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Democrats call McCarthy a weak leader as Trump declares candidacy and gets his Twitter back
Rep. Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) is running unopposed so far for the position of the top Democrat in the House. (Bill O'Leary/The Washington Post)
Rep. Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.), who is so far running unopposed to be the senior House Democrat, said on Sunday that he favors raising the debt ceiling before the GOP takes over the House on Jan. 3 to prevent giving the current Republican Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) the opportunity to use the debt ceiling as leverage on a range of other issues.
“Kevin McCarthy has said that he is willing to detonate the American economy, default on our nation’s debt in order to try to strip away Social Security and Medicare for tens of millions of Americans,” Jeffries said on CNN’s “State of the Union.” “That’s incredibly reckless.”
Jeffries said he has not spoken to McCarthy since the election, but added that he has “a much warmer relationship” with Rep. Steve Scalise (R-La.), the No. 2 ranking Republican in the House.
On Fox News Channel’s “Sunday Morning Futures,” however, McCarthy, who is seeking the gavel as House speaker, seemed determined to avoid any cooperation with Democrats.
“We set a goal,” he said. “To stop the Biden agenda, to win the majority and to fire Nancy Pelosi. We have just achieved all three of those.”
Even before the new Congress is sworn in, the race for the 2024 presidential campaign was underway with former president Donald Trump’s announcement last Tuesday that he would run for office again.
Former vice president Mike Pence appeared on NBC’s “Meet the Press” and stood up for the track record of the Trump tenure.
“I won’t join those that want to dismiss the four years of our administration and all that we accomplished for the American people,” he said. Pence, a likely candidate for the 2024 GOP nomination, was noncommittal about his intentions.
“I’ll keep you posted on whether I’m going to run or not. But I do think we’ll have better choices,” Pence told host Chuck Todd.
Former House speaker Paul D. Ryan, however, was unequivocal about his opinion on Trump’s run.
“I think what we now know, it’s pretty clear is, with Trump we lose.” Ryan said. “We get past Trump, we start winning elections,” he said, calling himself “a never-again-Trumper.”
Even if House Republicans will face a stalemate with Democrats in the Senate when it comes to passage of any legislation, many have said that they will hold extensive oversight hearings and slow down initiatives by Democrats.
Asked whether Democrats would defend President Biden in face of investigations the Republicans are expected to pursue next year, Jeffries said that Democrats would seek to cooperate with Republicans “legislatively” but push back against “MAGA extremism.”
“We will absolutely defend the Biden administration and its track record of success if it comes under assault by people attempting to politicize our governmental responsibilities, without question,” he said.
Democrats also defended Attorney General Merrick Garland’s decision on Friday to appoint a special counsel to investigate Trump in an effort to isolate those cases from politics.
Rep. Adam B. Schiff (D-Calif.), chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, on ABC’s “This Week with George Stephanopoulos,” praised the move as “the right thing to do.” But he added that he was concerned that the Justice Department had been “very slow,” and he hoped the special prosecutor would speed up the investigations.
Schiff also said that it would not surprise him if McCarthy fulfilled his vow to strip Schiff of his position on the House Intelligence Committee. He said it was a sign of weakness.
“I suspect he will do whatever [Rep.] Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) wants him to do,” Schiff said. “He is a very weak leader of his conference, meaning that he will adhere to the wishes of the lowest common denominator. And if that lowest common denominator wants to remove people from committees, that’s what they’ll do.”
Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-Ill.), one of 10 Republicans to vote to impeach Trump and a member of the committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol, also said that McCarthy would give in to the most right-wing elements of the GOP, especially Greene.
“First off, she will be newly empowered,” he said. “And the fact that she’s supporting Kevin McCarthy means that he’s made a lot of promises to her. Just, trust me, that’s how this business works.”
Some lawmakers also defended the Biden administration’s decision to repeat past precedent and grant immunity to Mohammed bin Salman, now Saudi Arabia’s prime minister — despite his alleged involvement with the gruesome 2018 murder of Jamal Khashoggi, a journalist living in the United States.
“It would have been a major break of those customs to not grant that kind of immunity,” Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) said on “Fox News Sunday.”
“What I would say is that Saudi Arabia is far from the world’s worst abuser of human rights,” Cotton said. He pointed at Iran for suppressing protesters in the streets and to China over what he called “genocide” against religious and ethnic minorities.
Sen. Mark R. Warner (D-Va.) also backed the decision.
“Do I think the murder of Jamal Khashoggi was awful? Absolutely, absolutely,” Warner said. “But we need to be enough of a realist to realize that Saudi Arabia has been a bulwark against Iran. It is a leader in a very messy part of the world.”
But Schiff said that he opposed the granting of immunity in light of the murder and dismemberment of Khashoggi.
“We ought to put our value on life not oil, and I think this is a tragic decision,” he said. | 2022-11-20T20:28:01Z | www.washingtonpost.com | On Sunday morning shows, Democratic and Republic leaders brace for gridlock in Congress - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/11/20/democrats-republicans-trump-pence-sunday-shows/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/11/20/democrats-republicans-trump-pence-sunday-shows/ |
Bankruptcy filing indicates the numerous entities who are due hefty sums
Sam Bankman-Fried after a Senate Agriculture Committee hearing on Feb. 9. The company he co-founded just revealed a long list of creditors in bankruptcy proceedings. (Sarah Silbiger/Bloomberg News)
And ten of its creditors are owed at least $100 million.
The revelations, which came in a filing to U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Delaware late Saturday, offer a striking portrait of the sheer number of entities that had considerably invested in, loaned money to or otherwise engaged with a three-year-old company that had done little to demonstrate it could properly safeguard the assets entrusted to it. Its top 50 creditors are owed a total of $3.1 billion, the filing showed, with the largest due $226 million.
The names of the creditors were redacted. But what is known is that over its short history, FTX had received capital from a slew of investment firms, including Sequoia Capital, BlackRock and Tiger Global, as well as entities such as the Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan.
In a separate filing Saturday, new FTX chief executive John J. Ray said the company will seek sales and other forms of capitalization to ensure that as many creditors as possible get their money. He noted that some of the subsidiaries of FTX “have solvent balance sheets, responsible management and valuable franchises,” which could facilitate that process. Some 130 FTX sister companies are part of the bankruptcy filing.
When FTX filed for bankruptcy protection on Nov. 11, it marked a stunning fall for a former powerhouse and its 30-year 0ld co-founder Sam Bankman-Fried. At one time valued at $32 billion, FTX had become a public symbol of crypto, its ubiquitous commercials and sports sponsorships signaling to ordinary people that cryptocurrency was a safe and accessible investment. Bankman-Fried’s frequent appearances at global conferences and on Capitol Hill sought to do the same with legislators and thought leaders.
The filing shows just what kind of effect those efforts had, as a large number of parties placed their money with FTX — money they will now fight to reclaim in bankruptcy court.
Untangling the company’s obligations could be tricky, however. In a separate Delaware court filing Thursday, Ray, a longtime insolvency expert who outlined a pattern of inadequate documentation.
“The main companies in the Alameda Silo and the Ventures Silo did not keep complete books and records of their investments and activities,” Ray wrote, referring to some of Bankman-Fried’s entities, adding, “One of the most pervasive failures of the FTX.com business in particular is the absence of lasting records of decision-making.”
Even where the proceedings will happen is a question. The Delaware court’s jurisdiction is being challenged by regulators in the Bahamas, where FTX was based. Those authorities want the proceedings to move forward under a different form of bankruptcy in New York.
In his filing Thursday, Ray described a system of “cash management procedural failures” that led to FTX lacking an “accurate list of bank accounts and account signatories” with whom the company was doing business.
And he noted a “potential commingling” of assets between Bankman-Fried firms, including possibly his trading arm Alameda Research and FTX.com, which is supposed to operate as a neutral platform for consumers to buy and sell crypto assets. Alameda lent $1 billion to Bankman-Fried personally, Ray said.
That commingling is expected to be one of the chief focal points for investigators and regulators as they probe potential malfeasance by the former chief executive. Congress is turning up the heat, too. The House Financial Services Committee will hold a hearing next month probing the company’s collapse.
Ray — who has decades of experience overseeing corporate restructures, including Enron’s — said Thursday there would be much for everyone to investigate.
“Never in my career have I seen such a complete failure of corporate controls and such a complete absence of trustworthy financial information as occurred here,” he wrote.
He said that FTX appeared to be run by a “very small group of inexperienced, unsophisticated and potentially compromised individuals.”
“This situation is unprecedented,” he wrote. | 2022-11-20T21:20:00Z | www.washingtonpost.com | FTX says it owes more than $3 billion to creditors - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2022/11/20/ftx-crypto-bankruptcy-creditors/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2022/11/20/ftx-crypto-bankruptcy-creditors/ |
The wives of Russian soldiers conscripted to fight in Ukraine complained to Russian officials via video that their husbands were poorly prepared to fight. (Video: Courtesy of Vyorstka)
Irina Sokolova’s husband, a Russian soldier mobilized to fight in Ukraine, called her from a forest there last month, sobbing, almost broken.
“They are lying on television,” he wept, referring to the state television propagandists who play down Russian failures and portray a do-or-die war for Russia’s survival against the United States and its allies.
Sokolova, 37, cried for him too, and for their nearly year-old baby son, she said in a telephone interview from her home in Voronezh, in western Russia.
Sokolova is among dozens of soldier’s spouses and other relatives who are voicing remarkably public — and risky — anger and fear over the terrible conditions that new conscripts have faced on the front lines of Russia’s war in Ukraine.
The soldiers’ relatives, mostly people who would normally stay out of politics, are tempting the wrath of the Kremlin by posting videos online and in Russian independent media, and even speaking to foreign journalists. They say that mobilized soldiers were deployed into battle with little training, poor equipment and often no clear orders. Many are exhausted and confused, according to their families. Some wander lost in the woods for days. Others refuse to fight.
“Of course he had no idea how terrible it would be there,” Sokolova told The Washington Post. “We watch our federal TV channels and they say that everything is perfect.”
The relatives typically do not criticize President Vladimir Putin or even the war, but their videos have exposed the rock-bottom morale of many conscripts, as Russia tries to surmount its recent losses by throwing a claimed 318,000 reinforcements into battle.
Yana, a transport worker from St. Petersburg, was a fervent pro-war patriot, until her partner was mobilized.
In a phone interview, Yana confirmed video accounts by other military spouses that the men had to buy their own warm uniforms and boots and had little training. In Ukraine, they were given no food or water.
“They do not have any orders and they do not have any tasks,” she said. “I spoke to my husband yesterday and he said that they have no clue what to do. They were just abandoned and they have lost all trust, all faith in the authorities.”
On the videos, wives recite lists of grievances in tremulous voices, like frightened villagers petitioning the czar in the days of the Russian Empire. Conscripts pose in body armor that barely covers their ribs, or film themselves in Ukrainian forests, listing their dead and complaining their officers are nowhere to be seen.
Details in the videos could not be independently verified but they are consistent with accounts that family members provided in interviews with The Post, and with reports by independent Russian media, such as ASTRA, which last week exposed seven basement prisons for deserters in Luhansk.
Sokolova’s husband was mobilized to fight in the 252nd Motorized Rifle Regiment on Sept. 22. He told her that he received no military training “and by Sept. 26, he was already in Ukraine,” she said.
He phoned late last month, having barely survived a major battle when his unit was surrounded, and many were killed. He and two others escaped without their backpacks and warm gear, but were lost, and ended up wandering in a forest.
“They were thrown in into the fire, so to speak, on the very first front line, but they’re not military men. They don’t know how to fight. They cannot do this,” Sokolova said, adding that her husband was in severe pain with pancreatitis. “I feel how awful it is for him there,” she said. “My heart is being torn apart.”
Families of other men mobilized to fight in the regiment said their loved ones were sent to the front line near Svatove, a small city in Luhansk region, on their first day in Ukraine and given one shovel between 30 men to dig trenches. Speaking in a joint video appeal first sent to independent Russian media Vyorstka, they said the commanders “ran away,” leaving the men to face three days of heavy shelling.
Several dozen mobilized soldiers from the regiment walked some 100 miles to Milove, on the Russian border, and demanded to return to their base near Voronezh, according to their video account on Nov. 3.
They were taken briefly to nearby Valuyki in Russia, but their request was ignored. “We wrote applications. We wrote reports. We did everything, but no one listens to us. Nobody wants to hear us,” a soldier, Konstantin Voropayev, said in the video, in which he also requested legal help.
Sokolova’s husband called her in a panic the same day from Valuyki, saying he and others were being sent right back into battle.
On Oct. 28, Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu told Putin that early problems equipping and training mobilized soldiers were resolved.
Military analyst Konrad Muzyka, of Poland-based Rochan Consulting, wrote in a recent analysis that despite the “abysmal morale” of conscripts the sheer volume of them could help Russia on the battlefield.
As the videos proliferate, Russian authorities appear to be losing patience. One mobilized soldier, Alexander Leshkov, faces up to 15 years in prison, his lawyer, Henri Tsiskarishvili, said, after swearing at an officer in a video, pushing him, and griping about the unit’s low-grade flak jackets.
“This is a profanation, an imitation of shooting, an imitation of exercises, an imitation of a formation,” Leshkov raged.
Yana and her husband, who have a 4-year-old son, were married with 43 other couples right before the men were sent to war. The Post agreed not to use her full name to shield her from arrest and prosecution.
In the couple’s apartment, the television was always on, pouring out the Kremlin’s line that Russia is fighting the United States, not Ukraine. “We don’t know anything else,” Yana said. “We are so used to believing in what we are told.”
As Putin escalates war, some in Russia’s business elite despair
But after her husband was drafted, she gave the television away because it was making her “aggressive.” She said she fears for her husband’s life but said she does not blame Putin, “because he is a smart person.”
“We are absolutely confused, at a loss and we feel abandoned,” she said. “We’re crying from morning till night.”
Andrei Kolesnikov, analyst with the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, said the Kremlin’s propaganda is working — for now — with the video protests not directed at Putin, or even at the war.
“Putin wants people to share responsibility for the war with him,” Kolesnikov said. “He wants their bodies and lives to be sacrificed on the altar of the struggle against NATO, the West, and global evil. This strategy of glorifying cannon fodder and heroizing death is risky, in a more-or-less modernized society which wasn’t ready to be involved physically in the trenches.”
After repeated military setbacks and high casualties, support for the war is waning. Levada Center independent pollster reported on Nov. 1 that 57 percent of Russians want peace talks while 36 percent want to keep fighting.
Sokolova said that the relatives of mobilized men “realize what is going on but people whose relatives were not mobilized see the world through rose-colored glasses. They have no idea what’s going on and they’re not interested.”
Yana told her son that his father is a superhero, fighting evil. The fairy tale matches Russia’s imperialist propaganda, yet deep down, it does not ring true. At heart, Yana said she is terrified her husband will never phone again and her son will grow up with no father.
“I am just an ordinary woman and I want to live in peace,” she said. “That’s all I want.” | 2022-11-20T21:50:50Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Angry families say Russian conscripts thrown to front line unprepared - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/11/20/russia-military-families-conscripts-ukraine/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/11/20/russia-military-families-conscripts-ukraine/ |
Gunman kills 5 and injures 25 at popular LGBT club in Colorado Springs
The Colorado Springs police chief identified the suspect as Anderson Lee Aldrich, who was taken into custody
Kara Too and her children hug Joshua Thurman, who was inside Club Q during the attack. (Matthew Staver for The Washington Post)
COLORADO SPRINGS — At least five people were killed and 25 were injured after a gunman with a rifle walked into an LGBTQ nightclub here and opened fire, according to law enforcement officials, who credited at least one or more clubgoers with subduing the suspect before more were hurt.
“We owe them a great debt of thanks,” Colorado Springs Police Chief Adrian Vasquez said during a news conference Sunday morning. The suspect — whom Vasquez identified as Anderson Lee Aldrich, 22 — was taken into custody and is being treated at a hospital.
The FBI is assisting with the investigation, which officials said is in its early stages.
As of Sunday morning, local and federal officials were trying to piece together details about the attack, including what may have led the gunman to the club, the suspect’s criminal history, and how the shooter came to possess the weapon officials say was used in the attack.
The assault inside the club unfolded with blinding speed.
Around 11:57 p.m. Saturday, police received a call about a shooting at Club Q on North Academy Boulevard, Lt. Pamela Castro, a spokesperson for the Colorado Springs police, told reporters. Colorado Springs Mayor John Suthers said that the first officer arrived on the scene “within three minutes after being dispatched” and that the suspect “was subdued within two minutes after that.”
At least two of the victims on Sunday were being treated for life-threatening injuries, said Penrose Hospital Chief Medical Officer Bill Plauth. Five other victims had injuries to their extremities, and two of them have been released, he said.
Officials did not identify the victims, pending notification of family and next of kin.
“Colorado Springs is once again in mourning,” Suthers told reporters. He also praised the “one or more patrons” who “heroically intervened to subdue the suspect,” because “their actions clearly saved lives.”
Aldrich appears to have been known to local law enforcement officials and to have had at least one episode in which he allegedly threatened deadly violence.
A person with the same name, address and date of birth as the suspect was arrested in June 2021 and charged in connection with making a bomb threat in the Lorson Ranch community, a suburb of modest single-family homes on the southeastern outskirts of Colorado Springs in El Paso County, according to a sheriff’s office report at the time.
Shooting suspect was known to authorities after previous arrest
A woman had called the sheriff’s office to say her son was threatening to hurt her with a homemade bomb and other weapons, according to the report. After a nearly one-hour standoff, Aldrich surrendered without incident and no bomb was found, according to the sheriff’s office.
The attack this weekend in Colorado Springs, about 70 miles south of Denver, is the latest in a string of mass shootings in the state and comes six years after 49 people were killed after a gunman opened fire inside Pulse nightclub, a popular establishment for the gay community in Orlando.
Club Q was hosting a punk and alternative musical show Saturday night and was scheduled to host an “All Ages Musical Drag Brunch” on Sunday, according to its Facebook page.
After the shooting, the club said it is “devastated by the senseless attack on our community” and thankful for the “heroic customers that subdued the gunman and ended this hate attack.”
Gov. Jared Polis (D) said in a statement that “Colorado stands with our LGBTQ Community and everyone impacted by this tragedy as we mourn.”
President Biden said in a statement Sunday that although the motive is not yet clear, “we know that gun violence has a particular impact on LGBTQI+ communities across our nation.” He added, “We must address the public health epidemic of gun violence in all forms,” and said that “we must drive out the inequities that contribute to violence against LGBTQI+ people.”
Even Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-Colo.), who in May accused LGBT supporters of “grooming” children and in August criticized kid-friendly drag shows as a “depravity,” wrote on Twitter on Sunday that the shooting was “absolutely awful,” adding, “This lawless violence needs to end and end quickly.”
The shooting comes amid a rapid rise in anti-LGBTQ activity, which includes demonstrations and attacks. From 2020 to 2021 the number of demonstrations and attacks targeting LGBT people have increased by a factor of more than four, from 15 incidents to 61, according to the global conflict-monitoring group ACLED.
As of early June, ACLED counted 33 anti-LGBTQ incidents so far this year, indicating an even bleaker 2022.
Transgender people have been targeted in particular. The Human Rights Campaign, the nation’s largest LGBTQ advocacy group, said there has been record violence against transgender and gender-nonconforming people this past year. Women of color, especially Black trans women, were the most frequent targets.
Some Colorado officials have sought to prevent people who are considered dangerous from legally buying and possessing guns, but the approach has not been fully embraced throughout the state.
In April 2019, Polis signed a red-flag law that gave citizens and police departments, the following year, the ability to petition a judge to have a Colorado resident’s weapons confiscated if the petitioner demonstrates that person is a danger to themselves or others. But Sheriff Bill Elder of El Paso County — which includes Colorado Springs — said that year that his department would not file any of those petitions.
The measure, Elder said at the time, failed to address what he believed is the real problem behind American gun violence: mental health. The new law focused “on the tool instead of the crisis that brings the thing before the judge,” he said.
As of Sept. 28, there have been 348 red-flag cases in Colorado, the majority filed by police departments. The El Paso Sheriff’s Office told The Washington Post that it has not filed for a single Extreme Risk Protection Order since the bill was signed into law.
The Colorado Springs Police Department has filed two petitions during that time. Neither department advertises the petitions on their websites.
Legally obtained weapons have frequently been stolen in the area, according to law enforcement records. Over 7,000 firearms have been stolen since 2017 in Colorado Springs, according to police department data. That is more than 20 times the national rate of firearm thefts, according to Justice Department statistics. One of those stolen guns was used to shoot a Colorado Springs officer in the head in 2018. He survived.
Among Colorado counties, El Paso has seen the largest increase in concealed-carry permit holders in the past decade, with more than 50,000 residents holding permits. The sheriff’s office celebrated it last December by tweeting a photo of a man resembling Santa Claus applying for a permit, three days after four Michigan teens died in a school shooting.
And in 2016 a school district in the rural southeast corner of El Paso County voted to allow teachers to carry guns.
The shooting on Sunday is the latest high-profile mass shooting event in the state in recent years.
In 1999, two students shot and killed 12 classmates and a teacher at Columbine High School. More than 20 others were injured before the gunmen killed themselves. That shooting led many schools across the country to develop protocols for dealing with active shooters.
In 2001, a gunman opened fire at an RV park and a grocery store frequented by Mexican immigrants, killing four people and injuring three more before he surrendered to the police. In 2007, a gunman killed four people and injured five at a Christian missionary training center in Arvada before killing two more at a megachurch in Colorado Springs. The gunman later killed himself.
In 2012, a shooter opened fire at a packed movie theater in Aurora, killing 12 and injuring 58 people, the largest number of casualties of any mass shooting at the time. In 2015, a gunman killed three people and injured nine others at a reproductive health clinic.
In March 2021, a gunman shot and killed 10 people at a King Soopers grocery store in Boulder. He was later taken into custody. In July 2021, another gunman killed five people in a shooting rampage in the Denver area before he was fatally shot by a police officer.
Paybarah reported from New York and Somasundaram from Washington. Leo Sands and Ellen Francis in London; Ben Brasch in Atlanta; Joby Warrick and Hannah Allam in Washington; and Robert Klemko in Colorado Springs contributed to this report. | 2022-11-20T21:59:13Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Shooting at popular LGBTQ club in Colorado Springs leave at least 5 dead - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/11/20/clubq-colorado-springs-shooting/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/11/20/clubq-colorado-springs-shooting/ |
Privacy and security prevailed on Saturday for the president’s granddaughter’s big day. Here’s what we found out anyway.
Naomi Biden married Peter Neal at the White House on Saturday. (Corbin Gurkin)
On Saturday, President Biden’s granddaughter Naomi Biden, 28, wed Peter Neal, 25 — the 19th White House wedding, and the first for a presidential family member held on the grounds since the Clinton era. The bride and groom shared their vows in front of approximately 250 guests outdoors (brr) with the South Portico as an impressive photo backdrop. The ceremony was followed by an intimate luncheon in the State Dining Room and, later that evening, a dessert and dancing reception for several hundred more friends. To answer the question immediately posed by critics — “Who paid for all of this?” — the answer is the Biden family, not taxpayers, according to the first lady’s spokeswoman.
The groom’s family hosted a rehearsal dinner Friday evening at the Renwick Gallery of the Smithsonian American Art Museum. Naomi wore a pleated tulle cape covered in lace flowers for the rehearsal and then changed into a tailored jacket, according to designer Danielle Frankel.
The next morning, through their telephoto lenses and binoculars, the media could see green and white floral garlands festooning the South Portico, and — hmm, let’s squint a little harder — is that two officiants? Three bridesmaids? The president making his entrance?
Yes, yes, and yes, according to an accounting of the weekend’s events by guests who spoke to The Washington Post, along with a glimpse at the printed program.
Security was tight, with a large police presence at both Lafayette Square and the Ellipse, which were cordoned off with yellow tape and metal barricades. Guests had to go through background checks and get a coronavirus test. It was clear but chilly — 39 degrees — and guests, who had to check their cellphones at the door, were given hand warmers and white scarves for the 11 a.m. ceremony.
First, President Biden escorted the groom’s two grandmothers, each using a cane, then turned around, jogged back up the aisle, and returned to the altar with first lady Jill Biden. Then came the bridal party: Naomi’s sister Finnegan, 22, was maid of honor, and the groom’s brother, Robert, was best man. The bridesmaids — who wore matching blazers to keep warm — included Naomi’s other sister, Maisy, 21, and her new sister-in-law, Katherine “Betsy” Neal.
Naomi made her entrance from the White House’s Diplomatic Room in a lace-sleeved ball gown with a notched high neckline that channeled actress Grace Kelly’s famous wedding dress. Her dramatic lace-edged veil trailed several meters behind. The groom, in a three-piece navy suit — also Ralph Lauren — wore a floral brooch as a boutonniere. The first lady wore a teal silk chiffon dress and matching belted wool crepe coat by designer Reem Acra, who also dressed her for the most recent Kennedy Center Honors and the 2009 presidential inauguration of Barack Obama.
The bride was escorted down the aisle by her father, Hunter Biden, and mother, Kathleen Buhle, to the tune of “Bitter Sweet Symphony” by the Verve. Though the president did not speak at the ceremony, Ashley Blazer Biden — Naomi’s aunt and the president’s daughter — read “God is Love” from the New Testament. Another part of the ceremony included a reading of “I Carry Your Heart With Me” by e.e. cummings. The groom’s father, William C. Neal, sang “Ubi Caritas” with an ensemble of singers from D.C.
The couple wrote their own vows, which were officiated by a Catholic monsignor and a Presbyterian minister. “They reminisced about their experience with each other and what brought them to today,” said Linzi Lane, a friend of the Neal family. “It was beautifully done. … I don’t think there was a dry eye.”
Lane said a bee landed on Naomi’s dress during the ceremony, and Peter tenderly brushed it off.
Vivaldi played as the bride walked back into the White House for the luncheon. She could be seen raising her bouquet triumphantly. She and Peter later did a photo shoot, kissing on the State Floor balcony. A small army of official wedding photographers included Corbin Gurkin — who shot Sophie Turner and Joe Jonas’s wedding and was voted one of the top 1o wedding photographers in the world by “Bazaar Bride.” A small army of unofficial wedding photographers included a drone that flew over the Ellipse to capture aerial shots.
Programs were engraved with an entwined N and P, and included a note of gratitude from the couple: “Thank you for being beside us today. We are grateful to be surrounded by the people we love. Naomi and Peter.”
After the luncheon, the president and his daughter Ashley attended Saturday mass at Holy Trinity Catholic Church in Georgetown. An attendee says the congregation sang “Happy Birthday” to the president, who turned 80 on Sunday. (The first lady hosted a brunch in his honor.)
Onward to the evening! Guests who didn’t make the cut earlier still had a chance to fete the couple at a larger but still exclusive black-tie evening reception. Attendees reported that the guest list was packed with friends of the couple from Sidwell Friends, George Washington University, Penn, and Columbia, but few Washington dignitaries. (Boldface names at the morning ceremony included former senator Chris Dodd, former senator Ted Kaufman, Secretary of State Antony Blinken and his wife, Evan Ryan, who is White House cabinet secretary.)
Don’t give us cabinet members, give us the details!
Okay. The dress: Naomi changed into an ivory strapless gown with a scoop neckline, small train, and embellished buttons down the back, reports one guest. She wore her engagement ring and wedding band over a pair of tulle gloves, and the same Tiffany diamond and pearl earrings she wore to the ceremony. Women’s Wear Daily reported that the evening dress was designed by Alexandra O’Neill for Markarian — the label that the first lady wore on inauguration day.
The cake: Seven tiers and all-white fondant. Individual slices were handed out in boxes to attendees, as a party favor. The flavor was “lemony,” says the guest.
The music: Two bands, who played a mix of romantic oldies and pop music, including songs by Amy Winehouse and Beyoncé. In addition to the traditional first dance and parent dances, the bride danced with her grandfather, the president, whom she calls “pops.”
“He never stopped whispering in her ear,” reported a guest. “It was probably one of my favorite moments of the whole night.”
The party stretched throughout the White House, with multiple spaces for drinking and dancing. The white and green floral motif from earlier in the day carried over into the evening’s decor, along with plenty of candlelight. The festivities were orchestrated by Bryan Rafanelli, one of the nation’s top wedding planners, who planned Chelsea Clinton’s Rhinebeck, N.Y., wedding, as well as other White House holiday events and state dinners.
Peter offered a toast. Maisy wore a pinstriped suit. The first lady wore an icy blue knee-length gown, embellished with sequins. Baby Beau, the bride’s 2-year-old half brother, wore a tiny tux and reportedly had a small meltdown at the end of the night — up past his bedtime, a guest speculated. The president stayed late to mingle with the guests.
Peter and Naomi, both lawyers, met on a date arranged by a mutual friend in 2018 and have been living on the third floor of the White House. “These two fell in love after two days,” a friend, Asha-Kai Grant, wrote on Instagram last year.
The grandparents of the bride issued a statement on Saturday. “It has been a joy to watch Naomi grow, discover who she is, and carve out such an incredible life for herself,” the president and first lady said. “Now, we are filled with pride to see her choose Peter as her husband and we’re honored to welcome him to our family. We wish them days full of laughter and a love that grows deeper with every passing year.”
Rafanelli, the event planner, released several photographs on his Instagram account. Other than that, the official channels have kept quiet, allowing the newlyweds a chance to enjoy their day. Most friends did the same. But you didn’t need binoculars to see that the couple were head over heels for each other.
“Naomi was dancing from start to finish,” said a friend of the groom. “They were just so in love and so happy.” | 2022-11-20T22:16:39Z | www.washingtonpost.com | More details from Naomi Biden's White House wedding - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/2022/11/20/naomi-biden-peter-neal-white-house-wedding-details/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/2022/11/20/naomi-biden-peter-neal-white-house-wedding-details/ |
Bowie driver charged with homicide in fatal wrong-way car crash
A Maryland woman is facing criminal charges for her role in a fatal wrong-way car crash that briefly shut down a portion of Interstate 97 early Saturday morning.
The five-car collision occurred near Route 32 at 12:45 a.m. Saturday, according to a news release from Maryland State Police.
According to authorities, Asia Lashae Bryant-Pelloni, 30, of Bowie, was traveling north in a 2009 Honda Accord on the interstate’s southbound lanes when she collided with a 2012 Ford Fiesta heading in the opposite direction.
The Ford’s passenger — Brian Mahaney, 68, of Annapolis — was declared dead at the scene, police said.
Following the initial fatal collision, a second crash took place after the driver of a 2017 Honda CRV swerved to avoid crashing into a 2019 Nissan Sentra, according to the police. A fifth vehicle, a 2013 Cadillac SRX, hit debris from the earlier impacts.
Bryant-Pelloni, the driver allegedly going in the wrong direction who triggered the fatal crash, was arrested at the scene, police said. She was charged with negligent vehicular homicide while under the influence, vehicular homicide while impaired by alcohol, negligent vehicular manslaughter and other related charges.
She remains in custody before an initial court appearance. | 2022-11-20T22:21:07Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Asia Lashae Bryant-Pelloni charged in fatal Interstate 97 car crash - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/11/20/anne-arundel-fatal-crash/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/11/20/anne-arundel-fatal-crash/ |
The Maryland Terrapins celebrated after winning the Hall of Fame Tip-Off Tournament championship Sunday at Mohegan Sun Arena. (Joe Buglewicz/Getty Images)
UNCASVILLE, Conn. — A win over Miami could qualify as a signature victory.
The Hurricanes reached the Elite Eight last season and feature a pair of elite guards in Isaiah Wong (who’s on the Jerry West Award Watch List) and Nijel Pack.
But when the Maryland men’s basketball team defeated Miami, 88-70, in the Hall of Fame Tip-Off Tournament championship game at Mohegan Sun Arena on Sunday, signature victories were the least of Coach Kevin Willard’s concerns.
“We’re really not worried about signature wins or where we are,” Willard said. “I think we still have a long way to go. We’re good. We have great players. But they’re still trying to learn this system.
“We’re still trying to get comfortable. We’re having turnovers (18 in this game) not because of the players but more because it’s my fault. I’m putting them in situations where I’m calling plays that we hadn’t gone over a thousand times. We beat a good Saint Louis team and a good Miami team and that’s great. But I still think we have a long way to go.”
Last time out: Maryland basketball stays unbeaten by routing Saint Louis
How far the Terps (5-0) go may depend in large part if players like Donta Scott, Donald Carey and Julian Reese perform like they did in this tournament. Scott scored a game-high 24 points while Reese (17), Hakim Hart (14), Jahmir Young (13) and Carey (12) also scored in double figures.
Miami (4-1) was led by Wong (22 points), Jordan Miller (18) and Norchad Omier (14). But Pack, who averaged 17.4 points per game last season at Kansas State, was held to seven.
“If (Pack) wants to do that all night long (shoot 3-for-10) that’s fine with me and with Coach Willard,” Carey said.
Miami Coach Jim Larrañaga had his own take on why Maryland was so proficient.
“The one clear statistics that shows why they won is they had 39 rebounds to our 20,” he said. “If we’re not doing a good job rebounding as a team we’re going to get hurt.”
Unlike Saturday’s semifinal victory over Saint Louis, during which the Terps led by 24 at halftime, Miami played Maryland tougher, but only to a point.
The Hurricanes led 15-14 when Maryland went on an 11-0 run with Carey burying a pair of three-pointers for a 25-15 lead.
With Wong and Omier leading the way Miami cut the lead to 28-24, but then Scott went on a tear and scored 10 points in the final 7:39 of the half. When Ian Martinez drained a pair of free throws with 6.6 seconds left on the clock, Maryland went into its locker room with a 47-34 lead.
It was more of the same in the second half as Maryland raced out to a 64-46 lead with Resse scoring eight points. Miami chipped away and eventually pulled within 73-63 with 6:30 remaining. But Young took the wind out of the Hurricanes by converting a three-point play.
The rest was left up to Carey, Resse, Hart and Scott, who scored a combined 12 points in the last 4:01.
“Coach stresses moving the ball side to side,” Carey said. “When we move the ball side to side we pretty much get anything we want. We can be a tough team.”
Moving the ball side to side as opposed to playing a stationary offense was a major reason the Terps shot a blistering 60 percent (30-50) from the field.
“I think we have the best backcourt in the country right now,” Willard said. “I thought my guard play was outstanding.”
Scott on the prowl
Scott became the 17th Terp since 1995 to reach 1,000 points and 500 rebounds in his career. After Sunday’s game, he has 1,010 points and 527 rebounds. In the two tournament games over the weekend, the senior forward had 49 points and 13 rebounds. Scott was named to the all-tournament team along with Hart.
Willard’s fast start continues
Willard became the first Maryland head coach to begin his career in College Park with a 5-0 record. | 2022-11-20T22:55:52Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Terrapins handle Miami to win Hall of Fame Tip-Off Tournament - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/11/20/maryland-basketball-tipoff-tournament/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/11/20/maryland-basketball-tipoff-tournament/ |
Misha, who lives in an orphanage near Kherson, sits at a table in an apartment in Stepanivka, Ukraine, on Nov. 19. (Wojciech Grzedzinski for The Washington Post)
STEPANIVKA, Ukraine — Fifteen-year-old Katia remembers rushing out of the orphanage just in time, minutes before the Russians arrived to take the other children away.
The Russians had first shown up at the orphanage here months earlier, in armored military vehicles with 15 children in tow — Ukrainian orphans they had whisked away from the village of Novopetrivka in the previously-occupied Mykolaiv region, about 35 miles north.
But the Russians didn’t know that about a dozen other local children — including Katia — were also living in the same quarters. Each time the Russians came, the teachers would hide the children in their rooms, Katia recalled, “for nap time.”
Where the children are ultimately taken — and the circumstances of their movements — are often difficult to confirm. But many of the children appear to be like Katia and her peers — orphans or children with learning disabilities, who were already in public care. They are the youngest, most vulnerable Ukrainians and wartime for them has been especially perilous.
Kulakovska and Sahaidak, the headmaster, helped most of the dozen or so Kherson children in their center reunite with relatives and family members. Only three children were left — Katia and two boys, Vlad, 16, and Misha, 9. The Washington Post is identifying the children only by first names to protect their privacy and safety.
The children grew so accustomed to the sounds of explosions that they knew how to identify if the shelling was close — and if they could keep playing soccer or would have to rush inside. But after the Russians moved into town, the skies suddenly became quieter.
Katia vividly remembers the day when the soldiers arrived. Two Russians in military uniform — one of them bald, with a beard — entered the center that day, along with the 15 children from the Mykolaiv region as well as their headmistress and her husband. | 2022-11-20T23:30:44Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Near Kherson, orphanage staff hid Ukrainian children from Russian occupiers - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/11/20/kherson-orphans-hidden-mykolaiv-ukraine/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/11/20/kherson-orphans-hidden-mykolaiv-ukraine/ |
With Crypto in Retreat, Central Banks Take a Quantum Leap
David Chaum, finding a use for Big Brother after all. (Photographer: Handout/Getty Images Europe)
In the chaos surrounding the collapse of Sam Bankman-Fried’s empire, it’s easy to lose sight of what has died in this year’s crypto carnage and what lives on. The biggest casualty is “anarcho-capitalism,” championed by engineer Timothy May in the 1990s as cyberspace interactions unconstrained by external regulation, taxation or interference — in short, an absence of government.
That libertarian zeal, coded in the DNA of Bitcoin and every other virtual token, won’t survive the recent turmoil in the blockchain world. If investors must turn to courts to recover their FTX losses, they’ll want intermediaries and protocols to be supervised and made safe to use. Risky shadow banking in the garb of letting people swap their fiat currency for digital assets is coming to an end.
What will thrive even after this year’s meltdown, however, is cryptographic money.
The idea of security without identification had come from privacy pioneer David Chaum, who invented the so-called blind signature in 1982. A decade later, eCash, the world’s first digital currency, would deploy the technique. The anarcho-capitalists liked cryptography for its promise “to make Big Brother obsolete” — half the title of a celebrated 1985 paper by Chaum. Yet, in 2022, the biggest potential customer of these tools is none other than central banks, entities at the apex of states’ financial power. What looked like a weapon of anarchy to May’s cypherpunk movement has been repurposed as a technology for preserving and updating the existing monetary order.
Chaum is himself collaborating with a Swiss National Bank official on a blueprint for eCash 2.0, pitching it as “provably protected against counterfeiting even by a quantum computer” and “an ideal candidate for central bank digital currency.” If the protocol proves roadworthy, the curmudgeonly public sector will reinvent itself as the the 21st-century’s leading provider of a token more private than cash and yet more unfriendly to criminals. The private-sector crypto industry will have to play second fiddle to this better money.
The Bank for International Settlements is running a project around the ideas proposed by Chaum and his co-author, Thomas Moser, an alternate member on the SNB governing board. Project Tourbillon will explore the best possible mix of resiliency, scalability and privacy in a prototype central bank digital currency.
As shown by Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin, blockchain-based payment systems face a trilemma. Everyone wants more secure networks. But the more complex the cryptography, the slower the system’s scalability, or capacity to handle a large number of transactions. To make things go fast when there is both a technical and an economic limit on how many consensus-based decisions can be made and incentivized per second, you may need to skimp on decentralization, leaving the network vulnerable to attacks by bad actors or diluting the privacy guarantees.
Chaum and Moser have a solution. To boost speed to the levels of Visa Inc. and PayPal Holdings Inc., they’re proposing a network that isn’t based on distributed ledger technology, though it’s possible to connect eCash 2.0 to a public blockchain. To enhance privacy, they’re making the currency anonymous. But all senders of money will have an irrevocable right to undo the anonymity of any value withdrawn from their accounts: Malware won’t be able to hide behind small users to aggregate and move large sums. (Even banks find it a tough problem to solve. Recall the scandal around Commonwealth Bank of Australia’s cash machines, used by mules of a drug syndicate to launder millions of dollars.)
Finally, to boost security, the researchers are promising to deploy what the U.S. Department of Commerce’s National Institute of Standards and Technology has found to be the strongest-known type of quantum-resistant cryptography. No wonder the staid world of central banking is excited about the prototype that will emerge from Project Tourbillon. It could well be the digital money everyone’s waiting for — one that doesn’t scare people away with the threat of 24x7 surveillance. “If you choose to use government-issued money, the government should not be able to see how you spend it,” Chaum told CoinDesk. Users, however, should be able to protect themselves from being scammed.
If Tourbillon is a success, it could have both wholesale and retail applications. For end-consumers, the experience of transacting in central bank digital currency will be just like withdrawing physical cash from their bank accounts — except their phones will act as ATMs. Where there’s no internet, payments will be secured with the help of an additional card. On the back end, freedom from the speed limits of distributed ledger technology could enable banks to use eCash 2.0 issued by their monetary authorities to move money across borders in seconds, leading to huge cost savings for small firms and consumers globally.
It was Mark Zuckerberg’s now-abandoned idea of Libra, a new global currency to meet the “daily financial needs of billions of people,” that shook authorities: Their monopoly on money was under siege. But now that they have joined the fight, central banks are in no mood to leave any corner of finance fully in the sway of the private sector. The monetary authorities of Switzerland, Singapore and France are exploring ways to automate currency exchange via smart contracts. These self-executing computer codes are the bedrock of decentralized finance, founded on the utopian premise of freedom from both governments and large custodial organizations. After this year’s debacles in the world of digital assets, it’s clear that the state is here to stay — not by repressing consumer choice but by using cryptography to offer a superior alternative.
• Matt Levine’s Money Stuff: FTX Was Not Very Careful | 2022-11-20T23:30:56Z | www.washingtonpost.com | With Crypto in Retreat, Central Banks Take a Quantum Leap - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/with-crypto-in-retreat-central-banks-take-a-quantum-leap/2022/11/20/dd81c88a-6927-11ed-8619-0b92f0565592_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/with-crypto-in-retreat-central-banks-take-a-quantum-leap/2022/11/20/dd81c88a-6927-11ed-8619-0b92f0565592_story.html |
Right-wing demonstrators have increasingly mobilized over the past year against the LGBTQ community, experts say
Bouquets of flowers and a sign reading “Love Over Hate” are left near Club Q, an LGBTQ nightclub in Colorado Springs, on Sunday. At least five people were killed and 18 wounded in a mass shooting at the nightclub. (Jason Connolly/AFP/Getty Images)
In the hours after the shooting, investigators did not say what led a 22-year-old gunman to open fire Saturday night in a Colorado gay bar, killing at least five people and injuring 25 others. But LGBTQ advocates across the country believe a surge of anti-LGBTQ rhetoric and laws is at least partially to blame.
“When politicians and pundits keep perpetuating tropes, insults, and misinformation about the trans and LGBTQ+ community, this is a result,” Colorado Rep. Brianna Titone (D) tweeted Sunday.
Titone, Colorado’s first openly trans legislator, and the chair of the state’s LGBTQ legislative caucus, said anti-LGBTQ lawmakers, including one of her colleagues, have used hateful rhetoric to directly incite attacks against LGBTQ people.
Though the most recent FBI data shows the number of hate crimes against LGBTQ people remained relatively flat between 2008 and 2020, an independent analysis by the research group Crowd Counting Consortium shows that right-wing demonstrators have increasingly mobilized over the past year against the queer community.
Already this year, armed protesters and right-wing groups such as the Proud Boys have used intimidating tactics to disrupt drag-related events in Texas, Nevada and Oregon, as well as other states. Children’s hospitals across the United States are facing growing threats of violence, including bomb threats, driven by an online anti-LGBTQ campaign attacking the facilities for providing care to transgender kids and teens. And in October, a man attacked a transgender librarian in Idaho before yelling homophobic slurs and attempting to hit two women with his car. Idaho is one of 18 states that does not have hate crime protections for LGBTQ people, though many local law enforcement agencies still track those crimes.
Jay Brown, senior vice president of programs, research and training for the Human Rights Campaign, said Americans can’t, and shouldn’t, separate those acts of violence from state-sanctioned efforts to limit LGBTQ rights.
“We’ve seen more than 340 anti-LGBTQ bills filed this year alone,” Brown said. “We’ve seen a huge increase in anti-LGBQ rhetoric online and by politicians, and we’ve seen real threats.”
Anti-trans laws are on the rise. Here’s a look at where — and what kind.
In Colorado, for instance, Brown noted that Republican lawmaker and gun-rights activist Lauren Boebert has criticized drag in recent months, and in August, she warned “all the drag queens out there” to “stay away from the children in Colorado’s Third District!”
“The level of fear that the community is feeling is real,” Brown said. “And many of our elected leaders actually bear some responsibility for creating a level of discourse that feeds that fear.”
Brown, an out trans man, said he feels particularly devastated because Sunday is Trans Day of Remembrance, an annual observance of transgender people who have been hurt or killed as a result of transphobia. Last year was the deadliest on record for trans people, and already this year the Human Rights Campaign has recorded another 32 violent deaths of transgender and nonbinary people.
According to Rodrigo Heng-Lehtinen, the executive director of the National Center of Transgender Equality, a quarter of those violent deaths happened in Texas and Florida. Those states have proposed dozens of anti-trans laws and regulations in the past two years or put in place anti-trans policies, such as Texas Gov. Greg Abbott’s order to investigate parents for child abuse if they provide gender-affirming care for their children.
“Anti-trans legislation, fearmongering, and disinformation put the trans community and trans lives at risk,” Heng-Lehtinen tweeted.
As of early Sunday evening, authorities had not yet confirmed the identity of the Colorado Springs victims, but online users have reported that at least one was transgender.
The club was holding a drag performance Saturday evening and planned to hold a Trans Day of Remembrance event Sunday. According to its website, the club is now closed until further notice.
Though Colorado has long been one of the country’s most LGBTQ-friendly states, recent attacks have escalated to a point where advocates say no place feels safe. Right-wing groups have, in fact, increasingly turned their attention toward liberal states.
Sunday morning, just hours after the attack in Colorado Springs, Chaya Raichik, a Brooklyn real estate investor who runs Libs of TikTok, a Twitter account with 1.5 million followers, targeted a Denver nonprofit for supporting young people who want to perform drag.
Twitter account Libs of TikTok blamed for harassment of children’s hospitals
Erin Reed, a transgender activist and legislative researcher, said Raichik’s tweets have directly led to anti-LGBTQ demonstrations Idaho, California and other states. Proud Boys have attempted to force their way into events in those states soon after Raichik tweeted about them, Reed noted on Twitter.
“We don’t know for sure what motivated the (Colorado Springs) shooter or what they were targeting. But we do know what motivates Chaya Raichik. We know she has seen these events and said, ‘Yes, more,’ ” Reed tweeted on Sunday. “Every trans person who follows this has been warning this would happen. And here we are.”
Joshua Thurman, 34, who was inside Club Q at the time of the shooting to celebrate his upcoming birthday told reporters Sunday that he was still trying to make sense of what happened. “You felt like you had to come up into our safe space and shoot us up,” he said of the alleged perpetrator. “You’ve harmed us in a way that I don’t know how we bounce back from this. What can we do? We can rebuild. We can come together. We can do vigils. We can raise money, but that’s not going to bring back those five people.”
Later, at a vigil for the victims at All Souls Unitarian Universalist Church, Taylor Oliver, 29, one of the attendees said, “These tragedies are causing people in the LGBT community to develop a habit of checking in on their friends. There’s almost an etiquette to checking in with your friends. Every single one of my friends, in other countries too, when something happens, it’s like the polite thing to do is to make sure my friend isn’t dead.”
Jessie Entwistle, of Colorado Springs, who was also at the vigil said he was in Orlando not long after the 2016 massacre at the Pulse night club, “so this all feels very familiar in a really sad way.”
“It feels like, ‘When is it going to happen to me?’ As opposed to thinking, ‘This kind of thing will never touch me.’ ”
Ari Schneider contributed to this report from Colorado. | 2022-11-20T23:31:03Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Club Q shooting follows year of bomb threats, drag protests, anti-trans bills - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/11/20/club-q-shooting-lgbtq-harassment/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/11/20/club-q-shooting-lgbtq-harassment/ |
FOXBOROUGH, Mass. — Marcus Jones returned a punt 84 yards for a touchdown with 5 seconds remaining and the New England Patriots stunned the New York Jets 10-3 on Sunday.
DETROIT — Josh Allen threw a go-ahead, 5-yard touchdown pass to Stefon Diggs late in the first half, and Buffalo beat Cleveland after the NFL moved the Bills’ home game to Detroit due to several feet of snow blanketing western New York.
INDIANAPOLIS — Jalen Hurts ran for an 8-yard touchdown with 1:20 remaining and Philadelphia rallied past Indianapolis.
EAST RUTHERFORD, N.J. — Jamaal Williams ran for a career-high three touchdowns and Detroit stunned New York.
ATLANTA — Younghoe Koo made a tiebreaking 53-yard field goal with less than two minutes to play and Atlanta overcame another impressive game from Chicago’s Justin Fields.
BALTIMORE — Lamar Jackson ran for a 1-yard touchdown in the fourth quarter and Baltimore forced three late Carolina turnovers.
NEW ORLEANS — Andy Dalton passed for three touchdowns, Mathew Stafford left the field to be evaluated for a concussion in the second half New Orleans beat reeling Los Angeles.
HOUSTON — Taylor Heinicke threw for 191 yards, Kendall Fuller returned an interception for a touchdown, and Washington rolled past Houston. | 2022-11-20T23:33:50Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Jones returns punt for TD to give Pats 10-3 win over Jets - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/nfl/jones-returns-punt-for-td-to-give-pats-10-3-win-over-jets/2022/11/20/3e01d7f8-691f-11ed-8619-0b92f0565592_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/nfl/jones-returns-punt-for-td-to-give-pats-10-3-win-over-jets/2022/11/20/3e01d7f8-691f-11ed-8619-0b92f0565592_story.html |
Virginia’s Jayden Gardner had 12 points as the Cavaliers claimed a tournament title in Las Vegas. (John Locher/AP)
LAS VEGAS — The 16th-ranked Virginia men’s basketball team capped an emotional weekend by rallying past No. 19 Illinois, 70-61, on Sunday in the championship game of the Main Event tournament at T-Mobile Arena. The Cavaliers got it done thanks to a decisive late run and relentless defense down the stretch.
Virginia (4-0) held Illinois (4-1) without a field goal for nearly all of the final four minutes as they reeled off 13 consecutive points, most of them coming from the free throw line. Reece Beekman was named tournament most outstanding player after notching a game-high 17 points, including a three-point play with 3:11 left that put Virginia ahead for good at 60-58. The junior guard shot 6 for 8 at the foul line and added four rebounds and three assists.
After the game, tournament organizers presented Beekman with a gold chain for being named MVP. He also posed for pictures with a championship belt while being mobbed by teammates in what the players and Coach Tony Bennett called a moment of relief amid the heartache back home.
“It feels great in the moment, but because I think even more so now we know what truly matters,” Bennett said. “Our families, our faith, appreciating the gift of each day. When you have a momentary celebration like this, it enables you to enjoy it and it seems to matter, but in the big picture it doesn’t. What matters are the things that have been brought front and center.”
The Cavaliers played one day after a memorial service was held at John Paul Jones Arena, their home court, that honored the memory of Lavel Davis Jr., Devin Chandler and D’Sean Perry, the football players fatally shot Nov. 13. Another player, Mike Hollins Jr., is recovering in the hospital following multiple surgeries after a gunman opened fire on a charter bus carrying approximately 25 students that had come back to campus following a school trip to D.C.
“We just wanted to come out and play for the guys — for Lavel, D’Sean and Devin,” Beekman said. “So just playing for them, having them in our hearts and just praying for their families and their teammates. We just wanted to show our respect and come out and win, [and] that’s what we did.”
A basketball game scheduled for Monday was canceled, but players returned to practice Tuesday and Wednesday for games in Las Vegas on Friday and Sunday. The players practiced Saturday but were able to watch part of the memorial service while on the bus to the arena.
Several members of the basketball team, including starting center Kadin Shedrick, were close with the victims. Shedrick said he often played video games with Perry. Their favorite was the FIFA soccer series.
“It’s just been tough this whole week, but Coach emphasized this trip could be our release away from what was going on and motivation,” Virginia forward Jayden Gardner said. “[Chandler, Davis, Perry] were watching over us playing, and the team, we rallied. All across the world, really, there’s been support for Virginia. I think we came together this trip and showed what we’re capable of.”
Maryland handles Miami to win Hall of Fame Tip-Off
Gardner finished with 12 points and five rebounds. Guard Kihei Clark chipped in 12 points, three rebounds and three assists. The Cavaliers finished 25 for 32 (78.1 percent) from the free throw line.
Virginia made 20 of 24 foul shots (83.3 percent) in the second half, following a script it used Friday night to beat No. 5 Baylor, 86-79.
Virginia forced 13 turnovers and held a 19-9 advantage in points off turnovers. Beekman stood out on defense, helping to limit Illini leading scorer Terrence Shannon Jr. to nine points on 4-for-10 shooting. Shannon, who committed a game-high six turnovers, entered the game averaging 24.3 points.
A moment of silence was held before the national anthem in the tournament’s opening round, and players again Sunday wore blue warmup shirts with the last names of the victims across the back and “UVASTRONG” across the chest. Illinois players wore the same shirts during warmups.
“Everything they’re going through is tragedy,” Illini Coach Brad Underwood said of the Cavaliers. “I just can’t imagine. It meant a lot to us that they allowed us to wear their shooting shirts.”
Jayden Epps led Illinois with 14 points. The only other Illini player to score in double figures was Coleman Hawkins, who had 10. | 2022-11-21T00:01:21Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Virginia basketball team rallies to emotional victory over Illinois - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/11/20/virginia-illinois-basketball-main-event-champios/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/11/20/virginia-illinois-basketball-main-event-champios/ |
After being benched, Diamond Miller responds with career day for Terps
Terrapins 73, Bears 68
Maryland guard Diamond Miller was amped up and scored a career-high 32 points in a 73-68 win over Baylor. (Rod Aydelotte/Waco Tribune Herald/AP)
WACO, Texas — Maryland guard Diamond Miller was yanked out of Sunday’s game less than two minutes into the contest after she committed three quick turnovers. Coach Brenda Frese immediately sat her star down for a few words and let her stay there before sending her back in midway through the first quarter.
The start was as ugly as it gets for the Terrapins, but Miller would make up for it soon after. No. 19 Maryland overcame a sloppy afternoon by getting on Miller’s back and letting her carry the group with a career-high 32 points to go along with 10 rebounds and three assists in a 73-68 victory over No. 17 Baylor.
“I just think I needed to relax,” Miller said. “The first two minutes of the game was a blur. It just exited my mind. And once I got to settle in, I could see the floor and the basket seemed like the ocean, to be honest.
“Yeah, I needed a pause. I don't know. It was just, my emotions were high. I was really excited for this game and I needed a pause.”
Last time out: Maryland puts on a show for the kids in win over Davidson
The Bears (3-1) had won 69 of their last 70 regular season nonconference games at the Ferrell Center, with the last loss coming against U-Conn. in January 2014.
Maryland (4-1) struggled to hold onto the ball and had turnovers on its first four possessions. The four turnovers came before the Terrapins even took a shot and they finished with seven in the first quarter alone. Things never really got better in that facet as Maryland ended the game with 19 turnovers, after averaging 14.8 on the season, that Baylor turned into 22 points.
But it was Miller to the rescue throughout the afternoon.
“Diamond reminds me a lot of Alyssa Thomas,” Frese said, “where when they’re so amped up as competitors that they kind of want it so badly, it’s not going to work. And I used to, even with Alyssa, just have that little moment. Let’s take a pause. Let’s get our heart rate back down, and just a terrific response out of Diamond. Just settling in and playing the way she knows how to play.”
Miller gave Baylor a bit of everything with step-throughs, up-and-unders, euro-steps, step-backs and was 8-for-10 from the free throw line. At the end of the third quarter, Miller waved off point guard Elisa Pinzan with the clock ticking down, showed a variety of dribbles before putting up a step-back triple that arced high above the backboard and fell through without grazing the rim. She then let loose her classic foot-stomp, flex and scream near the Baylor logo after taking a 53-47 lead going into the fourth quarter.
“She plays downhill all the time,” Baylor Coach Nicki Collen said of Miller. “She has a step-through. I thought she got away with a couple of travels today on the spins. But she’s just long and she plays under your armpits. And when she’s got the angle on you, if you overextend to cut her off, she steps through. She spins off you. And she draws fouls. … She just gets into your body and throws it up at times.”
The Bears continued to threaten all game as Maryland wasn’t able to pull away and Sarah Andrews hit timely triples and finished with 25 points, but it wasn’t enough. Miller closed with Maryland’s final seven points, including five free throws to ice the game.
Here’s what else to know about the Terrapins’ victory:
The Terps couldn’t pull away because of the turnovers and not having offensive help for Miller. No other player had reached double digits through the first three quarters until Abby Meyers got going in the fourth quarter. Meyers scored all but three of Maryland’s first 11 points in the fourth quarter and finished with 13 points and 10 rebounds.
“It’s game of runs, right?” Meyers said. “And luckily we got the run when it counted and when it mattered most. But really, we kind of just tell each other, let’s stay composed, right?
“For us, it’s just trusting the process, trusting what we’ve been working on in the offseason for these big moments. We love competition. Diamond’s like by far the biggest competitor I’ve ever played with. And so credit to her. She really came out and put us on her back.”
Moving forward, Maryland needs more from starting guard Lavender Briggs, who was held scoreless for the first time this season and only attempted two shots.
Both the Bears and Terps came into the season knowing there would be some early growing pains with drastically altered rosters. Baylor has eight new faces on the roster, compared to nine for Maryland. Both teams are still forming an identity and it showed as both had brief moments of brilliance mixed in with plenty of offensive uncertainty.
“Honestly, I think we showed growth,” Andrews said. “We could have folded. We could have laid down. But we showed that, hey, we can battle.”
If not for the turnovers, Maryland could have built a much more significant lead as Baylor shot just 22.5 percent from the field in the first half and was 1 for 17 from behind the arc. Frese thought the turnovers were a culmination of still-building chemistry and the nerves and excitement of a big game.
The Bears were without their best player, Aijha Blackwell, who went down in the first quarter of a 58-55 win over SMU on Tuesday. Collen has labeled it a lower leg injury. Blackwell was second team all-SEC with Missouri last season and averaged 15.4 points and 13 rebounds.
Final Four family
Former Maryland guard Chloe Pavlech is an assistant coach for Baylor and was a member of the Terrapin teams that advanced to the Final Four in 2014 and 2015. Pavlech joined the staff after Collen was hired before the start of last season. | 2022-11-21T00:36:12Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Diamond Miller scores 32 as No. 19 Maryland beats No. 17 Baylor - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/11/20/maryland-diamond-miller-baylor/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/11/20/maryland-diamond-miller-baylor/ |
Patriots stun Jets with game-winning punt return in final seconds
New England's Marcus Jones (25) evades New York punter Braden Mann during a scoring return that covered 84 yards. (AP Photo/Michael Dwyer)
The New England Patriots extended a lengthy winning streak over the New York Jets in stunning fashion Sunday when Marcus Jones returned a punt 84 yards for a game-winning score with five seconds left.
The touchdown and ensuing extra point broke a 3-3 tie and gave the Patriots a 10-3 win in a contest that saw 17 combined punts.
It was the first time in the NFL this season that a punt was returned for a touchdown. According to NFL Media, it was the first instance in at least the past 40 seasons of a game’s first touchdown coming in the final minute on a score by one side’s defense or special teams.
“How the game ended was phenomenal. It was like a movie script,” New England’s Deatrich Wise said afterward. “Out of all the football movies — ‘Rudy,’ ‘Any Given Sunday,’ ‘Remember the Titans’ — this beats it.”
Jones, a defensive back drafted this year in the third round, fielded Braden Mann’s 10th punt of the game and beat several Jets to the right sideline before turning upfield. Jones then swerved back toward the middle of the field and, after being sprung by a number of key blocks, avoided Mann’s last-gasp tackle attempt as teammates shepherded him to the end zone in front of a delirious crowd at Gillette Stadium in Foxborough, Mass.
Marcus Jones punt return for a touchdown, dots!!@NextGenStats pic.twitter.com/rfnDbscGWE
The Jets had one final chance, but after fielding a kickoff, New York’s Elijah Moore was quickly forced out of bounds and did not attempt a lateral.
Some observers online, including ESPN’s Robert Griffin III, wondered if the Patriots might have committed a block in the back on the Jets’ Justin Hardee late in the punt return, but officials did not flag the play. Hardee reportedly expressed frustration with the no-call afterward and said he was told by an official that the block was judged to have come from the side.
Had a penalty been called there, New England would have had an opportunity to try a game-winning field goal. That would have been no sure thing, though, on a windy day that saw Patriots kicker Nick Folk miss two of three earlier attempts.
NFL Sunday takeaways: Eagles beat Colts, Bills feel at home in Detroit
Instead, the Patriots got a thrilling win that gave them the same record as the Jets at 6-4 but meant New England swept the two-game season series, following a 22-17 victory last month at MetLife Stadium in East Rutherford, N.J. The Jets could have moved into first place in the AFC East with a win but instead fell to last place in the division, ceding what could be a crucial playoff tiebreaker.
New England has now beaten the Jets 14 straight times, a streak that dates back to Week 16 of the 2015 season. Going further back to their second meeting of the 2001 season — a span of 45 games that includes two playoff matchups — New York has beaten Patriots Coach Bill Belichick’s squad just eight times.
The Jets have the NFL’s longest active losing streak against a specific opponent, and it’s just the eighth time in league history such a streak has reached 14 games. The NFL record is 20 straight such losses, suffered by the Buffalo Bills at the hands of the Miami Dolphins from 1970 to 1979 (per ESPN).
“To me, whether you lose by one or a hundred, they’re all gut punches,” Jets Coach Robert Saleh said after Sunday’s dispiriting defeat. “It’s a loss. Yeah, it’s a crappy way to lose, you feel like you’re exchanging blows from a defensive standpoint from both teams, and if somebody could just make a play we’d get it to overtime, [but] they made a play in the kicking game.”
"That's crazy. That's something that happens in a video game or something"
- Sauce Gardner on the Jets taking the loss even with the defense playing so well pic.twitter.com/BWYI4hiJO1
Saleh added that the performance by Jets quarterback Zach Wilson “wasn’t good enough.” He went on to reaffirm that Wilson, in his second season after New York made him the No. 2 overall pick in the 2021 draft, would remain the starter going forward.
Wilson’s three interceptions in the teams’ previous meeting went a long way toward helping the Patriots win in October, and despite not committing any turnovers, he was arguably even worse in the rematch. The former BYU star had just nine completions — one fewer than the Jets kicked punts — on 22 pass attempts, for 77 yards and a passer rating of 50.8 while taking four sacks. Wilson was four of 11 in the second half for 12 yards and a net of minus-21 passing yards when factoring in lost yardage on sacks.
Patriots quarterback Mac Jones played with far greater efficiency, completing 23 of 27 passes for 246 yards, with a passer rating of 104.6. He was sacked six times, though, and couldn’t get his team into the end zone.
As it turned out, what Mac Jones could not do, Marcus Jones could with just seconds left to spare in regulation. Per NFL Research, his punt return made for the second-longest go-ahead, fourth-quarter touchdown in Patriots history, and the longest in 60 years.
“In 15 years, I’ve never won a game like that,” longtime Patriots special teams ace Matthew Slater told reporters. “I don’t even know what happened. That was crazy. Unbelievable effort by Marcus, obviously. … Credit to our guys — when we needed it the most, the guys went out there and strapped it up and blocked and gave him a chance to hit it, and then his talent and God-given ability did the rest.” | 2022-11-21T00:36:18Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Marcus Jones, Patriots stun Jets with game-winning punt return - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/11/20/patriots-jets-marcus-jones-punt-touchdown/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/11/20/patriots-jets-marcus-jones-punt-touchdown/ |
Commanders defensive tackles Daron Payne (94) and Jonathan Allen (93) celebrate a sack during the third quarter of the game against the Texans. (Katherine Frey/The Washington Post)
HOUSTON — An incomplete list of the celebrations used on the field or the sideline by Washington Commanders defenders Sunday: the “Double Dutch,” the “Spider Man meme,” the “wipe me down” (when tackles Jonathan Allen and Daron Payne pretended to dust off their shoes after a sack), the “fusion dance” (when safety Darrick Forrest and corner Benjamin St-Juste reenacted a bit from the cartoon “Dragon Ball Z” after an interception) and the “dance circle” (when linemen gathered around a teammate after a big play, bouncing and holding their hands high in praise).
“You know you making plays when you get to pull ’em out,” Payne said, smiling wide, after a rare comfortable win for Washington (6-5), which walloped the Houston Texans (1-8-1), 23-10, at NRG Stadium.
Despite the Texans’ ineptitude and a slight letdown in the second half, the Commanders’ defensive dominance Sunday was important. The performance illustrated an ability to refocus after pulling off a big upset and hinted at just how good the unit can be when players work together. On the second play of the game, corner Kendall Fuller returned an interception for a touchdown, and by halftime, Houston only had five net yards. It was just the 11th time this century a team failed to amass 10 or more net yards in the first half, according to TruMedia.
“The defense has really come together,” Coach Ron Rivera said. He credited defensive coordinator Jack Del Rio, his staff and players for correcting early-season struggles. “There’s some really cool stuff that’s going on right now,” Rivera added. “This team is starting to grow.”
The key to the game plan was run defense. Washington’s defenders said they knew Houston wanted to rely on rookie running back Dameon Pierce, as it had in its best games this season. But the Commanders were confident they could stop him. Washington has allowed one 100-yard rusher this season — Tennessee’s Derrick Henry, the league’s rushing leader — and advanced metrics suggest it’s a top-five run defense in the NFL.
On Sunday, the Commanders blew up run plays with coordinated rush schemes and pure physicality. The defenders set the tone early — Pierce’s first two rushes combined for minus-five yards — and delivered punishing hits. In 16 total rushes, the Texans’ longest gain was four yards.
“[Pierce] runs hard, so we hit him in the backfield before he got going,” defensive end James Smith-Williams said.
In the second quarter, the deficit forced the Texans to throw more, and the Commanders defensive line teed off on quarterback Davis Mills, often targeting Houston’s rookie left guard, Kenyon Green. When a reporter asked Payne if he’d seen one of Allen’s dominant rushes against Green, the lineman was confused.
“Which one?” Payne said. “We was f------ him up all game.”
Allen and Payne, who may be the best interior line duo in the NFL, seemed to have appointments with one another in the backfield. They combined for three sacks, four tackles for loss and five quarterback hits. Payne also added a batted pass. They celebrated with elaborate handshakes, and after the game, Allen said those celebrations are important because it’s so difficult to make plays in the NFL that “you got to enjoy one another.”
“I don’t know if Payne’s going to be here [next year],” Allen said, referencing his teammate’s expiring contract. “I don’t know what his situation is. We’re just trying to enjoy one another, play off each other and just have fun. I feel like too many times, you get caught up in all the big stuff, but really, [you should] just enjoy being around each other. When you talk to guys who aren’t in the league no more, the biggest thing that they miss is the locker room, so I’m really trying to take that in.”
Payne said he’s trying not to think about a new contract.
“This offseason, I was training real hard to get to the position I’m in now,” he said. “So it’s only up from now. I just keep trying to make plays, and then at the end of it, figure it out.”
In the second half, the Commanders had lapses while playing soft coverage. Texans receiver Brandin Cooks beat linebacker Jon Bostic on a short crosser and scampered 41 yards. Receiver Nico Collins racked up 22. Mills scrambled for a four-yard touchdown.
Those were the types of plays that prevented Allen from suggesting the Commanders defense is playing as well as it did at the end of 2020.
“The best defenses are the most consistent,” he said. “We had a really good first half; second half was not as good. We had a good game against Philadelphia, [but] against the Vikings, we let too many drives down the field late in the game, and we lost.”
But in the locker room Sunday, the defenders seemed to be living in the moment. Forrest and St-Juste relived the third-quarter interception, when St-Juste tipped a long ball and Forrest swooped in for the catch. It was the third time in two games the two had combined for a turnover — and Forrest said it started with the line.
“I got four lions in front of me, and I’m just sitting back there waiting,” he said, adding: “They’re getting after the quarterback. He’s flustered, he doesn’t have nowhere to throw it, so he’s just throwing it up, and we’re going to get it. That’s our brand of football, and that’s what we’re going to continue to do.”
At one point, Smith-Williams grabbed a microphone, jumped into a scrum of reporters and asked Payne, “Daron, what's it like playing with James Smith-Williams?”
“I mean, look at the guy,” Payne said, pointing to Smith-Williams’s sunglasses and fluffy white coat. “He’s a cool guy … swaggy guy. Nice.”
Sweat added that the team had more celebrations it wanted to use for the big plays still to come.
“We got a few in the bag we going to pull out,” he said, grinning. | 2022-11-21T01:19:52Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Commanders defense dominated the Texans — and had a lot of fun doing it - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/11/20/allen-payne-commanders-defense-texans/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/11/20/allen-payne-commanders-defense-texans/ |
Mourners attend a vigil at All Souls Unitarian Church on Nov. 20. (Matthew Staver for The Washington Post)
As news of a mass shooting at a LGBTQ nightclub in Colorado traveled across the country Sunday, many were asking how to help family members of the victims and survivors, or the LGBTQ community in general. Within hours, organizers were creating fundraisers and sharing locations for blood drives.
With at least five dead and more than 25 injured in the Saturday night shooting at Club Q in Colorado Springs, mourners across the city put together at least 14 vigils to offer collective support. Willow Creek Wellness, a mental health service in Colorado Springs, was providing flowers, coffee and doughnuts to those attending a memorial for victims Sunday. At a vigil at the All Souls Unitarian Church, there was not enough room for everyone who wanted to participate, and organizers told attendees they will continue holding more vigils.
“Colorado stands with our LGBTQ community and everyone impacted by this tragedy as we mourn,” Colorado Gov. Jared Polis (D) said on Twitter. “I have spoken with Mayor [John] Suthers and clarified that every state resource is available to local law enforcement in Colorado Springs.”
Here are some resources for those looking to help or those who need services in the aftermath of the shooting.
Club Q shared an official donation site to help victims of the shooting on its Facebook page Sunday afternoon. The donation site, Colorado Gives 365, supports the Colorado Healing Fund, which was created to deal with the aftermath of mass violence and provide victims with immediate and long-term support.
Greg Resha, a former employee of Club Q, is also helping to raise funds for medical and funeral expenses for the victims and families of the mass shooting. The GoFundMe page says that all funds will be donated to the Colorado Gives 365 organization.
Good Judy Garage, an LGBTQ-owned auto repair shop in the Denver area, has set a goal of $500,000 for funeral expenses, medical expenses and other expenses for families of those who were killed or injured by the gunman. “Our goal is to at least cover 5k of funeral expenses for each of the 5 victims,” the GoFundMe page reads.
Classroom of Compassion, an arts-focused nonprofit organization in Los Angeles, has also set up a GoFundMe page to collect funds and travel to Colorado Springs to set up public altars and a healing youth pop-up space to honor the victims.
All three of the GoFundMe fundraisers have been verified by the site.
Donations can also be made to blood banks. As of Sunday afternoon, Vitalant, a nonprofit blood donation organization, had sent 70 units of blood products to hospitals in Colorado Springs in response to “the senseless violence at Club Q,” it said on Twitter.
“Those who want to help can make an appointment to give blood in the coming days and weeks ahead to help ensure blood is available for emergencies and everyday patient needs,” the organization tweeted.
Children’s Hospital Colorado also has a blood donation center located at the Anschutz Medical campus in Aurora. It is open from Monday to Friday for blood donations.
Over 60 therapists have offered low-fee, sliding-scale or free sessions for those impacted by the shooting. The city of Colorado Springs shared details for contacting the therapists on its website.
From Monday to Wednesday, the Colorado Springs Police Department is hosting a resource expo to provide community members with support. Mental health resources, spiritual support, emotional support animals, child care, emergency financial resources, LGBTQ+ support, meals and other services will be provided, the police department tweeted.
El Paso County Public Health shared via Twitter that the Colorado Crisis Services hotline is available around-the-clock via phone call or text for those who need it. The public health agency also shared further mental health resources on their website. | 2022-11-21T02:33:50Z | www.washingtonpost.com | How to help after the mass shooting at Club Q in Colorado Springs - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/11/20/lgbtq-club-colorado-donations-help/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/11/20/lgbtq-club-colorado-donations-help/ |
Hendon Hooker set several program records for Tennessee after taking over as its starter three games into the 2021 season. (Todd Kirkland/Getty Images)
A bad weekend for the Tennessee Volunteers took a disastrous turn when the program announced Sunday that starting quarterback Hendon Hooker had suffered a torn ACL during a lopsided loss to South Carolina the day before.
The injury not only ends his season but also his college career. A 24-year-old redshirt senior in his sixth and final year of college eligibility, Hooker had become a leading candidate for the Heisman Trophy while guiding Tennessee back to national prominence.
“Hendon and the Hooker family appreciate all of your prayers and support,” the Volunteers said in a statement shared on social media. “Hendon’s incredible journey has been defined by faith, perseverance and strength. Obstacles have never stood in the way on his path to greatness. Forever a Tennessee legend and the ultimate teammate, we know Hendo will come back stronger than ever as he embarks on a promising NFL future. Thank you, Hendo.”
Joe Milton, who replaced Hooker at quarterback following the latter’s injury Saturday, is set to be the starter for the Volunteers in next week’s regular season finale at Vanderbilt and in a bowl game. Milton, a redshirt senior who transferred last year from Michigan, started the first two games for Tennessee in 2021 before suffering an injury. That opened the door for Hooker, who took over the position at that point and led the Volunteers to a 7-6 finish that year under Coach Josh Heupel, then in his first season.
Tennessee is 9-2 this year and, even after a 63-38 loss to South Carolina, is in position for its first 10-win season since 2007. If the Volunteers win this Saturday and in a bowl game to get to 11-2, it will be their most victories since 2001.
From October: If Tennessee upsets Alabama, it may be ‘Hello, Heisman’ for Hendon Hooker
The blowout loss to the Gamecocks, though, will almost certainly cost Tennessee any chance this season at a national championship. The Volunteers remained in fifth place last week in the College Football Playoff rankings, just one spot shy of a berth in the two-round playoff, but they are expected to take a tumble when this week’s list is revealed Tuesday. In the latest Associated Press media poll unveiled Sunday, Tennessee dropped from fifth to ninth.
Hooker ends his season with 3,135 yards on 69.6 percent passing for 27 touchdowns and just two interceptions. He also added 430 yards and five touchdowns on the ground, and was a leading contender for the Heisman entering this week.
“He’s playing as high a level as I’ve ever had anybody, and I’ve had Heisman guys,” Heupel had said of Hooker on Monday. “He’s in complete command of what we’re doing. When you look at the efficiency of how he’s playing, the ability to take care of the football, the dynamic plays that he’s made with his arm and his feet, we don’t look like we do offensively without him. He’s certainly deserving of being in that conversation.”
What a TRANSCENDENT year for Hendon Hooker. Helped bring Tennessee back to relevancy, firmly in the Heisman Trophy race all year and an easy guy to root for. Praying for a full recovery from his knee injury.
A four-star prospect coming out of high school in 2017, Hooker initially went to Virginia Tech and spent four years there. He started 15 games over the 2019 and 2020 seasons before moving to Tennessee in the transfer portal. In that two-season stretch with the Hokies, he appeared in 19 games and completed 63.1 percent of his passes for 2,894 yards, 22 touchdowns and seven interceptions, with another 1,033 yards and 15 touchdowns on the ground.
At Tennessee, Hooker set program records with 20 consecutive games with a touchdown pass and 261 consecutive pass attempts without an interception. With a career completion percentage in Knoxville of 68.8, he also soared past a program record that had been set by Peyton Manning (62.5).
Hooker tore the ligament in his left knee Saturday without contact when he tried to plant it on a fourth-quarter option keeper. He had assistance in getting off the field and did not return to the game.
“It was probably one of the worst things I have seen out there,” Tennessee offensive lineman Jerome Carvin said of Hooker’s injury after the loss to South Carolina. “Just to know how hard he works. Probably the hardest-working guy I have ever played with. It is so unfortunate for it to happen to a guy like that. If I know anything, I know he will bounce back from it for sure. He is a warrior. I know he will.” | 2022-11-21T02:34:14Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Hendon Hooker, Tennessee QB and Heisman hopeful, out for season with ACL tear - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/11/20/hendon-hooker-tennessee-acl-injury/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/11/20/hendon-hooker-tennessee-acl-injury/ |
FANDUEL SPORTSBOOK LINE: San Francisco -5.5; over/under is 144
BOTTOM LINE: San Francisco takes on the Northern Iowa Panthers after Tyrell Roberts scored 22 points in San Francisco’s 67-60 win over the Fresno State Bulldogs.
San Francisco went 24-10 overall with a 13-4 record at home during the 2021-22 season. The Dons allowed opponents to score 67.8 points per game and shoot 42.6% from the field last season.
Northern Iowa finished 20-12 overall with a 9-5 record on the road last season. The Panthers allowed opponents to score 71.0 points per game and shoot 45.0% from the field last season. | 2022-11-21T08:45:06Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Roberts leads San Francisco against Northern Iowa after 22-point performance - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/colleges/roberts-leads-san-francisco-against-northern-iowa-after-22-point-performance/2022/11/21/90049844-696d-11ed-8619-0b92f0565592_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/colleges/roberts-leads-san-francisco-against-northern-iowa-after-22-point-performance/2022/11/21/90049844-696d-11ed-8619-0b92f0565592_story.html |
Sacramento State Hornets take on the UC Davis Aggies, seek 4th straight victory
Davis, Oklahoma; Tuesday, 10:30 p.m. EST
BOTTOM LINE: Sacramento State will attempt to keep its three-game win streak alive when the Hornets take on UC Davis.
UC Davis finished 7-5 at home last season while going 13-11 overall. The Aggies averaged 67.8 points per game last season, 31.1 in the paint, 13.9 off of turnovers and 9.4 on fast breaks.
Sacramento State went 4-9 on the road and 11-18 overall last season. The Hornets averaged 13.7 points off of turnovers, 7.3 second chance points and 2.0 bench points last season. | 2022-11-21T08:45:12Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Sacramento State Hornets take on the UC Davis Aggies, seek 4th straight victory - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/colleges/sacramento-state-hornets-take-on-the-uc-davis-aggies-seek-4th-straight-victory/2022/11/21/725dc254-6970-11ed-8619-0b92f0565592_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/colleges/sacramento-state-hornets-take-on-the-uc-davis-aggies-seek-4th-straight-victory/2022/11/21/725dc254-6970-11ed-8619-0b92f0565592_story.html |
South Carolina Upstate Spartans to visit the Air Force Falcons Monday
FANDUEL SPORTSBOOK LINE: Air Force -6; over/under is 133.5
BOTTOM LINE: The Air Force Falcons host the South Carolina Upstate Spartans.
Air Force finished 11-18 overall with a 7-6 record at home during the 2021-22 season. The Falcons averaged 59.0 points per game last season, 26.1 in the paint, 12.6 off of turnovers and 5.1 on fast breaks.
South Carolina Upstate finished 15-17 overall a season ago while going 8-9 on the road. The Spartans shot 44.7% from the field and 36.5% from 3-point range last season. | 2022-11-21T08:45:30Z | www.washingtonpost.com | South Carolina Upstate Spartans to visit the Air Force Falcons Monday - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/colleges/south-carolina-upstate-spartans-to-visit-the-air-force-falcons-monday/2022/11/21/63b27c20-696d-11ed-8619-0b92f0565592_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/colleges/south-carolina-upstate-spartans-to-visit-the-air-force-falcons-monday/2022/11/21/63b27c20-696d-11ed-8619-0b92f0565592_story.html |
BOTTOM LINE: South Florida enters the matchup with UAB after losing four games in a row.
South Florida went 8-23 overall with a 6-10 record at home during the 2021-22 season. The Bulls averaged 10.9 points off of turnovers, 9.7 second chance points and 16.8 bench points last season.
UAB went 27-8 overall with a 7-4 record on the road last season. The Blazers shot 46.8% from the field and 37.7% from 3-point range last season. | 2022-11-21T08:45:36Z | www.washingtonpost.com | South Florida Bulls face the UAB Blazers on 4-game slide - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/colleges/south-florida-bulls-face-the-uab-blazers-on-4-game-slide/2022/11/21/b5b3b87e-6970-11ed-8619-0b92f0565592_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/colleges/south-florida-bulls-face-the-uab-blazers-on-4-game-slide/2022/11/21/b5b3b87e-6970-11ed-8619-0b92f0565592_story.html |
Texas State visits Cal following Askew's 21-point game
FANDUEL SPORTSBOOK LINE: Cal -2.5; over/under is 126.5
Cal went 10-8 at home last season while going 12-20 overall. The Golden Bears averaged 63.0 points per game while allowing opponents to score 66.1 last season.
Texas State went 21-8 overall with a 7-6 record on the road a season ago. The Bobcats averaged 70.4 points per game while shooting 46.2% from the field and 37.3% from behind the arc last season. | 2022-11-21T08:45:54Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Texas State visits Cal following Askew's 21-point game - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/colleges/texas-state-visits-cal-following-askews-21-point-game/2022/11/21/4dfec2f0-6970-11ed-8619-0b92f0565592_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/colleges/texas-state-visits-cal-following-askews-21-point-game/2022/11/21/4dfec2f0-6970-11ed-8619-0b92f0565592_story.html |
UCSB hosts Hampton after Dean's 23-point outing
FANDUEL SPORTSBOOK LINE: UCSB -19; over/under is 141.5
BOTTOM LINE: Hampton visits the UCSB Gauchos after Russell Dean scored 23 points in Hampton’s 82-73 loss to the East Carolina Pirates.
UCSB finished 11-3 at home a season ago while going 17-11 overall. The Gauchos allowed opponents to score 65.8 points per game and shoot 41.8% from the field last season.
Hampton went 9-19 overall with a 2-12 record on the road last season. The Pirates averaged 64.8 points per game while shooting 40.1% from the field and 29.8% from 3-point range last season. | 2022-11-21T08:46:12Z | www.washingtonpost.com | UCSB hosts Hampton after Dean's 23-point outing - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/colleges/ucsb-hosts-hampton-after-deans-23-point-outing/2022/11/21/59053eae-6970-11ed-8619-0b92f0565592_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/colleges/ucsb-hosts-hampton-after-deans-23-point-outing/2022/11/21/59053eae-6970-11ed-8619-0b92f0565592_story.html |
UT Martin visits Arkansas State after Fields' 25-point outing
BOTTOM LINE: Arkansas State plays the UT Martin Skyhawks after Caleb Fields scored 25 points in Arkansas State’s 75-60 loss to the UC Davis Aggies.
Arkansas State finished 18-11 overall with an 11-3 record at home during the 2021-22 season. The Red Wolves averaged 70.9 points per game while shooting 45.1% from the field and 31.1% from deep last season.
UT Martin went 8-22 overall last season while going 2-13 on the road. The Skyhawks allowed opponents to score 73.5 points per game and shoot 43.1% from the field last season. | 2022-11-21T08:46:43Z | www.washingtonpost.com | UT Martin visits Arkansas State after Fields' 25-point outing - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/colleges/ut-martin-visits-arkansas-state-after-fields-25-point-outing/2022/11/21/9af8ae18-6970-11ed-8619-0b92f0565592_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/colleges/ut-martin-visits-arkansas-state-after-fields-25-point-outing/2022/11/21/9af8ae18-6970-11ed-8619-0b92f0565592_story.html |
UT Rio Grande Valley Vaqueros to host Western Illinois Leathernecks Monday
FANDUEL SPORTSBOOK LINE: UT Rio Grande Valley -3; over/under is 155.5
BOTTOM LINE: The UT Rio Grande Valley Vaqueros host the Western Illinois Leathernecks.
UT Rio Grande Valley finished 8-23 overall with a 4-10 record at home during the 2021-22 season. The Vaqueros averaged 12.2 assists per game on 24.5 made field goals last season.
Western Illinois finished 7-9 on the road and 16-16 overall last season. The Leathernecks shot 43.4% from the field and 33.1% from 3-point range last season. | 2022-11-21T08:46:49Z | www.washingtonpost.com | UT Rio Grande Valley Vaqueros to host Western Illinois Leathernecks Monday - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/colleges/ut-rio-grande-valley-vaqueros-to-host-western-illinois-leathernecks-monday/2022/11/21/817d372c-696d-11ed-8619-0b92f0565592_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/colleges/ut-rio-grande-valley-vaqueros-to-host-western-illinois-leathernecks-monday/2022/11/21/817d372c-696d-11ed-8619-0b92f0565592_story.html |
Western Kentucky takes on Akron, looks for 4th straight win
FANDUEL SPORTSBOOK LINE: Western Kentucky -4.5; over/under is 134.5
BOTTOM LINE: Western Kentucky is looking to extend its three-game win streak with a victory against Akron.
Western Kentucky went 19-13 overall last season while going 13-4 at home. The Hilltoppers shot 46.7% from the field and 35.4% from 3-point range last season.
Akron went 8-4 on the road and 24-10 overall last season. The Zips averaged 70.6 points per game last season, 14.2 on free throws and 23.4 from 3-point range. | 2022-11-21T08:47:02Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Western Kentucky takes on Akron, looks for 4th straight win - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/colleges/western-kentucky-takes-on-akron-looks-for-4th-straight-win/2022/11/21/73adbc8e-696d-11ed-8619-0b92f0565592_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/colleges/western-kentucky-takes-on-akron-looks-for-4th-straight-win/2022/11/21/73adbc8e-696d-11ed-8619-0b92f0565592_story.html |
Williams leads Texas A&M-CC against CSU Bakersfield after 24-point game
Corpus Christi, Texas; Tuesday, 6 p.m. EST
BOTTOM LINE: Texas A&M-CC hosts the CSU Bakersfield Roadrunners after Ross Williams scored 24 points in Texas A&M-CC’s 97-75 win against the UT Rio Grande Valley Vaqueros.
Texas A&M-CC went 23-12 overall last season while going 9-4 at home. The Islanders averaged 76.6 points per game last season, 34.4 in the paint, 18.8 off of turnovers and 13.9 on fast breaks.
CSU Bakersfield went 9-19 overall with a 2-11 record on the road last season. The Roadrunners shot 42.3% from the field and 28.8% from 3-point range last season. | 2022-11-21T08:47:14Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Williams leads Texas A&M-CC against CSU Bakersfield after 24-point game - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/colleges/williams-leads-texas-aandm-cc-against-csu-bakersfield-after-24-point-game/2022/11/21/39cd5e90-6970-11ed-8619-0b92f0565592_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/colleges/williams-leads-texas-aandm-cc-against-csu-bakersfield-after-24-point-game/2022/11/21/39cd5e90-6970-11ed-8619-0b92f0565592_story.html |
MINNEAPOLIS — Tony Pollard had two touchdown catches for Dallas with a career-high 189 yards from scrimmage, and the Cowboys sacked Kirk Cousins a career-most seven times in a 40-3 victory over Minnesota that slammed the Vikings’ seven-game winning streak to a screeching halt.
NEW YORK — Southern California moved into the top five of The Associated Press college football poll Sunday for the first time in five years. | 2022-11-21T08:47:38Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Weekend Sports In Brief - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/weekend-sports-in-brief/2022/11/21/dc14fd50-6972-11ed-8619-0b92f0565592_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/weekend-sports-in-brief/2022/11/21/dc14fd50-6972-11ed-8619-0b92f0565592_story.html |
Ukraine live briefing: Zelensky cites 400 shelling incidents in the east as fighting wears on
Ukrainian soldiers fire at Russian positions on Sunday near Bakhmut in the Donetsk region. (Libkos/AP)
Fierce battles continue in Ukraine’s east, with the Luhansk region recording about 400 incidents of shelling in the past day, President Volodymyr Zelensky said Sunday in his nightly address. The nearly nine-month-old conflict is showing no signs of abating as winter approaches and both sides gear up to continue the fight well into next year.
Muddy conditions have made warfare especially difficult, and Ukraine and Russia are struggling with stretched ammunition supplies and battle-weary troops. “Little by little we are moving forward with battles,” Zelensky said. “We are holding the line, consistently and very calculatedly destroying the potential of the occupiers.”
The situation has led to suggestions, including from the Pentagon, that it could be time for Ukraine to negotiate a political solution to the conflict with Russia — which almost certainly would require surrendering some territory. Zelensky, who is preparing for a number of international addresses this week, said: “We will do everything to make the world accept the Ukrainian peace formula.”
Ukraine’s power utilities are working round-the-clock to restore transmission lines damaged in Russian bombardments. More than a dozen areas endured blackouts on Sunday, including the Vinnytsia, Sumy, Poltava, Khmelnytskyi, Ivano-Frankivsk and Kyiv regions, as well as the capital.
Angry families say Russian conscripts have been thrown to the front line unprepared. Recently mobilized soldiers have been deployed into battle with little training, poor equipment and often no clear orders, according to relatives who are risking the Kremlin’s wrath by posting videos online and talking to foreign media. Many are exhausted and confused, according to their families. Some wander lost in the woods for days. Others refuse to fight.
Powerful explosions were reported around the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant in eastern Ukraine on Saturday and Sunday, ending a period of relative calm there and raising new concerns of possible accidents, the International Atomic Energy Agency said. Russian and Ukrainian energy officials traded blame for the shelling. The Washington Post could not independently verify these claims.
Zelensky on Sunday said he addressed participants at the Organisation Internationale de la Francophonie, a meeting of more than 50 countries with French-speaking populations. “Everywhere they hear Ukraine, everywhere they know our proposals on how to restore peace to Ukraine and how to restore stability to the world,” he said.
New Zealand on Monday announced more sanctions on the inner circle of Russian President Vladimir Putin, which followed a weekend visit to Kyiv by the country’s defense minister. Included in the sanctions are Putin’s daughters; the wife and children of Putin’s press secretary; the governor of the central bank, along with a number of entities of economic or strategic relevance to Russia in the oil and gas, steel and transport sectors. The sanctions “demonstrate our clear condemnation of the threats to the sovereignty of Ukraine, and the human toll of this illegal war,” Nanaia Mahuta, New Zealand’s foreign minister, said in a statement.
IAEA chief Rafael Grossi said those responsible for the strikes in Zaporizhzhia are “playing with fire.” The nuclear power plant, Europe’s largest, is operated by Ukrainian workers but is under the control of Russian forces. Experts with the U.N. nuclear watchdog are calling for urgent measures to help prevent a potentially catastrophic nuclear accident.
Ukraine confronts tougher fight in push to extend battlefield wins. After reclaiming the northeastern Kharkiv region and forcing Russia’s embarrassing retreat from the city of Kherson, Ukrainian forces have hit a wall as they try to extend a counteroffensive that just two months ago was progressing at speed.
Russian positions on the redrawn front in many cases are more dug in, forcing the Ukrainians to try to penetrate multiple lines of defense. Muddy conditions make fighting particularly difficult until the ground freezes in midwinter. Neither side is close to what it envisions as victory, write Isabelle Khurshudyan, Paul Sonne, Liz Sly and Kamila Hrabchuk. | 2022-11-21T08:47:44Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Russia-Ukraine war latest updates - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/11/21/russia-ukraine-war-latest-updates/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/11/21/russia-ukraine-war-latest-updates/ |
Records show Jones transferred millions from his media company to firms that he or his family members controlled
Alex Jones speaks to the media outside Connecticut Superior Court during his Sandy Hook defamation damages trial in September. (Christian Abraham/Hearst Connecticut Media/AP)
Parents of children killed at Sandy Hook Elementary School had sued him and his media company for defamation after he repeatedly claimed the 2012 massacre in Connecticut was a hoax. Fans of the Infowars host had harassed and threatened grieving families. By the summer of 2020, two of the lawsuits weren’t going his way.
Between August 2020 and November 2021, Free Speech Systems signed promissory notes — essentially IOUs — for $55 million to cover what it said were past debts to a company called PQPR Holdings that Jones owns with his parents, according to financial records filed in court by Jones’s attorneys. PQPR, which is managed by Jones’s father, a dentist, had bought tens of millions of dollars in supplements for Jones that he then sold on his show, the records say. A lawyer for Free Speech systems has said in court that the debt accrued unnoticed due to sloppy bookkeeping.
This year, Jones started paying his personal trainer $100,000 a week to help ship supplements and other merchandise, a Free Speech Systems attorney said in court. A company managed by Jones’s sister and listed as a “supplier or vendor” was paid $240,000, financial records show.
The IOUs and other recent transactions helped tip Free Speech Systems into bankruptcy in July, according to Jones’s court filings. An accountant hired by Jones calculated that Free Speech Systems had $79 million in liabilities at the end of May and only $14 million in assets, court records show. As a result, the Sandy Hook families could be left vying with other creditors — including the companies tied to Jones himself — to collect.
Will Alex Jones pay Sandy Hook families $1B? What to know about the huge award.
Attorneys for the Sandy Hook families contend in a separate suit filed in April in Texas state court that PQPR is “not actually an independent business” and that Jones has engaged in fraudulent transfers to shield his wealth. They have argued in bankruptcy court that Jones began moving money out of Free Speech Systems only after he began to face legal setbacks in the defamation cases.
“In the middle of this lawsuit, they started documenting debts that had no evidence of existing beforehand,” Sandy Hook attorney Avi Berkowitz said in an interview.
A Justice Department trustee whose role in the bankruptcy case is to ensure the integrity of the process also has criticized the agreement to pay PQPR. “We, the U.S. Trustee, we do have concerns with the underlying transaction,” attorney Ha Nguyen told the court, according to a transcript. An agency spokeswoman declined to comment.
Alex Jones, his personal attorney, and attorneys for Free Speech Systems and PQPR did not respond to requests for comment or to detailed lists of questions from The Post. David Jones, Alex Jones’s father, and an attorney representing him also did not respond to requests for comment.
Jones and his father have said in court proceedings that PQPR was created in 2013 for liability protection as Jones got into the supplement business and as his father took on a management role. The accountant hired by Jones told the bankruptcy court that PQPR was a legitimate business that shared responsibility with Jones’s main company for “setting up supply chains, obtaining required governmental certifications, negotiating with vendors, procuring and paying for product, and overhead.”
Raymond Battaglia, a lawyer for Free Speech Systems, has said that as the Infowars brand ballooned, and millions of dollars poured in, the family-run business never adopted “appropriate management and accounting controls,” and so it failed to note the debt that had built up to PQPR.
“This is kind of like the garage band that became the boy band overnight, and had his girlfriend running the books, and the head roadie being the business manager,” Battaglia said in August in the bankruptcy case.
The issue, said Jay L. Westbrook, a University of Texas bankruptcy law professor, is whether the court rules the transfers of wealth were made in the ordinary course of business. “At the end the of the day, the question is whether these are valid payments,” Westbrook said.
Infowars has made Jones a wealthy man, to a degree that has become apparent only because of the Sandy Hook litigation. In August testimony, an expert hired by the Sandy Hook families estimated Jones’s net worth at between $135 million and $270 million. Jones has disputed the plaintiffs’ estimations of his wealth.
“I don’t have all this money they’ve made up,” he said recently.
The supplement business tied to PQPR is the engine of Jones’s fortune, according to financial records Jones submitted in bankruptcy, often generating 2,000 to 3,000 orders a day, according to court testimony. Among the offerings are Survival Shield X-3 iodine spray, DNA Force Plus capsules and Super Male Vitality dietary supplement.
“If he wants to agree to some sort of terms that hold him accountable for all he’s done, we’ll be open to listening,” Berkowitz said. “Whether that means walking away from public life, to paying Sandy Hook families in full, the Sandy Hook families are not going to stop until Jones is held accountable.”
“They want us off air, that’s their goal,” he said during one show last month. “You’ve got my commitment. I’m not backing down.”
An empire built on conspiracies, supplements
Jones grew up in Texas, first in Dallas and then in Austin. He has said his early thinking was shaped when, as a high school student, he read the book “None Dare Call it a Conspiracy” by a member of the far-right John Birch Society. Jones was 19 in 1993 when federal agents raided the Branch Davidians’ compound in Waco, north of Austin, leading to a prolonged standoff that ended with 76 dead. He went to Austin Community College for a time but left after growing bored, he told the Austin-American Statesman.
He told the newspaper that his anger toward big government stemmed from problems his father and his grandparents had with the IRS. “That’s where the venom comes from with me,” he said.
On air, Jones called the Branch Davidians victims of “a government coverup of its violation of the First Amendment,” and he asked listeners to send donations to help the sect build a new church and memorial. He wore a pin to the 1999 groundbreaking that said “You burn it, we build it,” according to the Associated Press. He was 25.
Jones railed against the government, the media and what he called the New World Order. He claimed that major world events were not what they seemed — and often that they were manufactured crises, staged to serve as pretexts to accomplish the goals of a secret cabal of globalists and multinational corporations.
How Alex Jones, conspiracy theorist extraordinaire, got Donald Trump’s ear
A few years later, Jones’s business was booming, but his marriage was failing.
In the fall of 2013 — two months before Kelly filed for divorce — Jones and his father created a series of companies, including PQPR, which they said in depositions were aimed at protecting Jones from legal liability as he grew his business. PQPR was owned by two other companies, which in turn were owned by Jones or his parents, a representative of Free Speech Systems said in a deposition filed in the bankruptcy case.
Alex Jones recounted during a June deposition in one of the defamation cases that they created the companies after he spoke with attorneys familiar with the Food and Drug Administration, the federal agency that regulates dietary supplements. “For liability protection issues, you know, it’s good to have a separate company that then does all of the compliance, buys the products, does all of that,” he said.
Jones’s father said in a deposition filed in the divorce case that Jones recruited him to leave dentistry in order to help professionalize operations and protect the company from liability. “He wanted to be sure that the entities that had been created were up and running properly, that they were legally constituted, that they were doing business as they were supposed to do,” he said, according to a court transcript.
Jones’s ex-wife has alleged that he created the companies as the couple was headed to divorce in order to protect his money, much as the Sandy Hook plaintiffs now accuse him. “Our marriage was absolutely terrible at that time. We were in negotiations for us to break up,” she said in an interview with The Post. “So he did that to hide his assets for when we broke up.”
Those companies all have a stake in Jones’s biggest revenue source: the supplements that he promotes as a way for viewers to improve their health and keep his show running. The supplement sales dramatically boosted his business, according to bankruptcy filings and former employees.
Josh Owens, who worked as a video editor at Infowars from 2013 to 2017, said he helped Jones with his first advertisement for an iodine supplement. “Everything changed after that,” he said. “It snowballed after that. It was pretty quickly creating new products, selling new products.”
Payments to friends, family come under scrutiny
In 2018, three years after his divorce was finalized, Sandy Hook families filed a series of lawsuits against Jones. They recounted how he had claimed that the parents were “crisis actors” and that the event was staged to further gun-control efforts.
Jones sought to have the cases thrown out. The day before an appeals court rejected his motion to have one of the cases dismissed, Jones signed a promissory note to PQPR for $29.6 million on Aug. 13, 2020. He also agreed to provide all of his company’s assets and revenue as collateral for the debt to PQPR, according to a contract Jones and his father signed.
Jones was also taking money out of the company for himself, records from the court cases show. By the end of 2021, he had withdrawn $61.9 million, according to the records. Jones’s attorneys have said in court that the withdrawals occurred over 15 years, and that half that amount was used to pay taxes. The plaintiffs’ attorneys have suggested the withdrawals may have been meant to prevent Sandy Hook families from accessing the money.
In February of this year, Jones transferred ownership of his Austin home — appraised at $2.8 million — into his wife’s name, according to county property records.
His personal trainer, Patrick Riley, in March created a logistics company, Blue Asension Logistics, to pack and ship supplements and other merchandise ordered by Infowars fans. The company hired nearly all of its employees from Infowars and uses the same Infowars warehouse, rent-free, to fulfill the orders, according to Riley’s testimony in the bankruptcy case. Jones agreed to pay him $400,000 upfront and then $105,000 per week, according to bankruptcy records.
An attorney for the Sandy Hook families, Marty Brimmage, said “this is not an arms-length transaction,” during an Aug. 12 hearing. “It isn’t even close.”
First, they lost their children. Then the conspiracy theories started. Now, the parents of Newtown are fighting back.
Battaglia argued that, while Riley may be friends with Jones, his business was independent. “Does Mr. Riley have a relationship with Mr. Jones? Absolutely. Is he an insider? No,” Battaglia said in the hearing.
In May and June, Free Speech Systems made six payments totaling $240,000 to a company managed by Jones’s sister, Marleigh Jones Rivera, according to bankruptcy records. The records do not specify who owns the company or the nature of its business.
On Nov. 10, the Connecticut judge temporarily blocked Jones from accessing the company’s money beyond what he needs for “ordinary expenses.”
Levitin said the most likely scenario may be that Free Speech Systems chooses to liquidate, which would likely mean Jones forgoing the rights to all his films, brands and intellectual property, the Infowars name included. “There is nothing beyond a real Hail Mary route for him to avoid liability at this point,” he said.
“I don’t lose sleep at night about giving them a billion dollars,” he said at a news conference he held in Connecticut in October. “They just misrepresent how much money I have. It’s a total fraud.”
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Fatal Force: Police shootings database | 2022-11-21T12:56:51Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Sandy Hook families sued Alex Jones. Then he started moving money around. - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/2022/11/21/alex-jones-sandy-hook-lawsuit/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/2022/11/21/alex-jones-sandy-hook-lawsuit/ |
For Tolkien fans, two books add rich new layers to the series
‘The Fall of Númenor’ and ‘The Silmarillion’ provide backstory and show off Tolkien’s artistry
Now that “The Lord of Rings: Rings of the Power” has finished its first season, what are Tolkien fans to do as we await the next installment? Never fear: The Tolkien literary estate seems to have an enchanted carpetbag, with wonders that emerge long after it has seemingly been emptied.
This month, it released “The Fall of Númenor,” a trove of source material about one of Middle-earth’s most intriguing and central backstories. The book is beautifully illustrated by Alan Lee and nimbly edited by Brian Sibley, who has toiled on a dozen previous Tolkien projects. Compiled from previously published material, the book is a handy addendum for any Tolkien completist and also a neat introduction for those whose sole knowledge of the doomed island comes from “The Rings of Power.”
The new Lord of the Rings series, explained
“Númenor” was Tolkien’s attempt to grapple with what he called his “Atlantis complex” or “Atlantis-haunting.” In a 1964 letter, he wrote: “This legend or myth or dim memory of some ancient history has always troubled me. In sleep I had the dreadful dream of the ineluctable Wave, either coming up out of a quiet sea, or coming in towering over the green islands. It still occurs occasionally, though now exorcised by writing about it.” Indeed, hints of Númenor’s cataclysmic history appear in “The Lord of the Rings,” with lengthier accounts recorded elsewhere in the vast Tolkien Legendarium. In a nutshell:
At the end of the First Age of Middle-earth, the evil Morgoth/Melkor is defeated by an alliance of Elves and Men. The Valar, “Guardians of the World,” are directed by Iluvatar the All-Powerful to reward these Men with their own island haven, a place “removed from the dangers of Middle-earth.” The sole hitch is the “Ban of the Valar.” This forbids the Númenóreans from ever sailing even further west, out of sight of their island home, or setting foot upon the Undying Lands, where the Valar and select among the Elves dwell.
Lose yourself in the places that inspired J.R.R. Tolkien
The account of this period of Númenórean history is longish and rather dull, despite the inclusion of a tale of ill-fated love. As Tolkien observes in “The Hobbit,” “Now it is a strange thing, that things that are good to have and days that are good to spend [are] not much to listen to; while things that are uncomfortable palpitating, and even gruesome, may make a good tale …” Fortunately for readers, trouble is afoot elsewhere in Middle-earth, where Sauron, Morgoth’s most powerful servant, has re-emerged. He is defeated again, but not before the Rings of Power have been forged under his tutelage, and dissent sowed between Elves and Númenóreans.
By now, the Númenóreans, brilliant mariners, have developed a taste for colonization and exploitation. They’ve grown impatient with the Ban of the Valar: Why shouldn’t they be immortal, too? “Ever guileful” Sauron (you didn’t really think he was dead, did you?) makes his way to Númenor. He uses three of his Nine Rings to ensnare powerful men (they eventually become Nazgûl), and encourages Númenor’s ruler to sail west and conquer the Undying Lands.
Here Tolkien’s uncomfortable palpitating and gruesome things are used to great effect, as the Númenórean people, obsessed with the necromantic arts, worship Melkor and fill “all the land with silent tombs in which the thought of death was enshrined with darkness.” They enslave other men and especially Elves, whom they have come to hate for their immortality, and sacrifice them to Melkor (Alan Lee illustrates this in a chilling, understated painting). Only a small group of Númenóreans remain faithful to the Valar, and plan to sail east to seek refuge with the Elves of Middle-earth.
If you’ve read “The Lord of the Rings” or watched “The Rings of Power,” much of which takes place in Númenor, you know it will not end well for those who dismiss the Valar. “The Fall of Númenor” serves as a fine companion to the continuing Amazon series — some among the Wise may well think it hath been planned thus. And devoted Tolkien readers will find much to amaze and delight them. My favorite tidbit pertains to the mysterious fate of the entwines, from a 1954 Tolkien letter: “Some of course, may have fled east, or even have become enslaved … If any survived so, they would indeed be far estranged from the Ents, and any rapprochement would be difficult — unless experience of industrialized and militarized agriculture had made them a little more anarchic. I hope so.”
Entwines as anarchist eco-warriors! One hopes the producers of “The Rings of Power” take note.
“The Fall of Númenor” would make a very nice holiday gift. But for especially deserving Tolkien fans, you might consider the sumptuous new edition of “The Silmarillion,” lavishly furnished with Tolkien’s paintings, drawings, embellishments, and maps, plus an excerpt from “The Tale of Túrin” written in the Rúmilian alphabet used only by the elves in Valinor. Tolkien was a talented artist whose work clearly shows the influence of Britain’s Arts and Crafts movement, equally at home with visionary landscapes and the decorative arts, as demonstrated by two jewel-toned drawings of Númenórean carpets. Gazing at these images in expectation of the holidays may inspire you to write a letter to Father Christmas — in Rúmilian, of course.
The Fall of Númenor and Other Tales from the Second Age of Middle-earth
Edited by Brian Sibley with illustrations by Alan Lee
HarperCollins, 296 pp, $40
By J.R.R. Tolkien; edited by Christopher Tolkien. Illustrated by the author
William Morrow, 358 pp, $65 | 2022-11-21T13:14:16Z | www.washingtonpost.com | For Tolkien fans, two books add rich new layers to the series - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/books/2022/11/21/tolkien-numenor-book/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/books/2022/11/21/tolkien-numenor-book/ |
“When Elon Musk came to the White House asking me for help on all of his many subsidized projects, whether it’s electric cars that don’t drive long enough, driverless cars that crash, or rocketships to nowhere, without which subsidies he’d be worthless, and telling me how he was a big Trump fan and Republican, I could have said, ‘drop to your knees and beg,’ and he would have done it…” — Donald Trump on Truth Social, 7/12/22Elon Musk took to Twitter on Sunday night, posting a cartoon of a woman eyeing a bottle of prescription drugs. He labeled the woman “Donald Trump” and the bottle “His reinstated twitter account.” In other words, Trump needs Twitter like some people need their drugs, and it won’t be long before Trump is active on the platform. (Musk later replaced that cartoon with a more suggestive one depicting a beguiling woman on her knees, her dress hiked up around her hips. A priest stands nearby, trying to resist the temptation of sex. Musk tagged the woman’s bare backside with the Twitter logo and labeled the priest “Trump.”)
The last time Trump posted something to Twitter was on Jan. 8, 2021 — two days after a violent mob that he inspired laid siege to the US Capitol. “To all of those who have asked, I will not be going to the Inauguration on January 20th,” he advised.
Twitter ultimately concluded that Trump’s boycott of the inauguration demonstrated little interest in a peaceful transfer of power. Instead, Trump’s tweets, Twitter said, were “likely to inspire others to replicate the violent acts that took place on January 6, 2021, and that there are multiple indicators that they are being received and understood as encouragement to do so.” So Twitter kicked Trump off the site. A board of outside advisers to Facebook reached the same conclusion early last year when it upheld a similar Trump ban on its platform.
No public figure in the US in the modern era has incited violence with the same gusto and disastrous, dangerous results as Trump. Free speech is a contingent right, and Trump’s repeated efforts to persuade his gladiators to take to the battlefield isn’t more important than democracy or public safety. And Trump, surrounded by lawyers who claim his presidency put him above the rule of law, is still being investigated as part of continuing state and federal investigations into his actions before, during and after Jan. 6, 2021.
It’s unlikely that any of that matters to Musk. If it did, he wouldn’t have turned Trump’s return to Twitter into a game. Like most technologists, he prefers to see Twitter as a digital connective tissue where everything should blossom freely and very little should be restricted. The responsibilities of being a thoughtful and sophisticated gatekeeper don’t interest him. Even when he waxes nostalgic and labels Twitter as a “de facto public town square,” he’s deluding himself. Few town squares want thugs roaming around them, calling for violence.
• Musk Invites Trump to His Twitter Hellscape: Parmy Olson
• Everyone’s Tweeting About the Mastodon in the Room: Tim Culpan | 2022-11-21T13:14:47Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Musk Woos Trump for an Ugly Twitter Codependency - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/musk-woos-trump-for-an-ugly-twitter-codependency/2022/11/21/3932a5bc-699d-11ed-8619-0b92f0565592_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/musk-woos-trump-for-an-ugly-twitter-codependency/2022/11/21/3932a5bc-699d-11ed-8619-0b92f0565592_story.html |
As of Nov. 1, the District has assigned about $1.7 million of the $50 million the federal government gave the city for foreclosure relief
Sunya Musawwir, 52, is the primary provider for her family and was among the first group of D.C. homeowners to apply to the Homeowner Assistance Fund during the pandemic. (Michael Robinson Chavez/The Washington Post)
Months before the bank posted a foreclosure threat on the front door of the home that Sunya Musawwir has owned for 30 years, the D.C. government told her they would take care of everything: Late penalties, fees, whatever it cost to bring her up to date on her mortgage.
But her debt — a constant reminder of the pandemic shutdowns that cost Musawwir her nonprofit job — grew by the week. So, too, did her anxiety.
Musawwir, 52, was among the first batch of D.C. homeowners to apply to the Homeowner Assistance Fund (HAF), a program meant to help Washingtonians keep their homes following pandemic-related hardships by providing money for mortgages, homeowner association fees, utility bills, internet service, insurance, delinquent property taxes and other penalties.
Musawwir sent in her application in December 2021. She owns a condo in one of the Zip codes that the District designated a high-need area, where the majority of homeowners are low income, Black and Latino, and at a high risk of falling behind on mortgage payments during the coronavirus pandemic.
Nearly a year later, Musawwir said, she has not received a dime from the program. The amount she owes the bank, meanwhile, has nearly doubled.
Musawwir is one of hundreds of D.C. homeowners whose cases remain caught in a process that advocates and homeowners have described as slow and opaque. Government officials and caseworkers blamed delays on mortgage servicers with requirements that, they said, have hampered the allocation of relief money. Meanwhile, protections that once shielded homeowners from foreclosure while they await HAF dollars have expired — only those who applied for help before Sept. 30 remain covered under the District’s now-lapsed foreclosure moratorium.
“I used to get anxious because of all these threats of foreclosure, but now I just feel mad. Because I went through this whole process, I got approved and I was told months ago it would take about 30 days for the government to have the payment to them,” Musawwir said. “Well, 30 days have come and gone and there ain’t nothing.”
The HAF program, funded by pandemic relief dollars from the U.S. Treasury Department as part of the American Rescue Plan, began in D.C. as a pilot aimed at helping condo owners in Wards 7 and 8. In June, just eight days before a moratorium on foreclosures in D.C. was set to expire, the program was expanded to homeowners all across the city.
As of Nov. 1, the District has assigned about $1.7 million of the $50 million it received from the Treasury Department, according to the D.C. Department of Housing and Community Development. While more than 1,700 homeowners had applied for the program, less than 20 percent had received assistance, city data shows.
D.C. officials said that $38.9 million remains available for homeowner assistance and, unlike other programs that came with a hard use-it-or-lose-it deadline, the HAF will continue disbursing aid until it runs out.
Of the approximately 357,000 housing units in the District, according to the U.S. Census Bureau, about 43 percent are owner-occupied. According to D.C. tax records, about 16 percent are senior citizens or disabled residents who are most likely to be on fixed incomes.
D.C. Mayor Muriel E. Bowser (D) won a third term this month after campaigning on ambitious plans for increasing housing and implementing a long-term plan to create 20,000 new Black homeowners in the District by 2030. Keeping homeowners in the homes they already own is crucial to this plan and, Bowser has said, to creating generational wealth for Washingtonians and preventing displacement in rapidly gentrifying areas.
For struggling homeowners, HAF dollars could make the difference between staying in their homes or being forced out.
“If I don’t get the help that this program is promising, I’m really screwed,” Musawwir said. “At one point, the bank was calling me almost every day, a couple times a day. They’re sending me notices, putting little tags on our door. I don’t know how many times I can tell them I’ve been approved for this program when they still haven’t received any money.
Musawwir, who lives in the Hillcrest Heights neighborhood of D.C., has always been the breadwinner for her family — her husband is legally blind and one of two of her daughters, who is disabled, still lives at home. When the pandemic cost her the accounting job she had in early 2020, she tried to find creative ways to stay on top of her bills. She freelanced, drove for Lyft, did whatever she could.
Only recently, she said, has she been able to find part-time work.
“That’s how my mortgage fell into arrears,” she said. “I don’t need a handout, I just need a little bit of help so I can do what I always do: Pay my bills and keep it moving.”
Musawwir is among a number of homeowners who said they had been told to stop making payments on their mortgages while they await the outcome of the HAF process. In theory, they were told, the program will cover the extent of their debts, up to $100,000 in overdue payments and three months of future payments per household.
But as time drags on, and the amount she owes grows, Musawwir said, she has begun to question that advice.
Several community-based organizations, including the Latino Economic Development Center (LEDC), have been tapped to help homeowners with HAF applications, provide financial counseling and act as go-betweens for the homeowner and D.C. government, lenders and banks.
Emi Reyes, chief executive for LEDC, said there are a number of factors she believes are slowing down the process.
Mortgage servicers all have different systems, technology and senses of urgency, which, she said, can result in wildly variable timelines. Sometimes, in trying to get cases handled, Reyes said, her staff will learn that servicers have sold mortgages to a different company right in the middle of the process, forcing a restart.
“The other thing is every state is trying to do this at the same time,” Reyes said. “Some places like the District may not be as big a priority for these big lenders as clients in states with a much larger percentage of their mortgages, like California or New York.”
As part of the American Rescue Plan, the Treasury Department doled out nearly $10 billion in homeowner assistance funds, giving each state and territory at least $50 million to aid homeowners and stave off foreclosures.
And yet, advocates and attorneys said, it seems very few homeowners are aware of the program.
During the pilot phase of the program, which only encompassed Wards 7 and 8, D.C. received fewer than 200 applications for assistance, city officials said. Since the program has been open to all, less than 1,800 people have applied.
“If even one homeowner who could have received assistance is foreclosed on during this process, that is one homeowner too many,” said Shirley Horng, a senior staff attorney with D.C. Legal Aid.
In recent years, a strong housing market has helped keep the foreclosure rate in the District low.
By the end of 2019, just before the pandemic was declared, foreclosures were at their lowest levels since 2005, before the Great Recession housing crash. According to ATTOM Data Solutions, D.C. was averaging about 10 foreclosures for every 100,000 homes.
Emergency pandemic measures that prevented banks from initiating them have kept foreclosures at bay throughout the public health crisis and its ongoing economic fallout.
But despite calls from advocates to extend protections against foreclosure for any homeowners who apply for the HAF, the D.C. Council passed legislation that shields only those who applied by Sept. 30 and requires banks to notify homeowners in default of the HAF program.
“The time limited nature of the protection is particularly troubling given that DC’s Homeowner Assistance Fund was one of the last in the country to open, with the full program not opening until June 22, 2022,” Horng wrote in a blog post urging action from the D.C. Council last month. “Moreover, the September 30, 2022, deadline is grossly incongruous with the scope of DC HAF, which may have enough funds to last for years.”
Reyes, from LEDC, said that whatever HAF funds don’t get used immediately can continue to provide relief to homeowners indefinitely.
She added that borrowers who are approved for HAF relief will see the entirety of their mortgage debts covered, so long as they are under the $100,000 per household cap.
Attorneys from Legal Aid D.C., who represent dozens of homeowners seeking relief from the HAF, said they have seen some clients’ applications approved quickly — in under two months — but getting bills paid is a different story.
“Because there is not a concrete way to address these delays, we think the focus should instead be put into legal protections … so people are not in a state of limbo and stress that they may lose their homes while they’re waiting for HAF approval and payment,” Horng said in an interview earlier this month.
The risk of removal is higher for condo owners who are behind on Condominium Owner Association (COA) fees since the process for instituting a lien or initiating a foreclosure as a result of unpaid COA fees in D.C. is handled outside of court. About 30,000 condos in D.C. are owner-occupied, according to the D.C. Department of Housing and Community Development (DHCD).
Community advocates and lawyers said it seems that D.C. is prioritizing cases in which condo fees are at issue. But that has left other homeowners feeling forgotten.
One homeowner — a lifelong resident of the Brookland neighborhood in Northeast Washington who was just a few years away from paying off her mortgage when pandemic shutdowns cost her her job — said she sent in an application in June, as soon as the program opened up to homeowners in all D.C. Zip codes.
Nearly five months later, she is still waiting to hear whether she has been approved.
“When you see the bills come in and the amount keeps going up, going up, going up, and they’re saying don’t worry about it because this program is going to pay for it all, you start to wonder: How could that be true if everyone’s bills are increasing and no one has gotten a response?” said the homeowner, who spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of jeopardizing her application.
“It’s not just stress,” she added. “It’s anxiety, frustration, feeling helpless and feeling like I’m an adult, I had control of my life, my finances all these years, but now it’s like you have no control over anything.”
D.C. Council member Janeese Lewis George (D-Ward 4), who pushed for the council to extend its protection for HAF applicants through the end of September, declined to say whether she would again attempt to extend protections for HAF applicants. But, in a statement to The Post, she said the government must do more to make homeowners aware of the HAF and what it covers.
“Preventing foreclosures for people who fell behind during the pandemic is critical for preventing displacement and promoting Black homeownership,” Lewis George said. “I’d like to see DC expand outreach efforts so more residents can take advantage of this program.”
Several advocates compared the HAF outreach effort unfavorably to the massive awareness campaign around the District’s rental aid program, STAY DC, which doled out hundreds of millions of dollars in pandemic relief money to struggling renters and their landlords faster than most other states did.
DHCD spokesman Richard Livingstone in an email defended the outreach effort, which he called “extensive,” citing radio appearances, TV ads and notices in taxi cabs. In the final weeks of the foreclosure moratorium, he said, “multiple email and text blasts” were sent to homeowners reminding them to finish their applications.
“For those who remain at risk of foreclosure, DHCD is working closely with the judicial system, legal advocates and foreclosure prevention counselors to ensure that judges are aware of applicants’ program status at foreclosure hearings by providing daily reports to foreclosure counselors in the court room,” Livingstone wrote.
Musawwir has lost track of the number of times she has had to explain the status of her HAF application to lawyers, lenders and advocates. Every week or so, the bank sends a new notice, threatening foreclosure.
Each new for-sale sign in her neighborhood, she said, sends her mind wandering down the dark paths of what-ifs.
“I can’t help it. I really don’t want to lose my home, because with everything that’s going on, where am I going to be able to afford to find something else?” she said. “Not in D.C.”
Kyle Swenson contributed to this report. | 2022-11-21T13:14:59Z | www.washingtonpost.com | D.C. homeowners wait for financial aid as foreclosure notices pile up - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/11/21/dc-foreclosure-moratorium-haf-delays/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/11/21/dc-foreclosure-moratorium-haf-delays/ |
How Kareem ‘Mr. Bake’ Queeman would spend a perfect day in D.C.
By Rudi Greenberg
Maryland baker Kareem “Mr. Bake” Queeman relishes competing on cooking shows like “Beat Bobby Flay,” “Bake It Like Buddy” and “Sugar Rush Christmas,” even if the pressure gets to him. “Oh, my God, they’re so stressful,” Queeman says. “They are the most stressful thing in the world, don’t let nobody else tell you otherwise.”
Why put himself through the stress? As a Black and queer bakery owner, Queeman recognizes how important representation is. “I intentionally wanted to put myself on a platform to be seen,” he says. “So people who identify with me that are Black, Brown and queer can say, ‘I want to go on this show, and I too can be myself.’ That’s what really pushed me.”
In August, Queeman opened his first Mr. Bake bricks-and-mortar shop at Le Fantome food hall in Riverdale, where he slings cupcakes, doughnuts and banana pudding. He borrowed his “world famous” banana pudding recipe from his Aunt Janet, who was the “most experimental” cook in his family. “People can’t get enough of it,” Queeman says. “I tweaked it over the years, but it still stays true to the core recipe she gave me.”
Baking brought the native New Yorker to the area in 2010 when he was recruited to help open Fluffy Thoughts Cakes in McLean. He’d later assist in opening the first Crumbs Bake Shop in D.C. before starting his own business. During that time, he’s lived all over the DMV: in Alexandria, in Northeast D.C. and around Prince George’s County, ultimately settling in Temple Hills. At first, though, Queeman didn’t love the area.
“I did not like the transportation system coming from New York City,” says Queeman, who didn’t know how to drive and had a grueling two-hour bus-train-bus-walk commute from Alexandria to McLean. “I cursed out the Metro system every day.” Once he got settled — and got his license and a car — he started to build a community here, full of friends and family members, like his cousin, who moved down with him.
He’s also come to appreciate the history of Prince George’s County, where he’s spent much of his time. “Learning a lot more about Prince George’s, and how influential it was to African American culture, it gave me a different lens to look at my culture and people,” he says. Now Queeman feels like he’s become a part of that community, especially with his new bakery. “My childhood dream was to have a neighborhood bakery,” he says. “I love connecting with people.”
But on a dream day in D.C., work is the farthest thing from Queeman’s mind: The agenda is all about food, friends and fun.
What am I doing first? I’ll go and take a walk or a light jog in D.C. I love what they’ve done to the Southwest Waterfront and the Wharf. I like to do outdoorsy things. I do like to walk a lot. I’m from New York — I did a lot of walking. And walking is very therapeutic for me.
I’m going to 19th Street and Pennsylvania Avenue, to the original location of Founding Farmers. When I was still the manager at Crumbs, they opened up and my best friend worked there, and I got to eat all the food, so I became a part of the Founding Farmers family. It’s brunch, and I’m probably going to get the chicken and waffles because that comes with a side of macaroni and cheese. I love the history and the story behind Founding Farmers. I like that it holds true to a Southern touch, which is what my background is — even though I’m from New York, my family’s from the South. I love the handcrafted cocktails. Give me the Constitution: a gin-based drink with ginger and chamomile.
I would love to do something artsy. I like to find small art galleries or even a paint-and-sip type of event. My friend owns a company called Artbae, and he does a lot of different art events throughout the D.C. area. He does pop-up gallery events, he’ll curate events at a restaurant with multiple artists. He partnered with the Real Milk & Honey: They have a huge space out in Suitland, and he brought local Black and Brown artisans into the building, and their art is displayed so guests can see it, and if they want, they can purchase the art as well.
I am going to take myself over to Union Market. I like the outdoors, and I love to people watch. My friend used to work at Serenata [inside La Cosecha] and made all my drinks — I don’t know what I got. I just love the openness of the bar, and I’ve met so many great people, literally, just sitting there talking to my friend. And I love that it’s Black- and queer-owned. So I’m definitely going to get another cocktail or two. I have a few friends meeting me, too. I’m still full from brunch, but I’ll probably get a snack at Union Market. I love to explore the pop-up concepts.
Then I’ve got to go to the Dirty Goose. I love the rooftop, especially if Farrah Flosscett is DJing. Oh, my God, she will have me dancing the food that I ate off and get me ready for dinner. My drink now is strictly Hendrick’s gin, tonic and two limes.
So since we’re already in the U Street area, and I’m with my friends, I’m going to do a big dinner at a historical place: Florida Avenue Grill. That’s another Black-owned restaurant with Southern cuisine, and so much history is in that building. I go there sometimes just to truly connect with the people that have been in that building — and to get a really good meal. You’re going to ask me what I’m going to get — it doesn’t matter. You can’t go wrong. If it’s smothered pork chops, the turkey wings, the candied yams, the collard greens, you can’t go wrong with anything that you get at Florida Avenue Grill, but just note that you will not eat all of that in one sitting.
I’m going to take a walk because I like to walk off heavy foods that I ate and I like to end the day where I started out. In New York, that was big for us: When we finished eating anywhere, we always walked a few blocks before we jumped on the next train. So we’re going to end our day with a recap of laughing and joking. And taking a few steps around U Street, people watching. | 2022-11-21T13:15:05Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Kareem "Mr. Bake" Queeman's perfect day in D.C. - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/11/21/kareem-queeman-mr-bake-dream-day/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/11/21/kareem-queeman-mr-bake-dream-day/ |
(Ashley Cooper/Getty Images)
The study, published in the CDC journal Preventing Chronic Disease, examines 2018 data from the Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System, which collects information from 400,000 U.S. adults each year. About 5 percent of the people surveyed in 2018 reported blindness or serious difficulty seeing even with glasses.
The analysis shows disparities between people with vision impairment and their counterparts without vision problems. They reported significant health differences: 50.2 percent said they had fair or poor general health compared with just 16.8 percent of those who didn’t report vision problems. They also were more likely to report other disabilities.
People with vision impairment were about 7 percent less likely to have health insurance and about 4 percent less likely to have a regular health-care provider. The number who said they’d had a regular health checkup in the past year was about the same as those without vision problems. They were also less likely to have had a dentist visit within the past year; 52.9 percent said they’d gone to the dentist in the past year, compared with 67.2 percent of people without vision impairment.
The starkest difference was related to cost, however. People with vision problems were more than twice as likely as their counterparts to say they had an unmet health need because of cost — 29.2 percent vs. 12.6 percent. | 2022-11-21T13:15:11Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Visually impaired people less likely to access health care, CDC says - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2022/11/21/vision-blindness-reduced-health-care/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2022/11/21/vision-blindness-reduced-health-care/ |
The Cold War with China is here. But it doesn’t have to lead to a hot war.
President Biden holds a news conference after his meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping in Bali, Indonesia, on Nov. 14. (Kevin Lamarque/REUTERS)
“I absolutely believe there need not be a new Cold War,” President Biden said last week after meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping at the Group of 20 summit in Bali, Indonesia. I’m afraid it’s too late: For all intents and purposes, the Cold War is already here.
Both the United States and China — the top two military and economic powers in the world — already view each other as the main threat to their own security. Tensions are rising over flash points such as the South China Sea and the Taiwan Strait. Disputes over China’s unfair trade practices, its human rights abuses and its pandemic response have exacerbated animosities.
Just a decade ago, slightly more Americans had a favorable rather than a unfavorable view of China. Today, according to the Pew Research Center, 82 percent have an unfavorable view while only 16 percent have a favorable view. Meanwhile, about 60 percent of Chinese respondents expressed a negative view of the United States in a poll by the Central European Institute of Asia Studies.
Long gone are the hopes that attended China joining the World Trade Organization in 2001 — an event that President Bill Clinton hailed as “the most significant opportunity that we have had to create positive change in China since the 1970s.” Today, with Xi having consolidated more power than any Chinese ruler since Mao Zedong, such talk seems hopelessly naive. Biden now speaks of “extreme competition” with China, and fears are rising of a U.S.-China war.
But while the Cold War may be here, it need not lead to a hot war. We are not doomed to a “Thucydides trap,” a term popularized by Harvard University’s Graham Allison after the famous observation by the ancient Greek writer that “It was the rise of Athens and the fear that this instilled in Sparta that made war inevitable.” Allison found that in the past 500 years there were “sixteen cases in which a major nation’s rise has disrupted the position of a dominant state,” and that “twelve of these rivalries ended in war.”
But it is significant that four of them did not lead to war, including the only one to occur in the nuclear age: the U.S.-Soviet rivalry. Our goal today should be to manage the new Cold War as we managed the old Cold War by striving for detente and seeking to avoid high-risk confrontations such as the Cuban missile crisis. Biden’s own national security strategy is clear-eyed about the imperative to both compete with China and cooperate on areas of shared concern, such as global warming and covid-19.
But that’s easier said than done when anti-China passions are surging in the United States and the two parties are competing on who can be tougher on China. Among MAGA Republicans, China-bashing often turns racist. Last week, for example, Daniel McCarthy, a former Republican candidate for the U.S. Senate in Arizona, pointed to the fact that Treasurer Kimberly Yee, a Chinese American, was the only winning GOP candidate for statewide office as evidence that “China controls our elections.” It couldn’t have anything to do with the fact that Yee is not an election denier, could it?
Unfortunately, former president Donald Trump — who called covid-19 “kung flu” and mocked his own transportation secretary, Elaine Chao, in racist terms — mainstreams these vile prejudices. The pending House Republican investigation of Hunter Biden will cater to such sentiments by trying to portray the Bidens as dupes of Beijing, just as in the 1940s and 1950s many Republicans tried to portray Democratic officeholders as dupes of the Kremlin. (Richard M. Nixon called Secretary of State Dean Acheson the “Red Dean of the College of Cowardly Containment.”)
Fear of being attacked for “losing” South Vietnam, as President Harry S. Truman supposedly “lost” China, led John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson to ramp up the United States’ ill-fated intervention in Vietnam. That should serve as a warning about the dangers of anti-Communist paranoia run amok.
We have legitimate reasons to abhor China’s regime and to fear its ambitions to dominate East Asia, but we can also work with it. It was significant, for example, that, during their meeting in Bali, Biden and Xi “underscored their opposition to the use or threat of use of nuclear weapons in Ukraine.” China also joined in the G-20 summit statement that noted “most members strongly condemned the war in Ukraine.” Those are major diplomatic victories that further isolate Russia. Of course, on most other issues, Biden and Xi did not see eye to eye — but that’s an argument for more diplomacy, not less.
“It is as myopic today to assume that a more hawkish approach to China will cause China to accommodate to our preferences as it was in the past to assume that deeper trade would hasten China’s democratic transformation,” Ryan Hass, a China expert at the Brookings Institution, told me. “If the United States cannot bend Cuba to its will, it shouldn’t expect to be able to impose its will on China. There is no substitute for hard-nosed, clear-eyed diplomacy to manage the relationship.”
That’s what Biden was doing in Bali. He deserves praise for seeking to limit the danger from the growing U.S.-China confrontation rather than being criticized, in the words of Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.), for a “policy of appeasement.” | 2022-11-21T13:15:23Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Opinion | The Cold War with China is here. But it doesn’t have to lead to a hot war. - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/11/21/biden-xi-china-cold-war-not-hot/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/11/21/biden-xi-china-cold-war-not-hot/ |
Democratic voters, not leaders, drove the party’s strong performance
Long lines form on the last day of early voting at the Galleria Sunset Mall in Las Vegas on Nov. 4. (Melina Mara/The Washington Post)
Though they changed course in the final months before the election, the Biden administration and congressional Democrats spent much of 2021 and 2022 on a flawed strategy. Democratic leaders were determined to boost the party with people who didn’t vote for Joe Biden in 2020, particularly the White voters without college degrees who have shifted to the GOP over the past several decades. So Democrats focused largely on economic policy, such as the American Rescue Plan, the infrastructure bill and a law making it easier to manufacture microchips in the United States. They intentionally highlighted how these provisions would help people without college degrees and people in rural areas.
They at times sidelined other issues, such as voting rights, that might not be the priorities of White voters without college degrees. In July, a top White House official, communications director Kate Bedingfield, bashed party activists who complained that the administration wasn’t responding aggressively enough to the U.S. Supreme Court’s Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization ruling eliminating the right to an abortion. And Democrats moved to the right on some issues, most notably policing. There were constant efforts to court moderate GOP voters and lawmakers and sideline prominent left-wing figures.
Not all of that was bad. It’s great that the Democrats are finally moving on from the overly business-friendly, neoliberal economic policies they embraced from the early 1980s through the 2010s and helped lead to massive inequality and decimation of small towns across the Midwest. The party’s new economic populism will help all Americans, not just White voters without degrees. And in the long term, I think this agenda will help the party electorally, by making clear to voters that Democrats are the party that most represents the interests of average Americans.
But this strategy wasn’t working — and party leaders stuck to it for far too long. In the short term, the United States needs Democrats to win elections to prevent an increasingly extreme, antidemocratic Republican Party from gaining more power. And at least right now, the vast majority of White Protestants and White voters without degrees are embracing and in some ways driving the Republican Party’s drift to radicalism. These voters never warmed to Biden, despite his policy agenda aimed at them. Their strong disapproval made Biden more unpopular at times than even Donald Trump was early in his presidency.
Ultimately, White voters without degrees backed the GOP by about a 30-point margin in November’s elections, according to surveys of the election results. And very few people (just 4 percent, according to exit polls) who voted for Trump in 2020 supported a Democratic congressional candidate in this week’s elections.
Perhaps the Democrats would have done even worse with White voters without degrees if not for their strategies over the past two years. But what drove the Democrats’ surprisingly strong performance in this month’s elections was the backing of groups that the party really hadn’t delivered for or prioritized over the past two years.
Voters under 30 overwhelmingly supported Democratic candidates, even though Biden waited until essentially the last possible moment to follow through on his promise to cancel student loans and did so in a way that basically guaranteed Republican-appointed federal judges would hold it up. So did Black voters, even as the party’s racial equity, voting rights and police reform policies were stalled by Republican opposition and at times little effort from Democrats. Women favored the party, even though Roe v. Wade was overturned and the administration’s initial response to the ruling was lackluster. College graduates favored Democrats, even as the party took intentional steps to woo non-college voters.
The party’s leadership, particularly Biden, in many ways caught up with the party’s voters and activists in the months right before the election. The president used the term “semi-fascism” to describe the beliefs of some Republicans. He gave two strong speeches warning that Republicans were becoming antidemocratic. He promised to push for a national law guaranteeing the right to an abortion if Democrats grew their majorities in the House and Senate. He stopped emphasizing how bipartisan he is and started demonizing the Republicans as a party that would cut Social Security and Medicare.
Unsurprisingly, none of that seems to have resonated much with White voters without degrees who have voted for Republicans in recent elections. But for the Democratic Party’s core base, it likely reinforced the urgency of voting. Early indications are that this midterm elections will have the second-highest turnout in decades, behind only 2018. It appears that the people who came out in opposition to Donald Trump in 2018 and 2020 were in full force again this November. Perhaps some of those voters were particularly motivated by the infrastructure bill or the microchips legislation. But I doubt it.
Party officials are rushing to give credit — to one another. And some of the party’s leaders do deserve praise. Candidates such as Gov. Gretchen Whitmer of Michigan, who easily won reelection, and Pennsylvania Gov.-elect Josh Shapiro early in their campaigns highlighted abortion and democracy, in addition to the economy. Biden rightly ignored some in the party who argued he should not talk about democracy issues in the final days of the campaign.
But in elections, the voters are the actors, the deciders. And this year, millions of Democratic-leaning voters turned out and stuck with the party, looking past sky-high inflation and a leadership team that spent much of its time courting people who would never vote for Democrats while ignoring key priorities of people who always vote for the Democrats. | 2022-11-21T13:15:29Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Opinion | Democratic voters were behind the party's strong midterm - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/11/21/democratic-voters-won-the-midterms-strategy/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/11/21/democratic-voters-won-the-midterms-strategy/ |
Beware, DeSantis is as much a threat to America as Trump
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) speaks during a debate in Fort Pierce, Fla., on Oct. 24. (Eva Marie Uzcategui/Bloomberg)
If you believe Florida’s Republic Gov. Ron DeSantis would be a less dangerous presidential candidate than former president Donald Trump, take a moment to consider the recent ruling striking down DeSantis’s “Stop WOKE Act.” That opinion — as well as other rulings against his attempts to inhibit dissent — makes clear that DeSantis is just as willing as Trump to embrace the GOP’s authoritarian element and use state power to punish his enemies.
To recap, the Stop WOKE Act — also perversely known as the Individual Freedom Act — is the Orwellian scheme that DeSantis signed into law earlier this year to muzzle the candid discussion of race and racism in classrooms and the workplace. As U.S. District Judge Mark E. Walker explains in his opinion, “The law officially bans professors from expressing disfavored viewpoints in university classrooms while permitting unfettered expression of the opposite viewpoints.” He dryly continued, “Defendants argue that, under this Act, professors enjoy ‘academic freedom’ so long as they express only those viewpoints of which the State approves.”
DeSantis, in attempting to curtail the discussion of political positions of which he disapproves, followed in a long line of authoritarians who have attempted to paint dissent as dangerous and, therefore, unprotected.
The law, for example, bars discussion of the concept that a person “by virtue of his or her race, color, national origin, or sex should be discriminated against or receive adverse treatment to achieve diversity, equity, or inclusion.” During oral arguments, when asked if this would bar professors from supporting affirmative action in classroom settings, attorneys for the state government answered, “Your Honor, yes.”
Walker cited that admission, finding:
Thus, Defendants assert the idea of affirmative action is so “repugnant” that instructors can no longer express approval of affirmative action as an idea worthy of merit during class instruction. … What does this mean in practical terms? Assuming the University of Florida Levin College of Law decided to invite Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor to speak to a class of law students, she would be unable to offer this poignant reflection about her own lived experience, because it endorses affirmative action.
The law so blatantly violates the concept of free speech that one wonders if remedial constitutional education should be a requirement for Florida officeholders.
Walker tore into DeSantis and the GOP legislature, holding that the law “is antithetical to academic freedom and has cast a leaden pall of orthodoxy over Florida’s state universities.” He declined to mince words: “In this case, the State of Florida lays the cornerstone of its own Ministry of Truth under the guise of the Individual Freedom Act, declaring which viewpoints shall be orthodox and which shall be verboten in its university classrooms,” he wrote. “The First Amendment does not permit the State of Florida to muzzle its university professors, impose its own orthodoxy of viewpoints, and cast us all into the dark.”
That is the essence of authoritarianism. DeSantis’s willingness to back such a monstrous violation of free expression should send up warning flags about his commitment to uphold the Constitution.
Walker is the same judge who struck down another DeSantis assault on the First Amendment — his vague anti-riot law to quell demonstrations. In that opinion, Walker recalled, “In 1956 and 1961, Florida’s anti-riot laws were used to suppress activities threatening the state’s Jim Crow status quo.” DeSantis apparently considered such efforts commendable.
“What’s past is prologue,” Walker wrote. “Now this Court is faced with a new definition of ‘riot’ — one that the Florida Legislature created following a summer of nationwide protest for racial justice, against police violence and the murder of George Floyd and many other people of color, and in support of the powerful statement that Black lives matter.” He added, “The question before this Court is whether the new definition is constitutional.” Spoiler alert: It’s not, just as Jim Crow-era laws to prevent civil rights demonstrations were not constitutional.
As the American Civil Liberties Union of Florida explained, the anti-riot law “risks criminalizing peaceful protest and shields those who injure or kill protesters — for example, by ramming their vehicles into protesters — from civil penalties.” DeSantis all but admitted as such when he boasted the measure was “the strongest anti-rioting, pro-law enforcement piece of legislation in the country” and vowed that “a ton of bricks [will] rain down on” those who violate it.
DeSantis seems to have no fondness for the basic rights our Constitution confers on Americans. Instead, he delights in using state power to demonstrate his contempt for the expression of views he dislikes. This forms the core of his political brand, underscored by his “don’t say gay” law, his statute banning “critical race theory” in schools and his firing of a county prosecutor who criticized his abortion policies. DeSantis has also regularly flexed his power as governor: excluding media from events, taking public proceedings behind closed doors (including the selection of the University of Florida’s president) and exacting revenge on supposedly woke corporations such as Disney.
DeSantis’s contempt for dissent and his crackdown on critics should not be discounted. This is the profile of a constitutional ignoramus, a bully and a strongman. Voters should be forewarned. | 2022-11-21T13:15:36Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Opinion | Beware, DeSantis is as much a threat to America as Trump - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/11/21/desantis-republican-free-speech-trump/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/11/21/desantis-republican-free-speech-trump/ |
Homeless for the holidays. Or close to it.
A homeless encampment on a bridge in Los Angeles on Dec. 15, 2021. (Damian Dovarganes/AP)
Thanksgiving dinner will not lack for conversation starters: the speed-of-light purge and makeover of Twitter; crypto guru Sam Bankman-Fried’s transformation into the “Millennials’ Madoff”; a second special counsel for former president Donald Trump to match his pair of impeachments; the underwhelming performance of the GOP on Nov. 8; and the departure of Speaker Nancy Pelosi from power but not from memory.
But a truly urgent matter for this country is something most Americans aren’t talking about: the plight of the homeless and the near-homeless.
A new collection of essays from the American Enterprise Institute, “American Renewal” — edited by former House speaker Paul D. Ryan and AEI senior fellow Angela Rachidi — explores the greatest challenges facing U.S. domestic policymakers. In the book are many alarms and one arresting statistic that perhaps will focus your feast on the lost and the least.
Ryan opens with a compelling case that even the mighty United States cannot hold off a debt crisis much longer, and that a debt crisis is a dry, dull thing, until suddenly everything becomes worth three-fourths of what it once was. (You’ve perhaps heard of “effective altruism” — the movement in which Bankman-Fried wrapped himself, the goal of which is to efficiently and effectively do “as much good as possible.” Well, preventing a debt crisis would be really effective altruism.)
It is Nicholas Eberstadt, though — in his essay “Revitalizing America: The Arithmetic of Social and Economic Reform” — who delivers the first knockdown in a book full of them. Which brings us to that arresting statistic: 3 out of 8 American homes are rentals, Eberstadt relays, and “an astonishing half of all female-headed renter families reportedly had barely $2,000 in net worth in 2019.” Total.
Reflect on that. That $2,000 includes the woman’s every bit of liquidity, the value of her vehicle, the market value of her possessions. Two. Thousand. Dollars.
The more than half a million homeless people in the United States are the most visible domestic crisis of this Thanksgiving. It has been 20 months since I wrote about a visit to Los Angeles’s infamous Skid Row with U.S. District Judge David O. Carter, and the scale of the human catastrophe has only grown worse.
But right above them, on the cliff’s edge from which the homeless have already plunged, are these millions of households with no reserves and no resilience.
The homeless encampments throughout California (and in other major cities) are a national scandal. In Los Angeles, the effort by Judge Carter to take control of part of the crisis was rebuffed by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit as beyond his authority. And political candidates such as Stanford’s Lanhee Chen, who ran for controller in California in large part on the promise to audit and reform the billions allocated to remedying homelessness, were turned away by voters.
So, on the one hand, we can say that California Democrats own our current, most visible homelessness problem. Chen, easily the most talented, credentialed and well-funded GOP statewide nominee in a decade, lost by more than a million votes (out of 10 million cast) to the Democrat, Malia Cohen. U.S. Rep. Karen Bass (D) beat businessman Rick Caruso in the race for mayor not just of Los Angeles but also of its vast Skid Row, with its “Blade Runner”-esque dystopian reality.
A 50-50 red-blue America — like it or not, that’s what we have — is politically paralyzed this Thanksgiving. Yet we all know what end-stage poverty looks like, and it is terrible. Tens of millions of Americans teeter on the edge of that abyss. Yet a problem this vast is left to the Salvation Army and other old-fashioned do-gooders to alleviate, while government at every level alternates between seminars and absurd plans to build enough low-income housing to take care of not only the millions already on the street but also those with the $2,000 “cushion.”
AEI points, via a two-page chart, to the scores of federal programs to help those in poverty. It is chaos cubed. Begin there, with consolidation and efficiency, granting authority and funding to local governments empowered and obliged to act now, to buy existing housing for the poor and the near-poor. If it takes a federal court’s intervention, Congress can authorize it.
On this one thing, can Democrats and Republicans finally combine their efforts? That’s a Thanksgiving prayer to add to your grace. | 2022-11-21T13:15:42Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Opinion | Homeless for the holidays. Or close to it. - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/11/21/homeless-crisis-american-renewal-poverty/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/11/21/homeless-crisis-american-renewal-poverty/ |
Sen. Mark Kelly (D-Ariz.) speaks to supporters in Phoenix on Nov. 12. (Alberto Mariani/AP)
When it comes to election denialism and conspiratorial thinking, no state’s activist fringe has been louder or more unhinged over the past couple of years than Arizona’s. The state was, in many respects, ground zero for former president Donald Trump’s lie that widespread fraud cost him a second term.
So it was a surprise — and a relief — when the voters of the once reliably red state delivered a rebuke up and down the ballot to those who sowed doubts about the electoral system and who would have undermined how it functions.
I caught up with one of the candidates who won — former astronaut Mark Kelly (D), who was elected in 2020 to fill the final two years of the late Sen. John McCain’s (R) term, and who was running on Nov. 8 for a full six-year term. The final RealClearPolitics polling average had Kelly behind hard-right GOP nominee Blake Masters by a hair. Kelly won by nearly five points.
Here is what Kelly had to tell me about the lessons of 2022 — for both Democrats and Republicans. This conversation been edited for length and clarity.
Karen Tumulty: The polls made your race look closer than it turned out to be. When did you get a sense of the direction things were going?
Mark Kelly: I always felt like I would probably win, but there’s a lot of noise out there. You try not to pay attention to the noise. This is from my former jobs as well: compartmentalize, focus on the stuff you have control over, not worry about the distractions.
I’ll tell you when I felt really good about it was about 6:30 on election night, when I saw the local news and they were reporting about the long lines at Arizona State University, like 30 minutes before the polls closed. I turned to somebody and said, “We’re going to win.” If young people are voting in high numbers, that generally means we’re going to have a high-turnout election.
What do you think are the lessons for other Democrats going forward, especially when it comes to what it takes to win in hard places?
I went everywhere and I talked to everybody about things that matter to them. I didn’t ignore different places of the state because maybe I didn’t do well there before. That doesn’t matter to me. When you’re running for the United States Senate or any statewide office, you’ve got to go and talk to everybody and talk to them about things they care about, whether it’s the cost of gasoline or, especially in Southern Arizona, about the border, which is a crisis. You can’t ignore that in Arizona. It’s been chaos down there at times, for decades.
So don’t run away from the issues.
Speaking of the border, do you think Democrats nationally have recognized the complexity of the issue and the frustrations that people have?
Absolutely not. Not even close. When I first got to Washington, it didn’t take me long to realize that there are a lot of Democrats who don’t understand our southern border and a lot of Republicans who just want to talk about it. Don’t necessarily want to do anything about it, just want to use it politically. So my approach has been — to the extent that we could and can — to make progress on securing it, but also doing it in a way that’s in accordance with our ethics and our values, not to demonize people.
But Congress has made several runs at comprehensive solutions over the past 20 years. How much of a realistic chance is there going to be, given the emotions around the issue of immigration, the reality of divided government and the narrow margins in each house?
They’ve gotten close a couple of times. I’m an optimist on this stuff. We still have a situation where a lot of Democrats don’t really understand it and a lot of Republicans just want to talk about it and use it for political purposes. But I’ll tell you what, I think there are enough of us who understand it and want to accomplish something.
What about in the larger picture? Is this going to be a Congress that is completely stalemated or will it be able to get anything done?
Well, in the Senate we’ve got basically the same Senate, more or less, that we had two years ago, right? We’re probably going to wind up with an additional seat. You’ve got some different folks, maybe with some different ideas. The challenge is, how does everything settle out in the House? But I know there are Republican House members who have the same desires and wishes and goals for our country as I do, that many of us do. The narrow majority that the Republicans will have there, I think it presents a little bit of a challenge. But I’ve got to believe that there are a lot of folks in the House who just want to get stuff done and make progress.
In the election, you built your own brand, even as your opponent tried to cast you as a rubber stamp for President Biden. You distanced yourself from the White House on some issues. Is that a lesson for other swing-state Democrats?
Every Senate race is different: different candidates, different issues, different electorate. We’re a very diverse state. I tried to build as big of a tent of support as I possibly could. I started really early. I also think that’s important in doing the job. We’re all in this together, and I need ideas from Republicans in the state. It doesn’t matter to me what their background is. If they want to work together on issues, I’m here to help.
Do you think the Republicans in Arizona have learned anything from this election and the drubbing their hard-liners received from the voters?
Well, let me say, my observation is: That is not most of the Republicans. That is a minority of Republicans in the state of Arizona, who are rather vocal and who very effectively got into certain positions of leadership. But I’ll tell you what, I meet a lot more Republicans who are reasonable, moderate, realize that we have challenges and problems that we need to solve and that the best way to do it is by working together. That’s most of the Republicans that I talk to, and a lot of these folks are in elected office, state level, local level.
This will probably surprise you to hear this from somebody who’s a United States senator who’s a Democrat, but we need a strong Republican Party in Arizona. I think the two-party system that we have, we’ve got a set of checks and balances against each other and I think that’s important to have that. And I would like to see that in Arizona again. | 2022-11-21T13:15:48Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Opinion | Mark Kelly on why Democrats need a strong border — and a strong GOP - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/11/21/mark-kelly-interview-border-bipartisanship-strong-gop/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/11/21/mark-kelly-interview-border-bipartisanship-strong-gop/ |
Former president Donald Trump speaks remotely to the Republican Jewish Coalition Annual Leadership Meeting in Las Vegas on Saturday. (David Becker for The Washington Post)
It has been less than a month since Elon Musk bought Twitter for $44 billion. Already, he’s created chaos in a purge of employees that threatens to run the site into the ground. Now, he has restored Donald Trump to the platform, from which he was banned after fomenting the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection and violating Twitter’s terms of service in too many ways to count.
Given the central role Twitter played in Trump’s 2016 campaign and his presidency, it’s natural to fear that this development can only be dangerous for the country. But don’t panic! Trump may have injected a special brand of virulence into Twitter his first go-round — but both average readers and the news media have, let’s hope, developed the antibodies to protect us from further harm.
His “truths” (try saying that without laughing) are almost entirely whining and complaining — about the various investigations into his misbehavior, about President Biden, about other Democrats, about anyone and everyone who isn’t praising him with sufficient vigor. Much like the speech he made announcing his 2024 candidacy for president, it’s all been there, done that: Nothing he’s saying has any of the verve of his first candidacy, which brought with it a sense of unpredictability, thrilling his supporters and shocking everyone else.
These days, Trump is as petty and vindictive as ever, but he doesn’t seem to be having any fun. In short: He’s boring.
While we in the media may not have figured out exactly how to handle Trump, the kind of gobsmacked coverage that allowed him to use us as a megaphone is far less common than it was seven years ago. No one will react to some new conspiracy theory or repulsively bigoted tweet with “Oh my god, can you believe he said that?!?” We already believe it — because we’ve seen it countless times before. And we’re primed to be much more thoughtful this time about what deserves our attention.
There are over a dozen platforms with more total users, but Twitter is where reporters monitor the day’s news, promote their stories and talk to one another. Every time Trump tweeted something outrageous, he knew journalists would see it and write stories, enabling him to shape the news agenda and get everyone talking about him.
It was remarkably effective. As one media scholar told me just after Trump was banned from Twitter in 2021: 65 percent of Trump’s tweets during his term in office ended up in news stories, according to her research, compared with just 3 percent for Barack Obama in his second term. That will no longer be the case.
There’s also good reason to believe that whatever attention Trump gets — via Twitter or anywhere else — will only hurt his potential candidacy and the fortunes of his party. As rapturous as his base is, it comprises only a minority of the electorate. For the majority of Americans who dislike him, seeing more of him doesn’t make them feel better about him.
As of this writing, Trump has yet to tweet anything since Musk restored his account. But now that his archive is visible once again, you can see where it left off when he was banned. The last entry, in typically petulant fashion, reads, “To all of those who have asked, I will not be going to the Inauguration on January 20th.” Scroll down and you’re reminded of everything that made him such a malign force in American life.
Trump is not done poisoning our politics, not by a long shot. He might still win his party’s nomination, and he could become president again. But if that happens, it will only be because a terrible series of events made it possible. It won’t be because Trump got his Twitter account back. | 2022-11-21T13:15:54Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Opinion | Donald Trump is back on Twitter. Here’s why we shouldn’t fear. - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/11/21/trump-elon-musk-twitter/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/11/21/trump-elon-musk-twitter/ |
COP27 yielded a historic climate fund. COP28 must do more, experts say
Good morning and welcome to The Climate 202! In case you didn’t spend all weekend glued to the live stream of the COP27 climate negotiations in Egypt, we’ve got you covered:
COP27 ended with a landmark deal on ‘loss and damage.' COP28 must do more, experts say.
After two weeks of tense negotiations at the U.N. Climate Change Conference in Egypt, known as COP27, diplomats from nearly 200 nations reached a final agreement on Sunday that yielded a breakthrough in helping vulnerable countries cope with climate disasters, The Washington Post’s Sarah Kaplan reports.
Beyond this breakthrough, however, the agreement made little progress on measures to accelerate emissions-cutting efforts or phase out the burning of fossil fuels, a primary driver of the climate crisis.
The double-edged outcome ratchets up the pressure on negotiators at next year’s U.N. climate summit in Dubai, known as COP28, to secure meaningful new action to shift the trajectory of global warming, according to experts on international climate diplomacy.
Here’s what to know about how the deal at COP27 paved the way for expected clashes at COP28:
Debating the details of a ‘loss and damage’ fund
Wealthy nations on Sunday agreed to create a fund to compensate vulnerable countries for the costs of dealing with rising seas, stronger storms and other disasters fueled by rising global temperatures, The Washington Post’s Evan Halper, Timothy Puko and Sarah Kaplan report.
The deal on a “loss and damage” fund broke an impasse on one of the most contentious issues at U.N. climate negotiations. The United States had long resisted the idea of such payments, fearing unlimited liability for its role as the biggest historical emitter of greenhouse gases.
Still, negotiators must spend the next year determining many of the details surrounding the fund, including who would contribute money and which countries could tap it. Already, a debate has flared over whether China — a developing country that has become the world’s largest annual emitter — should provide the same financial support as developed nations.
“We have the fund but we need money to make it worthwhile,” Mohamed Adow, executive director of the Nairobi-based think tank Power Shift Africa, said in a statement. “What we have is an empty bucket. Now we need to fill it so that support can flow to the most impacted people who are suffering right now at the hands of the climate crisis.”
Taking stock of Paris agreement progress
At last year’s U.N. climate summit in Glasgow, Scotland, nations vowed to accelerate their efforts to cut greenhouse gas emissions this year. But the COP27 deal does not compel countries to set stronger emissions-cutting targets, despite a push for greater ambition by the European Union and other nations.
U.S. climate envoy John F. Kerry, who was sidelined in the final hours of the summit with covid-19, said in a statement that the deal leaves the world on track to warm by a dangerous 1.7 degrees Celsius (3 degrees Fahrenheit) above preindustrial levels.
Under the Paris climate accord, which sought to limit warming to the safer threshold of 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 Fahrenheit), countries must engage in a “global stocktake” every five years to assess their collective progress toward this goal. Negotiators will have the crucial task of completing such a stocktake at COP28.
“We must work closely with the United Arab Emirates, which will host COP28, to ensure that the first global stocktake under the Paris Agreement produces a meaningful outcome setting the stage for even greater climate ambition in the years ahead,” Kerry said.
Fighting over fossil fuels in a top oil producer
India had led a push for the COP27 agreement to call for phasing out all fossil fuels, including oil and gas. But the final text only reiterated language from the pact at the Glasgow summit calling for a “phase down of unabated coal,” disappointing many anti-fossil-fuel campaigners.
Some diplomats are already gearing up to ensure that COP28 does more to accelerate the global shift to clean energy. But as one of the world’s biggest oil producers, the UAE has made clear that it sees a continued role for oil and gas in the energy transition, potentially threatening this push.
The UAE plans to “extract and export every molecule of fossil fuels” left in the ground, Karim Elgendy, a fellow on Middle East environmental issues at the London-based think tank Chatham House, told The Climate 202.
At the same time, the UAE has set a target of reaching net-zero emissions by 2050 and has increasingly invested in nuclear power, green hydrogen and solar energy, said Karen Young, a senior research scholar at Columbia University’s Center on Global Energy Policy.
“The UAE intends to be in the energy business in many forms for a long time,” Young told The Climate 202. “Oil is just the beginning.”
Senate Democrats call on Postal Service to ramp up electric vehicle plans
As the nation prepares for the gift-giving holiday season, Senate Democrats are calling on the U.S. Postal Service to bolster its adoption of electric delivery trucks, which they say could simultaneously improve service on routes across the country and slash planet-warming emissions.
In a letter sent Monday morning, the senators urged the agency to commit to electrifying 95 percent of its delivery fleet, rather than 40 percent as planned, using the $3 billion it received from the Inflation Reduction Act for electric vehicles and related infrastructure.
The letter was led by Sen. Edward J. Markey (Mass.) and Senate Environment and Public Works Committee Chair Thomas R. Carper (Del.). Signatories include Sens. Sheldon Whitehouse (R.I.), Jeff Merkley (Ore.), Elizabeth Warren (Mass.), Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), Chris Van Hollen (Md.) and Martin Heinrich (N.M.).
The push comes after the Postal Service in July pledged to electrify at least 40 percent of its new delivery fleet in response to lawsuits from 16 states, the District of Columbia and four environmental groups aimed at blocking the agency’s original purchasing plan, which called for mostly gas-guzzling trucks.
The Postal Service did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the letter.
Twitter helps officials share information about climate disasters. What if it dies?
Government officials often rely on Twitter to quickly share information about extreme weather events with tens of millions of Americans. But the future of the app is now uncertain, with the site’s new owner, Elon Musk, firing about half of the company’s employees and issuing an ultimatum that resulted in the departure of hundreds more, The Post’s Reis Thebault, Brianna Sacks and Mark Berman report.
A dozen local, state and federal officials across the country told The Post that they have used Twitter to save lives during disasters made worse by climate change, such as raging wildfires and intensifying hurricanes.
In Santa Barbara County, the fire department has responded to two of the worst disasters in California history — the Thomas Fire and the deadly mudslides that followed. The agency uses a variety of methods to communicate with the public, including radio broadcasts and Facebook.
But Twitter is “our main way to disseminate coverage as it is happening,” said Mike Eliason, one of the department’s public information officers. “If Twitter goes under, we will have to rethink how we get our urgent messages out.”
As it becomes a major food exporter, the Netherlands relies on clean technology
The Netherlands has become a global leader in producing food with a smaller impact on the planet, spearheading innovations that focus on reducing water usage as well as carbon and methane emissions, Laura Reiley reports for The Post.
Over the past two decades, the Dutch have made significant advances in cutting-edge cell-cultured meat, vertical farming and seed technology. The country has also dedicated nearly 24,000 acres — almost twice the size of Manhattan — to crops growing in greenhouses that use much less land, fertilizer and water than traditional dirt farming.
But there are challenges: Energy costs for the greenhouses are rising as Western Europe faces an energy crisis amid Russia’s war in Ukraine. Meanwhile, a conservative government coalition this summer promised to halve nitrogen emissions by 2030, which would require a steep reduction in the number of animals that can be raised in the country.
Can Big Tech’s layoffs help mitigate climate change? — Pranshu Verma, Danielle Abril and Shannon Osaka for The Post
The climate-friendly way to furnish your home — Scott Kirkwood for The Post
Almost all species in global shark fin trade to be protected — Kelly Kasulis Cho for The Post
Race to secure gas for Europe’s future winters has already begun — Jenny Strasburg and Benoît Morenne for the Wall Street Journal
Alternate caption: Delegates waking up after dozing off at the COP27 closing plenary. | 2022-11-21T13:16:18Z | www.washingtonpost.com | COP27 yielded a historic climate fund. COP28 must do more, experts say - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/11/21/cop27-yielded-historic-climate-fund-cop28-must-do-more-experts-say/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/11/21/cop27-yielded-historic-climate-fund-cop28-must-do-more-experts-say/ |
D.C. police arrest teen in shooting of 14-year-old boy
Antoine Junior Manning died after a second shooting three weeks later on Halloween night
Antoine Junior Manning, 14, played football in a youth league and dreamed of someday making it to the NFL. (Family photo)
D.C. police have arrested a 15-year-old and charged him with shooting and wounding a 14-year-old boy early last month in Southeast Washington, according to a statement from police.
The victim, Antoine Junior Manning, was shot again on the same block about three weeks later, on Oct. 31, and died. Dustin Sternbeck, a D.C. police spokesman, confirmed Antoine was the same victim in both shootings in the 2600 block of Birney Place SE.
Police said the 15-year-old was arrested Friday and charged as a juvenile with assault with a dangerous weapon. His name was not divulged because of his age. Police said they are seeking additional people involved in the shooting, which occurred Oct. 9.
Sternbeck said he could not comment on whether the 15-year-old is also suspected of being involved in the Halloween night shooting that killed Antoine. No arrests have been made in that homicide.
Authorities have not described a possible motive in either shooting but they have said they believe Antoine was targeted in the homicide. He had been a ninth-grader and aspiring football player who dreamed of the NFL and was described by his family as a young ladies man. His funeral was Friday.
At least four other teens or children were shot the two weeks before Antoine’s killing, including a 15-year-old shot aboard a Metro train, a 4-year-old wounded by a bullet not meant for him and another 15-year-old killed on a porch. Still another 15-year-old was fatally shot in Northeast Washington on Nov. 4.
Antoine attended Digital Pioneers Academy and enjoyed dancing and the latest TikTok trends. His father said he had charisma with the ladies. “He was a good person. He had a good heart,” Antoine Brown, Antoine’s father, said after the death. “And they took my son away from me. Oh God, I’m never going to see my son again.”
The younger Antoine, known as “Twon,” played football for the Watkins Hornets Youth Association team called the “Clockboyz” for three years, according to team administrators and multiple parents of other players.
Emily Davies contributed to this report. | 2022-11-21T13:36:03Z | www.washingtonpost.com | D.C. police arrest suspect in killing of 14-year-old boy - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/11/21/police-arrest-youth-dc/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/11/21/police-arrest-youth-dc/ |
When to eat Thanksgiving dinner? It can be a thorny question.
Perspective by Becky Krystal
(Anna Pers Bräcke/Anna Pers Bräcke for The Washinton Post)
They say marriage is all about compromise, and perhaps there’s no more obvious time for that than Thanksgiving. What you make, whom you invite, where you gather: If there’s a family difference, it’s just waiting to come out on one of the biggest holidays of the year. In my case, the main thing I had to adapt to once I started celebrating Thanksgiving with my husband’s family was when we actually sat down to eat.
Every family — nay, every person — probably has some opinion on the best time to dig into the feast. In my family, Thanksgiving dinner was served as dinner, on the slightly early side, somewhere between 5 and 6 p.m. My husband’s family prefers an early- to midafternoon meal.
My parents raised me well, meaning especially at first, I took a polite and respectful “your house, your rules” approach while I integrated into my in-laws’ traditions. As time marched on, so too did the hour of our meal, if only because the sheer amount of cooking we took on made it harder to get everything on the table by 1 or 2 p.m.
When does your family eat Thanksgiving dinner? Share in the comments below!
What is the best time to eat? My informal polling in conversations and on social media have yielded a range of opinions, from noon to 9 p.m. The prime reasons fell largely into two camps: Giving the cook(s) enough time to prepare the meal and deciding whether, when and what you want to eat later. Here are some issues to consider when picking various meal times:
Noon: The early birds want to ensure they not only have room for dessert but also a full second meal, presumably from leftovers. Skipping the turkey and doing lots of advance prep can help turn this into a reality. Even so, just the mention of a 12 p.m. start time sends shivers down my spine. So does considering the logistics of a second round — packing up the initial meal, taking the leftovers back out, reheating them, more dishes to do. And if you don’t intend to have a second meal, then what? Do you risk prematurely breaking up the party by having people leave to find food elsewhere, or start awkwardly returning to the kitchen to pick at whatever’s left? If you have mastered the midday meal, I salute you! (And am genuinely curious about how you gracefully accomplish it!)
2 to 4 p.m.: In my (very unscientific) poll, this was by far the most popular time period. It’s late enough to not really be called lunch, but too early to be considered dinner, at least according to my personal definitions. I could relate to many of the explanations here. The cooks have plenty of time to prep. You can have a good breakfast to carry you through the day without worrying about spoiling your appetite — ideally supplemented with snacks as needed. You get to eat and take a walk before the sun goes down, which is increasingly early this time of year in the northern areas of the country. Plus, there’s plenty of time to socialize before and after the big meal, with a generous window later for dessert or another round, if that’s your thing. And if you’re the kind of family that watches football on Thanksgiving, a 4 p.m. meal means you can watch the first game, eat and be done not too long after the kickoff for the second game. Or if you prefer a nap? Eat your afternoon meal, take a snooze and come back revived for more family time.
5 to 6 p.m.: This early dinner time frame is what I grew up with. Naturally, this gives the cooks plenty of time to be in the kitchen and even — gasp! — socialize a bit. In my mind, this takes off even more psychological pressure because it feels more like just another dinner than a middle-of-the-day Event. At this point, you can have your meal, save a little room for dessert later and not even worry about another full meal.
7 to 9 p.m.: For some of the night owls, this is an inevitable result of preparing massive amounts of food. For others, it’s driven by tradition or culture. Expats in Europe may keep in step with later dinner hours there, and several people responding to my queries said this was common in Mexican or other Latino households (one person said it helped the festivities go to 4 or 5 in the morning!).
But what about from a nutritional standpoint? There are some compelling physiological and behavioral reasons to put thought into when you eat, says Michele Smallidge, a registered dietitian and director of the exercise science program at the University of New Haven. Ideally, you want to wait at least two to three hours after eating before getting into bed, Smallidge says, as lying down isn’t great for digestion. And the later you eat, the less likely you are to be up and moving around following the meal, which is important for helping burn off some of the calories you just took in. Moreover, if you’ve not eaten much during the day to be ready for Thanksgiving, a late meal can contribute to overeating, as your body seeks to correct dipping blood sugar. A better approach is to more evenly spread your eating throughout the day, including breakfast, a light lunch and then a not-too-late dinner that still allows for activity after. Smallidge’s family gathers in late morning aiming for a 2 or 3 p.m. meal, which usually ends up more like 4 p.m.
As to how the meal affects your diet, “I look at it through a behavioral lens,” Smallidge says. “It’s an eating holiday.” Be mindful of what you put on your plate. Especially if you generally have good eating habits, you can cut yourself some slack on Thanksgiving. The holiday is just the beginning of a food-oriented time of year, so setting the tone at the start is a wise move, Smallidge says.
That means that how you eat is probably more important than when you eat. The best time for Thanksgiving dinner may very well be whenever it — and you — are ready. | 2022-11-21T14:41:25Z | www.washingtonpost.com | When to eat Thanksgiving dinner? It can be a thorny question. - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/food/2022/11/21/thanksgiving-best-time-to-eat/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/food/2022/11/21/thanksgiving-best-time-to-eat/ |
Predators may have helped turn dinosaur into a mummy
Fossil of Dakota the Edmontosaurus included skin. Scientists believe the way the dino died may have preserved it.
By Galadriel Watson
An artist's drawing of what Edmontosaurus would have looked like when it lived. The box is a photograph of a fossil of the dinosaur's hand, which includes mummified skin and bite marks. (Illustration by Natee Puttapipat/Photo courtesy of the University of Tennessee)
You probably know about Egyptian mummies, but did you know that dinosaurs could become mummies, too? This happens when skin is fossilized along with the bones. Before, scientists thought this could occur only if the dinosaur’s body was buried quickly, since this kept it safe from meat eaters and decomposition. Recently, though, a dinosaur mummy known as Dakota challenged this idea.
About 67 million years ago, at the end of the Cretaceous period, Dakota died in what we now call North Dakota. An Edmontosaurus, Dakota was a type of hadrosaur (a duck-billed dinosaur), which were common back then. What makes Dakota special, though, is that its fossil included skin and that this skin had bite marks in it.
Fossil sets a record for largest land-based invertebrate
A relative of today’s crocodile seems to be at least one of the culprits, either killing the dinosaur or having a scavenging snack. But how did Dakota become mummified?
“If you have a meat eater that’s maybe not big enough to eat the whole animal, one of the things they might do is get through the skin and then start eating what’s on the inside,” says Stephanie Drumheller-Horton, a paleontologist at the University of Tennessee at Knoxville. In addition to removing the internal organs, this process gives “all of the gunk — all of the gases and liquids and all of that stuff — a way to escape. You’ve basically hollowed-out the remains, and then the skin that’s left behind can dry out much more easily.”
Dakota’s body, with remaining skin, later became buried and eventually fossilized.
Drumheller-Horton credits her team members for this discovery, whose job it is to “prepare” the fossil — meaning they remove the rock that surrounds it to reveal the dinosaur beneath. “They were the first ones who found these patterns of damage and brought them to our attention.”
Another pattern they have revealed is that of Dakota’s skin itself. “It’s a very bumpy-looking texture,” Drumheller-Horton says, and includes “fun parts of the body where there are some patterns to the scales.” While its thickness might have protected the animal from some predators, “it wasn’t going to slow down a T-Rex.”
In addition to learning more about hadrosaurs, scientists now realize that “there are multiple ways to make a mummy.”
Three possible dino or human mummifying methods
Bury it rapidly. This keeps bodies safe from the elements such as weather and wildlife. For example, “Leonardo” is a duck-billed dinosaur mummy that has the contents of its stomach preserved.
Hollow it out and dry it. Just as Dakota had its internal organs removed, “in Egyptian mummies, that was done intentionally, and the body was treated in a way to help it dry,” Drumheller-Horton says.
Sink it in a body of water that lacks oxygen deep-down. “Decomposition is going to be slowed,” Drumheller-Horton says, “because those microbes that help the process along need oxygen.” For example, “bog bodies” found in Denmark and Ireland have been preserved for centuries, and an extremely well-preserved nodosaur mummy was found about a decade ago in Canada. | 2022-11-21T14:41:27Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Dinosaur mummy shows bite marks from predators - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/kidspost/2022/11/21/dinosaur-mummy-with-bite-marks/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/kidspost/2022/11/21/dinosaur-mummy-with-bite-marks/ |
Attendance and sick leave policies have lead to widespread anger and frustration among rank-and-file railroad workers on major freight lines.
An aerial view of gantry cranes, shipping containers, and freight railway trains ahead of a possible strike if there is no deal with the rail worker unions, at the Union Pacific Los Angeles (UPLA) Intermodal Facility rail yard in Commerce, California, U.S., Sept. 15, 2022. (Bing Guan/Reuters)
A national rail strike could threaten the nation’s coal shipments, its supply of drinking water, and shut down passenger rail. The U.S. economy could lose $2 billion a day if railroad workers strike, according to the Association of American Railroads. | 2022-11-21T14:45:47Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Rail union rejects contract as strike threatens to hobble U.S. economy - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2022/11/21/rail-union-strike-white-house/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2022/11/21/rail-union-strike-white-house/ |
WASHINGTON, DC - NOVEMBER 18: U.S. President Joe Biden speaks during an event with business and labor leaders at the White House complex November 18, 2022 in Washington, DC. During the event, Biden discussed efforts his administration has made to strengthen the U.S. economy. (Photo by Win McNamee/Getty Images) (Photographer: Win McNamee/Getty Images North America)
It’s not that Republicans actually oppose raising the limit, a superfluous and unnecessary law that only allows the Treasury to borrow money Congress has already obligated it to borrow.(1)But Republicans believe that they can withhold their votes in order to extract concessions on yet-to-be-revealed policy goals. And they’re willing to risk creating havoc in financial markets and undermining faith in US credit in the process. It’s the political equivalent of a bratty kid threatening to hold his breath until he turns blue.
If the US did default on its debt, there is little doubt that a majority of voters, and perhaps an overwhelming majority, would tell pollsters that Republicans in Congress were primarily at fault. But if the economy is damaged, Biden’s standing will suffer. That might not be fair, but that’s the way things work.
And when November 2024 rolls around, voters won’t let Democrats off the hook. That should be strong incentive for Biden and congressional Democrats to put an end to debt limit dramas right now.(2) As a side benefit, they can know that they are making good public policy by doing so.
(1) In previous debt limit showdowns, some Republicans have claimed without evidence that the government could somehow prioritize which bills it paid, and ignore the rest.This time, at least so far, Republicans are explicitly saying that they support raising the limit but believe in using it to extract concessions from the Democrats.
(2) Almost right now. I doubt that a debt limit vote would make any difference in the Georgia Senate runoff, but the rules that Democrats would have to use would allow Republicans to offer amendments aimed at generating tough votes for Senator Raphael Warnock, and so it makes sense to wait until after the Dec. 6 vote. For everyone else, the marginal pain of a tough vote two years (or more) before they are on the ballot again isn’t a big deal. | 2022-11-21T14:46:06Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Democrats Are Making a Mistake on the Debt Limit - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/energy/democrats-are-making-a-mistake-on-the-debt-limit/2022/11/21/6c42548a-69a1-11ed-8619-0b92f0565592_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/energy/democrats-are-making-a-mistake-on-the-debt-limit/2022/11/21/6c42548a-69a1-11ed-8619-0b92f0565592_story.html |
Once again, we are on the cusp of a nuclear renaissance. Actually realizing one requires something nuclear power isn’t known for: Speed.
There are two sides to a mooted renaissance.One is a new lease on life for existing plants. More than 10 reactors have closed over the past decade, largely because cheap shale gas depressed the price of electricity and burgeoning renewables also muscled in. Moreover, nuclear power’s attribute of zero-emissions largely went unrewarded, given a paucity of incentives.
Nuclear power’s fall from grace is often traced to the Three Mile Island accident in 1979, which stoked distrust from the public and excessive zeal from regulators. But nuclear power was struggling already. Many projects had been canceled before 1979, in part because it was already taking a decade to plan, license and construct a plant(1). Capital costs soared well before Three Mile Island, more than doubling in real terms between 1971 and 1978, flouting the conventional wisdom of greater scale leading to efficiencies.(2)
Meanwhile, as much as climate change bolsters the case for nuclear power, it has also bolstered alternatives. Not just renewable power and batteries, but conservation now enhanced by distributed energy technologies and sophisticated demand-management tools. Unlike nuclear power, the cost of such technologies has been falling fast.(3)
Despite being talked about for years, however, SMRs haven’t arrived yet. “There are no good cost estimates [for SMRs] because no one’s actually built one,” says Jonathan Koomey, a researcher studying energy technology costs and co-author of a forthcoming book “Solving Climate Change.” Given nuclear power’s track record, he adds, “what’s needed is a construction time and cost that we could predict with accuracy.”Even under good circumstances — and there are signs of cost issues already — initial SMR projects likely won’t operate for several more years. That means commercialization at scale is probably at least a decade away. What will the cost of competing technologies be by then?
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(1) Source: “Special Message to the Congress on the Energy Crisis”, delivered by former president Richard Nixon on January 23, 1974.
(2) Capital costs for nuclear plants increased by 142% in real terms, on average, between 1971 and 1978, or 13.5% per year. Source: “Power Plant Cost Escalation: Nuclear and Coal Capital Costs, Regulation and Economics”, Charles Komanoff (Van Nostrand Reinhold, 1981).
(3) Levelized cost of electricity, or LCOE, is a standard way of comparing different sources of generation. It is essentially the estimated all-in cost of building a power project per unit of electricity, using long-term assumptions about production, fuel costs et. al. It is also a flawed metric, not least because it doesn’t capture things of value like dispatchable capacity - that is, the ability to provide extra power when needed - or, often, a carbon price. With all those caveats in mind, however, the trend in underlying costs is undeniable here. | 2022-11-21T14:46:13Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Nuclear Power Has One Last Chance to Flourish in the US - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/energy/nuclear-power-has-one-last-chance-to-flourish-in-the-us/2022/11/21/cdac6e38-69a9-11ed-8619-0b92f0565592_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/energy/nuclear-power-has-one-last-chance-to-flourish-in-the-us/2022/11/21/cdac6e38-69a9-11ed-8619-0b92f0565592_story.html |
The mission, part of its Artemis campaign to eventually return astronauts to the lunar surface, continues to go well, NASA says
A camera aboard NASA’s Orion capsule has captured a view of Earth akin to that seen during the final Apollo mission in 1972. (Video: NASA via Storyful)
Five days after launching from the Kennedy Space Center, NASA’s Orion spacecraft reached the moon Monday, passing within 81 miles of the lunar surface, marking the completion of a key step in the space agency’s Artemis campaign to return astronauts there within a few years.
The spacecraft’s service module autonomously fired its engines at 7:44 a.m. Eastern time for two-and-a-half minutes while it flew behind the moon and was out of communications with ground controllers. The burn propelled the capsule toward an orbit around the moon that was expected to reach 268,552 miles from Earth, farther than any spacecraft designed for human spaceflight has flown and breaking a record set during the Apollo 13 mission.
The flight, known as Artemis I, does not have any people on board and will not land on the moon. Instead it is a test flight ahead of the Artemis II mission that will also orbit the moon, this time with astronauts. That could come as early as 2024, with a human landing as early as 2025 or 2026 that would mark the first time humans have walked on the moon since the last of the Apollo missions in 1972.
As the capsule emerged from the far side of the moon and beamed back photos of Earth in the distance, NASA’s Sandra Jones said on the agency’s live broadcast: “Standing on the shoulders of the giants of the Apollo generation, Orion now carries forward the torch of the Artemis generation, as it emerges from behind the moon. And Earth rise of our pale blue dot and its 8 million inhabitants now coming into view.”
As it passed around the moon, it flew about 1,300 miles above Tranquility Base, Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin’s Apollo 11 landing site, NASA said.
Leading up to Monday’s engine burn, known as the “outbound powered flyby,” Mike Sarafin, the Artemis I mission manager, said the spacecraft, “is exceeding performance expectations” and officials at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston gave the “go” to fire the engine. The capsule was built by Lockheed Martin, and the service module was supplied by the European Space Agency in a partnership with NASA. The engine that performed the burn was repurposed from the space shuttle and had flown 19 missions between 1984 and 2002.
On Friday, the spacecraft will enter what is known as a “distant retrograde orbit,” a stable trajectory high above the lunar surface that flies the opposite direction than the moon travels around Earth. The orbit was chosen because “little fuel is required to stay for an extended trip in deep space,” according to NASA, as it tests systems such as guidance, navigation, communications and power as the space agency prepares to return humans to the moon.
Orion will stay in that orbit for about six days before firing its engine again, putting it on a path toward home. It is expected to splashdown on the Pacific Ocean, off the coast of San Diego, on Dec. 11, completing a 25-and-a-half day mission.
Unlike the Apollo program, which was driven by the Cold War space race with the Soviet Union, Artemis seeks to create a permanent presence on and around the moon. NASA plans to eventually put a spacecraft called the Gateway into lunar orbit that would be used as a staging area for astronauts as they ferry to and from the lunar surface.
For its human landings, NASA is targeting the south pole of the moon, where there is water in the permanently shadowed craters. | 2022-11-21T14:47:09Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Orion reached lunar orbit, passing 81 miles above the moon's surface - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2022/11/21/orion-moon-orbit-arrives/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2022/11/21/orion-moon-orbit-arrives/ |
Jeff Saturday, center, walks on the Colts' sideline during Sunday's loss to the Eagles in Indianapolis. (Justin Casterline/Getty Images)
INDIANAPOLIS — It has been two games since Indianapolis Colts owner Jim Irsay incurred the wrath of so many by going outside not only his own organization, but the entire coaching profession to choose his team’s interim head coach. Yet there are no firm conclusions to be drawn thus far about how Jeff Saturday will fare after being hired so uniquely, in the middle of a disappointing season and with no previous coaching experience above the high school level.
Saturday’s team followed a victory in Las Vegas with a near miss loss here Sunday against the Philadelphia Eagles, one of the league’s top teams, in the coach’s first home game. Saturday inherited a below-.500 team and has gone, to this point, .500 with it. There have been no major coaching blunders, no glaring deficiencies. But an opportunity for an eye-catching triumph and a 2-0 beginning slipped away Sunday at Lucas Oil Stadium.
“It’s a tough one to swallow,” quarterback Matt Ryan said after the 17-16 defeat to the Eagles. “Make no mistake, they’re a good football team, and they’re playing very well all year. I thought we had a good idea of what we needed to do in order to win. We did a lot of really good things. But we made too many mistakes along the way. And yeah, that one feels like we let it get away.”
NFL Sunday takeaways: Eagles beat Colts, Bills win in Detroit, Vikings sputter
Even after such a dispiriting loss, veteran pass rusher Yannick Ngakoue expressed strong support for Saturday in the Colts’ locker room after the game.
“The mind-set and the vibe in the locker room is the same,” Ngakoue said. “I love Coach Saturday. He has great energy. He’s genuine. And he’s been in these lockers, and he’s been through adversity just like how we’ve been. So I’m happy and ecstatic to be led by a guy like that.”
That is in sharp contrast to so much of what was said about Saturday, the former all-pro center for the Colts who had been an NFL studio analyst for ESPN, after Irsay appointed him to replace Reich following the team’s 3-5-1 start. Bill Cowher, the former Super Bowl-winning coach for the Pittsburgh Steelers who is in the Pro Football Hall of Fame, called the move “a disgrace to the coaching profession” on the CBS studio show. Former Cleveland Browns offensive tackle Joe Thomas said on NFL Network that Irsay hired his “drinking buddy.”
The Fritz Pollard Alliance, the diversity group that works closely with the NFL on its minority hiring, announced last week that it had initiated an inquiry with the league into whether this process conformed with the league’s hiring guidelines for interim coaches. Irsay and the NFL have said that the league’s minority interviewing requirements do not apply to in-season interim coaching hires, but the Colts must comply with those rules when they hire a permanent head coach.
Saturday acknowledged he’d been stunned to receive Irsay’s call but said he was confident in his leadership abilities. Irsay said he had no doubt he’d made the right move. The criticism and derision calmed down, at least temporarily, with the 25-20 win over the Raiders.
But the Colts could not quite double down Sunday, squandering leads of 13-3 entering the fourth quarter and 16-10 in the final two minutes. The Eagles moved in front with a seven-yard touchdown run by quarterback Jalen Hurts with just more than a minute remaining and held on from there to improve their league-best record to 9-1.
Saturday called it a “disappointing loss, obviously,” and added: “Just too many mistakes — too many penalties, too many negative plays, missing kicks. You can’t play a team that good and give them that many opportunities. We just left them in the game, and ultimately they made one more play than we did.”
Colts center Ryan Kelly said in the locker room: “It stings. We’ve just got to eliminate penalties and stop shooting ourselves in the foot. … We could all do better at times. It just sucks. We knew we were so close to having a chance to win that game. Games are ultimately lost, not won, in the NFL.”
This, Kelly said, was one of those games that was lost.
“I give them credit,” Kelly said. “They’re a good defense, a good team. But we probably should have won that game.”
Saturday’s most notable moves have been to make Parks Frazier, the assistant quarterbacks coach under Reich who turned 31 on Sunday, his offensive play-caller and to reinstall Ryan as the starter. Reich had gone to Sam Ehlinger and had said the youngster would remain the starting quarterback for the remainder of the season.
And though he wanted a proven player and former league MVP as his quarterback, Saturday showed some patience for younger players following Sunday’s defeat when he said of a couple inexperienced starters along the Colts offensive line: “We’ve just got to continue to teach them. … You’ve got to grin and bear it with some of that, just because of the age of the players and how little they’ve actually played. Those are just details we’ve got to continue to fine-tune.”
The Colts had an impressive touchdown drive, featuring 49 rushing yards from tailback Jonathan Taylor, on their opening possession against the Eagles. But they didn’t reach the end zone again, scoring only on three field goals. They were competitive, for sure. But their gaffes made them look very much like a 4-6-1 team that is on only the outskirts of the AFC playoff race.
“It’s not one thing,” Ryan said. “Throughout the course of the year, we’ve all taken our turns. We just have to execute. It’s boring. But we have to execute better than we have. It’s like the devil is in the details. It’s over and over and over and over. … When you’re playing against really good football teams, the margin for error is small. We showed you can go toe to toe with them. But you can’t make the mistakes that we made today and expect to win.”
The Colts will have to conduct a full coaching search at season’s end. Saturday said just after being hired he realized he, like virtually everyone else in the league, was auditioning not only for the Colts, but also for other NFL teams.
“I think Jeff has done a great job,” Ryan said Sunday. “It’s not an easy situation to come into. Obviously we all love Frank. I was around him for a short amount of time. But I’ve got a lot of respect for Frank. But I think given the circumstances, Jeff’s done a great job coming in here. I also say the rest of the [coaching] staff has stepped up and done a lot of really good things. … Across the board, I think our staff has done well.” | 2022-11-21T15:33:49Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Colts' Jeff Saturday's NFL audition begins with mixed results - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/11/21/jeff-saturday-coach-colts-eagles/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/11/21/jeff-saturday-coach-colts-eagles/ |
The anti-Blackness of ‘the Black kids teased me for talking White’
You can assume the children being teased were thought to be nerdy or were just unpopular. The problem here — well, one of the problems (I’ll get to another problem soon) — is when teasing a child for being socially awkward is considered unique to Blackness. Which then reinforces the lie of Black pathology — that something is inherently deficient in us. The truth is that kids who are considered unblinking and uncool academic strivers are teased by everyone. I’ve both attended school and worked in predominantly Black and predominantly White districts. (I’ve been around.) That sort of teasing transcends race, culture and class. It is not a good thing that a certain type of kid is teased everywhere. I hate that for them. But it’s definitely, absolutely, positively not a Black thing either. And yes, “White” might have been the word used during said teasing, instead of “nerd.” But White in this context is a synonym for awkward or uncool. Not smart.
Another tentacle of anti-Blackness is the presumption that young Black kids don’t possess the mental acuity to be savvy enough to recognize when peers are overtly anti-Black. This, again, is a fallacy popular with (some) non-Black people and (some) Black people. I’m curious how many of these full-grown Black adults, who claim that they were ridiculed by Black kids for acting or talking “White,” were intentional about distancing themselves from other Black people as far as they could get. I don’t mean that they were into anime while their classmates were into Ashanti. (It is possible to be into both, you know?) But that they considered Black people and Black cultures to be below them — an albatross they needed to unfasten themselves from and rise above — and they mimicked their speech and behavior after how they believed White people acted. Basically, they weren’t teased for talking White because they were good in school. They were teased because they were … acting and talking White. (There’s a clear distinction, by the way, between speaking “proper” and speaking “White.” But unschooled and bad-faith observers — Black and non-Black — of this dynamic conflate the two.)
I’m curious how many of these full-grown Black adults were intentional about distancing themselves from other Black people.
I don’t blame a young Black person for behaving this way. When you’re inundated, ceaselessly, seductively, violently, that Black is bad and Black people are cursed — falsely told that we are destined, through our inherent deficits, to be a permanent underclass — of course you’ll be tempted to rid yourself of it. Of course. Of course. And while some of us are more susceptible than others, we’re all vulnerable. My first real job after college, for instance, was teaching high school English in Pennsylvania’s Blackest school district. I anticipated that the experience would be like the first 15 minutes of “Lean on Me,” and I braced myself for conflict. Violence, even. But I quickly discovered that to be an effective teacher of these kids — who were just as pimply and awkward and silly and snotty-nosed and sweet as any other high school kid was; as I was — I had to confront my own anti-Blackness, and I had to change. | 2022-11-21T16:08:44Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Damon Young: The anti-Blackness of ‘the Black kids teased me for talking White’ - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/magazine/2022/11/21/damon-young-anti-blackness-black-kids-teased-me-talking-white/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/magazine/2022/11/21/damon-young-anti-blackness-black-kids-teased-me-talking-white/ |
This image provided by Brenda Hollins by Gordon McKernan shows Mike Hollins, right, and his mother, Brenda Hollins, at University of Virginia Medical Center in Charlottesville, Va., on Wednesday, Nov. 17, 2022. Mike Hollins was shot and wounded on the school’s campus on Sunday, Nov. 13. Three of his teammates on the university’s football team were fatally shot during the incident. (Brenda Hollins and Gordon McKernan via AP) (Uncredited/Brenda Hollins and Gordon McKernan) | 2022-11-21T16:17:30Z | www.washingtonpost.com | UVA football player wounded in shooting gets out of hospital - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/uva-football-player-wounded-in-shooting-gets-out-of-hospital/2022/11/21/0f6f4e86-69b3-11ed-8619-0b92f0565592_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/uva-football-player-wounded-in-shooting-gets-out-of-hospital/2022/11/21/0f6f4e86-69b3-11ed-8619-0b92f0565592_story.html |
Reparations for Black Americans can work if they are reimagined
By Andrew Delbanco
Restraints typical of the type used during the slave trade on display at the National Museum of African American History and Culture in Washington in March 2019. (Matt McClain/The Washington Post)
Andrew Delbanco is a professor of American studies at Columbia University. This is adapted from the Jefferson Lecture he delivered in October.
Reparations — the idea that a decent society must accept responsibility in the present for injustices perpetrated in the past — have been imagined in various ways through the course of American history. But until now, the idea of reparations for the crime of slavery, as well as for its long aftermath of racial subjugation, has run into objections — both principled and practical — that have shut down any effort to turn the idea into reality.
Reparations must be reimagined in a way that could turn aspiration into action.
First, we must contend with the kind of questions that have stalled such efforts in the past: What connection should one feel to acts committed or omitted before one was born? How can the cost be calculated of living at the mercy of a person who claims to own you, and of knowing that the same will be true for your children and their children? Even if one could compute the cost, who would fund the reparations, and to whom should they be paid? Would they be subject to means-testing and paid on a graduated scale? Who would decide who qualifies?
Adjudicating these questions — and there are many more — would no doubt open more cracks in our already fractured country. But evading them, as the phrase goes, is not an option.
Over the centuries, many voices have been raised in an effort to move America toward confronting these issues squarely and honestly.
Years before the first shots were fired in the Civil War, Black writer and abolitionist Martin Delany called for a “national indemnity … for the unparalleled wrongs, undisguised impositions, and unmitigated oppression” endured by Black people since the first enslaved Africans arrived in the 17th century.
After the war, the idea of money reparations began evolving into the idea that the federal government should provide formerly enslaved persons with grants of free land. That might sound like a radical plan out of Mao Zedong’s China or Fidel Castro’s Cuba — but there were precedents in 19th-century America. In 1862, on the Sea Islands off the coast of South Carolina, which had been captured by Union forces early in the war, the federal government granted to former slaves free housing, modest wages and basic rations in exchange for cotton cultivation on small plots of land. Three years later, Gen. William T. Sherman issued his famous Field Order 15 assigning ownership of hundreds of thousands of abandoned acres along the coast from Charleston to Florida to some 40,000 former slaves.
But these were wartime measures. As soon as peace returned, the “poetry” of the idea, as W.E.B. Du Bois put it, collided with “prose” reality. With the return to power of a federal administration friendly to the White South, promises to the freedmen were revoked, property returned to former Confederate landowners, and the dream of Black homesteads “melted quickly away.” Toward the end of his life, Frederick Douglass bitterly remarked that “when the serfs of Russia were emancipated, they were given three acres of ground upon which they could live and make a living.” But America’s slaves were “sent away empty-handed, without money, without friends and without a foot of land upon which to stand.”
Land, of course, was not the only essential asset of which Black people had been deprived. Education was another. “Let us atone for our sins,” wrote the leaders of the American Missionary Association, “by furnishing schools and the means of improvement for the children, upon whose parents we have inflicted such fearful evils.”
This, too, proved to be a dream deferred. After federal troops withdrew from the South in 1877, Black children were subjected to what can only be called a terrorist campaign. Parents who dared send their children to school were fired by their White employers. Teachers and students were beaten. Schools were torched. And even when terror abated, Black schools were grossly underfunded. By 1950, in Mississippi, Black public schools received approximately $32 of state support per student while White schools received roughly four times as much.
And so the debt owed by White America to Black Americans continued to accrue. It grew through the sharecropping system that locked agricultural workers into inescapable cycles of debt. It was compounded by the system of convict labor by which Black men were snatched off the streets for such putative crimes as “vagrancy,” and forced to work unpaid in factories or mines. It persisted into the 20th century as the United States built the semblance of a welfare state from which millions of African Americans were excluded. The signature program of the New Deal, the Social Security Act of 1935, exempted agricultural and domestic laborers who, in the South, were overwhelmingly Black. Black military veterans were excluded, too, not de jure but de facto, from the G.I. Bill. At just the moment when a college degree began to supplant the high school diploma as the minimum credential for entering the middle class, most Black veterans, who came overwhelmingly from the South, failed to qualify because their schooling had been negligible, or because most colleges wouldn’t admit them.
These larcenies were measurable forms of theft that help explain why Black Americans have owned so little that could be passed on to their children, and why the median assets of Black families today trail so far behind — by about 700 percent — those of White families.
But there is another list of immeasurable injuries: frat boys posing in blackface; Black men shoved aside so White women might pass on the sidewalk; beaches segregated; and, of course, the ghastly regularity of beatings and lynchings. These pathologies haunted Black writers such as Richard Wright, who wrote of them with icy rage, and James Baldwin, who wrote of them with sorrow and pity, as when, flying to Atlanta over woodland, he imagined that the “rust-red earth of Georgia ... had acquired its color from the blood that had dripped down from these trees.”
This appalling history makes the moral case for some form of reparations irrefutable. But it doesn’t answer the political question of whether reparations in any conventional sense are conceivable.
Through the 19th and into the mid-20th century, Black Americans issued impassioned calls for recompense, even sometimes proposing dollar amounts per person or per family. By and large, these demands were dismissed, ignored or, as in the case of Callie House, leader of the National Ex-Slave Mutual Relief, Bounty, and Pension Association, silenced by imprisonment.
But around the middle of the 20th century, propelled by two historical events, the reputation of reparations began to change. The first event took place abroad: the campaign to exterminate the Jews of Europe, led by Germany. The second took place here in the United States: the movement to secure basic civil rights for millions of Black Americans.
It is always dangerous to go down the road of analogies. There are no scales by which to weigh the worth of Jews sent by rail to the gas chambers versus Africans sent by sea into oblivion. In thinking about history, differences are always more salient than commonalities. Yet the fact that post-Nazi Germany was trying to own up to its crimes was not lost on those who, in the 1950s, began to press the United States to do the same.
The most celebrated champion of racial justice in midcentury America, the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. is not usually counted among them. As far as I know, he never used the term “reparations.” But he knew that, in the absence of redress, time alone does not erase past injustice. And so, in 1964, we find him writing that:
The ancient common law has always provided a remedy for the appropriation of the labor of one human being by another. This law should be made to apply for American Negroes. The payment should be in the form of a massive program by the Government of special, compensatory measures which could be regarded as a settlement in accordance with the accepted practice of common law.
Construing such a “settlement” in monetary terms was encouraged not only by the German precedent, but also by homegrown efforts in the United States. In 1946, Congress created the Indian Claims Commission as a mediator between Native Americans and the federal government. Since then, from Alaska to North Carolina, several billion dollars have been paid out by federal and state governments in settlement of land claims; it’s a big-sounding number but, in aggregate, it amounts to less than $1,000 per person.
Another official act of reparation occurred in 1988, when Congress, with bipartisan support, passed the Civil Liberties Act, by which the United States officially apologized to Americans of Japanese descent who had been thrown into detention camps during World War II. Almost 50 years after the internment, payments of $20,000 were authorized for living individuals.
Today, some advocates of reparations propose distributing trillions of dollars to everyone who can demonstrate descent from an enslaved ancestor and who, for some designated period, has identified as Black. Heartfelt as they might be, such purely monetary approaches face overwhelming obstacles: competing claims by other groups, rivalry and discord among prospective beneficiaries, not to mention the mind-boggling price tag attached to any meaningful attempt to give back what was taken away.
And yet, inspired in part by a powerful essay published by Ta-Nehisi Coates in the Atlantic not quite a decade ago, the question of slavery reparations has been gaining attention across a swath of American life. Apologies are flowing from universities, municipalities and businesses for their complicity not only in slavery but also in subsequent forms of racial exploitation. Reps. James E. Clyburn (D-S.C.) and Seth Moulton (D-Mass.) have introduced a bill that would provide federal loan guarantees and education subsidies to descendants of Black World War II veterans who were denied their G.I. Bill benefits. House Resolution 40, first introduced more than 30 years ago, calls for a commission to design a national reparations plan, and has now garnered more than 200 co-sponsors. Depending on one’s point of view, these are either baby steps or signs that the dam is breaking.
At stake in all these efforts is what might be called the sins-of-the-fathers question, addressed by authors from Sophocles and Aeschylus to Nathaniel Hawthorne and William Faulkner. Edmund Burke, in the wake of the French Revolution, decried the idea of holding individuals responsible for what he called a “pedigree of crimes” committed in the past by some class, party or sect to which they may belong. But Burke also wrote that society “is a partnership … between those who are living, those who are dead, and those who are to be born.” If history confers on people in the present neither credit nor blame for what happened in the past, what kind of partnership exists across time?
Our nation is badly overdue in facing this question. But seeking a consensual answer is like wading into quicksand. I suspect that most people believe both the nay and the yay of the matter — that no one living today is to blame for the sins of the past, but that everyone has a responsibility to help redress them.
In pondering what this might actually mean, I came upon a book, “Reconsidering Reparations,” published a few months ago by a young scholar at Georgetown University, Olúfẹ́mi O. Táíwò, who speaks of reparations not as payback or getting even or settling scores but as what he calls a “construction project.” “What if building the just world,” he asks, “was reparations?” He means, I think, that we must proceed with full awareness that the dire challenges of our time — climate change, disparities in health care and education amplified by the coronavirus pandemic, gun violence, state violence in the form of bad policing, misused and inequitable incarceration, to name just a few — all have disproportionate effects on persons left vulnerable by history, notably but by no means only Black persons. This version of reparations does not gloss over penalties exacted in the past by racial cruelty, but it looks to a future in which human dignity will count for more and more and race will count for less and less.
King shared this view. Back in the 20th century, when our politics were positively congenial compared with today, he understood that targeted reparations solely for Black Americans were a political impossibility. He correctly predicted that “many white workers whose economic condition is not too far removed from the economic condition of his black brother, will find it difficult to accept a ‘Negro Bill of Rights,’ which seeks special consideration to the Negro … and does not take into sufficient account of their plight (that of the white worker).”
But this did not dissuade King from the principle of redress itself. On the contrary, he envisioned something more daring, more ambitious, and more inclusive — an idea of reparations that was not post-racial but cross-racial. “It is a simple matter of justice,” he said, “that America, in dealing creatively with the task of raising the Negro from backwardness, should also be rescuing a large stratum of the forgotten white poor.”
Reparations narrowly conceived will stoke anger and resentment, but reparations broadly imagined can be a force for unity and reconciliation. This is the dream by which King was possessed: to repair what he called the broken “network of mutuality” that was, according to his religion, both the origin and destiny of humankind. The reconstructed world he imagined — still, for now, a dream world — will be a place where anyone’s remediable suffering is an affront to us all. | 2022-11-21T16:17:43Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Opinion | Reparations for Black Americans can work if they are reimagined - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/11/21/reparations-black-americans-reimagined/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/11/21/reparations-black-americans-reimagined/ |
Threats to weaponize the debt ceiling are more dangerous than ever
By Peter Orszag
House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (Calif.) and other Republicans listen to questions from members of the media on Tuesday. (Alex Wong/Getty Images)
Peter R. Orszag, the chief executive of financial advisory at Lazard, is a former director of the Office of Management and Budget and the Congressional Budget Office.
Could 2023 be the year when the debt-ceiling time bomb finally explodes?
In October, House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) warned that Republicans are planning to use the debt limit as leverage to demand spending cuts, potentially including Social Security and Medicare — cuts that President Biden will not accept. Now that Republicans have won control of the House and McCarthy is potentially the next speaker, the threat is real. And this time, thanks to shifting political forces and lower levels of liquidity in the Treasury market, the peril is greater than it has ever been before.
This makes the upcoming lame-duck session of Congress the most consequential since at least 1974. It would be wise to find a way to raise the debt ceiling before control of the House changes.
The debt ceiling — now $31.4 trillion, a level that stands to be pierced by the third quarter of 2023 — is an anachronism. Congress enacts changes to tax law and entitlement programs (such as Social Security and Medicare), and sets non-entitlement spending each year. These decisions, in turn, exhaust the policy levers available to control the level of U.S. government debt. (The evolution of debt is also influenced by the economy, market interest rates and other factors, but those are mostly outside the control of policymakers.) So having a separate limit on the permitted level of debt is redundant.
As the Government Accountability Office has written, “The debt ceiling does not control the amount of debt. Instead, it is an after-the-fact measure that restricts the Treasury’s ability to borrow to finance the decisions already enacted by Congress and the President.”
If the debt limit were merely a mundane accounting constraint regularly adjusted by Congress and the White House to reflect already-enacted policies, it might be harmless. But politicians have learned to wield it as a weapon.
It is a particularly dangerous one in today’s highly polarized environment, because political norms that governed past negotiations — in particular, the idea that avoiding default is paramount — might no longer hold. In a world with unclear exit ramps on crucial issues including the war in Ukraine and growing tension with China, there’s no need for a new Gordian knot around the debt limit.
Nor is this a good time to raise further questions about our country’s willingness to break our own laws and norms, an issue frequently raised by business executives and leaders across the globe.
Another new concern centers on signs of lower liquidity in the Treasury market. In July 2021, the Group of Thirty, an independent organization of economic thinkers, reported that “the aggregate amount of capital allocated to market-making by bank-affiliated dealers has not kept pace with the very rapid growth of marketable Treasury debt outstanding.” Other analysts point to reduced purchases of Treasurys by foreigners as a contributing influence; the Federal Reserve’s shift from expanding to shrinking its balance sheet is likely another exacerbating factor.
Whatever the cause, lower levels of liquidity in the Treasury market are driving increased volatility. Treasury Secretary Janet L. Yellen is considering efforts to attenuate the stresses, including a potential Treasury buyback program and greater transparency. It is far from clear what steps will work, but what the Treasury market definitively does not need is heightened uncertainty over the debt ceiling. Jitters over lower liquidity in Treasurys make threats to the debt limit more dangerous than in the past.
There are two ways to de-risk the situation in the lame-duck session of Congress. One is regular order, which would require the cooperation of Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) and a number of sitting Republican senators wise enough to join Democrats to address the issue now. But this may well not happen.
The other option involves a new budget resolution, which would facilitate using the reconciliation process to raise the debt limit, as was done in 1990, 1993 and 1997. This approach would require two votes — the first on the budget resolution and the second on reconciliation. It would take up about two weeks of Senate floor time, but it could be accomplished with only 50 votes.
Any Democrats averse to taking such a painful vote now should consider how much leverage their party will lose once Republicans control the House — and how much higher the risk of default will be then. It’s generally not a good idea to enter a negotiation with a ticking time bomb and a counterparty willing to let it go off.
The next two years will be turbulent in any case. The president and Congress can make them less risky by addressing the debt limit in December. | 2022-11-21T16:17:47Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Opinion | Threats to weaponize the debt ceiling are more dangerous than ever - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/11/21/republicans-house-debt-ceiling-treasurys/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/11/21/republicans-house-debt-ceiling-treasurys/ |
Harris’s visit to Philippine island could raise tensions with China
The vice president is traveling to the South China Sea, a region where Beijing has flexed its muscles
Jhesset Thrina Enano
Vice President Harris and Second Gentleman Doug Emhoff arrive at Ninoy Aquino International Airport in Manila on Sunday. (Haiyun Jiang/AP)
MANILA — Vice President Harris will visit the Philippine island chain of Palawan on Tuesday at the end of a week-long trip in Asia, an excursion to the edge of the disputed South China Sea that could raise tensions with Beijing.
Harris, the highest-ranking U.S. official to visit the Philippine archipelago, known as a scenic tropical getaway, will meet with local fishing workers to discuss the impact of the climate crisis and illegal fishing on coastal communities, according to a senior administration official who spoke anonymously under ground rules set by the White House.
China has staked a claim on a majority of the South China Sea, and the Philippines has lodged diplomatic protests against China’s maritime activities in the region, as local fishing communities have reported dwindling fish availability and displacement from their traditional fishing grounds amid hostilities from the Chinese coast guard.
In 2016, Manila scored a victory when an international tribunal ruled that China has no legal basis for its claims, but Beijing has disregarded the ruling.
Harris, signaling U.S. support for the Philippines in the dispute, is undertaking the delicate diplomatic mission at a time when U.S. tensions are rising over trade, Taiwan, human rights and other matters. President Biden met recently with Chinese President Xi Jinping, but the two superpowers continue to eye each other warily.
U.S.-China economic ties continue to fray
“We stand with you in defense of international rules and norms as it relates to the South China Sea,” Harris said Monday, addressing Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. in front of reporters. “An armed attack on the Philippines Armed Forces, public vessels or aircraft in the South China Sea would invoke U.S. mutual defense commitments. And that is an unwavering commitment that we have to the Philippines.”
Marcos, the son of former Philippine dictator Ferdinand Marcos, appeared to welcome the support.
“With the upheavals that we are seeing — not only in the region, but especially in the region — these partnerships become even more important,” he said. “The situation is rapidly changing. We must evolve to be properly responsive to that situation.”
Harris is also seeking to raise her political and diplomatic profile after two years as vice president. As Biden has signaled he will announce a reelection bid early next year but has not made a final decision, Harris is seeking to build a base as his heir apparent in the face of potential Democratic rivals.
The visit concludes a week-long trip in Thailand and the Philippines for Harris, who met with other world leaders, including Xi, at a two-day Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in Bangkok that focused on supply-chain and security issues. On the sidelines of APEC, Harris spoke to business leaders about the U.S. role in the economic development of the region.
Can Biden-Xi relationship avert a clash?
She also convened an emergency meeting of the leaders of Japan, South Korea, Australia, New Zealand and Canada after North Korea fired an intercontinental ballistic missile that landed near Japan, condemning the launch as a “brazen violation of multiple U.N. Security resolutions.”
In her conversation with Xi, Harris said she emphasized the importance of keeping “open lines of communication available,” adding that it echoed the three-hour-long discussion President Biden had with his Chinese counterpart on the sidelines of the Group of 20 summit in Bali, Indonesia.
“We welcome competition, but we do not seek conflict,” she told reporters.
Complicating matters, Brunei, Malaysia, Taiwan and Vietnam also claim parts of the disputed area.
Harris’s outreach to the Philippines is part of a broader connection the Biden administration is seeking to forge with Asian countries to counter China’s influence. Her visit to Palawan, the White House official said, reflects an effort to emphasize the need for all countries to follow international law.
Marcos joked to Harris that she was visiting Palawan for a leisure trip. “I’m sure you’re just going to the resorts and the beaches,” he said. Harris responded with a laugh, saying, “That is not the life I’ve chosen these days.”
Harris also announced on Monday that the Biden administration is eyeing additional locations under the Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement that allows the United States access to Philippine military bases, such as Palawan’s Antonio Bautista Air Base. The White House also said it would negotiate a civilian nuclear pact between the United States and the Philippines.
Asked whether Beijing might see Harris’s trip to Palawan as a provocation, Marcos downplayed that possibility.
“It’s very clearly on the Philippine territory,” he told reporters at APEC, according to local reports. “I don’t think it will cause problems.” | 2022-11-21T16:18:06Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Harris’s visit to Philippine island could raise tensions with China - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/11/21/harris-china-philippines-tension/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/11/21/harris-china-philippines-tension/ |
Transcript: A New Era of Journalism
MS. IZADI: Hello, and welcome to Washington Post Live. I’m Elahe Izadi, co-host of the podcast “Post Reports” and a reporter covering media at The Post. Today, we have two segments on the future of journalism and the state of journalism today. Later, I’ll be joined by Nancy Gibbs, the director of the Shorenstein Center at Harvard University and former editor in chief of Time. But first we’ll hear from Kim--Kimi Yoshino. Sorry, Kimi. Kimi Yoshino, editor in chief of The Baltimore Banner. Kimi, thank you and welcome to Washington Post Live.
MS. YOSHINO: Thank you so much for having me.
MS. IZADI: And remember, we always want to hear from you, our audience. You can share your thoughts and questions for guests on Washington Post Live by tweeting @PostLive.
So, Kimi, let's jump in. The Baltimore Banner is a relatively new online news site that started publishing this last summer. You were recruited to be its editor in chief. You were formerly a top editor at The Los Angeles Times. So, tell us what made you want to move across the country to run this unknown, brand-new venture. What was the promise that was so appealing to you?
MS. YOSHINO: I really wasn't actually expecting to want to move to Baltimore and to, you know, uproot my family and start over, but it was too good of an opportunity to pass up. I just don't think opportunities come along very often where you're basically told you can build everything from the ground up; you can hire everyone, every single person; you can put together all of the policies; you can build the culture that you want. And I was really excited about it. And I also thought this was really an opportunity to try to make a difference, try to really think about local news, and how we could potentially replicate this model in other markets.
MS. IZADI: Yeah, Kimi, I want to hear more about the model. But first, The Banner’s attention, clearly on Baltimore. And is it the city of Baltimore or Baltimore County more broadly, just so we're clear about when we say Baltimore, what we're talking about?
MS. YOSHINO: Yeah, we certainly started with a corps of reporters in the city, but we are definitely trying to cover Baltimore County and the surrounding region. We have reporters in the State House in Annapolis, and we are launching sports. We're moving into some other counties in Maryland later this year and early next.
MS. IZADI: Yeah, and can you tell us a little bit more about the particular areas that The Banner is focusing on--you mentioned a few already--or maybe, you know, started publishing this last summer, what areas you're finding most reader engagement and interest in so far?
MS. YOSHINO: Well, you know, when I moved to Baltimore, I knew that there was going to be no shortage of news. I knew it was a great news town, and it certainly has not disappointed.
I will just take yesterday as an example. We had a major development in a crime story that many people have been watching involving a teen squeegee worker who shot and killed a motorist who had been carrying a baseball bat, crossed many lanes of traffic to charge at the squeegee workers only to turn around and then later be shot. There was a decision yesterday to try him as an adult. That was a big story. The State attorney general is releasing a several hundred-page investigation into clergy abuse in the Catholic Church. It was just kind of a crazy day yesterday, and it feels like almost every day has been like that here.
But we've also been very committed to community coverage, trying to write about neighborhoods and communities that have traditionally been underserved.
MS. IZADI: This kind of segues into this. I know a number of the journalists that you have hired came from The Baltimore Sun, and maybe we could just step back for a moment and look at how The Baltimore Banner came to be. It happens it came into existence after businessman Stewart Bainum, he originally tried to buy The Baltimore Sun. When it became clear this hedge fund Alden Global Capital was making a move to purchase the Baltimore Sun’s parent company, which they eventually did, Tribune Publishing, and Mr. Bainum was unsuccessful in being able to purchase The Sun and instead started this venture. And you've recruited a number of Sun journalists who are excellent reporters and have been covering Baltimore for a while. Do you think that the city of Baltimore is big enough to sustain both The Baltimore Sun and The Banner? Or are you thinking about, you know, how The Banner does things differently and thinking of it in that way?
MS. YOSHINO: Yeah, it's true. We have hired a number of amazing journalists from The Baltimore Sun. We have hired a number of amazing journalists from all over the country, though many of them did have ties to Maryland or Baltimore and wanted to come back. So, we feel like we've got a great mix of both people who really know the city and community and people who are looking at it with fresh eyes.
We do think a lot about how are we going to do things differently. And I'm actually surprised on a daily basis how little overlap there often is between our coverage and The Sun's coverage. And I think it's just a signal of how much there is to report here.
I guess in answer to your question, though, we do think that--I mean, I think that there's plenty of news to go around. They have--they have so far answered us with competition. We have seen--I mean, I think I've seen some really strong reporting coming from The Sun, and they have backfilled some of the positions where we hired some of their staff.
MS. IZADI: I'm curious whether you think the business model of The Baltimore Banner is, you know, indicative or what's leading to maybe different types of coverage. Like you mentioned you are surprised to notice that your coverage might be different than what the Sun is doing.
And first, can you just tell us a little bit about the business model that's supporting The Banner’s journalism? How much of it is based on one person investing a lot of money, and just, long term, what's the vision?
MS. YOSHINO: Yes. Well, certainly, Stewart did invest a lot of seed money upfront. His theory was that he wanted to invest a lot at the beginning, and he wanted us to start big. So as a result, our newsroom right now is more than 50 journalists. We are hoping to be at 60, maybe even 70 by early next year. And we thought that we would come out big and really cover this region the way that we thought it deserved to be covered.
Our model is subscription-based and philanthropy-based. So, we are--we do have a paywall. We are selling subscriptions. And I'm happy to report that so far, we really believe that we're on track the way we were--we were expecting to be this year. I've been pleased with the reaction from readers and residents in Baltimore and throughout Maryland.
MS. IZADI: And just a note to our viewers at home. I think we're having a little bit of a sync issue with our connection here that we're working on, but I want to continue the conversation here.
You know, you mentioned a paywall. I'm curious about--and apologies if you were already talking about this; I was trying to catch you in the moment there--what do you make of this this concept that, you know, is prevalent in a lot of communities that paywalls and having subscription based can shut some people out from news coverage? And what is the most sort of wide-ranging approach so that everyone can have access to good, reliable, fact-based journalism?
MS. YOSHINO: Absolutely, we are--we are concerned about this. It's something that we think a lot about. We are working on getting access to The Banner at middle schools and high schools, in public libraries. We're working on partnerships with community organizations and neighborhood organizations where we can provide access. We dropped our paywall for five days during the election so that people could read our voter guide, read our political coverage and get informed before they voted. And we are—we--you know, we are also forming partnerships. We have a partnership with our local NPR affiliate, where our reporters often are on air talking about our stories. And we go on our CBS television station every weekday around 9:30 with one of our stories as other ways to get our stories out there. We're also working on providing access to our content for free to other news organizations throughout the state.
MS. IZADI: Kimi, I'm curious with your experience of getting The Banner up and running in this model that is different from the model you came from at The LA Times, do you feel like this is a replicable model for other cities and communities across the country? Does it require, you know, having someone who is very wealthy and is very interested in preserving local journalism and extending it to basically financially back a huge investment?
MS. YOSHINO: You know, I’m not going to lie, I think this is hard work. I think, as you can see, there are nonprofit journalism organizations cropping up all over the country who are trying to do the exact same thing that we’re doing, and I think that this is happening is really evidence that it’s needed, number one, and that people want it. I will say that we are pleased with the number of people that are reading our content right now, and we feel like our stories and our coverage are already making a difference. It’s leading to proposed new legislation. It’s leading to changes in agencies that are having trouble. We’re feeling good.
MS. IZADI: Kimi, I’m also curious what you make of how local journalism has functioned in the past. You know, sometimes there’s this discourse around we need to save local journalism. But has local journalism the way it’s been practiced always served communities? And curious as you’re building a new thing here the ways in which you want to improve and do things differently and not just, you know, hire more people to do more journalism but think about it differently or present it differently.
MS. YOSHINO: Yeah. I mean, one of the things that we did was we asked all of our reporters to draft a mission statement. What are they doing? What is the purpose of what they’re doing? Who are they doing it for? And we really want them thinking about this all the time. We want that guiding the stories that they’re choosing to do.
We are also constantly looking for different ways to tell stories. So, I will just give you an example from yesterday. We published a story from our food reporter. She went to 10 different grocery stores and priced probably a dozen common, you know, grocery list items, and we comparison shopped as a service to our readers to tell them, you know, where groceries cost the least. We put it all on a chart. We thought this was important right now because of inflation. But we took it a step further and we assigned a second reporter to go to a food desert and figure out where she could shop to find the same items on the list. And what she found is that the groceries were more expensive and that many of the people who live in the neighborhood feel like they have to go much further when they want to find fresh produce or meat. And we did all of that on a video, as well. We put it on TikTok. We put it on Instagram. And in addition to the story, we’re trying to think about how can we reach readers where they are, which is not always on our site.
MR. IZADI: Yeah, yeah. And also, just that example is a really great one to demonstrate the types of stories that only really local journalists can do. You know, like a big national news outlet can do a story about, you know, inflation, it affecting food prices and grocery prices. But to live in Baltimore and know, oh, this is where--how much it costs in this part of the city or at this store, I think it's a really good example of that.
And, you know, I'm thinking about the broader state of local journalism, and how many journalists around the country are still doing this kind of work. There was this recent study from Northwestern University that found over 360 newspapers in the United States have gone out of business since just before the start of the pandemic. So that averages about two closures a week. The good news, if there's any, is that the pandemic didn't make the trend worse, but it's still not a great trend. And I'm curious, you know, like we're talking about, okay, here's this story about grocery food prices. Also, what does this mean about the state and future of democracy? Can a system of governance that is democratic survive without a robust free and local news?
MS. YOSHINO: I mean, I think that's the big debate right now, and I think that's why so many people are trying to do what we're doing at The Banner. I mean, one of the things that's so exciting is that a lot of the journalists that we have hired, had options. They could have stayed at The Sun. They could have stayed where they were. They're talented. They could get jobs in many different places. They have chosen to come work for us, and they are single-mindedly focused on this mission of observing our readers and our community. And it's refreshing to be working at a place where everybody feels a hundred percent committed to our mission and to serving our readers. It's unusual in my experience.
MS. IZADI: I know often when we--when people say the media, their mind might think national media, which can be quite polarized, people in echo chambers. But working in local news, what is your experience there? Is it hard to build trust with a loyal audience without appealing to sort of partisanship or polarization? Is local news distinct and different in that regard?
MS. YOSHINO: I would say no. There's still polarization, you know, in our community. I think there's still distrust of media in--you know, in the city. I mean, remember, this community, like many others, has been served by legacy media that under-covered or misrepresented a number of things. And I'm not going to say for a second that we have been perfect in that. We have made some mistakes, too. But we are working really hard to build trust. We're trying to do that through sourcing, through the stories that we tell, and through outreach in the community. We are out there all the time walking through these neighborhoods, speaking at community groups, holding community events. We are--we're trying to be present and slowly build trust.
MS. IZADI: Kimi, we only have a few minutes left, but I did want to ask you a question about what the role local government or just governments in general, federal government might have to play in sustaining local newsrooms and local journalism. You know, if we think outside of private backing or philanthropy, does the government play a role in this? And if so, what should it look like?
MS. YOSHINO: Well, as you know, I came here from California. I had been working at The Los Angeles Times for many years, and I was really pleasantly surprised to read news out of California that the state was going to be funding--I don't remember the exact amount--but millions and millions of dollars in local journalism with the help of UC Berkeley. That, to me, is a positive sign of potential partnerships for building what we're trying to do here. I mean, there's a potential danger, obviously, because we still have to report on the state government. We still have to report on lawmakers who potentially would be lobbying for this funding. But I think we should be looking at any possible avenue of funding there is for media.
MS. IZADI: Well, Kimi, unfortunately, we're going to have to leave it there. Thank you so much for joining us. We've run out of time. Thank you again.
MS. YOSHINO: Thank you.
MS. IZADI: Yes. And next, we're going to hear from Nancy Gibbs after this segment. I do want to apologize for some of the syncing issues we had, but please stay with us and we will return with Nancy Gibbs from the Shorenstein Center.
MS. KOCH: Hi, I'm Kathleen Koch. Misinformation runs rampant today, so truthful, well-produced journalism has never been more critical. But the future of journalism in the digital age requires news organizations and journalists to reimagine how they report and distribute the news. Joining me now for a discussion about the future of news is Jim Brady, vice president of journalism at Knight Foundation. Jim, thanks for joining me.
MR. BRADY: Good to be here.
MS. KOCH: Jim, those of us in the news business know about the Knight Foundation, Knight-Ridder newspapers and of course, the legacy of John S. and James L. Knight. I think they were really quintessential news innovators with a real commitment to informing and engaging the public. Now for our viewers, though, who may not be as familiar with all that, why don't you tell us about what you do?
MR. BRADY: So the Knight Foundation is one of the larger funders of journalism in the country--philanthropic funders of journalism in the country, and we operate largely in the 26 cities where the Knight brothers had Knight-Ridder newspapers--hence the name, Knight, of course--and journalism funds in those cities but journalism also is a national program and that we've tried to look for, you know, ways we can help the entire journalism ecosystem, from coast to coast. And so we put a lot of money into not just starting news organizations, but frankly, focusing more on the sustainability of news organizations. So, how do we build a new economic model that allows, you know, sites to thrive and news sites to join the fray in a way that's been impossible for the last 20 years while the business has been under kind of constant attack from technological changes, new players in the field et cetera? So, while people hear that we fund journalism and a lot of people automatically think that means we fund newsrooms, we actually are trying to fund the infrastructure to support newsrooms, which is a thorny problem.
MS. KOCH: So, you basically invest in building a sustainable future for independent local journalism. Now that is no small task in these days and times with so many news agencies closing at an historic rate. What are you seeing around the country, and how concerned are you about it?
MR. BRADY: Obviously concerned, but I think you're seeing some things that are optimistic right now. So for a long time in the digital space, every startup that, you know, decided it was going to go out there and publish news kind of had to figure out most of its infrastructure, you know, on its own. And I think you're starting to see a lot of organizations pop up now that help lots of organizations figure out, whether it's technology, business model, a service, tools, so things like the American Journalism Project, which we put 20 million into a few years ago, news revenue, local independent online news publishers, these organizations are serving dozens, and in many cases hundreds of news organizations who have similar needs, and frankly, don't need to try to figure this out on their own, because a lot of us have spent part of our careers trying to figure this out for them and have the lumps to show for it.
So, I think you're starting to see a lot more collaboration, a lot more of a sense that we're in this together. And we need to work together to figure out the model. And I think both the attitudes of people in the field and the services available to them are much better now than they were even five years ago.
MS. KOCH: Jim, I know combined you and I have spent probably more than a lifetime in the news business, and we've both heard before the sky is falling, journalism will never be the same again. What would you say is different this time?
MR. BRADY: I just--I think there's--I think there's been an attitude shift, and I think there have been a lot of new players in the space who are doing good work. I frankly think that there's also been a rethinking of what journalism should be in the local community. I think one of my--while we all loved the 30 percent margin era of newspapers where you could keep hiring more and more people, I would argue a lot of newspapers did a lousy job of really communicating with their audience and really getting to know their audience. It was very much an arm's length relationship between your average newspaper reporter and the community they purported to serve. Now, I think you see a lot of great sites popping up out there that get that community engagement has to be at the center of what they do, because frankly, the revenue of the future is more likely to come from the reader than it is to come from the advertiser. And so the only way to be successful is to engage with that audience. So, I think you've just seen a paradigm shift in how people engage with their audience, and I think that's going to open up revenue doors that, frankly, we haven't really explored in quite a long time. I mean, newspapers did cost something, but the price on the front of the newspaper was really just the price to open the box. The money was made on advertising, and it is on television as well. I think that's starting to change, and that's a good thing.
MS. KOCH: What about people who say they don't trust anything they read or see in the news, that it's just, you know, an industry out to make money like everyone else? What do you say to that?
MR. BRADY: Well, we've done a lousy job telling our own story, because the truth is like, of course, these are businesses. But they've also been under great peril for the last 20 years, and many of them have gone out of business because they haven't been able to figure this model out yet. I do think, though, that we are partially to blame for that. I think the media has done a poor job of communicating the problems that it has faced. And there was a Gallup survey four or five years ago that said 74 percent of people didn't recognize that local news was in trouble. In fact, they said they thought local news was thriving. Meanwhile, those of us who were working in it were wondering what they were smoking. But the bottom line is, we weren't being that transparent about our business problems, and in some cases still are not. So, I do think part of the trust problem is that we haven't always leveled with our own audience about our own economic condition.
I also think there's just a battle--from a trust perspective, a battle for what the soul of journalism is that almost by definition is going to chip away at trust. There's a large chunk of people who believe that the kind of objective, fact-based journalism that you and I were raised on is no longer the right way forward. And so those folks are not going to trust that style of journalism, or the folks who really do believe in a more objective style are never going to really feel comfortable with strongly opinionated kind of mission-driven journalism. So, I think there's just some noise in the number that's almost inevitable until or if this kind of debate over the future of journalism is resolved.
We also, I think, have to get better at understanding what our unique role is, and maybe not be as opinionated and not be as active on things like Twitter that are not actually all that helpful in building trust in journalism, because it is a medium that is almost built to get you to react in ways that are emotional and short sighted. So, you know, I think there's a lot of work for us to do. But I think it also has to start with us being more transparent than we've been about what we're going through.
MS. KOCH: Excellent points. Jim Brady, vice president of journalism at Knight Foundation. Thank you so much.
And now back over to The Washington Post.
MS. IZADI: Welcome back. For those of you just joining us, this is Washington Post Live. I'm Elahe Izadi, co-host of the "Post Reports" podcast and a reporter covering media at The Post. I am now pleased to be joined by Nancy Gibbs, director of the Shorenstein Center at Harvard and former editor in chief of Time. Nancy, welcome.
MS. GIBBS: Hi, Elahe. Nice to be with you.
MS. IZADI: Likewise.
And remember, to our audience, we always want to hear from you. You can share your thoughts and questions for guests on Washington Post Live by tweeting @PostLive.
So, Nancy, I want to pick up where we left off with Kimi Yoshino. We discussed the rate at which newspapers are closing in this country. It's pretty rapid. But the pressures that face local news are not unique to local news. They kind of are across the media landscape and the media industry. So, I'm curious, can you talk a little bit about some of the forces and conditions that got us to this point where we--where we are seeing so many closures of newspapers around the country?
MS. GIBBS: Yeah, it really is dramatic. And you cited, with Kimi, Penny Abernathy’s research at Northwestern. You know, she has found that the number of people working for in the newspaper industry has dropped by 70 percent since 2005. And you can say, well, there's much more to media than just newspapers, except newspapers have a way of driving the coverage everywhere else, and local newspapers particularly tend to be the most focused on the most critical information that people living in a community need. And many regional and national news organizations kind of depend on local news as their frontline troops. And so when newspapers are unhealthy, it's like that virus infects the entire information ecology. Some of this is driven by economic disruption, some of it obviously by technological change, by the fact that people's attention now is being competed for by so many more players at any given minute. Yeah, you can be reading the news, you can be on TikTok, you can be playing Fortnite, you can be reading your kid’s report card. That kind of competition for attention is--makes it incredibly difficult for news organizations to figure out how they can capture and engage and hold on to an audience, both to their advertisers, which is a revenue stream, as you noted, that is declining, and to their readers and viewers.
MS. IZADI: Yeah, and so much of that business model has been dependent upon subscribers, paying subscribers, and then also ad revenue, which print ad revenue has been dropping off a cliff ever since about 2005-2006 when it peaked. And digital advertising, it hasn't really made up the shortfall. So, I'm just wondering, you know, these local news outlets, they might be able to attract a large audience, but they might struggle to convert that into revenue. We discussed earlier the nonprofit model. Do you think that's a solution? The solution? Is it part of a puzzle? Can you kind of unpack here what's being done around the country?
MS. GIBBS: So, there's a huge amount of experimentation going on, which is the good news. And some of it is profit driven and entrepreneurial. Some of it is philanthropically driven. Some of it, as you noted, is a maybe better late than never recognition at the local community level and at the national level that a lot of news organizations are struggling and are going to need support, whether it's government support in the form of payroll tax credits which has been proposed, or some kind of licensing fee from the platforms that have really captured so much of the advertising revenue that used to go to news organizations.
Just to take one example, last year, Amazon alone will make more money from advertising than every single newspaper in the world put together. So, it isn't just the digital advertising is not replacing print advertising. It is that digital advertising disproportionately goes to the very few big players of Meta and Google and Amazon, and everyone else is left to divide whatever is left.
So, I don't think there's likely to be any one solution to the problem. But even some of the most creative and promising digital startups are often starting in cities and in more populated areas where there's an audience and possible demand for the product. That still leaves us with I think it's maybe an under discussed piece of the problem, which is where the news deserts are. Now about half of the counties in the United States only have one newspaper. Usually, it's a weekly. So, if you live in a county like where I live, there are 28 newspapers in my county. There's no problem finding out who's running for the school board, or who's--you know, what's going to be debated in any kind of local referendum. But if you live in some of the more rural areas, there may be no local--reliable local news source at all.
And of course, the way our political system works, those are often the very same areas that carry disproportionate political weight. When you think about how the Senate is structured, how the electoral college is structured, a voter--a Senate voter in South Dakota is 44 times more powerful than a Senate voter in California, and yet, it's often exactly those voters who have the least access to reliable in-depth coverage of the issues in their communities. So the political problem and the economic problem and the technological problem all converge when we're talking about local news. And to the extent that local news really sort of functions as democracy’s immune system, this is critically important not just for people who sort of care about journalism, but for people who care about the very, you know, strength of our civic fabric.
MS. IZADI: Yeah, and you mentioned that term news desert, which is a term that was developed to sort of describe communities where there's no real reliable source of information, of news. But then there's also places where, yes, there's a newspaper, even a weekly newspaper, as you mentioned, but they have a fraction of the staff that they once had. They're often referred to as ghost newspapers. And so I'm wondering if this is even a little bit of a mirage, that the problem is a lot worse than we might capture. And you know, in my conversations with people on the ground, something they've noted is, oh, before we used to get our newspapers delivered, and now they come through the mail so that the news in it is so outdated, it's not actually up to date. So, I'm wondering if you're also noticing this nationwide as you're looking at the bigger picture.
MS. GIBBS: Well, this is, of course, the cost of printing and distributing a newspaper has gone up enormously. So of course, there has been an effort to migrate readers’ behavior more towards digital products. But that even creates another problem.
MS. IZADI: Right.
MS. GIBBS: Which is that now in all 50 states, there are what look like local news sites. If you were to, you know, open them up for all intents and purposes, they look exactly like, you know, some--you know, the Lincoln County Sacramento Regional Express Journal Courier, which turns out to be funded by partisan dark money, whether from the left or from the right. You don't really know where's this information coming from, what agenda is it serving, who is paying for it. And there are now--the researchers who track the so-called pink slime sites, there are more than 1,500 of them in all 50 states. So, what happens when reliable sources of news go away? It's not as though that vacuum doesn't get filled by something. And often it gets filled by less reliable news sources, by mis- and disinformation, or by national news sources which are typically more negative, more divisive, less likely to contribute to the--again, to the kind of cohesion of local communities.
MS. IZADI: Yeah, I'm so fascinated that--and you bringing up the pink slime phenomenon, and that this is a real thing that's happening. And I think it gets at another thing, that even though trust in--when people are asked about their trust in media, in the mass media, Americans rate it very low. I think it's just recently Gallup reported 34 percent of Americans trust the mass media to report the news fully, accurately and fairly. But it seems like these pink slime sites that you are referencing, they sort of capitalize on the trust that Americans still hold in their local news. So, I'm wondering what you think about that, if that's the case, and if there is a bright side to this conversation that, you know, even though national media might have low marks in terms of trustworthiness, if there still is a sense among the American public that they trust local news.
MS. GIBBS: Local news consistently, whether it's local radio, local television, which is still a very important source of news for people, or local digital sites and newspapers, has consistently been more trusted than other news sources. But the whole conversation about trust in media has become, I think, almost more and more misleading. Because when you ask people what kind of news do you consume and do you trust it, do you trust whatever, you know, cable or network television news shows you watch, do you trust whatever websites you regularly visit or the newspapers that you subscribe to, people trust those substantially. It’s they don't trust other people's news.
And so the way the trust questions are phrased, it sometimes misses the fact that what people are really worried about is not necessarily what they're reading. They're worried about what you're reading. They're worried about what their uncle or their cousin or their friend in some other parts of the country might be reading. And so they're aware that our media environment has become really atomized, has become--it is--there's all sorts of ways in which people can be led down a rabbit hole of conspiracy theories. But it is not that--necessarily that they have not found sources of information that they themselves consume.
MS. IZADI: That's so fascinating. I'm wondering, given that sort of caveat or that extra layer of complexity, that it's not so much that people don't trust what they're consuming, they don't trust what you're consuming. Should that trouble us at all that there is this sentiment?
MS. GIBBS: Well, for one thing, we see this all the time, right? When you say, you know, if you look at people's approval of Congress and yet they reelect--I love my congressman and incumbents will get reelected at these incredible rates, but they still don't--they don't like your congressman. So this is not--the media is not the only environment in which we see this phenomenon.
I do think that there is real opportunity for--to build from the bottom up and that if we are able to find sustainable models for community-owned, community-based news organizations that are not part of these enormous chains--I mean, all too many newspapers have been bought up, and television stations too, but this has especially been true of newspapers--have been bought up by private equity firms that are just draining them for cash and hollowing them out. And so even where there are heroic efforts by philanthropic projects like Report for America to try to get more boots on the ground, to get more reporters, especially in the underserved communities, they are battling against this trend of shrinking newsrooms.
And I think that the way that we are going to restore both the cohesion in some of our communities, the people's willingness to vote and to run for office, or to split tickets, these are all things that when newspapers disappear, all the research shows that there are all of these bad downstream effects. Public spending goes up, public corruption goes up when you don't have a kind of accountability function, monitoring public spending. And people know so much less about candidates for local office, that they often don't have much choice but to just kind of vote for team red or team blue. Whereas if they actually have good information about what's at stake and what are the positions candidates are taking in individual races, then they may vote for a Republican for this office, a Democrat for this office, and do it in a more informed basis.
So, I think that the rewards, if we figure out solutions to rebuilding these newsrooms in our rural as well as our urban communities, is tremendously valuable for all sorts of other things that we care about as a country. And that's why so much effort, so much thought, so much research and investment is going into figuring out different models, a sort of menu of business models that might work in different communities, because it's not going to be one size fits all.
MS. IZADI: I know we're talking a bit about media and focusing on that. In the national media landscape, there's also been a lot of attention paid to how much polarization there is, and, okay, these outlets, they might be catering towards an audience that's very much on the right side--on the right side of the spectrum politically speaking, or the left side. And is this a matter of, you know, these are businesses and the news business is a business and it's trying to cater to its audience so that it has a large audience and that it's giving the audience what it wants, rather than what it thinks it needs?
MS. GIBBS: So, you referred to having a large audience, which certainly can be valuable if everyone is a subscriber. But often the priority is really having an engaged audience. How often do people come back to your site? How--you know, do they tune into your cable show every single night? And so what we have seen is, unlike the days, you know, a generation ago where a more advertising driven model meant that advertisers were looking to reach as broad an audience as possible, now it can be more profitable to reach a much smaller, but very engaged audience.
So, what do we know drives engagement? Unfortunately--and the algorithms are perfectly engineered to play off of this--making people scared, making people furious, feeding much more on emotion than on appeals to reason tend to be the things that drive that kind of feeling of bonding with your information source and the rest of the audience. And whether that's happening on the left or on the right, you have a real incentive to exaggerate the divisions between our political factions.
And the problem is that one thing that social scientists know now is that each side has a really distorted view of the other side. It's like we have created cartoon caricatures of, you know, that Democrats carry in their heads of Republicans and Republicans carry in their heads of Democrats. And both sides dramatically overestimate the hostility of their opponents. And when we are operating in that kind of environment where we misperceive just how divided we are, it makes every election an existential threat and it makes every decision a kind of zero-sum game. And so--and unfortunately the economic incentives of a lot of our information infrastructure encourage giving the biggest platform to the most extreme views or emphasizing those most--you know, those appeal to the most basic emotional themes.
MS. IZADI: Nancy, we have a few minutes left, but I did want to ask you since Shorenstein is housed within Harvard University, and you all are interacting with students, we have an audience question that relates to college journalism programs and students in general. This is from Susan Bararti [phonetic] from Illinois. She asks how can you keep college journalism programs thriving when the job prospects are so few and the pay is so low? We need more investigative journalists, not less.
And I'll just tack on to this question, if you can keep it in your mind. Since you are interacting with students, is there something about the way they think about and consume media that the rest of us can learn from?
MS. GIBBS: Well, I'm so glad you asked that. And my answer would connect those two. Yes, Alison, you are entirely right, that I'm encouraged by the fact partly because I still think journalism is a fantastic career. It's incredibly fun. It is never boring. Every day is different. It's a--it's a mission driven field for many people. It's great for people with short attention spans who constantly like doing new things.
But you are right that it is--it has been one where if newsrooms are shrinking, then what happens to how many of people who hope to go into journalism are going to have to end up finding other roles broadly in communications space and don't get to actually function as reporters? To which I would say the answer is the one that you suggest, that I feel like maybe three years is a generation in terms of media behaviors. And so it is not my generation that should be designing the channels through which media is consumed by younger people. It's going to be your generation that does it. And even within my class, where I probably have a 30-year age range between the--my youngest students and my oldest ones, their media consumption instincts are completely different.
And so I think there's a tremendous opportunity that is likely to be much more visual, much more video driven, much more interactive than kind of traditional words on pages or words on screens. This is, you know, for all technology has disrupted the--all of the machinery of journalism, this is also a golden age of storytelling, of extraordinary storytelling tools. And so my hope is that it is going to be the rising generation of journalists that invents and imagines and educates older ones about what is possible and what the demand for information is so that we aren't only looking at who is supplying it and how, but what kind of information do people want and how do they want to receive it.
MS. IZADI: Nancy--and I'm assuming you also experienced the amount of dedication and drive that these young journalists have, these budding journalists have as well, right?
MS. GIBBS: Oh, yeah, no, it's tremendous. And in fact, in journalism schools all over the country, in many state houses, most of the reporters covering the state house are students at the local journalism schools. They are really filling critical gaps in public radio, where many public radio stations are anchored in universities, and filling in some of the holes that have been left as newsrooms were shrinking. And so I think our journalism schools are playing a more and more and more important role in serving the communities in their regions. And I would love to see ways for that to expand as well, because again, the need is only growing.
MS. IZADI: Well, unfortunately, Nancy, we will have to leave it there. Thank you so much for joining us, Nancy Gibbs.
MS. GIBBS: Thank you.
MS. IZADI: And thanks to all of you for joining the conversation. To check out what interviews we have coming up, please head to WashingtonPostLive.com to find out more information about all of our programs and to register. I’m Elahe Izadi, and thanks again for watching. | 2022-11-21T16:19:14Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Transcript: A New Era of Journalism - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/washington-post-live/2022/11/21/transcript-new-era-journalism/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/washington-post-live/2022/11/21/transcript-new-era-journalism/ |
Protesters gather for a rally at the Maricopa County Recorder's Office in Phoenix, Nov. 14, 2022. (AP Photo/Ross D. Franklin)
At first glance, the brouhaha in Arizona’s Maricopa County seems to be very specifically focused on problems that emerged in polling places during the midterm elections earlier this month. The office of outgoing Attorney General Mark Brnovich (R) wrote a letter to county officials asking a number of largely mechanical questions about printer settings and procedures for handling voters, the sorts of things that might generally be items somewhere near the bottom of a committee meeting in some municipal government office.
But that letter and the broader effort to undercut confidence in the results in this one particular county are neither fundamentally procedural nor constrained in scope. Instead, the county is once again a target of widespread Republican backlash primarily because the county, once again, is the reason a particularly aggressive state Republican Party suffered unexpected electoral losses.
To some extent, that the aftermath of the midterms saw a Republican campaign aggressively challenging county officials — to the point that officials perceived one attorney’s comments as a veiled threat — is simply a predictable evolution of what’s been happening in the state. After Arizona voted for Joe Biden in 2020, the state party, helmed by far-right chair Kelli Ward, embraced conspiracy theories about the results. When a leader in the “Stop the Steal” movement said he was “willing to give his life” for that effort in December 2020, the state party shared a message with their Twitter followers: “He is. Are you?” The riot at the Capitol came less than a month later.
But that was by no means the extent of the effort. A lengthy, expensive and futile “audit” of the Maricopa County results didn’t change any results, but did gin up more (quickly debunked) speculation about purportedly suspicious irregularities in the vote. The soil was fertile for candidates who viewed the 2020 results as suspect to fare well in party primaries and, sure enough, the 2022 slate of Republican candidates for state officials was a who’s who of people who claimed the 2020 results were suspect. Kari Lake for governor. Blake Masters for Senate. Mark Finchem for secretary of state. Abe Hamadeh for attorney general.
And then, after winning their primaries in part on the strength of their fealty to the idea that 2020 was corrupt, each either lost their general-election bids or trail by margins that will be difficult to overcome. And in each case, they lost Maricopa County.
It’s important to recognize how Maricopa County specifically has driven the GOP’s failures in recent years. For decades, Arizona voted Republican in presidential contests, generally because both the state’s largest county voted Republican (Maricopa has provided a majority of the state’s votes in every presidential contest over the past 60 years) and because the rest of the state did, too. When there was a break between Maricopa and the state’s other counties before 2020, it was generally that Maricopa was more Republican than the rest of Arizona.
Then came 2020.
Take Maricopa out of the mix and Donald Trump wins Arizona in 2020. Take Maricopa out of the mix and Kari Lake wins the governor’s race. So: why not try to take Maricopa County out of the mix? Why not push legal resources and executive power, where applicable, into the breach?
Interestingly, Maricopa’s not responsible for all of the GOP’s failures in the midterms. In both the Senate race, where incumbent Sen. Mark Kelly (D) won reelection, and in the secretary of state’s race, the rest of Arizona voted for the Democrat as well. That suggests that the campaigns of Masters and Finchem were rejected more broadly than by the 3 in 5 Arizona voters who live in Maricopa County. Nor was the county hostile to Republicans: state treasurer candidate Kimberly Yee won easily.
There wasn’t even much drop-off in Yee’s race. In other words, this wasn’t simply Yee prevailing in Maricopa County because Democrats who turned out to reject Lake and Finchem didn’t bother to vote in the treasurer’s race. This was people voting Democratic and then Republican when they came to a Republican who, as it happens, wasn’t dedicated to rejecting the results of the 2020 election.
Which is to say: the results in Maricopa County! That’s important context here. This was not only a rejection of election deniers, as the term has it. It was a rejection by voters in a county where the deniers had explicitly sought to have presidential votes thrown out.
That Maricopa County is more blue than the rest of the state isn’t really surprising. It is the only large urban county in Arizona, which consistently correlates to heavily Democratic voting. Conspiracy theories often center on Democratic cities in part thanks to the subtext of race and class, but also because Democratic dominance is often foreign elsewhere. It’s not really surprising that residents of the state’s counties might find it baffling that Maricopa County has been so close when their own results have skewed so much more heavily Republican. In 2020, the average margin outside of Maricopa County was 28 points, the highest since 1960.
Asked earlier this year whether he’d certify a Democratic win in 2024 should he win election as secretary of state, Finchem insisted that wouldn’t happen, in part because he didn’t know anyone who’d voted for Biden in the first place. For him and others in his party, the idea that Maricopa would be trending blue simply seems impossible. And if you view it as impossible, you may think there’s fraud — and, conveniently, if you throw out its votes for fraud, you win.
And that, in a nutshell, is why Maricopa County once again finds itself defending its election against candidates its voters rejected. | 2022-11-21T16:39:14Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Why Arizona Republicans are once again targeting Maricopa County - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/11/21/arizona-elections-maricopa-county-republicans/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/11/21/arizona-elections-maricopa-county-republicans/ |
Iran’s soccer team makes World Cup debut as uprising rages back home
Iranian players line up for the national anthem before the match between England and Iran Monday in Doha, Qatar. (Matthias Hangst/Getty Images)
DOHA, Qatar — As their country’s national anthem was played at the World Cup Monday, Iran’s players appeared silent and stone-faced, declining to sing in what was widely seen as an acknowledgment — or even, a show of solidarity — with a popular uprising unfolding at home.
The appearance of Team Melli in Qatar, as the Iranian squad is known, is being closely watched — and not just for how it performs, including in its first match against England, which it lost Monday 6-2.
During widespread unrest in Iran that began in September with a death of a young woman, Mahsa Amini, in police custody, Iranian sports figures — including revered current and former players for the national soccer team — have assumed a central role.
As anti-government protesters have looked to the soccer players to support the protest movement, which has faced a withering and deadly crackdown by the government, Iran’s leaders have tried to keep the team’s players from speaking out, hoping to use sports as a distraction from the uprising, rather than a rallying call, analysts say.
“I’m excited, but not completely, because of the process of revolution in Iran,” said one supporter of Team Melli who had traveled from the Iranian city of Shiraz as he strolled in a shopping mall before Monday’s match at the nearby Khalifa International Stadium.
“I’m full of energy for my team. But my people are being killed by the regime,” he said. The players were in a bind, having to think of family in Iran as they decided whether to be vocal, he said. But he added: “We want more sympathy from them.”
Among the spectators, there were clearly supporters of the protests, including people carrying signs with the slogan of the demonstrations “woman, life, freedom.” Some people in the stands could also be heard shouting at the team in Farsi “dishonorable,” which is what protesters have hurled at security forces.
Iran’s national broadcaster, meanwhile, only showed select spectators cheering for Iran and no political signs.
Even before the start of the tournament, some Iranians had called for FIFA to ban the team as a sign of support for anti-government protests. Others argued that Iran attending the World Cup is important for protesters back home, as the high-profile event offers many opportunities for players and spectators to voice dissent.
But members of the Iranian team, under enormous pressure from both the public and security services, have largely remained mute, said Omid Namazi, the former assistant coach.
The day before flying to Qatar, the members of Team Melli all met with President Ebrahim Raisi on Nov. 14. They posed for a photo op with Iran’s hard-line president overseeing the crackdown, angering many Iranians.
Team forward Sardar Azmoun has been the most vocal champion of the uprising, Namazi said.
On Sunday, Ehsan Hajsafi, the team’s 32-year-old captain, speaking to the news media ahead of the England match, said the team’s players “support” the protesters, according to Reuters. “They should know that we are with them,” he said. “We have to accept the conditions in our country are not right, our people are not happy.”
But for some of the supporters of the protests, the team hasn’t been sufficiently outspoken — and even their very public silence during the national anthem not enough.
“This is too late,” said Mahmoud Ebrahimzadeh, a former player for Iran’s national team living in exile in Maryland, referring to the team’s refusal to sing. “It’s not going to do any good anymore.”
“This silence is a show … If they wanted to be silent, they could stay in the country and not come to the World Cup.” | 2022-11-21T17:05:23Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Iran’s World Cup team refuses to sing national anthem as uprising rages back home - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/11/21/iran-world-cup-protests-anthem/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/11/21/iran-world-cup-protests-anthem/ |
DeMar DeRozan (11) has played well, but the Chicago Bulls are stuck below the top tier of the Eastern Conference. (Michael Reaves/Getty Images)
The first month of the NBA season has seen several big bets backfire, from the Los Angeles Lakers’ ill-conceived trade for Russell Westbrook to the Minnesota Timberwolves’ polarizing summer gamble on Rudy Gobert. Even Shai Gilgeous-Alexander’s breakout campaign for the Oklahoma City Thunder has been a reminder that the Los Angeles Clippers have yet to reach the Finals after trading the standout guard, five first-round picks and two first-round swaps for Paul George in 2019.
While the wayward Chicago Bulls have taken a different path to disappointment, they shouldn’t get lost in this sea of second-guessing. Rather than going all-in with a franchise-changing trade, the Bulls made medium-sized bets with the goal of reclaiming respectability and constructing a perennial playoff contender. But after last season’s thrilling 46-win run ended with a thud in the first round, Chicago is off to a disjointed and uninspired start, having lost six of its last seven games entering Monday. With hard feelings bubbling to the surface and a long road trip looming, the Bulls’ master plan has started to look like a shortcut to nowhere, leading Coach Billy Donovan to challenge his team after a last-second loss to the Orlando Magic on Friday.
“I’m a big believer that in the game of basketball, you get what you earn,” Donovan said. “Your record says exactly who you are. We’re a 6-10 team. I’ve got great affection for this team, but as a group we have to pull ourselves out of it and we have to invest more and put more into it. … We can’t be externally motivated by the scoreboard. We have to be internally motivated to play to a standard.”
Years of losing can force a team’s hand and increase its risk tolerance, and that’s the environment Arturas Karnisovas walked into when he was hired to lead Chicago’s front office in April 2020. The Bulls had just won fewer than 30 games for the third straight season, and Karnisovas was inheriting a young roster lacking in proven talent beyond scoring guard Zach LaVine.
With an eye toward an accelerated turnaround, Karnisovas proceeded to trade young players and picks for center Nikola Vucevic in March 2021, sign DeMar DeRozan to a three-year, $82 million contract in August 2021, ink Lonzo Ball to a four-year, $80 million deal that same month and then re-sign LaVine to a five-year, $215 million max extension this summer. The net result was a more experienced roster composed of three offensive-minded leaders in DeRozan, LaVine and Vucevic, flanked by a supporting cast of defensive-minded role players like Ball and Alex Caruso. That new-look group accomplished its top-line goal when it snapped Chicago’s four-year playoff drought last season.
While each of Karnisovas’s major moves were defensible, there was plenty of room to quibble with all of them. Vucevic was a reliable stat-stuffer, but he was also a defensive liability. DeRozan was a proven volume scorer and a fan favorite, but he was 32 years old when he debuted for the Bulls and unlikely to emerge as the best player on a contender after countless playoff disappointments. Ball was an excellent fit as a low-usage playmaker and versatile defender, but his early career was marred by persistent injury issues. LaVine had enjoyed a career-year in 2020-21 by averaging 27.4 points per game and shooting 41.9 percent on three-pointers, but his so-so distribution skills and subpar defense seemed destined to hold him back from becoming a transcendent talent.
One by one, Chicago’s building blocks have started to show cracks. Vucevic has seen his offensive role drop dramatically with the Bulls, as he’s sometimes struggled to find a niche in a guard-dominated offense. Meanwhile, Chicago ranked 23rd in defensive efficiency last season and was overwhelmed by Giannis Antetokounmpo and the Milwaukee Bucks in the playoffs.
Both Ball and LaVine have battled knee injuries over the last 12 months, adding instability to Chicago’s day-to-day reality. Ball hasn’t played since Jan. 14 and still doesn’t have a clear return timetable. LaVine, meanwhile, is back on the court, but he’s off to a slow shooting start and was benched down the stretch of Friday’s loss to the Magic, finishing with a season-low four points on 1-14 shooting. After Donovan defended the benching as a “one-off” decision that was in the team’s best interests, LaVine still sounded irked by the move.
“That’s Billy’s decision,” LaVine said. “He’s got to lay with it. Do I agree with it? No. I think I can go out there and still be me, even if I’m missing shots. That’s his decision. He has to stand on it.”
Throughout the last two seasons, DeRozan has performed as well as anyone could have hoped, earning some scattered MVP buzz by averaging a career-high 27.9 points per game last year. But he, like LaVine and Vucevic, made little impact against Milwaukee in the postseason. That left Chicago looking like a team that has three all-stars on paper but zero franchise players capable of rising to the occasion in the biggest moments.
Donovan said last week that he expects more from his core trio, especially early in games, but it’s unclear whether DeRozan, now 33, has any untapped ability. It’s similarly unclear whether the Bulls would be able to extract anything of consequence if they were to put their headliners on the trade block.
“[Donovan] said the right thing,” DeRozan said, accepting a shared responsibility for Chicago’s lackluster play. “It definitely is on us. We’ve got to take on that challenge and be better, defensively and offensively. We’ve got to lead better. We’re the older guys in that starting group, and we’ve got to set the tone.”
The Eastern Conference’s changing competitive landscape has further complicated Chicago’s long-term outlook. The Cleveland Cavaliers and Atlanta Hawks have climbed up the standings after major offseason trades for Donovan Mitchell and Dejounte Murray, respectively. Both Cleveland and Atlanta sacrificed more assets in their deals than Chicago did for Vucevic, but Mitchell and Murray are cleaner fits with their new star teammates. Looking ahead to the next three years, the Cavaliers and Hawks appear to have much brighter futures than the Bulls given their relative youth and top-end talent.
Without a superstar anchor like Antetokounmpo, Jayson Tatum, Kevin Durant or Joel Embiid, Chicago’s hopes for a deep postseason run were reliant upon a high-powered offense and seamless chemistry. So far, the Bulls rank 22nd in offense as they cope with injury issues and too many ball-dominant scorers. If Cleveland, Atlanta and younger teams like the Toronto Raptors and Indiana Pacers are going to consistently outwork them, the Bulls’ window to make real noise will slam shut before it ever really opened. | 2022-11-21T17:22:54Z | www.washingtonpost.com | The Bulls have three all-stars and zero franchise players - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/11/21/chicago-bulls-slow-start/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/11/21/chicago-bulls-slow-start/ |
Mark Parsons, pictured in August 2021 with the Portland Thorns, will return to the NWSL as the Washington Spirit's coach. (AP Photo/Ted S. Warren)
The Washington Spirit hired Mark Parsons as its new coach Monday, marking the return of one of women’s soccer’s biggest coaching names to the United States.
As coach and general manager from July 2013 to the end of the 2015 season, Parsons led the Spirit to two National Women’s Soccer League playoff appearances before accepting the top job in Portland in 2016. The Thorns won a championship in 2017 and two NWSL Shields as the league’s first-place finisher during Parsons’s five seasons in charge.
“Mark is one of the best coaches in the sport and we are thrilled to have him guiding our team as we start a new chapter,” Spirit President Mark Krikorian said. “After an extensive search process, we are confident that Mark’s experience and accomplishments are what we need as we continue to rebuild this club.”
A native of England, Parsons was most recently the coach of the Netherlands women’s national team from September 2021 to this August. Parsons, 36, departed by mutual consent after the Dutch were defeated in the quarterfinals of the Women’s European Championship.
The length and financial terms of Parsons’s contract were not immediately available.
The Spirit is coming off a 3-10-9 season in which it finished 11th in the 12-team league. Kris Ward, who was in charge as interim coach when the club won the NWSL title in 2021, was dismissed midway through the season amid middling results and a deteriorating relationship with players.
After Ward’s firing in August, Washington named Albertin Montoya as interim coach. The Spirit went 2-3 in Montoya’s five matches in charge; at the end of the season, Montoya returned to northern California, where he operates a youth club.
In elite youth soccer, girls compete but men rule
The Spirit has made several offseason personnel moves. Kelley O’Hara, the U.S. national team defender who spent the past two seasons in Washington, became a free agent and signed a multiyear deal with NJ/NY Gotham FC last week. Goalkeeper Nicole Barnhart, defender Amber Brooks and co-captain Tori Huster also entered free agency.
The club exercised contract options for defender Sam Staab, midfielders Jordan Baggett, Dorian Bailey, Bayley Feist and Anna Heilferty and forwards Maddie Elwell and Tara McKeown. It extended offers to defenders Camryn Biegalski and Julia Roddar and midfielder Marissa Sheva.
Washington also added Morinao Imaizumi, a former assistant on Krikorian’s staff at Florida State and a recent assistant with the Chicago Red Stars, to its technical staff this month. Dawn Scott, who helped the U.S. team win two World Cups overseeing sports science and physical performance, was appointed as the club’s first director of performance, medical and innovation Nov. 1.
The Spirit does not have a first-round pick in the NWSL draft, set to take place Jan. 12. The league season will begin March 25. | 2022-11-21T17:23:00Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Mark Parsons returns as Washington Spirit head coach - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/11/21/mark-parsons-washington-spirit/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/11/21/mark-parsons-washington-spirit/ |
Unsettled weather is possible in the central and eastern U.S. Friday through the weekend, but details are still coming into focus
Turkeys roam in a fenced-in area at the Belwing Acres Turkey Farm in Seekonk, Mass., on Friday. (Joseph Prezioso/AFP/Getty Images)
Thanksgiving is one of the busiest travel occasions of the year. Tens of millions of people in the United States will take to the roads, rails and skies to visit relatives and loved ones. Naturally, if there’s travel involved, the weather will play a big role. Fortunately, we’ve got your forecast.
Wednesday, which is the busiest travel day, will be remarkably quiet across the Lower 48, with little in the way of precipitation outside some snow showers in the Intermountain West.
The latter half of the holiday period probably won’t be so tranquil.
Here’s an early glance at the forecast in your region-by-region forecast:
There are no weather worries for Wednesday and Thursday. Between Friday and the weekend, the chance of a strong coastal storm has lessened, but the weather could still be a little unsettled at times. It’s worth paying attention to the forecast, as it’s still evolving.
Wednesday: A cool day with upper 20s for highs in northern Maine; 30s over New Hampshire, much of Upstate New York and Vermont; 40s in southern New England; and near 50 for the South Coast. Dry conditions with sunshine and a few passing clouds.
Thursday: Expect highs in the lower 20s in far northern Maine. Otherwise, highs range from the upper 30s to near 40 in Vermont and New Hampshire, and 40s to near 50 in southern regions. Sunshine giving way to overcast skies late in the day. Pleasant in Boston; Manchester, N.H.; Concord, N.H.; Portland, Maine; Hartford, Conn.; and Providence, R.I.
Weekend: High temperatures range from upper 30s and 40s in interior sections to the low to mid-50s nearer the coast. Depending on how Friday’s storm system evolves, it could linger into Saturday bringing rain and windy conditions. Alternatively, it may end up partly sunny and breezy for most of the weekend, until clouds increase on Sunday with a chance of rain late in the day.
Mild and dry weather is anticipated Wednesday and Thanksgiving. Depending on how much of a storm system develops on Friday, there could be steady rain or just some scattered showers. Saturday and the first half of Sunday will feature tranquil weather before downpours arrive Sunday evening.
Wednesday and Thursday: Highs in the mid-50s near the Mason-Dixon Line to near 60 south of the nation’s capital to lower-to-mid-60s in the Carolinas. Mostly sunny skies, except near the Carolina coastline. Clouds and a very isolated shower are possible along the immediate coastline Wednesday.
Friday: There’s a chance of rain but just how widespread and intense is still to be determined. Some areas may end up dry.
A developing low pressure system will take shape near the Texas Gulf Coast on Thanksgiving, working north and bringing showers across much of the South through Friday. By Saturday night, another low pressure zone may form over Texas and Arkansas, with more rain possible along and ahead of it.
Friday: Showers and downpours, and perhaps some thunderstorms, are probable in Mississippi, Alabama, coastal Louisiana and the Delta, northern and western Georgia, Tennessee, and the Ohio Valley. Jackson, Miss.; Huntsville, Ala.; Birmingham, Ala.; Atlanta; Memphis; Nashville; and Louisville could see wet weather.
Highs are about 10 degrees cooler then Wednesday and Thursday, ranging from low 50s in Tennessee to the lower 60s along the Gulf Coast. In Florida, highs range from the upper 60s in the Panhandle to the 70s and 80s in the Peninsula.
Weekend: Another round of showers is possible over Louisiana, Arkansas and Mississippi on Saturday and may spread north and east on Sunday, but confidence is low. Highs are mostly in the 60s except the 50s toward the Tennessee Valley and 70s in South Florida.
Central United States
Temperature contrasts over the southern Plains may help spawn a couple of storm systems, each of which could bring rain to Texas and southern Oklahoma between Friday and Sunday. Much of the central and northern Plains, the Upper Midwest and Great Lakes, behind a series of weak fronts, will be mostly dry between Wednesday and the weekend.
Thursday: Sunny across the northern Plains, clouds in Texas and downpours in eastern parts of the Lone Star State, especially during the afternoon. That could affect Interstates 20 and 30. A front makes it into Oklahoma. Upper 20s to lower 30s in northern North Dakota, 40s to around 50 in Kansas and Nebraska, and upper 50s to 60s south of the front in Oklahoma and northern Texas. Upper 70s to near 80 for the Gulf Coast. In the Upper Midwest and Great Lakes, highs will range from mid-30s in the north and closer to 50 around Chicago.
High pressure dominates, keeping temperatures elevated and staving off rain. The exception will be in Seattle and Portland, Ore., where rainy conditions may try to lap at the coastline.
Wednesday: Rain lurks off the Pacific Northwest coastline but should remain offshore. A few clouds in Seattle. Cooler in the mountains, with highs about 5 to 10 degrees below average in the Columbia River Basin and Four Corners. Near-average to slightly above-average readings along the Pacific Coastline.
Thursday: Warmer. Ten to 20 degrees above average in northern parts of California’s San Joaquin Valley, with highs 5 to 10 degrees above average all the way north to British Columbia. Conversely, it will be cooler than average in the Rockies. Atmospheric river remains pointed at Vancouver Island but doesn’t reach the United States.
Weekend: Becoming warmer in the Rockies. Stormy conditions begin working down the coastline Saturday before impacting the Sierra Nevada and dropping significant snows early next week. | 2022-11-21T17:49:02Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Traveling? Here’s your region-by-region Thanksgiving forecast. - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2022/11/21/thanksgiving-travel-weather-forecast/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2022/11/21/thanksgiving-travel-weather-forecast/ |
Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) (J. Scott Applewhite/AP)
Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) fired back at House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) on Monday after he renewed a threat to remove her from the House Foreign Affairs Committee for what he characterized as “repeated antisemitic and anti-American remarks.”
McCarthy, who is angling to become House speaker in January, repeated the vow multiple times over the weekend, including during a television interview and during an appearance before a meeting of the Republican Jewish Coalition in Las Vegas. Republicans are poised to claim a narrow House majority in the next Congress.
“McCarthy’s effort to repeatedly single me out for scorn and hatred — including threatening to strip me from my committee — does nothing to address the issues our constituents deal with,” Omar said in a statement.
If McCarthy is elected speaker, he would not have unilateral power to remove Omar from the Foreign Affairs Committee. It would require a vote of the full House.
McCarthy tweeted out a clip of his appearance in Las Vegas on Saturday night, in which he said he was “keeping that promise” to remove Omar.
“I remember what she said about Israel,” McCarthy told the crowd. “I remember what she said about the relationship. I remember it so much that I promised you last year that as speaker, she would no longer be on Foreign Affairs. I’m keeping that promise.”
Omar has been accused of antisemitic comments on a number of occasions.
In early 2019, as a freshman, she apologized for suggesting that Israel’s allies in U.S. politics were motivated by money rather than principle.
A tweet in which she said “it’s all about the Benjamins baby” — a reference to $100 bills — drew immediate denunciations from Republicans and fellow Democrats, especially Jewish members of Congress.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and Democratic leadership called Omar’s “use of anti-Semitic tropes and prejudicial accusations about Israel’s supporters” deeply offensive and insisted that she apologize.
“Anti-Semitism is real and I am grateful for Jewish allies and colleagues who are educating me on the painful history of anti-Semitic tropes,” Omar said at the time. “My intention is never to offend my constituents or Jewish Americans as a whole. … This is why I unequivocally apologize.”
On Monday, Omar accused the GOP of hypocrisy for allowing antisemitism in its ranks, noting that McCarthy accused wealthy Jewish liberals of trying to “buy” elections in 2018. And Islamophobia and xenophobia from some of the country’s most influential Republicans, Omar said, has put the life and safety of one of the first Muslim women to serve in Congress in jeopardy on numerous occasions.
“Whether it is Marjorie Taylor Greene holding a gun next to my head in campaign ads or Donald Trump threatening to ‘send me back’ to my country (despite the fact that I have been a proud citizen of the United States for more than 20 years), this constant stream of hate has led to hundreds of death threats and credible plots against me and my family,” she said in her statement.
“At the same time, they have openly tolerated antisemitism, anti-Muslim hate and racism in their own party,” Omar added.
Greene had been an open adherent of the QAnon ideology, a sprawling and violent web of false claims that played a role in inspiring the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol. In addition, she had made comments on social media suggesting that some mass shootings were staged by supporters of gun control, that the 9/11 attacks were orchestrated by government forces and that a Jewish cabal had sparked a deadly wildfire with a space beam.
McCarthy has indicated that Greene will get her preferred committee assignments when the GOP is the majority in January.
In October, Trump attacked American Jews in a post on his Truth Social platform, saying Jews in the United States must “get their act together” and show more appreciation for the state of Israel “before it is too late.”
American Jews have long been accused of holding secret loyalty to Israel rather than the United States, and Trump’s post leaned on that antisemitic trope, suggesting that by virtue of their religion, American Jews should show more appreciation for Israel.
Trump also complained in the post that “no president” had done more for Israel than he had but that Christian evangelicals are “far more appreciative of this than the people of the Jewish faith, especially those living in the U.S.”
The latest: Trump knocks two GOP Senate hopefuls who lost | 2022-11-21T17:49:54Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Rep. Ilhan Omar criticizes McCarthy for threat to remove her from committee - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/11/21/omar-mccarthy-house-antisemitism/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/11/21/omar-mccarthy-house-antisemitism/ |
Ditte Juul Jørgensen on E.U. climate agenda and COP27 climate talks
The European Union has long been a global leader in the fight against climate change, but the war in Ukraine has raised new questions about its immediate energy security needs and the pace of its transition from fossil fuels. On Monday, Nov. 28 at 11:00 a.m. ET, join Washington Post Live for a conversation with Ditte Juul Jørgensen, the European Commission’s director-general for energy, about the future of Europe’s climate agenda and what was accomplished at the recent COP27 climate talks.
Ditte Juul Jørgensen
Director-General for Energy, European Commission
Presenting Sponsor: Bain & Company | 2022-11-21T17:51:03Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Ditte Juul Jørgensen on E.U. climate agenda and COP27 climate talks - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/washington-post-live/2022/11/28/ditte-juul-jrgensen-eu-climate-agenda-cop27-climate-talks/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/washington-post-live/2022/11/28/ditte-juul-jrgensen-eu-climate-agenda-cop27-climate-talks/ |
Vera Farmiga and Cherry Jones on drama series ‘Five Days at Memorial’
“Five Days at Memorial” explores the impact of Hurricane Katrina on caregivers at a New Orleans hospital and the heart-wrenching decisions they are forced to make in the storm’s aftermath. On Wednesday, Nov. 30 at 1:00 p.m. ET, actors Vera Farmiga and Cherry Jones join Washington Post Live for a conversation about the true events that inspired the acclaimed limited series, their storied careers in Hollywood and upcoming projects. | 2022-11-21T17:51:08Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Vera Farmiga and Cherry Jones on drama series ‘Five Days at Memorial’ - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/washington-post-live/2022/11/30/vera-farmiga-cherry-jones-drama-series-five-days-memorial/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/washington-post-live/2022/11/30/vera-farmiga-cherry-jones-drama-series-five-days-memorial/ |
World Cup live updates United States opens Group B play against Wales
The United States begins its 2022 World Cup on Monday against Wales. (Marko Djurica/Reuters)
The U.S. men’s national soccer team is back on the global stage after missing the World Cup in 2018, and Coach Gregg Berhalter’s squad debuts in Qatar on Monday against Wales in its Group B opener. It will be an immediate test for the young Americans, who need a positive result against a Welsh team that features Gareth Bale, one of the best wingers of his generation and Wales’s all-time leading scorer. Kickoff is scheduled for 2 p.m. Eastern, and the U.S. broadcast is on Fox. Follow along for live updates.
The Americans had made seven consecutive appearances in the World Cup before their qualifying disaster in the buildup to 2018, and this year’s event represents a critical moment for the program. Coach Gregg Berhalter has molded a fearless squad, led by attacker Christian Pulisic, that has grown together over the past four years. The first objective is to reach the knockout round for the fifth time since 1994.
Wales is making its first appearance in the World Cup since 1958, and the team’s recent success has coincided with the nation’s reemergence from decades if not centuries of political and cultural suppression. This event is deeply meaningful, then, for a country of about 3 million people seeking to forge an identity on an international stage.
Monday, England beat Iran, 6-2, in the opening game of Group B, and the Netherlands met Senegal in Group A. Click here for highlights from those games. Four games are on the schedule Tuesday, including the debuts of defending champion France and Lionel Messi’s Argentina.
What to know about the United States at the World Cup
Four years removed from missing out on the World Cup in Russia, the U.S. national team returns to the global stage with an unprecedented glut of young stars playing in Europe’s top leagues. With the United States co-hosting the 2026 tournament, the trip to Qatar represents a crucial inflection point for the program.
That 2018 qualifying failure snapped a streak of seven straight trips to the World Cup, with the Americans advancing out of the group stage in three of their past four tournaments.
The U.S. squad bounced back with a string of successes under Gregg Berhalter — a key defender on the 2002 World Cup team that reached the quarterfinals — while still enduring significant growing pains. In the summer of 2021, the Americans staked their claim to regional dominance by notching extra-time defeats over rival Mexico in back-to-back finals to win the Concacaf Nations League and Gold Cup. But World Cup qualifying made for a bumpy road, with the U.S. squad going 7-3-4 and only edging Costa Rica on goal differential to claim the region’s third and final automatic berth to Qatar. And the Americans underwhelmed in their September tuneups, failing to score in a loss to Japan and a draw with Saudi Arabia. | 2022-11-21T18:06:34Z | www.washingtonpost.com | World Cup: United States vs. Wales live updates - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/11/22/usmnt-vs-wales/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/11/22/usmnt-vs-wales/ |
Burke Wong is a native Washingtonian, born in 1956 at Georgetown University Hospital. His is a fairly unusual first name. In the decade that Burke was born, James was the most popular boy’s name, followed by Michael, Robert, John and David.
According to the Social Security Administration, since the year 2000, Burke has never appeared in the “Top 1,000” list of U.S. names. So how did he end up with it? Today I’m sharing more naming stories, including the one for Burke, a retired Justice Department attorney who lives in South Bethany, Del.
“My older brother was born in 1954 and his pediatrician was Dr. Frederic Gerard Burke of Georgetown University Hospital,” he wrote. “Apparently, my parents loved Dr. Burke and decided to name me after him. As my 93-year-old mother recounts the story, when she took me to Dr. Burke for my first pediatric appointment he asked her, ‘Well, how did you select that name?’
“She recounted how she loved the care he gave my older brother as the reason. Dr. Burke then announced, ‘Your first appointment for Burke is free!’”
Burke Wong graduated from Georgetown University in 1977 (“Hence, I am a Hoya since birth!”) and during his time there, the football team had a running back named John David Burke, Dr. Burke’s son.
Wrote Burke: “Finally, sometime in the 1990s I was on campus at a Georgetown University alumni function wearing a name tag. A young man walked up to me and asked how I got that name. I recounted the story and he told me to wait, he wanted me to meet his wife. He returned with his wife and said to her, ‘This guy was named after your grandfather!’”
Welcome to the Burkeverse!
The first — and arguably best — job that Marianne Rankin’s diplomat father had in his 30-year State Department career was being posted to Paris.
“I was born in Neuilly-sur-Seine, a suburb of Paris, during his tour there,” wrote Marianne, of University Park. “My parents wanted to give me a French name. They finally decided on ‘Marianne’ (always one name, never two). She is the woman on the stamps and the coins; she is currently on the euro. She is analogous to Uncle Sam. There couldn’t be a more French name than ‘Marianne.’”
Marianne majored in French in college and has kept up the language. “Although regrettably I have spent little time in France since infancy — a total of a couple of months years ago — I feel ties to it, and am pleased with the name I have.”
Madeleine O’Brien of Derwood is pleased with her Gallic name, too. When her father was serving in France during World War II, he managed to go to Paris, where he visited La Madeleine, the Catholic church in the 8th arrondissement.
“He was most taken by it and thus my name Madeleine,” she wrote. “When I married my name became Madeleine O’Brien which I find quite lyrical.”
The District’s Martey Longmire is one of four boys. They grew up in Knoxville, Tenn., where their father was a huge fan of the University of Tennessee sports teams and of the St. Louis Cardinals.
Martey’s oldest brother was named after University of Tennessee football player Rocky Ratliff: Rockey. Their father added an “E.”
“My next oldest brother is Stanley, named after Cardinals player Stan Musial,” Martey wrote. “Seeing a trend with the ‘E,’ my parents named me Martey after Marty Marion, who played shortstop for the Cardinals.”
When Martey’s younger brother came along six years later, his father couldn’t think of another player whose name ended in “ey.” Wrote Martey: “My Mom suggested he be named Jeffrey. His middle name is Dean, named for Dizzy Dean, another Cardinals player. Thank goodness they didn’t name him Dizzy!”
Or Dizzey.
Ford Daab of Gainesville, Va., is named after his Uncle Ford, the firstborn son of his maternal grandfather.
Wrote Ford: “This grandfather was at the time a sheriff in Texas and named my uncle after Bob Ford, the man that shot Jesse James. My grandfather thought it was great that the worthless, no-good outlaw had been taken care of.”
Aleta Embrey’s older brother loves to say that her name came from the funny papers. And it did, specifically “Prince Valiant in the Days of King Arthur,” which still runs in The Washington Post.
“Queen Aleta of the Misty Isles is a major figure in the comic strip,” Aleta wrote. “My dad liked the name.”
It is a lovely name, much better than being named, say, “Olive Oyl.”
Helping Hand is the name of The Washington Post’s annual fundraising drive. I would love it if you would put your name on a donation to one of the three District charities I’m writing about this year: Bread for the City, Friendship Place and Miriam’s Kitchen.
All three of these nonprofits are working to end hunger and homelessness in our area. To give, visit posthelpinghand.com. | 2022-11-21T18:45:48Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Every baby has a name. And every baby's name has a story. - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/11/21/baby-names-stories/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/11/21/baby-names-stories/ |
New York on Monday awarded the state’s first 37 licenses to legally sell recreational marijuana to little-known entrepreneurs with prior pot convictions and nonprofits.
The licenses went to eight nonprofit groups and 29 individuals, from more than 900 applicants, the state’s Office of Cannabis Management announced during a hearing Monday. New York also approved eight new licenses for cannabis processors, giving the state a total of 32. It licensed three new testing labs, bringing the number to seven in the state, and set out rules for cannabis advertising.
“It was a collective effort. It was not anything we have taken lightly in the state,” said Tremaine Wright, chairwoman of the New York State Cannabis Control Board. Speakers at the meeting, held in Harlem, New York, today emphasized the state’s careful vetting of applicants for criteria that would help address the impacts of the past war on drugs.
The moves kick off a fully regulated and taxed pot marketplace that aims to put an end to so-called weed bodegas which have proliferated around the city in the year and a half since the state decriminalized marijuana but had yet to start sales. New York will also offer one of the US’s biggest tests of using the cannabis industry to further social-justice goals. It also has residency requirements, which have been challenged in court.
Those given licenses to sell marijuana in the state include Housing Works Cannabis LLC, related to the nonprofit that’s known for its thrift stores around the city where proceeds go to people experiencing homelessness or living with HIV and AIDS, as well as the Doe Fund LLC, a nonprofit that aims to break the poverty cycle for those getting out of prison by providing work, counseling and career and education opportunities. The licensees will be able to open as many as three dispensaries.
Individuals granted licenses had to have a track record operating a small business as well as prior pot convictions.
The regulations are the “final steps in a supply chain we’ve been building since March,” said Chris Alexander, executive director of the Office of Cannabis Management. | 2022-11-21T19:20:42Z | www.washingtonpost.com | NY’s First Legal Weed Sellers Will Be Nonprofits, People With Prior Pot Convictions - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/on-small-business/nys-first-legal-weed-sellers-will-be-nonprofits-people-with-prior-pot-convictions/2022/11/21/dae77c32-69c7-11ed-8619-0b92f0565592_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/on-small-business/nys-first-legal-weed-sellers-will-be-nonprofits-people-with-prior-pot-convictions/2022/11/21/dae77c32-69c7-11ed-8619-0b92f0565592_story.html |
Charles Allen is wrong on D.C. crime
The scene where a juvenile in his early teens was shot in October in Northeast D.C. (Emily Davies/The Washington Post)
D.C. Council member Charles Allen (D-Ward 6), chairman of the council’s public safety committee, has imposed his wrongheaded views on crime and crime reduction policies on the city for far too long. His Nov. 18 letter, “Making D.C. residents safer,” tried to defend against criticisms leveled against him in the Nov. 12 editorial “Sending the wrong message on guns.”
Mr. Allen’s moves to defund the police, increase the age at which young offenders can be treated by the court system as juveniles to 25 and pushing crime reform legislation that lessens penalties for violent crimes are destructive, damaging, dangerous and disrespectful to the mounting numbers of victims of gun violence in D.C.
It is time for Mr. Allen to be removed from office.
Marina Ein, Washington | 2022-11-21T19:21:13Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Opinion | Charles Allen is wrong on D.C. crime - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/11/21/charles-allen-is-wrong-dc-crime/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/11/21/charles-allen-is-wrong-dc-crime/ |
Bijan Ghaisar’s family has one last hope for justice
Family members, friends and Virginia state officials hold a vigil for Bijan Ghaisar on Thursday at the Lincoln Memorial to mark the fifth anniversary of his fatal shooting by two U.S. Park Police officers. (Astrid Riecken for The Washington Post)
Regarding the Nov. 18 Metro article “Family of Bijan Ghaisar marks 5 years since killing”:
Bijan Ghaisar’s family has only one option remaining to get even a modicum of justice for their son’s death. It is their civil suit against the U.S. Park Police. Their case will be heard by the same judge, Claude M. Hilton, who dismissed the criminal case last year, saying, “The officers’ decision to discharge their firearms was necessary and proper under the circumstances and there is no evidence that the officers acted with malice, criminal intent or any improper motivation.”
How is it that Judge Hilton will hear the case, you ask? Isn’t his decision preordained? The article explained, “Now Hilton will rule on the Ghaisars’ civil case as well, after an error in the clerk’s office resulted in the criminal case being reassigned to him.” An error!
Despite overwhelming evidence that the officers killed Ghaisar, his family will be denied the last semblance of justice available to them because of an error. An error.
This error needs to be corrected by removing Judge Hilton from the case.
Justice is still possible if he is, and Ghaisar’s family might finally see something they have been denied for the past five years: justice.
John K. Bergen, Alexandria | 2022-11-21T19:21:26Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Opinion | Bijan Ghaisar’s family has one last hope for justice - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/11/21/last-hope-justice-bijan-ghaisar/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/11/21/last-hope-justice-bijan-ghaisar/ |
MBS should not be granted immunity
A projected image of Jamal Khashoggi on Oct. 1, 2019, on the front of the Newseum in D.C. (Michael S. Williamson/The Washington Post)
Though I am a strong supporter of President Biden, I strongly disagree with his administration’s decision to support immunity for Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman in the lawsuit involving the murder of Post contributing columnist Jamal Khashoggi [“U.S. declares Saudi crown prince immune from lawsuit in Khashoggi killing,” news, Nov. 19].
Does the executive branch understand that its position in this case will only encourage future despots to believe they are exempt from civil judicial actions involving murder? U.S. District Judge John Bates could well decide that the recent designation of the crown prince as prime minister was a maneuver to create sovereign immunity, or the judge could challenge the sovereign-immunity assertion itself, maintain the current case and let higher courts make a historic and noble decision. There are enough heinous crimes in the world today without those protecting the rule of law inspiring more of them.
Brent Budowsky, Washington
Opinions coverage of Jamal Khashoggi’s murder
Jamal Khashoggi, a Saudi journalist and Post contributing columnist since 2017, was killed in Istanbul at the consulate of Saudi Arabia in 2018. According to a U.S. intelligence assessment, Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman approved an operation to capture or kill him.
Fred Hiatt, The Post’s editorial page editor at the time, called it “a monstrous and unfathomable act.” He wrote a column titled “Why bring a bonesaw to a kidnapping, Your Highness?”
Khashoggi’s columns for The Post described Saudi Arabia under Mohammed bin Salman, calling it “unbearable” and comparing him to Russian President Vladimir Putin.
President Biden, after vowing on the campaign trail to make Saudi Arabia a “pariah,” visited the country in July 2022. Biden defended the trip in a guest opinion for The Post. Washington Post Publisher Fred Ryan wrote that Biden’s trip showed American values are negotiable.
Biden greeted Mohammed bin Salman with a fist bump, which columnist Karen Attiah called “a crass betrayal.” Attiah edited Khashoggi’s columns for The Post. | 2022-11-21T19:21:33Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Opinion | MBS should not be granted immunity - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/11/21/mbs-should-not-be-granted-immunity/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/11/21/mbs-should-not-be-granted-immunity/ |
Virginia’s proposed history ‘guidelines’ would cause real harm
A copy of the Iliad by Homer, an epic ancient Greek poem. (iStock)
As a student of history and a citizen of Virginia for more than 60 years, I am concerned about the recent draft “Guiding Principles” for Virginia’s 2022 history standards [“State education board delays review of new history standards,” Metro, Nov. 18].
Reading these “principles” took me back to the old days of teaching history, when “great men” drove events, the United States’ past was unblemished and inspirational tales abounded. This, of course, was less history than indoctrination, and the “guidelines” would have taken us right back there.
An example is its gap in teaching world history. By third grade, children learn about Greece and Rome, but the rest of the world waits until high school. Yet grades four through six offer U.S. history, which you can’t teach without placing it in the context of Indigenous civilizations, the kingdoms of West Africa and European rivalries in the West Indies. To do so results in a narrow racial and cultural picture. The Natives of Virginia did not spontaneously generate. Enslavement in West Africa took many forms, but none were hereditary, race-based chattel slavery. And Virginia’s economy was part of an international accumulation of capital that underpinned the Industrial Revolution.
The kind of teaching proposed (and now rejected) isn’t just bad history; it would have stunted students’ appreciation of other cultures, and that, in turn, would have a real impact in adulthood, in how they would deal with customers, co-workers, neighbors and newcomers. It’s not just about losing the real story; it’s about losing an important tool for getting along in real life.
Michael Schaffner, Arlington | 2022-11-21T19:21:39Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Opinion | Virginia’s proposed history ‘guidelines’ would cause real harm - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/11/21/virginias-proposed-history-guidelines-would-cause-real-harm/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/11/21/virginias-proposed-history-guidelines-would-cause-real-harm/ |
We have in our power the ability to change the future
A window at the Nasdaq MarketSite reflects a crowd at Times Square in New York on Sept. 6, 2019. (Michael Nagle/Bloomberg News)
Regarding the Nov. 15 news article “As the world population hits 8 billion, humanity finds itself at a crossroads”:
We can be the decision-makers in what is arguably the most important century in human civilization. Important in a good way, if we grasp the long-term drama unfolding and make the right decisions.
A high and growing global population, multiplied by high consumption by the affluent, causes climate change, habitat loss, pollution ranging from plastics to poisons, many aspects of poverty, immigration conflicts, overexploitation of wildlife, resource shortages, tensions and even violence arising from competition for land, water, fossil fuels, minerals.
The quicker we transition to modest and sustainable levels of population and consumption, the better our world will be for us and for the generations who follow.
We can achieve it by encouraging average family sizes of two children or less and more modest lifestyles among the affluent, including us in the United States.
Each of us has the power to change the course of history for the better. Imagine the future world — of our children’s children’s children — where they look back to this early part of the 21st century and remark, “Our ancestors cared about us.” | 2022-11-21T19:21:41Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Opinion | We have in our power the ability to change the future - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/11/21/we-have-our-power-ability-change-future/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/11/21/we-have-our-power-ability-change-future/ |
We need to prevent child sex abuse, not just respond to it
Maryland Attorney General Brian Frosh (D). (Alex Brandon/Associated Press)
The Nov. 18 Metro article “Md. court filing tallies sex abuse by clergy” noted that Maryland Attorney General Brian E. Frosh’s (D) court filing comes in the 20th-anniversary year of an investigative series by the Boston Globe that dug into the Catholic sexual abuse scandal in the United States.
Over the past two decades, a grand jury in Pennsylvania issued a report alleging that more than 300 priests in six dioceses abused 1,000 children over seven decades. And we’ve seen high-profile sexual abuse cases at Michigan State University, USA Gymnastics and Penn State.
We’re still waiting until kids are harmed to respond. For more than 30 years, we’ve relied almost solely on after-the-fact approaches to address child sexual abuse. In this same time, we made major inroads in the prevention of child physical abuse, child neglect, bullying and adolescent suicide. We have dozens of evidence-based, effective prevention interventions for these types of childhood victimizations. We need the same for child sexual abuse. Child sexual abuse is a preventable public health problem. Until our nation puts serious resources into the development, evaluation and dissemination of prevention efforts, we will stay trapped in a cycle of abuse, outrage and disbelief.
Elizabeth J. Letourneau, Baltimore | 2022-11-21T19:21:47Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Opinion | We need to prevent child sex abuse, not just respond to it - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/11/21/we-need-prevent-child-sex-abuse-not-just-respond-it/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/11/21/we-need-prevent-child-sex-abuse-not-just-respond-it/ |
Trump’s win-loss record is worse than he pretends
A primary-only kingmaker is a GOP nightmare
A reflected image of former president Donald Trump speaking at a rally for Mehmet Oz and Doug Mastriano ahead of the Nov. 8 midterm elections in Latrobe, Pa., on Nov. 5. (Shuran Huang for The Washington Post)
The first major political contest in which Donald Trump participated, he lost.
That was the Iowa Republican caucus in 2016, the first time voters got to weigh-in on the crowded field of Republican candidates for the party’s presidential nomination. And Trump, despite leading in polling coming into the caucus, came in second place to Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.) — and only a bit in front of Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.).
Trump soon accused Cruz of having cheated, a now-very-familiar response to a loss from Trump. But he rebounded quickly, winning the New Hampshire primary easily and then beginning to line up enough primary and convention wins to secure the nomination. Eventually, he won the presidency.
As president and head of the party, Trump regularly boasted about his record of endorsement wins. That reputation — advanced through force of will more than the available evidence — has been badly damaged since 2016, particularly in the wake of this month’s midterm elections. It also depends heavily on Trump’s offering up endorsements in elections that his party was almost certain to win anyway.
Here’s Trump’s win-loss record, assessed year-by-year since the 2016 Iowa caucuses:
2016 Republican primaries. Trump won more support in 39 of the 54 contested nomination fights in 2016, according to a review of the year’s results. That includes nine wins after he locked up the nomination with a victory in the Indiana primary.
2016 general election. Trump won more electoral votes than Hillary Clinton but lost the popular vote by 2.9 million ballots. Republicans also saw their House majority slip by six votes and lost two Senate seats.
2017 elections. Ballotpedia has an excellent rundown of Trump’s endorsements by year. In 2017, for example, it documents seven endorsements in primary and general election fights, with Trump prevailing in four (all general election).
There weren’t many opportunities for Trump to weigh-in during that off-year, meaning less opportunity for him to cushion his losses with endorsements of incumbents who were expected to coast to victory. That changed the following year.
2018 elections. Trump made more than 130 endorsements in 2018, including both primary and general election endorsements for some candidates. Most of his endorsed primary candidates won (35 of 37) but his candidates won a bit over half of their general-election fights (56 of 95). That includes six state-level candidates in Texas, for example, as well as several almost-certain red-state governor candidates.
Nationally, his party was battered, losing more than 40 seats in the House. Republicans gained two seats in the Senate, thanks to a favorable map (picking up seats Democrats gained in the 2012 presidential cycle), something that Trump seized upon as proof of his effectiveness as a party leader.
2019 elections. Another year with relatively few contests left Trump with another mediocre record. Four of his five primary endorsements were successful, as were six of his nine general-election ones.
2020 elections. The Republican Party was assertive about boxing out challengers to Trump in the 2020 party primaries, rendering an assessment of those contests about as useful as parsing the vote totals for Kim Jong Un’s most recent reelection bid.
He made more than 300 endorsements in primary and general-election contests, with his primary candidates winning in 117 of the 121 identified by Ballotpedia. In general elections, his candidates won 142 of 182. Those wins were again driven higher by endorsing numerous incumbents; more than half of his wins were incumbents winning primaries and then retaining their positions.
The marquee race that year, of course, was his own, with Trump again losing the popular vote as he also trailed in the electoral college. His party also lost control of the Senate, though it did add 14 seats in the House.
2021 elections. Trump made relatively few endorsements last year, according to Ballotpedia. His three primary endorsements were successful while two of his three general-election ones prevailed.
2022 elections. With an eye on announcing his candidacy for the 2024 presidential nomination, Trump made nearly 500 endorsements in the most recent cycle. Most were successful, thanks to his making a number of endorsements aimed at boosting his total. (His endorsement of Doug Mastriano’s gubernatorial primary bid in Pennsylvania, for example, came only after it was clear Mastriano would win — and as it seemed possible that his endorsed Senate candidate, Mehmet Oz, might not make the general.) In total, Trump’s candidates won 224 of 241 primary races and 208 of 254 general-election ones.
Ballotpedia also broke out key battleground races for 2022, contests that weren’t simply Trump rubber-stamping the likely Republican winner. In those, they estimate, Trump’s candidate won in only 14 of 37 general-election contests (though the results are incomplete, awaiting other election calls). That includes Oz’s loss in Pennsylvania.
Overall, Trump’s party underperformed expectations, failing to retake the Senate while only barely taking a majority in the House. For Democrats, it was a surprisingly good year, given how midterm elections usually go for the party of a new president.
Even with the inflationary effects of gimme races (like endorsing incumbent red-state candidates), Trump’s endorsed candidates (including Trump himself) have won about three-quarters of their races. In close races in 2022, he came in well below that level — and in fact, he may have hurt some of those he endorsed. Research published after the 2018 midterms found that Trump had a downward drag on candidates he endorsed, with rallies on their behalf effectively prompting Democrats to turn out more heavily. He might actually have helped Republicans lose more than a dozen House seats that year.
Trump’s position with the Republican Party, then, might be the worst one possible: very effective at getting his candidates to win primaries by speaking to his base — but ineffective at getting those candidates to win in November. His base makes up a sizable chunk of the GOP, yes, but a much smaller part of the electorate. His polarizing effect on the primary electorate aids Republicans who side with him, but his polarizing effect overall probably often hurts his candidates.
This is unacceptable to Trump, of course, so on Monday morning he released a new statement about the midterms.
“Joe O’Dea lost his race in CO by over 12 points because he campaigned against MAGA. Likewise, candidates who shifted their ‘messaging’ after winning big in the Primaries (Bolduc!) saw big losses in General. Will they ever learn their lesson? You can’t win without MAGA!” pic.twitter.com/zpPznnDCFK
Cherry-picking examples, Trump claims that it was insufficient fealty to him that cost Republicans victories in 2022. Heads, he wins; tails, his opponents lose.
Had close contests in 2022 actually come down to a coin toss, of course, Ballotpedia’s data suggest that the party would have done better than they did with Trump’s endorsements.
Analysis: Why Arizona Republicans are once again targeting Maricopa County | 2022-11-21T19:21:53Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Trump’s win-loss record is far worse than he pretends - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/11/21/trump-republicans-elections/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/11/21/trump-republicans-elections/ |
By Jennifer McDermott and Matthew Daly | AP
FILE - One of Pacific Gas & Electric’s Diablo Canyon Power Plant’s nuclear reactors in Avila Beach, Calif., is viewed Nov. 3, 2008. The Biden administration said Monday, Nov. 21, 2022, it is granting preliminary approval to spend up to $1.1 billion to help keep California’s last operating nuclear power plant running. The Energy Department said it was creating a path forward for the Diablo Canyon Power Plant to remain open, with the final terms to be negotiated and finalized. The money could help the plant stay open beyond its planned 2025 closure. (AP Photo/Michael A. Mariant, File) (Michael Mariant/FR96689 AP) | 2022-11-21T19:22:13Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Feds offer $1B to keep California's last nuclear plant open - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/feds-offer-1b-to-keep-californias-last-nuclear-plant-open/2022/11/21/f5746080-69cf-11ed-8619-0b92f0565592_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/feds-offer-1b-to-keep-californias-last-nuclear-plant-open/2022/11/21/f5746080-69cf-11ed-8619-0b92f0565592_story.html |
Imani Perry is the author of “South to America: A Journey Below the Mason-Dixon to Understand the Soul of a Nation,” which recently won the National Book Award for nonfiction. On Tuesday, Nov. 29 at 12:00 p.m. ET, join Washington Post Live for a conversation with Perry about what she learned writing the book about America’s past and present.
Author, “South to America”
Professor, African American Studies, Princeton University | 2022-11-21T19:23:15Z | www.washingtonpost.com | National Book Award winner Imani Perry on connecting America’s past and present - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/washington-post-live/2022/11/29/national-book-award-winner-imani-perry-connecting-americas-past-present/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/washington-post-live/2022/11/29/national-book-award-winner-imani-perry-connecting-americas-past-present/ |
By Bruce Feirstein
(Video: Sergio Peçanha for The Washington Post)
Bruce Feirstein is a writer at large for Air Mail and a screenwriter who lives in Los Angeles.
LOS ANGELES — California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) recently signed into law the Freedom to Walk Act, which, for those of you living on the East Coast, does not involve the right of disgruntled Californians to leave for Texas, or unhappy Silicon Valley tech workers to exit Twitter or the metaverse.
In the grand scheme of things, all this might seem rather pedestrian. Especially when you consider how much of what passes for everyday behavior in California probably should be outlawed, such as spending tens of millions of dollars on tear-down homes, hundreds of millions on reality-TV production and billions on the L.A.-to-San Francisco high-speed rail slo-mo disaster.
And if grand theft government-style doesn’t bug you, there’s also the fact that an enterprising individual can shoplift goods worth up to $950 without worrying about being tagged with a felony. Parking in L.A. is always a pain; if you’re hotfooting it out of a Macy’s or Target with an armful of pilfered goods, your ability to jaywalk worry-free to your getaway car is a cultural advantage right up there with being able to make a right turn on a red light.
On a more serious note, the Freedom to Walk Act is a social-justice victory. As the bill’s author, state Assemblyman Phil Ting (D-San Francisco) told CBS Bay Area news, jaywalking laws “are arbitrarily enforced and tickets are disproportionately given to people of color and in low-income communities.” Writing for Southern California Public Radio’s LAist.com, Ryan Fonseca reported that Los Angeles police cite Black pedestrians for jaywalking at a rate “over three times their population share in the city,” according to his analysis of LAPD data.
The bill has one loophole that is probably sensible but unfortunately vulnerable to exploitation by law enforcement: You can cross against a traffic light, or outside crosswalks, but police still have discretion to issue a citation for crossing in the face of an immediate danger or hazard.
Still, the new law is a big step in the right direction. And in that regard, California doesn’t walk alone. Virginia decriminalized jaywalking in March 2021, followed soon after by Kansas City Mo., and Nevada.
I bring my own strictly anecdotal man-on-the-street perspective to this matter, having lived in several cities. In Boston, jaywalking never seemed much of an issue, perhaps because pedestrians recognized that the traffic contract there means cars are bigger than you, a green light means “go,” yellow means “go faster” and red means “pump the brakes for a second and pray you don’t get caught.”
Jaywalking was similarly uncommon in Beijing and Shanghai, but for an unsimilar reason: All it took was a look at the literally dozens of security cameras arrayed like pigeons across the mast arm of a typical traffic light, and you think: “No, I’m good. I’ll wait for the light to change.”
New York, of course, is the jaywalking capital of the world and the inspiration for the greatest jaywalking movie dialogue of all time: In “Midnight Cowboy” (1969), when Dustin Hoffman, walking into traffic, bangs on a taxi’s hood and yells, “Hey! I’m walking here!”
Rudy Giuliani was a crime-fighting marvel as mayor — murder dropped dramatically under his watch, but even he was defeated by New Yorkers’ insistence on their inalienable right to roam among heavy, fast-moving machinery.
With much fanfare, Giuliani declared in 1998 that the city would begin rigorously enforcing anti-jaywalking laws, and fines would increase from $2 (yes, two bucks) to $50. “Police Balk At Crackdown On Jaywalking By Giuliani,” a New York Times headline reported. Balk — it rhymes with walk. “This is just taking hard-earned money from people who can’t afford it,” a police officer told the Times. “And I’m not going to prostitute myself for the Mayor or anybody else.”
Giuliani, clearly furious about the noncompliance by cops and pedestrians alike, threatened to raise the automatic fine to $100 before the campaign was quietly kicked to the curb.
New Yorkers who are new to L.A. are invariably surprised first by the scarcity of pedestrians in this car-centric city. And then they’re surprised to see the few people on the streets waiting obediently for traffic lights to change. As of Jan. 1, when Freedom to Walk kicks in, transplanted and forever impatient New Yorkers might need to show them how it’s done. | 2022-11-21T20:12:58Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Opinion | California greenlights jaywalking on Jan. 1. It’s a positive step. - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/11/21/california-jaywalking-legalized/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/11/21/california-jaywalking-legalized/ |
The LGBTQ family is united by our fear for our lives
Britney Fick, 22, center from left, and Madi Grauer, both of Colorado Springs, hold candles during a vigil at Temple Beit Torah in Colorado Springs on Sunday. (Rachel Woolf for The Washington Post)
Jennifer Finney Boylan is a professor of English at Barnard College of Columbia University and a fellow at Harvard University’s Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study. Her most recent book is “Mad Honey,” co-written with Jodi Picoult.
“And what do we have here?” Dolly Parton asked me. “The typical American family?”
This was in Provincetown, Mass., many years ago, on the street in front of a drag club, where my wife and I were pushing a baby carriage. At the time I seemed to be a youngish, tweedy English professor. What I did not look like, though, was the thing I actually was: a closeted transgender woman.
How I wanted, back then, to shout to that drag artist who was not actually Dolly Parton — I’m like you! We are sisters, you and I!
But I didn’t have the courage. I couldn’t imagine it.
In the years since then, and especially since I did finally come out, in 2000, I have occasionally wondered whether the thing I longed to say to her was true. Was I her sister? Was I like her?
On Sunday, as the news about the murders inside Club Q in Colorado Springs emerged, I thought of these questions again.
Among the victims was bartender Daniel Aston, 28, a trans man. His partner, a drag performer, was behind the bar when the shooting began. It was not lost on those of us in the LGBTQ community that the massacre took place on the annual Transgender Day of Remembrance, a day set aside in memory of all the trans people who have lost their lives to violence.
Brian Broome: The Colorado Springs massacre is rooted in hate
Nor is it lost on us that conservatives across the country this year have been using the LGBTQ community as their whipping boys. And girls. Rep. Brianna Titone, Colorado’s first openly trans legislator, tweeted on Sunday, “When politicians and pundits keep perpetuating tropes, insults, and misinformation about the trans and LGBTQ+ community, this is a result.”
In October, a man attacked a trans librarian in Boise. Other attacks, by armed men and groups such as the Proud Boys, have disrupted drag-related events in Texas, Nevada and Oregon. At the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia — where I once presented a grand rounds lecture on the variety of trans experiences — security has been increased in the wake of threats to its transgender clinic. In Massachusetts, Boston Children’s Hospital reports that its clinicians and staff have received multiple threats of violence.
One observer at a Colorado Springs vigil, said, “It feels like, ‘When is it going to happen to me?’ As opposed to thinking, ‘This kind of thing will never touch me.’ ”
The harassment at Boston Children’s came in the wake of anti-LGBTQ posts from social media users, including the Twitter account LibsofTikTok. On Sunday morning, right after the attack in Colorado Springs, Chaya Raichik, who runs that Twitter account, pointed to Titone’s support of a Denver nonprofit that helps young drag performers.
In August, Colorado Republican Lauren Boebert, who has used slurs to describe trans people, warned drag queens to stay away from children in the state’s 3rd District, where she just won reelection. Late Sunday, Boebert expressed sympathy for the victims. The victims, she said, were in her prayers. Titone replied, “You spreading tropes and insults contributed to the hatred for us. There’s blood on your hands.”
Like many trans women, especially those of us who are decades post-transition, I have occasionally wondered how much in common I have with the drag community. I’ve loved watching drag, and have looked upon the artistry of my friends with wonder and delight. But I have never thought of my gender as part of a fantasy or a performance. All I ever really wanted for myself was the solace and grace that came from finally feeling at home in my own body.
To be honest, at this age, I’m more Edna Krabappel than Dolly Parton.
I’ve been married to my wife for 34 years now — 12 as husband and wife, and 22 as wife and wife. Our children, just toddlers during that long-ago vacation in Provincetown, have since gone into the world to find their own adventures.
But I know the answer that I asked myself in Provincetown now.
Yes, that Dolly Parton was my sister. Just as Daniel Aston was my brother. Just as all of us in the LGBTQ community in this country are one family, bound together not only by the love we feel for one another but also by the way, every day, we have now come to fear for our lives.
And if I met that Dolly Parton now, even with all the changes in our family, I would still give her the answer I gave her three decades ago.
The typical American family? Why yes, that’s us. | 2022-11-21T20:13:04Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Opinion | The LGBTQ family is united by our fear for our lives - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/11/21/colorado-springs-clubq-shooting-lgbtq-fear/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/11/21/colorado-springs-clubq-shooting-lgbtq-fear/ |
Covid and global dysfunction tripped up the U.S. climate envoy at COP27. It’s hardly the first time he’s faced diplomatic hurdles.
U.S. Special Presidential Envoy for Climate John F. Kerry visits Ukraine’s pavilion at the 2022 United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP27) in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt, on Nov. 14, 2022. (Sedat Suna/EPA-EFE/Shutterstock)
SHARM EL-SHEIKH, Egypt — The lights were literally going out on this year’s U.N. Climate Change Conference in Egypt as weary negotiators engaged in the last final hours of heated, middle-of the-night bargaining. Yet one of the summit’s most powerful diplomats had to work the phones from afar, isolated in his hotel room after contracting covid-19.
It was hardly the first time U.S. special climate climate envoy John F. Kerry, 78, has been tripped up in trying to exert U.S. environmental leadership. The former secretary of state is the face of the U.S. government’s response to climate change, but his resume of accomplishments is mixed. The nations of the world lag far behind on the pledges they had promised under the Paris accords he helped broker in 2015, and activists and some national leaders say they are becoming disillusioned with the COP summits and America’s ability to deliver on its promises.
Such is the dichotomy Kerry confronts. He is a rock star in climate diplomacy, but tethered to the vagaries of U.S. and global politics. That has left many to wonder why his charm and influence cannot marshal a more effective response in the world’s capitals, including his own.
“He’s a force in negotiations, and he’s respected,” said Rémy Rioux, chief executive officer of the French Development Agency and an expert in international institutions. At the same time, Rioux added, “People see what the United States is doing for Ukraine, with tens of billions of dollars of support … Why is there no consensus in the United States for doing something similar for the climate?”
Kerry has heard such questions before. In 2010, then-Sen. Kerry and Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman (I-Conn.) failed to patch together a climate bill, even after the House approved legislation that would have capped carbon pollution nationwide. More recently, he and President Biden have been unable to persuade Congress to approve climate financial assistance to developing countries, even though the president has pledged to deliver $11.4 billion by 2024. And any effort to marshal greater support for climate action in Washington will become harder starting in January, when Republicans take control of the House.
At this year’s summit in Egypt, known as COP27, developing countries vented their frustration that the United States was not matching its rhetoric with action. They made clear that the COP — the Conference of the Parties — must approve a “loss and damage” fund to compensate vulnerable countries for harms caused by climate change.
The 200 nations at the summit ultimately did so, and Kerry helped reverse the United States’ past resistance to such financing. The Egypt summit risked failure without a breakthrough moment. The U.S. delegation won praise for helping to deliver it.
“I can’t remember a time when the United States was in front proposing a big idea to mobilize funding for developing countries,” said Nigel Purvis, chief executive of Climate Advisers and a former senior U.S. climate negotiator. “It’s great to see.”
Yet the summit ended without Kerry and European Union officials winning approval for two of their main priorities. The United States had sought language to accelerate global cuts to greenhouse-gas emissions — especially a phase down of all fossil fuels — but those terms never made the final agreement.
Normally, wealthy countries would not concede on something they once opposed — compensation for climate-ravaged nations — without getting something they wanted, such as stronger emissions cuts. But the United States compromised without getting much in return, and offered few explanations.
Kerry’s top deputies left the plenary before the end of the final session and waived off reporters asking questions. The official U.S. statement on COP27’s final agreement came out roughly six hours after the summit’s formal conclusion, and Kerry’s office declined an interview request.
In the 2,020-word statement, Kerry made nary a mention of any failure or shortcoming from COP27. He joined many Western leaders in downplaying the lack of bolder climate action that they had publicly demanded. Instead, Kerry offered a long list of the U.S. delegation’s accomplishments and lauded the summit for making incremental progress to limit planetary warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit).
“In the all too real world of climate science, that math matters when you focus on the faces of the fractions: Every tenth of a degree of warming averted means less drought, less flooding, less sea-level rise, less extreme weather,” he said. “It means lives saved and losses avoided.”
Though Kerry is older than many of his other government counterparts, his seniority and versatility make him valuable to the White House — so much so that Biden named him as one of his very first appointments. Kerry’s long history in public life, as soldier, activist, presidential candidate, statesman and even socialite, gives him a leg up in a job that requires frequent worldwide travel and constant diplomacy. To succeed, Kerry must connect with youth protesters and banking chief executives, Chinese bureaucrats and Emirati sheikhs.
In back-to-back public speeches here Tuesday morning, presenters at the Egyptian pavilion used the honorifics that befit his long career. They introduced the former U.S. senator as “his excellency,” and a U.N.-backed coalition of countries and nonprofits listed him as the honorable John Kerry. His staff calls him secretary, from his time as Secretary of State in the Obama administration.
Kerry and his Chinese counterpart, special climate envoy Xie Zhenhua, have talked publicly about their friendly relationship. And they exchanged emails even when formal negotiations were suspended. At the last two climate summits in Scotland and Egypt, Xie made unexpected appearances with Kerry, last week stunning a capacity crowd by joining a COP27 event on methane emissions.
“You may be wondering why the Chinese envoy on climate may be attending the global methane pledge,” Xie said, according to an interpreter, after Kerry introduced him from the podium. “My very good friend Secretary Kerry told me about the conference this morning.”
Yet even with such gestures, the world’s two biggest emitters have yet to strike a broader deal to slash their greenhouse gases.
Last week, Biden and Chinese President Xi Jinping agreed at the G-20 summit to work together on climate progress. But Xie did not commit China to a global methane pledge during the news conference he attended at Kerry’s request, and did not announce any new climate policies.
In his statement Sunday, Kerry’s only explicit regret was about China, though he said talks between the two countries will go on.
“I am glad we have had discussions on climate with China here at Sharm el-Sheikh, following President Biden and President Xi’s meeting in Bali,” Kerry said. “Due to the compressed time for our negotiations, we unfortunately were able to make only limited progress here in Sharm.”
Kerry is in a difficult spot politically, said several of his former staff members and diplomatic allies. Congress and the U.S. electorate are reluctant to support the type of U.S. international aid that would help him build strong allies abroad. And the international audience can also be tough to please, said Kerry allies, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive matters.
In his statement, Kerry touted the U.S. government’s international aid and fundraising with partners to help Indonesia with $10 billion and Egypt with $250 million for clean energy development.
The funding is seen as part of a pragmatic U.S. strategy to direct limited money to important developing countries — but it comes with a clear downside: Other countries feel miffed that they do not get the same special treatment, said Laurence Tubiana, a French economist and an architect of the Paris agreement, said in an interview.
Lack of trust between large parts of the developing world and the United States played a big role in the summit’s tepid outcome, said several negotiators here. While the United States finally relented to creating a fund designated to compensate countries damaged by the effects of climate change, it failed to engender solidarity with the developing world to win support for more emissions reductions. The reason: Many countries feel spurned by Washington’s failure to deliver on past promise of climate aid.
That friction was central to the divide between rich and poor countries that dominated COP27, a much more acrimonious summit than Glasgow. Kerry’s bout with covid did not help the United States smooth over such tensions.
Kerry, who will turn 79 next month, could have avoided this challenging terrain by stepping down as special envoy, and some E.U. leaders and others were surprised he stuck around. But close allies said Kerry finds the cause invigorating, despite the frequent acrimony.
He has not said whether he will step down from the administration anytime soon, though two individuals who spoke on the condition of anonymity to be candid said that he may consider that option and could easily find work in the private sector.
Kerry is not driven by opportunity like many political leaders, Tubiana said. He works to use political power to solve problems he cares about, and he has seen climate change as a top global problem for decades, she added.
“If you are really convinced it is global strife we have to face — and he is totally convinced … you don’t care so much if you succeed … you are fighting,” she added. “He’s really really committed and doesn’t care. If this is not a glorious COP, he doesn’t care, he has to do it.”
Mufson reported from Washington, D.C. | 2022-11-21T20:52:36Z | www.washingtonpost.com | The climate needs John Kerry to deliver. Was Egypt a major setback? - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environmnet/2022/11/21/john-kerry-cop27-climate-biden/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environmnet/2022/11/21/john-kerry-cop27-climate-biden/ |
Supreme Court turns away Fairfax schools’ appeal of sex assault suit
The Supreme Court has declined to hear the Fairfax County Public School Board’s appeal of a lawsuit alleging it failed to adequately investigate an alleged 2017 high school sexual assault case, meaning the case will go to trial again and marking a victory for the plaintiff.
The suit was filed in 2018 by an anonymous plaintiff, known in court documents as Jane Doe, who said she was sexually assaulted by a male student during an Oakton High School band trip the year before. Doe alleged in her suit that the Fairfax school board failed to properly investigate the incident and that the school system’s response was “flawed at every stage of the process.” Fairfax’s handling of the incident, Doe further alleged, caused her emotional, academic and physical harm, meaning school officials violated her rights under Title IX, the law that forbids sex discrimination in federally funded schools. Doe asked for a declaration that Fairfax had violated Title IX and for unspecified damages.
The school board, however, argued that the encounter “was not a sexual assault” and that school personnel “took meaningful and appropriate action” to address the incident.
In 2019, a jury panel in Alexandria federal court found that Doe had been sexually harassed and that the incident, and the school’s response, deprived Doe of her rightful access to education. But the panel ultimately ruled in Fairfax’s favor, finding that the school board was not liable for the sexual harassment because it did not have “actual knowledge” of what occurred on the bus trip.
Doe requested a new trial, arguing the evidence did not support the verdict, and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit granted her request. In December 2021, attorneys for Fairfax schools asked the Supreme Court to intervene. School lawyers were hoping the court would uphold a previous ruling establishing that a school district is only liable under Title IX in cases where it “subjects its students to harassment [and] is deliberately indifferent to sexual harassment.”
The Supreme Court’s decision on Monday not to take the case is a blow to the school district. And it means a second trial for Doe. As happens frequently, the court turned down the case without comment.
Alexandra Brodsky, an attorney with nonprofit legal advocacy group Public Justice, which is representing Doe, wrote in a statement Monday that her client is relieved.
“Jane is ready for her new trial, and is confident she will prevail,” Brodsky wrote. “The question for Fairfax is whether it wants to risk a loss, and millions of dollars in attorneys’ fees, in order to force a young survivor to relive, yet again, traumatic events she is working to put behind her.”
Fairfax schools spokeswoman Julie Moult wrote in a statement Monday that the high court is leaving “important legal questions unsettled” by refusing to hear the case and establish whether “schools can be sued in private lawsuits for more damages under Title IX when it is undisputed that their actions have not led to any harassment.”
Moult added, “FCPS could not have foreseen the incident between two high school students in March 2017, and … no harassment happened after school administrators responded. … If the case is retried, FCPS expects to again show that its staff went to extraordinary lengths to provide support to the plaintiff after the incident.”
The lawsuit centers on a five-day trip the high school band took in March 2017 to Indianapolis. Doe, who was 16 at the time, previously told The Washington Post that a male high school senior sat next to her on the bus and covered them both in a blanket. The lawsuit says the male student allegedly forced the girl to rub his genitals, penetrated the girl with his fingers and grabbed her breasts.
The girl did not report the alleged attack on the band trip because of trauma and fright, her lawyer previously told The Post — but the girl did tell several friends, who ultimately reported the incident to school employees. That led the school system to open an investigation, interviewing both Doe and the male student, who maintained that the encounter was consensual.
The Post is not naming the male student, who was 18 at the time and was never charged with a crime. The Post does not identify victims of sexual assault without their consent.
After speaking with Doe and the male student, Fairfax school officials decided the encounter was not a sexual assault and took no disciplinary action, although the school system offered Doe counseling and gave her the chance to retake some tests and complete other exams at home. Meanwhile, the school’s principal, vice principal and a school resource officer exchanged sex jokes via email and text making light of the incident.
Doe’s complaint says Fairfax conducted a “sham investigation” and that school officials did not notify the girl’s parents before questioning her or inform Doe of her rights under Title IX.
The girl’s parents and friends said she lost weight and the ability to concentrate in the aftermath of the bus trip. School lawyers have countered that officials did everything they could to accommodate the student. They have pointed out that Doe remained in the school’s highest-level band class and that her grades improved after the bus trip.
It is not the first time the district has faced scrutiny over its handling of sexual assault cases. In 2014, the school system voluntarily entered into an agreement with the Education Department’s Office for Civil Rights to reexamine its methodologies and policies for handling sexual harassment allegations between students, although Fairfax did not admit it had violated any regulations at the time.
The issue of sexual assault in schools has become a controversial and prominent topic in Northern Virginia, after neighboring Loudoun County Public Schools last year transferred a student who had committed one sexual assault to a second campus, where the student committed a second assault. Loudoun officials’ handling of that case has drawn ire from parents and politicians, including Gov. Glenn Youngkin (R). | 2022-11-21T20:52:48Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Supreme Court turns away Fairfax schools’ appeal of sex assault suit - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/2022/11/21/fairfax-schools-sexual-assault-lawsuit/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/2022/11/21/fairfax-schools-sexual-assault-lawsuit/ |
The birds, Chocolate and Chip, let out loud gobbles during the ceremony, as the president doubled-down on cringeworthy puns.
Chocolate and Chip during the national Thanksgiving turkey ceremony on the South Lawn of the White House. (Demetrius Freeman/The Washington Post)
The turkeys weren’t taking questions.
Moments after President Biden pardoned Chocolate and Chip, two hefty gobblers from a couple states south, they let out loud, ecstasy-filled gobbles that resounded throughout the Rose Garden ceremony — but declined to make further comment. Theirs were not the only animal cries punctuating Monday’s ceremony, as a (presumably) salivating Commander, Biden’s German Shepard, watched on from the White House’s second-floor balcony and occasionally let loose a commanding woof. Sorry, Commander, you’re a good boy, but these turkeys are free.
The birds, presented per tradition by the National Turkey Federation, hail from Monroe, N.C., where they were raised by NTF chairman Ronnie Parker.
The White House on Nov. 21 started the holiday season with the annual pardoning of a pair of Thanksgiving turkeys. (Video: The Washington Post)
Later in the afternoon, Biden and first lady Jill Biden were scheduled to travel to the U.S. Marine Corps base in Cherry Point, N.C. — which resides on the Eastern Seaboard, a 250-mile drive from Chocolate and Chip’s hometown — to dine with service members and their families. Biden referred to it as a “Friendsgiving.” (Presidents, they’re just like us!) On Tuesday, the will jet up to Nantucket, Mass., where they’ll celebrate the holiday with family before returning to the District on Sunday.
Biden appeared to be in jolly spirits Monday, aviator sunglasses on, unleashing yet another torrent of terrible jokes and groanworthy puns. Was there a reference to “fowl play”? You bet. Did he promise not to “gobble up too much time”? Well, people wouldn’t call him Uncle Joe if he didn’t.
Biden promised to keep things short, acknowledging the nippy day by saying, “Nobody likes it when their turkey gets cold.” Pretty sure even the turkeys groaned at that one.
“They listened to a lot of music to prepare for the crowd noise today,” Biden added, before laughing. “That’s real hard work.”
His good mood wasn’t particularly surprising, given the red wave that wasn’t during the recent midterm elections, a fact he made sure to riff on during an otherwise politics-less ceremony, saying, “The only red wave this season is going to be if German Shepard Commander knocks over the cranberry sauce on our table.”
The turkeys, meanwhile, seemed to enjoy themselves despite wearing nothing but feathers to protect themselves from the sharp chill, as the temperature hovered in the 40s during the bright D.C. morning. More likely, they were looking forward to their new home at North Carolina State University. Though, as Biden said: “When we told them they were joining the Wolfpack, they got a little scared. But then we explained it was just a mascot.”
Frankly, their good mood was no surprise either, as turkeys have enjoyed fairly nice press this year. The Washington Post’s homepage Monday included stories on “vegetarian and vegan mains that may eclipse that turkey” and a piece on what good cuddlers they are.
“Now, based on their temperament and commitment to being productive members of society, I hereby pardon Chocolate and Chip,” Biden said around 11:31 a.m. The turkeys gobbled as if on cue.
The 46-pound Chocolate was placed on a table adorned with an autumnal flower display, while the 47-pound Chip wandered the grass of the Rose Garden as if he owned the place. Biden offered the microphone to Chocolate, but he declined to comment.
Unlike Saturday’s White House wedding of Naomi Biden and Peter Neal, the turkey pardoning was open to the press, which arrived in gaggles. “We had a 12-year-old with press credentials today,” one incredulous guard said, chuckling. Indeed, the future of journalism looked bright as multiple young reporters proudly stood with notebooks in hand among the grizzled vets of the White House press corps.
Unfortunately, most of said reporters were placed in areas without sightlines of the president nor the turkeys whose lives he was sparing — nor, strangely, were they allowed to watch on a live-feed monitor placed in the press area. Some tried to leave, while others watched on their phones a live feed of what was happening not 75 feet away. The reporters who used binoculars to snoop on the wedding via binoculars might have had a better view of what they were covering.
Most agree the tradition dates to 1947 — indeed, press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre dubbed Monday’s event the “75th anniversary of the National Thanksgiving Turkey Presentation” at a press briefing last week. That’s when the Poultry and Egg National Board and the National Turkey Federation began gifting birds to the commander in chief — at the time, President Harry S. Truman. The timing wasn’t exactly arbitrary. Earlier that same year, the government had endorsed “poultryless Thursdays,” encouraging food conservation in the wake of World War II but prompting outrage from the industry. It led to a protest campaign dubbed “Hens for Harry” in which farmers sent crates of live chickens to the White House.
But there’s no proof Truman pardoned his turkey that year. Seems much more likely that he devoured it since, the next year, he accepted two more birds as a gift, saying they would “come in handy” for Christmas dinner.
Turkeys and the White House have a longer, more storied history, according to the White House Historical Association. In 1873, Rhode Island poultry slinger Horace Vose gifted a turkey he raised to President Ulysses S. Grant — and spent the next four decades providing dozens upon dozens of the birds to presidents for Thanksgiving and Christmas feasts.
For most of American history, if a president happened upon a turkey at the White House, he was eating it. The exceptions proving this rule appeared sporadically. One 1865 dispatch by White House reporter Noah Brooks notes that President Lincoln granted clemency to a gobbler back in 1863. President Kennedy reportedly let one live through the holiday in 1963, and turkeys presented to first ladies Patricia Nixon in 1973 and Rosalynn Carter in 1978 were sent to live on farms.
The actual pardoning has only been an annual tradition since 1989, according to the WHHA, when President George H.W. Bush said of his lucky bird while animal rights activists picketed nearby: “But let me assure you, and this fine tom turkey, that he will not end up on anyone’s dinner table, not this guy — he’s presented a Presidential pardon as of right now — and allow him to live out his days on a children’s farm not far from here.” Bush kept the tradition alive throughout his presidency, as has everyone who’s held the office since.
All that history didn’t mean much to Chocolate and Chip, who fluffed their feathers and took in the president’s remarks — presumably thrilled at the prospect of joining such past pardoned birds as Peanut Butter and Jelly and Mac and Cheese in the lovely tradition of not being stuffed and roasted.
And, though they refused to chat with the gathered press, they did chime in when Biden closed the ceremony with a plea for unity.
“Let’s remember one thing. This is the United States of America. The United States of America. There’s not a single solitary thing beyond our capacity as a nation, nothing beyond our capacity, if we do it together. United. United,” Biden said, as Chocolate swung his head forward, red wattle swaying in the light breeze, and let out a tremendous gobble. | 2022-11-21T20:52:54Z | www.washingtonpost.com | President Biden pardons this year's turkeys, Chocolate and Chip - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/2022/11/21/biden-turkey-pardon-2022/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/2022/11/21/biden-turkey-pardon-2022/ |
At least 162 people have been killed following a 5.6-magnitude earthquake that hit Indonesia’s West Java province on Monday at 1:21 p.m. local time, according to local officials. It is believed to be the deadliest this year in Indonesia, an earthquake-prone country.
A man injured in the earthquake receives treatment at a hospital in Cianjur, West Java province, Indonesia.
Earthquake survivors are treated outside of a hospital in Cianjur.
A man surveys damaged done to a building in Cianjur.
Rescuers look for survivors in an earthquake-triggered landslide in Cianjur.
A man carries an injured child to receive treatment at a hospital in Cianjur.
People injured in an earthquake receive treatment outiside a hospital in Cianjur.
A man walks past a collapsed house in Cianjur.
A school building in Cianjur was severely damaged by the earthquake.
Earthquake survivors rest under a makeshift tent in Cianjur.
Photo editing and production by Dee Swann | 2022-11-21T20:53:24Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Photos: More than 160 killed in Indonesian earthquake - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/photography/interactive/2022/photos-more-than-160-killed-indonesian-earthquake/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/photography/interactive/2022/photos-more-than-160-killed-indonesian-earthquake/ |
The holiday stands as a test of airlines’ recovery and their ability to get travelers to their destinations on time after a chaotic summer
Travelers enter security checkpoints at Logan International Airport in Boston on Nov. 24, 2021, the day before Thanksgiving. (AP/Steven Senne)
Airlines handled with ease the first weekend in what they say is a new, stretched-out Thanksgiving travel window, an early sign their optimism heading into a critical holiday period is well-founded. But as the industry revs up for one of its busiest periods of the year, the holiday’s peak travel days and a threat of inclement weather lie ahead.
Industry leaders have been preparing for a Thanksgiving that looks more like a long, busy week of travel rather than a mad rush for the airport on Wednesday and again on Sunday — the result of flexible schedules that allow some to work from anywhere. Since Thursday, more than 2 million people a day have passed through Transportation Security Administration checkpoints, topped by 2.4 million on Friday.
The figures have outpaced last year’s numbers and rival those of 2019. Less than 1 percent of flights were canceled and about a quarter were delayed in recent days, according to data from FlightAware, numbers that are comparable to the 2019 Thanksgiving travel period.
The holiday this week stands as a major test of airlines’ pandemic-era recovery and their ability to get travelers to their destinations on time after a chaotic summer. It also will show how the pandemic has changed travel patterns, biting into business travel while opening the door to trips that blend work, leisure and visits with family.
“We feel that we have absolutely done a good job at making sure that we’re staffed up, making sure folks are trained and having extra folks on board to be able to handle Thanksgiving travel,” said Sharon Pinkerton, senior vice president for legislative and regulatory policy at trade group Airlines for America. “And as a result, we’re confident that the week is going to go well.”
How the airline industry went from life support to record earnings in two years
“We are delighted that demand is returning like nobody thought possible, with more and more passengers having the income and the desire to take to the skies,” Buttigieg said Monday during a visit to Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport. “But we also know that means airlines have to continue taking steps to address the challenges of servicing those tickets that they sell.”
Analysts and airline officials say the overall trend shaping the industry during the holidays and beyond is passengers’ ability to work remotely, ushering in a mixture of business and leisure trips. Helane Becker, an analyst at financial firm Cowen, said that creates potential benefits for both airlines and their customers.
“It’s more manageable, frankly,” for airlines, Becker said. “It enables them to be less ‘peaky.’ For customers, it enables them to get better pricing.”
Fares remain high, soaring in the early summer months before easing this fall. The average of domestic fares tracked by booking app Hopper stands at about $325 — well above the $268 at the same point last year and slightly higher than 2019’s prices.
“We are indeed anticipating that the Thanksgiving weekend, for example, will be peak, but even the days around it, we’ll have a level of demand,” Raja said.
“We’re like dominoes,” she said. “One thing happens and we just fall apart.”
“We’ve been very purposeful in trying to make sure that we match our resources to our schedules for the whole year,” Southwest’s chief operating officer, Mike Van de Ven, said during a recent earnings call. “I feel like we’re really set up to perform well over the holidays as we go into Thanksgiving and the Christmas season.”
Transportation Department secures $600 million in airline refunds
Business and international travel, major sources of airline revenue, also remain down as domestic leisure trips rebound. An analysis by Airlines for America showed that passenger counts on Saturdays and Sundays are within 5 percent of 2019 levels, but Tuesday and Wednesday travel is down more than 10 percent — an indicator of the decline in business travel. Analysts say continued inflation or a recession also could cool leisure travel.
“I think that’s why the airline managements are so optimistic,” Becker said. “That’s why I’m more optimistic than I usually am.” | 2022-11-21T20:54:58Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Thanksgiving travel: Airlines try to avoid meltdowns after summer chaos - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/transportation/2022/11/21/airlines-thanksgiving-travel-holidays/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/transportation/2022/11/21/airlines-thanksgiving-travel-holidays/ |
Live updates:World Cup live updates: United States and Wales tied late in Group B opener
“We’re really pleased to start the tournament in this way,” England Manager Gareth Southgate said, “and really pleased with our attacking play." (AP Photo/Alessandra Tarantino)
DOHA, Qatar — The burden of being England returned to global view on Monday inside Khalifa International Stadium, whereupon it looked like some giddy antithesis of burden. What was this lightness? What was this beauty? What was this barrage of fine art in this 6-2 pleasure against the proud defense of Iran?
It wasn’t the England to which finicky eyeballs grew accustomed in long-gone World Cups or in recent World Cup preps. That England so often looked heavy. That England, regardless of opponent, seemed to haul around the weight of the 50-odd million English, almost all of them knowledgeable soccer managers or observant player-managers. The cacophony of viewpoints in a nation unafraid to express them seemed to yield what such cacophonies often yield: muddle.
Now an England team winless and feckless across its last six friendlies waited at the end of another trail for its traveling fans. Their trail to the first stadium this time coursed down the boulevards and up the metro station escalators to this new men’s World Cup. It included easy sunshine, limited heat and a pretty chorus ringing through the city: the mid-afternoon call to prayer.
Here came England again, trying to stanch the woe at a mere 56 years (since that winning day at Wembley Stadium on July 30, 1966, kids). Here it came after the promising bolts to the semifinals at Russia 2018 and to the final at Euro 2020 at home in 2021, but after a dour 2022 that throbbed with a 4-0 loss to Hungary in June that counted as the worst at home in 94 years.
Was it really necessary to try this again?
Apparently it was.
Then definitely it was, as England went and lavished the pitch with loveliness. It looked spritely and young and often was the latter, given the splendor of 21-year-old Bukayo Saka and 19-year-old Jude Bellingham. It wasn’t even annoying that their thick pocket of fans in the corner of the stadium sang “Jingle Bells” out of season, with the solace of the usual joys of the bleacher lyric rewrite: Oh what fun it is to see England win away. It dredged a few goosebumps to hear, repeatedly through the match, the first World Cup renditions of “God Save The King” since Brazil 1950. It wasn’t even irksome that “Sweet Caroline” ended matters, having swept the Earth.
“We’re really pleased to start the tournament in this way,” said Gareth Southgate, the manager who has guided England out of hapless morass much of the time since 2016, “and really pleased with our attacking play. We know that Iran are usually difficult to score goals against so it’s a credit to our movement, to our passing” — to their quality. “We mixed that game up,” he said, till a committed defense didn’t know what hit it.
They committed beauty at 32 minutes, at 35, at 43, at 45+1, and they wrung three goals from that. They treated an audience that knows how to harrumph to a smorgasbord of how that audience would like to see things done. (Who wouldn’t?) On 32 minutes, Harry Maguire’s header curled and spun and … smacked the left end of the crossbar, which didn’t disqualify it from pleasing the eyes. On 35 minutes, Luke Shaw on the left sent a cross into the box, and 19-year-old Bellingham lurched his head toward the left only to direct it back to the right and into the back-corner net.
On 43 minutes off a corner, Maguire leapt near the right side of the box to head one to the center, where Saka left-footed it into the right side of the goal. And on 45+1, captain Harry Kane faked out a defender to claim a little space on the right of the box, then crossed to Raheem Sterling, who took it in the airing banged it past the right goal post.
All of it was gorgeous, and much of it stoked the serial playing of Gala’s 26-year-old dance hit “Freed From Desire,” one of those pop songs the Britons repurpose into football songs. They’d been freed from the desire to look how they looked on Monday.
England soccer fans in London celebrated their team scoring three goals against Iran before halftime in the Group B opener of the 2022 World Cup on Nov. 21. (Video: The Washington Post)
“We showed today how much quality we have and what we can do,” Saka said, and the day even brought some lightness to his narrative. He became the man of the match after scoring also on 62 minutes, a measure of balm for the last time he appeared for England in a major tournament when, just shy of 20, he missed the closing penalty in the Euro final against Italy, then suffered racist blowback from some fans.
“I think obviously it was quite a while ago but it’s a moment that has been with me and will always be with me forever,” he said, “but I’m so grateful to …” — and then he went on a list that included Southgate and his club Arsenal. “When I feel that love from everyone around me, it’s really good for me and gives me confidence.”
His team had knelt for the national anthem in its continuing statements against racial injustice. Kane had not worn the rainbow armband for which FIFA promised a yellow card in this restricted environment, and Southgate didn’t shy from answering about that. “I do understand FIFA’s position that you can set a precedent and it’s very difficult as to where do you draw the line,” he said, while clearly disagreeing on the particular subject and saying his team “won’t refuse to speak and won’t refuse to answer any questions.”
He and the other managers just have to home in on the football right now, he said, and in a muddled World Cup saddled with the human-rights issues of the host Qatar, that football had unfurled as stirring, even to Carlos Queiroz.
Queiroz manages Iran for the second time in life, the other from 2011-19, including World Cups in 2014 and 2018, the latter a matter of almost escaping a group that included Spain and Portugal. The most seasoned of all managers, he has managed national teams in Portugal, the United Arab Emirates, Iran, Colombia and Egypt, and so he says of life, “We win or we learn.” He said he learned amply on Monday, simply running up against the bracing “quality, the speed, the competitive level of the English players,” with which his team “was not able to cope.” It would leave them “much better prepared now to play against Wales” — and then the United States.
Their learning had come against an England of brilliance and light, an England that has turned up some in recent years, an England with which the eyes wouldn’t mind becoming more familiar. | 2022-11-21T20:56:34Z | www.washingtonpost.com | England opens World Cup with joyful victory over Iran - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/11/21/england-world-cup-expectations/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/11/21/england-world-cup-expectations/ |
Molly Hennessy-Fiske
Kara Too hugs Joshua Thurman, who was inside the club during the attack, after she placed flowers at the police tape for a growing memorial related to the shooting inside Club Q in Colorado Springs. (Matthew Staver for The Washington Post)
COLORADO SPRINGS — The dance floor was alive, people bouncing to DJ T-Beatz’s pulsing tunes, a Saturday night at Colorado Springs’ trusty spot for gay people and their friends. For 21 years, Club Q, tucked behind a Subway sandwich shop on a suburban strip six miles from downtown, had been more than a nightclub — it was a community center, a place where families of all ages gathered for brunch on Sundays to watch drag performers play Madonna and Cher, Beyoncé and Cardi B.
Moments before midnight Mountain time, a young man wearing a military-style jacket and carrying a long, AR-15-style rifle and a handgun walked into the club, where the bouncers knew many of the patrons and were known to give everyone else a hard look.
Joshua Thurman, a regular at Club Q for many years, was dancing when something sounded wrong: “We heard the music and then we heard pop-pop-pop-pop-pop. That was it,” he said, “so I kept on dancing.” There was no screaming, he noticed, and the pops sounded muffled.
But then, a second series of pops, louder now, closer. This time, he could see flicks of fire as rifle shots exploded into the air. “When I heard another set of shots go off,” Thurman said, “that’s when it clicked in my mind that, oh, it’s going down.”
With two other customers, he immediately ran to hide, tucking into the dressing room behind the club’s performance stage and locking the door.
Within minutes of midnight, Club Q became the latest in a never-ending series of places of pleasure and possibility that one person with a deadly weapon turned into an American address of tragedy and fear. In a matter of seconds — probably less than a minute, the city’s police chief said — the man with the rifle shot and killed five people. At least 25 others were injured.
For Colorado Springs, a city of 480,000 people that lies 70 miles south of Denver, the attack on a gay-oriented nightspot immediately raised worries about any connection to the country’s corrosive cultural conflicts: The shooting took place during Transgender Awareness Week, in a place of sharp political division, a city that is home to prominent socially conservative and evangelical Christian organizations such as Focus on the Family, yet is becoming increasingly secular.
The shooter started firing right after he walked in and kept shooting as he walked deeper into the club, witnesses said. He didn’t say anything.
There was anything but silence in Club Q. There was confusion, flight and panic, and there were heroics, too, moments of confrontation and rescue.
It had been a bit slower than the typical Saturday night at Club Q, maybe because the weather had turned cold, maybe because people were already scattering for the Thanksgiving holiday. Seven drag performers had entertained earlier in the evening, and then the DJ, Tara “T-Beatz” Bush, took her place in the booth, enticing people onto the dance floor.
But now, people were running for their lives. The club’s general manager, Beyonca Deleon, was sitting outside when she heard cracking, like loudspeakers about to blow, she said. She looked toward the front door and saw bursts from a gun. She yelled at everyone on the club’s patio to move. Climb over the gate, she told them. Some people couldn’t make it over the gate, so they broke it down and took cover behind a garbage container.
Inside Club Q, as bullets flew, customers hit the floor, glasses and bottles shattering around them. Bush, the DJ, was shot twice in the back, according to her roommate, Bonnie Herbst, who said Bush was recovering from surgery Sunday.
Thurman and others called police — the first call came in at 11:56 and 57 seconds.
In a city that had been through this before — 7 dead at a birthday party in 2021, 3 dead at a Planned Parenthood office in 2015 — the machinery of mass shootings clicked into gear.
On the Colorado Springs fire/EMS emergency radio, the evening’s sporadic roll call of traffic accidents was interrupted right about midnight, when a dispatcher announced: “This will be a command four, active shooter, Bravo 34, Engine 14, Engine 8, Battalion 2, … to 3430 North Academy Boulevard, Club Q. Active shooter. All units respond.”
Police said their first cruiser was on the scene by midnight.
By then, the shots had gone silent, though customers and staffers remained tucked into hiding places. Somewhere in the chaos, an unarmed patron grabbed hold of the shooter and “acted so courageously as to remove a handgun from his waist and use that handgun to subdue him,” hitting the gunman in the head with the weapon, Colorado Springs Mayor John Suthers told The Washington Post on Monday. “This person is a real hero.”
Then the customer — still unidentified, the mayor said — pinned the shooter to the floor, with help from another unarmed patron.
That’s where the shooter was when police entered the club, Suthers said.
The customer who grabbed the shooter’s weapon “saved dozens and dozens of lives,” one of Club Q’s owners, Matthew Haynes, said at a memorial vigil Sunday evening. “Stopped the man cold. Everyone else was running away, and he ran toward him.”
Police identified the suspect as Anderson Lee Aldrich, a 22-year-old Colorado Springs resident who was not known to have been at Club Q before. Although the mayor cautioned that the police investigation was just beginning, he said the shooting “has all the trappings of a hate crime, but we need to look at social media, we need to look at all kinds of other information that we’re gathering from people that knew the individual before we make any definitive conclusions about a motivation.”
Aldrich faces five murder charges and five charges of committing a bias-motivated crime, Max D’Onofrio, a city spokesman, said Monday. He noted that the charges might change after the suspect is released from the hospital and booked at the jail.
Eventually, 39 police officers, 34 firefighters and 11 ambulances would arrive at the club, which sits in a neighborhood of low-slung apartment buildings, chain stores and breathtaking views of the Rocky Mountains.
People whose job it is to save others did whatever it took: Police officers took the shooter into custody and to a hospital for treatment of unspecified wounds. Other officers took injured people into their cruisers and sped them to hospitals. Medics treated at least one shooting victim inside a nearby 7-Eleven.
On the fire department radio, a firefighter asked if dispatch knew how many victims were at the scene.
“We are getting reports of four to seven possibly injured,” came the reply, the voice calm, dispassionate. “I’m still getting further details..... No indication suspect has been detained yet.”
The numbers quickly ballooned and dispatchers put out the call for more ambulances. “They’re trying to get seven to come in,” a dispatcher said. “They do want you guys to come in.”
Then, moments later, on the radio: “Reports of 10 people shot, which makes it a mass casualty.”
About 10 minutes after midnight, as the scope of the devastation became clear, dispatchers put out the word to surrounding jurisdictions to send in more units. “Dispatch, can you give me three more FD [fire department] units?” a commander said on the radio.
“Engines or trucks?” the dispatcher asked.
“I don’t care,” came the reply. “Just give me three more closest units.”
Emergency workers set up a “casualty collection point” and at least 14 victims were transported to three hospitals in the city; several others made it to emergency rooms on their own, police said. Some were shot; others were hurt in the rush to escape the club. At least seven of the victims remained in critical condition early Monday, authorities said.
Inside the club, it was too late for too many. Two bartenders, including Daniel Davis Aston, were killed, as were three customers, including one who had been a longtime donor to the business, according to its former general manager, Leon Pantoya.
Aston, 28, was a transgender male who had completed his transition in June. He was on his way to the patio for a smoke, his mother said, when he got hit.
The club had several hiding places — there was an area with pool tables, a stage where drag shows played, the kitchen, the dressing room. After about 25 minutes, Thurman and others finally emerged from the dressing room. They saw blood and shattered glass, the remnants of chaos. And they saw bodies. Ushered out of the building by police, they were rushed away from the area, many leaving their cars, phones and other belongings behind.
Just before 12:30 a.m., word went out on the EMS radio: “Everyone’s been removed from the building.”
Investigators set up perimeters and moved into the club to begin the painstaking process of reconstructing one minute of fear.
A few hours later, the sun rose on a spectacular early winter morning, 19 degrees, a bit of frost on the ground. Before word spread through the waking city, the most-read story on the Colorado Springs Gazette website was about the opening of Colorado Springs’s third Whataburger outlet.
Club Q would ordinarily be gearing up for its next act, an 11 a.m. Sunday, all-ages, musical drag brunch, to be followed that evening by a drag show “celebrating Transgender Day of Remembrance with a variety of gender identities and performance styles.” The club’s drag shows did well; the group that staged the events said on its site that “Colorado Springs drag has become more and more mainstream in recent years.”
But Sunday’s show was canceled. Instead, Club Q announced on its Facebook page that it “is devastated by the senseless attack on our community. Our prayers and thoughts are with all the victims and their families and friends. We thank the quick reactions of heroic customers that subdued the gunman and ended this hate attack.”
On its homepage, the club replaced its promotional announcements with images of flickering candles and one line: “Club Q Will Be Closed Until Further Notice.”
The club, which Colorado Springs Police Chief Adrian Vasquez called “a safe haven for our LGBTQ citizens,” was something of a home to people like Del Lusional, a drag performer who had played the Club Q stage earlier Saturday evening.
“I went from being so proud of myself for what I accomplished tonight, to … this,” the performer wrote on Twitter a few hours after the attack. “I hate this so much. I hate this so f---ing much …. I never thought this would happen to me and my bar. I don’t know what to do with myself. I can’t stop hearing the shots.”
Kayla Rene Cortes, a regular at the club, called the city’s LGBTQ community “a family. We don’t have much support here in Colorado Springs,” she said. “That was a place you could go, a home. And to ruin that, to ruin our family, is just rough.”
Cortes, who works at a downtown hotel and lives a few minutes up the road from Club Q with her wife and their 4-year-old son, was 19 when a gunman attacked Pulse, a nightclub in Orlando that attracted a large LGBTQ following. Back then, her mother, frightened for her lesbian daughter, asked her to stop going to Club Q.
“I was like ‘No, that’s more of a reason to go,’ ” Cortes recalled. “I’m not going to run around scared. I have a life, and I shouldn’t be afraid to show who I am.”
But now, she’s not sure she will ever return to the club after her friend the bartender was killed.
“He was what made Club Q,” Cortes said. “It’s never going to be the same. Even if they reopen, I don’t see myself going back.”
On the morning after the attack, Thurman returned to the parking lot outside the club, trying to retrieve his car and phone. He spoke as if to the shooter: “You’ve harmed us in a way that I don’t know how we can bounce back from. What can we do? We can rebuild, we can come together, we can do vigils, we can raise money. But that’s not going to bring back those five people that lost their lives.”
Fifteen hours after the shootings, 1,500 miles away, in Orlando, at a memorial to victims of the Pulse massacre six years ago, a crowd gathered to honor those lost in the latest attack on a gathering place for LGBTQ people. Forty-nine people died when a gunman opened fire at the Florida club; more than 50 others were injured.
The fear inflicted by that shooter has abated little in the intervening years. The emotions evident at the memorial on Sunday evening were raw, unsettled: anger, frustration, abiding pain.
“I’ve seen this pain before — staring back at me from the mirror,” tweeted Brandon Wolf, who escaped the Pulse shooter by hiding in a bathroom and now works for Equality Florida, a civil rights organization.
Now there was one more place on the long list of clubs and schools and theaters and other spots around the country where, in a single moment, by the actions of one person, what had been a center of joy, hope and community was transformed into a memorial, a symbol of the searing violence that the nation seems powerless to stop.
Boorstein and Hennessy-Fiske reported from Colorado Springs; Fisher, from Washington. Maria Paul and Joby Warrick in Washington contributed to this report. | 2022-11-21T21:31:25Z | www.washingtonpost.com | How the Colorado Springs shooting unfolded — and ended — inside Club Q - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/11/21/colorado-springs-clubq-shooting-what-happened/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/11/21/colorado-springs-clubq-shooting-what-happened/ |
Rep. Steny H. Hoyer (D-Md.) in his office in D.C. in 2018. (Marvin Joseph/The Washington Post)
Amid the many causes for cynicism that colors Americans’ view of Congress, a gold-plated exception is warranted for Rep. Steny H. Hoyer. The No. 2 Democrat in the House of Representatives — and a beloved, admired giant on Capitol Hill — announced last week that he is stepping away from leadership in this, his fifth decade on the job.
Mr. Hoyer, 83, the House Majority Leader, had his formative experiences as a Maryland congressman during an earlier era, when lawmakers were expected to manage at least a veneer of decorum and mutual respect, even as they waged their political and ideological battles.
As the culture of Capitol Hill transformed around him to something far rougher, Mr. Hoyer continued to be a model lawmaker: serious, pragmatic, conscientious, persistent, civil. Beyond his role as Nancy Pelosi’s second-in-command in the Democratic caucus for nearly 20 years, Mr. Hoyer has achieved big and consequential things, both for the nation and for his district in the D.C. suburbs. He has often done so in concert with Republican colleagues; some of his biggest legislative accomplishments were signed into law by GOP presidents.
That was the case for the Americans With Disabilities Act, a monumental civil rights bill, shepherded through the House by Mr. Hoyer, that established facilities and accommodations that have eased and enriched the daily lives of millions of Americans in tangible ways. At the time the bill was enacted with the signature of President George H.W. Bush in 1990, it was widely seen as almost radical. The law had a vast reach that altered the rules of the United States’ public architecture and outlawed discrimination against disabled individuals in schools, places of employment, transportation and elsewhere. Today much of it is taken for granted, including the features it made part of the landscape, such as sidewalk curb cuts for wheelchairs (not to mention baby strollers and bicycles).
As a leader of House Democrats, Mr. Hoyer has been a stalwart voice for fiscal responsibility, which has sometimes meant challenging an increasingly liberal caucus. He has argued against unaffordable, never-ending tax cuts and for trimming entitlement spending — for Social Security and Medicare — before a crisis materializes and cuts become unimaginably painful. When, in the midst of the debate over the Affordable Care Act, Ms. Pelosi and many other Democrats insisted on a “public option”— a government-created health plan, similar to Medicare, for those who lacked employer-provided benefits — Mr. Hoyer demurred. “I’m for a public option, but I’m also for passing a bill,” he said. The Affordable Care Act became law with no public option.
He has also been a tireless champion for Maryland’s 5th Congressional District, which he has served since 1981. Under his wing, Metro’s Green Line got built; the University of Maryland expanded and thrived; and Naval Air Station Patuxent River grew to encompass more than 17,000 active-duty service members, civil servants, defense contractors and military dependents. His constituents have repaid the favor. In the 22 congressional races he has won, just one Republican challenger managed to come within 10 percentage points. That was Larry Hogan, now Maryland’s governor, in 1992.
Mr. Hoyer, easily reelected this month, plans to stay in House for the coming term — thereby continuing his tenure as a credit to Congress, and to the country. | 2022-11-21T21:35:56Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Opinion | Steny Hoyer, a model leader, steps down from House leadership - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/11/21/steny-hoyer-house-democrat-leadership-achievements/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/11/21/steny-hoyer-house-democrat-leadership-achievements/ |
Officer’s suicide after Jan. 6 riot is a line-of-duty death, DOJ says
A Justice Department office has ruled that Capitol Police officer Howard Liebengood — who killed himself days after encountering rioters during the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection — died in the line of duty, according to his family and authorities.
The designation from the Justice Department’s Public Safety Officers’ Benefits Program means Liebengood’s family will receive a lump-sum payment. The precise amount was not immediately clear, but it will be in line with what relatives of other federal law enforcement officers killed while performing their duties have received.
In August, President Biden signed the Public Safety Officer Support Act that made it easier for families of officers who die by suicide to access death benefits. The president of the national Fraternal Order of Police said the claim filed by Liebengood is the first under that new law.
“The determination is significant, healing, relieving, and we are grateful for it,” Liebengood’s family said in a statement, which was sent on behalf of Liebengood’s wife, Serena, his sister Anne Winters and brother John Liebengood.
The designation does not affect whether relatives can access the officer’s pension benefits, which are overseen by an agency within the Labor Department. The request for those benefits is pending, a family spokeswoman said.
Liebengood patrolled the grounds outside Senate office buildings the day of the assault, and worked nearly around-the-clock in the days that followed, his family has said. He encountered rioters but did not battle them physically. He died by suicide three days later.
The Justice Department did not comment on Liebengood’s case but said in a statement its Public Safety Officers’ Benefits Program “works closely with survivors, injured officers, and agencies to obtain the required documentation to comply with the PSOB law and its implementing regulations.”
A Capitol Police spokesman said agency leaders are pleased with the Justice Department’s decision. “Suicide has become an epidemic in the law enforcement profession,” the spokesman said in a statement. “We will continue to work with the Liebengood family to address this important issue.”
Patrick Yoes, the national FOP president, said in a statement that the decision “is an important step in acknowledging that law enforcement suicides are service-connected and should be seen for what they are — line of duty deaths.”
In March, a D.C. retirement board granted a full pension to the widow of D.C. police officer Jeffrey Smith, who took his life after he was injured in the Capitol riot. The decision gave her a yearly annuity equal to 100 percent of her husband’s salary. The D.C. Police and Firefighters Retirement and Relief Board said Smith’s head injury that day “was the sole and direct cause of his death.”
Wife of D.C. police officer who took own life after Capitol riot presses city to recognize his death
Police agencies historically have been reluctant to honor officers who die by suicide. D.C. Police Chief Robert J. Contee III, who has mentioned Smith while speaking publicly about the cost police bore from responding to the insurrection, has raised questions about the connections between the riot and the officer’s death.
Contee and department lawyers wrote in a letter to the D.C. retirement board that it would be “pure speculation” to link Smith’s suicide to the attack, saying there is “no direct evidence of Officer Smith’s mind-set at the time of his death.”
In the statement on Monday, the Liebengood family addressed the struggle for recognition to change the prevailing view. “This is an important step in a longer effort to change outdated processes and attitudes,” the family said. “We also hope that this helps other families who have felt the pain of losing a loved one to suicide.”
Capitol Police officer Brian D. Sicknick died a day after his collapse during the riot. The medical examiner ruled that his death was from natural causes. Two men were arrested and charged with assaulting him; both have pleaded guilty.
Sicknick lay in honor at the Rotunda, and President Biden attended his memorial.
Two D.C. police officers who were at the Capitol on Jan. 6 took their own lives in the months afterward; their families have not spoken publicly.
Sen. Tim Kaine (D) of Virginia, where both Smith and Liebengood lived, was one of the original sponsors of the law making it easier for families of officers who die by suicide to access benefits. In a statement, he praised the federal pension board’s ruling on Liebengood.
“He was a man who dedicated his life to serving others and spent 15 years defending the halls of democracy,” Kaine said. “His death in the wake of the horrors of the January 6 insurrection was a heartbreaking loss for his family and for every American who believes in the promise of our democratic institutions. We have a responsibility to carry with us his spirit of service and to give his family the recognition and unwavering support they deserve.”
Two officers who helped fight the Capitol mob died by suicide. Many more are hurting.
On Monday, Liebengood’s family described the officer as “kindhearted and fiercely loyal.”
“We all desperately miss his one-of-a-kind smile and his warm, gentle temperament, but we take some solace in knowing that Howie officially has received this well-deserved honor,” the family said, adding, “We look forward to continuing to reduce the stigma around mental health and suicide for public safety officers — who make sacrifices for us all.”
Tim Barber, a Capitol Police spokesman, said Chief Tom Manger plans to discuss with the Capitol Police Board, which governs policy for the agency, whether to add Liebengood’s name to the memorial list of officers who died in the line of duty. A representative for the board did not respond to a request for comment Monday.
David P. Weber, who represents Smith’s family, said he has made a similar request to D.C. police. He said he has not yet heard back from the department. Dustin Sternbeck, a police spokesman, said the matter remains under review.
If you or someone you know needs help, text or call the Suicide and Crisis Lifeline at 988 or 800-273-TALK. | 2022-11-21T22:06:17Z | www.washingtonpost.com | DOJ: Officer’s suicide after Jan. 6 riot counts as line of duty death - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/11/21/liebengood-capitol-riot-suicide-benefits/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/11/21/liebengood-capitol-riot-suicide-benefits/ |
Police investigate killing of 17-year-old girl in Takoma Park
Prince George’s County police found the remains of Rosa Diaz-Santos, 17, almost two months after she was reported missing, officials said
Prince George’s County police are investigating the killing of a 17-year-old girl after skeletal remains were found in Takoma Park, the department said Monday.
County police identified the victim as Rosa Diaz-Santos, of Greenbelt. She was reported missing on Oct. 3 by a family member after not having contact with her family since Sept. 22, Greenbelt Police spokeswoman Hannah Glasgow said.
Prince George’s County detectives opened a death investigation after remains were found in a wooded area on Nov. 15 at about 12:30 p.m. near the 1600 block of Drexel Street, police said.
Police said an autopsy ruled the death a homicide and the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner confirmed the victim’s identity.
Investigators are trying to determine a motive and identify who killed Diaz-Santos, police said. | 2022-11-21T22:24:17Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Rosa Diaz-Santos found killed in Takoma Park, police say - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/11/21/homicide-teenager-takoma-park/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/11/21/homicide-teenager-takoma-park/ |
Alleged ‘Potomac River Rapist’ found hanged in D.C. jail, records show
The alleged “Potomac River Rapist,” charged in a 1998 rape and murder in the District and suspected in at least nine other sexual assaults in the city and in Montgomery County, Md., was found hanged with bedsheets at the D.C. jail on Saturday, according to a police report made public Monday.
Corrections officers cut the sheets, which had been attached to a locker in his cell, and performed CPR, the report says, offering new details on the death of Giles Daniel Warrick, 63, who was awaiting trial scheduled for Nov. 30.
The report says Warrick was found around 8 a.m. by an officer during routine rounds. He was pronounced dead at the scene. Dustin Sternbeck, a D.C. police spokesman, said the death is being investigated as an apparent suicide.
Officials with the D.C. Department of Corrections did not respond to an interview request on Monday but issued a statement on behalf of Tom Faust, the agency’s director, saying it is “committed to providing a safe and secure environment for the men and women in our custody and care.”
Police arrest alleged ‘Potomac River Rapist’ linked to attacks in Maryland and Georgetown
Warrick’s attorney, Stephen Mercer, declined to comment on Saturday, and he did not return a telephone message or an email sent Monday. A woman who answered the phone at an address linked to one of Warrick’s relatives in South Carolina said she had no comment. “This is a family matter,” she said Monday. Efforts to reach other relatives were not successful.
After police arrested Warrick in South Carolina in 2019, authorities said they found a letter he had written to his fiancee that a judge said showed evidence of his “consciousness of guilt.” The letter said: “I’m so sorry this ended this way. I left you in a mess. I never meant for this to happen. All I wanted to do is love you. Please forgive me. Please don’t cry. All my junk is yours.”
Authorities have said they linked Warrick through DNA testing to the slaying of Christine Mirzayan, a woman who was abducted and dragged into the woods off Canal Road in Georgetown on Aug. 1, 1998. Her body was found a day later. Police said Mirzayan had been sexually assaulted and struck in the head with a 73-pound rock. Authorities have said they have also connected Warrick to eight sexual assaults in Montgomery County and another in the District.
Warrick, a father of three, lived in Maryland and worked as a landscaper at the time of the crimes.
Steve Thompson contributed to this report. | 2022-11-21T22:24:23Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Alleged ‘Potomac River Rapist’ found hanged in D.C. jail - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/11/21/warrick-potomac-river-rapist-hanged/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/11/21/warrick-potomac-river-rapist-hanged/ |
Annie Gowen
People leave flowers and mementos at a memorial to victims of a shooting at the LGBTQ nightclub Club Q In Colorado Springs (Liz Copan/EPA-EFE/Shutterstock)
COLORADO SPRINGS — Richard Fierro went to Club Q in Colorado Springs on Saturday night to celebrate a friend’s birthday with his family, enjoying a drag show that included a performance by his 22-year-old daughter’s best friend.
By night’s end, the air of celebration would be cut off by gunfire. Three of Fierro’s loved ones would be shot — one fatally — and Fierro, a U.S. Army veteran, would find himself rushing to confront and subdue the gunman.
On Monday, he brushed aside his actions as necessary as chaos overtook the club.
“I had my whole Colorado Springs family in there. I had to do something: He was not going to kill my family,” Fierro said. “I just want people to take care of people, the people who are hurt and no longer with us. I still got two of my best friends who are in the hospital. They still need prayers; they still need support.”
Since the gunfire Saturday night, police and others have credited unnamed customers with saving “dozens and dozens of lives,” as one of Club Q’s owners, Matthew Haynes, said at a memorial vigil Sunday evening. “Stopped the man cold. Everyone else was running away and he ran toward him.”
Colorado Springs police also credited “heroic” club patrons with subduing the shooter, as did Mayor John Suthers.
When police arrived, Suthers said, “there was a patron on top of the gunman.”
“This person is a real hero,” the mayor said, adding that he did not know the man’s identity. Club employees directed The Post to social media posts by Fierro’s family that credited him, and he spoke briefly to a reporter by telephone.
Five people were killed in the shooting and many more were injured, police said. Anderson Lee Aldrich, 22, the alleged gunman, was among those still hospitalized on Monday. Authorities were holding him on five murder charges and five charges of committing a bias-motivated crime causing bodily injury, according to city spokesman Max D’Onofrio.
Police probe LGBTQ club shooting suspect’s ties to a 2021 bomb threat
Fierro, who work for defense contractor Northrop Grumman and co-owns the local Atrevida Beer Co. with his wife Jessica, said that after the drag show he was standing with a friend as their wives danced. Then the gunman entered the club, firing.
Fierro, 45, had served in the Army before settling in Colorado Springs, a military town that’s home to both Army and Air Force installations. Club Q staff and regulars included many service members and veterans, employees said.
“But I’ve always been shot at from afar,” Fierro said. Not this time: “I heard the shot. I smelled the cordite.”
Military records confirmed that Fierro, 45, served as an Army field artillery officer from 1999 to 2013, deploying three times to Iraq and once to Afghanistan. He rose to the rank of major before leaving the service, according Sgt. Pablo Saez, an Army spokesman. Fierro received numerous awards for his service, notably a Combat Action Badge and Bronze Star Medal.
When the first shots rang out, Fierro said, “I dove when I heard it and I pushed my friend down. He went to the floor and ended up getting shot.” So did his friend’s wife and his daughter’s boyfriend.
Fierro’s daughter broke a knee as she ran for cover until a stranger pulled her to safety in a rear dressing room. He said his wife “got sucked into the crowd that went to the patio.”
As Fierro got up from the floor, he said, he saw the man with a gun.
“I looked across the room and the guy was standing at the door. I ran across the bar, grabbed the guy from the back and pulled him down and pinned him against the stairs,” he said.
Fierro weighs 300 pounds, but said the gunman was bigger, wearing body armor and carrying both a handgun and an AR-15 style rifle.
“He went for his weapon, and I grabbed his handgun,” Fierro said, but “his AR was right in front of him.”
“I said ‘Kick him! Move the AR!’ Then I just started hitting him. But he was in armor plates, so I started hitting him wherever there was skin,” Fierro said. “The back of his head was my target.”
“I’m an officer and that’s what we do: I took control of the scene as best I could. I’m just hitting the guy with the pistol, beating the back of his head,” he recalled. “I’m yelling to people at the same time, ‘Call the police! Let’s go!’”
When the young man assisting him flagged, Fierro said he hailed a passing drag queen in high heels to help, shouting, “Kick him!”
“She kicked him because the other guy was tired,” he said.
By the time the first police officer arrived minutes later, Fierro said, “I was in the middle of a puddle of blood.”
After handing the suspect over to the officer, Fierro went to find the friends he had come with, both of whom had been shot and were being treated with tourniquets by first responders.
“I put her hand in his hand so they could be together,” he said.
As other police arrived, Fierro said, they treated him with suspicion. They interrupted him as he rendered first aid to a friend, he said, and “dragged me out of there like I was the shooter.” He said he was held in a police car for an hour before releasing him to reunite with his wife and daughter. Police did not return calls seeking to confirm his account.
Fierro never saw his daughter Kassy’s boyfriend, 22-year-old Raymond Green Vance, 22, her high school sweetheart of six years. Later, he learned from the man’s mother that he had died, and with her permission, Fierro’s wife posted about their experience online.
“NO ONE should ever have to witness bloodshed like this,” Jessica Fierro wrote. “The loss of lives and the injured are in our hearts. We are devastated and torn. We love our #lgbtq community and stand with them. This cowardly and despicable act of hate has no room in our lives.”
She said the shooting had, “left us and our community scarred but not broken.”
Back at home Monday, Kassy Fierro was recovering from the knee injury, Jessica Fierro from bruises and her husband from injuries he suffered to his hands, knees and ankle while subduing the shooter. Jessica Fierro said she worries the shooting triggered his PTSD.
Fierro said he does not consider himself a hero. Online, survivors of the shooting, friends and family responded to Fierro’s post with an outpouring of grateful support.
“I saw him there, I danced with them, he saved my life,” wrote Brianna Raenae. “Thank you for your bravery.”
“Thank you Richard, without your heroic actions this could’ve ended much worse than it already has,” wrote Patrick Curley.
“We already knew Rich was a Hero. He proves it yet again. Praying for healing, physically and mentally. Lots of love for your family and everyone effected by this evil lunatic,” wrote James Kormanik.
Gowen reported from Colorado Springs and Hennessy-Fiske from Houston. Staff writer Alex Horton contributed reporting. | 2022-11-21T22:24:35Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Colorado Springs gunman disarmed by Army veteran - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/11/21/clubq-shooter-stopped-army-veteran/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/11/21/clubq-shooter-stopped-army-veteran/ |
Washington Post personal finance columnist Michelle Singletary speaks with Teresa Ghilarducci, professor of economic policy analysis, and C. Nicole Mason, president and CEO of the Institute for Women’s Policy Research, about how women can grow their wealth to the fullest potential, navigate the current uncertainties in the economy and overcome structural barriers like the wage gap. | 2022-11-21T22:24:43Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Global Women's Summit: Nazanin Boniadi, Masih Alinejad and Barkha Dutt - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/podcasts/post-live/global-womens-summit-nazanin-boniadi-masih-alinejad-and-barkha-dutt/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/podcasts/post-live/global-womens-summit-nazanin-boniadi-masih-alinejad-and-barkha-dutt/ |
FILE - Riley June Williams, of Harrisburg, Pa., is released from Dauphin County Prison on Jan. 21, 2021, in Harrisburg, Pa. Williams, a Pennsylvania woman linked to the far-right “Groyper” extremist movement, was convicted Monday, Nov. 21, 2022, of several federal charges after prosecutors said she was part of a group that stormed House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s office during the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol. (Dan Gleiter/The Patriot-News via AP, File)
This just in: Two Arizona counties delay canvassing election results | 2022-11-21T22:25:03Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Woman convicted of storming Pelosi's office in Jan. 6 attack - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/woman-convicted-of-storming-pelosis-office-in-jan-6-attack/2022/11/21/c4e832ea-69e1-11ed-8619-0b92f0565592_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/woman-convicted-of-storming-pelosis-office-in-jan-6-attack/2022/11/21/c4e832ea-69e1-11ed-8619-0b92f0565592_story.html |
The U.S. men's national team opened its World Cup campaign against Wales on Monday. (Pedro Nunes/Reuters)
AL RAYYAN, Qatar — The U.S. men’s national soccer team arrived at this World Cup primed to restored dignity and verve after an unfathomable absence four years ago. It set foot in this small country big on ideas but short on age, full of harmony but devoid of the international experience typically required to succeed under the sport’s brightest lights.
In the 10th minute, Weah’s cross almost forced an own goal on Joe Rodon and, second later, Sargent’s angled header hit the outside of the left post. | 2022-11-21T22:25:09Z | www.washingtonpost.com | USMNT proves it belongs in 1-1 World Cup draw with Wales - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/11/21/usmnt-wales-world-cup/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/11/21/usmnt-wales-world-cup/ |
Woman convicted in Jan. 6 attack but not in theft of Pelosi laptop
Riley J. Williams is released from prison on Jan. 21, 2021, in Harrisburg, Pa. (Dan Gleiter/The Patriot-News/AP)
A federal jury in Washington said Monday that it could not unanimously agree on whether a Pennsylvania woman aided in the theft of a laptop computer from House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s office during the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol, but the panel convicted her of six other offenses related to the riot, including two felonies.
After deliberating for the equivalent of three full days in the case of Riley J. Williams, jurors said they also could not reach a unanimous verdict on whether Williams committed the felony of obstructing an official government proceeding, the most serious charge she faced in terms of potential jail time. The charge of aiding and abetting the laptop theft was a misdemeanor.
But in a trial that began Nov. 8 in U.S. District Court in Washington, the panel convicted Williams, 23, of civil disorder and interfering with police officers, both felonies, and four misdemeanors involving disorderly conduct, entering and remaining in a restricted building or grounds, and illegally demonstrating in the Capitol.
Except for a few days behind bars after her arrest, Williams, of Mechanicsburg, Pa., near Harrisburg, had been on home detention pending the outcome of her trial, and defense attorney Lori J. Ulrich on Monday asked Judge Amy Berman Jackson to allow Williams to remain out of jail pending her sentencing, scheduled for Feb. 22.
But Jackson, agreeing with a prosecutor, ordered Williams to be immediately detained and had harsh words for the defendant.
Citing evidence that Williams had been preparing to go into hiding before the FBI arrested her, Jackson said from the bench: “This is a person who was packed and ready to flee before.” Based on video of Capitol attack, Williams “was profane, she was obnoxious, she was threatening,” the judge said. “She has no respect whatsoever for the enforcement of the law.”
Jackson declared a mistrial on the obstruction count and the charge related to the laptop theft. The U.S. attorney’s office did not immediately indicate whether it intends to pursue a new trial on those offenses.
In asking for Williams to be locked up pending her sentencing, Assistant U.S. Attorney Samuel Dalke said in court: “It’s about to get real” for Williams. “She’s facing at least two to three years of jail time,” based on advisory federal sentencing guidelines, “and depending on enhancements, it could be considerably more.”
Williams traveled to Washington with her father and two others on the day of the Capitol siege. In the trial, prosecutors described her as a zealous election denier who orchestrated violence inside the building during the riot, while Ulrich depicted her as a naive young woman who made an error in judgment by entering the Capitol.
In urging jurors to acquit Williams of obstructing an official proceeding, Ulrich said in her closing argument last week that the law requires prosecutors to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Williams had an “intent” to commit that offense. Ulrich argued that her client was ignorant of U.S. electoral processes and did not understand what Congress was doing that day.
That was one of the charges on which the jury said it was hopelessly deadlocked.
Clad that January day in black tights and a brown jacket and carrying a fuzzy, zebra-striped handbag slung over her shoulder, the slightly built Williams sought out rioters in the building who were equipped with tactical vests, shields, goggles and helmets, and organized them to attack police security lines, according to prosecutors.
She “pushed them to the front of the line again and again and again,” Dalke said in his closing argument last week, after jurors had seen numerous video clips of Williams exhorting men in military gear. “The defendant didn’t bring a weapon with her on January 6th. She made one there. She made one out of other rioters.”
Riley and her three companions attended President Donald Trump’s incendiary rally Jan. 6 on the Ellipse, where he repeated his false claim that rampant voter fraud had led to his 2020 reelection defeat. Afterward, she got separated from her father and the others and made her way to the Capitol, where she joined a mob of Trump supporters in storming the building while Congress was meeting to confirm Joe Biden’s victory.
Video images show that when Williams arrived in Pelosi’s office suite, rioters already were there and one man had his hands on a laptop that was open on a conference table. Prosecutors said Pelosi (D-Calif.) used that computer to conduct video meetings with U.S. and foreign officials.
Prosecutors said Williams can be heard yelling, “Dude, take the f---ing laptop,” and, “Dude, put on gloves.” Ulrich argued that her client should be acquitted of aiding and abetting the laptop theft because the unidentified thief would have taken the computer even if Williams had said nothing. But Assistant U.S. Attorney Michael M. Gordon told the jury that Williams committed a crime merely by urging the theft.
That was the other charge on which jurors were deadlocked.
Gordon and Dalke showed jurors numerous post-riot messages that they said Williams sent to friends in which she acknowledged committing crimes. According to the FBI, among other typo-ridden texts and social media posts, Williams wrote: “STOLE S-T FROM NANCY POLESI,” “I TOOK HER GRAVEL HAMMWR TBING” and “I DOMT CARE I TOOK NANCY POLESIS HARD DRIVES I DON’T CARE KILL ME.”
By “gravel,” Williams meant one of the House speaker’s gavels, the prosecutors said.
But Ulrich described her client as an unsophisticated young person who falsely inflated and boasted about her role in the riot because she desperately “wanted to be somebody.” She was caught up “in a little fantasy world,” the defense attorney said. “She wanted people to notice her.”
As of this month, according to the U.S. attorney’s office in Washington, about 900 people had been arrested in connection with the Capitol riot, including nearly 280 who, like Williams, were charged with resisting or assaulting police officers. About 447 people have pleaded guilty to various charges and about 30 have been convicted of various offenses at trials, the office said.
Ulrich said Williams took great pains to conceal her digital history after the riot, not because she had committed the acts described in numerous messages, but because she was frightened.
“She’s scared now,” Ulrich told jurors. “She knows this is a big deal. … All her boasting and bragging about things she didn’t do … are now catching up with her.'” | 2022-11-21T22:45:30Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Woman convicted in Jan. 6 attack, but not in theft of Pelosi laptop - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2022/11/21/capitol-riot-theft-pelosi-laptop/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2022/11/21/capitol-riot-theft-pelosi-laptop/ |
Defense lawyers say Oath Keepers didn’t plan attack on Capitol, claim prosecutors omitted internal messages to mislead jury
Members of the Oath Keepers on the East Front of the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. (Manuel Balce Ceneta/AP)
Wrapping up closing arguments Monday, lawyers for three of five Oath Keepers associates facing trial for seditious conspiracy in the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riot accused federal prosecutors of manipulating evidence by omitting key messages and overstating their involvement in the attack.
Prosecutors countered by urging jurors to convict Oath Keepers founder Stewart Rhodes and four co-defendants, citing “overwhelming” evidence “right in front of your eyes.”
“Make no mistake, he [Rhodes] wanted to start a civil war,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Jeffrey S. Nestler said. “They wanted to attack what they saw as an illegitimate government. Their own statements prove the government’s case.”
U.S. District Judge Amit P. Mehta submitted the case to the jury after eight weeks of trial, 46 witnesses and hundreds of exhibits. The jury is set to begin deliberations at 9:30 a.m. Tuesday, take off the rest of Thanksgiving week if no verdict is reached, and resume deliberations next week.
Defense attorney Bradford Geyer cast client Kenneth Harrelson as a follower, not a leader on Jan. 6. The jury did not see Harrelson’s communications — not because he deleted them, as prosecutors alleged, but because he didn’t participate in planning, Geyer argued.
“This is no longer about scary words,” Geyer said, “which is bad enough. Now you’re asked to convict based on what he might have been thinking.”
He said Harrelson was apolitical, only agreed to travel to D.C. on Jan. 4, 2021, and never had any intention of entering the Capitol, though he did so as part of a stack of Oath Keepers on the east side of the building.
Geyer and Jonathan Crisp, the attorney for defendant Jessica Watkins, criticized how prosecutors presented videos and evidence, calling it “government manipulation or deception.” He noted that prosecutors showed group chat discussions on the Signal app, used by Rhodes and many other members before and during Jan. 6, but omitted certain posts and wrongly implied Watkins responded to messages she did not answer.
Watkins admitted on the stand that she went into the Capitol, and apologized for it.
Crisp noted that prosecutors never asked Watkins, during her testimony, if there was “a plan to stop the certification. A plan to overthrow the government. ... She was never asked about that.”
He said prosecutors “will put anything in front of you, to lie and twist it. If they will go to this extreme for their narrative, for their context, they are entitled to no credibility.”
Crisp and David Fischer, attorney for Virginia resident Thomas Caldwell, both said their clients believed that by 2:20 p.m. on Jan. 6, when members of Congress were evacuated, that the confirmation had been completed. Therefore, Watkins and Caldwell had no intention of disrupting the electoral college count.
“Can you stop something that’s already stopped?” Crisp asked. “How do you kill a dead body?” But the electoral college count had only been postponed, and was restarted about six hours later.
Nestler responded that Congress wasn’t dead. He argued that Watkins and Caldwell were communicating with people outside the city and knew the count hadn’t been completed.
Fischer noted that Caldwell had no communication with Rhodes after mid-November. Fischer also said the government initially accused Caldwell of being an Oath Keepers leader who went into the Capitol, allegations that prosecutors later rescinded. Caldwell wasn’t found on any of the Oath Keepers’ Signal chats or phone meetings, and only communicated with a North Carolina Oath Keepers group that had split off from Rhodes, Fischer said.
Caldwell is accused of coordinating a “Quick Reaction Force” with an arsenal of guns based at an Arlington hotel, but “why would the Oath Keepers have a non-Oath Keeper coordinate the QRF?” Fischer asked. “Mr. Caldwell had no contact with Stewart Rhodes. He had no contact with Oath Keepers on Jan. 6. None. He’s the coordinator of the QRF? How’s that work?” | 2022-11-21T23:42:09Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Defendants attack U.S. ‘manipulation’ of evidence in Oath Keepers trial - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/11/21/defendants-attack-us-manipulation-evidence-oath-keepers-trial/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/11/21/defendants-attack-us-manipulation-evidence-oath-keepers-trial/ |
NEW YORK — Simon & Schuster’s corporate parent has officially ended the agreement for Penguin Random House to purchase the publisher, a proposed merger a federal judge already had blocked early this month. Paramount Global also announced Monday that it still plans to sell Simon & Schuster, a nearly century-old company where authors include Stephen King, Colleen Hoover and Bob Woodward. Penguin Random House, which had planned to appeal the decision, issued a statement Monday saying it would have been “the best home” for Simon & Schuster. “However, we have to accept Paramount’s decision not to move forward,” the publisher’s statement reads.
BURBANK, Calif. — Bob Iger, the enterprising entertainment executive who brought Star Wars, Pixar and Marvel under the Disney marquee and challenged the streaming dominance of Netflix, will replace his handpicked successor, CEO Bob Chapek, whose two-year tenure has been marked by clashes, missteps and a weakening financial performance. The stunning development comes two weeks after Disney’s quarterly financial performance fell well short of Wall Street expectations on both profit and revenue, a rarity, sending shares tumbling 12%. Shares of The Walt Disney Co. are down 40% this year. The company’s stock jumped almost 9% before the opening bell Monday, with the appointment of Iger effective immediately.
SEATTLE — U.S. authorities say police in Estonia have arrested two men accused in a half-billion-dollar cryptocurrency fraud. An indictment unsealed in U.S. District Court in Seattle on Monday charged 37-year-old Estonian citizens Sergei Potapenko and Ivan Turogin with wire fraud and conspiracy to commit money laundering. Prosecutors say they tricked hundreds of thousands of people into buying contracts for a cryptocurrency mining service called HashFlare and investing in a virtual currency bank called Polybius Bank, which in reality operated as pyramid schemes. The men are accused of using shell companies to launder the $575 million and to purchase real estate and luxury cars. The two are in custody in Estonia pending extradition to the U.S.
WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court says it will hear a dispute over a dog toy that got whiskey maker Jack Daniel’s barking mad. Jack Daniel’s had asked the justices to hear its case against the manufacturer of the plastic Bad Spaniels toy. The toy mimics the Jack Daniel’s bottle and label but is a parody. While the original bottle has the words “Old No. 7 brand” and “Tennessee Sour Mash Whiskey,” the parody proclaims: “The Old No. 2 on Your Tennessee Carpet.” A number of major companies from the makers of Campbell Soup to outdoor brand Patagonia and jeans maker Levi Strauss had urged the justices to take what they said was an important case for trademark law.
NEW YORK — New York has issued the state’s first 36 cannabis dispensary licenses, taking a monumental step in establishing a legal and lucrative marketplace for recreational marijuana. The licenses approved Monday by the state’s Cannabis Control Board were the first of 175 the state plans to issue, despite a court ruling earlier this month that prevents it from issuing licenses in some parts of the state. The first legal dispensaries, selected from a pool of more than 900 applicants, are expected to be ready by the end of the year, joining an already robust marijuana economy fueled by illicit dispensaries, some of which have been shut down by authorities.
WASHINGTON — The Biden administration has announced preliminary approval to spend up to $1.1 billion to help keep California’s last operating nuclear power plant running. The Energy Department said Monday it was creating a path forward for the Diablo Canyon Power Plant to remain open, with the final terms to be negotiated and finalized. The plant, which is scheduled to close by 2025, was chosen in the first round of funding for a new civil nuclear credit program, intended to bail out financially distressed owners or operators of nuclear power reactors. The Palisades plant in Michigan also applied for funding to restart operations and was turned down. | 2022-11-21T23:55:13Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Business Highlights: Book merger off; Iger back at Disney - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/business-highlights-book-merger-off-iger-back-at-disney/2022/11/21/a0b4bb54-69ec-11ed-8619-0b92f0565592_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/business-highlights-book-merger-off-iger-back-at-disney/2022/11/21/a0b4bb54-69ec-11ed-8619-0b92f0565592_story.html |
The Zoom Video Communications Inc. logo on a smartphone arranged in Dobbs Ferry, New York, U.S., on Saturday, May 29, 2021. Zoom Video Communications Inc. is scheduled to release earnings figures on June 1. Photographer: Tiffany Hagler-Geard/Bloomberg (Bloomberg)
Zoom Video Communications Inc. declined about 6% in extended trading after reporting its slowest quarterly sales growth on record and slightly reduced its full-year revenue forecast.
Revenue increased 5% to $1.1 billion, in line with analysts’ average estimate. For the full year, the software company reduced its sales forecast to as much as $4.38 billion from its August projection of as much as $4.4 billion.
The full-year sales guidance issued Monday assumes that Zoom’s enterprise business will grow more than 20% while revenue from online consumer and small business customers will decline about 8%, Chief Financial Officer Kelly Steckelberg said on a conference call with analysts. In a sign the enterprise business remains steady, Zoom reported quarterly profit that exceeded Wall Street estimates and raised its full-year earnings forecast.
“We drove revenue above guidance with continued momentum in enterprise,” Chief Executive Officer Eric Yuan said in a statement, highlighting better-than-expected profit. But the company continues to be affected by currency fluctuations and “heightened deal scrutiny for new business,” he said on the call.
Tyler Radke, an analyst at Citigroup Inc., was skeptical the company’s growth would return anytime soon. “Despite some modest revenue upside, the leading indicators suggested signs of incremental deterioration,” he wrote after the results were released.
Zoom shares, which have been hovering close to pre-pandemic prices, declined to a low of $74.73 in extended trading after closing at $80.26 in New York. The stock has dropped 56% this year.
In the period ended Oct. 31, the company said it had 209,300 enterprise customers, an increase of 14% from a year earlier. Analysts, on average, projected Zoom would report 210,105. Large businesses make up a growing share of Zoom’s revenue as it loses consumers and small businesses.
Churn among consumers and small businesses has begun to stabilize in the quarter. Average monthly churn among those online customers was 3.1% in the fiscal third quarter, down from 3.7% in the same period last year.
The online business is still having “a dampening affect on the overall growth rate of the company,” Steckelberg said on the call.
As for potential acquisitions, Zoom is looking “every day,” Steckelberg said. “The compression in valuations is not lost on us.”
Zoom said it had 3,286 customers contributing more than $100,000 in trailing 12 month revenue, an increase of 31% from the period a year earlier. Sales in the Americas region grew 11% while Europe, the Mideast and Africa sank 9% due to currency fluctuations and the impact of the war in Ukraine. Revenue in the Asia-Pacific region declined 3%, Steckelberg said.
Fiscal third-quarter profit, excluding some items, was $1.07 a share, the San Jose, California-based company said in a statement. Analysts, on average, projected 83 cents a share. Full-year earnings will be as much as $3.94 a share, the company said, an increase from Zoom’s August forecast of as much as $3.69 a share. | 2022-11-21T23:55:25Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Zoom’s Sales Growth Slows Even as Enterprise Business Stays Steady - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/on-small-business/zooms-sales-growth-slows-even-as-enterprise-business-stays-steady/2022/11/21/c952f58c-69ea-11ed-8619-0b92f0565592_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/on-small-business/zooms-sales-growth-slows-even-as-enterprise-business-stays-steady/2022/11/21/c952f58c-69ea-11ed-8619-0b92f0565592_story.html |
By Ahmed Al-Haj | AP
SANAA, Yemen — Yemen’s Houthi rebels targeted a ship at an oil terminal in the south of the country on Monday, the internationally recognized government said, in the latest in a series of recent attacks that threaten to escalate the conflict after months of relative calm. | 2022-11-21T23:55:31Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Yemen: Houthi drones attack ship at oil terminal - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/yemen-houthi-drones-attack-ship-at-oil-terminal/2022/11/21/d50ba26a-69f0-11ed-8619-0b92f0565592_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/yemen-houthi-drones-attack-ship-at-oil-terminal/2022/11/21/d50ba26a-69f0-11ed-8619-0b92f0565592_story.html |
Without him, friends said, the place is ‘never going to be the same’
Bartender Derrick Rump works at Club Q in Colorado Springs during Pride festivities. (Courtesy of Leon Pantoya) (Courtesy of Leon Pantoya)
Q Club regulars could tell before they even entered the bar if Derrick Rump was working that night. Most evenings, the 38-year-old blasted Britney Spears songs so loud you could hear them from the parking lot, friends said.
If they heard “Toxic” or “... Baby One More Time,” they knew Rump was behind the bar and the night was going to be good.
Sassy and pint-size, Rump was the glue that held together the queer community in Colorado Springs.
He bought lashes and outfits for drag queens who couldn’t afford them, and during the pandemic, when all of the performers lost their jobs, he bought other people’s groceries for two months straight.
“He is what made Club Q,” Kayla Rene Cortes, a 26-year-old lesbian who has visited the bar for years.
Rump is one of five people killed in a mass shooting at Club Q late Saturday night. At least 18 other people were injured.
Without him, Cortes said, the club is “never going to be the same.”
Rump started working at the single-story bar five years ago, and he instantly established himself as a good listener with a heavy pour. He opened five days a week, and he spent most shifts mixing drinks in the upper lounge, an elevated spot where the acoustics made it easier to carry on a conversation.
If you didn’t know him and saw his face, friends said, you might have thought he didn’t want to talk. He was direct and sarcastic, and his dark eyebrows were often raised in a way that felt both daring and distinct, but the minute he started talking, that look melted away.
“He was super welcoming,” Anthony Kichton said. Kichton, a biomedical equipment technician in the Air Force and student at the University of Colorado, met Rump 10 years ago.
“Every time I saw him, he was always positive and extremely kind,” Kichton said.
One of Rump’s best friends, a drag performer who started at Club Q the same night Rump did, said Rump could connect with anyone, regardless of age or gender or sexuality.
The performer spoke on the condition of anonymity. Many people have sent hateful messages to others who frequented the club in the days since the shooting, she said, and she does not feel safe having her name or face available publicly.
A few years ago, Rump and fellow bartender Daniel Aston decided to stop referring to customers as “guys” or “girls.” Instead, the performer said, they greeted everyone with “Hi, friend.”
“It changed so many people’s lives because they didn’t feel misgendered,” the performer said. “I know it’s such a small thing, but it matters to people.”
Aston was also killed Saturday night.
Jared Sikes said he was nervous the first time he went to Club Q because he hadn’t been to a gay bar in years. He felt out of place until he spotted Rump and Aston.
“I hung out near the bar where their smiling faces and warm personalities made me feel welcome,” Sikes wrote on Facebook. “It was the same story every time we spoke. They were kind and considerate and the world is a darker place without them.”
Rump occasionally pulled himself away from the bar to counsel people on the patio, the drag performer said, and every Thursday night, he signed up for karaoke. He was a passionate singer, if not a technically talented one, and he sang the same off-key version of “Runaway Train” every week. He somehow never learned all the words to the Soul Asylum classic, the performer said, but that didn’t matter.
“He would take the mic and go right to the middle of the dance floor,” the drag performer recalled. “He always missed the first word, then from there, it was him and the song playing catch-up very loudly and proudly.”
Rump wasn’t a drag performer himself, but last month he agreed to try it.
Before the pandemic, the bar often had lines around the block, but it has struggled over the past few years. Some nights, only a dozen or so people came. The small crowd gave the bar a homey feel — patrons often hung out and played Uno together — but the workers were looking for a way to draw in more customers, and they figured new entertainment might help. Many performers left the bar or the business entirely during the pandemic, and most weeks this year, the same five drag queens entertained people five nights a week.
Rump’s friend decided to create “Let’s Do Drag,” a new Sunday night event to recruit and train new performers. The first week, hardly anyone signed up. Drag can be expensive and daunting, and people seemed nervous to dive in. But in early October, Rump said he’d give it a go.
He borrowed a wig and a dress, and a friend painted his face with black lipstick and turquoise eye shadow. Rump didn’t want anyone to see him before the show, but he teased his friends with peeks at the details on Snapchat. His wig was platinum blonde, his dress black and sequined.
When showtime came, Rump didn’t know how to walk in his high-heeled boots, so he wobbled toward the stage until he could strut.
“He was having the time of his life,” the performer said. “I’ve never seen him so sassy in my life, and he was already pretty sassy.”
Afterward, Rump and all his friends cried backstage.
“It was such a powerful night,” the performer said. “He got a lot of people to try drag. I had people signing up left and right after that.”
Rump grew up in Berks County, Pa. Tracy Hampton met Rump there 15 years ago when they both worked for a small mailing company. Hampton said Rump helped her grieve the loss of her daughter.
“Derrick was the sweetest soul I ever knew, and like a second son to me,” she said. “He always had a smile ready for everyone. He made friends very easily.”
When Rump moved from Pennsylvania to Colorado, Hampton said she felt lost without him, but they stayed in touch, and she talked to him a few days before his death.
“I’m just glad the last thing I got to tell him was that I love him,” she said.
Rump had been living in Colorado Springs for at least a decade. The city is about an hour’s drive from Denver, and it’s home to a tightknit queer community, mostly people who fled more conservative areas for LGBTQ-friendly Colorado, only to find that the rents in Denver were too expensive.
The past few years had been hard on that community, the performer said. None of the other tragedies made the news, but some people lost homes, and other people lost people. Rump had endured his own string of losses, but he was reluctant to ask others for help. Instead, he found solace in stepping in for other people.
In that way, he leaves what many described as an unfillable hole. He is the person they most need to guide them through this time, they said.
Even if he didn’t know what to do, he often stepped up and acted as if he did. For a gay man, he was a decidedly “not decorative” person — his Christmas stocking was the only one without glitter on it last year — but he often volunteered to help decorate. And when people lost their homes, he took them shopping and paid for everything.
Maybe he wouldn’t know now how they’re supposed to move on, friends said, but he would have found a way to lead them.
“Derek had a tough-love attitude with everything,” said Alex Gallagher, a regular who left Club Q about 20 minutes before the shooting began. “If he saw me crying right now he’d probably tell me to stop crying, to stop being so dramatic. We loved that about him.”
Ari Schneider, Molly Hennessy-Fiske, Maham Javaid, Cate Brown and Alice R. Crites contributed to this report. | 2022-11-21T23:55:37Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Bartender Derrick Rump, killed in Colorado Springs shooting, ‘made Club Q’ - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/11/21/derrick-rump-colorado-springs-shooting-victim/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/11/21/derrick-rump-colorado-springs-shooting-victim/ |
In this photo provided by Stacy Chapin, triplets Maizie, left, Ethan, second from left, and Hunter, right, pose with their parents Stacy and Jim Chapin at Priest Lake in northern Idaho in July 2022. Ethan Chapin was one of four University of Idaho students found stabbed to death in a home near the Moscow, Idaho campus on Sunday, Nov. 13, 2022. Police are still searching for a suspect in the case.(Stacy Chapin via AP) (Uncredited/Stacy Chapin)
MOUNT VERNON, Wash. — A memorial service was scheduled Monday for one of the four University of Idaho students stabbed to death in their home early Nov. 13, as police in the college town of Moscow have yet to identify a suspect in the slayings. | 2022-11-21T23:56:02Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Memorial set Monday for one of 4 Idaho university victims - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/memorial-set-monday-for-one-of-4-idaho-university-victims/2022/11/21/be1ec038-69f4-11ed-8619-0b92f0565592_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/memorial-set-monday-for-one-of-4-idaho-university-victims/2022/11/21/be1ec038-69f4-11ed-8619-0b92f0565592_story.html |
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