Lordstown Motors Accuses Foxconn of Trying to Back Out of Investment

Story by Will Feuer • WSJ

Lordstown Motors Accuses Foxconn of Trying to Back Out of Investment© QUINN GLABICKI/REUTERS

Foxconn Technology Group, the world’s biggest contract manufacturer for electronics, is trying to back out of its deal to increase its stake in Lordstown Motors Corp., the electric-vehicle startup said.

Foxconn agreed in November to spend up to $170 million to buy both common stock and newly created preferred shares in Lordstown in a crucial cash injection for the startup, which was still working to increase production of its debut EV truck, called the Endurance.

Lordstown said Monday that Foxconn closed part of the investment agreement in November, buying about $22.7 million of Class A common stock and $30 million of preferred stock.

Foxconn didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

According to Lordstown, Foxconn agreed to further buy about 26.9 million shares of Lordstown shares for about $47.3 million within 10 business days after the companies received clearance from the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States.

Lordstown said it received Cfius clearance on April 25, giving the companies until May 8 to close the latest round of investment.

However, Lordstown said it received notice from Foxconn on April 21 that asserted Lordstown has breached the terms of the deal by allowing its stock price to fall below $1.00 a share for too long, putting it out of compliance with Nasdaq listing rules.

Foxconn said it would back out of the deal if the breach isn’t resolved within 30 days, Lordstown said Monday. Lordstown said it responded to Foxconn, disputing its ability to back out of the deal.

Lordstown said it believes the deal remains intact and the company intends to enforce its rights under the deal.

“The company is in discussions with Foxconn to seek a resolution regarding these matters,” Lordstown said in a securities filing.

Shares of Lordstown fell almost 26%, to 39 cents, in morning trading.

Write to Will Feuer at Will.Feuer@wsj.com

Al Jazeera says long-held correspondent released in Egypt

Story by The Canadian Press • 

Al Jazeera says long-held correspondent released in Egypt© Provided by The Canadian Press

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — The satellite news network Al Jazeera said Monday that a correspondent for one of its channels held in Egypt since 2019 has been released from pre-trial detention.

The Qatar-funded network in Doha said that Hisham Abdel Aziz, a producer with its Al Jazeera Mubasher channel, had been freed.

Authorities in Egypt did not acknowledge his release. The Egyptian Foreign Ministry did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

He was freed on Sunday, said Khaled el-Balshy, head of Egypt’s Journalists’ Union. Abdel Aziz's wife posted an image Sunday of Abdel Aziz online, thanking God for him.

The network has said that Abdel Aziz, an Egyptian who had been based in Qatar for the public affairs channel, was stopped at Cairo International Airport in June 2019 while he was traveling for a family trip. They say he was “subjected to enforced disappearance for around a month” before being found in custody. In the time since, authorities repeatedly had applied and been granted repeated 45-day extensions for his detention.

Related video: Al Jazeera presses White House on condemnation of Israeli Al-Aqsa (Al Jazeera) Duration 1:19 View on Watch

Al Jazeera long had been targeted by Cairo since the country's 2013 military takeover that installed Gen. Abdel Fattah el-Sissi into the presidency. Qatar had backed Egypt's elected president, the late Islamist Mohammed Morsi, after the 2011 Arab Spring. Morsi belonged to the pan-Arab Islamic group the Muslim Brotherhood, viewed by some Gulf Arab nations as a threat to their hereditary rule.

Amid the 2013 takeover, Al Jazeera's channels covered many of the Brotherhood's protests live, to the anger of Egypt's military government. Egypt revoked Al Jazeera’s press credentials, raided its offices and arrested several reporters. The arrest and trial of three Al Jazeera English journalists — Australian Peter Greste, Egyptian-Canadian Mohamed Fahmy and Egyptian producer Baher Mohamed — sparked an international outcry.

The three received 10-year prison sentences, but were later released in 2015.

Egypt joined Bahrain, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates in boycotting the country in a political dispute that lasted from 2017 until 2021.

However, the release comes as Qatar has been normalizing its diplomatic relations with those who launched the boycott. El-Sissi also attended the opening last year of the FIFA World Cup in Qatar at the invitation of its ruler, Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani.

Al Jazeera says two more of its journalists remained detained by Egypt, who also had been detained while on vacations there.

Jon Gambrell, The Associated Press

Israel's judicial proposals prompt startups to relocate -govt agency

Story by By Steven Scheer • 

 Israel's hi-tech sector protests against Israeli government's judicial overhaul, in

ÊTel Aviv

By Steven Scheer

JERUSALEM (Reuters) -The government's plan to overhaul the judicial system is harming investor confidence and pushing high-tech firms to relocate abroad, Israel's state-backed agency that supports high-tech companies said on Monday.

A survey by the Israel Innovation Authority found 80% of startups established so far this year were opened outside Israel and that companies also intend to register their future intellectual property overseas - which would result in a severe blow to Israel's tax coffers.

Israel's high-tech sector employs 10% of the country's workforce accounting for around 15% of economic output, more than half of exports and a quarter of tax income.

Proposals by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's hard-right coalition to give the government greater say in the selection of judges while limiting the Supreme Court's power to strike down legislation have worried current and potential investors.

Opponents say the proposals would remove vital checks and balances, threaten minority rights and undermine Israel's democratic foundations.

Final approval of the government's bitterly disputed judicial overhaul package has been delayed after widespread protests to try and find a compromise between proponents and opponents.

"Even if the legal-judicial crisis is solved, it will take time to reach a solution, and even after this, it will take time to build confidence with investors once more," said Dror Bin, chief executive of the Innovation Authority, adding that the legal plan was exacerbating harm from a weaker economy.

Benny Gantz, head of the largest opposition party, said Israeli parties have made no progress towards a compromise after a month of meetings.

"We set out with a number of principles, first and foremost that there will be no politicisation of the judicial system. It hasn't changed and it won't change," he said, as the Knesset parliament returned from its spring break.

In a report delivered to of Innovation, Science and Technology Minister Ofir Akunis, the Innovation Authority cited a significant gap between tech stocks traded in Tel Aviv and on Nasdaq.

While the Nasdaq is up 17% this year, Israel's tech index is down 4%.

Should the gap widen further, "many Israeli hi-tech companies will find it very hard to raise investment and will be forced to close or move to other countries," it said.

It added that high-tech fundraising in the first quarter was just $1.7 billion, the lowest quarterly figure since 2019.

The authority recommended a number of steps such as easing regulations, incentives to encourage investment and incentives for startups to register intellectual property in Israel.

"The findings...require the government to take rapid action in order to reverse the worrying trends it highlights," said Akunis, a long-time Netanyahu adviser.

(Reporting by Steven ScheerEditing by Christina Fincher)

Arm’s-length Six Nations development corporation has amassed $150 million in assets since 2015

Story by The Canadian Press • 

A new parking lot at Mohawk Village Memorial Park. A spruced-up cafeteria and gymnasium at Six Nations Polytechnic. Vehicles to transport visitors and equipment at Woodland Cultural Centre.

These are some of the projects that received funding through the Six Nations Economic Development Trust (EDT) earlier this month.

In total, eight recipients split just over $703,000, with almost $433,000 going to Six Nations Housing in support of a future housing project called Onondaga 2 Townhouse.

The EDT distributes the profits generated by the Six Nations of the Grand River Development Corporation (SNGRDC), which manages 20 renewable energy projects on and around the reserve.

“The trust doesn’t fund one-off things. They don’t fund political aspirations,” said Matt Jamieson, president and CEO of the development corporation.

“They fund things that are designed to fuel a better future for our children.”

SNGRDC recently announced significant changes to how it funds capital projects on Six Nations. The development corporation is also getting out of the property management and tourism businesses in favour of ventures that will bring in cash and grow the organization’s economic clout.

“We’ve had to re-evaluate our strategy as a corporation,” Jamieson told The Spectator. “We are really focused on things that are going to move the needle.”

That means having Six Nations Elected Council take over the management of nine properties whose development has stalled for “political factors which are beyond the control” of the SNGRDC.

On properties not currently part of the reserve, like a parcel of land on West Street in Brantford, elected council has to negotiate with outside governments as to how those lands will be zoned and developed. Such negotiations, Jamieson said, “are beyond the circle of influence of the development corporation.”

Properties on the reserve — which include three decommissioned internet towers and two former school sites — sit on land owned by the elected council, which again puts the development corporation in the back seat since council “is ultimately the landlord” of properties like the Oneida Business Park, a nearly 90,000-square-foot commercial complex on Fourth Line near Highway 6.

“They’re the ones who can enter into long-term binding leases with third parties to develop that property. The development corporation doesn’t have the power to do that,” Jamieson said of council.

“So essentially, we were a middle person in the equation that didn’t need to be there.”

Land claims, or jurisdictional issues between the elected and hereditary governments on the reserve, did not play a part in the decision to divest the nine properties from the development corporation’s holdings, Jamieson said.

Ceding Six Nations Tourism to the elected council is a “strategic move” to allow council to apply for grants to support Chiefswood National Historic Site and the Mohawk Chapel that the for-profit development corporation cannot access, he added.

The corporation will still run Chiefswood Park and manage the bookings at the popular glamping site.

The restructuring of the development corporation is the result of a year’s worth of conversations with elected council.

“The new agreement ... will strengthen our working relationship,” elected Chief Mark Hill said in a statement.

“We are excited to develop more strategic and long-term plans to meet community needs and better serve the Six Nations community in unity with SNGRDC.”

Funding community needs

The development corporation on Six Nations was designed “to separate business from politics,” as the organization puts it.

Since launching in 2015, SNGRDC has amassed more than $150 million in assets and currently manages projects like Oneida Energy Storage, a planned operation near the reserve in Haldimand County which, when completed, is expected to be Canada’s largest battery-based electricity storage site.

A main benefit to a First Nation of having a for-profit development corporation is the revenue generated by such projects can stay on the reserve. Were elected council, which receives its funding from Ottawa, to oversee economic development directly, any profits would be clawed back from federal transfer payments.

Instead, profits from those ventures flow back to the community through the EDT, with elected council routinely getting the lion’s share. Of the $17.3 million distributed since 2016, elected council got more than $12 million.

Jamieson said rather than having council “compete” for funding with community groups, it makes more sense for EDT to guarantee a set amount for capital projects and leave more money available — specifically, 10 per cent of the development corporation’s free cash — for outside organizations.

So for the next 15 years, under a new agreement that came into effect March 31, elected council will receive $1.4 million annually from the EDT or 40 per cent of the development corporation’s unallocated cash, whichever amount is greater.

The funding hinges on annual reporting that proves the grant money is being spent on projects that align with the reserve’s long-term community plan.

“It gives them that long-term certainty,” Jamieson said.

“If you think about roads or health or housing, they can factor that in for the next 15 years and start building their capital plans.”

The grant money also makes a difference for organizations like the Woodland Cultural Centre, a language and interpretative centre located at the site of the former Mohawk Institute residential school in Brantford.

“We are so grateful to the Six Nations of the Grand River Development Corporations’s Economic Development Trust for their generous contribution of two multi-passenger golf carts and a utility cart to allow us to continue to provide access for Elders, Survivors and tourists alike to visit Woodland during our ongoing phase three renovation of the former Mohawk Institute and grounds,” Woodland’s executive director, Heather George, said in an email to The Spectator.

“The placement of an accessible trail and operation of shuttle vehicles while the driveway is being resurfaced will mean that Woodland can continue to welcome visitors to experience all that our Hodinosho:ni culture has to offer.”

J.P. Antonacci, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter, The Hamilton Spectator

Water pressure: Indigenous leaders from U.S., Canada still demanding pollution probe

Story by The Canadian Press •


WASHINGTON — Indigenous and tribal leaders from Canada and the U.S. are keeping up the pressure on both countries to investigate toxic mining runoff from British Columbia.

They want Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and B.C. Premier David Eby to agree to a bilateral investigation under a long-standing transborder water treaty.

That's despite last month's vow by Trudeau and President Joe Biden to seek a deal they say would "reduce and mitigate" pollution in the Elk-Kootenai watershed.

Indigenous groups from sides of the border were in Washington, D.C., on Friday to press their case to the International Joint Commission, which oversees transborder water issues.

They say they want a bilateral investigation under the 1909 Boundary Waters Treaty into Elk Valley mining operations they say have been poisoning their watershed for more than a decade.

But Trudeau says he believes the negotiations that are already underway are more likely to yield results.

"We believe that there are processes that are being followed right now that have a better chance of getting to a resolution," Trudeau said Friday during a news conference in New York.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published May 1, 2023.

The Canadian Press

Sanders warns lawmakers not to ‘go to war on the working class’ during debt negotiations

Story by Julia Mueller • Yesterday 

Sanders warns lawmakers not to ‘go to war on the working class’ during debt negotiations © Provided by The Hill

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) on Sunday said he’s open to some spending cuts as Congress works out how to deal with the debt ceiling and the threat of default, but knocked House Republicans’ recent proposal and warned lawmakers not to “go to war against the working class.”

“I think we can move toward cutting military spending. We’re now spending 10 times more than … any other country on Earth, massive cost overruns in the Pentagon. I’m certainly open to demanding that the largest corporations in this country and the wealthiest people start paying their fair share of taxes,” Sanders said on CNN’s “State of the Union,” when asked whether he’d consider other spending cuts as part of an ultimate deal.

“And I’m willing to look at any other proposals. There’s a lot of waste within government. Let’s go after it. But don’t go to war against the working class of this country, lower-income people. Don’t tell kids that they can’t afford to go to college or cut back on public education in America. We have already too much inequality in America. Let’s not make it worse,” he added.

The Republican-controlled House last week passed a bill to raise the borrowing limit and cut spending, which now has little chance of getting through the Democratic-controlled Senate.

Sanders on Sunday said President Biden is “right” to push for a “clean” debt limit increase instead.

“What we need is a clean debt ceiling bill. You pay your bills, and then you can sit down and negotiate what a sensible budget is,” Sanders said.

“What the Republicans are saying in their budget proposal is that, at a time of massive income and wealth inequality, when the richest people are becoming much richer, while working-class people are struggling, what they want to do is to cut programs for nutrition, for education, for health care, throw hundreds and hundreds of thousands of people off the health care they need,” the senator said.

Sanders also said Biden can “start negotiating tomorrow” on possible spending cuts.

“But you cannot be holding the American people or the world’s economy hostage. What the Republicans have got to say is, absolutely, we are going to make sure that we pay our debts. Let’s sit down and negotiate a budget.”

State Republicans have gone from opposing Democrats to opposing democracy

Opinion by Lauren Leader and Donna Brazile, opinion contributor • THE HILL

State Republicans have gone from opposing Democrats to opposing democracy© Provided by The Hill

Across the country, from Tennessee to Montana, Republican-controlled state legislatures are quietly and effectively eroding democracy on a near-daily basis. Amassing outsized power is enabling them to push a radical agenda, including expelling and silencing elected leaders, banning abortion, loosening gun laws, targeting trans families and banning books.

Too many Republican-controlled legislatures have gone from opposing Democrats to opposing democracy itself.

This didn’t happen overnight. Years of investment and aggressive gerrymandering have led to veto-proof Republican supermajorities in 20 state legislatures, while Democrats hold supermajorities in just nine. Moreover, Republicans hold trifectas — governorship and both state houses — in 22 states and control 58 out of 99 State legislative chambers across the country.

In at least four states — Florida, Ohio, North Carolina and Wisconsin — Republicans are also profoundly overrepresented in state governments relative to the voter party affiliation. This outsized, unrepresentative power has huge implications for two of the most urgent issues facing the country today: gun control and abortion access — both life and death issues where Americans are largely united.

Recent polls show that more Americans than ever, including a majority of Republican voters, want their representatives to prioritize gun control over the rights of gun owners. And poll after poll shows that huge majorities of voters, including Republicans, are against banning abortion early in pregnancy.

North Carolina presents exactly this case. Although it is a state with evenly divided voters, a large share of young, unaffiliated voters and a Democratic governor, Republicans there have been manipulating the legislative districts for years, engaging in highly partisan gerrymandering. One newly elected Democratic legislator who switched parties recently under dubious circumstances gave Republicans a veto-proof supermajority.

With this unaccountable power, among their first actions was filing a bill to ban nearly all abortions in the state, despite that 57 percent of North Carolina voters want abortion to be legal with some restrictions. So far this year, guns have killed nearly 14,000 people in homicides, suicides and accidents in the U.S.

No other nation has this many gun deaths per capita. Yet Republican-controlled state legislatures in Tennessee, Florida and other trifecta states have ignored the will of the people and continue expanding permit-less carry laws or pushing to arm teachers and school personnel. In Florida, Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) passed such a bill against the will of a whopping 77 percent of Florida voters who opposed it. By contrast, in Washington State, where Democrats are in the majority, lawmakers passed an assault weapons ban and did so with some bipartisan support.

Related video: GOP-Controlled States Fail to Pass Anti-Abortion Bills (Cover Video)

Duration 1:29 View on Watch

It’s said that democracy dies in darkness, which is exactly how state legislatures have become so out of touch with the mainstream. Indeed, if it weren’t for the appalling expulsion of Reps. Justin Jones and Justin Pearson from the Tennessee House and the barring of transgender Montana lawmaker Zooey Zephyr from taking to that state’s House floor (rare instances in which the national news media shined a spotlight) most Americans would not know how bad things have gotten in state government.

A study by Johns Hopkins University found that only 20 percent of Americans could even name their state representatives. This widespread ignorance has allowed a proliferation of political gamesmanship and radical extremism that is dangerous for our country. Lawmakers can’t be held accountable for their actions when voters are unaware of them.

One reason is that local and regional newspapers have sharply reduced their coverage of state and local governments in recent years as a consequence of declining circulation and earnings that cut the number of journalists employed at U.S. newspapers from nearly 72,000 in 2004 to just 31,000 last year.

But money and political investments are another reason. In the 2022 cycle, the Republican State Leadership Committee, which helps elect Republicans in state legislative races, raised a record $71 million, compared to the Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee, which broke fundraising records but raised only $47 million. This differential reflects a general lack of focus from Democrats on state elections.

With the notable exception of Michigan going blue in 2022, Democrats failed even to challenge all the Republican-held state seats that were open. In Florida, 45 Republican State legislators ran totally unopposed. A stunning 57 percent of Missouri State legislative seats were unopposed, and in Ohio, only 1 in 4 Republican seats were challenged.

To stem this undemocratic tide, Democrats must do three things.

First, they must recruit, fund and support candidates to run in competitive races everywhere. It won’t be easy — many legislative districts are so gerrymandered that they are not winnable now.

But this leads to the second urgent solution. Democrats and groups that support democracy must mount even more aggressive legal challenges to hyper-partisan gerrymandering everywhere they are wreaking havoc.

Third, national Democrats, including President Biden, must do more to highlight critical state races throughout the 2024 campaign. Biden did the right thing by inviting the then-ousted Tennessee legislators for an Oval Office meeting, and Vice President Kamala Harris traveled to Nashville to deliver one of her most passionate speeches.

Of course, flipping state houses requires time, money and resources — Democratic donors must invest more consistently and aggressively for the long term to fund all three of these solutions. The presidential election matters hugely, but 2024 can and should be a galvanizing moment at the state level too. As states push for extreme abortion bans, try to silence opposition and pass legislation most Americans oppose, Democrats should relentlessly highlight the contrast and make sure voters understand just what is at stake; quite simply, everything.

Lauren Leader is co-founder and CEO of All In Together, a non-profit women’s civic education organization. She tweets at @LaurenLeaderAIT.

Donna Brazile is a political strategist, a contributor to ABC News and former chair of the Democratic National Committee. She is the author of “Hacks: Inside the Break-ins and Breakdowns That Put Donald Trump in the White House.”

Montana trans lawmaker Zooey Zephyr sues state over censure

Montana state legislator Zooey Zephyr is suing the state, House Speaker Matt Regier and Sergeant at Arms for the Montana House of Representatives Bradley Murfitt after being censured by House Republicans.

"The recent actions violate my 1st amendment rights, as well as the rights of my 11,000 constituents to representation," Zephyr said in a tweet Monday. "Montana's State House is the people's House, not Speaker Regier's, and I'm determined to defend the right of the people to have their voices heard."MORE: Map: Where gender-affirming care is being targeted in the US

Zephyr's calls to vote against a gender-affirming care ban for transgender youth on bill SB99 prompted days of being ignored by Republican leaders on the House floor in April.

Some legislators, including Regier, argued she had broken House rules of decorum when she said legislators would have "blood on your hands" if they passed the transgender youth care ban.


Montana State Representative Zooey Zephyr leaves the House chamber after a motion to bar her passed, at the Montana State Capitol in Helena, Mont., April 26, 2023.

© Mike Clark/Reuters, FILE

ABC News
Transgender lawmaker censured by Montana House Republicans
Duration 1:51  View on Watch

Demonstrators in support of Zephyr interrupted House business several days later to protest her being silenced. Zephyr showed her support by holding up her mic and failing to leave the House floor.

House Republicans voted to censure her in response, getting just over the two-thirds needed to bar her from participating in the legislature from the House floor.

Zephyr has since participated from the public seating in the state Capitol building.

LGBTQ RIGHTS ARE HUMAN RIGHTS

A global ‘anti-gender’ movement is coming for our democracy. Here’s how we fight back.

Opinion by Pamela Shifman, opinion contributor •

This year alone, over 460 bills targeting LGBTQ rights have been introduced in states across the country. Twenty-four states have now banned abortion or are likely to do so, cutting off millions from bodily autonomy and essential health care. This month, Missouri became the first state in the country to severely restrict gender-affirming care for people of all ages.

What some Americans might not realize is that many of these crackdowns draw from a strikingly similar playbook used by extremists in other countries. Understanding threats to our own democracy now demands that we see the connections to these tactics around the world.

As the London School of Economics explains, “Right-wing agendas have consistently identified feminism, gender equality and anti-racism as a problem, and have used ‘anti-gender’, anti-feminist, and anti-migrant feeling as a way of garnering support for nationalist, cultural, religious or political agendas.” Commonly referred to as “anti-gender” movements, they are gaining steam, even as many Americans have yet to hear of them.

News coming out of Florida has clear echoes in Budapest and Warsaw. Just this month, Florida’s Board of Education approved a proposal to forbid classroom instruction on sexual orientation and gender identity in all grades, a dramatic expansion of Gov. Ron DeSantis’s “Don’t Say Gay” ban that originally applied only to kindergarten through the third grade.

In 2021, Hungary’s parliament passed a law banning gay people from being featured in school educational materials or on television shows for kids under 18. For the country’s prime minister, Viktor Orbán, demonization of LGBTQ communities is a key ingredient in his nationalistic vision of Hungary as the last holdout against godless, western liberals.

In Poland, far-right president Andrzej Duda fearmongers about the “LGBT ideology,” which he describes as “worse than communism” and a direct threat to traditional family values.

Transgender influencer responds to conservative backlash (Reuters)

Duration 3:30 View on Watch

GOP pushes transgender restrictions, but majority of Americans oppose

2:19

 

When Secretary of State Antony Blinken confronts countries like Russia and Saudi Arabia, he warns that backlash against LGBTQ communities is a “canary in the coal mine” for broader human rights and democratic freedoms. More Americans are waking up to this terrifying reality: if it’s true in other countries, it’s also true at home.

The same lesson applies to the erosion of abortion rights. As Macarena Sáez of Human Rights Watch has pointed out, “In the United States, the criminalization of abortion also becomes an issue of freedom of speech, expression and information, as well as privacy,” since state governments may now prosecute people seeking information about abortion on social media. The results curtail the freedom of everyone by increasing “the arbitrary power of the government over community.”

Through this lens, it’s easier to connect the dots of what we are witnessing in the United States. When Gov. DeSantis, for example, asks state universities to complete a survey about students who accessed treatment for gender dysphoria, it’s simply one tactic in a broader strategy. Mix in the headline-grabbing claims that an AP African American studies course “lacks educational value,” and the purpose seems clear: to sow chaos, mistrust and opposition to funding for public education itself. As Becky Pringle of the National Education Association has explained, the ultimate goal is “the destruction of public education, the very foundation of our democracy.”

What might shock many Americans is that the global anti-gender movement is largely funded by rightwing U.S. forces. U.S.-based organizations working against LGBTQ and women’s rights have funneled more than $1 billion overseas to bolster anti-gender groups.

And that’s where we can help to turn the tide. It all begins with naming these attacks for what they are: the tip of the spear in a campaign against our democracy itself. As The Bridgespan Group and Shake The Table have outlined, it’s time to marshal a wave of resources to counter funding for anti-gender and white supremacist movements, so that more resources flow to women — especially Black women and other women of color — and LGBTQ activists whose fight for their rights is the existential fight for our democracy.

For our political leaders, the charge is even more fundamental: It’s time to move from defense to offense. Sixty-four percent of Americans say that abortion should be legal in most or all cases. The same percentage favors protecting trans people from discrimination. The vast majority of Americans want students to learn accurate U.S. history, including the ongoing legacy of slavery and racial inequality. Connecting the dots between attacks on abortion rights, trans communities and communities of color — and tying them to the democratic freedoms of everyone — is not just good policy, it’s a path to victory.

Rather than pivot away from these issues, it’s time for progressive leaders to take them on, and win. And it can be done. Look at Gov. Tim Walz in Minnesota, who just signed an executive order guaranteeing that gender-affirming care will remain available in the state, a key part of his winning agenda. Under Governor Gretchen Whitmer’s leadership, Michigan this year joined 10 other states who have moved to boldly protect reproductive freedoms and access to safe, legal abortion in the wake of Dobbs v. Jackson, which overturned the constitutional right to abortion.

With critical elections of 2024 rapidly approaching, crackdowns on LGBTQ people, women and communities of color have moved to center stage. Until more of us see these attacks for what they are, and come together to defeat them, the these forces will keep gaining ground.

Pamela Shifman is president of the Democracy Alliance, a network of progressive donors committed to defending democracy and building the progressive infrastructure in the United States, and founder of Shake the Table, a global research and action hub that connects philanthropy and social movements to advance racial, gender, and economic justice.

The Evolving Politics of NASCAR
Story by Alanis King 

Alanis King© Illustration by Nicole Rifkin

In 2009, my mom came home from work one day with a stack of free NASCAR tickets. She’d overheard some co-workers quietly bartering for them in the corner of a meeting, and she knew they were our only shot at a family vacation during the Great Recession.

This story originally appeared in Volume 13 of Road & Track.

I shrugged off the idea, preferring to stay home. Back then, I was a 13-year-old kid who didn’t know a thing about cars. I couldn’t have told you who Dale Earnhardt Sr. was or what the V in V-8 means. Cars were merely a way to get from one place to another, and racing them seemed like a waste of time and resources. I’d clicked past NASCAR on television a few times, uninterested in watching a camera pan between advertisement-plastered cars for four hours, and I figured the same would be true in person.

Mom convinced me to go anyway. It changed my life.

When I saw Texas Motor Speedway for the first time, its towering white, red, and blue walls engulfed the horizon. Climbing into the grandstands and seeing 1.5 miles of thick asphalt was like discovering a new civilization, and the earth shook when 40 cars screeched past me in a double-­file line to start the race. I didn’t know exactly what I was watching, but I knew whatever it was, I wanted to pursue it for the rest of my life.



Alanis King and Jay Leno© Jay Leno’s Garage/NBC Universal

These days I tell that story often. When people hear I’m a NASCAR reporter, they wonder why I would get involved in something they find so boring. They also ask me what it’s like to be a NASCAR fan. As a progressive young woman, am I out of place in a sport known to attract the opposite demographic?

It’s a hard question to answer. Like I did, most people base their opinions about NASCAR on stereo­types, like left turns and a lack of diversity. But stereotypes can sometimes illuminate kernels of truth. A few months after Danica Patrick became the first woman to win the pole for the Daytona 500 in 2013, former NASCAR driver Kyle Petty said she was “still not a race-car driver, and I don’t think she’s ever going to be a race-car driver.” In 2017, team owners Richard Petty and Richard Childress said they’d fire anyone who knelt during the national anthem in protest of police brutality. In 2019, NASCAR announced a partnership with Barstool Sports, whose founder once told a 20-year-old employee she’d be too ugly to be on camera in five years. In 2020, Kyle Larson, one of the sport’s stars, said the N-word on a live­stream. (Larson was fired from his team, expressed remorse, then returned to the Cup Series with a different team in 2021 and won the championship.)



Alanis King and Max Verstappen© Honda

NASCAR has never been a sport to push back too hard, for fear of angering its longtime fan base, so I always figured I wouldn’t see things evolve much. But recently, I’ve started to change my mind.

In the past couple of years, I’ve seen the Cup Series have its first Mexican-­born race winner, Daniel Suárez. I’ve seen Bubba Wallace become the first Black winner in the Cup Series since 1963, when Wendell Scott was originally denied his victory despite lapping the field twice. I’ve seen more modern race teams—like Trackhouse Racing, co-owned by Pitbull, and 23XI Racing, co-owned by Michael Jordan—join the grid. I’ve seen NASCAR ban spectators from bringing Confederate flags to its events, celebrate Pride Month, and explore more urban venues, like the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum and a Chicago street course. It finally feels like NASCAR is seeking out new crowds rather than hoping to stumble upon them.


Joe Gibbs Racing Pit Crew Training© William Crooks

I have loved NASCAR since my mom dragged me to a race that day in 2009. It was the last passion I ever expected to develop, and it’s also the thing I’m most passionate about. I hope one day any little kid can walk into a race and fall in love with NASCAR without feeling out of place among its fans.

I know it’s possible—and every day I have more faith that we’ll get there.