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2023年7月6日星期四

What to Know About the U.S. Soccer Team in the 2023 Womens World Cup

Generational behaviors often confound the members of the 2023 U.S. Women’s National Soccer Team (USWNT). In that sense, the USWNT locker room is not unlike most modern-day American workplaces. While older players scoff at the habits of the near-teenagers on the squad, with their TikToks and uses of phrases like “rizz”—that’s Gen Z shorthand for charisma—the young guns find the oldheads just as baffling.

“Some of the songs they’re all listening to, I have no idea what they are,” says U.S. forward Sophia Smith, 22, the reigning National Women’s Soccer League (NWSL) MVP who will make her World Cup debut on July 21, when the U.S. kicks off its group-stage campaign against Vietnam in Auckland, New Zealand. “They sound like my parents.”
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According to Smith, the elder American soccer players will drone on about the technology they used back in the old days. “Like the CD player,” says Smith, who leads the NWSL in goals scored this season. “Stuff that I just don’t know.” Smith has learned that at one time, googling wasn’t a verb: other internet search sites existed in the pre-Google era. “So odd,” she says. And forget about their fondness for ancient cultural artifacts. “I won’t watch any movie,” says Smith, “that’s grainy.”

The USWNT is seeking history this summer, in trying to become the first team—women’s or men’s—to three-peat at a World Cup. But after stirring victories in 2015 in Canada and four years ago in France, America is a team in transition. Their ages range, in the words of Alex Morgan, “from 18 to Pinoe.” Established superstars like Megan Rapinoe, 38, and Morgan, 35—who along with defender Kelley O’Hara, 34, are making their fourth World Cup appearance—will provide veteran leadership and firepower; Morgan, in particular, appears in top form. At the same time, the team will feature 14 newcomers, including young front-line players like Smith, Trinity Rodman, 21, and prodigy Alyssa Thompson, 18. No USWNT squad has experienced more turnover between World Cups. Morgan is about to make her 207th national-team appearance. Midfielder Savannah DeMelo, 25, will make her first.

More than ever, the team reflects the diversity of the country it represents. There are nine women of color on the roster—including seven Black women—a welcome development considering that soccer has traditionally been a mostly white sport in the U.S.

Brad Smith—USSF/Getty ImagesSophia Smith takes a shot during USWNT training at Cagan Stadium in Stanford, Calif., on July 3, 2023.

Blending World Cup experience with rookie legs—and potentially nervous brains, facing the global glare of the World Cup for the first time—will determine America’s fate at the tournament, being held for the first time in two countries: Australia and New Zealand. As is their wont, the American women—who after all are four-time World Cup champions and still the betting favorite—exude nothing but confidence. Midfielder Kristie Mewis has a unique view. At 32, she identifies as an older player. But she’s playing in her first World Cup, so she may face the same challenges as her younger compatriots. “The fresh faces and fresh energy,” says Mewis, “but also the wisdom and experience that the older players have, the combination is going to be deadly.”

U.S. vs The World

What a difference four years makes. Going into the 2019 World Cup in France, the USWNT players were suing their bosses. The team’s fight for pay equal to that of their male counterparts dominated headlines leading up to the tournament. While that lawsuit galvanized a movement for pay equality, both within the United States and beyond its borders, the case did add a layer of stress to the World Cup effort. What’s more, the team’s star player, Megan Rapinoe, became embroiled in a Twitter-spat with then President Donald Trump.

In the U.S., the women achieved its pay-parity victory last year, when the players signed an historic collective bargaining agreement (CBA) with U.S. Soccer that guarantees the women equal payments for international competition, and evenly splits FIFA World Cup prize money for women and men players. And a verbal war with President Joe Biden, who helped reveal the World Cup roster in June and awarded Rapinoe the Presidential Medal of Freedom a year ago, seems highly unlikely.

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So the team enters the World Cup facing fewer distractions. Still, the USWNT remains under intense pressure. Anything less than a third straight title counts as a monumental failure.

“You didn’t see it when we walked in?” Rapinoe responded, at the team’s June media day in Los Angeles, when asked if the players felt they had a target on their back. “Still there. Always there.”

What’s more, the rest of the world has reason to puff its chest. Soccer-mad nations outside the U.S. have finally figured out that investing in women pays off. Last year’s European Championship, for example, was a stunning success. England won the tournament on home soil, and the event set viewership and attendance records. England then knocked off the U.S. in a friendly at Wembley Stadium in October. The U.S. also lost to Spain and Germany, handing the Americans their first three-game losing streak since 1993.

How do the experts feel about a U.S. three-peat? “God, it’s going to be hard,” says former U.S. star Julie Foudy, an ESPN analyst. “If you have a world that’s catching on to the power of girls playing soccer and the beauty of that, from here on out, I think it is going to be a tough slog for the U.S.”

The Injury Toll

The USWNT rallied in early 2023, sweeping Brazil, Canada, and Japan on their home turf in the SheBelieves Cup. But they’ve been bitten by the injury bug. Mallory Swanson started 2023 on an absolute rampage. She entered the team’s April 8 friendly against Ireland leading the U.S. in goals on the year, with seven. “She’s just been on a heater,” Rapinoe said at that time. Swanson, however, tore her left patella tendon in the game and is out for the World Cup. An ACL tear felled the World Cup hopes of another promising U.S. attacker, Catarina Macario.

Injuries have also riddled the midfield. Rose Lavelle’s spectacular charge up the field in the 2019 World Cup final against the Netherlands—and the resultant goal—put the game away for the Americans. The breakout star, however, has been nursing a knee injury. And on defense, the Americans suffered a setback: veteran center back Becky Sauerbrunn, a captain, two-time World Cup champion, and one of the leaders of the team’s equal-pay fight, will miss the World Cup as she continues to rehab from a foot injury.

The U.S. is not the only World Cup contender dealing with injuries. England forward Beth Mead, one of the world’s best, is not on the World Cup roster due to an ACL injury. Neither is Leah Williamson, a key defender for the Lionesses. The Netherlands (Vivianne Miedema) and France (Marie-Antoinette Katoto and Delphine Cascarino) are also missing key players.

The Replacements

Naomi Girma, 23, is the only player ever to win both rookie of the year and defender of the year in the NWSL. She won a national championship at Stanford in 2019, her sophomore year (Smith was also on that team). Now she’ll be called upon to fill Sauerbrunn’s shoes and anchor the U.S. defense.

“There’s very few players in my whole tenure that have stepped in and it’s just like, ‘Oh yeah, that’s a first-person-on-the-team sheet type of player’ every single time … she’s just that good,” Rapinoe said about Girma earlier this year. “I don’t think her physicality gets talked about enough, deceptively quick. If you have any kind of quickness and brain, then that’s a wrap. She can play any kind of ball. She’s a great leader. She’s just f-cking good.”

Brad Smith—USSF/Getty ImagesNaomi Girma looks to pass during a game between Ireland and USWNT in Austin, Texas, on April 8, 2023.

The Americans will have to rely on their forward depth to make up for the absence of Swanson and Macario. Four World Cup rookies—Smith, Lynn Williams, 30, Trinity Rodman, 21, and Alyssa Thompson, 18—join Morgan and Rapinoe up front. Thompson missed her high school graduation this year, since she had to suit up for a NWSL game, for Angel City FC.

“I’m excited about the energy and the enthusiasm that the young players bring,” says U.S. coach Vlatko Andonovski. “That will be one of our advantages.”

A More Diverse Squad

As will its mix of players. This USWNT World Cup roster is the most racially diverse in the team’s history. The team’s World Cup rookie forward core consists entirely of Black women. “Diversity is extremely important,” says Rodman, who does not recall as many women of color playing when she was a kid. It opens the eyes of girls who might not have seen themselves in the game before, she says.

Girma is the daughter of Ethiopian immigrants. She also says that diversity “is not something I saw” in professional soccer or on the U.S. national team when she was growing up. “We’ve talked about how important representation is,” he says. “It’s really inspiring, and it’s going to make this team and this World Cup special.”

Defender Sofia Huerta, 30, played for the Mexican national team when she was younger. Her father Mauricio was born in Mexico and studied electrical engineering there before moving to the U.S. She gave up her spot, however, in order to try to make the U.S. team. After being cut in 2019, Huerta was picked for this year’s squad. “I had a lot of conversations with my dad and I felt like it was possible if I picked the U.S., and I had Huerta on the back of my jersey, that little boys and girls could see the Hispanic last name,” she says. “If you could see it, you can be it.”

Next Woman Up

As the USWNT enters this transitional World Cup, the players are well aware of the pressing questions. Are the older players past their primes? Or the younger ones ready? Is this U.S. team just too banged up—and the rest of the world just too talented—for fans to count on that third straight title?

“This team has always gone through cycles and changes,” says U.S. defender Alana Cook, another World Cup rookie who, along with Girma, is expected to play a key role on the back line. “It’s always the next-woman-up system. When it’s your turn, you have to be ready. Whether you’re starting or not one game, you’re always ready for the next one because you’ve listened, you’ve learned. So younger players coming in isn’t a bad thing. I think it’s just a testament to how hard the veterans have worked to make sure that the things that we have, the culture, the work ethic, the tactics, are ingrained in all of us.”

The whole team knows to leave all excuses back home this summer. “Would I be happy with anything short of a third straight win?” says Andonovski. “No. Absolutely not. There is only one thing in mind when going to this tournament: our goal is to win the World Cup. There’s no question about it. And I don’t think that anyone on our team thinks anything different.”

Brad Smith—USSF/Getty ImagesMegan Rapinoe and Crystal Dunn arrive at the field before USWNT training at Cagan Stadium in Stanford, Calif., on July 3, 2023.

TIME will be providing ongoing coverage of the 2023 World Cup, which takes place from July 20 to August 20 in Australia and New Zealand. Subscribe to TIME’s World Cup Newsletter, “Extra Time,” here.

source https://time.com/6292528/us-soccer-women-world-cup-2023/

How Metas New Platform Threads Compares to Twitter

Meta’s new Twitter competitor, Threads has joined a flood of new services looking to take market share from Twitter as the company seeks to find a way toward profit under owner Elon Musk and its new CEO Linda Yaccarino. Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg said that the new app, available on Apple’s app store, Google Play and on the web, saw 5 million sign-ups in its first four hours. That number has reportedly since surpassed 23 million.

“Whether you’re a creator or a casual poster, Threads offers a new, separate space for real-time updates and public conversations,” Meta said in a post. “Our vision with Threads is to take what Instagram does best and expand that to text, creating a positive and creative space to express your ideas.
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Experts say the app, which is nearly identical to Twitter and has been billed by many as a “Twitter-killer,” is more than just another copycat, app: It’s also a reflection of a longstanding rivalry between two titans of the tech industry. “This latest entry is just an example of what has been a continuing rivalry between the two [companies],” says Darrell West, senior fellow at the Brookings Institution’s Center for Technology Innovation.

Other rivals to Twitter include Mastodon, Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey’s Bluesky, and Spill.

How to sign up for Threads

Threads is available for free download on iOS and Android in over 100 countries. Users can also sign up directly through the Instagram app by tapping the hamburger icon (three lines) on the top right of their profile and clicking “Threads” to be navigated to the app store.

The app will prompt users to log in with their Instagram accounts, and add profile information, like a profile picture and bio, or merge them from their Instagram. Users can then set their account’s privacy settings and find accounts to follow.

Once a user has set up a profile on Threads, it can only be deleted if the associated Instagram account is also deleted.

How Threads Compares to Twitter

Threads is functionally identical to Twitter— and that’s the point. Meta executives reportedly touted the platform as a “sanely run” alternative to Twitter, The Verge reported. New platforms are not trying to reinvent the wheel as much as they are trying to replicate what Twitter used to be like before the app was plagued with technical issues, constantly changing strategy and criticism over content moderation, as Musk laid off roughly half the company’s workforce.

“[There were] various needs that were being backed by the pre-existing systems…now folks are casting about to see if any of these new systems will meet those existing needs.” says Kevin Driscoll, assistant professor at the University of Virginia’s Department of Media Studies.

Thread’s users will be able to sign up through their Instagram accounts, and will be able to keep their Instagram usernames and easily re-follow the same accounts on the new platform.

Users can write posts of up to 500 characters—compared to Twitter’s 280 character-limit—and include links, photos, and videos up to 5 minutes in length. (Users of the paid subscription option Twitter Blue have a longer character limit of up to 25,000 on their posts.) The Threads algorithm is similar to Twitter’s and Instagram’s, and will show users a mix of content from followers and recommended content Vox reported.

Unlike Twitter and Instagram, the service does not currently have any discovery features or options to send direct messages. The only way to view new posts on Threads is by scrolling through a feed.

In a cluttered landscape, Meta’s reputation will give it a leg up against competitors like Mastodon and Bluesky, experts say. “’It’s an advantage to be associated with a big brand,” says West. “Threads is not going to be a niche player.”

Meta’s reputation isn’t entirely positive, though. It has faced its own share of controversy, such as criticism of the spread of misinformation on its platforms—including during the Jan. 6 riots in the U.S. Capitol—and the Cambridge Analytica scandal. In 2021, disclosures by whistleblower Frances Haugen sparked a reckoning over what the company knew about how it contributed to harms ranging from Instagram’s impact on teenagers’ mental health and the extent of misinformation on its platforms, to human traffickers’ open use of its services.

The historic rivalry between Meta and Twitter

Threads is launching at a challenging time for Twitter under Musk’s leadership. In the immediate days after Musk’s $44 billion purchase of the company in October, the firm Bot Sentinel, estimated that around 877,000 accounts were deactivated and a further 497,000 were suspended.

In the months since, the company has laid off thousands of workers, overhauled its verification process and relaxed its content moderation rules. Just last weekend, the platform announced it would be temporarily limiting the number of tweets users could view each day, a decision Musk said was taken to combat “extreme levels of data scraping.”

“Twitter is very vulnerable. They’ve lost a huge amount of their advertising revenue and they’ve had to lay off a big percentage of their staff,” says West. “There’s a lot of user discontent on the platform. So the time is ripe for a competing product to move into this space.”

Yaccarino, who worked as an advertising executive for many years, is expected to be focused on repairing the company’s reputation with advertisers as the company seeks to return to profitability.

Twitter, which last reported a profit in 2019, has long been an underdog among tech giants. It is dwarfed in size by the likes of Meta, which has a market value of around $760 billion. One recent estimate put Twitter’s valuation at just $15 billion—nearly a third of what Elon paid for it. Zuckerberg offered to buy Twitter during the company’s early days for $500 million, but his bid was rejected.

“Twitter has been David fighting the Goliath of Meta for many years,” says West. “There’s a long history of competition between the two firms.”

Tensions between Musk and Zuckerberg simmering for years. In 2016, Zuckerberg said he was “deeply disappointed” after one of Musk’s SpaceX rockets hit a satellite Facebook was using to bring internet access to developing nations.

Earlier this year, Musk tweeted that “Instagram makes people depressed,” and previously deleted the Facebook pages for Tesla and SpaceX, calling the platform “lame.”

The two billionaires hold strongly opposing views on artificial intelligence. In 2017, Musk tweeted that Zuckerberg’s understanding of the threat of artificial intelligence “is limited.” (In March, Elon Musk signed an open letter urging for a six-month pause in AI development. Zuckerberg, on the other hand, is trying to implement generative AI into Meta’s products, though the company has seen many of its AI researchers leave in the past year, the Wall Street Journal reported.) Musk’s longer term ambitions in the AI space remain unclear.

Now, the two are looking to take their battle offline. After news about Threads began to emerge, Musk challenged Zuckerberg to a physical fight tweeting that he was “up for a cage match if he is lol.” Zuckerburg responded by posting a screenshot of the tweet on his Instagram Stories along with the caption “send me location.” The Meta CEO has said he’s been practicing martial arts since the start of the pandemic and has won medals in Brazilian jiu-jitsu. Musk, meanwhile, has reportedly begun training for the fight.

source https://time.com/6292497/threads-twitter-meta/

2023年7月5日星期三

Pentagon To Bolster Security Measures After Discord Leak

A Defense Department intelligence review recommended the U.S. military revise policies governing how secret information is handled, a senior Pentagon official said Wednesday.

The assessment comes after Jack Teixeira, a 21-year-old Air National Guardsman from Massachusetts, was accused in April of leaking hundreds of top-secret documents online. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin ordered a 45-day review of Pentagon policies to deliver findings and recommendations to improve processes and prevent such damaging disclosures in the future.

The review did not focus on the case of Teixeira, who pleaded not guilty last month to federal criminal charges. Instead, it examined the Defense Department policies and conditions that may have contributed to the intelligence breach. Hundreds of pages of classified documents—detailing everything from disagreements with allies to tactical positions in the Ukraine war—sat on Discord chat servers for more than a month before they were discovered by the media and government.
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“There wasn’t a single point of failure,” a senior Defense official, speaking on the condition of anonymity, told reporters Wednesday. “There are contributing factors to any security incident. And so, this was an opportunity…to make sure that we made the improvements that we could.”

The review focused on four areas: personnel security, information safeguarding and accountability, physical security, and education and training. On June 30, Austin sent a memo to all Defense Department personnel that required managers to take “follow-on actions” that would aim to enhance detection of “insider threats” and improve information-sharing.

The government is already working toward a semi-automated “continuous vetting” program which checks people’s records against commercial and government data and flags potential risks. Austin ordered the Pentagon’s Chief Information Officer to work with the Chief Data and Artificial Intelligence Officer to come up with better data-reporting and analysis. He also called for the establishment of an office whose mission is to hunt for suspicious activity on government networks. Such measures will almost certainly require more funding and personnel in the years to come.

In his memo, Austin wrote that while most people with access to national security secrets are trustworthy, the military needs to tighten security measures. Part of that is determining whether too many people have access to secret documents. Teixeira, for example, was a low-level airman who worked in IT but he did have access to an internal network called the Joint Worldwide Intelligence Communications System (JWICS), where top secret intelligence shared all day, every day. The Justice Department wrote in a May court filing that Air Force superiors repeatedly admonished Teixeira over several months for accessing and taking notes on classified intelligence information that was outside his job responsibility.

The senior Defense official who spoke to reporters said that the rising number of people with access to top-secret information is a complex issue the Pentagon needs to confront. This growth, which began after the Sept. 11, 2001 terror attacks, has led to a patchwork of classification policies that confuses security managers, the official said.

Austin’s memo gives Pentagon managers up to three months to implement the “follow-on” actions. Separately, the U.S. Air Force inspector general launched a probe in April that is still ongoing.

source https://time.com/6292364/jack-teixeira-discord-leak-pentagon-security/

The Outlaw Ocean Ep. 10 | Freedom or Death | Time

source https://time.com/6292361/outlaw-ocean-freedom-or-death-time/

Tom Cruise Is Doing the Most to Try to Save the Movies in the New Mission Impossible

At the end of the apocalypse, after the sun has fried every flower and tree, as the last skyscraper turns to dust, when each extant cockroach has gone belly-up with x’es for eyes, there will be one man standing tall, or somewhat tall: Tom Cruise is forever, and if that idea may have seemed mortifying 40-odd years ago, when he was mugging his way through thinly disguised navy recruitment ads or grinning and grinding in his skivvies to Bob Seger’s “Old Time Rock & Roll,” it’s more palatable now. Cruise has never been a great or subtle actor, but he has grown into a perfectly watchable one, and that has come to mean more at a time when the movies are shrinking, literally and metaphorically. He’s the star attraction of the seventh Mission: Impossible film, Dead Reckoning Part One, and he carries the film ably on his back, along with his always-at-the-ready parachute. Cruise, still in love with what big mainstream movies used to be, has become a chivalric dreamer, striving to ensure their survival by sheer will. Maybe he can pull it off and maybe he can’t. But at least there’s some pleasure to be had in watching him try.

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If you’re fond of MacGuffins, you’ll love Dead Reckoning Part One, whose central thingie is a two-piece key that can be used to control an instance of artificial intelligence gone rogue, a manmade smarty-pants that has beehived into an all-seeing, all-knowing, all-powerful entity known, cleverly, as the Entity. Basically, it’s all just an excuse for Cruise—returning as Impossible Mission Force veteran Ethan Hunt—to do stuff like ride motorcycles off cliffs and drive teeny-tiny cars down Rome’s Spanish Steps. Cruise’s devotion to practical action and his insistence on doing most of his own stunts, many of them quite dangerous, are already the stuff of legend, or at least a bunch of press releases, and it’s not giving too much away to say that the plot of Dead Reckoning Part One—directed by Christopher McQuarrie, who has been pulling the franchise’s various strings and levers since 2015’s Rogue Nation—is virtually unfollowable after about the first third. The story exists only as flimsy interstitial tissue between the Tom-centric stunts, but maybe that’s enough. Ostensibly greater movies have given us less.

Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning Part One — Courtesy of Paramount PicturesCruise, doing the stunts himself

All you need to know going in, really, is that every woman for whom Cruise’s Ethan Hunt expresses even the tiniest bit of affection is doomed. But not right away, which means that Dead Reckoning brings back Rebecca Ferguson’s silky-steely Ilsa Faust, of the most engaging characters from the franchise’s last two entries, Fallout (2018) and Rogue Nation (2015). She, apparently, has one-half of the much-desired-by-many-parties key, which makes her a target of, well, everybody: We first see in her in the corner of the world where she’s been hiding out, the Arabian Desert near Yemen. Ethan shows up on horseback, a dazzling sight wrapped in scarves and goggles designed to shield him from the swirly, sandy wind. There’s an encounter, and an event. Shortly thereafter, the action shifts to IMF headquarters (“the other IMF,” as one character quips wryly), where zillions of workers in suits are rushing to make hard copies of digital information—on typewriters. You could make a whole movie about that and plenty of people would be happy, but admittedly, it would be rather low on action.

As it is, the action in Dead Reckoning zips from the desert to the office to Rome to Venice to the Austrian Alps—the locations alone are transportive, even if the plot is a mess. Simon Pegg and Ving Rhames return as Ethan’s sidekicks Benji and Luther, and the three of them make almost as many solemn pronouncements about loyalty and family and friendship as Vin Diesel does in the Fast and Furious movies. Ethan stands by his team; he’s willing, he reminds us more than once, to die for them, and that includes any newbie who might enter the fold. In this case, that would be Hayley Atwell’s Grace, a pickpocket extraordinaire and sleight-of-hand expert who, at any given point in the movie, may or may not have the all-important half-key. The point is to keep it out of the hands of Ethan’s adversaries, which include Vanessa Kirby’s Alanna, AKA the White Widow, and an acrobatic assassin, Paris, played by Pom Klementieff. Ethan’s biggest enemy, though, is evil silver fox Gabriel (Esai Morales), who seeks the key to unleash chaos upon the world. Or something.

And the stunts! Isn’t that really what it’s all about? They include, but are not limited to, a gorgeously staged duel between Faust and Gabriel, set on a slender Venetian bridge: Faust wears a silky topcoat whose tails whirl about her as her sword slashes through the air, intensifying the already intense aura of Venetian mystery and drama. There is that business with the almost-miniature vintage Fiat 500 and the Spanish Steps, though rest assured, no Spanish Steps were harmed in the making of this film. The movie’s last third or so takes place in and around—but also, of course, atop—the Orient Express as it steams through the Alps. That section, already detailed in promotional videos for the film, also features Cruise speedflying—not to be confused with skydiving—over jagged mountain terrain. It’s beautiful, and it does look pretty dangerous.

Cruise has invested a great deal of emotional energy in making sure we know it’s really him doing these stunts, and you can’t blame him. In a green-screen movie world, where the idea of excitement, if not the thing itself, can be filled in long after filming is done, it’s rare to be able to watch a human being move like this. Cruise is muscular, feisty, nimble—but he does have bones, like everyone else, and those bones are now 61 years old. He’s the last survivor of his generation of action stars. Nicolas Cage and Bruce Willis have moved on, by necessity or choice, but Cruise still wants to do some version of what he has always done, whether it’s flying, running, or wrestling down random baddies on top of a moving train. Ethan Hunt is a grave presence—a recurring flashback in Dead Reckoning features snippets of a murder that looms large in his psyche, apparently influencing his every move. But Cruise doesn’t have a naturally grave persona; he has to work at it, and so he does.

At a certain point in Dead Reckoning, Ethan is required to smile at one of the women in his orbit. She has just said something nice to him, or about him, and he must respond appropriately. So he stiffens his jaw ever so slightly, and his eyes crinkle like those of a painted Santa. This expression of veiled gratitude, of being a sturdy guy who knows it’s better not to show much emotion, takes some effort, and you can see Cruise working to deliver. But even this not-quite-a-smile takes muscle and nerve. Think of it as a microstunt, less dangerous, certainly, than riding a motorcycle off a cliff, but a bit of risky business in its own right.

source https://time.com/6291965/mission-impossible-dead-reckoning-part-one-review-tom-cruise/

What to Know as Texas Shooter in Racist Walmart Attack Is Sentenced

EL PASO, Texas — A white Texas gunman who killed 23 people at a Walmart in 2019 returns to court Wednesday for sentencing in a mass shooting that targeted Hispanic shoppers in the border city of El Paso.

Patrick Crusius, 24, is set to receive multiple life sentences after pleading guilty to federal hate crime and weapons charges in one of the deadliest mass shootings in U.S. history. Although the federal government did not seek the death penalty, Texas prosecutors have not taken lethal injection off the table under a separate case in state court.

Investigators say the shooting was preceded by Crusius posting a racist screed online.
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The sentencing phase could last several days. It is the first time that relatives of the victims, who included citizens of Mexico, will have an opportunity to address Crusius face-to-face in court.

Some things to know about the shooting and the case:

Who is Patrick Crusius?

Crusius was 21 years old when authorities say he drove more than 10 hours from his home in an upper-class Dallas suburb to El Paso and opened fire.

The son of a licensed therapist and nurse, Crusius had been enrolled as a student at Collin College, near Dallas, and had no criminal convictions before the shooting. On social media, Crusius appeared consumed by the nation’s immigration debate, tweeting #BuildtheWall and posts that praised then-President Donald Trump’s hardline border policies.

His views went further in a document posted to an online message board about 20 minutes before the massacre in which he said the shooting was “in response to the Hispanic invasion of Texas.”

In American politics, Republicans have continued using the word “invasion” to describe migrants at the U.S.-Mexico border, waving off critics who say the rhetoric fuels anti-immigrant views and violence.

The shooting

Prosecutors say the Aug. 3, 2019, attack began in the parking lot on a busy weekend at a Walmart that is popular with shoppers from both Mexico and the U.S. Approaching the store, Crusius shot participants in a fundraiser for a girls’ soccer team.

Inside, Crusius continued firing with an AK-47-style rifle, corning shoppers at a bank near the entrance where nine were killed, before shooting at the checkout area and people in aisles.

Crusius was apprehended shortly after the attack and confessed to officers who stopped him at an intersection, according to police.

More than two dozen people were injured and numerous others were severely traumatized as they hid or fled.

The victims

The people who were killed range in age from a 15-year-old high school athlete to several elderly grandparents.

They included immigrants, a retired city bus driver, teachers, tradesmen including a former iron worker, and several Mexican nationals who had crossed the U.S. border on routine shopping trips. Witnesses recounted moments of terror, anguish and heroism.

An infant boy named Paul Anchondo narrowly survived with a broken hand as his parents were gunned down. Mother Jordan Anchondo is credited by relatives with shielding her baby.

David Johnson, 63, was killed after pushing his wife and 9-year-old granddaughter under a counter. The woman and child survived.

The funeral for one victim, 63-year-old Margie Reckard, drew thousands of sympathizers after her husband announced he had few relatives left and invited the world to attend.

Test case

The sentencing arrives amid efforts by the Justice Department under President Joe Biden to more aggressively identify hate crimes and deliver meaningful results in the highest-profile cases.

The 2019 Walmart attack is the deadliest of a dozen mass shootings in the U.S. linked hate crimes since 2006, according to a database of mass killings in the U.S. compiled by The Associated Press, USA Today and Northeastern University.

Crusius agreed in February to accept up to 90 consecutive life sentences, avoiding the possible death penalty on charges of using a firearm in a crime of violence that causes death. Companion hate crime convictions against Crusius don’t carry the death penalty.

Federal prosecutors haven’t formally explained their decision, but have acknowledged that Crusius suffered from schizoaffective disorder that can be marked by hallucinations, delusions and mood swings.

Adria Gonzalez, a 41-year-old El Paso native who survived the Walmart attack even as she helped panicked shoppers toward exits, says she fears that a life sentence won’t be enough to rein in racist attacks on Latinos.

“It’s not only him. There are other people, other groups that could hurt us,” she said.

What’s next

Crusius still faces capital murder charges in state court and could receive the death penalty if convicted.

It is unclear when that case will proceed. In November, El Paso County’s former district attorney resigned over mounting criticism about her performance on the job, which included accusations that problems in her office were slowing down Crusius’ case.

Also, victims’ relatives have sued Walmart. Such lawsuits are common following mass shootings in the U.S. but typically face high hurdles to succeed.

—Weber reported from Austin, Texas. Associated Press reporter Michael Tarm in Chicago also contributed.

source https://time.com/6292144/texas-walmart-shooter-sentence-crusius/

9 People Shot and Wounded in Washington D.C. As Violence Continues to Mar July 4 Celebrations

WASHINGTON — Nine people were shot and wounded, including two juveniles, early Wednesday in Washington, D.C., police said.

Shortly before 1 a.m. police responded to a report of a shooting on Meade Street in the northeastern quadrant of the U.S. capital, Assistant Chief Leslie Parsons of the Metropolitan Police Department said in a statement on Twitter.

Upon their arrival officers discovered multiple shooting victims, including a 9-year-old and a 17-year-old, Parsons said.

A dark colored SUV seen driving through the neighborhood, stopped and then shot at the victims outside enjoying the July Fourth holiday, Parsons said, calling the shooting targeted.
[time-brightcove not-tgx=”true”]

Several victims were transported to local hospitals by D.C. Fire and EMS while others transported themselves. All the victims suffered non-life threatening injuries, Parsons said. None have been identified.

It was not immediately clear if there was more than one shooter in the vehicle and no arrests have been made.

The D.C. shooting is the latest in a string of mass shootings over a violent holiday weekend.

Twenty-eight people were shot, two fatally at a block party in Baltimore early Sunday. Authorities say many of the shooting victims were under 18.

On Monday night, a gunman in a bulletproof vest has opened fire on the streets of Philadelphia, killing five people and wounding two boys, 2 and 13, before he surrendered to responding officers, police.

Three people were killed and eight others injured when several men fired indiscriminately into a crowd of hundreds that had gathered in a Texas neighborhood following a festival in the area, authorities said. The shooting in the Fort Worth neighborhood of Como happened late Monday night, about two hours after the annual ComoFest ended.

source https://time.com/6292148/washington-mass-shooting-july-4/

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2023年7月6日 星期四