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The banned terms on the Olympic app include unwelcome references to Taiwan, Hong Kong, Uyghur Muslims in Xinjiang, Tibetan Buddhists and the Dalai Lama, and Tiananmen Square, and the Falun Gong. But the list also highlights more obscure sore spots, such as infighting between ex-leaders Hu Jintao and Jiang Zemin. There’s also a feature that allows users to report “politically sensitive” content they see coming from others. Yes, the technology encourages reporting on the banned or discouraged speech of others. | null | null | null | null | null |
Opinion: It’s about the water, not the data centers
Prince William County water tower in Woodbridge. (Salwan Georges/The Washington Post)
I live in Virginia’s “rural crescent.”
The Jan. 16 Metro article “Fight over data centers roils rural Prince William” did not tell the real story. Everyone who lives in the rural crescent has a well; no sewers are allowed. These new data centers will be using water from the same watershed that keeps my well filled. My drinking water is at stake. I have asked the Prince William Board of County Supervisors to do a water study with the U.S. Geological Survey, and it still has not happened. It’s the same type of study that Loudoun and Fairfax counties have done.
The bottom line is that the supervisors want to do away with the 117,000 acres that are the rural crescent. Virginia created this environmental jewel for a reason. There’s still time to save it.
Marilyn Karp, Haymarket | null | null | null | null | null |
It reminded us that things can still get better, partly because people can.
Characters on “The Expanse.” (Amazon Studios)
Last week, “The Expanse” — the best science fiction series of this century, and possibly all centuries — came to an end. There is plenty to admire about the show. “The Expanse” is an exemplar of “hard” science fiction — meaning that almost everything that happens in it is grounded in real physics. It also deftly handles representation in its 23rd century setting, imagining a future in which diversity across race, gender, religion and sexual preference is so ordinary that it hardly warrants mention. In one scene in the series finale, all the major military powers in an alliance are led by women. That fact is not remarked upon in any way, which makes it no less compelling in 2022.
As a social scientist, however, what I admire about “The Expanse” is that it pulled off the rare feat of combining the international and the interpersonal in the context of an interstellar show. It also might be the most hopeful pessimistic show ever aired.
The premise of “The Expanse” (based on a nine-book series by James S.A. Corey, the shared pen name of a pair of writers) is simple, even if the plot is not. In its futuristic setting, humans have expanded to the rest of the solar system. (“The Expanse” streams on Amazon Prime. Amazon founder Jeff Bezos owns The Washington Post.) Earth is now a single government controlled by the United Nations. Mars — technically, the Mars Congressional Republic — is an independent government bent on terraforming that planet into one with a blue sky. Earth is more powerful but in relative decline compared to Mars. The two planets neither like nor trust each other.
Both inner planets need the natural resources of the asteroid belt and outer moons and are perfectly happy exploiting the workers doing the extraction. These “Belters” resent living under the thumb of the “Inners,” and there is a loose politico-military entity called the Outer Planets Alliance trying to achieve a more equitable distribution of the spoils. Here, too, the show’s commitment to real science comes into play: The antagonisms between Earth and Mars and the Belt are grounded in no small part on the biological variations that would emerge from humans growing up with different degrees of gravity.
The dumb international relations of ‘Tom Clancy’s Without Remorse’
This interest in the ways that we negotiate our differences — between individual people as surely as between interplanetary superpowers — is central both to the pessimism of “The Expanse and to the surprisingly optimistic notes it struck as it sped toward its conclusion. It’s in this regard that it resonates with me the most, since my academic field can leave one all too cynical at times. International relations is not for the faint of heart. Scan the news and you will see great power autocrats, violent nonstate actors, corrupt foreign policy leaders and vainglorious plutocrats all behaving badly. They can do that because no one will necessarily stop them in a world defined by anarchy. Agreements are fleeting, norms erode, and one person’s patriotism is another’s extremist nationalism. It is difficult to look at the current state of international affairs and remain idealistic about anything.
“The Expanse” excelled at imagining a politics of the solar system that echoes the current state of our own planet. The dynamic between Earth and Mars plays into and off the history of great power rivalries, a story that dates back to the rivalry between Sparta and Athens during the Peloponnesian War. The treatment of the Belters riffs off the history of multinational corporations in the global South. In later seasons, the rise of villain extraordinaire Marco Inaros highlights the ways that a sociopath could exploit a population frustrated by decades of relative decline and rebrand himself as a populist revolutionary. When the show’s hero, James Holden, explains that Inaros’s supporters “saw the future, and they weren’t in it,” it carries more than a passing whiff of familiarity.
The worldview of “The Expanse” is similar to what international relations scholars call “human nature realism” a notion that starts with Thucydides, continues with Machiavelli and Hobbes, and was best articulated by Hans Morgenthau. According to this line of thinking, humans crave power, wealth, and status. Our ambition for these things — regardless of the noble ends we might want to use them to advance — inevitably has unintended consequences that can easily turn tragic. Even if technology changes quickly, homo sapiens are slow to evolve.
In “The Expanse,” one Earth leader starts his career as a human rights crusader, but after acquiring power becomes a hawk willing to risk war with Mars. When the two planets broker an entente, one faction of Martians is so distraught about the peace that they decide to sell weapons to Belters so they will attack Earth. Some Belter leaders talk the talk about freedom and autonomy but are not above engaging in corrupt activities.
Can 'The Expanse' stick the landing?
At the same time, “The Expanse” was not weighted down with cynicism. The show’s focus on the interpersonal helped foster a sense of optimism that transcended cold-eyed realism. The human connections forged in the universe of “The Expanse” allowed the characters to alter their perspective. One of the protagonists, U.N. official Chrisjen Avasarala, begins the series by torturing a Belter prisoner to extract information. By the end of the show’s run, Avasarala has recognized the costs of her “Earth first” policies and works hard to build ties with her onetime antagonists. It is possible within the world of “The Expanse” to do well by doing good.
The show’s other protagonists also demonstrate their ability to grow. Amos Burton is an Earther mechanic whose hardscrabble upbringing has traumatized him in any number of ways. Naomi Nagata is a Belter engineer whose backstory is equally tragic. Over the course of its six seasons, Amos evolves from amoral muscle to a mentor of others who are broken. He demonstrates that it is possible to do good things without being a good man — while also being funny and sexy.
Naomi travels an even more fascinating path, code-switching constantly between her Belter friends and her non-Belter crewmates. In the process, her narrative arc raises some provocative questions about the nature of motherhood. During its six seasons “The Expanse” delved into dark places, including multiple war crimes, experimentation on children and attempted genocides. It says something that give all this, the show’s single-most shocking moment comes when Naomi’s son betrays her with a single act of violence. Abstract horrors are one thing; seeing a beloved character brought low is devastating.
It is fitting that Naomi delivers the show’s elegy in the series finale, explaining, “The universe never tells us if we did right or wrong. It’s more important to try to help people than to know that you did. … Maybe one core thing you said haunts them forever. Maybe one moment of kindness gives them comfort or courage. Maybe you said the one thing they needed to hear. It doesn’t matter if you know. You just have to try.”
The show’s last episode ended not with a great victory over a Big Bad, but with some sharp-elbowed bargaining about what to do in the messy aftermath of a conflict. Suspicion and distrust continue to fester, but the parties at the negotiating table manage to devise a tentative solution. It might work, but it might not — in the universe of “The Expanse,” the politics never go away.
“The Expanse” was never blind to despair or cruelty or malice. It simply posited that these are not valid reasons to give up hope or refuse to try. That is a lesson well worth remembering in 2022. | null | null | null | null | null |
Opinion: Animal welfare matters to most Americans
A hog walks in a holding pen on the Ron Mardesen farm in Elliott, Iowa, on Dec. 2, 2021. (Charlie Neibergall/AP)
Regarding Mitch Daniels’s Jan. 19 Wednesday Opinion column, “California’s ham-fisted war on pork offers some useful lessons”:
In a way, California’s animal cruelty law, which passed with nearly two-thirds of the vote from Democrats, Republicans and independents alike, does shine a light on something “radical.” The need for a law to ensure a baby veal calf, mother pig and egg-laying chicken have enough room to be able to turn around shows how radically out of touch industrial agribusiness is with American values concerning the treatment of animals. Some pork producers confine mother pigs in cages barely larger than their bodies where they are unable to move more than a few inches. Some in the veal industry do the same thing to baby calves, who are ripped from their mothers shortly after birth and consigned to a lifetime of suffering in a tiny crate. Fortunately, voters and legislators in both blue and red states have come together to ban these abuses, showing there’s a more humane, merciful way to raise animals. These laws aren’t just backed by long legal precedent; they’re also reflective of our better nature.
Kitty Block, Gaithersburg
The writer is president and chief executive of the Humane Society of the United States and chief executive of Humane Society International. | null | null | null | null | null |
After clinching a tiebreaker to claim the first five-set victory of his career, Sebastian Korda celebrated his 4-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 they have pushed one another since they were teens.
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 Tour’s top-ranked player, while his other sister, Jessica, is ranked 22nd.
Korda’s Australian Open preparation wasn’t ideal. Upon arriving in Adelaide to compete in a hard-court tuneup, he tested positive for the 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 (9-7), 7-5, 7-6 (10-8). | null | null | null | null | null |
“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 you 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 for on these things? What are they for?” | null | null | null | null | null |
Look where we ended up. A political faction that spent March 2021 wailing about Dr. Seuss and the purported threat 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 efforts to ban books are representative of a 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 |
DALLAS — International airlines have canceled some flights heading to or departing from the U.S. The cancellations Wednesday were less dramatic than feared, but represented the latest complication in a dispute over concerns that 5G mobile phone service could interfere with aircraft technology. Airlines said they received warnings from the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration or Boeing that the plane maker’s 777 was particularly vulnerable to interference from 5G service. Airlines for America, a trade group, said cancellations were limited because telecom providers agreed to temporarily reduce the rollout of 5G near airports while industry and the government work out a longer-term solution.
SEATTLE — Starbucks is no longer requiring its U.S. workers to be vaccinated against COVID-19, reversing a plan it announced earlier this month. The Seattle coffee giant says it’s responding to last week’s ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court. In a 6-3 vote, the court rejected the Biden administration’s plan to require vaccines or regular COVID testing at companies with more than 100 workers. On Jan. 3, Starbucks said it would require its 228,000 U.S. employees to be vaccinated by Feb. 9 or face a weekly COVID test requirement. Starbucks won’t say how many of its employees are fully vaccinated.
NEW YORK — Stocks closed broadly lower on Wall Street Wednesday and deepened the weekly losses for major indexes following another choppy day of trading. The S&P 500 fell 1%, the Nasdaq fell 1.1% and the Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 1%. The major indexes all set new lows for the year, with technology stocks’ weakness again giving direction to the broader market. UnitedHealth Group, Bank of America and Procter & Gamble all rose after reporting encouraging financial results. Bond yields fell. Small company stocks, a gauge of confidence in economic growth, fell more than the rest of the market.
WASHINGTON — The United States and the United Kingdom have agreed to begin talks on removing former President Donald Trump’s import taxes on British steel and aluminum. In a joint statement Wednesday, the U.S. and U.K. said they would work toward a swift deal that ensures the viability of the steel and aluminum industries in both countries and that strengthens their alliance. In 2018, Trump imposed tariffs on imported steel and aluminum, calling them a threat to U.S. national security. Although President Joe Biden had criticized Trump for alienating allies, he was slow once taking office to undo the metals tariffs.
GENEVA — New German Chancellor Olaf Scholz has called for a “paradigm shift” in the way the world approaches climate policy, saying his country would leverage its presidency of the Group of Seven industrial nations to push for standards to fight global warming. Discussions on energy use and ways to fight climate change have been a key theme this week at the World Economic Forum’s virtual meeting. Scholz said nations could seek to achieve climate goals “by pricing carbon and preventing carbon leakage.” Those proposals are designed to prevent companies from shifting carbon-heavy industries to countries with less stringent emissions rules. But it’s not clear that the U.S. and major developing countries such as China and India agree with those ideas.
HOUSTON — Five philanthropies have announced plans to spend more than $20 million to bolster news coverage in Houston and create what they say will be one of the largest local nonprofit news organizations in the country. The donors said Wednesday in a news release that the newsroom is anticipated to launch later this year or early 2023 on multiple platforms. The goal is to “elevate the voices of Houstonians” and address information needs identified through focus groups, community listening sessions and multi-language surveys conducted with local residents. The donors include the Houston Endowment, the Kinder Foundation and Arnold Ventures.
SILVER SPRING, Md. — Construction of new homes in the U.S. 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 left home construction at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 1.70 million units, the Commerce Department reported Wednesday. Applications for building permits, which can forecast future activity, rose a whopping 9.1% to a seasonally-adjusted rate of 1.87 million units. Both starts and permits topped expectations. Analysts surveyed by FactSet were expecting 1.65 million starts and 1.70 million permit applications. applications.
CHICAGO — United Airlines lost $646 million in the last three months of 2021, and the new year doesn’t look too good either. United said Wednesday that the current spike in COVID-19 cases will hurt its results in the March quarter, and its revenue will be 20% to 25% lower than it was at the same time in 2019. United says the omicron variant of COVID-19 is hurting near-term bookings, but the outlook is better for travel in spring and summer. United officials are scheduled to discuss the results with analysts on Thursday. | null | null | null | null | null |
FILE - Robert Mardini speaks during a news conference on the situation in Gaza, at the International Red Cross, headquarters in Geneva, Switzerland, on May 31, 2018. The International Committee of the Red Cross, which is best known for helping war victims, says hackers broke into servers hosting its data and gained access to personal, confidential information on more than a half-million vulnerable people. “An attack on the data of people who are missing makes the anguish and suffering for families even more difficult to endure,” Mardini, the ICRC’s director-general, said in a statement. (Martial Trezzini/Keystone via AP, File) | null | null | null | null | null |
U.S. Border Patrol agents apprehend a migrant illegally crossing over the Mexico and U.S. border in Calexico, Calif., on Jan. 4, 2022. (Eric Thayer/Bloomberg)
D.C. Circuit Judge Justin Walker struggled to pin down the Biden administration’s approach to the border Wednesday. In one lawsuit, he said, government officials argue that a Trump-era program that sends asylum seekers into Mexico to await a hearing is too dangerous.
Yet government lawyers are defending a separate policy that is expelling far more migrants to nations such as Haiti, despite the dangers they might face there. He called their position, a “self-contradiction.”
“So what are we supposed to do with this?” Walker asked the Department of Justice lawyer at a hearing Wednesday, after she asked a panel of judges to let the expulsions continue for now.
The appeals hearing over a lawsuit seeking to end the expulsion of migrant families unfolded as the Biden administration is hitting the one-year mark, with mixed results on President Biden’s pledge to create a far more humane immigration system than did President Donald Trump, who sought to deport as many immigrants as possible. Supporters say Biden has made great strides: He has shielded millions of immigrants from deportation, ended family detention, halted the border wall, scrapped Trump’s travel bans, welcomed tens of thousands of Afghans and raised the annual refugee cap to 125,000, which the White House said is the highest since 1993.
His administration has also granted “temporary protected status” to approximately 430,000 additional undocumented immigrants from countries such as Venezuela, Yemen and Haiti, allowing them to apply for work permits as long as they were already living in the United States.
Military mother returns as Biden promises to reverse deportations of veterans and their families
White House immigration policy adviser Esther Olavarria said at a panel discussion Wednesday hosted by the nonpartisan Migration Policy Institute (MPI) that more countries are under “active consideration” for temporary protected status.
But the administration has also expelled hundreds of thousands of migrants who attempted to cross the border illegally, federal records show, as they grapple with a record influx at the southwest border. U.S. Customs and Border Protection made 1.7 million apprehensions last fiscal year, which ended Sept. 30, up from nearly 460,000 the year before.
About 27 percent tried to cross more than once, MPI found, a much higher share than in previous years.
Apprehensions rose again last month — though they usually drop in December — to more than 170,000, the highest December since the agency was created, after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.
Democrats have been unable to leverage their slim majority in Congress to secure permanent residency and a path to U.S. citizenship for the 11 million undocumented immigrants who have lived here for years, even decades, as Biden hoped.
“It has been a challenge,” Olavarria said. “It has been frustrating to all of us on the inside and personally to me.”
She paused and added, “There’s much more that we need to be doing and could be doing, and the building blocks for that are also underway.”
Doris Meissner, a senior fellow with MPI and a Clinton administration immigration commissioner, said the institute counted 296 executive actions on immigration as of this week, compared with 86 executive actions during Trump’s first year.
“That outpaces the Trump record,” she said. “However, the news reporting and the public perception have been almost entirely on issues at the border and on Congress, for paralysis in Congress on immigration legislation.”
MPI also found that the drop in interior enforcement has had “perceptible effects,” according to a new report. The Biden administration has ended worksite raids and declared that merely being in the United States illegally is not a reason to deport someone, as it was under Trump. Immigration arrests in the interior of the country dropped to 3,000 a month, half the number during the last administration. Deportations from the interior have plunged.
Republicans have assailed the Biden administration for unwinding Trump-era policies and blamed that effort for the mass migration to the border, adding to the already bloated immigration-court backlog of nearly 1.6 million cases.
Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) called the administration’s policies “disastrous” this month, and Republicans have been eager to highlight them as they head into the November midterm elections that could shift the balance of power in Congress.
Lorella Praeli, co-president of Community Change, an advocacy organization, said at the MPI panel that the administration “has indeed made progress” on immigration, ending worksite raids, rescinding a “public charge” rule that sought to bar low-income immigrants and promoting citizenship or legal residency — something she is still hopeful would materialize.
But she said it is “shameful” that officials are still expelling migrants to nations such as Haiti, and urged them to stop.
Biden ended Trump’s “Migrant Protection Protocols” program, which required migrants to await their asylum hearings in often-dangerous border cities in Mexico, where they have been targets for kidnappings and assaults. But the federal courts ordered the government to restart the program while they fight to end it in court.
The Biden administration has not ended Trump’s policy of expelling migrants under Title 42 of the public health code, saying the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has maintained its order.
While covid is rampant in the United States, a Department of Justice lawyer said the “staggeringly high” influx of migrants at the border cannot be safely detained and processed in the United States during covid.
“Obviously, the government’s goal is to get back to a state of orderly immigration processing for everyone,” DOJ lawyer Sharon Swingle told the judges Wednesday. “But currently, in CDC’s view, the public health realities don’t permit that.”
It remained unclear at the hearing when that might change. Olavarria and other Biden immigration officials are soon to leave the White House, and she said Wednesday that there was “a lot of work that I am very, very proud of,” and more that needs to be done.
“I’ve worked in this area for now over 30 years, in and out of government. And when I have been out of government, I have always wondered, ‘Why is it taking so long? Why don’t they change policies faster?’” she said. “When I have been in government, and that has been now more than 18 years, I realize every day how difficult it is to enact change.” | null | null | null | null | null |
NEW YORK — Authorities decades ago blew chances to build a case against multimillionaire Robert Durst in the death of his first wife, a suburban New York prosecutor said Wednesday after Durst’s death in a California hospital lockup last week quashed a case that took nearly 40 years to bring.
At his trial, Durst denied he’d killed Berman or his wife, though he also said that if he had, he'd lie about it, and that he’d lied under oath in the past. | null | null | null | null | null |
ANNAPOLIS, Md. — Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan on Wednesday presented his final budget proposal, touting tax cuts, record education and school construction spending and aid for the vulnerable amid an enormous surplus.
Hogan’s proposal would gradually eliminate the taxation of all income for retirees above 65 who receive Social Security, removing 70,000 low-income seniors from state tax rolls in tax year 2022.
Hogan’s proposal includes $1 billion in school construction funding, allocates $144.1 million to expand pre-K for 3- and 4-year-olds and $601 million for higher education projects. It also includes $996 million for mental health and substance use disorder programs.
In a statement, House Speaker Adrienne A. Jones said the governor’s proposed budget funds priorities such as higher education and infrastructure upgrades, but she raised a concern for a 10-year plan to improve K-12 schools known as the Blueprint for Maryland’s Future. | null | null | null | null | null |
President Biden takes questions from reporters during a news conference in the East Room of the White House on Wednesday, Jan. 19, 2022. (Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)
One of the two main policy priorities President Biden is advocating at the moment is legislation that would bolster elections by ensuring early and mail-in voting, improving protections for elections officials and making Election Day a holiday, among other things. Passage of the bills that would result in those changes depends on overcoming a filibuster in the Senate or on eliminating the filibuster requirement, neither of which is likely. So, as Biden seemed to acknowledge in his lengthy press conference on Wednesday, neither are the reforms.
Pressure to pass such legislation has ramped up over the past year, a function of both former president Donald Trump’s unceasing false claims that the 2020 election was tainted by fraud and by Republicans leveraging those claims to push for state-level restrictions on voting access. Democrats aren’t going to be able to get Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) to make it easier to vote, but figured they had an outside chance at changing federal law to do so.
That chance no longer seems likely. So, during the press conference, Biden was asked a question that considered that reality.
This is an explosive question, versions of which were presented to Trump repeatedly and which Biden’s predecessor used to inject uncertainty around a contest he seemed unlikely to win. The Democratic Party has — justifiably! — put a lot of emphasis on the fact that the 2020 results were trustworthy and the election not illegitimate. Most Republicans don’t believe that, choosing, instead, to ally with Trump’s dishonest claims.
“It all depends on whether or not we’re able to make the case to the American people that some of this is being set up to try to alter the outcome of the election,” he said — the “this” there apparently referring to those state-level efforts to limit voting access. In other words, if the federal bill passes, he will say the results are legitimate. If not? Well...
“Oh, yeah, I think it easily could be illegitimate,” Biden said. “Imagine, imagine if in fact, Trump had succeeded in convincing Pence not to count the votes. Imagine if—”
“Imagine if those attempts to say that the count was not legit, you have to recount it, we’re not going to count— we’re going to discard the following votes," he said, adopting the perspective of a theoretical election worker. “I’m not saying it’s going to be legit. The increase and the prospect of its being illegitimate is in direct proportion to not being able to get these these reforms passed.” | 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 that those actions exceeded the “discretionary authority granted to City Commissioners.”
The suit prompted a rebuke 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 echoed the same sentiments.
Carollo also called the allegations “lies” and derided the former police chief, describing him as a “liar and a thug hiding behind a badge.”
City Manager Arthur 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 departments 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 that the three commissioners retaliated against him because he resisted their efforts to use the police department to carry out “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 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 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 citizens’ 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 that Miami police officers engaged in a “pattern of excessive use of force” that superiors sometimes covered up.
As a consequence of those 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 words to refer to exiles who opposed his communist regime.
In an interview after his removal, Acevedo said his ordeal showed that the city was “not ready for reform.” | null | null | null | null | null |
FILE - This April 12, 2018, file photo shows Britney Spears at the 29th annual GLAAD Media Awards in Beverly Hills, Calif.Disability rights activists and advocates for Britney Spears backed a California proposal Wednesday, Jan. 18, 2022, to provide more protections for those under court-ordered conservatorships, while promoting less-restrictive alternatives. (Chris Pizzello/Invision/AP, File) | null | null | null | null | null |
Transcript: Valerie Bertinelli, Author, “Enough Already: Learning to Love the Way I Am Today”
MR. EDGERS: Hey, folks. This is Geoff Edgers, national arts reporter here from the National Arts Bureau. And we are lucky today to have Valerie Bertinelli, who we first met as America’s sweetheart on “One Day at a Time,” and she won a Golden Globe for that. And more recently we’ve seen her on The Food Network, “Valerie’s Home Cooking” and “Kids Baking Championship.” She is also--I don’t know if you know this--the mother of a guy named Wolfgang Van Halen. We’ll talk about him, too. And today she’s here because she has written her latest book, “Enough Already,” which I speedread because I want to be prepared, but I’m going to slow read as soon as this is over. So we’re so lucky. The lovely, talented Valerie Bertinelli. How are you?
MS. BERTINELLI: Hi, Geoff. It’s so nice to see you. Last time we spoke, it was all about Wolfie. I love it.
MR. EDGERS: I know last time you Facetimed my son at the--at the Wolfie Van Halen concert, the Mammoth concert, and he--we couldn’t hear each other but he was like, wow, they Facetimed me.
So, look. I just want to thank you for being here. And this is not--"Enough Already" is not a political book. People might think that at The Washington Post. But it is a political book.
MS. BERTINELLI: There are a little bit of politics in it, though. I talk a little bit of politics. Not too much, though, you know?
MR. EDGERS: But it’s a kind of--I would say it’s kind of emotional politics that many of us play with ourselves and with others, and it’s really fascinating how deeply you get into this. Now I’m going to open up by telling you that when we talk about weight loss--which is an epidemic--I don’t know what you’d call it in our country--I think of two things publicly done. One is Oprah with the cart, pulling out her--you know, supposedly what she’d lost.
MS. BERTINELLI: Yeah.
MR. EDGERS: And I think of you on the cover of People magazine at the age of 49 in a bikini. But you tell a fascinating story in this book about what it took to get there and what it meant. Could you tell me a little bit about that?
MS. BERTINELLI: Sure. There’s a little bit of pride in it because I like to pride myself on when there’s a job to do, I’m going to do it, and I'm going to do it to the best of my ability. I'm going to get my task done. And there's a little bit of shame involved, because--for multiple reasons.
Looking back now, it's--I was part of a diet culture that didn't celebrate women, no matter what size. It was about, getting down to the smallest size you can possibly get to. And if you're not there, then you're a failure. And I don't believe that to be true any longer. And because it was so damn difficult to do, I--that's all I lived--I lived. I worked out morning and afternoon and night, sometimes three a days, sometimes two a days. I barely ate anything. I was on a very restrictive diet. And diets do work, when you stay on them. But the moment you go off them and you go back to living your life, the weight starts to come back on, and you feel like a fail--I can only speak for myself. I felt like a failure. I felt like I had let a bunch of people down. And the shame really overwhelmed me to a point where I really needed to start looking into myself and figure out what that was about and why weight--weight gain, weight loss, all of it just--the weight loss never made me happy. I'm on the cover of a magazine in a green bikini, and it really was all I dreamt about, like being able to get back in a bikini--not being on a cover of a magazine. But it didn't bring me the joy that I was searching for. So that's what my search is for now.
And I find that it's--joy has to be intentional. And it just--it doesn't come to you. You go to it, and you find it. Even in the darkest days, which I've had quite a few of in the last few years--like a lot of us have. COVID has really knocked the crap out of us.
MR. EDGERS: I mean, it's--just to go back quickly to the people thing, I mean, it's fascinating the way you break it down. You--the deal is to lose 30 pounds in eight months. You take it off in three. And then you--there's a negotiation for 10 more. It's so counter to what we should do health wise, physically, and psychologically, right?
MS. BERTINELLI: Right. It's so--I mean, I lost the weight. But what I didn't take care of is my mental health and my emotional health. And until anybody does that, any bad habit you have, that is--bad habit--any habit you have, like that was what I had in my toolbox. To soothe emotions that I didn't want to feel, I ate food because that was the original thing that made me feel loved from a very young age. So, for a long time there, I then started to look at food as the enemy, and it's not. Food is there to nourish your body, to keep it moving and keep it breathing and keep all of your organs running. And I didn't look at it that way. I looked at it like it was the enemy if it makes me gain weight. There's certain foods I can't have. There's certain foods I'm allowed to have. And it's just--it's--at this age, it's just--it's not the way I want to lead my life any longer. It's not--it's not joyful. It's not fun.
But let me also say that that doesn't mean--just because I don't get on the scale any longer, it doesn't--it doesn't mean that I'm not going to take care of myself. I still want to be able to climb the stairs until I'm in my 80s so I can get up to my bedroom. I am going to eat more fruits and vegetables because I know that's better for me. I'm going to drink less alcohol because I don't feel as good when I do drink it the next day and eat less sugar because the same thing. I don't feel as good when I--when I eat sugar.
MR. EDGERS: Yeah, I think--I mean dieting is not necessarily healthy, and not dieting doesn't mean you're suddenly sitting on the couch with a bag of Cheetos watching "King of the Hill" reruns.
MS. BERTINELLI: Exactly, exactly.
MR. EDGERS: I don’t know why people--
MS. BERTINELLI: Not that there’s anything wrong with that.
MR. EDGERS: No, I think that’s good, like, Thursday, right? So there’s a point, though--you really write about it beautifully--where you're going on the Today Show, 2019. And the idea is, it's going to be New Year’s, and we know--we know what happens then. Is it 2019? I've lost complete track of time, you know?
MS. BERTINELLI: I think it's 2020, 2020. It was right before COVID hit, I believe.
MR. EDGERS: Sorry. You’re going on--
MS. BERTINELLI: I’m sorry. You know what? The last three years have just kind of like faded into one big month. So, I don't--I can't be sure either. I have to look back at my calendar.
MR. EDGERS: Let’s define it as before COVID but after 2018, how about that?
MS. BERTINELLI: Okay, yeah. I’ll do that.
MR. EDGERS: So you’re going on there for New Year’s, and the idea is you're supposed to be going on to talk about how you're going to lose 10 pounds. So, we like to think that people when they go on TV, they have a plan, they have a structure, they abide by it, even if they're not feeling it. Tell us what happens to you.
MS. BERTINELLI: I got around to New Year's like we all do, searching for that resolution that I was going to make. And I was talking to the Today Show producers about what we could do. And of course, we all want to start the new year nice and healthy. And I thought, I can't--I can't do it anymore. I can't keep trying to lose the same 10, 20, 30 pounds over and over and over again. I need to get off of this treadmill. I need to get off of this craziness. I need to change the script. I mean, what's the definition of insanity? Doing the same thing over and over again and expecting the same--expecting a different result? And it's not happening?
So, I said what if I tried to just be happy, just like be truly happy, in my soul happy for the first time in my life. I have happy moments. I have joyful moments. And I choose happy. It's one of those things that I believe we do have a choice about, but those days are getting more and more challenging to choose happy. So, I thought what if we try to be intentional about joy? What if we tried to find joy? How can I help people take this on my--on a journey with me? And the producers were up for it, thankfully.
MR. EDGERS: And so you sit--you got on there. And what did you tell them? The goal was no longer to lose 10 pounds, right?
MS. BERTINELLI: Right, right. The goal--well, I had an interview, and the goal was to talk about, you know, how you find happy and how you choose happy, and I found myself sobbing in this interview because the pain just came straight to the forefront. After the interview was over, I found myself with a very emotional and vulnerable--vulnerability hangover, I think is what Brené Brown likes to call them. And she's right. And I found that with that door opening where I was being--I mean, pretty much I have been an open book for most of my life anyway. But when I started to let people see the vulnerability and not the happy, I'm fine girl all the time, which is what, you know, every time--so how are you doing? I'm fine. I'm fine. And I wasn't a lot of the time. Sometimes I am. I found that it opened a door for me, and it--and it let me try to find who I am authentically. And I think that that word maybe gets overused, "authentic." But it's a good word, because who are we? We don't know. We cover ourselves up with Instagram and social media. We cover--we pretend we're having this beautiful life. There's, you know, all these beautiful filters to make us look better all the time. But who are we authentically? And I'm still on that journey to find it. I'm getting closer to it.
I like to say that I'm not one of those kind of people that the light switch goes on and I know how to make a change. I'm like a dimmer girl. Like the dimmer slowly starts to open up. And even after I finished writing the book, I realized I know why I think I'm unlovable when I'm fat. And I go back, and I remember the way my father treated my mother when she would gain weight. And that sank in as a young child like, oh, you're unlovable when you gain weight. And then I had an elementary school teacher point at my belly and say you're going to want to keep an eye on that. I hadn't even really had any idea about my body before that. It was just what got me from one place to the other. And all of a sudden, I had to be aware of my body. And that was super uncomfortable at such a young age. I'm still mad at that guy for doing it. And I'm mad at my father now, too, for treating my mom so badly when she would gain weight, because that's all she had in her toolbox when she wasn't feeling--and she had a really challenging life. So, I'm finding things are slowly opening up to me the more that I open up.
MR. EDGERS: I mean, we talked about your son quite a bit and your late husband, Eddie Van Halen, Edward, Ed. And I feel like you could--I mean, I don't know if you've considered practicing as a shrink, but you really have spent your life trying to understand the mistakes we make in the past, how those transferred to others, and then how we can try to correct them, because on the outside we look at you and we look at Eddie and we look at Wolf, and we say, boy, if we could only be so talented. And on the inside the three of you are saying I'm a fraud; they're going to find me out for God's sake, right?
MS. BERTINELLI: Right. Oh, that's such a horrible--yeah, imposter syndrome. That's a tough one in our family. I look at Wolfie and Ed, and I'm like how can you have imposter syndrome. Like you guys--it's like--it's amazing how it comes through to you. But we all feel it. And it doesn't matter how talented you are, because there's so many things that happen in your childhood that shape who you are when you don't even realize you're being shaped.
And it makes me think back about, you know, the mothering that I did with Wolfie. Which I certainly wasn't perfect because I was still struggling with--I'm not going to make excuses. I wasn't a perfect mother. I did the best that I could. My mother wasn't perfect. She did the best she could. But we try to improve any time we know we've made a mistake, and we try to get better after that. That's where the learning and the growth comes from. And that's--I feel like that's what I'm here for. I'm here to learn and to share it when I figure it out.
MR. EDGERS: Valerie, I just want to let you know, I don't know--I'm sure I didn't do it as well as you, but I felt like you were giving me an instruction for this talk. I've made the crab and spinach dip, right here. I think you told me to do that on page 7, am I right?
MS. BERTINELLI: Yes, I did. I did.
MR. EDGERS: It's still warm.
MS. BERTINELLI: Oh, good.
MR. EDGERS: It’s very good. I don't know if I should eat on camera. I don't know. I don't do that normally.
MS. BERTINELLI: Why not? I have to eat on camera on all the time.
MR. EDGERS: [Unclear] supporter. Dear God that’s good.
MS. BERTINELLI: You better drink something now. You're not making my crab look really good, Geoff.
MR. EDGERS: It’s got a little pepper in it, you know?
MS. BERTINELLI: Mm-hm.
MR. EDGERS: So let me ask you.
MS. BERTINELLI: Here, want my water?
MR. EDGERS: Can you tell us--I’d like your water. Wait, I’m going to get some right here.
MS. BERTINELLI: Somebody get him some water.
MR. EDGERS: This is not the Today Show. There's no somebody here. It's just me and my bubbler. Oh, that’s so good. I can't wait to have more of it later. So, tell me something. You told us that on page 7 we should make this, and you set up a really lovely scene. And I think food, family, psychology, it's all something you weave throughout this book. But tell us about the spinach and crab dip.
MS. BERTINELLI: Well, I like to rehearse what I'm going to do before I do a live demo on a show. And then when there's leftovers, I like take it back and make it for whoever happens to be around. And I knew was going over to Wolfie’s house. So, I brought it over there, and I fixed it up. And as I'm fixing it up, he says, oh, Dad called. He's gonna be over. I’m like, oh, great, I haven't seen him in a while. So, it just became this impromptu love session between the three of us. And we took pictures that night. And Ed was so relaxed, and he was still healthy enough to where he could drive around in a car. And it was just a really lovely, connection-filled evening. And I think, again, that all starts food.
MR. EDGERS: But he loved it, right?
MS. BERTINELLI: He loved the dip.
MS. BERTINELLI: And it starts with food. I went over there because I wanted to make Wolfie food. And then Ed said, oh, what's this, and he literally got two elbows and was just like this digging into it. He loved it so much. And it's very rare that Ed really enjoys food, so it made me very, very, very happy.
What's the matter, Batman? This guy keeps screaming?
MR. EDGERS: Which cat is that?
MS. BERTINELLI: This is Batman, and he keeps screaming at me, so, yeah.
MR. EDGERS: Batman. Are the cats that your parents had, are they still around?
MS. BERTINELLI: They are. Bubba and Beau are still here. And those are actually Wolfie’s favorite kitties. He comes over here all--he was just here last night, hanging out with Bubba and Beau.
MR. EDGERS: I want to ask you about your late husband. I don't know how to say that. It's heartbreaking because I know how much it hurt you and hurts your son. And it's just heartbreaking. I mean, there's no way to go around it. But, you know, in this book, you write very, very openly about how much you loved him, and how that love continued. Also, the idea that both of you were remarried, but I feel like near the end there was a real understanding that, you know, your true love was Ed and his true love was Valerie. Would you--would you two have remarried or been together again or--I mean, he had cleaned up completely. He was a sweet, super talented guy, and you two had fathered this beautiful, beautiful boy. So, explain that relationship a little to me, because we're used to divorces, especially celebrity divorces. They're like, grrr, alimony--you know, like it's really unpleasant.
MS. BERTINELLI: Well, I mean, he was angry at me for a few years when I first left. He was very angry at me. And I think a lot of people saw that in the 2004 tour. But, oh, god, I just--I don't know how else to say it except I felt like the love we had for each other was deeper than just marital love or sexual love or I just--I loved him deeply through my soul and I felt that same thing from him, especially after our conversation in George's car, I talk about and I write about in the book. And it seemed like he spent that whole last year really wanting to connect. And I didn't realize it at the time that this might have been our last year together. So, I write a lot in the book about regretting not going over there more, because I mean, the last couple years of his life, he was alone in that house, and I wish I had gone over more. Every time he had texted me, I wish that I had just dropped everything and gone over. So, I guess what--the reason I write that in the book is for anybody else that may hear it, and if you're having doubts or if you're feeling like, oh, maybe I shouldn't overstep my bounds, maybe I shouldn't--you know, they just texted me, but maybe I shouldn't go over, do it. You're never going to regret having told somebody that you love them. There are going to be regrets about if you didn't. So, I must say, by the end of his life where we were able to say that to each other--I mean, we always said it to each other, but there was something deeper to it before he passed.
MR. EDGERS: I really apprec--you know, I thought when I'm reading this, how bold it is for you to talk so openly about your relationships, talk about your second marriage dissolving.
MS. BERTINELLI: Is it?
MR. EDGERS: And then I realized you’re like--you're taking it back--well, people just are private sometimes and they don't want to talk about things that are uncomfortable, maybe, right? I mean, that's--I'm used to that.
MS. BERTINELLI: Yeah, yeah.
MR. EDGERS: And I think you took it back in many ways from like, you know--not to insult TMZ--but you took it back from the gossip people and you made it your own and you framed it and explained it in a way that it was really just two people.
MS. BERTINELLI: Yeah, and I had given up on--in fact, I'm very, very careful not to read any of the troll comments, the gossip comments right now, because the book is so personal. I wrote it for me first, for Wolfie second, for Ed. And I wrote it so that the people--because I'm very clear in the beginning of the book that I may say I and me a lot, but I want you to take those out and replace them with yourself, because these stories may--they may be a little bit different. But I'm telling you, you've had the same feelings. You've gone through the same feelings that I've gone through, and maybe this will make you or help you feel not so alone, or help you get through a feeling that you're uncomfortable feeling. It's not as scary to go through it. But I can't worry about what the trolls and what the gossip columns say because I was grief shamed when Ed first passed, because how dare I write something beautiful about him. He was married. What they didn't know was that they were also separated, and she wasn't living there. That doesn't matter. Even if she had still been living there, we're allowed to love each other because we have a son together, and we're allowed to be kind to one another. And I still respect Janie, and I respect my husband, Tom. That has nothing to do with the love that Ed and I had for each other. So--and people can’t understand that.
MR. EDGERS: Your son, by the way, he was--your son, by the way, he does not like to avoid trolls, and has a glorious success rate at destroying them online.
MS. BERTINELLI: He’s so good at it. Yes, he’s so good.
MR. EDGERS: I remember someone said something particularly offensive. I don't remember the exact words, but they basically were like, you know, criticizing the way you were mourning as if that was their--you know, as a stranger they were allowed to do that. And he just clapped them back. Why is it that he's so comfortable with that and you are so uncomfortable with it? Because it--there are terrible people out there on the internet, you know? That's what I've heard.
MS. BERTINELLI: Oh, yeah.
MR. EDGERS: And why does it still bother you?
MS. BERTINELLI: This goes way, way, way back to where my dad was the happy guy. Everybody liked him at work, and he just wanted everybody to like them. You know, you must know everybody's name. You must do this, and you make sure everybody likes you. Well, I come to find out through all of these years that you can't make everybody like you. They're coming to you with and they're viewing you with their own ghosts and whatever their experiences in life are, and something about you might just quirk them off because you remind them of somebody that they didn't like in their own life. So, I can't be worried about that. I can't be worried about people that want to grief shame me because they think I'm married, and Ed's married, and how dare we love each other. I'm sorry that you don't have that love in your life, that you never felt that strongly about someone. I have compassion for them that they haven't experienced that so they need to lash out at me.
Wolfie, I think he's just so good at it because they had been giving him a hard time since the very first tour back when he was 16-years-old and they--people were horrible to him. And he's just like, fuck it. You know? You guys can say whatever you want. I can say whatever I want. The thing about Wolfie, though, is that he will go after those trolls because they've gone after him. He never--he never goes after people unless they attack first. But he also is very, very clear about being kind to the people that appreciate his work, that go to his shows, that that reach out in kind ways. He's very thankful and very grateful for that. So, it's not that he's just this, you know, angry guy hitting back at people online. He also is very grateful and thankful to the people that don't hit him.
MR. EDGERS: Yeah, no, your son--it's a testament to the parenting. I know as a parent you just hope your kid grows up comfortable and balanced and talented. And you know, it's not always easy for him, I know. But he is such a sweetheart, isn't he?
MR. EDGERS: And he’s so--the guy plays every instrument on his album. Look, we have some viewer questions.
MS. BERTINELLI: I mean, come on!
MR. EDGERS: Yeah. We have some viewer questions. Can you take a couple of these? Let’s see.
MS. BERTINELLI: Absolutely, yeah.
MR. EDGERS: So we just--sadly Betty White just passed away. She was on your fantastic show "Hot in Cleveland." Steve Howard from Florida--I guess he doesn't want to be more detailed than that--but Florida asked what did Betty White teach you?
MS. BERTINELLI: That's a lovely question, because Betty White was the perfect teacher. Besides just all of the timing, and her impeccable timing, her work ethic and everything that she did workwise, as a human being, as the way she just oozed kindness and gratitude, it taught me a lot about always looking at the bright side, because there's always a bright side. It may be very, very dim at times, but you can find it when you look for it. And I am so grateful to her for showing me that, because we can get wrapped up in our doom scrolling of our life and forget all of the blessings that we have in our life. And I choose for the rest of my life to focus on the blessings.
MR. EDGERS: That's lovely. So, another question we have here, more viewers, Carrie Williams from Louisiana, the great state. How have your feelings about being a celebrity changed over the years?
MS. BERTINELLI: Oh, another really good question. Changed over the years. You know what, I think I've been doing this so long, I don't know what it would be like to not be doing it in the public eye. But I also have kept my life as normal as possible. I still go to the grocery store. I still do the dishes. I still clean the litter box. I still have a regular normal life. But every so often, someone will recognize me, and they'll say something nice to me. So that's good, as well. But I try to keep my life as normal as possible. And I don't even try anymore. Just my life is normal. I'm just normal, whatever normal means.
MR. EDGERS: I imagine from, you know, when I was 13 and 12 years old, and they had those Circus magazines with you and Eddie in them, in the early 80s, it was very different. You must have actually had to face a lot of paparazzi stuff and craziness, and you both were a little bit nutty at times, right?
MS. BERTINELLI: Oh, sure. But we also never went out.
MR. EDGERS: Never went out?
MS. BERTINELLI: We didn’t--no, Ed and I--no, we did our drugs at home. We didn't go out to clubs. We didn't--Ed hated clubs because they were so loud. So, we maybe went to one or two in our whole, you know, time together. We stayed at home. We played Uno. We played Mario, whatever the new Mario game was, the 8-bit game way back when. Yeah, that's what we did. We didn't--we didn't go out a lot, so there wasn't a lot of paparazzi. But we were always shocked when someone did take our pictures out and about because like how did you know we were here? Because we were out so rarely.
MR. EDGERS: Excellent advice for the kids, by the way: Do your drugs at home and play Uno.
MS. BERTINELLI: Yeah. And don’t drive. Don’t drive when you’re drunk or--
MR. EDGERS: We’ve got another question here. We've sort of talked about this, but I want to ask this question because it’s a good one, which is Karen--it's either Boubel or Boo-ble [phonetic] from Minnesota asks, what qualities do you try to emphasize to your son. Let's show his record for a second. This is--this is the Mammoth record, right? Boy, I love this record. I put it in plastic, I love it so much.
MS. BERTINELLI: Me, too. Yeah.
MR. EDGERS: You know, so tell me about the qualities you try to emphasize to your son. He's a grown man now.
MS. BERTINELLI: This would be a better question for--I know. He’s 30. He’ll be 31 soon.
MR. EDGERS: You know, maybe a better way to put it is, as when your son is on tour with Van Halen at the age of 16 playing bass for them, and we'd all be terrified of what's going to happen, what do you tell Wolfie? What do you say to protect him?
MS. BERTINELLI: Behave. I have a tutor out there and a bodyguard and all that stuff, and you better -- but he’d just wanted to go back to his room and play a video game. He--I don't know how much to let go anymore, because now that he's his own thing, you know, it used to be when he was little I’d talk about him all the time. But now it's just like I--you know, he's got his own thing. So, I don't want to intrude on that. But he used to get mad at me all the time.
MR. EDGERS: It’s not me. It’s Karen Boubel that asked that. I would never try to pry.
MS. BERTINELLI: Oh, right, okay.
MR. EDGERS: Karen.
MS. BERTINELLI: So I--whenever I would--he would like, be having a bad day and say something like, well, Wolfie, you know, sometimes you have to look at what are they going through? Maybe it wasn't made for you. Maybe the intention wasn't--he's like Mom, stopping being all Gandhi on me. I just, I need to get this off my chest. And so I learned to like maybe not talk so much. He might have a different answer. So, I don't know. He gets annoyed because I can have a Pollyanna attitude sometimes. And he's like, Mom, people aren't as nice as you think they are. And I’m like, oh, maybe you're right, sometimes. But I like to look at the good side.
MR. EDGERS: Yeah, well, you know, it's so nice after all these years in the spotlight--1975 or something, right?--that we're still here. You're young.
MS. BERTINELLI: Ish, ish.
MR. EDGERS: And you have all the future ahead of us, and you are not at all jaded. And you know, I'd say this book is what--it's like a pandemic book in a way. It's like a philosophy book in many ways.
MS. BERTINELLI: Thank you.
MR. EDGERS: But it also has this beautiful narrative about your family.
MS. BERTINELLI: And recipes.
MR. EDGERS: And you know, all I can hope for is that I can talk to you again. I’m sorry?
MS. BERTINELLI: I hope so too, Geoff. No, and recipes. I wanted to make sure that I brought food back to the love I originally started with, because for a long time--as we talked, as a long time I made food the enemy, and it's not. So, I made sure to mix in some recipes in there that meant a lot to me in the moments that I was talking about. So, I just--I want people to know that there's recipes in there. And it does have some hopefully go-to things to help you get through some bad times that I've been able to work on myself and have worked for me.
MR. EDGERS: Well, I've tried one of the recipes, and it's fantastic. And I'm going to consume the rest of it after we get off. But there's pizza. There's--I mean, there's--my wife is Italian. So, I know what you're talking about, you know what I mean? So, I really, really appreciate this book. And look, we've really appreciated the time with you. And look, good luck on the remaining tour. Say hi to the cats and say hi to your family. And maybe we'll see you in person sometime, you know?
MS. BERTINELLI: I hope so. Yeah, that'd be lovely. Thank you. And thanks for taking such great care of my son, by the way. That was an amazing piece that you wrote on Wolfie, and I want to thank you for that.
MR. EDGERS: So, folks, thank you so much--oh, thank you. You know what? It wasn't hard. Just add water. That kid--kid, he’s like, whatever, 31--
MS. BERTINELLI: He's still a kid to me, too, so.
MR. EDGERS: Yeah, he's so--he's so talented and so wonderful that I just--I was honored to write that piece.
MR. EDGERS: So, everybody, thank you so much for being here today. Water, crab and spinach dip, Valerie Bertinelli. And you know, be sure to check out Washington Post Live. And we have so much programming for you. And thanks. | null | null | null | null | null |
The shift intensified a harsher tone that Biden has taken this year toward Republicans, starting with an address commemorating the Jan. 6 Capitol assault and continuing in Georgia last week with a blistering address suggesting that those who do not support the current voting rights bills will be remembered in history alongside such notorious racists as Jefferson Davis, the leader of the Confederacy.
The sharp critique represents a major shift from Biden’s message during the presidential campaign, when he said that Republicans would have an “epiphany” and that partisan gridlock would ease if he took office. And it signals a shift from an inaugural year focused on congressional action to a hard-fought election year with control of Congress at stake.
Biden also offered unvarnished thoughts about Russia’s intentions toward Ukraine, suggesting that President Vladimir Putin would probably invade the country. He suggested the U.S. response would be different if Moscow launches a “minor incursion” vs. a massive ground invasion, causing a furor that quickly prompted the White House to clarify that he was distinguishing a military and non-military assault.
He suggested that there is support for about $500 billion in climate proposals but acknowledged that there is less enthusiasm for a measure to extend the Child Tax Credit, a monthly check that’s gone out to most parents of young children over the past year, or for a pricey proposal to reduce the cost of community college.
The roughly two-hour exchange was much longer than expected or typical for a presidential news conference, and Biden called on far more reporters than he usually does. He joked about staying there for hours and even suggested that the journalists keep their questions short so he could answer more of them.
A recent Gallup poll showed that just 40 percent of Americans approve of the job that Biden is doing, while 56 percent disapproved. That’s the lowest rating for any recent president at their one-year mark, aside from Trump, whose rating was a few points lower.
Biden telegraphed that he will spend more time traveling the country and talking to voters and less time embroiled in prolonged negotiations with Congress.
Biden pledged that he’ll be less insular in the coming months, saying he would seek more input from outside experts and academics and deeply involve himself in the midterm campaign.
Wednesday’s news conference took on greater significance than usual because it came on the eve of the anniversary of his first full year in office and also a moment when many of Biden’s plans face turbulence.
In what appeared to be a carefully calculated message, he repeatedly excoriated Republicans, accusing them of having no goal except opposing him, no leader except Trump and no agenda at all.
Russia has denied that it is preparing to invade. Putin has asked for security guarantees, including assurances that Ukraine and Georgia will not join the NATO military alliance. The United States has rejected this demand — though Biden said Wednesday that it’s unlikely that Ukraine would join the alliance anytime soon.
Biden also said he’s “satisfied” with how his administration has handled the pandemic, saying that it’s a fast-changing virus and that some missteps could not be avoided. “I think we’ve done remarkably well,” Biden said.
Biden sought to clarify comments he made in a speech last week that suggested lawmakers impeding the Democratic push to expand voting rights were in line with segregationist politicians of the past. Those initial comments came under criticism from elected officials in both parties.
At another point, Biden grew heated as he insisted that he was not labeling opponents of the voting rights initiatives as Bull Connor, the notorious Southern sheriff who persecuted, and physically attacked, civil rights activists. “Go back and read what I said,” Biden said.
Last week, Biden put his full support behind changing the Senate filibuster to make it easier to pass voting rights legislation. Under the Senate’s filibuster rules, most bills need 60 votes to pass, a high hurdle with the 50-50 partisan split in the chamber.
A push to change the filibuster rules was expected to unfold Wednesday evening, even though Democrats don’t appear to have the votes needed to change the Senate procedure. Blocking the change are all Republican senators, along with two Democrats: Sens. Joe Manchin III (W.Va.) and Kyrsten Sinema (Ariz.).
Biden predicted that achieving something on the “electoral reform side” was possible but did not elaborate on his thinking.
Biden also pledged to continue pushing for parts of his Build Back Better agenda, the roughly $2 trillion effort to overhaul the country’s health care, education, climate, immigration and tax laws that is stalled in the Senate.
Hours before the news conference was set to begin, the White House issued a fact sheet detailing 11 areas where the administration has made progress over the last year. They touted ending the war in Afghanistan, restoring leadership on the global stage, adding more than 6 million jobs and slashing the child poverty rate.
Biden signed into law the American Rescue Plan — a $1.9 trillion package — in March, legislation that included stimulus checks, created a new monthly payment for most parents and had funds for schools. | null | null | null | null | null |
After practice this week, a day before the Washington Wizards’ gutting 119-118 loss to the Brooklyn Nets at Capital One Arena, Bradley Beal spoke about his team’s “good problems.”
As the roster returns to full health, the Wizards’ depth is so extensive that it leaves at least two previously significant role players out of the rotation. They have three distinct, quality centers, which Wednesday meant that starter Daniel Gafford sat for the entire second quarter — after scoring eight points in seven minutes in the first without picking up a foul.
Less beautiful is that more than halfway through the season, the Wizards’ newfound talent abundance hasn’t helped their quest for consistency.
A game after the Wizards’ offense clicked along without hitch and the defense was tuned into Philadelphia’s many threats (aside from Joel Embiid), their defense lagged in the first half and they let the Nets (28-16) roll.
Acting head coach Joseph Blair said he was pleased with his team’s overall performance against the Nets — just its second this season with the full roster — even as he singled out its downfall.
“I wanted to take a step ahead from last game. I can’t say we took a step ahead, but I don’t think we took a step back. For that I’m happy,” Blair said.
He was then asked about the Wizards’ search for consistency. “ … The consistency that I would like to see is the effort, that’s what I would like to see. … We’re not going to play perfect, but our effort can be perfect,” he said.
LaMarcus Aldridge (27 points), Patty Mills (17 points) and Day’Ron Sharpe (14 points) stepped up to fill in for Kevin Durant, who is out with a medial collateral ligament sprain. Kyrie Irving, who is unvaccinated but permitted to play at the city’s discretion despite D.C.'s vaccine mandate, led the team with 30 points. James Harden had 18 points, eight rebounds and nine assists.
Washington dug itself a 16-point deficit but fought back with a late defensive push. In the closing moments, a three-pointer from Kyle Kuzma and a block from Montrezl Harrell gave the Wizards a real chance for a win — a final trip with just under 10 seconds remaining and a one-point margin. But Kuzma missed a three-pointer, and Spencer Dinwiddie’s desperation heave was off the mark to end it.
The furious rally masked how comfortable the Nets were during a 74-point first half and highlighted how successful Washington can be when it is organized and focused. Brooklyn shot 52.8 percent from the field.
“We beat ourselves in the first half,” Kuzma said. “Point blank, period, you can’t let somebody score 74 points in a half. That’s tough to recover. We did a hell of a job in the second half defensively … that’s damn good plus for us, especially how we’ve been so up and down defensively. You talk about consistency you’re trying to find — we’re still playing a bunch of guys, too.”
Beal had 23 points and nine assists and Kuzma had 16. Harrell and Rui Hachimura added 14 apiece.
Here’s what else to know from Wednesday’s game:
Fourth-quarter interference
Momentum shifted with just over five minutes left in the game after it looked as though a Nets assistant coach deflected a pass that led to a steal. The refs missed the apparent interference.
“My reaction was utter disbelief,” Blair said. “I’ve never seen in my very long time in basketball something like that that the referees did not see. … It’s very hard to swallow them missing something like that, for me.”
In pool report interview, crew chief Ben Taylor said the officials on the floor did not see any deflection on the play. There is no mechanism in place for that play to be reviewed.
Hachimura went 5 for 9 from the field, hit a pair of three-pointers and collected five rebounds. The forward was by far the most aggressive he’s been in the six games he’s played this season in attacking the paint. His finish at the rim also looked sharper.
Backup guard Aaron Holiday was back to the bench after seeing garbage time against Philadelphia. Guard Raul Neto joined him this time as neither guard played at all while Washington continues to sort out its rotations.
Davis Bertans played eight minutes, and Deni Avdija had 13 points in 23 minutes after playing less than three minutes Monday against Philadelphia.
The guard scurried all over the court, pouring in 22 points before halftime on 9-of-12 shooting. At times he sprinted into wide-open lanes for perfectly timed floaters, but more often than not he worked hard to create his own shot, outpacing the Wizards’ defense. | null | null | null | null | null |
Spurs: Murray’s dozen triple-doubles are second in franchise history, trailing Hall of Famer David Robinson’s 14. Alvin Robertson (eight) is third followed by Johnny Moore (six) and Tim Duncan (four). ... Assistant coach Becky Hammon remained in the health and safety protocols and was joined by fellow assistants Mitch Johnson and Darius Songaila. ... San Antonio traded Bryn Forbes to Denver as part of a three-team trade that brought Juancho Hernangomez from Boston and a 2028 second-round pick from the Nuggets. ... Poeltl’s career high for blocks is six, which he’s done six times, most recently against New Orleans on April 24, 2021. ... The Spurs are 15-7 when holding a double-digit lead. | 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 probably 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 Trumpian 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 inaugural board 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 |
Biden is engaging in a practice perfected by former president Donald Trump — offering numbers without context. The United States is emerging from a pandemic that caused huge job losses in 2020 — 9 million jobs, in fact. The rounds of stimulus bills — passed under Trump and Biden — certainly had an impact. The unemployment rate did fall more than many experts had expected, but in part that was a consequence of people dropping out of the workforce.
Between the second and third quarter of 2021, the bottom 40 percent saw huge growth in hourly earnings, surpassing price growth. But workers between the 50th and 80th percentile — the middle class — experienced wage growth below inflation levels, noted economist Arindrajit Dube in November.
Jason Furman, former chair of the Council of Economic Advisers under President Barack Obama, highlighted last month that wages for low-income workers have outpaced inflation — but less than before.
“It will do all of this without raising a single penny in taxes on people making under $400,000 a year or raising the deficit. In fact, my plan cuts the deficit and boosts the economy by getting more people into the workforce.”
In the effort to please many factions in the Democratic Party, the overall cost was reduced but many elements ended up with shortened time frames.
Now, in the version of the bill stalled in the Senate, the child tax credit is extended for only one year, while the universal pre-K and affordable care programs only last six years. A plan to provide Affordable Care Act tax credits to low-income people in states that did not expand Medicaid would run for four years. Such maneuvers reduce the top-line number, but they also mean lawmakers would soon face pressure to extend the programs when they expire. (The framework also includes substantial spending on green-energy programs.)
“That’s why 17 Nobel Prize winners for economics say it will ease long-term inflationary pressure. The bottom line, if price increases are what you’re worried about, the best answer is my Build Back Better plan.”
“Seventeen Nobel laureate economists said that if, in fact, we can pass it, it would actually lower the impact on inflation, reduce inflation over time, et cetera.”
Biden twice referred to a letter signed by 17 Nobel Prize-winning economists, claiming that his spending plan would reduce inflation over time. The letter was released in September, when Biden’s Build Back Better plan called for $3.5 trillion in spending on top of a bipartisan infrastructure plan. It included this line: “Because this agenda invests in long-term economic capacity and will enhance the ability of more Americans to participate productively in the economy, it will ease longer-term inflationary pressures.”
As we have noted, Biden’s plan has changed significantly since then. The bipartisan infrastructure plan became law, but the rest of the spending proposal has been pared back to $1.75 trillion. The tax changes lauded in the letter — higher taxes on the wealthy and corporations — have been largely dropped.
“Look, think of what we did on covid when we were pushing on AstraZeneca to provide more vaccines. Well, guess what? They didn’t have the machinery to be able to do it. I physically went to Michigan, stood there in a factory with the head of AstraZeneca and said, ‘We’ll provide the machinery for you.’” | null | null | null | null | null |
But the majority of those cases can be explained as the result of some preexisting medical condition or were caused by environmental or other factors, the official said, declining to specify the precise number.
Only “a couple dozen” incidents, which the official deemed “the toughest cases,” have no explanation as yet, despite months of investigation.
That small number of individuals will now be the focus of investigators’ attention, the official said. “Our work is continuing, and we are not done yet. | null | null | null | null | null |
A convoy of Russian armored vehicles moves along a highway in Crimea, Tuesday, Jan. 18, 2022. Russia has concentrated an estimated 100,000 troops with tanks and other heavy weapons near Ukraine in what the West fears could be a prelude to an invasion. The Biden administration is unlikely to answer a further Russian invasion of Ukraine by sending U.S. combat troops. But it could pursue a range of less dramatic yet still risky options, including giving military support to a post-invasion Ukrainian resistance. (AP Photo) (Uncredited/AP) | null | null | null | null | null |
The majority of cases could be attributed to a preexisting medical condition or environmental or other factors, the senior official said. “A few dozen” of those incidents, which the official called “the toughest cases,” could not be explained and will receive further scrutiny, the official said. “Our work is continuing, and we are not done yet.” | null | null | null | null | null |
Saint Bonaventure Bonnies (10-4, 2-1 A-10) at Duquesne Dukes (6-9, 1-2 A-10)
BOTTOM LINE: Leon Ayers III and the Duquesne Dukes host Jaren Holmes and the Saint Bonaventure Bonnies in A-10 action.
The Dukes are 3-4 in home games. Duquesne is 4-4 when it has fewer turnovers than its opponents and averages 10.7 turnovers per game.
The Bonnies are 2-1 in A-10 play. Saint Bonaventure is fifth in the A-10 with 24.5 defensive rebounds per game led by Jalen Adaway averaging 5.6.
The Dukes and Bonnies square off Friday for the first time in A-10 play this season.
TOP PERFORMERS: Ayers averages 1.5 made 3-pointers per game for the Dukes, scoring 12.5 points while shooting 28.6% from beyond the arc. Amir “Primo” Spears is averaging 12.3 points and 1.7 steals over the past 10 games for Duquesne.
Holmes is averaging 15.2 points, 6.3 rebounds and 4.1 assists for the Bonnies. Adaway is averaging 9.6 points over the last 10 games for Saint Bonaventure. | null | null | null | null | null |
Brown leads Washington against Oregon State after 25-point game
Washington Huskies (8-8, 3-2 Pac-12) at Oregon State Beavers (3-13, 1-5 Pac-12)
Corvallis, Oregon; Thursday, 11:30 p.m. EST
FANDUEL SPORTSBOOK LINE: Oregon State -2.5; over/under is 143.5
BOTTOM LINE: Washington visits the Oregon State Beavers after Terrell Brown Jr. scored 25 points in Washington’s 67-64 victory over the Stanford Cardinal.
The Beavers are 3-6 in home games. Oregon State is ninth in the Pac-12 shooting 32.3% from deep, led by Glenn Taylor Jr. shooting 43.8% from 3-point range.
The Huskies are 3-2 against Pac-12 opponents. Washington is 2-0 in games decided by less than 4 points.
TOP PERFORMERS: Jarod Lucas is averaging 14.2 points for the Beavers. Abdul Alatishe is averaging 7.3 points over the last 10 games for Oregon State.
Brown is averaging 21 points, four assists and 2.7 steals for the Huskies. Emmitt Matthews Jr. is averaging eight points over the past 10 games for Washington. | null | null | null | null | null |
Bryant Bulldogs (9-8, 5-1 NEC) at Merrimack Warriors (9-10, 4-2 NEC)
North Andover, Massachusetts; Friday, 7 p.m. EST
BOTTOM LINE: Bryant visits the Merrimack Warriors after Peter Kiss scored 31 points in Bryant’s 82-52 victory against the Saint Francis (PA) Red Flash.
The Warriors are 5-4 on their home court. Merrimack is ninth in the NEC with 9.0 assists per game led by Mikey Watkins averaging 2.9.
The Bulldogs have gone 5-1 against NEC opponents. Bryant ranks sixth in the NEC giving up 69.6 points while holding opponents to 42.3% shooting.
The Warriors and Bulldogs match up Friday for the first time in conference play this season.
TOP PERFORMERS: Watkins is averaging 9.6 points and two steals for the Warriors. Jordan Minor is averaging 12.2 points and 5.3 rebounds while shooting 45.1% over the last 10 games for Merrimack.
Adham Eleeda is shooting 37.4% from beyond the arc with 3.1 made 3-pointers per game for the Bulldogs, while averaging 10.4 points. Kiss is shooting 37.9% and averaging 16.0 points over the last 10 games for Bryant.
LAST 10 GAMES: Warriors: 5-5, averaging 52.9 points, 23.7 rebounds, 9.7 assists, 9.4 steals and 3.9 blocks per game while shooting 39.6% from the field. Their opponents have averaged 60.1 points per game. | null | null | null | null | null |
Youngstown State Penguins (10-8, 4-4 Horizon) at Cleveland State Vikings (11-4, 7-1 Horizon)
Cleveland; Friday, 7 p.m. EST
BOTTOM LINE: Youngstown State plays the Cleveland State Vikings after Dwayne Cohill scored 25 points in Youngstown State’s 90-87 win over the Wright State Raiders.
The Vikings are 9-2 on their home court. Cleveland State is the top team in the Horizon averaging 38.9 points in the paint. Broc Finstuen leads the Vikings with 1.3.
The Penguins are 4-4 against Horizon opponents. Youngstown State has a 3-4 record against teams over .500.
The teams play for the second time this season in Horizon play. The Vikings won the last meeting on Jan. 9. D’Moi Hodge scored 31 points points to help lead the Vikings to the win.
TOP PERFORMERS: Hodge is shooting 33.3% from beyond the arc with 2.1 made 3-pointers per game for the Vikings, while averaging 15.7 points and 2.2 steals. Torrey Patton is averaging 12 points, 6.4 rebounds and 4.4 assists over the past 10 games for Cleveland State.
Luke Chicone is averaging 4.1 points for the Penguins. Cohill is averaging 11.2 points over the last 10 games for Youngstown State. | null | null | null | null | null |
Evansville faces Illinois State, looks to break 5-game slide
Evansville Purple Aces (4-12, 0-5 MVC) at Illinois State Redbirds (9-9, 2-3 MVC)
Normal, Illinois; Friday, 7 p.m. EST
BOTTOM LINE: Evansville enters the matchup with Illinois State after losing five straight games.
The Redbirds are 8-2 in home games. Illinois State ranks third in the MVC shooting 37.9% from deep, led by Josiah Strong shooting 46.7% from 3-point range.
The Purple Aces are 0-5 in MVC play. Evansville ranks sixth in the MVC giving up 68.0 points while holding opponents to 48.0% shooting.
TOP PERFORMERS: Mark Freeman is averaging 9.5 points and 3.4 assists for the Redbirds. Antonio Reeves is averaging 13.7 points and 2.9 rebounds while shooting 46.8% over the past 10 games for Illinois State.
Shamar Givance is averaging 14.6 points, 3.7 assists and 1.5 steals for the Purple Aces. Jawaun Newton is averaging 11.2 points and 4.6 rebounds while shooting 43.8% over the last 10 games for Evansville. | null | null | null | null | null |
James leads Rider against Canisius after 24-point game
Rider Broncs (5-11, 1-5 MAAC) at Canisius Golden Griffins (5-12, 1-5 MAAC)
BOTTOM LINE: Rider plays the Canisius Golden Griffins after Mervin James scored 24 points in Rider’s 73-67 loss to the Quinnipiac Bobcats.
The Golden Griffins are 4-3 on their home court. Canisius is 2-8 in games decided by 10 or more points.
The Broncs are 1-5 in MAAC play. Rider has a 3-5 record in games decided by at least 10 points.
TOP PERFORMERS: Malek Green is shooting 49.7% and averaging 13.8 points for the Golden Griffins. Armon Harried is averaging 12.2 points over the last 10 games for Canisius.
Dimencio Vaughn is averaging 12.9 points, 7.4 rebounds and 1.8 steals for the Broncs. Allen Powell is averaging 1.6 made 3-pointers over the last 10 games for Rider. | null | null | null | null | null |
Kent State Golden Flashes (9-8, 4-3 MAC) at Buffalo Bulls (9-6, 3-2 MAC)
BOTTOM LINE: Buffalo hosts the Kent State Golden Flashes after Jeenathan Williams scored 20 points in Buffalo’s 74-68 win against the Ball State Cardinals.
The Bulls have gone 4-1 at home. Buffalo ranks eighth in the MAC shooting 34.0% from downtown, led by Ronaldo Segu shooting 43.5% from 3-point range.
The Golden Flashes are 4-3 against MAC opponents. Kent State has a 2-3 record in games decided by less than 4 points.
The Bulls and Golden Flashes square off Friday for the first time in conference play this season.
TOP PERFORMERS: Williams is averaging 18.3 points and 5.4 rebounds for the Bulls. Segu is averaging 13.4 points and 4.6 assists over the last 10 games for Buffalo.
Sincere Carry is shooting 41.4% and averaging 17.8 points for the Golden Flashes. Malique Jacobs is averaging 9.1 points over the last 10 games for Kent State. | null | null | null | null | null |
Nevada faces Fresno State following Sherfield's 20-point showing
Fresno State Bulldogs (13-4, 3-1 MWC) at Nevada Wolf Pack (8-7, 2-2 MWC)
Reno, Nevada; Friday, 11 p.m. EST
BOTTOM LINE: Nevada hosts the Fresno State Bulldogs after Grant Sherfield scored 20 points in Nevada’s 77-67 loss to the Wyoming Cowboys.
The Wolf Pack are 5-3 on their home court. Nevada averages 13.7 turnovers per game and is 3-1 when it turns the ball over less than its opponents.
The Bulldogs are 3-1 in MWC play. Fresno State ranks ninth in the MWC with 23.6 defensive rebounds per game led by Orlando Robinson averaging 5.7.
TOP PERFORMERS: Sherfield is averaging 19.5 points and 6.5 assists for the Wolf Pack. Desmond Cambridge is averaging 10.6 points and 3.4 rebounds while shooting 41.7% over the past 10 games for Nevada.
Isaiah Hill is averaging 8.4 points for the Bulldogs. Robinson is averaging 12.7 points and 5.8 rebounds while shooting 48.1% over the last 10 games for Fresno State. | null | null | null | null | null |
No. 14 Michigan State visits No. 8 Wisconsin after Davis' 27-point performance
Michigan State Spartans (14-3, 5-1 Big Ten) at Wisconsin Badgers (15-2, 6-1 Big Ten)
Madison, Wisconsin; Friday, 9 p.m. EST
BOTTOM LINE: No. 8 Wisconsin takes on the No. 14 Michigan State Spartans after Jonathan Davis scored 27 points in Wisconsin’s 82-76 victory against the Northwestern Wildcats.
The Badgers are 8-1 in home games. Wisconsin is 14-2 when it has fewer turnovers than its opponents and averages 8.1 turnovers per game.
The Spartans are 5-1 in Big Ten play. Michigan State ranks fourth in the Big Ten with 27.1 defensive rebounds per game led by Marcus Bingham averaging 4.9.
The Badgers and Spartans face off Friday for the first time in conference play this season.
TOP PERFORMERS: Davis is scoring 19.5 points per game and averaging 6.6 rebounds for the Badgers. Brad Davison is averaging 1.7 made 3-pointers over the last 10 games for Wisconsin.
Gabe Brown is shooting 42.9% and averaging 14.2 points for the Spartans. Max Christie is averaging 8.3 points over the last 10 games for Michigan State. | null | null | null | null | null |
Toledo Rockets (14-4, 6-1 MAC) at Ohio Bobcats (14-2, 5-0 MAC)
Athens, Ohio; Friday, 6 p.m. EST
BOTTOM LINE: Ohio hosts the Toledo Rockets after Ben Vander Plas scored 23 points in Ohio’s 86-63 win over the Miami (OH) RedHawks.
The Bobcats have gone 9-0 in home games. Ohio is fifth in the MAC with 30.9 points per game in the paint led by Mark Sears averaging 2.0.
The Rockets are 6-1 against conference opponents. Toledo is second in the MAC shooting 36.5% from deep. JT Shumate leads the Rockets shooting 52.1% from 3-point range.
The Bobcats and Rockets meet Friday for the first time in MAC play this season.
TOP PERFORMERS: Vander Plas averages 2.1 made 3-pointers per game for the Bobcats, scoring 12.8 points while shooting 35.9% from beyond the arc. Sears is averaging 19.5 points, 3.8 assists and 1.8 steals over the past 10 games for Ohio.
Ryan Rollins is scoring 19.3 points per game with 5.6 rebounds and 3.4 assists for the Rockets. Shumate is averaging 13.4 points and 5.4 rebounds while shooting 55.6% over the past 10 games for Toledo. | null | null | null | null | null |
Plummer leads No. 17 Illinois against Maryland after 24-point game
Illinois Fighting Illini (13-4, 6-1 Big Ten) at Maryland Terrapins (9-9, 1-6 Big Ten)
College Park, Maryland; Friday, 7 p.m. EST
BOTTOM LINE: No. 17 Illinois visits the Maryland Terrapins after Alfonso Plummer scored 24 points in Illinois’ 96-88 overtime loss to the Purdue Boilermakers.
The Terrapins have gone 6-5 in home games. Maryland ranks eighth in the Big Ten with 8.7 offensive rebounds per game led by Julian Reese averaging 2.6.
The Fighting Illini are 6-1 against conference opponents. Illinois is sixth in the Big Ten giving up 66.1 points while holding opponents to 39.7% shooting.
The teams square off for the 10th time this season in Big Ten play. The Fighting Illini won the last meeting on Jan. 7. Kofi Cockburn scored 23 points to help lead the Fighting Illini to the win.
TOP PERFORMERS: Eric Ayala averages 2.6 made 3-pointers per game for the Terrapins, scoring 16.3 points while shooting 35.9% from beyond the arc. Fatts Russell is averaging 12.4 points and four assists over the last 10 games for Maryland.
Plummer averages 3.1 made 3-pointers per game for the Fighting Illini, scoring 16.4 points while shooting 40.9% from beyond the arc. Cockburn is averaging 12.1 points and 8.2 rebounds over the past 10 games for Illinois. | null | null | null | null | null |
Sacred Heart plays Mount St. Mary's after Thomas' 21-point performance
Sacred Heart Pioneers (7-12, 3-3 NEC) at Mount St. Mary’s Mountaineers (6-12, 2-4 NEC)
Emmitsburg, Maryland; Friday, 7 p.m. EST
BOTTOM LINE: Sacred Heart takes on the Mount St. Mary’s Mountaineers after Tanner Thomas scored 21 points in Sacred Heart’s 74-66 victory over the Central Connecticut State Blue Devils.
The Mountaineers are 3-4 on their home court. Mount St. Mary’s has a 1-2 record in one-possession games.
The Pioneers are 3-3 against NEC opponents. Sacred Heart is 2-5 in games decided by at least 10 points.
The Mountaineers and Pioneers meet Friday for the first time in conference play this season.
TOP PERFORMERS: Jalen Benjamin is averaging 13 points and 4.2 assists for the Mountaineers. Nana Opoku is averaging 12.4 points over the last 10 games for Mount St. Mary’s.
Tyler Thomas is shooting 34.9% from beyond the arc with 2.6 made 3-pointers per game for the Pioneers, while averaging 19.1 points. Nico Galette is shooting 44.4% and averaging 11.0 points over the last 10 games for Sacred Heart. | null | null | null | null | null |
Central Connecticut State Blue Devils (5-14, 2-4 NEC) at Saint Francis (PA) Red Flash (5-12, 1-5 NEC)
Loretto, Pennsylvania; Friday, 7 p.m. EST
BOTTOM LINE: Saint Francis (PA) takes on Cent. Conn. St. looking to break its three-game home slide.
The Red Flash have gone 2-3 at home. Saint Francis (PA) is third in the NEC scoring 69.8 points while shooting 42.1% from the field.
The Blue Devils are 2-4 in NEC play. Cent. Conn. St. has a 2-10 record in games decided by 10 points or more.
The Red Flash and Blue Devils match up Friday for the first time in conference play this season.
TOP PERFORMERS: Josh Cohen is averaging 11.1 points and 6.1 rebounds for the Red Flash. Maxwell Land is averaging 1.3 made 3-pointers over the last 10 games for Saint Francis (PA).
Nigel Scantlebury is shooting 40.7% and averaging 12.3 points for the Blue Devils. Ian Krishnan is averaging 1.8 made 3-pointers over the last 10 games for Cent. Conn. St.. | null | null | null | null | null |
Saint Peter’s Peacocks (6-6, 4-1 MAAC) at Niagara Purple Eagles (8-8, 3-4 MAAC)
Lewiston, New York; Friday, 7 p.m. EST
BOTTOM LINE: Niagara plays the Saint Peter’s Peacocks after Noah Thomasson scored 20 points in Niagara’s 72-63 win against the Manhattan Jaspers.
The Purple Eagles have gone 3-2 in home games. Niagara has a 0-2 record in games decided by 3 points or fewer.
The Peacocks are 4-1 in MAAC play. Saint Peter’s is 1-3 in one-possession games.
TOP PERFORMERS: Thomasson is averaging 9.4 points for the Purple Eagles. Marcus Hammond is averaging 15.7 points and 3.8 rebounds while shooting 40.9% over the last 10 games for Niagara.
Matthew Lee is averaging 3.8 points for the Peacocks. Daryl Banks III is averaging 12.0 points over the last 10 games for Saint Peter’s. | null | null | null | null | null |
Spear leads Robert Morris against Purdue Fort Wayne after 21-point game
Robert Morris Colonials (3-14, 1-7 Horizon) at Purdue Fort Wayne Mastodons (9-8, 4-4 Horizon)
Fort Wayne, Indiana; Friday, 7 p.m. EST
BOTTOM LINE: Robert Morris takes on the Purdue Fort Wayne Mastodons after Kahliel Spear scored 21 points in Robert Morris’ 74-64 victory over the Northern Kentucky Norse.
The Mastodons are 7-2 in home games. Purdue Fort Wayne is second in the Horizon shooting 34.3% from downtown, led by RJ Ogom shooting 66.7% from 3-point range.
The Colonials are 1-7 against Horizon opponents. Robert Morris is sixth in the Horizon scoring 70.2 points per game and is shooting 46.9%.
The teams square off for the second time this season in Horizon play. The Mastodons won the last meeting on Jan. 9. Jalon Pipkins scored 18 points points to help lead the Mastodons to the victory.
TOP PERFORMERS: Jarred Godfrey is averaging 16.5 points, 4.1 assists and 1.7 steals for the Mastodons. Pipkins is averaging 13.4 points over the last 10 games for Purdue Fort Wayne.
Spear is scoring 13.2 points per game and averaging 6.9 rebounds for the Colonials. Kam Farris is averaging 2.5 made 3-pointers over the last 10 games for Robert Morris. | null | null | null | null | null |
The software giant has carved out a distinct reputation among policymakers, distancing itself from the political scrutiny embroiling its top competitors in Washington
Microsoft President Brad Smith testifies during a Senate Intelligence Committee hearing on Capitol Hill. It’s one of many appearances the company made as it seeks to portray itself as a trusted ally to lawmakers. (Drew Angerer/Getty Images)
“By attempting this deal at this moment, Google is signaling that it will continue to flex and expand its power despite this immense scrutiny,” Rep. David N. Cicilline (D-R.I.), chairman of the House Judiciary antitrust subcommittee, said in a statement the same day the deal was announced.
But more than 24 hours after Microsoft announced its plans to purchase Activision for nearly $70 billion, aggressive trustbusters in Congress were uncharacteristically quiet. Core sponsors of antitrust legislation targeting the tech industry, including Cicilline, Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) and Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) did not immediately comment to The Washington Post on the deal.
The company had apparently deputized its reputation with lawmakers to assure them about the deal. Rep. Ken Buck (Colo.), the top Republican on the House Judiciary antitrust subcommittee who has supported legislation aimed at major tech companies, told The Post that he received “encouraging” assurances about how the company would ensure competition in gaming.
“If the company keeps its word, I believe that the increase in competition in the gaming marketplace would be in keeping with the aims of my legislation,” Buck said.
The company’s decision to push forward with the Activision deal, on the day federal antitrust enforcers announced a review of merger laws designed to address competition in tech, is both a statement of Microsoft’s security in D.C., and a test of that long-running political goodwill.
Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), who has called for the breakup of large tech companies, said Wednesday that antitrust officials should scrutinize “any multibillion-dollar merger.”
Smith has sought to position his testimony on regulation as bigger than just Microsoft or any single company, warning that policymakers risk moving “too slow” to address these problems.
“These issues are bigger than any single person, company, industry, or even technology itself,” Smith wrote in his 2019 book “Tools and Weapons: The Promise and the Peril of the Digital Age.” “They involve fundamental values of democratic freedoms and human rights.”
Before one of his recent Capitol Hill appearances, Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.), who sponsored legislation that could result in the breakup of some tech companies, lauded Smith as a prominent technology expert.
Microsoft is also less exposed to the content moderation controversies that have enveloped Facebook and Google’s YouTube, which have faced political blowback for their controversial handling of incendiary and harmful posts. As gatekeepers to digital marketplaces, Apple and Amazon have been pulled into political controversies — for instance, when they pulled support for the conservative social network Parler in the fallout of the Jan. 6 attacks. Microsoft’s key social service, LinkedIn, is focused on business networking, leaving it less vulnerable to political disputes.
“Section 230 had a place and time, but that time is now over,” he said in a 2019 interview.
And last year, Smith advocated for legislation targeting Facebook and Google. He called for the United States and other countries to adopt legislation similar to an Australian proposal that would force tech companies to pay publishers for news. In The Post, he accused social media companies of becoming “powerful engines of disinformation” and warned that without new guardrails, politicians would exploit social media. He also criticized strong-arm tactics that Facebook and Google used to battle the Australian proposal.
First credits Smith with changing the “outward-acing culture of the company.” | null | null | null | null | null |
“Our schools are a critical source of stability for kids — we know they learn better in the classroom and thrive among their peers,” Lujan Grisham said in a news release. " … The state stands ready to help keep kids in the classroom, parents able to go to work and teachers able to fully focus on the critical work they do every single day.”
Government employees and National Guard members who volunteer will be placed on administrative leave or active duty status and receive their normal salaries.
Employers across various industries are reeling from staff shortages as the omicron variant spreads throughout the country. Hospitals, grocery stores and airlines are all struggling to keep up with demands as employees call out because they are sick or need to quarantine after being exposed to the virus.
Staff shortages at schools have been a primary concern for government officials, who worry about how a third year of instability will impact students. Some school districts have taken creative steps to keep students in classrooms and operations running. Superintendents in Texas and Michigan have asked parents to volunteer as substitutes. In Vermont, school board members have filled in as custodial workers, and in Georgia, a school principal has been helping out in the cafeteria. In Delaware, a charter school offered to pay parents $700 to take their children to school and pick them up at the end of the day.
In New Mexico, several school districts have struggled to keep up with staffing shortages. Since winter break, about 60 school districts and charter schools have shifted to online schooling, according to the governor’s office. About 75 child care centers have either partially or permanently closed since the new year. | null | null | null | null | null |
“Our schools are a critical source of stability for kids — we know they learn better in the classroom and thrive among their peers,” Lujan Grisham said in a news release. “The state stands ready to help keep kids in the classroom, parents able to go to work and teachers able to fully focus on the critical work they do every single day.”
Government employees and National Guard members who volunteer will be placed on administrative leave or active-duty status and receive their normal salaries.
Employers across various industries are reeling from staff shortages as the omicron variant spreads throughout the country. Hospitals, grocery stores and airlines are all struggling to keep up with demand as employees call out because they are sick or need to quarantine after being exposed to the virus.
Staff shortages at schools have been a primary concern for government officials, who worry about how a third year of instability will affect students. Some school districts have taken creative steps to keep students in classrooms and operations running. Superintendents in Texas and Michigan have asked parents to volunteer as substitutes. In Vermont, school board members have filled in as custodial workers, and in Georgia, a school principal has been helping out in the cafeteria. In Delaware, a charter school offered to pay parents $700 to take their children to school and pick them up at the end of the day.
In New Mexico, several school districts have struggled to keep up with staffing shortages. Since winter break, about 60 districts and charter schools have shifted to online schooling, according to the governor’s office. About 75 child care centers have either partially or permanently closed since the new year. | null | null | null | null | null |
Laura Marano as Izzy in “The Royal Treatment.” (Kirsty Griffin/Netflix)
It’s not hard to guess what happens to Izzy and her handsome prince, who is betrothed to another at the start of the film. But that doesn’t make it any less fun to watch. “Regular girl falling in love with a prince of made-up country is something we’ve seen before. And it’s something I love,” Marano said in a recent Zoom interview with The Washington Post. “It’s a subgenre that I think is one of my favorites, to be honest.”
“I am honored to be part of Netflix’s multiverse of rom-coms. I feel like, ‘Move over, Marvel,’ ” Marano said with a laugh. “I say this half-joking and kind of serious: I do feel the fact that we have Lavania in this film was a big reason why Netflix wanted to do it, because I think they are a little bit like, ‘Oh, more made-up countries!’ ”
(This interview has been edited for length and clarity.)
Q: What attracted you to this project as a producer and as an actor?
A: I loved the character. I love Izzy. The number one thing I always look for when it comes to projects and picking projects is the character. Can I connect with them? Have I played this character before? Then I obviously look at the project itself.
In 2019, I had done “The Perfect Date,” which was kind of this like PG-13 teen rom-com. I did “Saving Zoe,” a movie I produced with my mom and sister that was a rated-R indie about grief and online sexual exploitation. And then I did “A Cinderella Story: Christmas Wish,” which was this family film that was super adorable and Christmasy. So I very much was like, “What project do I want to do next?” And I loved Izzy. She was so opinionated and so a character that I really don’t think I had played before, and someone, ironically, that I really see myself in and connect with a lot.
I really infused a lot of myself and a lot of things that I love into the story, whether it’s my Italian New York family — I have a bunch of family in the Bronx that I really hope don’t judge my New York accent too harshly — or . . . this sense of belief in yourself that you can make a change in this world and in your community. It doesn’t matter if you’re the prince of a made-up country or if you’re a New York hairstylist. Everyone has the ability to create change in their community in the world, and I love that part of the script and in the story.
Netflix knows we need an escape. So it built a rom-com factory.
Q: “The Royal Treatment” had to navigate the pandemic, which remains a tough time for so many people. Does it feel like kismet for the movie, which is delightful and very optimistic, to be coming out right now?
A: A hundred percent kismet timing. I can only speak for myself, but this new variant has me very freaked out and has definitely increased my anxiety, sadness, frustration — all of the feelings. And so I can’t help but feel grateful this movie’s coming out when it is, because it does feel like a time for some much-needed joy and escapism.
We sold it to Netflix at the end of 2019. We were originally going to film it in Europe . . . and because of the pandemic, we were delayed. That pushed us to decide to film it in New Zealand, where at that point covid was virtually zero. It was very much a logistics choice, but it turned out to be one of the best creative choices we made for a variety of reasons, one of them being the look of the film.
Q: “The Royal Treatment” seems very progressive for a rom-com, even if it’s one that we’ve seen before. Not just because of the diversity you mentioned, but there’s kind of a gentrification story line. How important was that for this project and in general, how important is that to you for the projects that you work on?
A: Very, very important. That was part of why I fell in love with the script and fell in love with the story. This film is a movie that I think people can watch and totally escape in, and I think it really does touch on topics that I feel really passionate about and are really significant in the time we’re living in now.
Q: This is the second movie you’ve produced through Calabrian Rhode, the production company you share with your mom and sister. What is it like working with them?
A: Working with my mom and sister is special. It’s really hard. It’s complicated, right? Talk about a theme that I relate to: finding identity within self versus within family. But I feel like we’re such a great team because we just understand each other. We’re very much of the same mind when it comes to [creativity] and they’re two of my favorite people in the world — them plus my dad, who is not involved in the entertainment industry at all, which is amazing. He’s an Italian teacher.
Ranking some of Netflix's popular rom-coms
Q: You’re also a singer-songwriter, and have two songs — “Dance With You,” featuring Grey, and “Worst Kind of Hurt,” featuring Wrabel — in the movie. Can you talk a bit about why they are special to you?
A: “Dance With You” is featured in the last scene and in our end-title animation sequence, which I think is super cute. . . . I know when it comes to the editing process, you quickly fall in love with a lot of different choices, but especially the music that is chosen, I really wanted to make sure everyone knew I wanted to do the song. But since I’m a producer, I was trying to approach it from a place of, “It’s a collaboration and I want to make sure everyone’s into it.” It was always with the caveat of, if it’s good and it works for the film.
“Worst Kind of Hurt,” which is in — without giving too much away — a very important scene in the film, happened very differently because I wrote that song not thinking of the film at all. The director asked me if I had a song that could work for that scene, because originally it was just score, which was beautiful.
Q: “Dance With You” samples Whitney Houston’s “I Wanna Dance With Somebody (Who Loves Me).” How did that happen? And is there pressure when it comes to using a sample from such a beloved, well-known song?
A: Someone on my music team happens to work with the original writers of Whitney Houston’s “I Wanna Dance With Somebody” — the amazing Shannon Rubicam and George Merrill — who were also behind [the band] Boy Meets Girl. I’m still blown away that I got to work with them.
There’s pressure once you have decided to use [the sample] to use it well and do a good job with it. I definitely felt that using that 100 percent was going to elevate the song. And on top of that, we do have this really fun dance moment in the film. I was really inspired by that scene and that joy that I think that scene encapsulates. It felt like it fit together quite organically.
But for sure, the pressure was on. When I was writing it I was like, “Oh my God, do a good job, do a good job.” I came up with a gazillion ideas; I had all these voice memos. I remember driving to my sister’s house actually, when I came up with what we ended up using. . . . When I actually met Shannon and George after I had written it and they were so complimentary of the song, I was like, [sings] “This is the best moment of my life.” | null | null | null | null | null |
She will take on Del. Jazz Lewis (D), a protege of House Majority Leader Steny H. Hoyer (D-Md.), who endorsed him; Glenn Ivey, who served as county state’s attorney from 2002 to 2010 before running unsuccessfully against Brown in 2016; and former delegate Angela Angel, who served two terms in the House of Delegates and advocated for domestic-violence-prevention legislation.
In a campaign video announcing her run, she highlighted a three-month, 12,000-mile road trip she took in 2017 that she said she took to learn more about the country during Donald Trump’s administration, bonding with people she met over the costs of insulin and the cost of her own medicine for multiple sclerosis, “bringing my perspective as a Black woman from Prince George’s County to the national conversation.” | null | null | null | null | null |
From left, former Minneapolis police officers J. Alexander Kueng, Thomas Lane and Tou Thao. The three former Minneapolis police officers charged with federal civil rights violations in George Floyd’s death will go on trial Jan. 20. (Hennepin County Sheriff’s Office/AP)
ST. PAUL, Minn. — Jury selection is set to begin Thursday in the second trial over the death of George Floyd. Eight months after former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin was convicted of murder and manslaughter in Floyd’s death, the other officers at the scene — J. Alexander Kueng, Thomas K. Lane and Tou Thao — face trial on federal charges that they deprived Floyd of his federal civil rights in the fatal May 2020 arrest.
The proceedings will test the question of what responsibility other police officers have in reining in the behavior of colleagues. It is the first of two trials scheduled for the former officers. Kueng, Lane and Thao are also facing state charges of aiding and abetting murder and manslaughter in Floyd’s killing, expected to take place later this year.
Floyd, a 46-year-old Black man, died May 25, 2020, after he was restrained face down and handcuffed on a South Minneapolis street. Chauvin, the senior officer at the scene, pressed his knees into Floyd’s neck and back for 9 ½ minutes. Kueng and Lane restrained Floyd’s back and legs even as the man cried out repeatedly that he could not breathe and ultimately lost consciousness. Thao, who had arrived at the scene with Chauvin, stood nearby pushing back bystanders who urged the officers to get off Floyd and to check his pulse.
What led to Floyd’s encounter with police?
Kueng, 28, and Lane, 38, were only on their third and fourth shifts as full-time officers on the force when they responded to a 911 call about the passing of a counterfeit bill. They were the first to encounter Floyd outside Cup Foods in South Minneapolis.
Police body-camera video filed as evidence in the state case showed Lane pulling a gun on Floyd within 15 seconds as he sat in a parked car, causing Floyd to panic and beg the officer not to shoot him.
Chauvin, 45, a 19-year veteran who had been Kueng’s field training officer and had occasionally advised Lane, responded to the scene a few minutes later with Thao, 36, an 11-year veteran, where they came upon Kueng and Lane struggling to put a handcuffed Floyd inside a squad car as the man complained of being claustrophobic.
The struggle ended up with Floyd on the ground, where body-camera video shows Thao suggested they “just leave him” as they waited for an ambulance that Lane had called to the scene after noticing that Floyd had an abrasion on this face after the scuffle inside the car. While Thao stood nearby pushing back a crowd of bystanders, Lane held Floyd’s legs, Kueng held his back and Chauvin pressed his knees into Floyd’s neck and back as the man complained of struggling to breathe before he went limp.
Who is on trial and what charges are they facing?
A federal grand jury indicted Chauvin, Kueng, Lane and Thao in May 2021 on charges they violated Floyd’s constitutional rights during his fatal arrest — an indictment that came days after Chauvin was convicted on state charges of second-degree unintentional murder, third-degree murder and second-degree manslaughter in Floyd’s death.
Federal prosecutors alleged Chauvin violated Floyd’s constitutional rights to be free from unreasonable seizure and from unreasonable force by a police officer. Kueng and Thao were charged with violating Floyd’s right to be free from unreasonable seizure by not intervening as Chauvin knelt on Floyd’s neck and back. All four officers were charged with failing to render medical aid to Floyd. The four former officers pleaded not guilty to the charges in September.
In December, Chauvin, who is currently serving a 22.5-year state sentence for Floyd’s murder, pleaded guilty to the federal charges. He is awaiting sentencing in the case. Prosecutors said they will recommend a sentence of 25 years that they said could be served concurrently with Chauvin’s state conviction.
Federal civil rights violations that result in death are punishable by up to life in prison or even the death penalty, but those sentences are rare. Legal experts say the former officers, if convicted, would likely receive a less severe sentence.
Kueng, Lane and Thao had been scheduled to go on trial in March on state charges of aiding and abetting murder and manslaughter. But the judge in that case granted a joint request from the defense and prosecution to delay the case to June.
What is the evidence against the officers?
While evidence in the federal case has been filed under seal, it is expected to include much of the same evidence that was presented in Chauvin’s state trial, including extensive video from bystanders and police body-camera video as well as medical evidence of what caused Floyd’s death.
Who will testify?
Witness lists have also been kept under seal, but U.S. District Judge Paul A. Magnuson, who is overseeing the federal case, said in a January hearing that prosecutors had disclosed 48 potential witnesses in the case — a number he urged them to trim down. Court filings have listed some potential witnesses for the prosecution — a list that includes many of the same people who previously testified against Chauvin.
That includes Darnella Frazier, the teenager who filmed the viral video of Floyd’s death; Donald Williams, a bystander who urged the officers to get off Floyd; and Genevieve Hanson, an off-duty Minneapolis firefighter who was blocked by Thao when she asked to check Floyd’s pulse. Prosecutors are also expected to call current and former Minneapolis police officers to the stand to testify about officer training — including on use of force and the department’s duty-to-intervene policy, which dictates that officers are required to intervene when they see a colleague violating department training and standards.
It’s not yet clear who will testify for the defense. One of the biggest unknowns is whether Chauvin could be called to a witness in the case.
What are the ex-officers’ defenses?
Lawyers for Kueng and Lane have argued that their clients were following orders from Chauvin, a 19-year veteran of the department who had been Kueng’s field training officer and informally advised Lane during his probation period.
Thao, meanwhile, claimed in a 2020 interview with state police investigators that he was unaware of what was going on behind him — claiming he was too focused on the growing crowd. He also said that he was deferring to Kueng and Lane saying they were technically in control of the scene because they were the first to arrive.
While it is unclear if Chauvin will be called as a witness, prosecutors seemed to be preparing for that possibility, according to language in the plea agreement Chauvin reached last month in the case. In that agreement, Chauvin admitted he heard Kueng tell him Floyd no longer had a pulse. Chauvin also said he heard Lane ask him if Floyd “should be rolled onto his side.”
But Chauvin also said he “did not observe” Kueng, Lane or Thao “do or say anything” to get him to lift his knees from Floyd’s body — a claim that could prove pivotal as a jury considers whether the former officers “willfully” deprived Floyd of his due process rights and ignored his need for medical care.
How will the jury be picked?
Not unlike Chauvin’s state murder case, the federal court summoned a larger jury pool than usual — about 300 people. But unlike that case, the federal jury pool includes people from across the entire state of Minnesota.
In November, potential jurors were sent a long questionnaire similar to a survey sent out ahead of Chauvin’s trial, according to the Star Tribune, asking what they had heard about the case and the defendants and soliciting their views on groups like Black Lives Matter and Blue Lives Matter.
How long will the trial last?
Magnuson has repeatedly indicated that he wants to move the trial quickly, citing concerns about the spread of the coronavirus in a state where the positivity rate has skyrocketed in recent weeks. Last week, the judge said he hoped to begin opening statements by Jan. 24 and wrap up the case within two to three weeks — arguing the faster they move, the less likely that jurors or other trial participants could get sick. He suggested if jurors get sick, and the panel falls to less than 12, there could be a mistrial in the case.
How can I watch the trial?
Unlike Chauvin’s state murder trial, which was live-streamed, the latest proceedings won’t be televised because of a federal ban on cameras in the courtroom. Kueng, Lane and Thao are being tried inside a heavily fortified federal courthouse in St. Paul, where access to the public has been limited because of both security reasons and to limit the spread of the coronavirus. | null | null | null | null | null |
A dangerous conspiracy theory animated the attack on a Texas synagogue
Congregation Beth Israel Rabbi Charlie Cytron-Walker hugs a man after a service Monday night at White's Chapel United Methodist Church in Southlake, Tex. Cytron-Walker was one of four people held hostage by a gunman at his synagogue this past weekend. (Yffy Yossifor/Star-Telegram/AP)
Laura E. Adkins is a New York-based writer and the opinion editor of the Forward.
During Shabbat morning prayer services at Congregation Beth Israel in Colleyville, Tex., Rabbi Charlie Cytron-Walker let in a man who was asking for help. The man soon turned a gun on the rabbi, holding him and three other congregants hostage in a harrowing 11-hour ordeal. He ordered the rabbi to call the leader of Central Synagogue in New York City, Rabbi Angela Buchdahl, and demand that she free a convicted terrorist serving an 86-year sentence.
The idea that a rabbi could overturn a criminal conviction at the drop of a hat is such a stereotype of a stereotype that it’s almost comical. And yet it is precisely this type of absurd conspiratorial thinking that presents the greatest threat to Jewish lives.
“This was somebody who literally thought that Jews control the world,” Cytron-Walker told a reporter at the Forward. “He thought he could come into a synagogue, and we could get on the phone with the ‘Chief Rabbi of America’ and he would get what he needed.”
This weekend’s Texas hostage situation highlights the deadliest threat to Jews today: the myth of Jewish power. The conspiracy theory that Jews are uniquely evil and influential has led to the spilling of Jewish blood since at least the Middle Ages and heavily influenced the Nazi ideology that left 11 million dead, including 6 million Jews. But it isn’t just systematic use of the trope for political ends, on the level of “The Protocols of the Elders of Zion,” that Jews should fear. Even the sort of casual “jokes” that spread online in extremist circles can be deadly.
“Somebody might think that they’re just making a comment, or just making a joke,” Cytron-Walker said. “Unfortunately, someone, somewhere, is going to take that hatred and they’re going to go to a dangerous place with it.”
While conspiratorial-minded politicians asserting that Jews control the weather or space lasers might seem easy to dismiss, the idea that Jews control society is spreading — in a way that often looks like a virus — and inspiring violent antisemites. In Pittsburgh and Poway, Calif., Jersey City, N.J., and Monsey, N.Y., we've seen this thinking turn deadly.
Most antisemitic hate crimes reported in this country are thankfully nonviolent — vandalism and property crime rather than assault or murder. But an overwhelming amount of online vitriol — transcending every political and identitarian line — consists of virulent antisemitism.
During the 14th century, Jews were accused of spreading the Black Plague as a way to usurp Christian civilization. During the current pandemic, posters on neo-Nazi blogs, Louis Farrakhan acolytes, an antisemitic pastor and even a major GOP donor have all shared modern versions of this conspiracy theory, suggesting that Jews are somehow attempting to “euthanize” or “sterilize” non-Jews with the coronavirus vaccines — or, conversely, of being behind the anti-vaccine movement.
Those who study online hate using epidemiological methods have shown that particularly during periods of instability or transitions of power (such as the enduring pandemic or in the run-up to presidential elections), antisemitic rhetoric and conspiracy theories of Jewish power rise to a fever pitch. Online, and often disguised as an attack on an individual, like George Soros or Jared Kushner, these ideas, sometimes amplified by state actors, infect and inspire white nationalists, Black nationalists and Islamist extremists alike.
The man awaiting trial on charges in the killing of 11 Jews worshiping in a Pittsburgh synagogue ranted about a Jewish “infestation” in the United States and the humanitarian group HIAS bringing in refugees to “kill our people,” justifying his 2018 attack on those praying in a house of worship with a refusal to “sit by and watch my people get slaughtered.”
In 2019, the Poway gunman who killed one and injured three worshipers at a synagogue told a 911 operator that he did so to “[defend] our nation against the Jewish people, who are trying to destroy all white people.” Just months later, two gunmen associated with the antisemitic Black Hebrew Israelites opened fire at a small kosher grocery in Jersey City, killing four people and injuring three more. Weeks later, a man stabbed several attendees of a Hasidic rabbi’s Hanukkah party, injuring four and killing one. His journal questioned why people mourn for antisemitism “when there is Semitic genocide.”
None of these attacks were a coincidence, but rather the fruit of years of antisemitic conspiracy mongering online, particularly within identitarian groups. According to analysis from the Network Contagion Research Institute, the Pittsburgh attack in particular correlated with a “high volume of Soros-related anti-Jewish conspiracy memes,” amplified by Russian state actors, alleging that “George Soros and Jewish organizations were importing migrants to influence the 2018 midterm elections.” Similar themes have continued to metastasize at alarming rates ever since.
Last weekend in Texas, we saw these same themes once again. One of the four hostages said their captor was ranting and yelling that “Jews control the world, Jews control the media, Jews control the banks,” and “Jews control everything.”
“This guy was not the typical guy who comes in and just wants to kill Jews and comes in guns blazing and kills everybody,” he added. “He did what he did because of the tropes — they are ancient, they go on, they continue.”
While we often rush to characterize these attacks as emanating from the “right” or “left,” this is not a helpful impulse. Antisemitism transcends such binaries. Reducing the conspiracy theory to a political argument only makes combating it harder and can blind people to antisemitism when it is advanced by those in their own circles. Instead, we must attack the problem at its roots. Rather than looking for political solutions or pointing fingers across the aisle, we should be combating the myth of Jewish power.
There’s no way to reason with it — it’s pointless to try to demonstrate that no, actually, Jews don’t control all that much. More effectively, we should call it what it is: a conspiracy theory. And scream of its dangers from the rooftops.
We need better and smarter content moderation on mainstream social media platforms, informed by our understanding of how these memes manifest and spread. This will not only keep platforms from being unwitting vehicles of these conspiracy theories, but also help law enforcement and Jewish community officials look for spikes to detect when attacks might be coming.
Antisemitism in the U.S. isn’t usually violent. What if that’s changing?
While the frequency is overwhelming, there are reasons to be optimistic. Unlike in the Middle Ages or Nazi Germany, the enemy for American Jews now is not our government.
After the hostage situation, a founding member of Congregation Beth Israel, Anna Salton Eisen, reflected that she is grateful that the response to antisemitism today — and the strong relationship between law enforcement and the Jewish community — looks little like what she experienced in Poland during the horrors of the recent past.
“The Holocaust was a government-sponsored systematic destruction of a people,” she said. “And I have to say that people have asked me, ‘Are you more afraid now?’ And I’m like, ‘No. I feel, really, better.’ Because I know that if I’m in trouble, they’re coming to help me.”
Blessedly, American Jews have institutions of our own — as well as partners within government and law enforcement — who are eager to address the rise of violent antisemitism. The more we start viewing and treating this phenomenon as the consequence of a conspiracy theory, the more effectively we can do so. | null | null | null | null | null |
If the former president can’t use media platforms to advance his ‘big lie,’ they are useless to him
Former president Donald Trump speaks at a rally at the Canyon Moon Ranch festival grounds in Arizona on Jan. 15. (Mario Tama/Getty Images)
Federico Finchelstein is professor of history at the New School and author of the new book, "A Brief History of Fascist Lies."
Former president Donald Trump abruptly ended an interview with NPR after he was asked about his “big lie” that the 2020 election was “rigged” against him. But the interview itself provided yet another venue for amplifying his baseless propaganda — and reminds us why it is dangerous for journalists, especially broadcasters, to continue interviewing Trump.
As the history of fascism shows, news organizations have long battled with fascist leaders over control of information, balancing the demand to present different perspectives to the public with the need to inform based on facts rather than propaganda.
Totalitarian leaders worked to manipulate independent media to gain power, only to crush their operations once they did so. Why? Because dictators and authoritarians trade on the repetition and amplification of big lies. In fact, to them, the media is a clear and present danger to their propaganda efforts — a tool to manipulate, not one to inform.
And so there is an important lesson to learn from the history of fascist lies. When dealing with propagandists, independent journalists cannot assume they are honest actors. Rather, they need to recognize that they are dishonest players who only want to promote their lies rather than answer fact-based questions to inform the public.
Adolf Hitler understood the centrality of propaganda — and thus control over the press — to achieving, and then keeping a permanent hold on, political power. In “Mein Kampf,” he wrote, “propaganda must be adjusted to the broad masses in content and in form, and its soundness is to be measured exclusively by its effective result.” This is why he also argued that the state “must particularly exercise strict control over the press. … It must not let itself be confused by the drivel about so called ‘freedom of the press.’ ”
Once in power, Nazis destroyed independent media, closing down more than 200 newspapers, which collectively had a circulation of 1.3 million readers. And they put thousands of journalists in jail. As historian Richard Evans explains, “The Editors’ Law of 4 October 1933 gave the Nazis total control over the press.” Once in power, “[Joseph] Goebbels [the Nazi propaganda minister] issued instructions to the papers every day, outlining what they could or could not print.” Fascists especially hated journalists because their line of work represented the opposite of what fascism stood for: truth, transparency and freedom of thought.
In 1932, one of the few American journalists to interview Hitler, Hans Kaltenborn, explained that, “Adolf Hitler has an intense instinctive aversion to interviews. This man, whose ‘hunches’ on what to do and whose uncanny sense of when to do it astound the world, thinks best and decides most shrewdly when he is alone. He dislikes talking to strangers because they intimidate him. He compensates for his timidity by raucous self-assertion in their presence. Instead of answering an interviewer’s questions he makes excited speeches, thus seeking to create for himself the atmosphere of the public meeting in which he is at home.”
Kaltenborn hoped the interview would shed light into Nazi operations, particularly its leaders’ racist and antidemocratic mentality. But his questions about Hitler’s antisemitism and his views of dictatorship conflicted with a central element of the fascist playbook: “fuhrerprinzip,” the idea that leaders are correct all the time, and the rest of us, journalists included, should accept their explanation without questions.
This is why, as Kaltenborn explained, “From the beginning of his public career, Hitler has avoided personal contact with men who disagree with him. He is as conscious of his inability to persuade individuals as he is sure of his skill in mass appeal. Not more than a dozen foreign newspaper men have had individual access to him in as many years.”
Kaltenborn felt he was able to ask Hitler critical questions. Unhappy with the questioning, however, Hitler merely affirmed his antisemitism, his fascist identification with Mussolini and his dictatorial vocation. In other words, he merely focused on repeating his big lies.
That’s why dictators like Hitler preferred doing interviews with those who idolize them — not independent, professional journalists — so that they could extend their cult following by avoiding critical questions. The first Argentine dictator José Félix Uriburu, for example, was “interviewed” to legitimize the coup of 1930 by framing it as a heroic “revolution.” The interview helped reinforce the myth of the leader, crystallizing a fictitious narrative that became part of the long-standing history of authoritarianism in Argentina.
In 1931, the German-Jewish writer Emil Ludwig interviewed Benito Mussolini at the height of his dictatorship. Initially, Mussolini saw this as an opportunity to disseminate his lies abroad, while Ludwig saw it as an opportunity to distance Mussolini from Hitler and critique Nazi racism and antisemitism. Perhaps, it was Ludwig’s congratulatory, even admiring tone that led Mussolini to drop his guard and openly ridicule Nazi antisemitism.
But then, Mussolini changed his mind, ultimately blocking the published interview from circulation and allowing it to be republished only after important changes, for fear of appearing weak vis-a-vis journalists and last but not least to avoid damaging relations with Hitler.
Eventually, Mussolini passed his own racial laws in the fall of 1938, and as historian Simon Levis Sullam demonstrated, some years later and under Nazi occupation, fascists became key executioners of the Holocaust in Italy. The published interview with Mussolini appeared across the world in multiple languages, helping normalize Mussolini’s image abroad, while being silenced within Italy itself. Consequently, the interview achieved no positive result, either within Italy or internationally despite Ludwig’s good intentions.
In short, fascists and populists historically did not favor debate or open access to ideas but rather sought acutely to downplay the relevance of key democratic institutions like the free press. Trump has often blamed political criticism on the existence of a free press, but he often does so on those same platforms, and too often without facing criticism. This is why Trump has come to view the independent press as a key adversary of his own politics but also as a tool of manipulation. The independent media’s “both sides” framework thus leaves it vulnerable to being used to amplify dangerous lies. As history shows us, fascist dictators have long understood that the role of the free media is meant to be incompatible with their anti-democratic propaganda, but they can exploit it if allowed. | null | null | null | null | null |
The news of Diaz-Johnston’s death brought about an outpouring of grief from LGBTQ advocates, who highlighted the role he played in furthering gay rights in the state.
At the time, Diaz and Johnston had been dating for about a year and wanted to marry in Florida, Diaz told the Herald when the couple filed suit.
The couples in the Miami-Dade suit were allowed to marry about six months later, the Herald reported. A federal judge’s ruling in a separate case would allow same-sex couples throughout the state to marry the next day, Jan. 6, 2015, the New York Times reported. Diaz and Johnston married in March 2015, according to Miami-Dade County records. | null | null | null | null | null |
FILE PHOTO: Pope Benedict XVI blesses the faithful for the last time from the balcony of his summer residence in Castel Gandolfo February 28, 2013. REUTERS/ Tony Gentile/File Photo (Tony Gentile/Reuters)
The law firm that carried out the investigation said Benedict could be accused of wrongdoing in four cases, including one in which he knowingly accepted a priest into his archdiocese even after the cleric had been convicted of sexual abuse in a criminal court.
At a news conference to unveil the findings, a lawyer said that Benedict — known then as Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger — claimed to have no direct knowledge of the cases. But his denials were “not reconcilable with the files in evidence,” the lawyer, Martin Pusch said.
The report, commissioned by the archdiocese in Munich and compiled by German law firm Westpfahl Spilker Wastl, provides a harsh judgment about one of the most influential Catholic figures of the last century, and suggests the retired pope had direct knowledge of clerical abuse well before it exploded into a public crisis.
The report, which was to be released after a midday news conference, looks at decades of cases within the archdiocese.
Part of the report is expected to focus on one particular pedophile priest, the Rev. Peter Hullermann. Allegations first arose against Hullermann in the late 1970s, and in 1980 — when Ratzinger was archbishop — he was moved from his diocese of Essen to Munich to undergo “therapy.”
The former pope provided 82-pages of written answers and information in response to questions, the law firm said.
Even before the release of Thursday’s investigation, the multicontinent abuse scandal had endured as a bruising part Benedict’s legacy. During his tenure as pontiff, he dealt with an explosion of cases across the global church, in what amounted to Catholicism’s biggest crisis in decades.
He went farther than his predecessor, John Paul II, in addressing the problems, defrocking hundreds of priests and meeting with clerical abuse victims in the United States — the first such meeting for a pope. But advocates saw his steps as insufficient, noting that he was slow too grasp the systemic nature of the clerics’ crimes and their coverup.
The current archbishop of Munich and Freising is Cardinal Reinhard Marx, a close ally of Francis and one of the pope’s advisory council members. Marx last year and offered to resign, saying he felt it necessary to “share the responsibility for the catastrophe of the sexual abuse by Church officials over the past decades,” which included institutional and systemic failure. But Francis rejected Marx’s request to step down, saying that he should instead continue as a “shepherd” and carry out reforms. | null | null | null | null | null |
Stampede at church gathering, sparked by armed gang attack, kills at least 29 in Liberian capital
At least 29 people died Wednesday night following a stampede at a religious gathering in the Liberian capital of Monrovia.
The stampede erupted at a “crusade,” as some Christian prayer gatherings are known in Liberia, organized by a local religious leader in New Kru Town, a suburb of Monrovia, police said.
As the gathering, which took place outdoors in a football field, came to an end around 9 p.m. local time Wednesday, some worshipers were attacked by armed gangs attempting to “hijack their personal effects,” police spokesman Moses Carter told The Washington Post. As the worshipers ran back inside the gated area of the field to escape the gangs, they set off panic among the rest of the crowd, Carter said, precipitating the deadly stampede.
At least 29 people have been confirmed dead at nearby Redemption Hospital, among them 11 children and a pregnant woman, Carter said.
At least one person, who authorities say had a knife, was arrested in connection with the stampede.
Carter said police were “not informed” that the crusade was taking place and added that the pastor who organized the gathering would be questioned at police headquarters Thursday morning.
“This is a sad day for the country,” Deputy Information Minister Jalawah Tonpo told state radio Thursday. News outlets reported that Liberian President George Weah is expected to visit the site of the incident in the afternoon. | null | null | null | null | null |
In this photo provided by the University of Alabama at Birmingham, surgeons prepare to transplant kidneys from a genetically modified pig into the body of a deceased recipient in September 2021. The experimental procedure was a step-by-step rehearsal for operations they hope to try in living patients possibly later in 2022, part of a quest to use animal organs to save human lives. (UAB via AP) (Uncredited/University of Alabama at Birmingham) | null | null | null | null | null |
Jenner said it’s unfair for transgender women like Thomas to compete in women’s sports. Thomas, a 22-year-old University of Pennsylvania senior, has been setting records and crushing competitors this season for the women’s swim team, re-electrifying one of more recent battles in the culture wars — how transgender athletes participate in competitive sports.
Jenner, who’s transgender, went on Fox as the NCAA was about to release new rules governing what transgender college athletes will have to do to compete in women’s sports. She urged the association’s board of governors to “make the right decision … to stop this right now.”
Lia Thomas started swimming at age 5, eventually competing for three seasons on the men’s swimming team at Penn, The Post reported earlier this month. Toward the end of those three years, in the spring of 2019, she started going through testosterone suppression treatment, which the NCAA then required transgender women to undergo for a full year before competing in women’s sports, according to The Post. She continued to swim for the men’s team in the fall of 2019, when she would have been ineligible to compete against women.
She has since dominated in the pool, setting records and destroying competitors by wide margins, The Post reported this month. She’s posted the fastest times of any female swimmer in two events and will likely be a favorite in March at the NCAA Championships.
“I feel sorry for the other athletes that are out there, especially at Penn or anybody she’s competing against. Because of the woke world, you’ve got to say, ‘Oh my gosh! This is great!’ and on and on and on. No it’s not.”
“It’s not good for women’s sports,” she added. “It’s unfortunate this is happening.”
Jenner’s involvement on the issue predates Thomas. She called the issue a “question of fairness” in May, just after announcing her candidacy to replace California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) in a recall election that would fail four months later. Her comments came after a slew of bills, most sponsored by Republicans, were introduced in dozens of state legislatures around the country to limit the participation of transgender athletes in women’s sports, according to an April story in The Post. | null | null | null | null | null |
Kazakhstan’s protesters weren’t happy about government corruption. Will anything change?
Here’s what my research found
People walk past cars burned during clashes between protesters and government forces on a street in Almaty, Kazakhstan, on Jan. 7. (Vasily Krestyaninov/AP)
By Margaret Hanson
After mass unrest that kicked off the new year, Kazakh President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev attacked his predecessor’s legacy and called for major structural reforms to improve government effectiveness. He blamed the “low level of trust” in government on a lack of meritocracy and high levels of corruption.
In light of the very public elite infighting that’s now taking place, how does corruption figure into what happened in Kazakhstan? My research suggests Kazakhstan’s leaders have tried and failed to maintain a “corruption equilibrium” — maintaining perks for top elites, such as governors, while cracking down on corruption at lower levels.
The population has heard all about corruption
Public statements about anti-corruption reforms are not new, but echo a recent shift. My analysis of major presidential addresses from 1997 to 2019 shows that since 2017, Kazakhstan’s leaders have added an emphasis on corruption and government accountability alongside long-standing issues such as economic development.
In November, Tokayev spoke of the need to “beat” officials who engage in corrupt behavior — especially in regional and local administrations. His predecessor, President Nursultan Nazarbayev, issued similar statements, particularly during his last years in office. Anti-corruption efforts have been a key component of major policy frameworks such as Kazakhstan’s “Strategy 2050.”
Alongside official messages that stress improving the rule of law and reducing corruption, the government has passed new legislation on anti-corruption and the civil service. It has introduced innovations such as “one-stop shops” to reduce opportunities for petty bribery by centralizing applications for permits and licenses.
All of these efforts sought to bolster the regime’s popularity by developing “rule of law legitimacy” without liberalizing politically. In fact, instead of liberalization, the opposite occurred. New laws cracked down on independent labor unions, repressed the media and online expression and continued restrictions on legal protests. These measures drastically narrowed the legally available space for citizens to voice their frustration.
Expectations are rising
The government’s added focus on corruption and government accountability was probably a direct response to growing grass-roots hostility toward the regime. Surveys show continued confidence in the government and, to many outside the country, Kazakhstan appeared more stable than many of its neighbors. But my ethnographic research in the country’s three largest cities (Astana/Nur-Sultan, Almaty and Shymkent) from 2009 to 2019 and the 104 interviews I conducted in 2015 to 2016 and in 2019 reveal growing discontent with pervasive corruption, government officials’ impunity and socioeconomic inequality.
In 2009, people predominantly lauded “Papa” Nazarbayev, I found. By 2019, interviews and unsolicited comments alike were far more likely to denigrate Kazakhstan’s first president, who stepped down in 2019 after nearly 30 years in power. As one taxi driver in the capital grumbled, Nazarbayev and high-level government elites were nothing more than “thieves.” In an Almaty cafe, another person dryly noted that, “The only thing that works in Kazakhstan is corruption!” Over the last four years, Kazakhstan witnessed a dramatic rise in the number of protests, the majority of which focused on socioeconomic conditions and political issues.
The government tackled some forms of corruption
While anti-corruption efforts were billed as sweeping, I found evidence in official audits and during court hearings that the regime actively ignored certain types of corrupt behavior — like illegal land seizures — that were a major source of wealth for regional and local heads of government. Indeed, in one case, the anti-corruption agency ruled that a local administrative head had engaged in wide-scale corruption with respect to land sales and registration, but he did not receive any apparent punishment. Thus, while the regime appeared to be focusing on anti-corruption, consequences for corrupt behavior were selectively applied.
However, as the speed with which this year’s protests spread demonstrates, efforts by Kazakhstan’s leaders to protect perks for top elites while cracking down on lower-level corruption failed dramatically. My interviews suggest that this was in part because the main thrust of anti-corruption efforts was misplaced. In a series of confidential, street-level interviews on corruption with citizens in Almaty in 2019, I found that people viewed corruption as a major problem — but rather than attributing it to wayward regional or local officials, they placed blame squarely at the top. In a typical response, one person pointed their finger at the president directly, stating, “All [corruption], it seems to me, comes from the president, the government.” Another pointedly noted that, “It’s not that corruption is widespread in Kazakhstan…[rather] the country itself is built on corruption.”
Corruption isn’t part of the system, it is the system
In this respect Kazakhstan is not alone among personalist dictatorships, where political power remains concentrated in the hands of just one person. In these “strongman” regimes, opportunities for wealth and power generally stem from informal connections — such as family, ethnicity or clan — coupled with personal loyalty. This creates a system in which both political and economic power are heavily contingent upon individual ties to top-level elites.
In Kazakhstan, for the past three decades this has primarily meant ties to Nazarbayev. Investigative reporting has uncovered extensive luxury real estate owned by Nazarbayev’s family members, while the very richest families — 0.001 percent of the population, and just 162 people — hold around half of the country’s total wealth.
Because this system of governance depends on favoritism, it precludes equal treatment before the law. Thus, although the regime used rule of law rhetoric and sought to reduce low-level corruption, to truly tackle the kind of corruption and unequal opportunities for wealth generation that lay at the root of popular frustration, presidents Nazarbayev and Tokayev would have had to unravel the very ties that bound the regime together.
This disconnect between the government’s rhetoric and selective approach probably fed growing frustration among increasing numbers of citizens, especially as inflation made income inequality loom even larger. Then a sudden increase in fuel prices ignited those larger grievances.
Will the 2022 uprising change Tokayev’s calculus about more substantive change? In public addresses in recent days, Tokayev acknowledged the need for socioeconomic and government reforms. However, a more likely scenario is that he uses the crisis to consolidate his own power and downgrade Nazarbayev’s influence — while, like his predecessor, failing to tackle the deeper-seated issues of high-level corruption that spawned popular discontent.
Margaret Hanson is an assistant professor of political science at Arizona State University. Her current book project, “Managing the Predatory State,” examines corruption and governance under personalist rule. | null | null | null | null | null |
Researchers for the French National Center for Scientific Research study corals in the waters off the coast of Tahiti of the French Polynesia in December 2021. (Alexis Rosenfeld/AP)
Photos released by the team showed a seabed covered with rose-shaped corals — some of them more than 6 feet (2 meters) in diameter. | null | null | null | null | null |
Taken as a whole, the Tuesday filing offers the clearest picture yet of the evidence investigators have against Trump and his three eldest children and suggests how they might proceed. A civil case is likely to be filed by James in the upcoming months, while a criminal case on valuation practices remains less certain, although it has not been ruled out, according to a person familiar with the matter who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the matter. | null | null | null | null | null |
Jenner said it’s unfair for transgender women such as Thomas to compete in women’s sports. Thomas, a 22-year-old University of Pennsylvania senior, has been setting records and crushing competitors this season for the women’s swim team, re-electrifying one of more recent battles in the culture wars — how transgender athletes participate in competitive sports.
Jenner, who is transgender, went on Fox as the NCAA was about to release new rules governing what transgender college athletes will have to do to compete in women’s sports. She urged the association’s board of governors to “make the right decision … to stop this right now.”
Thomas started swimming at age 5, eventually competing for three seasons on the men’s swimming team at Penn, The Post reported earlier this month. Toward the end of those three years, in the spring of 2019, she started going through testosterone suppression treatment, which the NCAA then required transgender women to undergo for a full year before competing in women’s sports, according to The Post. She continued to swim for the men’s team in the fall of 2019, when she would have been ineligible to compete against women.
She has since dominated in the pool, setting records and destroying competitors by wide margins, The Post reported this month. She has posted the fastest times of any female swimmer in two events and will likely be a favorite in March at the NCAA championships.
“I feel sorry for the other athletes that are out there, especially at Penn or anybody she’s competing against, because in the woke world, you’ve got to say, ‘Oh, my gosh! This is great!’ and on and on and on. No, it’s not.”
“It’s not good for women’s sports,” she added. “It’s unfortunate that this is happening.”
Jenner’s involvement on the issue predates Thomas. She called the issue a “question of fairness” in May, just after announcing her candidacy to replace California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) in a recall election that would fail four months later. Her comments came after a slew of bills, most sponsored by Republicans, were introduced in dozens of state legislatures around the country to limit the participation of transgender athletes in women’s sports, according to an April article in The Post. | null | null | null | null | null |
News of Diaz-Johnston’s death brought an outpouring of grief from LGBTQ advocates, who highlighted the role he played in furthering gay rights in the state.
At the time, Diaz and Johnston had been dating for about a year and wanted to marry in Florida, Diaz told the Herald when the couple filed the lawsuit.
The couples in the Miami-Dade lawsuit were allowed to marry about six months later, the Herald reported. A federal judge’s ruling in a separate case would allow same-sex couples throughout the state to marry the next day, Jan. 6, 2015, the New York Times reported. Diaz and Johnston married in March 2015, according to Miami-Dade County records. | null | null | null | null | null |
Biden’s first two attempts to help young people brought to this country when they were young were blocked. Fortunately, there’s a Plan C.
Arlin Karina Tellez, front left, a Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals beneficiary and student at Trinity Washington University, demonstrates with others in front of the Supreme Court when the court heard arguments on DACA in November 2019. (Jahi Chikwendiu/The Washington Post)
By Daniel Hemel
Daniel Hemel is a professor at the University of Chicago Law School and a visiting professor at New York University School of Law.
One of the high points of then-Sen. Kamala D. Harris’s ultimately unsuccessful presidential campaign came in June 2019, when the California Democrat rolled out a creative plan that would use executive action to provide a path to citizenship for hundreds of thousands of “Dreamers,” or undocumented immigrants brought to the United States as children. Now, with more comprehensive immigration reform legislation stalled in Congress, Harris’s proposal provides a playbook for an administration searching for its next move.
Harris’s plan would use the Homeland Security secretary’s “parole-in-place” authority to overcome legal barriers that prevent many Dreamers from obtaining green cards — a first step on the path to U.S. citizenship. By invoking parole-in-place, Harris’s approach would soften the cruelty of existing immigration law, which in some cases requires Dreamers to live in effective exile for a decade if they are ever to gain lawful status in the country that they know as home. And the plan rests on solid legal ground, as even its opponents acknowledge. For example, the Center for Immigration Studies, a think tank that advocates for more restrictive immigration policies, published an analysis in 2020 concluding that it would be “next to impossible” to defeat Harris’s plan in court.
Five myths about DACA
A year into the Biden presidency, the political calculus aligns with the moral and legal arguments in favor of Harris’s proposal. The administration’s “Plan A” for Dreamers — a bill that would provide a pathway to green-card status and eventual citizenship for 2.5 million immigrants who arrived in the country as children — passed the House last March, with nine House Republicans joining the entire Democratic caucus in support. But the legislation lacks a clear path forward in the Senate, where it faces a near-certain Republican filibuster. (Senate Democrats tried unsuccessfully Wednesday to create a carveout from the filibuster for voting rights legislation, but they chose not to include the Dreamers in their push for procedural change.)
Plan B sought to use budget reconciliation as a vehicle to provide green-card status for Dreamers, along with millions of other undocumented workers and individuals living in the United States under temporary protected status. Budget reconciliation bills can’t be filibustered, but they are subject to another requirement — the Byrd rule — that prohibits provisions whose budgetary effects are “merely incidental” to the nonfiscal consequences. The Senate parliamentarian, who advises lawmakers on chamber procedures, dashed Dreamers’ hopes for an easier legislative route when she repeatedly rebuffed Democrats’ attempts to include immigration provisions in a budget-reconciliation package last year.
Some Senate Democrats explored the possibility of pushing the green-card provisions through budget reconciliation notwithstanding the parliamentarian’s opposition. The parliamentarian’s advice is nonbinding, after all, and the Senate’s presiding officer would be free to reach her own conclusion regarding the Byrd rule’s application to the green-card provisions. Under the Constitution, the vice president is the presiding officer of the Senate whenever she attends the chamber’s sessions, and Harris would have a strong argument that the green-card provisions — which would allow millions of people to access federally subsidized health insurance, federal student loans, Social Security benefits, and a wide range of other programs — satisfy the Byrd rule’s requirement of having a budgetary effect that is more than “merely incidental.”
But the prospect of Vice President Harris taking the gavel and making such a ruling is even more remote now that Sen. Joe Manchin III (D-W.Va.) has pulled his support from his party’s roughly $2 trillion tax-and-spending package. Attaching a green-card eligibility expansion to a budget reconciliation vehicle requires, first, a budget reconciliation bill. With that legislative vehicle now garaged, the administration needs a Plan C.
Fortunately, Harris already has a Plan C ready to go. Her proposal addresses one of the most significant obstacles to citizenship for many Dreamers: the rule in the Immigration and Nationality Act that generally prevents a noncitizen from obtaining a green card unless she was “admitted or paroled into the United States.”
As immigration politics changed, so did ‘In the Heights’
Many Dreamers fall within one or more of the existing green-card eligibility categories: for example, they have a close family member who is a U.S. citizen or green-card holder or they have an employer who will sponsor them. And more than 200,000 Dreamers are married to U.S. citizens, which typically opens up a fast track to a green card. But most Dreamers were never “admitted” to the United States — in other words, they weren’t authorized to enter the country by an immigration officer.
In theory, a Dreamer who wasn’t admitted to the United States could leave the country and then be admitted back. But someone who has been unlawfully present in the United States for one year or more as an adult and then leaves the country typically can’t be admitted for a decade. That bar means many Dreamers who have no memory of living anywhere other than the United States must spend 10 years abroad even to have a shot at green-card status and eventual U.S. citizenship.
The Homeland Security secretary can waive the 10-year bar for the spouse or child of a U.S. citizen or green-card holder, but only if the bar would result in “extreme hardship” for the applicant’s spouse or parent. And even if a noncitizen receives a provisional waiver, she needs to go to a U.S. Embassy or consulate abroad to apply for an immigrant visa. Not only is that costly, but it also entails risk: The consular officer still may deny the visa, leaving the applicant stranded.
Parole-in-place offers a safer route around the 10-year bar. It is based on a statute that allows the Homeland Security secretary — in his discretion and on a “case-by-case basis” — to “parole” a noncitizen into the United States “for urgent humanitarian reasons or significant public benefit.” Historically, most people paroled into the United States have been new arrivals, but the Clinton, George W. Bush and Obama administrations all interpreted the statute to allow for parole of individuals already in the United States without forcing them to leave and return. Congress endorsed this interpretation in the bipartisan National Defense Authorization Act of 2020, which stated that “the importance of the parole in place authority of the Secretary of Homeland Security is affirmed.”
Under Harris’s plan, the Homeland Security Department would begin accepting applications for parole-in-place from Dreamers. It could not confer parole-in-place status on a blanket basis — each case would have to be considered individually. But federal judges could not second-guess the Homeland Security secretary’s discretionary grants — the Immigration and Nationality Act strips courts of jurisdiction to review these decisions.
Dreamers who receive parole-in-place would not get green cards automatically. Applicants under some eligibility categories would face an additional hurdle if they have worked in the United States without authorization, though Harris proposes to remove that hurdle by granting work authorization retroactively. Green-card applicants would face waits ranging from several months to several years, and it is possible that a new administration would take office during that period and cancel parole-in-place for individuals who haven’t received their green cards yet. It is also conceivable that a conservative Supreme Court would erect roadblocks, notwithstanding Congress’s clear approval of parole-in-place in the recent defense legislation.
But even if the program does not last forever, the Harris plan could usher tens of thousands — potentially hundreds of thousands — of Dreamers along the path to citizenship, putting them past the point at which a future administration could halt the process. It would also help to elevate Harris’s stature with voters in immigrant communities — an increasingly integral component of the Democratic coalition, and one where Trump made some surprising gains. That would be a political bonus for the party if Harris is on the Democratic ticket, either in the first slot or the second, in 2024.
Politics aside, the Harris plan would make good on Biden’s campaign pledge to “explore all legal options” for keeping Dreamers and their families together. Surely that exploration should include an option that legal experts on all sides of the issue agree is likely to work — especially when the idea comes from Biden’s own vice president. | null | null | null | null | null |
Losing the child tax credit would sting, but it’s worth the historic investments in climate and child care
President Biden speaks during a news conference on Wednesday. (Oliver Contreras/Bloomberg)
To be a parent in this moment is to be encircled by crises. There’s the pandemic, of course, but America’s family-unfriendly policies were straining parents past the breaking point well before covid-19. Against this backdrop, ecological disaster has reared up, with families losing their homes to December tornadoes and wildfires while their children too often breathe toxic air or drink toxic water. With President Biden acknowledging this week that his sweeping Build Back Better Act will probably need to be broken up into smaller pieces, lawmakers and advocates should remember the larger picture: Historic investments in child care and climate change — even if imperfect — would begin removing the boulder from the backs of the nation’s parents and children.
The House-passed Build Back Better legislation contains nearly $400 billion over six years for child care and pre-K and enough climate investments to approach Biden’s goal of cutting U.S. emissions in half by 2030. It also includes a continuation of the expanded child tax credit, which put an extra $250 or $300 per child into many families’ bank accounts every month for much of last year, as well as a modest amount of paid family leave. One increasingly probable scenario is that only the early childhood and climate elements survive in a longer-term reconciliation package blessed by Sen. Joe Manchin III (D-W.Va.), while lawmakers attempt to pass the other provisions through regular order.
Let’s be very clear: A child allowance (and paid leave, for that matter) is good policy on its own merits. Adding a child increases a family’s budgetary demands, yet comes with no commensurate boost in income. Since society has deep interest in healthy children and families, smoothing the financial path of child-rearing makes sense. This simple logic is why such benefits are both common and relatively uncontroversial in high-income nations from Germany to Japan to Canada. The child poverty-fighting effects of such benefits are well-established. Even America’s short, paused experiment with expanded and fully refundable benefits paid dividends on that front.
A family’s flourishing, however, is a multifaceted equation. The expense sheet can be even more important than the income, as can having the infrastructure in place to maintain gainful employment and a physical environment that supports health and well-being. Merely nudging above the poverty line isn’t the goal; thriving is the goal.
Consider child care, which — inclusive of pre-K and all other care settings — is both an essential work support and an educational service helping lay the foundation for a child’s future. Allowing parents, particularly mothers, a true choice in their work-care arrangements yields deep financial benefits. Recent research from Europe looked at the long-term effects of various family policies on mothers’ poverty levels and found that child care stood out as “a prime example of a social investment policy with returns later in the life course.” It was also the only policy studied that reduced the poverty gap between single and partnered mothers.
In the United States, however, child care is increasingly unaffordable and inaccessible. The average costs for formal child care approach $10,000 per child, and can run significantly more in major urban areas. These sky-high fees have consequences: The Wall Street Journal recently reported on an Iowa mother who “started working 12-hour shifts” and “sometimes eats crackers for dinner” to cover her two children’s child-care costs. The House-passed plan would make child care free for those making less than 75 percent of their state’s median income — for instance, an Iowa family of four making as much as $71,000 — and dramatically lower the cost for nearly everyone else. Subsidies for school-aged children would also see a significant boost. The expanded child tax credit, meanwhile, raised the previous benefit from $2,000 to $3,600 per young child.
Moreover, the child-care system itself is actively failing amid crippling staffing shortages and a structural inability to raise compensation to remain competitive as an industry. Build Back Better would solve these fundamental flaws by flowing enough annual public money to increase wages and offer parents a panoply of care options. So the choice here is not between a bad status quo and something better; it is between the complete collapse of a vital economic and educational sector and a functional one.
It may be less obvious why Build Back Better’s climate investments matter so much for parents and children. But they do. As December demonstrated in tragic and brutal fashion, climate change-enhanced disasters threaten family livelihoods, and not just on hurricane-harried coasts. With now-perennial disasters on top of more routine ecological injury from frequent heat waves and flooding downpours, the climate has become more than one topic among many. As climate futurist Alex Steffen has written, the planetary crisis is “not an issue, but an era,” adding that “every other problem we’re struggling with is subsumed under this overarching reality. There is nowhere to stand outside of it.”
Within this era is also severe danger to the physical care infrastructure. In 2017, for instance, Hurricane Harvey damaged at least 650 child-care programs in the Houston region and caused more than 50 to permanently close. The loss of care options has a cascading negative effect on families and communities.
Children bear all of this worse than adults. The American Psychological Association noted in a report that, “after climate events, children typically demonstrate more severe distress than adults.” The report added the wrenching observation that “some preschool children who lost their homes to Superstorm Sandy developed a phobic avoidance of rain, waves, and thunder that generalized to panic about getting in bathtubs, going to school (which they feared might flood), and going to swimming lessons.”
Even setting aside specific events, the changing climate poses constant, invisible threats to children’s health and development. Just-released research shows children’s physiology makes them uniquely vulnerable to extreme heat, concluding that heat-related morbidities accounted for more than 1 in 10 pediatric emergency room visits between 2016 and 2018. Similarly, experts are clear that when it comes to air pollution — made worse by wildfires and supercharged by heat — the “impact on health starts from the moment of conception. Toxins inhaled by the mother travel through the placenta and undermine fetal development. Then the damage continues after birth: young lungs breathe two to three times faster than adults and are often closer to the ground where air pollution is more concentrated. Adverse health impacts range from neurodevelopmental disorders to asthma and childhood cancers.” These threats are disproportionately higher for children of color and children from low-income families.
Remember, also, that Republicans have stood firmly against action on either child care or climate change. So if Democrats lose control of Congress in this year’s midterm elections, a failure to act would mean squandering the nation’s one at-bat for who knows how long. The drop-off from a narrow Build Back Better bill to Republican control of either congressional chamber is, for parents, a plunge without a parachute.
Put together, it is clear that taking big swings at the child care and climate crises would do wonders for today’s families and future generations. We can no longer separate out questions of child well-being or parental stress from these twin dynamos. While breaking apart the Build Back Better Act — and particularly the excision of the expanded child tax credit — would be a bitter pill to swallow, a sober and wide-angled assessment shows that families would still be getting a desperately needed elixir. If there’s any opportunity for a deal, history demands the Democrats seize it. | null | null | null | null | null |
Since economists don’t agree on what’s causing it, someone will likely use it to sell other policies.
President Gerald Ford holds a news conference in the Rose Garden at the White House on Oct. 9, 1974, the day after disclosing his anti-inflation program. (AP)
By Elizabeth Popp Berman
Inflation, which recently hit 7 percent, is back in the news. Everyone has an explanation for why it’s on the rise — and often a pet solution. But in Washington and beyond, there is little agreement on either the cause of inflation or the best response.
The United States hasn’t experienced this kind of inflation in more than a generation. But looking at the last time it did highlights a dynamic we can expect to return: commentators using inflation as an opportunity to advance loosely related policy goals.
Economists used inflation to push for deregulation
In 1974, Gerald Ford had just been thrust into the presidency and wanted urgently to address inflation, which had reached a historic 10 percent. One of his first actions as president was to convene a “summit conference” on inflation.
As part of this event, the administration brought together a wide-ranging group of economists, including liberals (Kermit Gordon, Walter Heller, John Kenneth Galbraith) and conservatives (Milton Friedman, Herbert Stein), and charged them with proposing solutions.
The economists talked for several days. Then, as now, there was no disciplinary consensus on the best response to inflation, and no consensus emerged at the summit, either. The attendees admitted they could not agree on how to stop it.
But in the years leading up to the meeting, economists had come to a consensus on a different policy position that challenged the status quo. They all agreed that economic deregulation was a good idea. Specifically, they agreed that government should stop controlling prices and restricting new entrants into various industries. Removing these restrictions, they believed, would introduce beneficial competition, driving prices down.
When Thomas Moore, a senior staffer on Nixon’s Council of Economic Advisers and author of a book on freight regulation, presented the summit with a long list of deregulatory goals, he found widespread support. All but two of the 23 economists present — including nearly all the liberals — signed off on the program, which included everything from “reduce or eliminate entry barriers into trucking” to “repeal import quotas on dairy and other farm products.”
Even Moore, who proposed the platform, admitted that the link between economic deregulation and inflation was somewhat tenuous. But he argued — and his colleagues apparently agreed — “I do think that it will help move things in the right direction. ... It is a desirable thing to achieve.”
Economists’ advocacy of deregulation as a solution to inflation fed into Ford’s policy leanings. A month after the economists’ conference, Ford gave his historic “Whip Inflation Now” speech. Better remembered for urging American consumers to reduce consumption, the speech also proposed deregulating the natural gas industry, establishing a commission to overhaul the independent regulatory agencies and reviewing the inflationary impact of all major executive regulations.
Over the next two years, Ford repeatedly used his platform to advocate for deregulation, particularly, though not exclusively, of the transportation industries. Indeed, proponents of deregulation within his administration were pleasantly surprised, and his political strategists a bit dismayed, by just how committed to the project Ford turned out to be.
It took a few years for the deregulation project to come to fruition. The most significant pieces of legislation, the 1978 Airline Deregulation Act and the 1980 Staggers Rail Act and Motor Carrier Act, were signed into law by President Jimmy Carter, not Ford. But it was under Ford that the deregulatory project first gained momentum, and it was under the guise of reducing inflation — however loosely the two were tied in reality — that it found its opening.
Perhaps today’s commentators will push for antitrust
Now, as in the 1970s, debate rages over what, if anything, should be done about levels of inflation. Economists don’t agree any more about how to respond now than they did back then.
And again, the challenge of inflation is creating political opportunity. It is a problem unusually open to interpretation, which produces persistent disagreement among the experts. That provides a potential opening for “policy entrepreneurs” — people who want to advocate for a particular policy cause or idea — to push for changes that might or might not be independently good ideas, which are only relatively indirectly linked to inflation.
At present, the most likely candidate for this role is increased antitrust enforcement. The Biden administration was already supportive of strong antitrust, which could at least plausibly keep firms in concentrated industries like meatpacking and petroleum from raising prices. President Biden has floated such ideas as he works to articulate a clear response to an emerging problem.
Why the supply chain crisis isn't going away anytime soon
In the short run, it is not clear if antitrust will successfully be sold as a solution to inflation. While economists have become increasingly convinced that market power is a problem, their position on antitrust today is nowhere near as unified as their predecessors’ position on deregulation was in 1974.
But in the long run, inflation might provide the justification for aggressive antitrust — or some other comparable policy — to gain center stage. Problems of clear importance and unclear solutions make it easier for people to advocate reforms that are only loosely connected. Such policies may have benefits on their own terms, but it is inflation that provides the political opening.
Elizabeth Popp Berman is associate professor of organizational studies at the University of Michigan and author of the forthcoming Thinking Like an Economist: How Efficiency Replaced Equality in U.S. Public Policy (Princeton University Press). | null | null | null | null | null |
Prosecutors said recent developments prompted them to seek the dropping of the case against Gang Chen, a Chinese American nanoscientist. The filing was made in U.S. District Court in Boston.
But what tipped the scale was an interview by prosecutors this month of a senior Energy Department official, who is considered an authority on what disclosures are material on grant forms, the people said. The official confirmed that the 2017 form did not require disclosures of Chen’s ties to the technology university or other Chinese government organizations and programs, one person said. | 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 tangible sound recording of the music (known as the “master”).
Singer-songwriter Bob Dylan has sold the rights and royalties to more than 600 songs to Universal Music Publishing Group in a deal announced on Dec. 7. (Reuters)
"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 Machine (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 one example.
The songs Round Hill has purchased looks like a decades-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, are 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, it’s full steam ahead.
While the moment may be ripe for the top 1 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 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 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 account 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 |
“A lot of people have dry skin — that’s just a lack of moisture in the skin itself,” said Priya Parthasarathy, a podiatrist who practices in Silver Spring, Md., and is chair of the American Podiatric Medical Association’s communications committee. “When you have severely dry skin, or you don’t treat that dry skin, it develops into what we in the medical world call fissures” — or cracks — in the skin. They are usually found on the heels — thus the common term cracked heels, but Parthasarathy recently treated a patient who had a deep slit in the middle of her foot.
Another culprit: aging. “You know how your grandmother’s hands are always drier?” Lobkova said. “As we age, the glands in our bodies don’t work as well, and those glands produce oils. Also, elastin [a protein that contributes to elasticity] drops, and that creates increased dryness.” Taking hot showers and using soaps that contain harsh chemicals can also dry out the skin on the feet.
Invest in a humidifier. Moisture is key to preventing dry feet, so during the winter, when you’re blasting the heat, a humidifier can be an ideal way to keep your environment from getting too dry, McEneaney said. Install one a place where you spend a lot of time — your bedroom, say, or your home office.
Bother with foot peels. These are like facial masks for your feet, and many make lofty promises to remove calluses, exfoliate your skin and make your feet feel smoother and softer, for example. However, they’re often made with abrasive chemicals in unregulated doses, Parthasarathy said. She recommends saving your money: “There’s just not enough information on them.”
Soak your feet. Luxuriating in a tub of Epsom salts might be relaxing, but it won’t help your dry feet. “Soaking them can actually dry out the skin even more — it’s kind of counterproductive,” McEneaney said. Because the body produces oil to lubricate the skin, soaking in water washes away those oils. “People say, ‘Oh, my feet are dry, I’ll soak them and they won’t be dry anymore,’” McEneaney said. “But essentially what they’re doing is drying them out even more.” | null | null | null | null | null |
FILE - Jamie Dornan arrives at the premiere of “Belfast” on Nov. 8, 2021, in Los Angeles. Dornan stars in The BBC series “The Tourist” which will air in the U.S. on HBO Max later this year. (Richard Shotwell/Invision/AP, File)
NEW YORK — One of the most memorable scenes in “ Belfast ” is when Jamie Dornan’s character serenades his wife (played by Caitriona Balfe) with “ Everlasting Love.” The lighting, choreography and wardrobe makes Dornan look like a matinee idol. | null | null | null | null | null |
BALTIMORE — Three men, including an anti-violence worker, were killed in a shooting in East Baltimore on Wednesday night, police said.
In July, Safe Streets Cherry Hill worker Kenyell Wilson was fatally shot. Last January, Safe Streets leader Dante Barksdale was shot and killed. He had served time in prison and was the nephew of Nathan Barksdale, whose crimes and run-ins with police inspired characters and story lines in HBO’s “The Wire.”
Mayor Brandon Scott called the shooting “a horrific tragedy,” saying that Safe Streets workers put their lives on the line “because they believe in a better future for our city — a future we all should believe in.” | null | null | null | null | null |
New York police said they are looking for a woman who was captured on video spitting on an 8-year-old Jewish boy on Friday and telling him and his young siblings that Hitler should have killed them. The woman has yet to be publicly identified. (Screenshot via YouTube/CBS New York; New York Police Department)
The incident outside the Kehal Tiferet Avrohom Ziditshov Orthodox synagogue unfolded Friday after 12:30 p.m. Surveillance video released by the New York Police Department shows a woman dressed in an orange hoodie, black leggings and black Uggs marching up to a group of children in the Marine Park section of Brooklyn. When she got in front of the children — ages 2, 7 and 8 — she began to shout “anti-Jewish statements” at them, authorities said.
Aryah Fried, the father of the three children, told CBS New York that his kids remained rattled after the woman, whom they had not seen before, approached them while they were playing outside the synagogue.
Neighbors have put up posters around the area in recent days in hopes of locating the woman involved in the incident. One neighbor told CBS New York that the woman in the attack was the kind of person she would have taught her children to look to for help in situations where they felt unsafe. That has now changed, she said. | null | null | null | null | null |
Race in America: The Power of Representation with Rep. Tony Gonzales (R-Tex.)
Rep. Tony Gonzales (R-Tex.), whose district stretches from El Paso to San Antonio, was recently named co-chair of the Congressional Hispanic Conference. On Friday, Jan. 28 at 10:00 a.m. ET, Gonzales joins congressional reporter Marianna Sotomayor to discuss the organization’s policy priorities, the Republican party’s gains with Latinos and why he is urging conservatives to talk more about race.
Rep. Tony Gonzales (R-Tex.)
Provided by the office of Rep. Tony Gonzales (R-Tex.)
Congressman Tony Gonzales is a freshman member of Congress, who sits on the House Appropriations Committee and co-chairs the Congressional Hispanic Conference. He represents Texas’ Texas’ 23rd Congressional District, which encompasses over 820 miles of U.S.-Mexico border and spans from El Paso to San Antonio.
Prior to being elected to Congress, Congressman Gonzales spent two decades in the U.S. Navy, dropping out of high school to enlist at 18. He served several tours in Iraq, Afghanistan and Asia as a cryptologist. Congressman Gonzales retired in 2019 at the rank of Master Chief Petty Officer. He holds a Master’s degree in International Relations from American Public University, a graduate certificate in Legislative Studies from Georgetown University and is a Ph.D. candidate in International Development at the University of Southern Mississippi. Congressman Gonzales is married to his wife, Angel, and they have six wonderful children. | null | null | null | null | null |
Jack Spahr Sr., insurance broker
Jack Spahr Sr., 96, an insurance broker who operated his own business in Arlington, Va., died Dec. 29 at his home in Falls Church, Va. He had skin cancer and kidney failure, said a son, Jack Spahr Jr.
Mr. Spahr was born in Eldorado, Ill., and moved to the Washington area in 1940. Thirty years ago, he retired from his insurance brokerage, where he specialized in life and casualty insurance.
Joseph Presel, ambassador
Joseph Presel, 79, a career Foreign Service officer whose specialties included Russian affairs and political-military affairs and who served as ambassador to Uzbekistan from 1997 to 2000, died Dec. 19 at his home in Washington. The cause was a heart attack, said a friend, Gregory Wierzynski.
Mr. Presel was born in Providence. He was in the Foreign Service from 1963 to 2003, and his final assignment was as a professor at the Naval War College in Newport, R.I. In 1993, in the aftermath of the 1991 dissolution of the Soviet Union, he became deputy to the coordinator of U.S. assistance to the Newly Independent States (NIS) and coordinator for NIS regional affairs. In retirement he worked at the CIA and taught Russian history at several universities.
Charles 'Stu' Kennedy Jr., Foreign Service officer, historian
Charles “Stu” Kennedy Jr., 93, a retired Foreign Service officer who became an oral historian of U.S. diplomacy through a program of the nonprofit Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training, died Jan. 2 at a retirement community in Falls Church, Va. The cause was congestive heart failure, said Susan Johnson, president of the association.
Mr. Kennedy was born in Chicago and joined the Foreign Service in 1955. He served in seven countries, including as consul general in Saigon during the Vietnam War and later as principal officer in Naples. He retired in 1986 with the rank of minister counselor.
As founder and developer of the ADST’s Foreign Affairs Oral History Program, Mr. Kennedy worked another 35 years interviewing more than 1,200 retired diplomats on the details of their careers. Secretary of State George P. Shultz once described the oral history project as “integral to safekeeping our nation’s history, documenting the vast variety of settings in which our diplomacy takes place, identifying work that has succeeded, and studying the causes of less successful results.” | null | null | null | null | null |
New York police said they are looking for a woman who was captured on video spitting on an 8-year-old Jewish boy on Jan. 14 and telling him and his young siblings that Hitler should have killed them. The woman has yet to be publicly identified. (Screenshot via YouTube/CBS New York; New York Police Department)
The incident outside the Kehal Tiferes Avrohom Ziditshov Orthodox synagogue unfolded Friday after 12:30 p.m. Surveillance video released by the New York Police Department shows a woman dressed in an orange hoodie, black leggings and black Uggs marching up to a group of children in the Marine Park section of Brooklyn. When she got in front of the children — ages 2, 7 and 8 — she began to shout “anti-Jewish statements” at them, authorities said.
Aryah Fried, the children’s father, told CBS New York that his kids remained rattled after the woman, whom they had not seen before, approached them while they were playing outside the synagogue.
Neighbors have put up posters around the area in recent days in the hope of locating the woman involved in the incident. One neighbor told CBS New York that the woman in the attack was the kind of person she would have taught her children to look to for help in situations where they felt unsafe. That has now changed, she said. | null | null | null | null | null |
Bertha Morgan, defense analyst
Bertha Morgan, 95, who retired in 1986 as a Defense Intelligence Agency analyst after 35 years of federal service, died Nov. 16 at a medical facility in Largo, Md. The cause was Parkinson’s disease and heart disease, said a daughter, Carolyn Baker.
Mrs. Morgan, a resident of Mitchellville, Md., was born Bertha Guy in what then was Bullfrog Corner, now Southhaven, Miss. She worked for the Bureau of Printing and Engraving and other agencies before joining DIA. She was a 45-year member of Emmanuel Baptist Church in Washington.
Lawrence Bennett, physicist
Lawrence Bennett, 91, a physicist from 1958 to 1996 with what became the National Institute of Standards and Technology who then spent two decades as a professor at George Washington University, died Dec. 30 at a continuing care facility in Baltimore. The cause was dementia, said a daughter, Claire Freeland.
Dr. Bennett was a New York City native. At NIST, his specialty was nuclear magnetic resonance with metals. A former resident of Bethesda, Md., he moved to Baltimore in 2016.
Jane Alper, antiques dealer
Jane Alper, 95, who ran her self-titled antiques business at her home, from 1968 to 1998, died Jan. 2 at her home in Bethesda, Md. The cause was vascular dementia, said a son, John Alper.
Mrs. Alper was born Jane Liebling in Baltimore. Her business specialized in 16th- and 17th-century English oak furniture. | null | null | null | null | null |
Reps. Ashley Hinson (R-Iowa) and Kay Granger (R-Tex.) voted against the $1.2 trillion bipartisan infrastructure deal in November, but they are now touting funding for projects in their home states thanks to the measure.
Ultimately, only 13 House Republicans voted for the infrastructure bill — and were heavily criticized by former president Donald Trump for doing so. Some, like Rep. Fred Upton (R-Mich.) received threatening messages after voting for the bill.
Hinson’s promotion of the funds earmarked by the bill didn’t go unnoticed by Democrats. In a tweet, Iowa state Sen. Liz Mathis (D), who is running against Hinson for the House seat, accused Hinson of “taking credit for work she didn’t do.” | null | null | null | null | null |
Foley is among legal scholars who have advocated for reforming the 1887 law that governs the counting of electoral college votes so there is no ambiguity about what Congress should do if confronted with dueling slates. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) has signaled that he is open to the debate. | null | null | null | null | null |
Coronavirus: Impact on Children with Kurt Newman, MD
With the continued spread of the omicron variant, new hospitalizations for children under 18 have hit record highs, leaving children’s hospitals reeling from an unprecedented strain. On Tuesday, Jan. 25 at 10:00 a.m. ET, Kurt Newman, MD, president and CEO of Children’s National Hospital, joins Washington Post Live to talk about the outsized impact of coronavirus on children and the path forward for pediatric vaccine distribution.
Kurt Newman, MD
Provided by Children’s National Hospital.
Dr. Kurt Newman is President and Chief Executive Officer of Children’s National Hospital in Washington, D.C. Children’s National is ranked as one of the top 10 children’s hospitals in the United States and number one in neonatology by U.S. News & World Report.
Dr. Newman is a surgeon and recognized leader in pediatric healthcare nationally and in Washington, D.C. Since becoming CEO of Children’s National in 2011, he has fostered a culture of patient-centered care and championed a culture of innovation in research, operations and clinical care. Dr. Newman is also a strong advocate for expanding mental health access for kids and has led two national forums on this issue.
Dr. Newman joined Children’s National as a surgical fellow in 1984 and became surgeon-in-chief and senior vice president for the Joseph E. Robert, Jr. Center for Surgical Care in 2003. In 2009, he was instrumental in securing the transformational $150 million gift to create the Sheikh Zayed Institute for Pediatric Surgical Innovation at Children’s National. The institute has the bold vision of making surgery for children minimally invasive and pain-free.
Dr. Newman serves on several boards, including, but not limited to, the board of the Economic Club of Washington, Greater Washington Board of Trade, Federal City Council, D.C. Chamber of Commerce, Fight for Children, YMCA Camp Sea Gull/Seafarer and Corus International. Previously, he served on the Board of Commissioners of The Joint Commission, the Board of Governors of the American Pediatric Surgical Association, and as chair of the Surgery Section of the American Academy of Pediatrics. He is also a past chair of the Board of Directors for the District of Columbia Hospital Association and the Children’s Hospital Association (CHA) Board of Trustees. He now serves as the chair of the Governance Committee for CHA.
Dr. Newman is a professor of surgery and pediatrics at the George Washington University School of Medicine and Public Health. He is the author of a 2017 medical memoir, Healing Children: A Surgeon’s Stories from the Frontiers of Pediatric Medicine. The book debuted as an Amazon bestseller in pediatrics and earned national attention and critical praise in The New York Times Book Review, The Washington Post and Harvard Business Review. 100 percent of the proceeds from his book go to pediatric research.
In 2021, Dr. Newman received the CEO of the Year award from the Washington Business Journal. It’s the publication’s highest honor. | null | null | null | null | null |
While Black immigrants have much in common with both U.S.-born Black Americans and other immigrant groups, their experience stands apart in a number of ways. Nearly a third of Black immigrants over the age of 25 have a college degree, compared with 22 percent of U.S.-born Black Americans, the Pew report notes. Black immigrant households have a higher median income— $57,200 — compared with U.S.-born Black households at $42,000, but lower than that of other immigrant-led households.
While less than 5 percent of all immigrants admitted in 2019 came through the diversity visa program, 12 percent of immigrants from sub-Saharan Africa entered the country via that path. And while foreign-born Black people were less likely than other immigrant groups to live in the country without authorization, the Pew study found that 14 percent of Black immigrants were undocumented. Data from the Black Alliance for Just Immigration, however, shows that Black immigrants from Africa are twice as likely to face deportation because of a criminal conviction compared with other immigrant groups, and more than three times as likely to be detained while their cases are pending. | null | null | null | null | null |
Roy Choi’s ‘Broken Bread’ is a food show that’s really about gentrification and other social issues
“Our mission statement is looking at broken food systems and finding good people doing great things against all odds,” the Los Angeles chef says
Roy Choi meets the people actively preserving Latinx cuisine in Los Angeles. (Randall Michelson)
By Rachel Hatzipanagos
The typical celebrity chef food show follows a familiar formula: chef visits a new locale each week, shepherded by a local to restaurants where they eat mouthwatering dishes over a good conversation.
Los Angeles chef Roy Choi wanted to do something different with his show “Broken Bread.”
“People love looking at food on TV and so it’s kind of weirdly disguised as a food show,” Choi said. Each episode, Choi interviews nonprofits, restaurateurs and other leaders in the community who are tackling social justice issues such gentrification, cultural erasure and food deserts — and yes, with a healthy side serving of foodie glamour shots.
About US spoke with Choi about the new season of the show, which premieres Jan. 25 and is made by Tastemade and Southern California’s PBS station KCET.
Q: The format for the show is something different from a lot of what shows about chefs and food usually do. Why go with this particular format?
A: I guess it’s because these are the things that I care about and that I do every day, with or without a camera. Feeding the streets, feeding neighborhoods, creating pathways allying myself with organizations and cooking up the resistance, that’s what I do.
Every single day in my life, I’m in the trenches, but for some reason life has given me this opportunity to kind of step through different worlds. So even though I’m in the trenches, I’m also in Hollywood. I have one foot here and one foot there, so for me, I do have this access, I do have this opportunity to have a show … And so I got to make sure that if the world is listening to me and in one crazy way or another, I’m going to make sure they hear what’s really going on, but not hear it in a way where they’re at fault or blaming anyone but hear it like truly from the heart.
There are systematic resources being stripped every single day through generations and generations, and those things have to be addressed at some point in life. I just wanted to make a show where there are no sides and we bring up the issue and we just try to provide solutions and the people who are active with those solutions that can show you that there are answers to these big problems.
Q: On the show you talk a lot about gentrification. As your restaurants have become more successful, how do you balance success and not becoming an agent of gentrification yourself?
A: Well, we try to address that head-on in the Chinatown episode … As we were doing our research and trying to figure out the storyboard and the story line of the episode, I offered up my own personal experience of opening a restaurant in Chinatown in 2013.
What happens is one shop opens and then all of a sudden the media gets behind it. And then it gets heralded as the new hot neighborhood town, right? “The foodie destination” and all of that happened. And from that, maybe 30 to 40 new vendors came in, and it was everything from coffee shops to restaurants, artisan tea shops, all these things. So I just wanted to look at that and really personalize the story of gentrification and ask: Did I start all this? Who was displaced? What did I miss in 2013 because my intentions were pure? Also, we were asking a double question of: If you come from that neighborhood itself, can you still be a gentrifier? …
When we opened that restaurant in 2013, it was pure intentions, but now looking back, I realize it did displace people. It displaced a lot of seniors and recent immigrants. And then with the onslaught of the media labeling it the next hottest neighborhood in Los Angeles, landlords got on top of that and something that they could charge $800 for it now they could charge $3,800 for, and I think we came out of that episode with some answers.
I think we should be sensitive and aware and knowledgeable of neighborhoods when we go in, and there should be some financial way that helps the neighborhood. And that’s the thing that we came out with in the episode, whether that’s a surcharge, where every purchase that you make goes to providing an oversight committee fund that can work with developers and small merchants and the residents and always create a balance.
Maybe there’s a share of profits that happens, you know? And then eventually, with that momentum, go to local and city regional governments to get allocated funds. Again, just trying to keep a balance because right now, everything is so unbalanced. But for me personally, I don’t really struggle or have too many demons with what I do … I really try to always, even in growth, make sure that whatever I have is always still accessible to people. Like if you look at my main business, the Kogi taco truck, in 13 years we’ve only raised the price of our taco like 35 cents, you know? For me, it’s just really important to run businesses that are holistic, that aren’t just about profit.
Q: What did you want to show about Los Angeles that hasn’t been seen before when you came up with the idea for this show?
A: I just wanted to show the real neighborhoods and the streets and the issues that exist in real-time. And you know, selfishly, I wanted to put a lot of faces that aren’t on screen regularly on screen. I’m talking about Brown and Black faces, people who I hang out with every single day of my life. Us as immigrants and minorities are in a country where we don’t have shows that ever really put us on, you know? And so I wanted to make sure that if I was going to executive produce and host my own show, I wanted to make sure that there is representation and show the real city, show the real L.A.
And then that grew into what we where we are now, with Season 2, where we start with L.A. but we go up the state all throughout California. But with the same ethos, like showing like real life, real people on the ground.
Our mission statement is looking at broken food systems and finding good people doing great things against all odds … when you have that as your mission statement, things naturally fall in place. We don’t do a casting call or anything. We’re not like choosing, “Okay, we’re going to have like three White people, four Latinos and five Asians.” It’s nothing like that. Just when you have that purpose in life and you naturally go out there, you’re putting yourself in an environment where real people are doing real [expletive], and in most cases, the majority of those people are people of color, because a lot of the issues exist within communities of color.
Q: What do you see as the future of the show?
A: I never thought of it when we were even starting Season 2 or even all the way through Season 1, but I think that the show can go international because these problems exist everywhere in the world.
There are fighters and soldiers and healers and fixers all throughout the world and on the ground trying to care for their communities. And I think that the show can bring that to light whether that’s in Colombia, Uruguay, El Salvador, Vietnam.
I feel like the show cannot only be a food show. We’re trying to figure out the riddle of how do you address these issues that are really personally important to us without them feeling too political … where people will tune out. If we were to have sit-downs and just lay out the facts, I think it would be a different show. You know, people would choose sides, you know? But by it being through the lens of food, I think it allows everyone to see the humanity within it and maybe, maybe connect with it in a way that they wouldn’t have. | null | null | null | null | null |
Nancy Matthews, exhibits director
Nancy Matthews, 94, who retired in 2008 as director of international exhibits for Meridian International Center, a Washington nonprofit organization that promotes international understanding, died Jan. 7 at an assisted-living facility in Missoula, Mont. The cause was complications of a hip injury, said a daughter, Elizabeth Johns.
Mrs. Matthews was born Nancy Henneberger in Chambersburg, Pa. She accompanied her husband on his Foreign Service assignments before joining Meridian in 1983. In retirement, she moved to Missoula from Chevy Chase, Md.
David Osnos, law firm partner
David Osnos, 89, a partner in the Washington law firm Arent Fox who specialized in real estate law, tax, securities, estate planning and represented such professional sports teams as the Wizards, the Capitals and the Mystics, died Jan. 9 at his home in Bethesda, Md. The cause was pneumonia, said a granddaughter, Corinne Osnos.
Mr. Osnos was born in Detroit. He joined Arent Fox in 1956 and retained his affiliation with the firm until his death. For 20 years, he chaired the firm’s executive committee. According to a Washington Post profile, he handled a range of blue chip clients including Clark Construction; Washington Real Estate Investment Trust; VSE, the government contracting firm; and Abe Pollin’s sports and real estate empire. In 2004, the publication Legal Times said he was leading real estate lawyer in the District.
James Gieser, systems engineer
James Gieser, 82, a Unisys software quality assurance systems engineer who worked on a contract with NASA at the Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., for 12 years before retiring in 2003, died Dec. 16 at his home in Chevy Chase, Md. The cause was Lewy-body dementia, said a niece, Kristina Rolfes.
Mr. Gieser was born in Washington and grew up in Garrett Park, Md. He spent his early career as a math and science teacher in the San Francisco public school system. He later was an engineer with the Army Research Institute and Vitro Corp. before joining Unysis. He was a trustee and deacon at Westmoreland Congregational United Church of Christ in Bethesda. | null | null | null | null | null |
Rebecca Robinson, rental site director
Rebecca Robinson, 70, who retired in 2015 as director of rental events at the Woodend Sanctuary and Mansion, an Audubon Naturalist Society property in Chevy Chase, Md., died Jan. 13 at her home in Kensington, Md. The cause was cancer, said her husband, Scott Robinson.
Mrs. Robinson was born Rebecca Crown in Celina, Ohio, and moved to the Washington area in 1981. She retired five years ago from Woodend after 26 years at the site.
Victor Kimm, EPA executive
Victor Kimm, 87, who spent nearly 25 years at the Environmental Protection Agency and oversaw the office of drinking water and served as deputy assistant administrator in the office of pesticides and toxic substances, died Nov. 19 at a hospital in Arlington, Va. The cause was complications of congestive heart failure, said a daughter, Victoria Bak.
Mr. Kimm, a resident of McLean, Va., was born in Brooklyn. He came to Washington in 1966 and worked in a federal anti-poverty program, the Economic Development Administration, before joining the new EPA in 1971.
From 1995 to 2001, he taught public policy and program management at the University of Southern California’s Graduate School of Public Administration. He was a president and board member of Share of McLean, a volunteer church- and synagogue-based program of assistance to needy families and individuals.
Robert Bell, consultant, business executive
Robert Bell, 89, a former business consultant, chief executive of a jobs training program, and program manager at the National Science Foundation, died Nov. 3 at a medical facility in Las Vegas. The cause was cardiac arrest, said a daughter, Kamin Samuel.
Mr. Bell was born in Augusta, Ga. In the Washington area starting in 1972, he was an area director for the Peace Corps, a dean at Montgomery College and a housing adviser. In 1999 he moved to Las Vegas from Potomac, Md.
Phyllis Donnelly, clerk-typist
Phyllis Donnelly, 97, a clerk-typist at the Air Force Office of Scientific Research in the late 1970s and a choir singer at Southminster Presbyterian Church in Oxon Hill, Md., died Sept. 20 at her daughter’s home in Vacaville, Calif. The cause was cancer, said her daughter Nancy Donnelly.
Mrs. Donnelly was born Phyllis Acker in Chicago. She moved to the Washington area during World War II and was a hostess and dance partner at the Stage Door Canteen, which provided entertainment for service members.
She did secretarial work for the Agriculture Department and other federal agencies early in her career, and lived in the District and Oxon Hill as well as in Europe before retiring to Tampa in the mid-1980s. She moved to California about four years ago. | null | null | null | null | null |
A customer buys an Antigen Rapid Testing Self-Test Kits at a vending machine in Singapore in September 2021. (Lauryn Ishak/Bloomberg)
Brits are testing before book club
Brits test as part of quarantine rules, but also before meeting friends for book club or taking their kids to a birthday party or visiting elderly relatives. They might share their negative results with each other on WhatsApp before heading over — or offer condolences to anyone whose positive keeps them at home. Although people are also encouraged to upload their results to a government app, only a small fraction of people actually do.
But this massive national experiment hasn’t been cheap. It’s cost the government more than $8 billion. And as Britain attempts to “live with” the virus, in hopes of shifting from pandemic to endemic status, free rapid tests may come to an end. Johnson told Parliament on Wednesday that the tests will be offered “for as long as is necessary.” A few hours later, Health Secretary Sajid Javid said they “won’t remain free indefinitely.”
Allyson Pollock, a professor of public health at the University of Newcastle, is among those who thinks mass testing should stop. She argues that it’s hugely expensive and under-evaluated and gives people “false reassurance.”
“We’re flooded with antigen tests. Drugstores, supermarkets — there are boxes and boxes all over the place,” said John Lee, 50, an American living in Singapore. He said friends back in the States have jokingly asked if he wouldn’t mind sending over a few packs.
While people in Singapore need to be vaccinated to do most things — like going to the mall or a coffee shop — he said locals use the antigen tests when they are aren’t feeling well and when they are traveling. After he returned from the States this month, his family of four had to do a series of PCR and antigen tests, including about 16 self-administered tests over the course of a week. In some cases, they had to go into a physical center so officials could supervise the testing.
India is experiencing its third wave of the virus, with more than 300,000 reported daily cases. That is presumed to be an undercount, as doctors warn many people aren’t reporting their home test results. In Mumbai, the city administration last week mandated that pharmacies keep records of customers buying home tests and that customers, in turn, upload their results, positive or negative.
But when her 15-month-old daughter developed covid symptoms in late December, the family was able to use rapid tests — and took steps to isolate immediately after Gosh’s husband tested positive. | null | null | null | null | null |
She will take on Del. Jazz Lewis (D), a protege of House Majority Leader Steny H. Hoyer (D-Md.), who endorsed him; Glenn Ivey, who served as county state’s attorney from 2002 to 2010 before running unsuccessfully against Brown in 2016; and former delegate Angela Angel, who served two terms in the House of Delegates and advocated for domestic-violence-prevention legislation. Ivey put out his first radio ad campaign Thursday, highlighting his record as a prosecutor and his development of a domestic-abuse unit and after-school programs for at-risk youth.
In a campaign video announcing her run, she highlighted a three-month, 12,000-mile road trip she took in 2017 that she said she took to learn more about the country during President Donald Trump’s administration, bonding with people she met over the costs of insulin and the cost of her own medicine for multiple sclerosis, “bringing my perspective as a Black woman from Prince George’s County to the national conversation.” | null | null | null | null | null |
Foley is among legal scholars who have advocated for changing the 1887 law that governs the counting of electoral college votes so there is no ambiguity about what Congress should do if confronted with dueling slates. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) has signaled that he is open to the debate. | null | null | null | null | null |
NEWARK, Del. — A person was found dead inside a burning townhouse in Newark on Wednesday night, Delaware fire investigators said.
Firefighters were called to a home on Council Circle around 10 p.m. and found flames shooting from a middle-of-the-row townhouse, the Delaware State Fire Marshal’s office said in a news release. One person was found dead inside, officials said. No other injuries were reported.
Damage from the blaze is estimated at $200,000, officials said. State fire investigators are investigating the fire’s origin and cause.
The Delaware Division of Forensic Science will conduct an autopsy to identify the victim and determine a cause of death. | null | null | null | null | null |
An “exile” from the American South finds the nation’s soul there
BIRMINGHAM, AL - June 19: People are seen near a memorial sculpture memorializing Martin Luther King Jr. during a Black Voters Matter event on June19, 2021 in Birmingham, Alabama. The four girls were killed during the 16th Street Baptist Church bombing by members of the ku Klux Klan in 1963. LaTosha Brown and Cliff Albright, co-founders of Black Voters Matter and other members of the organization are taking part in a Freedom Ride during a bus tour through Black Belt states to Washington DC for voting rights as Republican political leaders in several states propose new voting laws to limit voter access. The U.S. Senate is scheduled to vote on a voting rights bill on Tuesday, June 22 at the U.S. Capitol in Washington DC. (Joshua Lott/The Washington Post) | null | null | null | null | null |
Prince Andrew easily could have won his bid to get the suit against him tossed
If his accuser lives in Australia, not Colorado, the federal court in Manhattan has no jurisdiction
Prince Andrew is featured on the front pages of British newspapers on Jan. 13, the day after he lost his bid to have a civil lawsuit filed against him in New York dismissed. (Andy Rain/EPA-EFE/REX/Shutterstock)
By James D. Zirin
James D. Zirin is a former federal prosecutor in the Southern District of New York.
Prince Andrew’s social media accounts began shutting down this week, days after Queen Elizabeth II stripped her second son of his remaining military and royal roles. But that doesn’t mean he will fade quietly into privileged exile out of the public eye: Last week he failed to win dismissal of the civil lawsuit brought against him in Manhattan federal court by Virginia Giuffre, who accuses him of inflicting battery by sexual assault and intentional infliction of emotional distress when she was a minor. Now he probably will have to face trial in New York.
Prince Andrew might have avoided that fate had he not made the wrong motion to dismiss. His team argued that there was “legal insufficiency” to bring the case. He should have moved instead to dismiss for lack of jurisdiction. Giuffre may have been living in Australia at the time she filed the suit last summer, and that would make such a case a dispute between foreigners. The federal court in Manhattan could wash its hands of it.
At the core of Giuffre’s allegations was convicted sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein, who, facing up to 45 years in prison, was found dead in his jail cell in July 2019 while awaiting trial on additional sex trafficking charges involving teenage girls. Giuffre alleged that Epstein and others trafficked her to the prince, “who took advantage of her situation by sexually abusing her when she was under the age of 18.” The prince moved to dismiss on grounds that Giuffre’s claim was legally insufficient, a factor that Judge Lewis A. Kaplan ruled to be of “central importance.”
A defendant is allowed to test for legal insufficiency at the outset of any case, which amounts to the defendant asking: Suppose I did spit on the sidewalk, or whatever was alleged; have I done anything against the law? The judge noted that when a defendant makes a motion to dismiss for legal insufficiency, the court has “the unyielding duty to assume — for the purposes of this motion only — the truth of all the plaintiff’s allegations and to draw in plaintiff’s favor all inferences that reasonably may be drawn from those allegations.”
The court, at this stage of the proceedings, was prohibited from evaluating Andrew’s efforts to tell his side of the story and discredit Giuffre’s allegations. That is a matter left for trial.
Which side does the Epstein case benefit more? Who cares.
The outlook for having the case thrown out was not brilliant for the prince to begin with. He alleged that Giuffre had received $500,000 in a 2009 Florida settlement with Epstein, which not only released Epstein but also unnamed “potential defendants.” The prince, who was not party to the settlement, claimed that from the language of the release, he got something akin to group coverage. The judge, however, found that the settlement document was “far from a model of precise drafting” and was “riddled with ambiguity.”
It was not for the judge to decide at this juncture what the 2009 settlement actually meant or what was the intention of the settling parties. The term “potential defendant” could mean anyone who met Giuffre and knew Epstein.
The prince’s lawyers had to have known that the agreement was ambiguous and that the judge would decide there were two or more possible interpretations of the agreement — the correct one being for a jury to decide.
Buckingham Palace immediately read the opinion and said the prince would lose his military titles and honorary leadership of various charities, and would no longer be addressed as “your royal highness.”
These devastating penalties came despite the judge’s declaration that “nothing in this opinion or previously in these proceedings may be construed as indicating a view with respect to the truth of the charges or countercharges or as to the intention of the parties in entering into the 2009 agreement.”
Nevertheless, Andrew stood damned by legal convention.
But the prince’s lawyers may well have won dismissal with a different motion — one that would not have paraded Giuffre’s allegations before the public.
Federal courts have limited jurisdiction. Giuffre’s complaint alleged that the court had “diversity jurisdiction over this dispute pursuant to 28 U.S.C §1332(a)(2).” That statute provides that the federal courts will have “original jurisdiction” of an action between citizens of different states or between a citizen of a state and a subject of a foreign country. Therefore, if the suit is between foreigners, such as an American citizen domiciled abroad and a foreigner, there is no jurisdiction in the federal court, the court has no power to act, and the case must be dismissed.
Giuffre alleges that when she brought her complaint in August 2021, the key time for measuring her domicile, or permanent home, she was a citizen of Colorado. She had moved around a bit since her April 2019 complaint accusing Harvard law professor Alan Dershowitz of sexual misconduct. At that time, she claimed she was a “citizen of Florida and a resident of Australia,” where she and her husband had bought a $1.9 million home. The prince claimed that she had not lived in Colorado since at least 2019 and possibly since October 2015, and demanded discovery on this issue, which Giuffre has yet to make. But if Australia was in fact Giuffre’s domicile last August, there would be no “diversity of citizenship” jurisdiction, since the suit against the prince, for the purposes of the law, would be one between foreigners.
Following discovery, the facts may disclose that Giuffre really lives in Australia and no other place. Or they may show she had a ski chalet in Colorado where she intended to spend winters. At this point, we do not know, but whichever way it turns out, the prince has put the cart before the horse. His reputation is further blackened, and he has lost a motion he could not possibly have won. | null | null | null | null | null |
No Democrat has been as integrated into the effort to institute accountability for the riot at the Capitol last year as Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.). Raskin led the prosecution during President Donald Trump’s second impeachment trial last February, arguing that Trump’s incitement of the riot warranted conviction. He is also a member of the small bipartisan House committee formed to investigate the riot.
You can see how this devolves into unanswerable what-ifs. If Vice President Pence or Republican legislators had tried to reject submitted electoral votes, it’s extremely unlikely that the Democrats would have shrugged. Given the stated reticence of military leaders to be seen as intervening in the election, it’s not a certainty that Trump’s effort to declare martial law would itself have had any effect. There were lots of ways things could have gone; where they went was, all else aside, one of the less dire conclusions.
But back to Raskin’s described hierarchy. He outlines three tiers of efforts to block President Biden’s election on that day: the mob itself, those who came to the Capitol with the goal of inciting violence and the relatively academic effort to block electoral votes being undertaken inside the building.
Most of those arrested, though, didn’t. The total number of arrests is by now well over 700. Among that group, most are charged with non-violent offenses, like trespassing. And then, of course, there were uncountable hundreds or thousands more who either haven’t been arrested or who entered the Capitol grounds and are unlikely to face any criminal charges.
This hierarchy also helps us organize the subpoenas issued by the Jan. 6th committee. They’ve been issued in clusters, often but not always reflecting shared roles in the events of the day.
Most recently, they subpoenaed members of Trump’s legal team (“Attorneys” on the above graphic) who had worked to amplify false claims about election fraud prior to Jan. 6. That includes former New York mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani, but, given his role in trying to coordinate the response from the Willard hotel during the riot (and calls to senators encouraging them to slow down the electoral-vote count) he warrants inclusion in the group I labeled “Outside allies." (Subpoena circles are scaled to the number of people or organizations targeted by the subpoenas.)
House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.), who spoke with Trump during the riot,
A number of outside advisers including people like Justice Department official Jeffrey Clark, who helped advance a plan to overhaul leadership of federal law enforcement in the days before the riot,
Other outside allies like Michael Flynn, Katrina Pierson and Stephen K. Bannon, who were involved at the Willard hotel or in setting up the planned rallies that day,
Congressional allies like Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) who spoke with Trump regularly or who encouraged attendance at the rallies,
Chief of staff Mark Meadows and other members of the White House staff who interacted with Trump and/or were involved with the rally at the Ellipse,
The Ellipse event organizers, a number of people who helped plan the rally that Trump attended,
Non-Ellipse event organizers, a group that includes people involved in other parts of the day’s planned rallies (several of which were folded with the Ellipse one into a unified package),
The fringe organizers like Ali Alexander and Roger Stone who planned rallies but, on the day of the riot, were in the mix in other ways (including Stone being accompanied by Oath Keeper members), and | null | null | null | null | null |
Frandsen, then, was decided on by both the club and network. Details of his contract were not immediately known Thursday afternoon. This offseason, Carpenter signed on for two more years, according to multiple people with knowledge of the situation. The opening for Frandsen was created after the Nationals declined to bring back Santangelo, who had partnered with Carpenter for the past 11 seasons. | null | null | null | null | null |
Transcript: The Biden Administration: Cedric Richmond
MR. CAPEHART: Good morning. I’m Jonathan Capehart, opinion writer for The Washington Post. Welcome to Washington Post Live and another in our series on the Biden administration. From 2011 until 2021, Cedric Richmond represented the Second Congressional District of Louisiana. During that time, he also served as the chair of the Congressional Black Caucus. Today, the Biden presidency is officially one year old, and Richmond serves as the senior advisor to the president and director of the White House Office of Public Engagement. Joining me now, Cedric Richmond.
Mr. Richmond, welcome to Washington Post Live.
MR. RICHMOND: Jonathan, thanks for having me.
MR. CAPEHART: So, there's--the president did a marathon press conference on Wednesday, two hours, covered a lot of ground. Since you are a senior member of the administration, I'm going to start with a question on foreign policy. I don't know how much you can get into it. But, you know, I talked to U.N. Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield, who was direct and blunt about what the U.S. response will be if Russia rolls over the border with Ukraine. And at the press conference Wednesday, the president seemed to say--draw a distinction between, well, if it's a little incursion, it's one thing, but if it's all-out invasion, that's another. Now there appears to be concern in Ukraine and among the allies, U.S. allies about the United States’ resolve. Are they right to be concerned?
MR. RICHMOND: No, the President has been very clear with President Putin, that if any Russian military forces move across the Ukraine border, that's a renewed invasion, and it will be met with a swift, severe, and united response from the United States and our allies. So, you know, that's been his conversation with President Putin. I think he's been very direct, and I think that our allies know it.
MR. CAPEHART: On voting rights, as expected, the Freedom to Vote Act and the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act failed to pass the Senate, and then the Senate failed to pass a rule change to allow those two bills, those two vital bills to be passed by a simple majority vote. So, what now? What is the White House going to do? What can it do?
MR. RICHMOND: Well, I think--you know, I’ll start with I think yesterday was a defining moment. Last night, the country had a chance to see where people stood on protecting the right to vote. And, unfortunately, it didn't garner enough votes to break the filibuster, and we didn't get a rules change, which the president has advocated for. Early in administration, he advocated for a talking filibuster. And just two weeks ago in Atlanta, he advocated for a carveout or just removing the filibuster, if that's what it took to protect the fundamental right to vote. And so that's very important.
Where we go from is we don't stop, we cannot give up, and the struggle will continue. And that's how you make progress. So, we're going to--you’ll see the vice president really lean in and bring more people together to fight and move in the movement. And look, it's going to take us bringing in partners, allies. You’ll see us really continue to push. We're not giving up on this. It is absolutely too important of an issue for us to give in. The Justice Department will continue to do what they need to do in terms of combating these unconstitutional discriminatory voter suppression laws that are being passed on party line votes across this country with a simple majority. So, we're not--we're not giving in. Yesterday was not the end. We have renewed our commitment to push for the Freedom to Vote Act and the John Lewis Voting Rights bill.
MR. CAPEHART: You know, one of the things that is fascinating to me, and I think fascinating to a lot of Americans, is a point that the president made during his speech in Atlanta, and that was the Voting Rights bill was reauthorized by a unanimous vote out of the Senate, and that 16 of those Republicans who voted unanimously in 2006 continue to serve in the United States Senate today--16 Republicans, including Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell. Why do you think--what has changed in those 16 years where Republicans who thought nothing of voting for the reauthorization of the Voting Rights Act, won't even give the bill a vote so that it can be--those bills a vote so that they can be debated in 2022?
MR. RICHMOND: Simple. What's changed is Donald Trump. He's hijacked the Republican Party, and they have yet to display the courage to fight back. Unfortunately, they've allowed the former president to change their value system. Sixteen--you said it, the president said it in his speech--16 Republicans voted to renew the Voting Rights Act, and now because the former president and their, you know, desire to not be primaried has affected their willingness to do a bipartisan voting rights bill. And I've said this before, so this is nothing new. And I think the president's sentiment in Georgia echoed it, is that politicians worry about the next election. Statesmen worry about the next generation. And it is unfortunate that--what the former defeated president has been able to do to the Republican Party, and it is very clear that if he doesn't want something to happen, they're not going to--they're not going to do it.
And we know what he believes about elections. He's still pushing the big lie and saying that there was rampant voter fraud. The 2020 election should be celebrated. More people voted in the history of this country. It was a fair, safe, and accurate election, and he lost. But he can’t take that defeat, so he continues to question it. Republicans continue to patronize him. And unfortunately, this is where we wind up when people let things like that happen.
MR. CAPEHART: I want to come back to another question about Mitch McConnell. But in terms of, you know, casting doubt on the 2020 election, did President Biden in his press conference mean to cast doubt on the upcoming 2022 midterm elections with his comments yesterday?
MR. RICHMOND: No, absolutely not. I think what he was doing was celebrating the fact that in 2020, more Americans voted in the history of the United States. And then I think that what he was doing was highlighting the fact that some of these laws actually will allow people to subvert elections. And if that election subversion happens, then it would raise questions. And I think that's what he was trying to highlight.
MR. CAPEHART: All right, back to Mitch McConnell, because after the failed votes yesterday, the Senate minority leader was asked what he would say to voters of color who fear that they won't be able to vote in the midterms as a result of those two bills not passing. And he said, and I quote, “If you look at the statistics, African American voters are voting in just as high percentages as Americans.” Your reaction to that distinction?
MR. RICHMOND: I just--you know, it's unfortunate that the minority leader feels that way. And I think that if you look at African Americans and minorities, they have the most to lose in elections. If you look at this country's history of discrimination and racism, the fact that minorities want to vote, they may want to vote in a higher number than the majority population. I just think that, you know, they are searching for excuses for why they won't protect the right to vote. And I think that Mitch McConnell's statement shows that. I mean, this is not about voting in parity. This is about allowing every American that wants the right to exercise their right to vote to be able to vote. So, it just goes to show in my mind that they're doing intellectual gymnastics to justify a point that doesn't exist, and that is Donald Trump's stronghold over the Republican Party.
MR. CAPEHART: And everything you say there, I get. But the distinction that really troubled me and troubled a lot--a lot of people is the minority leader’s distinction between African American voters and American voters. And you know, sorry, Leader McConnell, but I, too, am American. So, it seems to me that the language that the minority leader used is again sort of trying to divide us from quote-unquote Americans versus others.
MR. RICHMOND: Well, unfortunately, that's been a consistent playbook in this Republican Party. Yeah. You know, their standard bearer, their president, when he announced, came down that elevator and talked about Hispanic Americans. He talked about immigrants. He's talked about African American football players. You know, he can condemn African American football players for taking a knee because they love this country and call them SOBs, but he can't condemn people who barge in the Capitol, of bearing the Confederate flag, trying to prevent the peaceful transfer of power? I mean, I really just--you know, we don't want to take a lot of time just bashing the former president, but he's reckless and he's taken over the Republican Party. So to see them divide I think is just consistent with what has happened since the president took over. The former president was elected, and Charlottesville. And that's why one of the big reasons why President Biden ran for office was to restore the soul of this country.
MR. CAPEHART: Let's talk about Build Back Better, because there seems to be some mixed messaging coming from Democrats writ large. Moderate Democrats want to pick it apart and pass the pieces that can get passed. The president said at the press conference that he wants--he wants another go at getting Build Back Better passed. So am I wrong to think that if Build Back Better passes, it will look nothing like the Build Back Better bill that stalled late last year, and that Democrats spent basically the better half of last year trying to get passed and not being able to do it?
MR. RICHMOND: I’m not sure that I would concede that, Jonathan. I think that the president is fighting for the framework that he laid out, and we're going to continue to fight for it. We're not conceding that it will be smaller. We're not conceding that we're going to leave pieces behind. Of course, this is passing legislation, so there's a lot of compromise that will be involved. But we've not moved off of our point of those things that we want and need in this legislation. It’s too important to the country. It’s too important to working families to help us ease inflation. And so we're going to continue to fight for it.
MR. CAPEHART: And I get that. But I mean, even if you were to pick it apart, even if Build Back Better didn't have everything that, you know, was in it last year, would still be an historic bill. So is there--would there be anything wrong with passing a Build Back Better bill that had childcare, eldercare, and say, something, a provision that doesn't come to mind right now related to the environment, or paid family leave, or a permanent funding extension of the Child Tax Credit? That would be huge. Just those--three of those things would be huge.
MR. CAPEHART: Would be huge. But it would also leave out historic investment in historically black colleges and universities, our investment in maternal health, our investment in community violence intervention across this country so that we can help fight crime in inner cities, help people that are formerly incarcerated reenter society. Those things are important. So, if you look at Build Back Better, it is--all of the things proposed are important to the president, even things that were left out when we got to the $1.75 trillion bill. But when you talk about three- and four-year-olds going to school as opposed to daycare, when you start talking about helping with childcare costs so that people can reenter the workforce, all of those things are important, and we're going to continue to fight for them. And you know, worst case--I think what the president was saying yesterday, worst case scenario, would we compromise? We would. But we shouldn't go--we should not go down that far. These things are absolutely important to the future of this country and working families in this country. So, we're not ready to concede that we're going to give anything up.
MR. CAPEHART: Well, Mr. Richmond, right now, reading the reporting, the Budget Committees, all four of them, in the Senate and the House, they’re right now meeting and negotiating and talking. Why couldn't some of these things that you say would be left off the table if only three things were to go into Build Back Better, why can't they be part of, I guess, regular order, being a part of the budget? Isn't that a way to get some of those things--get some of those things through without having to try to get them through in Build Back Better?
MR. RICHMOND: It's a possibility. But remember, we're operating now under a continuing resolution. And there's no guarantee that you're going to have appropriations bills. And right now, the president laid out a strategy during the campaign that he wanted to do the American Rescue Plan so that we could invest in vaccines and do all the things we were able to do there. We wanted to invest in infrastructure, our physical infrastructure, and then we wanted to invest in our human infrastructure and human capital. And we're not going to just concede and walk away from the human capital investment. It was all a part of our economic plan to keep this country on track, record job growth, all of those things, but at the same time, not leave working families behind. And we think that we ought to do it. We ought to do it now. And I think you're going to see a renewed effort to get Build Back Better across the finish line.
MR. CAPEHART: And the interesting thing about that point you're making about operating under a continuing resolution, it's a continuing resolution that keeps--it keeps in place the Trump budget, the budget from the Trump years.
MR. RICHMOND: Correct.
MR. CAPEHART: And I also understand the reason for trying to get things--as many things as possible into a Build Back Better framework is that it is under reconciliation rules, which would allow for it to pass with a simple majority vote. What grade would you give the president and the president's administration after year one? And be honest, because I mean, I know there's some self-interest in answering that question.
MR. RICHMOND: I would give us an A. And I'll just tell you why.
MR. CAPEHART: Really?
MR. RICHMOND: When we came in office--
MR. CAPEHART: Okay.
MR. RICHMOND: Let me go through it. When we came in office, almost 20 million people were unemployed. That number now is less than 2 million. We've added 6.4 million jobs to the economy. We have record economic growth. So, if you look at the economic side, although a lot of people don't talk about it, a lot of people don't brag about it, but the economy is roaring back. Let's go back 12 years when President Obama was elected. We had cars, but nobody could afford them. Now people can afford cars, and because of supply chain issues, the demand is up the supply is down. But the fact that people can afford them is a big difference than where we were 12 years ago. So on the economic front, I think that the president's plan is working. He's been able to pass two significant pieces of legislation that were vitally important, which was one of his planks. And go back, 2 million people were vaccinated when we took office. Now that number is well over 200 million. Almost 60 percent of the schools were closed when we took office. Now 96 percent of schools are open. The economy's open. America's not shut down. And I think that people have to just, when grading, look at where we started and then look at where we are. Some things were messy. Yes, Afghanistan was messy.
But you know what? If you left Afghanistan five years ago, it was going to be messy. If you leave Afghanistan five years from now, it was going to be messy. But the president said last night--and I think that people don't really think about the financial impact and the loss of life from us in Afghanistan--but we were spending over a billion dollars a week for 20 years in Afghanistan. And at some point, you had to leave. And if we stayed, we'd have to send in almost 50,000 troops to make sure that it was peaceful. And remember, we were not having American casualties because the former president made a deal with the Taliban that--for a ceasefire that we would leave.
Then another thing that was a big point for the president, this administration, was racial equity. And so when we saw police reform fail, the president acted, would ban chokeholds in federal law enforcement. We also limited the use of no-knock warrants. We made body cameras mandatory. We're going to do an executive order on policing soon. We've talked to law enforcement. We've talked to victims. We've talked to civil rights leaders. We've talked to legal scholars, and everyone else.
And we've also cut child poverty in half this year in the United States. We cut Latino poverty by 39 percent. We cut Asian American poverty by 22 percent. We cut African American poverty anywhere from 34 to 38 percent. So those things are humongous.
The fact that we're not going around taking a victory lap, it's because we’re keeping our head down and continuing to work because we have enormous challenges in this country, and we're going to continue to meet them. But if I went down just our record of accomplishments, it's a long list. But we don't have the luxury of just talking about our accomplishments, because we still have a lot of work to do.
And, by the way, sometimes we have to remind our friends, family, and foes that presidents are elected for four years. Today marks one year. So, we're 25 percent of the way through the presidency. But I think that his work over the last year has been extraordinary.
MR. CAPEHART: What would you say to the--to those folks who forget that the presidency is four years but for whom what's been happening in the headwinds the administration has been facing, is facing now and certainly the last half of his first year will have an impact on the 2022 midterm elections in November? What would you say to them?
MR. RICHMOND: I think that there's a time to go tout your record. It's not now. Now's the time to continue to put your head down and do the work. Getting COVID under control, making sure that Americans have tests, making sure that Americans have vaccines, making sure that Americans have access to new treatments for COVID. Those things are important.
MR. CAPEHART: Right. And I’m interrupting you because--
MR. RICHMOND: [Unclear] where we get to go do that.
MR. CAPEHART: And I’m interrupting you on that point because during the campaign the president promised that he could and that he would end the pandemic. But after his first year in office COVID cases are at an all-time high. Why has that promise been so hard to keep?
MR. RICHMOND: Well, what we're doing is protecting the safety and health of Americans. Two hundred million vaccines are available. And the president has talked about the pandemic. And if you look at infections, if you look at the death rate, we are making progress. Now omicron was a different variant. But we're going to continue to ask Americans to mask up, get vaccinated, get boosted, and do all those things, to protect ourselves. And we will follow the science wherever it goes. But we've been very intentional about making sure that every American can protect themselves and protect their family. And we've made those tools available to Americans to actually do that.
MR. CAPEHART: Now, back to the midterms. One of the things that Democrats in particular are worried about is if Republicans take back one or both houses of Congress, that the president's agenda, which is already having a hard time getting through, will just grind to a halt. How concerned is the White House about that? And how would that affect the president's ability to get things done?
Look, it's a very valid concern for Democrats. It's a concern that I have. And that's why it's important to go out and win the battle and contest of ideas. And we will continue to run on our record, the same thing we ran on. We’ll run on our accomplishments. But we'll also run on the fact that Republicans have obstructed everything that we've tried to do. We were able to do a bipartisan infrastructure bill that will remove lead pipes, expand broadband, fix our roads and bridges. We did an incredible investment in Minority Business Development Agency, all those things in a bipartisan bill.
But when you look at things like voting rights, and you look at other things, paid family leave, other things, Republicans have just obstructed. And it's not in--I would, you know, assert that it's not necessarily a value proposition. It’s just that they would rather see America struggle and fail so that they can win elections as opposed to coming together in the best interests of the country and moving this country forward.
MR. CAPEHART: I’ve got to get--we've got less than five minutes left, and I’ve got to get you on two questions.
MR. RICHMOND: Okay.
MR. CAPEHART: You know, Mr. Richmond, there’s been relentlessly negative press coverage that includes anonymous quotes from folks in the West Wing about the vice president, about Vice President Harris. Does--and it leads to this bigger question. Does the vice president have the confidence of the president and of the West Wing?
MR. RICHMOND: Absolutely. One hundred percent. And you know, that's part of my frustration with the press these days. We--you know, we read more about anonymous sources than named individuals, and anybody hiding behind, you know, cloak of darkness can say anything. But I'll tell you, I'm in senior advisor meetings every morning. I talk to the president regularly, and the vice president has our full confidence. We think she's doing an extraordinary job. We think that it's not an easy job. The presidency is not an easy job. And what you do when you don't have an easy job is put your head down, and you work your behind off. And that's what she's doing. That's what the president's doing. So, we have full, full confidence in the vice president, and we're proud of the work that she's doing.
MR. CAPEHART: And, Mr. Richmond, what specific policy goals can we expect to see prioritized in year two of the Biden administration?
MR. RICHMOND: Well, what we want to do in the short term is make sure that we get Build Back Better across the finish line so that we can ease supply chain issues, bring down inflation, continue to improve the economy, invest in our American families. That is job number one, along with protecting the right to vote. Those two things are still very critical for us, and we're going to continue to push those things. But we will also, you know, chew gum and walk at the same time, because there's other parts of the agenda that we want to do for working families. And we want to make sure that the tax system is fair and that those who, you know, have it pay their fair share. The middle class in this country has been shouldering a disproportionate share of the burden. And we think that that's unfair, and we're going to work on that also. So, we're not giving up on what the president laid out in his vision. And believe it or not, we're going to continue to work on unifying the country and restoring the soul of America.
MR. CAPEHART: You were actually a little more pithy than I--than I expected, so I’m going to squeeze in one more question. And that is, in terms of concern about inflation, should--does the administration, does the president expect that the 40-year high that we saw last year is starting to slide back? Can--six months from now, will we be looking at lower inflation than we had--than we have today?
MR. RICHMOND: Absolutely, that's the goal. But I think also, we also need to call out some of our corporate actors. And if you look at a Tyson's, for example, and what they're charging for their meat products, I think it was on their earnings call with the CEO that he said they we’re at record earnings last quarter, over a billion dollars. You know how we got record earnings? We raised prices. He didn't say that there was a need to raise prices. He didn't say that their materials and labor and all those things, the cost went up. What he said is we raised prices and we got record earnings. And so we need to make sure that we're holding everyone accountable. We're going to fix supply chain issues, but we can't--and we’ll try to deal with corporate greed.
MR. CAPEHART: Right.
MR. RICHMOND: But some of this, I believe, is profiteering during a pandemic.
MR. CAPEHART: And with that, we are going to have to leave it there. Cedric Richmond, senior adviser to President Biden, thank you very, very much for coming to Washington Post Live.
MR. RICHMOND: Thanks for having me.
MR. CAPEHART: And thank you for joining us. Head to WashingtonPostLive.com to register and to find more information about all of our upcoming programs. I’m Jonathan Capehart, opinion writer for The Washington Post. Thank you for tuning in to Washington Post Live. | null | null | null | null | null |
Ice storm warnings are up for Wilmington, N.C., and Myrtle Beach, S.C., while a winter storm watch is in effect for Virginia Beach
A high-resolution model simulating freezing rain in the Carolinas. (WeatherBell)
Southeast Virginia could experience a combination of ice and snow at times through Saturday morning. It’s under a winter weather advisory through Thursday night for a mix of icy precipitation and a winter storm watch Friday into Saturday for 4 to 6 inches of snow.
On Thursday morning, the first ingredient integral to Friday and Saturday’s winter storm — a cold front — was sliding through the Mid-Atlantic with less fanfare than originally anticipated. While a burst of moderate to heavy snow was predicted along the heavily traveled Interstate 95 corridor, only rain with a few wet flakes mixed in fell during the morning commute. | null | null | null | null | null |
The Washington Nationals unveiled a revamped player development staff this week, checking their biggest box in what’s otherwise been a quiet, lockout-dampened offseason. There are a lot of new names — some familiar, some less so — and added roles to sift through. And a lot of questions, too, a handful of which are asked and answered below.
Just how much bigger is the player development staff compared to last season? When The Washington Post analyzed 2021 player development sizes in December (concluding the Nationals had the smallest of all 30 teams), part-time coaches and instructors, clubhouse managers, equipment managers, special assistants, administrative staff and interns were not counted in each club’s total. Neither was anyone hired once the season began. That formula had the Nationals with 46 full-time employees working directly with minor league players last year. In December, General Manager Mike Rizzo promised an increase of “at least 24 percent” (not necessarily using The Post’s metrics).
What organizations did the Nationals hire from? Of the hires that became official Tuesday, three are from the Philadelphia Phillies and New York Mets, two from the Miami Marlins and San Diego Padres, and one each from the Boston Red Sox, Arizona Diamondbacks, Colorado Rockies, Pittsburgh Pirates, Detroit Tigers and San Francisco Giants. That’s 10 different organizations. Coco Crisp, the new outfield/baserunning coordinator, and Delwyn Young, new hitting coach for the low-A Fredericksburg Nationals, were managers in the inaugural MLB Draft League in 2021. Bill Mueller, the new quality control coordinator, was most recently the hitting coach at Arizona State University, but has major league coaching experience with the St. Louis Cardinals, Chicago Cubs and Los Angeles Dodgers.
It’s worth noting, though, that the minor league ladder doesn’t always work the same for coaches as it does for players. In some cases, organizations want their sharper hitting and pitching coaches at the lower levels, where players are more likely to make big fundamental changes and set their course. When The Post spoke with starter Wil Crowe last June, he raved about Hanrahan’s ability to spot mechanical issues, explain tweaks and, for Crowe, help increase velocity by preaching “hill connection” (keeping his back heel on the rubber for more of his delivery). Crowe, who was traded from the Nationals to Pirates in December 2021, said Hanrahan gave him tips he never heard as a prospect for Washington.
Other hires that drew some buzz among team officials this week: David Longley as director of player development technology and strategy (we’ll get to that in a second); Joe Dillon returning as hitting coordinator after two seasons as the Philadelphia Phillies’ hitting coach; and Crisp, a former big leaguer, as outfield/baserunning coordinator (there’s hope that Crisp and Eric Young Jr., the Nationals’ new first base coach, will improve baserunning throughout the organization).
This does not, however, mean Washington has caught up. Not in any sense. For many organizations, Longley would be leading a small- to medium-sized team of analysts and/or data-focused coaches and coordinators. His challenge now — and a challenge for the Nationals as a whole — is to change a player development culture that’s been slow to adopt new-age practices in recent years. They always had to start somewhere. | null | null | null | null | null |
The sweeping legislation will likely be subject to months of debate before a final vote.
The Louise Weiss building, the principle seat of the European Parliament, in Strasbourg, France. (Valeria Mongelli/Bloomberg)
The legislative arm of the 27-nation bloc voted overwhelmingly to given initial approval to the sprawling regulations set forth in the landmark Digital Services Act.
The European Parliament and Council of the European Union — the bloc’s union’s legislative bodies — are expected to debate the contents of the legislation for months before voting on a final version. | null | null | null | null | null |
Frandsen, then, was decided on by both the club and network. Details of his contract were not available Thursday afternoon. This offseason, Carpenter signed on for two more years, according to multiple people with knowledge of the situation. The opening for Frandsen was created after the Nationals declined to bring back Santangelo, who had partnered with Carpenter for the past 11 seasons. | null | null | null | null | null |
Some restaurants are opting to shut down their indoor dining operations and go back to takeout-only instead. Rise Bakery in Minneapolis this week alerted its customers that its dining room would close, citing the new requirements. “We have made the tough decision to once again stack up our tables & chairs,” the restaurant wrote in a Facebook message. “We regret that we can’t offer you a place to dine at this time.”
An email seeking further comment was not immediately returned, but the restaurant later commented on the post, explaining that “this decision was the best way to help our small and already strained team.” Many restaurants were already facing staffing shortages, and a number of eateries have closed temporarily due to positive cases among staff or potential exposures.
Since restaurants have reopened to indoor dining after the closures that marked the early-pandemic era, restaurant workers have often struggled to do their normal jobs while enforcing such rules as masking and social-distancing, a dynamic that can create conflict with customers.
Workers are having to take on roles that go way beyond their job descriptions, says Teofilo Reyes, chief program officer for the Restaurant Opportunities Centers United, which advocates for better wages and working conditions in the industry. “If you were hired to be a server, it shouldn’t be your job to be a security enforcer,” he says. His organization has had reports of workers being harassed merely because of their own mask-wearing, he noted, and confronting customers and asking them to comply with rules — whether its masking or showing proof of vaccination — can be dangerous.
Management should offer training, and have someone on hand who can handle customers who resist, he said, so the servers and hostesses are not dealing with them on their own. And he recommends that restaurants do what they can to communicate the rules to patrons, so that would-be diners do not take out their frustrations on employees. | null | null | null | null | null |
Surgeons at the University of Alabama at Birmingham prepare to transplant kidneys from a genetically modified pig into the body of a brain-dead recipient in September 2021. (UAB/AP) (AP)
Surgeons at the University of Alabama at Birmingham have transplanted genetically modified pig kidneys into a brain-dead man, the university announced Thursday.
The transplantation of the organs, which functioned for more than 70 hours, was another major step forward in the use of animal organs to replace failing human ones. Earlier this month, doctors at the University of Maryland transplanted a genetically altered pig’s heart into a living man with terminal heart disease.
The UAB kidney transplant took place in September, less than a week after surgeons at NYU Langone performed similar surgery on a deceased woman.
In an interview Thursday, Jayme Locke, the director of UAB’s Incompatible Kidney Transplant Program, said that the advances have been made possible by new technologies, including CRISPR, the gene-editing tool that was recognized with a Nobel Prize in chemistry in 2020.
Locke and other doctors hope the use of genetically altered animals can address the shortage of organs available for transplant.
The need is dire. More than 100,000 patients are on the national transplant waiting list. Seventeen of them die every day waiting for donor organs. For the 37 million Americans with chronic kidney disease, the lack of organs can be a death sentence. Forty percent of wait-listed patients will be dead within five years, she said.
The possibility of using animal organs has intrigued scientists for more than a century. In 1905, the French surgeon M. Princeteau grafted slices of rabbit kidney into a child, declaring the immediate results “excellent.” The child died two weeks later.
The UAB work was supported by the biotechnology company United Therapeutics Corp. Its subsidiary Revivicor provided the pig. UAB keeps a breeding herd of genetically modified pigs, Locke said.
The pig kidneys used in the UAB study had been modified with 10 gene edits. The transplantation replicated the process of human-to-human transplantation. After transplantation, the organs filtered blood and produced urine for the duration of the study — 70 hours, until it was stopped.
The use of a brain-dead human allows surgeons to test a preclinical model without harming a living person, rather than relying on other primates as substitutes. Nonetheless, the research at UAB underwent both internal and external ethical reviews. Locke said she hopes to enter phase one clinical trials this year — usually the first phase for testing safety in humans.
Karen Maschke, an expert at the Hastings Center on the ethical, regulatory and policy issues involving the use of new biomedical technologies, described the UAB research as one step in a complex process before pig kidneys could become widely available as substitutes. The fact that this study has been published in a peer-reviewed journal, she said, has “given organ transplant community more details about what happened” that will be important in the future.
UAB said the kidneys were procured from a pig at a clinical-grade, pathogen-free facility. Locke also said no pig cells or pathogens were detected in the blood of the organ recipient.
At a news conference Thursday, Julie O’Hara, the ex-wife of recipient Jim Parsons, who was declared brain dead after a motorbike accident, described her hope that the process would “eliminate the organ shortage crisis.” Parsons’s own kidneys were donated to another person before he received the pig kidneys.
O’Hara said she made the decision with their children and other close family members and felt sure her ex-husband would have approved. UAB plans to call the preclinical human model the Parsons Model. | null | null | null | null | null |
HELENA, Mont. — Former Montana Gov. Steve Bullock and former Bureau of Land Management Director Neil Kornze are two of the first four board members of a new nonprofit foundation created to help leverage public and private funds to conserve, protect and restore land managed by the Bureau of Land Management. | null | null | null | null | null |
This combination photo shows Comedian Redd Foxx, left, speaking to journalists about the reasons he left the top-rated sitcom “Sanford & Son,” March 14, 1974 in New York and actor Demond Wilson participating in a CBS “Face the Nation” discussion on school prayer on May 5, 1984, in Washington. It was 50 years ago this month that the sitcom “Sanford and Son” debuted on NBC. (AP Photo) (Uncredited/AP)
“Yes. We didn’t compare (’All in the Family’ and ‘Sanford and Son’), but the characters called it like they saw it in their own neighborhoods,” Lear said in an email. | null | null | null | null | null |
“I was looking at the IP list, I mean, let’s go!” Spencer said. "‘King’s Quest,’ ‘Guitar Hero.’ … I should know this but I think they got ‘HeXen.’”
Toys for Bob, one of the studios working under the Activision Blizzard banner, successfully launched games like “Crash Bandicoot 4: It’s About Time,” but later get folded into supporting Call of Duty games. Spencer said the Xbox team will talk with developers about working on a variety of franchises from the Activision Blizzard vaults. | null | null | null | null | null |
It could be entirely speculative based upon only Hannity’s texts, and perhaps the threatened resignations didn’t result from determining the plan was illegal. It would also be relevant whether Trump was informed of what White House counsel had determined. But it at least suggests this is a key part of what the committee is pursuing, and it’s certainly worth watching. | null | null | null | null | null |
The House committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol has requested voluntary testimony from Ivanka Trump, saying in a letter sent Thursday that witnesses have told investigators that she may have direct knowledge of President Donald Trump’s actions before, during and after his supporters attempted to stop Congress from certifying Joe Biden as president that day.
The request from the committee Chairman Bennie G. Thompson (D-Miss.) said the former White House adviser was present when her father pressured Vice President Mike Pence to reject Biden’s victory when he presided over the electoral vote count in the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6.
The committee also said it has information that Ivanka Trump was enlisted by White House aides to get President Trump to call off his supporters while they were ransacking the Capitol.
Finally, Thompson said the panel seeks Ivanka Trump’s testimony of what President Trump was doing in the days after the attack, “including whether the President took appropriate action regarding the continuing threats of violence.”
The committee’s letter to Ivanka Trump is further evidence of how intently the panel is focusing on the former president’s role in the attack and shows that several former White House aides are voluntarily cooperating with its inquiry even as others have refused to testify.
It comes the day after the Supreme Court ruled against Trump in his effort to block transmission of hundreds of White House documents the committee had sought. The letter also marks the second time this week that Trump’s children have been targeted in a government investigation. New York Attorney General Letitia James earlier filed a motion in her ongoing inquiry in to Trump business activities. In a news release she specified that she was seeking testimony from Ivanka and Donald Trump Jr. in the case.
The congressional committee has previously sought information from advisers to Donald Trump Jr. But the questions to Ivanka Trump in the eight-page letter were among the most detailed, revealing information the committee has obtained from other witnesses.
“You were present in the Oval Office and observed at least one side of that telephone conversation,” according to the letter, which then cites testimony from Pence’s former national security adviser Keith Kellogg.
The committee asked Kellogg: “It’s been reported that the President said to the Vice President …, “you don’t have the courage to make a hard decision.” And maybe not those exact words but something like that. Do you remember anything like that?”
“And so presumably, the first time she [Ivanka Trump] went in, it wasn’t sufficient or she wouldn’t have had to go back at least one more time, I assume. Is that correct,” the committee asked Kellogg in a follow-up question.
Thompson writes that the committee is “particularly interested” in answering the question of why White House staff didn’t “simply ask the President to walk to the briefing room and appear on live television — to ask the crowd to leave the Capitol?”
Ivanka Trump has long been known as an influential adviser to her father. She was at the White House all day on Jan. 6, while her husband Jared Kushner only came in later.
In an interview last year, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) said that during the siege he did not call Trump but instead called Ivanka Trump, thinking she could be the one to help. She told Graham, according to his recollection, that she was trying to get Trump to make a statement.
In addition to Graham, The Washington Post has reported that Ivanka Trump was called several times on Jan. 6 by chief of staff Mark Meadows, who told her as she shuttled to the second floor of the White House, “I need you to come back down here. We’ve got to get this under control.” | null | null | null | null | null |
Senators and representatives receive a substantial amount of information that the public does not, including details about how U.S. companies operate and how the government scrutinizes businesses. The fact that so much congressional stock trading goes on — with thousands of stocks traded each year by members of both parties — raises legitimate questions about whether they are using their access to that information to enrich themselves, rather than to serve the public.
The wisdom of such a prohibition is obvious. A majority of Democratic, independent and Republican voters support prohibiting lawmakers from trading stocks, a recent Morning Consult poll shows. It’s also widely supported by good governance groups and ethics experts, who point out that while current law forbids any American from trading on “insider information,” it’s very hard to prove someone did that, especially if that someone is a member of Congress who needs that information to make policy decisions. | null | null | null | null | null |
The stock pared some of its losses before falling again. It closed at $24.22, down nearly 24 percent. The share price has tumbled 84 percent the past year.
The company did not immediately respond to a request for comment from The Post.
Peloton was among a cadre of fitness-minded companies that benefited in the early days of the pandemic as consumers looked for new ways to work out at home. It ended 2020 playing offense, as it announced a $420 million acquisition of the equipment maker Precor that would add some 625,000 square feet of manufacturing space, including factories in North Carolina and Washington state
But the company’s fortunes took a turn in 2021 as large swaths of the workforce returned to the office and in-person gyms. Sales cratered. And those who already owned Pelotons began using them less: the company’s average number of monthly workouts per subscriber dropped from 26 to 16 over three quarters, according to a letter to shareholders.
The company ran a net loss of $376 million on revenues of $805 million in the quarter ended Sept. 30, 2021.
It projected sales from $4.4 billion to $4.8 billion in the year ending June 30, a guidance that was edited down by roughly $1 billion from a previous estimate. It releases its next quarterly results on Feb. 8.
In its November earnings call, executives said its Tread treadmill would be a growth engine for it moving forward despite the return to gyms despite an earlier product recall, and the company launched a Fall marketing campaign to hype the product.
Meanwhile, the company is looking to cut costs to improve its financial condition over the next year. In a Nov. 4 call with investors, Chief Financial Officer Jill Woodworth said Peloton would make “significant adjustments to hiring plans” across the company, as well as revamp its product development teams and showrooms. | null | null | null | null | null |
The Home Depot store in Riverbank, Calif., is one of more than 70 stores across the United States to sport rooftop solar panels. (The Home Depot)
With roughly 2,000 stores in the United States, Home Depot ranks third among superstores in rooftop solar potential. The home-improvement retailer said more than 70 of its stores have solar installed on the roof.
Walmart spokesperson Mariel Messier declined to provide the number of on-site solar installations at the retail chain’s 4,742 stores. “On-site solar, including rooftop solar, is one of the many tools we use to meet our renewable energy goals,” Messier said in a statement. Walmart — along with Target and others — also purchases off-site solar power. Overall, Messier says, Walmart has 550 on-site and off-site solar projects installed or in development. | null | null | null | null | null |
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