Author: News Polite

Three companies affiliated with the far-right broadcaster and conspiracy theorist Alex Jones, among them the media outlet Infowars, filed for Chapter 11 protection on Sunday in U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of Texas, according to court documents.

Infowars is facing multiple defamation lawsuits from families of victims of the 2012 Sandy Hook school shooting, which Mr. Jones has claimed was a hoax. Two other companies connected to Mr. Jones, IWHealth and Prison Planet TV, also filed for bankruptcy protection on Sunday.

Last September, Mr. Jones lost two defamation lawsuits filed in Texas by victims’ families because he failed to provide requested information to the court. Months later, in a case representing the families of eight others killed in the shooting, a Connecticut judge ruled that Mr. Jones was liable by default because he had refused to turn over documents ordered by the courts, including financial records. The rulings delivered sweeping victories to the families.

Mr. Jones for years spread bogus theories that the shooting that killed 20 first graders and six educators in Newtown, Conn., was part of a government-led plot to confiscate Americans’ firearms and that the victims’ families were actors in the scheme.

Because of the falsehoods, families of the victims have found themselves routinely accosted by those who believe those false claims. Among those are the parents of Noah Pozner, who have moved nearly 10 times since the shooting, and live in hiding.

The Sandy Hook families maintain that Mr. Jones profited from spreading lies about their relatives’ murders. Mr. Jones has disputed that, while for years failing to produce sufficient records to bolster his claims.

Last month, a Connecticut judge found the radio host in contempt for failing to sit for a deposition and ordered that he be fined $25,000 for the first weekday he fails to appear for testimony, with the fine rising by $25,000 every day thereafter that he did not appear.

In trials scheduled to begin this month in Texas, juries will determine how much Mr. Jones must pay the families in damages. The Connecticut case is the last scheduled trial, set to begin on Sept. 1.

In its court filings, Infowars said that it had up to 49 creditors, as much as $50,000 in estimated assets and up to $10 million in estimated liabilities. The two other companies said they also had up to 49 creditors, with IWHealth stating it had up to $1 million in assets while Prison Planet TV said it had up to $50,000.

Filing for Chapter 11 protection allows a corporation or partnership to reorganize, according to the government. The business may propose a plan to keep running and to pay creditors over a period of time.

SARCELLES, France — Every time Mama Diakité heads to a soccer game, her stomach is in knots.

It happened again on a recent Saturday afternoon in Sarcelles, a northern suburb of Paris. Her amateur team had come to face the local club, and Diakité, a 23-year-old Muslim midfielder, feared she would not be allowed to play in her hijab.

This time, the referee let her in. “It worked,” she said at the end of the game, leaning against the fence bordering the field, her smiling face wrapped in a black Nike head scarf.

But Diakité had only fallen through the cracks.

For years, France’s soccer federation has banned players participating in competitions from wearing conspicuous religious symbols such as hijabs, a rule it contends is in keeping with the organization’s strict secular values. Although the ban is loosely enforced at the amateur level, it has hung over Muslim women’s players for years, shattering their hopes of professional careers and driving some away from the game altogether.

In an ever more multicultural France, where women’s soccer is booming, the ban has also sparked a growing backlash. At the forefront of the fight is Les Hijabeuses, a group of young hijab-wearing soccer players from different teams who have joined forces to campaign against what they describe as a discriminatory rule that excludes Muslim women from sports.

Their activism has touched a nerve in France, reviving heated debates on the integration of Muslims in a country with a tortured relationship with Islam, and highlighting the struggle of French sports authorities to reconcile their defense of strict secular values with growing calls for greater representation on the field.

“What we want is to be accepted as we are, to implement these grand slogans of diversity, inclusiveness,” said Founé Diawara, the president of Les Hijabeuses, which has 80 members. “Our only desire is to play soccer.”

The Hijabeuses collective was created in 2020 with the help of researchers and community organizers in an attempt to solve a paradox: Although French laws and FIFA, world soccer’s governing body, allow sportswomen to play in hijabs, France’s soccer federation prohibits it, arguing that it would break with the principle of religious neutrality on the field.

Supporters of the ban say hijabs portend an Islamist radicalization taking over sports. But the personal stories of Hijabeuses members emphasize how soccer has been synonymous with emancipation — and how the ban continues to feel like a step backward.

Diakité began playing soccer at age 12, initially hiding it from her parents, who saw soccer as a boys’ sport. “I wanted to be a professional soccer player,” she said, calling it “a dream.”

Jean-Claude Njehoya, her current coach, said that “when she was younger, she had a lot of skills” that could have propelled her to the highest level. But “from the moment” she understood the hijab ban would impact her, he said, “she didn’t really push herself further.”

Diakité said she decided on her own to wear the hijab in 2018 — and to give up her dream. She now plays for a third-division club and plans to open a driving school. “No regret,” she said. “Either I’m accepted as I am, or I’m not. And that’s it.”

Karthoum Dembele, a 19-year-old midfielder who wears a nose ring, also said she had to confront her mother to be allowed to play. She quickly joined a sports-intensive program in middle school and participated in club tryouts. But it wasn’t until she learned about the ban, four years ago, that she realized she may no longer be allowed to compete.

“I had managed to make my mother give in and I’m told the federation won’t let me play,” Dembele said. “I told myself: What a joke!”

Other members of the group recalled episodes when referees barred them from the field, prompting some, feeling humiliated, to quit soccer and turn to sports where hijabs are allowed or tolerated, like handball or futsal.

Throughout last year, Les Hijabeuses lobbied the French soccer federation to overturn the ban. They sent letters, met with officials and even staged a protest at the federation’s headquarters — to no avail. The federation declined to comment for this article.

Paradoxically, it was Les Hijabeuses’ staunchest opponents who finally put them in the spotlight.

In January, a group of conservative senators tried to enshrine the soccer federation’s hijab ban in law, arguing that hijabs threatened to spread radical Islam in sports clubs. The move reflected a lingering malaise in France regarding the Muslim veil, which regularly stirs controversy. In 2019, a French store dropped a plan to sell a hijab designed for runners after a barrage of criticism.

Energized by the senators’ efforts, Les Hijabeuses waged an intense lobbying campaign against the amendment. Making the most of their strong social media presence — the group has nearly 30,000 followers on Instagram — they launched a petition that gathered more than 70,000 signatures; rallied dozens of sport celebrities to their cause; and organized games before the Senate building and with professional athletes.

Vikash Dhorasoo, a former France midfielder who attended a game, said the ban left him dumbfounded. “I just don’t get it,” he said. “It’s the Muslims who are targeted here.”

Stéphane Piednoir, the senator behind the amendment, denied the accusation that the legislation was aimed at Muslims specifically, saying its focus was all conspicuous religious signs. But he acknowledged that the amendment had been motivated by the wearing of the Muslim veil, which he called “a propaganda vehicle” for political Islam and a form of “visual proselytizing.” (Piednoir also has condemned the display of the Catholic tattoos of the P.S.G. star Neymar as “unfortunate” and wondered if the religious ban should extend to them.)

The amendment was eventually rejected by the government’s majority in parliament, although not without frictions. The Paris police banned a protest organized by Les Hijabeuses, and the French sports minister, who said the law allows hijab-wearing women to play, clashed with government colleagues opposing the head scarf.

The Hijabeuses’ fight may not be a popular one in France, where six in 10 people support banning hijabs in the street, according to a recent survey by the polling firm CSA. Marine Le Pen, the far-right presidential candidate who will face President Emmanuel Macron in a runoff vote on April 24 — with a shot at a final victory — has said that if elected, she will ban the Muslim veil in public spaces.

But, on the soccer field, everyone seems to agree that hijabs should be allowed.

“Nobody minds if they play with it,” said Rana Kenar, 17, a Sarcelles player who had come to watch her team face Diakité’s club on a bitterly cold February evening.

Kenar was sitting in the bleachers with about 20 fellow players. All said they saw the ban as a form of discrimination, noting that, at the amateur level, the ban was loosely enforced.

Even the referee of the game in Sarcelles, who had let Diakité play, seemed at odds with the ban. “I looked the other way,” he said, declining to give his name for fear of repercussions.

Pierre Samsonoff, the former deputy head of the soccer federation’s amateur branch, said the issue would inevitably come up again in the coming years, with the development of women’s soccer and the hosting of the 2024 Olympics in Paris, which will feature veiled athletes from Muslim countries.

Samsonoff, who initially defended banning the hijab, said he had since softened his stance, acknowledging the policy could end up ostracizing Muslim players. “The issue is whether we are not creating worse consequences by deciding to ban it on the fields than by deciding to allow it,” he said.

Piednoir, the senator, said the players were ostracizing themselves. But he acknowledged never having spoken with any hijab-wearing athletes to hear their motivations, comparing the situation to “firefighters” being asked to go “listen to pyromaniacs.”

Dembele, who manages the Hijabeuses’ social media accounts, said she was often struck by the violence of online comments and the fierce political opposition.

“We hold on,” she said. “It’s not just for us, it’s also for the young girls who tomorrow will be able to dream of playing for France, for P.S.G.”

Monique Jaques contributed reporting.

If you live in most any Western country, your government’s support for Ukraine, including sending weapons and imposing sanctions on Russia, can give the impression of a united global response to Vladimir Putin’s invasion.

But that isn’t the case. Most of the world’s 195 countries have not shipped aid to Ukraine or joined in sanctions. A handful have actively supported Russia. Far more occupy the “messy middle,” as Carisa Nietsche of the Center for a New American Security calls it, taking neither Ukraine’s nor Russia’s side.

“We live in a bubble, here in the U.S. and Europe, where we think the very stark moral and geopolitical stakes, and framework of what we’re seeing unfolding, is a universal cause,” Barry Pavel, a senior vice president at the Atlantic Council, told me. “Actually, most of the governments of the world are not with us.”

Today’s newsletter offers a guide to some of those countries and why they have committed to their stances.

National interests

India and Israel are prominent democracies that ally with the U.S. on many issues, particularly security. But they rely on Russia for security as well and have avoided arming Ukraine or imposing sanctions on Moscow. “In both cases, the key factor isn’t ideology but national interests,” says my colleague Max Fisher, who has written about Russia’s invasion.

India is the world’s largest buyer of Russian weapons, seeking to protect itself from Pakistan and China. India joined 34 other countries in abstaining from a United Nations vote that condemned Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, as you can see on the map below. And India appears to be rebuffing Western pleas to take a harder line.

Israel coordinates with Russia on Iran, its chief adversary, and in neighboring Syria (with which Russia has a strong relationship). Russian-speaking émigrés from the former Soviet Union also make up a sizable chunk of the Israeli electorate. Israel’s prime minister has avoided directly criticizing Putin, and though its government has mediated between Ukraine and Russia, little has come out of the effort.

Several Latin American, Southeast Asian and African countries have made similar choices. Bolivia, Vietnam and almost half of Africa’s 54 countries declined to support the U.N. resolution condemning Russia. Some rely on Russian military assistance, said Bruce Jones, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution. Others don’t want to risk jeopardizing trade relations with China, which has parroted Russian propaganda about the war.

Those countries “might be more accurately described as disinterested,” Max says, unwilling to risk their security or economies “for the sake of a struggle that they see as mostly irrelevant.”

West skeptics

Some countries, citing the West’s history of imperialism and past failures to respect human rights, have justified opposing its response to Ukraine. South Africa’s president blamed NATO for Russia’s invasion, and its U.N. ambassador criticized the U.S. invasion of Iraq during a debate last month about Ukraine’s humanitarian crisis.

Other countries, including some that voted to condemn Russia’s invasion, accuse the West of acting counterproductively. Brazil’s U.N. ambassador has suggested that arming Ukraine and imposing sanctions on Russia risk escalating the war.

“There’s nothing intellectually incoherent between viewing Russia’s actions as outrageous and not necessarily fully siding with the West’s reaction to it,” Jones told me.

Autocratic leaders — including in the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia and Nicaragua — may also feel threatened by Ukraine’s resistance and the West’s framing of the invasion as a struggle between democracy and authoritarianism, experts said. “They’re concerned that this could inspire opposition movements in their own countries,” Nietsche said.

Russia’s friends

China, with all its economic and military might, has seen the war as a chance to enhance its own geopolitical standing as a counterweight to the U.S. while still maintaining ties to Russia. The countries recently issued a joint statement proclaiming a friendship with “no limits.” But China has struggled with the delicate balancing act of honoring that commitment without fully endorsing Russia’s invasion: Beijing has denounced Western sanctions but has not appeared to have given Russia weapons or economic aid.

“China’s support for Russia, while very important, is also carefully hedged and measured,” Max says.

Four countries — North Korea, Eritrea, Syria and Belarus — outright voted with Russia against the U.N. resolution condemning the invasion of Ukraine. Belarus is a former Soviet state whose autocratic leader asked Putin to help suppress protests in 2020 and allowed Russia to launch part of its invasion from within Belarus.

Russia intervened in Syria’s civil war on behalf of the Moscow-aligned government there, and Syria is sending fighters who may aid Russian forces in Ukraine.

What’s next?

It’s not unusual for countries to avoid picking sides on big global issues. Several stayed neutral during World War II; dozens sought to remain free of both U.S. and Soviet influence during the Cold War.

But if the war in Ukraine drags on, Jones said, neutral countries could come under stronger international pressure to condemn Moscow. And for countries with close ties to Russia, even neutrality can be an act of courage.

More on Ukraine

• The fate of Mariupol, in the southeast, hinges on a battle at a steel factory, where Ukrainian forces are holding out.

• Capturing Mariupol would create a land bridge between Russia’s stronghold in Crimea and eastern Ukraine.

• Russian forces fired missiles at Lviv, in western Ukraine, killing at least six people. It’s part of a pattern of attacking cities even as they prepare for an offensive in the east.

• In Russia, brutal crimes by soldiers are rarely investigated or acknowledged — let alone punished.

• A Ukrainian village is haunted by the disappearance of five men who went to feed the cows.

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Books’ big-box embrace

Once upon a time, Barnes & Noble was the nemesis of indie booksellers across America. Now, it’s important to their survival, The Times’s Elizabeth Harris reports.

Many book enthusiasts and writers used to see the chain as “strong-arming publishers and gobbling up independent stores,” Elizabeth writes. But in today’s book landscape, upended by online sales, Barnes & Noble helps readers discover new titles and publishers stay invested in distributing in physical stores, a boon for booksellers of all sizes.

“It would be a disaster if they went out of business,” a literary agent said. “There’s a real fear that without this book chain, the print business would be way off.”

Barnes & Noble’s success stemmed from offering big discounts on best sellers and an enormous variety of books. Amazon supersized that formula: Its discounts are steeper, it has a seemingly endless selection of books, and it now sells more than half the physical books in the U.S.

What’s lost in that process are the accidental finds — the books that readers pick up in a store. Such discovery in chain and indie bookstores is crucial for writers who aren’t established names. “The more Amazon’s market share grows, the less discovery there is overall, and the less new voices are going to be heard,” the founder of an independent publisher said.

PLAY, WATCH, EAT

What to Cook

WASHINGTON — As millions of Americans race to finish filing their tax returns on Monday, the Biden administration made another plea for Congress to give the Internal Revenue Service more money.

The call for funding to modernize the agency and beef up its enforcement staff comes as I.R.S. and Treasury Department officials have complained that they are facing an extraordinarily challenging tax season because of staff shortages and the complexity associated with distributing pandemic relief money. The Biden administration’s proposals to provide the I.R.S. with $80 billion over a decade have thus far fallen flat in Congress.

“The I.R.S. knew walking into this filing season that it did not have the work force or technology in place to serve the American people the way they deserve — to pick up the phones when taxpayers call, to help them access all the credits and benefits to which they are entitled, and to ensure that each and every taxpayer receives their refund quickly,” Natasha Sarin, Treasury’s counselor for tax policy, wrote in a report about Tax Day.

Ms. Sarin said that the I.R.S. had collected more than 130 million tax returns from individuals and businesses this year and had disbursed more than $220 billion in refunds. The average refund, as of the week of April 8, was $3,175.

Taxpayers who received a portion of the child tax credit in advance last year could receive smaller refunds than they expected.

The agency started this tax season buried in a backlog of more than 20 million tax returns from previous years, leaving many taxpayers frustrated about delayed refunds.

The I.R.S. has been holding job fairs with the aim of hiring 10,000 new employees to clear the backlog by the end of the year.

Despite the Biden administration’s continuing push for more money for the agency, it was not clear if that proposal would make it into any legislation that Democrats could pass. Republicans have staunchly opposed providing the I.R.S. with more funding.

Ms. Sarin said that the I.R.S. continued to be bogged down by antiquated technology and thin resources. She said that a lack of funding was fueling a $600 billion annual “tax gap” of revenue that is going uncollected and leaving the entire tax system in a state of distress.

“It is a tax system where ripped paper returns are literally pieced together with Scotch tape,” Ms. Sarin wrote. “Ultimately, it is the I.R.S. that is stuck with short-term salves for much deeper trauma.”