Democrats Worry That What Happens in Nevada Won’t Stay in Nevada Democrats have long held up Nevada as a symbol of their future. But as the state’s economy struggles, it has become the epitome of the party’s midterm difficulties. ....... Democrats have long relied on working-class and Latino voters to win Nevada, but the loyalty of both groups is now in question. ....... Senator Catherine Cortez Masto, a Nevada Democrat and the country’s first Latina senator, is one of the party’s most endangered incumbents. ........ The state has long been a symbol of the Democratic Party’s future by relying on a racially diverse coalition to win elections, but those past gains are now at risk. ....... more than 28 percent of registered voters are now unaffiliated with any party, an increase from 20 percent in 2016 ....... an automatic voter registration system Nevada voters adopted in 2018. ...... they worried that they would not have enough money for the basics — rent, food, gas. .......
“I don’t know what the government does for us, even when they say they want to help.”
.......... Her father, Manny Cortez, was one of the most powerful figures in Las Vegas during stints on the Clark County Commission and later as the head of the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority. In that role, he approved the ubiquitous Las Vegas marketing phrase, “What happens here, stays here.” ....... “Every data point I’ve seen points to Hispanic voters being more open to supporting a Republican this cycle than any in recent memory,” Mr. Hughes said. “If the economy is the No. 1 issue on voters’ minds across the country, in Nevada and especially among Hispanic voters, it’s the No. 1, 2 and 3 issue.” .
Republicans Sense an Opportunity in Nevada’s Restless Latino Voters Seizing on signs that suggest Democrats are losing support among Hispanic voters nationwide, Republicans are targeting Senator Catherine Cortez Masto’s seat. ....... Cortez Masto, the first Latina to serve in the U.S. Senate ...... Republicans enjoy a 9-point advantage over Democrats in the so-called congressional generic ballot among Latino voters ....... There are reasons to be skeptical of these specific numbers: The poll sampled only 165 Latino voters, and the margin of error was plus or minus 7.6 percentage points. And Latino voters are hardly a monolith — the anti-socialism messages that have appealed to Cuban Americans in Florida differ widely from the jobs and health care-themed proposals that are effective with Mexican Americans elsewhere. .......... Hispanics “a swing vote that we’re going to have to fight for.” ........ the shift toward Republicans among Latino voters in South Texas has continued. ..... “The problem for Democrats is they keep leaking oil against Republicans, and that is a trend that I think has been borne out over the last five years.” ....... Adam Laxalt, a former state attorney general and the scion of a Nevada political dynasty ........ One book was called Picturing Frederick Douglass, who was the most photographed person in the 19th century. .
Transcript: Ezra Klein Interviews Larry Summers. For the last year or so, Larry Summers, the economist and former Treasury Secretary, has been this relentless, loud, frustrating economic Cassandra. He’s been saying often and to everyone that the risk of inflation was way higher than most economists believed. He flayed President Biden’s American Rescue Plan for being way too much stimulus too fast. ............ Month after month, he said that the inflation — it wasn’t just transitory. It wasn’t just going to go away. These weren’t just supply chain problems that would unkink. That this wasn’t just going to be a problem of autos and energy. That the markets were wrong, and the forecasters were wrong, and the pundits were wrong, and the Fed was wrong, and we were headed for a serious bout of inflation . ............ The idea of transitory inflation — that is gone. That has been retired. The data now shows that the inflation is pretty broad-based. .......... And it could be about to get worse. ......... But then Russia invaded Ukraine, creating a whole new disaster in the energy and commodity markets. Omicron began battering China. And we’ve seen huge lockdowns in regions like Shenzhen, which are critical for global manufacturing supply chains. So the disruptions — they may not be ending. They may be about to get worse. ............ I’m probably as apprehensive about the prospects for a soft landing of the U.S. economy as I have been any time in the last year. Probably actually a bit more apprehensive. In a way, the situation continues to resemble the 1970s ......... In the late ’60s and in the early ’70s, we made mistakes of excessive demand expansion that created an inflationary environment. ......... very difficult dilemmas as to whether to accept economic restraint or to live with high and quite possibly accelerating inflation. So I don’t envy the tasks that the Fed has before it. .......... the demand side is too much money chasing too few goods, or even just chasing the normal amount of goods ........ And then there’s a supply side. We are not being able to produce the goods. Factories are not being able to do things. There’s a war where an important natural resource is developed or there’s a lockdown where there’s a lot of manufacturing capacity. ........... Russia and China are adding more supply problems onto whatever we already had. ........ wage inflation in the United States was running at above a 6 percent rate and the labor market was only getting tighter. ....... a big driver of what we’re calling here excess demand was stimulus policies, credit policies, the Fed being really, really stimulative in the economy, the Biden administration putting out the stimulus checks, the American Rescue Plan being much bigger in relationship to the economic shortfall than say the Obama stimulus plan was. ........... People estimate that only about 30 percent of the stimulus checks were spent. So in terms of the impact on the economy, we’re feeling very substantial stimulus on a continuing basis for the next several years. ........ almost all forecasts of growth this year are forecast to say that the economy is going to grow more rapidly than its potential. They say that the unemployment rate is going to decline ....... there are things that feel just, that many of us have wanted for a long time. More hiring, wage increases, particularly at the bottom end, stimulus checks for people who have had a lot of bad years and didn’t have a lot of cushion behind them, child tax credit for families that could really use that. ........... this horrifying inflation problem, which is now eating back those wage increases, potentially going to require much sharper action from the Fed— I recognize the world doesn’t have to please me, but it is maddening ......... we care about is not just the level of employment this year, but the level of employment averaged over the next 10 years. That we care not just about wages and opportunities this year, but we care about wages and opportunities over the long-term. ......... the doctor who prescribes you painkillers that make you feel good to which you become addicted is generous and compassionate, but ultimately is very damaging to you. And while the example is a bit melodramatic, the pursuit of excessively expansionary policies that ultimately lead to inflation, which reduces people’s purchasing power, and the need for sharply contractionary policies, which hurt the biggest victims, the most disadvantaged in the society, that’s not doing the people we care most about any favor. It’s, in fact, hurting them. ............. what I did care about was real wage growth over time, average levels of employment and opportunity over time, and a sense of social trust that would permit progressive policies. ......... those vital ends were being compromised by those with good intentions but a reluctance to do calculations ........... wages are the ultimate measure of core inflation. Most costs go back to labor. ........ And wage growth had ratcheted up to a 6-plus percent rate by the end of the year. And there were desperate labor shortages, worse than we’ve ever had. And they were forecast to continue. ............ The long-predicted return to normal in used car prices, for example, is now substantially deferred. ........ And the good news — and this is highlighted by Paul Krugman and others — and they make an important point is that as of right now people are forecasting way accelerated inflation for this year. The market forecast is close to 6 percent. But they’re still forecasting more limited inflation beyond. And the question is, what’s going to happen to those inflation expectations? .......... will ultimately make it much easier to contain inflation than if we allow high inflation expectations to become entrenched. It’s precisely because it hasn’t happened yet that I think it is so important to be sending strong signals right now. ........ a consensus view would be that people learn from the past, because what else would you learn from? ......... If we would just live with a little more inflation, we could have lower unemployment and that would do so much for social justice. That was the prevailing macroeconomic theory of the 1960s. And that theory ended in the stagflation of the 1970s where we got the inflation, we got the acceleration in inflation, and we didn’t get any enduring benefit in terms of lower unemployment. ............. and create a need to do again what Paul Volcker did, at enormous cost, from 1979 to 1982. Most people don’t remember it today, but unemployment got to a much higher level in 1982 than it reached even during the financial crisis of 2008. ............ I think the developments in China, which suggest continuing interruptions in supply of a whole variety of goods have a reasonable chance of being with us for as much as another year. ........ I think one of the general principles to have is that things take longer than you think they will and then they happen faster than you thought they could. ........... one-year inflation expectations have shot up. But you look at three, you look at five, you look at 10-year expectations, they haven’t moved all that much. .......... the Fed has done more signaling of tightening in the last two months than any time in the last 40 years ........ The Fed going from saying that it was not going to raise interest rates at all until 2024, which was their position a year ago, to saying that they’re going to raise interest rates to 2 percent in 2022 ......... You’ve said, in an interview, that we’re going to need 4 percent to 5 percent interest rates, levels we’re not even thinking of as conceivable. ......... If we reduce tariffs, that would make more goods available at lower prices and perhaps reduce the Consumer Price Index by 1 percent or more. But their rhetoric has gone the other way on tariffs. ....... And, of course, the people who get hurt worst are the people who always get hurt worst. ........ Interest rate increases tend to have, as their major impact — a major impact — declines in asset prices. And assets are disproportionately held by the most wealthy people in the society. ........ Temporary tax changes on wealthy people almost all economists will tell you will not have large effects on the level of spending. .......... if you look back to say 2019, nonfinancial corporations had roughly a trillion dollars in profits. That had been more or less stable for a while. By 2021, they were a lot closer to $2 trillion. .......... Wage inflation is as pronounced a phenomenon as price inflation. ......... probably immigration policy, where if we could find a way to admit substantially more, particularly, but not only, high-skilled immigrants into the country, I think the benefits in terms of growth would really be very substantial. .......... we are way under-spending on fundamental research as a country, and by doing that are shortchanging one of our most fundamental strengths as a country ............ The government was more dysfunctional and corruption was greater when you had isolated state capitals. ........ I have the symmetrical humility to recognize that perhaps people should not pay great attention to my political advice, but instead should give more weight to my views about what economic science says about what the consequences of policies will be and undertake their own political evaluations. .............. I’m struck that when you ask the American people are you prepared to pay higher gas prices in order to sanction Putin, they overwhelmingly answer the question yes. ............ David Halberstam’s “The Best and the Brightest” as an avocation of how the well-intentioned but overconfident, and overly dogmatic, and unwilling to hear contrary evidence led to disastrous outcomes. ........ Zachary Carter’s recent biography of Keynes, which I think demonstrates that ideas and even economic models ultimately, and over time, have larger impacts than maneuvers and machinations in small rooms, despite the fact that the latter seem more important at any particular moment in time. .......... Brad DeLong’s “Slouching Towards Utopia” ..... ..... how profoundly different the 20th century was than all other centuries and points towards the combined power of science and markets to change the world profoundly .
special section in the issue shares research newly completing the 8% -- red regions below -- of human genome left unresolved by the initial Human Genome Project
I guess we can’t fully rule out incompetent Russian pilots getting lost and mistaking Belgorod for Kharkiv
— charlie toth ๐บ๐ฆ๐ป (@c13toth) April 1, 2022
What is Web 4?
— Paramendra Kumar Bhagat (@paramendra) April 1, 2022
If you know someone who is diabetic, they should know that 92% of House Republicans just voted against a standalone bill that would simply cap the cost of insulin at $35/month.
— No Lie with Brian Tyler Cohen (@NoLieWithBTC) March 31, 2022
๐ด Why Vladimir Putin is turning on his military advisers.
Five weeks into the war, there is mounting evidence that Vladimir Putin is turning on his own spy chief and military advisers as his invasion falters ⬇️https://t.co/lSfWbNfN4R
❌In a move which underlined the Kremlin’s deep disappointment in its intelligence agencies, Col Gen Sergei Beseda, head of the foreign intelligence branch of the FSB, was reportedly sacked and arrested during the second week of the warhttps://t.co/lSfWbNfN4Rpic.twitter.com/UKLcxMdocU
U.S. intelligence suggests that Putin’s advisers misinformed him on Ukraine.. growing tension between Mr. Putin and the Ministry of Defense, including with the Russian defense minister, Sergei Shoigu, who was once among the most trusted members of the Kremlin’s inner circle. ....... Putin’s rigid isolation during the pandemic and willingness to publicly rebuke advisers who do not share his views have created a degree of wariness, or even fear, in senior ranks of the Russian military. ........ Mr. Putin seemed genuinely unaware that the Russian military had been using conscripts in Ukraine, and that drafted soldiers were among those killed in action ......... There “is now persistent tension” between Mr. Putin and the Defense Ministry ........ Putin had an incomplete understanding about how damaging Western sanctions had been on the Russian economy ...... Ukraine’s military has not only held its own but also begun counterattacking ....... afraid that the messengers of bad news will be ........ While Mr. Shoigu had been considered one of the few advisers Mr. Putin confided in, the prosecution of the war in Ukraine has damaged the relationship. ....... Putin has put two top intelligence officials under house arrest for providing poor intelligence ahead of the invasion, something that may have further contributed to the climate of fear. ....... Putin is continuing to be misled and that senior advisers are unwilling to tell the truth. ....... What American intelligence sources there might be in the Kremlin is a tightly held secret. But since Russia began its troop buildup along Ukraine’s borders last year, U.S. intelligence officials have accurately predicted Mr. Putin’s moves. ....... the moves are a further sign that Russia is adjusting its failing strategy. It is also possible that the shifting strategy is a sign of dysfunction and miscommunication in the upper ranks of the Russian Defense Ministry.
A humanitarian corridor is agreed on for Mariupol, a city under siege. Russian forces have diminished the once thriving Ukrainian city of Mariupol to a shell of its former self ...... a city whose prewar population was about 430,000. ...... an announcement by Russia’s Defense Ministry that a cease-fire in the city on Thursday would start at 10 a.m. local time and allow people to leave to the west. ........ Ukraine’s deputy prime minister, Iryna Vereshchuk, said in an address on Thursday morning that a convoy of 45 buses had set out for Mariupol to try to reach trapped civilians.
UPDATE: Our team in #Ukraine is on the road right now to be ready to:
๐ Facilitate the safe passage of civilians out of #Mariupol tomorrow.
Shaken at First, Many Russians Now Rally Behind Putin’s Invasion Polls and interviews show many Russians now accept the Kremlin’s assertion that their country is under siege from the West. Opponents are leaving the country or keeping quiet. ....... Five weeks into President Vladimir V. Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, there are signs that the Russian public’s initial shock has given way to a mix of support for their troops and anger at the West. ........ On television, entertainment shows have been replaced by extra helpings of propaganda, resulting in an around-the-clock barrage of falsehoods about the “Nazis” who run Ukraine and American-funded Ukrainian bioweapons laboratories. ........ many Russians now accept Mr. Putin’s contention that their country is under siege from the West and had no choice but to attack. The war’s opponents are leaving the country or keeping quiet. ........ “We are in a time machine, hurtling into the glorious past” .......... polls released this week by Russia’s most respected independent pollster, Levada, showed Mr.
Putin’s approval rating hitting 83 percent, up from 69 percent in January
. Eighty-one percent said they supported the war, describing the need to protect Russian speakers as its primary justification. ............. Analysts cautioned that as the economic pain wrought by sanctions deepens in the coming months, the public mood could shift yet again. Some also argued that polls in wartime have limited significance, with many Russians fearful of voicing dissent, or even their true opinion, to a stranger at a time when new censorship laws are punishing any deviation from the Kremlin narrative with as much as 15 years in prison. ...... many Russians had adopted the belief that a besieged Russ ......... feeding the Kremlin line that the West is waging an economic war on the Russian people. ........ those who still oppose the war have retreated into a parallel reality of YouTube streams and Facebook posts increasingly removed from the broader Russian public. ......... “There’s a dividing line being drawn, as in the Civil War,” he said, referring to the aftermath of the Russian Revolution a century ago. “It was a war of brother against brother, and now something similar is happening — a war without blood this time, but a moral one, a very serious one.” ............. most supporters of the war did not appear to be especially enthusiastic. ...... the channel launched a new program called “Antifake” dedicated to debunking Western “disinformation” .......... Antiwar protests, which led to more than 15,000 arrests across the country in the first weeks of the war, have largely petered out. .... at least 50,000 tech workers alone had left the country. .......... a local opposition lawmaker, said he had received about 100 letters asking him “to do everything” to stop the war in its first two weeks, and only one supporting it. But after Mr. Putin signed legislation effectively criminalizing dissent over the war, that stream of letters dried up .......... she also found that the police officers she dealt with did not seem particularly aggressive, or enthusiastic about the war. Over all, she believed that most Russians were too scared to voice opposition, and were convinced that there was nothing they could do about it. .
Syrian Mercenaries Deploy to Russia en Route to Ukrainian Battlefields Syria has grown in recent years into an exporter of mercenaries, a grim aftereffect of years of war that gave many men combat experience but so damaged the country’s economy that people now struggle to find work. So they have deployed as guns-for-hire to wars in Libya, Azerbaijan, the Central African Republic — and now Ukraine. ........ sign up to fight because they simply need the money and believe recruiters’ promises that they will have noncombat jobs, such as guarding bases or oil facilities. ....... “What we are seeing is predatory recruitment,” said Sorcha MacLeod, the chair of the United Nations Working Group on the use of mercenaries. “They are taking advantage of the poor socioeconomic situation that these people find themselves in.” ...... a messy system in which men with few options scramble for limited opportunities to risk their lives for salaries they could not match at home. ....... Recruiters often collect payment for registration, and scams are rife. ........ The lack of other work and a currency collapse that has made basic items like bread and cooking gas exorbitantly expensive in Syria have driven up interest in Ukraine, with the promise of earning $1,000-$2,000 a month. ........ The roughly 300 soldiers already in Russia are from the 25th Division of the Syrian Army, known as the Tiger Forces, which are seen as elite and work closely with Russian officers. The Russians have offered them $1,200 a month for six months with a $3,000 bonus when they return to Syria, said the Syrian government ally. ...... Their families are promised $2,800, plus $600 a month for one year, if their loved ones are killed in combat, he said, adding that in Syria, those soldiers earn about $100 a month, while soldiers from less elite units earn less than $50 per month.......... A Syrian man who returned recently from fighting in Libya said he had gone solely for the money, but would never do it again. ....... He was happy to make it home and used his earnings to clear his debts and open a cigarette shop, he said. But his activities had left a social stain that could hurt his marriage prospects, he said. ......... He tells anyone who will listen not to go to Ukraine. “People who go there will die,” he said.
Having Won Syria’s War, al-Assad Is Mired in Economic Woes After a decade of war, the biggest threat now to President Bashar al-Assad is an economic crisis. But at a recent meeting, he had no concrete solutions to his country’s extreme distress. ....... With the rising cost of food, 60 percent of Syrians are at risk of going hungry........ the currency collapse that has gutted salaries, the skyrocketing prices for basic goods and the chronic shortages of fuel and bread. ....... he offered no concrete steps to stem the crisis beyond floating this idea: Television channels should cancel cooking shows so as not to taunt Syrians with images of unattainable food. ........ a leader who seemed out of touch with the real concerns troubling his people and helpless to do anything about them. ....... Even speaking in private, Mr. al-Assad stuck with the platitudes that characterize his public speeches. Wearing a dark suit and speaking with a professorial air, he blamed a range of forces for Syria’s woes: the “brutality” of world capitalism, “brainwashing” by social media and an ill-defined “neoliberalism” that was eroding the country’s values. ........ Lest anyone worry, he assured the journalists, Syria will not make peace with Israel or legalize gay marriage. Those are not the issues most Syrians are worrying about. ........... the Syrian pound reached an all-time low against the dollar on the black market, decimating the value of salaries and rocketing up the cost of imports. .......
60 percent of Syrians, or 12.4 million people, were at risk of going hungry
...... Most Syrians now devote their days to finding fuel to cook and warm their homes, and standing in long lines for rationed pita. Power shortages are constant, with some areas getting only a few hours of electricity a day, barely enough for people to keep their cellphones charged. ..... Desperate women have taken to selling their hair to feed their families. ........ With the $55 she got for her hair, which will be used to make wigs, she bought two gallons of heating oil, clothes for her children and a roast chicken, the first her family had tasted in three months........ She cried from shame for two days afterward. ......... The falling currency means that doctors now earn the equivalent of less than $50 a month. ....... The causes are multiple and overlapping: widespread damage and displacement from the war; sweeping Western sanctions on Mr. al-Assad’s government and associates; a banking collapse in neighboring Lebanon, where wealthy Syrians kept their money; and lockdowns to combat the coronavirus. ......... Most of the country’s oil fields and much of its agricultural land are in the northeast, which is controlled by Kurdish-led forces backed by the United States. ....... Last week, having arrested a young Israeli woman who had wandered into Syria, the Syrian government used her as a bargaining chip to obtain the release of two Syrian shepherds and 60,000 doses of coronavirus vaccines, for which Israel paid Russia $1.2 million. ......... Last month, Hala Jerf, a former news announcer on Syrian state television, posted a quote from Jean-Jacques Rousseau on Facebook in answer to the question, “What is the nation?” “In respect of riches, no citizen shall ever be wealthy enough to buy another, and none poor enough to be forced to sell himself,” she wrote. She was arrested for violating the country’s “electronic crimes” laws. ........... Not far from the al-Assads’ palace, one father of nine earns the equivalent of $5 a day selling vegetables. His simple produce stand, with boxes on the ground full of eggplants, potatoes and apples, provided for his family even during the war’s worst years. ........ His struggles have left him with little patience for the government’s focus on political issues that do not affect his daily life, like the struggle against Israel.
U.N. Investigator Accuses Israel of Apartheid, Citing Permanence of Occupation Strongly denied by Israel and its supporters, the claim is the first time that a U.N.-appointed rapporteur has accused Israel of apartheid in such an unequivocal way. ......... have sought to recast the Israeli-Palestinian conflict as a struggle for equal rights instead of a territorial dispute. ........ it met the legal definition of apartheid set out by international law. ....... The two-tier legal system enforced by Israel in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, he said, enshrined a system of domination by Israelis over Palestinians that could no longer be explained as the unintended consequence of a temporary occupation. ............. “In the Palestinian territory that Israel has occupied since 1967, there are now five million stateless Palestinians living without rights, in an acute state of subjugation, and with no path to self-determination or a viable independent state which the international community has repeatedly promised is their right” ......... “The differences in living conditions and citizenship rights and benefits are stark, deeply discriminatory and maintained through systematic and institutionalized oppression” ......... Several Israeli and foreign groups have produced similar reports recently, including the international rights groups Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, as well as B’Tselem, a leading Israeli human rights group.
What if College Were Free? This State Is Trying to Find Out. As states take the lead in the tuition-free movement after President Biden’s plans failed to gain traction in Congress, New Mexico emerges as a leader. ....... As universities across the United States face steep enrollment declines, New Mexico’s government is embarking on a pioneering experiment to fight that trend: tuition-free higher education for all state residents. ....... New Mexico, one of the nation’s poorest states ....... A new state law approved in a rare show of bipartisanship allocates almost 1 percent of the state’s budget toward covering tuition and fees at public colleges and universities, community colleges and tribal colleges. All state residents from new high school graduates to adults enrolling part-time will be eligible regardless of family income. The program is also open to immigrants regardless of their immigration status. ....... The legislation, which seeks to treat college as a public resource similar to primary and secondary education, takes effect in July. ....... “The New Mexico program is very close to ideal” ....... New Mexico’s program is among the most generous in the country. ......... a state where Hispanic and Native-American residents together account for more than 60 percent of the population. ...... a group of Republicans in the Democratic-controlled legislature crossed party lines to support the measure. ....... the state needed people to get training in areas like nursing, truck driving and maintenance of electricity systems. ........ The program is unusually inclusive, covering tuition for prison inmates and unauthorized immigrants, as well as Native Americans from tribal nations whose boundaries extend into neighboring states, meaning someone from the Navajo Nation in Arizona can be considered a New Mexico resident for tuition purposes. ....... New Mexico now ranks as the second-largest oil producing state in the country behind Texas, eclipsing North Dakota and Alaska. ........ “We build the budget on $60 a barrel oil,” Governor Lujan Grisham said in an interview, noting that oil prices have recently been hovering around $100 a barrel. .......... The University of Texas System created a $300 million endowment in February that expands tuition assistance for thousands of students. Michigan provides free college to residents who were essential workers during the pandemic, while also covering tuition at community colleges for people ages 25 or older. .......... dissatisfaction with online learning, as well as the hesitancy of some international students to study in the United States at a time when immigration rhetoric has grown more poisonous, also drove students away ........ “Free primary and secondary education is seen as a public good no matter what walk of life you come from,” he said, contending that higher education should be viewed in the same light. ........ Recipients need to have graduated from a high school in New Mexico or lived in the state for 12 consecutive months to be considered a resident.
How Pandemics EndAn infectious outbreak can conclude in more ways than one, historians say. But for whom does it end, and who gets to decide? ....... pandemics typically have two types of endings: the medical, which occurs when the incidence and death rates plummet, and the social, when the epidemic of fear about the disease wanes. ....... “When people ask, ‘When will this end?,’ they are asking about the social ending” ....... And a fear epidemic can have far worse consequences when complicated by issues of race, privilege, and language.” ........ The medieval pandemic began in 1331 in China. The illness, along with a civil war that was raging at the time, killed half the population of China. From there, the plague moved along trade routes to Europe, North Africa and the Middle East. In the years between 1347 and 1351, it killed at least a third of the European population. Half of the population of Siena, Italy, died. ......... The dead were buried in pits, in piles. ....... the plague recurred. One of the worst outbreaks began in China in 1855 and spread worldwide, killing more than 12 million in India alone. Health authorities in Bombay burned whole neighborhoods trying to rid them of the plague. “Nobody knew if it made a difference,” the Yale historian Frank Snowden said. ......... But while it still raged, smallpox was horrific. Epidemic after epidemic swept the world, for at least 3,000 years. Individuals infected with the virus developed a fever, then a rash that turned into pus-filled spots, which became encrusted and fell off, leaving scars. The disease killed three out of 10 of its victims, often after immense suffering.......... In 1633, an epidemic among Native Americans “disrupted all the native communities in the northeast and certainly facilitated English settlement in Massachusetts,” said Harvard historian Dr. David S. Jones. ....... The last person to contract smallpox naturally was Ali Maow Maalin, a hospital cook in Somalia, in 1977. He recovered, only to die of malaria in 2013. ....... The 1918 flu is held up today as the example of the ravages of a pandemic and the value of quarantines and social distancing. Before it ended, the flu killed 50 million to 100 million people worldwide. ....... After sweeping through the world, that flu faded away, evolving into a variant of the more benign flu that comes around every year. ........ In the Hong Kong flu of 1968, one million people died worldwide, including 100,000 in the United States, mostly people older than 65. That virus still circulates as a seasonal flu
The Library Ends Late Fees, and the Treasures Roll In The decision by the New York Public Library set off a wave of returns, accompanied by bashful notes of apology and gratitude. ....... Some items, checked out decades ago, arrived with apologetic notes. “Enclosed are books I have borrowed and kept in my house for 28-50 years! I am 75 years old now and these books have helped me through motherhood and my teaching career,” one patron wrote in an unsigned letter that accompanied a box of books dropped off at the New York Public Library’s main branch last fall. “I’m sorry for living with these books so long. They became family.” ......... When New York’s public library systems announced last October that they would be eliminating all late fines, the goal was to get books and people back to the more than 200 branches, as well as research centers, across the city after a year and a half of limited hours and access. ....... most overdue items are returned by mail or book drop, rather than in person ...... Before the change in policy, New York’s public libraries had charged overdue fines since the late 1800s. Early on, the rate was 1 cent per day. In 1954, it increased to 2 cents, then 5 cents in 1959. The most recent rate was 25 cents a day in New York City ...... After 30 days, a book would be deemed lost and a replacement fee would be charged. Fines didn’t accrue forever, but anyone owing $15 or more in fees would be blocked from checking out materials. In 2019, the New York, Brooklyn and Queens Public Libraries collected more than $3 million in late fees ....... in 2017, the public library in Nashville eliminated fines, and those in Chicago, Dallas and San Francisco followed two years later. ...... “We are not in the fine-collection business. We’re in the encouraging-to-read-and-learn business, and we were getting in our own way.”
Ending ageism in the workplace For the first time in the country’s history, five generations can be found in workplaces across the country. ..... when managed well, multigenerational teams benefit from diverse and complementary knowledge, skills and perspectives that improve performance across the board.
Ukrainian president says defense is at a ‘turning point’ Russian bombardment of areas around Kyiv and the northern city of Chernihiv and intensified attacks elsewhere in the country further undermined hopes for progress toward ending the brutal war. ....... A delegation of Ukrainian lawmakers visited Washington on Wednesday to push for more US assistance, saying their nation needs more military equipment, more financial help and tougher sanctions against Russia. ....... “If we really are fighting for freedom and in defense of democracy together, then we have a right to demand help in this difficult turning point. Tanks, aircraft, artillery systems. Freedom should be armed no worse than tyranny,” Zelensky said in his nightly video address to the nation, which he delivered standing in the dark outside the dimly lit presidential offices in Kyiv. He thanked the US for an additional $500 million in aid that was announced Wednesday. ......... There seemed little faith that Russia and Ukraine will resolve the conflict soon, particularly after the Russian military’s about-face and its most recent attacks. ....... demoralized Russian soldiers in Ukraine were refusing to carry out orders and sabotaging their own equipment and had accidentally shot down their own aircraft. ........ Putin had apparently “massively misjudged” the invasion. Although Putin’s advisers appeared to be too afraid to tell the truth, the “extent of these misjudgments must be crystal clear to the regime ...... Putin is being misinformed by his advisers about the poor performance of his military in Ukraine because they are too afraid to tell him the truth. ....... Five weeks into the invasion that has left thousands dead on both sides, the number of Ukrainians fleeing the country topped a staggering 4 million, half of them children ...... the faint outlines of a possible peace agreement seemed to emerge when the Ukrainian delegation offered a framework under which the country would declare itself neutral — dropping its bid to join NATO, as Moscow has long demanded — in return for security guarantees from a group of other nations. ...... Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov saying Wednesday that Ukraine’s willingness to accept neutrality and look outside NATO for security represents “significant progress ....... But those statements were followed by attacks. ........ Top Russian military officials say their main goal now is the “liberation” of the Donbas, the predominantly Russian-speaking industrial heartland where Moscow-backed separatists have been battling Ukrainian forces since 2014. ....... The UN is looking into allegations that some residents of the besieged and shattered southern city of Mariupol were forcibly taken to areas controlled by Russian forces or to Russia itself. ...... Germany said Russia had reassured it that European companies won’t have to pay for Russian gas in rubles, a prospect that raised fears that Russia could cut off supplies. Also, Poland said it would end Russian oil imports by the year’s end.
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A nurse's death raises the alarm about the profession's mental health crisis. They want to see more support for their colleagues dealing with the emotional fallout from the pandemic – people who for two years have put in grueling hours together fighting a brutal virus. ........ "If we don't talk about it, it's not going to get better," says Paredes. ....... Most nurses and other frontline health workers worked relentlessly over the past two years, surge after surge, through countless deaths and severe staffing shortages. And now, a majority are struggling with psychiatric symptoms, research finds. Mental health care providers worry that they will soon see a wave of associated problems, like substance abuse and suicide risk. ........ more than 70% of health care workers in the country have symptoms of anxiety and depression, 38% have symptoms of post traumatic stress disorder, and 15% have had recent thoughts of suicide or self-harm. ...... "You hear it in people describing how in their dreams they see [things] like body bags," she says. "Or, a lot of these anxiety dreams where they're not in control. Like a building's on fire and they can't get there." ........ "When you're doing shift after shift and you're just exhausted, you don't have time to emotionally process it" ...... "It's similar to when people are in a combat zone. But at some point you do need to respond as a human and put it back together." ....... A lot of what they talked about was witnessing death every day, which wasn't the norm before the pandemic. ...... "Like every other hour, you get a new patient and then they also die. And you really don't realize how traumatic it is until you're having a moment when you clock off, and think about [what happened in] the last 12 hours" ....... He was the kind of person who "cared deeply about everybody he met," says Paredes. "He took time to get to know people and get to know their stories." ....... After his first suicide attempt, Odell sought treatment. He started seeing a therapist regularly and got on medication. But last year, he went through a break up and lost his mother to dementia. ........ He had three months' refill for his depression medication, but was waiting for insurance to kick in to continue treatment. ....... But there were no obvious signs that he was still struggling, says Walujo, who saw him almost every day. "So this all just came out of nowhere." .......... "Going into 2021, I realized I'd actually forgotten large pieces of 2020," she says. "I had to speak to a therapist about this, and they told me that I most likely was suffering from symptoms of PTSD." ....... "We want nurses to realize that you're not alone" ...... "Veterans are in a unique position to be able to provide some insight and also help our brothers and sisters that are in the nursing field and frontline health care workers" ....... There's significant overlap between what soldiers experience at war and what health care workers have been through the past year, he says, that put them at a higher risk of PTSD and suicide. ....... "If you're able to access people in an early stage of whatever they're experiencing, then that's a crucial catch" ........ Call before the crisis. Call whenever you're starting to feel a little bit stressed." ....... But "the hospitals have not wanted to acknowledge how short-staffed we are. They don't want to acknowledge that relying on travel nurses and staff nurses working overtime shifts isn't sustainable. People are worn out." ...... "They need to do more to protect us," he adds. "They have a moral obligation to protect us."
Putin says Russia will enforce rouble payments for gas from Friday. Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Thursday that he had signed a decree saying foreign buyers must pay in roubles for Russian gas from April 1, and contracts would be halted if these payments were not made.
Why the U.S. Was Wrong About Ukraine and the Afghan War U.S. intelligence agencies thought the Afghan military would last longer and predicted Kyiv would fall faster, showing the difficulty of assessing fighting spirit. ........ just seven months ago, when the Taliban rolled into Afghanistan’s capital, Kabul, unopposed. Most Afghan troops abandoned their uniforms and weapons. The president fled to the United Arab Emirates ....... In Afghanistan, intelligence agencies had predicted the government and its forces could hold on for at least six months after the U.S. withdrawal. In Ukraine, intelligence officials thought the Russian army would take Kyiv, Ukraine’s capital, in two days. ........ The miscalculations demonstrate that even in an age of electronic intercepts and analysis assisted by vast data collection, human relationships still matter in accurately assessing the morale of a country or military. ........ Over the last week, Ukrainian forces have used tanks and fighter jets to attack Russian positions outside Kyiv and other cities in a way that demonstrates that their objective is not to take back territory, but to destroy Russian forces. It is a sign of not only savvy strategy but
a clear intent by Ukraine to defeat the Russian military and win the war
. .......... “If there was a blind spot, I think it was less in believing Ukrainians wouldn’t fight and more about believing the Russian military was more capable than they turned out to be” ....... amplified by the Russian military’s struggle with complex maneuver warfare, supply problems, broken-down vehicles and lack of secure communications ........ Intelligence officials also had no way of predicting the leadership abilities of Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelensky, which have proven key in rallying the country to the fight. ......... In Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan, American officials believed the units they had trained would fight longer and harder than they did. ........ “To get the data you have to become close to your partner and the minute you do that, lack of bias goes out the window” ........ “Zelensky’s endgame may be victory, it may be getting Russian troops off his soil,” Mr. Cotton said. “Even if you didn’t think that a month ago, you have to concede it is certainly a possibility now.”
Black Tesla employees describe a culture of racism: ‘I was at my breaking point’. A single mother was excited to land a job at Tesla. About three years in, she was fired, she said, after complaining that Black workers were frequently called the N-word on the assembly line. ...... A former refinery worker couldn’t wait to get into green energy. She said she soon found herself and other Black workers assigned to the most arduous tasks in a corner of the factory co-workers called “the plantation.” ........ An Army veteran was promoted to a fleet manager job. He said he was fired after he complained that his boss called him and two Black co-workers “monkeys.” ....... They say Tesla segregated Black workers into separate areas, gave them the hardest tasks and routinely denied them promotions. ........ “There was a time where I worked three months straight — no days off.” ....... Besides the unequal assignment of factory tasks, verbal harassment was a daily affliction ...... Chatman didn’t hear Asian workers use the N-word, she said, but they “would make chicken jokes,” a stereotype mocking of Black Americans’ diet. ........... Tesla’s billionaire chief executive, Elon Musk, would come through the front of the factory “with his entourage,” Chatman said. “They didn’t want a Black face up there,” she said, adding that Latino colleagues were left up front while Black workers were moved to the back. ......... After her HR complaint, Chatman said, she was no longer harassed. She said the lead was fired after complaints from multiple workers. But she soon saw him back at the factory, rehired in a non-supervisory job. ........ Workers called Tesla’s factory “the plantation,” and “the slave ship,” not just for the brutal work pace that everyone experienced, but especially because Black workers were routinely segregated into a corner of the factory that lacked air conditioning and work conditions were most crowded, Romby said. ........ He’d overhear white supervisors berate Black, Asian and Latino workers, often directing the N-word at Black employees. “Things like, ‘Tell that n— to get over here.” ....... He had ideas for improving the fleet but said he was never taken seriously. “They didn’t like how much the company was spending on equipment, but they wouldn’t hear my suggestions on how to cut costs. I said if you people put more money into training people [to use the equipment properly] rather than buying new equipment, you could save a lot of money. Never once did that start to happen.” .......... Jones now runs the skateboard company he founded, Spread the Shred. Sometimes he thinks about Musk, who once told employees who were targets of racism to get a “thick skin.”
Counteroffensive in Ukraine Shifts Dynamic of War President Biden met with European leaders in Brussels to reinforce solidarity against Russia’s invasion and proposed excluding Russia from the G20. Ukraine said it had destroyed a Russian naval ship. ........ President Biden and leaders of more than 30 nations convened Thursday to demonstrate united opposition to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, announcing new economic sanctions, aid for refugees, deployment of additional forces to Eastern Europe and grim preparations in case Russia uses chemical, biological or nuclear weapons.
The Best Electric Blanket and Heated Mattress Pad Combine chilly temperatures with a drafty house, and you could end up with high utility bills. But using electric bedding to heat your bed costs just pennies a night. The Scars of Ukraine’s War, Illuminated in Fiction Two newly translated books highlight everyday lives transformed by conflict. ....... In 2019, I read about a condition called uterine prolapse; it occurs when weakened pelvic muscles cause the uterus to detach, drop down into the vagina, and in some cases, even slip out. I learned that more cases than usual were being reported in a city in the Donbas region of Ukraine, where skirmishes between Russian-backed separatists and the Ukrainian Army had left the area war-ravaged long before the full-scale invasion currently strangling the country. A gynecologist in Avdiivka, a suburb of Donetsk, told The New York Times that the uptick in cases was most likely due to a combination of stress and heavy lifting; damage to pipes and other infrastructure forced residents to carry pails of water up flights of stairs. One woman with the condition, Liudmila, said she now had to decide between an expensive medical procedure and repairing her roof, which had been destroyed by shelling. “The winter is coming,” she said, “and I am going to stay either without a roof over my head or with my uterus falling out.” ......... battle scars are more often psychological than physical. Her characters, much like Liudmila, have not been afforded the time or space to attend to the shocks of war; life, or something like it, must go on for these women. Many are internal refugees who fled the brutal fighting that first broke out in east Ukraine in 2014, and have resettled in a Kyiv that regards them with apathy or suspicion ....... In the Kyiv metro, we meet a jovial woman named Xenia who appears enthusiastic about her new career selling stationery on the subway. Advertising double-sided markers, she yells to the passengers, “They highlight the main idea!” When someone shoots her a dirty look, her veneer of happiness rapidly disintegrates, and she collapses. The narrator makes vague reference to “all the other sorrows that had vexed her over the last two years,” without explaining what they are, because, after all, no one has bothered to ask. ............. an overlooked population — poor women in Ukraine’s industrial east — within an overlooked conflict. ....... A beloved manicurist goes missing, but no one notices at first; another woman disappears into a forest. ........ In one story, “The Stars,” horoscopes in the local paper advise when it is safe to walk around outside based on readers’ zodiac signs: “It turned out that Pisces could be sure of their well-being and safety from 3 to 5 p.m. that day.” ......... Readers looking for clarity about the political factions and internal divisions that led to the conflict will find instead hazy dream sequences, witchcraft, a woman who loses the ability to walk in Maidan Square and jokes, “I am a living monument.” ........ In “The Stars,” some believe they’re being bombed by Canada; apparently, Trudeau is after their coal. ......... The novelist Andrey Kurkov has said that while he is ethnically Russian, he considers himself “politically Ukrainian.” Kurkov was born in 1961 in St. Petersburg (then Leningrad), but moved to Kyiv as a child. Russians, he told Agence France-Presse in February, subscribe to the “collective mentality.” For Kurkov, the czars, the Bolsheviks and now Putin have been trying to impose this worldview onto Ukrainians, but “Ukrainians are individuals,” he says. ....... He is best known for “Death and the Penguin” (1996), a satirical crime thriller about an obituary writer named Viktor living in 1990s Kyiv whose sole companion is his pet penguin. Like the post-Soviet man, the penguin has been cut off from his collective (back home in Antarctica) and is adrift in a free world. It shouldn’t work, but it does. .......... Firmly neutral, Sergey has no dog in this fight — just his bees. One of his most prolonged considerations of new political realities is what will happen to his regional society for beekeepers if Donetsk were to become independent. “Was there a society in Donetsk these days?” he wonders. “If there was, it wouldn’t be the region’s, it would be the ‘republic’s,’ and that meant he was no longer a member.” ........... Over the course of the novel, his resolve to stay neutral is shaken, particularly when he sees how Russian occupying forces have treated his beekeeper friend, a Crimean Tatar named Akhtem. There are hints of an awakening. He notices his bees, which he had once heralded as a species that had achieved pure communism, refusing to make room for a newcomer from another hive. Suddenly their communalism looks like little more than cruel tribalism.
Sergey reprimands them: “Why are you acting like people?”
........ the Russian characters in “Grey Bees” come off to me as eerily cold, almost monstrous — snipers, cops, Putin apologists — as if the actions of the Russian government were in some ways reflective of a deeper national character .......... recalls Kurkov’s professed view of Russian and Ukrainian people as fundamentally different, each with a unique “mentality.” ......... Now, Ukrainians are fighting for the right to be many people, speaking many languages, refusing to be separated.
The Battle for the Mural — and the Future of Belarus It started as an act of graffiti at a playground in Minsk. It turned into a remarkable campaign of defiance against an increasingly totalitarian regime. ........ They positioned their spotters to watch for the Belarusian security services, the siloviki. They agreed on a plan to create an emergency diversion if they arrived. ....... There were more than 1,000 political prisoners in detention; sentences for those who opposed Lukashenko’s regime stretched into decades. Now Russia had launched an assault on Ukraine, and Lukashenko had sold their country to the Kremlin as a giant military base. ........ If they had overthrown Lukashenko, the man thought, probably none of this would be happening. Vladimir Putin would not have had the strategic assets to be able to carry out this war — no support from the northern flank, no airfields for refueling planes, no silos to keep the missiles. ........ The appeal of buying there was obvious — it was a 10-minute drive from downtown Minsk, with a supermarket across the street and good schools nearby. It was a short walk to the Belarusian capital’s largest park and the shores of the big lake that locals in the landlocked country referred to as the Minsk Sea. .......... It was a few days before the August 2020 presidential elections, which until recently Diana and pretty much everyone else in Belarus had expected to be the sixth straight election President Lukashenko would win through a combination of voter apathy, oppositional disarray, electoral suppression and outright fraud. But for the first time in his 26 years in power, the usual script of the regime’s election interference had gone awry. ........... The D.J.s replied that they were just doing what they thought was right. Almost immediately, they were arrested. ....... For more than two decades, Belarusians had existed in an equilibrium of quiet authoritarianism. If the repressions didn’t directly touch them, most people tolerated them. The country’s national anthem started with “We, Belarusians, are a peaceful people,” and a common proverb to describe the national psyche was “maya hata s krau” — which translates roughly to “my house is on the side.” Whatever is happening outside my family is none of my business. .......... In 1991, the year before Diana was born, the leaders of Belarus, Russia and Ukraine negotiated the end to the U.S.S.R. at a hunting lodge in western Belarus. .......... Diana’s compatriots were among the least interested in independence — 83 percent of Belarusians had voted against it. Still, they emerged one day into a new reality of seismic proportions; their state, their ideology and all the order they knew had melted away. As an only child after perestroika, Diana was allowed to do whatever she wanted, too young and too loved to realize the real toll of the upheaval running through the former Soviet empire. ............ In the chaos of the 1990s, she recalls, everyone knew that if a cop came to the bandits’ side, it would end poorly. Her parents straddled the new divide neatly — her mother worked for the state, while her father worked the corner. He tried everything to get in on the new economy. He drove plush toys from Smolensk, Russia, hawked meat at an open-air market and thumbed stacks of rubles on the black-market currency exchange. ......... Minsk was bombed so brutally, the Wehrmacht had to wait for the fires to subside so they could enter the city. Whether because of extermination, displacement or deportation, by the end of the war, Belarus was missing half its population. ......... previous institutions other than the Communist Party remained intact. ....... In Belarus, too, as the economy was liberalized, standards of living dropped, while criminality climbed. Diana didn’t remember the food lines, but her grandmother often told her that while life in the Soviet Union was difficult, it was stable, and the people were kinder. ........... Lukashenko made his entrance into this morass. The former head of a small collective farm, he was elected to Parliament in 1990 but remained unknown until he became head of an anticorruption committee three years later. He shot to fame after giving a speech denouncing high-level corruption on the floor of the legislature when he was 39. Lukashenko presented himself as a mix of everyman populist and cherry-picked Soviet-nostalgist, bellicose and bombastic. He defeated Prime Minister Vyacheslav Kebich with 80 percent of the vote in the 1994 presidential election. ........... Almost immediately after taking power, Lukashenko began to impose autocratic rule. He censored state media; he closed Belarus’s only independent radio station and several newspapers. Lukashenko stripped powers from the Parliament. He oversaw a referendum to resurrect Soviet national symbols and made Russian a state language. In 1999, Belarus and Russia signed a treaty that committed them to merging into a confederal state at some future point. (At the time, President Boris Yeltsin of Russia was so sick and unpopular, Lukashenko believed he might head the eventual union.) ............ By the end of the ’90s, Lukashenko controlled all executive and judicial authorities, the Central Election Commission, unions and the military and law-enforcement structures. Through a 2004 constitutional referendum, he abolished presidential term limits. ......... In some ways, Lukashenko’s autocracy outgrew even the U.S.S.R.’s model. Belarus had no ruling party, no place to incubate rivals or create factions — the elites existed at Lukashenko’s pleasure. The president made all key personnel and economic decisions, including the appointment and dismissal of heads of cities and districts, lower-court judges and directors of major factories. The K.G.B. was never disbanded. Instead, “curators” were placed in important institutions. ............ Because Belarus was slow to privatize, oligarchs never had much of a chance to materialize. Half of the economy remained under state control. Lukashenko instituted a short-term job-contract scheme in the state sector, which was used to target anyone who became too political. Placements in institutions of higher learning were similarly weaponized. Independent journalists were jailed intermittently and then released, the steady two-step of a repressive state. ........... Lukashenko’s was a soft authoritarian system, with the requisite window dressings. If you were a private nonpolitical citizen, you were unlikely to encounter the K.G.B. There was little fear of serious consequence for an ordinary citizen making a joke. People could openly talk about hating the president in cafes; they could make fun of his often nonsensical ramblings. They could mock his mustache, his combover and his rural accent. ............... There were small, unpopular opposition parties, which were allowed to rent office space in the capital. They registered for elections. There was no personality cult — no portraits, streets or statues dedicated to the Great Leader. Instead, the regime relied on technicalities, like an article in the criminal code covering insults to the president, which it used to persecute critics. The authorities rarely shuttered publications outright, preferring to impose crippling fines instead. ............ But most crucially, for well over a decade, Lukashenko was genuinely popular. A level of propaganda undergirded his rule, reinforcing the perception of a social pact in which the state would provide for the citizen. Lukashenko relished his supporters’ calling him Batka — Father. .......... Most experts agree he would have won elections without rigging them. Belarus’s economic growth hovered in and around the double digits. The economy was buttressed by money the state earned refining duty-free Russian oil and gas and reselling it. Excluding the Baltics, Belarus was the former Soviet republic with the highest standard of living. Belarus’s per capita G.D.P. was nearly twice that of neighboring Ukraine. Life expectancy was higher than in Russia. ........... but only those in the “opposition ghetto,” as it was called, received outlandish sentences. .......... Most citizens steered clear of anything political, and many believed what their TVs told them. .......... When she got to university in Minsk, where she studied materials science, Diana realized she had been fooled by state television. In 2011, runaway inflation struck the country — there was a major currency devaluation, and the regime imposed price controls on basic goods and food. ........... The authorities responded with their usual farce — they banned applause unless directed at veterans. They arrested a one-armed man for clapping. They accused a deaf and mute man of shouting anti-government slogans. When people started to protest by flash mob, the authorities banned standing around doing nothing in a group. ........... Tut.by was allowed. The portal was started in 2000 by the businessman Yuri Zisser, often referred to as Belarus’s Steve Jobs, and was read by 62 percent of the population, reaching people across the political spectrum. The regime had invested heavily in telecommunications infrastructure and left most of it alone, focusing efforts on television propaganda. ............ nonstop news in Minsk, with everyone glued to the daily developments. ............ Lukashenko, who often played Russia and Europe against each other for his own gain, did not recognize the annexation of Crimea and refused to join the Kremlin’s boycott of the West. Since Putin’s election in 2000, relations between the two presidents had been strained. Russia subsidized the Belarusian economy and by extension kept Lukashenko in power, but Lukashenko rarely made it easy for the Kremlin. Belarus was an important transit country for Russian gas exports to Europe, and Lukashenko knew Putin was loath to see political instability along the border. For years, Putin had pushed for closer ties, economic and military, based on the 1999 union agreement, but Lukashenko balked. Though Belarus agreed in 2014 to join Russia’s version of the E.U., the Eurasian Economic Union, Lukashenko stalled Russian demands for a new air base in Belarus. He wavered on extending leases on two military facilities. ............... Watching the 2014 invasion of Ukraine, Lukashenko seemed to decide that an overreliance on the Kremlin could lead Belarus to the same fate. He flirted with the European Union and the United States and began a limited political liberalization, marketing Belarus as a Slavic Switzerland — a neutral country where negotiations and peace talks, like the Minsk Accords for a cease-fire in eastern Ukraine, could be held. Most Belarusians agreed — they didn’t want to be part of the E.U., nor did they want to merge with Russia. The status quo was fine. ............... The first vacation she took, Diana and Tima went to Cyprus to sit by the sea. ........... In March 2020, when Covid hit, Lukashenko dismissed the virus as “psychosis” that could be treated with a shot of vodka, a tractor ride or a sauna visit. ........... Vasili, the coder, preferred Valery Tsepkalo, a former diplomat who started Hi-Tech Park in 2005, Belarus’s successful version of Silicon Valley. .......... After Lukashenko distanced himself from Russia in the wake of the Crimean annexation, Moscow had shown its ire. The Kremlin tried to increase the price Belarus paid for oil, while Belarus tried to raise gas transit taxes. Lukashenko repeatedly complained that the Kremlin was trying to bully Minsk into a union with Russia. As relations deteriorated, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo became the highest-level U.S. official to visit Belarus in decades. When the presidential campaign began, Lukashenko openly accused Russian oligarchs and “higher” people of interference. He detained 33 mercenaries from a Kremlin-linked security contractor, the Wagner Group, whom he claimed had been dispatched to depose him. .................. By mid-July, all three candidates had been removed from the ballot — two were in jail, and one fled the country in anticipation of his own detention. The campaigns united under Sviatlana, who was running on three demands — release of political prisoners, curtailed powers for the president and free elections. Charismatic and earnest, she was adored for her image as a Decembrist’s wife — women who had given up their lives and followed their husbands to exile in Siberia. ........... Golos later tabulated that Sviatlana won at least 56 percent of the vote. ......... In seven years of relative liberalization, as Belarusians like Diana had come of age, they had forgotten what totalitarianism was capable of. ........ For three days, the wide boulevards and tidy parks of downtown Minsk were full of protesters, most of whom had ventured into the streets for the first time. They were met by riot police, tear gas and stun grenades so loud the residents could hear the echoes in their homes. The authorities cut off the internet — the only way to understand what was happening was to go outside. ...................... Nearly 7,000 protesters were arrested in four days. Hundreds were beaten and tortured. Lukashenko called protesters “drug addicts” and “prostitutes.” ........... an unprecedented level of brutality by the regime .......... Hundreds of thousands of citizens had joined weekly Sunday marches demanding a recount. ...... A Belarusian American from Florida visiting Minsk came to take a photograph. .............. During the postelection melee, Sviatlana had been detained and forced into exile in Lithuania. From Vilnius, she had started calling herself the “leader of democratic Belarus.” ........ A quasi-state had reconstituted itself around her as other political figures, NGO workers, campaigners and civic activists fled or were driven out of the country to Ukraine, Georgia, Lithuania or Poland. Those who had not fled were arrested; there were no protest leaders left in Minsk. .................. Sviatlana and the opposition had taken pains to paint themselves as Russia and E.U. neutral. This had nothing to do with wanting to join the E.U. or NATO, they said — they just wanted free elections. ........... By October, three months after the election, 16,000 people had been detained. There were 101 political prisoners. .......... The following day, there was a minute of silence. It felt as if Minsk froze all at once. As soon as it was over, cars started beeping, and the city wailed in unison. Even more people thronged the Square with candles and flowers. “We won’t forget, we won’t forgive,” they chanted through tears. .......... The morning after the march, residents woke to a police patrol that would stay on the Square 24 hours a day, seven days a week, for nearly five months. A pair of officers stood at each building, and three pairs walked the children’s playground. The mural had been painted and repainted so often no one could say exactly how many times, but they thought it was at least 18. Now it was gone again. ........... The cost of even small protests was rising. By April, there were more than 350 political prisoners. What was previously a five-to-15-day administrative detention was now indefinite pretrial detention with possible criminal charges that carried years of prison time. ............. They would all walk around the neighborhood for a while, taking different routes, arriving home at different times through different entrances. .......... On Friday at 7 a.m., plainclothes police officers arrived at her door. She held them off for an hour, stalling by calling the police on the police. .......... She erased the chat and her contacts. She unsubscribed from opposition Telegram channels. She came out of the bathroom with a clean phone............ “Any abrasions on your body?” “No.” “There will be.” “Are you pregnant?” “No.” “You will be!” .......... Diana turned around and saw a boy who couldn’t have been older than 18, shorter than her by a foot, poorly playing the role of intimidator. “Even your jokes are beneath you,” she retorted. ......... Diana was charged under Article 341, the desecration of structures and damage to property, punishable by up to three years in prison. She remained hopeful that the investigators were simply following protocol. She decided she would not be afraid. .......... The investigator had the option of letting Diana and Vasili out on bail, but he chose among the most punitive measures of restraint available. Vasili remained in pretrial detention and was taken directly to a prison about 35 miles northeast of Minsk. Diana, as a single mother, was put under house khimiya, similar to house arrest. She was prohibited from going outside except for travel to and from work. She couldn’t even take Tima to school. She was not allowed to use her phone or the internet until her and Vasili’s joint court date in August. ............
Throughout the country, repression had seeped in like gas, slowly tainting the air they breathed.
......... According to the Belarusian Association of Journalists, the authorities detained about 400 journalists on administrative charges between August 2020 and March 2021; at least 100 were given short jail terms. The authorities moved forward with laws that would make it illegal for journalists to “discredit” the state, thereby prohibiting any criticism of the regime. .......... On May 18, Tut.by’s offices were raided. The state detained 15 employees, including the editor in chief, the general director, journalists, project managers and accountants. Tut.by was charged with tax evasion and declared “extremist.” Belarus’s pre-eminent publication was destroyed. The outlet’s remaining journalists fled to Kyiv and started running a news website called Zerkalo, which means mirror. ........... The E.U. added a fourth round of sanctions and blocked most flights to and over Belarus. Lukashenko responded by prohibiting Belarusians from leaving the country altogether; only those who had permanent-resident status in other countries or a few official exemptions could cross. In June, Belarus’s premier human rights organization, Viasna, recognized Vasili as a political prisoner — he was one of 608 by the first anniversary of the stolen election. ............. PEN Belarus, whose president is the Nobel laureate Svetlana Alexievich ......... Lukashenko signed a decree that those caught participating in extremist activities or causing grievous harm to the interest of the republic could be deprived of citizenship. ........ When they arrived in Ukraine, they jumped up and down like children. ...... “There are particles of freedom in the air!” they screamed. ........ Warsaw was big and gray and cold. Nothing was familiar. She had set up donation pages on different diaspora websites, but little help had arrived. She was eager to put Tima in school, find a permanent apartment and start looking for work. We attended a Belarusian solidarity protest, which were held weekly in downtown Warsaw. That Sunday it was damp and rainy. The crowd was small. Most people wore masks, concerned about their security even in Poland. We didn’t stay long. ................. Diana still lived inside the chat, spending hours talking and planning. ....... Waves of repression over three decades had already created a small, fragmented core of exiled Belarusians in opposition, mostly concentrated in Poland and Lithuania, funded by governments long suspicious of Russian ambitions. Then in 2020 they were joined by new arrivals fleeing the latest crackdown — Ukraine, Poland, Lithuania and Georgia had flexible residency or humanitarian-visa policies toward Belarusians. As more people fled, they called themselves not refugees or exiles but “relocants” — waiting to go home. ......... Unlike other exiles and refugees, the Belarusians I met over the course of three months in Vilnius, Warsaw and Kyiv had not set about constructing new lives. They kept their Belarusian SIM cards and paid their monthly bills back home. They had apartments in Belarus they hadn’t sold, cars they had parked somewhere. Their immediate family members remained, and so they worried about retaliation. Many had assumed they were leaving for only a month, just long enough for the situation to blow over. ................ When Sviatlana first arrived in Vilnius, a small army of volunteers joined her, living in a Hilton for months. As the leader of democratic Belarus, Sviatlana traveled constantly. She met Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany, President Emmanuel Macron of France and President Biden — advocating for the unfinished revolution and for stronger sanctions against the regime. “Until people are free, you simply cannot stop,” Sviatlana told me in Vilnius. ............. The new exiles formed various pseudo-state structures around her. There were advisers on the future Constitution and economic reform. A group of former security-service members set up ByPol, short for Belarus Police, working to encourage more defectors, investigate claims of police abuses and release their findings. Another group calling themselves the Belarusian Cyber-Partisans aimed to disrupt regime communications, cripple infrastructure and leak names and addresses of security-service members.
A collective of programmers coding pro bono found a way to send donations to Belarus in untraceable peer-to-peer cryptocurrency transfers.
................ Lukashenko recognized Russia’s annexation of Crimea and signed a 28-point program that moved Belarus and Russia closer to the 1999 union state. Lukashenko and Putin approved a joint military doctrine but no further political integration. ........... Since the summer, the Lukashenko regime had assisted refugees in flooding the borders of Lithuania and Poland to force the E.U.’s hand on sanctions against his country. Poland, which accepted practically no Syrians in the 2015 refugee crisis but had opened its borders to white, Christian Belarusian protesters, was a billboard for the hypocrisy of the bloc. Lithuania had started constructing a razor-wire fence at the border with Belarus. In November, Polish border guards fired water cannons in freezing conditions at families with children. ........... “Remember you are coming to prison,” one journalist wrote to me from Minsk as I packed. ......... Minsk was austere, brutal and beautiful, as spotless as everyone had promised, but also empty and so cold that being outside burned my skin. .......... They would be watching, and once they made sure I was alone, they would message me the number of a parking spot. ............ There was also the probability that I would have a tail or a minder. Most people were too afraid to meet with a journalist. Others who had agreed to meet wanted to do so outside to check if I was being followed. ................ and into an apartment where a group was already waiting for me. ......... They thrummed with energy and thoughts they needed to put somewhere. They told me about their acquaintances who had been forced to resign from civil-service positions for having signed for Babariko’s candidacy. Neighbors were reporting on neighbors. Children were forced to pose with the green-and-red flag or recite Lukashenko’s biography. The group couldn’t gather in cafes or anywhere outside of apartments anymore. They knew they could be arrested at any time, yet they laughed so loudly and boldly at the kitchen table, as if the danger were an illusion. This duality was almost impossible to process. ................ “Germans captured a Russian, a Belarusian and an American. The American is told, OK, betray your people, where are they hiding? If not, then we will hang you. He’s like, I won’t, and they hang him. They come back in the morning to check if he’s dead, and he is. They call in the Russian. They say, tell us where your fellow partisans are. If not, then we will hang you. He refuses, so they hang him. They come back in the morning to check if he’s dead, and he is. Now, they ask the Belarusian, tell us where the partisans are. He says he won’t, so they hang him. They come back in the morning, and he’s still alive. They’re like how is this possible? He’s like, ‘Well at first it was bothering me over here’” — he gestured to his neck — “ ‘but then I got used to it.’” ............. a preplanned joint exercise called “Allied Resolve 2022.” .......
No one believed the war was coming.
.............. Sanctions risked hurting the average citizen; they had a mixed record of effecting political change. ........ In Warsaw, Diana had been working on a plan to open a house for newly arriving Belarusians — a community where people could get advice on residency, refugee status, health care and schools. The group she was working with, Courtyard Activists Abroad, pivoted to providing supplies for Ukrainian refugees. She attended protests at the Belarusian and Russian Embassies. She grappled with a sense of shame. All along they wondered if they could have done more to stop Lukashenko, to free their own people and by extension to stop this war. ........ We could have overturned the buses, even if they had 20 siloviki in them. We had thousands in our marches. But we didn’t try. Instead, we were peaceful. We walked with flowers.” ............ Though the regime had spent a year and a half decimating the ranks of the politically active, thousands of Belarusians still took to the streets. Across the country, more than 800 people were arrested. (In Russia, with a population roughly 15 times greater, 2,000 people were arrested that same day.) ...........
Westerners often looked at Belarus as if it were Europe’s own little North Korea.
Lukashenko himself mocked reporters who called him “the last dictator of Europe.” .......... regimes and freedoms vary, and repressions exist in shades ......... only 3 percent of Belarusians supported entering the war alongside the Russian military ........... It had been foolish to believe that the U.S.S.R. could collapse so peacefully, that its ghosts would not demand placation. Now they were all paying the price. .......... even more puzzling is the choice to remain. “I have no fear for myself; I have fear for my family,” Shamberbetch told me. “I want to send my relatives abroad. I want to stay here as long as possible, to fight. When I realize there’s nothing I can do here anymore, I’ll leave the country through the woods.”
Uhm did this Russian ballet company based in Saint Petersburg (!!!) randomly rebrand to “Ukrainian Classical Ballet” to avoid jeopardizing their international tours ๐คฆ♀️ ๐คฏ pic.twitter.com/yOiBcPcFjb
A Russian negotiator’s positive language clashes with the hard-line rhetoric from Moscow.. The Kremlin’s chief negotiator, Vladimir Medinsky, read a statement broadcast on state television that described Ukraine’s proposal on Tuesday to declare neutrality as a core concession to Russia ........ “Yesterday, the Ukrainian side for the first time outlined its readiness, in writing, to fulfill a number of important conditions for building normal and, I hope, good neighborly relations with Russia.” ........... Some Russian analysts and Western officials see the diplomacy as little more than a way to buy time while Russian troops regroup. Russia’s promise to wind down military operations around Kyiv, which the Russian Defense Ministry cast as a good-faith gesture of de-escalation, in reality appeared to be a way to explain away a battlefield defeat. ....... The aim of gathering forces near Kyiv was all along not to take the city, but to tie up and weaken Ukrainian troops in the area, the ministry claimed in a statement. “All these goals were achieved,” the ministry said, adding it would now focus on “the final stage of the operation to liberate” the Donbas area of eastern Ukraine. ........ senior Russian officials were unlikely to know what Mr. Putin was really planning, leading to this week’s mixed messages. ....... “The problem with the Russian regime is that, once again, no one understands what Putin wants,” Ms. Stanovaya said. “As a result, we get this informational chaos.” .
Istanbul Summary. Legal guarantees providing a new security contour of ๐บ๐ฆ (analogous to Article 5 of NATO). Crimean issue returns to the negotiating agenda. Proof of the viability of ๐บ๐ฆ statehood. The revision of global security principles & the role of institutions begins.
— ะะธั ะฐะนะปะพ ะะพะดะพะปัะบ (@Podolyak_M) March 30, 2022
Unconditional security guarantees for Ukraine, ceasefire, effective decisions on humanitarian corridors and humanitarian convoys, observance by the parties of the rules and customs of war. Difficult negotiations for peace in our country. Istanbul round right now… pic.twitter.com/SUTAQrAhA2
— ะะธั ะฐะนะปะพ ะะพะดะพะปัะบ (@Podolyak_M) March 29, 2022
Kira is 12. Her mother died when she was little, her dad was killed in #Mariupol. She tried to escape but was captured by #russians and taken to occupied territory of Donbas.
A graphic and video thread on gerrymandering - and why it is a violation of the state constitutional right to equal treatment of qualified votershttps://t.co/Ap1NIoSRWx
Yes, There Is a Clash of Civilizations. China’s one-party meritocracy, Putin’s uncrowned czardom, the post-Arab Spring triumph of dictatorship and monarchy over religious populism in the Middle East, the Hindutva populism transforming Indian democracy — these aren’t just all indistinguishable forms of “autocracy,” but culturally distinctive developments that fit well with Huntington’s typology, his assumption that specific civilizational inheritances would manifest themselves as Western power diminishes, as American might recedes. ........... internal Ukrainian divisions, the split between the Orthodox and Russian-speaking east and the more Catholic and Western-leaning west .......
eastern Ukraine has resisted Russia fiercely.
......... a rising China might be able to peacefully integrate Taiwan and maybe even draw Japan into its sphere of influence; that scenario seems highly unlikely at the moment. ....... None of the ambiguous and ambivalent reactions to Putin’s war outside the Euro-American alliance suggest a sudden springtime for the liberal-international world order. .
Will the Ukraine War End the Age of Populism?. If the past 10 years of Western history have featured an extended wrestling match between populism and liberalism, Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine has inspired many liberals to hopefully declare the contest over, their opponent pinned. ....... a shameless pivot. Which is to say: Don’t be surprised if Donald Trump somehow evolves into the biggest Russia hawk you’ve ever seen come 2024. ...... Now, though, if you look at polls of Republican voters or listen to G.O.P. politicians, what you see is mostly a reversion to straightforward hawkishness, to a view that the Biden White House probably isn’t being confrontational enough — which is to say, to where the party stood before the Trump rebellion happened. ........ it’s not a global coalition confronting Putin so much as a Euro-American one ...... “A Russian defeat will make possible a ‘new birth of freedom,’” Francis Fukuyama ........ Fukuyama framed the current moment as an opportunity for Americans and other Westerners to choose liberalism anew, out of a recognition that the nationalist alternative is “pretty awful.” ........ the spirit of 1989 was itself as much a spirit of revived Eastern European nationalism as of liberalism alone. Which is one reason countries like Poland and Hungary have sorely disappointed liberals in their subsequent development ....... Putin’s invasion disproves “all the nonsense about how the West is decadent, the West is over, the West is in decline, how it’s a multipolar world and the rise of China.” With the West rallying to a resilient Ukraine, “all of that turned out to be bunk.” ........ What was bunk was the idea that Putin’s Russia represents some kind of efficient postliberal or traditionalist alternative to the problems of the West, and one whose military could simply steamroller Eastern Europe. .
How to Defeat Putin and Save the Planet Let this be the last war in which we and our allies fund both sides. ........ Western nations fund NATO and aid Ukraine’s military with our tax dollars, and — since Russia’s energy exports finance 40 percent of its state budget — we fund Vladimir Putin’s army with our purchases of Russian oil and gas. ....... you don’t see the North and the South (Poles) both melting at the same time ..... an ice shelf the size of New York City had collapsed in East Antarctica at the beginning of this freakish warm spell. ....... if all the water frozen in East Antarctica melts, it would raise sea levels more than 160 feet around the world. ....... Now Biden is begging the Saudis to dramatically increase their production to bring prices down. But the Saudis are mad at Biden for being mad at them for murdering the Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi — and are reportedly not taking Biden’s calls. ....... it was the collapse in global oil prices between 1988 and 1992, triggered by Saudi overproduction, that helped bankrupt the Soviet Union and hasten its collapse. We can create the same effects today by overproducing renewables .......... When cars, trucks, buildings, factories and homes are all electrified and your grid is running mostly on renewables — presto! — we become increasingly free of fossil fuels, and Putin becomes increasingly dollar poor. ........ Electric cars are now flying out of the showrooms. ........ In World War II, the U.S. government asked citizens to plant victory gardens to grow their own fruits and vegetables — and save canned goods for the troops. Some 20 million Americans responded by planting gardens everywhere from backyards to rooftops. Well, what victory gardens were to our war effort then, solar rooftops are to our generation’s struggle against petro-dictatorships. ......... If you want to lower gasoline prices today, the most surefire, climate-safe method would be to reduce the speed limit on highways to 60 miles per hour and ask every company in America that can do so to let its employees work at home and not commute every day. Those two things would immediately cut demand for gasoline and bring down the price. ........... “It now costs more to ruin the earth than to save it.” It also “now costs less to liberate ourselves from petro-dictators than to remain enslaved by them.” .
Why So Many Doctors Treat Their Mental Health in Secret. Certain memories are seared into physicians’ psyches. The chirp of the pager. Driving home half asleep in a postcall haze. The strangest objects found in human orifices (cockroach in the ear). The most hours we continuously stayed awake. Delivering our first baby, watching our first patient die. These are all rites of passage. I’ve found it’s easy to discuss the funny memories, but the disturbing ones are harder. Even with the closest of friends, recounting the tough moments feels like passing on a burden. ........ A 15-year-old needed a sexual assault kit. A 3-year-old tested positive for the dad’s meth. A man dipped his 6-year-old’s feet in boiling oil. I once had two children die within six hours of each other. After each death, I choked back the welling tears, picked up the next patient’s chart and soldiered into the next room. The culture of medicine discourages doctors like me from crying, sleeping or making mistakes. Worse, we can even be punished for seeking mental health care. ......... Even before the Covid pandemic, mental health issues were an occupational hazard for physicians. ...... roughly 29 percent of resident physicians experienced depression or depressive symptoms. ....... 8 percent of Americans age 20 or older had depression in any given two weeks. ........ 16 percent of emergency physicians met the criteria for a post-traumatic stress disorder diagnosis. The pandemic seems to have made things worse ....... fall of 2020 .... as many as 36 percent of frontline physicians suffered from PTSD. ....... Doctors also have a high risk of death by suicide compared to many other professions. ......... Residency can consist of sleep deprivation, hunger, constantly being told you are not a good enough doctor and working a torturous 100-hour week, all while six figures in debt. Resident physicians routinely work on weekends and holidays, often with only four days off per month. ........ The merciless culture of medical education can revel in publicly shaming students; the practice of peppering residents or medical students with rapid-fire questions in front of colleagues and patients is called pimping. .......... Despite the grueling experiences, the medical profession often stigmatizes physicians who seek mental health care and erects barriers to such care. As of last spring, medical boards in 37 U.S. states and territories asked questions that could require a doctor seeking licensure to disclose any mental health treatments or conditions. These questions can be intrusive and overly general. ......... Ticking those boxes can feel like risking everything we have worked toward over years. It could result in the medical board reviewing our personal medical records, possibly in psychiatric and drug testing and perhaps even in having our medical license reviewed, suspended or revoked, all under the guise of establishing our professional competence. The questions have a chilling effect on doctors. ........ In a 2017 paper, nearly 40 percent of physicians reported being reluctant to seek mental health care because they worried it would jeopardize their chances of getting or renewing their medical licenses. In a 2016 survey of female physicians, close to half said they believed they had met the criteria for a mental illness but avoided care, in part for fear of licensing boards. ....... When physicians summon the courage to seek help, they might have to do so at the very hospital where they work and could be recognized by patients and colleagues. ...... He explained why his physician patients struggle to admit that they need care: “You’re supposed to know everything in a life-threatening crisis. There isn’t room for self-doubt,” he said. ........ This all has helped create an underground market of sorts for physician mental health care. An often unspoken rule: If you must seek mental health care, do it quietly. Find a therapist outside your city who documents only the bare minimum in your chart, pay with cash only, don’t let it be billed to your insurance company. Make sure there’s no paper trail. ........ As we enter the third year of the pandemic and creep toward one million dead Americans, it’s time for American health care to recognize the toll on its doctors and what it owes. The past two years have been characterized by violent attacks against doctors, accompanied by even longer hours, sicker patients, limited hazard pay and family sacrifices. A survey conducted in the second half of 2020 found that around one-fifth of doctors were considering leaving their practice within two years. Perhaps the saddest part is that the doctors we are often losing are the very ones we need: the gentle ones who you want holding your mother’s hand, the thoughtful, meticulous ones who call you on their day off. ......... It is time we collectively agree that physicians are worthy of the same compassion we give our patients. ........ We, as doctors, bear witness to humanity’s ugliest and most glorious moments, so it is only natural that we are deeply moved and sometimes disturbed by it all. Acknowledging this vulnerability isn’t weakness. It makes me a better doctor. It is what allows me to hold a patient’s hand under the fluorescent lighting of a sterile hospital in the middle of the night or stroke the congealed blood out of an infant’s lock of hair. ....... Doctors’ audacity to be human must outshine the medical institution’s cold, indifferent check box. .
Driven From City Life to Jungle Insurgency. Fleeing the military’s brutal crackdown, Myanmar’s newest rebels have abandoned cafes and professions to join a near-daily battle with long odds. .......... More than a year after Myanmar’s military seized full control in a coup — imprisoning the nation’s elected leaders, killing more than 1,700 civilians and arresting at least 13,000 more — the country is at war, with some unlikely combatants in the fray. ........ tens of thousands of young city-dwellers who have taken up arms, trading college courses, video games and sparkly nail polish for life and death in the jungle. ........ these Generation Z warriors have thrown off balance a military that has long made war crimes its calling card. And the conflict is escalating ........ Myanmar’s army, known as the Tatmadaw, is forced to fight on dozens of fronts, from the borderlands near India, China and Thailand to the villages and towns of the country’s heartland. There are skirmishes nearly every day, and casualties, too. ......... “All the Tatmadaw knows how to do is to kill,” said Ko Thant, who said he was a captain before he deserted from the army’s 77th Light Infantry Division last year and has since trained hundreds of civilians in battlefield tactics. “We were brainwashed all the time, but some of us have woken up.” ......... The opposition to the military’s coup in February 2021 began with an outpouring of millions of people into the streets of Myanmar’s cities and towns. ....... Within weeks, the Tatmadaw reverted to its old playbook. Army snipers targeted protesters with single, deadly shots to the head. ......... Some young people who had come of age during Myanmar’s decade of reform saw little utility in the message of nonviolent dissent coming from veteran democracy activists. They wanted to fight back. ........ There are now hundreds of civilian militias across Myanmar, organized loosely into what are called the People’s Defense Forces, or P.D.F. Each militia pledges allegiance to a civilian shadow government, the National Unity Government, which formed after the putsch, and some battalions are led by ousted lawmakers. ........ With little hope of outside help, the shadow authority has partnered with the ethnic insurgent groups that control territory in Myanmar’s border regions. Together, they have formed an underground railroad to bring young people to safety — and to train them in basic warfare. ........ The National Unity Government claims that the People’s Defense Forces, fighting alongside more experienced fighters from the ethnic militias, killed about 9,000 Tatmadaw soldiers from June 2021 through February 2022. (About 300 militia members have died in combat, according to the shadow government.) ........ He did not tell his family where he went for fear that the Tatmadaw would retaliate against them; some relatives of soldiers who deserted have been imprisoned and tortured. For all his child knows, he said, he might have been killed in combat. ....... “They are cowards,” he said, of the armed forces he had joined at the age of 15. “They are robots who cannot think.” ........ For members of Myanmar’s young generation, the coup was a return to an almost unimaginable past, one without Facebook and foreign investment. ........ United Nations investigators have said that the Myanmar military’s treatment of some of the country’s ethnic minorities bears the hallmarks of genocide. This month, the United States designated the Tatmadaw’s campaign against the Rohingya Muslim minority as a genocide, as well. .
Late Night Has Fun With Trump’s Missing Phone Records “The only time there should be a seven-hour gap is when you’re trying to remember what happened on St. Patrick’s Day,” Jimmy Fallon said. ........ “This is the thing with Trump — you never know. You never know if he’s more evil or lazy. He could have been plotting the overthrow of the government, or he could have been watching Fox News in the bath — you just don’t know!” — JAMES CORDEN .
