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On her way home, Brittney Griner says she’ll play in the WNBA this season
Brittney Griner says she will be back in a Phoenix Mercury uniform next season. (Elaine Thompson/AP)
Writing that “it feels so good to be home” and thanking numerous people who assisted in her release from Russian detention, Basketball star Brittney Griner announced Friday via Instagram that she has departed Brooke Army Medical Center in San Antonio, where she had been recovering from her incarceration in a Russian prison. Griner also announced that she intends to resume her WNBA career with the Phoenix Mercury when the season begins next year.
Griner had been at the military hospital’s trauma center, located at Fort Sam Houston, for a week after she was freed in a prisoner swap. She had been in Russian custody since February, when authorities detained her at Sheremetyevo International Airport outside Moscow and accused her of carrying vape cartridges containing cannabis oil, which is illegal in Russia. She pleaded guilty to the charges in July, and her last few weeks of confinement were spent in a penal colony, a type of prison facility known for its brutal living conditions.
U.S. authorities obtained Griner’s freedom in exchange for that of notorious Russian arms dealer Viktor Bout, a former Soviet Army lieutenant colonel whom the U.S. Justice Department once described as one of the world’s most prolific arms dealers. Bout was serving a 25-year sentence after having been charged with conspiring to sell tens of millions of dollars in weapons that U.S. officials said were to be used against Americans.
U.S. officials have said they are still working to secure the release of Paul Whelan, a U.S. Marine turned corporate security executive who was convicted of espionage and is serving a 16-year sentence in a Russian prison. In her statement Friday, Griner said she would use her platform to work for Whelan’s release.
Griner, 32, has played nine seasons for the Mercury, helping it to the WNBA title in 2014. The eight-time WNBA all-star has led the league in points per game twice and in blocks per game eight times in her nine seasons. | 2022-12-16T17:30:50Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Brittney Griner says she intends to play in upcoming WNBA season - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/12/16/brittney-griner-phoenix-mercury-wnba/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/12/16/brittney-griner-phoenix-mercury-wnba/ |
(Illustration by Tim McDonagh)
When Post investigative reporter Desmond Butler’s father, George Butler, died last year, work was the last thing on Desmond’s mind. But a friend of his father came to him with a tip – startling allegations in the world of bodybuilding, a sport Desmond’s father helped make famous through his film “Pumping Iron.”
What followed was a year-long investigation of the sport of bodybuilding and its culture. In today’s episode of “Post Reports," we explore what Desmond and a team of reporters at The Post uncovered. We explore the origins of bodybuilding, the risks and exploitation athletes face, and the family at the head of the sport.
This is just one story from “Built & Broken,” a Washington Post investigation of the world of bodybuilding. To read more about the findings in this episode check out the rest of the series. | 2022-12-16T17:40:48Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Investigating the sport my dad made famous - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/podcasts/post-reports/investigating-the-sport-my-dad-made-famous/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/podcasts/post-reports/investigating-the-sport-my-dad-made-famous/ |
The debate over speech on Twitter is as uncomplicated as it is unhinged
A phone screen displays the Twitter account of Elon Musk on April 14, 2022, with a photo of him in the background, in Washington, D.C. (Olivier Douliery/AFP/Getty Images)
I guess we can start with Donald Trump’s other big announcement on Thursday, the one that wasn’t centered on his effort to sell “digital collectibles” for $99 a pop well after the NFT bubble had burst. The collectibles announcement, centered on his interest in making money, buried the other announcement, centered on his interest in seizing political power: Trump has a proposal that he says will “shatter the left-wing censorship regime.”
In a lengthy video posted to Truth Social, Trump explains how he would use the power of the presidency to target “a sinister group of Deep State bureaucrats, Silicon Valley tyrants, left-wing activists and depraved corporate news media,” a group he says is “conspiring to manipulate and silence the American people.” To that end, he outlined a battery of potential executive actions that would, for example, ban government officials from colluding to censor Americans.
It is possible, if not likely, that you will not understand why Trump thinks this multipart proposal should be one of the first things presented by his sort-of-campaign for the Republican nomination in 2024. That is because you are not immersed in the same conversational universe as Trump and others on the right, one where the 2020 election was upended by devious government agents muffling negative information about Joe Biden by putting pressure on Twitter.
That there’s no evidence this happened is beside the point. The point is that Twitter, predictably, has become a central part of the right’s effort to undercut voices of authority outside its control. And that, also predictably, using Twitter to muffle political opponents — a horrendous scourge when people on the right thought it was happening to them six months ago — is now viewed as good. As karma.
A bit of history is useful. After the 2016 election, a new focus was placed on eradicating false information, toxic behavior and abuse from social media platforms. In 2018, Twitter announced a new policy in which users who had been identified as abusive or otherwise violating its rules would have less visibility on the site. This was quickly dubbed “shadow banning” on the right and was presented as being about politics, not behavior.
It’s impossible to adjudicate every example of limiting visibility or imposing bans to determine why the platform made the decision it did. But it is worth noting two ways in which common activity on the right might trigger violations of the rules.
First, the idea of “owning the libs” is pervasive on the right these days, an idea that often comes down to harassing those perceived as being on the left.
Second, there are issues of abuse that overlap with politics, like the treatment of trans people. What to Twitter’s management is abuse of the trans community may on the right be seen as a political statement. That a number of right-wing users were muted or banned isn’t surprising in this context — particularly once the narrative arose (promoted by Trump) that conservatives were being targeted for their politics, not their behavior.
Then there was the laptop. In the weeks before the 2020 election, Twitter blocked links to a New York Post story about a purported laptop belonging to Joe Biden’s son Hunter. The decision was quickly reversed, and there’s no indication it affected the election. But, in part because Twitter was reacting to warnings from government officials about potential foreign interference (as occurred in 2016), limiting the story has been framed as the FBI or other “Deep State” actors stepping in to try to help Biden win.
When Elon Musk took over Twitter, he passed out a bunch of internal documents to sympathetic writers who tried to build a case that the social media company had been politically biased and/or unduly influenced in its decision-making processes. Since this is what many on the right wanted to hear, those documents were hailed as proving that bias and influence, though they proved no such thing.
This is why Trump is focusing on the issue: He’s trying to claim again that the 2020 election was stolen from him and leverage right-wing anger ginned up by Musk’s release of those documents.
Over the past four years, as Twitter was under fire for purportedly trying to silence conservatives, a two-part response was offered. First, that there was no evidence that the decisions were being made to silence the right. And, second, that Twitter, as a private company, can block or limit the visibility of anyone it wants at any time. This isn’t a First Amendment issue, since Twitter is not the government.
During his tenure as owner of Twitter, Musk has waged war against the company’s former management and policies. He seems to believe the narrative about suppression of right-wing voices, which is why his initial efforts to unwind limits on users and even to restore previously banned accounts were presented as being centered on encouraging free speech. Musk insisted that free speech — free, unfiltered, unlimited speech — would be Twitter’s new watchword.
Then Ye posted a swastika. And then Musk got tired of a kid’s Twitter account tracking the movement of his personal jet. And then he got mad that people were sharing links to other ways to view the movement of his jet. And then Twitter decided to suspend the accounts of a number of reporters who were covering how Musk was handling his ownership of Twitter.
This is Twitter’s right. It’s Musk’s platform. But these actions are easily contrasted with his past professions about the sanctity of speech, not to mention his tweets about how he would welcome critics on the platform. (Musk has framed his objections to the flight information and the reporters as being about safety, though there are a number of valid questions about both an incident in which he claims his child was targeted and about the utility of flight information as a vector for committing an act of violence.)
What Musk is doing in essence is what pre-Musk Twitter did: sending a message about what sort of behavior is welcomed on the private platform. Pre-Musk Twitter decided it did not want anti-trans content, incessantly abusive users or news stories that it thought might be part of a Russian interference effort. Post-Musk Twitter doesn’t want things Musk obviously finds annoying, and it doesn’t want anti-Musk dissent. Users may make determinations about their participation on the platform based on how they feel about the sort of place Musk wants Twitter to be.
It was fascinating to watch the reaction to Musk’s decision to boot reporters who have covered him and to his imposition of the flight-information ban. Fox News, for example, celebrated that the “TABLES HAVE TURNED” in how Twitter approaches news outlets.
TABLES HAVE TURNED: Elon Musk suspends CNN, NYT, WaPo journalists, reminding them the rules also apply to them. https://t.co/DGz1u8482w pic.twitter.com/xcDOo8LBkh
This, mind you, comes from a network that has mentioned “cancel culture” as a threat to America more than 3,000 times in the past two years. A network that spent days last year moaning about a decision from the estate of Dr. Seuss to stop publishing books containing racist imagery or language. That decision was framed by Fox not as a private decision based on consideration of obviously cringey characterizations of Black and Asian people but as “the left” going after a beloved American institution — because that’s how this works. Fox News almost never showed the actual images, because that would mean offering evidence that undercut its presentation. Just as so many on the right have preferred to talk about how pre-Musk Twitter targeted conservatives as conservatives, not as users engaged in behavior that Twitter thought degraded the service.
Nothing’s changed in terms of what Twitter can and can’t do to moderate content. What has changed is what the company wants to moderate. And what’s changed isn’t the traditional media’s view of whether moderation is allowed; it obviously is. What’s most obviously changed is how Musk and Fox and others on the right view Twitter’s ability to stifle voices it doesn’t want on its platform.
It’s still politically and culturally useful to claim that Twitter limited the reach of right-wing voices for ideological reasons. Hence Trump’s proposals. But outrage at such purported censorship has been replaced with giddiness at the muffling of the collective “left,” including traditional reporters covering Musk.
All that stuff about unfettered free speech was great as a cudgel when the right didn’t have the power. But now it does.
The latest: McCarthy acknowledges five opponents to his speakership ‘have not moved’ | 2022-12-16T17:41:00Z | www.washingtonpost.com | The debate over speech on Twitter is as uncomplicated as it is unhinged - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/12/16/elon-musk-twitter-trump/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/12/16/elon-musk-twitter-trump/ |
This photo provided by the U.S. Army shows WNBA star Brittney Griner, right, being greeted by wife Cherelle after arriving at Kelly Field in San Antonio following her release in a prisoner swap with Russia, Friday, Dec. 9, 2022. Griner said she’s “grateful” to be back in the United States and plans on playing basketball again next season for the WNBA’s Phoenix Mercury a week after she was released from a Russian prison and freed in a dramatic high-level prisoner exchange. “It feels so good to be home!” Griner posted to Instagram on Friday, Dec. 16, 2022, in her first public statement since her release. (Miquel A. Negro/U.S. Army via AP) (Miguel A. Negron/US Army) | 2022-12-16T17:42:01Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Brittney Griner says she'll play basketball in Arizona again - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/wnba/brittney-griner-says-shell-play-basketball-again/2022/12/16/fbed6f16-7d60-11ed-bb97-f47d47466b9a_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/wnba/brittney-griner-says-shell-play-basketball-again/2022/12/16/fbed6f16-7d60-11ed-bb97-f47d47466b9a_story.html |
Q-Anon Jan. 6 rioter who led pursuit of officer sentenced to 5 years
“I wanted Q to get the attention,” Douglas Jensen told the FBI. The judge said “it’s a miracle” more people weren’t hurt or killed in the Capitol attack.
Douglas Jensen, center, confronts U.S. Capitol Police in the hallway outside of the Senate chamber on Jan. 6, 2021. (Manuel Balce Ceneta/AP)
A self-described “poster boy” for the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riot who led a mob pursuit of U.S. Capitol Police Officer Eugene Goodman was sentenced Friday to five years in prison after a judge said he led events that could have caused mass bloodshed.
Douglas Jensen, 43, of Des Moines became one of the most recognized riot participants in widely shared video showing him wearing a black QAnon “Eagle” T-shirt and leading a crowd following Goodman up two flights of stairs inside the Capitol while searching for the evacuated Senate chamber.
“I wanted Q to get the attention,” Jensen told the FBI after his arrest. “I basically intended on being the poster boy.”
“You … put yourself at the forefront of the mob,” U.S. District Judge Timothy J. Kelly told Jensen in court Friday. “There was nothing patriotic about it, no matter how much you might not have liked how the process of electing a president was perceived.”
Kelly noted that Jensen traveled to Washington with others carrying military-style rifles, was one of the first 10 people who breached the Capitol and “waved on” and encouraged others to join him. The judge said America’s freedoms of speech, petition and protest carry the responsibility of doing so peacefully.
“What no one can do under any circumstances is become part of a mob using violence and the threat of violence to disrupt Congress’s ability to fulfill its role to process the certification of the electoral vote. That’s what you did,” Kelly said. “It’s a miracle that more people were not injured and did not lose their lives that day … What would have happened if that group you led turned the other way into a chamber full of Senators, God only knows.”
Capitol Police officer Eugene Goodman faced the mob that breached the U.S. Capitol on his own on Jan. 6. (Video: Igor Bobic/HuffPost via Storyful)
Jensen, a QAnon conspiracy follower, was found guilty at trial in September of seven federal counts after coming to Washington believing that members of Congress and Vice President Mike Pence were going to be arrested for opposing President Donald Trump’s effort to overturn the results.
Prosecutors asked for a 64-month sentence at the midpoint of a 57 to 71-month federal guidelines range, calling Jensen “a ringleader during the attack on the U.S. Capitol.” Jensen was convicted of three felony offenses, including rioting, assaulting police and obstruction of a congressional proceeding, punishable by up to 20 years.
Jensen “came to Washington, D.C., prepared for violence, and when the day approached, he played a significant role leading the violent crowd past the police line, into the building and through the halls of the Capitol,” assistant U.S. attorneys Emily W. Allen and Hava Mirell wrote in sentencing papers.
U.S. Capitol Police Inspector Thomas Loyd told the court that Jensen had Goodman to thank for being able to leave the building on his own feet, crediting the officer’s “quick thinking” for helping prevent rioters from attempting to breach the Senate Lobby doors.
If they had, “there would have been tremendous bloodshed,” Loyd said, adding that several of his officers who were injured had to be carried out. He said 20 percent of 350 officers assigned to him have separated from the department.
Jensen’s defense asked for less than half that time, saying that despite Jensen’s “theatrical” role in the Capitol breach, he committed no violence and physically harmed no one. His defense also said he has freed himself of his seeming QAnon addiction, an outgrowth of sealed personal history that should categorize him as an “outlier” among Jan. 6 defendants.
“Mr. Jensen is a passionate man who became embroiled in conspiracy theories and conservative politics. However, he has no history of being a political activist. He is an uneducated union laborer who became overwhelmed by conspiracy theories disseminated on the internet,” defense attorney Christopher M. Davis wrote. “He was wrong. And now he remains incarcerated almost 2 years later, while his family suffers his absence.”
Jensen expressed no remorse in a statement to the court.
“I can’t change my past,” Jensen said. “I can only look to the future. I don’t intend to be involved in the justice system after this,” Jensen said. “I’d like to be involved in being a parent again and to go back to my normal life before I got involved in politics.”
Kelly said he would have given Jensen a longer sentence but for the extreme circumstances of his childhood.
Jensen’s lawyer argued, “I think he needs medical assistance to come to grips to what happened to him as a child … forces totally out of his control” related to his background, health and mental health.
Jensen was initially granted pretrial release but was returned to detention after two months in September 2021 for violating a federal judge’s order to stay off the internet, including by live-streaming an event hosted MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell, who has promoted conspiracy theories about the 2020 election.
The restriction meant to separate Jensen from the far-right QAnon conspiracy theory, which the FBI has warned could encourage violence among some believers of its false foundational claim that a cabal of Satan-worshipping “global elites” and “deep state” international child-sex traffickers were engaged in plots to conduct a coup against Trump.
He wore a QAnon shirt while chasing police on Jan. 6. Now he says he was deceived by ‘a pack of lies.’
The FBI in a June 2021 threat assessment noted that more than 20 self-identified QAnon adherents had been arrested in the storming of the Capitol, stating that some of its violent followers were likely to begin believing that they had an obligation to shift “towards engaging in real-world violence,” while others disengaged.
The assessment said their presence underscored how the current environment “likely will continue to act as a catalyst for some to begin accepting the legitimacy of violent action.”
Davis said there are no such concerns with Jensen, writing: “Deterrence is a nonissue. The isolation of the pandemic, the allegations of the former president, and QAnon drops are all a thing of the past.”
More than 840 suspects have been charged in the Jan. 6 Capitol riot | 2022-12-16T18:27:54Z | www.washingtonpost.com | "Poster boy" of Capitol riot sentenced in Jan. 6 attack - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/12/16/jensen-qanon-jan6-attack/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/12/16/jensen-qanon-jan6-attack/ |
The 4 most undersold political stories of 2022
Pro-abortion-rights activists gather to march to the Supreme Court in May. (Astrid Riecken/for The Washington Post)
Each December, The Fix looks back on some political developments we’ve covered that otherwise haven’t been given their due — but which we think are worth revisiting, either because of their significance or their staying power. We call it our “most undersold political stories” of the year.
Below is our 2022 edition.
1. The rising importance of ballot initiatives — and the fight against them
The 2022 election involved a repudiation of the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade. But the fight is in many ways just beginning.
And perhaps the biggest battleground moving forward will be ballot initiatives.
Kansas’s primary was the first post-Roe election in which the pro-abortion rights position won when the question of reproductive rights was put to voters. But it wasn’t the last. Five states featured ballot initiatives on abortion in November, and all five broke the same way as Kansas did, including a swing state (Michigan) and two other red states (Montana and Kentucky).
For Republicans who would very much like to regulate abortion more strictly, this is a problem. Not every state makes it easy to allow voters to decide such issues, but abortion rights advocates are keying in on the states where it’s feasible. Already, initiatives are being lined up in Missouri, New Jersey and Ohio.
Meanwhile, Republicans in some states like Ohio have doubled down on making it harder for voters to pass such measures — including, in Ohio’s case, moving to raise the threshold from a majority to 60 percent. (Republicans had hailed the Supreme Court’s decision as merely allowing states to decide the issue; they seem to have meant a state’s elected representatives should decide, and not the voters themselves.)
This isn’t just about abortion; Republicans have also grown weary of progressive ballot-measure victories on issues like marijuana, the minimum wage, expanding Medicaid and reforming redistricting. The big question moving forward is what they do about it — and what they can do about it.
2. The subtler shifts in the GOP
The Republican Party is a very different entity than it was early in the 21st Century. Heck, it’s a pretty different entity even than it was as recently as 2015. Such is the Trump effect.
But two major changes haven’t gotten enough attention: the party’s turn against big business and against a hawkish foreign policy on issues like Ukraine.
The most telling moment on the latter came when House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) recently warned that a GOP-controlled House might not sign off on extensive continued funding for Ukraine. This statement came despite Ukraine’s demonstrated success in beating back an invasion from a top U.S. adversary, Russia.
And while McCarthy’s comments surprised many, the writing has been on the wall: While Americans of all stripes rallied to Ukraine’s cause initially, we’ve seen a steady erosion in Republican support for funding its defense. Fewer than 1 in 10 Republican-leaning voters said back in March that we were doing “too much” to help Ukraine, but that number had risen to nearly half in an early November poll from the Wall Street Journal.
The GOP’s break from Wall Street has been building over a longer period of time. But it really hit its stride in 2022 as prominent conservatives like Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) made comments attacking “woke” corporations — and even targeting them through legislation — a calling card. The GOP’s takeover of the House is now threatening to create an even bigger rift between the party and its erstwhile allies in the Chamber of Commerce.
Throw in the GOP’s growing criticism of vaccines, which has moved from focusing on covid mandates to more directly attacking vaccines themselves and mandates for other vaccines, and the GOP is redefining itself in major ways in real time.
3. Our elections are getting tighter
As someone who began covering politics and campaigns in 2006, I was spoiled early on by a series of mostly decisive “wave” elections, in which one party clearly won an unmistakable mandate from the American people.
What’s transpired in more recent elections has been decidedly more nuanced. As I wrote this week, our elections are getting closer. Swings of less than 1 percent would have changed the results of the 2016 and 2020 presidential contests, as well as the battle for the Senate in 2020 and the House in 2022.
It’s worth asking whether our increased polarization — and fewer truly undecided, persuadable voters — has simply made larger swings more difficult for either party to achieve. It’s too early to say with any certainty; perhaps the swings will return once the polarizing Trump era recedes into the distance. But it wasn’t that long ago that Democrats could win a filibuster-proof, 60-seat majority in the Senate (2009) and Republicans could win more control of American government than they had at any point since the Great Depression (2014).
Both the 2020 and 2022 elections were surprisingly tight, especially at the congressional level, leaving us with some of the thinnest majorities in modern history. Both the major political parties might have to ask themselves how that changes the rules of political engagement — i.e. how to appeal to a dwindling but increasingly decisive political middle, rather than mostly focusing on base service and banking on a favorable political environment.
4. Growing accountability for Trump’s frivolous election claims
A bunch of people spent the end of 2020 and the early days of 2021 lying to the American people in ways that ultimately resulted in an attack on the seat of American government. And their lawsuits were routinely and repeatedly rejected because of how baseless they were.
The question was soon: What could even be done about that, legally speaking?
Even before Jan. 6, 2021, we raised this possibility. Ben Smith suggested in the New York Times that those launching bogus claims about voting machines in particular could face real — and reverberating — consequences.
The legal process has been characteristically slow, but it has resulted in some accountability. To wit:
In 2021, nine pro-Trump lawyers including Sidney Powell were ordered to pay a combined $175,000 in legal fees for filing a frivolous lawsuit in Michigan.
A federal judge in Colorado disciplined two pro-Trump lawyers, calling their false claims “the stuff of which violent insurrections are made.” The $187,000 in fines in that case were upheld by an appeals court this week.
In May, Mike Lindell was ordered to pay court costs over a lawsuit against voting-machine companies that a judge labeled “frivolous” and based on some “groundless claims.”
A federal judge last month sanctioned several members of Trump’s legal team for misrepresenting facts in their “frivolous” lawsuit against Hillary Clinton and others.
Rudy Giuliani, who was suspended from practicing law in Washington, D.C., last year, is now facing potential disbarment.
The Texas bar has also pushed to disbar Powell in ongoing legal proceedings.
The “red slime” lawsuit that Smith wrote about, concerning a digital security company which kept getting referenced in conservative outlets’ speculation about voting machines, has continued to move along. Most recently, Fox News chairman Rupert Murdoch was ordered to be deposed this month — the highest profile figure yet.
The last one is obviously the big one and will be worth keeping a close eye on in the coming months. Were Fox News to suffer a major judgment for broadcasting these false claims, it would be a seminal moment for a conservative media industry that has increasingly descended into poorly constructed conspiracy theories.
But even aside from that, lawyers who would push these obviously bogus claims in court have seen that doing so comes with a cost. And that has implications for who might venture down these paths in the future. | 2022-12-16T18:28:06Z | www.washingtonpost.com | The 4 most undersold political stories of 2022 - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/12/16/undersold-political-stories-2022/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/12/16/undersold-political-stories-2022/ |
Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-D.C.). (Evelyn Hockstein for The Washington Post)
The U.S. Senate late Thursday confirmed seven judges to D.C.’s local courts, a move that partly addresses a spate of judicial vacancies that District officials, in recent appeals directly to Congress and the White House, said was causing significant slowdowns in the city’s justice system.
The Senate by voice vote confirmed six judges to D.C. Superior Court — Kendra Briggs, Errol Arthur, Leslie A. Meek, Carl Ross, Laura E. Crane and Veronica M. Sanchez — and also confirmed Vijay Shanker to the D.C. Court of Appeals. D.C. Superior Court had faced 14 vacancies going into December, a fourth of its bench, while the Court of Appeals was missing two of its nine judges.
Because D.C. is not a state, Congress can decide what authorities D.C. can have, and in the case of its judicial system, it has almost none. The city must rely on the president to nominate judges to its local court system and the Senate to confirm them. But the Senate has routinely allowed the nominations to languish, at times using the judges as political bargaining chips in deals as other matters are resolved on the floor. The inaction has drawn frustration from D.C. Court leaders and city officials who say the vacancies overburden judges while creating delays in the city’s legal system, affecting everything from criminal cases to proceedings in family and probate court.
Last month, the D.C. Council appealed directly to President Biden and the office of Senate Majority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) — who is responsible for putting nominees on the Senate floor — to move swiftly to fill the vacancies before the end of this Congress. Members of the council and D.C. Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton (D) have lamented that the Senate at times doesn’t prioritize the city’s needs.
While seven judicial vacancies remain in the city’s courts, Schumer said in a statement Friday morning that with another two years of a Democratic majority, “the Senate will continue to work to fill as many vacancies as possible.”
“This Democrat-led Senate will not ignore the needs of the local D.C. courts,” Schumer added.
D.C. pleads for attention from Senate, Biden on big judicial vacancies
D.C. Council member Charles Allen (D-Ward 6), who chairs the council’s judiciary committee, said Friday morning that Schumer’s office was responsive to the council’s plea for help and “took decisive action to broker deals to get this done and get this over the finish line.”
“We’ve been beating the drum. … Let’s celebrate for the final couple weeks of December, but come January, we need the White House to make new nominations and we need the Senate to take action,” said Allen, who said he’d spoken with the local courts’ two chief judges. “It’s been a huge hurdle, but I know they’re relieved to see some new judges on the way.”
In D.C. Superior Court, the new judges include Briggs, a senior assistant attorney in the U.S. attorney’s office for D.C. (USAO); Arthur, who has been a magistrate judge in the superior court since 2010; Meek, an administrative law judge with D.C.’s Office of Administrative Hearings; Crane, an assistant U.S. attorney in the USAO; and Sanchez, also a senior assistant U.S. attorney in the USAO.
Shanker, who will join the D.C. Court of Appeals, is deputy chief of the appellate section of the U.S. Department of Justice’s criminal division.
Carl Tobias, a professor at the University of Richmond School of Law, said Friday that D.C. would be better served by a more efficient and consistent process to handle judicial vacancies. He’s not alone in that thought: Norton has previously introduced legislation that would permit nominees to D.C. Courts to be confirmed automatically after 30 days unless Congress lodges a joint resolution of disapproval. That bill advanced from a House committee but never got a vote on the floor this session.
City officials say they expect the courts to take on an even greater workload in the coming years after the city passed an overhaul of its criminal code that will, among other things, restore the right to jury trials for misdemeanor offenses starting in 2025.
“There needs to be a better way [to confirm the judges], and everyone would be better served — the public and the people who live in D.C., ” Tobias said. “It seems like a no-brainer, but there’s a lot to overcome politically.”
Meagan Flynn contributed to this report. | 2022-12-16T18:40:39Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Senate confirms seven D.C. judges after outcry from District leaders - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/12/16/dc-judges-senate-confirmation/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/12/16/dc-judges-senate-confirmation/ |
Georgetown special assistant Louis Orr died Thursday. (Jonathan Newton/The Washington Post)
Louis Orr, special assistant to Georgetown Coach Patrick Ewing, died Thursday. He had been diagnosed with cancer. He was 64.
“On 12/15/2022, Louis Orr was called home to be with the Lord as his battle with cancer has come to an end,” the family said in a statement. “He was a dearly loved and devoted husband, father, grandfather, brother and friend. He will forever be missed!”
Orr joined the Hoyas when Ewing was hired in 2017 and moved over to his new role before the current season. His coaching career spanned decades with head coaching stints at Bowling Green, Seton Hall and Siena College. Orr was named Big East coach of the year in 2003 and Mid-American coach of the year in 2009. He also served as an assistant coach for the Xinjiang Flying Tigers, where the team won the Chinese Basketball Association championship at the conclusion of the 2016-17 season.
Orr led Seton Hall to two NCAA tournaments.
“I’ve lost a great friend,” Ewing said in a statement. “Someone who has been in my life since I was 22 years old. We developed a friendship and a brotherhood. He was always someone I could talk to. We would talk about life, we would talk about basketball, we would talk about family. He will be truly missed and he will forever be part of this Hoya program.”
Svrluga: Georgetown basketball was once a hot ticket. Now it is giving them away.
As a player, Orr was a second-round draft pick by the Indiana Pacers in 1980 after four years at Syracuse. He played eight seasons in the NBA, including six with the Knicks and three as Ewing’s teammate. Syracuse retired his No. 55 in 2015 after the program went 100-18 during his time in Central New York.
“Louis was a true gentleman, a terrific coach and a leader of young men,” Seaton Hall athletics said in a statement. “In five years, he made a major impact on our department and helped our student-athletes achieve at a high level.”
Reaction to the news poured in online and on social media feeds. There was one commonality — an emphasis on his warm personality.
“A gentleman and a true class act, Louis has been a key part of Big East history at four institutions,” the Big East said in a statement, “most recently serving on the basketball staff at Georgetown. He also served as head coach at Seton Hall, assistant coach at Providence and was a standout player at Syracuse, where he played in the Big East’s first season in 1979-80.
“Our condolences go out to the Orr family. He will be missed by all.”
Orr’s alma mater took a similar tone.
“We mourn the loss of an Orange legend — a player, a coach, and most importantly a great person who made everyone around him better,” Syracuse basketball said in a statement. “Louis Orr’s memory will live in our hearts forever, and especially whenever we look up and see his No. 55 in the Dome rafters.”
Iona coach Rick Pitino, who coached Orr with the Knicks and Syracuse, also expressed his thoughts on Twitter.
“So heartbroken with the news of Louis Orr’s passing,” Pitino wrote. “My first Syracuse recruit n Knick player was as kind a person to play in the NBA — our thoughts and prayers are with his family.” | 2022-12-16T18:53:43Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Georgetown special assistant Louis Orr dies at 64 - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/12/16/louis-orr-dies-georgetown-syracuse/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/12/16/louis-orr-dies-georgetown-syracuse/ |
Paige Erickson, left, and Esme Bernstein toast with their friends at the Golden Girls Kitchen pop-up in New York City. (Photos by Jeenah Moon for The Washington Post)
Usually I love dining alone in restaurants. But it felt wrong to be eating solo at the Golden Girls Kitchen, a pop-up restaurant in Manhattan devoted to the classic sitcom that celebrated friendship above everything. It wasn’t supposed to happen like this — the longtime pal and confidante I had planned to meet canceled on me, citing one of the illnesses that seems to be felling just about everyone this season. Would-be replacements offered excuses that sounded like a parade of zeitgeist-y maladies: a Zoom meeting, a sick kid, so sorry, I’m traveling the week after and I’m avoiding restaurants until then …
I tried McDonald’s Happy Meal for adults, and it didn’t make me happy
So I found myself at a table for one on a drizzly gray afternoon overlooking the cobblestone streets of the Seaport neighborhood, feeling in my beige turtleneck sweater and jeans about a million miles away from the scene around me — a campy, sunshine-lit shrine to the Emmy-winning show about four older women sharing a home in Miami, which ran from 1985 to 1992, and the shoulder-padded, helmet-haired women who made it a hit.
I was seated just around the corner from one of the highlights of the two-story space, a faithful re-creation of the well-trafficked boudoir of Blanche Devereaux, the show’s resident sex-positive Southern belle. A stream of diners posed on the bed, which was draped in that iconic banana-leaf-printed comforter and set against a background of matching wallpaper. The details were convincing, from the mauve carpet underfoot to the fuchsia evening gown tossed over a rattan screen, giving the impression that the room’s fictional inhabitant had just strolled out to grab a slice of cheesecake from the refrigerator.
As Sister Sledge sang about fam-i-lee, I ordered “The Dorothy,” a cocktail named after the sarcastic, levelheaded Girl of the bunch (I am, I had decided, a Dorothy), and decided to make the best of my singleton status. The $19 blend of Grey Goose, prosecco, Campari and seltzer proved to be a watery but festive drink that arrived garnished with a “Golden Girls Kitchen” cocktail umbrella.
The pop-up restaurant is fresh off a sold-out run in Los Angeles. After a 12-week stint in New York, it will go to Miami, Chicago and San Francisco this spring. Visitors can linger in a replica of the show’s kitchen, with its duck-shaped ceramic cookie jar and red tea kettle. They can pony up to the Rusty Anchor bar, the girls’ favorite hangout, or sit in the fern-ringed lanai. More than a restaurant or mere photo backdrop, the pop-up is an experience meant to transport visitors into the comforting world of the show.
“It’s been emotional for some people,” said Andy Lederman, the founder and CEO of Bucket Listers, the company behind the pop-up. “It’s a way to experience their favorite show so they feel like they’re a part of it.”
Sandwiches must be cut diagonally, and I’m not taking questions
Lederman said it was crucial that they nail the details, down to the tchotchkes lining the kitchen countertops, which were created by set designers. Groups of superfans have come dressed as the cast. They pose making calls on the kitchen’s yellow wall-mounted phone and splay seductively on Blanche’s bed.
Other shows have had similar treatments. “The Friends Experience,” a replica of the apartment and coffee show featured in the long-running sitcom, came to various cities this year, and Hulu in 2015 created a traveling “Seinfeld” apartment pop-up to promote its acquisition of the show’s streaming rights. And “Sex and the City” bus tours still ferry fans around New York for glimpses of the locations where the show’s characters dated and brunched.
But more than any of those, “The Golden Girls,” with its specific aesthetic, a retro blend of feminine and Floridian — all ruffled curtains and rattan armchairs — lends itself to a theme-park-style re-creation. Sarah Royal, who co-hosts the podcast “Enough Wicker,” which is devoted to analyzing the show, says fans are drawn to these spaces not just because they feel so familiar, but because they want to imagine themselves inhabiting them, just like the titular characters.
“The kitchen is this intimate space where the women would come together to talk about everything: love and sex, whether to go on a date, addiction, how to deal with their children,” Royal says. “We all want that bosom buddy. We all want to be able to wander into the kitchen at 2 a.m. and eat a cheesecake and have those conversations.”
Though it ended three decades ago, “Golden Girls” is having a moment in the sun: Thousands of people gathered this year in Chicago for GoldenCon, a convention of panels and trivia games and autograph signings and performances of the show’s iconic theme song. There are podcasts, memes and TikTok remixes. Merch abounds online. You can find tumblers and candles that read “Live like Rose, Dress like Blanche, Think like Dorothy, Speak like Sophia,” throw blankets featuring the faces of the main characters in Warhol-style portraits, an official “Golden Girls Cookbook," and an edition of Trivial Pursuit devoted to the show.
The show’s popularity with younger viewers might have to do with the current surge in ’90s nostalgia, along with the fact that it has aged far better than other relics of its era. It has long been popular with gay viewers who see themselves and their communities in its theme of a chosen family; the pop-up restaurant will begin offering a drag brunch.
Royal, who has tickets for the pop-up in February, says it appeals to a broad swath of viewers because of its universal message: Reinvention is always possible. “The Golden Girls” centered on the second act for its heroines, who were either divorced or widowed, with grown children. “This was the Reagan era, when the greater culture is saying, ‘You are done, there’s nothing left in life for you,’” she said. “But these four women came together and discovered a new side to themselves, both individually and as a unit. You don’t have to be a 60-year-old in Miami to relate to the feeling that there’s nothing left for you or that there’s no access to change.”
As I watched the scene around me at the restaurant, that sentiment felt right. The show’s feel-good vibes were manifest. Clusters of girlfriends sipped “Devereaux’s Delight” cocktails. One wore a sequined top, another a wide-brimmed pink hat and a “Stay Golden” T-shirt. They posed under a neon sign spelling out the title of the show’s theme song, “Thank You for Being a Friend.”
I nibbled on my decadently cheesy and meaty “Sophia’s Lasagna al Forno” (a $40 ticket gets you an entree and a slice of cheesecake), and ignored the under-toasted, over-buttered garlic bread that came with it. The food here isn’t the point — no one goes to a sitcom-themed restaurant for fine dining, though the menu does offer a chance for more “Golden Girls” references, some broad (the “Lanai” Cuban sandwich) and some deep cuts (the side of “Edgar Allan Poe-tato French Fries” was a callback to an episode that found Dorothy visiting a restaurant with a literary theme).
Without a friend to enjoy it with, I wasn’t giving myself over totally to the experience. I was distracted by the branding — a Hallmark Channel logo over a kitschy wall mural of cheesecake — and by the extensive merchandise kiosk, where I briefly considered buying a $40 windshield visor featuring images of the four women behind the wheel. My cheesecake arrived — it was sweet and creamy, but the center was a little cold, which felt like a metaphor for my experience. But then again, maybe I was just being too much of a Dorothy. | 2022-12-16T19:11:21Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Golden Girls Kitchen let me live out my sitcom dreams - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/food/2022/12/16/golden-girls-kitchen-popup-restaurant/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/food/2022/12/16/golden-girls-kitchen-popup-restaurant/ |
The dangers of fentanyl, and what Congress can do
A Volusia Recovery Alliance pamphlet on Sept. 13 in Ormond Beach, Fla., (Thomas Simonetti/Bloomberg News)
The Dec. 13 front-page article “In crisis, Washington faltered” made a crucial point: Political leaders are not doing enough to prevent drug use and, consequently, overdose. There is no silver bullet to solve the opioid epidemic, and this article highlighted many ways in which Washington has failed. But it missed one critical misstep in the response to opioid addiction.
As the Department of Health and Human Services tracks that “more than 9 million Americans ‘misused opioids’ in 2020,” the agency continues to incentivize opioid prescriptions through existing Medicare policy. This puts safe, non-opioid pain management approaches out of reach for patients and providers alike. With 75 percent of overdose deaths involving opioids, this policy is especially alarming.
Congress has an opportunity to undo this failure at this moment. The Non-Opioids Prevent Addiction in the Nation Act would increase access to non-opioid pain management options for the millions of Americans who undergo an outpatient surgical procedure every year. This is in line with the latest Centers for Disease Control and Prevention guidance, stating non-opioids are as effective as opioids for treating acute pain.
About 170 members of Congress agree that Washington should no longer falter in its fight against addiction. However, the support of congressional leadership is urgently needed for the act to make it into an end-of-year legislative package.
There is no single step we can take to solve the opioid addiction crisis, but the act puts the United States on a path to save more lives.
Todd Yost, Washington
The writer is the director of outreach and engagement for the Voices for Non-Opioid Choices.
The Cartel Rx series is an important contribution, recognizing the immensity of the U.S. fentanyl overdose problem and the inadequacy of efforts to turn back the devastating tide over the past two decades; however, three essential realities were overlooked.
First, there are virtually no drug overdose deaths where fentanyl is the only drug present. The “fentanyl” problem is 100 percent a polydrug problem. The United States has a five-decades-long history of demonizing one drug at a time (i.e., heroin, cocaine, methamphetamine, prescription opioids), yet these were, and still are, polydrug problems.
Second, the only way to meaningfully reduce the supply of fentanyl and other nonmedical drugs is to take away the $150 billion spent by Americans who use them. Leave that on the table, and there is no end to the supply by drug-trafficking organizations eager to collect money. There is nothing unique to either Mexico or China regarding fentanyl. It is easily synthesized anywhere in the world.
Third, though each overdose death is a tragedy for the individuals, their families and friends, most who use illicit drugs are well aware of the deadly risk of fentanyl and other drugs. The series noted more than 9 million opioid users in the country and more than 107,000 deaths; that is about 1 in 100 illegal opioid users dying of an overdose each year.
Robert L. DuPont, Chevy Chase
The writer, the first director of the U.S. National Institute on Drug Abuse and the second White House drug czar, is president of the Institute for Behavior and Health. | 2022-12-16T19:12:01Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Opinion | Congress can help prevent fentanyl and other opioid overdoses - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/12/16/congress-can-help-prevent-fentanyl-opioid-overdoses/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/12/16/congress-can-help-prevent-fentanyl-opioid-overdoses/ |
Navy was wrong to fire its football coach
Coach Ken Niumatalolo, who led the Navy program for 15 seasons, at a Sept. 4, 2021, game. (Jonathan Newton/The Washington Post)
Firing the most successful head coach in Navy football history — Ken Niumatalolo — will set back the Navy program for countless years. John Feinstein said it all in his Dec. 12 Sports column, “Can the Mids do better than Niumatalolo? Not a chance.”
Navy management should have made a more thoughtful decision after returning to the academy. This classless and unwarranted firing is an embarrassment.
Jim Bennett, Alexandria
John Feinstein’s Dec. 12 Sports column captured the essence of the football program at the U.S. Naval Academy that Ken Niumatalolo ran for 15 years as head coach. Mr. Feinstein described Mr. Niumatalolo’s character, integrity and sportsmanship, which he instilled in his players. Mr. Niumatalolo wasn’t trying to coach these players to be professional football players; he was coaching and training these young men to become future Navy or Marine Corps officers. Mr. Niumatalolo was offered coaching positions elsewhere for substantially higher salaries; however, he was truly dedicated to training these young men, who soon will be serving our country. He was not in this position for any self-serving purpose.
It was interesting that U.S. Naval Academy Athletic Director Chet Gladchuk said, “I think about our television exposures. I think about our responsibility to the conference, our alumni.” Clearly, this is very different from Mr. Niumatalolo’s goal, which has been to lead, coach and train these players to become military officers.
My heart goes out to Navy football player Anton Hall Jr. I hope he does not assume any blame for the firing of the Navy coach; that’s quite a burden for a young man.
Kathleen McCleery Wagner, Annapolis | 2022-12-16T19:12:07Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Opinion | John Feinstein was right: Navy can't do better than Ken Niumatalolo - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/12/16/john-feinstein-navy-mistake-firing-ken-niumatalolo/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/12/16/john-feinstein-navy-mistake-firing-ken-niumatalolo/ |
It’s not ‘The Twilight Zone,’ we’re just twins
I read with interest the Dec. 12 Metro article “Jury awards twins $1.5 million in suit over cheating claim” because I am an identical twin. I am so identical that Ancestry.com held my DNA submission because my sister’s was already on file. A month ago, the company found a daughter with a 100 percent match. It happened to be my twin’s daughter. That would have made 1983 a busy year, with my giving birth in February and my other “daughter” being born in April.
Growing up, my sister and I were placed at opposite ends of the classroom because we always scored the same on tests. The nuns were trying to figure out how we did it. When I was in the Army in the 1970s, I had her morning sickness and her “false labor.” In the aforementioned 1983, I was stationed in Germany and went into labor. She was in Louisiana, began feeling pains but knew it was too early for her to deliver. Her pains stopped when my daughter was born.
In the early 2000s, my husband and I attended the Louisiana State University Kickoff Classic football game in Atlanta. The following week, my sister, who lives in Belle Rose, La., was approached by a friend who said she saw her in Atlanta but did not see her husband. I’m not too sure if the friend believed the explanation, but tongues were probably wagging that week.
We sent our father the same birthday and Father’s Day cards on two occasions. When we are all together, our kids just start humming the “Twilight Zone” theme.
Kathleen Powers, Springfield | 2022-12-16T19:12:31Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Opinion | It's not the Twilight Zone, we're just twins - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/12/16/twins-sharing-pain-twilight-zone/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/12/16/twins-sharing-pain-twilight-zone/ |
U.S. faith leaders urge lawmakers to pass expanded child tax credit
(Elizabeth Frantz for The Washington Post)
Faith leaders joined members of Congress on Capitol Hill on Thursday to voice support for the expansion of the child tax credit, urging lawmakers to reinstate a broader version of the anti-poverty benefit before the end of the year.
Lawmakers allowed the expanded version of the credit, created as part of the American Rescue Plan, to expire last year, sparking frustration among anti-poverty advocates. Members of Congress are wrangling over competing last-minute proposals put forward by both parties in hopes of passing something as part of an omnibus bill before the end of the year.
Rep. Rosa L. DeLauro (D-Conn.), who has often invoked her Catholic faith while advocating for liberal policies, voiced support for an expanded version during Thursday’s event.
“I’m so proud of being a part of a living Catholic tradition,” DeLauro said, “a tradition that unfailingly promotes the common good, expresses a consistent model framework for life and highlights the need to provide a collective safety net for our community’s most vulnerable — and that includes our children.”
Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio), a Lutheran, tied his support for the credit to Matthew 25, a Bible passage that calls on Christians to care for the sick and feed the hungry. Brown said he was once given a Poverty and Justice Bible and noted how its translation of the passage’s final line — “What you did for those who seem less important, you did for me” — resonated with his faith.
“It’s so clear that that’s our calling,” Brown said.
People impacted by the child tax credit also addressed the gathering, explaining how the credit benefited their families. Rabbi Jonah Pesner offered a prayer, asking God to forgive the United States for a “year of suffering of our children” because of the expired credit.
The expanded version of the credit allowed families to receive as much as $3,600 per child in 2021, a marked increase over the previous $2,000-per-child payments. Advocates argue that the increase made a significant difference to struggling families and that its disappearance resulted in dire consequences. Researchers at Columbia University found that child poverty increased by 41 percent a month after the credit expired.
Post-Roe, some in GOP wage uphill battle to offer families more support
Galen Carey, vice president of government relations for the National Association of Evangelicals, also addressed the gathering. He argued that the credit resonates with his group’s religious commitments, such as “safeguarding the sanctity of human life.”
In addition to the Network Lobby for Catholic Social Justice — whose executive director, Mary Novak, offered the closing prayer — other groups that sponsored the event included the National Council of Jewish Women, the Presbyterian Church, the United Church of Christ, the Episcopal Church, the Jewish Federations of North America, the National Council of Churches, the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America and the Samuel DeWitt Proctor Conference. | 2022-12-16T19:13:08Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Faith leaders, Sen. Sherrod Brown press for expanded child tax credit - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/religion/2022/12/16/child-tax-credit-evangelicals-faith/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/religion/2022/12/16/child-tax-credit-evangelicals-faith/ |
‘Among Us’ could have been too scary in virtual reality, developers say
(Innersloth/The Washington Post illustration; Innersloth)
“Among Us” was one of the video games that exploded in popularity over the pandemic. The 2018 murder mystery and social deduction game set in space has transcended gaming, reaching cakes, toy stores and more.
The developers at Innersloth were a three person team back in 2018, working on the party game where a group of innocents perform mundane tasks, while killers — called “impostors” — run free at night. The player group can vote off who they believe is guilty of murder, so that the imposters are removed from the group before the innocents lose their majority.
In recent years, “Among Us” has expanded into multiple collaborations with other games, into virtual reality, merchandise and fan art. This has all been the product of hard work, said Forest Willard, the Innersloth programmer who also manages the company’s business, sitting down with The Washington Post in Los Angeles during The Game Awards, the industry’s annual Oscars-like awards event.
“We definitely didn’t intend for ["Among Us”] to be a super widespread cultural phenomenon,” Willard said. “But at the same time, we did design the game specifically to be approachable by ‘non-gamers.’ Given the virality and the approachability, it makes sense.”
“Just looking around at the game industry, we’re probably one of the better branded ones in terms of merch. Most games don’t bother with it. It is a lot of work.”
Victoria Tran, who handles Innersloth’s social media presence, said that “Among Us’s” biggest social media platform is TikTok, where the game has over three million followers. She spoke about how she’s worked on diversifying Innersloth’s social media presence, and how the company would not be influenced by Twitter’s acquisition by Elon Musk.
“Growing up with social media, I don’t trust any platform to sustain itself, honestly,” Tran said. “I saw MySpace go down, I saw Vine go down. I don’t know what’s happening with Facebook. BeReal was the hot thing and now no one’s talking about it.”
Even if Twitter went down, Tran said, the “Among Us” developers also post news inside the game itself, so they have a direct line to players.
“Among Us VR” was up for best virtual or augmented reality game at Dec. 8′s The Game Awards, where it lost to adventure puzzle game “Moss: Book II.” A team of over 15 developers at Schell Games were tasked with bringing “Among Us” to VR, launching the game one month ago.
One of the first things the team noticed during development was that “Among Us VR” would make too good of a horror game.
“It quickly became clear how scary that game can be in VR, especially when you’re now in an environment that could be creepy, surrounded by people who want to mess with you and kill you,” said Michal Ksiazkiewicz, senior game designer from Schell Games.
Ksiazkiewicz said that when adapting “Among Us” into virtual reality, they had to think carefully about how to adapt kill actions, so that they weren’t too spooky and horror-like for players. The developers also added colors and little jokes to lighten up the overall tone of the game.
Schell also streamlined the game, abstracting actions like stabbing other players with a knife into the press of a button, so that gamers don’t have to aim within virtual reality, which Ksiazkiewicz said could be nauseating.
“This is all about the aspect of lying to your friends, and everything else should be in service of that,” said Ksiazkiewicz. “Our goal in VR was to make it as low a barrier of entry for a player as possible.”
Adapting in-game purchases to VR has also proven to be a work in progress. While “Among Us” on console, PC and mobile has rolled out collaborations with “League of Legends” and “Fortnite,” Ksiazkiewicz said that they are currently unsure of whether they can sell more than virtual hats in VR. Costumes and pets, which are available on the original game, haven’t made it into VR yet.
At the Game Awards, “Among Us” announced its biggest update this year, adding a hide-and-seek mode. In keeping up with the tremendous amount of fan interest in “Among Us,” Willard talked about balancing adding in-game content with employee exhaustion. He said that since “Among Us” took off, he’s had the constant feeling of playing catch up on business and technical issues.
“It still feels like we’re playing catch up because people’s demands can come much faster than any update,” Tran said. “It’s been exciting and stressful.”
Willard said that for the most part they try to eliminate crunch, or the practice of working long evenings or weekends in the gaming industry.
“You tell your leads, ‘No, don’t crunch,' and your leads tell their direct [reports], ‘No, don’t crunch.’ Then everybody has at least that mental image of ‘I don’t want to crunch, crunching is bad,’” Willard said. “We have crunched, it’s not perfect, it is always a work in progress. But we’re trying to minimize it as much as we absolutely can.”
For the sake of avoiding overwork, sometimes players’ demands can’t all be satisfied, especially when prioritized against other upcoming content and features, Willard said.
“That’s the part where you do start to ignore the players, like ‘Sorry, it’s just not high enough priority,’ and you just pace yourself.” | 2022-12-16T19:13:46Z | www.washingtonpost.com | "Among Us" could have been too scary in VR, developers say - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/video-games/2022/12/16/among-us-vr-game-awards/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/video-games/2022/12/16/among-us-vr-game-awards/ |
Laws against assisted suicide are meant to protect the vulnerable
The Dec. 14 Washington Post Magazine article about one man’s suicide by refusing to eat and drink, “Exercising the right to die by refusing medical treatment,” was supposed to exemplify due process from the Cruzan v. Director, Missouri Department of Health case, giving “competent” patients a “right to refuse lifesaving hydration and nutrition.” Underlying is that the Washington v. Glucksberg case, which denied a “right” to assisted suicide, forced this man to starve when he might have otherwise died by assisted suicide.
The patient in Cruzan was in a vegetative state, and the hydration and nutrition in question were artificial, i.e., medical intervention, which every competent patient has the right to refuse. There are, however, state interests expressed in Cruzan to protect vulnerable people, which would include people with dementia, such as the person in the article.
There is a chasm between killing and letting die. Suicide is not criminal in this country, but helping someone die by suicide is — both for good reason. In Glucksberg, the justices unanimously and rightly ruled that assisted suicide laws pose a “risk of harm [that] is greatest for the many individuals in our society whose autonomy and well-being are already compromised by poverty, lack of access to good medical care, advanced age, or membership in a stigmatized social group.”
Matt Vallière, New York
The writer is an emergency medical worker and the executive director of the Patients Rights Action Fund. | 2022-12-16T19:46:04Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Opinion | Assisted suicide laws protect the vulnerable - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/12/16/assisted-suicide-laws-protect-vulnerable/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/12/16/assisted-suicide-laws-protect-vulnerable/ |
Joseph’s House does amazing work, thanks to an amazing founder
Byron Parker clears the table after having a meal during his Nov. 18 visit to Joseph's House in D.C. (Astrid Riecken for The Washington Post)
I was pleased to see the Dec. 5 Metro article “Getting by at Joseph’s House.” The needs of people unhoused and chronically ill in D.C. do not get enough coverage. At Joseph’s House, a nonprofit organization, dedicated staff and volunteers provide assisted living care and a supportive environment. Despite its limited occupancy, the facility can offer links to other programs and transitional assistance.
Especially during this season of giving, Post readers need to learn about organizations addressing the city’s critical societal needs. Ultimately, individuals must come forward to support problem-solving organizations, such as Joseph’s House.
However, I was puzzled by the statement, “Joseph’s House was founded during D.C.’s AIDS crisis in the 1990s.” Well, who founded it? David Hilfiker should have been highlighted — or, at least, mentioned. Hilfiker, a doctor, established this residence with its vital mission. He, his wife and their young children moved into Joseph’s House — with three patients — and lived there for three years.
Let’s celebrate visionary people who see needs, create solutions and commit their lives to developing effective programs.
Lois F. Morris, Silver Spring | 2022-12-16T19:46:10Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Opinion | D.C.'s Joseph’s House's amazing work, thanks to David Hilfiker - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/12/16/dc-josephs-house-amazing-work-david-hilfiker/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/12/16/dc-josephs-house-amazing-work-david-hilfiker/ |
In defense of Qatar’s World Cup
French forward Antoine Griezmann works the ball against Moroccan defender Yahia Attiyat Allah (25) in the Dec. 14 semifinal World Cup match in Qatar. (Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post)
Eugene Robinson made a number a valid points in his Dec. 13 op-ed, “This World Cup is thrilling. And problematic.” However, as fresh back from Doha, Qatar, myself (and my seventh World Cup since 1990, going there simply as a keen soccer fan), I have a different take.
First, the matches and crowd management were impeccably organized; spectators were treated with exemplary courtesy as we stood in line to get in. Second, the decision to ban alcohol during the matches was a prudent one, unpopular only with the beer producers themselves. Third, holding the World Cup in “late fall” was not a mistake but a wise decision, in terms of moderate temperatures and providing a midseason break for most players. Finally, on human rights, particularly the treatment of migrant workers, Mr. Robinson raised legitimate concerns. However, in a country where 90 percent of the population is voluntary migrants, mostly from the Indian subcontinent, and where they earn three to four times what they would earn at home, there is a better prospect of improving work conditions when the country is exposed to the scrutiny of an event such as the World Cup than when it remains simply a distant, nouveau riche Gulf state.
Much remains to be done, but holding this World Cup in Qatar was a good decision and proved to be a great success.
Eugene McCarthy, Fairfax | 2022-12-16T19:46:16Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Opinion | In defense of Qatar’s World Cup - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/12/16/defending-qatar-world-cup-human-rights/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/12/16/defending-qatar-world-cup-human-rights/ |
Japan is building up its military. Good.
Soldiers from the Japan Ground Self-Defense Force take part in a military review at the Ground Self-Defense Force's training ground in Asaka, Saitama, on Oct. 14, 2018. (Kazuhiro Nogi, AFP/Getty Images)
Japan announced on Friday that it plans to double its defense spending by 2027. That’s good. We will need it if the United States and its democratic allies are to contain China’s aggression.
Japan has long punched below its weight in global affairs. Despite its massive economy, still the world’s third largest, its tiny military has hobbled its ability to project power.
This was by design. Due to Japan’s humiliating defeat in World War II, combined with its neighbors’ resentment stemming from its aggressive war of conquest, the island nation adopted a pacifist sentiment that persists to this day. Even during the Cold War, Japan spent only about 1 percent of its gross domestic product on self-defense forces.
That’s now going to change. Prime Minister Fumio Kishida says Japan will raise that to 2 percent of GDP in five years. This will fund items such as increased cyberdefense capabilities and the conversion of two ships into small aircraft carriers, Japan’s first since World War II. It will also include the purchase of U.S. Tomahawk missiles and the upgrading of Japanese-produced missiles so they can strike targets as far away as China. Together, these weapons will give Japan its first truly offensive military capability in nearly 80 years.
It’s clear why Japan is making such a radical shift: the de facto alliance among Russia, China and North Korea. Each nation has either invaded a peaceful neighbor or engaged in military buildups and saber-rattling in recent years. China has often implicitly threatened Japan should it move to defend Taiwan, including airing a video on the Chinese platform Xigua that threatened to launch a nuclear war. The since-deleted video was clearly intended to frighten Japan, which remains the only nation to have suffered a nuclear attack. Instead, the bullying caused the opposite reaction.
Americans should applaud Japan’s courage. While the United States remains the backbone of any effective pan-Asian defense scheme, it cannot shoulder the burden alone. The United States has global commitments — and cannot abandon them to put all of its might in the Pacific.
The sheer size of the potential theater of operations also works against a purely U.S. defense shield. China will possess the strategic initiative if it attacks, and it could move against U.S. allies in any direction in the Western Pacific. Nearly 3,400 miles separate Japan, our northernmost ally, from Australia in the south. That means the United States must rely on those nations’ defenses if a containment strategy has any hope of working.
Some have long feared that a revitalized Japanese military would empower a return to aggressive behavior. That’s not likely, and the small risk that might arise in the long run pales in comparison to the risk of ignoring China’s current militant behavior. Plus, Japan relies on the United States for most of its most sophisticated weapons, as the purchase of Tomahawks shows. It will also purchase U.S.-made F-35 aircraft to supply its air force rather than produce its own. No nation so dependent on another would dare act against its ally’s interests.
Japan is also working with its allies to develop trust and fighting capacity. Its navy engaged in drills this year with ships from the United States and Britain. It also signed a military cooperation agreement with Australia this October, the first such treaty it has ever entered aside from the mutual defense pact it has with the United States. Japan and Australia will now hold joint military drills, allowing them to learn how to fight alongside one another in any future conflict with China. This also enhances U.S. security, as Japanese-Australian joint capability could help counter any Chinese assault if the United States is distracted elsewhere.
China will be upset about Japan’s announcement, but it has no one to blame but itself. Fifteen years ago, the world watched China’s rapid economic development believing that a richer China meant a richer world. Most in the West hoped that China would join the democratic world as it progressed. Instead, China chose to reassert its traditional claim of hegemony as the world’s “Middle Kingdom” — the center of civilization to which all other nations must bow. That claim is in direct conflict with the rules-based global order the United States and its democratic allies desire. Japan’s move is simply another indication that members of that order are willing to fight to preserve it.
Chinese aggression has forced the world into interesting times. That’s unfortunate, but better to recognize that reality and prepare to fight than blind oneself to the threat and surrender. We should welcome Japan’s commitment with open arms. | 2022-12-16T19:46:22Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Opinion | Japan is building up its military. Good. - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/12/16/japan-military-build-up-china/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/12/16/japan-military-build-up-china/ |
Nuclear fusion is a breakthrough for weapons effects testing — not clean energy
The U.S. Department of Energy’s Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in Livermore, Calif., on Dec. 12. (David Paul Morris/Bloomberg News)
Regarding the Dec. 14 front-page article “U.S. hits key milestone in race to fusion energy”:
The experiments documented at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in Livermore, Calif., in nuclear fusion are a breakthrough for weapons effects testing. They are not a breakthrough for the generation of clean electrical power. Any fusion reaction in which a significant fraction of the power comes out in high-energy neutrons is neither clean nor useful for the generation of electricity. Aneutronic (no neutrons) fusion is required (from a system standpoint) for practical clean electrical power generation.
Alan Bromborsky, Silver Spring
Ronald Reagan delighted his anti-government supporters when he quipped, “The nine most terrifying words in the English language are, ‘I’m from the government and I’m here to help.’” Well, Mr. Reagan, by achieving fusion ignition, the government just delivered the kind of help that’s likely to eventually provide nearly limitless clean energy to all Americans.
Seventy years of taxpayer-funded research, decried as socialistic, big-government waste, has produced a breakthrough that could save the planet and improve people’s lives forever, while setting the table for our robust private sector to generate millions of rewarding careers — and untold wealth — for entrepreneurs and shareholders.
Jay Lynch, Pittsburgh
The exciting news from the National Ignition Facility in California gives us a glimpse of the incredible impact a working fusion reactor could offer to the world: clean, limitless energy without greenhouse gas emission and virtually no toxic residues. And no one country or company could monopolize this energy resource because the oceans literally contain millions or even billions of years’ worth of heavy water, fusion’s fuel.
Though the engineering challenges are enormous, they are not insurmountable. Sort of akin to where we were in 1962, when President John F. Kennedy promised to put a man on the moon by the end of the decade. Those who knew anything about rocketry said it was impossible. We had only just put men into orbit around the Earth, and landing on the moon was probably decades away. Most experts think we will need another 30 years to get fusion power plants (a standing joke among scientists since the 1950s), but Kennedy’s speech at Rice University showed that where there is a will, there is a way.
President Biden should promise that the United States will have a working fusion power plant by 2035. The costs will be enormous, but the benefits from a working fusion energy resource far outweigh the benefits from landing on the moon — and it might help to save the planet from a climate disaster if we can get it in the relatively near future. Cheap fusion energy would be the ultimate energy security and economic engine for a prosperous future.
Gary Krellenstein, New York
The writer is a nuclear engineer. | 2022-12-16T19:46:23Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Opinion | Nuclear fusion breakthrough's applications are enormous - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/12/16/nuclear-fusion-breakthrough-applications-enormous/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/12/16/nuclear-fusion-breakthrough-applications-enormous/ |
Angelina Jolie parts with U.N. refugee agency, over desire to ‘work differently’
Angelina Jolie visits Goudebou, a refugee camp in northern Burkina Faso, on June 20, International Refugee Day, 2021. (Olympia De Maismont/AFP/Getty Images)
Angelina Jolie, perhaps the world’s most high-profile advocate for refugees, is stepping away from her role as a special envoy to the United Nations refugee agency, citing a desire to “work differently” — outside the U.N.
“After 20 years working within the UN system I feel it is time for me to work differently, engaging directly with refugees and local organisations, and supporting their advocacy for solutions,” she said in a joint statement with the agency, published Friday.
The Academy Award-winning megastar has worked with UNCHR for more than 20 years, serving as special envoy since 2012. That position took her to Lebanon, Yemen and Burkina Faso, among other countries, to meet displaced people and draw attention to some of the world’s worst humanitarian crises. On her Instagram account — which has more than 14 million followers — she posts about Syrian refugees and people displaced by the war in Ukraine, garnering hundreds of thousands of likes.
U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees Filippo Grandi praised Jolie as an “important humanitarian partner” for the agency.
“We are grateful for her decades of service, her commitment, and the difference she has made for refugees and people forced to flee,” he said in the statement Friday. “After a long and successful time with UNHCR, I appreciate her desire to shift her engagement and support her decision.”
Jolie, according to the announcement, intends to focus on a wider range of humanitarian issues moving forward, though she added, “I will continue to do everything in my power in the years to come to support refugees and other displaced people.”
During a visit last year to the Goudoubo refugee camp in Burkina Faso, which hosts refugees from the armed conflict in the north of Mali, Jolie blasted the failure of global leaders to adequately help the more than 82 million forcibly displaced people in the world at that time.
She has also appeared to grow increasingly disillusioned with the United Nations, where permanent members of the powerful Security Council — the United States, United Kingdom, Russia, China and France — exert tremendous sway and have the power to block action on human rights abuses.
“Because of the way the U.N. was set up, it is tipped towards the interests and voice of powerful nations at the expense of those people suffering the most from conflict and persecution whose rights and lives are not treated equally,” Jolie wrote in an opinion piece for TIME in June. “For decades, the main focus has been the work of international organizations. There’s been not enough attention on listening to local groups and volunteers, and strengthening their efforts.”
In a sign that Jolie was moving away from her work with the United Nations, the actress made a surprise trip to Ukraine in April to meet with displaced people and volunteers helping them — but in her personal capacity, not through UNHCR.
Angelina Jolie popped into Lviv today and spent some time at the railway station meeting displaced people. pic.twitter.com/734EKQrijG
— Raf Sanchez (@rafsanchez) April 30, 2022
Jolie had contemplated parting ways with UNHCR for “a while” before Friday’s announcement, according to a person close to the actress, who answered questions on the condition of anonymity to speak freely about the situation.
Jolie has not shared any details yet about the causes and organizations to which she intends to shift her focus. | 2022-12-16T19:54:48Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Angelina Jolie parts ways with UNHCR, citing desire to 'work differently' - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/12/16/angelina-jolie-unhcr-exit-refugees/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/12/16/angelina-jolie-unhcr-exit-refugees/ |
Kyle Kuzma has taken on a starring role in his second season in Washington. (John McDonnell/The Washington Post)
LOS ANGELES — Back at the start of the season, Washington Wizards General Manager Tommy Sheppard likened his roster to disparate ingredients of a meal still in its planning stages. He had his protein — Bradley Beal — but starch, vegetables, fat, and how they would all meld to make a finished entree was yet undecided. One of the reasons for the unsettled nature of the group was that the Wizards had a few key players with impending, significant contract decisions.
Abandoning the kitchen, Sheppard spoke plainly in an interview Oct. 14, the day of Washington’s final preseason game: “I expect the final lineup to change quite a bit.”
Recently, Kyle Kuzma has joined Sheppard in saying the quiet part out loud. In an interview this week, following statements he made in The Athletic, Kuzma said he does not expect to sign an extension with the Wizards and plans to decline his player option for the 2023-24 season to become an unrestricted free agent this summer.
Kuzma’s intentions are no surprise to the Wizards, for whom the 27-year-old has become a core player. Kuzma’s earning potential soars if he enters the free agent market, and Washington, with $208 million tied to Beal over the next four seasons and with Kristaps Porzingis also holding a player option for next season, could trade Kuzma at the Feb. 9 trade deadline for valuable assets rather than letting him walk in free agency for nothing in return.
Kuzma has made himself an attractive option for free agent suitors or trade partners across the league by taking another step forward this season in his development.
He has never shied away from the fact that, in the wake of a painful trade from the Los Angeles Lakers in July 2021, he viewed joining the Wizards as an opportunity to expand his game. Washington had ample space for a player to step up alongside Beal, and Kuzma appreciated its quieter market that allowed him to focus in and go to work.
The forward is averaging career-highs in minutes (35), points per game (21.4) and field goal shooting percentage (46.2) and is an integral facilitator on offense, especially as Beal’s been out with a hamstring strain. Kuzma has homed in on his routine before and after games.
Kuzma’s outlook on his career was formed in Los Angeles, where the Wizards (11-18) will try to halt their eight-game losing streak this weekend against the Clippers on Saturday or Lakers on Sunday.
The trade to Washington was a moment of forced growth. Kuzma knew the NBA was a business; but knowing and feeling the harsh realities of an unexpected, life-uprooting trade are two different things. Kuzma left some of his guilelessness in Los Angeles.
But most formative for the forward was the Lakers’ championship season in 2019-20. Kuzma was a role player valued for spot-up shooting and saw what it takes for an NBA club to come together and work in harmony.
It’s often evident how much that season imprinted on Kuzma. He invoked his former team at the start of the season when asked on media day about his favorite part of the Wizards’ players-only minicamp over the summer.
His answer wasn’t about basketball, but the fact that his teammates came together after each day’s work and hung out, got to know each other in relaxed situations and built chemistry naturally — just like, he said, how the locker room was with the Lakers.
Asked how his Lakers’ experience shaped his perspective on his career, Kuzma gave a pat NBA-player answer: he just wants to win. But unlike many players, Kuzma knows what that looks like practically.
“I got a taste of winning at a young age, and people, they don’t really always have an opportunity to win and be on teams that win in this league. It’s really far rarer than people think,” Kuzma said. “You should not take wining for granted, and that’s one thing that I’ve realized in my career — don’t take winning situations for granted. I’m not saying it’s always a happy workplace, because L.A. was a s---show. But everyone was on the same page, everyone knew what they had to do and tried to do it. That’s rare in this league.” | 2022-12-16T20:38:23Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Kyle Kuzma is unlikely to sign an extension with the Wizards - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/12/16/kyle-kuzma-free-agency-extension/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/12/16/kyle-kuzma-free-agency-extension/ |
Millions in political contributions are under scrutiny following the FTX founder’s arrest this week
Sam Bankman-Fried, who founded and led crypto exchange FTX until it declared bankruptcy this fall, is escorted out of the Magistrate Court building after his arrest in Nassau, Bahamas, on Monday. (Dante Carrer/Reuters)
The three major Democratic campaign groups said Friday they would set aside more than $1 million they received from Sam Bankman-Fried, the disgraced founder of the cryptocurrency exchange FTX, and eventually seek to return the money to the exchange’s customers.
The announcements — from the Democratic National Committee and two groups that help elect House and Senate Democrats — came days after Bankman-Fried was arrested in the Bahamas and charged with violating securities and campaign finance laws. A federal prosecutor described the matter as “one of the biggest financial frauds in American history.”
“Given the allegations around potential campaign finance violations by Bankman-Fried, we are setting aside funds in order to return the $815,000 in contributions since 2020,” said Daniel Wessel, a DNC spokesman. “We will return as soon as we receive proper direction in the legal proceedings.”
An aide for the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, meanwhile, said in a statement the group similarly would set aside the $103,000 it received “in contributions associated with Bankman-Fried. We will return it as soon as we receive proper direction in the legal proceedings.”
And Chris Taylor, a spokesman for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, said the organization would do the same with the $250,000 it received from Bankman-Fried. “We are waiting for further guidance from the government on what to do with the money based on their legal proceedings,” he said.
The Democrats’ decision adds to the pressure on a wide variety of other political organizations, many of which have not yet said how they will proceed after accepting the FTX founder’s generous contributions during the 2022 election cycle.
Over that two-year period, Bankman-Fried personally gave about $40 million to political candidates and party groups, federal records show. He focused most of his donations on Democrats but often backed lawmakers from both parties seen as friendly to the crypto industry — including those actively working on regulation that might have affected his since-collapsed company. Other FTX executives, meanwhile, gave millions to Republican candidates and causes.
After Bankman-Fried’s arrest, Washington seeks answers — and distance
Bankman-Fried’s political largesse ultimately drew the scrutiny of federal prosecutors as they investigated him. In bringing a wide array of fraud charges this week, prosecutors alleged that the crypto mogul violated federal campaign finance laws by illegally sourcing some of his political donations from a crypto-related hedge fund, Alameda Research, and then reporting the contributions in others’ names.
“All of this dirty money was used in service of Bankman-Fried’s desire to buy bipartisan influence and impact the direction of public policy in Washington,” said Damian Williams, the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, earlier this week.
Williams, addressing the beneficiaries of Bankman-Fried’s giving, said: “To any person, entity, or political campaign that has received stolen customer money, we ask that you work with us to return that money to the innocent victims.”
FTX’s Bankman-Fried donated about $40M this political cycle. Here’s who benefited.
Two of Bankman-Fried’s biggest beneficiaries — the House Majority PAC and the Senate Majority PAC — received about $7 million from him in the recently concluded election cycle. The groups, which help elect Democrats to their respective chambers, so far have declined to commit to returning the money to FTX customers or donating it to charity.
“House Majority PAC is watching and waiting for guidance from the government in the ongoing legal proceedings, and maintains our fullest commitment to complying with the law,” a spokesman said in a statement Friday. A spokeswoman for the Senate Majority PAC did not immediately comment.
Before his arrest, Bankman-Fried also said he had donated a significant sum to so-called “dark money” groups that do not have to disclose their donors. He said he had done so in an attempt to aid Republicans, but he didn’t provide evidence of the donations. One of his fellow executives, Ryan Salame, also shelled out more than $20 million, largely to GOP candidates and organizations during the 2022 cycle, records show. | 2022-12-16T20:42:45Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Democrats will seek to return more than $1 million from Bankman-Fried - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2022/12/16/democrats-will-seek-return-more-than-1-million-bankman-fried/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2022/12/16/democrats-will-seek-return-more-than-1-million-bankman-fried/ |
Three convicted in connection with violent turf war in D.C.
The three were convicted of a range of crimes, including murder, assault and obstruction of justice
A view of the D.C. Superior Court building in downtown Washington. (Keith L. Alexander/Keith L. Alexander/The Washington Post)
Three D.C. residents — including a civilian employee of a neighborhood police precinct — were found guilty this week of orchestrating violent crimes, including murder, assault and obstruction of justice, as part of a feud between two gangs in Southeast Washington.
After a six-week trial in D.C. Superior Court, a jury found Derek B. Turner, 31, Ronnika M. Jennings, 44, and Duan M. Hill, 33, guilty of multiple violent offenses fueled by the gang rivalry.
Turner was convicted of two counts of premeditated murder for the Jan. 7, 2017, killing of Devin Hall, 23, and the March 1, 2017, killing of Andrew McPhatter, 27. The convictions carry a mandatory minimum sentence of 60 years. Prosecutors argued Turner was a member of the Wallace Street crew at the time of the shootings and was targeting members of the rival Trenton Park crew. The jury also found Turner guilty of three attempted murders.
Jennings, who worked as a clerk in the D.C. police’s 7th District headquarters, was convicted of accessory after the fact in the murder of McPhatter, as well as of other accessory and obstruction charges. Prosecutors say she gave Turner confidential information about his targets to which she had access because of her job with the police.
Hill, the third co-defendant, was convicted of multiple counts of obstruction, including recruiting a friend to take responsibility for the firearm that Turner used to commit the two murders and the three attempted murders.
The three are to be sentenced on March 10 by Judge Marisa Demeo. | 2022-12-16T20:42:49Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Three convicted in connection with violent turf war in Southeast D.C. - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/12/16/guilty-jennings-turner-conspiracy-murder/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/12/16/guilty-jennings-turner-conspiracy-murder/ |
With Tory Lanez on trial, where’s #BelieveBlackWomen now?
Megan Thee Stallion during the Billboard Music Awards on May 15 at the MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas. (Jordan Strauss/Invision/AP)
The plight of superstar rapper Megan Thee Stallion is sadly the epitome of so much of what is wrong with America when it comes to prominent Black women.
Two years ago, Megan was having a banner year. She was winning awards, pumping out hit singles, inspiring TikTok dances — and her sex appeal was, to quote her lyrics to “Body,” “getting [us] through the quarantine.”
And then, she says, she got shot. Megan alleges that during an altercation with the mediocre rapper Tory Lanez in July 2020, Lanez shot her in the foot, leaving her limping and bleeding. At the time, there was little outrage or sympathy for Megan, which I noted in a column that year. And the episode went largely ignored in the mainstream media. I mean, imagine if someone like Taylor Swift or Adele said she’d been assaulted or shot? Major headlines for weeks.
Men in the hip-hop community also attacked her, claiming she’d lied. Recently, Drake even released a song in which he raps about a “stallion” lying about getting shot — and drew a bit of backlash for it.
Fast-forward to today, and Lanez is finally on trial for felony assault and other charges. (He has pleaded not guilty.) And yet again, there has been very little mainstream coverage of the case.
Megan took the stand on Tuesday and talked about how the violence and the past two years have affected her life. “I can’t hold conversations with people for a long time,” she said. “I don’t feel like I want to be on this Earth. I wish he would have just shot and killed me, if I knew I would have to go through this torture.”
I’ll have a lot more to say next week as the trial unfolds. But already the coverage (or lack thereof) has revealed so much. There are excellent reporters on this story. But where are the serious think pieces about violence against women that we saw, say, in the Amber Heard trial? Where are the pieces connecting Megan’s story to the conversation about gun violence in America? Where are all the White folks, Black men and others who love to say #BelieveBlackWomen every time we help liberals win elections — but apparently not when our lives are literally in danger?
*Crickets.*
I’ve been thinking of another Meg — last name Markle — now that the Netflix documentary “Harry & Meghan” is out. The revelations about Meghan Markle’s experiences of abuse and racism after her marriage into the British royal family have me grappling with the realities of being a Black woman who dares to speak up about her mistreatment. Stay tuned for more on all this in my next column.
Global Radar: Africa is still in the World Cup, idc idc
Normally, during World Cup time, I’m a pretty prolific writer/tweeter/trash-talker when it comes to the games. I’ve been quieter this year, especially after my fatherland’s team, the Black Stars of Ghana, were eliminated by Uruguay. It was a hard loss to stomach. In 2010, Uruguay eliminated Ghana after a controversial handball by Uruguay blocked what would have been a winning goal for the West African team, and would have made Ghana the first sub-Saharan African team to advance to the semifinals.
This is what I love about the games. We put so much geopolitical weight on the performance of these teams. Which is why it’s always interesting to me when Black people and Africans decide whom to support after sub-Saharan African teams get knocked out. When Morocco advanced to the quarterfinals and then the semifinals, becoming the first African team to do so, it ignited discourse about Morocco’s place in the Arab world and how it’s possible to be both Arab and African at the same time.
Morocco lost to France — so now, with France in the finals, the spotlight turns to the fact that many of the team’s members are from the African continent. The last time I (and Trevor Noah) pointed this out, we were met with angry responses from French fans, who accused us of denying the players’ Frenchness. Le eye roll. We all know France wouldn’t be the country, or the World Cup team, it is today without Africa.
I know a lot of Africans will root for France to support the African players. As for me, I’m still waiting for the day an actual African team plays in the finals — and wins.
Home Front: Goodbye, Grant Wahl
For the past decade, when I thought of soccer and journalism, one name came to mind: Grant Wahl.
I followed his soccer reporting every time the games came around. He was well known for putting a young LeBron James on the map, with his Sports Illustrated story “The Chosen One,” in 2002. In recent years, Wahl became known for taking a stand against injustice and demanding change in the sports world. He tried to run for FIFA president in 2011 against the then-entrenched FIFA strongman Sepp Blatter. In 2020, he was fired from Sports Illustrated, a place he worked for 24 years, after criticizing the magazine for trying to push through permanent pay cuts. And while in Qatar for the World Cup, he went viral for wearing a rainbow T-shirt to protest homophobia in the country.
Wahl died last Friday in Qatar, a shock to the sports and journalism worlds. His wife said the cause was an aortic aneurysm. He was only 49.
I didn’t know Wahl well, but we exchanged a few messages over social media. We would share each other’s stories. After the brutal murder of my colleague Jamal Khashoggi, he reached out. According to everyone I know who knew him, he was quick to offer help, encouragement and praise to aspiring journalists.
His last message to me was: “Karen! Your story yesterday was amazing. YOU are amazing. And I will follow you to the ends. Vamos amiga!”
We lost a real one. I didn’t think the end would come so soon. Thank you, Grant, for everything. Vaya con dios, amigo.
Do you have questions, comments, tips, recipes, poems, praise or critiques for me? Submit them here. I do read every submission and might include yours in a future version of the newsletter. | 2022-12-16T20:44:00Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Opinion | With Tory Lanez on trial, where’s #BelieveBlackWomen now? - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/12/16/tory-lanez-trial-megan-thee-stallion/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/12/16/tory-lanez-trial-megan-thee-stallion/ |
Transcript: “The Eternal Daughter” A Conversation with Actor Tilda Swinton
MS. HORNADAY: Good afternoon, and welcome to Washington Post Live. I’m Ann Hornaday, chief film critic here at The Post, and I am truly delighted to be in conversation today with one of the most highly acclaimed actors in Hollywood and, yea, verily, the world, Tilda Swinton. Hi, Tilda.
MS. SWINTON: Hello. Very nice to see you.
MS. HORNADAY: It’s great to see you. Thank you for joining us, and where are you joining us from today? I think you’re far-flung as usual.
MS. SWINTON: I’m actually in Denmark. Very rarely am I here, but I’m here preparing a project very happily in the snow, away from other things. So, yes, I managed to--managed to find this very valuable time to talk to you.
MS. HORNADAY: Oh, and we’re so very grateful, and we do have so much to talk about. But I can’t wait to dive into “The Eternal Daughter,” so delicious. It’s so great to see so much of you in this--as the intro said, this fascinating dual role.
This is a movie that purposely leaves itself open to myriad interpretations. It's already sparking lots of conversations, but I wanted to start, what does it mean to you? What do you think this movie is about?
MS. SWINTON: Well, in the first instance, I have to declare at the border that it means a lot to me, this movie. It's a film that Joanna Hogg and I have, in many ways, been working towards for 50 years. Joanna is, if not my oldest friend, my most longstanding friend. I've known her since I was 10 and she was 11. And, in many ways, I think we have to face up to the fact that we've been talking about our mothers and our relationships with our mothers and the mysteries of our mothers ever since we met, and this film is a very personal film for both of us. So it's very precious.
What it means to me and what I think it addresses is something about spirit and this eternal question of where do we begin and our mother ends, I mean, and where do we--where do we end and our child begins? I think it’s really a question we all ask ourselves all the time at every age but particularly when we have elderly mothers, in particular. I think it could--can also be meaningful for people with elderly fathers, but there’s something about giving your mother up that this film addresses that I don’t think it’s comfortable for us to look at very often. So it’s a great honor to look at it with Joanna here.
MS. HORNADAY: Oh, you’re so right, and what makes it sort of--it’s such a--it’s a recursive piece because it refers back, of course, to the two Souvenir films that Joanna did that were really breakouts. I mean, I’d been following her career for a long time and had been a huge fan. So those lucky, you know, few of us who knew of her already, we’re so happy to see her finally reach a wider audience, but of course, those were films that were semi-autobiographical, you know, with the character Julie Hart played by your daughter, Honor Swinton Byrne. So there’s this wonderful not just doubling but tripling and quadrupling quality to this project.
MS. SWINTON: Well, for those who don’t know, aren’t both lucky and clever enough to know Joanna’s work, Ann, as you are, her work is always fairly closely autobiographical. Her first film, unrelated, which I personally believe is a kind of masterpiece, particularly coming as a first feature, sort of set the tone for a kind of self-revelation and a sort of atmosphere of revery that she’s followed through all her films. And the Souvenir films were very clearly about a period in her life that I remember very well. I was sort of around at the time when she had this particular relationship and was becoming a filmmaker, and when she first asked me to play the mother which, of course, was sort of loosely based on her own mother, with the smattering of my mother in there and various other mothers we’ve known, I was very, very happy and privileged to say yes because it was also approaching my own autobiography in a way. And then, of course, she was looking for the girl for the longest time, and I was giving her all sorts of names and--[laughs]--at the very last minute--I mean pretty much the very last minute thought of someone much closer to home who happened to be the perfect person to play the daughter, my own daughter, Honor.
And for--when we started to talk about “The Eternal Daughter,” which, as I’ve said, we were sort of approaching for years and years and years, but when we started getting quite concrete about the project, the film we might make, we didn’t originally think that it would be about Julie and Rosalind. I was always going to play the younger woman, and we were thinking for a long time about finding someone older, again, not necessarily a performer but a person, a human, usually, not always, to play their mother.
And then we’d just made the Souvenirs and were a little besotted with Rosalind, I have to confess. We were very, very drawn to her and this particular portrait of someone who--let’s not say she--I mean, she was sort of influenced by both our mothers, but let’s say she was someone our mothers might have known, that we then decided to build it around Rosalind. And then we thought, well, hang on. Who are you going to play then? And there was this moment when I suggested in the way in which you can only suggest something like that with someone you’ve known since you were 10, “Why don’t I play both?” And then the film was born because, of course, for those who have seen the film and for those who have not yet, you will discover it actually had to be played by one person. The entire film had to be--these two portraits had to be carried by one person.
So, yes, it wasn’t always going to be linked in this way to the Souvenirs. It’s certainly not a third part or anything, but it does have a relationship for sure because Julie and Rosalind are there--and another spaniel who is a--who is a descendent of the spaniels who we met in the Souvenirs.
MS. HORNADAY: Oh, that’s so great. I’m so glad to know that because part of Rosalind, you know, part of the vividness of her character in the Souvenir films are the dogs, you know, and just the way we all--it’s just immediately recognizable, right, that woman, that family.
So, to the point that it only could be played by one person, I want to play a clip right now that I think illustrates this amazing--I was going to say dual performance, but is it really? So let’s watch the clip and come back.
MS. HORNADAY: Oh, that just gives a delicious, tantalizing speck of the mood and the tone and the delicious psychological layers of this movie.
So not to sort of break the spell, but did you have--when you’re playing against yourself, was there another person? I mean, were you doing those scenes with at least another human being to play off of? Tell us a little bit about how you approached the performance technically.
MS. SWINTON: Well, the most significant part of the work, of course, was the bedrock of the way in which we worked together and that Joanna works, which is to improvise the dialogue entirely. There is no screenplay as such. There’s no script, and there’s a sort of document, like a--almost like a short story that she has, of course, crafted over very often many years which she--which I knew very well and most members of the crew--not all--knew. But that’s a very scant skeleton that we’ll say Julie and Rosalind have dinner action. There isn’t necessarily any guidance on what they might discuss or what they might do, and so the building of the material happens on the spot in front of the camera. This is a very particular way of working. So this is always, let’s say, tantalizing and, let’s say, a wonderful opportunity but also, let’s say, challenging but fascinating, and I really, really love it. And to use your word, Ann, it is delicious, and it’s a really inspiring way of working and makes writers of all of us because we need to find our words in a very sort of productive way.
But when working with oneself, it’s a real chunk of change. So what we did with each of the scenes or each of the passages was we sort of figured out roughly who was going to start the dialogue, who was going to start the action or start the gesture of the moment, and we would start shooting that person first. And we would shoot her for however long we needed to, and for those sections, Joanna was always sort of underneath the camera or just by the camera, and I was improvising to her or with her. And then, of course, we had to be quite clear when we turned around and I turned into the other person that we could remember what we’d done--
MS. HORNADAY: Yes.
MS. SWINTON: --which wasn’t always--it’s not--because, of course, the film, the material--part of the material of the film is about how people find it difficult to listen to each other, how they find it difficult to communicate with one another at all, but also how difficult it is to respond and to really--to be attentive to one another. So it wasn’t an--it wasn’t the kind of this is one of the joys of this kind of work that one’s not--you know, it’s not, you know, a repetitive, or it’s not like a sort of finely wrought screenplay or a finely wrought play where everybody sounds like a playwright.
Joanna is a great respecter, as I would say I am, of inarticulacy, of silence, of the urge-to-speak but the inability to find the right words. So that’s in there. So that’s always a great--that’s our sort of get-out clause.
But then we sort of filmed the other side, and when we filmed the other side, the second side, I was responding to my own memory. I was not responding to Joanna at that point. I was responding to some kind of sense memory of what I had done or a version of what I had done as the first--as the first portrait.
MS. HORNADAY: And it seems to me--
MS. SWINTON: Was like tapping my head and rubbing your tummy or whatever that thing is that people are--
MS. HORNADAY: Exactly that, exactly, which you’re a past master--of which you are a past master.
But it also seems that when you’re working this way without a narrative script, a typewritten script, that you’re really just playing the emotion, right? I mean, it’s all subtext at that level--
MS. SWINTON: It is.
MS. HORNADAY: --which has to--you know, I don’t know if that’s more challenging or less, but does that mean more takes or few--like, was this a quick--a relatively kind of one-and-done type of a thing or--
MS. SWINTON: No. It was something--as I said, because one’s building the text in front of the camera--well, we work with very long takes for a start. So we might--you know, we’ll shoot right to the end of a magazine and then start again, not so many, and the editing is, of course, a real--really an alchemical process. And Helle le Fevre and Joanna had an extraordinary editing process of piecing it all together and, of course, mixing and matching and weaving a strange inarticulate tapestry out of this relationship.
But, yeah, it’s the pauses. I mean, these women--I mean, the material, the actual subject of the film is how does one reach another and how does one reach one’s mother and how does one reach one’s child and how does one give oneself permission not to be reached by one child, that that’s the sort of subject. And so that gives us permission to leave these great wells of unspoken emotion and tiptoe up on the emotion that we do want to approach and we do want to articulate, but the whole thing is built on a kind of volcano of unspoken stuff.
MS. HORNADAY: Which we can--who can relate to that?
MS. SWINTON: Right.
MS. HORNADAY: We call can.
MS. SWINTON: Exactly.
MS. HORNADAY: Yes. We do have lots of audience questions, and I want to get to one right now. One--well, actually more than one, several people are asking--and you intimated this earlier, but maybe you could elaborate. Did you channel your own relationship with your mother to create your onscreen dynamic between both characters? And I might even--I might take my prerogative to add when--I too have friends from that long ago, you know, and our mothers are almost--you know, we were raised by each other’s moms, you know. So their mother’s loom just as largely for me as my own in many ways, and I think of them all the time. So I guess I would add that in to like how did you build Rosalind here.
MS. SWINTON: Well, when we were building Rosalind in the Souvenir films and I think the reason that we wanted to return to her--and I must declare that Joanna and I are still very fascinated by Rosalind, and we may even return to her again--is because to look at the portrait of a mother, of our mothers’ generation, and the particular gap between a mother of that generation and a daughter of our generation was so rich for us and felt so particular.
Now, I'm sure it's true that it's always going to be rich to look at the relationship between any mother and any daughter. I know that's the case, but there's something for us about a kind of a mother born when our mothers were born, who lived through the war, who came into motherhood at a time when there were all sorts of very interesting, energetic, sort of force fields being broached about what a mother was and what a mother could give her daughter, what a mother could not show her daughter, how she could support her daughter, how she could guide her daughter, what she should keep from her daughter. That felt to us really like treasure, and we hadn't--we felt that we hadn't really seen it mined before very often, or certainly, we wanted to go there.
And so, in answer to your first question, I did definitely think of my mother a lot during the making of Rosalind in all of these films. She’s a different person to all of our mothers. She’s a different person to Joanna’s mother, and she’s a different person to mine. But, as I say, she shares--she shares a culture with our mothers, and she shares in many ways a kind of attitude to her daughter. I mean, all these mothers have artist daughters and don’t know what to do--
MS. HORNADAY: Right.
MS. SWINTON: --and have dedicated their lives to living in a certain way in support of their husbands, and as all three of our mothers--Julie’s, Joanna’s, and mine--all have sat to a certain extent on the artist in themselves. And one of the things that I find very moving in the Souvenirs and to a certain extent in “The Eternal Daughter” is the way in which Rosalind discovers the artist in herself and is guided by her daughter and, you know, takes up pottery. In Souvenir II, there’s this sort of tragedy of the Etruscan pot, which if you haven’t seen The Souvenir II, you won’t know what I mean, but if you have, you will know exactly what I mean. This feeling of being guided by her daughter, I find deeply touching and emblematic in many cases of that sort of--that generation, because they didn’t necessarily know what to make of us.
We were born, those of us who were born in the '60s, into an entirely new world, very, very different to the world in which they were born into, and so they were, on the one hand, very hands off and, on the other hand, had sort of laid down a code for us that we couldn't follow because it didn't really work anymore.
MS. HORNADAY: Exactly. And I think--I think one of the struggles that this movie brought up for me was this feeling of leaving one another behind, you know, sort of for us to go into the world the way we were conditioned to do--in this, like you just said, generationally, that did mean sort of leave--a rejection that was--
MS. SWINTON: Yeah.
MS. HORNADAY: --I’m sure devastating personally and emotionally for them, that we being young and self-centered would not have recognized at the time. And now I look back and think, God, I--you know, it’s--that’s so palpable for me in this particular film.
MS. SWINTON: It’s a thing that--I mean, the sad thing for Julie, I find, is that because she doesn’t become a mother herself, she doesn’t know that she can’t put her foot wrong. And what we as mothers know is that our children are immaculate, and they can never fail us. But what a--what Julie doesn’t know is that she can’t get it wrong. There’s that heartbreaking moment when she says, “I got it wrong,” and--but if Rosalind were there, she would be able to explain that that’s impossible. She’s perfect.
So I think there’s that--there’s just something very, very tender about the disconnect between them. They’re so--they don’t--I mean, there’s so much chitchat and so much, in many ways, baby talk, the whole thing about the stuffed animals and, of course, the great love of springer spaniels, in our case, in my family, the great--the sort of using of animals as a sort of intermediary of love--
MS. HORNADAY: Mm-hmm.
MS. SWINTON: --whether they’re stuffed or not, that the great panic in the scene of “The Eternal Daughter” when Louie goes missing, it’s very real. And I think that that particular sort of peccancy of disconnect isn’t, for example, borne out in later generations.
I mean, when we made the Souvenirs, my daughter, Honor, and I were very attendant to the fact that our relationship is very, very different with--and we had to really--I had to, in a way, inform her not to be--not to rely on a kind of just openness between us, because we had that. But then, you know, we’re a different--we’re a different round.
And I, as a daughter, was so thrilled to be able to have a different relationship with my children. That’s my privilege, and that’s their privilege as well. But it isn’t--it’s like another country, that kind of--that kind of generation.
MS. HORNADAY: It's so, so very true, and I think it's so easy to take it for granted.
I’d like to--I’m aware of our time, and I wanted to talk to you a little bit about--I happened to happen upon your recent appearance at the Academy Museum.
MS. SWINTON: Oh, yes.
MS. HORNADAY: You were honored with Visionary Award at the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, and once again, you delivered such a moving speech. It was just so meaningful, and you're becoming really known for these moments where you crystallize the moment, you know, the cinematic moment, the cultural moment, what the film means. And I just wanted to talk to you about that.
You had said--in the academy talk, you said, you know, it was really a rallying cry for the humanistic mission of cinema, the humanistic potential of cinema, and you said “film is good for us.” I just wanted to ask you to elaborate on that for a little bit.
MS. SWINTON: I am so honored and delighted to have chances to say that sentence, and I truly believe it. I think film--I think cinema is truly a sort of--it will save us if we let it, and if we ignore it, we are really missing a trick. And one of the most beneficial things, if one can think of anything beneficial about the pandemic, is that when we were all locked in or locked up or locked down or whatever we were, all of us, not just cine-nerds like me and you, missed, I would say, four things. We missed our friends and family. We missed traveling. We missed live music, and we missed cinema, what I call big cinema. And it was really interesting because it came at a time when people were rumbling in all sorts of ways about, oh, cinema’s kind of old hat, isn’t it? Don’t we just want to watch Netflix on the end of our bed? And, you know, aren’t the screens getting smaller, and do we really need to value big cinema? And, if anything, ironically, reprised the great triumph of big cinema, it was the pandemic because we yearn for it. We need it, and we’d known it for so long.
My son once asked me this incredible question when he was eight and a half, of all ages, and I mulled about this moment before, and I’ve written about it because I still can’t believe that he had this wisdom. He asked me once--when I was putting him to bed and wishing him a beautiful dream, he said, “Mama, what were people’s dreams like before cinema?” And, you know, cinema is so ingrained in our--I mean, it’s no coincidence, I don’t think, that psychoanalysis and cinema were all kind of born at the same time. It’s so important for us, and we ignore its power and its healing capacity and the visionary nature of it, the fact that it can actually guide us. When we value big cinema, we see who we are, and we see what we want. We see what our desires are, what our fears are. We need it, and we must always remember that.
MS. HORNADAY: I want to get to one more audience question, and then, if I have time, I'd like to loop back to what you just said. But Elizabeth in Minnesota asks, what role stretched you the most?
MS. SWINTON: I would say, Elizabeth--and it sounds like I’m being flippant, but I think that playing a corporate lawyer in “Michael Clayton” was probably the biggest stretch for my imagination. I, at that stage, had never met a corporate lawyer. [Laughs]. And it was easier for me to imagine an immortal nobleman who wakes up as a woman one day than to imagine being a corporate lawyer. So I think that.
I mean, I had to learn the sort of--the code. What does--what do these people wear. How do they speak? How do they hold themselves? I didn’t know. That was probably the biggest stretch. [Laughs]
MS. HORNADAY: And look what happened? I mean, that is such--I don’t think a day goes by when I don’t talk about that movie, and usually, it’s one or two of those scenes, one of the greatest revealed in cinematic history with you and a phone call. I’ll leave it there, but, I mean, truly what a masterpiece. What a great piece of filmmaking that was.
MS. SWINTON: Well, it was an absolutely extraordinary screenplay by Tony Gilroy who did the thing that--I hate to say it, but a lot of writers forget to do, which is to write different people in different ways. And that’s what--and that’s what you get. You get a real, really classic--I felt like that was a real proper good Hollywood movie. I mean, it was a real proper Hollywood movie. And I also suggest George Clooney’s greatest, greatest moment. I mean, incredible piece of performance by him.
MS. HORNADAY: Few would disagree, and I agree with you about it is sort of that quintessential--well, and that loops back to what you were just saying. In your defense of big cinema, are you worried? I mean, we’re now seeing some sort of alarming statistics about audiences returning for the big blockbusters and superhero films, but the smaller films that you’re often in and that I like to champion are not drawing audiences back into theaters at quite the same rate. So do you have any sense of where we’re going and how things are going to shake out?
MS. SWINTON: I’m not looking at the numbers, Ann, as you are. I’m not worried, again, because I--I mean, for a start, I don’t--if people still value big cinema for blockbusting Marvel films or whatever else, okay. They’re still valuing big cinema, and we can thank big blockbusters for that because they’re keeping people on the drug, not to be flippant, but they’re--the fact that--it’s when people--and as I say, I really don’t think there will come a time when people give up on the experience of cinema.
I mean, big cinema is an experience. We have to remember that. I think very often there’s a mistake made to imagine that cinema is only valuable as this kind of narrative art, that it--you know, oh, have you seen that film? Yes. What happens? It’s not about that necessarily. It’s not necessarily about a plot. It’s not necessarily about a performance. It’s not necessarily about a thrill or a car chase or a reveal. It’s usually--and good, big, pure cinema is about atmosphere and about environment and about transport and fantasy. All films are fantasies. It doesn’t matter if they’re set by kitchen sink. That’s still a fantasy. It doesn’t even matter if they’re a documentary. They’re still a fantasy. You are in the eyes of a filmmaker. You are in the hands of filmmakers, and you go there with them. And I think that knowing that it’s an experience--and it’s also an experience going into the dark in a big room with some popcorn and a whole bunch of strangers. That’s part of it. You know, there’s only so much we want to look at on the end of our bed or on the back of our wrist, actually. And, as long as we think that it’s just about remembering or following the plot, then we’re going to miss out on all the treasure of big cinema.
I made a film with the great Thai master, Apichatpong Weerasethakul, a couple of years ago, and it was released by Neon. And, extraordinarily and magisterially, they gave it the release that we'd asked them to, which is to show it only in cinemas, and rather like a rock concert that you buy a ticket for nine months in advance when you know your favorite band is coming to town and you take your ticket and you stick it on the back of the refrigerator or front of the refrigerator under a magnet and you wait, this film has been going around the states in one cinema at a time for the last year. And people have been going, and that is not a blockbuster. I can tell you that much. That is an extraordinarily experiential film about sound and spirit, and people have been lapping it up, and they have been waiting for their ticket to be checked in. They have the capacity for it.
So I’m not worried. No, I’m not worried. I mean, I think--I mean, what I would really love to see--and I’ve said this before, but I’ll go on saying it. I would really love to see the streamers putting their money where their mouth is. If they really believe in big cinema, I’d like to see them building big theaters or resuscitating or renovating big theaters in all the towns that they reach around the globe so that you do have the choice to watch something on the end of your bed or to go into the town and sit with a bunch of strangers in the dark. That’s what I would love to seem because they’ve got a lot of money. So they have to spend it somehow. I would rather they did that. I would rather they use it to inform and educate and enlighten the entire population of the planet about the fact that we have more than 11 decades of cinema archive to rest on. So I would rather see them do that in a way--I shouldn’t really say this--than spend a lot of money making new films. I would like to see them, you know, raise the bar on the educational aspect of the cinema archive. But I’m not worried at all. I think it--no one’s getting off this drug.
MS. HORNADAY: May it be so. May it be ever so.
Tilda Swinton, we are out of time. I have to leave it there, but thank you so much for joining us today for this conversation.
See "The Eternal Daughter." Revel in the greatness of Tilda Swinton.
Thank you for joining us, Tilda.
MS. SWINTON: Thank you very much. Thank you. Lots of love.
MS. HORNADAY: And thanks to all of you for watching. This is actually our last program of 2022, if you can believe it. To learn more about our upcoming programming starting in 2023, in the new year, please visit WashingtonPostLive.com. We look forward to seeing you in 2023. Until then, I’m Ann Hornaday. Thank you for joining us.
[End of recorded session | 2022-12-16T20:45:45Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Transcript: “The Eternal Daughter” A Conversation with Actor Tilda Swinton - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/washington-post-live/2022/12/16/transcript-eternal-daughter-conversation-with-actor-tilda-swinton/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/washington-post-live/2022/12/16/transcript-eternal-daughter-conversation-with-actor-tilda-swinton/ |
Cold air is to coming to D.C. for Christmas. Will it snow, too?
A big dip in the jet stream over the region on Dec. 23, per the European ensemble. (weatherbell.com)
The coldest air of the season is set to invade the Lower 48 as the week ahead of Christmas progresses. The blast of cold should first reach the Washington region between next Friday and Christmas Eve.
This change toward more wintry weather has been anticipated for weeks. Confidence is high that it will turn cold and it does seem probable that a significant storm will form around Thursday next week. But whether there will be significant snow in the Washington region is very much up in the air.
The storm threat is being driven by a powerful disturbance that will dive south along the jet stream on the leading edge of the Arctic blast during the middle of next week. How it evolves will make or break the snowstorm threat in the Mid-Atlantic.
“Unfortunately, there is more that we don’t know about the evolution of the potential system than we do know,” wrote Wes Junker, Capital Weather Gang’s winter weather expert.
Junker said scenarios range from a major snowstorm for the Mid-Atlantic to a driving rain or just a dusting. For a lot of snow, low pressure would need to develop rapidly off the North Carolina coast — a scenario which was presented by Friday’s American (GFS) computer model.
“Today’s GFS model shows just how much snow potential the system has if it tracks far enough south to produce a low pressure bomb off the [North Carolina] coast,” said Junker, while stressing model simulations so far into the future aren’t terribly reliable.
While the American model shows a snowy forecast, the latest European model presents a much rainier scenario for the Mid-Atlantic as the storm center passes west of Washington, drawing mild air north. Cold air doesn’t arrive until the storm passes. The Canadian model shows a similar forecast.
Whether or not it’s walloped by a major winter storm, the D.C. area may be staring down its coldest Christmas period in decades. There’s a growing suggestion that the Mid-Atlantic and D.C. area will see temperatures at least 15 to 20 degrees below normal by Christmas weekend.
For the Dec. 23-29 time frame, the National Weather Service Climate Prediction Center continues to forecast a high risk of hazardously cold temperatures in much of the Lower 48 to east of the Rockies.
The average high and low temperature in Washington on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day is 47 and 33. Although it’s too far out to have any confidence in specific numbers, weather models have consistently projected lows in the teens and highs in the 20s to near 30 both days.
The last time it didn’t top freezing in the city on Christmas Eve was 1998 when the high was 30. The last time it was below freezing on Christmas Day was in 2000 when 28 was the high. It’s been as cold as 33 for a high on Christmas Day in the last decade, back in 2013.
If there’s snow on the ground, the magnitude of the cold would be more intense. If city manages to have an inch of snow on the ground Christmas morning, it will be the first instance of a white Christmas since 2009.
Temperatures beyond Christmas look to remain colder than normal, perhaps even into the new year.
We’ll have additional updates on the potential for cold and snow in the coming days. | 2022-12-16T20:45:51Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Cold air is to coming to D.C. for Christmas. Will it snow, too? - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/weather/2022/12/16/washington-dc-cold-snow-christmas/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/weather/2022/12/16/washington-dc-cold-snow-christmas/ |
Lady Susan Hussey meets Ngozi Fulani, founder of the charity Sistah Space, on Friday in the Regency room in Buckingham Palace. (Royal Communications/Reuters)
A prominent British royal aide who resigned from her role at Buckingham Palace after asking a Black British charity director where she was “really from” has met with the activist to apologize and pledged to learn from the incident, according to a joint announcement released on Friday.
Lady Susan Hussey, 83, who was a long-standing lady-in-waiting to Queen Elizabeth II and godmother to royal heir Prince William, met with Ngozi Fulani, a British activist and chief executive of domestic abuse charity Sistah Space, on Friday at Buckingham Palace, where she apologized.
Hussey “pledged to deepen her awareness of the sensitivities involved and is grateful for the opportunity to learn more about the issues in this area,” according to the statement, which noted that Fulani had “unfairly received the most appalling torrent of abuse on social media and elsewhere.” Fulani accepted the apology and said “that no malice was intended.”
The controversy arose after an event at Buckingham Palace last month, designed to raise awareness about violence against women and girls. Fulani, one of about 300 guests at the event, later wrote on Twitter that she had “mixed feelings” about the event and described an interaction with a woman she named “Lady SH” shortly after she arrived.
The woman had asked a series of questions, Fulani said, including, “What part of Africa are you from?” and “Where do you really come from?”
“I just stood at the edge of the room, smiled [and] engaged briefly with who spoke to me until I could leave,” the activist wrote on Twitter.
Mandu Reid, leader of the Women’s Equality Party and a witness to the interaction, later told The Washington Post it felt like “an interrogation.”
“It was question after question … it wasn’t fleeting, it was several minutes,” she said.
Buckingham Palace announced the following day that a royal household member had “stepped aside from her honorary role with immediate effect” after an investigation had concluded that “unacceptable and deeply regrettable comments” had been made.
Though she was not named, it soon became apparent who the royal household member was.
Hussey was a well-known royal fixture, having served in an unpaid role since 1960. She was depicted in the new season of “The Crown” on Netflix as a close friend and adviser of the queen — a role she played in real life too, earning the nickname “Number One Head Girl” and the official title “Woman of the Bedchamber,” which effectively meant she was the queen’s right-hand woman.
Her remarks sparked a wave of criticism of the royal household, which has struggled with reports of racism in the past. But some people took aim at Fulani for publicizing the incident.
Sistah Space, which supports women of African and Caribbean heritage affected by domestic abuse and sexual assault, posted a statement to Instagram last week announcing that it had to “temporarily cease many of our operations to ensure the safety of our service users and our team.”
Fulani’s team and family received “some horrific abuse via social media,” she said in a statement quoted by British media.
After their meeting on Friday, Fulani and Hussey said they would seek “peace to rebuild their lives in the wake of an immensely distressing period for them both.” | 2022-12-16T21:00:11Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Lady Susan Hussey and activist Ngozi Fulani reconcile after Buckingham Palace row - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/12/16/lady-susan-ngozi-fulani-apology/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/12/16/lady-susan-ngozi-fulani-apology/ |
D.C. police investigate allegation that firefighter assaulted a youth
A police report alleged the off-duty firefighter grabbed the youth by his throat, yelling, ‘Do you know who I am?’
A D.C. fire department logo. (Carol Guzy/The Washington Post)
D.C. police are investigating an allegation that an off-duty D.C. firefighter grabbed a boy by his throat as the youth and other preteens were crossing an intersection in Tenleytown in October.
According to a D.C. police incident report, the firefighter, Alfonso Clary, 48, was driving in the 4500 block of Wisconsin Avenue in Northwest Washington on Oct. 24 when he encountered the youths at an intersection.
According to two D.C. police officials familiar with the encounter, one of the youths gave Clary the middle finger and kept walking. Clary then parked his vehicle, ran up to the youth and grabbed him by his throat, yelling, “Do you know who I am?” a police report alleges.
Clary was placed on administrative leave Friday but has not been charged with any crimes, officials said. He did not return messages seeking comment, and his wife did not respond to a request for comment on her social media page.
The officials familiar with the investigation said Clary released the youth when he noticed the boy’s friends were video recording the incident. The juvenile was not named in the report.
D.C. police spokesman Dustin Sternbeck said the investigation was “ongoing” and declined to comment further.
Jennifer Donelan, a spokeswoman for the D.C. Fire and Emergency Medical Services, said the department was also investigating the incident. “We don’t have all of the information that MPD has and are just being made aware of it, so we won’t comment on it at this point, but we are looking into it,” Donelan said. | 2022-12-16T21:04:32Z | www.washingtonpost.com | D.C. police investigating allegation that firefighter assaulted a youth - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/12/16/firefighter-assault-investigation-youth/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/12/16/firefighter-assault-investigation-youth/ |
The death penalty is a red-state response to crime
The gurney in Huntsville, Tex., where inmates are strapped down to receive a lethal dose of drugs, is seen on May 27, 2008. (Pat Sullivan/AP)
After Louis Jones was executed by the U.S. government in 2003, it seemed quite possible that he might be the last federal prisoner to suffer that fate. For 16 years, prisoners on federal death row remained there, their status little different than those who had been sentenced to life.
Then Donald Trump was elected president and, in 2020, focused his reelection campaign on crime. On July 14, 2020, the federal government resumed executions, putting Daniel Lee to death in Indiana. Two days later, Wesley Purkey met the same fate. The day after, it was Dustin Honken. Between July 2020 and when Trump left office the following January, the federal government executed 12 death-row prisoners.
Trump’s push for executions was deeply rooted in his politics. But that’s fitting: The death penalty is now almost exclusively the province of America’s red states.
New data published by the Death Penalty Information Center (DPIC) makes this clear. Over the past 10 years, only 16 percent of executions occurred in states that Joe Biden won in 2020. Most of those were in Arizona and Georgia, states that are more purple than blue. Four occurred in Virginia; Virginia has since banned the death penalty.
All of the states in which the death penalty is still allowed and where there have been executions in the past 10 years were Republican-voting states in 2016 or 2020, according to the DPIC.
There are still a number of inmates being held on death row in blue states. In fact, just under half of those held on death row in the states are held in blue states. It’s just that those states are less likely to actually execute the prisoners. In Oregon, for example, the most recent execution was in 1997. This month, outgoing Gov. Kate Brown (D) commuted the capital sentences of the state’s death-row inmates.
The most inmates on death row are in California, which hasn’t executed anyone since 2006. The most death-row inmates relative to the state’s population is in Alabama.
The national trend is away from executions — and away from death sentences. DPIC data indicate that there have been fewer people sentenced to death over the past three years combined than had been sentenced to death in any year prior to 2015 since the Supreme Court allowed executions to resume.
There’s a wide divide between the willingness of states to sentence convicts to death and to actually execute them. Consider the difference between California and Texas below; both have sentenced hundreds of people to death, but only Texas actually carries out the punishment.
Unsurprisingly, executions trail sentences. But that also means that sentences for capital offenses were more likely to occur when crime was high. By the time appeals were exhausted, crime had declined across the country and the appetite to effect the harshest possible punishment had waned.
Until the tumultuous summer of 2020 and the presidency of Donald Trump. The hard-right Republican president who at one point warned that a shooting was an inevitable response to looting embraced the death penalty as a reflection of his politics and his long-standing ideology.
That was demonstrated in the 1980s when, in response to a violent rape in New York City’s Central Park, Trump called publicly for New York to reinstate the death penalty. The teenagers ultimately arrested for that crime were later exonerated — a reminder that the death penalty cannot be reversed even if it might need to be.
Analysis: The 4 most undersold political stories of 2022 | 2022-12-16T21:13:16Z | www.washingtonpost.com | The death penalty is a red-state response to crime - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/12/16/death-penalty-states-republicans/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/12/16/death-penalty-states-republicans/ |
With America’s checkered history in Africa, the continuing coronavirus pandemic and other competing crises, perhaps it’s understandable that President Biden’s plans for a grand Africa summit would draw skeptics.
But while differences between the United States and the more than 50 nations on the continent remain, the negative predictions evaporated in the face of international bonhomie at this week’s U.S.-Africa Leaders Summit in D.C.
“There were a lot of doubters both here in the U.S. and in Africa about the prospects for a successful U.S.-Africa summit,” said Melvin Foote, president and CEO of the Constituency for Africa, an interest group. “I had heard that less than 20 countries would attend. Well, 49 African leaders are here,” he said, plus many other government, business and civil society representatives.
As they gathered at the Walter E. Washington Convention Center on Thursday, Biden told them: “I’m looking forward to hearing more from all of you about the issues and priorities that matter most to Africa and how we can deepen our cooperation. And I emphasize ‘cooperation.’”
He announced plans for $55 billion in U.S. investments in Africa over three years. The United States provides more foreign aid than any other country, according to the intergovernmental Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, but as a percentage of national wealth, this nation ranks near the bottom.
Biden, Vice President Harris and other administration speakers repeatedly stressed that any action would be taken with African leaders. They know the big-foot reputation the United States gained during the Cold War and cases where Washington was on the wrong side of history, such as the Reagan administration’s backing of apartheid leaders in South Africa before democracy there was won with Russian support, not to mention President Donald Trump’s profane disdain for African nations with his “shithole countries” remark.
Now, U.S. support for Africa cuts across the government. There are at least 14 federal agencies, not including the intelligence community, actively involved on the continent. One that doesn’t get much notice is NASA.
At the first U.S.-Africa Space Forum on Tuesday, U.S. officials, including NASA Administrator Bill Nelson, celebrated Nigeria and Rwanda as the first African signatories, out of 23 nations, to the Artemis Accords that set guidelines for space exploration cooperation.
Space also has been in the thick of dealmaking between Africa and U.S. companies — a big theme for the summit. Among the deals discussed at the space forum was an agreement between Rwanda and Atlas Space Operations for large satellite antennas, and daily satellite imagery by Planet Labs to help with droughts, forest management, energy issues and high-speed internet. Zipline, an aerial logistics company, expects to use space data to “conduct more than two million instant deliveries across Rwanda by 2029” using drones, according to the White House.
“Looking for near-term, pragmatic options, US-Africa space cooperation should be thought of as building another type of infrastructure, like roads or power,” Rose Croshier wrote in one of several pre-summit blog posts by the nonpartisan Center for Global Development (CGD), adding, “With the African space industry valued at $19.49 [billion] in 2021, new economic US-Africa engagement could happen across multiple channels — as investors, suppliers, business partners, or as customers.”
The focus on increased dealmaking contrasts sharply with reality. U.S.-Africa bilateral trade “has been in consistent decline, from a high of $141.9 billion in 2008 to $64.3 billion in 2021,” even as trade between China and Africa grew to $254 billion in 2021, a 35 percent increase, according to another CGD blog post, by W. Gyude Moore and Erin Collinson.
Increasing cooperation in space also contrasts sharply with the difficulty of African visitors getting into the United States, making dealmaking hard.
“The wait time for a visitor visa appointment in Nigeria, Africa’s largest economy, is now 666 days; waits of at least three months are now common at US consulates across the continent,” said a CGD post by Todd Moss and Jeremy Neufeld. The problem is so bad that “the administration had to create a special visa track for participants in the White House’s own summit from civil society and the business community.”
This is a long-standing problem. A 2017 U.S.-Africa trade conference was canceled because African participants were denied U.S. visas.
State Department officials “recognize that waiting longer than a year for a tourist visa is unacceptable” and are working to correct the problem, the agency said in a statement. The median wait globally now is about two months, the department said, half the delay in June. It did not provide Africa-specific data.
Humanitarian aid is a well-known part of the government’s approach to Africa, but more must be done, according to the International Rescue Committee. During the summit, it released an “Emergency Watchlist” of countries at “greatest risk of new humanitarian emergency.” The organization is pushing for more federal humanitarian aid, stronger protection for civilians in conflict areas and humanitarian exemptions for sanctions imposed by Washington.
Related to that point, African leaders are angry about legislation sponsored by Rep. Gregory W. Meeks (D-N.Y.), chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, that would “hold accountable the Russian Federation and African governments and their officials who are complicit in aiding such malign influence and activities.” Those activities are defined as those that undermine “United States objectives and interests.”
When the House approved the legislation, Meeks said it is “a demonstration of how Putin’s war in Ukraine, and the Kremlin’s corrupt and illicit activities in Africa to fund that war and other exploits, have worked to unify Congress and the international community.”
That wasn’t Meeks’s focus when he told the summit’s Young Leaders Forum on Tuesday that he has “consistently advocated for a U.S. foreign policy that aims to strengthen our relationship with our African partners.”
But his legislation would do exactly the opposite, something a determined Macky Sall — the Senegalese president and chairman of the African Union — made sure Biden understood. “This would damage the relationships between the U.S. and Africa,” Sall said, “and we don’t want this to happen.”
The Pentagon has long had relationships in Africa, often in the form of troops supporting local anti-terrorism efforts. That was the first priority Sall mentioned to Biden. Africa wants to be “an integral part of the … struggle against this blight,” Sall said. “Mr. President, we expect a strong commitment on this vital priority and support from the United States so that the U.N. Security Council places the fight against terrorism in Africa in the framework of the collective security mechanism that is in the U.N. Charter.”
Yet the Defense Department wants to be known for more than boots on the ground, though that’s the image its television commercials push.
In preparation for the summit at press briefings last week, Pentagon officials emphasized the “three D’s” — defense, diplomacy and development — and that leadership of the Pentagon’s Africa Command (ironically based in Germany) includes the State Department and the U.S. Agency for International Development.
“To be clear, the U.S. has always supported the three D’s and has always thought about things in a very symbiotic fashion,” said Chidi Blyden, U.S. deputy assistant secretary of defense for African affairs. “I think the emphasis this time around is going to be that we are going to do this in collaboration, conjunction, coordination with African partners,” advertising three C’s to accompany the three D’s.
When Biden, Harris and other top administration officials visit Africa next year, as Biden promised at the summit, they can put the alliterative policies into practice.
They and others left the summit feeling good, while knowing more action remains.
“In both the policy circles and in conversations with attendees, people are pleasantly surprised by how much went into this and the number of initiatives introduced,” the CGD’s Moore said by email. “If I were the administration, I’d be proud. It looks like a success to me. Whether all of these commitments are met is for another day.”
On our radar: House Ways and Means Committee to meet, may discuss Trump taxes | 2022-12-16T21:13:22Z | www.washingtonpost.com | U.S.-Africa Leaders Summit boasted notable successes, though differences remain - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/12/16/us-africa-leaders-summit-biden/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/12/16/us-africa-leaders-summit-biden/ |
Journalism and government are struggling. Here’s why I’m optimistic.
The National Christmas Tree on Nov. 20 at the White House Ellipse. (Eric Lee for The Washington Post)
On the “Larry King Live” CNN program, the talk show host often asked guests the question: “Are you optimistic or pessimistic?”
It was King’s way of getting people to open up about how they felt about the future.
If asked the King question, most of us, I suspect, would apply the old Miles’s Law aphorism: “Where you stand depends on where you sit.”
At year end and seated at my computer, I asked the King question about three aspects of my time and attention: D.C. government, national leadership and this thing called journalism.
For openers, I’m hopelessly devoted to this town.
I was born, raised and educated here, and I’ve been married 61 years to Gwen, who gave birth here in this city to two of our three children. (The last was born overseas.)
I have worked in Washington from one end of Pennsylvania Avenue to the other: as a Senate staffer to positions in the city’s West End at the State and Treasury departments. Job assignments have led me numerous times into the White House, city government agencies and inside just about every federal department lining Constitution and Independence avenues. This is home turf.
My Post association also began decades ago, too, probably predating most people on today’s payroll.
I was there on March 18, 1954, when the first issue of The Washington Post and Times-Herald was published — The Post having just purchased its morning rival, the Times-Herald. Admittedly, I was in the sub-sub-basement of the newspaper’s food chain. But I was on hand for the launching.
The first issue combined most of the two papers. As a Times-Herald carrier suddenly folded into the ranks of The Post, I had the privilege — and burden — of delivering dozens of those multi-pound monstrosities to subscribers residing in blocks neighboring the west side of White House. Yes, I really was present at the beginning.
But to King’s “optimistic or pessimistic” query:
From where I sit, and drawing upon Miles’s Law, I see government — the District, the White House and Congress — and the world of journalism all going through a rough patch.
Soon staring her third term, D.C. Mayor Muriel E. Bowser (D), a determined-tending-toward-dogmatic problem solver, is confronted with a splintered council with its 13 members each having agendas of their own. At this stage, she probably can count supporters on one hand. And, among many tasks, she must put together a multibillion-dollar budget and steer it through city lawmakers before delivering it to a Republican-led House of Representatives that is hostile to any semblance of D.C. self-government. True, a Senate Democratic majority might prevent the House from wreaking havoc on the city, but by any yardstick, D.C. has a heavy lift on Capitol Hill. Plus, Bowser and the council must come to grips with mounting gun violence, troubled housing programs and economic insecurity.
But that is no cause for pessimism.
Our saving grace is that we have, amid legislative unruliness, a core of elected officials with the capacity to legislate pragmatically and reconcile — people not inclined to let the perfect be enemy of the good. Council Chairman Phil Mendelson (D) and veteran legislators Kenyan R. McDuffie (a longtime Ward 5 Democrat who will be an at-large independent council member), Charles Allen (D-Ward 6), Vincent C. Gray (D-Ward 7) and At-Large members Robert C. White Jr. (D), Christina Henderson (I) and Anita Bonds (D) have the maturity and political prowess to work collaboratively with Bowser for the greater good. If they put consultation over confrontation, Bowser and the incoming council can still get things done.
Congress, specifically the House, is cause for worry as far as tending to the nation’s business is concerned. The Republican House’s chief business item is bringing down President Biden. That will fail, just as efforts to turn most blue seats red in the midterm elections died at the polls. But GOP die-hards will draw time and attention from critical national problems that need fixing, not demagoguing. Still, there’s room to feel optimistic about the outcome, that House GOP leaders will overreach in rhetoric and tactics and manage to turn off the electorate much the same way President Donald Trump did with his clownish and democratically dangerous plots and schemes. This outlook is comforting mainly because Washington remains led by a Biden White House and a Democratic Senate.
As for the journalistic world, there’s no escaping the churning from within. There’s more to the problem than growing readership and viewership and drawing more visits to our websites to keep the lights on and pay the bills. There’s a financial cost to what we do. All the journalistic bells and whistles to draw the news-consuming public to our site won’t eliminate the threat of red ink. Neither will pandering to a brand of hype journalism that is untethered to facts and common sense. It might be titillating for some readers; it’s a turnoff for most.
To survive, we must get back to basics, return to being conveyors of news and carefully drawn opinions, not entertainers bearing carefully tailored tales. That readjustment might cause heartaches within the ranks of latter-day journalists. But if done right, journalism will survive to talk about it. That, too, spells optimism for the future. | 2022-12-16T21:39:25Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Opinion | Colbert I. King: Pondering the old Larry King question - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/12/16/colbert-king-larry-optimistic-pessimistic/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/12/16/colbert-king-larry-optimistic-pessimistic/ |
Mass shooting admirer arrested trying to buy grenades, FBI says
A Minnesota man who allegedly sympathized with mass shooters and expressed violent racist, homophobic, antisemitic and anti-police views was arrested Wednesday after trying to buy grenades and components to convert his firearms into automatic weapons, the Justice Department announced.
River William Smith, 20, of Savage, Minn., was charged with one count of possession of a machine gun and one count of attempt to receive and possess destructive devices. A federal public defender for Smith, who remains in custody, did not immediately respond to a request for comment Friday morning.
In court documents, investigators detailed the breadth of Smith’s alleged hate-filled beliefs before he tried to buy illegal weapons and components from a federal confidential informant. According to court documents, Smith allegedly admitted to wanting to join an extremist group, expressed his admiration for mass shooters and discussed his desire to eventually die in a shootout with police.
Smith’s arrest comes as the Justice Department has increasingly focused on domestic extremism; the threat has intensified in recent years, with instances such as the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection at the U.S. Capitol and the massacre at a Buffalo grocery store in May by an avowed White supremacist.
Justice Dept. forms new domestic terrorism unit to address growing threat
In January, Matthew G. Olsen, head of the Justice Department’s national security division, announced the formation of a domestic terrorism unit. The announcement came after a 2021 federal intelligence assessment that indicated the two most lethal categories of domestic terrorist threats facing the United States are from “racially or ethnically motivated violent extremists who advocate for the superiority of the White race” and anti-government or -authority extremists, such as violent militia groups.
Investigators began monitoring Smith in September after a “concerned citizen” noticed his odd behavior at a gun range.
The tipster, a retired SWAT commander of a local police department, saw Smith clad in body armor as he set up a plywood barricade and performed rapid reload drills with a handgun; the tipster estimated that Smith fired roughly 300 rounds in 20 minutes — which they considered “excessive behavior.”
According to the court documents, Smith had been on the radar of local law enforcement after a 2019 incident when police were called to his grandmother’s home. Smith, who was 17 at the time, had fired an AK-47 inside and injured her. Law enforcement found multiple firearms and ammunition at the property and removed them — a move that purportedly ignited Smith’s hatred of police. A subsequent review of Smith’s internet history showed searches for Adolf Hitler, Nazism, instructions for converting firearms into automatic weapons and videos of gay people being killed.
In September of this year, the manager at a local gun club to which Smith belonged told investigators that he saw Smith several times dressed in tactical clothing and body armor, firing hundreds of rounds at targets while lying on the ground — all of which he considered unusual behavior.
An FBI informant then connected with Smith over social media and struck up conversations in which Smith allegedly revealed interest in joining the Base, a far-right group whose mission is to prepare for what it considers an impending race war, and praised the alleged shooter who killed five people and wounded 25 others last month at an LGBTQ nightclub in Colorado Springs. The suspect, Smith allegedly said, was “a hero.”
“I’m pro-mass shooting in general,” Smith allegedly said in a message with the FBI’s informant, calling mass shootings “pretty funny.” Smith later said that he wasn’t a mass shooter and that the only people he’d ever kill already have guns and body armor, an apparent reference to law enforcement.
Smith’s text messages with the informant revealed that he was “prepared for a violent exchange with police and that he maintains an intense dislike of minorities, Jewish individuals and homosexuals,” the court documents read.
Smith began talking to a member of the gun club, unaware that he was a second confidential informant, where he launched into detailed questions about how he could obtain hand grenades and auto sears — devices that convert handguns into fully automatic weapons.
The discussion culminated Wednesday in Smith’s alleged attempt to buy nearly $700 in weapons, including three hand grenades and three auto sears.
“You can’t sell stuff to idiots,” Rivers told a confidential informant in a Nov. 15 text exchange, according to court documents. “Preferably you don’t even sell stuff in America. It’s way too easy to get caught here doing that.” | 2022-12-16T21:39:32Z | www.washingtonpost.com | FBI arrests River Smith, mass shooting admirer who bought grenades - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/12/16/river-william-smith-fbi-arrest/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/12/16/river-william-smith-fbi-arrest/ |
Police ID pregnant woman found slain in Silver Spring apartment
Denise Middleton was 26. Police says she was 38 weeks pregnant.
The Montgomery County courthouse in Rockville, Md. (Dan Morse/The Washington Post)
A pregnant woman found fatally shot in a Silver Spring apartment has been identified Denise Middleton, 26.
Her body was discovered on Dec. 9 by a Montgomery County SWAT team that had burst inside looking for a resident of the apartment, Torrey Damien Moore, who was wanted in connection with an unrelated homicide, according to authorities.
Earlier: Moore charged in deaths of pregnant girlfriend and viable fetus
They found Moore and took him into custody. Investigators learned that he and Middleton had been in a relationship, and that she was killed at least a month prior inside the apartment, police said. An autopsy showed that at the time of her death, Middleton was 38 weeks pregnant.
Moore had been charged with murder in the deaths of Middletown and her viable fetus. He also was charged with murder the death of Ayalew Wondimu, 61, a sales clerk at the Dash In convenience store. | 2022-12-16T22:14:28Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Police ID pregnant woman found slain in Silver Spring apartment - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/12/16/pregnant-woman-killed-identified/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/12/16/pregnant-woman-killed-identified/ |
Gladys Knight performs at the White House, Orion returns to Earth and more of the week’s best photos
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) unveils her portrait at the U.S. Capitol; celebrating the newly-signed Respect for Marriage Act into law on the South Lawn of the White House; NASA’s Orion capsule splashed down in the Pacific Ocean following the uncrewed Artemis I moon mission; crews work to clean up a crude oil spill from a leak in the Keystone pipeline. See 10 of the week’s most interesting images from around the world, as selected by Washington Post photo editors.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), with her husband Paul Pelosi, unveils her portrait during a ceremony in Statuary Hall at the U.S. Capitol.
Aparna Shrivastava, right, takes a photo with her partner, Shelby Teeter, after President Biden signed the Respect for Marriage Act on the South Lawn of the White House.
Singer Gladys Knight performs during the U.S.- Africa Leaders Summit dinner in the East Room of the White House that was attended by President Biden, first lady Jill Biden, Vice President Harris and second gentleman Douglas Emhoff.
A Christmas tree stands in a lobby as people walk past a screen displaying winter scenes in a building in the Rosslyn neighborhood.
The Peace Monument stands outside the U.S. Capitol building.
Dec. 11 | Baja California, Mexico
NASA's Orion capsule is drawn to the well deck of the Navy's USS Portland after it splashed down in the Pacific Ocean following a successful uncrewed Artemis I moon mission.
Mario Tama/Pool Photo/AP
Dec. 14 | Khor, Qatar
France goalkeeper Hugo Lloris, center, punches the ball away on a corner kick during a semifinal match against Morocco in the World Cup at Al Bayt Stadium.
Dec. 14 | Gretna, La.
Anna Chiasson sweeps her neighbor's porch, which was damaged by a tornado that hit Jefferson Parish near New Orleans.
Dec. 9 | Washington County, Kan.
Emergency crews work to clean up the largest U.S. crude oil spill in nearly a decade, following a leak in the Keystone pipeline.
Dec. 14 | Bremen, Germany
Frost covers leaves on a cold winter day.
Sina Schuldt/dpa/AP | 2022-12-16T22:16:08Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Pictures of what happened this week: Celebrating the newly-signed ”Respect for Marriage Act" into law; NASA’s Orion capsule returned to Earth following the Artemis I moon mission - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/photography/interactive/2022/12/16/best-photos-of-the-week/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/photography/interactive/2022/12/16/best-photos-of-the-week/ |
Woman arrested in stabbing on Metro Center train
Two people were stabbed in separate incidents on Red Line metro trains on Thursday and Friday. (Sarah L. Voisin/The Washington Post)
Metro Transit Police have arrested a suspect in a late-night stabbing that occurred Thursday on a Red Line train, the latest attack on the transit system this year.
Police said the stabbing occurred shortly before midnight onboard a train at Metro Center, where police found a man with possibly life-threatening stab wounds. Police said the man was stabbed after an altercation with a woman, who had been brandishing a knife before officers said she attacked him.
The woman, identified as 31-year-old Shaquanda Perry, was arrested at the Farragut North station. Police said she is facing a charge of assault with a dangerous weapon. It wasn’t clear whether Perry had a lawyer, and efforts to reach her or family members weren’t successful.
Metro spokeswoman Sherri Ly said the victim was in stable condition Friday.
Hours later, another stabbing near the Benning Road Metro station briefly disrupted rail service. Metro said the station was closed for about 15 minutes.
D.C. police said a woman was stabbed about 2:25 p.m. Friday on Central Avenue NE, then ran to the Benning Road Metro Station. She suffered what police described as injuries not believed to be life-threatening.
The Red Line train stabbing Thursday night came about a week after two shootings at Metro stations 15 hours apart left one dead and four injured.
On Dec. 7, an off-duty FBI agent fatally shot a man during an altercation at Metro Center. The shooting sent commuters running from the station while a train carrying passengers bypassed the station to avoid danger.
The next morning, three people were shot at the Benning Road Metro station. Transit police said a “physical altercation” prompted gunfire that left a 15-year-old male in critical condition with a gunshot wound to his thigh. Two bystanders, a 34-year-old woman and another 15-year-old male, suffered injuries that were not life-threatening, police said.
Metro Transit police crime statistics show aggravated assaults, which include shootings and stabbings, are up year-over-year. Police had investigated 178 aggravated assaults through November, compared with 162 during the same 11 months in 2021. | 2022-12-16T22:36:17Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Woman arrested in stabbing on Metro Center train - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/transportation/2022/12/16/dc-metro-transit-crime/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/transportation/2022/12/16/dc-metro-transit-crime/ |
Where Brittney Griner spent the week: A military program for ex-hostages
In her first public comments since her release from a Russian penal colony, basketball star Brittney Griner expressed gratitude Friday to her family, her legal team, the Biden administration and everyone who had worked to free her.
She also singled out the “PISA” staff at the military base in San Antonio where she spent the past week. “I appreciate the time and care to make sure I was okay and equipped with the tools for this new journey,” Griner wrote on Instagram.
PISA refers to “post-isolation support activities.” It’s a program that was developed by the military to address the physical and psychological needs of people who have been detained or held hostage.
The activities include medical checks and repeated counseling sessions, all designed to facilitate “the return of the recovered person to military or civilian life as expeditiously as possible,” according to a manual from the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
Griner spent months in a penal colony after being sentenced to 9½ years in prison on minor drug charges. She was convicted of arriving in Russia with vape cartridges containing less than a gram of cannabis oil.
The athlete arrived in Texas on Dec. 9. She was exchanged in a prisoner swap for the arms dealer Viktor Bout, who was serving a 25-year sentence in a special, restrictive unit dubbed “Little Guantánamo” inside a federal prison in Marion, Ill.
Griner was flown to Joint Base San Antonio, a military facility that has served as the first stop for several Americans released from captivity this year. Trevor Reed, an ex-Marine imprisoned in Russia, arrived there in April. So did members of the “Citgo six,” a group of energy executives wrongfully detained by the Nicolás Maduro regime in Venezuela and released in October.
The former detainees, including Griner, were first taken to Brooke Army Medical Center, a major hospital located on the base, where they underwent medical checks.
Jorge Toledo, 61, spent nearly five years in captivity in Venezuela before being freed in October. For the first several days, he said, his group spent time in a restricted area of the base’s hospital where personnel took extra measures to maintain their privacy.
Initially, Toledo thought he would be going straight home. Then he learned that there was a program prepared for the detainees to help them adapt after their long captivity. He described the experience as invaluable.
After the honeymoon, former detainees say, comes ‘surviving survival’
After the medical checks, Toledo’s group moved to a different part of the base where they participated in individual and group sessions with a team of psychologists.
They asked Toledo and his fellow detainees to tell their stories from before their imprisonment all the way until their arrival in the United States, in as much detail as possible, over several sessions.
The activity was a way to decompress from their experience, the therapists said, making use of an analogy: If you shake a beer can and suddenly open it, “you’re going to have a sort of explosion,” Toledo said. But if you “let the pressure go out slowly, you’re going to have a better result.”
The detainees were also encouraged to discuss any concerns they had about transitioning back to life at home, whether their relationships with their spouses and children or how they were going to approach their careers. The final sessions were for military personnel to gather information from the detainees.
Griner 'compassionate, humble' after release from Russia
Toledo and his group spent 10 days at the base, where their families were also welcome. He said the program was critical in preparing him for some of the challenges that lay ahead.
“People think it’s a given that you’re going to have a great time when you go back to normal life,” he said. While he was overjoyed to be with his family, he also found that some daily tasks, such as driving a car, suddenly felt like enormous challenges.
Toledo said the days he spent in the PISA program were key to helping him make the transition home, and he hoped the same would be true for Griner.
Griner said Friday that she intends to return to professional basketball when the next WNBA season begins in May 2023.
Toledo was an avid runner before his detention and has begun training again. In January, he plans to run a half-marathon in Houston. It is more than a race. Toledo sees it as a message to his captors. “It’s a matter of telling these guys in prison, ‘You tried, but I’m stronger than your system,’” he said. | 2022-12-16T23:11:10Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Where Brittney Griner spent the week: A military program for ex-hostages - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/12/16/brittney-griner-military-program-ex-hostages/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/12/16/brittney-griner-military-program-ex-hostages/ |
$3 million settlement in shooting of Black man by Va. Beach police
A person places a candle near a memorial for Donovon Lynch during 2021 vigil in Virginia Beach. (Kaitlin McKeown/The Virginian-Pilot via AP, File)
The family of a Black man who was shot and killed by a Virginia Beach police officer in 2021 has reached a $3 million settlement with the city to resolve a lawsuit over his death, according to a recent joint statement.
The shooting of Donovon Lynch, 25, generated national attention and sparked days of protests in the city during a period of national unrest over police use of force, including the killing of George Floyd.
Officer Solomon D. Simmons shot Lynch, following a chaotic night of violence on the city’s beachfront during which multiple people were shot in separate shootings. Lynch’s friends and family said he was not involved in the shootings and was simply out for a night on the town when he was slain.
The Lynch family contended in their federal lawsuit that Lynch was given no warning before he was fired upon and posed no threat.
A grand jury cleared Simmons of any criminal wrongdoing in Lynch’s death.
Simmons told investigators he happened upon Lynch while responding to a shooting that had just occurred on the night of March 26, 2021, according to an interview with him played at a news conference.
Simmons said he thought he heard a gun being cocked and glanced over and saw a man crouched behind some bushes surrounding the parking lot near the scene of one of the shootings.
Simmons said the man started to rise with a gun. The officer said he thought the man might open fire on officers and other people milling about in the parking lot. He said he shouted at Lynch, before shooting.
Lynch’s family has said he worked in security and legally carried a gun.
“As we have learned more over time about the facts of that fateful night and encounter, we have come to understand that a series of unfortunate occurrences led to Donovon’s death that night – which in hindsight should never have occurred as it was later determined that neither Donovon nor the officer set in motion the events that transpired,” the city and Lynch’s family said in their joint statement.
Lynch was the cousin of pop superstar Pharrell Williams, who grew up in Virginia Beach.
Wayne Lynch, Donovon’s father, said they are still hoping Simmons might face federal charges in the case and have met with Justice Department officials. Wayne Lynch said the settlement was vindication for his son.
“From the outset, I knew my son was innocent and didn’t in anyway contribute to his death,” Wayne Lynch said. | 2022-12-16T23:46:33Z | www.washingtonpost.com | $3 million settlement in shooting of Black man by Va. Beach police - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/12/16/donovon-lynch-lawsuit-settlement-police/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/12/16/donovon-lynch-lawsuit-settlement-police/ |
Events D.C. data published online in apparent ransomware attack
Aaron Schaffer
Hackers have published internal data taken from Events D.C., following a security breach the agency announced in October. (iStock)
Nearly two months after D.C.'s official convention and sports authority said it was the victim of a cyberattack that may have compromised sensitive information about its employees, a ransomware group now appears to have published a tranche of data and documents from the agency on the dark web.
Events D.C. serves as the landlord for Nationals Park and also oversees the Walter E. Washington Convention Center and the RFK Stadium-Armory Campus, among other city attractions and activities. In a news release in October, Events D.C. revealed that “limited parts of its network” had been compromised by a cyberattack, and that it had moved swiftly quickly to curtail it — notifying law enforcement, including the FBI, while bringing on a data forensics expert to investigate.
At the time, Events D.C. said that a preliminary investigation suggested that “some sensitive information of our employees may have been compromised.”
On Friday, Events D.C. said in a new statement that it was recently made aware of “criminals who illegally accessed our system [and] published some data on the dark web,” which it said was possibly connected to the incident it described in October. The agency said it had no indication of a new attack and has not used the term ransomware to describe the breach, though the hacker group that claims to be responsible is known to use ransomware to attack companies and obtain sensitive files.
“We’re evaluating this apparent release of our data,” Events D.C.'s statement said. “Although we have no indication that anyone’s information has been used to commit fraud or identity theft, we offered our employees credit protection services at no cost out of an abundance of caution. Our investigation is ongoing.”
The statement did not specify how many of the agency’s 400 employees were impacted by the breach. The agency told Washington Business Journal in October that customer data may have also been stolen, but it did not respond to questions Friday related to whether customers were affected.
The hackers, who call themselves BlackCat/ALPHV, published Thursday what they say amounts to 80 gigabytes of internal Events D.C. files. The batch of files also appeared to contain incident and injury reports filed by customers who were impacted by the breach; one of those files says “DO NOT COPY or distribute this report without prior authorization from the Director of Operations or the General Counsel of the Authority.”
The data also appears to include documents like contracts, board minutes, bank statements and tax forms for employees, which contain sensitive information like Social Security numbers. Hacked materials included an apparent city plan to hold a major sports event on the Mall. Another file, labeled confidential, goes into granular details about arena security requirements of a major sports league.
Events D.C. has not confirmed the authenticity of the posted documents. Angie Gates, who was named the agency’s new president and CEO in October, was not available for an interview early Friday evening.
In April, the FBI said that many BlackCat/ALPHV developers and money launderers are “linked to Darkside/Blackmatter,” Russian cyber gangs that claimed responsibility for cyberattacks on Colonial Pipeline and an Iowa grain cooperative last year. Both of those cyber gangs have said they’ve shut down.
BlackCat/ALPHV has also claimed responsibility for hacks of dozens of organizations. This week, the Department of Health and Human Services warned health care organizations to be on alert, writing that the group “is known to have targeted the healthcare and public health (HPH) sector and is expected to continue.”
Last year, hackers posted hundreds of pages of purported internal D.C. police department documents after infiltrating the department’s computer network; the hacking group involved in that dump, called Babuk, threatened to release more documents if its demands for money were not met. | 2022-12-16T23:46:39Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Events D.C. employee data published online following cyberattack - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/12/16/events-dc-ransomware-cyberattack-data/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/12/16/events-dc-ransomware-cyberattack-data/ |
Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin (R) at a campaign rally in October. (Eduardo Munoz Alvarez/AP)
Virginia Democrats vowed Friday to defeat portions of Gov. Glenn Youngkin’s (R) budget plan that would further limit abortions, adding energy to next month’s special election to fill a vacant seat in the state Senate, which is narrowly held by their party.
In his two-year budget plan, Youngkin proposed allocating $50,000 toward establishing a ban on abortions after 15 weeks of pregnancy, echoing similar bans in Arizona and Florida.
The governor also reintroduced a previously defeated proposal to prohibit state Medicaid from covering abortions in cases of “incapacitating” physical or mental fetal deformities, including cases in which the baby would be born without parts of the brain and skull.
Democrats called both measures nonstarters in a state where their party holds a slim 21-19 majority in the Senate, though one Democrat in that chamber, Sen. Joseph D. Morrissey (D-Richmond), has said he is opposed to most forms of abortion. Republicans hold a 52-48 majority in the House of Delegates.
Sen. L. Louise Lucas (D-Portsmouth) said the amount Youngkin is proposing in the budget — $50,000 — is also the minimum amount required to offset the potential cost to the state prison system of incarcerating violators of a new law, which she took as an indication that there would be criminal penalties attached to his abortion proposal.
“This governor is purely delusional if he thinks for one friggin’ minute that we’re going to allow him to put women and doctors in jail for violating his 15-week abortion ban,” said Lucas, who is president pro tempore of the state Senate and chair of the education and health committee. “I will fight day and night to make sure it crashes and burns.”
Youngkin spokeswoman Macauley Porter did not immediately respond to a request for comment Friday.
Under current law, Virginia allows abortion in the first and second trimesters, up to about 26 weeks, and in the third only if the pregnant person’s life or health is at serious risk, as certified by three doctors.
Youngkin, a potential 2024 presidential candidate who was caught on tape during his gubernatorial campaign pledging to go “on offense” against abortion once elected, has said he intends to pursue a 15-week ban, with exceptions for rape, incest and to protect the life of the pregnant person.
“Any bill that comes to my desk I will sign happily and gleefully to protect life,” he said in a June online forum organized by the Family Foundation of Virginia to celebrate the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade.
Democrats said Youngkin’s proposed abortion bans add new urgency to next month’s special election to fill the seat of state Sen. Jen A. Kiggans (R-Virginia Beach), who last month was elected to the 2nd Congressional District and, to a lesser extent, the contest between Morrissey and Sen. Jennifer L. McClellan (D-Richmond), who are vying for the Democratic nomination to replace Rep. A. Donald McEachin (D-Va.) in his deep-blue Richmond-based district. McEachin died last month at 61.
If Democrat Aaron Rouse beats Republican Kevin Adams in the race to replace Kiggans, flipping the district to his party, that would add another vote for abortion rights in the chamber — nullifying the potential for a tie on Youngkin’s proposed bans if Morrissey were to side with him.
Ties in the Senate are settled by Lt. Gov. Winsome Earle Sears (R), who also supports further abortion bans.
If either Morrissey or McClellan goes to Congress, their seats would become vacant, though both are in heavily Democratic districts.
On Friday, Rouse said he plans to highlight Adams’s antiabortion stance.
“Kevin Adams has already made it clear that he supports Gov. Youngkin’s abortion bans,” Rouse said. “The voters are already aware. What they need to understand is this election is Jan. 10. Early voting has already started.”
Adams’s campaign manager, Kendyl Parker, did not answer a question about whether he would support Youngkin’s abortion proposals. In a statement, Parker called Rouse “too extreme for Virginia” and said Adams is focused on lowering taxes, creating jobs and “keeping our neighborhoods safe.”
A spokesman for Morrissey said in a statement Friday, “Senator Morrissey continued to maintain his position on abortion. He does not believe that government should be telling women, or men for that matter, what to do with their bodies. Senator Morrissey believes this decision is between a woman and her physician.”
At a Henrico County media event for her congressional campaign, McClellan predicted that Youngkin’s abortion measures will fail, saying the effort “was defeated before and it will be defeated again.”
Advocates on both sides of the abortion issue said they plan to get involved in the special election to replace Kiggans.
Caitlyn Connors, southern regional director for the Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America advocacy group, said her organization is finalizing its plans on how help Adams.
“This race is going to be pivotal in being able to advance legislation to save unborn children from painful late-term abortions,” Connors said.
Jamie Lockhart, executive director of Planned Parenthood Advocates of Virginia, said her organization is working to make voters more aware of Youngkin’s plans.
While the idea of a 15-week abortion ban is concerning, the impact of stopping Medicaid from funding abortions related to fetal deficiencies may not be obvious, she said.
Most women who seek Medicaid coverage are low-income and predominantly from communities of color, Lockhart said, adding that just 21 women in Virginia received Medicaid coverage for abortions involving fetal abnormalities last year.
“This is a very small number of cases, but these are people who are earning very low incomes,” Lockhart said.
Gregory S. Schneider in Richmond contributed to this report. | 2022-12-16T23:46:45Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Abortion ban proposed by Virginia Gov. Youngkin is a nonstarter, Dems say - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/12/16/youngkin-abortion-ban-budget-proposal/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/12/16/youngkin-abortion-ban-budget-proposal/ |
This school board could finally pick its leader, but they couldn’t decide
The Prince Georges’ school board delays naming a new chair after several rounds of voting fail to yield a winning candidate
Students on the first day of school at Eleanor Roosevelt High School on August 29 in Greenbelt, Md. (Michael A. McCoy for The Washington Post)
It was supposed to be a new power for the Prince George’s County school board. After years of having no say in the decision, the board finally got a chance to pick its own leaders.
But the board was divided. After multiple rounds of voting, members couldn’t decide on a chair and will try again next month.
This week’s board meeting was the first after a new law took effect earlier this month that changes the regulations of the school board. Previously, under a law enacted in 2013, the county executive was able to appoint the board’s chair and vice chair. Now it was up to members to decide.
The two candidates for the top position — Shayla Adams-Stafford (District 4) and Judy Mickens-Murray (appointed, At-Large) — both pledged to unify the board. But neither candidate met a required eight-vote threshold to cement their spot as chair.
Adams-Stafford argued she was best-suited to lead the school system as it navigates historic learning losses among students. She pointed to her experience as a leader of a nonprofit, and founder and CEO of an ed-tech company.
“No matter what our differences are, we face too many challenges to be divided and dysfunctional,” Adams-Stafford said during her speech. “It’s really incumbent on us given the violence that we see in our communities to set an example on how to mediate conflicts.
The Prince George’s board has earned a reputation for its internal conflict that has stymied progress and decisions on initiatives impacting the district’s roughly 130,000 students. Many education advocates have argued the change in the leadership selection process could help improve the situation.
This school board can’t stop fighting. A Maryland bill aims to fix it.
Mickens-Murray highlighted her advocacy for the school system. When her daughter was a student at Central High School in Capitol Heights, Mickens-Murray was able to help pull together parents, teachers and principals to raise over $16,000 for school system projects. She described herself as “a principled person” who believed in processes and building relationships.
“As a leader, I will never be a part of tearing anyone on this board down,” Mickens-Murray said. “And if you give me your vote, I promise you, transparency is what we will do together.”
The board vote was initially split, with Mickens-Murray earning seven votes and Adams-Stafford earning six. Parliamentary rules require the winning candidate to receive eight.
They would have to keep voting.
At least four voting rounds ensued over the next hour. Neither candidate received the needed amount of votes.
At one point, former chair Juanita Miller asked a board member, “Would you like to make a motion to adjourn, or are you going to sit here all night?”
Eventually, Miller recommended the board revisit the topic at a Jan. 12 board meeting. By that time, all 14 board members would likely be present; one member was absent from Thursday’s meeting.
Unusual tension in Prince George’s school board races reflects ongoing rift
For vice-chair, the board voted for Lolita E. Walker (District 9), a newly elected board member and past graduate of Prince George’s schools. She promised to bring fresh perspective to the role and collaborate across district lines on initiatives.
Walker will chair the Jan. 12 meeting, ending Miller’s controversial tenure. Miller is currently facing state-issued charges of misconduct in office, neglect of duty and incompetence. Her trial on those issues continues next week.
Joining the board for the first time this week was Walter L. Fields — the principal of public affairs company Fields Communications. Fields, appointed by County Executive Angela D. Alsobrooks, takes over the seat previously held by Paul Monteiro, who resigned in April to accept a role in the Biden administration.
Nearby in Montgomery County, school board members picked their new leaders earlier this month. Karla Silvestre (At-Large), who has served on the board since 2019, was elected president. Shebra Evans (District 4) , who is in her second four-year term was elected vice president. | 2022-12-16T23:46:52Z | www.washingtonpost.com | This school board could finally pick its leader, but they couldn’t decide - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/2022/12/16/prince-georges-school-board-leadership/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/2022/12/16/prince-georges-school-board-leadership/ |
NEW YORK — When Sadie Sink joined the cast of “Stranger Things” in its second season, the then 14-year-old was already a fan of Netflix’s megahit show. But with the series turning many of the teen stars into household names overnight, attempting to carve out her own lane wasn’t easy. | 2022-12-16T23:47:10Z | www.washingtonpost.com | AP Breakthrough Entertainer: Sadie Sink smiles through drama - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/ap-breakthrough-entertainer-sadie-sink-smiles-through-drama/2022/12/14/b1e6be46-7be8-11ed-bb97-f47d47466b9a_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/ap-breakthrough-entertainer-sadie-sink-smiles-through-drama/2022/12/14/b1e6be46-7be8-11ed-bb97-f47d47466b9a_story.html |
She and her husband, Gov. A. Linwood Holton Jr., took a stand against racial segregation in 1970, enrolling their children in predominantly Black public schools in Richmond
By Ellie Silverman
Virginia Gov. A. Linwood Holton Jr. and his wife, Virginia “Jinks” Holton, in 1969. (Harry Naltchayan/The Washington Post)
For years, many public schools in Virginia closed rather than admit Black pupils, defying the U.S. Supreme Court’s 1954 Brown v. Board of Education decision outlawing segregation in public education.
Sixteen years later, when a federal judge in Richmond issued a ruling that undid the final vestiges of so-called “massive resistance” to desegregate schools, the sensitivity of the issue was enough to spark protests and threats against the judge and his family. His dog, its legs tied, was shot to death.
It was under those conditions that A. Linwood Holton Jr., the state’s first Republican governor since Reconstruction, took office in 1970 and confronted Virginia’s ugly legacy of separate and unequal educational access. In his inaugural address, he declared: “The era of defiance is behind us. Let our goal in Virginia be an aristocracy of ability, regardless of race, color or creed.”
Holton and his wife, Virginia, known as “Jinks,” were exempted by their residence in the governor’s mansion — technically not part of the city — from having to send their four children to local public schools. That September, the governor escorted their eldest daughter, Tayloe, to a predominantly Black high school — a moment captured by a photo on the front page of the New York Times.
Mrs. Holton, befitting her lower public profile and her early career as a CIA intelligence analyst, made a less publicized but no less brave stand against segregation. She accompanied their younger daughter, Anne, and their son Linwood III to a mostly Black middle school. Another son, Dwight, was still in preschool.
“The fact that she and the governor put their children into overwhelmingly African American schools was a tremendous example to the state and the nation about the changes that were taking place in a bastion of archconservatism,” said Larry Sabato, director of the University of Virginia Center for Politics. “That was probably the most memorable day of the Holton governorship.”
Mrs. Holton, 97, died Dec. 16 at a retirement community in Irvington, Va. Her family announced the death in a statement shared by the office of Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.), her son-in-law, which did not cite a cause. The Holtons’ role in school desegregation was often featured in speeches by Kaine, who has served as Virginia lieutenant governor, governor, and Hillary Clinton’s presidential running mate in 2016.
Virginia Harrison Rogers was born in Roanoke on Oct. 21, 1925, and owed her nickname to a sister’s mispronunciation of her name. Her father was part of the legal team that represented the family of Francis Gary Powers, the American U-2 spy plane pilot who had been captured by the Soviets and charged with espionage. (Powers was found guilty in 1960 but left prison two years later in a spy swap.)
Mrs. Holton said that she aspired to be a lawyer but that her father talked her out of it, joking that she was argumentative enough without further training. She graduated from the private Stuart Hall School in Staunton, Va., and in 1946 from Wellesley College in Massachusetts with a bachelor’s degree in French.
She completed a French-English secretarial course in New York and then worked at the U.S. Embassy in Brussels. Homesick, she settled in Washington and joined the CIA.
One Christmas, she returned to Roanoke and went on a blind date with Holton, a Harvard Law School graduate and native of Big Stone Gap, Va. They married in 1953, and she maintained a backstage role in his unsuccessful bids for governor in 1965 and for the U.S. Senate in 1978.
As first lady from 1970 to 1974, Mrs. Holton increased public access to the governor’s mansion by restoring public tours. She also worked on educating low-income families about nutrition. “I remember she hosted a family food dollar conference, helping families learn how to spread their food dollars further,” said her daughter Anne Holton, a lawyer who served as Virginia’s education secretary from 2014 to 2016 and is married to Kaine, in a 2017 interview with The Washington Post.
“She says she never made ‘speeches,’ ” Anne Holton added. “She would host teas and ‘say a few words.’ I am sure also she never entered the halls of the General Assembly building — but in those days there weren’t many women there in any capacity!”
As the state’s first Republican governor of the 20th century, Linwood Holton did not have many natural allies in the legislature. Mrs. Holton, however, came from a prominent Democratic family and assumed the role of a “very charming, congenial host” when politicians came to the mansion for meals and cocktails, Sabato said.
He added that she was able to communicate with Democrats in the legislature “probably better than Gov. Holton was.”
Her husband died last year at 98. Survivors include four children, Tayloe Loftus of Cazenovia, N.Y., Anne Holton of Richmond, A. Linwood “Woody” Holton III of Columbia, S.C., and Dwight Holton of Portland, Ore.; 10 grandchildren; and two great-grandchildren.
After her husband left office, Mrs. Holton helped build homes around the world with Habitat for Humanity. She served as a member of the University of Virginia Board of Visitors and as a trustee at Washington and Lee University and the University of Virginia Medical School Foundation. She also served as president of the Virginia Environmental Endowment and was a board member of what is now Voices for Virginia’s Children.
In 1993, she endorsed Lt. Gov. Donald S. Beyer Jr. (D) in his successful reelection campaign and criticized Republican nominee Michael P. Farris as an extremist who had once lambasted the “godless” public education system. At rallies, she was introduced as co-chairman of the group “Republicans for Beyer.” She endorsed Clinton in 2016.
Decades earlier, as her husband was running for governor, The Post asked Mrs. Holton, who described her main activity as “mothering,” if she would ever run for public office.
“You need three things to run for office,” she said, smiling. “They are self-sacrifice, dedication to one thing, and ham. The only one I have is ham.” | 2022-12-16T23:47:22Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Virginia Holton, Va. first lady who backed integration, dies at 97 - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/obituaries/2022/12/16/first-lady-virginia-holton-dead/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/obituaries/2022/12/16/first-lady-virginia-holton-dead/ |
Leaders have competing visions for fixing the D.C. Housing Authority
On Tuesday, the D.C. Council is scheduled to consider a proposal to create a temporary reform board to govern the authority
D.C. Attorney General Karl A. Racine (D) speaks during a news conference in November. This week, his office released a report with its vision for reforming the city's housing authority. (Susan Walsh/AP)
Competing visions for governance of the D.C. Housing Authority surfaced this week ahead of a planned vote on remaking the agency’s governing board — a proposal from Mayor Muriel E. Bowser that failed initially to gain enough support.
On Tuesday, the council is scheduled to consider the plan by Bowser (D) and council chairman Phil Mendelson (D) to create a temporary reform board to govern the authority. They hope this time to gather the nine-vote supermajority needed to pass an amended version of the emergency legislation, which Mendelson withdrew at the last meeting two weeks ago after it became clear he did not have the votes.
Opponents, meanwhile, have offered their own proposals.
Council members Elissa Silverman (I-At Large) and Brooke Pinto (D-Ward 2) announced a non-emergency bill on Wednesday that won’t come up for a vote before next year. They say the council needs to embark on a more public and inclusive process of reforming the entire agency — not just the board. Their bill would mandate steps to encourage transparency and responsiveness to resident concerns.
The disagreement over how best to fix DCHA comes as D.C. Attorney General Karl A. Racine on Thursday released a report tracing many of the agency’s well-documented problems to influence from Bowser, who has become more publicly involved in the months since the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development in September slammed the agency for failing to provide its residents “decent, safe, and sanitary” housing — which is in violation of federal requirements.
Elevated scrutiny of the authority, which is not a part of Bowser’s administration, has centered on director Brenda Donald and a governing board that would lose its most vocal critics under the mayor’s proposed overhaul. A key sticking point in how to address its shortcomings is the degree of mayoral control over board appointments. Bowser, who has been in office since 2015, appoints the majority of the board.
The attorney general’s report alleges the mayor’s development goals have distracted DCHA’s board from its mission, saying that “in a city like DC where land is scarce, DCHA’s portfolio is incredibly valuable and political leadership has an incentive to use it for their own agenda.”
Bowser’s office, through spokeswoman Susana Castillo, declined to address the attorney general’s report, but issued a statement saying DCHA’s board “needs a reset to better serve its residents and the agency’s mission.”
The recent HUD report portrayed a housing authority in disarray and at risk of defaulting on its agreement with the federal government.
In an interview earlier this month, Bowser said affordable housing is a top priority of her economic development office, so its interests align with those of the housing authority.
“There is a way to think about repositioning properties and redeveloping properties and investment in properties that requires the broader development community,” the mayor said. “I don’t know any planning and economic development director that doesn’t work with developers to create housing.”
During a news conference in October, Bowser suggested the housing authority’s problems stemmed from not enough mayoral control, rather than too much. “When people want the mayor to be in control of something and be accountable, then there are ways that we can do that,” she said.
In the 1990s, when the housing authority was administered by the mayor’s office, HUD deemed it the poorest-performing authority in the nation. Advocates for the homeless sued the District on behalf of families then on the housing waiting list. Because of the lawsuit, a judge removed the authority from the city government’s control and turned it over to a receiver, David I. Gilmore, who spent five years overseeing a dramatic turnaround.
As part of the reform effort, the D.C. Council then turned the agency over to “an independent authority” with “a legal existence separate from the District government.”
That independence, however, has long been in question. Some legal observers say that under the Home Rule Act, which established local government in the capital, the mayor ultimately must “supervise and direct” agencies such as DCHA, at least through the power to appoint the majority of their board members.
“I’ve been round and round on this with our general counsel, not just with regard to this authority, but other boards and commissions,” Mendelson said during a news conference this month. “The mayor under the Home Rule Act has to be able to appoint a majority of the members. So you just can’t get around that.”
The reform board proposed by Mendelson and the mayor would have 18 months to make recommendations on a successor board, which would take over control six months later.
The mayor and Mendelson’s proposal, which initially was to shrink the current 13-member board down to seven, now calls for nine members. The change was made to address concerns about lack of tenant representation.
The proposal by Silverman and Pinto would also retain the board seat selected by legal service providers, now occupied by Bill Slover. Many detractors of the mayor’s bill have seen it as an attempt to remove board members critical of the agency’s performance — most notably Slover.
“This destructive and drastic attempt at further mayoral overreach by usurping Council’s oversight and legislative process should not be supported by Council,” Brittany Ruffin, an affordable-housing advocacy lawyer at the Washington Legal Clinic for the Homeless said in an email this month to council members.
All of the proposals being floated put limits on who the mayor can appoint to the board, calling for members with specific knowledge or experience, such as in housing finance and management. The HUD report recommended that the current board and Donald, whom the board brought on last year without a national search, receive training in critical housing authority functions, including procurement, HUD policies, and financial management.
The attorney general’s office report goes further, proposing that political appointees to the board should be selected from a list preapproved by an advisory group made up of elected tenant representatives and legal advocates. “This would help eliminate any reality or appearance that elected officials are choosing lackeys to serve on the Board by ensuring an independent third party has previously vetted all potential appointees,” the report said.
Many of the changes to the mayor’s plan came at the urging of Council member Robert C. White Jr. (D-At Large), who opposed her initial proposal but has said he will support the amended version. White said he thinks concerns about the hurried and evolving nature of the mayor’s plan are outweighed by the need to take advantage of the current momentum for substantial reform.
“This is an important and urgent issue, and I think seeing the council and the mayor come together and work together on … a good path forward is a good thing for the city,” White said in an interview this month. | 2022-12-17T00:25:16Z | www.washingtonpost.com | D.C. Council to consider Bowser's plan to reform housing authority - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/12/16/dc-council-dcha-problems-racine/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/12/16/dc-council-dcha-problems-racine/ |
Matt Viser
Joe Kennedy III (D-Mass.) served four terms in the House. (Charles Krupa/AP)
President Biden plans to appoint former congressman Joe Kennedy — Robert F. Kennedy’s grandson — as the next U.S. special envoy to Northern Ireland.
The U.S. official said Kennedy’s position is expected to focus specifically on Northern Ireland’s economic development and not on ongoing negotiations around the Northern Ireland Protocol. The 2019 protocol was established to maintain the peace deal struck under the 1998 Good Friday Agreement, which was meant to maintain an open, peaceful border between Northern Ireland and Ireland — a peace that has been threatened by Britain’s exit from the European Union.
Biden gives emotional remarks on burn pits at center named for his son
He is not the only Kennedy to be named to an ambassadorship in the Biden administration. Caroline Kennedy, the daughter of former president John F. Kennedy and Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, is ambassador to Australia, and Victoria Reggie Kennedy, the widow of former senator Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.), is ambassador to Austria.
The president has long expressed his admiration and noted his bond with the Kennedy family. His ties to the family highlights the notable echo between the nation’s first Irish Catholic president (John F. Kennedy, the youngest president) and its second (Biden, the oldest).
Biden also was close to Edward M. Kennedy, John’s brother, with whom he served in the Senate and shared a long friendship and partnership. Ted Kennedy not only showed Biden the ropes — regularly trekking to Biden’s office in Dirksen Senate Office Building — but embodied for Biden the way the Senate should run.
Fact Checker's biggest Pinocchios of 2022
The protocol was drawn as part of the E.U.-U.K. Withdrawal Agreement and allows the free movement of people and goods between Northern Ireland, which remains part of the United Kingdom, and Ireland, a member of the European Union. | 2022-12-17T00:55:47Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Biden to appoint Joe Kennedy III as special envoy to Northern Ireland - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/12/16/joe-kennedy-northern-ireland/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/12/16/joe-kennedy-northern-ireland/ |
U.S. appeals court ruling means border expulsions on track to end Dec. 21
Venezuelans, who traveled through the Darien Gap, Central America and Mexico together, are pictured in a makeshift encampment on the banks of the Rio Grande in Ciudad Juárez, Mexico, on Nov. 18. (Paul Ratje for The Washington Post)
A federal appeals court on Friday cleared the way for the Biden administration to end a covid-related policy that allows officials to expel migrants from U.S. borders, rejecting a push by Republican officials to keep enforcing the removals.
The decision means the policy known as Title 42 started by the Trump administration, will end Dec. 21, unless the Supreme Court intervenes. The GOP officials had signaled in court records that they would appeal to the Supreme Court.
The court ruling represents a victory for immigration advocates in their quest to fully reopen the borders to asylum seekers who have been expelled without a chance to plead their cases, and for the Biden administration, which agrees that the hard-line policy should end. But the Department of Homeland Security is straining to manage an influx of migrants that could balloon in the coming weeks and overwhelm the Border Patrol, as well as cities and towns that are hosting the newcomers.
A three-judge panel in the District of Columbia denied a motion the Republican officials had filed seeking an emergency stay of the Biden administration’s plans to end Title 42. The states sought to intervene in a lawsuit filed on behalf of migrant families seeking to end the expulsions.
“In this case, the inordinate and unexplained untimeliness of the States’ motion to intervene on appeal weighs decisively against intervention,” wrote Judges Florence Pan, Justin Walker and Patricia Millett of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, noting that the lawsuit had been pending for almost two years.
The states had appealed after U.S. District Judge Emmet G. Sullivan struck down Title 42 in mid-November, saying the ban had little proven benefit to public health, and set the Dec. 21 deadline for the administration to end it.
Advocates who had sued on behalf of migrants to restore asylum proceedings at the border cheered the ruling Friday.
“Title 42 must end because it is a public health law, not a border management tool,” said Lee Gelernt, a lawyer with the American Civil Liberties Union, one of the organizations that brought the case. “The states seeking to keep Title 42 are acting hypocritically, to say the least, since they have opposed every COVID restriction except the one targeting vulnerable asylum seekers.”
The Department of Homeland Security referred questions to the Justice Department, which had no immediate comment. The White House also did not immediately respond to the ruling.
More than 2.4 million people have been expelled, mostly from the southern border, since the Trump administration imposed the order in March 2020, ostensibly to prevent the spread of the coronavirus, though advocates argued that he used the measure to slash immigration.
Republican officials from 19 states including Texas, Arizona, and Alaska had asked the court to approve an emergency order stopping the administration’s plans to fully reopen the borders. Officials said a large increase of migrants on the border would burden states with the costs of providing services such as health care to the newcomers.
Ending Title 42 would “unleash a catastrophic shock to the States’ social services and law-enforcement systems,” the states said in a court filing Thursday.
Title 42 allows U.S. officials to regulate migration by expelling migrants, often within minutes of their arrival. By contrast, formal deportation hearings can take months or years in the backlogged immigration courts, and once immigrants are in the country, it can be difficult for authorities to find and remove them. About 69,000 of the estimated 11 million undocumented immigrants in the country were deported last year, federal data show.
Department of Homeland Security officials warned this week that lifting Title 42 will not end immigration enforcement. Anyone ineligible for asylum could be prosecuted for the crime of crossing the border illegally, which typically does not happen with expulsions, and then deported and banned from reentering for five years.
At times, officials have released migrants quickly to make room for newer arrivals. Officials said earlier this year that they are preparing for as many as 18,000 arrivals a day, more than double current numbers, but a federal official speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal figures said this week officials are estimating that from 9,000 a day to 14,000 a day could arrive if Title 42 ends.
The Department of Homeland Security this week urged Congress to update decades-old immigration laws to manage conditions better, such as improving border security and creating a “fair, fast, and functioning asylum system.”
“Despite our efforts, our outdated immigration system is under strain,” Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas said in a statement. “A real solution can only come from legislation that brings long-overdue and much-needed reform to a fundamentally broken system.”
Federal officials say conditions could be improved by creating more legal pathways into the United States to alleviate labor shortages and reunite families. The number of Venezuelan arrivals plunged from 1,100 a day to under 100 a day after the administration began expelling them to Mexico and required them to apply for a sponsor to host them. Officials have said they are considering expanding that program for Venezuela and possibly other countries, though it remains unclear whether it will work after the border reopens.
DHS officials say migration has changed in ways that make managing the flows more difficult. Decades ago most migrants were men from Mexico who could easily be sent home. Now more families and children are crossing, and from a broader array of countries. In October, migrants from Nicaragua, Venezuela and Cuba — countries that have diplomatic relations with the United States that can impede deportations — outnumbered those from Mexico and Central America, federal data show.
Approximately 30 percent of the 2.3 million border apprehensions last fiscal year were teenagers or children who require special care, whether they are traveling alone or with their families, federal records show.
Title 42 has evolved over the past three years in ways that can be confusing, especially to the migrants affected by the program. In the early days of the pandemic, migration plunged and the Trump administration expelled the vast majority of migrants crossing the border.
The Biden administration has expelled a higher number of migrants because more have been attempting to cross. But he also has granted exceptions to thousands of migrants, allowing them to plead their cases. In October, for instance, officials expelled 78,400, and allowed in more than 152,000 for immigration proceedings.
Confusion played out along the southern border this week as some migrants said they would wait until Title 42 is lifted to attempt to cross, while others tried sooner.
Martha Hernandez, a general-store owner from Tegucigalpa, Honduras, said she and her family fled nine months ago after gang members attempted to extort money from them, and found refuge at a shelter in Monterrey, Mexico. She said she was acutely aware that she could be expelled under Title 42 and is seeking a way to cross legally.
“We waited because we wanted to do things the right way,” said Hernandez, who fled Honduras with her husband and children. “We want a chance to restart our lives without fear of harm.”
Other migrants lined up this week in near-freezing temperatures to wade across the Rio Grande in hopes of being allowed into the United States despite Title 42 still being in place. Some were more hopeful because they had heard the policy would soon end, but many were not sure how it worked.
In more crowded areas such as El Paso, hundreds waited in line and slept on floors.
In a cavernous migrant shelter in Eagle Pass, Rudy Somoza, 36, said he fled Nicaragua because sky-high inflation made it impossible to buy bread or pay fees for his 8-year-old daughter’s schooling. He said he had a cousin in Los Angeles who could help him.
“I’m here for her happiness,” Somoza, 36, said in Spanish, referring to his daughter.
Then he switched to fluent English, which he learned because he was a waiter in a fancy tourist resort in his homeland.
“The question is why is everyone angling to reach the United States?” he said. “Because this is a country that offers help, where you can move your family ahead and earn a day’s wages of honest work. In contrast, there is no law and order in my country.”
To qualify for asylum, migrants must face persecution for specific reasons such as their race or political opinion. Many of the newcomers do not qualify for that protection, and they could add to the 11 million immigrants already in the United States illegally, at risk of deportation.
The Biden administration also has warned migrants that the journey is dangerous, with high numbers dying, drowning in the Rio Grande, falling from the border wall, or being kidnapped by extortionists in Mexico.
Mexican officials said this month that they rescued 253 migrants from Nicaragua and other countries after armed bandits hijacked their bus, tied and blindfolded adults and children, and held them for ransom.
Andres Hernandez, 33, said at the Eagle Pass shelter that he came to the United States seeking a better life as the economy deteriorated in his hometown of Cúcuta, Colombia, a border city near Venezuela. He said he decided to make the journey after a friend in Denver offered to find him a job and give him a place to stay.
Other migrants had told him that the passage through Mexico had gone smoothly. But Hernandez said he would never attempt the journey again.
“I thought getting through the jungle was the hard part,” said Hernandez, who came to the United States to work to support his wife and daughter in Colombia. “But the extortion, criminals and police in Mexico was the worst part. A friend asked me for my advice and I told him not to do it. He should try something else, but don’t travel over land to the U.S.-Mexico border.”
Title 42 and the pandemic brought migration to historic lows in 2020, but the numbers began to climb before President Donald Trump left office and then soared under President Biden for a variety of reasons, including shattered economies and political instability in their homelands, the tug of jobs in the United States, and the perception that Biden’s immigration policies are less restrictive than Trump’s.
At the Eagle Pass shelter, called “Mission: Border Hope,” buses arrived this week ferrying hundreds of tired and disoriented people from around the world, including Ecuador, Cameroon and Vietnam. Many were desperate to find an internet signal to inform their families that they were safe — and to wire them money to pay for flights and bus rides to their destinations in the United States.
Valeria Wheeler, the nonprofit’s executive director, said the shelter expanded into a warehouse in May, when Title 42 was supposed to end before another court temporarily blocked that plan, to respond to rising numbers of migrants in the Del Rio sector about 50 miles away. Federal officials have managed the influx by shuttling migrants to less crowded sectors on the border.
A few days ago, she said, the shelter was serving 1,600 people a day.
“There will undoubtedly be more people,” when Title 42 ends, Wheeler said. “But honestly, I’m okay with that because it was unfair and unjust to prevent so many people from seeking asylum as is their right to do. Whatever happens, we will be here.”
Nick Miroff contributed to this report. | 2022-12-17T02:49:13Z | www.washingtonpost.com | A federal appeals court in D.C. rules on Title 42 - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2022/12/16/border-title-42/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2022/12/16/border-title-42/ |
Georgetown's Primo Spears drives past Xavier's Souley Boum during Friday night's game at Capital One Arena. (John McDonnell/The Washington Post)
Things got a bit confusing inside Capital One Arena on Friday night. Georgetown Coach Patrick Ewing angrily called a timeout at the 16:39 mark of the second half as the crowd got as loud as it had been all night long. “Let’s go X! Let’s go X!” echoed throughout the arena.
Ewing and his team, however, were at home, and there is no “X” in Georgetown Hoyas. There also wasn’t much defense in their 102-89 loss to Xavier in the Big East opener for both teams. The Hoyas have lost 20 straight Big East regular season games, and the 102 points they allowed are the most they have yielded under Ewing.
“They got hot, but we let them get hot,” Ewing said. “When you give up 50 points in the paint, 11 second-chance points and 17 fast-break points, all those things hurt.
Louis Orr, special assistant to Ewing and former star at Syracuse, dies at 64
“So it was the mistakes that we made defensively to give them wide-open shots, and they were able to knock them down.”
Georgetown (5-7) struggled to get stops all night long, particularly in the second half. The Musketeers (9-3) shot 51.5 percent from the field in the opening 20 minutes, then upped that to 68.6 in the second. The Hoyas shot 51.6 percent — just shy of their season high — but that couldn’t offset the defensive lapses.
“I just feel like we just need to communicate more … when we have to double, just communicate more,” Georgetown center Qudus Wahab said.
Xavier went on a 13-3 run early in the second half to take a 72-59 lead, but Georgetown responded a 14-5 stretch, trimming its margin to four. Then the bottom dropped out. Souley Boum went on a one-man 8-0 run, and Xavier scored 10 straight. The Hoyas never got closer than nine the rest of the way.
“Souley Boum was just amazing in the second half,” Xavier Coach Sean Miller said. “He just kind of took over the game.”
Boum scored a game-high 28 points to go along with seven rebounds, seven assists and four steals. Jack Nunge scored 18 and Zach Freemantle added 17 for Xavier, which scored 50 points in the paint
Primo Spears led Georgetown with 22 points. Wahab scored 16, and Brandon Murray finished with 15.
As the Hoyas, a season removed from the worst Big East campaign in the program’s history, continue to struggle, Ewing is staying focused on improving his team for the conference schedule.
On her way home, Brittney Griner says she'll play in the WNBA this season
“I don’t listen to the outside noise. I just worry about what we can do as a group to get better. We’re disappointed that we lost tonight. We’re disappointed [whenever we lose]. Disappointed in the fact that we didn’t do what we expected to do last year. But that’s last year. This is a new year. We still have, what, 20 to 19 more Big East games to play. We lost one game.”
Here’s what else to know about the Hoyas’ loss:
The Hoyas trailed 10-2 in the first minutes of the game but rallied to cut their margin to 43-38 by halftime. Georgetown kept things close largely because it won the first-half turnover battle 7-2 and produced eight points off turnovers.
Struggles from deep
The Hoyas entered ranked No. 227 in the nation and No. 8 in the Big East from beyond the arc, making just 32.7 percent from deep. Those trends continued in the first half, when the Hoyas missed six of seven attempts. They were marginally better over the final 20 minutes and finished 6 for 17 from three-point range.
Back in the Big East
Miller is in the first year of his second stint at Xavier, and Friday marked his first Big East game as a coach (he played at Pittsburgh).
“I’m grateful to be back at Xavier,” Miller said. “All of us who played in the Big East in the ’80s, like I did, early ’90s, it’s like a badge of honor. … I think sometimes about the coaches that were in the league when I played. Jim Calhoun, he was just starting out. Rick Pitino, [Lou] Carnesseca. Obviously, John Thompson. Rollie Massimino, P.J. Carlesimo. I mean, these guys are all in the Hall of Fame.”
Georgetown celebrated some of its legends at halftime, bringing back a number of basketball alumni. Among those honored: Michael Graham, Joey Brown, Robert Churchwell, Irvin Church, Rodney Pryor, Ed Spriggs, Sid Levy, Tyrone Lockhart, Ra’mond Hines, Joey Brown, John Duren, Riyan Williams, Mark Thompson, Kenneth Brown, Lonnie Duren and Eric Smith. | 2022-12-17T04:16:17Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Georgetown defenseless in loss to Xavier in Big East opener - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/12/16/georgetown-xavier-big-east-basketball/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/12/16/georgetown-xavier-big-east-basketball/ |
Ask Amy: I said I would help with the hotel bill — not pay the whole thing
Dear Amy: My adult niece lives several hundred miles away, and said she wanted to come visit us in Florida with her husband and their new baby. Since they both work, the visit would be only for three or four days.
I said of course, and we tossed dates around. I gave them some recommendations of beachfront hotels within walking distance from our condo, since it’s not large enough to absorb two additional adults and a baby. I said I could “help” with their hotel costs. I plan on picking up the tab for meals when we are together.
A few weeks ago, she let me know that they did not select one of the hotels within walking distance to our condo, but rather they booked themselves in a resort-style hotel, 10 miles away. This will mean more shuffling around, as everything will be done by car.
She then said that she didn’t want me to get “sticker shock,” but I should know the hotel bill would be $1,700. I had been thinking perhaps I could contribute $500 to their housing costs, which would have come close to covering their entire stay for a few nights in a local hotel.
They are in their early 40s and both work. I want to be gracious, and I’m happy they are making the effort to visit. But I was shocked to learn that my offer to “help” was translated to picking up a large hotel bill.
Conflicted: Your niece has handed you an opening, as well as the language to use when responding.
Dear Amy: I have a 13-year-old daughter. She is a good kid, has nice friends, does pretty well in school and participates in theater. She’s also headed into those tougher teen years. She’s moody, but doesn’t seem depressed. Doesn’t seem to love hanging out with family the way she used to.
But I remember some of this stuff from my own teen years. Anyway, she just told me that she wants to shave her head. (She has really lovely hair, by the way.)
Confused: Hair is one of the few renewable resources we humans possess. My point is that monkeying with hair is one of the lower-impact choices a teen can make.
Dear Amy: I am a financial adviser and have been for the last 20 years. I disagree with your advice to “Doting Dad” regarding financial disclosure and sharing their will with their adult children.
Given that the kids and spouses are all deemed trustworthy and honest, I would say it is better to give them some detail. They don’t need account numbers but knowing that Dad has an IRA at XXX worth XXX is good info for them.
If something happens to Mom and Dad, it is better to have a running start on these things. Discussing what type of accounts there are and what they are invested in early is very helpful. There have been a few times in my career where the kids have no idea what is where and it is a mess to sort out.
Adviser: You and I agree that these parents should disclose “some detail” about their estates. Thank you for sharing your expertise. | 2022-12-17T05:52:11Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Ask Amy: I said I'd help with the hotel bill — not pay the whole thing - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/advice/2022/12/17/ask-amy-/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/advice/2022/12/17/ask-amy-/ |
Carolyn Hax: Is a grandpa who screams at a neighbor unfit to babysit?
Dear Carolyn: I just found out that my father-in-law regularly screams obscenities at his neighbor of 20-plus years and at friends of hers (strangers) if they park near his house. She wrote a letter asking him to stop, and the behavior she described is very disturbing. My mother-in-law showed it to a family member, who shared with my partner, who wasn’t surprised, so I don’t think it’s false or a misunderstanding. It also seems long-standing vs. a recent change that could be attributed to mental decline.
I’m uncomfortable with my kids staying at their grandparents’ house unsupervised now. Is that an overreaction? My partner is disgusted with the behavior but wasn’t as horrified and doesn’t think it would happen to grandkids. The behavior was abusive, though, and abuse doesn’t really discriminate, right?
Previously, the only thing I liked about my father-in-law is that he was an enthusiastic grandparent — much better than he was as a dad — and I adore my sweet mother-in-law, so I’d prefer to continue their close relationship with my kids, but you can’t risk abuse. I also wouldn’t be able to tell them straight out, because my father-in-law would be very angry at my mother-in-law — obviously another red flag, and, yes, I’m concerned for her. What do you think?
Anonymous: It’s pretty clear Grandpa’s house is not a healthy place to be, and I would be taking the same position you are against unsupervised stays.
I’m guessing your partner “doesn’t think it would happen to grandkids” because your partner had this person as a dad and probably is using that as a point of reference. There’s some merit to that, but it’s not sacrosanct. People change over time, and your father-in-law could have deteriorated emotionally since your partner’s childhood. (The same is true in reverse: Some terrible parents chill out into better grandparents.)
I find it hard to see it any other way. I look out my window and imagine someone outside my home screaming at people. A neighbor capable of such hostility would undermine the whole purpose of a home.
What you’ve seen of him around your children is good, so a reasonable compromise would be supervised visits for now, or they visit you, plus watchful waiting. Not just for your children’s well-being, although that is paramount, but also for your mother-in-law’s and ultimately your father-in-law’s. If this is a sign that he is in decline, then you will be in a better position to step in if you’ve gathered information all along.
It’s far, far, far better to be overcautious here than under.
Also, you don’t have to say anything to him “straight out” about what you’ve decided, or anything at all. Just field invitations you get from your in-laws by saying no to anything unsupervised and yes to when you all can be there. Ideally, your partner will agree, but supervision is something you can provide unilaterally.
· No, do not let your kids stay there. Certainly not without you, but possibly not with you. If you walk into a house and feel tension, expect kids to act out and to get an abusive response.
· It’s also disturbing that the children’s father is not on board with this. | 2022-12-17T05:52:17Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Carolyn Hax: Is a grandpa who screams at neighbor an unfit babysitter? - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/advice/2022/12/17/carolyn-hax-grandpa-unfit-babysitter/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/advice/2022/12/17/carolyn-hax-grandpa-unfit-babysitter/ |
Miss Manners: My wife says I need to put the flowers I bought her in a vase
After a couple of hours, I noticed that the flowers were still on the counter, and I asked why they weren’t in a vase. She said it was my responsibility to put them in a vase to complete the gesture. I told her I thought she should put them in a vase to show her appreciation.
With all due respect to your wife, Miss Manners thinks she has some very specific and peculiar ideas about what constitutes thoughtfulness in flower giving.
Does she think that people who bring them to dinner parties should rifle through their hosts' cabinets to find a vase? Granted, this can be an awkward task for a busy host, but certainly that is not the solution. And bringing flowers oneself is definitely more personal and thoughtful than having a florist deliver them. The accompanying note is so often mistaken for the receipt — or suspiciously composed in a stranger's handwriting.
It's not that they don't want to help, but that they weren't asked. There was no communication at all until two weeks prior to the party, when they all received a list of duties and supplies. And the men of the wedding party haven't been asked to lift a finger.
Impeccably so. Miss Manners concedes that this hostess could change the nature of the party, but then she does not also get to farm out the responsibilities and expenses. That these assignments were also sexist just makes them more unsavory. | 2022-12-17T05:52:23Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Miss Manners: Wife says I need to put the flowers I bought her in vase - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/advice/2022/12/17/miss-manners-flowers-wife-vase/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/advice/2022/12/17/miss-manners-flowers-wife-vase/ |
Father of Highland Park shooting suspect charged with reckless conduct
Robert Crimo Jr. attends a hearing for his son Robert E. Crimo III in Waukegan, Ill., in August. (Reuters)
Prosecutors in Illinois announced felony charges Friday against the father of the man accused of killing seven people and injuring more than 40 during a Fourth of July parade in Highland Park.
Robert Crimo Jr. was charged with seven counts of reckless conduct, said Eric Rinehart (D), Lake County’s state attorney, who accused him of taking an “unjustified risk” in signing his son’s gun ownership application in 2019. Because Robert E. Crimo III was younger than 21 at the time, state law required him to have parental consent.
“Parents and guardians are in the best position to decide whether their teenagers should have a weapon,” Rinehart said. “They are the first line of defense.”
The elder Crimo turned himself in and faces up to three years in jail. His bond hearing is scheduled for Saturday.
In July, a grand jury indicted his son with 117 felony counts, including first-degree murder. The younger Crimo faces a life sentence in prison.
The issue of charging parents criminally in instances of mass killings is likely to be contentious, and an attorney said the family will fight the charges.
Illinois State Police in July said the younger Crimo had at least two encounters with law enforcement months before he applied for a gun permit. In April 2019, he had attempted suicide, and that September police seized 16 knives, a dagger and a sword from his home after a family member informed them he had threatened to “kill everyone.”
George M. Gomez, an attorney for the elder Crimo, said in a statement to the Associated Press that the charges were “baseless and unprecedented.”
“This decision should alarm every single parent in the United States of America who according to the Lake County State’s Attorney knows exactly what is going on with their 19 year old adult children and can be held criminally liable for actions taken nearly three years later,” the statement said. “These charges are absurd and we will fight them every step of the way.
The younger Crimo was arrested hours after the shooting and investigators said he confessed to the carnage, though he later pleaded not guilty. He allegedly fired more than 80 rounds from a semiautomatic weapon from a rooftop and then fled the scene disguised in women’s clothing. Officials said he considered carrying out another shooting in Wisconsin in the following hours.
The victims of the deadly attack included a grandfather, a preschool teacher and parents of a toddler.
Rinehart, the Lake County state attorney, said people need to bear responsibility for endangering others.
“For too long, we’ve allowed gun violence to destroy lives and neighborhoods. We have allowed a cloud of fear to hang over every part of American life,” he said.
This is at least the second instance in the past year when law enforcement has sought to hold accountable the parents of mass-killing suspects. In December 2021, the parents of a teenager accused of shooting four students at a high school were arrested and charged with involuntary manslaughter in Michigan. | 2022-12-17T05:52:29Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Highland Park shooting suspect's father charged with reckless conduct - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/12/17/highland-park-shooting-father-crimo-charged/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/12/17/highland-park-shooting-father-crimo-charged/ |
Despite outrage over a move viewed as hostile to free speech -- even by Musk’s conservative allies -- media companies continued to tweet, in keeping with their conflicted relationship with Twitter.
Elon Musk in Los Angeles in 2019. (Mike Blake/Reuters)
When Twitter abruptly suspended the accounts of several prominent journalists Thursday night — in response to a baffling claim from new owner Elon Musk that they had endangered his safety — media bosses were quick to speak out in protest.
The New York Times called the suspensions “questionable.” CNN said it would “re-evaluate” its relationship with Twitter. The Washington Post demanded that Twitter reinstate the account of one of its technology reporters “immediately,” noting that he had simply reported accurately on Musk. One news start-up, Puck, said it would suspend its paid advertising campaign on Twitter, while another, Semafor, was evaluating its own marketing push, according to a spokesperson.
But without exception, these media organizations kept on tweeting at their usual busy paces Thursday night and into Friday — using their own official accounts to promote their latest stories.
Musk justified the suspensions by accusing the reporters of posting “basically assassination coordinates” for him and his family — a reference, apparently, to their reporting and tweets about Twitter’s decision to suspend an account, @ElonJet, that had been using public flight data to share the location of Musk’s private plane.
The Post could find no evidence that the reporters in question had shared information about Musk or his family’s location.
Early Saturday, after an informal Twitter poll by Musk, he said suspensions would be lifted immediately for “accounts who doxxed my location,” and several reporters’ accounts reappeared. Still, the reaction epitomized the conflicted, and seemingly codependent, relationship between the news media and social media.
In the 15 years since sites like Twitter and Facebook exploded in popularity, traditional news outlets have resolved to see them as much of an opportunity as a threat — potent new vectors for delivering the news directly to the screens of avid readers. Publishers have invested heavily in staff whose primary role is to fine-tune and promote stories over social media; editors prize journalists who have amassed tens of thousands of Twitter followers for the traffic they can bring to their sites.
Some managers have started to question whether Twitter traffic is actually worth the effort. Yet the modest response Friday to a maneuver that drew widespread rebukes from free-speech advocates — as well as from the European Commission, United Nations and members of Congress — suggest that they won’t be quitting it soon.
“How [else] are they going to get the word out? Sadly, Twitter is still the only real game in town,” said Vivian Schiller, a former president of NPR who also served as Twitter’s head of news in 2014. “Don’t get me wrong, Musk is a thin-skinned erratic hypocrite, but he’s got us over a barrel,” she added, until another social media platform comes along to rival it.
At least nine journalists, including Washington Post technology reporter Drew Harwell and New York Times journalist Ryan Mac, were hit with the suspensions, which the American Civil Liberties Union said were “impossible to square with Twitter’s free speech aspirations.”
“I don’t know why I was suspended,” Linette Lopez of Business Insider told The Post on Friday, “and I haven’t heard anything from Twitter.” Lopez noted that she had not written or tweeted about the controversy over Musk’s flight data but that she had shared court documents pointing out how Musk had harassed critics and revealed personal information about them in the past. Her account was still suspended early Saturday.
Freedom of speech has been a rallying cry for Musk, the billionaire owner of Tesla and SpaceX, since he first moved earlier this year to purchase Twitter and subsequently made a point of undoing many of the company’s previous policies against hate speech and misinformation, rolling back a nearly two-year ban of former president Donald Trump.
On Friday morning, some of the hosts of the conservative Fox News talk show “Fox & Friends” expressed bafflement. “This is crazy,” said co-host Brian Kilmeade. “If they were just being critical of [Musk], he’s got to explain why those people were suspended,” said co-host Steve Doocy.
Ben Shapiro, founding editor in chief of the Daily Wire, admitted to some “schadenfreude” about journalists complaining about the move “given their enthusiasm for opaque Twitter censorship” — but seemed to take issue with Musk’s argument that the suspended journalists had actually “doxed” his location. Fox News personality and radio host Dan Bongino said on his show that he disapproved of censoring or suspending journalists’ accounts and said it could have the affect of just giving them more attention.
Some of the firmest criticism of Musk’s decision came from an ally.
“The old regime at Twitter governed by its own whims and biases and it sure looks like the new regime has the same problem,” tweeted Bari Weiss, a former opinion writer for the New York Times. “I oppose it in both cases. And I think those journalists who were reporting on a story of public importance should be reinstated.”
Weiss is one of the writers recently tapped by Musk to helm his “Twitter Files” project, in which he has aired internal Twitter documents about content moderation, as part of his larger campaign to demonstrate that the company’s previous management dealt unfairly with conservative news site sand accounts.
Despite Musk’s claim last month that Twitter is the “biggest click driver on the internet by far,” one recent study from social-analytics company DataReportal found that it was responsible for less than 8 percent of total social media referrals for the month of November 2021.
Media organizations typically do not share detailed data on their web traffic. But a 2016 report using data from the social-analytics firm Parse.ly found that only 1.5 percent of publisher traffic came from Twitter. “Twitter has outsized influence,” concluded a report from Nieman Lab, “but it doesn’t drive much traffic for most news orgs.”
Meanwhile, media managers have struggled with how to establish standards of behavior for their journalists on social media, where the temptation can be to slip into feistier, or more casual, or more opinionated conversation than would be allowed in their own professional writing — or to tailor their stories for their particular Twitter audiences.
“The really insidious part of Twitter is that it’s very easy for even very good journalists to mistake the reaction that they’re getting on Twitter for the impact or the reaction that their reporting or that their work in general is getting,” said Joseph Kahn, executive editor of the New York Times, in an interview with The Post in June.
Now, the unpredictability of Twitter under Musk’s ownership is further complicating the equation for media bosses.
“It’s a battle between the reputational impact of supporting a volatile platform that is simultaneously reinstating dangerous accounts while censoring legitimate journalists, and a journalistic responsibility to remain active in order to counterbalance rampant misinformation and disinformation,” said one network executive who spoke on the condition of anonymity in order to speak candidly.
There’s precedent for leaving Twitter: Fox News let its official account go silent from November 2018 to March 2020, reportedly over concerns that a photo with host Tucker Carlson’s home address had been shared on the platform. According to metrics released by the network, it had no negative impact on Fox’s web traffic.
For a brief moment on Friday, it appeared that one news organization was preparing a boycott of sorts, when the New York Times announced that it was canceling a discussion to be held on Twitter’s “Spaces” that day about the best books of the year. | 2022-12-17T06:48:51Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Musk reinstates reporters on Twitter. Their companies, though, never left. - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/media/2022/12/17/musk-twitter-journalist-suspension-media-react/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/media/2022/12/17/musk-twitter-journalist-suspension-media-react/ |
FILE - This photo provided by the North Korean government shows the test-firing of what it says a Hwasong-17 intercontinental ballistic missile at Pyongyang International Airport in Pyongyang, North Korea, on Nov. 18, 2022. In a major break from its strictly self-defense-only postwar principle, Japan adopted a national security strategy Friday, Dec. 16, 2022, declaring plans to possess preemptive strike capability and cruise missiles within years to give itself more offensive footing against threats from neighboring China and North Korea. (Korean Central News Agency/Korea News Service via AP, File) (Uncredited/KCNA via KNS)
TOKYO — Japan this week adopted a new national security strategy that includes determination to possess “counterstrike” capability to preempt enemy attacks and double its spending to gain a more offensive footing and improve its resilience to protect itself from growing risks from China, North Korea and Russia. The new strategy marks a historic change to Japan’s exclusively self-defense policy since the end of World War II. Here is a look at Japan’s new security and defense strategies and how they will change the country’s defense posture. | 2022-12-17T07:23:44Z | www.washingtonpost.com | EXPLAINER: Why Japan is boosting its arms capability, budget - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/explainer-why-japan-is-boosting-its-arms-capability-budget/2022/12/17/42e0774e-7dd2-11ed-bb97-f47d47466b9a_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/explainer-why-japan-is-boosting-its-arms-capability-budget/2022/12/17/42e0774e-7dd2-11ed-bb97-f47d47466b9a_story.html |
CALGARY, Alberta — Jordan Kyrou scored twice, Ivan Barbashev and Pavel Buchnevich each had a goal and an assist, and St. got its third straight win.
ST. PAUL, Minn. — Mats Zuccarello had three goals and an assist, and Marc-Andre Fleury stopped 28 shots as Minnesota got its fourth straight win. | 2022-12-17T07:23:56Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Coyotes beat Islanders 5-4 for fourth straight home win - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/nhl/coyotes-beat-islanders-5-4-for-fourth-straight-home-win/2022/12/17/aa41bb54-7dce-11ed-bb97-f47d47466b9a_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/nhl/coyotes-beat-islanders-5-4-for-fourth-straight-home-win/2022/12/17/aa41bb54-7dce-11ed-bb97-f47d47466b9a_story.html |
Harry and Meghan Aren’t Doing Themselves Any Favors
On Thursday, Catherine, now Princess of Wales, led the largest gathering of royals since the death of Elizabeth II at a carol service in Westminster Abbey, the ancient coronation church of kings. In a ceremony dedicated to the late Queen’s memory, Catherine’s husband, Prince William, delivered an address hailing “the spirit of togetherness” — a nod to the nation’s needy mood at the end of a stressful British year.
That spirit of togetherness is notably absent from the final three installments of “Harry and Meghan.” The Netflix series about the estranged Duke and Duchess of Sussex broadcast a roster of further complaints against the royal family, the most wounding of which were directed at King Charles III and Prince William. Harry accused his brother of “shouting and screaming” and his father of “telling lies.” It sounds like the worst kind of family gathering.
Under fraught circumstances, the royals’ initial response has been restrained. Instead of rebutting Harry and Meghan’s emotional accusations, the Firm, as the family like to call themselves, have wisely stayed silent and put on an unostentatious display of unity. The new King will also seize the opportunity of his first Christmas message to project himself as a benevolent uncle to the nation. Recently, he has been supporting charities that help the poor with the cost-of-living crisis — an attempt to bring the institution closer to the daily lives and concerns of Britons.
Harry and Meghan may have won the ratings battle — more than 80 million viewers are estimated to have tuned in worldwide to hear their story — but have they lost the war for popularity three months after the death of the Queen? Whereas many, myself included, initially sympathized with the Sussexes’ complaints about their cold reception in Britain and the stuffy royal protocol, their latest accusations against the Palace and the press feel wild and unsubstantiated. It’s not doing them any favors in the opinion polls either.
According to Matthew Goodwin, a polling analyst and professor at the University of Kent, the Sussexes “are now among the most unpopular public figures in Britain.” The couple have a net rating of -26. Harry’s ratings, according to YouGov, have crashed by 13 points since the documentary to -26, while Meghan’s are in free fall at -39. Only Prince Andrew, disgraced by his former association with Jeffrey Epstein, is more unpopular. Meanwhile, William and Catherine, the Prince and Princess of Wales, enjoy net ratings of +62 and +57, respectively.
Game, set and match to the Firm?
Goodwin believes that the Sussexes’ slide in popularity is in part due to British people disliking being branded as racist. Ostensibly, Meghan being rejected on the grounds of being biracial was one of the chief reasons why the couple quit the country for life in California. Yet, as Goodwin points out, the UK has a non-white prime minister and levels of racial prejudice have been recorded at an all-time low.
Of course, this is not the whole story. Last month, William’s godmother, the 83-year-old Lady Susan Hussey stepped away from her long-serving role — as a Lady in Waiting to the Queen Consort — after she upset a Clack charity boss, Ngozi Fulani, with persistent questions about her “origins.” As a scene-setter to the Netflix series, it was a gift to the Sussexes’ publicity machine. On Friday, however, the Palace staged a meeting of reconciliation between the two parties in which it was accepted that “no malice had been intended.” The new King wants to be seen as encouraging diversity.
My own response, watching a lot of these episodes, is that although the Sussexes do have the unfortunate habit of employing language and arguments plucked from America’s culture wars, the explanation for their fall in public esteem is simpler: No one loves a whiner, especially when fault is always on one side. Not a whisper of self-criticism or doubt is heard throughout the series.
Harry claims that it was jealousy at his wife’s popularity — she was getting more prominent coverage than the Duchess of Cambridge — that first prompted Palace media officials to leak negative stories about her: “The issue is when someone who’s marrying in, who should be a supporting act, is then stealing the limelight or doing the job better than the person who is born to do this, that upsets people. It shifts the balance.” The explanation may strike uncommitted observers as a bit paranoid.
There is too much unintended comedy also to escape a British eye-roll: Take the couple’s complaints that Nottingham Cottage, their home in the grounds of Kensington Palace, was “too small,” prompting shocked disapproval from their mighty media friend Oprah Winfrey. They moved out before the birth of their first son, Archie, further cramped their style. In fact, the Waleses had lived there before when their oldest child George was a baby.
I am also bemused by Harry’s accusation that The Sunday Times — then under my editorship — scuppered a plan for the couple to move to South Africa by revealing news of it. This hardly makes sense. According to Harry’s own former foreign affairs adviser, David Manning, the proposal was killed off because the cost of providing security in the country was too great. Similarly bizarre accusations are made against The Sunday Times’s sister paper, The Times of London, for doing a routine reporting job on the couple. It is as if all media, not just the tabloid newspapers, are the enemy.
Of course, there has been blowback. The Times thundered in an editorial on Friday that Harry and Meghan have “damaged Britain in the world” and demanded they give up their royal titles which “have no relevance for two people simply trading on their image as celebrities.”
Harry and Meghan’s televised cry for help has been lucrative for the box-office, but the script could hardly be confused with that durable old guide, “How to Make Friends and Influence People.” It sets them firmly on a course of being “tell-all” celebrities in the US market. They have turned their back on Britain, and I don’t see the British ever wanting them back. | 2022-12-17T08:55:16Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Harry and Meghan Aren’t Doing Themselves Any Favors - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/harry-and-meghan-arent-doing-themselves-any-favors/2022/12/17/9d81ca4a-7de1-11ed-bb97-f47d47466b9a_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/harry-and-meghan-arent-doing-themselves-any-favors/2022/12/17/9d81ca4a-7de1-11ed-bb97-f47d47466b9a_story.html |
BOTTOM LINE: Santa Clara hosts the California Golden Bears after Carlos Stewart scored 29 points in Santa Clara’s 86-74 win against the UC Irvine Anteaters.
The Broncos are 7-1 on their home court. Santa Clara has a 2-0 record in one-possession games.
The Golden Bears are 0-2 in road games. Cal has a 0-8 record against teams over .500.
TOP PERFORMERS: Keshawn Justice is shooting 33.0% from beyond the arc with 2.7 made 3-pointers per game for the Broncos, while averaging 12.8 points. Brandin Podziemski is shooting 44.5% and averaging 18.2 points over the last 10 games for Santa Clara.
Devin Askew is scoring 18.2 points per game with 3.7 rebounds and 2.7 assists for the Golden Bears. Lars Thiemann is averaging 12.4 points and 6.7 rebounds over the last 10 games for Cal. | 2022-12-17T08:56:04Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Cal hosts Stewart and Santa Clara - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/colleges/cal-hosts-stewart-and-santa-clara/2022/12/17/e9652242-7ddf-11ed-bb97-f47d47466b9a_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/colleges/cal-hosts-stewart-and-santa-clara/2022/12/17/e9652242-7ddf-11ed-bb97-f47d47466b9a_story.html |
Clemson Tigers and the Richmond Spiders play in Greenville, South Carolina
BOTTOM LINE: The Clemson Tigers take on the Richmond Spiders in Greenville, South Carolina.
The Tigers are 7-3 in non-conference play. Clemson is sixth in the ACC scoring 74.6 points while shooting 47.3% from the field.
The Spiders are 5-5 in non-conference play. Richmond is ninth in the A-10 scoring 69.5 points per game and is shooting 44.0%.
TOP PERFORMERS: Chase Hunter is scoring 14.6 points per game and averaging 2.2 rebounds for the Tigers. Hunter Tyson is averaging 14.4 points and 9.1 rebounds over the last 10 games for Clemson.
Tyler Burton is averaging 17.7 points and 8.3 rebounds for the Spiders. Jason Nelson is averaging 11.4 points and 3.2 assists for Richmond. | 2022-12-17T08:56:22Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Clemson Tigers and the Richmond Spiders play in Greenville, South Carolina - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/colleges/clemson-tigers-and-the-richmond-spiders-play-in-greenville-south-carolina/2022/12/17/2fd5dfa6-7ddf-11ed-bb97-f47d47466b9a_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/colleges/clemson-tigers-and-the-richmond-spiders-play-in-greenville-south-carolina/2022/12/17/2fd5dfa6-7ddf-11ed-bb97-f47d47466b9a_story.html |
Cohen leads Saint Francis (PA) against No. 25 Miami after 40-point showing
BOTTOM LINE: Saint Francis (PA) visits the No. 25 Miami Hurricanes after Josh Cohen scored 40 points in Saint Francis (PA)’s 90-66 loss to the Hawaii Rainbow Warriors.
The Hurricanes are 7-0 in home games. Miami averages 15.6 assists per game to lead the ACC, paced by Isaiah Wong with 3.9.
The Red Flash are 0-5 on the road. Saint Francis (PA) ranks third in the NEC with 31.0 rebounds per game led by Cohen averaging 7.7.
TOP PERFORMERS: Wong is scoring 16.2 points per game with 4.5 rebounds and 3.9 assists for the Hurricanes. Jordan Miller is averaging 15.5 points, six rebounds and 1.5 steals over the past 10 games for Miami.
Landon Moore averages 1.5 made 3-pointers per game for the Red Flash, scoring 10.5 points while shooting 30.9% from beyond the arc. Cohen is shooting 64.8% and averaging 21.4 points over the last 10 games for Saint Francis (PA). | 2022-12-17T08:56:28Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Cohen leads Saint Francis (PA) against No. 25 Miami after 40-point showing - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/colleges/cohen-leads-saint-francis-pa-against-no-25-miami-after-40-point-showing/2022/12/17/d7f67060-7ddf-11ed-bb97-f47d47466b9a_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/colleges/cohen-leads-saint-francis-pa-against-no-25-miami-after-40-point-showing/2022/12/17/d7f67060-7ddf-11ed-bb97-f47d47466b9a_story.html |
FANDUEL SPORTSBOOK LINE: Southern Utah -9; over/under is 148.5
The Thunderbirds have gone 4-1 in home games. Southern Utah is the WAC leader with 39.5 rebounds per game led by Maizen Fausett averaging 6.5.
The Lumberjacks are 1-5 on the road. Northern Arizona ranks second in the Big Sky with 32.1 rebounds per game led by Carson Towt averaging 8.7.
TOP PERFORMERS: Fausett is averaging 9.4 points, 6.5 rebounds and 1.7 steals for the Thunderbirds. Tevian Jones is averaging 17.5 points over the last 10 games for Southern Utah.
Cone is shooting 32.5% from beyond the arc with 2.3 made 3-pointers per game for the Lumberjacks, while averaging 15.6 points. Xavier Fuller is averaging 9.3 points over the past 10 games for Northern Arizona. | 2022-12-17T08:56:41Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Cone leads Northern Arizona against Southern Utah after 29-point performance - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/colleges/cone-leads-northern-arizona-against-southern-utah-after-29-point-performance/2022/12/17/69054348-7ddf-11ed-bb97-f47d47466b9a_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/colleges/cone-leads-northern-arizona-against-southern-utah-after-29-point-performance/2022/12/17/69054348-7ddf-11ed-bb97-f47d47466b9a_story.html |
Eastern Michigan hosts Detroit Mercy following Davis' 36-point showing
BOTTOM LINE: Detroit Mercy takes on the Eastern Michigan Eagles after Antoine Davis scored 36 points in Detroit Mercy’s 82-80 overtime loss to the Charlotte 49ers.
The Eagles have gone 1-2 at home. Eastern Michigan is 0-2 in games decided by 3 points or fewer.
The Titans have gone 2-5 away from home. Detroit Mercy has a 3-4 record in games decided by 10 or more points.
TOP PERFORMERS: Emoni Bates is averaging 19.4 points and 5.7 rebounds for the Eagles. Noah Farrakhan is averaging 13.8 points over the last 10 games for Eastern Michigan.
Davis is averaging 24.3 points and 3.5 assists for the Titans. Jayden Stone is averaging 10 points over the last 10 games for Detroit Mercy. | 2022-12-17T08:57:29Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Eastern Michigan hosts Detroit Mercy following Davis' 36-point showing - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/colleges/eastern-michigan-hosts-detroit-mercy-following-davis-36-point-showing/2022/12/17/2b30e23e-7ddf-11ed-bb97-f47d47466b9a_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/colleges/eastern-michigan-hosts-detroit-mercy-following-davis-36-point-showing/2022/12/17/2b30e23e-7ddf-11ed-bb97-f47d47466b9a_story.html |
Eastern Washington takes on UC Davis after Venters' 26-point showing
FANDUEL SPORTSBOOK LINE: Eastern Washington -2.5; over/under is 151
BOTTOM LINE: Eastern Washington hosts the UC Davis Aggies after Steele Venters scored 26 points in Eastern Washington’s 77-70 loss to the Texas Tech Red Raiders.
The Eagles have gone 1-0 at home. Eastern Washington leads the Big Sky with 24.4 defensive rebounds per game led by Casey Jones averaging 5.2.
The Aggies have gone 1-2 away from home. UC Davis ranks sixth in college basketball with 39.5 rebounds per game led by Elijah Pepper averaging 6.8.
TOP PERFORMERS: Venters is scoring 14.7 points per game and averaging 2.6 rebounds for the Eagles. Angelo Allegri is averaging 1.7 made 3-pointers over the last 10 games for Eastern Washington.
Pepper is shooting 43.4% and averaging 19.6 points for the Aggies. Ty Johnson is averaging 17.0 points for UC Davis. | 2022-12-17T08:57:35Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Eastern Washington takes on UC Davis after Venters' 26-point showing - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/colleges/eastern-washington-takes-on-uc-davis-after-venters-26-point-showing/2022/12/17/e25cc8b0-7ddf-11ed-bb97-f47d47466b9a_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/colleges/eastern-washington-takes-on-uc-davis-after-venters-26-point-showing/2022/12/17/e25cc8b0-7ddf-11ed-bb97-f47d47466b9a_story.html |
Elon visits Valparaiso after King's 20-point outing
BOTTOM LINE: Valparaiso hosts the Elon Phoenix after Kobe King scored 20 points in Valparaiso’s 98-61 loss to the Ole Miss Rebels.
The Beacons are 3-1 on their home court. Valparaiso has a 1-0 record in one-possession games.
The Phoenix are 0-4 in road games. Elon is 2-6 in games decided by 10 or more points.
TOP PERFORMERS: Quinton Green is shooting 33.8% from beyond the arc with 2.0 made 3-pointers per game for the Beacons, while averaging 10.3 points. Ben Krikke is averaging 20.1 points and 6.2 rebounds over the last 10 games for Valparaiso.
Zac Ervin is shooting 34.6% from beyond the arc with 2.5 made 3-pointers per game for the Phoenix, while averaging 11 points. Sean Halloran is averaging 13.4 points, five assists and 2.1 steals over the past 10 games for Elon. | 2022-12-17T08:57:37Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Elon visits Valparaiso after King's 20-point outing - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/colleges/elon-visits-valparaiso-after-kings-20-point-outing/2022/12/17/4c5edc4a-7ddf-11ed-bb97-f47d47466b9a_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/colleges/elon-visits-valparaiso-after-kings-20-point-outing/2022/12/17/4c5edc4a-7ddf-11ed-bb97-f47d47466b9a_story.html |
Florida International Panthers (4-5) at Florida Atlantic Owls (9-1)
Boca Raton, Florida; Saturday, 2 p.m. EST
FANDUEL SPORTSBOOK LINE: Florida Atlantic -17; over/under is 150
BOTTOM LINE: Florida International visits the Florida Atlantic Owls after Denver Jones scored 21 points in Florida International’s 71-59 loss to the Howard Bison.
The Owls have gone 6-0 at home. Florida Atlantic is third in C-USA with 38.0 points per game in the paint led by Vladislav Goldin averaging 9.3.
The Panthers are 0-3 on the road. Florida International ranks second in C-USA scoring 42.7 points per game in the paint led by John Williams Jr. averaging 10.0.
Jones is scoring 18.1 points per game and averaging 3.8 rebounds for the Panthers. Arturo Dean is averaging 12.4 points for Florida International. | 2022-12-17T08:57:43Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Florida Atlantic hosts Jones and Florida International - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/colleges/florida-atlantic-hosts-jones-and-florida-international/2022/12/17/534dc606-7ddf-11ed-bb97-f47d47466b9a_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/colleges/florida-atlantic-hosts-jones-and-florida-international/2022/12/17/534dc606-7ddf-11ed-bb97-f47d47466b9a_story.html |
Florida State Seminoles play the St. John's (NY) Red Storm
BOTTOM LINE: The St. John’s (NY) Red Storm and the Florida State Seminoles square off at FLA Live Arena in Sunrise, Florida.
The Seminoles are 2-8 in non-conference play. Florida State has a 2-5 record in games decided by 10 points or more.
The Red Storm have a 9-1 record against non-conference oppponents. St. John’s (NY) averages 79.8 points and has outscored opponents by 13.3 points per game.
TOP PERFORMERS: Darin Green Jr. is averaging 12.8 points for the Seminoles. Cam’Ron Fletcher is averaging 1.3 made 3-pointers over the last 10 games for Florida State.
Joel Soriano is averaging 14.5 points and 12.6 rebounds for the Red Storm. David Jones is averaging 1.7 made 3-pointers over the last 10 games for St. John’s (NY). | 2022-12-17T08:57:49Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Florida State Seminoles play the St. John's (NY) Red Storm - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/colleges/florida-state-seminoles-play-the-st-johns-ny-red-storm/2022/12/17/53d3d2be-7ddf-11ed-bb97-f47d47466b9a_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/colleges/florida-state-seminoles-play-the-st-johns-ny-red-storm/2022/12/17/53d3d2be-7ddf-11ed-bb97-f47d47466b9a_story.html |
Grambling Tigers play the No. 24 Virginia Tech Hokies, aim for 4th straight victory
FANDUEL SPORTSBOOK LINE: Virginia Tech -18.5; over/under is 135
BOTTOM LINE: Grambling is looking to build upon its three-game win streak with a victory over No. 24 Virginia Tech.
The Hokies are 7-0 on their home court. Virginia Tech ranks fifth in the ACC with 25.3 defensive rebounds per game led by Justyn Mutts averaging 6.8.
The Tigers are 2-2 on the road. Grambling ranks fourth in the SWAC with 10.3 offensive rebounds per game led by Carte’Are Gordon averaging 2.3.
TOP PERFORMERS: Sean Pedulla is averaging 16.9 points and 3.8 assists for the Hokies. Grant Basile is averaging 14.6 points over the last 10 games for Virginia Tech.
Gordon is scoring 13.8 points per game and averaging 8.0 rebounds for the Tigers. Cameron Christon is averaging 11.7 points for Grambling. | 2022-12-17T08:58:03Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Grambling Tigers play the No. 24 Virginia Tech Hokies, aim for 4th straight victory - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/colleges/grambling-tigers-play-the-no-24-virginia-tech-hokies-aim-for-4th-straight-victory/2022/12/17/85e78fac-7ddf-11ed-bb97-f47d47466b9a_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/colleges/grambling-tigers-play-the-no-24-virginia-tech-hokies-aim-for-4th-straight-victory/2022/12/17/85e78fac-7ddf-11ed-bb97-f47d47466b9a_story.html |
Indiana State takes on Duquesne following McCauley's 23-point outing
BOTTOM LINE: Indiana State faces the Duquesne Dukes after Courvoisier McCauley scored 23 points in Indiana State’s 88-85 overtime loss to the Southern Indiana Screaming Eagles.
The Sycamores are 2-1 on the road. Indiana State averages 16.3 assists per game to lead the MVC, paced by Cameron Henry with 3.7.
TOP PERFORMERS: Austin Rotroff is averaging 6.6 points and 7.5 rebounds for the Dukes. Dae Dae Grant is averaging 17.9 points over the last 10 games for Duquesne.
McCauley is scoring 17.8 points per game and averaging 5.3 rebounds for the Sycamores. Henry is averaging 10.7 points and 5.1 rebounds over the last 10 games for Indiana State. | 2022-12-17T08:58:29Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Indiana State takes on Duquesne following McCauley's 23-point outing - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/colleges/indiana-state-takes-on-duquesne-following-mccauleys-23-point-outing/2022/12/17/f7e7d6d4-7ddf-11ed-bb97-f47d47466b9a_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/colleges/indiana-state-takes-on-duquesne-following-mccauleys-23-point-outing/2022/12/17/f7e7d6d4-7ddf-11ed-bb97-f47d47466b9a_story.html |
Iona visits New Mexico following Mashburn's 23-point showing
BOTTOM LINE: New Mexico takes on the Iona Gaels after Jamal Mashburn Jr. scored 23 points in New Mexico’s 67-64 win against the San Francisco Dons.
The Lobos have gone 7-0 in home games. New Mexico is third in the MWC with 15.9 assists per game led by Jaelen House averaging 5.0.
The Gaels have gone 0-1 away from home. Iona leads the MAAC with 17.1 assists. Daniss Jenkins leads the Gaels with 4.9.
TOP PERFORMERS: House is shooting 48.7% from beyond the arc with 1.9 made 3-pointers per game for the Lobos, while averaging 16.5 points, five assists and 2.9 steals. Morris Udeze is shooting 60.9% and averaging 18.1 points for New Mexico.
Quinn Slazinski averages 2.5 made 3-pointers per game for the Gaels, scoring 18.0 points while shooting 35.7% from beyond the arc. Jenkins is averaging 17.9 points and 4.9 assists for Iona. | 2022-12-17T08:58:35Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Iona visits New Mexico following Mashburn's 23-point showing - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/colleges/iona-visits-new-mexico-following-mashburns-23-point-showing/2022/12/17/45eb943e-7ddf-11ed-bb97-f47d47466b9a_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/colleges/iona-visits-new-mexico-following-mashburns-23-point-showing/2022/12/17/45eb943e-7ddf-11ed-bb97-f47d47466b9a_story.html |
Little Rock hosts King and Jacksonville State
FANDUEL SPORTSBOOK LINE: Jacksonville State -7.5; over/under is 145.5
BOTTOM LINE: Jacksonville State takes on the Little Rock Trojans after Demaree King scored 25 points in Jacksonville State’s 97-63 victory over the Reinhardt Eagles.
The Gamecocks have gone 3-0 at home. Jacksonville State is 1-0 in one-possession games.
The Trojans are 0-7 in road games. Little Rock is fourth in the OVC with 33.6 rebounds per game led by Myron Gardner averaging 9.8.
D.J. Smith is averaging 13.2 points for the Trojans. Gardner is averaging 12.6 points for Little Rock. | 2022-12-17T08:58:49Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Little Rock hosts King and Jacksonville State - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/colleges/little-rock-hosts-king-and-jacksonville-state/2022/12/17/ff0644dc-7ddf-11ed-bb97-f47d47466b9a_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/colleges/little-rock-hosts-king-and-jacksonville-state/2022/12/17/ff0644dc-7ddf-11ed-bb97-f47d47466b9a_story.html |
Medor leads UTSA against Bethune-Cookman after 23-point showing
The Roadrunners are 5-2 on their home court. UTSA gives up 71.2 points to opponents and has been outscored by 2.8 points per game.
The Wildcats are 0-5 on the road. Bethune-Cookman ranks sixth in the SWAC with 12.0 assists per game led by Zion Harmon averaging 3.0.
Harmon is scoring 13.0 points per game and averaging 1.4 rebounds for the Wildcats. Marcus Garrett is averaging 12.0 points for Bethune-Cookman. | 2022-12-17T08:59:03Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Medor leads UTSA against Bethune-Cookman after 23-point showing - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/colleges/medor-leads-utsa-against-bethune-cookman-after-23-point-showing/2022/12/17/2448da62-7ddf-11ed-bb97-f47d47466b9a_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/colleges/medor-leads-utsa-against-bethune-cookman-after-23-point-showing/2022/12/17/2448da62-7ddf-11ed-bb97-f47d47466b9a_story.html |
BOTTOM LINE: Robert Morris faces Mount St. Mary’s for a Division 1 Division matchup Sunday.
The Mountaineers are 2-2 in home games. Mount St. Mary’s is 0-1 in games decided by 3 points or fewer.
The Colonials are 2-3 in road games. Robert Morris is 3-2 when it has fewer turnovers than its opponents and averages 12.8 turnovers per game.
TOP PERFORMERS: Jalen Benjamin is scoring 17.1 points per game and averaging 3.6 rebounds for the Mountaineers. Malik Jefferson is averaging 10.5 points and 7.9 rebounds over the last 10 games for Mount St. Mary’s.
Enoch Cheeks is averaging 15.9 points, 3.1 assists, 1.8 steals and 1.7 blocks for the Colonials. Kahliel Spear is averaging 14.1 points and 8.1 rebounds over the last 10 games for Robert Morris. | 2022-12-17T08:59:35Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Mount St. Mary's Mountaineers welcome the Robert Morris Colonials on Sunday - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/colleges/mount-st-marys-mountaineers-welcome-the-robert-morris-colonials-on-sunday/2022/12/17/4cdbcf66-7ddf-11ed-bb97-f47d47466b9a_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/colleges/mount-st-marys-mountaineers-welcome-the-robert-morris-colonials-on-sunday/2022/12/17/4cdbcf66-7ddf-11ed-bb97-f47d47466b9a_story.html |
NC State Wolf Pack face the Vanderbilt Commodores
Vanderbilt Commodores (5-5) vs. NC State Wolf Pack (9-3, 0-2 ACC)
Chicago; Saturday, 10:30 p.m. EST
FANDUEL SPORTSBOOK LINE: NC State -6.5; over/under is 146
BOTTOM LINE: The Vanderbilt Commodores and the NC State Wolf Pack square off at United Center in Chicago, Illinois.
The Wolf Pack have a 9-1 record in non-conference play. NC State has an 8-0 record in games decided by 10 points or more.
The Commodores are 5-5 in non-conference play. Vanderbilt has a 1-2 record in games decided by 10 points or more.
TOP PERFORMERS: Dusan Mahorcic is averaging 8.7 points and 6.7 rebounds for the Wolf Pack. Terquavion Smith is averaging 18.3 points over the last 10 games for NC State.
Liam Robbins is averaging 12.3 points, 5.2 rebounds and 2.7 blocks for the Commodores. Myles Stute is averaging 12.1 points and 5.6 rebounds for Vanderbilt. | 2022-12-17T08:59:37Z | www.washingtonpost.com | NC State Wolf Pack face the Vanderbilt Commodores - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/colleges/nc-state-wolf-pack-face-the-vanderbilt-commodores/2022/12/17/d92b81ba-7dde-11ed-bb97-f47d47466b9a_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/colleges/nc-state-wolf-pack-face-the-vanderbilt-commodores/2022/12/17/d92b81ba-7dde-11ed-bb97-f47d47466b9a_story.html |
No. 10 Arkansas Razorbacks and the Bradley Braves meet in North Little Rock, Arkansas
Bradley Braves (7-3, 2-0 MVC) vs. Arkansas Razorbacks (9-1)
North Little Rock, Arkansas; Saturday, 4 p.m. EST
BOTTOM LINE: The No. 10 Arkansas Razorbacks face the Bradley Braves at Simmons Bank Arena in North Little Rock, Arkansas.
The Razorbacks have a 9-1 record against non-conference oppponents. Arkansas is 7- when it has fewer turnovers than its opponents and averages 12.8 turnovers per game.
The Braves are 5-3 in non-conference play. Bradley is eighth in the MVC scoring 69.0 points per game and is shooting 46.0%.
TOP PERFORMERS: Ricky Council IV is scoring 19.2 points per game with 2.9 rebounds and 2.9 assists for the Razorbacks. Anthony Black is averaging 12.6 points and 5.3 rebounds while shooting 53.0% for Arkansas.
Rienk Mast is averaging 13 points and 7.8 rebounds for the Braves. Malevy Leons is averaging 12 points, 6.7 rebounds, 1.7 steals and 1.8 blocks for Bradley. | 2022-12-17T08:59:43Z | www.washingtonpost.com | No. 10 Arkansas Razorbacks and the Bradley Braves meet in North Little Rock, Arkansas - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/colleges/no-10-arkansas-razorbacks-and-the-bradley-braves-meet-in-north-little-rock-arkansas/2022/12/17/a5f62c5e-7ddf-11ed-bb97-f47d47466b9a_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/colleges/no-10-arkansas-razorbacks-and-the-bradley-braves-meet-in-north-little-rock-arkansas/2022/12/17/a5f62c5e-7ddf-11ed-bb97-f47d47466b9a_story.html |
No. 2 Virginia Cavaliers host No. 5 Houston Cougars
FANDUEL SPORTSBOOK LINE: Virginia -2.5; over/under is 113
BOTTOM LINE: The No. 2 Virginia Cavaliers face the No. 5 Houston Cougars.
The Cavaliers have gone 5-0 at home. Virginia is 1-0 in games decided by less than 4 points.
The Cougars are 1-0 in road games. Houston averages 73.9 points and has outscored opponents by 24.5 points per game.
TOP PERFORMERS: Kihei Clark is scoring 11.6 points per game and averaging 2.4 rebounds for the Cavaliers. Jayden Gardner is averaging 11.6 points and 6.4 rebounds while shooting 53.0% for Virginia.
Jamal Shead is averaging 7.5 points, 5.7 assists and 2.4 steals for the Cougars. Marcus Sasser is averaging 16.2 points over the last 10 games for Houston. | 2022-12-17T09:00:14Z | www.washingtonpost.com | No. 2 Virginia Cavaliers host No. 5 Houston Cougars - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/colleges/no-2-virginia-cavaliers-host-no-5-houston-cougars/2022/12/17/3e396e96-7ddf-11ed-bb97-f47d47466b9a_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/colleges/no-2-virginia-cavaliers-host-no-5-houston-cougars/2022/12/17/3e396e96-7ddf-11ed-bb97-f47d47466b9a_story.html |
Norfolk State Spartans and the Hampton Pirates square off in Las Vegas, Nevada
FANDUEL SPORTSBOOK LINE: Norfolk State -9; over/under is 143.5
BOTTOM LINE: The Hampton Pirates and the Norfolk State Spartans square off at MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas, Nevada.
The Spartans are 7-4 in non-conference play. Norfolk State has a 2-4 record against opponents over .500.
The Pirates are 3-7 in non-conference play. Hampton is 0-1 in games decided by 3 points or fewer.
TOP PERFORMERS: Joe Bryant Jr. is scoring 15.1 points per game with 3.6 rebounds and 3.3 assists for the Spartans. Kris Bankston is averaging 12.1 points and 6.7 rebounds over the last 10 games for Norfolk State. | 2022-12-17T09:00:38Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Norfolk State Spartans and the Hampton Pirates square off in Las Vegas, Nevada - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/colleges/norfolk-state-spartans-and-the-hampton-pirates-square-off-in-las-vegas-nevada/2022/12/17/5ac60bb4-7ddf-11ed-bb97-f47d47466b9a_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/colleges/norfolk-state-spartans-and-the-hampton-pirates-square-off-in-las-vegas-nevada/2022/12/17/5ac60bb4-7ddf-11ed-bb97-f47d47466b9a_story.html |
The Tigers have gone 2-6 at home. Pacific ranks ninth in the WCC with 7.5 offensive rebounds per game led by Cam Denson averaging 1.6.
The Spartans are 2-1 in road games. San Jose State is ninth in the MWC scoring 70.1 points per game and is shooting 46.6%.
TOP PERFORMERS: Tyler Beard is averaging 10.9 points for the Tigers. Jordan Ivy-Curry is averaging 12.0 points and 2.5 rebounds while shooting 41.2% over the past 10 games for Pacific.
Trey Anderson averages 1.5 made 3-pointers per game for the Spartans, scoring 8.5 points while shooting 43.2% from beyond the arc. Moore is averaging 14.5 points, 5.2 rebounds and 4.6 assists over the past 10 games for San Jose State. | 2022-12-17T09:01:03Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Pacific hosts Moore and San Jose State - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/colleges/pacific-hosts-moore-and-san-jose-state/2022/12/17/9f136d84-7ddf-11ed-bb97-f47d47466b9a_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/colleges/pacific-hosts-moore-and-san-jose-state/2022/12/17/9f136d84-7ddf-11ed-bb97-f47d47466b9a_story.html |
Prairie View A&M faces Montana
FANDUEL SPORTSBOOK LINE: Prairie View A&M -6.5; over/under is 131
BOTTOM LINE: The Montana Grizzlies and the Prairie View A&M Panthers play at Delmar Fieldhouse in Houston, Texas.
The Panthers have a 4-6 record against non-conference oppponents. Prairie View A&M is third in the SWAC scoring 70.7 points while shooting 42.0% from the field.
The Grizzlies have a 5-5 record in non-conference games. Montana is the best team in the Big Sky giving up just 66.5 points per game while holding opponents to 43.7% shooting.
TOP PERFORMERS: William Douglas is scoring 14.1 points per game and averaging 5.1 rebounds for the Panthers. Jeremiah Gambrell is averaging 2.2 made 3-pointers for Prairie View A&M.
Josh Bannan is scoring 14.7 points per game and averaging 9.5 rebounds for the Grizzlies. Dischon Thomas is averaging 11.6 points for Montana. | 2022-12-17T09:01:15Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Prairie View A&M faces Montana - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/colleges/prairie-view-aandm-faces-montana/2022/12/17/1d46852a-7ddf-11ed-bb97-f47d47466b9a_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/colleges/prairie-view-aandm-faces-montana/2022/12/17/1d46852a-7ddf-11ed-bb97-f47d47466b9a_story.html |
BOTTOM LINE: Rhode Island visits the Georgia State Panthers after the Rams took down the UMass-Lowell River Hawks 77-75 in overtime.
The Panthers are 5-3 in home games. Georgia State ranks ninth in the Sun Belt with 34.0 points per game in the paint led by Ja’Heim Hudson averaging 11.3.
The Rams are 0-1 on the road. Rhode Island ranks fourth in the A-10 with 10.4 offensive rebounds per game led by Malik Martin averaging 2.4.
TOP PERFORMERS: Dwon Odom is scoring 15.8 points per game and averaging 5.6 rebounds for the Panthers. Hudson is averaging 11.0 points and 8.9 rebounds while shooting 47.8% for Georgia State.
Sebastian Thomas is averaging 4.7 points and 3.1 assists for the Rams. Ishmael Leggett is averaging 17.2 points and 6.1 rebounds while shooting 46.1% over the last 10 games for Rhode Island. | 2022-12-17T09:01:21Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Rhode Island visits Georgia State following overtime win - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/colleges/rhode-island-visits-georgia-state-following-overtime-win/2022/12/17/652b9fec-7ddf-11ed-bb97-f47d47466b9a_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/colleges/rhode-island-visits-georgia-state-following-overtime-win/2022/12/17/652b9fec-7ddf-11ed-bb97-f47d47466b9a_story.html |
Sacramento State plays Fresno State following Chappell's 25-point game
BOTTOM LINE: Sacramento State visits the Fresno State Bulldogs after Zach Chappell scored 25 points in Sacramento State’s 76-74 victory over the Long Beach State Beach.
The Bulldogs are 2-1 in home games. Fresno State has a 2-4 record against opponents over .500.
The Hornets are 2-2 on the road. Sacramento State is 2-3 in games decided by 10 points or more.
TOP PERFORMERS: Isaih Moore is scoring 13.6 points per game and averaging 8.9 rebounds for the Bulldogs. Jemarl Baker Jr. is averaging 10.2 points and 2.6 rebounds while shooting 37.9% for Fresno State.
Chappell is shooting 49.0% and averaging 15.6 points for the Hornets. Akolda Mawein is averaging 10.8 points for Sacramento State. | 2022-12-17T09:01:33Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Sacramento State plays Fresno State following Chappell's 25-point game - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/colleges/sacramento-state-plays-fresno-state-following-chappells-25-point-game/2022/12/17/374de5b2-7ddf-11ed-bb97-f47d47466b9a_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/colleges/sacramento-state-plays-fresno-state-following-chappells-25-point-game/2022/12/17/374de5b2-7ddf-11ed-bb97-f47d47466b9a_story.html |
Sam Houston visits Texas State after Harrell's 20-point game
FANDUEL SPORTSBOOK LINE: Texas State -3.5; over/under is 126
BOTTOM LINE: Texas State hosts the Sam Houston Bearkats after Mason Harrell scored 20 points in Texas State’s 71-65 loss to the Mary Hardin-Baylor Crusaders.
The Bobcats have gone 1-2 in home games. Texas State is 3-2 in games decided by 10 or more points.
The Bearkats are 3-2 on the road. Sam Houston has a 1-0 record in one-possession games.
TOP PERFORMERS: Harrell averages 1.5 made 3-pointers per game for the Bobcats, scoring 18.5 points while shooting 37.2% from beyond the arc. Nighael Ceaser is averaging 11.7 points and 7.3 rebounds over the last 10 games for Texas State. | 2022-12-17T09:01:46Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Sam Houston visits Texas State after Harrell's 20-point game - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/colleges/sam-houston-visits-texas-state-after-harrells-20-point-game/2022/12/17/e9e93230-7ddf-11ed-bb97-f47d47466b9a_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/colleges/sam-houston-visits-texas-state-after-harrells-20-point-game/2022/12/17/e9e93230-7ddf-11ed-bb97-f47d47466b9a_story.html |
San Francisco visits UNLV following Gilbert's 25-point game
FANDUEL SPORTSBOOK LINE: UNLV -6; over/under is 144.5
BOTTOM LINE: UNLV faces the San Francisco Dons after Keshon Gilbert scored 25 points in UNLV’s 74-70 win over the Washington State Cougars.
The Rebels are 5-0 on their home court. UNLV averages 79.1 points while outscoring opponents by 17.7 points per game.
The Dons have gone 1-1 away from home. San Francisco is second in the WCC giving up 67.7 points while holding opponents to 43.0% shooting.
TOP PERFORMERS: Gilbert is scoring 15.5 points per game and averaging 2.8 rebounds for the Rebels. Elijah Harkless is averaging 14.6 points and 4.1 rebounds while shooting 39.3% for UNLV. | 2022-12-17T09:01:52Z | www.washingtonpost.com | San Francisco visits UNLV following Gilbert's 25-point game - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/colleges/san-francisco-visits-unlv-following-gilberts-25-point-game/2022/12/17/20bde144-7ddf-11ed-bb97-f47d47466b9a_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/colleges/san-francisco-visits-unlv-following-gilberts-25-point-game/2022/12/17/20bde144-7ddf-11ed-bb97-f47d47466b9a_story.html |
Sebree leads Tennessee Tech against Western Carolina after 25-point performance
Western Carolina Catamounts (5-6) at Tennessee Tech Golden Eagles (3-8)
Cookeville, Tennessee; Saturday, 4 p.m. EST
FANDUEL SPORTSBOOK LINE: Tennessee Tech -3.5; over/under is 143.5
BOTTOM LINE: Tennessee Tech hosts the Western Carolina Catamounts after Jaylen Sebree scored 25 points in Tennessee Tech’s 64-63 loss to the Lipscomb Bisons.
The Golden Eagles have gone 3-2 at home. Tennessee Tech is 2-4 in games decided by at least 10 points.
The Catamounts are 1-4 on the road. Western Carolina ranks fourth in the SoCon shooting 36.0% from 3-point range.
TOP PERFORMERS: Sebree is scoring 12.5 points per game and averaging 6.5 rebounds for the Golden Eagles. Tyrone Perry is averaging 2.2 made 3-pointers over the last 10 games for Tennessee Tech.
Tre Jackson is shooting 43.4% from beyond the arc with 3.6 made 3-pointers per game for the Catamounts, while averaging 14.8 points and 1.5 steals. Tyzhaun Claude is shooting 53.6% and averaging 14.4 points over the past 10 games for Western Carolina. | 2022-12-17T09:01:58Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Sebree leads Tennessee Tech against Western Carolina after 25-point performance - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/colleges/sebree-leads-tennessee-tech-against-western-carolina-after-25-point-performance/2022/12/17/d46c3f4c-7ddf-11ed-bb97-f47d47466b9a_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/colleges/sebree-leads-tennessee-tech-against-western-carolina-after-25-point-performance/2022/12/17/d46c3f4c-7ddf-11ed-bb97-f47d47466b9a_story.html |
Southeast Missouri State visits Iowa following McCaffery's 24-point game
The Hawkeyes have gone 5-1 at home. Iowa has a 1-1 record in one-possession games.
The Redhawks are 2-4 on the road. Southeast Missouri State ranks fifth in the OVC with 8.8 offensive rebounds per game led by Kobe Clark averaging 2.9.
TOP PERFORMERS: Kris Murray is scoring 19.4 points per game with 10.1 rebounds and 1.8 assists for the Hawkeyes. McCaffery is averaging 13.9 points and 4.1 rebounds while shooting 45.4% for Iowa.
Phillip Russell is scoring 16.5 points per game and averaging 3.2 rebounds for the Redhawks. Chris Harris is averaging 10.1 points and 3.6 rebounds over the last 10 games for Southeast Missouri State. | 2022-12-17T09:02:43Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Southeast Missouri State visits Iowa following McCaffery's 24-point game - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/colleges/southeast-missouri-state-visits-iowa-following-mccafferys-24-point-game/2022/12/17/27bdb6b8-7ddf-11ed-bb97-f47d47466b9a_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/colleges/southeast-missouri-state-visits-iowa-following-mccafferys-24-point-game/2022/12/17/27bdb6b8-7ddf-11ed-bb97-f47d47466b9a_story.html |
Wood and Portland host Oregon
The Ducks are 5-2 in home games. Oregon averages 68.6 points and has outscored opponents by 4.1 points per game.
The Pilots are 1-1 on the road. Portland is 0-1 in one-possession games.
TOP PERFORMERS: Will Richardson is averaging 14.4 points and 5.7 assists for the Ducks. Quincy Guerrier is averaging 1.8 made 3-pointers over the last 10 games for Oregon.
Tyler Robertson is shooting 39.6% and averaging 15.6 points for the Pilots. Kristian Sjolund is averaging 13.1 points over the last 10 games for Portland. | 2022-12-17T09:04:25Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Wood and Portland host Oregon - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/colleges/wood-and-portland-host-oregon/2022/12/17/574d1fb8-7ddf-11ed-bb97-f47d47466b9a_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/colleges/wood-and-portland-host-oregon/2022/12/17/574d1fb8-7ddf-11ed-bb97-f47d47466b9a_story.html |
BOSTON — Moritz Wagner scored 25 points and Paolo Banchero added 20 as the Orlando Magic beat the NBA-leading Boston Celtics 117-109.
LOS ANGELES — LeBron James scored 30 points, Russell Westbrook had 15 points, 12 assists and 11 rebounds and the Los Angeles Lakers smoothly overcame Anthony Davis’ latest injury in a 126-108 victory over the Denver Nuggets.
PHILADELPHIA — Joel Embiid had 34 points and 13 rebounds, James Harden added 27 points and nine assists and the Philadelphia 76ers beat the short-handed Golden State Warriors 118-106.
NEW YORK — Not long after landing free-agent catcher Omar Narváez, the active New York Mets signed five players to minor league contracts.
MINNEAPOLIS — Joey Gallo and the Twins agreed to an $11 million, one-year contract, a person familiar with the negotiations told The Associated Press, a deal that gives Minnesota another left-handed hitting outfielder.
ORLANDO, Fla. — Gunnar Watson’s 12-yard scoring pass to RaJae’ Johnson in the third period put No. 23 Troy ahead to stay, and the Trojans forced five turnovers in an 18-12 come-from-behind win over No. 22 UTSA in the Duluth Trading Cure Bowl.
ST. PAUL, Minn. — Mats Zuccarello had three goals and an assist, and Marc-Andre Fleury stopped 28 shots as the Minnesota Wild beat the Chicago Blackhawks 4-1 for their fourth straight win. | 2022-12-17T09:04:31Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Friday's Sports In Brief - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/fridays-sports-in-brief/2022/12/17/ca75ffa8-7de1-11ed-bb97-f47d47466b9a_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/fridays-sports-in-brief/2022/12/17/ca75ffa8-7de1-11ed-bb97-f47d47466b9a_story.html |
Pope Francis meets Archbishop Ieronymos II, leader of Greece's Orthodox Church, in Athens in 2021. (George Vitsaras/AP)
In a statement released Friday, the Greek Ministry of Culture and Sports expressed gratitude for the pope’s “generous” decision and hope that it will put pressure on the British Museum, which has dozens of Parthenon fragments, to return the controversial “Elgin Marbles.” Avoiding the hot-button issues of restitution and repatriation, Pope Francis framed the return as a “donation” to Greek Archbishop Ieronymos II and “a concrete sign of his sincere desire to follow in the ecumenical path of truth,” the Associated Press reported.
A solution for the Elgin marbles: Robot-carved replicas? | 2022-12-17T10:22:28Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Pope to give Vatican Parthenon marble fragments to Greek Orthodox Church - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/12/17/pope-francis-parthenon-frieze-vatican-greece/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/12/17/pope-francis-parthenon-frieze-vatican-greece/ |
Casey Anthony in a scene from the docuseries “Casey Anthony: Where the Truth Lies.” (Peacock)
In Childish Gambino’s 2011 song “Bonfire,” he raps that he “made the beat then murdered it, Casey Anthony.” Call-outs in hip-hop songs are usually reserved for celebrities like Halle Berry or Beyoncé — talented people who are easily recognizable as fodder in witty lyrics. But Anthony has a different kind of name recognition: In 2008, she was charged with first-degree murder in the death of her 2-year-old daughter, Caylee.
After living with public hostility for over a decade after her acquittal, Anthony is trying to tell her side of events in the Peacock docuseries “Casey Anthony: Where the Truth Lies,” which premiered in late November.
Anthony’s trial garnered hordes of media attention and vitriol when she was eventually found not responsible for her daughter’s death but guilty on four counts of providing false information to law enforcement. In the new three-episode limited series, Anthony alleges that her father was responsible for Caylee’s death and was the force behind Anthony’s lies.
Impacts from these projects can have far-reaching implications beyond viewership numbers; they can not only alter public sentiment, but potentially affect the justice system. Just look at Adnan Syed, the subject of the “Serial” podcast, who had his murder conviction tossed this year. Because these entertainment ventures can potentially change the course of someone’s life, the question becomes: Who deserves a platform?
“Where the Truth Lies” provides Anthony with a 3½-hour pulpit. Her narrative is the heart of the series. Anthony’s legal team, which she says has become her surrogate family since she accused her father of sexual assault, is firmly in her corner. The rest of the central interviewees, including the detective who worked on Caylee’s case and Anthony’s former friends, believe that the now-36-year-old is somehow responsible for her daughter’s death. But the doc is not a true-crime reenactment of the case or a “Serial”-esque investigation. Though it shows viewpoints from people who both support and contradict Anthony, it is a story largely told from her point of view.
From ‘The Dropout’ to ‘The Tinder Swindler,’ your guide to TV’s most notorious scammers
Alexandra Dean, the show’s director, believes that the hatred of Anthony was fed by the media’s obsession with her story — Nancy Grace once called her “the most hated mom in America” — which subsequently affected her public image. “Casey Anthony’s court case coincided with the peak of reality television and 24-hour cable news, and because of that, I think Casey was turned into a two-dimensional reality TV villain by certain cable personalities,” Dean told The Washington Post.
Dean, who was drawn to Anthony’s story because of a desire to be a “voice for the voiceless,” said she “love[s] the mixed response” to the project because she feels “it’s stirring up debate where before there was just blind hatred.”
Much of that renewed and rehashed conversation has taken place on social media. Comedian Rosie O’Donnell said in a TikTok that she believes Anthony is innocent after watching the Peacock show. On the same site, a video was posted of someone believed to be Anthony onstage during a Steel Panther concert, which some commenters pointed out would contradict Anthony’s claims from the documentary that she is afraid of leaving her home.
Criminal suspects and crimes have always captured public interest, but Adam Golub, professor of American studies at California State University at Fullerton, says our current “age of true crime on demand” has seen notoriety and celebrity increasingly intertwined. “I think [the docuseries is] a clear attempt to try to remix Casey Anthony into the culture. … This is an attempt to try to change the story, to change the narrative … kind of like a celebrity who’s trying to reinvent their image or rebrand their image,” he said. “I think that if we reached the point where criminals are kind of engaging in PR, that’s certainly crossed the line into celebrity also.”
Some viewers, as well as people who refuse to watch the series, have flooded the documentary’s IMDb page to complain that Anthony is receiving more media attention. The outrage mirrors the response to Netflix’s “Dahmer — Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story,” which creator Ryan Murphy defended in a New York Times interview: “What are the rules now? Should we never do a movie about a tyrant?”
While the question posed by Murphy was rhetorical, Washington Post columnist and former cannibalism scholar Monica Hesse has an answer. “Is ‘Dahmer’ a show that should have been made? You don’t even have to start an episode to become convinced that the answer is no. Relatives of the serial killer’s 17 victims have been vocal in saying the show retraumatized them. Rita Isbell, the sister of Errol Lindsey, said she was dismayed to see her impassioned courtroom speech to Dahmer — officers had to restrain her from attacking him — reenacted word for word and transformed into a meme,” she wrote in a piece about the Netflix show.
Dean takes issue with the position that the voices behind true-crime stories don’t need to be shared. She said she was “surprised a few members of the press have decided to join the mob insisting Casey and I both stay silent. I did not see that coming. I expect critics to disagree with the artistic choices in my documentaries, but press calling for less freedom of press, less freedom of speech. That startled me.”
Whether the public wants them, it’s clear that audiences have a thirst for these types of stories. “Dahmer” is one of the most-watched Netflix shows of all time, according to the streamer. A 2017 documentary about Anthony broke records for its host network, Investigation Discovery, when it reached 2.9 million people.
But what is achieved by elevating the accused or convicted with entertainment focused on real-life horrors is still in question, Golub said. “Where is the place in the culture where we feel like we need criminal celebrities? What is this doing for us? What is it doing to us?” | 2022-12-17T11:19:08Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Casey Anthony and the rise of the true-crime celebrity - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/arts-entertainment/2022/12/16/casey-anthony-peacock-series-true-crime/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/arts-entertainment/2022/12/16/casey-anthony-peacock-series-true-crime/ |
These $99 trading cards are laughably bad. That’s the whole point.
A man stands near a portrait of President Donald Trump done by artist Julian Raven at the Conservative Political Action Conference in National Harbor, Md., in 2019. (Matt McClain/The Washington Post)
This latest entrepreneurial endeavor from a businessman with myriad failures and bankruptcies seems to be a belated effort to cash in on the market for “non-fungible tokens.” NFTS include the sale of images given a unique digital stamp and thus, theoretically, an artificial scarcity. NFTS use bitcoin technology and can be bought and sold like any other commodity. The market for them may have peaked in 2021 with the $69 million sale of a digital collage by an artist called Beeple. Since then, the market has crashed. | 2022-12-17T11:19:14Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Trump NFTs are not art. Unless you consider grifting an art form. - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/arts-entertainment/2022/12/17/trump-trading-card-nft-art/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/arts-entertainment/2022/12/17/trump-trading-card-nft-art/ |
5 new historical novels transport readers
Review by Carol Memmott
The Jim Crow South, Golden Age Hollywood and World War II-era Britain are among the destinations to which we time travel in some of 2022’s best historical novels.
‘Miss del Río,’ by Bárbara Mujica
Hollywood’s Golden Age is aglow in this elegant biographical novel that brings to life Mexico-born Dolores del Río, the silver screen’s first Latina superstar. In the 1920s, del Río was named the most beautiful woman in the world, but her acting talents weren’t fully recognized because, in a xenophobic America, “foreigners” were looked upon with suspicion. When talkies came into vogue, few actors who spoke accented English could expect to succeed in Hollywood. She eventually left California and returned to Mexico, where she thrived in its cinematic Golden Age and was able to make the serious films she always craved. Mujica, who has also written novels about Frida Kahlo and Saint Teresa of Ávila, serves up an alluring portrait of the dazzling del Río. The inclusion of other celebrities in del Río’s orbit, including Greta Garbo, Ramon Novarro and Kahlo, adds to the novel’s glitz.
‘Anywhere You Run,’ by Wanda M. Morris
The Jim Crow South is the noirish backdrop for this intense thriller that, in its opening pages, has us staring into the freshly dug grave of three civil rights workers who were murdered in Neshoba County, Miss., in 1964. It’s one of many vividly described scenes in Morris’s second novel, which mostly centers on Violet and Marigold Richards, young sisters struggling with racism, sexism and poverty during an explosive period in U.S. history. Violet goes on the run after killing the man who raped her. Marigold marries, then leaves, an abusive man. Danger follows them because one of them can prove who killed the Freedom Riders. Morris’s novel is a master class in evoking a time period that still resonates.
‘Gilded Mountain,’ by Kate Manning
Manning’s prose is so evocative, your fingers may begin to feel icy as you read her depiction of the brutal winters in fictional Moonstone, Colo., where miners, mostly immigrants, work and die in a marble quarry in the early 1900s. Working conditions are horrific, and, just like today, workers fighting to unionize are rebuffed by the wealthy and the privileged. The rising star in this story of the haves and have-nots is Sylvie Pelletier, daughter of a miner, whose ambitions are as big as the Western sky. She awakens as a teen to the world’s injustices and soon she’s reading W.E.B. Du Bois and Booker T. Washington and fighting alongside labor activist Mother Jones for workers’ rights. The social issues of the novel’s time period, including the wealth gap, women’s rights and freedom of the press, artfully mirror those in 21st-century America.
‘The Devil’s Blaze: Sherlock Holmes 1943,’ by Robert J. Harris
The most famous fictional detective of the Victorian era time-jumps into World War II Britain in Harris’s rollicking second novel starring the irrepressible Sherlock Holmes. In this delightfully outrageous tale, Holmes and sidekick John Watson must determine how and why four government officials have died through spontaneous combustion. Could it be a new weapon of terror concocted by the Nazis, or is something else afoot? Harris writes as if he’s been taken over by the spirit of Holmes creator Arthur Conan Doyle. Die-hard fans will delight in iconography as Harris brings to life Holmes’s archenemy, Professor Moriarty, and sets a final showdown at Reichenbach Falls, one of the most notorious locations in the Holmesian canon.
‘The Lindbergh Nanny,’ by Mariah Fredericks
The 1932 kidnapping of Charles Lindbergh Jr. was dubbed the crime of the century and, in her tension-filled reimagining of the horrific event, Fredericks spotlights one of the suspects, the toddler’s Scottish nurse, Betty Gow. Bruno Hauptmann was sentenced to death in the kidnapping and death of Baby Lindbergh, but police always believed, but never proved, that someone within the Lindbergh household was also involved. “The Lindbergh Nanny” is told from Gow’s perspective as she attempts to uncover the traitor in the household. Because Charles and Anne Morrow Lindbergh, the baby’s parents, are painted in enigmatic brushstrokes, this gripping novel focuses more on Gow’s heartbreak at the loss of her beloved “Charlie.” | 2022-12-17T11:19:20Z | www.washingtonpost.com | The best new historical fiction - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/books/2022/12/17/best-recent-historical-fiction/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/books/2022/12/17/best-recent-historical-fiction/ |
State Sen. Jennifer L. McClellan embraces Del. Lamont Bagby at a news conference in Henrico County on Dec. 16. Bagby threw his support to McClellan after dropping out of the Democratic primary for the 4th District congressional seat that became vacant last month with the death of Rep. A. Donald McEachin. (Gregory S. Schneider/The Washington Post)
RICHMOND — Sandra Antoine has known Del. Lamont Bagby (D-Henrico) since he was growing up in low-income housing, and the social worker and longtime Democrat was among the first this week to endorse his short-lived run for Congress.
But on Friday, a day after Bagby made the surprise decision to drop out of the race, Antoine joined him at a news conference to show allegiance to another candidate for the 4th Congressional District, state Sen. Jennifer L. McClellan (D-Richmond).
“I’ve admired her a long time as well,” Antoine said. “I’m a team player, so I just put on another uniform now, and I’m ready to step up.”
That’s been the story for a host of prominent Democrats this week who quickly shifted from Bagby to McClellan, illustrating how a potential choice between the two — both leaders of the Virginia Legislative Black Caucus, both protegees of the late Rep. A. Donald McEachin (D) — had threatened to rend the party establishment.
Now, left on the sidelines is state Sen. Joseph D. Morrissey (D-Richmond), the other big name vying for the seat that became open with McEachin’s death last month, shortly after he had won reelection. Bagby’s exit from the competitive primary race — lasting just one week and already coming to a close — has set up a finale between two locally popular figures who have completely different political M.O.s: Morrissey the renegade against McClellan the establishment favorite. And while Morrissey, an iconoclastic disbarred lawyer and perpetual thorn in the side of the party proper, is White, he has a loyal following among many Black residents in the minority-majority district.
Morrissey ripped into party leaders this week for what he said was an orchestrated effort to prevent him from winning the primary. Democrats dismissed his claims. But Friday’s unity event between McClellan and Bagby showed the degree to which party leaders are pulling together.
“It’s been a very difficult three weeks,” McClellan said, “mourning a friend and mentor” who would ordinarily be among the first people she’d call for advice when deciding whether to run for office. “But we are coming together to say, how can we best continue Donald’s legacy?”
Del. Delores L. McQuinn (D-Richmond), a senior Black legislator and kingmaker in Richmond politics, had endorsed Bagby, but said she spoke with him and McClellan about the realities of the race. She stopped short of saying she counseled Bagby to drop out, but said his decision heals a rift that could have prevented him or McClellan from gaining enough votes to win.
“Like many of us, Del. Bagby had looked at the landscape and realized that if everyone attempted to move in [that] direction it would be difficult for the representation we needed in the Fourth District to succeed,” McQuinn said in an interview. “Now we don’t have to pick and choose between individuals that we so admire.”
Richmond Mayor Levar Stoney and local officials from eastern Henrico County joined Bagby and McClellan Friday to officially pledge unity. Underlining the degree to which McClellan can marshal the party establishment on short notice, Friday’s event was run by staffers from the administration of former governor Ralph Northam (D) and Del. Eileen Filler-Corn (D-Fairfax), the former speaker of the House of Delegates.
With Bagby out of the race, and high-profile Democrats in Richmond and beyond consolidating behind McClellan, “this is a Joe-against-the-entire-establishment election,” as Bob Holsworth, a veteran Richmond-based political analyst, put it.
“This right now is an all-hands-on-deck, stop-Joe-Morrissey movement inside the Democratic Party — and in a seven-day election, which I call sort of the political equivalent of speed dating,” Holsworth said. “It just shows you, with Bagby getting out, the worry the Democratic Party has about Morrissey — this kind of populist maverick — becoming the face of their party in Congress. And they don’t want it. And the question is, can they stop it?”
They’ll find out on Tuesday, when voters will converge at eight locations across the district in a party-run firehouse primary that will determine the Democratic nominee — and most likely the next member of Congress, considering the deep-blue makeup of the district.
Democrats are operating under such a breakneck pace based on the date Gov. Glenn Youngkin (R) set for the special election, Feb. 21. Under state law, that gives both parties a deadline of Dec. 23 — 60 days before the election — to have their nominees selected, right before the holiday rush. Two other Democrats qualified Friday for the ballot: Joseph Preston and Tavorise Marks. Republicans will select theirs at a party canvas on Saturday.
While Morrissey picked up support from Petersburg city leaders, McClellan has by contrast captured support from every Democrat in the Virginia congressional delegation, player after player in state politics and within the influential Legislative Black Caucus, from advocacy groups fighting for abortion rights, the environment, liberal politics — the list goes on. She is seeking to become the first Black woman in Virginia’s congressional delegation.
“Not coordinated, but united,” Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.) insisted of the party’s avalanche of support for McClellan. Kaine described McClellan as the only person he’s ever mentored in politics — he even officiated her wedding — so, naturally, he endorsed her. But he said Morrissey’s framing about the broader party’s intents “makes it all about him. It’s not about him. It’s about Jenn.”
Rich Meagher, an associate political science professor at Randolph-Macon College, said McClellan will be relying on the rank-and-file Democrats plugged into liberal causes to come out for her. But he said despite the unified front among Democratic leaders, he wouldn’t count out Morrissey just yet. In many ways, he said, this seven-day election is less about what voters are seeing now, but “really more about activating the folks who have already supported [them] and making sure they get to the polls.”
And Morrissey, he said, still has plenty of grass-roots support to muster.
“Morrissey can still beat her because Morrissey is a magician,” Meagher said. “And as far as politics goes, don’t count out a guy who won an election while he was technically in jail.”
‘Bare-knuckle’ politics
As the Democratic establishment began lining up behind McClellan, Morrissey played up his status as an underdog. It’s a position he’s overcome more than once — such as the year he resigned from office following his conviction for contributing to the delinquency of a minor but won the special election to fill his own vacant seat. He has a flair for the theatrical. As a state delegate in 2013, Morrissey held an unloaded AK-47 aloft on the House floor as he argued for a weapons ban — and put it to use at back-to-back news conferences.
“I put nine African American judges on the bench in the past two years. Nine African American judges in the last two years,” he repeated for effect as he announced his candidacy in Petersburg on Tuesday, wrapping up a long list of legislative accomplishments, including abolition of the death penalty.
He went on from there to blast his own party for scheduling the primary on a Tuesday, saying the decision was “anti-working class, anti-democratic and anti-woman” because it would be more difficult for voters to get to the limited number of polls on a work day. And a day later, after Bagby dropped out, Morrissey drew the media to his office in Chesterfield, where he ramped up his rhetoric against party leaders. He accused them of persuading Bagby to exit the race because Morrissey would have a better shot in a three-way contest, and of playing politics with polling locations.
Initially there were polling places near Bagby’s and McClellan’s homes, but none in Chesterfield, where he and nearly a quarter of the district’s population reside. The party later added one there — but in a red part of the district represented by another state senator. A spokesman for the party, asked to respond to Morrissey’s claim, said that the state party and the local Democratic committee were seeking to run “the most open, transparent, and inclusive volunteer-run nomination process possible.”
Morrissey has seemed to relish the battle, as might be expected of a former prosecutor known as “Fightin’ Joe” following multiple courthouse fistfights. “I will either go to Congress or I will go right back there to the state Senate, and I will walk into that Senate caucus and I will look at them and I’ll say, ‘I’m back,’” Morrissey said at his office, which contains a lighted trophy case filled with boxing gloves autographed by famous boxers.
Morrissey is deploying scrappy, label-defying tactics meant to appeal to Democrats and Republicans alike. In a radio ad made for the campaign, conservative radio host John Fredericks, who was chairman of President Donald Trump’s Virginia campaigns in 2016 and 2020, encourages Republicans to vote for Morrissey in the primary.
“The Democrats don’t want state Senator Joe Morrissey to win their primary. Why? Because they can’t tell him what to do,” Fredericks said in the ad. “He’s a moderate Democrat who’s pro-life, pro-energy, pro-pipeline, pro-jobs, pro-working class and a fiscal conservative.”
Virginia does not register voters by party, but in a contest such as this, the party asks voters to sign a pledge that they will support the eventual nominee. “Sign their stupid pledge — it means nothing — and stick it to them,” Fredericks said in the ad.
“It’s his kind of brand of politics, this bare-knuckle, win no matter what,” Meagher said. “His brand is the fighter. He makes no apologies.”
A (less) divided house
McClellan has been running on her record in the state Senate, especially highlighting major environmental legislation that she said shows she would continue McEachin’s legacy in environmental justice, while also pointing to her role as a champion for abortion rights and the rights of women, domestic workers and families.
That both she and Bagby were the top two leaders of the Legislative Black Caucus created some early tension in the race, as both have a shared vision on priorities such as fighting for affordable housing and expanding voting rights.
Richmond: Dogtown Dance Studio, 109 W 15th St.; Diversity Richmond, 1407 Sherwood Ave.
McClellan said that because she and Bagby have a close relationship, they had discussed why each decided to get into the race and what they wanted to accomplish. But she did not comment on whether they discussed one of them dropping out.
McClellan ran for the Democratic gubernatorial nomination last year at a time when many in the party were hoping that a person of color would emerge as the candidate. Former Del. Jennifer Carroll Foy (D-Prince William) and former Lt. Gov. Justin Fairfax — both of whom are Black — also were on the ballot, but former governor Terry McAuliffe, who is White, won the nomination.
He went on to lose a close race with Youngkin. Asked if Democrats had learned a lesson about splitting support for Black candidates, McClellan said, “I think we learned that it’s difficult to choose among your friends.”
Bagby on Friday gave a warm endorsement of McClellan, seeming to grow emotional at some points as he described working closely with her and other members of the Black Caucus. “It is important that we act as a team,” he said.
Bagby said he sought advice from Rep. Robert C. “Bobby” Scott (D-Va.) and former governor L. Douglas Wilder (D), the state’s most senior Black politicians. Wilder told him that “we have to do what’s in the best interest of the greater good,” he said.
“The house cannot be divided,” Bagby said. “I’m so glad, and I know a number of our supporters are so glad, that they no longer have to make a choice.”
And with that, he gave McClellan a hug, stood aside for her to speak and wiped away a tear. Bagby left without taking questions from reporters. | 2022-12-17T11:36:34Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Va. Democrats line up for McClellan as Morrissey mounts outsider challenge - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/12/17/morrissey-mcclellan-democrats-4th-district-congress/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/12/17/morrissey-mcclellan-democrats-4th-district-congress/ |
Will Smith’s ‘Emancipation’ shows scars of ‘Whipped Peter,’ slavery
The enslaved man became known as ‘Whipped Peter’ after photos of his scarred back were published. He escaped to a Union camp at the height of the Civil War in 1863.
Perspective by DeNeen L. Brown
Will Smith and Ben Foster in “Emancipation.” (Quantrell Colbert/Apple TV Plus)
His back had been lacerated by whips, forming an angry cacophony of twisted, swollen welts crisscrossing his shoulders, rising over his spine and stretching to his hip. He was famished and exhausted, having run for 10 days through bayous and swamps infested with poisonous snakes and alligators. As he raced toward freedom, White men chased him with bloodthirsty hounds.
This Black man, whose scarred back showed the brutal horrors of the cruel institution of slavery in America, had escaped enslavement on a Mississippi plantation and made his way to a Union camp in Baton Rouge in 1863 during the height of the Civil War.
“Who whipped you, Peter?” the Union officers asked.
The man who would come to be known as “Whipped Peter,” spoke little English and answered in French — the language spoken by thousands of enslaved Africans in Louisiana and Mississippi. He told them an overseer had whipped him with a leather strap just before Christmas in 1862. To deepen the pain, the White man had poured salt into Peter’s open wounds.
They were astonished. White photographers at the camp asked Peter to pose. The photos of Peter’s scarred back, which were later published as wood carvings in Harper’s Weekly, became known as “The Scourged Back.”
The black-and-white photo, cast in shadows, shows Peter, his back facing the camera. He looks over his left shoulder, showing a silhouette of his face. His hand rests on his left hip. The light captured in the photo falls on the raised scars stretching the width of his back. The truth of the inhumaneness of slavery revealed in the scars on this Black man’s back would become a rally cry for abolitionists and the anti-slavery movement in the North.
The story of “Whipped Peter” is captured in the new film “Emancipation,” starring Will Smith. The film was inspired by the 1863 photos of Peter, which were taken during that medical examination at the Union Army camp.
The drama, which debuted in theaters Dec. 2 and released internationally on Apple TV Dec. 9, follows Peter’s escape from slavery and his relentless quest for freedom.
“I’ve long wanted to tell a story about the inhumanity of slavery,” the film’s director, Antoine Fuqua, said in a statement.
Several critics on social media and even Will Smith’s daughter have questioned whether another Hollywood movie about the institution of enslavement in the United States is necessary. Even Smith has said he never wanted to make a period film about enslavement and avoided them his entire career. But this film is different, he said during an interview with FabTV. “This is not another slave movie. This is a freedom movie. ”
There can never be too many movies, documentaries or films showing the barbaric truth of slavery, a subject White-supremacists have tried to wash out of history.
Only now, are some people learning about the true horrors of what happened. So much was hidden in attics, buried in swamps and mass graves. White historians covered up and distorted the narrative while building monuments to Confederate soldiers.
“We’ve never really been told the whole story about slavery in this country,” said W. Marvin Dulaney, president of the Association for the Study of African American Life and History. “I can go through 12 years of education and not learn anything substantial about slavery. For the first 155 years in the history of this country, they mythologized slavery.”
Dulaney, who is also associate professor of history emeritus and former interim director of the Center for African American Studies, said historians portrayed enslaved Africans as inhuman. “They wrote that owners and masters had to train them to pick cotton,” Dulaney said. “They portrayed them as folks who came from Africa with no skills. What we’ve tried to do with the historiography of slavery is to tell the truth. Africans built this country. We need to tell that story constantly.”
Movies like “Emancipation” give audiences an opportunity to encounter astounding details of enslavement, raising the perpetual question: What kind of people would do this to other human beings?
These films help peel back the truth buried in history. They need to be seen by audiences far and wide.
So when I heard about this movie, I found a theater showing the film, hurried to buy my ticket and climbed the aisle in the theater. I pushed back my seat and traveled through time, taking notes on the nuances the filmmakers wove into the narrative.
For the next two hours and 12 minutes, I watched the terror of slavery, the cold separation of families, the backbreaking work of the enslaved in cotton fields and Confederate work camps where Black men were worked to death and pushed into mass graves. “Emancipation” captures the spirituality and ingenuity of the enslaved Africans in their quest for freedom. It also captures the sheer cruelness of the White men on horseback who hunted them.
In the darkness of the screening, I scribbled notes. I stilled myself knowing the scenes were hard to watch, but told myself, “The pain I feel watching the pain on the screen is nothing compared to the brutality my enslaved ancestors endured.”
I cheered when Will Smith’s character said: “I fight them. They beat me. They whip me. They break the bones in my bodies more times than I can count. But they never, never break me.”
When the film ended, I stood up and applauded the power of the performance. I clapped for the enslaved ancestors who survived too. I left the theater, bracing the cold wind as I walked across the empty parking lot, determined to know more about the story of Peter.
Almost immediately, I began researching. I found that the man whose name was listed in records only as Peter reached the Union Army Camp in Baton Rouge in April 1863. His feet were swollen and bleeding. He had arrived at the camp with a young man named Gordon, who also had escaped enslavement, according to a letter published in December 1863 in the American Citizen newspaper. The two men cried when they saw Black men, fighting to save the Union, in federal uniforms.
“They were ingenuous enough to wade and swim through every stream on the way, twice swimming the turbid waters of the Amite River,” according to the 1863 published letter. “They rubbed onions on every portion if their body and strong scented weeds to elude the trail of the blood hounds.”
Peter’s statement was taken on April 2, 1863, after he entered the marshal’s office. The dozens of scars on his back were noticed during a medical examination at the camp.
The whipping nearly killed him. “I was two months in bed sore from the whipping and salt brine, which overseer put on my back,” Peter said, according to an 1863 letter written by a Union officer, which was published in the American Citizen newspaper.
“Look here,” Peter told them, then peeled off the pile of “dirty rags that half concealed his back, and exhibited his mutilated sable form to the crowd of officers and others present in the office.”
There, two photographers, captured a series of photos before he arrived at the camp and after, when he appeared in a Union Army uniform to fight with Colored Troops.
“One of these portraits represents the man as he entered our lines, with clothes torn and covered with mud and dirt from his long race through the swamps and bayous, chased as he had been for days and nights by his master with several neighbors and a pack of blood-hounds,” the Union officer explained.
“Another shows him as he underwent the surgical examination previous to being mustered into the service — his back furrowed and scarred with the traces of a whipping administered on Christmas-day last; and the third represents him in the United States uniform, bearing the musket and prepared for duty.”
These are the details they left out of our history books.
“Flogging with a leather strap on the naked body is common,” according to the 1863 letter to the editor. “Also paddling the body with a hand saw until the skin is a mass of blisters, and then breaking the blisters with teeth and saw.”
The torture included stretching enslaved Africans upon the ground with hands and feet held down by other enslaved men. Some had been “lashed to stakes driven into the ground for burning, while handfuls of dry corn-husks are then lighted, and the burning embers are whipped off with a stick so as to fall in showers of live sparks upon the naked back. This is continued until the victim is covered with blisters. If in this writhing of torture, the slave gets his hands free to brush off the fire, then burning brand is applied to them.”
After all the torture, Peter lived to serve in the Union Army, working as a guide. At one point, according to Harper’s, he was captured again by Confederate rebels, “who, infuriated beyond measure, tied him up and beat him, leaving him for dead.”
Miraculously, Peter came to life “and once more made his escape to our lines.”
The reaction in 1863 to the photos of “Whipped Peter” was visceral, Harper’s Weekly said, “capturing what the mind’s eye could not imagine. Letters to editors across the country came pouring in, raising a more fervent cry for freedom and abolition.”
Dulaney said the photographs had enormous impact on the course of history. “The first time I saw that image — that image is everywhere in terms of slavery — it made me cry to see someone beaten like that, to carry those welts on his back,” Dulaney said.
But Dulaney said that image also captured the true tale of the astounding resilience of Black people. “For all the stuff we’ve been through — oppression, slavery and segregation, and all the laws passed to keep us from doing what other human beings did,” Dulaney said, “And yet we came through it. We created institutions, raised families.”
Over the years, Dulaney said, historians have asked “Who freed the slaves? Did the ‘Great Emancipator’ Abraham Lincoln do it?”
The truth is enslaved Africans freed themselves and forced Lincoln to take a stand.
“During the course of the war, African Americans were running at the start — first by the tens, then the hundreds, then by the thousands,” Dulaney said, “freeing themselves and making slavery the key issue of the Civil War. This brother with welts on his back is a symbol of all of that.” | 2022-12-17T11:58:34Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Will Smith’s ‘Emancipation’ tells the true story of ‘Whipped Peter’ - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/12/17/emancipation-whipped-peter-true-story/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/12/17/emancipation-whipped-peter-true-story/ |
Quarterback Josh Allen and the Bills will attempt to hold on to the AFC's No. 1 seed in the snow against the Dolphins. (Jeff Lewis/AP)
The NFL begins a busy weekend of play with three Week 15 games Saturday that have major postseason implications.
The Minnesota Vikings can clinch the NFC North title when they host the Indianapolis Colts. The Baltimore Ravens, again without injured quarterback Lamar Jackson, will attempt to remain atop the AFC North as they play at Cleveland. And the Buffalo Bills will be vying to officially secure a playoff spot and retain the AFC’s No. 1 seed when they host the Miami Dolphins on what could be a snowy night in Orchard Park, N.Y.
The Vikings would lock up the division crown with a triumph over the Colts. They have been a season-long success story under rookie coach Kevin O’Connell, but are coming off a loss Sunday to the Detroit Lions. The Vikings have not lost consecutive games this season.
They’ll face a reeling Colts team that has lost three straight games since a victory at Las Vegas in Jeff Saturday’s debut as interim head coach. The Colts are coming off a bye, before which they surrendered 33 points in the fourth quarter in a 54-19 defeat to the Dallas Cowboys in Arlington, Tex. That’s not exactly the way for Saturday to build a case that his unconventional hiring was justified and he deserves to retain the job beyond this season.
In Baltimore, Tyler Huntley was cleared Thursday under the NFL concussion protocols and he will make a second straight start at quarterback for the Ravens, with Jackson sidelined by a knee injury. They’re in a virtual tie with the Cincinnati Bengals for first place in the division, but hold a tiebreaker advantage by virtue of a 19-17 win in Week 5. The two teams play again in Cincinnati in Week 18.
Quarterback Deshaun Watson will play his third game for the Browns since serving his 11-game suspension for violating the NFL’s personal conduct policy. He has not, to this point, resembled the three-time Pro Bowl selection the Browns thought they were getting when they traded for him in March and signed him to a new five-year contract worth a guaranteed $230 million. The Cleveland offense scored only one touchdown over his first two games.
The Bills would clinch a playoff spot with a triumph over the Dolphins in the night game. Their goals are far loftier, of course. They are just ahead of the Kansas City Chiefs for the AFC’s top seed, thanks to a victory over the Chiefs in October.
The Dolphins beat the Bills in Week 3 in Miami Gardens, Fla. Quarterback Tua Tagovailoa left that game to be examined for a head injury after a first-half hit by the Bills’ Matt Milano, and was cleared by doctors and returned to that game in the second half. Four days later, he was taken from the field on a stretcher and taken via ambulance to a hospital after hitting his head on the turf on a sack during a game at Cincinnati. He missed the following two games because of a concussion.
The Dolphins enter this game as the No. 6 seed in the AFC. But they’re coming off consecutive losses in California to the San Francisco 49ers and Los Angeles Chargers. Star wide receiver Tyreek Hill has been playing with an ankle injury. | 2022-12-17T11:58:40Z | www.washingtonpost.com | NFL weekend primer: Playoff implications factor into three Saturday games - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/12/17/nfl-week-15-updates-analysis/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/12/17/nfl-week-15-updates-analysis/ |
Dancer and ‘Ellen’ DJ Stephen ‘tWitch’ Boss’s death has opened more conversations about suicide
Advice by Stacey Freedenthal
In Stephen “tWitch” Boss’s final Instagram video, a Christmas tree twinkles with white lights as the famous dancer and “Ellen” DJ fluidly bounces to an upbeat song. As he and his wife, Allison Holker, bop to the rhythm, he smiles. He looks happy.
A few days later, on Dec. 13, in a motel room, the 40-year-old father of three died by suicide, according to the Los Angeles coroner.
As a psychotherapist and professor, I understand how jarring it can be when someone who seems happy ends their life. It can make you worry a loved one’s smile is a deceptive mask.
Roughly half of people who die by suicide don’t reveal or hint at their intentions beforehand. Research on people who have experienced suicidal thoughts reveals they might fear the person they confide in will call the police and have them hospitalized. Or they may cherish their privacy, fear burdening people with worry, dread others’ reactions or judgment, or just not want to be stopped from carrying out their suicide plan.
The best way to learn if someone has suicidal thoughts is to ask. I often meet people who are afraid to pose the question. They fear giving someone the idea to die by suicide. But research consistently indicates that asking about suicidal thoughts doesn’t trigger or worsen suicidal thoughts.
No method is guaranteed to coax suicidal thoughts out of someone, and if someone dies after you talk with them about suicide, it doesn't mean it's your fault. The reality is, sadly, even if you do everything that experts recommend, suicide can still happen.
With those important caveats, here are some ways to make disclosure more likely.
Many people use phrases such as “hurt yourself” or “self-harm” as euphemisms for suicide. Self-harm isn’t always suicidal, however, and someone with suicidal thoughts might not view suicide as hurting or harming oneself. By using terms such as “suicide,” “kill yourself,” and “end your life,” you also show that you can handle talking about suicide. It’s not unspeakable.
Build up to the question
If it makes you more comfortable, start generally and get more specific. You can say, for instance, that you’ve observed the person seems sad or stressed and ask how they’re doing. After listening, you can ask if things get so bad that they wish they weren’t alive, and then after some more listening, you can directly ask about suicidal thoughts.
Normalize suicidal thoughts
In the United States, 12 million adults a year seriously consider suicide, and so do almost 1 in 5 high school students. By invoking other people, you make clear that thinking of suicide isn’t freakish. An example would be, “A lot of people who are going through what you’re describing feel so bad that they think of suicide. Do you have suicidal thoughts?”
Avoid negatives
Some people ask, “You’re not thinking of suicide, are you?” or the question’s more judgmental cousin, “You’re not thinking of doing something stupid, are you?” This kind of question broadcasts the answer you’re hoping for, which can inhibit the person.
Acknowledge jokes, hints and other warning signs
Suicide is such a taboo topic that some people drop hints. It’s a good idea to ask directly about subtle signs. Possibilities include: “You’ve made a number of jokes about killing yourself. Do you have suicidal thoughts?” or “I’ve noticed you haven’t been your usual self lately. Are you feeling depressed?”
Once you ask someone about suicidal thoughts comes the challenge of how to respond. That depends on their answer.
What to say if a person denies having suicidal thoughts
Be careful about expressing relief. You might be tempted to let out a massive sigh of relief and exclaim, “Oh, that’s so good!” Keep in mind, half of people with suicidal thoughts deny it when asked directly. If the person you’re concerned about is considering suicide, your relief could convey you don’t want to hear it if the answer is yes. I recommend to my social work students that they say something with less judgment about suicidal thoughts, such as, “That’s good for me to know.”
Ask if the person will tell you in the future. This question is quite revealing with my therapy clients. Those who say no, they don’t have suicidal thoughts, often also say no to my question, “In the future if you had suicidal thoughts, would you tell me?” This gives me the opportunity to explore and understand their reluctance, which usually stems from their certainty I’ll recommend hospitalization. More times than not, after I explain that I would suggest hospitalization if they were resolved to end their life within the next day or two, they say something like, “Oh, I’m not thinking of suicide that intensely.” Now we’re having a conversation about something they denied minutes earlier.
What to say if a person says they are thinking of suicide
Show empathy and compassion. This tip might seem obvious, but many people respond with questions to allay their own fears: “Do you have a plan?” or “When would you do it?” are examples. Unless the person clearly is in immediate danger — for example, they have a weapon or have already overdosed — have a conversation. Make empathetic statements such as, “That must be so hard” or “It makes sense your mind would go to ways you can end pain.”
Don’t judge, rebut, persuade or otherwise try to talk the person out of suicide. At least, not yet. There may be a time later to try to discuss the person’s thinking. For now, such an approach will probably shut down the conversation, not open it up.
Don’t guilt the person. Some mental health professionals disagree on this. Last year, psychiatrist Allen Frances tweeted that he tells self-blaming, depressed suicidal patients, “People who care about you will be haunted by your death for the rest of their lives. You must stay alive to save them.” It’s true, concern for others deters some people from acting on their suicidal thoughts. Statements like that, however, can convey that the person’s current suffering isn’t as important as others’ future pain. Such statements also can exacerbate guilt in people who already fault themselves for their suicidal urges.
Help the person get help. Some psychotherapies and medications have demonstrated effectiveness at reducing suicidal thoughts or behaviors. The nationwide 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline, reachable by calling 988, can guide you on resources in your area. You also could help the person make a plan for how to stay safe amid their suicidal urges.
Stacey Freedenthal is an associate professor of social work at the University of Denver and a psychotherapist in private practice. Her latest book is “Loving Someone With Suicidal Thoughts: What Family, Friends, and Partners Can Say and Do.” | 2022-12-17T11:58:59Z | www.washingtonpost.com | How to ask – and talk – about suicidal thoughts - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/wellness/2022/12/17/how-to-ask-talk-about-suicidal-thoughts/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/wellness/2022/12/17/how-to-ask-talk-about-suicidal-thoughts/ |
Waterslides and rifles: Inside Florida’s playground for the far right
American flags wave in the breeze at The Hollow in Venice, Fla. (Thomas Simonetti for The Washington Post)
VENICE, Fla. — In the woods off a southwest Florida highway, a Republican business executive has built an entertainment complex to bring together like-minded conservatives for everything from speeches by far-right leaders to family barbecues.
Initially, Victor G. Mellor, the owner of a construction business, wasn’t sure anyone would show up. He’d invested his savings in creating a meeting spot for Republican partisans, home-school moms and others who shared his views on Donald Trump, gun rights and thorny topics like vaccine and mask mandates — convinced he could have a role in steering the nation further to the right.
But as the pandemic persisted, turnout grew. Longtime residents and new arrivals from other states began flocking to the site. So did far-right leaders. Trump’s controversial first national security adviser, Michael Flynn, became a frequent guest. Grass-roots organizations vying to unseat Republican Party members considered too moderate declared “The Hollow” their home base.
“They have infiltrated our school systems and worked their way up,” Mellor said, referring to Democratic politicians he labeled socialists, in explaining why he felt a need to build the facility. “And now we have to start on all levels taking it back.”
As the Sunshine State shifts right — a trend evident in the Nov. 8 election, when Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) won the state by nearly 20 points — researchers say more radical members of the party have grown emboldened. The Anti-Defamation League has recorded a “significant increase” in extremist-related incidents in Florida over the past year. At Mellor’s complex — dubbed The Hollow — the state’s most conservative residents have built a community geared around buttressing each other’s views.
“This idea of forming this all-encompassing, family-oriented venue is rather brilliant on their part,” said Carol Lerner, a retired education analyst and researcher who produced a 30-page report that found elements of the far right were increasingly drawn to the 27-acre campus. “But that makes it super dangerous, too.”
It’s here where Mellor said he chose to lay down roots in 1994 after four years in the Marine Corps. He quickly found work in construction and three years later started his own concrete business, testing his luck in the boom-bust South Florida prefabricated concrete market, he said. After filing for bankruptcy in 2010, Mellor formed a new company, American Precast.
Initially, the father of three said his interest in politics was limited to his concerns that President Barack Obama would restrict firearms’ sales. He voted for Trump in 2016, drawn to the celebrity entrepreneur’s boisterous personality and stance on gun rights. Over time, he felt like the president wasn’t getting a fair treatment by the media.
“I said, ‘This isn’t right,’ and it’s why I kind of jumped in,” Mellor said.
After Trump was defeated in 2020, Mellor traveled to Washington and joined Trump supporters in marching to the U.S. Capitol in protest. “Just knocked on front doors,” Mellor, pictured on the Capitol grounds, said in a Facebook post on Jan. 6, 2021.
Mellor said he never entered the Capitol as the insurrection unfolded, and he was never charged with any wrongdoing. But he sympathizes with many of the demonstrators who now face criminal charges, referring to the pro-Trump mob that assaulted officers, trapped lawmakers and vandalized the home of Congress as “political prisoners.”
It wasn’t long after that that Mellor said he woke up one morning with the idea of turning an events space he had constructed into a “campground for kids based on the Constitution.” He told his kids they shouldn’t expect an inheritance. Instead, he was going to spend $3 million developing a complex on a property he’d acquired two years earlier in Venice, a city on Florida’s Gulf Coast.
Sarasota County has been a Republican stronghold for generations, the moderate, business-friendly wing of the GOP traditionally prevailing in local political contests. Recently, however, the county’s politics have lurched further to the right.
Conservatives now hold a 4-to-1 majority on the county school board after pro-DeSantis candidates touting “parental rights” dominated a contentious local race. Three conservative candidates skeptical of the coronavirus vaccines were recently elected to oversee Sarasota Memorial Hospital, alarming doctors, hospital administrators and medical experts.
Grass-roots groups like Sarasota Watchdogs, an organization that is pushing to expel moderate Republicans from the local party, consider The Hollow to be a gathering spot, according to interviews with conservative activists and meeting notices. Mellor also helped to start a local chapter of Moms for America, a conservative group that urges women to shift the nation’s “culture” to the right. The group’s name is now affixed on a large sign at the entrance to The Hollow.
Flynn has visited or spoken at The Hollow more than 50 times, according to Mellor — and the retired Army general frequently touts the complex as he travels around the country to promote his view that the nation’s evangelical, Christian way of life is under threat.
“It’s a terrific location, very patriotic, owned and designed and dreamed up by a former Marine,” Flynn told an audience over the summer. “He’s a terrific friend.”
Over the past two years, Mellor and Flynn have stepped up their activities at The Hollow. There are “Patriot Appreciation Day” cookouts, “Biblical Citizenship” courses and youth firearm safety classes. The Hollow has become officially known as The Hollow2A in reference to the Second Amendment.
Members of the Proud Boys — the far-right chauvinistic group with a history of violence whose members include several people charged with storming the Capitol on Jan. 6 — have been photographed at The Hollow wearing their organization’s black and yellow T-shirts. The photos were uploaded onto The Hollow’s social media pages, which helped Lerner produce her report last spring.
“It should be the churches, and it used to be bars and taverns, but it’s such a beautiful place and right now you need a place for the community to meet,” Radovich said. “And people are getting involved in politics, who normally don’t get involved in politics.”
James Hoel, a local leader of the Proud Boys in Sarasota County, declined to discuss his group’s activities when reached by The Washington Post.
In September, the Anti-Defamation League published a report that found Florida has become a nest of “widespread disinformation and conspiracy theories.”
Although Ben Popp, an investigator researcher at the ADL’s Center on Extremism, said some Proud Boys chapters in Florida are not as violent as others nationally, he said the group’s members still act as conduits for “extremist rhetoric” that they pass on to others.
“It is pretty clear that there are ideological bridges being developed between more mainstream individuals and some pretty hardcore extremists,” he said.
Rather than innocuous gatherings, some see The Hollow’s activities as a concerning signal of how far-right ideology is becoming infused in local political debates. The Sarasota chapter of Moms for America has held meetings and “movie nights” at The Hollow, and an array of speakers affiliated with the Christian right have spoken there under banners that read, “Local Action has National Impact.”
“I think they are out to create a force to take over the country,” Lerner, the researcher, who identifies as a Democrat, said of Flynn and Mellor. “And they are doing it locally.”
Mellor scoffs at the suggestion he or the people who socialize at The Hollow are dangerous. He said the Proud Boys have never held a formal meeting at The Hollow — though he did let them set up a booth once to raise money for a Christmas toy drive. He acknowledged that Proud Boys members have also volunteered at the site.
“I have never had a Proud Boy meeting here, but I should,” Mellor said.
When residents sign up to volunteer at The Hollow, they are asked to confirm that they are comfortable around firearms. A sign with text against a backdrop of a Revolutionary War-era American flag notes the right to bear arms and states that, “Guaranteed, any attempt of violence toward our children will be met with overwhelming deadly force.” There is a gun range next to The Hollow — and though Mellor said he does not operate it, some of those who visit his complex also go the adjacent facility for firearms training.
“This is a place for families,” Mellor said. “They build friendships, and the kids get to run around play, and just be kids.”
“We don’t trust the system, and what they are teaching, and I don’t trust people with my children,” she said, explaining her decision not to send her kids to public school and her interest in meeting others at The Hollow. “The world seems a little crazy to me. … And this is such a great community, and I feel it’s hard to find a great community.
When Hurricane Ian battered southwest Florida in late September, it left parts of The Hollow submerged in four feet of floodwater. The water rose around The Hollow’s white cross and submerged Mellor’s pricey construction equipment.
“I do concrete, concrete is everywhere,” he said. “And it will be here forever.” | 2022-12-17T12:28:53Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Waterslides, gun rights: An entertainment complex in Florida emerges as a far-right hub - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/12/17/sarasota-florida-far-right/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/12/17/sarasota-florida-far-right/ |
Social media site Mastodon is a popular Twitter alternative with a learning curve.
Twitter under Elon Musk is still up and running despite massive layoffs and a series of erratic management decisions.
Many long time users, however, worry the end is near or that platform is no longer a safe or welcoming place for them, and they’re looking for a new home online. That search had new urgency after Twitter banned several reporters on Thursday night, causing both U.S. and international officials to condemn the decision.
While a number of new and existing companies are jostling to become the next Twitter, open-source option Mastodon has seen a large influx of people. The site can be tricky for new people to understand, and might not be what fills the Twitter void in the long run. But at least for now, it has many of the same posters and experts sharing their toots (we’ll get to that).
If you’re interested in trying Mastodon out, here is a simplified guide to getting started quickly.
How do you choose which server to join?
How do you start using Mastodon
How do you find friends?
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The biggest tech trends to watch for in 2022 | 2022-12-17T12:33:21Z | www.washingtonpost.com | How to sign up for Mastodon: A guide to using the Twitter alternative - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2022/12/17/how-to-join-mastodon/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2022/12/17/how-to-join-mastodon/ |
Pediatric inpatient beds lose money. But as hospitals cut back on such beds, they weaken their capacity to handle surges of sick children.
Dan Keating
Segura Nino with her 4-month-old son, Maleek, on Dec. 13 after his hospitalization in Corpus Christi with a viral illness. Maleek was flown 200 miles from suburban Houston to receive the care he needed. (Photo by Callaghan O’Hare for The Washington Post) (Callaghan O'Hare/For The Washington Post)
More than 3,500 hospitals provided pediatric specialists in 2000, but this year, only 2,412 said they do, a decline of 32 percent, according to a Washington Post analysis of data gathered by the U.S. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. The data includes hospitals that eliminated pediatric services and hospitals that went out of business altogether.
Another measure — the number of pediatric inpatient beds — tells a similar story. The total number of such beds nationwide dropped 11.8 percent from 2008 to 2018, according to a study published last year in the journal of the American Academy of Pediatrics.
We’re living in virus hell. Wasn’t this year supposed to be easier?
Staff writer Jenna Portnoy contributed to this report. | 2022-12-17T13:21:13Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Families are struggling to find pediatric hospital beds in tripledemic - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2022/12/17/pediatric-bed-shortage-tripledemic-rsv-flu-covid/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2022/12/17/pediatric-bed-shortage-tripledemic-rsv-flu-covid/ |
The high-elevation valley is a magnet for snow and cold, and also easily within reach from the metro area
A drone view shows the road to Canaan Valley and the valley itself in the background. (Dave Lesher) (Dave Lesher)
The first flakes start flying by October most years and snow often remains on the ground until around Mother’s Day. Its temperature has plunged as low as minus-31 degrees. Fairbanks, Alaska, has a longer growing season.
This sure does not sound like a place that’s just a three-hour drive from Washington. Alas, it is.
Canaan Valley is the place. Parts of it are described as “a little bit of Canada gone astray.” The weather is more like that of a location at a much higher latitude.
Hello, Dolly. A visitor finally gets to West Virginia’s ‘bit of Canada gone astray.’
The valley’s geography helps shape its uniquely cold and snowy Mid-Atlantic climate.
Sitting less than 10 miles from the far western Maryland border with West Virginia, it is located near where the Allegheny Plateau reaches the eastern Continental Divide. About 50 square miles in size, it is the highest elevation large valley in the eastern United States.
The elevation of the valley rim averages about 4,000 feet, with some peaks near 4,500 feet. The valley floor — extraordinarily flat, dotted with stands of windblown pines, rocky outcrops and marshy meadows — sits at a more modest elevation of about 3,200 feet, but that’s unusually high for a valley.
The oblong, bowl-shaped indentation sits punctured into the West Virginia high country. Stretching from southwest to northeast, nearby small towns — former coal and lumber hubs — include Davis and Thomas. Only several hundred people live in the valley itself, although the number of visitors swells during winter and summer with people seeking outdoor fun. Several ski areas line the valley’s hilly edges.
Canaan’s snow
Fortunately for these ski areas, there’s no shortage of snow.
The valley floor averages about 150 inches of snow per year, according to Bob Leffler, a retired climatologist who worked for decades at the National Weather Service. The ridges along the rim can see upward of 170 inches per year, he said. That is about 12 times Washington’s average winter snowfall.
The area sees so much snow not only because it’s high and very cold, but also because it’s positioned to intercept moisture arriving from the west and northwest. The valley sits in the “upslope” region of the Allegheny Plateau, where air is forced up the windward facing terrain. Rising air naturally condenses, develops clouds and often produces precipitation that spreads over the valley. Sometimes, snow bands that develop over Lake Erie even reach the area.
Since the winter of 2001-2002, four seasons have surpassed 200 inches on the northern edge of the valley in Canaan Heights. The snowiest of that bunch was the winter of 2009-2010, when 251 inches was measured by Dave Lesher, a cooperative Weather Service observer. That was 4.5 times more snow than Washington recorded that winter, its snowiest on record.
Canaan’s cold
The valley’s snowy climate is supported by its exceptional cold.
Leffler, who avidly tracks and forecasts the area’s weather, says the valley’s flatness and high elevation make it a “textbook cold sink.”
On clear, calm nights, solar energy that gathers during the day escapes into the atmosphere. Since cold air is denser than warm air, it settles like molasses along the valley floor and is trapped by the surrounding terrain. On some mornings, Canaan Valley boasts some of the lowest temperatures in the eastern U.S.
In October, a weather station managed by Virginia Tech recorded 28 freezing nights. Washington didn’t see its first freeze until Nov. 18.
Dave Carroll, a professor at Virginia Tech’s College of Natural Resources and Environment, is working to better understand the climate of the valley and its extremes.
He and his students have spent recent years sowing a network of weather stations across the region’s high country.
“We intentionally sought out locations that we suspected were particularly cold spots,” Carroll said in an email. The data collected is publicly available, broadcast live to the internet.
Weather observations from the past are relatively scant in much of West Virginia, away from the few population centers. This leads to uncertainty on some of the records.
The official record low for the state is minus-37 degrees, which was recorded in Lewisburg — about 100 miles south of Canaan Valley — on Dec. 30, 1917. Another relatively high-elevation valley, the town is certainly a cold spot, but probably not the coldest.
West Virginia’s Canaan Valley plummets to minus-31, setting record low for region
When the conditions are right, meaning “clear skies, calm winds, deep snowpack and extremely dry Arctic air,” said Carroll, the temperature in the valley drops fast and far.
On Jan. 22, 2022, the temperature plummeted as low as minus-31 degrees at one of Virginia Tech’s stations.
“I believe West Virginia’s true record low would likely occur in a place like Canaan Valley and would likely be similar to record lows of states further north, such as those around the Great Lakes or New England,” Carroll said. “Temperatures in the -50 Fahrenheit range would seem plausible, but we really don’t know.” | 2022-12-17T13:30:08Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Canaan Valley: A slice of Canada just 125 miles from Washington - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2022/12/17/canaan-valley-winter-cold-snow/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2022/12/17/canaan-valley-winter-cold-snow/ |
The Glen Canyon Dam sits above Lake Powell and the Colorado River in Page, Ariz. Federal officials have projected that, as soon as July, water levels in the lake could fall to the point where the hydroelectric plant inside the dam could no longer produce power. (Joshua Lott/The Washington Post)
The Colorado River is in crisis, and it's getting worse every day
Water managers say the majority of cuts are likely to fall in southern states including Arizona and California, where major farming regions consume big portions of the available supply. These states, which get water after it passes through Lake Mead and the Hoover Dam, also face the greatest risk if the reservoirs fall to dangerous levels, said John Entsminger, general manager of the Southern Nevada Water Authority. | 2022-12-17T13:30:15Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Disaster scenarios raise the stakes for Colorado River negotiations - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2022/12/17/colorado-river-crisis-conference/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2022/12/17/colorado-river-crisis-conference/ |
A primary care doctor’s commitment and the patient’s tenacity helped ferret out the cause of her distressing symptoms
By Sandra G. Boodman
(Cam Cottrill for The Washington Post)
Julie Gellert had spent a decade learning to cope with the miseries inflicted by a malfunctioning digestive system. She had undergone surgery, endured injections and taken a variety of medications — one of which is banned in the United States — to treat severe abdominal pain, chronic diarrhea and recurrent vomiting.
But three years ago when her episodic vomiting grew so unpredictable she had to stash emergency “barf bags” around her Arizona apartment, Gellert wondered how much worse things could get.
Four gastroenterologists had attributed her symptoms first to acid reflux and later to gastroparesis, a disorder in which food is processed too slowly. But nothing seemed to control Gellert’s incapacitating symptoms for long.
In late 2019, a specialized scan revealed the elusive cause of her long-standing problems, a delayed diagnosis resulting in harrowing treatment that may have saved her life. Gellert credits the interest of a new primary care doctor and her own tenacity in helping to ferret out the diagnosis.
“If it wasn’t for those things I’d still be living with this,” said Gellert, now 58, who says her health has improved significantly. “Sadly, part of it was also dumb luck.”
GERD surgery
In 2010 Gellert, who had been struggling with severe acid reflux that did not respond to medication, underwent an operation to strengthen part of her esophagus and prevent the backup of stomach acid. Soon afterward she developed severe nausea and frequent diarrhea that resulted in several hospitalizations.
When her Phoenix gastroenterologist told her he didn’t know what was wrong, she saw a new specialist. The second gastroenterologist told her he suspected the surgeon had accidentally damaged her vagus nerve, which transmits signals between the brain and the digestive system. The result was gastroparesis, which slows movement of food from the stomach into the small intestine.
Because diarrhea is not typically a symptom of gastroparesis, Gellert said the new doctor speculated that Gellert might have an atypical presentation. That “didn’t make much sense to me but I accepted that answer for the time being,” she recalled.
She was referred to a GI specialist at another hospital who agreed Gellert had gastroparesis. She also saw a dietitian who suggested dietary changes, which provided some relief.
“Every test I did came back with no explanation for the diarrhea.”
— Julie Gellert
The gastroenterologist advised her to start taking domperidone, a drug that was taken off the U.S. market in 2004 because of concerns that it might be linked to cardiac arrest and sudden death. (It is available under restricted circumstances to some patients with gastroparesis and other intractable GI disorders.)
Gellert began ordering the drug from a company in Vanuatu, a tiny country in the South Pacific. At the doctor’s suggestion she underwent a procedure to implant a device called a port in her chest so she could self-administer an intravenous anti-nausea drug. She also began taking a prescription medicine to treat diarrhea.
After six months, the nausea and vomiting had lessened significantly and the port was removed. The diarrhea continued for reasons no one could explain. Gellert was hospitalized several times over the next few years as doctors searched in vain for a cause.
Repeated tests for a hard-to-eradicate infection caused by C. difficile bacteria were always negative. A colonoscopy found nothing and doctors ruled out Crohn’s disease, a serious GI disorder.
“Every test I did came back with no explanation for the diarrhea,” Gellert said.
Doctors were puzzled, but settled on a familiar explanation. They told her that diarrhea is not normally associated with gastroparesis “but in your case it must be,” she recalled.
Pain that was ‘worse than labor’
In 2015 Gellert developed severe abdominal pain that was attributed to gastroparesis; pain is a common symptom of the disorder. By then she was seeing a fourth gastroenterologist who was closer to her home. He advised that she discontinue the domperidone and recommended injections of Botox into the pylorus, the valve that opens and closes during digestion. Botox is supposed to allow food to pass more quickly into the small intestine. The treatment, which has been described as widely used but of questionable effectiveness might help, he told her.
Gellert said that immediately after the outpatient procedure she felt better. But the next morning she awoke in agony “worse than labor.” After several days her abdominal pain eased considerably, but the diarrhea continued. Gellert went on to have two more Botox treatments months apart with similar results.
The fourth gastroenterologist “was very sympathetic and worked hard to figure out what was wrong,” Gellert said. After a scan showed that her GERD surgery had come undone, he suggested she undergo a repeat operation, an option Gellert flatly rejected. “I said ‘No one’s going to go in there again.’”
So began a cycle. When the abdominal pain became unbearable Gellert said she would call the doctor’s office, make an appointment with one of the physician assistants and beg for help.
“I kept telling them this is debilitating,” she remembered. Their reactions, she said, grew increasingly unsympathetic. It seemed clear that they thought she was exaggerating. She said that one PA testily told her, “We’re doing everything we can,” while another reminded her that pain is to be expected with gastroparesis.
Periodically she would be sent for X-rays or CT scans that failed to uncover anything new or meaningful. Gellert said she managed as best she could and was relieved that her employer was understanding about her absences.
“It was really hard,” said Gellert, a single mother who works as an online college tutor. “I spent a lot of time in the bathroom feeling very, very ill.”
In 2018, an insurance change resulted in Gellert seeing a new family physician. She found him to be unusually empathic; he seemed determined to figure out what was wrong. He wondered if her recurrent symptoms signaled diverticulitis, an inflammation involving the lining of the digestive system, which was ruled out. By then, Gellert said, the vomiting had changed. There seemed to be no trigger; sometimes it woke her out of a deep sleep.
“It was that rapid,” she said. “There was no running” to the bathroom. “I had to be prepared,” which is why she deployed the barf bags.
Gellert was also plagued by new and seemingly unrelated problems. Although she had gone through menopause several years earlier, she developed hot flashes, unexplained facial flushing and extreme fatigue. In late 2019 her primary care doctor sent her for yet another CT scan.
This time, the result was different.
A zebra diagnosis
The scan revealed a 7 millimeter tumor, slightly larger than a pencil eraser, on Gellert’s pancreas. During an emotional meeting her family physician said he suspected it was not an adenocarcinoma, the most common and lethal form of pancreatic cancer, but rather a rare pancreatic neuroendocrine tumor (pNET). Such tumors are often, but not always, malignant.
“I was really in shock,” said Gellert, who remembers bursting into tears. “The idea that I might have cancer had certainly gone through my mind,” she said, but she couldn’t understand why nearly half a dozen previous scans had found nothing. (She was later told that the size and position of the malignant tumor made it hard to spot on a conventional CT scan.)
PNETs form in the hormone-producing cells of the pancreas and account for about 7 percent of pancreatic cancers; roughly 4,300 Americans will be diagnosed with such a tumor this year. PNETs killed Apple co-founder Steve Jobs and singer Aretha Franklin, both of whom lived about eight years after diagnosis.
These tumors typically grow slowly and have a much better prognosis than adenocarcinoma, which tends to grow quickly and is usually discovered after it has spread. Treatment includes surgery, sometimes followed by chemotherapy and hormone therapy depending on the stage of the cancer. Most pNETs are nonfunctional — they do not release hormones — but such tumors can grow large and spread to the liver or lymph nodes before they are discovered, making them more dangerous and harder to treat.
Gellert’s primary care doctor sent her to an oncologist, who ordered a specialized PET/CT scan known as a dotatate scan, which clinched the diagnosis.
“This scan is highly specific for neuroendocrine tumors,” said oncologist Satya Das, who is affiliated with the neuroendocrine tumor program at Vanderbilt University’s Ingram Cancer Center and specializes in treating patients with advanced GI cancers. “If you just get a CT scan, you’re going to miss it.” Doctors suspected that Gellert’s tumor was a functional gastrinoma, in part because of her facial flushing and hot flashes. Such tumors secrete excess gastrin, a hormone involved in the production of stomach acid.
“Sometimes patients are told for seven or eight years that there’s nothing wrong with them.”
— Satya Das, oncologist
The average time from the advent of symptoms to a pNET diagnosis is about seven years, Das noted. Neuroendocrine tumors are both “zebras” — medical slang for a rare malady — and “great imitators” because some of the symptoms they trigger, such as diarrhea, have many causes, the oncologist observed.
“Sometimes patients are told for seven or eight years that there’s nothing wrong with them and then they’re diagnosed with metastatic cancer,” he said. In Gellert’s case, a specialized PET scan performed three or four years earlier might have led to a diagnosis. Das said that he suspects the severe acid reflux for which Gellert underwent surgery in 2010 may have been caused by the cancer, although it is impossible to know.
“Tiny tumors sometimes cause terribly debilitating symptoms,” Das noted.
Gellert said her oncologist presented two options: surgery to remove the cancer or close monitoring because her tumor was small and the operation is arduous. Gellert chose surgery.
In March 2020 she underwent a distal pancreatectomy, an operation that removes the tail and body of the pancreas. Gellert felt lucky: her cancer was classified as a grade 1, the most favorable prognosis; it had not spread to her liver or lymph nodes. Surgery was the only treatment required. Because pNETs can recur, Gellert will be monitored for 10 years.
But the operation nearly killed her. Within days Gellert developed a pancreatic leak that resulted in an abdominal abscess, a blood clot and severe sepsis, an overwhelming systemic infection with a high mortality rate. Recovery took six months, but “I made it through,” she said.
Although she developed a form of pancreatic insufficiency that she had been warned about before her operation — treatment requires lifelong enzyme replacement drugs — Gellert’s abdominal pain has vanished. Her diarrhea and vomiting are occasional and manageable and no longer dominate her life.
“I feel much better than I did before,” she said.
The fact that her tiny tumor made her so sick, Gellert said, was a boon because “it caused me to keep looking.” She feels incredibly lucky that her cancer did not metastasize before it was discovered, but wishes her doctors had considered that her intractable symptoms might be the result of a “zebra.”
“I’m not sure there was much more I could have done. I pushed my doctors pretty hard,” she said. “It’s really important to find a doctor who’s determined to get to the root cause of an issue.”
Submit your solved medical mystery to sandra.boodman@washpost.com. No unsolved cases, please. Read previous mysteries at wapo.st/medicalmysteries.
More Medical Mysteries
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Back pain plagued her for 30 years. A recurring clue sparked a delayed diagnosis. | 2022-12-17T13:30:21Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Years of pain, digestive problems preceded a diagnosis - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2022/12/17/stomach-pain-symptoms-diagnosis/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2022/12/17/stomach-pain-symptoms-diagnosis/ |
How an abolitionist painting set in D.C. became proslavery propaganda
By Kristina Gaddy
“Negro Life at the South,” an 1859 oil painting by Eastman Johnson that was later known as “My Old Kentucky Home” and used as proslavery propaganda. (Collection of the New-York Historical Society)
On the steps of the Capitol, the president addressed the crowd, reportedly the largest the city had ever seen. People had flooded into D.C. for the occasion, and local newspapers advertised balls and celebrations. Visitors crowded the streets as a parade moved down Pennsylvania Avenue, lining the route and hanging out of the windows of brick rowhomes to get a view.
But not everyone was celebrating the March 1857 inauguration of James Buchanan. In the alleys behind some of those rowhouses, artist Eastman Johnson had spent time with people who were less than pleased about the election of a proslavery Democrat. Slavery was still legal in the capital, and all Johnson had to do to witness it was visit the interior yard of his father’s home on F Street NW.
Johnson’s painting of a group of enslaved people in that yard would launch his career. But although Johnson, an abolitionist, intended the scene to humanize African Americans, the artwork would go on to be used as proslavery propaganda.
A slaveholding senator, an 1879 wedding and a Black family’s mystery
The 1856 election had been contentious. Republican candidate John Fremont promised to end slavery, as violence between pro- and anti-slavery forces was erupting in Kansas. Buchanan’s election put abolition out of reach. And two days after his inauguration, in Dred Scott v. Sanford, the Supreme Court ruled that Black Americans, free or enslaved, could not be U.S. citizens.
Johnson had felt the tension within his own family. Since his return from studying art in Europe, he had divided his time between Wisconsin, the Minnesota Territory and D.C. His father, Philip, worked for Buchanan’s Democratic Party and lived on F Street NW between 13th and 14th streets, in a largely proslavery neighborhood. His neighbors included future Confederate president Jefferson Davis. Although Philip Johnson didn’t enslave anyone, in the late summer of 1857, he wed Mary Washington, a relative of George Washington who owned three enslaved people.
The city’s design hid slave quarters in backyards and interior courtyards, but Eastman knew these people were there. He had been born in the free state of Maine, and earlier in his career, he painted portraits of abolitionists Henry Wadsworth Longfellow and Ralph Waldo Emerson, as well as a painting of Uncle Tom and Eva from Harriet Beecher Stowe’s novel “Uncle Tom’s Cabin.”
“We do not know the specific catalyst for Johnson turning to the subject of slave life in 1857,” Patricia Hills wrote in “Eastman Johnson: Painting America,” but his exposure to both abolitionist ideas and enslaved people likely had something to do with it.
When Johnson chose to paint Mount Vernon after a visit there in spring 1857, he didn’t create a grand scene idolizing George Washington. Instead, the painting shows the mansion from the side, with a windowless white clapboard cabin at the center. An enslaved Black man sits in the cabin’s doorway, his body slumped with his hands on his knees. In six different paintings of the kitchen at Mount Vernon, Johnson depicted an enslaved woman laboring next to children. In both scenes, the physical surroundings are decaying: rotting wooden fences, bricks crumbling, plaster peeling from walls.
Johnson used his father’s D.C. yard as the backdrop for his next painting about slavery. He painted small groups of people interacting with each other: a White woman peeking around the corner; two young Black girls turning to see her coming into the yard; a woman and a man talking; a banjo player and a boy looking at him longingly; a child dancing to the music, holding a woman’s hands while a child lies next to them; a child and woman looking out the window. Unlike in many depictions of African Americans in art at the time, Johnson rendered each person fully, each with distinct skin tone, clothing style, posture and facial expressions. And just as in the Mount Vernon painting, the deterioration of the house where the enslaved people are gathered suggested that slavery was decaying the nation.
He named the painting “Negro Life at the South.” (Johnson, born in New England, had never traveled farther south in the United States than D.C., apart from Mount Vernon.) It was a scene of distinctly urban slavery, featuring a beige-brick rowhouse and an older, collapsing wooden house where the enslaved people probably lived.
When Johnson exhibited the painting at the National Academy of Design’s Annual Exhibition in 1859, most critics praised it. The editors of Harper’s New Monthly Magazine wrote that it was “conceived with great spirit, and painted with Dutch fidelity.” The New-York Tribune understood its abolitionist message, writing that it was “a sort of ‘Uncle Tom’s Cabin’ of pictures” and presented “a sad picture of Southern Slavery.”
The history of Juneteenth
But to Southerners, Hills wrote, “the painting appeared as an apologia for slavery with its depiction of happy, well-fed enslaved people,” with the banjo player looking merry, the child dancing, the man and woman chatting, and everyone appearing idle. That attitude extended to some Northerners whose wealth originated in the slave system, like cotton broker William P. Wright, who bought the painting in 1859, and New York sugar refiner Robert Stuart, who purchased it from Wright’s estate in 1867.
In 1860, the painting was displayed in Troy, N.Y., under the title “My Old Kentucky Home,” a reference to the Stephen Foster blackface minstrel hit. Later, a tobacco company used the image with the words “O Carry Me Back to Old Virginny” to advertise a product that had always been associated with slave labor. (“Carry Me Back to Old Virginny,” written by Black minstrel performer James Bland, would later become the Virginia state song.) Any anti-slavery message Johnson had tried to impart in the painting was lost.
His next paintings would leave no room for ambiguity. A year after he displayed “Negro Life at the South,” Johnson received a commission from Harriet Beecher Stowe’s brother Henry Ward Beecher to paint a girl named Rose Ward. Beecher had sold Ward — born Sally Diggs — in a mock-auction to raise money for the abolitionist cause. In the painting, Rose looks at her “freedom ring,” a golden band she had allegedly been given in the auction. The image was supposed to further elicit sympathy and publicity for abolition.
In 1862, the Civil War raged in Northern Virginia, and after the Battle of Bull Run, Johnson painted “A Ride for Liberty — The Fugitive Slaves.” In it, a Black man, woman and child ride a horse at full gallop, and we understand they are fleeing for their lives. Unlike “The Freedom Ring,” Hills wrote, “this work shows the fugitives as the agents of their own freedom.”
Abolition finally came to D.C. in 1862, Maryland in 1864 and Virginia in 1865. Johnson continued to paint African American subjects until the early 1870s, in paintings infused with the morality of abolition and Black equality. But just as former abolitionist politicians didn’t maintain a commitment to fostering racial equality and integrating Black Americans into U.S. social and political life, Johnson and other genre artists abandoned paintings that portrayed “the struggles of African Americans and the notion of brotherhood,” Hills wrote, and embraced “art-for-art’s-sake painting divorced from morality or didactic purpose.”
A message in ‘The Scream’ stumped historians for years. Now they think they know the ‘madman.’
Johnson went on to paint portraits of presidents Chester A. Arthur and Grover Cleveland and business leaders John D. Rockefeller and Cornelius Vanderbilt, and he was a founding trustee of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. According to Hills on her website dedicated to Johnson, he is recognized “as a painter who brought more sophisticated painting techniques to America, who extended the range of ‘American’ subjects, often transforming traditional European themes, and who brought a more dignified and democratic content to genre painting.”
But more than a-century-and-a-half after it was painted, “Negro Life at the South” is still widely referred to as “My Old Kentucky Home,” its political statement and D.C. origins forgotten.
More on D.C. history
Desperate for freedom, 77 enslaved people tried to escape aboard the Pearl. They almost made it.
Haiti paid reparations to enslavers. So did Washington, D.C.
50 years ago, D.C.'s first African Liberation Day launched a movement | 2022-12-17T13:30:27Z | www.washingtonpost.com | How an abolitionist painting set in D.C. became proslavery propaganda - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/history/2022/12/17/eastman-johnson-negro-life-slavery/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/history/2022/12/17/eastman-johnson-negro-life-slavery/ |
This was a World Cup of human rights horrors
German players cover their mouths in a World Cup team photo Nov. 23 to protest human rights abuses in Qatar. (Ina Fassbender/Agence France-Presse)
As the 2022 World Cup wraps up, there is an overarching takeaway: Holding it in Qatar was a huge mistake. FIFA, soccer’s global governing body, had numerous chances to take a stand for basic human dignities. It didn’t. The result has been a World Cup of human rights horrors.
Awarding this major event to Qatar in 2010 was suspect from the start given that homosexuality is illegal there, women have almost no rights and are subject to a “male guardianship law,” and the nation’s long record of human rights abuses. Even former FIFA president Sepp Blatter, who presided over the selection, has admitted that “it was a bad choice.”
Opinion | This World Cup is thrilling. That’s a problem.
The stadiums and surrounding infrastructure for the event were built with abusive labor practices and cost thousands of lives, according to the Guardian and Human Rights Watch. Qatar bribed soccer officials to get the World Cup and then bribed government officials to look the other way. As the games began, the Qatari government censored how people dressed. Fans who wore or carried gay pride symbols, women’s rights slogans or anything else the government didn’t like were detained or banned from entering. Foreign journalists were instructed to stick to sports in their reporting. And Qatar changed the rules at the last minute to ban alcohol from stadiums.
None of this should diminish the performances of the players who gave the world spectacular sporting moments, including the triumphs along the way of underdogs Morocco and Croatia. Many made it clear how much they objected to the host nation’s egregious practices.
German players posed with their hands over their mouths for an official photo before a match. “It wasn’t about making a political statement — human rights are non-negotiable,” the team said. Captains of several teams planned to wear rainbow armbands to protest Qatar’s disregard for LGBTQ rights, but FIFA threatened them with yellow cards. (German, British and Belgian politicians wore the armbands in the stands instead.) Iranian players bravely refused to sing their national anthem before the start of their first game to stand in solidarity with anti-government protesters back home.
No one should have been surprised by Qatar’s heavy-handedness. It has attempted to buy off governments around the world. A vice president of the European parliament has been arrested on charges of accepting hundreds of thousands of dollars in cash from Qatar. In the United States, Qatar has spent more than $72 million on lobbying since 2015 — more than Apple and the National Rifle Association, according to OpenSecrets.
Opinion | America is here to save the World Cup in 2026. You’re welcome, world.
FIFA had a final chance to salvage some grace from its shamefulness, but it turned down a request from Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to share a message of peace before the final match. FIFA officials had also signaled openness to creating a fund to provide additional compensation to migrant workers. Now that does not appear to be happening.
Instead of owning up to mistakes, FIFA President Gianni Infantino used his news conference at the start of the tournament to accuse Western nations of “hypocrisy,” but he could not deflect from what was there for people around the planet to see. Indeed, the World Cup is that rare event that brings together much of the world — from Wall Street trading desks to the streets of Dhaka, Bangladesh — to watch. That makes it all the more essential to not just put on epic games for 90 minutes, but to produce a shared experience that upholds human rights and dignity. | 2022-12-17T13:30:39Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Opinion | This was a World Cup of human rights horrors - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/12/17/world-cup-2022-qatar-human-rights-horrors/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/12/17/world-cup-2022-qatar-human-rights-horrors/ |
Children play in a violent storm that brought heavy rain and toppled trees in Yuendumu, Australia, in March. (Matthew Abbott for The Washington Post)
Researchers say they now know why the Southern Hemisphere is so much stormier than its northern counterpart, adding their discovery could help explain future climate change projections.
A study in the journal PNAS focuses on scientists’ use of satellite data to build a climate model that factored in topographic and ocean circulation data. The researchers studied what happened to the model’s weather patterns when those variables were adjusted.
When the scientists removed topography like mountains from the model, the Northern Hemisphere got stormier, decreasing its difference in storminess compared with the Southern Hemisphere by about half. Ocean circulation mattered, too: When it was removed from the model, it also halved the difference between hemispheres.
The study also offers an explanation for the increase in Southern storminess since the beginning of satellite observations in the 1980s.
As carbon dioxide in the atmosphere increases, so does sea ice loss and sea surface temperature in the Northern Hemisphere. This effect cancels out changes in northern oceans, the researchers write. Meanwhile, the ocean currents that drive storms don’t change in the Southern Hemisphere because its sea ice isn’t melting at the same rate as CO2 levels rise. This helps drive the resulting imbalance between storminess in the North and South.
Overall, the researchers found that the Southern Hemisphere is 24 percent stormier than the Northern Hemisphere on average.
In a news release, study author Tiffany Shaw, a climate scientist at the University of Chicago, says understanding the difference in hemispheres will help researchers as human-caused climate change speeds up.
“By laying this foundation of understanding, we increase confidence in climate change projections and thereby help society better prepare for the impacts of climate change,” she says.
Researchers predict that as climate change continues worldwide, extreme weather events will increase as well. | 2022-12-17T13:30:57Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Why the Southern Hemisphere is stormier - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/science/2022/12/17/storms-climate-southern-hemisphere/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/science/2022/12/17/storms-climate-southern-hemisphere/ |
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