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U.S. measles cases surge to 555, with most in New York

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New York • U.S. measles cases have surged again, and are on pace to set a record for most illnesses in 25 years.

Health officials on Monday said 555 measles cases have been confirmed so far this year, up from 465 as of a week ago.

While 20 states have reported cases, New York has been the epicenter. Nearly two-thirds of all cases have been in New York, and 85% of the latest week's cases came from the state. Most of the New York cases have been unvaccinated people in Orthodox Jewish communities.

The 2019 tally is already the most since 2014, when 667 were reported. The most before that was 963 cases in 1994.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends that all children get two doses of measles vaccine, which is 97% effective.

Other states reporting measles cases this year include Arizona, California, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Missouri, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Jersey, Oregon, Texas and Washington. After the CDC issued its report Monday morning, Iowa officials said they too had seen a case.

Also on Monday, the World Health Organization reported that globally there are four times as many measles cases so far this year as there were at the same time last year.

Over the last year, the largest numbers have been in Ukraine, Madagascar and India, with each reporting more than 60,000 cases.


Telling the Passover story in the shadow of the Pittsburgh synagogue massacre

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After losing her mother-in-law in last October’s Pittsburgh massacre, Marnie Fienberg quit her job.

A federal contractor in communications strategy who lives in northern Virginia, Fienberg couldn’t go back to work after the shiva, or seven days of Jewish mourning, were up.

Later she realized she couldn’t cook a Passover seder either.

For a dozen years before the shooting, Fienberg and her mother-in-law, Joyce, had prepared the meal at the heart of the holiday together. Joyce Fienberg was used to cooking the seder meal — a ritual reenactment of the story of the Israelites’ exodus from Egypt — for as many as 25 guests. She always made matzo ball soup, sometimes three kinds — her regular recipe, a heartier whole-wheat version, and a gluten-free version.

That was typical Joyce. She doted on her guests and their dietary choices, wanting each and every person at her table to feel cared for and loved.

This year, Marnie Fienberg will do Passover differently. She has envisioned an ambitious project called “2 for Seder” that has caught on as a way to overcome anti-Semitism by better acquainting non-Jews with the Passover story of the biblical flight from slavery to freedom.

Using her communications expertise, she partnered with trusted Jewish groups that liked the idea, from the Jewish Federation of Greater Pittsburgh to the Anti-Defamation League.

So far, nearly 700 Jewish families in the U.S. and Canada have signed up, pledging to invite two non-Jews to the Passover feast, which begins April 19.

The idea began a few months after Joyce’s death as a way to honor her memory. The 75-year-old Fienberg was a member of Tree of Life for at least three decades. Her daughter-in-law knew she was there that Saturday, Oct. 27, as soon as she heard the news that a white supremacist barged into the sanctuary with an assault rifle and handguns and shot dead 11 Jews.

“I was thinking, ‘What can I say to help people do something?’” said Fienberg, who is married to Joyce Fienberg’s son, Howard. “And it evolved into, ‘Invite someone to your seder.’ This is something Joyce did. She encouraged people who didn’t have a place to go. This is what she would have done, and did do for many years.”

Of course, American Jews have long invited non-Jews to their seders. The meal, at which people read from a liturgy called a Haggadah that tells the story of God’s redemption of the Israelites, is familiar to many.

Over the past several decades, many Christian churches have undertaken seders — some to learn about the Jewish tradition and others as a way of teaching about Jesus’ Last Supper (though historians say Jesus did not attend a seder as it is celebrated today; the Jewish ritual evolved several centuries later.)

But with anti-Semitism on the rise and ignorance about Judaism and Jews growing, Fienberg considered the seder to be a perfect opportunity to discuss how the same fear of outsiders that drove Egyptians to enslave the ancient Israelites may have driven the Pittsburgh shooter as well.

“The seder is meant to inspire us to ask questions, to look at our lives, to look at what it means to be slaves and the struggles involved in that journey,” said Rabbi Evan Ravski, who serves as assistant rabbi at Fienberg’s Congregation Olam Tikvah, a large Conservative synagogue in Fairfax, Va.

When Fienberg shared her idea with him, Ravski quickly signed on to the campaign and offered some guiding questions for the 14-page “2 for Seder” kit that hosts can use to prepare for the evening discussion. He, too, will be attending a seder for 40, including many non-Jews, at his parents’ Connecticut home. That kit also includes a warm greeting from Jeffrey Myers, the Tree of Life rabbi.

This year, Fienberg has decided she can’t cook the seder meal without Joyce.

Instead, she will attend a seder in Chicago hosted by her cousins who have invited their entire neighborhood — including many non-Jews — to join in.

Fienberg is still mourning her mother-in-law, whom she described as a “woman of valor,” referring to the Book of Proverbs’ description of a good wife.

A native of Toronto who moved to Pittsburgh when her husband got a job as a professor of statistics at Carnegie Mellon University, Joyce Fienberg was the kind of person who formed deep and long-lasting friendships.

“If you were meeting her for the first time, she stayed in touch with you forever,” Fienberg said. “If she knew you were coming to Pittsburgh, you’d have a place to stay and a wonderful dinner. She made every single person, no matter their background, feel very comfortable.”

It was this quality that made Joyce one of Tree of Life’s greeters. After her husband died of cancer, she started attending daily and joined the synagogue’s board. Knowing the congregation was older and declining, Joyce wanted to make an effort to welcome newcomers.

It’s that ability to reach out to others that Marnie Fienberg wants to emulate — beginning with 2 for Seder.

She recently met with parents and students from last year’s shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla., and after the white supremacist attack at two Christchurch mosques last month, she felt called to write a commentary for the Jewish Telegraphic Agency.

“To the families that are reeling, I want to say that we in the Jewish community are your siblings,” she wrote.

Now she is searching for a way to do more.

I don’t know how to make this transition to being an activist,” she said. “I’m feeling my way through.” But she added: “We as Jews have a say in trying to stop these tragedies. We have an obligation, a religious obligation, to do so.”

Trump suggests he’s moving forward with his plan to send migrants to sanctuary cities

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Washington • President Donald Trump suggested Monday that his threat to ship migrants to so-called sanctuary cities is taking effect, even though it remains unclear whether such a plan is feasible.

“Those Illegal Immigrants who can no longer be legally held (Congress must fix the laws and loopholes) will be, subject to Homeland Security, given to Sanctuary Cities and States!” Trump tweeted just days after aides insisted the plan had been shelved.

Neither the White House nor Department of Homeland Security immediately responded to requests for comment Monday. And it’s unclear whether DHS has taken any steps to implement the controversial plan. Lawyers there had previously told the White House that the idea was unfeasible and a misuse of funds. U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement is already strapped for cash.

Sarah Sanders, the White House press secretary, had said during a pair of Sunday show appearances that the idea was just one option under consideration.

“Whether or not it moves forward, that’s yet to be determined,” she said on Fox, acknowledging that the idea had been rejected by DHS lawyers several times.

“The president heard the idea, he likes it, so — well, we’re looking to see if there are options that make it possible and doing a full and thorough and extensive review,” she said on ABC.

At the same time, Democrats on Monday asked the White House and agency officials for internal documents on the administration’s deliberations on its proposal to send detained migrants to “sanctuary cities” — cities and districts that don’t cooperate with federal immigration officials and which are mostly Democratic strongholds.

“Not only does the administration lack the legal authority to transfer detainees in this manner, it is shocking that the president and senior administration officials are even considering manipulating release decisions for purely political reasons,” read the letter, which was signed by three House committee chairmen.

The letter said the plan seemed aimed at targeting Democratic areas “in a bizarre and unlawful attempt to score political points,” citing news reports.

The proposal was rejected twice by administration officials, but Trump has defended the idea.

“The USA has the absolute legal right to have apprehended illegal immigrants transferred to Sanctuary Cities,” Trump tweeted Saturday as part of his larger push to tighten immigration laws and try to stop the flow of migrants across the southern border.

The plan comes as the administration has said it’s been overwhelmed by a flood of migrant families, largely from Central America, attempting to cross the southwestern border. The U.S. Border Patrol said the number of families apprehended in March, 53,000, set a new record, though Democrats say the administration is worsening the problem by aggressively detaining people caught entering illegally and limiting the number of applicants for refugee status who are processed.

The letter requests all relevant documents from Nov. 1, 2018, through Monday. It asks for them by May 3.

The letter was sent by House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerrold Nadler, D-N.Y.; Oversight and Reform Committee Chairman Elijah Cummings, D-Md.; and Homeland Security Committee Chairman Bennie Thompson, D-Miss. It was sent to Mick Mulvaney, White House acting chief of staff, and Kevin McAleenan, acting secretary of the Homeland Security Department.

Commentary: Jamal Khashoggi was right: Arabs still want democracy

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It turns out that the ideas behind the Arab Spring still have some life left in them. As you look at the latest pictures of triumphant popular protests in Algeria and Sudan, spare a thought for the late Jamal Khashoggi. Before his brutal death at the hands of a Saudi hit squad six months ago, the exiled regime critic (and Washington Post Global Opinions columnist) wrote eloquently about the Arab world's longing for democracy.

In his last column for The Post, he bemoaned how the lack of freedom in most of the region's countries left their citizens "either uninformed or misinformed. They are unable to adequately address, much less publicly discuss, matters that affect the region and their day-to-day lives. A state-run narrative dominates the public psyche, and while many do not believe it, a large majority of the population falls victim to this false narrative. Sadly, this situation is unlikely to change."

If Khashoggi were around now, I'm sure he would be happy to admit that he appears to have been wrong about that last part. The euphoria of the demonstrators in Khartoum and Algiers shows that he was right on the larger issue. Many citizens in North Africa and the Middle East are sick of tyranny and long to participate in the shaping of their own societies - contrary to what Khashoggi rightly called the "old racist statement" that "Arabs are not ready for democracy [because they are Arabs]." And it turns out that the popular uprisings of 2010-2011 were not the dead end some have portrayed them to be.

Today's activists know very well that the toughest part comes next. That's partly because they're building on the hard-won experience of their revolutionary predecessors around the region. In both Sudan and Algeria, the military has played a key role in deposing hated dictators. Now the pro-democracy forces there face the tough job of ensuring that the generals don't follow the example of Egypt, where the army at first helped the demonstrators to overthrow Hosni Mubarak - only to later topple a democratically elected government dominated by Islamists and institute a new military dictatorship even harsher than the old one.

Here, too, Khashoggi offered some vital insights. In his youth, he was a fervent Islamist. In his later years, having witnessed the horrors committed by extremists, he tempered his sympathy for religious activism with an awareness of the need to ensure fundamental human rights (including equality for women), freedom of expression and religious tolerance. He knew that many in the Arab world would choose Islamists when given the chance to do so in free elections, and that such a choice ought be honored and respected - yet he also criticized radical Islamists who showed only contempt for democratic values.

That's why he sang the praises of Tunisia, where the Arab Spring revolts began and where democracy has so far managed to survive, not least because the Ennahda Party, the Tunisian Islamists, opted for pragmatism and moderation (including power-sharing with their secular rivals in the first post-revolutionary governments).

Khashoggi realized that a liberal Arab future might well depend on bridging the gap between Islamists and secular democrats. "He was trying to begin a new way to bring different activists together," Ahmed Mefreh, an Egyptian lawyer and dissident, told me recently. "He talked to [members of the Muslim Brotherhood] about their problems after the Arab Spring. He gave advice to liberals about how to connect with Islamists."

Mefreh, who runs the Committee for Justice, a Geneva-based group aimed at defending human rights activists in the Middle East, explained that the Saudi royal family saw this approach as especially threatening. Those like Khashoggi, who can bring together the religious activists and the liberals, "are very dangerous to the dictatorships. Why? Because this is exactly what they're afraid of," he said. "The future belongs to people who can do that. If we can manage that in Egypt, we can change the regime."

Khashoggi was not the only one to see this as a crucial task, Mefreh told me; he was merely one of the best-known. Mefreh cited former Egyptian presidential candidate Abdel Moneim Aboul Fotouh as another example of someone working toward the same end. Aboul Fotouh, an alumnus of the Muslim Brotherhood, generated considerable respect among Egyptian voters for his efforts. Under Egyptian President Abdel Fatah al-Sissi, however, he has spent two stints in jail and has been included on a government terrorism list. There is little evidence that Aboul Fotouh has anything to do with terrorism, but it is clear that this is a man the regime clearly does not take lightly.

Before his death, Khashoggi was trying to set up several organizations to promote the cause of democracy in the region - particularly one that aimed, among other things, to provide “a counter narrative in the Arab world and the West to Arab Spring skeptics.” The events in Sudan and Algeria show that this idea lives on. We’re seeing that multitudes in the Arab world are still willing to put their lives on the line for the sake of political change. Surely they deserve whatever support we can give them.


Bagley Cartoon: Our Lady

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(Pat Bagley | The Salt Lake Tribune)  This Pat Bagley cartoon, titled "Our Lady," appears in The Salt Lake Tribune on Tuesday, April 16, 2019.(Pat Bagley  |  The Salt Lake Tribune)  This cartoon by Pat Bagley titled "Hog Heaven" appeared in The Salt Lake Tribune on Sunday, April 14, 2019.This Pat Bagley cartoon appears in The Salt Lake Tribune on Friday, April 12, 2019.This Pat Bagley cartoon appears in The Salt Lake Tribune on Thursday, April 11, 2019.This Pat Bagley cartoon appears in The Salt Lake Tribune on Wednesday, April 10, 2019.(Pat Bagley | The Salt Lake Tribune)  This Pat Bagley cartoon, titled "Radical Extremists," appears in The Salt Lake Tribune on Tuesday, April 9, 2019.This Pat Bagley cartoon appears in The Salt Lake Tribune on Sunday, April 7, 2019.This Pat Bagley cartoon appears in The Salt Lake Tribune on Friday, April 5, 2019.(Pat Bagley  |  The Salt Lake Tribune)  This Pat Bagley cartoon appears in The Salt Lake Tribune on Thursday, April 4, 2019.This Pat Bagley cartoon appears in The Salt Lake Tribune on Wednesday, April 3, 2019.(Pat Bagley | The Salt Lake Tribune)  This Pat Bagley cartoon, titled "Troubling Downturn," appears in The Salt Lake Tribune on Tuesday, April 2, 2019.

This Pat Bagley cartoon, titled “Our Lady,” appears in The Salt Lake Tribune on Tuesday, April 16, 2019. You can check out the past 10 Bagley editorial cartoons below:

  • <a href="https://www.sltrib.com/opinion/bagley/2019/04/12/bagley-cartoon-hog-heaven/" target=_blank><u>Hog Heaven</u></a>
  • <a href="https://www.sltrib.com/opinion/bagley/2019/04/11/bagley-cartoon-take-me/"><u>Take Me Out of the Barr Game</u></a>
  • <a href="https://www.sltrib.com/opinion/bagley/2019/04/10/bagley-cartoon-fer-hecks/"><u>Fer Heck’s Sake — Get Out!</u></a>
  • <a href="https://www.sltrib.com/opinion/bagley/2019/04/09/bagley-cartoon-name/"><u>The Name Caller</u></a>
  • <a href="https://www.sltrib.com/opinion/bagley/2019/04/08/bagley-cartoon-radical/"><u>Radical Extremists</u></a>
  • <a href="https://www.sltrib.com/opinion/bagley/2019/04/05/bagley-cartoon-official/"><u>Official Mugging</u></a>
  • <a href="https://www.sltrib.com/opinion/bagley/2019/04/04/bagley-cartoon-church/"><u>Church Approved</u></a>
  • <a href="https://www.sltrib.com/opinion/bagley/2019/04/03/bagley-cartoon-brexit/"><u>The Brexit Knight</u></a>
  • <a href="https://www.sltrib.com/opinion/bagley/2019/04/02/bagley-cartoon-national/"><u>National Security Crisis</u></a>
  • <a href="https://www.sltrib.com/opinion/bagley/2019/04/01/bagley-cartoon-troubling/"><u>Troubling Downturn</u></a>

Want more Bagley? Become a fan on Facebook.

E.J. Dionne Jr.: Our parties need to learn the opposite lessons

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It would save pixels, ink and talking time if we all agreed on the obvious: Democrats are more divided than Republicans and will remain so for the foreseeable future. What matters is everything else you say once this reality is acknowledged.

First, the facts: Democrats are more diverse than Republicans in almost every imaginable way: racially, ethnically, religiously and ideologically.

And the Democrats’ diversity is increasing because of the flood of new supporters fleeing Donald Trump’s GOP. Many of these newcomers are not registered as Democrats, meaning that they won’t vote in most of the 2020 primaries and caucuses. But their ballots helped Democrats win control of the House.

As for the Republicans, they are, overwhelmingly, a party of whites and Christians. They tilt male, especially in their leadership: Among women in the House, 89 are Democrats; only 13 are Republicans.

The GOP is the party of older people, the Democrats are the party of the young, partly because of the racial and ethnic heterogeneity of the rising generations. In the 2018 House races, according to the exit polling, Republicans won 50% among those 45 and older, but only 36% of those under 45 — and just 32% from the under-30s.

These data points explain a very large share of the standard political commentary.

The question raised again and again about Republican politicians is: Why oh why don’t they have the courage to speak up against a president who, many times a day, violates the most basic norms of decency, values many of these same politicians lauded before Nov. 8, 2016?

The question regularly asked about Democrats is: Why do they fight each other about so much stuff, including single-payer health care, the Green New Deal, immigration, foreign policy and, rather embarrassingly last week, the shape of this year’s federal budget?

The Republican question is easier to dispose of. The GOP has been working hard for half a century to become monocultural and mono-ideological. Trump has only accelerated the process. Most are happy to be bought off with judges and tax cuts. And please, no elitist alibis that this is all about those Trumpist blue-collar folks. As The Atlantic’s Ron Brownstein pointed out, using Quinnipiac polling from last year, 76% of white Republicans without a college degree supported Trump’s wall — but so did 71% of white Republicans who did graduate from college. And remember that over 80% of Republicans are white.

There’s a better chance of a Massachusetts politician coming out as a Yankees fan than of a Republican elected official turning on Trump.

Democrats love to say that diversity is a strength. Well, sure. If their coalition is clicking, it can amass a lot of votes — 9.7 million more than the Republicans in last year’s House races. And while they may disagree on tactics — impeachment now, later or never? — they’re united in wanting to contain and ultimately defeat Trump. They agree on other objectives, too, such as getting everyone health insurance, acting decisively on climate change and reducing glaring economic inequalities. But on these questions, too, there is a wide divergence about the “how.”

Those differences won’t be wished away. As Gallup reported in January, 51% of Democrats see themselves as liberal, 34% call themselves moderate and 13% say they’re conservative. The liberal number is way up (from 25% in 1994), but Democrats are a lot less uniform in their orientation than are Republicans, 73% of whom identify as conservative (compared with 58% a quarter-century ago).

Oh, yes, and if the House Democratic caucus is contentious, consider that 31 of its 235 members represent districts that Trump carried, and an overlapping group of 41 hold seats that went Republican in 2016.

There’s no way this crowd can prevail unless it studies one of the most boring words in politics, forbearance — patient self-control, restraint, and tolerance.

Some forbearance mantras and exercises: Goals are the litmus tests, not the means; the left is right to be frustrated over the excessive caution of earlier Democratic administrations, but moderates aren’t sell-outs for asking what the traffic of public opinion will bear; and keep looking across the aisle and think about what those guys — they are mostly guys — will do if they hang on to power.

As for Republicans, they need to learn the opposite of forbearance when it comes to Trump. They should look at those demographic numbers. How many decades do they think it will take to dig out of the wreckage this president will leave in his wake?

E.J. Dionne is on Twitter: @EJDionne.

Commentary: Benedict’s unfortunate letter ignores the facts in the Catholic sex abuse crisis

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The recent essay on clergy sexual abuse by Benedict XVI shows why it was such a good idea for him to resign as pope. In the letter released last week, he shows how out of touch he is with the causes of the abuse crisis.

Fundamentally, Benedict lives in a Platonic world of ideas where facts don’t matter.

Most of the media attention since a German Catholic magazine published Benedict’s 6,000-word statement has been focused on Benedict blaming the sex abuse crisis on the collapse of sexual standards in the 1960s.

Actually, he may have a point. Data presented by the 2004 John Jay report on clerical abuse showed that, both in the church and in America as a whole, the number of abuse cases began increasing in the mid-1960s and peaked in the ’70s. Something was happening, not just in the church but in the world.

On the other hand, sexual abuse was occurring before the 1960s. The church and America were just better at covering it up.

But Benedict also wants to blame sex abuse on contemporary moral theologians who challenged the church’s traditional, natural law ethics, especially as it applied to sexual ethics. Contemporary moral theology is less rule-based and, rather, takes a more personalistic and relational approach. Challenging the church’s opposition to birth control, as did most theologians, opened the floodgates to all sorts of sexual sins, including child abuse, in his view.

This is a fight Joseph Ratzinger has waged for most of his ecclesiastical career. While he was prefect of the Congregation for Doctrine of the Faith from 1981 to 2005, scores of Catholic theologians were fired from seminaries, reprimanded or silenced. Others practiced self-censorship to avoid the wrath of Rome.

It is flabbergasting to hear him in his letter complain that respect for due process kept him from dealing with this infestation. Too many scholars bear the scars of his inquisitional approach to dissent in the church. CDF’s procedures — where it acted as accuser, judge and jury — had no concept of contemporary ideas of due process.

It does not matter that no moral theologian can be found who condoned the sexual assault and rape of children. Facts don’t matter.

It does not matter that abusers came not just from the ranks of liberals like Theodore McCarrick but also from conservatives like Marcial Maciel, the founder of the Legion of Christ.

He points to homosexual cliques in seminaries as if they opened the way for child abuse.

It does not matter that most of the priests who abused in the 1970s were products of an old seminary system that existed before Vatican II, which isolated seminarians from the very men and women with whom they would work and serve. Benedict still considers this the ideal way of preparing priests. Alas, he still wants to blame post-Vatican II theology for all the ills of the contemporary church.

Most importantly, he passes over in silence the truly scandalous failure of the hierarchy to remove abusive priests from ministry where they could abuse again and again. The crisis is not just about the abuse; it is also about the cover-up.

Benedict’s essay is especially sad because, as prefect of CDF, Cardinal Ratzinger did more to deal with the abuse crisis than anyone else in Rome. I have always defended him against those who accused him of not caring about the crisis. He was not perfect, but he was far ahead of John Paul and other Vatican officials who were in denial and too slow to respond.

It was Ratzinger’s disregard for due process that allowed him to take direct action. Once he recognized the scope of the abuse problem, he often dispensed with a trial after simply reading the priest’s file. If the priest’s guilt was obvious, he was dismissed from the clerical state. Ratzinger broke the logjam of cases by imposing what some canon lawyers felt was the equivalent of marshal law. If he had not, it would have taken decades to clear cases through church courts.

His record doesn’t excuse his choice to release his letter. Benedict would have done well to keep silent or to have shared his views only with Pope Francis. His message is being used by those who oppose Francis to show what a real pope thinks about sex abuse.

Francis, unlike some of his liberal supporters, does not want to muzzle Benedict. Francis has never been afraid of free discussion in the church. After all, if Francis were to resign and Cardinal Raymond Burke were elected pope, I am sure every liberal would want to know what the retired pope thought about the new papacy.

There are at least three lessons the church should learn from this event.

First, you cannot muzzle former popes any more than you can muzzle theologians. All one can do is urge them to exercise prudence in what they say and then let the debate begin.

Second, the church needs to make clear that there is only one pope. A resigned pope should revert to his baptismal name and put aside the white cassock for a black one. He should not be called pope or pope emeritus. Ratzinger has a right to express his opinions, but they have no more magisterial weight than those of any other retired bishop.

Finally, since even dead popes are becoming rallying points for factions in the church, we should stop canonizing popes so soon after their deaths, lest the canonization be politicized. Perhaps a good rule would be to delay consideration of canonization of a pope until after all the cardinals and bishops he appointed are dead.

The message I would like to see from Benedict is one forbidding his friends from crying “Santo subito” (“Make him a saint immediately”) at his funeral. I would expect the same message from Francis.

The views expressed in this opinion piece do not necessarily reflect those of Religion News Service.

Greg Sargent: Latest Stephen Miller revelations require a tougher Democratic response

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When are Democrats going to try to summon Stephen Miller to Capitol Hill and grill him under oath about his direct role in so much of the chaos, incompetence and increasingly malevolent extremism gripping the Trump administration right now?

Miller, as the chief architect of President Donald Trump's immigration agenda, is a key figure behind Trump's ongoing purge of the Department of Homeland Security and the president's related embrace of ever-more cruel and radical policies. Miller's views drew fresh scrutiny when Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., tweeted that Miller is a "white nationalist" whose "influence on policy and political appointments" remains an "outrage."

But, while Miller's worldview has obviously been important in shaping Trump's policies, his influence should be understood in another way, too: He is one of the leading figures pushing the Trump administration toward increasing venality, corruption and lawlessness.

Remarkable new revelations underscore this point - and the need for a tough Democratic reaction to it.

The Washington Post reports that White House officials "tried to pressure U.S. immigration authorities" to release detained immigrants into "sanctuary cities" to "retaliate" against Trump's "political adversaries."

Relying on internal emails and interviews with administration sources, The Post reports that administration officials twice proposed transporting people detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement into sanctuary cities.

While these officials claimed this would ostensibly help deal with detention constraints, they expressly considered releasing them into House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's district in California and into other Democratic strongholds. According to one DHS official. the rationale was "retaliation" against Democrats who at the time were resisting more money for ICE detention beds.

But senior ICE lawyers advised that this would have no legal basis. The acting deputy director of ICE told the White House that "paying to transport aliens to another location to release them" would not be a "justified expenditure."

You'll be shocked to hear that Miller was apparently involved in this affair. The Post reports that Miller "discussed the proposal with ICE." As one congressional investigator who spoke to a whistle-blower revealing the scheme notes: "It was basically an idea that Miller wanted that nobody else wanted to carry out."

The problem with this ugly scheme, obviously, is the use of migrants and the wielding of their fates as political tools - the idea that they can just be dumped anywhere for the express purpose of pressuring public officials from the opposing party to do Trump's bidding. The presumption that this would pressure them is itself deeply problematic. Then there's the proposed use of public resources for this purpose, which is arguably corrupt and legally dubious.

This type of flouting of the law and unbridled contempt for basic governing procedure has also saturated Trump's ongoing purge of DHS. According to multiple reports, one key reason Trump grew enraged with DHS secretary Kirstjen Nielsen, and ousted her, was that she would not break the law at his command by shutting down the border to asylum seekers entirely.

Miller has been deeply involved in all of this. Politico reports that Miller has personally pressured numerous officials at agencies to do more to stem the influx of migrants, in what one official described as "intimidation." It seems plausible that, at a minimum, Miller may have egged on Trump to push Nielsen to break the law by banning asylum-seekers.

Miller should face deeper and tougher scrutiny from House Democrats about his involvement in all of it. They can hold hearings and demand that he testify, which could shed light on both Trump’s efforts to flout the law and on the colossal mess Trump is making of border policy right now.

"That would absolutely be a good use of congressional resources," Josh Chafetz, a professor at Cornell Law School who wrote a fine book on Congress's hidden powers, told me. Chafetz added that this is particularly urgent, given that in this "central area of policy for the administration," many of the initiatives "seem to be coming directly from the White House."

Chafetz said the White House would assert executive privilege to keep Miller from testifying, but that the House shouldn't accept it. "There's no reason Congress shouldn't learn what's going on with the formulation of immigration policy," Chafetz said. "If Miller refuses to testify, they should hold him in contempt." Chafetz suggested threatening to defund Miller's salary to compel his testimony.

Miller has been deeply involved in Trump's most consequential and disastrous decisions, sometimes in highly questionable ways. He helped orchestrate the slapdash rollout of Trump's thinly veiled Muslim ban, which proceeded despite two DHS analyses undercutting its rationale. Miller intervened to bury internal data showing refugees are a net economic positive. Miller played a major role in pushing forward Trump's horrific family separations, despite internal warnings that they would traumatize migrant children.

Yet we face a basic problem here. Positions like that of Miller - powerful but murkily defined White House advisory roles that don't require Senate confirmation - tend to be beyond basic scrutiny and accountability.

"Miller is effectively in charge of DHS," Douglas Rivlin, the communications director at America's Voice, told me. "If he's running the show and pressuring agencies to take outlandish or illegal actions, he ought to face the same oversight that Cabinet secretaries face."

Democrats should use every single tool at their disposal to try to hold these people accountable.


Pulitzers honor coverage of three U.S. mass shootings in 2018

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New York • The South Florida Sun Sentinel and the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette won Pulitzer Prizes on Monday and were recognized along with the Capital Gazette of Maryland for their coverage of the horrifying mass shootings in 2018 at a high school, a synagogue and a newsroom itself.

The Associated Press won in the international reporting category for documenting the humanitarian horrors of Yemen’s civil war, while The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal were honored for delving into President Donald Trump’s finances and breaking open the hush-money scandals involving two women who said they had affairs with him.

The Florida paper received the Pulitzer in public service for its coverage of the massacre of 17 people at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland and for detailing the shortcomings in school discipline and security that contributed to the carnage.

The Post-Gazette was honored in the breaking news category for its reporting on the synagogue rampage that left 11 people dead. The man awaiting trial in the attack railed against Jews before, during and after the massacre, authorities said.

After the Pulitzer announcement, the newsroom in Pittsburgh observed a moment of silence for the victims. At the Sun Sentinel, too, the staff took in the award in a sober spirit.

“We’re mindful of what it is that we won for,” Editor-in-Chief Julie Anderson said. “There are still families grieving, so it’s not joy, it’s almost ... I don’t know how to describe it. We’re emotional, as well.”

So, too, at the Capital Gazette, which was given a special citation for its coverage and courage in the face of a massacre in its own newsroom. The Pulitzer board also gave the paper an extraordinary $100,000 grant to further its journalism.

“Clearly, there were a lot of mixed feelings,” editor Rick Hutzell said. “No one wants to win an award for something that kills five of your friends.”

The Annapolis-based newspaper published on schedule, with some help from The Baltimore Sun, the day after five staffers were shot and killed in one of the deadliest attacks on journalists in U.S. history. The man charged had a longstanding grudge against the paper.

The Pulitzers, U.S. journalism’s highest honor, reflected a year when journalism also came under attack in other ways.

Reuters won an international reporting award for work that cost two of its staffers their liberty: coverage of a brutal crackdown on Rohingya Muslims by security forces in Myanmar.

Reporters Wa Lone and Kyaw Soe Oo are serving a seven-year sentence after being convicted of violating the country's Official Secrets Act. Their supporters say the two were arrested in retaliation for their reporting.

Reuters also won the breaking news photography award for images of Central American migrants heading to the U.S.

The AP’s international reporting prize went to a team of journalists who documented atrocities and suffering in Yemen, illuminating the human toll of its 4-year-old civil war.

As a result of the work by reporter Maggie Michael, photographer Nariman El-Mofty and video journalist Maad al-Zikry, at least 80 prisoners were released from secret detention sites, and the United Nations rushed food and medicine to areas where the AP revealed that people were starving while corrupt officials diverted international food aid.

“This is a story that everybody was not really paying good attention, and we’re very happy to be able to draw some attention to it,” Michael said.

Images of the famine in Yemen also brought a feature photography award for The Washington Post. The Post’s book critic, Carlos Lozada, won the criticism prize for what the judges called “trenchant and searching” work.

In the U.S., journalists have been contending with attacks on the media’s integrity from the president on down. Trump has branded coverage of his administration “fake news” and assailed the media as the “enemy of the people.”

Monday’s wins by the Times and The Wall Street Journal and freelance cartoonist Darrin Bell may further anger the president.

The Times won the explanatory reporting Pulitzer for laying out how a president who has portrayed himself as a largely self-made man has, in fact, received over $400 million in family money and helped his family avoid hundreds of millions of dollars in taxes. Trump has called the Times expose a false “hit piece.”

The Journal took the national reporting award for its investigations of payments orchestrated by the president’s former lawyer and fixer, Michael Cohen, to buy the silence of porn star Stormy Daniels and a Playboy centerfold. Trump has denied having affairs with them.

Bell, the editorial cartooning winner, called out “lies, hypocrisy and fraud in the political turmoil surrounding the Trump administration,” the Pulitzer judges said.

The Los Angeles Times took the investigative reporting prize for stories that revealed hundreds of sexual abuse accusations against a recently retired University of Southern California gynecologist, who has denied the allegations. The university recently agreed to a $215 million settlement with the alleged victims.

The local reporting prize went to The Advocate of Louisiana for work that led to a state constitutional amendment abolishing Louisiana’s unusual practice of allowing non-unanimous jury verdicts in felony trials.

ProPublica won the feature reporting award for coverage of Salvadoran immigrants affected by a federal crackdown on the MS-13 gang.

Tony Messenger of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch received the commentary award for his series of columns about poor people being thrown back in jail in Missouri because they couldn’t afford to pay the costs of a previous stint behind bars.

The New York Times’ Brent Staples received the editorial writing award. The judges said his writing about the nation’s racial history showed “extraordinary moral clarity.”

The journalism prizes, first awarded in 1917, were established by newspaper publisher Joseph Pulitzer. Winners of the public service award receive a gold medal. The other awards carry a prize of $15,000 each.


About Notre Dame Cathedral: A place of worship, history, art

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The Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris, a prime example of Gothic architecture and the seat of Paris’ Roman Catholic archbishop, was engulfed in flames Monday. What is its history, its significance, and how have cathedrals like it recovered from disaster?

When was Notre Dame built?

Its cornerstone was laid in 1163, and work continued through the 14th century, when its large flying buttresses — its famous arched exterior supports — were installed. The cathedral’s 850th anniversary was celebrated in 2013. It has been the most visited monument in France, according to the Paris Convention and Visitors Bureau.

What key events have been held at Notre Dame?

Napoleon was crowned French emperor there in 1804. Joan of Arc was beatified in the cathedral by Pope Pius X in 1909, centuries after she had helped France fight the English and been burned at the stake. Gen. Charles de Gaulle attended a Mass at Notre Dame when the French celebrated the liberation of Paris from the Nazis in 1944. It has been the site of royal weddings and was the location of the requiem Mass for former President Francois Mitterrand.

Besides these real-life events, the cathedral was the setting for Victor Hugo’s 1831 novel “The Hunchback of Notre Dame,” whose title character, Quasimodo, was played by Charles Laughton in the 1939 film and voiced by Tom Hulce in a 1996 animated Disney movie.

If Notre Dame can rebuild, what is the largest challenge ahead?

Money. “It is really challenging in this day and age to raise money to implement repairs for cathedrals like this,” said Jim Shepherd, director of preservation and facilities at Washington National Cathedral. “At Notre Dame, they struggle with raising money even for the resources they had to do their renovation.” The French cathedral sought donations from beyond its country’s borders — including from wealthy Americans — for the work that was in progress.

Shepherd said his U.S. cathedral has likewise struggled to pay for its repairs since the 2011 earthquake caused $34 million in damage (it still needed $19 million as of March) and is only halfway finished with its work.

He said Notre Dame will also need the right on-the-ground experts in the immediate aftermath of the fire.

“You’re talking about things that might be … 800 years old that they’re trying to pull out that might have been partially burned, partially damaged by water,” he said.

What are some examples of its treasure trove?

Its spire held relics of Saint Denis, the patron saint of France, and Saint Genevieve, the patron saint of Paris, said Laurent Ferri, the former “conservateur du patrimoine” (conservator of the patrimony) at the French National Archives.

“They were placed at the summit of the church in 1935 by the archbishop of Paris, to protect the building,” he said in a statement. “If so, they are now likely reduced to ashes. It is a great loss for Catholics and for art lovers worldwide.”

Ferri, now a curator of the rare and manuscript collections at Cornell University, added, “the cathedral is filled with sculptures, paintings, stained glass, liturgical art. I particularly admire the 14th century wooden panels depicting the life of Christ, and the 78 choir stalls in carved wood added in the 18th century. Now, I am afraid they might all disappear in the ongoing fire. We all need to hope and pray for the building, because it is part of the world cultural heritage.”

Do staffers at major cathedrals talk to one another about preservation, safety and avoiding crises like this one at Notre Dame?

Yes. Shepherd said Washington National Cathedral has a “friendly relationship with New York’s Cathedral of Saint John the Divine,” and their staffs have visited each other’s edifices.

“We actually just had some visitors from the U.K., from York Minster cathedral, who came to see how we were implementing our earthquake repairs and our fire and life safety repairs,” he said. “We have not had direct dialogue with Notre Dame yet, but I hope that we will as this disaster moves forward and they look for resources and need for us to give feedback about how they might get into the recovery mode. But we are a community of cathedrals that have unique problems that are specific to cathedrals and we like to make sure we are being as magnanimous as possible with our lessons learned and help each other out with such crises.”

What does it mean for a building like Notre Dame to be destroyed during Holy Week?

“This is the absolute worst time it can happen,” said Shepherd, of the Washington National Cathedral, of the week that includes mourning and reflection on the Crucifixion and a time of celebration of the Christian belief in Jesus’ resurrection on Easter Sunday.

“So, for the religious community to have this happen at such an iconic structure that would obviously have significant draw of not only local worshippers, but people around the world, it’s significant … and that’s devastating for a religious community that so depends on that as part of the annual reflection and celebration of that religious holiday.”

Can the Jazz tighten up their defense on James Harden and the Rockets in time for Game 2?

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Houston • The Jazz wanted to change the terms of engagement.

James Harden is perhaps the best offensive player we’ve seen since Michael Jordan, averaging over 36 points per game on a stepback three — nearly 10 points per game on that unguardable shot alone, which he makes 39% of the time — and with a relentless parade to the free-throw line.

“He’s always been a hell of a player. Even in OKC in limited time, coming off the bench, it was really effective,” Thabo Sefolosha said after Monday’s film session. "You can see that now, the way he dissects the game, understands the defense, and picks it apart, it’s pretty unique.

Utah knew that if it allowed Harden to do what he does so well, it would lose the series thanks to Houston’s vaunted, league-leading offense. So the Jazz decided to go with a defense that the NBA hasn’t ever seen for any other player: take away his stepback three by tip-toeing to the left and even behind Harden to prevent the stepback shot.

That gives Harden a wide-open path to the basket, and as devastating as his stepback three is, the alternative was worse on Sunday night. Over and over again, Harden found his teammates for open shots, whether it was Clint Capela at the basket for lob passes or P.J. Tucker and Eric Gordon for 3-pointers.

And it’s there where the Jazz need to provide more resistance. Sure, the strategy means that Gobert has to step up in the paint to stop Harden, but he’ll need help to prevent the dunk behind him. And when he receives that help, the Jazz need to do a better job of defending the 3-point arc, even if it is a temporary 2-on-1.

Whoever guards Harden can do more to stay attached with the NBA’s leading scorer, so it’s not quite so easy to throw that pass. You have to send Harden to his right to the entire drive, not just allow him free rein after one right-handed dribble.

“It was our first time doing it to that extent. Things worked, things didn’t work,” Sefolosha said. “We’re going to keep working on it and see exactly what we want to do next game. But you know, we just have to work on it a little bit more, it’s only Game 1, and there’s a lot of good and bad we can take from that.”

Sefolosha’s right. The Jazz have focused on shading Harden right before. But they haven’t ever done so to this extreme, where they’re actually even sometimes behind him as he operates, even as soon as half court.

As was clear by the final score, Harden wasn’t phased by the scheme. He doesn’t really put credit for that on the Jazz’s defense, but on his own abilities. To Harden, there’s nothing that the Jazz could do that could stop him.

“I’ve seen literally every defense you can possibly see, so it’s just a matter of adjusting and continue to communicate with the guys and what spots they need to be in, and that’s pretty much it,” Harden said.

The Jazz say that they can make life more difficult for Harden, though, and that they will in Game 2. They’ll base it around the same basic gameplan of limiting Harden’s efficiency, but they’ll need to improve everything else to have a chance to win.

“It’s a gameplan that’s not just for one game, it’s the whole series. We have to do it over and over again," Ricky Rubio said. “We have to make it tough for one of the best players in the league. We have to get to know the gameplan better.”

And the Jazz have trust in Snyder in terms of getting making the required changes to his gameplan. “As the series goes on, we’re going to get better, we’re going to make adjustments,” Rubio said. "We have one of the best, if not the best coach at making adjustments.”

That confidence in each other means that, despite the 32-point loss, the Jazz are keeping their spirits high for Wednesday’s Game 2.

“It was Game 1, it’s a long series," Derrick Favors said. "We just have to make some adjustments and play better, pretty much.”

Jazz remain confident, promise adjustments will be made against Rockets in Game 2

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Houston • On Sunday night, the Jazz were blown out in Game 1 of their first-round playoff series against the Rockets, ultimately falling by 32 points.

And yet, on Monday afternoon, no one was waving a white flag.

The Jazz know they didn’t play well. And they know the Rockets did. And they know a lot of things will have to be improved for the series’ second game on Wednesday — which they were confident would prove to be the case.

“We can tell there was a little bit of nervousness from it being Game 1 of the playoffs. We’ve still got a young group, so some of it is normal,” forward Thabo Sefolosha said at Monday’s media session at the Post Oak Hotel. “It’s behind us now, and we can just focus on being who we are, playing our brand of basketball, and going a little harder in Game 2.”

A lot of that going harder will have to come on the offensive end.

While much was made of Utah’s failed attempts to contain James Harden, it was actually the team’s issues on the other end of the court that may have been more problematic.

Joe Ingles struggled to beat defenders off the dribble, which negated pick-and-roll opportunities. Jae Crowder couldn’t get his shot working from long range, making only 1 of 7 from deep. Donovan Mitchell had trouble with the Rockets’ aggressive, in-your-face physicality. And so, the Jazz shot just 39% from the field; they were 7 of 27 (25.9%) from 3-point range; they committed 19 turnovers that led to 24 Houston points; they amassed only 17 assists.

Jazz big man Derrick Favors said it wasn’t a matter of the Rockets surprising them with anything unusual, but rather Utah’s players not responding well to what they knew was coming.

“What they do, they’ve been doing it all year. We’ve just got to play better and be a little more patient in what we’re doing, make better plays,” he said. “We missed a couple shots that we normally make, out on the 3-point line, up by the rim. Make a couple more baskets, be more patient, and who knows what can happen for us.”

Part of it, the Jazz acknowledged, is that the Rockets have a unique defense, with Sefolosha noting, “They do things differently than a lot of teams — it’s pretty unpredictable at times.”

But Favors countered that, after going through a film session earlier in the day, it was apparent that the Jazz had many opportunities they simply didn’t convert.

“We had some shots that were open that we missed, and we also had some shots open that we didn’t find, whether the guard didn’t get it to him or the big didn’t get it to the guys in the corner,” he said. “It just goes back to we’ve gotta be patient.”

He vowed there would be adjustments coming in Game 2.

Sefolosha, meanwhile, sought to reassure Jazz fans perhaps concerned that their team is simply outgunned in this series.

“We have the tools and the weapons to pick them apart,” he said, “and we’ve just got to do it better and longer.”

Indigenous leaders want less drilling near sacred sites

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Santa Fe, N.M. • Leaders of the Navajo Nation and Pueblo tribes expressed frustration Monday with federal oversight of oil and gas leases on public holdings near ancient American Indian cultural sites and endorsed legislation to restrict natural gas development around Chaco Culture National Historical Park.

Acoma Pueblo tribal Gov. Brian Vallo told members of the House Subcommittee on Energy and Mineral Resources at a hearing in New Mexico that not enough is being done to safeguard sacred sites scattered beyond the national park at Chaco Canyon.

Many of the sites involve more than just physical features that can be surveyed by archaeologists, he said, referring to the less tangible aspects of Chaco.

“Only we can identify these resources,” he said.

Lawmakers including U.S. Rep. Raul Grijalva of Arizona and New Mexico’s Debra Haaland and Ben Ray Luján said they were profoundly moved by a visit Sunday to ancient Chaco dwellings and nearby industrial sites, where they used infrared camera technology to view methane escaping into the atmosphere.

“You could see the plumes coming out and moving across the sky,” Luján said. “There’s no question that this is occurring.”

The House committee was exploring the possible impacts of air pollution on sacred sites. They also quizzed New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham on her administration's push to contain emissions of methane through stricter local regulation.

New Mexico’s all-Democratic House delegation is seeking to halt new oil and natural gas lease sales on federal holdings within a 10-mile buffer zone around Chaco Culture National Historic Park.

Grijalva said Chaco Canyon deserves the same consideration for protections as Yellowstone National Park, which received an ecological buffer under legislation signed this year by President Donald Trump.

The Trump administration is seeking to eliminate 2016 Environmental Protection Agency rules requiring energy companies to reduce flaring of methane. In response, New Mexico has initiated a process for developing its own regulations to reduce flaring and leakage, while giving oilfield regulators new authority to issue citations and fines.

Panelists on Monday did not include oil producers or Bureau of Land Management officials that oversee federal mineral leasing. Rep. Alan Lowenthal of California said Republican members of the subcommittee declined to attend the field hearing or appoint witnesses.

Oil industry representatives say robust protections already are in place within the national park at Chaco Canyon, and beyond the park, federal authorities including the Bureau of Land Management require detailed land surveys prior to drilling.

“Those archaeological surveys are baked into the process,” said Kathleen Sgamma, president of the Western Energy Alliance that represents more than 300 oil and natural gas companies. “Any development on those leases would have to go through cultural surveys as specified under the Natural Historic Preservation Act and other laws.”

She doubts the Republican-led U.S. Senate will endorse the buffer. “It’s largely a messaging thing at this point,” she said of Monday’s hearing.

The proposed buffer zone includes a mix of state, federal and tribal lands — as well as parcels owned by individual Navajos. A significant portion of the land would not fall under the legislation, which calls for tribal autonomy.

There already are more than 130 active wells within that area, according to the Bureau of Land Management.

In recent years, federal land managers repeatedly have deferred any interest by the oil and gas industry in parcels that fall within the proposed buffer.

New Mexico has promised to pursue its own moratorium on oil and gas lease sales on state trust land within the buffer zone, at the direction of Democratic State Land Commissioner Stephanie Garcia Richard.

The Bureau of Land Management continues to work with the Bureau of Indian Affairs on revamping a resource management plan for broader San Juan Basin in northwestern New Mexico and southwestern Colorado. It’s one of the nation’s oldest production areas.

The partnership between the agencies was meant to ensure tribes would be consulted and that scientific and archaeological analysis would be done to guarantee cultural sensitivity.

Mating condors return to Zion, but will they give wing to the park’s first chick?

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Rock climbers, move over.

Angels Landing’s sheer sandstone face in southern Utah’s Zion National Park will largely remain a rope-free zone for a while to avoid disturbing a pair of California condors that recently established a nest nearby.

It contains precious cargo: an egg that observers hope will hatch a chick in early May.

This long-winged scavenging species is recovering from the verge of extinction, but condors have yet to reclaim permanent residence and produce young in one of the most protected landscapes in their native range. Zion officials and bird lovers hope that changes this fall when Condors 409 (the would-be mother) and 523 are expected to fledge the chick that will hatch from the egg they are taking turns tending in the nest on Minotaur Tower, according to a post on the park’s Facebook page.

Thanks to captive breeding, condor numbers have rebounded from the brink; but, due to lead ammunition, many birds die prematurely from lead poisoning, forestalling real recovery.

These far-roaming birds can ingest lethal doses of lead when they dine on gut piles left by big-game hunters. When bullets strike a deer, they shatter and lace the entrails with lead fragments.

“Lead poisoning is a still a serious issue,” Aly Baltrus, Zion’s chief of interpretation, said Monday. “If hunters would take those gut piles, wrap them in plastic, and throw it in the trash, that would help.”

It is not uncommon to find condors dead in Zion, poisoned by lead they ate outside the park after hunting season.

Zion biologists estimate the park’s latest egg was laid in mid-March, with a hatch date in early May. The parents are a couple that have been spotted in the canyon for the past two years, but they have yet to produce a chick together.

The female once had another mate, No. 337, that died of lead poisoning in June 2016 during nesting season, according to the Facebook post. Their chick disappeared that September without fledging. That couple had another chick in 2014 that died before fledging.

In the decades since the California condor was driven to near extinction, a chick has yet to successfully fledge at Zion. A lot of eyes will be trained on Minotaur Tower this summer tracking the progress of this couple’s chick. Stay tuned.

Former Jazz center Enes Kanter making most of second chance with Trail Blazers

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Portland, Ore. • Looking back on it now, the Trail Blazers were clearly smart to pick up Enes Kanter after he was waived by the New York Knicks.

Kanter was brought aboard by Portland as insurance for the final stretch of the season, meant to back up starter Jusuf Nurkic.

Then Nurkic broke his leg and Kanter was thrust into a starting role with his new team. After Portland’s playoff-opening victory over the Oklahoma City Thunder, Damian Lillard dubbed the 6-foot-11 center the Blazers’ MVP.

“He had a huge presence down the stretch and played a huge part in us winning this game,” Lillard said after Portland’s 104-99 victory Sunday.

Kanter finished with 20 points and a career playoff-high 18 rebounds, and was effective on defense against the likes of Russell Westbrook and Paul George.

It’s been quite a journey from New York castoff to Portland playoff hero for the seven-year NBA veteran.

Kanter, 26, was waived by the Knicks following the trade deadline. Once a starter, he fell out of the rotation altogether when New York — which finished with the worst record in the league — turned its focus to younger players.

Kanter, who came to the Knicks in 2017 from Oklahoma City in the Carmelo Anthony trade, averaged 14 points and 10.8 rebounds in 115 games over two seasons.

The Blazers picked him up just before the All-Star break, envisioning him as the second team center. But on March 25, Nurkic crashed awkwardly to the court during a game at home against the Brooklyn Nets. Nurkic, who was averaging 14.6 points and 10.4 rebounds, broke his leg in two places and was out for the season.

Nurkic is a Portland favorite — fans donated to put up a billboard honoring the “Bosnian Beast” after his injury — but Kanter has since endeared himself, too. Kanter appeared in 23 games with the Blazers in the regular season and started in eight, averaging 13.1 points and 8.6 rebounds.

“I was on the worst team in the league and I wasn’t even playing because they thought I was too old to play, and with the situation and all the drama and everything, it was frustrating because I just wanted to go out there and win,” Kanter said. “Just a couple of days ago I looked in the mirror and said I am blessed to be here, with an amazing organization and amazing teammates.”

He’s faced challenges beyond the court as well. A native of Turkey, Kanter missed a game in Toronto shortly after joining the Blazers because he felt like his life might be in danger if he left the United States. As a result of his criticism of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Kanter had been labeled a terrorist by his native country. His passport was revoked and Turkey reportedly issued a warrant for his arrest with Interpol.

His travel concerns caught the attention of U.S. Sen. Ron Wyden, who has urged Secretary of State Mike Pompeo to tell Turkish leaders that any retribution against Kanter for his criticism of their government would be “unacceptable.”

Wyden, the senior senator from Oregon, personally met with Kanter before a game last month.

“Here in Rip City, we push back against bullies. We expose them, we try to make sure the world knows what kind of sleazy tactics they’re using. I told Mr. Kanter as Oregon’s senior senator and Oregon’s guy on the senate Intelligence Committee, that I’m in this fight all the way, because we’re a community that values the rights of free speech and free expression, and we don’t walk away when a bully comes in and tries to shove around one of our own,” Wyden said.

Kanter hasn’t tempered his criticism. Even after Sunday’s victory he posted to Twitter : “Great team win today! But feeling sorry for all NBA fans in Turkey as they can’t watch any (hash)NBAPlayoffs games that I’m playing in. (hash)DictatorErdogan government censors even the most loved games on the planet!”

The last time Kanter was in the playoffs was with Oklahoma City in 2017. He averaged just over nine minutes a game and at one point cameras appeared to catch Thunder coach Billy Donovan saying to assistant Maurice Cheeks, “Can’t play Kanter,” after the center got dunked on by the Houston Rockets.

Kanter said Sunday he’s since talked to Donovan, who told him that he never really said that. He believed him.

At this point, however, he’s certainly not dwelling on the past — either with the Thunder, the Knicks for the Utah Jazz. Kanter, who spent 31/2 seasons with Utah after the Jazz picked him third overall in the 2011 NBA draft, is simply grateful the Blazers gave him another chance.

“After we got the win I was walking to the locker room and I saw the GM Neil [Olshey] and he told me ‘What a great decision, right?’” Kanter said. “And I said, ‘I appreciate it. Thank you so much.’”


Dana Milbank: It’s the season for treason, according to Trump

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This must be the season for treason.

In the Oval Office on Thursday afternoon, President Trump gave a lesson on American justice to the visiting South Korean president. Speaking about the Mueller investigation and its origins, Trump said: “This is actually treason.”

This wasn’t offhand. On Wednesday, Trump tweeted that the probe was a “Treasonous Hoax” and that “what the Democrats are doing with the Border is TREASONOUS.” That same day, boarding Marine One, he reaffirmed that what Democrats and Justice Department officials did in the Mueller probe “was treason.”

On April 6, he declared it’s “about time the perpetrators ... start defending their dishonest and treasonous acts.” He added an injunction associated with the Holocaust: “Never Forget!”

This has become routine. Trump told Fox News’s Sean Hannity: “It was really treason. ... You are talking about major, major treason.” Minor treason is a thing?

Trump has publicly invoked “treason” or “treasonous” on 26 occasions, according to the Factba.se compilation of Trump utterances. That’s in addition to various and sundry “traitor” references. He began by accusing the likes of Bowe Bergdahl, Edward Snowden and Chelsea Manning, then moved on to include the executives of Univision and Macy’s, Republicans who didn’t support him, Democratic lawmakers who didn’t applaud him, the failing New York Times, the media generally, people in his administration who leak, and Barack Obama, Bill Clinton, Hillary Clinton, John Podesta, Eric Holder, Loretta Lynch, Huma Abedin, James Comey, James Clapper, Rod J. Rosenstein, Robert Mueller, Andrew McCabe, Lisa Page and Peter Strzok.

The Constitution specifically says treason “shall consist only in levying war against” the United States “or in adhering to their enemies, giving them aid and comfort,” and it requires two witnesses. The U.S. Criminal Code requires that those guilty of treason “shall suffer death, or shall be imprisoned not less than five years.”

The strict definition and grave punishment make treason cases rare: only about 30 in U.S. history. Trump must know this, because he has vowed to protect all 12 articles of the Constitution, even though it has only seven. He appeared to recognize the gravity of the treason accusation when it was leveled against him. “When they say ‘treason’, you know what treason is? That’s Julius and Ethel Rosenberg for giving the atomic bomb,” he said in 2017. (Actually, the charge was conspiracy to commit espionage.)

Because Trump knows the seriousness of the charge, he therefore must be interpreting treason the way King Henry VIII did, in the lese-majeste sense: Treason is anything that offends the dignity of the sovereign. Disagreement with Trump is an offense against the state, just as Henry executed unfaithful wives for treason.

This means the following people have committed capital crimes: All journalists and late-night hosts. Anyone who leaks. All Democratic members of Congress and people who worked in Democratic administrations. Anyone who ran against Trump. Anyone who criticizes Trump on social media. Anyone who voted against Trump.

This means 65,853,514 Hillary Clinton voters will have to be imprisoned or executed. The U.S. criminal-justice system can’t handle much more than the 2.3 million people it already holds.

This unfortunately argues for mass execution — unless exile is a possibility? Imagine the size of that caravan heading south toward Mexico.

Early on, Trump was relatively restrained in his treason talk. He even criticized Kim Jong Un’s liberal use of the treason charge. (Trump now calls Kim his “friend.”) He began applying the label more to the Mueller probe, and FBI officials, in 2018. He determined that “leakers are traitors” and said critical news coverage of his talks with Kim was “almost treasonous.” He said an anonymous op-ed writer and the New York Times both committed treason. He said Democrats who did not applaud at his State of the Union address were “Un-American. Somebody said, ‘treasonous.’”

Democrats continue to commit treason by disagreeing with Trump on immigration, though most treason these days is committed by Justice. An image Trump retweeted in November, showing various current and former senior law enforcement officials (including Trump’s own appointee Rosenstein) behind bars, asked: “When do the trials for treason begin?”

Trump’s new attorney general, William Barr, has been fueling Trump’s paranoia. His declaration this last week that law enforcement officials were “spying” on the Trump campaign prompted a new cry of treason.

During his confirmation hearings, Barr said that “the Barrs and Muellers were good friends and would be good friends when this is all over.” Maybe they can reminisce about their friendship while Mueller awaits his turn on the gallows.

Follow Dana Milbank on Twitter, @Milbank.

Commentary: Like fire-gutted Notre Dame, Europe’s Catholic Church is shell of what it once was

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As fire devastates the Cathedral of Notre Dame in Paris, the building is as much a symbol of the recent history of the Catholic Church in Europe as it once was a symbol of the Church’s power and cultural supremacy. The church had been in disrepair for decades. Calls for its restoration went mostly ignored until too late. Now that it is in ashes, people weep for its loss.

In recent decades, Notre Dame was more a tourist destination than a place of pilgrimage or a seat of Catholic potency. More people could tell you the story of its fictitious bell-ringing hunchback than of any one of its bishops. Inside, more selfies took place than prayers, and there were more art connoisseurs among its enthusiasts than worshippers.

This spiritual emptiness didn’t come overnight. The church in Europe has been the target of secularists and anticlericals for centuries — since long before the secularizing revolution that happened on its doorstep. Much of the criticism was richly deserved. The church’s hierarchy sided with the nobility against the forces of modernization in the 18th and 19th centuries. It opposed free press, free speech, and religious liberty.

By opposing political freedoms and unions in the 19th century, the church lost European men. In its opposition to feminism, it lost women at the end of the 20th century.

Only in the Eastern bloc countries, like Poland, where the church stood with the people against Communist oppression, did it flourish, but once freedom came, the Polish church, too, lost the people because of its clerical arrogance in trying to dictate public policy.

Those who engineered and cheered the destruction of clerical power and the influence of the church had little to put in its place. Libertarian capitalism exploited workers and consumers and destroyed the environment. The power of the media was used to create celebrities, sensationalize news and sell commodities. Democracy has given way to narrow-minded nationalism.

Pope Francis is a lone voice in Europe for the common good, respect for the stranger and values more important than the almighty dollar, but there is no institutional strength supporting his message. The church is a shell of what it once was.

Yes, let us weep for Notre Dame, but we have lost more than a building.

The views expressed in this opinion piece do not necessarily reflect those of Religion News Service.

Body found in American Fork Canyon may be that of missing runner

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The body of a woman who disappeared while running last year may have been found in American Fork Canyon, Utah County sheriff's deputies said.

A climber on Sunday found human remains in a ravine near the Swinging Bridge picnic site, along with several personal items matching the description of belongings of Jerika Binks, 24, who disappeared in February 2018.

Binks left to go running on Feb. 18 but did not return, deputies said.

There were signs of injury on the person's body, but police do not suspect foul play.

“The terrain is extremely rugged and steep and the remains were located on the north side of the canyon about 850 feet above the floor of the canyon,” deputies wrote in a news statement.

It is not clear whether the person fell from higher up in the canyon or became otherwise injured in the canyon. Deputies did not disclose any details in the possible cause of the person’s death, which they expect will be established in an autopsy that also will confirm the identity.

With billions to spend, feds try to figure out what rural communities need broadband

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There is a way around the notoriously sluggish internet in West Virginia. You just need a car and some time.

Kelly Povroznik can tell you, when she happens to get a good signal. She teaches an online college course so hampered by unreliable connections that she has had to drive a half-hour to her brother’s place just to enter grades into a database.

“It added so much additional work for me, and I just don’t have the time,” said Povroznik, who lives in Weston, W.Va. “I just kept wanting to beat my head into a wall.”

Across rural America, a bandwidth gap separates communities like Weston from an increasingly digital world where high-speed internet has become a fundamental component of modern life, putting them at a disadvantage when it comes to economic growth and quality of life advancements.

A $4.5 billion federal grant program earmarked to expand wireless internet in rural areas was supposed to address the problem, but it’s on hold while the Federal Communications Commission investigates whether carriers submitted incorrect data for the maps used to allocate grants.

The broadband maps deemed Weston, a city of about 4,000 people, too well connected to qualify for a grant — even though the problems there are obvious to anyone who’s tried to send emails from their phones or gotten lost because Google Maps wouldn’t work.

FCC Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel concedes that the agency doesn’t know for sure where the needs are most acute, calling it “embarrassing” and “shameful.”

“Our maps simply do not reflect the state of deployment on the ground. That’s a problem,” Rosenworcel said. “We have a digital divide in this country with millions of Americans who lack broadband where they live. If we want to fix this gap and close this divide, we first need an honest accounting of high-speed service in every community across the country.”

Lawmakers across the country are concerned that flawed, carrier-submitted maps on cellphone and home internet connectivity are crippling the effectiveness of various grant programs. In February, West Virginia Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin joined 10 other senators in pushing the FCC for more accurate baselines.

Disagreements over the data have led to wildly different figures on high-speed internet availability nationwide — and a growing sense that the government just doesn't know.

On one end, the FCC says more than 24 million people lack access to broadband at home. On the other, a recent study by Microsoft — which is pushing its own approach to extending broadband to rural areas — found that 162.8 million Americans don’t use the internet at high speeds, a problem that may point to cost of access, as well as lack of availability.

Part of the discrepancy has to do with how the FCC collects data. The agency considers an entire area covered if a carrier reports that a single building on a census block has fast internet speeds. Experts say this method allows carriers to attract more customers by advertising larger coverage areas. Critics argue that it is a poor way to determine internet speeds and have long called for more granular data.

Complaints about the wireless map have poured in to the FCC. The Rural Wireless Association, a trade group, asked the agency to investigate data submitted by Verizon and T-Mobile, suggesting the companies overstated coverage. The companies have denied doing so.

The February letter from Manchin and the other senators implored FCC Chairman Ajit Pai to use crowdsourced data and public feedback to create more accurate maps. Some of them have since introduced legislation to force the FCC to widen the scope.

Federal lawmakers from New Hampshire sent a separate letter, saying the FCC was forcing cash-strapped local governments there to disprove overstated claims made by carriers in the agency’s formal process for challenging the mapping data.

All told, only about 20 percent of the 106 carriers, government and tribal entities who could have challenged the FCC's wireless map data actually did so, according to the FCC.

The whole process frustrated Manchin, who told the AP in an email: “As long as we continue to rely on carriers just telling us what they cover, we will never have a complete picture that depicts the real-world experiences of West Virginians.”

The FCC put the grant process for the $4.5 billion program on hold late last year as it launched an investigation into whether one or more major carriers violated rules and submitted incorrect maps. The investigation is ongoing.

Christopher Ali, an assistant professor of media studies at the University of Virginia, said the looming mapping question leaves the government flailing blindly at a problem that prevents it from meeting the needs of rural America.

“We can’t fix a problem when we don’t know where it exists,” he said, “and at the moment we don’t know where broadband deserts exist.”

Povroznik knows they exist in Weston, where she had to come up with work-arounds — including jumping in her car — to cope with spotty connections that disrupted her ability to field questions submitted by students online. She saw some improvement after switching service providers.

“In this technologically advanced world that we live in, it shouldn’t have been as difficult as it was for me to get this situation resolved,” she said.


Bernie Sanders releases 10 years of long-awaited tax returns

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Washington • Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders on Monday released 10 years of his long-anticipated tax returns as he campaigns for the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination.

The returns provide a more detailed look at Sanders' finances than when he ran for president in 2016. The release also confirms that Sanders' income crossed the $1 million threshold in 2016 and 2017, though he reported less earnings in his most recent return.

His 2018 return reveals that he and his wife, Jane, earned more than $550,000, including $133,000 in income from his Senate salary and $391,000 in sales of his book, "Our Revolution: A Future to Believe In." Sanders' campaign said in a news release that he paid 26% effective tax rate in 2018.

During his first presidential bid, Sanders released just one year of his tax returns despite primary rival Hillary Clinton pushing him to follow her lead and release multiple years of tax information. He declined to do so, disclosing only his tax return for 2014. Tax transparency has been in the spotlight as Donald Trump bucks decades of presidential tradition by declining to show voters his tax filings and House Democrats seek to force him to turn them over.

During a Fox News Channel town hall on Monday, Sanders said that he'd increased his income by publishing a book — he's written two with campaign themes — and that he wouldn't apologize for that. He also challenged Trump to release his tax returns.

"I guess the president watches your network a little bit, right?" Sanders said to the moderators. "Hey, President Trump. My wife and I just released 10 years. Please do the same."

The filings show that Sanders, who throughout his career has called for an economy and government that works for everyone and not just the 1 percent, is among the top 1 percent of earners in the U.S. According to the liberal-leaning Economic Policy Institute. families in the U.S. earning $421,926 or more a year are part of this group.

In a statement accompanying the release, Sanders said that the returns show that his family has been "fortunate," something he is grateful for after growing up in a family that lived paycheck to paycheck.

"I consider paying more in taxes as my income rose to be both an obligation and an investment in our country. I will continue to fight to make our tax system more progressive so that our country has the resources to guarantee the American Dream to all people," Sanders added.

Sanders, 77, has also listed Social Security payments for each year of the decade of tax returns he made available Monday. By 2018, his wife, 69, was also taking Social Security, providing the couple with nearly $52,000 for the year.

Sanders' status as a millionaire, which he acknowledged last week, was cemented in his 2017 statement. That year, Sanders disclosed $1.31 million income, combined from his Senate salary and $961,000 in book royalties and sales. His higher income in two of the three most recent years could potentially prompt questions from voters about his frequent criticisms of the influence that millionaires and billionaires have over the political process.

Sanders and his wife disclosed $36,300 in charitable contributions in 2017, but their return does not detail each individual contribution. That same year, the couple announced publicly that they had donated $25,000 as a grant to launch the Sanders Institute, a nonprofit educational organization aligned with the senator's political and ideological interests.

Jane Sanders was a co-founder of the nonprofit, along with her son, David Driscoll, who became the institute's executive director. Sanders and his wife put the institute on hiatus last month amid criticism that the nonprofit blurred lines between family, fundraising and campaigning. Jane Sanders said the nonprofit would cease operations beginning in May "so there could not even be an appearance of impropriety."

A number of Sanders' rivals for the Democratic presidential nomination — including Sens. Kirsten Gillibrand of New York, Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, Kamala Harris of California and Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota — have released tax records to varying degrees. Gillibrand was the first candidate to release her 2018 tax returns, and her campaign released a video in which she called on other candidates to join her.

Warren, who has also already released her 2018 tax returns, made public 10 years of tax information last year. Harris released 15 years of tax returns over the weekend. Klobuchar released her 2018 tax return on Monday and said in a campaign video that she hoped Trump, who spent the day campaigning in Minnesota, would release his own taxes on his trip to the state. (He didn’t.)

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