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In 'Janet Jackson,’ a star famous for her privacy lives up to her reputation
Janet Jackson's famous sense of control gets in the way of revelation in her new docuseries. (Lifetime) (Courtesy of Lifetime)
At the start of the new year, few documentaries were as widely anticipated as “Janet Jackson,” the two-night, four-hour docuseries about the famously private pop star. In recent years, a cultural zeal to correct the record on the scandals of yore and redistribute blame accordingly has refocused the spotlight on the 55-year-old singer and her storied family. Last year, FX and Hulu revisited the 2004 Super Bowl debacle that derailed her career in the New York Times Presents documentary “Malfunction: The Dressing Down of Janet Jackson,” which offered little new insight. And in 2019, HBO offered a platform to two of her brother Michael’s alleged molestation victims with “Leaving Neverland,” which led to a lawsuit from the King of Pop’s estate.
Janet Jackson, who spent her late adolescence fighting for autonomy over her life and career — a struggle chronicled in her 1986 album “Control,” which launched her into the musical stratosphere — is understandably vexed that her public image has been shaped, once again, by others. Lifetime and A&E, the sister networks that will air “Janet,” have sold the docuseries as a reclamation of authorship by Jackson; in the trailer, she declares, “This is my story, told by me.”
The selling point, then, is one that’s theoretically easy to root for: that a long underestimated and misunderstood Black female artist, whose voice was garbled if not silenced by White male gatekeepers and intermediaries, is finally speaking her truth. In the third and fourth hours of the docuseries, which were not shared with critics, Jackson will reportedly discuss her relationship with Michael, whose success eclipsed hers (along with pretty much everyone else’s), as well as that disastrous Super Bowl half-time performance with Justin Timberlake. (If unnamed sources in the New York Post are to be believed, Timberlake, who shares a publicist with Jackson, will appear in the latter half.)
After years of silence, Justin Timberlake apologizes to Britney Spears and Janet Jackson: ‘I know I failed’
But in practice, Jackson’s iron grip on “Janet Jackson” has produced an initial two chapters that are feather-light on revelations. That first half is an authorized autobiography in the worst way: empty, glossy, bloated and wholly indifferent to what other people might find interesting about its subject. In one of her talking-head outfits, Jackson sports long curls, a beret, a thick scarf and a sweater — all in dark colors against a dark backdrop. The ensemble is a visual metonym for the project’s opacity: She reveals so little that it’s the lack of disclosure that becomes most conspicuous.
Born the youngest of nine children, Jackson, who grew up watching her brothers become pop acts, started performing herself at the age of 7, doing two shows a night in Las Vegas. “I don’t ever remember being asked,” she says about her entrance into show business, just “put into it.”
Her childhood and teen years are full of incident: moving from Gary, Ind., to Los Angeles, when the Jackson 5 hit it big; being cast on two hit shows; watching her brothers break away from their father-cum-manager Joe; and eloping at the age of 18 with singer James DeBarge (of the family band DeBarge). She discovered her new husband’s struggles with drug addiction on their wedding night.
What we get aren’t answers but gaps. The creative independence she wrestled from her father as a teenager, for instance, combined with her lifelong immersion in the entertainment industry, led her to decide things for herself when it came to her music, costumes and choreography. But there’s shockingly little description, let alone analysis, of what she wanted to look or sound like, what she was inspired by or reacting to.
The longer “Janet Jackson” goes on, then, the harder it is not to wonder what’s the point of sitting down for a tell-nothing confessional. Reputational clean-up is one possible motivation for this extensive performance of authenticity. She denies the long-swirling rumors that she had a “secret baby” with DeBarge that she then gave up. She also defends her father, whom her brothers have previously accused of physical and emotional abuse, as “a good-hearted guy.”
Perhaps Jackson will surprise fans with the second half of her special, which will ostensibly deal with far more difficult topics. But the omissions and walled-off-ness that define the docuseries’ first half doesn’t inspire faith that the reclusive star will be much more forthcoming.
Jackson is, of course, entitled to the self-protective seclusion with which she’s dealt with the spotlight’s harsh glare. But the minimal divulgences here can’t help underscoring “Janet’s” faux intimacy. And if that second night’s offerings are as meager as the first’s, we might have to make peace with the fact that the story we’ve wanted from Jackson for so long is one she’s not interested in telling.
Janet Jackson (four hours) airs Friday and Saturday at 8 p.m. on Lifetime and A&E.
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VMI’s first Black superintendent blasts White critics of diversity and equity reform
The scathing Facebook post from VMI Superintendent Cedric T. Wins exposed the battle over the future of the nation’s oldest state-supported military college
Virginia Military Institute Superintendent Cedric T. Wins addresses the Class of 2021 on the Lexington campus in May. (Steve Helber/Associated Press)
Retired Army Maj. General Cedric Wins had a message he wanted to send.
The first Black superintendent of Virginia Military Institute went onto Facebook Jan. 21 and set off a social media skirmish.
His target: a well-connected White alumnus who’d questioned VMI’s push for diversity, equity and inclusion at the nation’s oldest state-supported military college.
Carmen D. Villani Jr., a member of the Class of 1976, had appeared on a Richmond radio show and urged fellow graduates to ask the state legislature to “look very seriously” at an extra $6.1 million for their alma mater, which received $21.6 million in state funding for the 2021-2022 academic year. He also warned that critical race theory — an academic framework for examining system racism under attack by conservatives — had “entered into the VMI realm.”
The additional $6.1 million had been requested by VMI to cover the cost of a host of reforms in the wake of a state-ordered investigation that found the college suffers from a “racist and sexist culture.”
VMI has tolerated ‘racist and sexist culture’ and must change, investigation finds
If approved by General Assembly this year, the money would pay for expanded Title IX and diversity offices, three admissions counselors who would target underrepresented populations, and an ongoing effort to rebrand and re-contextualize the college’s numerous Confederate tributes.
“Mr. Villani,” Wins wrote on a public VMI Facebook group for parents, cadets, and alumni that boasts more than 3,700 members. “You advised the listeners to urge the members of the General Assembly to ‘look very seriously’ at VMI’s funding request, a request you have no understanding about. VMI’s funding request will pale in comparison to that of the other public colleges in the state. You have no understanding of [Diversity, Equity and Inclusion] or what it means, or how much of the funding for DEI is represented in our request.”
The scathing Facebook post stunned VMI’s tightknit network of students, parents and alumni and exposed the ongoing battle over the college’s future.
Kasey Meredith assumed leadership of the Virginia Military Institute Corps of Cadets during the May 14 change of command parade. (Virginia Military Institute)
The campus did not admit its first Black students until 1968 and its first women until 1997. Just six percent of its 1,650 cadets are Black. Women make up 14 percent of the student body.
In the hundreds of comments that followed Wins’s Facebook post, one person called diversity, equity and inclusion “racist," and another bemoaned “the ascendancy of cultural Marxism" and “virtue signalers beating down every last vestige of the Confederacy.”
On Thursday, Villani wrote a new post in the Facebook group, saying he’d spoken to Wins in the aftermath of their tussle and that they were “able to find some common ground.”
The college’s best way forward, Villani wrote, should be based on what unites them, and “equality/ability not equity; inclusiveness based upon ‘content of character.’”
“Woke” hires
Since Wins took the helm of the 182-year-old Lexington campus in November 2020, he has tried to modernize the college’s culture without alienating conservative donors or alumni deeply wedded to VMI’s traditions and history. But 14 months into his tenure, Wins, who graduated from VMI in 1985, is still confronting resistance to change from alumni and students.
In the war for VMI’s future, some powerful alumni resist change while others demand it
One bloc of opposition comes from wealthy alumni who formed the Spirit of VMI political action committee. The group endorsed Glenn Youngkin (R) during his successful campaign for governor and counts Villani as a donor. Other influential graduates who’ve given to the PAC include two former members of VMI’s Board of Visitors: Thomas “Teddy” Gottwald, Class of 1983, who gave the group $25,000, and, Grover Outland III, Class of 1981, who donated $1,000. The two men resigned from the board in October 2020 right before it voted to remove the campus’s statue of Confederate Gen. Stonewall Jackson.
Wins declined an interview request. Gottwald and Outland did not return messages seeking comment. Villani, whose LinkedIn profile says he is a retired airline captain who lives in Texas, declined to comment.
Since the PAC launched in early 2021, it has criticized and mocked many of the college’s reforms. One White donor to the PAC wrote an essay in May on the group’s website blasting the college for expanding the symbolism of its “Virginia Mourning Her Dead” statue. The monument originally honored only VMI’s cadets who fought and died for the Confederacy at the Battle of New Market during the Civil War, but now commemorates all of the college’s students and graduates killed in the line of duty.
In June, one of the PAC’s Facebook posts displayed a decades-old black-and-white photograph of what appears to be an older VMI cadet yelling at a younger student, with a cartoon figure drawn underneath saying, “Wouldja like some oppression with that equity & inclusion?”
Matt Daniel, one of Wins’s classmates who has served as chairman of the PAC, did not return messages seeking comment.
When Youngkin was elected governor, the Spirit of VMI’s supporters celebrated on the group’s Facebook page, with some advocating for the removal of the college’s new chief diversity officer, Jamica Love, the school’s highest-ranking Black woman, or other “'woke' hires of the last administration."
“Can the Spirit of VMI now lobby the New Gov to remove the Northam appointees to the [Board of Visitors]?” asked one alum on the PAC’s thread, rejoicing over Youngkin’s win.
Youngkin has close ties to VMI stalwarts. One of his top donors during the campaign was Gottwald’s father, Bruce C. Gottwald, a member of the Class of 1954, who gave the Republican candidate $250,000. He’s also appointed as his legal and policy counselor Richard Cullen, a former VMI board member and lawyer who advised the college during the investigation into racism and sexism.
After he took office this month, Youngkin applauded as VMI cadets marched in his inaugural parade, as they do for every Virginia governor. And last week, a photo surfaced online of the governor seated at a conference table in front of the Virginia state seal wearing a red vest emblazoned with VMI’s logo and the name and insignia of the college’s student-run newspaper.
Youngkin hasn’t released any public statements on VMI since he moved into the governor’s mansion. On the day that Wins scolded Villani on Facebook, Youngkin released a list of legislative priorities. None of them mentioned VMI. But he’d already issued an executive order that forbids Virginia’s public schools from teaching of “inherently divisive concepts, including Critical Race Theory.” And Youngkin is seeking legislation to change the name of Virginia’s Office of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion to the Office of Diversity, Opportunity and Inclusion.
Youngkin declined an interview request. The governor’s spokesperson, Macaulay Porter, said he will evaluate VMI’s funding request for diversity reforms “once it has made its way through the legislative process.”
Some of the General Assembly’s top lawmakers have already made it clear they support the $6.1 million request.
Senate Minority Leader Thomas K. Norment Jr. (R-James City), who graduated from VMI in 1968, and Sen. R. Creigh Deeds (D-Bath) are co-sponsoring a budget amendment that would give VMI the $6.1 million entirely from general fund revenue that pays for salary increases and other discretionary expenses.
‘Defending the Institute’
By Tuesday morning, Wins’s foray into VMI’s online culture wars had yielded nearly 300 Facebook comments, though about 100 were eventually deleted.
“General, with all due respect, stay in your own lane of traffic," wrote one alum, Roger Jarrell, 52, an attorney and former Trump administration official. "Leave politics to the politicians. Run the Institute. Attacking people directly is never a good look.”
But another alum, Lincoln Swineford, said Wins was well within his rights to defend his reforms.
“Come on,” Swineford said. "He’s just supposed to lay back and take this type of unjustified abuse?”
Later, Jarrell suggested Wins might face political repercussions.
“I’m sure Todd Gilbert will be interested in [the] General’s attack,” he wrote, referring to the new Republican House Speaker in the General Assembly. “Why General Wins decided to publicly attack a civilian in this forum in the manner in which he did mystified me. He could lose his job for this.”
Many of the people dismayed by the resistance to Wins are his Black classmates. Just 13 Black men, including Wins, are listed in his 300-member graduating class, VMI’s 1985 yearbook shows.
One of them, Terry Thompson, who was the football team’s co-captain and is now a senior program manager with Intel in Phoenix, said opponents to Wins’s reforms “should be ashamed of themselves." He added: “When they picked him as permanent superintendent, I couldn’t have been prouder. It was the best decision the school could have made in the current environment with diversity and inclusion being at the forefront of a lot of conversations ... he has a lot more people on his side than not."
On campus, VMI continues to contend with a host of cultural issues.
The college is still deciding whether to keep many Confederate tributes, including the name of its main administration building, Smith Hall, an homage to VMI’s first superintendent, Francis Smith. According to VMI’s records, Smith enslaved nine people and served as the commander at the execution of abolitionist John Brown in December 1859. A bronze statue of Smith also stands outside of Smith Hall, facing the parade ground and student barracks.
VMI, which resisted admitting women in a case that went all the way to Supreme Court, also still appears to be struggling with misogyny among its corps of cadets.
On Jan. 22, students participated in a mandatory 50-minute virtual “sexual violence prevention class" from their barracks rooms. But during or after the session, cadets went on Jodel, the anonymous social media app, to mock or insult the class and its material. Some joked about watching television during the session or muting it.
VMI cadets attack Black students, women on anonymous chat app as furor over racism grows
“Girls just wanna have fun…Until after the fact,” someone posted.
“What Title IX has taught me over the last three years: only men are capable of rape and sexual harassment/assault,” one cadet posted, which earned 23 upvotes.
Then one female cadet said: “I hate this because it really shows how much the guys at this school hate women..."
To which another cadet replied: “Pipe tf down.”
Soon, VMI will have to decide whether it will endorse a bill that would guarantee students who report being sexually assaulted while consuming alcohol or drugs that they will not be punished for violating the school’s drug and alcohol policy. Right now, VMI is the only college in the state exempt from having to give such immunity to its students.
The college has not decided whether it will endorse the bill, according to Bill Wyatt, a VMI spokesman. Wyatt added that no VMI cadet who has reported a sexual assault has been punished for other infractions that came to light during the incident.
Virginia Del. Dan Helmer (D-Fairfax), the sponsor of the bill to strip VMI of its exemption, said that he’s in discussions with Wins and hopes the superintendent will support the bill, which is scheduled to face a hearing Monday in the General Assembly.
“We have many schools with ROTC programs in Virginia that commission graduates as officers,” Helmer said. “VMI should not be the only one in which a future leader who is sexually assaulted doesn’t enjoy the protection that they would enjoy at every other college in the commonwealth.” | null | null | null | null | null |
The shell of the collapsed Knickerbocker Theatre at right, with streetcars on Columbia Road NW at left. (Library of Congress)
Washington is well known for its multitude of memorials, a vast portfolio that includes tributes to the likes of Jefferson and Lincoln, veterans of World War II, the passengers who perished on the Titanic and even Sonny Bono.
Tom Barnes knows of one omission he considers beyond egregious: the 98 people who were killed in the deadliest disaster in D.C.’s history, a catastrophe that occurred 100 years ago Friday when the roof of a movie theater collapsed under the weight of more than two feet of snow.
Barnes’s great-grandparents, Clarissa and Reginald Vance, were among those who died on Jan. 28, 1922, at Crandall’s Knickerbocker Theatre. The audience had just settled into their seats for the second showing of the silent comedy “Get-Rich-Quick Wallingford.”
When he passes 18th Street and Columbia Road NW, the Adams Morgan corner where the Knickerbocker stood, Barnes said, he can’t help but feel a measure of anger that no memorial plaque exists at the site acknowledging a calamity that generated banner headlines around the world. A total of 133 people were injured in the collapse.
“It was a major event, and those people deserve some kind of recognition, even 100 years on,” said Barnes, 57, a hotel manager who lives nearby. “It’s part of our city’s history, and it needs to be recorded. Our cities need to teach us things.”
The dead, half of whom were in their 20s and 30s, represented a cross-section of Washington life. They included the country’s assistant postmaster general, a former Pennsylvania congressman, a Utah senator’s brother-in-law, a Georgetown University law student, two newspaper reporters, a U.S. Army captain and a real estate broker.
Congressman John Smithwick of Florida was among the survivors. An 11-year-old boy named Grant Kanston emerged unscathed while his parents, Oscar and Mabel, and two sisters, Dorothy, 12, and Aulyn, 8, were crushed by a mix of falling brick, concrete and steel.
“Great God,” Roger Whitcomb, who had escaped after entering the theater just as the roof collapsed, was quoted as saying in a contemporaneous Washington Post account. “It was the most heartrending thing I ever want to witness.”
At the heart of Adams Morgan, a stubbornly quirky neighborhood known for its political activism, smoke shops and nightlife, the triangle-shaped land where the Knickerbocker once stood is a privately owned plaza, part of it occupied by a low-slung 1970s-era building that until recently housed a bank.
Over the past several years, a developer’s plan to build a 54-unit condominium tower on the parcel — now held up by a legal appeal — has generated fierce debate in the neighborhood, with some welcoming a new life for a plaza they view as an unattractive waste of space.
Others insist that the land should be open to the public, as it has been for decades, its attractions including a Saturday morning farmers market that relocated recently. In the past six months, the plaza drew attention because a handful of people sleeping in pop-up tents occupied a portion of the site.
A group opposing the condominium project, Adams Morgan for Reasonable Development, is promoting a gathering for the Knickerbocker anniversary at the plaza Saturday afternoon. Organizers plan to recite the victims’ names and unveil what they describe as a “memorial sculpture.” Barnes is among the scheduled speakers.
A separate commemoration is planned for Friday at 6 p.m. across from the plaza, at the corner of Columbia and Adams Mill roads, where a historical placard devotes three sentences and two photographs to the Knickerbocker collapse.
At St. Margaret’s Episcopal Church on Connecticut Avenue NW, the Rev. Richard Mosson Weinberg said a prayer is planned for the victims on Sunday. The church lost 15 parishioners in the disaster, including its organist, Alfred Eldridge, and his wife, Harriett. Their deaths led the church to dedicate a memorial chapel, which still exists.
For Al Jirikowic, 69, a longtime Adams Morgan resident who formerly owned bars and restaurants in the neighborhood, the contemporary drama over the plaza is all part of what he calls “the Knickerbocker curse.”
In addition to the roof collapse, Jirikowic points out that both the theater’s owner, Harry Crandall, and architect, Reginald Geare, later died by suicide. The Knickerbocker’s replacement, the Ambassador Theater, where Norman Mailer spoke and Jimi Hendrix performed in the 1960s, eventually failed and was torn down.
“What happened has been swept under the rug for a long time, and it created a cloud of negativity,” Jirikowic said this week, referring to the Knickerbocker. “It was a real disaster. There’s a lot of unfinished business. There’s a lot of bad karma.”
The Knickerbocker’s opening in October 1917 was a grand affair, with newspaper accounts crowing about the theater’s opulence: walls made of “Indiana limestone and Pompeian art brick,” a state-of-the-art ventilation system, balconies, parlors, lounges and a Japanese tea room.
“Betsy Ross” was the theater’s first “photo-play,” as motion pictures were then called. A special train transported the film’s star, Alice Brady, and other cast members from New York to D.C., where they greeted the thousands of fans who showed up at the Knickerbocker.
All at once, the theater transformed an otherwise sleepy crossroads two miles north of the White House, where President Woodrow Wilson resided, into a slice of cosmopolitan hubbub.
100 years ago, Warren Harding forgave his opponent’s alleged subversion
Five years later, on the night of Jan. 28, 1922, a record snowstorm had dropped 28 inches on the city. More than 200 people tromped through the snow for the 9 p.m. showing of “Get-Rich-Quick Wallingford,” an adaptation of a George M. Cohan Broadway production about con artists.
With an orchestral accompaniment, the film had just begun when Moe Gold, 20, a law student seated in the second row, heard what he later described as a “sinister sort of whistling noise above my head,” after which “I saw the roof of the theater open” and “the whole world seemed to fall on me.”
After blacking out, Gold said, he awoke to the sounds of “horribly suffering people trying to wiggle out of the debris like mangled worms.” The screaming, he said, “seemed to ring to heaven.”
John Jay Daly, a Washington Post critic, was in the back row to review the film. As the roof began to fall, Daly managed to escape to the lobby and then a pay phone at a People’s Drug Store across the street, where he called his boss before returning to report on the scene.
“With a roar, mighty as the crack of doom,” Daly later wrote in his 5,000-word dispatch, the crashing roof “entombed” the audience as suddenly “as the turning of an electric light.”
“No description will do justice to the awfulness of the tragedy,” he wrote. “Few except those wrought by war ever brought death as swiftly or mercilessly as it was dealt to the men, women and children caught last night like rats in a trap of masonry and ice.”
An army of rescue workers, soldiers and police swarmed the theater. Doctors, Daly wrote, as well as “gallant women of the neighborhood” who volunteered as nurses, also arrived. A makeshift hospital was set up in a nearby candy store, and a morgue was established across the street at a church.
A 19-year-old woman emerged from the rubble, her hair and clothing in disarray but her face somehow unmarked. “There’s nothing wrong with me,” she insisted. Another survivor, identified as Georgetown University student James H. Davidson, 22, told The Post he saw from his balcony seat two girls “with their heads cut off.”
B.H. Covell had dropped his wife off at the theater and gone home, only to return when he learned about the disaster. As he waited outside the Knickerbocker, rescue workers brought out his wife, who died at his feet “without recognizing me.” Scott Montgomery and his date, Veronica Murphy, were trapped in their seats for 12 hours. She died there with her arm around him; he died later at the hospital.
Joseph Wade Beal, married just five days before, was crushed in his seat in the orchestra, where he played violin. His love for the instrument had been encouraged by his father, Benjamin Beal, a one-armed newspaper telegraph operator who himself would die a year later, his health ravaged by grief.
At one point, according to a Post account, the Rev. John Floersch gave final rites to the victims, walking “knee deep” into the snow and rubble “from which sounded the groans and shrieks of the dying.”
There were lawsuits and recriminations and an investigation that found design flaws in the building. But Crandall and Geare were cleared of all charges. When Crandall killed himself in 1937, he left behind a note to the “newspaper boys.”
“Don’t be too hard on me, boys, not for my sake but for those I’m leaving behind me,” he wrote. “I’m despondent and miss my theater, oh, so much.”
Tom Barnes was a youngster, maybe 7 or 8, when he said he learned about his great-grandparents dying at the Knickerbocker. His grandfather was still alive at the time, he recalled, but he cannot remember ever asking him about it.
“I heard about it from my mother and grandmother,” he said. “They would talk about what an awful, horrible accident it was. I don’t recall my grandfather ever speaking about it. In any family, there are certain no-talk zones.”
He also heard that his great-aunt Mary, then 13, had been asleep at the time of the collapse. It was the family’s driver, a Black man whose name Barnes knows only as “Chapman,” who told Mary that her parents were dead.
Nine days after the collapse, the Washington Evening Star published a letter that attorney Paul E. Johnson had written to a congressman in which he described the site as having been “sanctified by the blood of so many of our useful citizens.”
“This hallowed spot should be a beautiful place of rest and relaxation,” Johnson wrote. “Anything else would be a profanity.”
A year later, Crandall rebuilt the theater, maintaining its largely undamaged exterior walls and renaming it the Ambassador, which stayed open until the late 1960s. In 1967, patrons could score tickets to a Hendrix show for all of $1.50.
A wrecking ball demolished the Ambassador in 1970, after which a bank was built on part of the site, leaving a small public plaza on the rest. If he could have his way, Barnes said, the Knickerbocker’s facade would be rebuilt to honor the site’s history, though not with a theater on the inside.
“A library would make wonderful sense,” he said. “There’s nothing sacred about that plaza.”
Whatever is built in the future, Al Jirikowic said he fears that the wrong kind of project will reawaken the “Knickerbocker curse,” which could “come back and bite you like a fire-breathing dragon.”
“It should be a living memorial, something that mirrors what was lost,” Jirikowic said, adding that he would leave it to others to figure out what that something should be. | null | null | null | null | null |
Revisiting the odd and compelling mid-'60s work of jazz great Ornette Coleman
Ornette Coleman in rehearsal for his 1966 album “The Empty Foxhole.” (Francis Wolff/Blue Note Records)
If you asked jazz firebrand Ornette Coleman about his music and philosophy, he probably would have referred you to an obscure music book, “The Harmolodic Theory.” First cited in his own liner notes to his 1972 symphonic album “Skies of America,” the alto saxophonist and composer was also the book’s author. Only it was never published as a book and largely existed in Coleman’s head. Such elusiveness illustrated Coleman’s own music and life outlook. His melodies and compositions embodied whimsy and cosmic consciousness, all with an ever-curious, childlike mentality, right down to the fart jokes. “Sound is as free as the gas that passes through your butt,” he once told writer Philip Clark.
Starting with a sprint of albums made for Atlantic Records across a breathless 17-month period from May 1959 through December 1960, Coleman seemed to arrive on New York’s jazz scene fully formed, like Athena from Zeus’s split forehead. Albums like “The Shape of Jazz to Come” and “Free Jazz” — as dizzyingly complex or curiously hummable, unhinged and considered as they might be — were full of new possibilities. Even a detractor like Charles Mingus described Coleman’s playing succinctly in DownBeat magazine in 1960: “organized disorganization, or playing wrong right.” That ability to invert expectations inspired generations of jazz composers and rockers alike who arose in his wake. Lou Reed and Patti Smith brought such sensibilities to their own work, as did other New York punks, and critic Ben Ratliff could even hear an echo of Coleman’s horn in Bob Dylan’s “plaintive crying rasp.”
But after that inaugural run of Atlantic albums, Coleman was in the wilderness. No tours, shows, no recordings. Legends abound of informal jams with fellow icons Cecil Taylor and Albert Ayler. Even a titan like John Coltrane sought to study with him, helping lead to his own creative breakthrough. And Coleman in turn sat in, unrecorded alas, with Coltrane’s mighty quartet during that time. Taylor, Ayler and Coltrane have all since died, but their estates continue to keep their legacies current with a steady stream of archival releases.
That hasn’t been the case with Coleman. Since his death in 2015, there has been little music to emerge posthumously. Instead, upcoming box sets like “Genesis of Genius”(Craft Recordings) simply repackage older albums with no new material. Same goes for “Round Trip: Ornette Coleman on Blue Note,” a recent offering (released as part of the label’s Tone Poet vinyl series) that documents a strange time for Coleman. What should have been a pairing of a legend with the greatest jazz label of the 20th century instead led to uneven results and some disparaging reviews as both the man and label were undergoing great change. It’s a handy, if pricey, box set of five albums Coleman made as a leader (plus a rare album as sideman), over four years in the mid-to-late ’60s, at times anticipating Coleman’s breakthroughs still to come.
Coleman’s paradigm shift in jazz didn’t occur in a vacuum. He grew up in a deeply segregated Fort Worth, Tex., and while his schooling put him in early contact with future collaborators and players ranging from King Curtis and John Carter to Charles Moffett and Dewey Redman, it happened because I.M. Terrell was the only Black high school in town. “There was an urgency and dead seriousness in Ornette’s music that said things weren’t going to be about Jim Crow, or a resigned black man or West Coast cool anymore,” his friend and fellow Texan, trumpeter Bobby Bradford, told Coleman biographer Maria Golia. That quiet resolve can be heard from his earliest recording dates. The Greensboro sit-ins started in 1960, months before he recorded “This is Our Music,” and by the time of the audacious celebratory tumult of “Free Jazz,” Freedom Riders were already being bloodied.
Aside from such societal pressures, the strain of the scene also weighed on Coleman and band. His legendary quartet — trumpeter Don Cherry, bassist Charlie Haden and drummer Ed Blackwell — all struggled with heroin habits. Nightclub life was unhealthy and promoters were crooked, and even critically hailed recordings weren’t covering the bills. After staging his own concert at Manhattan’s Town Hall in 1962, Coleman fell silent for nearly four years.
When he emerged with his new trio in Stockholm in December 1965, it marked a welcome return, and Blue Note presented two volumes of “At the ‘Golden Circle’ Stockholm.” His new trio featured double bassist David Izenson and drummer Charles Moffett. While other saxophonists of his era like Coltrane or Sonny Rollins were prone to extended peregrinations, Coleman’s solos were usually coiled and compact wonders. But Moffett’s ride cymbal work and shouts on “Faces and Places” not only levitate the bandstand but provide plenty of Texas-size space for his friend to toggle between bop and Texas blues. Coleman roams at his leisure, adding in playful quotes of other tunes along the way. Izenson remains one of jazz’s more curious characters, a future PhD in psychotherapy and co-founder of Potsmokers Anonymous, and a worthy foil for Coleman. With his deft uses of bow and plucking, he shadows and offers stunning counterpoint, from the drunken bumblebee zags around “Morning Song” to a solo that makes “Dawn” one of the most breath-halting moments in Coleman’s catalogue.
The second night introduces previously unglimpsed iterations of Coleman. On “Snowflakes and Sunshine,” he careens between two new instruments, trumpet and violin. Squeaking and rheumatic, Stéphane Grappelli he’s not. Self-taught on both, Coleman played violin left-handed, as if to ensure that he wouldn’t fall back on any cliches in his playing. In hitting all four strings at once, biographer John Litweiler noted, Coleman “[bypassed] not only the jazz tradition, but Western musical traditions together.” Noisy new vistas came into view, as composer Laurie Anderson once recalled: “I want to play like that, I want to talk like that.” For Coleman, the “ability to play” a particular instrument was trumped by an emphasis on “play.”
That quest for naivete and unfiltered expression carried over to 1966’s “The Empty Foxhole.” Newly sober Haden returned on bass, but Coleman brought in a new drummer for the session — his 10-year-old son, Ornette Denardo Coleman. “A little kid fooling around” is how “Free Jazz” trumpeter Freddie Hubbard labeled it, while another former Coleman drummer was more blunt: “unadulterated s---.” There are wobbly tom rolls, starchy-stiff snares and unexpected cymbal hits, the closest an album by a jazz legend gets to sounding like the Shaggs and Beat Happening. “I felt the joy of playing with someone who hasn’t had to care if the music business … would help or destroy his desire to express himself honestly,” Coleman, the proud parent, said in a 1967 DownBeat magazine interview. (Denardo would go on to be a key member of Prime Time and his father’s manager.) And “The Empty Foxhole” remains one of the freshest albums in Coleman’s long discography: open-ended, patience-testing, and astonishing. Like any sort of playtime with a child can be.
Jackie McLean’s 1967 album “New and Old Gospel” is the rare session with Coleman serving as sideman on trumpet, but McLean was one of the old-guard bop players to get hip to Coleman’s revolution at the start of the new decade. McLean’s mid-'60s work like “Destination ... Out!” and “One Step Beyond” willingly embraced the vast freedoms of the New Thing. For this ambitious session, featuring a sidelong suite and two Coleman originals, the two hornmen temper their outward tendencies by leaning back into their roots of blues and a raucous Pentecostal church gospel. While his trumpet work tends toward the competent, it’s also a rare treat to hear Coleman wrangling with pianist LaMont Johnson’s rollicking and ecstatic lines on the cut “Old Gospel.”
Four months after that session, Coltrane died of liver cancer. It was a blow to the jazz world from which — it could be argued — it never fully recovered. Coleman played at the funeral, and for his last two Blue Note albums, both recorded in 1968, he recruited half of Coltrane’s legendary quartet — drummer Elvin Jones and bassist Jimmy Garrison. Coleman had also encountered an old high school friend, Dewey Redman, out in San Francisco and added his tenor horn to the group. While a newcomer, Redman took to growling through his reed, eliciting the kind of guttural sound that harks back to his and Coleman’s time down in Texas and draws on the blues, honking R&B, and church music. The two recording sessions might have made a strong single album, but Blue Note decided to split them across “New York Is Now!” and “Love Call.”
After years of being the driving force behind Coltrane, you can hear Jones and Garrison strain against Coleman’s dexterous music like heavyweight boxers taking up roller-skating instead. Badal Roy, a tabla player with the likes of Miles Davis, Pharoah Sanders and Coleman who died Jan. 18, noted in a 2009 interview that while most bandleaders wanted the groove to stay steady and settled, “with Ornette, he would always want me to change [the rhythm].”
Soon after, Coleman would change again: record labels, bands, approach. He continually sought out that frisson of engaging with the unknown, as in the ‘70s he reckoned with an orchestra, electronics and a funk band, not to mention the centuries-old trance music emanating from the mountains of Morocco. “Round Trip” might not contain his greatest music, but it shows Ornette’s imagination pushing beyond the confines of jazz. | null | null | null | null | null |
Main Street takes on Wall Street in ‘GameStop’ documentary
A scene from the documentary “GameStop: Rise of the Players.” (Submarine Entertainment/Neon/Super LTD)
Some of you may already have forgotten the saga of GameStop, which was all over the news a year ago after small investors managed to unexpectedly raise the stock price of the humble video game retailer — and make millions — in the face of hedge funders who were betting it would collapse, a victim of changing times and a pandemic-era shift away from physical media and brick-and mortar stores. (Spoiler alert: The hedge funds lost billions.)
Some of you never paid attention in the first place, and others probably tried to, but just couldn’t understand what the heck it was all about. (It involves something called short-selling and short-squeezing. If your eyes are glazing over, stop reading now.)
But it was a dramatic enough David-and-Goliath tale to capture the attention of Hollywood: HBO is reportedly developing a scripted GameStop film, and MGM has bought the rights to a nonfiction book on the subject, Ben Mezrich’s “The Antisocial Network.” Both are presumably hoping to harness something along the lines of “The Big Short’s” Oscar-winning screenplay, which made the abstruse subject of short-selling not just palatable but wildly entertaining.
Steve Carell hopes you want to throw up after seeing ‘The Big Short’
In the meantime, there’s “GameStop: Rise of the Players,” a serviceable and lively documentary by Jonah Tulis (“Console Wars”). The filmmaker tries admirably to explain the phenomenon, mostly in the words of the GameStop story’s protagonists, one of whom is — or was — initially known only as Roaring Kitty. The ultimate revelation of the YouTuber’s identity, which includes his real name and another online handle that is not suitable for publication in a family newspaper, is just one of the film’s several twists and turns.
Tulis could stand to offer viewers a bit more explanatory background information of his own, instead of relying almost entirely on talking-head interviews with the titular “players”: small investors and video game aficionados who walk us through the ups and downs of this financial roller-coster ride, in ways that are often engagingly personal, but sometimes leave us in the dark — where, quite frankly, a lot of us are starting from.
The facts to remember are these: Some big investors believed that GameStop was, as a business, circling the drain, and hoped to profit on its demise. But other retail investors — often investing in the stock market via the commission-free Robinhood app, and communicating with each other on social media — believed in the company’s coming turnaround, courtesy of Ryan Cohen, a co-founder of the pet-supply e-tailer Chewy who was bullish on GameStop and making moves to join its board and drag the company into the 21st century. (More than a few GameStop advocates simply loved the brand, perhaps as much as they hated the idea of the investment establishment plotting to make a buck, as they drove their favorite childhood store out of business.)
As a narrative, “GameStop” feels a bit rushed and insider-y, in a way that can be off-putting for viewers coming into it in need of a tutorial. It’s a yarn that’s made for a great storyteller, with thrills and chills to burn. But the way Tulis spins the thread is wonkier and clunkier than it could, or should, be.
Unrated. At area theaters. Contains brief strong language. 94 minutes. | null | null | null | null | null |
China’s true ambitions, and what they mean for the U.S.
Office towers in Beijing. China uses access to its market as leverage over foreign corporations — a form of sharp power, Elizabeth Economy writes. (Tingshu Wang/Reuters)
By Dexter Roberts
That China’s rise poses a deep challenge to the United States is a belief now widely shared among policymakers and the public, with roughly 9 in 10 Americans viewing the country as a threat or a competitor, according to a recent Pew survey. Too often what is lacking, however, is the “why,” with China portrayed as a one-dimensional villain out to eat our lunch, a framing all too common in Washington these days. That simplistic characterization ignores a much more complicated reality in which both countries’ economies and societies are deeply entwined, and it avoids considering what drives Beijing’s deeply ambitious leaders and what they hope to achieve. That is an obstacle to effective policymaking.
“The World According to China,” a new book by Elizabeth Economy, goes a long way toward addressing that problem. By carefully examining Chinese leaders’ economic, political and military goals and explaining how they aim to displace the United States from its ascendant status, Economy has written a guidebook to understanding and dealing with this rising superpower.
Economy, on leave from Stanford University’s Hoover Institution while she serves as a senior adviser at the Commerce Department, makes it painfully clear that the earlier policy of strategic engagement, which was behind the decision to welcome China into the World Trade Organization in 2001, is badly outdated. Inevitably, Washington and Beijing will increasingly butt heads over global leadership, with President Xi Jinping aiming for no less than the “great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation,” as he has put it. “The world according to China — one which celebrates Chinese centrality as a geographic, as well as political and economic construct — is one that leaves little room for the United States, its allies, and the values and norms they support,” Economy writes.
As China pushes to expand its influence around the world, Economy distinguishes among its uses of three kinds of power. Soft power is seen in Beijing’s efforts to boost its international reputation by presenting its authoritarian governing style as a model for dealing with the pandemic, including by providing vaccines to countries around the world, and in the expansion of its state-owned media outlets to reach new audiences in Africa and Latin America. Hard power is on display in its ongoing military intimidation of Taiwan and the squelching of Hong Kong democracy, as well as the construction of airstrips on reefs in the contested South China Sea and the opening of its first overseas military logistics base, in Djibouti. In one of many instances where Economy describes her interactions with key actors in the rise of China, something that makes her book even more convincing, she recounts talking to two military scholars in Beijing who casually tell her that their country eventually should have just as many military bases around the world as the United States does.
Economy does a masterful job of explaining China’s use of sharp power, which “centers on distraction and manipulation,” as the Journal of Democracy put it in a 2018 report describing the new concept. Sharp power is increasingly on display as Beijing uses access to China’s vast market as leverage over multinational corporations. When, for example, international airlines’ websites seemed to suggest that Taiwan was separate from China, and when global brands publicly stated their concern about human rights abuses against the Muslim ethnic minority in Xinjiang, consumer boycotts organized on China’s tightly controlled Internet were wielded to ensure that those companies quickly reversed course and toed the party’s line. Similarly, the longtime practice of “coerced” technology transfer, or demanding that multinationals transfer technology as the price of doing business in China’s enticing market, falls into this category,
Economy devotes a chapter to two of China’s most important goals: promoting its own technology so that it can rule international markets and pushing Chinese technology standards to eventually replace U.S.-dominated ones, as with 5G. This would allow Beijing to stop paying royalties and start earning them, as well as provide leverage over companies and countries. As with many of its national priorities, Beijing has set a date — 2035 — to achieve this second goal and has begun promoting its officials to top leadership positions in standards-setting bodies, including the International Telecommunication Union and the International Organization for Standardization. This too meshes with Beijing’s desire to have much more influence in global governance, which would allow it to “legitimize China’s notion of state-determined rights as opposed to inalienable and innate rights of the individual, and of economic and social rights as opposed to civil and political rights,” a top priority for Beijing, Economy notes.
None of this will be easy. Countries that have been the largest recipients of Chinese-funded and -built infrastructure through its massive Belt and Road Initiative are no more likely to favor China. In the Czech Republic, which has drawn large Chinese investment, only about 10 percent of people say they trust China, according to a 2020 opinion poll by the Central European Institute of Asian Studies. And in Kazakhstan, a survey by the Eurasian Development Bank found that only 1 in 6 see it as a “friendly country.”
Meanwhile, Beijing’s growing authoritarian push has created a backlash around the world. Private technology companies like Huawei and TikTok parent ByteDance are facing sanctions, and Confucius Institutes, seen as “agents of Chinese propaganda,” are being forced to close on university campuses. “China’s future ability to achieve its broader foreign policy objectives is thus increasingly compromised by its insistence that it control both state and non-state actors,” Economy writes.
One thing this book does not delve into is how China’s huge domestic challenges, including rising inequality, deep regional imbalances and a fast-aging population, could block its leaders from achieving their grand plans. Those internal constraints could even prevent its economy from ever surpassing that of the United States, some economists now believe. But that is not the aim of this book, which instead effectively shines a light on the nature and drivers of Xi’s lofty ambitions to “reorder the world order,” as Economy puts it.
Economy finishes with useful policy suggestions for “reasserting US leadership.” Those include a “renewed commitment to immigration,” essential for maintaining U.S. technological competitiveness, and expanding the “tent” to include new “like-minded allies” while continuing to cooperate with China on climate change and global health. From her extensive knowledge of China policymaking and many years interacting with the country’s elites, Economy has written a deeply informed book that serves as a wake-up call to the United States and the world.
Dexter Roberts, a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council’s Asia Security Initiative, is the author of “The Myth of Chinese Capitalism: The Worker, the Factory, and the Future of the World.”
The World According to China
By Elizabeth Economy
Polity. 292 pp. $29.95 | null | null | null | null | null |
George V, the proudly ‘ordinary’ king who rebranded the British monarchy
King George V and Queen Mary watch as their granddaughter Princess Elizabeth waves from the balcony of Buckingham Palace in London on May 6, 1935, after they attended a service at St. Paul’s Cathedral marking 25 years of the king’s reign. (AP)
By Alan Allport
George V, the king of England from 1910 to 1936, was not a brilliant man. Margot Asquith, wife of his first prime minister, described him as a “dunderhead.” He did not make for great company. On fine mornings, George would sometimes ride out from Buckingham Palace across Hyde Park to call on the house of his aide-de-camp Bryan Godfrey-Faussett. The Godfrey-Faussett family so dreaded the tedium of these royal visits that they would draw lots to see who had to greet him. Sometimes they hid upstairs, pretending to be out, while the king paced around the grounds below, peering irately through the windows. He and his consort, Queen Mary, were famously uninspired conversationalists. Max Beerbohm composed a cheeky poem about court life: “The King is duller than the Queen … the Queen is duller than the King.”
All this has represented rather a challenge for George’s biographers. John Gore, who published the first of two official lives in 1941, tactfully but tellingly described the king as “frank, simple, honest and good — too good perhaps to be interesting.” Biographer Harold Nicolson was more caustic, saying George was “a stupid old bore” whose personal life revolved around his twin obsessions of pheasant shooting and philately. For years, Nicolson complained, the king “did nothing at all but kill animals and stick in stamps.”
Jane Ridley, a professor of modern history at the University of Buckingham and the author of “George V: Never a Dull Moment,” a richly detailed and diverting new assessment of his life and reign, thinks that the “boring” label is unfair. She concedes that the king’s stiffness and cultivated sang-froid create barriers to understanding him. “The biographer,” she admits, “searches George’s writings in vain for an inner life.” But, Ridley continues, there was more going on beneath the gruff Saxe-Coburg exterior than met at first glance. Indeed, she calls him “one of the most successful monarchs in British history.”
Does Ridley deliver on this bold claim? George V’s quarter-century reign was certainly not dull. He acceded to the throne with his country in the middle of a parliamentary constitutional crisis and on the brink of a world war. He died on the brink of another, even more terrible world war and on the eve of another constitutional crisis — this one a family matter: the determination of his eldest son and heir, Edward (known to the family as David), the Prince of Wales, to marry the American divorcée Wallis Simpson, a match deemed unacceptable to the Anglican Church, which David, as monarch, would oversee as supreme head. George ruled a kingdom rocked by revolution and civil war in Ireland, a general strike, and the economic slump of the 1930s. It was not an easy time to be a European crowned head. The early decades of the 20th century saw royal thrones topple from Portugal to Greece, often violently. Russian Czar Nicholas II, George’s cousin, whom he physically resembled to an astonishing degree, was not just deposed by his people but brutally murdered along with the rest of his family. Perhaps under the circumstances there were worse choices for a king than being boring.
There was never much likelihood of burning torches and pitchforks outside Buckingham Palace, of course. The threat to George’s throne was subtler. At the time of his coronation, Britain was not yet a mass democracy. Millions of working-class men, and all women, were still excluded from the vote. But between 1918 and 1928, the franchise was extended to adults of both sexes. George’s grandmother Queen Victoria had ruled a country largely governed by its landed aristocracy. Could the British monarchy carve out a suitable new role for itself in this age of populism? Or would it come to be seen by the people as a pointless, costly anachronism?
Ridley argues, persuasively, that George responded to the challenge with energy and imagination. He accelerated the process begun by his grandfather Prince Albert the century before of transforming the royal family into a model of respectable domesticity. George’s father, Edward VII, had enjoyed a colorful but dissolute, champagne-fueled existence amid a fast set of plutocrats and married mistresses. George rarely entertained for pleasure, went to bed at 10 p.m. and loudly declared that he had no interest in anyone’s wife but his own. He embraced the idea of his ordinariness — “You have found me an ordinary man, haven’t you?” he once asked the first Labour Party prime minister, Ramsay MacDonald. It’s debatable how ordinary we can call a man who was the beneficiary of a tax-free annual salary worth $129 million today and who once shot 12 Indian tigers in four days. But his attitudes and prejudices were those of a typical, if stodgy, middle-aged patriarch of his time. He liked the countryside, children and pets. He disliked modern art (“awful”), soft collars on men’s shirts and anything vaguely progressive in women’s fashion. At garden parties, the king would make loud comments about female guests who had the temerity to appear with lipstick or bobbed hair until his mortified wife told him to be quiet.
Under George V, Ridley explains, the British monarchy was nationalized. Out went the traditional marriages to European, mostly German, cousins. In came alliances with blue-blooded English and Scottish families. Royal weddings became noisy public celebrations rather than private affairs. As the crown lost political power, it embraced pomp and ceremony instead — more uniforms and carriage horses to please the crowds, more visits to meet the masses, especially at times of crisis and disaster. George literally rebranded his family during World War I when the surname Saxe-Coburg-Gotha seemed too embarrassingly Teutonic. He emerged from the war as head of the altogether cozier-sounding House of Windsor. George began the tradition of broadcasting to nation and empire at Christmas in 1932, with the royal voice now entering every subject’s home, rich or poor, in intimacy and friendship. By the time of his silver jubilee in 1935, the position of this reimagined British monarchy was securer than it had ever been. The Archbishop of Canterbury congratulated the king on raising the Crown to a hitherto unknown height of national prestige and reverence.
“What is the use,” George responded grimly, “when I know my son is going to let it down?” On the brink of his death he predicted, with striking accuracy, that within a year of acceding to the throne, David, as King Edward VIII, would be forced to abdicate in scandal. His one consolation in his final declining months was the knowledge that David’s younger brother “Bertie,” the Duke of York, a man much closer in temperament to his father, would be there to pick up the crown when it fell. And after Bertie there was his granddaughter, young Princess Elizabeth.
Alan Allport is a professor of history at Syracuse University. His most recent book is “Britain at Bay: The Epic Story of the Second World War, 1938-1941.”
By Jane Ridley
Harper. 559 pp. $35 | null | null | null | null | null |
FILE - Joerg Meuthen, federal spokesman of the AfD, speaks at the right-wing Alternative for Germany election party after the first forecasts of the outcome of the Bundestag election in Berlin, Germany, Sept. 26, 2021. The far-right Alternative for Germany said Friday that its co-leader, Joerg Meuthen, is leaving the party. It confirmed a report by public broadcaster ARD, but didn’t immediately say why Meuthen was quitting. The 60-year-old was a prominent figure throughout the party’s nine-year history. (Julian Stratenschulte/dpa via AP, File)
BERLIN — The far-right Alternative for Germany said Friday that its co-leader, a relative moderate, is leaving the party. | null | null | null | null | null |
First Look with The Post’s Jonathan Capehart, E.J. Dionne, Karoun Demirjian & Jennifer Rubin
Washington Post Live’s “First Look” offers a smart, inside take on the day’s politics. Jonathan Capehart will host a reporter debrief followed by a roundtable discussion with Washington Post columnists. Tune in for news and analysis you can’t get anywhere else.
Karoun Demirjian
Karoun Demirjian covers national security policy on Capitol Hill, with a focus on defense, foreign policy, intelligence and matters concerning the Justice Department. She was a correspondent based in The Washington Post’s bureau in Moscow. Before that, she reported for the Las Vegas Sun as its Washington correspondent, the Associated Press in Jerusalem, the Chicago Tribune and Congressional Quarterly, and worked at NPR. Demirjian is also an on-air contributor to CNN.
Jennifer Rubin writes reported opinion for The Washington Post. She covers politics and policy, foreign and domestic, and provides insight into the conservative movement, the Republican and Democratic parties, and threats to Western democracies. Rubin, who is also an MSNBC contributor, came to The Post after three years with Commentary magazine. Prior to her career in journalism, Rubin practiced labor law for two decades, an experience that informs and enriches her work. She is a mother of two sons and lives with her husband in D.C. She is the author of “Resistance: How Women Saved Democracy from Donald Trump.” | null | null | null | null | null |
Senator Mitt Romney (R-Utah)
Mitt Romney is a former presidential candidate and has represented Utah in the United States Senate since 2019. Romney is a member of the Foreign Relations Committee and has long warned about the dual threats from Russia and China and the importance of strengthening NATO. He joins Washington Post columnist David Ignatius to discuss these hot spots and the rise of authoritarianism on Thursday, Feb. 3 at 12:00 p.m. ET.
Provided by the office of Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah).
Mitt Romney was sworn in as Utah’s newest Senator in January 2019. He currently serves on the Foreign Relations; Health, Education, Labor & Pensions; Homeland Security & Government Affairs; and Budget committees. On the Foreign Relations Committee, Senator Romney serves as Ranking Member of the Subcommittee on East Asia, the Pacific, and International Cybersecurity Policy. He is also a member of the Senate National Security Working Group. In 2021, he was honored with the JFK Library’s Profile in Courage Award for his consistent defense of the fundamental principles of democratic governance.
Romney has earned a reputation for reaching across the aisle to advance major priorities that benefit Utah and people across the country. As part of the “G10” working group of bipartisan senators, Romney played a key role in enacting landmark legislation that makes a once-in-a-generation investment in our nation’s physical infrastructure. In the midst of the global COVID-19 pandemic, he also helped lead negotiations on the Bipartisan Emergency COVID Relief Act—legislation that provided more than $900 billion in emergency relief to American students, families, businesses, workers, and healthcare providers. Romney continues to advocate for his bipartisan TRUST Act, legislation to rescue our federal trust funds—programs like Medicare and Social Security—from impending insolvency.
A leading voice on U.S. foreign policy and national security, Romney has warned that the rise of China is the central challenge of our time and pushed Congress and Administration officials to develop a strategy to better position the U.S. and free nations to counter this threat. The 2021 national defense bill included Romney’s amendment that requires the president to develop a grand strategy to address the new era of geostrategic and geoeconomic competition with China. Romney also successfully spearheaded efforts to impose a U.S. diplomatic boycott of the 2022 Winter Olympic Games in Beijing in response to the Chinese Communist Party’s grave human rights abuses.
Romney consistently works toward legislative solutions that will improve the lives of Utahns. One of his first legislative initiatives in the Senate was the introduction of the Navajo Utah Water Rights Settlement Act—legislation to bring running water to the 40% of Utah’s Navajo Nation that currently lives without. This important bill finally became law at the end of 2020, and was fully funded with the passage of the bipartisan infrastructure bill. Finding ways to strengthen Utah’s wildfire prevention and response capabilities has remained a top priority. Romney’s Wildland Fire Mitigation and Management Commission Act was also included in the infrastructure bill. Over his Senate tenure, Romney has fought for the return of Utah’s public land management to local communities—especially as the state’s national monuments remain a political football.
Prior to serving in the Senate, Romney served as Governor of Massachusetts from 2003 to 2007. He also led the 2002 Salt Lake Organizing Committee for the Winter Olympics and, with a team of volunteers and managers, helped turn the struggling Games into a Utah success story. He was a candidate for the 2008 Republican presidential nomination and Republican nominee for president in 2012.
Before entering public service, Romney led a successful business career as the co-founder of Bain Capital, a leading investment company, and the turnaround CEO of Bain & Company, an international management consulting firm.
Romney earned his bachelor’s degree from Brigham Young University and his JD/MBA from Harvard University. He has been the devoted husband to wife Ann for more than 50 years. They are the proud parents of five sons, grandparents to 25 grandchildren, and great-grandparents to one great-grandchild. | null | null | null | null | null |
The expected disruption in the capital had also caused some vaccine clinics to close, Ottawa’s public health body said.
“The Canadian Trucking Alliance (CTA) does not support and strongly disapproves of any protests on public roadways, highways, and bridges. CTA believes such actions — especially those that interfere with public safety — are not how disagreements with government policies should be expressed.”
Indigenous community finds 93 possible burial sites near former Canada residential schoo
About 90 percent of truckers are vaccinated, according to transport minister Omar Alghabra.
Meanwhile, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau confirmed on Thursday that he had “been exposed” to the novel coronavirus and was isolating for five days in line with rules. “I feel fine and will be working from home. Stay safe, everyone — and please get vaccinated,” he wrote on Twitter. | null | null | null | null | null |
They were sentenced to life in prison. Who should decide if they get a second chance?
The long shadow of ‘truth in sentencing’ politics in Maryland, where the vast majority of lifers are Black.
A view of the Jessup Correctional Institution this month in Maryland. Many lifers eligible for parole may be affected by the decision of the Maryland state legislature to strip the governor of the power to overturn parole board recommendations. (Michael Robinson-Chavez/The Washington Post)
Nineteen years after Darryl Taylor was sentenced to life for a murder he says he did not commit, a board of parole commissioners recommended him for early release. The feeling, he remembers, was like standing with one foot out the prison gates, close enough to Baltimore to see his childhood home, his wife and his five living children.
But Taylor never made it out. In 2020, Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan (R) rejected his release, overturning the decision of the 11-member parole board. No reasons were given.
“That was a crushing feeling,” Taylor, 50, said last fall from a medium-security prison in Jessup, Md. “You feel like you’re on the verge of having some sort of freedom, and they hand you a piece of paper that just says, ‘no.’ ”
For decades, politics has shaped the parole process for those serving life sentences in Maryland. In the heat of a tough-on-crime campaign in the 1990s, a governor declared that he would reject all “lifers” for parole even after parole commissioners had recommended their release. The policy, maintained by governors from both parties, left hundreds of prisoners with parole-eligible sentences — the vast majority of them Black men — to grow old and die in prison.
Between 1969 and 1994, Maryland paroled 181 lifers. In the following two decades, none.
When the murder of George Floyd set off a wave of racial justice activism across the country, nearly 80 percent of Maryland’s lifer population was Black, the highest rate in the nation. Hogan released some prisoners as the coronavirus pandemic took off, but state lawmakers, buoyed by the Floyd protests, wanted the governor out of the parole process. They voted in December to revoke his authority over parole, taking one of the most concrete steps nationwide to change the prospects of early release for lifers, and pushing men like Taylor into a new state of limbo.
In the coming months, Taylor and others who have seen their seen their paths to freedom blocked by the sitting governor will go up again before a parole board. Criminal justice advocates across the country say they’ll be watching.
About 1 in 7 prisoners in the United States — or about 203,000 people — are serving life sentences. Nearly half are Black and fewer than a third are White — a racial gap that is bigger even than in the general prison population. And, although three-quarters of lifers are eligible for early release under certain conditions, an increasingly small fraction have managed to experience freedom before the end of their lives — a legacy of the 1990s, when states pursued “truth in sentencing” laws that drastically curbed parole.
The notion of releasing violent offenders convicted of crimes such as rape or murder has long been a thorny issue. In recent decades, even as criticism of mass incarceration drove officials to alter policing and sentencing rules, few paid attention to the country’s ballooning lifer population, which has quintupled since 1984.
But examining this kind of post-conviction reform is vital, advocates say, not only because it affects masses of American families but because it tests a community’s fundamental beliefs in criminal justice.
Victims’ rights groups and states’ attorneys in Maryland have for years argued that people sentenced to life had done irreparable harm and that the governor served as a vital check on the case for their freedom. Civil rights groups said that having the governor involved politicized parole and kept families separated for longer than was necessary or constitutional — at the cost to taxpayers of more than $70 million per year.
“The parole process, I think, really brings that choice — not only a choice of the criminal process — a choice about what society we believe in,” said Parris Glendening (D), a former Maryland governor who has seen his own position on the issue evolve over three decades. “Do we believe in redemption and rehabilitation, or do we believe primarily in punishment and revenge?”
Former Maryland Gov. Parris Glendening (D) declared in 1995 that inmates serving a life sentence would be denied any chance of parole. Here's why he regrets it. (Amber Ferguson, Hadley Green/The Washington Post)
Life means life
The policy that has blocked Taylor from freedom took root five years before he was sentenced to life.
With crime as the leading concern among voters in the mid-1990s, then-President Bill Clinton was determined to move the Republican-dominated issue to the top of the Democratic agenda.
“Let us roll up our sleeves to roll back this awful tide of violence and reduce crime in this country,” Clinton said during a 1994 ceremony to sign the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act. “We have the tools now. Let us get about the business of using them.”
A year later, a newly elected Glendening, who had squeaked to victory by fewer than 6,000 votes and held an abysmal 18 percent approval rating, stood before the old House of Corrections, declaring that he would not grant parole to any inmate serving a life sentence.
“If you want to term this more as retribution … it’s exactly that,” Glendening said. “We owe it to the victims, the victims’ families and to our communities to ensure that these murderers and rapists — these predators — serve the life sentences imposed on them.”
A month later, his poll numbers nearly doubled. It was in part because of his stance, said a former Glendening adviser.
During the news conference, Glendening said the parole board had, at that point, recommended release for eight inmates serving life sentences. He rejected all of them and would not consider any others.
Walter Lomax, arrested in 1967 for murder, was among the eight. When word of Glendening’s edict spread to the state prison in Hagerstown, where Lomax was locked up, he didn’t cry or lash out in anger. He was emotionless, he remembered.
“I just resigned myself that as long as the governor was a part of the process, I was never going to be paroled,” said Lomax, who had always maintained his innocence and conclusively proved it in 2006, when he was freed from prison after 39 years. As of today, he is still the longest-imprisoned exoneree in Maryland.
Before his release — and even more fervently after — Lomax pushed legislators to consider lifers. He found an audience in his father’s friend, then-Del. Clarence Davis (D), of Baltimore, who was teaching history to prisoners.
Davis, who is Black, said too many of the men and women he encountered looked like him. He first attempted to remove the governor from the parole process in 1995 but failed and tried again the following year. He knew it would be a tough sell politically, especially amid a rising victims rights movement led by Roberta Roper, whose daughter Stephanie, a 22-year-old college senior, was brutally raped and murdered in 1982.
With Glendening as the unofficial head of the Democratic Party, Davis knew there was no chance the bill would move, even with the support of some of his colleagues.
“What happens with legislation like this, when the governor gives a signal that he will not sign it,” Davis said in a recent interview, “it’s almost a death blow.”
Two lives lost
Amber Taylor was in the fifth grade when her father was sentenced to life in prison.
As the oldest of six children, she had gotten the most time with him before the summer of 2000, when two people told police that he had shot a man named Douglas M. Jones dead at Gwynn Oak and Liberty Heights avenues in Baltimore. The witnesses recanted their statements during the trial, alleging that detectives at the Baltimore Police Department had pressured them to make up the story and that they hadn’t been at the crime scene at all.
But this didn’t change the verdict. Darryl Taylor, a jury decided, was guilty of first-degree murder.
A relative of Jones’s read out a letter from the victim’s mother at his sentencing: “Dear Darryl,” it started, “because of your disregard for human life, you ended the life of my beloved son.”
“From me, his mother, you have taken one of the most precious gifts that God could give a parent, a loving child. From his son and two-year-old little boy, you have stolen his pride and joy, a loving father.”
“So Darryl,” the letter continued, “I’m praying that the State of Maryland give you the maximum penalty allowed and to provide assurance to society that you Darryl Miguel Taylor will never be able to cause another family to suffer the pain in which me and my family are having to endure.”
Judge Paul Alpert sentenced Darryl to life for murder plus 20 years for using a handgun in an act of violence, to be served concurrently.
“This case is, indeed, a tragedy because in effect two lives are lost,” Alpert told the court. “Mr. Jones … is lost to his family and his friends, and in practical effect so is the life of Mr. Taylor lost.”
Family members of Jones did not respond to inquiries for this article.
In 2001, Amber began visiting her father in prison, telling him about classes and cheerleading, speaking with him in a room that lay on the other side of metal detectors and a pat-down by security guards. By the time she was in middle school, she realized her younger siblings were starting to forget what Taylor had been like as a free man, so she took it upon herself to remember — how he was serious about school and funny about life; how he read with her from an encyclopedia set in her grandfather’s house; the way he beamed when he bought her souvenirs in Washington.
Amber mailed photos of important moments to her father. But so much happened that she couldn’t share: anniversaries, graduations, weddings. The birth of his four grandchildren.
The loss of his daughter, Summer, to suicide in 2016.
For Darryl Taylor, the pain had been excruciating. Summer had been only 3 and still babbling in baby talk when he left. She grew into a shy teenager who loved animals and the band Maroon 5, but he had missed it all. He asked himself repeatedly whether things might have turned out differently if he had been there for her — if he had been home.
Amber wondered the same.
Taylor didn’t advance past an initial hearing the first time he went up for parole in 2014. But the year after Summer’s death, he told his family that he would try again.
The process was laborious, with multiple hearings in front of commissioners, a risk assessment, a psychological evaluation and a review of his institutional record. Taylor’s wife, Jene Traore, and Amber helped him put together a “home plan” laying out what his life would look like if he were released, and state officials called them to verify each detail. As Taylor’s family sketched out his possible life at home, they started to believe, as many families do at this stage, that it might happen — he might come home.
In reality, the vast majority of lifers are not recommended for parole the first or second time they apply — and many never succeed. The Maryland Department of Public Safety and Correctional Services would not say how many lifers the parole board had recommended annually for release since 1990, but attorneys and advocates said the number has dwindled since Glendening’s policy.
State records show that more than half of Maryland’s lifers resemble Taylor — Black men who were imprisoned between the ages of 18 and 24. Taylor didn’t know of many being paroled, but as he put together his application in 2019, he tried to stay optimistic. His wife, who was working as a legislative assistant in the Maryland General Assembly at the time, told him that momentum was starting to coalesce in Annapolis around parole reform.
The American Civil Liberties Union of Maryland was making headway in a federal lawsuit that argued it was unconstitutional for the state to categorically deny parole to lifers. And the Justice Policy Institute, a national nonprofit organization, had released a report marking five years since the 2013 court case Unger v. Maryland, which released 200 geriatric lifers back into society. The “Ungers” had a recidivism rate of less than 3 percent, the report said, and ought to serve as a model for the reduction of long sentences nationwide.
Amid all this, in 2018, Glendening came out of retirement to say that he had been “completely wrong” about parole. As governor, he had been guided by politics, not public safety, he said. And he was sorry, he told the public, that his policy had already been carried over and embraced by subsequent administrations.
Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. (R), who succeeded Glendening, lessened the sentences for 21 lifers but paroled none. Martin O’Malley, a Democrat who came after, released two lifers for medical reasons but none under regular parole.
In November 2019, after Hogan’s reelection and in the face of mounting pressure from advocates, he made headlines for releasing a trio of juvenile lifers, becoming the first Maryland governor to do so in 24 years. He would go on to release more lifers than his three predecessors combined — most of them during the pandemic — but he still rejected more than half of the recommendations that landed on his desk, including, in March 2020, one bearing Taylor’s name. In the past eight years, state records show, 191 inmates serving parole-eligible life sentences have died in prison.
It can take weeks or even months for lifers to tell their families that they’ve been rejected for release in the final stage. Others find themselves sobbing as they report the news, finding little else to say except: “I’m sorry.” Taylor was stoic when he called his family, although internally, he said, he felt like he was being suffocated by a straitjacket.
Amber berated herself when she found out. She should have known better, she told herself, than to have trusted that the system would work for a family like hers. But Traore told her not to give up. She had spent her career in Annapolis and knew how laws were made and changed.
There was another way.
The fight in Annapolis
For decades, leaders in the Maryland Senate would not allow lawmakers to vote on bills that would alter parole for lifers.
A powerful victim’s rights group had strong allies in Annapolis, and senators “were worried about how people would look at them, their potential voter base,” said state Sen. Delores G. Kelley (D), who was elected in 1994 as the first Black senator from Baltimore County.
She and other Black lawmakers persisted. And in recent years, Kelley took over leadership on the issue, pushing, as Davis had done years earlier, for a bill that would revoke the governor’s authority over parole. When Kelley tried in 2020, two influential opponents of the change — longtime Senate President Thomas V. Mike Miller Jr. (D-Calvert) and state Sen. Robert A. Zirkin (D-Baltimore County) — were no longer in place. Her bill passed the House but failed in the Senate.
Then, a Minneapolis police officer killed Floyd, igniting a reckoning with criminal justice that boosted existing efforts in Maryland. By the time lawmakers returned to Annapolis in January 2021, a historic package of criminal justice bills was taking shape. Kelley saw an opening.
Opposition, however, was still fierce. In discussions over the bill, Republican lawmakers accused Democrats of tinkering with the line “between good and evil.” Advocates at the Maryland Crime Victims’ Resource Center lamented what they thought was a blatant disregard for victims, whom they had advised for years to contact the governor directly on parole matters. They didn’t appreciate losing “an extra ear,” said executive director Kurt W. Wolfgang, who wrote to Hogan, urging him to veto the legislation.
The governor did, forcing the legislature to bring the bill up for a veto override in December.
“The trend now is toward people believing that the enlightened position is that [lifers] ought to be given second chances,” Wolfgang, a former prosecutor in Maryland’s Prince George’s County, said in November, weeks before the override vote. “But people don’t serve a life sentence because they received a life sentence. They serve a life sentence because they take a knife and stab someone twenty-four times. … They serve a life sentence because of the horrific, vile, disgusting acts that they took that ruined other people’s lives.”
Wolfgang said he doesn’t believe rehabilitation and life imprisonment are mutually exclusive. But criminal justice and criminology experts broadly agree that for many offenders, having a meaningful shot at freedom is vital in helping them to change.
“Parole is a reward and an incentive and a motivation,” said David R. Blumberg, a Republican who chairs the Maryland Parole Commission and has served on the body for 19 years. “People can and do change over the course of time. … But without the chance for parole, they lose hope.”
Those who advocate for lifers say they recognize that having them released might be traumatizing for victims, but they wonder whether it is worthwhile — or just — for the state to keep people imprisoned indefinitely. Studies show that recidivism rates among lifers tend to be far lower than for other criminals, especially once they reach their 40s and “age out” of crime. After being released, said Keith Wallington at the Justice Policy Institute, many lifers become mentors in the violent neighborhoods where they grew up, helping to strengthen rather than weaken public safety.
One of Taylor’s prison mates at Jessup, John Ristick, was sentenced in 1985 at age 16 for stabbing a man to death with a kitchen knife. He had been sexually abused by his father as a child, he said, and was regularly consuming drugs and alcohol when he met his victim in a bar in Baltimore. Ristick was recommended for parole in 2020, but his petition was rejected by Hogan, who noted that he had incurred five infractions while in prison and proposed that “a longer period without additional infractions will more conclusively demonstrate his rehabilitation.”
Ristick, who says he became a Christian while in prison, said that Hogan’s letter left him confused. The last of his five infractions had been recorded in 1996 — for being in a chapel when he was supposed to be at work.
“We need to remember that the parole commission has been specially trained,” Kelley told her colleagues during the floor debate on whether to override Hogan’s veto. “They have the expertise; they are following social science. They are objective in ways that governors are not.”
Over two chilly December days, two-thirds of the General Assembly voted in agreement with her. News of the vote traveled quickly into the state’s prisons. At Jessup, some lifers shared a moment of silence for those who had died in prison after being rejected for release by Hogan and his predecessors. At the Maryland Correctional Institution in Hagerstown, some inmates called Lomax, who had watched the voting at the State House in Annapolis.
“They’re now thinking,” Lomax said, “as to what’s going to come next.”
A broken process
Taylor woke up and sat bleary-eyed by his bunk on a recent morning as he waited for his 45-minute slot to wash, eat, exercise and make calls. Group activities had been canceled, and his courses at Goucher College were shifting back online as the omicron variant of the novel coronavirus swept the world within and beyond Jessup’s walls.
Excitement over the vote had faded, and anxiety was taking its place.
As of late January, weeks after the bill was meant to take effect, state officials still had not released guidelines on whether — or how — the parole board would change its review process for lifers now that the governor is not involved in the process. Hogan had started returning parole applications to the parole board, but the body wasn’t saying whether it would assess the applicants again or set them free. Meanwhile, at the Maryland Crime Victims’ Resource Center, advocates have been telling clients about the new law and urging them to become more involved in offenders’ parole process.
“We’re, of course, going to be worried about every single case,” Wolfgang said.
What happens next in Maryland could set the stage for changes that affect tens of thousands of prisoners serving life sentences, advocates say. Oklahoma, one of two states where governors still have a role in parole decisions, has started to debate the role of politics in granting paroles, pardons and commutations. In Pennsylvania, where more than 5,000 are imprisoned with no possibility of parole, a bipartisan group of lawmakers is pushing for old or sick inmates to be considered for early release. And in Massachusetts, a lawmaker whose brother was killed in a homicide is calling for the state to completely ban sentences of life without parole.
“This is the most momentum, by far, that we’ve seen of parole reform,” said Nazgol Ghandnoosh, a senior researcher at the Sentencing Project, which studies racial disparities in America’s carceral system. “There’s increasing recognition that our prisons are full because there’s this broken process of getting people out.”
In Jessup, Taylor has been waiting to find out the date of his next parole hearing, which will mark the start of a year-long long process to determine whether he is fit for release.
When he feels himself dwelling on whether commissioners will come to the same conclusion about him that they did two years ago or what his life could look like outside prison, he tries to distract himself by talking to other inmates or by reading. He doesn’t want to be crushed again.
“I’m just trying not to get stuck too much in my head,” Taylor said over the phone. “Because it’s back in their hands, you know? It’s up to them.”
Alice Crites and Chris Alcantara contributed to this report.
Editing by Katy Burnell Evans. Copy editing by Anjelica Tan and Gilbert Dunkley. Photo editing by Mark Miller. Audio by Sabby Robinson. Video by Amber Ferguson. Design by J.C. Reed. | null | null | null | null | null |
Jake Hyman, a spokesperson for the Anti-Defamation League, said Carlson’s film about Soros is “nothing more than far-right propaganda at best, and at worst a dangerous antisemitic dog whistle sure to be heard loud and clear by a large audience.”
On his Fox News show on Thursday night, Carlson described the rationale for the documentary, characterizing Soros and Orban as polar opposites who both hold “sincere” beliefs. “We thought that was interesting enough — it was enough of a metaphor for the struggle that’s going on globally between nationalists and people who oppose them, we thought it was worthy of our season finale documentary,” he said.
Carlson argued that “Soros is one of the most powerful political figures in the United States” and said that American media organizations are too “intimidated” to cover him. (Asked for comment for this story, a Fox News spokesperson pointed to Carlson’s on-air remarks about the film.)
The Open Society Foundations has objected to comments made by Fox personalities in the past, including Fox Nation host Lara Logan. In October, Logan appeared on Sean Hannity’s show and referred to “the puppet masters and the people from Open Society Foundations,” alleging that they “claimed to be charities and do charity work but are really a kind of enforcement of this radical political strategy.” She also made a conspiratorial remark about the group on Carlson’s show in September, referring to “all those people in the Biden administration that came from the Open Society Foundations that we’re not allowed to talk about because that’ll be the end of us, right? They’ll come for all of us.” | null | null | null | null | null |
President Biden delivers remarks on the announced retirement of Supreme Court Justice Stephen G. Breyer, left, on Jan. 27 at the White House. (Demetrius Freeman/The Washington Post)
And so, the carping over the next Supreme Court nominee begins, historically ignorant and racially tinged.
President Biden’s “campaign promise that he’d appoint a black woman to the Supreme Court is unfortunate because it elevates skin color over qualifications,” sniffed the Wall Street Journal editorial board. Just a thought here, but maybe the two aren’t mutually exclusive?
The Cato Institute’s Ilya Shapiro, soon to be executive director of the Georgetown Center for the Constitution, chimed in on Twitter, saying the “objectively best pick” would be Sri Srinivasan, an Indian American judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. “But alas doesn’t fit into latest intersectionality hierarchy so we’ll get [a] lesser black woman,” Shapiro tweeted. He later apologized, deleting his tweet as “inartful,” but the mind-set it revealed is breathtakingly insulting.
Lesser Black woman. Think about that. One leading candidate for the vacancy, D.C. Circuit Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson, is a graduate of Harvard and Harvard Law School, where she was an editor of the law review, and went on to clerk for Justice Stephen G. Breyer; she served seven years on the D.C. district court before being elevated to the appeals court in 2021. Another, Leondra Kruger, has an equally glittering résumé: Harvard and Yale Law, John Paul Stevens clerkship, principal deputy solicitor general, California Supreme Court justice.
But that wasn’t all. “Because Biden said [he’d] only consider black women for SCOTUS, his nominee will always have an asterisk attached,” Shapiro observed in a separate tweet.
Asterisk, seriously?
Does Justice Sandra Day O’Connor have an asterisk attached because Ronald Reagan pledged he would name a woman to the Supreme Court? “It is time for a woman to sit among our highest jurists,” Reagan said during the 1980 presidential campaign. She turned out to be a fine justice, but her qualifications at the time were far less than the those of the candidates on Biden’s list.
Eugene Robinson: Breyer’s retirement is an opportunity for Democrats to rally. They shouldn’t squander it.
Does Justice Clarence Thomas have an asterisk attached because President George H.W. Bush felt compelled to name a Black nominee to replace civil rights icon Thurgood Marshall?
“The fact that he is Black and a minority has nothing to do with this sense that he is the best qualified at this time,” Bush asserted when he announced the pick. “I kept my word to the American people and to the Senate by picking the best man for the job on the merits.” This was, literally, incredible. Thomas had a scant 15 months of experience on the D.C. Circuit when Bush tapped him.
Does Justice Amy Coney Barrett have an asterisk attached because President Donald Trump clearly needed to pick a woman to replace Ruth Bader Ginsburg? “I’m saving her for Ginsburg,” Trump was reported to have said of Barrett when he passed her over in favor of nominating Brett M. Kavanaugh in 2018.
The truth is that politics — partisan, demographic, regional — has long played a role in Supreme Court nominations. Dwight D. Eisenhower chose William J. Brennan Jr. in part because he thought a Catholic Democrat from the Northeast would play well with voters in the election just a few weeks away. Reagan was so taken with the notion of naming the first Italian American justice that he opted for Antonin Scalia over Robert H. Bork in 1986.
Somehow, none of these prompted the kind of aggrieved bristling that has erupted in the aftermath of Breyer’s announcement that he plans to retire at the end of the current term. Why might that be?
One legitimate answer is that Biden’s pledge was categorical, he would pick a Black woman; it was explicit rather than implied. And that is a difference. “I’m looking forward to making sure there’s a Black woman on the Supreme Court to make sure we in fact get everyone represented,” Biden said at a debate in February 2020, just before the South Carolina primary, when his campaign was struggling. The promise came at the urging of South Carolina Rep. James E. Clyburn, who shortly endorsed Biden.
Marc A. Thiessen: Biden is powerless to change the direction of the Supreme Court
And Biden reiterated it on Thursday. “I’ve made no decision except one, the person I will nominate will be someone of extraordinary qualifications, character and experience and that person will be the first Black woman ever nominated to the United States Supreme Court,” he said.
Would I be more comfortable if Biden hadn’t been quite so explicit? Yes. Partly because it carries an aura of unfairness to announce that no one will be considered who does not meet an announced racial test. Ambiguity has its advantages. Think about the cases the court has just agreed to hear over affirmative action in higher education. Wherever you come down on the issue, letting colleges consider diversity as one of a number of factors is less problematic than allowing numerical quotas.
And partly because it opens the door to critics denigrating the eventual nominee. Of course, that’s inevitable in any event. See, for example, Shapiro on Sonia Sotomayor when she was nominated in 2009: “In picking Sonia Sotomayor, President [Barack] Obama has confirmed that identity politics matter to him more than merit. While Judge Sotomayor exemplifies the American Dream, she would not have even been on the short list if she were not Hispanic.”
This assumes that identity is irrelevant. It’s not. Judges aren’t legal automatons, digesting precedents and spitting out opinions. They bring to the task, and their thinking is informed by, their backgrounds and their experiences. Somehow, that becomes a problem only for certain nominees, from certain backgrounds, from certain parties. | null | null | null | null | null |
Opinion: After the hunger strike: A conversation with Joe Madison
Joe Madison, a talk-show host and civil rights activist, speaks to a coalition of conservative, progressive, and independent students, some over eight days into a hunger strike urging President Biden to prioritize voting rights on Dec. 13, 2021. (Leigh Vogel/Getty Images for UnPac)
In recent months, activist and radio show host Joe Madison went on a hunger strike to protest renewed attacks on voting rights in America. After the voting bills were defeated in the Senate last week, the 72-year-old Madison began eating solid food again after 73 days without it. Was it all worth it? I spoke with him to find out. The conversation below has been abridged and edited for clarity.
Attiah: First of all, how are you doing?
Madison: I’m doing fine. I’m slowly getting back to regular food. It’s now vegetables, soup and soft food. And I’ll probably have to do that for about a week. When you haven’t had solid food, the last thing you want to do is to put steak in your stomach!
Attiah: Makes sense! But are you feeling okay?
Madison: The biggest physical challenge was insomnia. I started to wear down during the hunger strike. I would be awake at 1, 2 a.m. and not get back to sleep. The other challenge was muscle weakness. I had difficulty walking up the stairs. The first 30 days I went from 194 to 167 pounds. The weight loss started to level because my metabolism slowed down. But I anticipated this.
Attiah: Indeed, I know this is not your first time doing this — you did a hunger strike in the 1980s.
Madison: You know, I had some mentors. [Activist and entertainer] Dick Gregory and I would get to go on strike and sometimes we’d be on over different reasons. The first time was when I was doing some cross-country march. And Dick advised me. And then, I got involved with the civil war in South Sudan — my purpose was to draw attention to the issue. So I often followed his instructions.
Attiah: What else sustained you? Were there mental or even social strategies you used?
Madison: Meditation. And discipline. Because food is everywhere. Pizza commercials, burger commercials. You have to discipline yourself to tune it out. And it became a family affair. My wife and I would go out to a restaurant and she would order a salad, and I would have just broth. My daughter helped me out with special teas. My son decided to go on a hunger strike, too, and it was the first time he had ever done it. He said, “I’m gonna join you.”
Attiah: It’s been a week or so since the voting legislation was defeated. You put your health and your life on the line for this. How are you feeling about just the voting rights situation now?
Madison: I’m very disappointed. The Republican Party clearly now is on record as being the party of voter suppression — and that none of them had the courage to break away and protect what is a cornerstone of our democracy. I was angry at [Democrats] Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema, who decided to put Senate rules and procedure over basic voting rights. I predict that Sinema is not going to get reelected. Manchin just simply can’t be trusted. And that’s how I feel.
Attiah: Obviously, so many people are grass-roots organizers on this issue of voting rights. But … are we doing enough? Sacrificing enough? You literally put your life on the line because you’ve lived through this history. There are times where I think we should be out in the streets all of the time. What have you heard from people who saw what you are doing?
Madison: I can say with all honesty that we have not had one phone call [into the show] where someone has said, “You wasted your time.” It’s been just the opposite. This is unusual. We usually get haters from both sides. I’ve been encouraged to do more.
Attiah: It sounds like you’ve started this nourishing feedback loop — a sort of ripple effect. Maybe that’s how activism is sustained It helps you sustain yourself through supporting other people.
Madison: It’s like throwing a rock in a still lake. The ripples get wider as it goes out.
Attiah: Yes, but sometimes we forget about the original rock and the sacrifices of the activists.
Madison: I’m going to share with you something I haven’t shared with anyone else. My wife made me go to a primary-care physician to get a complete physical before doing this. The blood test came back the next day and my prostate cancer had spiked. The doctor said I needed to go to the urologist immediately. But I had already announced the hunger strike. I went to the urologist, and he ordered a CT scan and an MRI. And this was in December; I was well into the hunger strike. The results came back and the urologist said the cancer had spread to seven different parts of my body, and that I would have to start cancer treatments.
Attiah: Oh, wow.
Madison: I didn’t want to mention it on air so that it would draw attention away from the protest. I asked my urologist, can I continue the hunger strike? I asked him what would happen if I decided not totake these cancer treatments? He said, “You’ll be dead in a year and a half, and that during that year and a half, you’ll be on pain medication.” I asked him if it would impact the hunger strike. He said no — interestingly enough, one of the side effects was that I’d put on weight! [laughs]. But I went ahead. You’re the first journalist I’ve told that to. …
So the question is: What now? I want to use my platform every day to educate everybody on the issues and then to motivate people to do something about it. And then to work especially with the younger people.
I always laugh when people say, “We need to pass the torch to the next generation.” We need to rethink that. I’m gonna light the next generation’s torch. But I’m gonna hold on to my torch because if I pass my torch to you, that leaves me in the dark. We all need to stay on the battlefield. Rosa Parks stayed on the battlefield until she died. Dick stayed on the battlefield. They stayed engaged — until the very end. | null | null | null | null | null |
Breyer’s Supreme Court replacement will face a hefty cyber docket
Welcome to The Cybersecurity 202! The Supreme Court doesn’t lend itself to great film treatments, but “First Monday in October,” starring Walter Matthau and Jill Clayburgh, is pretty good.
Below: A ransomware gang hacked France′s Justice Ministry, and Hungarian civil rights advocates are challenging the country′s use of Pegasus spyware.
The next Supreme Court justice will face mounting cybersecurity cases
Supreme Court Justice Stephen G. Breyer, who announced plans to retire this week, dealt with only a handful of major cybersecurity and privacy cases during his 28 years on the high court.
But the experience of his successor is likely to be far different.
The next decade is set to be a seminal one for cyber and privacy at the high court as cases involving dramatic shifts in technology, how it’s incorporated into daily life and what happens when it’s vulnerable to hacking finally work their way to the Supreme Court for review.
Breyer’s successor, who President Biden has said will be a Black woman who he plans to appoint by the end of next month, could play a leading role in sorting those questions out.
Here are three big issues the court could address:
1. When do companies have to pay out for data breaches?
Historically, consumers have had a tough time suing companies with inadequate cybersecurity protections which are then hacked.
Courts are split: Federal courts agree that customers must have suffered some actual harm to have standing to sue companies after a breach.
But some federal appeals courts say it’s harm enough that customers’ data was stolen. Others say customers must have suffered some more tangible harm like having their identity stolen and losing money.
That barrier is particularly difficult to overcome because most people have been the victims of multiple data breaches. So, when their personal information is used to run up credit card bills or for other nefarious purposes, it’s very difficult to prove that happened because of a specific breach.
“Showing that link is difficult and not as straightforward as some might think because it’s difficult to trace where data comes from,” Jeffrey Vagle, a Georgia State University law professor who focuses on cybersecurity, told me.
It’s highly likely the Supreme Court will take a case in the next decade or so that tries to clarify the question, he said.
2. Can companies block cybersecurity researchers from finding bugs in their products?
The Supreme Court made its biggest move into cybersecurity to date last year when it reined in the nation’s main anti-hacking law, the 1986 Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA), in the case Van Buren vs. United States.
That ruling settled some basic questions about what counts as hacking and what doesn’t, but it also left a lot of unanswered questions that future cases will have to settle.
The justices basically ruled that it’s not hacking if you only access parts of a computer system that you already have permission to access.
The plaintiff in the case was a police officer who accepted a bribe to gather information from a police database. That may have been illegal for other reasons, but the justices feared that calling it hacking under the statute would open the door to criminalizing common activities such as checking social media or online shopping on a work computer.
But the ruling left hazy what happens when people break rules that are overly restrictive such as violating a website’s onerous terms of service. That’s often the case for cybersecurity researchers who are threatened with CFAA lawsuits when they violate websites' terms of service to search for dangerous computer bugs.
3. What’s a reasonable search and seizure in the smartphone age?
If there’s one area where the Supreme Court has grappled with the effects of technology more than any other, it’s the Fourth Amendment right against unreasonable search and seizure.
The court has stepped in a handful of times to rein in tech-enabled methods that law enforcement has used to collect troves of data without a warrant.
The court ruled in United States vs. Jones in 2012 that Washington, D.C. police exceeded their authority when they attached a digital tracker to the bottom of a suspect’s car and tracked him for a month to collect evidence of criminal activity without a valid warrant.
The court ruled in Carpenter vs. the United States in 2018 that the FBI exceeded its authorities when it collected information without a warrant about the approximate location of a suspect’s cellphone to prove that he was near the location of multiple robberies.
There are bound to be numerous similar cases that reach the court in the coming years as the ways police can collect data expand.
“The courts are going to have to conduct new assessments based on new invasions of privacy that new technology makes possible,” Jeff Kosseff, an assistant professor of cybersecurity law at the U.S. Naval Academy, told me.
On a related note: The court will also likely grapple with when and how people suspected of a crime can be forced to unlock their phones and other devices using passwords or biometric signatures. Various courts have reached different conclusions about whether that violates the Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination, but the Supreme Court has yet to weigh in, Kosseff said.
None of the judges being floated as likely successors to Breyer has a lengthy track record in cyber and privacy cases.
But they’re all in their 40s or 50s, which may suggest a closer familiarity with technology and its pitfalls than some older justices.
That also means they’re likely to have a lengthy tenure on the court during which they’ll face cybersecurity questions that are as difficult to imagine now as the security issues spawned by smartphones might have been when Breyer joined the court in 1994.
“Something like the smartphone, people were thinking about it, but it was like science fiction,” Vagle told me. “Ten years from now, who knows what technology we’ll be using then, let alone throughout the tenure of a Supreme Court justice.”
A ransomware gang says it hacked France’s Justice Ministry
The hackers are threatening to publish “all available data” in two weeks, Security Week’s Eduard Kovacs reports. The hackers claimed responsibility for the breach just one day after an independent French auditor said the ministry had made progress on cybersecurity but still had significant work to do.
The Justice Ministry told Security Week that it is aware of the group’s claim and has launched an investigation.
The ransomware group, known as LockBit, is also connected with hacks targeting major corporations like Danish wind turbine firm Vestas and the consulting firm Accenture. The gang is known for threatening to publish data if its ransom demands aren’t met, Kovacs reports.
Iranian officials are investigating a rare hack of state television
It’s an extraordinary breach because Iranian state television is believed to be operated by the country’s cyber-savvy intelligence services, the Associated Press’s Jon Gambrell reports. The hacked broadcast depicted leaders from the exiled opposition group Mujahedeen-e-Khalq (MEK). A state broadcaster said MEK was behind the “extremely elaborate” hack, Bloomberg News’s Golnar Motevalli and Patrick Sykes reported.
MEK spokesperson Shahin Gobadi didn’t claim direct responsibility for the breach and said it appeared to have been done by “supporters of the MEK and resistance units within the regime’s radio and television stations.”
The MEK has come under scrutiny for its cyber and other operations. Facebook has removed troll farms related to the group, which is largely based in Albania. The Intercept reported that a well-known Twitter critic of Iran is actually a made-up persona created by the MEK. The Obama administration removed the group from a government list of terrorist organizations in 2012.
Hungarian civil rights advocates and journalists are launching legal challenges to the country’s use of Pegasus spyware
The Hungarian Civil Liberties Union (HCLU) plans to file complaints with data regulators and authorities who oversee the country’s security services, Claire Parker reports. If those go nowhere, the group — which represents four clients targeted by NSO Group's Pegasus spyware — will resort to legal action.
In Hungary, victims of Pegasus have included two journalists and a businessman who didn’t want to be identified. Critics have compared the use of Pegasus in Hungary to the country’s communist past. The country’s right-wing prime minister, Viktor Orban, has been accused of moving toward autocracy and undermining Hungary’s democracy.
The country's use of Pegasus has drawn particular attention because Hungary is a member of the European Union.
“The organization will also bring ‘a multitude of lawsuits’ before the European Court of Human Rights on behalf of a wide swath of civil society actors and journalists whom the HCLU say are exposed to surveillance,” Claire writes.
The HCLU is also filing a complaint with the European Commission on behalf of Belgian-Canadian student activist Adrien Beauduin, who was studying in Hungary when he was targeted by Pegasus, which the group says violates European Union law.
NSO does not disclose the identities of its customers, but a former NSO employee speaking on the condition of anonymity told The Post last year that Hungary’s government was a client. The country says it abides by the law when using surveillance technologies.
An investigation by The Washington Post and 16 media partners last year found that Pegasus was used to target human rights advocates, journalists and executives in Hungary, India, Mexico and other countries.
The State Department was hit with massive email problems yesterday, but signs so far point to a technical glitch rather than anything malicious, my colleague John Hudson reports:
Brace for Russian cyber attacks as Ukraine crisis deepens, Britain says (Reuters)
Royal rot (Die Zeit)
FTC says Americans are losing more money to social media fraud than ever before (CyberScoop)
Viral letter begging the military to ‘fix our computers’ reaches Pentagon leaders (Task and Purpose)
Gay/bi dating app, Muslim prayer apps sold data on people’s location to a controversial data broker (The Markup)
A year after being hacked, cybersecurity startup Portnox raises $22 million Series A (Calcalist)
Judge won’t budge as voting machine report fuels conspiracies (The Daily Beast)
She was a notorious hacker in the ’80s — then she disappeared (The Verge)
Conti ransomware hits Apple, Tesla supplier (The Record)
Thanks for reading. See you Monday. | null | null | null | null | null |
The NFL’s final four teams are set and it is shaping up to be a fantastic weekend of football. After a weekend of upsets where the lone favorite to advance prevailed in one of the most exciting playoff games in sports history, we’re left with two surprising yet intriguing championship games.
If history is any guide, the underdogs might be done advancing but they could still line the pockets of bettors. Since 2002, the first year the league expanded to 32 teams, the underdogs are 12-26 straight up but their cover rate isn’t terrible against the spread (17-21). In fact, favorites have covered the spread by an average of one-point in the conference championship games over the past 19 seasons, giving some hope for those backing the underdogs at the betting window.
These two teams met in Week 17, and the Bengals walked away with a narrow 34-31 victory. Cincinnati quarterback Joe Burrow and his team’s offense scored 20 more points than expected based on the down, distance and field position of each play. Patrick Mahomes and the Chiefs scored 17 more points than expected. The Bengals also earned a first down or scored a touchdown on over 85 percent of series, the same as the Chiefs.
San Francisco outplayed Los Angeles in both of the regular season matchups, resulting in a combined series success rate (the rate at which a series starting on first down earns a new first down or scores a touchdown on that series) of 78 percent compared with 67 percent for Rams in those games. Los Angeles and San Francisco also rank No. 5 and No. 6 respectively in Football Outsiders’ defense-adjusted value over average (DVOA) metric, which measures a team’s efficiency by comparing success on every single play to a league average based on situation and opponent, another testament to how close these teams are in ability.
There are other factors in San Francisco’s favor, too. The 49ers get a rest advantage having played Saturday while the Rams played Sunday afternoon and the Niners’ trip to SoFi Stadium is easy coming from Northern California, limiting any home-field advantage the Rams might enjoy. Not to mention the expected influx of 49ers fans at this game, which the Rams initially tried to prevent by limiting ticket sales to the opposing team.
If you want to back the 49ers, I would do it sooner rather than later because I think this spread tightens a bit and goes under the key number of three. If it does, you may be better served taking the 49ers money line because of the low probability of the game ending with a one- or two-point margin of victory. If the line moves to +3, a fair-value money line is +130 based on how often teams getting three points in the spread win straight up and if it drops to +2½ a fair-value money line is +108.
There is also a prop bet in this game worth exploring. As of Wednesday morning, Fanduel was offering Jimmy Garoppolo over 222.5 passing yards at -114. Projections from Football Outsiders and Pro Football Focus forecast Garoppolo will have an average of 260 passing yards against the Rams. Those estimates infer a price of -330 for over 222.5 passing yards, a huge discrepancy that makes this an attractive proposition. | null | null | null | null | null |
The only outrage in the Hall of Fame voting? How many people voted for Barry Bonds.
Roger Clemens, left, and Barry Bonds were both kept out of the Baseball Hall of Fame. (AP)
When David Ortiz was voted into the Baseball Hall of Fame on Tuesday and Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens — both in their 10th and final year on the ballot — were not, there was, as expected, an outcry from many fans and media members.
Some were incensed that Ortiz, who reportedly tested positive for performance enhancing drugs in 2003, during what was supposed to be a confidential testing regimen conducted by Major League Baseball, got in on his first year on the ballot.
That was the only time he tested positive and there was some doubt about those tests; it was later suggested by MLB that there might have been some false positives, and Ortiz, given his track record outside of that one test, might have been among them.
I tend to be an absolutist when it comes to performance-enhancing drug users: If you are a cheat, you can’t be in the Hall of Fame. It’s also important to note that the Hall of Fame isn’t a court of law; one does not need to believe someone is guilty beyond a reasonable doubt to not vote for them. No one’s freedom is at stake.
So, I’m honestly not sure if I would have left Ortiz out based on one possibly defective test. (While I used to have a Hall of Fame vote, I no longer do; The Washington Post doesn’t allow its reporters to vote on such honors.)
But I would never vote for Bonds or Clemens, and I’m appalled that close to two-thirds of my colleagues who do vote chose to put aside the damage that duo and their blatant fellow users did to the game.
Two of my colleagues at The Post, Barry Svrluga and Candace Buckner, have already written smart, eloquent columns on the subject. Barry’s premise: It’s understandable why Bonds and Clemens failed to receive the 75 percent of the vote needed for induction, but it’s a shame that baseball’s all-time home run leader and arguably its greatest right-handed pitcher aren’t in the Hall.
I disagree. Regardless of their spectacular talent and statistics, it isn’t a shame that two men who damaged the game aren’t being given the sport’s highest honor. They are, of course, not the only ones who cost themselves that chance.Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa, who helped revive baseball with their home run chase in 1998, aren’t going in, either, because they both cheated, too.
Candace wrote that the 134 voters who left Bonds off their ballots were clinging to a romantic past that no longer exists. She referenced “Field of Dreams” without specifically mentioning the James Earl Jones speech on what baseball has meant to so many of us.
She’s absolutely right about that. That said, if I still had a vote, there would have been 135 of us hearing that speech in our heads while casting our ballots.
Baseball does have a character clause on its ballot — unlike, for example, the NFL. If MLB and the Baseball Hall of Fame wanted to remove that clause, they could, but they choose not to do so, for good reason. A Hall of Fame should be about more than numbers; it should be about what a player — or manager, or owner, or commissioner — meant to the history of the game.
There are those who will point out that there are already plenty of scoundrels in the Hall of Fame. They’ll note that Bud Selig, who spent years ignoring steroids as commissioner, is there, too. They aren’t wrong, but that doesn’t mean we just give up and say, “Heck with the character clause, show me the numbers.”
There’s also the argument that Bonds and Clemens were Hall of Famers before they took steroids. Except they did take steroids. It’s like arguing that someone who started robbing banks at the age of 40 should be allowed to go free — because he was a wonderful human being before that.
Years ago, I had an argument on this subject with ESPN’s Buster Olney, whose work I greatly respect. Buster said, “I can’t ignore the numbers. It’s not my job to make judgments that go beyond the numbers.”
My answer: It is exactly your job to do that. If not, Hall of Fame ballots should be handed out in ballparks with players’ stats on them. Then let all fans vote — just like for the All-Star Game. Hall of Fame voters are required to have covered the game for at least 10 consecutive years. Presumably, they know things about the game and its players that go beyond numbers. I voted for Steve Garvey on several occasions because, even though his regular season hitting stats were (at best) borderline, he was a Gold Glove first baseman, a great postseason player and a leader in the Dodgers clubhouse. I saw it firsthand. Fans looking at numbers didn’t have that opportunity.
Bonds claimed years ago that he was accused of using steroids by media members who didn’t like him. Oh, please. I liked Clemens, but he’s as guilty as Bonds. McGwire and Sosa were romanticized in books after the summer of ’98, but that doesn’t matter, either.
Almost no one in the media, on the other hand, liked Eddie Murray, who was consistently disdainful of those wearing press credentials. He got into the Hall the first year he was eligible. Most voters realized that if the worst thing he could be accused of was not liking the media, he had to be voted in based, yes, on his numbers — as well as the fact that everyone who played with him said he was a clubhouse leader and mentor to younger players.
A Hall of Fame — in any sport — is supposed to be about what is good in that game. It goes beyond numbers. If you insist that Bonds and Clemens should be included because of their performance, fine. Then the Hall should create a “Steroids Wing” and recognize those with eye-popping statistics who we know used steroids, whether they tested positive or not.
Are many of us who oppose the inclusion of men like Bonds and Clemens in the Hall of Fame hopeless romantics who still cry during the final scene of “Field of Dreams”? Absolutely.
But the steroid cheats damaged the game. Here’s the bottom line question: Whom should baseball honor as its all-time home run hitter: Bonds or Henry Aaron?
The Hall of Fame: David Ortiz is Cooperstown-bound; Barry Bonds, Roger Clemens fall short
Buckner: The road to Cooperstown is paved in nostalgia. Barry Bonds never stood a chance. | null | null | null | null | null |
Kansas City's Tyreek Hill used his speed to devastating effect in a playoff game against Buffalo. (Colin E. Braley/AP)
In the NFL, speed has always mattered. Now it’s everything.
If consistency of accomplishment counts for anything, Hill still stands above the pack. That 64-yard touchdown gave him 14 plays this season on which he hit 20 mph or more while carrying the ball, at least six more than any other NFL player, per NGS. Hill’s 12 such plays last season were also the most in the league, and the 24 times he topped 20 mph during the 2018 and 2019 seasons were 10 more than the next player — New York Giants running back Saquon Barkley — on NGS’s list for that span.
Then there are the speeds Hill has reached when he didn’t have the ball, most notably on a pair of long touchdowns in 2019 by then-Kansas City running back Damien Williams. On both occasions, Williams broke free and sprinted away from defenders, only for Hill to chase him down with top speeds of 22.81 and 22.64 mph. On one of those plays, Williams cracked the NGS top 20 for that season by hitting 21.33 while going 84 yards. The other play, a 91-yard scoring run against the Minnesota Vikings, caused some amusement when Hill easily beat Williams to the end zone despite being approximately five yards behind his teammate with 60 yards to go.
The measurements of speed with which most football fans are familiar are players’ times in the 40-yard dash. This is where things become slightly murky for Hill, who wasn’t invited to the NFL draft combine after finishing his college career at West Alabama in 2015. Hill, who was dismissed from Oklahoma State’s program in 2014 after he was arrested on charges of domestic abuse, did run a reported time of 4.29 seconds at his West Alabama pro day, but the draft combine is widely considered the most reliable source of 40 times.
Nevertheless, if Hill’s time of 4.29 is accurate, it stacks up fairly well against the best marks recorded at the combine since it went to electronic timing in 1999. The best combine 40 time, 4.22, was posted in 2017 by wide receiver John Ross, who has not come anywhere close to matching Hill’s volume of highlight plays or overall statistics.
As many fans have noted, the 40-yard dash doesn’t necessarily correlate to “game speed” — i.e., how fast a player can go in a game when in full pads and uniform. Reports vary on just how slow Jerry Rice was in the 40, and he clearly was not a burner. But that never stopped him from running away from defenders en route to becoming the greatest wide receiver of all time.
Fastest NFL ballcarriers on plays run since 2016 (per Next Gen Stats)
Tyreek Hill, WR, KC
2016, Week 2
Raheem Mostert, RB, SF
2016, Week 12
DeSean Jackson, WR, WAS
To Chiefs Coach Andy Reid, the most exceptional aspect of his star wide receiver’s speed is its relentlessness.
“The thing that amazes me the most is that he’s fast and quick, but it’s his endurance while being fast and quick,” Reid said of Hill in November. “Normally, you don’t see that. I tell him that he has this ‘Cheetah’ nickname, but he is really not a cheetah because they’re normally a burst and then they go rest for about eight hours. That’s not this guy.
“He can keep going, over and over again. It’s pretty amazing.” | null | null | null | null | null |
Snowboarder Shaun White, once the dominant face of the halfpipe, finished seventh at Copper Mountain, Colo., in December and announced his retirement from the Dew Tour. He is preparing for his final Olympics in Beijing. (Hugh Carey/AP)
“It was sort of like I was sad,” White says, recalling the story over the phone two months later. “But then it was like a joyfulness because I was sitting there thinking: ‘Like, wow what a run, you knew this day would come, like you know it’s inevitable this is going to happen at some point, and to know that today is that day. This decision has been made.’”
Adjusting his approach
Olympic skiers live life on the edge. Alice Merryweather knows how deeply it can cut.
Momentum has been hard for him to find. His knee and ankle keep hurting. He gets tired. He’s had a perpetual cold since the start of the fall. He coughs as he talks. It’s a horrible, hacking cough that sounds like the starter on an old jalopy. He was certain it was covid, but the tests kept coming back negative. Then, right before the new year, the cough came back stronger. This time, the test was positive. More practices canceled. More delays in the pursuit of the perfect run that will bring him back.
“But knowing what was lying on the other side of this Olympics kind of gave me a second wind,” he continues. “And we’re like: ‘Okay, well, if this is the choice and this is the decision, I can let this crumble me and I’ll crawl away and give up or like, ‘Hey, this is your last go: Let’s be safe; let’s do this thing; but let’s push it to the point of breaking.’”
“No one called me into an office and was like, ‘Oh, you got traded, you’re done, it’s over,’” he says. | null | null | null | null | null |
Buenos días, Buenos Aires
The view of the Plaza del Congreso and the Argentine parliament building from Palacio Barolo. The 328-foot-tall, 22-story Palacio Barolo was inspired by Dante’s "Divine Comedy" and is divided into hell, purgatory and heaven. (Anna Mazurek for The Washington Post)
There was a line when we arrived at La Cocina. The yellow walls were covered with Beatles posters and the date 1977, the year the Buenos Aires empanada restaurant opened. I pointed to the chalkboard menu and suggested the picachu, an onion-and-cheese-filled pastry with red pepper flakes, to my friend Rolando. It was his first trip to South America and my first visit back to the Argentine capital since the pandemic began. I smiled as we grabbed the last free sidewalk table, grateful that my favorite empanada shop had survived.
Our orders arrived on silver metal plates, and each baked pastry was shaped or folded differently to indicate the particular filling. The picachu was round, unlike the usual half-moon shape, and just as delicious as I remembered.
My infatuation with Buenos Aires began on a backpacking trip in 2015 and lured me back in 2018. The vibrant fusion of European and Latin cultures makes the city unique and irresistible. A mass migration of Europeans in the late 19th and early 20th centuries led to a vast multicultural heritage, stark political divides and famous language idiosyncrasies. (The city’s residents, known as porteños, speak Rioplatense Spanish, a Latin American variant where y and ll are pronounced “sh.”)
The streets are lined with grand European palaces, cozy cafes and endless parks. The staples of life are steak, wine and ice cream. Dinner usually doesn’t start before 9 p.m., and afterward, people tango until sunrise. When the country opened for tourism again in November, I rented an apartment in Buenos Aires for the winter. Aside from escaping the cold, I wanted to explore my favorite city post-lockdown to see how it had changed while playing tour guide for Rolando.
A local's guide to Buenos Aires
The most significant change was inflation, which has plagued the country for decades. In 2021, the rate reached 50.9 percent, one of the highest in the world, and is expected to increase to 54.8 percent this year. The unofficial rate for U.S. dollars, known as the blue dollar rate, is about double the bank rate — a boon for tourists who can travel at a nearly 50 percent discount, but difficult for those without access to U.S. dollars.
Rolando and I took full advantage of the exchange rate with a culinary tour of the city’s finest restaurants. I snagged an early 7 p.m. dinner reservation — the other options were 10:30 and 11:30 p.m. — on the patio at Don Julio. The Palermo steakhouse was named one of the best restaurants in Latin America by theworlds50best.com in 2021, and focuses on sustainable beef and organic vegetables. The chilled Patagonian Malbec recommended by the sommelier paired well with my delectable tenderloin steak. The arugula and fig salad and mashed potatoes with Jersey butter were the perfect side dishes for our two-hour meal.
Another culinary treat was afternoon high tea at L’Orangerie at the Alvear Palace Hotel. Waiters served us tiered, teal-rimmed platters of miniature sandwiches, pastries and scones accompanied by a selection from the dessert trolley (I chose the strawberry-topped cheesecake) and a glass of Salentein prosecco. As Rolando’s tour guide, I saw it as my duty to ensure he tried everything, including choripan (sausage served on bread), alfajores (cookie sandwiches filled with dulce de leche) and ice cream, which is an art form in Argentina. At the family-owned chain Lucciano’s, staff members clad in black aprons used spatulas to whisk two flavors into a towering peak on a cucurucho, a waffle cone.
Between meals, we explored on foot, starting with a tour of one of the city’s most beautiful buildings, Palacio Barolo. Inspired by Dante’s poem “The Divine Comedy,” the 328-foot-tall, 22-story building is divided into hell, purgatory and heaven. The glass cupola lighthouse offered a picturesque view of Plaza del Congreso and the Argentine parliament building below.
We spent a cloudy morning at Recoleta Cemetery, a four-block grid of elaborately decorated mausoleums built in various architectural styles. The most-visited tomb belongs to former actress and first lady Eva “Evita” Perón. Other area highlights included the 65-foot metal flower sculpture Floralis Genérica; the National Museum of Fine Arts’ collection of European and Argentine masters; and the National Museum of Decorative Arts, a French-style mansion finished in 1917 and former residence of an aristocratic family with a jaw-dropping art collection.
A sojourner cheats the chill in the warmth of Argentina and Uruguay
The European feel of the city is by design, thanks to French landscape architect Carlos Thays, who created, remodeled or expanded 69 outdoor public spaces. He even remodeled the city’s largest park, Parque Tres de Febrero. The park encompasses the former grounds of 19th-century dictator Juan Manuel de Rosas’s private retreat and is named for Feb. 3, 1852, the date he fell from power. The site now includes a rose garden, planetarium, two lakes filled with ducks and paddle boats, and a paved track frequented by runners and Rollerbladers. Thays is also the eponym for the nearby Carlos Thays Botanical Garden, a gated green space where chirping birds drown out traffic. On weekdays, the city’s parks are filled with group exercise classes. Locals lounge in the shade on weekends drinking mate, a loose-leaf tea served with hot (not boiling) water sipped through a filtered metal straw from a gourd cup.
One of the best walks in the city is the Sunday San Telmo Fair, an outdoor art and antique market that starts near Plaza de Mayo, Buenos Aires’ oldest public square. The plaza is home to Casa Rosada, the president’s rose-colored office, and the Metropolitan Cathedral, where Pope Francis, as Archbishop Jorge Bergoglio, conducted mass before moving to the Vatican. Rolando and I walked 10 blocks down Defensa Street between two rows of stalls selling a variety of goods, such as mate cups and antique glass seltzer bottles. Most people were wearing masks outdoors. We joined the line at the corner of Chile Street for a photo with the statue of Mafalda, a famed Argentine comic book character of a little girl with a bob haircut. She adorns many of the items for sale.
After reaching Plaza Dorrego, we took a short taxi ride to El Caminito, a cobbled street lined with colorful houses and souvenir shops in the La Boca neighborhood, home of the Boca Juniors, the country’s famous soccer team. Every restaurant had a pair of tango dancers to entertain patio diners, which was our only tango experience. (The pandemic had shuttered my former tango school, and fears of the omicron variant kept us away from indoor milongas, group dances.) Even without tango, I still loved the city.
For a bit of nature, we took the Tren de la Costa to Tigre, the gateway to the Paraná Delta located about 18 miles north of the city. We walked along the water’s edge to the Tigre Art Museum, a 1912 social club turned art museum. Then we hopped on a boat tour of the delta’s latte-colored waterways. A few dilapidated homes were scattered between a rainbow of freshly painted vacation rentals with names such as Midnight Sun and the Palm Tree. Children waved from nearby docks.
To explore the lesser-visited neighborhoods of Villa Urquiza, Saavedra and Coghlan, we joined a two-hour walking tour with Buenos Aires Street Art. A two-story peacock, a pair of blue-hued dancers and a colorful lizard holding a mate cup were some of the elaborately detailed murals we discovered. The quiet residential streets were a welcome change from the noisy entertainment and tourist hubs of Palermo and Recoleta.
After the tour, I asked Rolando about his impression of Buenos Aires. His response mirrored my own: The diversity of the neighborhoods was refreshing. From the sleek skyscrapers of the revitalized portside of Puerto Madero to Palermo’s trendy wine bars, every part of town had an authentic charm, just like the people. As I watched Rolando’s airport taxi drive away, I was grateful I had two months left on my visa to spend strolling the parks, drinking wine and falling more in love with Buenos Aires. Like tango, the city always holds you in a close embrace that’s almost impossible to break.
Guatemala 4691
011-54-11-4831-9564
parrilladonjulio.com
This Palermo steakhouse serves up some of the best steaks in town. Its wine list is extensive, so ask the sommelier for suggestions. Open daily from noon to 4 p.m. and 7 p.m. to 1 a.m. Reservations recommended. Entrees from about $30.
Av. Pueyrredón 1508
This unassuming hole-in-the-wall restaurant opened in 1977 and is one of the best spots in the city for empanadas. The yellow interior has limited seating — a few bar stools and a lone table that seats eight, along with three tables on the sidewalk. Try the picachu, an onion-and-cheese-filled pastry. Open daily from noon to 4 p.m. and 6 to 11 p.m. Empanadas from about $1.40.
L’Orangerie
Av. Alvear 1891
bit.ly/orangerie-restaurant
Located in the swanky Alvear Palace Hotel in Recoleta, this restaurant serves afternoon tea featuring a selection of miniature sandwiches, pastries and scones. Reservations required. The tea service is available at 5 p.m. Thursday through Sunday for about $40 per person. .
Lucciano’s
luccianos.net
This family-owned ice cream chain started in Mar del Plata in 2011 and opened its first Buenos Aires shop in 2015. Check website for locations and hours.
Buenos Aires Street Art
011-54-9-11-3564-9988
buenosairesstreetart.com
Buenos Aires Street Art has organized more than 200 murals in Buenos Aires. It offers weekly tours through the residential neighborhoods of Villa Urquiza, Coghlan and Saavedra to share the story behind its projects and other street art in the area. Walking tours Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday at 3 p.m. Tours about $20 per person.. Private tours also available.
Carlos Thays Botanical Garden
Santa Fe Avenue 3951
buenosaires.gob.ar/jardinbotanico
This botanical garden is a peaceful escape from the city. Built by French landscape architect Carlos Thays, the green space includes more than 1,500 plant species, Roman-style statues and a glass-domed greenhouse. Open Tuesday through Sunday from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. Free entry.
National Museum of Decorative Arts
Av. del Libertador 1902
museoartedecorativo.cultura.gob.ar
Located in a French-style mansion completed in 1917, the museum is the former residence of Chilean aristocrat Matías Errázuriz and his wife, Josefina. The family’s original furniture and art are on display, including works by El Greco, Manet and Rodin. The museum also hosts rotating art exhibits in the basement and downstairs rooms. Advance online reservations are required. Open Tuesday through Sunday from 1 to 7 p.m. Free entry.
National Museum of Fine Arts
bellasartes.gob.ar/en/
This world-class art museum moved twice before settling in its current Recoleta location. Its collection includes European masters (Rodin and van Gogh) and Argentinian artists (Augusto Ballerini and Benito Quinquela Martín). Advance online reservations required. Open Wednesday through Sunday from 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. Free entry.
Palacio Barolo
Av. de Mayo 1370
011-54-011-3221-1331
palaciobarolo.com.ar/?lang=en
This 22-story structure is one of the city’s most beautiful buildings and was once the tallest building in Latin America. Visitors can climb to the top of the glass cupola lighthouse and peer down on the picturesque view of Plaza del Congreso and the Argentine parliament building. Tours are offered hourly Thursday through Saturday from 4 to 8 p.m. and Sundays at 2, 4 and 6 p.m. Tours from about $23 to $28 per person.
Junín 1760
bit.ly/recoleta-cemetery
Built in the former vegetable garden of the monastery next door, this stunning cemetery covers a four-block grid with elaborately decorated mausoleums. Open daily 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Free entry.
San Telmo Fair
Defensa Street
feriadesantelmo.com
This lively outdoor Sunday art and antique market stretches from the south end of Plaza de Mayo along Defensa Street to Plaza Dorrego and the surrounding area. The street is closed to traffic during this time. Most of the antique vendors are near Plaza Dorrego, where the event started in 1970. Open Sundays from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Free entry.
Tigre Art Museum
Paseo Victorica 972, Tigre
mat.gov.ar
This stunning social building was transformed into an art museum that opened in 2006, focusing on Argentinean artists from the 19th and 20th centuries. The neoclassical building itself is worth visiting. (The Carrara marble staircase is extremely photogenic.) Wednesday through Sunday, the gardens are open from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m., and the museum is open from 1 to 6 p.m. Garden entry free. Museum entry about $2.40 per person and free for children younger than 12.
trendelacosta.com.ar
This scenic 11-station train hugs the Rio de la Plata coastline through the neighborhoods of Vicente López, San Isidro and San Fernando before ending at Tigre, a popular day trip and vacation spot on the Paraná Delta. One-way fares start at 14 cents and vary based on destination.
turismo.buenosaires.gob.ar/en | null | null | null | null | null |
Oscar Mayer introduced a hydrogel face mask made to look like a slice of its signature bologna. Reporters at The Post test it out and share their experiences. (Allie Caren/The Washington Post)
In a move that has prompted surprise, confusion and perhaps even a little revulsion, Oscar Mayer recently branched out from its vast selection of packaged deli meats and wieners with its new product: a hydrating facial mask inspired by b-o-l-o-g-n-a.
The fleshy pink mask has the moist appearance of sliced sandwich meat and is sealed in the company’s classic red-and-yellow packaging. Labeling on the package makes it clear, however, that the product is not food. It’s a sheet mask designed to evoke the childhood memory of biting eye and mouth holes into a slice of luncheon meat and then wearing it on your face.
Nostalgia factor and clever marketing aside, the hydrogel masks are genuine skin-care products and shouldn’t be evaluated at, well, face value. So several of my colleagues and I tried them, and I spoke with some skin-care experts who were game to discuss the relative merits of a bologna-inspired face mask. Here are the answers to your most urgent questions.
Why is a meat company dabbling in skin care?
Publicity.
Bologna-like sheet masks are just the latest example of head-scratching product crossovers launched by major food brands — think Quarter Pounder-scented candles from McDonald’s, Kentucky Fried Chicken’s Crocs collaboration and Panera’s “Swim Soup” swimwear, just to name a few. Oscar Mayer’s $4.99 masks have attracted similar viral attention, sparking a flood of media coverage and selling out within 24 hours of becoming available on Amazon this month. (Amazon founder Jeff Bezos owns The Washington Post.)
“Oscar Mayer as a brand has a legacy of sparking unexpected smiles and injecting levity into serious moments and we felt that in this case, beauty and self-care was a very ripe territory for the brand to ultimately have some fun with and to playfully subvert,” said Megan Lang, Oscar Mayer’s associate marketing director. She added that the bologna masks are part of a larger marketing campaign to “modernize and contemporize” the brand.
Oscar Mayer partnered with Seoul Mamas, a Korean beauty and skin-care company based in the United States, to create the “hydrating and restoring hydrogel mask” that promises moisturizing and soothing effects.
“But most importantly,” Lang said of the product, “it helps us recapture that childhood joy.”
What do these masks look and smell like?
While the masks bear an uncanny resemblance to DIY bologna masks, complete with scalloped edges around the eye and mouth openings to give them a freshly bitten look, they don’t contain actual sandwich meat. They also don’t smell anything like bologna, which is either a huge relief or a major letdown depending on how authentic you’re hoping the experience will be. Instead, they have a subtle floral scent.
What are the masks made of?
The masks are made of hydrogel, which mimics the texture of bologna better than a standard, paperlike sheet mask. The first two ingredients are water and glycerin, which dermatologists say is a promising sign because the product is supposed to be hydrating.
Water, of course, provides hydration, and glycerin, a common ingredient in moisturizers and lotions, helps to draw moisture into the skin. “When you look at the actual ingredients, you can see why there are clinical benefits and they have the same benefits that you would see with any hydrating face mask,” Los Angeles-based dermatologist Ivy Lee said.
While also a more suitable stand-in for bologna, hydrogel serves a functional purpose here: Its gelatinous barrier also helps retain moisture.
“It’s like putting Saran Wrap on your skin versus a piece of paper,” said Debra Jaliman, author of “Skin Rules” and a dermatologist in New York. “It increases the occlusive quality on your skin, so it increases the penetration” of ingredients.
The mask has “witch hazel botanical and seaweed-derived ingredients” as well as collagen to “lock in moisture and promote skin elasticity.”
Witch hazel has some anti-inflammatory properties, which aligns with the mask’s promise to help soothe skin, according to experts. But the collagen is “just a buzzword,” Jaliman said.
Lee agreed. “I don’t think there’s actually any benefit to having topical applications of collagen,” she said. “It just can’t penetrate the skin barrier.” When reached for comment, Seoul Mamas didn’t respond to a question about the use of collagen in the mask.
Still, the dermatologists concur that the masks, which are advertised as “suitable for all skin types, but especially for those who used to make masks out of their bologna as kids,” probably pose little risk.
“Looking at just the ingredients, I think this should be really well tolerated,” Lee said. (As with any unfamiliar skin-care product, dermatologists advised people with sensitive skin or certain skin conditions to exercise caution.) “If you’ve got an intact skin barrier, you should be absolutely fine.”
One caveat, however. Despite being inspired by childhood creativity, the masks are not intended for use by children, Seoul Mamas said in a written statement.
How does the mask look and feel when it’s on?
True to inspiration, the pieces of the mask — one for the top half of your face and the other for the bottom — could easily be mistaken for slices of bologna if they weren’t missing the scent of processed meat.
The mask is cool to the touch but much slimier than real bologna. This might hamper its ability to stick to your face for the recommended 10 to 20 minutes, as occurred with some of our testers, in which case it comes to resemble melting flesh.
Then, there’s the matter of how it looks if you succeed in applying it properly. If you’re envisioning the scene from “The Office” where Dwight Schrute wears a crash test dummy’s face as a mask á la Hannibal Lecter, you’re not far off. That wasn’t on purpose, Oscar Mayer’s Lang said.
“It’s been an unintended, but funny, I think, consequence of how the mask looks to some when you put it on,” she said. “It really adds to the levity and the humor of this whole activation, but I will say that was not by design.”
Halloween aesthetic aside, the overall experience of wearing the mask and its immediate effects should feel familiar to anyone who has used a hydrating sheet mask.
Afterward, the skin should “feel a little bit softer and smoother to the touch,” said Diane Berson, an associate professor of dermatology at Weill Medical College of Cornell University. She added, “It’s more of an instant gratification, look good, feel good product and that’s what most masks are.”
And for people who have fond memories of bologna, the masks may offer an additional benefit, Berson said: a taste of sentimentality.
“This was a brilliant idea because it’s sort of that ‘everything that’s old is new again,’ and nostalgia is so big right now,” she said. “When I saw this, I thought, ‘Wow, how cool. When I used to go to school I loved my bologna sandwiches on white bread.’ ” | null | null | null | null | null |
Opinion: Daniel Snyder might be about to rename his team, but he still has to acknowledge the harm the old name caused
FedEx Field, the home stadium of the Washington Football Team. (Susan Walsh/AP)
By Ahmar Zaman
Esther Fiore
Carter Comrie
Ahmar Zaman is interim director of clinical training in clinical psychology at Pacific University. Esther Fiore is a doctoral student in clinical psychology at Pacific University. Carter Comrie is chair of the Michigan Psychological Association Pain Psychology Task Force.
I’m sorry. My bad. I didn’t mean to hurt you. That was wrong of me. My mistake. I apologize.
There are many ways to express an apology when we are at fault. Yet far too often, people and public entities get it so wrong. There are primarily three components of an apology: an acknowledgment of the transgression, accountability for the transgression and reparations for the transgression. The reparations for a transgression are often what is missed when a large public entity acknowledges the harm it caused.
A standardized apology statement that has become cliche will typically follow, while the process of mending the harm that occurred is often lacking. In the case of the Washington Football Team, all parts of the apology process have been missing.
For years, team owner Daniel Snyder not only denied that the name was offensive but also often doubled down, refusing to acknowledge any criticism. In the midst of the racial reckoning during the summer of 2020 and threats of corporate sponsorship being pulled, the organization “retired” the team name and replaced it with the generic “Washington Football Team” moniker for two seasons. This was a change so drastic that it felt akin to yelling, “If I can’t have this, then nobody can,” a person quitting a game and taking their ball home.
Whether intentional or not, the drastic name change felt like a last subtle dig after years of protests finally culminated in change. To this day, Snyder and the WFT have yet to acknowledge the harm from the use of their former moniker; the first step in providing an apology. These actions and more have only continued the dismissal of concerns by Indigenous communities.
On Feb. 2, the WFT will announce its new team name and aim to move forward from a history of capitalizing on Indigenous culture and harming Indigenous communities without a semblance of an apology issued.
Certainly, the WFT is not the only large entity, or even the only sports franchise, to have perpetuated harm against marginalized identities. What seems to separate the WFT from its contemporaries is its recent brazen track record. It has offered a master class in the non-apology and hitched its wagons to the White colonial idea that the best way to handle issues of race and discrimination is to avoid them altogether.
The community the team claimed to honor is conspicuously missing altogether from the team’s public relations presence as the WFT’s website makes no mention of any Indigenous communities, history or ties. The Chicago Blackhawks, another professional franchise mired with its own controversy, has part of its website dedicated to Native American initiatives and provides land acknowledgments accompanied by an explanation of the importance of land acknowledgments. That is not to say that this type of endeavor by the Chicago Blackhawks is sufficient, but it clearly highlights the lack of effort by the WFT.
Where the Chicago Blackhawks might have made some effort to create ties with Indigenous history and communities, the WFT has actively put distance between the team and anything “diversity”-related altogether. Team President Jason Wright recently stated, “We will choose an identity that unequivocally departs from any use of or approximate linkage to Native American imagery.” Of the potential team names shared by Tanya Snyder, co-chief executive, none of the prospective names has any ties to diversity-related initiatives. This appears to be by design, as two popular fan-driven team names, “Red Tails,” paying respects to the Tuskegee Airmen, and the less popular “Code Talkers,” referencing the Navajo Code Talkers and their contributions during World War II, were missing from the final list. It is clear that when it comes to diversity, equity and inclusivity initiatives, the goal is to avoid them altogether.
Malcolm X stated, “If you stick a knife in my back nine inches and pull it out six inches, there’s no progress. If you pull it all the way out, that’s not progress. The progress is healing the wound that the blow made. And they haven’t even begun to pull the knife out, much less try and heal the wound. They won’t even admit the knife is there.” Snyder has simply pulled the knife out. He has not acknowledged the harm he caused Indigenous communities, taken accountability for his actions or made reparations.
Snyder and the WFT have not healed the wound. On Feb. 2, Snyder will charge forward with his ball in one hand and knife in the other. Hopefully, other entities can learn from this mess, advocate for marginalized voices and, notably, heal wounds left behind. | null | null | null | null | null |
Opinion: Maryland’s communities of color need a swift end to cannabis criminalization
Workers separate cannabis flowers from stalks at Maryland's first legal outdoor marijuana harvest at Culta in October 2019 in Cambridge, Md. (Jahi Chikwendiu/The Washington Post)
By Darryl Barnes
Darryl Barnes, a Democrat, represents Prince George’s County in the Maryland House of Delegates. He is chair of the Maryland Legislative Black Caucus.
Year after year, polling has shown that a strong majority of Marylanders support ending cannabis prohibition. I had reservations until 2020. In part, what convinced me was thinking about the thousands of Marylanders — disproportionately Black Marylanders — who are arrested and criminalized every year for possessing a substance that is safer than alcohol and that is now legal in 18 other states (including our neighbors in Virginia and D.C.).
Maryland is lagging on cannabis policy reform, and it is time that we move forward with equitable legalization.
I cannot emphasize enough how urgent the need is to finally put an end to the war on cannabis in our state. Our current cannabis laws are harming our constituents, and they are not enforced equally. I applaud House Speaker Adrienne A. Jones (D-Baltimore County) and Senate President Bill Ferguson (D-Baltimore City) for their commitment to prioritizing cannabis legalization during our 2022 legislative session. It is encouraging to see our legislative leaders taking this issue seriously, and, as the chair of the Maryland Legislative Black Caucus, I stand by their commitment and will work to ensure we cross the finish line.
Given the opportunity, I firmly believe that our state would pass a legalization measure if it were up to the voters. We saw this happen in New Jersey. After failing to find enough common ground to pass a bill legislatively, New Jersey lawmakers opted to put a proposal to legalize cannabis before the voters. The measure was overwhelmingly approved, with 67 percent of voters in favor of legalization.
If this is the approach Maryland takes, and it is in fact passed by voters, it will be of the utmost importance for our legislature to ensure implementation is both timely and equitable. I’ve long been a vocal leader advocating for diversity and equity in the existing medical cannabis program, and I will work to ensure that social equity, reparative justice and community reinvestment are at the heart of legalization and included from the outset.
However, speedy implementation cannot come at the expense of equity in the growing, processing and distribution of cannabis. A disparity study will provide us key information in determining how we can best address existing inequities and maximize participation in the cannabis industry. Our communities of color have borne the brunt of cannabis prohibition. To this day, Black Marylanders are twice as likely as White Marylanders to be arrested for cannabis despite similar usage rates. This harsh reality is why any legalization measure in Maryland must also seek to repair the past harms prohibition has caused — particularly in communities of color. This includes providing for expungement of past cannabis offenses, ensuring that those who have been disproportionately harmed by prohibition have ownership at every level in the legal industry, and reinvesting the bulk of the tax revenue from legal cannabis sales back into these communities.
The longer we delay, the longer people will be at risk, particularly Black and Brown Marylanders who suffer disproportionately. If Maryland does not move forward with legalization this year, people will continue to be needlessly arrested and criminalized, consumers will have access only to the unregulated and dangerous illicit market, and the state will miss out on generating hundreds of millions of dollars in tax revenue.
Maryland has the opportunity to legalize cannabis right and with equity at the forefront. The time to replace the devastating war on cannabis with comprehensive, equitable legalization is now. | null | null | null | null | null |
Opinion: My son was abused in prison, but proposed Virginia legislation still wouldn’t give him a second chance
Razor wire along the security fences at Red Onion State Prison in Virginia. (Robert A. Reeder/The Washington Post)
By Takeisha Brown
Takeisha Brown is the mother of Tyquine Lee, who was held in solitary confinement for more than 600 days.
For years, I have lived a parent’s worst nightmare — because of Virginia’s prison system.
I am the mother of Tyquine Lee, a man with a history of severe mental health issues who was held in solitary confinement for more than 600 days in Red Onion State Prison in Wise County, Va. During that time, he was subjected to merciless abuse and, ultimately, his mental health deteriorated until he was 98 pounds and nonverbal.
After an extensive legal battle, he is now at a new facility outside of Virginia, and he is doing much better. But my heart still hurts for him every day. He deserves a chance at freedom. And he’s not alone. So many incarcerated people in Virginia are serving unnecessarily long sentences and should have a chance to reenter society.
Virginia Del. Carrie E. Coyner (R-Chesterfield) and state Sen. Chap Petersen (D-Fairfax City) recently introduced legislation that would enable incarcerated people serving extreme sentences to get that chance. It sounds like a terrific step forward — until you look at the details. The bill has extremely strict requirements for who can receive a second look, and my son, with his vulnerability, would be excluded.
I am begging Virginia legislators to please not prevent people such as my son from getting a second chance.
It is difficult to put my son’s story into words. Every time I think about it, the pain consumes me.
Tyquine grew up with mental health problems and was hospitalized several times because of these issues. Then, about a decade ago, at 18, he made a mistake and participated in a string of home invasions. He was sentenced to an extreme 120 years plus a life sentence without the eligibility of parole.
He was later placed in solitary confinement for more than 600 days. Every day, he was locked in an 80-square-foot concrete cell. He missed endless showers and was not permitted to even step outside of his cell. He also was fed inconsistently and was sometimes given food covered with particles of his jail cell and maggots.
His health deteriorated sharply. He lost 30 pounds and was as thin as a toothpick. He lost the ability to speak in words, and spoke only in strings of incoherent numbers or barked like a dog.
For years, I fought to have him taken out of solitary confinement and placed in a new facility. Finally, he was transferred to a prison closer to me.
I am grateful that he is no longer suffering so grievously. But he deserves to be free altogether, receiving proper mental health care and spending time with his family.
Virginia lawmakers have signaled that they are willing to give some incarcerated people a hearing to reevaluate their sentences. That’s much needed. One in seven incarcerated people in the state is serving a life sentence, even though research shows such extreme sentences do little to protect public safety and are extremely costly.
But the lawmakers’ newly introduced bill needs revisions. For one, it requires people to earn “good conduct time” or “sentencing credits.” But many people are not allowed to do so. For example, any adult sentenced before 1995 cannot receive credits.
The bill also excludes people who have been convicted of a “100 series disciplinary offense” or more than one “200 series disciplinary offense” in the five years preceding the filing of the petition.
These offenses can be paltry. They can include having a cigarette, possessing a portable telephone, engaging in consensual sexual intercourse with another incarcerated person or participating in a group demonstration — such as a hunger strike for better coronavirus protections.
Though the legislation does allow incarcerated people to circumvent these behavioral requirements with a waiver, there is no clear procedure to access one.
And there is absolutely no need for these standards in the first place. We are not asking for Virginia to release people without restriction. We are simply asking for incarcerated people to get a chance at a hearing to reevaluate their sentences.
I met with Coyner to discuss my concerns with the proposed legislation and greatly appreciate her time and kindness. But what we need now is action.
To be sure, no legislation will take away the relentless abuse that my son endured in prison. But we can make Virginia’s prison system better and more humane for the future. | null | null | null | null | null |
Opinion: Virginia’s new lost cause
Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin (R) campaigned against critical race theory. (Michael Blackshire/The Washington Post)
By Atif Qarni
Atif Qarni is a former Virginia secretary of education.
In the opening days of the new administration in Virginia, Gov. Glenn Youngkin (R) openly declared war on Virginia’s public education system.
His first executive order on critical race theory (CRT) was an aggressive attack on our public educators and school systems. In the order, Youngkin claims that students are being taught “inherently divisive concepts” and are undergoing “political indoctrination” in the classrooms.
To be fair, Youngkin did warn us before the attack. On the campaign trail, Youngkin launched his crusade against public education. He described the teaching of CRT as equivalent to reverse racism and part of the liberal agenda to brainwash children. Specifically, he expressed concern over White students feeling uncomfortable about history lessons involving discussions about race. Youngkin provided no data or evidence to support claims regarding the negative impact these supposed teaching practices were having on children. How does one teach slavery without discussing the race of both the oppressor and the oppressed?
During the campaign, Republican claims of indoctrination were so outrageous and far-fetched that many dismissed them as nonsensical. The “CRT debate” appeared to be nothing more than a political stunt by Youngkin to assure the base of the party that he was a true conservative. Since Youngkin was a political newcomer whose ideological leanings were unknown, the Republican Party was very much concerned that he could have more moderate leanings like the governor to the north in Maryland.
However, the unprecedented turnout of rural and suburban White voters for Youngkin confirmed that the battle cry against CRT had awakened a sleeping army in the South. A holy war was being waged against the evils of public education — White children were under attack — and the Lost Cause of the Confederacy was once again up for review and revival in 2022.
Having served both as a public school teacher for 10 years and as Virginia’s secretary of education for the past four years, I strongly believe that public education is the last vanguard of our democratic society. To be clear, with CRT, Youngkin has manufactured a crisis in K-12 education that does not exist. In this fictitious narrative, he is the hero, teachers and school boards are the villains, White children are the victims, and racist parents are his foot soldiers. Youngkin established a tip line to report public school educators teaching “divisive concepts.” This is the new Red Scare.
History is full of “divisive concepts,” including some very bad people and ideas. Perhaps we don’t agree on what “bad” and “good” are anymore, and this might be the crux of the problem. As a former history teacher, I can attest that some of these conversations can be uncomfortable. Though slavery, Jim Crow and anti-miscegenation laws no longer exist, discrimination still occurs, and systemic racism exists in our country. Students should understand what antisemitism looks like, what Islamophobia looks like, what homophobia looks like and so forth. History is not just learning about the oppression of minority groups; it is also about teaching about their many contributions and accomplishments to our society.
Youngkin’s attempt to ban CRT is an attempt to ban the truth about what happened in our history, starting before the arrival of the first ships to Virginia’s shores. For example, many Indian tribes resided in Virginia thousands of years before the invasion by English settlers. The first Africans were brought here in 1619 in bondage and forced into slavery by Europeans. Many important figures who revolted against British rule resided in Virginia. Many U.S. presidents were born in Virginia, including four of the first five. Richmond was the capital of the Confederacy from 1861 to 1865, and some of the bloodiest battles of the Civil War were fought in Virginia. Virginia is also where 16-year-old Barbara Johns protested the poor conditions of her school, which eventually led to the famous Brown v. Board of Education case that ended segregation in public schools. Virginia is also where “massive resistance” to desegregation, led by U.S. Sen. Harry F. Byrd Sr., resulted in many schools shutting down in 1958 and 1959 to block integration of classrooms.
As a former history teacher, I am most concerned that Youngkin’s administration is stoking the fires of racial discontent, eerily reminiscent of the 1950s, and waging war on sacred ground, the public school classroom. Racist parents are showing up in droves to school board meetings, threatening members and superintendents with recalls, firing — and worse. It is dangerous. It is divisive. It is un-American. As Virginians, let us remember our history and not repeat the errors of our past. | null | null | null | null | null |
It feels like we’ve gotten worse at dealing with covid, not better
When I began experiencing covid-19 symptoms, I couldn’t find a PCR test within a two-hour drive of my home for at least a week. I bought one of those home tests you have to send back to get results, but when I went to drop it off at the localhealth department, it was inexplicably closed. So I had to walk into a UPS drop-off site at a pharmacy, which didn’t feel safe for anyone. I put on my KN95 mask and tried not to breathe. I didn’t know what else to do.
That same day, the county next door stopped its contact tracing program. I called one of the supervisors to find out what was going on, and he too had covid. That same week, in response to an overwhelming demand for tests, President Biden encouraged people to find one by Googling “covid test near me."
I live in Iowa, a red state, where we opened everything up in May 2020 and have never looked back. Nor will we. In the spring of 2021, Gov. Kim Reynolds signed a law outlawing mask mandates in schools. As a working single mom, part of me is glad that schools are open, because affordable child care is harder to find than Atlantis. But I’m also worried for teachers, bus drivers and cafeteria workers who have little choice but to come to work despite a lack of affordable health care. It’s an impossible situation, with few right answers. And because our leaders have failed to carve a clear path forward, mothers and teachers are left to fight over economic scraps in a society that refuses to help them.
It’s the beginning of the third pandemic year, but it feels like we’ve gotten worse at all of this, not better.
And then, well, I thought perhaps it would be better when my kids were vaccinated. But here they are, 10 and 8 years old and fully vaccinated, and we’re still not free of this. It feels like we’ve been running a marathon only to have the finish line moved farther ahead. | null | null | null | null | null |
Burkina Faso’s coup-makers capitalized on wider grievances within the ranks
But the new military leadership may find it difficult to meet soldiers’ demands for more support in the fight against Islamist militants
Demonstrators gathering in Ouagadougou, the capital of Burkina Faso, to show support for the military hold a picture of Lt. Col. Paul-Henri Sandaogo Damiba, the leader of the recent mutiny by the armed forces. (Olympia De Maismont/AFP/Getty Images)
By Maggie Dwyer
On the evening of Jan. 24, the people of Burkina Faso were met with what has become a telltale sign of a coup — a group of soldiers in fatigues appearing on the national television station. By this point the statement of a military takeover by a group calling itself the Patriotic Movement for Safeguard and Restoration (MPSR) did not come as a surprise to most, given the significant signs of military unrest in the previous 36 hours.
Burkina Faso has one of the highest coup and mutiny rates on the continent, giving many citizens a sense of deja vu this week. The revolt came in the midst of the country’s struggle to combat attacks by Islamist armed groups. Growing instability has created a humanitarian crisis. The United Nations reports that one in five Burkinabe are in need of humanitarian assistance.
While overshadowed by the coup announcement, the mutiny on the day before may provide important insights into the dynamics behind the overthrow — and what might come next. Widespread morale issues may prove to be one of the junta’s largest challenges.
Soldiers made their demands
On the morning of Jan. 23, observers reported heavy gunfire at several bases in the capital, Ouagadougou, and in the northern cities of Kaya and Ouahigouya.
Military mutineers gave a journalist their list of demands: better support, more troops and training for their fight against terrorism; changes to deployment procedures; improved support for injured soldiers and families of deceased soldiers; and the replacement of intelligence and military chiefs. It is unclear if there were any negotiations with the government about these demands. By the next day, the president was detained.
These demands, like most presented by mutineers, are very specific to conditions and life in the armed forces. Many speak to basic concerns over soldiers’ safety and the well-being of their families.
Learning from past mutinies
The quick escalation from a mutiny with specific demands to the overthrow of a government is a rarity. My book, “Soldiers in Revolt: Army Mutinies in Africa,” shows that the vast majority of mutinies do not expand to include bids for political power. However, there is a pattern of combat-related complaints quickly escalating.
Mutineers requesting salary increases or improved housing may be more willing to negotiate over time — while soldiers treat grievances around combat issues with a strong sense of urgency. A similar escalation from combat grievances to coup occurred in Mali (2012) and Sierra Leone (1992). These examples also pose a warning. Both countries saw conflict increase and a series of further coups following the combat-related revolts.
The scale of the initial mutinies in Burkina Faso suggests soldiers’ grievances are widespread, spanning multiple units, services and geographic regions. This may differentiate this week’s events from other, more elitist coups where the leaders reflect only the frustrations of a small circle of officers.
What has dampened morale?
Some Sahel countries have been battling Islamist militants for over a decade. Burkina Faso’s experience is more recent, and the clashes have increased rapidly over the last six years. ACLED data shows a sharp spike in fatalities from armed clashes in Burkina Faso in 2019 and 2020, rising over 200 percent since 2018.
Burkina Faso’s armed forces have been in the spotlight for not only struggling to contain the threat but for contributing to many of civilian fatalities, according to human rights organizations. The government denies this claim. Growing instability has led to controversial government decisions to train and equip civilian volunteers and local vigilante groups to support the battle against Islamist militants.
While the overall number of conflict fatalities decreased in 2021, Burkinabe armed forces endured significant defeats. In November, militants killed 49 gendarmes and 4 civilians at a camp in Inata — Burkina Faso’s largest single loss of security forces in its battle against Islamic insurgents. The tragedy caused further outrage when the public learned that the base had run out of food and gendarmes had to slaughter animals to survive.
The Inata attack touched off a series of senior personnel changes, including the promotion of Lt. Col. Paul-Henri Damiba, who later emerged as the MPSR leader. It also laid bare some of the dire conditions that were likely at the root of the mutineers’ demands.
While battling insurgency within its borders, Burkinabe troops are also deployed abroad. Nearly 900 troops serve as peacekeepers in the MINUSMA mission in Mali. Here too, Burkina Faso has seen troop fatalities on what many consider a particularly dangerous U.N. mission. The 25 Burkinabe MINUSMA fatalities amount to more than all of the combined fatalities from Burkina Faso’s other peacekeeping deployments.
As part of a project on returned peacekeepers, our research team has been interviewing veteran peacekeepers in Burkina Faso over the past several months. A common observation from soldiers who have recently returned from MINUSMA was how much better the pay and support structures are when deployed to neighboring Mali than when deployed within their own borders. For these soldiers, the discrepancies they experienced between the U.N. mission and conditions at home fed into generalized low morale.
The armed forces face a difficult path
In Burkina Faso, expectations for the new junta among ordinary troops will be high. But it’s not clear that morale and conditions for the armed forces will necessarily improve under military leadership. There’s a high chance that the junta will prioritize international engagements given the range of multinational counterterrorism missions operating in the Sahel and the transnational nature of the threat.
And it’s uncertain if — or how — having the military in control will change the overall military strategy against militants. Many of the mutineers’ initial demands, like better training and more troops, will take time in an environment where the overall security situation may continue to deteriorate quickly.
Stakes are high, as further military dissatisfaction risks subsequent revolts and may decrease troops’ ability or willingness to counter Islamist groups. Ultimately, the burden of rising instability will likely continue to fall on civilian populations. While the coup makers may have gained momentum from dissatisfaction within the ranks, reversing morale issues will be one of their most difficult tasks.
Maggie Dwyer (@MagDwyer) is a lecturer in African Studies and International Development in the School of Social and Political Science, University of Edinburgh. She is the author of “Soldiers in Revolt: Army Mutinies in Africa” (Hurst Publishing, 2017). | null | null | null | null | null |
Pittsburgh is a great city. You’re probably familiar with its association with three rivers, but may not understand why. In short, it arose where two rivers (the Allegheny to the north and Monongahela to the south) merged to form the Ohio River. The Ohio then goes on to the Mississippi and the Gulf of Mexico. So the junction of those rivers became an excellent point from which to manage commerce. | null | null | null | null | null |
Colder regions may experience more cases during the winter, while warmer regions may see spikes in the summer.
Pedestrians walk near the Obelisk in Buenos Aires during a heat wave amid a spike of coronavirus cases on Jan. 12, 2022. (Agustin Marcarian/Reuters)
Jutla and his colleagues found that covid cases in 19 hot spots worldwide increased above and below certain temperature and humidity thresholds, due to the virus’s movement as an aerosol and human behavior. Cases spiked when air temperatures dipped below 62 degrees (17 Celsius) or above 75 degrees (24 Celsius). The virus also tends to linger more in drier environments compared to humid ones.
"We need to basically design the intervention or mitigation strategies based on the environment in which we live,” said Jutla. "Regions like Florida, India, Africa — they are warm regions.... They basically get hit by these waves, but at different times than what happens in the northern parts, the colder regions.”
“Human behavior is a very important factor in the transmission,” said Wu, who is also a professor at the University of Florida. “It’s not just purely the physics or biology [of the virus] that dictates.... It’s a combination of these.”
“This study confirms the previous findings of seasonality with SARS-CoV-2 infection (low temperature and humidity)," Mohammad Sajadi, a professor at the Institute of Human Virology at the University of Maryland School of Medicine, wrote in an email. "It also adds to our knowledge about transmission in warmer temperatures.” Sajadi was not involved in the study.
“I like that the study points out that climate-covid relationships will differ by region,” emailed Ben Zaitchik, co-chair of a covid-19 research task team at World Meteorological Organization and not involved in the study. “We found something similar in a study … and I think it’s important to emphasize.”
The model runs around 80 to 90 percent accuracy nationwide (validated on a county-level scale), although Zaitchik said it is important to see the model in a peer-reviewed form especially because of the model’s novelty. "There hasn’t been any robust demonstration of a model like that for covid-19 risk prediction,” he said. | null | null | null | null | null |
Teen fatally shot in Southeast Washington apartment
A 17-year-old male was found fatally shot Thursday evening inside a Southeast Washington apartment building, D.C. police said.
Officers responded to the 4400 block of E Street SE for the report of a shooting about 5:15 p.m., said Cmdr. Darnel Robinson. The victim, whom police did not immediately identify, was unconscious and not breathing at the scene and was taken to a hospital. He was later pronounced dead, officials said.
Investigators said the teen was inside the building with a woman at the time of the shooting and she was “cooperating with our investigation,” Robinson told reporters at the scene.
No further details were released late Thursday. | null | null | null | null | null |
Jamal Khashoggi’s wife targeted with spyware before his death
The cellphones of murdered Saudi columnist’s fiancee and associate hacked after his murder
A police officer passes a portrait of Jamal Khashoggi near the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul before a 2019 ceremony marking the first anniversary of his murder. Several associates of the Saudi journalist were targeted for cellphone hacks with NSO Group spyware, but the company denies the software was used to monitor Khashoggi or his family. (Lefteris Pitarakis/AP)
Arthur Bouvart
Updated July 18 at 12:05 p.m.Originally published July 18, 2021
ANKARA, Turkey — NSO Group’s Pegasus spyware was used to secretly target the smartphones of the two women closest to murdered Saudi columnist Jamal Khashoggi, according to digital forensic analysis.
The Android phone of his wife, Hanan Elatr, was targeted by a Pegasus user six months before his killing, but the analysis could not determine whether the hack was successful. The iPhone of his fiancee, Hatice Cengiz, was penetrated by spyware days after the murder, the forensics showed.
Their cellphone numbers appeared on a list of more than 50,000 numbers that are concentrated in countries known to spy on their citizens and also known to have been NSO clients.
Another of Khashoggi’s close associates was successfully hacked after the journalist’s murder. Two other associates and two senior Turkish officials involved in his homicide investigation appear on the list.
NSO executives have asserted that its spyware was not used to monitor Khashoggi or his family.
But a Pegasus user sent texts to Elatr, an Egyptian flight attendant Khashoggi fell in love with and eventually married, with links that could have implanted spyware; the user twice masqueraded as her sister. The texts were sent November 2017 and again in April 2018, six months before Khashoggi’s murder on Oct. 2, 2018, according to a digital forensic examination conducted by Amnesty International’s Security Lab.
She has no memory of clicking on the links. Because she was using an Android phone, Amnesty’s researcher was unable to determine whether the device was successfully penetrated. Unlike iPhones, Androids do not log the kinds of information required for Amnesty’s detective work.
During the months when the targeting occurred, Elatr and Khashoggi were talking and texting multiple times a week, she said in recent interviews. They also met in person three times in various locations. Khashoggi taught her to use various apps because he thought switching among them would help thwart surveillance, she said.
Hanan Elatr, the widow of dissident Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi, holds a shirt of his in July 2021 at a friend's Washington-area apartment. Her phone was secretly targeted before his 2018 murder. (Allison Shelley for The Washington Post)
“Jamal warned me before that this might happen,” said Elatr, who married Khashoggi in an Islamic wedding in June 2018 in Alexandria, Va., near where he lived in self-imposed exile. “It makes me believe they are aware of everything that happened to Jamal through me.” Elatr said she kept her phone on the tea table in their living room in Virginia while he talked to colleagues overseas. Pegasus can steal a phone’s content and turn on its microphone for real-time monitoring, according to cybersecurity experts.
After Khashoggi’s murder, someone using Pegasus targeted Cengiz’s iPhone. She had accompanied him to the gates of the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul as he went to pick up documents in October 2018.
Her cellphone was breached just four days after Khashoggi’s murder and then five times in the days following that, according to the Amnesty analysis. The analysis could not determine what was taken from the phone or whether any audio surveillance took place.
At the time, the two women did not know about each other.
When Cengiz was told of the breach in an interview in Istanbul, she replied: “I was expecting that, but I am upset. I want to be a normal person, as anyone. All these things make me sad and scared. My phone could be attacked again in the future, and I feel I don’t have any way to protect myself from this.”
Whether Khashoggi’s cellphone was also hacked is not known. He left his phone with Cengiz when he entered the consulate. She gave it to Turkish authorities. Authorities have kept it and have declined to say whether it had been hacked, citing the ongoing homicide investigation.
Agnès Callamard, the former United Nations rapporteur who investigated the murder and is now secretary general of Amnesty International, said the use of Pegasus against Khashoggi’s inner circle and investigators “indicates an attempt to be on top of what may be revealed [by the Turkish investigation].”
Three cellphones of those in Khashoggi’s inner circle were targeted by Pegasus.
Hanan Elatr
Elatr: Egyptian woman who married Khashoggi in June 2018, four months before his murder. Her cellphone was secretly targeted by someone using Pegasus, but it could not be determined whether the phone was successfully penetrated.
Hatice Cengiz
Cengiz: Khashoggi’s Turkish fiancee. She accompanied him to the gates of the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul when he went to pick up documents. Her cellphone was successfully breached just days after his murder and then five times in the days following that.
Wadah Khanfar
Khanfar: Another Khashoggi associate whose phone was penetrated with Pegasus, according to the forensics, he is a former Al Jazeera journalist. “I felt my phone or Hatice’s phone might have been hacked because some of the conversations we had about Jamal’s disappearance came out [in public] during the first days,” he said.
This article is part of a global investigation, organized by the Paris-based journalism nonprofit Forbidden Stories, into the use of NSO’s Pegasus spyware against journalists, civic activists, business executives and political opponents. The Israeli firm says it licenses its spyware only to vetted governments and does not operate the software that its clients use under license. NSO says its spyware is supposed to be deployed against terrorists and criminals. It says it operates ethically and monitors its clients for human rights abuses.
The investigation by 17 media organizations, including The Post, relied on interviews and digital analysis of 67 iPhones that appeared on a list of more than 50,000 numbers that are concentrated in countries known to spy on their citizens and also known to have been NSO clients. The list does not name the clients nor does it indicate whether the phones were targeted or surveilled. Amnesty and Forbidden Stories had access to those records, which were subjected to further analysis by the media partners.
The company denied that its technology was used against Khashoggi or his associates.
“As NSO has previously stated, our technology was not associated in any way with the heinous murder of Jamal Khashoggi,” NSO said in a statement. “This includes listening, monitoring, tracking, or collecting information. We previously investigated this claim, immediately after the heinous murder, which again, is being made without validation.”
The second Khashoggi associate whose phone was penetrated with Pegasus, according to the forensics, was Wadah Khanfar, a former Al Jazeera journalist.
Hatice Cengiz, Khashoggi's fiancee at the time, accompanied him to the gates of the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul, where he was murdered. Her cellphone was breached days after his death. (Lefteris Pitarakis/AP)
“I felt my phone or Hatice’s phone might have been hacked because some of the conversations we had about Jamal’s disappearance came out [in public] during the first days,” Khanfar said.
The Khashoggi associates whose phone numbers appear on the list, but whose smartphones were not forensically examined, are Turkish journalist Turan Kislakci and an exiled human rights defender in London who spoke on the condition of anonymity because he feared for his safety.
Two Turkish officials deeply involved in the Khashoggi homicide investigation also appear on the list that contained the numbers of the two women closest to Khashoggi: Irfan Fidan, then the prosecutor, and Yasin Aktay, an influential member of the ruling conservative Islamist party and adviser to the president. They declined to submit their phones to forensic analysis.
Only one of the Turkish officials, Aktay, agreed to be interviewed.
Aktay said that shortly after Khashoggi’s murder, Turkish intelligence officials informed him that they had discovered that his new iPhone had been hacked and that he had been under surveillance.
“I was warned by someone from the Turkish security authorities that they had detected someone trying to hack into my phones back then,” he said. “They didn’t say who tried to hack my phone. However, they said that there are many such attempts. They also said that the simplest precaution I should take in this regard would be to change my phone device. So I changed my phone device. But I always saw the possibility of such a leak.”
Aktay said he was not told who did the hacking. The intelligence officials declined to comment for this article.
Aktay said authorities then gave him special security protections, including a bodyguard and a car equipped with police lights and a handheld, remote-controlled siren. They also gave Cengiz a bodyguard and car for her protection after she began receiving death threats on social media, she said.
Aktay still has a bodyguard, who recently drove him and two journalists at 120 mph to the Ankara airport. As the car barreled down the highway, he was asked about the excessive speed and danger. “It’s the best way,” Aktay said. “It’s very hard to assassination, to have an assassination plan, when you go fast.”
Khashoggi gave Aktay’s name to Cengiz and others as his emergency contact. Aktay believes that when he became a vocal critic of the Saudi government after the murder, the monarchy became interested in what they believed he was planning against them.
The U.S. intelligence community concluded that the murder could not have taken place without the prior knowledge of Saudi Arabia’s young iron-fisted leader, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.
Aktay said he believes he was targeted because he continues to write about Khashoggi and to send his writings to thousands of readers. “They are trying to kill even the ghost of Jamal Khashoggi,” he said, referring to the Saudi government.
Callamard said the Saudi government “saw Turkey as the heart of what they needed to control.”
In the current cold war power struggle in the Middle East, Turkey, Qatar and Iran are aligned against Saudi Arabia, Egypt, the UAE and Bahrain. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, himself a frequent jailer of journalists and bloggers critical of his rule, nonetheless befriended Khashoggi.
The disruption in the lives of the two women in Khashoggi’s life shows the impact that even the fear of spying can have. Both of them had fulfilling, independent lives before they began a romantic relationship with him; both now live in hiding and have been forsaken by friends who fear for their own safety because they know authorities can link them via their phones and through social media, texts and other communications.
Elatr wears the wedding and engagement rings Khashoggi gave her months before his 2018 murder. She has applied for political asylum in the United States. (Allison Shelley for The Washington Post)
Elatr’s life was endangered after she began dating the columnist in March 2018. In April, authorities in the UAE stopped her at the airport, where they confiscated her phone, detained her and interrogated her several times. Later, they twice placed her under house arrest for weeks. She said they wrongly portrayed his efforts to create an independent media organization as the formation of a secret network to overthrow autocrats in the Middle East.
Elatr lives in hiding in the Washington area and has applied for political asylum. She said she fears most for family members, some of whom have been interrogated by UAE and Egyptian authorities. “I just want them to leave me in peace, please leave me in peace,” she said.
Cengiz was a scholar who conducted field work in the Middle East before she met Khashoggi. “Before I met him, I was living a really rich life,” she said. “I had many things to do every day. I became a working person.” Now she says she can’t return to her scholarship as a Persian Gulf expert. “Now I cannot travel to any Arab country. Can you imagine that?”
“I’m paying a price, but for what?” she asked.
Priest and Bouvart reported from Ankara and Istanbul. Mekhennet reported from Washington and Berlin. Julie Tate contributed to this report from Washington. Bouvart is an investigative reporter and videographer at Forbidden Stories. | null | null | null | null | null |
NSO Group’s Pegasus spyware, licensed to governments around the globe, can infect phones without a click
Updated July 18 at 8:15 p.m.Originally published July 18, 2021
Military-grade spyware licensed by an Israeli firm to governments for tracking terrorists and criminals was used in attempted and successful hacks of 37 smartphones belonging to journalists, human rights activists, business executives and two women close to murdered Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi, according to an investigation by The Washington Post and 16 media partners.
The phones appeared on a list of more than 50,000 numbers that are concentrated in countries known to engage in surveillance of their citizens and also known to have been clients of the Israeli firm, NSO Group, a worldwide leader in the growing and largely unregulated private spyware industry, the investigation found.
The list does not identify who put the numbers on it, or why, and it is unknown how many of the phones were targeted or surveilled. But forensic analysis of the 37 smartphones shows that many display a tight correlation between time stamps associated with a number on the list and the initiation of surveillance, in some cases as brief as a few seconds.
Forbidden Stories, a Paris-based journalism nonprofit, and Amnesty International, a human rights group, had access to the list and shared it with the news organizations, which did further research and analysis. Amnesty’s Security Lab did the forensic analyses on the smartphones.
The numbers on the list are unattributed, but reporters were able to identify more than 1,000 people spanning more than 50 countries through research and interviews on four continents: several Arab royal family members, at least 65 business executives, 85 human rights activists, 189 journalists, and more than 600 politicians and government officials — including cabinet ministers, diplomats, and military and security officers. The numbers of several heads of state and prime ministers also appeared on the list.
Among the journalists whose numbers appear on the list, which dates to 2016, are reporters working overseas for several leading news organizations, including a small number from CNN, the Associated Press, Voice of America, the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg News, Le Monde in France, the Financial Times in London and Al Jazeera in Qatar.
The targeting of the 37 smartphones would appear to conflict with the stated purpose of NSO’s licensing of the Pegasus spyware, which the company says is intended only for use in surveilling terrorists and major criminals. The evidence extracted from these smartphones, revealed here for the first time, calls into question pledges by the Israeli company to police its clients for human rights abuses.
The media consortium, titled the Pegasus Project, analyzed the list through interviews and forensic analysis of the phones, and by comparing details with previously reported information about NSO. Amnesty’s Security Lab examined 67 smartphones where attacks were suspected. Of those, 23 were successfully infected and 14 showed signs of attempted penetration.
For the remaining 30, the tests were inconclusive, in several cases because the phones had been replaced. Fifteen of the phones were Android devices, none of which showed evidence of successful infection. However, unlike iPhones, Androids do not log the kinds of information required for Amnesty’s detective work. Three Android phones showed signs of targeting, such as Pegasus-linked SMS messages.
Amnesty shared backup copies of data on four iPhones with Citizen Lab, which confirmed that they showed signs of Pegasus infection. Citizen Lab, a research group at the University of Toronto that specializes in studying Pegasus, also conducted a peer review of Amnesty’s forensic methods and found them to be sound.
In lengthy responses before publication, NSO called the investigation’s findings exaggerated and baseless. It also said it does not operate the spyware licensed to its clients and “has no insight” into their specific intelligence activities.
After publication, NSO chief executive Shalev Hulio expressed concern in a phone interview with The Post about some of the details he had read in Pegasus Project stories Sunday, while continuing to dispute that the list of more than 50,000 phone numbers had anything to do with NSO or Pegasus.
“The company cares about journalists and activists and civil society in general,” Hulio said. “We understand that in some circumstances our customers might misuse the system and, in some cases like we reported in [NSO’s] Transparency and Responsibility Report, we have shut down systems for customers who have misused the system.”
He said that in the past 12 months NSO had terminated two contracts over allegations of human rights abuses, but he declined to name the countries involved.
“Every allegation about misuse of the system is concerning me,” he said. “It violates the trust that we give customers. We are investigating every allegation.”
NSO describes its customers as 60 intelligence, military and law enforcement agencies in 40 countries, although it will not confirm the identities of any of them, citing client confidentiality obligations. The consortium found many of the phone numbers in at least 10 country clusters, which were subjected to deeper analysis: Azerbaijan, Bahrain, Hungary, India, Kazakhstan, Mexico, Morocco, Rwanda, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. Citizen Lab also has found evidence that all 10 have been clients of NSO, according to Bill Marczak, a senior research fellow.
Forbidden Stories organized the media consortium’s investigation, and Amnesty provided analysis and technical support but had no editorial input. Amnesty has openly criticized NSO’s spyware business and supported an unsuccessful lawsuit against the company in an Israeli court seeking to have its export license revoked. After the investigation began, several reporters in the consortium learned that they or their family members had been successfully attacked with Pegasus spyware.
Beyond the personal intrusions made possible by smartphone surveillance, the widespread use of spyware has emerged as a leading threat to democracies worldwide, critics say. Journalists under surveillance cannot safely gather sensitive news without endangering themselves and their sources. Opposition politicians cannot plot their campaign strategies without those in power anticipating their moves. Human rights workers cannot work with vulnerable people — some of whom are victims of their own governments — without exposing them to renewed abuse.
For example, Amnesty’s forensics found evidence that Pegasus was targeted at the two women closest to Saudi columnist Khashoggi, who wrote for The Post’s Opinions section. The phone of his fiancee, Hatice Cengiz, was successfully infected during the days after his murder in Turkey on Oct. 2, 2018, according to a forensic analysis by Amnesty’s Security Lab. Also on the list were the numbers of two Turkish officials involved in investigating his dismemberment by a Saudi hit team. Khashoggi also had a wife, Hanan Elatr, whose phone was targeted by someone using Pegasus in the months before his killing. Amnesty was unable to determine whether the hack was successful.
“This is nasty software — like eloquently nasty,” said Timothy Summers, a former cybersecurity engineer at a U.S. intelligence agency and now director of IT at Arizona State University. With it “one could spy on almost the entire world population. … There’s not anything wrong with building technologies that allows you to collect data; it’s necessary sometimes. But humanity is not in a place where we can have that much power just accessible to anybody.”
In response to detailed questions from the consortium before publication, NSO said in a statement that it did not operate the spyware it licensed to clients and did not have regular access to the data they gather. The company also said its technologies have helped prevent attacks and bombings and broken up rings that trafficked in drugs, sex and children. “Simply put, NSO Group is on a life-saving mission, and the company will faithfully execute this mission undeterred, despite any and all continued attempts to discredit it on false grounds,” NSO said. “Your sources have supplied you with information that has no factual basis, as evidenced by the lack of supporting documentation for many of the claims.”
The company denied that its technology was used against Khashoggi, or his relatives or associates.
“As NSO has previously stated, our technology was not associated in any way with the heinous murder of Jamal Khashoggi. This includes listening, monitoring, tracking, or collecting information. We previously investigated this claim, immediately after the heinous murder, which again, is being made without validation.”
Thomas Clare, a libel attorney hired by NSO, said that the consortium had “apparently misinterpreted and mischaracterized crucial source data on which it relied” and that its reporting contained flawed assumptions and factual errors.
“NSO Group has good reason to believe that this list of ‘thousands of phone numbers’ is not a list of numbers targeted by governments using Pegasus, but instead, may be part of a larger list of numbers that might have been used by NSO Group customers for other purposes,” Clare wrote.
In response to follow-up questions, NSO called the 50,000 number “exaggerated” and said it was far too large to represent numbers targeted by its clients. Based on the questions it was being asked, NSO said, it had reason to believe that the consortium was basing its findings “on misleading interpretation of leaked data from accessible and overt basic information, such as HLR Lookup services, which have no bearing on the list of the customers targets of Pegasus or any other NSO products … we still do not see any correlation of these lists to anything related to use of NSO Group technologies.”
The term HLR, or Home Location Register, refers to a database that is essential to operating cellular phone networks. Such registers keep records on the networks of cellphone users and their general locations, along with other identifying information that is used routinely in routing calls and texts. HLR lookup services operate on the SS7 system that cellular carriers use to communicate with each other. The services can be used as a step toward spying on targets.
Telecommunications security expert Karsten Nohl, chief scientist for Security Research Labs in Berlin, said that he does not have direct knowledge of NSO’s systems but that HLR lookups and other SS7 queries are widely and inexpensively used by the surveillance industry — often for just tens of thousands of dollars a year.
“It’s not difficult to get that access. Given the resources of NSO, it’d be crazy to assume that they don’t have SS7 access from at least a dozen countries,” Nohl said. “From a dozen countries, you can spy on the rest of the world.”
Pegasus was engineered a decade ago by Israeli ex-cyberspies with government-honed skills. The Israeli Defense Ministry must approve any license to a government that wants to buy it, according to previous NSO statements.
“As a matter of policy, the State of Israel approves the export of cyber products exclusively to governmental entities, for lawful use, and only for the purpose of preventing and investigating crime and counterterrorism, under end-use/end user certificates provided by the acquiring government,” a spokesperson for the Israeli defense establishment said Sunday. “In cases where exported items are used in violation of export licenses or end-use certificates, appropriate measures are taken.”
The numbers of about a dozen Americans working overseas were discovered on the list, in all but one case while using phones registered to foreign cellular networks. The consortium could not perform forensic analysis on most of these phones. NSO has said for years that its product cannot be used to surveil American phones. The consortium did not find evidence of successful spyware penetration on phones with the U.S. country code.
“We also stand by our previous statements that our products, sold to vetted foreign governments, cannot be used to conduct cybersurveillance within the United States, and no customer has ever been granted technology that would enable them to access phones with U.S. numbers,” the company said in its statement. “It is technologically impossible and reaffirms the fact your sources’ claims have no merit.”
Apple and other smartphone manufacturers are years into a cat-and-mouse game with NSO and other spyware makers.
“Apple unequivocally condemns cyberattacks against journalists, human rights activists and others seeking to make the world a better place,” said Ivan Krstić, head of Apple Security Engineering and Architecture. “For over a decade, Apple has led the industry in security innovation and, as a result, security researchers agree iPhone is the safest, most secure consumer mobile device on the market. Attacks like the ones described are highly sophisticated, cost millions of dollars to develop, often have a short shelf life and are used to target specific individuals. While that means they are not a threat to the overwhelming majority of our users, we continue to work tirelessly to defend all our customers, and we are constantly adding new protections for their devices and data.”
Some Pegasus intrusion techniques detailed in a 2016 report were changed in a matter of hours after they were made public, underscoring NSO’s ability to adapt to countermeasures.
Pegasus is engineered to evade defenses on iPhones and Android devices and to leave few traces of its attack. Familiar privacy measures like strong passwords and encryption offer little help against Pegasus, which can attack phones without any warning to users. It can read anything on a device that a user can, while also stealing photos, recordings, location records, communications, passwords, call logs and social media posts. Spyware also can activate cameras and microphones for real-time surveillance.
“There is just nothing from an encryption standpoint to protect against this,” said Claudio Guarnieri, a.k.a. “Nex,” the Amnesty Security Lab’s 33-year-old Italian researcher who developed and performed the digital forensics on 37 smartphones that showed evidence of Pegasus attacks.
That sense of helplessness makes Guarnieri, who often dresses head-to-toe in black, feel as useless as a 14th-century doctor confronting the Black Plague without any useful medication. “Primarily I’m here just to keep the death count,” he said.
The attack can begin in different ways. It can come from a malicious link in an SMS text message or an iMessage. In some cases, a user must click on the link to start the infection. In recent years, spyware companies have developed what they call “zero-click” attacks, which deliver spyware simply by sending a message to a user’s phone that produces no notification. Users do not even need to touch their phones for infections to begin.
Many countries have laws pertaining to traditional wiretapping and interception of communications, but few have effective safeguards against deeper intrusions made possible by hacking into smartphones. “This is more devious in a sense because it really is no longer about intercepting communications and overhearing conversation. … This covers all of them and goes way beyond that,” Guarnieri said. “It has raised a lot of questions from not only human rights, but even national constitutional laws as to is this even legal?”
Clare, NSO’s attorney, attacked the forensic examinations as “a compilation of speculative and baseless assumptions” built on assumptions based on earlier reports. He also said, “NSO does not have insight into the specific intelligence activities of its customers.”
The Pegasus Project’s findings are similar to previous discoveries by Amnesty, Citizen Lab and news organizations worldwide, but the new reporting offers a detailed view of the personal consequences and scale of surveillance and its abuses.
The consortium analyzed the list and found clusters of numbers with similar country codes and geographical focus that align with previous reporting and additional research about NSO clients overseas. For example, Mexico has been previously identified in published reports and documents as an NSO client, and entries on the list are clustered by Mexican country code, area code and geography. In several cases, clusters also contained numbers from other countries.
In response to questions from reporters, spokespeople for the countries with clusters either denied Pegasus was used or denied that their country had abused their powers of surveillance.
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban’s office said any surveillance carried out by that nation is done in accordance with the law.
“In Hungary, state bodies authorized to use covert instruments are regularly monitored by governmental and non-governmental institutions,” the office said. “Have you asked the same questions of the governments of the United States of America, the United Kingdom, Germany or France?”
Moroccan authorities responded: “It should be recalled that the unfounded allegations previously published by Amnesty International and conveyed by Forbidden Stories have already been the subject of an official response from the Moroccan authorities, who have categorically rejected these allegations.”
Vincent Biruta, Rwanda’s foreign affairs minister, also denied the use of Pegasus.
“Rwanda does not use this software system, as previously confirmed in November 2019, and does not possess this technical capability in any form,” Biruta said. “These false accusations are part of an ongoing campaign to cause tensions between Rwanda and other countries, and to sow disinformation about Rwanda domestically and internationally.”
‘What a question!’
Carmen Aristegui, one of the most prominent investigative journalists in Mexico, is routinely threatened for exposing the corruption of the nation's politicians and cartels. She was previously revealed as a Pegasus target in several media reports. (Bernardo Montoya/AFP/Getty Images)
Some expressed outrage even at the suggestion of spying on journalists.
A reporter for the French daily Le Monde working on the Pegasus Project recently posed such a question to Hungarian Justice Minister Judit Varga during an interview about the legal requirements for eavesdropping:
“If someone asked you to tape a journalist or an opponent, you wouldn’t accept this?”
“What a question!” Varga responded. “This is a provocation in itself!” A day later, her office requested that this question and her answer to it “be erased” from the interview.
In the past, NSO has blamed its client countries for any alleged abuses. NSO released its first “Transparency and Responsibility Report” last month, arguing that its services are essential to law enforcement and intelligence agencies trying to keep up with the 21st century.
“Terror organizations, drug cartels, human traffickers, pedophile rings and other criminal syndicates today exploit off-the-shelf encryption capabilities offered by mobile messaging and communications applications.
“These technologies provide criminals and their networks a safe haven, allowing them to ‘go dark’ and avoid detection, communicating through impenetrable mobile messaging systems. Law enforcement and counterterrorism state agencies around the world have struggled to keep up.”
NSO also said it conducts rigorous reviews of potential customers’ human rights records before contracting with them and investigates reports of abuses, although it did not cite any specific cases. It asserted that it has discontinued contracts with five clients for documented violations and that the company’s due diligence has cost it $100 million in lost revenue. A person familiar with NSO operations who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal company matters noted that in the last year alone NSO had terminated contracts with Saudi Arabia and Dubai in the United Arab Emirates over human rights concerns.
“Pegasus is very useful for fighting organized crime,” said Guillermo Valdes Castellanos, head of Mexico’s domestic intelligence agency CISEN from 2006 to 2011. “But the total lack of checks and balances [in Mexican agencies] means it easily ends up in private hands and is used for political and personal gain.”
Mexico was NSO’s first overseas client in 2011, less than a year after the firm was founded in Israel’s Silicon Valley, in northern Tel Aviv.
In 2016 and 2017, more than 15,000 Mexicans appeared on the list examined by the media consortium, among them at least 25 reporters working for the country’s major media outlets, according to the records and interviews.
One of them was Carmen Aristegui, one of the most prominent investigative journalists in the country and a regular contributor to CNN. Aristegui, who is routinely threatened for exposing the corruption of Mexican politicians and cartels, was previously revealed as a Pegasus target in several media reports. At the time, she said in a recent interview, her producer was also targeted. The new records and forensics show that Pegasus links were detected on the phone of her personal assistant.
“Pegasus is something that comes to your office, your home, your bed, every corner of your existence,” Aristegui said. “It is a tool that destroys the essential codes of civilization.”
Unlike Aristegui, freelance reporter Cecilio Pineda was unknown outside his violence-wracked southern state of Guerrero. His number appears twice on the list of 50,000. A month after the second listing, he was gunned down while lying in a hammock at a carwash while waiting for his car. It is unclear what role, if any, Pegasus’s ability to geolocate its targets in real time contributed to his murder. Mexico is among the deadliest countries for journalists; 11 were killed in 2017, according to Reporters Without Borders.
“Even if Forbidden Stories were correct that an NSO Group client in Mexico targeted the journalist’s phone number in February 2017, that does not mean that the NSO Group client or data collected by NSO Group software were in any way connected to the journalist’s murder the following month,” Clare, NSO’s lawyer, wrote in his letter to Forbidden Stories. “Correlation does not equal causation, and the gunmen who murdered the journalist could have learned of his location at a public carwash through any number of means not related to NSO Group, its technologies, or its clients.”
Mexico’s Public Security Ministry acknowledged last year that the domestic intelligence agency, CISEN, and the attorney general’s office acquired Pegasus in 2014 and discontinued its use in 2017 when the license expired. Mexican media have also reported that the Defense Ministry used the spyware.
Snowden’s legacy
Edward Snowden’s 2013 disclosure of highly classified National Security Agency documents revealed the agency’s ability to tap the electronic communications of almost anyone and triggered an international boom in spyware development and deployment. (The Guardian/Getty Images)
Today’s thriving international spyware industry dates back decades but got a boost after the unprecedented 2013 disclosure of highly classified National Security Agency documents by contractor Edward Snowden. They revealed that the NSA could obtain the electronic communications of almost anyone because it had secret access to the transnational cables carrying Internet traffic worldwide and data from Internet companies such as Google and giant telecommunications companies such as AT&T.
Even U.S. allies in Europe were shocked by the comprehensive scale of the American digital spying, and many national intelligence agencies set out to improve their own surveillance abilities. For-profit firms staffed with midcareer retirees from intelligence agencies saw a lucrative market-in-waiting free from the government regulations and oversight imposed on other industries.
The dramatic expansion of end-to-end encryption by Google, Microsoft, Facebook, Apple and other major technology firms also prompted law enforcement and intelligence officials to complain they had lost access to the communications of legitimate criminal targets. That in turn sparked more investment in technologies, such as Pegasus, that worked by targeting individual devices.
“When you build a building, you want to make sure the building holds up, so we follow certain protocols,” said Ido Sivan-Sevilla, an expert on cyber governance at the University of Maryland. By promoting the sale of unregulated private surveillance tools, “we encourage building buildings that can be broken into. We are building a monster. We need an international norms treaty that says certain things are not okay.”
Without international standards and rules, there are secret deals between companies like NSO and the countries they service.
The unfettered use of a military-grade spyware such as Pegasus can help governments to suppress civic activism at a time when authoritarianism is on the rise worldwide. It also gives countries without the technical sophistication of such leading nations as the United States, Israel and China the ability to conduct far deeper digital cyberespionage than ever before.
‘Your body stops functioning’
The regime in Azerbaijan has worked for a decade to silence investigative journalist Khadija Ismayilova. Forensics by Security Lab determined that Pegasus attacked and penetrated her smartphone numerous times from March 2019 to as late as May of this year. (Aziz Karimov/Pacific Press/LightRocket/Getty Images)
Azerbaijan, a longtime ally of Israel, has been identified as an NSO client by Citizen Lab and others. The country is a family-run kleptocracy with no free elections, no impartial court system and no independent news media. The former Soviet territory has been ruled since the Soviet Union collapsed 30 years ago by the Aliyev family, whose theft of the country’s wealth and money-laundering schemes abroad have resulted in foreign embargoes, international sanctions and criminal indictments.
Despite the difficulties, roughly three dozen Azerbaijani reporters continue to document the family’s corruption. Some are hiding inside the country, but most were forced into exile where they are not so easy to capture. Some work for the Prague-based, U.S.-funded Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, which was kicked out of the country in 2015 for its reporting. The others work for an investigative reporting nonprofit called the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project, which is based in Sarajevo, the Bosnian capital, and is one of the partners in the Pegasus Project.
The foremost investigative reporter in the region is Khadija Ismayilova, whom the regime has worked for a decade to silence: It planted a secret camera in her apartment wall, took videos of her having sex with her boyfriend and then posted them on the Internet in 2012; she was arrested in 2014, tried and convicted on trumped-up tax-evasion and other charges, and held in prison cells with hardened criminals. After global outrage and the high-profile intervention of human rights attorney Amal Clooney, she was released in 2016 and put under a travel ban.
“It is important that people see examples of journalists who do not stop because they were threatened,” Ismayilova said in a recent interview. “It’s like a war. You leave your trench, then the attacker comes in. … You have to keep your position, otherwise it will be taken and then you will have less space, less space, the space will be shrinking and then you will find it hard to breathe.”
Last month, her health failing, she was allowed to leave the country. Colleagues arranged to test her smartphone immediately. Forensics by Security Lab determined that Pegasus had attacked and penetrated her device numerous times from March 2019 to as late as May of this year.
She had assumed some kind of surveillance, Ismayilova said, but was still surprised at the number of attacks. “When you think maybe there’s a camera in the toilet, your body stops functioning,” she said. “I went through this, and for eight or nine days I could not use the toilet, anywhere, not even in public places. My body stopped functioning.”
She stopped communicating with people because whoever she spoke with ended up harassed by security services. “You don’t trust anyone, and then you try not to have any long-term plans with your own life because you don’t want any person to have problems because of you.”
Confirmation of the Pegasus penetration galled her. “My family members are also victimized. The sources are victimized. People I’ve been working with, people who told me their private secrets are victimized,” she said. “It’s despicable. … I don’t know who else has been exposed because of me, who else is in danger because of me.”
Is the minister paranoid or sensible?
When Siddharth Varadarajan, co-founder of India’s independent online news outlet the Wire, learned his phone had been penetrated by Pegasus, his mind immediately ran through his sensitive sources. (Raj K Raj/Hindustan Times/Getty Images)
The fear of widespread surveillance impedes the already difficult mechanics of civic activism.
“Sometimes, that fear is the point,” said John Scott-Railton, a senior researcher at Citizen Lab, who has researched Pegasus extensively. “The psychological hardship and the self-censorship it causes are key tools of modern-day dictators and authoritarians.”
When Siddharth Varadarajan, co-founder of the Wire, an independent online outlet in India, learned that Security Lab’s analysis showed that his phone had been targeted and penetrated by Pegasus, his mind immediately ran through his sensitive sources. He thought about a minister in Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government who had displayed an unusual concern about surveillance when they met.
The minister first moved the meeting from one location to another at the last moment, then switched off his phone and told Varadarajan to do the same.
Then “the two phones were put in a room and music was put on in that room … and I thought: ‘Boy, this guy is really paranoid. But maybe he was being sensible,'" Varadarajan said in a recent interview.
When forensics showed his phone had been penetrated, he knew the feeling himself. “You feel violated, there’s no doubt about it,” he said. “This is an incredible intrusion, and journalists should not have to deal with this. Nobody should have to deal with this.”
Priest reported from Ankara, Istanbul and Washington, Timberg from Washington and Mekhennet from Berlin. Michael Birnbaum in Budapest, Mary Beth Sheridan in Mexico City, Joanna Slater in New Delhi, Drew Harwell and Julie Tate in Washington, and Miranda Patrucic from the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project in Sarajevo contributed to this report.
Human rights activist and close ally of detained Dubai princess had phone hacked by NSO spyware, forensic test finds
Craig TimbergFollowTwitter
Craig Timberg is a national technology reporter for The Washington Post. Since joining The Post in 1998, he has been a reporter, editor and foreign correspondent, and he contributed to The Post’s Pulitzer Prize-winning coverage of the National Security Agency. | null | null | null | null | null |
Though falconry has historically been used for hunting, the modern practice has found a home at resorts across North America, the United Kingdom and the United Arab Emirates. The birds of prey function as a pseudo force field for resorts, providing an environmentally conscious form of pest control. According to the Los Angeles Times, there were 137 active permits issued by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service for predatory-bird pest management between 2007 and 2019, with hotels, museums, vineyards, airports and even landfills getting involved.
According to Jon Kent, the property’s director of outdoor pursuits, the falconry program debuted in 2011 strictly as a pest control measure. But constant interest from guests created demand for organized activities ranging from a brief Hawk Walk — where guests head to nearby Rainbow Island, try on a falconer glove and practice recalling the bird — to the full Falconry Experience, a program that offers an opportunity to watch Earth’s fastest bird, the peregrine falcon, hunt its flying prey. | null | null | null | null | null |
Among 50,000 phone numbers, the Pegasus Project found those of hundreds of public officials
French President Emmanuel Macron, seen in Paris in 2015 when he was a cabinet minister, is among 14 current and former world leaders whose phone numbers appeared on a list that included numbers selected for surveillance by NSO Group clients, records show. (Jacques Demarthon/AFP/Getty Images)
Spies for centuries have trained their sights on those who shape destinies of nations: presidents, prime ministers, kings.
And in the 21st century, most of them carry smartphones.
Such is the underlying logic for some of the most tantalizing discoveries for an international investigation that in recent months scrutinized a list of more than 50,000 phone numbers that included — according to forensic analyses of dozens of iPhones — at least some people targeted by Pegasus spyware licensed to governments worldwide.
The list contained the numbers of politicians and government officials by the hundreds. But what of heads of state and governments, arguably the most coveted of targets?
Fourteen. Or more specifically: three presidents, 10 prime ministers and a king.
None of them offered their iPhones or Android devices to The Washington Post and 16 other news organizations that scrutinized the list of phone numbers. That means the forensic testing that might have revealed infection by NSO’s signature spyware, Pegasus, was not possible. Nor was it possible to determine whether any NSO client attempted to deliver Pegasus to the phones of these country leaders — much less whether any succeeded in turning these highly personal devices into pocket spies capable of tracking a national leader’s nearly every movement, communication and personal relationship.
But here’s who’s on the list: Three sitting presidents, France’s Emmanuel Macron, Iraq’s Barham Salih and South Africa’s Cyril Ramaphosa. Three current prime ministers, Pakistan’s Imran Khan, Egypt’s Mostafa Madbouly and Morocco’s Saad-Eddine El Othmani.
Seven former prime ministers, who according to time stamps on the list were placed there while they were still in office: Yemen’s Ahmed Obeid bin Daghr, Lebanon’s Saad Hariri, Uganda’s Ruhakana Rugunda, France’s Édouard Philippe, Kazakhstan’s Bakitzhan Sagintayev, Algeria’s Noureddine Bedoui and Belgium’s Charles Michel.
And one king: Morocco’s Mohammed VI.
The Post and its partner news organizations in 10 countries confirmed the ownership of these numbers and others cited in this article through public records, journalists’ contact books and queries to government officials or other close associates of the potential targets — though in some cases it was not possible to determine whether the phone numbers were active ones or former ones. The Post confirmed five of the numbers itself. The rest were confirmed by its partners.
Calls to almost all of the phone numbers on Monday and Tuesday yielded canceled calls or changed numbers. A handful of people picked up the line. Others responded to text messages.
A French journalism nonprofit, Forbidden Stories, and the human rights group Amnesty International had access to the list of more than 50,000 numbers. They shared the list with The Post and the other news organizations.
The purpose of the list is unknown, and NSO disputes that it was a list of surveillance targets. “The data has many legitimate and entirely proper uses having nothing to do with surveillance or with NSO,” a Virginia attorney representing the company, Tom Clare, wrote to Forbidden Stories.
Post Reports: The spyware secretly hacking smartphones
But forensic examination by Amnesty’s Security Lab of 67 smartphones affiliated with numbers on the list found 37 that had either been successfully penetrated by Pegasus or showed signs of attempted penetration. The analyses by Amnesty also found that many of the phones showed signs of infection or attempted infection minutes or even seconds after time stamps that appeared for their numbers on the list.
NSO — just one of several major players in this market — says it has 60 government agency clients in 40 countries. In every case, the company says, the targets are supposed to be terrorists and criminals, such as pedophiles, drug lords and human traffickers. The company says it specifically prohibits targeting law-abiding citizens, including government officials carrying out their ordinary business.
NSO chief executive Shalev Hulio said his company has policies to guard against abuse in a phone interview with The Post on Sunday, after an initial set of stories about the company appeared in news reports worldwide, under the heading of the Pegasus Project.
“Every allegation about misuse of the system is concerning me. It violates the trust that we give customers,” Hulio said. “I believe that we need to check every allegation. And if we check every allegation, we might find that some of it is true. And if we find that it is true, we will take strong action.”
However common spying on national leaders may be in general, public revelations about it often spark controversy. When former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden revealed in 2013 that the United States had tapped into a phone used by German Chancellor Angela Merkel, it caused months of uproar in that country and strained otherwise close relations between the two nations.
In response to detailed questions from the investigative consortium, NSO said it monitors how its spyware is used and cancels access to the system for any client that misuses it. But it also says its clients, not the company itself, are responsible for its use.
“NSO Group will continue to investigate all credible claims of misuse and take appropriate action based on the results of these investigations,” the statement said. “This includes shutting down of a customers’ system, something NSO has proven its ability and willingness to do, due to confirmed misuse, done it multiple times in the past, and will not hesitate to do again if a situation warrants.”
In a separate letter Tuesday, it also said “we can confirm that at least three names in your inquiry Emmanuel Macron, King Mohammed VI, and [World Health Organization Director General] Tedros Ghebreyesus — are not, and never have been, targets or selected as targets of NSO Group customers.”
“All of the French and Belgian government officials or diplomats mentioned in the list, are not and never have been, Pegasus targets," the company added in a subsequent letter.
“The leaked list of 50,000 numbers is not a list of numbers selected for surveillance using Pegasus,” a lawyer for NSO, Thomas Clare, wrote to a Pegasus Project partner on Tuesday. “It is a list of numbers that anyone can search on an open-source system for reasons other than conducting surveillance using Pegasus. The fact that a number appears on that list is in no way indicative of whether that number was selected for surveillance using Pegasus.”
A person familiar with NSO operations who has spoken earlier on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal matters told The Post that among clients the company had suspended in recent years were agencies in Mexico. The person declined to detail which agencies had been suspended.
But reports of Pegasus abuse have been rampant in Mexico, and more than 15,000 Mexican phone numbers are on the list, including that of former president Felipe Calderón. The investigation found he had been added to the list after his term ended in 2012.
Burundi’s prime minister, Alain-Guillaume Bunyoni, was added to the list in 2018, before he took office, the records show. So were the numbers of Kazakhstan’s future president, Kassym-Jomart Tokayev, and its future prime minister, Askar Mamin.
Key figures in major international organizations were not exempt from inclusion on the list. The list contained numbers for several United Nations ambassadors and other diplomats. It also contained a phone number for a former staffer for the WHO’s Tedros.
Overall, the list contained phone numbers for more than 600 government officials and politicians from 34 countries. In addition to the countries where top leaders’ phone numbers appeared were numbers for officials in Afghanistan, Azerbaijan, Bahrain, Bhutan, China, Congo, Egypt, Hungary, India, Iran, Kazakhstan, Kuwait, Mali, Mexico, Nepal, Qatar, Rwanda, Saudi Arabia, Togo, Turkey, the United Arab Emirates, the United Kingdom and the United States.
According to NSO marketing materials and security researchers, Pegasus is designed to collect files, photos, call logs, location records, communications and other private data from smartphones, and can activate cameras and microphones as well for real-time surveillance at key moments. Often these attacks can happen without the targets getting any kind of alert or taking any action. Pegasus can just slip in — to both iPhones and Android devices — and take over smartphones in what the surveillance industry calls “zero-click” attacks.
Geographic clues
A review of the list showed that some of the leaders’ phones were entered more than once, as were phone numbers for their friends, relatives and aides. Phone numbers for associates of Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador were added to the list during the run-up to the 2018 election, which he ultimately won, unseating the ruling party. Among those on the list were smartphones belonging to his wife, sons, aides, dozens of his political allies, and even his personal driver and cardiologist. There was no indication that López Obrador’s phone was on the list; aides say he used it sparingly.
Which NSO client might have added the numbers could not be learned definitively from the records. But the numbers for Calderón and the many associates of López Obrador were among a portion of the records from 2016 and 2017 dominated by Mexican targets. Also listed were dozens of sitting governors, federal lawmakers and other politicians.
“Now we are learning that they also spied on my wife, my sons, even my doctor, a cardiologist,” López Obrador told reporters on Tuesday. “Apart from the issue of this spying, imagine how much cost! How much money went for this spying?”
Numbers belonging to Michel, Macron and dozens of French officials appeared amid a group of more than 10,000 numbers dominated by Moroccan targets and those in neighboring Algeria, a Morocco rival. The numbers for Mohammed VI and the Tedros staffer also were found in that group. So was the number of Romano Prodi, a former Italian prime minister.
“We were aware of the threats and measures were taken to limit the risks,” Michel told a reporter for Belgium’s Le Soir, a partner in the Pegasus Project. Michel stepped down as Belgian prime minister in 2019 to become the president of the European Council, one of the top jobs in the European Union.
Prodi picked up Tuesday at the phone number that was on the list, but he declined to comment.
Pakistan’s Khan appeared among a group dominated by numbers in India. Iraq’s Salih and Lebanon’s Hariri were grouped among numbers dominated by the United Arab Emirates and a separate grouping dominated by Saudi numbers.
South Africa’s Ramaphosa, Uganda’s Rugunda and Burundi’s Bunyoni were among a group dominated by Rwandan phone numbers.
Rwanda, Morocco and India have all issued official statements denying involvement in spying on journalists and politicians.
Rwanda’s minister of foreign affairs, Vincent Biruta, said his country “does not possess this technical capability in any form.” In a statement, Morocco expressed “great astonishment” at the publication of “erroneous allegations … that Morocco has infiltrated the telephones of several national and foreign public figures and officials of international organizations.” The statement added, “Morocco is a State governed by the rule of law, which guarantees the secrecy of personal communications by the force of the Constitution.”
In India, the home minister called suggestions it has spied on journalists and politicians the work of “disrupters,” which he defined as “global organizations which do not like India to progress.” In a separate statement, the government said, “The allegations regarding government surveillance on specific people has no concrete basis or truth associated with it whatsoever.”
Mexico, Saudi Arabia, Kazakhstan and the United Arab Emirates did not respond to requests for comment.
'Unjustifiable violation’
Macron’s phone number was added to the list as he was about to embark on a tour of Africa, with stops in Kenya and Ethiopia. Added about the same time were the phones of 14 French ministers and Belgium’s Michel.
“If the facts are true, they are clearly very serious,” the Elysée said in a statement. “All light will be shed on these press revelations.”
At the time, Morocco’s neighbor Algeria was in turmoil. Its longtime authoritarian ruler, Abdelaziz Bouteflika, had just announced he did not plan to run for reelection. Algeria fought a bloody war of independence from France in the 1950s, and many French citizens are of Algerian descent; the two countries retain strong ties and intelligence relationships.
African Union nations were also ratifying a major free-trade agreement at the time. Trade and other international negotiations historically have been major targets for government intelligence-gathering as all sides seek insight into the thinking of their negotiating partners.
Senior French government officials typically have access to secure devices for official communications, but French political insiders say some business also gets transacted on less-secure iPhones and Android devices.
In addition to his personal iPhone, Macron uses two special highly secure cellphones for more sensitive conversations, aides say. His personal iPhone is the least secure of the devices he regularly uses, and he routinely shared its number with journalists, including a Post reporter, and other associates before he was elected to high office. The number for one of his personal cellphones was also published online in 2017 after someone stole the phone of a journalist who had Macron’s contact details.
But officials familiar with his habits say he does not usually use any of the phones for discussions of classified information, for fear of being spied on. For that he sticks to encrypted landlines and other tools, the officials said, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive matters.
Mexico’s Calderón told The Post that such intrusions were “an unjustifiable violation of the most elemental rights of liberty and privacy, as well as others that constitute elemental guarantees of human dignity.”
He added he wasn’t surprised his phone number was on the list. “It’s not the first time, and I fear it won’t be the last, that I suffer from espionage,” he said. “On another occasion, the so-called WikiLeaks revealed that I had been the object of surveillance by the United States.”
An investigation by a consortium of media organizations found Israeli firm NSO Group's Pegasus spyware was used to hack smartphones of journalists and others. (Jon Gerberg/The Washington Post)
Timberg and Harwell reported from Washington. Birnbaum reported from Brussels. Sabbagh is a reporter for the Guardian. Reed Albergotti in San Francisco; Karen DeYoung, John Hudson and Dana Priest in Washington; Niha Masih and Joanna Slater in New Delhi; Mary Beth Sheridan in Mexico City; Sarah Dadouch in Beirut; Sam Sole of the investigative nonprofit amaBhungane in South Africa; Damien Leloup and Martin Untersinger of Le Monde; Michael Safi and David Pegg of the Guardian; Bastian Obermayer and Frederik Obermaier of Süddeutsche Zeitung; Kristof Clerix of Knack; Joël Matriche of Le Soir; Hala Nasreddine, Alia Ibrahim and Hazem Amine of Daraj; Miranda Patrucic, Vyacheslav Abramov and Peter Jones of the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project; Holger Stark of Die Zeit; Jacques Monin of Radio France; and Sandrine Rigaud of Forbidden Stories contributed to this report. | null | null | null | null | null |
FILE - Writer-director Taylor Swift attends a premiere for the short film “All Too Well” at AMC Lincoln Square 13 on Friday, Nov. 12, 2021, in New York. Police say a Virginia man has been arrested for drunkenly crashing a car into Taylor Swift’s New York City apartment building and trying to gain entry. Thirty-one-year-old Morgan Mank was arrested shortly after 3 a.m. Thursday, Jan. 27, 2022. (Evan Agostini/Invision/AP) | null | null | null | null | null |
Brian Miller, left, and Dana Wade testify before a Senate panel in May 2020 in Washington, D.C. (Alex Wong/Getty Images)
Under the earlier stimulus law, known as the Cares Act, Congress set aside $25 million to SIGPR. The start-up investment allowed Miller to hire staff, bulk up on technical capabilities and set about scrutinizing early-pandemic initiatives, including the Main Street Lending Program, an effort by the Federal Reserve to sustain cash-starved small and medium-size businesses as well as nonprofits.
The letters underscore the vast and expensive task facing the U.S. government as it tries to keep watch over about $6 trillion in federal stimulus approved since the start of the coronavirus pandemic. The money helped revive an economy in the throes of a deep recession, yet it also has tempted criminals and fraudsters, putting unprecedented pressure on federal watchdogs to ensure the quickly disbursed sums land in the hands of those who need it most.
At times, though, some of the efforts have generated controversy. Last spring, the Special Inspector General for Pandemic Recovery, in particular, tangled with the Justice Department over the scope of its jurisdiction. Top Biden administration officials ultimately determined that Miller, who was appointed during the Trump administration, had purview over only a small slice of the Cares Act and not the broader tranche of funds allotted to the Treasury Department.
The funding debacle arrives amid an already pitched congressional battle over the future of federal spending, just weeks before an existing agreement is set to expire. Democrats and Republicans have less than a month to broker a new deal; otherwise, the government is set to shut down after Feb. 18.
In recent months, lawmakers have narrowly avoided a shutdown by adopting short-term measures that mostly sustain existing federal programs at their current levels. This time, though, top House and Senate appropriators are hoping to strike a deal that could fund Washington operations until the end of the fiscal year, which concludes in September. The two sides have insisted they are making progress toward such a resolution, which could open the door for domestic spending increases previously proposed by President Biden.
Senate Democrats soon after pursued a $10 million appropriation of their own, though the politically deadlocked chamber failed to move any of its spending bills. Instead, lawmakers enacted a series of short-term stopgaps, which ultimately meant that the office never received additional money. | null | null | null | null | null |
A Port Authority bus and a car that were on a bridge when it collapsed Friday, Jan. 28, 2022, are visible in Pittsburgh's East End. (AP Photo/Gene J. Puskar)
A Pittsburgh bridge collapsed early Friday, injuring 10 people just hours before President Biden was scheduled to visit the city to talk about infrastructure.
Pittsburgh Public Safety acknowledged a “confirmed bridge collapse” at around 6:50 a.m. Photos showed at least four vehicles, including a Port Authority bus, on the Fern Hollow Bridge near Forbes and Braddock avenues. Another vehicle was shown dangling near the edge of the collapsed bridge, which is located in Frick Park and connects the Point Breeze, Regent Square and Squirrel Hill neighborhoods of Pittsburgh.
At least three people were hospitalized, but none of the injuries are life-threatening, said Darryl Jones, chief of the Pittsburgh Bureau of Fire, at a news conference. A hospital spokesperson with UPMC Presbyterian told The Washington Post that three adult patients were in fair condition as of Friday morning. Another adult patient was hospitalized at UPMC Shadyside, and that person is also in fair condition, a spokesperson said.
Police, fire and EMS personnel are responding to the collapse. Gainey added that first responders are checking to make sure no one is trapped underneath the collapsed bridge.
The White House is monitoring the situation, and Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf (D) said the state is “prepared to provide support as needed.”
The cause of the collapse is under investigation, Jones said. The National Transportation Safety Board announced it was sending a go-team to begin an investigation into the bridge collapse.
Gainey told reporters that the bridge, which was built in 1970, was last inspected in September 2021. It’s not immediately clear whether any issues were reported during the most recent inspection.
The bridge — which has been estimated to carry about 14,500 vehicles a day — has been rated in poor condition in inspections dating back to 2011, according to the U.S. Transportation Department’s National Bridge Inventory. The Pennsylvania Department of Transportation notes that a poor rating of a state bridge means that “deterioration of primary structural elements has advanced.” A September 2019 inspection of the city-owned Fern Hollow Bridge found that both its superstructure and deck were in poor condition.
Port Authority spokesman Adam Brandolph confirmed to The Post that a driver and two passengers were able to escape without injury. Rescuers rappelled about 150 feet while other first responders formed a human chain to help pull multiple people from the bus, Jones said.
“We are extremely thankful that no one from the bus reported any injuries, and grateful for the first responders who risked their own lives to save others,” Brandolph said.
Public Safety said there was “a strong smell of natural gas in the area,” and the agency confirmed that a gas line had been cut. Nearby homes were being evacuated due to the gas smell, but they have since been allowed to return, Jones said. Barry Kuckovich, a spokesman with Peoples Natural Gas, said there are no service outages as of Friday afternoon, adding that the residual gas smell in the area is “perfectly safe.”
The Red Cross is assisting with victims, according to Public Safety. The Salvation Army is helping with first responders, Jones said.
The collapse occurred on the same day that Biden is traveling to Pittsburgh to discuss infrastructure. As part of his trip, the president will visit the research and development hub of Mill 19, which was part of the $1.2 trillion infrastructure deal passed by Congress last year.
White House press secretary Jen Psaki said Biden “is grateful to the first responders who rushed to assist the drivers who were on the bridge at the time.”
Biden heads to Pittsburgh, a big city in a major swing state, for a day trip designed to promote his economic record at a moment when his approval ratings are low. Some Democrats have complained that Biden does not do enough to tout his administration’s successes, and Biden himself has said he plans to travel the country more this year.
Analysis: The wide ripple effect of the bridge collapse in Pittsburgh
The visit to Pennsylvania also marks a return to a key midterm battleground, where he and Democrats are looking to promote their record as the campaign takes shape. A crucial U.S. Senate race is heating up in the Keystone State following an announcement by Republican Sen. Patrick J. Toomey that he is retiring, and the outcome could have a bearing on which party controls the chamber next year.
Lt. Gov. John Fetterman (D), who is running for the U.S. Senate this year, was among those at the scene of the collapse. Fetterman told reporters that it was “jarring” to see what the bridge looked like after he drove on it Thursday.
“We’re the city of bridges — and how many are out there?” he said. “I hope it’s a wake-up call to the nation that we have to make these critical infrastructure investments and that people are afforded a safe drive to work. I’m just grateful nobody was killed.”
The collapse of the bridge provides an unusually stark illustration of Biden’s broader point about the need to shore up the country’s infrastructure, although he is likely to be cautious about opening himself up to accusations of politicizing the collapse.
The president Friday intends to discuss the infrastructure law’s effect on supply chain snarls as well as its provisions for rebuilding roads, bridges, ports and airports, according to a White House official who previewed the trip on the condition of anonymity, under ground rules set by the White House.
The American Road and Transportation Builders Association ranked Pennsylvania’s bridges the fifth-worst in the nation in 2020, according to its most recent annual survey. The state had almost 12,000 bridges in need of repair, according to the group’s analysis of federal data.
The new infrastructure law includes a $27 billion fund to help states and cities tackle aging bridges, and Pennsylvania is in line to receive $1.6 billion of that money in the coming five years.
The Fern Hollow Bridge, which is located 10 miles east of downtown Pittsburgh, crosses over a popular walking trail in Frick Park. The mayor said the bridge collapse was a prime example of why the city supported the infrastructure deal.
“We need it,” Gainey told reporters. “We could have had some significant injuries.”
Neighbors in the east Pittsburgh neighborhood reported hearing a loud noise before 7 a.m. Wendy Stroh was quietly reading a John Grisham novel when she heard what sounded to her like “a huge snowplow plowing on tarmac without snow on it.” When she went outside, Stroh, who has lived near the bridge since 2013, realized what had happened and was stunned and frightened.
“The locals and I have not fully processed this yet. But your imagination starts to wander and you start to think, ‘Oh my goodness, are all bridges like this?’ ” said Stroh, 62. “This is going to make me think twice the next time I cross a bridge.”
Melissa Bakth heard what she described as “a monster noise” when she was in bed and initially thought the area was being bombed. Bakth, who has lived near the bridge for almost her whole life, broke down after thinking about what could have happened to her young daughter or the many other children who take school buses over the bridge every day. The 43-year-old said she drives over the bridge at least six times a day, noting that there are three schools within a few blocks of the bridge.
“That’s part of the reason I’m crying — it’s so overwhelming. I still can’t believe I was standing there with the entire bridge at my feet,” Bakth told The Post. She added that she hopes the collapse helps personalize the issue of infrastructure: “It’s not about the money and numbers. It’s about lives.”
Rich Fitzgerald, the county executive for Allegheny County, said authorities would be working with families in the area to make sure everyone is safe. | null | null | null | null | null |
While the two-year-old law was struck down by a majority on the five-judge panel of the Commonwealth Court, Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf (D) and the state’s Attorney General, Josh Shapiro (D), promised a swift appeal, criticizing the court’s opinion as being “based on twisted logic and faulty reasoning.”
The Pennsylvania Supreme Court took up a similar challenge to the state’s expanded voting law following the 2020 presidential election, in which Republican plaintiffs demanded that all mail ballots be thrown out after the fact. The court rejected the challenge on the grounds that it had been filed too late.
Amy Gardner contributed reporting to this story. | null | null | null | null | null |
Pittsburgh is a great city. You’re probably familiar with its association with three rivers, but may not understand why. In short, the city arose where two rivers (the Allegheny to the north and Monongahela to the south) merged to form the Ohio River. The Ohio then goes on to the Mississippi and the Gulf of Mexico. So the junction of those rivers became an excellent point from which to manage commerce. | null | null | null | null | null |
Parks, author of the Pulitzer-prize winning “Topdog/Underdog,” enjoys a good provocation, particularly when addressing the unpardonable sin of slavery — as impossible to wash out of America’s collective system, it seems, as the spots on Lady Macbeth’s hands. The dramatist explored the subject in her Civil War epic, “Father Comes Home From the Wars (Parts 1, 2 and 3).” She returns to it here, in a more sardonic vein, pulling apart the pieties of the racially enlightened to reveal the dangers a self-satisfied White America still poses to Black people. | null | null | null | null | null |
Opinion: Pastor Tony Evans leads his flock toward danger with anti-vaccine rhetoric
Activists and faith groups protest against vaccine mandates in Washington on Jan. 23. (Shuran Huang/For The Washington Post)
As we enter the third year of the coronavirus pandemic, it is the religious objections to routine vaccination that persist and perplex.
In some religious circles, the rapid spread of the omicron variant is being taken as an antidote to medical arrogance. “These variants aren’t just variants,” the popular television preacher Tony Evans explains. “This is God showing medical science, politicians, people: ‘I don’t care what you come up with. I’m talking now.’”
While conceding that “vaccines help,” Evans goes on to argue that “you should have a choice, whether it’s natural immunity or whether it’s therapeutics. You shouldn’t be mandated to put chemicals in your body. But you should be free to if you choose to. So our issue is against mandates, not against vaccinations if you choose to. … People don’t know what to do, so stuff keeps changing because God keeps messing stuff up. … So whatever decision you make, be able to trust God with it.”
This position — which assumes that God introduces an element of uncertainty into the conclusions of science to expose human arrogance — is intended to justify a reasonable middle ground of personal choice on vaccination. The problem? It is a theological absurdity based on a bald-faced deception in service to a dangerous ideology.
From the most recent data, we know that covid-19 boosters have an effectiveness of 90 percent to 95 percent against severe disease or death. According to a recent editorial in the New England Journal of Medicine by Minal K. Patel: “This means that if the absolute effectiveness of two vaccine doses is 90%, the absolute effectiveness of two doses plus a booster is 99 to 100%.”
Whatever this is, it is not a basis to argue that “people don’t know what to do.” People know exactly what to do to prevent — and nearly eliminate — the risk of severe disease and death from a nasty pathogen. Two doses plus a booster is as close as medicine comes to the ironclad certainty of protection.
This creates certain moral responsibilities for those in positions of influence. If they claim that strong scientific conclusions are actually in doubt, they are engaged in deception. If they address this issue without affirming the urgency of universal vaccination, they are condemning a portion of their audience to the risk of needless death.
The whole idea that chemical inputs should never be “mandated” is to misunderstand both the history of public health and the nature of a common good. Required, routine vaccination of schoolchildren has been one of the great success stories of modern medicine. Highly contagious diseases such as mumps, measles, chickenpox and whooping cough are now rare in the United States, while polio and smallpox have been eliminated. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has estimated that routine child vaccination will prevent an estimated 936,000 deaths in American children born between 1994 and 2018. This “pro-life” achievement is celebrated by a vast chorus of the living.
Opinion: How is the GOP’s coronavirus recklessness compatible with being pro-life?
Maintaining public health is, in part, a matter of public authorities influencing what chemicals are introduced into which bodies. Heroin and fentanyl? Nope: bad for individuals and society. Alcohol? Not until you’re 21. Childhood vaccines? Yes, absolutely.
The coronavirus booster — which saves people from death and serious illness, at a minuscule risk — falls easily into the third category. It is now considered controversial not because of deepened theological reflection on the part of evangelicals but because of the right-wing populist fetishization of autonomy and “choice.” And pastors pulled along in this political current are sources of deadly misinformation and of terrible, reckless, foolish advice.
We tend to think that deferring to individual choice is somehow a “neutral” position. But in the case of covid, Evans and others are not asking us to choose between the views of two groups of citizens. They are creating circumstances that will result in the spread of a sometimes deadly virus. This is not neutrality. It is sabotaging a society they should be serving.
A vague discomfort with the field of medicine goes back to the early days of the Christian church. “Many thought the sick should rely only on God for healing,” the historian Robert Louis Wilken writes in “The First Thousand Years: A Global History of Christianity.” “Turning to a physician for cure was a sign of lack of faith in God’s power.”
Yet Christian teachers such as Origen of Alexandria vigorously disputed such assumptions. “God, creator of human bodies,” Origen argued, “knew that such was the fragility of the human body that it could be subject to different kinds of maladies and injuries.” So it made sense that “if the body is assailed by sickness, there would be cures.”
In the covid crisis, by the grace of God, there are cures. | null | null | null | null | null |
Opinion: Why Boris Johnson’s ‘Partygate’ scandal has Brits in a rage
Protesters demonstrating against Boris Johnson hold placards on Jan. 26 in London. (Matt Dunham/AP)
Britain’s prime minister is facing the biggest political crisis of his career — over a few workplace parties. Americans might find the scandal, now dubbed “Partygate,” bewildering. So Boris Johnson and his staff at 10 Downing Street held a series of parties during the pandemic — so what’s the big deal? No senior politicians in the United States have lost their jobs for lax attention to coronavirus rules.
Johnson’s behavior was certainly nowhere near as bad, for example, as that of President Donald Trump. He held superspreader events at the White House, hosted mass indoor rallies that quite possibly resulted in deaths (including that of a former Republican presidential contender) and forced his Secret Service agents to drive him around in a sealed vehicle while he had a severe case of covid-19. Trump paid no immediate political price for this behavior at the time. Neither have any of the other politicians who have openly flouted official recommendations from various U.S. health authorities.
The difference is that Americans haven’t had to face anything like the same level of legal restrictions or draconian police enforcement that people in Britain have experienced. It’s hard to convey how much the lockdowns here affected every aspect of life. For months, it was illegal to leave your house, unless you had a reasonable excuse. You couldn’t legally visit a friend inside their home. Two women who went for a socially distanced walk outdoors with coffees faced fines because their coffees apparently transformed the event into a picnic, which was illegal.
According to data obtained by the National, police in England and Wales “issued a total of 117,213 fixed penalty notices for breaches of coronavirus restrictions, including 366 fines of £10,000 [about $13,395] for holding gatherings of more than thirty people and 3,440 fines of £800 [$1,070] for participating in gatherings of more than 15 people” between March 2020 and June 2021.
Millions of people rightly followed the laws set by Johnson’s government, even when it was excruciating. Nearly everyone in Britain has a story of missing funerals, canceling holiday and birthday gatherings, and being legally barred from visiting loved ones. There are countless stories of people dying alone, their last words whispered to loved ones over Zoom.
But the prime minister apparently couldn’t resist celebrating the crucial milestone that is one’s 56th birthday with dozens of his colleagues and his interior decorator while the rest of us in the country weren’t allowed to see our parents or siblings. Now, many of those who obeyed the laws feel like chumps. Or, as one columnist put it: “Boris Johnson has made us all look like idiots.”
Even though I was comparatively lucky during the pandemic, I didn’t see anyone in my family back in the United States for more than 18 months because non-essential travel was outlawed for most of the pandemic. A friend of mine was shooed off a bench by the police while sitting alone in a public park (which was also technically illegal). Many in the United States voluntarily behaved in similar ways out of caution, but few faced large fines from the police or the risk of jail time at any point during the pandemic for visiting a friend or having coffee on an outdoor walk.
Whether these measures were sensible or excessive in hindsight is debatable. What is no longer debatable is whether the man who set the rules actually followed them. He did not.
That’s why government ministers are having such a hard time defending their leader. The government line these days seems to be that these parties are being blown out of proportion. “Boris Johnson didn’t rob a bank,” one said in his defense. No, he didn’t, but he robbed his citizens of crucial experiences with loved ones while he enjoyed them himself.
Unlike most political scandals, this one isn’t abstract. Every person in the country can think of the sacrifices they made and then compare them with the party invitation that was sent around to more than 100 people at 10 Downing Street with the line “Bring your own booze.”
When news of these parties first surfaced, the government hoped that it could contain the political damage by only launching an internal investigation. That approach blew up in their faces when the man they appointed to investigate the work parties … turned out to have thrown an apparently illegal work party himself. The findings from a more robust independent investigation are eagerly anticipated.
Johnson has clearly failed to contain the damage. A new poll shows that 62 percent of Britons want Johnson to resign.
Even if Johnson manages to somehow survive this scandal for now, it isn’t the end of the story. This week, London’s Metropolitan Police announced that it had launched its own investigation into the string of apparently illegal gatherings.
The odds that Johnson will be prime minister by the end of February now seem roughly the same as the odds that he actually thought he was attending an essential “work” event when he joined colleagues for wine and cheese in the Downing Street garden. Whenever he goes, the standard office-leaving farewell drinks event will have a certain irony to it.
The cakes of Britain are hot on Boris Johnson’s trail
Why Boris Johnson’s ‘Partygate’ scandal has Brits in a rage | null | null | null | null | null |
Colder regions may experience more cases during the winter, while warmer regions may see spikes in the summer
Pedestrians walk near the Obelisk in Buenos Aires during a heat wave Jan. 12 amid a spike of coronavirus cases. (Agustin Marcarian/Reuters)
“We need to basically design the intervention or mitigation strategies based on the environment in which we live,” Jutla said. “Regions like Florida, India, Africa — they are warm regions. … They basically get hit by these waves, but at different times than what happens in the northern parts, the colder regions.”
Although case numbers could surge during extreme chills or heat waves, such temperatures typically need to persist for about a 14-day average, Jutla said. The team validated the data to December 2021, but characteristics could change with new mutations or new variants of the novel coronavirus.
The air in humid, hotter environments contains more water, which can condense onto the virus particles, make them bigger and theoretically fall to the ground faster. Wu compares the particles to a rock in this case — the more mass, the faster it falls. At the same time, people often move inside to avoid the outdoor warmth and again expose themselves to recirculated air. Air conditioners also dry the inside air, creating an environment similar to that of winter for aerosols.
“Human behavior is a very important factor in the transmission,” said Wu, who also is a professor at the University of Florida. “It’s not just purely the physics or biology [of the virus] that dictates. … It’s a combination of these.”
Fewer cases were detected between 62 and 75 degrees, a temperature range considered more tolerable for people to be outside.
He said more work is needed to further explore the use of air conditioning, stating that “the United States and India likely have different levels of usage, which was not accounted for in this study.”
“I like that the study points out that climate-covid relationships will differ by region,” said Ben Zaitchik, a co-chair of a covid-19 research task team at World Meteorological Organization. Zaitchik, who commented by email, was not involved in the study. “We found something similar in a study … and I think it’s important to emphasize,” he wrote.
It is important to remember that these are only one driver of risk, Zaitchik wrote. “All evidence is that it has been a secondary driver up to this point in the pandemic. It might become more important as covid becomes endemic and settles into a seasonally locked pattern — which many expect that it will.”
Considering the virus’s environmental and socioeconomic influences, Jutla and colleagues also created a model to predict the risk of covid weekly in the United States.
The model, which is in the beta phase, includes air temperature, humidity, population density, economic stability (income), age, diversity, housing, vaccination data sets and other factors. The predictive model builds on work by Jutla and other co-authors, who previously demonstrated how cholera outbreaks are tied to environmental factors such as air temperature and salinity.
The model shows about 80 to 90 percent accuracy nationwide (validated on a county-level scale), although Zaitchik said it is important to see the model in a peer-reviewed form, especially because of its novelty. “There hasn’t been any robust demonstration of a model like that for covid-19 risk prediction,” he said. | null | null | null | null | null |
Which masks are safest? Schools around the country struggle to answer.
Students board a bus outside of Washington-Liberty High School in Arlington County, one of several school districts that sued to stop the mask-optional order by Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin. (Evelyn Hockstein/Reuters)
It was a promising idea. With coronavirus cases surging and public health officials exhorting Americans to upgrade their face coverings, Maryland’s largest school system decided to provide KN95 masks to its students and staff. It was a way to keep kids in their classrooms by keeping infections under control.
But the effort in suburban Montgomery County to furnish the high-grade masks to its 160,000 students and 24,000 employees collided with some of the pandemic’s harsh realities: Demand is high, supplies are low and regulation is limited. Some of the masks the county distributed appear to fall short of the standard the United States lays out for the highest-quality masks, and some parents and teachers worry about authenticity.
“What is this that they’ve given you?” Meghan Biss recalled asking her first-grader, incredulous as she looked at the unlabeled white mask that was too big for the 6-year-old.
School systems around the country are grappling with both spiraling infections and the latest warnings that cloth masks offer mediocre protection. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, loosely woven cloth face coverings are less effective than well-fitting surgical masks and KN95s. Best of all are N95s, which are held to U.S. government standards, with a rigorous testing and certification process.
Efforts to apply this wisdom have sometimes stumbled. Counterfeit KN95s are a well-known problem, with the CDC saying about 60 percent of those NIOSH evaluated during the pandemic “did not meet the requirements they intended to meet” and poor-quality products “may not provide the level of protection indicated.”
In New York, 250,000 masks deemed “unacceptable” or counterfeit were discovered as the state recently disseminated 5 million masks for schools, libraries and other public places. The state replaced the defective items, which went to three counties, with “high-quality KN95s."
“After the faulty masks were identified, we undertook an internal review of the remaining KN95 masks in the state’s possession to ensure only acceptable masks are distributed in the future,” said Jill Montag, spokeswoman for the New York State Department of Health.
In Colorado, aerosol scientists tested KN95 and N95 masks before the state bought them in large quantities, said John Volckens, a professor of environmental health at Colorado State University who was part of that effort and says scientists in other areas could help as other states face similar quandaries.
It’s difficult, he said, because N95 masks are federally certified by the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, but for other masks “it’s basically the Wild West right now.” KN95s, mostly made in China, do not abide by a fixed set of U.S. rules. The good news, he said, is that in his experience the number of KN95 fakes is less than it once was — probably less than 25 percent.
Still, Volckens said, even counterfeits — typically masks with poor quality control — are probably better than cloth masks. And equally important to the quality of a mask is whether it fits snugly on the face. “A really leaky N95 is no better than a cloth mask,” he said.
In many places, schools report that the quest to upgrade has unfolded relatively smoothly. Just this week, school officials in Los Angeles, in the nation’s second largest school district, barred cloth masks in their buildings, saying that students needed well-fitting non-cloth face coverings with a nose wire and that staff should be covered by a surgical grade mask or higher. The system gives out masks as needed.
“Our goal is always to maximize an opportunity for in-person instruction,” said Tony Aguilar, the Los Angeles school system’s chief of special education, equity and access.
CDC says N95 masks offer far better protection than cloth masks
In far smaller Amherst, Mass., school officials also put a stop to cloth masks this month, unless they are worn as a second layer over a surgical mask.
“The expectations of the style of the mask increased because the number of positive cases increased,” Superintendent Michael Morris said. The system has steered its federal coronavirus relief funds to buy a large supply of KN95s, he said, because not everyone can afford them. “We felt that family income should not determine filtration efficiency,” he said.
For some, timing and relationships have paved the way to better masks. Matt Hillmann, superintendent of Northfield Public Schools, about 45 miles south of the Twin Cities in Minnesota, had heard about counterfeits, so his school system did everything possible to work with longtime vendors on obtaining KN95s. The district ordered in December, a few days before Christmas.
“The key thing was to get in a little early, and to work with trusted vendors,” he said. Even so, he said, “it still took three weeks to get them.” But since early January, KN95s are available for students or staff who want them; they are not required, he said.
In the San Antonio area, Superintendent Brian Woods of the Northside Independent School District, said there were no KN95s to buy in bulk when his staff began to search. “Zero,” he said. So the large Texas system opted for N95 masks — 100,000 of them — which are the gold standard of respiratory protection.
Weeks later, they are still in transit.
Across the region's schools, a wildly varied approach to masks
“It wouldn’t be a mandatory thing to wear the N95, but we think we’ve got a healthy number of staff who would choose to wear it, at least during times of high transmission,” Woods said.
For school systems, one challenge is that KN95s are designed to meet Chinese standards and are not regulated in the United States. Another is that regulated masks — N95s — were created for use in the workplace and don’t come in sizes intended for minors.
“It’s difficult because there is not a standard for children,” said Kristen Coleman, an assistant research professor at the University of Maryland School of Public Health. “School districts and parents don’t know what they’re buying.”
In Maryland’s Montgomery County, questions about its masks — officials ordered 1 million at an average of 30 cents apiece — arose almost immediately after the first ones were handed out in January. Some parents, including Biss, were surprised by the items that their children brought home. Some teachers were disappointed, too.
Then in mid January, the “Mask Nerd” weighed in.
Aaron Collins, a mechanical engineer with a background in aerosol science who lives in Minnesota, picked up the nickname as he developed a following on YouTube for educating the public about masks and testing them for effectiveness in his free time with lab instruments that he has at home. After a year and a half, he has appeared on television and radio and been featured in a story in Scientific American. He posts all of his data and records his testing live.
Collins tested five of the masks handed out by the Montgomery County school system in a YouTube video — two for children, two for teachers and one for a paraeducator. Three of the five masks, provided by a parent, did not meet expectations for filtration efficiency. In his testing, a person would inhale four times more particles with the two lowest-performing masks. “It’s not just a little off,” he said.
Around the same time, the N95 Project, a national nonprofit that provides access to and education about respiratory protection, examined photos of two packages of masks sent by The Washington Post and researched the products. Neither would pass the organization’s vetting process, said Anne Miller, executive director.
In one case, she found no test reports or third-party information about the company named on the label. In the other, she said, the mask had already been found to have a very poor performance by the National Personal Protective Testing Laboratory of CDC in 2020.
Miller commends school systems for trying to step up masking, but finds it a problem to "spend your money and think you’re getting protection, but you’re not.” Project N95 helps school systems and state governments evaluate masks they are considering buying or ones they have stockpiled, she said. There are higher-quality KN95s, but it takes experience to tell the difference, she said.
Montgomery County school officials said their masks are not fakes and took issue with Collins’s testing methods, pointing out that he does not have the same machinery as NIOSH and that, in his video, one mask he initially thought was fake ultimately turned out to meet the filtration efficiency standard. They said the school system’s masks comply with the county’s definition of “face covering.”
Peter Park, team leader with the district’s systemwide safety programs, said the KN95s are “the best masks that are currently available and meet district pricing limitations.” Park said he provided information about Project N95 to the school system’s procurement department a couple of weeks ago as a possible source for buying masks and is also recommending Korean-made KF94s, which have “substantially fewer issues with counterfeiting and poor quality control.”
Chris Cram, a spokesman for the school system, said that on “a couple of very rare occasions” children were given adult masks, which “should not have happened.” He said student masks were distributed later than adult masks, which appeared to lead to confusion.
Hannah Donart, a mother of two and public health scientist involved in the PTA, said parents have been buzzing about the Mask Nerd’s findings, although many likely believe the school system would give them only a fully effective KN95.
She urged that the school system post details on its website — about the type of masks being distributed, along with the size, the manufacturers name and any model, lot number or other information, similar to what is being done for HEPA filters in school buildings. It would become "a list of what has been procured, so we know everything on the list passes criteria for effectiveness.” The school system did not name its vendors in response to an inquiry from The Washington Post, saying it “sourced masks through several of our current vendor partners.”
Biss, the mother with the 6-year-old who brought home an oversized mask, said that the lack of packaging worried her, but the Mask Nerd’s findings took it a step further.
“My heart just sank,” she said. " I really just hoped they would come back and be fine. It’s not just our kids, it’s our teachers. We’re giving them masks that say they’ll be safer in school, and they may not be." | null | null | null | null | null |
New movies to stream this week: ‘Boris Karloff: The Man Behind the Monster,’ ‘Confession’ and more
“Boris Karloff: The Man Behind the Monster” is a documentary look at the life and career of the actor best known for playing Frankenstein’s Monster. (Abramorama/Shout! Studios)
An earlier version of this story incorrectly included the film “Desperate Riders.” The western thriller, starring Tom Berenger and Trace Adkins, will become available on demand on Feb. 25. This version has been corrected.
Just in time to commemorate the Feb. 2, 1969 death of actor Boris Karloff — best known for his nuanced rendering of Frankenstein’s monster in “Frankenstein” (1931), “The Bride of Frankenstein” (1935) and “Son of Frankenstein” (1939) — the horror streaming platform Shudder debuts the documentary “Boris Karloff: The Man Behind the Monster.” It’s an affectionate, informative and entertaining look at the performer, born William “Billy” Pratt to Anglo-Indian parents (before adopting his stage name upon breaking into Canadian theater, with no training). Along with the many great clips of Karloff from his prolific stage, film and television career (clips that will make you glad Shudder has plans to also stream some of Karloff’s classics), this documentary portrait includes interviews with such fans and aficionados as filmmaker Guillermo del Toro, who calls Karloff his “messiah.” Appearances by Karloff’s daughter Sara, John Landis (co-director of Michael Jackson’s “Thriller” video) and such film historians as Leonard Maltin add context and color to the documentary, which despite being heavy on black-and-white archival footage makes for a lively and vibrant appreciation of an artist. Looking back at Karloff from today, in an era in which the horror genre all too often means movies that evoke disgust, Karloff’s work in such classic monster movies as “The Mummy” and the noirish “Bedlam” are a refreshing reminder of the actor’s greatest strength, which was — ironically, considering the extreme nature of some of his roles — his subtlety. Unrated. Available on Shudder. Contains some clips from scary movies. 99 minutes.
A wounded gunman (Stephen Moyer) barricades himself in a church as he tells his story to a priest (Colm Meaney) in “Confession,” a thriller that the Guardian describes as “laborious.” Unrated. Available on demand. Contains violence and strong language. 81 minutes.
Directed by Jay Galione, the son of a 30-year veteran of the U.S. Postal Service, the documentary “The Great Postal Heist” takes a look at the workplace culture of the Postal Service and recent efforts to downsize it. Unrated. Available via Vimeo on Demand. 96 minutes. | null | null | null | null | null |
Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson (Bill O'Leary/The Washington Post)
One hundred and fifteen Americans have sat on the Supreme Court. Of those, 110 have been men and 112 have been White. But now that President Biden has the chance to follow up on the promise he made to appoint a Black woman to serve on the court, conservatives are aghast at the very thought.
Not all of them, of course; some Republicans are staying mum for now, and they may ultimately decide to say the nominee is a crazy communist and leave it at that. But since we heard Justice Stephen Breyer will retire, a flood of reactions from the right have been based on the premise that appointing a Black woman to the court necessarily means she will be elevated over someone more qualified, presumably a White man.
So it’s important to be clear about what I am, and am not, arguing. In assessing racism I try to stick to the “what you said, not who you are” standard. With the occasional exception, we can judge a statement racist without peering into the heart of the speaker, which ends up sucking us into distractions about how many Black friends someone has.
Let’s consider some of what’s circulating on the right. On Fox News, Greg Jarrett said Biden is violating the Civil Rights Act by promising to appoint a Black woman (and no, a Supreme Court appointment is not like an ordinary job opening). Sean Hannity claimed Biden’s pledge “may even be illegal.” Someone is clearly being discriminated against here, and it’s White people.
Meanwhile, the Wall Street Journal editorial page said choosing a Black woman “elevates skin color over qualifications,” as though it would be impossible to find a Black woman who is also qualified. “I mean, what kind of qualification is that, being a Black woman?” asked Fox’s Maria Bartiromo.
“They can overtly discriminate against people,” lamented Ben Shapiro. Tucker Carlson issued a ten-minute rant about the injustice of it all, concluding with the suggestion that George Floyd’s sister should be the nominee.
Think about the assumption behind these objections: That if Biden promised to choose a Black woman and then did, whoever she is, that means she must be unqualified if her race was part of the reason she was chosen, or at the very least less qualified than someone who isn’t a Black woman. Why would that be?
They look at someone like reported leading contender Ketanji Brown Jackson — national oratory champion in high school, magna cum laude graduate of Harvard, editor of the law review at Harvard Law, Supreme Court clerk, experience as a trial and appeals court judge — and say there must be better candidates, if only Biden were open-minded enough to consider them.
Really? Like who?
Every president takes those questions into consideration, and conservatives have supported some nominees precisely because of those ancillary qualities. They praised Amy Coney Barrett for being a mother of seven, and for having not attended law school at Harvard or Yale like every other justice. They found that kind of diversity valuable.
Likewise, Brett Kavanaugh wasn’t chosen by President Donald Trump because he was the wisest jurist in the land. He was relatively young (then 53) so he could serve for a long time, and his years in Republican politics and stamp of approval from the Federalist Society assured Republicans that he’d be a reliable conservative vote. As an intellect, Kavanaugh is adequate, but no one claims he’s a generation-defining genius.
Conservatives have also conveniently forgotten that Ronald Reagan made a similar promise when he ran for president in 1980: He vowed to appoint the first woman justice, and then did. When George H.W. Bush filled Thurgood Marshall’s seat with Clarence Thomas in 1991, everyone understood that Bush wanted to find a Black conservative. | null | null | null | null | null |
In addition to allegedly making antisemitic comments during the staged reenactment, the school librarian, responding to a child who asked why the Germans did it, reportedly said: “because the Jews ruined Christmas.”
Demanding that he recheck, Gutierrez emailed several minutes later, “no information was shared with me, and the status of this investigation is still ongoing.” Where’s the outrage? | null | null | null | null | null |
“Belfast” A Conversation with Kenneth Branagh
“Belfast” is the story of a working-class family grappling with the start of The Troubles in Northern Ireland in the late 1960s. Join Washington Post Live on Thursday, Feb. 3 at 2:30 p.m. ET for a conversation with the film’s director, Kenneth Branagh, about his own childhood in Northern Ireland and how the film is reflective of his memories of leaving Belfast because of the conflict. | null | null | null | null | null |
I figured the ailment would disappear, but it didn’t. After a month of fiddling with my food, unable to work up an appetite because of the stench, a tweet led me to discover that I was suffering from a condition that made me a “covid long-hauler.” I barely understood what that meant at the time, but I knew it would be awhile before things were okay.
Breakthrough infections for vaccinated people have been at unprecedented high levels with the omicron variant, which means there’s now a looming uncertainty about how long covid will affect them. Anthony S. Fauci has confirmed that long covid can develop “no matter what virus variant occurs.” Most agree that vaccines reduce but do not eliminate the risk of long covid. Researchers say we’ll have to wait until May 2022 to properly assess omicron’s relationship with long covid.
While parosmia isn’t as life-threatening as other long covid conditions that damage vital organs, that doesn’t make it easy to live with. As Richard Orlandi, an ear, nose and throat physician, told University of Utah Health, “Depending on the severity, this condition can range from an annoyance to a frustrating and anxiety-inducing symptom.”
When Aditi Mehta, a 24-year-old from New Delhi, got typical covid-19 symptoms in April 2021 despite being partially vaccinated, they lasted only 24 hours, she said. But a month later, her sense of smell started playing tricks on her. When she turned to her doctor for advice, she received no answers, she said: “They had no idea what was happening.”
Finding a community allowed many to process how profound a loss it had been. “It’s one of your five senses, after all,” said Vaishnavi Bajpai, a 21-year-old from Uttar Pradesh, India, who is studying medicine and who tested positive for the coronavirus in November 2020.
The most unforeseen consequence of parosmia for me was how paranoid it made me for my safety. Some accused me of hyperbolizing my condition when I would triple-check the stove — no longer trusting myself to detect a gas leak. But speaking to Bajpai about my fears confirmed that they weren’t nearly as irrational as I thought. She said she’d been heating a bucket of water and didn’t realize it was burning on an immersion rod; she couldn’t smell the smoldering plastic. She frantically called her mother, she said, unsure whether she would “ever be able to live alone like this.”
To Rachel LaFerriere, a 22-year-old student from Ohio who got covid in August 2021 despite being fully vaccinated, many foods smelled like a “garlicky, oniony plate of eggs left sitting out for two weeks.” For her, parosmia has darkly colored life’s little moments. “Going into a restaurant and smelling the food was one of the joys of my life. And now it’s ruined,” she said.
Six months in, my parosmia is no longer a daily interruption. Yet I don’t feel okay enough to say I’m “recovered.” I still can’t eat onions and garlic. And many others like me are experiencing varied emotions about the unexpected, lasting changes.
The “omicron is mild” narrative is rooted in a false binary — you either succumb to the infection or emerge unscathed. This overlooks the understated middle child: the possibility of developing long covid conditions that can alter the course of your life.
Most of the people interviewed for this article experienced largely asymptomatic infections. University of Arizona Health Sciences found that 67 percent of people who recovered from “mild or moderate” infections experienced symptoms more than 30 days after their positive test. | null | null | null | null | null |
Capitol physician says coronavirus infection rate has dropped
Analysis: Boosters exacerbate the Republican-Democratic vaccine gap
A D.C. bar violated vaccine rules. Its liquor license is being suspended.
Poll finds covid fatigue, worries about the economy and difficulty finding at-home tests
Anti-vaccine Canadian truck convoy due to arrive in Ottawa
Positive coronavirus tests could end Olympic dreams before athletes leave for Beijing
Marvel star Evangeline Lilly attended anti-vaccine-mandate rally
Philippines says vaccinated travelers will no longer need to quarantine in government-approved facilities
Who is investigating the lockdown parties linked to Boris Johnson and his staff?
Thinking of permanently ditching the office? Here’s what to consider.
The percentage of coronavirus cases among lawmakers, staff and others working at the Capitol complex has decreased from 13 percent to 4 percent in less than a month, according to Brian Monahan, the Capitol Hill physician.
In a memo to staff Thursday, the attending physician credits vaccines, a number of safety protocols and other precautions with getting the numbers down.
“The Capitol community has been responsive to this public health threat by increasing reliance upon telework, improving mask wear to medical grade filtration masks, introduction of home coronavirus testing, and continued adoption of the important coronavirus vaccine booster vaccination,” he wrote.
While coronavirus cases have continued to climb at a high level in the United States, Monahan wrote that they were decreasing in the D.C. metropolitan area. Despite that, he warned about remaining cautious.
“The variant coronaviruses have caused an unprecedented number of cases in the Capitol community affecting hundreds of individuals,” he wrote. “While many infections can be detected through workplace testing, the most common risk of acquiring infection is the individual’s activities outside the workplace, such as attendance at receptions, entertainment venues, celebrations, family gatherings, travel, and crowded indoor situations.”
“Breakthrough infections among Members and staff have not led to hospitalizations, serious complications, or deaths, attesting to the value of coronavirus vaccinations,” Monahan added.
While much has been written about the partisan gap on vaccinations, the gap is now larger with boosters (as early data suggested it might be). It’s also likely to continue to grow, according to a new monthly Kaiser Family Foundation survey.
To date, the survey shows about 9 in 10 Democrats and 6 in 10 Republicans have been vaccinated. But when it comes to those who are vaccinated and boosted, Democrats are about twice as likely to be in that group — 62 percent to 32 percent.
The survey also asked about people’s intentions, and that’s where the gap grows even more: 58 percent of vaccinated-but-unboosted Democrats say they will get a booster as soon as possible, but just 18 percent of vaccinated-but-unboosted Republicans say the same.
If you add those to the number of people already boosted, that would translate to 79 percent of Democrats soon being boosted vs. just 37 percent of Republicans. That’s a 42-point partisan gap, compared to a gap of less than 30 points among people who have at least been vaccinated.
By Justin Wm. Moyer and Michael Brice-Saddler1:30 p.m.
D.C. officials said Thursday they are suspending the liquor license of an H Street bar for violating of the city’s vaccine and mask regulations.
Conservatives rallied to defend the Big Board earlier this month after it received two $1,000 citations as well as written and verbal warnings for unmasked employees and not checking customers’ vaccine status. A District mandate requiring that bar patrons show proof they have received at least one dose of a coronavirus vaccine went into effect Jan. 15.
On Wednesday, the city’s Alcoholic Beverage Control Board voted to refer Big Board to the D.C. attorney general to draft a suspension notice, documents show. The D.C. attorney general’s office confirmed Thursday that it was drafting the suspension notice.
By News Services and Staff Reports12:45 p.m.
The European Commission on Friday approved Pfizer’s antiviral pill for covid-19, a day after the region’s health regulator endorsed the tablet, a move that will ensure wide availability of the promising treatment to European Union member states.
In Canada, multiple indicators suggest that infections of the omicron variant have peaked nationally, the country’s chief public health officer, Theresa Tam, said Friday. The seven-day average case count was down 28 percent as of Wednesday, compared to the previous week, Tam told reporters at a briefing.
Morocco will reopen its airspace to international flights starting Feb. 7, its state news agency reported Thursday. The North African nation banned all inbound international passenger flights in November over omicron concerns.
India’s capital, Delhi, lifted a weekend curfew and allowed restaurants, movie theaters and marketplaces to reopen Friday, following a drop in new infections. The city will remain under a nighttime curfew, schools will stay closed, and the number of people at weddings will be limited to 200, Delhi’s lieutenant governor said.
Australia suffered its deadliest day of the pandemic Friday, with nearly 100 deaths recorded. However, the country predicts that the worst of the omicron wave may soon be over. Australia’s drug regulator also expanded eligibility for booster shots to include 16- and 17-year-olds.
A medical convoy from the United Arab Emirates has reached the Gaza Strip, carrying 1 million coronavirus vaccine doses. The aid entered via the Rafah border crossing, state news agency WAM reported.
Nigeria’s vaccine rollout is gaining pace after government officials assured citizens they will not receive expired doses — boosting public confidence in the shots. Health authorities had destroyed more than a million expired doses last month and have said some shots donated by countries or global vaccine-sharing projects had arrived close to their expiration dates.
North Korea may slowly be reopening after a strict lockdown following the apparent resumption of freight train traffic into neighboring China. North Korea is in need of economic relief, and commercial satellite images indicate the resumption of some cargo trade. China said trade between border towns will be maintained while pandemic controls stay in place.
By Justin Jouvenal and Lauren Lumpkin12:08 p.m.
A number of major Virginia universities and colleges require students to have a coronavirus vaccination, including the University of Virginia, Virginia Tech, George Mason University, James Madison University, Virginia Commonwealth University, Virginia State University, Norfolk State, College of William & Mary and the University of Mary Washington.
By Kasha Patel11:29 a.m.
Coronavirus transmission may have seasonal spikes tied to temperature and humidity, increasing at different times of the year for different locations, a new study suggests.
Jutla and his colleagues found that covid cases in 19 hot spots worldwide increased above and below certain temperature and humidity thresholds because of human behavior and the virus’s movement as an aerosol. Case numbers spiked when air temperatures dipped below 62 degrees (17 Celsius) or above 75 degrees (24 Celsius). The virus also tends to linger more in drier environments, compared with humid ones.
By Frances Stead Sellers and Emily Guskin10:42 a.m.
Fatigue and frustration dominate the public mood as the country enters the third year of the pandemic, according to the latest survey in the Covid-19 Vaccine Monitor released Friday by the Kaiser Family Foundation.
Those concerns are shared across partisan lines. About three-quarters of Democrats, independents and Republicans reported feeling “tired” and “frustrated” and said they think it is likely that most Americans eventually will be infected. But Black and Hispanic Americans were more likely than White Americans to worry about omicron’s effects, including becoming seriously ill or having to miss work.
Democrats were more likely to list the pandemic as the most important issue facing the country, while Republicans picked inflation. But in general, Americans report being “more worried” about the impact of omicron on the economy and on their hospitals, and being “less worried” about its impact on their personal lives. About 7 in 10 Americans worry that restrictions aimed at stopping omicron’s spread will hurt businesses in their area (71 percent), while 68 percent worry that their local hospitals will be overwhelmed.
Despite a growing number of breakthrough infections, most Americans continue to believe in the utility of vaccines. Most adults, 62 percent, see the fact that most vaccinated people do not require hospitalization as a sign that the vaccines are working. But the number of people who see breakthrough infections as a sign that shots are ineffective has increased slightly since September, from 26 percent to 34 percent.
The poll also sheds new light on vaccination rates, with an increase since November — from 73 percent to 77 percent — in the number of adults who have received at least one dose. (The survey’s 77 percent finding is significantly lower than the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s estimate of nearly 87.6 percent, a figure that may be inflated by wrongly including some booster shots.) Both Kaiser and the CDC find that just over 4 in 10 adults have received boosters.
And those who have had a hard time finding at-home tests are not alone: Just over 6 in 10 adults who to tried to purchase at-home tests said it was difficult, though most eventually succeeded.
The telephone survey was conducted from Jan. 11 to Jan. 23 among a random sample of 1,536 adults living in the United States — part of an ongoing Kaiser Family Foundation research project tracking attitudes and experiences with covid-19 vaccinations. Overall results from the poll have a margin of sampling error of plus or minus three percentage points.
By Adela Suliman10:14 a.m.
The 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing are the second games to happen during a global pandemic. But rules for athletes and other attendees are strict. (Lee Powell/The Washington Post)
U.S. Olympic bobsled team member Josh Williamson announced Wednesday on Instagram that he had tested positive for the coronavirus, preventing him from traveling to Beijing for the Winter Games on Thursday with the rest of Team USA.
“This has not been an easy pill to swallow,” he wrote. “I have felt pretty helpless throughout this process, but I’ve also found myself laughing a bit at the situation I’m in. Isn’t it ironic that after 4 years of hard work, all there is to do is sit, rest, recover and have faith? Things I struggle to do the most.”
The Olympics do not begin until Feb. 4 and the four-man bobsled competition — in which Williamson, a brakeman, is expected to compete — does not start until Feb. 15, giving him time to test negative and join his teammates in Beijing. But his positive test shows how the pandemic could end Olympic hopes for some athletes before the Games even begin, perhaps unfairly.
As of Jan 21, around 2,500 animals, including hamsters, rabbits, guinea pigs and chinchillas, were put down, according to the city’s agriculture department. Of the 113 hamsters surrendered from the public, only one turned out to be positive.
Canadian actress Evangeline Lilly — known for her role on the TV series “Lost” and as the Wasp in Marvel’s films — said she went to an anti-vaccine-mandate rally in D.C. last weekend to support “bodily sovereignty.”
It is not clear whether Lilly was present during Kennedy’s speech. Her publicist did not immediately respond to request for comment late Thursday.
Disney, which owns Marvel, had previously said it would require employees to be vaccinated. But it suspended its mandate for Florida-based employees after Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) signed legislation in November restricting such mandates for employers. The company did not immediately reply to a request for comment.
By Regine Cabato7:29 a.m.
MANILA — Fully vaccinated travelers arriving in the Philippines will no longer be required to undergo quarantine in government-approved facilities such as hotels starting Tuesday, according to a resolution signed Thursday.
The interagency task force managing the pandemic response said it is temporarily suspending the risk classifications of countries. Arriving passengers must present a negative result of an RT-PCR test taken at least 48 hours before departure and, if fully vaccinated, proof of vaccination. Vaccinated individuals should “self-monitor for any sign or symptom for [seven] days with the first day being the date of arrival,” the guidelines said. If symptoms manifest, the traveler must report to the local government health unit.
Those who are unvaccinated, partially vaccinated or whose vaccination status cannot be validated must undergo facility-based quarantine. Minors are exempt from vaccination requirements and do not have to provide proof of vaccination ahead of boarding a flight.
Critics of the government expressed concern that the relaxed restrictions will enable greater spread of the virus in a country with a poor contact tracing system. Local media outlets reported that a health department spokeswoman said cases among returning overseas workers were lower than local transmissions, so it “doesn’t make sense” to continue requiring facility-based quarantine.
The Philippines has recorded over 3 million coronavirus cases, with more than 220,000 active cases as of Friday. This week, an average of over 3,600 cases were reported daily — a decline from a surge in early January but still higher than the more than 1,400 being reported before the spread of the omicron variant. The health department said the capital region of Metro Manila is now at “moderate risk.”
By Rachel Pannett, Ellen Francis and Helier Cheung6:09 a.m.
By Karla Adam5:39 a.m.
LONDON — After the death of a close friend, Kieron McArdle was struggling, and three friends came over to help him celebrate his 50th birthday in his backyard in Coleshill, a town in Warwickshire, England. Less than an hour later, police were banging on the front door.
McArdle was fined $134, which he said he was content to pay, as he understood he had violated the ban on social gatherings at the time, in March of last year. But he’s incredulous about the scandal involving a string of parties — including a birthday celebration — at the British prime minister’s Downing Street office and residence over the past two years.
“It’s galling to watch. It’s one rule for them, one for us,” said McArdle, a company director. “What they did was exactly the same as what I did,” he said, only “I was happy to pay my fine. I broke the rules and accept responsibility. Why don’t they?”
Britain is awaiting the findings of dual investigations into government parties — more than a dozen have emerged — that allegedly broke the government’s coronavirus rules. Prime Minister Boris Johnson has apologized for three of the gatherings but stopped short of admitting any personal wrongdoing. | null | null | null | null | null |
Opinion: The cakes of Britain are hot on Boris Johnson’s trail
British Prime Minister Boris Johnson at a Royal Air Force station in Wales on Jan. 27. (Carl Recine/Pool/AFP via Getty Images)
Usually, I am in favor of the American Revolution. One possible argument against it, though, is that now we are forced to have our own independent news cycle that is not currently dominated by the spectacle of British Prime Minister Boris Johnson being ambushed by cakes.
As far as I can tell, here is what is happening: Boris Johnson, an anthropomorphic mangelwurzel who is the current PM (an office formerly occupied by such people as Pitt the Younger and Pitt the Elder, and somebody named Bonar Law) is now suffering from what seems to be his 98th or 99th scandal since arriving in the public eye. One more, I think, and he is entitled to a free haircut.
If I were prime minister, I would do my best to keep my job, if only because No. 10 Downing Street, where the prime minister works and resides, is equipped with a free cat named Larry, a feline who has been criticized as lazy but also rebuked for getting into a brawl with Palmerston, the Foreign Office cat. Larry conveys, so unless you’re prime minister, you lose access to him. This alone would keep me doing my best to steer the ship of state on a steady course.
Which is what Boris Johnson also claims he has been doing, except it seems people will not stop throwing him parties — or, rather, something that an observer who did not know any better might mistake for a party, but that Johnson’s team now assures us wasn’t one. (“It was not a premeditated, organized party,” explained Conservative MP Conor Burns, defending Johnson on TV. “He was, in a sense, ambushed with a cake.”)
Ambushed! By cake! This is a scandal with layers. Boris Johnson, it would appear, is constantly just sitting there trying not to celebrate occasions or disobey any of the coronavirus restrictions his own government put in place, but he is surrounded by monsters who won’t stop throwing him parties.
It should have been clear from the first one — his own birthday party, reportedly planned by his wife, at which he claims he only stayed for 10 minutes — that nothing could possibly be a greater torment to him than to have a party thrown in his honor. And yet the devils kept doing it — in for a penny, in for a pound cake!
In general, I think that when you and your defenders are having to issue denials like “I ‘believed implicitly’ that the BYOB garden party was a work event,” things are already off the rails. Indeed, if his account of himself is to be believed, Boris Johnson has been living in terror for the past several years. At any moment, without warning, he might be ambushed by cake. One day, he will be standing before Parliament, taking the Prime Minister’s Questions, and will look on in horror as, slowly, from a back bench, a red velvet cake begins to rise and shake its gory locks at him.
And Britain, as we have learned from its only export, “The Great British Bake-Off,” is absolutely awash in cakes. There is nowhere he can go where he can be safe from the horror. Blink — and there is a weeping angel food, hot on his trail.
He’s powerless. He had better leave the place where this keeps happening, before a cake turns out to be the one icing him.
British Prime Minister Boris Johnson and his staff are under a criminal investigation for allegedly breaking coronavirus lockdown rules that they put in place. (Alexa Juliana Ard/The Washington Post) | null | null | null | null | null |
Opinion: U.S. presidential debates have set a democratic example abroad. Republicans should not destroy it.
Then-presidential candidate Joe Biden and then-President Donald Trump participate in a debate at Belmont University in Nashville on October 22, 2020. (Jim Watson/ AFP)
On Jan. 13, the Republican National Committee threatened to bar the party’s candidates from taking part in debates planned by the Commission on Presidential Debates (CPD), which has formally organized the quadrennial encounters since 1987. In a letter, RNC Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel questioned the commission’s “credibility with the Republican Party as a fair and nonpartisan actor.”
The letter covers several “reforms” that, according to McDaniel, the CPD has failed to address, including “transparent criteria” in the selection of moderators and the establishment of a “code of conduct” for journalists entrusted with guiding the discussion. It concludes with an ultimatum: The RNC intends to amend its rules to “prohibit” candidates from “participating in CPD-sponsored debates.”
This is troubling for the country’s democracy, but also for the example it sets abroad.
The CPD is an independent staple of U.S. democratic institutions. Republican Frank J. Fahrenkopf Jr. and Democrat Kenneth Wollack, to whom McDaniel addressed her letter, currently co-chair the commission. The rest of its leadership is equally bipartisan. Over the years, the CPD has selected authoritative journalists as moderators. They have conducted the debates with poise and integrity. Jim Lehrer, who moderated 12, was a fairness purist with just one goal in mind: to help the electorate understand a candidate’s positions and stay out of the way. Nothing more, nothing less.
That was Lehrer’s advice to colleagues. At least it was to me when I had the opportunity to hear from him in 2018. He advised toughness, fairness and restraint. Our conversation was part of a workshop in the run-up to the second presidential debate in Mexico’s last election, in partnership between the CPD and Mexico’s electoral authority, the Instituto Nacional Electoral (INE).
While far from perfect, the three debates set a precedent for Mexican democracy, including the first ever townhall format, held in Tijuana. The CPD’s guidance was central to their success. “They invited us to the third presidential debate in 2016 to witness the process and helped us organize the training sessions,” Rubén Álvarez, the INE’s communication director, told me. “Martin Slutsky, executive producer of the U.S. debates, worked closely with us.”
The INE now takes part in similar workshops worldwide, organized, among others, by the CPD, sharing its experience with debates in the democratic process.
The CPD’s guidance has strengthened other democracies as well. Chile is an interesting example. In a recent conversation, Marcelo Hilsenrad, who produces that country’s presidential debates, told me the CPD’s input has been “invaluable.”
“The CPD is the perfect example of an impartial, bipartisan institution,” Hilsenrad told me. “The debates it organizes are not only technically impeccable, but fair and transparent.”
As it did in Mexico, the CPD has positively influenced Chilean journalists. “Debates have been very important in the construction of democratic routines in Chile,” Daniel Matamala, a frequent and tough debate moderator whom I also met during the CPD-sponsored workshop in Mexico, told me. In last year’s election, candidates Gabriel Boric and José Antonio Kast faced off in a couple debates. The second one, with Matamala as one of the moderators, proved particularly revealing. After Boric won a few weeks later, Kast conceded his defeat and moved on.
The RNC’s recent decision alarmed Hilsenrad and Matamala. “It is difficult for me to understand that in a democracy as powerful and attached to its values as the United States, any protagonist would want to withdraw from its presidential debates, which have been a reference not only for the world but for American democracy itself,” Hilsenrad told me. Matamala went further. “Many Latin American countries follow America’s lead,” he told me. “It’s a very worrying development for U.S. democracy”.
They are right.
The CPD, and presidential debates in the United States, are not flawless. But boycotting the institution and the exercises in democratic deliberation it so carefully organizes is not the way forward. With democracy at a crossroads, the RNC should reconsider its decision. In this, as in so much more, the world is watching. A more restrictive debate culture is never the answer. | null | null | null | null | null |
Opinion: The Federal Reserve should stop saying the United States is at ‘maximum employment’
Federal Reserve Chair Jerome H. Powell speaks at a news conference on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange in September 2021. (Brendan McDermid/Reuters)
The term “maximum employment” is supposed to signify that as many Americans as possible have jobs. It’s the economic policymaker equivalent of taking a victory lap. So it’s far too early for the Federal Reserve Board to declare that the United States is, as its chairman said this week, at “maximum employment."
The nation still has not recovered 3.6 million jobs that were lost during the pandemic recession, and Black unemployment remains high. A lot of people are still missing from the workforce. Some economists even argue the true shortfall is closer to 5 million people after factoring in population growth and jobs that would have been added if not for the crisis.
Drive around any community in the United States right now and there is a deluge of “we’re hiring!" signs and businesses saying they have had to reduce hours because they do not have as many employees as before the pandemic. This is not ideal. And it’s not even back to pre-pandemic norms.
Yet Wednesday, Fed Chair Jerome H. Powell made it clear where he stands.
“Most [Fed leaders] agree that labor market conditions are consistent with maximum employment,” said Mr. Powell, adding “That is my personal view.”
The stock market started selling off sharply after he made those comments at a news conference. The Fed has two clear goals: To get as many people jobs as possible and to keep prices — inflation — low. Mr. Powell was basically putting a big check mark next to jobs and indicating the Fed’s focus is now fully on fighting inflation.
We certainly agree that the Fed needs to get serious about inflation. It’s at a 40-year high and only appears to be getting worse. But the Fed could have given a clear signal that it plans to raise interest rates several times this year without portraying the labor market as totally fine.
Yes, the labor market looks strong. The past year was one of the bestfor hiring, and recent months have seen record levels of job openings. The unemployment rate, at 3.9 percent, is also very low by historical standards. While there’s no exact definition of “maximum employment,” many economists believe it’s when the unemployment rate gets below about 4 percent. (It will never be 0 percent because there will always be people changing jobs and it takes time to hire.)
But there’s a glaring problem: This has been the slowest recovery in labor force participation since World War II. The number of Americans working or looking for work is at levels not seen since the 1970s. Part of the reason the unemployment rate is so low is because millions of people are not looking for jobs because of health issues, child-care struggles and early retirement. The recovery won’t be complete until more people return to work.
Mr. Powell knows that words matter. Every sentence he utters (and even his facial expressions) is scrutinized. Using the term “maximum employment” right now was a mistake and an affront to millions of people who are not back to work.
The Fed needs to raise interest rates, but it also needs to be honest about this labor market. | null | null | null | null | null |
Health economist and professor Christopher J. L. Murray, of the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington, and a large team of collaborators found that bacterial resistance to drugs “is a major global health problem” that “poses the largest threat to human health in sub-Saharan Africa and south Asia, but it is important in all regions.” The researchers found that the top six pathogens leading to deaths associated with drug resistance are: Escherichia coli, Staphylococcus aureus, Klebsiella pneumoniae, Streptococcus pneumoniae, Acinetobacter baumannii and Pseudomonas aeruginosa.
What’s at stake is the effectiveness of antibiotics, essential for surgery, chemotherapy, organ transplants and other medical procedures. Antibiotics were “wonder drugs” when created in the last century, starting with penicillin, but it has been known for decades that bacteria evolve to resist the drugs — and that overuse and abuse of antibiotics in human health and agriculture have contributed to the problem. A report by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in 2019 urged Americans to “Stop referring to a coming post-antibiotic era — it’s already here.” The study found that deaths due to antimicrobial resistance in the United States had dropped 18 percent since a 2013 report, largely due to improved procedures in hospitals, while pointing to continuing challenges outside of health care.
What to do about antimicrobial resistance has been clear for some time. We need better stewardship of antibiotics — avoiding overprescribing or wrongly prescribing them for viral infections. More attention must be devoted to preventing resistant infections in the first place. Accelerated development of new antibiotics is essential. New drug development requires large investments, but antibiotics yield smaller returns because they are used for a limited period of time. Thus, public-private partnerships for drug development are essential, such as the multinational effort Combating Antibiotic-Resistant Bacteria Biopharmaceutical Accelerator. | null | null | null | null | null |
Updates: Snow to increase amid falling temperatures this evening with roads turning slick
Amounts should range from 1 to 3 inches near and west of Interstate 95 to 2 to 4 inches to the east. At least 3 to 6 inches are expected over the Delmarva.
Steady, mostly light snow is continuing over most of the D.C. area with some more moderate bursts south of the Beltway. With temperatures above freezing, a slushy accumulation so far has mainly focused on grassy areas. However, over the past hour, many areas have seen temperatures drop a couple degrees with an increasing number of spots around 33 or 34. Toward dark, those will slip closer to 32 degrees as described below. Grassy areas will gradually become covered and gradually roadways will begin to turn slick. Between 10 p.m. and midnight, most locations will at or below 30 degrees.
Sunday: Lots of sun. Coming off frigid lows in the 10 to 15 range, temperatures are unlikely to rise very high. Freezing seems like a good target for now. Winds should be a good deal lighter, and out of the west, around 10 mph. | null | null | null | null | null |
Opinion: I once told a Supreme Court justice that affirmative action got me into Harvard and Yale. Today they wouldn’t listen.
The U.S. Supreme Court building on Jan. 24 in D.C. (Drew Angerer/Getty Images)
By Paul Butler
I got into Yale University and then Harvard Law School because of affirmative action. Some 20 years later, in 2003, I needed Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor to hear my story, because she was expected to cast the deciding vote in two cases that would determine the constitutionality of considering diversity in university college admissions.
O’Connor was the commencement speaker that May at George Washington University Law School, where I was a tenured professor. The graduating students had elected me to receive an award for teaching and service, which meant I also would be offering brief remarks.
I knew I had to take the opportunity to say something about affirmative action. Maybe my success, as demonstrated by the faculty award, would be a significant data point for O’Connor. The weight of the ancestors required not that I argue the constitutional issues, but rather that I offer my Black body as evidence.
And so, taking the stage, I thanked the students for their award, and told them my achievements had been accomplished by virtue of my mother’s love, my own hard work — and affirmative action.
The Associated Press reported: “The students and some faculty applauded, while O’Connor sat quietly, hands folded in her lap.”
That was it. I did not tell O’Connor that her position as the first woman on the Supreme Court was also the product of affirmative action, which is widely perceived to have benefited White women more than people of color. Nor did I reveal my hope that O’Connor would not act like Justice Clarence Thomas, who consistently votes to strike down racial justice laws, despite a lifetime of benefiting from them.
Still, the AP described my words as an “awkward reference” to the pending cases. And some of my colleagues told me afterward that they thought it was tacky or inappropriate for me to comment, even indirectly, on issues before the court. If being uncouth was the cost of speaking truth to power, I was willing to pay that price.
Four weeks later, O’Connor cast the deciding vote upholding the University of Michigan’s consideration of diversity in admissions to its law school. I take no credit, but I’m glad that I spoke up — and that there was somebody to speak up to.
Today, as the court once again prepares to address the issue in cases involving Harvard University and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, that kind of advocacy would be useless. There are no more open-minded conservative justices like O’Connor to whom such an appeal might be made. Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr., who occasionally votes with the moderates, has a blind spot when it comes to race. His judicial opinions reflect a common fallacy among conservatives that it’s White folks who experience the most discrimination.
For more than 50 years, affirmative action has been one of the most successful racial justice interventions. Despite that fact — indeed, maybe because of it — it’s game over. The court would not have accepted the current cases unless it was clear that its right-wing ideologues finally have the votes to reverse the existing law.
Still, it’s important that beneficiaries of affirmative action acknowledge how it has improved our professional lives, to rebut the critique that diversity in admissions means that unqualified people get in, or that it stigmatizes Black students.
In fact, I believe my presence on campus, along with a critical mass of other Black and Brown students, was a benefit to the school. We provided an integral part of the education of our White colleagues. In my first year of law school, we read a case about the right to a hearing when welfare benefits are cut off. When the professor asked why this was important, a White woman said it probably wouldn’t make a difference in the outcome, but it would be “fun” for the person who had received the benefits. Black students schooled her that there’s nothing fun about pleading with government bureaucrats for adequate food and housing.
And as a criminal law professor, I can’t imagine teaching stop-and-frisk without Black male students to talk about what it’s like to experience that humiliation in the real world.
But I’d better get used to it if I continue to teach at institutions that will soon stop admitting people who look like me. The Supreme Court’s inevitable decision will have immediate and catastrophic consequences. Public and private universities will resegregate. Black and Brown students will no longer be present in substantial numbers at selective predominantlyWhite institutions, although Asian Americans will continue to have a strong representation.
Every time my students of color at Georgetown Law step into a classroom, they demonstrate their extraordinary abilities, including to their White colleagues who might have been skeptical. When these students are no longer present in the room, the connotation is that they are not as capable — one of the insidious lies that has authorized white supremacy.
Of course the justices know this, but the conservatives ones don’t care. Their radical right wing will do to affirmative action what it is doing to abortion, voting rights and the struggle for LGBTQ equality: Take this country back to the time where straight White men ruled everything. | null | null | null | null | null |
Federal Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson is a leading contender to replace Stephen G. Breyer on the Supreme Court. (Bill O'Leary/The Washington Post)
One hundred and fifteen Americans have sat on the Supreme Court. Of those, 110 have been men and 112 have been White. But now that President Biden has the chance to follow through on the promise he made to appoint a Black woman to serve on the court, conservatives are aghast at the very thought.
Not all of them, of course; some Republicans are staying mum for now, and they may ultimately decide to say the nominee is a crazy communist and leave it at that. But ever since we heard Justice Stephen G. Breyer will retire, a flood of reactions from the right has been based on the premise that appointing a Black woman to the court necessarily means she will be elevated over someone more qualified, presumably a White man.
So it’s important to be clear about what I am, and am not, arguing. In assessing racism, I try to stick to the “what you said, not who you are” standard. With the occasional exception, we can judge a statement racist without peering into the heart of the speaker, which ends up sucking us into distractions about how many Black friends someone has.
Let’s consider some of what’s circulating on the right. On Fox News, Gregg Jarrett said Biden is violating the Civil Rights Act by promising to appoint a Black woman (and no, a Supreme Court appointment is not like an ordinary job opening). Sean Hannity claimed Biden’s pledge “may even be illegal.” Someone is clearly being discriminated against here, and it’s White people.
Meanwhile, the Wall Street Journal editorial page said choosing a Black woman “elevates skin color over qualifications,” as though it would be impossible to find a Black woman who is also qualified. “I mean, what kind of a qualification is that, being a Black woman?” asked Fox News’s Maria Bartiromo.
“They can overtly discriminate against people,” lamented Ben Shapiro. Tucker Carlson issued a nearly 10-minute rant about the injustice of it all, concluding with the suggestion that George Floyd’s sister should be the nominee.
Think about the assumption behind these objections: That if Biden promised to choose a Black woman and then did, whoever she is, that means she must be unqualified if her race were part of the reason she was chosen, or at the very least less qualified than someone who isn’t a Black woman. Why would that be?
They look at someone such as reported leading contender Ketanji Brown Jackson — national oratory champion in high school, magna cum laude graduate of Harvard University, editor of the Harvard Law Review, Supreme Court clerk, experience as a trial and appeals court judge — and say there must be better candidates, if only Biden were open-minded enough to consider them.
Really? Like whom?
Every president takes those questions into consideration, and conservatives have supported some nominees precisely because of those ancillary qualities. They praised Amy Coney Barrett for being a mother of seven and for having not attended law school at Harvard or Yale like every other justice. They found that kind of diversity valuable.
Likewise, Brett M. Kavanaugh wasn’t chosen by President Donald Trump because he was the wisest jurist in the land. He was relatively young (then 53), so he could serve for a long time, and his years in Republican politics and stamp of approval from the Federalist Society assured Republicans that he’d be a reliable conservative vote. As an intellect, Kavanaugh is adequate, but no one claims he’s a generation-defining genius.
Conservatives have also conveniently forgotten that Ronald Reagan made a promise similar to Biden’s when he ran for president in 1980: He vowed to appoint the first female justice — and then did. When George H.W. Bush filled Thurgood Marshall’s seat with Clarence Thomas in 1991, everyone understood that Bush wanted to find a Black conservative. | null | null | null | null | null |
Updates: Snow to increase as temperatures fall this evening and roads turn slick
Amounts should range from 1 to 3 inches near and west of Interstate 95 to 2 to 4 inches to the east. At least 3 to 6 inches are expected over the Delmarva Peninsula.
Steady, mostly light snow is continuing over most of the D.C. area with some more moderate bursts south of the Beltway. With temperatures above freezing, a slushy accumulation has mainly focused on grassy areas. However, over the past hour, many areas have seen temperatures drop a couple degrees with an increasing number of spots around 33 or 34. Toward dark, those will slip closer to 32 degrees as described below. Grassy areas will gradually become covered and gradually roadways will begin to turn slick. Between 10 p.m. and midnight, most locations will at or below 30 degrees.
Sunday: Lots of sun. Coming off frigid lows in the range of 10 to 15 degrees, temperatures are unlikely to rise very high. Freezing seems like a good target for now. Winds should be a good deal lighter, and out of the west, around 10 mph. | null | null | null | null | null |
Calif. net neutrality law upheld in court
A U.S. court of appeals on Friday upheld California’s net neutrality law, saying a 2017 decision by the Federal Communications Commission to reverse federal Internet protections could not bar state action.
In February 2021, the Justice Department withdrew its legal challenge to California’s law, which is aimed at protecting the open Internet.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit rejected a challenge from telecom and broad industry groups, ruling that since the FCC reclassified Internet services as more lightly regulated information services, the commission “no longer has the authority to regulate in the same manner that it had when these services were classified as telecommunications services.”
California’s law barring Internet service providers from blocking or throttling traffic, or offering paid fast lanes, was passed in 2018 but took effect only last year.
The FCC under President Barack Obama, a Democrat, adopted net neutrality rules in 2015. These were overturned in 2017 by the FCC under President Donald Trump, a Republican. California’s legislature responded by adopting a state law requiring net neutrality in August 2018.
The Justice Department withdrew its challenge soon after President Biden, a Democrat, took office.
Supporters of net neutrality argue that the protections ensure a free and open Internet. Broadband and telecom trade groups contend that their legal basis from the pre-Internet era is outdated and that they discourage investment.
HP wins billion-dollar fraud case in Britain
Technology company Hewlett-Packard Enterprise won a multibillion-dollar lawsuit Friday against a British businessman it accused of fraud after purchasing his software business, Autonomy, a decade ago.
The decision by Britain’s High Court of Justice also removes a hurdle for the potential extradition to the United States of Autonomy’s founder, entrepreneur Mike Lynch.
Hewlett-Packard bought Autonomy in 2011 for $11 billion but was forced to write off most of its value the following year, in a corporate debacle that sparked a boardroom shake-up.
In its lawsuit, the company accused Lynch and Autonomy’s former chief financial officer, Sushovan Hussain, of artificially inflating the company’s revenue and committing a “deliberate fraud over a sustained period of time.”
Lynch’s legal team said that the decision was “disappointing” and that he plans to appeal.
The case, believed to be Britain’s biggest civil fraud trial, went to court over nine months in 2019. Hussain was convicted earlier in a U.S. court and sentenced to five years in prison.
Lynch has been battling extradition to the United States, where he faces separate criminal charges.
Kia is recalling more than 410,000 vehicles in the United States to fix a problem that can stop the air bags from inflating in a crash. The recall covers certain Forte small cars from the 2017 and 2018 model years, as well as Sedona minivans and Soul small SUVs from 2017 through 2019. The electric Soul also is included. The Korean automaker says the air bag control computer cover can contact a memory chip and damage the electrical circuit. That could stop the air bags from inflating.
The United States on Friday said it has sufficient information to determine that Malaysian palm oil producer Sime Darby Plantation uses forced labor and that the firm's goods are subject to seizure. Malaysian factories making a range of products, such as medical gloves and palm oil, have increasingly come under scrutiny over allegations that they abuse foreign workers, a significant part of the manufacturing workforce.
The Environmental Protection Agency on Friday announced that it had finalized a rule that will give oil refiners more time to comply with biofuel blending mandates, including those from previous years. The agency is working to finalize proposed biofuel blending requirements for 2020, 2021 and 2022. Under the U.S. Renewable Fuel Standard, oil refiners must blend billions of gallons of biofuels or buy compliance credits from those that do. | null | null | null | null | null |
In the current sociopolitical climate, he views the Tennessee vote as no anomaly. “It’s part of a continuum, and just a harbinger of things to come,” says Spiegelman, adding: “The control of people’s thoughts is essential to all of this.”
Amid the controversy, Spiegelman embraces the fact that “Maus” has an afterlife. “We thought it be self-published and a one-shot in our RAW magazine.” | null | null | null | null | null |
Those dueling perspectives are playing out as the United States set a record for new coronavirus infections this month, surpassing 800,000 a day for the first time, according to The Post’s seven-day tracking average. The number has fallen to just below 600,000 as of Thursday. Hospitalizations have plateaued but deaths are rising — surpassing more than 2,400 a day on average. The last time the numbers were so high was in February 2021 when the country was emerging from the worst of last winter’s wave.
She described her anguish after she and her team performed CPR on a child with covid. The doctors and nurses were in full protective gear, which made it hot and difficult to see and hear. On top of worrying about the child, her heart was breaking for the family member next to them who was terrified but unable to leave the room due to infection precautions. They got the child stabilized, but she remembers “walking out of that and ringing my shirt out as sweat dripped out, physically exhausted, emotionally exhausted, and thinking, ‘This would have been hard without a pandemic. It’s just now ten times harder.’ ” | null | null | null | null | null |
WEIRWOOD, Va. — A 12-year-old girl died and a 13-year-old suffered life-threatening injuries following a crash Friday morning on Virginia’s Eastern Shore, state police said.
“The initial impact caused massive damage to the Toyota sedan, killing the 12-year-old female seated in the back seat,” state police said in a statement. “The other 13-year-old female seated in the back seat suffered serious, life-threatening injuries and was transported to (a hospital in Norfolk).”
The 33-year-old driver of the Toyota and a 15-year-old girl in the front seat suffered non-life threatening injuries, police said. | null | null | null | null | null |
LAUREL, Del. — Dozens of people have been displaced after a fire destroyed a Delaware apartment building, fire officials announced Friday.
The fire broke out in the 16-unit apartment building on North Central Avenue in Laurel around 7 p.m. Thursday, according to a news release from the Delaware Office of the State Fire Marshal.
Firefighters found smoke and flames coming from the building when they arrived, officials said. The people inside at the time were able to escape without injury, but fire officials said 54 people have been displaced.
State fire investigators determined the origin of the blaze, but they are still investigating the cause, officials said. Damage is estimated at $1 million. | null | null | null | null | null |
Keeping Hines-Allen was a top priority for the organization, Coach/GM Mike Thibault said before WNBA free agency, and multiple other teams offered her during the negotiating period. Contracts can officially be signed on Feb. 1.
Hines-Allen was a second-round pick in 2018 and a member of Washington’s 2019 championship team. Her breakout season came in 2020, when she averaged 17.0 points, 8.9 rebounds and was named second team all-WNBA.
A 6-foot-1 forward, Allen’s skill set allows her to take bigger defenders out on the perimeter and overpower over smaller opponents in the post. Her outside game improved with a career-high 42.6 three-point percentage in 2020 and shot a career-high 51.0 percent overall.
The Mystics are still in the market for a starting big with the expectation that Tina Charles, who led the WNBA in scoring last season, will leave in free agency. Charles joined Washington with the goal of winning her first title, but she opted out of the WNBA bubble in 2020 and then the team dealt with a slew of injuries in 2021.
Mystics can jump in star-packed WNBA free agency -- if they want to spend
Both Atkins and Delle Donne are scheduled to participate in USA Basketball Women’s National Team training camp next week in D.C. Delle Donne is still working back from the back surgery that has limited her to just three games since winning the 2019 WNBA Finals and will only participate in the noncontact drills. She won’t play in the FIBA World Cup Qualifying Tournament from Feb. 10-12 against Belgium and Puerto Rico. | null | null | null | null | null |
Opinion: The Canadian government can do more to shine light on Indigenous graves
A makeshift memorial outside the former Kamloops Indian Residential School in Kamloops, British Columbia, on Sept. 1. (Cole Burston/AFP via Getty Images)
The Jan. 27 news article “Indigenous leader says 93 possible graves found near Canada ex-school” shed light on the horrors of the past and the unveilings of the present. What the Canadian government called assimilation in the past was a thinly veiled attempt at cultural genocide.
A generation was wiped away along with a chance for the Indigenous population to grow and prosper. The Canadian prime minister can offer his condolences on Twitter, and it is true that there is little he can do now to fix what happened in the past. However, he could also do more than what he is doing. The government has several thousand documents, according to the Wall Street Journal, that contain records to possibly identify the students and the teachers in charge.
Even though the crimes were committed in the past, bringing some light to the deceased students and the administrators in charge would bring some degree of peace to the Indigenous community.
Nasifa Akter, Springfield | null | null | null | null | null |
Opinion: College education is not necessary for most jobs
In the Jan. 24 Education article “Drop in college enrollment could have long-term impact,” various education specialists bemoaned the recent significant drop in college and university enrollments.
They are especially concerned that this will hurt the economy by reducing the pool of applicants for many jobs, as well as deny entry into the middle class to people without degrees.
I question whether either of these fears is valid.
When the pool of job applicants with (often irrelevant) degrees runs out, employers will simply hire intelligent and capable applicants without degrees — both problems solved.
You need specialized training for many jobs, but to insist that all applicants for good, well-paying jobs have a college degree is ridiculous.
The only ones to suffer here might be the institutions of higher learning themselves, many of which are running a con game for their own financial benefit.
Tom Ede, Washington | null | null | null | null | null |
Opinion: Metro’s Wiedefeld was a leader who listened as he took on hard work
Paul J. Wiedefeld, Metro's general manager, takes a Metro train from Braddock Road Metro stop in Alexandria to King Street Metro stop to look at the new platform on Sept. 9, 2019. (Astrid Riecken/For The Washington Post)
Regarding the Jan. 19 Metro article “Metro’s general manager to retire”:
One morning in spring 2016, I was getting ready to exit the Metro system in downtown D.C. on my way to work, when I saw Paul J. Wiedefeld entering the Metro gates at L’Enfant Plaza. We made eye contact, and, for some reason, I went over to introduce myself.
I was surprised when asked me three questions: (1) How long had I been riding Metro (22 years); (2) Where did my ride begin (Green Line at Prince George’s Plaza); and (3) What did I think about how Metro was running (I had no complaints).
My early commuting years on the Metro required three trains (this was before the Green Line was connected), so I was thrilled to be able to take one train to work without a change. I told him I loved having the “Express” to read on my commute. And I told him he had his work cut out for him. I don’t know what he thought of my comments, but I was struck by the fact that he would stop to have a casual conversation with a daily commuter.
Ever since that chance encounter, whenever I heard bad news about the Metro system, I wondered if Mr. Wiedefeld was going to quit. I have held him in the highest esteem all these years for his willingness to take on the challenge of such a broken system, for making safety a priority and for messaging important information in the system’s audio announcements and in the Express.
Susana Limon, University Park | null | null | null | null | null |
Opinion: School resource officers are not the solution to school shootings
Magruder High School in Derwood on Jan. 22. (Carolyn Van Houten/The Washington Post)
After the recent shooting at Magruder High School [“Student in Md. is shot at school,” Metro, Jan. 22; “17-year-old charged as adult in shooting at Magruder High,” Metro, Jan. 23], renewed calls for the return of uniformed police to Montgomery County school buildings will come as no surprise. But the presence of school resource officers will not solve the problem of school violence. At best, it is a short-term measure; at worst, it could reinforce a climate of intimidation. Indeed, intimidation is precisely what those who see the presence of uniformed officers as a deterrent to violence are advocating, though they might believe otherwise.
Instead of redeploying police officers to our school, we should be increasing funding for counselors, social workers and mental health professionals. These supports would go a long way toward restoring confidence and preventing violence and unsafe behaviors before they occur. Now, as the coronavirus pandemic continues to disrupt learning and social development for our students, school counselors are stressed and overworked. Young people are experiencing emotional stress and confronting mental health crises in unprecedented numbers. Alienation, isolation, depression and outright anger are very real issues with which students wrestle. If not addressed proactively, these tensions can erupt in violence or manifest in suicidal ideation.
Putting uniformed police officers in our schools might seem like a good idea, as it does give the illusion of safety. But such a measure will not necessarily keep our students from harm.
W. Luther Jett, Washington Grove | null | null | null | null | null |
Opinion: Songwriters deserve the tax break for their work
Bruce Springsteen in a recording studio at his home in Colts Neck, N.J., in 2019. (Michael S. Williamson/The Washington Post)
In his Jan. 26 op-ed criticizing the taxation of sales of song catalogues at capital gains rates, “An apparent perk for aging rockers: Tax breaks,” Charles Lane left out the compelling reasons for the policy and the reality of the songwriting business entirely.
Songwriters, who struggle greatly to make a living in the streaming era, pay standard taxes on income from their songs, which is their business. To tax them again at the same rate when selling their catalogues would amount to double taxation. Additionally, if songwriters could not sell their catalogues at the capital gains rate, these large sales likely would not occur, denying the treasury millions.
In a music economy damaged by the coronavirus, it is even more critical that we do not unfairly penalize songwriters. Unlike the superstars cherry-picked for this piece, the majority of songwriters — even those with hits — are scraping by to make a living. Far from a “limitless quest for money,” the sale of their catalogues, particularly for older writers and those who do not tour and sell merchandise, is often the only way to support themselves. The author’s efforts to politicize this policy also are incorrect. The Songwriters Capital Gains Tax Equity Act was a rare example of bipartisanship.
The current tax structure is fair to songwriters and incentivizes commerce that greatly benefits the American economy and the American songwriter.
David Israelite, Washington
The writer is president and chief executive of the National Music Publishers’ Association. | null | null | null | null | null |
The American Library Association tells me that there were 330 “challenges” in the three months between Sept. 1 and Dec. 1, 2021, with December still to be tallied. That compares to just 156 in all of 2020, and 377 in 2019, the last pre-pandemic year. This means book bannings are happening at roughly quadruple the previous pace.
And that’s just the beginning of the thought-police problem. PEN America, a free speech organization, reports that in the first three weeks of January 2022, 71 “gag-order” bills banning the teaching of certain concepts were introduced or pre-filed in state legislatures across the country. Since January of last year, 12 such bills have become law in 10 GOP-run states, and 88 bills are still working their way through the legislative process. Virtually all of them have been sponsored by Republicans. | null | null | null | null | null |
Every now and then an individual or occasion comes along to remind us of the many reasons to love this country. Jason Rivera was one of those individuals and his funeral Friday was one of those occasions.
Although dozens of stories have been aired and written since the shooting, Friday’s service provided a more-complete understanding of Rivera and his legacy. At the same time, we were offered a lesson in what has always been our nation’s strongest suit — the essential goodness that undergirds our aspirations and the willingness of so many to offer their lives in service to others.
We heard from Police Commissioner Keechant L. Sewell that Rivera recently sold his car and had begun taking the bus to work “so he could save every penny to make a better home.” Turning toward Cardinal Archbishop Timothy Dolan, Sewell said, “I’m a work in process, Cardinal. But if he (Rivera) can change the world, then we can change the world with him and for him.”
This was the essential message of each speaker. Like countless Americans whose names we’ll never know, Rivera loved his family, worked hard and strove to improve the world around him. “Salt-of-the-earth” is what we used to call such people. Specifically, Rivera wanted to help end the chaos and spiking gun violence in his city — with homicides at their highest level in a decade.
Directing her words to her dead husband, she said, “I want you to live through me. This system continues to fail us. We are not safe anymore, not even the members of the service. I know you were tired of these laws, especially the ones from the new DA. I hope he’s watching you speak through me now. I’m sure all of our blue family is tired too. But I promise, we promise, that your death won’t be in vain. We’ll take the watch from here.”
Finally, the bond of our men and women in blue is the same we have shared and rallied to support in bad times (and sometimes good.) The risk we take in shredding that bond through our politics, and in our dehumanizing incivility toward one another, might be greater than our Republic can bear. | null | null | null | null | null |
D.C. police identify Days Inn shooting victim
Dasha Cleary, a 20-year-old from Southern Maryland, was fatally shot early Thursday.
Five people were shot, one fatally, at this Days inn on Connecticut Avenue NW early Thursday. (Jonathan Newton/The Washington Post)
D.C. Police Chief Robert J. Contee III identified the woman killed in a shooting at a Days Inn as Dasha Cleary, 20, from Southern Maryland.
Her mom, Michelle Cleary, described her late daughter as “a caretaker by nature” who once hoped to become a cook for the Coast Guard.
“She was a bright light and always encouraged those around her,” Cleary said in a statement.
The incident occurred early Thursday morning at the Days Inn on Connecticut Avenue NW, when an apparent gun battle broke out in a single room of people who for the most part knew each other, Contee said. Bullets struck and killed Cleary and wounded four other people.
By Friday afternoon, two women were still being treated for life-threatening injuries; two adult males were treated for injuries that were not life-threatening. There had been no arrest related to Cleary’s death.
“We are still making our way through that investigation,” Contee said. “This was a very tragic incident that led to the unnecessary loss of life.” He added that Cleary “certainly deserved better.” | null | null | null | null | null |
Killings by Islamist militia up almost 50%
An Islamist militia in eastern Congo killed more than 1,200 people in 2021, up almost 50 percent over the previous year, the United Nations said Friday, even as the government imposed martial law and joined with Uganda to root it out.
The surge in killings occurred as the Allied Democratic Forces, a Ugandan armed group that pledged allegiance to the Islamic State in 2019, extended its attacks farther northward into Ituri province, the U.N. Joint Human Rights Office said.
Salvini seeking deal for a female president
Matteo Salvini, leader of the right-wing League party, said Friday that he was looking to secure a deal with other parties so that a woman could become Italy’s next president.
“I’m working so that a smart female president [is chosen],” Salvini said after a fifth straight day of voting in Parliament failed to break a deadlock over who should be head of state.
The two women most often cited in the media as possible candidates are Justice Minister Marta Cartabia and Elisabetta Belloni, a career diplomat who heads the secret services.
Giuseppe Conte, leader of the Five Star Movement, said he also wanted a woman to replace outgoing head of state Sergio Mattarella, whose seven-year term ends next week.
Unlike in the United States, presidents are chosen in Italy by some 1,009 members of Parliament and regional representatives in a secret ballot, which party leaders sometimes struggle to control.
Limits sought in probe of Johnson gatherings
An inquiry into lockdown-breaking gatherings in Downing Street that might determine the future of British Prime Minister Boris Johnson could be further delayed after police asked for the report to make only “minimal reference” to those events.
Led by senior civil servant Sue Gray, the inquiry is looking into allegations that staff, and Johnson, attended parties in breach of the rules they had imposed to fight the pandemic.
The report had been expected to be released this week but that was derailed Tuesday when London’s Metropolitan Police said it had opened a probe into some of the events to assess whether criminal offenses had been committed.
Commander Catherine Roper said the request was made “in order to protect the integrity of the police investigation ... and to be as fair as possible to those who are subject to it.”
The force had faced criticism for initially declining to investigate the allegations.
West African bloc suspends Burkina Faso after coup: West Africa's main regional bloc suspended Burkina Faso from its governing bodies over this week's military coup but stopped short of imposing sanctions, its member states said in a statement. Burkina Faso's army ousted President Roch Kaboré on Monday, presenting the latest test to the 15-member Economic Community of West African States, or ECOWAS, which has struggled to mount an effective response to a series of coups in the region in the past 18 months.
Guatemala detains 10 in raids on migrant smugglers: Guatemalan authorities working with U.S. Homeland Security arrested 10 people in raids against a migrant smuggling group linked to the massacre of 19 people in Mexico last year, officials said. Guatemala's Public Prosecutor's Office said 19 raids were carried out in the western town of Comitancillo to dismantle the network that took the migrants to Mexico. Sixteen of the 19 people killed in the massacre in the northeastern state of Tamaulipas in January 2021 were Guatemalans.
Brazil's Bolsonaro fails to appear to testify: Brazil's President Jair Bolsonaro did not show up to testify after a Supreme Court justice subpoenaed him and ordered federal police to question him in a probe of leaked documents. The government's solicitor general went instead and filed an appeal, but the judge said the request was too late. | null | null | null | null | null |
Opinion: A 12-year-old’s prophetic warning: ‘People will be murdered’
A stuffed teddy bear at a memorial for Melissa Ortega, 8, in Chicago on Jan. 24. (Paul Beaty/AFP/Getty Images)
The letter, printed by hand on a sheet of white notepaper, is tragically prophetic. “I am a 6th grader at Sherwood Middle School,” Artemis Rayford wrote in a letter addressed to Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee (R) and added that he was in a Memphis Police Department program aimed at discouraging gang activity and violence among children. He offered his opinion that a recently enacted state law that allows most adults to legally carry a gun without a permit is “bad, and people will be murdered.” Early Christmas morning, as he sat on his bed playing the video game he had just gotten as a gift, the 12-year-old was killed by a stray bullet that came from outside his Memphis home. Learning of the boy’s death, his teachers sent a photo of the letter to Artemis’s family, who recently made it public in hopes of drawing attention to lax gun laws that help fuel senseless shootings, particularly those that maim and kill children.
The common sense of the 12-year-old — that there is inherent danger in people without training or permits carrying guns — should put to shame the adults who enacted the law heedless to the concerns of law enforcement about its deadly consequences. Put into effect in July, the law was championed under the claim of protecting constitutional rights, allowing people 21 and older and military service members 18 and up to carry a weapon without any training or permit.
As The Post’s Lateshia Beachum reported, Memphis had a record number of homicides last year, including 31 children who were killed. About 150 other children were shot. The city is far from alone in seeing young lives needlessly lost to gun violence. The Post has documented that on average in the United States, at least one child is shot every hour of every day. Many survive, but too many die. Nine children in D.C. were killed in gun homicides last year. The toll — which doesn’t include suicides or unintentional shootings — was 11 in Los Angeles, 36 in Philadelphia and 59 in Chicago. A surge in pandemic gun-buying has helped fuel what the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention calculated to be a roughly 50 percent increase in the rate of gun deaths of children 14 and younger from the end of 2019 to the end of 2020.
The deadly pattern continues. An 8-year-old girl walking in the afternoon with her mother last Saturday in a Chicago neighborhood was killed by a stray bullet. Melissa Ortega had moved with her mother to Chicago in August after emigrating from Mexico. “She sought to achieve the American Dream,” her family said in a statement, “but was instead given American Violence.”
How many more young lives will be needlessly cut short because of the refusal of politicians in this country to recognize the logic that was apparent even to a 12-year-old? “People will be murdered.” It is time to start treating this issue like the public health crisis it is. | null | null | null | null | null |
Coach/General Manager Mike Thibault said before WNBA free agency that keeping Hines-Allen was a top priority for the organization, and multiple other teams offered her during the negotiating period. Contracts can officially be signed Tuesday.
Hines-Allen was a second-round pick in 2018 and a member of Washington’s 2019 championship team. Her breakout season came in 2020, when she averaged 17.0 points and 8.9 rebounds and was named second team all-WNBA.
Allen’s skill set allows the 6-foot-1 forward to take bigger defenders out on the perimeter and overpower smaller opponents in the post. Her outside game improved with a career-high 42.6 three-point percentage in 2020, when she shot a career-high 51.0 percent overall.
The Mystics are still in the market for a starting big with the expectation that Tina Charles, who led the WNBA in scoring last season, will leave in free agency. Charles joined Washington with the goal of winning her first title, but she opted out of the WNBA bubble in 2020, then the team dealt with a slew of injuries in 2021.
Mystics can jump in star-packed WNBA free agency — if they want to spend
Both Atkins and Delle Donne are scheduled to participate in USA Basketball’s national team training camp next week in D.C. Delle Donne is still working her way back from the back surgery that has limited her to just three games since the 2019 WNBA Finals and will only participate in the noncontact drills. She won’t play in the FIBA World Cup qualifying tournament Feb. 10-12 against Belgium and Puerto Rico. | null | null | null | null | null |
But of all the numbers that should be worrying Democrats nine months before the election, the one that may be most ominous is a figure that suggests their voters are far less energized than Republican voters. An NBC News poll found that where 61 percent of Republicans say they are highly interested in the upcoming midterms, only 47 percent of Democrats feel that way, with the largest drops coming among Black voters, the young and people who live in urban areas.
Part of this may be sheer exhaustion. After four years of being in a constant state of high anxiety over Trump, it is understandable that many Democrats and Democratic-leaning voters would welcome a respite from thinking about politics all the time.
What might change the dynamic for Democrats, at least somewhat, is the Supreme Court vacancy created by Justice Stephen G. Breyer’s decision to retire. As Biden fulfills a campaign promise to name the first Black woman to the nation’s highest bench, he may be able to reinvigorate the party’s deflated base, as well as elevate issues such as abortion rights, which are threatened by the openness the Supreme Court’s conservative majority has shown toward overturning the landmark 1973 Roe v. Wade decision.
The election last November of Gov. Glenn Youngkin (R) in blue-trending Virginia should have served as an early warning signal of what may await Democrats this year across the map if they cannot find a way to reenergize the voters they need most. So far, however, there is little evidence of what, if anything, they have figured out to do about it. | null | null | null | null | null |
WASHINGTON — A measure of prices that is closely tracked by the Federal Reserve rose 5.8% last year, the sharpest increase since 1982, as brisk consumer spending collided with snarled supply chains to raise the costs of food, furniture, appliances and other goods. The report Friday from the Commerce Department also said that consumer spending fell 0.6% in December. A wave of omicron cases discouraged many Americans from traveling, eating out or visiting theaters and other entertainment venues. At the same time, incomes rose 0.3% last month, providing fuel for future spending.
NEW YORK — A turbulent week for markets ended with a late burst of buying, breaking a three-week losing streak and giving major indexes their biggest gains of the year. The S&P 500 added 2.4% Friday, nearly all of it coming in the last hour of trading. That followed several days of sudden moves up and down throughout the week. Markets have been jittery as investors try to anticipate how aggressively the Federal Reserve will move to withdraw its economic stimulus and raise interest rates to fight inflation. Technology stocks led the rally. Apple rose after reporting strong holiday iPhone sales. Treasury yields fell.
WASHINGTON — President Joe Biden has an opportunity for a reset on climate policy after a federal judge rejected an administration plan to lease millions of acres in the Gulf of Mexico for offshore oil drilling. A judge tossed the drilling plan late Thursday, saying the Interior Department did not adequately take into account the proposed drilling’s effect on planet-warming greenhouse gas emissions. Environmentalists say the lease sale should not have been conducted in the first place and goes against Biden’s campaign promise to stop new oil and gas leasing on federal land and water. The court decision was released on the one-year anniversary of a federal leasing moratorium Biden ordered as part of his efforts to combat climate change. ___
WASHINGTON — Concern about new high-speed wireless service interfering with airplanes appears to be easing. Federal safety regulators said Friday they have cleared the way for Verizon and AT&T to turn on more 5G towers. The Federal Aviation Administration says the move is possible because the telecom companies are providing more information about the location of their wireless transmitters. Aviation groups and the FAA had warned that 5G service could interfere with planes because it uses part of the radio spectrum that is close to that used by radio altimeters on planes. Altimeters measure the height of planes above the ground, and they’re crucial for landing when visibility is poor because of bad weather.
LONDON — Tech giant Hewlett Packard Enterprise has won a multibillion-dollar lawsuit against a British businessmen it accused of fraud after purchasing his software company Autonomy a decade ago. The decision by the U.K.’s High Court also removes a hurdle for the potential extradition to the U.S. of Autonomy’s founder, British entrepreneur Michael Lynch. Hewlett Packard bought Autonomy for $11 billion in 2011 but was forced to write off most of its value the following year, in a corporate debacle that sparked a boardroom shakeup at the printer and computer maker. A High Court judge delivered a summary of his conclusions in court, saying HP had “substantially won” its claim.
COLUMBUS, Ohio — Ohio’s price tag for landing Intel’s new computer chipmaking factory comes in at roughly $2 billion. The state’s development director said Friday that the combination of tax breaks and incentives are likely the largest ever offered by Ohio. State officials say the deal is well worth it. Intel announced last week it will spend $20 billion to create a new technology hub in the Midwest. Intel’s CEO says the total investment could top $100 billion over the next decade and that its new facility could become one of the world’s biggest chipmaking sites.
NEW YORK — State and local governments reported more than $117 billion of revenue losses in the first year of the coronavirus pandemic. That’s according to an Associated Press analysis of newly available data. But those shortfalls proved less severe than originally feared. Many of those same governments are now awash in record amounts of money. In response to the dramatic turnaround, governors, lawmakers and local officials have proposed a surge in spending as well as a new wave of tax cuts. The AP calculated the estimated revenue loss figures for 2020 by reviewing thousands of reports filed with the Treasury Department by states, counties and larger cities.
SAN FRANCISCO — A federal appeals court has upheld California’s net neutrality law, rejecting an attempt by telecom groups to prevent it from going into effect. The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals upheld a previous ruling, which means the status quo stays and the state can continue to enforce the law. This means California can enforce its ban on internet providers slowing down or blocking access to websites and applications that don’t pay for premium service. On Friday, proponents of net neutrality cheered the decision, but called for federal net neutrality laws. But with Congress divided, such legislation may not draw enough support to pass. | null | null | null | null | null |
“There will be consequences to not fueling your body how it should be fueled, maybe not right away, but over time,” said Nicole Lund, a NYU Langone Health clinical nutritionist who works with USA Nordic athletes. “They’re young and they may not understand that quite yet, but that is something to kind of keep in mind.” | null | null | null | null | null |
Another global health crisis is unfolding in the shadow of the coronavirus pandemic. Antimicrobial resistance, the tendency of bacteria and other pathogens to evolve so they fight or evade lifesaving drugs, is a long-term threat to modern medicine. A new study, drawing from a vast array of data, estimates that 1.27 million deaths were caused worldwide by bacterial antimicrobial resistance in 2019, exceeding the combined toll of HIV/AIDS and malaria. Only ischemic heart disease and stroke that year accounted for more deaths.
Health economist and professor Christopher J.L. Murray, of the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington, and a large team of collaborators found that bacterial resistance to drugs “is a major global health problem” that “poses the largest threat to human health in sub-Saharan Africa and south Asia, but it is important in all regions.” The researchers found that the top six pathogens leading to deaths associated with drug resistance are Escherichia coli, Staphylococcus aureus, Klebsiella pneumoniae, Streptococcus pneumoniae, Acinetobacter baumannii and Pseudomonas aeruginosa.
What’s at stake is the effectiveness of antibiotics, essential for surgery, chemotherapy, organ transplants and other medical procedures. Antibiotics were “wonder drugs” when discovered in the past century, starting with penicillin, but it has been known for decades that bacteria evolve to resist the drugs — and that overuse and abuse of antibiotics in human health and agriculture have contributed to the problem. A report by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in 2019 urged Americans to “Stop referring to a coming post-antibiotic era — it’s already here.” The study found that deaths because of antimicrobial resistance in the United States had dropped 18 percent since a 2013 report, largely due to improved procedures in hospitals, while pointing to continuing challenges outside health care.
What to do about antimicrobial resistance has been clear for some time. We need better stewardship of antibiotics — avoiding overprescribing or wrongly prescribing them for viral infections. More attention must be devoted to preventing resistant infections in the first place. Accelerated development of new antibiotics is essential. New drug development requires large investments, but antibiotics yield smaller returns because they are used for a limited period of time. Thus, public-private partnerships for drug development are essential, such as Combating Antibiotic-Resistant Bacteria Biopharmaceutical Accelerator, a multinational effort. | null | null | null | null | null |
In addition to allegedly making other antisemitic comments during the staged reenactment, the school librarian, responding to a child who asked why the Germans did it, reportedly said: “Because the Jews ruined Christmas.”
After I demanded that he recheck, Gutierrez emailed several minutes later, “No information was shared with me, and the status of this investigation is still ongoing.” Where’s the outrage? | null | null | null | null | null |
The American Library Association tells me that there were 330 “challenges” in the three months between Sept. 1 and Dec. 1, 2021, with December still to be tallied. That compares with just 156 in all of 2020, and 377 in 2019, the last pre-pandemic year. This means book bannings are happening at roughly quadruple the previous pace.
And that’s just the beginning of the thought-police problem. PEN America, a free-speech organization, reports that in the first three weeks of January 2022, 71 “gag-order” bills banning the teaching of certain concepts were introduced or pre-filed in state legislatures across the country. Since January of last year, 12 such bills have become law in 10 GOP-run states, and 88 bills are still working their way through the legislative process. Virtually all of them have been sponsored by Republicans. | null | null | null | null | null |
Every now and then, an individual or occasion comes along to remind us of the many reasons to love this country. Jason Rivera was one of those individuals, and his funeral Friday was one of those occasions.
Although dozens of stories have been aired and written since the shooting, Friday’s service provided a more complete understanding of Rivera and his legacy. At the same time, we were offered a lesson in what has always been our nation’s strongest suit — the essential goodness that undergirds our aspirations and the willingness of so many to offer their lives in service to others.
We heard from Police Commissioner Keechant L. Sewell that Rivera recently sold his car and had begun taking the bus to work “so he could save every penny to make a better home.” Turning toward Cardinal Archbishop Timothy Dolan, Sewell said, “I’m a work in process, Cardinal. But if he [Rivera] can change the world, then we can change the world with him and for him.”
This was the essential message of each speaker. Like countless Americans whose names we’ll never know, Rivera loved his family, worked hard and strove to improve the world around him. “Salt of the earth” is what we used to call such people. Specifically, Rivera wanted to help end the chaos and spiking gun violence in his city — with homicides at their highest level in a decade.
Directing her words to her dead husband, she said, “I want you to live through me. This system continues to fail us. We are not safe anymore, not even the members of the service. I know you were tired of these laws, especially the ones from the new DA. I hope he’s watching you speak through me now. I’m sure all of our blue family is tired, too. But I promise, we promise, that your death won’t be in vain. We’ll take the watch from here.”
Finally, the bond of our men and women in blue is the same we have shared and rallied to support in bad times (and sometimes good). The risk we take in shredding that bond through our politics, and in our dehumanizing incivility toward one another, might be greater than our Republic can bear. | null | null | null | null | null |
Whether he's lined up as a receiver or in the backfield, Deebo Samuel can do it all for the 49ers. And for San Francisco to advance to the Super Bowl, he probably has to. (Aaron Gash/AP)
He had given the Green Bay Packers one, too. The play began, after all, with the 49ers’ best wide receiver lined up in the backfield. He was handed the ball as a running back, zipped past a defensive lineman, bounced off a cornerback and plowed into two more defenders before finally hitting the frosty grass of Lambeau Field. Less than a minute later, kicker Robbie Gould — his field goal attempt made 10 yards easier because of Samuel’s run — sent the 49ers to a 13-10 victory and into Sunday’s NFC championship game against the Los Angeles Rams.
But Precious Martin, Samuel’s stepmother, at home watching on television, was concerned after seeing him hobble off the field. Two months ago, San Francisco Coach Kyle Shanahan had begun using her stepson in an unusual football experiment. Samuel is 6 feet and 215 pounds, stocky for the prototypical NFL wide receiver, so a few times a game Shanahan called plays that required Samuel to carry the ball as a running back. It worked, so the 49ers gave Samuel more carries, pegged him to return kicks, even let him throw a touchdown pass against the Los Angeles Rams. This, in addition to Samuel’s responsibilities as a wideout, and he leads the team in both rushing and receiving touchdowns.
Deebo Samuel is forcing his way into the NFL’s elite, one YAC at a time
Martin saw Samuel limp to the sideline, so she texted a man she knew to be at Lambeau. “You know I’ve been calling and texting,” she wrote to Mark Hodge, who had been Samuel’s coach at Chapman High in South Carolina.
Hodge scanned the sideline, looking for No. 19, and saw him moving around and trying to keep blood flowing to his battered and cold extremities.
“Yes mam!!!” he replied. “He’s ok.”
More than perhaps anyone outside the 49ers’ team facility, Hodge understands the tenuous balance of deploying Samuel’s versatility while trying to avoid overusing him. He wasn’t shaped for any one position in high school, either, so Hodge did what Shanahan is doing and played him all over the field. Chapman’s offensive coaches used to hold up posters to signal where Samuel should line up in its spread attack — a Minnesota Vikings logo for running back, Big Bird for the Y receiver, a photo of the school principal for quarterback — and Samuel’s teammates adjusted accordingly.
He played defense, too, stepping in as needed at safety, cornerback, even the occasional pass rusher. But that’s not uncommon in high school football, and Samuel set school touchdown records and collected interceptions and tackles. But this masked the obvious conundrum: Samuel was accumulating dozens of hits everywhere because he wasn’t a perfect fit anywhere.
When he attended recruiting camps, major college scouts were reluctant to offer scholarships. Samuel was too short to play wide receiver, too thin to be an every-down running back, too small to play linebacker, too big to play safety. Hodge says Samuel didn’t receive a major offer until the playoffs of his senior season, and these days the coach likes to rub recruiters’ noses in it.
“I bring that up often: ‘Remember you were the guy who didn’t think Deebo Samuel was good enough to play for you,’” Hodge says. “He didn’t fit all the marquee builds and so forth, and to be frank with you, these guys had already predetermined who was legit and who was not legit.”
Samuel was good enough to play at South Carolina, where he became a dynamic wide receiver and kick returner. It was also where Hodge’s former protege kept getting knocked around week after week and where his stepmother’s fears were initially realized. He would test himself against bigger opponents and charge into defenders with abandon, almost welcoming the contact. It can be just as breathtaking to watch him as it is nerve-racking, especially after he crumpled to the turf with an injured hamstring, as he did as a freshman, or a broken leg, as he did as a sophomore. Since the 49ers drafted him in 2019, he has missed games with injuries to his hamstring, groin and foot.
Samuel, in other words, plays a particularly grueling brand of a menacingly violent game, but he’s too good to just park on the sideline. His very presence on the field is enough to confuse defenders, and the truth is, putting Samuel in motion forces opponents to reveal their intentions and acts as a presnap cheat sheet for San Francisco’s greatest offensive weakness, quarterback Jimmy Garoppolo. So taking Samuel off the field during the postseason isn’t just questionable — it’s borderline irresponsible.
Like Marshall Faulk when the Rams deployed a running back like a wide receiver to win the Super Bowl following the 1999 season, San Francisco’s use of a wide receiver as a running back has one of the NFL’s most decorated franchises two wins from hoisting the Vince Lombardi Trophy for the first time in 27 years.
“Using him like they’re using him is really hard on a defense,” said Mike Martz, the Rams’ offensive coordinator two decades ago and the mad scientist who effectively normalized backs who catch passes out of the backfield. Like Samuel, Faulk was too quick for linemen to chase down and too physical for defensive backs to tackle. “It’s a game of matchups. It was so unusual, it got my attention what they were doing with him. And he was the reason they were winning.”
So what is Shanahan to do? He has inverted Martz’s Faulk concept, which actually reduced how often Faulk absorbed the punishing hits that are now known to dramatically shorten the careers of NFL running backs. Samuel has taken on a dramatic increase in contact, becoming a centerpiece of San Francisco’s power rushing attack. In playoff wins against Dallas and Green Bay, Samuel had a season-high 10 carries in each game, along with three catches in each. He was beaten up after both, but San Francisco also advanced. For now, the coach says, the answer is to limit Samuel’s practice participation rather than his Sunday snaps.
“The more you get hit, of course, the more it’s a sacrifice,” Shanahan said this week. “And the more handoffs we give him, the more passes he catches, he’s going to take some hits. But Deebo has handled it well. He’s one of the main reasons we’re here, and I think it’s one of the things that’s given him the opportunity to be one of the best players in the NFL. So the more you do that, the more risks there is. But I think our team and Deebo are very happy how far he’s taken us here so far.”
Hodge says Samuel wants the carries, the catches, the punishment. He’s a competitor, the high school coach says, always has been — even if those who care about him are just as captivated by his play as alarmed by it.
On Saturday before the game in Green Bay, Hodge says he spent a few minutes at the team hotel catching up with Samuel. They talked about how rare it is to be new or even different in football. How unusual it is for one player to unlock an entire offense.
“You're doing stuff that hasn't really been done in the modern age of football, ever,” Hodge says he told Samuel. “If it's important and it's a kick return, you’re back there. If it's a pass play and it's important, you're back there. You're changing the NFL right now.”
Thinking about Samuel limping off the field, the coach takes a long breath.
“He’s changing the game, but we worry about him. I worry about him all the time,” Hodge says. But, like most everyone else, he also can’t look away. | null | null | null | null | null |
Jeff Fisher returns to pro football as a head coach in the fledgling USFL
Jeff Fisher’s 173-165-1 NFL record leaves him tied for the most losses by a head coach in the league but also 12th in wins. (Jeff Gross/Getty Images)
Bears hire Colts defensive coordinator Matt Eberflus as next coach
Broncos hire Packers offensive coordinator Nathaniel Hackett as head coach
“I miss the game … [and] the players,” Fisher, who has maintained a relatively low profile since parting ways with the Rams, said last year in an interview with a Nashville radio station (via the Nashville Post). “My hope is to get back on the sideline. In the meantime, I’ve been doing things I haven’t been able to do in a long time. Family and grandkids. Watching the NFL and the college game. Deep down, I don’t feel like I’m done. But if I am, that’s okay.”
As NFL coaching carousel starts to spin, here are the names to watch | null | null | null | null | null |
A lone survivor found sitting on a capsized boat off Fort Pierce Inlet, Fla., earlier this week was identified Friday, Jan. 28, 2022, as a Colombian named Juan Esteban Montoya Caicedo. His sister, María Camila, was among the more than 30 people who were believed to have drowned. (U.S. Coast Guard via EPA-EFE/REX/Shutterstock) (Us Coast Guard Handout/EPA-EFE/REX/Shutterstock)
Authorities have not released any details on who was aboard the boat and the U.S. Coast Guard suspended the search Thursday with just five bodies found. But slowly, a picture of two of those on the boat is coming together, as friends and relatives in Colombia and the United States try to make sense of how the siblings ended up lost in the waters off Florida, far from home and their mother.
“There is no comfort or solace for this pain," Marcia Caicedo told The Washington Post as she waited for news of her children Friday in Miami. “All I ask is for the release of my boy so that we can hold each other.”
“It is not fair that he is detained, with everything he went through, after experiencing the trauma of seeing people die, and enduring what he did for days, the sun, the hunger," their cousin, Valeria Molina, said. “We are begging authorities to release him and help us find Camila.”
In the southwestern Colombian town of Guacarí, about 30 miles northeast of Cali, the siblings were described as beloved members of the community. Jhon Mario Cano, 23, said Juan Esteban and María Camila Montoya were his neighbors while growing up. Most friends called the older brother “Juanes” for short, or “Panes,” as an inside joke about a time he once bought way too much bread.
It is an unusual uptick for a country known most recently as a destination for migrants and refugees — particularly from neighboring Venezuela. Colombia’s migrants generally traveled to the United States by air, often to South Florida, and mostly during the country’s 52-year armed conflict. Five years after Colombia signed historic peace accords with its largest guerilla group, violence between armed groups in rural swaths of the country is surging once again. Killings of social leaders and environmental activists are raising alarm. And the pandemic pushed 1.6 million Colombians out of the middle class and into poverty.
Adam Isacson, a border security expert at the Washington Office on Latin America, suspected the increase in border apprehensions of Colombians could be due to smuggling networks taking advantage of the fact that Mexico doesn’t require visas for Colombians. Migrants can fly to Mexico City or Cancun and take a bus to the border.
“It’s happened over the past year with Brazilians, Ecuadorians, and Venezuelans, and in each case the U.S. leaned on Mexico to reinstate visa requirements for those countries,” Isacson said. “I think it’s just a matter of time for Colombians.”
“It is a horrible mix of feelings,” Molina, the siblings’ cousin, said Thursday night, after learning authorities had suspended their search. “On the one hand we are sad that she didn’t possibly make it; but we are also stunned and delighted to know that he survived."
Cano said he last spoke to Juan Esteban Friday, a day before he left the Bahamas. His friend sent him a picture over WhatsApp of the moon overlooking a dark beach.
“Do it, brother," Cano said in a WhatsApp message. “The important thing is that it makes me so happy that you’re reuniting with your mom, brother. I wish you all of the happiness."
Samantha Schmidt reported from Bogota, Colombia. | null | null | null | null | null |
Judge J. Michelle Childs, who was nominated by President Barack Obama to the U.S. District Court, during her nomination hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee on April 16, 2010. (Charles Dharapak/AP)
The statement is the first time the White House has publicly confirmed a name under consideration to replace Justice Stephen G. Breyer, who announced this week that he would retire after the end of the current court term.
The other most-often-discussed names for Biden’s first Supreme Court pick are Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson of the D.C. Circuit and Leondra Kruger, a California Supreme Court justice. Others under consideration, according to people familiar with the matter, include Anita Earls, a North Carolina Supreme Court justice; New York University law professor Melissa Murray; and Minnesota federal District Judge Wilhelmina “Mimi” Wright. These people spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss private deliberations. | null | null | null | null | null |
The team announced Friday night that Bills offensive coordinator Brian Daboll will be New York’s next coach. Daboll, 46, has spent the past four seasons in charge of the Bills’ high-powered offense.
Friday’s move comes a week after the Giants hired former Bills assistant general manager Joe Schoen to become their new general manager. Schoen’s decision appeared to have come down to Daboll, Bills defensive coordinator Leslie Frazier or Brian Flores, the recently fired coach of the Miami Dolphins. Many within the league had believed it ultimately would be a decision between Daboll and Flores, and that the close relationship between Daboll and Schoen could be the determining factor.
Co-owners John Mara and Steve Tisch performed a housecleaning following another disappointing season, dismissing Judge after Dave Gettleman retired as the Giants’ general manager. There had been reports late in the regular season that Judge was expected to be retained. But that changed when the Giants ended the season on a six-game losing streak and Judge had a series of missteps, including an 11-game postgame rant and a curious third-and-nine quarterback-sneak play call. | null | null | null | null | null |
This January 2021 photo provided by the Houston Police Department shows Roland Caballero. Caballero, who was hospitalized in stable condition Friday, Jan. 28, 2022, with a gunshot wound to the neck, has been charged with three counts of attempted capital murder of a police officer and an aggravated robbery count after engaging in a shootout with Houston police after a chase. (Houston Police Department via AP) (Uncredited/Houston Police Department) | null | null | null | null | null |
Mustafa Acikgoz is 32 and an entrepreneur. His dream date is with a “scientist that is also a yoga instructor.” Hibbah Kaileh is 27 and a research associate for the government. She is looking for someone who is “smart, excited about life, witty and slightly nerdy.” (Daniele Seiss for The Washington Post) | null | null | null | null | null |
The Wide Angle
This photographer thrives on creating art spontaneously
Katherine Copeland.
By Marvin Joseph
I first picked up a camera at 14 years old, fueled by an obsession and love of photography. And I’ve had that same drive ever since.
These images are excerpts from my ever-growing personal work. Images that don’t always have a rhyme and reason or even a purpose other than to satisfy my desire to do something fun and maybe to create something that I’ve never done before. What if we try this? What will it look like backward, or with this color or in total darkness? Oftentimes I try to come up with some absurd idea, or I get inspiration from other pictures, television shows, movies and daily life.
I see humor and beauty in many things, especially people. I’m a natural people person. I often say that I try to make extraordinary pictures out of ordinary, everyday people. I practice on my friends and associates almost all the time. Luckily for me I have access to plenty of people who don’t mind being photographed. Without them I wouldn’t be as happy as I am.
They trust me to experiment on them with the camera. This allows me to play with various lighting techniques, props and concepts. I never know exactly how anything will turn out until I’m knee-deep in the process or when the photo shoot is over. And I’m in awe at the end, just like the subject.
I love how spontaneous this way of making art can be. Genuinely organic. That feeling is addictive. Forcing a habit to do more photo shoots. The challenge is always trying to not repeat the same thing, but to look at something from a different angle. Literally trying to do the impossible.
Styling: Cherie Scurry-Burns. Makeup: Sharron Bullock.
Brianna Williams, 31, and Christian Davis, 25, both of Maryland, are engaged to be married in October 2022, and welcomed their son, Azure, four months ago. For their maternity photo shoot, stylist Cherie Scurry-Burns drew on the themes of Mother Earth and the Garden of Eden. The couple’s pose, meanwhile, evokes the yin-and-yang symbol — a deliberate choice by Joseph, who was inspired by their infinite love for one another. “They are the yin to each other’s yang,” he says. “I really wanted that to come through in the photographs.”
For this image, Joseph took inspiration from a “photo giant”: Albert Watson. The fashion photographer’s image of a ballet dancer wrapped in fabric spurred Joseph to create his own version. “I loved the movement of the fabric, the way it ebbed and flowed and mimicked liquid once it’s airborne,” Joseph says. Pictured here: model Malon Chandler of Fredericksburg, Va.
In 2020, a California production company called Circadian Pictures held a competition for artists to create works that centered on the coronavirus. Joseph jumped at the chance to enter. With stylist Cherie Scurry-Burns and makeup artist Sharron Bullock, he created SheRo (model Maya Corey of Washington), who, with her sidekick, Headress, would save humanity from the pandemic. “What if a superhero could save us?” Joseph asks. The image was a runner-up in the competition.
My fascination with angels led me to take this latest photo,” writes Joseph. “I feel like angels not only observe us but also save us without our knowledge quite often,” he says. “I’ve had a couple of car accidents where I only walked away with a few scratches — I credit divine intervention, for sure.” He gathered a few of his friends for a photo shoot, using large wings to evoke various moods. Pictured here is model David Carter of Washington.
It would be so much easier if I could speak their language,” says Joseph, joking about the challenge of photographing animals. This particular photo shoot was hilarious because the dog, Hershey, was extremely rambunctious. Luckily, Megan Jones, who owns the dog boutique Furever Fab, had doggy snacks on hand. She and Hershey had a great rapport. “Hershey followed Megan everywhere she went — and he’s not even her dog!” Joseph says. Jones had borrowed him from a friend for the photo shoot. Joseph says he enjoys photographing the bond between people and pets. “Such incredible loyalty from the pet and the pet owner is a love that the world needs every day,” he says.
Joseph is always on the lookout for, ahem, eye-catching props to use in photo shoots. He spotted this mask in a Halloween-themed store — and he knew it would fit in with his quirky shooting style. “I have always been attracted to oddities, but with reverence,” he says, adding that “this eyeball mask is right on the money. The strangeness of it is why I like it so much.” For months, he had been itching to use it for a fashion shoot. The opportunity arose when Brandon Metz, 28, a.k.a. DJ Fade the Future, traveled from the New York City area to take some photographs for his modeling portfolio.
Joseph made good on his promise to his friend Donna Holley-Beasley, a local makeup artist, to do a photo shoot for her. Here, model Liliana McGee, 18, of Bowie, Md., wears a hooded piece of fabric that stylist Jodie Johnson brought to the set. Liliana was a natural in front of the camera, using fabric to create movement — which can add a lot to a photo, Joseph notes. “I love the feelings it can evoke, especially when it comes to chiffons and silks,” he says. “In some cases it can look like liquid floating in the air.”
While kicking around ideas for a photo shoot with friend and stylist Cherie Scurry-Burns, Joseph hit upon an idea. Step 1: Grab all the animal print clothes and accessories you can think of. Step 2: Take makeup artist Sharron Bullock along for the ride. Step 3: Head to Eastern Market. Joseph loves how the area almost makes it look “as if Cherie is in Paris, a place famous for its taste in clothes.” The outing was a thrill for the trio: “As a team we are always doing photo shoots for other people, and this particular day was our turn just to have some fun.”
Joseph met DeVonte Thomas, 28, at a restaurant a few years ago, and they became fast friends. When Thomas, a professional basketball player in the International Basketball Federation (FIBA), decided to model for a photo shoot, Joseph knew exactly what he would focus on. “I have always admired people with tattoos,” Joseph says. “I wish I had the courage to get tattoos. Instead I live vicariously through other people with ink. They are walking works of art and expression.”
For a photo shoot with model Monica Ajak, stylist Cherie Scurry-Burns came up with an unconventional approach: a gold face mask. Joseph was lukewarm on the concept, but he remained open: “Just bring it and I’ll see what happens,” he recalls saying. But during the shoot, he decided to go in a different direction and asked Ajak to take off the mask. As she began peeling it off, Joseph says, her reaction caught his eye. “The harder she pulled, the better her expression,” he says. The result: one of his favorite images to date.
It’s not often that Joseph gets to put makeup artist Sharron Bullock in front of the camera. Cherie Scurry-Burns styled the clothing and elaborate hair. Bullock added the smoke from her vaping pen for extra drama. “This was an afternoon of playing around on the set and trying to create something visually unique,” Joseph says. The three often work together on photo shoots, and their team chemistry is evident in this photo.
I believe that angels walk among us disguised as mere mortals,” says Joseph. He has been working on and off for the past few years on an angel-themed series of photos with his friends, including Malon Chandler of Fredricksburg, Va. To capture this moment, Joseph asked Chandler to run through the grass and leap in the air — dozens of times. “This image ended up being one of my favorites,” Joseph says. “He looks like he’s arriving — his toes are just about to touch the ground.”
When makeup artist Donna Holley-Beasley wanted to capture her work on camera, she turned to Joseph. For this photo shoot, they brought in three models, each with different complexions to show Holley-Beasley’s range. The trio included Alexis Wilkerson, pictured here. “Alexis has a regal way of carrying herself,” Joseph says, “and I wanted to take advantage of that persona on camera.” The fabric — an inspired move by stylist Jodie Johnson — adds a dash of mystery. | null | null | null | null | null |
‘The richest 10 percent consume as much as the bottom 40 percent combined’
— William Spriggs is a professor of economics at Howard University and former assistant secretary for policy at the Labor Department. Follow him on Twitter: @WSpriggs.
Today’s supply shortages were entirely foreseeable. Beginning in the 1970s, we began a long, sclerotic march toward a hyper-efficient — but brittle — economy that brought us to the eve of the pandemic without a semiconductor to spare. Corporate America’s ruthless pursuit of short-term profits also fueled a mergers and acquisitions frenzy that resulted in today’s economywide monopolies. This extreme concentration has thinned out our supply chains and left the remaining mega-companies perfectly positioned to capitalize on inflation to post record profits.
First, he should ramp up the enforcement and regulatory power of agencies such as the Federal Trade Commission, Federal Maritime Commission and Agriculture Department to break up monopolies, stop price-gouging and encourage competition. The president must also continue to call out profiteering by monopolists from the podium, an approach with historical precedent that could have an immediate impact, including numerous corporate CEOs who have been crowing to investors on recent earnings calls about pulling off strategic price hikes.
Congress must play its part, too, by passing legislation aimed at breaking up and re-regulating the large ocean shipping monopolies that are stoking inflation. It is also past time to tax excess profits, as Congress did after World War I and World War II to encourage productive investment and deter price gouging. | null | null | null | null | null |
Man is fatally shot in Prince George’s County, police say
Victim was found on the ground in the afternoon.
A man was fatally shot Friday in Prince George’s County, police said.
They said he was found on the ground about 2:40 p.m. in the 7000 block of Kent Town Drive in the Kentland area after a shooting was reported.
He died about three hours later at a hospital, the police said.
No name was available immediately, nor was information about a suspect or motive. | null | null | null | null | null |
The group which includes leaders of the Northern Virginia and Prince George’s County chambers of commerce, Greater Washington Board of Trade, Tysons Partnership and Coalition for Smarter Growth, was assembled in 2018, campaigning successfully to help Metro receive annual, dedicated capital funding from Maryland, Virginia and the District.
Laura Miller Brooks, a co-leader of MetroNow, said the group released the report as part of an effort to get regional governments and transit agencies to collaborate on a regional bus system, create more bus lanes, hire more bus operators and expand service in underserved areas. Miller Brooks spoke to The Washington Post about the organization’s ideas for improving transit. The interview was lightly edited. | null | null | null | null | null |
“I ran for the Florida legislature to deal with real issues, and to have a seat at the table to address them in a responsible way,” said Alexander, who represents Gadsden County and part of Leon County in the Florida panhandle. “I think a lot of my frustrations have built up over the years where it's not about addressing those issues and improving quality of life, it’s about campaign rhetoric and feeding false narratives a [Republican] base that continues to divide our country.”
But Alexander criticized the Republican party’s focus on divisive issues. “People are struggling. They are living paycheck to paycheck,” he said in his soeech. “Instead of addressing systemic poverty, instead of addressing all these issues that impact people’s quality of life, we are using these distraction tools.”
In 2012, Alexander worked on voter turnout among African-American and Caribbean residents during President Obama’s reelection campaign. He was elected to the Florida House in 2016, where he represents Florida’s only majority Black county, Gadsden. Three years later, Democratic leaders appointed Alexander as caucus whip.
To accomplish that, Alexander said he wants more Democrats to do what he just did in the Judiciary Committee — speak passionately about the party’s priorities. "We have to push back on these false narratives and help people wake up to see we have more in common than we have that separates us,” he said. | null | null | null | null | null |
Police in Colorado have identified the man who killed three women and a teenage girl more than forty years ago, with the help of genetic genealogy and DNA.
Between 1978 and 1981, three of the women were stabbed to death in Denver, while the fourth was found dead in a field with stab wounds in Adams County, police said.
The suspect, named as Joe Michael Ervin, was arrested after 26-year-old police officer Debra Sue Corr pulled him over at a traffic stop in June 1981. He shot her with her gun in what became the first line-of-duty death for the Aurora Police Department. He later killed himself in custody, local media reported.
“Our team did not forget Delores, Gwendolyn, Antoinette or Madeleine,” Denver Police Chief Paul Pazen told a news conference Friday. “While the perpetrator cannot fully be held accountable for his despicable actions, we hope that knowing who is responsible can bring some peace to the families.”
The daughters of Madeleine Furey-Livaudais, who was stabbed at 33 in her own home, said it was “a lot of information to absorb so suddenly” that the man who killed their mother, a writer and ecologist, had assaulted and killed others, including the Aurora police officer. “With her sacrifice, she prevented him from killing anyone else,” they said.
George Journey, a brother of Antoinette Parks who was killed at 17 years old in Adams County in 1981, said it was difficult that her killer could not face justice, but added he was “thankful for the hard work and determination” to find him.
“This has taken a long time,” he added. “I’d like you guys to know we have closure … knowing who did this to my little sister.” | null | null | null | null | null |
ROME — As squabbling Italian political leaders on Saturday struggled to clinch a deal to elect Italy’s next president, momentum appeared to be building for President Sergio Mattarella to reconsider his refusal to serve a second term as head of state, a role which is meant to unify the nation. | null | null | null | null | null |
Andrew Wiggins, K-Pop star BamBam, and the NBA’s all-star voting problem
Golden State Warriors forward Andrew Wiggins earned a starting spot in the 2022 NBA All-Star Game after getting a big assist in the voting from a K-pop star. (AP Photo/Jeff Chiu)
Andrew Wiggins was awakened from his pregame nap Thursday by his daughter, who excitedly relayed the news that he had been selected as one of 10 starters for the 2022 NBA All-Star Game.
“It was mind-blowing,” Wiggins said. “I thought I was dreaming for a second. I was like, ‘What is going on?’”
The Golden State Warriors forward wasn’t the only person asking that question when TNT revealed the starters for next month’s showcase. LeBron James, Kevin Durant, Stephen Curry, Giannis Antetokounmpo were all headed to Cleveland as expected. But Wiggins?
In the Bay Area, Wiggins’s selection was cast as a just honor for his dependable two-way play for a leading title contender, and as a long-awaited payoff for a former No. 1 pick who has never quite lived up to that top billing.
“The journey he has traveled has been rocky at times,” Warriors Coach Steve Kerr said. “To see how hard he’s worked and to see all the work rewarded, I just could not be happier for him. The whole organization is glowing right now.”
Rainmaker. Boss. Baker. Meet Tamika Tremaglio, new head of the NBAPA
That sentiment wasn’t exactly universal among basketball fans on Twitter or media members who participated in the voting process, many of whom met Wiggins’s selection with confusion and frustration. How did such a carefully crafted voting system produce such a wonky result? And how should the NBA balance its need for credible selections against its desire for maximum fan engagement?
Wiggins, who has averaged 18.1 points, 4.2 rebounds and 2.1 assists per game, ranks 36th in Win Shares and 103rd in Player Efficiency Rating. He has shot 41 percent on three-pointers and played strong defense for the West’s No. 2 seed, but he trails Curry and Draymond Green on the Warriors’ pecking order and has never previously earned an all-star selection, an all-NBA nod or even a Player of the Month honor during his eight-year career.
The door opened this year for Wiggins because a long list of Western Conference frontcourt candidates like Kawhi Leonard, Paul George and Anthony Davis faced injuries, and because his teammate Klay Thompson missed the first two months as he recovered from an Achilles’ tear. Wiggins’s case was also helped by the NBA’s decision to split its media ballot into “backcourt” and “frontcourt” categories, leaving voters unable to select guards like Luka Doncic, Chris Paul and Devin Booker over Wiggins.
Players who fit Wiggins’s bill as a complementary option on a winning team are typically left to fight for one of the last few all-star reserve spots. That’s exactly what would have happened if the starters were selected by the media or the players, as both groups cast more votes for Green and Utah Jazz center Rudy Gobert than for Wiggins. In the media category, it wasn’t even close: Gobert received 65 votes, Green received 20 and Wiggins got just four. The players had 58 votes for Green, 52 for Gobert and 46 for Wiggins.
But the NBA’s convoluted, weighted voting procedure gives fans a 50 percent share of the vote, with the media and players getting 25 percent each. The fans’ push for Wiggins held sway — he raked in 3.4 million votes, topping the combined totals of Green (2.4 million) and Gobert (767,000). That margin, coupled with just enough mentions from the media and his fellow players, lifted him into a starting spot.
What was so striking about Wiggins’s fan vote tally, which ranked ninth among all players, is that he’s never been nearly this popular before.
Wiggins pulled in 771,000 all-star votes last year — just 22 percent of this year’s tally — and didn’t place among the top 15 in jersey sales in the NBA’s most recent rankings. While he is one of the league’s highest-profile Canadian players and Golden State has one of the largest and most engaged fan bases, Wiggins still has just 519,000 Twitter followers, placing him below both Green (1.6 million) and Gobert (574,000) and well behind A-listers like James (50.7 million) and Curry (15.8 million). Known for his quiet personality, he was an all-star afterthought before a trade that brought him from the Minnesota Timberwolves to the Warriors, never topping 250,000 votes from 2017 to 2020.
One key driver of Wiggins’ overnight ultra-popularity: An influential new supporter. BamBam, a K-pop star with more than 9 million Twitter followers and the Warriors’ new “global ambassador,” tweeted on Jan. 7: “He is one of the best two-way players! Wiggs deserves to be an All-Star, vote Andrew Wiggins into the 2022 NBA All-Star Game.”
That endorsement became a top trending topic in BamBam’s home country of Thailand, the Athletic noted, and garnered more than 40,000 retweets, all of which counted double because they were cast on a “2-for-1” voting day that the NBA uses to spur engagement. To get a sense for BamBam’s massive reach, consider that Justin Timberlake netted 4,800 retweets for a similar endorsement of Memphis Grizzlies guard Ja Morant.
The NBA has taken steps in the past to ensure that the fan vote won’t produce wholly undeserving all-star selections — like Zaza Pachulia’s out-of-nowhere 2016 candidacy — but now must decide whether it wants its process to devolve into an influencer arms race. Will fans of smaller-market teams feel like their favorite players are getting a fair shake when the Warriors, who were recently ranked by Forbes as the NBA’s second-most valuable franchise at an estimated $5.6 billion, used a shrewd celebrity partnership to lift Wiggins?
There are several potential fixes to consider. First, the NBA could devalue the fan vote’s share from 50 percent and put it on equal footing with the media and players. That change would have delivered a welcome result by lifting Green over Wiggins.
The NBA could also eliminate the “backcourt” and “frontcourt” designations from its ballots so that a rash of injuries or a relative lack of talent in one category wouldn’t elevate less-deserving candidates. If media voters were allowed to pick five players from the West regardless of position, Wiggins might not have received any votes at all. On the flip side, the Phoenix Suns, who hold the NBA’s best record, would have had a much better chance at landing Paul or Booker in the starting lineup.
The best solution, though, would be to strip the ballot of positional categories and conference designations, which have both become less relevant over the past five years. With so many power forwards playing on the perimeter, so many point forwards serving as lead initiators and so much blending between shooting guards and small forwards, the “backcourt” and “frontcourt” labels remain too restrictive. Meanwhile, the NBA replaced the traditional “East vs. West” All-Star Game with a new format that uses two captains to pick teams in 2017, eliminating any practical need to select candidates by geography.
If fans and influencers can vote for their favorite players regardless of position or conference, media voters should be able to recognize the league’s most deserving players in a similar manner. Wiggins, and future candidates like him, would have a harder time slipping through the cracks if media members were allowed to pick a pure top 10. | null | null | null | null | null |
Amtrak announces Northeast cancellations ‘for the safety of our customers and employees’
More than 100,000 homes in Massachusetts without power as wind, snow wallop state
D.C. area grazed by storm
Blizzard conditions expand amid escalating snow and wind
Thousands of flights canceled as East Coast storm upends travelers’ plans
Major snow band from coastal Mid-Atlantic to Long Island
Heavy snowfall plastering New England; Boston could see over 2 feet
Winter weather alerts in effect for over 50 million people along East Coast
Boston, Cape Cod and parts of Rhode Island are bracing for about two feet of snow and blizzard conditions over the course of Jan. 28 and 29. (Amber Ferguson/The Washington Post)
By Timothy Bella9:32 a.m.
Amtrak announced mass cancellations and limited service along the Northeast Corridor “for the safety of our customers and employees” during the winter storm.
All Acela service between D.C. and New York or Boston is canceled Saturday, as well as all Northeast Regional and Vermonter Service between Boston and New York, the company said in a news release. Other routes canceled Saturday include the Lake Shore Limited trains between Chicago and New York or Boston, and the Springfield Shuttle between New Haven, Conn., and Greenfield, Mass.
Sunday cancellations include some Northeast Regional trains between Boston and New York, and a Downeaster Service train between Brunswick, Maine, and Boston.
Amtrak said there would be limited service Saturday on several other routes, many of which are located along the East Coast.
The company will waive additional charges for customers who want to change their reservation during the modified schedule this weekend.
“Customers with reservations on trains that are being modified will typically be accommodated on trains with similar departure times or another day,” Amtrak said.
Tens of thousands of homes in Massachusetts were without power early Saturday as a massive winter storm walloped the East Coast.
An outage map from the Massachusetts Emergency Management Agency (MEMA) showed more than 100,000 customers had lost electricity. In Provincetown, located on the northern tip of Cape Cod, 100 percent of customers are without power, according to MEMA. The agency tweeted that more outages were expected in the eastern part of the state and on the cape.
“Check generators, keep electronics charged, locate flashlights, radio and extra batteries,” MEMA advised on Twitter.
Extreme winds are predicted in the state throughout Saturday. Some of the worst winds are expected to get up to 68 mph, according to weather reports. In Nantucket, Mass., the wind is projected to get to as high as 69 mph.
The National Weather Service says wind gusts will continue to increase in the state and will likely peak late Saturday morning into midafternoon.
The risk of coastal flooding also remains high, according to MEMA.
The blockbuster storm walloping the coastal zone from the Delmarva Peninsula to eastern Maine just brushed the D.C. area with a very light snow Friday afternoon and night.
After forecasts of 1 to 3 inches, just a coating to a little more than an inch fell, although some areas east of the city received up to several inches as predicted.
The snow fell on the centennial of the Knickerbocker storm, the District’s largest on record with 28 inches.
The snow has ended in the Washington region, but very cold, blustery weather lies ahead in the storm’s wake. Highs on Saturday are only forecast to reach the mid-20s. With winds gusting to nearly 40 mph, wind chills will hover in the single digits and teens. Wind chills will then plummet to near zero Saturday night.
For the first time since 2018, blizzard warnings have been hoisted in New England and parts of the Delmarva Peninsula, connoting the potential for whiteout conditions amid extreme snow and wind. Coastal New Jersey, eastern Long Island, the New Hampshire Seacoast and Downeast Maine were also under blizzard warnings.
A blizzard warning is issued when sustained winds or frequent gusts exceed 35 mph for at least three hours, along with considerable blowing/drifting snow and visibilities at or below a quarter-mile. Technically, snow doesn’t have to be falling to get a blizzard.
Plymouth, Mass., was reporting blizzard conditions at 7 a.m., with winds sustained at 31 mph gusting to 48 and visibilities of a quarter-mile. Lewes, Del., also reported blizzard conditions early Saturday.
Hyannis on Cape Cod was on the brink of blizzard conditions with sustained winds of 30 mph and gusts to 45 mph, but the visibility wasn’t low enough to meet criteria. The same was true in Providence.
Eastern Massachusetts, Rhode Island and eastern Connecticut will continue to see gusts build into the 45-to-55-mph range during the late morning hours, with gusts of 65 to 75 mph possible on Cape Cod and the Islands. Coastal Maine and New Hampshire, especially Downeast Maine, will also see blizzard conditions.
The severe winter storm has forced the cancellation of thousands of flights nationwide Saturday, upending weekend travel plans as extreme snow and high winds pound the East Coast.
More than 4,500 flights have already been canceled Saturday, according to FlightAware, a site that tracks flights and the airline industry. That total comes after more than 2,600 flights were canceled Friday.
The affected airlines include United, American, Delta, Southwest and JetBlue. Officials with American and Delta have said many of the cancellations were announced ahead of the brutal winter weather.
A majority of the canceled flights are on the East Coast, where airports in New York City and Boston have announced hundreds of canceled trips. Officials with the Rhode Island T.F. Green International Airport in Warwick, R.I., said its workers “will be working tirelessly to keep the runways clear and safe.”
Even if a trip hasn’t been canceled yet, flight delays are mounting across the country. After more than 11,000 flights were delayed Friday, more than 3,000 additional delays are expected as of early Saturday, according to FlightAware.
Airlines are offering weather waivers for affected passengers to change their flights without penalty.
The impact of the cancellations will extend into Sunday, with more than 1,100 flights already scrubbed, according to FlightAware.
A band of heavy snow was paralleling the coastline from the Delmarva Peninsula to the Big Apple on Saturday morning. Initially it was unclear whether that precipitation would move ashore or merely lap at the Eastern Seaboard, but, with the former scenario taking shape, snowfall amounts were reflective of it.
Milton, Del., had reported 9.5 inches of snow as of 6:15 a.m. Saturday. Nine inches had come down in Ocean City, Md. And Salisbury, Md., stood at eight inches, with heavier totals along the Jersey Shore.
Blizzard conditions were reported in Lewes, Del., with winds sustained at 44 mph and gusts up to 66 mph.
Cape May and Atlantic City, N.J., had reported 10 inches of snow, and Forked River, just south of Toms River, had passed a foot.
At 7 a.m., Doppler radar indicated that the stoutest band of snow was within just a mile or two offshore. That said, snowfall rates exceeding a half-inch per hour are likely to linger over the Delmarva Peninsula through midmorning and New Jersey until around lunchtime, with an outside chance that the heavier strips of snow pass over land once again.
Radar also was showing signs of “depolarization streaks,” resulting from ice crystals orienting themselves with an electrical field. That is generally a sign of an intense, electrified band of snow. Thundersnow is possible.
As expected, New York City will walk a tightrope, the edge of the band being likely to skim the city for hours. It may be a case where western Long Island winds up with a foot or more of snow while regions just west of the Big Apple pick up only a couple of inches. New York City proper can expect more than six inches of snow, but amounts will quickly climb farther east on the Long Island Expressway.
Snowfall rates were picking up markedly as daylight dawned in New England on Saturday. Moderate to heavy snows, with snowfall exceeding an inch or two per hour, had overspread areas in eastern Connecticut, Rhode Island and southeastern Massachusetts, south of the Massachusetts Turnpike. Those snow bands will become readily established along and east of Route 495 through the midmorning hours before pivoting and collapsing offshore during the afternoon.
That favored points inside the Boston to Providence corridor for rapidly accumulating snows as the offshore developing “bomb cyclone” explosively intensifies. There was no concern that snow would mix with sleet or rain anywhere but on Nantucket and outer Cape Cod, as cold air entrenched in place was keeping the rain/snow line about 70 miles offshore.
“Snowfall rates could reach 2 to 4 inches per hour at times with possibility of thundersnow across eastern Massachusetts and Rhode Island,” wrote the National Weather Service in Boston in an online forecast discussion Saturday morning. “This will make travel very dangerous to nearly impossible.”
The Weather Service increased its snowfall forecast for Boston of 18 to 24 inches to 24 to 30 inches overnight. If Boston picks up more than 22.2 inches of snow, it will fall on the city’s list of top five biggest snowstorms; records at Boston Logan International Airport date back to 1936.
Blizzard warnings are in effect in Boston and across eastern areas, with winter storm warnings virtually everywhere else. Providence could see 2 feet if heavy snow bands linger.
Totals will decrease somewhat farther inland, with 18 to 24 inches of a fluffier snow anticipated in Hartford.
Manchester, N.H., and Portland, Maine, are bracing for a foot to a foot and a half.
The heaviest snow in southeastern New England will persist between 9 a.m. and 4 p.m. before gradually diminishing from south to north during the evening Saturday. The snow will taper off in eastern Maine overnight Saturday.
From South Carolina to Maine, winter weather alerts affect more than 50 million people along the East Coast Saturday.
Near 11 million people are under blizzard warnings from the southern Delmarva Peninsula to eastern Maine, including Ocean City, Md.; Atlantic City; eastern Long Island; Providence, R.I.; Boston; and Portland, Maine.
Just to the west of the blizzard warnings, winter storm warnings affect over 30 million people and include Virginia Beach; Dover, Del.; Philadelphia; New York City; Hartford, Conn.; Worcester, Mass.; and Augusta, Maine.
Inland of the winter storm warnings, about 13 million people are under winter weather advisories, including in Florence, S.C.; Raleigh, N.C.; Baltimore; Allentown, Pa.; portions of interior New York state; northern New Hampshire; and western Maine. | null | null | null | null | null |
Those dueling perspectives are playing out as the United States set a record for new coronavirus infections this month, surpassing 800,000 a day for the first time, according to The Post’s seven-day tracking average. The number has fallen to just below 550,000 as of Friday. Hospitalizations have plateaued but deaths are rising — surpassing more than 2,300 a day on average. The last time the numbers were so high was in February 2021 when the country was emerging from the worst of last winter’s wave.
She described her anguish after she and her team performed CPR on a child with covid. The doctors and nurses were in full protective gear, which made it hot and difficult to see and hear. On top of worrying about the child, her heart was breaking for the family member next to them who was terrified but unable to leave the room due to infection precautions. They got the child stabilized, but she remembers “walking out of that and wringing my shirt out as sweat dripped out, physically exhausted, emotionally exhausted, and thinking, ‘This would have been hard without a pandemic. It’s just now ten times harder.’ ” | null | null | null | null | null |
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