Wanderlust

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  • US mid-terms: The most surprising candidates

    Composite image showing candidates Christine Hallquist and Will Hurd in front of the Capitol building Image copyright Getty Images

    It can be tough to keep up with the deluge of information and analysis that comes with the US mid-term elections.

    Despite all the noise, the key question remains whether or not Republicans will be able to keep control of both chambers of Congress.

    But with so much to consider and thousands of races taking place, some interesting stories can be lost.

    That’s why we’ve picked out some candidates who have had memorable journeys to the ballot box on November 6.

    Plus, a politics professor explains how a compelling personal story can make a difference.

    Image copyright Getty Images / Sharice Davids

    Who?

    Democrat Sharice Davids, a gay ex-mixed martial arts fighter, is running in Kansas’s third congressional district.

    What makes her interesting?

    Ms Davids could become the first Native-American woman elected to Congress.

    She is a member of the Ho-Chunk Nation, was raised by a single mother who worked as a drill sergeant, and has a law degree from a top US university.

    The 38-year-old won her first mixed martial arts fight in November 2013, but began to focus on politics after she was rejected by the Ultimate Fighting Championship.

    One quote: “I’ve been put down, pushed aside, knocked out. I’ve had to fight my whole life because of who I am and who I love.”

    The decorated female fighter pilot

    Image copyright Getty Images

    Who?

    Martha McSally, a two-term Republican representative from Arizona, is running for Senate in the state.

    What makes her interesting?

    Ms McSally is the first US female fighter pilot to fly in combat and the first to command a fighter squadron.

    She was deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan and earned six medals during her 26-year military career.

    If elected, she will become the first woman to represent Arizona in the Senate.

    One quote: “I’m a fighter pilot and I talk like one. That’s why I told Washington Republicans to grow a pair of ovaries and get the job done.”

    The ironworker with a viral ad

    Image copyright Getty Images

    Who?

    Randy Bryce, a trade union activist and cancer survivor, is the Democratic candidate for Wisconsin’s first district.

    What makes him interesting?

    Mr Bryce – nicknamed Iron Stache – came to prominence when his biographical campaign video went viral earlier this year.

    He is an ironworker and former soldier who has emphasised his working-class roots, but he has drawn some notable opposition from close to home.

    His brother featured in a Republican attack ad and has said he is voting against him. Awkward.

    One quote: “I spent the last 20 years of my life building the district.”

    The outspoken Gays for Trump founder

    Image copyright Peter Boykin / Getty Images

    Who?

    Peter Boykin, founder of the Gays for Trump group, is running for North Carolina’s state legislature.

    What makes him interesting?

    He is a major outlier, because the vast majority of LGBT candidates running this year are Democrats.

    There are no gay Republican nominees for Congress or governor, according to the LGBT Victory Fund organisation.

    Mr Boykin has been forthright in addressing this issue, telling the New York Times that the Republican Party had “totally embraced” him.

    One quote: “The liberal gay community preaches peace, love, and tolerance but they only extend it to people who think like they do.”

    A really simple guide to the US mid-terms You choose what happens in the mid-terms Should Donald Trump be worried?

    The transgender former energy executive

    Image copyright Getty Images

    Who?

    Christine Hallquist, 62, who defeated three candidates to win the Democratic nomination for governor of Vermont.

    What makes her interesting?

    She could become the first ever transgender governor of a US state.

    Ms Hallquist transitioned in 2015 while working as the head of a state-wide energy company, a job she held for 12 years.

    Her nomination comes during an election year that has seen a record number of lesbian, gay and transgender candidates run for political office.

    One quote: “I just happen to be a leader who is transgender. Vermonters know that.”

    The ex-CIA agent and Trump critic

    Image copyright Getty Images

    Who?

    Will Hurd, a 40-year-old former CIA officer and Republican representative, is contesting a close race for Texas’s 23rd district.

    What makes him interesting?

    He managed covert operations in Afghanistan during a nine-year career with the CIA, and has become a regular on political talk shows.

    His district covers an extensive part of the US-Mexico border, and he has been vocal in his opposition to President Trump’s immigration policies.

    Mr Hurd is a moderate in the party and his seat is high on the list of those the Democrats are hoping to take.

    One quote: “I’ve seen Russian intelligence manipulate many people over my professional career and I never would have thought that the US President would become one.”

    The newsreader and one-time Miss America

    Image copyright Getty Images

    Who?

    Democrat Mallory Hagan, 29, who has swapped beauty pageants for the ballot box in Alabama’s third district.

    What makes her interesting?

    She was crowned Miss America in 2013, having previously won the Miss New York and Miss Manhattan titles.

    Last year, top figures in the Miss America Organization resigned after leaked emails showed they had mocked a number of contestants including Ms Hagan.

    The experience prompted her to give politics a try. “It taught me a lot about the power of my voice,” she says on her website.

    But she faces a tough test in trying to unseat her Republican opponent, Mike Rogers, who has held the district for more than 15 years.

    One quote: “After looking at the numbers of women throwing their hats in the ring, I decided to do it.”

    The Trump-supporting underwear model

    Image copyright Getty Images

    Who?

    Antonio Sabato Jr, a TV actor and former Calvin Klein model, is the Republican candidate in California’s 26th district.

    What makes him interesting?

    Mr Sabato has been plastered on a 90ft [27m] billboard in Times Square and has shown off his ballroom skills on TV’s Dancing with the Stars.

    But in recent years it’s his political views that have been in the spotlight.

    He says he was blacklisted by Hollywood directors for his early support of Mr Trump’s presidential run.

    Mr Sabato has also repeatedly claimed – without evidence – that former President Barack Obama is Muslim.

    One quote: [On President Obama] “If he’s not a Muslim, we should call him President Barry.”

    What does this all mean?

    Image copyright AFP

    This year’s pool of candidates is a diverse one, with more women and LGBT people running than ever before.

    But will it make a difference? Yes, says Jennifer Lawless, a politics professor at the University of Virginia who specialises in campaigns and elections.

    “A lot of these more diverse candidates can generate levels of enthusiasm among voters that have traditionally not been part of the electoral environment,” she says.

    Prof Lawless also points out that most of the new, diverse, candidates are Democrats. Why is this?

    “A lot are running based on their concerns about the Trump administration,” she says. “Many have personal experience where they feel like they have been targeted themselves.”

    The women lining up to topple Trump The US state about to elect a woman

    There are also a number of candidates who have compelling personal stories to tell and Prof Lawless says this can be helpful – to an extent.

    “In a lot of cases these personal stories are a way for candidates to talk about themselves in a way that is genuinely authentic,” she says.

    “But there’s not much evidence to suggest that voters specifically look at individual life stories,” she adds.

    “The most important thing is the ability to convey that you have the background and the experience to be an effective representative of the people.”

  • Australia church abuse: Why clergymen can’t spill confession secrets

    A priest listens to a woman in an open confessional box ahead of a mass in Madrid on September 26, 2014Image copyright AFP Image caption Many confessions happen via a grill to maintain the anonymity of the individual confessing

    Priests who suspect kid abuse after hearing confession must report it to the government – or face criminal fees. that may be one among the conclusions reached via Australia’s 4-yr Royal Commission investigating kid sex abuse.

    The inspiration applies to the suspicion of kid abuse in an institutional context – as an example within an enterprise which supplies services to children or cares for them, comparable to a church or a kids’s home.

    but the Roman Catholic Church in Australia is opposed to the notion, regardless of announcing that outdoor of the confession it is “completely devoted” to reporting all offences against youngsters to the government.

    Documenting Australia’s shame

    So what is other about confession?

    No Doubt clergymen would have a moral duty – if now not a prison one – to report any issues, in order to give protection to children?

    Archbishop Mark Coleridge of Brisbane perceived to recognize that it will possibly be exhausting for non-Catholics to know why this is no longer the case:

    Symbol copyright AFP Symbol caption Even Pope Francis (right) has to make confession

    Prohibitions on breaking the seal of confession have existed due to the fact no less than 1215.

    Clergymen have stated they’d be prepared to go to jail as opposed to break the seal of the confession.

    Is confession nonetheless just right for the soul?

    What are people pronouncing approximately this?

    In Advance this year Australian kid abuse survivor Peter Gogarty told the BBC that he believed the Catholic Church will have to reform its rules on confession to make sure crimes are pronounced to police.

    But Mr Gogarty stated he was once no longer in favour of priests being made to report abuse to the police. “i feel it would be a tragedy if the privileged communique in the confessional is abolished,” he mentioned at the time.

    Church confession a ‘get-out-of-prison card’

    However, Australia’s Royal Fee says there must be no exemption for confession.

    The fee says it heard proof of instances of each sufferers and perpetrators having mentioned abuse all over confession.

    Image copyright Reuters

    “We Are satisfied that confession is a forum the place Catholic children have disclosed their sexual abuse and the place clergy have disclosed their abusive behaviour in order to maintain their very own guilt,” the record says.

    “We heard proof that perpetrators who confessed to sexually abusing kids went on to reoffend and are looking for forgiveness once more.”

    “we’ve got concluded that the significance of shielding youngsters from child sexual abuse implies that there must be no exemption from the proposed failure to report offence for clergy in relation to data disclosed in or in reference to a religious confession,” the record authors conclude.

    So if a kid says they are a sufferer of ongoing abuse, the priest will do not anything?

    It isn’t relatively that easy. The Australian fee heard differing views from a panel of Catholic clerics as as to if a priest could be capable of break the seal of the confessional if a child making confession informed him that he or she was once being abused through an grownup.

    Two of the panel mentioned that because the sin was no longer that of the child making confession, it could now not fall within the seal of confession.

    However Archbishop Anthony Fisher of Sydney told the fee that “if a kid penitent confessed their sexual abuse through an grownup to him that, ‘I consider I’m bound via the seal of confession not to repeat it’.”

    But priests who take that view may say that, within the confession, they are able to urge the kid to seek help.

    The Vatican’s child abuse reaction

    Have another international locations enacted similar laws?

    The Republic of Eire’s Children First Act of 2015 calls for certain “mandated persons” (which incorporates Catholic clergymen) to report kid protection considerations to the authorities, and gives no exemption for the confession.

    The Catholic Church in Eire objected to this side of the regulation. it is unclear alternatively whether or not this part of the act has yet come into force.

    In 28 states of the us, clergy are incorporated amongst the ones people mandated via legislation to record suspicions of kid abuse. another states require “any individual” to record.

    In lots of the states, information discovered all the way through a confession could be exempt from the reporting duty, as it could be classed as a “privileged” conversation.

    In an extended-operating legal case in the state of Louisiana, a tender woman and her family sued a priest and the Catholic diocese, claiming that, at the age of 14, she informed her priest throughout confession that a fellow parishioner had been abusing her – and the priest did not anything to offer protection to her.

    Louisiana’s Supreme Court in the end ruled that the priest could not be compelled to expose what he had heard in the confessional.

    What approximately in the UK?

    there may be no obligatory reporting regulation in any a part of the uk regarding kid abuse suspicions.

    A spokesman for the NSPCC informed the BBC that it didn’t consider that wholesale mandatory reporting was the best way to achieve an development in reporting and action in response to child abuse:

    “As An Alternative we are interested in the suggestion for a ‘Duty to Act’, which might permit execs to provide children the fortify they need based on their particular state of affairs, with out implementing a blanket rule that might in the end be destructive.”

    ‘Absolute agree with’

    Catholic commentator and former editor of The Tablet, Catherine Pepinster, instructed the BBC that she was no longer in favour of the proposals. “i think if Australia attempts to convey this in, they will have a queue of Catholic clergymen refusing to inform all in regards to the confessional,” she said.

    “the connection among the priest and the penitent is one in every of absolute believe.

    “If public government are going to insist a clergyman breaks that confidentiality relating to kid sexual abuse, why now not for grownup rape or for homicide to boot?”

    a clergyman may just use their dating of accept as true with with the individual confessing to encourage them to show themselves in.

    “they might do that by way of withholding forgiveness – what Catholics call absolution,” she explained.

    “the best sin of all turns out to me that some clergymen had their crimes coated up via their superiors, rather than their confessors. Bishops could transfer paedophiles around from one parish to another, or one school to a different faculty. that is a real downside instead of confession.”