Shaun White’s swan song got off to a dicey start, but it will last two more days with a chance for one last medal.
The three-time Olympic gold medalist had to sweat it out in the men’s halfpipe qualifying round Wednesday in Zhangjiakou, China. He needed to ace his second run after falling in the first, but came through in the clutch to advance to Friday’s final.
The 35-year-old White, who announced shortly after arriving that these Beijing Olympics would be his last snowboarding competition and that he would retire upon their conclusion, recorded an 86.25 in his final qualifying run. That was good enough for fourth place, locking him in as one of the 12 snowboarders who will compete for gold.
Shaun White lets out a sigh of relief after clinching a spot in the men’s halfpipe finals following a strong second run.AFP via Getty ImagesShaun White qualifed for the men’s halfpipe final despite crashing in his first run.Getty Images
“I had a lot of time to kill [between runs], a lot of thoughts going through my head and a lot of pressure,” White said on NBC. “So I am just so happy that I put that last run down. I’m feeling incredible. You got to fight if you want to get into finals and I did, so I’m very happy.”
Fellow Americans Taylor Gold (83.50, seventh place) and Chase Josey (69.50, 12th) will join White in the finals, while Lucas Foster finished 17th. Japan’s Ayumu Hirano, who has won the silver medal in each of the last two Olympics, posted the top qualifying score of 93.25.
White got his first run got off to a strong start with back-to-back 1080s. But two tricks later, he was not able to stick the landing on a Double McTwist 1260. He corrected that in his second run.
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White’s Olympic debut came with a gold medal in Turin in 2006, and he followed up by winning halfpipe golds in Vancouver in 2010 and Pyeongchang in 2018. He finished in fourth place, in Sochi in 2014.
Snowboarding’s halfpipe competition has begun at the Beijing Winter Olympics. In a sport where a bad run can knock athletes out of contention, and a bad fall can do far worse, every run matters, even in the qualifying round.
That became especially evident during the men’s qualifying runs when the three-time gold medalist Shaun White fell in his first run. He was thrust into an unwanted position: deliver an outstanding second run or be eliminated from competition, the 35-year-old’s last Olympics. He seized the moment, scoring 86.25 to propel himself to fourth place and into Friday’s final.
Chloe Kim, the defending gold medalist from the United States, delivered as needed on Wednesday too. She easily advanced in first place, scoring a 87.75 in her first of two runs, which guaranteed her a spot in Thursday’s final.
TALLAHASSEE, Fla. – The White House on Tuesday slammed Florida Republicans over a proposal to ban discussions of sexual orientation or general identity in the state’s schools.
A White House spokesperson weighed in on the legislation, dubbed by activists as the “Don’t Say Gay” bill, shortly after a GOP-controlled committee approved the measure.
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“Every parent hopes that our leaders will ensure their children’s safety, protection, and freedom. Today, conservative politicians in Florida rejected those basic values by advancing legislation that is designed to target and attack the kids who need support the most – LGBTQI+ students, who are already vulnerable to bullying and violence just for being themselves,” the White House statement read.
The bill states that “a school district may not encourage classroom discussion about sexual orientation or gender identity in primary grade levels or in a manner that is not age-appropriate or developmentally appropriate for students.” Parents could sue a school district for violations.
The measure, which has also been introduced in the state House of Representatives, has drawn widespread condemnation from activist groups who argue it would marginalize LGBTQ children and families and stifle discussions about LGBTQ history. Both bills are still in the committee phase.
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Republican Sen. Dennis Baxley, who sponsored the proposal, told lawmakers in the Senate Education Committee on Tuesday that the bill wouldn’t forbid spontaneous discussions but would bar districts from incorporating LGBTQ topics into curriculum.
“Some discussions are for with your parents. And I think when you start opening sexual-type discussions with children, you’re entering a very dangerous zone,” Baxley said.
Asked about the proposal on Tuesday, Republican Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis said, “I haven’t looked at any particulars of anything but I do think you’ve seen instances in which kids are encouraged to be doing stuff with like a gender ideology and I think the parents really do need to be involved in that.”
Copyright 2022 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission.
ZHANGJIAKOU, China (AP) — This really is it for Shaun White.
The three-time gold medalist made it clear that not only will the Beijing Games be his last Olympics, they’ll mark his final contest, too.
During a reflective, sometimes emotional news conference Saturday, not far from the halfpipe where he’ll take his last competitive ride, the 35-year-old said that, yes, he’ll be hanging ’em up for good after the medal round next week.
“In my mind, I’ve decided this will be my last competition,” he said.
It’s a decision that’s been building since a rough-and-tumble training stop in Austria in November. He was dealing with nagging remnants from injuries to his knee … and back … and ankle. He got lost on the mountain with the sun going down. It was one of those rare times when snowboarding didn’t feel fun anymore.
“A sad and surreal moment,” he called it. “But joyous, as well. I kind of reflected on things I’ve done and looked at the sun going down and went, ‘Wow, next time I’m here, I won’t be stressed about learning tricks or worried about some competition thing.’”
White traditionally has taken a break for a season, sometimes two seasons, in the aftermath of an Olympics, so to hear him say he’d be checking out for good after Beijing was not a big shock. Still, it’s not uncommon for some of the greats to make a curtain call. Usain Bolt, for example, competed in the 2017 world championships the year after going 3 for 3 in the Olympic sprints for the third straight time.
But White won’t be going that route.
He is soaking in every moment on this fifth trip to the Games, and over his 45-minute session with the media, he fielded an equal number of questions about his past as about what’s to come over the next seven days and beyond.
“I have some runs in my head that I’d like to do,” he said. “And it’s all about visualizing and making that happen the ‘day of.’”
Though he refused to take it off the table, those runs probably will not include a triple cork — the three-flip trick that Ayumu Hirano of Japan has landed twice in competition this season, but has not won with, because he could not link another trick to it.
Back in 2013, White worked on that trick for a time. Then, a different jump — the double cork 1440 — became the hottest thing in the halfpipe, so he abandoned the triple to work on that. The rest is history: The 1440 was not enough for him to win in Sochi, but four years ago in Pyeongchang, he linked two of them back to back and took his third gold medal.
“I’d never done that combination of tricks before and just put it down to win,” White said. “I mean, it’s a legacy performance.”
His legacy goes well beyond that.
By making a choice that was unpopular in many circles — embracing competition, and embracing the Olympics — he took the entire sport with him and made the whole endeavor more mass-marketable, in large part because every sport needs a star.
He also set the bar in a game that treasures progression above all else. In 2006, he was the first man to land back-to-back 1080s in a contest. In 2010, he landed his patented Double McTwist 1260 — “The Tomahawk,” he calls it — in a victory lap in Vancouver; it’s a trick that’s still relevant today.
Though others started landing the 1440 and linking two together before him, White did it best — and did it when the stakes were the highest.
But when asked what would suffice as a “good” Olympics this time around, he wasn’t talking about 1440s or triple corks or gold medals.
This has been a rough season for him — including an ankle injury, a bout with COVID-19, a late unscheduled trip to Switzerland to secure his Olympic spot and, most recently, a training plan that got thrown off schedule during his stay in Colorado in January.
“I approach every competition as, you’ve got to be content with your own riding,” White said. “And as long as you can go out there and put down your best, and lay it out there, then you can walk away, and in your mind, be good with that.”
White says he’s toggling between trying to enjoy every moment of the last big contest week of his life and knowing there is work to do when the halfpipe opens for training Sunday.
“I’m sort of pinching myself, with how lucky I am to still be here at this age,” he said.
But it’s hard not to look back. He told about how when he was a kid, everything he did, day in and day out, was wrapped around snowboarding. “I don’t know how many kids out there aspire to be a cowboy and then really get to be a cowboy,” he said.
Asked what headline he would stamp on his career, he said he looks back at the kid he once was and thinks the perfect thing to say to him would be: “We did it!’”
___
More AP Olympics: https://apnews.com/hub/winter-olympics and https://twitter.com/AP_Sports
Snowboard great Shaun White has confirmed he will retire after Beijing 2022.
White, 35, won his first halfpipe gold at Turin 2006 and also took gold at Vancouver 2010 and PyeongChang 2018. This is his fifth Olympics, but he confirmed at a news conference Saturday this will be his final Games.
“This has all had its amazing glow as I’ve decided this will be my last Olympics,” White said. “I’ve given it my all, there have been some ups and downs on the way to get here. And with that I feel I’ve got stronger and better.
“I’m just so excited about everything. Opening ceremony was incredible. The venue looks incredible. I’m just enjoying every single moment.”
White added this will likely be his last competition as he usually takes the season off after an Olympic Games.
“After the Olympics I don’t compete much after the Games as there’s so much pressure weighing on you and that relief is warranted,” White said. “I usually take the season off to get excited again, but this will be my last competition.”
He said he’s been dealing with ankle, knee and back issues and they were “little signs” which brought him to “this conclusion” at the end of 2021.
“They were taking away from days in practice, and I was watching the tricks getting heavier and heavier. I was riding down from the halfpipe in Austria, and I got lost, and I had to take this chair back up. And on that chairlift ride, the mountain was closing and I was on my own and I was watching the sun go down, and it hit me: this is it. It was a surreal moment, but very joyous as I watched the sun go down and reflected.”
White said he was feeling “pretty confident” about his prospects at Beijing 2022 and said while he will be reminiscing about old times, he’s still going to be “incredibly competitive” at these Olympics.
White, nicknamed “the Flying Tomato,” will begin his practice on Sunday in Beijing ahead of competing in the halfpipe where qualification starts on Wednesday, Feb. 9 at the Games.
White also has a remarkable 18 individual Winter X Games medals. When asked what legacy he hopes to leave behind in the sport, he said: “I hope my riding speaks for itself, I’m always trying to push and progress and do the next biggest thing and pick up on what trends are happening in the sport and get ahead of that curve.”
White is soaking in every moment on this fifth Olympics, and over his 45-minute session with the media, he fielded an equal number of questions about his past as about what’s to come over the next seven days and beyond.
“I have some runs in my head that I’d like to do,” he said. “And it’s all about visualizing and making that happen the ‘day of.'”
Though he refused to take it off the table, those runs probably will not include a triple cork — the three-flip trick that Ayumu Hirano of Japan has landed twice in competition this season, but has not won with, because he could not link another trick to it.
Back in 2013, White worked on that trick for a time. Then, a different jump — the double cork 1440 — became the hottest thing in the halfpipe, so he abandoned the triple to work on that. The rest is history: The 1440 was not enough for him to win in Sochi, but four years ago in Pyeongchang, he linked two of them back to back and took his third gold medal.
“I’d never done that combination of tricks before and just put it down to win,” White said. “I mean, it’s a legacy performance.”
His legacy goes well beyond that.
By making a choice that was unpopular in many circles — embracing competition, and embracing the Olympics — he took the entire sport with him and made the whole endeavor more mass-marketable, in large part because every sport needs a star.
He also set the bar in a game that treasures progression above all else. In 2006, he was the first man to land back-to-back 1080s. In 2010, it was the Double McTwist 1260 — “The Tomahawk,” he calls it; it’s a trick that’s still relevant today.
Though others started landing the 1440 and linking two together before him, White did it best, and when the stakes were the highest.
But when asked what would suffice as a “good” Olympics this time around, he wasn’t talking about 1440s or triple corks or gold medals.
This has been a rough season for him — including an ankle injury, a bout with COVID-19, a late unscheduled trip to Switzerland to secure his Olympic spot and, most recently, a training plan that got thrown off schedule during his stay in Colorado in January.
“I approach every competition as, you’ve got to be content with your own riding,” White said. “And as long as you can go out there and put down your best, and lay it out there, then you can walk away, and in your mind, be good with that.”
White says he’s toggling between trying to enjoy every moment of the last big contest week of his life and knowing there is work to do when the halfpipe opens for training Sunday.
“I’m sort of pinching myself, with how lucky I am to still be here at this age,” he said.
But it’s hard not to look back. He told about how when he was a kid, everything he did, day in and day out, was wrapped around snowboarding. “I don’t know how many kids out there aspire to be a cowboy and then really get to be a cowboy,” he said.
Asked what headline he would put on his career, he said he looks back at the kid he was and thinks the perfect line would be: “We did it!'”
Information from The Associated Press was used in this report
Ever since Oshkosh received a $6 billion contract from the United States Postal Service for the development of a new mail delivery vehicle, the contract has drawn controversy. Oshkosh’s plan includes primarily gas-powered vehicles, and it won out over another plan for all-electric vehicles. Now the White House is urging the Postmaster General to fulfill his responsibilities and accelerate the modernization of the delivery vehicle fleet.
History of the USPS NGDV
The current postal vehicle fleet is aging and long overdue for an upgrade. The most widespread postal vehicle today is the Grumman LLV (Long Life Vehicle). With its production running from 1987 to 1994, it has certainly lived up to its name. But with the LLV’s heater being prone to catching fire and rising maintenance costs, an environmentally friendly replacement is needed.
The USPS began its search for this replacement NGDV (Next Generation Delivery Vehicle) back in 2015. A case study called out the fact that the Postal Service’s history with electric vehicles dates back to 1899 when the EV was competing with horses, not gas cars. Yet, somewhat inexplicably, Oshkosh won the contract in February 2021, not for a fleet of EVs but for a fleet consisting largely of gasoline vehicles.
Congress did not seem overly happy with this idea:
In response to this announcement, Representative Jared Huffman of California says he will introduce legislation to ensure that the USPS contract consists of at least 75% electric or zero-emission vehicles.
Another representative, Mary Kaptur of Ohio, says she will introduce a bill intending to put a pause on the contract while questions of corruption and consistency with Biden’s executive order are answered. She, Ryan, and Ohio Senator Sherrod Brown all sent a letter to Biden requesting a halt to the Oshkosh contract.
Kaptur is referring to Biden’s plan for the full electrification of the Federal vehicle fleet.
Oshkosh NGDV at CES 2022. By Seth Kurk.
White House reaches out to Postmaster General Dejoy
Now, it seems the Biden administration is pushing the USPS to electrify the fleet more fully. In a letter sent on February 2 to Postmaster General Dejoy from Brenda Mallory, Chair of the White House Council on Environmental Quality, the White House urges the Postal Service to “fulfill its National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) responsibilities, improve its competitiveness, tackle the climate crisis, and address environmental injustice by accelerating the modernization and electrification of its delivery vehicle fleet through the procurement of its Next Generation Delivery Vehicle (NGDV).”
The letter goes on to call out the Environmental Protection Agency’s “grave concerns” with the environmental review conducted in the process of procurement of the NGDVs. Some of the concerns brought up can be remedied, such as using up-to-date info on electric vehicles to correct the “deficiencies in the environmental impact statement.”
The letter also brings up concerns that can not be so simply remedied, such as the commitment of $480 million for the engineering and construction of a factory before the start of an environmental review of the Postal Service’s procurement decision.
…Through NGDV, USPS has the option to achieve 70 percent electrification of the delivery vehicle fleet by the end of this decade… at a time when our international competitors are moving rapidly to electrify their transportation systems, and leading U.S. companies, including major delivery companies, are rapidly advancing American Competitiveness by electrifying their fleets and showing how the U.S. leads by example.
This transition to a modern, clean, and efficient USPS vehicle fleet is a top priority of the Biden Administration. To address the climate crisis, President Biden has called on us to seize the once-in-a-generation economic opportunity we have to create and sustain jobs, including well paying union jobs; support a just transition to a more sustainable economy for American workers; strengthen America’s communities; protect public health; and advance environmental justice.
… We will continue to do everything we can to support USPS fleet electrification efforts, including budgetary and technical assistance in addressing the issues I have discussed.
EPA concerns about NGDV plan
Also on February 2, a similar letter was sent by Environmental Protection Agency Associate Administrator Vicki Arroyo to the USPS Senior Director of Environmental Affairs and Corporate Sustainability detailing the specific issues the EPA had with the USPS NGDV acquisitions.
The EPA review found that, “the EPA’s concerns with the draft EIS [Environmental Impact Statement] were not adequately addressed and that the final EIS remains seriously deficient.” Arroyo went on to list several “key deficiencies.”
Key deficiencies include the fact that contrary to NEPA’s requirements, a contract for this proposal was awarded prior to the NEPA process, critical features of the contract are not disclosed in the EIS, important data and economic assumptions are missing in the EIS, and the EIS failed to consider a single feasible alternative to the proposed action. Specifically, the final EIS does not disclose essential information underlying the key analysis of Total Cost of Ownership (TCO), underestimates greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, fails to consider more environmentally protective feasible alternatives, and inadequately considers impacts on communities with environmental justice concerns.
This is no short list of concerns, and they “render the final EIS inconsistent with the requirements of NEPA and its implementing regulations.” As a result of this, the environmental impact statement will need to be revised and reopened for public comment.
The letter is clear and harsh, calling out the USPS for its flawed process, noting that, “The Postal Service chose not to consider in detail even a single feasible alternative to its proposal that would be more environmentally protective, evaluating only alternatives the Postal Service itself considered to be infeasible (e.g., 100 percent BEVs given longer rural routes).”
The letter goes into detail on the proposed gas fleet, noting that the proposed ICE NGDVs deliver a mediocre improvement of 0.4 mpg over the existing fleet developed over 30 years ago, meaning the updated vehicles would get 8.6 miles per gallon…
An updated fleet of 90 percent ICE vehicles and 10 percent BEVs would reduce “relevant emissions by 21.7 percent after ten years,” but the letter notes these new vehicles under the plan would cause climate damage that “would exceed $900 million.”
The EPA ends the letter by recommending, “the Postal Service prioritize initially purchasing BEVs, consistent with any existing contract obligations,” and requesting a meeting.
NGDV at CES 2022. By Seth Kurkowski
Electrek’s take
Quite frankly, each of these letters is worth a read – in full. It’s hard to come up with an excuse for the number of deficiencies in the Postmaster’s plan. The Post Offices analysis assumed a static price for battery electric vehicles, which simply doesn’t align with the real world, where the cost of batteries, and in turn battery electric vehicles, is decreasing.
It does not account for expected decreases in the cost of batteries, and therefore BEVs, over the 10-year acquisition.
EPA suggests that the Postal Service look to estimates compiled by the National Academy of Sciences as a starting point for potential battery price decline projections, which recently concluded that “the key cost driver for EVs is the battery, which for high-volume battery production is expected to decrease to $90-$115/kWh by 2025 and $65-$80/kWh by 2030 at the pack level.”6
The USPS also underestimated the emissions of ICE vehicles while overestimating those from electric vehicles.
Even the weight of the ICE vehicles, one pound over the weight limit for light-duty vehicle emission standards, means they are subject to less stringent emissions.
The fact that the new BEV NGDVs have 734 pounds lower payload capacity than the ICE NGDVs (2,207 pounds vs. 2,941pounds), yet still meet the relevant operational requirements, suggests that the ICE vehicles are specified to be substantially larger than they need to be, which permits them to be much higher emitting given that they are subject to less stringent standards.
The rear cargo area of the Oshkosh NGDV.
With the very short distance of most postal routes (95% are less than 70 miles), even something like the Ford E-transit that Electrek’s Seth Weintraub checked out recently, with its 108-126 mile estimated range and mid $40k price, could go the distance. The USPS estimates that the BEV versions of the NGDV would cost $30k more than the ICE counterparts is clearly unreasonable, and the USPS should consider lower EVs to directly meet those needs. Ford had entered its bid to provide NGDVs but was not selected (though it is providing the engines for Oshkosh’s fleet, as the military contractor notably does not have experience in the small, consumer vehicle market).
The vehicles and technology exist for the Postal Service to go electric, and it needs to. Sure, there are a few routes where a gas vehicle may offer some advantages, but the majority of the fleet needs to go electric, not a mediocre ten percent.
Post Offices have regular, short routes, and locations to store the delivery vehicles overnight. This is the perfect use case for electric vehicles. The common excuses that nay-sayers of EVs like to throw around of “the range isn’t enough”, “where will I charge”, and “they’re more expensive” simply aren’t factors here. The distance traveled each day is well known and consistent, and the long-term cost of the BEVs, in maintenance and environmental impact, needs to be considered.
It’s hard not to put all of this blame on Dejoy. He is a Trump administration holdover with multiple conflicts of interest (investment in UPS, Amazon, and a USPS sub-contractor) and no experience as a postal carrier. He drew plenty of criticisms during the 2020 election for making moves that would slow the delivery of mail in the name of cost-cutting. The Postmaster can’t be removed by the president, only the board of governors, but the best bet for the future of USPS is his removal and replacement with someone who will actually care about the environment and the future of the Postal Service.
Letter to the USPS from the White House
Letter to the USPS from the EPA
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The [three Republican] incumbents targeted by Trump ended 2021 with more money in their campaign war chests than any of their challengers, including those backed by Trump.
A week after the deadly January 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol by a mob of Trump’s supporters, the House voted to impeach him, with the Senate then falling short of the super-majority needed to convict him and bar him from future public office.
[Steve] Scalise gave money in September to at least three House members who voted to impeach Trump: Peter Meijer of Michigan and Jaime Herrera Beutler of Washington state – who are both facing Trump-endorsed challengers – as well as David Valadao of California.
Scalise also transferred money in December to the re-election campaign of Dan Newhouse of Washington, a House Republican who also voted for impeachment.
The contributions ranged from $2,000 to $5,000 and came from Scalise’s re-election campaign committee or from his “Eye of the Tiger” fundraising group, a so-called leadership committee that lawmakers use to support other candidates.
Representative Elise Stefanik, who replaced Representative Liz Cheney as the No. 3 House Republican after Cheney was ousted from her post following her vote to impeach Trump, made a $5,000 contribution to Herrera Beutler from her “E-PAC” leadership committee, which Stefanik uses to support Republican women candidates.
Cheney, the scion of a storied Republican family and the most forceful Trump critic in Congress, received $5,000 from [Kentuckian] McConnell’s “Bluegrass Committee” fundraising group. The group also gave $10,000 to the campaign of [Alaska’s Lisa] Murkowski, who is the only one of the Republican senators who voted to convict Trump in his Senate impeachment trial last year who is seeking re-election this year.
Cheney and Murkowski both are facing Republican primary challengers endorsed by Trump, as is Representative Fred Upton of Michigan, another Republican who voted to impeach Trump and took contributions from the leadership committee of Representative Cathy McMorris Rodgers of Washington. Representatives August Pfluger of Texas, Virginia Foxx of North Carolina, Byron Donalds of Florida and Carlos Gimenez of Florida – who each have been endorsed by Trump in their re-election bids for this year – also transferred money to impeachment voters from their campaigns or leadership committees. Their offices did not respond to requests for comment.
A Trump spokesperson and representatives for Scalise, Stefanik, McConnell and McMorris Rodgers also did not respond to requests for comment. Joe Kent, a U.S. Army veteran endorsed by Trump to unseat Herrera Beutler, said the lawmakers backing the incumbent are hoping Trump’s movement “will just go away.” “2022 is a referendum on the establishment,” Kent said.
White House press secretary Jen Psaki called on music and podcast streaming giant Spotify to do “more” in the fight against Covid-19 misinformation on Tuesday.
At her daily press briefing, President Joe Biden’s top spokeswoman was asked about a decision by the company to add disclaimers linking to Covid-19 information hubs to any piece of content that includes discussion of the pandemic, vaccines, or Covid-19 itself. She responded that the change was a good step, but that the company could take steps (if it wanted) to actively prohibit content that contained misinformation that experts have warned is prolonging the pandemic and leading to more deaths.
Ms Psaki said that it was the responsibility of all companies and particularly that of those platforms where Americans get their news to “be responsible and be vigilant to ensure the American people have accurate information about something as significant as Covid-19. That certainly includes Spotify.”
“Ultimately our view is that it’s a good step, it’s a positive step, but there’s more that can be done,” said the press secretary.
Her comments come as two musical artists with massive followings, Neil Young and Joni Mitchell, decided to remove their music from the company’s streaming service in protest over podcast host Joe Rogan’s espousal of misinformation about the Covid-19 pandemic and vaccines. Among other false statements, the widely-popular host has suggested that younger Americans are not at risk from the virus and do not need to receive a vaccine.
In reality, the virus does affect younger Americans (particularly those with complicating preexisting health issues) and also prevents the spread of the virus to those who are more vulnerable to the disease’s more dangerous symptoms.
Mr Rogan has faced a whirlwind of criticism from those on the left for a bevy of recent incidents including an interview with Dr Jordan Peterson, a Canadian psychologist, in which Dr Peterson said that Michael Eric Dyson, an African-American professor at Vanderbilt University’s Divinity School, is “brown, not Black”.
After several days of escalating backlash, Spotify published a blog post announcing the implementation of a Covid-19 disclaimer on videos about the pandemic in a move that did little to quell the growing frustration many on the left have with the disinformation and sometimes offensive views in Mr Rogan’s shows.
“This new effort to combat misinformation will roll out to countries around the world in the coming days. To our knowledge, this content advisory is the first of its kind by a major podcast platform,” claimed the company’s co-founder, Daniel Ek.
“I want you to know that from the very first days of the pandemic, Spotify has been biased toward action,” added Mr Ek.
The Biden administration has taken a strong stance against Covid-19 misinformation, which Surgeon General Vivek Murthy said last year was contributing to more deaths and more Covid-19 cases especially in communities where vaccine mistrust remains high.
Former President Donald Trump’s White House, by comparison, was often the source of conflicting messaging on the topic as public health officials like Dr Anthony Fauci and Dr Deborah Birx urged Americans to guard against the virus while White House staff including Mr Trump himself often publicly flouted Covid-19 guidelines at events around the country.
Social media platforms including Facebook, Twitter and YouTube have faced similar pressure from both the administration and activists to contribute to similar efforts aimed at tamping down on misinformation on their respective services.
The Archives, in response to questions from CNN, said that “some of the Trump presidential records received by the National Archives and Records Administration included paper records that had been torn up by former President Trump.”
The agency did not explain how officials know former President Donald Trump himself ripped up the records, but the Archives pointed to previous reporting that White House records management staff had to tape together torn-up documents during the Trump-era.
“These were turned over to the National Archives at the end of the Trump Administration, along with a number of torn-up records that had not been reconstructed by the White House,” the Archives said in the statement. “The Presidential Records Act requires that all records created by presidents be turned over to the National Archives at the end of their administrations.”
The Archives pointed to media reports dating back to 2018. That’s when Politico reported that the White House employed staff whose jobs partly entailed reconstructing White House communications and documents that crossed Trump’s desk that he would tear up.
A spokesperson for Trump did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
A spokesperson for the select committee declined to comment.
The committee recently began receiving the documents from the Archives after winning a court battle that went all the way to the Supreme Court. Trump had sued to keep the documents secret, citing executive privilege. The Biden administration chose not to support Trump’s privilege claims, and the courts sided with the committee, allowing the documents to be released.
Committee members have said they are still in the process of poring over hundreds of pages of documents as part of the release. While they have not disclosed all of what the documents reveal, court filings have shown the documents include White House call logs, visitor logs, drafts of speeches and three handwritten notes of top advisers.
The committee has said the documents are a key part of their investigation.
“We’re glad the Supreme Court ruled in our favor that we may have access to them” Democratic Rep. Bennie Thompson of Mississippi, who chairs the panel, told CNN earlier this month once the committee started receiving the documents it requested. “And we look forward to the National Archives getting them to us.”
While Black women are more likely to have a late-stage diagnosis of cervical cancer and one and a half times more likely to die of the disease than white women, the five-year survival rate for the survival rate is over 90%, according to a study from the Human Rights Watch and the Southern Rural Black Women’s Initiative for Economic and Social Justice.
Even though the survival rate is high, about 4,290 women died of cervical cancer in 2021 alone, an inordinately high number were Black women.
The study, which was based in rural Georgia, found racial disparities in cervical cancer deaths at a rate that got worse with age.
From NPR:
Annerieke Daniel, a women’s rights researcher at HRW, said there are many reasons why Black women have a worse experience in healthcare, and therefore are deterred from seeking care.
Among those reasons are insurance and healthcare affordability, a lack of comprehensive sexual health education, as well as historic mistreatment of minorities at the hands of medical professionals.
“It’s generational,” Daniels says. “We had researchers who we worked with who spoke about the reasons why their own grandparents and their aunts did not go see doctors, and did not encourage them to go see doctors. And this is passed down.”
“So when you talk about a Black woman who might have been mistreated by a medical provider, who had an extremely demeaning experience that has turned her off, this has implications not only upon her health, but also upon the health of those around her who might also, for the same reasons, do not want to go seek out gynecological care,” she says.
Daniel says it is important to address how these biases could have long-term ramifications for communities’ health.
Cervivor, a non-profit cervical cancer organization, was created by a Black woman and it serves to support those affected by the disease.
According to NPR, Tamika Felder, the founder of Cervivor who also got her cervical cancer diagnosis at 25, created the non-profit organization to connect with people who were going through a similar situation as her own and to highlight how underrepresented Black women are.
