Ukrainian sappers explode anti-tank mines and other explosive materials found near the town of Bucha, on a military range outside Kyiv (Kiev), Ukraine, 13 April 2023, amid Russia’s invasion
It was a curious sight. Russia’s annual Victory Day parade, a display of military might and a celebration of its role in defeating Nazi Germany, could only muster a solitary T-34. The serried ranks of tanks seen in recent years were absent; many of them will be lying burned out in the Donbas. Putin’s speech, meanwhile, was desperate, even delusional. He claimed civilisation was “at a decisive turning point”; that a “real war has been unleashed against Russia”; that the West seeks the “disintegration and destruction” of Russia. The only person driving towards that goal is Putin himself.
His army is in a shambolic condition, with multiple reports indicating that troops are fighting without adequate body armour. Young men are conscripted and thrown into the meat grinder of the Donbas, backed by antiquated tanks. They face forces combining modern Western equipment with significant new tactical innovations. And they are being slaughtered.
Over the last century, battlefield casualties for Western forces have seen a steady decline. Modern medical techniques, antibiotics and military developments have all played their role. But assumptions based on this experience may not work when estimating the losses suffered by Putin’s poorly-equipped conscripts.
Ukrainian reports of Russian casualties resemble something from the fronts of the First World War, with hundreds killed and injured each day. Western analysts have tended to be more conservative in their estimates.
But this conflict is not like those we have seen previously. Kyiv’s forces are innovating new ways of conducting warfare, with drones at their heart. Tech savvy young men and women are repurposing and re-engineering for the battlefield off-the-shelf and inexpensive equipment developed for peace.
This is a game changing moment. Russia’s armed forces are centred around the use of artillery; various sources list Moscow’s expenditure of shells as multiples of Ukraine’s. And yet even pessimistic assessments show a casualty ratio skewed heavily in Ukraine’s favour, despite being theoretically outgunned.
The key to this appears to be innovation. What is unique to the Ukraine conflict is the use of both drones as striking weapons and as platforms for observation. Some analysts suggest that using the standard ratios of deaths/wounded will be very far from reflecting the lethality of this new mode of warfare. Some have gone so far as to suggest that the vast majority of artillery rounds and mortar shells fired by Kyiv’s forces will be watched by drone, allowing for – in artillery terms, at least – pinpoint accuracy.
And the pace of change is set to continue. The Ukrainians have trained 10,000 drone operators, who will add to Kyiv’s capability to observe and guide indirect fire. This type of attack was called precision targeting when I first went to Afghanistan in 2008. In those days we would have a huge Nimrod aircraft with 20 or so operators on board, flying at 20,000ft with a single camera. There would be five or six of us on the ground monitoring the live feed; if the right target was identified we called in a precision air strike from a fighter jet. We conducted a few of these strikes per week. Later, we moved on to Reaper drones with hellfire missiles. But these strikes were rare; what Kyiv is doing is new.
Fighting a battle for national survival, every tank or enemy combatant is a fair target. the Ukrainians are developing techniques not only focused on precision attack but also on directing artillery fire. Battlefield footage may look like the First World War – trenches, shells and casualties abound – but we have moved on from rare balloon spotters sending messages to guns. Now, there are hundreds of tiny drones with amazingly capable cameras, giving detailed pictures and highly accurate meta data back to the guns. This is a type of warfare which few in Nato have ever experienced; when Russian casualty rates as estimated by the West appear to be half what the Ukrainians are claiming, it is surely possible that the Ukrainians are right.
This is backed up by the scramble in Russia to find soldiers. Both sides might lack ammunition, but the Kremlin appears to be running out of soldiers to fire that ammunition. The long-term costs for Russia are likely to be devastating.
Col Hamish de Bretton-Gordon is a former commander of the 1st Royal Tank Regiment
A Refugee From Another Time Gets an Eviction Notice
Dan Barry – May 8, 2023
William Mackiw
NEW YORK — The travails of many can be lucrative for a few. Take the old Stewart Hotel in Manhattan, which is being used as temporary housing for some of the tens of thousands of migrants who have come north to New York in search of sanctuary.
The city is paying a $200 nightly rate for 611 rooms in the nearly century-old hotel. This comes to roughly $6,000 a month for each room, or about $3.66 million a month for the hotel’s owners.
While they collect favorable rates for their fully booked hotel, the owners are also suing to evict the wisp of a man paying $865 a month for Room 1810: William Mackiw, who has lived there for so long that no one knows when he first appeared. It has been decades.
At some point, he moved in with the rent-stabilized room’s tenant, his aunt Louise. At some point, she died. Again, it has been decades.
And he just kept paying the modest rent with what he earned as a waiter in restaurants of casual fare. Your Howard Johnson’s. Your Beefsteak Charlie’s. Month after month, year after year.
Mackiw, 82 and retired, lives among the relics of a solitary life rooted in the past. Piles of old movies on VHS and DVD. Threadbare shirts hanging above the discolored bathtub. A broken TV. A dust-covered rotary phone. Four pairs of black shoes gathered on the floor like a flock of crows.
Within his confined world, the tight boundaries of which include a church and a market, he lived mostly unseen. Until a few months ago, that is, when someone knocked on his door and handed him a document. Its message:
“Time for you to leave,” Mackiw recalled.
In 10 days.
With that, the economic, societal and geopolitical pressures of the larger world combined to upend his tiny speck of it, and not for the first time. Mackiw was also an immigrant refugee, once. He needed sanctuary then, and may soon need it again.
In November 1949, the General C.C. Ballou, a reconfigured Army transport ship whose amenities included a children’s playroom, departed the German port of Bremerhaven. Aboard were 1,265 of the many millions of Europeans displaced by the upheaval of World War II.
According to records kept by the Center for Migration Studies of New York, the passengers included Celestyn and Sofia Mackiw and their two sons, Zygfryd, 12, and Wilhelm, 9. The Ukrainian family had most recently been living in a displacement camp in Aschaffenburg, Germany, where the uprooted, persecuted and traumatized received food, clothing and medical care.
Asked why his family left Europe, Mackiw said, simply, “Because of the war.” His failing memory recalls only flashes of his disrupted boyhood: being terrified by the bombs; bringing food to Jews harbored by his mother; living in camps.
Once in the United States, the Mackiws settled into a walk-up building in an East Village neighborhood sometimes called Little Ukraine. He remembers his mother as “an incredible woman” and his father as a daring window cleaner who “didn’t bother with the belts.”
The family later moved to Orchard Street on the Lower East Side. Mackiw attended the city’s Machine and Metal Trades High School, became an American citizen in 1959 and held a series of blue-collar jobs before waiting on tables full time.
“I worked in the restaurants,” he said.
Among them was Joe Franklin’s Memory Lane, a Theater District hangout for entertainers either well known or yet to be discovered. They all gravitated toward Franklin, a longtime radio and television host known for his command of entertainment history.
“The King of Nostalgia,” proclaimed his business cards, one of which sits amid the Room 1810 clutter. He died in 2015.
As Franklin held court with the likes of Soupy Sales and “Professor” Irwin Corey — you should look them up — his waiter of choice was Mackiw.
“Joe specifically sat in the section where William would be serving,” recalled Arnold Wachtel, a Joe Franklin’s customer who once ran Times Square gift and novelty shops such as the Fun Emporium and the Funny Store. “They used to reminisce about old movies and swap copies of movies on videos and DVDs.”
At shift’s end, the diminutive waiter would place a hat on his bald head and go back to the Stewart at Seventh Avenue and 31st Street, back to Room 1810.
The 31-story hotel opened in 1929 as the Hotel Governor Clinton — a lesser version of its grand neighbor, the Hotel Pennsylvania — and experienced the typical ups, downs and changes of the hospitality industry. But some aspects seemed permanent, from the art deco touches in the lobby to a few tenants in the rooms above.
Specifics are murky, but a few decades ago, perhaps as early as the 1970s, a retired seamstress named Louise Hirschfeld moved into 1810, a one-room apartment with a bathroom and kitchenette. She was a sister of Mackiw’s mother, Sofia.
The date of Mackiw’s arrival has been lost in the Manhattan blur of time. He slept on the couch while his aunt slept in the bed. Then she left for France, where her son and grandchildren lived and where she died at 81. In 1995.
Mackiw continued to pay the monthly rent with cash or a money order, and to collect receipts bearing the name of his dead aunt. When he wasn’t lingering in the lobby, shopping for food on Ninth Avenue or praying at St. Francis of Assisi Church around the corner, he was in his room, watching movies from the extensive Mackiw collection.
These portals of escape are scattered by the dozens on the floor. “King Kong.” “Broken Arrow.” “It Came From Outer Space.” “To Have and Have Not.” And his favorite: “Gone With the Wind.”
His routine did not change as time passed, as the city evolved, as the hotel came under new ownership. In 2016, the building was bought by a limited liability corporation whose partners declined through their lawyer last week to identify themselves. City records identify two of them as Isaac Chetrit, who with his brother, Eli, owns the AB & Sons investment group, and Ray Yadidi, who with his brother, Jack, owns the Sioni Group real estate firm.
The first threat to Mackiw’s insular world came early last year, when the owners informed the half-dozen permanent residents that they would be providing relocation assistance while the building underwent extensive renovations. The plan was to close the hotel and spend up to three years converting it into a 625-unit apartment building.
This, apparently, was when the owners discovered that Mackiw, not the late Louise Hirschfeld, was occupying Room 1810. Even though he had personally handed over the rent every month for years.
After this revelation, Mackiw said, hotel representatives came to his door more than once to tell him in a forceful and threatening manner that he had to vacate the room. The hotel denies ever harassing him.
At the same time, a humanitarian crisis was unfolding in New York, as thousands of migrants from Central and South America came to escape crime and economic uncertainty. Many arrived by bus, courtesy of the Republican governors of Arizona and Texas, who wanted to give the Northeast a taste of everyday life along the southern border.
The hotel’s owners set aside their conversion plans and, in mid-September, agreed to allow the city to rent half the building, including 300 rooms, for use as an intake center and refuge for asylum-seekers.
It wasn’t enough. In mid-December, the city signed a new contract to take effective control of the entire hotel, including the lobby, the ballroom and 611 rooms (at $200 a night). The agreement, which gave temporary housing to about 2,000 migrants, did not include the several units occupied by permanent residents.
The same week in September that the hotel began renting rooms to the city at market rates, a process server handed a 10-day eviction notice to the man who answered a knock on the door of Room 1810. The server described Mackiw this way:
Height: 5-foot-5.
Weight: 110 pounds.
Approximate age: 83.
Hair: Hat.
By this point, a distressed Mackiw had reached out to Wachtel, his old Joe Franklin’s customer, who had not heard from him in more than a dozen years. But as the son of a Holocaust survivor, Wachtel was moved by the older man’s ordeal — “The man is terrified” — and family memories of harboring Jews during the war.
“He’s a nice guy,” Wachtel said. “He prays for me and my family.”
Wachtel made phone calls, sent emails and arranged to become Mackiw’s power of attorney. He also contacted the Goddard Riverside Law Project, which specializes in the rights of single-room-occupancy (SRO) tenants. It agreed to take the Housing Court case of CYH Manhattan LLC against William Mackiw aka Bill Mackiw.
Daniel Evans, a lawyer with Goddard Riverside, said that under the city’s rent-stabilization codes, Mackiw acquired the rights and protections of a permanent SRO resident once he had spent six months in the apartment. There is no dispute that his stay has been much longer than six months — much, much longer.
“It’s outrageous that they would bring this type of case after 40 years of Mr. Mackiw living there,” Evans said. “Especially when he’s paying the rent himself at the front desk. They know he’s there.”
In a telephone interview, Lisa Faham-Selzer, a lawyer representing the owners, declined to answer a series of questions, including how long Mackiw had lived in the hotel and why the hotel had accepted payment from him for decades.
“This is a strong case with very, very clear allegations,” she said.
A hint of those allegations is contained in a recent court filing, in which the owners contend that Mackiw “has been posing as Louise Hirschfeld for decades.” By doing so, they argue, he “has been perpetrating a fraud.”
The case is pending. Court records do not indicate eviction proceedings brought against any of the hotel’s other permanent tenants, although one moved out after receiving a $10,000 buyout.
For now, Mackiw, a refugee from another time, continues to live among the refugees of today, fretting to the point of tears about his future.
He stays mostly in Room 1810, his longtime home. There, during a recent visit, the only food seemed to be milk, some cheese slices, peanut butter, a box of Cheerios, a pack of vanilla Oreos and a few Hershey chocolate bars.
DOJ charges ‘Pink Beret’ Jan. 6 rioter IDed after an ex spotted her in a viral FBI tweet
Ryan J. Reilly – May 8, 2023
WASHINGTON — A woman who stormed the Capitol on Jan. 6 while wearing a pink beret and was recently identified to the FBI by an ex-romantic partner was charged with four federal counts Monday.
As NBC News first reported, an ex identified Jennifer Inzunza Vargas Geller of California and reported her to the FBI after the bureau featured her in a viral tweet last month. She faces four misdemeanor counts: entering or remaining in a restricted building or grounds, disorderly and disruptive conduct in a restricted building, disorderly conduct in the Capitol grounds or buildings and unlawfully parading, demonstrating or picketing in a Capitol building. She was not in custody Monday, a law enforcement source said, but there is now a warrant out for her arrest.
For more than two years, online sleuths who identified hundreds of participants in connection with the attack on Jan. 6, 2021, had been unable to determine Vargas Geller’s identity, and the woman they dubbed #PinkBeret had been the subject of online conspiracy theories. An attorney for another Jan. 6 defendant suggested she was working at the behest of the government.
But the last weekend of April, a clothing designer Vargas Geller used to date was standing in the checkout line at a Joann Fabric and Crafts store when his buddy showed him a funny tweet from the FBI’s Washington field office on his phone.
Jennifer Vargas outside the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. (U.S. District Court for Washington, D.C.)
“He’s always on Twitter, and he said something like, ‘Yo, check out this chick,'” the designer said.“I stopped dead in my tracks,” he said. “I’m like, ‘That’s Jenny.’”
While most recent tweets from the Washington field office account had received a few thousand views, the tweet featuring Vargas Geller racked up millions. Twitter users dubbed her “Insurrection Eva Braun” and “fascist Matilda” and compared her to April Ludgate, the character played by Aubrey Plaza in NBC’s “Parks and Recreation.” Several users joked that she seemed straight out of a Wes Anderson movie, and one user tweeted “Emily in-carceration,” referring to the show “Emily in Paris.”
Vargas Geller was charged 11 days after the viral tweet, which is an extremely quick turnaround compared to other Jan. 6 cases. Online sleuths have identified hundreds of additional Capitol riot participants who have not been charged, some of whom were first IDed more than two years ago, in 2021.
Jennifer Vargas outside the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. (U.S. District Court for Washington, D.C.)
Vargas Geller was from Sacramento, the clothing designer said, and she went to meet him in Los Angeles in early 2019, when they were in their early 20s. “We weren’t, like, trying to get married or anything,” he said. “We were hooking up for a few months.”
But there was a red flag that sparked a breakup: Vargas Geller, he said, wrote on Discord that she was reading Adolf Hitler’s 1925 manifesto.
“I was just instantly turned off, like, ‘Yo, I don’t think this is going to work out,’” he said. “You’re, like, reading ‘Mein Kampf.’ You think immigrants don’t deserve X, Y, Z.” (A social media account linked to Vargas Geller, viewed by NBC News, also referred to Hitler.)
Vargas Geller could not be reached for comment.
Kira West, the defense attorney for Jan. 6 defendant Darrell Neely, who suggested “Pink Beret” was working as a government agent, said after Vargas Geller was identified that the government should have tried to ID her sooner.
“Our question is why they weren’t looking sooner when we brought it to their attention long ago? Especially with Mr. Neely’s liberty on the line,” West said.
Jennifer Vargas outside the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. (U.S. District Court for Washington, D.C.)
Vargas Geller’s ex knew she had traveled to Washington and asked her whether she was on the “no fly” list in a message he wrote to her a few days after the attack.
“Nope, cause I didn’t go into the [Capitol],” she wrote, despite extensive video evidence later viewed by NBC News and cited in Monday’s affidavit that the FBI says shows her inside the building.
“But you still crossed state lines to riot,” he replied.
“I was there to support the president. Not to partake in that riot. I support the police,” Vargas Geller responded on Jan. 10, 2021, in a conservation shared with NBC News.
Jennifer Vargas inside the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. (U.S. District Court for Washington, D.C.)
Federal prosecutors have charged more than 1,000 people in connection with the Capitol attack, and hundreds of additional participants who have been identified have not yet been arrested.
Most defendants who face charges similar to Vargas Geller’s have received either probation or short sentences of incarceration. The longest sentence — more than 14 years in federal prison — went to a violent rioter with an extensive criminal record.
Climate change is bad for everyone. But this is where it’s expected to be worst in the US.
Dinah Voyles Pulver, USA TODAY – May 7, 2023
If you’re thinking about a long-term real estate investment or shopping for a place to settle down for 20 or 30 years, you might be wondering which cities or states could fare better than others in a changing climate.
The impacts vary widely over time and space, so it’s difficult to make a definitive ranking that says “buy here, not there,” but a growing body of evidence helps highlight some general trends.
USA TODAY looked at data from First Street and Moody’s Analytics – two organizations examining future climate risk – to see what areas of the country are most at risk from these climate impacts over the next 30 years.
Insurers and mortgage companies are asking the same kinds of questions, Kamins said. Banks are being asked to “stress test their portfolios in preparation for the impact of climate change.”
While locations with the greatest risks seem obvious – think Florida – others might surprise you.
Here’s your guide to what, when and where you can expect climate change impacts to be the worst in the U.S.
Each region sees risks
Climate change will have uneven impacts on the U.S. in coming decades. Some areas may experience more heat, more flooding, more extreme storms, or more intense wildfires – or all of the above.
The U.S. won’t see any locations underwater or wiped off the map over the next 30 years, Kamins said, but access to fresh water and insurance premiums will become bigger challenges.
“Every year it becomes increasingly crystal clear, just the amount of risk that we face, whether it’s increasingly severe natural disasters or droughts and heat risk,” he said. “In some cases it’s creating renewed momentum or brand new momentum for governments and businesses that hadn’t been thinking seriously about the impact of climate change before.”
East Coast: Wind, flooding and sea level rise stack the deck against many counties and states, especially Florida and the Carolinas, Kamins said. Bustling economies and distance to the beach still attract people in droves, but at some point the tide literally will turn against communities along beaches and coastal rivers.
Southwest: Heat and fire bring increasing risks, particularly in Arizona, he said, even without factoring in the perils of a dwindling water supply.
Interior: Intense heat may affect these states the most in runaway warming scenarios, Mann said. Sudden downpours with unprecedented rain also are occurring more often, even though these states aren’t in hurricane-prone coastal areas. One study he co-authored showed some of the greatest risk of heat stress could be in urban areas in the Pacific Northwest and Great Lakes.
Idaho to Minnesota: A swath of states across the northern U.S. look better than most, with less-pronounced risks, Kamins said. Recent statistics on an influx of newcomers to Idaho and its burgeoning tech hub in Boise show people may be figuring that out. He expects Montana may be the next frontier within 10-20 years.
States that may face more climate change risk sooner
Texas – Its sheer size and geography means Texas has a lot of risk. First Street’s data shows some of its counties are at great risk of wildfire, some face higher potential losses from tropical cyclone winds and some have greater flood risks. The Lone Star State leads the nation in billion-dollar disasters, according to information from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. It averages 5.3 such events a year, double the number it experienced in the previous 20, even adjusted for inflation.
Florida – 8,346 miles of shoreline, surrounded on three sides by water. Need we say more? Rising sea levels and extreme rainfall fueled by warming oceans, with the potential for more intense hurricanes while more people crowd into densely populated areas, increase the risks. Florida has the most top spots on First Street’s list of counties that could see the biggest increases in the number of days with the very warmest temperatures they experience today.
California – Over the past three years, the state has seen its largest wildfire season in history, its worst drought in 1,200 years and a string of record-setting atmospheric rivers. Golden State residents need no reminder of the risks they face, but First Street’s data shows some California counties high on its lists for most extreme fire risk and some cities with the greatest percentage of residential properties at risk of flooding.
Which states did Moody’s Analytics find face the greatest physical risks?
When it comes to weather-related events, hurricanes are literally the heavy hitters when accounting for acute physical risk. Climate change already is cranking up the rain in some tropical storms and hurricanes and could be slowing them down over land but that research is still underway, scientists say. Floods and wildfires also figured into Kamins’ assessment of physical risks. Here’s his list:
Florida
Louisiana
South Carolina
North Carolina
Delaware
Rhode Island
New Jersey
Virginia
Massachusetts
Connecticut
Other locations suffer from change happening over time rather than in single headline-grabbing events. Think the creep of rising sea levels or warmer nights and higher average temperatures.
San Francisco faces above average risk across these categories and more, and is the nation’s most exposed large city, Kamins said.
Brown pelicans fly in front of the San Francisco skyline on August 17, 2018 in San Francisco, California.
It’s one of those urban areas where residents aren’t used to temperature extremes and many homes don’t have air conditioning, he said. In a world where temperatures rise 5-10 degrees, unlike Floridians, San Francisco residents are ill-equipped for dealing with heat and it could be economically damaging.
Other cities with more gradually increasing risk on the Moody’s Analytics list are:
Southeastern metropolitan areas are particularly risky because they’re experiencing rising sea levels and higher temperatures, in addition to a parade of cyclones that could be growing more intense, according to Kamins’ study. The top 10:
Jacksonville, NC
New Bern, NC
Myrtle Beach, SC
Wilmington, NC
Greenville, NC
Charleston, SC
Punta Gorda, FL
Deltona, FL
San Juan, PR
Palm Bay, FL
Goldsboro, NC
Billion dollar disaster data helps point to states already paying the price as the climate changes.
At least 37 states suffered twice the number of billion dollar disasters this century than during the previous 20-years.
Tornado activity appears to be expanding in the Mid-South, with more frequent outbreaks, and a USA TODAY investigation showed extreme rainfall events are occurring more often along the Mississippi River Valley. Scientists say both trends may be linked to the warming Gulf of Mexico.
But it’s not just weather events causing the disaster toll to rise, NOAA said. More extreme weather events take a greater toll when population and development increase in vulnerable areas.
Billion dollar disaster events per year since 2001 (More than 3):
Texas – 5.3
Illinois – 3.9
Georgia – 3.7
Oklahoma – 3.6
Missouri – 3.5
North Carolina – 3.4
Alabama – 3.3
Tennessee – 3.3
Virginia – 3.2
Kansas – 3.1
Mississippi – 3.1
More than 300% increase in billion dollar disaster events per year since 2000:
Arizona – 500%
Wyoming – 450%
Utah – 400%
New Mexico – 367%
Nevada – 335%
Nebraska – 320%
Colorado – 300%
Wisconsin – 300%
When considering future scenarios, it’s important to note much remains within the world’s control, Mann said.
With substantial action to hold warming below 3 degrees F, “we can limit the worsening of extreme weather events,” although sea level increases would already be locked in, he said. A lack of action would mean “impacts in the interior of our continent could be every bit as bad.”
New cars, once part of the American dream, now out of reach for many
Rachel Siegel and Jeanne Whalen – May 7, 2023
RICHMOND, CALIFORNIA – FEBRUARY 09: In an aerial view, a sign is posted in front of a Nissan dealership on February 09, 2023 in Richmond, California. Nissan reported better-than-expected 155 percent surge in third quarter operating profits of 133.1 billion yen compared to analyst expectations of 104.79 billion yen for the three months ending on Dec. 31. (Photo by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images) (Justin Sullivan via Getty Images)
Juan David Ramirez knows that his 2012 Nissan Juke SL is on its last legs. But buying a new car in the Orlando area these days reminds him of car buying in his home country in Colombia, where only the wealthy can afford new cars.
Ramirez, 33, and his wife Angelica Castro-Calle really want a new, small SUV with a little space for camping and paddle-boarding gear. But despite good jobs in finance and business contracting, the couple’s monthly loan payment would run around $700 for the $35,000 models they are looking at, before dealer markups.
So they plan to patch up the Nissan, which is paid off. He blames the manufacturers and dealers for charging so much for new cars.
“They’re going to price out a certain segment of the market and of the demographic,” Ramirez said. “But that’s something they’re probably okay with.”
Even as inflation is easing and global chip supply shortages are beginning to resolve, more Americans are being priced out of the nation’s new car market, industry and government data suggests. Spending on new cars by the lowest 20 percent of earners dropped to its lowest level in 11 years. Meanwhile, spending on new cars by the top 20 percent reached its highest level on record, going back to 1984, according to the most recent data from the 2021 Consumer Expenditure Survey, not adjusted for inflation.
“New vehicles were maybe never an everyman product in America,” Charles Chesbrough, senior economist at Cox Automotive, said at an automotive conference earlier this year. “We like to believe that they were, but they probably haven’t been for a long time. But certainly they are even less so today.”
The problems pushing new cars out of reach are twofold. On the demand side, rising interest rates have made car loans far more costly – the average monthly payment reached $686 in mid-2022, according to data from Edmunds. Last month, it hit $730.
But even if shoppers can snag a decent interest rate, the supply of cars available for purchase has been trending far more expensive, in part because manufacturers have been funneling resources into souped-up versions of pricey models and cutting back on cheaper options.
In late April, General Motors announced it would scrap production of its top-selling electric vehicle, the Chevy Bolt, wiping out one of the most affordable EVs in the United States by the end of the year. That continues a longtime trend. In 2017, for example, there were 11 models available on the U.S. market for less than $20,000, according to Cox data. By the end of 2022, there were four. Then, by March 2023, only 2.
The end result is a widening gap between those who can afford new cars and those who can’t. The average price of a new car in the United States hit $48,008 in March, up 30 percent from March 2020, according to Kelley Blue Book.
Automakers are selling fewer new vehicles in the U.S. than they did before the pandemic – about 13.9 million last year, versus 17 million in 2019. But their 2022 revenue were still $15 billion higher than in 2019, because the mix they are selling is more expensive, according to Cox Automotive.
A big reason auto manufacturers have leaned heavily into pricier vehicles is the global chip shortage. The dearth of the tiny electronic components, caused by pandemic-related gyrations in supply and demand, forced automakers to slash output, sending prices for new and used vehicles up. The scarcity forced carmakers to ration their components, which they did by reserving them for their most profitable, high-end vehicles.
Automakers have also faced steeper production costs, thanks to factory closures in China during the pandemic and ongoing labor shortages. Some of those troubles are easing. But manufacturers have started holding more parts in inventory to guard against future shortages, a strategy that raises their costs, said Ambrose Conroy, an automotive expert at the consultancy Seraph.
Meanwhile, the auto industry is investing big money to overhaul factories to produce electric vehicles, a major expense that also contributes to rising prices, Conroy added.
Those changes accelerated a years-long trend that was already squeezing affordable cars out of the U.S. market, as automakers shifted to producing more high-margin SUVs and trucks. For more than a decade, automakers cranked up U.S. advertising for pickup trucks and SUVs, which were more profitable to sell in the United States because a 25 percent import tariff protected many of them from foreign competition.
“Everybody seems to have been conditioned to drive an SUV these days,” Conroy said.
Among the cars discontinued last year was the Chevy Spark, the cheapest of which started at $13,600. Chevy sold more than 24,400 of those cars in 2021 – more than most luxury models can claim.
Now, Chevy’s cheapest models cost more than $20,000.
At the same time, the number of models selling for more than $60,000 keeps jumping: 61 in 2017, then 76 in 2021, then 90 in 2022. By March, the category grew to 94 models.
In Austin, Johnny Loredo and his wife paid $38,000 for a new Nissan Frontier truck two years ago. “I was in sticker shock … and it was a base model,” he said. If they hadn’t had a used Suburban to trade in, they wouldn’t have been able to afford it, he said.
“I think they have outpaced what people get paid,” said Loredo, a hotel manager. “When we’re doing raises here, we’re giving the basic two-, three-, four-percent increase, but that cannot maintain a new car. That’s why you’re seeing a lot of used cars and people are just fixing their cars.”
Manufacturers determine which cars get sent to dealerships, and typically won’t send new inventory until the current stock gets sold. In Maryland, where Andrea White has expensive cars sitting on her lot, she said she’s “just suffering through it.”
“We have some final edition Dodge Challengers for $80 or $90K,” White said. “We don’t even want another one.”
Dealers say manufacturers are lifting prices beyond what customers will go for, in some cases leaving dealers stuck with models they can’t sell. Earlier this spring, White had 76 new vehicles on the lot of her Annapolis, Md., car dealership. At the time, she had no takers on the $88,000 Jeep Wagoneer. The $115,000 Grand Wagoneer? Not budging. Many of her cars cost between $50,000 and $60,000.
“I’ve got a few that are so expensive, I would do anything to get them off the lot,” White said. “I’m just giving people prices so that we would just break even. That’s how desperate I am to dump this expensive stuff, because it’s hurting us.”
The mismatch also stems from automakers’ response to how consumers behaved at the height of the pandemic, when many Americans had more cash to spend on goods and were ordering new vehicles with lots of extra features.
“These big Suburbans and Yukons and Expeditions, they were loaded up. So when you look at some of these numbers, some of this was self-inflicted by the consumer,” Pete DeLongchamps, senior vice president at Group 1 Automotive, which owns 150 auto dealerships in the U.S., told a recent automotive conference. “But I think now as the rates have gone up and we’re seeing some of these monthly price points, there is some moderation going on.”
Auto manufacturing officials disagree that they are producing cars that are out of reach, adding that the models for sale reflect customer interests and demand for SUVs and trucks. In a statement, John Bozzella, president and chief executive of the Alliance for Automotive Innovation, said that “the beauty of the auto industry – and this has always been true – is that there’s literally something for everybody.”
“More than 400 models across different manufacturers, configurations, price points and now a choice of powertrains – conventional or electric,” he said. “Why are there so many pickup and utility vehicle models for sale? Because customers really like this category of vehicles.”
Straining shoppers’ budgets even more are rising monthly payments. That’s in large part because the Federal Reserve has been hiking interest rates for more than a year, moving at the fastest pace in decades to rein in inflation. This week, the central bank raised interest rates for the 10th time, bringing the Fed’s benchmark interest rate to between 5 and 5.25 percent. It’s unclear if they will hike it again.
Interest rate hikes ricochet through all kinds of lending to curb consumer demand. The goal is to get borrowing costs high enough that people shy away from buying cars, for example, until supply can catch up with demand.
But the side effect is a widening in the affordability gap. For years leading up to the pandemic, the average monthly payment for a new car hovered between $500 and $600. That quickly changed as the Fed started hiking rates in March 2022.
“When you do the math on what that means to a median household, it is basically pricing the median completely out of the new vehicle market, and leaving higher-income households that disproportionately have more wealth, better credit, and as a result, can afford even more expensive vehicles, so the migration even accelerates in those price points,” said Jonathan Smoke, chief economist at Cox Automotive.
That has economists and auto experts keeping a close watch on car repossession rates, which are approaching pre-pandemic levels. During the covid crisis, lenders became more lenient with late payments and stimulus checks helped people keep up. There seem to be few risks, so far, of a wave of car repossessions. But buffers are drying up, especially for lower-credit consumers who make up the subprime loan market. Their repossession rates now are higher than 2019, according to Kelley Blue Book.
Some dealers say they’re starting to see an uptick in delinquent loan payments, particularly among buyers with weak credit. “Especially at that lower FICO score we’re seeing a big spike in delinquencies today, all due to affordability,” DeLongchamps, the auto dealer, said.
He added that as customers try to lower their monthly payments, loan terms are getting longer – in some cases 72 or 73 months.
Ukraine military says all 35 drones Russia launched overnight destroyed
Reuters – May 7, 2023
An explosion of a drone is seen in the sky over the city during a Russian drone strike in Kyiv
(Reuters) – Ukraine’s top military command said on Monday that its forces destroyed all 35 Iranian-made Shahed drones that Russia had launched overnight at different targets around the country.
“The Russian Federation (also) launched 16 missile strikes last night, in particular on the cities of Kharkiv, Kherson, Mykolaiv and Odesa regions,” the General Staff of Ukraine’s Armed Forces said in its daily update.
It added that in addition, 61 airstrikes and 52 attacks from the heavy rocket salvo fire systems were launched over the past day on the positions of Ukrainian forces and populated areas.
“Unfortunately, there are dead and wounded civilians, high-rise buildings, private homes and other civilian infrastructure were damaged,” it said.
Reuters was not able to independently verify the reports. Kyiv’s Mayor Klitschko said that at least five people were injured in the capital amidst damage done to buildings and infrastructure.
(Reporting by Lidia Kelly in Melbourne; Editing by Michael Perry)
Russia launches mass strikes on Ukraine ahead of May 9 Victory Day holiday
Valentyn Ogorenko and Gleb Garanich – May 7, 2023
An explosion of a drone is seen in the sky over the city during a Russian drone strike in KyivAn explosion of a drone is seen during a Russian drone strike in Kyiv
KYIV (Reuters) -Russia launched a large-scale wave of strikes on Kyiv and across Ukraine sowing destruction and injuries, officials said early on Monday, as Moscow prepares for its cherished Victory Day holiday that marks the anniversary of its defeat of Nazi Germany.
At least five people were injured due to Russian strikes on Kyiv, Ukrainian officials said, while Russian missiles set ablaze a foodstuff warehouse in the Black Sea city of Odesa and blasts were reported in several other Ukrainian regions.
The fresh attacks come as Moscow prepares for its Victory Day parade on Tuesday, a key anniversary for President Vladimir Putin who has evoked the spirit of the Soviet army that defeated Nazi German forces to declare that Russia would defeat a Ukraine supposedly in the grip of a new incarnation of Nazism.
Russia intensified shelling of Bakhmut hoping to take it by Tuesday, Ukraine’s top general in charge of the defence of the besieged city said, after Russia’s Wagner mercenary group appeared to ditch plans to withdraw from it.
Three people were injured in blasts in Kyiv’s Solomyanskyi district and two others were injured when drone wreckage fell onto the Sviatoshyn district, both west of the capital’s centre, Mayor Vitali Klitschko said on his Telegram messaging channel.
The Kyiv’s military administration said that drone wreckage fell on a runway of the Zhuliany airport, one of the two passenger airports of the Ukrainian capital, causing no fire, but emergency services were working on the site.
It also said that in Kyiv’s central Shevchenkivskyi district, drone debris seemed to have hit a two-storey building, causing damages. There was no immediate information about potential casualties.
Reuters’ witnesses said they had heard numerous explosions in Kyiv, with local officials saying that air defence systems were repelling the attacks. It was not immediately clear how many drones were launched on Kyiv.
Serhiy Bratchuk, spokesperson for the Odesa military administration, posted on his Telegram channel photos of a large structure fully engulfed in flames, in what he said was a Russian attack on a foodstuff warehouse, among others.
After air raid alerts blared for hours over roughly two-thirds of Ukraine, there were also media reports of sounds of explosions in the southern region of Kherson and in the Zaporizhzhia region in southeast.
Vladimir Rogov, a Russian-installed local official in Zaporizhzhia, said that Russian forces hit a warehouse and Ukrainian troops’ position in Orikhiv, a small city in the region. Reuters was not able to independently verify the report.
Separately, Russian forces shelled eight locations in Sumy region in northeastern Ukraine on Sunday, the regional military administration said in a Facebook post.
In the past two weeks, strikes have also intensified on Russian-held targets, especially in Crimea. Ukraine, without confirming any role in those attacks, says destroying enemy infrastructure is preparation for its long-expected ground assault.
Putin invaded Ukraine on Feb. 24, 2022, calling it a “special military operation” to defend Russia from neo-Nazis in Ukraine, but Kyiv and its allies say it was an unprovoked, land grab.
The invasion sparked the biggest conflict in Europe since World War Two and has killed thousands and forced millions to flee the country.
(Reporting by Valentyn Ogirenko, Gleb Garanich, Lidia Kelly and Elaine Monaghan; Writing by Lidia Kelly; Editing by Himani Sarkar and Michael Perry)
Ukraine downs Russian hypersonic missile with US Patriot
David Rising – May 6, 2023
Patriot missile launchers acquired from the U.S. last year are seen deployed in Warsaw, Poland, on Feb. 6, 2023. Ukraine’s defense minister said Wednesday April 19, 2023 his country has received U.S-made Patriot surface-to-air guided missile systems it has long craved and which Kyiv hopes will help shield it from Russian strikes during the war. (AP Photo/Michal Dyjuk, File)Members of US 10th Army Air and Missile Defense Command stands next to a Patriot surface-to-air missile battery during the NATO multinational ground based air defence units exercise “Tobruq Legacy 2017” at the Siauliai airbase some 230 km. (144 miles) east of the capital Vilnius, Lithuania, on July 20, 2017. Ukraine’s defense minister said Wednesday April 19, 2023 his country has received U.S-made Patriot surface-to-air guided missile systems it has long craved and which Kyiv hopes will help shield it from Russian strikes during the war. (AP Photo/Mindaugas Kulbis, File)People donate blood in Kyiv, Saturday, May 6, 2023. (AP Photo/Bernat Armangue)
KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Ukraine’s air force claimed Saturday to have downed a Russian hypersonic missile over Kyiv using newly acquired American Patriot defense systems, the first known time the country has been able to intercept one of Moscow’s most modern missiles.
Air Force commander Mykola Oleshchuk said in a Telegram post that the Kinzhal-type ballistic missile had been intercepted in an overnight attack on the Ukrainian capital earlier in the week. It was also the first time Ukraine is known to have used the Patriot defense systems.
“Yes, we shot down the ‘unique’ Kinzhal,” Oleshchuk wrote. “It happened during the night-time attack on May 4 in the skies of the Kyiv region.”
Oleshchuk said the Kh-47 missile was launched by a MiG-31K aircraft from Russian territory and was shot down with a Patriot missile.
The Kinzhal is one of the latest and most advanced Russian weapons. The Russian military says the air-launched ballistic missile has a range of up to 2,000 kilometers (about 1,250 miles) and flies at 10 times the speed of sound, making it hard to intercept.
A combination of hypersonic speed and a heavy warhead allows the Kinzhal to destroy heavily fortified targets, like underground bunkers or mountain tunnels.
The Ukrainian military has previously admitted lacking assets to intercept the Kinzhals.
“They were saying that the Patriot is an outdated American weapon, and Russian weapons are the best in the world,” Air Force spokesman Yurii Ihnat said on Ukraine’s Channel 24 television. “Well, there is confirmation that it effectively works against even a super-hypersonic missile.” Ihnat said.
He said successfully intercepting the Kinzhal was “a slap in the face for Russia.”
Ukraine took its first delivery of the Patriot missiles in late April. It has not specified how many of the systems it has or where they have been deployed, but they are known to have been provided by the United States, Germany and the Netherlands.
Germany and the U.S. have acknowledged each sending at least one battery and the Netherlands has said it has provided two launchers, although it is not clear how many are currently in operation.
Ukrainian troops have received the extensive training needed to be able to effectively locate a target with the systems, lock on with radar, and fire. Each battery requires up to 90 personnel to operate and maintain.
Defense Minister Oleksii Reznikov said he first asked for Patriot systems when visiting the U.S. in August 2021, months before Russia’s full-scale invasion but seven years after Russia illegally annexed Ukraine’s Crimea peninsula.
He has described possessing the system as “a dream” but said he was told in the U.S. at the time that it was impossible.
The Patriot was first deployed by the U.S. in the 1980s. The system costs approximately $4 million per missile, and the launchers cost about $10 million each, according to analysts.
At such a cost, it was widely thought that Ukraine would only use the Patriots against Russian aircraft or hypersonic missiles.
In a Telegram post on Saturday, Valerii Zaluzhnyi, the commander-in-chief of Ukraine’s Armed Forces, said he had thanked U.S. Gen. Mark Milley, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, for the ongoing American aid to Ukraine.
Zaluzhnyi said he also briefed Milley “about the situation at the front and preparations” for Ukraine’s counteroffensive against Russia.
Ukraine has not said when it might launch the counteroffensive, but it is widely anticipated this spring.
In an interview this week with Foreign Affairs magazine, Milley said he would not speculate on if or when it might come, but that with NATO assistance to help train and equip nine brigades’ worth of combined arms, armor and mechanized infantry, “the Ukrainians right now have the capability to attack.”
He also said that their capability to defend was “significantly enhanced from what they were just a year ago.”
“I don’t want to suggest that they may or may not conduct an offensive operation in the coming weeks,” he said. “That’ll be up to them. They’ve got a significant amount of planning and coordination and all of that to do, if they were to do an offensive operation. But they’re prepared to do offense or defense.”
In other developments, officials in both Russia and Ukraine said they had carried out another of their regular exchanges of prisoners of war.
The Russian Defense Ministry said it brought three military pilots back to Russia, and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s chief of staff, Andriy Yermak, said 45 fighters who defended the Azovstal steel mill in Mariupol had been returned to Ukraine.
Also on Saturday, Ukraine’s Special Operations Forces accused Russia of using phosphorus munitions in its attempt to wrest control of the eastern city of Bakhmut from Ukrainian forces.
Russian troops have been trying to take the city for more than nine months, but Ukrainian forces are still clinging to positions on the western outskirts.
On Saturday, the Ukrainska Pravda newspaper quoted military officials as saying that “the enemy used phosphorus and incendiary ammunition in Bakhmut in an attempt to wipe the city off the face of the earth.”
A photo accompanying the newspaper report showed an urban area lit up with fire in multiple places.
The allegations could not be independently verified.
Russian forces have not commented on the claim but have rejected previous accusations from Ukraine that they had used phosphorus.
International law prohibits the use of white phosphorus or other incendiary weapons — munitions designed to set fire to objects or cause burn injuries — in areas where there could be concentrations of civilians.
White phosphorous can also be used for illumination or to create smoke screens.
Follow AP’s coverage of the war in Ukraine at https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine
Harlan Crow and Clarence Thomas Are About to Learn About Gift Taxes
Martin Sheil – May 5, 2023
Photo Illustration by The Daily Beast / Getty
Gift taxes were probably not a topic discussed on the yacht or around the campfire during the Harlan Crow-subsidized luxury vacations for Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas and his wife, Ginni. But maybe they should have been.
Recent reports indicate that Crow provided Thomas’ grandnephew with tuition to a pricey boarding school in the 1990s. Thomas did not report this gift from Harlan Crow as required on his annual disclosure forms. But that is nothing new. ProPublica had previously reported on multiple luxury vacations provided to Justice Thomas and his wife via Crow’s yacht and jets—including an island-hopping junket in Indonesia that ProPublica valued at $500,000.
That Thomas has made multiple lapses in ethical judgment in not reporting the receipt of such valued largesse from Crow is something for him, SCOTUS, and now Congress to muse over.- ADVERTISEMENT -https://s.yimg.com/rq/darla/4-11-1/html/r-sf-flx.html
But what about Crow’s judgment? Did he file gift tax returns and pay gift taxes on any of the gifts he provided to the Thomas family?
It is a reasonable question to ask, and Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR) appears to have formally done so, with a reported due date of a response May 8. In lieu of gift taxes, did Crow expense the value of the trips and tuition provided the Thomases on either personal or business income tax returns? Wyden wants to know.
If Crow took business expense deductions for the above referenced “gifts,” then he can’t claim they were gifts. And if that’s the case, he wouldn’t have had to file gift tax returns which—given a potential tax rate of up to 40 percent—would represent a pretty price for the billionaire real estate magnate.
The criteria for what constitutes an untaxed gift that exceeds the limit to avoid paying tax vary by year. For example, the limit was $13,000 per recipient in 2013, but $17,000 in 2023. The Indonesian junket—valued at over $500,000 by ProPublica—would generate gift taxes of approximately $200,000 for Mr. Crow.
Executive Director of MoveOn.org Rahna Epting speaks at a demonstration where MoveOn.org delivered over 1 million signatures calling for Congress to immediately investigate and impeach Clarence Thomas at the US Supreme Court on July 28, 2022 in Washington, D.C.Jemal Countess / Getty
Now, if Crow did take business deductions for the value of the luxury vacations provided to the Thomases, he would have opened up another can of worms for himself tax-wise. That’s because Crow has publicly stated he did not discuss any business before the court with Justice Thomas.
If that is true, then it is possible that Crow falsified his income tax returns by expensing the cost of the vacation provided the Thomases. It’s also possible the vacations provided the Thomas family could be viewed as income to Thomas—since he would be viewed as providing value to Crow through business discussions. To be very clear, this is speculative and none of this is proven, but the possibility alone makes it worth investigating.
What seems much more clear-cut is that Justice Thomas doesn’t seem to think he has to report gifts from wealthy businessmen, who also are generous corporate political donors, like Harlan Crow.
“Not reportable” is the phrase used by Thomas’ attorney/friend Mark Paoletta when he tweeted (incorrectly) about how the tuition payment by Crow to the school attended by the grandnephew was not reportable as a gift.
Such an admission by Paoletta suggests knowledge of gift tax requirements by both Thomas and Crow going all the way back to the 1990s. It also raises additional questions. Was Justice Thomas motivated not to disclose valuable junkets provided to him and his family in order to abet his buddy Crow’s non-filing of gift tax returns and/or expensing of the value of the trips on his tax returns?
Oh me oh my!
Now, Mr. Crow may think he has insulated himself by procuring a golden passport from St. Kitts and Nevis—which is a notorious tax haven and money laundering refuge in the Caribbean. Then there’s the fact that Crow’s yacht, the Michaela Rose, has a registered ownership under an entity called Rochelle Marine Limited—a company domiciled in Guernsey, another notorious tax haven located just off the shores of the U.K.
Mr. Crow clearly has employed some clever tax accountants and lawyers over the years. And we all look forward to the answers he provides to the questions posed by Sen. Wyden but, clearly, Crow has exhibited a predisposition for tax avoidance behavior. Did he cross the line into tax fraud? That is something to contemplate and discuss around the campfire.
Analilia Mejia of the Center for Popular Democracy, center, joins other activists calling for ethics reform in the U.S. Supreme Court, at the Capitol in Washington, Tuesday, May 2, 2023. Associate Justice Clarence Thomas has been criticized for accepting luxury trips nearly every year for more than two decades from Republican megadonor Harlan Crow without reporting them on financial disclosure forms.J. Scott Applewhite / AP
But why is this question even significant?
It is murky as to whether any of Crow’s business dealings were ever subject to SCOTUS review—even indirectly. What is not unclear are the heavy-duty political campaign contributions made by Harlan Crow.
Has Mr. Crow donated to dark money PACs? We don’t know, because anonymity is the whole point of dark money PACs.
What about corporate political donations?
There is no limit to those given the Citizens United decision, wherein SCOTUS bestowed personhood on corporations and concluded that limiting corporate political contributions was tantamount to limiting freedom of speech—which was unconstitutional.
Might that issue have ever come up when Thomas was sailing on Crow’s yacht or flying on his corporate jet? Justice Thomas voted with the majority in Citizens United, which certainly had to make corporate executives everywhere in the U.S. pleased—even if it opened the door to contributions from overseas, and not just from Caribbean tax havens, and not just from dual passport holders.
That Justice Thomas was unethical in not disclosing receipt of luxury gifts provided to him is transparently obvious, though it seems inconsequential to date. But it does raise the question as to whether those who provide wealthy gifts to civil servants that hold positions of power should face any consequences, particularly when tax responsibilities are clear.
Should wealthy corporate executives who make large political donations to obtain results favorable to their business (or make luxury gifts to powerful people) be held accountable? Bottom line—does the wealth, power, and position of the wealthy insulate them from the consequences of their actions? (Normal tax-paying citizens would certainly face such a reckoning.)
These questions are bigger than just Thomas and Crow. They speak to the integrity of our political systems, and whether ordinary Americans should have to live by different rules than the wealthy and politically powerful.
“No mention of Ginni.’ Conservative activist directed money to wife of Justice Clarence Thomas
John Fritze, USA TODAY – May 5, 2023
WASHINGTON − A well-known conservative legal activist who has helped shape the modern Supreme Court arranged for the wife of Justice Clarence Thomas to receive tens of thousands of dollars for consulting work, according to a report Thursday in The Washington Post.
“No mention of Ginni, of course,” The Post quoted Leo instructing Conway.
The Post reported that Conway’s firm, the Polling Company, paid Ginni Thomas’s firm $80,000 between June 2011 and June 2012 and expected to pay $20,000 more before the end of 2012. It was not clear what the money was for, though Leo told The Post in a statement that it “involved gauging public attitudes and sentiment.”
The revelation was the latest in a series of reports in recent weeks about money and gifts Thomas and his family have received from outside interests. Earlier Thursday, ProPublica reported that GOP megadonor Harlan Crow had paid private school tuition for Thomas’s grandnephew. Last month, ProPublica revealed new details about private jet travel and luxury yacht trips Thomas also accepted from Crow.
In his statement to The Post, Leo explained his desire to keep Ginni Thomas’ name off the paperwork by asserting he has “always tried to protect the privacy of Justice Thomas and Ginni” because of how “disrespectful, malicious and gossipy people can be.”
Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas listens as President Donald Trump speaks before administering the Constitutional Oath to Amy Coney Barrett on the South Lawn of the White House in Washington, Monday, Oct. 26, 2020, after she was confirmed by the Senate earlier in the evening. (AP Photo/Patrick Semansky)
