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Cone leads Northern Arizona against Montana State after 24-point game
Montana State Bobcats (12-5, 4-2 Big Sky) at Northern Arizona Lumberjacks (6-9, 2-2 Big Sky)
Flagstaff, Arizona; Thursday, 8 p.m. EST
BOTTOM LINE: Northern Arizona plays the Montana State Bobcats after Jalen Cole scored 24 points in Northern Arizona’s 74-72 win against the Idaho Vandals.
The Lumberjacks have gone 4-3 at home. Northern Arizona is eighth in the Big Sky scoring 69.7 points while shooting 41.9% from the field.
The Bobcats have gone 4-2 against Big Sky opponents. Montana State is third in the Big Sky giving up 68.3 points while holding opponents to 42.3% shooting.
TOP PERFORMERS: Carson Towt is averaging 8.5 points, 9.9 rebounds and four assists for the Lumberjacks. Cone is averaging 18.5 points and 3.2 rebounds while shooting 39.0% over the past 10 games for Northern Arizona.
Jubrile Belo is scoring 13.6 points per game with 6.1 rebounds and 0.9 assists for the Bobcats. Xavier Bishop is averaging 11.9 points and 4.5 assists over the last 10 games for Montana State. | null | null | null | null | null |
Monmouth Hawks (10-6, 2-3 MAAC) at Fairfield Stags (8-9, 2-4 MAAC)
Bridgeport, Connecticut; Thursday, 7:30 p.m. EST
BOTTOM LINE: Monmouth visits the Fairfield Stags after Walker Miller scored 22 points in Monmouth’s 86-85 overtime loss to the Iona Gaels.
The Stags have gone 3-4 in home games. Fairfield is fourth in the MAAC at limiting opponent scoring, giving up 67.1 points while holding opponents to 42.6% shooting.
The Hawks are 2-3 in MAAC play. Monmouth ranks fifth in the MAAC giving up 69.1 points while holding opponents to 39.6% shooting.
The Stags and Hawks match up Thursday for the first time in MAAC play this season.
TOP PERFORMERS: Jake Wojcik is shooting 35.3% from beyond the arc with 2.3 made 3-pointers per game for the Stags, while averaging 10.7 points. Supreme Cook is shooting 51.8% and averaging 8.8 points over the past 10 games for Fairfield.
George Papas is averaging 15.9 points, six rebounds and 3.1 assists for the Hawks. Shavar Reynolds is averaging 13.6 points over the last 10 games for Monmouth.
LAST 10 GAMES: Stags: 4-6, averaging 67.5 points, 33.6 rebounds, 11.5 assists, 5.9 steals and 2.9 blocks per game while shooting 43.0% from the field. Their opponents have averaged 65.2 points per game. | null | null | null | null | null |
Charleston (SC) Cougars (9-6, 1-2 CAA) at Towson Tigers (13-5, 4-1 CAA)
BOTTOM LINE: Towson faces the Charleston (SC) Cougars after James Gibson scored 22 points in Towson’s 91-69 win over the William & Mary Tribe.
The Tigers have gone 6-1 in home games. Towson averages 72.5 points while outscoring opponents by 8.1 points per game.
The Cougars are 1-2 against CAA opponents. Charleston (SC) is the CAA leader with 24.9 defensive rebounds per game led by Dimitrius Underwood averaging 4.7.
The Tigers and Cougars square off Thursday for the first time in conference play this season.
TOP PERFORMERS: Cameron Holden is averaging 14.5 points, 9.1 rebounds and 1.8 steals for the Tigers. Gibson is averaging 11.8 points over the last 10 games for Towson.
Underwood is averaging 10.3 points, 6.7 rebounds, 3.1 assists and 2.4 steals for the Cougars. Reyne Smith is averaging 10.6 points over the last 10 games for Charleston (SC). | null | null | null | null | null |
Haase, Mercer Bears to visit Sloan, East Tennessee State Buccaneers
Mercer Bears (11-7, 4-1 SoCon) at East Tennessee State Buccaneers (11-8, 3-3 SoCon)
FANDUEL SPORTSBOOK LINE: East Tennessee State -3.5; over/under is 142
BOTTOM LINE: Felipe Haase and the Mercer Bears visit David Sloan and the East Tennessee State Buccaneers on Wednesday.
The Buccaneers have gone 6-2 in home games. East Tennessee State has a 4-2 record in games decided by less than 4 points.
The Bears have gone 4-1 against SoCon opponents. Mercer is 3-5 in games decided by 10 points or more.
The Buccaneers and Bears match up Wednesday for the first time in conference play this season.
TOP PERFORMERS: Ty Brewer is averaging 10.1 points and 6.7 rebounds for the Buccaneers. Jordan King is averaging 2.9 made 3-pointers over the last 10 games for East Tennessee State.
Haase is averaging 15.5 points, 5.8 rebounds, 3.3 assists and 1.6 steals for the Bears. Jalen Johnson is averaging 14.5 points, 5.1 rebounds and 1.6 blocks over the last 10 games for Mercer. | null | null | null | null | null |
Manning and the South Alabama Jaguars visit conference foe Louisiana
South Alabama Jaguars (12-5, 2-2 Sun Belt) at Louisiana Ragin’ Cajuns (8-7, 3-2 Sun Belt)
BOTTOM LINE: Charles Manning Jr. and the South Alabama Jaguars visit Jordan Brown and the Louisiana Ragin’ Cajuns on Thursday.
The Ragin’ Cajuns are 5-1 in home games. Louisiana is 3-2 when it turns the ball over less than its opponents and averages 15.3 turnovers per game.
The Jaguars are 2-2 in Sun Belt play. South Alabama is fourth in the Sun Belt allowing 63.9 points while holding opponents to 41.2% shooting.
The Ragin’ Cajuns and Jaguars meet Thursday for the first time in Sun Belt play this season.
TOP PERFORMERS: Kentrell Garnett averages 2.2 made 3-pointers per game for the Ragin’ Cajuns, scoring 7.5 points while shooting 49.1% from beyond the arc. Brown is shooting 49.6% and averaging 13.9 points over the past 10 games for Louisiana.
Kayo Goncalves is shooting 34.3% from beyond the arc with 2.2 made 3-pointers per game for the Jaguars, while averaging 7.5 points. Manning is averaging 17.6 points, 3.8 assists and 1.8 blocks over the past 10 games for South Alabama. | null | null | null | null | null |
Texas State Bobcats (11-4, 2-1 Sun Belt) at Little Rock Trojans (6-8, 1-1 Sun Belt)
Little Rock, Arkansas; Thursday, 7:30 p.m. EST
BOTTOM LINE: Little Rock plays the Texas State Bobcats after Nikola Maric scored 24 points in Little Rock’s 80-72 loss to the UL Monroe Warhawks.
The Trojans have gone 5-2 at home. Little Rock has a 3-7 record in games decided by 10 points or more.
The Bobcats are 2-1 in conference matchups. Texas State is seventh in the Sun Belt scoring 32.4 points per game in the paint led by Nighael Ceaser averaging 0.7.
TOP PERFORMERS: Isaiah Palermo is averaging 12.9 points for the Trojans. Marko Lukic is averaging 1.2 made 3-pointers over the last 10 games for Little Rock.
Mason Harrell is averaging 10.6 points for the Bobcats. Caleb Asberry is averaging 11.3 points over the last 10 games for Texas State. | null | null | null | null | null |
Liberty Flames (13-6, 4-0 ASUN) at Kennesaw State Owls (8-8, 3-0 ASUN)
Kennesaw, Georgia; Thursday, 7 p.m. EST
BOTTOM LINE: Liberty faces the Kennesaw State Owls after Darius McGhee scored 27 points in Liberty’s 88-49 victory against the Jacksonville Dolphins.
The Owls are 6-2 on their home court. Kennesaw State scores 77.4 points while outscoring opponents by 9.0 points per game.
The Flames are 4-0 in ASUN play. Liberty is 4-6 against opponents over .500.
TOP PERFORMERS: Chris Youngblood is averaging 13.8 points and 5.4 rebounds for the Owls. Terrell Burden is averaging 13.1 points over the last 10 games for Kennesaw State.
McGhee is scoring 23.0 points per game and averaging 3.7 rebounds for the Flames. Keegan McDowell is averaging 1.8 made 3-pointers over the last 10 games for Liberty. | null | null | null | null | null |
McKnight leads Western Kentucky against Florida Atlantic after 23-point game
Western Kentucky Hilltoppers (10-7, 2-2 C-USA) at Florida Atlantic Owls (9-8, 2-2 C-USA)
Boca Raton, Florida; Thursday, 7 p.m. EST
BOTTOM LINE: Western Kentucky visits the Florida Atlantic Owls after Dayvion McKnight scored 23 points in Western Kentucky’s 65-60 loss to the North Texas Mean Green.
The Owls are 8-3 on their home court. Florida Atlantic ranks fifth in C-USA in rebounding with 33.6 rebounds. Vladislav Goldin leads the Owls with 5.4 boards.
The Hilltoppers are 2-2 against C-USA opponents. Western Kentucky is eighth in C-USA giving up 68.2 points while holding opponents to 40.3% shooting.
The Owls and Hilltoppers face off Thursday for the first time in conference play this season.
TOP PERFORMERS: Goldin is averaging 6.3 points and 5.4 rebounds for the Owls. Alijah Martin is averaging 2.2 made 3-pointers over the last 10 games for Florida Atlantic.
Camron Justice averages 2.4 made 3-pointers per game for the Hilltoppers, scoring 13.3 points while shooting 37.9% from beyond the arc. McKnight is averaging 10.4 points and 5.5 assists over the past 10 games for Western Kentucky.
Hilltoppers: 6-4, averaging 74.3 points, 32.1 rebounds, 14.1 assists, 7.1 steals and 5.7 blocks per game while shooting 47.0% from the field. Their opponents have averaged 71.4 points. | null | null | null | null | null |
Oakland Golden Grizzlies (13-4, 7-0 Horizon) at Milwaukee Panthers (6-12, 4-5 Horizon)
BOTTOM LINE: Oakland visits the Milwaukee Panthers after Jalen Moore scored 24 points in Oakland’s 76-68 victory against the Purdue Fort Wayne Mastodons.
The Panthers are 3-5 in home games. Milwaukee ranks ninth in the Horizon with 26.2 points per game in the paint led by Patrick Baldwin Jr. averaging 1.3.
The Golden Grizzlies are 7-0 against conference opponents. Oakland ranks fifth in the Horizon with 23.1 defensive rebounds per game led by Jamal Cain averaging 6.7.
The teams meet for the second time in conference play this season. The Golden Grizzlies won 86-65 in the last matchup on Jan. 9. Micah Parrish led the Golden Grizzlies with 19 points, and Josh Thomas led the Panthers with 17 points.
TOP PERFORMERS: Jordan Lathon is averaging 7.1 points, 5.5 rebounds and 3.3 assists for the Panthers. DeAndre Gholston is averaging 16.1 points and 5.1 rebounds over the past 10 games for Milwaukee.
Cain is scoring 19.8 points per game with 9.5 rebounds and 0.6 assists for the Golden Grizzlies. Trey Townsend is averaging 15.3 points and 4.9 rebounds while shooting 56.6% over the last 10 games for Oakland. | null | null | null | null | null |
UT Arlington Mavericks (8-9, 4-2 Sun Belt) at Arkansas State Red Wolves (11-4, 2-1 Sun Belt)
Jonesboro, Arkansas; Thursday, 8 p.m. EST
BOTTOM LINE: UT Arlington takes on the Arkansas State Red Wolves after Patrick Mwamba scored 20 points in UT Arlington’s 62-55 overtime loss to the UL Monroe Warhawks.
The Red Wolves have gone 7-1 in home games. Arkansas State is ninth in the Sun Belt at limiting opponent scoring, giving up 69.4 points while holding opponents to 42.8% shooting.
The Mavericks are 4-2 against Sun Belt opponents. UT Arlington has a 3-4 record in games decided by 10 points or more.
TOP PERFORMERS: Norchad Omier is averaging 16.6 points, 10.9 rebounds and 2.3 blocks for the Red Wolves. Marquis Eaton is averaging 12.6 points over the last 10 games for Arkansas State.
Mwamba is shooting 26.8% from beyond the arc with 1.4 made 3-pointers per game for the Mavericks, while averaging 10.2 points. David Azore is averaging 18.4 points over the past 10 games for UT Arlington. | null | null | null | null | null |
New Mexico State visits Sam Houston after Allen's 41-point performance
New Mexico State Aggies (16-2, 5-0 WAC) at Sam Houston Bearkats (10-9, 5-1 WAC)
BOTTOM LINE: New Mexico State takes on the Sam Houston Bearkats after Teddy Allen scored 41 points in New Mexico State’s 77-63 victory over the Abilene Christian Wildcats.
The Bearkats have gone 6-2 at home. Sam Houston ranks fourth in the WAC shooting 35.0% from deep, led by Tristan Ikpe shooting 40.0% from 3-point range.
The Aggies have gone 5-0 against WAC opponents. New Mexico State ranks fourth in the WAC with 24.5 defensive rebounds per game led by Allen averaging 5.9.
TOP PERFORMERS: Savion Flagg averages 2.8 made 3-pointers per game for the Bearkats, scoring 19.8 points while shooting 39.4% from beyond the arc. Jaden Ray is shooting 47.3% and averaging 9.4 points over the past 10 games for Sam Houston.
Jabari Rice is averaging 13.1 points, 5.3 rebounds and 3.2 assists for the Aggies. Allen is averaging 14.1 points and 5.9 rebounds while shooting 44.7% over the past 10 games for New Mexico State.
Aggies: 10-0, averaging 68.6 points, 33.6 rebounds, 14.4 assists, 4.9 steals and 4.7 blocks per game while shooting 48.3% from the field. Their opponents have averaged 61.9 points. | null | null | null | null | null |
SE Louisiana Lions (9-9, 1-0 Southland) at New Orleans Privateers (8-8, 1-0 Southland)
BOTTOM LINE: New Orleans plays the SE Louisiana Lions after Troy Green scored 26 points in New Orleans’ 78-66 win over the Nicholls State Colonels.
The Privateers are 6-2 on their home court. New Orleans ranks seventh in the Southland with 7.7 offensive rebounds per game led by Robby Robinson averaging 1.6.
The Lions are 1-0 in conference play. SE Louisiana has a 0-1 record in one-possession games.
TOP PERFORMERS: Derek St. Hilaire is averaging 19.2 points and two steals for the Privateers. Green is averaging 14.4 points and 1.5 steals over the past 10 games for New Orleans.
Keon Clergeot is averaging 11.7 points and 3.9 assists for the Lions. Gus Okafor is averaging 9.9 points over the last 10 games for SE Louisiana. | null | null | null | null | null |
North Dakota Fightin’ Hawks (4-14, 0-5 Summit) at Oral Roberts Golden Eagles (12-6, 6-1 Summit)
Tulsa, Oklahoma; Thursday, 8 p.m. EST
BOTTOM LINE: North Dakota plays the Oral Roberts Golden Eagles after Matt Norman scored 27 points in North Dakota’s 73-68 loss to the Western Illinois Leathernecks.
The Golden Eagles are 7-1 in home games. Oral Roberts ranks sixth in college basketball shooting 39.6% from deep, led by Matthew Henton shooting 100.0% from 3-point range.
The Fightin’ Hawks are 0-5 in Summit play. North Dakota has a 2-0 record in games decided by less than 4 points.
The Golden Eagles and Fightin’ Hawks match up Thursday for the first time in conference play this season.
TOP PERFORMERS: Francis Lacis is averaging 6.6 points and 6.6 rebounds for the Golden Eagles. Max Abmas is averaging 3.8 made 3-pointers over the last 10 games for Oral Roberts.
Paul Bruns averages 2.2 made 3-pointers per game for the Fightin’ Hawks, scoring 13.7 points while shooting 38.1% from beyond the arc. Norman is shooting 42.4% and averaging 9.3 points over the past 10 games for North Dakota. | null | null | null | null | null |
North Dakota State plays UMKC, looks for 4th straight road win
North Dakota State Bison (11-6, 3-2 Summit) at UMKC Kangaroos (7-8, 2-3 Summit)
Kansas City, Missouri; Thursday, 8 p.m. EST
BOTTOM LINE: North Dakota State will try to keep its three-game road win streak intact when the Bison face UMKC.
The Kangaroos are 5-3 in home games. UMKC is ninth in the Summit shooting 33.6% from downtown, led by Timothy Barnes shooting 60.0% from 3-point range.
The Bison are 3-2 against conference opponents. North Dakota State averages 73.2 points while outscoring opponents by 4.7 points per game.
The Kangaroos and Bison square off Thursday for the first time in conference play this season.
TOP PERFORMERS: Evan Gilyard averages 2.0 made 3-pointers per game for the Kangaroos, scoring 13.5 points while shooting 37.5% from beyond the arc. Marvin Nesbitt Jr. is shooting 44.6% and averaging 8.9 points over the last 10 games for UMKC.
Rocky Kreuser is averaging 15.5 points and 7.9 rebounds for the Bison. Grant Nelson is averaging 13.0 points over the last 10 games for North Dakota State. | null | null | null | null | null |
Old Dominion Monarchs (7-9, 2-1 C-USA) at Rice Owls (10-6, 3-2 C-USA)
BOTTOM LINE: Rice takes on the Old Dominion Monarchs after Carl Pierre scored 30 points in Rice’s 87-77 victory against the Marshall Thundering Herd.
The Owls have gone 6-1 at home. Rice is 0-1 in games decided by 3 points or fewer.
The Monarchs are 2-1 against C-USA opponents. Old Dominion is eighth in C-USA scoring 30.3 points per game in the paint led by Kalu Ezikpe averaging 3.8.
The Owls and Monarchs match up Thursday for the first time in C-USA play this season.
TOP PERFORMERS: Travis Evee is averaging 15.3 points for the Owls. Pierre is averaging 2.4 made 3-pointers over the last 10 games for Rice.
Jaylin Hunter averages 1.3 made 3-pointers per game for the Monarchs, scoring 9.8 points while shooting 34.5% from beyond the arc. C.J. Keyser is averaging 11.2 points over the last 10 games for Old Dominion. | null | null | null | null | null |
William & Mary Tribe (3-14, 2-2 CAA) at Delaware Fightin’ Blue Hens (12-6, 3-2 CAA)
Newark, Delaware; Thursday, 7 p.m. EST
BOTTOM LINE: Delaware hosts the William & Mary Tribe after Dylan Painter scored 20 points in Delaware’s 82-76 overtime win over the Northeastern Huskies.
The Fightin’ Blue Hens are 5-0 on their home court. Delaware scores 75.3 points and has outscored opponents by 4.5 points per game.
The Tribe are 2-2 against CAA opponents. William & Mary is 2-1 in games decided by less than 4 points.
The Fightin’ Blue Hens and Tribe match up Thursday for the first time in CAA play this season.
TOP PERFORMERS: Painter is shooting 56.0% and averaging 14.4 points for the Fightin’ Blue Hens. Ebby Asamoah is averaging 2.0 made 3-pointers over the last 10 games for Delaware.
Connor Kochera is shooting 34.7% from beyond the arc with 1.5 made 3-pointers per game for the Tribe, while averaging 11.2 points. Ben Wight is averaging 7.1 points over the last 10 games for William & Mary. | null | null | null | null | null |
McNeese Cowboys (7-11, 1-0 Southland) at Texas A&M-CC Islanders (14-4, 1-0 Southland)
Corpus Christi, Texas; Thursday, 8:30 p.m. EST
BOTTOM LINE: McNeese takes on the Texas A&M-CC Islanders after Zach Scott scored 24 points in McNeese’s 78-75 victory against the Houston Baptist Huskies.
The Islanders are 7-0 in home games. Texas A&M-CC is sixth in the Southland with 23.1 defensive rebounds per game led by Isaac Mushila averaging 5.6.
The Cowboys have gone 1-0 against Southland opponents. McNeese is second in the Southland scoring 39.2 points per game in the paint led by Christian Shumate averaging 1.7.
The teams square off for the second time this season in Southland play. The Islanders won the last meeting on Jan. 8. De’Lazarus Keys scored 16 points points to help lead the Islanders to the win.
TOP PERFORMERS: Mushila is scoring 14.6 points per game and averaging 8.5 rebounds for the Islanders. Trey Tennyson is averaging 12.3 points and 1.4 rebounds over the last 10 games for Texas A&M-CC.
Myles Lewis is averaging 11.9 points and six rebounds for the Cowboys. Shumate is averaging 10.1 points and 5.6 rebounds over the last 10 games for McNeese.
Cowboys: 4-6, averaging 67.5 points, 33.1 rebounds, 9.0 assists, 6.3 steals and 2.8 blocks per game while shooting 43.3% from the field. Their opponents have averaged 77.0 points. | null | null | null | null | null |
SFA plays Grand Canyon following Jossell's 23-point game
Grand Canyon Antelopes (15-2, 5-0 WAC) at Stephen F. Austin Lumberjacks (10-6, 3-2 WAC)
BOTTOM LINE: SFA plays the Grand Canyon Antelopes after Latrell Jossell scored 23 points in SFA’s 86-78 victory against the Lamar Cardinals.
The ‘Jacks are 7-2 in home games. SFA averages 74.2 points while outscoring opponents by 2.7 points per game.
The Antelopes are 5-0 against conference opponents. Grand Canyon ranks fourth in college basketball allowing 56.1 points while holding opponents to 38.5% shooting.
TOP PERFORMERS: Gavin Kensmil is scoring 14.6 points per game with 6.9 rebounds and 2.0 assists for the ‘Jacks. David Kachelries is averaging 10.3 points and 3.1 rebounds while shooting 42.6% over the past 10 games for SFA.
Jovan Blacksher Jr. is scoring 16.9 points per game and averaging 3.3 rebounds for the Antelopes. Holland Woods is averaging 1.9 made 3-pointers over the last 10 games for Grand Canyon. | null | null | null | null | null |
Southeast Missouri State plays Tennessee State after Russell's 22-point showing
Tennessee State Tigers (7-10, 2-3 OVC) at Southeast Missouri State Redhawks (6-11, 1-3 OVC)
BOTTOM LINE: Southeast Missouri State takes on the Tennessee State Tigers after Phillip Russell scored 22 points in Southeast Missouri State’s 95-84 loss to the Tennessee State Tigers.
The Redhawks are 4-2 on their home court. Southeast Missouri State is seventh in the OVC with 23.0 defensive rebounds per game led by Nygal Russell averaging 5.2.
The Tigers have gone 2-3 against OVC opponents. Tennessee State ranks second in the OVC shooting 37.8% from 3-point range.
The teams meet for the second time in conference play this season. The Tigers won 95-84 in the last matchup on Jan. 8. Marcus Fitzgerald Jr. led the Tigers with 23 points, and Phillip Russell led the Redhawks with 22 points.
TOP PERFORMERS: Chris Harris is averaging 9.8 points for the Redhawks. Eric Reed Jr. is averaging 14.7 points over the last 10 games for Southeast Missouri State.
Dedric Boyd averages 2.1 made 3-pointers per game for the Tigers, scoring 11.9 points while shooting 37.5% from beyond the arc. Fitzgerald is shooting 40.4% and averaging 13.8 points over the last 10 games for Tennessee State. | null | null | null | null | null |
Seattle U Redhawks (13-4, 4-0 WAC) at Abilene Christian Wildcats (10-6, 2-4 WAC)
Abilene, Texas; Thursday, 8 p.m. EST
BOTTOM LINE: Seattle U visits the Abilene Christian Wildcats after Darrion Trammell scored 25 points in Seattle U’s 92-85 overtime win against the Cal Baptist Lancers.
The Wildcats are 8-2 on their home court. Abilene Christian scores 75.9 points and has outscored opponents by 11.6 points per game.
The Redhawks are 4-0 in WAC play. Seattle U is 1-0 in one-possession games.
The Wildcats and Redhawks meet Thursday for the first time in conference play this season.
TOP PERFORMERS: Coryon Mason is shooting 38.6% from beyond the arc with 1.1 made 3-pointers per game for the Wildcats, while averaging 11.7 points. Cameron Steele is averaging 9.4 points and 5.1 rebounds over the last 10 games for Abilene Christian.
Trammell is averaging 16.5 points, 5.9 assists and 2.9 steals for the Redhawks. Cameron Tyson is averaging 13.4 points and 5.0 rebounds while shooting 42.1% over the past 10 games for Seattle U. | null | null | null | null | null |
UT Rio Grande Valley visits Utah Valley following Aimaq's 27-point performance
UT Rio Grande Valley Vaqueros (6-11, 1-4 WAC) at Utah Valley Wolverines (11-6, 2-3 WAC)
Orem, Utah; Thursday, 8 p.m. EST
BOTTOM LINE: Utah Valley takes on the UT Rio Grande Valley Vaqueros after Fardaws Aimaq scored 27 points in Utah Valley’s 75-73 loss to the Cal Baptist Lancers.
The Wolverines have gone 6-1 in home games. Utah Valley leads the WAC in rebounding, averaging 38.9 boards. Aimaq leads the Wolverines with 13.8 rebounds.
The Vaqueros are 1-4 against WAC opponents. UT Rio Grande Valley is seventh in the WAC scoring 73.4 points per game and is shooting 44.9%.
The Wolverines and Vaqueros match up Thursday for the first time in conference play this season.
TOP PERFORMERS: Aimaq is scoring 19.9 points per game with 13.8 rebounds and 1.6 assists for the Wolverines. Le’Tre Darthard is averaging 8.3 points over the last 10 games for Utah Valley.
Xavier Johnson is shooting 29.2% from beyond the arc with 1.2 made 3-pointers per game for the Vaqueros, while averaging 7.2 points. Justin Johnson is shooting 44.0% and averaging 13.3 points over the past 10 games for UT Rio Grande Valley.
Vaqueros: 2-8, averaging 71.3 points, 29.6 rebounds, 13.6 assists, 5.3 steals and 3.0 blocks per game while shooting 44.7% from the field. Their opponents have averaged 77.0 points. | null | null | null | null | null |
Macomb, Illinois; Thursday, 7 p.m. EST
BOTTOM LINE: Western Illinois plays the South Dakota Coyotes after Trenton Massner scored 31 points in Western Illinois’ 90-79 overtime win against the North Dakota State Bison.
The Leathernecks have gone 6-1 at home. Western Illinois scores 80.5 points while outscoring opponents by 5.4 points per game.
The Coyotes are 3-3 against Summit opponents. South Dakota is seventh in the Summit with 11.6 assists per game led by Kruz Perrott-Hunt averaging 2.2.
The Leathernecks and Coyotes square off Thursday for the first time in Summit play this season.
TOP PERFORMERS: Will Carius is averaging 16.9 points for the Leathernecks. Massner is averaging 17.4 points over the last 10 games for Western Illinois.
Perrott-Hunt is scoring 14.5 points per game and averaging 3.9 rebounds for the Coyotes. Mason Archambault is averaging 13.8 points and 3.4 rebounds over the last 10 games for South Dakota. | null | null | null | null | null |
Pedestrian fatally injured in Fairfax County
A man died after being struck Jan. 8, police say.
A pedestrian has died after being struck by a car in Fairfax County this month, county police said Tuesday.
Joel Gonzalez, 22, of Fairfax, was crossing Lee Highway in what is known as the Fairfax area of the county when he was struck just before midnight on Jan. 8, police said.
Gonzales was crossing from north to south at Forum Drive outside a crosswalk, according to police. A driver who was going east on Lee Highway entered the intersection on a green light and struck the pedestrian, police said.
Gonzales was taken to a hospital where he later died, police said Tuesday. They said they are continuing to investigate.
The area involved is west of Fairfax City. | null | null | null | null | null |
Johnson is struggling to move on from “partygate” — allegations that Downing Street held a string of parties over the last two years at a time when they were banned in the rest of the country because of coronavirus restrictions.
Johnson’s apology in the Commons last week — he admitted to attending a “bring your own booze” Downing Street garden party but said he thought it was a work event — has not quelled a growing rebellion within his own Conservative Party.
Some of those backing the prime minister say that they are awaiting an upcoming report into various parties by Sue Gray, a senior civil servant. She is expected to publish her findings by the end of the month.
The move to oust Johnson gained momentum on Wednesday when, according to the Daily Telegraph, 11 new lawmakers submitted letters of no confidence in Johnson. The paper said that the revolt was from politicians that were elected in 2019 from northern England, where many districts voted Conservative for the first time in their lives.
To trigger a leadership challenge in the Conservative Party, 54 Conservative members of Parliament have to submit letters of no confidence to the chair of the 1922 Committee of backbench Conservatives. They don’t have to do so publicly, so it’s unclear how many letters have been submitted so far.
Johnson has got himself out of political scrapes before, but this one seems to have touched a nerve with the wider British public, who have their own personal experiences of lockdown and the hardship brought by the restrictions at the time. His popularity ratings have sunk to record lows.
In an interview with Sky News on Wednesday, Johnson appeared distressed and hung his head when he was asked about the two parties at Downing Street that were held on the eve of Prince Philip’s funeral. Johnson was not at those particular parities. | null | null | null | null | null |
President Biden answers questions from reporters after delivering remarks on covid last December. He’s relied on such brief, informal exchanges far more than on formal news conferences. (Demetrius Freeman/The Washington Post)
When Joe Biden steps up to a lectern in the East Room of the White House today in front of a roomful of reporters, he will be playing a presidential game of catch-up that many say he has no desire to win.
A year into his tenure in office, Biden’s 4 p.m. news conference will be just his second on U.S. soil and his sixth overall, according to historians who track interactions between presidents and the press. When solo, joint and foreign news conferences are factored in, Biden has held fewer than Donald Trump, Barack Obama and George W. Bush during their first 365 days in office.
The scarcity of formal news conferences cuts down on the opportunities for a politician with a penchant for gaffes and misstatements to make mistakes — but it also elevates the importance of each one, including today’s.
This news conference comes on the eve of Biden’s first-year anniversary in office, and political analysts said that on such occasions keeping a low profile is not a workable strategy.
The White House has not said how long today’s news conference will last. Biden is expected to get a range of questions on difficult topics: the coronavirus pandemic now stretching into its third year, a potential Russian incursion into Ukraine, rising inflation, a social spending plan that has stalled in Congress, a new push for voting rights that would require a filibuster revamp to pass.
In June, for example, during Biden’s first international trip as president, he became irate at CNN’s Kaitlyn Collins when she asked why Biden was so confident Russian President Vladimir Putin would change his behavior.
Days later, in a back-and-forth with reporters after remarks about the drawdown of forces in Afghanistan, Biden said “I trust the capacity of the Afghan military,” adding that it was “highly unlikely” the Taliban would take Kabul. The prediction was disproved within a month.
Former president Ronald Reagan, among others, employed similar tactics. | null | null | null | null | null |
It seems many of their colleagues are finally getting the message, launching a gold rush for the music catalogues of the world’s most iconic names. Bruce Springsteen. Bob Dylan. Stevie Nicks. Paul Simon. Tina Turner. They have all cashed in. David Bowie’s estate sold his catalogue earlier this year. John Legend earlier this month. And many, many more, all in the past two years.
First, it’s important to understand that for most songs, there are two distinct copyrights. There’s the song composition (the arrangement of the music and the lyrics), and there’s the actual tangible sound recording of the music (known as the “master”).
‘So if you want to put ‘All Along the Watchtower’ by Jimi Hendrix in your movie, you have to get the permission of the song owner, in this case Bob,” he said. You also have to get permission from “Hendrix, or his estate, or his record company — whoever owns the recording.’”
Say Toyota wants to use the song in a commercial for its new Corolla. In the past, it would have needed permission from Swift (who owns the publishing rights) and from Big Red (who owns the copyright to the actual recording). Now, the company could theoretically license the new version of the song from Swift herself, as she owns both.
Companies that acquire both the masters and composition of a song will have a much easier time licensing the tunes. Owning publishing rights of the composition also opens new revenue streams, such as mechanical royalties, paid when a cover of an original song is recorded — to cite just one example.
The songs Round Hill has purchased looks like a decade-spanning hits playlist: “Under the Boardwalk” by the Drifters, “Hit Me with Your Best Shot” by Pat Benatar, “Cherry Pie” by Warrant and “I Want it That Way” by The Backstreet Boys.
“It’s a very low risk, very safe, very annuity-like cash flow stream because it’s very diversified,” Gruss said. “You can make money from really everything music touches, whether it’s radio or streaming, concerts, music in a bar or restaurant.”
But some younger artists, such as John Legend, also cashing in. OneRepublic’s Ryan Tedder sold his catalogue to the private equity firm KKR & Co. for an estimated $200 million last year.
Since that hasn’t happened yet, for now, it’s full steam ahead.
While the moment may ripe for the top one percent of pop stars, everyone else is still feeling the squeeze of an industry in upheaval.
“When we signed our first recording contract, we were told by our friends who were older in the industry and also our lawyer at the time, ‘They will ask for your publishing. Do not give it,’” he added. “Everybody knew that: Never sell your publishing. Because that’s all you’ve got if a record deal goes sour.”
To Krukowski, big-name artists making millions off their catalogues while the rest of the industry probably couldn’t sell their catalogue for table scraps even if they wanted to points to the “wiping out of the middle class in the arts, as well as in everything else.”
When Nacho Cano, who records as Harmless, began making music, he hadn’t considered he didn’t consider the business realities.
“For the longest time, I thought like, ‘Oh, I wrote this song. I made the song. That’s it. If I sell a song, I get paid for the sale of the song, that’s it, right?’” he said. “The business side of things was a real learning experience.”
Most musicians would capitalize on that success with a tour, which can amount for a large amount of an artist’s income. But, as he said, “when you don’t have access to a tour because of [pandemic-era shutdowns] the money really is in digital distribution.” | null | null | null | null | null |
Michelle Gotthelf claims she was propositioned by Allan and retaliated against when she complained
Veteran newspaper editor Col Allan retired from the New York Post in 2019 but then returned as senior adviser in 2019. (Patrick Mcmullan/Sipa Press/AP)
When Col Allan retired from the New York Post in 2016, the journalist said to be Rupert Murdoch’s longest-serving editor was given a rousing send-off and toasted by the media baron as not just “one of the most outstanding editors of his generation,” but “a great friend and colleague.”
She alleged that Allan “became even more abusive after Ms. Gotthelf rejected his advances. He refused to make eye contact with Ms. Gotthelf and often killed stories that she supported for no apparent reason.” She also claims that she was passed over several times for key promotions and that Allan used derogatory language to refer to women, allegedly describing a female Post editor as “a sneaky lesbian.” She reported the newspaper’s “hostile work environment” to human resources. | null | null | null | null | null |
Can the pandemic labor shortage help us envision a world without work?
What we can glean from the French Surrealists’ “war on work” of the 1920s
Union workers hold signs during a strike outside a King Soopers grocery store in Broomfield, Colo., on Jan. 12, 2022. (Chet Strange/Bloomberg News)
By Abigail Susik
Abigail Susik is associate professor of art history at Willamette University and author of "Surrealist Sabotage and the War on Work" (Manchester University Press, 2021).
As the omicron variant sweeps through American communities, many of our workplaces and institutions are grinding to a halt. With nurses, teachers and other essential workers getting ill or quarantining, we are facing disruptions at schools and in hospitals. Some employers are seeking stopgap measures, trying to hire rapidly to fill open jobs, begging for community volunteers to help keep things running and even lowering requirements for substitute teachers to get people into school buildings.
Can this be a moment for workers to demand more from shorthanded employers, whether that be higher pay, more remote work options, hazard bonuses or needed personal protective equipment to lower health risks? And how can gains gleaned in this moment be retained and even surpassed in a post-pandemic future?
Past labor shortages caused by extraordinary circumstances in other places may offer lessons. For example, in the aftermath of World War I and the 1918-1919 influenza pandemic, a labor shortage and strike movement in France created conditions for envisioning transformative change. French workers seized the opportunity to pressure employers as well as the state, ultimately succeeding in changing that nation’s labor code and inspiring a growing youth rebellion against work — led by a group of young veterans who called themselves “Surrealists” — that would aim at even more radical changes.
During World War I, France faced a labor shortage because of the mass mobilization of soldiers and the steep military and civilian death toll of the war. With a dearth of workers, France recruited and, in some cases, conscripted immigrant workers from the French colonies of Algeria and Morocco, Spain and elsewhere, who labored to support the war economy. But the onset of the influenza pandemic in 1918 exacerbated the labor shortage because of several conditions, including the large number of maimed veterans unable to work after the war, a low birthrate and the massive pandemic death toll.
To mitigate the labor shortfall and regulate wages, the French government accelerated the supervised immigration of mostly male workers from its empire and other nations, and, in some cases, it re-incentivized work for French women, even amid fears about declining natality.
Despite these efforts to reduce the labor shortage and keep wages artificially low during a period of rapidly rising postwar inflation, the shortfall of workers persisted. Perceiving an opportunity to gain leverage, workers organized and fought for a shorter workday and higher wages.
In a concentrated period between 1917 and 1920, French citizens ignited a protest movement in which millions of workers across sectors participated in organized and wildcat strikes, sabotage actions, walkouts, slowdowns and absenteeism.
As a result, the French labor force soon succeeded in winning a major demand: the enactment of the eight-hour workday by Prime Minister Georges Clemenceau in 1919. By comparison, it took the United States two more decades to institutionalize the eight-hour day and five-day workweek, with the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1940.
However, not all French workers were satisfied. Many employers refused to comply with the new eight-hour law, and as pandemic conditions waned and the labor shortage eased slightly in the mid-1920s, dissatisfaction remained palpable. Workers wanted higher wages (there was no legal minimum wage yet), the “English week” (Saturdays off, the precursor to the “weekend”) and improved conditions. Their struggle came to a head in 1936, when nationwide strikes resulted in the Matignon Agreements, which implemented significant wage increases, the 40-hour workweek and the country’s first paid holidays.
But some people had a radically different vision. In 1924, a group of young artists, writers and intellectuals, many of whom were veterans of the war, formed a cultural movement in Paris called “Surrealism,” soon declaring a “war on work” meant to battle wage-labor exploitation and what they viewed as the cult of the work ethic. In 1925, they emblazoned the cover of their journal “Surrealist Revolution” with a declaration of collective work refusal. In 1929, one member, André Thirion, penned “Down with Work!,” a powerful manifesto that echoed the 19th-century utopian socialist Charles Fourier in its demand for the essential human right to “refuse work” whenever desired.
Workers were badly needed in France’s postwar reconstruction, but the French Surrealists, most of whom were White men with some college education or professional training, attempted to abstain from further participation in what they saw as a corrupt system for workers across race and class sectors.
Disgusted by the nationalistic belligerence of wartime France that had resulted in mass death, they rallied behind the idea of a “big quit” — a radical refusal to participate in the French economy. Yet, instead of the temporary solution of voluntary unemployment, in which the worker bides time until finding a better job or higher wages, Surrealists proposed something more extreme: permanent strike.
The notion of permanent strike, or lifelong withdrawal from the workforce, meant a lifestyle of precarious labor, or what is known today as “gig work.” Their radical and utopian demand pushed up against the limits of the practical. Most Surrealists could not afford to live without earning income. Nevertheless, many deserted careers and, on principle, worked barely enough to survive. Whenever possible, Surrealists attempted to resist the allure of consumerism, believing that excessive consumption was the flip side of capitalism’s drive toward production.
For the Surrealists, the system of wage labor was historically linked to the violence of nationalism and imperialism. In 1925, they proclaimed, “We do not accept the laws of economy or exchange, we do not accept the slavery of work, and on an even wider scale we proclaim ourselves in revolt against history.”
The Surrealist goal of permanent strike was not to pressure the boss, nor to instigate reforms, but to undermine the foundations of the capitalist nation-state altogether. This extreme position presaged (and, in some cases, influenced) the broader work refusal that characterized various youth and activist countercultures going forward in the 20th and 21st centuries — including beatniks, hippies, gutter punks, purportedly “lazy” millennials, today’s anti-work advocates and the current “lying flat” movement in China. If certain anti-work countercultures are primarily pursuing, in the words of 19th-century communist writer Paul Lafargue, “The Right to be Lazy,” the Surrealists were wage labor abolitionists who sought a utopian post-work system.
Today’s labor market differs from that of post-World War I France in almost every imaginable way, and the ongoing pandemic is playing a distinct role right now. Nevertheless, a comparison of our workforce shortages with those of a century ago is telling. The “Great Resignation” of 2021 has been likened to an “unofficial general strike.” For workers, at least, such frictional unemployment and aspirational job switching can be a good thing. Taking stock of the 1917-1920 French labor crisis and the Surrealist “war on work” provides a provocative example of how organized workers can escalate their advantage and bolster their morale during and after a shortage — and how oppositional countercultures can imagine a totally different future for workers. | null | null | null | null | null |
I have some questions about the Los Angeles railway thefts
Something should be done! What is that something?
Shredded boxes, packages and debris are strewn along a section of the Union Pacific train tracks in downtown Los Angeles on Friday. Thieves have been raiding cargo containers aboard trains in the city for months, leaving the tracks blanketed with discarded packages. (Ringo H.W. Chiu/AP)
The hard-working staff here at Spoiler Alerts generally take a dim view of populism. Populists always believe that “something has to be done about this problem!” Which is fine, but what is the something? Populism believes that leaders should enact common-sense policies that reflect the general will of the people. That sounds great in theory: in practice that often translates into a narrow, exclusive definition of “the people”; a rejection of the very idea of procedural checks and balances; and attacks on technocrats as enemies of the people.
I say all of this because when I first saw the video below, my very populist reaction was “something has to be done about this problem!”
If you read photojournalist John Schreiber’s thread or scan older local coverage, you learn that railway theft in the Los Angeles area — the primary port of entry for 40 percent of goods imported into the United States — has been a growing concern. According to a Union Pacific letter sent last month to L.A. prosecutors, Union Pacific has experienced a 160 percent increase in theft since December 2020, with theft spikes that have soared above 300 percent.
Lauren Debter and Alan Ohnsman of Forbes note that the thefts are taking place primarily in the so-called Alameda Corridor, a 20-mile stretch of rail bed that winds through Los Angeles neighborhoods. Debter and Ohnsman explain why railroad car thefts in that area are relatively easy to pull off: “Thieves can break into stopped or slow-moving cars and pull a kind of hand brake, which slows the wheels. Sensors in the track read this as an equipment breakdown and stop or slow the train to a crawl. At that point, individuals can use bolt cutters to open up cars and grab items quickly. What they don’t want is left on the sides of the track to blow in the breeze and slowly rot in the southern California sun.”
This is all bad. The visuals look like they were lifted from a bad post-apocalyptic film. A Los Angeles Times write-up by Rachel Uranga, Irfan Khan and Richard Winton opens with a similar feel:
Lincoln Heights was also where a train derailment took place over the weekend.
Outlets ranging from the Guardian to the National Review have written about it. In the latter, Andrew C. McCarthy assigns blame to L.A. District Attorney George Gascón and his more progressive approach to law enforcement. So does Union Pacific in its letter. That elides an interesting fact, however: Union Pacific, the very railroad company complaining about lax law enforcement, has its own police force with “primary jurisdiction over crimes committed against the railroad. … Its success has served as a model for national crime management.”
The Los Angeles Times story also contains quotes from local officials noting Union Pacific’s failure to step up its own enforcement measures. This suggests it’s not merely about how local law enforcement does its job.
That said, McCarthy also asks a valid question: “But what is the federal government doing about this? In many crime situations, the feds can seem superfluous, muscling in on matters that are chiefly local concerns. Here, however, we are talking about interstate and international commerce, the very foundation of federal criminal jurisdiction.”
Jonah Goldberg, editor of The Dispatch, tweeted: “This seems like such an easy layup for a halfway serious politician of any party. There’s no ‘gotta hear both sides’ in stuff like this.”
This problem touches on a lot of issues aggravating Americans right now: supply chain stresses, pandemics, crime and finding the right balance in enforcing the rule of law. If the Biden administration does not find a way to prioritize this, then the White House should be investigated for political malpractice. Something should be done, but I remain unsure about the something. | null | null | null | null | null |
How the Winter Olympics ended up in Beijing — and what it means for the future
The Olympic rings are seen in the Zhangjiakou competition zone ahead of the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics on Jan. 15. (Pawel Kopczynski/Reuters)
By Bruce Berglund
Bruce Berglund taught history for two decades at Calvin University and the University of Kansas. He did research in eight countries for his history of world hockey, "The Fastest Game in the World: Hockey and the Globalization of Sports" (U of California Press, 2021).
Despite calls for boycotts over China’s abysmal human rights record and concerns about the coronavirus, the Beijing Winter Games will open Feb. 4. A decade ago, when bidding opened for the 2022 Winter Olympics, the suggestion of holding them in the Chinese capital seemed ludicrous. How could a city of 20 million people with no snow, no mountains and plenty of pollution host the Winter Games? But as cities in Europe and North America dropped from the running, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) was left with just two options: Beijing or Almaty, Kazakhstan.
How did the IOC get left with two far-from-perfect choices? The answer stems from a set of long enduring problems that have plagued the Winter Olympics for more than a half-century. In fact, the first warnings of these problems came from the most unlikely of critics: former IOC president Avery Brundage, who even encouraged his fellow IOC members to consider ditching the Winter Games altogether. Now, these issues have snowballed to the point that they threaten the viability of the Winter Games.
Brundage also decried what he saw as “rank commercialization” in Grenoble. French law at the time did not protect Olympic imagery, so companies displayed the five rings on all manner of products. “We had Olympic butter, Olympic sugar, Olympic petrol, etc., etc.,” Brundage ranted. “It seemed a huge business enterprise instead of an amateur sports event.”
Still, the Winter Olympics continues to grow, creating even more logistical problems. The 2022 games will feature nearly 3,000 athletes, almost triple the number who competed in Grenoble. The IOC now requires that a Winter Olympics host city have 23,860 hotel rooms — just for officials, marketing partners and media. Mountain towns like Lake Placid or Lillehammer that once hosted the games might have venues for the competitors, but they don’t have enough beds for everybody else.
The limited geographic options for hosting the Winter Games that Brundage recognized, therefore, have only gotten worse with time. Bidding for the 2022 Games showed the appetite for staging the event is dwindling in those places with sufficient mountains, snow and hotel rooms. The Winter Olympics are a costly undertaking, especially considering they generate far less in ticket sales and television rights than the Summer Games. The $12.9 billion spent on the 2018 PyeongChang Games was comparable to the $13-billion price tag of the 2016 Summer Olympics. Yet the Rio Games brought in twice as much in ticket and television revenue. | null | null | null | null | null |
For decades, the court deferred to the government’s judgment. Now it’s heading back to the Lochner era.
The Supreme Court on Jan. 3. (J. Scott Applewhite/AP)
By Stephen I. Vladeck
Last week, the Supreme Court blocked the Occupational Safety and Health Administration’s vaccinate-or-test requirement for large private employers. Its reasoning rekindles a long-running and fundamental legal debate about how courts review government action. In their joint dissent, Justices Stephen G. Breyer, Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan made this point explicitly, writing:
Who decides how much protection, and of what kind, American workers need from COVID-19? An agency with expertise in workplace health and safety, acting as Congress and the President authorized? Or a court, lacking any knowledge of how to safeguard workplaces, and insulated from responsibility for any damage it causes?
The unsigned majority opinion took a different approach. In one of its most telling passages, it disputed the Biden administration’s argument that the risk of contracting covid is a “work-related danger,” which would fall within the scope of the statute authorizing OSHA to make regulations. “Although COVID-19 is a risk that occurs in many workplaces,” the majority conceded, “it is not an occupational hazard in most. COVID-19 can and does spread at home, in schools, during sporting events, and everywhere else that people gather.”
In other words, the court second-guessed the Biden administration’s motives; the majority believed the agency was using its specific power to regulate occupational safety and health only as a means to impose a more general policy on 84 million American workers.
This logic harks back to a long-discredited period in Supreme Court history that culminated in the most serious constitutional crisis since the Civil War. If the court continues on this path, a similar crisis may lie ahead.
The Lochner era and the rise of judicial deference
During what scholars call the “Lochner era,” named after a 1905 decision striking down the state of New York’s maximum-hour and minimum-wage rules for bakers, the Supreme Court routinely second-guessed state and federal economic regulations. It regularly reasoned that even if the stated ends were legitimate, the underlying purposes were not. In one 1918 decision, for instance, the justices struck down a federal statute prohibiting interstate shipment of goods manufactured with child labor. The Constitution certainly authorized Congress to regulate interstate commerce. But the court’s majority argued that Congress wasn’t really regulating interstate commerce — it was using the commerce clause to ban child labor, which went beyond what the Constitution allowed.
The Lochner era ended on March 29, 1937, when the Supreme Court handed down its decision in West Coast Hotel v. Parrish. The issue in that case was modest: whether the state of Washington was allowed to impose a minimum-wage requirement for women. But in saying yes, the court’s sweeping language made clear that it was rejecting Lochner-era reasoning: “Even if the wisdom of the policy be regarded as debatable and its effects uncertain, still the Legislature is entitled to its judgment.”
In other words, no matter how much the justices disagreed with the merits of the policy they were reviewing, they would still defer to the political branches. They would start from the presumption that government acts constitutionally, rather than the presumption that it does not. West Coast Hotel heralded the end of across-the-board judicial skepticism. But did it mean that courts should never scrutinize government action?
The following year, the Supreme Court said no. In a famous footnote in United States v. Carolene Products Co. identified three circumstances in which more-searching judicial scrutiny might be warranted: “when legislation appears on its face to be within a specific prohibition of the Constitution”; when “legislation … restricts those political processes which can ordinarily be expected to bring about repeal of undesirable legislation”; and when government action reflects “prejudice against discrete and insular minorities.”
For the next 50 years, the Supreme Court translated this footnote into action, in what scholars consider “modern” constitutional law. Instead of rigidly scrutinizing economic legislation, the justices focused on protecting individual rights and electoral processes, as the first two phrases suggest, and scrutinizing state and federal regulations that discriminated on the basis of race, nationality, religion and, eventually, sex.
Lochner returns
Over the past few decades, though, the justices have retreated from this understanding. Consider the 2013 ruling in Shelby County v. Holder, striking down a key part of the Voting Rights Act that required states with a history of race-based discrimination to first get Justice Department approval before changing their voting laws. The 5-to-4 majority refused to say whether it was no longer going to defer to Congress’s judgment, as promised in West Coast Hotel, or whether it was striking down the Voting Rights Act clause as egregious despite the fact that the court was trying to defer to Congress’s judgment.
In Shelby County, the justices merely announced that Congress was wrong and that those states that had once discriminated based on race no longer needed special review. This Lochner-like mentality — that it was appropriate for the justices to second-guess the legislature’s actions — has since seeped into a growing number of majority opinions and has been called out in a growing number of dissents.
In a 2014 concurring opinion, Justice Antonin Scalia, joined by Justice Clarence Thomas, suggested that the Carolene Products decision had never actually stood for the principles for which it was routinely cited — dismissing it as an “old saw, derived from dictum in a footnote” that had been “expressed by a four-Justice majority of a seven-Justice Court.” Although no other justices have publicly defended the shift, scholars have concluded that Carolene Products is no longer the court’s governing framework. In 2010, University of Chicago professor David Strauss gave a lecture asking, “Is Carolene Products Obsolete?” In 2019, Harvard professor Nick Stephanopoulos was more definitive, announcing the arrival of “The Anti-Carolene Court.”
Last week’s vaccine mandate decision makes that even more clear.
By substituting their judgment for that of the political branches, the justices’ ruling shows two things. First, the Supreme Court has discarded the deference of the Carolene Products era. And second, the court has not yet identified a coherent principle to replace it. Instead, the argument for or against the need for court deference in each specific case seems to resemble Justice Potter Stewart’s famous definition of “obscenity”: “I know it when I see it.” Such an approach is not inherently conservative or liberal. But as the Lochner era made clear, it tends to enforce the policy beliefs of the justices applying it.
Stephen I. Vladeck (@steve_vladeck) holds the Charles Alan Wright chair in federal courts at the University of Texas School of Law and is writing a book about the Supreme Court’s “shadow docket.”
Conservatives may control the Supreme Court until the 2050s, our research finds
If the Supreme Court undermines Roe v. Wade, contraception could be banned. This explains how.
The Supreme Court might overturn Roe. It took decades of scorched-earth conservative politics to get here.
See the rest of TMC’s Supreme Court analysis here. | null | null | null | null | null |
Why aren’t Americans more alarmed by white-supremacist violence?
Here’s what our research found.
Stewart Rhodes, founder of the citizen militia group known as the Oath Keepers, center, speaks during a rally outside the White House in Washington on June 25, 2017. (Susan Walsh/AP)
By Victoria Gurevich
Christopher Gelpi
Over the past year, white supremacists have been arrested, charged and put on trial for their part in the Jan. 6 assault on the U.S. Capitol. Many who protested that day may not have identified as white supremacists, but they were, at a minimum, willing to make common cause with these groups, whose rhetoric, flags and symbols were hard to miss both in the preparation for the “Stop the Steal” rally and on-site.
Some people think of white supremacy as violent actions against people of color that reside in our distant history. But the past several years have seen a surge of white-supremacist violence such as the killings at Emmanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church, the Tree of Life synagogue, and the Unite the Right Rally. White-supremacist ideas also manifest in mundane public policies about such issues as policing, housing and more.
But despite increasing white-supremacist violence, including the Jan. 6 insurrection, our research finds that some Americans are less concerned about these kinds of attacks than similar activities from groups with different motivations. This seems particularly true for Republicans. We wanted to understand why.
Tugged a 'MAGA' faction, Republicans no longer support multiethnic democracy
Understanding popular tolerance of white supremacy
When asked directly for their attitudes about white supremacy, people’s answer can be misleading. Even people who are unconcerned about or sympathetic to white-supremacist ideas know that tolerance for it is socially unacceptable.
To avoid this problem, we investigated tolerance for white supremacy by presenting 1,574 people with descriptions of extremist violence and asking them how concerned they were. We found our participants through Lucid’s online opt-in panel. While this was not a nationally representative sample, our subjects were 36 percent Democrats and 30 percent Republicans, close to national proportions of each, and included 47 percent men and 53 percent women, which is similarly close.
We had respondents read 10 sets of randomly paired scenarios of violent extremism and asked them which worried them most. In three sentences, we presented four pieces of information: the name of the attacker, their citizenship, the target, and the motive. Perpetrators were said to be associated either with the Islamic State, white supremacy, antifa, or given no motive at all. The attributes created 68 scenarios that were randomly paired. Respondents ended up making more than 15,000 decisions about which scenarios they found more concerning.
Since our participants were choosing between two scenarios, we could conclude that any characteristic selected 50 percent of the time did not affect participants’ level of concern. We could conclude that they were more concerned with characteristics selected more than 50 percent of the time and less concerned with those selected less often.
Martin Luther King, Jr. was right. Racism and opposition to democracy are linked, our research finds.
Partisanship, immigration and concern for white supremacy
So who is — and is not — actually worried about white-supremacist violence? Both Democratic and Republican participants were least concerned about random violence with no motive; respondents from both parties picked it less than 40 percent of the time. Democrats and Republicans were both most concerned about attacks motivated by the Islamic State, selecting these as more worrisome more than 60 percent of the time.
But when it came to antifa and white supremacy, the two groups diverged. Democrats selected violence by antifa as more concerning 45 percent of the time, while Republicans selected it 55 percent of the time. Conversely, Democrats selected white-supremacist violence as more concerning 60 percent of the time, while Republicans selected it 50 percent of the time.
In other words, Republicans found violence by antifa more troubling than white-supremacist violence. That’s true even though, in recent years, antifa activists haven’t hurt many people, while white-supremacist attacks have repeatedly been deadly.
When Republicans come from more racially diverse districts, they're more likely to claim voter fraud
Why are Republicans less concerned about white supremacy?
Several typically Republican attitudes were associated with less concern for these attacks, but one mapped almost perfectly onto the partisan divide over white supremacy: immigration.
In addition to asking them to choose their concern in the pairings, we asked our participants about their attitudes on a host of issues, including whether “recent immigration into this country has done more harm than good.”
Agreeing or disagreeing with this statement didn’t affect respondents’ lack of concern with random violence. Similarly, that belief did not alter their concerns about Islamist terrorist attacks.
But beliefs about immigration did track with concerns about antifa and white supremacy. Respondents who don’t think immigration is a problem selected antifa violence as more worrisome 47 percent of the time. Those who think recent immigration has hurt the United States selected antifa violence as more concerning 55 percent of the time.
Meanwhile, those who aren’t worried about immigration see white-supremacist and Islamist extremist violence as equally troubling, picking each of those 60 percent of the time. Immigration opponents, however, aren’t particularly troubled by white-supremacist violence, picking it 51 percent of the time — less often than they pick antifa violence.
The risk of another Jan. 6?
A year after Jan. 6, Republicans remain significantly less concerned with white-supremacist violence than Democrats or independents. Moreover, we find that this partisan divide over white supremacy maps almost perfectly onto a central theme of the Republican platform: that immigration is bad for America.
Of course, our findings can’t tell us whether Republican politicians are creating biases among their party’s base or whether racism and xenophobia within the base is encouraging Republican anti-immigration rhetoric. What we can say is that many Republicans and many of those who oppose immigration are not particularly concerned about the terrorist threat posed by white supremacists. Violence like what happened at the Capitol last year may worry the FBI, but it’s not a concern for a significant proportion of Americans.
Victoria Gurevich is a doctoral candidate in political science at Ohio State University studying radicalization and countering violent extremism.
Christopher Gelpi is director of the Mershon Center for International Security Studies, chair of Peace Studies and Conflict Resolution, and professor of political science at Ohio State University. | null | null | null | null | null |
Dak Prescott apologizes for praising fans who pelted Cowboys’ field with debris
“I hold the NFL Officials in the highest regard and have always respected their professionalism and the difficulty of their jobs,” Cowboys quarterback Dak Prescott wrote on Twitter. (Ron Jenkins/AP)
Cowboys quarterback Dak Prescott issued an apology Tuesday evening for having claimed that Dallas fans deserved praise for throwing debris from stands at the officiating crew at the end of Sunday’s home playoff loss to the San Francisco 49ers.
The 49ers’ 23-17 victory ended in bizarre fashion when Prescott ran with the ball and got tackled as the seconds ticked down. With the Cowboys out of timeouts and needing a touchdown, they quickly assembled at the line of scrimmage in an effort to snap the ball and immediately spike it to stop the clock for one more play. Dallas then lost precious seconds when umpire Ramon George pushed his way through its offensive line to pick up the ball and re-spot it. The Cowboys still had just enough time to snap the ball, and the game ended as Prescott spiked it.
As game officials and members of both teams ran off the field at the Cowboys’ AT&T Stadium, some fans threw items at them, and Dallas defensive lineman DeMarcus Lawrence had to use his helmet to swat aside a water bottle. After the game, Prescott said it was “sad” to think that fans could treat players in that manner.
Cowboys executive Stephen Jones, whose father Jerry owns the team, described the fans’ actions as “unfortunate.”
“That’s not the way I see our fans,” Jones said in an appearance Monday on Dallas’s 105.3 The Fan. “I think we’re a class act, and I just think there’s no place for things like that.
“I understand people being frustrated, but I don’t understand throwing things onto the field where people can get injured.”
The crew chief for the Cowboys-49ers game, Alex Kemp, said afterward that George was “simply spotting the ball properly.” He added that George, who was criticized by some observers for being too slow in catching up to where the play ended after Prescott’s run, was “keeping proper distance so that we can identify fouls, if there are any.”
“Once the play is over,” Kemp continued, “the umpire immediately goes to spot the ball, and that’s what he did. … He collided with the players as he was setting the ball because he was moving it to the proper spot.”
NFL rules dictate that an official must spot the ball before a play can begin, prompting criticism of Prescott for handing it to his center rather than to George. In addition, some have pointed out that Prescott erred by remaining focused on spiking the ball, when he arguably should have realized that there wasn’t enough time for one more play and should have dropped back to throw the ball for a potentially season-saving touchdown.
Dallas committed numerous mistakes during the game, including committing 14 penalties, which tied an NFL postseason record. Former Cowboys quarterback Tony Romo, who served as CBS’s booth analyst for its broadcast of Sunday’s playoff game, said afterward that Dallas hurt itself with “self-inflicted” wounds.
“It was a lack of a mental approach, almost — it was just, like, careless,” Romo said on CBS Sports HQ. “So many penalties before the snap, and you can’t have that many and expect to beat good teams.”
Earlier on Tuesday, the National Basketball Referees Association, whose members officiate games in the NBA, WNBA and G League, had issued a statement condemning Prescott’s initial remarks about their NFL counterparts.
“The NBRA condemns the comments by Dak Prescott condoning violence against game officials,” stated the union. “As an NFL leader, he should know better. We encourage the NFL to take action to discourage this deplorable behavior in the future.” | null | null | null | null | null |
Quiner had some 48 hours to save her husband and would need almost all of them.
“He is recovering, though [he] has a long road ahead,” she said in the email, which did not specify which hospital was caring for him or which medications he’d been prescribed.
The next day, Quiner filed a petition in state court seeking a temporary restraining order to prevent doctors from turning off the ventilator. A judge granted it Jan. 13 at 10:34 a.m., about an hour and a half before doctors planned to do so, court records show.
“The world is watching what’s going on with Scott,” she told KMSP. “ … I’m hoping that changes are going to be made as a result of this case.” | null | null | null | null | null |
In the case of the home demolished Wednesday, the property was appropriated by the city of Jerusalem five years ago to make way for a neighborhood school. The family claimed to have purchased the property in the 1960s, but was unable to prove ownership after a court battle, according to media reports. An Israeli judge ruled a year ago that the city could take the property for public use if the family was compensated.
But officers returned in darkness early Wednesday, quickly taking control of the property after reportedly cutting electricity to the area. Some witness said the forces used stun grenades in the raid. Police detained about 25 family members and other activists, according to Reuters. Israeli police said the arrests were for “suspicion of violating a court order, violent fortification and disturbing public order.”
The U.S. Embassy did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the actions. The British government, which maintains its Jerusalem consulate in the same part of the neighborhood, released a statement Monday urging Israel not to engage in practices that threaten to “increase tension on the ground.” | null | null | null | null | null |
The state of Connecticut tabled legislation in 2021 that supported the legalization of medical aid in dying. (iStock)
Late last year, at 3 a.m. in what is a now-normal night, Kim Hoffman awoke with “an unbelievable headache.” These are related to the 30 brain lesions, and the steroids needed to reduce the swelling of the brain. After dawn that day, she said, speaking by phone from her home in Glastonbury, Conn., “I felt a new neck lesion.” She has so many skin lesions that “it feels as though my skin is being torn like someone has a serrated knife.” What began as ovarian cancer has, she said, metastasized to “both breasts, my right lung, the lining of my spine, and many lymph nodes.” She says, “I’m a pretty sick puppy.”
While resisting her disease with surgery, radiation and chemotherapy (one treatment she likens to “injecting your body with Agent Orange),” she has twice testified to Connecticut’s legislature in support of legalization of medical aid in dying (MAID). Although 75 percent of Connecticut voters favor MAID, the legislature tabled the measure this past year without debating this question: What is Connecticut’s compelling interest in preventing Hoffman from receiving such assistance?
Increased life expectancy, increased medical competence, increased secularism, and increased insistence on privacy and autonomy are producing increased support for legal regimes that respect the right of mentally capable and terminally ill individuals to protect themselves from lingering intense pain and mental decrepitude. A November survey by Susquehanna Polling and Research found that 68 percent of likely voters believe that a mentally sound person with no more than six months to live should have access to a prescription medication that will produce a peaceful death while asleep. Ten states and the District of Columbia, with a combined 22 percent of the U.S. population, have comparable laws. | null | null | null | null | null |
Quiner had 48 hours to save her husband and would need almost all of them.
“He is recovering, though has a long road ahead,” she said in the email, which did not specify which hospital was caring for him or which medications he had been prescribed.
The next day, Quiner filed a petition in state court seeking a temporary restraining order to prevent doctors from turning off the ventilator. A judge granted it Jan. 13 about an hour and a half before doctors planned to do so, court records show.
“The world is watching what’s going on with Scott,” she told KMSP. “I’m hoping that changes are going to be made as a result of this case.” | null | null | null | null | null |
U.S. student Otto Warmbier is escorted at the Supreme Court in Pyongyang in 2016. (Jon Chol Jin/AP)
A New York court has ruled that the family of deceased American student Otto Warmbier, who was detained in North Korea, should be awarded more than $240,000 to be seized from the secretive state’s assets.
Last week, the Northern District Court of New York approved a seizure of funds from the country’s Korea Kwangson Banking Corp. (KKBC) on Jan. 12, in an “unopposed motion” after both North Korea and the bank failed to respond to court orders and notices — including those filed at North Korea’s mission to the United Nations in New York. The latest missed deadline was Jan. 10, the court documents showed.
In South Korea, former prisoners of war who escaped the North are seeking damages that would be paid with money held in an inter-Korean cooperation fund, which holds copyright fees collected on behalf of North Korean broadcasters. On Monday, a South Korean court ruled that the judgment could not be enforced against the fund, and the case is now headed to an appeal. | null | null | null | null | null |
1 TO PARADISE (Doubleday, $32.50). By Hanya Yanagihara. A Washington Square Park townhouse over three centuries is the setting for characters in an alternate version of America.
5 THE MAID (Ballantine, $27). By Nita Prose. A hotel maid cleaning a room finds a dead body and becomes the lead murder suspect.
8 SOMETHING TO HIDE (Viking, $29). By Elizabeth George. Inspector Lynley and his associates investigate events leading to the coma and subsequent death of a police detective.
9 THE SCHOOL FOR GOOD MOTHERS (Simon & Schuster, $27). By Jessamine Chan. A woman must endure a government re-education camp to prove her suitability as a mother and regain custody of her daughter.
10 WISH YOU WERE HERE (Ballantine, $28.99). By Jodi Picoult. A woman is stranded in the Galapagos Islands as the pandemic spreads.
4 UNTHINKABLE (Harper, $27.99). By Jamie Raskin. The congressman describes the professional challenges and personal trauma he endured during the early weeks of 2021.
8 ATOMIC HABITS (Avery, $27). By James Clear. A guide on how to make small changes that have a big impact.
10 LOST & FOUND (Random House, $27). By Kathryn Schulz. The Pulitzer Prize-winning writer grapples with the emotional contradictions of her father’s death and finding the love of her life. | null | null | null | null | null |
Stansbury, 42, was born in Farmington, New Mexico to parents who both worked in the fossil fuel industry. Her mother was an engineer who helped build the largest coal-fired power plant in the state, and her father was a welder in the oil fields.
“I get a little emotional just thinking about the work that she's doing because of its significance and importance from a historical standpoint,” said Stansbury, who teared up during the video call while discussing Haaland's advocacy for missing and slain Indigenous women. | null | null | null | null | null |
A Palestinian student walks under improvised water pipes and power cables in an alley in the Bourj al-Barajneh Palestinian refugee camp, in Beirut, Lebanon, Tuesday, Jan. 18, 2022. The agency for Palestinian refugees, or UNRWA, appealed Wednesday to the international community to donate tens of millions of dollars to help improve living conditions for Palestinians in crisis-hit Lebanon. UNWRA is asking for an additional $87.5 million to provide Palestinian refugees with cash assistance to the poorest, cover hospital expenses, as well as transportation for children so that they can go to school. (AP Photo/Hussein Malla) | null | null | null | null | null |
Four inmates are suing a jail in Arkansas after they were allegedly given “incredibly high doses” of ivermectin without their consent, according to a federal lawsuit. (Mike Stewart/AP)
The men were among 22 inmates at Washington County Detention Center housed in barracks designated for those infected with the coronavirus or
who were in close contact with someone who tested positive, court records state.
But what Karas and other staff members did not disclose “over a period of days and possibly weeks,” court records state, was that the pills the four inmates repeatedly swallowed were in fact high doses of vitamins and ivermectin — a deworming drug that some people are using to prevent or treat covid-19, despite several public health agencies advising against it.
Now, the four men are suing the physician, his private health-care company, the detention center, Washington County Sheriff Tim Helder and other unidentified staff members for allegedly violating their constitutional rights by intentionally dispensing “incredibly high doses” of ivermectin without their consent, according to a federal lawsuit filed last week in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Arkansas. The men say the drug regimen jeopardized their health and made them unwitting subjects of medical research.
According to the lawsuit, in 2020 Karas’s health-care company, Karas Correctional Health, won a contract to provide health care at the detention center at an annual cost of over $1.3 million.
Helder confirmed the practice to the Northwest Arkansas Democrat-Gazette. Washington County Justice of the Peace Eva Madison (D) told The Post at the time that she was dismayed when the sheriff defended the use of ivermectin. | null | null | null | null | null |
Blinken in Ukraine: ‘The world is watching’ amid Russian military threat
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, right, is greeted by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky before their meeting Jan. 19 in Kyiv, Ukraine. (Alex Brandon/Pool/Reuters)
KYIV, Ukraine — The outcome of the West’s standoff with Russia will have far-reaching effects on global norms, Secretary of State Antony Blinken said during a visit to Kyiv on Wednesday, as the Biden administration intensifies its attempt to avert another Russian invasion of Ukraine.
The top diplomat met with senior officials in the Ukrainian capital during a hastily arranged visit that underscored spiraling concerns in Western nations that President Vladimir Putin is preparing to use force to reassert Moscow’s dominance in the former Soviet sphere.
Blinken said the implications of the rising tensions were “bigger than Ukraine” as Russia, with its buildup of some 100,000 troops around Ukraine, challenged larger principles of national sovereignty and territorial integrity.
“If we allow those principles to be violated with impunity, then we will open a very large Pandora’s box,” Blinken said during remarks to personnel at the U.S. Embassy. “The entire world is watching what is happening here.”
The discussions in Kyiv, where Blinken met with President Volodymyr Zelensky ahead of further talks in Berlin and Geneva, come amid what U.S. officials have described as a growing list of destabilizing actions, including what they say are potential Russian “false flag” operations in eastern Ukraine, live-fire exercises near Ukraine’s border with Russia and, this week, the movement of Russian troops into Ukraine’s pro-Moscow neighbor, Belarus.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov charged Wednesday that the United States and its NATO allies are responsible for raising tensions in the region.
“As for the tense situation in Ukraine, it is indeed very tense. We see weapons shipments there, we see various maneuvers, we see NATO and Western European countries flying over,” he said.
A senior State Department official, speaking to reporters ahead of Blinken’s departure, characterized the arrival of Russian troops and equipment in Belarus this week not as a routine drill but as a further “show of strength” preceding a potential attack on Ukraine.
“Let’s be clear: This is extremely dangerous,” said the official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity under ground rules established by the department. “We are now at a stage where Russia could, at any point, launch an attack on Ukraine.”
Blinken’s trip will culminate in Geneva on Friday when he meets his Russian counterpart, Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, in an encounter that U.S. officials suggested might indicate an openness among Russian leaders to a peaceful resolution of the standoff.
Washington instead has proposed measures on arms control and military exercises, which so far appear to have gained little traction on the Russian side.
Andrew Weiss, a scholar at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, said it was unlikely that Lavrov would be able to do more than relay information to Putin. Much more important, he said, would be a direct encounter between Putin and President Biden. The two men held an in-person meeting in July 2021 and then a virtual one in December.
U.S. officials say they also fear that Russia could increase its use of methods short of outright invasion to further destabilize Ukraine, including what they allege are disinformation and digital warfare activities. On Friday, a significant cyberattack disrupted Ukrainian government websites.
Russian-backed separatists have also been fighting Ukraine’s forces in its eastern Donetsk and Luhansk regions.
During his 24-hour stay in Kyiv, Blinken will also meet with Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba. | null | null | null | null | null |
At a contentious and chaotic school board meeting in Virginia’s Spotsylvania County this month, members moved into an unplanned closed session and voted to fire Baker, who had served in the role for a decade. The board likely violated Virginia open meetings law, and it failed to identify an interim superintendent. But it offered an undeniable show of strength — proof that the Spotsylvania school system, like many others around the country, is entering a new era, under new power.
A special rallying cry on the right — from parents who seem to have become energized during the turbulent era of Trump politics — is the growing call to banish “critical race theory,” a college-level academic framework examining systemic racism whose name has become a catchall for school districts’ diversity and equity initiatives and their attempts to rethink the teaching of race in American history.
At this year’s board’s inaugural meeting, on Jan. 13, one of the first things Holbrook said he did was vote for a new policy extending public comment to 40 minutes and allowing four minutes of speaking time per person. The district also ended mask requirements and contact tracing, effective Feb. 1. | null | null | null | null | null |
FILE - Lily Tomlin appears at the 69th Primetime Emmy Awards in Los Angeles on Sept. 17, 2017. Tomlin is this year’s recipient of AARP The Magazine’s Movies for Grownups® Awards Career Achievement Award. The 20th anniversary virtual event, hosted by Alan Cumming, will be telecast on “Great Performances” on PBS on March 18 . (Jordan Strauss/Invision/AP, File) | null | null | null | null | null |
Ukrainians in our survey weren’t enthusiastic about NATO exercises close to Russia
The Kremlin’s defense strategy depends on keeping a buffer between the Russian heartland and Europe.
The NATO flag is displayed during NATO enhanced Forward Presence battle group military exercises in Adazi, Latvia, on Oct. 5, 2019. (Ints Kalnins/Reuters)
John O’Loughlin
Russian President Vladimir Putin has warned the U.S. and NATO against encroaching in Russia’s backyard. Specific Russian concerns include Western support to the Ukrainian government that involves military training, procurement, exercises, infrastructure and advanced weapons.
The West, in Putin’s view, is not practicing proper geopolitical distancing — and getting too close to Russia for comfort. Two rounds of diplomatic talks last week between Russian and Western officials ended without defusing the situation on the border with Ukraine. Further talks are planned this Friday.
What do Ukrainians think? Left out of this debate, but central to it, are the views of ordinary Ukrainian citizens. In December 2019 we ran a survey experiment that posed a fictional scenario of encroachment and crisis between NATO and Russia. Results from these interviews of 2,212 Ukrainians — a nationally representative survey across all government-controlled regions of Ukraine — reveal how divided Ukrainians are about NATO conducting military exercises close to Russia. Respondents in the east and south of the country were much more likely to view these exercises negatively. Within Ukraine, as within discourse on security more broadly, location really does matter.
Geopolitics 101: a preoccupation with proximity
“Great powers are always sensitive to potential threats near their home territory.” This, to eminent international relations scholar John Mearsheimer, is Geopolitics 101. Anxiety about the proximity of rising security threats, particularly from rival military alliances, is not unique to Russia — it’s characteristic of all large territorial powers, including the United States and China. Indeed, the United States invented the idea of a self-declared exclusive neighborhood sphere in 1823 with the Monroe Doctrine.
Russia’s preoccupation with NATO expansion has been a consistent feature of the contest between the West and Russia over Ukraine and the Republic of Georgia — and particularly since this contest was radicalized by war in Georgia in 2008 and then Ukraine in 2014. But the sources of Russia’s actions are more than Geopolitics 101: there are complex historical legacies at play in post-Soviet space, along with strong emotions.
Yet Russia’s leadership is clearly preoccupied with proximity. On Dec. 23, Putin told viewers during his annual news conference: “It is the United States that has come to our home with its missiles and is already standing at our doorstep. Is it going too far to demand that no strike systems be placed near our home? … What would the Americans say if we stationed our missiles on the border between Canada and the United States, or between Mexico and the United States?” Strategic depth — the maintenance of a buffer between the Russian heartland and powerful European adversaries — has long been a critical security tenet of Russian defense.
How Ukrainians viewed a fictional scenario involving NATO exercises
In 2020, we organized a series of surveys of geopolitical orientations in several former Soviet republics bordering Russia, including Ukraine. As part of this project, we included a scenario involving a NATO military exercise, and stressed to respondents that this was fictional. The specific text noted: “NATO is conducting a naval exercise close to Russian territory. A Russian fighter aircraft is taking a closer look at what NATO is doing when it crashes into the sea.”
We then randomly assigned survey respondents to read one of several different statements about the outcome of the crash. In Ukraine, our survey was nationally representative and the questionnaire was administered in face-to-face interviews in government-controlled areas.
All respondents, regardless of which fictional outcome they viewed, were then asked the following question: “Should NATO conduct military exercises close to Russia’s territory?” Remember this question came after suggesting a fictitious Russian plane crash, so it is not an abstract question like those we asked about Ukraine’s position between East and West and the stationing of NATO troops on Ukrainian territory.
The key takeaway is that across Ukraine support for NATO exercises near Russia showed only 21 percent in favor, with 53 percent opposed, 24 percent unsure and 2 percent who refused to answer the question. But like almost all political questions in Ukraine, there are large differences across regions and by self-identified nationality, as seen in the figure below.
Different parts of Ukraine react differently to NATO
In all but western Ukraine, opposition to NATO exercises near Russia outstripped support. In the western regions, 39 percent of respondents were in favor — they were five times more likely to support NATO exercises than respondents in the south and east (8.3 percent and 7.1 percent respectively). The extent of the regional disparities on this question are unusually large.
The gap in views on NATO between those who self-identify as Ukrainian and those who self-identify as Russian in Ukraine was also large. While 22.8 percent of Ukrainians supported NATO exercises close to Russia, just 11.8 percent of Russians did — a gap that (though sizable) is still eclipsed by regional differences.
What does this tell us about Ukraine and “red lines”?
Of course, this survey question posed a hypothetical scenario — but one inspired by real events. Dangerous military encounters between NATO allies and Russian forces have increased considerably in recent years. One study recorded some 2,900 reported events of NATO allies and Russia conducting missions that brought them into proximity with one another between 2013 and 2020. Putin complained about provocative military exercises in the Black Sea and about Western strategic bombers, with “very serious weapons,” flying close to Russia’s border.
With NATO refusing to rule out eventually expanding to incorporate Ukraine, Russia has upped the ante considerably by massing a potential invasion force near Ukraine’s borders to assert its security “red lines.” In talks this month with Russia, U.S. officials raised the possibility of placing restrictions on military exercises, a move our study suggests regular Ukrainians would welcome.
Two years ago, the idea of geographic restrictions on NATO military exercises resonated with Ukrainian citizens. Today, a Russian invasion threatens to silence their views completely.
Gerard Toal, professor in the School of Public and International Affairs at Virginia Tech’s campus in Arlington, is the author of “Near Abroad: Putin, the West and the Contest for Ukraine and the Caucasus” (Oxford University Press, 2019). | null | null | null | null | null |
Anne Miller, executive director of Project N95, a nonprofit organization that distributes free N95s and children’s masks in the United States, said in a statement the group supported the White House decision, calling it “an unprecedented move to help protect the American public.” Although there is now no shortage of the masks, she said, access to them has not been universal because of cost and lack of awareness.
N95 respirators are designed to filter at least 95 percent of particles, as their name implies. KN95s are supposed to meet a comparable Chinese standard, but there is no Chinese regulatory agency ensuring that, Miller has said. But some U.S. firms make high-quality KN95s, she has said. | null | null | null | null | null |
The omicron variant spreads so rapidly that sometimes it feels as if resistance is futile. It’s disheartening to hear of omicron infecting people who are up-to-date on their shots and wear an N95 mask every time they leave home. Even some well-known public-health experts are getting infected. But that doesn’t mean everyone is going to get it.
A recent study led by Harvard and MIT, to be published in the journal Cell, showed that about 20% of people get much poorer protection from their vaccines against omicron. They’re still better off than completely unvaccinated people, but this variability could account for some of the fully vaccinated people who’ve been hospitalized in the omicron wave.
The researchers took volunteers’ T cells and pitted them against different variants of SARS-CoV-2 in test tube experiments. They found that in 4 out of 5 people, vaccination resulted in T cells that worked to clear up omicron infections just as readily as they stopped earlier variants. But in 1 out of 5 people, the vaccine-induced T cells were much less effective at clearing up omicron, even as they worked fine against the original variants.
That doesn’t mean the vaccines are pointless against omicron, as some vaccine skeptics have been arguing. It’s still a good idea to get vaccinated, because 80% of us will get good protection. Boosters are also important — in the study, they improved everyone’s ability to respond to the virus. But they didn’t help everyone equally.
“I think what our study really shows is that 80% of those people should still have a backstop with their T cells against this new variant,” said the paper’s lead author, immunologist Guarav Gaiha, who works for the Ragon Institute, a collaboration with Harvard, MIT and Massachusetts General Hospital. The exact number might be different in a larger or more diverse sample of volunteers, but some level of variability is baked into the human immune system. Why? Because T cells take a slightly different form in each of us as the vaccine proteins interact with our unique genetics, he explained.
When the process works, these distress flags trigger T cells to jump into action. A T cell that encounters an infected cell makes millions of copies of itself. These clones include so-called killer T cells, capable of finding new infected cells, boring into them and killing them — or, as Gaiha puts it, sending in a protein that signals the infected cells to kill themselves.
Research like Gaiha’s could inform the design of the next generation of Covid-19 vaccines. Right now, it’s not clear whether drug companies should try to create new boosters specific to omicron, or go with a broader vaccine booster that would target different parts of the virus, including those that haven’t changed from one variant to the next. That’s what Gaiha’s lab is working on: trying to get a universal vaccine. If they succeed, it’s even more reason to hope we won’t all get Covid after all. | null | null | null | null | null |
The Florida Department of Health on Tuesday placed a top official on administrative leave after he allegedly encouraged employees to get vaccinated against coronavirus.
“I am sorry but in the absence of reasonable and real reasons it is irresponsible not to be vaccinated,” he wrote on Jan. 4. “We have been at this for two years, we were the first to give vaccines to the masses, we have done more than 300,000 and we are not even at 50 percent — pathetic.”
The move in Florida comes as U.S. public health leaders are urging caution at a time when the country has yet to reach its peak with the highly-transmissible omicron variant. While the explosion of cases has begun to plateau in some areas, U.S. Surgeon General Vivek H. Murthy said Sunday that “the next few weeks will be tough” as the country inches toward a national peak in cases.
While Florida is still averaging nearly 50,000 new coronavirus infections a day, the rate is down 22 percent compared to the previous seven-day average, according to data tracked by The Post. Hospitalizations are also on the decline in Florida.
“This is the strongest piece of legislation that’s been enacted anywhere in the country in this regard,” the governor said at a news conference.
Pino, who has led the health agency in Florida’s fifth most populous county since 2019, left Cuba as a political refugee more than 25 years ago. He settled in New England and took on odd jobs, including picking blueberries in Connecticut, reported the Orlando Sentinel. Pino, who had graduated from medical school in Cuba, returned to working in health care, eventually graduating from the University of Connecticut School of Medicine and getting hired as an epidemiologist at the Connecticut Department of Public Health.
“Clearly vaccines are working for us … and are the solution to this crisis,” he said at a news conference last month. “The vaccine continues to be effective against the variants.”
In his email earlier this month, Pino wrote that less than 14 percent of the Orange County agency’s staffers had received booster shots, according to WFTV. He added that 219 employees had gotten two vaccines doses and 34 only had a single dose.
Democrats in the state were quick to criticize DeSantis and the Florida Department of Health for Pino being placed on administrative leave for encouraging vaccination. | null | null | null | null | null |
FILE - French actor Gaspard Ulliel appears during a photo call for the film “Juste La Fin Du Monde” (It’s Only The End Of The World) at the 69th international film festival, Cannes, southern France on May 19, 2016. Ulliel died Wednesday, Jan. 19, 2022, after a skiing accident in the Alps, according to his agent’s office. Ulliel, who was 37, was known for appearing in Chanel perfume ads as well as film and television roles. (AP Photo/Joel Ryan, File) | null | null | null | null | null |
Known for creating the television series “Buffy the Vampire Slayer,” Joss Whedon was once celebrated as a feminist. The series subverted common tropes of the fantasy genre, centering on a young woman who might elsewhere have been cast aside early in the story. Buffy — played by Sarah Michelle Gellar for seven seasons, beginning in 1997 — was inspiring. She earned Whedon a passionate following, his fans varying widely in age and profession.
Whedon kept to himself as the allegations grew in number. But that changed Monday with an extensive profile published in New York magazine. Writer Lila Shapiro spoke to dozens of people who knew Whedon before visiting him at his Los Angeles home, where he often denied the truth of their stories or characterized his own past words as misconstrued. The interview is a far cry from those published earlier in Whedon’s career, including one Shapiro references in the piece that deemed Whedon “the most inventive pop storyteller of his generation.”
The Hollywood Reporter story also stated that Whedon pushed Gadot, “Justice League’s” Wonder Woman, to record lines she didn’t like, and that he threatened her career when she pushed back. According to an Elle magazine profile of the actress, Gadot concurred on Israeli television that he said he would “would make my career miserable.” | null | null | null | null | null |
The latest Gallup findings on the two parties’ support, released Monday, show that Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents made up an average of 46 percent of adults during 2021, vs. 43 percent for the Republicans, a two-point pro-GOP shift from the 48-to-43 Democratic edge in 2020. (The margin of error is one percentage point.) | null | null | null | null | null |
Resistance to change was “less than I thought it would be,” Berger told me in an interview last month at the Reagan National Defense Forum in Simi Valley, Calif. The key, he said, has been to take the money and people freed up by discarding old systems and invest in new capabilities that can combat a modern, high-tech rival such as China. | null | null | null | null | null |
While he no longer has the same platform on social media that he once did (Twitter and Facebook took a dim view of his efforts to overthrow Biden’s election), he still releases frequent messages on the website of his political action committee. He still conducts interviews (albeit almost exclusively with sycophantic right-wing outlets), and he still holds rallies. Part of his attempts to reinforce his position as head of the party is acting like he is the head of the party, a bit of theater he enjoys.
In the moment, this raises an interesting question: What’s Trump’s position on the increased aggression that Russia is demonstrating toward Ukraine? And, more importantly, if Russia were to invade, how would Trump react?
No statements centered on Ukraine have been published on his PAC’s website. Or, rather, none about the current tension; there are a number of statements in which Trump fumes about Democrats, mentioning Ukraine as a way of complaining that he was unfairly impeached for his efforts to get that country’s president, Volodymyr Zelensky, to aid Trump’s reelection bid.
It’s long been the case that Putin’s machinations against Ukraine have gotten a pass from America’s political right when the president is a Democrat. In 2014, Republicans made arguments similar to Trump’s in Arizona: It was happening because Barack Obama was weak. Trump made a similar point in an interview that year.
It’s an example of how the political right and Trump’s allies give him cover for his approach to Putin. But there’s also an explicit effort by one of the right’s loudest voices to not only passively criticize Biden but to actively defend Putin — an effort that could make it easier for Trump to shrug at any potential conflict.
Carlson and Ehrlich agreed that Russia was frustrated that Ukraine might join NATO, which Carlson framed as being equivalent to “Mexico [falling] under the direct military control of China.” This, of course, ignores that Russia and Ukraine are already geopolitical opponents, with the seizure of Crimea overlapping with extended (though limited-in-scale) fighting in Ukraine’s east.
The point here is not to defend the idea of armed conflict emerging in Europe, nor to defend a particular position on the prospect. It is certainly not to endorse American involvement in a potential war in Ukraine. It is, instead, to point out that the former president and current Republican leader’s position on the question is unstated — even as it poses a particularly tricky set of questions about how he might respond. It is also to reinforce that many of Trump’s allies are inherently sympathetic to Putin’s tactics and that some, like Carlson, are working to actively support Russia’s position. Trump hasn’t spoken out against Putin’s demonstrated aggression, and he has a foundation from which not to do so. | null | null | null | null | null |
Skip to main content Washington Post Live About Past Events Podcast
New Hampshire is again dealing with a record number of COVID-19 cases. Join Washington Post Live 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 |
Science fiction — please, let’s not call it ‘sci-fi’ — is more than just a reaction to the present
New books and publications delve into the rich and evolving worlds of speculative fiction
(Tordotcom; Hippocampus Press)
A week before Christmas, I spent a happy afternoon at the 79th World Science Fiction Convention, known as DisCon III. Even though sf — I prefer the classic acronym over the now commonly heard but juvenile “sci-fi” — has recently been embroiled in culture wars, the programming at the 2021 con was sufficiently varied that any new or old fan could find talks and panels of interest. Strict covid protocols didn’t hamper the enthusiasm of the masked and vaccinated attendees thronging Washington’s Omni Shoreham Hotel. Writer Nancy Kress and artist John Harris were guests of honor, African fantastika was center stage, the 2021 Hugo for best novel went to Martha Wells’s “Network Effect,” and Chengdu, China, after a vigorous campaign, won the bid to host 2023’s Worldcon.
Note that’s 2023. Before then, writers, artists and readers will assemble this fall for Chicon 8, a successor to the Chicago Worldcon of 1940. As it happens, the father-son team of David and Daniel Ritter devote the latest volume in “The Visual History of Science Fiction Fandom” (published by First Fandom Experience) to the planning, activities and aftermath of that gathering, which firmly established Worldcons as a movable feast. (The first World Science Fiction Convention was held in New York in 1939; in 2020 New Zealand became home for that year’s festivities, though covid required them to be entirely virtual.) In 1940, two daring young men from Denver hopped freight trains to reach that first Chicon; Forrest J. Ackerman — a Los Angeles fan soon to emerge as the field’s most famous collector — dressed as Ming the Merciless from the “Flash Gordon” comic strips (costuming — cosplay — is nothing new) and E.E. “Doc” Smith, author of the 1928 serial “The Skylark of Space,” appeared as guest of honor. Total membership reached 128; more recent Woldcons measure attendance in the thousands.
The Ritters dedicate their document-rich volume, also available digitally, to Erle M. Korshak, who as a teenager helped organize the first Chicon. Until shortly before his death last August at age 97, Erle contributed regularly to online discussion of those distant early days of fandom.
Modern sf usually traces its origins to 1926, when Hugo Gernsback founded “Amazing Stories.” The first volume of Jim Emerson’s “Futures Past: A Visual History of Science Fiction” (www.sfhistory.net) provides a colorful grab-bag of material from that year, starting with the contents — and cover art — of each issue of “Amazing Stories.” Also featured are lists of the science fiction books, movies and plays of 1926, with plot summaries and illustrations, along with interpretive essays by Mike Ashley and Ben Webster. In Volume 2, titled “Dawn of the SF Blockbuster,” Emerson concentrates on silent films, devoting 40 enthralling pages to the creation, reception and restoration of Fritz Lang’s 1927 dystopian masterpiece, “Metropolis.”
The late 1920s and 1930s were also the heyday of “Weird Tales.” Of all the contributors to “the unique magazine,” the most celebrated remains Howard Phillips Lovecraft, who died at age 46 in 1937, expecting to be quickly forgotten. Admirers of his atmospheric stories — my favorite is “The Call of Cthulhu” — wouldn’t let that happen.
‘A Voyage to Arcturus’ may have sold 596 copies in its first printing, but it deserves a wider audience
No one knows more about this now iconic author than S.T. Joshi. In his latest study, “The Recognition of H.P. Lovecraft” (Hippocampus Press), he chronicles, in the words of the book’s subtitle, his subject’s “Rise from Obscurity to World Renown.” As always, Joshi writes with clarity and authority, while never hesitating to administer correction to those he disagrees with.
Joshi briskly tracks Lovecraft’s contributions to amateur press publications, his successes and failures with magazine editors, August Derleth’s machinations to publish the huge, posthumous 1939 collection “The Outsider and Others,” and the astonishing post-World War II flurry of paperback reissues, criticism and scholarly editions of his complete fiction, essays and correspondence. Did you know that Anthony Powell, author of the Proustian “A Dance to the Music of Time,” reviewed the first British edition of “The Case of Charles Dexter Ward”? While Lovecraft’s views on race, class and ethnicity can be offensive, Joshi points out that his work nonetheless continues to be widely translated and popular in non-European countries around the world.
In science fiction’s lingo, “sercon” denotes serious and constructive criticism. The latest issue of William M. Breiding’s high-quality zine, “Portable Storage Six,” is subtitled “The Great Sercon Issue, Part One” and lives up to that promise. It features Fred Lerner’s essay on Jews in science fiction; an appreciation by Jon Sommer of “Earth Abides,” George R. Stewart’s 1949 vision of life after a worldwide plague; a review by Paul Di Filippo of three radically transgressive works by Samuel R. Delany; and Cheryl Cline’s dive into E.E. “Doc” Smith’s 1931 serial, “Spacehounds of IPC.” Not least, Alec Nevala-Lee recounts his discovery of “Frozen Hell,” the original uncut text for what became John W. Campbell’s “Who Goes There?”. That 1938 novella may be familiar to movie buffs as the inspiration for both “The Thing from Another World” (1951) — which closes with the haunting line, “Keep watching the skies!” — and John Carpenter’s even scarier “The Thing” (1982).
Science fiction grew increasingly experimental, daring and literary during the 1960s, ’70s and ’80s, just the period covered in Charles Platt’s multivolume memoir, “An Accidental Life” (independently published). In the just-issued fourth volume, Platt recalls his missteps as a novelist, various misadventures with women, his early fascination with personal computing, and a few of his pranks and flame wars, often carried out in his fanzine, “The Patchin Review.” The contrarian Platt, who is a friend of mine, may be the most divisive figure in late 20th-century American science fiction — with the possible exception of his archenemy, the late Harlan Ellison — but once you start reading “An Accidental Life,” you won’t want to stop. It is just as entertaining and informative as Platt’s two-volume “Dream Makers” (1980, 1983), in which he profiles major mid-century sf writers from Isaac Asimov and Alfred Bester to James Tiptree Jr. (Alice Sheldon) and Kurt Vonnegut.
But enough for now. As these books remind us, science fiction doesn’t merely react to the present and imagine the future, it can also learn much from its complex and fantastically tumultuous past. | null | null | null | null | null |
Christians from the Ethiopian Orthodox church celebrate the first day of the festival of Timkat, or Epiphany, in the capital Addis Ababa, Ethiopia Tuesday, Jan. 18, 2022. The annual festival celebrates the baptism of Jesus Christ in the River Jordan. (AP Photo) (Uncredited/AP)
NAIROBI, Kenya — The United Nations secretary-general said Wednesday he was delighted to hear “there is now a demonstrable effort to make peace” in Ethiopia after more than 14 months of war, but he gave no details. | null | null | null | null | null |
WASHINGTON, DC - DECEMBER 12: Jeff Dooley, Assignment Editor in the Sports Department of The Washington Post, stands for a portrait in the Michel du Cille Photo Studio at The Washington Post on Tuesday, December 12, 2017 in Washington, DC. (photo by Jahi Chikwendiu/The Washington Post)
Announcement from Business Editor Lori Montgomery and Deputy Business Editor Zachary Goldfarb:
We are delighted to announce that Jeff Dooley will become special sections editor, leading an ambitious new initiative to develop creative, themed digital packages with broad appeal to readers.
From his home base on the Business Desk, Jeff will partner with staffs across the newsroom to conceive and produce special sections that tap our vast storytelling resources to address topics deeply relevant to readers’ lives, from personal finance and technology to wellness and the evolving landscape of our pandemic existence. In collaboration with Elite Truong, The Post’s director of strategic initiatives, Jeff will engage staff and freelance writers to produce entertaining and thought-provoking story collections built around themes that often fall between desks or beyond the mandates of the traditional news cycle.
Jeff comes to this role after a terrific five-year run in Sports, where he drove coverage of the NFL while bringing enormous creativity to a broad range of topics. He edited Roman Stubbs’s wrenching piece about Ahmaud Arbery’s high school football coach, as well as a series about high school athletics that won the Curley Award for coverage of youth sports – and earned Roman recognition as a finalist for the Livingston Award. He edited Kent Babb’s story about a coach’s mission to save his players from gun violence at a New Orleans high school. And he edited Nicki Jhabvala’s powerful piece about a soldier who bonded with Washington Football Team quarterback Alex Smith while the pair recovered from nearly identical leg injuries.
Jeff also edited a memorable climate-change series, written by Rick Maese, that introduced readers to big-wave surfers who benefit from warming oceans and a historic, 135-mile Dutch ice-skating race that may never be held again. Jeff oversaw an innovative visual project that illuminated the signature offensive schemes of all 32 NFL teams heading into the 2018 season.
Before joining The Post in 2017, Jeff was editor in chief of Pro Football Focus, overseeing the company’s editorial operations and co-hosting a weekly NFL radio show on SiriusXM. He began his career at ESPN.
Jeff earned a bachelor’s degree from the College of William and Mary and a master’s from the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism. He lives in the District with his wife, Dayana Sarkisova, who edits The Post’s Climate Solutions team, and their dog, Pushkin.
Please join us in congratulating Jeff as he takes on this exciting new role. He starts today. | null | null | null | null | null |
Six months later, his family says, Rodríguez is facing up to 28 years in prison. He is among scores of people facing stiff sentences in trials this month for their roles in the demonstrations of July 11 and 12, according to relatives and human-rights groups.
“This is different because everyone has a cellphone,” Gonzalez said. “So this is a very unusual occasion in Cuban history and the government knows it and wants to shut it down.”
Cuban authorities have acknowledged the legitimacy of some of the protesters’ concerns. The economy was bludgeoned by the coronavirus pandemic and a decrease in aid from socialist ally Venezuela; GDP dropped 11 percent in 2020. But authorities blamed the demonstrations on Washington-backed “counterrevolutionaries” it said were taking advantage of a crisis caused by U.S. economic sanctions.
Cuban court officials said in August that 67 people had been tried on relatively minor charges, such as public disorder. A series of trials that began in December have involved more serious charges, human rights groups say. By the end of this week, about 300 protesters will have gone to court in the most extensive collective trials in decades, according to the groups.
Elaine Rodríguez said she does not understand why Maykel was charged with sedition. “The lawyer said that these are measures aimed at serving as an example to others.” | null | null | null | null | null |
Dining out Q & A: Ask our food critic.
Today at 12:31 p.m. EST|Updated January 26, 2022 at 11:00 a.m. EST
Thanks for joining my every-Wednesday-at-11 a.m. dining discussion, where I’m happy to address your restaurant-related questions and comments. I like to keep the format broad and open; recent Q&As have touched on a scathing restaurant review out of Italy, how inexperienced eaters can learn to dine, and what restaurants we miss most in DC. | null | null | null | null | null |
Two men shot, one fatally, in Northeast Washington
Police say the incident may be related to an earlier nearby shooting
(Clarence Williams/The Washington Post)
A 19-year-old man was killed and another man was injured in a shooting Tuesday night in the Lincoln Heights neighborhood of Northeast Washington, according to D.C. police.
Police said they are investigating whether that shooting is related to another shooting an hour earlier that injured two people and occurred a half-mile away.
The fatal shooting occurred about 8 p.m. in the 5000 block of Cloud Place NE, near Division Avenue. Police said officers responding to calls about gunshots found the victims.
Authorities identified the man who died as Devin Brewer of Northeast Washington. The other man was not identified, and police said his injuries are not believed to be life-threatening.
Police said they were looking for a burgundy Toyota Highlander with D.C. license plates.
About 7 p.m., police said, two men were shot about a half-mile away, in the 4900 block of East Capitol Street NE. Police said their injuries did not appear to be life-threatening.
Police said they were also looking for a burgundy Toyota Highlander in the Capitol Street shooting, though they did not know whether the license plate was the same as for the Highlander seen at the Cloud Place shooting.
Police spokeswoman Kristen Metzger said detectives are looking into whether the two shootings are connected.
Authorities did not discuss a possible motive and said no arrest has been made.
There have been five homicides in the District this year, compared with eight at this time in 2021. Homicides last year surpassed 200 in the city for the first time since 2003. | null | null | null | null | null |
Opinion: Glenn Youngkin’s edifice complex
Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin (R), center, prepares to give his State of the Commonwealth speech at the State Capitol in Richmond on Jan. 17. (Bob Brown/Richmond Times-Dispatch via Associated Press)
In his first address to the General Assembly, newly minted Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin (R) urged lawmakers to “turn the page” on the divisive issues of the past and focus instead on the issues that matter most to the commonwealth’s families.
Which, in Youngkin’s view, includes a deep-seated worry that Virginia government isn’t doing enough for Daniel M. Snyder and the Washington Football Team.
And, more broadly, Virginia’s families appear to be profoundly concerned the state hasn’t done nearly enough on the corporate welfare front.
Never fear, those of you who may be worried about such things (when not worried about the creeping menace of critical race theory or some other hobgoblin intended to keep the base agitated through the midterm elections). Youngkin is on the case, promising that his administrations will “win the competition for jobs and corporate re-locations” and make a “significant investment in mega-sites” — to make sure “we don’t lose the next advanced battery manufacturing plant after seeing several go to Kentucky, Tennessee, North Carolina and Georgia.”
Let’s be very clear: States do not compete for businesses. Politicians compete, vying with one another for the opportunity to tout their job-creation skills. But all they are really doing is transferring wealth from local businesses to big businesses.
Hmmm. A redistribution of wealth. Did someone say “socialism?”
And for those most worried about Snyder, Youngkin wants to “broaden the baseball stadium authority to include football. And perhaps we’ll get one of those too.”
Youngkin may frequently assert, perhaps even believe, that he is at the leading edge of a movement to make government more accountable to the people. Far from it. Youngkin is really just the latest link in a long, bipartisan chain of politicians who think pro stadiums are the pathway to something.
Youngkin’s desire for a football stadium isn’t happening in a vacuum. There are series of “talks” about getting Snyder’s team housed in Virginia, and they are reportedly “very serious."
How much public money would be on the line for such a project is unclear. The last “very serious” talks about building a pro stadium — in Alexandria — happened in 1992. They eventually fell apart when then-Gov. L. Douglas Wilder (D) sought to reduce the state’s incentive package by $40 million, down from the initial $130 million Wilder and then-team owner Jack Kent Cooke agreed to.
That was in 1992, the same year the team won its last Super Bowl, still had respectable ownership and still had Joe Gibbs as head coach.
How much would Virginia families have to pony up for a stadium to house Snyder’s team? Stadiums aren’t cheap, and edifices to political vanity are even more expensive. The current WFT stadium cost Maryland taxpayers more than $70 million. That’s a bargain compared with the $220 million they forked over for the Ravens facility in Baltimore.
How much would a new WFT facility — sited somewhere in Northern Virginia — cost Virginia taxpayers? The sky’s the limit.
Not all of Capitol Square’s denizens are on the stadium bandwagon. Back in 2019, Del. Michael J. Webert (R-Fauquier) introduced legislation to prevent the state from offering incentives for a football stadium. It was killed — unanimously — in a House Appropriations Subcommittee.
That defeat had a silver lining, at least for the Republicans: It prevented them from having to go on record about possibly giving Snyder (current estimated net worth: $4 billion) a handout to build a new stadium.
But because stadium construction with public money is a bipartisan affair, perhaps the governor will reach across the aisle and enlist one of the more vocal and high-profile advocates for a Virginia football stadium. No, not you Sen. Chap Petersen (D-Fairfax City). I mean the man Youngkin defeated in November: former governor Terry McAuliffe. | null | null | null | null | null |
The man accused of killing a 23-year-old woman in Alexandria, Va., last month denies the crime, saying he was a friend of the victim.
David Cunningham, 40, is accused of killing Melia Jones, a neighbor in his South Van Dorn Street apartment building. Jones was killed on Dec. 4, but was not found by her parents until three days later, Assistant Commonwealth’s Attorney Maana Parcham said at a bond hearing Tuesday in Alexandria General District Court.
Jones, who had Down syndrome, was sexually assaulted, strangled, and wrapped in blankets with a bag over her head, according to the prosecutor. Cunningham’s fingerprints were found in the apartment and his DNA was under her nails and on her body, Parcham said. He faces a single charge of second-degree murder.
Defense attorney Damon Colbert said in court that Cunningham had struck up a friendship with Jones in September. They had a “somewhat amorous relationship,” Colbert said, which he said would explain the DNA. But in a five-and-a-half hour interview with detectives, he said, Cunningham maintained his innocence in her death.
Jones lived alone and until the coronavirus pandemic had held a job. Jones’s obituary described her as a “sweet and gentle spirit” who loved dancing and singing along to pop and gospel music. Efforts to reach her family were unsuccessful.
Cunningham relocated from New York to Alexandria in 2020 to be closer to his ex-wife and three of his five children, Colbert said. He was working at a Coca-Cola warehouse on Seminary Road. While he struggles with an addiction to crack cocaine, Colbert said his client’s only criminal record is for illegal possession of a handgun in New York, 16 years ago.
“This man should be allowed to go back to the community … to fight for his life,” Colbert argued, particularly given the difficulty of preparing for trial during the pandemic and the risk of covid infection in jail.
Parcham said Cunningham was inconsistent in what he told investigators, particularly about whether his relationship with Jones had been sexual. “The defendant’s story changed quite a bit,” which he blamed on alcohol and drug use, she said.
General District Court Judge Donald M. Haddock ordered Cunningham, whose next hearing is set for March 18, held without bond, saying the DNA evidence was enough to find probable cause that he committed the murder. Colbert said he plans to appeal that ruling. | null | null | null | null | null |
A previous version of this article misstated the name of the parliamentary session Prime Minister Boris Johnson failed to attend. It was Urgent Questions, not Prime Minister's Questions. The article has been updated.
LONDON — Boris Johnson rode into power on a wave of populism akin to the tide that propelled Donald Trump in the United States. Trump once dubbed Johnson “Britain Trump,” and the prime minister, like the former president, emerged immune from each scandal, gaffe and political firefight, basking in undimmed ratings from his base. Then suddenly, last week, something changed. Now Johnson’s two-and-a-half-year premiership appears to be entering its endgame.
For once, the prime minister had nowhere to go. Characteristically, he smirked and mumbled and shuffled. He failed to show up for an Urgent Questions session in Parliament. The following day, he arrived at the Prime Minister’s Questions session with a lawyered statement. Donors and MPs from his own side joined calls for him to resign. One MP cried in Parliament while recalling his mother-in-law dying alone because the family had to obey the rules while Johnson flouted them in secret. | null | null | null | null | null |
Britney Spears sends sister Jamie Lynn cease and desist letter over ‘outrageous claims’ in new book
A lawyer for Britney Spears sent the pop singer’s sister, Jamie Lynn Spears, a cease and desist letter this week over “misleading or outrageous claims” made in her new memoir and on its promotional tour.
That same day, Rosengart’s legal team accused Jamie Spears of financial misconduct in a court document filed in opposition to Jamie’s petition for his daughter’s estate to cover his legal fees. Sherine Ebadi, an investigator and former FBI agent, stated that Jamie had taken millions of dollars from his daughter while overseeing her conservatorship. According to Ebadi, Jamie used some of the money to pay the firm Black Box Security nearly $6 million to monitor Spears’s personal communication, including that with her lawyer, as well as recorded conversations in her bedroom.
Rosengart also referenced Jamie in the cease and desist letter to Jamie Lynn, writing that “you of all people know the abuse and wrongdoing Britney had to endure during the conservatorship, after initially growing up with a ‘ruinous,’ alcoholic father.” | null | null | null | null | null |
FILE - A BNSF railroad train hauling carloads of coal from the Powder River Basin of Montana and Wyoming is seen east of Hardin, Mont., on July 15, 2020. BNSF railroad wants a federal judge to prevent two of its unions from going on strike next month over a new attendance policy that would penalize employees for missing work. The Fort Worth, Texas-based railroad went to court after the unions that represent nearly half of BNSF’s 35,000 workers threatened to strike over the new policy that is set to go into effect on Feb. 1, 2022. (AP Photo/Matthew Brown File) (Matt Brown/AP) | null | null | null | null | null |
Judge cancels trial in suit against Fairfax schools over TJ admissions, will issue judgment
A federal judge has decided against holding a trial in a parent-brought lawsuit against Fairfax County Public Schools over changes to the admissions system at prestigious magnet school Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology, known as TJ. Instead, the judge will issue a ruling.
The case, filed in March by parent advocacy group the Coalition for TJ, was supposed to go to trial Jan. 24. But U.S. District Judge Claude Hilton said at a Tuesday hearing that he sees no reason to hold a trial in the case because there are no material facts in dispute.
Officials revised the admissions system at TJ last year in an effort to boost diversity at the school, which has historically enrolled disproportionately low numbers of Hispanic and Black students compared to county demographics. The revisions included eliminating a difficult admissions test and a $100 application fee, and instead installing a “holistic review” process that in part judges students’ “experience factors,” including low-income status, English-speaking ability, whether the applicant has a disability and whether the applicant comes from a historically underrepresented middle school.
Fairfax County school system faces second lawsuit over changes to Thomas Jefferson admissions
In 2021, the first year the admission changes took effect, TJ admitted the most diverse class of freshmen in recent memory. Although Black and Hispanic student representation increased, the number of Asian American students dropped — from the roughly 70 percent typical in recent years to around 50 percent of the incoming class.
In March of that year, the Coalition for TJ sued to reverse the changes, which they allege were meant to diminish the number Asian American students and thus qualify as discrimination based on race, which is outlawed under the equal-protection clause of the U.S. Constitution. The group is being represented free of charge by the Pacific Legal Foundation, a California-based conservative legal group known for its critical view of affirmative action.
It is unclear when Hilton will issue his ruling, and he gave no hint about how he might rule. Whatever he ultimately decides, both parties will be able to appeal.
Fairfax schools’ general counsel John Foster said in a statement Tuesday that the law is on the school system’s side.
“The new [admissions] process is blind to race, gender and national origin,” Foster said. “We believe that the new process meets all legal requirements and … summary judgment should be entered in favor of the School Board.”
The Coalition for TJ did not respond to a request for comment Wednesday. But Asra Nomani, a founding member and vice president of the group, said in a tweet Tuesday that “we will win.”
She added in a follow-up tweet, “My only disappointment in not going to trial” is not being able to testify “against FCPS Supt Scott Brabrand + his racism.”
The federal lawsuit is one of two that Fairfax is facing over admissions changes at TJ.
In November 2020, a group of parents sued to stop the admissions revisions, arguing that nixing the TJ admissions test goes against Virginia law that requires that Governor’s Schools — special schools for gifted children partially funded by the state, of which TJ is one — offer a “nationally norm-referenced aptitude test” as part of its admittance process. That suit, filed in Fairfax County Circuit Court by some of the same families that are plaintiffs in the federal suit, is ongoing but has largely stalled, with little activity in recent months.
The Fairfax school system, Virginia’s largest with 180,000 students, is also facing an attack on TJ admissions from the legislative front. A Republican lawmaker, Del. Glenn R. Davis Jr. (Virginia Beach), introduced a bill this month that would bar Governor’s Schools from considering race in admissions.
Although Fairfax officials maintain TJ does not consider race in admissions, Foster has said the bill signals an intent to target TJ and has vowed to fight it. | null | null | null | null | null |
On Wednesday, Sen. Mark Kelly (D-Ariz.), a centrist Democratic senator who has been largely quiet on the issue, came out in support of a specific change to the filibuster that would allow Democrats to pass sweeping election-reform legislation with a majority vote rather than 60 votes.
Because the Senate filibuster is all that stands in the way of passing two election-reform bills, eroding it is quickly becoming synonymous with support for other Democratic priorities. It’s a “you’re-with-us-or-against-us” mentality coalescing around the filibuster.
So even as Democrats face a pretty big failure Wednesday on this front when at least two of their senators vote with Republicans not to change the filibuster to pass voting rights, there’s evidence that the battle has transformed the party so much that it could become a litmus test.
Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) has openly talked about supporting primary challengers to the two Senate Democrats increasingly on an island on this issue — Sinema and Manchin.
A year or so ago, it was not a given the Democratic Party would be this forceful on changes to the filibuster. President Biden wasn’t on board for much of his campaign; he opposed getting rid of the filibuster during the presidential primary when other candidates embraced it, only to open the door a crack after he won the primary: “It’s going to depend on how obstreperous they become. But I think you’re going to just have to take a look at it.”
Five current U.S. senators who ran for president alongside him were also hesitant to eliminate the filibuster. (Although at the time, there wasn’t as nuanced of a discussion between eliminating the filibuster entirely and carving out an exception for voting rights legislation. Though some Senate legislative experts argue that’s a distinction without a difference; they say the filibuster is likely doomed eventually, and it’s just a matter of which party takes the first whack at it. There’s no longer a filibuster for presidential nominees, including Supreme Court picks, thanks to actions taken by both parties but precipitated by Democrats.)
A group of nine former Democratic senators from red states — led by Doug Jones of Alabama — also just said they support Democratic leaders’ proposed changes to the filibuster: “[I]n today’s Senate, certain Senate rules, including the filibuster, have clearly become weaponized legislative tools for obstruction rather than progress,” they wrote.
This November, they are trying to keep their tenuous hold on the Senate majority. And they’ll be defending it in races in purple states — Georgia, Arizona, Nevada and New Hampshire — where, with the exception of Georgia, it’s not clear how much this debate resonates with voters. (Sen. Raphael G. Warnock (D-Ga.) has become one of the Senate’s leading voices for changes to the filibuster to pass voting rights legislation.) It’s at least possible that after Wednesday, this fades as an issue of importance in the Democratic Party. | null | null | null | null | null |
People join a vigil on Jan. 6, 2022, in New York to commemorate the first anniversary of the attack on the U.S. Capitol by Trump supporters. (Spencer Platt/Getty Images)
For example, processes are underway to evaluate what occurred at the Capitol both at the congressional and law enforcement levels. The Justice Department last week released indictments targeting members of the right-wing group Oath Keepers on charges of seditious conspiracy. But, as the Hill reported, prominent Democrats also think that the feds may go further: charging Trump himself for his role.
This brings to mind another tweet from the early Trump era: British writer Louise Mensch’s wild claim that then-Trump adviser Stephen K. Bannon might face the death penalty on espionage charges. There was a market for these sorts of bonkers assertions about the heavy hand of justice (lowercase J) coming down on members of the Trump administration, and Mensch was a regular pusher. Bannon was eventually arrested, for his role in an effort to vacuum up contributions to build a wall on the border with Mexico. And then Trump pardoned him. | null | null | null | null | null |
Seventeen Republicans who in 2006 supported a vote to reauthorize the landmark 1965 Voting Rights Act plan to vote against a bill that would restore provisions struck down by the Supreme Court in recent years
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) has led Republican opposition to giving the federal government more authority over voting laws. (Bill O'Leary/The Washington Post)
“One of my favorite sayings that many of us use from time to time is, ‘if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it,'” McConnell said on the Senate floor in July of that year before the Senate passed the bill on a 98 to 0 vote. “This is a good piece of legislation which has served an important purpose over many years … And this landmark piece of legislation will continue to make a difference not only in the South but for all of America and for all of us, whether we are African Americans or not.”
Democrats argue that in recent years the conservative-led Supreme Court did what McConnell advised against: Broke what didn’t need fixing. In response, they have proposed restoring and strengthening the parts of the law struck down by the court that gave the Justice Department the ability to block or aggressively challenge changes to voting laws in mostly Southern states to prevent voter discrimination.
“Changing the laws so that our partisan attorney general can rewrite voting laws without even having to win in court is not about promoting justice, it’s about short-circuiting justice,” he said on Tuesday. “This is about one party wanting the power to unilaterally rewrite the rule book of American elections.”
Democrats said they agree that the country has changed since 1965, but argue that doesn’t mean discrimination against voters of color no longer exists and have criticized Republicans for not getting behind the Lewis bill.
Efforts last year to build Republican support for the Lewis bill were mostly futile with only Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska), who voted for the 2006 reauthorization, supporting moving forward with the legislation.
Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine), who co-sponsored the 2006 legislation, said she does not support either of the Democrats’ voting rights bills. She has criticized the broader proposal as a Democratic power grab and argued that new state voting laws are not restrictive. She has also pointed to the high voter turnout for the 2020 elections as evidence there is little getting in the way of people heading to the polls.
“One of the most fundamental and significant rights afforded to American citizens is the right to vote,” Collins said back then. “This right must not be hampered or denied to any citizen through discriminatory tactics. This bill will ensure that the voting rights afforded to all Americans are protected.”
A spokeswoman for Collins did not immediately reply to a request for further comment on the senator’s position on the Lewis bill.
Sen. Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.) in 2006 lauded the reauthorization as a necessary step, saying South Carolina had “made great strides forward in terms of African-American voting participation and representation in all levels of state and local government … But just like every other part of the country, we still have a ways to go.”
“I hope twenty-five years from now, it can be said that there will be no need for a Voting Rights Act because things have continued to change for the better,” Graham said then. “If we continue making progress like we have in the past twenty-five years, we can make it happen.”
“States, under our Constitution, are supposed to run elections, and in my state, I think we do a pretty good job,” Graham said. “The bottom line here is, this is an effort by the Democratic leader to basically say that Republicans at our heart are a bunch of racists when it comes to voting. That the reason they’re having to do this is [because] states are changing laws to disenfranchise people … I find that like, incredibly offensive.” | null | null | null | null | null |
Stats don’t tell her whole story for Brentsville District’s Alden Yergey, but how about this: 26.8 points, 5.2 rebounds, 4.3 assists and 3.9 steals per game
Brentsville District's Alden Yergey is averaging 26.8 points, 5.2 rebounds, 4.3 assists and 3.9 steals per game this season as a junior. (Craig Hudson/For the Washington Post)
Alden Yergey didn’t grow up in a basketball family or go to a basketball school or sprout up to a basketball-friendly height. But it didn’t take long for her to realize that she could outwork everyone around her.
Eugene Baltimore, her coach at Brentsville District High, picked up on that tendency during the winter of Yergey’s eighth grade year, when she played on the school’s junior varsity team — and clanked away a game.
With the Tigers trailing by one at home and the buzzer about to sound, Yergey chucked up a three-pointer that missed everything. But she made contact with an opposing player on the takeoff, which sent her to the free throw line. For three consecutive foul shots, she watched as the ball spun off her hands and hit everything but the net.
Usually, she would sit on the varsity bench after the JV game wrapped up. That day, she had her parents drive her straight home. When they pulled into the driveway, she asked them to keep the headlights on.
“Her mom sends me this video,” Baltimore retells. “Now, this is in January, and it’s freezing cold outside. And [Alden] said ‘I’m not going inside until I make 100 free throws.’ Not shoot 100. Make 100.
“… I mean we’ll have track workouts in the summertime, and she’s out there 45 minutes before anybody gets there. In the offseason, she’ll want to have me in the gym at 6 o’clock before school starts. I’ve been coaching 30 years and I’ve never had a player who works as hard as Alden does.”
Three years later, the stats make a convincing case that Yergey has developed into one of the area’s most indispensable players: In the first nine games of this season, the junior has led her team to an 8-1 record and is averaging 26.8 points, 5.2 rebounds, 4.3 assists and 3.9 steals per game.
It’s not just that she’s putting up gaudy numbers; it’s that she’s putting up all of the numbers. Of the 185 baskets the Tigers have made this season, she has scored or assisted on 134 of them. If you removed the remaining 51 baskets, the Tigers would still have a winning record at 6-3.
With state tournament appearances in 2019 and 2020, Brentsville District has earned its respect in Virginia. With Yergey’s increased production, the Tigers are serious contenders for a Class 3 state title, which would be the first in program history.
A true test will come Friday against Meridian, the defending state champions, who are 6-0 against the Tigers since 2019.
Yergey, who wears Sue Bird’s sneakers, plays with the poise of the 18-year WNBA veteran and adds swagger, regularly pulling up from the midrange or from a body length beyond the three-point line. This year, she has tried to pull moves from professional point guards in the NBA and WNBA, such as the way Chris Paul snakes the pick-and-roll or how Courtney Vandersloot manipulates defenses with her eyes.
While it’s easy to pick out the player with the quickest handle or the cleanest stroke — both of which Yergey possesses — her mind is what stands out.
“One of the questions we always asked college coaches was ‘Why Alden?,’ ” said her mom, Sara Yergey. “And I think all of them, without hesitation, were like ‘Her IQ.’ It’s not that she could drain threes, or that she had a pull-up jumper, which is fierce. It was always her IQ.”
For Yergey, it’s just a part of who she is. For her teammates, it’s a cheat code to make them better.
“She basically plays a game, and then watches the game as soon as it's over, because the night after a game is played, I’ll get clips of film,” said Emily Spittle, Yergey’s longtime friend and teammate. “And it’ll be clips of me.”
Yergey views her relationships — with parents, trainers and teammates — as most important. That’s why as people prodded her to transfer to a private school, she waved them off.
When she had the chance to commit to play Division I basketball at Siena College in November, with another year left to decide, she made the call without hesitation. A small school and “supportive community” was attractive for her, and the basketball fit at the Loudonville, N.Y., program made sense.
When Yergey is asked what she enjoys outside of basketball, she finds it hard to pluck out an answer. But to her trainer Deante Steele, it’s simple. Basketball or non-basketball, Yergey takes a lesson from everything.
Yergey and Steele spend hours talking over the phone. Their conversations will wander into discussions about TV shows, such as “Dragon Ball Z.” The biggest lesson from this year has been a concept from the show called “ultra instinct.”
“We always talk about it, where it’s being able to play in the game, or being able to fight the battle without thinking of the consequences, or without thinking of how you’re moving,” Steele said. “It’s putting in enough preparation that you can just live in the battle.”
With the coldest part of the winter kicking in, Yergey’s practice regimen gives her coach and her teammates flashbacks to that night in eighth grade. Three years later, she still refuses to see it as anything special.
“I don’t know if I’m pushing through anything to get out there,” Yergey said. “Just the fact that I want to be out there so bad just kind of trumps all those other things, and they don’t really matter — they’re easy to overcome. Like, just put a jacket on. Just grab a shovel.” | null | null | null | null | null |
Jamaica will be well represented at this year's Olympic bobsled competition. (Ryan Pierse/Getty Images,)
“I am absolutely buzzing, I am happy, I am thrilled for myself and my teammates at what we have accomplished,” brakeman Nimroy Turgott told the “Today” show on Wednesday. “We are prepared to go to the Olympics and put on a great show.”
While a medal for Jamaica’s four-man team likely is not in the cards — it has finished no higher than fifth in North American Cup races this season and finished 15th and last in its most recent Europe Cup race — the accomplishment still is pretty remarkable. | null | null | null | null | null |
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — Yemen’s Houthi rebels used cruise and ballistic missiles, in addition to drones, in an attack on Abu Dhabi this week that killed three people and set off fires at a fuel depot and an international airport, the Emirati ambassador to the United States said Wednesday. | null | null | null | null | null |
The death of Talley, the former editor-at-large of U.S. Vogue whose career in fashion journalism spanned six decades, was confirmed by his literary agent, David Vigliano, to The Washington Post.
“He had such an enthusiasm for life. He was a truthteller. He was a singular personality,” Vigliano said. “Public figures aren’t that genuine and compelling as André was.”
Talley’s Instagram account also confirmed his death early Wednesday.
Talley had a series of health struggles, but no details surrounding the cause of death were immediately available as of early Wednesday. He died at a hospital in White Plains, N.Y., according to TMZ, the first to report his death.
Vogue contributing editor André Leon Talley talks about the connection between fashion and the current political climate. He also discusses the ranges of style among first ladies, including Michelle Obama and Melania Trump. (Washington Post Live)
In a statement to Vogue on Wednesday, Wintour said, “The loss of André is felt by so many of us today.” She praised his generational talent and infectious enthusiasm but acknowledged the ups and downs in their relationship. Talley accused her of abandoning him following the release of his 2020 memoir.
“Yet it’s the loss of André as my colleague and friend that I think of now; it’s immeasurable,” Wintour said. “He was magnificent and erudite and wickedly funny — and mercurial, too. Like many decades-long relationships, there were complicated moments, but all I want to remember today, all I care about, is the brilliant and compassionate man who was a generous and loving friend to me and to my family for many, many years, and who we will all miss so much.”
Washington Post fashion critic Robin Givhan interviews Vogue contributing editor André Leon Talley about his life and career. (Washington Post Live)
Born on Oct. 16, 1948, in Washington, Talley was raised by his maternal grandmother, Binnie Francis Davis, who was a cleaner at Duke University. Talley learned style and fashion from Davis and her friends when they would wear their finest hats and clothes every Sunday at church. When he was around 9 or 10, Talley found an issue of Vogue at his public library in Durham, N.C. Talley told The Post’s Robin Givhan in 2017 that finding the issue of Vogue “was the escape moment for me.” He said to NPR in 2018 that flipping through the magazine felt as if he was going down a “rabbit hole” into “a world of glamour.”
Vogue "was my gateway to the world outside of Durham,” he said. “It was the world of literature, what was happening in the world of art, what was happening in the world of entertainment.”
André Leon Talley says reading Vogue and other fashion literature at an early age shaped the way he thought about style and fashion. He says reading Vogue when he was young inspired his ideas both in his past and present. (Washington Post Live)
After he served as a receptionist at Interview magazine under Andy Warhol and the Paris bureau chief of Women’s Wear Daily, he arrived at Vogue with a vision of what fashion could, and should, look like on people of all colors and backgrounds. The capes, caftans, suits and robes he wore became part of his signature look and gave Talley a regal presence.
“You can be aristocratic without having been born into an aristocratic family,” he said in the film.
Designer Tom Ford said in the documentary: “André is one of the last of those great editors who knows what they are looking at, knows what they are seeing, knows where it came from. André tosses out all these different words, and he’s so big and so grand, a lot of people think, ‘This guy is crazy,’ but it’s a fabulous insanity.”
Talley, who was openly gay, was a major figure in the LGBTQ community. He resigned as editor-at-large at Numéro Russia magazine in 2014 because of the anti-LGBTQ laws in the country.
He apparently had little semblance of a romantic life and publicly acknowledged he was “afraid to fall in love.”
Before his death, Talley served as the artistic director of the online retailer Zappos Couture, and he had been on the board of trustees of Savannah College of Art and Design. He wrote three books, including his 2020 memoir, “The Chiffon Trenches,” which was a New York Times bestseller. Talley was awarded the Chevalier de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres from France in 2020 and given the North Carolina Award for literature last year.
In his memoir, Talley reflected on not just how far he had come since growing up in the Jim Crow South but also how much more he had left to give to fashion and culture.
News of Talley’s death rocked people in the fashion world, who remembered him on Wednesday as an icon. Vogue mourned Talley on Twitter, honoring a man the magazine described as “one of the most recognizable faces and beloved figures in the industry, and beyond.” Bravo host Andy Cohen described his friend as “a force in fashion, a legendary storyteller.” | null | null | null | null | null |
That same day, Rosengart’s legal team accused father Jamie Spears of financial misconduct in a court document filed in opposition to Jamie’s petition for his daughter’s estate to cover his legal fees. Sherine Ebadi, an investigator and former FBI agent, stated that Jamie had taken millions of dollars from his daughter while overseeing her conservatorship. According to Ebadi, Jamie used some of the money to pay the firm Black Box Security nearly $6 million to monitor Spears’s personal communication, including that with her lawyer, as well as recorded conversations in her bedroom. | null | null | null | null | null |
Needless to say, it was only when they began to fear that White kids might be uncomfortable that they decided to pass a law about it. The bill also requires teaching the virtue of “limited government” and mandates that American history "shall be defined as the creation of a new nation based largely on the universal principles stated in the Declaration of Independence.” Any history teacher tempted to include nuance in their lessons had better take note.
We could argue about whether DeSantis’ authoritarianism is a truer version of conservatism than other varieties, but for now it’s what has made him the leading Republican contender for president in 2024 if Donald Trump chooses not to run. Who knows what other policies he’ll be rolling out to solidify that position. | null | null | null | null | null |
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell(R-Ky.) arrives as senators debate an upcoming vote on a voting rights bill in Washington, D.C. (Bill O'Leary/The Washington Post)
“One of my favorite sayings that many of us use from time to time is, ‘If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it,’ ” McConnell said on the Senate floor in July of that year before the Senate passed the bill on a 98-to-0 vote. “This is a good piece of legislation which has served an important purpose over many years.… And this landmark piece of legislation will continue to make a difference not only in the South but for all of America and for all of us, whether we are African Americans or not.”
Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine), who co-sponsored the 2006 legislation, said she does not support either of the Democrats’ voting rights bills. She has criticized the broader proposal as a Democratic power grab and argued that new state voting laws are not restrictive. She has also pointed to the high voter turnout for the 2020 elections as evidence little is getting in the way of people heading to the polls.
Sen. Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.) in 2006 lauded the reauthorization as a necessary step, saying South Carolina had “made great strides forward in terms of African American voting participation and representation in all levels of state and local government.… But just like every other part of the country, we still have a ways to go.”
“States, under our Constitution, are supposed to run elections, and in my state, I think we do a pretty good job,” Graham said. “The bottom line here is, this is an effort by the Democratic leader to basically say that Republicans at our heart are a bunch of racists when it comes to voting. That the reason they’re having to do this is [because] states are changing laws to disenfranchise people.… I find that, like, incredibly offensive.” | null | null | null | null | null |
Stansbury, 42, was born in Farmington, New Mexico to parents who both worked in the fossil fuel industry. Her mother was an operating engineer who helped build the largest coal-fired power plant in the state, and her father was a welder in the oil fields.
“I get a little emotional just thinking about the work that she's doing because of its significance and importance from a historical standpoint,” said Stansbury, who teared up during the video call while discussing Haaland's advocacy for missing and murdered Indigenous women. | null | null | null | null | null |
“You can’t pull guys out of a pile,” he said. "We just got a big play, great field position, and he’s trying to pull a guy out of a pile. And I was trying to knock him off that guy so he didn’t get a penalty.”
The Buccaneers, the defending Super Bowl champions, beat the Eagles, 31-15. They host the Los Angeles Rams in a divisional-round playoff game Sunday at Raymond James Stadium in Tampa, Fla., with a trip to the NFC championship game at stake. | null | null | null | null | null |
A wave of players left Maryland’s football program this offseason, but Coach Michael Locksley expects that type of turnover to become an annual trend. With athletes now free to transfer with immediate eligibility at their next destination, they’re more likely to seek a change if they see a better situation for themselves somewhere else.
Maryland also heads into the 2022 season with a boost expected from key returners, most notably Dontay Demus Jr., a standout wide receiver, who decided to return rather than declare for the NFL draft. Demus was the Big Ten leader in receiving yards when he suffered a season-ending knee injury in the fifth game of the season.
Demus will combine with returning quarterback Taulia Tagovailoa with hopes of generating an explosive passing game. Tagovailoa broke the Terps’ record for single-season passing yards in 2021, and next season will be his third as the starter. At receiver, Maryland will also have rising junior Rakim Jarrett, who led Maryland with 829 receiving yards last season, and Florida transfer Jacob Copeland, who led the Gators with 642 receiving yards. Maryland will also have wide receiver Jeshaun Jones back after he recovers from a season-ending injury. This position group will have a new coach in 2022 after Zohn Burden took a job at Duke.
Reece Udinski, senior quarterback: After setting school passing records at Virginia Military Institute, Udinski transferred to Maryland and spent the entire season behind Tagovailoa. As a backup, Udinski threw for 100 yards on 11-of-15 passing in four games, which preserved his final season of eligibility. He transferred to Richmond, reuniting with former VMI offensive coordinator Billy Cosh.
Brian Cobbs, senior wide receiver: Cobbs tallied 341 receiving yards on 25 catches last season, but he faced stiff competition for playing time. After injuries decimated his position group, Cobbs started two games in 2021. He’ll play his final season at Utah State.
Lawtez Rogers, senior defensive lineman: Rogers started 12 games last season and recorded 33 tackles, 4.5 tackles for loss and a fumble recovery. After five years at Maryland, Rogers declared for the NFL draft.
Nick Cross, junior defensive back: Cross joined the Maryland program as one of Locksley’s early recruiting wins, and he’ll leave for the NFL after three seasons. The former DeMatha standout started every game at safety in 2021 and finished the year second on the team with 66 tackles. He recorded six interceptions in his college career.
Evan Gregory, junior offensive lineman: In four seasons at Maryland, Gregory never earned a considerable role, and with all five starting offensive linemen returning, his opportunities for next season would again be limited. He appeared in one game last season, and he will continue his college career as a graduate transfer.
DeJuan Ellis, junior wide receiver: Ellis joined Maryland’s program from Virginia Tech but never broke through in the receiver rotation. He appeared in five games last season before announcing his decision to transfer.
Deshawn Holt, redshirt sophomore linebacker: Holt tallied 15 tackles in eight appearances last season. After three seasons at Maryland, he will continue his career at Toledo.
Osita Smith, sophomore linebacker: Smith appeared in two games last season and recorded three tackles. He announced his decision to transfer before Maryland’s bowl game.
Peny Boone, sophomore running back: Boone, a 245-pound Detroit native, tallied 172 rushing yards last season and announced his intention to transfer before Maryland’s bowl game.
Deajaun McDougle, sophomore wide receiver: McDougle caught five passes for 26 yards in 2021, even with the injuries at receiver that gave others in his position group more opportunities. McDougle will continue his career at Tulane.
Malik Jackson, sophomore tight end: With little depth at tight end in 2020, Jackson appeared in all five games and caught one pass. However, Jackson didn’t catch a pass last season, and younger tight ends appeared to surpass him on the depth chart. He entered his name in the transfer portal, a team spokesman said. | null | null | null | null | null |
Jamaica will be well represented at this year’s Olympic bobsled competition. (Ryan Pierse/Getty Images,)
“I am absolutely buzzing. I am happy. I am thrilled for myself and my teammates at what we have accomplished,” brakeman Nimroy Turgott told the “Today” show on Wednesday. “We are prepared to go to the Olympics and put on a great show.”
In the early days of the pandemic, back in 2020, Stephens and Turgott earned some attention after they were spotted pushing a Mini Cooper down English city streets to keep up with their training when gyms were first closed because of the coronavirus. Stephens, a lance corporal in the Royal Air Force, was asked about his pandemic training by none other than Queen Elizabeth on a video call she had with military officers.
After hearing of their vehicular exertions, Queen Elizabeth replied with a chuckle, “Well, I suppose that’s one way to train.”
While a medal for Jamaica’s four-man team probably is not in the cards — it has finished no higher than fifth in North American Cup races this season and finished 15th and last in its most recent Europe Cup race — the accomplishment still is pretty remarkable. | null | null | null | null | null |
Needless to say, it was only when they began to fear that White kids might be uncomfortable that they decided to pass a law about it. The bill also requires teaching the virtue of “limited government” and mandates that American history “shall be defined as the creation of a new nation based largely on the universal principles stated in the Declaration of Independence.” Any history teacher tempted to include nuance in their lessons had better take note.
We could argue about whether DeSantis’s authoritarianism is a truer version of conservatism than other varieties, but for now it’s what has made him the leading Republican contender for president in 2024 if Trump chooses not to run. Who knows what other policies he’ll be rolling out to solidify that position. | null | null | null | null | null |
FILE- Jon Stewart presents the Pat Tillman award for service on July 18, 2018, at the ESPY Awards in Los Angeles. Stewart has been named the 23rd recipient of the Kennedy Center’s Mark Twain Award for lifetime achievement in comedy. (Phil McCarten/Invision/AP, File)
In perhaps his most iconic moment, Stewart went on CNN’s popular “Crossfire” debate show in 2004 and challenged the show's entire premise of left-wing vs. right-wing debate. Stewart told co-hosts Tucker Carlson and Paul Begala they had a “responsibility to the public discourse” that they were cheapening with insincere political role-playing. | null | null | null | null | null |
Transcript: Leadership During Crisis with New Hampshire Gov. Chris Sununu
MS. ALEMANY: Good morning, and welcome to Washington Post Live. I’m Jackie Alemany, congressional correspondent and author of the Early 202, The Post’s early morning newsletter. My guest today is New Hampshire Governor Chris Sununu. Welcome back to Washington Post Live, Governor Sununu.
GOV. SUNUNU: Oh, well, thank you very much. Great to be here. I love the--I love your cupcake back there.
MS. ALEMANY: Oh, thank you.
GOV. SUNUNU: It's a first.
MS. ALEMANY: My cupcake is very famous. So, I appreciate it.
Let's talk about the latest surge of COVID that's hit your state. What percentage of new cases is due to the omicron variant?
GOV. SUNUNU: Virtually all of them at this point. The omicron variant has really taken over the majority of cases. About two weeks ago, we really dealt with a massive delta surge in the winter as we hit November and December. It was one of the reasons why New England was one of the last to see the omicron surge, is it really hit the South in late December and early January, slowly kind of made its way up, and is now our predominant now. Well over 90 percent of our cases are omicron, which is important because how you deal with the virus is a little bit different. You still want the testing and vaccines and boosters. But the big thing I think a lot of people don't realize is the traditional monoclonal antibodies for delta do not work with Omicron. So, you need different antivirals that are available, extremely limited because it's so new. Every state is kind of begging the federal government for as many as they can possibly get. But how you treat folks that are dealing with omicron is a little bit different. And obviously, you know, the level of sickness, the way the contagion is moving through the population, that is a little different as well, which change some--can sometimes change your--change your strategy in terms of managing it from a community level, as well as within your healthcare system.
MS. ALEMANY: Right. And you have voiced concern about the hospitals in New Hampshire being maxed out on resources. Where do things stand right now with the current hospitalization rate?
GOV. SUNUNU: So, our hospital numbers really peaked out in late December. They're still very high without a doubt. But we have anywhere between 375 to 420 people in a hospital on any given day, on average, and it's been bouncing at that number. It's a very, very high number. I think in our previous surge, the highest it ever got was, you know, just over 200, something like that. So, we're really double anything we had ever seen before. The issue, if I can just take folks back a little bit, remember, managing COVID as a whole is all about ensuring you have access to your hospital system, all about ensuring that the system does not get overwhelmed. So that's why we focus so much on hospitalizations and fatalities.
The other big issue is I think a lot of folks don't understand a hospital bed for COVID is not equal to a hospital bed for anything else. And what I mean by that is, when you're in the ICU for COVID, on average, four, five, six weeks sometimes for individuals, you can get a quadruple bypass surgery and be out of the hospital in four days, right? So, this is very different in that there's almost nothing like it in terms of the amount of time an individual kind of takes up that bed. So, what I mean really is when you have one person in a COVID hospital bed, it's really equal to five or six or seven people for other issues. And that's why hospitalization for COVID is such an important metric to watch, because it overwhelms the system more than any other type of illness you could get.
MS. ALEMANY: And, Governor, I am wondering, are you vaccinated and boosted? And do you recommend that your constituents who have yet to do so get vaccinated?
GOV. SUNUNU: Absolutely, absolutely, vaccinated, boosted. Every time I do it, I'm very public about it. In fact, I waited for my booster for about 10 extra days, because we did what we call the booster blitz, where we did sites all across the state, tried to do a lot of marketing and push around it, and made sure the cameras--you know, that's one area where I'm not too shy. I say, look, put the camera right on me. I want people to know this is safe. This is what you have to do. And without a doubt, given the number of people I interact with every single day, I can only imagine what it has saved me from, because we see what happens specifically with the unvaccinated and the unboosted population. The--still the vast majority of folks in our hospitals are unvaccinated and unboosted. So, you have to really be up to date with that. We encourage it. I’m as pro-vaccine as they come.
I don't believe the federal government needs to be mandating it. I think that's an overreach of government. It is a health care decision, of course. Once you start down the path of government forcing it, you know, I'm not there. I don't think any government should be. Even though I want everyone to be boosted and vaccinated, you have to also understand the limits of government kind of intervention there. So, we put a lot of marketing, a lot of messaging on it. And as governor, I think you have to kind of lead by example, to be sure.
MS. ALEMANY: Why do you think, then, some of your Republican counterparts, people like Governor Ron DeSantis, are having such a hard time saying that they are vaccinated and recommending other people to do so?
GOV. SUNUNU: You know, I don't know. I don't want to answer for them in terms of, you know, the dynamics of why they make decisions, why they, you know, publish or talk about certain things. I will say this. I--you know, one thing that I got--I think a lot of us got frustrated with was specifically in the media, and I’m not saying just The Washington Post by any means--but all across the media, it was Republicans don't want the vaccine and Democrats do. Look, there are thousands of Democrats in the state of New Hampshire that don't want the vaccine for various reasons. I talk specifically about two examples. One was a young nurse that I ran into. One was a young schoolteacher. They were young women. And for whatever reason, they were concerned about the aspect of the vaccine and the booster with pregnancy. And so we talked to them and said, no, there's no data to support that. It's very safe. You can do it. And you know, you walk them through it, you encourage them to talk to their doctor, right? I don't think anyone should just be taking the governor's word. Talk to your medical provider. Talk to your doctor about the safety of the vaccine. So, you know, both were staunch liberal Democrats, of course.
But it's not about one party or another or anything like that. I think that creates a lot of division. I think the best we can do--and I all I'm trying to do is lead by example here in my own state, whether it's leaders in your community or from the hospitals--talk to your doctor, get the information, and hopefully you're making the right decision.
Omicron is still very serious. I think there's also a lot of complacency. There was complacency back in the fall, I think from the bulk of America. But now we hear more and more studies that omicron isn't as serious, and that's true. And that's actually a very good, good thing. But it's also three to four times more virulent, which means it moves much easier throughout the community. So, a lot more folks are going to get it. It's still very dangerous for folks that have the elderly, or if you have diabetes, if you're overweight, if you have all these other potential medical conditions, or morbidities, that can kind of co-linger with omicron. It's still creating a very dangerous situation, which is why the hospitalizations are so high. We are not out of this. Are we on the back end? I hope so. Are we going to see our numbers start trickling down in the near future? I really believe so. But we're by no means out of this. We don't know what the next variant could bring. So at least from my point of view, I think we just saw--still have to stay as vigilant as ever, right? You don't--you don't run 24 miles of a marathon and just call it a day, right? You’ve got to run the whole race. And sometimes those last miles can be the hardest, but you’ve got to see it all the way through.
MS. ALEMANY: And on the topic of reaching across the aisle, you've worked with the federal government to receive COVID-19 assistance. There has been a year of Joe Biden in the presidency. What would you say is the biggest difference between how he's handled the coronavirus pandemic versus President Trump's handling of the pandemic?
GOV. SUNUNU: Well, a couple things. I have to be honest. I think communication’s been frustrating. I don't mean to lead with a negative. I try to stay very positive. But I think I speak for all governors when I say--Republican and Democrat--you know, when--in 2020, when we were on the phone every week with the administration, you had the president, the vice president taking a lead role, as a governor who was really managing the process in our own states, Republican and Democratic alike, we could talk to the decision makers. We had direct contact with them. We could get their feedback. And we can--and they could hear from us. And I think that was a very powerful tool in giving America the transparency and connection to decisions at the federal level, what we could transpire here at the state level and get out to our citizens. We’re essentially the localized mouthpiece, if you will, of what was happening at the national level. We don't really have that anymore. I think of all of our calls, we do a weekly call on COVID. I think the president, vice president have participated in two of them in the past year. That's frustrating.
Now they have good people at the White House. Don't get me wrong. They have managers and all of that. We talk to Dr. Fauci almost every week. We talk to the CDC almost every week. But to not talk to the final decision makers, there's a barrier there. And you want to make sure that the questions we have, the concerns that we have, not just as governors but what we're hearing from our communities, is being truly relayed all the way up the chain to the decision makers that ultimately move things forward. So, very tough communication to be sure.
You know, each of the administrations has a bit of a different approach. Again, the former administration was more state centric. I think this administration tries to control everything much more out of Washington. There are some benefits and some downsides to each of those. But I think communication is probably the most frustrating difference that we've seen.
MS. ALEMANY: Is there anything that you've asked from the Biden administration that they have yet to provide?
GOV. SUNUNU: Boy, that’s a great question. Yeah, I think the biggest thing we talk about on those calls is sometimes there's just confusing messages, right? One week you hear they're not going to mandate the vaccine. Two weeks later, they are going to mandate the vaccine. One week, you know, they're in one area, one week they’re other. We could go through--I think everyone understands there's many, many different examples of that. You know, when they released the five-day quarantine provisions, just very recently it was like, okay, that was--kind of came out of the blue. We had a phone call, and I think literally three hours later--they didn't mention anything on the phone call, but three hours later they made this very significant announcement, but then nothing to back it up. So, I think what we ask of them mostly is just can you explain the hows and whys.
I try to be super transparent about how I manage. I go in front of--I do a press conference at least every week to talk about this stuff. We show the data and the trends so that may--folks might not agree with a position we're taking or a strategy we're taking, but at least they understand the hows and whys we're doing it. It's not political. It’s what we're seeing with data. It’s what we're seeing in hospitals, whatever it might be. If anything, we're trying to always ask them can you give us more data, more information, more information.
Recently, you know, we've been very aggressive on home tests. We were one of the states leading the nation on home tests. We've actually done two rounds of what just happened yesterday, which is a very positive thing. You can go online with the federal government website and click on a button, and you get a home test delivered in a couple of weeks. We were doing that in December. Where--we've done it a couple times now where you went online, and you literally got your home test in two days. So, we're very proud to do that.
One of the frustrations we have is we have all these new programs coming on, on a statewide scale, where we're going to have more home tests. And now we're hearing we might not get those tests, right? They're all being diverted to the federal program, not the state program that's already been very successful. So sometimes there are things that are taken away. That happened in the previous administration as well. We had cases of when we were bringing in PPE. We--New Hampshire is really, really good about bringing PPE in, especially from overseas. We got to be one of the best. In fact, we were the lead provider for the federal VA system. They were relying on New Hampshire to bring their PPE in. And there were times early on when those planes were diverted to the feds, effectively. FEMA would take the plane when it landed in Alaska. So that got a little frustrating. So, there are times when the federal government gets in the way. They have their own mission that they're trying to drive on. All of us have the same goal.
But I'm a big believer that states just frankly, for the most part, do it better than the federal government and so you should always defer to the state's flexibility. And that's kind of what we're asking. We're seeing a little bit of a pivot there with the administration a little bit over the past couple weeks. I hope it keeps up. So if anything, I think that’s--it isn't that we don't get certain things from the feds. It's that sometimes they want to do it as a one-size-fits-all solution out of Washington as opposed to saying, you know what, what's important right now for New Hampshire might be very different than Florida, or New York, or Missouri, or California. So, let's really defer to those governors about what their needs are, flexibility in how to spend money. I mean, we get a lot of money from the feds, but there's so many strings attached. I have a housing rental program, right? Rental relief. Good idea. They gave us a lot of money. Maybe half of it has been spent over the past nine months, because rental relief isn't a major problem for us here. I'd love some of that money to be used to actually build bricks and mortar in actual housing. But they don't let us do that. So, we were always asking for more flexibility from them to let us design our own systems with the resources that they're trying to provide.
MS. ALEMANY: And I want to get to the topic of schools quickly. The national school district had to close for several days because there were so many absences due to omicron variant. You’ve described it as a short-term solution. What is the long-term solution for schools?
GOV. SUNUNU: The long-term solution to schools is to run your school as if it was pre-pandemic, which means flexibility. If you want to put a mask order in, of course. That's perfectly fine. You want to put in certain stipulations, that's fine. But kids need to be in school. Now, in that case--and there's been a couple of cases where if teachers are out because a lot of them have COVID and they've got--they're working through their quarantine provisions and isolation--if school students can't be kept safe within the school system, if there's not enough substitutes, whatever it is, then yeah, you have to make those days up, of course.
But we're really trying to create solutions not for the next two or three months but really for the long term. Because are we going to be done this in two or three months? I don't--I hope so. I don't think so, though. Is there going to be another variant down the road? If you keep creating different rules and provisions every couple of months, and you kind of turn emergency orders on like a light switch and turn this off and that's back on, it creates a lot of uncertainty in the system. It creates a lot of uncertainty with parents. Kids want to--need to be in schools. Everybody agrees with that. Maybe the teachers’ union doesn't agree with that, but everyone else agrees with that. They need to be in schools. And so we're trying to make sure that that process is as stable as we can. And that's by saying, okay, let's manage it with the internal management mechanisms that keep kids safe in the classroom--social distancing, how we manage lunch, masks, or however they want--however they want to do it, but also make sure that we know that there is a requirement that kids have to be in classrooms. And we're not--we're doing everything we can to avoid those exceptions to keep kids on that stable path.
MS. ALEMANY: And I want to do a little bit of a pivot to the topic of politics. You disappointed a lot of your fellow Republicans last November when you announced that you wouldn't take on Democratic Senator Maggie Hassan in her reelection bid but would instead run for another term as governor. What factors went into that decision making process?
GOV. SUNUNU: Well, a lot. I mean, I took a lot of time. I spoke to a lot of people. My family was supportive no matter what I wanted to do. A couple things. Number one, I love my job. I really love it. It is one of the most challenging things you can imagine. It comes with a lot of public scrutiny. I get it. But it can be incredibly fulfilling because as a governor, I'm a CEO. I can get things done. I mean, we've rebuilt and redesigned our system to deal with the drug opioid epidemic, and we're getting some of the best results in the country. We're rebuilding our mental health system, and we're transforming how we deal with kids and behavioral health and mental health in our schools and classrooms at a direct level. And to see those systems get designed, work through the bugs, if you will--you know, I'm an engineer by trade. So, I understand no system is ever designed perfectly. That's an incredibly fulfilling thing for me to do, and to work one on one with communities and individuals and kids and businesses to create opportunities for them. You don't do that in Washington. That's not my gig. Nobody does it. Democrats don't do it. Republicans don't do it. They are often all too satisfied with just stopping a process. They're all too satisfied with just being the party of no if they're in the minority or being a roadblock. And sometimes when they have control as well, they don't do enough for my liking either, either side. And I think there's no higher ground there. I think Democrats and Republicans are equally to blame for that. It's--it is unfortunately the malaise of Washington. As a governor, I get to do it. And I'm not term limited out. You know, former Governor Rick Scott of Florida, tremendous governor, tremendous guy, he was term limited out, and he wanted to keep serving his state. And I give him so much credit for that. So, he went to the Senate. And I think he has the right mindset, and he is the right champion to slowly change the mindset of the U.S. Senate. I don't--I'm not term limited out. I can run again in 2022. I can keep serving my citizens to keep getting stuff done and keep getting results. And that's what it's about. If I'm going to go through all this public scrutiny, I've said before, I'm damn well going to get something done, and get something to show for it. And I'm very proud of that. It doesn’t mean people agree with everything I might want and what I'm trying to do. It doesn't mean I can get everything I want. I’ve got--I still have to work. I've worked with Republican legislatures. I've worked with Democrat legislatures. But at the end of the day, we always get stuff done. We always cut taxes. We always create more flexibility, regulatory wise, and we're designing these new systems, which for me is very exciting.
MS. ALEMANY: And you just make reference to it, but you expanded on it a little bit more yesterday and you made headlines for this interview where you told The Washington Examiner that it bothered you that GOP senators you spoke with ahead of making this decision were okay with being a roadblock and doing little more with the majority than they're doing right now. Do you think that House Leader Kevin McCarthy versus Minority Leader Mitch McConnell is doing a better job with House Republicans than McConnell's doing with his Senate?
GOV. SUNUNU: Well, let's be clear. It's not a Republican versus Democrat issue. Democrats are just as bad at doing nothing. They did--they wanted to roadblock everything Donald Trump wanted to do and the Republicans wanted to do in 2017 and 2018. Republicans are trying to roadblock a lot of things now, and I'm very supportive of that, actually. I don't want to misunderstand. I think the Build Back Better bill was a disaster. Nationalizing our elections in New Hampshire is a great example. We do our elections very, very well, here in New Hampshire. We get the results on time. We were--after Iowa really blew it in the first in the caucus primary, the Democratic Party blew it in the first of the caucus primary back in 2020, I guess it was. It was New Hampshire's first in the nation primary where we ran it, ran it almost absolutely perfectly, got the results that night, and put the whole country back on track that the process can work, not some nationalized system. So, I'm all for stopping that kind of stuff.
But at the end of the day, whether it's managing a budget, dealing with Social Security, or Medicare, immigration reform, which I think we all agree has to happen in some way, let's--I don't think either party is ever going to get 60 votes. So, let's try to find the 52-vote version, if you know what I mean. You’ve got to work with the other side. You’ve got to find something to bring other folks along on the other side to get stuff done. And I know the bases of each party are adamant about never working with the other side, but I don't believe in that, and I think 90 percent of America doesn't agree with that. Ninety percent of America wants stuff to move forward in one way or another. And there has to be some way to compromise. It can't be all or nothing.
So, I think both parties are very much at fault, that, you know, when given the minority position--you know, Democrats in the minority position love that filibuster. Boy they wrote letters on it, and Joe Biden and Kamala Harris, they all love that filibuster then. But the hypocrisy is, oh, now they don't, right? Because now they can actually drive in a very authoritarian way what they want--what they want to do. So, you know, I guess it's--it comes down to that a little bit. I think there's a little bit of hypocrisy across Washington, and I think that's part of that Washington malaise. It's whatever fits my political position today is where I'm going to be. I don't believe in that. I don't.
I think we all have a much higher responsibility. The job is bigger than ourselves. It really is. The job is not about us as individuals, as governors or senators or congressmen. The job is about those who serve. And if we ain't delivering results, then we don't deserve to have the job.
MS. ALEMANY: But yesterday, you had said that it was your GOP senators explicitly that were okay--
GOV. SUNUNU: Well, those are the only ones I talked to. Yeah, those are really the only ones I had spoken to. I didn't really talk to any Democratic senators. Obviously, it was the GOP senators trying--that we're calling, trying to get me to run and all of that. Also, I didn't need to be the 51st vote. I really do believe Republicans have a good chance of winning back the Senate fairly handily in 2022. I don’t--for a while it was you need to run because you can be the 51st vote and all that. So, I don't feel like that. I think we have other great candidates here in New Hampshire that are likely going to beat Maggie Hassan, without a doubt. She's--unfortunately for her, she's not very well liked here in New Hampshire. She's never really here in the state. So, I think there's other candidates that can do it.
So, the article that you're referencing talked about Republican senators, because those are the only ones I was really talking to about running. I didn't have many Democrats begging me to run. I don't think that should be a surprise to folks. But both sides are equally at fault for, you know, not moving things along.
MS. ALEMANY: What would you want to get done in the Senate that your colleagues--that your counterparts, your Republican counterparts in Washington, D.C., are not doing now?
GOV. SUNUNU: Well, well, let me talk about the Democratic counterparts, because they're the ones that are in control. There's no discussion of balancing a budget. There's no discussion of 30 trillion in debt. We're just hoping that goes away. As a governor, I balance my budget every two years. I cut taxes every year. I do regulatory reform every year. Social Security and Medicare, those are going to go bankrupt in not long from now, literally within the next decade or so. That has to be addressed. It absolutely has to be addressed. We have elderly citizens here in my state that are counting on those benefits being there. And if we don't--there's no real surety of that happening. So, you got to find a way forward to make sure that there's solvency. I think immigration reform, both sides of the aisle have put forth good ideas of how to--of their pieces of immigration reform to be done. Everyone agrees it has to be done in some fashion. So do it. So do it, because it's important, and it's important to America. I don't have a massive immigration problem with my friends and counterparts in Canada, but obviously we see a southern border massive humanitarian crisis that is being horribly ignored by this administration.
And aside from the illegal immigration issue, you have the human trafficking issue, you have the drugs coming across the border at an unprecedented amount. To say that we're not jumping on that as a top priority in the country is incredibly frustrating as a governor who, believe it or not, even up in New Hampshire that trickles through, right? A lot of the drugs or opioids we might see here in New Hampshire, Maine, and Vermont, their--vast majority are coming over the border, the southern border. So, we all have an interest in seeing that flourish in terms of a bill or a piece of legislation that gets done the right way, a bipartisan way. If you can't get everything you want, that's okay. Let's take incremental steps. Let's find bridges--right?--to bring us together, and maybe that builds bigger bridges in the future. And that's what I'd like to see out of both sides.
MS. ALEMANY: And one of the issues that has become one of the most galvanizing issues with the party in recent months has been the issue of what Republicans call election integrity. Senator Mike Braun last week, though, did come out and say that the former president had lost the 2020 election and that there is not any new information nor evidence of widespread fraud that would have altered the results of the election. Is that a statement that you agree with?
GOV. SUNUNU: Yeah, look, I tell people all the time, stop talking about 2020 and stop worrying about 2024. Let's--if you worried about the politics and all that, worry about 2022. Get something done today that you can go back to your constituents and say this is what we got done, this is why. And from a purely political point of view for Republicans, if Republicans focus on that, they can be successful in '22. If you're worried about all this other ancillary stuff, you're not bringing in another new voter worrying about the 2020 election. You're not bringing in another new voter, just talking about what might happen someday in 2024. If you want to win elections, you got to win what's in front of you. And if you--if you--you can't win--if you--if you don't win, you can't govern, right? So let's win in 2022. Let's focus there and stop with all this nonsense about the far past or the far future. Focus on today. And that's what we need to do. And when you do that, I think it kind of centers you a little bit. It gets your priorities in order, both politically and practically, to get stuff done.
MS. ALEMANY: In Florida, Governor Ron DeSantis just proposed a special police agency to monitor elections. It's a $6 million proposal to hire 52 people to investigate, detect, apprehend, and arrest anyone for alleged violation of election laws. Do you think this is in good use of Florida taxpayers’ money?
GOV. SUNUNU: Well, I'm not going to speak to Florida. I can tell you that if someone is, you know, knowingly and willingly violating election law, they have to be held accountable. I mean, I think we can all believe that. That's a violation of the law. You can't let people abuse your election system and just be, you know, held unaccountable to that. I don't know about this 52-person police force or anything like that. You know, that's Florida. Florida's a very different state than New Hampshire. You know, so I would just say that I think we can all agree that there has to be accountability, that if somebody actively breaks the law, actively tries to thwart an electoral system--an election system, or voter fraud or whatever it is, there has to be accountability there.
MS. ALEMANY: And before we wrap up, I want to throw an Ann Coulter quote at you. She told The New York Times over the weekend that Trump is done and that everyone should stop obsessing over him. Is this a statement that you agree with? What are your thoughts on a Trump 2024 run?
GOV. SUNUNU: Well, let's--when you talk about everyone needs to stop obsessing, I would say everyone in that statement--with all due respect--is the media, right? So, the media loves to talk about Trump. The media loves to talk about the extremes, the AOC and the Bernie Sanders. Donald Trump does not define the--a Republican and a Republican Party, just like Bernie Sanders and AOC don't define the average Democrat, right? We're defined by what we believe in as a whole--local government, you know, limited control on government, low taxes, those types of things, individual freedom. That's what defines a Republican. It's not a single individual. I know the exciting media story is Trump says this and the other extreme says that. But the vast majority of news you see now is about those extremes. We've--I think both parties have handed our microphones, unwillingly sometimes, to those extreme elements. And that's the fight.
Look, when we were back in grade school, if you heard there was going to be a fight on the playground at 3:00, where did everyone show up at 3:00, right? They showed up on the playground. They wanted to watch the fight. Social media gets invented, and they learn very quickly there's money to be made in that fight, because people are going to come. And they love the fact that everyone's kind of screeching from the hilltops on social media. Mainstream media finally catches up and they say, you know what, they're making a lot of money over there. We can make money here, too, by playing to those extremes, because that's where the fight is. That's where the argument is, as opposed to saying what's the best thing for America is what are we getting done? Let's look at some positive things.
I'm not saying you just ignore the fringes. But the--yesterday's news of that statement that Miss Coulter said is more I think about the news aspects of it. The average American isn’t focusing on Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders or AOC and Joe Biden. They're really focusing on do I--do I have a job? Are taxes getting lower? Do I have more financial freedom and individual freedom? Do I have the ability to make choices for my family and where my kids go to school? And those are everyday issues that really affect people's lives 99 percent of the time. And that's why as a governor, I love being governor, because I can affect those things really impactfully I think for families in a very positive way.
So, you know, I just think that the--I think, yes, as we get into 2022, you'll have more candidates. Folks are running for Congress. They’re running for state office. Those candidates have to stand on their own merits. It's not just--the news isn't--no longer just about the fringes. It's about those individuals. What are they about? Are they going to look you in the eye? Can we trust them as folks that want to lead our community, whether it's the planning board, governor or U.S. Senate, right? And so those candidates on both sides of the aisle will really, I think, control--as they should--the message of the party, the message of what they're about, and the message about what they can bring to their constituents. And so I think time heals that extremity wound a little bit. But as an elected official and a leader, I think we also have to drive forward and say, yeah, we have to be about getting stuff done. That has to be the first priority and the top news story, and what we're not doing. And if we're just sitting around not doing anything, we should be held accountable for that, too.
MS. ALEMANY: And, Governor, just a quick yes or no since we're all out of time, but if former President Trump throws his hat into the ring in 2024, would you take your name off of the table of potentially running for president in 2024?
GOV. SUNUNU: I'm not even thinking about 2024. I got election in '22. Are you kidding? I got to--I’ve got to win that one. I’ve got to earn every vote still. So, I'll focus on my election in '22, and then we'll see what happens. I'm not even--really, I know a lot of people talking about the presidential thing, but not really on my plate right now. And you know, it's--what I decide to do is between me and my family and how I can best serve the constituents, not really who else gets in the race.
MS. ALEMANY: Sounds like not a yes nor a no. We’re going to have to leave it there. But thank you so much for joining us today.
GOV. SUNUNU: You bet. Thanks so much for the time.
MS. ALEMANY: I’m Jackie Alemany. As always, thanks so much for watching. To check out what interviews we have coming up, please head to WashingtonPostLive.com to register and find out more about all of our upcoming programs. Thanks again. | null | null | null | null | null |
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) arrives as senators debate an upcoming vote on a voting rights bill in Washington, D.C. (Bill O'Leary/The Washington Post)
“One of my favorite sayings that many of us use from time to time is, ‘If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it,’ ” McConnell said on the Senate floor in July of that year before the Senate passed the bill on a 98-to-0 vote. “This is a good piece of legislation that has served an important purpose over many, many years.… And this landmark piece of legislation will continue to make a difference not only in the South but for all of America and for all of us, whether we are African Americans or not.”
Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine), who co-sponsored the 2006 legislation, said she does not support either of the Democrats’ voting rights bills. She has criticized the broader proposal as a Democratic power grab and argued that new state voting laws are not restrictive. She has also pointed to the high voter turnout for the 2020 elections as evidence that little is getting in the way of people heading to the polls.
Sen. Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.) in 2006 lauded the reauthorization as a necessary step, saying South Carolina had “made great strides forward in terms of African American voting participation and representation in all levels of state and local government. … But just like every other part of the country, we still have a ways to go.”
“States, under our Constitution, are supposed to run elections, and in my state, I think we do a pretty good job,” Graham said. “The bottom line here is, this is an effort by the Democratic leader to basically say that Republicans at our heart are a bunch of racists when it comes to voting. That the reason they’re having to do this is: States are changing laws to disenfranchise people. … I find that, like, incredibly offensive.” | null | null | null | null | null |
Justice Sonia Sotomayor said in a statement Wednesday that she did not ask Justice Neil M. Gorsuch to wear a mask on Supreme Court bench, and Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. followed up by saying he did not make such a request of their other colleagues either.
The rare statements from the justices seemed aimed at knocking down reporting that Sotomayor, who has health reasons to be especially worried about contracting covid-19, was participating remotely in oral arguments because Gorsuch was not wearing a mask.
The statements did not directly address that, but did refute some elements of an NPR report that raised the issue.
“Reporting that Justice Sotomayor asked Justice Gorsuch to wear a mask surprised us. It is false. While we may sometimes disagree about the law, we are warm colleagues and friends,” said a joint statement from Sotomayor, one of the court’s most liberal members, and Gorsuch, one of its most conservative.
But the report from longtime Supreme Court correspondent Nina Totenberg did not say Sotomayor had made the request. It said that the chief justice, “in some form or other asked the other justices to mask up.” It said Gorsuch’s “continued refusal since then has also meant that Sotomayor has not attended the justices’ weekly conference in person, joining instead by telephone.”
So several hours after the statement from Sotomayor and Gorsuch, Roberts issued his own through the court’s public information office.
“I did not request Justice Gorsuch or any other Justice to wear a mask on the bench,” it said. The release said Roberts would have no additional comment.
In the court’s previous rounds of oral arguments, she wore a mask on the bench, while the rest of the justices did not.
In the new year, since the emergence of the highly contagious omicron variant, Sotomayor has participated in oral arguments via speaker from her chambers. The rest of the justices at least enter the courtroom with masks on, with the exception of Gorsuch, who sits between Sotomayor and Justice Amy Coney Barrett.
On the bench Wednesday, all of the justices except Gorsuch again were masked, although a few took their face coverings off for brief periods. Sotomayor again participated remotely. | null | null | null | null | null |
In remarks to reporters Wednesday afternoon, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) cast the vote as the Senate’s most consequential ever.
“I think it’s pretty safe to say this is the biggest day in the history of the Senate, because we’re dealing with the Senate as an institution,” McConnell said. “These radicals on the other side, in order to get their own way, are prepared to break the United States Senate by taking steps almost all of them decried as recently as a couple of years ago.”
In four Senate votes held since June on various voting bills, only one Republican — Sen. Lisa Murkowski (Alaska) — cast one vote on one bill to proceed with debate. Other Republicans have rallied around a position staked out early last year by McConnell holding that the federal government should have no additional role in regulating state elections, despite the Constitution’s clear reservation of a federal role in elections for federal office. | null | null | null | null | null |
Helem is currently serving a life sentence in Red Onion State Prison in Virginia for the killing of his ex-girlfriend, 37-year-old Patricia Bentley, who prosecutors said he strangled with a cord and his hands. Bentley was a single mother to two sons and had driven a bus for Loudoun County schools for six years, The Post reported at the time of his first trial. | null | null | null | null | null |
Terry Hasseltine, executive director of the Maryland Sports Commission, which is leading Baltimore’s campaign, said the suggestion of a Baltimore-Washington bid “has been put out there [by fans] but it’s something we are leaving to the international and national governing body to determine what is the best case for the United States.”
FedEx Field opened only 25 years ago but has had several embarrassing episodes. During NFL games this year alone, a pipe broke and its contents went into the stands, a sprinkler went off in a suite and a tunnel railing collapsed. Fans have long grumbled about its location and traffic flow.
The other U.S. contenders are Philadelphia, Atlanta, Orlando, Miami, Cincinnati, Nashville, Houston, Kansas City, Denver, Los Angeles and the San Francisco Bay area. | null | null | null | null | null |
Helem is currently serving a life sentence in Red Onion State Prison in Virginia for the killing of his ex-girlfriend, 37-year-old Patricia Bentley, whom prosecutors said he strangled with a cord and his hands. Bentley was a single mother of two sons and had driven a bus for Loudoun County schools for six years, The Post reported at the time of his first trial. | null | null | null | null | null |
The man accused of killing a 23-year-old woman in Alexandria, Va., last month denies his involvement in the crime, saying he was a friend of the victim.
David Cunningham, 40, is accused of killing Melia Jones, a neighbor in his South Van Dorn Street apartment building. Jones was killed Dec. 4, but her body was not found by her parents until three days later, Assistant Commonwealth’s Attorney Maana Parcham said at a bond hearing Tuesday in Alexandria General District Court.
Jones was sexually assaulted, strangled and wrapped in blankets with a bag over her head, according to the prosecutor. Cunningham’s fingerprints were found in the apartment and his DNA was under her nails and on her body, Parcham said. He faces a single charge of second-degree murder.
Defense attorney Damon Colbert said in court that Cunningham had struck up a friendship with Jones in September. They had a “somewhat amorous relationship,” Colbert said, which he said would explain the DNA. But in a 5½-hour interview with detectives, he said, his client maintained his innocence in her death.
Jones lived alone and until the coronavirus pandemic had been employed. Her obituary described her as a “gentle and sweet spirit” who loved dancing and singing along to pop and gospel music. Efforts to reach her family were unsuccessful.
Cunningham relocated from New York to Alexandria in 2020 to be closer to his ex-wife and three of his five children, Colbert said. He was working at a Coca-Cola warehouse on Seminary Road. While he struggles with an addiction to crack cocaine, Colbert said his client’s only criminal record is for illegal possession of a handgun in New York 16 years ago.
“This man should be allowed to go back to the community … to fight for his life,” Colbert argued, particularly given the difficulty of preparing for trial during the pandemic and the risk of coronavirus infection in jail.
Parcham said Cunningham was inconsistent in what he told investigators, particularly about whether his relationship with Jones had been sexual. “The defendant’s story changed quite a bit,” she said, which he blamed on alcohol and drug use.
General District Court Judge Donald M. Haddock ordered Cunningham, whose next hearing is set for March 18, held without bond, saying the DNA evidence was enough to find probable cause. Colbert said he plans to appeal that ruling. | null | null | null | null | null |
Live updates Biden holds news conference amid questions on coronavirus, stalled agenda in Congress
McConnell declines to lay out GOP congressional agenda, days after governor suggests the plan is to block Biden
Republicans protest House Intelligence Committee’s coronavirus testing request
Biden, Harris to take part in virtual event on anniversary of arrival in the White House
Analysis: A third of Biden’s ambassador nominees so far are campaign ‘bundlers’
President Biden holds a news conference on Jan. 19 to mark his first year in office. (The Washington Post)
On the eve of his first anniversary in office, President Biden on Wednesday is holding his first formal news conference in months, seeking to highlight his administration’s progress amid the ongoing coronavirus pandemic, a stalled legislative agenda in Congress and a showdown with Russia over Ukraine.
A year into his presidency, Biden’s news conference is just his second on U.S. soil and his sixth overall, according to historians who track interactions between presidents and the press.
By Marianna Sotomayor and Amy Wang3:19 p.m.
Members of the Congressional Black Caucus walked over to the Senate on Wednesday afternoon to deliver a message as they press senators to change the filibuster and pass voting rights bills.
“Our message is clear that the Congressional Black Caucus is taking a leadership [role] on legislative issues. Voting rights is the core of our priorities,” said Rep. Joyce Beatty (D-Ohio), the chairwoman of the caucus, as the group made its way to the other side of the Capitol.
“So today we’re letting the nation know that we’ll fight to the very end,” she added.
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) declined to lay out his party’s congressional agenda Wednesday, a day after a Republican governor suggested that the party’s plan for now is to block as much of Biden’s agenda as possible.
McConnell’s blunt reply was in response to concerns expressed by New Hampshire Republican Gov. Chris Sununu (R), who in an interview with the Washington Examiner said he decided against running for a Senate seat because nearly every Republican senator he met with told him the party’s game plan mainly consisted of blocking the Democrats’ agenda until they “hopefully” win the presidency in 2024.
By Amy Wang1:46 p.m.
Republican members of the Senate Foreign Relations and Armed Services committees Wednesday had stern words for Russian President Vladimir Putin and urged Biden to take stronger action to prevent Russia from invading Ukraine. Biden will probably be questioned at his news conference Wednesday afternoon about what the United States will do to stop Russian aggression.
The GOP news conference came just after a bipartisan delegation of senators traveled to Ukraine over the weekend to reassure leaders in Kyiv that the United States stood with them, amid a Russian troop buildup on the border with Ukraine.
The delegation included Democratic Sens. Jeanne Shaheen (N.H.), Chris Murphy (Conn.), Richard Blumenthal (Conn.) and Amy Klobuchar (Minn.), along with Republican Sens. Rob Portman (Ohio), Kevin Cramer (N.D.) and Roger Wicker (Miss.). The delegation had a video call with Biden on Wednesday morning to brief him on their trip.
In a statement, White House press secretary Jen Psaki said Biden met virtually with the bipartisan group and “commended the strong history of support for Ukraine from both sides of the aisle, and agreed to keep working closely with Congress as the administration prepares to impose significant consequences in response to further Russian aggression against Ukraine.”
“One of my favorite sayings that many of us use from time to time is, ‘If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it,’ ” McConnell said on the Senate floor in July of that year before the Senate passed the bill 98-0. “This is a good piece of legislation that has served an important purpose over many, many years. … And this landmark piece of legislation will continue to make a difference not only in the South but for all of America and for all of us, whether we are African Americans or not.”
An earlier version of this story stated that the coronavirus testing was being required, rather than requested.
Rep. Michael R. Turner (Ohio), the top Republican on the House Intelligence Committee, said Wednesday that he and other GOP members will not comply with a new coronavirus testing request by the panel’s chairman, Rep. Adam B. Schiff (D-Calif.).
In many industries, employees are required by their employers to undergo regular coronavirus testing. Journalists who cover the White House, for instance, must be tested before entering the White House grounds, regardless of their vaccination status.
At a House Republican leadership news conference Wednesday morning, Turner said he and other Republican lawmakers oppose the requested testing for Intelligence Committee members at a time when many in the United States are having difficulty obtaining tests.
“While Americans struggle to just get basic access to testing … Chairman Schiff believes that members of Congress should be tested just to show up for work. The American public does not have this privilege, and we will not comply,” Turner said.
A House Intelligence Committee official noted that Schiff’s request that all members and staff get tested before a scheduled Thursday meeting was not mandatory.
“The Committee does not intend to confirm compliance with this request, but given the current high rate of infections and the necessity of conducting classified hearings in a confined space, the Chairman believes everyone should choose to prioritize the health and safety of all attendees,” the official, who was not authorized to speak publicly about the matter, said in an email.
By Amber Phillips12:58 p.m.
Senate Democrats aren’t trying to get rid of the filibuster entirely for their voting rights bill. It’s more accurate to say that they are trying to weaken the filibuster by making it resemble more of a talking filibuster.
The talking filibuster is exactly what it sounds like: a return to the old-school way of filibustering that requires senators hold the Senate floor with speeches to stop legislation from moving forward. Since about the 1970s, senators have been able to signal their desire to filibuster without actually having to filibuster. This became known as the silent filibuster, and the threat of one was good enough to block legislation that didn’t have 60 votes.
Sen. Joe Manchin III (D-W. Va.) has, at times, expressed openness to a return to the talking filibuster. The idea would make the filibuster less common because it would be more painful for the minority party to execute.
Biden has been on board with this change pretty much since he got in office.
“I don’t think you have to eliminate the filibuster,” he said in March to ABC News. “I think you have to do it like we did in the Senate back in the old days … and that is you had to stand up and command the floor.”
But the talking filibuster has its downsides for Democrats or whichever party in power, mainly because requiring senators to give speeches could be used to stop up all Senate business. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) has threatened to grind the Senate to a halt if Democrats change how the filibuster works.
Democrats will try anyway. On Wednesday, after Republicans block Senate Democrats’ voting rights legislation, Senate Majority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) will propose that senators must speak to filibuster a bill, and they can only speak twice. After that, the Senate could vote to end debate with just 51 votes, rather than the 60 required now.
The effect would be that for Democrats’ specific voting-rights legislation, Republicans could speak for hours or even days to block it, but eventually their time would run out, and Democrats could pass it without any Republican votes. (All 50 senators who caucus with Democrats support their two main voting-rights bills.)
But even those changes will fail as Manchin and Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (D-Ariz.) vote with Republicans to oppose them.
Biden plans to mark the anniversary of taking office Thursday with what is being billed as a “virtual event” with Vice President Harris.
“A year ago, we set out to write the next chapter in the American story,” Biden said in a tweet. “Join me and Vice President @KamalaHarris this Thursday for a virtual event as we reflect on our first year and look ahead to the future.”
The evening event is being hosted by the Democratic National Committee. An online sign-up sheet for participants notes that DNC Chairman Jaime Harrison will also take part.
“We’ll discuss our successes, lessons learned, and what’s ahead for Democrats,” a blurb says.
Sen. Mark Kelly (D-Ariz.) announced Wednesday morning that he would support a change to the Senate’s filibuster rules to advance voting rights legislation. Kelly, who faces reelection later this year, had for months refused to say whether he would back such changes.
But in a lengthy statement, Kelly, a co-sponsor of the voting rights legislation, said his constituents “deserve a Senate that is more responsive to the challenges facing our country.”
“Protecting the vote-by-mail system used by a majority of Arizonans and getting dark money out of our elections is too important to let fall victim to Washington dysfunction,” he said.
Kelly’s position notably breaks with that of his fellow Arizona Democrat, Sen. Kyrsten Sinema, who has said repeatedly that she will not support a change in rules.
Kelly said his year in the Senate has shown him “how dysfunctional this place can be, and how that prevents progress on issues that matter to Arizonans.”
“As an astronaut and a combat veteran, I can tell you that if NASA or the Navy functioned like the United States Senate, we would never get the rocket off the launchpad and in combat we’d never complete the mission,” he said.
By Mike DeBonis11:15 a.m.
“We’re under no illusion — we know this is an uphill fight, especially when virtually every Senate Republican, to their shame, is staunchly against any legislation to protect the right to vote,” Schumer told reporters Tuesday night.
By Theodoric Meyer and Jacqueline Alemany11:14 a.m.
(On Wednesday, Biden formally announced another batch of nominees: Elizabeth Bagley for Brazil; Jane Hartley for the United Kingdom; Alexander Laskaris for Chad; and Alan Leventhal for Denmark.)
By Amy Wang10:46 a.m.
The White House on Wednesday announced eight new nominees for federal judges, continuing the president’s push to fill vacancies in the judiciary with people of diverse backgrounds after the previous administration did so with predominantly White, male and conservative nominees.
With the latest slate, Biden has announced 83 nominees to the federal judiciary. As with previous announcements, the White House emphasized the diversity of the 13th round of nominees. They include:
Nusrat Jahan Choudhury, who would be the first Bangladeshi American, the first Muslim American woman and the second Muslim American person to serve as a federal judge.
Arianna J. Freeman, who would be the first African American woman — and the first woman of color — to serve on the Third Circuit.
Ana Isabel de Alba, who would be the first Latina to serve on the Eastern District of California and the second Hispanic judge actively serving on that court.
Nina Nin-Yuen Wang, who immigrated from Taiwan as a child and would be the second Asian American person to serve on the U.S. District Court for the District of Colorado. The first was Biden’s nominee Regina M. Rodriguez, who was confirmed in June 2021.
The full list of the latest slate of nominees is here. | null | null | null | null | null |
That instead came from those wailing about the Seuss estate’s decision.
Books by Theodor Seuss Geisel, a.k.a. Dr. Seuss, including “On Beyond Zebra!” and “And to Think That I Saw it on Mulberry Street,” are offered for loan at the Chinatown Branch of the Chicago Public Library on March 2, 2021 in Chicago. (Scott Olson/Getty Images)
Fox News covered the story constantly. Just segment after segment. Seuss was mentioned 60 times in the 24 hours after the announcement from his estate. The development was generally looped into the network’s broader fight against “cancel culture,” an umbrella term referring to circumstances in which offensive language, images or actions had prompted some negative response: a person losing a job or a product being discontinued, for example.
In a few months, Fox had pivoted to a different, broader example of the threat free speech faced in the U.S.: “critical race theory.” The network (and Republican officials and the right-wing media in general) wasn’t really criticizing the academic theory that is described using that three-word phrase, but, instead, a mish-mash of race-related talking points and pedagogies that were plucked out of the national conversation to use as examples. Occasions in which race was discussed clumsily or where some controversial book was discovered were cherry-picked and baked into a delicious pie for Fox News’s audience. That the subject amplified tensions between voters and school boards — particularly in Virginia, where a close gubernatorial contest was underway — simply meant that it was useful for Fox to keep hammering on the idea until early November.
Those efforts continue apace. A month ago, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) announced legislation centered on the issue — the “Stop Woke Act” — by claiming that he was upholding the vision of Martin Luther King Jr.
“You think about what MLK stood for,” he said. “He said he didn’t want people judged on the color of their skin, but on the content of their character. You listen to some of these people nowadays, they don’t talk about that.”
Legislation recently approved by a legislative panel in the state (and supported by DeSantis) does exactly that. If passed, it would classify as “discrimination based on race, color, sex, or national origin” any mandated instruction from employers that “espouses, promotes, advances, inculcates, or compels such individual to believe” one of a series of unusual claims, like that members of one race are inherently morally superior to members of other races or that someone of a race “bears responsibility for, or should be discriminated against or receive adverse treatment because of actions committed in the past by other members of the same race.” Similar prohibitions apply to school curriculums. It’s all very clumsy, in the way of proposed legislation, but it’s clear in its intent: In Florida, you’re not allowed to do the things Fox News says Democrats and Black people do.
Look where we ended up. A political faction that spent March 2021 wailing about the purported threat Dr. Seuss posed to speech and open discussion in the United States transitioned into a faction that advocated restrictions on the availability of particular books or lines of argument and instruction. We shouldn’t assume that a handful of effort to ban books are representative of a general consensus, though Fox News’s silence on the issue (particularly relative to its Seussathon) is noteworthy. But the idea that the left is trying to mandate a particular worldview and, therefore, that the state should intervene to prevent promulgation of that worldview would certainly seem to be the sort of thing that the right would find offensive in a different context. | null | null | null | null | null |
Former Hogan administration official brings in hefty fundraising haul in governor’s bid
Kelly M. Schulz’s $1.52 million lags behind several Democratic candidates vying for the seat. Wes Moore appears to lead Democrats with nearly $5 million.
The Maryland State House in Annapolis. (Mark Gail/The Washington Post)
Kelly M. Schulz has raised $1.52 million in her bid to fill the seat being vacated by her former boss, Gov. Larry Hogan (R). While it’s a significant haul for a first-time Republican candidate in a blue state, her fundraising still lags behind several Democratic candidates vying for the seat.
Schulz’s campaign said the former labor secretary has $1.05 million cash on hand — more than Hogan had in his first campaign finance report in 2014 — as she enters a competitive primary against Del. Dan Cox (R-Frederick), a Trump-endorsed candidate, and Robin Ficker, a former state delegate and perennial candidate.
“I think that Kelly Schultz’s fundraising total means she’s a really viable candidate,” said Melissa Deckman, the chair of the political science department at Washington College, adding that if Schultz raised less than a million it would have spelled trouble for her bid.
Cox and the other candidates have until late Wednesday night to file their campaign finance reports with the Maryland Board of Elections. Cox’s campaign did not respond to a request for information about his fundraising. Ficker, an anti-tax activist, had not made his report public Wednesday afternoon.
Democrats are vying to regain the governor’s mansion after losing the seat to Hogan twice. Two of the last three governors in Maryland, a blue state, have been Republicans.
Schulz’s coffers pale in comparison to top-tier Democratic candidates, including author and former nonprofit chief executive Wes Moore whose campaign reported $4.8 million; State Comptroller Peter Franchot, who raised $1.1 million and has $3.3 million on hand; former U.S. Labor Secretary Tom Perez, who reported raising $2.7 million; and former U.S. Education Secretary John B. King Jr., who took in $2.5 million.
In a crowded field, a bigger bank allows candidates to introduce themselves to voters and to get their message out to them.
Like Schulz, Moore and King are also first-time candidates.
Former Maryland attorney general Douglas Gansler, former Prince George’s County Executive Rushern L. Baker III, former Montgomery County Council candidate Ashwani Jain, and Jerome Segal, the former head of the Bread and Roses party, had not made their fundraising reports public as of Wednesday afternoon.
Laura Neuman, a former Republican Anne Arundel County executive who switched to the Democratic Party in 2020, launched a gubernatorial campaign less than two weeks ago.
In other big statewide races, U.S. Rep. Anthony G. Brown (D-Md.) reported raising $647,000 with $615,000 cash on hand to replace retiring attorney general Brian E. Frosh (D). Brown is in an unprecedented battle against Katie Curran O’Malley, a retired judge and the wife of former governor Martin O’Malley, in the Democratic primary to become the state’s next attorney general.
In the one-of-a-kind matchup, Brown, who served as lieutenant governor during the O’Malley administration, faces the wife of his former ally. The race is expected to be tough competition, with both candidates garnering some heavy endorsements shortly after launching their campaigns.
Based on campaign coffers, Del. Brooke Lierman (D-Baltimore City) and Bowie Mayor Tim Adams (D) are locked in a tight money race for state comptroller, the state’s chief tax collector.
Lierman’s fundraising prowess has resulted in $1.7 million in the bank, while Adams has $1.85 million on hand in a self-funded campaign, leaving both candidates in a down-ballot race with more funding than some gubernatorial candidates.
Adams, an entrepreneur and first-time statewide candidate, loaned his campaign $2 million, according to campaign officials.
Census data shows Maryland is now the East Coast’s most diverse state, while D.C. is Whiter
Lierman, who is endorsed by Emily’s List, is vying to become the first woman to serve as state comptroller. Adams, if elected, would be the first Black person to hold the position.
The same gender and race dynamics are also present in the contest to be Maryland’s next governor and attorney general. All of those top statewide elected offices in Maryland have only been held by White men. | null | null | null | null | null |
“I did not anticipate that there’d be such a stalwart effort to make sure that the most important thing was that President Biden didn’t get anything done,” Biden said. “Think about this: What are Republicans for? What are they for? Name me one thing they’re for.”
“These culture war issues do just have a resonance,” Ruffini told me. “Everybody says, all right, you need to talk about bread-and-butter kitchen-table economic issues. The challenge for both sides is it gets very hard to get people to pay attention to that, even if have a message on those issues. It’s very hard to get people to pay attention to a purely economic, bread-and-butter, kitchen-table issues message. Particularly Republicans — and there is a real temptation to play that culture war card, where, frankly, you win more often than you don’t.”
“I think that the fundamental question is: what’s Mitch for?” he added a bit later. “What’s he for on immigration? What’s he for? What’s he proposing policy for which he proposed it being better. What’s he for? … What’s he for on these things? What are they for?”
Biden says supply chain issues are driving inflation problems | null | null | null | null | null |
After clinching a tiebreaker to claim the first five-sets victory of his career, Sebastian Korda celebrated his four-hour, 47-minute triumph at the Australian Open with a scissors kick — rare theatrics for an uncommonly even-keeled 21-year-old with designs on tennis greatness.
Blackman is also buoyed by the fact that since they were teens, the 23- and 24-year-old have pushed one another.
An avid golfer in his rare downtime, he confesses: “I’m probably one of the worst golfers in my family, and I still have like a 4 or 5 handicap.” But his is no ordinary family. Sister Nelly is the LPGA’s top-ranked player, while his other sister, Jessica, is 22nd ranked.
Korda’s Australian Open preparation wasn’t ideal. Upon arriving in Adelaide to compete in a hard-court tuneup, he tested positive for coronavirus and was forced to isolate several days in a hotel room, where he did what training he could with gym equipment provided by Tennis Australia, a tennis racket and the bed’s backboard. To keep his spirits up, he shared a blooper-video of himself blasting a ball against the wall that caromed off the ceiling and into his groin.
Instead of Djokovic, Paul ended up facing a younger Serbian, 77th-ranked Miomir Kecmanovic, for a place in the third round. Kecmanovic, who regards Djokovic as an idol, declared after his first-round victory that he was on a mission to avenge Djokovic’s treatment by the host nation. He has gotten off to an impressive start, knocking out the higher ranked Paul 7-6, 7-5, 7-6. | null | null | null | null | null |
The extreme shortage of child-care workers is one illustration of the pandemic’s impact on a mostly female workforce. The Post reported last fall: “The child-care services industry is still down 126,700 workers — more than a 10 percent decline from pre-pandemic levels, Labor Department data shows. While many industries complain they can’t find enough workers, the hiring situation is more dire in child-care than in restaurants right now.” | null | null | null | null | null |
Terry Hasseltine, executive director of the Maryland Sports Commission, which is leading Baltimore’s campaign, said the suggestion of a Baltimore-Washington bid “has been put out there [by fans], but it’s something we are leaving to the international and national governing body to determine what is the best case for the United States.”
FedEx Field opened only 25 years ago but has had several embarrassing episodes. During NFL games in 2021 alone, a pipe broke and its contents went into the stands, a sprinkler went off in a suite and a tunnel railing collapsed. Fans have long grumbled about its location and traffic flow.
The other U.S. contenders are Philadelphia, Atlanta, Orlando, Miami, Cincinnati, Nashville, Houston, Denver, Los Angeles, the San Francisco Bay area and Kansas City, Mo. | null | null | null | null | null |
Flight attendant union seeks new coronavirus safeguards
Flight attendant union seeks virus safeguards
The Association of Professional Flight Attendants is in talks with American about proposals that would help “maintain the highest level of flight attendant and passenger safety as possible onboard planes,” the union told members in a message Wednesday. Passengers are required by federal mandate to wear masks during flights unless they are eating or drinking.
The union’s proposals include reducing main-cabin beverage service on domestic flights and those to Europe, South America and Asia, and serving entrees at the same time as salad, soup and appetizers in premium cabins when possible, according to the APFA message.
Home construction rose in December
Construction of new homes in the United States rose for the third consecutive month in December, and data released Wednesday suggests that the frantic pace of building will continue this year.
The December increase puts home construction at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 1.7 million units, the Commerce Department reported Wednesday. In all of 2021, nearly 1.6 million housing units were started, a 15.6 percent increase over 2020.
The December housing data was boosted by multiunit projects, for which starts increased by 5 percent, offsetting a 2.3 percent decline in single-family starts. But economists note that multifamily units make up significantly less of the market than single-family homes, and the data can be volatile from month-to-month. Multifamily permits applications rose about 22 percent.
What has been a strong housing market appears to be on the verge of getting even hotter despite rising interest rates. The number of privately owned housing units authorized by building permits in December rose a whopping 9.1 percent to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 1.87 million units, the strongest month for permits since January 2021.
Bank of America profits rose in 4Q
Bank of America said its profits rose 28 percent last quarter from a year earlier, but it faced the same wage inflation as its Wall Street counterparts.
The bank said Wednesday that it earned a profit of $7.01 billion, or 82 cents per share, in the fourth quarter. That’s up from a profit of $5.47 billion, or 59 cents a share, in the same period a year earlier. Analysts surveyed by FactSet were expecting a profit of 77 cents a share.
The bank saw most of its businesses grow profits in the quarter. But much of the growth was in BofA’s investment banking division, where profits climbed to $2.68 billion from $1.67 billion.
For the full year, BofA posted a profit of $30.56 billion, nearly double the $16.5 billion it earned in 2020 when the pandemic hit the global economy.
Like its competitors, BofA is facing much higher compensation expenses. The bank spent $36.1 billion on wages and benefits last year, up 10 percent from a year earlier.
The Port of Long Beach moved record cargo volumes last year amid an import surge and supply-chain snarl brought on by the pandemic. The West Coast port handled 9.38 million 20-foot equivalent units last year, almost 16 percent more than a year earlier, it said in a statement Wednesday. U.S. supply chains have faced unprecedented demand, worker and truck-chassis shortages and a shift to buying more material goods as Americans have avoided travel and outings in the pandemic. Long delays continue at the ports.
Florida may produce the smallest crop of oranges in more than 75 years, according to a forecast released this month. The Sunshine State is on pace to produce 44.5 million 90-pound boxes of oranges during the current season, according to a forecast released last week by the U.S. Department of Agriculture. That is a 1.5 million box reduction from the previous forecast in December. If the current forecast holds true through the rest of the citrus growing season, it will be the smallest orange crop since the 1944-1945 season. With that small a crop, California will surpass Florida in orange production for the first time in recent years.
Shoppers bought 15 percent more home-cleaning items such as liquid and spray disinfectants last year compared with 2019, according to data from market research firm IRI. While sales slipped from 2020’s blowout figures in both dollar terms and by volume, the trends suggest sanitizing has become ingrained in everyday routines. P&G said Wednesday that organic sales in its home-care division rose in the low single digits last quarter even after a “high base period” a year ago when there was strong pandemic-driven demand for cleaning products.
— From news reports | null | null | null | null | null |
The lawsuit, filed in the Southern District of Florida, claims commissioners Joe Carollo, Alex Diaz de la Portilla and Manolo Reyes “weaponized City resources against perceived enemies, impermissible issued and/or dictated orders to Chief Acevedo and the Miami Police Department, and interfered with his operations,” according to the complaint, which states these actions exceeded the “discretionary authority granted to City Commissioners.”
The allegations prompted a furious rebuke on Wednesday from Diaz de la Portilla, who dismissed the allegations as a “joke” and disparaged Acevedo as “a bully and a liar.”
Reyes and Carollo both echoed the same sentiments.
Carollo also called the allegations as “lies” and derided the former police chief, describing him as a “liar and a thug hiding behind a badge.”
City Manager Art Noriega also rejected the accusations. They are “clearly an attempt to retaliate against the individuals that held him accountable for his own shortcomings as Miami Police Chief and to attempt to salvage his professional reputation by casting blame on others,” he said in a written statement provided to The Post.
Before going to Miami, Acevedo was chief of the Houston and Austin police and rose to national fame in part for his blunt talking, frequent guest appearances on television news speaking about thorny issues, and most notably perhaps, for marching with protesters after George Floyd was killed by a Minneapolis police officer.
In the lawsuit, the former police chief alleges the three commissioners retaliated against him because he resisted their efforts to use the police department to carry out the “personal agendas and vendettas,” that included persecuting or investigating businesses owned by a man named Bill Fuller who had publicly supported Carollo’s political opponent.
When Acevedo took office, he said, Noriega informed him about Carollo’s personal dislike for Fuller and said the city leadership and police department would be “busy with Fuller-owned businesses” and warned him “to stay away from such businesses,” the complaint said.
Acevedo also claimed both commissioners Carollo and Diaz de la Portilla instructed him to investigate certain bars and establishments for potential criminal activity, even though there was no evidence or known citizen’s complaints that the businesses had broken any laws, the complaint said.
“I have never ever had any conversations with Acevedo or with the anyone in the police department regarding Mr. Fuller,” he told The Post.
Acevedo reported the alleged “abuse of power” by the commissioners as well as their interference with an internal police investigation-which he had previously described in a leaked memo- to Suarez, the state attorney’s office and the FBI.
The Havana-born former police chief argued he had also been targeted because of his attempts to reform the department, where he discovered Miami police officers engaged in a “pattern of excessive use of force” that superiors sometimes covered up.
As consequence to these actions, the commissioners pressured Noriega to suspend Acevedo and ultimately voted to fire him, the lawsuit alleges.
Acevedo’s attorneys, Marcos Jimenez and John Byrne, said in a joint statement that Carollo had played the theme from the movie “The Godfather” during the swearing in of interim police chief Manuel Morales — who was described in the complaint as an ally of the commissioners.
In a hearing in October, several witnesses described how Acevedo had offended rank-and-file officers with his abrasive approach — citing use of foul language and one brash remark that the department was “run by a Cuban mafia,” which offended many in the large Cuban American community. They recalled that Fidel Castro used those same words to refer to exiles who opposed his communist regime.
In an interview following his removal, Acevedo said his ordeal showed that the city was “not ready for reform.” | null | null | null | null | null |
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