Republicans pushing a plan to remove you (yes, you too) from Arizona’s voter rolls
Laurie Roberts, Arizona Republic – February 24, 2023
Voters wait in line at a polling station at Mesa Community College in Mesa, Ariz. on Election Day.
In August, the attorney general of Arizona wrapped up his investigation into the Cyber Ninjas’ claim that hundreds of dead voters cast ballots in the 2020 election.
To the surprise of absolutely no one, braindead or alive, Attorney General Mark Brnovich concluded that the Senate’s vaunted auditors didn’t know what they were talking about. There was no vast graveyard full of dead voters determined to deny Donald Trump his due.
Not even so much as a small crypt of conspiracy.
So naturally, there’s a bill in the Arizona Legislature to take care of this nonexistent problem … by cancelling your voter registration.
I am not making this up.
Senate Bill 1566 would wipe Arizona’s voter rolls clean every 10 years, requiring millions of Arizonans to re-register to vote.
It is but one of the dozens of kooky bills born of MAGA zealots and their absolute refusal to consider the fact that maybe they are losing statewide races because their candidates just aren’t acceptable to a statewide electorate.
Both the Senate and House election committees are chaired by election deniers.
The chairwoman of the Senate Elections Committee is Sen. Wendy Rogers of Flagstaff, who wanted to decertify the 2020 election and regularly calls for the arrest of elections officials. After being tapped by Senate President Warren Petersen to run point on election bills this year, Rogers vowed to engineer a do-over of Maricopa County’s 2022 election, though it seems more like a fundraising gimmick than an actual plan.
The chairwoman of the House Municipal Oversight and Elections Committee is Rep. Jacqueline Parker of Mesa, who, like Rogers, was a co-sponsor of then-Rep. Mark Finchem’s 2022 proposal to decertify Arizona’s 2020 presidential election. Her panel is packed with election deniers.
Every week, we are treated to veritable buffet of bad bills designed to fix problems that exist only in their fevered imaginations.
There’s a bill to do away with early ballots, the voting method of choice by 8 in 10 voters.
There’s a bill to ban ballot tabulators, never mind that hand counts are considered less accurate and more expensive. Or that a hand count of up to 70 races on 3 million or more ballots is likely to last until Christmas.
There‘s a bill to ban unmonitored ballot drop boxes out of some undocumented fear that Eeyore is lurking about and another to return to voting in precincts, never mind it leads to more voters being disenfranchised when they show up to the wrong place to vote.
There’s a bill that would require elections officials to post online the name, year of birth and address of every voter and another that would allow representatives of the Republican and Democratic parties to challenge your signature on an early ballot.
Then there is SB 1566, requiring you to reregister every 10 years if you want to continue exercising your constitutional right to vote.
In pushing the bill, Sen. Sonny Borrelli, R-Lake Havasu City, noted that he decided to look into the issue after the Attorney General’s Office spent “thousands of hours” investigating claims of dead voters.
“So I had my audit team go through voter registrations on dead voters and bounced that against the people that voted,” he recently told the Senate Elections Committee. “They looked at 30 ballot envelopes. Within 45 minutes they found 17 people that somehow voted after they died.”
Fifty-six percent? Clearly, our elections are being determined by those whose forwarding address lies somewhere near the Pearly Gates … or perhaps a good ways south of there.
Curiously, Borrelli didn’t mention the findings of the Attorney General’s Office after all those hours of investigation.
The ninjas, as part of their five-month audit of Maricopa County’s election, reported that 282 dead voters cast ballots in the November 2020 election. The AG’s Office then said it spent hundreds of hours investigating those claims.
The conclusion: 281 of those 282 voters were alive and kicking when they cast ballots.
“Our agents investigated all individuals that Cyber Ninas reported as dead, and many were very surprised to learn they were allegedly deceased,” Attorney General Brnovich wrote in an August letter to then-Senate President Karen Fann.
AG investigators also checked out four other reports of up to 6,500 supposedly dead people who either cast ballots or were on the voter registration rolls. They came up with “only a handful of potential cases,” all of them isolated instances.
Yet another conspiracy gone kaput – consigned to the graveyard of crazy to rest in peace alongside Sharpies, green buttons, bamboo ballots, hacked machinery and all the other supposedly nefarious ways in which Arizona’s 2020 election was stolen from Donald Trump.
Only to rise again in the Senate Elections Committee, and to heck with federal law.
The National Voter Registration Act outlines how and when a person’s name can be removed from the voter rolls, for example if he or she requests it or moves or dies.
The act also requires states to make “a reasonable effort to remove ineligible persons by reason of the person’s death, or a change in the residence of the registrant outside of the jurisdiction.”
I’m guessing a wholesale wipeout of every Arizonan’s registration every 10 years might be considered a tad, I don’t know, unreasonable?
“It violates federal law,” Jen Marson, of the Arizona Association of Counties, warned the committee. “It’s totally in conflict with NVRA.”
Even some Republicans were queasy about the proposal. Sen. T.J. Shope, R-Coolidge said he doesn’t view the bill as legitimate. Sens. Ken Bennett, R-Prescott, and John Kavanagh, R-Fountain Hills, agreed.
Then all three voted yes and the bill passed on a party line 5-3 vote.
Voters may not be dead but when it comes to the state Capitol, common sense is a goner.
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What’s the best way to leave your house to your heirs?
Carmen Cusido – February 24, 2023
The most important thing is to determine whether to transfer the home during your lifetime or after death.
Time passes and estate plans need updating — decide now what you want to do with the family home after you are gone — and then write it down and update as necessary. ISTOCK
This article is reprinted by permission from NextAvenue.org.
Francesca Maresca, 54, of Highland Park, New Jersey, had spoken in passing to her father, John, about whether he had an updated will. It was only when he died at 89 of congestive heart failure in September 2020 that she and her sister, Catherine, learned that he kept their late mother’s name on the deed to the family home and they, rather than their stepmother, had inherited the house.
The sisters sold their childhood home soon after the deed was transferred to them. “There was no squabbling over things,” Maresca said. “I recognize that’s rare.”
Indeed, homeowners who die before they decide and document what they want to do with their property can leave their relatives with a legacy no one wants: a protracted legal fight over what to do with the family home and the possibility of a substantial tax liability.
What is at stake?
Much is at stake. Cerulli Associates, a research and analytics firm in Boston, estimates that $84.4 trillion in personal wealth will be transferred from one generation to the next between now and 2045.
Most of it — more than $53 trillion — will come from baby boomers, people born between 1945 and 1964; another $15.8 trillion from people born before 1945. Primary residences represent more than 70% of that wealth, according to one estimate.
Members of Generation X — people born between 1965 and 1980 — stand to inherit the greatest portion of that transfer — $29.6 trillion over the next 25 years, including $8.9 trillion in the next 10 years, according to Cerulli. The millennial generation, which consists of people born from 1981 to 1996, are expected to inherit more than $27 trillion by 2045.
You can transfer a home or other property while you’re still alive, but Lazaro Cardenas, an estate lawyer in Freehold, New Jersey, said a drawback in doing so is that if your heirs are sued or otherwise get in trouble with the law, the property can be seized if it’s not adequately insured.
Additionally, by selling their house to their child or children, parents will lose the mortgage-interest deduction on their income tax return.
However, selling your house can generate cash that you may need for nursing care and other medical expenses late in life.
“If you bequeath the property in your will, one of the benefits is you can maintain control of your home until you die,” said Cardenas, a partner at Patel & Cardenas. “The drawback is that end-of-life care becomes expensive and usually is not covered by insurance.”
Cardenas added that if you apply for Medicaid to cover end-of-life expenses, the agency could consider your house as your asset if you sold it to your heirs within the previous five years.
“One solution is to sell your property to your child but create a deed that states you’re allowed to live in the house until you die, even if your child or children are now owners,” Cardenas said.
Another option is to place the property in a trust. That way, when you die, the property passes to the trust and the trustee then owns the home. The benefit here is the heir does not have to go to probate court after the last parent dies, Cardenas explained.
“Ultimately, you can leave your property to a child, all your children or none,” he added. “However, in a state like New Jersey, you cannot disinherit your spouse.”
Robert “Bob” Keebler, a Certified Public Accountant based in Green Bay, Wisconsin, with clients all over the world, advises parents to get ahead of potential arguments and create separate trusts for each child if there’s a lot of money involved.
“Lawyers bring CPAs in to get the math right so that there’s a clear delineation of what a client wants to accomplish from an economic standpoint,” Keebler said.
Potential hazards
He gave an example of a case he worked on where a man wanted his business to go to one of his children and the other child to inherit an equal amount of property.
“In this case, Child A must pay a little bit into the business so that it’s mathematically equal to what Child B gets,” Keebler added.
Other cases, though, are more complicated. For instance, children from a first marriage may have an issue with a stepparent or that stepparent’s children inheriting assets.
“As CPAs, we’re doing the tax work and projections on the settlements to defuse the situation with the least amount of tax for the group taken as a whole,” Keebler said. “We have clients who we help while they’re alive, but I sometimes get brought in after someone dies, when people start to understand what’s going to whom.”
The most important thing a person needs to determine is whether to gift their assets during their lifetime or after death.
The benefits of giving
“There are benefits to giving gifts during your lifetime,” Keebler said. “This is where you need to lay out a balance sheet and your goals and work with your accountants to structure your estate best.”
He added that giving real estate to your heirs while you are still alive can reduce the tax they will have to pay.
Inheriting money or other assets can bring up a lot of emotions, even when there are wills and trusts in place.
Jacquette M. Timmons, the president and CEO of Sterling Investment Management in New York City, said there’s often a sense of overwhelming responsibility from someone who inherits a home or a large sum of money. “There’s a sense of grief; you wouldn’t have this house or money if the person had not died,” she said. “Many want to ensure they’re a good steward of what they’re left with.”
Timmons advises her clients to wait at least a year before they make a big decision, like selling a home. “Time and distance bring clarity,” she said. “But I recognize that waiting before deciding is a privilege that few have.”
Instead of emphasizing death when working on wills and trusts, Timmons encourages her clients to view these legal documents as leaving a legacy.
“When someone has invested the time to put together an estate plan and say what their wishes are, that’s an incredible gift for the people left behind,” Timmons said. “They don’t have to worry about piecing things together. They can leave their loved ones with a full road map of what they’d like done. To me, that’s a love letter you’re leaving someone.”
In Maresca’s case, she and her sister spent two months cleaning their inherited home in Saddle River, New Jersey. They donated most of its contents. The three-bedroom, one-bathroom house went on the market in November 2021, and the sisters had 40 offers.
“We decided in about 10 minutes” Maresca said. “We went with the least amount of work; the investor who made a cash offer.” After the sale closed on Dec. 21, they split the proceeds evenly.
Maresca said the experience taught her the importance of communicating her wishes to her teenage son and establishing a trust in his name.
Carmen Cusido earned a bachelor’s from Rutgers University and a master’s degree from the Columbia School of Journalism. Her work has appeared in Newsweek, Oprah Daily, Refinery29, Health, NBC, CNN, NPR, Cosmopolitan, and other publications.
This article is reprinted by permission from NextAvenue.org, Twin Cities Public Television.
U.S. Man’s Death Suggests Deadly Tick Virus Is Spreading to New Regions
Ed Cara – February 24, 2023
The Lone Star tick (Amblyomma americanum) is known to spread several infectious diseases, including the Heartland virus.
A rare but sometimes fatal tickborne infection may be expanding its range in the U.S., local and federal health officials warn in a report this week. They say that a case of Heartland virus led to a man’s death in 2021. The infection is thought to have been caught in either Virginia or Maryland—a region of the country where the virus hasn’t been spotted in humans until now.
The report was published online Thursday in Emerging Infectious Diseases by officials with the Virginia Department of Health, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and the National Institutes of Health, as well as doctors at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine.
The man was in his late 60s and visited an emergency room in November 2021 with symptoms of fever, diarrhea, aches, and general discomfort. He didn’t appear to have any tick bites, but given his symptoms and the fact that he spent time between two homes in rural Virginia and Maryland, his doctors suspected a tickborne infection and sent him home with antibiotics. Unfortunately, two days later, he returned to the ER with new symptoms, including confusion and unsteady gait, and he was then admitted to the hospital.
The man’s health continued to worsen, and he was soon sent to a specialized care center. Despite testing for various germs, doctors couldn’t find the source of his illness. He eventually developed hemophagocytic lymphohistiocytosis, a rare but life-threatening condition in which the body’s white blood cells attack the organs. His lungs and liver started to fail, and he developed cardiac arrest. He was then placed in palliative care. Thirteen days after his symptoms began, he died.
Doctors still suspected that he had contracted an infection spread by insects or ticks. Given the possibility of an ongoing threat to the public, officials with the Virginia Department of Health launched an investigation. They sent blood samples to the CDC for more extensive testing and went to the man’s homes in eastern Maryland and central Virginia the following summer to collect ticks in the area. The CDC testing finally revealed that he was infected with the Heartland virus, and a subsequent autopsy determined that he had died from complications of the infection.
Heartland virus was discovered in 2009 by doctors at the Heartland Regional Medical Center in northwestern Missouri. It’s known to be spread by the Lone Star tick (Amblyomma americanum), which is commonly found throughout the Eastern and Midwestern U.S. Many known cases of Heartland virus have led to hospitalization and death, but it’s only been sporadically documented in humans. Around 50 cases have been reported in over a dozen states to date, including Kentucky, Indiana, and as far north as New York.
Maryland and Virginia are within the tick’s expected range, but this case of Heartland appears to be the first ever traced back to either state. Because of the larger tick population found at the man’s home in Virginia, the report authors believe he caught it there. Interestingly enough, they failed to find the virus inside ticks at either location. But that doesn’t rule out its presence in these areas, they wrote, particularly because the virus seems to circulate in ticks at very low levels. They further suspect that the man caught the infection from larval ticks, since adults typically become inactive by late October (when he was likely bit). That could also explain why he didn’t notice the initial bite, given their smaller size, and why doctors failed to find any evidence by the time he felt sick roughly two weeks later, since any bite could have healed by then.
Especially compared to much more common tickborne diseases like Lyme disease, Heartland virus is a very rare danger to humans. But it is possible that we’re missing many milder cases of Heartland or that these infections are misdiagnosed as other tickborne diseases because they tend to share common symptoms, the authors say. And thanks in part to climate change, ticks generally are expanding their distribution throughout the U.S., which will make all of the many diseases they carry a bigger threat to worry about.
“Because tick ranges are increasing overall, incidence of previously regional tickborne infections, such as [Heartland virus], likely will continue to increase,” they wrote.
I spent a night at The Nuthouse and glimpsed the future of the Michigan Republican Party
M.L. Elrick, Detroit Free Press – February 23, 2023
LANSING — Reporters at last year’s Michigan GOP endorsement convention received credentials with “Whitmer protection team” printed on them.
This year, the candidates for party chairperson should have “Democrat protection team” printed on their credentials.
If you think I’m just provoking pachyderms, consider the literature long-shot chairman and co-chair candidates Kent Boersema and Orlando Estrade distributed at the Lansing Center Saturday. The headline under a photo of the dynamic duo shaking hands says: “AT LEAST WE DIDN’T LOSE STATEWIDE.”
That’s a shot at Matt DePerno and Kristina Karamo, the frontrunners in the race to run the state Republican party. DePerno lost his race for Attorney General by nearly 9 percent in 2022 and Karamo lost her race for Secretary of State by nearly 14 percent (though she still won’t admit it). Neither were prodigious fundraisers. And many GOP stalwarts who deserted the party in 2022 have said they won’t come back until the anti-establishment, election-denier flames fanned by DePerno and Karamo burn out.
Perhaps choosing to laugh to keep from crying, Boersema and Estrada’s cheeky flyer also refers to the Democrats’ 2022 takeover of the Michigan House and Senate.
“We lost everything already…” Boersema says at the bottom of the flyer, setting Estrada up for their pitch to take over the party: “… what do you have to lose?”
The back of the flyer goes on to steal lines from two Will Ferrell comedy classics. “Everybody love everybody!” from “Semi-Pro” and “If you’re not first, you’re last!” from “Talladega Nights.” Then Boersema and Estrada endorse ballot harvesting — a scheme Republicans accuse Democrats of practicing — and “improving engagement with people who live in ‘blue’ areas.”
But, unless you’re a Democrat, there’s nothing funny about the state of the once-mighty MIGOP.
As recently as 2018, Republicans boasted a governor, Speaker of the House, Senate Majority Leader, chief justice of the state Supreme Court and a dramatic photo-finish victory in the election that made Donald Trump president.
Since then, party infighting and an influx of activists who are so suspicious they don’t even trust other Republicans have left the GOP in such disarray that they picked a ponderous process for counting ballots at the Saturday convention, eschewing a machine count for a hand-count, even though the hand counts they performed after the machine counts at their last convention showed no errors (and not just because Hugo Chavez or Cesar Chavez or Cesar Romero or caesar salad really IS dead and consequently unable to secure the WiFi access required to manipulate Dominion voting machines, which it turns out even Tucker Carlson didn’t believe were rigged, even though he would never admit it on Fox News).
Even though party leadership changes should bear the same warning as investment opportunities — “past performance is no guarantee of future results” — I suspect Democrats were more interested Saturday in the outcome of the Michigan State-Michigan basketball game than who won the race to run the state Republican Party.
I’m not making this up
Stop me if you’ve heard this one before: A reporter walks into a bar hoping to meet a sore loser from Arizona who claims without evidence that she won the governor’s race and who agreed to fly to Michigan to headline a shindig hosted by two losers who say they can turn their party into a winner.
Before you answer, there’s more: The star of the show cancels at the last minute after yet another court found no evidence she won, leaving guests to once again stand in line for photos with Mike Lindell, the My Pillow guy, who seems to turn up at every MIGOP event and who still thinks Donald Trump was cheated in 2020, even though there’s no evidence Trump won.
And it all went down at a bar called The Nuthouse.
DePerno, who won failed Arizona Republican gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake’s endorsement and promoted her visit to the Nuthouse, referenced her setback with an Arizona appeals court when asked Saturday why she did not show up to support him and his running mate, Garrett Soldano. DePerno said he understood, but was not happy about it.
Lake spokesman Ross Trumble told me in a text late Saturday that Lake had a previously scheduled event in Mohave County “and it became logistically impossible to make it to the GOP Convention.” He said she “tried every angle to find a flight that would work but it unfortunately didn’t work out.“ Trumble did not respond to a follow-up inquiring why Lake scheduled an event in the desert when she was supposed to be freezing her butt off with us here in Lansing.
With Lake AWOL, fellow failed gubernatorial candidate Soldano spent most of Friday evening holding down the fort at the Nuthouse and mugging for photos with Lindell and Republican delegates.
Meanwhile, longtime Republican operative Scott Greenlee packed delegates into The Studio at 414, a spacious entertainment venue a few doors from the Nuthouse on Michigan Avenue. The highlight of the night was a video of Ted Nugent endorsing Greenlee. The sound quality was poor, but at least anyone who came to see Terrible Ted didn’t leave terribly disappointed.
I couldn’t find where Karamo was huddling Friday night, but there were more than a few people who enjoyed the free drink tickets and appetizers DePerno and Soldano provided who told me they might vote for Karamo on Saturday.
It could have been a bit of foreshadowing, or a sign that the way to a delegate’s heart might not be through their stomach. Or it could finally give DePerno something worth investigating.
The beauty contest
Delegates arrived at the convention center around 9 a.m. Saturday to cast their votes. But first there was a three-hour debate about a proposed rules change that was so convoluted you would hate me for explaining it, even if I understood it well enough to explain.
So let’s get to the good stuff!
By the time candidates got their turn to take the stage, the field had shrunk from 11 to nine. And we started with a bang.
Scott Aughney scolded delegates for missing opportunities to pick up votes in urban areas. He said he was worried about the future of the party.
“I look at the faces of you and I don’t have a lot of hope,” he said, calling the thousands of delegates “soulless” and only receiving applause after cutting his speech short and storming off stage.
Not long after, state Rep. Angela Rigas of Alto, who complained while nominating DePerno that Democrats had cut off her microphone on the House floor, had her mic cut off by Republicans for talking too long.
Other candidates emphasized their Christian faith, their commitment to reverse the GOP’s losing streak, and their disdain for the party’s traditional leadership. Drew Born disclosed that he slept with four things next to his bed: A Bible, the Constitution, his marriage certificate and a gun.
DePerno didn’t speak, instead showing a video featuring Trump. Karamo told delegates the party “operated like a political mafia,” guided by its “own self-serving agenda.” She did not offer specifics beyond saying that the state GOP was run like a “private social club.”
Then instead of looking forward, she looked back.
“There’s a reason I did not concede the 2022 election,” Karamo said. “Why would I concede to a fraudulent process?”
Again, she offered no specifics.
Sometimes it’s what’s not said that speaks volumes.
The one thing the candidates and their nominators all had in common is that none of them mentioned the massacre at Michigan State University, even though it happened less than a week ago and less than four miles down the road from where they were choosing new leadership and a new direction — if you consider denying election results and worrying about Trump a new direction.
The Donald Trumped
For a guy who promised Republicans that they would get sick of winning, Trump has got to be getting pretty sick of losing in Michigan.
After helping DePerno and Karamo win the GOP nomination for attorney general and secretary of state in 2022, he favored DePerno over Karamo for party chair in 2023. He recorded a video, sent a letter hailing DePerno as “the only candidate running who can get the job done” (oops!), proclaimed “I cannot think of anybody who I trust more and look forward to working with and WINNING than Matt” (double oops!), and held an online rally Monday for DePerno.
In a moment unimaginable just six months ago, former state Rep. Terence Mekoski of Shelby Township told delegates as he endorsed Karamo that he loves Trump, Lindell and Nugent, but added: “Do they really know Michigan, and do they really know you delegates?”
About 15 minutes later, Greenlee told delegates: “I love Donald Trump. But as chairman, I don’t work for Donald Trump.”
While other candidates littered the convention hall with signs, literature and free t-shirts, Karamo just soaked up votes.
She led the pack after the first vote but, because she didn’t get to 50 percent, the field was winnowed down to the top three vote-getters. Karamo led DePerno and Greenlee after the second round. The third, and final, round came down to Karamo and DePerno. Karamo crushed her former ally 58-42. (In a refreshing twist, neither candidate alleged irregularities or election fraud.)
If there was any doubt true believers are now in charge of the state Republican Party, Karamo dispelled it in her brief victory speech.
“I am nothing without Jesus. I am a nobody without Jesus,” she said. “We will not betray you, we will not lie to you. We are committed to every promise that we made.”
There are many challenges facing Karamo, from uniting the party, growing the party and raising money to recruiting candidates.
While workers swept the convention floor, Jeff Sakwa, a former state Republican party co-chairman, told my colleague Paul Egan the event was “the Super Bowl of election deniers.” He predicted donors would stay away.
But the biggest challenge Karamo faces may be what to do if it turns out she really was elected Secretary of State.
If that happens, perhaps Governor Lake will finally make that trip from Arizona to the Nuthouse to help swear her in…
M.L. Elrick is a Pulitzer Prize- and Emmy Award-winning investigative reporter and host of the ML’s Soul of Detroit podcast.
Toxic wastewater from Ohio train derailment headed to Texas
February 23, 2023
FILE – This photo taken with a drone shows portions of a Norfolk Southern freight train that derailed Friday night in East Palestine, Ohio are still on fire at mid-day Saturday, Feb. 4, 2023. Toxic wastewater used to extinguish a fire following a train derailment in Ohio is headed to a Houston suburb for disposal. Harris County Judge Lina Hidalgo says “firefighting water” from the East Palestine, Ohio train derailment is to be disposed of in the county and she is seeking more information.(AP Photo/Gene J. Puskar) (ASSOCIATED PRESS)
DEER PARK, Texas (AP) — Toxic wastewater used to extinguish a fire following a train derailment in Ohio is headed to a Houston suburb for disposal.
“I and my office heard today that ‘firefighting water’ from the East Palestine, Ohio, train derailment is slated to be disposed of in our county,” Harris County Judge Lina Hidalgo said in a Wednesday statement.
“Our Harris County Pollution Control Department and Harris County Attorney’s have reached out to the company and the Environmental Protection Agency to receive more information,” Hidalgo wrote.
The wastewater is being sent to Texas Molecular, which injects hazardous waste into the ground for disposal.
The Texas Commission on Environmental Quality told KTRK-TV that Texas Molecular “is authorized to accept and manage a variety of waste streams, including vinyl chloride, as part of their … hazardous waste permit and underground injection control permit.”
The company told KHOU-TV it is experienced in managing this type of disposal.
“Our technology safely removes hazardous constituents from the biosphere. We are part of the solution to reduce risk and protect the environment, whether in our local area or other places that need the capabilities we offer to protect the environment,” the company said.
The fiery Feb. 3 derailment in Ohio prompted evacuations when toxic chemicals were burned after being released from five derailed tanker rail cars carrying vinyl choride that were in danger of exploding.
“It’s … very, very toxic,” Dr. George Guillen, the executive director of the Environmental Institute of Houston, said, but the risk to the public is minimal.
“This injection, in some cases, is usually 4,000 or 5,000 feet down below any kind of drinking water aquifer,” said Guillen, who is also a professor of biology and environmental science at the University of Houston-Clear Lake.
Both Guillen and Deer Park resident Tammy Baxter said their greatest concerns are transporting the chemicals more than 1,300 miles (2,090 kilometers) from East Palestine, Ohio; to Deer Park, Texas.
“There has to be a closer deep well injection,” Baxter told KTRK. “It’s foolish to put it on the roadway. We have accidents on a regular basis … It is silly to move it that far.”
Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, who visited the derailment site Thursday, has warned the railroad responsible for the derailment, Norfolk Southern, to fulfill its promises to clean up the mess just outside East Palestine, Ohio, and help the town recover.
‘Never saw such hell’: Russian soldiers in Ukraine call home
Erika Kinetz – February 23, 2023
(AP Illustration/Peter Hamlin)
KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — One Russian soldier tells his mother that the young Ukrainians dead from his first firefight looked just like him. Another explains to his wife that he’s drunk because alcohol makes it easier to kill civilians. A third wants his girlfriend to know that in all the horror, he dreams about just being with her.
About 2,000 secret recordings of intercepted conversations between Russian soldiers in Ukraine and their loved ones back home offer a harrowing new perspective on Vladimir Putin’s year-old war. There is a human mystery at the heart of this conversations heard in intercepted phone calls: How do people raised with a sense of right and wrong end up accepting and perpetrating terrible acts of violence?
The AP identified calls made in March 2022 by soldiers in a military division that Ukrainian prosecutors say committed war crimes in Bucha, a town outside Kyiv that became an early symbol of Russian atrocities.
They show how deeply unprepared young soldiers — and their country — were for the war to come. Many joined the military because they needed money and were informed of their deployment at the last minute. They were told they’d be welcomed as heroes for liberating Ukraine from its Nazi oppressors and their Western backers, and that Kyiv would fall without bloodshed within a week.
The intercepts also show that as soldiers realized how much they’d been misled, they grew more and more afraid. Violence that once would have been unthinkable became normal. Looting and drinking offered moments of rare reprieve. Some said they were following orders to kill civilians or prisoners of war.
They tell their mothers what this war actually looks like: About the teenage Ukrainian boy who got his ears cut off. How the scariest sound is not the whistle of a rocket flying past, but the silence that means it’s coming directly for you. How modern weapons can obliterate the human body so there’s nothing left to bring home.
We listen as their mothers struggle to reconcile their pride and their horror, and as their wives and fathers beg them not to drink too much and to please, please call home.
These are the stories of three of those men — Ivan, Leonid and Maxim. The AP isn’t using their full names to protect their families in Russia. The AP established that they were in areas when atrocities were committed, but has no evidence of their individual actions beyond what they confess.
The AP spoke with the mothers of Ivan and Leonid, but couldn’t reach Maxim or his family. The AP verified these calls with the help of the Dossier Center, an investigative group in London funded by Russian dissident Mikhail Khodorkovsky. The conversations have been edited for length and clarity.
In a joint production on Saturday, Feb. 25, The Associated Press and Reveal from the Center for Investigative Reporting will broadcast never-before-heard audio of Russian soldiers as they confront — and perpetrate — the brutality of Russia’s war in Ukraine.
LEONID
Leonid became a soldier because he needed money. He was in debt and didn’t want to depend on his parents.
“I just wasn’t prepared emotionally for my child to go to war at the age of 19,” his mother told the AP in January. “None of us had experienced anything like this, that your child would live in a time when he has to go and fight.”
Leonid’s mother said Russia needs to protect itself from its enemies. But, like many others, she expected Russia to take parts of eastern Ukraine quickly. Instead, Leonid’s unit got stuck around Bucha.
“No one thought it would be so terrible,” his mother said. “My son just said one thing: ‘My conscience is clear. They opened fire first.’ That’s all.”
In the calls, there is an obvious moral dissonance between the way Leonid’s mother raised him and what he is seeing and doing in Ukraine. Still, she defended her son, insisting he never even came into contact with civilians in Ukraine.
She said everything was calm, civil. There was no trouble at the checkpoints. Nothing bad happened. The war didn’t change her son.
She declined to listen to any of the intercepts: “This is absurd,” she said. “Just don’t try to make it look like my child killed innocent people.”
ONE: Kill if you don’t want to be killed.
Leonid’s introduction to war came on Feb. 24, as his unit crossed into Ukraine from Belarus and decimated a detachment of Ukrainians at the border. After his first fight, Leonid seems to have compassion for the young Ukrainian soldiers they’d just killed.
Mother: “When did you get scared?”
Leonid: “When our commander warned us we would be shot, 100%. He warned us that although we’d be bombed and shot at, our aim was to get through.”
Mother: “Did they shoot you?”
Leonid: “Of course. We defeated them.”
Mother: “Mhm. Did you shoot from your tanks?”
Leonid: “Yeah, we did. We shot from the tanks, machine guns and rifles. We had no losses. We destroyed their four tanks. There were dead bodies lying around and burning. So, we won.”
Mother: “Oh what a nightmare! Lyonka, you wanted to live at that moment, right honey?”
Leonid: “More than ever!”
Mother: “More than ever, right honey?”
Leonid: “Of course.”
Mother: “It’s totally horrible.”
Leonid: “They were lying there, just 18 or 19 years old. Am I different from them? No, I’m not.”
___
TWO: The rules of normal life no longer apply.
Leonid tells his mother their plan was to seize Kyiv within a week, without firing a single bullet. Instead, his unit started taking fire near Chernobyl. They had no maps and the Ukrainians had taken down all the road signs.
“It was so confusing,” he says. “They were well prepared.”
Not expecting a prolonged attack, Russian soldiers ran short on basic supplies. One way for them to get what they needed — or wanted — was to steal.
Many soldiers, including Leonid, talk about money with the wary precision that comes from not having enough. Some take orders from friends and family for certain-sized shoes and parts for specific cars, proud to go home with something to give.
When Leonid tells his mother casually about looting, at first she can’t believe he’s stealing. But it’s become normal for him.
As he speaks, he watches a town burn on the horizon.
“Such a beauty,” he says.
Leonid: “Look, mom, I’m looking at tons of houses — I don’t know, dozens, hundreds — and they’re all empty. Everyone ran away.”
Mother: “So all the people left, right? You guys aren’t looting them, are you? You’re not going into other people’s houses?”
Leonid: “Of course we are, mom. Are you crazy?”
Mother: “Oh, you are. What do you take from there?”
Leonid: “We take food, bed linen, pillows. Blankets, forks, spoons, pans.”
Mother: (laughing) “You gotta be kidding me.”
Leonid: “Whoever doesn’t have any — socks, clean underwear, T-shirts, sweaters.”
___
THREE: The enemy is everybody.
Leonid tells his mother about the terror of going on patrol and not knowing what or who they will encounter. He describes using lethal force at the slightest provocation against just about anyone.
At first, she seems not to believe that Russian soldiers could be killing civilians.
Leonid tells her that civilians were told to flee or shelter in basements, so anyone who was outside must not be a real civilian. Russian soldiers had been told, by Putin and others, that they’d be greeted as liberators and anyone who resisted was a fascist, an insurgent — not a real civilian.
This was a whole-of-society war. Mercy was for suckers.
Mother: “Oh Lyonka, you’ve seen so much stuff there!”
Leonid: “Well … civilians are lying around right on the street with their brains coming out.”
Mother: “Oh God, you mean the locals?”
Leonid: “Yep. Well, like, yeah.”
Mother: “Are they the ones you guys shot or the ones … ”
Leonid: “The ones killed by our army.”
Mother: “Lyonya, they might just be peaceful people.”
Leonid: “Mom, there was a battle. And a guy would just pop up, you know? Maybe he would pull out a grenade launcher … Or we had a case, a young guy was stopped, they took his cellphone. He had all this information about us in his Telegram messages — where to bomb, how many we were, how many tanks we have. And that’s it.”
Mother: “So they knew everything?”
Leonid: “He was shot right there on the spot.”
Mother: “Mhm.”
Leonid: “He was 17 years old. And that’s it, right there.”
Mother: “Mhm.”
Leonid: “There was a prisoner. It was an 18-year-old guy. First, he was shot in his leg. Then his ears were cut off. After that, he admitted everything, and they killed him.”
Mother: “Did he admit it?”
Leonid: “We don’t imprison them. I mean, we kill them all.”
Mother: “Mhm.”
___
FOUR: What it takes to get home alive.
Leonid tells his mother he was nearly killed five times. Things are so disorganized, he says, that it’s not uncommon for Russians to fire on their own troops — it even happened to him. Some soldiers shoot themselves just to get medical leave, he says.
In another call, he tells his girlfriend he’s envious of his buddies who got shot in the feet and could go home. “A bullet in your foot is like four months at home with crutches,” he says. “It would be awesome.”
Then he hangs up because of incoming fire.
Mother: “Hello, Lyonechka.”
Leonid: “I just wanted to call you again. I am able to speak.”
Mother: “Oh, that’s good.”
Leonid: “There are people out here who shoot themselves.”
Mother: “Mhm.”
Leonid: “They do it for the insurance money. You know where they shoot themselves?”
Mother: “That’s silly, Lyonya.”
Leonid: “The bottom part of the left thigh.”
Mother: “It’s bull——, Lyonya. They’re crazy, you know that, right?”
Leonid: “Some people are so scared that they are ready to harm themselves just to leave.”
Mother: “Yeah, it is fear, what can you say here, it’s human fear. Everybody wants to live. I don’t argue with that, but please don’t do that. We all pray for you. You should cross yourself any chance you get, just turn away from everyone and do it. We all pray for you. We’re all worried.”
Leonid: “I’m standing here, and you know what the situation is? I am now 30 meters (100 feet) away from a huge cemetery.” (giggling)
Mother: “Oh, that’s horrible … may it be over soon.”
Leonid says he had to learn to empty his mind.
“Imagine, it’s nighttime. You’re sitting in the dark and it’s quiet out there. Alone with your thoughts. And day after day, you sit there alone with those thoughts,” he tells his girlfriend. “I already learned to think of nothing while sitting outside.
He promises to bring home a collection of bullets for the kids. “Trophies from Ukraine,” he calls them.
His mother says she’s waiting for him.
“Of course I’ll come, why wouldn’t I?” Leonid says.
“Of course, you’ll come,” his mother says. “No doubts. You’re my beloved. Of course, you’ll come. You are my happiness.”
Leonid returned to Russia in May, badly wounded, but alive. He told his mother Russia would win this war.
___
IVAN
Ivan dreamed of being a paratrooper from the time he was a boy, growing up in a village at the edge of Siberia. He used to dress up in fatigues and play paintball with friends in the woods. A photo shows him at 12 years old, smiling with a big Airsoft rifle and a slimy splotch of green near his heart — a sign of certain death in paintball.
Ivan’s dream came true. He entered an elite unit of Russian paratroopers, which crossed into Ukraine the very first day of Putin’s Feb. 24 invasion, one year ago.
___
ONE: Ivan’s road to war.
Ivan was in Belarus on training when they got a Telegram message: “Tomorrow you are leaving for Ukraine. There is a genocide of the Russian population. And we have to stop it.”
When his mother found out he was in Ukraine, she said she stopped speaking for days and took sedatives. Her hair went gray. Still, she was proud of him.
Ivan ended up in Bucha.
Ivan: “Mom, hi.”
Mother: “Hi, son! How …”
Ivan: “How are you?”
Mother: “Vanya, I understand they might be listening so I’m afraid …”
Ivan: “Doesn’t matter.”
Mother: “… to ask where you are, what’s happening. Where are you?”
Ivan: “In Bucha.”
Mother: “In Bucha?”
Ivan: “In Bucha.”
Mother: “Son, be as careful as you can, OK? Don’t go charging around! Always keep a cool head.”
Ivan: “Oh, come on, I‘m not charging around.”
Mother: “Yeah, right! And yesterday you told me how you’re gonna f——— kill everyone out there.” (laughs)
Ivan: “We will kill if we have to.”
Mother: “Huh?”
Ivan: “If we have to — we have to.”
Mother: “I understand you. I’m so proud of you, my son! I don’t even know how to put it. I love you so much. And I bless you for everything, everything! I wish you success in everything. And I’ll wait for you no matter what.”
___
TWO: Love and fear.
Russian soldiers had been told by Putin and others that they’d be welcomed by their brothers and sisters in Ukraine as liberators. Instead, Ivan finds that most Ukrainians want him dead or gone. His mood darkens.
He calls his girlfriend, Olya, and tells her he had a dream about her.
Ivan: “F—-, you know, it’s driving me crazy here. It’s just that … You were just … I felt you, touched you with my hand. I don’t understand how it’s possible, why, where … But I really felt you. I don’t know, I felt something warm, something dear. It’s like something was on fire in my hands, so warm … And that’s it. I don’t know. I was sleeping and then I woke up with all these thoughts. War … You know, when you’re sleeping — and then you’re like … War … Where, where is it? It was just dark in the house, so dark. And I went outside, walked around the streets, and thought: damn, f—- it. And that’s it. I really want to come see you.”
Olya: “I am waiting for you.”
Ivan: “Waiting? OK. I’m waiting, too. Waiting for the time I can come see you … Let’s make a deal. When we see each other, let’s spend the entire day together. Laying around, sitting together, eating, looking at each other — just us, together.”
Olya: (Laughs) “Agreed.”
Ivan: “Together all the time. Hugging, cuddling, kissing … Together all the time, not letting each other go.”
Olya: “Well, yeah!”
Ivan: “You can go f——— crazy here. It’s so f—- up, the s—- that’s happening. I really thought it would be easy here, to tell you the truth. That it’s just gonna be easy to talk, think about it. But it turned out to be hard, you need to think with your head all the time. So that’s that.”
Ivan: “We are really at the front line. As far out as you could be. Kyiv is 15 kilometers (about 10 miles) from us. It is scary, Olya. It really is scary.”
Olya: “Hello?”
Ivan: “Do you hear me?”
The line drops.
___
THREE: The end.
As things get worse for Ivan in Ukraine, his mother’s patriotism deepens and her rage grows. The family has relatives in Kyiv, but seems to believe this is a righteous war against Nazi oppression in Ukraine — and the dark hand of the United States they see behind Kyiv’s tough resistance. She says she’ll go to Ukraine herself to fight.
Mother: “Do you have any predictions about the end …?”
Ivan: “We are here for the time being. We’ll probably stay until they clean up the whole of Ukraine. Maybe they’ll pull us out. Maybe not. We’re going for Kyiv.”
Mother: “What are they going to do?”
Ivan: “We’re not going anywhere until they clean up all of these pests.”
Mother: “Are those bastards getting cleaned up?”
Ivan: “Yes, they are. But they’ve been waiting for us and preparing, you understand? Preparing properly. American motherf——— have been helping them out.”
Mother: “F——— f———. F——— kill them all. You have my blessing.”
Death came for Ivan a decade after that boyhood paintball game.
In July, a local paper published a notice of his funeral with a photo of him, again in fatigues holding a large rifle. Ivan died heroically in Russia’s “special military operation,” the announcement said. We will never forget you. All of Russia shares this grief.
Reached by the AP in January, Ivan’s mother at first denied she’d ever talked with her son from the front. But she agreed to listen to some of the intercepted audio and confirmed it was her speaking with Ivan.
“He wasn’t involved in murders, let alone in looting,” she told the AP before hanging up the phone.
Ivan was her only son.
___
MAXIM
Maxim is drunk in some of the calls, slurring his words, because life at the front line is more than he can take sober.
It’s not clear what military unit Maxim is in, but he makes calls from the same phone as Ivan, on the same days.
He says they’re alone out there and exposed. Communications are so bad they’re taking more fire from their own troops than from the Ukrainians.
He has a bad toothache and his feet are freezing. The hunt for locals — men, women and children —who might be informing on them to the Ukrainian military is constant.
Maxim’s mood flips between boredom and horror — not just at what he has seen, but also what he has done.
___
ONE: Gold!
The only reason Maxim is able to speak with his family back in Russia is because they’ve been stealing phones from locals. He says they’re even shaking down kids.
“We take everything from them,” he explains to his wife. “Because they can also be f——— spotters.”
Stuck just outside Kyiv, bored and unsure why they’re in Ukraine in the first place, Maxim and a half-dozen other guys shot up a shopping mall and made off with all the gold they could carry.
Back home Maxim has money troubles, but here his hands are heavy with treasure. He gleefully calculates and recalculates what his pile of gold might be worth. He says he offered a wad of money the size of his fist to Ukrainian women and children.
“I wanted to give it to normal families with kids, but the people out there were drunks,” he tells his wife.
In the end, he handed the cash off to a random, cleanshaven man he thought looked decent. “I told him: ‘Look here, take it, give it to families with kids and take something for yourself. You’ll figure it out, make it fair.’”
On calls home, the high sweet voice of Maxim’s own young child bubbles in the background as he talks with his wife.
Maxim: “Do you know how much a gram of gold costs here?”
Wife: “No.”
Maxim: “Roughly? About two or three thousand rubles, right?”
Wife: “Well, yeah …”
Maxim: “Well, I have 1½ kilograms (more than three pounds). With labels even.”
Wife: “Holy f—-, are we looters?!”
Maxim: “With labels, yeah. It’s just that we f——- up this … We were shooting at this shopping mall from a tank. Then we go in, and there’s a f——— jewelry store. Everything was taken. But there was a safe there. We cracked it open, and inside … f—- me! So the seven of us loaded up.”
Wife: “I see.”
Maxim: “They had these f——— necklaces, you know. In our money, they’re like 30-40,000 a piece, 60,000 a piece.”
Wife: “Holy crap.”
Maxim: “I scored about a kilo and a half of necklaces, charms, bracelets … these … earrings … earrings with rings …”
Wife: “That’s enough, don’t tell me.”
Maxim: “Anyway, I counted and if it’s 3,000 rubles a gram, then I have about 3.5 million. If you offload it.”
Wife: “Got it. How’s the situation there?”
Maxim: “It’s f——— OK.”
Wife: “OK? Got it.”
Maxim: “We don’t have a f——— thing to do, so we go around and loot the f——— shopping mall.”
Wife: “Just be careful, in the name of Christ.”
___
TWO: Propaganda.
Maxim and his mother discuss the opposing stories about the war being told on Ukrainian and Russian television. They blame the United States and recite conspiracy theories pushed by Russian state media.
But Maxim and his mother believe it’s the Ukrainians who are deluded by fake news and propaganda, not them. The best way to end the war, his mother says, is to kill the presidents of Ukraine and the United States.
Later, Maxim tells his mother that thousands of Russian troops died in the first weeks of war — so many that there’s no time to do anything except haul away the bodies. That’s not what they’re saying on Russian TV, his mother says.
Maxim: “Here, it’s all American. All the weapons.”
Mother: “It’s the Americans driving this, of course! Look at their laboratories. They are developing biological weapons. Coronavirus literally started there.”
Maxim: “Yeah, I also saw somewhere that they used bats.”
Mother: “All of it. Bats, migrating birds, and even coronavirus might be their biological weapon.”
Mother: “They even found all these papers with signatures from the U.S. all over Ukraine. Biden’s son is the mastermind behind all of this.”
Mother: “When will it end? When they stop supplying weapons.”
Maxim: “Mhm.”
Mother: “Until they catch (Ukrainian President Volodymyr) Zelenskyy and execute him, nothing will end. He’s a fool, a fool! He’s a puppet for the U.S. and they really don’t need him, the fool. You watch TV and you feel bad for the people, the civilians, some travelling with young kids.”
Mother: “If I was given a gun, I’d go and shoot Biden.” (Laughs)
Maxim: (Laughs)
___
THREE: War and peace.
The Ukrainian government has been intercepting Russian calls when their phones ping Ukrainian cell towers, providing important real-time intelligence for the military. Now, the calls are also potential evidence for war crimes.
But phones have been dangerous for the soldiers in another, more personal sense. The phone acts as a real-time bridge between two incompatible realities — the war in Ukraine and home.
In Maxim’s calls with his wife, war and peace collide. Even as she teaches their daughter the rules of society — scolding the child for throwing things, for example — Maxim talks about what he’s been stealing. His wife’s world is filled with school crafts and the sounds of children playing outside. In his, volleys of gunfire crack the air.
One night last March, Maxim was having trouble keeping it together on a call with his wife. He’d been drinking, as he did every night.
He told her he’d killed civilians — so many he thinks he’s going crazy. He said he might not make it home alive. He was just sitting there, drunk in the dark, waiting for the Ukrainian artillery strikes to start.
Wife: “Why? Why are you drinking?”
Maxim: “Everyone is like that here. It’s impossible without it here.”
Wife: “How the f—- will you protect yourself if you are tipsy?”
Maxim: “Totally normal. On the contrary, it’s easier to shoot … civilians. Let’s not talk about this. I’ll come back and tell you how it is here and why we drink!”
Wife: “Please, just be careful!”
Maxim: “Everything will be fine. Honestly, I’m scared s—-less myself. I never saw such hell as here. I am f——— shocked.”
Wife: “Why the f—- did you go there?”
Minutes later, he’s on the phone with his child.
“You’re coming back,” the child says.
“Of course,” Maxim says.
___
FOUR: The end?
In their last intercepted call, Maxim’s wife seems to have a premonition.
Wife: “Is everything all right?”
Maxim: “Yeah. Why?”
Wife: “Be honest with me, is everything all right?”
Maxim: “Huh? Why do you ask?”
Wife: “It’s nothing, I just can’t sleep at night.”
Maxim is a little breathless. He and his unit are getting ready to go. His wife asks him where they’re going.
“Forward,” he tells her. “I won’t be able to call for a while.”
The AP has been unable to determine what happened to Maxim.
Solomiia Hera and Anna Pavlova contributed to this report.
Jo Wood on gardening: ‘A surprise diagnosis opened my eyes to all the chemicals in food’
Ria Higgins – February 23, 2023
‘I loved the idea of being self-sufficient, not only growing my own food, but having my own heat, electricity and water supply’ – John Lawrence
The entrepreneur and ex-wife of Rolling Stones rocker Ronnie Wood on the joy of going off-grid and being in touch with nature.
Where do you live?
I live in Northamptonshire, near Silverstone, in a place I saw online four years ago. The property was being sold as an off-grid farmhouse and I’d dreamed of going off-grid. I loved the idea of being self-sufficient, not only growing my own food, but having my own heat, electricity and water supply. This was it! It came with six acres, old sheds and barns ripe for conversion. The land was barren and there was no garden, but it meant I could do things my way. After my divorce from Ronnie in 2011, I’d been living in central London, so it was a huge change.
What did you have to do to get the house and garden up and running?
I moved into the house in November 2019, and in those first few weeks, the water ran out, the solar panels didn’t work, the electrics were dodgy, and the generator for heat and light broke down. I sat in the kitchen and said to myself: “I’ve made such a terrible mistake.” But slowly, I found the right people to help me turn things around. A modern generator was installed, new solar panels fitted and, after locating an underground water supply, an engineer drilled a hole nearly 300ft down to provide me with my own water. It was expensive, but from then on, I’d have no more bills.
What were your plans for the garden?
One of the first things I did was to plant 70 trees, including willow, oak and apple. But my priority that first spring was to build raised beds for growing organic fruit and veg. Of course, four months after I moved in, the country went into lockdown; but with my son Tyrone and my daughter Leah and her family, we were all in the same bubble, so I got cracking and they helped me. Within no time, we’d sown everything from potatoes to pumpkins, with nasturtiums and calendula for colour. The house itself was already covered with climbing roses, so I planted lavender, rosemary and other scented herbs and flowers beneath.
‘One thing my kids were excited about was creating a wild swimming pond,’ says Jo Wood – John Lawrence
Why did you become so passionate about growing organic food?
I met Ronnie in 1977, when I was just 22. At that point, I had my son Jamie and he had his son Jesse. We had Leah and Tyrone together and got married in 1985. Then in 1990, I got ill and was diagnosed with Crohn’s disease. I was on steroids; I was miserable. Then someone who’d read about my illness told me to cut out processed foods and go organic – veg, fruit, meat, the lot. With nothing to lose, I did. Four months later, I felt fantastic. But I got ill again. This time, I found out I didn’t have Crohn’s, I had a perforated appendix. Doctors were amazed I was still alive. I recovered, but my eyes were opened to all the chemicals in food, so I became even more obsessed with organic.
How did your family react to your organic obsession?
Ronnie thought I was mad and the family banned me from using the word “organic”. But I was on a mission. The only thing I didn’t have was a garden big enough to grow my own food. It was when we went to stay at Ronnie’s house in Kildare, in Ireland, that I got my first taste of growing organic veg. I loved it. In fact, one year we had such a huge crop of potatoes, I put a load in a suitcase, took them to a Stones gig in Paris and asked their chef if he’d cook them. Keith Richards turned to me and said: “The trouble with you, darling, is that you’re addicted to organic.” Actually, Keith’s wife, Patti, has a veg garden in Connecticut. She gets it!
What other projects have you focused on in your new home?
One thing my kids were excited about was creating a wild swimming pond. It was part of my plan to rewild a huge section of the land that I’d already scattered with native wildflower seeds, such as red clover, cowslip, ragged robin and oxeye daisy. Tyrone took charge. He had the pond dug out and lined with local clay, and once we’d filled it with water, Leah, who now lives with her family up the road, helped me get started with aquatic plants such as water hawthorn, spearwort, lilies and yellow flag iris. By the second year, they all went mad. Glorious! It came alive with wildlife and watching birds fly in and out was magical.
Wood plans to have a whole field of lavender eventually – John Lawrence
Did you have a garden as a child?
Mum was from South Africa. She met Dad, who was from Devon, on a train. He was an architectural model maker and, after the war, he worked for Essex council on the model for a new town called Basildon. When it was completed, the council gave him a new council house and as soon as we moved in, Mum wanted chickens and an avocado tree – no one ate avocados back then. She also grew medicinal herbs; she was a huge believer in feverfew, an old remedy for fevers, and mullein, which is great for coughs. She’s inspired me to create a medicinal herb garden here. I might even grow avocados!
Do you think gardening is good for your mind as well as the body?
More and more, I find it’s so important to be outside, to soak up natural light, be in touch with nature, to feel the earth on my skin. In the summer, I often go around barefoot. Other times, there’s nothing like the simplicity of sitting under a tree and just soaking it all in. Trees are such amazing things. In 2016, I bought a little house with two acres in the hills of Murcia, in Spain, and filled it with fruit trees – pomegranate, fig, orange, lemon and olive. It’s my little getaway.
What’s your next project in the garden?
I have so many plans and one of them is to have a whole field of lavender. It would be so beautiful and I could get someone to harvest it. And now that we’ve got wildflowers, I also want to make my own honey. The bees will have a feast. Jamie’s also been studying the health benefits of supplements made from mushrooms and wants to start growing them, while Tyrone has converted old sheds into a bar and a play area for the kids. I’ve now got 10 grandchildren, so they have the best time here.
What have been the biggest challenges to going off-grid?
In the early days, I’d often have to stick on my wellies and go out in the rain in the middle of the night because the lights hadn’t come on or the hot water was like ice. Now, I’ve replaced everything and there’s an app on my phone that tells me if the generator’s on and how much heat I’m getting from my solar panels. It’s other things that give me grief. Rabbits. One morning, I came out to all these holes and half-eaten muddy carrots. The audacity! But mud or no mud, I haven’t given up my glamorous life altogether. I still swap my wellies and woolly hat for heels and sequins sometimes. I’ve got the best of both worlds.
Jo Wood’s organic product range is available to shop at jowoodorganics.com.
Pritzker Will Do What It Takes to Keep Both DeSantis and Trump Out of the White House
Laura Davison and Shruti Date Singh – February 23, 2023
Pritzker Will Do What It Takes to Keep Both DeSantis and Trump Out of the White House
(Bloomberg) — Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker said he’s willing to spend what it takes in the next election to help President Joe Biden keep his job — and keep Republicans like Ron DeSantis and Donald Trump out of the White House.
“It’s very important to me that we elect a Democratic president and that we make sure to keep DeSantis, Trump and the retrograde views that they carry out of the White House,” Pritzker, a longtime Democratic donor, said in an interview Thursday with Bloomberg News in Chicago. “I’ll continue to support Democrats in the best way I can to help them get elected.”
Pritzker, 58, is a member of one of the world’s wealthiest families, with a net worth of $3.7 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. The Democrat has been in the middle of recent spats with DeSantis, Florida’s Republican governor, and is a long-running nemesis of Citadel founder and GOP mega-donor Ken Griffin, who has said he’d back a DeSantis bid for president in 2024.
DeSantis, who visited Illinois this week, has criticized Chicago’s crime under Pritzker’s watch. Pritzker shot back, saying that DeSantis is trying to lower public education standards by banning the teaching of racial history.
Pritzker also said Griffin moved his financial empire headquarters to Miami from Chicago last year out of “embarrassment” after spending $50 million trying to defeat him in the gubernatorial race by backing Richard Irvin, the mayor of Aurora, Illinois.
“That person lost badly in the Republican primary,” Pritzker said in an interview Thursday with Bloomberg TV.
National Attention
Trading barbs with prominent Republicans sets up Pritzker for national political attention.
Pritzker, who was re-elected as Illinois governor in 2022, said he has been approached about potentially running for president, but declined to give any details about those discussions. He said he’s happy as governor, intends to serve the rest of his term and will back Biden this cycle.
Still, he’s raised his national profile by visiting New Hampshire and Florida, and has taken stances on expanding abortion access and banning assault weapons, stoking speculation that he has lofty ambitions beyond the Illinois statehouse in Springfield.
Regardless, the billionaire’s wealth promises to play a role in the 2024 race.
He poured more than $300 million of his own money into his two successful bids for governor. He spent about $51 million for a failed campaign to change Illinois’s flat income-tax structure to one that increases taxes on the rich.
Outside of Illinois, Pritzker and his wife have donated more than $39 million since 2011, according to campaign finance disclosures. Topping the list of recipients is Priorities USA Action, the super-PAC that’s supported Democratic presidential nominees since it was launched in 2011.
The Pritzkers have also given $2 million to support Hillary Clinton’s 2016 general election campaign and $1.4 million to back Biden in 2020.
British long-range missiles ‘could help Ukraine disrupt Russian navy’
Joe Barnes – February 23, 2023
Anti-ship Harpoon missiles, seen here being fired from HMS Westminster, cost £1.2 million each and have a range of around 80 miles – Royal Navy
British long-range missiles would give Ukraine the ability to disrupt Russian logistical chains and push its naval forces more than 80 miles from the coast, say analysts.
As Rishi Sunak urges his Western partners to send longer-range capabilities to Kyiv, discussions are underway in London over whether Harpoon anti-ship missiles or air-to-surface Storm Shadows could be donated to Kyiv.
Ukraine has been gifted US-made Himars and M270 multi-launch rocket systems with a range of 50 miles.
Kyiv’s armed forces have used them to superb effect to force Russian logistics away from the frontline, making it harder for Moscow to supply any advances.
But Mr Zelensky has made the delivery of longer-range weapons a priority in order to hit targets even deeper behind enemy lines as part of his conversations with Western leaders.
Storm Shadow, the RAF’s long-range cruise missile, would deliver that desired effect.
The weapon costs about £2.2 million and can be fired from a fighter jet at targets as far as 350 miles away, although they can be modified to have significantly shorter range.
“The Storm Shadow opens up access to a range of logistics targets not least across the south, dramatically complicating the task for Russian air defenders,” said Justin Crump, of Sibylline, an intelligence and geopolitical risk firm.
“If nothing else, this will force them further to scatter their supply lines and reconsider how best to defend against the threat.”
Ukraine has suggested it could use such a missile to strike Russian targets in occupied Crimea, which some Western governments have privately expressed discomfort at because it could trigger Moscow to escalate the conflict.
Anti-ship missile ‘key’
Another long-range weapon in Britain’s arsenal that could be headed to Ukraine is the Harpoon.
The anti-ship missile could be key in preventing any future amphibious attacks by Russian forces, but also disrupt its Black Sea Fleet from firing their own cruise missiles.
Sea-skimming Harpoons cost £1.2 million each and have a range of around 80 miles when used by the Royal Navy, but some suggest that could be extended to 150 miles.
Mr Crump said: “It remains remarkable that a nation with at best a limited navy has been able to achieve such maritime effects, and Harpoon will further increase the threat to Russian vessels engaged in Kalibr cruise missile launches from the Black Sea.
“This will push Russian surface operations 80 miles offshore – and almost completely close down any potential amphibious operation against Odesa, although that is arguably already a dim and distant memory at this stage.”
Ukraine: Drone footage shows scale of Bakhmut’s destruction
The Associated Press – February 23, 2023
From the air, the scale of destruction becomes plain to see. Entire rows of apartment blocks have been gutted, just the outer walls left standing and the roofs and interior floors gone, exposing the ruins’ innards to the snow and winter frost – and the drone’s prying eye. (AP Photo)New video footage of Bakhmut shot from the air with a drone for The Associated Press shows how the longest battle of the year-long Russian invasion has turned the city of salt and gypsum mines in eastern Ukraine into a ghost town. The footage was shot Feb. 13. From the air, the scale of destruction becomes plain to see. Entire rows of apartment blocks have been gutted, just the outer walls left standing and the roofs and interior floors gone, exposing the ruins’ innards to the snow and winter frost – and the drone’s prying eye. (AP Photo)New video footage of Bakhmut shot from the air with a drone for The Associated Press shows how the longest battle of the year-long Russian invasion has turned the city of salt and gypsum mines in eastern Ukraine into a ghost town. The footage was shot Feb. 13. From the air, the scale of destruction becomes plain to see. Entire rows of apartment blocks have been gutted, just the outer walls left standing and the roofs and interior floors gone, exposing the ruins’ innards to the snow and winter frost – and the drone’s prying eye. (AP Photo)New video footage of Bakhmut shot from the air with a drone for The Associated Press shows how the longest battle of the year-long Russian invasion has turned the city of salt and gypsum mines in eastern Ukraine into a ghost town. The footage was shot Feb. 13. From the air, the scale of destruction becomes plain to see. Entire rows of apartment blocks have been gutted, just the outer walls left standing and the roofs and interior floors gone, exposing the ruins’ innards to the snow and winter frost – and the drone’s prying eye. (AP Photo)New video footage of Bakhmut shot from the air with a drone for The Associated Press shows how the longest battle of the year-long Russian invasion has turned the city of salt and gypsum mines in eastern Ukraine into a ghost town. The footage was shot Feb. 13. From the air, the scale of destruction becomes plain to see. Entire rows of apartment blocks have been gutted, just the outer walls left standing and the roofs and interior floors gone, exposing the ruins’ innards to the snow and winter frost – and the drone’s prying eye. (AP Photo)
BAKHMUT, Ukraine (AP) — Amid the smoking ruins, a lone dog pads in the snow, surely unaware — or perhaps too hungry to care — that death rains down regularly from the skies on the remnants of this Ukrainian city that Russia is pounding into rubble.
But for now Bakhmut stands — growing as a symbol of Ukrainian resistance with each additional day that its defenders hold out against Russia’s relentless shelling and waves of Russian troops taking heavy casualties in a months-long but so far futile campaign to capture it.
New video footage of Bakhmut shot from the air with a drone for The Associated Press shows how the longest battle of the year-long Russian invasion has turned the city of salt and gypsum mines in eastern Ukraine into a ghost town, its jagged destruction testament to the folly of war.
The footage — shot Feb. 13 — shows no people. But they are still there — somewhere, out of sight, in basements and defensive strongholds, trying to survive. Of the prewar population of 80,000, a few thousand residents have refused or been unable to evacuate. The size of the garrison that Ukraine has stationed in the city is kept secret.
Tire tracks on the roads and footprints on the paths covered with snow speak to a continued human presence. In one shot, a car drives swiftly away in the distance. Graffiti spray-painted on the charred, pockmarked outer walls of a blown-out storefront also show people are or were here.
“Bakhmut loves Ukraine,” it reads. Next to that is the stenciled face of Valerii Zaluzhnyi, the commander-in-chief of Ukraine’s armed forces, holding up two fingers in a V-for-victory gesture. “God and Valerii Zaluzhnyi are with us,” reads writing underneath.
A top Ukrainian intelligence official this week likened the fight for Bakhmut to Ukraine’s dogged defense of Mariupol earlier in the war, which tied up Russian forces for months, preventing the Kremlin from deploying them elsewhere.
Likewise, “Bakhmut is also an indicator and a fortress,” the official, Vadym Skibitskyi, said in an AP interview. He said the city has come to represent “the indomitability of our soldiers” and that by holding it, Ukraine is inflicting “unacceptable” casualties on the Russians.
From the air, the scale of destruction becomes plain to see. Entire rows of apartment buildings have been gutted, just the outer walls left standing and the roofs and interior floors gone, exposing the ruins’ innards to the snow and winter frost — and the drone’s prying eye.
Like a caver descending into a chasm, the drone drops slowly into one of the blown-out hulks — all four of its floors now collapsed into a pile of ashes, rubble and rusting metal at the bottom.
Another five-story apartment building has a giant bite torn out of it. A black crow flies through the gap. The drone peers into a kitchen, a once-intimate family place now exposed because one of its outer walls has been torn away. There is still a strainer in the sink and plates on the drying rack above, as though someone still lives there. But the undisturbed dusting of snow on the cloth-covered table suggests they are long gone.
As the drone continues its journey, along streets where crowds no longer walk and past stores where they no longer shop, over parks where children no longer play and where old-timers no longer chew the fat, the names of towns and cities flattened in previous wars spring to mind.
Fleury-devant-Douaumont, France — a village razed in World War I, changing hands 16 times in fighting between French and German troops from June to August 1916. Never rebuilt, it was later declared to have “Died for France” — along with eight other villages destroyed in the fearsome battle for the French town of Verdun.
Or Oradour-sur-Glane, also in France, destroyed in World War II. Its ruins have been left untouched as a memorial to 642 people killed there on June 10, 1944. Nazi troops from the fanatical SS “Das Reich” division herded civilians into barns and a church and torched the village — the biggest civilian massacre by France’s wartime occupiers.
For Ukrainians, Bakhmut also is becoming etched indelibly in the collective consciousness. Its defense is already hailed in song. The track “Bakhmut Fortress,” by Ukrainian band Antytila, has racked up more than 3.8 million views.
“Mom, I’m standing,” they sing. “Motherland, I’m fighting.”
In other developments Thursday:
— The Moldovan government appealed for calm and urged the public to follow only “official and credible” sources of news after Russia alleged Ukraine is planning an “armed provocation” in Moldova’s Moscow-backed breakaway region of Transnistria. Russia maintains about 1,500 “peacekeeping” troops in the region, which is internationally recognized as part of Moldova.
Shortly before the Russian Defense Ministry’s claim, an adviser to Ukraine’s Ministry of Internal Affairs, Anton Herashchenko, said Ukraine and NATO could together return Transnistria to Moldova within 24 hours.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has previously stated that Ukraine is ready to provide all necessary assistance to Moldova.
Moscow alleged, citing intelligence data without presenting any evidence, that Ukrainian soldiers disguised as Russian troops planned to launch a false flag attack to blame Russia for invading Ukraine from Transnistria that Kyiv would then use as a pretext for an invasion of the territory.
Late Thursday, the Russian Defense Ministry issued another warning of what it described as an impending Ukrainian “provocation,” reporting a massive Ukrainian military buildup near Transnistria including artillery in positions ready for combat.
“The Russian armed forces will adequately respond to the provocation planned by the Ukrainian side,” the ministry said.
— Russian President Vladimir Putin gave another signal he is digging in for a protracted war, saying his government will prioritize strengthening Russia’s defense capabilities. Speaking on Defender of the Fatherland Day, a public holiday, he announced the deployment of the Sarmat intercontinental ballistic missile system and the delivery of a massive supply of Zircon sea-launched hypersonic missiles to Russian forces. He added that three Borei-class nuclear submarines would be added to the fleet in the coming years.
— The U.N. General Assembly approved a nonbinding resolution Thursday urging Russia to end hostilities in Ukraine and to withdraw its forces.
— At least three civilians were killed and eight others were wounded in Ukraine over the past 24 hours, the presidential office reported. Russian forces over the past day launched more than 80 artillery barrages of six towns and villages in northeastern Ukraine’s Sumy region, which borders Russia, local Ukrainian authorities reported. Ukrainian forces also repelled about 90 Russian attacks in the country’s east, where fierce fighting has raged for months, the Ukrainian military said.
John Leicester and Hanna Arhirova contributed to this report from Kyiv.
