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America's culture warriorshave massed on their latest battlefield: the classrooms of grade-school children.

Discussions aboutsexual identity and race are being forced out of schools in states where conservatives argue cultural change has gone overboard.

It's pitting them against liberals who decry these measures as bigotry cloaked in concern about children.

A focal point in this fight is a just-passed bill in Florida, HB 1557, which has so polarized the state and the country, people can't even agree on what to call it.

Parental Rights in Education: that's the official name. Don't Say Gay: that's critics' famous nickname for it. The Anti-Grooming bill that's the counter-nickname given by supporters.

It symbolizes struggles taking place in Texas,Tennesseeand a number of other states where similar measures are unfolding.

Legislative hearings on billHB 1557earlier this year offered a window into the politics at play, which follow deep cultural fault lines.

Bill opponents wept at times as they shared personal stories and said it would stigmatize gay, lesbian and transgender youth, who already suffer frighteningly high rates of depression and suicide.

"I never cry on a bill," said one lawmaker, Fentrice Driskell, stifling tears as she recounted the story of a childhood friend whose death was believed to be self-inflicted.

Parents in non-traditional families testified the bill would intimidate kids from doing basic things like drawing their family in art class.

One parent, Kerry Gaudio, urged lawmakers to put themselves in the shoes of a kid being made to feel their family is illegitimate: "It's going to cost lives," said Gaudio.

Other speakers, meanwhile, asked what all thefuss was about.

Here's what's in the bill, which would take effect July 1 if, as expected, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis signsit into law.

Its main provisions:

"We don't want the school district to take on the role of being the parent. Because they're not," said Joe Harding, the Republican who introduced the bill.

The bill's critics contend LGBTQ kids arethe target; Harding originally proposed an amendment, since withdrawn, that could have forced school officials to out students to their parents.

Republican Mike Beltran lamented all the attention paid to a few controversial lines in the bill, which he called altogether reasonable.

"All [the bill] says is, 'We don't talk about [sexuality and gender] until the kids are out of third grade.' That's all it says. You can speak about it in fourth, fifth, sixth, seventh, eighth grade. You can speak about it at home," Beltran said."Third grade is a very modest proposal."

One mother who supportsthe bill testified that school officials cut her out of conversations about her non-binary 13-year-old child.

January Littlejohn sued a school district when she learned officials allegedly agreed to start calling the child a new name, offered a switch of washroomsand asked whether the child would prefer to room with boys or girls on field trips.

The mother suggested her child might have been swayed by a trend; she said three of her child's friends had declared they were transgender.

During her testimony in the legislative hearing, Littlejohnfumed that she and her husband weren't told. "This created a huge wedge between our daughter and us,because it sent the message that she needed to be protected from us. Not by us."

Of note: Parts of this bill wouldn't apply to Littlejohn's child, at least not the provisions about what can't be discussed before Grade 4.

And that speaks to a major criticism of the bill.

Florida Democrats say there is no sex ed at that age anyway. And that even for older kids, parents have the right to opt out of it.

That's why they say the don't-say-gay label is fair: as far as they're concerned, that's what this bill is really about.

"It is a direct attack on LGBTQ+ identity," state lawmaker Anna Eskamani told CBC News, speaking about her Republican opponents' bill."They're not even being subtle about it. It's just so gross."

At one hearing, Eskamani asked whether kids could still ask teachers about a tragedy in her Orlando-area district: the 2016 massacre at the Pulse gay nightclub.

The bill's sponsor, Harding, said that was fine. He said the bill targets procedures, not on-the-spot discussions: "Children ask a lot of questions. Conversations are going to come up."

Public opinion polling is split on aspects of the bill.

A Morning Consult survey for Politico found that Americans favoured bans on teaching sexual orientation and gender identity through third grade: 50 per cent supported it, 34 opposed it.

A smaller number supported letting parents sue over the policy: 41 per cent favoured that, while 43 per cent opposed it.

So what's happening nationally?

There are bills in several states,like one in Tennessee that would restrict books or teaching materials said to "normalize" LGBTQ "lifestyles."

The governor of Texas wants to punish parents of transitioning children. He's instructed child-protection services to open abuse investigations into parents who let children get treatments like puberty-blocking hormones, though the policy is currently blocked by a court.

The Texas move stems from a well-known divorce case there. A mother and father feuded over how to raise an eight-year-old transgender child. The court awarded custody to the transition-supporting mother, but forbade any treatments.

Eskamani's theory about what's driving the trend? Ambitious politicianswanting to build up their celebrity with right-wing voters.

The Texas governor, Greg Abbott,announced his child-protectivemeasure a week before a Republican primary, which he won.Even the Texas father involved in the famous court case later ran, unsuccessfully, for the state legislature.

It's no accident, Eskamani says, that both the Florida and Texas governors are rumoured to have presidential ambitions.

There's more at play than personal ambition, as these politicians are tapping into powerful existing currents within their party.

One factor is the pandemic. Conservative parents fumed at school systems, opposing mask mandates and demanding that schools reopen sooner, and protested at raucous board meetings.

They simultaneously rebelled against schools for teaching about racism, and all these themescombinedturned bashing the education establishment into a central Republican message in state elections last year.

And Republicans won. In fact, they won big. Including in places they didn't expect to win, like Virginia. The parents' rebellion came to be seen as the reason for the Republican win there, although some analysis disputes that education made the difference in Virginia.

Florida and numerous other states have also forbidden teaching about racism in a way that causes discomfort, guilt or anguish on account of a student's race.

At a January hearing in Florida where lawmakers advanced the Don't Say Gay bill, they discussed another education reform: stripping school-board workers of their salariesand using thosesavings to hire government monitors whoscrutinize the books in libraries.

Then there's QAnon.

Defenders of Florida's 1557 bill keep referring to it as an anti-grooming bill, which links it to a termassociated with pedophilesand a longstanding slur against gay people. Donald Trump Jr. used the reference, as did DeSantis's press secretary (though she apologized).

In Eskamani's view, that language is no accident. It's a tacit wink and a nod, she says, encouragingpeople who believe unhinged social-media-driven conspiracy theories about pedophiles secretly running governments.

"One hundred per cent," she said. "It all feeds into that same monster."

She anticipates that after DeSantis signs the bill into law, there will be lawsuits. There will also be pressure on companies to speak out, as Disney did, after facing pressure.

DeSantis told Disney to buzz off.

The governor's combative steak drew valuable praise.The conservative National Review called him the new voice of the Republican Party, a Trump-style fighter who never backs down, and dubbed him a 2024 presidential contender.

Some conservatives offer a gloomier take on why they're doing this: Because they're losing.

At one hearing on the Florida bill, Republican lawmakerScott Plakondescribed his side as being on the defensive, trying to slow cultural change that's moved too far, too quickly.Plakon said bill supporters want to draw a line somewhere.

The Republican said he was elected the same year as Barack Obama, 2008, with the same position on same-sex marriage:they both opposed it.

Four years later, he noted, Obama had switched his position. Immediately after, Plakon said, bakers and florists risked punishment for not serving a same-sex wedding or a celebration of a gender transition.

"Here's a rhetorical question," Plakon asked at a January hearing."Who started the culture wars?"

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Florida's 'Don't Say Gay' bill part of Republican drive to limit talk of sex and race in U.S. classrooms - CBC News

AUSTIN, Texas (AP) Texas threw out mail votes at an abnormally high rate during the nations first primary of 2022, rejecting nearly 23,000 ballots outright under tougher voting rules that are part of a broad campaign by Republicans to reshape American elections, according to an analysis by the Associated Press.

Also see (March 2021): An all-hands moment: Republicans are rallying behind new voting limits

Roughly 13% of mail ballots returned in the March 1 primary were discarded and uncounted across 187 counties in Texas. While historical primary comparisons are lacking, the double-digit rejection rate would be far beyond what is typical in a general election, when experts say anything above 2% is usually cause for attention.

My first reaction is yikes, said Charles Stewart III, director of the Election Data and Science Lab at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. It says to me that theres something seriously wrong with the way that the mail ballot policy is being administered.

Republicans promised new layers of voting rules would make it easier to vote and harder to cheat. But the final numbers recorded by AP lay bare the glaring gulf between that objective and the obstacles, frustration and tens of thousands of uncounted votes resulting from tighter restrictions and rushed implementation.

From the archives (September 2021): Republican lawmakers give voice to fear that new voting restrictions could work against their own party

Also see (January 2022): What the federal voting-rights bill successfully filibustered this week by Senate Republicans aimed to achieve

And (January 2022): Arizona Democrats censure Sinema for blocking voting-rights bill with filibuster inflexibility

In Texas, a state former President Donald Trump easily won although by a smaller margin than 2016, the trouble of navigating new rules was felt in counties big and small, red and blue. But the rejection rate was higher in counties that lean Democratic (15.1%) than Republican (9.1%).

The unusually high rejection rate to start Americas midterm election season is expected to put more attention on changes to the ballot box elsewhere in the country. Texass election was the debut of more restrictive voting rules the GOP raced to put on the books across the U.S. in time for the midterm elections, a push that took particular aim at mail voting that soared in popularity during the pandemic.

At least 17 other states in the coming months will cast ballots under tougher election laws, in part driven by Trumps baseless and persistent claims of rampant fraud in the 2020 election. The rejected ballots in Texas alone far exceeds the hundreds of even possible voter fraud cases the AP has previously identified in six battleground states that Trump disputed.

From the archives (December 2021): Swing-state Republicans full steam ahead on reviews of 2020

Also (April 2021): Pressure mounts on corporations to denounce Republican voting bills

Plus (February 2022): Comcast, Goldman Sachs resume donations to some Republicans who objected to election results

The AP counted 22,898 rejected ballots across Texas by contacting all 254 counties and obtaining final vote reconciliation reports. Some smaller counties did not provide data or respond to requests, but the 187 counties that provided full numbers to AP accounted for 85% of the 3 million people who voted in the primary.

Last week, AP reported that 27,000 ballots had been flagged in Texas for initial rejection, meaning those voters still had time to fix their ballot for several days after the primary and have it count. But the final figures suggest most voters did not.

The most rejections were around Houston, a Democratic stronghold, where Harris County elections officials reported that nearly 7,000 mail ballots about 19% were discarded. During the last midterm elections in 2018, Texass largest county only rejected 135 mail ballots. Harris County elections officials said they received more than 8,000 calls since January from voters seeking help, which they attributed to confusion and frustration over the new requirements.

Dont miss (March 2021):Voting rights an intensifying partisan battleground, as Democrats push H.R. 1 and Republicans alter election procedures at state level

In the five counties won by Trump that had the most mail-in primary voters, a combined 2,006 mailed ballots were rejected, a rate of 10% of the total. In the counties won by Biden with the most mail-in voters, which include most of Texas biggest cities, a combined 14,020 votes were similarly rejected, which amounted to 15.7%.

In rural East Texas, Annette Young voted by mail like usual but received a surprising letter a week after the primary, informing her that the ballot never counted because it didnt comply with a new state law requiring mail voters to include personal identification numbers.

I just threw it right in the trash, she said.

Most of the rejected ballots, according to county election officials and the Texas secretary of state, failed to adhere to the new identification requirements. The changes were part of the sweeping overhaul to Texas elections that Republican Gov. Greg Abbott signed into law in October, saying at the time that no one who is eligible to vote will be denied the opportunity to vote.

Abbott and top Texas Republicans who championed the changes have largely been silent about the high rejection rates. Abbotts office did not respond to requests seeking comment, and messages for Republican Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick and Republican House Speaker Dade Phelan also went unanswered.

Republican state Sen. Paul Bettencourt, a proponent of the changes, said in an email that one issue might have been that ballot instructions printed in different ink colors red for signature, black for identification numbers might have left voters with the wrong impression they did not need to provide both.

Federal data on discarded mail ballots in general elections show few instances of double-digit rejection rates. The outliers include Indiana (14.5%) in 2006, Oregon (12.7%) in 2010 and New York (13.7%) in 2018, according to records from the U.S. Election Assistance Commission.

Stewart, of MIT, said generally less is known about trends in primary elections because of lacking data. One assumption, he said, is that because primaries tend to draw the most habitual voters, they are less likely to mistakes that cause rejections.

But Stewart said others believe that officials may have more time to scrutinize, and reject, ballot paperwork in low-turnout elections.

The new mail ballot requirements in Texas include listing an identification number either a drivers license or a Social Security number on the ballots carrier envelope. That number must match the countys records, and if a ballot is rejected, voters are given the opportunity to supply the missing information or simply cast a ballot in person instead.

It is unknown how many Texas voters whose mail ballots were rejected may have still had their vote count by deciding to just show up in person instead.

Sam Taylor, a spokesman for the Texas secretary of state, said the office did not yet have its own final comprehensive numbers on ballot rejections. He said a significant portion of their efforts this year will be awareness about the new mail-in rules.

We are confident we will have all the information we need to apply any lessons learned during the primary to an even more robust voter education campaign heading into the November general election, he said.

Delores Tarver Smith, 87, took no chances with a mail ballot this year. She applied in Harris County for a mail ballot Feb. 1, but when none arrived before the election, she voted in person.

Last Wednesday more than a week after the primary her absentee ballot finally showed up at her home. I had to make sure my vote counted, she said.

From the archives (January 2022): Democrats more drawn to fine-tuning Electoral Count Act of 1887 after failure this week of ambitious voting-rights legislation

Read on (April 2021): More than half of Americans support open access to early and absentee voting, but nearly a third disagree

The rest is here:
Republican overhaul of Texas voting procedures has caused a spike in rejected ballots - MarketWatch

Former Eagles Hall of Fame safety Brian Dawkins has been called a legend based on how he played football. It was why he earned one of the most sought-after sportscoats that every player dreams of who enters the league: The gold Pro Football Hall of Fame jacket.

Dawkins left his gold jacket at home Friday. Instead, he chose to wear his red t-shirt with Blessed by the Best across his chest. Dawkins sat down to answer questions at Harrahs in Atlantic City Friday. Dawkins, who was there for the Maxwell Football Club Gala, was also there to accept the organizations Legends Award.

Part of being a legend was his ability to play in various positions on the field, which was not seen a lot during that period in the NFL. Dawkins not only played the traditional roles that safeties had but lined up in the box to stop the run and line up in exotic looks that would force turnovers.

It is common to see safeties used in creative ways like Dawkins was deployed. Dawkins credited the ongoing evolution of the usage of safeties to one of his former coaches.

Former Eagles safety and Pro Football Hall of Famer Brian Dawkins (left) sits next to University of Alabama quarterback and Heisman Trophy winner Bryce Young (right) during Friday's Maxwell Football Club press conference.Chris Franklin | NJ Advance Media For NJ.com

Its going where Jim Johnson started it, Dawkins said. He began to do what he did with me. With the way he played me and utilized me, it started way back then, with me being used in so many different ways and varieties on the field. I call them a chess piece. Youre seeing more guys that have to have that versatility to make defenses more successful. Im happy to see that the safety position is finally getting some of the credit for being game-changers and not just deep safeties.

Dawkins also talked about what was going on with his former team, saying last season looked as if the Eagles season was broken up into three acts in a movie, and one of them is the real identity of the team.

Any team that is in their second year together, you are still truly developing who you are, Dawkins said. Do we know who the Eagles are? They started off one way, changed midseason and finished off another way. Which one are you? This coming year, they will figure out who they are during this offseason, watching film, having tough decisions, bringing in the other talent that can fill in some of the gaps they may have had. Then we will see what this team really has.

Another thing to watch as the season and the years progress are who the leaders are on the team and how they develop in their roles, especially with some of the younger corps players such as Jalen Hurts continue to get experience and some of the veterans such as Brandon Graham get older.

Dawkins, who was a captain for the Eagles and widely known for his leadership abilities, said that it does not matter who is wearing the traditional captains C on jerseys that denotes the responsibility. Other players could quietly be contributing to the role.

One of the things about leadership is that there are often times leaders that dont have the platform because you have a leader in place, Dawkins said. Sometimes when some of the other older guys leave, for instance, when Troy (Vincent) left, there was an opportunity for me to step up because Troy had vacated a leadership position.

Those leaders that are already there that just dont have the stage, they can then step up because theyve already learned some say with their teammates already, Dawkins continued. The fans just dont know it, so they can just step into that place and then teach the younger guys what it is to be an Eagle.

Thank you for relying on us to provide the journalism you can trust. Please consider supporting us with a subscription.

Chris Franklin may be reached at cfranklin@njadvancemedia.com.

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Eagles great, chess piece Brian Dawkins asks what version of team will show up in 2022 - NJ.com

The US Chess Girls Club has been invited to compete against Grandmaster Judit Polgar for a special simul event, Judit Polgar vs. the World at 9 a.m. ET on Sunday, Mar. 20.

The simul features Polgar facing off virtually against 10 teams from all over the globe, captained by popular chess personalities including notable female players like Anna Rudolf, the Botez sisters, and Anna Cramling.

Following the games, Polgar will summarize and analyze the moves, discuss strategies, and give feedback on the teams performances.

US Chess Womens Director Jennifer Shahade will captain the US Chess team. This is an exciting opportunity for the Girls Club, she said. Judit is one of the strongest attacking players ever and the greatest female player of all time. It will be an honor to play and learn from her.

Female and non-binary players of all ages who are interested in joining the US Chess Girls Team for this event, should register through our Google form.

Our team will be a truly international team, Shahade added. Well be including our cross-cultural program partners with Business Meets Chess & Kids, the Lighthouse Chess Club, and WGM Nadya Ortiz's Colombian group. Chess-in-the-Slums, based in Nigeria, will also help us make our first moves.

According to Shahade, the invitation to the Girls Club was extended after Polgars positive experience visiting with the Girls Club last summer.

Judit Polgar vs. the World will be broadcast live at https://www.twitch.tv/chessconnectsus.

The US Chess Girls Club board will be streamed live with commentary by WFM Alessia Santeramo on her twitch channel.

Read this article:
US Chess Girls Club Invited to "Judit Polgar vs. The World" - uschess.org

The landscapes in Davide Monteleones images of Chinas belt and road initiative are very familiar to me. We can see desert, uninhabited wasteland and views along the Yangtze River and in north-west China. There are also photographs showing the characters Stay strong, Wuhan! on skyscrapers in neon lights.

They are reminiscent of images I took in China, which captured dilapidated cities before they were rebuilt; energy plants; the development of impoverished areas and large-scale architecture. At that time, I wanted to write a new encyclopedia to elucidate new concepts and thoughts that emerge with rapid urbanisation, and to form a new language. The project was too ambitious, and I did not complete it. It was my failed belt and road.

Stay strong, Wuhan! The Chinese city of Heihe seen from Blagoveschensk, Russia, across the frozen Amur River, February 2020

The initiative, which has been likened to the Silk Road trade routes of imperial China, was proposed by the current Chinese leader, Xi Jinping, as a blueprint to reposition China in the era of globalisation, and to change the world order in a Chinese way. The thinking behind this $1tn project is ambitious. Such long-term planning, coherent political goals and effective implementation are rare, both in Chinese and in human history. The ruling party in China has laid bare its determination to occupy an important role in the world.

Local people at work on the Great Renaissance dam, Ethiopia, September 2019. The mammoth project, which began on the Blue Nile in 2011, is one of the largest hydroelectric power plants in the world. China has contributed about $1.8bn of the $4.8bn total cost

The Tecno Mobile factory in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, September 2019. The Chinese phone manufacturer stopped doing business in Asia in 2008 to focus on the African market. It is now the second biggest supplier of smartphones on the continent

The goals of the belt and road initiative are pragmatic, unlike those proposed by the Chinese Communist party in their early days, and embodied in slogans such as Exceeding the UK, Catching the US in the 50s and 60s. China, with a huge amount of accumulated wealth and managerial and production experience, has understood that it can fill the gaps in parts of the world that are forgotten and abandoned by the west. These regions thirst for a strong economic entity to piece together fragmented, disorganised territories with longstanding historical differences. This is where China comes in.

About 145 nations have joined the belt and road initiative by signing a memorandum of understanding with China, including countries in Europe, south-east Asia and the Middle East. It is an initiative that mainly focuses on basic infrastructure and engineering projects, such as transportation through rail, road and ports, to facilitate global trade and offer solutions to the problems of developing countries as the Chinese saying goes, If you want to be rich, build roads first. Many people in China, and also in the developing world, feel optimistic about this initiative, and mock Europe and the US for failing to match its vision.

Aktau, Kazakhstan, October 2017. The citys port offers access to the Caspian Sea; from 2016 to 2020, trade between China and the Caucasus region almost doubled

A monument in Nurkent, Kazakhstan, October 2017. The newly built town will accommodate 100,000 workers serving the nearby Khorgos dry port. A Chinese logistics company has 49% ownership of the land

The belt and road was not a decision taken on a whim. The idea comes from an article by Mao Zedong titled People of the world, unite and defeat the US aggressors and all their lackeys, published in 1970 and commonly known as the 520 statement. In this article, Mao prompted the developing world to be united and fight against western political power led by the US. He stressed the importance of nationalist revolutions, independence and liberation movements as the wave of unstoppable historical change. Mao quoted the Confucian philosopher Mencius a just cause attracts much support, an unjust one finds little to illustrate his belief that people in the world would triumph over Anglo-American imperialism.

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When my generation was growing up, these thoughts permeated the entire country. I belong to the same generation as Xi. We were encouraged to have the entire motherland in mind and the whole world in view and to start revolutions everywhere in the world. These arrogant ideas relate to the ideology of that era. Based on these thoughts, the belt and road initiative is a strategic move that corresponds to the countrys rapid development. The question is: will its goals be achieved in a world that is much more complicated than it once was?

Sihanoukville, Cambodia, December 2019. The once quiet tourist town on the coast has been transformed, its skyline dominated by casinos built to accommodate those seeking to avoid the ban on gambling in mainland China. More than 90% of businesses are Chinese-owned and locals complain the newcomers are turning the city into a de facto colony, forcing up rents and making them second-class citizens in their homeland

Monteleones photographs are broad in scope and encompass many stories and strange landscapes. The Italian photographer began his project in Russia in 2014 before visiting vast rail and road projects across Asia; container ports; factories; casinos; and the Grand Renaissance dam in Ethiopia. The images clearly depict Chinas strategic ambitions, very different from the original Silk Road, which operated from around 130BC until the mid-15th century. The Silk Road was a network of trade routes, whereas the belt and road initiative embeds a political ambition beyond commerce. The issue in question here is: who will be the centre of the world? Who will rise to world power?

A copy of Moscows St Basils Cathedral in Manzhouli, China, August 2015. The small city on the Russian border is one of Chinas biggest trade hubs. The Ukrainian crisis has given fresh impetus to Chinese efforts to forge a closer relationship between the two nations, as Russia faces sanctions from the west

From my perspective, China refuses to waver in its policies, no matter what setbacks it encounters. The belt and road initiative is its counterattack in a global game of chess. The democracies of Europe and the US are very different from China.

Under pressure to solve short-term problems during their terms of office in order to get re-elected, western governments concentrate their efforts on capital projects and economic competition. The corporatocratic west, primarily measuring political success according to economic profitability, has lost its vision of pursuing mutual benefit and the wellbeing of humankind.

This, however, is not to say that China is necessarily bringing real benefits to the developing world. The belt and road initiative, launched to benefit China, is tinted with colonialism.

It leads this ancient country of 1.4 billion people to a swamp of pragmatism and egoism. While China is pumped up with ambition, it also sinks into contradiction and confusion, because of its lack of self-awareness. The ideological superstructure and economic base will be at odds with each other for a long time.

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Ai Weiwei on the new Silk Road: 'This is China's counterattack in a global game of chess' - The Guardian