 9.9 Western Asset Mgd Muni MMU 11.39 9.75 -14.4 4.4 Cantor Fitzgerald SI:I 10.35 NA NA NS FS Credit Income;T 11.89 NA NA 6.9
BlackRock Sci&Tech Trust BST 34.01 33.91 -0.3 -0.2 Calamos GloDynInc CHW 6.77 6.04 -10.8 -10.0 BlackRock Tax Muni Bd BBN 17.40 15.98 -8.2 7.8 Single State Muni Bond Primark Priv Eq Inv:I 11.66 NA NA 1.4 FS Credit Income;U 11.85 NA NA 6.6
BlackRock Utl Inf & Pwr BUI 22.34 22.52 +0.8 2.8 EV TxAdvGlbDivInc ETG 18.52 16.76 -9.5 -4.1 DoubleLine:Oppor Crdt Fd DBL 14.53 14.39 -1.0 9.1 BlackRock CA Mun BFZ 12.73 11.38 -10.6 3.9 Sweater Cashmere 20.68 NA NA 3.4 FS Credit Income;U-2 11.94 NA NA 6.9
CLEARBRIDGEENGYMDSOPP EMO 35.96 31.36 -12.8 24.2 EtnVncTxAdvOpp ETO 25.13 22.88 -9.0 -12.4 EVLmtDurIncm EVV 10.43 9.39 -10.0 11.7 BR MH CA Qly Fd Inc MUC 12.33 10.57 -14.3 4.4 Thornburg Inc Bldr Opps TBLD.O 17.76 15.33 -13.7 11.8 GL Beyond Income 0.41 NA NA NE
CLEARBRIDGEMLP&MDSTMTR CTR 37.87 32.89 -13.2 24.3 FirstTr Dyn Euro Eq Inc FDEU 13.67 13.09 -4.2 23.8 Franklin Ltd Dur Income FTF 7.11 6.30 -11.4 11.4 BR MH NJ Qly MUJ 12.81 11.06 -13.7 4.8 VirtusTotalRetFd ZTR 6.50 6.09 -6.3 -8.5 KKR CREDIT OPPTY;D NA NA NA 8.3
ClearBridge MLP & Midstm CEM 42.38 36.41 -14.1 21.7 Gabelli Multimedia GGT NA 6.24 NA 6.0 J Han Investors JHI 14.04 12.96 -7.7 7.1 BR MH NY Qly MHN 11.81 10.15 -14.1 4.2 Prem12 Mo KKR CREDIT OPPTY;I NA NA NA 8.5
ChnStrInfr UTF 22.64 22.61 -0.1 -9.9 GDL Fund GDL NA 7.91 NA 1.4 MFS Charter MCR 6.74 6.18 -8.3 0.0 BR MuniYld MI Qly MIY 12.66 10.90 -13.9 4.4 Fund (SYM) NAV Close /Disc Yld KKR CREDIT OPPTY;T NA NA NA 7.8
Cohen&SteersQualInc RQI 12.33 11.64 -5.6 -16.0 Highland Global Alloc HGLB NA 8.64 NA -4.0 NuvCorePlusImpact NPCT 11.62 9.92 -14.6 11.1 BR MuniYld NY Qly MYN 11.40 9.86 -13.5 4.1 U.S. Mortgage Bond Funds KKR CREDIT OPPTY;U NA NA NA 7.9
CohenStrs Real Est and I RLTY 15.80 13.96 -11.6 -6.6 India Fund IFN 16.67 16.78 +0.7 13.3 Nuveen Taxable Muni Inc NBB 16.57 15.28 -7.8 6.2 BlackRock NY Mun BNY 11.69 10.04 -14.1 4.1 Arca US Treasury NA NA NA NE Palmer Square Opp Inc 17.27 NA NA 9.0
Cohen&Steers TotRet RFI 11.54 11.55 +0.1 -16.6 Japan Smaller Cap JOF 8.72 7.26 -16.7 13.0 PIMCO Corp & Inc Oppty PTY 10.79 14.52 +34.6 10.6 EVCAMuniBd EVM 10.15 8.84 -12.9 4.2 Loan Participation Funds The Finite Solar Finance NA NA NA 3.3
CohenStrsREITPrefInc RNP 19.87 19.30 -2.9 -13.1 LazardGlbTotRetInc LGI 17.48 15.11 -13.6 -7.2 PIMCO Corp & Inc Strat PCN 11.06 13.87 +25.4 10.9 Eaton Vance NY Muni Bd ENX 10.50 9.45 -10.0 3.7 1WS Credit Income;A2 18.46 NA World Income Funds
NA 6.3
Columbia Sel Prm Tech Gr STK 27.86 29.85 +7.1 8.6 Mexico MXF NA 17.56 NA 34.3 PIMCOHilnco PHK 4.48 5.07 +13.2 11.3 InvCaValMuIncTr VCV NA 9.62 NA 4.5 BlueBay Destra Itl E:A 23.33 NA NA 13.3
1WS Credit Income;Inst 18.75 NA NA 6.2
DNP Select Income DNP 8.13 10.05 +23.7 -1.2 Miller/Howard High Inc E HIE NA 10.20 NA 7.2 PIMCO IncmStrFd PFL 7.73 8.27 +7.0 11.7 InvPAValMuIncTr VPV NA 9.75 NA 4.4 BlueBay Destra Itl E:I 23.35 NA NA 13.5
AlphCntrc Prime Merid In 8.05 NA NA 12.7
Duff&Ph Uti&Infra Inc Fd DPG 10.94 9.63 -12.0 -25.9 MS ChinaShrFd CAF NA 13.28 NA -14.5 PIMCO IncmStrFd II PFN 6.80 7.21 +6.0 12.0 InvTrInvGrNYMu VTN NA 10.03 NA 4.2 BlueBay Destra Itl E:L 23.31 NA NA 13.0
Axonic Alternative Inc 19.70 NA NA 9.0
EtnVncEqtyInc EOI 16.51 16.35 -1.0 7.1 MS India IIF 27.05 22.25 -17.7 7.4 Putnam Prem Inc PPT 3.82 3.59 -6.0 8.5 Nuveen CA AMT-F Qual MI NKX 12.86 11.42 -11.2 4.6 BlueBay Destra Itl E:T 23.21 NA NA 12.9
Blackstone FR EI D 21.52 NA NA 8.9
EtnVncEqtyIncoII EOS 18.67 17.99 -3.6 3.7 MS CBRE Gl In Mg Term MEGI 15.68 13.50 -13.9 -12.9 Western Asset Dvsfd Inc WDI 15.31 13.83 -9.7 11.1 Nuveen CA Val NCA 9.17 8.57 -6.5 3.8 Calamos-Aksia ACI:A 10.12 NA NA NS
Blackstone FR EI I 21.49 NA NA 9.2
EVRskMnDvsEqInc ETJ 8.50 8.13 -4.4 -5.5 New Germany GF NA 8.87 NA 2.4 World Income Funds NuveenCAQtyMuInc NAC 12.40 10.70 -13.7 4.5 Calamos-Aksia ACI:C 10.10 NA NA NS
Templeton Dragon TDF 11.34 9.71 -14.4 -14.7
Blackstone FR EI T 21.45 NA NA 8.7
ETnVncTxMgdBuyWrtInc ETB 14.22 13.48 -5.2 -8.5 abrdn AP IncFd FAX 3.09 2.70 -12.6 12.0 NuvNJ Qual Muni Inc NXJ 13.42 11.45 -14.7 3.8 Calamos-Aksia ACI:I 10.12 NA NA NS
Templeton Em Mkt EMF 14.10 12.23 -13.3 9.0 Blackstone FR EI T-I 21.98 NA NA 8.7
EtnVncTxMgdBuyWrtOpp ETV 13.15 12.98 -1.3 -6.5 MS EmMktDomDebt EDD 5.54 4.74 -14.4 6.1 Nuveen NY AMT/Fr Qual MI NRK 11.79 10.19 -13.6 4.4 Calamos-Aksia ACI:M 10.11 NA NA NS
EvTxMnDvsEqInc ETY 12.35 12.17 -1.5 PIMCO Dynamic Income PDI 17.22 19.37 +12.5 17.2 Blackstone FR EI U 22.40 NA NA 8.7
4.4 Prem12 Mo Nuveen NY Qual Muni Inc NAN 12.26 10.60 -13.5 4.5 Carlyle Tact Pvt Cred:A NA NA NA 9.6
EtnVncTxMgdGlbB ETW 9.00 8.08 -10.2 Fund (SYM) NAV Close /Disc Yld PIMCO Stratg Inc RCS 4.31 5.61 +30.2 11.1 Bluerock HI Inst Crd:A 23.85 NA NA 8.1
-1.8 Nuveen PA Qual Muni Inc NQP 13.01 11.06 -15.0 3.5 Carlyle Tact Pvt Cred:I NA NA NA 10.2
EVTxMnGblDvEqInc EXG 8.66 7.89 -8.9 0.1 Templeton Em Inc TEI 5.73 4.98 -13.1 10.6 Bluerock HI Inst Crd:C 23.86 NA NA 8.1
U.S. Mortgage Bond Funds Nuveen VA Qlty Mun Inc NPV 12.13 10.75 -11.4 4.3 Carlyle Tact Pvt Cred:L NA NA NA 9.6
Ecofin S&S Impact Term TEAF 15.44 12.68 -17.9 -6.1 Templtn Glbl Inc GIM 4.55 4.18 -8.1 8.5 Bluerock HI Inst Crd:F 23.86 NA NA 8.1
BlckRk Income BKT 12.57 12.07 -4.0 8.7 PIMCO CA PCQ NA 9.93 NA 5.6 Carlyle Tact Pvt Cred:M NA NA NA 9.3
First Trust Energy Inc G FEN 15.42 14.05 -8.9 -1.3 WstAstEmergDebt EMD 10.17 8.93 -12.2 10.0 PIMCOCAMuniII PCK NA 5.89 NA 5.1 Bluerock HI Inst Crd:I 23.86 NA NA 8.2
Invesco HI 2023 Tgt Term IHIT NA 7.39 NA 5.6 Carlyle Tact Pvt Cred:N NA NA NA 10.2
First Tr Enhanced Eq FFA 18.30 17.87 -2.3 9.96 Investment Grade Bond Funds Western Asset Gl Cr D Op GDO 12.95 12.40 -4.2 9.6 BNYM Alcntr Glb MS Cr Fd 88.42 NA NA 8.4 Carlyle Tact Pvt Cred:U NA NA NA NS
52 wk
FirstTrEnergyInfra FIF 17.17 15.12 -11.9 10.9 Angel Oak FS Inc Trm FINS NA 11.77 NA 9.7 National Muni Bond Funds Prem Ttl CliffwaterClFd;I 10.58 NA NA 9.6 Carlyle Tact Pvt Cred:Y NA NA NA 10.0
FirstTrMLPEner&Inc FEI NA 7.98 NA 9.1 BlRck Core Bond BHK 10.70 10.61 -0.8 8.2 AllBerNatlMunInc AFB 12.11 10.41 -14.0 4.1 Fund (SYM) NAV Close /Disc Ret CliffwaterElFd;A 10.75 NA NA 9.8 Fid MS Cr;A NA NA NA NS
Gabelli Healthcare GRX NA 9.70 NA -12.4 BR Credit Alloc Inc BTZ 11.15 10.12 -9.2 9.8 BlckRk Inv Q Mun BKN 12.86 11.41 -11.3 4.8 General Equity Funds CNR Strategic Credit 7.37 NA NA 20.0 Fid MS Cr;C NA NA NA NS
Gab Utility GUT NA 6.89 NA 5.4 InvescoBond VBF NA 14.91 NA 5.2 BlackRock Muni 2030 Tgt BTT 23.27 20.72 -11.0 3.3 Alternative Strategies:I 4.93 NA NA -10.0 Equalize Community Dev 9.32 NA NA 3.6 Fid MS Cr;I NA NA NA NS
GAMCOGlGold&NatRes GGN NA 3.74 NA 17.6 J Han Income JHS NA 10.79 NA 4.0 BlackRock Muni BFK 11.37 9.78 -14.0 4.2 First Trust Hdg Strat;A 9.98 NA NA N FedProj&TrFinanceTendr 9.99 NA NA 6.3 Fid MS Cr;L NA NA NA NS
J Han Finl Opptys BTO 28.51 30.23 +6.0 -13.2 MFS Intmdt MIN NA 2.74 NA 0.0 BlackRock Muni II BLE 11.77 10.17 -13.6 4.5 First Trust Hdg Str;I 9.98 NA NA N Flat Rock Core Income 20.56 NA NA 7.0 Lord Abbett Cred Opps Fd 8.88 NA NA 8.4
Specialized Equity Funds Flat Rock Enhanced Inc 21.27 NA NA NS Lord Abbett Cred Opps Fd 8.88 NA NA 9.1
Apollo Diversified RE:A 26.63 NA NA -8.4 InvDYCrOpp:A NA NA NA 9.2 Lord Abbett Crd Op:U 8.88 NA NA 8.4
InvDYCrOpp:R6 NA NA NA 9.5
Insider-Trading Spotlight Apollo Diversified RE:C 25.09 NA NA -9.1
Apollo Diversified RE:I 27.17 NA NA -8.2 InvDYCrOpp:Y NA NA NA 9.4
Oaktree Dvsfd Income;D 8.88 NA NA 8.2
PIMCO Flexible EM I;Inst 8.18 NA NA 9.1
Trading by ‘insiders’ of a corporation, such as a company’s CEO, vice president or director, potentially conveys ARK Venture 24.03 NA NA NS Invesco Sr Loan A 5.88 NA NA 10.7 National Muni Bond Funds
new information about the prospects of a company. Insiders are required to report large trades to the SEC ArrowMark Financial Corp BANX NA 16.65 NA NA Invesco Sr Loan C 5.89 NA NA 9.96 Ecofin Tax-Exempt Prv Cr 8.47 NA NA 5.1
CBRE GlbRlEst IGR 5.85 5.34 -8.7 -18.5 Invesco Sr Loan IB 5.88 NA NA 10.9 Lind Cap Pt Mun Cred Inc 8.67 NA NA 4.5
within two business days. Here’s a look at the biggest individual trades by insiders, based on data received by Invesco Sr Loan IC 5.88 NA NA 10.8
CIM RA&C A 25.01 NA NA 3.8 Nuveen En HY Muni Bd:A1 7.19 NA NA 5.3
Refinitiv on August 4, and year-to-date stock performance of the company CIM RA&C C 24.40 NA NA 3.0 Invesco Sr Loan Y 5.88 NA NA 10.9 Nuveen En HY Muni Bd:A2 7.20 NA NA NS
KEY: B: beneficial owner of more than 10% of a security class CB: chairman CEO: chief executive officer CFO: chief financial officer CIM RA&C I 25.21 NA NA 4.1 Lord Abbett FR Hi Inc:A 10.11 NA NA NS Nuveen En HY Muni Bd:I 7.19 NA NA 6.0
CO: chief operating officer D: director DO: director and beneficial owner GC: general counsel H: officer, director and beneficial owner CIM RA&C L 24.79 NA NA 3.5 Lord Abbett FR Hi Inc:I 10.11 NA NA NS PIMCO Flex Mun Inc;A-3 9.84 NA NA 3.4
I: indirect transaction filed through a trust, insider spouse, minor child or other O: officer OD: officer and director P: president UT: Clarion Partners REI D 12.12 NA NA 0.7 Monachil Credit Income:I 10.09 NA NA NS PIMCO Flex Mun Inc:A1 9.84 NA NA 3.7
unknown VP: vice president Excludes pure options transactions Clarion Partners REI I 12.14 NA NA 1.2 Nomura Alt Inc;I 10.16 NA NA NS PIMCO Flex Mun Inc;A2 9.84 NA NA 3.7
Clarion Partners REI S 12.14 NA NA 0.2 OFS Credit Company OCCI NA 7.82 NA NA PIMCO Flex Mun Inc;Inst 9.84 NA NA 4.2
Biggest weekly individual trades Clarion Partners REI T 12.11 NA NA 0.2 Yieldstreet Prism NA NA NA 8.5 Single State Muni Bond
First Tr Real Assets;I 9.50 NA NA -2.0 High Yield Bond Funds PIMCO CA FMI;A-1 9.94 NA NA NS
Based on reports filed with regulators this past week Forum RE Income;I 9.22 NA NA NS Apollo Diversified Cd:A NA NA NA 8.1 PIMCO CA FMI;Inst 9.94 NA NA 3.4
No. of shrs in Price range ($) $ Value
Date(s) Company Symbol Insider Title trans (000s) in transaction (000s) Close ($) Ytd (%)
Borrowing Benchmarks | wsj.com/market-data/bonds/benchmarks
Buyers
Aug. 1 P.A.M. Transportation Services PTSI M. Moroun DOI 6,354 20.99 133,389 25.95 0.2 Money Rates August 4, 2023
July 31 Exxon Mobil XOM J. Ubben DI 458 105.20-107.11 48,973 107.42 -2.6 Key annual interest rates paid to borrow or lend money in U.S. and international markets. Rates below are a
Aug. 1 J. Ubben DI 192 106.17-106.82 20,437 guide to general levels but don’t always represent actual transactions.
July 31 Tidewater TDW R. Robotti DI 118 62.28 7,330 64.14 74.1 Week —52-WEEK— Week —52-WEEK—
Inflation Latest ago High Low Latest ago High Low
Aug. 1 Inozyme Pharma INZY R. Hopfner DI 833 4.80 4,000 5.02 378.1 June index Chg From (%)
level May '23 June '22 Australia 4.10 4.10 4.10 1.85 13 weeks 5.280 5.270 5.300 2.490
July 26-27 Asana ASAN D. Moskovitz CEO 160 22.03-23.52 3,596 22.02 59.9 26 weeks 5.270 5.270 5.290 2.850
July 28-Aug. 1Akero Therapeutics AKRO G. Graham DI 55 42.69-43.26 2,362 43.53 -20.6 U.S. consumer price index Overnight repurchase
U.S. 5.26 5.35 5.35 2.25
Secondary market
All items 305.109 0.32 3.0
July 27 Allegion ALLE J. Stone CEO 18 116.62 2,041 111.91 6.3
Core 308.910 0.26 4.8 Fannie Mae
Aug. 2 Agree Realty ADC J. Rakolta D 30 63.02 1,891 64.61 -8.9 U.S. government rates 30-year mortgage yields
International rates
Aug. 1-2 Crocs CROX T. Smach DI 10 105.27-107.59 1,059 105.91 -2.3 Discount 30 days 6.644 6.391 6.812 4.529
Week 52-Week 5.50 5.50 5.50 2.50 60 days 6.676 6.394 6.988 4.569
July 27 Better Therapeutics BTTX D. Perry HI 1,233 .73 900 0.71 -36.0 Latest ago High Low
July 27 G. Parker D 685 .73 500 Federal funds Other short-term rates
Prime rates
July 26-28 FB Financial FBK J. Ayers B 16 34.80-35.10 552 35.15 -2.7 Effective rate 5.3400 5.3400 5.3400 2.3300 Week 52-Week
U.S. 8.50 8.50 8.50 5.50 High 5.6500 5.6500 5.6500 2.4500 Latest ago high low
July 31 Nasdaq NDAQ A. Friedman CEO 10 51.00 510 49.45 -19.4 Canada 7.20 7.20 7.20 4.70
Low 5.3100 5.3100 5.3100 2.3000
Japan 1.475 1.475 1.475 1.475 Call money
Aug. 2 Monro MNRO M. Broderick CEO 10 35.03 350 35.32 -21.9 Bid 5.3300 5.3200 5.3300 2.3000
Policy Rates Offer 5.3700 5.3400 5.3700 2.3200 7.25 7.25 7.25 4.25
July 28 Commerce Bancshares CBSH B. Brauer D 5 53.00 265 53.33 -21.7 Euro zone 4.25 4.00 4.25 0.50
Treasury bill auction Commercial paper (AA financial)
Aug. 1 First Busey BUSE S. King DI 12 21.44 250 21.74 -12.1 Switzerland 2.25 2.25 2.25 0.25
Britain 5.25 5.00 5.25 1.75 4 weeks 5.275 5.275 5.840 2.110 90 days 5.46 n.a. 5.54 2.64
Aug. 2 electroCore ECOR D. Goldberger CEO 51 4.35 222 4.60 19.4
Notes on data:
Secured Overnight Financing Rate
U.S. prime rate is the base rate on corporate loans posted by at least 70% of the 10 largest U.S. banks, 5.30 5.31 5.31 2.25
Sellers and is effective July 27, 2023. Other prime rates aren’t directly comparable; lending practices vary Value 52-Week
widely by location; Discount rate is effective July 27, 2023. Secured Overnight Financing Rate is as Latest Traded High Low
Aug. 1 CBRE Group CBRE B. Boze ODI 3,400 80.80 274,720 83.92 9.0 of August 3, 2023. DTCC GCF Repo Index is Depository Trust & Clearing Corp.'s weighted average for
overnight trades in applicable CUSIPs. Value traded is in billions of U.S. dollars. Federal-funds rates
Aug. 1 P.A.M. Transportation Services PTSI M. Moroun DO 6,354 20.99 133,389 25.95 0.2 are Tullett Prebon rates as of 5:30 p.m. ET.
DTCC GCF Repo Index
Sources: Federal Reserve; Bureau of Labor Statistics; DTCC; FactSet; Treasury 5.271 25.946 5.365 2.221
July 27 Airbnb ABNB J. Gebbia DOI 517 147.81-153.07 77,716 140.17 63.9 Tullett Prebon Information, Ltd. MBS 5.333 20.680 5.407 2.319
Aug. 2 Vertiv Holdings VRT P. O'Doherty OI 1,917 33.07-33.62 63,579 35.71 161.4
July 28 Amphenol APH R. Norwitt CEO 650 87.43 56,832 87.30 14.7 Cash Prices | wsj.com/market-data/commodities Friday, August 4, 2023
July 28 C. Lampo CFO 300 88.11 26,432
These prices reflect buying and selling of a variety of actual or “physical” commodities in the marketplace—
July 28 L. Walter O 265 87.32 23,136
separate from the futures price on an exchange, which reflects what the commodity might be worth in future
Aug. 1 Palantir Technologies PLTR S. Sankar CT 1,968 20.00 39,354 18.20 183.5 months.
Aug. 1 TransDigm Group TDG W. Howley DI 40 900.00 36,219 896.10 42.3 Friday Friday Friday
Iron Ore, 62% Fe CFR China-s n.a. Wheat,Spring14%-pro Mnpls-u 9.2225
July 28-Aug. 1St. Joe JOE B. Berkowitz DOI 407 62.88-64.95 26,087 60.36 56.2 Energy Shredded Scrap, US Midwest-s,m n.a. Wheat,No.2 soft red,St.Louis-u 5.8750
July 31-Aug. 2Jefferies Financial Group JEF J. Steinberg CBI 667 35.87-36.85 24,215 35.50 8.4 Coal,C.Aplc.,12500Btu,1.2SO2-r,w 62.250 Steel, HRC USA, FOB Midwest Mill-s n.a. Wheat - Hard - KC (USDA) $ per bu-u 7.9250
Coal,PwdrRvrBsn,8800Btu,0.8SO2-r,w 14.300 Battery/EV metals Wheat,No.1soft white,Portld,OR-u 7.0500
July 28-31 PTC PTC B. Moret DI 160 141.97-146.80 23,247 141.22 17.6
Metals BMI Lithium Carbonate, EXW China, =99.2%-v,w 38775 Food
July 27-28 NVR NVR P. Saville O 3 6350.75-6352.54 18,103 6320.97 37.0 BMI Lithium Hydroxide, EXW China, =56.5% -v,w 37450
Gold, per troy oz BMI Cobalt sulphate, EXW China, >20.5% -v,m 6090 Beef,carcass equiv. index
July 28-31 Intuitive Surgical ISRG G. Guthart CEO 55* 325.89-326.76 18,057 309.31 16.6 Engelhard industrial 1944.00 BMI Nickel Sulphate, EXW China, >22%-v,m 4638 choice 1-3,600-900 lbs.-u 284.86
Handy & Harman base 1942.45 BMIFlakeGraphite,FOBChina,-100Mesh,94-95%-v,m 620 select 1-3,600-900 lbs.-u 259.88
Aug. 1 Microsoft MSFT B. Smith P 50 336.89-337.64 16,860 327.78 36.7 Handy & Harman fabricated 2156.12 Broilers, National comp wtd. avg.-u,w 1.0849
LBMA Gold Price AM *1936.90
Fibers and Textiles Butter,AA Chicago-d 2.6200
July 31-Aug. 1Thermo Fisher Scientific TMO S. Williamson CFO 29 550.00-557.42 16,116 548.64 -0.4 Cheddar cheese,bbl,Chicago-d 177.50
LBMA Gold Price PM *1935.65 Burlap,10-oz,40-inch NY yd-n,w 0.7225
Aug. 1 Linde LIN S. Angel D 40 391.62 15,545 377.82 15.8 Krugerrand,wholesale-e 2028.66
Cheddar cheese,blk,Chicago-d 196.50
Cotton,1 1/16 std lw-mdMphs-u 0.8227
Maple Leaf-e 2077.19
Milk,Nonfat dry,Chicago lb.-d 112.50
Cotlook 'A' Index-t *95.60 Coffee,Brazilian,Comp-y 1.6352
July 26 BlackRock BLK L. Fink CEO 20 741.54-743.40 14,989 710.28 0.2 American Eagle-e 2077.19 Hides,hvy native steers piece fob-u n.a. Coffee,Colombian, NY-y 1.9628
Mexican peso-e 2504.47 Wool,64s,staple,Terr del-u,w n.a.
* Half the transactions were indirect **Two day transaction Eggs,large white,Chicago-u 1.1150
Austria crown-e 1905.86
p - Pink Sheets Austria phil-e 2038.37 Grains and Feeds Flour,hard winter KC-p 18.60
Hams,17-20 lbs,Mid-US fob-u n.a.
Silver, troy oz. Barley,top-quality Mnpls-u n.a. Hogs,Iowa-So. Minnesota-u 102.16
Buying and selling by sector Engelhard industrial
Handy & Harman base
23.7500
23.6630
Bran,wheat middlings, KC-u,w 145 Pork bellies,12-14 lb MidUS-u n.a.
Corn,No. 2 yellow,Cent IL-bp,u 5.1800 Pork loins,13-19 lb MidUS-u 1.2199
Based on actual transaction dates in reports received this past week Handy & Harman fabricated 29.5790 Corn gluten feed,Midwest-u,w 159.4 Steers,Tex.-Okla. Choice-u n.a.
LBMA spot price *£18.6200 Corn gluten meal,Midwest-u,w 541.7 Steers,feeder,Okla. City-u,w 269.63
Sector Buying Selling Sector Buying Selling (U.S.$ equivalent) *23.5550 Cottonseed meal-u,w 345
Coins,wholesale $1,000 face-a 20745 Hominy feed,Cent IL-u,w 165 Fats and Oils
Basic Industries 0 41,330,740 Finance 15,059,041 99,341,668 Other metals Meat-bonemeal,50% pro Mnpls-u,w 438 Degummed corn oil, crude wtd. avg.-u,w n.a.
LBMA Platinum Price PM *921.0 Oats,No.2 milling,Mnpls-u 4.2975 Grease,choice white,Chicago-h 0.6400
Capital Goods 419,025 86,614,467 Health care 8,543,552 128,173,135 Platinum,Engelhard industrial 925.0 Rice, Long Grain Milled, No. 2 AR-u,w 37.25 Lard,Chicago-u n.a.
Consumer durables 368,830 40,898,543 Public Utilities 300 1,415,896 Palladium,Engelhard industrial 1270.0 Sorghum,(Milo) No.2 Gulf-u n.a. Soybean oil,crude;Centl IL-u,w 0.7220
Aluminum, LME, $ per metric ton *2147.0 SoybeanMeal,Cent IL,rail,ton48%-u,w 456.35 Tallow,bleach;Chicago-h 0.6750
Consumer non-durables 1,419,176 36,274,590 Technology 2,302,137 359,263,723 Copper,Comex spot 3.8450 Soybeans,No.1 yllw IL-bp,u 13.9500 Tallow,edible,Chicago-u n.a.
Consumer services 451,917 64,730,683 Transportation 0 20,126,418
KEY TO CODES: A=ask; B=bid; BP=country elevator bids to producers; C=corrected; D=CME; E=Manfra,Tordella & Brookes; H=American Commodities Brokerage Co;
Energy 7,330,231 16,947,680 K=bi-weekly; M=monthly; N=nominal; n.a.=not quoted or not available; P=Sosland Publishing; R=SNL Energy; S=Platts-TSI; T=Cotlook Limited; U=USDA; V=Benchmark
Mineral Intelligence; W=weekly; Y=International Coffee Organization; Z=not quoted. *Data as of 8/3
Sources: Refinitiv; Dow Jones Market Data Source: Dow Jones Market Data
 .

THE WALL STREET JOURNAL. * * * * * * Monday, August 7, 2023 | B9

MARKETS

Meme-Stock Hype Persists, Lifting Shares

Investors hungry for
risk are pushing
Tupperware, Yellow
and Rite Aid higher
BY HANNAH MIAO
AND GUNJAN BANERJI
Short sellers, day traders,
shares of struggling compa-
nies soaring improbably
higher: The market right now
has all the elements of an old-
fashioned meme-stock rally.
Tupperware Brands is tee-
tering financially, but its stock
has climbed from below $1 to
about $5 in the past two
weeks. It jumped 36% on Fri-
day alone after news of a re-
structuring plan.
Trucking business Yellow
shut down operations around
a week ago, but shares have
jumped some 400% since. The
company filed for bankruptcy
late Sunday.
And shares of cash-
strapped drugstore chain Rite
Aid surged 68% in the past
week—for no obvious reason.
Their rallies contrast with the
overall market: The S&P 500
just notched its worst weekly
performance since March.
Meme stocks are companies
valued more for the excite-
ment around trading them
than their underlying funda-
mentals. It isn’t a strategy for
the faint of heart. The bank-
rupt Bed Bath & Beyond was a
meme darling earlier this year,
but shareholders will get
nothing under a proposed re-
organization plan filed last
month.
Still, the recent eye-pop-
ping share increases show
how hungry many investors
are to embrace big risks again,
after taking a breather during
last year’s market downturn.
Cryptocurrencies have soared,
too, even though U.S. regula-
tors are suing the biggest ex-
changes. The Nasdaq Compos-
ite, home to many tech
companies that are considered
relatively risky trades, is up
33% this year, despite the past
week’s decline.
Day traders were similarly
euphoric in late 2021, just be-
fore the market turned down.
Some money managers worry
that this year’s broad rally,
and the jump in meme stocks
in particular, has been too
much, too fast.
Ali Behzadpour, 49, used to
own a gas station where he
chased profit margins of pen-
nies a gallon. Like many indi-
vidual investors, he started
trading stocks during the pan-
demic. Now he trades full
time.
Behzadpour, who lives in
Napa, Calif., started noticing
moves in Tupperware and Yel-
low shares a couple of weeks
ago through stock-scanning
software and buzz on Discord.
Share of activity stemming from Share-price performance $3,000 from his short-term
individual investors, quarterly over the past month Tupperware trades.
Options Equities “I knew there was some
600% momentum behind it,” said
30% Tupperware
Brands Behzadpour. “And hype.”
500
Individual investors’ daily
net purchases of Yellow to-
20 taled nearly $5 million last
400 Tuesday, according to Vanda
Research. It had previously
10 never cracked $1 million, ac-
300 cording to data going back to
2014. Daily net retail buying in
Yellow Tupperware also soared.
0 200 Some of the most widely
2020 ’21 ’22 ’23 traded options tied to Tupper-
100 ware this past week were bets
that would pay out if the
shares jumped to $6 or $7.50.
Rite Aid 0 Shares ended the week at
$4.77 after closing the previ-
ous week around $3.
–100 To be sure, many individual
July 6 Aug. investors are trading less than
they did at the height of the
100,000 contracts pandemic—but still more than
they did in early 2020. Indi-
Rite Aid options trading vidual investors’ trading in
75,000 options recently made up 27%
Call options volume Put options volume of all activity, up from 23% in
50,000
early 2020, according to esti-
mates from Bloomberg Intelli-
gence.
25,000 Meme stocks represent one
way the market has funda-
mentally changed since the
0 pandemic. In 2021, newbie in-
Feb. 2022 ’23 vestors joined forces and piled
Sources: Bloomberg (share of activity); FactSet (performance); Cboe Global Markets (options trading) into stocks such as GameStop
and AMC, even though the
He said he has been “scalping” brief as seconds or minutes. In companies themselves were
Tupperware and Yellow, or one recent session, he esti- struggling. Earlier this year,
taking short-term positions as mates, he made more than individual investors jumped in
to trade the wild swings in
shares of regional banks.
“It’s kind of hard to put the
GameStop genie back in the
bottle,” said Katie Perry, gen-
eral manager of investor rela-
tions at investing platform
Public.
Nick Gaynier, 44, said he
has most of his portfolio tied
up in stocks like AMC, and he
has used small dips in the
shares to buy more. He doesn’t
mind the explosive swings.
“I would say that I have a
really massive tolerance for
risk,” said Gaynier, a waiter
from Morristown, N.J.
Gaynier said he picked up
Tupperware shares and op-
tions in recent weeks after
spotting chatter on social me-
dia. Last week, he scooped up
even more call options—which
confer the right to buy shares
at a specific price, by a stated
date—and watched in awe as
the contracts soared more
than 800% in early trading
Friday.
Bobby Mort, a 35-year-old
Sewell, N.J., resident, said he
has learned to move quickly
when trading meme stocks,
wary that the swings can be
short-lived. He prefers to bet
against stocks rather than ride
them higher and recently
shorted shares of Tupperware
and Yellow. But he said the
moves are often unpredict-
able and timing the trades can
be tricky.

Efforts to Detail Private Equity’s Healthcare Role Struggle

BY CHRIS CUMMING
Democratic lawmakers
seeking more information
about private equity’s role in
the healthcare sector have
made little progress, as sev-
eral bills have stalled in the
face of opposition from Repub-
licans and industry groups.
Some medical companies
would be required to disclose
ownership by private-equity
and other financial firms un-
der proposals advanced this
year by Democratic lawmakers
and regulators, who cited con-
cerns about how private-eq-
uity investment in the medical
sector affects patients and
workers.
But Republicans have re-
sisted, with GOP lawmakers in
the House of Representatives
recently excluding a provision
from the proposed Healthcare
Price Transparency Act that
would have forced healthcare
companies to make public
such ownership.
“It is impossible to talk
about transparency in the
healthcare industry without
talking about private equity,
which isn’t addressed in this
legislation,” Rep. Richard Neal
(D., Mass.) said at the bill
markup session, where
changes to proposed laws are
discussed, on July 26. “Pa-
tients have no indication of
how PE ownership affects
their care, nor can regulators
conduct proper oversight.”
The Democrat-supported
ownership-disclosure provi-
sion contained in an earlier
draft of the price measure got
stripped out as a part of a
number of changes made by
Republicans on the Ways and dustry a “vicious monster poorer quality of care, higher publicizing more data. For in-
Means Committee, say con- [taking] over our entire prices and more limited ac- stance, in April the HHS re-
gressional staffers and others healthcare system.” His pro- cess. leased ownership information
involved in the process. Re- posal was rejected in the Rep. David Schweikert (R., for more than 17,000 hospice-
publican House leaders are ex- markup session on a party-line Ariz.) said the government has care providers and home-
pected to integrate a version vote. created too many rules and health agencies.
of the bill, The session regulations that limit competi- Nevertheless, Democrats
which calls for revealed law- tion, driving up healthcare have intensified efforts to
more disclosure makers’ dis- prices. “Competition is what mandate disclosure of private-
on medical Some agreements bends the cost curve and takes equity ownership in the medi-
charges and lawmakers have about whether away the desire of private eq- cal system. None of the nu-
pricing to pa- private-equity uity to chase excess profits,” merous proposals made this
tients, into a argued that firms are re- Schweikert said. year at both the federal and
larger health- sponsible for Other lawmakers have state level have passed.
care measure
much of the data the healthcare questioned the disclosure push These efforts remain in rel-
that they in- is already public. system’s chal- on the grounds that much pri- atively early stages, and to
tend to present lenges. Republi- vate-equity ownership infor- move forward they must over-
to the full cans attributed mation in the healthcare sec- come fundamental disagree-
chamber for a high healthcare tor is already public. The ments between Republicans
floor vote later this year, the prices to government regula- Health and Human Services and Democrats about private
people say. tions and lack of competition, Department and Medicare ad- equity’s role in the health sys-
Rep. Bill Pascrell (D., N.J.) rather than predatory behav- ministrators already have the tem, said Jane Lucas, a part-
proposed an amendment to re- ior by investment firms. Dem- power to ask for ownership in- ner in healthcare legislative
store the private-equity disclo- ocrats say profit-seeking pri- formation, and under the Bi- and public policy at law firm
sure provision, calling the in- vate-equity firms lead to den administration have been Alston & Bird.

Thieves Are
Targeting
Nike Shoes
Continued from page B1
planned operations. They learn
about store layouts and create
TY ONEIL/ASSOCIATED PRESS

lists of valuable inventory at

each location. When it comes
to cargo, the groups hire spot-
ters trained to analyze contents
LIONEL NG/BLOOMBERG NEWS

of shipping containers based

on information in the bill of
lading. Retail and logistics
Wynn Resorts is slated to post quarterly results Wednesday. company employees sometimes
collude with the criminal
THE TICKER | groups, according to the Na-
MARKET EVENTS COMING THIS WEEK tional Retail Federation.
“The good guys, us, we’re Distribution centers are just one of the places criminals target in search of Nike sneakers.
Monday Wednesday billions of cubic feet playing checkers, and the bad
up 14 guys are playing chess,” Lewis pretend to be truckers offering StockX, a popular platform eral people who they say were
Consumer Credit Ratio, days of trading volume
said. “They’re always one or to pick up cargo. Since the sys- for sneaker reselling, temporar- part of that crime ring. Charges
of current position, at July 14 Initial jobless claims
May, prev. up $ 7.3 bil. two steps ahead of us.” tem moved online, the number ily halted sales of the sneaker, for those arrested are pending.
NYSE 4.4 Previous 227,000
June, exp. up $11.0 bil. of fraudulent tactics to skim saying at the time that the Stewart said his work relies
Nasdaq 2.5 Expected 231,000
Earnings expected Treasury budget payments and steal cargo has transactions violated its terms on collaborating with the re-
Estimate/Year Ago EIA status report
July, ‘22 $211 bil. deficit
Warehouse thefts gained momentum. of service and that it was coop- tailers because they can point
Previous change in stocks in
Coterra Energy A tip led Los Angeles police “We’re more reactive than erating with law enforcement. out details about repeated inci-
millions of barrels July, ‘23, exp.
0.34/1.35 in June to a warehouse con- proactive because of the Law-enforcement officials dents. Nike was one of the re-
Crude oil down 17.0 $95 bil. deficit
IFF 1.09/1.54 taining millions of dollars amount of activity,” Lopez and experts said one of the tailers that had a high level of
Gasoline up 1.5 Earnings expected
KKR 0.71/0.95 worth of stolen merchandise, said. most common ways to unload theft in Los Angeles County, he
Distillates down 0.8 Estimate/Year Ago
ONEOK 1.02/0.92 Applied Industrial said police Capt. Alfonso Lopez. stolen merchandise is through said.
Palantir Technologies Mort. bankers indexes
Technologies 2.17/2.02 Several containers of merchan- online marketplaces. Congress Stewart said the criminals
0.05/(0.01) Purch., prev. down 3.0%
CyberArk Software dise were taken to the ware- Storage-yard heists passed legislation in June seek- look out for new product re-
Skyworks Solutions Refinan., prev.
down 3.0% (0.13)/(0.27) house after making it through About $800,000 worth of ing to deter criminals from ac- leases. They will go into the
1.67/2.44 News Corp 0.09/0.37 the Port of Los Angeles. The Nike sneakers and other prod- quiring and selling stolen or store in groups with their own
Earnings expected Onto Innovation products were about to be ucts were stolen last Septem- counterfeit items through these bags, grab different boxes of
Tuesday Estimate/Year Ago
0.84/1.28 shipped to different locations, ber from a secured container marketplaces. Resale platforms shoes and one of them will give
Int’l trade deficit Illumina 0.02/0.57
US Foods Holding but multiple containers were drop yard in Memphis, Tenn., are now required to track and a signal so they all run out
May, previous $69.0 bil. Roblox (0.44)/(0.30)
0.76/0.67 stolen before they could be where the company has its big- get personal information for all with the loot at the same time,
June, exp. $65.0 bil. Trade Desk 0.26/0.20
Wheaton Precious moved to their final destina- gest distribution centers. sellers with 200 or more trans- he said. Sometimes they will
Vistra 0.88/(3.27)
Wholesale inventories Metals 0.27/0.33 tion, Lopez said. At least 20 trailers were actions and making at least hit multiple stores in different
Walt Disney 0.98/1.09
May, previous unch. The stolen goods were being broken into, and two people $5,000 in gross revenue during locations at the same time to
Wynn Resorts
June, exp. down 0.3% offered for sale through social were arrested days later on a 12-month period. generate confusion among law
0.64/(0.82) Friday
Earnings expected media and at least three indi- suspicion of possessing Nike enforcement.
Estimate/Year Ago Producer price index viduals bought items before au- merchandise that was stolen A year ago, Stewart’s task
Duke Energy 0.98/1.14
Thursday All items, June up 0.1% thorities confiscated them, Lo- from some of the trailers, ac- Stealing from stores force wasn’t focusing on orga-
Eli Lilly 1.98/1.25 Consumer price index July, expected up 0.2% pez said. cording to police reports. The Nike’s East Los Angeles nized retail theft, but members
GlobalFoundries All items, June up 3.0% Core, June up 0.1% The supply chain will re- investigation is continuing. store had reported about are now looking at it closely
0.50/0.58 July, expected up 3.3% July, expected up 0.2% main vulnerable as long as One product those trailers $750,000 worth of losses from because they have seen the
TransDigm Group Core, June up 4.8% U.Mich. consumer companies keep working the contained was the Jordan 11 merchandise thefts over one damage.
6.38/4.85 July, expected up 4.7% index way they do today, using an on- Cherry Red, a $225 sneaker year, and one crime ring was “We’ve seen stores that are
UPS 2.49/3.29 EIA report: natural gas July, final 71.6 line marketplace that lets that was scheduled for release responsible for most of it, said completely shutting down their
Zoetis Class 1.31/1.20 Previous change in stocks in Aug., prelim. 72.0 truckers, brokers and others last December. Authorities be- Nick Stewart, a detective with business and moving out of the
see merchandise that needs to lieve pairs of those Jordan 11s the Los Angeles County sher- communities that we service,”
* FactSet Estimates earnings-per-share estimates don’t include extraordinary items (Losses in paren-
theses) u Adjusted for stock split be moved, Lopez said. Crimi- were being sold on online mar- iff’s department. Stewart said. “That’s not
Note: Forecasts are from Dow Jones weekly survey of economists nals can access the system and ketplaces days after the theft. In June, police arrested sev- good.”
 .

B10 | Monday, August 7, 2023 THE WALL STREET JOURNAL.

HEARD STREET ON
THE
FINANCIAL ANALYSIS & COMMENTARY

Coinbase A China Property

Is Losing Domino Wobbles
A Source Financial troubles at Chinese Price of Country Garden’s

Of Stability property developers are hardly

news nowadays. But a sudden cri-
dollar-denominated bond
maturing in January 2024
BENJAMIN GIRETTE/BLOOMBERG NEWS

sis of confidence in the country’s 120 cents on the dollar

largest developer by contracted
sales—roughly three years after the
Interest revenue from market started weakening—shows 100
stablecoins diminishes how deeply entrenched the sector’s
problems have become, and how 80
far off any real solution remains.
Even the easy part is getting Shares and bonds of property gi- 60
harder for Coinbase Global. ant Country Garden Holdings fell
Given the company’s brewing The crypto exchange continued to slash expenses in the latest quarter. sharply over the past week in the 40
battle with the Securities and Ex- wake of media reports that it had
change Commission following the nue coming in at $663 million, ple of years ago. At the time, that scrapped a planned equity place-
20
regulator’s lawsuit earlier this year down from $736 million in the seemed likely to fall as the crypto ment—which would have been a
and the broader role of Washing- first quarter. market matured. In fact, the oppo- rare ray of light for the cash-
ton in the future of digital assets, The company told analysts on site is happening: In the second strapped sector. Country Garden 0
quarterly earnings might seem Thursday that it was working with quarter it leapt to about 2.2%, now says there is no definitive 2022 ’23
somewhat beside the point for partner Circle Internet Financial nearly a percentage point higher agreement about the proposed Source: FactSet
Coinbase. That is especially the to try to increase USDC’s market than it was a year ago. placement, and it isn’t considering
case during the current crypto cap again after the stablecoin Being a go-to for crypto newbies the transaction at this stage. The mean no one—especially among pri-
winter, when little is expected broke its $1 peg during the bank- and occasional users can still be a company’s dollar-denominated vate developers—is really safe.
from trading activity. ing crisis earlier this year. backbone for Coinbase’s business. bonds maturing in January 2024 Moreover, Beijing’s latest moves
Still, Coinbase’s stock has found Meanwhile, Coinbase continued Coinbase did increase the spread it are trading at 25% of their notional to support the sector—including
its footing of late, rising more than to slash expenses, with second- earns on some retail transactions value, compared with 81% as re- making it easier to buy an apart-
150% so far this year, in large part quarter core operating costs down in the first quarter and said it cently as mid-June. ment—don’t seem likely to help
because it has been able to use a nearly 50% versus a year earlier, hadn’t seen an effect on customer Hopes of more easing measures much. The fact that even the big-
surge of interest income—driven and down about 13% from the first behavior. But the question of the briefly lifted Chinese property gest developers can still run into
by interest earned on customer quarter. It added $156 million to stability of these fees remains rele- stocks last month—but reality trouble presumably gives potential
cash and stablecoin reserves—and its cash resources. But against the vant. For example, though it might quickly set in again. Contracted home buyers little confidence.
a cost-cutting drive to improve backdrop of the revenue decline, no longer have to compete with sales at the country’s top 100 devel- The bitter truth is that there is
profitability measures. The com- adjusted Ebitda of $194 million the likes of FTX for advanced trad- opers plunged 33% from a year ear- probably no easy way to quickly
pany’s second quarter, reported on was down from $284 million in the ers, the likelihood of spot bitcoin lier in July, according to China Real turn around the market without ig-
Thursday, showed a second consec- first quarter. exchange-traded funds finally be- Estate Information. In the first niting another property bubble.
utive positive reading for adjusted Meanwhile, on the trading side, ing approved means that Coinbase seven months combined, sales for Goldman Sachs says China’s ur-
earnings before interest, taxes, de- though retail transaction revenue might have to compete with them those developers have now fallen ban housing demand will fall to 11
preciation and amortization. continues to tumble, it at least for more casual ones. 5% year over year, wiping out all million units this year, from 18 mil-
But even simply collecting inter- beat analyst expectations, accord- At the same time, Coinbase’s in- the progress notched at the begin- lion units in 2017. The country’s de-
est is becoming harder. Coinbase ing to estimates compiled by Visi- stitutional business could be bol- ning of the year immediately after velopers built around 13 million
has generated a lot of interest rev- ble Alpha—but perhaps for the stered by the market-making activ- China abandoned its strict pan- units a year on average over the
enue from reserves backing the wrong reasons. As crypto volatility ity that a spot bitcoin ETF would demic control policies. Country past decade. And the bank says Chi-
USD Coin stablecoin. That revenue dropped, there was a relative de- entail. It can also be the crypto Garden’s contracted sales in July nese developers have around $9 tril-
had jumped sharply in recent cline in activity among advanced custodian to these funds, earning were down 60%. lion of inventories—including raw
quarters. But a 28% decrease in av- traders, who pay smaller fees. This steady fees. But whether those Plunging sales translate into less land and uncompleted projects—
erage USDC market cap in the sec- left a bigger portion of the volume ETFs will happen is a decision that cash to repay liabilities and finish equivalent to around 4.8 years of es-
ond quarter helped drive a 16% for so-called simple traders that remains in the hands of courts and projects. Country Garden has nearly timated contracted sales this year.
quarter-over-quarter drop in inter- pay higher fees. regulators. $2 billion of bonds that will come The housing boom was a wild
est income, to $201 million. Along Coinbase’s take rate—or trans- Perhaps Coinbase can help its due or be eligible for early redemp- ride for Chinese property develop-
with falling transaction revenue, action revenue as a percentage of own case with smart lawyering tion this year. The company had ers, but the hangover will be long—
that helped end a two-quarter volume—for retail trading has re- and lobbying. You just can’t see been considered one of the stronger and perhaps has yet to reach its
streak of sequential companywide mained a lot higher than many in- that in a quarterly report. private developers still left stand- most painful point.
revenue increases, with net reve- vestors might have expected a cou- —Telis Demos ing. Yet sluggish housing markets —Jacky Wong

TIME FLIGHT GATE STATUS

Insights That Go
the Extra Mile
Want to keep up with the latest trends in travel?
Let WSJ’s Carry On be your guide. Each week,
columnist Dawn Gilbertson navigates the highs
and lows of travel—helping travelers prepare
for whatever comes their way.

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 .

MUTUAL
FUNDS
& ETFS
MONTHLY DATA
R4, R5

© 2023 Dow Jones & Company. All Rights Reserved. THE WALL STREET JOURNAL. Monday, August 7, 2023 | R1
ALEX NABAUM

HOW RETIREMENT PLANS SHOULD

PROTECT EMPLOYEES FROM THEMSELVES

The design of 401(k)s and other retirement
savings plans too often lead employees to
make financially harmful mistakes. It doesn’t
have to be that way.
BY IAN AYRES AND QUINN CURTIS
W
HEN IT comes to 401(k)s and
other retirement plans, employ-
ees are often their own worst
enemies.
The problem—as we have
learned by studying the portfo-
lios of thousands of employees
in a large institutional plan—is twofold. First,
many employees put their portfolios at risk by fail-
ing to diversify their investments. And second,
many choose investment options with relatively
high fees that eat into their returns.
Overall, we estimate that about 10% of plan par-
ticipants fell prey to one, or both, of those errors.
What’s more, both the advisers that administer
plans and help craft their menus, as well as the
Please turn to page R3
Ian Ayres and Quinn Curtis are law professors at
Yale University and the University of Virginia,
respectively, and authors of “Retirement Guardrails:
How Proactive Fiduciaries Can Improve Plan Out-
comes.” They can be reached at reports@wsj.com.

Inside
The Biggest Money Mistakes That
Golden?
RETIREMENT ROOKIES

College Students Make They are early in retirement, and

healthy. But an accident on
vacation made them realize they Precious metals and commodities
should plan better for a decline. R5 in general are often seen as a way
For many students, managing finances is new, bucks runs and entertainment. to diversify when stocks and bonds
and they’re prone to fall into all sorts of traps Such costs can easily run sev- are iffy. But a look at the historical
eral thousand dollars a year. data isn’t encouraging. R6
There are many sample
BY CHERYL WINOKUR MUNK Here are several slip-ups budgets available online, some
that college students should more granular than others. SCOREBOARD

Y
OUNG adults often
get their first taste
of financial indepen-
dence in college.
And for some, that
taste is bitter. Financial mis-
steps when you’re just start-
ing out can be costly and carry
long-term consequences.
avoid:
1. Not creating a budget
Students should understand
that the true cost of college
goes way beyond tuition,
room and board. Monthly bud-
get items that can spiral out
of control include clothing pur-
chases, food deliveries, Star-
For instance, card company July 2023 fund performance,
and lender Discover proposes total return by fund type. More on R2.
sample budgets that help
U.S. Intl. Bonds
show what a reasonable stocks* stocks* (intmd.)
breakdown of monthly college
expenses might look like. An- Scan this code to
other sample budget, by Best- learn how financial-aid
Colleges.com, owned by Red formulas are changing 3.8% 2.9% 0.1%
Ventures, includes tuition, rent for siblings in college *Diversified funds only, excluding sector
Please turn to the next page together. and regional/country funds Source: Refinitiv Lipper
 .

R2 | Monday, August 7, 2023 THE WALL STREET JOURNAL.

JOURNAL REPORT | INVESTING MONTHLY

JR
A Journal Report U.S.-stock funds (monthly)
special look at the 2023
7.2
numbers and news about 0.3% 0.03 M
3.8
this month’s investing
M A J J
–0.9

l
l Insight

Students’ linked account so the trans-

action will clear. This can be
a helpful tool once good
Money spending habits are estab-
lished, but Lucina doesn’t

Mistakes recommend young adults

Continued from page R1
and other fixed costs, as well
as personal expenses such as
entertainment and clothing.
2. Not tracking expenses
For a budget to work, stu-
dents have to actually track
their spending, which can be
 made easier using apps like
Mint.com or an Excel spread-
7/10/23 The Salt Lake City headquarters of Zions Bancorp, which says deposits have rebounded. sheet, financial pros say.
Money flies out the win-
rely on this option because it
gives them the feeling it is
all right to spend more than
they have. Long-term that is
a bad practice, she says.
5. Misusing financial aid
Another issue can crop up
when students receive a
credit-balance refund. Col-
leges will issue a refund to
students if the amount of
their payments, loan dis-
bursements and grants and
scholarships exceeds the
cost of tuition, room and

10%
Change in the battered shares of
Zions Bancorp on July 20, the day
after it released earnings and
said that its deposits rebounded.
18%
The KBW Nasdaq Regional Banking
Index’s performance in July, its best
month since November 2016. But it is
still down 10% for the year to date.
dow when students pay for
friends who don’t pay them
back immediately. Electronic
payment apps like Venmo or
Zelle can help with this, says
Scott Sparks, founder and
chief executive of Sparks Fi-
board and other school-as-
sessed fees for a term.
This money is supposed to
be used for books, transpor-
tation and other education-
related expenses, but some
students get carried away,

Banks When Bay Area lender Silicon Valley Bank collapsed earlier this
year, and two others lenders also failed, many regional banks’
nancial, a Denver wealth-
management firm.
says Elaine Rubin, director of
corporate communications at

Climb stocks sank. Things looked a bit better in July, with rebounds in Pam Lucina, chief fiduciary
officer at Chicago-based
Edvisors, which offers fami-
lies advice on planning and

Back both deposits and the stocks at some banks. While the stock
prices still haven’t recovered fully, could the worst be over?
Monthly Monitor • William Power
Stock Funds Are Up 16.7% for 2023
This is good, as long as it lasts.
That’s what many stock-fund inves-
tors are feeling, coming off a July when
stocks kept rising. Even regional-bank
stocks, which were pummeled by the
spring’s banking crisis, had a solid
month, with the KBW Nasdaq Regional
Banking index up 18%, its best month
since November 2016.
But stock investors are still at the
mercy of the Federal Reserve and its in-
terest-rate boosts, and relying on earn-
ings gains at companies both large and
small. As August began, rising bond
yields, in the wake of America’s credit
downgrade, caused stock-market angst.
The average U.S.-stock fund rose 3.8%
for July, according to Refinitiv Lipper
data, to expand the gain to 16.7% for the
year to date.
“Markets may be pricing in the best
of both worlds: a soft landing [for the
l Financial Flashback
A look back at Wall Street Journal
headlines from this month
economy] atop a solid foundation,” says
Saira Malik, chief investment officer at
Nuveen. But she notes that interest
rates will likely remain elevated after
the Fed’s rate-increase campaign stops.
Higher rates and the impact of hawkish
monetary policy that began in 2022 “will
eventually take their toll on economic
growth, regardless of current market
bullishness,” she says.
International-stock funds were up
2.9% during the month, and are up 14.6%
for the year to date.
In addition to the rally in regional-
bank stocks, which have been weak
since the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank,
financial-services stocks in general had a
good month. Lipper’s financial-services
fund category was up 9.4% for the
month, to pull the category into the
black for the year, at 2.6%.
Bond funds were little changed, on
average. The main concern for bond in-
vestors is whether there will be addi-
tional increases, as the Fed battles infla-
tion.
Funds focused on investment-grade
debt (the most common type of fixed-
income fund) rose an average of 0.1%, to
leave their year-to-date gain at 2.3%.
William Power is deputy section editor of
Journal Reports in South Brunswick, N.J.
Email him at william.power@wsj.com.
followed less than six years later by
the iPhone, a category-killer. “Steve
Jobs got tremendous recognition for
getting the company back on track,”
Northern Trust, recently
worked with a rising college
junior who, by carefully
tracking spending, saw all
the ways she had overspent
‘When you have the previous year on things
like coffee and food delivery.
a momentum-
driven rally, the
She’s planning to change her
spending behavior so she can
save more for her long-term
markets expect goals. “Fifteen dollars here,
perfection. If $20 there, it adds up for col-
lege students,” Lucina says.
there’s bad Another option is to fill an
news, you have envelope with just enough
cash for a student’s monthly
more to lose.... expenses. Once the money is
By learning gone, it’s gone, Sparks says.
from history 3. Going down the
and considering credit-card rabbit hole
where we are Many students won’t have
their own credit card be-
today, we can cause they don’t have in-
see that we come. Parents can add chil-
dren to their cards, then
may be in for monitor the child’s spending.
a volatile ride Many companies allow card-
holders to set up real-time
during the spending alerts.
second half of Students who have their
2023.’ own credit cards need to be
careful, even if they have a
Anna Rathbun relatively low spending limit.
Chief investment officer, They should decline offers
CBIZ Investment for additional cards and not
Advisory Services buy more than they can pay
off monthly. This is especially
important since the average
interest rate for a new credit
card in July was 24.24%, ac-
cording to LendingTree.
A debit card could be a bet-
ter option, says Aaron Skloff,
chief executive of Skloff Fi-
nancial Group, an investment
advisory firm in Naples, Fla.
If your balance is $100, you
can’t spend $200, whereas
with a credit card, you might
be tempted to spend anyway,
Skloff says.
4. Getting slammed with
overdraft fees
paying for college.
They may spend their re-
fund quickly on nonessential
items, so it isn’t available
later when they really need
it. Some students also try to
use the credit balance to pay
for spring break or another
vacation. They aren’t sup-
posed to, and if the school
finds out, it could affect their
aid or future aid, Rubin says.
6. Apartment traps
Many students choose to
move off campus. But those
receiving financial aid
shouldn’t assume they can
get the aid ahead of time to
cover move-in costs, Rubin
says. That aid often isn’t
available until several weeks
into the term—not in time to
cover, say, a security deposit
or a real-estate agent’s fee.
Lease agreements need to
be read carefully by the stu-
dent and another party be-
fore signing, adds Sparks,
who says he has seen stu-
dents sign 12-month leases
without intending to live in
the apartment over the sum-
mer. The second person read-
ing it could be a parent, col-
lege adviser or family lawyer,
who might do it free. “It’s
about a five-minute look for
somebody who knows what
they are doing,” Sparks says.
7. Not taking savings
opportunities
Many students could be set-
ting aside money for their
future, but they don’t always
think about the best ways to
save, Skloff says. There is a
big difference between a 1%
bank-insured CD and a four-
week Treasury bill that pays
about 5% annual percentage
yield, even though both are
considered safe investments.
PHOTO: KIM RAFF/BLOOMBERG NEWS; ILLUSTRATION BY ALEX NABAUM; MONITOR: GIACOMO BAGNARA

Kessler says. And it is never too soon

5 YEARS AGO 
Apple didn’t always have things
easy. But in August 2018, it became
the first U.S.-listed stock to achieve
a $1 trillion value.
“At the time, people started to
think about why and how Apple got
there,” says Scott Kessler, the lead
technology, media and telecom ana-
lyst at Third Bridge. “This wasn’t a
straight line to the top.”
The company, which first went
public in December 1980, suffered
switches in leadership and the 1985
ouster of one of its key founders,
Steve Jobs, plus an array of product
changes over four decades.
In the 1990s, Apple’s prospects for
corporate superstardom weren’t
compelling, Kessler says.
Wall Street Journal, Aug. 3, 2018
But then Jobs returned to the
company in 1997, and things
changed. By 2001, the iPod—a radical
product at the time—hit the stores,
Even after Jobs stepped down in
2011, the profits kept growing, snag-
ging the company a $3.05 trillion val-
uation recently. The stock recently
accounted for 7.7% of the S&P 500
index, making it the largest compo-
nent, with more share of the index
than Tesla, Meta Platforms and both
classes of Alphabet stock combined.
—Simon Constable
25 YEARS AGO 
As Russia’s Markets Swoon,
The World Wonders What to Do
50 YEARS AGO 
Choice of Evils: Many
Economists Think
Government Gives Up
On Fighting Inflation
Students with bank accounts
should set up alerts to moni-
tor their account balances.
Many banks still charge over-
draft fees, which can run
around $35 per transaction,
according to FDIC data.
These fees can add up if a
student isn’t keeping track of
their balance in real-time. A
number of banks have elimi-
nated overdraft fees, so
choosing a different bank
could also be an option.
These banks will decline a
transaction if there isn’t
enough money to cover it.
Some banks also offer
overdraft protection, which
allows funds to be automati-
cally transferred from a
to start saving for retire-
ment, Skloff says. A Roth
IRA is ideal for working stu-
dents because the money
grows tax-free and the con-
tributions can be withdrawn
at any point without penalty
or taxes. Students working
for companies that offer re-
tirement plans should take
advantage if they qualify.
Self-employed students
could consider setting up a
self-employed retirement
plan, such as an individual
401(k) or a SEP IRA.
Cheryl Winokur Munk is a
writer in West Orange, N.J.
She can be reached at
reports@wsj.com.

THE WALL STREET JOURNAL.
William Bernstein on Investors’ Biggest Risk:
NOT PREPARING FOR THE WORST
The key, says the famed investment adviser, is to
hold enough safe, boring assets to keep you from
panicking when the value of your other assets drops
BY GLENN RUFFENACH
Q
UICK question:
When it comes to
investing, would
you describe your-
self as Mr. Spock
of “Star Trek”
fame, or George
Costanza from
“Seinfeld”? In other words, are you
an investor who’s logical and dis-
passionate, or one who’s impulsive
and excitable?
Most of us, not surprisingly, like
to think we’re Mr. Spock. But
when economic times are at their
worst, many of us are more apt to
resemble George.
So concludes William Bernstein,
an investment adviser and author,
in a new edition of his book, “The
Four Pillars of Investing.” First
published in 2002, “Pillars” today
is regarded as a classic among fi-
nancial guides. In a recent conver-
sation, Bernstein discussed why
he has updated his book, how his
thoughts about investing have
evolved, and why investors need
to rethink how they design and
build a portfolio.
Here are edited excerpts from
the conversation:
The lesson of Sylvia Bloom
• WSJ: Why update “Pillars” now?
• BERNSTEIN: I’ve learned a thing
or two in the past 20 years. For
starters, I’ve become less enam-
ored of a largely mathematical ap-
proach to personal finance. It does
little good to master the math if
you fail to understand financial
history, the madness of crowds,
and the enemy staring back at
you in the mirror.
• WSJ: You begin the new edition
GREG JONES
with a remarkable story about a
legal secretary. Tell us about Syl-
via Bloom.
Protecting
Workers From
Themselves
Continued from page R1
employers that offer the plans,
often act as enablers for poor in-
vestment choices—the advisers
because they include high-fee
funds that they profit from in
plan menus, and the employers
because they don’t do enough to
protect their workers from mak-
ing investment mistakes. It’s up
to employers to do better.
The gold rush
To get a sense of the problem,
consider what happened when
the plan we studied offered em-
ployees the option of investing
in a fund that tracks the price of
gold. Of the plan participants
who invested in the gold fund,
half invested less than 5% of
their portfolio in it—not a trou-
bling share of a portfolio for a
fund whose returns depend on a
single asset, as opposed to, say, a
diversified equity fund.
But a worrisome 35% of those
who held the fund had more
than half their money in it—
clearly far too much for a nar-
rowly focused fund, by our reck-
oning—including 11% who had all
of their money in it. Those in-
vestors don’t have the cushion
that greater diversification, or
any diversification, would pro-
vide should the price of gold de-
cline.
This failure to diversify suffi-
ciently wasn’t limited to a few
zealous gold bugs. Overall, we
found that nearly 22% of partici-
ALEX NABAUM
pants who held any narrow fund
held more than half their portfo-
lio in that fund.
JOURNAL REPORT | INVESTING MONTHLY
• BERNSTEIN: Sylvia Bloom
worked for 67 years as a secre-
tary at a law firm in New York.
She retired in 2014. When she
died a few years later, her execu-
tor discovered that her estate was
worth more than $9 million, con-
sisting mainly of common stocks.
No one, not even her husband,
knew about it.
• WSJ: How did she do it?
• BERNSTEIN: Some of it was
common sense. She understood,
and took advantage of, the magic
of compound interest. She wasn’t
trying to get rich quick, but rather
to get rich slow—a much safer
bet. Above all, she understood the
concept of risk: how much would
be required to meet her goals, and
how much she could tolerate as
she grew older.
I’ve come to realize that the
most dangerous facet of investor
overconfidence doesn’t involve the
ability to pick securities or money
managers, but rather the ability to
bear risk. In finance speak, our
“relative risk aversion” is anything
but constant, as theory assumes,
but rather rises dramatically in
the worst of times.
Sylvia Bloom weathered finan-
Dark Days
The 10 worst single-day percentage declines for U.S. stocks,* 1981-2023
Date Cause
Oct. 19, 1987 Black Monday
March 16, 2020 Covid pandemic
March 12, 2020 Covid pandemic
Oct. 15, 2008 Global financial crisis
Dec. 1, 2008 Global financial crisis
Sept. 29, 2008 Global financial crisis
Oct. 26, 1987 Black Monday aftershock
Oct. 9, 2008 Global financial crisis
March 9, 2020 Covid pandemic
Oct. 27, 1997 Asian financial crisis
*S&P 500 Index
Problematic menus
We also found that the menu it-
self was part of the problem—an
issue that isn’t peculiar to the
plan we studied. It made it too
easy for employees to invest too
narrowly and pay too much in
fees.
One issue with menus is that
some employers have no idea
whether plan participants are
making poor choices.
That’s because in those cases
the advisers who administer the
plan don’t give the employer any
information on how individual
employees allocate their savings.
Employers have fiduciary com-
mittees that are given reams of
information about the returns of
each investment option at quar-
terly meetings with the advisers,
as well as comparisons to the re-
turns of similar funds. But they
often aren’t told whether indi-
vidual participants are misusing
the menu by creating unbalanced
or expensive investment portfo-
lios.
The fund advisers don’t have
any financial incentive to pro-
vide such information, or to de-
sign plans in ways that would
tend to reduce diversification
mistakes to begin with. They of-
ten create menus that include
high-fee, undiversified funds of
their own that are attractive to
participants who believe they
can use such funds to beat the
broad market. Plan participants’
demand for these funds helps
perpetuate the problem.
Building a safer plan
So, with plan advisers and par-
ticipants often fueling the inclu-
sion of narrow, expensive funds
in retirement plans, and employ-
ers often blind to their employ-
ees’ mistakes, what can be done
to help workers make better
choices?
To start, employers’ fiducia-
Investors ‘overestimate their risk tolerance,’ says William Bernstein.
cial storms that would have
shaken the confidence of 99% of
investors. She did it by holding
enough safe assets, in addition to
common stocks, to see her through
the worst of times. We like to
think that we would do the same.
But when your savings are melting
before your eyes, you tend to panic.
• WSJ: So what does Sylvia
teach us?
• BERNSTEIN: The lesson I take
from her story, and from my own
experience as well, is that it’s a
huge, and usually fatal, mistake to
design a portfolio without focusing
primarily on those approximately
One-day fall
–20.47%
–11.98
–9.51
–9.03
–8.93
–8.79
–8.28
–7.62
–7.60
–6.87
Source: Hartford Funds
ries should ask for better infor-
mation about how participants
are using the plan menu. Armed
with this information, they can
act to reduce employees’ mis-
steps.
One way to do that is to
streamline plan menus by elimi-
nating undiversified funds that
participants tend to invest in too
heavily. The plan we studied did
just this in 2016, eliminating
more than 200 funds from its
menu, including all its narrow-
sector fund offerings—its gold
fund among them. Participants’
investments in these funds were
transferred by default to the
plan’s target-date funds or to
broad-based equity indexes. This
streamlining substantially im-
proved the diversification of par-
ticipants’ plan balances.
2% of times that will cause you to
lose your nerve and violate Charlie
Munger’s prime directive of com-
pounding. As Munger, who is War-
ren Buffett’s partner, puts it: “The
first rule of compounding is to
never interrupt it unnecessarily.”
That means holding plenty of
safe assets—like dull, low-yielding
Treasury securities—and being pre-
pared to see your risky assets get
periodically, and hopefully tempo-
rarily, slaughtered. As I note in the
book, there’s a reason why Buffett
holds 20% of Berkshire Hathaway
in Treasury bills and cash.
The pillars
• WSJ: Clearly, the one constant
in the new edition is the “pillars”
themselves. What are they, and
why are they important?
• BERNSTEIN: Just as medical stu-
dents have to master human anat-
omy, physiology, pathology and
pharmacology before they lay hands
on a patient, the competent inves-
tor must master four basic subjects
before they handle real money.
They are: investment theory,
which is the connection between
risk and return, and how portfolios
behave; investment history, which
is what long-term returns look like
and how markets occasionally go
bonkers on both the upside and
downside; investment psychology,
But streamlining isn’t the only
remedy for menu misuse. Fidu-
ciaries who learn that partici-
pants are misusing their menu
options should also consider im-
posing various forms of alloca-
tion guardrails. For example, in-
stead of eliminating a gold fund,
a plan might cap the percentage
of new contributions that can be
allocated to gold to, say, 10%.
That would protect those who
otherwise would have invested
too much in gold, while allowing
more-prudent investors to con-
tinue making moderate invest-
ments in this fund.
Guardrails can actually in-
crease choice overall: Plenty of
plans that might balk at offering,
say, a cryptocurrency option
might find it acceptable to do so
and cap its use at 5% of a plan
.
Monday, August 7, 2023 | R3
which is how to master the irra-
tionality of both yourself and
other participants; and the invest-
ment business, which is how to
protect yourself from brokers, ad-
visers and investment companies.
Beware the burn
• WSJ: In the book, you discuss
likely returns for stocks and
bonds in the coming decades and
the effect of those returns on re-
tirees’ “burn rate”—how much of
their nest egg gets spent each
year. The numbers are sobering.
• BERNSTEIN: From the mid-1920s
to the mid-1990s, investors were
blessed with real stock returns of
7% and real bond returns of 2%.
The reason for those high stock
returns, in particular, was the dra-
matic increase in stock valuations.
A more reasonable real return
over the next several decades will
be about 4.5% for stocks and
about 1% for bonds. When we plug
those figures into a 30-year retire-
ment, we confirm the suspicion of
many retirement analysts that “3%
is the new 4%.” In other words, if
you want your nest egg to last 30
years, you’re much safer pulling 3%
or less from your savings each
year than the popular 4%.
In fact, I think if your burn rate
is much above 3.5%, you’re in the
red zone.
• WSJ: To sum up, what do you
think are the biggest mistakes
that investors make?
• BERNSTEIN: Three big ones.
First, as already mentioned, they
overestimate their risk tolerance.
Second, they fail to understand
that whenever they buy or sell a
stock, the person on the other
side of that trade is likely some-
one named Warren Buffett or
Goldman Sachs, or worse, a corpo-
rate executive who knows more
about the company than even
those two names do. It’s like play-
ing tennis against an invisible op-
ponent, not realizing the person
on the other side of the net is
Serena Williams.
Third, they imagine that the
objective is to obtain the highest
possible returns, to get rich. It’s
not; your objective is to minimize
your chances of dying poor. Those
are two entirely different things.
Glenn Ruffenach is a former
reporter and editor for The Wall
Street Journal. He can be reached
at reports@wsj.com.
participant’s portfolio. Options
like that might keep the menus
of employer retirement plans at-
tractive to employees who would
otherwise funnel some of their
money into riskier brokerage
apps.
Guardrails also are more tar-
geted than streamlining.
Streamlining at the plan we
studied affected 30% of its par-
ticipants, while our analysis
showed that guardrails could
have produced similar or greater
benefits while only affecting the
10% of participants who were
making serious allocation errors.
Expect dissent
To be sure, a vocal minority of
participants will cry foul if their
choices are limited by streamlin-
ing or guardrails. But fiduciaries
have a legal obligation to design
menus prudently. This includes
a duty to reduce allocation er-
rors.
It should also be noted that
guardrails already exist in many
plans with regard to partici-
pants’ ability to invest in one
specific asset: their company’s
stock. Roughly two-thirds of
plans that offer company stock
limit participants’ stake in these
shares to 20% of their portfolio.
Here’s another way to look at
the whole issue by using an anal-
ogy outside the investing world:
Imagine a product manufacturer
that has ready access to informa-
tion that customers are injuri-
ously misusing its product, and a
ready means of reducing the
probability of harm, would have
a legal duty to redesign that
product. Plan providers who
have taken on the legal duty of a
fiduciary should have an analo-
gous duty, to learn whether par-
ticipants are misusing their
menu and, if so, to act by
streamlining the menu or put-
ting guardrails in place.
 .

R4 | Monday, August 7, 2023 THE WALL STREET JOURNAL.

JOURNAL REPORT | INVESTING MONTHLY

But if the original IRA owner And if they failed to do so, as

What Inheritors of IRAs Need to died on or after the required be-

ginning date—in effect, “turning
on” the RMD—NEDBs would
many did, they may have been
subject to a penalty of 50% of
the amount that should have
Know About Required Withdrawals have to take withdrawals from
that account in every year from
been withdrawn for each year it
should have been taken. (That
one to nine, with the entire re- penalty was reduced this year to
maining IRA balance distributed 25% and even 10% if corrected in
A lot of taxpayers were confused, and missed taking the IRS waivers. by the end of the 10th year. a “timely” manner.)
RMDs when they should have. Fortunately for them, For deaths in 2020 or later, Fortunately, for those NEDBs
the Secure Act required the pro- subject to penalties, the IRS real-
penalties have been waived. cess of taking withdrawals to Sorting it out ized there was significant confu-
continue, but for NEDBs it cre- “There was a lot of confusion sion and decided to grant relief.
ated the 10-year payout rule: If out there and the idea of RMDs Last October, it issued a notice
BY LEONARD SLOANE EDBs, who include surviving the original IRA owner died be- in years one to nine took some allowing for a transition and

T
spouses, children of the account fore his or her required begin- time to figure out,” says Andy waiving the penalty for missed
owner until age 21, disabled and ning date to take withdrawals— Ives, an IRA analyst at Ed Slott withdrawals in 2021 and 2022
HERE HAS been a chronically ill individuals and generally April 1 of the year after & Co., a tax consulting firm in within the 10-year period. And in
lot of confusion those not more than 10 years becoming 73 years old—mini- Rockville Centre, N.Y. It took July, it added another year of re-
about inherited in- younger than the original IRA mum withdrawals aren’t re- over two years after the Secure lief by excusing 2023 missed
dividual retirement owner; nondesignated beneficia- quired for NEDBs during years Act was passed for the industry withdrawals within the 10-year
accounts. ries, or NDBs, who include es- one to nine of the 10-year pe- to come to a consensus that period. If a taxpayer already paid
The confusion is tates and charities; and noneligi- riod. The account just has to be “RMDs did actually apply in a penalty for a “missed RMD” in
largely about the ble designated beneficiaries, or emptied by the end of the 10th years one to nine of the 10-year 2021 or 2022, a refund from the
annual withdraw- NEDBs, who include most non- year after the year of the origi- rule,” Ives says. IRS can be requested.
als known as required minimum spouse beneficiaries—such as nal account owner’s death. (All Lots of NEDBs who were sub- So, NEDBs who inherited an
distributions. If you inherit an children over age 21 and grand- Roth IRA owners are deemed to ject to the 10-year rule didn’t IRA in 2020 now essentially have
IRA, you may have to take these children—and are the ones af- have died before their required know that they had to take with- three years of withdraw-
RMDs, which are then taxable. fected by and benefiting from beginning date.) drawals in 2021, 2022 and 2023. als—2021, 2022 and 2023—
But because of confusion over waived. Those who inherited in
a 2019 law, many heirs were un- 2021 have two years—2022 and
aware they had had to take an 2023—of RMDs forgiven.
RMD. And those who inherited in
Guidelines were so opaque 2022 have their first year of
that the Internal Revenue Ser- withdrawals within the 10-year
vice in October 2022 retroac- period, 2023, waived. (Techni-
tively waived RMDs for those cally it is the penalty for failure
who fit into a specific benefi- to take the withdrawal that is
ciary category and mistakenly being waived, but the result is
hadn’t taken the RMDs for the the same because if you don’t
tax years 2021 and 2022. take the RMD there is no pen-
Then, last month, the IRS issued alty.)
a similar waiver releasing inheri- The amount of the RMD
tors in the same category from within the 10-year period uses
making RMDs this tax year as the IRS Single Life Expectancy
well. As a result, the first re- Table. Initially, it takes the bene-
quired withdrawals for these ficiary’s age in the year after the
types of IRA inheritors aren’t original owner died to find a life
due until 2024. expectancy factor (available in
Here’s the background and IRS Publication 590-B), which is
what inherited-IRA holders then divided into the previous
should know: year’s Dec. 31 inherited IRA ac-
count balance. This factor is
lowered by 1 in each successive
Three categories year.
The Secure Act of 2019 estab-

ALEX NABAUM
lished three categories of benefi- Leonard Sloane is a writer in
ciary for traditional IRAs: Eligi- New York. He can be reached
ble designated beneficiaries, or at reports@wsj.com.

Category Kings in 10 Realms Leaders and Laggards

Top-performing funds in each category, ranked by year-to-date total returns (changes in net asset values Performance numbers are total returns (changes in net asset values with reinvested distributions) as of July
with reinvested distributions) as of July 31; assets are as of June 30. All data are final. 31; assets are as of June 30. All data are final.
Large-Cap Core Small-Cap Core Best-Performing Stock Funds
Total Return (%)
Assets Total return (%) Assets Total return (%) Assets Annualized
($ millions) July YTD 1-yr 5-yr* ($ millions) July YTD 1-yr 5-yr* Fund Ticker ($ millions) Jul YTD 1-year 3-year 5-year
Roundhill MEME 1.1 19.8 69.6 26.0 N.A. Hennessy:Crnst MdCp;Inv 462.2 7.2 26.9 30.7 13.2 GrnShs:1.5x Lg NVDA Dly NVDL 118.8 14.9 415.4 N.A. N.A. N.A.
HCM Defender 100 Idx ETF 328.1 4.8 45.1 32.5 N.A. GMO:Sm Cap Quality;VI 70.7 4.4 26.1 N.A. N.A. MS FANG+ Index 3x Lev FNGU 2,440.0 9.1 373.3 104.3 15.0 27.2
IMS Capital Value;Inst 40.8 6.9 36.3 24.5 8.4 Oberweis:Micro-Cap;Inv 348.8 4.3 23.6 23.4 16.5 GrnShs:1.5x Lg META Dly FBL 6.4 15.7 295.0 N.A. N.A. N.A.
IndexIQ:IQ US LC R&D Ldr 5.1 3.7 34.6 20.5 N.A. Pacer US SC Csh Cws 100 2,518.8 7.8 22.9 17.0 10.3 MS Sol FANG & Innov 3X BULZ 612.0 15.7 292.1 48.4 N.A. N.A.
Amer Cent:Sustainable Gr 10.7 3.5 33.5 17.5 N.A. Vulcan Val PSC;Inst 423.4 8.0 22.4 1.8 N.A. Valkyrie Bitcoin Miners WGMI 13.6 24.0 259.4 40.9 N.A. N.A.
Invesco S&P500 Top50 2,316.0 3.2 31.6 16.1 14.2 WCM SMID Qual Value;Inst 137.3 2.8 21.8 15.1 N.A. GrnShs:1.5x Lg COIN Dly CONL 7.6 55.8 249.5 N.A. N.A. N.A.
Natixis:US Eq Opp;A 867.8 5.6 31.1 25.3 12.3 SouthernSun US Eq;I 47.3 3.9 21.8 17.1 10.0 VanEck:Digi Trans DAPP 45.6 24.5 211.3 34.8 N.A. N.A.
Fidelity Contrafund 107,887.8 4.2 30.4 19.4 11.9 Wasatch:Sm Cap Val;Inst 1,256.1 6.9 21.0 13.0 7.4
Glbl X Blockchain ETF BKCH 84.2 25.2 201.5 38.6 N.A. N.A.
Category Average: 1,688.4 3.1 18.6 12.2 11.1 Category Average: 563.3 5.1 12.3 8.0 5.9 MS FANG+ Index 2X Lev FNGO 192.2 6.6 199.1 82.6 23.8 N.A.
Fund Count 694 694 679 666 543 Fund Count 956 958 951 941 840 Direxion:Semicnd Bull 3X SOXL 7,046.9 14.1 194.5 44.8 23.9 22.7
Bitwise Crypto Ind Innov BITQ 86.1 24.9 194.1 27.3 N.A. N.A.
Large-Cap Value Small-Cap Value ProShares:Ult Semicond USD 294.1 13.2 189.0 89.1 43.7 34.4
Assets Total return (%) Assets Total return (%) Direxion:TSLA Bull 1.5X TSLL 820.7 1.8 185.3 N.A. N.A. N.A.
($ millions) July YTD 1-yr 5-yr* ($ millions) July YTD 1-yr 5-yr*
Invesco AG Crypto Econ SATO 4.5 23.7 180.4 38.8 N.A. N.A.
Selected American Shs;D 1,587.9 6.8 26.8 22.4 7.6 Ancora MicroCap;I 15.7 5.4 21.0 14.4 5.3
Davis:Sel US Equity ETF 363.5 6.5 25.4 19.6 7.8 Invesco S&P MC400 PV 231.5 5.5 21.0 23.4 10.9 Best-Performing Bond Funds
Total Return (%)
Davis:NY Venture;A 6,100.7 7.2 25.4 23.0 6.9 Easterly Snow SC Val;I 22.4 8.1 19.8 19.8 8.4 Assets Annualized
Clipper Fund 981.7 7.3 24.9 20.8 6.9 Rydex:S&P MC 400 P Val;H 19.7 5.3 19.7 21.4 8.8 Fund Ticker ($ millions) Jul YTD 1-year 3-year 5-year
Davis:Research;A 56.3 4.8 24.3 19.7 8.8 BrndywnGLB Sm Cp Vl;IS 18.1 5.9 18.6 N.A. N.A. Glbl X Blckchn & Btc Str BITS 14.2 10.2 130.2 35.6 N.A. N.A.
Artisan:Value Fund;Inst 292.7 4.8 21.6 21.9 10.6 First Eagle:SmCap Opp;I 1,182.6 4.2 18.1 12.0 N.A. Simplify:BTC Str + I MAXI 25.0 –5.2 72.7 N.A. N.A. N.A.
Fidelity Mega Cap Stock 1,714.6 4.3 20.9 19.8 12.6 Longleaf Partners SC 852.0 8.3 17.1 6.1 2.5 Hashdex Bitcoin Futures DEFI 1.9 –5.2 71.7 N.A. N.A. N.A.
DoubleLine:Sh En CAPE;I 4,251.7 3.8 20.8 6.7 9.9 Brandes Inv:SC Val;I 9.3 3.6 17.0 11.3 9.8 ProShares:Bitcoin Strat BITO 1,060.1 –5.4 70.0 19.8 N.A. N.A.
Category Average: 2,167.6 3.6 9.8 10.4 8.6 Category Average: 441.9 6.5 11.4 8.4 6.1 VanEck:Bitcoin Strategy XBTF 45.0 –5.0 69.6 22.5 N.A. N.A.
Valkyrie Bitcoin Strat BTF 29.2 –5.1 68.1 20.4 N.A. N.A.
Fund Count 354 354 347 341 301 Fund Count 162 162 161 155 135
ProFunds:Btcn Str PF;Inv BTCFX 52.6 –5.5 67.9 18.2 N.A. N.A.
ProShs II:UlS Yen YCS 27.1 –2.0 24.1 20.7 23.0 12.1
Large-Cap Growth Small-Cap Growth HCM Income Plus;A HCMEX 621.3 3.4 18.9 9.5 5.1 8.2
Assets Total return (%) Assets Total return (%)
($ millions) July YTD 1-yr 5-yr* ($ millions) July YTD 1-yr 5-yr* WisdomTree:Alt Inc HYIN 11.4 5.3 17.7 0.3 N.A. N.A.
Tidal:SoFi Social 50 14.9 9.3 57.2 16.6 N.A. Morg Stan I:Inc;I 446.7 9.6 56.7 19.7 12.9 ETFis:Virtus InfCp US PS PFFA 576.1 2.2 16.2 –2.1 11.6 4.2
Fidelity Blue Chip G ETF 651.7 5.2 48.3 25.4 N.A. Needham:Aggr Growth;Inst 204.0 7.3 36.9 27.8 19.5 FT III:EM Loc Cur Bd FEMB 144.3 3.0 14.6 17.4 –0.7 0.3
Fidelity Srs BlueChp G 8,857.6 5.2 47.2 26.8 17.6 Jns Hndsn Sm Cap Gr Alp 141.0 4.1 30.1 13.0 8.0 Glbl X Adptv US Rsk Mgmt ONOF 77.9 3.3 13.6 22.7 N.A. N.A.
Fidelity Blue Chip Gr 47,100.7 5.3 46.4 24.4 16.3 Delaware Sm Cap Gro;Inst 128.1 4.4 28.7 13.1 8.2 iShares:Convertible Bond ICVT 1,237.0 2.8 13.5 9.7 5.8 10.5
Fidelity Blue Chip Gr K6 9,211.1 5.3 46.4 25.6 16.7 Fuller&Thaler BSCG;Inst 279.5 5.8 27.3 19.3 11.3 Worst-Performing Stock Funds
WisdomTree:US Qual Gro 47.9 3.6 45.7 N.A. N.A. BBH: Prtnr Fd Sm Cp Eq;I 349.3 7.0 26.4 14.5 N.A. Total Return (%)
Invesco ESG NASDAQ 100 13.8 4.3 44.9 24.9 N.A. AMG Frontier SCG;I 41.7 2.2 26.2 18.0 12.8 Assets Annualized
Fund Ticker ($ millions) Jul YTD 1-year 3-year 5-year
Invesco NASDAQ 100 13,739.1 3.8 44.6 22.6 N.A. Jns Hndsn S/M Cap Gr Alp 216.6 4.6 25.5 14.5 9.0 VelShs 3x Long Nat Gas 0.2 –17.3 –95.0 –99.7 –83.6 –85.2
Category Average: 2,424.2 3.2 31.6 15.6 12.2 Category Average: 726.1 3.5 15.6 7.8 6.8 VS:2x Long VIX Futures UVIX 87.3 –18.9 –87.7 –93.3 N.A. N.A.
Fund Count 677 676 665 654 583 Fund Count 682 691 686 681 602 VelShs Dly 2x VIX ST ETN 0.3 –18.7 –87.0 –92.7 –91.5 –82.9
MS FANG+ Idx -3X Inv Lev FNGD 187.6 –12.0 –86.7 –82.6 –70.6 –73.2
MS Sol FANG & Innov -3X BERZ 18.4 –16.8 –83.0 –75.9 N.A. N.A.
Midcap Core Multicap Core
Assets Total return (%) Assets Total return (%) ProShs II:Ult Blm Nat Gs BOIL 1,144.4 –10.8 –82.9 –96.4 –51.9 –59.0
($ millions) July YTD 1-yr 5-yr* ($ millions) July YTD 1-yr 5-yr* AXS 1.25X NVDA Bear Dly NVDS 97.8 –12.0 –81.2 –79.9 N.A. N.A.
Needham:Growth;Retail 141.5 7.6 32.9 16.6 14.1 Opportunity;I 1,324.3 7.9 35.4 19.4 4.2 Direxion:Semicnd Bear 3X SOXS 1,110.6 –16.3 –78.6 –78.4 –74.3 –76.5
Tarkio 141.8 2.9 25.9 8.2 6.9 Simplify:US Eqty + GBTC 8.7 3.2 33.4 18.3 N.A. ProShs II:UltVIX STF ETF UVXY 387.8 –14.0 –76.9 –84.6 –81.5 –67.9
Hodges;Rtl 155.5 8.7 24.2 19.8 5.8 Permanent Port:Aggr Gr;I 29.2 7.4 29.9 24.6 12.0 Convxty 1.5x SPIKES Ftr SPKY 0.4 –13.8 –75.4 N.A. N.A. N.A.
IndexIQ:IQ US MC R&D Ldr 4.5 6.5 22.2 9.1 N.A. Invesco S&P500 Hi Be 608.4 5.5 29.8 19.6 14.5 KraneShs:Glb Crbn OffStr KSET 1.5 –25.3 –73.2 –84.7 N.A. N.A.
Paradigm:Select Fund 104.9 2.7 21.8 14.3 11.8 Goldman:Hdg Indus VIP 136.5 4.8 28.6 16.0 9.9 ProShares:UlS Semicond SSG 7.0 –13.4 –73.0 –69.7 –59.8 –57.8
Touchstone:Mid Cap;Y 4,619.6 2.8 20.2 11.5 9.8 Ave Maria Focused 57.3 3.4 28.2 11.9 N.A. MS Travel -3X Inv Lev FLYD 0.7 –15.7 –72.7 –78.1 N.A. N.A.
Federated Hs US SMID;IS 3.9 2.8 19.1 15.0 N.A. VanEck:Morningstar WM;Z 18.7 4.4 28.1 20.3 14.5 Direxion:DJ Int Bear 3X WEBS 33.7 –18.0 –69.0 –66.1 –39.8 N.A.
Argent Mid Cap 32.0 2.3 18.3 N.A. N.A. VanEck:MS Wide Moat 9,727.9 4.4 28.1 20.3 14.5
Worst-Performing Bond Funds
Category Average: 972.2 3.6 11.1 7.5 7.6 Category Average: 3,258.7 3.1 16.2 10.2 9.5 Total Return (%)
Assets Annualized
Fund Count 374 377 371 366 330 Fund Count 663 671 661 654 529 Fund Ticker ($ millions) Jul YTD 1-year 3-year 5-year
ProFunds:Sh Btcn Str;Inv BITIX 0.2 4.4 -51.1 -41.7 N.A. N.A.
Midcap Value Multicap Growth ProShares:Sh Bitcoin Str BITI 81.2 5.0 -50.0 -39.6 N.A. N.A.
Assets Total return (%) Assets Total return (%)
($ millions) July YTD 1-yr 5-yr* ($ millions) July YTD 1-yr 5-yr*
ProShs II:Ult Yen YCL 12.3 2.1 -19.0 -19.1 -21.3 -13.1
Typhon Tactic MF Str TYPHX 4.6 -1.5 -15.7 -23.3 N.A. N.A.
Longleaf Partners 1,371.6 6.3 24.8 9.1 3.6 Zevenbergen Genea;Inv 80.5 7.3 66.5 29.3 12.2
Cambria Global Tail Risk FAIL 3.8 -2.1 -7.5 -14.1 -9.4 -4.5
Vident US Equity Strat 540.0 3.1 18.9 17.8 9.1 One Rock Fund 12.6 10.0 61.0 34.1 N.A.
Invesco:Japanese Yen FXY 225.2 1.7 -7.5 -6.5 -9.9 -5.21
Vanguard Sel Value;Inv 6,245.2 4.8 16.3 18.0 9.3 Virtus:Zeven Inn GrSt;I 510.3 5.7 60.2 30.1 12.2
KraneShs:QIR V&I Hdg IVOL 728.8 -0.1 -7.4 -17.0 -5.3 N.A.
Ariel:Fund;Instl 2,791.7 5.0 15.6 10.0 6.8 Zevenbergen Growth;Inst 107.8 5.8 59.5 29.7 12.3
Rareview Inflation/Defl FLTN 15.7 -1.4 -7.3 -15.6 N.A. N.A.
LeaderShs AlpFtr Tct Foc 204.3 6.9 15.5 12.6 N.A. Berkshire:Focus 242.7 8.2 55.7 11.4 5.8
ProShares:UPSh 20+ Trs TTT 246.6 8.4 -7.0 36.7 41.9 -7.8
T Rowe Price MC Vl;I 13,611.4 4.8 14.2 14.3 8.9 AOT Growth & Innovation 25.4 6.0 50.1 19.5 N.A.
Simplify:ShTm Trs FS TUA 534.3 -0.4 -6.8 N.A. N.A. N.A.
J Hancock II:Mid Val;NAV 1,464.4 4.8 14.0 14.1 8.6 Baron Fifth Ave Gro;Inst 467.7 6.7 48.1 18.5 7.5
abrdn:Glbl Ret Str;I AGCIX 31.6 -0.1 -6.4 -7.6 -4.73 -1.4
Heartland:MdCp Val;Inst 500.8 5.3 13.8 13.3 10.7 Renaissance IPO ETF 178.1 12.1 48.0 12.2 4.5
Direxion:20+Y Trs Br 3X TMV 309.0 8.8 -5.8 37.3 41.8 -8.0
Category Average: 941.6 4.4 9.3 7.5 6.9 Category Average: 887.2 3.7 27.4 13.1 10.4 Direxion:20+Y Trs Bl 3X TMF 2,166.2 -8.7 -5.3 -45.3 -45.53 -16.3
Fund Count 152 152 150 150 135 Fund Count 445 445 438 436 366 Glbl X Interest Rate Hdg RATE 3.1 3.9 -5.2 24.7 N.A. N.A.
N.A.: Not applicable; fund is too new * Annualized Note: For funds with multiple share classes, only the largest is shown. Source: Refinitiv Lipper Note: For funds with multiple share classes, only the largest is shown. N.A.: Not applicable; fund is too new or data not available Source: Refinitiv Lipper
 .

THE WALL STREET JOURNAL. Monday, August 7, 2023 | R5

JOURNAL REPORT | INVESTING MONTHLY

Retirement Rookies • Stephen Kreider Yoder and Karen Kreider Yoder

for another cross-country trip.

We’re Retired and Healthy. But When not traveling, we intend to
be volunteering in areas that re-
quire health and mobility, such as

How Do We Plan for Our Decline? disaster relief, bicyclist advocacy

and prison-inmate literacy.
But Karen’s broken arm has left
us with more questions. How
should we set priorities for our
An accident on vacation was a reminder that retirement won’t always be like this next decade? Do we need a Plan
B, for if one of us suddenly de-
clines or dies? Perhaps we should
The first year in retirement is just heed the biblical exhortation:
often the most difficult. But it “Therefore do not worry about to-
also can set the stage for how morrow, for tomorrow will worry
you’ll fill the years ahead—both fi- about itself. Each day has enough
nancially and psychologically. Ste- trouble of its own.”
phen Kreider Yoder, 65, a longtime Readers have offered us some
Wall Street Journal editor, joined perspectives. “Travel while you are
his wife, Karen Kreider Yoder, 66, young and fit. Life has a way of
in retirement last year. In this throwing roadblocks at you when
monthly column, they chronicle you age,” write a couple with
some of the issues they are deal- some experience, Ed and Lib of
ing with early in retirement. South Carolina, ages 87 and 96.
“Enjoy your retirement and don’t
• KAREN: Have you ever wished worry about the petty things,”
you could redo two seconds of writes Ken, 78, of New York’s Long
your life? Island. “I was working too much
I have. and my wife said enough is
I was strolling with Steve on a enough and before I could retire
sidewalk in Tunisia this spring, a she passed away from cancer.”
day before the flight home from Dale and Patty, ages 72 and 77,
our first postretirement trip in Tennessee write that after sev-
abroad. I was gawking up at the eral years reveling in travel—in-
French colonial architecture—the cluding an 80-day Pacific Rim
cornices, the statues, the intricate cruise—they suddenly had to
brickwork. change retirement plans when
Then I was sprawled on the Patty was diagnosed with Lewy
ground. body dementia.
A sharp pain stabbed my left “We are both shocked and
arm. I had apparently thrust it out grateful as we sit in our debt-free
to break my fall after I tripped. I home in Tennessee in our 70s.
knew immediately: My shoulder Shocked in that more destinations
was broken. sionally about how we would tour, a month in North Africa and by summer’s end. But we now may never be realized in our re-
Thoughts flashed. Why was I eventually decline physically and visits to Steve’s parents in Iowa. have a taste of the slow-go phase. tirement and grateful we began
looking up while walking? Why how we should probably start lay- Most immediately, we wondered our travels when we did,” they
didn’t I pick my feet up higher? ing contingency plans. But it was whether we should revive our Hok- write. “Caregiving challenges are
Then: What would this mean for easy to put such thoughts aside. kaido trip or punt it to next year or • STEVE: “I feel like we have now our new reality.”
our summer plans? And oh, my Until Tunis. just drop it. Beyond that, we won- been cheated in our Golden Years, Their advice: Prepare your
aching shoulder. Our doctor came in with X-ray der what other mishaps are in after having worked hard and home now for aging, such as by
An hour later, waiting for the images and apologetically gave store and whether we should dial saved money to do a few things widening the bathroom doorway
doctor in a spotless Tunis hospital the diagnosis, a proximal humerus down our ambitions—or tackle when we retired.” and adding a front-door ramp.
exam room, we asked: Was this fracture. On the plane the next them with greater urgency. It was a Colorado reader, Jan- We wrote in May about how
some kind of a message? morning, my arm in a sling, we We’ve been reciting the truism ice, 76, writing to tell us how her we’re starting to budget our time,
Yes, we agreed. Yes, it was—a began ripping up our plans. about retirement’s three stages, spouse’s Parkinson’s diagnosis much as we budget money. Karen
wake-up call. We’d hoped to spend the early that there are the go-go years, “rattled our world,” forcing her to put up a giant wall calendar for
Many retirees eventually face summer biking on Japan’s Hok- the slow-go years and the no-go drop her postretirement dreams 2023-24 to start mapping plans.
physical challenges that keep them kaido island, where Steve grew up. years. Rob, a 69-year-old Ohio and become his caregiver. She Perhaps we should stretch the
from doing all they had envisioned That timetable was out, and we reader who retired in 2019, ex- urges aging friends to travel now, calendar to 2050 and plot out
for their golden years. We each couldn’t reschedule until we knew pounded on this in an email to us: she says: “Just spend the money what we imagine we could still do
have retired relatives with neuro- my arm was well. 1. You first have five to 10 because health might not allow in our slow-go and no-go years.
logical diseases. One year, they Back home, I sat staring at all the good years, doing the things you them to do it later.” We’d rewrite the calendar regu-
were planning for their next de- things I couldn’t do. I had expected pictured doing when not working, Poignant notes like this from larly, especially if one of us sud-
cades with their spouses; the next, to return to a list of projects—proj- at full current health. readers have added to a growing denly needs the other’s caregiving.
their spouses were their caretak- ects that required two hands, such 2. Then it’s likely that some- realization of what Karen hints at: We could front-load intrepid
ers. Still other retired acquain- as scanning our boys’ childhood pho- thing happens to one or both of We have been in denial about hu- travel and energy-intensive volun-
tances have recently seen their tos. I put those off and canceled my you in your 70s. A hip, a heart, a man frailty. teering. We would kick down the
lives interrupted by less-final, but tutoring commitments, my weekly knee, cancer, some decrease in Yes, I quit a gratifying job with road some stuff that’s less health-
still soul-crushing, health crises. quilting group and plans to play capacity. my employer of 38 years partly be- dependent—river cruises, binge-
For others, a tragedy has cut with a toddler neighbor. 3. If you make it beyond that, cause I wasn’t sure how many years watching movies, building R/C air-
dreams even shorter. In the past By June, my fracture had you may have 5-10 years of not we had left to do everything else. planes.
year, several friends on the cusp healed and physical therapy was so good health and limits on your We are both blessed with good As a reader in Virginia writes:
of retirement have suffered a going well. My doctor said: “This physical and mental abilities. health, and we expect to keep “Keep traveling now when you are
spouse’s unexpected death. One is just a hiccup in your life.” We need to enjoy each stage, launching off on adventures for young and able. You can organize
moment they were preparing for a But the impact feels bigger. We plan ahead for the next stage and many years. We hope, for in- your photos when you are 85.”
shared retirement; the next, they lost some of the momentum of make sure we have supports in stance, to don our backpacks
PAUL BLOW

were single. our early retirement months, place by the time we’re there. We again to hop on buses down West The Yoders live in San Francisco and
Steve and I had talked occa- when we’d launched on a bike expect to be firmly back to go-go Africa, and load our tandem bike can be reached at reports@wsj.com.

Mutual-Fund Yardsticks: How Fund Categories Stack Up How the Largest Funds Fared
Performance numbers are total returns (changes in net asset values with reinvested distributions) as of
Includes mutual funds and ETFs for periods ended July 31. All data are final. July 31; assets are as of June 30. All data are final.
Performance (%) Performance (%)
Investment objective July YTD 1-yr 5-yr* Investment objective July YTD 1-yr 5-yr*
Stock Mutual Funds and ETFs
Diversified stock & stock/bond funds World stock funds Total Return (%)
Large-Cap Core 3.1 18.6 12.2 11.1 Global 3.0 16.5 11.5 7.3 Assets Annualized
Fund Ticker ($ billions) July 1-year 3-year 5-year 10-year
Large-Cap Growth 3.2 31.6 15.6 12.2 International (ex-U.S.) 2.9 14.6 13.9 4.1
Large-Cap Value 3.6 9.8 10.4 8.6 European Region 2.6 16.1 16.4 4.5 Vanguard TSM Idx;Inst+ VSMPX 1351.17 3.6 12.6 13.0 11.4 N.A.
Midcap Core 3.6 11.1 7.5 7.6 Emerging Markets 4.9 12.8 10.3 1.4 Vanguard 500 Idx;Adm VFIAX 887.02 3.2 13.0 13.7 12.2 12.6
Midcap Growth 2.9 17.7 8.8 8.5 Latin American 5.6 25.8 30.1 4.7 SPDR S&P 500 ETF SPY 422.72 3.2 12.9 13.6 12.1 12.6
Midcap Value 4.4 9.3 7.5 6.9 Pacific Region 6.1 4.8 0.7 1.1 Fidelity 500 Index Fund FXAIX 420.61 3.2 13.0 13.7 12.2 12.7
Small-Cap Core 5.1 12.3 8.0 5.9 Gold Oriented 4.2 5.9 14.3 7.7 Vanguard Tot I S;Inv VGTSX 378.56 3.9 12.5 7.4 3.9 4.9
Small-Cap Growth 3.5 15.6 7.8 6.8 Global Equity Income 2.6 9.6 8.8 5.9 iShares:Core S&P 500 IVV 334.25 3.2 13.0 13.7 12.2 12.6
Small-Cap Value 6.5 11.4 8.4 6.1 International Equity Income 3.4 12.6 13.2 3.7 Vanguard Instl Indx;InsP VIIIX 254.07 3.2 13.0 13.7 12.2 12.7
Multicap Core 3.1 16.2 10.2 9.5 American Funds Gro;A AGTHX 232.64 4.1 15.6 8.7 10.3 12.5
Taxable-bond funds American Funds Bal;A ABALX 202.14 2.1 6.1 6.4 6.7 7.9
Multicap Growth 3.7 27.4 13.1 10.4 Short-Term 0.6 2.5 1.7 1.4
Multicap Value 3.8 9.0 9.2 7.9 Invesco QQQ Trust 1 QQQ 200.14 3.8 22.5 13.7 17.7 18.7
Long-Term 0.2 3.4 –2.0 1.3
Equity Income 3.2 8.3 7.2 8.0 Vanguard Gro Idx;ETF VUG 178.62 3.3 16.9 11.1 14.7 14.7
Intermediate Bond 0.1 2.3 –3.0 0.7
S&P 500 Funds 3.2 20.4 12.5 11.7 Vanguard Dev Mkt;ETF VEA 168.05 3.2 14.2 9.2 4.6 5.5
Intermediate U.S. 0.2 1.5 –4.4 1.8
Specialty Divers. Equity 3.5 15.3 8.8 5.5 American Funds Wash;A AWSHX 159.07 3.1 11.2 14.2 10.4 11.1
Short-Term U.S. 0.3 1.4 –0.4 0.5
Balanced 2.0 9.1 5.0 4.9 Vanguard Md-Cp I;ETF VO 147.30 3.5 7.4 10.9 8.8 10.2
Long-Term U.S. –0.7 1.1 –6.5 –0.3
Stock/Bond Blend 2.3 10.5 6.0 5.3 Vanguard Val Idx;ETF VTV 147.23 3.4 9.0 15.3 9.1 10.3
General U.S. Taxable 0.3 3.1 –1.4 0.9
Avg. U.S. Stock Fund† 3.8 16.7 10.0 8.4 American Funds EuPc;R6 RERGX 138.67 2.9 13.5 4.5 4.5 6.2
High-Yield Taxable 1.4 6.2 3.9 2.8
Sector stock funds Vanguard S-C Id;Adm VSMAX 123.33 5.0 9.1 12.7 7.2 9.3
Mortgage 0.01 1.9 –3.9 –0.1
American Funds NPer;A ANWPX 120.48 2.9 13.4 9.0 9.9 10.6
Science & Technology 5.0 40.4 19.5 13.7 World Bond 1.3 5.2 4.0 0.4
American Funds Inc;A AMECX 118.33 2.1 4.5 7.9 6.1 6.9
Telecommunication 1.7 17.3 3.2 4.1 Avg. Taxable-Bond Fund** 0.6 3.5 0.5 1.4
American Funds FInv;A ANCFX 116.79 3.7 15.8 12.1 9.5 11.3
Health/Biotechnology 1.0 3.6 4.9 5.7 Municipal-bond funds
Utility 2.0 –1.5 –4.5 7.0 Short-Term Muni 0.3 1.3 –0.4 0.5 Bond Mutual Funds and ETFs
Natural Resources 10.4 6.3 17.2 3.1 Total Return (%)
Intermediate Muni 0.2 2.2 0.5 1.3 Assets Annualized
Sector 4.0 6.5 –6.1 3.8 General & Insured Muni 0.3 3.2 –0.01 1.3 Fund Ticker ($ billions) July 1-year 3-year 5-year 10-year
Real Estate 2.0 6.8 –8.4 4.5 High-Yield Muni 0.3 3.5 –1.5 1.3 Vanguard Tot Bd;Adm VBTLX 297.33 –0.1 –3.2 –4.5 0.8 1.5
Vanguard Tot Bd II;Inst VTBNX 251.82 –0.1 –3.2 –4.5 0.7 1.4
PIMCO:Income;Inst PIMIX 123.71 1.2 3.3 1.8 2.7 4.3
Stock & Bond Benchmark Indexes All total return unless noted Vanguard Tot Itl B2;Inst VTILX 99.40 0.04 –3.0 N.A. N.A. N.A.
Performance (%) Performance (%)
Investment objective July YTD 1-yr 5-yr* Investment objective July YTD 1-yr 5-yr*
iShares:Core US Agg Bd AGG 91.90 –0.1 –3.3 –4.5 0.7 1.5
Vanguard Tot Itl BI;ETF BNDX 86.16 0.04 –2.9 –3.7 0.3 2.0
Large-cap stocks Stock indexes American Funds Bond;A ABNDX 75.75 –0.04 –4.0 –4.1 1.2 1.7
DJIA 3.4 8.5 10.6 9.3 DJ U.S. TSM Growth 3.5 38.0 18.5 14.5 Vanguard Int-Tm TxEx;Adm VWIUX 70.21 0.2 1.1 –0.63 2.0 2.6
S&P 500 3.2 20.6 13.0 12.2 DJ U.S. TSM Value 3.7 6.7 7.1 7.3 Fidelity SA Core Inc FIWGX 65.76 0.1 –2.6 –3.3 N.A. N.A.
Midcap stocks Taxable bonds Dodge & Cox Income;I DODIX 64.42 0.2 –0.6 –2.4 2.0 2.5
S&P MidCap 400 4.1 13.3 10.5 8.3 Barclays Agg. Bond –0.1 2.0 –3.4 0.7 Vanguard Sh-Tm B;ETF BSV 63.17 0.4 –0.4 –1.6 1.2 1.1
MetWest:Total Rtn;I MWTIX 62.03 0.04 –4.0 –4.6 0.8 1.6
Small-cap stocks Municipal bonds
Fidelity US Bond Index FXNAX 59.82 –0.04 –3.4 –4.5 0.7 1.5
Russell 2000 6.1 14.7 7.9 5.1 Barclays Muni. Bond 0.4 3.1 0.9 1.9
Vanguard Sh-Tm Inv;Adm VFSUX 57.16 0.7 0.8 –0.9 1.6 1.7
Broad stock market International stocks PIMCO:Tot Rtn;Inst PTTRX 54.61 0.3 –2.8 –4.1 0.8 1.6
DJ U.S. Total Stock Market 3.6 20.4 12.6 11.3 MSCI EAFE†† (price return) 3.2 13.1 13.5 1.9 Vanguard ST IPSI;Adm VTAPX 53.03 0.5 –1.2 2.2 2.8 1.6
Russell 3000 3.6 20.3 12.6 11.4 Dow Jones World (ex. U.S.) 4.2 13.8 13.1 3.9 Fidelity Str Adv Cre Inc FPCIX 49.96 0.1 –2.7 –3.9 1.1 1.9
*Annualized †Diversified funds only **Excludes money-market funds ††Europe, Australia, Far East Source: Refinitiv Lipper Note: For funds with multiple share classes, only the largest is shown. N.A.: Not applicable; fund is too new or data not available Refinitiv Lipper

R6 | Monday, August 7, 2023
Commodities Aren’t Likely to Boost
Investment Performance, History Says
Some cautionary numbers for commodity
investors about the past two decades
BY MARK HULBERT
S INVES-
A
TORS worry
that we are
entering an
extended pe-
riod of at-
best-medio-
cre stock
and bond returns, some are
wondering if diversifying into
commodities is the answer.
History doesn’t provide
much encouragement.
Consider a conservative
portfolio that, instead of allo-
cating 60% to the S&P 500 and
40% to investment-grade
bonds, takes 5% from both as-
sets and allocates the 10% to
Invesco DB Commodity Index
Tracking ETF (DBC).
Over the 16 calendar years
through 2022 in which the DBC
has existed, this yearly rebal-
anced three-asset portfolio
would have produced a return
that was 0.4 annualized per-
centage point lower than the
Commodities’ dismal run
400% SPDR S&P
500 ETF
350 iShares Core U.S.
Aggregate Bond
300
Invesco DB
Commodity Index
250 Tracking ETF
iShares S&P GSCI
200
Commodity
Indexed ETF
150
100
50
0 were publicly traded, however,
–50
–100
2007 ’10 ’15 ’20
Source: Hulbert Ratings
Do Commodities Provide
A Hedge Against
Recessions?
We Ran the Numbers
The answer: It depends on the commodities and
how you buy them. But generally, no.
BY DEREK HORSTMEYER
NVESTORS OFTEN look to
I
commodities to protect their
portfolio in a recession or
downturn.
But which commodities
actually preserve wealth during
adverse economic conditions?
And is it better to hold a mu-
tual fund or ETF that tracks the
commodity or to hold the physi-
cal commodity itself?
The short answer: Gold is the
only commodity (of the eight
categories we tested) that had
a positive average return during
recessions both in terms of the
fund tracking the commodity
and the actual commodity itself.
For all other types of commodi-
ties tested, returns for both
types of investment were nega-
tive during economic down-
turns.
To study this, Melvin Reyes
and Alberto Vergara, my re-
search assistants, and I pulled
data on all commodity mutual
funds and ETFs going back 25
years (when commodity ETFs
first appeared). We then orga-
nized them by the eight main
categories: generic commodity
fund, gold, silver, agriculture,
.
THE WALL STREET JOURNAL.
JOURNAL REPORT | INVESTING MONTHLY
correlation applies to gold,
which many investors have
long considered to be the
quintessential inflation hedge.
In a separate study, Erb and
Harvey found that gold’s much-
vaunted inflation-hedging po-
tential emerges in the histori-
cal data only when focusing on
very long term hori-
zons—those lasting
many decades rather
than a few years. They
found that over the
60/40 portfolio. This shorter term, which is
stock/bond/DBC the typical focus of in-
portfolio was slightly dividual investors,
less volatile than the gold has a mediocre-
conservative 60/40 at-best inflation-hedg-
portfolio, but not by ing record.
enough to justify its
lower return.
A similar conclu- Benefits of
sion applies to a diversification
portfolio that in- It is still possible that
stead invested the commodities can in-
10% commodity allo- crease a diversified
cation in a different portfolio’s risk-ad-
commodity index justed return. To do
fund, iShares S&P so, commodities
GSCI Commodity-In- would need to: 1) have
dexed ETF (GSG), very low correlations
which invests in with those of the
most of the same other assets the port-
commodities in- folio holds, and
cluded in the DBC thereby lower the
fund, but with a dif- overall portfolio’s vol-
ferent weighting atility-related risk;
protocol. This stock/ and 2) reduce portfo-
bond/GSG portfolio performed cusing only on the 17 years for three were correlated with the lio risk by more than return is
even worse than the DBC ver- which we have real-world per- consumer-price index at the forfeited in the process.
sion, both in terms of raw and formance for these commodity 95% confidence level that stat- History indicates that com-
risk-adjusted return. index ETFs is that inflation isticians often use when as- modities largely satisfy the
Looked at another way: was low in many of them. You sessing whether a pattern is first of these two prerequi-
Since July 2006, the first might expect commodities to genuine. That is, the prices of sites. Whether they will be
month in which both commod- improve the performance of a only three commodities— able to satisfy the second pre-
ity index ETFs traded, DBC has stock-bond portfolio in coming which were heating oil, cattle requisite is anyone’s guess, but
produced an annualized total years if inflation were to re- and copper—reliably rose history supports being skepti-
return of just 0.3%, and GSG main high. when inflation rose. Though cal. Erb says he and Harvey
has produced a 4.9% annualized The data provide only lim- the remaining nine had no sta- were unable to find evidence
loss. That compares with a 10% ited support for this hope, tistically significant relation- supporting commodities “as a
annualized gain for stocks, in however, according to a 2006 ship with the CPI, the correla- strategic, long-term set-it-and-
the form of SPDR S&P 500 ETF study by Claude Erb, a former tions with four of these forget-it investment.”
(SPY), and 4.1% annualized for commodities portfolio man- remaining nine, while weak, Market-timers no doubt will
long-term Treasurys. ager at TCW Group, and Camp- were actually negative. That try to do better by varying
Commodity indexes have bell Harvey, a Duke University means they more often than their commodity allocation
been around for much longer finance professor. They not moved inversely with infla- over time, as well as altering
than the past 17 years, though searched for correlations be- tion—rising when inflation the mix of individual commod-
index funds benchmarked to tween inflation and individual was falling, and vice versa. ities. Insofar as they are suc-
these indexes are a relatively commodities over the two de- Erb says there are other pe- cessful, they will be better off
recent phenomenon. It is im- cades before DBC and GSG riods in U.S. market history in diversifying their stock-bond
portant to base our analysis on were created (specifically, which some commodities were portfolios with commodities.
years in which the indexes from 1982 through 2003), dur- more correlated with inflation. But they run the risk of doing
ing which inflation ran at a But he adds that it should give much worse.
because hypothetical commod- significantly higher pace than investors pause that the ma-
ity index returns can be an un- in recent years. They found jority of commodities can re- Mark Hulbert is a columnist
reliable guide to the future. only a few. main uncorrelated with infla- whose Hulbert Ratings tracks
Of the 12 major commodi- tion over a two-decade period investment newsletters that
ties that existed throughout in which inflation ran at a pay a flat fee to be audited.
Inflation hedges this 21-year period, the re- healthy clip. He can be reached
One potential drawback of fo- searchers found that only Erb says the inconsistent at reports@wsj.com.
25 years: March to No-
vember 2001; December
2007 to June 2009; and
February to April 2020.
We then looked at
how these commodity
funds performed in
comparison with the ac-
tual physical commodity
spot price. We also
looked at how each
grouping performed
when not in recession,
as a secondary control.
Gold stands out
The first interesting
finding is that only gold
palladium, platinum, copper and had a positive return
oil. Each was constructed based during recessions (an
on having at least 10 usable ob- average return of 0.18%
servations. a month for gold funds).
Next, we looked at the aver- All other funds tracking
age returns to each commodity- commodities had nega-
fund category in and out of re- tive returns during recessions average monthly return of are a little bit different, it
cession. To define recessions (see chart), averaging a monthly 0.49%. should be noted that they gen-
we used the National Bureau of return of -1.33%. Over the past The next interesting finding erally move in the same direc-
Economic Research’s definition 25 years, when we are not in a is that in general the physical tion.
of recession, which included recession, all commodity funds commodity did slightly better Both in and out of recessions,
three such events over the past had positive returns and had an than the funds tracking the the correlation in returns be-
commodity. In all eight catego- tween the spot price and the
ries, the spot price return of the corresponding commodity fund
The average monthly return for selected commodities during
commodity did better than the is high, averaging a correlation
a recession and out of a recession
fund tracking the commodity coefficient of 0.93 across the
In recession Out of recession when not in a recession. eight categories, where 1.0
–4.0% –3.5 –3.0 –2.5 –2.0 –1.5 –1.0 –0.5 0 0.5 1.0 1.5 During a recession, the re- would be perfect correlation.
sults are a little murkier. Only The grouping with the highest
ETF/MUTUAL FUND
Generic
SPOT PRICE
five did better on a spot-price correlation coefficient was silver
basis compared with a fund ba- with a coefficient of 0.97 and
Gold sis during a recession. For in- the grouping with the lowest
stance, while it is definitely was platinum with 0.87.
Oil good to hold a gold fund during In all, if you are looking to
a recession, it is even better to protect your money during a re-
Copper hold the physical gold itself. The cession the winner does appear
average gold fund delivered a to be gold over the past 25
Silver return of 0.18% a month during years. Even for silver or plati-
recessions, but the return based num, prices actually fall in re-
Palladium on the spot price of gold was cession.
1.30% during recessions.
Agriculture Derek Horstmeyer is a
In step
ALEX NABAUM X2
professor of finance at George
Platinum While the returns to funds Mason University’s business
tracking the commodity and the school in Fairfax, Va. He can be
Source: Derek Horstmeyer, George Mason University
spot price for the commodities reached at reports@wsj.com.
 ABCDE
Prices may vary in areas outside metropolitan Washington.

A p.m. t-storm 89/72 • Tomorrow: Partly sunny 86/69 B6 Democracy Dies in Darkness monday, august 7 , 2023
SU V1 V2 V3 V4

. $3

D.C. toll: Europe

13 slain in gets cold
first 5 days
of August feet on
Residents look to
warming
police and city officials,
but shootings unchecked DiVision on A greAt
green trAnsition
BY P ETER H ERMANN
AND J ASMINE H ILTON
Lifestyles, costs curb
support for climate policy
A surge of shootings in D.C.
that left 13 people dead in the first
five days of August has rattled BY W ILLIAM B OOTH
neighborhoods from Adams Mor- AND A NTHONY F AIOLA
gan to Anacostia, with each new
victim a grim reminder of the lOnDOn — Europe made big,
city’s failure to contain violent bold promises to slash carbon
crime. emissions to slow global warm-
Nothing officials try seems to ing, but now the bill is coming
have much effect — at least in the due, and governments are start-
short term. July began with ing to blink at the cost — political
10 killings in five days, pushing and economic — needed to power
the city’s homicide count toward the great transition away from
its highest mark in two decades. fossil fuels and toward renew-
The D.C. Council then passed ables.
emergency legislation making it roBerT f. BUkATy/AP Once-far-off goals are getting

T
easier to detain those accused of more real, as Europe wrestles
violent crime while they await he morning fog had just ground, roses and purple irises with how to tell Germans which
trial, while the mayor selected a begun to clear as the hik- bloomed, sweetening the air. cars they can drive, Italians
new chief to lead the police de-
partment, replacing a popular
chief who left for a job with the
ers made their way uphill,
beckoned by a series of
white blazes splashed on the Hiking the One woman, a sweatshirt tied
around her waist, pulled at the
retractable leash of her German
which stoves are acceptable, Pol-
ish miners why they must aban-
don coal, and Britons why they

ever-evolving
FBI. trunks of hardwood and tall pine, shepherd. she passed two brown- can’t keep exploiting their coun-
But when the calendar turned, the paint cracked where the bark haired sisters in oversize T-shirts, try’s massive oil and gas reserves.
not much seemed to have rippled and whorled. hunched beneath the weight of Britain and the European
changed. It was a weekday in mid-May their backpacks. With each step, Union have pledged to go “net

Council Chairman Phil Men-
delson (D) said sunday that he
has asked the new police chief to
give lawmakers suggestions on
providing “more resources for the
police.” Council member Trayon
White sr. (D-Ward 8), whose dis-
trict includes the place where
three people were fatally shot and
two others wounded saturday
night, said in a text message, “We
need the National Guard in D.C.”
“The crime is out of control and
getting worse by the day,” White
said. “Kids and innocent people
are getting killed. It’s becoming
sEE hOMICIDES ON a14
Appalachian Trail
on the Appalachian Trail, and
their footsteps were muffled by
the forest. Away they hiked —
from the cramped parking lot
glittering with vehicles, from the
frenetic buzz of highway traffic,
from the busyness and anxiety
that compel people to step out of
their lives, if only for a few hours,
and escape into the wilderness.
Here, on what everyone calls
the A.T., it was quieter. The leaves
on the oaks were pearled with
rain. Mushrooms erupted from
softened logs, and in the crepey
mass of damp leaves on the
their cooking pans tinkled like
wind chimes. They paused beside
a device that counts the hikers
passing by on the trail.
“Did you know?” a sign read.
“McAfee Knob is considered the
BY L IZZIE J OHNSON most photographed spot on the
AND L AUREN T IERNEY Appalachian Trail.”
IN MCAFFE KNOB, VA. Four more miles uphill was the
landmark, where hikers meet the
open sky. The rocky ledge — at
robert Weiss, left, photographs his wife, andrea Weiss, and 3,200 feet — resembles a diving
brother-in-law Matthew Ferri just before sunrise on the board. In the valley below, creeks
appalachian Trail in beans purchase, n.h., in 2017. slanted through the green. There
were pinpricks of farms and
sEE appaLaChIan ON a8
zero” by 2050, with steep cuts by
2030. But across Europe — where
this summer has brought brutal
heat waves and raging fires in the
Mediterranean region — a back-
lash is simmering against some of
the world’s most ambitious green
targets.
British Prime Minister Rishi
sunak visited scotland on July 31
to announce with a big splash his
decision to open the North sea to
more oil and gas drilling.
This got sunak’s private man-
sion in the Yorkshire countryside
draped in “oil-black fabric” by
sEE CLIMaTE ON a13

dEmoCRaCy In amERICa

In Ga. suburb, two political realities

BY S ARAH E LLISON
AND G REG J AFFE
MarIeTTa, Ga. — Hours after
former president Donald Trump
was indicted on charges related to
attempts to overturn the 2020
election, Jenny Peterson was
heading off to pick up Mexican
food for her family. she’d tried to
cut back on listening to the news
in the car in favor of soul music.
Politics left her too angry and
agitated.
But on this night, the news was
too big to ignore.
Peterson, 55, listened to NPR
and flipped over to Fox News on
her satellite radio to see what the
other side was saying. she be-
Trump indictments are
generating radically
different responses
lieved that so many of America’s
core institutions were failing un-
der the pressure of the former
president and his followers. Con-
victing Trump wouldn’t fix those
problems. But it was an essential
first step.
“It’s important to me as a mom
that my 16- and 14-year-old will
see this one thing happen,”
Peterson said. “Things will be
improved when someone who has
committed crimes in plain sight is
held accountable.”
A few miles away, Jerry
Ramsey, 79, was finishing up a
landscaping job for the company
he owns and heading home for
dinner with his wife, Carolyn. she
usually kept Fox News on in the
background, but Ramsey didn’t
feel the need to learn the intrica-
cies of the case against Trump. As
he saw it, the 45-page indictment
was just another effort to tear
down the country he, a Vietnam
vet, had worked so hard to de-
fend.
“They just dream stuff up,” he
said. “They just keep coming after
him.”
sEE TrUMp ON a4

The United States’ loss to Sweden on penalty kicks Sunday capped its disappointing World Cup.
JABin BoTSford/The WAShingTon PoST

Kyiv’s elite forces are leaning on technology

BY I SABELLE K HURSHUDYAN, crashed into one of the antennas,
pERSpECTIvE S ASHA M ASLOV detonating on contact. With the
AND K AMILA H RABCHUK
As dense minefields Russians’ jamming ability sud-

U.S. squad and its fans left in stunned disbelief ZaPOrIZHZHIa reGIOn, ukraIne
— some of Ukraine’s most elite
limit tactics, units turn to
self-detonating drones
denly disrupted, the Ukrainians
then destroyed the tower with a
strike from a U.s.-provided High
BY C ANDACE B UCKNER emotions clashing as the end of her famed career special forces are now operating Mobility Artillery Rocket system,
ambled to an unfitting close. slightly back from the front line — or HIMARs. The missile
MelBOurne, ausTralIa — Lynn Williams stood Those are the faces of utter and abject disap- with virtual-reality glasses that A three-man team last month slammed into the structure with
but was closer to frozen next to her equally pointment. We’ve never seen the U.s. women’s give a drone’s-eye view. manually directed a drone to hit a the sort of precision the Ukraini-
shocked teammates, holding her hands near her national team look like this — like lost tourists at Last year, there were opportu- cluster of antennas affixed to a ans have come to rely on in their
chest, each splayed finger suggesting she had just a tournament they had once known so well. Wil- nities to creep into Russian-occu- tower in Polohy, a town occupied 17-month fight to expel the Rus-
dropped something important. liams’s traumatized expression. Naeher appear- pied territory at night to take out by Russian troops in Ukraine’s sian occupiers. But had the drone
Alyssa Naeher cradled something very impor- ing as though she would like to have a word with enemy targets. Now, with vast Zaporizhzhia region. The Rus- not disabled one of the antennas
tant — the ball — and refused to let go, as if by management to file a very angry complaint. Rap- minefields and other fortified sians were using the electronic first, the HIMARs rocket prob-
hugging it close she just might get that call re- inoe wilting in her final international match and Russian defenses stalling warfare system to spoil the work ably would have missed.
versed. looking unsure whether to laugh or cry during Ukraine’s sweeping counteroffen- of Ukraine’s satellite-guided rock- That sort of operation has be-
Megan Rapinoe smiled through teary eyes, her sEE bUCKnEr ON a6 sive, an uncrewed aerial vehicle ets. come a trademark of special forc-
armed with explosives does that The drone, made of styrofoam- es units such as the security
a shootout shocker: The U.S. women are sent home from the World Cup in the round of 16. d1 during daylight instead. like material and costing $1,500, sEE UKraInE ON a18

in the news ThE woRld

ravenous wildfires in
ThE REgIon
Maryland prosecutors
ST ylE
With widespread re-
BuSInESS nEwS.........................a15
ComICS.........................................C6
opInIon pagES..........................a16
the Mediterranean are at odds over who ports of drunken out- oBITuaRIES..................................B5
Abortion in ohio Ahead of a ballot measure ThE naTIon after two bombings at region hold lessons and should investigate Ty- bursts, rampant cell- TElEvISIon...................................C4

that would guarantee access to the procedure, “The Justins,” two a remote U.S. outpost in warnings for the rest of rone West’s 2013 death phone use and exhibi- woRld nEwS ............................. a11

young Democratic state Syria, an airman was Europe. A11 in police custody. B1 tionism at this summer’s
GOP lawmakers are trying to make amending legislators in Tennessee, On the anniversary of Questions remain over showings, it seems we
accused of betrayal in a CONTENT © 2023

1
the state constitution more difficult. A2 gained a national case that ultimately the bombing of Hiroshi- whether D.C. officials may have forgotten how The Washington Post
Year 146, No. 53570
platform after being crumbled. A5 ma, Japan’s premier de- were aware of former to go to the movies. C1
train crash in Pakistan A derailment left at expelled. Will their mix Dueling youth confer- cried Russia’s “nuclear deputy mayor John a sculpture of a reclin-
least 30 people dead and over 80 injured, of religion and politics ences underscored a di- threat” and promoted Falcicchio’s unwelcome ing Lady Liberty is on
have broad appeal? A3 disarmament. A12 sexual advances. B1 display in Arlington. C1
renewing questions about transit safety. A18 vide between parties. A7
A2
l
c O R R E c TI O N
John Kelly’s July 25 Metro
column misstated the year in
which supporters of King
Charles II executed Francis
Hacker, who was among the men
who signed the death warrant
for Charles I. It was 1660, not
1600.
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Ohio weighs rule change ahead of abortion vote
State GOP is trying to
make it harder to amend
constitution via ballot
BY P ATRICK M ARLEY
AND R ACHEL R OUBEIN
CLEVELAND — For 111 years,
Ohioans who couldn’t get politi-
cians to listen to them have had a
straightforward way to try to
bring about change. They can
sidestep the governor and law-
makers to amend the state consti-
tution on their own.
By gathering several hundred
thousand signatures from around
the state, they can put issues on
the ballot and, with the support of
a simple majority, put new pol-
icies in place. Under this system,
abortion rights advocates have
placed a measure on the Novem-
ber ballot that would guarantee
access to abortion in a state where
restrictions at about six weeks of
pregnancy have been put on hold
by a judge.
But Ohio Republicans, who
control both chambers of the
state legislature and have sought
to restrict access to abortion, are
trying to make the process more
difficult. They scheduled a special
election for Tuesday with just one
issue on the ballot: Should consti-
tutional amendments require the
support of 60 percent of voters
rather than a simple majority?
To pass, that measure needs
just a simple majority. If it’s ap-
proved, future ballot initiatives —
including the abortion measure
— will need to achieve the new,
higher threshold.
Supporters of abortion rights
and other advocates for keeping
the citizen initiative process in-
tact have accused Republican
lawmakers of trying to thwart the
will of the majority and weaken
voters’ voices. Republicans and
opponents of abortion have de-
fended their call for the special
election, arguing that there
should be a high bar for amending
the state constitution, just as
there is for modifying the U.S.
Constitution. They argue that vot-
ers still would have a say in state
policy under their plan and con-
tend that they want to prevent
out-of-state groups from wielding
outsize influence in Ohio.
In essence, Ohio voters are
grappling with a confluence of
two hot-button ideas: the fate of
abortion rights and, when it
comes to citizens’ ability to
change the state constitution, the
future of an important tool of
democracy.
“It’s not a question of a voice at
all; people still certainly have
their voice,” said Ohio Gov. Mike
DeWine (R), who supports raising
the threshold to 60 percent. “I
think it’s a question of, how do
you view the constitution? . . .
People are still going to have the
opportunity to vote, and people
are going to vote on this.”
Opponents of a 60 percent
threshold contend that the Re-
publicans’ line of argument is dis-
ingenuous. They say raising the
bar for changing the constitution
will make it harder to end parti-
san gerrymandering and ensure
AFTER
202-996-3561 DC
301-264-8319 MD
703-552-4050 VA
ez re
From left, Susan Polakoff Shaw, Maureen McDermott, Nora Katzenberger and Brigid Boettler help assemble voter information packets
and yard signs opposing Tuesday’s ballot measure to make it harder to amend the Ohio Constitution in Cleveland last month.
voters have fair representation.
Plus, they contend, it would make
it all but impossible to change the
constitution in ways that con-
servatives would support.
Proponents of the new thresh-
old are “willing to change the
rules because they don’t trust vot-
ers,” said Catherine Turcer, execu-
tive director of Common Cause
Ohio, a nonprofit group focused
on strengthening democratic in-
stitutions.
The special election Tuesday in
Ohio has turned into a proxy fight
over abortion, which has proved
to be a potent political issue since
the U.S. Supreme Court last year
reversed the 1973 Roe v. Wade
decision that guaranteed a consti-
tutional right to an abortion. In
two conservative-leaning states,
voters rejected referendum mea-
sures that would have changed
their constitutions to explicitly
say they did not grant a right to an
abortion, while voters in three
states backed measures enshrin-
ing abortion rights in their consti-
tutions.
Access to abortion motivated
many voters in the 2022 midterm
elections, and the issue is expect-
ed to be a force in next year’s races
for president and the U.S. House
and Senate — and what happens
in Ohio this year will be closely
watched across the country.
The Tuesday vote in Ohio has
drawn unusually intense interest
from voters and donors. As of
Friday, more than 578,000 people
had voted early — a turnout that is
more than double what was seen
in the May 2022 primary for Sen-
ate but low in comparison with a
fall election for governor or presi-
dent. Canvassers for and against
the measure have been knocking
on doors for weeks, and the cost of
their efforts is climbing. Groups
that support securing abortion
rights in the November election
and those that oppose Tuesday’s
Schedule Your
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ballot measure have raised rough-
ly $25 million, according to cam-
paign finance filings, while those
on the other side have raised
about $20 million. Both sides
have accepted money from out-
side the state.
Those opposed to changing the
rules for amending the constitu-
tion sense that Ohio voters are on
their side. A July poll by USA
Today and Suffolk University
found that 57 percent of voters
opposed raising the vote thresh-
old. Support for the measure was
soft even among Republicans,
with only 38 percent of GOP vot-
ers backing changing the rules.
In recent years, several states
have rejected measures that
would have raised the threshold
for amending their state constitu-
tions in response to efforts to
expand Medicaid, raise the mini-
mum wage and limit gerryman-
dering. This includes in South
Dakota and in Arkansas last year,
while attempts to schedule a simi-
lar vote in Missouri failed this
spring.
The July poll from Suffolk Uni-
versity showed that 58 percent of
likely voters supported the abor-
tion amendment, suggesting that
the referendum measure would
easily pass under existing rules
but could come up just short un-
der the 60 percent standard.
On a Saturday morning in July,
union members gathered at P.J.
McIntyre’s, an Irish pub in Cleve-
land with a mural of a pint of
Guinness stout on one wall and a
silhouette of Ireland on another.
Some wrote personalized post-
cards urging people to vote this
summer as others downloaded a
phone app they would use to
guide their door-knocking efforts.
From the stage, speakers em-
phasized the importance of de-
feating Tuesday’s ballot measure,
Issue 1.
“The most corrupt state legisla-
tive majority in Ohio’s history is
trying to make a power grab to
take away the power of the peo-
ple,” Shari Obrenski, the presi-
dent of the Cleveland Teachers
Union, told the crowd. “We are
what’s standing in the way of that
corrupt majority taking away our
power to do what’s right for the
people of our state.”
Hinting at a bribery scandal
that sent a former Ohio House
speaker to prison, state Rep. Mi-
chael Skindell (D) told the audi-
ence that voters need to “send a
message to these corrupt Republi-
cans for trying to jam this down
our throats.”
Afterward, Cleveland teacher
Kurt Richards went door to door
to talk to voters. He steered clear
of talk about abortion and instead
focused on the importance of
keeping majority rule.
“Issue One wants to move that
threshold to 60 percent needed,
and so what that does is that takes
the minority and gives them the
majority, which doesn’t make any
sense to, really, anybody,” Rich-
ards told one voter in a suburb on
Cleveland’s west side.
At another house, Richards
talked to Virginia Canright. She
said she planned to vote against
the measure even though she un-
derstands the allure of wanting
constitutional amendments to
pass by resounding margins.
“The flip side is that 40 percent
could defeat it,” she said of a
constitutional amendment.
“That’s kind of lopsided.”
Several days later, about two
dozen people gathered north of
Columbus at the Marion County
Republican Party’s headquarters.
Michael Gonidakis, president of
Ohio Right to Life, urged them to
vote to change the rules.
“Some people said, ‘Gonidakis,
the washington post
isn’t this all about the abortion
issue?’ To me and my wife, Amy
Gonidakis, it absolutely is. It’s
100 percent about the abortion
issue,” he said. “But for you, it
might be about something else.”
Throughout the event, he
ticked off a list of other issues:
Minimum wage. Gun rights. Mar-
ijuana legalization.
Under the long-standing rules
allowing simple majorities, “our
constitution is for sale,” Gonida-
kis said. He contended that pow-
erful interest groups outside the
state wanted to obstruct the will
of the people and help finance
expensive ballot measure cam-
paigns in Ohio.
Later that day, at a fundraiser
for a coalition of antiabortion
groups at a farm southwest of
Columbus, top Republicans deliv-
ered a similar message.
Ohio Secretary of State Frank
LaRose, who has since launched a
bid for a U.S. Senate seat, was up
first.
“Constitutions do not exist for
day-to-day legislating — things
like casinos or raising the mini-
mum wage or maybe trying to do
something that would make it
harder for farmers to run their
operations . . . or something like
this radical abortion amendment
that is being considered this No-
vember,” he said.
LaRose pulled out a pocket-size
U.S. Constitution and noted that
the document has been amended
27 times. By contrast, Ohio has
amended its constitution 172
times. He declared that “the left”
wants to change it every year.
That’s why Valerie Cardwell, a
resident of Pickaway County who
attended the event, plans to vote
for the measure, she said.
“I’d like to see Ohio a lot closer
to the U.S. Constitution,” said
Cardwell, who owns small gro-
cery stores with her husband. “It’s
very difficult to amend the U.S.
Constitution. I think Ohio should
be a little closer to that.”
Ohio gave citizens the ability to
initiate constitutional amend-
ments in 1912. Since then, citizens
have proposed 71 amendments,
but voters have approved just 19
of those, according to data from
Cleveland State University. In far
more cases, amendments have
been proposed by lawmakers and
approved by voters.
Tuesday’s vote looms amid the
nation’s broader fight over abor-
tion. In 2019, Ohio lawmakers
passed a law banning abortion
when fetal cardiac activity is de-
tected, often at six weeks of preg-
nancy, but the ban couldn’t go
into effect when Roe was the law
of the land. But on June 24, 2022,
the day Roe was overturned, the
state’s abortion restrictions went
into effect.
“It was devastating to people,”
said Sri Thakkilapati, executive
director of Preterm, an abortion
clinic in Cleveland. The medical
team scrambled to provide abor-
tions to every patient on the
schedule before the restrictions
kicked in later that day.
Soon afterward, Ohio drew in-
ternational attention when a 10-
year-old rape victim from there
traveled to Indiana because she
could not get an abortion in her
home state. Nearly three months
later, a Hamilton County judge
blocked the abortion ban, and a
lawsuit is wending its way
through the court system. Since
that ruling, women seeking abor-
tions but residing in states with
strict bans — such as Georgia,
West Virginia and Kentucky —
have traveled to Ohio. Some have
come from as far away as Texas.
Ahead of the special election,
canvassers with Protect Women
Ohio Action — which is supported
. monday, august 7 , 2023
Dustin franz for the Washington Post
by Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life
America, a leading antiabortion
group — are knocking on doors
across the state, particularly tar-
geting independent voters as well
as abortion opponents who are
not regular voters. Before discuss-
ing the substance of the ballot
initiatives, some advocates ask
voters if they’re aware there’s an
election Tuesday and also an
abortion rights ballot measure
looming in November.
Conservatives may have diffi-
culty among some voters they
normally rely on. Lee Weingart, a
Republican who lost a race for
Cuyahoga county executive last
year, said he is likely to vote
against the abortion rights meas-
ure but opposes the effort to raise
the threshold for amending the
state constitution.
“My belief is that rather than
change the rules midstream or
move the goal posts, we should
make principled arguments
against initiatives that we don’t
like,” Weingart said. “So if you
don’t like the abortion initiative,
you should make an argument
against it rather than change the
rules of the game to prevent it
from going into effect.”
The proposal in Tuesday’s spe-
cial election also would make it
harder to get any constitutional
amendments on the ballot in the
first place.
Now, citizens who want to
amend the constitution must get
signatures equal to 10 percent of
the number of people who voted
in the most recent race for gover-
nor. Signatures must be collected
in at least 44 of Ohio’s 88 counties,
with the total from each county
equaling at least 5 percent of the
votes cast in the governor’s race.
If the secretary of state deter-
mines that the backers of the
ballot measure have not turned in
enough valid signatures, they are
given 10 days to gather more.
Issue 1 would change those
rules by requiring petitioners to
hit the 5 percent mark in every
Ohio county and ending the abili-
ty to gather additional signatures.
Opponents say the new rules
would make gathering signatures
so cumbersome that almost none
would make it to the ballot.
Making it harder to amend the
state constitution could help Re-
publicans keep their majorities in
the legislature. In 2015, voters
approved a constitutional amend-
ment aimed at curbing gerryman-
dering, but a Republican-domi-
nated commission still drew elec-
tion maps that favored the GOP.
The state Supreme Court repeat-
edly ruled against the GOP maps,
but the state used them last year
because it ran out of time to draw
ones the court would approve.
Among the justices ruling
against the GOP maps was Mau-
reen O’Connor, the Republican
chief justice who has since retired
from the court. O’Connor has
called for a constitutional amend-
ment that would bar elected offi-
cials from serving on the redis-
tricting commission to help en-
sure that it acts in a nonpartisan
manner. That measure could go
before voters as soon as next year,
but passing it would be tougher if
voters raise the threshold.
More immediately, the secre-
tary of state determined in July
that supporters of abortion rights
had turned in enough signatures
to hold the November vote. Days
later, two Republicans sued to
stop that election. The state Su-
preme Court is expected to reach
a decision soon on whether that
vote can go forward.
And on Tuesday, Ohio voters
will decide whether that election
will be decided by a simple major-
ity — or not.
monday, august 7 , 2023 . the washington post eZ re A3

Politics & the Nation

Lucy GarreTT for The WashinGTon PosT

LEFT: State Rep. Justin Pearson (D-Memphis) closes a town hall meeting with a prayer at Macedonia Missionary Baptist Church in Memphis on July 25. RIGHT: State Rep. Justin Jones (D-Nashville) marches
to the Capitol in Nashville after being reinstated by the Metro City Council on April 10. The men gained a national platform after being expelled in April by lawmakers for protesting in the chamber.

BY M ICHELLE B OORSTEIN

MEMPHIS — Tennessee is a state of

civil rights legends and ghosts, but
there’s a new version of Black
church and liberation politics
here that’s becoming a sensation.
It’s called the Justins.
Since their GOP colleagues vot-
ed them out of office this spring,
state Reps. Justin J. Pearson
(D-Memphis) and Justin Jones
(D-Nashville) have quickly be-
come 20-something celebrities
whose style, faith and values ring
some very familiar bells. They
wear crisp suits, intone Jesus, see
public protests as essential, and
define “biblical justice” as care for
the poor and oppressed.
“He’s in the same vein as Martin
Luther King [Jr.]; his inflections,
how he talks,” Julian Liggins, 32,
said of Pearson, who regularly
preaches Sundays in Black
churches and is the son of a pastor.
Liggins was one of dozens of strik-
ing Memphis factory workers
who, one rainy Wednesday late
last month, heard the candidate
address their rally. Pearson called
their strike part of King’s legacy
and “the vision God has for our
lives.”
“Malcolm!” another striker in-
terjected, comparing Pearson
with Malcolm X and prompting
nods from Liggins and other
young men standing under a road-
side tent. They had just ended the
rally of the Bakery, Confectionery,
Tobacco Workers and Grain
Millers Union outside an Interna-
tional Flavors and Fragrances
plant that makes products like
baby formula.
Such weighty comparisons are
frequent with Pearson and Jones,
who are among Tennessee’s
youngest lawmakers and both eas-
ily won their special general elec-
tion races Thursday.
And along with the compari-
sons come complex beliefs and
feelings about them.
A flash point came earlier this
year, in the days after the expul-
sions, when videos surfaced of
Jones, 27, a Vanderbilt University
Divinity School student, singing
protest hymns with folk legend
Joan Baez, whom he had run into
at an airport.
“If you all are going to call them
a new generation of leaders and
y’all going to say they have new
energy, then y’all have to find a
new song. I don’t want to hear no
young people singing ‘We Shall
Overcome,’” Charlamagne Tha
God, co-host of the massive NYC-
based radio show “Breakfast
Club,” said on air in mid-April,
triggering laughs from other
hosts. “Boy, he pissed me off when
I saw him singing ‘We Shall Over-
come’ with that White lady in that
airport.” (Baez is of Mexican and
Scottish heritage.)
To some Black Americans, im-
ages of peaceful resistance from
the civil rights era don’t suit to-
day’s realities, says Anthea Butler,
a historian of African American
and American religion at the
University of Pennsylvania.
“When you say ‘We Shall Over-
come,’ this is not a generation
Will the religious, progressive politics
of ‘the Justins’ appeal in 2023?
The two young Tennessee state legislators’ style, faith and values hark back to the civil rights era
Justins are facing a much less reli-
gious country, including segments
that are cynical and even repelled
by candidates who thunder from
pulpits about God being on their
side. Experts say the Justins’ un-
usual campaigns, and the strong
reaction to them, could both ben-
efit and threaten the progressive
movement of which the men are a
part.
And the frequent references to
people such as King — who was
assassinated in Memphis — and
the late congressman John Lewis
(D-Ga.), a civil rights era icon who
was educated at Christian univer-
sities in Tennessee, are stirring
discussion and debate about the
role of Black Christians in the
1950s and 1960s movement, and
in 2023.
Religious progressives
The Justins sit at the intersec-
tion of many social currents.
They offer a new model of politi-
cians who are both really devout
and really progressive. That can
surface at town halls, including
two that Pearson had last week,
which took place in churches and
included prayers to Jesus by clergy
and the lawmaker alike. They also
included calls to protect abortion
rights and LGBTQ people and to
raise the state’s minimum wage of
$7.25 per hour, one of the lowest in
the nation.
Unlike in the civil rights era,
nearly four in 10 American adults
younger than 30 are religiously
unaffiliated, and the Democratic
Party has for decades taken a
somewhat arm’s-length approach
to religion. That’s partly a re-
sponse to many Americans’ revul-
sion toward the mixing of religion
and partisan politics that’s been
widespread among White evan-
gelicals, particularly in recent dec-
ades. And it’s partly an effort to
emphasize the party’s respect for
church-state separation and the
rights of religious minorities and
the nonreligious — groups that
tend to vote Democratic.
While young African Ameri-
cans are more religious than
young White Americans, their re-
ligiosity is still declining. Forty-
one percent of Gen Z Black adults
— people younger than 25 — say
religion is “very important” in
their lives, compared with three-
quarters of Black adults over age
60.
But experts say it’s hard to know
yet how younger Americans will
respond to this style of religious,
progressive politics. That the Jus-
tins are African American is signif-
icant, said Besheer Mohamed, a
Pew Research Center sociologist
who co-wrote a 2021 study about
Black Americans and religion.
“The Black church played a big
Pearson, left, speaks to the media with Jones, right, and state Rep.
Gloria Johnson (D-Knoxville) at the White House on April 24.
of the movement.
Mandisa Thomas, who leads an
advocacy group for nonreligious
African Americans and lives in
Atlanta, said it gets buried that the
civil rights movement leadership
included atheist and humanistic
African Americans including A.
Philip Randolph, who was the di-
rector of the 1963 March on Wash-
ington, and Julian Bond, who co-
founded the Student Nonviolent
Coordinating Committee and
chaired the NAACP.
While nonbelievers do align
with religious progressives on is-
sues including racial injustice and
over-policing, she said, they’re
tired of “the talking points” about
how devout this civil rights leader
or that one was.
“The Black church hijacked the
civil rights movement,” she said.
“There are a number of people
who inflate the role of the Black
church.”
Wade Munday, a member of the
Democratic National Committee
based in Tennessee, said the “fear-
less” and religious ways Pearson
and Jones act and speak has state
Democrats more energized than
they have been in almost two dec-
ades. He sees the lawmakers as
inclusive and “non-cancelling”
and believes even some White
evangelicals, who lean Republi-
can, might be open to them.
“The Justins speak to a religion
that is open and welcoming to all
people, and I think that’s refresh-
ing,” he said.
A topic that has inspired
Democrats — and some others —
is gun reform, the issue that cata-
pulted the Justins to becoming
national names. Tennessee Gov.
Bill Lee (R) has called a special
session for Aug. 21. Pearson’s office
said he and Jones are planning a
candlelight vigil and rally, and
that Pearson has about 14 pieces of
legislation planned. The advocacy
group Faith for Black Lives is part
of a coalition that is planning a
DemeTrius freeman/The WashinGTon PosT
“So often people are concerned
with the way in which religion is
used as a hammer to beat down
others rather than as a shield for
marginalized communities. We
cannot talk about faith without
justice and liberation,” Jones
wrote in an email to The Washing-
ton Post.
Pearson doesn’t seem worried
about turning anyone off with his
religious talk. His words went vi-
ral this spring after the men were
removed and then reinstated
around Easter and he invoked Je-
sus’s crucifixion and death.
“I think younger people have
left the church en masse because
it’s become more of a place of
social groups fraternizing and
othering people instead of a place
of healing,” he told The Post. “Reli-
gion, Christianity, faith are sup-
posed to push forward a world
that is more just and equitable and
everyone is loved. But if the
church instead becomes a place
that pontificates how to get money
from people and, instead of being
a place of hope, it’s a place of
bludgeoning people because they
want to police people’s bodies and
thoughts and identity, who wants
to be there? That’s a dead church.”
Generally the vibe of Pearson,
28, and his team — which includes
his aunt, brother and fiancée — is
upbeat, with lots of we-can-do-
this energy.
Occasionally Pearson can
sound defensive on the topic of
religion, though. At a nighttime
town hall in late July in Milling-
ton, a suburb north of Memphis,
he said “They may not like me
because I’m Black, I’m beautiful, I
talk about God and I mean it,
because I’ve got this Afro and be-
cause we refuse to bow down and
be broken. But that’s who we are.
We don’t bow down to people who
want to hurt us.”
The role of voting
Pastor Russell Pointer, a friend
and divinity-school classmate of
Jones, said Jones has a polite, re-
spect-your-elders ethos. He said
that may be behind the white suits
Jones usually wears when protest-
ing or working in the legislature.
“It’s about his respect for the
civil rights movement, which was
a bit more concerned, [compared
to] the modern Black Lives Matter
movement, with the respectability
of things,” Pointer said. “I do think
he embodies the civil rights es-
sence, when you want, even in a
mug shot, to maintain a certain
amount of agency.”
Jones wrote in an email to The
Post that the white suit “is the way
I carry my ancestors and bring
them into the space with me. It is a
way to bear witness and lift the
spirit that guides our work.”
Gauging enthusiasm isn’t easy
in a state with one of the lowest
voter turnouts. Of the approxi-
mately 45,000 registered voters in
Pearson’s district, he won his first
primary with 1,235 votes and his
second with 2,210. Jones, whose
district has about 38,700 voters,
won his first primary with 1,956
votes and the second with 1,515
votes, according to the secretary of
state’s office. Most of their dona-
tions come from out of state, ac-
cording to Tennessee campaign
finance records.
John Geer, a Vanderbilt Univer-
sity political scientist who found-
ed a longtime poll that surveys
Tennessee voters twice a year, said
the men face a heavily gerryman-
dered state where the legislature
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is much more Republican and
conservative than state voters.
Vanderbilt’s May poll asked
Tennesseans’ views on the Justins’
expulsions. Forty-four percent of
people younger than 45 strongly
or somewhat agreed with the
move, and 50 percent of those 45
and older did.
“Some say it sparked a fire that
will lead to movement to the cen-
ter. I think that’s premature,” Geer
said. “But it woke up people who
were not paying attention.”
Black church politics
Pearson preaches in Black
churches that take a more Afro-
centric tack, such as Abyssinian
Missionary Baptist Church, to
churches within the Church of
God in Christ denomination,
where women are not ordained to
the highest level of the clergy.
The Rev. Jason Pearson, the
lawmaker’s father, said Justin and
his four brothers were significant-
ly shaped by the five years they
spent as children in the D.C. re-
gion while Jason was attending
Howard Divinity School. The
school and the city have long in-
cluded prominent preachers and
students of Black Liberation The-
ology, a school of thought from the
1960s that sees God embodied in
humanity’s liberation from politi-
cal and social oppression.
“Sunday after Sunday, Justin
was fed a continuous diet of Black
Liberation Theology,” Jason
Pearson said of his son.
The theology initially was ho-
mophobic and sexist, he said. It’s
become more progressive, and he
thinks its newer iteration is in-
triguing to young people seeking
higher meaning in social justice.
It’s hard to tell how widely the
Justins’ blend of confrontational
politics, devout Christianity and
progressive values will fly with
older Black Christians, who vote
Democratic but are socially con-
servative.
The Rev. Earle Fisher, a teacher
and activist who leads Abyssinian,
says many Black churches are far
too apolitical. He calls them
“White evangelicals in blackface.”
He thinks Pearson and Jones rep-
resent an opportunity for Black
churches in particular to rekindle
their flame related to social justice
and liberation.
“I’ve heard Black pastors who
10 or 15 years ago would call me a
radical … and now they wear da-
shikis and say ‘White supremacy.’ I
think they are trying to be more
socially conscious.”

DONE
[now] who will let you beat them role historically, and that’s some- march that morning that will in-
in streets with hoses and dogs. thing that young Blacks, even clude Black pastors who favor gun
They will fight back. That image is atheists, say: ‘I have to admit the control.

a passive image. No one likes that.
It doesn’t feel like it works because
look where we are,” she said.
Both men have had to run four
times in the past year due to rules
surrounding their April expulsion
and reinstatements. The pair
raised a combined $2 million dur-
ing the second quarter of this year,
the Associated Press reported,
thanks to the national name rec-
ognition they gained since being
booted out by their fellow law-
makers for protesting in the legis-
lative chamber about gun vio-
lence.
But 2023 isn’t 1968, especially
when it comes to the relationship
between religion and politics. The
Black church mattered,’ ”
Mohamed said.
But the Justins have sparked a
discussion about the role of Black
churches in the civil rights move-
ment, as well as speculation about
how clergy in Tennessee and
across the country will react to a
call the legislators frame as deeply
moral and Christian.
Mohamed’s report cited histori-
ans saying that while Black
churches’ organizing was crucial
to the civil rights movement,
African American Christians who
were involved were always in the
minority. King had to leave his
Black Baptist denomination to
join one that was fully supportive
RIGHT
Both men have won their recent
races either by wide margins or
had run unopposed. On Thursday,
Pearson beat Jeff Johnston, an In-
dependent, with more than
90 percent of the vote. Jones beat
THE FIRST TIME.
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more than 75 percent. ✔ WINDOWS ✔ TILE & FLOORING SERVED IN THE DMV
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nities for senior citizens.
A4
In a Ga. suburb, opposite sides eye Trump’s indictment
TRUMP from A1
Peterson and ramsey share a
few things in common:
Both of their lives have been
forever altered by Trump. His
presidency has driven them to
advocacy and enriched their so-
cial circles with new, like-mind-
ed friends.
Both live in Cobb County, a
politically contested Atlanta
suburb in a state at the center of
the legal battle over the 2020
election. The latest Trump in-
dictment detailed the former
president’s attempts to strong-
arm Georgia officials, with a sep-
arate, Georgia-specific indict-
ment possible later this month.
And both believed that the
legal proceedings and the 2024
election would finally render a
judgment not just on Trump, but
on the future of America’s de-
mocracy.
The two Georgians, though,
inhabited opposite poles in a
divided America. They voted dif-
ferently, took in information
through different outlets and
had radically different views of
the threats to the country’s de-
mocracy.
It had been eight years since
Trump first seized the American
political spotlight. Two and a
half years since he left office.
Nine months since he declared
his campaign to win back the
White House.
If anything, it felt as though
the two sides — those appalled by
Trump and those who adore him
— were growing ever more suspi-
cious of each other. The divisions
were reflected in opinion polls,
which showed that Americans
held diametrically opposite
views of whether Trump should
face criminal charges for his role
in the attack on the Capitol. And
they were reflected in the lives of
Peterson and ramsey.
on the day Trump was ar-
raigned for his alleged crimes,
they were living in proximity but
inhabiting separate political
worlds and drawing radically di-
vergent conclusions about the
state of their nation. Trump’s
coming trials and the November
2024 election seemed certain to
escalate the tension.
The poles of American politics
were on a collision course.
ramsey woke up and, as he
did almost every morning,
turned on “fox & friends,” the
popular show that starts the
morning for many republicans.
on this Thursday, Trump was
flying to D.C. from his Bedmin-
ster, N.J., estate. Sitting in his red
armchair, ramsey was already
decked out for the day in his
Trump 2024 hat and rubber
Trump bracelets.
When conservative commen-
tator mark Levin appeared on
screen, ramsey picked up the
remote and turned up the vol-
ume.
“This indictment is crap!”
Levin bellowed. “They went after
him before he was elected, they
went after him when he was
elected, they went after him dur-
ing the four years of his presi-
dency, and they’re going after
him now.”
“He gets so excited!” said
ramsey’s wife, Carolyn, who was
sitting across from him.
Levin was the angriest voice of
the morning and the person
ramsey most wanted to hear. He
spoke to ramsey’s sense of out-
rage and fear for the country.
ramsey was among Trump’s
earliest outspoken supporters in
Cobb County, which had long
been a republican stronghold
but, like many growing suburbs
in America, was increasingly
trending toward Democratic
control.
ramsey had felt the magic and
energy of Trump’s early rise as a
candidate in 2015. He served in
the Army in Vietnam and ran
several small businesses, includ-
ing his current venture as a
landscaper. He liked that Trump
was a fellow businessman, but
what really drew him in was the
energy and dedication of the
crowds that rallied to him.
“That first summer there were
12 of us, and by the end, it was up
to 300,” he recalled of the cam-
paign’s active supporters in
Cobb. He remembers the first
time he climbed aboard a bus
adorned with Trump’s campaign
logo in early 2016 and headed to
the Daytona 500. A local owner
of a charter bus company had
taken one of his buses and deco-
rated it with Trump’s name as
part of a freelance effort to sup-
port the candidate.
ramsey awoke that first early
morning in florida to 100 people
standing outside the bus, ready
to buy the mAGA baseball caps
he and his friend had brought
down to sell. They didn’t stop
until after 7 p.m.
Jerry Ramsey was among Donald Trump’s earliest outspoken
supporters, and now supervises Cobb County’s Republican Party.
Ramsey said he had almost no interest in what was in Trump’s 45-page indictment and saw it as another effort to tear down the country he,
a Vietnam vet, had worked so hard to defend. “They don’t have a case against him,” he said, “and they’re going to eat their words.”
“I know exactly what it is to be
a rock star,” he said. “Stop the bus
anywhere in the southeastern
United States and within five
minutes, there would be 50 peo-
ple there.” other trips on the bus
followed, and he and the owner
became close friends.
more than seven years and 38
Trump rallies later, ramsey is a
regional supervisor for the Cobb
County republican Party, over-
seeing 16 precincts. As the 2024
election approached, he was de-
termined to awaken others to the
dangers he believed the country
faced — which he described as
deep-state globalists and a bro-
ken election system that was
subverting the will of the Ameri-
can people. Trump, he was sure,
had the unique ability to stop
them. Some days he wondered
why more people weren’t putting
in the hours for Trump.
After listening to Levin’s burst
of anger — which reflected his
own frustration — he started to
go over his notes for a coming
meeting with his precinct cap-
tains. He wanted to help them
hone their own messages with
potential voters, downplaying
abortion and religion and hitting
harder on the issues he thought
were most important to
Americans: inflation, the border
and what he characterized as
liberal ideology in schools.
The solution to all those is-
sues, he believed, was Trump,
who had built a movement of
true believers who saw the world
just as ramsey did.
Nothing had dissuaded him
eZ re
DEMOCRACY IN AMERICA
“We were all finding each other.
And we were all for the same thing.”
Jenny Peterson,
on the friends she made volunteering for Jon Ossoff’s 2017 campaign
from that conviction, not even
the riots on Jan. 6, 2021, at the
Capitol. He had listened to
Trump’s speech on the mall that
day and even walked toward the
Capitol with the angry crowd.
But he was feeling cold and tired,
he said, so instead of joining the
protesters at the steps of the
Capitol, he went to Starbucks.
His memory of that day is of a
peaceful protest.
“I didn’t see any violence,” he
said. To ramsey, it was incon-
ceivable that his fellow Trump
supporters would have ran-
sacked the Capitol, so he blamed
the violence on shadowy outside
groups.
Around 11 a.m. on Thursday he
headed out to meet a friend who
was a fellow veteran and one of
those first dozen early Trump
supporters in Cobb. They began
to discuss an issue they believed
was critical if Trump was going
to prevail in 2024: They needed
to replace electronic voting ma-
chines in the county with paper
ballots.
The federal indictment filed
Tuesday was full of examples of
Trump’s advisers telling him that
there were no major irregulari-
ties or fraud in the 2020 election.
Numerous expert and legal re-
the washington post
PhOTOs by eliJah nOuvelage fOr The WashingTOn POsT
In the early years of his presidency, Jenny Peterson would call her
lawmakers from the car to object to Trump’s policies.
other,” she said. “And we were all
for the same thing.”
Peterson and the friends she
met working on that race called
themselves “the resisters.” She
lost a few old friends who were
republicans. “Trump and 2016
broke us,” she said. But her new
friends took their place. Togeth-
views had come to the same er they volunteered for Demo-
conclusion. cratic candidates up and down
But no one ramsey listened to the ballot. When Trump visited
took the indictment seriously, Georgia in 2018, they shouted
and ramsey had almost no inter- and waved signs at him. “I am a
est in what was in it. “They don’t witch on a hunt for JUSTICE!,”
have a case against him,” he said Stevens’s sign read.
to his friend, “and they’re going During their lunch, Peterson
to eat their words.” and Stevens picked at their sal-
As Trump was making his way ads and talked about the pros-
to the courthouse just down the pects of Trump going to jail. “It’s
street from the U.S. Capitol on hard to get your hopes up,” Peter-
Thursday afternoon, Peterson son told her friend.
was sitting down to lunch with “He might be walking around
Tamara Stevens, one of her clos- with an ankle bracelet,” Stevens
est friends and a woman she replied.
would never have met if not for “Cholesterol could be our best
the Trump presidency. option,” Peterson said.
She and Stevens felt the same “Burger King is going to take
sense of horror on election night him out before the justice system
in 2016 and vowed to get in- ever does,” Stevens joked.
volved in local politics. Their Around 3:30 p.m. Peterson
opportunity came when Trump headed off to the high school
nominated their congressman to where it was her day to drive
be his secretary of health and carpool for her two teenagers
human services in early 2017, and their friends, who rushed
opening up a House seat. into her minivan as a thunder-
Like scores of women in their storm erupted. She worked from
suburban neighborhood, they home for her husband, who is a
rushed to volunteer for Jon financial adviser, a job that gave
ossoff, who they believed could her the freedom to be around for
be a small but significant check her children and came with a
on Trump’s power. He narrowly duty, she believed, to give back.
lost the House race but won a “We’ve been soaked in grace and
U.S. Senate seat in Georgia in privilege,” she often told her chil-
2021. “We were all finding each dren.
. monday, august 7 , 2023
In the early years of the Trump
presidency, Peterson would call
her lawmakers from the car to
object to Trump’s policies and
plead with them to take a stand.
She called former senator
David Perdue’s office so often
that her 16-year-old daughter
can still recite the message on his
old answering machine from
memory: “Thank you for calling
Senator David Perdue, I can only
do my job by listening to you.”
Now Peterson wondered if all
of those calls had been “useless.”
Sometimes she wondered where
she could make the most differ-
ence fighting back against the
forces she believed that Trump
had unleashed. She talked about
ways to pressure the school
board to change the name of her
children’s high school, which
had been named in the 1960s
after a Confederate general.
on this day, NPr was playing
on her car radio and a reporter
was announcing that Trump had
arrived at the courthouse. It was
his third felony indictment this
year, following his arraignments
on separate charges in florida
and New York. Trump has plead-
ed not guilty to all charges and
has claimed he is being persecut-
ed by his opponents.
“Third time’s the charm,” Pe-
terson said under her breath.
In the early days of Trump’s
presidency she and her friends
were fueled by the same sense of
outrage and mission. These days
they text as much about their
kids, their husbands and their
days as they do about politics.
Even if Trump was sent to
prison, Peterson believed that
the threat of Trumpism re-
mained. At the state level, his
followers were passing laws to
restrict abortions. They were
changing election laws and re-
drawing legislative maps to limit
the Democrats’ growing power
in Georgia, Peterson said. In
Cobb County, they were banning
the teaching of critical race theo-
ry and, in at least once instance,
disciplining a teacher who read a
book to her class that they didn’t
like.
All of her “resister” friends
were taking up different causes.
“Everyone has their own most
important thing,” she said. After
seven years, some had taken a
break from politics. one thing
that hadn’t changed was the
threat, Peterson believed. “We
live in precarious times,” she
said.
on opposite sides of Cobb
County, ramsey and Peterson
were sitting down for dinner at
the end of another long day in
which they’d both been thinking
about Trump and the future of
the country’s democracy.
ramsey, his family, and the
head of the county’s republican
Party had met at a local barbecue
restaurant. He was still wracking
his brain for ways to motivate his
fellow republicans to turn out
for Trump and show them what
was really at stake in 2024.
He floated an idea to the GoP
chair: maybe the answer was to
invite someone who could pro-
vide proof that the election was
stolen. Douglas frank, a high
school math teacher with a
chemistry doctorate, had been
making the rounds nationwide,
evangelizing that he had an algo-
rithm that proved that 2020 was
rigged. His theories had been
widely discredited, but ramsey
believed them.
“We have to bring back Dr.
frank,” ramsey said.
Peterson was defrosting some
fish for her family’s dinner when
a text message from her niece in
D.C. appeared on the phone. She
had been standing with the
crowd outside the courthouse
where Trump had been ar-
raigned hours earlier.
“Did you see the big orange
pumpkin?” Peterson asked her.
“No,” she replied. “Too many
vehicles.”
Peterson then checked to see if
any of her friends were talking
about Trump. They weren’t.
“People are living their lives.
They aren’t worried about this
guy,” she said. “That’s good.” Her
children were doing their math
homework. PBS NewsHour was
playing on her television.
“This is not that significant to
me,” she said of Trump and the
indictment.
But she also couldn’t look
away or stop thinking about the
prospect of another Trump presi-
dency and the damage she felt it
would do to the country. on
NewsHour, William P. Barr,
Trump’s former attorney gener-
al, was talking about Trump’s
unfitness for the presidency. Pe-
terson looked at Barr with dis-
gust, thinking of all the moments
when he had protected Trump.
“What did you do about it?”
she yelled at the television.
monday, august 7 , 2023
Airman’s case highlights
outpost’s security issues
Acquittal in attack on
U.S. compound in Syria
raises more questions
BY K YLE R EMPFER
The surveillance footage was
alarming. Though grainy and in-
conclusive, it captured the night-
time movements of someone
creeping into the ammunition
storage area at a remote U.S. out-
post in Syria. An hour later, twin
explosions there wounded four
Americans and ignited a fire that
burned until daylight.
A military investigation into
the April 2022 incident led to the
arrest of Tech. Sgt. David W.
Dezwaan, an Air Force explosives
expert found alone at the second
blast site. Military prosecutors
would later allege that he had both
the skills and the access to equip-
ment needed to stage an insider
attack.
The highly unusual allegation
of betrayal went to court-martial
earlier this year, resulting in
Dezwaan’s acquittal after an eight-
day trial in Utah. Prosecutors
called him a saboteur, possibly
disillusioned by his deployment to
an outpost where some fellow
troops viewed him as strange. Dez-
waan’s lawyers said the case was
full of holes, and a jury ultimately
agreed.
An investigation case file ob-
tained by The Washington Post
through the Freedom of Informa-
tion Act reveals what Dezwaan’s
lawyers criticized as a dearth of
credible forensic proof and motive
linking him to the bombings. The
file also exposes how broader se-
curity concerns at the compound,
which U.S. personnel share with
Syrian partner forces, raised
doubt among the jury members.
And so the identity of whoever
slipped past the cameras, locks
and guard posts may never be
determined.
Dezwaan, an explosives dispos-
al technician, remains in the mili-
tary. He declined an interview re-
quest. His attorneys, Nathan Free-
burg and Philip Cave, emphasized
the concerns shared by some wit-
nesses about security gaps at the
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. the washington post
outpost.
It was “easy,” Cave told The Post,
for members of the Syrian Demo-
cratic Forces (SDF) to access the
Americans’ side of the camp,
known as Green Village. “It could
just as easily have been someone
from the SDF or even someone
who had infiltrated the SDF,” he
said, pointing to a history of such
incidents in Afghanistan that have
nevertheless been rare in Syria.
“And when the investigations
were done, nobody was allowed to
interview the SDF people. That’s a
big hole.”
Farhad Shami, an SDF spokes-
man, called such a theory “entirely
untrue,” noting that its personnel
are not allowed access to the am-
munition area where the explo-
sions occurred and that the sur-
veillance video’s field of view indi-
cated that whoever did so ap-
proached from the U.S. side.
“Yes, there is high coordination
and positive cooperation between
us and the coalition forces in the
Green Village, but there are still
privacy and security controls that
we and the coalition abide by,”
Shami said.
An Air Force spokeswoman,
Rose M. Riley, said the investiga-
tion, conducted by Army and Air
Force law enforcement, did not
“develop information” indicating
an SDF member was responsible
for the explosions.
U.S. Central Command, which
oversees military operations in
the Middle East, declined to com-
ment on the alleged security laps-
es, citing “operational security.”
About 900 troops — mostly U.S.
Special Operations teams — are
deployed in eastern Syria support-
ing the SDF, a predominantly
Kurdish militia, as they endeavor
to prevent a resurgence of the
Islamic State group. Green Vil-
lage, in the oil-rich Deir al-Zour
province near the Iraq border, has
been a magnet for harassment by
Iranian-backed militias and their
allies in the Syrian government
eager to expel the Americans.
Green Village and other U.S.
outposts in Syria are routinely
struck by rockets and drones. In
March, a burst of deadly violence
between U.S. forces and suspected
Iranian proxies led President
Biden to warn Tehran there would
be severe consequences for violent
MATERIALS
Air Force explosives technician David W. Dezwaan, shown in 2016, was court-martialed on allegations
of staging an insider attack at a remote U.S. outpost in Syria in April 2022 and was later acquitted.
attacks on American troops.
‘That doesn’t sound like me’
The first blast struck the Green
Village ammunition area at 1 a.m.,
ripping through captured enemy
explosives, rockets and grenades,
and shooting debris 1,000 feet into
the air. A minute later, a smaller
explosion hit a shower trailer,
wounding Dezwaan as he ap-
proached for a late-night rinse. In
addition to his toiletries, he had a
knife and a butane lighter, accord-
ing to his interview summary.
Explosive charges were placed
at both sites, an analysis deter-
mined. Each was rigged with sim-
ple timers, such as black powder
fuses, and possibly ignited by a
handheld lighter. Dezwaan, inves-
tigators noted, consented to a
phone search where they found
that a stopwatch app had been
running up until the explosions.
Lab tests performed around the
shower revealed traces of RDX
and PETN, compounds used wide-
ly in plastic explosives.
Dezwaan was the only Ameri-
can missing after the blasts. He
was found crawling between
shower trailers wearing shorts
and a T-shirt, lightly wounded but
apparently stunned by the explo-
sion, witnesses told investigators.
A medical examiner deter-
mined that Dezwaan’s injuries
were not consistent with blast
wounds, leading prosecutors to
argue that he cut himself using a
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charred knife found at the scene,
though no DNA was recovered.
Dezwaan’s attorneys said he was
cut crawling through debris and
that an MRI showed he had a mild
traumatic brain injury.
The four Americans hurt in the
blast all suffered head injuries. As
they boarded a helicopter for
follow-on medical care in Bagh-
dad, another explosives expert as-
signed to Green Village joked
about Dezwaan being the culprit,
witnesses told investigators. Cit-
ing a dark sense of humor, he later
clarified that did not believe Dez-
waan “would blow himself or any-
one else up.”
Other explosives experts inter-
viewed by investigators said Dez-
waan had been excited about the
Syria assignment, though his
team hadn’t been very busy.
Some troops cast suspicion on
Dezwaan, though, telling investi-
gators he was “weird.” Several de-
scribed minor altercations they
had with him — a disagreement
over seating in a dining area and a
dispute over photos he’d taken of a
separate unit’s living quarters.
One witness said Dezwaan ap-
peared upset to be overseas on his
birthday, and at trial, prosecutors
argued that he sought to go home
early.
When investigators asked Dez-
waan about inconsistencies in his
story — including contradictory
comments he made about being
inside, rather than outside, the
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senior airman bobby cUmmings/U.s. air Force
trailer during the attack — he said
his memory had been distorted by
the brain injury he suffered.
The last thing Dezwaan said he
remembered was working late on
paperwork, which other troops
said was normal, the investigation
shows. But he maintained that he
would not have planted bombs: “I
know myself,” he told investiga-
tors. “That doesn’t sound like me.”
A ‘whodunit’
While U.S. forces and their Syr-
ian partners have worked closely
for years to dismantle the Islamic
State’s self-declared caliphate, the
investigation documents some
friction, distrust and frustration
with perceived security lapses.
For instance, weeks before the
explosions at Green Village, an
SDF member who had been
banned from the compound was
seen visiting the SDF liaison house
after somehow having made his
way back inside, witnesses told
investigators. It’s unclear why the
man had been barred; that por-
tion of the case file is redacted.
In another incident, the report
says, SDF crews drove onto the
outpost hauling a primed road-
side bomb. The Americans hadn’t
expected the delivery and were
surprised the SDF was able to
“deliver it right to them without
being stopped,” an investigator
wrote. “They had to evacuate the
area and disarm the device.”
Two Army Special Forces sol-
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diers told investigators that they
suspected the explosives were
placed by a Syrian contract em-
ployee or an SDF member, possi-
bly having been paid to do so by
the Islamic State or a militia
backed by Iran, Russia or the
Syrian government.
While the U.S.-SDF relationship
had been largely positive, witness-
es told investigators that they sus-
pected their Syrian liaisons had
been stealing equipment, too.
There was also an altercation
weeks before the explosions, after
a person whose name and nation-
ality was redacted used the Arabic
phrase “Inshallah,” meaning “if
God wills,” in a way that offended
some SDF members, an investiga-
tor wrote. Other “rude” comments
“led to a further conflict,” and a
person whose name and national-
ity was redacted was removed
from Green Village because of
“safety concerns,” the investigator
added.
Wladimir van Wilgenburg, an
analyst based in Iraqi Kurdistan,
said attacks against Americans by
the predominantly Kurdish SDF
have been exceptionally rare. He
knew of only one instance: An SDF
fighter shot an American in 2018
for reasons U.S. officials said were
unclear.
“It is not like in Afghanistan
where local police attacked U.S. sol-
diers,” van Wilgenburg said. “The
SDF needs the U.S. to stay in north-
east Syria, otherwise the Syrian
government or Turkey will attack.”
Western intelligence reports
cited in the investigation warned
that, while local adversaries may
have possessed the ability to carry
out an attack like the one at Green
Village, no one had claimed re-
sponsibility for having done so.
Officials said that was unusual.
A Special Forces soldier told
investigators that it seemed as
though intelligence officials
sought to “steer” the probe away
from scrutinizing the SDF and
suggested that they examine the
sources of those reports. Spokes-
people for the Army and Air Force
investigative agencies declined to
say whether that was done.
The specter of U.S. adversaries
co-opting foreign workers or mili-
tiamen was bound to raise doubt
among a military jury in the Unit-
ed States, according to Franklin D.
Rosenblatt, a former Army attor-
ney who teaches at the Mississippi
College School of Law.
“Regardless of whether there is
any merit to those concerns,” he
said, “they were likely top of mind
when deciding this whodunit.”
A6 eZ sU the washington post . monday, august 7 , 2023

perspective

U.S. women
and their fans
face stunning
new reality
buCkner frOm A1

her last moments on a cold

Sunday night at melbourne
rectangular Stadium.
Almost a month ago, they
arrived at the World Cup held in
Australia and New Zealand, and
hopefully the players at least got
some cool, new stamps on their
passports — because they’re
certainly not coming home with
a third consecutive trophy.
We’ve never watched the
Americans leave the World Cup
this early. This will officially be
scored as the U.S. women losing,
5-4, to Sweden on penalty kicks
after a scoreless draw. However,
the record does not show the
agony. It was seen through the
players in this storied program,
who performed so unevenly that
American dominance in this
game should now be spoken of
in the past tense. And it was felt
by the fans who traveled across
the globe, reworking their
itineraries on the fly and
fighting off jet lag just to get
their hearts broken in a
different hemisphere.
At least for Nadine and Dave
Parsons, the wine was worth it. asTRid Riecken foR The WashingTon PosT

This is what belief gone
wrong looks like. Three married
couples from Texas have been in
Australia for about two weeks.
Soccer-loving Greg Gipson was
the master planner of the trip.
At the previous World Cup in
france, his group attended
every U.S. match. The
Americans made it look easy, so
Gwen Gipson told me they
decided to skip the group stage
this time and enjoy themselves a
little as the Americans breezed
Fans at Franklin Hall in Washington react Sunday morning to watching the Americans fall to Sweden in the round of 16 and fail in their bid to win a third straight World Cup.
through. Because they had so
much faith in the team, these
soccer aficionados wound up
witnessing just one match, and
it was the most painful one in
program history. The trip,
however, wasn’t all bad. The
Parsons, Texans who are
temporarily living in Korea,
ditched the group matches for a
winery tour in Adelaide.
“fantastic,” Dave raved of the
whites and reds. “We’re going to
go back.”
This is what unrequited
devotion looks like. Portland
Thorns super fans Nicole and
Dan froelich booked their flight
from Vancouver, B.C., to Sydney
— under the wrong assumption
that the Americans would win
their group and begin the
knockout round in that
Australian city, not this one.
What followed was a travel
nightmare: Their original flight
was delayed 10 hours. They slept
in the airport until 3 a.m. They
sat near the back of the plane
for the 17-hour flight, and when
the plane hit turbulence, they
felt every scary jolt and shake.
They landed in Sydney on
friday night, fatigued yet still
fanatical, and less than 21 hours
later they caught another flight
CHARTER SPONSOR
to melbourne. Dan got stuck in
the middle seat.
“Ooooof. that was rough!”
Dan texted me following the
match — about the soccer, not
the travel. Though those five O’s
in “oof ” revealed some
suffering, the froelichs never
complained.
Neither did a single protest
escape the loopy smiles worn by
New York City friends Taylor
Wells and Bri Cullimore. They
sat in their seats, surviving on
red Bull and vibes after landing
for their spontaneous trip to
melbourne on Sunday morning.
Their itinerary: New York to Los
Angeles, Los Angeles to fiji, fiji
to Sydney, and Sydney to
melbourne . . . and monday,
they planned to leave
melbourne on a 6 a.m. flight,
because this is what crazy looks
like.
“We love the U.S. women’s
national team so much!”
Cullimore yelled through her
sleep deprivation.
“That’s how much!” Wells
echoed. “It’s been refreshing to
my soul to see grown-a-- men
wearing a Crystal Dunn jersey,
wearing a rose Lavelle jersey.
That’s been really incredible for
me to see. As a sports fan, as a
woman, as a woman in sports
business, it’s amazing.”
This is the fervor that has
fueled this team. And for 90
minutes, the Americans
appeared as though they could
feel all the passion and hope
from their fans. Over 90
minutes, they were in control of

AUGUST 12
a game they’ve owned for
decades, well before this current
2023

roster had taken shape.

The U.S. women won their
first World Cup when co-captain
Alex morgan was just 2 years
old. Later, another iteration of
the super program turned
sports bra celebrations into a
fad before Sophia Smith was

9 am to 8 pm even born. This was the legacy

the new U.S. team was living up
to for 90 minutes Sunday.
Trinity rodman pressured
Walter E. Washington Convention Center Sweden’s defense and led the
Americans to a 6-2 shot
Visit loc.gov/bookfest to learn more. advantage in the first half.
morgan came oh-so-close on
potential goals — and was shut
out twice by Swedish goalkeeper
Zecira musovic.
Conversations Stories for Book But the United States did not
score for the second straight
with authors children Signings match, opening the door for the
game to be taken over by
randomness and penalty kicks
Free for Readers of All Ages — and, ultimately, heartache.
In the 99th minute, when
fans noticed the flash of pale
blue hair, a roar reverberated
through the stadium, for the
great rapinoe would be
entering the match. It was an
Featured authors include: ovation worthy of a superhero,
as though hiding beneath her
bulky winter coat was some
Elliot Page R.K. Russell magic left over from 2019. But
underneath that outerwear was
just a 38-year-old who probably
Douglas Brinkley Tahir Hamut Izgil shouldn’t have taken all those
corner kicks, because they led to
Amor Towles David Lipsky nothing.
And in the most crucial stage,
Mary Louise Kelly John Lisle with her team leading 3-2 in the
shootout, rapinoe stepped up
R.J. Palacio Janet Wallach for her turn. She could have
given her team a nearly
Joy Harjo Cheuk Kwan insurmountable lead, but her
shot sailed over the crossbar.
George Saunders Anya von Bremzen Smiling awkwardly, she
returned to the comfort of her
David Grann TJ Klune teammates.
And then, the nightmare.
Elizabeth Acevedo Chasten Buttigieg Kelley O’Hara’s attempt hit
the post, setting up the Swedes
for the winner. Though Naeher
Meg Medina Rebecca Makkai appeared to stop Lina Hurtig’s
kick and quickly collected
Jesmyn Ward Sarah Weinman herself to deflect the rebound,
upon review the ball did cross
Matthew Desmond and many more... the line — just barely enough to
send the Americans home.
Stunned, Naeher wouldn’t let go
of the ball. Williams wouldn’t
move. rapinoe couldn’t stop
P0357 5x12 laugh-crying. This is what U.S.
soccer looks like now.
monday, august 7 , 2023 . the washington post EZ RE A7

Major parties vie for Gen Z Lawyer: ‘Aspirational,’ not criminal

at dueling D.C. conferences
BY D YLAN W ELLS
At a conference in Washington
aimed at activating young con-
servatives, former Wisconsin gov-
ernor Scott Walker kicked off his
speech by talking about the Iran
hostage crisis and preparing for
nuclear attacks as a member of
the “Cold War generation” —
events from decades before many
of the attendees were born.
“In many ways I can commiser-
ate with all of you. You may not
have 100,000 protesters in your
classroom, but it may feel like it,
right?” said Walker, 55, compar-
ing the protests he faced as the
45th governor of Wisconsin to the
“intimidation” that Republican
students face on campus.
Two days later, 21-year-old San-
tiago Mayer, executive director of
the Democratic-aligned Voters of
Tomorrow, took aim at Walker in
his opening remarks at the
group’s conference across town.
Young America’s Foundation,
which held the conservative con-
ference, is “an organization which
is ironically dedicated to elimi-
nating our freedoms and rights
[and] is led by Scott Walker …
who lost his seat when college
students across Wisconsin turned
out in droves to vote him out,”
said Mayer, a Mexican immigrant
who founded VOT as a college
student in California in 2019.
“Let’s be honest, these groups are
bulls---.”
Hundreds of students from
across the country descended on
the nation’s capital late last
month for the dueling conferenc-
es as Democrats and Republicans
seek to boost their appeal with
young voters ahead of 2024. Al-
though the events were separated
physically by only two miles, they
underscored the vastly different
ways Democrats and Republicans
view and organize young people,
who have tended to vote for Dem-
ocratic candidates in recent elec-
tions.
And attendees at both events
echoed a similar sentiment: Nei-
ther political party is doing
enough to reach young voters,
despite the fact that Gen Z and
millennials are expected to make
up nearly 40 percent of the elec-
torate in 2024.
Walker, a previous presidential
candidate and the president of
Young America’s Foundation
(YAF) — a youth organization
founded in the 1960s that calls
itself “the principal outreach or-
ganization of the Conservative
Movement” — agreed that the
Republican Party has fallen short
with younger voters, noting
worse-than-expected Republican
losses in the 2022 midterms.
“For all the talk about a red
wave last year, the biggest reason
it didn’t materialize wasn’t candi-
date selection, it wasn’t a given
issue — those are factors — it was
young people, 18- to 29-year-old
voters, in key states like mine in
Wisconsin, Arizona, Nevada,
Pennsylvania. They went with the
more liberal versus a conservative
candidate by 40 points or more in
those key battleground states,”
Walker said in an interview with
The Washington Post.
“I don’t think anyone thinks
that a conservative Republican
candidate is going to take, you
know, the majority of younger
voters,” he added.
In 2022, only 38 percent of
voters 18 to 29 were contacted by
the Democratic Party, and 33 per-
cent by the Republican Party, ac-
cording to the Center for Informa-
tion and Research on Civic Learn-
ing and Engagement (CIRCLE) at
Tufts University.
“That’s definitely not enough
from either party to be actually
reaching a wide range of young
people, especially those who are
just turning into eligible age since
the last federal election,” said Kei
Kawashima-Ginsberg, the New-
house director of CIRCLE.
At YAF’s National Conservative
Student Conference, Walker
praised Republican presidential
candidates Sen. Tim Scott (R-S.C.)
While advocates of campus vot-
ing say such a restriction could
make it harder for young people
to cast their ballots, some stu-
dents at the conference agreed
with Mitchell.
Rico Riccardi, a 21-year-old at-
tendee from Gettysburg College,
said he agreed with Mitchell’s
stance.
“By having tons of access on
campus to voting, not only are
you getting people to vote with a
terrible track record, but you’re
also having people coming in
from out of state to vote on issues
that aren’t really going to affect
them and where they’re from,” he
said.
VOT spokesperson Jack Lobel
said inviting speakers like Mitch-
ell and Ramaswamy to an event
focused on young voters is hypo-
critical and “a clear sign that not
only are [Republicans] willing to
pass policies that actively attack
our generation, but they’ve sim-
ply given up on our generation.”
Mayer, VOT’s director, said,
“What it really shows is that they
are by and large out of touch.”
Walker dismissed the sugges-
tion that he is out of touch with
Gen Z because of his age, pointing
to the 2024 Democratic front-
runner, President Biden. At 80
years old, he’s the oldest sitting
president in U.S. history and will
be 86 at the end of a second term if
reelected.
“They’ll all be talking about
how great Joe Biden does, and he
is literally a quarter-century older
than I am,” he joked.
At the Watergate Hotel —
where an open bar offered only
nonalcoholic beverages, fitting
for attendees as young as 14 — the
VOT event hosted Rep. Maxwell
Frost (D-Fla.), the first Gen Z
member of Congress, and former
House speaker Nancy Pelosi, who
is 83, as the headliner.
Leaders who spoke at the con-
ference, which was sponsored by
Building Back Together, an out-
side group that works to advance
the policy agenda of the Biden
administration, spoke optimisti-
cally about the administration’s
engagement with young voters.
But attendees were less con-
vinced, and many expressed hesi-
tations about Biden running for a
second term.
At one point, White House
press secretary Karine Jean-
Pierre was interrupted during her
remarks at the event by Elise
Joshi, the 21-year-old executive
director of Gen-Z for Change.
“Excuse me for interrupting,
but asking nicely hasn’t worked
out. A million young people wrote
to the administration pleading
not to approve a disastrous oil
drilling project in Alaska, and we
were ignored,” Joshi said.
Jean-Pierre asked organizers to
let Joshi continue with her ques-
tion, praising her courage. Then
the press secretary talked about
things Biden has achieved or can
aim to accomplish in a second
term.
While many attendees ex-
pressed enthusiasm for the presi-
dent, just as many voiced concern
that the Biden administration
and the Democratic Party aren’t
doing enough to mobilize Gen Z.
“I think he’s doing better. He
could do a lot better,” said Marisa
Weinberg, 21, a rising senior at
Towson University. “Obviously I’d
like someone younger and a bit
more progressive, but if that’s the
only option I’ll take it and push
him to do better,” she said.
Downtown at the JW Marriott,
attendees at the conservative con-
ference offered suggestions on
how the GOP can better reach
young people.
Ryann Goldberg, 20, a student
at Dallas Baptist University, sug-
gested Republican candidates
and elected officials should meet
Gen Z where they are: on Insta-
gram and TikTok. “We’re like, oh, I
found it online, but really it was
TikTok,” she laughed.
Many GOP politicians have re-
jected TikTok over the app’s ties to
China. Walker said he’s not on
Trump attorney outlines
his argument to defend
spiracy to defraud the United
States, conspiracy to obstruct an
official proceeding, obstruction
of an official proceeding, and
attorney for Fulton County, Ga., is
close to concluding an investiga-
tion into Trump’s actions in try-
ing to overturn the results of the
conspiracy to deprive voters of 2020 vote in that state, which may
wall kind of thing.” the former president their rights. Trump pleaded not include fresh charges.
YAF’s event featured more than guilty on Thursday to the charges The latest case is quickly esca-
two dozen pastel and brightly in federal court in D.C. lating into a war of words. Over
colored sticker options, with mes- BY J ACOB B OGAGE If convicted on all four counts, the weekend, government pros-
sages such as “unborn lives mat- AND J OANNA S LATER Trump faces a maximum of 55 ecutors and Trump’s lawyers
ter,” “to hell with socialism” and years in prison, though a former went through a back-and-forth of
“girls just wanna have guns.” The An attorney for former presi- president’s lifetime guarantee of legal motions over evidence dis-
stickers were set out for students dent Donald Trump said Sunday Secret Service protection makes covery.
to take alongside fliers advertis- that he will argue that Trump’s the prospect of incarceration ex- Trump has increasingly lashed
ing methods to get paid to report failed attempt to cling to power tremely difficult. out at Smith and indicated a
“liberal bias” on campus. after the 2020 election was “aspi- On Sunday morning, Trump willingness to retaliate against
But for many young voters, the rational” and not criminal. said on social media that Judge witnesses who testify for the pros-
disconnect lies not in visually John Lauro, who is defending Tanya S. Chutkan of the U.S. ecution. “IF YOU GO AFTER ME,
creative messaging, but in politi- Trump against four felony charg- District Court for the District of I’M COMING AFTER YOU!” he
cal values. Gen Z voters over- es related to attempts to throw Columbia should recuse herself posted Friday on his Truth Social
whelmingly supported Demo- out President Biden’s 2020 victo- from the case, calling for the trial account.
cratic candidates in November’s ry, said Trump’s pressure cam- to be moved because voters in the In remarks at a rally in South
midterms, aligning with candi- paign against Vice President District went heavily for Biden in Carolina on Saturday night,
dates on abortion rights, gun con- Mike Pence, members of Con- 2020. Trump again verbally attacked
trol, climate change and protec- gress and state officials was Trump’s legal team has touted Smith as “mentally ill” and “de-
tions for the LGBTQ+ communi- speech protected by the First West Virginia, which Trump won ranged.”
ty. Amendment. by nearly 40 percentage points in Citing Trump’s threatening so-
“Democrats are not indoctri- Trump’s attempts included 2020, as a more favorable venue. cial media posts, prosecutors
nating anyone. Young people are asking Pence to throw out slates Other Jan. 6 defendants have asked Chutkan to impose a pro-
liberals because young people of electors and pause the election asked for venue changes away tective order on the former presi-
have empathy and young people certification process, and de- from the District. None have been dent and his legal team, prohibit-
care about others,” the VOT’s manding that Georgia Secretary successful. ing them from remarking about
Mayer said. of State Brad Raffensperger Lauro called the latest criminal certain evidence publicly.
On the opening day of the YAF “find” enough votes to flip the indictment against Trump, Lauro said Sunday that he
conference, many of the organiza- state’s electoral slate from Biden brought by special counsel Jack would fight that proposed order.
tion’s posts on Twitter focused on to Trump. In spite of his unsuc- Smith, “the most important civil “The press and the American
gender and transgender people, a cessful efforts, no crime was com- rights constitutional case in dec- people in a campaign season have
messaging decision that Walker mitted, Lauro contended. ades.” a right to know what the evidence
said comes from students report- “When it comes to political According to Lauro, Trump is in this case, provided that this
ing being “bombarded” with the speech,” Lauro said on CNN’s pressed his case on the advice of evidence is not protected other-
issue on campus. “State of the Union,” “you can not counsel, particularly John East- wise,” he said on CNN’s “State of
“I prefer to talk about eco- only advocate for a position, but man, who crafted a legal strategy the Union.”
nomic policy and fighting com- you can take action, you can that involved creating slates of New polling data shows that
munism,” he noted, adding that petition, you can ask even your pro-Trump electors in states that more than half the country —
YAF is not against transgender vice president to pause the vote.” Joe Biden won. Eastman’s lawyer 51 percent of Americans — be-
people, just against gender- “Asking is aspirational. Asking has confirmed that he is one of lieves Trump tried to remain in
affirming care for minors. He also is not action. It’s core free speech,” the six unnamed co-conspirators office beyond his term through
cited opposition to transgender he added. in the election case. illegal and unconstitutional
athletes as a hot topic in the GOP Pence said on CNN that he had “Mr. Trump is not a lawyer. means, according to a survey con-
primary. “no plans to testify” but would Let’s understand that. He’s a po- ducted by CBS News and YouGov.
Callie Whicker, 19, a student at comply with a subpoena. litical leader and a businessman,” But an even larger majority of
American University who attend- On CBS News’s “Face the Na- Lauro said on ABC’s “This Week.” Americans, 59 percent, believe
ed the Democratic-aligned VOT tion,” Pence said he would not “What Mr. Eastman was saying, the indictments and investiga-
event, said the GOP’s focus on prejudge the outcome of the trial. as an attorney, is that there is a tions of Trump are designed to
gender-affirming care for minors “I don’t know whether the gov- constitutional pathway to mak- stop the former president’s cam-
and rhetoric around transgender ernment has the evidence beyond ing this ask.” paign. Fifty-seven percent said
people is hurtful. a reasonable doubt to support Trump also faces other indict- the investigations and indict-
“I feel like a lot of Gen Z is this case,” he said. ments, including a separate crim- ments were “upholding the rule
definitely for pro-trans people, Lauro said he welcomed the inal trial in federal court in Mi- of law,” and 52 percent said they
and I’m trans, so I’m definitely opportunity to cross-examine ami involving allegations that he were “defending democracy.”
pro trans rights,” Whicker Pence at trial. mishandled classified records Asked on “Face the Nation” if
laughed. “They’re not having the “The vice president will be our and conspired to obstruct justice. there were any conditions under
whole picture of what gender-af- best witness,” Lauro said on “Face He was also charged in a state which Trump would accept a plea
firming care is. And that can even the Nation.” court in New York for falsifying deal on Jan. 6 charges, Lauro
just be therapy. But they’re just A federal grand jury on Tues- business records. responded with a single word:
taking stuff out of context and out day charged Trump with con- And Fani Willis, the district “No.”
of proportion and kind of blowing
it out of the water. It bothers me a
lot.”
While Republicans’ success at
attracting more Gen Z voters in
2024 remains to be seen, experts
say that age group is not guaran-
teed for Democrats.
“Though they’re voting for
Democrats, the young people re-
ally distrust both the Republican
Party and Democratic Party,”
Kawashima-Ginsberg said.
There’s “a lot of space for both
parties” to increase their youth
outreach, she said, adding that
although young people are often
thought of as all being Democrats,
they are not a monolith.
“I think there are a lot of estab-
lishment figures in the Democrat-
ic Party who really aren’t doing
enough to show young people
why we should vote for them,”
said Ayden Whitted, a 17-year-old
high school student from New
York state.
Whitted, who credits Sen. Ber-
nie Sanders (I) with getting him
involved in politics, said he would
like to see other Democrats chal-
lenge Biden. “I don’t think he
[Biden] is the best the Democratic
Party has to offer,” he said, noting
a “perception issue” with younger
voters given Biden’s verbal gaffes
and his onstage fall during a U.S.
Build With
Air Force graduation ceremony.
Biden has a history of verbal
blunders and gaffes, a tendency
the president himself regularly
A Name You Trust
makes light of. During a 2008
campaign event, Biden paused
and asked a man in a wheelchair
to stand up and be recognized.
Last year, he called out to a recent-
ly deceased congresswoman dur-
ing a conference on combating
hunger, attempting to acknowl-
edge her from the stage and ap-
parently forgetting that she had
passed away a few days earlier.
Walker says Republicans can L I M I T E D T I M E O F F E R S
make inroads by visiting college

and Vivek Ramaswamy, the mil-
lennial tech entrepreneur, for
making efforts to reach young
people. All 2024 GOP candidates
were invited to speak, but Ramas-
wamy was the only one to attend.
Ramaswamy, who headlined a
day of the conference, only briefly
alluded to his controversial pro-
posal to pass a constitutional
amendment to raise the voting
age to 25 unless people meet re-
quirements such as passing a civ-
ics test or serving in the military, a
proposal that drew criticism from
young people in the GOP.
The conservative conference
also hosted Cleta Mitchell, a Re-
publican lawyer who previously
told a roomful of GOP donors that
conservatives must band togeth-
TikTok, but acknowledged that
Young America’s Foundation as
an organization has had success
on the platform.
“I’m not going to concede that
territory,” he said. “There may be
inherent problems, but we still
need to figure out ways to get to
young people.”
One attendee suggested that
the GOP could appeal to younger
voters by using vibrant design
and colors in event programming.
“I always think of the Republi-
can Party as like strict red, white
and blue, very traditional, and I
think that can be a turnoff for
people our age,” said Mary Wet-
terling, a 21-year-old illustration
major at the Milwaukee Institute
of Art and Design. “There’s ways
campuses and going beyond tra-
ditional media to appear on You-
Tube channels and on podcasts.
“One of the biggest mistakes
that I think conservative Republi-
cans have made for years is we’ve
just ignored young people. We’ve
largely bypassed college campus-
es,” Walker said.
To that end, YAF has partnered
with Fox News and the Republi-
can National Committee for the
first Republican primary debate,
and it solicited questions from
conference attendees to be poten-
tially posed to the 2024 field in
Milwaukee on Aug. 23.
The organization will also host
a block party in Milwaukee before
the debate featuring conservative
influencers in an effort to court
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ballots to registered voters. inviting, I want to hang this on my said. “We just can’t get creamed.”
A8 ez re the washington post . monday, august 7 , 2023

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Winchester
a suburban highway near
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for steep wilderness terrain
resembling a roller coaster.

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TOP: McAfee Knob is one of the most photographed spots on the Appalachian Trail. Yet, for almost a decade, it wasn’t part of the
E

Appalachian Trail until the National Park Service reclaimed the land. ABOVE LEFT: Benton MacKaye, left, and Myron Avery pose for a
W

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photo in 1931, soon after Avery was elected chairman of the Appalachian Trail Conference. ABOVE RIGHT: An image from Myron Avery’s
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McAfee Knob scrapbook shows the Pinnacles of Dan in 1932. BELOW: The Georgia Appalachian Trail Club mounted this plaque at Unicoi Gap.
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3,197 ft roanoke

A transformation of a celebrated trail

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in 2002, the trail was

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relocated farther away

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from the celanese

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chemical plant. shaved fields. The vast ocean of to the A.T. over the past 86 years, local historians Don and Diane footpath in partnership with the
rkway

Jefferson national Forest lapped charting how it has been reimag- Wells in a post for the Mt. Park service and local trail clubs.
u

floyd the horizon. ined for 3 million annual visitors oglethorpe Foundation’s website. “Any time we do any kind of
princeton
This panorama atop Catawba and the tens of thousands who It wasn’t the first time tensions relocation, the litmus test we put
l

Mountain draws more than have committed months to hiking had arisen over where the A.T. it through is: Is this going to
50,000 people each year, causing its entirety. should start and end. The ques- enhance and improve the hiker
B

a logjam and necessitating a sea- Atop McAfee Knob, a wave of tion had plagued trail officials experience?” Marra said.
NO Trail in 1941 sonal shuttle to the trailhead on hikers spilled onto the viewpoint. since the path was first proposed In the case of Mount ogletho-
RT
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Wytheville weekends. A group of retired firefighters — by Benton MacKaye — a forester rpe, eliminating the first three
mt. Airy “once at the top, you can’t put training for a summit of Mount and regional planner from Mas- dozen or so miles made sense. In
words to it,” one hiker wrote on Rainier — took turns snapping sachusetts — in a 1921 essay. 1958, trail officials voted to shift
more than 300 the popular outdoor website All- photos on the outcropping, Grief-stricken by his wife’s re- the terminus to springer Moun-
miles of trail Trails. which, from the right angle, made cent suicide, MacKaye dreamed tain, tucked in Chattahoochee
A A in virginia was But for almost a decade, McA- them appear to hover over thin of carving out a footpath where national Forest — a place that
NI
R GI LIN discarded. fee Knob wasn’t part of the A.T. at air. city-dwellers could deal with “the was greener.
O
VI AR all. In the distance, the mountains problem of living.” He proposed a It was also better-smelling.
C
N. Much of the mountain was pri- flushed blue-green. A spring 1,200-mile trail stretching from
vately owned, and the landowners storm was pressing down; the air the highest point in the northeast
— fed up with trash and bad hiker was wet with humidity. The hikers — Mount Washington in new
behavior — became reluctant to rested, some for a few minutes, Hampshire — to the highest point
let visitors onto their properties. some for an hour, as the rain in the south — Mount Mitchell in The Lost
T
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A so from 1978 to 1987, they didn’t. churned closer. north Carolina. Appalachian Trail
bristol R N The trail was relocated onto a Then they continued on, the The objectives, MacKaye said,
O I 1,700 MILES TO MOUNT KATAHDIN
L nearby, less scenic mountain, un- trail urging them forward. were “(1) to walk, (2) to see, (3) to
N O til the national Park service used see what you see.” — UH-OH, DON’T GET LOST!
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A eminent domain to return the With the help of Myron Avery
C Hickory vista to the A.T. experience. — an admiralty lawyer at the U.s. Few people remember that
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“I can’t believe it,” said Austin Maritime Commission in Wash- this 300-mile stretch of trail in
Johnson city stewart, 21, standing atop McAfee Mount Oglethorpe ington — the A.T. reached com- Virginia ever existed.
n

E
Knob with his girlfriend, Beyla to Springer Mountain pletion 16 years later. Avery, a Traversing the southwestern
Richman, 22. “It’s one of the few native of Maine, insisted the trail corner of the state, this section of
i

E 2,198.4 MILES TO MOUNT KATAHDIN,

S things I’d heard about the trail.” end on Mount Katahdin, not the A.T. — which once made up
S “It’s crazy this wasn’t on it MAINE — LACE UP Mount Washington. about 15 percent of the trail’s
a

E
N before,” Richman agreed. YOUR BOOTS AND LET’S GO! He and MacKaye also clashed total mileage — was among the
N Though fixed in the public over what the trail should be. last pieces slotted into place be-
t

E
T imagination, the world-famous The chickens, of course, ruined MacKaye favored wilderness at fore the footpath’s completion.
footpath, which stretches from it. all costs. Avery preferred a com- Passing through Iron Mountain
n

Georgia to Maine, has been It was 1958, and a decision had plete, unbroken path, regardless and the Pinnacles of Dan, the
stretched, shrunk, rerouted and to be made — leave the A.T.’s of location. area was so remote that it had
u

Asheville redesigned since it was declared southern terminus in Georgia on “You are for a connected trail — proved difficult for trail leaders
complete in 1937. Mount oglethorpe or move it whether or not wilderness,” Mac- to visualize. They were forced to
o

As America has transformed, north to springer Mountain, Kaye wrote to Avery in a 1935 puzzle over topographic maps so
y
Blue Ridge Parkwa

so, too, has the A.T. — changes that snipping off the first 37 miles of letter. “I am for a wilderness trail old that some dated to the Civil
Great Smoky
M

have inspired resistance, ridicule trail. — whether or not connected.” War.

Mountains and relief. originally 2,050 miles, By this point, it had been more By the end of their lives, they’d They settled on laying the trail
National it is now almost 2,200 miles. And than 20 years since the trail’s stopped talking to each other. over abandoned or gravel roads,
Park it continues to get longer. completion. only a handful of neither could have imagined how opting not to include McAfee
greenville
By many historians’ estimate, people had hiked its entirety, but the footpath would continue to Knob in the original trail propos-
e

less than half of the trail remains they tended to start at the 38- morph over the decades. al, though it was later modified to
H A where it was originally laid. foot-tall monument atop Mount “The precise length of the Ap- include the landmark.
g

T N
U I “I’m going to guess there have oglethorpe. Carved from local palachian Trail is a matter of nearly as soon as the trail was
O L been 1,500 to 2,000 modifications marble, the obelisk was skinny interesting uncertainty,” Bill Bry- set, it began to move again.
d

S O
franklin
R to the trail’s route, and most of and pale, resembling the Wash- son wrote in his 1998 best-selling “so the western half was on
C. IA A them are so small that you ington Monument in miniature. book about the A.T., “A Walk in the protected federal land, but the
i

N. RG C wouldn’t be able to really see it on It’s where earl shaffer — a World Woods.” He listed a range of fig- eastern half wasn’t, and it kept
O
GE a screen,” said Mills Kelly, a pro- War II veteran and the first per- ures from different sources be- moving around because of that,”
R

fessor at George Mason Univer-
sity who studies the A.T. The
author of “Virginia’s Lost Appala-
chian Trail,” Kelly also hosts a
e
son recognized to have completed fore concluding, “What is certain Kelly, author of “Virginia’s Lost
the entire A.T. — began his jour- is that it is a long way, and from Appalachian Trail,” explained in
ney in 1948, challenging the per- either end it is not easy.” an episode of his podcast.
ception of what was possible. There’s a certain calculus to In the 1930s, the Park service

Current Appalachian Trail podcast called “The Green Tun- But now, the big issue was the deciding where — and when — to began building the Blue Ridge
nel,” a reference to the trail’s chickens. move the A.T., said sandi Marra, Parkway along more than 100
u

heavy tree cover. There were so many of them. president of the Appalachian miles of the A.T. MacKaye and
Those adjustments — criss- And they smelled awful. Trail Conservancy, the nonprofit other trail leaders worried about
l

crossing 14 states, eight national “Hikers didn’t want anything organization that manages the the A.T.’s sudden proximity to
B

forests and the ancestral lands of to do with that,” Kelly said. construction, traffic and other
22 native American tribes, most There were reasons other than markers of civilization. The point
Springer Mountain of them forcibly removed by the the chicken farms, too. Vacation of the trail, after all, was to
Previous
southern terminus A
I government in the 1800s — have homes were popping up like an escape those reminders of urban
route G left cartographers at the Park invasive weed. Timber companies life.
R
Mount Oglethorpe O service struggling to keep up. Past were clipping through the forest, They wanted to move the trail
original terminus E iterations are often forgotten, leaving sections bald and ex- into the protective embrace of
G their blueprints scattered among posed. old-timers in the area op- the Jefferson national Forest. In
more than 30 local trail clubs, erated illicit distilleries — one 1952, the conservancy shifted the
The southern terminus in stored in plastic tubs in the base- spot on the trail had been nick- trail west of Blacksburg, where it
georgia was moved from ment of a former club president, named “Moonshine Mountain” — remains to this day. The original
one mountaintop to another, glued to vellum at one club’s office and were often unfriendly to hik- markers were torn down. The
37 miles away. in Vienna, Va., and in a new ers. hiking books were amended.
NO
RT
H archive at George Mason Univer- “The destroyed wilderness and The old trail, it seemed, van-
20 miles
Atlanta sity. the possibility of being shot at ished.
The Washington Post tracked greatly impacted the use of Appa- see APPALACHIAN on A9
down some of the biggest changes lachian Trail in our area,” wrote cArol m. HigHsmitH/librAry of congress
monday, august 7 , 2023 . the washington post eZ Re A9

Detail

Katahdin Woods and Waters

National Monument

Mount Katahdin
northern terminus

“100 Mile Wilderness”

NO
RT Bangor
H

The trail path was rerouted

in several places in Maine
during the 1970s and 1980s.

augusta

More than half of the a.T.

in Maine was rerouted.

E
N
I
Bonnie Jo MounT/The WashingTon PosT M
A

A
N. INE

M
H.
Bethel
At la nt i c
Oc ean

Portland

Mount Washington
6,288 ft

tns.
te M
C Dover

Whi
a new hampshire vacation
on
ne

map from 1939 shows the trail

cti
cu

running along a major highway.

tR
ive
r

E
Bonnie Jo MounT/The WashingTon PosT Bonnie Jo MounT/The WashingTon PosT

R
Concord

I
H
TOp: Trail builder annie Dumais works on a section of the appalachian Trail near little Gap, pa., on april 18.
T

S
N

aBOVE lEFT: pink ribbons mark the path of what will become a new section of the appalachian Trail near little Gap, pa. Dartmouth College
O

P
M

M
aBOVE RiGhT: Kurt a.T. Bodling is the library director of the appalachian Trail Museum in pine Grove Furnace State park, pa.
R

A
E
V

H
VE N
RM .H.
appalachian from a8 of rocks, pouring gravel around a right there! and also here! and jeans were streaked with dirt, ON W
E

boulder to stabilize it. it was a there, too! nearby, pink flagging and an orange construction hat T
N

G
chilly day in mid-april, with bits in the pine marked where the bobbed on her head. She re
of frozen rain spitting down new a.t. would soon go. dreamed of hiking the entire Rutland e
n
from a gunmetal sky. the hill- part of the path, just north of a.t., but for now, the trail builder Keene
The rise of the
M

sides weren’t yet in bloom, and allentown, overlooks a zinc was content to just construct it,
o

Roller Coaster fog skulked around the moun- smelting operation that made rock by rock.
u
nt

tains in the distance, sloped and the environmental protection “i’ll save it until i’m retired,”

S
ai

1,180 MILES TO MOUNT KATAHDIN — faded. agency’s list of Superfund sites Scholtz said. “i can hike over
T
ns

T
BEWARE THE TRAIL BOSS! Scholtz, 25, had spent much of in 1983. the pollution blew onto pieces that i set when i was 25 —
E

V
the previous day dragging the the ridge, causing a massive veg- hopefully.” NE ERM
S

greenfield
U

You’ll see the warning first. boulder downhill, then aligning etation die-off and leading to a W O
YO N T
H

“You are aBout to enter it with the others — one step in a decades-long cleanup. RK
C

tHe roLLer coaSter,” an- staircase of many. Kurt a.t. Bodling, the library
A

NO
S

nounces the sign, laminated and Someday soon, a hiker would director of the appalachian trail RT
Maine’s 100-mile H
S

stapled to a trail marker. “ … easily climb up this scree, un- museum in nearby pine grove
A

springfield
wilderness B
M

HaVe a great ride.” aware of the time and effort it furnace State park, pa., once
then come 13 miles of rolling had taken to relocate the path described it as “death Valley” —
e

hills — 3,800 feet up and 3,720 here. they might even — mistak- though remediation efforts over 115 MILES TO MOUNT KATAHDIN —
r

feet down, to be exact. Stretched enly — think it had been around the years have helped a lot, he YOU’RE ALMOST THERE!
k

between ashby gap and Snickers since the beginning of the a.t. said.
NE

s
M A YO R

albany
W

gap in northern Virginia, the “if you want a small area with “it was like you were wander- david field remembers when hartford
SS K
.

roller coaster was the solution to as many trail realignments ing, looking for a waterhole, only more than half the trail in maine
r

a lot of concrete-walking. crammed in as possible, you’re in to find it poisoned and a dead wasn’t much of a trail at all.
e

a half-century earlier, the a.t. the right place,” said Bob Sickley, animal next to it,” Bodling said. the northern terminus of the a 1951 trail guide reroutes the
s

had been bumped onto a 15-mile a regional manager for the appa- “the zinc plant is why palmerton a.t. — atop 5,269-foot mount Ka- trail in several places throughout
.

stretch of highway shoulder. lachian trail conservancy. looked like a desert.” tahdin — is gloriously unspoiled,
N

Massachusetts and Connecticut.

C O YO
N

then, in the 1980s, trail officials Sickley, who was on the ridge Sickley, more diplomatic, says But for decades, the 280-mile trail
EW

N R
N K

began working to purchase a sliv- to check on the trail construction that the area has struggled to leading up to it needed work.
.

er of land that felt wilder.
at only 1,000 feet wide, the
corridor the park Service even-
tually purchased didn’t leave
much to work with, but it would
have to do. chris Brunton, a hik-
crew, hiked at a brisk pace, point-
ing out places where you could
still find the old a.t., if you
looked hard enough. the white
blazes had faded — but not com-
pletely. He motioned to a thick
confront this “external threat,”
and that the new route — a total
of 14 miles of trail work — will
improve the hiker experience by
delivering better vistas.
on the ridge, Scholtz contin-
there was a big push to reroute
it, said field, 82.
now retired from the School of an early trail guide marked
forest resources at the univer- the trail south of Whaley Lake.
sity of maine, field has been the Hu
s d Previous
manager of lands for the maine l route
so
n

ing enthusiast and member of the patch of forest. the old trail was ued stabilizing her boulder. Her appalachian trail club for 20
l

Ri
i

ver

potomac appalachian trail club, years and a member for even

k

was called in to help reimagine longer — 67 years.

t s

Current Appalachian Trail Peekskill

the route. When he was young, the volun-
“to be honest with you, it was teers and conservation crews
C a

not a well-laid trail,” said Brun- Detail Palmerton Zinc who’d originally etched the path
Pile Superfund site Middletown
W

ton, who goes by the nickname Penn. into the landscape mostly laid the K
YO R
E

“trailboss.” “We were confined trail on preexisting paths — old NEW Y

N

RSE
R

J E
because the park Service bought logging and fire-tower access NEW
O

Palmerton
only so much land. We did the roads — or along busy highways.
Y

Le
best we could within that narrow h i g h R i ver about 80 percent of the trail
corridor.” crossed land owned by nine major
the resulting trail was so hilly New route for the timber companies.
that out-of-breath hikers started Appalachian Trail “the atc leadership came Delaware Water
calling it the roller coaster. close to abandoning the maine Gap National
W

“How many miles and feet of section,” field wrote in his 2011 Recreation Area
E

elevation change can you get book, “along maine’s appala-

N

through in a day without dying?” Walnutport chian trail.”

R

scranton
E

1 M i Le
demanded Kyle putnam, 28, as he after the a.t. was placed under
J

and his wife and a friend tra- control of the park Service in
versed the roller coaster on a 1968, the federal agency bought
spring morning. more than 37,000 acres in maine,
n o s

N
Brunton is used to fielding Detail whittling out a protective corri- P E . J.
NN
H

criticism of his creation. dor for the trail.

RT

.
NO

“at Harpers ferry, hikers will about 14 miles of the trail were
ViRginia
come over and say, ‘Why did you rerouted from Sugarloaf moun-
c o

Palmerton
make that so difficult?’ i’m the Shen
and tain’s popular ski resort to nearby
last one standing,” he said, “so i oa crocker mountain. an additional
o

hR
get the blame. i say, ‘You can walk 50 iv 15 miles was moved from a high-
P

the old trail. it’s still there. it’s 15 way corridor — near maine
er

miles of walking along the road.’ 7 routes 4 and 7 — and pushed

they say, ‘maybe not.’” through the forest. the last big
A

move took the trail 16 miles into

I

Ashby Gap
N

the woods, away from the elliots- Reading

A

Snickers Gap ville plantation.

V
L

the journey — through what

Palmerton: The A.T.’s 601
Y

Before the 1980s, the trail used to felt like true wilderness, with bo-
S

former ‘Death Valley’ real bogs, ponds of trout, gentle

N

run along the highway between

N

ashby gap and snickers gap. hills — ended atop mount Katah-
E

815 MILES TO MOUNT KATAHDIN — din.

P

2 MiLe
es
WELCOME TO ROCKSYLVANIA “from the top of mount Wash- Lancaster
D A
AN NI
Y L VA

ington” — the original endpoint

AR YL

1,371 ft. Susquehanna River

it had taken two days to build proposed by Benton macKaye —
M NS

NO
RT harrisburg
N

this one step. “you’re looking down at roads full H

PE

on a remote ridge above penn- Ashby Snickers of cars and villages of people,” 20 MiLes
Gap York
sylvania’s Lehigh Valley, ally 737 ft.
Gap field said. “from Katahdin, you
Scholtz crouched over a jumble continued on next page
a10
From prEVioUs pagE
look out at nothing. The moun-
tain rises up out of the forest all
by itself.”
it’s the place where so many
thru-hikers end their journey —
and where the endpoint will stay,
vowed Hawk metheny, vice presi-
dent of trail management for the
conservancy.
But not everyone agrees with
that assertion.
some have proposed extending
the a.T. from maine into Canada
by adding New Brunswick and
Quebec — a path already known
as the “international appala-
chian Trail” — and perhaps going
even farther.
others want the trail to begin
in alabama instead of georgia,
connecting the state’s tallest
peak, mount Cheaha, to springer
mountain, 314 miles away. The
“aT2aL” campaign has won the
support of alabama’s Depart-
ment of Conservation.
“There’s something magical
about the idea of linking maine’s
highest peak with alabama’s
highest mountain,” Chris Blan-
kenship, the alabama conserva-
tion commissioner, declared last
year. “Hikers who complete this
feat would have the satisfaction
of having traveled the entire
length of the appalachian moun-
tains in america.”
The idea sent one reddit
thread devoted to the a.T. into a
mini-meltdown, with one com-
menter objecting: “people will
have to start hiking on New Year’s
Day now to get it all done!”
some thru-hikers already fret
every time the trail gets longer,
wondering if they can still claim
to have hiked its entirety. The
conservancy assures them that
they can. and while the trail
might not be exactly the same as
it was in 1937 or 1967 or 2007, the
experience — of sticky summer
nights in a tent, of gazing out at
an overlook at the great expanse
of america, of legs turned shaky
by rocky ground, of endless mos-
aPPalachian trail
Earl Sha≠er lost his best friend to war. A trailblazing hike helped him heal.
BY L IZZIE J OHNSON
He wanted to “walk off the
war,” so the 29-year-old crammed
his rucksack with old military
gear and headed south from his
pennsylvania home to a remote
mountain in georgia.
it was april 4, 1948, and Earl
shaffer was about to attempt a
feat that few people thought
possible: Hiking the then-2,050-
mile appalachian Trail, all in one
go.
as night fell and shaffer ap-
proached the summit of mount
oglethorpe — then the southern
terminus of the a.T. — a biting
wind cut through his clothes. He
huddled in a lean-to near a fire
tower. as night turned to day, he
wasn’t thinking about how he’d
soon make history. He was re-
membering the war, how he’d
worked as a radio man setting up
communications infrastructure
on small islands across the south
pacific, and all that he’d lost.
mostly, he was thinking of
Walter. He and Walter Winemill-
er had grown up together and
planned to hike the a.T. as a pair
— but that was before Winemiller
died fighting one of the fiercest
battles of the war. He was 26.
“Now the time had come,”
shaffer wrote in his book, “Walk-
ing With spring,” which is about
his 1948 hike. “This was the
threshold of my great adventure,
long delayed by World War ii and
without my trail partner, who
had been killed on iwo Jima.
Those four and a half years of
army service, more than half of it
in combat areas of the pacific,
without furlough or even rest
leave, had left me confused and
depressed.”
perhaps this trip, he thought,
would be the answer.
But not many believed he
could do it.
The group that oversaw the
trail, now known as the appala-
chian Trail Conservancy, in part-
nership with local trail clubs,
certainly didn’t. While some had
managed to walk the trail’s entire
length over many years, it had
never been done in a single
season.
“The very idea of a thru-hike
had seemed ludicrous and even
vaguely suspicious to the leaders
of the local trail clubs,” wrote
mills Kelly, a professor at george
mason University who studies in
the a.T., in a 2020 issue of the
appalachia Journal. “ … public
skepticism of single-season aT
journeys changed in 1948.”
shaffer knew that much of the
11-year-old a.T. had fallen into
disrepair during the war. in some
places, it had disappeared alto-
gether. Yet, his faith didn’t waver.
He was a lifelong bachelor, a
quiet man who believed in
jiu-jitsu-like exercises and clean
quito bites, burrs and birdsong, of
finding something of oneself in
the green Tunnel?
That will remain unchanged.
congratulations, hiker!
Having completed the entire
appalachian Trail, you’re offi-
cially a member of the ‘2,000-
miler Club.’
about this story
only a selection of route
changes are represented in the
mapping, and it is not a compre-
hensive representation of all
changes in the appalachian
Trail’s history. if you know of
other reroutes of the trail, we
would love to hear about them.
Historic appalachian Trail
routes in Virginia sourced from
mills Kelly of george mason
University. Historic appala-
chian Trail routes in maine
sourced from David B. Field.
Trail reroutes near palmerton
sourced from the appalachian
Trail Conservancy. Examples of
historic appalachian Trail
routes in additional states
sourced from mills Kelly and the
george mason University Li-
brary special Collections re-
search Center. additional his-
toric map research from the
potomac appalachian Trail
Club. modern-day appalachian
Trail route and National park
data sourced from the National
park service. roller Coaster ele-
vation data sourced from the
Virginia Happy Trails running
Club.
living, who took a daily spoonful
of vinegar, ate blackstrap molas-
ses as an iron supplement and
abstained from alcohol and ciga-
rettes, who wrote poetry and
shared his farm with a few goats
and cats, and a small fleet of
Volkswagen microbuses he want-
ed to repair. He dabbled in bee-
keeping, antiques dealing and
carpentry. But the trail was never
far from his mind. over and over,
he felt called to it — volunteering
to do trail maintenance, building
shelters and lobbying for the
congressional act that would
eventually protect the pathway
from development.
“He was a humble man,” said
his nephew, Daniel shaffer. “He
was shy, but if you got him
started talking about hiking and
nature, he would enthusiastically
go on for a nice period of conver-
sation.”
atop mount oglethorpe, shaf-
fer thought of Katahdin, 2,050
miles away. His rucksack was
heavy. His gear was burdensome.
But he planned to “walk with
spring” — not stopping until he’d
passed into maine, proving that
he could do the impossible.
“i looked at the battered sign
for the last time while the shrill
wind seemed to be saying, ‘get
moving, ridgerunner,’” shaffer
wrote.
He took the first step forward.
‘The Crazy One’
He decided to call himself
“The Crazy one.”
He wore his trusted bird shoot-
er boots without socks — he was
convinced they would cause blis-
ters — and carried a compass and
a few service station road maps,
since his guidebooks hadn’t ar-
rived in time. He also carried a
spiral-bound journal that he
called his “little black book,”
where he jotted down poetry,
wildlife observations, conversa-
tions with others and his daily
annoyances.
Writing in blue or black ink
and faded pencil, his handwrit-
ing is sweeping and spidery — a
relic of past times that is often
difficult to read and transcribe.
“am very happy to be heading
north again,” he wrote in one
entry in his journal, which is
available to the public in the
smithsonian’s digital archives. “
… sang as i hiked, people must
think i’m slap happy.”
shaffer eventually donated his
notebook and other belongings
— pith helmet, cooking set, blue
flannel shirt — to the museum of
american History just before his
death of liver cancer in may
2002. They tell the story of a hike
that defined the advent of thru-
hiking in america — the dried
Betty Crocker soups shaffer ate
for dinner, the pan-baked bread
and raisins he snacked on. The
ez Re
TOP: Hikers make their way down Mount Katahdin in Maine in 2014. ABOVE LEFT: A weatherworn sign at the peak of Mount Katahdin
in Maine in 2014. ABOVE RIGHT: The first rays of sunlight color the clouds over Mount Katahdin in this view from Patten, Maine.
army surplus poncho he slept
beneath, preferring it to his tent,
which he mailed home a week
into the trip.
His boots are so smelly, said
Jane rogers, an associate curator
at the National museum of amer-
ican History, that the cabinet
they are kept in is opened as little
as possible.
“What you saw was what you
got,” rogers said of meeting shaf-
fer. “He went to war, had pTsD
when he came back, didn’t know
what he was doing, just floun-
dered around. so he decided to
go for a walk.”
on those star-splattered
nights and sun-drenched after-
noons on the trail, shaffer
thought often of his best
friend and neighbor, Walter
Winemiller.
His death haunted shaffer.
“Before the war, there were
two of us who trained together
and we had our dreams, as many
others have had, of hiking the aT
some day,” he wrote in the appa-
lachian Trailway News in Janu-
ary 1949. “But iwo Jima was the
end of life’s trail for him, leaving
me to travel alone.”
in the museum’s archives are
many more boxes of shaffer’s
personal effects — dogtags,
health records, letters, poetry,
photos — that trace the outlines
of his grief and the imprint of the
war on his psyche. in one picture,
tucked neatly in a binder, is a
Earl Shaffer on Mount Katahdin in Maine in 1948. He was ‘confused and depressed’ when he started
hiking the Appalachian Trail in Georgia that year. He made history 124 days later.
beTH J. HARPAz/AP
young Winemiller. He’s clean-
shaven and uniformed; a white
marine Corps cap is perched atop
his head. His gloved hands hold a
rifle aloft in the air.
“He changed the way
that we view being in
nature and hiking and
being able to walk to
places.”
Jeni Payne, whose great-uncle
earl Shaffer was the first to hike the
entire Appalachian Trial
“sometimes we would meet
along the creek of a late evening
and build a little fire, then sit by
it and talk of woodcraft and
outdoor travel,” shaffer remi-
nisced in one handwritten docu-
ment, stored in the archives.
“alaska, Canada, south america,
and other places were in our
dreams, and we said that some-
day we would see them all. We
never did mention the south sea
islands, where we were destined
to go.”
soon enough, shaffer had cut
through nine states and was
approaching the border of New
York and Connecticut. it was now
summertime, and he wrote to the
dAvid donAldSon/couRTeSy of APPAlAcHiAn TRAil conSeRvAncy
the washington post
conservancy that he was closing
in on mount Katahdin in maine.
“an article had appeared in
Appalachian Trailway News,
written by editor Jean stephen-
son and Conference Chairman
myron avery, while i was en
route,” shaffer wrote in his book.
“Explaining why such a trip was
almost impossible.”
The group still didn’t believe
him.
An endless trail
as the miles left on his “long
cruise” — as shaffer had nick-
named his thru-hike — dwindled,
he began to dread the end.
after months of blisters and
wet feet, of sore shoulders from
carrying 40 pounds, of getting
lost and waiting for the sun to
break through the rain, hiking
had come to feel like a more
comfortable way of life. on the
mountaintops, shaffer felt in-
spired, as though he was admir-
ing the handiwork of god.
Civilization, shaffer thought,
was a sham.
But the end inevitably got
closer. massachusetts passed,
then Vermont and New Hamp-
shire, and shaffer was plunging
into maine.
soon, it was aug. 5, 1948, and
he was at the base of mount
Katahdin. it had taken shaffer
124 days to walk here from geor-
gia.
“Just take it slow and easy,” he
. monday, august 7 , 2023
beTH J. HARPAz/AP
RobeRT f. bukATy/AP
told himself.
in the distance, he saw the
jagged peaks of nearby moun-
tains and blue lakes that reflect-
ed the sky — like “a giant mirror
was broken over Katahdin and
the lakes are the pieces,” shaffer
wrote in “Walking With spring.”
The journey might have been
ending, but there was so much
that would come.
shaffer would go on to repeat-
edly push the limits of what was
possible. in 1965, he would re-
verse his journey, hiking from
maine to georgia to become the
first person to have completed
the trail in both directions. in
1998, at 79, he’d become the
oldest person to complete the
a.T. — a record he held for six
years, before an 81-year-old from
North Carolina took the title in
2004.
His name would become syn-
onymous with thru-hiking, and
his legacy would inspire tens of
thousands of people to attempt
their own thru-hikes of the a.T.
Even after shaffer had proven
to the group that his hike was
legitimate — showing them pho-
tos, letters and journal entries,
offering firsthand testimonials
from people he’d met along the
way — myron avery, one of the
trail’s founders, would continue
to discourage others from at-
tempting the same.
“Lest the difficulties be under-
estimated, there should be em-
phasized the fact that mr. shaffer
had just returned from over four
years in the army, much of the
time being in active outdoor
service; that he was accustomed
to sleeping out of doors; and to
finding his way without maps or
guides of any sort,” avery wrote
in a Nov. 34, 1948 memorandum.
one of the people who would
be inspired was shaffer’s great-
niece, Jeni payne, who was fasci-
nated by the slide shows he
would show her, with pictures of
nature and observations of the
trail. so far, payne, 34, has hiked
all of georgia, North Carolina,
West Virginia and maryland —
about 350 miles — with more
states to come.
“He changed the way that we
view being in nature and hiking
and being able to walk to places,”
payne said. “i know for me —
being a paramedic — turning off
my cellphone and getting outside
has helped me a lot. There’s a lot
of things that i wish i could unsee
or go back and not do. Hiking
helped him, and that absolutely
helps me.”
in 1948, as the top of Katahdin
grew closer, shaffer wished the
trail would go on forever, the hike
would never be over. But he took
his final steps, reaching the
weather-beaten sign that sig-
naled the journey’s end.
and a new beginning.
monday, august 7 , 2023 . the washington post eZ re a11

The World
Mediterranean fires o≠er lessons, warnings for Europe
Wildfires are getting too severe, becoming too frequent and persistent, and raging over too vast an area to contain without robust prevention measures
BY S AMMY W ESTFALL
AND L OUISA L OVELUCK

As the Mediterranean’s sum-

mer heat waves grow fiercer, so
too do its ravenous wildfires.
They killed 34 people in Alge-
ria last month. In Greece, 19,000
people were forced to evacuate.
Italian firefighters tackled 1,400
fires in just three days two weeks
ago. In Tunisia, where tempera-
tures soared to 120 degrees, fami-
lies are picking up the pieces
after scores of homes and farm-
lands were engulfed by flames.
Responses differed in each
country. Some relied on a domes-
tic firefighting plane fleet; others
called for help. Wealthier nations
had more elaborate evacuation
and response plans than their
poorer counterparts in North Af-
rica. For experts, though, it all
pointed to a frightening new
reality: Wildfires are getting too
severe, becoming too frequent
and persistent, and raging over
too vast an area to contain with-
out robust prevention measures.
And the risk is spreading.
“Southern Europe — Spain,
Portugal, Greece, Italy — they
struggle with wildfire; but as
global warming continues, we’re
talking about wildfires in the
forests of Germany, Austria, Slo-
venia,” said Craig Clements, di-
rector of the Wildfire Interdisci-
plinary Research Center at San
José State University. “It’s hap-
pening here. Europe knows it’s
going to happen. They’re prepar-
ing for it.”
As wildfires intensify, nations
at risk are locked in a game of Petros gIAnnAkourIs/AP

resource catch-up. Yet experts

agree that there are limits to
those efforts; no one country will
have enough resources to battle
the fires on its own.
A lack of resources
The Mediterranean climate
makes its land fertile for wildfires
— wet winters allow vegetation to
grow; hot, dry summers turn it
into a tinder box.
Strings of devastating wild-
fires have shaken Europe and the
surrounding Mediterranean ba-
sin. In 2017, they killed 66 people
in Portugal. In 2018, they en-
gulfed the seaside Greek town of
Mati, leaving more than 100
dead. August blazes in Algeria in
2021 killed 90, and there have
been dozens of summer fire fatal-
ities in the years since.
These events have forced a
reckoning in the region, but re-
sources still vary greatly.
Algeria acquired its first fire-
fighting plane this year. Italy has
a fleet of at least 19.
After the fatal 2021 blazes in
Algeria, civilians blamed the gov-
ernment for the steep death toll.
“Since yesterday, we have not
seen a single police officer or
gendarme!” Fethi, a volunteer in
the northern Algerian region of
Tizi Ouzou, told Al Jazeera. “No
one came and instructed or
helped us evacuate.”
Algeria has steep-hilled, hard-
to-reach communities that make
it particularly vulnerable to
deadly fires, said António José
Bento Gonçalves, director of the
civil protection and territory
management program at the Uni-
versity of Minho in Portugal.
Algeria has bolstered its capa-
bilities but is still forced to make
hard choices in the face of large-
scale fires: “protecting people
and goods, not allowing [them]
to fight the progression of the
forest fire,” Gonçalves said.
Neighboring Tunisia has
worked to upgrade its response
plan, including collaborating
with experts on a new system to
monitor vegetation dryness and
meteorological trends, according
to Florent Mouillot, a researcher
of climate change and fires at
France’s Institute of Research for
Development, but “all this has a
maintenance cost that the cur-
rent economy could hardly sus-
tain.” The same is true for Algeria,
which is much larger and sees
less international cooperation.
Greece is seen as a leader in the
region in terms of wildfire re-
sponse. But there are gaps there,
too.
Clements — speaking on a
work visit to Greece — said what
he learned as a visiting scientist
to the National Observatory of
Athens “is that they are way
behind in terms of firefighting
technologies and utilizing meteo-
rology and fire science.”
Only after the deadly Mati fires
did Greece formalize collabora-
tion between its forest and fire
services, uniting prevention and
suppression. And only last year
did the country hire its first
group of dedicated fire meteorol-
ogists.
“I’ve given congressional testi-
mony about why what we do [in
the United States] is horrible.
And what we’re doing is way
better than what they’re doing,”
Clements said of Greece’s pre-
paredness and response.
“I think they’re 20 years be-
hind, at least 10 . . . in terms of
monitoring,” Clements said, cit-
ing conversations with his Greek
counterparts. “They need this
stuff that we take for granted in
the U.S.,” he continued, naming
sophisticated early-detection
and monitoring systems as exam-
ples. “Greece doesn’t have that —
and, you know, Greece is kind of
leading Europe.”
Preparing for the ‘monsters’
Theodore Giannaros, a fire me-
teorologist and associate re-
searcher at the National Observa-
tory of Athens, said “the entire
way” the region deals with ex-
treme fires needs to change.
“We need to understand that
often these monsters are almost
impossible to be stopped — even
with increased capacity,” Giann-
aros said. “It’s not just a problem
of resources, equipment and
manpower. Because when you get
two, three, four large wildfire
events, I’m not sure if any fire
suppression mechanism around
the world could deal” with that.
Giannaros believes the empha-
sis should instead be on preven-
tive mitigation measures, includ-
ing early-warning systems that
allow for interventions “before
they become monsters.”
But funding for such initia-
tives continues to lag: “Wildfire
suppression spending in many
wildfire-prone countries is still
up to six times higher than the
recorded risk prevention spend-
ing,” according to a 2023 report
FethI BelAId/AFP/getty ImAges
from the Organization for Eco-
TOP: Ilias Kyriakou hauls an olive branch as a wildfire burns nomic Cooperation and Develop-
July 25 in the Greek village of Gennadi, on the Aegean Sea island of ment.
Rhodes. ABOVE: Firefighters attempt to extinguish a raging forest And proposed legislation
fire near the town of Melloula in northwestern Tunisia on July 24. aimed at developing an E.U.-wide
BELOW: A firetruck moves along a road as a fire burns July 24 in forest observation framework
northwestern Tunisia, close to the border with Algeria. Nations’ has been delayed as some govern-
firefighting resources vary greatly in the Mediterranean region. ments argue that forest manage-
ment is a domestic matter.
Portugal stands out in Europe
for its forward-thinking ap-
proach. Before the deadly 2017
wildfires, only 20 percent of its
firefighting budget went toward
prevention; now, prevention and
suppression spending are near
parity. The country collaborates
closely with researchers, who col-
lect live data and evaluate how to
best contain the wildfires during
the high season. They also do
prescribed burns — small con-
trolled fires managed by experts
— which are uncommon and
restricted in other parts of Eu-
rope.
“We have available scientific
knowledge, we have available
services and tools, but unfortu-
nately these are not exploited to
the full extent,” Giannaros said.
The limits of collective action
As fires increase in frequency
and intensity, regional support
systems are evolving.
Using the European Union’s
FethI BelAId/AFP/getty ImAges
Civil Protection Mechanism,
countries in need can ask the bloc
to request support from its mem-
ber states. The bloc has its own
fleet of aircraft that can be used
to support firefighting efforts,
under the rescEU program. But
of the 24 planes and four helicop-
ters stationed across the conti-
nent, only two are top of the line.
Procurement is underway to ex-
pand the number of helicopters
to 12 by 2030.
“This new rescEU fleet will
then be the core of E.U.’s own
capacities for the wildfire sea-
sons, which would complement
national response capacities and
ad hoc solidarity expressed by
countries sending planes via the
E.U. Civil Protection Mecha-
nism,” said Balazs Ujvari, a
spokesman for the European
Commission.
In 2021, the E.U.’s Civil Protec-
tion Mechanism was activated
seven times to help fight forest
fires. In 2022, the number rose to
12. This year, the bloc has already
been called upon to support civil
defense crews in Canada, Greece,
Italy and Tunisia, with most of
August — traditionally the worst
month for wildfires — still to
come.
“We have been able to mobilize
assistance in response to the
overwhelming majority of re-
quests,” Ujvari said.
But European officials ac-
knowledge that boots on the
ground and planes in the air can
only do so much.
“Each year it is more difficult
to tackle these fires because they
are so powerful, so strong,” said
Capt. Laurent Alfonso, a senior
fire officer at the Union for the
Mediterranean. “We will not win
the fight by just building more
and more response capacities.
The challenge now is to focus on
prevention.”
Gonçalves says policymakers
in the region must bolster coop-
eration, knowledge-sharing and
mutual aid. “No single country is
capable of having all the neces-
sary resources,” he warned.
“Fire knows no borders.”

Di gest

morocco
At least 24 people
die in bus crash
At least 24 people died in a
bus crash Sunday in the province
of Azilal in central Morocco,
marking one of the country’s
deadliest such accidents in
recent years.
According to local authorities,
cited by Morocco’s official news
agency MAP, the accident
happened when a minibus
carrying passengers overturned
at a curve while en route to a
market in the small town of
Demnate in central Morocco.
Authorities, along with the
Royal Gendarmerie and the civil
protection services, mobilized to
begin rescue operations.
An investigation has been
opened to determine the cause of
the accident.
— Associated Press
israel
Israeli troops kill
three Palestinians
Israeli troops on Sunday killed
three alleged Palestinian
militants in the northern West
Bank, further escalating a wave
of violence in which two other
people, including a young
Palestinian man believed to have
been gunned down by extremist
Jewish settlers, were killed in
fighting over the weekend.
The Israeli army said it shot
the three men near the Jenin
refugee camp, the site of a large-
scale military operation last
month. It said that the three men
had just exited the camp and
were on their way to carry out an
attack and that an M-16 rifle was
recovered from their vehicle.
The Hamas and Islamic Jihad
militant groups condemned the
killings, though it was not
immediately known if the three
men belonged to either
organization.
— Associated Press
china
Documentary ramps
up rhetoric on Taiwan
China has released a new
documentary about the army’s
preparation to attack Taiwan and
showcased soldiers pledging to
give up their lives if needed as
Beijing continues to ramp up its
rhetoric against the self-ruled
island.
“Chasing Dreams,” an eight-
part docuseries recently aired by
state broadcaster CCTV to mark
the People Liberation Army’s
96th anniversary, features
military drills and testimonials
by dozens of soldiers, of whom
several express their willingness
to die in a potential attack
against Taiwan.
China claims Taiwan as its
own territory, to be conquered by
force if necessary. Taiwan is a
self-ruled democracy.
State media and the PLA
frequently release propaganda
materials promoting the army’s
modernization as well as sleek
videos of military drills.
The materials serve to fan
rising Chinese nationalism and
display military confidence
against Taiwan and, implicitly,
its ties with the United States.
While the United States doesn’t
recognize Taiwan as a sovereign
country, it has pledged to help
the island defend itself in case of
an invasion.
Last month, the White House
announced a $345 million
military aid package for Taiwan.
The move, which experts said
drew on lessons from U.S.
military assistance to Ukraine,
was criticized by Beijing.
— Associated Press
Days of torrential rain, flooding
ravage southern Austria:
Torrential rains and heavy floods
have ravaged southern Austria
for the past three days, killing
one person who was swept away
by a quickly swelling river on
Sunday, officials said. After the
person fell into the river,
firefighters, divers and water
rescuers immediately began
rescue operations, according to
the press department of the
Carinthia province. But rescuers
were only able to recover the
dead body. Austrian Chancellor
Karl Nehammer expressed
condolences on X, the social
media platform formerly known
as Twitter, saying that “our
thoughts are with the relatives”
of the person killed. Since Friday,
the southern Austrian provinces
of Carinthia and Styria have
been heavily affected by rising
rivers.
— From news services
A12
Japan, on Hiroshima bombing anniversary, decries Russia’s ‘nuclear threat’
BY A NNABELLE T IMSIT
On Aug. 6, 1945, the United
States dropped an atomic bomb
on the Japanese city of Hiroshi-
ma, followed three days later by
another one on Nagasaki. The
world’s first — and so far only —
wartime atomic bombings re-
main seared in the minds of all
those alive at the time and are
often invoked as reminders of the
disastrous consequences of nu-
clear armament.
In the 78 years since, Japan’s
government, as well as the United
Nations and others, have promot-
ed the goal of a nuclear-free
world. But that goal has become
“more difficult,” in part because
of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine,
Japanese Prime Minister Fumio
Kishida said Sunday at a memori-
al ceremony in Hiroshima.
“As the only country to have
experienced the horror of nuclear
devastation in war, Japan will
press on tirelessly with its efforts
to bring about” nuclear disarma-
ment, Kishida said. “The widen-
ing division within the interna-
tional community over approach-
es to nuclear disarmament, the
nuclear threat made by Russia,
and other concerns now make
that road all the more difficult.”
Still, he continued, “it is pre-
cisely because of these circum-
stances that it is imperative for us
to reinvigorate international mo-
mentum once more towards the
Hundreds killed in Bangladesh amid its deadliest dengue outbreak on record
BY L YRIC L I
Bangladesh’s worst dengue fe-
ver outbreak on record has killed
more than 300 people this year,
overwhelming the country’s vul-
nerable medical system and
prompting calls for a more coordi-
nated response amid a spike in
new cases.
The mosquito-borne disease
has claimed at least 303 lives and
infected nearly 63,700 people
across the South Asian nation,
according to the latest govern-
ment figures on Saturday, making
this the deadliest year since the
country started tracking dengue
outbreaks in 2000. Most of the
deaths were in Dhaka, Bangla-
Giving Voice
The award-winning author discusses her new
book, her work spotlighting the Cuban diaspora
and her mark on Latino literature.
wapo.st/garciaaug2023 or scan
code below using a smartphone camera:
realization of a ‘world without
nuclear weapons.’ ”
Since Russia’s invasion of
Ukraine, Kremlin officials have,
in their rhetoric and actions, at-
tempted to use the threat of a
nuclear attack to scare Western
countries into halting their aid to
Kyiv. In February, Russian Presi-
dent Vladimir Putin suspended
Russia’s participation in the New
START nuclear nonproliferation
agreement, the last remaining
arms control treaty between
Washington and Moscow. And in
recent weeks, Putin claimed to
have moved nuclear weapons to
Russia’s ally and neighbor Bela-
rus.
The specter of nuclear war
raised by Russia’s war in Ukraine
led scientists in January to set the
Doomsday Clock 90 seconds away
from “midnight” — the closest it
has ever been to the symbolic
hour of apocalypse, as The Wash-
ington Post has reported.
Anxiety about nuclear escala-
tion could be felt Sunday in Hiro-
shima, at the Peace Memorial
Ceremony, a yearly event to pro-
mote world peace and keep alive
the memory of the victims of the
bombings.
“Leaders around the world
must confront the reality that
nuclear threats now being voiced
by certain policymakers reveal
the folly of nuclear deterrence
theory,” Hiroshima Mayor Kazu-
mi Matsui said at Hiroshima,
desh’s densely populated capital,
where hospitals are struggling to
accommodate an influx of pa-
tients.
Raman Velayudhan, who leads
the World Health Organization’s
program for the control of ne-
glected tropical diseases, said
about half the world’s population
is now at risk for dengue, as a
rapidly changing climate yields
warmer and wetter weather that
provides ideal breeding condi-
tions for mosquitoes and risks ex-
acerbating the situation.
“Dengue is a problem linked
mostly with climate change, and
we need to find ways to mitigate
its impacts on every country lev-
el,” Velayudhan said during a we-
Cristina García
Author, “Vanishing Maps”
Tuesday, Aug. 8 at 1:00 p.m.
To register to watch, visit:
@ P O ST L I V E # P O ST L I V E
Listen wherever podcasts are available.
eZ Re
Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, right, observes a moment of silence during a ceremony
marking the 78th anniversary of the United States’ first use of an atomic bomb on Aug. 6, 1945.
according to Reuters.
“The drums of nuclear war are
beating once again,” U.N. Secre-
tary General António Guterres
warned, in remarks delivered by
U.N. High Representative for Dis-
armament Affairs Izumi Na-
kamitsu.
More than 100,000 people
binar last week, adding that more
outbreaks are expected in Bangla-
desh and other parts of Asia fol-
lowing the monsoon season.
Cases reported to the WHO hit
an all-time high in 2019, at 5.2 mil-
lion in 129 countries, “and we
expect 2023 also to be a bad year as
indications are,” Velayudhan said.
The U.N. health agency warned
in January that dengue’s rapid
spread represented a pandemic-
level threat.
Globally, rates of dengue have
continued to rise. In March, the
WHO declared dengue a “major
public health problem” for the
Americas region, and Peru ex-
tended a health emergency this
summer after experiencing the
were killed by the bombing of
Hiroshima, and at least 70,000
were killed in Nagasaki. The exact
toll from the bombings is still
subject to some disagreement
among historians.
Around sunrise on Sunday, at
the site of a memorial to the
victims of the bombing, people lit
largest dengue outbreak in the
country’s history.
At its worst, dengue can cause
high fevers, serious organ failure
and death. There are four strains
of the virus, and a second infec-
tion with a different variation
than the first increases the risk of
severe dengue.
In Bangladesh, as of Saturday
morning, nearly 2,500 patients
suffering from high fever, joint
pain and vomiting had been ad-
mitted to hospitals across the
country over the previous 24
hours, according to its Directorate
General of Health Services.
The Health Ministry has re-
quired major public hospitals to
add hundreds of beds for dengue
the washington post
Kyodo News/AP
candles, burned incense and
prayed.
At 8:15 a.m., the exact time
when the atomic bomb was re-
leased over Hiroshima 78 years
ago, a bell rang over the gather-
ing, followed by a minute of si-
lence, according to Reuters.
About 50,000 people, including
patients, and the government has
launched awareness campaigns
to encourage the use of mosquito
nets, reduce water accumulation
near homes and public venues,
and kill mosquito larvae following
rainfall.
Still, researchers have warned
that the peak of the dengue out-
break in Bangladesh is yet to
come.
Aedes mosquitoes, the species
that transmits dengue and zika,
two of the most serious mosquito-
borne viruses, start a breeding
burst during the wet season,
which is followed by a dry period,
when they migrate to urban areas
in search of water. The monsoon
season in Bangladesh usually lasts
. monday, august 7 , 2023
survivors of the bombing, took
part in the ceremony in 86-degree
heat, Reuters reported.
During the ceremony, Kishida
and others laid flowers at Peace
Memorial Park and dedicated a
register containing the names of
the victims of the bombing, ac-
cording to a schedule of events
released by the city.
The release last month of
Christopher Nolan’s “Oppen-
heimer” — a biopic about J. Rob-
ert Oppenheimer, the scientist
who led the Manhattan Project,
the clandestine U.S. effort to de-
velop an atomic bomb during
World War II — has brought
renewed attention to the history
of the bombings of Hiroshima
and Nagasaki. Some viewers have
criticized the film for not featur-
ing Japanese victims.
In his speech Sunday, Kishida
said what happened in Hiroshi-
ma and Nagasaki “must never be
repeated.”
He said Japan would continue
to advocate on the world stage for
nuclear disarmament.
Demonstrations and rallies
were planned in parts of the
world Sunday to mark the anni-
versary. In India, protesters
marched with their faces covered
in paint, with messages like “no
war” and “no bomb” on them.
ellen Francis, scott dance, Mary
Ilyushina, Robyn dixon and Niha
Masih contributed to this report.
from June to October.
Mushtaq Hossain, a senior ad-
viser to Bangladesh’s Institute of
Epidemiology, Disease Control
and Research, said the govern-
ment was far from ready for a
prolonged dengue crisis.
In an opinion piece for the inde-
pendent Bangladesh Pratidin
newspaper, he warned that the
number of dengue patients could
continue to increase until as late
as November after the monsoon
season.
The virus, he added, was also
likely to pose a risk to the country
“throughout the year.”
“We are not adequately pre-
pared to deal with dengue,” he
said.
monday, august 7 , 2023 . the washington post
Amid resistance, Europe blinks in its commitment to a great green transition
CLIMATE frOm A1
Greenpeace activists who warned
that his plan to “max out” fossil
fuel reserves could destroy Brit-
ain’s chance of meeting its emis-
sions commitments and risk tip-
ping the climate into a danger
zone.
Sunak’s gambit to commit to
more domestic drilling was in-
spired in part by the results of a
one-off parliamentary election in
the London suburbs — for the
seat that former prime minister
Boris Johnson abandoned when
he quit the House of Commons.
There, voters signaled they were
opposed to the pollution charges
ordered up by London mayor
Sadiq Khan, from the opposition
Labour Party, to limit the number
of petrol cars allowed into the
central city.
The E.U., too, has been fighting
about cars.
Last fall, the 27-nation bloc
reached a world-leading political
agreement to effectively end the
sale of nonelectric cars by 2035.
But this year, a group of countries
sought to water down the rules.
The regulations have remained
largely intact, though Germany
secured an exception for conven-
tional vehicles that would run on
carbon-neutral e-fuels. Such fuels
are not yet economically viable
for mass use.
But the push suggested the
rising discontent among auto in-
dustry executives and workers
across the continent over a total
switch to electric vehicles, and
the end of cars using internal
combustion engines — whose
production is linked to tens of
thousands of jobs in Germany,
Italy and beyond.
Italy and other E.U. nations are
also taking aim at “Euro 7” regula-
tions that, by 2025, are meant to
tighten vehicle exhaust emis-
sions.
“Italy, with france, Czech re-
public, romania, Portugal, Slova-
kia, Bulgaria, Poland and Hunga-
ry, have the numbers to block this
leap in the dark,” Italy’s hard-
right transportation minister,
matteo Salvini, told a may car
dealer conference in Verona.
“We’re now a blocking minority;
we want to become a majority.”
Despite those claims, analysts
say that rolling back already
agreed-upon E.U. rules remains a
Monday, Aug. 7 at 11:00 a.m.
A helicopter sprays water during a wildfire near an oil refinery in Agioi Theodoroi in western Athens on July 19. European lawmakers and
residents are reckoning with how much they are willing to do to reduce carbon emissions to slow such effects of climate change.
long shot. But new agreements
are more vulnerable.
During a speech on how to
revive french industry, President
Emmanuel macron in may called
for “a European regulatory
break.”
“We have already passed lots of
environmental regulations at the
European level, more than other
countries,” macron said. “Now we
should be implementing them,
not making new changes in the
rules or we are going to lose all
our [industrial] players.”
macron said Europe was doing
its part and is “ahead of the
Americans, the Chinese and of
any other power in the world.”
The E.U. has reduced its per
capita emissions by 29 percent
since 1990 but still has far to go.
Overall, the top emitters today
are China, the United States, the
E.U., India, russia and Japan. The
prevailing notion of climate jus-
tice suggests that wealthy coun-
tries that grew their economies
while spewing carbon for a cen-
tury need to do more than poorer,
less developed countries that are
historically less responsible for
climate change.
Surveys show strong support
for reducing emissions in Britain
and Europe. But the zeal damp-
ens when the pollsters ask more
detailed questions about the peo-
ple’s willingness to make lifestyle
changes or spend a lot of money.
Simone Tagliapietra, a senior
fellow at the Brussels-based think
tank Bruegel, pointed to the new
right-wing government of Italian
Prime minister Giorgia meloni,
which is pushing back on bloc-
wide efficiency standards that
could require mass renovation of
buildings across Europe.
“meloni and others say, ‘Look,
why should we force our citizens
to retrofit their buildings? We
cannot impose this on ordinary
people,’” Tagliapietra said.
He said, “This is the kind of
pushback you see when climate
eZ re
policy really enters the daily life
of people. And it can be pretty
successful.”
meloni — who is rapidly
emerging as a guiding light for
the European right — has walked
a cautious line on the environ-
ment.
She has artfully dodged the
toxic label of “climate denier” —
arguing instead for “pragmatic”
solutions that don’t run Europe’s
economies into the ground.
(Her alliance partners in Italy
have been far less careful. “I do
not know how much climate
change is man-made and how
much of it is due to the Earth’s
[natural] climate change,” her en-
vironmental minister, Gilberto
Pichetto fratin, told Britain’s Sky
News last week.)
Britain’s prime minister, too, is
careful to call his new North Sea
oil policy “proportionate and
pragmatic.”
As the U.K. transitions away
from fossil fuels — toward wind,
Cecilia Rouse
Former Chair, White House Council of Economic Advisers
Rouse weighs in on the ongoing debate over paid
parental leave in the United States.
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solar and nuclear power, which it
is doing at pace — it will still need
oil and gas for decades to come.
So why buy foreign oil, asks
Sunak, who says he is still com-
mitted to achieving net-zero
emissions by 2050. To balance out
his oil-and-gas play, he also an-
nounced billion-dollar bets on
carbon capture technology.
But the right wing of Sunak’s
Conservative Party is filled with
climate skeptics, who argue that a
warmer world will not be so bad
for damp, cloudy Britain. They
deride climate activists as the
“eco-woke” and warn that the
costs of the transition to net zero
are too high — especially when
top polluters like China and rus-
sia are not following the West’s
lead.
David frost, a former govern-
ment minister and top Brexit
negotiator, told the House of
Lords last month that rising tem-
peratures “are likely to be benefi-
cial” for Britain, because more
A13
people in the United Kingdom die
from cold than from heat.
frost said rather than spend
billions on renewable energy, the
U.K. should adapt to the warming
climate, “so we can adjust to the
perfectly manageable conse-
quences of slowly rising tempera-
tures as they emerge.”
“We must put aside the current
mood of hysteria and try to assess
the choices logically,” he said.
frost’s go-slow appeal comes
against a streak of record-break-
ing heat waves in Europe, the
United States and Asia, as well as
shrinking sea ice at the poles and
hot-tub ocean temperatures.
U.N. chief António Guterres
pleaded for immediate radical
action on climate change, saying
that record-shattering July tem-
peratures show the planet has
passed from global warming to an
“era of global boiling.” He begged
governments not to backslide.
“Leaders must lead. No more
hesitancy. No more excuses. No
more waiting for others to move
first,” Guterres said.
But on a grass-roots level, Eu-
ropeans are thinking about costs.
In the Netherlands, Dutch
farmers have staged strikes
against government calls to dra-
matically slash heads of cattle
and sell off land to help the
country meet its goals to cut
nitrogen and ammonia emissions
by 2030.
It happens as the Dutch are
feeling the impact of climate pol-
icy in deeply personal ways, in-
cluding reductions in highway
speeds and new building permits
to meet climate goals.
“We’re not going to take it
anymore,” said Jos Ubels, a young
Dutch cattle farmer and vice pres-
ident of the farmers Defense
force, a group formed to promote
farmers’ rights.
“We should teach the countries
that pollute the most — the poor-
est countries — ways to reduce
emissions,” Ubels said.
“You can’t expect a small coun-
try like the Netherlands to make
such a difference,” he said. “Here,
it’s become some kind of joke, the
way they keep using trial and
error, and are not sure if any of it
really helps.”
Faiola reported from rome. Beatriz
rios in Brussels contributed to this
report.
A14 eZ re the washington post . monday, august 7 , 2023

Fatal shootings surge in D.C., frightening residents and frustrating o∞cials

HOMICIDES from A1 D.C. homicides in August
status quo with no end in sight.” Thirteen people were killed in 10 shootings in the first five days of august,
D.C. has recorded at least 158 pushing the annual count toward the deadliest it has been in two decades.
homicides this year, according to
a police spokesman, an increase
of about 22 percent over this time
in 2022 that puts the city on a
trajectory for its deadliest year in
two decades. Homicides have
dropped in other major cities,
including Baltimore, Chicago,
New York and Philadelphia.
on July 17, mayor muriel E. D.C.
White house
Bowser (D) nominated Pamela A.
Smith, who spent the bulk of her U.s. Capitol
career with the U.S. Park Police
and had joined D.C. police only
14 months earlier, as the depart- 1600 Good Hope Road SE
ment’s leader. She is awaiting
council confirmation. While
council members and residents virginia
say she has not been in the job MarYLanD
long enough to fairly answer for
the increase in crime, they are
eager to see how she responds.
Three weeks into the job, Smith
has ventured to at least three
homicide scenes to address re-
porters. She has also been met 1 MiLe
with demands by angry and © openstreetMap con
ntribu
utors
frightened residents for the vio- source: Post reporting the Washington Post
lence to stop. Marvin JosePh/the Washington Post

She has said her team is deploy-
ing officers to high-crime areas to
get ahead of emerging patterns of
violence, even as the department
struggles with staffing at
half-century lows.
“our officers are where they
need to be,” Smith said after five
people were shot, three of them
fatally, Saturday night in the 1600
block of Good Hope road SE, in
Anacostia. “our expectation is
that the community will respond
to us accordingly so that we can
continue to keep your city safe.”
A police spokesman said Smith
was not available for an interview
Sunday and declined to provide
additional details on the recent
shootings.
But Lindsey Appiah, the deputy
mayor for public safety and jus-
tice, said in an interview that she
shares residents’ frustrations. She
said Bowser has made “public
safety a top priority,” and she
called the latest shootings “bra-
zen in nature,” noting police were
close by for two of them and had
already made an arrest in one.
“There needs to be accountabil-
ity for those who are actually the
ones committing crime,” she said.
This weekend’s violence began
A worker washes away blood Sunday at the scene in Southeast Washington where three people were
shot and killed the evening before. The area remained cordoned off through Sunday morning.
early Saturday when police said
three men were shot on ontario
road NW in Adams morgan, two
blocks from the bustling strip of
bars and restaurants along
18th Street. Two of the men died
and the third was critically
wounded; their names have not
been released.
Later that morning, police said,
Andre Baker, 19, of Southeast
Washington was fatally shot at
12th and U streets NW, the heart
of that area’s nightlife strip. Police
said they arrested and charged
David Botchway, 20, of maryland
with first-degree murder. No ad-
ditional information was im-
mediately provided.
Then, late in the evening, three
people were shot and killed at
16th Street and Good Hope road
in Southeast. That brought to six
the number of people fatally shot
on Saturday, the most in a single
day in the District this year. Police
have not released the names of
those victims.
Smith visited the scene of the
day’s final shooting, calling it
“very disturbing” but asserting
the area was “not a war zone.”
mendelson said Sunday he still
thought the chief would be con-
firmed, saying she was “coming in
at a difficult time.” But he said he
was eager to see police arrest
more homicide suspects.
“A more immediate strategy to
reducing violence is closing cases
and prosecuting them,” he said.
Police continued to examine
the shooting scene on Good Hope
through Sunday morning, cor-
doning off the length of three city
blocks of shops, apartments and
tree-lined homes.
At least 30 white circles could
be seen marking apparent evi-
dence in the case; a car had a
bullet hole in its driver side door.
There were packages of Narcan, a
nasal spray to reverse opioid over-
doses, in the grass. Beneath a
wooden awning were remnants of
a violent night: a wound seal kit, a
bottle of liquor and a pack of
cigarettes. People sat on the steps
of a church nearby, appearing to
inject themselves.
Police removed the security
tape after lunch Sunday, and peo-
ple quickly returned to the area,
some walking past broken glass to
enter a liquor store. others, like
67-year-old Jerome morgan,
spent part of the day with a spatu-
la grilling hamburgers in his
backyard.
morgan, who lives a few blocks
from where the shooting oc-
curred, said police and rescue
crews reached the victims quickly,
but he wished more had been
done to prevent the violence in
the first place. He said he heard
the gunshots and saw victims put
into ambulances and one person
being given CPr on the street.
“Where were the detectives be-
fore that?” he said. “Where’s the
undercover cops?”
Hakim Arnold, 48, said he has
seen police sitting in the area
nearly every night, but gun vio-
lence is hard to predict and pre-
vent.
“There’s no telling when it’s
going to happen,” he said.
James Black, 42, said people
aren’t sure what changes the new
police chief will bring, but he is
optimistic. “I think she can do a
good job,” he said. But, he added,
“We don’t know what she can do,
if the killings don’t stop.”
“A lot of people can’t handle the
killing every day,” he said.
Patrick o’Keefe, who has lived
near 16th and Good Hope for the
past five years, said he and his
neighbors have repeatedly com-
plained to police and other agen-
cies about what they assert are
people openly dealing and using
drugs, playing loud music, illegal-
ly parking and congregating at all
hours.
“They won’t even stop for a day,
even with a dozen cops here, be-
cause they know nothing will hap-
pen to them,” o’Keefe said. “We’re
not asking the police to come up
with [a] miracle solution. They
just need to enforce the laws as
they are written.”
He said he is frustrated by city
officials talking mainly about un-
derlying causes of crime, such as
poverty and substance abuse,
without addressing the gun vio-
lence that is happening right now.
“That’s all they want to talk about,
is their long-term plans and cre-
ative solutions,” o’Keefe said.
“meanwhile, people are getting
massacred.”
Appiah, the deputy mayor, said
teams of police officers, drug out-
reach workers and representa-
tives from other agencies are at
Good Hope and 16th every
Wednesday to help people.
“When people commit crimes,
and we arrest them, we want
them out of [the] community,” she
said.
But she said some cases, such
as those in which people are ac-
cused of possessing small
amounts of drugs, are difficult to
prosecute. She said police often
work at “building larger cases to
give our prosecutors an opportu-
nity to be more successful.”
Police have targeted large oper-
ations in Congress Heights in
Southeast, where a child was
killed, and more recently along
Kennedy Street in Brightwood
Park in Northwest. Appiah said
police seized about 200 illegal
firearms over the past two weeks.
on Sunday, police said they
were investigating shootings in
Northwest and Southeast with
victims suffering life-threatening
injuries.
“It is challenging,” Appiah said.

Joe Dominguez
President & CEO, Constellation
Monday, Aug. 7 at 1:00 p.m.
As goals are set for net-zero carbon emissions by 2050,
Dominguez addresses the challenges for the energy
sector to develop sources of green energy
that create little or no emissions.

To register to watch, visit: wapo.st/dominguezaug2023

or scan code below using a smartphone camera:

@ P O ST L I V E # P O ST L I V E
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monday, august 7 , 2023 . the washington post
Disinfo researchers are
pushing back against
pressure from the right
Justice Department’s appeal of
The Technology 202 Doughty’s ruling, which the
by Will Oremus appeals court put on hold until
it reaches a final ruling.
Stamos and DiResta aren’t
In the wake of the 2020 election named as defendants in the
and covid-19 pandemic, there’s case. But they feature
been a push from the right to prominently in the judge’s
limit the influence of academics ruling, which barred
and advocacy groups on efforts government agencies from
to moderate online speech. contact with them. And their
From House hearings to state filing is the first that takes
laws to lawsuits, Republican direct aim at the collateral
leaders and like-minded damage of Doughty’s ruling to
industry titans such as Twitter the First Amendment rights of
CEO Elon Musk are making life academics who study social
more difficult for independent media.
researchers and watchdogs In other words, they say
focused on online extremism, Doughty is doing just what he
misinformation and accuses the Biden
propaganda. administration of doing:
As my Washington Post suppressing protected political
colleagues have reported, that speech.
pressure could have a chilling The Stanford brief notes that
effect on misinformation Doughty quoted DiResta four
research and puncture efforts to times in his ruling as saying that
guard against interference in Stanford’s Election Integrity
the 2024 presidential election. Partnership was designed to
Now some of those academics “get around” unclear legal
and advocacy groups are authorities and First
asserting their own First Amendment issues. In fact, the
Amendment rights. documents cited for that quote
In a legal brief filed last show DiResta simply said there
month, Stanford University and were unclear legal authorities
two of its internet researchers and First Amendment issues;
blasted a Louisiana federal she never said the goal was to
judge’s order that limited the “get around” them.
Biden administration’s ability to In another instance,
communicate with them about Doughty’s ruling quotes an
online misinformation. Election Integrity Partnership
Stanford and the researchers, report as saying it targeted
Alex Stamos and Renée DiResta “domestic speakers,” a phrase
of the Stanford Internet that does not appear in the
Observatory, claim that U.S. report the ruling cites. Stanford
District Judge Terry Doughty’s says the report was not
July 4 ruling repeatedly targeting any speakers,
quoted them as saying but rather analyzing
things they never said. whether the instances
Those “invented of online election
quotations,” they say, misinformation the
helped Doughty paint an project had collected
inaccurate picture of were domestic or
their role in what foreign in origin. (The
Doughty deemed report concluded that
“censorship” of posts Elon Musk the most influential
about the 2020 election false narratives in the
and the covid-19 pandemic. The 2020 election came from
injunction he imposed “has cast authentic, domestic accounts,
a chill across academia” and rather than from foreign
violates Stamos and DiResta’s influence campaigns.)
First Amendment rights, they The issue of the First
argue. Amendment rights of people
Doughty told The Technology who criticize social media firms’
202 he can’t comment on active content moderation was also
cases in his court. raised last week in a separate
Stanford joins the fray as the case in which Elon Musk’s
U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th renamed Twitter (now called X)
Circuit is set to consider the sued the nonprofit Center for
Countering Digital Hate
(CCDH). The lawsuit accused
the organization of unlawfully
ap p o intmEn t s
scraping X’s data as part of a
“scare campaign to drive away
assoCiations advertisers.”
and nonpRofits The lawsuit shows Musk “will
Izaak Walton League of stop at nothing to silence
America of Gaithersburg anyone who criticizes him for
appointed Jessica Gordon his own decisions and actions,”
grass-roots advocacy manager. the center’s CEO, Imran Ahmed,
said in a statement. He added,
CompaniEs “CCDH has no intention of
iDirectGovernment of stopping our independent
Herndon appointed Derek Davis research — Musk will not bully
senior vice president of sales. us into silence.”
Lumen Technologies of the On Wednesday, three
District appointed Michael Democratic lawmakers backed
Jacobs assistant general counsel the center. Reps. Lori Trahan
for Federal regulatory affairs. (Mass.), Sean Casten (Ill.), and
Adam B. Schiff (Calif.) sent a
law and lobbying letter to X accusing the
Eversheds Sutherland of the company of trying to “harass,
District appointed Jeffrey Cottle silence, and suppress research
partner. and accountability” for harmful
Hirschler of Tysons appointed content on its platform.
Stacey Rose Harris, Emily Katie Harbath, CEO of the
Martin and Robert Taylor tech consulting firm Anchor
partners. Change and a former public
Holland & Knight of the policy director at Facebook, told
District appointed Kristian The Technology 202 she believes
Havard member. the various efforts to deter
Portland Communications of academic research into social
the District appointed Jim Lake media firms’ speech policies are
head of its D.C. office. misguided, regardless of one’s
Wiggin And Dana of the politics.
District appointed Alan “There are some very valid
Levesque partner. questions here of the roles the
government should have, the
REal EstatE roles of academia, civil society”
Ruppert Landscape of in addressing online speech,
Laytonsville appointed Mike Harbath said. But she added, “If
Ryan and Lou LaBonte branch we're pushing for more
managers. transparency from these
companies — if we don’t want
send information about promotions, them to continue to be black
appointments and personnel moves boxes — we need to be having
in the Washington region to folks from academia and civil
appointments@washpost.com. society doing this research.”
tRansaCtions
trading as reported by companies’ directors, presidents, chief financial officers, general counsel, chief executive
officers, chairmen and other officers, or by beneficial owners of more than 10 percent of a company’s stock.
Company Insider Title
AGNC Morris A. Davis Board member
Capital One Kevin S. Borgmann Senior adviser
Richard D. Fairbank Chief executive officer
Kara West Chief audit officer
Danaher Linda Filler Board member
Teri L. List-Stoll Board member
Daniel A. Raskas Senior vice president
Joakim Weidemanis Executive vice president
NVR Eugene Bredow Chief executive officer
Paul C. Saville Chairman
eZ re a15
capital business
tECh fRiEnd
How to reduce the risk of rechargeable-battery fires
BY S HIRA O VIDE
After I wrote recently about
how you can reduce the risk of
fires from rechargeable batteries,
many readers had questions in-
cluding:
l What’s the danger of fires
from batteries in electric cars?
l What happens if a laptop bat-
tery catches fire on an airplane?
l Should you be worried about
buying replacement batteries for
your phone or other gadgets?
I’ll tackle those questions be-
low. I also want to keep the risks in
perspective.
The lithium-ion batteries in our
smartphones, laptops, electric
tools and electric cars are general-
ly very safe. We want to take sensi-
ble precautions but also not overly
fixate on unlikely dangers.
It still makes sense to know
about the potential fire danger iLLustration by eLena Lacey/the Washington Post
risks from rechargeable batteries
and how you can further minimize
them. materials. phone or laptop battery, do the is in place has been successful,” he
Damaged lithium-ion batteries repair task on a concrete area, in a said.
How safe are the batteries need to be handled by specially well-ventilated area and far from
in electric vehicles? trained recycling centers. Try a materials like curtains that could One tiny win
My focus in previous reporting web search for the name of your catch fire. If you’ve rented a car recently,
was on the safety of the recharge- city or county and “municipal Run your battery down below the rental company might have
able batteries in transportation household hazardous waste recy- 25 percent charge or less before pushed you to go with an electric
devices such as e-bikes and elec- cling center.” you replace it, iFixit advises. With model.
tric scooters. Some of those devic- little juice, the battery is much Renting an EV can be a bargain
es appear to be the cause of an How to find reliable and safe safer. and it’s a low-stakes way to try an
increase in battery-related fires in replacement batteries Or you might want to turn to a electric car.
cities such as New York, London Kyle Wiens, CEO of the consum- trusted repair professional. But my colleague, Chris Velaz-
and San Francisco. er advocacy group and repair com- co, also ran into snags with his
Understandably, many of you munity iFixit, said that if you’re What about in-flight fires rented EV, including a two-hour,
also asked about electric cars, looking for replacement lithium- from rechargeable devices? multi-stop hunt to find a working
which use the same type of lithi- ion batteries for your devices, buy It does happen, but rarely. electric charger.
um-ion batteries as your smart- from a trusted store that offers you That's why airlines tell you not The good news, Chris said, is
phone or e-bike — but on a much a solid warranty. to put lithium-ion batteries in that Google Maps has useful op-
larger scale. He advised against buying re- your checked luggage. tions to search for charging loca-
In general, the larger the bat- chargeable batteries from eBay or Cramer said that airline crews tions on your driving route. Chris
tery, the more energy it holds and Amazon because of the small risk have training and equipment to said he centered Google Maps
therefore the bigger fire it could you could unwittingly buy an un- throw overheating laptops or oth- near places he planned to drive
cause. safe battery from a disreputable er devices with rechargeable bat- through and searched for “charg-
Chris Cramer, senior vice presi- vendor. (iFixit sells batteries on its teries into fire containment bags. ing stations.”
dent and chief research officer for own website and on Amazon.) Raudys told me that when he You will get a list of locations
the safety organization UL Re- Amazon and eBay didn’t re- travels with his laptop, he keeps it with charging options. You can
search Institutes, said the avail- spond to requests to comment. in a fire safety sleeve. That’s not specify which plug type your car
able research is finding that elec- (Amazon founder Jeff Bezos owns practical or necessary for most uses.
tric cars are generally less prone to The Washington Post. Interim people. (Apart from Tesla and a couple
fires than vehicles with gasoline- CEO Patty Stonesifer sits on Ama- Cramer said the combination of of other EV models, most electric
powered engines. zon’s board.) airplane crew training and our vehicles in the United States have
But “when they do have a fire, Wiens said most do-it-yourself vigilance keeps flights safe from used the charging type known as
it's a really bad fire,” Cramer said. battery replacements are safe, but battery fires. “CCS.” Tesla’s type of plug is known
To reduce the low fire risk of you should still take precautions. “The current level of risk is un- as “NACS.”)
your EV, Cramer suggested that If you’re replacing a smart- derstood and the mitigation that
you follow the charging instruc-
tions in your owner's manual. And
if you're in a crash, take your car to
an authorized dealer or another
repair specialist to check for po-
tential battery damage.
Manufacturers that build elec-
tric cars make sure the batteries
are generally well protected, but
damage tends to increase the risk
of a battery fire. LABOR DAY WEEKEND | AUGUST 30SEPTEMBER 3, 2023
If you’re still concerned about
the fire risk, Cramer said you Washington, DC | dcjazzfest.org | Capital Sounds, Global Reach #dcjazzfest
might consider charging your EV
somewhere other than your ga-
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there’s a fire.
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a16 eZ Re the washington post . monday, august 7 , 2023

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AN INDEPENDENT NEWSPAPER

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Hun Manet is set to succeed his father as prime minister of Cambodia. l ETTER s TO ThE Ed iTO R

After Cambodia’s sham

letters@washpost.com

Why D.C. crime is so bad ket. That a tariff is imposed actually says
nothing about the final price paid by a

election, a chance for a reset The long wish list of recommenda-

tions in the July 29 editorial “Fix D.C.’s
dangerous roads” to improve the safety
of D.C. roads failed to mention one major
user.
Clyde Prestowitz, Potomac
The writer, president of the
Economic Strategy Institute and
cause behind social disorder in the Dis- a former U.S. trade negotiator, was a
A dictator’s son may bring a fresh outlook. trict: The D.C. Council has hampered the counselor to the commerce secretary

T
D.C. police’s ability to suppress crime. in the Reagan administration.
HERE WERE no surprises in the sham election Hun Manet, were educated at American and European The council seems to be on a multiyear
Cambodia staged in July. Long-serving Prime universities. effort to impose major, legislative con- Fareed Zakaria asserted that the Biden
Minister Hun Sen had made clear he would brook That suggests Hun Manet, with his new team, might straints upon the police department. administration has been “needlessly con-
no opposition to his Cambodian People’s Party bring a more worldly, less anti-Western outlook than his Look no further than the police de- frontational” with China and addressed
continuing its decades-long hold on power. 70-year-old father, who is given to anti-American and partment pursuit policy effective July 20. Treasury Secretary Janet L. Yellen’s visit,
Long before the vote, all critical media was silenced, and anti-Western tirades and has moved his small country Under the policy, police are prohibited which was, in my mind, exemplary diplo-
the largest opposition party to Hun Sen, the Candlelight decisively — and dangerously — into China’s orbit. China from engaging in most pursuits unless macy.
Party, was barred from participating on specious legal has been reported to be building a secret naval base in one of the vehicle’s occupants is suspect- Whatever our differences, and both
grounds. Cambodians hungry for change had little choice Cambodia on the Gulf of Thailand. ed of committing a violent crime. The sides have concluded there are many, we
other than to spoil their ballots, and nearly a half-million On the other hand, while Hun Manet seems to be same pursuit policy mentions that dur- should incorporate the Chinese principle
people did so, defying Hun Sen’s threats of prosecution. inheriting his father’s position, it remains to be seen how ing a criminal or other trial of the of “li” into Sino-U.S. dialogues. “Li” has
Most foreign election observers rightly stayed away, rather much power he will actually have. Hun Sen has signaled pursuing officer (if an injury should many meanings, some complex and meta-
than legitimizing what was essentially a charade. that he will retain his influence over Cambodia’s govern- occur because of a pursuit), the reason- physical, but one meaning includes deco-
But Hun Sen nonetheless deemed the farce a landslide ment and politics by remaining as head of the ruling party ableness of an officer’s actions to engage rum, respect, propriety — in short, the
victory and announced that he will step down as prime as well as president of the senate. Hun Sen has also in a pursuit will be derived from “wheth- good manners that Ms. Yellen demon-
minister after nearly 40 years and turn over the position to suggested he might return as prime minister and has er the member made all reasonable strated. She even offered the Chinese the
his son, Hun Manet, a West Point-trained general and hinted that factions within the ruling elite might not be efforts to prevent harm, including aban- much-deserved compliment of having
army chief who was just elected to a parliamentary seat totally on board with this dynastic succession plan. doning efforts to apprehend the suspect.” “lifted hundreds of millions out of pover-
from the capital, Phnom Penh. The transition could come In response to Cambodia’s unfree, unfair election, the Officers cannot pursue vehicles for ty.” She also could have mentioned the
as early as this month, although the mercurial Hun Sen Biden administration announced a pause in foreign traffic infractions (including the car be- impressive job China has done to reduce
has been known to make public announcements and then assistance programs as well as visa restrictions on un- ing stolen, bad tags or no insurance) or air pollution since 2014, but that’s okay.
change his mind. named individuals “who undermined democracy” in for property crimes. It’s no coincidence She was polite and affirming while man-
Dynastic succession is, of course, thoroughly undemo- Cambodia. That seems prudent, though we have argued on that behind many of the violent crimes in aging to be direct and honest about terri-
cratic. But even so, the elevation of Hun Manet might seem this page for a more targeted move, allowing U.S. assis- D.C. is a stolen motor vehicle or one with bly serious conflicts.
like a reason for Cambodians to hope for a more open, less tance to continue if it can bypass the government and go homemade or expired license plates. To be sure, I understand that there are
repressive future. He sometimes echoes his father’s rheto- directly to nongovernmental civil society groups and help Additionally, to suggest that photo fears and concerns about China’s increas-
ric, even his mannerisms. But at age 45, Hun Manet bolster independent media. enforcement will help with the traffic ing hegemony, military might and autoc-
represents a younger, more educated generation that has But there should also be a carrot to go along with the issue is laughable. These photo tickets racy. Of course, the United States must
known mostly peace in the previously war-torn country. stick. With Hun Sen stepping back, there is a chance for a affect only those vehicle owners who continue to speak up for democracy and
After graduating from the U.S. Military Academy, Hun reset in relations. Hun Manet needs to know that if he is keep their cars lawfully registered (and human rights, but in supporting those
Manet received a master’s degree from New York ready to mend ties with the West, reduce Cambodia’s who pay). ideals, in all humility, we should reflect on
University and a doctorate in economics from the Univer- overreliance on China, address human rights concerns Finally, to blame the roads is ludi- aspects of our own history — manifest
sity of Bristol in Britain. He is expected to usher in a and allow opposition parties and independent media the crous. The roads haven’t changed in the destiny and the Monroe Doctrine — our
new generation of more technocratic cabinet members, space to operate freely, then the United States stands ready past decade. What has changed is soci- own style of hegemony.
many the children of aging party stalwarts but who, like to assist. ety’s views on holding people account- Though we might disagree, we would
able for their actions and our inability to benefit from understanding China’s his-
take into account the larger risk to tory, point of view and possible goals. I
society of letting criminals freely flee. suspect there are scholars in the State

The kleptocracy strikes back Jeremy Siegel, Colmar Manor Department doing just that. It is time to
listen to them and to Mr. Zakaria.
Lynn Kearney, Arlington

An Azerbaijani economist called out corruption. Now, he’s being wrongly detained. A First Amendment lesson
Israel’s past — and future

A
Regarding Ruth Marcus’s Aug. 3 op-ed,
S AN economist, Gubad Ibadoghlu has often “The Trump indictment tramples on no
turned a critical eye on his native Azerbaijan and one’s First Amendment rights”: In his Aug. 1 Tuesday Opinion column,
its oil riches. He has asked, correctly, why the oil Former president Donald Trump’s de- “I don’t recognize the intolerant, illiberal
wealth has not led to a more prosperous or fenders will claim his Jan. 6, 2021, re- country Israel is becoming,” Max Boot
democratic country, and called out corruption and marks fell within free-speech boundaries decried Israel’s current government and
kleptocracy under President Ilham Aliyev. Now Mr. Aliyev that are protected by the First Amend- its domination by religious and national-
is striking back. ment. His initial remarks regarding elec- ist voices. Fine. But to allow a moment in
On July 23, Mr. Ibadoghlu and his wife, Irada Bayramli, tion fraud and interference in various time to shape his larger outlook toward
were stopped in their car outside of Baku by a group of states were within the parameters estab- Israel, a country he says he once loved
20 people in civilian clothes who beat them and took them lished by the Supreme Court’s 1969 deci- unreservedly, is unfortunate.
in to police custody. Ms. Bayramli was released later that sion in Brandenburg v. Ohio. Like any freewheeling democracy,
day, but Mr. Ibadoghlu was remanded by a court to three However, Mr. Trump ended his re- Israel has had its electoral zigs and zags.
months and 26 days of pretrial detention on spurious marks with: “And if you don’t fight like Today’s coalition government is far from
charges of corruption. hell, you’re not going to have a country the end of the political story.
Mr. Ibadoghlu, who has taught over the years in the anymore. . . . So we’re going to, we’re Israel’s larger purpose remains to allow
United States and Europe, was until recently a senior aFP/getty Images
going to walk down Pennsylvania Av- Jews to live as a majority population in one
visiting scholar at the London School of Economics. He Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev in 2013. enue. . . . And we’re going to the Capitol.” country on Earth, continue the millennia-
has led the Economic Research Center in Azerbaijan, a Mr. Trump’s concluding remarks prob- long connection between the ancient land
nongovernmental organization that focuses on economic the Azerbaijani Laundromat, exposed by a consortium of ably crossed the “Brandenburg line” as and the Jewish people, and control their
development and good governance. In 2014, Mr. Aliyev’s journalists working under the Organized Crime and free-speech protections don’t apply to own destiny, including immigration.
regime ordered a freeze on the group’s bank accounts in a Corruption Reporting Project. The British government speech that is likely to incite imminent The last point should be particularly
wider crackdown on civil society. Mr. Ibadoghlu, who was has recovered some of the illicit funds. Mr. Ibadoghlu lawless action. relevant to Mr. Boot. Families like his were
a 2015 Reagan-Fascell fellow at the National Endowment clearly perturbed Mr. Aliyev with his plan to tap the spoils Paul L. Newman, Merion Station, Pa. able to leave the Soviet Union in the 1970s
for Democracy, is also chairman of the Democracy and of the kleptocracy for his youth training project. because they declared their intention to
Prosperity Movement, founded in 2014, which the Azer- Mr. Aliyev also seeks to crush political opposition at live in Israel. Without that declaration,
baijani government has refused to grant official status as a home. In January, he signed a law that sharply restricts Engaging with China their exit might well have been blocked.
political party. the ability of opposition political parties to function. As a The same Israel that helped them leave,
After his arrest, the authorities charged Mr. Ibadoghlu result, Azerbaijan’s three most prominent opposition In his July 31 op-ed, “It takes two to even though Mr. Boot’s family ended up
with counterfeiting, saying they found $40,000 in cash in parties were recently denied registration — and face the tango. Will China dance?,” Fareed Zakaria heading for the United States after arrival
the offices of his organization, and association with the possibility of being disbanded. Mr. Ibadoghlu had at- asserted that U.S. consumers of steel are in the West, is the same Israel that today is
exiled Turkish cleric Fethullah Gülen, whom Turkey tempted six times without success to get his group paying a high price because of U.S. tariffs providing a sanctuary to Jews fleeing
blames for an attempted coup in 2016. The Azerbaijani registered, most recently in July. on steel imported from China. Mr. Zakaria tyranny in the Russian Federation, war
Ministry of Internal Affairs confirmed that Mr. Ibadoghlu Mr. Ibadoghlu is diabetic and has hypertension. His seemed to assume that the steel producers against Ukraine and rising antisemitism
was detained based on information from Turkey, a close family says he has been denied access to medicine, and are not themselves swallowing the tariffs in Europe and elsewhere — while continu-
ally of Azerbaijan. The charges are absurd. they fear for his health. to remain competitive in the U.S. market. ing to be the most progressive nation in
The true reason for his detention is more likely related Meanwhile, the United States has been pressing Moreover, the production of Chinese the Middle East and a staunch U.S. ally.
to events in June, when he helped found the Azerbaijani Mr. Aliyev to ease the blockade that Azerbaijan has steel entails enormous greenhouse gas The rebirth of a Jewish state in 1948,
Youth Educational Foundation in Britain, aimed at imposed around Nagorno-Karabakh, an ethnic emissions, while steel production in the after 1,878 years of forced exile, was an
preparing a new generation of Azerbaijani professionals. Armenian enclave, leading to a humanitarian crisis United States is mostly done in electric extraordinary event in world history.
Mr. Ibadoghlu said it would be funded by donations, but there. Azerbaijan is seeking to regain full control of furnaces whose emissions are a small Seventy-five years later, it remains
also seeks to get funds that corrupt Azerbaijani politicians Nagorno-Karabakh, which ethnic Armenian forces have fraction of those of Chinese blast furnac- extraordinary.
siphoned from the state and stashed in Britain. From 2012 controlled for three decades. Armenia and Azerbaijan es. If the costs of greenhouse gases are David Harris, New York
to 2014, members of the ruling elite used a secret slush have engaged in peace talks. Any contacts with Azerbai- added to the other costs of steel produc- The writer was chief executive
fund to pay off European politicians, buy luxury goods, jan about the crisis should also include a plea for the tion, China is the world’s highest-cost of the American Jewish Committee
launder money and otherwise benefit in what was called immediate release of Mr. Ibadoghlu. producer and not competitive in the mar- from 1990 to 2022.

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monday, august 7 , 2023 . the washington post
ramEsh Ponnuru
Trump’s third
indictment
shows the
Senate failed
L L
ike the children in a gifted family,
all of Donald Trump’s indict-
ments excel in different ways.
Manhattan District Attorney Al-
vin Bragg’s prosecution of him for al-
leged hush money payments is the taw-
driest of the lot. Special counsel Jack
Smith’s federal indictment of him on
charges of obstinate retention of govern-
ment documents is the most clearly
justified by statute. And the latest indict-
ment concerns the most serious
misconduct.
After Trump lost the 2020 election, he
attempted to get state legislatures and
courts to ignore or throw out millions of
votes based on claims of widespread vote
fraud. He never provided any serious
evidence for these claims and frequently
heard, from his allies and aides, that they
had no basis. He lobbied his vice presi-
dent, Mike Pence, to block the counting
of electoral votes, which neither the
Constitution nor any statute allowed.
And he summoned a crowd to pressure
Pence and Congress not to certify that he
had lost.
The latest indictment runs through
the whole miserable story and adds some
previously unknown detail. Whether it
makes a strong legal case that will or
should result in criminal convictions is,
reasonably, the main debate it has
sparked. What it should make clear is
that our existing methods of dealing with
presidential misconduct are inadequate.
What was most wrong and dangerous
in Trump’s course of conduct was not
that it may have run afoul of some federal
statutes. It is that he attempted to
subvert the constitutional order — a
point that he helpfully underscored in
December by suggesting that we should
terminate the Constitution to reinstate
him.
The Constitution has a remedy for this
kind of high crime: impeachment. It’s a
remedy that Congress can apply even if
some of the elements of a statutory crime
cannot be proved beyond a reasonable
doubt in court.
In our current debate, a common
defense of Trump is that he, supposedly,
sincerely believed his claims even after
advisers explained their ridiculousness.
That question could become central to
the criminal case.
But it is mostly irrelevant to impeach-
ment, which allows Congress to judge
that, no matter what Trump believed,
someone who persisted in trying to undo
an election he had clearly lost should be
barred from office. Either he knew better
and consciously sought to thwart voters
— or he had such a lack of connection
with provable reality, such an indiffer-
ence to finding out the truth, that he
should be locked out of the White House.
Likewise, whether Trump’s spreading
of lies and encouragement of his sup-
porters to pressure Congress and the vice
president amounted to an incitement to
riot under the Supreme Court’s prec-
edents, and could therefore be pros-
ecuted under our criminal laws, was
beside the point for impeachment.
(Smith has not charged him with that
crime.) It was enough to conclude that
Trump was reckless and morally respon-
sible for that riot, as then-House Minori-
ty Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) said
at the time, and that he should therefore
not be eligible for the presidency again.
Yet in 2021, most Senate Republicans
voted against convicting Trump in his
impeachment trial, enough to keep him
from being disqualified from running for
reelection. Some of them argued that
impeachment required a proven crimi-
nal violation — contrary to what Alexan-
der Hamilton and James Madison
thought about the question. Many em-
braced former judge J. Michael Luttig’s
(deeply flawed) argument that former
presidents cannot be impeached.
Republican officeholders also thought
they had no need to act against Trump
because, having been defeated on Elec-
tion Day and then disgraced on Jan. 6, he
would “fade away” as a political force.
How’s that working out?
Mitch McConnell, the leader of the
Senate Republicans, noted in 2021 that
not convicting Trump would still leave
him open to criminal prosecution. More
than two years later, what he envisioned
might be coming true, provided courts
can be convinced beyond a reasonable
doubt that Trump’s attempt to overturn
an election happened to violate portions
of the U.S. legal code.
Underlying all these reasons for ac-
quittal was the fact that most Republican
voters, having overwhelmingly backed
Trump’s reelection a few months earlier,
did not favor conviction. The constitu-
tional requirement of a vote of two-
thirds of the Senate for a conviction
guarantees that a president cannot be
removed from office or disqualified for
future office without a broad social
consensus. The flip side of that virtue is
that impeachment is a flimsy check on a
president’s abuse of power. Only once in
our history has a president left office
because of the threat of conviction by the
Senate.
The frailty of the impeachment power
means that holding presidents account-
able for high crimes requires accidents of
statutory draftsmanship — or, failing
those, the vigilance of the ultimate
guardians of the Constitution: the
voters.
Going in a circular pattern, Adam Greenberg mows a large hay field, which takes him about two hours to complete.
KatE CohEn
My husband is a longtime farmer.
Climate change may end his run.
“M
ake hay while the sun
shines,” people some-
times say to my hus-
band, Adam, when he
tells them he’s a hay farmer. All they
know about hay, I imagine, is that
proverbial instruction to make the
most of the moment. See also: “Strike
while the iron is hot.”
For most of us, these expressions
are figurative. For hay farmers and
blacksmiths, they simply describe the
conditions of work. If you don’t strike
while the iron is hot, it won’t bend. If
you don’t use the long, sunny days of
summer to cut, dry, rake and bale
your hay, you’ll lose your crop.
Adam has always been determined
to make the most of our short grow-
ing season in Upstate New York. He
resists planning summer trips, ar-
rives at daytime parties after dusk,
commits to nothing further out on
the calendar than the meteorologist
can (sort of ) foresee.
But as we come to the end of the
wettest July on record, “make hay
while the sun shines” has been shift-
ing from self-evident axiom to rueful
irony. Yes, you have to make hay while
you can. But also you need sunshine
to make hay.
Here’s how it works. It takes at
least two sunny days to complete the
cycle: mow, dry, rake, bale. Much of
that time is waiting for the sun to do
its work. (The hay must dry com-
pletely, because moisture can breed
heat-producing bacteria deep inside
a bale — which might then sponta-
neously combust and burn down a
barn.) In theory, if Adam mowed a
field on a Tuesday morning, he could
expect to bale it late Wednesday
afternoon.
In a good year — what we used to
call a normal year — Adam would
have extended stretches of sunny
How the Tree of Life sentence
is rooted in ancient questions of justice
BY D ANIELLA G REENBAUM
C
lose to 2,000 years ago, two Jews
debated the death penalty. One
argued for, the other against.
We’re still deciding who won.
Amid this ongoing debate, a federal jury
recommended on Wednesday that Rob-
ert G. Bowers be executed for his murder
of 11 worshipers at Pittsburgh’s Tree of
Life synagogue in 2018.
Almost five years after the attack, this
verdict might feel final, yet it is anything
but: In all likelihood, what comes next is
a years-long appeals process during
which the country — and the Jewish
community — will continue to engage in
a polarizing debate about the morality of
capital punishment.
The Jewish discourse surrounding
capital punishment — whether it should
happen at all and, if so, how it should be
implemented — is best summarized by a
conversation recorded in the Mishnah, a
compilation of ancient Jewish oral
traditions.
The Mishnah cites a 1st-century sage,
Rabbi Elazar ben Azariah, who posits
that any court that executes a criminal
even “once in 70 years” should be consid-
ered murderous and destructive. But in
the same paragraph, the Mishnah cites
another rabbi, Shimon ben Gamliel, who
argues that the absence of capital punish-
ment would make murder more common
and, therefore, if a court does not utilize
capital punishment to deter would-be
murderers, it is the tribunal that should
be considered murderous.
Today, those clashing perspectives still
inform the death penalty debate for
many Jews. Some oppose capital punish-
ment, citing Azariah, as well as a differ-
ent verse in the Mishnah teaching that
the taking of a single life is akin to the
ez
days that went like this: Mow in the
morning, then unload wagons piled
with bales from fields mowed two
days before, then, in the afternoon,
rake and finally bale the field he
mowed yesterday.
In a good year — what we used to
call a normal year — he would have
8,000 or 9,000 bales in the barns by
now. This year, he’s got around 2,000.
That’s because Adam can’t mow if
it’s raining, or if rain is forecast that
day or the next. He can’t mow if the
fields are so wet that his tractor
would sink in the mud. And this year,
we’ve had record-breaking rainfall.
Last year, there was a drought. The
hay was easy to get in, but there
wasn’t much of it (most local farmers
had a terrible year). The year before
that was extremely wet; it was the
first summer ever that Adam couldn’t
get all the fields cut.
But, along with the rest of the
country, we’re starting to realize that
anomalous years are now, paradoxi-
cally, the norm. There’s no longer any
standard from which each summer
might or might not deviate. All we
can rely on is increasingly extreme
weather wrought by climate change.
Here’s how it works. Climate
change means higher air tempera-
tures, and higher air temperatures
produce more heat waves, more evap-
oration (causing more droughts and
wildfires), more saturated air (caus-
ing more extreme rainfall) and hotter
ocean temperatures (giving hurri-
canes more energy).
More heat, more drought, more
rain, more flooding, more unbreath-
able air. (Yes, we’ve had that, too.)
Extreme drought took a heavy toll
on U.S. farms last year: Corn, wheat
and rice yields suffered; Texas cotton
farmers abandoned two-thirds of
their crop. This year, extreme heat
murder of an entire world.
Other Jews support capital punish-
ment, tracing their argument back to
Gamliel and the belief that the death
penalty serves as a deterrent, ultimately
saving lives. There is no definitive Jewish
conclusion.
In Israel, the only place where Jews
have actually had the pressure and op-
portunity to take this debate from the
theoretical to the practical, the justice
system has executed only one person:
Adolf Eichmann, a chief architect and
perpetrator of the Nazis’ “final solution.”
He was hanged in 1962. The death
penalty had been outlawed in Israel in
1954, with exceptions for grave offenses
related to genocide, war crimes and
treason.
Since Eichmann’s execution, courts
have occasionally issued death sen-
tences, but they have invariably been
overturned on appeal or commuted.
Amid the current political turmoil in
Israel, a right-wing campaign to make
the killing of Israeli citizens by terrorists
a capital offense has stirred debate along
the lines raised in the Mishnah.
In the United States, the Tree of Life
shooting was a pivotal moment for Amer-
ican Jews, including me. Growing up in
Manhattan, surrounded by Jews, I be-
lieved the United States to be immune to
the ravages of antisemitism that have
plagued Jews elsewhere for millennia.
Unlike my ancestors, I grew up securely
and without discrimination. I attended
the same elementary school that my
mother attended before me and that my
daughter is now attending.
This is a rare experience for Jews
because of what it signifies: that we have
been welcomed and able to put down
roots. In the aftermath of World War II
and the Holocaust, overt displays of
re
Kt KanazaWich for the WaShinGton PoSt
and drought are wreaking havoc on
Sun Belt farms, while flooding has
destroyed crops throughout the
Northeast.
“I’m always amazed at how farm-
ers are able to adapt,” Aaron Gabriel,
an agronomy educator at Cornell
Cooperative Extension, told me ge-
nially when I called to complain
about the weather — er, ask him
about the New York farmers he
serves. He agreed that the climate
crisis has caused some fundamental
changes, but, he said, “I try to give a
little bit of hope by having old-time
farmers think about how many
things they’ve had to change over the
decades.”
Adam has stopped planting alfalfa,
his most lucrative crop, because it
doesn’t grow well in wetter fields. He
has changed the order and reduced
the number of fields he hays. He’s
willing to work in extreme heat and
yellow haze, when the weatherman
(and his own wife) say he shouldn’t.
But the effects and hence the
agricultural impact of climate change
are just going to get worse. In his
other job, as a councilman for the
town of New Scotland, N.Y., Adam has
helped update the law to allow for
more solar projects and led an effort
to bring 13 towns into a collective
with the power to choose greener
energy. His own efforts to stem the
climate crisis as a public servant and
as a citizen might help future farm-
ers, if we’re lucky — but not him.
He’s had a good run, doing the job
for as long as the conditions allowed.
I guess you could say that he — struck
while the iron was hot.
After four decades, though, Adam
is wondering what farmers across the
country must be wondering, whether
they’re considering different crops or
different careers: Now what?
antisemitism became unseemly. Country
clubs and elite universities might have
shut their doors to Jews, but that was
antisemitism light: In this country at
least, we were doing better and feeling
more secure than ever before. But it was a
false sense of security. The Tree of Life
slaughter revealed a pernicious, deadly
threat. Antisemitism has soared in the
United States since then.
Since the days of the Mishnah, Jews
have been debating and disagreeing
about things as granular as the inner
workings of sand worms and as monu-
mental as the morality of capital punish-
ment. There’s a reason children in Jewish
schools are taught about the Talmud’s
back-and-forth before they are taught
any of its practical conclusions: We are a
people who believe that the law must be
in the hands of its practitioners, that the
Torah is “not in heaven” but here on
Earth.
We are taught that the victor of a
debate is always truth, never one of the
participants, and that debate is divine. I
don’t know why Bowers murdered 11
people trying to commune with their god
in peace. And I don’t know what the
Sanhedrin, the ancient Jewish high
court, would have decided about his fate.
Some questions don’t have good an-
swers. But we can’t be paralyzed by that
ambiguity. The Talmud teaches that Jews
must respect the laws of the land in
which they live. The Biden administra-
tion has sought and won a death sen-
tence against the perpetrator of this
country’s worst antisemitic attack. As a
Jew and as an American, I simply say:
Thank you.
Daniella Greenbaum is a writer and founder
and chief creative officer of the social-impact
production studio Starlight.
a17
E.J. DionnE Jr.
Josh Shapiro is
showing how
to fix our roads
— and politics
ast week’s indictment of Donald
Trump brought home the urgency
of transforming our nation’s pub-
lic life. Special counsel Jack Smith
lived up to his responsibility by holding
the former president accountable for his
crimes against democracy. Only politi-
cians can break the grip of Trump’s
politics of resentment.
This has long been one of President
Biden’s central goals, but his Democratic
colleagues at the state and local levels
might have the best shot at moving their
fellow citizens away from cultural, racial
and religious divisions and toward the
(often literally) concrete ground of jobs
and building things. Pennsylvania
Gov. Josh Shapiro ranks as one of the
most determined and, so far, successful
practitioners of this new politics of
addition.
You might know Shapiro as the guy
who got a collapsed part of Interstate 95
in Philadelphia fixed within 12 days.
Given how long public projects take to
complete, he deserved all the attention
he got for this achievement.
It sure made him popular at home. In
late June, a Quinnipiac Poll found that
57 percent of Pennsylvania voters ap-
proved of Shapiro’s job performance
while only 23 percent disapproved. Strik-
ingly, 53 percent of independents and
even 34 percent of Republicans gave
their Democratic governor positive
marks.
For Shapiro, the I-95 moment is part
of a larger task: to prove to voters that
government can be effective and also
operate in the interest of those who feel
left out, left behind and disrespected.
“You’ve got to show up everywhere,
and you’ve got to speak to everyone, and
you've got to speak in plain language and
in practical terms,” he told me in an
interview last week in the final days of
settling a tough state budget fight. He
noted that in his 2022 campaign, “I went
to counties the Democrats had written
off a long time ago and spoke about
workforce development and spoke about
how we're going to bring back the
economy and talked about it in very
tangible, practical ways.”
It worked. In a state Biden carried in
2020 by a little more than 80,000 votes,
Shapiro swept past Republican Doug
Mastriano in 2022 by more than 790,000.
Granted, Mastriano was a Trumpian
extremist who turned off even Republi-
cans in key swing suburban counties. But
like his predecessor Tom Wolf did in the
more Democratic year of 2018, the now-
50-year-old Shapiro slashed GOP mar-
gins in the Trump heartland.
In the west and west-central parts of
the state, for example — counties such as
Westmoreland, Beaver, Washington and
Cambria — Shapiro ran ahead of Biden
by 10 or more points. In gaining a Senate
seat for the Democrats in 2022, John
Fetterman also outperformed Biden, but
his margin of just under 264,000 votes
was smaller than Shapiro’s.
As governor, Shapiro said he’s deter-
mined to signal to economically strug-
gling voters that they’re being “seen and
heard.” One of his first acts was to sign an
executive order doing away with the
college degree requirement for 92 per-
cent of state government jobs.
His emphasis on opportunities for
those without college degrees might be
seen as a bow to the White working class,
which he, like Biden, is certainly inter-
ested in winning back to the Democratic
coalition. But the actual (as opposed to
the pundit’s) working class is heavily
Black and Latino. So Shapiro’s focus on
expanding funding for apprenticeships,
vocational education and job training for
those who aren’t college-bound is aimed
at a broad swath of Pennsylvanians.
Representative of what Shapiro is
trying to do is an executive order he
signed last week directing some
$400 million from Biden’s infrastructure
investments to “on-the-job training” to
install broadband internet and fix roads,
bridges and pipes. “We’re the first state
in the nation to do that,” he noted.
“I think that we've gotten too elitist in
our attitudes that the only way you can
succeed is if you go to college,” Shapiro
said. “I just fundamentally think that is
the wrong approach, and that's some-
thing I'm trying to change.”
What’s interesting about Shapiro is
that he made “real freedom” a signature
theme around not only LGBTQ+ and
abortion rights but also the aspiration to
good jobs and incomes — “the freedom to
chart your own course” and enjoy “the
opportunity to succeed,” he said. He’s
connecting social rights of particular
concern to his suburban constituents
with the economic rights sought in
blue-collar towns and lower-income big-
city neighborhoods.
He’s certainly not alone in this. His
party now has a regiment of governors —
Gretchen Whitmer in Michigan, Wes
Moore in Maryland, Gavin Newsom in
California, Maura Healey in Massachu-
setts and Andy Beshear in Kentucky, to
name a few — pushing back against
right-wing culture warfare with an em-
phasis on inclusion and practical
achievement.
But for now, Shapiro’s I-95 feat has
made him a leading voice for the transi-
tion to a less fractious politics. Building
an actual road fast is an apt symbol of the
journey the country needs to take.
A18
Ukraine’s elite forces use drones to advance counterattack
UKRAINE from A1
Service of Ukraine’s “A,” or Alpha,
division, which recently granted
Washington Post journalists rare
access to its teams assisting regu-
lar military brigades in Ukraine’s
counteroffensive, which now
stretches across the country’s
southeast.
The nature of this war —
fought mostly at a distance with
artillery and with the sides sepa-
rated by densely mined fields —
has forced traditional special op-
erators to transition from covert
tactics they used more often earli-
er in the conflict. Now, the fight-
ing is largely done with technol-
ogy, including a wide array of
self-detonating drones that the
skilled soldiers direct from a safe
distance — a tactic that offers a
more preferable risk-to-reward
ratio than sneaking behind rus-
sian lines.
“What is the problem with
going behind enemy lines? Total
mining,” said oleh, the first depu-
ty director of the Alpha forces,
who, like others in this article,
asked to be identified only by his
first name for security reasons.
“It’s almost impossible to go
somewhere secretly. You have to
use some kind of demining equip-
ment. This means you will al-
ready be identified.”
The work of the Alpha units
offered a window into the early
challenges in Ukraine’s counter-
offensive, in which limited ad-
vances have been hard-gained as
the russians have hunkered
down in defenses prepared over
many months. Alpha fighters are
trained to do everything from
firing an antitank missile to oper-
ating a mobile air-defense sys-
tem. Their snipers are regarded
as the best in Ukraine. But all
have turned their focus to drones
lately as their targets became
more difficult to reach.
The struggles of the Alpha
fighters illustrate the steep chal-
lenges the Ukrainian military
now faces at every level — even
among its most elite and effective
units — as it runs into a russian
force that has prepared and ad-
justed since its repeated missteps
in the fall, when Ukraine recap-
tured large swaths of territory in
the Kharkiv and Kherson regions.
The eastern front line, near the
besieged city of Bakhmut, is less
mined than the wide fields of the
southern Zaporizhzhia region.
But it is still hard to get close to
the russians. recently, a team of
oleh’s fighters had “a relatively
shallow entry” into enemy turf
near there and 14 of them were
wounded, he said.
“And with our resources, the
loss of 14 people is a huge loss for
us,” oleh said. “Yes, the enemy
also suffers losses. But again, are
our losses appropriate in these
conditions, and are they justi-
fied? I cannot use these 14 people
in other operations in the near
future.”
He added, “The things that
could be done a year and a half
ago or a year ago, which were
relatively safe and were done,
now we need to assess the appro-
priateness.”
Ukraine’s main internal secu-
rity service, the SBU, created its
Alpha division in 1994 with a
focus on counterterrorism opera-
tions. That work remains, but
more has been added amid war.
The head of the SBU, Vasyl
maliuk, recently confirmed that
its specialists were responsible
for attacking the Crimean Bridge
last year, a dramatic strike that
temporarily disrupted a key rus-
sian supply route. The service has
also been behind recent sea drone
strikes on russia’s Black Sea
fleet, according to a Ukrainian
official, who spoke on the condi-
tion of anonymity because they
were not authorized to discuss
the matter publicly.
When the russians were trying
to capture Kyiv, Alpha’s main task
was protecting the government
and its leaders, including Presi-
dent Volodymyr Zelensky, oleh
said. But since last year, he has
spent most of his time in Zapori-
zhzhia, now overseeing Alpha
units assisting in the main focus
of Ukraine’s counteroffensive — a
bid to sever the land corridor
Train crash in southern Pakistan kills at least 30
More than 80 others
injured as concerns on
commuter safety rise
BY S HAIQ H USSAIN
AND R ICK N OACK
isLaMaBaD, Pakistan — At
least 30 people were killed and
more than 80 were injured in a
train crash in southern Pakistan
on Sunday, according to local
officials, raising new questions
TOP: A combat unit from the
Security Service of Ukraine's
Alpha division on the eastern
front line in June. The elite
forces have turned their focus
to drones lately as their targets
have become more difficult to
reach. RIGHT: A self-
detonating drone on the
southern front line in the
Zaporizhzhia region in June.
between russia and Crimea.
Alpha is selective: To get in,
recruits have to pass a fitness test,
a polygraph test and a psycholog-
ical examination. Efforts to widen
recruiting during the war to form
a separate assault unit yielded
just 80 new members, oleh said.
Like other special forces, Alpha
teams can sometimes have the
same functions as regular mili-
tary brigades, such as operating a
howitzer. But their assignments
are typically carried out in small
groups — intended to inflict high
enemy losses using fewer re-
sources.
The entire Alpha division has
just one artillery gun, a 105mm
British L119 that’s in the Zapori-
zhzhia region, used by a group
that calls itself “Tiger Woods,”
because its strikes are as accurate
as the American golfer. At a base
near the town of orikhiv, the
fighters have a satellite image of
the Zaporizhzhia plains divided
into squares. often the fighting,
they said, is taking place in the
thin tree lines that separate each
field. That’s where the russians
have their posts and hide their
weapons.
Because of the dense network
of mines, the Ukrainians are ad-
vancing, slowly, on foot. Here,
south of orikhiv, they have moved
more than two miles since the
counteroffensive started in early
June, the Alpha soldiers said.
recently, they said, a group of
soldiers approached a russian
trench line they thought was
abandoned. As they started to
walk through it, they realized the
trench was booby-trapped with
mines. All five Ukrainians were
injured by the blasts, and the
russians, who had been hiding
nearby, then started shooting,
killing four of them. one wound-
ed soldier escaped after other
Ukrainian units started firing
shells at the trench. They had
watched the ambush of their
comrades on a feed from a recon-
naissance drone.
“mines are everywhere on the
outskirts of the trenches,” said
Ilya, an officer in Alpha’s artillery
unit. “first, it has to be cleared by
artillery, then assault groups will
go. If the assault group encoun-
ters any resistance, it’s back to the
artillery, then back to the assault
groups. Very slowly. But this is
our reality.”
rather than contending with
about train safety in the country
after several similar recent inci-
dents.
faiz muhammad mari, a re-
gional health official, said the
death toll was likely to rise
because of the severity of inju-
ries.
It was unclear what caused the
crash. Pakistan’s railway minis-
ter, Khawaja Saad rafique, said
the Hazara Express train with
hundreds of passengers aboard
had been running at a relatively
slow speed of 28 mph when it
crashed near Nawabshah city in
EZ rE
“What is the problem with going behind enemy lines?
Total mining. It’s almost impossible to go somewhere secretly.
You have to use some kind of demining equipment.
This means you will already be identified.”
Oleh, first deputy director of the Alpha forces
Shells are stacked in the Zaporizhzhia region in June near the position of an Alpha division artillery
unit that calls itself “Tiger Woods,” because its strikes are as accurate as the American golfer.
Sindh, Pakistan’s second-most-
populous province.
“It could be a technical fault,
or it could be an act of sabotage,”
said rafique, adding that an
investigation is underway.
officials said several children
were among the injured, and
photos from the scene showed
overturned and mangled passen-
ger cars. rescuers used heavy
machinery to access sections of
the train that suffered particular-
ly severe damage.
Pakistan’s aging railway net-
work has long lacked funding,
PHoToS by SASHA mASlov For THE wASHiNgToN PoST
and there has been mounting
criticism of insufficient safety
checks — factors that contribut-
ed to a number of major railway
accidents in the past.
Two years ago, 65 people were
killed when two trains collided in
the same province where Sun-
day’s incident took place. A gas
explosion and fire on a train in
Punjab province killed over 70
people in 2019.
Noack reported from Paris. Haq
Nawaz Khan in Peshawar, Pakistan,
contributed to this report.
the washington post . monday, august 7 , 2023
minefields, where Alpha has
achieved greatest success is with
loitering munitions, which range
in size and cost. The three-man
team that destroyed the antenna
tower focuses on targets related
to russians’ jamming ability and
communication infrastructure.
A second group working in the
Zaporizhzhia region recently
used a rAm II self-detonating
drone made in Ukraine, which
looks like a small gray plane with
a propeller in the back and can fly
up to 25 miles.
The Alpha division alone this
year has damaged or destroyed
more than 322 tanks and ar-
mored vehicles, 48 artillery sys-
tems and 65 special equipment
objects, said oleh, the deputy
director.
But “now it is more difficult,”
said Pasha, who heads the Alpha
unit launching the rAm II
drones.
Since last year, the russians
have been using a Pole-21 elec-
tronic warfare system that sup-
presses all satellite navigation
over an area of up to 150 square
kilometers. That means “we fly by
landmarks; we don’t have GPS
here at all,” Pasha said. And often,
just when the drone might have a
target in sight, the feed will go
dark because of the russians’
jamming.
It’s placed a premium on tar-
geting the electronic warfare sys-
tems themselves.
“We have very precise means,”
Pasha said. “The military priori-
tizes giving us a target to hit, and
only then, if we can’t hit it, they
transfer it to HImArS or artillery
— because artillery may not hit at
all, and HImArS also has nuanc-
es. If the electronic warfare is
working, it may not hit the target
either.”
In preparation for the Ukraini-
ans’ counteroffensive, the rus-
sians concentrated more of their
electronic warfare systems in the
Zaporizhzhia region, Pasha said.
It’s made him yearn for a change
of scenery.
“We liked working in the Do-
netsk region better,” Pasha told
oleh. “There are more targets
there. There is more active work
there, and there is less electronic
warfare. . . . This area is the most
fortified. And they are simply in a
dead-end defense.”
“Then let’s work here for the
last day, and then I’ll give an
order, you’ll be transferred there,”
oleh told him.
“No problem,” Pasha said. “We
need results — to destroy the
enemy.”
An Alpha sniper group near
the eastern city Bakhmut said the
russians are dug into their de-
fenses there, too, making it diffi-
cult to find targets. The russians
“enter their positions in the
morning and do not leave the
dugout until night,” said felix,
one of Alpha’s snipers.
His unit hasn’t had traditional
sniper work since early may, he
said, focusing on reconnaissance
in the meantime.
There were more opportuni-
ties last year, he said. A year ago,
when the western bank of the
Kherson region was still occu-
pied, felix and two others from
his sniper unit received intelli-
gence from locals in an occupied
village about a russian military
commander. They studied where
cows walked through the fields,
marking which areas appeared
not to be mined. Then at night,
the group crossed the Inhulets
river by foot, quietly entering
enemy-held territory and plant-
ing moN-90 mines on the road
near his car before retreating, he
said.
“He stood out because of his
vehicle,” felix said. “Since he was
the boss, the car had to be more
beautiful and so on.”
The group then waited for the
right opportunity before remote-
ly detonating the explosives. “Af-
ter he was neutralized, they had
a big panic. They were a bit
depressed,” felix said with a
laugh.
He lamented that the same
kind of mission wouldn’t be pos-
sible now because the russians
have more intensely mined every-
thing ahead of their outposts. “It’s
a bit more of a gamble,” felix said.
NAdEEm KHAwEr/EPA-EFE/SHuTTErSTocK
Carriages lie twisted after the derailment Sunday in Sindh,
Pakistan, that the nation’s railway ministry said killed dozens.

8 a.m. Noon 4 p.m. 8 p.m.
76 83 89 79
° ° ° °
At airports,
volume is
up on noise
complaints
Increase at Reagan,
Dulles coincides with
resurging air travel
L ORI A RATANI
BY
Airplane noise complaints have
rebounded at Reagan National
and Dulles International airports
after a pandemic-era lull, a rise
that mirrors a resurgence in air
travel.
Residents in the Washington
region filed more than 205,000
complaints about aircraft noise
tied to National and Dulles flights
in 2022, according to an annual
aircraft noise report this summer
from the Metropolitan Washing-
ton Airports Authority. The num-
ber was slightly below 2019 levels
— the year before the coronavirus
pandemic grounded most air trav-
el — but 56,600 more than in 2021.
The bulk of the complaints,
about 178,500, involved flights at
National. About 26,800 were a
response to air traffic at Dulles.
officials with the airports au-
thority, which operates both facil-
ities, said they weren’t surprised
complaints grew as air traffic ap-
proached levels last seen before
the pandemic. The rise could add
fuel to a debate over amending
rules that would allow more long-
distance flights at National — a
proposal that could be decided by
the end of next month.
Some members of Congress
and business groups, many from
the West, argue that additional
flights would lower airfare and
make the nation’s capital more
accessible. opponents, including
the Washington region’s congres-
sional delegation, say more flights
would worsen delays at National
while harming Dulles and the re-
SEE airPortS oN B2
D.C. opioid
settlement
money is
on hold
City is barred from
spending funds until
officials clear hurdles
BY J ENNA P ORTNOY
The first share of $80 million
that D.C. officials expect to reap
from multistate opioid settle-
ments has landed in District cof-
fers, critical support for stem-
ming an epidemic that claims
more lives here annually than
gun violence.
But no money can be spent
until city leaders appoint a board
to oversee it — a process set in
motion more than a year ago.
District officials say they have
worked steadily to overcome bu-
reaucratic roadblocks and pledge
action by next month, under
mounting pressure from officials
and front-line harm-reduction
workers who question the pace of
the rollout.
“It is resources that could be
transformational, not just in our
immediate crisis moment but for
how we set up the infrastructure
for how we handle this in the
future,” D.C. Council member
Christina Henderson (I-At
Large), chair of the council’s
Health Committee, said in an
interview.
“We are behind, we were be-
hind months ago,” she said, add-
ing, “We are moving at a glacial
pace in my opinion.”
D.C. has so far received about
SEE oPioiDS oN B3
METRO
high today at JOHN KELLY’S WASHINGTON
approx. 4 p.m.
The celebrity who mistook
89° a hat for a scarf and more
precip: 55% of readers’ near-fame
Wind: S
7-14 mph experiences. B3
Questions linger after inquiries
into former top aide to Bowser
Two probes found he made unwanted advances but not whether officials were aware of conduct
BY P AUL S CHWARTZMAN
After months of conducting inter-
views and scouring evidence, a pair of
investigations concluded that a for-
mer top adviser to Mayor Muriel E.
Bowser made unwelcome sexual ad-
vances toward two female employees.
But what the investigations did not
fully address is whether Bowser ad-
ministration officials were aware at
any point over the course of several
years that the adviser, John Falcic-
chio, was mistreating his employees.
Bowser (D) has said she had no
knowledge of the allegations before
the women filed complaints, and that
she acted quickly to launch the inves-
tigations. Yet questions about what
she knew have endured because of
Falcicchio’s long-standing promi-
nence in her political orbit, serving as
her chief campaign strategist and as
an adviser holding two top-level ap-
pointments.
The mayor, who easily won a third
term in November, has helped fuel the
speculation by opposing calls for an
D.C. Mayor Muriel E. Bowser (D) and Deputy Mayor John Falcicchio at Black Lives Matter Plaza on June 5, 2020.
Bowser announced Falcicchio’s departure on March 17 without referencing a harassment complaint against him.
A naked Fla. man is found next to a body in Md. Was it murder?
‘My clothes got real hot,’
defendant tells jurors
in Montgomery County
BY D AN M ORSE
Gary Savage pulled up to his
estranged wife’s cul-de-sac in sub-
urban Maryland, fresh off a 900-
mile drive from Florida and
armed with a loaded pistol. Ahead
of him, inside a parked SUV, she
sat with another man. Moments
later, the man was dead, his wife
was calling 911 and Savage had
stripped naked to wait for the
police.
“My clothes got real hot,” the
60-year-old told jurors inside a
Montgomery County courtroom, Police say Gary Savage drove 900 miles to confront his estranged
“so I took off my clothes.” wife and another man in this townhouse community.
His testimony covered dramat-
ic events that sent bullets flying short of all that prosecutors tried
through the afternoon sunshine of to prove, but probably will yield a
a townhouse community where stiff prison term when the case
residents still talk about it two concludes in November at Sav-
years later. The jury’s verdict fell age’s sentencing.
KLMNO
monday, august 7 , 2023
EDUCATION
licensing barriers keep
people with criminal
records from education
and training. B2
independent investigation. She also
provoked criticism from members of
the D.C. Council by appearing to
downplay the release of key informa-
tion pertaining to the scandal. When
Falcicchio resigned, for example, her
office announced that he was heading
to the private sector without men-
tioning that he had been accused of
sexual harassment. And when the
Mayor’s office of Legal Counsel
(MoLC) completed its first investiga-
tion, her office released the findings
at night in the middle of a holiday
weekend.
“You don’t generally have this kind
of conduct without people knowing
about it, and it raises a lot of red flags,”
said Erin Palmer, a D.C.-based attor-
ney who has worked on sexual harass-
ment cases and who is an advisory
neighborhood commissioner in
Northwest Washington.
“For me, the primary thing is did
the mayor know about this and did
she care about it?” said Palmer, who
ran unsuccessfully for council chair
last year. “or does she just want to
picasa FaMily phoTos; courT records
Jurors wrestled with the con-
cept of “imperfect self-defense,”
according a note they sent to Cir-
cuit Court Judge Christopher C.
Fogleman during deliberations
eZ
Marvin Joseph/The WashingTon posT
keep it quiet?”
The mayor, according to a state-
ment provided by an aide in response
to questions from The Washington
Post, was shocked by the accusers’
complaints and had “no knowledge of
the activities prior to receiving the
allegations.”
“Moreover, she has never received
nor have there been any sexual ha-
rassment complaints — formal or
otherwise — related to Mr. Falcic-
chio,” according to the statement
emailed by Tomás Talamante, her
deputy chief of staff.
The statement acknowledged that
while “there were instances” when
the release of information pertaining
to Falcicchio “could have been han-
dled more smoothly,” the administra-
tion “worked to quickly release as
much info as possible given the sensi-
tive legal and personnel issues.”
The MoLC’s investigation focused
narrowly on the veracity of the two
complainants’ claims that Falcicchio
made unwelcome advances, sent ex-
SEE FaLCiCChio oN B4
last month. That defense, com-
monly raised in murder cases,
holds that the accused is not guilty
of murder if — in his mind — he
acted reasonably. “The jury is try-
ing to try to figure out what the
defendant was thinking in the mo-
ment, and that can be really hard
to know,” said Cecelia Klingele, a
University of Wisconsin law pro-
fessor and expert on self-defense
laws.
Jurors were introduced to the
lives of two men — Whali Shabazz,
42, who was killed, and Savage,
who shot him. Both grew up in
small cities in North Carolina.
Shabazz struggled early in life but
became a fun-loving and hard-
working driver of dump-trucks,
commercial snowplows and 18-
wheelers, according to his family.
“He’d call from the road all the
time and make me laugh, some-
times about different things he
loved to eat,” his sister Eugenia
Davis recalled in an interview. “I
remember him saying, ‘I’m on my
way to Mexico, and I’m about eat
me some rattlesnake.’ ”
Savage earned a political sci-
su B
OBITUARIES
Johnny lujack, 98,
a heisman-winning QB,
led notre dame to three
national titles. B5
Probe of
death in
custody
in limbo
Md. prosecutors
privately clashing
Unclear how or if review
of 2013 case will proceed
BY O VETTA W IGGINS
A push to reexamine the
police-involved death of Tyrone
West in 2013 has officials at odds
over who should do the work,
underscoring the challenges
families seeking justice can face
even when they have convinced a
prosecutor that questions re-
main unanswered.
Maryland’s top law enforce-
ment official and the Baltimore
City prosecutor have for weeks
been trading letters about the
case of West, 44, who died after
being pepper-sprayed, hit with
batons and pinned to the ground
during a struggle with police
following a traffic stop in Balti-
more. His death has been the
subject of a civil suit and years of
protests led by his sister, Tawan-
da Jones, for police accountabili-
ty.
Despite the recent missives,
there has been no resolution on
how or whether an investigation
will proceed.
Baltimore City State’s Attorney
Ivan J. Bates (D), who has juris-
diction, says the case merits
review but a conflict will prevent
his office from handling it. Mary-
land Attorney General Anthony
G. Brown (D), who will soon have
authority to prosecute new
police-involved fatalities, is not
embracing Bates’s request to ini-
tiate an investigation and in-
stead is questioning why the
local prosecutor is not taking
steps to work around the poten-
tial conflict.
Jones said she is grateful that
Brown and Bates are having a
discussion about the case, a de-
velopment that she has never
witnessed before. But, she added,
“while people are debating, my
brother is still laying in the
ground without any accountabil-
ity.”
Awaiting examination are in-
dependent autopsies Jones pro-
vided that contradict the state’s
original findings, and inconsis-
tencies in statements following
the incident that Bates, in a
July 6 letter to Brown, said
helped convince him that an
investigation should be pursued.
The autopsies ordered by
West’s family determined that he
SEE ProSECutorS oN B4
ence degree in 1985 from Eliza-
beth City State University, served
in the U.S. Army and in 2019 self-
published the memoir “Hope I’m
Making Sense, Thanks,” under the
pen name Butch Wyatt. The book
recounted his 2-year-old son dy-
ing of leukemia, his suicide at-
tempts and his decades-long
struggle with crack-cocaine addic-
tion. “I tried to do other normal
things,” he testified at his trial,
“but I intertwined my drug use
with that, and everything fails —
marriage, everything.”
In opening statements, pros-
ecutors stressed that their case
was straightforward: Savage had
recently moved to Florida, be-
came enraged that his estranged
wife, Amber Tucker, 41, was seeing
someone else, and sent her text
and Facebook messages stating
what he intended to do about it.
“I’m coming to the house, and
whoever tries to stop me along
with you will be shot in the face,”
he wrote, according to trial evi-
dence.
“I will show the world,” he also
SEE triaL oN B4
B2
More noise complaints
aired at National, Dulles
airports from B1
gional economy.
The changes are being contem-
plated as part of a must-pass
measure to fund the federal Avia-
tion Administration. The current
law that funds the fAA will expire
Sept. 30. Both airports are owned
by the federal government, which
gives Congress the ability to in-
crease the number of flights at
National.
Although noise complaints are
up, airport officials caution
against reading too much into the
numbers, noting that many fac-
Choosing a college can be messy, but you may stumble upon something great
As a journalist, I
have long been
obsessed with how
to find the best
college. I was not
Jay good at this
Mathews myself.
I realized my
first week at the
first college I picked that it was
not for me. The school I
transferred to my sophomore
year was bigger and more famous,
but the teaching and the
atmosphere weren’t as good as I
had hoped.
We should appreciate that this
great adventure of choosing a
college will often be messy and
incomplete. Those of us who
decide which school to attend are
usually teenagers, many of us not
sure who we are or where our
lives are going.
It was at my second college that
I discovered the most important
learning for me was not in classes,
but at a seedy little off-campus
building occupied by the student-
run daily newspaper. I acquired
Criminal
pasts pose
licensing
di∞culties
BY T ARA G ARCÍA
M ATHEWSON
Jesse Wiese spent seven years
in prison; when he left the Iowa
facility in 2006, he thought his
debt to society had been paid.
While inside, Wiese had earned
an undergraduate degree and
puzzled over how he might do
right in the world. He started
studying for the law school ad-
missions test, thinking he could
become a lawyer and maybe a
judge.
In 2008, Wiese moved to Vir-
ginia to attend regent University
School of Law. Three years and
$150,000 in federal and private
student loans later, he graduated
and turned his attention to pass-
ing the bar exam. Like the major-
ity of his classmates, he spent the
summer forgoing gainful em-
ployment to study full-time for
the two-day exam.
Except, unlike his peers, pass-
ing the bar would not be Wiese’s
biggest hurdle to becoming a
lawyer: He could still be denied a
license to practice law by the
Virginia Board of Bar Examiners.
Before it considers awarding a
law license for any otherwise
eligible candidate with a felony
conviction, the board holds a
character and fitness screening.
for Wiese, it was all a big,
expensive gamble — and, in one
form or another, is one that
millions of people with criminal
records take every year as they
pursue education and workforce
training on their way to jobs that
require licensing. Yet, that effort
might be wasted, thanks to the
nearly 14,000 laws and regula-
tions that can restrict individu-
als with arrest and conviction
histories from becoming li-
censed in certain fields.
The rules that govern these
barriers to entry are scattered
across federal, state and regula-
Subscriber Exclusives
tors, including weather patterns
and heightened media attention,
can influence the number of com-
plaints filed. They also said resi-
dents who file hundreds of com-
plaints can artificially inflate the
numbers.
Longtime Arlington resident
Larry o’reilly said he’s not sur-
prised the number of noise com-
plaints has continued to grow.
Since he moved to his home about
two miles from National in 1984,
he said he has noticed a steady
increase in flights — particularly
in the early morning. He’s con-
cerned about the possibility that
skills there I still use today. I also
met a working-class girl with a sly
sense of humor who became the
most important person in my life.
She beat out all competitors,
including me, for the managing
editor job at the newspaper. Then
she married me the day we
graduated.
Some people say picking a
college is just as important as
picking a spouse. I think that’s
wrong. It’s more like buying a
house. It is a major investment, to
be sure. But if you decide the
rooms are too small or the
neighborhood too sketchy, it’s
relatively easy to find another
place. And whatever school you
settle on is going to have some
pleasant surprises.
I grew up in Northern
California. my family could afford
a private college because my
father, who did not have a
bachelor’s degree, got a good
federal job as a technical writer
through his World War II Army
service. my parents let me make
all the college decisions and never
Jesse Wiese’s application to practice law was denied three times.
tory codes, and they can vary
from field to field within a state.
Advocates say these barriers
keep people from good jobs, not
only reducing their chances of
staying out of prison but also
robbing the nation of their pro-
ductive labor.
“The focus should be on reha-
bilitation and putting people
back out in the community so
they can participate and be pro-
ductive and thrive in their com-
munities,” said Caitlin Dawkins,
a director for the National reen-
try resource Center at the Amer-
ican Institutes for research.
Although licensing require-
ments vary from state to state,
about 1 in 5 people in the United
States need occupational licens-
es to do their jobs — licenses they
get only after completing a desig-
nated amount of training and
education in their fields. In addi-
tion to lawyers, professional
drivers must be licensed, along
with health professionals, public
accountants, teachers, electri-
cians, firefighters, social work-
ers, real estate agents and secu-
rity guards.
According to a 2020 study by
the Institute for Justice, a non-
profit law firm, 31 states allow
licensing boards to deny appli-
cants on the basis of their charac-
ter alone for at least some occu-
pations, leaving room for denials
that are based on any criminal
behavior, no matter how minor
or how far in the past. Advocates
for reforming the system say it is
Field trip with The Post’s Lillian Cunningham to five of America’s national parks
Journey with podcast host lillian Cunningham through the natural wonder, messy past, and uncertain future of
Yosemite national Park, Glacier national Park, Everglades national Park, White Sands national Park, and Gates of
the arctic national Park. Throughout the series, Cunningham unravels how the parks’ tangled histories complicate
their present-day challenges including climate change, debates over indigenous rights, and ecological preservation.
Listen on your smartphone or other device at washingtonpost.com/podcasts/.
EZ RE
Congress could allow more.
“There are tens of thousands of
us that are going to be affected,” he
said. “Where do we fit into the
discussion?”
An amendment to the fAA
funding bill to add seven round-
trip flights daily at National that
could travel beyond a 1,250-mile
perimeter was voted down last
month. However, supporters of
the plan, who originally sought to
add 28 daily round-trip flights —
before settling on seven — are
hoping to persuade the Senate to
include the provision in its ver-
sion of the funding measure.
In a recent letter to leaders of
the Senate Commerce, Science
and Transportation Committee,
members of the DCA Community
Working Group, which formed in
2015 to address aircraft noise at
National, raised concerns about
education
pointed out my many mistakes.
That first college I attended
was occidental. It remains a fine
school on a sunny hillside not far
from where I live in Southern
California. I went there because I
was obsessed with China. I
decided I would become the first
U.S. ambassador to the People’s
republic and establish a golden
era of amity between our two
countries.
oxy, as it was called then and
now, had a much-publicized
diplomacy and world affairs
department. I also loved the lively
political atmosphere at the
school. We first-year students had
deeply serious debates, late into
the night, about who should win
the 1964 presidential election,
President Lyndon B. Johnson or
Sen. Barry Goldwater.
my problem was my negative
reaction to the head of the
diplomacy and world affairs
department, a former State
Department officer. my first week
of college, at a tea at his house for
newly enrolled students, he made
noah Willman
not uncommon for people to
pursue training programs and
submit their licensing applica-
tions without recognizing the
risk.
Yet, the case for education as a
counter to recidivism is so con-
vincing that the U.S. Department
of Education announced a major
expansion of Pell grants, effec-
tive July 1, for people pursuing
higher education from behind
bars. About 30,000 of these stu-
dents are expected to get $130
million of the federal aid each
year, a cost that researchers have
found is far less than the expense
of detaining reoffenders.
Higher educational attain-
ment is directly correlated with a
lower likelihood of being reincar-
cerated, as is stable employment.
Both pieces of evidence have
swayed policymakers nation-
wide. The Institute for Justice
found that since 2015, 40 states
had eased or eliminated some of
their laws keeping people with
criminal records from getting
employment licenses. Yet, with
every type of license bearing its
own local, state or federal limita-
tions, many thousands of collat-
eral consequences remain.
Wiese, now 45, passed the bar
on his first try and moved on to
the character and fitness screen-
ing required because of his con-
viction.
“It was like a mini trial,” Wiese
said. He flew people in to serve as
character witnesses in front of an
initial committee, which ulti-
“Field Trip” is the fourth in Cunningham’s podcast collection.
adding flights at the airport.
“While expanding the perim-
eter to permit nonstop flights to
cities such as San Antonio or
El Paso may benefit a limited few
in terms of convenience, many
thousands more D.C. area resi-
dents would suffer the negative
impacts of those flights,” mem-
bers of the group wrote.
According to the mWAA report,
noise complaints dropped signifi-
cantly during the first year of the
pandemic, a trend that officials
attribute to a sharp reduction in
flights. Before the pandemic,
about 4,000 flights operated daily
in the region’s airspace, including
commercial, private and military
aircraft. During march 2020, that
number dropped to 1,400 before
rebounding to about 2,400 in De-
cember that year.
In 2020, noise complaints at
no attempt to thrill us with the
big issues we were going to
explore. Instead he warned us
that we would never succeed as
diplomats if we ever again
committed the cardinal sin that
all of us were guilty of — failing to
respond formally to his invitation
to that gathering.
I also discovered — one of my
worst mistakes — that oxy then
did not have Chinese-language
classes. So I transferred to
Harvard. I liked the big name. I
was drawn to the image of the
recently assassinated President
John f. Kennedy. He had been a
government major, so I became
one, too. Sadly, the courses in that
department were dull. Also
troubling was the absence of any
debate over the presidential
election. Goldwater fans were
numerous in Southern California
but not in massachusetts.
The student newspaper saved
me. I loved that trash-strewn
place from the beginning. I
enjoyed having my first attempts
at news writing torn apart by
mately recommended that he be
licensed. “I was like, ‘Awesome!
This is amazing.’ Then their deci-
sion was unanimously over-
turned.”
The Virginia Board of Bar
Examiners was not convinced
that Wiese should be allowed to
practice law, considering his
criminal history. It told him to
reapply in two years. He did, but
the same thing happened —
there was an initial committee
recommendation for licensure
followed by a state board denial.
“They said it may be impossi-
ble to prove rehabilitation,” Wi-
ese remembered. He appealed to
the Supreme Court of Virginia,
but it ruled against him, too.
The Virginia Board of Bar
Examiners did not comment on
Wiese’s case or how the agency
considers applicants’ criminal
histories in its licensing deci-
sions.
The view that crime is proof of
character that can never be re-
formed has received legal sup-
port for at least 125 years. The
U.S. Supreme Court first af-
firmed the right to discriminate
against people with criminal rec-
ords in an 1898 decision in
Hawker v. New York, in which
the court held that “character is
as important a qualification as
knowledge.”
ronald Day came across this
court decision while writing his
dissertation as a doctoral candi-
date in philosophy at the City
University of New York. Day has
been involved in prisoner reen-
try work for about 15 years, since
he finished his own sentence and
found himself navigating life on
the outside. He received a doctor-
ate in 2019 and serves as vice
president of programs for the
fortune Society, an education,
service and advocacy organiza-
tion focused on criminal justice
and reentry.
Day’s time in the archives
introduced him to the ongoing
legal dispute over the rights of
those who are incarcerated, or
who used to be incarcerated,
taking him on a journey from the
Supreme Court’s views in 1898 to
the fallout from a 2015 decision
by U.S. District Judge John
Gleeson in the Eastern District of
New York. Gleeson ruled in favor
of expunging the conviction of a
woman who had committed
the washington post
both airports dropped to 88,533,
the lowest in several years. But as
demand for air travel rebounded
in 2021, complaints increased to
more than 148,700, then contin-
ued to rise.
“[We’ll] exert every effort into
reducing noise where noise can be
reduced, but there are very few
opportunities for even small noise
level reductions,” said mike Jeck,
author of the report and manager
of mWAA’s noise office.
one reason it can be difficult to
adjust flight paths to address
complaints is that flights in the
D.C. region operate in the most
congested U.S. airspace outside of
New York. Security restrictions
also complicate the fAA’s ability
to manage air traffic, Jeck said.
Last month, Transportation
Secretary Pete Buttigieg said Na-
tional “is one of the most heavily
staffers, some of them younger
than I was. for decades I believed
that newspaper was the reason I
chose Harvard, but I recently
discovered that was a false
memory.
While going through old files
as we prepared to sell our house, I
found a copy of my transfer
application. It said nothing about
any interest in journalism. I was
just one more confused college
student who didn’t know what he
wanted until he stumbled upon
something on campus he found
irresistible.
I also discovered over the years
that I would probably have
learned just as much about my
trade if I had chosen a different
school with a similarly lively
college paper. At The Washington
Post I have gotten to know several
colleagues better than I am at
what we do who attended big
state schools, such as the State
University of New York at Buffalo.
There’s a detailed explanation of
why selectivity should not be key
to your college selection in my
health-care fraud and, after serv-
ing her sentence, found her rec-
ord a constant barrier to getting
and keeping jobs as a home
health aide. But even support
from the federal judge who sen-
tenced her was not enough. A
federal court of appeals over-
ruled Gleeson.
According to the Institute for
Justice’s study, in five states,
including Arizona, Tennessee
and Virginia, any licensing board
can deny an applicant on the
basis of a felony, even if it is
unrelated to the license. In 30
states, an arrest alone can dis-
qualify applicants. In seven
states, there is no right to appeal
after a license has been denied.
When the Virginia Board of
Bar Examiners denied Wiese’s
license a second time, he was told
that he could try again in two
years but that he would have to
retake the bar because so much
time had passed. With the sup-
port of his wife, Wiese took time
off to study and passed the test a
second time. once more, he ap-
plied for a license and was rec-
ommended.
But for the third time, the
state board denied his applica-
tion.
Wiese appealedthe decision of
the state licensing board, again
taking his case to the Virginia
Supreme Court. This time, it
ruled in his favor. Ten years after
graduating from law school, Wi-
ese got his license to practice.
Looking back, it did not seem
to be a triumph.
“In my younger days, I would
say you can overcome anything.
You can outwork it,” Wiese said.
He said he does not believe that
anymore. “This is called the sec-
ond prison. Literally, you walk
out of one and you walk into
another one.”
Because the laws and regula-
tions are so scattered, navigating
them can be difficult for anyone,
not just those exiting prison.
Every field has its own state-level
licensing board and related pol-
icies.
In some states, people serving
time can fight fires as part of
prison work crews but cannot get
licenses to work as firefighters in
local fire departments after their
release. They can do landscaping
on city property through a prison
work crew, but — with a criminal
. monday, august 7 , 2023
used runways in the world,” point-
ing to the “tough job” the fAA has
in maximizing use of the airport
while factoring in safety and com-
munity concerns about noise.
While noise complaints have
risen at Dulles and National, data
from the maryland Aviation Ad-
ministration showed the number
of complaints at Baltimore-Wash-
ington International marshall de-
clined last year. residents filed
more than 435,000 noise com-
plaints tied to flights at BWI in
2022, about 122,000 fewer than in
2021. In 2019, residents submitted
nearly 551,500 complaints about
aircraft noise.
“We are not aware of significant
airspace changes in the past few
years that would impact the num-
ber of callers,” Jonathan Dean, a
BWI spokesman, wrote in an
email.
2003 book “Harvard
Schmarvard.”
Pick the college that seems best
to you, but keep in mind you are
not going to understand fully
what that school can do until you
have been there for a while.
College rankings are popular, but
our deepest insights about our
chosen school come from
participating in what is
happening on and off campus. It
is clear to me now that our
country is blessed with one of the
most exciting collections of
higher education institutions
imaginable, an underappreciated
plus to being an American.
When you get to the school you
picked, start looking around. You
may miss the best stuff in the
beginning. Who knows what I
would have found if I had stuck
with oxy? But you will eventually
stumble on something wonderful
that grabs you and won’t let you
go.
Jay mathews can be reached at
mathewsjay67@gmail.com.
record — cannot get a govern-
ment job.
Cosmetology, in many states,
is considered “second-chance
friendly” and a good path for
people coming out of prison. In
Virginia, by contrast, applicants
can be denied cosmetology li-
censes for having specific misde-
meanor convictions or any felo-
ny.
A number of organizations
across the country have stepped
up to advocate for policy change
and to support those with crimi-
nal records as they seek to re-
build their lives outside of pris-
on. Jobs for the future this year
put out a framework titled “Nor-
malizing opportunity,” calling
on policymakers to remove barri-
ers to employment for formerly
incarcerated individuals.
“There’s a multiplying effect
there,” said Brandi mandato, a
senior director at Jobs for the
future who helped write the
framework. “If we don’t have
access to good jobs, we don’t
have access to health care, hous-
ing, all of these things that are
important to launching a life and
building community and keep-
ing people safe.”
At a time with very low unem-
ployment and major demand for
skilled employees, advocates say
the business case for eliminating
these barriers is as strong as the
humanitarian one.
Wiese is now the vice presi-
dent for research and innovation
at Prison fellowship, an organi-
zation that helps individuals and
families affected by incarcera-
tion and which gave him his own
sense of purpose and possibility
while he was in prison. Early in
his career with the organization,
Wiese managed a caseload of
about 70 men who were navigat-
ing reentry. over and over again,
he saw them stop chasing their
dreams, confounded by barriers
to stable employment. The mes-
sage they got, he said, was, “Don’t
take the initiative.”
“It really limits people’s ability
to make a difference and to
contribute,” Wiese said, “and we
miss out.”
This article was produced by the
hechinger Report, a nonprofit,
independent news organization
focused on inequality and innovation
in education.
monday, august 7 , 2023 . the washington post
Near-fame moments in a hat shop, car and hotel
Some years ago I
was in a men’s hat
shop in
manhattan. I was
about to leave —
John there was nothing
Kelly's there that suited
Washington my particular
fancy — when in
walked Alec
Baldwin with a
woman I assumed to be his wife.
Alec Baldwin! I decided to stick
around a little longer. What sort
of hat would Alec Baldwin want?
“Do you have any scarves?” he
asked the salesman.
Now, this place was literally
brimming with hats: fedoras,
homburgs, pork pies, Panamas,
stingy brims, newsboys, boaters.
Hats were arranged on shelves
and stands and mannequin
heads. Hats nested in teetering
columns. Everywhere you looked:
hats. I didn’t see a single scarf.
It was a hat shop.
“No,” said the clerk. “We don’t
have any scarves.”
I’d spent the last few minutes
fingering a blue and white straw
hat — Borsalino, size 73/8 — while
Funds to fight D.C. opioid crisis meet with delays
opioids from B1
$12 million from companies that
prosecutors say profited from the
manufacturing, distributing and
marketing of opioids that fueled a
crisis of addiction. only West
Virginia has a higher rate of fatal
opioid overdoses than D.C., which
recorded 461 deaths in 2022, dou-
ble the rate in 2018, according to
data from the city medical exam-
iner’s office. The pace of overdose
deaths has held steady in 2023,
with 152 in the first four months
of the year — a toll that city data
shows has disproportionately af-
fected older Black men.
City leaders estimate that D.C.
stands to bring in at least $80 mil-
lion by 2040 as roughly $54 bil-
lion in settlements over the last
decade begins filtering out. more
than 3,000 state and local govern-
ments have sought compensation
to mitigate harm caused by opi-
oids or to prevent future sub-
stance abuse in a crisis exacerbat-
ed by fentanyl and other synthet-
ic opioids.
The District expects to receive
funds from opioid manufacturer
Johnson & Johnson, the three
major pharmaceutical distribu-
tors and the consulting firm mc-
Kinsey & Co., said Gabriel
Shoglow-rubenstein, spokesman
for D.C. Attorney General Brian L.
Schwalb, who will sit on the
District’s commission. (money
the District might receive from
Purdue Pharma is not included in
the $80 million estimate because
that settlement is the subject of
ongoing litigation.)
“We are losing hundreds of
residents each year to opioid
overdoses,” Schwalb wrote in re-
sponse to questions about the
funds. “We need to move as quick-
ly as possible to effectively put the
opioid settlement funds to use in
combating this crisis and all of us
involved in the process must act
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trying to steal surreptitious
glances at the star of “Beetlejuice”
and “The Hunt for red october.”
At some point I realized that
although this hat had not
interested me before, I would
now be buying it. for now it was a
hat with a story: the story of how
Alec Baldwin went into a hat shop
and tried to buy a scarf.
Every time I wear it — well, not
every time, but many times — I
find myself telling someone,
“Some years ago I was in a men’s
hat shop in manhattan …”
All summer, readers have been
sharing their celebrity stories
with me, either their own
interactions or those of family
members. Usually, there’s been
some meaningful interaction, an
interaction that both parties were
aware of. But not always.
Georgia Webb was a native
Tennessean who spent most of
her adult life in Washington, her
grandson Gene dodd said. one
day in the late 1960s/early 1970s,
Georgia was driving up
Wisconsin Avenue NW at about
Calvert Street when she saw a
well-dressed, middle-aged
No money from the city’s share of the multistate opioid settlement
can be spent until d.C. leaders appoint a board to oversee it.
with the urgency this crisis de-
mands.”
The commission will make rec-
ommendations to mayor muriel
E. Bowser (D) and the D.C. Coun-
cil for how to address long-stand-
ing gaps in access to care and
services to reduce opioid use dis-
order as well as substance use and
mental health disorders, includ-
ing developing facilities, with the
goal of saving lives.
A spokesman for Bowser, who
must name five members to the
commission, referred questions
about the timetable to the De-
partment of Behavioral Health,
the lead agency in the District’s
opioid response.
Phyllis Jones, chief of staff to
agency director Barbara J. Baz-
ron, said the agency is taking
applications for membership on
the commission and searching
for a director to run the office of
opioid Abatement, which will
administer the funds.
“We think we’ve been moving
very quickly on this,” Jones said in
an interview Tuesday.
Ambrose Lane Jr., founder of
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woman on the sidewalk who
looked lost.
“my grandmother never picked
up strangers but on this occasion
made an exception,” wrote Gene,
of raleigh, N.C. “Perhaps it was,
as she was later to say, because
the woman looked vaguely
familiar.”
It turned out the woman was
trying to get to Washington
National Cathedral. Georgia
drove her the few blocks to the
cathedral and let her off in front
of it.
“my grandmother mentioned
the fact that she thought she
looked familiar but the lady said
no, she didn’t think they’d ever
met,” Gene wrote.
The next day, the newspaper
had a story about how olivia de
Havilland, of “Gone With the
Wind” fame, was in Washington.
“my grandmother died in 1976
without knowing for certain that
her rider had in fact been olivia
de Havilland,” Gene wrote.
About a year later, Gene
attended a lecture by de
Havilland at the University of
North Carolina. He wasn’t
salWan georges/The WashingTon PosT
the Health Alliance Network, had
one word for progress on the
seating of the commission: “slow.”
“I’m a little concerned that it’s
kind of moving [more] slowly
than it should and especially as
this crisis continues to grow,”
Lane said. “If the trends continue
the way they are, 2023 will also be
a record year, and if it’s another
record year then what is that
saying about the current efforts?”
Department of Behavioral
Health officials said they have
worked steadily to lay the
groundwork for the commission
to begin spending dollars as soon
as possible, given bureaucratic
hurdles. Council Chairman Phil
mendelson (D) introduced the
bill last summer, Bowser signed it
in mid-January and, because D.C.
bills must pass congressional
muster before becoming law, this
one didn’t take effect until march.
The following month, Jones said,
the Health Department and the
Department of Behavioral Health
arranged funding to begin setting
up the office of opioid Abate-
ment.
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eZ re
permitted to meet with the
actress, but he was able give a
note to a guard who took it
upstairs, where the star was
socializing with some friends
from Chapel Hill.
“The acoustics were such that
ms. de Havilland’s voice and the
voices of her friends could be
heard quite clearly from where I
stood,” Gene wrote. “In just a
moment a delightful burst of
laughter emerged from upstairs
which I recognized as coming
from olivia de Havilland. She
proceeded to tell her friends all
about her experience going to
Washington and encountering
this wonderful elderly woman in
a yellow car who helped her out
when she was lost and got her to
her destination.”
In 1968, Wynne Cougill was
working as the assistant to the
assistant manager at the Conrad
Hilton Hotel in Chicago. Her job?
“I sat in the middle of the lobby,
answering questions and taking
complaints from 3 to 11 p.m.,”
wrote Wynne, who lives in the
District.
“A tall, lithe young man
Several staff members have
been researching how other
states set up their grant programs
and developing an application
process to aid the commission in
spending dollars quickly. offi-
cials are searching for an office
director, who must have at least
10 years of professional experi-
ence and education in preven-
tion, recovery, treatment and
harm-reduction efforts for opioid
use disorder and co-occurring
substance use and mental health
disorders.
mendelson, who has four ap-
pointments to the commission,
said that nothing had prevented
him from making his recommen-
dations and that he planned to
act soon.
“I certainly don’t want to be in
the way of the commission,” he
said in an interview.
Each state uses a different
process to decide how to spend
settlement dollars. Virginia and
maryland have divvied up funds
to cities and counties and set up
state-level authorities and boards
to distribute additional grants. In
Virginia, which expects to receive
$1.1 billion over the life of the
settlements, one such grant will
fund the creation of a treatment
center that will provide post-
detox and recovery services for
women.
Anthony E. “Tony” mcDowell,
executive director of Virginia’s
opioid Abatement Authority,
said the agency sought to balance
urgency and deliberation in
awarding $23 million in grants
last month.
“We’re trying not to let any
moss grow,” he said. “You can get
the money out first or you can be
super careful; it’s hard to do both,
but that’s exactly what we’re try-
ing to do.”
In D.C., the 21-member com-
mission will include high-profile
government officials, service pro-
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Wynne Cougill, right, with a friend, circa 1970. The friend is not
Jimi Hendrix, who Cougill unwittingly met a few years earlier.
approached my desk one night,”
she wrote. “He politely began
hitting on me and asked me out
perhaps five times in as many
minutes. Judging by his dress in
snowy february — a white suit,
white fedora, white shoes and
white cashmere coat — I assumed
he was a pimp, and just as politely
declined, citing my work
schedule. He said he’d catch me
the next time he was in town.”
A few minutes after the man
viders, public health profession-
als, and people who have experi-
enced opioid use disorder first-
hand and through loved ones.
The commission must hold pub-
lic meetings at least four times a
year, according to the code.
Patricia Quinn of the D.C. Pri-
mary Care Association and mark
LeVota of the District of Colum-
bia Behavioral Health Associa-
tion, who will represent their
organizations on the commis-
sion, noted the need for housing
for people in various stages of
treatment and recovery.
LeVota said that unlike the
opioid dollars, state and federal
funding sources can’t pay for
bricks-and-mortar infrastructure
for people coping with substance
abuse and mental health disor-
ders, often simultaneously.
“It’s not often that resources
come to meet such a pressing
need in the city,” Quinn said. “All
of us have an urgency about that,
knowing what the needs are, and
we are ready to go. As the com-
mission sets a date, we are in.”
The Bowser administration’s
strategy is rooted in a plan called
Live.Long.DC. that launched in
late 2018 with a goal to reduce
opioid use and overdoses by 50
percent by 2020. Numbers have
risen dramatically since then,
prompting members of the D.C.
Council and advocates to clamor
for more action, even as they have
applauded the administration’s
embrace of harm reduction with
the widespread distribution of
the overdose antidote naloxone
and fentanyl test strips, including
in free vending machines.
“There seems to be a lot of gaps
in terms of our plan and strategy,”
Henderson said in an interview
last week. “Narcan and fentanyl
strips cannot be the totality of our
plan, and right now I don’t feel we
have articulated what else we
need to be doing.”
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B3
Family PhoTo
left, Wynne’s boss came over and
asked what it was like to meet
Jimi Hendrix.
Wrote Wynne: “Half a century
on and I still regret that case of
mistaken identity.”
Have you ever had an
unconsummated brush with fame
— that is, a celebrity who you
didn’t meet? or didn’t know that
you met? I’d love to hear about it.
Drop a line to
john.kelly@washpost.com.
ViRgiNia
l oc a l D igest
Police investigate
Woodbridge stabbing
A man was fatally stabbed in
Woodbridge on Saturday night
following an altercation outside
his home, according to Prince
William County police.
officers responded to the
incident at about 10 p.m. in the
800 block of fulton road, where
Heriberto Valdez, a 24-year-old
Woodbridge resident whom
police identified as the suspect,
reportedly stabbed the 33-year-
old victim after a confrontation
had escalated.
Police said the suspect
stabbed the victim and later
chased him to the backyard,
where he collapsed. Valdez
remained at the home and was
detained by police without
incident, police said.
The victim was pronounced
dead at the scene, and police
have not released his identity,
pending notification of next of
kin. Police said the suspect and
victim were acquaintances.
Valdez has since been charged
with murder and use of a
weapon in commission of a
felony.
— Heidi Pérez-Moreno
Retropolis
The past, rediscovered
wpost.com/retropolis
S0364 1x2.25
B4
Md. prosecutors at odds over review of 2013 death
prosecuTors from B1
died of positional asphyxia,
Bates’s letter states, not a heart
condition as an original review
concluded. The initial autopsy
was conducted under the leader-
ship of then-maryland medical
examiner David fowler, whose
office’s work on people who died
in law enforcement custody is
undergoing an unprecedented
third-party review. It is not clear
whether West’s case is among
those selected for additional
scrutiny as part of the probe.
Police at the time said that
when West was told to get out of
the car, they saw a bulge in his
sock that they suspected was
drugs, and a chase and alterca-
tion ensued. Jones said police
created a false narrative to paint
her brother as someone officers
feared. In his letter to Brown,
Bates cited depositions provided
by Jones that indicated that there
were no drugs found at the scene
or on materials tested.
After failing to gain traction,
Bates late last month sent an-
Sentencing next for infamous Md. case
TriAl from B1
texted, “a husband’s last stand.”
Savage did so, according to
prosecutors, by opening fire on
Shabazz and Tucker after they’d
scrambled out of Shabazz’s SUV
on the afternoon of Sept. 3, 2021.
He shot Shabazz three times, in-
cluding a final round in the fore-
head, prosecutors said. Then he
fired at least twice at Tucker but
missed, according to prosecutors,
as she ducked for cover behind a
nearby pickup truck and Savage
climbed atop the SUV to get a
better vantage point.
“Luckily for her,” Assistant
State’s Attorney Jim Dietrich told
jurors, “he runs out of bullets.”
Savage and his attorneys coun-
tered that Shabazz also was armed
and pointed his weapon first —
even if it was still encased inside a
black sock. They argued that Sav-
age’s behavior was governed by a
four-day crack binge that stopped
only five minutes before the shoot-
ing. Also at play, they said, were
the long-standing effects of an
Army accident — an assertion that
arced the narrative heard by ju-
rors back to the 1980s.
“Did something happen to you
when you were in Korea?” one of
his attorneys, Isabelle raquin,
asked Savage.
“Yes, my tank went off a cliff,” he
said. “I was inside the tank.”
The 20-foot fall, he testified,
injured his back and head and left
him with post-traumatic stress
disorder.
He eventually made his way to
maryland, met Tucker and they
married in 2012. five years later,
Probes into mayor’s
aide leave questions
FAlcicchio from B1
plicit messages and retaliated
against them for rejecting him. To
assess the allegations in the two
probes, a moLC investigator in-
terviewed the accusers and more
than 30 current and former D.C.
government employees.
As for more general claims,
such as the first accuser’s allega-
tion that falcicchio used “the
workplace as a ‘dating pool,’” the
moLC asserted in its report that a
“more detailed investigation and
analyses would be needed” to
assess “hiring practices and pro-
motions.”
A demand for a broader probe
is partly what drove the D.C.
Council in mid-July to enact
emergency legislation requiring
the office of the Inspector Gener-
al to hire an outside law firm to
review the moLC’s inquiry. Law-
makers also questioned whether
the moLC, which reports to the
mayor, was independent enough
to investigate her closest aide.
In a June 27 letter to the
inspector general, who also re-
ports to her, Bowser cited several
allegations she described as “out-
side the scope” of the moLC’s
investigation — allegations that
included “sexual or attraction
based hiring” — to ask the office
“to consider whether a manage-
ment review could help ascer-
tain” whether policies “need up-
dating.”
At the same time, even before
the moLC had finished assessing
the second accuser’s complaint,
Bowser made plain her opposi-
tion to an outside investigation.
other letter to the state prosecu-
tor’s office, which investigates
misconduct of public officials,
requesting that it review the
case. In the July 28 letter, Bates
tells State Prosecutor Charlton T.
Howard III that the attorney
general said “he is not inclined to
investigate this matter.”
Spokesmen for the state pros-
ecutor’s office and the attorney
general’s office declined to com-
ment on Bates’s letters or say
whether either would investigate
West’s case.
“my biggest thing is I’ll just be
glad when the dots are connect-
ed. And if they get it to the state
prosecutor or whoever, this
needs to be investigated — like 10
years ago,” Jones said.
While Brown’s office received
fresh powers to intervene in
officer-involved deaths amid
sweeping laws aimed at improv-
ing police accountability, the leg-
islation is intended to be pro-
spective, said state Sen. William
C. Smith Jr. (D-montgomery),
chairman of the Senate Judicial
Proceedings Committee.
after leaving their home days and
months at a time, Savage was gone
for good. He went in and out of
treatment and mental health pro-
grams and bouts of living in his
car. In Baltimore in 2020, Savage
told jurors, he was beaten blind in
one eye. By the spring of 2021, he’d
moved to Tampa, settled into an
apartment and was clean again.
“Got my three-month sober
chip,” he wrote in a text message to
Tucker, referring to a marker pre-
sented at Narcotics Anonymous
and Alcoholics Anonymous meet-
ings.
“Yesss,” she wrote back.
But the messages soon turned
dark, according to trial evidence.
“my dreams and PTSD tells me my
wife and her boyfriend will die,” he
wrote on Aug. 27, 2021.
Shown those and other words
during the trial, Savage said they
reflected his daily drug and alco-
hol consumption: $300 worth of
crack and a case worth of Natural
Ice beer.
“I get to blaming. Unfortunate-
ly, my wife used be the blunt of
that,” he testified. “I used to say
stuff to try to get her attention. … I
never meant none of that, any-
thing bad I said.”
many of messages and phone
calls to Tucker went unanswered,
according to trial evidence.
She lived in her townhouse
with her five children, ages 9 to 21
at the time, worked as a truck
driver and helped care for an
older relative. She’d met Shabazz
in 2021. on Sept. 3 of that year, the
two took the relative to a podia-
trist, stopped at Chick-fil-A and
got milkshakes. Back home, after
She contended that the city’s 2017
sexual harassment policy estab-
lished a protocol that made the
moLC the appropriate entity to
lead the investigation. She also
raised the specter of an outside
investigation costing taxpayer
funds.
Last monday, after the moLC
released its second report, the
mayor told reporters that her
view of the council’s emergency
bill had not changed. falcicchio,
she pointed out, had resigned and
the moLC had substantiated the
two accusers’ sexual harassment
allegations. Nevertheless, after
demurring at a news conference
about whether she would sign the
legislation, she did so later that
day.
Tom Lindenfeld, a former
Bowser campaign strategist, said
if he were advising the mayor he
would have recommended that
she call for an outside investiga-
tor from the start to neutralize
concerns about the probe’s credi-
bility. “By keeping the investiga-
tion internal, it made more peo-
ple in the public wonder about it,”
Lindenfeld said. “Let someone
else do the investigation. Keep
your hands off of it. Whatever the
facts are, you’re not going to
change them.”
Since taking office eight years
ago, Bowser has had to navigate
other scandals involving high-
level members of her administra-
tion, including the chair of the
Housing Authority’s Board of
Commissioners, her former
schools chancellor, the former
deputy mayor for public safety
and the former deputy mayor for
eZ re
“our focus was ensuring from
passing the legislation moving
forward we had a more account-
able process,” he said.
Brown last week did offer to
help Bates’s office work around
any potential conflict in a letter
questioning why Bates is trying
to hand off the case.
“mr. West’s family has endured
a truly tragic event, and I support
the State’s Attorney’s office in
upholding its obligation to inves-
tigate the matter fairly and fully,”
Brown wrote in a letter emailed
to Bates on Thursday. Brown
offered to assist Bates “in deter-
mining whether you have an
actual conflict of interest that
might prevent your entire office
from investigating the case.
“If you’d like, we can also assist
in creating or vetting a deconflic-
tion policy to address the poten-
tial conflict that you believe
might prevent you from investi-
gating the death of mr. West, and
any future potential conflicts
that routinely may arise in an
office of your size,” he said.
In an interview last week,
bringing the relative inside, they
sat inside Shabazz’s parked Esca-
lade discussing what they might
do next. Tucker spotted a small
blue car — noticeable because
none of her neighbors drove it —
pull up from her left. A man got
out and walked toward them.
“oh s---,” she told Shabazz, ac-
cording court records. “Look,
there’s my husband coming up.”
Shabazz got out of his driver’s
seat and headed for the rear of his
SUV. What happened next is dis-
puted.
Savage testified that Shabazz
told him, “I got something for you”
as he opened up the rear of his
SUV, reached inside and pulled
out what Savage immediately
knew was a gun — even if he
couldn’t see it.
“He pointed the sock at me,” he
testified, adding that he could see
the silhouette of the weapon in-
side.
In response, Savage said, he
pulled out his own gun and fired
three rounds at Shabazz.
Dietrich, the prosecutor, told
jurors the story made no sense
because it rested on the notion
that Shabazz had time to get the
gun but didn’t have the time to
unsheathe it from the sock:
“That’s ridiculous. Who does
that?”
Evidence found at the scene cut
both ways. There was indeed a
loaded, .22-caliber revolver found
near Shabazz’s body, suggesting
Shabazz had taken it out of the
SUV. But it was still in the sock and
hadn’t been fired.
Prosecutors called Savage’s es-
tranged wife, Tucker, to the wit-
greater economic opportunity.
But those scandals did not
linger as long or have the magni-
tude as the one involving falcic-
chio, who served as her $230,000-
a-year chief of staff and deputy
mayor for planning and eco-
nomic development. His ties to
Bowser extend back to the early
2000s when both helped Adrian
fenty (D) become mayor.
falcicchio resigned nine days
after the first accuser, who works
in the deputy mayor’s office, filed
a complaint that he had twice
made physical advances toward
her without her consent and had
masturbated in front of her. She
provided the moLC investigator,
as well as The Post, hundreds of
pages of electronic messages she
“By keeping the investigation internal, it made
more people in the public wonder about it. Let
someone else do the investigation. … Whatever the
facts are, you’re not going to change them.”
Tom Lindenfeld, former Bowser campaign strategist
said she had exchanged with fal-
cicchio, including one in which
he sent her a video of himself
masturbating.
The second complainant, also
an employee of the deputy may-
or’s office, alleged that falcicchio
on five separate occasions in 2020
made unwanted advances toward
her, including four times at his
apartment where she had gone
for work “at his direction,” ac-
cording to the summary of the
investigation. She and the first
complainant both claimed that
falcicchio had retaliated against
them by mistreating them at
work.
While the moLC substantiated
the women’s harassment claims,
it determined that insufficient
Bates’s chief of staff, Deputy
State’s Attorney Angela G. Galea-
no, said a member of his office is
a close relative of someone who
worked on the original investiga-
tion into West’s death.
Jones, West’s sister, has spent
the past decade calling on the
state’s attorney or the attorney
general to launch a new investi-
gation into her brother’s case.
She has repeatedly maintained
that West, who was stopped by
two plainclothes officers driving
an unmarked car and later sur-
rounded by more than a dozen
officers, was killed by police.
Gregg L. Bernstein, the Balti-
more state’s attorney at the time
of West’s death, did not charge
the officers. marilyn mosby did
not reopen the case when she
was state’s attorney.
At the time, an autopsy by the
maryland medical Examiner’s
office concluded West’s cause of
death was cardiac arrhythmia
from cardiac conduction system
abnormality complicated by de-
hydration during police re-
straint. fowler drew scrutiny for
FamiLy PhOTO
Gary savage with his self-
published 2019 memoir.
ness stand. She recounted that
after Savage shot Shabazz, Savage
went after her as she took cover
behind a nearby orange pickup.
“What was the defendant do-
ing?” Assistant State’s Attorney
Lauren Turner asked.
“Aiming the gun towards me
and shooting,” Tucker said, adding
that “at least two to three shots
were fired in my direction.”
At some point, according to wit-
ness testimony, Savage climbed
atop Shabazz’s SUV to try to get a
better view.
He climbed down, removed the
clip from his semiautomatic
handgun, threw it and the gun
onto the ground, and stripped na-
ked. He also called his mother in
North Carolina.
“I just wanted to hear her
voice,” he told jurors, admitting
under cross examination that he
told her, “I shot Amber’s boy-
friend.”
But Savage was adamant that
he never fired any shots at Tucker.
Defense attorneys Isabelle raquin
evidence existed to prove the
allegations of retaliation. The
moLC findings did not identify
either accuser. Neither falcicchio
nor his attorney, Grace Speights,
have responded to multiple re-
quests for comment.
With violence in the city mo-
nopolizing the public’s attention,
it is an open question how closely
Washingtonians have followed
the scandal. Yet among commu-
nity leaders, those attuned to
local politics, and Bowser loyal-
ists, falcicchio’s fall has been an
enduring focus of conversation
and social media chatter.
Tricia Duncan, chair of an Ad-
visory Neighborhood Commis-
sion that includes Spring Valley
and foxhall Village, said that in
her community the investiga-
tions of falcicchio have “busted
through to the people who don’t
pay a lot of attention to local
politics.”
“People are texting about it,”
she said. “It has reached the
kitchen table.”
Terry Lynch, a mount Pleasant-
based civic leader and a longtime
Bowser supporter, said the allega-
tions against falcicchio have not
altered his general view of the
mayor as a competent leader. “A
boss can’t control the personal
behavior of their employees,” he
said.
Nevertheless, Lynch said he
finds the allegations unsettling
and feels a sense of betrayal that a
trusted Bowser confidant had
the washington post
Maryland Attorney General Anthony G. Brown, seen in April, has
not embraced a request to initiate a probe of Tyrone West’s death.
deeming the cause of death for
George floyd undetermined in
court testimony for Derek Chau-
vin, linking it to heart disease
and drug use rather than to his
oxygen being cut off from the
pressure of Chauvin’s knee.
Advocates who have pushed
for changes in state laws to
ensure transparency and police
accountability say the responsi-
FamiLy PhOTO
Whali shabazz, 42, was fatally
shot on sept. 3, 2021.
and Steve mercer noted that po-
lice found only three shell casings
at the scene — and the number
matched the gunshot wounds to
Shabazz.
They stressed that Savage’s
crack and beer consumption not
only left him incapable of forming
“specific intent,” it was confirmed
by his behavior.
“The signs of intoxication in
this case, I mean you can really
take your pick,” raquin told ju-
rors. “And objectively speaking,
when you have somebody who is
rambling, talking to himself, go-
ing on top of a vehicle then jump-
ing off, undressing from head to
toe, being butt naked in broad
daylight, I mean you clearly know
these are objective signs of some-
one who does not know what he’s
doing, someone who has no intent
to hurt.”
Savage told jurors he hadn’t
come to maryland to harm Tucker
or Shabazz, but to give a family
member his car before checking
into drug rehab.
purportedly acted improperly.
“my concern is that there will be
more coming out as to what his
behavior was,” Lynch said.
falcicchio has remained the
subject of prolonged attention in
part because the second of the
two investigations only ended
July 31, more than four months
after the allegations first sur-
faced. The complaints are likely
to generate more news as further
developments unfold, including
if one or both women receive
financial settlements from the
city.
But Bowser drew added atten-
tion to the scandal by appearing
to downplay key developments.
for example, the mayor an-
nounced falcicchio’s departure
on march 17 in a single sentence
at the bottom of a lengthy news
release about staff changes,
thanking him “for his years of
service to the District as he transi-
tions to the private sector.”
It would become known three
days later, on march 20, that the
mayor by then had received the
harassment complaint from fal-
cicchio’s first accuser and
launched an investigation.
“It was almost to a T exactly
what you shouldn’t do in crisis
communications,” said Bryan
Weaver, a longtime Democratic
activist. “once you say he has left
to go to work in the private sector,
you’ve set yourself up for failure
and opened yourself up to a series
of questions. Why wouldn’t you
say there are these allegations
and John offered his resignation
and then say this is unacceptable
behavior?”
The mayor also prompted
questions about the moLC inves-
tigation’s credibility when her ad-
ministration released the sum-
mary of the first report at a time
when it would draw minimal
notice — on a Saturday night
during a holiday weekend. After
The Post contacted the mayor’s
. monday, august 7 , 2023
BiLL O'Leary/The WashingTOn POsT
bility ultimately rests with Bates.
“The public needs to under-
stand that, when they are serious
about it, local prosecutors always
have the authority to pursue
justice for survivors of police
violence — and for those who did
not survive,” Sonia Kumar, senior
staff attorney with the American
Civil Liberties Union of mary-
land, said in an email.
Prosecutors stressed his text
messages, written before the trip,
were proof of his purpose.
They noted that additional
shell casings could have gotten
lost in grass near Shabazz’s body,
or accidentally kicked away by
first-responding medics and pa-
trol officers. And they stressed
that two of the discovered shell
casings were on the passenger
side of the SUV, near where Savage
was standing when he fired at
Tucker. Prosecutors urged jurors
to convict Savage of premeditated,
first-degree murder for fatally
shooting Shabazz and attempted,
premeditated first-degree murder
for shooting at Tucker.
Jurors deliberated for nine
hours. They acquitted Savage of
murder but guilty of voluntary
manslaughter in Shabazz’s death.
To reach that conclusion, accord-
ing to their 36 pages of jury in-
structions, they had to conclude
Savage acted in imperfect self-de-
fense. The jury was less forgiving
on his actions toward Tucker:
Guilty of first-degree attempted
murder. That count is punishable
by up to life in prison.
Neither side would say what
sentence they would seek in No-
vember. But Davis, Shabazz’s sis-
ter who lives in maryland and
testified at the trial, said she
hoped Savage would get a life
term. To Davis, Savages’s premedi-
tation and plans were clear. “He
drove all the way up here and had
a whole lot of time to come to his
senses,” she said.
Instead, Savage got out with a
loaded gun and approached Sha-
bazz’s SUV, according to Davis, as
the aggressor. “my brother had a
gun,” she said, “but he couldn’t get
to it and get it out. I wish he could
have.”
spokesperson that night, the
moLC released a statement from
the mayor at 11:25 p.m. and pro-
vided a link to the report.
The release’s timing prodded
council members to raise the
volume on their demand for an
independent investigation.
Council member Zachary Park-
er (D-Ward 5), who initially de-
scribed the timing as a “pedestri-
an attempt” to “downplay the
findings of a damning report,”
said additional scrutiny by an
independent investigator could
help settle unanswered ques-
tions.
“It has been surprising the way
the mayor has tried to divert
attention from this case,” he said.
“I hope that an independent in-
vestigation will fully investigate
beyond where moLC stopped
and send a message to others that
cases of sexual harassment will be
taken seriously regardless of who
makes the allegations.”
Yvette m. Alexander, a Bowser
ally and former council member,
said the criticism of the mayor is
overblown, given falcicchio’s de-
parture and the mayor’s legal
office substantiated the accusers’
harassment claims. “What else
could she do?” Alexander asked.
“She had the investigation and
the investigation had its findings.
She did what she needed to do.
People are trying to create more
drama when everything was done
right.”
Palmer said that when it comes
to ethical questions in govern-
ment “things need to look above
board in addition to being above
board.”
“There may well be nothing
wrong here with what she knew,
but the way this has rolled out
looks weird,” she said. “I don’t
know why you wouldn’t out-
source it. Then it’s not your mis-
takes, it’s someone else’s. I don’t
know why you would want re-
sponsibility for that.”
 KLMNO

Style monday, auguSt 7 , 2023 . SeCtion C eZ re

BooK WorlD

On bestseller
list, self-help
and unsettled
science collide
BY K RISTEN M ARTIN

On the first page of “The Grieving

Brain,” the neuroscientist and psycholo-
gist Mary-Frances O’Connor writes: “Po-
ets, writers, and artists have given us
moving renderings of the almost inde-
scribable nature of loss. … As human
beings, we seem compelled to try to com-
municate what our grief is like, to describe
carrying this burden.”
In her book, published by the imprint
Harper One (tagline: “Books that trans-
form and inspire”), O’Connor seeks to tell
us what all those poets, writers and artists
couldn’t about grief: why we feel it, from
the standpoint of neuroscience.
O’Connor, who directs the Grief, Loss
and social stress (GLAss) lab at the Uni-
versity of Arizona, was among the first to
use functional magnetic resonance imag-
ing (fMRI) brain scans to study grief.
When her first study on the neuroanato-
my of grief was published in the early
2000s, fMRI technology was only about a
decade old and was seen as a revolution-
ary breakthrough in modern neurosci-
ence — itself only a few decades older. The
giant magnets of an fMRI machine detect

Mayhem at
the iron in oxygenated red blood cells; the
resulting scans depict the changes in oxy-
genated blood flow that coincide with
brain activity. This technology promised
to show which parts of the brain “lit up”

the movie
when a patient was performing a particu-
lar task, seemingly giving neuroscientists
the ability to map the brain and chart
where each particular emotion, thought

theater
or action originates.
“The Grieving Brain” represents O’Con-
nor’s attempt to translate her fMRI-based
research for a general audience. In this, it
joins a genre that psychiatrist Bessel van
der Kolk popularized with “The Body
Drunken outbursts, public nudity Keeps the score: Brain, Mind, and Body in
the Healing of Trauma” (2014). In recent
and nonstop cellphone use are years, van der Kolk’s book, with its Mat-
disrupting ‘Barbenheimer’ fans isse-bedecked cover, invaded social me-
dia, rendering it both a meme and a
sleeper bestseller — it has stayed near the
BY S OFIA A NDRADE AND J ANAY K INGSBERRY sEE BooK WoRLD On C3

R
yan Gosling was having a big mo-
ment on-screen bro’ing up the Bar-
bie Dreamhouse when Tess Connolly,
22, first spotted something amiss. ¶ It was a
9:30 p.m. showing of “Barbie” at the Regal
Cinema in downtown Denver, and the thea-
ter’s manager had begun pleading with a
man seated a few rows in front of Connolly
and her younger brother. The man, the

Why hotels
manager said, needed to leave. But the
moviegoer wouldn’t budge. That’s when five

have secretly
security guards showed up and Connolly
truly took in the spectacle in front of her —

been targeting
and, unfortunately, it wasn’t Ken shouting
“sublime!” sEE moviEs On C2

IStOck
your nose
BY A LI W UNDERMAN

‘Reclining Liberty’ takes a rest, raises questions in Arlington There’s a special moment following a
trip — it could be days later, even
months or years — when an aroma wafts
through the air that suddenly transports
BY Z OE G LASSER you back to your destination, like the
warm coconut smell of an Caribbean
Lady Liberty levitated by crane above resort or light lavender scent of luxury
Arlington early Thursday morning, as- spa day.
sisted by a team of Museum of Contem- The nostalgia inspired by a smell is
porary Art Arlington staff and the sculp- hopefully a pleasant experience, but for
tor who made her, Zaq Landsberg. As she hotels using signature scents, it’s also
glided — surprisingly gracefully, consid- happening by design. By tapping into
ering her 25-foot-length — passersby the power of scent, hotels can set the
stopped to gawk. Landsberg, 38, looked mood, create memories and stay top of
on like a watchful parent until the guests’ minds when they leave.
sculpture came to rest on the grass. When it comes to memory, there is no
“Reclining Liberty,” modeled after her sense more closely linked than smell.
much taller counterpart, has found a “Our olfactory system is unique com-
new home at MoCA Arlington. The piece pared to our other sensory systems in
depicts the statue laying on her side with that the pathways from the nose and
her head cupped in one hand, one foot olfactory bulb go directly into memory
flexed, the pose alluding to depictions of and emotion centers in the brain, such
the Buddha during his final days before as the entorhinal cortex and amygdala,”
reaching parinirvana. A formal opening Jennifer newson, in-house neuroscience
celebration was held over the weekend, consultant at neurocosmetics brand
and she will relax on the museum’s lawn Children of Earth skincare, said in an
until July 2024. sEE HoTEL smELL On C8
“By merging the traditional Buddhist
reclining pose and the quintessential
American figurative symbol, Reclining
‘Planet of tHe Bass’
Liberty asks the viewer to contemplate
the status of the ideals the statue of Original Ms. Biljana electronica
Liberty represents,” co-sponsors MoCA is just fine, thank you. c3
Arlington and Arlington Arts said in a
joint news release. Music
The statue, originally installed in
Manhattan’s Morningside Park in 2021, Misogynistic reggaeton songs
is not Landberg’s first take on Lady face fines in Mexican city. c4
Liberty. In 2012, he created “Face of
Liberty,” which depicted the statue’s carolyn Hax
visage partially buried in the ground of craIg hudSOn fOr the WaShIngtOn POSt

new York’s Governors Island, the spikes Artist Zaq Landsberg hopes his sculpture “Reclining Liberty” will inspire viewers to examine the meanings the statue of My sister criticized my parenting
sEE LADy LiBERTy On C2 Liberty carries. The statue is on display at the museum of Contemporary Art Arlington through July 2024. advice. What do I do? c8
C2
Lady
Liberty
comes
to Earth
LAdy LIBERTy from C1
of her crown piercing the sky.
This piece, which served as an
installation at figment NYC, is
also designed with audience in-
teraction in mind.
In fact, many of Landberg’s
statues involve physical interac-
tion with space. one of his proj-
ects is space itself — a work
called “Zaqistan,” in which he
created his own nation in a small
area of desert near Salt Lake City.
Zaqistan, which Landsberg be-
gan in 2005, is home to sand,
desert brush and several of his
sculptures, including three “ro-
bot guardians” and a “victory
arch.” Beginning in 2012, he host-
ed installations about the “coun-
try” in Buenos Aires, New York
and Chicago.
many of his pieces also grapple
with American history and colo-
nialism, including a reproduc-
tion of a Stealth fighter jet cov-
ered in AstroTurf and embedded
in the ground, also on Governors
Island, in 2011. In 2019, he creat-
ed a bust of Confederate Gen.
robert E. Lee cast in mycelium
fungus, making it look as though
it is decomposing. His “Tomb
Effigy of margaret Corbin,” in-
stalled in Brooklyn’s Green-Wood
cemetery, honors the first wom-
an to die fighting in the
revolutionary War.
“reclining Liberty” is another
of Landberg’s works that interro-
gates what he refers to as the
“Institution with a capital I.” The
symbolism behind the Statue of
Liberty resonates with him, he
says, partly because his own
family immigrated to the United
States. He wanted to examine the
multitude of meanings the figure
carries, including those about
immigration, patriotism and
freedom.
for this reason, one of the
piece’s goals is to be accessible —
Lady Liberty is relaxed in the
grass, not towering above view-
ers from a pedestal. It is easy to
interact with her, and he hopes
that people will.
Movie theater
rudeness part
of a worrying
movement
MOVIES from C1
“one of the security guards was
saying to the guy, ‘Dude, you
cannot be naked in here,’ ” she
recalled. “The guy was all con-
fused and upset that he couldn’t
be naked in the theater … he was
getting all worked up.” The secu-
rity guard proceeded to ask the
audience to assist in 86’ing the
man. According to Connolly,
many responded by yelling things
like: “Get this freak out of here!”
and “my teenage girls are here!”
meanwhile, “Barbie” kept playing
in the background.
Though the man was eventual-
ly removed from the packed thea-
ter, Connolly worries she may
have missed the funniest part of
Greta Gerwig’s long-anticipated
film.
“It was so much worse that this
happened at ‘Barbie,’ ” Connolly
said of the naked man, “because
everyone was wearing their Ken
costumes and pink boas.”
“Barbenheimer” — the twin
release of blockbusters “Barbie”
and “oppenheimer” — may have
broken box-office records and
brought people out to the thea-
ters in droves, but it also high-
lighted a very real problem: Some
people seem to have forgotten
how to go to the movies, with
widespread reports of drunken
outbursts, rampant cellphone use
and exhibitionism.
At a “Barbie” showing at an
AmC theater in Washington last
Sunday, a man wearing a pink
tank top and body glitter loudly
identified with the Kens on-
screen. Throughout the film —
and despite multiple shushes —
he would cheer, sing or stand up
and pump his fist from his front-
section seat whenever the Kens
rallied against the Barbies. He
apologized to the audience at one
point, explaining that he was
“wasted,” but nevertheless con-
tinued disrupting the show until
the film’s climax, at which point
he got into a slap fight with an
acquaintance sitting beside him.
online, stories of unruly or
CLOCKWISE FROM TOP: “Reclining Liberty” arrives outside of the Museum of Contemporary Art Arlington on Thursday. The
installation, which weighs between 2,500 and 3,000 pounds, will be on display until July 2024. Victoria Rhoads, in costume, plays in
front of the statue during the opening ceremony on Saturday. John Sosa helps put the statue in place outside the museum.
“There’s plaster layers, the
copper, the patina, but really, the
last layer is the kids climbing on
it,” he said. “This thing, it’s on the
ground, there’s no pedestal,
there’s no admission ticket,
there’s no velvet rope.”
Blair murphy, the curator of
exhibitions at moCA Arlington,
Run times for “Oppenheimer” and “Barbie” on display at a Los Angeles movie theater. Moviegoers
nationwide say they have been appalled by the rude antics of fellow viewers at the two films.
otherwise disrespectful guests at
screenings over the past few
weeks have gone viral. In one
particularly memorable video
from what appears to be a “Bar-
bie” screening in Brazil, a woman
violently pushes another woman
to the floor. The ensuing fight
plays out as Billie Eilish’s “Barbie”
song (“I used to float, now I just
fall down”) plays in the back-
ground.
The bad behavior wasn’t limit-
ed to energized “Barbie” audienc-
es, either: “Saw ‘oppenheimer’
last night in one of the worst
behaved crowds I’ve ever been in,
multiple camera flashes through-
out, people in front of us scrolling
TikTok half way thru the film,”
user @silvergelpen wrote last
weekend on Twitter, which has
recently been renamed X. “If you
don’t have the attention span for
a 3 hour movie don’t leave the
house to attend one.”
others soon chimed in with
their own experiences: loud talk-
ing, disruptive entering and exit-
ing the theater, bursts of laughter
at inappropriate moments and
videos taken with flash of scenes
with the potential for TikTok vi-
rality.
The mayhem isn’t limited to
movie theaters. The past year has
seen a disturbing trend of audi-
ence members throwing objects
at musicians onstage. over on
Broadway, an unruly woman halt-
ed a performance of “Death of a
Salesman” back in December,
eZ re
CrAIg hudson For The WAshIngTon PosT
first contacted Landsberg in
2009. The two kept in touch, and
when she learned that “reclining
Liberty” would need a new home
after its year-long residences in
New York and New Jersey, she
contacted Landsberg to see if
Arlington could be next. murphy,
like Landsberg, hopes that the
while a Playbill exposé from the
spring detailed aggression
toward ushers and other theater
workers, who reported being spat
on and screamed at regularly. Not
even the skies are safe: Last week,
an American Airlines pilot went
viral for lecturing “selfish and
rude” passengers on airplane be-
havior (“Nobody wants to hear
your video”).
Nobody’s quite figured out
where everyone’s good manners
have gone — and what is exactly
causing the current collapse in
civility.
roxane Cohen Silver, a profes-
sor of psychology at the Univer-
sity of California at Irvine, and an
expert on stress and personal
trauma, says this behavior could
be linked to a string of recent
events.
“It is clear that the past three
years have been challenging for
many people in our country. We
have experienced a series of col-
lective traumas, cascading one to
the next, which for many has been
almost too much to bear. The
combination of the pandemic,
inflation, mass shootings, cli-
mate-related disasters, political
polarization and so on, has taxed
our capacity to cope,” Cohen
Silver said in an email. “It is
important to recognize this reali-
ty as we examine behavior this
summer.”
others are calling out cell-
phone culture and a constant,
self-centered need for stimula-
new context of the piece will
bring unique interpretations.
“There’s memorials and monu-
ments here in Arlington, and we
interact with D.C. all the time. We
thought this was interesting to
bring it to this environment,” she
said. “The Statue of Liberty is this
emblem of all of these values that
VAlerIe mACon/AFP/geTTy ImAges
tion. “for the entire history of
theaters people were able to pay
attention. The only difference
now is the phones,” tweeted NBC
news tech and culture reporter
Kat Tenbarg.
When Brandon Thint, 24, went
to see “Barbie” at a Cinemark in
Austin, the last 20 minutes of the
movie were spoiled for him by
younger kids watching YouTube
videos near the front of the thea-
ter at full volume during “the
emotional climax of the movie.”
Viviana freyer, 21, had a simi-
lar experience at her opening-
night “oppenheimer” screening
in miami. While she was excited
to see the new Christopher Nolan
epic on 70mm film, the experi-
ence quickly soured when a group
of “really rowdy teenagers” talked
through the entire movie, having
loud reactions to “moments
where you were not supposed to
be that loud.”
“I do understand that ‘Barben-
heimer’ is the first sort of big
movie event in a very long time,
and people are excited about the
movies, and a lot of these people
who are causing this ruckus are
young and are participating in
the ‘Barbenheimer’ trend,” freyer
said. “But … I do think the recent
trend of super-interactive super-
hero movies combined with the
internet and TikTok has kind of
made this cocktail for rowdy be-
havior at the movies.”
The behavior she witnessed,
she said, is encouraged by block-
the washington post
CrAIg hudson For The WAshIngTon PosT
Zoe glAsser/The WAshIngTon PosT
we associate with the United
States. I’m interested in that
aspect … that it takes this symbol
of American ideals that is usually
very much at a distance or on a
pedestal and really breaks it
down. It … has an element of
humor, but then there are these
conversations you can have.
buster marvel movies, for exam-
ple, where time for audience reac-
tions to plot twists and surprise
characters is built into the film
itself. “ ‘oppenheimer’ of all mov-
ies is not meant to be a spectator
sport kind of experience,” she
said.
movie-theater policies, in the
meantime, are serving as a final
line of defense for film fans frus-
trated by their seat neighbors’
outbursts.
At Alamo Drafthouse Cinema,
a dine-in theater chain known for
its strictly enforced “no talking,
no texting” policy, guests can dis-
creetly flag unruly behavior by
raising an order card to alert staff.
“We’re not going to see every
single thing that happens and
how disruptive it is to you and
your guest, so we do rely on that
kind of communication,” said
michael Pieri, an executive gener-
al manager who oversees two
Alamo locations in the D.C. area.
He says the system has been
working well. “The only times
that I’ve really seen hesitation is
when it’s somebody who’s break-
ing the rules right next to you,”
Pieri said, explaining that some
guests might feel uncomfortable
reporting the behavior in front of
the person. The most common
violations he notices at his loca-
tions pertain to Alamo’s late pol-
icy, which prohibits guests from
arriving 15 minutes after the post-
ed showtime.
In the weeks since “Barben-
heimer” opened in theaters, Pieri
said there have certainly been
more violations of Alamo’s talk-
ing and texting policy, “but that’s
because there’s more bodies in
the building.”
But Alamo did make some ex-
ceptions for the release of
“Barbie.” Both of Pieri’s venues
hosted “Barbie” slumber party
viewings where people were en-
couraged to show up in pajamas.
Those events, he said, are what
“we call our ‘rowdy screenings’
[with] relaxed policies where we
encourage people to kind of talk a
little bit.”
“The biggest issue is you can
only be so prepared,” said Pieri,
noting how earnings for “Barbie”
far exceeded box-office expecta-
tions. “When it exponentially
blows up like that, there’s only so
much preparation you can do.”
Asking a disruptive person to
stop or raising the issue to theater
workers isn’t a foolproof method,
either. (And the offending party
. monday, august 7 , 2023
What does this actually repre-
sent?”
Saturday’s opening event pre-
sented attendees with the same
question, but also featured bub-
ble machines, a make-your-own-
crown activity station, easels on
which to draw your own master-
piece, live music and food stands.
As the band began to play, most
attendees admired the statue
from a distance. Some snapped
photos of their friends and family
posing with her; one man imitat-
ed her relaxed posture, eliciting a
laugh from the crowd. Although
a plaque encouraged further
touching of the statue, only a few
did at first.
When Vera rhoads and Steph-
anie Chun wheeled 18-month-old
twin sisters Victoria and
margaret’s double stroller
toward the statue, the lawn
erupted into awwws. It took
considerable finagling from
rhoads and Chun to photograph
the twins, both dressed up as the
Statue of Liberty. rhoads,
dressed in a Statue of Liberty
T-shirt herself, says the family
moved from manhattan. They
loved the real Statue of Liberty,
and were thrilled that this new
installation was in town.
After Landsberg’s welcome
speech and Q&A session, during
which he mentioned that the
statue weighs somewhere be-
tween 2,500 and 3,000 pounds,
more families began taking pic-
tures while climbing the sculp-
ture. Tiffany marchante and her
five-year-old twins, Ezekiel and
Isabella Ulloa, opted to draw in
chalk on the sidewalk next to it.
To marchante, the statue repre-
sents her family’s experience em-
igrating from El Salvador. It
reminds her that the United
States “isn’t perfect,” she says,
but she’s grateful to her parents
for her life here.
“It’s my favorite color, green,”
Ezekiel chimed in, hula hoop in
hand, “and it kind of looks like a
zombie.”
for Carol mcCoskrie and
Celeste Heath, “reclining Liber-
ty” represents American patriot-
ic values in their complex forms.
She and Heath said they appreci-
ate the peaceful-looking symbol-
ism of the Buddha in combina-
tion with the famous American
symbol of freedom. mcCoskrie
mentioned the rise in political
discord in recent years, and
hopes the statue will promote
conversation about America’s na-
tional cultural values, especially
because of its accessibility to
children.
“We all have to think hard
about what liberty is together,”
she said.
can react with even more disrup-
tion, as appeared to be the case in
the Brazil theater.)
When Abby Luca, 19, attended
a regular Alamo Drafthouse
screening of “Barbie” in Yonkers,
N.Y., she said her experience was
ruined by a visibly drunk group of
women who spent the entirety of
the movie dancing, having con-
versations with the on-screen
characters and making other
loud noises. Though several in the
theater asked the women to be
quiet, and “the security went over
to them, like maybe four times” to
tell them they would be kicked
out, they received only warnings.
“It was extremely distracting,
honestly,” Luca said, adding that
she worries she may have missed
crucial parts of the film. “I feel
like there were details that we
didn’t even get, and stuff that I’ve
seen posted that I didn’t catch on
to.”
Her experience at the theater
was so disrupted that she plans to
see “Barbie” again.
“I used to be an avid shusher.
Now, I choose my battles because
I don’t want to get stabbed in a
movie theater,” said Justin Chang,
a film critic for the Los Angeles
Times and NPr’s “fresh Air.” Af-
ter having to ask moviegoers to
wear their masks at the height of
the pandemic, distracting phones
seemed less pressing: “People’s
habits were bad before the pan-
demic. They were bad [during]
the pandemic wave, and they’re
bad now … It’s always bad, so I do
choose to pick my battles now. I
just get desensitized to it.”
Similarly, when someone seat-
ed next to Alex West, 28, started
browsing through Instagram for
much of “Barbie,” he simply chose
to ignore them. “At this point it’s
just something you get used to …
especially in a packed theater,”
West said.
In the end, the “Barbenheimer”
phenomenon, Chang said, is “an
interesting kind of litmus test.”
maybe, he said, the live tweeting,
filming and talking during movie
screenings — “all these things
that are so incredibly disturbing,
disrespectful and distracting to
moviegoers” — are just the way
people engage with films now.
“People acting as if a public
space is their living room is a
problem that affects all of us,” he
said, “not just [in] movie thea-
ters.”
Avi selk contributed to this report.
monday, august 7 , 2023 . the washington post eZ re C3

Science mind, such as empathy, imitation,

synchrony, and even the develop-
ment of language.” This makes it
sound like experiments on hu-

made a mans followed. Yes, we are closely

related to the macaque monkeys
used in these studies, but the con-
nection between our evolutionary

little too lines diverged 25 million years

ago. our brains are capable of
more than monkey brains, and not
just because they are bigger.

simple Beyond the hyperbole common

when neuroscience crosses over
into self-help is the popularization
of theories that have already been
disproved. “The Body Keeps the
BOOK WORLD from C1 Score” takes the prize in this
realm. Van der Kolk is totally cred-
top of the New York Times paper- ulous when it comes to researcher
back nonfiction list for 248 weeks, Stephen Porges’s ideas about the
more than 41/2 years. “The Body vagus nerve, a central component
Keeps the Score” found an eager of the parasympathetic nervous
and sizable audience because it system that controls basic bodily
boiled down complex ideas about functions such as digestion and
the physiological and behavioral resting heart rate.
effects of trauma — the visceral As van der Kolk sees it, Porges’s
ways we feel mental pain, the last- polyvagal theory explains why,
ing role of early adversity in the when faced with danger, people
patterns we fall into as adults — respond in different ways. When
into explanations that feel intui- we collapse or disengage in a dan-
tively true. We have all felt our guts gerous situation, van der Kolk
clench and pulses quicken in mo- says, we’ve been taken over by the
ments of fear or anguish; we have dorsal vagal complex, “an evolu-
all questioned why we can’t con- tionarily ancient part of the para-
trol our emotional reactions. sympathetic nervous system.” Ex-
iStock
cept the dorsal vagal complex

I
first picked up “The Grieving
Brain” for the same reason that
I read “The Body Keeps the
Score” the year before: I wanted to
understand how a series of firing
neurons can suddenly leave me in
tears when I get an unexpected
reminder of my parents, who both
died of cancer about 20 years ago,
when I was a young teen. more
than that, I wanted the objectivity
and rationality of science to im-
pose order on my grief.
reading “The Body Keeps the
Score,” I realized that my experi-
ence of losing my parents — while
devastating and life-altering —
wasn’t traumatic, exactly; at least
not by van der Kolk’s definition,
making me wonder why so many
readers had slogged through its
dense descriptions of brain activi-
ty. As science journalist Eleanor
Cummins argued in the Atlantic,
when researchers like van der
tific wisdom is now recirculating
in new media, calcifying into con-
sensus that we can’t stop parrot-
ing. most Americans have poor
scientific literacy — as the pan-
demic attests — and yet we cannot
get enough of using the language
of neuroscience to talk about our
brains and seeking self-help solu-
tions to what we think ails us
neurologically.
Beyond “The Grieving Brain”
and “The Body Keeps the Score,”
publishing has cashed in on these
desires in recent years with best-
sellers such as psychiatrist Bruce
D. Perry and oprah Winfrey’s
“What Happened to You? Conver-
sations on Trauma, resilience,
and Healing,” biologist and neu-
rologist robert m. Sapolsky’s “Be-
have: The Biology of Humans at
our Best and Worst,” and clinical
psychologist Lisa feldman Bar-
when the Belgian anatomist An-
dreas Vesalius illustrated what he
observed via autopsies and dissec-
tions in “De Humani Corporis
fabrica.” Vesalius’s empirical
drawings finally unseated theo-
ries put forward in the second
century that the brain was com-
posed of four fluid-filled ventricles
through which the “pneuma phys-
icon,” or animal spirit, flowed.
It wasn’t until 1848, when a
railroad construction foreman
named Phineas Gage survived an
accident in which an iron rod was
driven through his head, that it
was proved that different areas of
the brain are responsible for dif-
ferent functions. That break-
through initially seemed to back
up some of the tenets of phrenolo-
gy, a pseudoscience that studied
bumps on the skull and offered
“evidence” for racist ideas —
human — will inevitably be re-
vised, refined and sometimes
proved wrong. The imaging revo-
lution, starting with the invention
of the positron emission tomogra-
phy (PET) scanner and the mrI in
the 1970s, seemed to bring neuro-
science out of the dark ages. But
the fmrI scan, which is just over
30 years old, has already had epi-
sodes of comeuppance. In 2009, a
neuroscientist put a dead salmon
through an fmrI and detected
activity in its dead brain, showing
how easy it is to produce a false
positive when sorting through the
statistical noise of these scans.
Beyond statistical dangers, there’s
an even more fundamental prob-
lem of interpreting what fmrI
scans depict. A scan can correctly
identify the areas of a person’s
brain that are receiving blood flow
at a particular moment, but we
of psychological science. These
books propose that the findings of
fmrI studies provide ground-
breaking insight into human emo-
tions and behaviors. These claims
play into the motivations of every-
one involved in the intersection of
neuroscience and self-help, like
the scientists who get to promote
the real-world applicability of
their work outside of the academy
(and thus gain fame within it) and
the publishers who are willing to
shell out hefty advances for books
that promise to meet readers’ end-
less appetite to understand why
they feel bad — and promise solu-
tions. At best, these books over-
simplify and overstate the take-
aways of neuroscientific research;
at worst, they rehash neuroscien-
tific ideas that are already out-
moded.
hasn’t actually been proved to ex-
ist in humans. Some of van der
Kolk’s readers spread this theory
further on Instagram carousels
about trauma-informed parent-
ing and breathing and stretching
exercises to help you move from
“freeze + disassociation states to
calm and connection states.”
Perhaps unsurprisingly, van der
Kolk also buys into the triune
brain model, as do many thera-
pists on social media. maybe
you’ve heard of it as your “lizard
brain” or “reptilian brain” — the
idea that humans have a primitive
brain center that acts on instinct.
The triune brain model, devel-
oped in the mid-20th century by
neuroscientist Paul macLean, has
long been considered nonsense by
most neuroscientists; the theory
was first disproved back in the
1970s. Van der Kolk proposes that
when we are pulled back into trau-

Kolk talk about “trauma,” they
mean something quite different
from the everyday discomfort im-
posed by, say, the first year of the
coronavirus pandemic. In the psy-
chiatric world, ruled by the Diag-
nostic and Statistical manual of
mental Disorders, trauma mani-
fests in physical and emotional
wounds from experiences like
combat, or surviving horrific acci-
dents or acts of violence.
my feelings around my parents’
deaths may not result from trau-
ma, but they are definitely grief.
As I read “The Grieving Brain,” I
encountered descriptions that
mirrored some of my emotions
back to me: my anguish over not
being able to locate my parents on
this earthly plane, my yearning to
be close to them. But I questioned
why I had sought an “objective,”
neurobiological stamp of approv-
al on what I had already known
about how and why humans suffer
when we are bereaved: We long for
our dead, we face the need to
adapt to a world without them in
it, we dwell on what our lives
would be like if our dead had
instead lived. Even o’Connor ac-
knowledges early on that she does
“not believe that a neuroscientific
perspective on grief is any better
rett’s “How Emotions Are made:
The Secret Life of the Brain.” more
such books are forthcoming:
“Brain performance coach” Nicole
Vignola — who has a bachelor’s
degree in neuroscience and more
than 300,000 people following
her advice on Instagram — recent-
ly sold “rewire: The Neuroscience
of a Good Life” to Harper one and
12 other publishers worldwide.
The book, pitched as a “toolkit for
shifting deeply ingrained brain
behavioral patterns,” is due out
next spring.
The more I learned about how
much some of these books over-
play what neuroscience can tell us
about the brain and human behav-
ior, the more I thought that the
self-helpification of a relatively
young and incredibly complex
field of scientific study is not so
helpful after all. We keep consult-
ing neuroscience — even when its
findings are disproved or over-
blown — to explain the human
condition, and often to validate
what we want to believe or what
we already know. Tracing all of our
messy emotions, reactions and
habits to the workings of electrical
currents and neurochemicals lets
us off the hook.
namely, that characteristics such
as benevolence were controlled by
“organs,” or areas, of the brain.
Our interest in talking
about what’s going on
inside our brains isn’t
new, but received
neuroscientific wisdom
is recirculating in new
media, calcifying into
consensus that we can’t
stop parroting.
As recently as the mid-20th cen-
tury, doctors performed loboto-
mies on people deemed mentally
ill, severing the connection be-
tween the thalamus and the fron-
tal lobe. Neuroscientists like
Walter freeman, the biggest evan-
gelist for the lobotomy in the Unit-
ed States, believed that psychosis
was caused by endlessly circling
can’t definitively say that activa-
tion of a brain region equals a
particular emotional or cognitive
state. An activated amygdala can
be pointed to as proof of negative
emotions like fear, stress or anxi-
ety, but also positive ones, like
happiness.
more recent reevaluation of
fmrI scans taken while subjects
are triggered to feel certain emo-
tions — the kind that o’Connor
and van der Kolk have deployed in
their research and write about in
their books — has further revealed
their limitations. In 2020, Ahmad
Hariri, a Duke University profes-
sor of psychology and neurosci-
ence, led a team that conducted a
reanalysis of 56 published aca-
demic studies based on fmrI
analysis, and found that when an
individual has their brain scanned
in an fmrI, the results are not
replicable on a second scan. You
can have the same person conduct
the same task while in an fmrI
scanner a few months later and
get a different readout of brain
activation. While bad fmrI data
will probably not lead to the same
horrors as phrenology and loboto-
mies, it’s not hard to imagine how
these scans could be manipulated
to diagnose people with psychiat-
I
n “The Grieving Brain,”
o’Connor constantly hedges
when writing about the status
of knowledge in the field. Here she
is on mirror neurons, brain cells
that TikTok users can’t get enough
of. She’s using them to explain
how “neural machinery” helps us
feel close to others, and later how
our brains struggle when we can-
not be close to our dead: “If you
show a monkey that you are doing
something with your hand —
grasping a banana, for example —
some of his same neurons will fire
when he watches you grasp the
banana as when he grasps the
banana himself.” Immediately fol-
lowing this clunky explanation,
she inserts a caveat that I had
never seen issued in discussions of
mirror neurons, which come up
frequently to explain empathy:
“Despite the widespread interest
in mirror neurons, human neu-
roimaging does not have suffi-
ciently high definition to detect
individual mirror neurons in hu-
mans.”
In “The Body Keeps the Score,”
van der Kolk writes about those
same monkey experiments on
mirror neurons, calling them “one
of the truly sensational discover-
ies of modern neuroscience.” He
ma, we behave like lizards. People
still love this explanation — like
mirror neurons, it’s all over Tik-
Tok.
Van der Kolk must be aware
that his peers have long discredit-
ed the idea of the “reptilian brain,”
but he continues to give it the
sheen of scientific credibility in
his work, perhaps because it
speaks to something a large audi-
ence wants to hear: If some of our
worst reactions stem from a prim-
itive, animalistic part of our
brains, we are not really responsi-
ble for them.
Neuroscientific self-help books
scratch the same itch as labeling
everything a trauma response,
self-diagnosing ADHD and treat-
ing mental health diagnosis like a
giant Buzzfeed quiz. They super-
impose order on the messiness of
emotions, telling us that looking
inside the brain can explain why
we feel so out of control. With neat
answers come neat solutions, as
though we can life-hack some of
the hardest parts of being a person
— grieving our loved ones, grap-
pling with the long effects of trau-
ma. But there is no remedy for the
human condition, and implying
that it’s all in our heads makes our
pain seem like a glitch instead of a

than a sociological, a religious, or
an anthropological one,” but she
feels that “neuroscience is part of
the conversation of our times.”
our interest in talking about
what’s going on inside our brains
isn’t new, but received neuroscien-
H
umans have been trying to
understand the brain since
the time of Hippocrates;
neuroscience is still in its toddler-
hood. Western physicians didn’t
even know what the brain looked
like until the mid-16th century,
thoughts and that cutting off the
prefrontal cortex would break the
circuit.
It’s worth remembering that as
we advance in our understanding,
what we know about the brain —
such a key part of what makes us
ric illnesses they may not have, or
to deny insurance coverage for
treatments they need.
And yet books that tout the
results of fmrI studies are still
being marketed to everyday read-
ers who aren’t up to date on issues
obscures the distinction between
monkeys and humans, though:
“Numerous other experiments fol-
lowed around the world, and it
soon became clear that mirror
neurons explained many previ-
ously unexplainable aspects of the
feature.
Kristen Martin is a cultural critic
based in Philadelphia. Her debut
narrative nonfiction book on American
orphanhood is forthcoming from Bold
type Books.

Q&A something that is ’90s club were so shocked when you were
dance vibe, that’s perfect.” replaced in the second video.

Where is the original I showed up that Sunday

morning. We went to the oculus
[a shopping center at the World
Was it always the plan for your
version of ms. Biljana Electroni-
ca to disappear?

Ms. Biljana Electronica? Trade Center], so of course there

BY S AMANTHA C HERY
The original ms. Biljana Elec-
tronica wants you to know she’s
safe and well.
If you have any idea who that
is, just skip to the Q&A with her
below. If you don’t — or are
generally confused about why an
American parody of 1990s Euro-
dance videos called “Planet of the
Bass” is suddenly everyone’s song
of the summer — we’ll catch you
up first.
The 50-second video is a
broken-English earworm star-
ring DJ Crazy Times (comedian
Kyle Gordon) and Biljana
Electronica (Audrey Trullinger).
The pair dance through a shop-
ping mall in cropped tops, baggy
pants and sunglasses while lip-
syncing vaguely Aqua-like non-
sense such as:
Biljana: “When the rhythm is
glad / There is nothing to be sad. /
Danger and dance / Clapping the
hands.”
DJ Crazy Times: “Boom! Hear
the bass go zoom. / Have a body,
feel the groove. / Cyber system
overload / Everybody move-
ment!”
made as a promo for the song’s
release on streaming services lat-
er this month, the video spread
like wildfire after appearing on-
line on July 28, gaining tens of
millions of views across various
social media platforms.
Committing to the bit, Gordon
released a second promo video
for “Planet of the Bass” on Thurs-
day, inexplicably with a different
performer (mara olney) playing
Biljana over exactly the same
vocal track.
fans of Trullinger’s original
performance flooded the com-
ments with complaints: “Where
is she?” “Bro bring back blondie
or I’m out.” Gordon had to explain
in interviews that he was satiriz-
ing real Eurodance bands’ repu-
tation for swapping out their
members.
Trullinger, an actress from
New York, isn’t even the actual
singer of the song. “Planet of the
Bass,” which is set to be released
on Spotify, Apple music and other
streaming platforms on Aug. 15,
is performed by Chrissi Poland
and Gordon. It’s co-written by
Gordon and Brooks Allison, a
sketch writer for “The Tonight
Audrey Trullinger, an actress from New York, played Ms. Biljana
Electronica in the Eurodance parody “Planet of the Bass.”
Show Starring Jimmy fallon.”
But fans don’t care. They want
to know what happened to the
first Biljana Electronica. So The
Washington Post caught up with
Trullinger and asked.
Q: How do you feel about the
soaring popularity of the “Planet
of the Bass” video?
A: I have just been giggling to
myself, because obviously when
filming it, I knew that it was go-
ing to be the most bizarre, funny
video, but I didn’t know that the
response would be like this. I did
not think that it would blow up
the way that it has. And I feel
like that’s what everybody says,
but genuinely, I had no idea that
Willem Butler
the response would be this gi-
normous.
Q: How were you tapped to be
ms. Biljana Electronica?
A: Kyle reached out to me a few
weeks ago and was like, “Hey, I
don’t know if you’re familiar
with my character DJ Crazy
Times, but I made a song that is
being produced by a record label
and I’m making a video to pro-
mote it.” And I was like, “Yeah,
why not?” because I love Kyle
[and] all of his comedy sketch
videos. So I was like, “Yeah, I
would absolutely love to be a
part of it.” He sent me the song
and he was like, “Yeah, if you can
just learn these lyrics and wear
was a million tourists. It was so
packed. And we just filmed it on
an iPhone and got a million
shots, and then we got kicked
out of the oculus. The cops came
up to us twice.
Q: Police kicked you guys out of
the oculus?
A: Yeah. At first they came up
and they’re like, “Hey, sorry you
can’t film here.” And we were
like, “oh, okay, why?” They
didn’t have an answer. So we
walked down the hallway and
went to a further part of the oc-
ulus, not right in the middle. We
got a few more shots, and then
this other cop comes up. So we
were like, “All right, fine.”
Then we went to the fulton
Street [subway] station. When
you go down to the subway plat-
form, it opens up to the next
floor so you can see between the
two floors. So that’s where you
see those aerial shots. We didn’t
get kicked out of there, luckily.
There were a few more shots
that Kyle wanted to get in the
oculus that we were not able to
get, but the video still came to-
gether fantastically.
Q: And it was extremely well re-
ceived. I think that’s why fans
A: I hadn’t really asked Kyle
about it. I think I had seen that
he was filming in the DJ Crazy
Times outfit with Sabrina Brier.
She’s another content creator. I
had seen that he was filming
with her, and she was in a simi-
lar outfit to mine. And I initially
I was like, “oh my God, did he
replace me? Were the shots that
we got not good enough?” But
then the video came out, and I
was like, “Well, I guess he didn’t
replace me. I guess they must
have filmed another version of
the video.”
Then I saw the second ver-
sion. He didn’t tell me. I didn’t
even know that was going to
come out. I was like, “oh, this is
so funny.” I didn’t expect the re-
sponse to be, “Where did she go?
Where did the original one go?”
because I thought that the other
actress was fantastic and hilari-
ous. It was a funny response to
see, especially because I didn’t
know that was necessarily hap-
pening.
That’s him playing into the
’90s Eurodance bit I think, be-
cause apparently they used to re-
place girls all the time with no
explanation. I haven’t even
asked him. I’m just letting it roll.
I’m not asking too many ques-
tions.
C4 eZ re the washington post . monday, august 7 , 2023

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A Mexican city’s mayor plans to levy fines for misogynistic reggaeton lyrics
BY M ARÍA L UISA P AÚL
As it’s entered the mainstream,
the thumping and contagious
rhythm of reggaeton has often
been accompanied by lyrics from
men describing how a woman
became beautiful “thanks to the
mistreatment” or boasting about
having sex with a woman so
inebriated she can’t “remember
that night.”
It’s those kinds of musical mes-
sages that prompted the Mexican
city of Chihuahua last week to
prohibit artists from performing
songs with lyrics that “promote
violence against women or en-
courage their denigration, dis-
crimination, marginalization or
exclusion,” the city’s mayor,
Marco Bonilla, said in a video
posted to Facebook.
Given “the principle of free-
dom of speech,” Bonilla said the
city couldn’t outwardly ban those
musical performances — but it
could dissuade them by imposing
a hefty fine between 674,000 and
1.2 million pesos, or approxi-
mately $38,918 to $69,290. That
money, the mayor added, would
be directed to a women’s shelter
and a women’s institute in
Chihuahua that has programs
aimed at reducing gender-based
violence.
“We can’t allow this, and we
also can’t allow [violence] to be-
come normalized,” Bonilla said.
The move — coming as Latin
music increasingly dominates
streaming platforms — was
sparked by what Bonilla called a
“pandemic” of violence against
women in a city where “7 of every
10” 911 calls involve cases of
domestic violence, particularly
against women. In Mexico, a
country enveloped in a deepen-
ing crisis of violence, an average
of 11 femicide cases, or intention-
al killings with gender-related
motives, are committed each day,
according to data released by the
country’s national statistics agen-
cy in 2022. In Latin America,
women face one of the highest
rates of sexual assault, with data
showing that more than half of all
women have suffered some form
of domestic violence.
It’s not the first time reggae-
ton, a genre that sprang up dec-
ades ago from predominantly
Afro-Latino communities in
Panama and Puerto Rico, has
been accused of being en-
trenched with machismo, sexism
and violence.
In 1995, when the combination
of verbal wizardry and grooving
beat was still in its nascent stage,
police officers in San Juan raided
record stores and confiscated
hundreds of reggaeton CDs be-
cause the lyrics were decried as
obscene. About seven years later,
a Puerto Rican senator unsuc-
cessfully tried to ban the genre,
claiming it was violent and de-
grading toward women. And in
2014, anti-reggaeton ads in
Colombia attempted to show how
songs made women sex objects by
combining gruesome photos with
a selection of lyrics, all running
under the campaign slogan “Usa
la razón, que la música no de-
grade tu condición,” or “Use rea-
son, don’t let music degrade your
condition.”
Through it all, though, reggae-
ton and urban Latin music has
emerged as a global phenomenon
— from the days of the ever-play-
Reggaeton fans dance at a discotheque in Ecatepec, Mexico. The mayor of Chihuahua, Mexico, is
imposing a hefty fine on performers who sing songs with lyrics that promote violence against women.
ing “Gasolina” to now, when Bad
Bunny has been Spotify’s most-
streamed artist for the past three
years. According to a 2023 mid-
year report by Luminate, an en-
tertainment data provider, the
global music industry surpassed
1 trillion streams and went up
30.8 percent compared with last
year, something driven in large
part by the popularity that Span-
ish-language music has gained
among American listeners, the
company said.
Jason Ruiz, an associate pro-
fessor of American studies at the
University of Notre Dame, drew
parallels between the trajectory
of reggaeton with that of hip-hop
and rap, genres that were also
decried as violent in their early
stages but that have seen a trans-
formation following the rise of
female and queer artists within
them.
“Like every good art form,
reggaeton is going to grow and
evolve,” Ruiz said.
“To me, all of this is evidence
that reggaeton is a thriving art
form, because real, true art forms
have always inspired pushback,”
eduardo Verdugo/aP
he added.
There are already whiffs of that
happening within reggaeton,
Ruiz said. In its second wave,
female artists like Natti Natasha,
Becky G and Karol G are making
strides. At the same time, Bad
Bunny has denounced misogyny
and spoken out against Puerto
Rico’s problem with gender-
based violence. After being
named top Latin artist of the year
at the 2020 Billboard Music
Awards, he dedicated his award
“to all the women around the
world, especially Latin women
and Puerto Rican women.”
“Stop sexist violence, stop vio-
lence against women,” Bad Bun-
ny said in Spanish. “Let’s educate
right now, in the present, to have
a better future.”
Even fellow reggaeton artist
Arcángel attributed Bad Bunny’s
anti-machismo stance to his ris-
ing stardom: “Machismo is out of
style. Believe me — that whole
concept of you being the alpha of
everything, that is out of style.
What’s in is letting your woman
lead the way,” he said in an
interview last year.
Still, research has shown that
misogyny continues to pervade
the genre. In a 2018 study, re-
searchers from the University of
Chile found that more than 80
percent of the reggaeton songs
they analyzed contained refer-
ences to violence against women,
with 59 songs accounting for 568
mentions. The researchers noted,
however, that content about sex-
ual and physical violence had
fallen between 2004 and 2017,
even as symbolic and psychologi-
cal violence rose in that time
frame.
Though Ruiz said the lyrics
were problematic, Chihuahua’s
move to fine artists who play the
songs is a “bandage measure that
does not get at the root of misogy-
ny and the deeper causes of
femicide in Mexico.” Plus, he
added, “it really is a bad sign for
our society when the government
starts restricting artists.”
“It’s an empty threat,” he said.
“At the end of the day, stuff like
this almost never works — it’s
kind of like the ’80s movie ‘Foot-
loose’ when they tried to ban
dancing and it totally backfired.”

Mother is worried about her any statement of concern as a

confrontation, because your
invitation stated: “Do not bring
gifts.” Unless I’ve been asleep my
weekend trips, kayaks and
camping equipment. It was the
maid of honor hosts the shower,
but this seems to have been

daughter’s controlling wife

Dear Amy: My
Ask Amy daughter was
Amy recently married.
Dickinson We didn’t meet
her wife in person
until the week of
their wedding, and then they
went back to Europe for work,
where they both served in the
military. They both just moved
back to the States and are living
with us while my daughter
finishes an internship.
I am shocked by her wife! She
is always putting my daughter
down … she is a true narcissist,
and I am so shocked and worried
that this person will harm my
daughter's light!
I see it happening already. I feel
that she fell for this person during
a trauma and that they share a
trauma bond. She had an injury
and was breaking up with her
boyfriend, and this person
swooped in. I see many examples
of how jealous and controlling
she can be.
My question is, can I confront
my daughter? I’m worried about
her future and her money. There
was no prenup, and I could just
scream, “Run!” Help.
— Worried Mom
Worried: You should not view
daughter might interpret this as
your effort to control her — much
as her wife is doing.
You should tell your daughter
that you have concerns with how
her wife treats her, and ask her if
she is okay with the relationship.
Tell her that you love her, support
her, and that she will always have
a home with you, no matter what.
Keep the door open — always.
Dear Amy: My family maintains
fairly simple tastes. My
stepbrother got engaged to
“Sharon.” Her family had a
similar background to ours, but
business success means they now
live very extravagantly, and
Sharon never lets us forget it.
My mother and I were invited
to her wedding shower. The
whole life, I thought one major
point of a shower was the gifts.
That’s the “shower” part, right?
We tried to get a clarification
from Sharon, but she acted very
mysterious.
At the shower venue, my
mother and I walked into a nearly
silent room of people, in the
center of which was a large table
heaped with very expensive
items: China, crystal, Sterling
silver, a $400 pen, a $4,500 tennis
bracelet and a $2,000 cappuccino
machine.
Sharon gave us each a pad of
stickers and a pen. She explained
that we were to “browse” the table
and put our name on a sticker to
“affix to whatever gift we wished
to give.” There were more “sign-
up” sheets for the honeymoon,
most uncomfortable event I’ve
ever been part of. My mom and I
took one tour around the room
and quietly left.
We heard later that the shower
was a disaster and that Sharon
and her mother were furious with
the guests. Is this some new
trend?
My sister thinks we should
throw Sharon a traditional
shower for “our side” of the
family, but it’s obviously not
something she would be satisfied
with! What are your thoughts on
this?
— Gobsmacked
Gobsmacked: If excess could be
considered a trend, then I
suppose this monster of a gift-
grab fits the trend. Normally the
planned by the bride and her
mother — also bucking the norm.
I do like the idea of you and
your sister hosting a small-scale
party for this new family member.
It could be a simple themed event
(perhaps a “kitchen shower”)
held in the backyard. This will be
a gracious way of you conveying
your own values, while offering
this bride a quiet “reset.” Don’t
worry about “Sharon’s”
satisfaction. Her attitude is her
responsibility.
Write to askamy@amydickinson.com or
amy dickinson, P.o. Box 194, Freeville,
n.Y. 13068.  You can also follow her
@askingamy.
© 2023 by amy dickinson. distributed by
Tribune Content agency.
C6 EZ RE the washington post . monday, august 7 , 2023

CLASSIC DOONESBURY GARRY TRUDEAU PICKLES BRIAN CRANE

RED AND ROVER BRIAN BASSET AGNES TONY COCHRAN

BRIDGE

N-S VULNERABLE
NORTH
♠ Q865
♥ J5
♦ 6532
♣ K82
WEST EAST
♠ 10 ♠ KJ
♥ AQ72 ♥ 10 9 8 4
♦ Q J 10 9 ♦ K874 MIKAEL WULFF & ANDERS MORGENTHALER
FRANK AND ERNEST TOM THAVES WUMO
♣ 9643 ♣ Q J 10
SOUTH (D)
♠ A97432
♥ K63
♦ A
♣ A75

The bidding:
SOUTH WEST NORTH EAST
1 ♠ Pass 2 ♠ Pass
4 ♠ All Pass
Opening lead — ♦ Q

I
CLASSIC PEANUTS CHARLES SCHULZ MIKE DU JOUR MIKE LESTER
found Cy the Cynic in the
club lounge, writing an ali-
mony check — feeding hay to
a dead horse, he says. Cy’s
marriage vow is never to take
another one.
Cy says that one can live
as cheaply as two. He may
be right about that, but
one chance won’t go as far
as two at the bridge table.
As declarer at today’s four
spades, Cy took the ace of RHYMES WITH ORANGE HILARY PRICE MARK TRAIL JULES RIVERA
diamonds and tabled the ace
of trumps. He next led a club
to dummy and returned a
heart to his king.
West won, and Cy had to
lose another heart, a club
and a trump. Down one.
Cy gave himself one
chance when he had two.
After Cy takes the ace of
trumps, he leads a heart
toward dummy’s jack. West LIO MARK TATULLI MOTHER GOOSE & GRIMM MIKE PETERS
takes the queen and leads
another diamond, and Cy
ruffs and leads a second
heart to West’s ace. Cy can
pitch a club from dummy on
his king of hearts and ruff a
club in dummy.
If East had the queen of
hearts, Cy would still suc-
ceed if he had the ace. Cy’s
play had a 50% chance. The
winning play succeeds 75% HAGAR THE HORRIBLE CHRIS BROWNE BALDO HECTOR CANTU & CARLOS CASTELLANOS
of the time.
DAILY QUESTION
You hold:
♠ 10 ♥ A Q 7 2
♦ Q J 10 9 ♣ 9 6 4 3
Your partner opens one
club, the next player bids one
spade and you double (nega-
tive). Partner bids two hearts.
What do you say?
ANSWER: Your double
promised heart length but BLONDIE DEAN YOUNG & JOHN MARSHALL SALLY FORTH FRANCESCO MARCIULIANO & JIM KEEFE
the wrong type of hand to
bid two hearts. Partner’s two
hearts is not a reverse; he
has “supported” the suit your
double promised. Pass. The
opponents are not competing
in spades, so partner prob-
ably has “wasted” honors
there.
— Frank Stewart
©2023, TRIBUNE CONTENT AGENCY, LLC.

SHERMAN’S LAGOON JIM TOOMEY

SUDOKU

CURTIS RAY BILLINGSLEY

BREWSTER ROCKIT: SPACE GUY! TIM RICKARD

monday, august 7 , 2023 . the washington post EZ RE C7

MUTTS PATRICK McDONNELL ZITS JERRY SCOTT & JIM BORGMAN

HOROSCOPE

BIRTHDAY | AUGUST 7
You are a modest
person with many
hidden talents. People
like you because
you are witty, charming and
friendly. Simplicity is the key
to your life this year. It’s time
to create solid foundations.
You might explore martial arts
or yoga. Stay grounded and
levelheaded.

HEART OF THE CITY STEENZ JUDGE PARKER FRANCESCO MARCIULIANO & MIKE MANLEY Moon Alert: After 2:45 a.m.
today, there are no restrictions
to shopping or important
decisions. The Moon is in
Taurus.

ARIES
(MARCH 21-APRIL 19).
Trust your moneymaking ideas
today, because you’re in the
groove. Lucky Jupiter and the
Moon are both in one of your
Money Houses. This is an ideal
influence that can help you
make long-range plans.
TAURUS
(APRIL 20-MAY 20).
FRAZZ JEF MALLETT CANDORVILLE DARRIN BELL Today the Moon is in your
sign dancing nicely with
Saturn and Mercury, which
gives you a lot of common
sense and an ability to think
clearly. It’s a strong day for
teaching children, making
vacation plans or discussing
professional sports.
GEMINI
(MAY 21-JUNE 20).
This is an excellent day
to do research, especially
independently. Rely on yourself
to come up with solutions to
old problems and answers to
GARFIELD JIM DAVIS BARNEY AND CLYDE WEINGARTENS & CLARK questions. In particular, it’s
a good day to tackle home
repairs.
CANCER
(JUNE 21-JULY 22).
You’re in the right frame of
mind to learn and study new
things today. Likewise, you
will be able to teach and give
practical advice to others. This
is a good day to share your
hopes and dreams for the
future with a friend to get their
feedback.
LEO
STEVE KELLEY & JEFF PARKER STAN LEE & ALEX SAVIUK (JULY 23-AUG. 22).
DUSTIN THE AMAZING SPIDER-MAN You are high-viz today, which
means people notice you.
Furthermore, they seem to
know personal details about
your private life. Financial
discussions will go well. It’s a
good day to make long-range
plans about shared property,
inheritances, estates, taxes
and debt.
VIRGO
(AUG. 23-SEPT. 22).
You’ll make great headway
today if you want to make
travel plans or have a serious
discussion with someone,
PRICKLY CITY SCOTT STANTIS LOOSE PARTS DAVE BLAZEK especially about practical
matters. Aside from travel, you
also might discuss legal or
medical situations or anything
to do with publishing and the
media.
LIBRA
(SEPT. 23-OCT. 22).
Your ability to research
something and dig for answers
is excellent today. You might
do this at work, or it might be
about any topic. It’s also a
good day to research issues
about shared property, taxes,
debt and inheritances.
NON SEQUITUR WILEY BABY BLUES RICK KIRKMAN & JERRY SCOTT SCORPIO
(OCT. 23-NOV. 21).
Today the Moon is opposite
your sign for two days, which
means you are best served
by cooperating with others
and being accommodating.
Someone younger might have
suggestions that affect your
future goals.
SAGITTARIUS
(NOV. 22-DEC. 21).
You are ready to speak up
to parents, bosses and
authority figures today. You
feel confident to do so, plus
BIG NATE LINCOLN PEIRCE ON THE FASTRACK BILL HOLBROOK you sense the need to be
independent and rely on your
own resources.
CAPRICORN
(DEC. 22-JAN. 19).
This is a good day to study
and learn something new.
It’s also a good day to teach
young minds. Some of you will
make travel plans or source
out ideas related to sports or
children.
AQUARIUS
(JAN. 20-FEB. 18).
Family discussions will go
well today, especially about
BEETLE BAILEY GREG, BRIAN & NEAL WALKER PEARLS BEFORE SWINE STEPHAN PASTIS practical matters, shared
property and getting the
financial and practical support
you want.
PISCES
(FEB. 19-MARCH 20).
This is a good day to make
some long-range plans. You
want to solidify things for
the future, which is why you
will consider the advice of
someone who is older.
— Georgia Nicols
© 2023, KING FEATURES SYNDICATE, INC.

PREVIOUS SUDOKU SOLUTION SPEED BUMP DAVE COVERLY DENNIS THE MENACE H. KETCHAM FAMILY CIRCUS BIL KEANE REPLY ALL LITE DONNA A. LEWIS

PREVIOUS SCRABBLEGRAMS SOLUTION

More online: washingtonpost.com/comics. Feedback: 1301 K St. NW, Washington, D.C., 20071; comics@washpost.com; 202-334-4775.
C8 eZ re the washington post . monday, august 7 , 2023

Hotels design signature scents to keep guests coming back

HOTEL SMELL from C1
email. She says scents can influ-
ence us subconsciously, so not
only can they be used to create
pleasant environments, they
can plant a seed in the brain
tied to a specific place and time.
Scent is also a powerful emo-
tion evoker, which hotels har-
ness to create a memorable
experience. Guests stepping
into a hotel lobby may not even
be aware that they are starting
to relax, all thanks to a scent
being pumped through the air.
Developing a
signature scent
Though scents can be subtle,
developing a signature scent
isn’t a simple task for brands,
which is why many turn to
olfactory branding agencies
like 12.29 Scent, whose clients
include Hyatt and ritz-Carlton
hotels.
“We’re able to create an idea
of comfort, or atmosphere of
safety, or inspiration, or relax-
ation, or whatever the hotel
brand wants to do,” says Dawn
Goldworm, co-founder and
nose of the agency. To achieve
this, they have to take into
consideration everything with-
in the hotel’s space, location
and target market. “We work
with the music, we work with
the lighting, we work with the
textures, the colors, and every-
thing becomes that emotion a
brand wants to elicit from their
branding efforts.”
Presidio Lodging in San
francisco has been working
with a similar company to
develop a signature scent for
Lodge at the Presidio, one of
their two properties. General
manager Terry Haney can attest
to the complicated process:
Starting with thousands of
scents, he is tasked with sniff-
ing his way down to one. floral
and sweet scents were nixed
early on, while more subdued
scents stayed in consideration.
Encapsulating their unique lo-
cation — bridging San francis-
co’s eucalyptus forest to the Bay
— is important but not without
challenges. “We want to be able
to bring the outside in, but I
don’t want it to smell like you’re
in the woods either,” he says.
“We’re able to create an idea of comfort, or atmosphere of safety, or inspiration,
or relaxation, or whatever the hotel brand wants to do.”
It’s a lot of work, but as a
boutique property, nailing the
scent is vital. “Since the begin-
ning, we’ve never been a big
box; our guests aren’t looking
for that experience, they want
something special,” Haney says
of the 42-room hotel. “Part of
that is touching on all five of
the senses. But scent is really
what sticks with people; that’s
what creates the memory and
people don’t even realize it.” He
credits the white tea scent at
sister property Inn at the Presi-
dio as one of the reasons for
their 45 percent repeat-guest
rate.
Dawn Goldworm, co-founder of 12.29 Scent
When smell is the Hotels, said in an email. Their
main attraction signature rich, complex aroma
from singular properties to has become synonymous with
entire hotel chains, scent can their worldwide properties, not
become one of the defining char- only setting an elevated tone, but
acteristics of an accommodation. creating a consistent sensory ex-
Anyone who has stayed at one of perience that guests can expect
Edition Hotels’ 16 properties can wherever they go.
probably recall their custom Though much lesser-known
black tea scent by Le Labo just by than its fountains, the signature
thinking about it. scent of the Bellagio in Las Vegas
“We wanted to create a potent may stand out in visitors’ minds.
means to stimulate the senses “When developing Bellagio’s sig-
that has the power to trigger nature scent, the goal was to
memories or an emotion of an create something elegant and
experience at an Edition Hotel,” beautiful that evoked wonderful
Josh fluhr, senior vice president memories each time a guest
and managing director of Edition stepped back into the resort,” Ana
Haley Jiang for tHe WaSHington PoSt
maria Viditchi, vice president of
retail strategy for mGm resorts,
said in an email. Their fragrance
of bergamot, orange blossom,
clove and sandalwood was de-
signed to be, “warm and welcom-
ing while still elegant and luxuri-
ous,” ideally reflecting how Bella-
gio guests feel when visiting.
In Vegas hotels, the scents
serve a few purposes: to create a
lasting memory, help guests dif-
ferentiate as they bounce from
property to property on the Strip
and, maybe most importantly,
cover the smoky smell of casino
floors.
There’s another challenge in
developing signature scents:
Travelers can have different reac-
tions to the same scent.
The smell of burning incense
in the lobby of an Abu Dhabi
hotel sent france-based content
marketer Jill Starley-Grainger
into an hour-long coughing fit
upon arrival. “The scent only got
worse as we were taken down the
vast, palatial hallways to our
room, so I can only assume that
they were piping the fragrance
through vents into the hallway,”
she said in an email.
As someone with allergies and
asthma, she believes hotels
should desist from scents alto-
gether. “Strong fragrances can
cause all sorts of health problems
for people, including migraines,
epilepsy, nausea and more.” In
this case scent created a powerful
memory, but one she never wants
to revisit.
for Steph Dyson, U.K.-based
travel journalist and blogger at
Worldly Adventurer, the signa-
ture scent she encountered at
Paradise Cove in mauritius was a
revelation.
“Upon arrival at the hotel, I
was given a refreshing cold flan-
nel to dab away the sticky mauri-
tian heat,” she said in email. It
had been infused with the hotel’s
signature bergamot fragrance. “I
instantly loved the idea. The
fruity fragrance of bergamot
seemed to encapsulate the island
itself, and now conjures up in my
mind the powdery beaches and
aquamarine waters of Paradise
Cove.”
Scent’s capacity for memory
creation has also led to an influx
of aromatic products for sale by
hotels. The Bellagio, Wynn and
Edition hotels sell the scent of
their hotel for your home with
candles, diffusers and scent
sticks. once they’ve landed on a
scent, Presidio Lodging is also
planning to offer similar prod-
ucts in-house. Even Super 8 mo-
tels tried to get into scent busi-
ness this year with beef jerky and
fresh linen candles.
“I was given a reed diffuser
carrying the signature scent
when I left the hotel,” Dyson says
of Paradise Cove, “and it now
floods my downstairs bathroom
with delicate citrus that speaks of
sunshine and hot, lazy after-
noons by the pool.”

LA TIMES CROSSWORD By Laura Dershewitz

ACROSS
1 Make small
adjustments to
6 Palindromic title
11 “¡Dios __!”
14 Fictional choco-
latier Wonka
15 Sports complex
16 Series finale, e.g.
17 Tied with a
scrunchie, maybe
19 Director
DuVernay
20 Italian ice cream
21 Most coll.
applicants
22 Thing
23 Food __: lethargy
after a big meal
25 Mosaic tile
27 Stargazer’s bear
30 No longer
on deck
32 Election night
backdrop for nick galifianakiS for tHe WaSHington PoSt
Steve Kornacki
33 Whispery video
genre, for short
34 “Fiddlesticks!”
Sister slammed for parenting remarks
35 Big gulps © 2023 Tribune Content Agency, LLC. 8/7/23 Carolyn Hax is understand we all have bad days, to your sister, to start breaking
37 Word before salt away. The and maybe I caught her on one. this nasty older/younger pattern,
or snail DOWN 28 Uncooked 41 Rest in a sleep 50 Indian spice mix following first How am I supposed to to stay close to your nephew — is
39 “Know what __?” 1 Small branch 29 Trumpet parts pod 53 Gentle appeared June 17, communicate with her? I want to to apologize for talking down to
42 Pre-calc math 2 Sonoma County that need to be 43 Xbox controller, reminder 2009. know whether I am out of line in her. Admit that your focus on
class product drained for one 56 Rotate calling her on not speaking to me what lies ahead in child-rearing
Carolyn Dear Carolyn: I about this sooner. I’m tired of all has been dismissive of her
44 YouTube diary 3 Ben Gurion-based 31 Fountain near 45 Awesome 58 Low poker
Blossom
Hax am the oldest of the drama, and of being labeled current circumstances. Admit
46 Irish actor airline Rome’s Spanish pair
Stephen Steps vegetable five siblings. my the “mean” older sister. that it might be an unconscious
4 South American 59 Roof trim younger sister is — Minnesota drift on your part to a phase of
47 Taking time off kin of a camel 33 Nike rival 47 2000s first 60 Hid one’s true 27. She is a new mother of a 9- child-rearing you do understand,
50 Car sticker amt. 5 Japanese city 36 Storm drain family colors, perhaps month-old. I have invested much Minnesota: I don’t know about because you are, in fact, at a
51 [shrug emoji] with many cover 48 Alongside of 62 “It’s just no __!” love, time and energy into my the “mean,” but you will live up to disadvantage when the
52 Turner known shrines 38 Oodles 49 Academic job 63 Mule kin sweet nephew. I am married with the “hard to talk to” label if you conversation is about babies.
as the “Queen of 6 Star Wars Day 40 __ Lingus security two stepkids of my own, 8 and 9. throw up your defenses and In other words, drop your
Rock ’n’ Roll” month my sister has been keeping me attack her back. That helps make dukes. Completely.
54 Wheel turner 7 Review-heavy up to speed with her struggles in her case that you’re not If your sister takes this
55 Donne couplet? newspaper SATURDAY’S LA TIMES SOLUTION adjusting to a baby. I admittedly approachable. opportunity to launch an
section have expressed such sentiments Should she have spoken up uppercut to your jaw, then you’ll
57 Forced from as, “Wait until he can walk, you sooner? Yes. There’s also no have lost nothing, because she’ll
power 8 Scarcity will be even busier,” and, “Enjoy justification for her screaming, be alone on the low road, and
61 “The Real World” 9 Ouzo flavoring this sweet time with him, phone-slamming and emotional you’ll have gained the knowledge
airer 10 “Bad” prefix because things will change.” sucker-punching. that an adult relationship with
62 Classic sunshine 11 Carnivores Yesterday, she informs me that Still, none of these missteps her isn’t realistic, at least for now.
pop hit single 12 Turn upside down she is sick of my “wait until he erases the fact that she expressed But if she’s open to meeting
with hot-air- 13 Whoopi’s Oscar- gets older” comments, because a legitimate grievance. Any “just you halfway, then she will
balloon imagery, winning role in she feels as if I am judging her as you wait” comment is heavy with apologize for her withhold-and-
and what 17-, 30-, “Ghost” a parent. She says I have no idea condescension, because the explode approach to conflict —
and 47-Across what it means to be a “real whole premise of it is that the ideally without your having to
18 Spanish phrase parent,” because I have only had speaker knows something the prompt it, but ungrudgingly
literally are equivalent to
64 Gobbled up “stepkids” since they were 4 and listener doesn’t. Her coming back either way.
“¡Basta!” 5 and only on a split-custody with the accusation that you’re
65 Draped silk 22 Five Pillars faith schedule. the one who doesn’t know Write to carolyn Hax at
dresses 24 Devices called This came out of left field. I anything was childish, for sure, tellme@washpost.com. get her
66 Mitt “cashpoints” in asked her why she didn’t say but please find some sympathy column delivered to your inbox each
67 Letters of distress the U.K. something before, and she tells for the impulse: You are quite morning at wapo.st/gethax.
68 Utopias 26 Small branch me that I am such a hard person aware of your place as Big Sister,
69 Made less 27 Sounds of to talk to. and Little Sister, apparently, has  Join the discussion live at noon
onerous hesitation She was crying and yelling, had enough. fridays at washingtonpost.com/live-
then hung up on me. I Your best bet now — to be fair chats.
 KLMNO

SPORTS monday, august 7 , 2023 M2 D

Nationals
strike fast
to sweep
Cincinnati
nationals 6,
Reds 3
Abrams, Thomas go deep
on the first two pitches

BY A NDREW G OLDEN

CINCINNaTI — Lyon Richard-

son’s first pitch sunday afternoon
didn’t come as a surprise. It was
the Cincinnati Reds right-hand-
er’s major league debut, after all,
so a fastball over the heart of the
plate seemed like a given to let
him establish himself.
But CJ Abrams handed Rich-
ardson a rude awakening by
launching the middle-cut fastball
into the right field seats at Great
American Ball Park. He tossed his
bat and looked toward his team-
mates as Richardson tried to ig-
nore what had just taken place.
When Lane Thomas launched the
second pitch Richardson threw
onto the grassy knoll in center
field, the Washington Nationals
seemingly had slammed the door
in his face. What an inhospitable
welcome.
JABIN BoTSForD/ThE WAShINgToN PoST
Those home runs sparked a
four-run first inning and powered
SWEDEN 0, UNITED STATES 0 (5-4 PKs): Megan Rapinoe shows her disappointment after a miss in the shootout during Sunday’s shocking loss in the round of 16. the Nationals to a 6-3 victory, a
three-game sweep and their 11th

Cruel summer
Despite tactical tweaks, Americans
are undone by familiar problems
BY T HOMAS F LOYD
soccer’s cruelty was summed
up sunday in Australia by the
thinnest of margins, when the U.s.
women’s national team crashed
out of the World
ANAlysIs Cup just as it was
starting to reclaim
its dominant identity.
As Alyssa Naeher parried away
Lina Hurtig’s decisive penalty kick
mere millimeters after it crossed
the goal line, giving sweden a 5-4
shootout win after a scoreless
draw, the United states — a four-
Candace Buckner: After a World Cup performance unlike any we had ever seen, stunned disbelief is the new face of U.S. women’s soccer. A1
time World Cup champion that
had never finished worse than
third — was ousted in the round of
16.
Going into the match, such a
result would have been anything
but unexpected: The U.s. squad
limped to a 1-0-2 record in the
opening round, failing to win its
group and drawing a sweden
team that had rolled to three
straight victories. But what made
the Americans’ exit sunday so
difficult was the return to form
over the preceding 120 minutes,
see TACTiCS ON d2
U.S. makes an early World Cup exit,
falling to Sweden in shootout stunner
BY S TEVEN G OFF
MElBOurNE, auSTralIa — Alys-
sa Naeher reached back with her
right arm and slapped the ball
away, and for a mind-bending
moment sunday night, as the
players and a packed stadium
awaited a ruling about whether
the round-of-16 nail-biter would
continue, the U.s. women’s na-
tional team was still alive in the
World Cup.
It was a sequence rarely, if ever,
seen at the heights of this sport: a
goalkeeper blocking an attempt
during a penalty kick shootout,
then making a desperate bid to
prevent the ball from breaking
the plane of the goal line.
If Naeher’s efforts against swe-
den’s Lina Hurtig were success-
ful, the tiebreaker would contin-
ue — and so would the Ameri-
cans’ bid for a record third con-
secutive championship. Video
technology rendered the verdict:
The ball had crossed the line by
maybe the width of a pencil.
The United states was out of
the World Cup at the earliest
see u.S. SoCCer ON d3
win in 16 games. Washington
scored its first series sweep on the
road since it took three from the
Chicago Cubs at Wrigley Field in
August 2019.
Abrams and Thomas became
the first Nationals players to hit
back-to-back homers on the first
two pitches of a game, but it went
deeper than that: Richardson, 23,
became the only pitcher in the
past 50 years to allow a home run
on each of the first two pitches of
his major league career.
“Those guys are the catalysts
for us,” Manager Dave Martinez
said of Abrams and Thomas.
“. . . They’ve been consistent here
so far in getting us going. But
overall the team has played really,
really well.”
Abrams finished 4 for 5 with
two runs and two stolen bases.
Thomas had two hits and drove in
three runs. And they showed how
impactful they can be for the
Nationals (49-63) when working
in tandem.
“The momentum goes on to the
next guy,” Abrams said. “Me and
Lane put energy in the dugout,
and it showed today.”
Martinez shifted Abrams to the
leadoff spot in the series before
the all-star break, and that move
see nATionAlS ON d5

Nationals at Phillies
Today, 6:30 p.m., MASN
Inside: In a turbulent bullpen, Kyle
Finnegan remains a constant. D5

For Biles, ‘obvious’ goal Gauff earns biggest title of her career at DC Open
is returning to Olympics BY A VA W ALLACE

Coco Gauff did a little dance

BY E MILY G IAMBALVO
HOFFMaN ESTaTES, Ill. — When
simone Biles returned to training
less than a year ago, she wanted to
have fun and get back into shape.
That’s it. she popped in and out of
the gym, sometimes taking off for
long stretches. she had speaking
engagements in the fall, then be-
came busy with the holiday season
and wedding planning. The 2024
Paris Olympics weren’t part of her
agenda.
Meanwhile, her coach, Laurent
Landi, looked toward the future.
Biles would arrive at the gym —
back when an upcoming competi-
tive slate didn’t exist — and he
would have ideas for possible rou-
tines. Biles began practicing twice
a day, and eventually Landi men-
tioned competing at the U.s. Clas-
sic. Biles remembers thinking:
“Oh, I am. Okay, got it.” When her
black-and-white leotard arrived,
Biles said she thought: “Oh, good.
This is what I’m wearing. I guess I
BAseBAll
The orioles’ middle relief
corps chips in, helping
am competing.” and added a twirl after ripping the
Her training had ramped up cross-court backhand winner
after her wedding in May. And sunday that clinched her title at
without a grand moment of deci- the DC Open. she had just played
sion, Biles and her coaches under- for 84 minutes in punishing heat
stood her intentions. and smothering humidity typical
“It was just kind of unspoken,” of late summer in Washington, but
Biles said, “but we knew.” she looked cool as could be as she
They knew the goal and that celebrated, every bit the vivacious
eventually Biles would be here 19-year-old.
with a performance such as the Gauff had made it a point to
one she delivered saturday, when have more fun and show more of
she made a triumphant return to her personality on the court this
elite gymnastics. week. Whether loosening up led to
Biles dominated the U.s. Classic her wins or her wins allowed her
field while performing some of the to loosen up didn’t matter — by
world’s most difficult skills on her defeating Maria sakkari, 6-2, 6-3,
way to the all-around title. And the the seventh-ranked Gauff claimed
motivation behind her decision is her first career win of a WTA 500-
“obvious,” Biles said: At the Tokyo level tournament.
Olympics in 2021, when she had It is her most prestigious title so
been expected to win up to five far — she has three 250-level wins
gold medals, she instead with- to her name — and sunday’s victo-
drew from five finals, including ry makes her the first teenager
the team competition after per- with four titles since Caroline
forming on just one apparatus. Wozniacki in 2009. This champi-
Biles sees her potential — and onship joins her runner-up finish
see bileS ON d6 at the 2022 French Open at the top
of her résumé.
“I think the caliber of players I
have beat this week was probably
Pro BAsketBAll
the strongest out of all of the tour-
The Mystics can’t defeat naments I’ve played,” she said.
the Sparks for the second see dC open ON d6

surging Baltimore sweep time in three days as they MINh CoNNorS/ThE WAShINgToN PoST Inside: After the rain relents, Dan
away the visiting Mets. D5 let a late lead slip away. D7 by defeating Maria Sakkari, 19-year-old Coco Gauff secured her first title at a WTA 500-level event. Evans of England stands alone. D6
d2
South Africa exits but earns the right to dream a little more
BY C HUCK C ULPEPPER
SYDNEY — This World Cup has
lost its South Africans, their
thrill, their skill, their verve and
their ferocity. It has gained itself
a hell of a quarterfinal between
Spain and the Netherlands,
which beat gallant South Africa,
2-0, on a cloudy winter Sunday at
Sydney football Stadium. But
South Africa’s players might have
gained something even grander,
something to carry through cus-
toms.
They have gained their first
visit to the knockout stage in
only their second World Cup.
They have gained hope and
curiosity about the journey
ahead. They have gained that
thing often hard to come by in
this world: confidence. And
through their four matches — a
2-1 loss to mighty Sweden after
leading, a 2-2 draw with Argen-
tina that made them mad, a
dramatic 3-2 win over Italy and
the Netherlands match — they
have gained one doozy of a life
experience.
“mystical,” said Nomvula
Kgoale, 27. “mystical. There isn’t
anything else that matches it.
Emotionally, spiritually, mental-
ly, physically mystical. I can’t put
it in words. . . . Every single time
I stepped on the field, I feel like I
was, I can’t say ‘Cloud Nine,’
because I’m trying to find words,
but it’s so difficult. I mean awe.
I’m in awe every single time. I
feel like I’m fulfilling something
in me. And so every single touch I
made, every single run, every
single voice I heard, every single
moment, it was out of this world
for me.”
Speak on, eloquent one.
“Now we are more pompous,”
she said. “We know what we
want from ourselves. We have
standards. Now it’s no longer
Despite stronger showing, U.S. team is hurt by familiar problems vs. Sweden
tactics from D1
during which the United States
outshot its opponent 21-8 and
controlled 52 percent of the pos-
session (compared to 33 percent
for Sweden, with 15 percent con-
tested).
for the first time at this World
Cup, Coach Vlatko Andonovski’s
team looked the part of a con-
tender. The tempo on the ball
improved. Players attacked with
urgency. The tactics were correct.
Yet it was all for naught because
of a heroic performance from
Swedish goalkeeper Zecira muso-
vic, three errant penalty kicks
and a near-dream of a save from
Naeher that instead is bound to
keep her up at night.
tactical tweaks pay off
After three underwhelming
group-stage performances, in-
cluding a 0-0 draw with Portugal
on Tuesday that nearly eliminat-
ed the United States even earlier,
Andonovski made the formation
tweak those games demanded
and swapped out his overrun
4-3-3 for a more disciplined 4-2-
3-1.
With attacking catalyst rose
Lavelle suspended for yellow
card accumulation, the U.S.
coach inserted Emily Sonnett as
an additional defensive midfield-
er next to Andi Sullivan. Captain
Lindsey Horan, previously de-
HOCKEY
Pittsburgh goes all-in
with trade for Karlsson
So much for the Pittsburgh
Penguins trying to walk the fine
line between planning for the
future while making the most out
of the present.
General manager Kyle Dubas
pushed in his chips Sunday,
acquiring star defenseman Erik
Karlsson from San Jose in a
massive three-way deal with the
Sharks and montreal Canadiens.
Pittsburgh sent a 2024 first-
round pick, forward Mikael
Granlund and defenseman Jan
Rutta to San Jose and goaltender
casey Desmith, defenseman Jeff
Petry, a 2025 second-round pick
and prospect Nathan Legare to
montreal as part of the deal for
the three-time Norris Trophy
winner.
Karlsson is the first
defenseman to be traded fresh off
winning the Norris as the NHL’s
top defenseman since Doug
Harvey in 1961. The 33-year-old
Swede became the first player at
the position to record 100 points
in a season since Brian Leetch in
1991-92. . . .
Defenseman Matt Dumba
agreed to a one-year, $3.9 million
contract with the Arizona
“i can’t say anything is negative,” south africa forward thembi Kgatlana said. “Everything is positive.”
about rankings or looking at a
team as larger than life that you
cannot be able to reach or you
cannot be able to challenge. Now
it’s a different story: ‘I’m a player.
You’re a player. I’m a human
being. You’re a human being.
We’re equals.’ All that’s left on the
field is that the ball is rolling. It
could go either way.”
They took the pitch against a
giant before a sellout of 40,233
who tilted toward the under-
dogs. They had the smaller
chunk of possession all told but
the larger share of woolly
ployed alongside Lavelle in an
attacking midfield duo, roamed
as a lone playmaker between
wingers Sophia Smith and Trinity
rodman.
The impact was immediate. A
U.S. attack that had become too
reliant on the left side of Crystal
Dunn, Horan and Smith was
more balanced, with 11 final-
third entries coming on that side,
along with 10 on the right and 20
in the central channels. Center
back Naomi Girma operated un-
der clear instructions to look
downfield — she connected on 12
of 22 long balls as no one else
attempted more than eight —
stretching Sweden’s shape and
opening space to build through
midfield. (Girma also easily led
the United States with 36 line
breaks for bypassing Sweden’s
attacking, midfield or defensive
units; her center back partner,
Julie Ertz, had five.) The off-the-
ball movement was more fluid
and the combinations were crisp-
er, especially in the first half.
sonnett and sullivan excel
No longer outnumbered in
deep midfield, Sullivan bounced
back from an up-and-down
group stage and delivered her
best performance of the tourna-
ment, making nine tackles,
pouncing on 14 loose balls and
pressing an opponent 13 times —
all team highs. Her newfound
dI GEsT
Coyotes, a person familiar with
the deal told the Associated Press.
Dumba played 10 seasons with
minnesota after the Wild selected
him with the seventh overall pick
in the 2021 NHL draft. He served
as an alternate captain for the
Wild the past two seasons.
auTO RaCING
Kyle Kirkwood said he felt
calm on the final restart,
probably more than someone in
his second IndyCar Series season
should. That’s just how confident
he was in how fast Andretti
Autosports had his Honda
running.
Kirkwood easily held off scott
McLaughlin over a final
shootout after a late red flag and
won the music City Grand Prix in
Nashville for his second career
victory.
The 24-year-old from Jupiter,
fla., started eighth and led a race-
high 34 laps. He took the lead for
good on Lap 54 and appeared
poised to race to the finish when
a caution with 10 laps remaining
ensured he had enough fuel left
to give Andretti Autosports its
72nd all-time IndyCar victory.
Then four cars crashed, three into
each other off the restart, forcing
a red flag stoppage. . . .
The NASCAr Cup Series race
at michigan International
eZ sU
chances. They played as a pro-
gram that struggled to three
losses in france in 2019 against
the program that was the run-
ner-up to the United States that
year. They showcased forward
Thembi Kgatlana, who plays for
racing Louisville of the NSWL —
“She’s a great player,” Dutch
players declared — and who
scored that stoppage-time goal
against Italy on the fine cross
from Hildah magaia. They forced
Dutch goalkeeper Daphne van
Domselaar into lunges and saves
both formulaic and acrobatic,
andi sullivan, left, playing with more midfield support, delivered
her best performance of the World cup in the loss to sweden.
influence was exemplified in the
seventh minute, when she col-
lected the ball in her own end,
evaded the Swedish press and
pinged a switch to Horan to spark
an attack. Knowing Sonnett had
the defensive midfield covered,
Sullivan made a late run toward
the top of the box and finished
the sequence by firing a shot wide
— a miss, yes, but promising
pressure that pinned back Swe-
den.
That said, the formation
change wouldn’t have done much
Speedway in Brooklyn was
suspended by rain and scheduled
to resume at noon monday.
The fireKeepers Casino 400
began after a 1-hour 43-minute
rain delay. And 74 laps later,
precipitation pushed the drivers
out of their cars during a red-flag
stoppage that lasted nearly an
hour before the 200-lap race was
postponed.
Shortly before the race was
suspended, tyler Reddick took
the lead after a restart and was
followed by alex Bowman, Kyle
Larson and points leader Martin
truex Jr. Kyle Busch’s race
ended after just 14 laps because
he spun out and hit a wall after
making side-by-side contact with
Ryan Blaney.
sOCCER
Arsenal started the English
season how the team hopes to
end it — by getting the better of
manchester City.
Arsenal won the Community
Shield at Wembley Stadium in
London by beating City, 4-1, in a
penalty shootout after equalizing
late in the 1-1 draw.
The match serves as a
traditional curtain-raiser to the
season and is typically played
between the winners of last
season’s Premier League and fA
Cup.
MArk bAker/AssociATed Press
even as they tired in the second
half.
They epitomized soccer’s el-
emental harshness so that
Kgoale said: “In the moment,
when you are presented with an
opportunity, you’ve got to use it,
and if you don’t, these are the
kinds of conversations that
you’re going to have. But in the
end, if you are a footballer, if you
are a sports person, we all know
that these things happen. foot-
ball is heartbreaking! And this is
the moment when my heart is
broken. That’s all I can say.”
JAbin boTsford/The WAshingTon PosT
good without Sonnett rising to
the occasion. Despite being an
eight-year national team veteran
at her third major tournament,
Sonnett had never been called
upon in a match of true conse-
quence until she entered late
against Portugal.
All Sonnett did Sunday was
connect on 56 of 60 passes, pac-
ing the United States with 93
percent accuracy while playing a
position she has rarely filled on
the international level. In addi-
tion to supporting Sullivan, she
Because City won both — as
part of a title treble also
containing the Champions
League — Arsenal took part as
the runner-up in the league.
cole Palmer curled in a 78th-
minute goal after coming off the
bench to give City the lead, only
for Leandro trossard to score
with a deflected shot in the 11th
minute of second-half stoppage
time, taking the game to
penalties. . . .
In a friendly, Harry Kane
scored four goals in Tottenham’s
5-1 win over Shakhtar Donetsk in
London as speculation continued
to swirl about his future amid
interest from Bayern munich.
mIsC.
fourth-seeded Czech Linda
Noskova eased past Germany’s
tamara Korpatsch, 6-1, 6-1, to
advance to the final of the rain-
hit Prague open.
on monday, Noskova will face
lucky loser Nao Hibino of Japan
or Jaqueline cristian of
romania. Their semifinal was
interrupted three times by rain
before it was suspended at 15-15
in the eighth game of the third set
with Hibino leading 6-4, 6-7 (7-2),
5-2. . . .
Mathieu van der Poel crashed
while leading the road race at the
world championships, breaking
the washington post . monday, august 7 , 2023
These things happened just yana said. “I’m sure the whole
twice, as it goes. country’s proud.”
In the ninth minute, Sherida “In this World Cup, there is no
Spitse’s corner kick for the Dutch small team,” matlou said, looking
went into the box to find a deft, also toward fellow strivers Ja-
low header from Lieke martens, maica and morocco. “. . . There is
who lowered her cranium with no small team anymore.”
enough cleverness to send the “I can’t say anything is nega-
ball toward the near (right) post, tive,” Kgatlana said. “Everything
where the South African defense is positive. We are building. We
had gotten messy. The ball car- have been building.” The impact
omed over to the left to the “is going to be great now,” she
doorstep of the goal and to Jill said, pointing to South Africa’s
roord, who barely had to graze it bid to host the 2027 World Cup.
with her head to score. “We have made the strides.”
That held through the first “We made history — men or
half, even as Banyana Banyana women,” Kgoale said. “Nothing
caused ruckus and Kgatlana like this has ever happened. So
showed quality. It held through a we’ve got something to be really
narrow offside call on the Neth- proud of. At the same time, we’ve
erlands that took a goal off the got higher standards. We expect-
board in the 54th minute. And it ed better, and we wanted more.”
held all the way to the 68th, And then about that unborn
when martens sent a pretty pro league . . .
through ball up the left where “I want to send a strong
Lineth Beerensteyn could get to message,” Kgatlana said, “be-
it, one-time it left-footed and cause it’s been many years now
ship it toward goalkeeper Kaylin that we’ve been saying: ‘We need
Swart, who had it go through her a professional league. We need
hands and into the goal in the to professionalize. We need this.
kind of error one would wish on We need that.’ I think it’s about
no one, evident as Swart time where broadcasters, federa-
slammed her hands against the tion, everyone involved put their
grass. money where their mouth is,
That pretty much ensured a because after coming to play two
flight home, yet a flight rich with World Cups [and making one
audacious thoughts for a country round of 16 already], surely
still without a professional someone has to be bothered and
league. someone cannot sleep as though
“We came to fight,” 37-year-old it’s okay.”
defender Noko matlou said. “We After all, they had just gotten
came to play our football, and we going, really, and they can’t wait
came to show our culture, how to see where they go. They spoke
we play, and I think we did that.” from the sprouting of who knows
“I think what’s different [from what.
2019],” 25-year-old midfielder “maybe some of the players
Linda motlhalo said, “I would can receive offers from these big
say, our mentality.” teams because we really have got
“We showed character,” brilliant players,” Kgoale said.
Kgoale said. “So the journey’s interesting. I’m
“There are beautiful moments, really, really looking forward to
things we’ll never forget,” 28- what’s going to happen beyond
year-old midfielder Kholosa Bi- this tournament.”
also provided cover for right back close to a winner in the 89th
Emily fox to pinch inside and minute when musovic steered
jump into the attack. When fox away her header, the game had
did just that in the 17th minute, been begging for Andonovski to
making an inverted run into the take off the veteran, shift Smith
box, Sonnett drifted to the right to center forward and bring on
and promptly snuffed out the Alyssa Thompson or Ashley San-
ensuing Swedish counterattack. chez as a creative left winger.
When morgan finally came off in
Past mistakes resurface extra time, Andonovski instead
All of that tactical progress turned to 38-year-old veteran
didn’t make a difference for a U.S. megan rapinoe, who followed
team that couldn’t slip a shot past her group-stage struggles with
musovic (11 saves). With Andon- more errant touches and way-
ovski’s tenure likely to come to an ward set-piece service. As a final
end following the worst U.S. fin- indictment of Andonovski’s ap-
ish in its 16 major tournament proach, rapinoe and fellow sub-
appearances, we’ll never know if stitute Kelley o’Hara missed in
this team was about to unlock the the shootout — unfortunate foot-
right combination and tear notes to their stellar internation-
through the rest of the World Cup al careers.
— something Coach Jill Ellis and Ultimately, though, the Ameri-
the 2015 team did on their way to cans were undone by an inability
the title after a similarly bumpy to win their group. rather than
group stage. rest players for the group-stage
So what went wrong? once finale, they had to play Lavelle
more, Andonovski’s substitution against Portugal and lost her to a
strategy didn’t pay off. roundly suspension. rather than face
criticized for only making one 54th-ranked South Africa in the
swap in the 1-1 draw with the round of 16, they drew No. 3
Netherlands, Andonovski again Sweden. If the United States had
made a single sub through 90 delivered the performance we
minutes Sunday (bringing on saw Sunday against nearly any
Lynn Williams for rodman, who other opponent, it would be in
had been battling an illness). The the quarterfinals. But a margin
United States never lost control, for error was a luxury this U.S.
but its early dominance gave way team surrendered when it sleep-
to a more back-and-forth affair as walked through the group stage
fatigue settled in. — and didn’t wake up until it was
Although Alex morgan came too late.
TElEVIsION aNd RadIO
mlB
4 p.m. los angeles dodgers at san diego » MLb network
6:30 p.m. washington at philadelphia » MAsn, WJfk (106.7 fM)
7 p.m. Chicago Cubs at New York mets » MLb network
10 p.m. san francisco at los angeles angels » MLb network (joined in progress)
wORld Cup — ROuNd Of 16
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his shoe and tearing his jersey. consecutive day a racing death
Yet the Dutch cyclist maintained occurred at the track in Upstate
his poise, quickly remounted and New York.
pulled away for a remarkable Ever summer suffered a
victory in Glasgow, Scotland. catastrophic injury to her left
Van der Poel had been riding front leg in the final turn of the
with two-time Tour de france turf race and was euthanized,
winner tadej Pogacar, one-day according to the New York
specialist Wout van aert and racing Association. irad Ortiz
Mads Pedersen, a former world Jr., the leading rider at the
champion. . . . summer meet, was unseated. He
A 4-year-old filly broke down was later cleared to ride the rest
in the fourth race at Saratoga and of the card.
was euthanized, the second — From news services
monday, august 7 , 2023 . the washington post eZ sU D3

world cup

Morocco is leaving its mark with remarkable run

NoTeS

Australia’s
Kerr says BY G RAHAM C ORNWELL

When the moroccan men’s soc-

switzerland 1
spain
australia
Today, 6:30 a.m. (FS1)

she’s ready
Spain 5 denmark
cer team made its historic run to Final
the World Cup semifinals in De- Thursday, 9 p.m. (Fox) Sydney Saturday, 3 a.m. (Fox)
Netherlands 2 france
cember, fans across Africa and the Aug. 20, 6 a.m. (Fox)

for return
A SSOCIATED P RESS
In the end, Sam Kerr wasn’t
needed as Australia advanced to
the knockout stages of the World
Cup.
But the matildas’ inspirational
captain is finally expected to get
on the field against Denmark in
the round of 16 on monday.
“I’m really excited. I will play,”
Kerr told Australia’s Nine TV
network.
The star striker has been side-
lined since injuring her left calf
on the eve of co-host Australia’s
first game against Ireland on
July 20.
Though she recovered well
enough to make the bench
against Canada, Coach Tony
Gustavsson didn’t have to ask the
Chelsea forward to perform a
rescue act as the matildas routed
the olympic champion, 4-0, to
top Group B.
While it is still not clear if she
will be in the starting 11 against
Denmark, both Kerr and Gustavs-
son are talking as if she will make
her entrance at the World Cup at
Sydney’s Stadium Australia.
“We had a nice moment as a
team yesterday, to see her back
with the boots on and touching
the ball and be with the team
training,” Gustavsson said Sun-
day. “And it was a very good
feeling for her and a very good
feeling for the players and the
teammates and a very good feel-
ing for me.
“Today she was off-feet. It’s all
an individual plan for her in
training — I trust my [medical]
team 100 percent to prepare her
the best way possible.”
Gustavsson said he was work-
ing on “how to get the best out of
Sam Kerr” in the game.
Kerr is one of the biggest
sports stars in Australia and has
been the face of the country’s
preparations for the World Cup,
which it is co-hosting with New
Zealand.
Considered one of the best
players in the world, she helped
Chelsea earn a Women’s Super
League and fA Cup double last
season.
The 29-year-old Kerr was one
of the favorites to be the leading
scorer in this tournament, but
there were initial doubts she
would be able to play any part for
Australia after sustaining a calf
injury in training.
She has won four league titles
with Chelsea as well as three fA
Cups and two League Cups.
Walsh rejoins england squad
Keira Walsh gave England a
potential boost ahead of its World
Cup round-of-16 clash with Ni-
geria when the midfielder was
able to practice with the team
Sunday, one day before the elimi-
nation match.
Walsh sustained a knee injury
in England’s 1-0 win against Den-
mark in the Lionesses’ second
game of the group stage. Scans
showed she didn’t damage her
ACL, but it wasn’t clear if Walsh
would be able to play again this
tournament.
Walsh, who plays for Barce-
lona, participated in individual
middle East celebrated the long-
awaited breakthrough.
But the moroccan women’s run
in this summer’s World Cup may
have an even bigger cultural and
social impact at home. Last week,
the Atlas Lionesses became the
first Arab team to advance to the
knockout round of the women’s
World Cup, a moment that al-
ready seems to have shifted some
conventions in the North African
nation.
The program itself is only 25
years old. When the United States
won its second World Cup trophy
in 1999, morocco’s women still
had just a single win in any set-
ting. The question of whether
women should be allowed to play
soccer was still a subject of con-
versation in cafes, in newspapers
and on TV and radio as recently as
two weeks ago, and there are still
plenty of skeptics.
morocco’s first game, a 6-0 loss
to two-time champion Germany,
did not help. In a meme circulated
on social media, clips of the Ger-
man goals were matched up with
a popular moroccan pop song in
which the singer counts from one
to 10. After the sixth goal, num-
bers seven to 10 lined up with
images of domestic life: a mop,
laundry, a kitchen, a newborn
baby. The not-so subtle message
was that the loss was further proof
that women belonged in the
home.
And yet, a week later, a remark-
able turnaround saw morocco
knock off South Korea, 1-0, for its
first World Cup win and then
somehow hang on to a 1-0 lead
against a late onslaught from Co-
lombia — until then, one of the
teams of the tournament. The
squad huddled together on the
pitch in Perth, Australia, chanting
a du’a (a type of prayer) and wait-
ing on the result from the
Pursuing third
straight title,
the U.S. team
falls well short
U.S. SoCCer from D1
stage in program history, elimi-
nated in a seven-round tiebreak-
er, 5-4, after 120 scoreless min-
utes. In eight previous tourna-
ments, the four-time champions
had always made at least the
semifinals. This result also
marked the first time the United
States has gone two straight ma-
jor tournaments without advanc-
ing to the final. (Two years ago, it
lost in the olympic semifinals in
Tokyo.)
“Until the last whistle is blown,
you hope the ball didn’t cross the
line,” Coach Vlatko Andonovski
said. “That just shows how cruel
this game sometimes can be and
how a small, small detail makes
the difference between winning
and losing.”
The United States had a
chance to secure passage to the
quarterfinals, leading 3-2 enter-
ing the fifth — and scheduled
final — round of the tiebreaker.
netherlands
south africa 0
Japan 3
Japan
norway 1
Friday, 3:30 a.m. (Fox)
Sweden 0 (5)
sweden
United states 0 (4)
Germany-South Korea match. As
word came in that Germany and
South Korea had tied — meaning
morocco would advance — the
chants gave way to pure elation.
Cameras zoomed in on rkia maz-
raoui, a defender who had not
played a minute in the three
games. She fell to her knees, half-
shouting, half-crying.
Back home, the conversation
was changing too, as morocco
advanced to Tuesday’s round-of-
16 meeting with former colonizer
france, which eliminated the mo-
roccan men last year. After the
Colombia win, Knorr, a bouillon
company and a staple of the mo-
roccan kitchen, ran an ad with a
picture of the World Cup trophy
and a message that read: “Noth-
ing other than Knorr belongs in
the kitchen. Congratulations to
the Lionesses of the Atlas.”
“Before the girls started play-
ing, people said, ‘Go back to your
kitchen,’ ” meryem ouelfatmi, a
27-year-old from Khenifra, said in
an interview, “but then after they
win they say, ‘oh, those are the
Lionesses of the Atlas.’ The whole
vibe changed after their success.”
To some, it’s almost refreshing
that the team is finally being as-
sessed by the quality of its play
and not by its existence.
The cultural shift is intention-
al. It’s the product of decades of
investment in coaching, facilities
and recruiting by the royal federa-
tion, led by a visionary federation
chief, fouzi Lekjaa, and inspired
Aug. 15, 4 a.m. (Fox) Aug. 16, 6 a.m. (Fox)
Third-place match
Brisbane, Australia
Aug. 19, 4 a.m. (Fox)
and encouraged by King moham- one of the biggest stories to
med VI. (The king receives regular emerge from the team’s run in this
shout-outs from the team; captain Cup has been Nouhaila Benzina,
Ghizlane Chebbak posted a sim- who became the first woman to
ple message — “God, King, Coun- wear a hijab in a World Cup
try” — on Instagram after the match.
latest victory.) A preview show on Last week on conservative
national television network 2m french TV network CNews,
opened with a conversation be- Philippe Guibert called her wear-
tween two female comedians, one ing of the hijab “regressive” and
dressed as a man. The man initial- argued it was an insult to her
ly argues that “soccer is for men; teammates, whom she was im-
women are better off baking,” but plicitly criticizing of immodesty.
then is convinced that “times have many moroccans chuckle at
changed and it’s time to watch the this. There, it is a nonissue. Plenty
Lionesses.” The bit is remarkable of female athletes across all sports
for how it tackles moroccans’ res- wear them, and plenty do not. “No
ervations head-on — on the coun- one talks about it,” said Zineb
try’s biggest television station. Srairi, a coach and former profes-
AS fAr, a storied men’s club sional player from Tangier. “Peo-
affiliated with the royal military, ple will always focus on some-
has been a pioneer on the wom- thing strange, but here it’s really
en’s front, claiming 10 league titles not something strange. It’s per-
and winning the most recent Afri- sonal. . . . That’s it.”
can Women’s Champions League. It’s perfectly common to see
“At a younger age, boys and families and groups of friends in
girls play football in the street, on which some women wear the hi-
the beach, but at a certain age, we jab and some do not. To moroccan
did not have structures to support fans, Benzina is simply a heroic
girls,” said Bahya el Yahmidi, head defender who flung her body
of the fAr women’s section and around the penalty area as moroc-
vice president of the national co clung to its 1-0 lead late against
women’s championship. “We now Colombia.
have neighborhood fields every- “I don’t even wear hijab, and
where, even in small towns.” she still empowers me,” said
fAr’s investment in youth de- Jinane Ennasri, an American-
velopment has been crucial for moroccan sports photographer.
soccer around the country; other Where the men’s team came
clubs are trying to emulate its into last year’s World Cup boast-
success. ing stars from some of European
Despite the progress of the do- soccer’s biggest clubs, the moroc-
mestic game, on a global scale, can women were relatively un-
Tomorrow, 7 a.m. (FS1)
Morocco
england
Today, 3:30 a.m. (FS1)
nigeria
Saturday, 6:30 a.m. (Fox)
Colombia
Tomorrow, 4 a.m. (FS1)
Jamaica
known before the start of the
tournament. Their popularity still
pales in comparison to that of the
men’s team, but they are catching
up. for many, the players feel
more accessible. fans have start-
ed referring to players by their
first names — something not
heard with the men’s team — and
following their every move on
Instagram.
The team’s success also has a
deep family feel. Chebbak, the
team’s captain, regularly cites the
inspiration of her late father, a
former star who was part of the
national team that won morocco’s
only African championship in
1976. Young women watch with
their parents and siblings. “They
look like me, they look like my
sister, even look like my mom,
who wears a hijab — a bunch of us
looking into the mirror,” Ennasri
said.
Khawla Arhzaf, a 22-year-old
student from rabat, watches the
games with her brother. “It has
been a big switch,” she said, “not
just for women but for men
watching the team and support-
ing them.”
Before each game, Ennasri
hears from her father. He says the
same thing every time. “Bnat gha-
di laabu,” he shouts in the moroc-
can dialect of Arabic, “The girls
are playing. Come on.”
graham Cornwell is a writer and
historian of the Middle east and
north africa based in Lexington, Ky.
JaBin BoTsford/The WashingTon PosT

training to regain her fitness and
finally rejoined her teammates in
Sunday’s practice. England plays
Nigeria on monday in Brisbane,
Australia, in a knockout game.
England Coach Sarina Wieg-
man confirmed Walsh had re-
turned to the squad and said
“she’s doing well.”
“We’ll wait to see how she
recovers from the training ses-
sion, and if she does well, she’s
available for tomorrow,” Wieg-
man told a news conference in
Brisbane, declining to elaborate
further on the extent of Walsh’s
injury. “I can only say there
wasn’t a ligament injury. That’s
all I can say right now.”
Wiegman agreed it appeared
to be a possibly tournament-end-
ing when Walsh left the field
against Denmark and “everyone
was in shock,” but she added:
“After the assessment, we said
‘just don’t make any assump-
tions.’ Then we got the green
light” for the midfielder to start
rehabilitation.
Walsh joined Barcelona from
manchester City last year for a
reported fee of 400,000 pounds
($513,000), a record for women’s
soccer.
Despite concerns England
wouldn’t be able to replace
Walsh, the Lionesses produced
their best performance of the
tournament in their final group
game by beating China, 6-1.
Sophia Smith, a rising star who
scored two goals in the opener,
sent her attempt flying over the
crossbar.
Both teams converted in the
sixth round. Then in the seventh,
after Kelley o’Hara hit the right
post, Hurtig targeted the lower
left corner. Naeher read it per-
fectly and blocked the shot. The
play was still active, though, and
as the ball drifted toward the
goal, Naeher made her desperate
move.
Initially, neither referee Steph-
anie frappart nor her assistant
indicated whether the ball had
gone in. Players for both sides
stood motionless. What had just
happened?
The video assistant referee
then informed frappart via her
earpiece: Good goal. Game over.
Sweden danced deliriously. The
U.S. players broke down in tears.
“It’s tough to have your World
Cup end by a millimeter,” Naeher
said. “I thought I had it. Unfortu-
nately, it must have just slipped
in.”
And with that, a gallant U.S.
effort had fallen short. rebound-
ing from poor performances in
the group stage, the Americans
dominated the match but failed
to solve Swedish goalkeeper Zeci-
ra musovic, who made 11 sensa-
tional saves. The United States
finished with heavy advantages
in shots (21-8), shots on target
Sweden goalkeeper Zecira Musovic, who made 11 saves in leading her team to the World Cup quarterfinals, punches a U.S. corner kick.
(11-1) and corner kicks (9-3).
“We did enough to get the job
done,” defender Crystal Dunn
said.
Scoring, though, was a prob-
lem throughout the tournament.
After scoring three against Viet-
nam in an unimpressive opener,
the U.S. team managed just one
goal in its last three games. It was
blanked by Portugal in its last
group-stage match and, despite a
much-improved performance,
failed to find the target against
the beleaguered Swedes.
The scoring drought came
amid a strong defensive effort:
just one goal conceded over 390
minutes.
Unlike in the previous match-
es, the United States placed a
wealth of shots on target. muso-
vic, however, punched, kicked,
blocked and smacked away every-
thing that came her way.
“She made some saves that not
many goalkeepers in the world
can make, and I can’t think of any
other reason why we’re out of the
tournament,” Andonovski said.
In the shootout, though, muso-
vic did not make any saves. After
converting their first three, the
Americans were at fault on three
of the last four. Aside from Smith
and o’Hara failing to put the ball
on target, megan rapinoe missed
high in the fourth round. By
scoring, she would have moved
her team to the cusp of victory.
“It’s a sick joke to f---ing miss a
penalty,” rapinoe said.
That faulty shot proved to be
the last act of rapinoe’s extraor-
dinary career in major tourna-
ments. She had announced be-
fore the World Cup that she
would retire this fall. A star on
the 2015 and 2019 championship
teams, she was a secondary play-
er on this squad, and in three
appearances as a sub, she looked
very much like a 38-year-old
nearing the end.
“I wish we were moving on and
I could guarantee a champion-
ship and do all that,” she said.
“But I feel like it doesn’t take
away anything from this experi-
ence or my career in general. I
feel so lucky and so grateful to
play as long as I have on success-
ful teams.”
for much of Sunday’s match,
the United States looked as
though it would march on.
Andonovski’s lineup and tacti-
cal changes worked. Emily Son-
nett’s first World Cup start
brought structure to the defen-
sive midfield.
Sonnett, who can fill a variety
of roles, was a member of the
2019 squad and has made 77
appearances, but until Sunday
her only World Cup minutes
came as a late-game sub in a
group match four years ago and
last week against Portugal. Her
previous U.S. start came in July
2022.
from the start, the Americans
were organized and determined,
though breaking down Sweden
remained a tall task.
Trinity rodman, the 21-year-
old winger for the NWSL’s Wash-
ington Spirit, was lively on the
right side, getting into one-on-
one situations that, regardless of
the opponent, usually work in her
favor. She drew two hard fouls,
won a corner kick and took the
initiative with a 22-yard effort at
musovic and an angled bid that
musovic parried aside.
The Americans continued to
grow more comfortable in the
attack. Captain Lindsey Horan
nearly provided the break-
through in the 34th minute,
heading Andi Sullivan’s corner
kick over musovic’s reach but off
the crossbar.
As the half transpired, Sweden
enjoyed less and less possession.
only the halftime whistle inter-
rupted the U.S. progress.
The Americans picked up
where they left off, dominating
possession and buzzing with
threats. In the 53rd minute, mus-
ovic made a tremendous save on
Horan’s thunderous one-timer,
flashing to her left for a touch
save. Horan could not believe it,
covering her face with her hands.
Andonovski turned to his
bench 20 minutes into the second
half, replacing the battered rod-
man with Williams. The U.S. sup-
porters roared their appreciation
for the departing standout.
After a brief pause, the Ameri-
cans were at it again. With Julie
Ertz providing the defensive
muscle, the Swedes failed to
make inroads until an 85th-min-
ute threat.
Alex morgan threatened to
break the deadlock in the 89th
minute with a six-yard header.
Again, musovic was up to the
task, reacting to her right to make
a two-handed block.
Six minutes into extra time,
musovic denied morgan’s near-
post threat. She then dived to her
right to push aside Williams’s
angled shot headed for the far
corner. In the 107th minute, she
reached up to punch out Smith’s
rising bid toward the near post.
The shootout brought an end
to the U.S. campaign — and
initiated soul-searching after a
historically premature exit.
“We didn’t expect to be out in
this moment,” Andonovski said.
“We didn’t expect to go out the
way we did. It’s emotional. It is
hard.”
d4 eZ sU the washington post . monday, august 7 , 2023

Baseball
national league american league
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Philadelphia 61 51 .545 101/2 6-4 W-2 cincinnati 59 55 .518 11/2 3-7 l-6 san Francisco 61 51 .545 4 6-4 l-2 tampa Bay 68 46 .596 3 6-4 W-1 cleveland 54 58 .482 41/2 3-7 l-2 houston 64 49 .566 21/2 6-4 W-1
Miami 58 55 .513 14 3-7 l-4 chicago 58 54 .518 11/2 7-3 W-2 arizona 57 56 .504 81/2 2-8 l-6 toronto 63 50 .558 71/2 6-4 W-3 Detroit 49 62 .441 9 3-7 l-1 seattle 60 52 .536 6 8-2 W-5
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Washington 49 63 .438 221/2 6-4 W-4 st. louis 49 64 .434 11 3-7 l-1 colorado 44 67 .396 201/2 4-6 W-1 Boston 57 54 .514 121/2 3-7 l-4 Kansas city 36 77 .319 23 7-3 l-2 oakland 32 80 .286 34 4-6 W-2
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cincinnati ... 021 000 000 — 3 7 1 baLtiMORE... 000 010 10x — 2 6 0 José Urquidy (shoulder)
E: Stephenson (3). LOb: Washington 10, LOb: New York 9, Baltimore 6. 2b: Vien- gUaRdians ab R h bi bb sO avg from the 60-day injured
Cincinnati 6. 2b: Thomas (28), Abrams tos (4), McCann (11). 3b: Mateo (2). Kwan lf................4 0 1 0 0 0 .273
(20). hR: Abrams (11), off Richardson; Rbi: Rutschman (53), O’Hearn (39). sb: Giménez 2b .........4 0 0 0 0 1 .236 list and optioned lhP
Thomas (19), off Richardson; Votto Lindor (18). Ramírez dh..........3 0 1 0 1 0 .289
(12), off Irvin; Friedl (10), off Irvin. Rbi: nEW yORK ip h R ER bb sO ERa Gonzalez rf..........4 0 0 0 0 2 .227
Parker Mushinski to
Abrams (44), Thomas 3 (65), Alu 2 (5),
Quintana ............. 6 6 2 2 2 6 3.42 Calhoun 1b ..........4 1 1 0 0 1 .286 class aaa sugar land.
Votto (30), Fairchild (23), Friedl (42). Arias ss ...............4 1 1 2 0 1 .202
Gott ..................... 1 0 0 0 0 1 5.40
sb: Abrams (27), Friedl (20), Alu (3).
cs: Call (7). sF: Thomas.
Ottavino .............. 1 0 0 0 1 0 3.40 Rocchio 3b...........3
Straw cf...............3
1
0
1 0 0 1 .214
2 0 0 0 .238
phillies: Placed oF
natiOnaLs ip h RER bb sO npERa ORiOLEs ip h R ER bb sO ERa Gallagher c ..........3 0 0 0 0 0 .132 Brandon Marsh on the
Irvin.............. 41/3 5 3 3 2 6 944.93 Bradish ............. 42/3 3 0 0 5 5 3.19 tOtaLs 32 3 7 2 1 6 — 10-day il with a left knee
Machado ........ 2/3 0 0 0 0 2 86.85 Pérez ................ 11/3 0 0 0 1 0 4.30
Garcia.............. 2 0 0 0 1 2 310.00 Irvin ..................... 1 0 0 0 0 1 5.44 chicagO ........ 200 000 003 — 5 9 2 contusion.
Weems............ 1 0 0 0 0 1 112.70 Fujinami .............. 1 0 0 0 0 2 3.12 cLEvELand ... 000 030 000 — 3 7 2
Finnegan ........ 1 2 0 0 0 2 202.76 Bautista .............. 1 1 0 0 0 1 0.85 E: Andrus (9), Colás (5), Rocchio 2 (4). rangers: 3B Josh Jung
LOb: Chicago 6, Cleveland 3. 2b: Andrus 2
REds ip h R ER bb sO npERa Wp: Pérez (4-1); Lp: Quintana (0-3); s:
Bautista (30). inherited runners-scored: (12), Sheets (5), Calhoun (1), Rocchio fractured his left thumb
Richardson .....3
Farmer ........... 2/3
4
2
4 4 3 2 6612.0
1 1 3 0 244.00
Gott 2-1, Pérez 3-0. hbp: Bradish (Mc- (1). 3b: Robert Jr. (1). hR: Arias (5), off
Scholtens.
against Miami, Manager
Neil). Wp: Bradish.
Moll..............11/3 0 0 0 0 2 140.00 WhitE sOx ip h R ER bb sO ERa Bruce Bochy said.
Cruz..............12/3 1 0 0 0 5 314.93
Scholtens............. 6 6 3 2 1 6 3.06
Young............. 1/3 1 1 1 1 0 162.74
Ramsey..............11/3 0 0 0 0 0 0.00 red sox: oF alex Verdugo
Sims................1 1 0 0 0 1 113.68 ORiOLEs batting LEadERs
Gibaut .............1 1 0 0 0 1 182.96 batters avg ab R h hR Rbi
Peralta .................2/3 0 0 0 0 0 4.15
Lambert ............... 1 1 0 0 0 0 5.60
returned to the lineup
Wp: Machado (3-0); Lp: Richardson O'Hearn .308 198 27 61 9 39
gUaRdians ip h R ER bb sO ERa
against toronto, a day
(0-1); s: Finnegan (17). inherited run- Hays .287 366 52 105 9 42
ners-scored: Machado 2-0, Moll 3-0, Westburg .274 95 15 26 2 11 Phil loNg/associateD Press Curry .................... 5 4 2 2 0 4 2.95 after he was benched by
Sims 1-1. t: 3:07. a: 26,195 (43,891). Rutschman .272 408 55 111 14 53
Mountcastle .266 304 46 81 13 49
Sandlin................. 1
Hentges ...............2/3
0
2
0 0 0 1 3.56
0 0 0 2 6.14
Manager alex cora.
hOW thEy scOREd
natiOnaLs FiRst
Mullins
Santander
.259 251
.256 410
33 65
58 105
9
20
47
63 All smiles in Ohio De Los Santos......1/3
Stephan ............... 1
0
0
0 0 0 1 2.28
0 0 0 1 2.98 yankees: lhP carlos
cJ abrams homers to right field. Lane Urías .255 263 32 67 4 35 Clase .................... 1 3 3 0 0 3 2.84 rodón exited his start
thomas homers to center field. Joey Hicks .252 131 24 33 6 20 In the rubber match between the Guardians and the White Sox on Sunday, there was no carryover from
Meneses walks. Keibert Ruiz singles to McKenna .248 101 17 25 2 14 Wp: Peralta (1-0); Lp: Clase (1-6); s:
Lambert (1). inherited runners-scored:
against houston in the
left field. Joey Meneses to second. Vavra .245 49 9 12 0 5 Saturday’s ugly brawl — just a three-hit game for Chicago’s Elvis Andrus, a career .376 hitter in Cleveland. De Los Santos 2-0. t: 2:38. a: 27,305 third inning with left
Dominic Smith grounds out to first base Henderson .243 354 62 86 19 51
(34,788).
to Joey Votto. Keibert Ruiz to second. Frazier .243 309 46 75 13 50
hamstring tightness.
Joey Meneses to third. Jake alu singles
to shallow center field. Keibert Ruiz
scores. Joey Meneses scores. Ildemaro
Vargas lines out to left center field to
rangers 6, marlins 0 rockies 1, cardinals 0 pirates 4, brewers 1 rays 10, tigers 6 blue Jays 13, red sox 1 phillies 8, royals 4
Stuart Fairchild. Blake Rutherford Nathaniel lowe, Marcus austin gomber pitched endy rodriguez and Yandy Díaz homered and Davis schneider went 4 Bryson stott, Kyle
strikes out swinging.
nationals 4, Reds 0
semien, ezequiel Duran out of trouble for six in- connor Joe homered to scored three runs as tam- for 5 with a homer and four schwarber and Nick castel- to da y
REds sEcOnd and adolis garcia homered nings against his former spoil the return of Milwau- pa Bay beat Detroit, taking rBi, and toronto completed lanos homered, and Phila-
Christian Encarnacion-Strand strikes
out swinging. Joey votto homers to left to help texas beat Miami team and ezequiel tovar kee starter Brandon Wood- two of three in the series. a weekend sweep of Boston delphia beat Kansas city.
field. Tyler Stephenson walks. Nick Sen- and sweep a six-game had a sacrifice fly to lift col- ruff after four months, Wander Franco added in blowout fashion. Bryce harper had two nl games
zel reaches on a fielder’s choice to
shortstop. Tyler Stephenson out at sec- homestand. orado over st. louis. leading Pittsburgh over the three hits and two rBi. chris Bassitt went seven hits and drove in a run for natiOnaLs at phiLLiEs, 6:40
ond. Will Benson walks. Nick Senzel to andrew heaney scat- in a matchup of last- first-place Brewers. Rays ab R h bi bb sO avg
innings, giving up a run on the Phillies, who have won
second. stuart Fairchild singles to left W-L ERa tEaM
field. Will benson to second. nick sen- tered four singles and two place clubs, the rockies Johan oviedo allowed Díaz dh................5 3 3 2 0 1 .315 seven hits. he struck out six five of seven.
Williams (R) 5-6 4.72 11-11
zel scores. Elly De La Cruz strikes out walks over 52/3 innings to took two of three games, just two hits, both by Wil- Franco ss ............5
B.Lowe 2b ...........3
2
2
3 2 0 0 .273
1 1 0 0 .226
and walked three. taijuan Walker recovered
swinging. Suárez (L) 2-5 4.01 9-6
nationals 4, Reds 2 earn the victory. the vet- their first series win in liam contreras, in seven H.Ramírez ph......1 0 1 1 0 0 .294 bLUE Jays ab R h bi bb sO avg from a shaky first inning to
REds thiRd
tJ Friedl homers to right field. Matt
eran left-hander has a st. louis since 2009. scoreless innings to win Siri cf ..................1
Arozarena lf........4
0
1
0 0 0 1 .217
1 1 1 0 .253
Merrifield lf.........5 1 0 1 1 1 .293 become the first in the ma- dOdgERs at padREs, 4:10
Belt 1b.................4 3 2 0 2 2 .254
McLain strikes out swinging. Christian career-best scoreless ROcKiEs ab R h bi bb sO avg
his third consecutive start Raley rf-1b..........5 0 0 0 0 2 .259 Schneider 2b .......5 1 4 4 0 1 .692 jors to reach 13 victories. Gonsolin (R) 6-4 4.11 9-8
Encarnacion-Strand strikes out swing- after eight straight losses. Paredes 1b-2b.....3 0 0 0 1 1 .253
ing. Joey Votto grounds out to shallow streak of 152/3 frames. Tovar ss ..............3 0 0 1 0 1 .253 J.Lowe cf-rf ........5 0 2 2 0 0 .269
Springer dh .........5 1 2 1 0 0 .255
ROyaLs ab R h bi bb sO avg
Lugo (R) 4-5 3.54 6-10
McMahon 3b.......3 0 0 0 1 1 .261 Chapman 3b ........4 1 2 3 0 0 .258
right field, Jake Alu to Dominic Smith. piRatEs ab R h bi bb sO avg Mead 3b ..............4 0 0 0 1 3 .125 Espinal 3b............1 0 0 0 1 0 .221 Garcia ss..............5 1 1 0 0 0 .279 MaRLins at REds, 6:40
MaRLins ab R h bi bb sO avg Díaz dh................4 0 0 0 0 1 .274
nationals 4, Reds 3 Bethancourt c .....5 2 2 0 0 1 .218 Biggio rf ..............5 2 1 1 1 0 .211 Melendez lf .........4 1 1 1 0 0 .214
Arraez 2b ............4 0 1 0 0 1 .375 Jones lf ...............4 0 1 0 0 3 .280 Palacios lf .............4 0 0 0 0 2 .234 Pérez (R) 5-3 2.36 5-6
natiOnaLs FOURth tOtaLs 41 10 13 9 3 9 — Kirk c ...................2 2 1 0 2 0 .258 Perez c.................1 1 1 0 0 0 .246
Soler rf................3 0 0 0 1 0 .241 Montero 1b .........4 0 1 0 0 3 .209 Joe dh ...................4 1 1 1 0 2 .243
Blake Rutherford grounds out to shal- Kiermaier cf ........4 1 2 2 0 1 .274 Olivares ph..........1 0 0 0 0 0 .247 Williamson (L) 3-2 4.85 9-5
Bell dh.................4 0 1 0 0 1 .316 Toglia rf ..............4 0 0 0 0 3 .188 Rivas 1b ................3 0 1 0 0 1 .286
low infield, Buck Farmer to Joey Votto. tigERs ab R h bi bb sO avg Varsho cf.............1 0 1 1 0 0 .217 Taylor ph .............1 0 0 0 0 1 .205
De La Cruz cf.......4 0 1 0 0 0 .266 Trejo 2b...............3 0 1 0 0 1 .248 Davis rf .................4 0 0 0 0 2 .219
Alex Call walks. CJ Abrams singles to DeJong ss............5 1 1 0 0 2 .100 Massey 2b...........4 1 1 1 0 0 .218 bRavEs at piRatEs, 7:05
Burger 3b............4 0 1 0 0 0 .222 B.Doyle cf ...........2 1 2 0 0 0 .206 Suwinski cf ...........3 0 0 0 1 1 .215 McKinstry ss........2 0 0 0 0 1 .230
center field. Alex Call to third. Lane Fermin dh-c.........4 0 2 0 0 0 .313
Av.García lf.........4 0 0 0 0 2 .200 Wynns c ..............2 0 0 0 0 0 .200 Hayes 3b ...............4 0 0 0 0 2 .243 Short ph-ss-3b.....3 0 1 0 0 2 .231 tOtaLs 41 13 16 13 7 7 — Strider (R) 12-3 3.61 18-4
thomas doubles to left field. cJ abrams Beaty 1b ..............4 0 1 1 0 0 .333
Gurriel 1b............3 0 2 0 0 0 .273 tOtaLs 29 1 5 1 1 13 — Rodríguez c ...........4 2 3 1 0 1 .231 Vierling rf-3b-rf ...5 0 1 0 0 0 .270
scores. Joey Meneses walks. Keibert Waters rf ............3 0 0 1 0 2 .230 Bido (R) 2-2 5.18 1-6
Berti ss ...............3 0 0 0 0 1 .289 L.Peguero ss-2b....3 0 0 0 0 1 .205 Greene cf..............5 0 0 0 0 4 .297 REd sOx ab R h bi bb sO avg
Ruiz walks. Joey Meneses to second. Duffy 3b ..............3 0 0 0 1 1 .266
Stallings c...........2 0 0 0 1 0 .195 caRdinaLs ab R h bi bb sO avg Triolo 2b................2 0 0 0 0 2 .267 Torkelson 1b ........3 2 2 0 1 1 .227 Duran cf...............5 0 0 0 0 2 .308
Lane Thomas to third. Dominic Smith Isbel cf.................4 0 0 0 0 0 .222 cUbs at MEts, 7:10
tOtaLs 31 0 6 0 2 5 — Reynolds ph ..........1 1 1 2 0 0 .267 Carpenter dh ........4 3 3 2 0 0 .265 Yoshida lf ............4 0 1 0 0 1 .306
grounds out to shallow right field, Matt Edman ss ..............3 0 0 0 1 0 .239 A.Williams ss .......0 0 0 0 0 0 .333 Ibáñez 2b..............4 0 2 1 0 2 .247 Turner dh.............2 0 1 0 0 0 .287 tOtaLs 34 4 7 4 1 4 — Smyly (L) 8-7 4.71 10-10
McLain to Joey Votto. Goldschmidt 1b.....4 0 1 0 1 1 .278
tOtaLs 32 4 6 4 1 14 — Baddoo lf-rf..........2 1 1 0 1 0 .218 Wong ph-dh-2b ...2 0 0 0 0 0 .238
nationals 5, Reds 3 RangERs ab R h bi bb sO avg Arenado 3b ...........3 0 1 0 2 0 .282 Senga (R) 7-6 3.25 11-9
Báez ph-ss ...........1 0 0 0 0 1 .223 Devers 3b ............2 0 1 0 0 1 .267 phiLLiEs ab R h bi bb sO avg
natiOnaLs Eighth Semien 2b...........4 2 2 1 0 0 .281 O'Neill dh ..............4 0 0 0 1 2 .248
bREWERs ab R h bi bb sO avg Haase c-lf.............4 0 1 1 0 2 .194 Chang ph-ss ........2 0 0 0 0 0 .162 Schwarber lf........4 2 3 2 0 1 .182
Stone Garrett pinch-hitting for Blake Jankowski lf .......4 0 0 0 0 2 .293 Gorman 2b ............5 0 1 0 0 1 .245 ROcKiEs at bREWERs, 8:10
Maton 3b..............0 0 0 0 1 0 .176 Casas 1b ..............3 1 1 1 1 1 .251 Bohm 1b ..............4 1 1 0 0 0 .294
Rutherford. Stone Garrett walks. Alex Lowe 1b ..............4 1 1 2 0 1 .284 Walker rf...............4 0 1 0 0 1 .261 Yelich dh .............4 0 0 0 0 1 .287 Rogers ph-c..........1 0 0 1 1 0 .217 Verdugo rf ...........4 0 3 0 0 0 .275 Harper dh ............3 2 2 1 0 0 .300 Lambert (R) 2-2 5.07 1-3
Call called out on strikes. CJ Abrams Ad.García rf ........4 2 2 1 0 1 .266 Burleson ph...........1 0 0 0 0 0 .252 Contreras c .........3 1 2 0 1 0 .276
doubles to right field. Stone Garrett to Jung 3b ...............2 0 0 0 0 1 .274 Carlson cf..............4 0 1 0 0 0 .224 Santana 1b .........4 0 1 0 0 1 .189 tOtaLs 34 6 11 5 4 13 — Urías 2b-3b..........4 0 1 0 0 0 .364 Castellanos rf......4 1 1 2 0 1 .274 Peralta (R) 7-8 4.46 11-10
third. Lane thomas out on a sacrifice fly Duran ss .............1 1 1 1 1 0 .281 Knizner c ...............3 0 1 0 0 0 .248 Adames ss ..........4 0 0 0 0 1 .201 McGuire c ............4 0 0 0 0 2 .263 Stott 2b...............4 1 1 3 0 1 .302
to deep right field to stuart Fairchild. CJ Frelick rf .............3 0 0 0 1 1 .244 taMpa bay .. 320 102 020 — 10 13 0 Reyes ss-2b-p .....2 0 0 0 2 1 .288 Turner ss .............4 0 1 0 0 2 .238
Grossman dh ......4 0 0 0 0 3 .222 Contreras ph-c ......1 0 1 0 0 0 .252 dEtROit ........ 010 201 200 — 6 11 1
Abrams to third. Stone Garrett scores. Garver c ..............4 0 1 1 0 2 .270 Nootbaar lf............3 0 1 0 1 0 .275 Canha lf ..............4 0 0 0 0 2 .150 tOtaLs 34 1 8 1 3 8 — Sosa 3b................4 0 0 0 0 0 .241
Joey Meneses grounds out to shortstop, Monasterio 3b ....3 0 0 0 1 0 .275 E: Ibáñez (6). LOb: Tampa Bay 8, Detroit Stubbs c ..............3 1 1 0 0 0 .203
Elly De La Cruz to Joey Votto.
J.Smith ss-3b .....4
Taveras cf...........3
0
0
0 0 0 0 .214
1 0 0 1 .275
tOtaLs 35 0 8 0 6 5 —
Turang 2b ...........2 0 1 0 1 0 .223 6. 2b: Díaz (22), Bethancourt (14), tOROntO....... 004 250 110 — 13 16 0 Rojas cf ...............3 0 2 0 0 1 .326 nl scores
nationals 6, Reds 3 cOLORadO .... 001 000 000 — 1 5 0 Wiemer cf...........3 0 0 0 0 2 .212 Torkelson (24), Baddoo (10). hR: Díaz bOstOn ......... 000 100 000 — 1 8 0 tOtaLs 33 8 12 8 0 6 —
tOtaLs 34 6 8 6 1 11 — satURday’s REsULts
st. LOUis....... 000 000 000 — 0 8 0 tOtaLs 30 1 4 0 4 8 — (16), off Manning; B.Lowe (15), off LOb: Toronto 11, Boston 9. 2b: Springer 2
MiaMi............ 000 000 000 — 0 6 2 Manning; Franco (15), off White; Car- Kansas city 310 000 000 — 4 7 0 Washington 7, at Cincinnati 3
LOb: Colorado 5, St. Louis 15. 2b: (17), Chapman (35), Biggio (6), Belt (21), phiLa. ............ 320 020 10x — 8 12 1
tExas............ 012 011 01x — 6 8 0 pittsbURgh . 001 100 020 — 4 6 1 penter (12), off Adam. Devers (24), Yoshida (25). 3b: Varsho at Chicago Cubs 8, Atlanta 6
B.Doyle (9), Jones (10), Carlson (8), MiLWaUKEE . 000 000 001 — 1 4 1
Goldschmidt (22). Rays ip h R ER bb sO ERa (1). hR: Schneider (2), off Murphy; Casas E: Bohm (7). LOb: Kansas City 6, Phila- at St. Louis 6, Colorado 2
E: Berti 2 (7). LOb: Miami 6, Texas 5.
2b: Gurriel (13), De La Cruz (24), Tav- E: Hayes (4), Adames (11). LOb: Pitts- E.Ramírez............ 3 3 1 1 1 3 1.12 (17), off Bassitt. delphia 2. 2b: Fermin (8), Harper (20), at Milwaukee 3, Pittsburgh 2 (10)
ROcKiEs ip h R ER bb sO ERa
nl leaders eras (21). hR: Lowe (13), off Alcantara; Gomber................ 6 6 0 0 3 2 5.40
burgh 3, Milwaukee 6. 2b: Rivas (1), Armstrong.......... 1/3 3 2 2 1 1 1.23
Poche................ 12/3 2 0 0 0 2 2.45
bLUE Jays ip h R ER bb sO ERa Turner (23). hR: Melendez (9), off Walk-
er; Stott (10), off Greinke; Schwarber
at San Diego 8, L.A. Dodgers 3
Semien (18), off Alcantara; Duran (14), Contreras (25). hR: Rodríguez (2), off Bassitt ................. 7 7 1 1 3 6 3.87 sUnday’s REsULts
Through Saturday’s games Kinley ................. 2/3 1 0 0 1 1 3.38 Woodruff; Joe (8), off Woodruff; Reyn- Stephenson ......... 1 1 1 1 1 3 3.38 (28), off Greinke; Castellanos (17), off
off Alcantara; Ad.García (29), off Hartli- Suter ................... 1 0 0 0 0 1 2.68 Francis ................. 1 1 0 0 0 1 2.00
eb. olds (14), off Mejía. Adam ................... 1 1 2 2 1 2 2.80 Heasley. Washington 6, at Cincinnati 3
batting Lawrence.......... 11/3 1 0 0 2 1 2.89 Jackson ................ 1 0 0 0 0 1 0.50
piRatEs ip h R ER bb sO ERa Diekman .............. 1 0 0 0 0 1 2.16 ROyaLs ip h R ER bb sO ERa Pittsburgh 4, at Milwaukee 1
MaRLins ip h R ER bb sO ERa
Arraez, Mia ...................................... .376 caRdinaLs ip h R ER bb sO ERa Fairbanks............. 1 1 0 0 0 1 1.73 REd sOx ip h R ER bb sO ERa Greinke ................ 4 7 5 5 0 4 5.53 Colorado 1, at St. Louis 0
Alcantara............. 6 6 5 4 0 7 4.28 Oviedo ................. 7 2 0 0 3 6 4.18 at Chicago Cubs 6, Atlanta 4
Acuña Jr., Atl ................................... .341 Nardi.................... 1 1 0 0 0 2 3.03 Thompson ........... 4 2 1 1 1 8 4.29 Holderman........... 1 1 0 0 0 1 3.29 tigERs ip h R ER bb sO ERa Bernardino........... 1 2 0 0 0 2 2.65 Heasley................ 2 3 2 2 0 1 6.43
Freeman, LA .................................... .337 Murphy ..............21/3 7 6 6 2 3 3.23 McArthur ............. 2 2 1 1 0 1 24.0 L.A. Dodgers 8, at San Diego 2
Hartlieb ............... 1 1 1 1 1 2 9.00 VerHagen ............ 1 0 0 0 0 0 4.47 Mlodzinski........... 1 1 1 0 1 1 2.11 Manning ........... 52/3 9 8 6 1 3 5.06
Stott, Phi ......................................... .302 King ..................... 1 1 0 0 0 1 0.00 Llovera ...............11/3 3 5 5 2 0 12.6
Bohm, Phi ........................................ .295 bREWERs ip h R ER bb sO ERa Vasquez.............. 1/3 1 0 0 1 1 0.00 Bleier .................21/3 2 1 1 0 1 5.28 phiLLiEs ip h R ER bb sO ERa
RangERs ip h R ER bb sO ERa Pallante ............... 1 2 0 0 0 0 4.23
Yelich, Mil ........................................ .290 White .................. 2 2 2 2 0 3 5.27 Robertson ............ 1 1 1 1 1 1 9.00 Walker ................. 7 7 4 4 1 2 4.05
Heaney ............. 52/3 4 0 0 2 4 4.14 Romero................ 2 0 0 0 0 4 3.42 Woodruff............. 5 4 2 2 0 9 1.65 Shreve ................. 1 1 0 0 1 2 4.91
Thomas, Was ................................... .288 Stratton ........... 11/3 1 0 0 0 0 0.00 Milner.................. 1 0 0 0 0 0 2.17 Reyes ................... 1 1 0 0 2 0 0.00 Soto ..................... 1 0 0 0 0 1 4.15
Kim, SD ............................................ .286 Wp: Gomber (9-8); Lp: Thompson (2-4); Uribe.................... 1 0 0 0 0 2 1.69 Wp: Poche (9-3); Lp: Manning (3-4). in- Hoffman .............. 1 0 0 0 0 1 2.59
Leclerc ................. 1 0 0 0 0 0 3.06
Betts, LA ......................................... .286 Pérez ................... 1 1 0 0 0 1 4.94
s: Lawrence (9). inherited runners- Mejía ................... 2 2 2 2 1 3 3.48 herited runners-scored: Poche 3-1,
Wp: Bassitt (11-6); Lp: Murphy (1-1). in-
herited runners-scored: Bleier 2-0. hbp: Wp: Walker (13-4); Lp: Greinke (1-12).
al games
Marte, Ari ........................................ .285 scored: Suter 2-0. ibb: off Gomber (Are- Vasquez 2-2. hbp: Manning (Paredes).
Wp: Heaney (9-6); Lp: Alcantara (4-10). nado). hbp: VerHagen (B.Doyle), Law- Wp: Oviedo (6-11); Lp: Woodruff (1-1). Llovera 2 (Kirk,Schneider). Wp: Francis, hbp: Walker (Perez). t: 2:17. a: 43,112
Wp: Stephenson(2). t: 2:48. a: 21,824 Reyes. t: 2:48. a: 36,162 (37,755). (42,901). tWins at tigERs, 6:40
hOME RUns inherited runners-scored: Stratton 2-0. rence (Edman). t: 2:36. a: 40,051 hbp: Mejía (Rivas). t: 2:30. a: 33,144 (41,083).
t: 2:20. a: 34,569 (40,000). (44,494). (41,700). W-L ERa tEaM
Olson, Atl ............................................ 38
Alonso, NY .......................................... 31 López (R) 6-6 4.01 12-10
Betts, LA ............................................ 29
Muncy, LA ........................................... 27 cubs 6, braves 4 astros 9, yankees 7 mariners 3, twins 5, athletics 8, giants 6 dodgers 8, padres 2 Wentz (L) 2-9 6.37 5-10
Schwarber, Phi ................................... 27
Soler, Mia ........................................... 26 cody Bellinger had his Jake Meyers hit two long angels 2 (10) diamondbacks 3 Nick allen homered Freddie Freeman hit a ROyaLs at REd sOx, 7:10
Riley, Atl ............................................. 26 third straight multi-hit three-run homers, and eugenio suárez deliv- Matt Wallner hit a two- twice, shea langeliers put three-run homer and Ragans (L) 3-3 4.33 1-1
Martinez, LA ....................................... 25
Albies, Atl ........................................... 25 game, scored twice and houston beat New York af- ered an rBi single in the run homer in the bottom of oakland ahead with a two- amed rosario and Mookie Bello (R) 8-6 3.79 12-6
Acuña Jr., Atl ...................................... 25 drove in a run as chicago ter struggling Yankees 10th inning, and seattle the ninth inning to give run single in the sixth in- Betts also connected for bLUE Jays at gUaRdians, 7:10
ERa beat atlanta. starter carlos rodón left completed a four-game Minnesota a three-game ning, and the athletics ral- Nl West-leading los ange- Ryu (L) 0-1 7.20 0-1
Snell, SD .......................................... 2.61 Dansby swanson added early with another injury. sweep of los angeles. sweep. lied to beat san Francisco. les, which defeated san Williams (R) 1-3 3.38 5-3
Steele, Chi ....................................... 2.65
Cobb, SF ........................................... 3.05 a double and two rBi Yordan alvarez and Mar- J.P. crawford homered christian Walker had put oakland’s seth Brown Diego to spoil rich hill’s
yanKEEs at WhitE sOx, 8:10
Kelly, Ari .......................................... 3.21 against his former team, tín Maldonado also went on the first pitch of the arizona ahead with a solo doubled twice and had his debut with the Padres.
Senga, NY ........................................ 3.25 Cole (R) 10-2 2.64 16-7
and ian happ drove in a deep for the astros. game for the Mariners, shot in the top of the ninth. first triple of the season. the Dodgers beat san
stRiKEOUts Cease (R) 4-5 4.61 11-12
pair of runs. astROs ab R h bi bb sO avg who have won five straight d'bacKs ab R h bi bb sO avg giants ab R h bi bb sO avg Diego for the seventh time
Strider, Atl ....................................... 208 RangERs at athLEtics, 9:40
Snell, SD ........................................... 164 bRavEs ab R h bi bb sO avg Altuve 2b ............4 1 1 0 1 0 .281 and 13 of 17. Marte 2b .............3 0 0 0 0 0 .283 Wade Jr. 1b.........5 1 3 2 0 0 .270 in nine games this season.
Luzardo, Mia ..................................... 155 Bregman 3b ........5 0 0 0 0 3 .244 Perdomo 2b ........2 0 0 0 0 0 .267 Estrada 2b ..........5 0 1 1 0 2 .272 Dunning (R) 9-4 3.14 9-7
Acuña Jr. rf .........4 1 2 1 0 1 .343 MaRinERs ab R h bi bb sO avg dOdgERs ab R h bi bb sO avg
Keller, Pit .......................................... 150 Alvarez lf ............4 1 1 2 0 1 .290 Carroll cf-lf .........3 1 2 0 2 1 .277 Flores dh.............4 0 0 0 1 1 .303
Albies 2b.............5 1 3 0 0 2 .261 Waldichuk (L) 2-7 6.52 6-8
Gallen, Ari ......................................... 149 Tucker dh ............3 1 0 0 1 1 .295 Crawford ss ........5 1 1 1 0 2 .263 Pham dh..............4 0 0 1 1 1 .071 Pederson lf .........1 1 0 0 2 0 .232 Betts rf ................... 5 2 1 1 0 1 .285
Riley 3b...............5 0 0 0 0 2 .272 McCormick rf ......3 1 0 0 1 3 .275 Slater ph-lf-cf.....2 0 0 0 0 2 .276
Wheeler, Phi ..................................... 149 Rodríguez cf .......4 0 2 0 1 1 .257 Walker 1b ...........5 1 2 1 0 0 .263 Freeman 1b............. 4 2 2 3 0 1 .339
Olson 1b..............4 1 2 3 1 0 .264
Nola, Phi ........................................... 147 J.Abreu 1b ..........4 0 0 0 0 3 .237 Suárez 3b............5 0 1 1 0 3 .232 Gurriel Jr. lf ........5 0 3 1 0 0 .258 Davis 3b ..............5 1 1 1 0 3 .256 J.Martinez dh ......... 5 0 1 0 0 3 .260
d'Arnaud c ..........5 0 0 0 0 2 .252 Peña ss ...............3 2 1 0 1 1 .239 Conforto rf..........4 1 1 0 1 2 .240
Raleigh c .............4 0 0 0 1 2 .225 Thomas cf ...........0 0 0 0 0 0 .234 Rosario 2b............... 3 1 1 2 0 0 .296
Ozuna dh.............3
Arcia ss...............2
1
0
1 0 1 2 .235
1 0 2 1 .298
Meyers cf............4 2 2 6 0 1 .234 Canzone rf ..........4 0 0 0 0 1 .133 Rivera 3b ............5 0 0 0 0 2 .272 Bailey c ...............3 1 2 1 2 0 .256 Peralta ph-lf ........... 2 1 1 0 0 1 .277 al games
Maldonado c .......3 1 1 1 1 1 .177 Hernández dh .....4 1 3 1 0 1 .245 McCarthy rf ........3 0 2 0 1 0 .255 Crawford ss ........5 1 0 1 0 2 .206 Taylor 3b................. 3 0 0 0 1 2 .213
Pillar lf ................3 0 0 0 0 1 .233
al leaders Rosario ph-lf.......1 0 0 0 0 0 .244 tOtaLs 33 9 6 9 5 14 — Ford 1b................3
Marlowe lf ..........4
0
0
0 0 1 2 .226
0 0 0 2 .278
Ahmed ss............4
C.Kelly c ..............2
0
1
0 0 0 1 .224
2 0 1 0 .197
Matos cf .............3
Sabol ph-lf ..........0
0
0
1 0 0 1 .245
0 0 1 0 .251
Hernández lf-2b...... 5 1 3
Outman cf............... 4 0 0
1 0 1 .333
0 1 3 .250
satURday’s REsULts
Through Saturday’s games Harris II cf...........4 0 1 0 0 2 .280 at N.Y. Yankees 3, Houston 1
yanKEEs ab R h bi bb sO avg Rojas 2b ..............3 0 0 0 0 1 .000 Peterson ph ........0 0 0 0 1 0 .231 tOtaLs 37 6 9 6 7 13 — Rojas ss .................. 5 1 1 0 0 1 .218
tOtaLs 36 4 10 4 4 13 — Herrera c.............0 0 0 0 0 0 .213 Barnes c .................. 2 0 1 1 1 0 .128 at Detroit 4, Tampa Bay 2
Bauers 1b............4 1 0 1 2 2 .230 France ph-1b.......1 1 0 0 0 0 .251
batting Toronto 5, at Boston 4
Judge dh .............4 0 0 1 2 3 .277 tOtaLs 37 3 7 3 3 15 — tOtaLs 36 3 11 3 6 5 — athLEtics ab R h bi bb sO avg tOtaLs 38 8 11 8 3 13 — Chicago White Sox 7, at Cleveland 4
cUbs ab R h bi bb sO avg
Bichette, Tor .................................... .321 Torres 2b ............4 3 3 2 2 0 .270 Ruiz cf.................5 0 1 0 0 1 .257 Seattle 3, at L.A. Angels 2
Díaz, TB ........................................... .311 Tauchman rf .......5 2 2 0 0 0 .280 Stanton rf...........6 0 0 0 0 0 .206 angELs ab R h bi bb sO avg tWins ab R h bi bb sO avg Bleday lf-rf .........4 0 0 0 0 1 .199 padREs ab R h bi bb sO avg
Yoshida, Bos .................................... .307 Hoerner 2b..........3 0 0 0 1 1 .272 sUnday’s REsULts
LeMahieu 3b .......4 1 2 0 1 1 .239 Rengifo ss ............. 4 0 1 0 0 2 .231 Julien 2b .............1 1 1 0 3 0 .299 Gelof 2b ..............4 2 3 0 0 0 .260 Kim 3b ...................3 0 1 0 1 1 .287
Ohtani, LA ....................................... .307 Happ lf ................5 1 1 2 0 1 .247 Kiner-Falefa lf ....2 1 0 0 3 1 .251 Ohtani dh............... 4 1 1 0 0 2 .306 Correa ss.............4 0 1 2 0 1 .221 Brown 1b ............4 1 3 1 0 0 .220 Tatis Jr. rf .............4 0 0 0 0 0 .262 Chicago White Sox 5, at Cleveland 3
Naylor, Cle ....................................... .306 Bellinger cf .........3 2 2 1 1 0 .326
Bader cf ..............5 1 3 2 0 0 .260 Rooker rf.............3 1 0 0 0 1 .242
Drury 2b................. 4 0 1 0 0 1 .276 Kepler rf..............4 1 1 1 0 2 .238 Soto lf ...................4 0 0 0 0 1 .276 Toronto 13, at Boston 1
Merrifield, Tor ................................. .297 Swanson ss ........3 0 1 2 1 0 .264 Volpe ss ..............4 0 0 1 0 1 .210 Moustakas 1b-3b .. 4 0 2 1 0 0 .277 Solano 1b............2 0 0 0 0 0 .273 Kemp ph-lf..........0 0 0 1 0 0 .217 Machado dh...........3 0 0 0 1 2 .257 Tampa Bay 10, at Detroit 6
Tucker, Hou ..................................... .297 Candelario 1b......2 0 1 1 2 0 .571 Higashioka c .......3 0 0 0 1 1 .225 Diaz 3b................2 1 0 0 2 0 .245
Grichuk lf............... 4 0 0 0 0 1 .231 Polanco ph ..........0 1 0 0 1 0 .235 Bogaerts ss...........4 0 1 0 0 1 .267 Houston 9, at N.Y. Yankees 7
Ramírez, Cle .................................... .289 Morel dh .............3 0 0 0 1 1 .274
McKinney ph.......0 0 0 0 1 0 .228 Moniak cf............... 4 0 0 0 0 3 .306 Wallner lf............4 1 1 2 0 1 .268 Soderstrom dh....2 1 0 1 2 0 .184 Cronenworth 2b ....4 1 2 1 0 1 .227 Seattle 3, at L.A. Angels 2
Hays, Bal .......................................... .287 Madrigal 3b ........4 0 0 0 0 1 .279
tOtaLs 36 7 8 7 12 9 — Renfroe rf.............. 4 0 0 0 0 2 .249 Jeffers dh ...........3 0 1 0 0 2 .293 Langeliers c ........4 0 1 2 0 2 .202 Choi 1b ..................4 0 0 0 0 0 .000
Turner, Bos ...................................... .286 Amaya c ..............2 1 0 0 2 0 .258
Allen ss...............4 2 3 3 0 0 .195
Thaiss c ................. 3 1 1 1 0 1 .229 Vázquez c............3 0 0 0 0 0 .223 Sánchez c ..............4 1 2 1 0 0 .224
Barnhart c...........0 0 0 0 0 0 .206
hOUstOn ...... 032 004 000 — 9 6 1 Wallach ph ............ 1 0 0 0 0 0 .202 W.Castro 3b........3 1 1 0 0 2 .247 tOtaLs 32 8 11 8 4 5 — Grisham cf ............3 0 1 0 0 1 .215
hOME RUns tOtaLs 30 6 7 6 8 4 — nEW yORK .... 100 401 010 — 7 8 0 Taylor cf..............3 0 0 0 0 2 .221
Escobar 3b............. 2 0 0 0 0 1 .230 tOtaLs 33 2 7 2 2 7 —
Ohtani, LA .......................................... 40
atLanta....... 002 011 000 — 4 10 0 E: Peña (10). LOb: Houston 2, New York Cron ph-1b............. 2 0 0 0 0 2 .200 tOtaLs 27 5 6 5 4 10 — san FRan. .... 112 020 000 — 6 9 2 interleague games
Robert Jr., Chi ..................................... 30 tOtaLs 36 2 6 2 0 15 — OaKLand ...... 120 013 10x — 8 11 1 L.a.................. 240 000 011 — 8 11 0
chicagO........ 002 030 10x — 6 7 1 15. 2b: LeMahieu (18), Torres (17). hR:
García, Tex .......................................... 28 aRizOna ....... 000 010 101 — 3 11 0 san diEgO .... 001 000 100 — 2 7 0
Meyers (8), off Rodón; Alvarez (21), off E: Crawford 2 (11), Diaz (2). LOb: San giants at angELs, 9:38
Devers, Bos ......................................... 26 E: Madrigal (2). LOb: Atlanta 10, Chica- sEattLE ..... 100 000 100 1— 3 7 0 MinnEsOta.. 000 002 003 — 5 6 1
Rodón; Meyers (9), off Peralta; Mal- Francisco 11, Oakland 5. 2b: Gelof (5), LOb: Los Angeles 9, San Diego 6. 2b:
Jung, Tex ............................................ 22 go 9. 2b: Acuña Jr. (28), Albies (21), L.a. .............. 100 000 100 0— 2 6 1 W-L ERa tEaM
donado (9), off Peralta; Torres (18), off No outs when winning run scored. Brown 2 (10). 3b: Brown (1). hR: Allen 2 J.Martinez (22), Hernández 2 (5), Sán-
Siri, TB ................................................ 21 Bellinger (18), Swanson (18). hR: Olson Urquidy. E: Renfroe (5). LOb: Seattle 8, Los An- E: Vázquez (8). LOb: Arizona 12, Minne- (3), off Cobb. chez (7). hR: Rosario (2), off Hill; Free- Webb (R) 9-9 3.45 11-12
Paredes, TB ........................................ 21 (39), off Steele.
Judge, NY ............................................ 20 astROs ip h R ER bb sO ERa geles 5. 2b: Hernández (20), Moustakas sota 3. 2b: C.Kelly (2), Gurriel Jr. (25), giants ip h R ER bb sO ERa man (23), off Hill; Betts (30), off Avila;
bRavEs ip h R ER bb sO ERa (5). hR: Crawford (10), off Silseth; W.Castro (13). hR: Walker (23), off Sánchez (15), off Lynn; Cronenworth Sandoval (L) 6-8 4.11 7-12
Alvarez, Hou ....................................... 20 Urquidy............. 31/3 3 5 5 3 1 6.10 Cobb.................. 51/3 7 5 5 1 3 3.30
Morton ............. 41/3 4 5 5 4 4 3.86 Hernández (17), off Silseth; Thaiss (7), Thielbar; Kepler (18), off Sewald; Wall- (9), off Brasier.
Santander, Bal .................................... 20 Maton................. 1/3 0 0 0 2 1 3.10 Jackson............... 2/3 1 2 1 2 1 1.98
McHugh .............. 2/3 1 0 0 1 0 3.74 France............... 31/3 3 1 0 3 4 2.75 off Thornton. ner (7), off Sewald. Alexander ........... 1/3 2 1 1 0 0 3.21 dOdgERs ip h R ER bb sO ERa
Witt Jr., KC ......................................... 20
Hand .................... 1 0 0 0 0 0 0.00
Neris................... 2/3 1 1 1 2 1 1.52 MaRinERs ip h R ER bb sO ERa d'bacKs ip h R ER bb sO ERa Walker................ 2/3 0 0 0 1 0 2.52 Lynn..................... 6 4 1 1 2 6 2.77
interleague scores
ERa Jiménez ............... 1 2 1 1 1 0 2.70
B.Abreu ............ 11/3 1 0 0 2 2 2.39 Miller ................... 5 5 1 1 0 10 4.20 Gallen .................. 7 4 2 2 2 8 3.37 Junis .................... 1 1 0 0 0 1 4.48 Brasier................. 1 2 1 1 0 1 1.35
Yates ................... 1 0 0 0 2 0 3.21 satURday’s REsULts
Cole, NY ........................................... 2.64 Campbell ............. 1 0 0 0 0 0 2.89 Ginkel .................. 1 0 0 0 1 2 2.08 Graterol ............... 1 0 0 0 0 0 1.68
yanKEEs ip h R ER bb sO ERa Thornton ............. 1 1 1 1 0 1 2.70 Sewald................. 0 2 3 3 1 0 27.0 athLEtics ip h R ER bb sO ERa Almonte............... 1 1 0 0 0 0 5.24
Eovaldi, Tex ..................................... 2.69 cUbs ip h R ER bb sO ERa at Baltimore 7, N.Y. Mets 3
Valdez, Hou ..................................... 3.07 Rodón ............... 22/3 3 5 5 2 5 7.33 Topa..................... 1 0 0 0 0 1 2.45 Medina ............. 31/3 5 4 3 5 3 5.47 at Texas 9, Miami 8
Steele ............... 51/3 8 4 3 4 7 2.75 tWins ip h R ER bb sO ERa padREs ip h R ER bb sO ERa
Dunning, Tex .................................... 3.14 Brito ................. 12/3 0 0 0 2 2 5.02 Saucedo............... 2 0 0 0 0 3 2.08 Long..................... 1 2 2 2 0 2 5.18 at Philadelphia 9, Kansas City 6
Fulmer ................ 2/3 0 0 0 0 2 3.91 Peralta.............. 12/3 3 4 4 1 3 3.27 Pruitt.................. 2/3 2 0 0 0 0 3.35
Gray, Min ......................................... 3.19 Keuchel................ 5 8 1 1 2 0 1.80 Hill ....................... 3 4 6 6 1 4 18.0 at Minnesota 12, Arizona 1
Cuas..................... 1 1 0 0 0 2 0.00 angELs ip h R ER bb sO ERa
Middleton............ 2 0 0 0 0 3 0.00 Floro .................... 1 1 0 0 1 1 0.00 Snead .................. 1 0 0 0 0 3 6.00 Avila ................. 42/3 5 1 1 1 7 1.32 at Oakland 2, San Francisco 1
stRiKEOUts Leiter Jr............... 1 0 0 0 0 1 2.94 A.Abreu ............... 1 0 0 0 0 1 3.97 Silseth ................. 7 4 2 2 1 12 3.72 Pagán................... 1 1 1 1 1 1 3.31 Erceg.................... 1 0 0 0 2 2 6.21 Kerr..................... 2/3 1 1 1 0 1 5.25
Alzolay ................ 1 1 0 0 0 1 2.54 sUnday’s REsULts
Gausman, Tor ................................... 177 Wp: France (8-3); Lp: Peralta (3-2); s: M.Moore.............. 1 1 0 0 0 2 1.77 Jax ....................... 1 0 0 0 2 2 2.85 Felipe................... 1 0 0 0 0 3 2.19 García ................. 2/3 1 0 0 1 1 5.12
Wp: Steele (13-3); Lp: Morton (10-10); Estévez................ 1 1 0 0 1 0 2.60 Thielbar ............... 1 1 1 1 0 1 1.98 May...................... 1 0 0 0 0 0 4.15 at Baltimore 2, N.Y. Mets 0
López, Min ........................................ 165 B.Abreu (4). inherited runners-scored: Wp: Lynn (2-0); Lp: Hill (0-1). inherited
s: Alzolay (14). inherited runners- Barría................... 1 1 1 0 1 1 3.90 at Texas 6, Miami 0
Ohtani, LA ........................................ 160 Maton 3-3, France 3-0, B.Abreu 3-1, Per- Wp: Thielbar (2-1); Lp: Sewald (0-1). Wp: Snead (1-0); Lp: Jackson (1-1); s: runners-scored: García 1-1. hbp: Hill 2
Cole, NY ............................................ 157 scored: McHugh 1-1, Fulmer 3-1. hbp: at Philadelphia 8, Kansas City 4
alta 2-0. hbp: Maton (Volpe). Wp: Wp: Saucedo (3-1); Lp: Barría (2-6). hbp: Gallen (Solano). Wp: Gallen, May (11). inherited runners-scored: (Freeman,Taylor). t: 2:55. a: 43,306
Castillo, Sea ...................................... 155 Morton (Hoerner), Fulmer (Acuña Jr.). France. t: 3:28. a: 46,345 (47,309). Jackson 1-1, Walker 2-1, Long 1-0, at Minnesota 5, Arizona 3
t: 2:52. a: 39,015 (41,363). ibb: off Barría (Rodríguez). Wp: Silseth. Pagán. t: 2:40. a: 24,778 (38,544). (40,222).
Ryan, Min .......................................... 152 t: 2:54. a: 29,960 (45,517). Pruitt 2-2. t: 3:04. a: 27,381 (46,847). at Oakland 8, San Francisco 6
monday, august 7 , 2023 . the washington post
In a turbulent Nats bullpen, Finnegan remains the constant
BY A NDREW G OLDEN
CINCINNATI — It was almost star-
tling to see Kyle finnegan walk
matt mcLain in the ninth inning
of the Washington Nationals’ 7-3
victory over the Cincinnati reds
on Saturday. Pitchers are bound
to walk hitters on occasion, but
finnegan has been so effective of
late that it felt shocking. mcLain
was the first batter he had walked
in a month. What followed wasn’t
so surprising: finnegan got a dou-
ble play one pitch later to end the
game.
over the past few months,
mounting injuries and underper-
forming relievers have put the
Nationals’ bullpen in flux.
finnegan has remained a con-
stant.
“relievers’ seasons are very
streaky,” finnegan said last week.
“You go on a week where you suck,
and you go on a month where
you’re getting guys out. over the
course of a season, it averages out
about to who you are. I think I’ve
been that guy, kind of steady and
consistent. I’ve had my ups and
downs, but if I have a bad streak, I
usually go on a good streak. . . .
riding a good streak, so trying to
keep it going as long as I can.”
Entering play Sunday,
finnegan’s stats since the start of
June (23 outings): 26 innings
pitched, 14 hits, three earned
runs, four walks, 20 strikeouts. An
opponent’s batting average of .163
with a 1.04 ErA. His ErA during
that stretch has dropped from
4.91 to 2.87.
He kept it up Sunday, pitching a
scoreless ninth inning for his 17th
save to cap the Nationals’ 11th
victory in their past 16 games.
“He’s a fantastic role model for
a lot of us young guys, and he goes
about his business the right way,”
pitcher Jake Irvin said. “He is a
competitor to the core, and I think
he’s just been a lot of fun to watch.
Middle relief
corps lifts O’s
to a sweep
of New York
orioles 2,
Mets 0
BY J ACOB C ALVIN M EYER
BALTIMORE — During the Balti-
more orioles’ surge to the top of
the American League standings,
manager Brandon Hyde has fre-
quently said he’s wary of how
much he has used his dominant
relief duo of Yennier Cano and
félix Bautista.
on Sunday against the New
York mets, Hyde managed his
bullpen as if its middle relievers
have the same fortitude as the
all-star pairing on the back end.
Cionel Pérez, Cole Irvin and Shin-
taro fujinami — all of whom have
struggled this season — combined
to pitch 31/3 scoreless innings to
lead Baltimore to a 2-0 win at
Camden Yards, completing a
three-game sweep.
orioles starter Kyle Bradish la-
bored through 42/3 scoreless in-
nings, giving up three hits and five
walks and hitting a batter. After he
loaded the bases with two outs in
the fifth, Pérez got D.J. Stewart to
ground out, then pitched around a
two-out walk in the sixth. Irvin
and fujinami, both former start-
ers, retired the side in order in the
seventh and eighth.
That bridged the gap to Bautis-
ta, who tossed a scoreless ninth for
his 30th save in his only appear-
ance of the series.
After recording 12 hits in each
of the first two games against New
York, Baltimore won the finale
with just six. The two runs scored
on Adley rutschman’s and ryan
o’Hearn’s rBI groundouts, both of
them bobbled by mets infielders.
— Baltimore Sun
gOlf ROuNduP
Glover captures first win in over two years, clinches PGA Tour playoff spot
A SSOCIATED P RESS
Lucas Glover did more than
extend his PGA Tour season Sun-
day. He won the Wyndham Cham-
pionship with a 2-under-par 68
that sends him into the fedEx Cup
playoffs with more big opportuni-
ties in front of him.
Glover managed a two-hour
rain delay in Greensboro, N.C.,
and took advantage of a faltering
russell Henley to win for the first
time in more than two years and
earn an unlikely spot in the lucra-
tive postseason. After his final
putt, his two children, Lucille and
Kyle Finnegan recorded the final out in the nationals’ three victories over the weekend in Cincinnati, including his 16th and 17th saves.
Somebody that’s very reliable, and
that’s what a lot of us are trying to
be here.”
of the Nationals’ eight relievers
on their opening Day roster,
finnegan was the only one avail-
able to pitch for manager Dave
martinez on Sunday. mason
Thompson went on the injured
list Saturday with a right knee
One-two punch atop order helps Nationals take three from Reds
nationals from D1
has paid dividends — the Nation-
als are 15-10 since then. In this
stretch, Abrams is 34 for 103
(.330) to go with four home runs
and 16 stolen bases. He has been
more patient at the plate, walking
seven times against 16 strikeouts.
And he has been more aggressive
on the base paths, swiping 24
consecutive bags without getting
caught to tie a Nationals record
held by roger Bernadina.
Thomas had been the team’s
primary leadoff hitter, and he had
played well enough to earn all-
star consideration. He hasn’t
been the same hitter since he
moved into the No. 2 spot; he was
17 for 88 (.193) with 28 strikeouts
in 22 games entering this series.
But he broke out here with two
homers friday and two more hits
Saturday before Sunday’s early
fireworks. He added an rBI dou-
ble in the fourth and a sac fly in
the eighth.
“I feel like every time I come up
to the plate, there’s a guy on
second and third,” he said. “So it’s
always better hitting like that.
You don’t have to do as much; you
can just put something in play or
hit a flyball, and it relieves some
of the pressure. . . . Those guys are
making it easy right now.”
After Abrams and Thomas
went deep, recent call-up Jake
Alu had a two-run double in the
first inning to give Washington a
4-0 lead.
rookie right-hander Jake Irvin
didn’t have his best outing; he
allowed three runs over 41/3 in-
nings while striking out six. He
gave up two solo home runs — to
Joey Votto in a two-run second
inning and to TJ friedl in the
third to cut the Nationals’ lead to
4-3. Irvin has allowed 10 home
runs in eight starts since June 27.
But Andrés machado cleaned up
his mess in the fifth. robert Gar-
cia followed with two scoreless
innings in his Nationals debut
before Jordan Weems and Kyle
Lucas Jr., came out to the green.
“Daddy, you won!” the son said.
His daughter was in tears.
Justin Thomas ended his sea-
son with a shot he won’t soon
forget. He needed to chip in for
birdie on the 18th hole to make
the playoffs, but his pitch from
100 feet away smacked off the
base of the pin and settled inches
away. Thomas fell to the ground in
disbelief.
Now he has to wait three weeks
to see if his worst season — this is
the first time Thomas has failed to
make the playoffs — will cost him
a pick for the U.S. ryder Cup team.
contusion suffered when he fell
last week. He joins Hunter Har-
vey, sidelined with a right elbow
strain, and Carl Edwards Jr. and
Thaddeus Ward, both of whom
are in West Palm Beach, fla., re-
habbing from right shoulder in-
flammation. Anthony Banda and
Hobie Harris are with Class AAA
rochester. Erasmo ramirez is
lane thomas, who had been struggling in the no. 2 spot, broke out with three homers in the series.
finnegan each pitched for the
third straight day and tossed a
scoreless frame apiece. finnegan
secured his 17th save as Cincinna-
ti (59-55) saw its skid reach six.
Thomas was arguably the Na-
Glover now has five PGA Tour
wins separated by 18 years, and
there might not have been an-
other except for deciding to
switch to a long putter, a move
inspired by Adam Scott. He had
been battling the yips, and he
made every important putt at
Sedgefield Country Club.
The Wyndham Championship
is the final tournament before the
top 70 qualify for the fedEx Cup
playoffs that start next week in
memphis.
Glover was at No. 112, a long
shot who needed nothing short of
a runner-up finish.
eZ M2
with the Tampa Bay rays after
being released in June.
That leaves finnegan, who has
made 206 appearances since be-
ing called up to the majors in 2020
and at least 66 in the previous two
seasons. He has gone on the in-
jured list just once in that time.
finnegan could’ve been traded
at the past two deadlines, but he
tionals’ best hitter of the first half.
Abrams has been arguably the
team’s best hitter in the second
half. on Sunday, they helped
Washington earn its second
sweep of the season.
He did one better, pulling away
after the rain delay with plenty of
help from Henley.
It was the second time in three
years that Henley let one get away
at Sedgefield. When play re-
sumed, he took the lead with a
two-putt birdie on the par-5 15th,
then everything went wrong in a
bogey-bogey-bogey finish.
l liV GolF: Bryson DeCham-
beau became the fourth player on
a top-level tour to shoot 58, mak-
ing birdie on his last four holes in
the LIV Golf-Greenbrier to finally
capture his first title on the circuit
in White Sulphur Springs, W.Va.
JeFF deAN/geTTy iMAgeS
still has two years of team control
after this one. General manager
mike rizzo has expressed that he
believes finnegan, 31, could help
the Nationals when they’re ready
to contend again.
While finnegan’s numbers are
strong on the surface, his ad-
vanced metrics aren’t. Per Base-
ball Savant, opponents’ average
AAroN doSTer/ASSociATed PreSS
“It makes my job a lot easier
when those guys do what they did
in the first,” Irvin said. “. . . Those
guys are incredible, and it makes
the [opposing] pitcher’s job a lot
harder at the top of the order.
DeChambeau holed a 35-foot
putt on the par-3 18th and leaped
in the air with both arms extended
to celebrate his lowest score ever.
DeChambeau finished at 23-
under 187 for a six-shot victory
over mito Pereira.
Jim furyk had a 58 in the
Travelers Championship on the
PGA Tour in 2016, while ryo
Ishikawa at The Crowns in 2010
and S.H. Kim at the Golf Partner
Pro-Am in 2021 each shot 58 on
the Japan Golf Tour.
l lPGa toUR: Celine Boutier
won the Scottish open by two
strokes to back up her victory at
d5
exit velocity against finnegan is
92.5 mph, which ranks in the first
percentile among qualified pitch-
ers. finnegan’s hard-hit percent-
age is in the 10th percentile. His
fielding Independent Pitching
(which focuses on events the
pitcher has the most control over)
is 4.02 and his ErA is 2.81, mean-
ing there’s a chance for regression.
Yet finnegan has remained
very reliable. He had primarily
used his fastball while relying on
his slider as a secondary pitch as
well as an occasional splitter. But
this season, finnegan is throwing
his splitter 19.2 percent of the
time while dropping his slider
usage to 5.5 percent. opponents
have five hits in seven at-bats
when they put his slider in play.
“It looks nasty; it looks hard to
hit,” Thompson said earlier this
year about the splitter. “It comes
in there and just falls off the
table.”
finnegan’s performance of late
is particularly impressive given
where he started this season — he
allowed seven runs in his first
three outings. But after quickly
diagnosing a mechanical problem
— his hips were moving too fast to
the plate and weren’t in line with
the rest of his body when he
delivered — he made a change so
his body was more in sync.
finnegan believes that tweak,
though small, has helped him re-
peat success and led to this stretch
of impressive outings.
“It’s nice to be able to make that
adjustment and show that I can
pitch well for an extended period
of time,” finnegan said. “It’s hard
at the beginning of the year be-
cause you spend your whole off-
season working on mechanics
and you think you’re where you
need to be, but it takes you getting
punched in the teeth to make an
adjustment. So that’s what hap-
pened, but it led to this little run
I’m on now. So it’s all good.”
NAtiONAlS ON deck
at Philadelphia Phillies
Today 6:40 MASN
Tomorrow 6:40 MASN2
Wednesday 6:40 MASN2
Thursday 6:40 MASN2
vs. Oakland Athletics
Friday 7:05 MASN
Saturday 7:05 MASN
Sunday 1:35 MASN
vs. Boston Red Sox
Aug. 15 7:05 MASN
Aug. 16 7:05 MASN
Aug. 17 4:05 MASN
Radio: WJFK (106.7 FM)
Those guys are weapons, and it’s
fun to watch.”
Roster moves
Before the game, the Nationals
reinstated starter Trevor Wil-
liams from the bereavement list,
optioned reliever Amos Willing-
ham to Class AAA rochester and
requested unconditional release
waivers for right-hander Paolo
Espino. Williams, who missed his
turn in the rotation Saturday, is
slated to start monday at Phila-
delphia. Josiah Gray, macKenzie
Gore and Patrick Corbin will fol-
low in the four-game series, with
each getting an extra day of rest.
Sunday’s move probably ends
Espino’s tenure with the Nation-
als after four seasons. The 36-
year-old, who had posted a 24.75
ErA over four innings, was on the
injured list with a flexor strain of
his right ring finger. martinez
said Washington needed to clear
room for other young pitchers.
Also, Washington reinstated
catcher Israel Pineda from the
60-day injured list and optioned
him to Class AA Harrisburg.
the Evian Championship last
week for her first major title.
The No. 4-ranked french player
shot 2-under 70 in her final round
in Irvine to clinch back-to-back
wins and will head into the up-
coming British open with plenty
of confidence.
Boutier curled in a long right-
to-left putt on No. 17 and was able
to walk down the par-5 18th at
Dundonald Links in some com-
fort en route to a two-shot victory
over Hyo Joo Kim.
The South Korean birdied the
last hole to post 65 and finish 13
under overall.
D6
Evans bests Griekspoor for a crown that’s worth the wait
BY A VA W ALLACE
Event workers were sweeping
up trash by the time play re-
sumed in the final match on the
final night of the DC open. The
sun had long since set, the courts
were open to anyone strolling by,
and all the overpriced food left in
the fridges had been given away
to the dedicated souls who stuck
around to see a men’s singles
champion crowned. That
amounted to about 120 people
who dotted the lower bowl at the
main court at Rock Creek Park
Tennis Center on Sunday night —
including the players’ coaching
teams.
Dan Evans and Tallon Griek-
spoor had fought long odds to get
here, so they could handle a
two-hour delay amid thunder-
storms. Evans, after all, has
built up plenty of patience. When
he beat Griekspoor, 7-5, 6-3, for
the second title of his 17-year
career, the 33-year-old from Eng-
land became the oldest cham-
pion in Washington since 35-
year-old Jimmy Connors won in
1988.
Evans’s other ATP title had
come in 2021 at a 250-level
tournament in Melbourne, Aus-
tralia. Sunday was each player’s
first appearance in an ATP
500-level tournament final; it
was a nearly unthinkable
achievement for Evans, who was
coming from an early-round loss
in Atlanta where he had squan-
dered three match points. That
was just the latest in a long string
of recent disappointments. Be-
fore this week, he had not won a
tour-level match since April.
“You try not to let emotions
get in the way when you’re in the
tournament, and I was, you
know, confident after the second
round that I was playing well,”
Evans said. “But I had to keep
telling myself it was match by
match, and not so long ago I
wasn’t playing great. It was a
Gauff cruises to her first 500-level title at DC Open After her triumphant return,
dc opEn fRoM d1
Had Gauff won at Rock Creek
Park Tennis Center in any previ-
ous year, she would have collected
another title from a 250-level tour-
nament, the lowest designation on
the WTA tour. But because the DC
open women’s field was elevated
to a 500-level event this year, Gauff
adds more heft to her trophy cabi-
net — quite literally. She was sur-
prised by the weight of the black-
and-silver trophy named for one of
the tournament’s founders, Don-
ald Dell, but “I [don’t] go to the
gym for nothing,” she said with a
laugh before she hoisted the hard-
ware onto her hip.
By finding a balance between a
lighter attitude and a steely focus
on the court, Gauff played some of
her best tennis of the year in her
first tournament after a surprise
first-round loss to Sofia Kenin at
Wimbledon last month. A domi-
nant serve, more confidence in her
forehand and an aggressive game
plan courtesy of a new coaching
team propelled her to four
straight-sets wins, three of which
came against top-20 opponents,
including the ninth-ranked Sak-
kari.
Gauff’s athleticism also served
her well. The conditions were slow
and heavy because of the heat and
humidity. Rallies that ordinarily
would have been quick on hard
courts were drawn out, and more
power than usual was required to
put away a winner. The slow ball
gave players time to run down
every shot should they want to,
which Gauff always does. Hardly
anyone on tour is as quick as her,
and even Sakkari, the biggest gym
rat in women’s tennis, couldn’t
keep up with Gauff’s young legs.
During her acceptance speech,
Gauff ran through the routine
thank-you list for her team, in-
cluding new coaches Pere Riba
and Brad Gilbert, the latter of
whom she also called a “consul-
tant” this past week. She then di-
verged, shouting out her little
NFL NOTES
Irregular heartbeat sidelines
Jacksonville lineman Shatley
A SSOCIATED P RESS
Jacksonville Jaguars offensive
lineman Tyler Shatley had felt his
heart flutter before — several
times in recent years.
He never bothered to get it
checked until Wednesday. But
with a few extra minutes to spare
following a hot and humid prac-
tice, the 10-year NfL veteran
decided to ask team trainers if
they knew what was going on.
“I’m hearing from friends that haven’t had a lot to celebrate lately,” said dan Evans, who had not won a tour-level match since April.
good effort mentally to just stay
in the present and keep fighting
for each point, and I did a great
job of that this week.”
Messages from loved ones
flooded in despite the late hour
across the pond.
“I’m hearing from friends that
haven’t had a lot to celebrate
“I’m not going to sit here and act like this is the best tennis I can
play. I do think that I can get better,” coco Gauff said after her win.
brothers before explaining that
they were at a family birthday
party in New orleans, so she didn’t
know if they were watching. At her
news conference afterward, she
briefly answered a faceTime call
from one of them, rolling her eyes
at the timing.
“I’m at press right now, bro. I’ve
got to call you later,” she said be-
fore hanging up. “That’s the first
time he’s called me in, like, two
months. I’m not even kidding. I’m
usually the one calling him.”
Armed with an attacking mind-
set and the confidence of three
good wins behind her, Gauff
leaped to a 3-0 lead as Sakkari let
her nerves dictate her play early
on. The final was the 28-year-old
Greek’s chance to get back on
track after struggling in late
rounds over the past few years.
Her lone WTA title came in 2019,
and since then she has lost the six
championship matches she has
It may have been the best call
of his professional career.
Doctors determined Shatley
was experiencing atrial fibrilla-
tion, an irregular and rapid
heartbeat. The condition can lead
to blood clots in the heart and
increases the risk of stroke and
heart failure.
“It’s just the good Lord looking
after me,” Shatley said Sunday.
“It’s all good now.”
Jacksonville put Shatley on
eZ M2
lately,” Evans said. “They have
gone out the last three nights.
one of our friends has a bar, so
they kept that open. I’m sure
they’ll have a few drinks still
now.”
An Evans-Griekspoor final
was hardly what D.C. tennis fans
expected at the tournament’s
Minh Connors/the Washington Post
played in. This year, she had lost
all five of her semifinal matches
before finally breaking through
against Jessica Pegula on Satur-
day.
“I just don’t really care any-
more,” she said with a smile more
than once after that match when
asked if her semifinal record was
on her mind. “They have made
YouTube videos of my losing semi-
finals. I’m like, ‘Whatever.’ ”
Gauff won the first set in
42 minutes, which included a brief
pause for the first of two mid-
match, heat-related medical
emergencies involving a specta-
tor. She estimated Sakkari served
about 80 percent of the time to her
weaker forehand side, and she sur-
prised the Greek with solid re-
turns.
They traded breaks in the sec-
ond set, but Sakkari could never
get enough purchase to shift mo-
mentum with Gauff serving so
blood thinners to help him regu-
late the condition. But he’s not
allowed to take part in any con-
tact drills while on the medica-
tion.
“They don’t want you to take
any hits to the head,” he said.
“They’re just nervous about that.”
Shatley was back at practice
Saturday and Sunday, taking part
in non-contract work. The team
is confident he will be fully
cleared at some point soon.
“He’s fine. Everything’s calmed
down,” Jaguars Coach Doug Ped-
erson said.
Watching much of practice
from afar might be the most
difficult part for a guy who hasn’t
missed a game since the 2015
season. Shatley has played in
outset. But both took advantage
of a wonky schedule that, be-
cause of a rainout Thursday
night, required men’s singles
players to play their round-of-16
and quarterfinal matches friday.
Evans upset 10th-ranked frances
Tiafoe in each player’s second
match of the day.
well and her own serve faltering.
Gauff drilled seven aces, including
two on her second serve, but felt
her steady forehand did the most
damage.
“How everybody’s going to play
me on the scouting report is pretty
clear,” Gauff said, referring to op-
ponents attacking her forehand,
which she hits with an extreme
western grip to create topspin. “I
think that consistently this week I
have beaten that scouting report,
and I think that’s why the players
tend to get a little more frustrated.
. . . She clearly had a plan, and I
think that I kind of just made that
plan fizzle out a little bit.”
Gauff said she feels her fore-
hand is slowly becoming less of a
liability and more of a weapon as
she looks ahead to the two tourna-
ments remaining, in Montreal and
suburban Cincinnati, before the
U.S. open. Her coaches are help-
ing her in that regard, and a new-
found willingness to show her
goofy side is tying it all together.
“I’m not going to sit here and act
like this is the best tennis I can
play. I do think that I can get
better,” Gauff said. “. . . I’m really
hard on myself, so even today in
the match, I can sit here and I’ll
talk to my coaches and I can tell
them — there were points I won
today, and I would look at my box,
[and] I’m like: ‘I shouldn’t have
won that point. I hit the ball too
short.’ They’re like, ‘It’s part of the
game.’ ”
It was shortly before 5 p.m.
when Gauff finally left Stadium
Court after signing autographs for
wave after wave of fans, mostly
children. She explained how
meaningful her position as a role
model is before laughing while
describing all of the personal ef-
fects people request from her after
a match that she has to deny — not
just her shoes but her hair ties, her
bracelets and even her earrings.
Another thing she wouldn’t be
giving up? That weighty, brand-
new piece of hardware. The trophy
was all hers.
123 consecutive games, five shy of
the franchise record held by long
snapper Joe Zelenka (2001-2008).
“It’s tough, man,” Shatley said.
“It’s tough because now all the
guys are going to have to pick up
my slack, and it just hurts. . . . I’m
trying to stay in the best shape I
can, do as much as I can, so that
way when I come back it’s a
seamless transition.”
The 32-year-old Shatley is
Jacksonville’s longest-tenured
player. He made the roster as an
undrafted rookie from Clemson
in 2014 and has started 45 games
at center and guard, including
12 last year.
l pAnTHERS: Carolina
agreed to terms with four-time
Pro Bowl outside linebacker Jus-
the washington post
Minh Connors/the Washington Post
on Saturday, Griekspoor upset
ninth-ranked Taylor fritz to ad-
vance to the final. It was the
Dutchman’s first win in 10 tries
against an opponent in the top
10.
Evans and Griekspoor played
with the hunger of underdogs in
their late-round matches — Ev-
Biles is eyeing third Olympics
bIlES fRoM d1
believes she can achieve more.
“With the proper work and the
proper help,” she said Saturday
night, “I knew I could come back
and hopefully have a shot.”
And in her season debut, Biles
earned the world’s top score of
2023 and surpassed the mark that
won gold at the world champion-
ships last year. But before looking
toward this year’s world champi-
onships and the 2024 olympics,
Biles wants to appreciate this ac-
complishment.
The U.S. Classic is often per-
ceived as a final tuneup before
nationals, a two-day meet in
which Biles will compete this
month. The stakes increase as
gymnasts advance to the trials for
the world championships and
then to that global showcase.
“When you get married, they
ask you when you’re having a
baby,” Biles said. “You come to
Classics, they’re asking you about
the olympics. I think we’re just
trying to take it one step at a time.”
Still, Biles can see how Paris
might unfold differently than To-
kyo. She has said she sees a thera-
pist weekly, and after this compe-
tition, she told Landi that she be-
lieves she’s better, mentally and
physically, than she was in 2021.
She didn’t ease back in with sim-
ple routines Saturday, instead sol-
idly performing ones similar to
what she has done in the past. She
also noted the next olympics
won’t take place under the Tokyo
Games’ intense coronavirus pro-
tocols, which prevented family
members from attending. And
she’s learning how to manage the
pressure of being one of the
world’s best and most famous ath-
letes.
In Tokyo, Biles said someone
from “our inside team” — she de-
clined to name whom — referred
to her as “our gold medal token.”
After practices, Biles said, she was
tin Houston on a one-year con-
tract.
Houston, a 12-year NfL vet-
eran, gives the Panthers the vet-
eran edge rusher they sought to
play opposite Brian Burns. Hous-
ton has 111.5 sacks during his
career, including 9.5 last season
for the Baltimore Ravens.
Houston’s best season came in
2014 when he was selected as an
all-pro, finishing with 22 sacks
while playing for the Kansas City
Chiefs.
The 34-year-old Houston was a
third-round pick by the Chiefs in
2011 and spent eight seasons with
Kansas City. He played with the
Indianapolis Colts in 2019 and
2020 before joining the Ravens
ahead of the 2021 season.
. monday, august 7 , 2023
ans more so. Ranked 30th in the
world, he took confidence from
outrunning the lightning-quick
Tiafoe on friday, then brought
the same impressive defense
against 20th-ranked Grigor Dim-
itrov in a Saturday semifinal to
become the first British finalist
in Washington since Andy Mur-
ray in 2006.
Griekspoor is on the rise. The
27-year-old with a whopping
serve has won two titles this year
and reached a career-high rank-
ing of No. 29 in June. He came to
Washington ranked 37th.
“I couldn’t have really thought
about this at the start of the
week,” Evans said during the
on-court trophy ceremony after
the win. “. . . Tallon, sorry, but
you’ve had enough this year.”
Evans had to survive 12 aces
from Griekspoor, countering his
big opening points by playing a
steadier game. He didn’t drop his
serve and peppered in 29 win-
ners to the Dutchman’s 26, in-
cluding an impressive defensive
lob to give himself three break
points in the eighth game of the
second set, then take a 5-3 lead.
When he won match point just
after 9 p.m., the clock on the
court read 1 hour 41 minutes but
nearly four hours had passed
since they had begun. Just as
Evans started to celebrate —
running around the court and
yelling like a madman, stirring
the scant crowd that remained —
rain began to fall again.
Argentines win doubles
Maximo Gonzalez and Andres
Molteni of Argentina beat Ameri-
cans Ben Shelton and Mackenzie
McDonald, 6-7 (7-4), 6-2, 10-6, to
win their fourth men’s doubles
trophy of the season. It was
Shelton and McDonald’s first
ATP final this season, but Mc-
Donald has had success in Wash-
ington — he was the runner-up to
Italy’s Jannik Sinner in the 2021
men’s singles draw.
told to be more “cheery” and de-
vote more energy to helping team-
mates who struggled. At the time,
Biles admitted she felt she had
“the weight of the world on my
shoulders.” Eventually, it all be-
came too much. A vault gone
wrong during the team final — she
intended to perform 21/2 twists but
felt lost in the air and only did 11/2 —
led to her withdrawal. She pulled
out of the all-around final, then
the medal events for vault, bars
and floor. Biles left Tokyo with a
team silver and a bronze on beam.
on social media, strangers still
pelt Biles with unfiltered criti-
cism. In the arena Saturday, fans
welcomed her with the opposite
sentiment. Ear-piercing screams
filled the venue each time Biles’s
name echoed from the sound sys-
tem — and particularly when she
performed her astonishing skills,
warmups included.
“They still love me,” Biles said.
“And it just makes my heart warm
because it’s nice to come out here
and have all that support, espe-
cially in a time like this where I
was really nervous to compete
again.”
She heard those fans, even fri-
day when just a few hundred
watched the pre-meet training
session. Biles began the practice
on bars, and the small crowd mus-
tered a big cheer when she landed
her full-twisting double tuck dis-
mount. Biles interpreted that to
mean the fans understood the sig-
nificance: She’s twisting again
without issues.
Biles said her return has been
emotional for many — her coach-
es, her parents, her agent and
some USA Gymnastics staffers.
They were with her through the
Tokyo olympics, and they’ve seen
the journey back. This weekend
brought relief, and now Biles’s
path toward a third olympics has
begun.
“Nobody’s forcing me out here,”
she said. “This is truly [for] me.”
l pAcKERS: Green Bay nar-
rowed its backup quarterback
competition by releasing Danny
Etling.
The move leaves starter Jordan
Love, rookie Sean Clifford and
reigning USfL MVP Alex
McGough as the only three quar-
terbacks on the roster. Love, a
2020 first-round pick from Utah
State, is entering his first season
as the Packers’ starting quarter-
back following the trade of four-
time MVP Aaron Rodgers to the
New York Jets.
Etling was on Green Bay’s
practice squad for all of the 2022
season and part of 2021. The
29-year-old was originally draft-
ed in the seventh round by the
New England Patriots in 2018.
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