Mount Everest Climbers Must Now Meet This New Requirement

Mount Everest climbers must now rent and wear a tracking device on their journeys to cut down time on search and rescue missions, CNN reported.

Rakesh Gurung, Nepal’s tourism department director, is quoted as telling the news outlet that a climber will pay $10 to $15 for a chip, which will be sewn into their jacket, then returned after the climb and rented to the next climber. Reputable mountaineering companies already use GPS trackers, according to Gurung.  

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TIME reached out to Nepal’s tourism department for further information.

This news comes ahead of the spring climbing season, which generally runs from March to May, when conditions are best to take on the world’s tallest mountain. Mountaineers must wait for the most favorable weather to summit the peak, with most ascents occurring around May 18, according to Outside magazine.

Mount Everest, always perilous to climb, has also become increasingly and dangerously crowded in recent years. Last year, Nepal issued a record number of permits to climb Mount Everest during the spring season, per the BBC. That season became one of the deadliest in recent memory, with 12 confirmed deaths and five climbers missing at the season’s close in June.

The government has taken other measures to attempt to keep climbers safe. Last year, Nepal’s Tourism Board announced that climbers on any mountain would be required to get a tracking information management system card from an authorized mountaineering agency in an effort to “ensure the safety and security of visitors” and discourage unlicensed treks.

Nepal also piloted tracking chips in the past. In 2017, the country’s tourism department provided some Everest climbers with GPS trackers to prevent false summit claims and make rescues easier, Reuters reported. At the time, tourism officials said that if the concept worked, they would make it mandatory for all climbers.

source https://time.com/6837233/mount-everest-new-requirement-for-climbers/

Ship Hit by Yemen’s Houthi Rebels Sinks in the Red Sea, Marking First Vessel Lost in Conflict

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — A ship attacked by Yemen’s Houthi rebels has sunk in the Red Sea after days of taking on water, officials said Saturday, the first vessel to be fully destroyed as part of their campaign over Israel’s war against Hamas in the Gaza Strip.

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The sinking of the Rubymar comes as shipping through the crucial waterway for cargo and energy shipments moving from Asia and the Middle East to Europe has been affected by the Houthi attacks.

Already, many ships have turned away from the route. The sinking could see further detours and higher insurance rates put on vessels plying the waterway — potentially driving up global inflation and affecting aid shipments to the region.

The Belize-flagged Rubymar had been drifting northward after being struck by a Houthi anti-ship ballistic missile on Feb. 18 in the Bab el-Mandeb Strait, a crucial waterway linking the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden.

Yemen’s internationally recognized government, as well as a regional military official, confirmed the ship sank. The official spoke on condition of anonymity as no authorization was given to speak to journalists about the incident.

The British military’s United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations center, which watches over Mideast waterways, separately acknowledged the Rubymar’s sinking Saturday afternoon.

The Rubymar’s Beirut-based manager could not be immediately reached for comment.

Yemen’s exiled government, which has been backed by a Saudi-led coalition since 2015, said the Rubymar sank late Friday as stormy weather took hold over the Red Sea. The vessel had been abandoned for 12 days after the attack, though plans had been made to try and tow the ship to a safe port.

The Iran-backed Houthis, who had falsely claimed the ship sank almost instantly after the attack, did not immediately acknowledge the ship’s sinking.

The U.S. military’s Central Command previously warned the vessel’s cargo of fertilizer, as well as fuel leaking from the ship, could cause ecological damage to the Red Sea.

Ahmed Awad Bin Mubarak, the prime minister of Yemen’s internationally recognized government, called the ship’s sinking “an unprecedented environmental disaster.”

“It’s a new disaster for our country and our people,” he wrote on X, formerly Twitter. “Every day, we pay for the Houthi militia’s adventures, which were not stopped at plunging Yemen into the coup disaster and war.”

The Houthis have held Yemen’s capital, Sanaa, since 2014, expelling the government. Its fought a Saudi-led coalition since 2015 in a stalemated war.

Satellite pictures analyzed by The Associated Press from Planet Labs PBC showed smaller boats alongside the Rubymar on Wednesday. It wasn’t immediately clear whose vessels those were. The images showed the Rubymar’s stern sinking into the Red Sea but still afloat, mirroring earlier video taken of the vessel.

The private security firm Ambrey separately reported Friday about a mysterious incident involving the Rubymar.

“A number of Yemenis were reportedly harmed during a security incident which took place” on Friday, Ambrey said. It did not elaborate on what that incident involved and no party involved in Yemen’s yearslong war claimed any new attack on the vessel.

A satellite image taken Friday from Maxar Technologies showed new blast damage on the Rubymar not previously seen, with no other vessels around it.

Since November, the rebels have repeatedly targeted ships in the Red Sea and surrounding waters over the Israel-Hamas war. Those vessels have included at least one with cargo bound for Iran, the Houthis’ main benefactor, and an aid ship later bound for Houthi-controlled territory.

Despite over a month of U.S.-led airstrikes, Houthi rebels remain capable of launching significant attacks. That includes the attack on the Rubymar and the downing of an American drone worth tens of millions of dollars. The Houthis insist their attacks will continue until Israel stops its combat operations in the Gaza Strip, which have enraged the wider Arab world and seen the Houthis gain international recognition.

However, there has been a slowdown in attacks in recent days. The reason for that remains unclear.

source https://time.com/6837215/yemen-houthi-rebels-attack-ship-sinks-red-sea/

How World Leaders Have Reacted to the Deaths of People In Gaza Waiting For an Aid Convoy

World leaders are putting pressure on Israel to allow in more humanitarian aid to Gaza, with some turning to their own efforts to do so, after at least 110 Palestinians were killed and hundreds more injured trying to get aid this week, according to the Hamas-run health ministry.  

Witnesses said Israeli troops fired on the crowd as people rushed to take food aid off trucks in Gaza City on Thursday, the Associated Press reported. This was echoed by Hamas on its Telegram channel.

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The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said “thousands of Gazans” had “descended upon the trucks” with some “violently pushing and even trampling other Gazans to death, looting the humanitarian supplies” resulting in “dozens of Gazans killed and injured.” The IDF said its troops fired warning shots in a bid to disperse the crowds. 

A doctor at a nearby hospital told the AP that more than 80% of the injured victims he treated were struck by gunfire. He couldn’t speak to the cause of deaths, as the bodies were taken to other hospitals. 

The incident comes after the World Food Programme announced it had stopped food deliveries to north Gaza on Feb. 20 because it was too unsafe, even though needs are more acute than ever. 

Earlier this week, Gaza’s Hamas-run health ministry reported that more than 30,000 people, most women and children, have been killed by Israel’s military assault in response to Hamas’ attack on Oct. 7. Others are at risk of starvation, with the U.N. reporting Friday that 10 children have been officially registered in hospitals as having starved to death.

Israel’s humanitarian aid arm COGAT said on X (formerly Twitter) after the incident that Israel Defense Forces “will continue to assist in the transfer and coordination of humanitarian aid.” 

Here’s what world leaders have said in the wake of the incident.

U.S. President Joe Biden 

President Joe Biden responded to the deaths by approving airdrops of humanitarian aid into Gaza on Friday.

“In the coming days we’re going to join with our friends in Jordan and others who are providing airdrops of additional food and supplies” and will “seek to open up other avenues in, including possibly a marine corridor,” Biden said. “Aid flowing to Gaza is nowhere nearly enough…Innocent lives are on the line and children’s lives are on the line. We won’t stand by until we get more aid in there. We should be getting hundreds of trucks in, not just several.”

White House national security spokesman John Kirby said the aid airdrops are complicated operations that will only supplement ground deliveries. 

Aid organizations stressed more help must be delivered over land, with the International Rescue Committee saying in a statement emailed to TIME on Friday that “airdrops do not and cannot substitute for humanitarian access” and calling for a sustained ceasefire. 

U.K. Foreign Secretary David Cameron 

On Friday, U.K. Foreign Secretary David Cameron said in a press release: “The deaths of people in Gaza waiting for an aid convoy yesterday were horrific. There must be an urgent investigation and accountability. This must not happen again.”

Cameron said the incident couldn’t be separated from “inadequate aid supplies,” reporting that in February only half the number of trucks crossed into Gaza as in January. “This is simply unacceptable.” 

“Israel has an obligation to ensure that significantly more humanitarian aid reaches the people of Gaza,” Cameron said, adding that Israel must urgently open more crossings into Gaza, eliminate bureaucratic obstacles, enable aid operations, and ensure there are mechanisms in place to protect civilians, NGOs, medics and those providing aid. 

Cameron said the incident underscores the importance of securing “an immediate humanitarian pause. A sustained pause in the fighting is the only way to get lifesaving aid in at the scale needed and free the hostages cruelly held by Hamas.” 

The deaths of people in Gaza waiting for an aid convoy yesterday were horrific.

Read my full statement below. pic.twitter.com/2ZJe9JvrZp

— David Cameron (@David_Cameron) March 1, 2024

Qatar Ministry of Foreign Affairs 

Qatar, which helped mediate a previous temporary ceasefire between Israel and Hamas and has continued to broker negotiations between the two warring parties, said in a statement on X that it condemned in strongest terms what it called a “heinous massacre.”

The ministry stressed “the need for the international community to shoulder its moral and legal responsibilities to oblige the Israeli occupation to comply with international law and international humanitarian law” and urged international action to end the fighting and address the “catastrophic humanitarian situation” in Gaza.  

Statement : Qatar condemns in the Strongest Terms a New Massacre in Gaza and Demands Urgent International Action to End the Aggression against Gaza Strip Immediately#MOFAQatar pic.twitter.com/oPqK4sLdnk

— Ministry of Foreign Affairs – Qatar (@MofaQatar_EN) February 29, 2024

Canada Minister of Foreign Affairs Mélanie Joly 

Mélanie Joly told reporters on Thursday that the deaths were a “nightmare” and called for an end to fighting in Gaza, Reuters reported. “We need to make sure that international aid is sent into Gaza and that people are protected when they go and get that aid.”

French President Emmanuel Macron 

Emmanuel Macron, who called for a ceasefire in November, expressed “Deep indignation at the images coming from Gaza where civilians have been targeted by Israeli soldiers” in a statement on X. “I express my strongest condemnation of these shootings and call for truth, justice and respect for international law.”

“The situation in Gaza is terrible. All civilian populations must be protected. A ceasefire must be implemented immediately to allow humanitarian aid to be distributed,” he said. 

Deep indignation at the images coming from Gaza where civilians have been targeted by Israeli soldiers.

I express my strongest condemnation of these shootings and call for truth, justice, and respect for international law.

— Emmanuel Macron (@EmmanuelMacron) March 1, 2024

German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock 

The German Foreign Office posted in a statement on X attributed to Annalena Baerbock, relaying that she was shaken by the reports of people killed while seeking food for their families. “The Israeli army must fully investigate the incident and how the mass panic and shootings occurred,” the statement read.

“In Gaza, people are closer to death than to life,” the statement continued. “More humanitarian aid must get in immediately. A humanitarian pause is more urgent than ever so that hostages can finally be freed from Hamas, the dying in Gaza stops and aid can be distributed safely. 

People sought food for their families and were killed. I am shaken by the reports from #Gaza. The Israeli army must fully investigate the incident and how the mass panic and shootings occurred. My sympathies are with the families of the victims. @ABaerbock 1/2

— GermanForeignOffice (@GermanyDiplo) March 1, 2024

Belgium Minister of Foreign Affairs Hadja Lahbib, Minister of Development Cooperation and Major Cities Caroline Gennez

Hadja Lahbib said on X that “the tragedy in northern Gaza reinforces Belgium’s call for an immediate ceasefire.” She later said Belgium would also work with Jordan to airdrop aid into Gaza.

Talking with my Jordanian colleague @AymanHSafadi.

Humanitarian access to Gaza is insufficient.

Together with Jordan, we're planning a humanitarian airdrop with food and essential goods.

An immediate ceasefire is necessary. pic.twitter.com/SDhKb70XWf

— Hadja Lahbib (@hadjalahbib) March 1, 2024

Caroline Gennez said on X after the incident: “Nowhere and no one is safe in Gaza. Humanitarian aid is already barely getting in. And now people queuing up for a crumb of bread in the most horrific conditions and under threat of starvation are just being shot. This. Must. Stop.”

Nowhere and no one is safe in #Gaza.

Humanitarian aid is already barely getting in. And now people queuing up for a crumb of bread in the most horrific conditions and under threat of starvation are just being shot.

This. Must. Stop.#Flourmassacre https://t.co/ZuYVKD17If

— Caroline Gennez (@carogennez) February 29, 2024

source https://time.com/6837191/gaza-aid-convoy-deaths-israel-hamas-world-leaders/

Why Elon Musk Is Suing OpenAI and Sam Altman

The fallout from the OpenAI board’s failed attempt to fire CEO Sam Altman last November took an unexpected turn on Thursday, in events that could have a significant bearing on the future of the company and the wider world of artificial intelligence.

Elon Musk filed a lawsuit against OpenAI in a San Francisco court, alleging that Altman and co-founder Greg Brockman have violated OpenAI’s founding mission to develop AI safely and for the benefit of humanity.

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The billionaire owner of SpaceX and X (formerly Twitter) co-founded OpenAI alongside Altman and Brockman back in 2015, but stepped away from the company in 2018. (Musk launched his own AI company, xAI last summer.) Musk disagreed with Altman and Brockman’s plan to turn OpenAI from a non-profit to a for-profit company, and before stepping down, reportedly mounted an unsuccessful bid to install himself as CEO. Musk is suing Altman, Brockman, and several of OpenAI’s business entities for breach of contract, breach of fiduciary duty, and unfair business practices, seeking unspecified damages above $105,000.

Read More: Inside Elon Musk’s Struggle for the Future of AI

The lawsuit, however, also makes a more substantial claim which—if upheld by the San Francisco Superior Court—could fundamentally reshape how OpenAI and its partner Microsoft do business. (Microsoft has invested $13 billion in OpenAI.)

First, the crucial context: As part of their partnership agreement, Microsoft has exclusive commercial rights to OpenAI’s intellectual property, including the algorithms behind ChatGPT and its successor GPT-4. But there is a notable caveat: these commercial rights only apply to “pre-AGI technology.” And it is OpenAI’s board that has the right to determine when AGI—artificial general intelligence, or an AI system that can perform economically valuable tasks similar to a human—has been reached.

In November 2023, the OpenAI board fired Altman. During the five days that followed, Microsoft and OpenAI employees applied significant pressure to the board to reverse that decision, ultimately successfully. Altman returned as CEO, and all but one of the board’s members who had voted to oust Altman were themselves removed. (Altman and Brockman were also removed from the board.) Microsoft, which did not previously have a seat on the board, was given an observer position with no voting power. These events, Musk’s lawsuit alleges, amounted to a “coup” that had the effect of ensuring the new OpenAI board, which the suit argues were “handpicked by Mr. Altman and Microsoft,” would be unlikely to declare that AGI had been reached, thus allowing Microsoft to continue profiting from the technology.

“To this day, OpenAI, Inc.’s website continues to profess that its charter is to ensure that AGI ‘benefits all of humanity,’” the lawsuit states. “In reality, however, OpenAI, Inc. has been transformed into a closed-source de facto subsidiary of the largest technology company in the world: Microsoft. Under its new Board, it is not just developing but is actually refining an AGI to maximize profits for Microsoft, rather than for the benefit of humanity.”

OpenAI did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The board’s new chair, Bret Taylor, said in a statement in November that the new board would “build a qualified, diverse Board of exceptional individuals” focused on serving OpenAI’s mission. Responding to similar claims made by Musk in the past, Altman said last year: “I like the dude. I think he’s totally wrong about this stuff… He can say whatever he wants but I’m proud of what we’re doing, and I think we’re going to make a positive contribution to the world, and I try to stay above all that.”

Read More: CEO of the Year 2023: Sam Altman

Musk’s lawsuit seeks “a judicial determination that GPT-4 constitutes Artificial General Intelligence and is thereby outside the scope of OpenAI’s license to Microsoft,” citing a paper authored by Microsoft researchers who claim the tool is “an early (yet still incomplete) version of an AGI system.” It also seeks a court order prohibiting OpenAI from using its assets “for the financial benefit” of Microsoft or itself, and a separate court order compelling OpenAI to release its technology to the public.

Musk, the lawsuit separately argues, was the driving force behind the establishment of OpenAI in 2015 as a nonprofit research body dedicated to building AGI for the benefit of humanity. He and Altman were concerned that Google, the leading AI lab at the time, was not prioritizing the safety of the technology. Musk donated $44 million, the majority of the cash required to get OpenAI off the ground, according to the lawsuit, and helped the nonprofit recruit leading AI researchers.

“Imagine donating to a non-profit whose asserted mission is to protect the Amazon rainforest, but then the non-profit creates a for-profit Amazonian logging company that uses the fruits of the donations to clear the rainforest,” the lawsuit says. “That is the story of OpenAI.”

source https://time.com/6836815/the-key-issue-behind-elon-musks-lawsuit-against-openai/

Democrats Are About To Discover How Much They Needed Mitch McConnell

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.

To liberals, Mitch McConnell is a dastardly master of the political dark arts, willing to do anything to serve his conservative aims. He enabled multiple GOP White Houses to play the long game, twisting himself when his previous pronouncements became inconvenient. The Kentucky Republican puppet-mastered into reality a regulatory regime that allows unchecked corporate and secretive individual cash back into politics after picking the scabs of McCain-Feingold campaign finance law until there was nothing left.

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In the liberal worldview, not only did McConnell steal a Supreme Court seat from Democrats in 2016 and clear the way for the conservative bench that dealt the death blow to federal abortion rights, he also stacked the decks in lower courts to make life easier for polluters, right-wing ideologues, and Wall Street. And, when the opportunity arose to finally purge the Republican Party of Donald Trump for good with a history-making second impeachment trial, McConnell looked away from the carnage once more.

Well, those same liberals who profess nothing short of loathing for McConnell might be about to find how much worse things can get without the Senate chieftain keeping his unruly Republican Caucus in some semblance of order. One can’t shake the meme asking “Miss Me Yet?”

McConnell on Wednesday announced that he was putting an end to his record-setting 17 years atop the Senate Republicans’ hierarchy. Only one other incumbent Republican—Sen. Chuck Grassley of Iowa—has experienced Washington without McConnell pulling major levers of power. And just seven incumbent Republicans have served in a Senate where McConnell was not in the party’s top job.

That longevity did little to mask McConnell’s own disappointment in his announcement.

“Believe me: I know the politics within my party at this particular moment in time,” McConnell said in the well of the Senate. “I have many faults; misunderstanding politics is not one of them.”

As much as Democrats like to demonize McConnell, he has been a responsible cog for must-pass legislation to keep the government open and the national credit card working. McConnell’s years working alongside President Joe Biden in the Senate have kept that line of communication open between his second-floor suite in the Capitol and the White House’s satellite office nearby. McConnell also helped Biden pass part of his infrastructure investment agenda and, during the Trump years, provided a reliable guard against some of Trump’s most bananas ideas and watered down some of the others.

But absent McConnell’s Senate trickery and caucus wrangling, the Senate could soon devolve into its own version of the chaotic cos-play of The Hunger Games that is the House. While Democrats have no love for McConnell’s win-at-all-costs approach to politics, they often took it for granted when he rallied his ranks to dodge shutdowns and defaults. 

Perhaps the shrewdest mind in politics on either side of the aisle right now, McConnell is fully cognizant that he is leading a party that fundamentally disagrees with him on major questions—or at least hews to Trump’s prescriptions from afar out of fealty or fear. McConnell has fought an increasingly lonely fight within his party to secure funding to help Ukraine fight against Russia’s invasion and attacks from afar, much to the dismay of Trump and his worldview that views NATO as a racket. A $95 billion aid package for Ukraine, Israel, and Taiwan cleared the Senate this month with McConnell’s blessing and vote, although it is stuck in park over in the House, where Trumpian elements have incredible sway.

For McConnell, who arrived in office thanks to the same 1984 ballots that saw Ronald Reagan win 49 states, a Cold War worldview has evolved but never evaporated, and Moscow’s aggression needs to be answered on the battlefield and done so decisively. 

That put McConnell on a collision course with the Trumpists in his party, including some voting lawmakers who in recent years have grown emboldened in their face-to-face criticism of their leader. It’s not unheard of to hear screaming in the hallway outside Senate Republicans’ weekly private lunch, and McConnell is often the target. After one particularly nasty session, the ever-in-control McConnell coolly responded: “Are you suggesting I’m enjoying this?”

Since securing the party’s top role in 2007, McConnell has taken the criticism in stride. The self-described Grim Reaper of the Senate knows the rules well enough to thwart any legislation or nominee he found objectionable. In one legendary 1994 speech to the conservative Heritage Foundation, McConnell said inaction was, in itself, an action. “I am a proud guardian of gridlock,” he said. Through an often-inscrutable smirk, McConnell watches the chessboard of Washington move with few surprises. After all, the former campaign operative has run every model 20 clicks downstream, polls showing him to be the most unpopular elected official in national politics be damned.

But McConnell, who judges success in the Senate just as clinically as he does when watching his beloved University of Louisville Cardinals basketball and football teams, plainly saw his efficacy fading. In recent months, the 82-year-old Minority Leader has faced health challenges; after alarming freezing episodes, Congress’ doctor released a terse statement clearing him to serve, but the famously private McConnell has refused to be more candid than that.

Even as McConnell was delivering Trump legislative wins and confirming his judges, the then-President continued an unyielding series of insults at both McConnell and his wife, who happened to be serving in Trump’s Cabinet as his Labor Secretary. While McConnell employed his mastery at advancing Trump’s agenda—or blocking Democrats’ efforts where he deemed it necessary—he did so without any measure of appreciation from the President, who was focused on the few areas where McConnell refused to go his way.

The antipathy did not abate, even after McConnell spared Trump in his impeachment trial over a role in sparking the Jan. 6, 2021, riot that overran the Capitol. “Former President Trump’s actions that preceded the riot were a disgraceful, disgraceful dereliction of duty,” McConnell said on the floor of the Senate. “Trump is practically and morally responsible for provoking the events of the day.” Then, McConnell voted against convicting him.

Still, Trump is the biggest figure in the Republican Party and seems coasting to a third presidential nomination despite the ongoing legal challenges he faces on multiple fronts. Trump just orchestrated the ouster of the Republican National Committee’s top ranks. In early 2022, Trump backed a leadership challenge to McConnell from Sen. Rick Scott of Florida, an effort that flamed out. And the grudge match with McConnell seems to be nowhere close to abating, telling Fox News that the relationship was far from healed: “I don’t know that I can work with him.”

A relative eternity exists between now and the next Leadership elections, expected to come after November’s elections that will decide which party controls the chamber come January 2025. The Three Johns—Thune of South Dakota, Barrasso of Wyoming, and Cornyn of Texas—have long been setting themselves up as McConnell’s heir. Ambitious colleagues like Sen. Tom Cotton of Arkansas and Scott are also mentioned as favorites of the conservative wing of the GOP. And Sen. Steve Daines’ turn leading Senate Republicans’ campaign arm has made the Montana Republican an attractive option, too. Each of these men—and, yes, again they’re all men at this point—would face his own challenges in managing relationships inside a caucus where every single one of them looks in a mirror and sees a President, to borrow a well-trod trope. But, in the end, the winner very well may turn on who is seen as most agreeable—or pliable—to Trump.

As McConnell was informing his colleagues of his decision Wednesday, lawmakers struck a partial funding bill to dodge a shutdown, its fourth temporary spending plan since October. Instead of running out of money on Friday, some of the government has funding through March 8, while a new March 22 deadline has been put in place for other corners of government. The kick-the-can-down-the-road approach has left mainstream lawmakers of both parties and at all levels deeply frustrated. Republicans in the House are trying to insert riders into the budget to block access to abortion medications and to slash a proposed effort to boost spending for food programs for poor children and women, ideas that are likely to doom any progress. 

McConnell plans to remain in the Senate, returning to rank-and-file status and likely an unchallenged shift to chairman or ranking member on any committee of his choosing. “I still have enough gas in my tank to thoroughly disappoint my critics, and I intend to do so with all the enthusiasm to which they have become accustomed,” he told the Senate, where his aides lined the walls to watch the boss start unspooling a remarkable run atop the GOP.

The Kentucky Republican’s legacy will be studied for generations, much of it focused on his obsessive partisan focus. But as Leader, he was a voracious student of history and precedent. And, most importantly for Democrats, McConnell has never shielded his point of view or his priorities. That predictability helped the Senate stand as a guard against House-caliber chaos. At best, there will be a learning curve for McConnell’s successor. At worst, the Senate may lose its traditional check. It would be, as McConnell himself observed in 2013, a landmark: “No Majority Leader wants written on his tombstone that he presided over the end of the Senate.” Washington cannot afford that norm to be the one that falls next.

Make sense of what matters in Washington. Sign up for the D.C. Brief newsletter.

source https://time.com/6836335/mitch-mcconnell-replacement-trump/

A Florida Bill Would Require Trans People to List Their Assigned Birth Sex on New IDs. Here’s What to Know

More than a hundred activists and allies gathered at the Florida State Capitol in Tallahassee Wednesday to protest anti-LGBTQ+ legislation, including one bill that would bar residents from having accurate gender markers on their state identification cards.

House Bill 1639, which is up for vote in the House on Thursday, expands on a memo issued by the Florida Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles on Jan. 26 that prevents Floridians from updating their gender markers on existing state identification documents. 

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This proposed legislation would require individuals to list their sex assigned at birth on their identification cards, and affect those seeking a first-time ID or license. The bill would impact tens of thousands of Floridians; nearly 95,000 transgender adults and 16,200 transgender youth aged 13-17 call Florida home, according to the Williams Institute at UCLA’s School of Law.

Queer advocates and allies have largely opposed the legislation, which has unclear parameters for enforcement.

“Imagine a police officer pulling someone over for speeding and questioning the driver about whether the male or female designation on their license reflects the officer’s assumption about a person’s gender,” said Kara Gross, legislative director of the ACLU of Florida. “Are we really passing legislation that requires adults to prove their gender at traffic stops? Would the officer be able to confiscate the license if they refused?” 

Here’s what to know about the new legislation.  

What would the bill do?

House Bill 1639 would change any references to gender in section 322—which dictates how residents can obtain a state identification card—to sex. Sex, under state law, would be defined as the classification of an individual as either male or female based on the genitalia they present at birth. If the bill passes, state identification cards would reflect an individual’s sex assigned at birth, not gender identity.

These rules would go into effect on July 1, but other provisions could go into effect later. 

For example, the bill has additional measures that would require health insurance companies who offer coverage for sex-reassignment prescriptions to also require coverage for treatment to detransition. The proposed legislation also “may not prohibit the coverage of mental health or therapeutic services to treat a person’s perception that his or her sex, is inconsistent with such person’s sex at birth by affirming the insured’s sex.”

The ACLU of Florida said that these measures would require health plans to “cover the widely discredited practice of conversion therapy and create additional obstacles for health plans to cover gender-affirming care,” according to a February press release. (Rep. Doug Bankson, a co-sponsor of the bill, previously denied that the legislation would cover conversion therapy, but did not give any examples of other treatments health insurers would have to cover.) 

These changes would only apply to health insurance plans that are delivered, issued, or renewed on or after Jan. 1, 2025. 

Why are people protesting it?

LGBTQ+ residents, advocates, and allies are protesting against this legislation, and others, because they say the bill is part of a targeted attack against them. More than 10 anti-LGBTQ+ bills have been filed this Florida legislative session, according to the ACLU’s legislative tracker. 

“No human being should be stripped of their rights. While we may not agree with the life an individual lives, respect isn’t a compromise! The Florida government has failed again to act in their professional capacity,” Ashley Figueroa, founder of the Gender Advancement Project, an organization that fights for trans inclusion, said via email. 

Other critics have pointed out that the legislation would deny the legal recognition of transgender individuals. 

How would it apply to current licenses?

HB 1639 would force transgender Floridians who are obtaining a first-time identification card to list their assigned sex at birth, instead of gender, on their state ID.

The proposed legislation would work in conjunction with the Florida Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles memo, which bars residents with existing state IDs or licenses from being able to change their gender markers, according to Simone Chriss, the director of the transgender rights initiative at the Southern Legal Counsel. (Chriss is an attorney representing plaintiffs in Doe v. Ladapo, which challenges Florida SB 254 and related Boards of Medicine rules that restrict access to health care for transgender adults and ban care for transgender adolescents.) 

“Expanding the Department’s authority to issue replacement licenses dependent on one’s internal sense of gender or sex identification is violative of the law,” the department said in an email to TIME. “Therefore, the Department has rescinded IR-08 Gender Requirements, and the recission pertains solely to replacement license requests.” 

The department directive warned that people who “misrepresent” their gender on a state ID would face criminal and civil penalties that could include the “cancellation, suspension, or revocation of a driver’s license.” 

But how the state would enforce this is unclear. Florida requires residents to present primary identification documents, one of which can be a U.S. passport, to obtain a state ID. Chriss points out that many transgender folks have changed, or can change their gender markers on their passports. 

“For the folks that have a valid U.S. passport that reflects their gender identity, by the terms of the [Florida Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles] policy, including the new one, they have to reflect that gender marker on the ID,” says Chriss. “It’s going to be interesting to see how they try to remedy that with their clear intent, which is to make it so that trans people can’t have IDs that reflect their gender identity.

The memo doesn’t appear to impact​​ residents who have already changed their gender markers on their state IDs, Chriss says. However, HB 1639 does not specify how or whether this will harm transgender individuals who have already updated gender markers on their state ID to match their gender identity. 

“Will their license be revoked? Will they no longer be able to hold a valid driver’s license? We ask these questions because they are not answered in the bill,” said Gross. 

Chriss says that a legal challenge is inevitable. “The state of Florida has consistently enacted rules, policies, and legislation with vague, ambiguous language and undefined terms, with the goal of creating fear and uncertainty among the targeted community,” she says. “If this passes, then I think we would challenge, holistically, the statute as well as the new [directive].”

source https://time.com/6836184/florida-house-bill-1639-transgender-id/

The Good Wife Spinoff Elsbeth Proves You Can Have Too Much of a Good Thing

“These are beautiful bookcases.” 

That’s the first line ever uttered by Elsbeth Tascioni on The Good Wife, as she wanders into a crime scene taking pictures with her phone, like an out-of-towner who’d stepped off one of Chicago’s Architectural Tour boats and just kept on drifting away from the group. It’s the prototypical entrance for Elsbeth, who’s often gone fishing in her own stream of consciousness, right up to the point where she snaps back to reality and delivers some staggering piece of insight. We’ll know her as a brilliant trial attorney, but here she’s acting as a legal fixer, swooping in to help Alicia Florrock (Julianna Marguiles) keep her husband out of jail for violating the terms of his house arrest on corruption charges. He’s guilty, but Elsbeth turns the tables so deftly that the police almost have to apologize for their mismanagement.

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That’s the Elsbeth formula—a smattering of daffy non sequiturs and pleasantries, followed by a shrewd observation or argument that surprises everyone that hasn’t worked with her before. Carrie Preston plays Elsbeth with an indefatigable cheeriness that’s at once winning and vaguely unnerving, and armchair physicians have frequently diagnosed the character as “on the spectrum” for her disconnect with other people. It’s not as if she’s unfriendly, quite the contrary, but Elsbeth’s conversational style is conspicuously alien, like she’s earnestly reaching for a human connection that’s not quite there. That’s part of what makes her so effective in her job: She seems like a harmless eccentric to her adversaries (and her friends, too), but misses absolutely nothing.

For 13 years on CBS’s peerless courtroom drama The Good Wife and its rowdy CBS All-Access/Paramount+ spin-off The Good Fight, Elsbeth was the greatest of guest-spot ringers, recharging the atmosphere of both shows like a sudden swing in barometric pressure. There’s no shortage of brilliant character actors challenging for the crown, either: Consider Michael J. Fox as Louis Canning, a lawyer who uses his involuntary body movements to draw sympathy from juries, or Dylan Baker as Colin Sweeney, a rich and homicidal deviant in the mold of Claus Von Bülow or Robert Durst. No one in television has a casting rolodex as deep as show runners Robert and Michelle King, yet Preston could be counted on to give every episode a lift.

Read more: How The Good Wife Changed Feminism and Politics on TV

All of which makes the new CBS spin-off show premiering Feb. 29, Elsbeth, a be-careful-what-you-wish-for proposition. Now this delightful chaos agent who’d appeared on 14 episodes in seven seasons of The Good Wife and five episodes in six seasons of The Good Fight is at the center of every episode of Elsbeth, which is an abundance of Elsbeth Tascioni. When Elsbeth first floated into a room with Alicia Florrick, marveling about bookcases, she brought an offbeat lightness to a dark moment in the Florrick family, when its legal and marital crises had come to a head. And she stood out, too, on The Good Fight, as an oddly stabilizing presence amid that show’s batsh-t carnival of provocation. But shifting a supporting character to the lead, especially one as fundamentally unknowable as Elsbeth, simplifies and flattens the dynamic.

To a large degree, the lack of ambition makes it a cozier fit for CBS, which has made low-risk genre shows its bread and butter. Where The Good Wife found ways to reinvent the courtroom drama while ticking the requisite boxes—and The Good Fight, in the wilds of the streaming world, could cut loose completely—Elsbeth quickly settles into a case-of-the-week rhythm that’s satisfying but much more by the numbers. The one semi-ingenious conceptual twist is that Elsbeth is technically a lawyer, but on the show, she’s more of an unofficial homicide detective, slipping into a sleuthing job through the backdoor. Her uncanny powers of observation still apply, but they’re mostly used to clean up sloppy policing. 

In the opening of the pilot, Elsbeth is the only passenger on the upper deck of a “rap tour” bus in the middle of winter, beaming like a Midwestern rube in a novelty Statue of Liberty visor while her guide gently suggests joining the other passengers downstairs. She has the bus pull over at a murder scene and introduces herself: “I’m part of the thingie-thing,” she says. “The consent decree.” This consent decree gives her broad authority to oversee NYPD procedures, but from the moment she steps into her first murder scene, Elsbeth can’t keep herself from snooping around and annoying detectives with theories that are inevitably dead-on. One glance at the bathroom trash and a suicide becomes a homicide; her first instinct on who-dun-it is always correct.

Read more: How The Good Fight Was Rewritten to Be a Show About the Era of Donald Trump

The three episodes of Elsbeth made available to critics unfold like a typical episode of the Rian Johnson/Natasha Lyonne Peacock series Poker Face, with a dramatization of the murder first before our heroine enters the picture. (Elsbeth does not have the clever flashback structure, however.) If you’re thinking, “Wait, a network Poker Face with Elsbeth Tascioni sounds pretty damn appealing,” that’s true to a point, though there’s so little variance in style and in Elsbeth’s MO that most of the color comes from the one-and-done character actors who get juicy guest roles, like Jane Krakowski as a cutthroat realtor or Jesse Tyler Ferguson as a reality-show producer who, let’s say, makes a killer margarita.

Preston remains a funny, mischievous treat as Elsbeth, who’s so used to unsettling people that she tolerates their fits of annoyance and is skilled at self-deprecation. (On her name not quite being Elizabeth, she says, “It’s half the syllables but somehow twice the effort.”) Elsbeth gives her a top-drawer Angry Police Chief type to jostle with, too, in The Wire’s Wendell Pierce, whose character’s alleged shadiness allows the show to chip away at an overarching plot. 

But after watching Preston’s superb minor turn in The Holdovers, as an administrative assistant whose relentless positivity breaks down Paul Giamatti’s sour schoolteacher, it feels like there’s a missing dimension to Elsbeth that the show isn’t interested in finding. There’s a poignancy and warmth to Preston’s character in The Holdovers that goes beyond the spirited optimism and quirkiness that Elsbeth brings to every occasion. She didn’t need those qualities to steal scenes in The Good Wife and The Good Fight. On her own, she’s too much of what you expect. 

source https://time.com/6835183/elsbeth-spinoff-review/