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Exorcising King Leopold’s ghost: Brussels takes on its colonial monuments

Published Wed, 12 Feb 2025 13:21:42 GMT

This article is part of POLITICO’s Global Policy Lab: Living Cities, a collaborative journalism project exploring the future of cities. Sign up here.BRUSSELS — The Black Lives Matter movement forced Brussels to confront Belgium’s brutal colonial past. But the city’s architecture keeps that fraught legacy squarely in the present. With eight months until the next election, the Brussels regional government is wrestling with a series of proposals designed to put some of the city’s most controversial monuments in historical context — or eliminate them altogether. While the ideas being floated are relatively modest, they have already elicited pushback from those who accuse the city of planning to erase history.Brussels is run through with monuments to Leopold II, the Belgian king who ran the Congo as his personal fiefdom in the late 19th and early 20th century, and to the country’s later period as a colonial power. A walk around the city will reveal dozens of monuments to ...

Europe’s monumental challenge: How do you solve a problem like Hitler?

Published Wed, 12 Feb 2025 13:21:42 GMT

Europe’s monumental challenge: How do you solve a problem like Hitler?Berlin worked to eliminate the monuments of Hitler’s Third Reich. Rome remains full of reminders of Il Duce.Aitor Hernández-MoralesAleksandra StanglewiczThis article is part of POLITICO’s Global Policy Lab: Living Cities, a collaborative journalism project exploring the future of cities. Sign up here.BERLIN — Within the warehouse of a 450-year-old citadel in a suburb of Berlin, an oversized bust sits in the dark, waiting to be restored.The giant marble head has seen better days — its skin is scuffed, its ears are chipped and its nose is missing — but even in this run-down state, its severe hairstyle and Charlie Chaplin mustache ensure it’s instantly recognizable. It’s a monumental portrait of Adolf Hitler — and it’s remarkably rare.“Unlike other dictators, Hitler didn’t want to create a traditional cult of personality around his person, at least not with statues,” sa...

On the hunt for the missing statues of Francisco Franco

Published Wed, 12 Feb 2025 13:21:42 GMT

OPTICSOn the hunt for the missing statues of Francisco FrancoBanished from public spaces, the dictator’s discarded monuments lie scattered in government buildings across Spain.Photos by Julia Schulz-DornburgThis article is part of POLITICO’s Global Policy Lab: Living Cities, a collaborative journalism project exploring the future of cities. Sign up here.Julia Schulz-Dornburg first became intrigued by Spain’s disappearing monuments after she oversaw an exhibition in Barcelona that included a decapitated stone statue of former Spanish dictator Francisco Franco.That it was missing its head didn’t save the statue from becoming a target of instant ire: Dozens of people pelted it with eggs and tomatoes, spray-painted it with leftist symbols and draped it with Catalan separatist flags. The guards on hand couldn’t prevent the protesters from toppling the dictator within days of his reappearance.Struck by the intense reaction, Schulz-Dornburg, a German architect, started wonderin...

EU cash is being increasingly misused, auditors warn

Published Wed, 12 Feb 2025 13:21:42 GMT

The race to spend EU funds before they expire means there’s been a rise in countries misspending the money, the bloc’s financial watchdog said on Thursday. Investigations into €196 billion in funds paid out from the EU budget in 2022 found there were irregularities connected to 4.2 percent, according to the European Court of Auditors. That’s up from 3 percent a year earlier. Countries can claim payments under the previous budget cycle until the end of this year while money under the bloc’s post-pandemic recovery fund must be spent by 2026.“The administrations within the member states will be under much more pressure to spend the money quickly,” ECA President Tony Murphy told POLITICO. “The issue this time is that there’s so much more money around to be spent within a short period of time.” He said this “increases the risk of either errors, or suboptimal projects, or, at the worst end of it, it means fraud as well.”Auditors a...

Casstevens: Congress mulls putting heavier trucks on roads

Published Wed, 12 Feb 2025 13:21:42 GMT

New products come to the market regularly, and consumers have come to expect significant testing and safeguards, especially for products that can affect public safety.This is why law enforcement nationwide is concerned with legislation under consideration in Congress that would allow bigger trucks on our roads. Some bills would dramatically increase the allowable weight of semi-trailer trucks that have already been approved by the House Transportation & Infrastructure Committee. And there continues to be talk of allowing even longer double-trailer trucks.One proposal would create a 10-year “pilot project” allowing 91,000-pound trucks — five and a half tons heavier than today’s limits. The goal: to see how many of these trucks are involved in crashes and to report the number of injuries and deaths. The usual years of data analysis and testing? Not for these 91,000-pound behemoths. The goal is to skip the typical due diligence and put them on roads immediately across America. Moto...

Kramer: Tim Wakefield a champ on and off the field

Published Wed, 12 Feb 2025 13:21:42 GMT

In a famous “Seinfeld” episode, George Costanza bought someone a salad and fretted to make sure everyone knew of his act of charity.It is not unusual for those who confer a benefit or provide a charitable act to prefer and even seek recognition for their good deed.Then there are those who are the perpetual givers – and stay below the radar screen. Their satisfaction comes from within and as long as those in need receive needed help and support, these providers are satisfied.Tim Wakefield would never have made it as an character on “Seinfeld.” He would have bought the salad, dressing and even the croutons and given it to the hungry recipient then slipped out the side door. And then, more than likely, he would have checked the next day to see if the dressing was the right kind.Too many athletes receive hero worship regardless of whether they donate any spare time for those less fortunate. Then there are those that as a function of their celebrity, assist others...

Editorial: If you’re not a migrant in Mass., don’t expect a room

Published Wed, 12 Feb 2025 13:21:42 GMT

Canceling the hotel reservations of would-be Bay State visitors to make room for migrants not only upended the plans of military veterans, service academy graduates and families planning to watch the big Army-Navy game at Gillette Stadium Dec. 9, it sent a powerful message to potential tourists: you are not a priority.Given that domestic visitor spending hit $22 billion in Massachusetts last year, you’d think the state would try to avoid alienating travelers.But no, thanks to the unholy brew of Joe Biden’s border fiasco, our right to shelter status, and the state handing out drivers licenses to folks regardless of immigration status, migrants are drawn to the Bay State.And there’s no end in sight.As the Herald reported, a travel agent who handles hotel rooms for military families said at least 70 of his rooms at three hotels were “taken back” by the hotel management company because the state recently contracted to put newly arrived migrants there.If you were an out...

Lucas: O’Brien’s next act should be run for treasurer

Published Wed, 12 Feb 2025 13:21:42 GMT

Maybe Shannon O’Brien should run for treasurer, a post she once held.That way she would be in a good position to force current state Treasurer Deborah Goldberg, a fellow Democrat, to tell her and the public why she is ruining Shannon O’Brien’s life.It would be a good old fashion grudge match, and the debate would make boffo television.In fact, Shannon could probably beat Goldberg who has not had a challenger in the last two Democratic primary elections. For O’Brien, campaigning well and winning may be the best revenge.Unlike Goldberg, who was a wealthy Brookline selectman when she was elected treasurer in 2014, O’Brien did her time at the State House having served in both the House and the Senate before she was elected treasurer in 2000.Before elected treasurer Goldberg was beaten in the Democratic primary for lieutenant governor in 2006 by Tim Murray of Worcester, Gov. Deval Patrick’s running mate.O’Brien, 64, who served as state treasurer from 2000 to 2004, was recently suspended ...

‘Exorcist Believer’ a damned disappointment

Published Wed, 12 Feb 2025 13:21:42 GMT

Why has David Gordon Green, who has made a career of sorts out of making mediocre “Halloween” sequels, now made “The Exorcist: Believer,” the first in a planned trilogy of new “Exorcist” films?” Apparently because sequels to 1970s horror classics are all that he can get funding for. “The Exorcist: Believer” is based on the landmark 1973 horror film “The Exorcist.” Directed by the recently deceased William Friedkin (“The French Connection”) based on the enormously best-selling and controversial novel by William Peter Blatty, who adapted his work to the screen, “The Exorcist” broke barriers, used religious belief as the basis for a horror film in ways that were truly innovative, boasted a cast that was uniformly brilliant and made a couple of expressions famous around the world. “The Exorcist: Believer” is a demonstration of much that is wrong with modern-day film-making. It is derivative by design, and it has absolutely nothing to new say on the subject of “The Exorcist.”Written by P...

‘Miranda’s Victim’ takes a deep dive into landmark case

Published Wed, 12 Feb 2025 13:21:42 GMT

As its title announces “Miranda’s Victim” is about more than the origin of the well-known, Supreme Court-issued Miranda Warning.Inspired by true events, the Vertical Entertainment movie streaming Friday tells – for the first time since she was kidnapped and raped by Ernesto Miranda in 1963 – the victim’s story.  In 2019 Patricia “Trish” Weir chose to reveal her identity she had always protected.  Abigail Breslin (“Stillwater”) stars as Trish and Sebastian Quinn (“Dynasty”) is Miranda, the serial rapist. The cast includes Donald Sutherland, Ryan Phillipe, Luke Wilson, Andy Garcia and Emily VanCamp.For Quinn the film’s appeal is more than a true story. “It’s based on a moment in American history that most people don’t know.” And, Quinn discovered, there’s not much known about the criminal at the heart of the case.“Most of the information you get Googling is the story of the Miranda rights and not so much about the person.“Our screenwriter George Kolber did extensive ...