Federal manhunt underway for man who was Larry Hogan’s chief of staff
Kathryn Watson – March 14, 2023
FILE: Prosecutors have accused Roy McGrath of collecting excessive expenses while in office, for illegally engineering a $233,647 severance payment from the Maryland Environmental Service when he left the organization to be Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan’s chief of staff and for fabricating a memo from Hogan’s office that showed the governor’s approval of the payment. / Credit: Pamela Wood/The Baltimore Sun/Tribune News Service via Getty Images
A federal manhunt is underway for Roy McGrath, once the chief of staff to ex-Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan, after he failed to appear in court Monday for the first day of his trial on wire fraud and embezzlement charges.
The U.S. Marshals Service launched an interstate fugitive search after a federal judge issued a warrant for McGrath’s arrest. McGrath’s face is plastered on a U.S. Marshals poster, which highlights charges against him for wire fraud, theft in programs receiving federal funds and falsification of records in federal investigations.
Roy C. McGrath Wanted poster. / Credit: U.S. Marshals
A law enforcement source tells CBS News that McGrath’s family was at his home in Florida when FBI visited the house Tuesday morning. The source said his high profile and the widely circulating photos will make it difficult for him to remain at large.
McGrath was scheduled to appear in federal court in Baltimore on charges related to his tenure running the Maryland Environmental Service before joining Hogan’s office as chief of staff in 2020. The 2021 indictment against McGrath says he sought to enrich himself personally by using his position as executive director of the agency and his role as chief of staff to the governor to engineer a payment from the agency he shouldn’t have received. Prosecutors also allege that McGrath falsified his time sheets while he took a vacation to Europe and that he stole money for classes at Harvard. McGrath resigned from Hogan’s office weeks after assuming the chief-of-staff job after an investigation found he wasn’t forthcoming about the $230,000 severance package he had received for leaving the quasi-government agency, according to court filings.
McGrath, 53, has been living in Naples, Florida, and was supposed to travel to Maryland for the trial, according to court records. It’s possible Hogan could testify in the trial. He was Maryland’s governor from 2015 until earlier this year; he has denied knowing about or approving McGrath’s severance payment.
McGrath has pleaded not guilty on all charges. His attorney, Joseph Murtha, said he doesn’t know where his client is.
“Unfortunately, I have no idea of Roys’s whereabouts,” Murtha said. “I hope that he is safe, and that we will soon have an opportunity to speak with one another.”
Murtha told CBS Baltimore’s WJZ on Tuesday he has yet to hear from his client. He confirmed McGrath’s wife spoke to law enforcement at the couple’s home in Naples, Florida. And he said she is cooperating with the investigation and has no idea of her husband’s whereabouts.
Rob Legare, Scott McFarlane and Matthew Mosk contributed to this report.
We have a huge salt problem. Millions will die without action, WHO warns.
Leo Sands – March 14, 2023
Salt grains on black slate board, dark background (Stefano Madrigali via Getty Images)
Seven million people could die of diseases linked to excessive salt consumption before the decade’s end unless governments immediately pass tighter restrictions on salt, a report by the World Health Organization warned this month. Its authors are calling on governments to implement stricter sodium targets for food, mark salt content more clearly on packaging and boost public awareness of the health dangers posed by eating a lot of salty food.
“Excessive sodium intake is the top risk factor for an unhealthy diet, and it is responsible for 1.8 million deaths each year,” said Francesco Branca, director of the WHO’s Department of Nutrition for Health and Development.
Eating too much salt is one of the causes of cardiovascular disease, which kills an estimated 17.9 million people each year, according to the WHO. It can also lead to strokes, which kill 5 million people each year globally – and other serious medical conditions.
Governments could save many of those lives by introducing mandatory limits on the amount of salt the food industry is permitted to add to processed foods, Branca said – adding that this accounts for the majority of sodium consumed by most Americans, rather than salt sprinkled on food in the kitchen.
“This is really something that doesn’t cost money to anybody,” Branca said. “It’s a simple intervention, but it’s incredibly effective.”
Most people in the world consume about 10.8 grams of salt a day, more than double the level recommended by both the WHO and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which suggests consuming no more than a teaspoon of salt a day. While salt is an essential nutrient, sodium – which constitutes 40 percent of it – narrows and stiffens blood vessels.
“If you retain more salt in the body, it slowly puts up the blood pressure,” said Graham MacGregor, a professor of cardiovascular medicine at Queen Mary University of London, who was not involved in the report but campaigns for reducing salt intake. “That raised blood pressure then causes strokes, heart attacks or heart failure.”
Many other health organizations – including the American Heart Association, the American College of Cardiology, and the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine – also recommend that consumers dramatically reduce their sodium intake. That position is based on decades of scientific evidence (including analyses of hundreds of published studies that underscore sodium’s health dangers) that remains unchanged despite several studies in recent years that have challenged it.
The WHO is hoping to reduce global salt intake by 30 percent from 2013 levels, a 12-year target agreed to by all 194 of its member states at the time – but which none is on track to meet, it said. Branca said he was considering extending the target to 2030.
In a review of salt reduction policies that have been implemented by world governments, the WHO found that just nine of its members had put sufficiently comprehensive measures in place to reduce excessive salt consumption – 5 percent of its members.
The U.N.’s health agency is calling on governments to improve public awareness around the dangers of an overly salty diet and advertise salt levels more clearly on packaging. WHO officials believe that mandatory salt content levels are also required to wean the world off its deadly salt habit – given the high proportion that is used by food manufacturers rather than added by individual consumers.
“There’s no point in telling people to stop adding salt in their food,” MacGregor said. “It’s already in there.”
More than 70 percent of salt in the American diet comes from packaged and prepared foods, according to the Food and Drug Administration, not from the salt shaker at home.
In September, the FDA announced that it planned to change the rules for nutrition labels on food packages to indicate that they are “healthy.” Manufacturers would be required to adhere to specific limits for, among other nutrients, sodium.
In response, the Consumer Brands Association, which represents 1,700 major brands, including General Mills and Pepsi, said the proposed rule was overly restrictive and instead suggested “revising nutrient thresholds to modestly higher levels for added sugars and sodium.”
Part of the reason food manufacturers continue to add so much salt despite the known health risks, the WHO’s Branca argues, is that years of adding too much salt to our foods has left people’s taste buds desensitized to excessive levels. “You expect a certain amount of salt, and you think that if you don’t have that much salt, the food is tasteless,” Branca said.
“Manufacturers don’t want to take the initiative to reduce sodium if there’s a competitor that has a higher content of salt,” he said, demanding that governments force food manufacturers to reduce those levels through mandatory targets.
The benefits of reducing salt intake begin relatively rapidly, scientists say. Blood pressure starts falling within weeks for most people, according to the CDC, and sensitivity to salt returns soon.
“Your taste buds will adjust to a reduction in salt, and you’ll be able to better taste the other flavors,” Branca said. Your food, he suggests, may even start tasting better.
The Washington Post’s Marlene Cimons and Laura Reiley contributed to this report.
Exclusive-Ukraine accuses Russian snipers of abusing child, gang raping mother
Stefaniia Bern and Anthony Deutsch – March 14, 2023
Scan of a document with a lineup of 12 Russian soldiers suspected in a spree of sexual violence in the Brovary district on the outskirts of Kyiv
KYIV (Reuters) – Ukraine has accused two Russian soldiers of sexually assaulting a four-year-old girl and gang raping her mother at gunpoint in front of her father, as part of widespread allegations of abuse during the more than one-year-long invasion.
According to Ukrainian prosecution files seen by Reuters, the incidents were among a spree of sex crimes Russian soldiers of the 15th Separate Motorized Rifle Brigade committed in four homes of Brovary district near the capital Kyiv in March 2022.
Russia’s Defence Ministry did not respond to a request for comment. Phone numbers listed for the brigade were out of order. Two officials at the Samara Garrison, of which the brigade is a part, said they were unable to give contacts for the unit when contacted by Reuters, with one saying they were classified.
During Moscow’s failed push to capture Kyiv after its Feb. 24 invasion, soldiers entered Brovary a few days later, looting and using sexual violence as a deliberate tactic to terrorise the population, the Ukrainian prosecutors said.
“They singled out the women beforehand, coordinated their actions and their roles,” said the prosecutors, whose 2022 documents were based on interviews with witnesses and survivors.
Most of the alleged atrocities took place on March 13, when soldiers “in a state of alcoholic intoxication, broke into the yard of the house where a young family lived,” the prosecutors alleged.
The father was beaten with a metal pot then forced to kneel while his wife was gang raped. One of the soldiers told the four-year-old girl he “will make her a woman” before she was abused, the documents said.
The family survived, though prosecutors said they are investigating additional crimes in the area including murders during the same period.
President Vladimir Putin’s government, which says it is fighting Western-backed “neo-Nazis” in Ukraine, has repeatedly denied allegations of atrocities. It has also denied that its military commanders are aware of sexual violence by soldiers.
The soldiers were both snipers, aged 32 and 28, the files said, adding that the former had died while the younger, named as Yevgeniy Chernoknizhniy, returned to Russia.
When Reuters asked for the identities of both soldiers, prosecutors provided only the name of the younger man. When Reuters called a number in online databases for him, a person saying he was Chernoknizhniy’s brother said he was deceased.
“He died. There’s no way you can get hold of him,” said the man, crying. “That’s all that I can say.”
Reuters was unable to independently confirm his assertion.
GROWING ACCUSATIONS
The two snipers were among six suspects accused in the Brovary assaults, which prosecutors say is one of the most extensive investigations of sexual abuse since the invasion.
After the alleged attack on the girl and her parents, the two soldiers entered the house of an elderly couple next door, where they beat them, prosecutors said, also raping a 41-year-old pregnant woman and a 17-year-old girl.
At another location where several families lived, the soldiers forced everyone into the kitchen and gang raped a 15-year-old girl and her mother, they said.
All the victims survived, prosecutors said, and were receiving psychological and medical assistance.
A pre-trial investigation is ongoing into the possible role of superior officials in the Brovary attacks, prosecutors said, in a case adding to growing allegations of systematic sexual abuse by Russian soldiers.
Ukraine’s Prosecutor General’s office says it is investigating more than 71,000 reports of war crimes received since Russia sent tens of thousands of troops over the border.
Ukrainian investigators know the probability of finding and punishing suspects is low and potential trials would be mainly in absentia, but there are also international efforts to prosecute war crimes including by the International Criminal Court.
While suspects are unlikely to be surrendered by Moscow, anyone convicted in absentia may be placed on international watchlists, which would make it difficult to travel.
Russia has also accused Ukrainian forces of war crimes, including the execution of 10 prisoners of war.
A U.N. human rights monitoring mission in Ukraine has said that most of the dozens of sexual violence accusations pointed at the Russian military.
So far, Ukrainian prosecutors have convicted 26 Russians of war crimes – some prisoners of war, some in absentia – of which one was for rape.
(Reporting by Anthony Deutsch in Amsterdam and Stefaniia Bern in Kyiv; Additional reporting by Anton Zverev and Maria Tsvetkova; Editing by Alison Williams and Andrew Cawthorne)
Zelenskiy: more than 1,000 Russian dead in Bakhmut
March 13, 2023
Relentless fighting surged in and around the ravaged eastern Ukraine city of Bakhmut on Monday, in a months-long struggle that has become Europe’s bloodiest infantry battle since World War Two.
To the north, Ukrainian paramedics raced to stabilize and evacuate soldiers wounded on the front line.
Russian forces led by the Wagner mercenary army have captured the city’s east but so far failed to encircle it.
A Ukrainian commander on the ground said Monday that all enemy attempts to capture the town have been repelled, while President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said late Sunday that Russian forces had taken heavy losses.
“In less than a week – starting from March 6 – we managed to kill more than 1,100 enemy soldiers in the Bakhmut sector alone, which is Russia’s irreversible loss, the loss right there, near Bakhmut.”
Reports of intense combat, also coming from the Russian side
Wagner boss Yevgeny Prigozhin – who is leading Russia’s assault on Bakhmut — on Sunday described the situation as ‘very tough’.
“The enemy is fighting for every meter and the closer we are to the center of the city, the harder the fighting, the more the artillery is shelling at us, the more tanks appear. The Ukrainians throw in endless reserves. But we are advancing and we will be advancing.”
Footage aired by Russian tv over the weekend showed devastation purported to be southern Bakhmut, with buildings in ruins and bodies strewn on the ground.
A Russian soldier said they went house to house, ‘assaulting’ the groups inside.
Ukraine has vowed not to withdraw, aiming to inflict heavy losses on Russia ahead of a planned counterattack later this year.
Moscow says taking the city would be a major success, opening a path to capture the rest of the surrounding Donetsk region.
As the fighting ground on, Moscow appeared on the cusp of a diplomatic breakthrough: several sources told Reuters that China’s President Xi Jinping could visit Russia as soon as next week.
Putin has touted such a visit as a show of support..
China has declined to ascribe blame for the war while opposing Western sanctions against Russia, and has said it intends to try to broker peace in Ukraine.
But the deepening ties between Russia and China are stirring concerns in the West.
British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak said on Monday that Russia and China threatened to create a world … ‘defined by danger, disorder and division.”
In an update to its foreign policy framework published Monday, Britain cast China as representing an “epoch-defining challenge” to the world order, declaring that the UK’s security hinged on the outcome of the Ukraine war.
Frontline City Braces for ‘Decisive’ Attack on Putin’s Army
Sam Skove – March 14, 2023
Mayor Serhey Yermak by Sam Skove
HULIAIPOLE, Ukraine—The lightning crack of shellfire has long replaced the hum of traffic on the streets of Huliaipole, a historic farming city on Ukraine’s front line.
On a February morning blanketed by the first snow of the year, though, the only sound on the nearly deserted streets was the whine of tires on fresh snow.
“No one knows why,” the Russians stopped firing two days ago, said the city’s mayor, 42-year-old Serhey Yermak, standing near the massive crater left by a Russian missile strike that killed his deputy in October. “Maybe the Russians are rotating their forces.”
Sam Skove
The town’s near-yearlong ordeal of Russian shelling shows what’s at stake for Ukraine’s much-heralded spring counteroffensive, which media report will likely happen nearby.
Western tanks—the first batch of which were delivered to Ukraine roughly two weeks ago—will likely be key to the assault. While they’ve yet to be seen in combat, Ukrainian troops are busy training on them in preparation. If Ukraine successfully breaks Russian lines, the town can finally recover from one of the longest periods of sustained shelling in Ukraine. If it fails, the town, already tattered, will face yet further disintegration under Russian fire.
While Ukraine has been tight-lipped about where its next thrust might be, experts have said that southern Ukraine is a prime target. “The south is the place where an offensive could be most decisive,” John Herbst, a former U.S. ambassador to Ukraine now at the Atlantic Council, told The Daily Beast. A counteroffensive there would break Russia’s land route to the occupied Crimean peninsula, possibly setting the stage for Russian forces there to “wither on the vine,” Herbst added.
U.S. Defence Secretary Lloyd Austin has said that the counteroffensive will happen this spring, without stating exactly where such an offensive might occur.
Not so long ago, Mayor Yermak sported a blue suit and white shirt to work. He first entered the town’s administration in 2006 and in 2017 was elected mayor, presiding over the mundane work of building parks, remodeling schools and trash removal.
Huliaipole, founded in 1777, is a small town clustered around historic brick buildings in the center, including a 113-year-old synagogue. It’s famous throughout Ukraine as the base of Nestor Makhnko, a military leader who used the chaos following the end of World War I to establish one of the only anarchist states to ever exist.
Huliaipole’s ordeal began almost immediately after Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine on Feb. 24 of last year. Two days later, Ukrainian media reported a loss of electricity in the town due to shelling, and on March 5, Russian troops briefly entered Huliaipole. The front line eventually settled just outside the town, with the closest Russian positions less than two miles away.
Avhustyna Psevdaklyayeva (left) and a neighbor.Sam Skove
“Be afraid of hell and the guy from Makhno-city.”
Yermak’s first task when the war began was evacuating the city. Around 12,000 residents eventually left the town, some on school buses provided by the city. Around 3,000 mostly elderly residents remain. Despite Yermak’s dismay, at least 93 children are also still in the city.
He then had to learn how to run a city in wartime. “Not a single thing prepared me” for the war, he said, reflecting on his 16 years in the city administration. Still, municipal tasks continue on. The hospital functions, although its patients are treated in the basement. The police still patrol, with their chief task being the prevention of looting and stopping soldiers from buying alcohol. The city still arranges trash, but its garbage collectors now dress in body armor and helmets.
Yermak himself ditched his suit for camouflage and body armor. A patch on the camouflage fatigues that Yermak now favors is a tribute to Makhno: “Be afraid of hell and the guy from Makhno-city.”
The town’s residents have been living without electricity, water, and heat since March. In one of the town’s Soviet-built seven-story buildings, Avhustyna Psevdaklyayeva, 67, and Lyudmyla Zhovnyrenko, 52, live with five others in a cramped, chilly apartment. It’s “very, very cold” Psevdaklyayeva said. Psevdaklyayeva is staying there due to the expense of moving on her small pension.
There is not much to do but cook food and tend to the cats and dog that also live there. At night, the residents sit at their one table and reminisce, said Psevdaklyayeva. “Each one talks about their memories and so the time passes a little faster,” she told The Daily Beast.
Thrown together in the war, the group are now friends. On one wall hangs a Ukrainian flag with their names signed on it, in commemoration of their still-ongoing ordeal. Not all relationships survived the war. “The war showed who was who,” said Zhovnyrenko. The two women said they keep an eye out for looters who visit the area, questioning any unknown faces.
Until Jan. 13, Psevdaklyayeva’s husband lived there too. He had a heart attack and lost consciousness, but when they called the hospital, they were advised to come on foot. They called the mayor who cajoled the hospital into sending an ambulance. It came too late, and her husband died.
On a drive around the town after leaving Psevdaklyayeva and Zhovnyrenko, it’s clear that the city is gradually fraying apart. The former city cultural center, a once-massive concrete building, is entirely smashed. In the downtown, flurries of snow drifted in through shell holes in stately old brick buildings.
As terrible as the situation is, it could get even worse if Russia ever launches a sustained assault. If that occurs, the town would more likely resemble other ruined communities across Ukraine that endured street fighting, like Soledar, Izyum, or Bucha.
Such an assault is unlikely in the near term, the American think tank the Institute for the Study of War reported in December. City officials, though, spoke of an intensification of shelling in December and January.
“We’re all for our counteroffensive coming soon,” Yermak said. “To tell you from a patriotic viewpoint, of course we’re not afraid. But of course everyone is worried.”
Mayor Serhey Yermak (left)Sam Skove
Several miles on the road away from Huliaipole, 37-year-old Alina Kovaleva and her 5-year-old son Gordei were celebrating the first day of the snow the way many families might: they made a snowman.
About 3 feet tall and with a carrot for a nose, the snowman stood on as Gordei, giggling furiously, hurled larger and larger snowballs at Alina, both of them wearing heavy winter coats.
Kovaleva said her village has Russian shells fall in it occasionally. When there’s shelling at night, she and her husband take their three children down into the cellar.
She wasn’t considering relocating, however. “All of Ukraine’s dangerous,” she told The Daily Beast with a shrug, returning to the snowball fight with her son.
Illinois enacts mandatory paid leave ‘for any reason’
Claire Savage – March 13, 2023
CHICAGO (AP) — Illinois will become one of three states to require employers to offer paid time off for any reason after Gov. J.B. Pritzker signed a law on Monday that will take effect next year.
Starting Jan. 1, Illinois employers must offer workers paid time off based on hours worked, with no need to explain the reason for their absence as long as they provide notice in accordance with reasonable employer standards.
Just Maine and Nevada mandate earned paid time time off and allot employees the freedom to decide how to use it, but Illinois’ law is further reaching, unencumbered by limits based on business size. Similarly structured regulations that require employers to offer paid sick leave exist in 14 states and Washington, D.C., but workers can only use that for health-related reasons.
Illinois employees will accrue one hour of paid leave for every 40 hours worked up to 40 hours total, although the employer may offer more. Employees can start using the time once they have worked for 90 days. Seasonal workers will be exempt, as will federal employees or college students who work non-full-time, temporary jobs for their university.
Pritzker signed the bill Monday in downtown Chicago, saying: “Too many people can’t afford to miss even a day’s pay … together we continue to build a state that truly serves as a beacon for families, and businesses, and good paying jobs.”
Proponents say paid leave is key to making sure workers, especially low-income workers who are more vulnerable, are able to take time off when needed without fear of reprisal from an employer.
But critics say the law will overburden small businesses already struggling to survive the post-pandemic era amid the high inflation that has gripped the nation for nearly two years.
National Federation of Independent Business Illinois state director Chris Davis said that business owners are best positioned to work with their employees one-on-one to meet their needs.
The new law is “a one-size-fits-all solution to a more intricate problem,” he said.
Bill sponsor Rep. Jehan Gordon-Booth, a Peoria Democrat, said the bill is the product of years of negotiations with businesses and labor groups.
“Everyone deserves the ability to take time off,” she said in a statement. “Whether it’s to deal with the illness of a family member, or take a step back for your mental health, enshrining paid leave rights is a step forward for our state.”
“This is about bringing dignity to all workers,” she said at the signing.
Ordinances in Cook County and Chicago that already require employers to offer paid sick leave have been in place since July 2017, and workers in those locations will continue to be covered by existing laws rather than the new state law.
Any new local laws enacted after the state law takes effect must provide benefits that are greater or equal to the state law.
Molly Weston Williamson, paid leave expert at the Center for American Progress, said the law “creates a strong foundation for employers to build from while generating a healthier, more productive workforce.”
But Williamson added that while Illinois’ law is a step in the right direction, U.S. paid leave laws remain “wildly out of line with all of our economic peers internationally.”
“In the United States, federal law does not guarantee anyone the right to even a single paid day off work. Not when you’re sick, not when you have a baby, not when your mom has a stroke. Not a single paid day,” she said.
Joan Van, a server at an international hotel chain and single mother of three, currently has no paid time off.
But the Belleville parent leader with Community Organizing and Family Issues said that knowing that she will have five days next year brings a smile to her face.
“It’s going to help out a lot of people, a lot of mothers, a lot of single mothers at that,” she said.
Trump tells Iowa campaign stop he’ll revamp ‘insane’ US schooling
March 13, 2023
Former president Donald Trump on Monday slammed the “insane” US education system and vowed to bring back “common sense” schooling as part of his “America First” campaign platform, touching on a hot-button issue that is expected to dominate next year’s election.
Speaking to potential voters in Iowa, he hit on what has increasingly become a cultural flashpoint in the United States, with Republicans taking every opportunity they get to assail Democrats over what they see as the encroachment of “wokeness” into teaching.
“We have to get back to common sense, and that is reading, writing, arithmetic,” Trump told the crowd in Davenport, in response to an audience question about schools becoming “indoctrination camps” that are “focused on sexualizing our children.”
“What they’re teaching in schools today is insane,” said the 76-year-old Republican, who is running for president again after failing to win a second term in 2020.
Trump had previewed his education policy blueprint in January, calling for federal funding cuts to programs teaching children “critical race theory, gender ideology, or other inappropriate racial, sexual, or political content.”
On Monday night, he also promised to champion school choice, the right of parents to elect principals, and state — rather than federal — control over curriculums.
“School choice is where it’s at,” Trump said, referring to a movement that seeks to use tax credits and vouchers to allow parents to opt out of the public school system in favor of privately managed charter schools.
“As president I’ll fight to expand that right to every single state in America,” he said.
And he repeated a previous pledge to “keep men out of women’s sports” — a reference to Republican efforts to ban transgender women and girls from sports teams that match their gender identity.
– Shifting polls –
Iowa tends to be deluged by candidates in presidential election cycles as it hosts the first nominating contest for Republicans, and remains high in the Democratic calendar after being knocked from top spot.
Florida Governor Ron DeSantis — Trump’s chief potential rival for the Republican nod and a major critic of progressive messaging in classrooms — himself stopped by the Hawkeye State on Friday.
Former United Nations ambassador Nikki Haley, the only high-profile Republican Trump rival to have officially declared her candidacy, also campaigned in the largely rural Midwestern state last week.
A Des Moines Register/Mediacom Iowa Poll out on Friday showed Trump still holding significant sway in Iowa, although his favorability rating among self-identified Republicans has fallen from 91 percent in September 2021 to 80 percent.
DeSantis was close behind, with 74 percent of self-identified Republicans having a favorable opinion of him.
And the share of Republicans who said they’d “definitely vote” for Trump if he were the party’s 2024 presidential nominee dropped from 69 percent in June 2021 to 47 percent now.
Democratic National Committee spokesman Rhyan Lake has previously accused Trump’s support for school choice as being an effort to gut public education while pushing to move billions of dollars towards private schools.
“Everyone will see right through Donald Trump’s desperate spin about his own record as the GOP field races to out-MAGA each other at the expense of America’s kids,” Lake said in a statement.
Russia’s economy holds up, but growing challenges test Putin
David McHugh – March 13, 2023
Russian President Vladimir Putin gestures while speaking at a news conference following a meeting of the State Council at the Kremlin in Moscow, Russia on Dec. 22, 2022. Russia’s economy has weathered the West’s unprecedented economic sanctions far better than expected. But with restrictions finally tightening on the Kremlin’s chief moneymaker — oil — the months ahead will be an even tougher test of President Vladimir Putin’s fortress economy. (Sergey Guneyev, Sputnik, Kremlin Pool Photo via AP, File)A view of the business tower Lakhta Centre, the headquarters of Russian gas monopoly Gazprom in St. Petersburg, Russia, on April 27, 2022. After a year of far-reaching sanctions aimed at degrading Moscow’s war chest, economic life for ordinary Russians doesn’t look all that different than it did before the invasion of Ukraine. But with restrictions finally tightening on the Kremlin’s chief moneymaker — oil — the months ahead will be an even tougher test of President Vladimir Putin’s fortress economy. (AP Photo, File) People wait in a line to pay for her purchases at the IKEA store on the outskirts of Moscow, Russia, on March 3, 2022. Furniture and home goods remaining after IKEA exited Russia are being sold off on the Yandex website. (AP Photo, File)A logo of a newly opened Stars Coffee in the former location of a Starbucks in Moscow, Russia, on Jan. 24, 2023. Crowds might have thinned at some Moscow malls, but not drastically. Some foreign companies like McDonald’s and Starbucks have been taken over by local owners who slapped different names on essentially the same menu. (AP Photo/Alexander Zemlianichenko, File)Few visitors pass inside the GUM department store with lots of boutiques closed due to sanctions in Moscow, Russia, on June 1, 2022. U.S. officials say Russia is now the most sanctioned country in the world. But as the war nears its one-year mark, it’s clear the sanctions didn’t pack the instantaneous punch that many had hoped. (AP Photo/Alexander Zemlianichenko, File)Deputy Chairman of the Russian Security Council Dmitry Medvedev, second left, accompanied by Russian Presidential Envoy to Ural Federal District Vladimir Yakushev, left, visits the Uralvagonzavod factory in Nizhny Tagil in Nizhny Tagil, Russia, on Oct. 24, 2022. Russia has weathered sweeping Western economic sanctions better than many expected. (Ekaterina Shtukina, Sputnik, Government Pool Photo via AP, File)
Western sanctions have hit Russian banks, wealthy individuals and technology imports. But after a year of far-reaching restrictions aimed at degrading Moscow’s war chest, economic life for ordinary Russians doesn’t look all that different than it did before the invasion of Ukraine.
There’s no mass unemployment, no plunging currency, no lines in front of failing banks. The assortment at the supermarket is little changed, with international brands still available or local substitutes taking their place.
“Economically, nothing has changed,” said Vladimir Zharov, 53, who works in television. “I work as I used to work, I go shopping as I used to. Well, maybe the prices have risen a little bit, but not in such a way that it is very noticeable.”
Economists say sanctions on Russian fossil fuels only now taking full effect — such as a price cap on oil — should eat into earnings that fund the military’s attacks on Ukraine. Some analysts predict signs of trouble — strained government finances or a sinking currency — could emerge in the coming months.
But other economists say the Kremlin has significant reserves of money that haven’t been hit by sanctions, while links to new trade partners in Asia have quickly taken shape. They say Russia isn’t likely to run out of money this year but instead will face a slow slide into years of economic stagnation.
“It will have enough money under any kind of reasonable scenario,” Chris Weafer, CEO and Russian economy analyst at the consulting firm Macro-Advisory, said in a recent online discussion held by bne IntelliNews.
Apple has stopped selling products in Russia, but Wildberries, the country’s biggest online retailer, offers the iPhone 14 for about the same price as in Europe. Online retailer Svaznoy lists Apple AirPods Pro.
Furniture and home goods remaining after IKEA exited Russia are being sold off on the Yandex website. Nespresso coffee capsules have run short after Swiss-based Nestle stopped shipping them, but knockoffs are available.
Labels on cans of Budweiser and Leffe beer on sale in Moscow indicate they were brewed by ABInBev’s local partner — even though the company wrote off a stake in its Russian joint venture and put it up for sale. Coke bottled in Poland is still available; local “colas,” too.
ABInBev says it’s no longer getting money from the venture and that Leffe production has been halted. Wildberries and Svyaznoy didn’t answer emails asking about their sourcing.
But it’s clear goods are skirting sanctions through imports from third countries that aren’t penalizing Russia. For example, Armenia’s exports to Russia jumped 49% in the first half of 2022. Chinese smartphones and vehicles are increasingly available.
The auto industry is facing bigger hurdles to adapt. Western automakers, including Renault, Volkswagen and Mercedes-Benz, have halted production, with sales plunging 63% and local entities taking over some factories and bidding for others.
Foreign cars are still available but far fewer of them and for higher prices, said Andrei Olkhovsky, CEO of Avtodom, which has 36 dealerships in Moscow, St. Petersburg and Krasnodar.
“Shipments of the Porsche brand, as for those of other manufacturers, aren’t possible through official channels,” he said. “Whatever is on the market is scattered offerings of cars that were imported by individual persons or through friendly countries by official channels.”
While 191 foreign companies have left Russia and 1,169 are working to do so, some 1,223 are staying and 496 are taking a wait-and-see approach, according to a database compiled by the Kyiv School of Economics.
Companies are facing public pressure from Kyiv and Washington, but some have found it’s not so easy to line up a Russian buyer or say they’re selling essentials like food.
“Maybe it hasn’t affected me yet,” 63-year-old retiree Alexander Yeryomenko said. “I think that we will endure everything.”
Dmitry, a 33-year-old who declined to give his last name, said only clothing brands had changed.
“We have had even worse periods of time in history, and we coped,” he said, but added that “we need to develop our own production and not to depend on the import of products.”
One big reason for Russia’s resilience: record fossil fuel earnings of $325 billion last year as prices spiked. The surging costs stemmed from fears that the war would mean a severe loss of energy from the world’s third-largest oil producer.
That revenue, coupled with a collapse in what Russia could import because of sanctions, pushed the country into a record trade surplus — meaning what Russia earned from sales to other countries far outweighed its purchases abroad.
The boon helped bolster the ruble after a temporary post-invasion crash and provided cash for government spending on pensions, salaries and — above all — the military.
The Kremlin already had taken steps to sanctions-proof the economy after facing some penalties for annexing Ukraine’s Crimea peninsula in 2014. Companies began sourcing parts and food at home and the government built up huge piles of cash from selling oil and natural gas. About half of that money has been frozen, however, because it was held overseas.
Those measures helped blunt predictions of a 11% to 15% collapse in economic output. The economy shrank 2.1% last year, Russia’s statistics agency said. The International Monetary Fund predicts 0.3% growth this year — not great, but hardly disastrous.
Estimates differ on how hard those measures will hit. Experts at the Kyiv School of Economics say Russia’s economy will face a “turning point” this year as oil and gas revenue falls by 50% and the trade surplus plunges to $80 billion from $257 billion last year.
They say it’s already happening: Oil tax revenue fell 48% in January from a year earlier, according to the International Energy Agency.
Other economists are skeptical of a breaking point this year.
Moscow could likely weather even a short-term plunge in oil earnings, said Janis Kluge, a Russian economy expert at the German Institute for International and Security Affairs.
Even cutting Russian oil revenue by a third “would be a severe hit to GDP, but it would not bankrupt the state and it would not lead to a crash,” he said. “I think from now on, we are talking about gradual changes to the economy.”
He said the real impact will be long term. The loss of Western technology such as advanced computer chips means an economy permanently stuck in low gear.
Russia may have successfully restarted factories after the Western exodus, “but the business case for producing something sophisticated in Russia is gone, and it’s not coming back,” Kluge said.
A Florida mother and daughter bought a house, 2 cars with a dementia patient’s $542,000
David J. Neal – March 13, 2023
Lee County Property Appraiser
Two Southwest Florida women hired to care for a 92-year-old woman with dementia instead cared only for the $542,760 they could steal from her financial accounts over two years. With that money, they bought a five-bedroom, four-bathroom house, two cars, paid off student loans and made credit card payments.
That’s all in the plea agreements of Cape Coral’s Diane Durbon, 58, and daughter Brittany Lukasik, 29, each of whom pleaded guilty in Fort Myers federal court to conspiracy to commit wire fraud. Lukasik also pleaded guilty to filing a false tax return because, as generations of criminals back to Al Capone have learned, the IRS still counts criminal income as income to be reported.
Mother and daughter each are free on $50,000 bond, have handed over their passports and can’t leave the U.S. District Court Middle District of Florida before sentencing.
What follows comes from Durbon and Lukasik’s plea agreements.- ADVERTISEMENT -https://s.yimg.com/rq/darla/4-10-1/html/r-sf-flx.html
Just before Lukasik became a licensed registered nurse in 2016, they were hired by a woman to take care of her aunt “T.H.,” a 92-year-old with dementia. Durbon and Lukasik would get a combined $2,400 a month to stop by T.H.’s North Fort Myers home daily, make sure she ate and “provide … social interaction.”
In October 2017, Durbon put T.H. on the phone with Vanguard as part of a plan to get into T.H.’s Vanguard investment accounts.
“A review of interior surveillance video footage from cameras Durbon had installed inside of T.H.’s home showed Durbon putting a script that contained the answers to the Vanguard security questions in front of T.H. before and during each phone call,” Durbon’s plea agreement says. “Additionally, before some of the calls, Durbon was captured on surveillance pointing to different portions of the script to prepare T.H. for the call.”
After coaching T.H. into authorizing Durbon as her spokesperson, Durbon moved money from the investment accounts to a prime market money account. That checking account powers allowed Durbon to order many checks (using the excuse that T.H. didn’t like to be out of checks) and write checks worth $1,000 to $9,600 to Lukasik. In this manner, the fraudulent family stole $231,659 from T.H. between November 2017 and July 2019.
During that time, in November 2018, Durbon got into T.H.’s TransAmerica annuity policy, using a similar coaching-and-phone call method to get T.H. to cash out the annuity. When TransAmerica questioned Durbon about her actions, she said T.H. was her aunt.
Durbon’s fraud induced TransAmerica to issue a $244,521 check to T.H. That check got put in T.H.’s Wells Fargo account, from which 92 checks totaling $372,092 were issued to Lukasik between February 2019 and March 2020.
What fraud on the Florida family plan bought
With the stolen money, Lukasik paid off $29,000 in student loans and made $100,000 of credit card payments. She spent $17,735 to pay off her 2016 Nissan Rogue and bought mom a 2018 Nissan Rogue for $26,354. In March 2019, she bought a five-bedroom, four-bathroom duplex at 544/546 SE Fifth Ave. in Cape Coral, then spent $100,000 on electronics, furnishings and remodeling.
The Lee County Sheriff’s Office, the U.S. Secret Service and the IRS-Criminal Investigation unit investigated the case. Assistant U.S. Attorney Trent Reichling handled the prosecution.
Las Vegas water agency seeks power to limit residential use
Gabe Stern – March 13, 2023
A home with a swimming pool abuts the desert on the edge of the Las Vegas valley July 20, 2022, in Henderson, Nev. Nevada lawmakers on Monday, March 13, 2023, will consider another shift in water use for one of the driest major metropolitan areas in the U.S. The water agency that manages the Colorado River supply for Vegas is seeking authority to limit what comes out of residents’ taps. (AP Photo/John Locher, File)Sprinklers water grass at a park on Friday, April 9, 2021, in the Summerlin neighborhood of Las Vegas. Nevada lawmakers on Monday, March 13, 2023, will consider another shift in water use for one of the driest major metropolitan areas in the U.S. The water agency that manages the Colorado River supply for Vegas is seeking authority to limit what comes out of residents’ taps. (AP Photo/Ken Ritter, File)Water from the Colorado River, diverted through the Central Arizona Project, fills an irrigation canal, Thursday, Aug. 18, 2022, in Maricopa, Ariz. Nevada lawmakers on Monday, March 13, 2023, will consider another shift in water use for one of the driest major metropolitan areas in the U.S. The water agency that manages the Colorado River supply for Vegas is seeking authority to limit what comes out of residents’ taps. (AP Photo/Matt York,File)In this April 15, 2015 file photo, a man takes a picture of the fountains in front of the Bellagio hotel and casino in Las Vegas. State lawmakers on Monday, March 13, 2023, are scheduled to discuss granting the power to limit what comes out of residents’ taps to the Southern Nevada Water Authority, the agency managing the Colorado River supply to the city. (AP Photo/John Locher, File)
CARSON CITY, Nev. (AP) — Ornamental lawns are banned in Las Vegas, the size of new swimming pools is capped and much of the water used in homes is sent down a wash to be recycled, but Nevada is looking at another significant step to ensure the water supply for one of the driest major metropolitan areas in the U.S.
State lawmakers on Monday are scheduled to discuss granting the power to limit what comes out of residents’ taps to the Southern Nevada Water Authority, the agency managing the Colorado River supply to the city.
If lawmakers approve the bill, Nevada would be the first state to give a water agency permanent jurisdiction over the amount of residential use.
The sweeping omnibus bill is one of the most significant to go before lawmakers this year in Nevada, one of seven states that rely on the Colorado River. Deepening drought, climate change and demand have sunk key Colorado River reservoirs that depend on melting snow to their lowest levels on record.
“It’s a worst case scenario plan,” said the bill’s sponsor, Democratic Assemblyman Howard Watts of Las Vegas. “It makes sure that we prioritize the must-haves for a home. Your drinking water, your basic health and safety needs.”
The bill would give the water authority leeway to limit water usage in single-family homes to 160,000 gallons annually, incorporate homes with septic systems into the city’s sewer system and provide funding for the effort.
The average home uses about 130,000 gallons of water per year, meaning the largest water users would feel the pinch, according to the agency.
The authority hasn’t yet decided how it would implement or enforce the proposed limits, which would not automatically go into effect, spokesperson Bronson Mack said.
Water from the Colorado River largely is used for agriculture in other basin states: Arizona, California, Wyoming, Utah, New Mexico and Colorado.
Las Vegas relies on the Colorado River for 90% of its water supply. Already, Nevada has lost about 8% of that supply because of mandatory cuts implemented as the river dwindles further. Most residents haven’t felt the effects because Southern Nevada Water Authority recycles a majority of water used indoors and doesn’t use the full allocation.
Nevada lawmakers banned ornamental grass at office parks, in street medians and entrances to housing developments two years ago. This past summer, Clark County, which includes Las Vegas, capped the size of new swimming pools at single-family residential homes to about the size of a three-car garage.
A state edict carries greater weight than city ordinances and more force in messaging, said Kyle Roerink, executive director of the Great Basin Water Network, which monitors western water policy.
Watts said he is hopeful other municipalities that have been hesitant to clamp down on residential water use will follow suit as “good stewards of the river” with even deeper cuts to the Colorado River supply looming.
Snow that has inundated northern Nevada and parts of California serves as only a temporary reprieve from dry conditions. Some states in the Colorado River basin have gridlocked on how to cut water usage, with many of them looking toward agriculture to shoulder the burden.
Municipal water is a relatively small percentage of overall Colorado River use. As populations grow and climate change leaves future supplies uncertain, policymakers are paying close attention to all available options to manage water supplies.
Santa Fe, New Mexico, uses a tiered cost structure where rates rise sharply when residents reach 10,000 gallons during the summer months.
Scottsdale, Arizona, recently told residents in an community outside city limits that it no longer could provide a water source for them. Scottsdale argued action was required under a drought management plan to guarantee enough water for its own residents.
Elsewhere in metro Phoenix, water agencies aren’t currently discussing capping residential use, Sheri Trap of the Arizona Municipal Water Users Association said in an email. But cities like Phoenix, Glendale and Tempe have said they will cut down on usage overall.
AP writer Susan Montoya Bryan contributed reporting from Albuquerque, New Mexico. Stern is a corps member for the Associated Press/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. Report for America is a nonprofit national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms.
