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Amazon fires cause Brazil’s CO2 emissions to jump amid pandemic

InternationalNov 07. 2020Smoke rises as a fires burn in the Amazon rainforest in the Candeias do Jamari region of Porto Velho, Rondonia state, Brazil, in 2019. MUST CREDIT: Bloomberg photo by Leonardo Carrato 

By Syndication Washington Post, Bloomberg · Simone Iglesias · WORLD, SCIENCE-ENVIRONMENT, THE-AMERICAS

Forest fires have sent carbon dioxide emissions soaring in Brazil over the past two years, undermining efforts by the government of President Jair Bolsonaro to restore the country’s environmental credentials.

Fire burns in the Amazon rainforest in Porto Velho, Rondonia state, Brazil, on Aug. 24, 2019. MUST CREDIT: Bloomberg photo by Leonardo Carrato

Emissions jumped 10% in 2019, Bolsonaro’s first year in office, following a decade of small declines or stagnation, according to a report published Friday by Observatorio do Clima, a network of Brazilian environmental organizations. Preliminary data show the new trend accelerating as much as 20% in 2020, even as the pandemic curbs the amount of CO2 being produced by transportation and industrial activity across the globe, the group has warned.

“That’s a considerable increase that has Brazil running against the global trend,” Tasso Azevedo, former chief of the Brazilian Forest Service and now responsible for a system that estimates greenhouse gases emissions for Observatorio do Clima, said in an interview. “That’s basically associated with deforestation; Brazil is getting further away from its Paris agreement goal.”

The environment ministry didn’t immediately reply to a request for comment.

Brazil has faced global outrage in the past two years as a growing number of fires destroyed swaths of the Amazon rainforest and the Pantanal wetlands. In June, a group of prominent institutional investors managing about $3.7 trillion in assets sent a letter to the Brazilian government threatening to withdraw from the country unless environmental metrics improved.

Since then, the government has changed its strategy and is now calling on investors to help the Amazon in unconventional ways, such as sponsoring a plot of the rainforest. Government officials led by Vice President Hamilton Mourao have also stepped up efforts to convince the world that Brazil cares about the environment, visiting the forest this week with a group of diplomats from Europe and Latin America.

Observatorio do Clima’s figures place Brazil among the largest carbon dioxide emitters in the world, after China, U.S., Russia, India and the European Union. Deforestation was responsible for 44% of the country’s emissions last year, followed by agriculture, with 28%.

Brazilians produced 10.4 tons of CO2 per capita in 2019, above the global average of 7.1 tons, according to the organization.

Despite government efforts to change the world’s perception about Brazil’s environmental policies, Bolsonaro has maintained a combative style when talking about the issue. In a speech at the opening of the United Nations General Assembly this year, he downplayed the seriousness of forest fires, saying they are caused by peasants and the indigenous people who “burn their fields in already deforested areas.”

Some members of his cabinet have gone even further. In a 2019 speech, Foreign Affairs Minister Ernesto Araujo said a May cold front he had experienced in Rome was evidence that theories about global warming are wrong.

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China starts talking stimulus exit again as economy recovers

InternationalNov 07. 2020Pedestrians wearing protective masks walk past the People’s Bank of China building in Beijing on March 17, 2020. MUST CREDIT: Bloomberg photo by Qilai Shen. 

By Syndication Washington Post, Bloomberg · No Author · BUSINESS, WORLD, US-GLOBAL-MARKETS, ASIA-PACIFIC

China’s central bank once again raised the topic of exiting its monetary easing policies, in sharp contrast to the U.S. and Europe, where a resurgence in virus cases has forced governments there to consider more stimulus.

Policymakers globally are discussing the timing of stimulus withdrawal, and the consensus is that it should be done sooner rather than later, Liu Guoqiang, vice governor of the People’s Bank of China, said Friday. “Exit is a matter of time and it is also necessary,” he said. “But the timing and method of exit need to be carefully evaluated, mainly based on the status of economic recovery.”

He added that the “international economy is recovering in general, and China’s overall situation is better than the international economy.”

China’s economy has regained all the losses made in the first half, with the recovery first driven by exports and industrial output and then strengthening as consumption picked up. That’s a rare positive for a global economy still clawing its way out of its worst slump since the Great Depression — and which is now being complicated by the resurgence of covid-19 cases in Europe and the U.S.

“We have done some research recently, and we can see from the trend that our country’s economy is relatively strong, policies are having an effect, and market confidence is recovering,” Liu said in Beijing at a press conference with other financial officials. “But adjustments of policies shouldn’t be rushed, or weaken the effect of serving the real economy, nor can there be a policy cliff.”

Liu didn’t provide any details as to the timing of a pullback in stimulus, while emphasizing that policy measures will be adjusted based on changing conditions and market demand. He said support will be further increased in areas that require long-term assistance.

The PBOC has taken a measured approach to monetary easing this year, lowering interest rates, injecting liquidity and giving businesses loan repayment holidays. Governor Yi Gang has previously told markets to start thinking about an exit from the looser financial policies.

Separately, the central bank also released its Financial Stability Report, which highlighted financial risks stemming from rising indebtedness.

Aside from the pandemic, “the default risks of some companies have increased, which may be transmitted to the financial system,” according to a statement accompanying the report. The central bank said it will seek to manage those risks, resolve gaps in regulation and prevent systemic financial threats.

The PBOC also discussed progress on its digital currency, saying:

– There is no timetable for the official launch of the digital yuan system;

– It will continue to steadily advance the research and development of the digital yuan system, conduct pilot tests, and strengthen relevant research on policies and impact; and

– China will improve its fintech regulatory framework and introduce tools to regulate technology innovation.

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Virtual schooling has largely forced moms, not dads, to quit work – and it will hurt the economy for years

InternationalNov 07. 2020Monica Marling, 37, takes a break in February from her shift as a waitress at Avenue Eats in Wheeling, West Virginia. She has been unable to return to work during the pandemic, partly because her four children are doing most of their schooling from home. MUST CREDIT: Washington Post photo by Heather Long 

By The Washington Post · Heather Long · NATIONAL, BUSINESS, CAREER-WORKPLACE

In late October, Courtney Allen got the call she had been waiting for: A school district asked if she could come back as a substitute teacher. Allen desperately needed the money as she was only getting $125 a week from unemployment benefits. But she had to turn down the job.

Her kindergartner and first grade sons are still at home all day, learning virtually. Allen is part of a wave of women having to make difficult decisions that will impact family finances, as well as the broader U.S. economy for years to come.

The pandemic recession has been dubbed a “SHE-session” because it has hurt women far worse than men. The share of women working or looking for work has fallen to the lowest levels since 1988, wiping out decades of hard fought gains women made in the workplace.

On Friday, the Labor Department jobs report showed the economy has gained back just over half of the jobs lost in March and April, but the situation remains dire for women. There are 2.2 million fewer women working or looking for work now than in January, versus 1.5 million fewer men, according to the labor department data.

Put another way, women have recovered only about 39 percent of the big drop in the labor force they suffered in the spring, while men have recovered 58 percent of their jobs. Much of the difference in these diverging fortunes for men and women boils down to moms having to stop working to take care of kids.

As a single mom, Allen, 32, said she has no good options right now.

“I’m stuck in a bad spot,” said Allen, who spends most of her days helping her sons with homework sheets at the kitchen table, in the home she rents in Malone, New York. “I would pay more for a babysitter than what I would make going back to work.”

When the pandemic first escalated in the spring, women lost more jobs than men because women are more likely to work in restaurants, hair salons, hotels and stores – the industries hardest hit as people rushed to stay home. Over the summer, both men and women saw solid gains as the economy reopened and some jobs returned.

But that changed in September. Just as the school year began, 865,000 women dropped out of the labor force versus only 216,000 men. In October, men gained back all their modest September losses, while only about half of women returned.

“You look down the barrel of an entire school year of remote and hybrid learning and you just want to give up,” said Alicia Sasser Modestino, an economist at Northeastern University. “Women are dropping out of work, up and down the income scale. We’re seeing surgeons dropping out the labor market and epidemiologists drop out during the pandemic. “

Parents, especially mothers, have been forced to chose between their children and their jobs. A Washington Post analysis found an especially large employment dip among mothers of elementary-school aged children. These moms were counting on their children being in school so they could work. They didn’t have other arrangements, and they are finding that their kids can’t handle hours of virtual lessons on their own.

The challenge for the next president is how to deal with this “SHE-session” crisis. For years, policymakers and political leaders have debated how to help blue-collar men who were losing jobs. Now the problem is women.

There are rising calls for the government to prioritize reopening in-person schooling as many other nations around the world, including Canada, have done.

“Priority number one should be kinds back into school,” said Kathryn Anne Edwards, a labor economist at the RAND Corporation who has been studying women’s careers. “The younger the kid, the more of a priority it is because they are less likely to be able to do school on their own.”

When the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention compiled a list of essential industries and workers, educators and child-care providers were notably absent.

Economists have said the best way to help the overall economy is to control the spread of coronavirus. Covid-19 cases have spiked in the United States to more than 100,000 a day. The spike is not only straining the nation’s hospitals, it is also threatens to stall the economic recovery, or cause a backslide as people curb their shopping.

Many of the job gains women made in October were in hospitality and retail. There’s growing concern those jobs could go away again with the rising caseloads.

“Fifty-nine percent of women’s job gains in October came from leisure and hospitality. Will those gains hold if covid cases stay high this winter?” said Michael Madowitz, an economist at the left leaning Center for American Progress who has been tracking women’s labor force participation closely.

Monica Marling of Bellaire, Ohio, has been unable to return to her waitressing job since the pandemic began. In the spring, Avenue Eats in Wheeling, West Virginia, didn’t need her as business was slow. By the fall, Mailing faced a different problem: She has four kids and they all had different versions of virtual and hybrid schooling. She and her husband could not make it work.

“The pandemic didn’t get too stressful for my family until online schooling started. That’s when the stress really kicked in,” Marling said. “I’ve started to take steps to pull my two youngest out of public school to home-school them. The online program is just not working for my family.”

Marling, 37, says she’s making the right choice for her family now. Her husband, a factory millwright, was deemed an essential worker and has had steady employment throughout the crisis, a huge help to the family budget. But they still worry about the loss of her income.

Women who take a year off to care for children have historically had a harder time getting back into the workforce, and they suffer lower earnings and retirement savings throughout their lives compared to workers who don’t. There’s also a hit to the overall U.S. economy, as fewer people working results in less household income available to spend.

Even before the pandemic, the United States lagged behind many other advanced nations in women’s labor force participation including France, Germany, Canada, the United Kingdom, Australia and Japan. Now that gap could be even larger.

Modestino, the economist, moved her third grade daughter from virtual learning in public schools to a private school offering in-person classes. But she is well aware many families can’t afford to do that. She is urging Congress to pursue another round of stimulus checks specifically for families with kids.

“Lot of families can’t even afford to pay someone to supervise their kids, so they can go to work. This a really fixable problem,” she said. “You can cut $1,200 or $2,000 checks for families with kids to be able to keep parents going to work. They can take that money and spend it on a babysitter or an after school program.”

Some employers are also stepping up to help stop parents, especially moms, from having to stop working. Some companies have begun providing backup child-care options or even a special child-care service where parents can drop off kids to have them supervised during the school day.

Allen, the single mom in upstate New York, is desperate for any additional help.

“A lot of people I know are waiting on this stimulus. That would be amazing,” Allen said. “We just need something to get us through until there’s a vaccine.”

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WTO postpones meeting next week to select its new leader

InternationalNov 07. 2020A logo stands on the wall outside the World Trade Organisation headquarters in Geneva, Switzerland, on 2, 2020. MUST CREDIT: Bloomberg photo by Stefan Wermuth. 

By Syndication Washington Post, Bloomberg · Bryce Baschuk · BUSINESS, WORLD, US-GLOBAL-MARKETS, AFRICA

The World Trade Organization postponed a general council meeting set for Monday where members were expected to review whether to select their next leader, according to a notice circulated Friday.

The decision will delay the WTO’s ability to confirm Nigeria’s Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala as the first African and first woman to lead the organization in its 25-year history.

The statement obtained by Bloomberg said that the meeting would be postponed until further notice and that the chairman of the WTO general council will continue to consult with members about selecting the next director-general.

The delay comes a week after the Trump administration said it would oppose Okonjo-Iweala’s bid because the U.S. preferred South Korean Trade Minister Yoo Myung-hee for the job. Yoo has refused to withdraw from the race and has not responded to multiple requests for comment.

The U.S. unilaterally opposed Okonjo-Iweala despite the fact that the WTO selection committee determined she “clearly carried the largest support by members” and “clearly enjoyed broad support from members from all levels of development and from all geographic regions.”

The Trump administration’s move has disrupted the leadership race because all WTO decisions are made by a consensus of its 164 members, which means a single country can oppose a decision for any reason.

WTO General Council Chairman David Walker issued a separate notice that said: “It has come to my attention that for reasons including the health situation and current events, delegations will not be in a position to take a formal decision on 9 November. I am therefore postponing this meeting until further notice during which period I will continue to undertake consultations with delegations.”

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GOP splits over Trump’s false election claims, unfounded fraud allegations

InternationalNov 07. 2020

By The Washington Post · Katie Shepherd · NATIONAL, POLITICS 
President Donald Trump questioned the presidential election results Thursday night in a speech so riddled with false and unfounded claims that many major news networks, including MSNBC, CBS and ABC, cut away to fact-check the Republican incumbent in real time.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/video/c/embed/6130ea38-1141-43eb-98ba-5fabde19fe13?ptvads=block&playthrough=false

Trump’s broadsides have exposed tensions within his party, splitting GOP officials who spoke publicly on Thursday night into warring camps: those who defended the president and those who defended the U.S. election process. Many others have stayed silent.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., has not addressed Trump’s baseless claims of voter fraud. But in a Friday tweet, he wrote, “Every legal vote should be counted. Any illegally-submitted ballots must not. All sides must get to observe the process. And the courts are here to apply the laws & resolve disputes.

“That’s how Americans’ votes decide the result.”

Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, also encouraged voters to respect the counting process and the outcome.

“States have the authority to determine the specific rules of elections,” Collins said in a statement Friday morning. “Every valid vote under a state’s law should be counted. Allegations of irregularities can be adjudicated by the courts. We must all respect the outcome of elections.”

Trump’s loyalists, including House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., and Sens. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., and Ted Cruz, R-Texas, echoed Trump’s evidence-free claims of widespread fraud in Pennsylvania and other swing states that have been trending toward former vice president Joe Biden as more votes are counted.

“President Trump won this election,” McCarthy falsely claimed to Fox News host Laura Ingraham on Thursday night. He followed up his on-air comments with a tweet proclaiming: “Republicans will not be silenced. We demand transparency. We demand accuracy. And we demand that the legal votes be protected.”

GOP senators similarly echoed false and misleading claims that Trump has made about the vote-counting process in Pennsylvania.

“Philadelphia elections are crooked as a snake,” Graham told Fox’s Sean Hannity. “Why are they shutting people out? Because they don’t want people to see what they’re doing.”

Strong rebukes also flew in, mostly from regular GOP critics of Trump such as Utah Sen. Mitt Romney and from Republican politicians who are leaving office.

“A sitting president undermining our political process & questioning the legality of the voices of countless Americans without evidence is not only dangerous & wrong, it undermines the very foundation this nation was built upon,” Rep. Will Hurd, R-Texas, who will retire when his term ends in January, said in a tweet. “Every American should have his or her vote counted.”

At least one person from Trump’s inner circle has been pushing back publicly on the president’s claims. Former New Jersey governor Chris Christie, a close Trump ally who helped him campaign, also turned against the false and misleading claims coming from the White House. Christie denounced Trump’s premature victory claim early Wednesday, when millions of votes remained to be counted, and on Thursday he said the president was sowing discord.

“Show us the evidence. We heard nothing today about any evidence,” Christie said on ABC. “This kind of thing – all it does is inflame without informing.”

The president has called for vote counting to stop in Pennsylvania, where he was narrowly ahead early Friday but has been losing ground as poll workers process mail-in ballots from parts of the state that heavily favor Biden. Meanwhile, Trump has urged counting to continue in Arizona, where Biden’s lead has been shrinking as Maricopa County continues to tally votes.

Hannity on Thursday night suggested that the tight race in Pennsylvania has been sabotaged because election officials in Philadelphia blocked Republican observers from ballot counting. (In fact, observers from both political parties are allowed to watch poll workers count ballots in Pennsylvania, and the counting process is live-streamed online. A court order on Thursday also granted a Trump campaign request to move observers closer, within six feet of poll workers.)

Then, Hannity asked Cruz whether Pennsylvania’s GOP-controlled legislature should “invalidate” the results and hold a “do-over” election.

“Look, that’s exactly right,” Cruz said. “Now, that’s a big cannon to use. I can tell you during Bush v. Gore we were having very explicit conversations about that, as we were seeing an effort to steal that election. The answer that I want to see, the outcome that I want to see, is to count every vote that was legally cast and for the president to win.”

Tommy Tuberville, the Republican senator-elect in Alabama and former college football coach, also questioned the shifting election results as votes continue to be counted.

“The election results are out of control,” Tuberville said in a tweet following Trump’s speech. “It’s like the whistle has blown, the game is over, and the players have gone home, but the referees are suddenly adding touchdowns to the other team’s side of the scoreboard.”

Election officials and candidates knew that the final vote counts would not be available on Election Day. The coronavirus pandemic led many states to encourage voting by mail, and some states did not allow poll workers to tally those ballots until after polls closed Tuesday. A large number of mail-in ballots, combined with an extremely tight presidential contest, resulted in races too close to call in five states Thursday night.

As Trump’s closest allies backed his unfounded claims, some other Republicans defended the election process and the poll workers who are still counting hundreds of thousands of legally cast ballots.

Maryland Republican Gov. Larry Hogan, who did not vote for Trump, said there was “no defense” for the president’s misleading speech.

“America is counting the votes, and we must respect the results as we always have before,” the Republican governor said in a tweet. “No election or person is more important than our Democracy.”

Romney said in a statement that “counting every vote is at the heart of democracy.”

“That process is often long and, for those running, frustrating,” he added. “The votes will be counted. If there are irregularities alleged, they will be investigated and ultimately resolved in the courts. Have faith in democracy, in our Constitution, and in the American people.”

Reps. Denver Riggleman, R-Va., and Adam Kinzinger, R-Ill., called for the president to present evidence of his claims and “respect the democratic process that makes America great.”

“STOP spreading debunked misinformation,” Kinzinger tweeted. “This is getting insane.”

Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., similarly reassured the public that continuing to count legally cast ballots is “NOT fraud,” although he also suggested that Trump was within his rights to challenge any votes “cast after the legal voting deadline.” (No evidence of late voting has been publicly disclosed.)

Sen. Pat Toomey, R-Pa., offered a more tempered stance but still raised the specter of election irregularities.

“All votes that comply with Pennsylvania law must be counted, regardless of how long the process takes,” Toomey said in a statement Thursday, adding that a recount “should be immediately granted” if the vote count meets the threshold for one.

“Once a final count is reached and certified, all parties involved must accept the outcome of the election regardless of whether they won or lost,” he added.

Many other Republicans, including some former governors and governors-elect in states still counting votes, also urged the public to remain patient and ignore unfounded allegations.

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House Democrats trade blame over surprise losses in election

InternationalNov 06. 2020Rep. Abigail Spanberger, D-Va., wears a protective mask as she speaks during a news conference at the U.S. Capitol in Washington, on Sept. 15, 2020. MUST CREDIT: Bloomberg photo by Stefani Reynolds. 

By Syndication Washington Post, Bloomberg · Billy House · NATIONAL, POLITICS, CONGRESS 
Frustration among Democrats over U.S. House election losses spilled over during a conference call Thursday as several moderates blamed party progressives for promoting an ultra-liberal agenda that turned off swing voters.

Rep. Abigail Spanberger, who narrowly won re-election in a Republican-leaning Virginia district, was one of several Democrats who voiced anger that the party lost races it should have won, according to people familiar with the private caucus call.

She and others contended that issues promoted by the Democratic left — such as calls to defund the police — gave Republicans an opening to paint the entire party as socialists and radicals. Spanberger’s office didn’t respond to a request for comment.

At least seven incumbents, six of them first elected in the 2018 Democratic wave, lost their bids for re-election. And the party fell short of flipping seats in states such as Texas that had appeared to be prime targets in this election.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi told fellow Democrats that she disagreed with the assessment that the election weakened the party, according to one person who listened to the call. She also said that policies that are popular in her hometown of San Francisco might not work elsewhere in the country, reminding Democrats that they needed to find consensus for a winning message.

She emphasized that Democrats had held control of the House and that Joe Biden is on a path to winning the presidency, according to the person. The party also needs to mindful of the message it sends to voters ahead of January runoffs for the Senate in Georgia that could give Democrats control in the Senate, she told them.

Reps. Marc Veasey of Texas and Vicente Gonzalez of Texas were described as joining Spanberger in airing similar grievances. They complained that progressive members embracing socialism were endangering the continued Democratic hold on the House majority, according to another person familiar with the call. The offices of the two didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

The power of the party’s young and vocal progressives, led by New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, is set to grow with the addition next year of several new members who replaced have more centrist veterans.

Ocasio-Cortez hailed those results as evidence that the progressive message works, and called for appreciation of those members’ efforts. In a series of tweets Friday, she argued that some campaigns suffered because they failed to execute effectively via social media platforms.

Rep. Rashida Tlaib of Michigan, an Ocasio-Cortez ally who also was first elected in 2018, said on Thursday’s call that she viewed the complaints from the centrists as pressure on her not to speak her mind, according to one of the people.

For his part, President Donald Trump on Thursday hailed Republican victories in House races against predictions. The GOP “actually won many new seats and I think many more on the way,” he said.

There were still 39 seats left to be settled late Thursday. Democrats currently have 232 seats to 197 for Republicans and one Libertarian. Five seats are vacant.

Democratic tensions will be building leading up to the 2022 elections. The party in control of the White House historically has lost seats in midterms, and Democrats will have a narrower majority to defend heading into that vote.

The internal bickering played out in public as almost real-time leaks of the back-and-forth on the call Thursday. Some members tweeted during the discussion, pleading with colleagues to stop.

“I’ve gotten texts from 3 different reporters asking me to live-leak juicy details to them. No. We (Dems and the media) need to stop this nonsense,” Rep. Jared Huffman of California tweeted at one point.

The turmoil illustrates the challenge Pelosi will be confronting in managing the various factions of her slimmed-down majority in what could be her last two years as speaker.

Pelosi has promised colleagues she won’t serve as speaker beyond 2023, to allow a new generation of Democrats to assume leadership. She has said she will seek the post for the next two-year session; House Democrats will nominate a speaker in party leadership elections Nov. 18 and 19.

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Virginia county removes Civil War monuments in front of its courthouse

NationalNov 07. 2020Fairfax County has removed several Civil War markers from in front of its judicial complex. MUST CREDIT: Washington Post photo by John McDonnell 

By The Washington Post · Antonio Olivo · NATIONAL, POLITICS, COURTSLAW, RACE, HISTORY

Fairfax County, Va., on Thursday night removed a trio of Civil War markers in front of the county’s judicial complex, part of a broader effort in Virginia to turn a page on the state’s Confederate legacy.

Under a new state law giving localities authority over the fate of war monuments and memorials in their communities, the county’s Board of Supervisors decided last month to donate a stone obelisk honoring the first Confederate soldier who died in a land battle to the Stuart Mosby Historical Society in Centreville, Va.

A state historical marker commemorating that June 1, 1861, battle – the first land confrontation in the war – will be given to the state Department of Historic Resources. A pair of Dahlgren howitzers that were also in front of the complex will go to the Manassas National Battlefield Park in nearby Prince William County.

“We started today with a Fairfax County that better reflects our values,” Jeff McKay, D, chair of the county board, said in a tweet Friday announcingthe monuments had been removed. The items are being stored in a county warehouse until the donations are complete, McKay wrote.

Several localities in Virginia have taken down Civil War monuments or are in the process of doing so, while protesters have pulled down others as demonstrations over racial inequality surged around the country afterGeorge Floyd was killed by a Minneapolis police officer in May.

But there has also been resistance to those efforts in Virginia. Gov. Ralph Northam, D, was sued after he announced plans to take down a statue of Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee on Richmond’s Monument Avenue. A judge last month ruled in favor of Northam, but left intact an injunction keeping him from taking down the statue to allow the group fighting to preserve the statue to mount an appeal.

And voters in several rural localities in the state this week opted against removing their Civil War monuments. Meanwhile, officials in other communities – including Prince William County, in addition to Fairfax – are conducting inventories of their Confederate markers before they decide their fate.

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In Pennsylvania, a Trump supporter sees his mural in a new light

InternationalNov 06. 2020Randy Bunch, a 53-year-old construction contractor, commissioned the mural of President Trump in McConnellsburg, Pa. MUST CREDIT: Photo by Amanda Andrade-Rhoades for The Washington Post. 

By The Washington Post · Hannah Dreier · NATIONAL, POLITICS 
FULTON COUNTY, Pa. – On the day after the election, sometime between when former vice president Joe Biden was declared the winner of Wisconsin and when he was declared the winner of Michigan, Randy Bunch went to see his mural of President Donald Trump. It always made him feel better.

“I’m not liking how this election is going,” Randy said as he stood next to the painting on the main road through the 1,000-person town of McConnellsburg.

People passing by slowed and honked when they saw Randy standing in the golden afternoon light, unmistakable with his Bunch Construction cap jammed down over thick salt-and-pepper hair.

“Hey, boy, what are you up to?” Randy called to a friend in a pickup truck.

“Hi there, how you doing?” he waved to another, and then turned back to admire the mural.

There was nothing else like it in town, and Randy was its unlikely patron – a 53-year-old construction contractor with no political experience who had never thought of commissioning a mural before Trump won office and inspired him to reimagine what a politician could be, and what he himself could be.

It was not a small painting. It was 8 feet high and 8 feet wide, a depiction of Trump’s face rendered in blocky red, white and blue, with flowing hair and what Randy described as a “grin that says ‘Pennsylvania, I love you.’ “

He had wanted people to see the president as he did – smiling out at them, brimming with energy to make their lives better.

“That expression. That twinkle in his eye. That’s what I see,” he said. “I see a person who loves America and the people in it.”

The mural was one of the few landmarks in Fulton County, which in 2016 became the reddest county in the state, with 84% of voters supporting Trump. McConnellsburg, the county seat, was a mountain town with two gas stations; one where the town’s old men socialized and the other where teenagers hung out. Most everything else – the movie theater, the bowling alley, the coffee shops – had closed after a highway bypass was built around the town years ago.

Randy had grown up poor here and dropped out of high school at 16 to work construction. After a while, he started his own company and soon he was earning enough to comfortably support four children. He built his family a wood-paneled home and decorated it with a dozen stuffed and mounted deer heads and one stuffed wild turkey. People in town saw him as a decent man who spoke his mind and charged fairly, and his business thrived. Voting was something he did every few years that interrupted his 12-hour days, and he rarely followed politics.

That was the way it was in 2016 as well. Like almost everyone else in the county, Randy voted for Trump. In his case, it was almost automatic. But then as the months went by, he began paying attention because he liked Trump’s style. This was a man like him. A businessman, not a politician. A straight talker. Self-made. “He’s probably lost a lot of money by being the president,” Randy said. “He’s got a big heart.”

Two years after voting for him, Randy had come to like the president so much that he called up a man named Charlie Harr, the one person in McConnellsburg who was known as an artist, who had a studio in town and hosted regular “paint nights” to teach residents the basics, and told him, “Hey man, I need you to paint me Trump.”

The price: $300. The design was based on a photo of Trump that Harr found and Randy approved. For a week, Harr stood on a ladder, blasting heavy metal in his studio and painting in bright colors he hoped would help the mural stand out on the faded main street.

As soon as Harr was done and Randy screwed the painting into the chipped blue cinder blocks of his building, people began coming to take their photo with it. First it was just locals, but then people began driving in from other towns. Randy had rented part of the building to a dog grooming business, and one of the employees there quit, saying it sickened her to have to see Trump’s face every day. But hers was the minority reaction in town, and the business owner quickly replaced her. She was a Trump fan, too. People started giving directions relative to “the big Trump head.” Over the summer, when spreading Black Lives Matter protests reached Fulton County and some people marched through town, other people stood guard in front of the mural armed with rifles.

Randy assumed that eventually someone would deface his Trump, but in the two years it’s been up, no one ever had.

By the time Election Day arrived this week, Randy was more enthusiastic about Trump than ever. Amid pandemic shutdowns, Trump had spoken up for reopening places like McConnellsburg, where a factory that was one of the last big employers had been forced to stop operating even though the town had seen just a handful of covid-19 cases. “He’s the best president since I’ve been born. God first. Pro-life. Freedom. And right on down the line,” Randy said. Trump seemed like a leader who would endure.

The mural had endured too, continuing to attract visitors.

“It reminds me of Andy Warhol,” a nearby store owner said on Election Day, looking at the mural as he took a break outside.

“I actually think it’s a good picture of him. Usually every TV station uses a picture of him that’s been all distorted,” said a woman who worked as a hairdresser.

It was like that all day long, as people wearing “I voted” stickers passed by, but on the day after, as the national results began turning away from Trump, a couple from out of town looked at the mural and wondered how long it would last.

“They might have to rip it down, unfortunately,” the husband said.

“If the town supports him, they should let it be,” the wife said.

A worker at the store next door was telling people not to worry. “If I know Randy Bunch, he’ll keep it up,” he said.

Now, though, in late afternoon, as Biden took Wisconsin and was about to take Michigan, and the person looking at the painting was Randy himself, he was thinking that even if the mural and Fulton County hadn’t changed, the country around him might have.

He was doing what he couldn’t have imagined doing even the day before – wondering what would happen if Trump lost. He wanted to think no one could take away the movement Trump had started, and what it had meant to him. “His energy, his rallies, and his uplifting spirit – nobody’s ever gonna forget that,” he said.

He took a few steps back. “The size always gets people,” he said.

He looked at his favorite part, the smile. “Around here, we would call it a s— eating grin,” he laughed.

He looked at the colors. “Red, white and blue. So it’s patriotic.”

The light was waning, and all of it was in the shadows now, harder to see. If Trump lost, what would he do about the mural?

He could take it down and hang it in his home. Or move it to the shed behind the building. But his choice was to act like he thought Trump would, and follow the example of the best president of his lifetime. He would repaint the building, and have Harr refresh the mural if it started to fade. “It’ll be here for a good while,” he said.

It was dinner time now and the streets were empty. The few stores were closing. Ballot counting was continuing in other counties and Biden was picking up more votes. Randy took a last look at his smiling Trump, then turned away to drive home to watch the rest of the results.

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World hunger problem means some nations risk famine, UN Says

InternationalNov 06. 2020

By Syndication Washington Post, Bloomberg · Agnieszka de Sousa · WORLD, EUROPE 

The world’s hunger problem is worsening and some nations in Africa and the Middle East could soon slip into famine as conflict, economic hardship, weather extremes and the covid-19 crisis limit access to food.

That’s the warning from the United Nations, which said areas of Burkina Faso, northeastern Nigeria, South Sudan and Yemen face famine if conflict escalates and humanitarian access is further cut in the coming months. Food insecurity is rising globally and another 16 countries are at high risk of more acute hunger, the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization and the World Food Programme said.

“This report is a clear call to urgent action,” Dominique Burgeon, the FAO’s director of emergencies and resilience, said in a statement. “We are deeply concerned about the combined impact of several crises which are eroding people’s ability to produce and access food, leaving them more and more at risk of the most extreme hunger.”

Parts of the population in the four hot spots are already experiencing a critical hunger situation because of the “toxic combination” of problems, with some people partially or completely being cut off from humanitarian assistance, according to the agencies.

Overall, in the next three to six months, some 20 areas around the world are likely to face potential spikes in high acute food insecurity, and require urgent attention, the agencies said. Food prices and weather conditions will also determine how the situation evolves in the highest risk countries, they said.

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U.K. hits Denmark with quarantine after covid mink mutation

InternationalNov 06. 2020

By Syndication Washington Post, Bloomberg · Morten Buttler · WORLD, EUROPE 
The U.K. is imposing a two-week quarantine on travelers from Denmark, following an outbreak of a rare mutation of covid-19 in the Nordic country’s mink farms.

“I have taken the swift decision to urgently remove Denmark from the government’s travel corridor list as a precautionary measure given recent developments,” U.K. Transport Secretary Grant Shapps said in a statement.

Denmark said earlier this week it had found a “unique” mutation of the virus that has the potential to derail work on developing a vaccine. Health officials in the country are coordinating their efforts to contain the outbreak with the World Health Organization, which includes culling the entire population of mink, or up to 17 million animals.

At a briefing late on Thursday, Danish Health Minister Magnus Heunicke said the covid mutation, which originated in the western peninsula of Jutland, has now also been identified in at least one person in the country’s east, closer to the capital Copenhagen.

Danish health officials say they know of 12 people who have been infected with the new virus. On Friday, local media reported that over 200 people have contracted various forms of coronavirus mutations stemming from mink, 14 of whom were outside the region in which the mutation originated.

On Friday, Denmark recorded 1,427 new coronavirus cases, the highest number yet, though health authorities said the figure also reflects an increase in testing.

Kare Molbak, Denmark’s top epidemiologist, said the WHO representatives he’s spoken with have made clear they are “very worried” about the findings in his country.

Molbak said Denmark so far hasn’t received reports from other countries with large mink populations, such as the Netherlands, of similar outbreaks. Denmark’s situation is “unique,” he said.

People who have contracted the new form of the virus don’t appear to be suffering more severe symptoms, according to Danish health officials. The virus was most likely originally transmitted to the mink from humans, and then back again.