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New movies to stream this week: ‘A Mouthful of Air,’ ‘American Siege’ and more
Amanda Seyfried, left, and Finn Wittrock in “A Miouthful of Air.” (Sony Pictures)
Novelist Amy Koppelman doesn’t do light, poolside reading. In her books “I Smile Back” (2008), made into a film starring Sarah Silverman, and “Hesitation Wounds” (2015), she grapples with such themes as self-destructive addiction, violent death and mental illness. Making her directorial debut with an adaptation of her 2003 novel “A Mouthful of Air” — loosely inspired by her own experiences with postpartum depression — Koppelman tells the story of children’s picture-book author and illustrator Julie Davis (Amanda Seyfried), a new mother who, as the film opens, is recovering from a suicide attempt. With her deer-in-the-headlights eyes, Seyfried is well cast, although depression is notoriously difficult to render on screen, and there are many scenes of Julie simply starring into what presumably is the abyss. Finn Wittrock is serviceable as Julie’s husband — doting, yet increasingly alarmed when, after getting pregnant a second time, Julie decides to stop taking her antidepressants. Not much happens here, in a story that hops between visits with Julie’s shrink (Paul Giamatti) in the 1990s, when the main action is set, the challenges of motherhood and flashbacks to Julie’s childhood, when her struggles with depression began. The story will probably resonate best with anyone who has dealt with a mood disorder, but it’s a tale of gloom and doom, heading straight for an outcome that is still a shocking downer, in a film that Koppelman wields like a warning — or weapon — urging viewers, in an on-screen postscript, to get help before it’s too late. R. Available on demand. Contains some strong language. 105 minutes.
Bruce Willis stars in “American Siege,” an action thriller about a sheriff of a small Georgia town who becomes caught up in a hostage situation involving his community’s wealthy residents and their dark secrets. According to Flickering Myth, “Like most movies involving Bruce Willis so far this decade, advertising him in a starring role is disingenuous, as here his screen time mostly amounts to standing out in an open field of grass making casual conversation with his partner Kyle Rutledge (Trevor Gretzky, son of hockey great Wayne Gretzky) treating a hostage situation with as little urgency as someone packing grocery store bags.” R. Available on demand. Contains violence, coarse language throughout and some drug use. 90 minutes.
In the violent home-invasion thriller “The Commando,” Mickey Rourke — “looking more melted than usual,” according to the Guardian — plays a newly released criminal who terrorizes a DEA agent’s family. The Guardian writes: “Conspiracy-minded viewers might wonder if some of these films aren’t subsidized by pro-gun lobbyists as a way to drum fear into the audience and maintain support for the right to keep huge home arsenals to ward against a danger with a vanishingly small probability in the real world.” R. Available on demand. Contains strong violence, coarse language throughout and some drug use. | null | null | null | null | null |
Ron Rivera during a Washington Football Team practice in December. (John McDonnell/The Washington Post)
Two seasons into whatever this is, Ron Rivera has been exactly who you should’ve expected him to be. He’s the dependable leader, full of character and decency, that the Washington Football Team sought to clean up its everlasting mess. His current team plays similar to his Carolina Panthers teams, right down to the slow starts and identical 13-19 records through the first 32 games. He’s 60 now, but even after a cancer battle during his first season in Washington, he doesn’t look like he has aged much over the past decade.
He knows the deal. He has been coaching for 25 years, including the past 11 as a head coach. He knows that, no matter how extensive the project, the rebuilding grace period lasts only two seasons. As this disappointing 6-10 campaign has made clear, it will take Washington much longer to arrange all the pieces to create an ideal, balanced roster. Even so, the conversation now shifts from asking for patience during the teardown to providing evidence that the construction is progressing.
The 2021 free agent class was a bigger disaster. Cornerback William Jackson III started slowly and improved, but he has not had the impact the team hoped for, and what’s worse, Washington defensive coordinator Jack Del Rio didn’t play to his strengths consistently. Bothered by a bad groin injury, wide receiver Curtis Samuel was able to participate in just five games. Ryan Fitzpatrick, brought in to be the team’s stopgap starting quarterback, injured his hip in Week 1 and couldn’t play the rest of the season.
Like most everyone, Rivera has hired coaches and executives who provide him with the kind of comfort, familiarity and chemistry that he prefers. There are a lot of longtime friends, co-workers and even family members. It’s no different than what any veteran coach, given the keys to an organization, would do. But to have sustained success and transcend Daniel Snyder’s lousy ownership track record, Rivera needs to make sure he has people to jibe with and challenge him. He needs to balance the tried and true with innovation. He needs to have the right feel for when to take chances. And here’s the most difficult part: Although he should be proud of many of the things he accomplished with the Panthers, he needs to abandon the idea of building Carolina 2.0.
Recent NFL history is full of coaches who did their best work at their second jobs. Consider this batch of Super Bowl winners from the past quarter-century: Mike Shanahan, Dick Vermeil, Jon Gruden, Bill Belichick, Tony Dungy, Tom Coughlin, Gary Kubiak, Andy Reid, Bruce Arians. Several of them were chased out of their first jobs. All of them enjoyed career-defining success at NFL stop No. 2. | null | null | null | null | null |
The ball rattled around the rim and out, emblematic of a frustrating afternoon for the Cavaliers in a 74-58 loss to North Carolina on Saturday at the Dean Smith Center that ended their seven-game winning streak in the series.
Nine of Bacot’s rebounds were offensive, helping North Carolina (11-4, 3-1) to a 14-2 advantage in second-chance points. No Cavaliers player had more than seven rebounds in a game they never led and in which they trailed by as many as 25 points during the second half.
“He certainly had his way,” Cavaliers Coach Tony Bennett said of Bacot. “If you’re out of position or don’t get a quality body on him or just try to keep him off the glass, he’s going to make you pay. Sometimes it was just because we were covering for a breakdown, trying to block a shot or out of position, but their frontcourt really took it to us.”
Beekman led Virginia with 13 points and four assists and grabbed three rebounds but ended with a plus-minus of minus-25. Guard Armaan Franklin added 12 points, three rebounds and two assists for the Indiana transfer’s fifth consecutive game scoring in double figures.
Jayden Gardner, who had 10 points and seven rebounds, was the Cavaliers’ only interior player to give any production of consequence. Starting center Kadin Shedrick and reserve forward Francisco Caffaro, the other regulars on the low block, combined for two points in more than 36 minutes.
“The whole first half I felt like we were in it,” Beekman said. “The second half we just didn’t get the run we needed. We’ve got to just learn from this, learn from the mistakes and just keep moving forward.”
The 6-11 redshirt sophomore walked slowly to the bench and received treatment from the training staff, but the bleeding continued throughout the remainder of the game, preventing Bennett from reinserting Shedrick.
Despite the lopsided result against the Tar Heels, Virginia completed a season-long three-game road stretch with a 2-1 record and is in sixth place in the ACC, trailing fourth-place North Carolina by half a game. The Cavaliers, however, do not play North Carolina again in the regular season. | null | null | null | null | null |
Man fatally shot, second wounded in Fairfax County, police say
One man was fatally shot and a second was wounded Saturday night in the Hybla Valley area of Fairfax County, the police said.
A man was taken into custody and a weapon was seized after the separate shootings, both of which occurred near Route 1 and Dart Drive, the county police said.
One victim died at a hospital. The second suffered wounds that the police described as non-life-threatening.
The circumstances of the shootings could not be learned immediately. No names were available and no information was given about any charges. | null | null | null | null | null |
Policemen in Guatemala carry the coffin containing the remains of fellow officer Mauricio Canahui Tista during funeral honors in Guatemala City, on Saturday. He was killed in a gunfire attack related to a century-old land dispute between two rival K'iche Indigenous communities. (Johan Ordonez/AFP/Getty Images)
More than 50 reported killed in airstrike
An airstrike in Ethiopia’s Tigray region killed 56 people and injured 30, including children, in a camp for displaced people, two aid workers said Saturday, citing local authorities and eyewitness accounts.
Neither Ethiopia’s military nor government spokesmen immediately respond to requests for comment. The government has previously denied targeting civilians in the 14-month conflict with rebellious Tigrayan forces.
The strike in the town of Dedebit, in the northwest of the region, near the border with Eritrea, occurred late Friday, said the aid workers, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to the media.
At least 200 believed killed in village attacks
Hundreds of people are believed to have been killed in villages in Nigeria’s Zamfara state during deadly reprisal attacks by armed bandits following military airstrikes on their hideouts this week, residents said on Saturday.
Residents gained access to the villages on Saturday after the military captured the communities to organize mass burials, they told Reuters. The state government said 58 people had been killed during the attacks. Residents said the total death toll was at least 200.
Reuters reported Friday that at least 30 people had been killed in the Anka local government area in Zamfara, when more than 300 armed bandits on motorbikes stormed eight villages and started shooting sporadically on Tuesday following Monday’s airstrikes that killed more than 1oo bandits.
U.N. to hold talks to end post-coup crisis in Sudan: The United Nations says it will hold talks in Sudan aimed at salvaging a fragile democratic transition amid a grinding stalemate following an October coup and the prime minister's resignation last week. Volker Perthes, the U.N. envoy for Sudan, said in a statement that the U.N.-facilitated political process would seek a "sustainable path forward towards democracy and peace" in the country. It wasn't immediately clear when discussions might begin.
Human rights activist arrives in Paris after release by Egypt: Egyptian-Palestinian human rights activist Ramy Shaath arrived in Paris and reunited with his wife, after Egyptian authorities released him from prison and deported him. Shaath served 2½ years of pretrial detention over allegations of having ties with an outlawed group, his family said. He was forced to renounce his Egyptian citizenship to gain his freedom, they added in a statement. His father, Nabil Shaath, is an adviser to Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas.
Saudi princess released after 3 years of detention: Saudi authorities have released a princess and her daughter who had been detained without charge for nearly three years, her legal adviser said on Saturday. Princess Basmah Bint Saud bin Abdulaziz Al Saud, 57, a business executive, rights activist and member of the royal family, went missing in March 2019 along with her adult daughter Souhoud Al Sharif. The youngest child of the late King Saud, Princess Basmah has been critical of the kingdom's treatment of women.
Houthi-held ports could be targeted, coalition warns: The Saudi-led coalition fighting in Yemen believes the use by Houthi forces of the ports of Hodeidah and Salif as military bases would turn them into legitimate military targets, coalition spokesman Brig. Gen. Turki al-Malki said. "We do not want to target the ports … We want to reach a comprehensive political solution," al-Malki said at a news conference, but added that if the Houthis use any civilian sites they forfeit immunity thus making the ports targets. | null | null | null | null | null |
In a photo provided by Benoit Photo, Under the Stars and jockey Flavien Prat, right, outleg Awake At Midnyte, left, with Mario Gutierrez, to win the Grade II, $200,000 Santa Ynez Stakes horse race Saturday, Jan. 8, 2022, at Santa Anita in Arcadia, Calif. (Benoit Photo via AP) (Uncredited/BENOIT PHOTO)
ARCADIA, Calif. — Under the Stars won the $200,000 Santa Ynez Stakes by three-quarters of a length Saturday at Santa Anita. | null | null | null | null | null |
“Look, we were getting to the rim,” he said. “I felt like -- I don’t really say anything about the officiating, but I felt like it was physical on both ends and they ended up at the line more than we did. So whatever that was, I’m not sure. I’ll have to watch the film.” | null | null | null | null | null |
Spalding's Cam Whitmore dunks during the Cavaliers' win over Theodore Roosevelt at Coolidge on Saturday. (Scott Taetsch/For The Washington Post)
The gym at Coolidge High filled with a buzz of anticipation as the crowd realized Spalding had a two-on-one fast break and that one half of that duo was Cam Whitmore.
The 6-foot-6 senior sped through the open floor as teammate C.J. Scott drew the Theodore Roosevelt defender across the lane and then lofted a ball off the backboard. The crowd, seeing what was about to happen, already was in full throat by the time Whitmore caught the ball with one hand and slammed it home.
The No. 5 Cavaliers came to Northwest Washington for the Mid-Atlantic Basketball Classic, a 12-team showcase event featuring some of the best programs in the area. Whitmore, the area’s must-see attraction this winter, was featured on the flier.
While the game itself — a 75-53 Spalding victory — was never particularly close, the senior forward provided enough reason to stick around for the evening slate. The first-quarter breakaway was one of several highlight slams that littered a 20-point, eight-rebound performance.
“On a play like [the alley-oop], C.J. knows what to do and I know what to do,” Whitmore said. “We’ve played together for six years. This whole team is that comfortable with each other.”
Whereas many of the area’s top seniors established themselves early on as promising underclassmen, Whitmore’s development took off during the relative privacy of his pandemic-altered junior year. He started collecting high-major offers and shooting up prospect rankings. In late August, as the No. 20 player in the Class of 2022, he committed to Villanova over finalists Illinois and North Carolina.
When the high school season kicked off months later, it didn’t take long for Whitmore to establish himself as the most exciting player in the area. His highflying exploits spread quickly across social media. They ranged from the simple (an in-game windmill against Paul VI) to the dazzling (40 points against Good Counsel in a tournament championship), and they all served to bolster a growing reputation.
The win marked another successful trip south for the Anne Arundel County school. The Cavaliers (11-2) filled their nonconference schedule with D.C.-area contenders such as the Rough Riders (8-5) to test themselves before a grueling campaign in Baltimore’s MIAA conference.
“Baltimore basketball takes toughness,” Whitmore said. “There’s so much history. We got to really bring toughness to win a title.”
With a talented supporting cast around Whitmore, Spalding has garnered the type of buzz and respect often reserved for Washington Catholic Athletic Conference teams in this region. This winter, the team has delivered on that promise.
“Spalding hasn’t won in a while,” Cavaliers Coach Josh Pratt said. “And this group hasn’t attained a goal yet. We want our best basketball to be in the future because we want to win a championship.” | null | null | null | null | null |
The New York Giants’ struggling offense ranks 31st in the NFL in yards per game. To paint a picture of how poorly the unit has been playing, the Giants have scored one touchdown in their past 35 offensive possessions.
Last week against the Chicago Bears, backup quarterback Mike Glennon — replacing starter Daniel Jones, who’s out for the season with a neck injury — finished with four turnovers and 24 yards passing. He produced minus-10 net passing yards, including yards lost on sacks, making the Giants the first team to finish a game with negative net passing yards since 2009.
Washington defensive coordinator Jack Del Rio said Thursday he was proud of his defense’s willingness to fight and compete despite a string of unforeseen circumstances. For a defense ranked 27th in yards allowed per game that struggled to live up to preseason expectations, Sunday could be a chance to end on a high note before heading into the offseason.
Jones was injured in Week 12, and the Giants have scored 10 points or less in four of their five contests since, gaining less than 200 yards in back-to-back outings. Fromm, a 23-year-old who made his first professional start two weeks ago, was 6 for 17 for 25 yards and an interception before getting benched for Glennon in a blowout loss to the Eagles.
“For me, any opportunity to play in the NFL is a great opportunity,” Fromm said. “Obviously, I’m looking forward to having a good week of practice and going out and playing to the best of my abilities.”
Washington’s defense has struggled to get off the field for most of the season, ranking 31st in opponent third-down conversion percentage. But the problem has been especially glaring during its current four-game losing streak, illustrated by an average of 70.5 defensive snaps per game during four consecutive losses against NFC East opponents. The defense averaged only 49.3 snaps during Washington’s four-game winning streak from Week 10 to Week 13.
Taylor Heinicke is preparing to start his 15th game this season for Washington. After playing in only nine games, including the postseason, since he entered the league in 2015 and dealing with two stints on the injured list with Carolina and Minnesota, Heinicke missed only one start this year after testing positive for the coronavirus.
Heinicke credited offseason workouts with his two trainers in Georgia for helping him stay healthy. He put on 15 pounds of muscle and ate healthier.
Sammis Reyes heads into this offseason after his first full season on an NFL roster. The tight end from Chile, a former basketball player, said he has progressed significantly from when he began the season and that the improvement is noticeable when he watches his film from months ago.
“I’m going to go into training mode this offseason,” Reyes said. “Get with my people, get with my trainers and really sit down and analyze how we’re going to get to where I need to be next year so I can really have an impact on this team.”
Injury report: Washington will be without four starters — defensive end Montez Sweat (personal), wide receiver Curtis Samuel (hamstring), offensive lineman Saahdiq Charles (knee) and tight end Ricky Seals-Jones (concussion) — in Sunday’s game. Reyes, who is dealing with a hamstring injury was ruled out Saturday.
Glennon, as well as wide receivers John Ross and Kadarius Toney, will be out for the Giants, leaving New York with an even more limited number of offensive options. | null | null | null | null | null |
Within two hours of learning that Flaten complained to the Labor Department, according to the complaint, he decided to give the payment in the form of pennies and said, “How can you make this guy realize what a disgusting example of a human being he is … [y]ou know what? I’ve got plenty of pennies, I’ll use them.”
Flaten said that Walker was generally good to him as an employee, because he was one of the top performers, but that Walker had a vengeful side. One former employee told TV station CBS 46 last year that Walker had ripped up final paychecks in front of employees.
Walker did not wait until the meal was cold before he served Flaten revenge, Alderman said. | null | null | null | null | null |
Minnesota's Kaapo Kahkonen stops a shot from Washington's Daniel Sprong during the second period of Saturday's game. (Andy Clayton-King/AP)
The bizarre own goal in the second period shifted the momentum. The Wild kept pushing for an equalizer that finally came, with just 34.7 seconds remaining in regulation. When the three-on-three overtime failed to produce a result, Minnesota’s Johnny Gaudreau did, clinching a 3-2 victory by beating Fucale in the shootout. | null | null | null | null | null |
(Gobalstock/iStock)
In Rochester, N.Y., about 40 percent of students were absent from classrooms in the school district Monday. At a middle school on Long Island, the student absentee rate was 26 percent at the start of the week and had climbed to 35 percent by Wednesday. And an elementary school in Portland, Ore., planned to close for the day Friday due to “excessive staff and student absences and not enough substitutes available,” administrators wrote on Twitter.
Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot (D) condemned the Chicago Teachers Union on Jan. 4 after it voted to return to virtual teaching amid soaring omicron cases. (ABC7 Chicago) | null | null | null | null | null |
Minnesota's Kaapo Kahkonen stops a shot from Washington's Daniel Sprong during the second period of Saturday's game in St. Paul, Minn. (Andy Clayton-King/Associated Press)
The bizarre own goal in the second period shifted the momentum. The Wild kept pushing for an equalizer that finally came, with just 34.7 seconds remaining in regulation. When the three-on-three overtime failed to produce a result, Minnesota’s Freddy Gaudreau did, clinching a 3-2 victory by beating Fucale in the shootout. | null | null | null | null | null |
Colombia was one of the first countries in the world to decriminalize euthanasia; its constitutional court recognized the right in 1997. But for many years, the country only extended the right to patients with a terminal prognosis of six months or less.
Sepúlveda suffered from the progressive neurological disease amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), known in the United States as Lou Gehrig’s disease. After being diagnosed in November 2018, she began to lose control of the muscles in her legs, to live in constant pain and to fear a future that would only get worse. Euthanasia offered her an escape from further suffering, her family and lawyers said. | null | null | null | null | null |
A forgotten approach to drug addiction recovery may yield results today
Viewing drug addiction through the lenses of crime and medicine obscures another angle: community.
An overdose prevention center in the Harlem neighborhood of New York on Dec. 15. (Jeenah Moon/For The Washington Post)
By Carina Ray
Jordan Mylet
We are witnessing the deadly convergence between the opioid epidemic and the covid pandemic; a recent study showed that an all-time high of more than 100,000 Americans died of drug overdoses during the first year of the pandemic, up 30 percent from the preceding year. Responses have ranged from the recent opening of safe injection sites in New York City, to a proposed plan in Boston reallocating jail space for a drug-treatment program that blurs the line between rehabilitation and incarceration.
Current strategies to address addiction often focus on reducing overdoses, increasing access to medical treatment and, still in far too many cases, enforcing punitive policies. These measures are rooted in a much longer history of addiction treatment that has toggled between medicalization and criminalization. But a closer look at the second half of the 20th century points to an alternative approach that views addiction as a social problem whose solution requires a radical reimagining of recovery.
At the turn of the 20th century, opiates like heroin and laudanum were sold in drugstores as healing tonics. Habitual users and physicians alike considered the prescription of narcotics a form of treatment for addiction, presaging today’s medicalization approach.
But as public perception of the archetypal “dope fiend” shifted from the pitiable middle-class White housewife to the dangerous urban (male) criminal, a figure racialized as either Black or a White ethnic immigrant, reformers enacted new laws to govern narcotics. Between 1914 and 1924, federal officials banned heroin, restricted the distribution of other opiates and forbade physicians from prescribing narcotics to maintain a patient’s addiction.
The “new” class of addict was considered a source of moral contagion, leading to their forced isolation from society. In 1929, Congress passed the Porter Narcotic Farms Act, which established the first federal institutions to treat drug addicts in Lexington, Ky., and Fort Worth, Tex. Co-managed by the Bureau of Prisons and the U.S. Public Health Service, these facilities institutionalized the slippage between the addict as sick and the addict as criminal.
The period’s narcotics legislation overlapped with the prohibition of alcohol. But soon the regulation of alcohol and drugs diverged, further demonizing drug users. As Claire Clark notes, the end of Prohibition in 1933 ushered in an “era of hypocrisy: alcohol would be sold and celebrated; narcotics would be vilified.”
A postwar panic over increased heroin use in the 1940s and 1950s prompted a dilemma for lawmakers. How should addicts be compelled to receive medical treatment? This conundrum was partially solved by the criminalization of heroin, which brought illicit drug users into the court system and required mandatory hospitalization. However, jurisdictional limitations meant that federal judges could sentence defendants to Lexington or Fort Worth, but had no power over state cases, which constituted most postwar drug violations. As a result, states with the highest levels of narcotics use, like New York and California, began actively designing their own systems of institutional treatment.
Starting in the late 1950s, the California Department of Corrections expanded parole and probationary powers to detect relapse and frequently mandated outpatient psychiatric care for convicted addicts. Following the creation of the nation’s first civil commitment law in 1961, California opened a state-run rehabilitation center in 1963 that was billed as an alternative to imprisonment but functioned like a prison. It and the state’s few mental hospitals that accepted addicts were not only overcrowded, they were also ineffective in preventing relapse. Despite its failures, the state assumed ever more control over the lives of illicit drug users, even surveilling fledgling Narcotics Anonymous (NA) meetings in Los Angeles.
Amid the carceral state’s increasing power over addiction treatment in California, a radically different approach popped up on the beach of Santa Monica in 1958. High on heroin, addicts could walk through the doors of what became known as Synanon and kick their habits in community. Synanon rejected the idea that medicalization or criminalization were the only ways to address addiction. (Disclaimer: Both authors have family ties to Synanon.)
Founded by recovering alcoholic Charles Dederich, Synanon drew on the grass roots mutual-aid recovery model established by Alcoholics Anonymous (AA). Dederich realized there was an entire world of addiction not being addressed by AA or NA when heroin addicts, some of whom were also alcoholics, started showing up at the Synanon House. Many had been jailed on addiction charges, committed to California mental hospitals and even sentenced to federal narcotics farms — but their addiction remained. Newcomers often felt relief at finding an alternative to the institutions that had failed them before.
News of Synanon soon spread among addicts, desperate family members and journalists. Even the occasional parole officer brushed aside the state’s initial hostility toward Synanon and recommended it to their parolees.
Synanon came to understand addiction as not just the problem of an individual addict, but also as a symptom of the collective trauma and alienation that permeated postwar American life. To address it, one had to get to the root problem by creating a new society in which community became the therapy.
In its early days Synanon ran on a dime and depended on a ‘pay-it-forward’ model, where recovering addicts helped others through withdrawal pains and shepherded them into the flow of life. Soon it acquired adjacent residential properties to house the increasing numbers of addicts landing on its doorstep.
Members created social worlds to sustain recovery, including literacy and art classes, reading groups on Freudian psychoanalysis and Buddhist philosophy, and a nursery where residents cared for each other’s children. Weekly Saturday night parties attracted curious crowds, drawing Hollywood actors, noted intellectuals, politicians and average citizens, intrigued by what came to be known as “the miracle on the beach.”
Synanon was home to a thriving jazz scene and to an increasingly interracial community that embodied not only the diverse face of addiction in America, but also the potential to break down racial barriers. In 1963, a time when interracial marriage was still outlawed in some states, Dederich and Betty Coleman, a Black woman and former heroin addict, married, in part because they believed “it would be good for Synanon to have, right at the top of the pyramid, an integrated marriage.” The expectation was that others would follow, and they did.
Synanon, Dederich proclaimed, would promote “a lifestyle that makes possible the kind of communication between people that must exist if we are to prevent this planet from turning into uninhabitable ghettos.” During the ’60s and ’70s, Synanon’s history intersected with other better-known movements — the Black Panther Party, Peoples Temple and United Farm Workers — all of which sought to forge new futures for the dispossessed and despised in society.
As Synanon made communalism a form of therapy, the group reinvented institutions like education, work, marriage, child-rearing and leisure. At its best, it was a place where recovering addicts did not have to choose between the pursuit of sobriety and the fullness of life. Some brought their families into Synanon or started new ones. They trained as lawyers, accountants, artists, carpenters, salespeople, truck drivers and more. They experimented with new social, political and economic structures for governing their community.
This required the organization to expand its mission and provision of services, leading to its mushrooming population size and the spread of facilities into northern California and across the United States, including intake houses in Detroit and San Juan. As it gained notoriety, non-addicted members, called life-stylers or squares, began to join in the late 1960s. At its apex, membership numbered into the thousands.
As the community grew and shifted its focus away from recovery, Synanon entered the phase of its history for which it is best remembered — its turn in the mid-1970s toward what many have described as a cult.
Synanon’s decline was sandwiched between the Nixon era’s “War on Drugs” and the crack epidemic of the 1980s which surged through American cities, disproportionately sweeping Black and Latinx drug users into a system of unprecedented mass incarceration. Isolated pieces of Synanon’s model were incorporated into federal policy as drug users were also sentenced to privately-run rehabs that were often led by ex-addicts. Without the ethos of community and the model of consent that underwrote an addict’s entry into Synanon during its early years, though, court-ordered treatment became an extension of the prison industrial complex. Meanwhile, luxury rehab programs servicing a predominantly White clientele appeared across the nation.
Because Synanon is largely remembered for its downfall, its early therapeutic innovations have been read through the lens of failure or forgotten altogether. But the communal model of recovery that Synanon pioneered is worth remembering today. It points to a paradigm for treatment that bypasses the tired and often racialized binary of medicalization or criminalization to reimagine recovery as an opportunity to create new, better ways of living in common with each other. | null | null | null | null | null |
Preserving autocracies is a primary goal for regional organizations like the CSTO.
Russian service members disembark from a military aircraft, as part of a peacekeeping mission amid mass protests in Almaty and other Kazakh cities, at an airfield in Kazakhstan, in this still image from video released by Russia's Defense Ministry, Jan. 8, 2022. (Defence Ministry Of Russia/Via Reuters)
By Alexander Cooley
The CSTO’s rotating chair, Armenian Prime Minister Pashinyan, granted Tokayev’s request for assistance within hours — following “all-night consultations” that included Russian President Vladimir Putin and Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko. Russian troops comprised the bulk of the 2,500 dispatched, reportedly tasked with securing Almaty airport, major energy facilities and the Russian-operated cosmodrome at Baikonur.
What does this deployment mean — and what is the CSTO? Some analysts see the deployment of Russian troops as analogous to the Soviet Union’s intervention in the domestic affairs of Warsaw Pact countries. But this first intervention by the Eurasian security organization isn’t a call-back to the Cold War. My research suggests it’s a sign of the rise of contemporary regional organizations designed to protect the survival of autocratic regimes.
The Collective Security Treaty Organization currently has six members — Russia, Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan. It has its origins as the Collective Security Treaty, signed in 1992 as a follow-up to the Commonwealth of Independent States, formed after the Soviet Union dissolved.
The CSTO has been building its capacity since the 2000s — in part as a reaction to the U.S. military presence in Central Asia. It enacted the legal framework for Russian military bases in Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan, allowed members to buy weapons at Russian domestic rates and pursued a common air defense system. Decision-making is greatly influenced by Russia, but countries have joined and then withdrawn (Uzbekistan joined in 2006 and then withdrew again in 2012). The organization features a rotating chairmanship and an interparliamentary assembly.
Western policymakers and analysts largely dismiss the CSTO as an unconvincing attempt to mimic Western organizations like NATO. U.S. and NATO policymakers refused to engage with the CSTO or treat it as a regional security organization, to avoid granting it legitimacy.
The CSTO has boosted its capacity
Regional scholars note the CSTO’s increasing capabilities. In 2009, for instance, the CSTO established a rapid response force. In December 2010, it adopted new rules on interventions, allowing the organization to deploy peacekeepers to deal with domestic unrest in member countries.
The CSTO’s record of non-intervention — even when members had urgently requested the dispatch of troops — helped support the prevailing view that the CSTO was mere legal fiction. For example, Kyrgyzstan’s acting premier appealed to Russia in 2010 to send forces under CSTO auspices to rein in clashing Kyrgyz and Uzbek ethnic mobs.
In autumn 2020, the organization rebuffed Armenia’s appeal for assistance in the renewed conflict with Azerbaijan over Nagorno Karabakh and surrounding territories. In both cases, CSTO officials cited legal reasons why its mandate prevented interventions, but Russia also seemed reluctant to be drawn into these regional conflicts.
Given the history of CSTO inaction, why did Russia agree with such haste to support the CSTO’s intervention in Kazakhstan? For one, both Russia and Belarus fear large-scale protests could reverberate across the region (including in their own countries), especially if inspired or supported by foreign influences.
And Russian and CSTO forces have now effectively weighed into a domestic political clash. The political crisis in Kazakhstan is not merely one of bottom-up protests. It is also a high-level power struggle between current President Tokayev and former president Nursultan Nazarbayev.
Nazarbayev officially stepped down as president in 2019, but continued his influence as chairman of the country’s Security Council. His family and allies still control most of the country’s lucrative strategic and extractive industries. By intervening now, Russia is signaling to any wavering Kazakh security forces that power and authority firmly reside with Tokayev.
Reports now indicate that Nazarbayev’s main political ally (as well as twice former prime minister, and intelligence chief head), Karim Massimov, was arrested on charges of treason. A spokesman for Nazarbayev claimed the former president is in the capital, Nur-Sultan, despite rumors that he and his family members may have fled abroad.
How regional organizations reinforce autocracy
The evolving situation in Kazakhstan supports international relations scholarship about Russian (and Chinese-led) regional organizations in Central Asia. Many experts view the true role of these organizations as defending the autocratic regimes and practices of their members, rather than promoting integration.
The CSTO is an example of what international relations scholar Roy Allison’s calls “protective integration.” While ostensibly a military organization, the CSTO serves a larger role, protecting authoritarian governments by fostering a regional “culture of interaction, normative bonding, and collective political solidarity.”
And the CSTO is just one example of the increased role of international organizations in the rise of what political scientists Alexander Libman and Anastasia Obydenkova term “authoritarian regionalism,” a phenomenon Dan Nexon and I also explore in our book on the waning of the U.S.-led global liberal order. In the 1990s and early 2000s regional organizations seemed to promote democratic values and procedures. The trend now — especially in Eurasia — is for regional groups to defend autocracy in member nations by redistributing resources and providing legitimacy to politically embattled rulers.
What’s the endgame in Kazakhstan?
Protesters — and others critical of the regime — may view Russia’s actions as an unacceptable violation of Kazakhstan’s sovereignty, and question the validity of the “peacekeeping” concept as applied to CSTO troops. And they may predict that Tokayev lacks the legitimacy and capacity to quell social unrest without introducing real reforms to address pressing issues like rising prices, perceptions of elite corruption and Kazakhstan’s stark economic inequalities.
But Tokayev appears to be doubling down on repression — he dismissed international calls for a peaceful solution and negotiations with protesters as “idiocy” and warned on Friday that his security forces would “shoot to kill without warning.”
This week may have “changed Kazakhstan forever,” but Russia’s intervention under CSTO auspices crystallizes an ongoing trend: Regional organizations, leaders and norms worldwide are bolstering autocracies and promoting illiberal norms and practices.
Alexander Cooley is the Claire Tow Professor of Political Science at Barnard College, Columbia University. His books on Central Asian politics include “Great Games, Local Rules: The New Great Power Contest in Central Asia” (Oxford University Press, 2012) and, with John Heathershaw, “Dictators without Borders: Power and Money in Central Asia” (Yale University Press, 2017). | null | null | null | null | null |
The plot centers on a murder investigation. But let’s examine which of the film’s social predictions have come true now that we’ve reached the year of its setting.
As long ago as “The Jetsons” in 1962, TV shows and movies have depicted humans ditching meals for nutrition pills. In “Soylent Green,” it’s a switch we make out of necessity: Overconsumption has caused fresh produce to become scarce. A head of lettuce, two tomatoes and a leek retail for $279, and a sliver of beef is the ultimate luxury.
The general public is forced to live off products from the Soylent corporation, whose wares contain “high-energy vegetable concentrate” — and are dismissed by one elderly customer as “tasteless, odorless crud.” Its latest artificial meal is Soylent Green, a “miracle food of high-energy plankton gathered from the oceans of the world.” It proves popular enough to be rationed to a single day of sale per week, but as Thorn discovers, it’s not what it seems to be. (We won’t spoil the ending, though if you know anything about the film, it’s probably the horrifying revelation about Soylent Green.)
That grisly denouement didn’t deter crowdfunders from investing in software engineer Rob Rhinehart’s real-life Soylent meal replacements in 2013. Soylent today is available in powder and bar form. It “meets the Food and Drug Administration’s standards for a whole raft of healthy claims," Ars Technica reported in 2014. Soylent Nutrition did temporarily stop sales of its powders and bars in 2016 after reports of gastrointestinal illness were traced to the products’ use of flour made from algae — not plankton, exactly, but close. Today, Soylent is available to purchase online and in chains including Walmart and 7-Eleven, but it has yet to spark the same frenzied feeding riot of its namesake in the movie.
“Soylent Green” opens with photographs showing how modern Americans evolved from frock-coated settlers to fishermen, farmers and early town-dwellers. The slide show then blurs into a rush of cities with heaving sidewalks, smog-cloaked traffic jams and even Tokyo-style “professional pushers” cramming commuters onto subway trains. A title card tells us the population of New York City is 40 million; an exasperated Thorn at one point remarks, “There are 2 million guys out of work in Manhattan alone — just waiting for my job!”
There are similarities between the movie’s universe and life in the Big Apple today. Manhattan saw an influx of homeless residents last June when the city attempted to ease crowding in shelters. And as shown on screen, police can be efficient (or overzealous, depending on your perspective) when it comes to clearing protesters. (Predictions of rampant crime, mercifully, have not materialized: Thorn notes that the city logs 137 homicides per day, while NYPD’s CompStat report lists five from Dec. 27, 2021, to Jan. 2.)
The super-rich, however, get a better deal in reality than in the film, where they’re confined to living in the Chelsea West apartments if they want to keep away from the masses. Each door in the luxury tower block is automated, the penthouse butler is dressed in garish hunting pink, and the height of decadence is a fresh shower. Not exactly the private wine cellars and porte-cochere that you’ll find today in buildings such as 15 Central Park West.
Perhaps influenced by the 1972 heat wave in the Northeast and the first oil crisis of the early 1970s, “Soylent Green” imagines a sweltering future where the temperature never dips below 90. Margarine spoils in the fridge, and a sickly fog, similar to London’s historical “pea-soupers,” hangs in the air, forcing the city’s last remaining trees to be shielded under a tent. Whether these calamities are the fault of humankind or a natural disaster isn’t made clear, but in the source novel, it’s implied to be the former.
‘West Side Story,’ now in theaters, shocked Broadway audiences in 1957
To Thorn, a scorched existence is normal — he grew up in the sticky 21st century, after all — but he’s still mesmerized when he discovers the wealthy murder victim’s fresh soap and an air conditioner than can make the room “cold, like winter used to be.”
In reality, of course, the climate catastrophe isn’t limited to cities. Wildfires recently raged through Colorado, leaving hundreds homeless, while a huge swath of the West, from New Mexico to Idaho, is in the grips of a megadrought.
Britain just recorded its warmest New Year’s Eve on record. Last November saw Delhi enter a temporary lockdown — not for covid but to mitigate the Indian capital’s notorious air pollution.
Between the food shortages, staggering inequality, oppressive temperatures and stairwells lined with sleeping homeless people, life in “Soylent Green” isn’t a picnic. Perhaps that’s why authorities in the movie have legalized assisted dying.
One scene shows widows collecting “death benefits,” implying that your family will be rewarded if you opt out. It’s a moment that catches the eye of Sol Roth (Edward G. Robinson), who attends a clinic where he’s welcomed by a glamorous assistant. He’s asked to choose his favorite color and soundtrack, takes a mouthful of medicine and is placed in bed while an orderly pushes two buttons on a console. A wall-sized TV then plays a montage of pacifying imagery (grazing stag, golden dawns, rivers) as the character exchanges a tender “I love you” with Thorn. (Robinson himself would die 12 days after shooting wrapped.)
A controversial subject at the time, assisted dying is legal today in Canada, Colombia, Australia and parts of Europe. In 2018, 142 people traveled from Germany, France and Britain to Switzerland’s Dignitas facility to make use of the country’s physician-assisted suicide policy that does not set a minimum age, diagnosis requirement or qualifying symptoms.
While Thorn’s leisure time is spent savoring the beans, lettuce and apples he has pilfered from his latest crime scene, the elite of “Soylent Green” have a more novel way to unwind: video games. In the luxury apartment of a Soylent board member, a sleek cabinet contains Computer Space, which in real-life 1971 had become the very first coin-operated arcade game.
“Soylent Green” might not be the most unnerving look at tomorrow — that honor will forever be held by Mick Jackson’s “Threads” (1984) and its unflinching account of a nuclear holocaust — but it is one that guessed how ugly we might become if we continued to allow ourselves to be run by greed. Unlike in “Threads,” we’ve avoided pushing the big red launch button. We’re happy to keep pushing the buttons on our digital devices instead.
George Bass is a feature writer based in Britain who has contributed to the Guardian, the New York Times, the New Scientist and the Financial Times. Follow him @GeorgeBas5. | null | null | null | null | null |
Opinion: Distinguished pol of the week: Biden assumes leadership in the battle for democracy
Activists participate in a candlelight vigil in front of the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6. (Pete Marovich/EPA-EFE/Shutterstock)
President Biden has largely ignored his predecessor out of a sincere but erroneous assumption that starving the former president of attention reduces the threat he poses to our democracy. Unfortunately, such a strategy only allows disinformation to metastasize and harden.
On Thursday, the anniversary of the Jan. 6 insurrection, Biden had no choice but to go after the leader who has cultivated the nation’s most dangerous antidemocratic movement. It would have been impossible to commemorate the anniversary without talking about the president who instigated the violence on that day.
In puncturing the defeated former president’s fantasy that he won the 2020 election, Biden seized the opportunity to reaffirm the cause of democracy in a dramatic way. Truth is truth. Elections have a knowable outcome. Allowing someone to reject the fundamental prerequisite of democracy, the peaceful transfer of power, would sacrifice self-government on the altar of comity.
In some sense, it was and remains as important to debunk the “big lie” of a stolen election as it was to eradicate the “Lost Cause” mythology of the defeated Confederacy. The former makes a mockery of democracy; the latter glorifies slavery and oppression. Both serve as inspiration for a new generation of extremists. As Biden said in remarks on Thursday: “This isn’t about being bogged down in the past. This is about making sure the past isn’t buried. That’s the only way forward. That’s what great nations do. They don’t bury the truth, they face up to it.”
Democracy’s defenders will determine the fate of self-government through their ability to stomp out lies, to defend the sanctity of elections and to reassert the fundamental principle that the people, not the mob of a disgruntled loser, choose our leaders. Biden made this clear, telling Americans, “They want you to see Election Day as the day of insurrection and the riot that took place here on January 6th as the true expression of the will of the people. Can you think of a more twisted way to look at this country — to look at America? I cannot.”
Biden now seems to grasp that there is no one but himself to mount that defense. Only the president has the bully pulpit, the constitutional role as the elected leader of the country and the moral authority to lead the battle for democracy itself. Only the president can stand up for the legitimacy of elections against the scurrilous efforts of losers to delegitimize contests that don’t go their way. Hence his declaration that “it’s wrong. It’s undemocratic. And frankly, it’s un-American.”
Hopefully, Biden will use the speech to take charge of what he called during the campaign the “battle for the soul of America.” That is why many Americans voted for him — to secure our democracy from a narcissist with dictatorial ambitions. That role as democracy’s defender in chief is every bit as vital as his leadership in fighting the pandemic and reviving the economy.
He seemed finally to embrace that role on Thursday: “I did not seek this fight brought to this Capitol one year ago today, but I will not shrink from it either. I will stand in this breach,” he announced. “I will defend this nation. And I will allow no one to place a dagger at the throat of our democracy.”
Biden also made the critical point that he cannot do this alone:
Look, folks, now it’s up to all of us — to “we the people” — to stand for the rule of law, to preserve the flame of democracy, to keep the promise of America alive. That promise is at risk, targeted by the forces that value brute strength over the sanctity of democracy, fear over hope, personal gain over public good. Make no mistake about it: We’re living at an inflection point in history. ... So, we have to be firm, resolute, and unyielding in our defense of the right to vote and to have that vote counted.
Democracy does not defend itself. It not only requires people to reaffirm their faith in self-government, but also political leadership that no one but the president can provide. Biden now plainly recognizes that role: “I believe the power of the presidency and the purpose is to unite this nation, not divide it; to lift us up, not tear us apart; to be about us — about us, not about ‘me.’”
He must continue to sound the alarm in the fight for truth and for democracy. He should do it not for the sake of the midterm elections or his own reelection, but because it is his obligation as leader of the world’s greatest democracy. He should do it because if he doesn’t, antidemocratic forces will prevail.
For assuming his responsibility as the leader of the fight to defend democracy, we can say, well done, Mr. President. | null | null | null | null | null |
FILE - In this Feb. 2, 2002, file photo detainees from Afghanistan sit in their cells at Camp X-Ray at the U.S. Naval Base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. At the time the image was taken there were 158 al-Qaida and Taliban prisoners being held at the camp. The 20th anniversary of the first prisoners’ arrival at the Guantanamo Bay detention center is on Tuesday, Jan. 11, 2022. There are now 39 prisoners left. At its peak, in 2003, the detention center held nearly 680 prisoners. (AP Photo/Lynne Sladky, File) | null | null | null | null | null |
Flaten called the Wage and Hour division at the Labor Department in January 2021 to report that Walker did not pay him his final check of $915, according to the complaint. Flaten’s check had been prepared but never mailed.
Within two hours of learning that Flaten complained to the Labor Department, according to the complaint, he decided to give the payment in the form of pennies and said, “How can you make this guy realize what a disgusting example of a human being he is … [Y]ou know what? I’ve got plenty of pennies; I’ll use them.”
Flaten said that Walker was generally good to him as an employee, because he was one of the top performers, but that Walker had a vengeful side. One former employee told TV station CBS46 last year that Walker had ripped up final paychecks in front of employees.
Walker did not wait until the dish was cold before he served Flaten revenge, Alderman said. | null | null | null | null | null |
But those details and other elements of the story began to fall apart after Erik Wemple, The Washington Post’s media critic, examined Barrett’s story, speaking to a fencing expert who cast doubt on the likelihood of such a gruesome injury. The founder of a company that builds ice rinks for the affluent in the area said he knew of “nobody who’s built an Olympic sheet, not even the hedge-fund guys.” Wemple reported that sources close to the family said the woman identified as Sloane did not have a son.
Wemple also noted that the Atlantic story appeared under the byline “Ruth S. Barrett,” obscuring the name “Shalit,” which was Barrett’s byline in the 1990s when she wrote and edited for the New Republic, New York Times Magazine. Under that name, she had been accused of plagiarism multiple times. (In response to those incidents, she has said she made errors in attribution because of “carelessness” and “sloppy work methods.”)
In the lawsuit against the Atlantic and Peck, who was the print magazine’s editor at the time and had written a staff memo about incident, Barrett called the Atlantic’s actions “character assassination” that had “destroyed her reputation and career.”
Barrett’s charge that the Atlantic changed a quote drew attention in journalism circles, though some noted that it fell flat considering Barrett’s past. “This would be pretty damning for the Atlantic if it were coming from someone without a long history of making [expletive] up,” the journalist Tom Scocca wrote on Twitter. | null | null | null | null | null |
But no single in-game coaching decision was defining for Fangio. It was far more about the overall trend as he oversaw the ongoing struggles of a franchise accustomed to on-field success. The Broncos have had six straight non-playoff seasons since winning the Super Bowl to conclude the 2015 season.
“For the last three seasons, Vic put his heart and soul into coaching the Broncos,” Joe Ellis, the team’s president and chief executive officer, said in a written statement, thanking Fangio for his “maximum effort” and adding that General Manager George Paton “will have full authority” to choose the next coach.
The Broncos will be searching for their fifth head coach in a span of nine years.
“Vic will continue to have great success in this league,” Paton said in a written statement, “and I thank him for everything he did for the Broncos as well as me personally. Looking ahead, there’s a lot of work to be done for us to take the next step. Winning is not easy, and we’re going to embrace the opportunity to improve in every single area of our operation.”
Paton reportedly met with Fangio before Saturday’s season finale to discuss potential changes that would be made by Fangio if he were to be retained.
“With the foundation in place, the progress that’s been made and the resources we have to get better, I’m excited about the future of our team,” Paton said. “We will find an outstanding leader and head coach for the Broncos and our fans.” | null | null | null | null | null |
Jim Harbaugh is being linked to the Raiders and Bears coaching jobs
Case Keenum starts for Browns after Baker Mayfield’s season shut down
NFL set to surpass 17 million in attendance this season
Aaron Rodgers calls speculation about Super Bowl boycott the ‘dumbest... story ever’
T.J. Watt could break Michael Strahan’s record for sacks in season
Jared Goff active, set to return to Lions’ lineup
Ben Roethlisberger’s NFL farewell could be anticlimactic
David Bakhtiari is active for the Packers
Tyler Huntley starts again for Ravens as Lamar Jackson remains sidelined
Public memorial service planned for John Madden
Derrick Henry won’t play Sunday for Titans
Jaguars fans will send in the clowns to get the owner’s attention
Speculation about the possibility of Jim Harbaugh returning to coach in the NFL is a virtually annual staple of the firing-and-hiring cycle.
It’s back, with a report last week by the Athletic that Harbaugh could consider such a move. The father of a Michigan recruit subsequently told 247 Sports that Harbaugh indicated he planned to “entertain” NFL offers.
His coaching stock is back up after he took Michigan to a semifinal loss in the College Football Playoff. But his coaching prowess always has been well regarded in NFL circles, given that he went 44-19-1 over four seasons with the San Francisco 49ers and led them to a Super Bowl appearance in the 2012 season. The Niners made three straight appearances in the NFC title game with Harbaugh as their coach.
It all could be a negotiating tactic by Harbaugh to create additional leverage at Michigan after he accepted a pay cut last year. Or his NFL interest could be legitimate.
Two potential vacancies could be particularly intriguing, given Harbaugh’s ties to the Chicago Bears and Las Vegas Raiders. He was with the Bears as a player after he was chosen by them in the first round of the 1987 draft. His coaching career began with the Oakland Raiders in 2002 as their quarterbacks coach.
Former NFL executive Michael Lombardi recalled, on “The GM Shuffle” podcast, being a Raiders executive and recommending to then-owner Al Davis that the team hire Harbaugh.
“Harbaugh just fell in love with the Raiders. … He learned how to coach with the Raiders,” Lombardi said. “So I could see the appeal to going back.”
The Jacksonville Jaguars probably would have to oust Trent Baalke as their general manager if they want to pursue Harbaugh, given the friction that existed between the two when they were together with the 49ers.
Case Keenum starts at quarterback for the Cleveland Browns as they complete their disappointing season by hosting the Cincinnati Bengals in an early-afternoon game.
The Browns are eliminated from playoff contention and starting quarterback Baker Mayfield is sitting out this game.
He was placed on the injured reserve list last week and is scheduled to undergo surgery Jan. 19 on the injured left shoulder that plagued him for much of the season.
Mayfield was sacked nine times in Monday night’s loss at Pittsburgh.
His long-term future in Cleveland is uncertain. Mayfield is under contract to the Browns for next season after the team exercised the fifth-year option in his rookie contract for $18.858 million.
But his play so far has made it unclear whether the Browns will sign him to a lucrative long-term deal. He is eligible for free agency following the 2022 season, although the Browns could utilize the franchise-player tag to limit his mobility at that point if they choose to do so.
There were multiple reports Sunday that the Browns head into the offseason planning for Mayfield to be their starter next season. That makes sense, based on his contract. But there remains plenty of time for such plans to change, potentially.
The NFL expects to surpass the 17 million mark in fan attendance at games this season, the league said last week in a written statement on Twitter by spokesman Brian McCarthy.
That’s after only 1.2 million fans attended games leaguewide during the 2020 season and postseason, when games were played in empty stadiums or with reduced fan capacities because of the coronavirus pandemic.
All NFL stadiums were cleared for full fan capacity before this season.
SoFi Stadium in Inglewood, Calif., has hosted more than 1.1 million fans this season, McCarthy wrote.
It is the home of the Los Angeles Rams and Los Angeles Chargers. The Super Bowl is scheduled to be played there Feb. 13.
Quarterback Aaron Rodgers wasted no time debunking speculation Friday — later said to have been precipitated by a prank — that Rodgers would threaten to boycott the Super Bowl, if the Green Bay Packers advance that far, over the NFL’s coronavirus protocols.
That theory initially was put forward earlier Friday by radio host and former NFL quarterback Boomer Esiason, before a subsequent reversal.
Rodgers took to Twitter later in the day to deny it, forcefully, with hashtags that labeled the report both “fake news” and the “dumbest [expletive] story ever.”
Esiason and his co-host, Gregg Giannotti, said later in the show that they believed Esiason had been victimized by a prank.
Perhaps they should have vetted the information before talking about it on the air.
Rodgers was at the center of a sizable controversy this season when he vigorously defended his unvaccinated status after testing positive for the coronavirus.
Under the protocols developed by the NFL and the NFL Players Association, Rodgers is not subject to coronavirus testing or contact-tracing considerations for 90 days following his positive test, a period that expires just before the Super Bowl.
Pittsburgh Steelers star pass rusher T.J. Watt has a chance Sunday to the break Michael Strahan’s single-season NFL sack record.
Watt has 21.5 sacks this season entering the Steelers’ early-afternoon game at Baltimore. Strahan had 22.5 sacks for the New York Giants in 2001.
Watt had four of the Steelers’ nine sacks in their victory Monday night over the Cleveland Browns at Heinz Field.
“The first year or two, I used to do big individual goals: ‘x’ amount of sacks, TFLs [tackles for loss], all that stuff,” Watt said after that game. “But it adds too much pressure. You start chasing and all that stuff. And now it’s just trying to affect every game the best that I can …. It’s been working for me. So I’m not really looking at goals like that any more, just trying to be a game-wrecker.”
If Watt breaks the record, it will come in the NFL’s first 17-game regular season. It will be the 15th game played this season by Watt, who has missed two games because of injuries.
Strahan’s record-breaking sack came with controversy, as Green Bay Packers quarterback Brett Favre obligingly went to the turf in Strahan’s vicinity.
And even the stat itself creates a degree of murkiness. Sacks were not an official NFL statistic before 1982. According to Pro Football Reference, the unofficial single-season sack record since 1960 is the 23 by Al Baker for the Detroit Lions in 1978.
Quarterback Jared Goff is active for the Detroit Lions for their early-afternoon game at home against the Green Bay Packers.
He is set to return to the Lions’ lineup after a two-game absence.
Goff had been listed as questionable on the injury report.
He missed one game after a positive test for the coronavirus, then another game with a knee injury. Tim Boyle started in his place.
Quarterback Ben Roethlisberger had an emotional farewell to Heinz Field and Pittsburgh fans in the Steelers’ triumph Monday night over the Cleveland Browns.
He could play his final NFL game Sunday in Baltimore.
Roethlisberger has not officially announced that he will retire in the offseason. But he acknowledged that Monday’s meeting with the Browns was likely his final home game.
The Steelers can reach the AFC playoffs only if they beat the Ravens, the Indianapolis Colts lose to the lowly Jacksonville Jaguars and the Raiders-Chargers game Sunday night does not end in a tie.
It could be an anticlimactic ending for Roethlisberger, a two-time Super Bowl winner who ranks fifth on the NFL’s list of career passing yards leaders behind only Tom Brady, Drew Brees, Peyton Manning and Brett Favre.
Left tackle David Bakhtiari is active for the Green Bay Packers for their early-afternoon game at Detroit and could make his season debut.
Bakhtiari practiced fully Friday and had been listed as questionable on the injury report.
He has not played all season and missed the final regular season game and two playoff games last season after suffering a torn ACL in his left knee in practice on Dec. 31, 2020.
He is one of the league’s top left tackles when he’s healthy and his potential return for the postseason could provide a considerable boost to the Packers’ Super Bowl chances.
Tyler Huntley makes another fill-in start at quarterback for the Baltimore Ravens as they attempt to keep their long-shot AFC playoff hopes alive in an early-afternoon game against the Pittsburgh Steelers at M&T Bank Stadium.
Huntley gets the start with Lamar Jackson sidelined for a fourth straight game because of his ankle injury.
Jackson did not practice all week and the Ravens ruled him out Friday.
The Ravens can reach the postseason only with a victory over the Steelers combined with losses by the Indianapolis Colts, Miami Dolphins and Los Angeles Chargers.
A public memorial service for John Madden is planned for Feb. 15 in Oakland, the NFL announced late last week.
“The Madden family has been overwhelmed by the outpouring of love and support during the difficult time following John Madden’s passing,” the NFL said in a written statement.
Further details about the public memorial service will be announced soon, the NFL said.
Madden died Dec. 28 at age 85.
He was among the most significant figures in NFL history as a Super Bowl-winning coach for the Oakland Raiders, a beloved broadcaster over three decades and the namesake of the “Madden NFL Football” video game franchise.
The Tennessee Titans won’t have tailback Derrick Henry in their lineup for their regular season finale.
The Titans did not active Henry from the injured reserve list by Saturday’s roster deadline. That left him ineligible to play in Sunday’s early-afternoon game at Houston.
Henry practiced last week after being designated for return from the IR list by the Titans.
He underwent surgery in early November for a foot injury. Henry last played on Halloween. He presumably will return to the lineup during the postseason. Even with all his missed time, Henry still was the NFL’s sixth-leading rusher entering this weekend’s Week 18 play.
The Titans would clinch the AFC’s top playoff seed with a triumph over the Texans. That would give them a first-round postseason bye — and more time for Henry to rest and prepare for his return — and home-field advantage through the AFC championship game, if they advance that far.
The Chiefs would get the No. 1 seed if the Titans lose to the Texans.
A fresh, unique embarrassment is planned by fans of the Jacksonville Jaguars, who have been frustrated by losing seasons that result in excellent draft picks — and more failure and futility on the field.
Fans last week changed their social media profile photos to an image of a clown with owner Shad Khan’s signature mustache (their Snidely Whiplash) and have been replying to posts with clown emoji as well as calling for the firing of General Manager Trent Baalke.
On Sunday, they intend to wear clown makeup and wigs for a #clownout at the 1 p.m. game against the Indianapolis Colts (on Fox) as a disappointing 2-14 season in which Urban Meyer was fired as coach after a string of embarrassments mercifully comes to an end.
It’s a game with quite a lot on the line: A loss would assure the Jaguars of another No. 1 draft pick (after taking quarterback Trevor Lawrence with the top pick last year). A victory would put the 9-7 Colts in the playoffs.
The prospect of TIAA Bank Field dotted with clowns led RoofClaim.com, a Georgia company that does business in Florida, suing to have its name removed as primary sponsor of the regular season finale, according to the Associated Press.
Lawrence was diplomatic about the prospect of a clown show.
“I wouldn’t do that,” he said last week, “but you know, fans feel how they feel. We wanted to win a lot more games, so I get the frustration. Obviously we haven’t had much success this season, so that’s frustrating for us as well. But it’s the Jags and they’ve been a fan since the Jags started, so you see that passion and we want to do everything we can to go win for the city and for these fans." | null | null | null | null | null |
Woodstock co-producer and co-founder, Michael Lang, participates in the Woodstock 50 lineup announcement at Electric Lady Studios, March 19, 2019, in New York. The co-creator and promoter of the 1969 Woodstock music festival that served as a touchstone for generations of music fans, Michael Lang has died. A spokesperson for Lang’s family says the 77-year-old had been battling non-Hodgkin lymphoma and passed away Saturday, Jan. 8, 2022 in a New York City hospital. (Evan Agostini/Invision/AP) | null | null | null | null | null |
Opinion: How long will D.C. citizens have to wait before the Senate confirms critically needed judges?
A bid to confirm D.C. nominees by seeking unanimous consent was blocked by Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.) “I have absolutely no faith that Joe Biden’s radical far-left nominees will uphold the rule of law,” he said. Never mind the recommendations from the congressionally constituted judicial commission are almost always uncontroversial. They are generally former prosecutors or magistrate judges or administrative law judges with apolitical backgrounds. But Democrats also share in the responsibility for the crisis facing the D.C. courts. Majority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) so far has not been willing to press the nominations to a vote by invoking cloture. That would take up precious floor time and, as D.C. Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton (D) wryly noted, D.C. “is at the bottom of the barrel until we get statehood.” A spokesman for Mr. Schumer assured us “we are going to get these nominees confirmed.” The question is when. The citizens of Washington, D.C., shouldn’t have to wait any longer for timely justice. | null | null | null | null | null |
This do-your-own-research mentality hurts athletes. Of course covid-19 is a relatively new and sometimes unpredictable malady. But trained experts are in a better position than sports stars to determine what is good for the human body, just as Mr. Djokovic is in a better position than his spectators to serve up aces and Mr. Rodgers is in a better position than his fans to throw touchdowns, even if sports watchers might at times erroneously imagine they could do a better job. | null | null | null | null | null |
Live updates Washington Football Team leads Giants, 6-0, at halftime
Washington takes 6-0 lead into halftime
Both offenses are struggling in the first half
Washington maintains 3-0 lead in second quarter
Washington and New York exchange punts
With big hit by Jamin Davis, Washington forces a turnover on downs
Washington takes 3-0 lead; Terry McLaurin goes over 1,000 yards
Washington Football Team wide receiver Terry McLaurin (17) went over 1,000 receiving yards for the season in the first quarter of Sunday's game against the New York Giants. (John McDonnell/The Washington Post)
Washington added to its lead before halftime with a 43-yard field goal by Joey Slye as time expired. The key play on the five-play drive was a 40-yard catch by Terry McLaurin, who has a game-high four catches for 93 yards.
Washington’s defense limited the Giants to 48 total yards and two first downs in the first half. (Washington 6, New York 0, halftime)
After a three-and-out by the Giants that featured quarterback sneaks by Jake Fromm on second- and third-and-long just to give punter Riley Dixon a few more yards to operate, Washington, which began its next drive from the New York 46, failed to capitalize on its best field position of the game.
Washington also went three-and-out, bringing the teams’ combined number of three-and-outs in the first half to five. Washington has outgained the Giants 133 yards to 43. (Washington 3, New York 0, 2:00 left in the second quarter)
After going three-and-out on its previous possession, Washington moved into New York territory with a six-play drive. The march stalled after Taylor Heinicke was pressured and threw incomplete on third-and-long from the Giants’ 38-yard line.
Antonio Gibson had a 27-yard run on the drive and has 71 yards on 10 carries. New York will begin its next drive from its own 3-yard line. (Washington 3, New York 0, 5:42 left in the second quarter)
Terry McLaurin, who went over 1,000 yards receiving for the season on Washington’s first drive, prevented a turnover on Washington’s second possession. On a third-down overthrow by Taylor Heinicke, McLaurin, the intended target, leveled Giants safety Xavier McKinney with a big hit that knocked the ball loose. New York went three-and-out on its second drive. (Washington 3, New York 0, 13:15 left in the second quarter)
A false start penalty on Matt Ioannidis on fourth-and-one from the Washington 47-yard line gave the Giants a fresh set of downs, but rookie linebacker Jamin Davis tackled wide receiver Alex Bachman for a loss of three on a fourth-and-short play four plays later to turn the ball over on downs. (Washington 3, New York 0, 2:43 left in the first quarter)
The Giants won the coin toss and elected to defer, giving Washington the ball first. Taylor Heinicke led Washington on an 11-play drive, which Joey Slye capped with a 23-yard field goal after Heinicke overthrew Cam Sims in the back of the end zone on third and goal.
With two catches for 41 yards on the march, Washington’s Terry McLaurin eclipsed 1,000 yards receiving this season. He’s the first Washington receiver to accomplish that feat in consecutive years since Henry Ellard in 1996. (Washington 3, New York 0, 9:03 left in the first quarter) | null | null | null | null | null |
Dozens of people left with life-threatening injuries after fire ravages New York apartment complex
More than 30 people have life-threatening injuries after a fire ravaged a New York apartment complex Sunday, officials said, calling the disaster one of the worst in the city’s history.
Firefighters work outside an apartment building after a fire in the Bronx.
Emergency first responders at the scene.
Emergency personnel from the FDNY respond to an apartment building fire in the Bronx.
Emergency first responders at the scene of the fire.
A member of the FDNY at the scene of the fire.
Emergency personnel from the FDNY provide medical aid.
Emergency first responders at the scene of the fire in the Bronx where a fire broke out at an apatrment complex.
Emergency first outside of the apartment building.
Ladders are put up beside the apartment building.
A curtain hangs outside a window.
Firefighters and NYPD officers work outside the apartment building.
More than 30 have life-threatening injuries after Bronx fire | null | null | null | null | null |
Heather Hamel, public information officer for Manchester, N.H., police, on Jan. 4 holds reward posters showing Harmony Montgomery. (John Tlumacki/Boston Globe/Associated Press)
Harmony, whose father had custody, vanished from her New Hampshire home in 2019. But police said they only learned she was missing late last year. They started searching for the child, who is blind in her right eye and described as 4 feet tall and 50 pounds, with blond hair, blue eyes and glasses, after her mother reported her missing in November.
The case has attracted widespread attention and increased scrutiny of the state’s Division for Children, Youth and Families. After more than two years in which Harmony’s disappearance was not known to authorities, recently there have been multiple developments in the effort to find her. The FBI joined the investigation, the reward for information leaped to more than $90,000, and authorities arrested her father and stepmother.
Adam Montgomery faces charges of second-degree assault, interference with custody and endangering a child’s welfare. His wife, Kayla Montgomery, is charged with welfare fraud for allegedly collecting food stamp benefits for Harmony even though the child was no longer living in their home. The two have pleaded not guilty.
Sorey, who lost custody of Harmony in 2018 partly because of substance-use issues, has said Adam and Kayla Montgomery blocked her from contacting her daughter beginning in 2019. Now sober, she said she spent months searching for the two and for her child, contacting several schools and driving to addresses associated with Adam Montgomery.
Jashyah Moore was missing for a month. Local reporters helped solve the case, officials say. | null | null | null | null | null |
Wizards’ Rui Hachimura is expected to make his season debut against the Magic
Rui Hachimura, Washington’s first-round draft pick in 2019, will suit up Sunday against the Magic for the first time since a June 2 first-round playoff loss at Philadelphia. Hachimura’s expected season debut, highly anticipated by Wizards fans and even more anticipated by Hachimura’s fervent followers in his native Japan, comes after the forward’s extended layoff.
Hachimura missed training camp with an excused absence and joined the team in October to begin a slow, carefully managed ramp-up. The last time he played competitively was at this summer’s Tokyo Games, where Hachimura led the Akatsuki Five to their first Olympic appearance since 1976.
Back with the Wizards for the first time in seven months, Hachimura will focus on adjusting to a slew of new teammates, a new coach and a new playbook he has spent the past few months studying but has never put into practice. After his return was delayed by a stint in the NBA’s coronavirus protocols, Hachimura hasn’t so much as played five-on-five in practice against teammates, a fact that did not seem to worry Coach Wes Unseld Jr. in the slightest. | null | null | null | null | null |
U.S. troops to stay on bases as coronavirus cases rise in Japan
Japan covid fears keep U.S. troops on bases
The United States and Japan on Sunday agreed to keep American troops within their bases as worries grew about a sharp rise in coronavirus cases in the country.
The restrictions starting Monday will last 14 days, confining U.S. military personnel to base facilities except for “essential activities,” a statement from the U.S. Forces in Japan said. The allies will share information and cooperate on coronavirus measures, “given the extraordinary virulence of the omicron variant spreading throughout Japan,” the statement said.
U.S. military members will wear masks, both on and off base, when outside their homes and will continue to carry out strict testing before leaving for and after arrival in Japan, it said.
New coronavirus cases have surged in Japan, jumping above 8,000 on Saturday, a four-month record. The rise has been most pronounced in areas near U.S. bases. Last week, Japan asked for U.S. cooperation in keeping its military personnel on base.
Okinawa, a southwestern group of islands that houses most of the 55,000 U.S. troops in Japan, is among the three prefectures where separate government restrictions kicked in Sunday. The measures, which last through the end of the month, include early closing hours for restaurants at 8 p.m. or 9 p.m. Some restaurants also must stop serving alcohol.
The restrictions also went into effect in Yamaguchi prefecture, where Iwakuni base is located, and nearby Hiroshima.
GM recognizes state's emissions authority
General Motors on Sunday said it had agreed to recognize California’s authority to set vehicle emissions standards under the Clean Air Act.
The automaker made the commitment to recognize California’s authority in a letter to California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D). GM said it is “committed to complying with California’s regulations.”
Soon after Joe Biden was elected president, GM reversed course and no longer backed a Trump administration effort to bar California from setting its own emissions rules.
GM has announced plans to eliminate tailpipe emissions from new light-duty vehicles by 2035. In June, GM boosted global spending on electric and autonomous vehicles to $35 billion through 2025, 30 percent over its previous forecast.
In November 2019, California said it planned to halt all purchases of new vehicles for state government fleets from GM, Toyota and other automakers backing President Donald Trump in the tailpipe emissions battle.
In April, the Environmental Protection Agency said it was moving to restore legal authority to California to set tough vehicle emissions rules and zero-emission vehicle mandates.
In July, 16 Republican state attorneys general urged the EPA to reject reinstating California’s authority. GM previously backed overall emissions reductions in California’s 2019 deal with rivals Ford Motor, Volkswagen, Honda and others, but asked the Biden administration to give automakers more flexibility to hit carbon reduction targets.
California plans to ban the sale of new gasoline-powered passenger vehicles starting in 2035. Biden has called for half of new vehicles sold by 2030 to be electric or plug-in hybrid.
Last month, the EPA finalized vehicle emissions requirements through 2026 that reversed Trump’s rollback of car pollution cuts and will speed a U.S. shift to more electric vehicles.
27 people rescued from floating ice block: Authorities rescued 27 people from a floating chunk of ice that broke away from shore on Green Bay in eastern Wisconsin, the sheriff's office said Sunday. No injuries were reported in the incident that happened Saturday north of Green Bay, in the arm that is part of Lake Michigan, the Brown County Sheriff's Office reported. Many of those rescued had been ice fishing. The chunk of ice floated about three-quarters of a mile during the rescue and was about a mile from the shoreline by the time everyone was brought to solid ground. Authorities said those stranded were on the ice shove for about 90 minutes. A barge traveling through the bay may have caused it to break off the shoreline, the sheriff's office said. | null | null | null | null | null |
David Kessler, the chief scientific officer for the administration’s covid response, said the government has been responding to requests from state and local health officials in making all three monoclonal antibodies available. But the administration has made clear that the two that don’t work against the omicron variant should be used "only if the delta variant represents a significant proportion of infections in the region and then only with the explicit understanding that these treatments would be ineffective if the patients are infected with the omicron variant.”
Last week, the administration resumed shipments of those two medications. The latest reversal followed complaints from Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) and some doctors that the Regeneron treatments could help in places where the delta variant of the virus is still infecting people. DeSantis also said he was not convinced the Regeneron and Lilly cocktails were ineffective against the omicron variant. | null | null | null | null | null |
Wizards’ Rui Hachimura makes his season debut against the Magic
Rui Hachimura, Washington’s first-round draft pick in 2019, suited up Sunday against the Magic for the first time since a June 2 first-round playoff loss at Philadelphia. Hachimura’s season debut, highly anticipated by Wizards fans and even more anticipated by Hachimura’s fervent followers in his native Japan, comes after the forward’s extended layoff.
Hachimura did not start Sunday; he entered with 8:45 remaining in the first quarter as the Wizards attempted to stop a slide in which they had lost three of four games and five of seven.
Hachimura missed training camp with an excused absence and joined the team in October to begin a slow, carefully managed ramp-up. The last time he had played competitively was at this summer’s Tokyo Games, where Hachimura led the Akatsuki Five to their first Olympic appearance since 1976.
Back with the Wizards for the first time in seven months, Hachimura will focus on adjusting to a slew of new teammates, a new coach and a new playbook he has spent the past few months studying but has never put into practice. After his return was delayed by a stint in the NBA’s coronavirus protocols, Hachimura hadn’t so much as played five-on-five in practice against teammates, a fact that did not seem to worry Coach Wes Unseld Jr. in the slightest. | null | null | null | null | null |
Parliament's 1st session
is marked by disarray
Iraq’s new parliament reelected its speaker to a second term Sunday, the first step toward forming a new government after a general election whose results have been contested by powerful Iran-backed factions.
In a reflection of tensions, the meeting was marked by disarray, with the lawmaker leading the session taken to the hospital apparently because of the stress.
The chaotic meeting ushers in what is likely to be a lengthy period of political wrangling among rival groups to choose a new president and prime minister. As leader of the biggest bloc, Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr has the upper hand in forming a new government. But he will have to manage tensions with rival Shiite groups.
According to Iraq’s constitution, the largest bloc in parliament has the right to choose the new prime minister. But as the meeting got underway Sunday, an alliance of Shiite factions that object to the results of the October vote submitted a list of names of lawmakers who it claimed hold the biggest parliamentary bloc with 88 seats, rather than Sadr.
Chaos erupted in the chamber, during which lawmakers crowded around Mahmood al-Mashhadani, who was leading the session. Within minutes, the 73-year-old lawmaker was carried out of the room by security forces and bundled into an ambulance.
The parliament session resumed after the brief disruption, but the issue of the majority was not immediately resolved. Later, 200 lawmakers picked incumbent speaker Mohamed al-Halbousi to a second term.
Regional bloc severs ties over election delay
West African nations will close their borders with Mali, sever diplomatic ties and impose tough economic sanctions in response to the country’s “unacceptable” delay in holding elections after a 2020 military coup, a 15-state regional bloc said Sunday.
The fresh measures from the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) represent a significant hardening of its stance toward Mali, whose interim authorities have proposed holding elections in December 2025 instead of this February, as originally agreed with the bloc.
In a communique issued after an emergency summit in the Ghanaian capital, Accra, ECOWAS said it found the proposed timetable for a transition back to constitutional rule totally unacceptable.
The organization said it had agreed to impose additional sanctions with immediate effect. These included the closure of members’ land and air borders with Mali, the suspension of nonessential financial transactions, the freezing of Malian state assets in ECOWAS commercial banks and recalling their ambassadors from Bamako.
Gunmen have released 30 Nigerian students who spent nearly seven months in captivity, a government official said, the latest batch released after dozens of Kebbi state students were abducted in June.
A spokesperson for the Kebbi governor did not give details of their release. Ransoms for the release of hundreds of abducted students in the West African country are common.
The students in Kebbi were abducted June 17 by gunmen who stormed their school. The abductors killed a police officer before they drove off with the students into nearby forests, a pattern similar to the abduction of more than 1,400 schoolchildren in Africa’s most populous country since the start of 2021, according to the U.N. children’s agency.
Local officials were silent on the exact number of those missing from the Kebbi school. This is the third batch of Kebbi students freed since their abduction.
Fire tears through Rohingya camp in Bangladesh: A fire swept through a Rohingya refugee camp in southeastern Bangladesh, destroying hundreds of homes, according to officials and witnesses, though there were no reports of casualties. The blaze hit a camp in a border district where more than a million Rohingya refugees live, with most having fled a military crackdown in Myanmar in 2017. A Bangladesh official said emergency workers brought the fire under control. | null | null | null | null | null |
TMZ first reported that Saget was found in his room by hotel security on Sunday afternoon. Saget had recently launched a stand-up tour with the first two dates in Florida this weekend, and performed in Ponte Vedra Beach on Saturday night. “Loved tonight’s show,” he tweeted after his set. “Appreciative audience.”
As soon as the news broke, there were a flood of tributes from fellow actors and comedians.
“Bob Saget was as lovely a human as he was funny. And to my mind, he was hilarious. We were close friends and I could not have loved him more,” Norman Lear tweeted.
“I’m so shocked at @bobsaget’s passing. One of the most kind & thoughtful people I’ve ever come across & he just happened to be one of the funniest on the planet,” wrote Joel McHale. “I will miss you so much Bob. Love you dear friend.”
“Beloved by millions as America’s Dad, he was a regular presence in our living rooms, bringing to us the funniest videos and countless belly laughs," George Takei wrote. "Gone too soon, like so many of the brightest souls.” | null | null | null | null | null |
FILE - Bob Saget attends the “Shameless” FYC event at Linwood Dunn Theater on Wednesday, March 6, 2019, in Los Angeles. Saget, a comedian and actor known for his role as a widower raising a trio of daughters in the sitcom “Full House,” has died, according to authorities in Florida, Sunday, Jan. 9, 2022. He was 65. (Richard Shotwell/Invision/AP, File) | null | null | null | null | null |
It was a rainy winter day with redeeming rainbows
We might have dismissed our Sunday as dismal, but that would have meant ignoring such mitigating factors as the widely seen morning rainbows that preceded the rains of the afternoon and evening.
The glories of January may be difficult to discover for all but the most determined. So the contrast with the chill gray dampness that characterized so much of the day made the rainbows seem even more worthy of note.
They required sunshine, which was in short supply for most of the day on Sunday. They also required enough water droplets to act as a curtain of tiny prisms, suspended in air.
Acting as prisms do, the droplets decompose the rays of the sun into the colors of the, well, rainbow. Then they reflect them back.
In the afternoon, the rain seemed to set in with purposeful determination, falling steadily if lightly for hours. In Washington, it amounted to more than half an inch by 8 p.m. So Sunday was not merely a gray day, but a wet one, too. Anyone who chose to study the skies from the warmth of a dry home was probably confirmed in the wisdom of the decision.
Aside from the psychological and symbolic meanings of the day, Sunday came fairly close to meeting the statistical criteria for this time of year.
In Washington, the average high temperature for Jan. 9 is 45 degrees. So Sunday, with its high of 42 degrees, fell three short of the mark.
In the early morning, the temperature here sank to 30 degrees. The average low temperature for the date is just that. And most of the time, probably without the redeeming quality of rainbows. | null | null | null | null | null |
What to know from Sunday’s 70-69 loss, which dropped the Terps to 0-4 in Big Ten play
The Maryland men’s basketball team had clawed its way out of a massive deficit that once seemed insurmountable. Wisconsin had led by as many as 21 points Sunday night, yet the Terrapins responded with force, unwilling to fold and take this as just another defeat in a lost season. Maryland turned that hefty deficit into a narrow lead, but when the Terps needed to push ahead in the final minutes, they couldn’t climb past the No. 23 Badgers and ended up with a 70-69 defeat at Xfinity Center.
Senior guard Eric Ayala hit a three-pointer with four seconds to go, trimming Maryland’s deficit to 70-69, and the Terps fouled Wisconsin’s Brad Davison. He missed both attempts, but it didn’t matter — Ayala’s desperate half-court heave was off the mark. Maryland fell to 0-4 in conference play for the first time since 1992-93, and its hopes of salvaging an NCAA tournament-worthy campaign have faded rapidly.
Before Davison’s misses, Wisconsin hit six straight attempts from the foul line in the final 30 seconds to keep Maryland (8-7, 0-4 Big Ten) from finishing the comeback. Fatts Russell drew a foul with 36 seconds to go, and the Terps’ senior point guard made just one of two attempts to trim their deficit to 64-62. After that, Maryland needed the Badgers (13-2, 4-1) to falter from the free throw line to have a chance.
After Ayala didn’t score in the first half, he led the surge, recording 19 points after halftime, including four shots from three-point range. Maryland shot 59.3 percent from the field during the second half and made 5 of 10 attempts from deep. The Terps needed that boost after another poor start: They trailed 29-8 after 12 minutes.
For the third straight game, the Terps fell into a double-digit deficit in the first half. But each time, they managed to generate a gritty climb back. Maryland turned a 12-point deficit Monday at Iowa into a 40-36 halftime lead. On Thursday at Illinois, the Terps trailed by as many as 14 points before building another four-point advantage at the break. That trend continued against the Badgers.
The Terps took their first lead at 36-35 early in the second half after back-to-back threes from Ayala, but again, Maryland could not finish the comeback.
Maryland interim coach Danny Manning knew the Terps wouldn’t contain Davis entirely, but he wanted to force the Wisconsin star into a below-average performance. And after the 6-foot-5 sophomore guard scored seven points in the first 4:05, his production slowed.
Davis had scored at least 20 points in each of the past six games, but on Sunday he finished with 19, slightly down from his average of 22.6. He shot 1 for 7 from three-point range. Davis leads his team in points, rebounds, assists and steals, and against the Terps the nation’s fourth-leading scorer provided enough to help his team avoid a collapse.
The Terps have played three of the top scorers in Division I over the past week, so Davis was just Maryland’s latest test. Iowa’s Keegan Murray, who leads the country at 24.7 points, matched his career high of 35 against the Terps. Kofi Cockburn of Illinois, who’s fifth in the nation at 22.5, leaned on a dominant second half to score 23.
Maryland hasn’t gotten much from its bench lately: The reserves hadn’t combined for more than nine points in any of the previous three games. But against the Badgers, Green had a breakthrough performance. The 25-year-old graduate transfer from Old Dominion hadn’t scored more than three points in a game this season, but against Wisconsin he recorded 10 on 4-for-5 shooting.
Green hit a critical three-pointer during Maryland’s dominant stretch in the first half, then added five points in the second as the Terps navigated the tight game. | null | null | null | null | null |
SAN FRANCISCO — About an hour before taking the court for the first time in 941 days, Klay Thompson strode out for warmups with a large white headband and enough pent-up nervous energy that he kept changing direction like a broken compass.
“Klay’s the spirit of what we do,” Curry said in the run-up to Sunday. “He’s all about the team, he’s all about winning, he’s all about that competitive fire.” | null | null | null | null | null |
After much deliberation over how to stream or broadcast this year’s Golden Globe Awards, the Hollywood Foreign Press Association selected the most obvious choice: not to do so at all. The Globes, once an opportunity to witness celebrities let loose and poke fun at one another, were reduced to a series of social media posts.
Unlike the shows upended by the omicron coronavirus variant, however, Sunday’s Globes were never going to look like they did before. Most of Hollywood shunned the HFPA after the Los Angeles Times published an exposé in February about the 87-member organization’s questionable practices and lack of Black members. The HFPA and its iffy press credentials were never considered as prestigious as the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, which comprises more than 8,000 voters across 17 branches, but the telecast itself was widely watched — and considered a valuable publicity opportunity for studios and celebrities alike.
There was, in fact, a Globes ceremony held at the Beverly Hilton hotel Sunday night, but it was attended by select HFPA members and grant recipients. (An HFPA representative told The Washington Post that its main focus this year was philanthropy. A news release issued after the ceremony noted that the HFPA has donated over $50 million to entertainment charities and scholarship programs throughout the past 25 years.) | null | null | null | null | null |
After much deliberation over how to stream or broadcast this year’s Golden Globe Awards, the Hollywood Foreign Press Association selected the most obvious choice: not to do so at all. The Globes, once an opportunity to witness celebrities let loose and poke fun at one another, were reduced to social media posts.
Unlike the shows upended by the omicron variant of the coronavirus, however, Sunday’s Globes were never going to look like they did before. Most of Hollywood shunned the HFPA after the Los Angeles Times published an exposé in February about the 87-member organization’s questionable practices and lack of Black members. The HFPA and its iffy press credentials were never considered as prestigious as the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, which comprises more than 8,000 voters across 17 branches, but the telecast itself was widely watched — and considered a valuable publicity opportunity for studios and celebrities alike.
There was, in fact, a Globes ceremony held at the Beverly Hilton hotel Sunday night, but it was attended by select HFPA members and grant recipients. (An HFPA representative told The Washington Post that its main focus this year was philanthropy. A news release issued after the ceremony noted that the HFPA has donated more than $50 million to entertainment charities and scholarship programs throughout the past 25 years.) | null | null | null | null | null |
SAN FRANCISCO — About an hour before he took the court for the first time in 941 days, Klay Thompson strode out for warmups with a large white headband and enough pent-up nervous energy that he kept changing direction like a broken compass.
“Klay’s the spirit of what we do,” Curry said in the run-up to Sunday. “He’s all about the team. He’s all about winning. He’s all about that competitive fire.” | null | null | null | null | null |
What to know from Sunday’s 70-69 defeat, which dropped the Terps to 0-4 in Big Ten play
The Maryland men’s basketball team clawed its way out of a massive deficit that had seemed insurmountable. The hole against Wisconsin had grown so deep Sunday night — 21 points — that even amid the disappointment of another loss, interim coach Danny Manning could appreciate his team’s moxie.
Unwilling to fold and take this as just another defeat in a lost season, Maryland turned that hefty deficit into a narrow lead. But when the Terps needed to push ahead in the final minutes, they couldn’t climb past the No. 23 Badgers and ended up with a 70-69 loss at Xfinity Center.
“I feel like we’re close to turning the corner,” Manning said.
Right now, close isn’t enough. This loss sent the Terps (8-7, 0-4 Big Ten) tumbling to an 0-4 start in conference play for the first time since 1992-93, and their hopes of salvaging an NCAA tournament-worthy campaign have faded rapidly.
A win against the Badgers could have provided a jolt of optimism in a season defined by Mark Turgeon’s abrupt departure and lackluster performances. The Terps kept the game tight through the second half, and senior guard Eric Ayala hit a three-pointer with four seconds to go, trimming their deficit to 70-69. Clinging to hope of an upset, the Terps fouled Wisconsin’s Brad Davison. Davison was off the mark on both free throws — the second one was an intentional miss, Wisconsin Coach Greg Gard said — but it didn’t matter. Ayala’s desperate half-court heave didn’t connect.
“It’s all about hitting a stride,” Ayala said. “Tonight was a winnable game.”
Before Davison’s misses, Wisconsin had made six straight attempts from the foul line in the final 30 seconds to keep Maryland from finishing the comeback. Fatts Russell drew a foul with 36 seconds to go, and the Terps’ senior point guard made just one of two attempts to trim their deficit to 64-62. After that, Maryland needed the Badgers (13-2, 4-1) to falter from the free throw line to have a chance.
Ayala didn’t score in the first half, but he led the surge, recording 19 points after halftime and making four shots from three-point range. Ayala was limited in the first half because he picked up two fouls, and he said he had a better sense of how the Badgers wanted to guard him after halftime.
But there was also a desire to win that made it seem as though Ayala “just made his mind up to go play,” Manning said.
With better ball movement, Maryland shot 59.3 percent from the field during the second half and made 5 of 10 attempts from deep. The Terps needed that boost after another poor start: They trailed 29-8 after 12 minutes.
For the third straight game, the Terps fell into a double-digit deficit in the first half. But each time, they managed to generate a gritty climb back despite ultimately losing. Maryland turned a 12-point deficit Monday at Iowa into a 40-36 halftime lead. On Thursday at Illinois, the Terps trailed by as many as 14 points before building another four-point advantage at the break. That trend continued against the Badgers.
“I don’t like it when we give up such an early lead like we did tonight,” Manning said. “But we’ve shown that we have the wherewithal to continue to find a way to claw, fight and scratch and get back into the ballgame.”
The Terps took their first lead at 36-35 early in the second half after back-to-back threes from Ayala, but again Maryland could not finish the comeback.
Manning knew the Terps wouldn’t contain Davis entirely, but he wanted to force the Wisconsin star into a below-average performance. And after the 6-foot-5 sophomore guard scored seven points in the first 4:05, his production slowed — thanks in large part to Green’s defensive effort.
“I just knew to be a pest,” Green said.
Davis had scored at least 20 points in each of the previous six games, but Sunday he finished with 19, slightly down from his average of 22.6. He shot 1 for 7 from three-point range. Davis leads his team in points, rebounds and assists, and the nation’s fourth-leading scorer provided enough to help his team avoid a collapse against the Terps.
The Terps have played three of the top scorers in Division I over the past week, so Davis was just their latest test. Iowa’s Keegan Murray, who leads the country at 24.7 points, matched his career high of 35. Kofi Cockburn of Illinois, who’s fifth in the nation at 22.5 points, leaned on a dominant second half to score 23.
Maryland hasn’t gotten much from its bench lately: The reserves hadn’t combined for more than nine points in any of the previous three games. But against the Badgers, Green had a breakthrough offensive performance. The 25-year-old graduate transfer from Old Dominion hadn’t scored more than three points in a game this season, but against Wisconsin he recorded 10 on 4-for-5 shooting.
Green hit a critical three-pointer during Maryland’s strong stretch in the first half, then added five points in the second as the Terps navigated the tight game. | null | null | null | null | null |
The Kazakh flag is lowered to half-mast on the roof of the city administration headquarters on the day of mourning for those killed during the mass protests triggered by fuel price increase, in Almaty, Kazakhstan, on Jan. 10. (Mariya Gordeyeva/Reuters)
ALMATY, Kazakhstan — For days, the streets of Kazakhstan’s largest city smelled of burned rubber tinged with the acrid stench of stun grenades. Inside their homes, people huddled, fed by rumors in an unnerving information vacuum from a cut Internet and only limited mobile phone service — all accompanied by the steady pop of overnight gunfire.
During the unrest, Internet might be restored for one hour a day in the capital of Nur-Sultan — precious time to check-in with family members. In Almaty, even those brief windows didn’t exist, and citizens were encouraged to stay home as security forces conducted an “anti-terrorist operation” in the streets. During a nationally televised address on Friday, Tokayev issued a “shoot-to-kill” order — though many people didn’t even know about it because their home televisions depended on Internet.
With no access to the outside world, people read books and played boardgames. Neighbors talked to each other. Phone calls within the country worked and that’s when the rumors were exchanged — some as extreme as talk of foreign snipers targeting civilians on the street. | null | null | null | null | null |
Brandon Carter is named artistic director of American Shakespeare Center
Resident actor is first person of color to lead the Staunton, Va., playhouse, which also announced a new roster of productions after some recent strife
Brandon Carter, a resident actor with the American Shakespeare Center since 2018, was named the new artistic director of the American Shakespeare Center in Staunton, Va., on Jan. 10, becoming the first person of color to lead the 34-year-old company. (Lelund Durond Thompson)
After a contentious year that saw the departure of its artistic director and the cancellation of its autumn slate of plays, American Shakespeare Center announced Monday the appointment of a new artistic leader and a return next month to a full roster of performances.
Brandon Carter, a resident actor with ASC since 2018, assumes the directorship in a new management structure that the company describes as “a coequal group of individuals” running other departments such as operations, production and engagement. Carter is the first Black man, and person of color, to serve as artistic director of ASC, a 34-year-old company producing the classics in a 300-seat mock-Tudor playhouse in Staunton in the Shenandoah Valley.
The plans for 2022 include new productions of Shakespeare’s “Romeo and Juliet” and “The Comedy of Errors,” opening in February and March, respectively, and continuing through May. And according to Carter, there will be an increased emphasis on contemporary plays, starting with Duncan Macmillian’s “Every Brilliant Thing,” directed by Stephanie Holladay Earl and running from May 27 to July 3.
“Our audience is ready to see something new from us, and I’m ready to open the door,” Carter, 34, said in a phone interview.
The announcement settles the question of ASC’s survival, an issue that had supporters worried after the company’s decision in October to eliminate a four-play autumn roster. Although $1.8 million in federal arts aid kept ASC solvent during the pandemic, the company experienced internal rifts and defections over complaints about racial insensitivity and treatment of women. The previous artistic director, Ethan McSweeny, resigned in February 2021 following the circulation of a letter, signed by many members of the staff, complaining about management deficiencies. His departure prompted resignations by two key board members who objected to the way McSweeny himself was treated.
American Shakespeare Center cancels fall season amid reports of internal strife
As at many theater companies, ASC was forced to make deep cuts during the pandemic; its budget of about $4 million and staff of 70 full- and part-time workers were essentially reduced by half. To address concerns raised about equity and inclusiveness, the board hired a consultant in October to help with, as one ASC official described it, “revising company values”; the company added the suspension of the fall season was intended to give ASC time to focus on the training.
The company, which employs original Elizabethan practices — productions use minimal set pieces and props, and are performed with the house illumination on — took the first steps back to its traditional operation in December: It staged its annual “A Christmas Carol” again in its Blackfriars Playhouse in downtown Staunton. The announcements Monday of the members of a newly constituted management group, as well as the shows that will be produced throughout 2022, signaled other moves toward stability.
Carter has played dozens of ASC roles, most notably as both Prince Hal and King Henry in the “Henry IV” and “Henry V” cycle. He’ll continue to act, beginning in February as Romeo opposite Meg Rodgers, in a “Romeo and Juliet” to be directed by José Zayas. Carter said one of his priorities will be to try to draw more audiences of color into the playhouse, and another will be to address the desire of many actors to be given contracts of shorter duration, to maximize their scheduling flexibility.
The schedule for 2022 is a somewhat pared-down version of the programming ASC offered before the pandemic; for one thing, the company’s national touring arm will not be revived until 2023, Carter said. If all goes as conceived, the summer season will consist of “Twelfth Night” (June 9-Aug. 6) and L MFeldman’s “Thrive, or What You Will” (July 7-Aug. 7), a modern companion piece to “Twelfth Night” that was developed through the company’s New Contemporaries project.
In the fall, ASC plans “The Tempest” (Sept. 23-Nov. 26); “Pericles, Prince of Tyre” (Sept. 30-Nov. 27) and Aimé Césaire’s 1960s play, “Une Tempête” (Oct. 27-Nov. 26). The last of these is a comic riff on “The Tempest” that reexamines the relationship between the wizardly Prospero and the enslaved Caliban.
Carter says his goal is to illuminate the canon in novel ways for audiences, “ ‘decentering’ who they perceive to be in these stories, breaking the legacies of the action of the past,” he said. “That is what this all means to me right now.”
To survive, this Shakespeare company is offering online classes and videos. Are branded masks far behind?
Britney Spears's songs are packed into a new musical at Shakespeare Theatre Company
Shakespeare wrote 'King Lear' during a pandemic. What great work will emerge from this one? | null | null | null | null | null |
The streets of Almaty showed the aftermath of ongoing protests with burned-out vehicles and broken glass on Jan. 7. (Reuters)
There is worry that the original purpose of the protests will be lost amid the destruction and subsequent crackdown. Kazakhs say they have grown fed up with an authoritarian government that somehow isn’t able to translate the country’s immense wealth into an improved standard of living for anyone beyond a small circle of the elite.
“The authorities seem to have no idea how we live, how we survive with our small earnings as prices get higher and higher,” he said. “I work a lot every day and earn around $300 per month spending all the money on food. Where do authorities waste all the money coming from oil exports? Why don’t they help people like me?” | null | null | null | null | null |
The piece of ice a group of fishermen had been standing on had begun splitting from the bay’s main shoreline, leaving dozens of people stranded on an ice shove, the Brown County Sheriff’s Office said in a news release. (Brown County Sheriff's Office)
The piece of ice near Point Comfort — along the east shore of Green Bay, which leads out to Lake Michigan — had begun to split from the main shoreline, leaving over two dozen people stranded, the Brown County Sheriff’s Office said in a news release. Nelson and Verhagen’s fishing gear drifted off with it.
It took authorities aboard ice rescue boats nearly an hour and a half and several trips to rescue at least 27 fishermen who were stuck. The ice block drifted farther from the shore with each trip, Lt. John Bain, with Brown County Sheriff’s Office, said at a news conference.
Coast Guard personnel in Green Bay have issued multiple warnings on social media this month reminding people in the area that ice is never 100 percent safe.
“Didn’t catch any fish, ran out of propane early and got stranded on the ice,” he said while laughing. | null | null | null | null | null |
The latest antisemitic conspiracy theory seems absurd — and it is, but it’s also dangerous
A Kentucky resident gets a coronavirus vaccine last July. Neither the virus — nor the vaccine — are part of a Jewish plot. (Luke Sharrett for The Washington Post)
Yair Rosenberg is a contributing writer at the Atlantic, where he writes the Deep Shtetl newsletter covering politics, religion, and culture.
Last week, David Bateman, a prominent Utah entrepreneur and Republican political donor, sent an unusual email to his state’s business and political leaders, including Gov. Spencer Cox. The subject line? “Genocide.” The topic: Jews. But Bateman’s message was not about the Holocaust, or about Jews being the victims of mass murder. Instead, he accused them of perpetrating it.
“I believe there is a sadistic effort underway to euthanize the American people,” Bateman wrote. “I believe the Jews are behind this. … I believe the pandemic and systematic extermination of billions of people will lead to an effort to consolidate all the countries in the world under a single flag with totalitarian rule. … No one is reporting on it, but the Hasidic Jews in the US instituted a law for their people that they are not to be vaccinated for any reason.” (No such law exists.)
Reached for comment by a bemused reporter, Bateman insisted that “some of my closest friends are Jews.” He resigned from his industry positions shortly afterward.
It’s tempting to write this off as the ridiculous ramblings of an Internet-poisoned tech magnate too rich to have ever been told “no” by those around him. On the surface, Bateman’s ham-handed harangue certainly looks like a fringe — even funny — story. But it’s not. That’s because the libel that Jews are committing genocide has exploded in popularity across anti-Jewish discourse. It crosses ideological lines and is increasingly expressed in polite company.
Indeed, once you start looking, it’s hard to escape the fact that people just love accusing Jews of genocide. “The Jews will use the vaccine to change DNA making the person susceptible to designer viruses the Jews will create,” wrote one poster on the neo-Nazi forum Stormfront in December 2020. “This is one way the Jews will attempt to kill off the White Race.” That same month, the Anti-Defamation League reported that Ishmael Muhammad, a student minister in Louis Farrakhan’s Nation of Islam, “referenced the ‘Synagogue of Satan’ (an antisemitic phrase used to refer to Jews) for allegedly promoting vaccines to sterilize Black people,” in a live sermon from the organization’s headquarters in Chicago. “Those of you who are really big supporters of the vaccination program, whether you realize it or not, you are a new Nazi,” intoned the antisemitic pastor Rick Wiles last month. “This is mass genocide.” (Wiles is best known for dubbing the impeachment of President Donald Trump a “Jew coup.”)
So far, so fringe. But the same cannot be said for the broader “white genocide” conspiracy theory, which posits that Jews are conspiring to wipe out the White race through the promotion of mass immigration, interracial marriage and other supposedly sinister social schemes. Fear of this farcical “great replacement” infamously inspired the neo-Nazi marchers in Charlottesville, who in 2017 chanted that “Jews will not replace us.” And it featured prominently in the social media feeds of Robert Bowers, the white supremacist who massacred 11 Jews at Pittsburgh’s Tree of Life synagogue in 2018.
Then, last year, the most popular political personality on American television took it mainstream. “The left and all the little gatekeepers on Twitter become literally hysterical if you use the term ‘replacement,’ if you suggest that the Democratic Party is trying to replace the current electorate, the voters now casting ballots, with new people, more obedient voters from the Third World,” declared Fox News’s Tucker Carlson this past April. “But they become hysterical because that’s what’s happening actually.”
The Pittsburgh shooter didn’t hate ‘religion,’ he hated Jews. We should say so.
Of course, even if one were to accept the questionable premise of this accusation, adding new people to the United States does not remove the previous inhabitants. There is no “replacement” unfolding, other than in the fevered imagination of the country’s white nationalists. Carlson knows this. But he also knows the extremists in his audience and their preferred parlance. And so he chose to politely popularize the conspiratorial claims that had motivated the mass murder of American Jews. The message was received. “Tucker Carlson is talking about replacement theory; well, I knew it was going on way back then, way back in 1991,” exalted former KKK leader David Duke.
Many liberals strongly condemned Carlson’s remarks. And yet, false fulminations about Jews committing genocide have found a home on certain parts of the left as well. Last May, award-winning actor and outspoken Israel critic Mark Ruffalo apologized for publicly accusing the Jewish state of genocide. “It’s not accurate, it’s inflammatory, disrespectful & is being used to justify antisemitism here & abroad,” he wrote on Twitter. Israel occupies the Palestinian people and the two have fought multiple wars. The Israeli military deserves scrutiny and criticism for every Palestinian civilian casualty. But occupation and discrimination are not genocide. In actuality, according to the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics, the Palestinian population in Israel, Gaza and the West Bank has increased around fourfold since Israel’s founding. By contrast, the Holocaust killed two out of three European Jews. Within Israel itself, where 20 percent of the population is Arab, the most popular male baby name for the past decade has been Muhammad.
Whatever one thinks of Israel, that’s obviously the opposite of genocide. Like most conspiracy theories, this one takes a kernel of truth — about Israel’s treatment of Palestinians — and inflates it into a crazed calumny. In other words, Ruffalo was right to back off his remarks. But the fact that this incendiary claim filtered all the way up to a Hollywood star, who initially felt comfortable repeating it in public, demonstrates how acceptable this libel is even in some putatively progressive circles.
Obviously, not all these allegations are equivalent. Some are spread through ignorance, others through malice. But by now, it should be clear that people don’t make these accusations because they make sense. Rather, false charges of Jewish genocide continue to proliferate because they offer tantalizing rewards that make them irresistible to a certain brand of bigot.
First, they weaponize the greatest Jewish trauma against Jewish people. As the Marxist political theorist Norm Geras put it, “To say to Jews that what they are doing is just like what the Nazis did to them is to appeal to the comparison that is most hateful.” There is no better way to hurt someone than to fashion their own most painful experience into a club with which to beat them. It’s not hard to imagine how turning the Holocaust on Jewish people, like turning slavery on Black people, provides a delicious transgressive thrill.
Second, casting Jews as the perpetrators of a new, fictitious Holocaust frees non-Jews from the obligation to learn the lessons of the actual Holocaust. “For thousands of years, for much of the world, part of the cultural patrimony enjoyed by all non-Jews — spiritual and secular, Church and Mosque, enlightenment and romantic, European and Middle Eastern — was the unquestionable right to stand superior over Jews,” wrote University of California at Berkeley’s David Schraub in 2016. “It was that right which the Holocaust took away, or at least called into question: the unthinking faith of knowing you were the more enlightened one, the spiritually purer one, the more rational one, the dispenser of morality rather than the object of it.”
Anti-vaxxers are claiming centuries of Jewish suffering to look like martyrs
In a masterful maneuver of moral jujitsu, pinning genocide on the Jews allows the bigot to swipe the “Holocaust card” and play it against them. The victims are transformed into perpetrators, and their judgment is called into question. “Many people deeply resent the Jews for what Auschwitz took away from them — the easy knowledge that their vantage point was elevated over and superior to that of the Jews,” notes Schraub. “The desire to neuter the Holocaust is a desire to return to that old state of affairs.”
This ominous outcome is why it is a mistake to dismiss efforts to fabricate a Jewish genocide as merely marginal or inconsequential. Fundamentally, the impulse to hang the Holocaust on the Jews is an attempt to return humanity to where it was before the Holocaust — which enables such things to happen again.
After all, making the Jews guilty of genocide doesn’t just obviate non-Jewish guilt for permitting Jewish genocide. It also justifies the next Jewish genocide. | null | null | null | null | null |
A big hurdle to tackling the pain of rising prices? How we frame policy dilemmas.
Framing policy choices narrowly tends to help elites at the expense of others
The meat section of a grocery store in Los Angeles on Nov. 11. U.S. consumer prices have increased in the past few months as inflation has risen to a level not seen in 30 years. (Mario Tama/Getty Images)
By Yong Kwon
Yong Kwon writes on history, politics and economics at the Korea Economic Institute. The views represented in this article are his own.
The prices of everyday goods are rising. Some economists have attributed this to the sharp growth in consumer demand resulting from the government’s extension of pandemic economic assistance. Prominent politicians have used this claim to attack efforts to deliver additional public assistance. On the other side, advocates argue that sweeping government actions are necessary despite their potential effect on the market because many workers are still struggling to remain in or rejoin the labor force as the omicron variant of the coronavirus surges.
The deeper problem, however, may be the country’s propensity to narrowly frame the available policy options as a mutually exclusive choice between denying much-needed help and facing price instability. This forecloses other possibilities, including more targeted economic interventions. And the framing of the discussion betrays a political ecosystem that serves the interests of a few stakeholders at the expense of the broader public.
This governing tactic was more apparent in pre-modern times when formal class distinctions made the state’s protection of entitlements more obvious. Pre-modern Japan presents a good case study of privileged members of society narrowly framing the policy conversation to safeguard their interests. In the 1700s, its military government presented taxes and minimum price mandates as the only available options to counterbalance market instability. While both policies were harmful to common people, the state precluded alternatives because they posed a threat to the social and political hierarchy.
After a long civil war between clans of Japan’s feudal warrior class (the samurai), Tokugawa Ieyasu brought the whole country under the rule of a hereditary military dictator called the shogun in 1603. The resulting political stability led to economic growth and a flourishing of the arts for the next hundred years. The country’s population growth revealed the dividends of peace, rising from around 12 million in 1600 to about 28 million by 1700.
Rice acted as the critical economic lever in this social order. No longer fighting on the battlefield, the samurai were attached to feudal domains as civil servants and received a fixed stipend in grain. They sold what they did not directly consume in private markets to buy other life necessities. These stipends came from a share of harvest collected as taxes from rural peasants, who made up most of the population. Tradesmen and artisans in Japan’s growing urban centers represented another crucial underclass, supporting the samurai by providing them with goods and services. In turn, they bought rice with their incomes.
Low rice prices threatened the livelihood of samurai because they received a fixed stipend in this commodity. The government could raise the wages of samurai when rice prices were low, but this required higher taxation on peasants. But when rice prices were high, the warrior class enjoyed higher living standards at the expense of townspeople who purchased grain. Consequently, the drastic movement of rice prices in either direction severely affected the social order.
In the early 18th century, natural disasters ravaged Japan’s agrarian economy and upset the rice market. Most spectacularly, the eruption of Mount Fuji in the winter of 1707-08 wrecked farmland near the shogun’s capital and triggered heavy flooding.
Reduced tax collection and the heavy cost of reconstruction led to a fiscal crisis, which reached a peak in 1721 when the salary of the shogun’s own retinue had to be deferred to meet debt payments.
At this moment, Japan had a capable administrator at the helm. Before succeeding his childless predecessor as shogun in 1716, Tokugawa Yoshimune had reversed the fragile balance sheet of the feudal domain that he had inherited. As lord of the entire country, he planned to replicate his success nationwide and safeguard the shogun’s credibility.
The reforms began with austerity. Yoshimune famously dismissed hundreds of courtiers who lived in the shogun’s castle at the public’s expense. He increased public investments in the cultivation of new rice fields. To maximize profit from these ventures, Yoshimune raised taxes on the peasantry’s rice harvest to 50 percent in 1727 — almost double what it had been at the start of the century. Through disciplined spending and onerous impositions on Japan’s toiling classes, the government finally restored fiscal solvency in 1728.
But success came with its own costs. In 1730, the overabundance of rice lowered grain prices by 45 percent compared with where they were in 1723. Now the warrior class could afford only about half of what it had been able to purchase on its fixed rice stipend. To mollify this class, Yoshimune first used the hard-won budget surplus to buy rice from the open market in an attempt to raise grain prices. When that proved ineffectual, he mandated a price minimum on rice in 1735.
The result was the deepening of inequality in an already-unequal society. To guarantee a baseline lifestyle for the samurai, taxes on the peasantry remained high while the townspeople were forced to pay a premium for foodstuffs.
Endemic uprisings came in response. According to historian Koji Aoki, heavy taxation was the direct cause of 497 revolts during the Tokugawa shoguns’ 265-year rule over Japan. This eroded the regime’s legitimacy and contributed to the transfer of political authority to the imperial court in 1868.
Did leaders have other options? Absolutely. Two immediate alternatives were possible: the liberalization of foreign trade and the monetization of the samurai stipend. Notably, contemporary England navigated food shortages by lowering tariffs on grain imports and allowing merchants to purchase more food from abroad. However, Japan imposed restrictions on international trade because the shoguns feared that the country’s outer-lying maritime provinces would upstage the central government if they were allowed to profit from commerce. Therefore, Japan lacked an external market that could help stabilize the domestic market by purchasing surplus rice in bumper years or selling its grain in leaner years.
Switching the salary of the samurai from rice to money also might have alleviated the pressure to maintain a price minimum. However, doing so would have transferred economic power from samurai nobility who commanded land (via hereditary feudal domains) and labor (via lordship over peasants) to merchants, who were increasingly becoming masters of capital.
Prioritizing the state’s desire to project political authority and safeguard class hierarchy, the Tokugawa shoguns determined that the peasants and townspeople would have to bear the economic consequences of the status quo.
Put simply, the question of whether the price of rice should be higher or lower was secondary to the larger focus of conserving the existing political and social order.
The resulting repression was justified by the ruling elite’s casual callousness toward the toil of everyday people. Kamio Haruhide, an 18th-century government official, infamously summed up this attitude: “Peasants are like sesame seeds. The more you squeeze them, the more oil you get.”
Despite these shortcomings, Yoshimune is remembered as a respected ruler in popular history. This is not entirely unfounded. His administration actively promoted the cultivation of sweet potatoes to help alleviate rural poverty. The government also abolished penalties for peasants who had the temerity to directly petition the shogun for redress. And unlike many of his predecessors or successors, he approached the economic crisis in a concerted and disciplined manner.
These accomplishments notwithstanding, Yoshimune never undid the constraints at the heart of the economic instability: the safeguarding of samurai privileges. Even a well-intentioned administrator will fall short if they operate under the uncompromising precept that the welfare of one class is the state’s top priority.
What does this say about the challenges facing governance in the United States today?
While austerity is framed by many self-described policy experts as the only prudent public policy response to inflation, the causes of price instability extend beyond excess consumer demand from the stimulus. Supply-chain constraints and labor shortages also are playing a role — and there are spaces for the government to do more to protect everyday individuals. However, the expansion of the state’s role in regulating the market may run counter to the interests of large businesses and a financial sector that has long benefited from public institutions’ inability to enforce existing laws, let alone proactively tackle emerging issues.
In these and myriad other instances, the American people would benefit from asking who profits from the way policy questions are framed. It may tell us uncomfortable but important truths about who our political system privileges and who are seen as more dispensable. | null | null | null | null | null |
Rep. Mo Brooks (R-Ala.) gave a fiery speech to Trump supporters near the White House this month. (Jacquelyn Martin/AP)
But far less public attention has been paid to Brooks’s key role in the lead-up to Jan. 6. A review of his speeches, tweets and media appearances as well as affidavits and other court filings reveals his central part in mobilizing the effort to overturn Joe Biden’s victory by repeatedly claiming that the election was stolen and then becoming the first member of Congress to declare he would challenge the electoral college results.
Now he’s running for the U.S. Senate with Trump’s endorsement and still campaigning on those falsehoods. A leading opponent has also called for a “nationwide forensic audit” of the election, and claims that the election was stolen are still so popular in Alabama that Brooks was booed at a Trump rally in August when he suggested it was time to look beyond 2020.
The congressional committee investigating the insurrection is weighing whether to seek testimony from Brooks and has cited his invitation to deliver a Jan. 6 rally speech in a subpoena to the White House official who invited him to the rally. Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-Calif.), a member of the committee, said she has long been concerned by her colleague’s words and actions.
Dan Puckett, chairman of the Alabama Holocaust Commission, who was appointed by a Republican governor, said in an interview that there was no basis to Brooks’s allegation about commission members.
Brooks began seeding doubt about the 2020 election months before voters even cast ballots.
When Brooks was asked about Alexander’s video in January 2021, his office said the congressman had “no recollection of ever communicating in any way with whoever Ali Alexander is.” But Alexander said in a recent court filing after speaking to the Jan. 6 House committee that he had texted Brooks and had talked with the congressman’s staff. In the wake of that filing, Brooks’s office confirmed that the congressman had in fact received a text from Alexander in mid-December about the group’s protests, which would be capped by events Jan. 6. “Congressman, this is Ali Alexander. I am the founder of Stop the Steal,” the text said. “We stand ready to help. Jan. 6th is a big moment for our republic.”
But Ryan O’Toole, who at the time was cloakroom director for House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) and now is an aide to Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.), told CNN that he heard Brooks celebrate. “Members were fearful for their lives. Republican members themselves, men crying in the cloakroom for their safety,” O’Toole said. “One member, Mo Brooks, for example, was glad. He was cheering on the fact that the 117th Congress had started this way, and that was much to the dismay of others in the room.” O’Toole told The Post he stood by his statement and declined further comment.
Now Brooks, who so far has acted as his own lawyer in the case, is slated to have his day in court. At a hearing on Monday, according to his court filing, he plans to argue that he should be dismissed as a defendant because he spoke in his official, not personal, capacity at the Jan. 6 rally. Whatever claims he made in his tweets and speech, Brooks said in the filing, they were within “the scope of employment as a United States Congressman.” | null | null | null | null | null |
Monday briefing: Deadly N.Y. apartment fire; Bob Saget’s death; Russia talks; college football championship; and more
At least 19 died in New York City’s deadliest fire in years.
What we know: The fire began yesterday morning at a 19-story building in the Bronx. It probably started with a space heater, officials said.
The toll: More than 60 people were injured, and 13 were still in critical condition last night. Nine of those who died were 16 or younger.
What this underscores: The vulnerability of multifamily housing, coming after a Philadelphia rowhouse fire killed a dozen people last week.
Greenhouse gas emissions in the U.S. surged last year.
There was an overall increase of 6.2% over 2020, a new analysis found, although emissions are still below pre-pandemic levels.
What drove the increase: A jump in coal-fired electricity use, probably because of higher natural gas prices.
What this means: The U.S. is far off track from meeting climate goals President Biden set for the end of the decade.
The U.S. and Russia meet for security talks today.
The purpose: Discussing the growing crisis with Ukraine. Russia has been gathering troops on its border, possibly threatening another invasion.
What we don’t know: Whether Russian President Vladimir Putin is serious or creating a crisis to demand things from the U.S. and its allies.
It’s a busy week: The U.S. and Russia have meetings with NATO on Wednesday and another European group on Thursday.
Schools were hit hard by covid disruptions last week.
More than 5,000, including those in Atlanta, Detroit and Chicago, closed or went virtual at some point, the highest level of this school year.
Why this matters: The uncertainty is wearing on teachers and kids, but also working parents, many of whom don’t have flexibility or child-care options if school is unexpectedly canceled.
In other news: The Post analyzed how omicron’s wave compares to past coronavirus peaks. See the charts here.
Actor and comedian Bob Saget died yesterday.
The 65-year-old was found in a hotel room in Orlando. There were no signs of drugs or foul play, police said.
What he was known for: His role as “America’s Dad” in the TV show “Full House” and hosting the original “America’s Funniest Home Videos.”
Tennis star Novak Djokovic won his case against Australia.
A judge overturned a decision to cancel his travel visa early today, meaning he can stay in the country.
What happened: There was a five-day standoff over whether Djokovic, who isn’t vaccinated against the coronavirus, would be able to compete in the Australian Open next week.
It may not be over: Officials could cancel the top-ranked player’s visa again and restart the process.
College football’s championship game is tonight.
Who’s playing? Top-ranked Alabama, last year’s winner, and Georgia, which was ranked No. 1 for half of the season.
Have they played before? Yes. Alabama gave Georgia its only loss last month. They also met in the 2018 title game — another Alabama win.
How to watch: ESPN is televising and streaming the game, which starts at 8 p.m. ET.
And now … curious about Dry January and going sober? Here’s how to reevaluate your relationship with alcohol. | null | null | null | null | null |
A piece of ice split from the bay’s main shoreline, leaving dozens of people stranded on an ice shove, the Brown County Sheriff’s Office said in a news release. (Brown County Sheriff's Office)
The piece of ice near Point Comfort — along the east shore of Green Bay, which leads out to Lake Michigan — had begun to split from the main shoreline, leaving more than two dozen people stranded, the Brown County Sheriff’s Office said in a news release. Nelson and Verhagen’s fishing gear drifted off with it.
It took authorities aboard ice rescue boats nearly an hour and a half and several trips to rescue at least 27 fishermen who were stuck. The ice block drifted farther from the shore with each trip, Lt. John Bain, with the Brown County Sheriff’s Office, said at a news conference.
“Didn’t catch any fish, ran out of propane early and got stranded on the ice,” he said, laughing. | null | null | null | null | null |
Five things I think about Kazakhstan
A few thoughts on a week of local unrest with global implications
Russian peacekeepers register Russian citizens to board aircraft to leave Kazakhstan for Moscow on Jan. 9. (Vasily Krestyaninov/AP)
It would be safe to say that Kazakhstan has gotten off to a bumpy start in 2022. Protests in the western, energy-rich part of the country that began on Jan. 2 quickly spread across the country. In places, they also turned violent. In response, Kazakhstan’s president, Kassym-Jomart Tokayev, requested 2,500 troops from the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO), Russia’s knockoff version of NATO. Late last week he also delivered a public address calling on Kazakhstan’s security forces to “shoot to kill without warning.” According to my Washington Post colleague Isabelle Khurshudyan, over the past week more than 150 people have died and more than 6,000 have been detained by the government.
Neither U.S. nor European officials are terrifically thrilled with the CSTO’s actions. Secretary of State Antony Blinken noted on Friday, “One lesson of recent history is that once Russians are in your house, it’s sometimes very difficult to get them to leave,” a rare example of U.S. concern trolling of Russia. EU officials were more circumspect but nonetheless stated, “Outside military support should respect the sovereignty and independence of Kazakhstan as well as the fundamental rights of all citizens.”
With Kazakhstan’s government now declaring the situation “stabilized,” what does this all mean? Spoiler Alerts has a few thoughts:
1. The authoritarian playbook for unexpected social protests has now been codified. The color revolutions and Arab Spring protests took a lot of authoritarian rulers by surprise. Over the past two decades, however, these leaders have begun to perfect their playbook of how to respond to such movements. Crack down on online communications. Blame external agitators for the violence. Use overwhelming force to reestablish control. Ignore external criticisms.
Kazakhstan’s government has played all of these cards, although it has not always played them with great skill. Most authoritarians do not broadcast their “shoot to kill” orders on television. As Tokayev has tried to deflect from this faux pas, his government has committed another. As The Post’s Khurshudyan reported on Sunday, one of Tokayev’s aides claimed that peaceful protests had been “hijacked by terrorists and both local and external groups speaking foreign languages.” As evidence, however, they broadcast an interview from a roughed-up foreigner claiming he’d been paid $200 to incite violence. As it turns out, that foreigner was Kyrgyz jazz musician Vicram Rouzakhunov, and the Kyrgyz government has pushed back against his dubious narrative even as they contributed 150 troops for the CSTO mission. Oops.
2. Authoritarian leadership transitions are tough. The New York Times’s Valerie Hopkins has an interesting profile of Tokayev, including his decent professional pedigree and his long-standing service toward Kazakhstan’s first president, Nursultan Nazarbayev. She notes that his rise “to the presidency was looked at as a possible model by other authoritarian regimes on how to conduct a leadership transition without losing their grip on power. Instead, Kazakhstan erupted in violence this week.”
There are a couple of reasons for this (see below). The most obvious one, however, is that Nazarbayev wished to preserve his standing as the power behind the throne, maintaining his remaining positions as head of the ruling party and Kazakhstan’s security council. As Hopkins notes, there is “widespread speculation that the rioters were organized by proxies for feuding factions of the political elite, pitting Mr. Nazarbayev and his allies against Mr. Tokayev.”
3. The Sino-Russian entente is stronger than Washington expected. It is interesting that Tokayev turned to Putin and the CSTO rather than, say, the Shanghai Cooperation Organization as a source of international assistance. Central Asia is a battleground for influence between Russia and China. In pivoting toward Putin, it would have been easy to see a Chinese reaction that ranged from neutral to chilly. Except that did not happen:
The common theme here is not great power influence, but domestic political concerns. China does not like to see authoritarian governments toppled by popular protests. And this shared concern is one reason that this Kazakhstan business is unlikely to ruffle bilateral Sino-Russian ties.
4. 21st-century challenges are not just a problem for democracies. Over the past month I have read a lot about the crisis of democracy and the rise of populism and authoritarianism. Even a casual glance at recent trendlines would make it difficult to dismiss these concerns.
It is worth noting, however, that Kazakhstan is only the latest headache for Russian President Vladimir Putin as he tries to expand his sphere of influence. He had to bolster his wobbly Belarusian ally Alexander Lukashenko in response to large-scale 2020 protests. About a year ago, Putin also had to deal with a season of internal protests. And China must be worried that unrest in Kazakhstan will spill over into Xinjiang.
Concerns about Russia moving into Ukraine have been elevated over the past month, but the likely U.S. response suggests that Russia would have to deal with yet another restive neighboring republic. I am not saying that any of this will deter Putin from moving on Ukraine. I am just saying that Russia and China have their own insecurities and concerns to deal with right now.
5. This is bad for climate change. In a fascinating analysis, Reuters’s Karin Strohecker notes that the root of the Kazakhstan protests was an easing of consumer fuel subsidies that raised energy prices. Other countries such as Ecuador have faced similar social dynamics, highlighting that “many emerging markets have to balance the risk of social unrest against the need for reform.”
One way to address climate change is to make the use of any hydrocarbons more expensive. There is a reason lots of developing countries have opposed the end to domestic fuel subsidies, however: They do not want to be the next Kazakhstan. That will make it all the more difficult to incentivize the carbon transition that needs to take place to halt climate change. | null | null | null | null | null |
We examined new district maps, and found that those drawn by independent commissions would be most likely to pass the Manchin test
A lone voter fills out a ballot alongside a row of empty booths at a polling station in Cincinnati on Nov. 8, 2016. (John Minchillo/AP)
By Peter Miller
Anna Harris
To combat rampant gerrymandering, Sen. Joe Manchin III (D-W.Va.) and others have introduced the Freedom to Vote Act (FTVA). If passed, this bill would block the most extreme gerrymanders until courts complete a full review. If it were in place now, it would significantly change redistricting for the 2022 elections, our research finds.
Why Biden has had so much trouble bringing the parties together.
How the FTVA would work
Under the FTVA, a congressional redistricting plan is presumed biased if it gives one party an advantage of more than 7 percent of a state’s House seats or in one congressional district, whichever is greater, using partisan fairness metrics. In practice, this means a map is considered biased if a party would be likely to win more seats than you would expect from its share of the state’s votes.
Consider North Carolina’s existing district map. In the 2020 elections, Republican candidates won eight of the 13 seats in the state, or 61.5 percent, while Donald Trump won 49.9 percent of the vote. The state’s newly drawn map creates 10 districts — or 71 percent of the district total — that Republican candidates will almost certainly win, even if they still won only 55 percent of the statewide vote. That imbalance would trigger the FTVA’s presumption of gerrymandering.
If two or more of the four previous presidential and Senate elections delivered results this unbalanced, the FTVA would enable any interested party to sue. Then the map couldn’t be used until and unless the state proved in court that it was not unbalanced — showing, for instance, that it is not possible to draw a more neutral plan.
The new census numbers kicked off redistricting. That's even more complicated than you may think.
How would the FTVA work with the latest district maps?
To see how this would work, we applied that test to 23 states’ new congressional maps, using only states with more than two districts. To figure out whether a party would almost certainly win in a particular district, we used a short version of what political science calls “the efficiency gap,” a commonly used tool for evaluating whether state maps are fair. The idea is that an “efficient” district distributes voters in a way proportional to their share of the state; in these districts, neither party wins by an overwhelming margin. By contrast, a biased map would pack supporters of one party into a small number of districts that their candidates win overwhelmingly — while the other party wins a larger number of seats with smaller victory margins.
Most redistricting plans drawn by state legislatures fail the FTVA’s standards
We found that states where Republicans control the state legislatures draw congressional maps that disproportionately favor Republican candidates. For instance, in Georgia, North Carolina, Ohio and Texas, Republican candidates are likely to win more seats than if they won seats in proportion to their share of the statewide vote. The Ohio map, for example, makes it likely that Republicans will win two more seats than you would expect, given that in the elections since 2016, 55 percent of voters pulled the lever for Republicans and 45 percent for Democrats.
Indiana, Iowa and Utah, where Republican-controlled legislatures draw the maps, will likely have similar results, with Republican candidates winning one more seat than you would expect from their proportion of the vote. Under the FTVA, if someone brought suit and the federal courts couldn’t assess the map before the state’s 2022 primaries, the courts would have the power to put in place a temporary map or postpone the primary.
Democrats do the same when they draw maps. In blue states such as Maryland, Massachusetts and Oregon, Democratic-controlled legislatures draw maps that are just as likely to tilt districts to their party’s advantage. For instance, Illinois’ map is a mirror image of North Carolina’s, drawn to systematically advantage Democrats — likely giving them about 2.5 more congressional seats than their usual proportion of statewide votes would suggest.
Independent commissions draw fairer maps
In some states, however, commissions draw the maps. Four states — Arizona, California, Colorado and Michigan — have created commissions that draw districts independently from the legislature. Our analysis finds that the commissions in California, Colorado and Michigan successfully balanced various competing criteria and created the most balanced maps of the cycle so far. The plan in Arizona would trigger the FTVA’s presumption, though the independent commission there might be able to rebut that presumption.
The New Jersey commission — where 12 of the 13 members are appointed by legislative and party leaders — is not independent in the same sense as the commissions in these other states. It may be no surprise, then, that we find the New Jersey congressional map would trigger the FTVA presumption of partisan bias. The court-drawn map in Virginia, by contrast, would not trigger the FTVA.
Legislatures often fail to draw fair maps, no matter which party is in control. We’ve now evaluated 17 maps drawn by legislatures; 12 favor the party in control in ways that, under the FTVA, would put the maps in court. That’s a failure rate of more than 7 out of 10.
Independent commissions, however, can achieve the FTVA’s objectives of fair districting without going to court.
In 2019, in Rucho v. Common Cause, the Supreme Court ruled that federal courts could not hear claims challenging partisan gerrymanders. In his majority opinion, Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. wrote that while the Supreme Court would not create a judge-made anti-gerrymandering standard, “the Framers gave Congress the power to do something about partisan gerrymandering in the Elections Clause.” The FTVA would take Roberts at his word.
Peter Miller is a researcher in the Democracy Program at the Brennan Center for Justice at the NYU School of Law.
Anna Harris is a master’s student in the Wagner School at NYU and a Parke Fellow at the Brennan Center for Justice. | null | null | null | null | null |
Good morning and welcome to The Climate 202! Thank you to all of the readers who emailed us feedback on the newsletter on Friday. Keep sending feedback and tips to maxine.joselow@washpost.com.
U.S. emissions and coal generation increased last year, analysis finds
Greenhouse gas emissions in the United States surged last year, putting the nation further off track from meeting President Biden's ambitious climate targets, your Climate 202 host and The Washington Post's Brady Dennis reported this morning.
The sobering analysis from the Rhodium Group, an independent research firm, found that U.S. emissions rose 6.2 percent last year compared to 2020, although they remained below pre-pandemic levels. One main reason: a 17 percent jump in the burning of coal, the dirtiest fossil fuel, marking the first annual increase in the nation’s coal generation since 2014.
The analysis demonstrates that the United States is not emerging from the coronavirus pandemic with a greener economy, making it even harder for Biden to deliver on his pledge to reduce emissions 50 to 52 percent by 2030, according to the authors.
“In an ideal world, we want the economy to rebound, but not the emissions,” said Kate Larsen, a co-author of the analysis who leads Rhodium’s international energy and climate research.
Here are our main takeaways from the Rhodium report:
Coal's surge last year was an 'anomaly'
If you follow climate and energy policy, you're probably aware that coal power is on the decline in the United States, nudged out by abundant natural gas and renewable energy sources such as wind and solar power.
That's still the case. 2021 was an outlier because of unusually high natural gas prices, as producers curbed output in response to lower global demand caused by pandemic shutdowns.
The surge in coal-fired electricity last year was an “anomaly” and was “almost entirely due to high natural gas prices,” Larsen said. “Emissions from our power sector were pretty much at the whim of energy markets.”
Corinne Le Quéré, a climate scientist at the University of East Anglia who was not involved with the Rhodium report, agreed with that assessment.
“Clearly, coal use in the U.S. in the long term is going down,” she said. “The coal power stations are very old, and it would cost a lot of money to invest in them to put them up to shape. And that’s not the direction of travel because of climate policies.”
The Manchin connection: The continued decline of coal has been a source of concern for Sen. Joe Manchin III (D-W.Va.), who has family ties to the coal industry — and who said in late December that he could not support Democrats' sweeping climate and social spending bill.
Transportation emissions are rising, threatening Biden's EV goals
The analysis found that the biggest increase in emissions in 2021 came from the transportation sector, which looms as the country's largest source of greenhouse gases, accounting for 31 percent of all carbon pollution.
The authors attributed the increase to a resurgence of road freight, as thousands of diesel-powered trucks rumbled along the nation’s highways to deliver consumer goods, as well as a modest recovery in passenger travel.
At the onset of the pandemic in 2020, many Americans began driving less as they worked remotely and large swaths of the economy shut down. But after the arrival of coronavirus vaccines and the lifting of some pandemic restrictions, more Americans took to the roads last year.
To make a meaningful dent in transportation emissions, experts say that more drivers will need to replace their gas-powered cars with electric vehicles — in addition to ditching cars altogether for biking, walking and public transit. But EV sales only accounted for about 4 percent of U.S. car sales in 2021 — a far cry from Biden's goal of EV sales making up 50 percent of new car sales by the end of this decade.
“When you park your car in the driveway for a year, it's still the same polluting vehicle when you turn it back on,” said Rob Jackson, a professor at Stanford University and chair of the Global Carbon Project.
“So when vehicle miles return to normal, which they haven't quite done yet for the United States,” he said, “transportation emissions will be just the size they were before unless we're able to swap out those vehicles for electric or other technologies.”
Biden's Energy Department faces delays in undoing Trump's war on efficiency
President Donald Trump complained that more efficient lightbulbs made him “look orange,” while his administration rolled back efficiency standards for items including lightbulbs, dishwashers, dryers and shower heads.
Now, more than three dozen efficiency standards are overdue for an update, but the Energy Department has been slow to act on the standards or reinstate rules that were weakened by the Trump administration, The Post’s Anna Phillips reports.
Manufacturers have pushed back on some of Biden’s moves to tighten standards. Meanwhile, part of the holdup has been at the White House Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs, a division of the Office of Management and Budget. Both offices are understaffed and without Senate-confirmed leaders.
Tightening efficiency standards could have a major effect on climate change. By 2050, new efficiency standards could prevent 3 gigatons of carbon emissions, the equivalent of closing between 13 and 25 coal-fired power plants, according to a 2020 report by the American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy.
Biden to nominate climate expert for resilience role at FEMA
Biden on Friday announced his intent to nominate Alice Hill as deputy administrator for resilience at the Federal Emergency Management Agency. Hill comes from the Council on Foreign Relations, where she is the David M. Rubenstein senior fellow for energy and the environment.
Hill previously served as special assistant to former president Barack Obama and senior director for resilience policy on the National Security Council. Before those roles, Hill was senior counselor to the secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, where she led the development of the agency's climate adaptation plan.
Hill tweeted on Saturday that she was “honored and excited” to be tapped for the position at FEMA, which plays a key role in responding to climate disasters such as wildfires and floods. More than 4 in 10 Americans live in a county that was struck by climate-related extreme weather last year, according to a recent Washington Post analysis.
Talks between Manchin and the White House over Build Back Better are on ice
Sen. Joe Manchin III (D-W.Va.) sent a $1.8 trillion counteroffer to the Build Back Better Act the week before Christmas. But even that offer — which included hundreds of billions in climate spending — may be off the table after a breakdown in negotiations between the senator and the White House, The Post’s Jeff Stein reports.
Manchin said he is no longer involved in talks with the White House around the climate and social spending package. Senior Democrats told The Post that at this point, they doubt Manchin would support his own offer even if the White House adopted it in full.
Manchin said last week that he supports much of the climate legislation in Build Back Better, but the details of his climate commitments remain unclear.
And it’s not certain that whatever common ground does exist will be enough to secure a deal. Democratic leaders in Congress have already pivoted to a focus on voting rights. Meanwhile, even if the White House went all in on Manchin’s counteroffer, it’s not clear the plan would make it through the House, where Democrats cannot afford to lose more than three votes, or the Senate, where Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (D-Ariz.) has already ruled out some of the tax increases that Manchin supports.
North Carolina to adopt more aggressive emissions targets
North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper, a Democrat, signed an executive order on Friday setting a statewide goal of reducing greenhouse gas emissions 50 percent compared to 2005 levels, reaching net-zero emissions by 2050 and registering 1.25 million electric vehicles by the end of the decade, the Associated Press reports. The order also directs state agencies to consider environmental justice when making decisions on climate change.
The past seven years have been the planet's hottest on record “by a clear margin,” scientists say
The past seven years have been the planet's hottest on record "by a clear margin," according to new data released today by the Copernicus Climate Change Service, a program of the European Commission, Alexandra Larkin of CBS News reports. 2021 was the fifth warmest year ever recorded, the data shows. Last year, the climate agency reported that 2020 was tied with 2016 for the warmest on record.
A tiny New Mexico town isn’t ready to give up its coal mining legacy
The coal piles that remain in Madrid, N.M., are tied to contaminated runoff. But more than a half-century after the last mine shut down, locals in the town a half-hour south of Santa Fe are reluctant to bury the piles, Elizabeth Miller writes for The Post. These remains of the coal industry are part of the town’s history and help draw tourists and film productions, along with money to replace the lost coal revenue.
We hope our D.C. readers got to see the double rainbow on Sunday! | null | null | null | null | null |
A speedskater’s generous gesture gave her friend a spot on the U.S. Olympic team
“It’s an amazing relationship, and I’m just so grateful,” Erin Jackson, left, said of her long-standing friendship with Brittany Bowe. (Stacy Revere/Getty Images)
The best medal hope for the United States in an Olympic speedskating event thought she would not be heading to Beijing at all — until an act of generosity by an old friend.
Brittany Bowe, who finished first in the women’s 500 meters at the U.S. long-track speedskating trials Friday, gave up her spot to Erin Jackson, who is ranked No. 1 in the world in that discipline. Jackson had slipped during the trials and finished third, one spot short of the available berths on Team USA.
“It’s hard to even really put it into words,” Jackson said Sunday, after Bowe made her decision. “I’m beyond grateful and humbled, and just — I’m happy.”
Bowe, a 2018 bronze medal winner in the team pursuit who has won eight gold medals in world championship events, qualified in three events at the U.S. trials last week. After giving up her 500 meters spot to Jackson, she will represent the United States in the women’s 1,000 and 1,500. If other countries do not use all of their allocations for the women’s 500 meters at the Olympics, Bowe could still reclaim a chance to compete in that event. Also skating for Team USA in the 500 will be Kimi Goetz, who finished second at the trials in Milwaukee. | null | null | null | null | null |
Pope Francis leads a Mass in the Sistine Chapel at the Vatican, Jan. 9, 2022. (Vatican Media/Via Reuters)
ROME — In a sweeping speech on the pandemic and other global issues, Pope Francis on Monday called for widespread vaccination in all countries, and suggested the global coronavirus response was being complicated by “baseless information or poorly documented facts.”
Francis’s remarks on the pandemic came at the beginning of a 35-minute address to diplomats accredited to the Holy See, an annual speech that doubles as a primer on the pope’s worldview. Many of his remarks Monday were familiar, as Francis hit on themes at the center of his pontificate, including climate change and migration, while also drawing attention to a series of global hotspots like Yemen and Syria.
But the pope also homed in on an idea that he felt connected the various crises — challenges he said required global responses.
To that end, he lamented the declining trust in multilateral diplomacy. And he said mistrust was part of the problem in the pandemic as well: A lack of clear communication from authorities had generated confusion.
Vaccine resistance cuts across nearly all religions, and in Catholicism some conservatives have critiqued the use of vaccines, based on the use of cell lines derived from aborted fetuses. But the Vatican has made clear it feels otherwise. Its doctrinal body last year said coronavirus vaccines were morally acceptable. And more recently the Holy See issued a vaccine mandate for all employees. Francis, meantime, has described vaccination as an “act of love.”
Francis, 85, is nearing the nine-year mark of his pontificate, and he has made clear that he views the pandemic as an epochal challenge — and a chance for humanity to reevaluate its priorities. As a result, Francis has moved over the last year with urgency, pushing for a series of controversial reforms inside the church, and traveling abroad with more regularity than many other leaders.
His speech Monday did include one modest papal first: He cited the idea of “cancel culture.” Francis came upon the theme while discussing the weakening of international organizations, undermined by the differing visions of members. In those debates, the pope said, there was diminishing room for freedom of expression. “Cancel culture,” he said, was “invading” many public institutions. | null | null | null | null | null |
PHILADELPHIA — Wearing a blue swim cap, Lia Thomas dived into the pool and sprinted ahead to the first turn. The University of Pennsylvania swimmer had already pushed through weeks of attention, online criticism and scientific debate, so nothing was slowing her down Saturday at Sheerr Pool, in the final home meet of a collegiate career that had been completely unremarkable until exploding into the latest flash point in an ongoing culture war.
The 22-year old zipped past her competitors from Yale and Dartmouth and was again first to the wall. It looked effortless, providing more proof that she’s among the best female college swimmers in the country — and more evidence that her detractors will use to say she doesn’t belong in the pool.
Thomas has shattered school records and has posted the fastest times of any college swimmer in two events this season. She’ll probably be a favorite at the NCAA championships in March, even as people inside and outside the sport debate her place on the pool deck.
Classifying transgender athletes has amounted to a delicate balancing act for officials in several sports, a tug-of-war of sorts between inclusivity and fairness. The NCAA’s transgender policy allows transgender women to compete in women’s events after completing a full year of testosterone suppression treatment. Thomas has been undergoing treatment for the past 2½ years and says it has depleted her of the strength and speed she had when competing for the men’s team.
Since she obliterated two school records and posted nation-leading times at a meet last month, Thomas has garnered attention from across the swimming community and right-wing media. Credentialed press at Saturday’s meet included Fox News, Newsweek, the Daily Mail and ESPN. Tennis icons Martina Navratilova and Chris Evert have publicly said Thomas has no business competing in women’s swimming, as has Olympian Erika Brown, who said last month it’s “time to start standing up for women’s sports.”
“A few years of testosterone blockers and estrogen doesn’t change the fact that she will have more powerful muscles, a larger heart and greater lung capacity [than] a biological woman,” Brown, who won two relay medals at the Tokyo Games last summer, wrote in an Instagram post.
“This topic is very uncomfortable for people. They don’t understand it, and so they took the lazy way out,” said Hogshead-Makar, who won four swimming medals at the 1984 Olympics. “The lazy way out is saying, ‘Put them in the women’s category.’
“It was a very awkward experience, being a woman competing in a men’s meet,” she said.
Her fastest 200-yard freestyle time before this year was 1 minute 39.31 seconds. This season, she posted a 1:41.93 — a 2.6 percent drop. That’s the fastest time of any other female college swimmer this year, 0.64 seconds faster than Olympian Torri Huske. Thomas also has posted the nation’s best 500-yard freestyle time this season — 4:34.06 — nearly three seconds faster than Olympian Brooke Forde.
A group of researchers from the Mayo Clinic, Duke and Marquette recently studied Thomas’s times from before and after she transitioned. They found her recent times were about 5 percent slower across all distances, according to an article they published. The gender gap between elite college and international swimmers is 10 to 15 percent for shorter distances and 7 to 10 percent for longer ones, they wrote.
The NCAA did not respond to a request for comment last week, but in a video posted in April, LaGwyn Durden, the organization’s director of sports medicine, said this a complex issue and noted the science is far from definitive.
Others dismiss the idea that Thomas unfairly benefits from biological advantages. Before transitioning, she consulted with Schuyler Bailar, a former Harvard athlete and the first openly trans swimmer to compete in Division I. Bailar says biodiversity is an innate part of sports and that many great athletes benefit from certain biological or genetic gifts.
Parents say several Penn swimmers have shared their concerns with the coaches, but the school has continuously voiced its support for Thomas.
No coaches or swimmers were made available to reporters at Saturday’s meet. Thomas said on the podcast last month that her team has been nothing but supportive this season, and she tries to avoid any chatter from outside the Penn program.
“I don’t engage with it,” he says. “It’s not healthy for me to read it or engage with it at all.”
Inside the building, the bleachers were only half-full as covid restrictions closed the meet to all but select family members and supporters. The swimmers themselves provided the energy, circling the pool and cheering on teammates.
Though Thomas’s times Saturday were well off her season-best marks, they won’t likely quiet any dissent.
While she says trans women who’ve never experienced male puberty should be permitted to compete against women, Hogshead-Maker says it’s possible there are enough trans athletes in some sports to merit a wholly new competitive category.
Roger Pielke Jr., director of the Sports Governance Center at the University of Colorado, noted that sports organizations have always grappled with complicated classifications, from disabled athletes to competitors switching nationalities. He noted that international soccer players are “cap tied” and at the elite level cannot compete for one country and then change nationalities and compete for another.
“This would make sense for gender as well,” he said. “If an athlete competes in men/women categories, [they] would no longer be eligible to change categories.”
“Just like in Paralympic classification, science does not make these decisions for us, but science can certainly help to inform our decisions,” he added. “Ultimately, classification decisions reflect our values, who we are and what we want sport and the society of which it is a part to be.” | null | null | null | null | null |
But there are signs of difficulty. The Food and Drug Administration said Dec. 28, “Early data suggests that antigen tests do detect the omicron variant but may have reduced sensitivity.” The FDA’s statement was based on laboratory tests, not clinical data. Experts have suggested one reason for the reduced sensitivity is that antigen tests are based on a nasal swab, but the omicron variant tends to replicate in the upper airways, not so much deep in the lungs as earlier variants. So saliva might be a better source of sampling, but the FDA urges consumers to stick with the instructions and nasal swabs. | null | null | null | null | null |
It is the first major move by the German media giant since it purchased the Virginia-based political publication.
Two Politico coffee mugs rest on a table during an event hosted by the political publication in Washington in 2012. (Jim Watson/AFP via Getty Images)
Sheikholeslami joins Politico at a moment when its new German owner has made explicit its ambitions for an amped-up presence in the U.S. and a desire to increase its pace of acquisitions. Axel Springer previously purchased Business Insider in 2015, which it has renamed Insider. The company also purchased a majority stake in the newsletter company Morning Brew.
Axel Springer is a Berlin-based media company that boasts a presence more than 40 countries through brands such as Bild, Welt, Insider and now Politico. The company employs more than 16,000 people worldwide.
Sheikholeslami said her focus will be to take the 15-year-old company — which she called “a disruptive start-up that has excelled as it has grown” — into an “expansion phase” and move into new markets, even as Axel Springer has signaled its plans to invest more in Politico’s core American and European operations, as well as those of the much newer tech-focused site Protocol.
Sheikholeslami previously served as the president and CEO of WNYC, New York’s flagship public radio operation. Before that, she was CEO of Chicago Public Media and held senior positions at The Washington Post, Condé Nast and Time Warner.
She will take the helm of Politico in February, according to a company memo reviewed by The Post. Under her purview is not only Politico and Politico Europe, but the recently launched technology site Protocol.
Sheikholeslami is set to fill a position that was left vacant by investment banker and former Clinton administration official Patrick Steel, who had been the chief executive of Politico from 2017 to 2021. Before Steel, Politico’s previous owner, publisher and executive chairman Robert Allbritton briefly held the CEO position, which he took over after the early 2016 departure of Jim VandeHei, who left the company after an internal management dispute to create Axios.
Since then, Politico has inspired several imitators, some born of its own talent. VandeHei and Allen left in early 2016 amid a very public break-up spurred by disagreements about Politico’s direction and launched Axios, which has become a competitor. Three other Politico veterans left the organization in early 2021 to launch their own straight-news, Capitol-focused site called Punchbowl.
Mathias Dopfner, the CEO of Axel Springer, said in a statement that “Politico has got immense potential that we will build on to open a new chapter of accelerated growth. In Goli Sheikholeslami, we have found the perfect match for this mission … We are convinced Goli and the strong management team will take Politico to the next level.” | null | null | null | null | null |
AUGUSTA, Ga. — The chief of staff for the mayor of Augusta, Georgia, has left for a job in Richmond, Virginia.
The Augusta Chronicle reports that Petula Burks began working last week for Richmond’s Office of Public Information and Engagement. It’s a new office founded by Mayor Levar Stoney last year. | null | null | null | null | null |
Investigators: 2 hurt in Delaware house fire
BRANDYWINE HUNDRED, Del. — Two people were seriously injured in a house fire that started when a person used oxygen while smoking, fire investigators in Delaware said.
The Office of the State Fire Marshal said the fire started in a sitting room on the second floor of a home in Brandywine Hundred on Saturday afternoon, WDEL-FM reported.
The people in the home got out before firefighters arrived, but officials said two occupants, a 65-year-old woman and a 66-year-old man, were in serious condition at a hospital, suffering from smoke inhalation. A third person refused medical treatment and a firefighter was treated on the scene.
The fire caused $200,000 in damage to the house, officials said. | null | null | null | null | null |
Rafael Nadal won the Melbourne Summer Set events at Melbourne Park over the weekend, taking an important step in his recovery from foot injuries. (Darrian Traynor/Getty Images)
“Whether or not I agree with Djokovic on some things, justice has spoken and has said that he has the right to participate in the Australian Open and I think it is the fairest decision to do so, if it has been resolved that way. I wish him the best of luck,” Nadal told Spain’s Onda Cero (translation via Eurosport).
Nadal has been critical of Djokovic’s opposition to coronavirus vaccines, saying last week that he believes “in what the people who know about medicine say, and if the people say we need to get vaccinated, we need to get the vaccine.” He went on to add that Djokovic’s visa problems were of his own making. “If you do this, you don’t have any problem to play here.”
Nadal arrived in Australia without incident and won the Melbourne Summer Set tournament over the weekend, an important step for the Spaniard, who has not played since last summer’s Citi Open in Washington. As a 35-year-old veteran, he is well aware of the pressures organizers face, particularly in the sport’s largest events, “on a general level, at an economic, advertising level,” he told Onda Cero. “Everything is much better when the best can be playing.”
But he is also a realist when it comes to the pandemic.
“All the most important institutions in the world and science itself have said that the vaccine is the way to stop this pandemic and the disaster that we have experienced in these 20 months,” he told Onda Cero, “so I try to follow what they tell me. I just try to follow what the experts in each subject say.
Novak Djokovic's supporters clashed with police on the streets of Melbourne on Jan. 10, after they swarmed a car believed to be carrying the tennis player. (Michael Miller/The Washington Post)
“All the debate that surrounds it is a circus, but one thing is clear: No matter how much debate is generated, there is one clear fact and it is that there have been millions of deaths in the world due to a virus. That is a reality.”
Djokovic broke his silence to say he was focused on the tournament. “I’m pleased and grateful that the Judge overturned my visa cancellation. Despite all that has happened, I want to stay and try to compete in the @AustralianOpen,” he tweeted. “I remain focused on that. I flew here to play at one of the most important events we have in front of the amazing fans. For now I cannot say more but THANK YOU all for standing with me through all this and encouraging me to stay strong.” | null | null | null | null | null |
By Sridhar Natarajan | Bloomberg
Goldman Sachs Group Inc. announced a new credit card with General Motors Co., adding another Main Street brand to its consumer business.
The agreement is Goldman’s second major co-brand deal, following the launch of a high-profile credit card with Apple Inc. in 2019. Banks use such partnerships with name-brand companies to attract their customers as borrowers.
Goldman, which emerged as the front-runner for the GM partnership in 2020, is taking over the card business from Capital One Financial Corp., which has been offloading some of its smaller portfolios. While the transaction is relatively modest in the credit-card industry, it represents another step forward for the Wall Street firm’s foray into retail banking.
“The average person in the U.S. spends an hour in their car. This is just something they engage with all the time,” Stephanie Cohen, who helps lead Goldman’s consumer and wealth business, said in an interview. “People want to experience financial services and ecosystems that they love and that they trust.”
The bank’s consumer line, marketed as Marcus, has also paired up with the likes of Walmart Inc. to offer small-business loans, and finances vacation purchases with JetBlue Airways Corp. New York-based Goldman also agreed to buy GreenSky Inc., adding a company that offers payment plans to customers with home-improvement projects or health-care needs.
In an October earnings call, Goldman Chief Executive Officer David Solomon said that in addition to adding other partnerships, the bank also has “the opportunity for a proprietary card that’s in development.” Such a standalone card would be more similar to popular offerings from the country’s consumer-banking giants. | null | null | null | null | null |
The Senate’s first woman was also its last enslaver
Rebecca Latimer Felton at her Senate office desk on Nov. 21, 1922. (U.S. Senate Historical Office)
When Rebecca Latimer Felton took the Senate oath of office on Nov. 21, 1922, the press was there to capture every moment. She posed for pictures at her desk and received huge applause from the packed gallery.
The next day, she gave a brief speech and then stepped down. She had been a U.S. senator — the first woman to hold the office — for one day. Newspapers gave glowing reviews to her historic moment, calling her “grand,” “poised” and “dainty.” Some noted she also held another record: At 87, she was the oldest freshman senator in history.
None mentioned another historic title she held: Felton — suffragist, writer, political insider and avid white supremacist — was the last member of Congress known to have once enslaved people.
The second-to-last enslaver, Rep. William Livingston of Alabama, had died in office in 1914.
Born in 1835 to a wealthy Georgia plantation owner, Felton grew up surrounded by enslaved people, received other humans asproperty as a wedding dowry, and lived on her husband’s plantation, which was operated by enslaved people, for more than a decade before the Civil War.
After slavery’s end, Felton remained a strong proponent of white supremacy, routinely advocating more lynching of Black men, whom she called “beasts.”
In her 1919 memoir, Felton described her youth on a Georgia plantation. Her family had been enslavers for generations, and one of her first memories was watching Cherokees being marched out of the area on the Trail of Tears. She attended private schools and graduated from Madison Female College at 17. The next year, she married William Harrell Felton, a wealthy doctor 12 years her senior.
Felton opposed secession, though her husband volunteered as a Confederate military doctor. The way she viewed slavery, there were “kind masters and cruel masters,” and the Civil War was a punishment from God for the sins of the cruel ones — namely, White men who produced children with enslaved Black women. “There were violations of the moral law that made mulattoes as common as blackberries,” she wrote. “The retribution of wrath was hanging over this country and the South paid penance in four years of bloody war.”
In 1874, Felton ran her husband’s successful campaign for Congress. Along the way, she gained a reputation: She was sometimes characterized as the brains behind her husband’s political operation, and sometimes derided for stepping “out of her proper sphere,” as the Savannah Morning News put it in 1879.
Felton’s husband served three terms before being defeated by a fellow Democrat in an election his supporters claimed included fraudulent votes. He and Felton remained powerful in Georgia politics, supporting the temperance movement and women’s suffrage.
In August 1898, Felton made a speech at an agricultural society meeting about the problems facing farm wives. The No. 1 problem, she claimed, was rape by Black men, and she endorsed a way to “solve” it: “[I]f it needs lynching to protect woman’s dearest possession from the ravening human beasts, then I say lynch, a thousand times a week if necessary.”
Days later, Alexander Manly, a Black newspaper owner in majority-Black Wilmington, N.C., responded, writing that the rape of Black women by White men was the real problem, and that many White women had consensual sex with Black men.
Manly’s op-ed was used as a pretext for the Wilmington insurrection in November 1898, during which white supremacists overthrew the multiracial elected government and killed between 60 and 300 people. Manly barely escaped with his life; according to historian David Zucchino, Felton told the press, “The slanderer [Manly] should be made to fear a lyncher’s rope rather than occupy a place in New York newspapers.”
A Black voting rights activist confronts the ghosts of racial terror in Wilmington, N.C.
Felton’s husband died in 1909, but she remained a force in Georgia politics, particularly in women’s suffrage. (Few White suffragists openly supported Black voting rights; many avoided the issue, while others, like Felton, argued that White women should be given the vote specifically to help maintain white supremacy in the Jim Crow South.)
Then in 1922, Georgia’s junior senator died unexpectedly. It fell to Gov. Thomas W. Hardwick, a Democrat, to appoint a replacement until an election could be held. Hardwick also decided to run in that election, so he was looking to use the appointment to his political advantage. First, he wanted to appoint someone who wouldn’t compete with him in the election. He also wanted to curry the votes of newly enfranchised women; Hardwick had opposed the 19th Amendment, so he thought he needed to do something big to make up for it.
So he appointed Felton. For a few weeks, it appeared as though her appointment would be symbolic only: The Senate wasn’t expected to be in session before the election that would replace her. She didn’t bother traveling to Washington or taking the oath of office.
Then a couple of unexpected things happened: 1) The president called Congress to a special session to work on a ship-subsidy bill, and 2) Hardwick lost the election.
Seeing an opportunity, Felton kicked her campaigning skills into high gear, convincing the incoming senator to delay his inauguration so she could briefly occupy the seat. According to newspaper coverage at the time, even one objection from any senator could have stopped this plan, and a few of them had indicated they would oppose a woman on the Senate floor.
In the end, they stayed silent, and Felton was inaugurated as a Senate gallery packed with women watched and applauded.
The next morning, moments before she stepped down, she addressed her Senate colleagues, thanking them for their “chivalric” welcome and telling them that though she was now just a “remnant of the Old South,” she was “the happiest woman in the United States.” | null | null | null | null | null |
“It appears the ability to have the smoke spread is due to the door being open,” Adams said during an interview on the “Good Morning America” program on ABC. “There may have been a maintenance issue with this door, and that is going to be part of the ongoing investigation,” he added. | null | null | null | null | null |
These dreamlike photos show a Buenos Aires that has mostly disappeared
From “Metropolis,” published by RM + Ediciones Lariviere. (Adriana Lestido)
Photographer Adriana Lestido’s book, “Metropolis” (RM Editions, 2021) is a sumptuously poetic invocation of life at the beginning of the 1990s in Buenos Aires. Through dreamlike black-and-white images, Lestido guides us through what the publisher says is, “A city that seems both distant and contemporary.”
Lestido originally made the photos in “Metropolis” for a weekly supplement of the same name for Buenos Aires’s fabled Pagina/12 newspaper. The supplement highlighted the different neighborhoods of Buenos Aires and Lestido was given free rein to roam freely, camera in-hand, to make photos for it.
Once done with her Pagina/12 assignments, the photos she took ended up sequestered in storage. Then in 2018, the Argentine filmmaker Fernando Spiner wanted to make a movie about, coincidentally, a photographer in Buenos Aires at the beginning of the 1990s. He asked Lestido, who by then had become an acclaimed photographer, if he could use some of the photos she took from that time that had not already been published or exhibited.
The answer to that question was “yes,” and that sent Lestido searching through the archives she had mostly forgotten about for decades. As it turns out, those photos were a perfect match for the movie. They collectively show a Buenos Aires that, like most cities over time, doesn’t really exist anymore.
Lestido’s photos of Buenos Aires during this time are magnetic and luring. As Juan Forn writes in an introduction to “Metropolis’:
“I don’t know about you but if I were shown these photographs, I would immediately want to see the film this photographer was in. The setting is there before our eyes. All we need is to imagine a young woman in a leather jacket, handbag in-hand and wavy black hair who manages to make herself invisible to capture these scenes of a Buenos Aires that is about to disappear. What is to come is close but not here yet.”
You can find out more about Lestido’s work on her website, here. And you can buy the book from the publisher’s website, here.I
n Sight is The Washington Post’s photography blog for visual narrative. This platform showcases compelling and diverse imagery from staff members and freelance photographers, news agencies and archives. If you are interested in submitting a story to In Sight, please complete this form. | null | null | null | null | null |
Subscribers can expect high-profile newsmaker interviews, in-depth conversations with authors, and insight on major Post investigations. The series kicks off with Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and author Carl Bernstein.
“We are always looking for ways to enhance the experience of our subscribers. This series gives them access to discussions and guest pairings they can’t find anywhere else and invites them to be part of the conversation,” said Kris Coratti Kelly, Chief Communications Officer at The Post and GM of Washington Post Live. “Our first event captures these ambitions by bringing together two titans of journalism, Carl Bernstein and Carol Leonnig.”
The series kicks off on Tuesday, January 18 at 12:00 p.m. ET with former Post reporter and legendary investigative journalist Carl Bernstein in conversation with Pulitzer Prize-winning national investigative reporter Carol Leonnig. Bernstein will discuss his new memoir, “Chasing History: A Kid in the Newsroom,” which, for the first time, recounts his remarkable career from teenage newspaper copyboy to breaking the Watergate scandal, and beyond.
Get more information or register for the event. | null | null | null | null | null |
Opinion: How long will D.C. have to wait before the Senate confirms critically needed judges?
A bid to confirm D.C. nominees by seeking unanimous consent was blocked by Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.) “I have absolutely no faith that Joe Biden’s radical far-left nominees will uphold the rule of law,” he said. Never mind the recommendations from the congressionally constituted judicial commission are almost always uncontroversial. They are generally former prosecutors or magistrate judges or administrative law judges with apolitical backgrounds. But Democrats also share in the responsibility for the crisis facing the D.C. courts. Majority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) so far has not been willing to press the nominations to a vote by invoking cloture. That would take up precious floor time and, as D.C. Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton (D) wryly noted, D.C. “is at the bottom of the barrel until we get statehood.” A spokesman for Mr. Schumer assured us “we are going to get these nominees confirmed.” The question is when. The residents of Washington, D.C., shouldn’t have to wait any longer for timely justice. | null | null | null | null | null |
The longtime coach of the Golden State Warriors responded by pointing to Thompson’s three championship rings, his “homegrown” history with the organization and his unpretentious “authenticity” It would have been easy for Kerr, or any serious basketball observer, to add to that list. There’s Thompson’s record-setting three-point prowess, picture-perfect jumper and red-hot scoring outbursts. There’s his commitment to defense and his ability to come through in clutch situations. There’s the fact that he always takes his craft seriously but never takes himself too seriously.
Miami Heat President Pat Riley famously referred to those temptations as “The Disease of More”; Thompson has been immune throughout his Hall of Fame career. Curry has always served as Golden State’s headliner, selling more jerseys and earning more all-star votes. Thompson has drafted in his wake, never seeking to overtake his fellow Splash Brother but always ready to step up when needed, never more spectacularly than in the 2016 Western Conference finals. Durant’s move to the Bay Area further crowded the picture, but Thompson kept going about his business, even as Durant and Green engaged in the occasional public feud.
Just try to imagine Thompson saying in an interview that he is Curry’s basketball equal or writing in a book that Curry “ruined basketball,” as Pippen said of Jordan recently. It’s incomprehensible because Thompson has always been secure in himself and his place on the Warriors. Yes, he was upset when he wasn’t selected as one of the 76 players on the NBA’s 75th Anniversary Team, but his response to the snubbing was to don a No. 77 jersey and get back to his recovery work, not to torch someone else’s reputation. | null | null | null | null | null |
The NCAA has started to make small changes to make the women's NCAA tournament more equitable with the men's NCAA tournament. (Eric Gay/AP)
The glaring inequity in the NCAA’s investment in its Division I men’s and women’s basketball championships have hidden in plain sight for decades — until they exploded in public consciousness via photos shared on social media of a single dumbbell rack and stack of yoga mats that passed for training equipment in the 2021 women’s tournament bubble.
NCAA President Mark Emmert apologized and promised to do better. But the deep-seated disparities highlighted by players and coaches in everything from tournament marketing to athletes’ meals and amenities isn’t like to be remedied overnight.
The NCAA took another incremental step in narrowing the gap last week by unveiling comparable social media handles and hashtags, @MFinalFour and @WFinalFour, to supplant the longstanding @FinalFour that was exclusive to men. They complement recently redesigned logos that underscore the fact that starting with the 2022 championships there won’t be only one official NCAA Final Four, but an NCAA Men’s Final Four and an NCAA Women’s Final Four.
By extension, the trademarked “March Madness” brand will no longer apply only to the men’s tournament. The women will stage “March Madness,” as well.
“This is just the start when it comes to improving gender equity in the way the two Division I basketball championships are conducted,” said Campos, who is also athletic director at Texas-San Antonio, when the decision was announced in September.
The latest step of aligning the social media handles is one of several recommendations included in a comprehensive external review of gender-equity issues related to NCAA championships that was spurred by last spring’s athlete-led reports of the substandard weight rooms and amenities for women competing in the 2021 basketball tournament.
It was also recommended by a “championship brand review” that the NCAA had commissioned from an international firm before the outcry over last season’s tournament inequities, according to NCAA associate director of communications Meghan Durham.
The NCAA commissioned the gender-equity review from the law firm Kaplan Hecker & Fink LLP last spring. It confirmed stark inequities in promotional spending, meals, coronavirus testing and staffing, as well. And it culminated in a blistering 114-page report issued in August that concluded the NCAA defaulted on its commitment to gender-equity by prioritizing its lucrative Division I men’s basketball tournament above all else.
The NCAA has been chipping away at the report’s to-do list since last fall, starting with the relatively low-hanging fruit of branding.
The NCAA took a more significant step in November by expanding the women’s championships bracket from 64 to 68 teams, starting with the 2022 event, bringing opportunities for female basketball players in line with those of male.
Still to be addressed is the thornier question of whether the men’s and women’s Final Fours should be held at the same site. The Kaplan report said that doing so would allow for better cross-promotion of the men’s and women’s game and make it easier for corporate sponsors to back both tournaments.
Not all women’s coaches are convinced that’s the best way to grow women’s basketball. Moreover, hosting rights for separate Final Fours have been awarded through 2026:
The Men’s Final Four will be held this year in New Orleans, April 2 and 4. After that, it will be staged in Houston (2023), Phoenix (2024), San Antonio (2025) and Indianapolis (2026).
This year’s Women’s Final Four will be held in Minneapolis on April 1 and 3, followed by Dallas (2023), Cleveland (2024), Tampa (2025) and Phoenix (2026).
Nonetheless, the NCAA can’t afford to slow-walk its efforts to address gender-inequity in its champions. Doing so would risk legal action and potential federal intervention. In the wake of the Kaplan report, the law firm recommended the NCAA submit annual updates on its progress. | null | null | null | null | null |
Colorado Gov. Jared Polis (D) planted an unexpected flag on the coronavirus pandemic a month ago: The pandemic emergency was over and if you end up in the hospital after being infected with the virus because you weren’t vaccinated “it’s your fault.”
At the time, the comments gained attention in part because Polis is a Democrat. The it’s-up-to-you mantra Polis was embracing was more like something you’d hear from Republican Texas Gov. Greg Abbott than from the chief executive of a blue state. But it was also a recognition of where the pandemic was after the initial surge of the delta variant. Those who had been vaccinated were better protected against infection and against hospitalization and death, so Polis was largely just recognizing reality: Coloradans should get vaccinated and, if they didn’t, that’s that.
There are short-term political benefits for DeSantis to cut down on testing. When cases spiked in Florida over the summer, the governor insisted that it was a result of Florida experiencing its “covid season.” This was defensive; DeSantis is seeking reelection next year and a potential presidential bid in 2024, so it’s useful to tie surges in infections to inevitability rather than leadership. His defenders were quick to predict that cases would surge in the northeast, come winter, reinforcing the seasonality of the virus. And indeed, cases have surged in the northeast — and once again, in Florida. By limiting testing, the state tamps down on the size of its reported surge in cases and dampens such comparisons. (If you’re skeptical that the state would play tricks like this, note how it reports covid-19 death numbers.)
Infection triumphalism. There was another Florida-related development in recent days that bears mentioning. Right-wing media (and DeSantis’s team) celebrated Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s (D-N.Y.) maskless, outdoor Florida vacation as a tribute to Florida’s less stringent rules governing the spread of the virus.
Fox News’s Tucker Carlson has gone further, suggesting on his show that vaccine boosters actually increase the chance you’ll get infected. Predictably, this has no foundation in fact, with Carlson completely misinterpreting a non-peer-reviewed study looking at infection rates. The researchers found higher infection rates from omicron in people who had been vaccinated relative to delta infection rates. So it wasn’t Ms. Vaxed getting infected more often than Mr. Unvaxed; it was Ms. Boosted being multiple times more likely to be infected by omicron than delta because omicron is better at evading immunity protections. That multiple was higher for someone boosted than for an unvaccinated person because the unvaccinated person was a lot more likely to be infected by delta. The paper even says that the researchers “found an increased transmission for unvaccinated individuals, and a reduced transmission for booster-vaccinated individuals, compared to fully vaccinated individuals.” | null | null | null | null | null |
The same chill could bring two feet of snow downwind of Lakes Erie and Ontario.
Boston is predicted to dip to 7 degrees on Monday night, about 16 degrees below their average low for the date. It’s nowhere near the record of minus-4 set back on Jan. 11, 1893, but it’s still the coldest since Jan. 31 of last year. If the temperature manages to fall below 7 degrees, it will go down as Boston’s coldest reading since Jan. 5, 2018.
Washington D.C., is only anticipated to hit 29 degrees Tuesday afternoon, which would be the coldest afternoon high there in nearly three years.
The same instigating cold blast will bring subzero readings to the entirety of Wisconsin and most of Minnesota. Actual air temperatures in northern Minnesota could approach minus-20, with wind chills as low as 45 degrees below zero. The National Weather Service hoisted a wind chill warning, writing that “the dangerously cold wind chills could cause frostbite on exposed skin in as little as 10 minutes.” The air mass settling into place across the Northeast has ties to Nunavut, Canada.
The origins of the frigid air can be traced all the way into the northernmost territories of Canada.
A lobe of Arctic air at high altitudes, essentially a piece of the polar vortex, looks to become established over the Upper Midwest and north central United States. That will lend itself to bringing extreme cold there and setting the stage for clashing air masses and potential snowstorms along its eastern periphery, which will brush against the Atlantic shoreline into the weekend. It’s still unclear whether storminess will wallop the East Coast or remain over the ocean through early next week.
The cold air blowing lengthwise along Lakes Erie and Ontario will generate lake-effect snows thanks to the contrast between mild surface water temperatures and very chilly air above. Any moisture evaporated into the atmosphere will be transformed into snowfall in a narrow band only a few miles across, but thundersnow and snowfall rates topping 2 to 3 inches per hour are likely in this band.
Totals of up to 2 feet are possible across New York’s Tug Hill Plateau through Tuesday morning, at which point the wind direction, which is now parallel to lines of equal air pressure between a low banked to the north and high pressure to the south and east, will change. That will spell an end to lake-effect snow squalls.
“The lake effect snow band was nearly stationary,” wrote the National Weather Service in Buffalo about the snow band emanating from Lake Ontario. “This lake effect snow band is producing extremely heavy snow.” They also warned of visibilities below a quarter mile.
January 2022 has already gotten off to an impressive start with regard to snow. Washington picked up 6.9 inches of snow last Monday and another 2.7 during the predawn hours last Friday, totaling 9.6 inches over the course of five days. The seasonal average is about 14 inches, meaning the nation’s capital recorded most of an entire season’s worth of snowfall in a week. Last Friday featured an overperforming system delivered a surprise 8 inches to New York City. | null | null | null | null | null |
In November, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, which runs the health programs, announced they would raise the standard monthly premium for Part B, which covers outpatient services such as visits to the doctor, by a record dollar amount. Officials said that move, which went into effect Jan. 1, was partly because Medicare needed to have the funds to cover the potentially high costs of Aduhelm.
On Monday, Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra said he has told Medicare officials to “reassess” the Part B premium, given that its manufacturer, biotech giant Biogen, in December reduced the price of Aduhelm to $28,200 from its $56,000 initial price. “With the 50% price drop of Aduhelm on January 1, there is a compelling basis for CMS to reexamine the previous recommendation,” Becerra said in a statement. The department did not indicate when changes in premiums, if they occur, will be announced.
Aduhelm is a monoclonal antibody, a man-made protein that targets a sticky substance in the brain, called amyloid beta, which some scientists believe causes the memory-robbing disease. The drug is designed to trigger an immune response that reduces amyloid plaques.
The FDA’s panel of outside scientific advisers rejected the argument in 2020, recommending against approval. When the FDA nevertheless approved the medication, the agency said the decision was not based on clinical outcomes but rather on indications the drug sharply reduced brain amyloid. The agency said there was a “reasonable likelihood” that reduction would benefit patients. The FDA initially said all Alzheimer’s patients could receive the drug then narrowed that to people with mild cognitive impairment or early-stage disease.
“Too many patients are not being offered the choice of Aduhelm due to financial considerations and are thus progressing beyond the point of benefiting from the first treatment to address an underlying pathology of Alzheimer’s disease,” Michel Vounatsos, Biogen’s chief executive, said at the time.
Several medical centers — including Cleveland Clinic, Johns Hopkins, the University of California at Los Angeles and the University of Michigan — have said they are not offering the drug because of a lack of convincing evidence of effectiveness, according to the medical news site Stat. The drug, once considered a potential market blockbuster, generated a mere $300,000 in revenue in the third quarter of last year, according to Biogen.
In July, CMS initiated a national coverage determination on whether Medicare should cover Aduhelm and other anti-amyloid monoclonal antibodies in development. CMS said a draft decision would be issued by Wednesday, with a final call in April.
Mark McClellan, who headed the FDA and CMS during the George W. Bush administration, said he didn’t expect Medicare to take the almost unprecedented step of declining coverage for an FDA-approved drug. And Medicare might follow the FDA label and cover the treatment for everyone with early-stage disease, he said.
George Vradenburg, chairman and co-founder of the advocacy group UsAgainstAlzheimer’s, said Medicare restrictions could “limit access to this class of drugs to the wealthy.”
CMS, in announcing the standard monthly premium for Medicare Part B for 2022, said about half of the $21.60 increase was for a cushion for possible Aduhelm costs. At the time, CMS had not decided on its coverage policy, but agency actuaries typically take a conservative stance in estimating expenses. | null | null | null | null | null |
The same chill could bring two feet of snow downwind of Lakes Erie and Ontario
Boston is predicted to dip to 7 degrees on Monday night, about 16 degrees below its average low for the date. It’s nowhere near the record of minus-4 set back on Jan. 11, 1893, but it’s still the coldest since Jan. 31 of last year. If the temperature manages to fall below 7 degrees, it will go down as Boston’s coldest reading since Jan. 5, 2018.
D.C. is only anticipated to hit 29 degrees Tuesday afternoon, which would be the coldest afternoon high there in nearly three years.
The same instigating cold blast will bring subzero readings to the entirety of Wisconsin and most of Minnesota. Actual air temperatures in northern Minnesota could approach minus-20, with wind chills as low as 45 degrees below zero. The National Weather Service hoisted a wind chill warning, writing that “the dangerously cold wind chills could cause frostbite on exposed skin in as little as 10 minutes.”
The air mass settling into place across the Northeast has ties to Nunavut, Canada.
A lobe of Arctic air at high altitudes, essentially a piece of the polar vortex, looks to become established over the Upper Midwest and north-central United States. That will lend itself to bringing extreme cold there and setting the stage for clashing air masses and potential snowstorms along its eastern periphery, which will brush against the Atlantic shoreline into the weekend. It’s still unclear whether storminess will wallop the East Coast or remain over the ocean through early next week.
The cold air blowing lengthwise along Lakes Erie and Ontario will generate lake-effect snows thanks to the contrast between mild surface water temperatures and chilly air above. Any moisture evaporated into the atmosphere will be transformed into snowfall in a narrow band only a few miles across, but thundersnow and snowfall rates topping 2 to 3 inches per hour are likely in this band.
Totals of up to two feet are possible across New York’s Tug Hill Plateau through Tuesday morning, at which point the wind direction, which is now parallel to lines of equal air pressure between a low banked to the north and high pressure to the south and east, will change. That will spell an end to lake-effect snow squalls.
“The lake effect snow band was nearly stationary,” wrote the National Weather Service in Buffalo about the snow band emanating from Lake Ontario. “This lake effect snow band is producing extremely heavy snow.” The Weather Service also warned of visibilities below a quarter-mile.
January 2022 has already gotten off to an impressive start with regard to snow. Washington picked up 6.9 inches of snow on Jan. 3 and another 2.7 during the predawn hours Friday, totaling 9.6 inches over the course of five days. The seasonal average is about 14 inches, meaning the nation’s capital recorded most of an entire season’s worth of snowfall in a week. Friday featured an overperforming system that delivered a surprise eight inches to New York City. | null | null | null | null | null |
Women’s rights, press freedom discussed in first talks between Taliban and exiled uprising leaders
Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amirabdollahian, second from left, meets with his Afghan counterpart, Amir Khan Muttaqi, right, in Tehran on Jan. 9, 2022. (Iranian Foreign Ministry/EPA-EFE/Shutterstock)
Bilal Karimi, a senior Taliban spokesman, said in a tweet Monday that two top Afghan militia leaders, Ismail Khan from western Herat province and Ahmad Massoud from northern Panjshir province, met with the Taliban’s acting foreign minister, Amir Khan Muttaqi, and other officials.
There was no immediate public response from leaders of the National Resistance Front. After the Taliban seized power, Massoud, son of the slain militia leader Ahmed Shah Massoud, led an aggressive, month-long rebellion in the Panjshir Valley 75 miles northeast of Kabul, which had been the stronghold of anti-Taliban opposition since the late 1990s. The uprising was eventually crushed and its leaders fled the country.
The unannounced meeting in Iran came as two violent attacks in Afghanistan over the weekend — a fatal bombing in eastern Nangarhar province and a lengthy nighttime firefight in Kabul — underscored the continuing threats to Taliban rule from various sources.
The bombing near a school, which officials said killed at least 10, was believed to have been carried out by the Islamic State, which has staged numerous attacks in that region in the past. A bombing inside a mosque in Nangarhar in November killed at least three people and wounded a dozen.
But one opposition delegate, former provincial governor Hasmuddin Shams, told the Iranian media that the two sides had discussed substantive issues, including women’s rights, free expression, democratic rights and inclusive governance. In recent weeks, the Taliban has further restricted women’s rights, shut down several democratic institutions and announced that it will not allow any former government officials to join the cabinet. | null | null | null | null | null |
“If it’s a defective product, we will take action,” CPSC chairman says.
Firefighters watch a news conference at a multi level apartment building following a fire, in the Bronx borough of New York City, New York, U.S. January 10, 2022. REUTERS/Carlo Allegri (Carlo Allegri/Reuters)
While many details are still unknown, the Consumer Product Safety Commission is looking into the potential role of a defective product in the fire and offering assistance to New York investigators, said CPSC Chairman Alex Hoen-Saric.
“If it’s a defective product, we will take action,” Hoen-Saric said. | null | null | null | null | null |
There are a few legal options that could be open to Jordan and Perry, but they’re pretty narrow.
They could go to court to fight a subpoena by arguing that such a request is politically motivated. Maybe that could gain traction in court given the committee is made up of mostly Democrats. (There are just two Republicans on it after Republicans refused to participate in an investigation aimed at Trump and Jan. 6.)
If the committee senses it’s running out of time, it could skip talking to these lawmakers altogether, and go around them and try to get their phone records or other related documents. The committee hasn’t managed to talk to Meadows, but it did get manage to get revealing text messages from him.
And lawmakers could tie that request up in court, too. (Possibly by using their campaign funds for legal fees.) It took Congress years to get Trump’s tax returns, and by then he was out of office. | null | null | null | null | null |
Theodore Roosevelt Coach Robert Nickens has switched to a zone defense recently because his team isn't deep enough to press like it typically does. (Scott Taetsch/For The Washington Post)
As Spalding’s Cam Whitmore punctuated his highlight performance with one final thunderous jam Saturday night at the Mid-Atlantic Basketball Classic, Theodore Roosevelt Coach Rob Nickens dropped to a knee. “C’mon, man,” he let out in frustration.
Coming off a 29-2 campaign in 2020 in which the boys’ team won the D.C. Interscholastic Athletic Association championship and Nickens was named The Post’s Coach of the Year, the Rough Riders (8-5) have pivoted from their signature press defense to a more traditional zone. Nickens feels his hand is forced.
“Anybody that knows Rob, knows that I don’t play no zone, man. We press, press and then press some more,” Nickens said. “Now, I ain’t making no excuses, because at the end of the day it’s my job to figure out how to win, but with all this covid stuff going on we’ve had to change our whole philosophy on the fly just to keep our head above water.”
Boys' basketball Top 20
Roosevelt started 8-1 but has lost four straight games for the first time since 2016 as its roster has thinned considerably because of coronavirus cases.
Many area teams have dealt with similar issues, but the lack of depth especially hurts the Rough Riders because they typically employ hockey-style, five-for-five substitutions. In a normal year Roosevelt would filter through all 15 players on a nightly basis, but starting with the George Long Holiday Hoops tournament in late December, Roosevelt has had only seven available players.
“What’s most frustrating is that it’s not like dudes have figured out how to beat what we normally do; covid just isn’t letting us do us right now,” Nickens said. “But honestly, this may be a blessing in disguise because we’ll be straight when it matters most, and now teams will have to worry about us pressing and dropping back into a zone.”
Poolesville finally back in action
While the season began in mid-November, the Poolesville girls’ team felt its campaign was only beginning when it hosted Damascus on Thursday.
Soon after their season opener against Wheaton on Dec. 7, the Falcons endured a coronavirus outbreak, and their next five and holiday tournament were canceled. For the first time since early-December, Poolesville’s full team practiced last week.
Poolesville was rusty against Damascus until its players regrouped in the final five minutes. For the first time all season, the Falcons ran their offense correctly to rally down the stretch for a 43-37 win.
“It’s the first-day jitters all over again,” said Kathryn Hackey, who took over Poolesville’s program after its undefeated Maryland 2A championship run in 2018. “Everybody’s nerves, the way they played the first game, we were out of sync. It’s just like starting from day one.”
Even when they awoke Thursday, anxiety consumed Poolesville’s players. With coronavirus cases spiking in Montgomery County schools and snow expected that night, they feared another game would be canceled. But those worries dissipated when they entered their gym two hours before tipoff to watch the junior varsity game.
In addition to familiarizing themselves with their teammates, Poolesville’s players also adapted to competing without spectators, a rule the county imposed last week.
“By this time in any other season we would be refreshing … we would be perfecting what we need to work on,” said Hackey, whose squad is 2-0 entering its game at Rockville on Monday night. “We’re still learning plays. It’s just not a normal season.”
David King, F, Hayfield. The junior finished with 25 points and eight rebounds as the Hawks earned an impressive win over Virginia Beach’s Landstown High in the Virginia Preps Classic.
Ben Landesman, G, Einstein. The junior scored the game-winning layup at the buzzer in the Titans’ 42-41 win over Sherwood.
Louis Volker, F, Paul VI. The junior led the Panthers with 17 points as they put up one of the year’s best defensive performances, holding Virginia public power Madison to just 27 points in a victory.
Darren Buchanan, F, Wilson. The senior had 22 points, 10 rebounds, four assists and three steals as the Tigers thumped No. 16 Good Counsel, 65-40, Saturday at the Mid-Atlantic Basketball Classic.
Coolidge girls at Dunbar, 5:30 p.m. Wednesday
Sidwell Friends girls at Georgetown Visitation, 5:45 p.m. Friday
Churchill boys at Bethesda-Chevy Chase, 7:15 p.m. Friday
Fairfax boys at Lake Braddock, 7:30 p.m. Friday
St. Stephen’s/St. Agnes stays in shape
When his team returned to practice after three-and-a-half weeks off, St. Stephen’s/St. Agnes boys’ coach Mike Jones knew the Saints might be a bit sloppy. Not only would his players be excited to return to the court after being sidelined by a coronavirus surge, but they were suddenly one day away from the IAC-MAC challenge.
“There was great energy, they were flying around,” Jones said. “There was a lot fouling, I had to tell them to calm down. But we were all just so excited to be back in the gym.”
The event pitting teams from the Interstate Athletic Conference and Mid-Atlantic Athletic Conference against each other is similar to college basketball’s ACC-Big Ten Challenge; in this case, two of the better leagues in the D.C. area match up for a full slate of games. Usually it’s played in one day at one location, but this year the games were held at different schools depending on who could and could not play.
The Saints hosted St. Andrew’s, reigning MAC champions, and earned a 74-61 win. Jones’s team favors a physical, press-happy style of play, and the coach was pleased to see his group could still employ it with gusto.
During the layoff the program had a few Zoom meetings to go over tape and make sure everyone was staying on track. But outside of that, Jones and his staff simply had to trust that players were working to stay in shape.
“That’s such a long time off, and our style is predicated on us being in better shape than other teams,” Jones said. “So I was truly happy to see that performance. I could tell they had been putting in the work over that long hiatus.”
Alexandria City returns
Before playing Saturday, Alexandria City went nearly a full month without basketball. And last year it was the rare Northern Virginia school that did not hold a season because of the pandemic.
That all means the No. 17 Titans (6-1) are still getting used to each other, and their own roles, on the court.
In their first game after the break, the Titans defeated Westfield, 48-31, after shaking off first-half rust, breath control struggles behind masks and some forgetfulness on the names of their plays.
Getting to this point hasn’t been easy.
“When the juniors last played, they were the underclassmen. … They now have to be the leaders. So when the underclassmen come, they’re all arguing, trying to explain to each other what’s right,” senior N’jya Hopkins said. “They never got the experience of becoming a leader.”
The team held several meetings before the pause and connected online in December, which helped build its chemistry. The Titans say their shared state title aspirations motivated them to push past any bickering amid the unpredictable schedule.
“Everyone on the team has that goal,” junior Amor Haris said. “I think that’s why we’re doing so well.” | null | null | null | null | null |
CINCINNATI — The Cincinnati Bengals wanted to be rested and ready for the first round of the playoffs so they didn’t play many of their key starters in the regular-season finale against the Cleveland Browns.
There weren’t many conclusions to be drawn from Cincinnati's mundane 21-16 loss to the Browns. The AFC North champion Bengals moved on quickly to start preparing to host the Las Vegas Raiders on Saturday in the playoffs. | null | null | null | null | null |
[The Senate’s first woman was also its last enslaver]
Above: Illinois never legally permitted slavery, but some residents enslaved people in the state anyway — including the state’s first governor, Shadrack Bond, who is shown here in the 1820 Census. The census shows a total of 28 people in Bond’s household that year, including 14 who were enslaved.
Delaware elected two senators, Willard Saulsbury Sr. and George Read Riddle, who were both among the dwindling number of enslavers in the state in 1860. Riddle was one of just two slaveholders left in his county that year. Both of Delaware’s senators went on to vote against the 13th Amendment ending slavery. | null | null | null | null | null |
“If it’s a defective product, we will take action,” CPSC chairman says
Firefighters watch a news conference at a multilevel apartment building following a fire, in the Bronx on Jan. 10, 2022. (Carlo Allegri/Reuters)
While many details are still unknown, the Consumer Product Safety Commission is looking into the potential role of a defective product in the fire and offering assistance to New York investigators, said CPSC Chairman Alex Hoenh-Saric.
“If it’s a defective product, we will take action,” Hoenh-Saric said.
Residents and witnesses described the Jan. 9 apartment fire, started by a faulty space heater, that killed 17 in the Bronx. (Joshua Carroll/The Washington Post)
A malfunctioning space heater started a fire that killed 19 people, including nine children, in an apartment building in the Bronx on Jan. 9. (Reuters) | null | null | null | null | null |
The longtime coach of the Golden State Warriors responded by pointing to Thompson’s three championship rings, his “homegrown” history with the organization and his unpretentious “authenticity.” It would have been easy for Kerr, or any serious basketball observer, to add to that list. There’s Thompson’s record-setting three-point prowess, picture-perfect jumper and red-hot scoring outbursts. There’s his commitment to defense and his ability to come through in clutch situations. There’s the fact that he always takes his craft seriously but never takes himself too seriously.
Miami Heat President Pat Riley famously referred to those temptations as “The Disease of More”; Thompson has been immune throughout his Hall of Fame career. Curry has always served as Golden State’s headliner, selling more jerseys and earning more all-star votes. Thompson was drafted in his wake, never seeking to overtake his fellow Splash Brother but always ready to step up when needed, never more spectacularly than in the 2016 Western Conference finals. Durant’s move to the Bay Area further crowded the picture, but Thompson kept going about his business, even as Durant and Green engaged in the occasional public feud.
Just try to imagine Thompson saying in an interview that he is Curry’s basketball equal or writing in a book that Curry “ruined basketball,” as Pippen recently said of Jordan. It’s incomprehensible because Thompson has always been secure in himself and his place on the Warriors. Yes, he was upset when he wasn’t selected as one of the 76 players on the NBA’s 75th Anniversary Team, but his response to the snubbing was to don a No. 77 jersey and get back to his recovery work, not to torch someone else’s reputation. | null | null | null | null | null |
FILE - Clay Aiken performs at the “American Idol” farewell season finale in Los Angeles on April 7, 2016. The former “American Idol” runner-up announced on Monday that he’s running for Congress again in North Carolina, this time seeking to succeed the retiring U.S. Rep. David Price. In 2014, Aiken won the Democratic nomination for a largely rural central congressional district in 2014, edging former state Commerce Secretary Keith Crisco. But he lost in the general election to then-Republican incumbent Renee Ellmers, receiving 41% of the vote.(Matt Sayles/Invision/AP, File) | null | null | null | null | null |
Miami Dolphins coach Brian Flores was fired after an upset of the New England Patriots in Week 18. (Wilfredo Lee/AP)
Another Black NFL head coach with a solid record got fired — this time the Miami Dolphins’ Brian Flores — and the TV pundits and media apologists again lined up Monday morning with a litany of excuses.
Team owner Stephen Ross didn’t like the lack of “collaboration” between General Manager Chris Grier and Flores. That’s what Ross said in a news conference shortly after he fired Flores, who was 24-25 in three seasons, but 19-14 the last two — including eight wins in his last nine games after a 1-7 start this fall.
Ross has some cover because Grier is also Black and because the NFL media will spend a lot of time quoting unnamed sources, who will say that Flores and Grier didn’t get along. That Flores and quarterback Tua Tagovailoa had issues. That there was a good deal of turnover on the coaching staff. And that the firing had nothing to do with Ross being enamored of Michigan Coach Jim Harbaugh.
Let’s assume all that is being whispered is true. The bottom line remains this: Flores was — and is — a damn good coach. He’s certainly a better coach than the New York Giants’ Joe Judge, who is 10-23 after two years and appears to be good at exactly one thing: making excuses by taking cheap shots at people. As I write this, Judge, whose team barely showed up at all the last month of the season, is still employed.
There have also been rumblings that the Houston Texans’ David Culley may be fired this week. Culley took over a team this past winter that was a complete dumpster fire. Quarterback Deshaun Watson, his most important player, never took a snap this season. The Texans finished an ugly 4-13 but were still playing hard on Sunday, losing 28-25 to Tennessee, the AFC’s No. 1 seed. And yet, after one season, Culley’s job may be in jeopardy?
If he gets fired, the NFL would be left with one Black coach: Pittsburgh’s Mike Tomlin. All he’s had to do to keep his job secure over 14 seasons is put together a Hall-of-Fame resume: a Super Bowl victory; another Super Bowl trip; 10 playoff appearances and zero losing seasons.
In all, two of the last 20 head coaches hired by NFL teams — Flores and Culley — have been Black. “Whenever I bring that up, people say, ‘Why are you making race an issue?’” Tony Dungy said to me last year. “I’m not making race an issue. Race is an issue.”
Dungy was one of many NFL coaches, past and present, I interviewed for my recently published book, “Raise a Fist, Take a Knee: Racism and the Illusion of Progress in Professional Sports.” He was the first Black coach to win a Super Bowl when his Indianapolis Colts beat the Chicago Bears in February of 2007.
The losing coach that day was Lovie Smith, who had become the first Black coach to make it to a Super Bowl two weeks earlier — ahead of Dungy, his mentor, by about three hours — with the immortal Rex Grossman quarterbacking his team. In 2012 Smith was fired by the Bears — after going 10-6. The Bears missed the postseason that year because of a tiebreaker.
Jim Caldwell had a similar experience in Detroit. He had a four-year record with the frequently awful Lions of 36-28, the team’s best four-season mark since Buddy Parker was the coach in the 1950s. He made postseason twice — the Lions had been in the playoffs once in the 14 seasons before he arrived — and was fired after going 9-7 in 2017. With great fanfare, the Lions hired Matt Patricia off Bill Belichick’s staff. He went 13-28-1 before being fired during his third season. The Lions then hired Dan Campbell, who is being toasted for his “passion” after going 3-13-1 in his first season.
“I remember watching the news conference when [Detroit team owner Martha Firestone Ford] announced Jim’s firing,” Dungy said. “She said the record was better, the team was better, the culture was better. Everything was better. Then she fired him.”
The NFL media, especially the TV pundits, always have reasons for why Black coaches aren’t hired, or are fired more quickly than their White counterparts. Here’s the thing: It can’t always be coincidence.
This actually dates to the tenure of Art Shell, the first Black coach of the so-called modern era. (Fritz Pollard played and coached in the league in the 1920s before the league banned Blacks in 1926). Shell coached Al Davis’s Oakland Raiders for just under six seasons and made the postseason three times in his five full seasons, going 54-38. Davis fired him after a 9-7 record in 1994 and later admitted he had made a mistake. He actually brought Shell back to coach a very bad team (2-14) in 2006, then fired him again. No other NFL team hired him as a head coach despite his record with the Raiders.
Ozzie Newsome, who was the first Black general manager in the NFL — he was given the title two years after winning a Super Bowl as the player personnel director of the Baltimore Ravens — vividly remembered a Pop Warner football tryout he attended in 1970 at the age of 14. He went to join the quarterbacks, the position he had always played — but then left and joined the receivers when he realized all the other kids in the quarterback circle were White.
Art Shell; Tony Dungy — fired in Tampa Bay after three straight playoff appearances; Lovie Smith; Jim Caldwell; and now Brian Flores. All fired with records that, as Smith said, would normally have meant a new contract.
Eric Bieniemy — the Kansas City Chiefs offensive coordinator, who has had 11 interviews for head coaching jobs; Byron Leftwich, Tampa Bay’ offensive coordinator; Todd Bowles, Tampa Bay’s defensive coordinator and the former New York Jets coach: All await phone calls. So does Lions assistant head coach Duce Staley, among others.
The only major sports commissioner who refused to speak to me for the book was the NFL’s Roger Goodell. Dungy and Tomlin both said the same thing when I told them Goodell, through his PR guy Brian McCarthy, refused my requests to talk.
He’s embarrassed, they both said. He knows this is not a good look for his league. But he can’t tell the owners what to do.
Those owners took another step backward on Monday. | null | null | null | null | null |
FILE - Former New York Jets wide receiver Wesley Walker, left, Hall of Fame quarterback Joe Namath, center, and Hall of Fame wide receiver Don Maynard, right, participate in a New York Jets Ring of Honor ceremony honoring former Jets defensive tackle Marty Lyons during a halftime ceremony of an NFL football game between the New York Jets and the Pittsburgh Steelers Sunday, Oct. 13, 2013, in East Rutherford, N.J. Don Maynard, a Hall of Fame receiver who made his biggest impact catching passes from Joe Namath in the wide-open AFL, has died. He was 86. The Pro Football Hall of Fame confirmed Maynard’s death on Monday, Jan. 10, 2022, through his family. (AP Photo/Kathy Willens, File) | null | null | null | null | null |
Transcript: Coronavirus: The Next Six Months with Jerome Adams, MD & Leana S. Wen, MD
MS. STEAD SELLERS: Hello, and welcome to Washington Post Live. I’m Frances Stead Sellers, a senior writer here at The Post. Today we’re going to be talking about the Coronavirus, vaccines, variants, and the path forward. And I’m joined by two timely commentators on this issue, Drs. Leana Wen and Jerome Adams, who are no strangers to Washington Post Live. A very warm welcome to you both.
DR. WEN: Thank you. Great to be here.
DR. ADAMS: It’s great to be with you.
MS. STEAD SELLERS: Well, Dr. Adams, let me start with you. We have heard recently from some former Biden advisors saying that it's time to move to a new normal of living with this virus instead of combating it and trying to eradicate it. You penned an op-ed yourself talking about not changing the goalposts but making sure we're not lazy on defense. What are the reasonable goalposts for the next six months? And how do we make sure that we're not "lazy on defense," as you phrased it?
DR. ADAMS: Well, as you mentioned, those former Biden officials wrote several articles in the Journal of the American Medical Association, and I've read through all of them, and they reiterate a lot of the things that Dr. Wen and I have been saying for quite a while. We need to create realistic expectations for people so that they understand what we're working towards. And it wasn't realistic when the Trump administration said we're going to eradicate the virus. It wasn't realistic when the Biden administration said we're going to eradicate the virus. And here's why: Until we can get the planet--not just the United States, not one state within the United States, but the entire planet with sufficient immunity--we're going to be still having significant ups and downs with this virus.
But it doesn't mean that it has to control our lives. We can take measures, such as making sure people are appropriately vaccinated and boosted, making sure we have a reasonable testing strategy, making sure we're utilizing and have available treatments like oral antivirals, monoclonal antibodies, so that when people do get sick, they don't end up in an ICU, or worse. We do have the tools, as the Biden administration has said, to be able to successfully live with this virus. We need to create that expectation among people, and then we need the public sector, the government support to actually implement that strategy.
MS. STEAD SELLERS: So just a quick follow on that before we move on. We've seen these huge biomedical advances, including now these antiviral pills, but the delivery system seems consistently to fail us. What are we doing to support that, Dr. Adams?
DR. ADAMS: Well, that's a great question, and it's a question that I have for the Biden administration. One of the things about treatment is it relies on testing. And Dr. Wen and I both have been very--and I think appropriately and fairly--critical of the administration for not having a testing strategy. It was something that we really struggled with during my tenure during the Trump administration. But the honest truth is, back then we didn't have the supply. Now the supply is there on a global basis. We just haven't done the work from a U.S. point of view to get tests approved by the FDA. That's one thing we have to do. We still don't have an FDA commissioner. We're a year into a new administration and we still don't have an FDA commissioner, and a lot of these tests really are stuck in the FDA authorization process, and we need to use the Defense Production Act as was promised to really prioritize testing, and it needs to fit into a strategy. It can't be haphazard. There's got to be a strategy for surveillance, and a strategy for making sure that we're appropriately diagnosing and directing towards treatment people who are at risk.
MS. STEAD SELLERS: So, Dr. Wen, you have been advocating a new normal in schools by getting kids back into schools rather than learning remotely, and we understand many of the consequences of distant learning for these kids. But now we see in Chicago again this morning that Chicago schools are not opening because teachers don't feel safe going back. Is this a failure of messaging? Are they really not safe? What's your message to them? What are we doing wrong as a country to reassure people on this position?
DR. WEN: It's a very difficult time where we are in the pandemic, because people are living in very different realities. We have some people who have never really accepted that COVID-19 is a pandemic and never really changed much of their behavior. We have a lot of other people who have done everything right, who have gotten vaccines, who’ve gotten boosters, who have been so incredibly careful, and some who continue to hunker down, despite the fact that we are not in 2020 or 2021 anymore. And I think this is the important part of the reset.
I agree completely with what Dr. Adams said in terms of how we have to come to terms with the fact that we are going to be living with COVID, that this is not going away. We have to turn it from an existential threat into part of our new normal. And part of the new normal includes acknowledging that with vaccines and boosters the vast majority of those who are vaccinated and boosted with omicron--when they come into contact with omicron, which is a milder variant than before, that they're going to do just fine, that omicron is going to look like a mild cold or at worst the flu to the majority of individuals.
We also known when it comes to schools, then, we have another very important layer of protection, which is masking. Now I just wrote a Post op-ed about how politicians who are trying to ban or bar people from wearing masks in schools, that's definitely the wrong approach. But by the same token, if you are vaccinated and boosted, if you are wearing a high-quality mask yourself, even if others around you are not consistently wearing masks, you are still very well protected against contracting COVID and spreading it to others. Would I think it's ideal if all schools have regular testing, state of the art ventilation, and have a lot more space and have fixed their crumbling infrastructure? Of course. That's what we should be aiming for as a society. But we cannot keep on leaving our kids in limbo. Our children have suffered so much. The educational disparities that were already so present among Black and brown children, communities that are the most economically disadvantaged, they've only been exacerbated. And we cannot keep saying let's wait for everything to be in place before opening schools, when we know that teachers and staff and children and their families are much better protected than they were a year ago, or certainly two years ago.
MS. STEAD SELLERS: So, Dr. Wen, just very briefly--
DR. ADAMS: And if I could jump on really quickly, because Dr. Wen brings--this is a critical point, and we're talking about the next six months. It is critical that we recognize the harm that has been done to our children due to mental health issues, due to educational issues. There are children who haven't been identified as being victims of abuse at home because they're not in school. We absolutely need to get kids back in school. That needs to be our number-one priority. And what I've often said is that we need to get away from this binary all or none, every kid in school at all costs or no kids in school until we're 100 percent perfect, because as Dr. Wen lays out, we can't let perfect be the enemy of good enough.
But what we need to do is really fight for, advocate for recognition of those schools that are both fine to go ahead and those ones that are really still facing genuine challenges. And then we need to make sure we're getting with all speed those schools that have challenges up to where they need to be so that they can safely reopen and feel safe reopening. It shouldn't be all or not. It should be let's make sure we're doing everything we can so that everyone feels safe going back to school. And as Dr. Wen said, we can't--we can't wait for everyone to feel perfect about the conditions because our kids are suffering.
MS. STEAD SELLERS: Yeah, I want to recognize the fact that we're having this discussion from the relative safety of our own home offices and ask you again, Dr. Wen, what's your message to the Chicago Teachers Union?
DR. WEN: My message to the teachers’ union and to others around the country is threefold. One is we recognize the challenges that that you have. I mean, I see this--I know for myself, both as a mom, a parent of a 4-year-old, who I've decided to send back to school despite escalating rates here in Maryland, despite the school not having testing, despite not having many conditions that are ideal, because at this point, it's not about aiming for zero risk. We can't get to zero risk. But rather, we also have to look at the risk of not having in-school instruction and the value of in-person instruction when it comes to the child, when it comes to socioeconomic development, and also when it comes to parents for whom childcare and/or school is an essential form of childcare as well.
But we also have to recognize the real fear and anxiety that teachers have. But here is where I do think the messaging for public health experts needs to be clear. It does need to be clear that omicron is a different variant to what we've had before. It is a lot milder, and especially if you're vaccinated or boosted. It is also that vaccination plus masking are really, really good tools for protecting the individual. And so I think that the combination of these needs to be the central point, that we do understand the fear and anxiety. But at the same time, we have to counter that with the science that we do have, which is that teachers and staff are not at high risk. And in fact, schools can be some of the safest places to be when it comes to COVID-19 transmission.
MS. STEAD SELLERS: So, Dr. Adams, this kind of response among the Chicago teachers is of course very concerning. But is there any reason why it wouldn't spread among bus drivers and other essential workers, nursing aides, food delivery people? And what do you think needs to be done to head off that kind of concern and mass response?
DR. ADAMS: Well--and going back to the point that Dr. Wen raised--we have the tools. We know that if schools are highly vaccinated--and when I say schools, I mean teachers, students, bus drivers, cafeteria workers, et cetera--and that if we're wearing masks, and whenever we can, particularly in situations that are ripe for transmission, and providing high quality masks--then we know that in most cases, people are going to be safer in a school environment than what they are in the general community. We've seen this play out over and over again in studies.
So, what do we do? We need to make sure the government--federal, state, local governments--are doing everything that they can, pulling out all the stops to bump up vaccination rates for anyone who comes in and out of school but also within their families, because the spread often occurs at home and then they bring it in to school. So vaccine clinics, making sure you have outreach through trusted partners, making sure you're giving people time off if they need it after the vaccination or after the booster number one.
And number two, making high quality N95, KN95 masks, KF94 masks available to bus drivers, to cafeteria workers, to other people so that they can feel assured that we've done everything we can to create a safe environment for you, and that you were actually safer here than what you would be at home and we can say that we--or in the community--and we can say that with certainty.
MS. STEAD SELLERS: Dr. Wen, you’ve referred to omicron recently, several times as less severe. But there's a disturbing trend among pediatric hospitalizations, and some concern that small children might be badly affected by this virus which seems to affect the upper airways. What's your thinking on this? Do we know the science yet? Should parents of particularly young children be concerned at this point?
DR. WEN: Well, I am such a parent. I've got two children under the age of five. I have a 4-year-old who doesn't turn five until August, and a 21-month-old who was a pandemic baby and has not known anything other than the pandemic times that we're living in. And so I very eagerly await the moment when my two little kids can become vaccinated, because our reality as compared to so many other families is that it hasn't really changed much for us. I mean, I'm so glad that children five and older are able to be vaccinated. I've seen so many families return to their pre-pandemic normals as a result. But families like mine are still waiting for that reassurance.
Look, I think part of the reality with omicron is that we believe it is much milder for adults, in particular those who are vaccinated. There is no evidence that in younger children, including children under five, that it's more severe. We are probably seeing an uptick in hospitalizations in this group mainly because the overall level of virus in our communities is so high. We're seeing skyrocketing numbers of COVID cases, and those are only the cases that are reported. At-home antigen tests are not being reported, for the most part. And also, many people are just unable to get tests and so don't know that they have COVID and are not being counted in the official numbers. When you have a very large number of people infected, even if it's a milder variant, you end up having a lot of people getting sicker just by the pure numbers.
But that said, I think another part of the risk calculus for families like mine with younger children is it's become so much harder to avoid omicron. The activities that we thought were relatively safer before now all carries much more risk because of how contagious omicron is and also how many people around us probably are infected, but just may not necessarily know it and are spreading it to others. And so the price that we would have to pay to avoid omicron is even higher than before. And many families are having the conversation, as my family and I have had, to say, look, we of course don't want to get infected. But that said, we don't want to keep our 4-year-old out of school. And for how long?
That's the other part of this is, we don't know when the next variant is going to come. I agree with Dr. Adams. This is not the end of the pandemic. We could actually have omicron or another version of omicron in three months’ time, six months, in 12 months. Are we going to keep on shutting down society, closing our schools, tanking our economy every time? I think not. And I think it's time for us to embrace that there has to be a practical middle ground where we don't shut everything down. But we are saying wear a high-quality mask when you're indoors. But we're not saying don't let people go to restaurants or other high-risk settings, but rather, can we mandate vaccinations in those settings. I think it's time for us to reset our expectations and really learn to live with the virus while also hoping that everyone can become vaccinated, including our under 5-year-olds.
DR. ADAMS: And key point for your--for your viewers really quickly this--because this is key. When you look at the kids who are being hospitalized right now with COVID, two things really stick out to doctors like myself and Dr. Wen. Number one, they're unvaccinated, the majority of them. Number two--number two risk factor is that they're coming from families where people around them are unvaccinated. So, Dr. Wen mentioned her kids are not eligible for vaccination. But she's doing all she can by making sure she and everyone who they encounter are vaccinated and providing this protective cocoon for these kids when they're in a home environment, or an environment which she can control.
So, the number one thing your viewers, your listeners, your readers can do to protect kids and their ability to safely go to school is to get people vaccinated if they're eligible, and for people who aren't eligible, to make sure that everyone around them who can get vaccinated is actually vaccinated. That is just so incredibly important, and we need to keep hammering that point home to people. That's how we safely reopen schools and keep our kids out of trouble.
And the other point, Dr. Wen, we talked about science. She mentioned the math. Omicron has shown itself to be about a third as likely to send people to the hospital as delta variant. One-third. But it's shown itself to be four to five times more contagious. So, on an individual level, if you've got to pick between omicron and delta, you want omicron, and it's going to be much less likely to send you to the hospital. But on a population level, we're still seeing hospitals being overwhelmed because one-third as likely times four times as many people getting it means you still have about a 1.3, a significantly increased chance of people on a population level ending up in the hospital.
And instead of looking at broad cases, one of the things we need to look at when we talk about reopening schools, or reopening other places and relaxing other measures, is our hospital capacity. We're back to the point where in many communities, we do need to flatten the curve, because we've cancelled elective cases. We're not doing things from a screening perspective that we could and should be doing for other people out there. And so that's where that pushing that pole between reopening, but also making sure we're preserving our emergency response capacity is going to play out in the next six months, or really in the next six weeks, quite frankly, in communities across the country.
MS. STEAD SELLERS: So, Dr. Wen, Dr. Adams, you raise an interesting term--that delta again, of course, which hasn't gone away, although it seems to be being replaced rapidly by omicron. You've spoken about--you’ve both now spoken about omicron being less severe. I have heard people saying let's just get it. Let's hope we get some boosts of immunity or it's a good time for me. It's winter anyway. How about an omicron party? What do you say to that?
DR. WEN: I would not recommend such a party. We do not recommend these chicken pox parties. And I'll explain why. But I also do want to acknowledge that I understand where these individuals are coming from. I think the disconnect that's occurring now is that the risk to the individual who's vaccinated and boosted is very low of omicron. But at the same time, the risk to society that omicron poses is very high.
And I wrote about this last week, because sometimes there's this disconnect when we're looking at the news. We see one article saying hospitals are really crumbling under the strain of omicron. This is a crisis. But on the other hand, how does this compute that omicron is milder. Well, the reason this computes, and I think the reason why some people are saying let me just get it over with and get omicron, is they're recognizing--rightfully so--that the individual risk to them, especially if they're vaccinated and boosted of becoming severely ill due to omicron is very low. But what's going on is that when you have, as Dr. Adams was explaining, on a population level many people getting infected all at once, some percentage is going to get severely ill. They're going to end up in hospitals, primarily those who are unvaccinated, but also some who are vaccinated and have underlying medical conditions. They will strain our healthcare system. In addition, if you have a lot of people out of work all at the same time in different sectors, you're going to see, as we are, fire departments being in a state of emergency because they don't have enough staff, and enough paramedics and firefighters. We see police departments not being adequately staffed, which is also a public safety and public health matter. Airlines being canceled, food workers being out. And so there are major societal disruptions occurring because of omicron.
So, I’ll say the reasons why you don't want to get omicron. Number one, I don't think any of us want to contribute to the total collapse of our society. We also don't know who we might end up infecting not even directly, but through the chains of transmission. I'm sure none of us want to be the cause of somebody in a nursing home dying because we got somebody else infected who then infected that person.
And then I would also say for the third part, a lot of us just don't want to get sick at all. I mean, I--every season, I don't want to get the flu. If I end up getting the flu or some other virus and ends up knocking me out, I can't go to work, I can't--I have to separate from my family, who's going to take care of my kids. There are lots of inconveniences to being out, not to mention the possibility, though small but the possibility of long haul COVID and long-term symptoms as well. So, I'd still say that the best thing that we can do is to avoid getting omicron, avoid getting COVID by taking common sense measures, including hand hygiene, wearing high-quality masks, as we both talked about, but I think at the end of the day also recognizing that omicron is everywhere, that many people despite taking a lot of precautions are still going to get it. There should be no shame associated with getting it. The key is understanding that if we're going to be exposed, let's have all the protections, including masking, the vaccination and boosters, and then also coming to terms with the fact that we're not getting rid of COVID. This whole idea of wrestling with risk, trying to reduce our risk while trying to get back to things that we really care about, that is our new normal going forward.
MS. STEAD SELLERS: So I'm very glad you mentioned long COVID, because I knew that I'd be hearing from people about long COVID if we didn't mention it right now. Dr. Adams, as a follow to that, do we have any sense that a milder form of the coronavirus will have any less impact on long COVID or could give us less long COVID?
DR. ADAMS: Well, the most honest answer that we--that I can give you to that question is two-fold. One is that we haven't had omicron around long enough to be able to talk about long COVID with omicron. We're literally just, you know, six weeks out from it first appearing on the radar in South Africa. So, it's really hard for us to track long symptoms. That's number one.
Number two, when it comes to talking about long COVID, is that we are increasingly finding that people who had mild infections, initially from delta and from previous variants, are still experiencing symptoms, months out, months out from their prior infection, years out now as we go into year three. So we really cannot under estimate, we can't afford to underestimate the impact of potential long haul symptoms. We hope--we hope that omicron, both being clinically less severe, and also encountering more and more people who are vaccinated, will lessen the chances of long haul, but it's not something that I as a doctor want to take a chance with. I actually know several people who've been infected with omicron and who have persistent symptoms weeks out from their--from their initial infection.
And so it's not something that you want to take lightly. And people who have gotten it, you know, you don't want to get the flu in any given year, if you can--if you can afford not to. So just because you're going to get over it acutely doesn't mean that you--it's something that you want to deal with acutely, and certainly not something you want to risk from a long-haul perspective.
Giving yourself a little bit of time--and some people say it's inevitable; you're going to get it. That may be the case. And again, we shouldn't feel bad or shame ourselves. But the longer we can push it off, the more likely there will be testing available, there will be oral antivirals available, the hospitals won't be overwhelmed. And there may even be new treatments out there. So, the more we can push it off, even if it is going to be inevitable that we're going to be exposed, the better for us and the better for society.
MS. STEAD SELLERS: You have both been critical of CDC messaging, and it came to something of a crisis last week. At the end of the week, we saw the CDC Director, Dr. Rochelle Walensky, taking back some messaging to the CDC and talking directly in a press conference on Friday morning. Dr. Wen, is this too little, too late? Is the fault with the messaging or the or the messengers themselves? Where do you stand on this, and what can be done?
DR. WEN: Yeah, I actually think that Dr. Walensky is a fabulous communicator. I don't think that the--that the messenger is the issue, or the communication is the issue. I actually think the much bigger problem is the problem with the message itself. That is, if you have a policy that's problematic and convoluted, there's no brilliant messenger at all who's going to be able to figure out how to communicate this. In fact, it’s only going to get more muddled over time.
And so let's take the isolation guidance as a as a good example, because I think a lot of people have said--and I know Dr. Adams has been very critical of the isolation guidance as well--I wish that the CDC had come out and really explained what is their rationale for changing the isolation guidance. If they had said, as an example, that, hey, we just don't have enough tests. We we're not saying that tests aren't valuable or aren't needed, but we don't have enough tests to be able to test out of isolation, that's why we cannot make an official testing recommendation, I think a lot of people would say, oh, okay, that makes sense. I'll use the test when it’s available. But if none is available, here's what--here's what I will do.
Or another possible reason I think for the CDC’s isolation guidance is too many essential workers are out of work. And we are facing a potential collapse of our entire healthcare system and of society if we don't have--you know, if we don't have key people in public safety and manufacturing able to be at work. So, I think if they said we have to maintain societal function, this is the reason why essential workers have to be--have to have shortened isolation, I actually think that that would have helped matters as well to fully understand the reason behind why the guidance is being--is being given. So, I think that's one thing, is being clear about the reason. If it is--is it that the science has really changed? Or is there a practical component behind it as well?
But I think another part is so much of the CDC’s decisions seem to be happening behind closed doors within a very small group of people, and those people may not always have the on-the-ground experience of being clinicians or local or state health officials. And I think one thing that CDC could do that would be immediately beneficial would be to start issuing draft guidance. They could issue draft guidance, 48 hours or something like that, ahead of the final guidance. And as a result, they'd be able to solicit a wide range of viewpoints. And that's also a way for them to pressure test ideas, too, so that people can immediately come and say, hey, this wouldn't make sense because businesses might see this impact in a certain way and health departments might see it in another. I mean, doing something like that allows them to get a wider array of viewpoints, including from those on the front lines, and I think helps to prevent some of the major problems that they're seeing, which, again, is not so much with the message itself, I believe, but rather with the underlying policy.
MS. STEAD SELLERS: Dr. Adams--
DR. ADAMS: Couldn't agree more. Couldn’t agree more with her. And what your viewers may not know is that Dr. Wen used to run the Baltimore Health Department, and I used to run the Indiana State Health Department. And this is something that we continually get frustrated about with multiple administrations when they roll out this guidance and they expect Dr. Wen or myself to explain it to people in our constituencies. And they didn't give us any chance to give feedback, when if they had, we could have easily said, well, that's not going to work, or perhaps you say that in a slightly different way.
To invoke my Southern Maryland roots, as Dr. Wen said, it's hard to put lipstick on a pig. And we need to make sure the message is as sound as it can be up front so that everyone can be a much more effective messenger. It's a terrible position to put Dr. Walensky in to ask her to come out and clean up a message that wasn't crafted appropriately in the first place.
MS. STEAD SELLERS: So let me ask you, Dr. Adams, you've mentioned tests, you've mentioned pills. These new antiviral pills need a prescription. They need a positive PCR test, which can take, as we know, 48 hours. You just told us you ran a local health department, a state health department. How is this going to work? And what impact do you see it having on health equity, which is something I would love you to address before we finish today?
DR. ADAMS: Well, I think that it's not going to be as impactful in the United States, at least not in the immediate future, as many people are predicting that it could be. And what do I mean by that? I hear people saying game changer for these oral antivirals. It's not a game changer if you can't get people tested. And right now, people can't get tests in a timely manner. These pills have to be given within the first several days of symptom onset, ideally, within the first two days of symptom onset. And right now, the average U.S. citizen cannot, is not getting access to testing in that manner. So, we need a testing strategy to be able to appropriately administer these in the first place.
And I just finished another interview where there was talk about equitable distribution of these pills, we need to make sure--and treatments. We need to make sure the treatments are available in communities, that providers have an algorithm to work through so that they understand who should be getting what, and a timely testing strategy so that we can get people to the provider quickly, and then the provider can quickly figure out, okay, you should get an oral antiviral, oh, you should be admitted, you should get remdesivir, you should get monoclonal antibodies. And that's something we haven't seen yet. It's still really clinician to clinician decision making. And we've got a lot of work to do if we want to optimize the delivery of treatments to people
MS. STEAD SELLERS: Optimizing the delivery of treatments. Thank you both so much for joining me, Dr. Wen and Dr. Adams. Thank you for your insights about the next six months with omicron and whatever else the coronavirus brings us.
DR. ADAMS: Get your vaccine, get your booster, wear your mask. That's how we get through the next six months safely.
DR. WEN: Agree. And thank you, everyone. Thank you, Frances.
MS. STEAD SELLERS: Thanks so much for joining us, everybody. That’s all we have time for today. If you want to see more of our upcoming programming, please go to WashingtonPostLive.com where you can see a full list. Thank you so much. I’m Frances Stead Sellers. | null | null | null | null | null |
New Hampshire is again dealing with a record number of COVID-19 cases. Join Washington Post Live on Wednesday, Jan. 19 at 11:00 a.m. ET for a conversation with New Hampshire Gov. Chris Sununu (R) about his strategy in dealing with the omicron and delta variants, his use of the National Guard to aid health-care facilities and his decision not to run for the U.S. Senate in 2022 but seek a fourth term as governor. | null | null | null | null | null |
The year began with continued severe drought in California and the western U.S., which at the time expanded over almost half the West. While dramatic improvement has since ensued due to prolific December snowfall, the drought would prove a slow-motion disaster that would wreak havoc on agriculture and severely impact the broader region’s economy. Numerous reservoirs dropped to record low levels.
While difficult to put a price tag on, the unprecedented late June heat wave in the Pacific Northwest was blamed for hundreds of excess deaths. It sent temperatures skyrocketing to 108 degrees in Seattle and 116 in Portland, obliterating records. Scientists concluded that that event was made at least 150 times as likely due to human-caused climate change.
The combination of heat and drought created tinderbox conditions for wildfires in the western states. California’s Dixie Fire, which consumed over 960,000 acres, was the state’s second largest on record. The smoke from the western fires spread across the entire country during the summer, degrading air quality even in the Mid-Atlantic and Northeast.
Interspersed in the pervasive aridity in the West were a number of atmospheric river events, including a fire hose of moisture that swept through Central California between January 24 and 29.
“Rainfall totals exceeded 15 inches in Monterey and San Luis Obispo counties,” wote NOAA, which triggered flash flooding and mudslides, including on burn scars left by wildfires between 2018 and 2020. Highway 1 south of Big Sur was washed out by the water, while several feet of snow fell in the Sierra Nevada. Extensive power outages also occurred. That event costs $1.2 billion, NOAA said.
A piece of the polar vortex broke away from the North Pole in mid-February, leading to a once-in-a-generation cold event in Texas that knocked out power to 10 million people. Residents suffered through the coldest air mass to visit since 1989, with temperatures some 40 degrees below normal. Houston dipped to 13 degrees, Dallas to minus-2 and Oklahoma City to minus-14. Galveston even saw thundersnow, with snow recorded as far south as Brownsville and the Mexican border. With a damage price tag of $24 billion, it was the year’s second most expensive weather event.
Ida brought both a flood and severe thunderstorm disaster to the Northeast, and a wind and storm surge disaster to southeast Louisiana. Wind gusts up to 172 mph were recorded near the Mississippi River Delta, the Category 4 storm whizzing ashore with 150 mph sustained winds near Grand Isle on August 29. According to NOAA, every home in Grand Isle suffered damage and at least 40 percent were destroyed.
Ida went on to drop a slew of higher-end significant tornadoes across the Northeast, including an EF3 in Mullica Hill, N.J.. Heavy rain was falling along the Interstate 95 corridor at the same time Midwestern-style twisters were carving through towns. A staggering 3.15 inches of rain came down in an hour’s time in New York’s Central Park, with 3.24 inches falling in an hour at Newark International Airport; both set one-hour records. Newark wound up with 8.41 inches on Sept. 1 alone, the city’s heaviest calendar-day total dating back to at least 1931. More than 40 people died in widespread floods on Sept. 1, which also overwhelmed infrastructure and drainage capacity.
2021 was a seemingly backyard year for severe weather; the month of December yielded more tornadoes than did March or April but the spring tornadoes were still destructive.
A tornado outbreak on March 24-25 dropped several long-track, powerful tornadoes in Alabama, one of which impacted cities like Greensboro, Brent and Centreville and stayed on the ground for more than 80 miles. An EF3 tornado tore through the southern suburbs of Birmingham and even damaged the home of veteran Alabama meteorologist James Spann, who stepped off the air momentarily to call his wife. An EF4 tornado later that night blew threw Newnan, Ga., with debris falling as far north as Atlanta. It was the strongest tornado of the year until December.
Hail in Texas was also responsible for multiple billion-dollar disasters. One hailstorm west of Austin brought a billion dollars in damage on April 12, and a trio of hailstorms lashed suburbs of San Antonio, Fort Worth and Oklahoma City on the night of April 27. A “gargantuan” hailstone recovered in Hondo, Tex. was measured at roughly 6.5 inches in diameter and later certified as a record in the Lone Star State.
The majority of disasters in 2021 shared something in common: they were the result of natural variability, or randomness, but made worse by the effects of climate change and societal/socioeconomic trends.'
There’s no reason to expect a slowdown of disasters leading into 2022. Climate change isn’t going away and the ongoing La Niña pattern favors both increased tornado and hurricane activity as long as it lasts. | null | null | null | null | null |
Colorado Gov. Jared Polis (D) planted an unexpected flag on the coronavirus pandemic a month ago: The pandemic emergency was over and if you end up in the hospital after being infected with the virus because you weren’t vaccinated, “it’s your fault.”
At the time, the comments gained attention in part because Polis is a Democrat. The it’s-up-to-you mantra Polis was embracing was more like something you’d hear from Republican Gov. Greg Abbott of Texas than from the chief executive of a blue state. But it was also a recognition of where the pandemic was after the initial surge of the delta variant. Those who had been vaccinated were better protected against infection and against hospitalization and death, so Polis was largely just recognizing reality: Coloradans should get vaccinated, and, if they didn’t, that’s that.
There are short-term political benefits for DeSantis in cutting down on testing. When cases spiked in Florida over the summer, the governor insisted that it was a result of Florida experiencing its “covid season.” This was defensive; DeSantis is seeking reelection next year and a potential presidential bid in 2024, so it’s useful to tie surges in infections to inevitability rather than leadership. His defenders were quick to predict that cases would surge in the Northeast, come winter, reinforcing the seasonality of the virus. And indeed, cases have surged in the Northeast — and once again, in Florida. By limiting testing, the state tamps down on the size of its reported surge in cases and dampens such comparisons. (If you’re skeptical that the state would play tricks like this, note how it reports covid-19 death numbers.)
Infection triumphalism. There was another Florida-related development in recent days that bears mentioning. Right-wing media (and DeSantis’s team) celebrated Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s (D-N.Y.) maskless, outdoor Florida vacation as a tribute to Florida’s less-stringent rules governing the spread of the virus.
Fox News’s Tucker Carlson has gone further, suggesting on his show that vaccine boosters actually increase the chance you’ll get infected. Predictably, this has no foundation in fact, with Carlson completely misinterpreting a non-peer-reviewed study looking at infection rates. The researchers found higher infection rates from omicron in people who had been vaccinated relative to delta infection rates. So it wasn’t Ms. Vaxxed getting infected more often than Mr. Unvaxxed; it was Ms. Boosted being multiple times more likely to be infected by omicron than delta because omicron is better at evading immunity protections. That multiple was higher for someone boosted than for an unvaccinated person because the unvaccinated person was a lot more likely to be infected by delta. The paper even says that the researchers “found an increased transmission for unvaccinated individuals, and a reduced transmission for booster-vaccinated individuals, compared to fully vaccinated individuals.” | null | null | null | null | null |
Now, ITV News reports it has a copy of an email invite for a second garden party, this one on May 20, 2020, from Johnson’s private secretary, Martin Reynolds, to more than 100 staff members at Downing Street, which, like the White House, serves as both office and residence for the country’s leader.
Cummings, once called “Johnson’s brain,” who was instrumental in winning the Brexit vote to leave the European Union, is not without sin. During the first lockdown, in March 2020, he flouted strict rules and damaged public trust in the government’s handling of the pandemic. He drove six hours north, to shelter at his family farm, after he and his wife were infected with the virus. Later, he drove to a nearby castle known for sightseeing — to test his eyesight, he claimed.
All these doings have led critics to assert that there appears to be one rule for the people, and another for the elites.
On its broadcast on Monday, ITV News reminded viewers that on May 20, 2020, the same day as the BYOB invite, then Culture Secretary Oliver Dowden told the public at a press briefing: “You can meet one person outside of your household in an outdoor, public place provided that you stay two meters apart.”
Case was forced to recuse himself from the probe after reports that a party was held in his own office around the same time. | null | null | null | null | null |
Trash in an alley in Northwest Washington on Jan 10. (Justin Wm. Moyer/The Washington Post)
A previous version of this article said an electricity customer was serviced by the Rappahannock Electric Cooperative. She is serviced by the Central Virginia Electric Cooperative. The article has been corrected.
At about 5 p.m. Monday, about 2,100 Rappahannock Electric Cooperative members did not have power — down from a peak of 98,000 amid last week’s bad weather. By contrast, Dominion Power’s outage map showed around 300 customers without power statewide.
Problems in the Rappahannock area included hundreds of broken poles and downed trees at thousands of locations, said Casey Hollins, a spokeswoman for Rappahannock Electric Cooperative. Because the cooperative serves more rural, isolated areas than other utilities, repairs can take longer.
Crystal Detamore, a Central Virginia Electric Cooperative customer who lives near Gordonsville, Va., said her family was running its generator and using two propane fireplaces to keep the house “somewhat warm” before power was restored around 1 p.m. Monday — a full week after she had lost power. At about 5 p.m. Monday, about 400 CVEC customers still did not have power.
A digital marketing strategist who works remotely, Detamore said she needs electricity to work — the outage is not just an inconvenience, but a “wake-up call about infrastructure.”
The outage also comes as Rappahannock has fought attempts to make its operations more transparent in court, according to Detamore.
D.C. officials did not immediately respond to requests for comment. In a tweet on Sunday, the city’s Department of Public Works said it was “back on regular schedule” after pickups were delayed last week and said residents who missed pickups should call 311.
A former postal employee who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they fear retaliation said they were among a group of workers laid off from a job at a Northwest Washington post office on Dec. 31.
In response to an inquiry from The Post, USPS spokesman Mark Wahl said in an email that about 40 seasonal workers’ employment periods expired Dec. 31.
“Every year, the Postal Service offers seasonal positions to serve for a brief period between Thanksgiving and New Year’s Day, our busiest time of the year,” he wrote. “Seasonal positions are not permanent positions, and employees are generally hired into these positions for a specified period of time.”
Wahl added that some D.C. postal stations closed on Tuesday due to the weather but are now open.
Julia Miller, who lives in the District’s Brightwood Park neighborhood, said she had not received any mail since Dec. 30. A birthday card from her mother, who lives across town, took three weeks to arrive, she said.
“I used to live in Burkina Faso, and I would say that the quality of our mail delivery is probably on par with Ouagadougou,” Miller told The Post by email. | null | null | null | null | null |
‘Grand Theft Auto’ game publisher to buy ‘FarmVille’-maker Zynga for record $12.7 billion
Video game publisher Take-Two Interactive announced Monday it will acquire mobile game maker Zynga for an estimated $12.7 billion, the highest sum ever paid to buy another video game company. The deal continues an industry trend of video game publishers coveting and courting mobile game makers. Zynga makes the popular mobile titles “FarmVille” and “Words With Friends.”
Take-Two is known for making blockbuster hits like “BioShock,” “Red Dead Redemption 2” and “Grand Theft Auto V.” Take-Two estimated in a news release that the Zynga acquisition will net the company over $500 million in annual sales “over time” from making new mobile versions of its console and PC titles once it moves over Zynga’s nearly 3,000 employees. Take-Two also anticipates saving $100 million by combining companies and cutting general expenses.
The purchase will be made using both cash and shares of stock, according to Take-Two. Both companies were already publicly traded on Nasdaq. Zynga’s stock is up over 40 percent Monday at over $8 a share, while Take-Two is down roughly 15 percent at just under $143 a share.
“It’s a shrewd decision by [Take-Two CEO Strauss] Zelnick to reposition Take-Two as a game publisher that can cater to the full breadth of the market,” said Joost van Dreunen, a lecturer on the business of games at the New York University Stern School of Business.
Craig Chapple, mobile insights strategist at Sensor Tower, noted that mobile gaming is more profitable than console or PC gaming alone, and that Zynga’s mobile sales in 2021 were over six times greater than Take-Two’s, with consumers spending more than $2 billion last year. | null | null | null | null | null |
The year began with continued severe drought in California, which at the time expanded over almost half the West. While dramatic improvement has since ensued due to prolific December snowfall, the drought would prove a slow-motion disaster that would wreak havoc on agriculture and severely impact the broader region’s economy. Numerous reservoirs dropped to record low levels.
While difficult to put a price tag on, the unprecedented late June heat wave in the Pacific Northwest was blamed for hundreds of excess deaths. It sent temperatures skyrocketing to 108 degrees in Seattle and 116 in Portland, obliterating records. Scientists concluded that that event was made at least 150 times more likely due to human-caused climate change.
The combination of heat and drought created tinderbox conditions for wildfires in the western states. California’s Dixie Fire, which consumed more than 960,000 acres, was the state’s second-largest on record. The smoke from the western fires spread across the entire country during the summer, degrading air quality even in the Mid-Atlantic and Northeast.
Interspersed in the pervasive aridity in the West were a number of atmospheric river events, including a fire hose of moisture that swept through Central California from Jan. 24 to 29.
“Rainfall totals exceeded 15 inches in Monterey and San Luis Obispo counties,” wrote NOAA, which triggered flash flooding and mudslides, including on burn scars left by wildfires between 2018 and 2020. Highway 1 south of Big Sur was washed out by the water, while several feet of snow fell in the Sierra Nevada. Extensive power outages also occurred. That event costs $1.2 billion, NOAA said.
A piece of the polar vortex broke away from the North Pole in mid-February, leading to a once-in-a-generation cold event in Texas that knocked out power to 10 million people. Residents suffered through the coldest air mass to visit since 1989, with temperatures some 40 degrees below normal. Houston dipped to 13 degrees, Dallas to minus-2 and Oklahoma City to minus-14. Galveston even saw thundersnow, with snow recorded as far south as Brownsville and the Mexican border. With a damage price tag of $24 billion, it was the year’s second-most-expensive weather event.
Ida brought both a flood and severe thunderstorm disaster to the Northeast, and a wind and storm surge disaster to southeast Louisiana. Gusts up to 172 mph were recorded near the Mississippi River Delta, the Category 4 storm whizzing ashore with 150 mph sustained winds near Grand Isle on Aug. 29. According to NOAA, every home in Grand Isle suffered damage and at least 40 percent were destroyed.
Ida went on to drop a slew of higher-end significant tornadoes across the Northeast, including an EF3 in Mullica Hill, N.J. Heavy rain was falling along the Interstate 95 corridor at the same time Midwestern-style twisters were carving through towns. A staggering 3.15 inches of rain came down in an hour’s time in New York’s Central Park, with 3.24 inches falling in an hour at Newark International Airport; both set one-hour records. Newark wound up with 8.41 inches on Sept. 1 alone, the city’s heaviest calendar-day total dating to at least 1931. More than 40 people died in widespread floods Sept. 1, which also overwhelmed infrastructure and drainage capacity.
2021 was a seemingly backyard year for severe weather; the month of December yielded more tornadoes than did March or April, but the spring tornadoes were still destructive.
A tornado outbreak March 24-25 dropped several long-track, powerful tornadoes in Alabama, one of which impacted cities like Greensboro, Brent and Centreville and stayed on the ground for more than 80 miles. An EF3 tornado tore through the southern suburbs of Birmingham and even damaged the home of veteran Alabama meteorologist James Spann, who stepped off the air momentarily to call his wife. An EF4 tornado later that night blew threw Newnan, Ga., with debris falling as far north as Atlanta. It was the strongest tornado of the year until December.
Hail in Texas was also responsible for multiple billion-dollar disasters. One hailstorm west of Austin brought a billion dollars in damage April 12, and a trio of hailstorms lashed suburbs of San Antonio, Fort Worth and Oklahoma City on the night of April 27. A “gargantuan” hailstone recovered in Hondo, Tex., was measured at roughly 6.5 inches in diameter and later certified as a record in the Lone Star State.
The majority of disasters in 2021 shared something in common: They were the result of natural variability, or randomness, but made worse by the effects of climate change and societal/socioeconomic trends.
There’s no reason to expect a slowdown of disasters into 2022. Climate change isn’t going away, and the ongoing La Niña pattern favors both increased tornado and hurricane activity as long as it lasts. | null | null | null | null | null |
In one episode, a horse gets into the house. Joey and Jesse try to hide it from Danny by telling them they have a surprise for him, but he has to close his eyes as not to ruin it. “Wait,” says Danny, sniffing the air. “I know what the surprise is. Joey, you’re making that chili again!”
It wasn’t just that he played a genial guy on TV. By seemingly all accounts, he was one of the nicest people in show business. After his death, “Raising Dad” actress Kat Dennings called him “the loveliest man,” adding “I was his TV daughter for one season and he was always so kind and protective.” Billy Crystal called him “one of the funniest and sweetest people I have ever known.” Candace Cameron Bure, who played one of his daughters on “Full House” wrote that he was “was one of the best humans beings I’ve ever known in my life.”
Saget’s version is so gleefully foul, not only can it not be printed in a family paper — I can’t even link to it. He breaks in the middle of painting a seven-minute, Virgil-style epic of hardcore depravity to ask, “What the f--- am I doing?” He quickly resumes. It made him a Dostoevsky of smut. | null | null | null | null | null |
Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra has called for a review of a Medicare premium increase. (Bonnie Jo Mount/The Washington Post)
Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra gave the instructions to the Centers for Medicare and Medicare Services (CMS), the agency that oversees the program, saying a review of the Part B premium is needed because of a price drop in a controversial Alzheimer’s drug that Medicare does not yet pay for but might begin covering soon.
Aduhelm’s manufacturer, Biogen, set its initial price at $56,000 — sparking an outcry from the drug’s proponents and critics alike. That price tag was part of the reason that, when CMS announced the Part B premium for 2022 in November, the monthly amount consumers must pay rose from $148.50 to $170.10. The increase is the largest in dollar amount in the program’s history, which dates to President Lyndon B. Johnson’s Great Society of the 1960s. In percentage terms, it is the fourth-largest hike.
In November, the agency noted great uncertainty about how much the drug would weaken Medicare’s already-fragile finances, if it were to be covered. “Depending on utilization, the potential costs for this course of treatment range from negligible to very significant,” the agency wrote in the Federal Register notice about this year’s premiums.
In a two-sentence announcement of his directive, Becerra called the price change “dramatic,” and said it “is a compelling basis for CMS to reexamine” the monthly premium that began this month.
“It’s unprecedented for any administration to adjust premiums up or down while they’ve been announced,” said Tricia Neuman, a senior vice president at the health policy organization Kaiser Family Foundation who has specialized in Medicare for three decades. “I don’t know of any example.”
The agency “is reviewing the secretary’s statement to determine next steps,” said Beth Lynk, a CMS spokeswoman. The agency did not address the question of how long the rethinking might take or how it would work. | null | null | null | null | null |
World Digest: Jan 10, 2022
Rights group closes, cites persecution
Intelligence chief held over suspected leaks
The head of Denmark’s foreign intelligence unit, Lars Findsen, has been remanded in custody over his involvement in a case of “highly classified” information leaks, public broadcaster DR reported Monday.
Findsen is the only one who remains in custody while the investigation continues. The news, reported by DR and other media, emerged at a court hearing Monday when a publication ban was lifted.
E.U.: Serb secessionist rhetoric needs to stop
The Bosnian Serb leadership risks sanctions and a loss of aid should it continue to incite tensions among Bosnian communities with inflammatory rhetoric as used during the celebrations of its statehood day Sunday, the European Union said Monday.
Haiti's Senate reconvenes after 1 year amid instability: Haiti's Senate reconvened Monday for the first time in a year with only a handful of legislators present, a move that highlighted the country's dysfunctional government as it prepares for elections after the assassination of President Jovenel Moïse. The 30-member Senate has only 10 lawmakers because the country failed to hold legislative elections originally scheduled for October 2019 and later postponed several times. Of those 10 members, only about seven showed up as Senate President Joseph Lambert delivered his speech at Parliament in downtown Port-au-Prince.
Paris attacks trial set to resume, French media report: The main suspect in the November 2015 Islamist attack that killed 130 people in Paris has recovered from his coronavirus infection, allowing the trial into the attacks to resume soon, French media reported Monday. Salah Abdeslam "is in a position ... to attend the hearing by the criminal court," according to a medical expert on France Television, which said on its website that Abdeslam will be able to attend the trial's next session Tuesday. Abdeslam, 31, is believed by prosecutors to be the only surviving member of the Islamic State cell that carried out the gun and bomb attacks on bars, restaurants, the Bataclan concert hall and the Stade de France stadium on Nov. 13, 2015.
The trial, which began in September, is one of the most complex and closely followed in modern French history. | null | null | null | null | null |
Opinion: Remembering the humble Sam Jones
Boston's Sam Jones, left, drives past the Lakers’ Jerry West (44) in the teams’ NBA playoff game in Los Angeles on May 2, 1968. (Hf/AP)
More than 30 years after NBA great Sam Jones retired from the Boston Celtics, he played basketball at Montgomery Blair High School in Silver Spring, where he worked as a substitute and where I taught from 1970 to 2005 [“Hall of Famer won 10 titles with Celtics,” obituaries, Jan. 3]. During his free period and after school, he shot baskets in the school gym. Often, a student, oblivious to whom he was speaking, would challenge Jones to a game of horse or one-on-one. I never saw any of those games, but Jones told me about them. He said he still could hit that long jump shot that had earned him the nickname “the Shooter,” and so usually he won handily, though he was then in his 60s.
I’ve always envied those students but wonder if they ever knew who they were up against. Jones was a humble man, so he might never have told them.
John Mathwin, Rockville | null | null | null | null | null |
Race in America: Giving Voice with Quiara Alegría Hudes
Quiara Alegría Hudes is a Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright who also wrote the book for the musical “In the Heights” and screenplay for its film adaptation. On Thursday, Jan. 20 at 11:00 a.m. ET, Washington Post national correspondent Arelis R. Hernández speaks with Hudes about her memoir “My Broken Language,” on growing up between cultures and how her roots have shaped her creative voice.
Quiara Alegría Hudes
Quiara Alegría Hudes is the Pulitzer Prize–winning playwright of Water by the Spoonful and the author of a memoir, My Broken Language. She wrote the book for the Tony-winning Broadway musical In the Heights and later adapted it for the screen. Her notable essays include “High Tide of Heartbreak” in American Theatre magazine and “Corey Couldn’t Take It Anymore” in The Cut. As a prison reform activist, Hudes and her cousin founded Emancipated Stories, a platform where people behind bars can share one page of their life story with the world. She lives with her family in New York but frequently returns to her native Philly. | null | null | null | null | null |
In one episode, a horse gets into the house. Joey and Jesse try to hide it from Danny by telling him they have a surprise for him, but he has to close his eyes as not to ruin it. “Wait,” says Danny, sniffing the air. “I know what the surprise is. Joey, you’re making that chili again!”
It wasn’t just that he played a genial guy on TV. By seemingly all accounts, he was one of the nicest people in show business. After his death, “Raising Dad” actress Kat Dennings called him “the loveliest man,” adding “I was his TV daughter for one season and he was always so kind and protective.” Billy Crystal called him “one of the funniest and sweetest people I have ever known.” Candace Cameron Bure, who played one of his daughters on “Full House,” wrote that he was “was one of the best humans beings I’ve ever known in my life.”
He breaks in the middle of painting a seven-minute, Virgil-style epic of hardcore depravity to ask, “What the f--- am I doing?” He quickly resumes. It made him a Dostoevsky of smut. | null | null | null | null | null |
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