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Last week Barry Martin, along with Patrick Hughes, one of the worlds top chess playing artists, asked me to identify the most significant happenings in the chess world over the past ten years. Barry and Patrick used to meet in the final of the Chelsea Arts Club Championship and Barry writes an excellent monthly column in Kensington, Westminster and Chelsea Today(KWC). The point of the question was to celebrate ten years ofKWCand ten years of Barrys column, many of which have been gathered together in the anthology,Chess, Problems, Play and Personalities(Filament Publishing).

Of those significant developments, which define the contemporary chess scene, I have already covered the phenomenon of the new Netflix chess-based TV series,Queens Gambit, in last weeks column. The combination of brilliance and beauty, exemplified in the persona of the chess champion heroine, Beth Harmon, has proved irresistible to record-breaking audiences around the world. Sales of chess sets alone, a key indicator of a new-found enthusiasm, have soared by 300 per cent since Beth first appeared on our screens.

A second vital element has been the creation of the AlphaZero chess-playing engine, with its amazing abilities, including an almost vertical learning curve, resulting in the strongest chess-playing entity the world has ever seen. The science has primarily been the work of Demis Hassabis, rewarded with the CBE for his efforts, and a $400 million sale to Google of his company, Deep Mind. The achievements of Demis, and the brilliantly paradoxical strategies and tactics of AlphaZero, were likewise already covered in my column Arise Sir Demis The games were contested against the most powerful available commercial chess programme, called Stockfish itself many times stronger than the IBM Deep Blue programme which defeated Garry Kasparov in 1997.

The 1993 World Title Challenger, the British Grandmaster Nigel Short,described the AlphaZero games as being of such beauty that he felt he was in the presence of God. Demis himself explained that his self-taught programme, which had already mastered the quasi-infinite complexities of the oriental games of Shogi (Japanese Chess) and Go, was the key to understanding intelligence.

This week I turn to the third most decisive development of the past ten years, the meteoric rise and lasting domination of the Norwegian World Chess Champion, Magnus Carlsen. Carlsen is the culmination of a line of champions which stretches back into the 18th century, yet he is also a uniquely talented representative of the modern era. Magnus has attained the highest ever chess rating ever recorded, outclassing even the mighty Garry Kasparov. Magnus wins virtually every competition which he enters, and has adapted seamlessly to the current coronavirus crisis, which has obliged chess to migrate online to a huge extent. Magnus has prudently avoided the damage to his reputation occasioned by suffering defeats against chess computers, a fate which overtook both Garry Kasparov and Vladimir Kramnik.Finally, Magnus has leveraged all the opportunities afforded by his title of World Chess Champion, adapting perfectly to the modern environment, even to the extent of floating his online chess company, Play Magnus, for $85 million dollars, while simultaneously earning a fortune as a trendy ambassador for the fashion line G-Star Raw, often appearing alongside Hollywood superstar, Liv Tyler.

The title of World Chess Champion dates to no later than 1886, when Wilhelm Steinitz defeated Johannes Zukertort in a gladiatorial contest, specifically designed to resolve the question of who was the strongest player in the world after Paul Morphys death in 1884, though Steinitz had claimed that status since 1866. Less clear is whether the great predecessors of Steinitz also merited that proud title. Part of the difficulty of authentication is lack of evidence of important contests and gaps in the record.

The story begins in the 18th century, when the French chess expertFranois-Andr Danican Philidorwon an important match in 1747 against the erudite Philip Stamma, translator of oriental languages to the court of King George II. Sadly, none of those games has survived. Following Philidor, who died in 1795, there comes a hiatus, until the brief flourishing of La Bourdonnais during the 1830s. After this, there is a further gap in the record until the 1840s, when French heir to the Philidor tradition, Saint-Amant, was overthrown in Paris, the epicentre of European chess life at that time, by the English champion Howard Staunton.

Fortunately, from Staunton onwards, there is a relatively unbroken line of succession, with each champion being dethroned by the next in line. The exceptions are the trinity of Morphy, Fischer (who simply downed tools), and Alekhine who died in office, thus permanently preserving their hallowed nimbus of invincibility.

Also worthy of mention are various champions who have won the FID title (FID is the International Chess Federation, the governing body of chess competitions), without gaining universal recognition from the global chess community. These include Max Euwe, Efim Bogolyubov, Vesselin Topalov and Viswanathan Anand. A common outcome is that such FID champions have gone on to contest matches against the universally recognised laureate, and in two such cases (Euwe and Anand) have emerged victorious to become undisputed champions themselves.

The most recent world championship match, staged in London 2018, was run entirely under the auspices of FID, the authority of which is now universally accepted under the reliable new Presidency of Russian Arkady Dvorkovich, and his English Vice President, Nigel Short.

The first great player who could be considered a World Champion was Philidor, whodominatedthe chess scene of his day. The term World Champion was not used when describing him, with commentators preferring to employ such metaphors as wielding the sceptre. There is also the problem that very few of Philidors games on level terms have survived, his reputation largely being constructed on his blindfold simultaneous displays, which so electrified London chess enthusiasts. Philidor was able to conduct three games blindfold at once, a feat that led to a letter of admonishment from the French encyclopaedist, Denis Diderot, warning Philidor that such exploits might lead to brain damage.

It is interesting to note that Philidor was the first great apostle of pawn power in chess. According to Philidor, pawns determined the structure of the game, they were in fact the soul of chess not mere cannon fodder, whose sole task was to make way for the power of the pieces. In this respect his chess teachings paralleled the rise of the masses embodied in the French Revolution of 1789.

France was the dominant chess nation at the turn of the 18th and 19th centuries, and the next player after Philidorwho couldbe considered an early world champion was the 19th-century French master Louis-Charles Mah de La Bourdonnais. La Bourdonnais claim to fame rests primarily on his mammoth series of matches against Alexander McDonnell, contested in London in 1834. This represented the finest corpus of games ever created up to that time and numerous generations of chess devotees learned their basic chess strategies and tactics from these ingenious and well contested battles. Both protagonists appear to have become mentally exhausted by their efforts and died shortly after their epic series.

In the panoply of proto-champions, Howard Staunton, the Victorian polymath, Shakespearean scholar, and assiduous chronicler of the English schools system, is the only English player who could legitimately be considered as world champion. In a series of matches between 1843 and 1846, Staunton defeated the French master Pierre Charles Fournier de Saint-Amant, followed closely by victories against the German master Bernhard Horwitz and Daniel Harrwitz, originally from Poland. Stauntons match against Saint-Amant was the first contest at the highest level that closely resembled the template for modern World Championship competitions. The chess pieces in regular use for important competitions, including the2018 Londoncontest between Carlsen and his challenger, Fabiano Caruana, are named the Staunton pattern, after Howard Staunton.

The German master Adolf Anderssen seized the sceptre from Howard Staunton when he decisively defeated the English champion in the very first international tournament in London 1851. Anderssen was one of that select group, which includes Mikhail Botvinnik and Viswanathan Anand, who initially assumed the accolade of supreme chess master from a tournament rather than a match. The London event was in fact put together by Staunton, who thereby created a perfect pretext for losing out to Anderssen in their knockout match, it being notoriously difficult to compete in an event, whilst simultaneously organising it.

Anderssen can claim to be one of the supreme tacticians of all time. Three of his wins are of imperishable beauty. On their own they would justify anyones devotion to chess. They are his Immortal Game against Kieseritsky (played at Simpsons-in-the-Strand, not the tournament) of London, 1851; his Evergreen game against the pseudonymous Dufresne (in reality the German player E. S. Freund) of Berlin 1856, and his majestic sacrificial masterpiece against Zukertort of Breslau 1869.

Paul Morphy was the American meteor who took the world by storm over thetwo momentous, whirlwind years of 1857 and 1858. His grand tour of Europe culminated in a match victory against Adolf Anderssen, after which Morphy was universally acknowledged as the worlds greatest player. Thereafter Morphy issued a challenge to anyone in the world to take him on at odds (Morphy starting the game with a pawn handicap) but no one accepted. At this point the meteor had burnt itself out and Morphy, tragically, retired from chess, a curious forerunner of Bobby Fischers behaviour following his famous 1972 World Championship victory against Boris Spassky.

Morphy understood the principles of chess better than anyone who came before him. Anderssens tactical brilliance sprang like Athene from the head of Zeus, without necessarily having grown from regular organic pre-conditions. Morphy, on the other hand, constructed his positions along sound strategic and positional lines, before unleashing his devastating arsenal of tactical weaponry.On Morphys retirement, Anderssen resumed the position of world leadership which had belonged so fleetingly to the first great genius of American chess. Anderssen lost a match in 1866 toWilhelm Steinitz, the first player who could definitively be describedas an official World Champion. The previous wielders of the sceptre, Philidor, La Bourdonnais, Staunton, Anderssen and Morphy, were all, at the time, acknowledged as the leading chess practitioner of their day, but it is less clear that the title world champion had been universally accepted. Steinitz, on the other hand, insisted on this description and he himself dated his tenure from his 1866 match victory, also in London, against Anderssen. Steinitzs pre-eminence wasconfirmed 20 years later when he demolished Johannes Zukertort in their 1886 match in the US, which was specifically described as a World Championship contest.

Thus far I have described the early years of the World Championship and now I return to Magnus Carlsens defence of his title, which he has held since 2013. The 2018 Championship match in London was fought out between the Norwegian Magnus Carlsen, the highest ever rated chess grandmaster, and the previously unexpected challenger, Fabiano Caruana, who had been considered somewhat vulnerable and fragile.

Caruana originated from Italy but became an American citizen. With energy and vigour, he decimated his rivals amongthe top ten Grandmasters. In order toqualify,the winner had to exhibit strength, agility, power, alertness, incredible persistence, stamina, and the power of the will to win.From this shark pool, Fabiano became the number one contender, and number two ranked player in the world. Throughout all the complications of selecting the challenger to the World Chess Champion, the pairing was ideal: a battle between the two best in the world fighting for the world title.

The implication is thatchess at this exalted level is a sport, both mentalandphysical an appropriately termed Mind Sport. As the Championship was in process a wonderful flash of confirmatory news emerged from the media: Magnus Carlsen was nominated, in Norway, to win the Sports Personality of the Year. This Championship had emerged as a realBattle of the Titans. Magnus had now won four world title bouts, twice versus Anand and once each against Karjakin and Caruana. The latter two ended with the tie-breaks, at which Magnus excels. On this occasion, Magnus praised Fabiano, as being his most difficult opponent of the three.

Magnus has secured his tenure as World Champion until at least 2021. He will then have held the title for 8 years thus moves into an equal category of championship longevity with such greats as Capablanca, Petrosian, Kramnik and Anand, ahead of Euwe, Smyslov, Tal, Spassky and Fischer. Only Steinitz, Lasker, Alekhine, Botvinnik, Karpov and Kasparov held the title for significantly longer periods. In the modern world, where everything has speeded up, can Carlsen go on to outperform all these titans?

If his ambition had seemed to wane during the classical phase of the London contest, it certainly flared up, as Carlsens predator instincts flashed on for the tiebreak.Like the Terminator, Magnus would be back.In every boxing match and in every tennis set, each minute encapsulates a real battle. Every move in chess is the same. The draws were magnificent mini-battles in every one of the often 65+ moves over the duration of as much as six hours of non-stop sport. And then it came down to speed.Only in the speed play-off did Carlsen finally overcome the onslaught of Caruana, with the World Champion taking the accelerated shoot out by three wins to zero.

I have tried to distil the quintessential elements of Magnus success. Remember that, in Latin Magnus was a title meaning Great, as in Alexander Magnus (Alexander the Great), or Pompeius Magnus (Pompey the Great), Julius Caesars senatorial rival, as noted in ShakespearesJulius Caesar, Act I, Scene One:

You blocks, you stones, you worse than senseless things!

O you hard hearts, you cruel men of Rome.

Knew you not Pompey? Many a time and oft

Have you climbd up to walks and battlements,

To towrs and windows, yea, to chimney tops,

Your infants in your arms, and there have sat

The live long day, with patient expectation.

To see Great Pompey pass the streets of Rome.

I have reduced the formula to seven memorable M principles for Magnus:

Motivation

Mobilisation

Momentum

Material

Masquerade

Massacre

Mate

And this weeks game exemplifies these key ingredients of a Magnus triumph. The game was the decisive win which clinched Magnus World Title defence against the former World Champion, The Tiger of Madras: Viswanathan Anand.

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The art of chess: a brief history of the World Championship - TheArticle

A text message from a friend popped on Devani Gonzlezs phone when Joe Biden was named president-elect on the Saturday after Election Day. How do you feel?

The days that passed between the last ballots cast and the announcement of Bidens win were grueling. But so were the last four years. She took a moment before writing back. I dont know. I just feel like, relief. I feel very emotional. I feel hope.

For many like Gonzlez, a 24-year-old Houston paralegal, the election ousting President Donald Trump meant the end of years of worry, threats of deportation and being the target of abuse. A core base of Trumps supporters stood by his immigration policies, which brought increased enforcement, and his vitriol, which made life more difficult for both immigrants and people in the country illegally. He also tightened legal channels into the country and made immigration processes more arduous and expensive for foreign-born people.

Weve been attacked over and over and over and over again, said Gonzlez, who now hopes to achieve a permanent legal status under a Biden presidency.

Gonzlez is among the so-called Dreamers, those brought into the country illegally when they were children, their hopes threatened under the Trump Administration.

Our hope is that even if we dont have somebody to help us 100%, at least we wont have somebody thatll continue to hurt us 100%, said Csar Espinosa, leader of FIEL Houston, one of the largest immigrant advocacy organizations in the city.

The election drew a record number of ballots, including more than 73 million people who voted for Trump, many of whom supported his focus on immigration. In national surveys, most Trump supporters say they view illegal immigration as a significant problem. They support in high numbers stronger law enforcement and tougher border security.

Todd Bensman, a Texas-based Senior National Security Fellow for the Center for Immigration Studies, said Trump was justifiably targeting programs that should not be protecting immigrants in the country illegally from deportatation.

Allowing them to continue, Bensman said, serves as another fantastic incentive for mass migration.

One of the programs is the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA, that protects dreamers from deportation and provides work permits. Conservatives have long challenged the constitutional legality of DACA, created under executive order by former President Barack Obama.

Trump tried to eliminate the program, but the U.S. Supreme Court rejected that effort. Nonetheless, he closed the door to new applicants around 500,000 newly eligible young immigrants and imposed new restrictions. Beneficiaries are now forced to apply for renewal every year instead of every two.

The U.S. is home to about 644,000 DACA recipients, with about 106,000 in Texas, according to March statistics with the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, the most recent available. The Houston metro area has 32,450 dreamers.

If there had been another Trump term, Gonzlez said, she believes the program would again be in jeopardy.

Us dreamers, we have been waiting for a very long time for a permanent solution to our situation, said Gonzlez, who has been a DACA holder for eight years. It gets very frustrating, very emotionally draining to be pinning your life on a two-year basis, let alone one.

Recipients of Temporary Protected Status, a program created under President George H.W. Bush, are also hopeful for the next four years. The Department of Homeland Security terminated this humanitarian program for almost all of its beneficiaries. Like DACA, TPS provides work permits to people who cannot return to designated countries where violent conflicts, natural disasters or extraordinary conditions exist.

Were getting tons of calls from people who feel relieved, seeing the light with Biden victory, said Iris Canizales, TPS community organizer with the Central American Resource Center in Houston. She explained that callers are hopeful that Biden will restore their status, which for many expires in January.

The majority of around 300,000 TPS holders nationwide are from El Salvador and Honduras, and roughly 17,000 and 6,000 live in Houston, respectively. The rest of the impacted are from Haiti, Nicaragua, Nepal and Sudan.

To Bensman, TPS was a door that needed to be closed. Youll have an earthquake 20 years ago, and all the Salvadorans are still here taking shelter from that earthquake, he countered. Where do you draw the lines?

While seeking to end those programs, Trump began new, controversial measures including the systematic separation of children from their parents at the border. Although it ended, about 600 kids, some under the age of 5, continue to be under the supervision of federal as authorities cannot find their parents.

The so-called Remain in Mexico program restricts requirements for asylum seekers in the U.S. and forces non-Mexican applicants to stay in that country to wait for their hearings. Trump has also banned visas for a dozen mostly Muslim-majority countries from Africa and Asia and increased deportations of non-criminal immigrants in the country illegally, many of whom parents of American children.

Sarah Pierce, a U.S. immigration policy analyst at the Migration Policy Institute, a non-partisan think tank in New York that tracks international migrations, said President Trump is the first modern president to view both illegal and legal immigration as a net negative for the United States.

Her agency has been cataloguing more than 400 policy changes introduced by Trump, many by executive orders, that significantly reshaped the system, including legal migration.

Bidens immigration plan promises to roll back most of Trumps policies during his first 100 days in office. After that, advocates, like Espinosa, as well as policy experts recognize that any significant policy change including finding permanent solutions for DACA and TPS holders will not materialize soon.

They will be more challenging and for a longer term, said Kelsey Norman, director of the Rice Universitys Baker Institute Womens Rights, Human Rights & Refugees Program. Biden would need support from both chambers to pass legislation, an unlikely possibility if the Senate retains its Republican majority.

For impacted immigrants and their families, the nuts and bolts of immigration changes to come are an afterthought compared to surviving four years of Trump.

We cannot see the future. But (Biden) is definitely a relief, said Gonzlez. It feels like leaving behind years of abuse; years of attack that weve been having to put up with.

olivia.tallet@chron.com

Twitter: @oliviaptallet

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For Texas immigrants, the switch from Trump to Biden is 'like leaving years of abuse' - Houston Chronicle

In the first TV ads of the runoff campaign that could help decide the balance of the Senate, Republican Sen. David Perdue warned his opponent would radically change America, while Democratic challenger Jon Ossoff accused his opponent of downplaying the coronavirus.

The ad from Perdue makes the misleading claims that Ossoff would defund police and provide voting rights for illegal immigrants. Ossoff has repeatedly said he does not support defunding police. And while he supports providing a pathway to citizenship to some 11 million immigrants currently in the country illegally, he does not support voting rights for noncitizens.

Ossoffs ad offers similar side-by-side comments from Perdue and President Donald Trump that the ad contends show Perdue ignored the medical experts, downplayed the crisis and left us unprepared.

Well leave it to readers to decide for themselves if Perdues comments did that, but some of the comments highlighted in the ad came early in the year at a time when medical experts were making similar comments. And Perdue made other comments warning about the seriousness of the virus and reinforcing Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommendations to reduce the spread of the virus.

Thefirst TV ad of the runoff from the Perdue campaign begins with a clip of Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer celebrating after Joe Biden was projected the winner of the presidential race, telling a crowd in New York, Now we take Georgia, then we change America.

If Democrats were to flip the two Senate seats in Georgias January runoff elections Perdue vs. Ossoff and Republican Sen. Kelly Loeffler vs. Democrat Raphael Warnock Democrats would control both houses of Congress and the presidency.

You heard him, the ads narrator says. Chuck Schumer is trying to use Georgia to take the Senate majority and radically change America. The Schumer, Pelosi, Ossoff change? Defund police. Voting rights for illegal immigrants. Washington, D.C. as the 51st state.

Thats a distortion of Ossoffs positions. Ossoff has repeatedly said he does not support defunding police.

For example, in a Sirius XM radio interview on Sept. 11, Ossoff said, I oppose defunding the police and I think frankly, its a counterproductive and foolish way of characterizing what I think for some folks is a desire to reform police.

In an interview on WSB radio on June 11, Ossoff reiterated, No, the answer is not to defund police. The answer is to reform police. And the answer is to demilitarize police. Far too many local police departments are heavily equipped with armored vehicles and military equipment, and when all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail.

The Perdue campaign points to comments Ossoff made in a radio interview in June: You have to have national standards for the use of force, and yeah, youve got to be able to hold individual officers and entire departments accountable, and there also has to be funding for those departments on the line. (Starting at the 19:39 mark.)

The Ossoff campaign says that Ossoff was talking about supplemental police funding, and that Ossoffs position is similar to that of Biden, who in June told CBS News, No, I dont support defunding the police. I support conditioning federal aid to police, based on whether or not they meet certain basic standards of decency and honorableness. And, in fact, are able to demonstrate they can protect the community and everybody in the community.

As we have written, there is no agreed upon definition for the term defund the police. Some police critics, who believe there is systemic racism in law enforcement, really do want to abolish police forces and replace them with other forms of community safety entities. Others advocate shifting some money and functions away from police departments to social service agencies.

Ossoff told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution in August that he agrees with Bidens position of tying federal funds for law enforcement agencies to meeting certain standards, including whether they can demonstrate they can protect the community.

The ad also distorts Ossoffs position when it says he supports voting rights for illegal immigrants. Ossoffs campaign told us he does not, and the Perdue campaign didnt provide any evidence that he does.

The Perdue campaign points to Bidens support for providing a roadmap to citizenship for nearly 11 million undocumented immigrants currently in the U.S., including the so-called Dreamers who arrived in the U.S. illegally as children. A bipartisan immigration bill that sought to do the same thing passed the Senate in 2013 with the support of 14 Republicans, including Sens. Lindsey Graham and Marco Rubio, who co-sponsored the bill. Ossoffs policy similarly calls for creating a path to legal status for undocumented immigrants who are already here and otherwise follow the law.

But thats different from allowing voting rights for illegal immigrants. As we have written, it would likely take more than a dozen years under such legislation for immigrants to gain full citizenship, and voting rights. But they would then be citizens, not illegal immigrants. Ossoffs campaign says he opposes voting rights for noncitizens.

The ad is correct that Ossoff supports statehood for Washington, D.C., but its not clear that statehood for D.C. could be accomplished even with a simple majority in the Senate. Under Senate rules, legislation can be blocked if it fails to receive the 60 votes necessary to end debate and move to a vote.

Any effort to get DC statehood would be filibustered, Norm Ornstein, a congressional expert at the American Enterprise Institute, told us via email. So the answer is that it would first require a change in the rules of the Senate to reform or end the filibuster, which is not going to happen with only 50 Democrats at least not for some time. It could happen, if [Senate Majority Leader Mitch] McConnells Republicans used the filibuster to block everything including COVID relief, infrastructure, and every other Biden initiative. But not for quite a while, and no sure thing at all.

The latest ad from the Ossoff campaign mirrors one it has been running since the summer, accusing Perdue of downplaying the coronavirus crisis. The runoff ad, called Echo, is updated to pair similar quotes from Perdue and Trump to make the case that Perdue ignored the medical experts, downplayed the crisis and left us unprepared.

Well just focus on the quotes attributed to Perdue. The quotes are accurate; however, they are misleadingly juxtaposed with a chart showing the rising COVID-19 death count. Some of Perdues comments were made early in the pandemic, long before the corresponding number of deaths reached the levels shown in the ad.

The first two quotes come from an interview Perdue did with The Valleys Morning News podcast a Georgia program on March 11. The bolded parts of the interview are included in the ad.

Perdue, March 11: Its a balance between being precautionary and overreacting. And I think we have to realize that the risk of this virus in the United States right now still remains low. And the mortality rate is still being determined. The normal mortality rate of the normal flu is well under 1%. This so far is over 1%, but you know, so far, very, very few people have been exposed to it in the United States. [] So I think were doing what we should do right now. I dont want to see America panic and overreact. But I do think its good for us to be precautionary and just take care of ourselves relative to whether we think were getting sick or have been exposed or anything like that.

Perdue went on to say that the authorities are not taking this lightly. Were presuming the worst and preparing for the worst. But at the same time, were hopeful this thing will burn itself out before we see a dramatic increase in the numbers here.

The Perdue campaign also noted that in this interview, Perdue reiterated CDC guidance: If youre elderly or have a respiratory illness, be discretionary and stay away from large crowds. Use hand sanitizers, wash your hands frequently, try to stay away from people who are sick. And if you are sick, stay home. And if it feels like its getting serious, call a doctor, dont go run to the emergency room right away but call a physician and get advice.

To put these comments in the context of the moment, the day before the interview, there were about 1,500 COVID-19 cases in the U.S., with about 37 deaths, according to the COVID Tracking Project. At that time, the New York Times reported 17 cases in Georgia, and no deaths.

In comments on Feb. 29, less than two weeks before Perdues interview, Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said in an interview on NBCs Today show that the risk from COVID-19 is still low, and he said there was no need for people to change their daily routines at this moment. But he warned that could change if you start to see community spread. Fauci said the virus could develop into a major outbreak or it could be something thats reasonably well controlled.

On March 9, just two days before Perdues comments, Fauci was still talking about the coronavirus as an evolving thing and that holding campaign rallies in a place where there is no community spread, I think the judgment to have it might be a good judgment.

Things changed quickly though in the days after Perdue made those comments on March 11. The day of that interview, the World Health Organization declared the global outbreak a pandemic, and two days later, Trump announced a national emergency.

The ad then highlights a comment Perdue made at a Chamber of Commerce meeting on May 14: Weve had ordinary flu seasons with more deaths. Perdue rightly noted that there were about 80,000 deaths from COVID-19 at that time, and there were an estimated 61,000 influenza deaths in the 2017-2018 flu season (though the average over the last decade has been fewer than 40,000 per year). But even at the time it was a flawed comparison and, of course, COVID-19-related deaths continued to mount through the summer and fall (and now stand at more than 247,000). We have repeatedly fact-checked the president for making faulty comparisons between the flu and COVID-19, which has proven to be much more deadly (as medical experts repeatedly warned).

The ad then uses a quote from Perdue at a different Chamber of Commerce meeting on April 28: The numbers projected were supposed to be much worse. Perdue credited Trumps actions for keeping those numbers down.

As we have written numeroustimesin the past when Trump claimed to have averted some 2 million deaths, a forecast of 2.2 million deaths in the U.S. is based on a model from Imperial College London in March that predicted U.S. deaths if no mitigation measures were taken and no individual behavior changes occurred. The figure, therefore, was not intended to be an estimate of likely deaths.

And as we have written, research does support the idea that lockdowns which were instituted by states, not Trump saved lives earlier this year, although its hard to say how many.

Finally, the ad uses a clip from Perdue being interviewed on CNBC on June 16 in which he was asked about the reopening plan in Georgia. Its going very well, Perdue said.

Fauci and other medical experts were critical in May of Georgia and some other Republican-led states for opening too early. At the time, Perdue told Politico that he had recently eaten in restaurants twice in Georgia and, Weve got to get this economy open again. Were on the back side of the cycle. However, new cases spiked in Georgia in July and August.

Readers can make what they will of Perdues comments and decide for themselves if he downplayed the virus.

The Perdue campaign points to other comments and statements Perdue made around the same time that suggest he took the pandemic seriously and took measures to help protect the public.

For example, on March 2 after the first two cases of the coronavirus were reported in Georgia, Perdue and Loeffler issued a press release stating, in part, Were closely monitoring the cases of coronavirus in Georgia and urge everyone to take extra precautions. Governor Kemp and the Trump Administration are working with us to ensure we keep Georgians healthy and safe. It is of utmost importance that Georgia has the resources necessary to respond accordingly.

And on March 23, Perdue released a public service announcement via video, which began: First of all, I know this virus is causing a lot of concern, and rightfully so. Let me assure you of this: the worlds best public health officials are right here in Georgia at the CDC. Theyre working around the clock to help contain this virus and to develop a vaccine.

Perdue, March 23: The Presidents early travel restrictions gave us time to prepare for the virus, and were continuing to take action to safeguard public health. Were doing this by cutting red tape, partnering with the private sector to expand testing availability, and ensuring state and local officials have the resources they need. Were also working on ways to help families and businesses that might be impacted financially.

Finally, please remember to follow the advice of public health officials: stay home if you are sick; wash your hands frequently with soap and water; keep a safe distance from others. If you are experiencing symptoms, call your health care provider right away. You dont necessarily need to go there, just call them and give them your symptoms.

The Perdue campaign also pointed to a number of COVID-19-related actions Perdue has taken, including helping small businesses access the Paycheck Protection Program and helping to locate personal protective equipment for front-line workers.

The Perdue campaign also touted measures in the CARES Act, a nearly $2 trillion stimulus package to bolster the economy in response to the coronavirus pandemic. It included direct payments to Americans, loans for small businesses, support for hospitals and more. The bill passed unanimously in the Senate. Perdue, of course, voted for it, although he opposed two of its major provisions: the direct payment of $1,200 checks to qualifying individuals and the $600-per-week in additional unemployment payments.

One one front, Perdue has been out ahead of, and clearer than, the president: encouraging the public to wear masks.

Trump has waffled on his support for mask-wearing from the start saying on April 3, the day the CDC issued recommendations for public mask-wearing, that he would not personally be wearing a mask. In an interview in early May, Perdue said that in Senate meetings the week before, We all wore masks. We actually had a meeting before then (and) we had masks. And we have hand sanitizers, signs everywhere about washing hands and maintaining social distance. I think its very important that America sees that, that we are functioning, and that this is an essential part of life, that we work together.

In an interview on Fox News on June 30, Perdue said, I absolutely support wearing masks. We wear them here in the Senate. Weve been back here for five weeks. We follow the protocols that the military and our essential workers have been following. We wash our hands, we use masks, and if we follow that, I believe the infection rate can be managed.

And on July 9, Perdue tweeted a picture of himself wearing a mask and imploring the public to wear a mask, wash your hands, practice social distancing.

That was 11 days before Trump did the same thing.

In Ossoffs ad, a chart shows the rising COVID-19 death count, while Trump and Perdue comment about the virus. But the chart is misleading. For example, when Perdue said the risk of this virus still remains low, the chart shows the number of deaths increasing from about 15,000 to 83,000. But, as we said, that comment was made when there were about 1,500 cases and about 37 deaths nationwide (and just 17 cases and no deaths in Georgia). Similarly, the graphic shows the death count rising from about 180,000 to about 210,000 when Perdue said the numbers projected were supposed to be much worse when, in fact, there were 54,761 deaths at the time of his remarks on April 28.

That puts Perdues comments in a worse light. Still, Perdues comments comparing COVID-19 to the flu, praising Georgias early reopening plan and crediting Trump for keeping the death count below projections are all flawed. But again, well let readers determine for themselves if those comments prove Perdue ignored the medical experts and downplayed the crisis.

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Opening Ads in the Perdue-Ossoff Runoff - FactCheck.org

Human smuggling victims outside a stash house in Laredo, Texas, on October 29. (U.S. Customs and Border Protection)

The U.S. Customs and Border Protection agency is cracking down on human smuggling by focusing its efforts on rescuing migrants from stash houses.

Stash houses are where human smugglers put migrants until they can relocate them either within countries or across borders.

The criminal activity associated with stash houses creates a danger and a health risk for neighboring residents, said Matthew Hudak, the chief patrol agent for CBPs Laredo, Texas, sector, on October 30 after theclosing of a stash house.

By working together, we are able to better enforce the law and protect our community and communities throughout the country from COVID-19 and other dangerous threats, Hudak said.

Human smugglers frequently abandon immigrants in stash houses for many days before moving them to a new location. With dozens of immigrants held in small houses without proper sanitation, hazardous living conditions often develop, especially during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Many times the smugglers extort additional moneyjust to keep their human cargo in putrid, unsanitary conditions, said Supervisory Border Patrol Agent Kenneth Kroupa. And after the smugglers abandon them, the migrants cant escape because often they are locked in.

Kroupa described scenes of dozens of migrants weary after traveling thousands of miles stuffed into small rooms without running water, electricity or access to food. Smugglers leave the migrants there without any contact with the outside world.

Between October 2019 and October 2020, CBP uncovered and shut down 397 stash houses. They were located along the U.S.-Mexico border from Texas to California, in towns like Yuma, Arizona, and Laredo.

CBP found over 100 of the houses in Laredo alone, and in Edinburg, Texas, CBP uncovered 141.

With the spread of COVID-19 across Mexico and the southern U.S., these stash houses become centers of illness, introducing the virus into groups of migrants and rendering the houses even deadlier.

The United States seeks to prevent migrants from ending up in stash houses by addressing root causes. In June, Secretary of State Michael R. Pompeoannounced $252 million in additional U.S. foreign assistancefor the Northern Triangle countries.

This assistance will promote U.S. national security and further the presidents goal of decreasing illegal immigration to the United States, he said.

By U.S. Embassy Tbilisi | 16 November, 2020 | Topics: Human Rights, News | Tags: human trafficking

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US targets the stash houses of human smugglers - US Embassy in Georgia

The Texas Public Policy Foundation (TPPF), a conservative think tank, and student activism group Young Conservatives of Texas (YCT) have joined in court to sue the University of North Texas (UNT) in the hopes that a win can reduce tuition costs for students.

TPPFs legal team, led by general counsel Robert Henneke, represents YCT in a lawsuit against UNT claiming that a provision within Texas Education Code that allows universities to set higher rates for out-of-state students violates the U.S. Constitution.

Specifically, federal law states that an alien who is not lawfully present in the United States shall not be eligible on the basis of residence within a State (or a political subdivision) for any postsecondary education benefit unless a citizen or national of the United States is eligible for such a benefit.

The Texas Education Code, on the other hand, sets different rates for Texans and non-Texans and also considers non-citizen aliens to be residents of Texas if they live in the state and are therefore eligible for in-state tuition.

In other words, Texas law allows universities to provide the in-state tuition rate to illegal aliens, while federal law mandates that collegiate benefits for aliens should also be available for citizens in college. The plaintiffs call this an unconstitutional fault line and hope that a win in the lawsuit will effectively end out-of-state tuition.

Federal law provides that all citizens must have access to at least the same level of educational benefits as such aliens, the lawsuit reads, filed Monday.

Because this states statute directly conflicts with federal law, it is preempted by, and thus unconstitutional under, the Supremacy Clause of the United States Constitution.

Henneke emphasized that lower tuition, not immigration reform, is the goal of the case.

Our focus has nothing to do with in-state tuition for illegal aliens. The focus of this case is on the high cost of higher education for all students, and here we have a specific example where out-of-state students under Texas law are being charged more, Henneke said.

This is one way to lessen the burden on students who are pursuing an education at the University of North Texas. And I think the better response to the complaint about the high cost of higher education is not to cancel debt but to prevent that debt from being incurred in the first place, and the only way we can do that is by making college less expensive.

The lawsuit, filed in Denton County district court, requests a declaration that the provision within Texas code that sets different rates for out-of-state students is unconstitutional.

The suit does not ask for any declaration against the part of Texas code that determines resident status. A win for TPPF in the suit would set a legal precedent against out-of-state tuition in Texas, affecting all state universities and not just UNT.

The federal law only requires equity between residents and non-residents. With current code, the out-of-state rate would have to drop to $50 per credit hour Texas current general tuition rate for public universities to meet the federal requirement.

If the Texas legislature were to adjust the current specified general tuition rate of $50 per credit hour, potentially giving schools more authority over their rates, the lawsuit could yield an adverse effect if TPPF wins the declaration they seek. Texas universities could raise in-state tuition to offset losses instead of lowering out-of-state tuition. But for now, its specified in code.

The university estimates an average annual cost of attendance for Texas residents living on campus at $25,680, compared to $38,340 for out-of-state students. UNTs tuition calculator estimates a tuition cost of $4,201 for undergraduate Texas residents taking 15 hours and $10,336.65 for undergraduate non-Texans.

Since service of the lawsuit is still pending, UNT has not yet filed an answer.

The offices of the UNT administrators named in the lawsuit did not respond for comment.

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New Lawsuit Takes Aim at Texas Universities' Out-of-State Tuition - The Texan