The Nicaraguan government recently closed greater than 1,500 nonprofit organizations – a lot of them civil and non secular groups They perform humanitarian work in a rustic that has long been mired in political violence, economic unrest and social unrest.

The closures in August 2024 were the most recent in a long-running crackdown on civil society, including religious groups – a number of the last influential, independent organizations within the country. In the identical month, the Govt revoked the tax-exempt status of churches. Many in recent times Places of worship were or had been closed Their bank accounts have been frozen.

As a sociologistI worked with Central American scientists Explore the role of faith in public life in Central America, including Nicaragua. Several hundred Catholic figures have been arrested as a part of a sustained crackdown under President Daniel Ortega, now 78 the Sandinista National Liberation Front.

Blanket suppression

Ortega's FSLN party, because it is thought in Spanish, is the authoritarian remnant of the group that led a broad national movement against the dictatorship of Anastasio Somoza Debayle within the Seventies. After Overthrow of Somoza in 1979Ortega and the Sandinistas ruled until defeat within the 1990 elections.

Since Ortega returned to power within the 2006 elections, moderates have fled the FSLN, which they’ve used ever since oppression and violence for political and social control. In 2013, the National Assembly Presidential term limits were lifted is about out within the structure of Nicaragua.

In April 2018, Ortega's regime began take targeted motion against student demonstrators. Since then, tons of of residents – religious leaders, university students, academics, journalists and doctors – have done so been killed or arrestedsubmerged or forced to go away the country.

Ortega's crackdown was comprehensive. Universities had their assets were confiscated and funding was cut and a few were closed as government took control of upper education. Media company were closed, and international aid organizations were expelled.

Paramilitary police and prison guards have been accused of collaborating arbitrary killings and torture. Meanwhile a Record variety of refugees flee the country.

Silence churches

Under the nearly 5,500 nonprofits which have closed In Nicaragua, between 2018 and 2024, there are Catholic, Evangelical Christian and historic Protestant organizations, in addition to secular humanitarian organizations. Those, 1,650 organizations and churches were closed in August 2024, with government officials claiming their closure was because of ties to non-public firms or a scarcity of economic records.

Catholic media and Radio station, Missionary Order And humanitarian groups have also been closed as Ortega and the vice chairman – his wife Rosario Murillo – have sought to eliminate places where ideas and data flow freely and folks act independently of the federal government.

The most distinguished religious leader affected by the repression is Rolando Álvarez, a preferred bishop, critic of Ortega and a distinguished Catholic voice of protest. Alvarez was arrested in August 2022accused”Conspiracy and spreading false news,, deprived of his citizenship and sentenced to 26 years in prison.

Due to increasing international pressure, Alvarez and a bunch of other imprisoned Catholic clergy were released in January 2024 exiled to the Vatican – where the regime had previously expelled the Apostolic Nuncio, the Pope's top diplomat in Nicaragua. They are among the many 245 Catholic personalities within the country has shown in recent times. Another 135 people, including Catholics and evangelicalswas deported and stripped of their citizenship in September 2024.

Today, 43% of Nicaraguan residents discover as Catholic. However, this percentage was much higher, and the country has deep cultural roots in Catholicism.

In Nicaragua, as in much of Latin America, the Catholic Church is essentially the most powerful source of social authority and the biggest independent institution to public debate. It represents a key channel through which democratic values ​​can take rootgrow and prosper – an obstacle within the eyes of the regime.

It has been for a few years The church was the one organization that escaped Ortega’s grip – but no more.

Dangerous path

I witnessed firsthand Nicaragua's transformation from a rustic with promising seeds of democracy to a violent autocracy. As Civil war was raging between the unique Sandinista regime and US-backed Contras In the Eighties, I led travel seminars to Nicaragua for faith communities, journalists, congressional staff, and university students. I once met Ortega in person when he acted as translator at a gathering with American journalists when his official translator failed to point out up.

Today, as Ortega continues to consolidate his power by suppressing the opposition, Nicaragua has degenerated right into a repressive state ruled with an iron fist. This reality reflects broader dynamics worldwide, from autocratic movements within the United States and Western Europe to current regimes in Russia, India, Turkey, Hungary and China.

Closer to home, Ortega poses a regional threat and serves as a job model for other would-be autocrats. This is especially true in neighbors like El Salvador, where President Nayib Bukele – the favored, self-described “coolest dictator” – sinks the same path transforming the nation into an authoritarian state.

I actually have seen the generosity and courage of Nicaraguans within the long struggle for freedom and justice. The closure of democratic spaces, civil society institutions and humanitarian organizations, in addition to the suppression of non secular freedom, are a transparent sign that the country is on the trail to more oppression and violence – and, as history shows, is in peril of becoming ripe for revolution .

I imagine that only a gradual reconstruction of civil society can save Nicaragua from this fate. The tragedy is what Nicaragua might have been: a thriving democratic society with a commitment to empowering the poor.

It's that point of 12 months again: school is back in session. However, this 12 months, children are returning to classrooms within the midst of a serious nationwide COVID surge.

The weekly update released Friday by the state Department of Health shows that the COVID positivity rate continues to rise steadily, reaching 14.7% on August 12.

The percentage of COVID tests that come back positive, referred to as the positivity rate, is one in all the few remaining timely metrics for tracking the spread of the virus. California's rate has shown no signs of slowing because it first spiked in May. The positivity rate is now at an all-time high in August and is approaching the historic summer high of 16% in July 2022.

Last 12 months's summer COVID wave peaked in early September at just over 13%, and last 12 months's summer surge peaked in mid-July at just over 16%. The highest positivity rate ever was reached in early January 2022, when it reached over 22% through the first major omicron surge.

In response to requests for comment, East Side Union High School District, San Jose Unified School District, Oakland Unified School District, Fremont Unified School District, San Francisco Unified School District and San Ramon Valley Unified School District stated that they will not be currently making any special preparations for the present surge in cases, but proceed to follow all local and state guidelines.

Current guidelines state that students and staff who test positive should stay home until they’ve been fever-free for twenty-four hours and their symptoms subside.

Originally published: August 16, 2024 at 16:15

Sudan's ongoing humanitarian crisis after greater than a 12 months of civil war shows little sign of slowing downAnd amidst the fighting, a worrying development is emerging that might complicate the conflict and spread beyond Sudan’s borders: the Rise of “ethno-mercenaryism”.”

These are fortune hunters recruited on the idea of their ethnicity or economic reasons who come to Sudan from across Africa's Sahel region – the vast, semi-arid area of ​​the continent that separates the Sahara within the north from the more fertile tropical regions within the south.

The involvement of non-Sudanese Arab fighters within the Sudanese civil war has implications far beyond the country's borders and highlights broader sociopolitical and economic trends across the African continent. As a researcher who follows the developments that Political transitions within the countries along the Red SeaI’m convinced that understanding the complex dynamics that draw outside fighters into the Sudanese civil war is critical to understanding the larger geopolitical shifts that Shaping the region.

Migration, climate change and resource scarcity

The war between the Sudanese armed forces and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces broke out in April 2023 after the support forces, which had until then been under the control of the armed forces, attacked government positions within the capital Khartoum. The war quickly escalated into bloody fighting across the country between the 2 rival groups.

It isn’t only an area problem, but increasingly a regional one. Fighters from Chad, Libya and Niger have joined the support forcessuggesting an internet of alliances that challenge traditional notions of national sovereignty and security.

This cross-border engagement underscores the interconnectedness of the Sahel region. And the fighters involved should not mere mercenaries – they’re participants in a deep-rooted, historically complex struggle for resources and power that pits the region's ethnic groups against one another.

The recruitment of foreign Arab fighters by the Rapid Support Forces – a bunch that emerged from the Janjaweed militia accountable for massacres throughout the Darfur region – is influenced by several aspects, including historical migration and economic pressures.

The legacy of Pan-Arabism and Arab supremacy ideologypropagated by personalities resembling the murdered Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi, plays a job. It is linked to current issues resembling Climate change and resource scarcity to create a volatile environment during which traditional governance structures struggle to keep up order. Since the Nineteen Sixties, there have been Civil wars in Chad between tribal movements and in Sudan between Darfur's rebel groups and the central government in Khartoum.

However, understanding the rise of ethno-mercenaryism within the Sahel requires a comprehensive approach that takes into consideration the historical, socio-political and economic dimensions.

The Arabization of Sudan

In his ethnography “The Sanusi of Cyrenaica” from 1954, the British anthropologist Edward Evans-Pritchard captures the nomadic spirit of an Awlad Ali tribesman within the northern Sahel: “We don't call any place our home. It's wherever there is grass and water.”

Arab influence reached Niger and Western Sahara within the 14th century via trade routes, which led to intermarriage with local communities. In eastern Chad, Arabized communities have links to Sudan, where Arabization dates back to early Islam. In addition to the Rizeigat Baggara tribe Due to centuries-old land rights in Darfur, Arab nomads within the Sahel have been in constant motion since pre-colonial times.

Factors resembling land disputes and Desertification – the method by which fertile land becomes desert – were historically the Movement of Arab tribes across national bordersThese tribes, which migrated in the course of the pre-colonial era of France and Britain, have long-standing ties that transcend modern political boundaries, complicating the simplistic portrayal of an internal civil war.

And strict Droughts within the early Nineteen Eighties have exacerbated disputes over resources.

For example, declining rainfall and soil erosion in Darfur forced Arab groups to maneuver south, increasing competition with local farmers. Strong immigration from North Darfur and Chad to central agricultural areas contributed to the famine in 1983-84 which claimed hundreds of lives.

The Baggara Beltstretching from Sudan to Niger, also challenges colonial boundaries. Migration led to traditional institutions regulating land conflicts, but colonial and post-colonial laws often exacerbated conflicts by depriving nomadic tribes of their land rights. National post-colonial governments further fueled these conflicts by arming tribal militias, regardless that national armies were weak.

Postcolonial dynamics

The history of cross-regional ties between tribal groups crossing borders seeking resources provides the backdrop for today's situation in Sudan, where ethnic mercenaries are being drawn into the conflict.

But it isn’t only migration flows that complicate modern conflicts within the Sahel region, but in addition arms flows.

The influx of contemporary rifles from Libya to Darfur within the Seventies fueled the violence. In the meantime Conflict in Chad from 1978 to 1982 led to the collapse of the federal government and increased influx of weapons. In Darfur, weapons traded through business intermediaries, primarily the Zaghawa people, overwhelmed the Sudanese police. The Sudanese government armed Baggara Arabs to counter the SPLA rebel group within the mid-Nineteen Eighties, which led to tribal militias attacking neighboring regions.

This flow of arms disrupted peace, stability and traditional norms. Principle of “DiyaWhile “blood money” – paid to unintended victims or their families – was effective in curbing violence, modern weapons led to more killings, making blood money unaffordable. Nazirs, traditional tribal chiefs, lost control of Sudan's armed youth within the 2000s, resulting in an increase in violence.

Adding to the growing concerns concerning the region is a recent recent report documented how jihadists operating within the Sahel have begun to penetrate wealthier West African coastal states resembling Nigeria and Benin. In addition, the rise of the Rapid Support Forces and their attacks on the federal maximum security prisons in Khartoum have raised fears that Terrorists join their ranks within the war.

Addressing the regional unrest requires a nuanced understanding of those dynamics and coordinated efforts to advertise stability and development within the Sahel region.

The rise of ethnic mercenaries supporting the support forces threatens to further destabilise an already unstable region. While stopping cross-border ethnic recruitment is crucial, a comprehensive approach is required to handle the foundation causes of this dangerous phenomenon: climate change, arms flows and poor governance.

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The shine of Caeleb Dressel's seven gold medals may suggest otherwise, but he knows that swimming is usually a brutal and suffocating sport.

He is for sure probably the greatest on this planet at what he does: sprinting from one end of the pool to the opposite (and sometimes back). He holds the world record in the lads's 100-meter butterfly, having first snatched that historic title from Michael Phelps in 2019. Then Dressel beat his world record in that event on the Tokyo Olympics – where he won five gold medals in five events.

Despite every thing, Dressel was unhappy.

He was fixated on the purpose where he had failed. In one race, it was the turnaround. In one other, it was the finish. His head position. It didn't matter that he had repeatedly touched the wall first. It didn't matter that he brought home gold and helped Team USA move to the highest of the medal standings. He was chasing perfection. He was chasing times and impressive goals. He hadn't achieved them.

“I've created a monster inside of me – I'm so caught up in perfectionism,” he told former Olympians Missy Franklin and Katie Hoff on their podcast “Unfiltered Waters.” “I'm so caught up in thinking that if I'm not hitting these times, I'm a bad person or I haven't trained hard enough. If I don't hit a world record, that means… I'm not building enough obsession.”

The sport that had fascinated him as a baby since it was a lot fun was the precise opposite. And it was that way for years. But Dressel kept pushing himself and listening to his inner critic, who was tearing him to pieces.

Until he “collapsed,” as he says today. In the center of the 2022 World Championships in Budapest, he abruptly withdrew and disappeared from the game for eight months.

Dressel hasn't gone into detail about this era of his life in Gainesville, Florida, apart from to say he spent a variety of time along with his therapist. His wife, Meghan, was also there for him, although she also recognized that Dressel needed to have a variety of conversations with himself. Some days he didn't do much. Most days he avoided paths that took him past the University of Florida pool. He didn't wish to smell the chlorine.

He needed to work out who he was after his prime and what made him tick outside of the pool. He needed to re-evaluate what he thought others considered him and why they loved him. He needed to learn to smile again.

The process hasn't been easy, and progress hasn't all the time been straightforward. But that's exactly what makes Dressel, 27, who he’s today as a swimmer and an individual (and a brand new father). And that's why he's back within the pool and on his solution to Paris, considered one of the U.S. team's headliners and arguably crucial piece of the puzzle for the U.S. Swim Team in its efforts to win the competition by bringing home more gold medals than its peers. While there's pressure from the surface, inside, Dressel's biggest critic is quieter.

“It's really tough,” Dressel said last month. “It's ingrained in me — you're always looking for ways to get better. I still do that, but I don't get obsessed and so fixated on it that I lose sight of what's really fun about this sport. It's tough, and it's not like I suddenly figured it out this year. There are things I'm really proud of that I did differently, like being able to enjoy parts of the sport without beating myself up for not being perfect.

“It’s still in full swing.”

Dressel seems like someone who has discovered quite a bit about himself through therapy. One of the primary things he'll inform you is how helpful his regular appointments along with his therapist have been.

“I've tried not to be so fixated on results and just enjoy racing and training — those are the two parts of the sport that I really enjoy,” Dressel said. “There are parts of the sport that I really don't like, that I really hate. But it's worth it to put up with the moments that I really enjoy. It's going to be a balance; I don't expect every part of the sport to just be the best for me. But I've really focused on the parts of the sport that I enjoy.

“That's the fundamental difference for me. I've all the time loved training. I've all the time loved being with the team. I actually, really benefit from the actual competition part – once the starting gun goes off, it's just fun. So I just tried to maintain it easy swimming. Just swimming this yr.”

Dressel will only swim the 50-meter freestyle and 100-meter butterfly as individual events at the Games and will likely take part in several relays. At the US Olympic trials in Indianapolis, he finished third in the final of the 100-meter freestyle, which cost him the chance to defend his gold medal in that event in Paris.

But he is happy to be part of the Olympic team. He is proud of what he accomplished in the qualifying competitions. He is thrilled that his young son August was able to witness it all, sitting in Meghan's arms in the stands.

“Nobody can take that away from him,” Dressel said in Indianapolis. “He's not going to recollect it. I'm going to inform him, trust me, I actually have photos, so I can prove it. … That was a really special moment. Meghan knows what it takes, not only the parenting side of things, but she experiences firsthand the difficulties that include the game.”

“The tears that include it, the frustration after which the high points, and with the ability to share that with them because they're going through it too – it was really special that August was capable of experience that.”

Meghan shared a video of Dressel with baby August at the Olympic training camp in North Carolina this month, another moment captured and saved to commemorate a once-in-a-lifetime moment. They will also be in Paris, alongside Dressel's parents and family. Dressel said he wouldn't be where he is today without their support. And he certainly wouldn't be where he is without Meghan, who he calls their family's “superhero.”

Parenting is wonderful for a lot of reasons, but perhaps crucial lesson it teaches is that of perspective—especially for somebody who has spent most of their life chasing time and striving for perfection that doesn't and might't exist.

“I don't know if I'll ever set a personal best again, and that's hard to say. I really do,” Dressel said. “When you're 19, 20, 21, you keep working, keep working, keep working. I'm still working harder than ever, looking for any way I can to get those few tenths out. But I don't know. I don't know if I can do it. I'm really good at racing. If you put me in a race, I'm going to make it close, as close as possible, even if I have to try to kill myself to get there. I'm going to put myself in those situations.”

So he doesn't know exactly how Paris will go. But he does know that he’s older, wiser and really happier than he was before the last Olympics. Others see that too, and not only when he reaches over the track after a race or punches the water for joy.

“He's always had that smile,” said Katie Ledecky, a seven-time gold medalist and training partner on the University of Florida. “He took that time off and when he came back, he had that smile every day. Just seeing his progress over the last year, how he's gotten better from meet to meet – he just seems to love racing, and he probably loves training more than racing itself, and that makes everyone around him better.”

It may even make probably the greatest swimmers on this planet higher. And that's why this smile is as invaluable as gold, irrespective of what medal Dressel has hanging around his neck.

The athlete

AUSTIN, Texas — Most of Houston's power outages following Hurricane Beryl ought to be resolved inside the following two days, town's major power company said Monday, while Texas Gov. Greg Abbott threatened to punish CenterPoint Energy even after the lights are restored.

The Texas Public Utility Commission, the state's regulator, announced Monday that it had launched an investigation into CenterPoint's storm preparations and response requested by Abbott, as a whole lot of hundreds of residents were without power for greater than every week after the storm. The governor gave the utility until the tip of July to submit plans to secure power for the rest of the possibly lively hurricane season and to trim trees and vegetation that threaten power lines.

But some energy experts doubt that Abbott and Texas regulators, whose leaders are appointed by the governor, have done enough up to now to crack down on utilities or make transmission lines within the nation's largest energy-producing state more resilient.

“With its repeated power outages, CenterPoint is showing us that they simply do not seem capable of doing their job,” Abbott said in Houston on Monday.

Spokespeople for CenterPoint, which defended its response and the speed of fixing the outages, didn’t immediately reply to an email searching for comment Monday.

Per week after Beryl made landfall as a Category 1 hurricane—toppling power lines, uprooting trees and sending branches crashing onto power lines—the storm's damage and prolonged outages are once more testing the resilience of Texas's power grid.

In 2021, a winter storm plunged the state right into a deep freeze that knocked out power to hundreds of thousands of residents and brought Texas's electrical grid to the brink of complete collapse. After the deadly blackout, Abbott and state lawmakers vowed changes that will higher ensure Texans aren't left at midnight during dangerous cold and warmth.

Unlike that crisis, which was brought on by an absence of power generation, Beryl caused strong winds that downed power lines and knocked out power to about 2.7 million homes and businesses. Most of that was concentrated within the greater Houston area, where CenterPoint reported Monday that power had been restored to greater than 2 million customers. Still, greater than 200,000 people remained without electricity.

Residents in Houston and the encompassing area suffered from heat and humidity, stood in long lines for gasoline, food and water, and ran to community centers to search out air con. Hospitals saw a rise within the variety of patients with heat-related illnesses and carbon monoxide poisoning brought on by improper use of home generators.

“This is not a failure of the entire system,” Abbott said. “This is an indictment of a company that has failed to do its job.”

At a special Houston City Council meeting on Monday, resident Alin Boswell said he had been without power for eight days and had not seen anyone from CenterPoint in his neighborhood until morning. He said town and company must have known the potential for damage after storms left greater than 1,000,000 people without power in May.

“All of you and CenterPoint had a preview of this debacle in May,” Boswell told council members.

Ed Hirs, an energy expert on the University of Houston, said the failures transcend CenterPoint. He said regulators are unwilling to make sure power lines are sturdier and trees are adequately trimmed.

Hirs said Abbott and other executives who’re focusing exclusively on the utility after Beryl are searching for a scapegoat.

“Of course, none of them have a mirror nearby,” he said. “It's not exclusively CenterPoint. The regulatory contract has completely broken down.”

CenterPoint has at the very least 10 years of vegetation management reports on file with Texas regulators. In April, the corporate filed a 900-page report detailing long-term plans and spending that will be needed to make its power grid more resilient, from tree trimming to resilience against storms and floods to cybersecurity attacks.

In a report filed May 1, CenterPoint said it spent nearly $35 million on tree removal and trimming in 2023. The company said it will focus its efforts on greater than 3,500 miles (5,630 kilometers) of its estimated 29,000 miles (46,670 kilometers) of overhead power lines this 12 months.

Vegetation control stays a key consider avoiding one other blackout throughout the next storm, said Michael Webber, a mechanical engineering professor on the University of Texas who makes a speciality of clean energy technology. But it's just one in every of many problems that power firms are consistently facing.

Policymakers need to revamp Texas' energy grid to adapt to climate change, Webber said.

“We designed our system for past weather,” he said.

In a message to CenterPoint customers Sunday evening, CEO Jason Wells wrote that the corporate had made “remarkable” progress.

“The rapid pace of recovery is a testament to our preparation and the investments we have made in the system,” Wells wrote.

Lathan, who reported from Austin, Texas, is a corps member for the Associated Press/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. Report for America is a nonprofit national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on issues that aren't as continuously covered.

By WILL WEISSERT and ZEKE MILLER, Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) — Department of Homeland Security and law enforcement officials briefed President Joe Biden on Sunday on the suspected assassination attempt on his predecessor, Donald Trump, because the White House continued to call for national unity and condemn the incredible act of violence.

Vice President Kamala Harris met with Biden to receive an update from key investigators.

Biden immediately condemned the shooting and spoke with Trump on Saturday evening. His campaign team, meanwhile, is grappling with find out how to handle the political fallout from an attack on the person Biden is searching for to defeat within the November election.

Trump himself called for unity and national resilience, and his aides said he was in “high spirits and doing well” after being injured at a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, on Saturday. He is pushing ahead with plans to attend the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee this week, where Biden and the Democrats are sure to face harsh criticism.

Shortly after the shooting, Biden's campaign announced that it was “suspending all outbound communications channels and working to pull our television advertising as quickly as possible.” It was unclear how long the suspension would last.

Harris postponed a planned campaign trip to Florida on Tuesday, where she was to satisfy

amongst Republican voters in light of Saturday's shooting, in keeping with a campaign official.

Investigators are still within the early stages of their efforts to find out what happened and why, but some Biden critics accuse the president of telling donors in a personal phone call on July 8: “It's time to target Trump.”

An individual aware of the comments said Sunday that the president was mentioning that Trump had gotten away with a light-weight public schedule after last month's U.S. debate, while he himself was under close scrutiny from many, even inside his own party, for his dismal performance at the talk.

The person spoke on condition of anonymity with the intention to speak more freely about private conversations.

He continued: “So, we're talking about the debate now. It's time to take aim at Trump. He's gotten away with doing nothing for the last ten days except driving around in his golf cart and bragging about results he didn't get… Anyway, I'm not going to comment on his golf game.”

In his first response to the shooting on Saturday night, Biden condemned the attack on Trump. The White House said the 2 men spoke on Saturday night but didn’t provide details.

“Look, there is no place for this kind of violence in America,” Biden said Saturday night before returning to the White House from Rehoboth Beach, Delaware, where he had spent the weekend. “This is sick. This is sick. This is one of the reasons we have to unite this country. We cannot allow this to happen. We cannot be like this. We cannot condone this.”

Originally published: July 14, 2024 at 9:19 am