How to Fall Back Asleep After Waking Up in the Middle of the Night
Ashley Zlatopolsky – April 11, 2023
Sleep experts share what to do and what to avoid.
jhorrocks/Getty Images
You’ve probably been here before: It’s 3 a.m., you’re awake for reasons you can’t explain and now you can’t fall back asleep. Should you continue tossing and turning and hope for the best, or get out of bed to do something that makes you sleepy again? The best course of action lies somewhere in the middle. Here’s what sleep experts recommend doing (and avoiding) if you wake up in the middle of the night and need help falling back to sleep.
What causes nighttime waking?
Normal, natural sleep patterns.
There are few things worse than waking up in the middle of the night, whether from anxiety or another reason, and not being able to fall back asleep. But waking up in the middle of the night is actually normal. “Everybody wakes up in the middle of the night,” says Philip Lindeman, MD, PhD and a sleep expert with Ghostbed. “Normal sleep cycles are such that we all enter at least a very shallow phase of wakefulness several times per night.” This can include interludes of getting up to use the bathroom and then going back to sleep. In fact, he adds that you may not even remember many of these awakenings happening.
Other causes of nighttime waking can include stress, anxiety, illness, hunger, discomfort, or changes in your sleep routine and sleep environment, explains clinical psychologist Carolina Estevez, PsyD. Then there are causes like nightmares or night terrors, or environmental noise or light disturbances.
Clearly middle-of-the-night waking is common and far from unavoidable, and is typically fine if we can get back to sleep without much of a problem. The real issue arises when you wake up, either naturally or unnaturally, and can’t fall back asleep afterward. This can actually cause more stress and anxiety that keeps you awake, and of course cause you miss out on precious sleep for your overall health.
How to Fall Back Asleep, According to Experts
Let your mind wander in a “happy place.”
If you’re awake in the middle of the night and wondering how to fall back asleep, Dr. Lindeman first recommends getting yourself in a good headspace. “Try guiding yourself into a ‘happy place,’ ‘flying’ over a place you like, or even ‘walking’ there if it helps,” he says. “Don’t worry if your eyes are open or closed, because it doesn’t matter. What matters is that the room is dark.” Dr. Lindeman says to “let your mind wander and do your best to stay there,” which can lull you into a sleep.
After about 20 minutes, find another place to lie down.
However, Dr. Lindeman adds that it’s important not to force sleep, which he says can have the opposite effect. If more than 20 minutes have gone by and you’re still lying awake in bed, Estevez suggests getting up and going into another room that might help calm your mind. Ideally, this is a room with a couch or even another bed where you can lie down and encourage rest.
“You can also try relaxation techniques such as deep breathing or progressive muscle relaxation,” she adds. Some research has shown that slow breathing, together with healthy sleep hygiene and habits, may be more effective for insomnia than interventions like hypnosis or prescription medications. One breathing exercise called 4-7-8 breathing, which involves an elongated exhale, helps deactivate your stress system and activate your rest and digest system.
Get more physical exercise during the daytime.
Estevez also says that incorporating regular physical activity into your day can help promote better sleep quality at night and prevent occurrences of nighttime waking and sleeplessness.
There’s more on the list of things you should avoid rather than things you should do if you’re wondering how to fall back asleep. The biggest thing to avoid: your cell phone, and then your TV. “Don’t open your phone, tablet, or computer,” Dr. Lindeman says. “It’s the worst thing you can do because the wavelength of light emitted will bottom out your melatonin levels.” Since blue light and bright light stops melatonin production, which is essential to making you feel sleepy, playing around on your phone or putting on a Netflix show can cue your body further for wakefulness.
Dr. Lindeman also cautions against turning on a light, eating, drinking, or taking medicine unless you’re in pain (such as being sick with a virus and unable to fall back asleep because of it). If you’re really struggling to fall back asleep and none of the above has helped, you can try taking a hot bath or diffusing lavender oil in your bedroom, but these should be last resorts, since the act of turning on lights or looking for things to help might in turn wire your brain some more.
Another thing to avoid is the clock. Seeing what time it is can cause anxiety and keep you from falling back asleep, so if you have regular nighttime awakenings that leave you awake for long periods of time, you may want to consider removing any clocks from your room (or at least keeping them out of your sight). If noise is keeping you up, earplugs or a sound machine are other options to consider, while light disturbances can be blocked out with a good set of blackout curtains or a quality eye mask.
If waking up in the middle of the night and not being able to fall back asleep is affecting your mental health or daily functioning, and you’ve tried all of the above to no avail, an underlying medical sleep condition, like insomnia, could be at the root of the problem. To get to the bottom of it, Estevez says, “speaking with a health professional may be helpful in developing an individualized treatment plan.” However, be sure to practice good sleep hygiene, keep a regular sleep schedule and avoid stimulating activities at night, like scrolling your phone before bed or working out late.
Pressured by Their Base on Abortion, Republicans Strain to Find a Way Forward
Jonathan Weisman – April 11, 2023
Rep. Nancy Mace (R-S.C.) speaks to reporters at the U.S. Capitol in Washington, on Feb. 2, 2023 (Kenny Holston/The New York Times)
Republican leaders have followed an emboldened base of conservative activists into what increasingly looks like a political cul-de-sac on the issue of abortion — a tightly confined absolutist position that has limited their options before the 2024 election season, even as some in the party push for moderation.
Last year’s Supreme Court decision overturning a woman’s constitutionally protected right to an abortion was supposed to send the issue of abortion access to the states, where local politicians were supposed to have the best sense of the electorate’s views. But the decision on Friday by a conservative judge in Texas, invalidating the Food and Drug Administration’s 23-year-old approval of the abortion pill mifepristone, showed the push for nationwide restrictions on abortion has continued since the high court’s nullification of Roe v. Wade.
Days earlier, abortion was the central theme in a liberal judge’s landslide victory for a contested and pivotal seat on the state Supreme Court in Wisconsin. Some Republicans are warning that the uncompromising position of their party’s activist base could be leading them over an electoral cliff next year.
“If we can show that we care just a little bit, that we have some compassion, we can show the country our policies are reasonable, but because we keep going down these rabbit holes of extremism, we’re just going to keep losing,” said Rep. Nancy Mace, R-S.C., who has repeatedly called for more flexibility on first-term abortions and exceptions for rape, incest and the life and health of the mother. “I’m beside myself that I’m the only person who takes this stance.”
She is far from the only one.
The chair of the Republican National Committee, Ronna McDaniel, has been showing polling to members of her party demonstrating that Americans largely accept abortion up to 15 weeks into a pregnancy and support the same exemptions that Mace wants. Dan O’Donnell, a conservative radio host in Wisconsin, wrote after the lopsided conservative defeat in the state Supreme Court contest that abortion was driving young voters to the polls in staggering numbers and that survival of the party dictated compromise.
“As difficult as this may be to come to grips with, Republicans are on the wrong side politically of an issue that they are clearly on the right side of morally,” he wrote.
The problem goes beyond abortion. With each mass shooting, the GOP’s staunch stand against gun control faces renewed scrutiny. Republicans courted a backlash last week when they expelled two young Democratic lawmakers out of the Tennessee state legislature for leading youthful protests after a school shooting in Nashville that left six dead. Then on Monday came another mass shooting, in Louisville, Kentucky.
“My kids had friends on Friday night running for their lives,” said Mace, referring to a shooting on South Carolina’s Isle of Palms, which elicited no response from most of her party. “Republicans aren’t showing compassion in the wake of these mass shootings.”
The party’s stand against legislation to combat climate change has helped turn young voters into the most liberal bloc of the American electorate. And Republican efforts to roll back LGBTQ rights and target transgender teenagers, while popular with conservatives, may be seen by the broader electorate as, at best, a distraction from more pressing issues.
Rep. Mark Pocan, an openly gay Democrat from Wisconsin, said Monday that in the short term, the Republican attacks on transgender Americans were having a real-world effect, with a rise in violence and bigotry. But he said it is also contributing to the marginalization of the party, even in his swing state.
He pointed to the “WOW counties” that surround Milwaukee — Waukesha, Ozaukee and Washington — where then-Republican Gov. Scott Walker won 73% in 2014, and where the Republican, Dan Kelly, won 58.7% in the state Supreme Court race last week.
“We keep seeing our numbers increase in those counties because those Republicans largely are economic Republicans, not social Republicans,” Pocan said, adding that GOP candidates “definitely are chasing their people away.”
Mace does appear to be correct that her desire for compromise is not widely shared in a party in which analysts continue to look past social issues to explain their electoral defeats.
Kelly was a poor candidate who lost by an almost identical margin in another state Supreme Court race in 2020, noted David Winston, a longtime pollster and strategist for House Republican leaders. And, Winston added, Republicans may have lost female voters by 8 percentage points in the 2022 midterm elections, but they lost them by 19 points in 2018.
If inflation and economic concerns remain elevated, he added, the 2024 elections will be about the economy, not abortion or guns.
Republicans greeted the abortion-drug ruling on Friday, by Judge Matthew J. Kacsmaryk of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas, with near total silence. The judge gave the Biden administration seven days to appeal, and on Monday, senior executives of more than 250 pharmaceutical and biotech companies pleaded with the courts to nullify the ruling with a scorching condemnation of Kacsmaryk’s reasoning.
Most anti-abortion advocates are not backing down. Katie Glenn Daniel, the state policy director for Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America, one of the most powerful anti-abortion groups, said Wisconsin’s results were more about anti-abortion forces being badly outspent than about ideology. In her state, Florida, she noted, Democrats scorched Republicans with advertising in 2022 saying they planned to ban abortion without exceptions. Republicans, from Gov. Ron DeSantis on down, easily prevailed that November.
Republicans need to keep pressing with abortion restrictions that will affect Democratic states as well as Republican ones, she said.
“A national minimum standard is incredibly important. Without it there will continue to be late-term abortions, and governors like Gavin Newsom are very motivated to force his views on the rest of the country,” she said of California’s Democratic governor.
Last week, the Florida state Senate approved legislation pushing the state’s ban on abortion from the current 15 weeks into pregnancy to six weeks. If the state’s House of Representatives approves it, DeSantis has said he will sign it. If DeSantis runs for president as expected, his signature would thrust abortion squarely into the 2024 race for the White House.
Last year, John P. Feehery, a veteran Republican leadership aide in the House, urged his party to find a defensible position on abortion that included flexibility on abortion pills, allowed early pregnancies to be terminated and detailed a coherent position on exceptions for rape, incest and health concerns. He said Monday that he was repeatedly told abortion would be a state-level issue and federal candidates should just stay quiet.
“They didn’t want to do the hard work on abortion,” he said, blaming “a lack of leadership” in the party that still has the Republican position muddled.
Guns are another issue where silence is not working. The shooting in Louisville, which left six dead, including the gunman, and eight wounded, kept the issue of guns in the spotlight after last week’s heated showdown in Tennessee — and before a three-day gathering of the National Rifle Association on Friday in Indianapolis. The Kentucky attack was the 15th mass shooting this year in which four or more victims were killed, the largest total in a year’s first 100 days since 2009, according to a USA Today/Associated Press/Northeastern University database.
“You can’t stop paying attention after one horrible event happens. You have to watch what happens afterward,” said Rep. Maxwell Frost, 26, a Florida Democrat who last year became the first member of Generation Z to be elected to the House.
Voices for compromise are beginning to bubble up, in some cases from surprising sources. Carol Tobias, president of the National Right to Life Committee, one of the country’s largest anti-abortion groups, said Monday that even she was “somewhat concerned” that the Republican Party might be getting ahead of the voters on abortion. Her organization has drafted model legislation to ban abortion at the state level in every case but when the life of the mother is in grave danger. But, Tobias said, that legislation comes with language to extend those exceptions to the “hard cases,” pregnancies that result from rape or incest, or that might harm a mother’s health.
“We’ve always known the American public does not support abortion for all nine months of a pregnancy,” she said. “They want some limits. We are trying to find those limits.”
She added, “If we can only at this time save 95% of the babies, I am happy to support that legislation.”
Volcano eruption in Russia’s Kamchatka spews vast ash clouds
Associated Press – April 11, 2023
Smoke and ash are visible during the the Shiveluch volcano’s eruption on the Kamchatka Peninsula in Russia, Tuesday, April 11, 2023. Shiveluch, one of Russia’s most active volcanoes, erupted Tuesday, spewing clouds of ash 20 kilometers into the sky and covering broad areas with ash. (Alexander Ledyayev via AP)
MOSCOW (AP) — A volcano erupted early Tuesday on Russia’s far eastern Kamchatka Peninsula, spewing clouds of dust 20 kilometers (65,600 feet) into the sky and covering broad areas with ash.
The ash cloud from the eruption of Shiveluch, one of Kamchatka’s most active volcanoes, extended over 500 kilometers (more than 300 miles) northwest and engulfed several villages in grey volcanic dust.
Officials closed the skies over the area to aircraft. Local authorities advised residents to stay indoors and shut schools in several affected communities. Two villages had their power supplies cut for a few hours until emergency crews restored them.
Ash fell on 108,000 square kilometers (41,699 square miles) of territory, according to the regional branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences Geophysical Survey. Scientists described the fallout as the biggest in nearly 60 years.
The village of Klyuchi, which is located about 50 kilometers (some 30 miles) from the volcano, was covered by an 8-centimeter (3-inch) layer of dust. Residents posted videos showing the ash cloud plunging the area into darkness.
Kamchatka Gov. Vladimir Solodov said there was no need for mass evacuation, but added that some residents who have health issues could be temporarily evacuated.
Shiveluch has two parts, the 3,283-meter (10,771-foot) Old Shiveluch, and the smaller, highly active Young Shiveluch.
The Kamchatka Peninsula, which extends into the Pacific Ocean about 6,600 kilometers (4,000 miles) east of Moscow, is one of the world’s most concentrated area of geothermal activity, with about 30 active volcanoes.
Sea levels rising rapidly in southern U.S., study finds
Ben Adler, Senior Editor – April 10, 2023
Damage after Hurricane Ian Bonita Springs, Fla., Sept. 29, 2022. (Sean Rayford/Getty Images)
A study published Monday finds sea-level rise along the coast of the southeastern United States has accelerated rapidly since 2010, raising fears that tens of millions of Americans’ homes in cities across the South will be at risk from flooding in the decades to come.
“It’s a window into the future,” Sönke Dangendorf, an assistant professor of river-coastal science and engineering at Tulane University, who co-authored the study that appeared in Nature Communications, told the Washington Post.
That paper and another published last month in the Journal of Climate find that sea levels along the Gulf Coast and the southern Atlantic Coast have risen an average of 1 centimeter per year since 2010. That translates to nearly 5 inches over the last 12 years, and it is about double the rate of average global sea-level rise during the same time period.
The Journal of Climate study found that the hurricanes that have recently hammered the Gulf Coast, including Michael in 2018 and Ian — which was blamed in the deaths of 109 Floridians last year — had a more severe impact because of higher sea levels.
“It turns out that the water level associated with Hurricane Ian was the highest on record due to the combined effect of sea-level rise and storm surge,” Jianjun Yin, a climate scientist at the University of Arizona and the author of the Journal of Climate study, told the Post.
Residents of Houston evacuate their homes after the area was flooded from Hurricane Harvey, Aug. 28, 2017. (Joe Raedle/Getty Images)
Data from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) show the water level at Lake Pontchartrain, an estuary bordering New Orleans, is eight inches higher than it was in 2006. Other cities threatened by rising oceans in the region include Houston, Miami and Mobile, Ala.
The centimeter-per-year rate is far faster than experts had expected, and it is more in line with projections made for the end of the century, Dagendorf said. High-tide flooding — when the tides bring water onto normally dry land on rain-free days — has more than doubled on the Gulf Coast and Southeast coast since the beginning of this century, according to NOAA. Recent years have seen records for high-tide flooding obliterated. The city of Bay St. Louis, Miss., went from three days of high-tide flooding in 2000 to 22 days in 2020.
A study by scientists with the University of Miami, NOAA, NASA and other institutions, which has not yet undergone peer review, found that the Southeastern sea-level rise accounted for “30%-50% of flood days in 2015-2020.”
“In low-lying coastal regions, an increase of even a few centimeters in the background sea level can break the regional flooding thresholds and lead to coastal inundation,” the study said.
Fed Up With Mayhem, Miami Beach Wants to Tame Spring Break for Good
Patricia Mazzei – April 9, 2023
From left, Chandler Robinson, Sam Fisher and Alexis Illes play slam ball on South Beach in Miami Beach, Fla. on Friday, March 31, 2023, while vacationing from Orlando, Fla. (Scott McIntyre/The New York Times)
MIAMI BEACH — After two fatal shootings on Ocean Drive over a March weekend, Miami Beach leaders followed their recent playbook for dealing with raucous spring break crowds: a state of emergency, a midnight curfew and limited liquor sales.
Then, in a new and drastic step, the city commissioners announced a curfew for 2024, a full year in advance, and declared spring break on the sun-kissed streets of Miami Beach to be over.
“Miami Beach is shutting the door on spring break, once and for all,” Alex Fernandez, a city commissioner who sponsored a series of 2024 measures, said before the vote.
The decision, in the middle of the March and April season that is the most profitable time of the year for local businesses, has caused both relief and consternation over the possible loss of the throngs of visitors that have grown to overwhelm the city’s police and other public services — and of the money that those visitors spend on hotel rooms, nightclub cover charges and boozy cocktails.
Miami Beach both loves and hates its tourists, a conflicting sentiment that has long plagued officials as the city has evolved from a cocaine cowboy den in the 1980s to a high-fashion Riviera in the 1990s to what it is today: a glittering playground for affluent families making a home, foreigners chasing the sun and young American visitors who come looking for a good time. Some people, including the city’s mayor, want the partyers gone for good.
If Miami Beach is to be rebranded as less of a spring break destination and more of an arts, culture and health and wellness hub, some owners of bars, nightclubs and liquor stores worry that they will lose business. And some residents and officials fear losing the diversity and laid-back vibe that make Miami Beach Miami Beach.
“What we’re seeing is panic-stricken politicians who feel the need to do something,” Ricky Arriola, a city commissioner who voted against the 2024 curfew, said in an interview. “The heavy hand of government is being imposed on residents, our visitors and businesses, rather than doing the hard work of coming up with really strategic alternatives.”
Similar frictions between residents and visitors have afflicted other popular Florida spring break locales like Panama City Beach. Over time, Fort Lauderdale and other cities have pushed spring breakers out, in part by raising hotel rates and changing zoning laws to turn dive bars into more upscale establishments.
Miami Beach has been wrestling with its reputation as a party town. A judge recently upheld an ordinance imposing a partial 2 a.m. cutoff on alcohol sales for a South Beach neighborhood known as South of Fifth, now full of glimmering condos. The law had been challenged by Story, a nightclub that argued it could not survive if it could no longer sell alcohol until 5 a.m.
Patience has worn thin as spring break revelers, often partying with alcohol or drugs, have packed a roughly 10-block stretch of South Beach along the Atlantic oceanfront each season, leading to unpredictable situations that sometimes turn violent because so many people have guns, according to city leaders, police officers and business owners.
The two deadly incidents this year took place over the St. Patrick’s Day weekend, typically one of the busiest of the season. After the second, the city briefly imposed a midnight curfew.
Last year, two shootings on Ocean Drive led the city to set a midnight curfew. In 2021, Miami Beach made headlines when, in the middle of the coronavirus pandemic, the city marketed itself to visitors even though many nightclubs remained closed, leading to raucous street parties. Officials responded that year by imposing an 8 p.m. curfew.
The rowdy behavior in the streets and the curfews that result have hurt businesses year after year, said Joshua Wallack, the chief operating officer of Mango’s Tropical Cafe, an Ocean Drive institution for more than 30 years.
“When they go from a dangerous situation to complete lockdown, there is no business,” he said. “We’re just caught in the wake of how they handle it. The service industry and the hospitality industry, they get completely obliterated because it goes from having complete chaos to nothing.”
In the past, civil rights activists have complained about the city police department’s use of military-style vehicles, pepper balls and forceful crowd control tactics during spring break, which attracts many Black visitors to a city whose resident population is largely white. Glendon Hall, chair of the Miami Beach Black Affairs Advisory Committee, which was created two years ago, was embedded with police officers and the city’s “goodwill ambassadors” during spring break last month. He said in a statement that was read at a meeting Tuesday that he was pleased with how law enforcement handled the “massive crowds” this year and that there had been no major complaints from civil rights groups.
The Miami Beach Police Department made 573 arrests in March, a slight drop from 615 arrests in March 2022, according to Officer Ernesto Rodriguez, a department spokesperson. Police officers seized more than 100 guns this year, he added.
Despite the headlines about shootings and curfews, families, couples and small gaggles of friends strolled down the sidewalks of Ocean Drive on a Friday afternoon late last month. Marcus Benjamin, a 19-year-old college student from Chicago, said the city’s emergency measures had “not at all” affected his trip with two of his buddies.
“I’ve seen a lot of cops on the beach,” said one of his friends, Cameron Sasser, also 19. “But it’s about the same as other years.”
Still, most everyone in city leadership seems to agree that the chaotic spring break crowds have become too much. But when it comes to what to do about them, views differ.
Mayor Dan Gelber said spring break “doesn’t fit with a city that has so many residents.”
“South Beach has bars and restaurants,” he said, “but it also has elementary schools and churches and synagogues.” Some local residents and visitors who spend lavishly often avoid the city during spring break.
Some commissioners like Fernandez have said they want to keep spring breakers but not “lawbreakers” who follow them into the city.
“The worst thing that we can do is continue doing the same thing we’ve done now for several years in a row, which is knowing that we’re going to have an overcrowding of our city and waiting until the violent situation occurs — until the death occurs — to react,” he said in an interview. “It’s better to get ahead of the situation and impose the curfew and the restrictions now.”
In 2021, Miami Beach lost in court after the Clevelander Hotel sued the city over a law setting a 2 a.m. cutoff for alcohol sales. The judge ruled that the ordinance had not been properly enacted.
Under states of emergency during past spring breaks, increased regulations yielded little success in subduing the party scene, according to commissioners like Arriola, who would prefer to bring in a big organized event in March that would allow officials to set up barricades, ticketed entry and metal detectors around Ocean Drive roughly from Fifth to 15th streets.
“At least people that are celebrating spring break in a street party on Ocean Drive could have the comfort of knowing that there wouldn’t be any weapons in that area,” he said.
After seeing crowds grow for nearly two decades at another busy time of year, Memorial Day weekend, the city began in 2017 to host the Hyundai Air & Sea Show, which features the military. The event has displaced many of the partyers who used to gather for Urban Beach Week, celebrating hip-hop.
This year, a three-day festival in March on Ocean Drive and in nearby Lummus Park drew daytime visitors and, the police department said, helped tame spring break — but only until the festival’s music and other entertainment ended around 9 p.m. each day. Both of the shootings happened later at night.
Without a major event lined up for 2024, the city appears to be considering a spring break lockdown — something Wallack said would go too far. Miami Beach should be able to offer a multitude of activities, from arts to wellness to nightlife, without having to sacrifice one for another, he argued.
“This is a city,” he said.
And anyway, he added, “Good luck trying to lock down public beaches.”
Mobile home park residents form co-ops to save their homes
Claire Rush – April 8, 2023
Resident and board member of the mobile home park Bob’s and Jamestown Homeowners Cooperative, Gadiel Galvez, 22, poses for a portrait in his neighborhood on Saturday, March 25, 2023, in Lakewood, Wash. When residents learned the park’s owner was looking to sell, they formed a cooperative and bought it themselves amid worries it would be redeveloped. Since becoming owners in September 2022, residents have worked together to manage and maintain the park. (AP Photo/Lindsey Wasson)Resident and board member of the mobile home park Bob’s and Jamestown Homeowners Cooperative, Gadiel Galvez, 22, takes a walk in his neighborhood on Saturday, March 25, 2023, in Lakewood, Wash. When residents learned the park’s owner was looking to sell, they formed a cooperative and bought it themselves amid worries it would be redeveloped. Since becoming owners in September 2022, residents have worked together to manage and maintain the park. (AP Photo/Lindsey Wasson)Gadiel Galvez, 22, adjusts a sign stating that his resident cooperative owns their mobile home park, Bob’s and Jamestown Homeowners Cooperative, in Lakewood, Wash., on Saturday, March 25, 2023. When residents learned the park’s owner was looking to sell, they formed a cooperative and bought it themselves amid worries it would be redeveloped. Since becoming owners in September 2022, residents have worked together to manage and maintain the park. (AP Photo/Lindsey Wasson)
PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) — When Gadiel Galvez learned that the owner of his mobile home park south of Seattle was looking to sell, he and other residents worried their largely Latino community would be bulldozed to make way for another Amazon warehouse.
So, they decided to form a cooperative and buy their park in Lakewood, Washington. With help from a nonprofit that advises communities like theirs and helps them secure loans, they bought it for $5.25 million. Since becoming owners in September, everyone’s worked to make improvements.
“Everybody thought, ‘You know what? … I’m going to make this place the best that I can,’” said Galvez, 22, who is a co-op board member. “Some people painted their homes, some people remodeled their interiors and exteriors, and some are working on their roofs.”
With rents rising at mobile home parks nationwide, advocates tout the cooperative model as a way to preserve one of the last affordable housing options for people with low- or fixed-incomes and to give them a greater voice in managing their parks.
So far these resident-owned communities are proving to be a reliable option. None of the more than 300 in the network of nonprofit ROC USA have defaulted or closed. One decided to sell back to the county housing authority it originally purchased from.
“They have a 100% track record of success, which tells you that it’s working for the residents,” said George McCarthy, president and CEO of the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy, a Cambridge, Massachusetts, think tank. “Resident ownership is an absolute bulwark against the intrusion of institutional capital in the market.”
Nearly a third of mobile home parks in the U.S. have been bought by such investors since 2015, lured by reliable cash flow and high returns from raising rents at nearly double the general rental market rate, McCarthy said.
“They’re trading on the desperation of people living in the parks,” he said. “There’s no place that they can take their homes if they can’t afford to keep paying the increasing rents.”
Park residents often own their home but rarely the land beneath it. So if a landlord raises rent, residents can be evicted or forced to sell their home. If a park is sold to be redeveloped, mobile homes that can’t be moved are demolished.
“Homelessness is really what residents are facing” if investors aggressively raise rents, said Victoria O’Banion, ROC Northwest’s marketing and acquisitions specialist.
At Rimrock Court in the central Oregon town of Madras, rent increased from $350 to $495 over five years. When the owner notified residents he planned to sell, they feared further increases — or worse, that it would be torn down to make way for apartments. So they decided to buy it.
“We were really worried about being forced out of our homes,” said Shawn King, who lives there with her husband on a fixed income and had experienced homelessness before.
To pay off the purchase loan, residents now pay $520 a month — a stretch, but one that comes with reassurance, King said.
“Just to have that peace of mind, to know that our rent is going to be locked in for awhile and not keep going up, and also knowing that our rent monies … are going back into the property, that is the cool part,” she said.
The required rent increase to go co-op was even steeper in Evergreen Village Cooperative in Mount Bethel, Pennsylvania, — from $460 a month to $750 to pay off the $12 million loan.
Still, more than two-thirds of residents voted in favor, figuring their rent would stabilize in the long run.
“We are not for profit. All the money that we get has to go back into the village and pay the mortgages off,” said Stephen Laclair, board president.
Evergreen Village has earmarked funds for improvement projects for the next decade, and this year plans to enhance the sewer plant and fix electrical issues, he said.
Co-ops can also provide social support to residents. At Liberty Landing Cooperative in Missouri, residents started a food pantry to help neighbors in need.
“If there’s a hardship, we’re willing to work with somebody. … It’s emotional when you find out that somebody’s lost their job, their child support … and they don’t know what to do,” said Kristi Peterman, the board vice president. “Our president likes to say: ‘If it doesn’t work for the poorest of us then it’s not going to work for anybody.'”
Despite the talk of better management and stronger community, most parks aren’t co-ops.
The country’s roughly 43,000 mobile home communities are home to 22 million people, according to the Manufactured Housing Institute, a national trade organization. But only about 1,000 are resident-owned, according to Carolyn Carter, deputy director at the National Consumer Law Center.
Some resistance comes from residents, many of whom are seniors and people with disabilities who may not want the responsibility of managing their park. Others argue rent control or stricter zoning regulations protecting mobile home parks from redevelopment are more effective.
“Zoning is critical. … That is what we ought to be fighting for everywhere,” said Jan Leonard, who lives in a park in Walla Walla, Washington, and worked with other residents to successfully push the city council to amend zoning codes to add mobile home parks as a land-use type.
Other residents considering buying their parks are running up against the same forces that make them popular with investors — a red-hot market and competition from private equity firms and other prospective buyers.
Sarah Marchant, vice president of Community Loan Fund, ROC USA’s New Hampshire affiliate, recalled Tara Estates, a 380-home park in Rochester. The steep $45 million asking price discouraged residents from organizing.
Another challenge is that few states provide funding for residents looking to buy their parks. The lack of grants can make it difficult for residents to finance large loans.
New Hampshire, Vermont, Rhode Island, Massachusetts, Colorado and Oregon are among states with laws that have been effective in helping residents buy their parks, the National Consumer Law Center said.
A new bill in Oregon would allocate $35 million in grants to help residents purchase their parks. Washington passed a bill last month requiring that landlords offer tenants a chance to compete to purchase their park. It also requires two years’ notice if a park will be closed, although that can be reduced if landlords financially compensate residents.
Mobile homes are “an important and affordable housing option for a lot of folks, especially older people aging in place, and we need to make sure it’s preserved,” said state Sen. Noel Frame, the Washington bill’s prime sponsor.
Some real estate groups and park owners argue the bill places an undue burden on landlords.
“If you want tenants to organize and make offers to purchase their communities … they should not wait until there’s a clock ticking,” said Robert Cochran, property manager of Contempo Mobile Home Park in Spokane.
Add more of one ingredient and you get one result. Take away an ingredient or substitute one ingredient for another and you get an entirely different result.
Scientists studying the “recipe” for tornado activity in the United States, now and in the future, say it’s difficult to tease apart how all the pieces that have to interact for tornadoes to form – such as warmer temperatures and more intense rainfall – may affect storm activity in the future.
However, research announced this week by Northern Illinois University reports continued increases in carbon dioxide emissions could bring about more frequent and more intense supercell storms and tornado activity in the future, especially in the eastern U.S.
One thing’s for sure, the atmospheric ingredients are in overdrive so far this year.
How many tornadoes have there been in the US this year?
Even before the March 31 outbreak, tornado activity – at 311 tornadoes through March 29 – was already the third busiest start to the year since records began, according to data from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
Combined with the preliminary total of 104 tornadoes during the devastating March 31 outbreak, the 415 tornadoes for the first quarter would be the busiest start to the year on record. The average through the end of April between 1991-2020 is 337.9.
The U.S. had seen above normal tornado activity through the end of March, even before the March 31st tornado outbreak.
Why so much tornado activity?
A host of climate patterns and oceanic and atmospheric currents come together to create the conditions favorable for the supercell storms that spawn tornadoes.
“You really need to look at them all together holistically and understand that they all play together in an orchestra in a symphony, a very delicate symphony,” says Victor Gensini, an associate professor at Northern Illinois University.
Heat and humidity help create the instability that spins up supercell storms, intense, long-lived thunderstorms with a rotating updraft. Supercells are responsible for tornadoes and hail and cause billions of dollars in losses and hundreds of casualties every year.
One essential ingredient is moisture, and the dial is cranked higher than normal in the Gulf of Mexico this year. Sea surface temperatures have been warmer than normal, thanks in part to a dearth of cold fronts and a persistent high pressure ridge in the region over the winter to help cool it down, said Gensini and others.
“We’re running anywhere from 2 to maybe 4 degrees Celsius warmer than average in the Gulf,” he said. When you have “bath water like this” and a southerly wind, it brings more moisture northward.
Combine that with the lingering effects of the La Nina and warm, dry winds from the west and it’s the recipe for an active period.
“I don’t really see this going away either,” Gensini said. “I think we will end up with an above average April.”
What do researchers know about climate change and tornadoes?
For more than a year, Professor Walker Ashley and his colleagues in the Department of Earth, Atmosphere and Environment at Northern Illinois, including Gensini and Assistant Professor Alex Haberlie, have been running models that simulate storm activity.
Their results suggest the potential by century’s end for more supercell storms, hail, extreme rainfall and significant tornadoes. And that could have “disastrous consequences,” said Ashley, the lead author.
They used two trajectories for potential greenhouse gas emissions, to see how that could influence the frequency or characteristics of tornado activity in the future.
Under either trajectory, the number of annual supercell storms becomes more frequent and intense, with the mean supercell activity increasing in the U.S. by 7-15%.
With increasing carbon dioxide emissions, the study projects an eastward shift in heightened supercell storm activity, particularly in the Ozarks and mid-South, with slight increases in the north and central regions of the Eastern U.S..
The simulations documented “diminished” storm activity in much of the Great Plains, west of the I-35 corridor.
Storm timing is expected to shift to earlier parts of the year, trailing off in the later months when temperatures climb in the summer.
Researchers at Northern Illinois University say rising greenhouse gas emissions may increase the number of supercell storms that increase tornadoes.
Are we seeing climate change impacts already in US tornadoes?
Possibly, but it’s not as obvious as a heat wave or extreme rainfall.
Although a multitude of factors enhance conditions and available energy for storms, it’s likely we are seeing a climate change signal in storm activity, Gensini said. Their projections, based on model simulations of the future, are consistent with changes already being seen in tornado frequency and location.
“The storms are more intense. They are longer-lived and they happen more frequently in the cool season,” he said. The distribution of tornadoes also is spreading out through the year, and decreasing in the summer when temperatures get really hot and wind shear decreases.
A June 2019 supercell over a field in Kansas.
Harold Brooks, a senior research scientist at the National Severe Storms Laboratory in Norman, Oklahoma, was a reviewer for the Northern Illinois study.
Its projected change in seasonal activity make sense, Brooks said. “If we make it warmer things should happen,” he said. It’s already been shown, for example, that fewer tornadoes occur when it’s really hot during the summer.
Ashley noted their research is still in its early stages.
One of the more concerning findings, he said, is that the cumulative footprint of the strongest supercells is projected to increase at the same time that communities are becoming more vulnerable because of expanding populations and development, which creates bigger target ares for storms.
Dinah Voyles Pulver covers climate and environment issues for USA TODAY.
Sullivan Mayor Clint Lamb and Indiana Governor Eric Holcomb survey the damage caused by a tornado on Saturday, April 1, 2023 in Sullivan, Indiana.
Assisted-living homes are rejecting Medicaid and evicting seniors
Christopher Rowland, The Washington Post – April 6, 2023
Shirley Holtz paid private rates for 26 months at an assisted-living facility before qualifying for Medicaid. She lived there for another two years at the Medicaid rate before being evicted. (Family Photo)
Shirley Holtz, 91, used a walker to get around. She had dementia and was enrolled in hospice care. Despite her age and infirmity, Holtz was evicted from the assisted-living facility she called home for four years because she relied on government health insurance for low-income seniors.
Holtz was one of 15 residents told to vacate Emerald Bay Retirement Community near Green Bay, Wis., after the facility stopped accepting payment from a state-sponsored Medicaid program. And Emerald Bay is not alone. A recent spate of evictions has ousted dozens of assisted-living residents in Wisconsin who depended on Medicaid to pay their bills – an increasingly common practice, according to industry representatives.
The evictions highlight the pitfalls of the U.S. long-term care system, which is showing fractures from the pandemic just as a wave of 73 million baby boomers is hitting an age where they are likely to need more day-to-day care. About 4.4 million Americans have some form of long-term care paid for by Medicaid, the state-federal health system for the poor, a patchy safety net that industry representatives say pays facilities too little.
Residents of assisted-living facilities – promoted as a homier, more appealing alternative to nursing homes – face an especially precarious situation. While federal law protects Medicaid beneficiaries in nursing homes from eviction, the law does not protect residents of assisted-living facilities, leaving them with few options when turned out. In Wisconsin, residents who entered facilities on Medicaid, as well as those who drained their private savings after moving in and subsequently enrolled in Medicaid, have been affected.
“It’s a good illustration of how Medicaid assisted-living public policy is still in its Wild West phase, with providers doing what they choose in many cases, even though it’s unfair to consumers,” said Eric Carlson, a lawyer and director of long-term services and support advocacy at the nonprofit group Justice in Aging. “You can’t just flip in and out of these relationships and treat the people as incidental damage.”
The U.S. government does not monitor or regulate assisted-living facilities, and no federal data is available on the frequency of evictions. In Wisconsin, The Washington Post counted at least 50 since the fall based on statements by operators and nonprofit and government Medicaid agencies. But evictions have become so common that some states, including New Jersey, have enacted policies to curb them.
Emerald Bay did not explain why it stopped participating in Medicaid. But advocates, family members and the nonprofit that managed the facility’s Medicaid contract contend the motivation was financial: Medicaid reimbursement is lower than full private pay rates.
Family members said they were upset and angry. Holtz spent her entire savings paying out of pocket with the understanding that she would be permitted to stay once she qualified for low-income insurance, her relatives said. Ann Marra, Holtz’s daughter, said her mother – who worked much of her life as a professional secretary and raised her family in Algoma, a small town on Lake Michigan – deserved better treatment.
Marra feared the eviction would affect her mother’s mental health.
“It’s cruel, heartless and sad,” she said.
After a stressful search, Holtz’s family moved her on March 13 to an assisted-living facility that still honors state Medicaid. Emerald Bay’s operator, Baka Enterprises, did not respond to requests for comment.
Advocates for assisted-living residents worry that pandemic-induced economic conditions are contributing to the problem in pockets of the country. Profits in assisted-living facilities are threatened by a shortage of staff and big spikes in labor costs, inflation that is jacking up the costs of goods, and higher interest rates. Meanwhile, occupancy rates continue to lag behind pre-pandemic peaks.
The industry blames evictions on insufficient Medicaid funding. Reimbursements, made under federal waivers that allow states to spend Medicaid dollars for elderly care outside of nursing homes, are not keeping up with rising costs, industry representatives said.
“Chronic Medicaid underfunding is not sustainable and is limiting participation as well as driving many providers out of the waiver program, reducing access to care options,” said LaShuan Bethea, executive director of the National Center for Assisted Living trade group.
The gap in pay rates between Medicaid and the full amount charged to families paying out of pocket varies among states. While private pay rates are often $5,000 a month or more, Medicaid in many states pays only about $3,000 a month, said Paul Williams, vice president of government relations at Argentum, a trade association representing assisted-living facilities.
Operators “have tried to hold off [canceling Medicaid contracts] as long as they can, hoping the reimbursement will be increased to help them afford inflation factors,” Williams said. “Hope has diminished in some states of that happening, and they’re saying, ‘I cannot do this anymore.'”
In 2020, about 18 percent of 818,000 residents in U.S. assisted-living facilities were supported by Medicaid payments, according to federal data, a ratio that has remained stable for at least a decade.
In Wisconsin, at least four facilities have canceled Medicaid managed-care contracts in recent months. In addition to Emerald Bay’s 15 residents, Cedarhurst of Madison had 28 residents who were Medicaid beneficiaries when it terminated its contract last year. Residents found out they were being evicted after being called to a group meeting in late fall, said one of those told to leave, Elizabeth Burnette.
“Residents were in tears to hear they had to find another place to live,” Burnette, 80, said. “Most of us are incapacitated in some way, with walkers and in wheelchairs or mobile beds.”
Cedarhurst operates the facility, which is owned by a Massachusetts-based real estate investment trust, Diversified Healthcare Trust. Going to 100 percent private pay at the Madison site was a “tough decision” made in conjunction with Diversified Healthcare, Cedarhurst spokeswoman Christie Schrader said.
Cedarhurst became the facility’s operator in November 2021.
“When we took over management, we inherited Medicaid residents with special cases who required advanced care that we do not offer at our communities,” Schrader said. “Therefore, we believed it was in the residents’ best interest to aid them in finding alternative placement which could care for them in the way they deserve.”
The lobbying and trade group in Wisconsin that represents the long-term care industry said assisted-living operators recognize evictions are highly stressful for residents and their families.
“Not only is it traumatic for the resident and the family, it’s also traumatic for the facility. It really is,” said Rick Abrams, president and CEO of the Wisconsin Health Care Association/Wisconsin Center for Assisted Living. “This is the residents’ home. Everyone understands that.”
He said evictions usually occur when an assisted-living facility and one of the state’s nonprofit Medicaid managed-care organizations cannot agree on the monthly rates for care of an elderly person. Written notices given to residents in the recent evictions stated little about the rationale.
HarborChase of Shorewood, outside Milwaukee, had six Medicaid residents when it said it was ending its Medicaid contracts in January, according to managers of the state’s nonprofit Medicaid managed-care organizations.
“With the new year comes necessary changes,” Karin Bateman, chief operating officer of Vero Beach, Fla.-based Harbor Retirement Associates, HarborChase of Shorewood’s parent company, wrote in a three-paragraph letter to residents on Jan. 6 that informed them that the facility would no longer accept Medicaid. “Our 60-day notice of Medicaid termination gives you time to plan accordingly.”
Harbor Retirement Associates did not respond to requests for comment.
The evictions carry an especially harsh sting for residents who enter assisted-living facilities paying full rates out of pocket with the understanding that, once their nest egg has been spent down, they can remain in the facility under Medicaid. Such arrangements are common across the country and are discussed with families by marketing staff, according to elder-law attorneys and industry experts.
But facilities may have strict limits on the number of beds they designate as Medicaid-eligible, or they can back out of state Medicaid contracts completely. Such caveats may be buried in the fine print of resident agreements or are not addressed at all in the contracts, according to contract provisions in the Wisconsin cases reviewed by The Post. Families often sign such contracts in a time of stress, as they are seeking a safe place for a parent who can no longer remain in their own home.
“This is how people are getting screwed, by promises that the place will take [Wisconsin Medicaid] if they stay for two years. Then they either sell to another company, or change their minds and opt out of the program entirely, which you really can’t stop them from doing. At that point, the family has used up their funds,” said Carol Wessels, an attorney specializing in elder law in Mequon, Wis.
Family members are often left feeling betrayed.
“It’s appalling to say the least,” said Megan Brillault, whose mother, Nancy Brillault, was evicted from HarborChase of Shorewood after spending most of her $120,000 savings. “They said, ‘Here, let us take your money, all your life savings, and you can live here forever,’ and 10 months later they’re saying, ‘We miscalculated, and we are no longer taking Medicaid beds.'”
Megan Brillault provided an email to The Post in which a HarborChase representative said Nancy could transition to Medicaid after paying private-pay rates for one year. The residency contract did not address the issue, said Brillault, a lawyer.
Medicaid pays for nursing home care directly. It’s an entitlement – if a low-income person qualifies, the state must fund a nursing home bed. Medicaid pays all costs in nursing homes, including room and board, as well as care.
Assisted living is different. At those facilities, Medicaid money can be used to reimburse only the cost of care, such as bathing and dressing, and not room and board, although some states offer supplemental payments to help with rent and food.
With the overwhelming majority of residents paying privately, the median operating profit for U.S. assisted-living facilities in 2019 was 29 percent before deductions for interest and rent payments, according to the National Investment Center for Seniors Housing & Care.
Kate McEvoy, executive director of the National Association of Medicaid Directors, said states want to give elderly people options outside of nursing homes but are squeezed between restrictions on how Medicaid money can be used and the high costs of assisted living.
“This has been a challenge in what has primarily been a proprietary, market-driven model,” she said.
In the eviction notice emailed to Holtz’s family in Wisconsin, Baka Enterprises, Emerald Bay’s operator, said it had decided to terminate its contracts with the state’s Medicaid program that covers services for the elderly. It did not provide a reason, but cited a provision of its contract with residents that allowed it to discharge them if they could not afford private-pay rates and the facility did not have designated Medicaid beds.
Kris Holtz, Shirley Holtz’s son, said he was not aware of the provision when he moved his mother into Emerald Bay. Shirley Holtz paid private rates for 26 months before qualifying for Medicaid. She lived at Emerald Bay for another two years at the Medicaid rate before receiving the eviction notice, he said.
The Emerald Bay Medicaid contract was managed by a nonprofit called Lakeland Care. “In the end, Emerald Bay asked us to pay the full private-pay rate for these members, which we are unable to do as a Medicaid-funded agency,” Lakeland Care’s chief executive officer, Sara Muhlbauer, said in a written statement to The Post.
Experts say moving elderly people out of familiar surroundings can induce a condition called “transfer trauma” that accelerates decline. Shirley Holtz’s relatives detected rapid changes after the eviction, said Marra, her daughter. Her mother lost 15 pounds, she said, and quickly stopped using her walker.
On Monday, three weeks after moving out of Emerald Bay and into the new facility, Shirley Holtz died. “The move was a huge factor in her decline,” Marra said in a text.
Even as she mourned, Marra texted an expletive to describe the U.S. long-term care system, punctuated by a red-faced frown emoji. “Kinda angry right now,” she said.
The opening disclaimer for NBC’s Law & Order reads, “The following story is fictional and does not depict any actual person or event.” Never the less, regular viewers recognize recent story lines “ripped from the headlines” on a regular basis. We can reliably predict, the “Trump indicted by New York Grand Jury; becomes the first U.S. President in history to be prosecuted” headline, will soon spark future crime-time episodes.
MAGA World quickly pounced on Manhattan D.A. Alvin Bragg as being, nasty, on a vendetta, a pawn of George Soros, a racist, an animal and above all, a political tool. Some on the left believe he should have waited his turn on the Trump indictment train, but they fail to appreciate the element of statute of limitations.
How often have we faithfully followed story lines from our favorite crime shows, depicting serial (killers- rapists- drug kings -abusers etc. etc.) continued week after week, with the investigative authorities assembling an elaborate white board of circumstantial evidence, but unable to quite convince the D.A. / prosecutor to bring charges on the most serious violations, before the legal clock runs out. They’re convinced the career criminal is as guilty as sin but can’t quite close the deal. That’s when they must, by hook or crook, charge the bastards with any even minor infraction, in order to take them off the streets, before they can continue their carnage and mayhem. And then just when we think all is lost, they uncover the smoking gun, the final nail in the coffin that will put them away for life.
During his half century plus of life in New York and then in the White House, Trump seems to have left no criminal enterprise untapped. Insurrection and attempts to overthrow American Democracy, conspiring with a foreign enemy during his campaigns, theft of confidential government documents, business and bank fraud, tax evasion, money laundering, obstruction of justice in multiple cases, witness intimidation, bribery, campaign violations, perjury, sexual assault, violations with his school and charities, real estate discrimination, slander etc. etc. are just some of allegations leveled against Trump and his various business enterprises. There’s no doubt a list of crimes they haven’t discovered yet.
In the Trump Organization trial, two entities were found guilty by a jury in December of a combined 17 counts related to criminal tax fraud. They were fined the maximum allowed. And his CFO Allen Weisselberg, who is currently incarcerated in New York City’s Rikers Island jail, entered a guilty plea last year and admitted to receiving more than $1.7 million in untaxed compensation. Who can forget all the fines for Trump family financial malfeasance. And who can forget all the Trump miscreants, cronies and conspirators who were hired, fired, indicted, convicted, jailed and utterly defamed.
D.A. Bragg campaigned and won his election on a platform of fairness and equity in the system of justice he’s now responsible for. He pledged to turn the page on a two tier system of justice. Both the right and the left forget that New York, New York is at the top of the list of world class banking, business and financial centers of the world. Trump and his enterprises have been a constant assault against and black eye for that reputation. Enough is enough they said.
After a two year long investigation of Trump and all of his Inc’s, they believe they have the goods and will attempt to take them off the streets of New York forever. Rumors are the good citizen street sweepers of New York have found at least 30 criminal count violations this serial criminal is guilty of. MAGA members of congress cry political persecution, and threaten to tar and feather D.A Bragg, without even seeing the sealed indictment.
The cast of Presidential contenders, previously Trump enablers, often critics, and then turned demonizers, and now turned staunch defenders can’t figure out whether to pee their pants , pray for Trump, or go dumb. Lindsey Graham, Mike Pence, DeSantis and others, must bow to the MAGA monster Trump unleased and which they and others glorified and anointed. The MAGA faithful will not be denied their perceived grievances’.
The Benghazi wing of the Republi-con House of Representatives spends their waking hours trying to out Trumpit their outraged colleagues. They have no one to blame for tomorrows karmatic political awakening but their own cowardice. They turned a blind eye to their twice impeached President’s unending assault on our American Democratic Institutions.
Trump’s entourage leaves South Florida today on a journey most American believe is long overdue. Who knows what happens when he lands in Manhattan. Too many in the MAGA cult hierarchy pray for violence and chaos. Lindsey Graham was particularly apoplectic: “They are trying to drain him dry. He’s spent more money on lawyers than most people spent on campaigns. They’re trying to bleed him dry. Donald J. Trump dot com. Go tonight. Give the president some money to fight this bullshit! This is going to destroy America!”
Wow, that’s richy rich! No doubt Trump has spent more on lawyers (billed but probably not paid) than any single entity by far, but that’s because not only is he allegedly the head of the most complex criminal enterprise in American History, legal warfare is also his primary modus operandi. Sooner or later, some news organization will attempt to add up the cost to all Federal and State Governments and to various businesses and individuals, for them to rein in and take to task, Trump Inc. and his many conspirators and enablers in congress. I’m guessing the bill is closing in on a billion dollars. This is not your Grandfathers conservative, penny pinching GOP.
Trump will try to blame everyone in sight for his legal predicaments, including D.A. Alvin Bragg and his team of prosecutors, Judge Juan Merchan , who will oversee his case, the New Yorkers who indicted him, and probably the jury of his peers who will convict him. But Trump has no one to blame but his own egomaniacal self. His rein of amateurish governing Apprenticeship is being recorded in history, as we speak, as the very biggest prime time “Loser” to ever occupy the White House.
But the biggest blame must be laid at the feet of the MAGA base of nationalistic, racist, misogynistic, anti-Semitic, homophobic, anti government, anti Democratic bomb throwers. They seriously need to ask themselves what kind of a country they want to live in. Some seriously think Vladimir Putin is a better leader than Joe Biden. And that Russia and the autocratic Kremlin leaders promise a more agreeable way of life. Most of the civilized world would disagree. And since Putin unleashed a campaign of war crimes and genocide by invading their peaceful Democratic neighbor Ukraine, more than a million Russian citizens have fled the country; and still many more are trying. And as the MAGA crowd likes to point out on a daily basis, millions of folks flock to our Southern border and now to our Northern border trying to become part of this American Democratic Experience.
American’s need to allow our Justice System protect it’s citizens from serial evildoers. Serial bizzaro man, Lindsey Graham pleads with the MAGA faithful to quickly send in their rent and utility money, so billionaire Trump can mount a legal defense, and also suggests “How can President Trump avoid prosecution in New York?,” asked Graham. “On the way to the DA’s office on Tuesday, Trump should smash some windows, rob a few shops and punch a cop.” MAGA World responded with donations of $5 million within 48 hours.
I don’t believe there’s a single, reputable Fortune 50, 100, 500, 50,000 or any mom and pop business anywhere, who would employ Trump, or pay him any amount, to do any job. Isn’t there an ethical, and reasonable, true conservative Republican anywhere in America that this toxic MAGA crowd would nominate to represent the party?
This sad state of our political climate clearly represents how low, the once “Law and Order” Republican party, has sunk. Heaven help us.
Report details ‘staggering’ church sex abuse in Maryland
Les Skene, Brian Witte and Sarah Brumfield – April 5, 2023
Jean Hargadon Wehner speaks about the release of the redacted report on child sexual abuse in the Catholic Archdiocese of Baltimore by the Maryland Attorney General’s Office on Wednesday, April 6, 2023, in Baltimore. Standing next to her is Teresa Lancaster. (Kim Hairston/The Baltimore Sun via AP)Kurt Rupprecht speaks about the abuse he suffered after the release of the redacted report on child sexual abuse in the Catholic Archdiocese of Baltimore by the Maryland Attorney General’s Office on Wednesday, April 6, 2023, in Baltimore. (Kim Hairston/The Baltimore Sun via AP)Teresa Lancaster speaks about the release of the redacted report on child sexual abuse in the Catholic Archdiocese of Baltimore by the Maryland Attorney General’s Office on Wednesday, April 6, 2023, in Baltimore. (Kim Hairston/The Baltimore Sun via AP)Maryland Attorney General Anthony Brown comments about releasing the redacted report on child sexual abuse in the Catholic Archdiocese of Baltimore on Wednesday, April 6, 2023, in Baltimore. (Kim Hairston/The Baltimore Sun via AP)
BALTIMORE (AP) — More than 150 Catholic priests and others associated with the Archdiocese of Baltimore sexually abused over 600 children and often escaped accountability, according to a long-awaited state report released Wednesday that revealed the scope of abuse spanning 80 years and accused church leaders of decades of coverups.
The report paints a damning picture of the archdiocese, which is the oldest Roman Catholic diocese in the country and spans much of Maryland. Some parishes, schools and congregations had more than one abuser at the same time — including St. Mark Parish in Catonsville, which had 11 abusers living and working there between 1964 and 2004. One deacon admitted to molesting over 100 children. Another priest was allowed to feign hepatitis treatment and make other excuses to avoid facing abuse allegations.
The Maryland Attorney General’s Office released the findings of their yearslong investigation during Holy Week — considered the most sacred time of year in Christianity ahead of Easter Sunday — and said the number of victims is likely far higher. The report was redacted to protect confidential grand jury materials, meaning the identities of some accused clergy were removed.
“The staggering pervasiveness of the abuse itself underscores the culpability of the Church hierarchy,” the report said. “The sheer number of abusers and victims, the depravity of the abusers’ conduct, and the frequency with which known abusers were given the opportunity to continue preying upon children are astonishing.”
Disclosure of the redacted findings marks a significant development in an ongoing legal battle over their release and adds to growing evidence from parishes across the country as numerous similar revelations have rocked the Catholic Church in recent years.
Baltimore Archbishop William Lori, in a statement posted online, apologized to the victims and said the report “details a reprehensible time in the history of this Archdiocese, a time that will not be covered up, ignored or forgotten.”
“It is difficult for most to imagine that such evil acts could have actually occurred,” Lori said. “For victim-survivors everywhere, they know the hard truth: These evil acts did occur.”
Also on Wednesday, the state legislature passed a bill to end a statute of limitations on abuse-related civil lawsuits, sending it to Gov. Wes Moore, who has said he supports it. The Baltimore archdiocese says it has paid more than $13.2 million for care and compensation for 301 abuse victims since the 1980s, including $6.8 million toward 105 voluntary settlements.
Maryland Attorney General Anthony Brown, who took office in January, said the investigation shows “pervasive, pernicious and persistent abuse.” State investigators began their work in 2019; they reviewed over 100,000 pages of documents dating back to the 1940s and interviewed hundreds of victims and witnesses.
ABUSE RECALLED AS A ‘LIFE SENTENCE’
Victims said the report was a long-overdue public reckoning with shameful accusations the church has been facing for decades.
Jean Hargadon Wehner said she was abused in Baltimore as a teen by A. Joseph Maskell, a priest who served as her Catholic high school’s counselor and chaplain. She said she reported her abuse to church officials in the early ’90s, when her memories of the trauma finally surfaced about two decades after she was repeatedly raped.
“I expected them to do the right thing in 1992,” she told reporters Wednesday. “I’m still angry.”
Maskell abused at least 39 victims, according to the report. He denied the allegations before his death in 2001 and was never criminally charged. The Associated Press typically doesn’t name victims of abuse, but Wehner has spoken publicly to draw attention to the issue.
Kurt Rupprecht, who also experienced abuse as a child, said he was in his late 40s when he pieced together his traumatic memories. He said the realization brought him some relief because it explained decades of self-destructive behavior and mental health challenges, but also left him overwhelmed with anger and disbelief.
Rupprecht said his abuser was assigned to the Diocese of Wilmington, which covers some counties on the Eastern Shore of Maryland.
“We’re here to speak the truth and never stop,” he said after the news conference. “We deal with this every day. It is our life sentence.”
The Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests, known as SNAP, noted the report lists more names of abusers than have been released publicly by archdiocese officials. The organization called on the archbishop to explain the discrepancies.
Other investigations involving the Archdiocese of Washington and the Diocese of Wilmington, Delaware, which both include parts of Maryland, are ongoing.
ARCHDIOCESE TOOK STEPS TO PROTECT THE ACCUSED
The Baltimore report says church leaders were focused on keeping abuse hidden, not on protecting victims or stopping abuse. In some situations, victims ended up reporting abuse to priests who were abusive themselves. And when law enforcement did become aware of abuse allegations, police and prosecutors were often deferential and “uninterested in probing what church leaders knew and when,” according to the report.
The nearly 500-page document includes numerous instances of leaders taking steps to protect accused clergy, including allowing them to retire with financial support rather than be ousted, letting them remain in the ministry and failing to report alleged abuse to law enforcement.
In 1964, for instance, Father Laurence Brett admitted to sexually abusing a teenager at a Catholic university in Connecticut.
He was sent to New Mexico under the guise of hepatitis treatment and then to Sacramento, where another teenage boy reported being abused by Brett, the report said. He was later assigned to Baltimore, where he served as chaplain at a Catholic high school for boys and abused over 20 victims.
After several students accused him of abuse in 1973, Brett was allowed to resign, saying he had to care for a sick aunt. School officials didn’t report the abuse to authorities and dozens more victims later came forward. He never faced criminal charges and died in 2010.
The report largely focuses on the years before 2002, when an investigation by the Boston Globe into abuse and coverup in the Archdiocese of Boston led to an explosion of revelations nationwide. The nation’s Catholic bishops, for the first time, then agreed on reforms including a lifetime ban from ministry for any priest who commits even a single incident of abuse. While new national policies significantly improved the internal handling of reported abuse in the Baltimore archdiocese after 2002, significant flaws remained, according to the report.
Only one person has been indicted through the investigation: Neil Adleberg, 74, who was arrested last year and charged with rape and other counts. The case remains ongoing. Officials said he coached wrestling at a Catholic high school in the ’70s, then returned to the role for the 2014-2015 school year. The alleged abuse occurred in 2013 and 2014 but the victim was not a student of the school, officials said.
COURT TO CONSIDER RELEASING MORE NAMES IN THE FUTURE
Lawyers for the state asked a court for permission to release the report and a Baltimore Circuit Court judge ruled last month that a redacted version should be made public. The court ordered the removal the names and titles of 37 people accused of wrongdoing — whose names came out during confidential grand jury proceedings — but will consider releasing a more complete version in the future.
Lawmakers’ passage of a bill to end the state’s statute of limitations Wednesday came after similar proposals failed in recent years. Currently, victims of child sex abuse in Maryland can’t sue after they turn 38. The bill would eliminate the age limit and allow for retroactive lawsuits.
The Archdiocese of Baltimore has long faced scrutiny over its handling of abuse allegations.
In 2002, Cardinal William Keeler, who served as Baltimore archbishop for nearly two decades, released a list of 57 priests accused of sexual abuse, earning himself a reputation for transparency at a time when the nationwide scope of wrongdoing remained largely unexposed. That changed, however, when a Pennsylvania grand jury accused Keeler of covering up sexual abuse allegations while serving as bishop of Harrisburg in the 1980s.
Associated Press reporter Stefanie Dazio contributed to this report from Los Angeles. Peter Smith contributed from Pittsburgh. Witte reported from Annapolis and Brumfield reported from Silver Spring.
