One of the saddest things that happens when you raise cows is the death of newborn calves. Most often, mama cows are better at birthing and caring for their babies than you are, but things can go wrong.

One time around midnight, a frustrated veterinarian told me that if people wanted to keep pet cows, they shouldn’t breed them. She’d been trying for hours to help with a breech birth, but the inexperienced heifer — who had been in labor for about 12 hours — kept sitting down. We were all exhausted, especially the poor cow.

New to cattle husbandry, I lacked a head gate and squeeze chute to keep her standing. By the time we trucked her to the veterinary clinic in the morning, it was too late. The calf was stillborn, and the mother cow had to be euthanized — a tough way to learn an obvious lesson.

Get proper equipment, educate yourself and seek competent help at the first sign of trouble. It doesn’t have to be a licensed veterinarian, just somebody with the know-how.

One such person would be our dear friend Jennifer, an Arkansas country girl, expert breeder of cattle — she does her own artificial insemination — and passionate advocate of agricultural education. If Jennifer had her way, and the woman can be extremely persuasive, everybody would have to take at least one ag course in high school, if nothing else so that city people would have some idea where their food comes from.

And to learn to show some respect. Ordinary common sense would also be nice, although it’s actually rather extraordinary.

Anyway, Jennifer being Jennifer, she partly blames herself for what recently happened in her pasture. See, she’d left the bull in with the cows too long last year, resulting in one of her mama cows delivering a calf during the first real summer heat, with temperatures in the 90s and extreme humidity.

The mother cow nursed her newborn until it fell asleep — “milk drunk,” as they say — hid him in the shade of some tall grass, and then took refuge in a farm pond with the rest of the girls.

Enter, stage left, a family of opinionated animal-lovers fresh from town. Spotting the calf snoozing in the grass, they leapt to the conclusion that the poor baby — roughly the size of a golden retriever — had been abandoned to die by cruel and uncaring owners.

Which just goes to show you. See, if nothing else, that’s hundreds, potentially thousands of dollars sleeping on the ground — a purebred Hereford bull calf with a famous grandfather called “About Time.”

Jennifer specializes in Herefords — reddish-brown, white-faced animals, for urbanites taking weekend drives in the country. She, husband Bryan and their sons haul them to cattle shows and county fairs all over the region, where they win lots of prize ribbons.

These are some pampered livestock.

Jennifer has become locally famous for her habit of stalking cows with binoculars when she thinks they’re fixing to give birth; Bryan’s famous, too, for loving the determined nut he married.

But you’d better leave her cows alone.

Instead, the animal-loving pilgrims sprang into action. First, they called the police to report an instance of animal cruelty. A Faulkner County deputy came out, sized things up, advised them he saw no problem and to go back home. I’m guessing he talked “country,” because most rural Arkansas deputies do, which may have persuaded them that he couldn’t possibly know what he was talking about.

Failing to raise Bryan and Jennifer on the phone — they were incommunicado watching Razorback baseball on TV — the pilgrims fetched a bucket of water, and, get this, a turkey baster, and climbed into the pasture to save the day. Unnoticed by a mama cow habituated to humans — she’d surely have trampled the idiots if she’d seen what they were up to — the rescue team proceeded to force-feed the calf water until it could hold no more.

Alerted by a neighbor, Bryan and Jennifer’s son arrived to find the pilgrims attempting to lead the calf with a dog leash around its neck. A polite, if formidable, young man, he informed them that they were trespassing and that filling a newborn calf’s belly (if not its lungs) with water could only cause harm.

Indeed, the little bull died 24 hours later, leaving my friends furious and preparing to file charges. She believes the pilgrims meant well, Jennifer says, but remains unable to forgive their presumption. “People need to stop pretending they’re experts about agriculture when THEY KNOW NOTHING,” she writes, “except what they read on some ‘Save the Whale’ website.”

Nothing against whales, understand. Just that ignorance and sentimentality are often a deadly combination.

Or as one of her Facebook friends put it, “I know what I’d like to do with that turkey baster. However, it’s Sunday, so I’ll just leave it at that.”

Gene Lyons is a columnist for the Arkansas Times.

Send letters to [email protected].

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It’s been over 109 years since the ship named for a doomed race of Greek gods sank, but almost everybody still has a “Titanic” reference, even if it’s only of a fictional character screaming “I’m the king of the world” from the bow of a giant ship.

Court Theatre’s pre-filmed, streamed staging of Owen McCafferty’s “Titanic (Scenes from the British Wreck Commissioner’s Inquiry, 1912)” shows the human tragedies that unfolded in harrowing, gruesome detail after the real-life Titanic hit the iceberg that sent more than 1,500 souls down to the lightless depths two miles beneath the North Atlantic.

Directed for Court by Vanessa Stalling, McCafferty’s script is as its matter-of-fact as its title infers: For roughly two hours, we hear testimony from survivors and maritime experts about the lethal maritime collision that occurred at 11:40 p.m., Sunday, April 14, 1912. Lookouts, stewards, bakers, noblemen and engineers tell their stories, each ferreted out as the Commissioner (Alys Shante Dickerson, a regal, authoritative presence) tries to find out why the American-owned ship too big to sink sank.

HMS Media has filmed the production on Court’s stage, where Arnel Sancianco’s minimalist set has the actors seated in separate booths, speaking to each other via headphones, often referring to thick binders in front of them. The staging is static enough to be a drawback and the double (sometimes triple) casting of witnesses and commission members isn’t ideal. The actors are literally isolated from each other, which makes the production feel like a series of monologue. Moreover, there’s a disconnect between the staidness of the Commission proceedings and the devastation of the testimonies.

But Stalling finds the power in McCafferty’s dispassionate, frill-free language. Listen to nightmarish recollections of an ocean teeming with bodies and filled with the combined wails of “hundreds of hundreds” drowning and you won’t soon forget it.

Michael Brosilow

Ditto the stats recited as an epilogue of sorts. Of the Titanic’s 325 first class passengers, 203 survived. Of the 706 people packed into third class, below-the-water-line steerage compartments, 178 survived.

“Titanic” emphasizes the advantages of wealth with harrowing specificity: What lifeboats there were (and famously, there were not enough) were accessible only from the promenade deck, where third-class passengers weren’t allowed. While the upper-deck passengers were getting into the lifeboats, the third-class passengers were being told to stay where they were and keep quiet.

Keith Parham’s lighting design helps focus the production, witnesses and their examiners framed in pools of light that bleed into darkness as they exit, their words seeming to hang in the air.

Michael Brosilow

Mikhail Fiksel’s sound design and score augments the drama greatly, a six-person (off-stage) orchestra providing an underscore of that heightens the tension. Between scenes, the words of the dead take the form of an audio collage crafted from the final telegrams to loved ones, increasingly urgent cables and, ultimately, the screams of the dying.

The production is static, but the images the cast conjures are vivid: The ship’s electric lights were burning right up until they were submerged. Crew literally threw passengers from the upper decks into the lifeboats below. Chief baker Charles Joughin (Andy Nagraj) pitched deck chairs overboard, hoping that he’d find one to cling to after entering the water. Ship’s lookout Reginald Lee (Nate Burger) describes the near-invisibility of a iceberg that had capsized, its white tip submerged, its massive, black-glass underbelly impossible to see in the haze of a moonless night.

Highlights include Sir Cosmo Duff Gordon, a snooty weasel conjured by Bri Sudia, who also plays Sir Cosmo’s dainty but wildly entitled Lady Cosmo Duff Gordon. Ronald L. Conner seethes with frustrated rage as W.D. Harbinson, representative of the third class passengers. And as famed polar explorer Ernest Shackleton, Xavier Edward King speaks with chilling awe as he describes the rarity of an iceberg like the one described by “Titanic” survivors.

By 2030, its’ estimated the last vestiges of the Titanic will have vanished, its heated swimming pool, five grand pianos, Turkish bath and nine hundred tons of baggage devoured by the sea. “Titanic (Scenes from the British Wreck Commissioner’s Inquiry, 1912)” will ensure you don’t soon forget the stories of the people who went down with the ship.

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It’s not expensive or difficult to produce large numbers of untraceable firearms in the United States. Whether for private use, sale on the criminal market or arming violent extremists, it’s actually startlingly cheap and easy to mass-produce firearms that police can’t track — what are often called “ghost guns.”

For just over $2,000 I can buy a machine — not much bigger than a desktop laser printer — that will do the trick. If I’m feeling handy, I can get it done with just simple power tools.

As I discuss in my recent journal article about ghost guns, it’s perfectly legal to privately manufacture firearms without a license in the U.S. But it’s illegal to sell or give away privately manufactured firearms without a license.

A person producing a single “ghost gun” for their own personal use may not rise to the level of official concern, but the undetected mass production of untraceable weapons makes it much more difficult to map and disrupt the illicit markets that supply guns for use in crime.

Federal law does not require privately made firearms to have serial numbers or other identifiers, which makes it impossible to trace transfers of ownership — to “follow the guns” — when they have been used in crimes. They have no history and come from nowhere.

An almost-gun

Federal firearms laws and regulations have over time developed a loophole through which these ghost guns can fit easily. Every firearm has a component, sometimes called a “frame” but also called a “receiver,” which is the keystone element to which other parts are attached.

Finished frames and receivers are considered to be firearms under federal law. To be sold, they must have identifying marks and serial numbers, and sellers must keep records of who bought which weapons. If the firearm is used in a crime, police can investigate current and previous owners to see if they might be involved.

But nearly finished receivers are considered nothing more than pieces of metal or plastic. These items are often called “80 percenters” because most but not all of the work has been done to make the piece of metal or plastic into a working receiver. They are available for purchase without a license, background check or other protections put in place for firearms purchases — and cost as little as $50 to $75 apiece, with volume discounts available.

The work needed to turn an “80 percenter” into a fully functional frame or receiver takes about half an hour. All the other parts, such as a stock to support the firearm and a barrel through which bullets are fired, are freely available without regulation, and are easily attached to the receiver during manufacturing of a weapon.

An uncountable number

There is no estimate of the number of fully functional ghost guns in circulation — how could there be? — but the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives disclosed in May 2021 that nearly 24,000 had been recovered by law enforcement agencies in the past five years (including from the scenes of 325 homicides or attempted homicides). That’s a small but meaningful proportion of total firearms recoveries. The ATF has said in a series of data reports that in 2019 it “traced and recovered” between 250,000 and 350,000 firearms.

CBS’s “60 Minutes” reported in May 2020 that 38 states had identified criminal cases involving ghost guns; they had been used in at least four mass shootings. A Florida man has been convicted of making more than 200 ghost guns, mostly AR-15-type rifles.

Some ghost gun crimes involve domestic terrorism. In mid-2020, an adherent of the violent extremist “boogaloo movement” — an active-duty Air Force sergeant — was charged with the murder of two law enforcement officers and the attempted murder of a third. At least one of the killings, and possibly all three shootings, involved a ghost machine gun.

In October 2020, more than a dozen men were arrested for plotting to kidnap Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer. They were allegedly participants in the boogaloo and militia movements, and police said they had ghost guns.

Fixes are in the making. Several states have taken preliminary steps to restrict ghost guns, and in May the Department of Justice proposed new rules and regulations that would make it much more difficult to manufacture and distribute firearms clandestinely. Public comments on the proposal may be submitted until Aug. 19, 2021.

This op-ed was originally published on The Conversation.

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EMMITSBURG, Md. — Jim Phelan, the bow-tied basketball coach who won 830 games during nearly a half-century at Mount St. Mary’s, has died. He was 92.

The athletic department at Mount St. Mary’s said Phelan died in his sleep at home Tuesday night.

Phelan spent his entire 49-season career at Mount St. Mary’s. He took the Mount to 14 NCAA Division II tournaments, including five trips to the Final Four and a national championship in 1962.

A Philadelphia native, Phelan starred on La Salle’s basketball team before coming to the Mount in 1954. He planned to stay only a few seasons as a coach before moving on, but he grew to love the cozy town of Emmitsburg and ended up sticking around.

After moving to Division I, his teams made the NCAA Tournament in 1995 and 1999. He was inducted into the National Collegiate Basketball Hall of Fame in 2008.

“Coach Phelan is Mount St. Mary’s basketball,” said Dan Engelstad, the current coach of the Mountaineers. “I found out the news after dropping my daughters at school as I was driving to campus. I thought about how fortunate I am to coach at the place that Coach Phelan built and grateful that he built it on family. I get to share his desk and I get to coach in the gym that he changed lives in — what an honor.”

Phelan shunned several offers from bigger colleges and suffered through the indignity of being rejected for consideration at his alma mater.

“I had been here five or six years, and my name came up for the job,” he said. “But then someone of influence there said: ‘No way he should be considered. He wears that stupid bow tie.'”

Phelan decided to stick with the ties and stay in Emmitsburg. And La Salle missed out on landing one of the finest coaches in the history of the game.

“He taught me how to shoot the ball, he taught me discipline, he taught me about life itself,” former Mount St. Mary’s standout Fred Carter said a few days before Phelan won his 700th game in 1993.

Shortly after seeing Carter play in Philadelphia, Phelan talked him into leaving the big city for Emmitsburg. Carter, who later played in the NBA and became coach of the Philadelphia 76ers, was the first Black student to enroll in the college.

Toward the end of his career, when he was a good 45 years older than the players he coached, Phelan deftly handled the generation gap.

“When the players first get here, they seem to regard me as a dinosaur, a fossil,” Phelan said. “They usually spend the first part of their freshman season relating to the assistant coaches. Then, after a while, they realize that I’m not exactly a senile old grandfather.”

When Phelan retired in 2003, coaches around the country honored him by wearing bow ties.

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The all-female-identifying Moonwater Dance Project explores water-as-metaphor in its newest piece.

The low rumble of the double bass slides up and down with the rise and fall of a tumult of waves to begin the piece. The dancers’ movements manifest a calm sea, storms, and the ebb and flow of the tide.…Read More

Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei warned of a foreign conspiracy to undermine the vote while the country’s Interior Ministry acknowledged a startling lack of competition that was turning the election into a coronation for Khamenei’s protégé, hard-liner Ebrahim Raisi.

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — Iran grappled with fears of low voter turnout two days ahead of its presidential election as the race narrowed on Wednesday into a showdown between the country’s hard-line judiciary chief and moderate former Central Bank chief.

Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei warned of a foreign conspiracy to undermine the vote while the country’s Interior Ministry acknowledged a startling lack of competition that was turning the election into a coronation for Khamenei’s protégé, hard-liner Ebrahim Raisi.

In an extensive televised speech, Khamenei railed against the media’s grim portrayal of the poll and tried to cajole people into voting, warning of “increased pressure” from Iran’s “enemies” if citizens stay away from the polls on Friday.

Iran’s clerical vetting body had barred a range of prominent reformists and key allies of relatively moderate President Hassan Rouhani to run in this election, giving the green light to just Raisi and several low-profile candidates, mostly hard-liners with little popular support. The Guardian Council’s evisceration of any viable challengers has sparked widespread criticism and fueled calls for a boycott.

Voter apathy was running deep even before the disqualifications, due in part to the devastated economy and subdued campaigning amid a surge in coronavirus cases. The state-linked Iranian Student Polling Agency most recently projected a 42% turnout from the country’s 59 million eligible voters, which would be a historic low.

At a press conference, the interior minister admitted it was no real contest.

“The actual competition in the elections is not a very serious one … considering the actions of the Guardian Council,” said Abdolreza Rahmani Fazli. “We can say that the reasons are the weak competition and the coronavirus situation.”

That left Khamenei and top officials the task to try lure the disillusioned public back to the polls. Iranian authorities have promoted voter turnout as validation for their style of governance after the 1979 Islamic Revolution installed the clerically overseen system that endures today.

Khamenei lashed out against Iran’s “enemies” for discouraging people from voting. He accused “American and British media and their mercenaries” of “killing themselves to question the elections and weaken popular participation.”

He also acknowledged that many ordinary Iranians, impoverished and battered by years of heavy American sanctions, may not see the benefit of political participation.

“But not voting because of (economic) complaints is not correct,” Khamenei said.

Meanwhile, two hard-line candidates withdrew Wednesday, throwing their support behind presumed front-runner Raisi. The only reformist candidate in the vote also dropped out, making former Central Bank chief Abdolnasser Hemmati the main moderate contender. Such dropouts are common in Iranian presidential elections in order to boost the chances of similar candidates. No campaigning is allowed on Thursday, 24 hours before polls open.

Within Iran, candidates exist on a political spectrum that broadly includes hard-liners who want to expand Iran’s nuclear program and confront the world, moderates who hold onto the status quo and reformists who want to change the theocracy from within.

Alireza Zakani, a conservative lawmaker who became known for his vocal opposition to Tehran’s 2015 nuclear deal with world powers, dropped out and said he would vote for Raisi. Soon after, Saeed Jalili, the top nuclear negotiator for former hard-line President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad at the height of Western concerns over Tehran’s nuclear program, followed suit. Over 200 lawmakers in parliament, which is dominated by hard-liners, urged the remaining hard-line contenders to withdraw and back Raisi’s bid.

Mohsen Mehralizadeh, the pro-reform candidate who served as governor in two provinces and previously in reformist President Mohammad Khatami’s administration, also announced his departure, apparently to boost Hemmati’s chances.

In remarks Wednesday, Hemmati sought to rally the pro-reform vote and position himself as a stand-in for Rouhani, who is term-limited from running again. He announced that he’d select current Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif to join his administration as either vice president or foreign minister, embracing the top diplomat who was an architect of Tehran’s now-tattered nuclear deal.

“The economic development of Iran is not possible without strong diplomatic engagement abroad,” Hemmati tweeted, explaining his choice of Zarif. “My administration is after the removal of sanctions and use of foreign policy to achieve political development.”

Zarif, among the best-known political figures in Rouhani’s administration, has come under fire from the political establishment recently, following the leak of a contentious audiotape in which he offered a blunt appraisal of power struggles in the Islamic Republic.

There was no immediate word from Zarif on Hemmati’s announcement, but the minister has previously indicated a willingness to join the incoming administration.

Polling and analysts indicate that Hemmati lags behind Raisi, the current judiciary chief cultivated by Khamenei.

Raisi has drawn deep skepticism from the West, in part for running a judicial system that remains one of the world’s top executioners and sees the Revolutionary Courts operate many trials behind closed doors. His alleged involvement in human rights abuses dates back to a mass execution of political prisoners at the end of the Iran-Iraq war in 1988.

Raisi’s ascendancy would come at a delicate time for the region, as Iran and the United States negotiate a return to Tehran’s historic atomic accord with world powers that gave Iran sanctions relief in exchange for curbs on its nuclear program.

But even as the narrowing of the field boosted his bid, the country appeared most concerned with whether Iranians would vote at all — or defy the leadership and stay home.

Rouhani, who had publicly protested the Guardian Council’s rejection of high-profile nominees from his own administration, pleaded with people to vote nonetheless.

“The way of expressing our complaints is not turning our backs on ballot boxes. … Some may say that the situation has become so tough for us. I tell them to cast their votes despite the troubles,” he said. “Going to polling stations in present circumstances … makes us more powerful.”

In video widely shared on social media Wednesday, former reformist President Khatami also asked pro-reform Iranians to “make an effort, show up and vote” despite their disappointment in the approved candidate list.

___

Associated Press writer Nasser Karimi in Tehran, Iran, contributed to this report.

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He’s unlikely to get a new deal before training camp, but Robinson won’t let that interfere with his preparation for the 2021 season.

Allen Robinson is unhappy with his contract as he plays the upcoming season on the franchise tag, but he won’t allow that frustration to interfere with his preparation.

Robinson showed up for mandatory minicamp after skipping two weeks of voluntary organized team activities and said Wednesday he won’t hold out from training camp despite the likelihood that he won’t have a contract extension by then.

“That’s not in my control,” Robinson said. “That is what it is. I’m comfortable with that. Obviously that’s a possibility. My main focus right now is to continue to get better.”

Robinson has been the Bears’ best receiver the last three seasons and had some of the best statistics in the NFL over the last two when he was fully healthy. In 45 games with the Bears, he has 255 catches, 3,151 yards and 17 touchdowns.

He finished a three-year, $42 million deal last season and will play for $17.9 million on the franchise tag this season. He and the Bears have until July 15 to agree to an extension, otherwise he’ll be an unrestricted free agent in March, but there doesn’t appear to be any momentum for that.

“I don’t have any updates,” Robinson said of the negotiations. “That’s out of my control.”

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The Pacific Northwest city had best been known nationally for its ambrosial food scene, craft breweries and nature-loving hipsters. But last year, as a portion of its downtown was consumed by nightly protests that often turned violent and resulted in clashes with federal agents, former President Donald Trump and his administration labeled Portland an “anarchist jurisdiction.”

PORTLAND, Ore. — The smell of fresh empanadas wafted through the stands at Portland’s Saturday Market. People talked through their masks with artists as others sifted through fork windchimes, crystal necklaces, tie dye dresses and clay mugs.

The weekly event was smaller than in years past, but longtime attendees say it was a sign of life being breathed back into downtown.

Nine blocks away, past businesses still shuttered with plywood boards — the names of Black people killed by police painted onto them — a panhandler leaned against a fence outside the federal courthouse in an area that was choked with tear gas last summer as thousands of protesters seized the streets. It’s now overwhelmed by a makeshift homeless camp.

The scenes are from a city trying to emerge from one of its most wrenching periods, one that saw its reputation go from quirky “Portlandia” to violent dystopia in the minds of many on the outside looking in.

The Pacific Northwest city had best been known nationally for its ambrosial food scene, craft breweries and nature-loving hipsters.

But last year, as a portion of its downtown was consumed by nightly protests that often turned violent and resulted in clashes with federal agents, former President Donald Trump and his administration labeled Portland an “anarchist jurisdiction.”

“It does feel kind of like someone dropped a bomb in some areas (of Portland), but I think they’re very contained areas,” said Ocean Howell, a professor at the University of Portland who teaches urban history and planning. “I think there’s likely some businesses that are gone and aren’t coming back. And there are just some people, generally, who are kind of spooked from everything.”

City officials insist Portland is resilient as they launch a revitalization plan — in the form of citywide cleanups of protest damage, aggressive encampment removals, increased homeless services and police reform — to repair its reputation.

But even the city’s famously liberal locals grew weary of months of racial justice protests, increased shootings, a more noticeable homeless population and strict COVID-19 restrictions.

When the pandemic reached Portland in March 2020, businesses boarded up, turned off neon “open” signs and sent employees home.

“A year ago, when we were at the end of the longest economic expansion in post World War history in this country. We had 100,000-plus individuals coming in and out of downtown daily,” said Andrew Hoan, president and CEO of the Portland Business Alliance. “And then, overnight, they disappeared.”

Portland’s signature events, such as its Rose Festival, brew fests and drag shows, were canceled, postponed or held virtually. Tourists shied away. No other part of the city was so obviously altered as downtown, which saw an 80% decrease in foot traffic, based on a study conducted by the Portland Business Alliance.

A year later there are still “pockets” in the city that seem frozen in a scene from six months ago. However, officials say there is hope and already noticeable signs of recovery.

Gov. Kate Brown has begun to lift some of the country’s strictest COVID-19 restrictions, and restaurants and bars have expanded capacity. The state has set a goal to completely reopen the economy by the end of June or early July.

“We’re in a virtuous cycle now, where one element feeds the other,” Hoan said, noting customers are again lining up outside the famous Powell’s Books and fans are returning to Timbers’ soccer games.

“Office workers start to breathe life into the retail scene and hospitality scene, and that sends a signal to other retailers and hospitality owners,” he said.

While all cities have dealt with the impact of COVID, Portland faced additional challenges over the past year — from a large homeless population, to nearby “once-in-generation” wildfires, to winter ice storms that left tens of thousands without power. But the events that challenged the city’s reputation the most was political violence on top of racial awakening.

The Rose City was thrust into the national spotlight over the summer as people attended nightly racial justice protests. Photos of thousands of people laying on the historic Burnside Bridge for eight minutes and 46 seconds in remembrance of George Floyd captivated the nation.

But as time passed, scenes of chaos emerged: violent clashes between protesters and federal agents sent by Trump. In late August, a Trump supporter was shot and killed downtown when a large caravan of Trump supporters and Black Lives Matter protesters clashed in the streets.

Even with most protests taking place within a few blocks, news of the mayhem stretched across the country.

Hoan said participants who were violent or damaged businesses negatively affected the city’s reputation.

“And we’re dealing with the consequences now,” he said.

Protests continue in the city and sometimes turn violent, but that activity is concentrated in small areas.

“I get the impression that some people from outside the area, from some of the news coverage, get the impression that the whole city is just a warzone between antifa and Proud Boys, and that’s really not the case,” Howell said.

Based on a survey conducted by the city last month, 68% of people said their top reason for not visiting was due to riots and protests.

In recent months, Portland officials have committed millions of dollars to cleaning up downtown — removing graffiti, clearing large homeless encampments and restoring damaged buildings.

In addition, the mayor’s office has launched a reputation and rebranding effort.

“We’re doggedly determined to recover,” Mayor Ted Wheeler said in his State of the City address this year. “Our community has what it takes to move forward to a much greater future.”

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The Fed’s policymakers forecast that they would raise their benchmark short-term rate, which influences many consumer and business loans, twice by late 2023.

WASHINGTON — The Federal Reserve signaled Wednesday that it may act sooner than previously planned to start dialing back the low-interest rate policies that have helped fuel a swift rebound from the pandemic recession but have also coincided with rising inflation.

The Fed’s policymakers forecast that they would raise their benchmark short-term rate, which influences many consumer and business loans, twice by late 2023. They had previously estimated that no rate hike would occur before 2024.

In a statement after its latest policy meeting, the Fed also said it expects the pandemic to have a diminishing effect on the economy as vaccinations increase, thereby allowing for more growth.

“Progress on vaccinations has reduced the spread of COVID-19 in the United States. Amid this progress and strong policy support, indicators of economic activity and employment have strengthened,” the Fed said.

The central bank raised its forecast for inflation to 3.4% by the end of this year, from 2.4% in its previous projection in March. Yet the officials foresee price increases remaining tame in the following two years. That outlook reflects Chair Jerome Powell’s view that the current inflation spikes stem mainly from supply shortages and other temporary effects of the economy’s swift reopening from the pandemic.

In addition to having pegged its key rate near zero since March of last year, the Fed has been buying $120 billion a month in Treasury and mortgage bonds to try to hold down longer-term rates to encourage borrowing and spending.

The Fed officials are widely believed to have begun discussing a reduction in those monthly bond purchases at the policy meeting that ended Wednesday — a first step in pulling back on its efforts to stimulate the economy.

There was no mention of paring those bond purchases in the written statement the Fed issued after the meeting. But the topic is sure to come up at Powell’s news conference later Wednesday.

The Fed is grappling with a dilemma: Inflation is rising much faster than it had projected earlier this year. And America’s increasingly vaccinated consumers are now comfortable venturing away from home to travel, go to restaurants and movie theaters and attend sporting events. Solid consumer spending is accelerating economic growth, and manufacturing and housing have significantly strengthened.

Yet hiring hasn’t picked up as much as expected. Monthly job growth has remained below the 1 million-a-month level that Powell had said in April he would like to see, though employers are clearly interested in hiring more, having posted a record number of available jobs.

Since December, the Fed has said it wants to see “substantial further progress” toward its goals of full employment and inflation modestly above 2% before it would begin tapering its bond purchases.

With inflation having spiked in the past two months, the Fed is under rising pressure to consider slowing those bond purchases. But with the unemployment rate at a relatively high 5.8% and the economy still 7.6 million jobs short of its pre-pandemic level, Powell and many other Fed policymakers have suggested in recent weeks that the economy is still far from achieving that progress.

Economists generally expect the Fed to continue discussing tapering its bond purchases and then — by late August or September — to outline specifically how and when it would begin. That would set the stage for a reduction in bond purchases to actually begin near the end of this year or in early 2022.

Last week, the government reported that inflation jumped to 5% in May compared with a year earlier — the largest 12-month spike since 2008. The increase was driven partly by a huge rise in used car prices, which have soared as shortages of semiconductors have slowed vehicle production. Sharply higher prices for car rentals, airline tickets, and hotel rooms were also major factors, reflecting pent-up demand as consumers shift away from the large goods purchases many of them had made while stuck at home to spending on services.

Prices for such services, which had tumbled at the outset of the COVID-19 outbreak, are now regaining pre-pandemic levels. With more people gradually returning to work in person, the reopening of the economy has also forced up prices for clothing. Yet such price increases may not last.

Another key consideration for the Fed is whether inflation persists long enough to affect the public’s behavior. If Americans begin to expect price increases, those expectations can trigger a self-fulfilling cycle as workers demand higher wages, which, in turn, can lead their employers to keep raising prices to offset their higher labor costs.

So far, bond yields and consumer surveys suggest that while higher inflation is expected in the short term, investors and most of the public expect only modest price gains in the long run. Powell has long maintained that the public’s perceptions of future inflation evolve only slowly.

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Vandersloot became the fourth player in WNBA history to record 2,000 career assists following Sue Bird (2,961), Ticha Penicheiro (2,599) and Lindsey Whalen (2,348).

The top three picks in the 2011 WNBA draft are league changers.

No. 1 overall was Maya Moore, Liz Cambage went No. 2 and Courtney Vandersloot, as we all know, went to the Sky with the third overall pick.

Since being drafted 10 years ago, Vandersloot estimates she’s taken about a month off from basketball each year.

Not a consecutive month off, but one month each year total. That’s 10 months off in 10 years that she’s given her body, and she’s not complaining.

“I know I’m playing 365 days, and it’s a lot at times,” Vandersloot said. “At the same time, that’s what’s growing my career. You don’t get to play basketball your whole life.”

Vandersloot became the fourth player in WNBA history to record 2,000 career assists, following Sue Bird (2,961), Ticha Penicheiro (2,599) and Lindsey Whalen (2,348). All of whom she said inspired her career in different ways.

Her double-double with 10 points and 13 assists against the Minnesota Lynx Tuesday night put her at 2,003. She passed Diana Taurasi in career assists against the Mercury on June 3, finishing with nine that night and 1,971 total. Taurasi is fifth on the leaderboard with 1,968.

Lucky number 2,000 came on a pick and roll pass to Candace Parker for an easy layup. Vandersloot is used to playing with “bucket getters” in her career but none like Parker.

The pair have only played in four games together this season, but the pressure release Parker provides Vandersloot has been unmatched compared to previous seasons. Opponents have always keyed in on Vandersloot, and if they were able to disrupt her, they disrupted the Sky.

With Parker on the court, another passing threat, teams have struggled to lock them both up defensively. The Sky are 4-0 with Parker on the floor. Against the Lynx, the Sky finished with 32 assists on 40 made field goals for 105 points. Parker was the second in assists with seven.

Vandersloot’s commitment to the game of basketball is hard to compare to other WNBA players because fewer are playing all year. It’s not comparable to any in the NBA. The NBA’s shortest offseason of 72 days ahead of the 2020-21 season is still double what Vandersloot takes off a year.

That brings up a critical point because while Vandersloot strongly expressed the joy she gets playing basketball almost 365 days a year, women in the WNBA haven’t had a choice for a long time. The supplemental income from playing overseas was necessary to make a sustainable living.

The new eight-year collective bargaining agreement, which commenced with the 2020 season and goes through the 2027 season, provided a 53% increase in total cash compensation. The minimum player salary in 2021 is $57,000 for a player with two years or less of experience. The league maximum in 2021 is $221,450.

The addition of performance bonuses, prize pools for newly created in-season competitions like the Commissioner’s Cup, and league and team marketing deals means players could earn upwards of $500,000.

The previous CBA, which players opted out of, had a league minimum of $41,965 in 2019 and a maximum salary of $117,500.

“Playing all year was just how it was when I first got in the league,” Vandersloot said.

Her passing efficiency continues to improve. Vandersloot’s first 500 assists in the WNBA took her 106 games. The next 500 came in 90 games and the following in 57. The most recent 500 took her just 53 games.

Vandersloot credits her experience overseas with teaching her a team style of basketball versus the fast-paced one on one game we see in the WNBA. Her early years overseas playing for different coaches and teams allowed her to pick up different tidbits from everyone, which advanced her basketball IQ and ability to read the game.

The Sky are currently second in the league behind the Storm in the percentage of field goals made assisted with 70.2% and 11th in field goals made unassisted with 29.8%. This unselfish offense is what coach and general manager James Wade has established as the team’s identity.

In his first two seasons with the Sky, the team was second and fourth in the league in offensive rating. After 12 games this season, they are 10th in the league. The team has acknowledged that injury and inability to establish cohesion without their full roster has presented challenges offensively.

Against the Lynx, the Sky looked like the team Wade had envisioned when he went after Parker in the offseason.

Vandersloot is confident in the progression of this team and their ability to move the ball and exploit teams with their offensive weapons. As far as her personal accomplishments go, she acknowledges them but hasn’t celebrated anything yet.

“The celebration will happen post-career,” Vandersloot said. “It hasn’t happened yet.”

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