The U.S. World Cup Campaign Ends in Historic Disappointment

A Sweden penalty shot on Sunday, after the U.S. and Sweden played to a 0-0 draw in regulation and extra time, barely crossed the goal line to give Sweden a dramatic victory over its longtime international nemesis, the U.S. Women’s National Team (USWNT), and send the USWNT home from the World Cup at the earliest stage in history.

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U.S. keeper Alyssa Naeher did almost everything correct the seventh round of the game’s penalty shootout; she had to make a save to keep the U.S. chances alive. She dove to her right as Lina Hurtig’s shot headed her way. Naeher got her hands up to stop it; the ball ricocheted into the air. Naeher, from her spot on the ground, crawled to desperately try to keep the ball from crossing the goal line as it came back down. 

But in actuality, there was absolutely nothing Naeher could do. Psychics had taken over: the ball was already over the line, by maybe a nanometer. An ant couldn’t fit through the space between the bottom of the ball and the goal line. 

In World Cup soccer, just like in every other space in which we live, the cameras catch everything. The proof was in the pictures. After a tortuous period of uncertainty, as officials took a look at the tech, the ref confirmed the outcome. Sweden goal. Game over. Sweden is into the quarterfinals. 

The Americans, meanwhile, were done. Sweden moves on to play Japan in the World Cup quarterfinals on Friday.  

The USWNT, however, will fly home having defied some expectations. Coming into this game, after playing to two straight draws in the group stage—with the Netherlands and Portugal—and after barely escaping from the preliminary round exit after a late Portugal shot struck the goal post—many fans and pundits offered the U.S. little hope. The Swedes swept through the group stage. The U.S. struggled to survive. 

Then, on Sunday in Melbourne, the U.S. went out and simply dominated the run of play. Metrics said that the Americans deserved to win. The U.S. controlled possession of the ball, 50%-34%. While the U.S. got off 21 shots, Sweden had just seven opportunities. Eleven of those U.S. shots were on target, while just one Swedish shot hit the mark.

Unfortunately for the Americans, Swedish keeper Zećira Mušović was flawless. She had a bunch of sweet saves, her best perhaps coming on a Linday Horan ripper in the second half: Musocvic dove to get a hand on it. 

Regulation, plus 30 minutes of extra time, produced another 0-0 draw for the U.S.  

Mušović was Sweden’s MVP.  But she didn’t make a single save in the penalty shootout, and still walked away from the victory. That’s because, on several key occasions, the U.S. missed far and wide. 

On the fourth penalty shot, with the U.S. up 3-2, Megan Rapinoe—who again entered the game in the second half to provide scoring spark— had a chance to give Americans a cushion and emerge a hero. She sailed her shot into the stands, ending her brilliant World Cup career on a down note. Naeher however, made a brilliant save on Sweden’s next attempt, stretching as far as she could, to her left, to stop it. 

This gave Sophia Smith, decked all game in cool black gloves, an opportunity to seal the win for the U.S. But a consecutive American attempt missed badly, very high, and very wide, to the right. Smith started out this tournament on such a high note, with two goals and an assist in that game against Vietnam. What an unfortunate ending for a future World Cup star. Just not a present one.

Sweden’s Hanna Bennison, a late-game sub and just 20-years-old, calmly kept Sweden alive on the next shot, to tie up the shootout at 3-3. Naeher scored a goal of her own, but Magadalena Eriksson matched her. On the seventh U.S. shot, however, Kelly O’Hara, the World Cup veteran leader who like Rapinoe was making her fourth appearance, got Mušović to dive the wrong way. She had the whole right side of the net to herself. 

But banged it against the post, which saved the Americans against Portugal, and broke their heart against the Swedes.

Hurting’s strike then ended the game, by far less than a hair.

Soccer is unfair like that. More than any other game, one side can control the attack. But one slip, or one unlucky bounce, can still cost you, despite your side running faster,  completing more passes, and thoroughly ourplating the opposition. While that outcome might seem unfair, a bad habit that reared its head in the opening game, against Vietnam, justifiably came back to haunt the U.S all World Cup long: the ability to do everything right, except the last part: putting the ball in the net. Trinity Rodman got loose a few times: she just couldn’t convert. Alex Morgan had her chances, all tournament long: America’s striker of the past decade didn’t strike. Lindsey Horan had her opportunities on Sunday.

She and her teammates won’t have any more. The better team on Sunday, the U.S., won’t advance. But the better team at this World Cup, Sweden, will. 

source https://time.com/6302113/the-u-s-world-cup-campaign-ends-in-historic-disappointment/

Gro Intelligence CEO Sara Menker on the Climate Data That’s Surprising Her

For the past few years, Sara Menker has been pushing one basic idea: that we can use technology and data to help manage the supply shocks and food shortages caused by global warming. It’s an alluring proposition, and one that has driven the growth of her commodities data platform Gro Intelligence. Co-headquartered in New York and Nairobi, with an office in Singapore, the company raised $85 million dollars in venture capital funding in 2021. Gro was also named as one of the TIME100 Most Influential Companies that year.

Menker says her focus on commodities and systemic risks was informed by her childhood growing up in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. Her family was middle class, but the setting exposed her to people living in extreme poverty, as well as to the way the society dealt with shortages in the aftermath of a devastating famine in the 1980s. She ended up attending college in the U.S., and then worked as a commodities trader for Morgan Stanley, before leaving to start Gro. From there, she says, a focus on climate change was a natural progression. “In building the world’s largest agricultural data platform, we ended up building the world’s largest climate data platform without even knowing it,” Menker tells TIME.

Menker and Gro have been leaning into climate data. This spring, the company partnered with investment advisor Kepos Capital to launch what they call their Carbon Barometer, a tool meant to help track and compare emissions policies around the world. TIME spoke with Menker in June about the new tool, and the broader trends they’re seeing in a warming world.

This conversation has been condensed and edited for clarity.

Can you explain what the carbon barometer is? How does it work?

The carbon barometer is basically a way of measuring the implied price of carbon emissions at a country level. It’s not a barometer to measure the emissions of specific companies, but really looking at essentially the price of CO2 as implied by the policies that have been adopted by [each] country, whether they’re incentives to produce more CO2 or reduce CO2. The carbon barometer covers the countries that emit about 80% of global emissions, so it does a pretty good job of getting to [the question of], what is the global price [of carbon], what’s the difference between countries, what policy levers exist to get to a higher or lower implied price, and how has the policy trajectory moved over time.

Can you give us an example of how the math works?

It’s actually quite simple in some ways. We partnered with Kepos on this. Kepos had spent a lot of time looking at this to [assess] how countries are transitioning. And then what we did as a data company was to take that logic to look at it over time in a systematic way that continuously updates as policies get adopted. Policies are either a [CO2] subsidy or an incentive to reduce [emissions]. We came up with different sorts of policy levers, so everything from actual outright fossil fuel subsidies, to whether a country has a carbon tax or not, [or] an emissions trading system, or fossil fuel taxes. Are there feed-in tariffs? Are there low-carbon fuel standards, and are there renewable portfolio standards? That’s not every lever there is. But these levers certainly represent the biggest chunk of what is actually measurable today by country. And then we created a way to weight those different levers and come up with a [carbon] price per country.

What’s interesting is that we talk about the E.U. as if every E.U. country is exactly in the same place in that journey, and one of the things that this barometer highlights is there’s actually a pretty decent difference between Spain and France, for example, or Spain and Germany, which has a bigger gap, where the implied carbon price in Spain is $129.47 per ton, whereas the implied price in Germany is $105, and the implied price in Italy is $100, which is a pretty substantial difference between countries that are part of the same policy framework but still have individualized levers that they’re still using or not using.

The U.S. numbers were interesting. Your barometer had a small amount of carbon subsidy, but more on the tax side. What are the policies in the U.S. that are creating that weight towards a carbon tax rather than a carbon subsidy?

The reason the U.S. fossil fuel subsidies are really low is because the government is at least not actively spending money in trying to increase fossil fuel production. It is charging taxes at the gas pump for that fuel that you are consuming. The thing that’s surprising to me is the global implied price for the 20-odd countries that we have in the barometer is about $18.52 a ton. And the U.S. is hovering at a little lower than the global average, [though] it’s meant to be a leader in the space. To see India actually have a slightly higher implied price than the U.S. is one of the more shocking things I saw. I didn’t realize India was that far ahead.

What were some of the other surprises in the data?

One was definitely the U.S., and I’m hoping that as the Inflation Reduction Act gets implemented some of that will start to change. Another surprise was the trajectories over time. If you look at a country like Brazil, in 2010, they had a carbon barometer price of essentially $72.77 as a subsidy. And it’s now a $9.54 [tax]. Like just the steep curve of change in the right direction is an important thing to look at. You see a country like Brazil and you see a really positive story. And then you see a country like Australia, and you see a lot of volatility because you’ve seen policy changes based on the political candidates actually reflected in the price.

Let’s talk about Gro. You spoke with the Leadership Brief about two years ago. What has changed since then?

What hasn’t changed? So when I first talked with TIME, we were just starting to step out into the world as a player at a bigger scale in terms of influencing public policy and having our data be used by governments for really big consequential decisions. The start of that journey was during COVID. It was at a time when people were very focused on food security, and we were really the one data provider that could provide that depth of knowledge for every part of the world. We were squarely focused on just the agricultural data side of it. One big change is we’re much bigger and we’ve made a much bigger impact, not just in the commercial world, but actually in the public sector world as well.

The second [change] has actually been climate. In building the world’s largest agricultural data platform, we ended up building the world’s largest climate data platform without even knowing it. So what has changed a lot has been the application of our climate data to so many more industries outside of just agriculture. It’s still the same product, but it’s making impacts in areas where two and a half years ago it felt like it could be possible, but it was not material. Whereas now it’s very real. [Clients] use our climate indices on the physical climate side, so measuring different climate risks like droughts and floods, [and] applying [them] to many more industries outside of the agricultural industry.

Is there one industry that’s using your data now that seems like it might have been least likely to do so two years ago?

We can now use our climate data to trade equities and fixed income instruments. That was not anywhere in the realm of possibility [two years ago]. We sold our data to financial institutions originally for them to trade commodities using our data. They were not using it to trade things like equities, fixed income securities, or macroeconomic policies, where some of our indices become predictive of things like a country’s actual inflation as opposed to just food inflation.

What are the biggest trends you’re watching now? You’ve spoken a lot about food inflation—are there other long term trends that you’re looking at ?

I think [the trends are] a continuation of what we’ve seen, and I think it is really linked to climate. When we talk about climate change and a warming planet, we think of it like it’s warming everywhere, not that it’s actually just becoming significantly more volatile. We just came out of three years of la Niña, which meant that there was basically excessive droughts in major agricultural regions like the U.S. and South America. And we’re about to go into El Niño, which is now going to make it more difficult [to grow crops] in Australia, Malaysia, and Indonesia. You’re seeing these weird cycles happening much faster. The disruptions are just more persistent.

Food inflation is [also] still a major issue in most parts of the world. Most people track prices on a dollar basis, not a local currency basis. But when you look at the price of products in many parts of the world on a local currency basis, which is how people live and eat, inflation is still a huge problem that we need to tackle. So it’s still very top of mind for us as a company to keep highlighting it. But I would say climate is going to continue to present really complicated challenges, not just for the agriculture industry, but really for industry as a whole, for anything from power production to being able to mine the minerals we need for electric vehicles. There are these deep interlinkages that are becoming clearer.

source https://time.com/6301777/sara-menker-gro-intelligence-interview/

Harvard Emphasizes Life Experiences After Affirmative Action Ban

Harvard College is changing its essay requirements for high school seniors applying for admission, nodding to the recent Supreme Court ruling that struck down affirmative action in college admissions.

Under the new guidelines, applicants will be required to answer five questions instead of the previous single optional essay. Students will be asked to share how their life experiences, academic achievements and extracurricular activities have shaped them, and describe their aspirations for the future, according to Harvard spokesman Jonathan Palumbo.

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US college admissions offices face a challenging task as the application period begins this month. School officials will need to juggle the Supreme Court’s ban on race-based admissions with still finding ways to promote diversity in the student population. 

Read More: Supreme Court Flexes Conservative Muscles in Term’s Final Days

The Supreme Court’s June ruling, delivered by Chief Justice John Roberts, said that universities could still take into account an applicant’s views of how race affected their life, as long as it was directly tied to a quality of character or unique ability that the applicant can contribute to the university’s community. Roberts cautioned that “universities may not simply establish through the application essays or other means the regime we hold unlawful today.”

Harvard and the University of North Carolina were named defendants in the case.

The Harvard Crimson previously reported the changes to the school’s essay requirements. Versions of Harvard’s new format existed in previous applications. Now, all applicants will have to answer the same set of questions.

Read More: How Race in College Admissions Became a US Flashpoint: QuickTake

Other US colleges are also adapting their approach to admissions. The University of Virginia is offering applicants a chance to explain their backgrounds and how those experiences will contribute to the school. 

A revised application offers an optional essay opportunity that gives “all students – not only, for example, the children of our graduates, but also the descendants of ancestors who labored at the university, as well as those with other relationships – the chance to tell their unique stories,” President Jim Ryan and Provost Ian Baucom wrote in a letter this week.

Sarah Lawrence, a liberal arts college in Bronxville, New York, has even incorporated Roberts’s words into an essay prompt, requesting applicants to reflect on how they believe the court’s decision might impact or influence their goals for a college education.

source https://time.com/6302097/harvard-emphasizes-affirmative-action-ban/

7 Ways to Bring a Dead Friendship Back to Life

It might sound obvious, in the midst of a loneliness crisis, that having friends matters. But many of us “underestimate the very real impact our friendships can have on our life,” says Marisa Franco, a psychologist and author of Platonic: How The Science of Attachment Can Help You Make—and Keep—Friends. “Connection is the most important factor predicting our health, both physical and mental.”

A growing body of research supports that point: Healthy, stable friendships can protect against depression and anxiety, increase life satisfaction, extend longevity, and improve health metrics like blood pressure and body mass index. Friendships between men—or bromances—can provide an effective buffer against stress, and can even be more emotionally satisfying than romantic relationships. 

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Those who don’t have strong social connections, meanwhile, have an elevated risk of heart disease and stroke, Type 2 diabetes, depression, anxiety, addiction, and dementia. Some research suggests that loneliness is twice as harmful to physical and mental health as obesity. It’s concerning, then, that over the past few years, adult friendships have been on the decline, with men suffering the most: In one survey, 15% of men said they had no close friends at all, a fivefold increase since 1990.

While many people assume it’s the number of friends that count, research indicates that quality is more important—and having even a small selection of close friends is a stronger predictor of happiness than having lots of casual connections. Plus, those who think friendships happen organically are lonelier five years later than those who understand that platonic bonds take work.

Yet often people who feel disconnected focus on making new friends instead of nurturing existing connections. “There can be this feeling of, ‘I need to look elsewhere. I need to start a whole new circle of friends,’” says Miriam Kirmayer, a clinical psychologist who studies the science of friendship. “Sometimes there’s truth to that, but for many people, it’s helpful to think about the friendships we already have in our lives. Even if they feel a little stale, there are ways we can revive them.”

We asked experts to share their favorite ways to strengthen friendships and breathe new life into old bonds.

Consistently invest time.

Making time for the people we care about and having shared experiences plays an essential role in deepening friendships. Research suggests that it takes about 50 hours of time together to transform from acquaintances to casual friends, 90 hours to become regular friends, and more than 200 hours to solidify a best friendship.

Laura Tremaine figured out a solution after constantly “dropping the ball” on putting in time and effort with her friends. She would forget to wish them a happy birthday or go three months without returning a call. So she started adding a section for connection at the bottom of her to-do list, underneath her work tasks and family-oriented chores. “I just write down a few things, like ‘check if Bri is feeling better,’” says Tremaine, author of books including The Life Council: 10 Friends Every Woman Needs. “And when I started to be more consistent, my friends noticed.”

Add more positivity.

One way to grow any relationship is to foster positivity, which has to do with the way we leave each other feeling, says Shasta Nelson, the author of books including Friendships Don’t Just Happen. “It’s not always about saying positive things,” she clarifies. “It’s about leaving the other person feeling loved, supported, and accepted, and you walking away feeling loved, supported, and accepted.”

Often, this means using words of affirmation, giving our friends compliments, and making them laugh. If you’re feeling tired or depressed, or are in a bad mood, don’t feel pressure to entertain your friends or force jokes. Be open about how you’re feeling, and give them permission to feel differently while expressing curiosity, Nelson suggests. For example, you might acknowledge that you’ve been glum lately, and then note that you saw Instagram pictures of your friend hiking. Ask them to tell you all about it. Showing interest and asking questions helps promote positivity, even when that runs counter to your mood. “The goal is for our friends to walk away from us feeling better about themselves and their lives for having been in our presence,” she says.

Get vulnerable.

Another key to cultivating stronger friendships is allowing yourself to be vulnerable: opening up and showing your friends your true self, even if you’re worried they won’t like it. Research suggests that can be particularly difficult for men, who often avoid  expressing intimate feelings because they fear social rejection. “There’s no way around it,” Tremaine says. “There’s no loophole. You’re going to have to be at least a little vulnerable and share a little about who you are to connect with other humans.” However, she qualifies, that doesn’t mean you have to immediately reveal all your most personal traumas and secrets.

Tremaine suggests starting by sharing small opinions: Raise your hand in whatever room you’re in, whether it’s volunteering what you thought about your book club’s latest choice or how you would grill the steaks. “The more yourself you are, the more attractive you are to others as friends,” she says.

Challenge yourself to dive even deeper by telling your friends what you’re currently struggling with and what scares you, Franco advises. If it feels uncomfortable, remember that it’s better for you—and the other person—than staying silent. “When we’re vulnerable, we feel like we’re burdening people,” she says. “But being vulnerable conveys that we like them and trust them. And fundamentally, that brings people closer together.”

Mix in some novelty.

It might be time to inject a shot of new energy into your most familiar friendships. That goes for both conversations and activities: We tend to talk about the same topics over and over, and meet at the same places at the same times. There’s nothing wrong with that, Kirmayer notes, but novelty can open the door to deeper bonds. “Carve out moments of conversation where you can go off script,” she says. And brainstorm new adventures you can embark on together, whether that’s traveling to a bucket-list destination or working up the nerve to join a pickleball team together.

Express gratitude.

When’s the last time you told your friends how much you appreciate them? There’s good reason to do so the next time you talk: Research suggests that gratitude plays an important role in helping friendships grow.

Make it a point to show you’re thankful for who they are as a person—their core traits and values—and the big and little things they do. “Notice the moment when a friend says something really supportive, or when they initiate plans,” Kirmayer advises. You might phrase it like this: “Thank you so much for being the one to put together plans for this weekend. It really meant a lot.” If you’re feeling particularly inspired, you could even write what some experts call a “living eulogy,” or a letter that outlines everything you admire and appreciate about your friend.

Show up for the important moments.

Every friendship will inevitably arrive at what Franco describes as diagnostic moments: The highs and lows in life that “disproportionately affect” how we label our relationships. Was your friend there when you got a promotion, were diagnosed with something scary, went through a divorce, or met someone new? The answer plays a large role in determining how much we’ll value that friendship. 

Commit to improving your bond together.

If you’re feeling disconnected from a friend, bring it up in conversation. Tell them how much you care about them and let them know you’d like to find ways to stay connected or deepen your connection—and ask if they have any ideas that could help make that happen, Kirmayer suggests. The goal is to have a collaborative, productive conversation, while making it clear how much you value the friendship.

If you’re upset about something specific that happened, address it directly instead of simply withdrawing, Franco advises. “When you don’t bring things up, it’s like holding someone guilty before giving them a trial,” she says. “Healthy conflict can just look like, ‘Hey, I was hurt when this happened, and I hoped we could talk it out.’”

Some friends even go to therapy together, just like romantic partners might, Franco adds. That can be particularly helpful if you have a tendency to let little issues accumulate without addressing them. “Friendship is very important, and intimacy is intimacy,” she says. “If we need that tune-up for one type of relationship, we’re going to need it for another.”

source https://time.com/6301320/how-to-strengthen-friendships/

Why Carrie and Aidan’s Reunion on And Just Like That Makes No Sense

This story contains spoilers for season 2, episode 8 of And Just Like That…

Though it lasted for only two seasons, one of the most contentious storylines in Sex and the City was the battle between suave financier John James Preston (a.k.a. Mr. Big) and hunky woodworker Aidan Shaw for Carrie Bradshaw’s heart. Fans were divided between Team Big and Team Aidan. The former suitor (played by Chris Noth) was emotionally unavailable but had an undeniable connection with Carrie. The latter (John Corbett) was the quintessential “nice guy” who kept finishing last. Ultimately, throughout six seasons of the original TV series and two follow-up films, Carrie (Sarah Jessica Parker) always chose Big. Aidan may have been the biggest threat to the show’s primary relationship, but even he faded into memory, an old chapter in the long love story between Carrie and John.

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But now—with John having met his demise and Carrie feeling her way out of the darkness and back into the dating pool on And Just Like That…—Aidan is suddenly, triumphantly, back. Fans of the original series had major feelings about Carrie’s ex’s reappearance in Season 2’s episode 7, which dropped July 27 (and not only because he was dressed in an absurd belted and waxed jacket). Episode 8, out today, only escalates the situation, with Carrie and Aidan playing house in Che’s apartment (since Carrie’s place still triggers him), imagining what their lives might have looked like if they had stayed together in the past while starting to consider their future.

Read More: And Just Like That Is Finally (Maybe) Fixing Its Miranda Problem

It’s no secret that much of the new series’ momentum draws from nostalgia. Viewers tune in week after week to be reunited with beloved characters they’ve spent decades watching and re-watching, and cameos from characters who were part of the original show only ramp up the anticipation. The return of Aidan, now flush with cash after selling his furniture business to West Elm and retiring to a farm in Virginia, may be the zenith of this phenomenon, but it’s also the most nonsensical turn the show could have taken—even for a series with a notoriously tenuous relationship with reality.

Aidan was always a foil to Big. While Big was distant and cold, Aidan was affectionate and open. While Big was an ultra-wealthy finance guy with a vacation home in the Hamptons and an affinity for smoking in bed, Aidan was a hippie-esque woodworker with a rustic cabin upstate who once broke up with Carrie because of her cigarette habit. Throughout Aidan’s multiple attempts to make it work with her, the specter of Big always loomed large. Carrie was so attached to Big that she even brought him to Aidan’s upstate house for a cursed weekend after they had an affair. Though Big and Aidan were often referred to as the two great loves of Carrie’s life, it was always abundantly clear who her main love interest was—and the fact that Aidan wasn’t right for her hasn’t changed just because Big is gone.

For many, Aidan was the epitome of boyfriend material: a handsome artist who was also secure, attentive, unafraid of vulnerability, and ready for commitment. He was what many viewers dreamed of, but he was never a good match for Carrie. Their relationship was not defined by tender moments but instead by cringe bits: her repeated professions of being his “booth b-tch” at a furniture show, the way she cruelly took out her frustrations on him at an Apple store after her computer crashed, the time he ate so much fried chicken in bed he asked her to rub his belly instead of taking her up on sex. And Carrie’s moral compass was far more aligned with Big’s. She cheated on Aidan for weeks with a still-married John, lied to him about the affair and her smoking habit, and allowed Aidan to buy her apartment for her after violating his trust, then asked Charlotte to hock her ring to pay for it after she broke off their engagement. In short, Carrie was always a selfish jerk, just like Big—which is why they worked. They deserved each other, and they found a way to make each other better.

Read More: How And Just Like That Season 2 Pays Homage to the SATC Movie

All this makes Carrie’s response to Aidan’s return is a little mind boggling. They may have matured and changed over the years, but they are fundamentally the same people they were when they couldn’t make it work. Aidan’s lifestyle is still at odds with Carrie’s—she still grimaces at the memory of his upstate “shack,” but meanwhile he’s upped the ante by moving full time to a farm. She’s putting her friendships on the back burner in order to spend time with her new boyfriend—a rookie mistake she learned not to make in the original series—which causes Seema to question whether they should go through with their summer in the Hamptons. Carrie is even considering splitting her time between her beloved Manhattan and Aidan’s home in Norfolk, Va., which is unthinkable for a woman who’s defined by New York City.

It’s jarring to watch Carrie seriously ask Miranda whether or not her nearly 20-year relationship with Big was a “big mistake” in light of her burgeoning romance with Aidan. It’s even more dismaying to see her double down on the sentiment when she tells Che that the reason why she and Aidan didn’t work out before was because of a “mistake.” Big might not have been everyone’s definition of a perfect partner, but he was Carrie’s. Like his much-maligned fashion, Aidan’s return is ill-fitting and out of character.

source https://time.com/6301380/carrie-aidan-relationship-and-just-like-that/

‘Always Be Ready to Run’: For Some Capitol Workers, It’s Still Jan. 6

This article is part of The D.C. Brief, TIME’s politics newsletter. Sign up here to get stories like this sent to your inbox.

“Trump facing some form of accountability was supposed to feel better than this,” the chief of staff to a Democrat in Congress told me in the midst of yet another lockdown. This was Wednesday afternoon, the day after Special Counsel Jack Smith had released his four-count indictment against former President Donald Trump, a move that was both cheered by many Hill denizens while also sending some of them back to one of the worst days of their lives, that harrowing moment when they barricaded themselves in offices as hundreds of Trump loyalists roamed the complex looking for lawmakers to intimidate—or worse.

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And then came the 911 call suggesting there was an active shooter in the Hart Senate Office Building and what has become an all-too-familiar routine kicked in.

“I had to silence my cell phone, blockade my office door, and keep the staffers here calm,” the chief of staff said. The echo of Jan. 6, 2021, was almost too precise.

Even before that midday adrenaline spike, many Capitol staffers have been mentally bracing for Thursday, when Trump is due to make his first appearance in federal court to answer felony charges related to his behavior related to the mob attack on Congress on Jan. 6, 2021. Wednesday’s lockdown was like a metaphor for the sense of security that Capitol workers had lost since that day.

“I hate it here,” one junior staffer messaged his friends as the threat was ongoing.

“This s— doesn’t get any easier,” a Republican chief of staff messaged me back on a secure app.

“K Street looks better by the day,” a second Democratic chief of staff replied when I did a quick check-in.

One of the most under-appreciated background stories since Jan. 6, 2021, has been the slow-boiling mental health crisis plaguing Capitol Hill staffers—and not the ones you’d think. Mid-career staffers and younger aides have never not known active-shooter drills in their schools. Learning to hide in classrooms was simply part of the curriculum, and now simply the way they go about their lives. “Always be ready to run,” a House intern texted me, along with a picture of the sneakers she keeps under her desk.

Yet for staffers over a certain age—particularly those in their 40s, those of us who were leaving high school around the Columbine shooting in the spring of 1999—this is all new. This cohort is the one now leading staff in senior roles, and many of them are especially having trouble adapting to this new dynamic. 

Quantifying the impact is tricky, for sure. But there are some metrics that are at the ready. In the year that followed the Jan. 6 riots, 135 officers had left the 2,000-person Capitol Police force; a year earlier, that number stood at 80. In 2017, there were fewer than 4,000 threats made against Congress. In 2021, that number skyrocketed to 9,600. 

In the 30,000-person city within a city that is the Capitol complex, the turnover numbers are only part of the story. One former Democratic member of Congress who was at the Capitol that day but has since retired has nicknamed their former place of employment Doom City: “Every day was like attending a wake. The joy was gone, the celebration of service was killed.” 

Chiefs of staff had already noticed the growing sense of unease, especially for their employees who were at the Capitol for the attack, and now seem to be just waiting for it to happen all over again. “Don’t ask Are you OK? unless you want a real answer,” a Senate senior aide warned me earlier this week, even before the Capitol crashed into lockdown.

Talk to any receptionist in a member’s office—especially Democratic ones, but not exclusively—and they now always have the right forms at the ready to report threats that come to the switchboard. Some offices have just started sending everything to voicemail so they have evidence of the belligerence. Republicans deemed insufficiently MAGA are spared none of the wrath, and those still willing to downplay Jan. 6 keep a wide berth in public lest they be latched to perceived traitors.

In the months that followed the riot, Capitol Hill transformed from one of the most accessible places in the federal government into a fortress on par with the White House. At one point, more armed troops patrolled Capitol Hill than Afghanistan. Security fences went up, and down, and up again. Heck, metal detectors were even installed just off the House floor to screen lawmakers for guns. That’s how toxic and anxiety-demanding working on the Hill had become.

And all of that unresolved trauma came rushing back on Wednesday, 24 hours before Trump was set to return to another fortified building just down the street and presumably plead not guilty over his role in a tragic day that he continues to misrepresent. By the time the all-clear message went across the Capitol complex, the nerves had frayed. Capitol Police said it was likely a “bogus” call, but nonetheless went door to door through all of the Senate office buildings just to be sure. Police then escorted staffers from the building, again just to be sure. There was no indication of shots fired, injuries, or an ongoing threat, but that is little consolation to the professionals on the Hill who had to relive their Jan. 6 experiences during a week when many are already struggling to put the trauma behind them.

This, right here, is why so many of the best and brightest don’t want to log a few years on Capitol Hill. The drag on mental health isn’t remotely worth it.

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source https://time.com/6301285/january-6-capitol-trauma-trump-arraignment/

And Just Like That Is Finally (Maybe) Fixing Its Miranda Problem

“The law firm seems like 100 years ago,” Carrie muses to Miranda in the most recent episode of And Just Like That. It might just be the truest thing Carrie Bradshaw has ever said, Sex and the City canon included. Throughout the six seasons and two major motion pictures that constituted the franchise’s original run, Cynthia Nixon’s Miranda Hobbes was defined by her career as a powerful corporate lawyer. But Miranda the AJLT character has barely resembled the fire-haired ambition monster SATC fans knew and, for the most part, loved. Until, hopefully, now. 

[time-brightcove not-tgx=”true”]

For the first time in nearly two seasons, Miranda is back in the workplace. As she giddily announces to Carrie, she has an internship with Human Rights Watch. Yes, she’s starting at the bottom. This is, after all, her first job since stepping down as partner in that dimly remembered law firm—because, she explains in the AJLT premiere, “I couldn’t be a part of the problem anymore.” But by the end of this week’s episode, the hypercompetent Miranda has already been tapped to cover her extremely pregnant supervisor’s maternity leave. Which would be excellent news if she wasn’t painfully aware that her much-younger fellow interns are already texting each other behind her back about her privilege and the opportunities she’s snatching out from under them. It’s a perfect latter-day Miranda story line, and one that arrives not a moment too soon.

As much as it pains me to admit it, AJLT has been a much better show in its second season than it was in its first, back when everyone was still pretending it was going to be a limited series. Following the tragicomic Peloton death of her husband John James “Mr. Big” Preston (and multiple sexual assault accusations against the actor who played him, Chris Noth, who has denied the allegations), the once-vivacious Carrie spent Season 1 in a fog of grief that overwhelmed what had always been a lighthearted franchise. Meanwhile, prissy Charlotte had aged into a full-on scold, bragging about her delayed perimenopause, nagging her friends about their life choices, and all but smothering her teenage children. And between Big’s abrupt exit, Kim Cattrall’s refusal to reprise the key role of Samantha Jones, and the death, midway through production, of Willie Garson, who played Carrie’s dear friend Stanford Blatch, the season felt more defined by its glaring absences than by what was actually happening on screen.

But Season 2 has brought a welcome return to SATC’s funnier, frothier form. It’s been a relief to see Carrie diving into the dating pool again, even if her all-consuming new relationship with Aidan—not to mention this week’s ahistorical dithering over whether Big was a mistake—feels a bit hasty. Showrunner Michael Patrick King and Kristin Davis, who plays Charlotte, have started leaning into the character’s ridiculousness. Now she makes for great comic relief, stressing out over the placement of a belt for her first day back on the job at an art gallery and dressing up as a hilariously weak facsimile of Keri Russell in The Americans for a costume party. The diverse new friends who were so transparently cast to address critiques of the franchise’s whiteness, like Sarita Choudhury’s Seema and Nicole Ari Parker’s Lisa, are finally more than just sidekicks.

That leaves poor, old Miranda as the weakest link. As others have noted, AJLT ruined the show’s only down-to-earth character by sending her on a nonsensical romantic odyssey that entailed callously dumping her husband of two decades, Steve, in order to discover new facets of her sexuality with Carrie’s nonbinary, comedian boss, Che Diaz. Much—including many memes—has been made of Che’s self-evident ridiculousness; Brock Colyar of The Cut memorably described the character as “a social-justice-warrior scold with a podcast and a cannabis habit” who is “there to teach the well-maintained, well-meaning, nearly 60-year-old ladies about ‘compulsory heterosexuality,’ pronounspeak, and using dialogue as a verb.” We even had to sit through a dire meta plot a few episodes back in which Che Diaz’s TV pilot got shelved after Che Diaz’s portrayal of a protagonist based on Che Diaz irritated a focus group.

More bewildering than Che’s existence was the sudden, 180-degree personality shift Miranda underwent when the pair started dating. Her studies at Columbia, toward a master’s in human rights law, faded into the background, along with Steve and their college-bound son Brady. She became Che’s 24/7 cheering section, obsessing over their sexual prowess and, at the end of season 1, moving across the country to L.A. to support their career. Her highlights in early episodes of the current season included fumbling with a strap-on and her inability to enjoy an impromptu threesome with the male ex to whom Che is still technically married. (King sure does seem to like humiliating poor Miranda.) In the broadest possible sense, the events of the show echoed the real life of Nixon, who divorced her then-husband late in SATC’s run and began dating her now-wife, Christine Marinoni. But she also ran for governor of New York in 2018, and that might have made a bit more sense as an AJLT pivot for a woman of Miranda’s caliber.

Now, at long last, Miranda and Che, a couple that never seemed especially compatible outside of the bedroom, have broken up (although a scene from this week’s episode, in which Carrie preaches to Che about second chances, has me worried they’re going to reunite in the finale). Which leaves Miranda free, for the time being, to reestablish her ruthless independence. The first few internship scenes offered a glorious glimpse of the old, sharp-tongued, Type A Miranda, whose pioneering heteropessimism once balanced out the giddy romantic misadventures of her three best girlfriends. “I guess you’re just perfect, Miranda,” a fellow intern sarcastically coos when she dares to alert the younger, less experienced woman to an error she’s made. “Actually,” Miranda snaps, “I’m a sexually confused alcoholic who’s in the midst of a divorce.” 

It’s easily her best AJLT line to date. Now this is the woman who once responded to a bended-knee marriage proposal by exclaiming: “What are you, f-ckin’ crazy?” And Just Like That could easily send her back down the Che Diaz rabbit hole, or worse, next week. But that’s all the more reason to celebrate the return of Miranda Hobbes, Esq. Long may she reign!  

source https://time.com/6301264/and-just-like-that-miranda-season-2/