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President Biden speaks at the 70th National Prayer Breakfast at the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C., on Feb. 3, 2022. (Saul Loeb/AFP/Getty Images)
The National Prayer Breakfast was for decades a Washington tradition where politicians could set aside their partisan differences and find commonalities in their faiths. However, last year’s prayer breakfast was held virtually because of the coronavirus pandemic, and Biden gave pre-recorded remarks where he acknowledged the “dark, dark time.” Weeks before, a pro-Trump mob had overrun the Capitol, seeking to stop the confirmation of Biden’s electoral college win, in an attack that led to the deaths of five people and injuries to dozens of law enforcement officers.
“Mitch, I don’t want to hurt your reputation, but we really are friends,” Biden said. "You’ve always done exactly what you’ve said. You’re a man of your word, and you’re a man of honor.”
Biden recalled last month, when a gunman took four worshipers hostage at a synagogue in Colleyville, Tex., "violence and vengeance didn’t pierce the goodness and grace of that scene.” He noted a nearby Catholic Church had opened its doors for the hostages’ families, and that at sunset, a group of Muslim women walked in with one of the favorite foods of the rabbi who had been taken hostage. All hostages were freed after a nearly 11-hour standoff. | null | null | null | null | null |
Internet service plans will soon come with ‘nutrition’ labels. Here’s what you need to know.
Last month, four members of the Federal Communications Commission unanimously agreed to move ahead with a proposal for broadband Internet “nutrition” labels. The idea is all about transparency — rather than make you dig around for the details, the idea goes, Internet service providers will be required to offer clear, straightforward explanations of their plans and services before you sign anything.
Lots. The FCC’s plan is to adapt an earlier design proposed for these labels that include prices for specific plans, data speeds, introductory rates, one-time costs like activation, early termination fees and more. And if the agency gets its way, these labels might actually look like the ones on the sides of cereal boxes. (At least, that’s what the examples they’ve shown off so far look like.)
Some of the details the labels should contain are fairly obvious, but some of them are important and don’t always get talked about enough. Consider these examples:
And that may just be the start. Because the labels are based on a proposal from 2016, the FCC is openly seeking input about what other tidbits these labels should contain. If there are other things you’d like these labels to highlight, or if you have an experience related to picking out broadband plans you want to share, do us all a favor: think about filing a public comment for the agency to consider.
For now, the FCC wants these labels to appear at “points of sale,” both online and in physical locations. That way, you should have all the detail needed to really think things through before signing a contract.
In its notice of proposed rulemaking, for example, the agency wonders whether it should require Internet service providers, or ISPs, to supply hard copies of these labels to customers in stores. Later, it floats the idea of including these labels in “bills or other communications about changes in service.”
That list of questions goes on for a while. What about on websites? At a minimum, the agency says it will propose that companies “disclose the labels of any broadband service presented to consumers on an ISP’s website when a consumer browses service options,” but there are lots of fine details to work out beyond that.
Should these companies have to display the labels prominently, or can they hide them behind a link you’ll need to click on? Where else on those websites should the labels be displayed? Should the FCC require internet providers to optimize their websites so that search engines can more easily find those labels?
Those are the kinds of practical matters that will need to be ironed out over the next few months. And as with the contents of these labels, the FCC is open to hearing your opinions on where they should go.
On one hand, transparency is a big deal. Seeing more clearly what your Internet plan does (and doesn’t) offer could make it easier for you to trim features and add-ons you don’t really need. That’s a plus. And if nothing else, it should give you a better understanding of why your bill costs as much as it does each month. That might inspire you to save money by, say, buying your own router or dropping to a less expensive plan with the same company.
Instead, they make do with the limited (and sometimes uncontested) options available to them in their towns and counties. The executive order President Biden signed in July to promote “competition in the American economy” noted that 200 million people in the United States “live in an area with only one or two reliable high-speed Internet providers.” Meanwhile, some reports suggest that close to half that number have access to just one ISP.
These new labels will make some people’s decisions easier, but there’s a limit to how helpful they can be when you know you’re stuck with the same internet company no matter what. | null | null | null | null | null |
This is the challenge, a sort of bizarro Watergate: What did the president know and when did he know it … from this galaxy of derangements aimed at keeping him in office? Where were legal boundaries crossed and who on Trump’s team, including himself, might have crossed them? Unlike in the investigation into President Richard Nixon, the issue isn’t unearthing nefarious activity. It’s figuring out which nefarious acts bear Trump’s fingerprints and how legally fraught they were.
But that culpability is not legal culpability, and the possible illegal acts of those working to advance his goals are not necessarily acts for which he bears responsibility. The United States is left in a weird position: knowing that a president tried to steal an election but unable to immediately figure out how to hold him accountable for doing so. | null | null | null | null | null |
“We had a great camp in Austin and now we need to see this group of players in game environments against highly motivated opponents,” Andonovski said in a statement. “Every player in the pool is focused on making the roster for World Cup and Olympic qualifying this summer, and every training session — and especially every match — is a means to that end for them and for the coaching staff. | null | null | null | null | null |
The South Lake Tahoe, Calif., native called the past year “an absolute nightmare” as she continued to compete during a pandemic and watched her hometown smolder in a wildfire. Anderson thought about not coming to the Beijing Olympics to compete for a third straight slopestyle gold medal. She’s a person who, in normal times, struggles with her relationship to the world, so much so that she agonizes about flying often because of how aircraft emissions impact the environment. But she decided that she needed to compete. At 31, this might her last Olympics moment.
“It was pretty challenging for myself,” Anderson said. “But at the end of the day, I felt really grateful and privileged to have this opportunity and use this platform to inspire young girls and athletes all over the world that with hard work and dedication, you can do anything.”
She’s the only woman to win a slopestyle gold in its Olympic history. Anderson won the sport’s debut in Sochi in 2014, and she repeated under dangerously windy conditions four years later at the PyeongChang Games. She stands as the most accomplished female slopestyle snowboarder ever. All the while, she has insisted on making her wellness as important as the results. She is an antidote for all the misguided beliefs about the crushing sacrifices that winners must make.
“I really believe that a lot of my success in sports, it’s not just being a physically strong and active snowboarder,” Anderson said during a pre-Olympics virtual event promoting Dakine outdoor apparel. “I really think it’s mind, body, spirit and aligning all those things together, because you can’t just be one thing. Like, in our sport, the ego takes such a big role and trying to be the best and trying to win. And ever since I was a little kid, my mom always ingrained in me and all my sisters and brothers to be humble, to never take anything for granted, and it’s okay to be confident, but you don’t want to be cocky.
She always brings her favorite book to events: “You Can Heal Your Life.” It’s the life-changing gift her mother gave her when she suffered a punctured spleen at age 17. As she lay in the hospital bed, Anderson started doing the mental work that keeps her in balance now.
As she steps onto the Olympic stage once again, Anderson is not an entertaining outlier. She is a model competitor, an example of how critical preventive care can be to a healthier sports environment. Here’s hoping she brought enough essential oil to share. | null | null | null | null | null |
Here are ISIS and al-Qaeda leaders killed in American strikes or raids
People check a destroyed house after an operation by the U.S. military in the Syrian village of Atmeh, in Syria's Idlib province, on Feb. 3. (Ghaith Alsayed/AP)
The operation targeted a two-story house in Syria’s rebel-held Idlib province, nearby residents said, recounting hearing gunfire and helicopters. Qurayshi detonated a bomb that killed himself and family members, U.S. officials told reporters. The U.S. force killed an Islamic State lieutenant and his wife.
The officials said the mission was planned for months. It took place as concerns mounted over the resurgence of the Islamic State and bore echoes of the U.S. operation in Idlib two years earlier that killed Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, al-Qurayshi’s predecessor.
Here’s a look at several past operations that targeted top ISIS and al-Qaeda leaders.
President Donald Trump announced in October 2019 that Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, then the Islamic State’s commander, had died during a U.S. military operation in Syria.
A U.S.-led military coalition drove the Islamic State from the last of its territory in March 2019 — but Baghdadi, who rarely appeared in public, remained at-large.
Trump later called Hamza bin Laden “the heir apparent to al-Qaeda,” and terrorism experts described him as an appealing figure to younger militants as al-Qaeda competed with the Islamic State for recruits.
When President Barack Obama took office in 2009, he instructed CIA Director Leon Panetta to make killing or capturing Osama bin Laden — whose organization carried out the 9/11 terrorist attacks — a top priority.
One of Bin Laden’s sons, Khaled, two of his brothers and one of his wives were also killed in the raid. Al-Qaeda confirmed the death several days later and vowed to avenge the slaying of bin Laden.
The Post later reported that the Central Intelligence Agency had used stealth drone aircraft to monitor the compound. The discovery of bin Laden in Pakistan raised questions in the United States about Pakistan’s reliability as a counterterrorism ally. Pakistan’s prime minister called the U.S. assault “a violation of sovereignty.”
Polls shortly after the raid showed widespread approval by the American public, and U.S. allies praised the operation. But rights groups and some lawyers questioned whether the killing was legally and ethically justifiable, arguing that U.S. forces should have attempted to capture bin Laden alive and put him on trial.
The raid and decade-long hunt for bin Laden were dramatized in the 2012 thriller “Zero Dark Thirty.” | null | null | null | null | null |
For Tesla, it’s the second recall in a matter of days after it said it would address the ‘rolling stop’ issue
Tesla vehicles lined up in Colma, Calif., on Jan. 26. (David Paul Morris/Bloomberg)
SAN FRANCISCO — Tesla is issuing a safety recall of more than 817,000 vehicles over faulty seat belt chimes, according to the top U.S. auto safety regulator, the second recall to come to light in a week.
Earlier this week The Washington Post reported that NHTSA was looking into a sharp increase in owner complaints over alleged “phantom braking,” where the vehicles suddenly slow because of perceived hazards detected by its perception systems. Tesla switched from a radar and camera system to a camera-based system in the middle of last year.
“Although automated driving and driver assistance systems have the potential to enhance safety, they must be implemented with strong safeguards that will ensure our cars follow the rules of the road and drivers are fully engaged,” they said. “We commend NHTSA for its ongoing work to investigate the situation and urge it to continue taking all appropriate action to protect all users of the road.”
The issue with the seat belt chimes has not led to any known injuries or deaths, according to the recall report. And when vehicles exceed 22 kilometers-per-hour, or about 13.7 mph, the seat belt warning will still chime, the report said. Meanwhile, a visual seat belt reminder continues to work properly, it said. | null | null | null | null | null |
The former Alaska governor claims the paper defamed her with a 2017 editorial that was later corrected, in a case that tests long-standing protections for publishers
Jury selection was set to begin on Jan. 24 in Sarah Palin's defamation lawsuit against the New York Times over a 2017 editorial. (Reuters)
Yet it’s also a perilous moment for the Times — and all news organizations. Trust in the media is at an all-time low, and partisan vitriol is on the rise, with the media often taking a beating. Any high-profile libel case can feel risky for the defendant, especially after recent arguments from two Supreme Court justices — Clarence Thomas and Neil M. Gorsuch — indicating that they would like to reexamine a landmark 1964 ruling that gives publications broad protections from libel claims of public figures.
The backlash was immediate, including from within the Times, according to exhibits filed in the case that include emails, texts and other internal communications.
The Times revised the editorial text online by deleting the phrases Bennet had inserted, including that “the link to political incitement was clear,” and added the sentence, “But no connection to that crime was ever established,” when describing the Loughner shooting and Palin’s PAC’s map.
The trial is a legal case, of course, but it is also one that delves into embarrassing journalistic breakdowns within the nation’s most influential newspaper. And whether the Times wins or loses, it could set in motion appeals that could undercut the media’s ability to report aggressively on public figures in the United States.
“It will be hard for the jury to entirely ignore the cultural and political context. Even though this case is several years old, the connection between violent political rhetoric and political violence continues to garner attention, as do right wing attacks on the press,” Zick said.
Regardless of all the issues surrounding the case, “the central issue and perhaps the only issue genuinely in dispute is the state of mind of Mr. Bennet,” Abrams said.
Alice Crites contributed research to this article. | null | null | null | null | null |
The new Kobe Bryant Trophy stands 31 inches tall, weighs approximately 15 pounds and features countless dual tributes to Bryant and the All-Star Game’s history. The trophy’s black base is composed of eight sides to represent Bryant’s early-career jersey number and the event’s eight decades of history. There are 18 stars along the base, one for each of Bryant’s all-star selections, and a “Cleveland 2022” logo is etched into the base’s underside. | null | null | null | null | null |
“We had a great camp in Austin and now we need to see this group of players in game environments against highly motivated opponents,” Andonovski said in a statement. “Every player in the pool is focused on making the roster for World Cup and Olympic qualifying this summer, and every training session — and especially every match — is a means to that end for them and for the coaching staff." | null | null | null | null | null |
This 2012 colorized electron microscope image made available by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases shows a single human immunodeficiency virus, center, as it was budding from a human immune cell, which the virus had infected, and within which the HIV virus had been replicated. According to a report published Thursday, Feb. 3, 2022 in the journal Science, researchers have found a previously unrecognized variant of HIV that’s more virulent than usual and quietly circulated in the Netherlands for the past few decades. (NIAID via AP) (Uncredited/NIAID) | null | null | null | null | null |
It’s another example of Republicans trying to maintain control in a pivotal battleground state that Democratic President Joe Biden won narrowly in 2020 and that elected two Democratic U.S. senators in 2021, giving Democrats control of that chamber. The local disputes follow a restrictive new voting law that lawmakers passed year, as well as a statewide redistricting effort aimed at giving Republicans another of Georgia's 14 congressional seats. | null | null | null | null | null |
U.S. Deputy Assistant Secretary Gabriel Escobar speaks during a joint press conference with European Union envoy in talks on normalizing relations between Serbia and Kosovo, Miroslav Lajcak, in Belgrade, Serbia, Thursday, Feb. 3, 2022. Both Serbia and Kosovo have been told they must find common ground in order to move forward in their bids to join the 27-nation bloc. The focus of their dispute is Kosovo’s 2008 declaration of independence from Serbia, which Belgrade refuses to recognize. (AP Photo/Darko Vojinovic)
By Ivana Bzganovic | AP
BELGRADE, Serbia — The European Union envoy in talks on normalizing relations between Serbia and Kosovo said Thursday he is “rather optimistic” that the next top-level meeting in the stalled EU-facilitated negotiations would result in some progress. | null | null | null | null | null |
Transcript: Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah)
MR. IGNATIUS: Welcome to Washington Post Live. I’m David Ignatius, a columnist for The Post. We have a special guest today, Senator Mitt Romney, senator from Utah, GOP presidential candidate in 2012, and now ranking Republican member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Senator Romney, thank you so much for joining Washington Post Live.
MR. ROMNEY: Thank you very much, David. Happy to join you. I wish I were the ranking member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, but I'm happy to be on the committee.
MR. IGNATIUS: Well, we’re happy to give you the battlefield promotion, and we'll wait for the future. We have a lot to discuss this morning, from Ukraine to China. But I want to begin with the surprise announcement this morning that U.S. Special Operations forces had killed overnight the leader of ISIS, Abu Ibrahim al-Qurashi. I'd be interested in hearing your reaction to President Biden's decision to authorize that strike.
MR. ROMNEY: Well, I think it was the right thing to do. There's no question but that ISIS continues to pose a threat to our friends and allies not only in the Middle East but in other parts of the world, that the battle against extremism and jihadism is one that's not finished. It will go on as long as they continue to attack and to maim and kill. And so removing their commander, the head of ISIS, is obviously a huge accomplishment. It’s to be congratulated. And of course, we look at the members of our military that carried out this strike, and you have to acknowledge their extraordinary bravery and their skill.
MR. IGNATIUS: Senator, let's turn to Ukraine. Members of Congress are said to have had a briefing today from administration officials about the situation. Tell us what you can about the current status of the military threat, about the status of diplomatic efforts to avert an invasion. What did you hear today that you can share with our listeners?
MR. ROMNEY: Well, first of all, the director of National Intelligence and the secretary of State, secretary of Defense, and chairman of the Joint Chiefs described the intelligence that that we have with regards to the region. And I would just note that the peril has not been overstated, that the risk to Ukraine, to its leadership, and to the people there is real, and that we are right to be focused on it. And I can't be more specific than that. I should not be more specific than that.
At the same time, I think it's important that we recognize that the only way we're going to deter Russia from its attempt to try and rebuild, if you will, parts of the old Soviet Union, in terms of a sphere of influence, is to let them know that we as not just the United States of America but we as NATO and our friends and allies around the world will continue to insist that Russia and China abide by the rules-based international order. And part of that is you don't invade sovereign nations. You let individuals choose their own course in their nations. And what Russia is attempting to do in Ukraine is unacceptable. And we will carry out various sanctions and punishments if they violate the rules that have been guiding the world for the last 75 years.
MR. IGNATIUS: Senator, based on what you heard today and what you know from following the situation closely, do you believe that President Putin is likely to invade Ukraine?
MR. ROMNEY: I think he has every opportunity and is fully prepared to invade. I've never tried to get inside the mind of Vladimir Putin. So, I don't know what his intentions are. But there are a number of things that are possibilities. One is that he intends to invade. Another is that he wanted to test NATO and see whether we're able to be pulled apart. What he found instead is that we are able to come together. NATO is stronger, I think, by virtue of his threats. And that's a good thing, because we need our allies and friends, not only as we confront Russia in Europe, but also as we consider China and their expansive interests around the world. So, he failed on that front.
And then I think you have to ask whether, you know, he's going to take military action there or some other type of action. I don't know the answer to that. But I can tell you that based upon the briefings we've had, that the very real threat is not overstated and that we should be prepared in the event that there is an invasion.
MR. ROMNEY: Let me ask you to assess President Biden's handling of this crisis. The president's latest move with NATO allies was to order a forward deployment of 3,000 American troops, some from Germany, some coming from the U.S., to frontline NATO countries. That's the latest in a series of what have been fairly tough-minded responses. How would you assess his performance?
MR. ROMNEY: Well, the first part of his performance is to engage on a diplomatic front and to sit down and talk with Putin or his emissaries and to understand what they say they want. I have to acknowledge that the only time Putin is lying is if his lips are moving. So, you have to take whatever is being said at these diplomatic meetings with a very large grain of salt. Nonetheless, Secretary Blinken and other members of the administration have done a dutiful job negotiating with the Russians, but also a heroic job linking with our allies, and making sure that Russia understands it's not just the U.S. but it's all of us that have come together.
And then on the military front, I think it's important to point out we're not going to go to war with Russia. We're not going to enter into a battle. I mean, sending over 3,000 or 5,000 or 10,000 troops is not going to be in any way sufficient to go into war with a superpower or a major power, Russia, on their continent. That's not going to happen.
But sending those troops as the president has done sends a message to our allies. It says to our allies, we care. We are there for you. We are there for NATO. This is important to us. That's what it does.
It also sends a message to Russia that we are united as NATO, and that we will stand with our NATO allies. We will stand by the commitments we've made to NATO. So that's what's being done. And I think it's the right step on the president's part. Whether those troops should be supplemented or not, those are questions which General Milley and Secretary Austin will have to resolve. But that message is being sent, and that's appropriate.
MR. IGNATIUS: And I hear you giving the Biden team pretty high marks for working with NATO, working with our allies to make sure that we have a unified response. Am I getting that right?
MR. ROMNEY: Yeah, you do get that right. And you know, there's a perception I think that a lot of us have that are a little older that somehow what America wants, we ought to be able just to ask for and everybody will fall in line. But the world is different than it was in the 1960s. In 1960, the U.S. was responsible for 40 percent of the economy of the entire world. Forty percent. Today it's 24 percent. And for us to have the capacity to, if you will, get nations like Russia and China to abide by the rules of the international order, we really do need to link arms with other economies in the world. And whether those are economies in the East, or whether they’re economies in Europe or Latin America, it is important for us to have a collaborative response. And so whether you're concerned about Russia, or concerned about China, or any other malevolent actor, it's important for us to be aligned with our friends, because that gives us more clout and makes it more likely that people will take what we have to say more seriously.
MR. IGNATIUS: So, Senator, you've been warning about the threat from Russia for a long time. Back in the 2012 presidential campaign, you took some flak from President Obama during one of the debates because you describe Russia as our number-one geopolitical foe. Obama claimed that was 1980s thinking, putting you down. But I have to say, it looks pretty solid in retrospect. I want to ask you whether you think that politicians from both parties have taken their eye off the Russian threat and ask in particular about people in the Republican Party’s--especially former President Trump, who have sometimes seemed to be minimizing the Russian threat.
MR. ROMNEY: Yeah, I think it’s very possible to minimize the threat because things have been going along pretty well for the last few decades with the exception of Russia’s invasion of Georgia and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine to take Crimea. So they’ve shown who they are and recognize the incentives here, which is Russia has a population about, what, about one-tenth the size of China. Russia wants to be a superpower. It wants to be at the--in the room where it happens, if you will. And so it wants more population. It wants more economic base. Look, we don’t buy anything from Russia other than energy. No one does. And their industrial base is just not competitive. So they’re looking for a stronger industrial base, a stronger population base. And so they’re looking at the old Soviet empire, and they want to rebuild part of the Soviet Union, perhaps not with the same title on it but with the same economic and military potential. So that’s just the reality. John McCain used to say that Russia was a gas station parading as a country. They want to change that. And so you can expect Vladimir Putin to continue to take aggressive action, one, to strengthen his hand; and number two, to weaken ours. And so what I said back in 2012 was based on those things, which is Russia will continue to poke us in the eye to support anything or anyone who opposes our interests, to throw sand in the gears of the international order. Everything they can do to try and weaken us and strengthen them is something they’re going to do.
Will we be at war with Russia? No. They don’t want to be at war any more than we do, and we’re a heck of a lot stronger, anyway. But they’re going to do what they think we need to do to try and strengthen their hand. And we have to say to them, look, if you do that on a legitimate basis and try and win hearts and minds of people, that’s fine. But if you invade others or you use illegal means to change leadership in other nations, why that’s something which is going to be an open door to other malevolent actors, and that’s simply not acceptable. And those things inevitably lead to global conflict as they have in our past.
MR. IGNATIUS: Senator, do you think that other Republicans, most Republicans in Congress will end up supporting you, the position that you just outlined, and President Biden, who has a similar view on this crisis, and that we'll have some political unity behind what the U.S. does? What's your judgement about that?
MR. ROMNEY: I do believe that Senator Risch, who is the ranking member of the Foreign Relations Committee, and Senator Menendez, a Democrat of that committee, will come together with a piece of legislation which talks about the sanctions that will be applied on Russia. I think there is broad support for standing with our friends and showing full commitment to the rules-based international order. I think that's real.
At the same time, there will inevitably be some people who, if you will, carry out the performance politics that we've seen from time to time, and try and win some political points. And they may very well believe those points entirely from their own conscience, which is their right to do. But so we're not going to have 100 percent unity by any means. But I believe that the great majority of Republicans in the Senate, at least, will be convinced that we should be committed to NATO, that we should be committed to our involvement in the world.
I mean, I hope people understand that the reason we're involved in the world, the reason we have troops all over the world, the reason that we are engaged around the world is in our own interest. We don't just do this because we care about everybody in the world, though we do. We care about America. And you know, I used to laugh at the phrase "America First." It's been America first for the last 75 years. We've been involved in the world, investing in the world, to try and keep the world peaceful, and to make it a place where we're able to sell goods and services so that our people can do well financially. So that's been the reason we've been involved in the world, and it continues to be a reason for that involvement.
MR. IGNATIUS: One more question about Ukraine before we turn to other subjects. I'm curious, Senator, whether you would support some of the diplomatic proposals that have leaked in the last few days that are attempts by the United States to see if there's some way to deescalate this crisis. Two in particular involve mutual inspection of missile facilities on both sides. The Russians could look at missiles in Ukraine with some reciprocity. Another is a U.S. guarantee that American troops wouldn't be stationed in Ukraine, regardless of the NATO membership issue. And similarly, that Russian troops wouldn't be in Ukraine either. Would you support measures like that as part of a diplomatic package?
MR. ROMNEY: I think it's appropriate to consider measures which we feel are in our interest, and in the interest of global peace and in the interest of the security of Ukraine and other nations in the region. But at the same time, I think it's very important that we don't agree to changes or conditions as a result of being pressured by Russia putting 100,000 troops on the border of a nation. So this is not a time for us to agree to things that we wouldn't otherwise have agreed to.
So I think it's--I mean, we have the old statement, which is you don't negotiate with terrorists. And I'm not calling Russia a terrorist necessarily. But I do say that when you have 100,000 troops on the border and ships amassing in the Black Sea, and you're giving every indication of the readiness for an invasion, you don't sit down with those people and say, hey, what would you like? That's the wrong approach. It'll just be met with that happening time and time again.
MR. IGNATIUS: So just want to make sure I'm clear on this. Are you saying that we shouldn't be offering diplomatic proposals, written responses to Russian proposals, until Russian troops are removed from their current positions near the border?
MR. ROMNEY: Well, there's been a report, for instance, that Russia is insisting that we commit that Ukraine will never be a member of NATO. Well, that's not something we're going to do. That--they're, if you will, showing military might to try and exact a commitment of that nature, which is simply unacceptable to America. It violates our principles. No, we won't do that.
Are there other things that we might agree to, that we would otherwise have agreed to, and that are mutual interests, such as, you know, we get to inspect yours, and you get to inspect ours? Hey, that's, that's fair game. But so those discussions are appropriate and are ongoing. But exceeding to demands as a result of Russia's military buildup is not the right course to take. And I doubt the administration will go in that path anyway.
MR. IGNATIUS: So let's turn to several other issues, starting with China. You've been a strong critic warning about growing Chinese military power. I want to ask whether you worry that with so much focus on Ukraine, we may be in danger of losing focus on what many people think is a--is a bigger long-term strategic threat to the United States coming from China. What's your sense about that?
MR. ROMNEY: Well, China is a much greater threat to the global order and to the United States than is Russia. That doesn't mean we can't pay attention to more than one thing at a time. And we are, after all, a great nation with a lot of very good people. And China represents a real challenge as a--as a result of a number of things. One is its economy is going to be much larger than ours at some point, and their military will therefore be much larger than ours. We haven't encountered anything like that, at least in the last 75 years, because when we were battling the Soviet Union in a cold war, they were economically a backwater. But China is going to be a very powerful nation--economically, technologically, and militarily. China has also laid out a very clear game plan as to what they want to accomplish over the next--well over the next 50 years. And we have to read it and be convinced that they intend to do what they say they intend to do, which is to become the world leader, militarily, economically and geopolitically. And they also are threatening a very key group of people who--in Taiwan. So, we have to recognize that China long term is a much greater threat to the global order even than the geopolitical machinations of Vladimir Putin.
MR. IGNATIUS: So, you mentioned Taiwan, which is the obvious flashpoint between us and China. Last Thursday, China's new ambassador to the United States warned that the U.S. could face a military conflict, in his words, with China over Taiwan. There's a longstanding argument about whether the United States should be explicit about its willingness to defend Taiwan of attack. President Biden recently, after some contradictory language, reaffirmed the U.S. policy of what is called strategic ambiguity, not saying exactly what we would do. What's your judgment about whether we ought to be explicit about our willingness to defend Taiwan?
MR. IGNATIUS: I think ambiguity is the right course with regards to our military commitment. At the same time, I think it's very important for China to recognize that our economic response, and that of our allies and friends around the world, would be withering if China were to invade or otherwise take over the island of Taiwan and the people there. And it's one of the reasons why I think it's important for us to be clear in our response to what Russia is doing in Ukraine, because obviously China's watching as well. And so people who say, hey, why do we care about Ukraine, you know, let's just forget Ukraine, it's like, guys, recognize we care about not just Ukraine but Taiwan and other places in the world, Hong Kong, and so forth. And showing resolve is critical in each of these places.
So yeah, be very, very clear about the economic implications that we and others would impose on China were there to be malevolent activity by China against Taiwan. But on a military front, that's something I think you keep in our back pocket and have the Chinese uncertain as to exactly what we would do.
MR. IGNATIUS: So last question about China, the Winter Olympic Games begin in a matter of hours. You have urged other countries to support a diplomatic boycott, but not an athletes’ boycott of the Games. I'm curious what you think about athletes speaking out about political issues while they're in Beijing. Chinese officials have given stern warnings against any such political comments. What do you think? Is that something that's appropriate for athletes at an Olympics, or not?
MR. ROMNEY: Well, the International Olympic Committee should have never awarded the Games to Beijing. Now, in the defense of the IOC, Beijing has put in place a number of even more awful actions since the Games were awarded there. But the laws in China, which prohibit any criticism of the CCP, of the Communist Chinese Party, make it unacceptable for athletes to be in that setting.
But we are where we are. These athletes have trained their entire lives to be able to be in Olympic Games, and so there they are there. But for their own personal safety, they're going to have to make sure they abide by Chinese law. And it's outrageous that they're put in that position.
But there are ways that they can make their feelings known. And I know I've read a number of articles and spoken with individuals about the kinds of actions being considered by athletes. They have to obviously make sure they're following Chinese law. But look, we can't have the International Olympic Committee awarding Games to authoritarian states that use the Olympics as a platform for propaganda and which threaten the free speech rights of our athletes. That simply can't happen again.
MR. IGNATIUS: So, I want to turn to several political issues before we have to end our discussion, starting with the question of the Senate's vote on confirming a nominee when that nominee is selected to replace Justice Breyer. President Biden has said he intends to nominate a Black woman for that seat. He's gotten some criticism from Republicans for that. What's your judgment about making explicit that commitment? Does it trouble you?
MR. ROMNEY: I don't have a problem with that. There are 54 Black women who are federal judges. Surely among those 54, there must be more than one that would be qualified to be on the Supreme Court. We--I know we want the best and brightest but there were a lot of best and brightest across our entire country, and I think it would be a positive thing to have an African American woman on the Supreme Court helping represent our--the diversity of our nation. And I hope he's able to find a person that I can end up supporting.
MR. IGNATIUS: Let's talk finally about where our country is these days. You were among the first Republicans to congratulate Joe Biden on his election victory. You made a statement on November 7. Some polls show that the majority of Republicans still more than a year later don't accept that Joe Biden won the election fairly. And I wonder what you say to them as a fellow Republican and whether you worry about a party in which so many people are denying what you viewed as a fact so soon after the election? What do you--what do you say to your fellow Republicans?
MR. ROMNEY: Well, I scratched my head a bit, to tell you the truth, David, because the argument that somehow Joe Biden didn't win is not bolstered by any facts. It's been--it's been a year almost--well, more than a year. There's been no evidence put forward that suggests Joe Biden didn't win. And so at some point, you’ve got to put up the evidence. And it's pretty clear when President Trump said even before the election that it was going to be fraudulent if he didn't win, and then on the day of the election said that there have been irregularities and that he had really won when, of course, he had no such information. The FBI didn't give it to him. Justice Department didn't give them to him. States didn't tell him that. He was hearing just the opposite. And he's continued to speak about it since. So, you know, I recognize that members of my party are listening to sources that continue to tell them that he won the election and perhaps a sort of a badge of honor to say, yeah, I believe that. But frankly, I think democracy requires people to hear the truth, and ultimately, to support the truth.
Look, more important than who wins an election is that we have elections, and that we have democracy. And right now, in the world, authoritarian regimes are on the march, are gaining ground. Democracy is retreating. And it is simply unacceptable for the leader of the free world to be casting doubt on the reliability of elections, and democracy itself. So, it's important for me and for other members of my party, and for people of good faith in all parties to come forward and tell the truth and then move on. And by the way, if we want to see a Republican in the White House again, go to work to get someone elected. But spreading untruth about the last election doesn't help anybody.
MR. IGNATIUS: So last question, and we're running out of time, but I want to make sure that I put this to you. A year after the January 6th attack on the Capitol, you said the following: "We ignore the lessons of January 6th at our own peril. Democracy is fragile. It cannot survive without leaders of integrity and character who care more about the strength of our republic than about winning the next election." So, I want to ask you--you’ve spent much of your life in public service--for a quick summary of what you think it's going to take to fix what in so many ways is a broken political system.
MR. ROMNEY: Well, I wish I had a quick answer to that, David, and I--and I don't. You know, I have a chart on the wall in my office that looks at the history of the Earth going back 2000 BC until now and looking at the coming and going of various great civilizations, and there have been many that have come and gone. There are a couple of striking things. One, how many were great, and then cease being great. And the other is that virtually all of them were led by autocrats. Autocratic rule is the--if you will, the default setting of world history. And so this democratic republic as a principle is something which is unusual, and it's fragile. And I think, you know, we grew up with it and think it's got to be this way forever.
Actually, looking at the history of the world, it doesn't have to be this way forever. And so I--you know, I really look to leaders here in Washington and in homes and churches and schools and everywhere, to say, look, disagree with one another. But recognize, nonetheless, in these disagreements, that we respect one another, that we respect the Constitution upon which America was founded. The principles of America are right for us and right for people around the world if they want to enjoy prosperity and happiness.
And you know, if you look, again, at world history, nations that began to slide, there been a couple of cases where they've been able to turn around, and they turned around in part because of either some crisis that shook them to their roots, or because of a leader that stood up and was able to pull them together, whether it was Lincoln, or Churchill, or even the four great emperors in Rome. There have been people who've been--who've come forward at a critical time. And I look to our presidents, Republican and Democrat, to bring us together, and hope they will be successful in helping do that.
MR. IGNATIUS: Senator Mitt Romney, thank you so much for joining us on Washington Post Live. It's really great to have you. We hope you'll come back and talk to us again.
MR. ROMNEY: Thanks, David. All the best to you.
MR. IGNATIUS: So please consult our list of great speakers coming up. Go to WashingtonPostLive.com to register for our programming ahead. Thank you especially for joining our conversation today with Senator Mitt Romney. | null | null | null | null | null |
D.C. Mayor Muriel E. Bowser (D) said she hasn’t yet read the lawsuit, though she plans to, so she can’t comment on its allegations specifically.
In an interview, Denise Krepp, an advisory neighborhood commissioner for Hill East whose name allegedly appeared on the list, said the D.C. Council should act on the lawsuit’s allegations.
“I’m a locally elected official,” she said. “I asked for information, and they asked me to pay for it … That’s why I’m on a blacklist? Because I’m doing oversight?” | null | null | null | null | null |
Man fatally shot inside Northeast Washington apartment building
D.C. police have identified a man who was fatally shot Tuesday inside an apartment building in the Edgewood neighborhood of Northeast Washington.
Police said Matthew Murphy, 31, of Northeast was found shot about 2:30 p.m. in the building in the 2300 block of Fourth Street NE, near Rhode Island Avenue. He was pronounced dead at the scene.
No arrest has been made. A police report lists an argument as a possible motive but does not elaborate. The report says police found a Glock handgun at the scene with its serial number scratched off.
It was the second fatal shooting in two months in the same building.
On Dec. 10, police said, 34-year-old Davon Childs of Hyattsville was found dead from a gunshot wound in a hallway. Police said a second man also was shot and was treated at a hospital for injuries that were not life-threatening.
No arrest has been made in that killing.
Police said they do not know whether the two shootings are related. | null | null | null | null | null |
Phillips and others named in the suit sought records from D.C. police related to some of the most controversial issues in policing, including alleged brutality by officers and D.C.'s stop-and-frisk policy.
In 2019, for example, Phillips attended a hearing for a D.C. police officer who allegedly “conducted unnecessarily invasive genital searches,” the lawsuit said. When Phillips sought a transcript of the hearing she had attended, it was denied in less than 90 minutes, according to the suit.
“That was wrong, and it was strange,” the suit said. “Usually, MPD takes weeks or months to provide any substantive response.”
Other FOIA issues appeared related to politics. In another case discussed in the suit, a reporter sought police records after an employee of Mayor Muriel E. Bowser (D) was “involved in a drunken altercation after an office party in the Mayor’s office building” in 2018.
Parker flagged this request, the suit said, and the mayor’s office was consulted. The reporter eventually received two copies of the records — a copy redacted by the D.C. police FOIA office and an unredacted copy directly from the police district.
Bowser said Thursday that she hasn’t read the lawsuit, though she plans to, so she can’t comment on its allegations specifically.
In an interview, Denise Krepp, an advisory neighborhood commissioner for Hill East whose name allegedly appeared on the list, said the D.C. Council should act on the lawsuit’s allegations. She said she laughed when she received a bill for more than $5,300 from D.C. police after filing a records request.
“I’m a locally elected official,” Krepp, who did not pay the bill, said. “I asked for information, and they asked me to pay for it. … That’s why I’m on a blacklist? Because I’m doing oversight?” | null | null | null | null | null |
The Senate Judiciary Committee advanced legislation forcing Apple and Google to allow people to download apps outside of their stores
On Thursday, The Senate Judiciary Committee advanced legislation that would force Apple and Google to allow people to download apps outside of their stores, and allow them to install alternative stores. The bill, called the Open Markets Act, had overwhelming bipartisan support, passing on a 20-2 vote.
Apple has marshalled the goodwill it built in Washington on privacy and security to bat back the competition push. The company sent a seven-page letter Wednesday to the top lawmakers on the Judiciary Committee, arguing the app store bill would harm consumers’ privacy and security. In the letter, viewed by The Washington Post, the company bashed the data collection practices of “large social media platforms.”
The letter came the same day that Meta, the parent company of Facebook, reported the iPhone maker’s new privacy policies that limit data collection through apps are causing significant headwinds for its business. Meta CFO David Wehner estimated on the company’s earnings call that the change could cost the company $10 billion in 2022.
During less than two hours of debate on the legislation, the committee adopted an amendment to address some of the privacy concerns that the tech industry and some members of Congress voiced.
Sens. Dianne Feinstein and Alex Padilla, both California Democrats, raised concerns about the legislation. Feinstein said she worried that the scope of the bill was too limited, targeting only a handful of tech giants. Padilla said he strongly supported the goals of the bill, but warned of unintended consequences on user privacy and hate speech.
But both Democrats ultimately voted to support the legislation. The only dissent in the room came from Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas), who argued multiple Senate Judiciary antitrust subcommittee hearings were not enough without a full Judiciary Committee airing. Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.), who voted by proxy, changed his vote to a no following the session, after he was initially recorded as supporting the bill due to a staff error.
Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.), one of the bipartisan sponsors of the app store legislation, said the bill now includes protections for privacy and against malware.
“These tech giants’ self-serving appeals to privacy and security fall apart on even passing scrutiny,” he said in a statement to The Post. “These companies relentlessly use consumer information to make money, without regard for consumer privacy.”
Apple’s opponents celebrated Thursday’s vote to advance similar legislation in the United States as a “historic step” toward restoring competition online. | null | null | null | null | null |
A man walks in front of the Kremlin's Spasskaya Tower and St. Basil's Cathedral in Moscow on Feb. 3. (Alexander Nemenov/AFP/Getty Images)
As the Biden administration pursues diplomatic options to prevent a Russian invasion of Ukraine, officials have loudly talked up a favored tool of coercive foreign policy: sanctions.
The economically “devastating” sanctions President Biden has threatened could make the projected cost of war so steep, it should make Russian President Vladimir Putin rethink any plans to attack, officials have said.
But analysts caution that the deterrent power of even the most hard-hitting measures is only as strong as the United States and its allies are explicit and unified about the consequences of invasion. And so far, some say, that clarity and unanimity are lacking.
U.S. and allies debate the intelligence on how quickly Putin will order a Ukraine invasion-or whether he will at all
Disagreements over whether to impose sanctions on a significant number of Russian officials and entities now — as opposed to waiting for Russia to attack — have complicated action in the U.S. Senate, where Democrats and Republicans have been negotiating an agreement to impose some mandatory sanctions on Russia. And though the Biden administration has stressed that planned sanctions would target at least some of Russia’s largest state-owned banks, they have been reticent to name which ones specifically.
The debate is not surprising, analysts say: Though sanctions have become a common tool of American foreign policy, the United States has never attempted to wield this level of punitive economic measures against an economy as large and intertwined with Europe’s as Russia’s is. There is also reason to believe there will be painful spillover effects, particularly in Europe and for international corporations. But, some caution, the United States has no choice but to make a decision about what it will target and communicate it clearly to Russia — and to do so soon.
“Once the tanks are rolling, the game is over,” said Edward Fishman, a former State Department official who worked on Russia sanctions policy during the Obama administration and is now at the Center for a New American Security. “No foreign leader, least of all Vladimir Putin, is going to put his tail between his legs and go back. There’s a narrow window … and I think that window is before a decision to invade has been made.”
Administration officials have said they have a twin set of measures ready to go as soon as the first shots are fired. One is a package of financial sanctions against some of Russia’s largest banks. The second involves export controls that would aim to starve some of Russia’s strategic industries of key components, such as semiconductors — nearly all of which are made or designed with U.S. equipment or software.
U.S. threatens use of novel export control to damage Russia's strategic industries if Moscow invades Ukraine
“What we want Putin to understand is that they’re going to face through those two mechanisms — a set of financial sanctions and export controls — a level of economic damage that they just haven’t felt before,” said a senior administration official who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the matter’s sensitivity.
Moscow has mostly dismissed the threats.
“We’ve been sanctioned so many times that we’ve lost count,” Russian Ambassador to the United Nations Vasily Nebenzya said this week. “We’ve learned to live with it. It will not harm Russia only if implemented … It will backfire, and we will respond.”
U.S. policymakers are aware that the many of the sanctions that could most hurt Russia would have a disproportionate knock-on effect on Europe, risking a rift with European capitals that plays into Putin’s hand. That dynamic led to weaker U.S. sanctions following Russia’s 2014 annexation of Crimea, when the Obama administration put a premium on forging a united transatlantic front.
For that reason, the Biden administration is focused first on measures that it believes have European buy-in, such as banking sanctions — though not all countries may target the same banks — and export controls.
“We and our allies have a full range of high-impact sanctions ready to go, both immediately after a Russian invasion and in waves to follow,” National Security Council spokesperson Emily Horne said.
Some analysts also are skeptical, though, that the administration’s sanctions will alter Putin’s calculus.
“I find it hard to believe that any plausible sanctions package, even one that is significantly more painful than what was implemented beginning in 2014, will deter Putin,” said Samuel Charap, a Russia specialist at the Rand Corp. No economic measure, he added, “would create more pain” for Putin “than the geopolitical pain of ‘losing Ukraine’” to the West.
Asked about the threat of sanctions, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov on Wednesday said Moscow has “contingency plans — risk-hedging plans and plans to minimize [the] consequences of … unpredictable steps.”
Why it's not so easy to slap sanctions on Vladimir Putin
Alexander Gabuev, a senior fellow with the Carnegie Moscow Center, notes that Russia has foreign currency reserves of at least $630 billion.
But the reserves can be depleted, experts said. Successive waves of sanctions in 2014 and a collapse in oil prices led to a steep drop in the value of the ruble, forcing Russia to draw down its reserves by roughly a third to prop up the currency. “If there’s a crisis, money goes really fast — as it did in 2014,” said Brian O’Toole, a former senior Treasury official who worked on the Ukraine-related sanctions. “They have a bigger reserve to start with today. But that’s not a guarantee it won’t go fast this time, too.”
The administration believes that banking sanctions, probably imposed in the first wave, will impose a heavy upfront cost to the Russian economy, said a person familiar with the administration’s deliberations who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the sensitive matter. “They’ll trigger capital flight, and probably a near term decline in the value of the ruble,” the person said. “They’ll likely drive up Russian inflation.”
Such sanctions will effectively cut off the targeted banks from the Western banking system, or all banks that clear transactions in dollars. “Ninety-nine point nine percent of dollar transactions around the world are cleared through New York,” said O’Toole. Any transaction — including one in euros — that passes through an American bank would be barred.
The United States is expecting unity with the Europeans on these sanctions — at least on messaging. Whether the Europeans impose their own sanctions on the same banks, in practice, O’Toole said, no major European bank is going to transact with a Russian bank subject to sanctions for fear of getting cut off from the U.S. banking system. “They all need dollars,” he said, “so they’re not going to cross that line.”
The administration warns the sanctions it is developing are much weightier than those imposed in 2014, which, among other things, restricted access to capital markets for state-owned banks and Rosneft, a major Russian energy company. Those steps may have reduced Russia’s economic growth by 2.5 to 3 percent a year, according to an Atlantic Council report.
Some former U.S. officials contend the sanctions led Putin to agree to a 2015 peace deal for eastern Ukraine known as Minsk II, though that deal has never been fully implemented. The Obama administration could have ratcheted them up after it became clear in 2016 that the Russians weren’t upholding their end of the deal, said Daniel Fried, then State Department coordinator for sanctions policy.
“In retrospect,” said Fried, “maybe we should have.”
Amid Ukraine invasion scare, U.S. and Europe lean on sanctions threat to stop Putin
The United States and Britain also are threatening sanctions against Russian elites and their families that would cut off their access to Western banks, and bar them from traveling in the West.
Energy sanctions have not been ruled out, said a person familiar with the administration’s planning. though they are not likely in any first wave.
Some analysts said that Russia’s belief that the United States won’t impose an embargo on energy exports because of the effect it would have on Europe has shored up its confidence it can weather other punishments. Over the last decade, oil and gas accounted for more than 40 percent on average of the government’s annual revenue. And energy prices are surging.
“It’s very hard to imagine the West employing a partial embargo on Russian oil and gas sales right now when prices are so high,” said Gabuev. “Cutting Russian oil and gas out of the market will send prices into the stratosphere and Putin knows that very well.”
On Capitol Hill, Democrats and Republicans say they are close to a compromise bill that would combine mandatory and discretionary sanctions. The prospective deal includes mandatory sanctions against senior Russian military, diplomatic and intelligence officials, as well as instructions to impose sanctions on Russian banks in the event of an invasion, they say. But lawmakers appear to be stopping short of explicitly ordering Biden to punish giants such as Sberbank, VTB and Gazprombank, which would have the greatest impact. Instead, they are giving him instructions to select a few banks from a list of about a dozen.
The two parties disagree, however, over how many Russian officials and banks should face immediate sanctions The GOP wants to impose immediate sanctions against a number of smaller banks, as well as senior government officials and oligarchs, to show that the United States is willing to flex its muscles. But Democrats and the White House worry that acting too harshly before an invasion will weaken the deterrent effect of the overall measures.
The final agreement is likely to include preinvasion measures against a handful of Russian defense officials and oligarchs, as well as at least one smaller bank considered critical to the defense sector, officials said. All preinvasion sanctions probably would carry a national security waiver, meaning Biden could decline to impose them.
Robyn Dixon and Mary Ilyushina in Moscow and Michael Birnbaum, Steven Mufson and Karen DeYoung in Washington contributed to this article. | null | null | null | null | null |
President Biden removes his mask before speaking Jan. 11 in Atlanta.
Then came omicron, which undercut our existing tools for combating the virus. Cloth masks weren’t as effective against it and the variant was better able to infect even the vaccinated. Case totals surged, breaking the scale of what we’d come to expect from daily infections. And while it’s beneficial that omicron appears to be less likely to lead to serious illness and that, as Centers for Disease Control and Prevention research shows, the vaccines continue to provide protection against sickness and death, the sheer scale of infections has had a massive toll. On Wednesday, the seven-day average of deaths was over 2,500 — among the deadliest days of the pandemic.
In other words, achieve the desired policy outcome of getting the country past the pandemic not by stamping out the virus but by treating it as though it has been.
The first is the hope that perhaps the combination of vaccination and massive infections from omicron will provide enough protection to achieve something like herd immunity. (One former Biden aide sees Florida in a few months as a test of this theory.)
The phrasing there is interesting. The alternative to “move on” isn’t “hunker down, closing businesses and schools” — something that isn’t happening to any significant degree anyway in the country at this point. Instead, “move on” appears to be a broader expression of the (bipartisan!) frustration at the pandemic in general. We should continue to try to limit the spread of the virus vs. to heck with it.
Officials who spoke with Cancryn “described plans for a more subtle shift over the next several weeks toward touting Biden’s achievements in rolling out vaccines and treatments and emphasizing the everyday things that people can do again if they’re vaccinated.” In other words, not only responding to where people are but persuading Democrats to relax their concerns. | null | null | null | null | null |
Bill Fitch, Hall of Fame NBA coach, dies at 89
Boston Celtics coach Bill Fitch in 1981. (AP)
Bill Fitch, who guided the Boston Celtics to the 1981 National Basketball Association championship during a Hall of Fame coaching career spanning three decades, died Feb. 2 in Conroe, Tex. He was 89.
Indiana Pacers coach Rick Carlisle announced the death, citing Mr. Fitch’s daughter, Marcy Ann Coville. The cause was not immediately known.
Mr. Fitch, a two-time NBA coach of the year, was a head coach for 25 seasons, starting with the expansion Cleveland Cavaliers in 1970. He was Larry Bird’s first pro coach with Boston in 1979, won a title with the Celtics two years later and spent time leading the Houston Rockets, New Jersey Nets and Los Angeles Clippers.
He had his greatest success in Boston, but he may be best remembered for his early seasons in Cleveland. His team won just 15 games in his first season, then made the playoffs in 1976. The Cavaliers knocked off the Washington Bullets in the playoffs in what became known as the “Miracle of Richfield” (after Cleveland’s Richfield Coliseum). The Cavaliers then lost to Boston in the Eastern Conference finals, but Mr. Fitch was named the NBA’s coach of the year.
Mr. Fitch was hired by the Celtics in 1979, the same year Bird arrived in Boston. The team was coming off the two worst seasons in the famed franchise’s history. In Mr. Fitch’s first season, the Celtics went 61-21, then won the NBA championship the following year by beating the Rockets in six games.
Mr. Fitch had a 242-86 record in his four seasons in Boston.
He went from there to Houston for five seasons (1983 to 1988), taking the Rockets to the Finals in 1986 with a team powered by Hakeem Olajuwon and Ralph Sampson.
In 1989, Mr. Fitch joined the Nets and took a young team that won just 17 games in his first season to 40 victories and a playoff berth in his third year. He wrapped up his coaching odyssey with the woebegone Clippers, leading them to the playoffs in his third season before retiring in 1998.
Mr. Fitch, whose had a 944-1,106 record, was elected to the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame in 2019.
William Charles Fitch was born in May 19, 1932, Davenport, Iowa. He graduated in 1954 from Coe College in Iowa, where he began his head coaching career. Before coaching in the NBA, he was a college head coach at Minnesota, Bowling Green and North Dakota, where one of his players was Phil Jackson, who went on to win 10 NBA titles as a coach.
Information about survivors was not available. | null | null | null | null | null |
To those measures of success we would add a third: Apparently, U.S. personnel completed the raid with few civilian casualties. Indeed, it seems that Mr. Qurayshi died at his own hand, detonating a bomb rather than fight Americans — or surrender to them — killing much of his family. Mr. Baghdadi similarly killed himself and others as U.S. troops closed in on him during a raid in 2019. Eyewitness reports confirmed official U.S. reports that civilians were warned to exit the targeted building and that some were escorted to safety by U.S. troops. This would represent a courageous effort to protect innocent life — even at the risk to Americans lives — and, as such, a welcome change from the disastrous U.S. drone strike on a supposed terrorist in Kabul last August, which killed 10 civilians.
The raid on Mr. Qurayshi exemplified Mr. Biden’s preferred approach to global terror groups: containing them via “over the horizon” strikes and local allied forces rather than through long-term U.S. ground commitments such as the one he terminated in Afghanistan in August. It does not, by itself, vindicate that approach. To the contrary, the defeat of the Islamic State’s dangerous prison assault demonstrated the wisdom of keeping roughly 900 U.S. troops in Syria to support the Kurds, as Mr. Biden has quietly decided to do. The president has his hands full with deterring Russia in Ukraine and the longer-term effort to counter China. Yet, as Mr. Biden’s decision to strike the terrorist leader showed, those goals cannot be pursued at the expense of vigilance against jihadist terror. | null | null | null | null | null |
One of the staffers who left Thursday has been directly implicated in Partygate. Martin Reynolds, the prime minister’s principle private secretary, was responsible for an email encouraging Downing Street staffer to “bring your own booze” to a party on May 20, 2020 — at a time when the public was banned by law from meeting up with more than one person outside households.
In Parliament on Monday, Johnson accused Starmer, a former director of public prosecutions, of failing to prosecute Jimmy Savile, a television personality who was revealed after his death in 2011 to be one of Britain’s most prodigious child abusers. | null | null | null | null | null |
Opinion: Chip shortage adversely affects health-care capabilities, too
(Chris Ratcliffe/Bloomberg News)
The Jan. 26 news article “Manufacturers have less than five days’ supply of some computer chips” missed the critical public health impact of the semiconductor chip shortage.
Without an adequate supply of semiconductor chips, medical device manufacturers will be unable to perform maintenance on the thousands of mammography machines throughout the country that provide patients with lifesaving breast health screenings. This comes at a time when the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates there was a drop of 87 percent in breast screenings during the pandemic, and health-care providers, such as Breast Care for Washington (BCW), are urging patients to return to their annual exams.
Access to breast cancer screenings is especially critical to BCW patients, as we are the only facility to offer 3D mammography to the medically underserved population east of the Anacostia River, and the only mammography facility in the D.C. area that will screen any woman who comes to us regardless of insurance status.
Health care must not be forgotten in the chip discussion, and the Departments of Commerce and Health and Human Services must ensure that health-care companies are prioritized as the shortage continues. There is too much at stake for patients.
Regina Hampton, Washington
The writer is co-founder and chief medical officer of Breast Care for Washington. | null | null | null | null | null |
Opinion: A diagnosis for our misinformation problems
Anthony S. Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, testifies before Congress on Jan. 11.
Regarding the Jan. 28 Style article “Up against more than a pandemic”:
Anthony S. Fauci is right: “There is no truth. There is no fact.” But he seems at a loss to diagnose this problem in society. I think it’s simple: The diagnosis is telecommunications. I don’t think that people are any more gullible or mean-spirited today than they ever were, and I don’t think that misinformation and conspiracy theories are any more common today than they ever were.
But back in George Washington’s time, someone who wanted to spread lies and misinformation and conspiracy theories had to print pamphlets, stand on a corner in Alexandria and push them on passersby. The voice of a kook in Gadsby’s Tavern would hardly reach the other side of the room. But today, that kook and that pamphleteer have an email group and a podcast and a website and a YouTube channel — and they can reach thousands of people with a few keystrokes.
There’s a famous adage: “A lie can travel halfway around the world while the truth is still putting on its shoes.” It is even more true today. That’s the syndrome Dr. Fauci is trying to diagnose.
Bernard Tate, Manassas Park | null | null | null | null | null |
4 top Johnson aides resign in shake-up
Four top aides to embattled British Prime Minister Boris Johnson announced their resignations on Thursday, as the British government continues to be rocked by a scandal dubbed “Partygate.”
Johnson’s office is under investigation for a string of gatherings over the past two years that are alleged to have violated the government’s own coronavirus pandemic restrictions.
One of the staffers who left Thursday has been directly implicated in Partygate. Martin Reynolds, the prime minister’s principal private secretary, was responsible for an email encouraging Downing Street staffers to “bring your own booze” to a party on May 20, 2020 — at a time when the public was banned by law from meeting up with more than one person outside households.
Alice Lilly, a senior researcher at the Institute for Government, an independent think tank, said that aside from Mirza, it seemed as if the exodus was an attempt to “clear house and make some of the changes” that Johnson promised earlier in the week.
— Karla Adam
Derivative of Moderna vaccine developed
South Africa’s Afrigen Biologics has used the publicly available sequence of Moderna’s mRNA coronavirus vaccine to make its own version of the shot, which could be tested in humans before the end of this year, Afrigen’s top executive said Thursday.
The World Health Organization last year picked a consortium, which includes Afrigen, for a pilot project to give poor and middle-income countries the know-how to make coronavirus vaccines, after vaccine makers Pfizer, BioNTech and Moderna declined a WHO request to share their technology and expertise.
Madagascar prepares for another deadly cyclone: Madagascar is bracing for a new cyclone, even as the Indian Ocean island recovers from a tropical storm that caused 55 deaths and made 131,000 people homeless last month. Cyclone Batsirai is forecast to hit the island's east coast on Saturday with heavy winds and rains, according to Madagascar's Department of Meteorology. The storm has already blown by the islands of Mauritius and Reunion, killing at least one person.
At least 20 people die of opioid- laced cocaine in Argentina: A batch of cocaine that has killed at least 20 people in Argentina appears to have been laced with a synthetic opioid, and police are scrambling to get as much of it off the streets as they can. Health authorities say at least 84 people have been hospitalized after using the contaminated cocaine, some of whom remain on lifesaving respiratory support.
Northern Ireland first minister resigns in protest: Paul Givan, Northern Ireland's first minister, resigned in protest at post-Brexit trade rules on Thursday. Givan's decision may complicate talks between the European Union and Britain to rework a divisive protocol governing such trade.
Myanmar forces reportedly burn hundreds of houses: Residents of two villages in northwestern Myanmar said government soldiers burned down hundreds of houses this week, apparently while searching for members of an armed militia opposed to military rule. The attack on Monday in northwestern Sagaing region came on the eve of the anniversary of the Feb. 1 army takeover that ousted the elected government of Aung San Suu Kyi. | null | null | null | null | null |
It took too long — far too long — for the National Football League franchise to recognize how deeply offensive, inappropriate and ultimately divisive its former name was. “We’ll never change the name. ... NEVER — you can use caps,” team owner Daniel Snyder once said about the demands for a name change that predated his purchase of the team in 1999. Only after investors and sponsors, reacting to calls for racial justice in the wake of the murder of George Floyd in 2020, threatened to pull financial support did Mr. Snyder reluctantly acknowledge the need to retire the name that had been used for 87 years. For two full seasons, the Washington Football Team served as a generic placeholder while an extensive effort was undertaken to find a new name.
“Today’s a big day for our team, our fans, a day in which we embark on a new chapter,” Mr. Snyder said Wednesday at a media event unveiling the new name, logo and uniforms. “It’s been a long journey to get to this point.” Indeed. And for that, Mr. Snyder should apologize, rather than congratulate himself. He also should recognize that a simple name change won’t resolve the problems, both on and off the field, for a team that won its last Super Bowl in 1992 (a record that is noted, without apparent embarrassment, in its busy new team crest). Give it a few seasons and fans will get used to it, and might even grow to love it, if the team itself starts winning more games than it loses. Still looming are festering questions about the organization’s workplace culture — including new allegations of sexual harassment against Mr. Snyder himself, raised Thursday when Congress heard testimony from ex-employees.
Nonetheless, Washington’s too-long-delayed name change — along with the renaming of the Cleveland Indians to the Guardians — hopefully will serve as a lesson to sports organizations and schools that still cling to the misguided notion that the appropriation of Native American-themed nicknames and mascots somehow honors the people it stereotypes. The issue is not, as critics of name changes would have one believe, a matter of political correctness run amok but of real harm being done. | null | null | null | null | null |
While companies are not required to hold earnings calls, it’s rare for a major tech or gaming company to cancel its call ahead of an acquisition. For example, Glu Mobile held earnings calls throughout 2020, ahead of its completed acquisition by Electronic Arts last April. In 2016, Yahoo skipped its earnings call ahead of being bought by Verizon, in the midst of dealing with fallout from its data breach. Activision Blizzard is currently facing multiple lawsuits from employees, California’s state department, shareholders and investigations from federal regulators over how management handled allegations of sexual misconduct, harassment and other corporate workplace issues. | null | null | null | null | null |
SAN FRANCISCO — Meta is putting a lot of virtual eggs — and billions of dollars — into the metaverse basket, and Wall Street is spooked. Shares of the company formerly known as Facebook saw a historic plunge Thursday after it reported a rare profit decline due to a sharp rise in expenses, shaky ad revenue growth and fewer daily U.S. users on its flagship platform. At the same time, it invested more than $10 billion in its ambitious plan to transform Meta Platforms Inc. into a “metaverse company.” Shares fell more than 26%, lopping off more than $230 billion of the company’s market capitalization.
NEW YORK — A historic plunge in the stock price of Facebook’s parent company helped yank other tech stocks lower on Wall Street Thursday, abruptly ending a four-day winning streak for the market. The 26.4% wipeout in Meta Platforms, as Facebook’s owner is now known, erased more than $230 billion in market value, easily the biggest one-day loss in history for a U.S. company. A weak revenue outlook for Meta helped drag the stocks of other social media companies including Twitter and Snap lower too. The tech-focused Nasdaq gave up 3.7%, its biggest loss since September 2020. The S&P 500 fell 2.4%.
NEW YORK — Amazon is reporting strong fourth-quarter sales and profits even as the online behemoth continues to contend with surging costs tied to a snarled supply chain and labor shortages. The company also raised its annual prime membership fee to $139 per year from $119. The company, based in Seattle, reported a profit of $14.32 billion, or $27.75 per share, for the three-month period ended Dec. 31, 2021. That compares with a profit of $7.22 billion, or $14.09 per share, a share, during the year-ago period. Revenue rose 9% to $137.41 billion, the company’s fifth consecutive quarter of revenue topping $100 billion. Analysts surveyed by FactSet, on average expected $137.68 billion in quarterly revenue and per-share earnings of $3.61 per share.
DETROIT — Ford Motor Co. reversed a loss and rode some big accounting charges to post a $17.94 billion net profit last year. That came even as the company battled computer chip shortages that caused factory slowdowns and low inventories on dealer lots. U.S. sales for the Dearborn, Michigan, automaker fell 7% for the year over depressed 2020 numbers, but customers paid record prices of nearly $51,000 per vehicle in Ford’s most lucrative market. Excluding the one-time items, the company made $1.59 per share, falling short of analyst estimates of $1.86. Revenue rose 7.2% to $136.34 billion. That was short of analyst estimates of $137.6 billion.
WASHINGTON — Last month, U.S. employers might have shed jobs for the first time in about a year, potentially raising alarms about the economy’s trajectory. Yet even if the January employment report coming Friday were to show a deep loss of jobs, there would be little mystery about the likely culprit: A wave of omicron infections that led millions of workers to stay home sick, discouraged consumers from venturing out to spend and likely froze hiring at many companies — even those that want to fill jobs. Reported omicron infections peaked at above 800,000 a day during the second week of January — precisely the period when the government measured employment for the month.
LONDON — The Bank of England has raised interest rates for the second time in three months. That decision Thursday puts the United Kingdom far ahead of the rest of Europe and the U.S. in moving to tame surging inflation that’s squeezing consumers and businesses. The bank boosted its key rate 0.5% from 0.25%. It also said it would begin reducing holdings of U.K. government bonds and corporate debt, which the bank has built up since the global financial crisis more than 10 years ago. Meanwhile, the U.S. Federal Reserve says it’s likely to raise interest rates in March, while the European Central Bank gave no indication it would hike rates this year.
LOUISVILLE, Ky. — When COVID-19 shuttered much of the economy in 2020, Bill Thomas sold off his whiskey inventories to keep his Washington, D.C., whiskey bar afloat. By the next year, he was replenishing inventories. Thomas’ restocked supplies reflect the start of a comeback for on-premise spirits sales at U.S. restaurants and bars. It’s an important segment for spirits makers. On-premise sales volumes rose 53% in 2021, following pandemic-related restaurant and bar closures and restrictions in 2020. The Distilled Spirits Council of the United States issued the report Thursday. Industrywide, it says sales and volumes grew for U.S. distilled spirits suppliers in 2021. | null | null | null | null | null |
A person cycles past tents set up along a pathway in Portland, Ore. in Sept. 2017. Brookings, a city in Oregon several hours to the south, is the center of a dispute about how often a church can serve the homeless. (Ted S. Warren, File)
An Oregon church has sued a city government after it issued an ordinance that limits the church to serve free meals only twice a week to the homeless.
St. Timothy’s Episcopal Church in Brookings, Ore., and the Episcopal Diocese of Oregon filed a federal lawsuit last week asking a court in Oregon to declare the city council’s new limitations invalid, claiming they infringe the church’s constitutional right to free religious expression.
The restrictions come after dozens of residents complained last year that “vagrants” living in or congregating around the church had caused problems in the community including “criminal trespassing, theft, harassment, drug possession, littering, disorderly conduct, physical altercation,” among others, according to a petition signed last spring.
The church alleges the residents pressured the city government “to move, end or significantly limit the help it provides to the community,” the church said in a news release last week, adding such limits “conflicts with the deeply held religious beliefs of St. Timothy’s congregants.”
In October, the city council unanimously voted to limit churches and charitable organizations by requiring them to apply for a permit to provide “benevolent meal service” no more than two times a week and with limited hours.
St. Timothy’s — which started serving meals six days a week during the pandemic — has refused to apply for the permit, claiming the restrictions “target and interfere with the congregation’s free expression of their Christian faith which calls them to serve others in need.”
The lawsuit is the latest quandary facing the small city located along the Pacific coast near the border with California that is grappling with a worsening issue of dealing with homeless people’s needs while addressing growing concerns from residents about safety and cleanliness.
The dilemma has also played out in different states across the United States, and particularly in cities along the West Coast, including Portland, where pandemic economic fallout has pushed thousands to homelessness, food insecurity and financial hardship. Many now rely on parishes and nonprofit organizations for food, shelter and other basic services.
‘The mansion on Emerson Street’
The city council members and the office of Mayor Ron Hedenskog did not immediately respond to a request for comment Thursday.
According to the Wild Rivers Outpost, Hedenskog argued the council’s ordinance was a way to meet both needs of the city’s homeless population, as well as the needs of the residents living near the ministry kitchens.
“We have a neighborhood complaining and we have a dual purpose here. This is to strike a balance,” he said.
St. Timothy’s has served the Brookings community of 6,431 people for decades, providing health clinics, a food bank and social services for those most in need, including showers, Internet access and meals, according to its website.
When nearly every other church in the area suspended their free-meal services during the pandemic, St. Timothy’s expanded its program and provided coronavirus testing and hosted vaccine clinics, according to the statement.
Following a request from the city government, it offered its parking lots to residents who needed a safe place to sleep in their vehicles, the statement added.
“We’ve been serving our community here for decades and picking up the slack where the need exists and no one else is stepping in,” said St. Timothy’s vicar, the Rev. Bernie Lindley, called “Father Bernie” by the churchgoers in the statement.
“We have no intention of stopping now and we’re prepared to hold fast to our beliefs. We won’t abandon the people of Brookings who need our help, even when we’re being threatened.”
Lindley did not immediately respond to a request for comment Thursday.
According to local media reports, Lindley has pointed at rocketing housing prices, along with the pandemic’s impact on financial and mental health, as worsening an already pressing issue of people without a place to live.
“Even before the pandemic, we had a big uptick in people that were displaced,” Lindley told the Episcopal News Service. “Housing is really impossible in our area. If a place comes up for rent, it gets rented within, like, 20 minutes of being advertised. It’s just ridiculous.”
The Episcopal Diocese of Oregon joined St. Timothy’s in the lawsuit and said in a joint statement that the restrictions imposed by the city interfere with the congregation’s free expression of its faith.
St. Timothy’s is “obeying the teachings of Jesus when they provide food and medical care to their community,” said Oregon Diocese Bishop Diana Akiyama.
Brookings, like other West Coast towns and cities, have said they are overwhelmed by an unprecedented rise in homeless people, often living in squalid encampments. According to government data, the number of Americans who are experiencing homelessness has increased in each of the past five years, with many now living not in shelters but in tents or sleeping bags outside.
As of January 2020, Oregon had an estimated 14,655 people experiencing homelessness, according to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. The neighboring state of California, reported more than 161,000 last year.
The church is now asking a federal court in Oregon to declare the ordinance invalid and said they hope the court will bar any future attempt to enforce it.
In the statement, Samantha Sondag, an attorney representing St. Timothy’s and the Diocese, said that the church meal program is a “protected expression of faith.”
“The St. Timothy’s meal program is not only a vital service for many, but also a protected expression of faith,” Sondag said. “Father Bernie and the Church have the right to continue practicing their beliefs by assisting those in need, as they have for decades.” | null | null | null | null | null |
“Detainee is providing a lot of information,” said one of the interrogation reports, which was published in the summer by the U.S. Military Academy’s Combating Terrorism Center, a Pentagon-funded academic institution at the U.S. Military Academy. A terrorism expert who analyzed the documents described Qurayshi as “a songbird of unique talent and ability.” | null | null | null | null | null |
The Path Forward: Consumer Protection with Rohit Chopra
Rohit Chopra is director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, the government agency responsible for protecting families and businesses in banking, housing, lending and financial technology. Chopra, a former Federal Trade Commissioner, will discuss consumer protection in the era of big banks and big tech, competition in the financial sector and how Americans can protect their finances in this turbulent time. Join Washington Post editorial writer and columnist Heather Long on Thursday, Feb. 10 at 10:00 a.m. ET.
Provided by the CFPB.
Rohit Chopra was sworn in as a Federal Trade Commissioner on May 2, 2018. He served as FTC Commissioner from May 2, 2018 until October 12, 2021.
Commissioner Chopra has actively advocated to promote a fair and fully-functioning marketplace through vigorous agency enforcement that protects families and honest companies from those that break the law. During his tenure at the FTC, he has pushed for aggressive remedies against lawbreaking companies, especially repeat offenders, and has worked to reverse the FTC’s reliance on no-money, no-fault settlements.
After the passage of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act, Chopra joined the Department of the Treasury to launch the new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB). He then served as Assistant Director of the CFPB, overseeing the agency’s student loan agenda. The Secretary of the Treasury also appointed him to serve as the CFPB’s Student Loan Ombudsman, a new position established in the financial reform law.
In these roles, he led efforts to spur competition in the student loan financing market, develop new tools for students and student loan borrowers to make smarter decisions, and secure hundreds of millions of dollars in refunds for borrowers victimized by unlawful conduct by loan servicers, debt collectors, and for-profit college chains.
Chopra later served as Special Adviser to the Secretary of Education to advance the Department’s efforts to improve student loan servicing, reduce unnecessary defaults, and bolster enforcement. He was also a Senior Fellow at the Consumer Federation of America, where he focused on consumer protection issues facing young people and military families, and a Visiting Fellow at the Roosevelt Institute.
Commissioner Chopra is the recipient of multiple awards for his public service and contributions to the field of consumer finance. Prior to entering government, Chopra worked at McKinsey & Company, the global management consultancy, where he worked in the financial services, health care, and consumer technology sectors.
He holds a BA from Harvard University and an MBA from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania. He was also the recipient of a Fulbright Fellowship. | null | null | null | null | null |
Baltimore is like Haiti? Why yes, Tucker Carlson, it is.
Gerald Rameau, left, and Garry Bien Aime, far right, drum with the Rara Haitian Orchestra in Baltimore in 2021. (Ashley Michel/Komite Ayiti)
As he stepped onto the covered porch of his home in Northeast Baltimore for drive-by after drive-by that day — people coming to pick up his beloved holiday food — Garry Bien Aime had to admit that yes, this city did remind him of Haiti.
The comparison, drawn earlier in the week by Fox News’s Tucker Carlson, is the latest dig at a city that has long been dragged through the mud.
In 2019, President Donald Trump called Charm City a “disgusting, rat and rodent infested mess,” the “Worst in the USA” and a place “no human being would want to live.”
“Baltimore is a major American city. It’s only about 40 miles from where Jen Psaki lives,” Carlson said, referring to the White House press secretary. And he called it “one of the worst places in the western hemisphere,” saying it is “a little bit of Haiti in the Mid-Atlantic.”
That’s part of why Aime, a native of Haiti, chose the city in 2006.
“As you look at the history of Haiti,” Aime, 47, said, “there’s strong hope and optimism, despite the challenges. That is also the story of Baltimore.”
The vermin in the White House
Republicans and their mouthpieces have a storied history of denigrating Black communities and the places they live, reducing people to problems for political gain.
Think President Ronald Reagan and the way he conjured up hatred for public assistance with his “welfare queen.” Or President George H.W. Bush and his crusade against the justice system with the Willie Horton ads. Or Trump and, well, every other thing he said.
Aime, the president of Komite Ayiti, a social and cultural group celebrating Haitian culture, said it is easy to make comparisons between the two.
“Yes, both places are struggling,” said Aime, who immigrated to Florida when he was in grade school.
Haiti had political upheaval and about 900 homicides — including the assassination of President Jovenel Moïse — in a nation of 11.4 million during 2021.
There and in Baltimore, communities struggle with education, crime and corruption, as they do in many places, he said, offering to discuss with Carlson the rising crime rates across America.
A city of a little more than half a million, Baltimore endured a year of continued violence with 337 homicides in 2021. It’s an increase mirroring the rest of the nation, where homicide rates have jumped 5 percent — bumped by record levels of gun violence.
But for Aime, it’s the warmth of the people and community he’s nurtured that stands out.
The Haitian population in Baltimore today is small but active. They take Creole language classes through Aime’s group and celebrate with festivals and concerts. This all goes back to Baltimore’s roots in the 18th century.
Haitian refugees escaping French colonists bonded with Catholics fleeing the French Revolution when they all landed at Fell’s Point in the 1790s. They went on to form the first Black, Catholic parish in America, St. Francis Xavier, which still stands in Baltimore.
Maybe Carlson’s “little bit of Haiti” had to do with Aime’s famous soup, joumou, which he was handing out from his porch at the start of this year.
The fragrant, hearty offering is a traditional pumpkin soup that Haitians eat on their Independence Day.
“During revolutionary times, slaves were not allowed to eat or drink pumpkin,” Aime said. “So by doing what they were not allowed to do, we celebrate … And I imagine my forefathers sitting under a tree, in some cool shade, drinking this soup.”
Maybe the same way American revolutionaries celebrated their freedom? Baltimore and Haiti have a shared history of colonization, enslavement and community.
But Carlson can’t see that. In fact, he doesn’t see color. Until it’s time to levy reverse charges of racism.
“Baltimore is a city run by people who fervently believe in the equity agenda and consider gender studies a legitimate academic discipline,” Carlson told his 4 million viewers. “In Baltimore, pretty much everyone in charge is Black, yet it’s a matter of religious faith that the main thing holding the city back is White racism.”
This is America’s political game, blame and divide, point and pander. The same way Republicans wanted to talk about every shooting in Chicago while President Barack Obama was in office, they’re trying to tie Baltimore’s decades of problems to President Biden.
Yes, Tucker, there are challenges here. And yes, most of the city’s leaders are Black.
But Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan (R) is a White man, as are the mayors of other cities struggling with crime, poverty and educational inequity — Detroit, Memphis, Oklahoma City, Jacksonville, Fla., Philadelphia, Fresno, Calif., to name a few.
And I don’t see anyone comparing those cities to Switzerland. | null | null | null | null | null |
The MLB lockout began in early December. (Matt Slocum/AP Photo)
With spring training hurtling ever nearer and negotiations screeching to frustrating halts, Major League Baseball on Thursday requested the assistance of a federal mediator to help the league and the players’ union reach an agreement on a new collective bargaining agreement.
Mediation is voluntary, which means the players’ union must also agree to the process. The union declined to comment on its plans.
The request comes with two weeks until pitchers and catchers are scheduled to report to spring training and two days after the last bargaining session between MLB and the MLB Players Association — a session both sides described as heated and underwhelming. The same could be said of the negotiations as a whole, which restarted in mid-January after six weeks of silence.
That voice could belong to Scot Beckenbaugh, the deputy director of the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service, who NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman praised for his help in ending the 2013 lockout and who helped Major League Soccer reach an agreement with its players’ union in 2015. FMCS mediators do not issue binding rulings, like an arbitrator, but rather offer an outside perspective to help facilitate negotiations and help emotionally charged bargaining sides see the situation more objectively.
When, and if, the union will agree to mediation remain to be seen, as does how MLB’s request will impact the negotiating timeline. MLB team owners are scheduled to meet next week, and as of Tuesday, the sides had not expected to negotiate during that time. More than 60 days have passed since MLB locked out its players in early December. The sides have discussed core economic issues on four of them. | null | null | null | null | null |
WNBA gets $75 million from high-profile investors
The WNBA says it will use $75 million to invest in a long-term transformation of the league. (Katherine Frey/The Washington Post)
The WNBA has added $75 million to its coffers through a capital raise that brought in new investments from some of the biggest names in business, athletics and entertainment.
The list of investors, announced Thursday, included former secretary of state Condoleezza Rice, Carnival Corporation and Miami Heat owners Micky and Nick Arison, Dell founder Michael and Susan Dell, former WNBA star Swin Cash, former NBA players Baron Davis and Pau Gasol, Wizards and Mystics owner Ted Leonsis, and Nike.
The fundraising efforts will be used in a variety of ways to increase league revenue and growth through investment.
“I can’t find another word for it, and I know I use it a lot, but another historic moment for the WNBA,” WNBA Commissioner Cathy Engelbert said. “To build or grow a business, you have to have access to capital and you have to have the right human capital and resources to then deploy it and execute on your strategy.”
Part of the plan is to put more resources into player and league marketing, growing the fan base with more opportunities to interact with the league, globalization and investments in operations. The goal is to also reach new audiences with promotion of players and games in areas outside of the WNBA’s traditional markets. The league labeled it a “multifaceted financial growth strategy.” Engelbert believes there should be a return on the investments within a three-to-five year span.
“That’s what a transformation is all about,” she said.
The commissioner specifically mentioned research into how to make it easier for current and future fans to see or attend games and have access to merchandise, which has been an ongoing issue. Technology will be a significant focus from in-game broadcast innovation to additional digital options to watch games. Funds will continue to go toward the league’s social justice platform and investment in minority-owned businesses. The globalization aspect will look at a variety of ways to market around the world and growing a “global footprint.”
“Women’s sport is one of the best investments, with great potential to impact and grow the next era of basketball,” Nike VP of North America League Partnerships Sonja Henning said in a statement. “Nike has always been more than a sponsor with the WNBA — we’re a strategic partner. And we’re proud to be part of a movement to redefine the future of sport for a new generation — for WNBA players, fans and girls.”
The league celebrated its 25th anniversary last season with a variety of efforts, including the creation of the WNBA Changemaker program that brought additional equity investments from partners like Google, Amazon Prime Video and AT&T. | null | null | null | null | null |
“Detainee is providing a lot of information,” said one of the interrogation reports, which was published in the summer by the Combating Terrorism Center, a Pentagon-funded academic institution at the U.S. Military Academy. A terrorism expert who analyzed the documents described Qurayshi as “a songbird of unique talent and ability.” | null | null | null | null | null |
In Virginia, an officeholder can be subjected to recall with a number of signatures totaling just 10 percent of the votes cast in that official’s last election. Unlike in other states that hold recall elections when voters petition for a recall, the matter is sent to a circuit court judge to determine if the complaints should go to trial. Under current law, judges may also order a recall election but are not required to. Recall can be sought from the moment the target of one takes office.
There has been an increase in recent years of local officials in Virginia being singled out for removal through recall petitions, often by political and ideological entities. School board members are increasingly in the crosshairs. Fairfax County last year saw the start of an effort to recall three of the 12 members of the school board, and in Loudoun County, six of the nine school board members elected in 2019 have been targeted for removal by a nonpartisan political action committee.
School board elections are generally low-turnout contests, thus making it fairly easy to obtain the signatures necessary for a recall. And because the reasons for removal are so broadly defined in the law, disputes over policy — such as removing the name of a Confederate general from a high school or allowing for hybrid school instruction during a pandemic — are alleged to be a dereliction or neglect of duty. So far, judges hearing these cases and the commonwealth’s attorneys representing the state’s interests seem to recognize the paucity of the charges and the cases have been withdrawn or dismissed. The rare instance of an official being removed from office occurred in 2010, when a judge ordered a recall election that resulted in the removal of Portsmouth Mayor James W. Holley III.
Not only does Virginia’s process tie up the courts’ precious time and waste public resources, but it also subjects people duly elected to their jobs to attack and intimidation. One Loudoun County School Board member resigned in the face of a recall by a conservative parent group. Who could blame anyone considering a run for these often thankless jobs to think again? | null | null | null | null | null |
The MLB lockout began in early December. (Matt Slocum/AP)
With spring training hurtling ever nearer and negotiations screeching to frustrating halts, Major League Baseball on Thursday requested the assistance of a federal mediator to help it and the players’ union reach an agreement on a new collective bargaining agreement.
Mediation is voluntary, which means the players’ union must agree to the process. The union declined to comment on its plans.
The request comes with less than two weeks until pitchers and catchers are scheduled to report to spring training and two days after the last bargaining session between MLB and the MLB Players Association — a session both sides described as heated and underwhelming. The same could be said of negotiations as a whole, which restarted in mid-January after six weeks of silence.
That voice could belong to Scot Beckenbaugh, the deputy director of the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service, whom NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman praised for his help in ending the 2013 lockout and who helped Major League Soccer reach an agreement with its players’ union in 2015. FMCS mediators do not issue binding rulings, as an arbitrator does, but rather offer an outside perspective to help facilitate negotiations and help emotionally charged bargaining sides see the situation more objectively.
When — and if — the union will agree to mediation remains to be seen, as does how MLB’s request will affect the negotiating timeline. MLB team owners are scheduled to meet next week and, as of Tuesday, the sides had not expected to negotiate during that time. More than 60 days have passed since MLB locked out its players in early December. The sides have discussed core economic issues on four of them. | null | null | null | null | null |
People without masks visit the Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek museum in Copenhagen on Feb. 1, 2022, after the lifting of most coronavirus restrictions in Denmark. (Carsten Snejbjerg/Bloomberg)
It is becoming the mantra of 2022, the most optimistic formulation for the end of the pandemic — less ambitious than “stop covid” but more than “flatten the curve.” The world, we are told, must learn to “live with the virus.”
In England, the law pertaining to isolation — with fines of up to 10,000 pounds, or about $13,500 — is to expire on March 24. Johnson said he doesn’t expect to renew it and may ask Parliament to bring the date forward.
Hunter said that his position has evolved over the past year and that he now thinks the “costs and benefits of isolation have tipped away from being beneficial overall, probably to being harmful,” in Britain — even if not everyone with symptoms would follow common sense and public health guidance in the future. He cited the negative impact of isolation on labor shortages and mental health, and the growing number of infections that already go undetected despite current isolation rules.
Rethinking the counting of cases
Since the earliest weeks of the pandemic, the world has been tracking the spread of the virus case by case. Those counts have helped governments make decisions about when to impose restrictions and when to lift them, and because hospitalizations lag behind infections, case numbers have provided a critical early warning for health systems.
Spain is working on a “sentinel surveillance system” that would estimate cases on the basis of a statistically significant sample rather than counting each infection. That sort of system is regularly used for the flu. And several Spanish regions have been experimenting with it for the coronavirus.
Scientists in Madrid, for instance, selected eight community health centers and three hospitals where anyone who receives treatment and has symptoms of a respiratory infection will be tested for the flu and the coronavirus.
At a national level, the plan still could face hurdles, including whether other countries would accept estimated cases as a legitimate way to assess risk levels in Spain. Spanish health officials say their model may, in fact, boost their understanding of the virus’s spread, because self-tests and strained official testing capacity currently skew the official figures.
Hunter agreed that sequencing will remain crucial. Similar to the way the composition of influenza shots is decided on the basis of large-scale sequencing efforts, monitoring could be key to developing future generations of vaccines to fight the coronavirus, he said.
Responding to the pandemic has involved the largest-scale public health campaign the world has ever seen, with nationwide lockdowns, more than 4 billion people vaccinated, and billions upon billions of tests conducted. To be sure, the rollout of protection has reflected and reinforced global inequalities. Vaccination is just getting underway in some countries, leaving populations vulnerable to infection and the world vulnerable to new variants of the virus. But as the global omicron wave begins to subside, more countries are beginning to talk about moving away from mass public health efforts. Instead, they want to focus on protecting the most vulnerable and on intercepting disease progression in those most susceptible to severe illness.
“As we evolve to move to living with COVID ... response will move from a whole nation approach to a targeted response, focused on protecting the vulnerable,” the U.K. Health Security Agency wrote in a draft policy paper viewed by the Reuters news agency.
In Britain, that may mean the end of free antigen tests offered to all by the National Health Service. There was an uproar last month when the Times of London reported that free tests would be limited to symptomatic people and those in high-risk communal settings. Johnson tried to calm fears but would commit only to free tests being available “for as long as they’re very important.”
Although Denmark on Tuesday dropped most coronavirus restrictions, including health passports and general mask mandates, it will maintain certain measures to protect vulnerable groups. Masks will remain recommended in nursing homes, for example, and a new round of booster shots for vulnerable people could be provided later in the year.
Danish authorities have considered their massive testing and sequencing capacity a major advantage through the pandemic. But Lillebaek said that in the future he expects “more guidance for specific situations, rather than the general society.” Instead of mass testing, for example, authorities may advise people to get tested before meeting an immunocompromised or elderly person.
Yves Hansmann, the head of an infectious-diseases hospital unit in the French city of Strasbourg, said that frequent testing of vulnerable individuals also may be needed to provide care at early stages of illness. European countries have ordered millions of antiviral pills to treat the most vulnerable after initial symptoms have been spotted.
After two years of restrictions, learning to live with the virus may be daunting. People are understandably more excited about the return of indoor dining and consistent schooling than they are about the possibility, for instance, of working alongside someone newly infected with the virus. But there may not be a viable alternative. | null | null | null | null | null |
Full disclosure: Early last year, when Biden’s $1.9 trillion stimulus was being debated, I supported it. I cheered on the American Rescue Plan’s investments in children, rental assistance, vaccinations and relief for the unemployed. I also worried about the health of state and local finances if they didn’t get sufficient federal aid (such concerns were mostly unnecessary, it turns out).
The end result is an upside-down set of budgetary priorities. In good news, some components of the American Rescue Plan still look like money well spent. But to provide some scale for the mistakes: Democrats frittered away more than $400 billion on those deficit-financed, poorly targeted, third-round stimulus checks. Now, they can’t convince their own caucus to spend a quarter of that amount, $110 billion, on universal pre-K — even if the long-desired program is paid for and likely to have much bigger bang for the buck than those one-off stimulus payments. | null | null | null | null | null |
This image shows the “Ad Astra 2” congressional redistricting plan for Kansas drafted by the Kansas Legislative Research Department for Republican leaders in the GOP-controlled Legislature, Tuesday, Jan. 25, 2022, at the Statehouse in Topeka, Kan. The blue represents the new 1st Congressional District, and it takes in the city of Lawrence at its far eastern edge. (Kansas Legislative Research Department via AP) (Uncredited/Kansas Legislative Research Department)
TOPEKA, Kan. — Democratic Gov. Laura Kelly on Thursday vetoed a Republican redistricting plan that would make it harder for the lone Kansas Democrat in Congress to win reelection this year. | null | null | null | null | null |
Protecting women, a partisan divider. Ain’t that America.
Much like Commanders owner Daniel Snyder, the Republicans on the House Committee on Oversight and Reform are refusing to stand up as leaders to ensure true accountability.
If there was any, Snyder would have long ago been removed from the franchise. And if every member on that committee Thursday believed in protecting female employees from intimidation and unwanted sexual advances, they would unify by demanding the NFL release the report into Washington’s toxic workplace environment that was completed a year ago.
The five female former employees of Washington’s NFL franchise who shared their firsthand stories of sexual harassment on the job were younger back then. Some fresh out of college. They were unaware of taking their complaints to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, as Rep. Virginia Foxx (R-N.C.) suggested they should have.
The women are older now, and sharper. Melanie Coburn sat in front of congressional members — some of the words of her statement highlighted in yellow — and alleged, in a steady voice, that Snyder once held a drunken party for employees at his Aspen, Colo., house and invited over prostitutes. And Tiffani Johnston shared publicly for the first time her allegation that Snyder inappropriately touched her thigh at a work dinner, then later placed his hand on her lower back while encouraging her to take a ride in his limousine. Snyder denied both women’s accounts on Thursday.
To these women, accountability remains absent because the man responsible for dragging the team’s culture into the gutter remains at the top. The name of the team can change, and the Commanders can pretend that new crest of theirs holds the depth and dignity befitting of a 90-year-old franchise. But no amount of glossy rebranding matters. As long as Snyder’s in charge, the rot still exists.
“You know what’s going to come of this hearing?” Norman told the women. “Nothing. I wish I could say something differently. But we’re having it. You’re all victims of it and it’s not right.”
Anything can be under Congress’s purview if they want it to be. In 2005, this same committee, known as the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, held hearings about steroids in baseball. Then, a member deemed the hearing was vital to address “important questions for baseball, its fans, and the nation.” The issue of sexual harassment and workplace misconduct — with a high-profile NFL franchise front and center — deserves the same oversight. | null | null | null | null | null |
FILE - Robin Herman, sports writer for the New York Times, is confronted by Chicago Black Hawks doorman Gordon Robertson outside the Black Hawks dressing room in Chicago, on Jan. 24, 1975. Herman, a gender barrier breaking reporter who was the first female sports journalist to interview players in the locker room after an NHL game, died Tuesday, Feb. 2, 2022, of ovarian cancer at her Waltham, Mass., home. She was 70. (AP Photo/File) (Uncredited/AP) | null | null | null | null | null |
Transcript: “Belfast” A Conversation with Kenneth Branagh
MS. HORNADAY: Good afternoon, and welcome to Washington Post Live. I’m Ann Hornaday, chief film critic at The Washington Post, and I am delighted to be joined today by a titan in the entertainment world, someone whose career has spread across acting, directing, producing, making him one of the most nominated artists across multiple categories, including this morning’s announcement of the BAFTA Awards, for which “Belfast” received six. His latest film is a tribute to his own history growing up in Belfast and ultimately leaving due to the tumult in the area. Here today to talk about converting his personal story into a coming-of-age film, I am pleased to introduce Kenneth Branagh. Kenneth, welcome.
MR. BRANAGH: Hi, Ann. Very nice to be here. Thanks for having me.
MS. HORNADAY: It's great to see you. Congratulations on the BAFTA noms.
MR. BRANAGH: Thank you. We got--that was a very nice way to wake up this morning. A lot of excited people on our crew and cast back home, you know, jumping up and down. It was really a wonderful thing. Just--the film opened in the U.K. just 10 days ago, and people are coming to the movie. They're really--you know, so many people, I've had messages saying haven't been for two years, first time I've been in a crowd, but it felt like the story would speak to me, people who said I took my mum, I took my auntie. You know, really, it's been an absolute thrill to see that happen. And God bless "Spider-Man" for encouraging people back in. And it seems like, you know, in our third January of a pandemic, you know, maybe with the way our relationship to the virus is happening back in the U.K., it feels like people are just going, you know what, we want to go back to the movies.
MS. HORNADAY: Well, that's fascinating. And I mean, we're all sort of involved now in that dance about when to go back and under what conditions but this really--I can't agree more that this is, if you're going to go to a theater, if you feel safe enough and comfortable enough to go to a theater to see a movie, this one will reward you on so many levels, because it's such a valentine to cinema.
But speaking of the pandemic, Ken, this is really a product of the pandemic in many ways in terms of the gestation of it. It’s a memory piece. And like so many of us, when we went into lockdown two years ago, we were sort of confronted in many ways with our memories. And we had the time and the space--the space and the silence to sort of let them bubble up. Can you tell us a little bit about that process for you and the catharsis of writing Belfast?
MR. BRANAGH: Well, I think you put it very well. And the--it just got quiet, didn't it? It got quieter. And I found, first of all, just walking the dog--banal thing to do, but necessary every day--you heard birdsong in a way you hadn't heard it before. No cars on the road. But what did come into my head were the sounds of Belfast. When I left there 50 years ago, it was with a sense of sadness, also a sense of excitement. There was a new adventure. But I had begun to understand that the leaving of Belfast, that profound change in the life of this 9-year-old kid and in the life of our family, and so many families over there who'd been traumatized by the beginning of The Troubles, was something that really haunted me and was not, as you might say, sort of fully processed. And I began to think that the story, at least from a personal point of view, had to come out.
So, I began to--I began to write it literally on March the 23rd of 2020. And when I came back from my little shed in the garden at the end of the day, I switched the telly on, and Boris Johnson's told us we were locked down. So, I thought, well, you know what, I am going to continue writing this. And as I did so, I felt as though there was a sense in which this sort of migrant story, if you like, might have a way of reaching out to other people and connecting on the sort of emotional level that I--that I was finding I was drawn to connecting with myself as I as I started to write.
MS. HORNADAY: I wonder, too, if in letting those memories--I mean, we all sort of have those superficial memories of our childhood, that narrative, you know, that we kind of grow up with and tell ourselves and then--but when you give yourself that space and time, often you'll be ambushed, you know, or surprised by certain things that come up. And I'm wondering if anything like that happened, and especially if you had any realizations about how those early years inform who you are today, and especially the artist you are today?
MR. BRANAGH: Well, on one level, one saw that it was clearly the breeding ground for exposure to stories. Television then, although three channels and black and white, was still the sort of childminding service for part of the time. And so black and white movies, Westerns particularly really formed a way of understanding simplistic but very sort of powerful narratives for me about a sort of moral universe, good guys and bad guys and people sort of bravely out in in dangerous places in new lands trying to defend a sort of new way of living and all the struggles that came with that.
And for trips to the cinema with our family, there was this explosion of color into my life that was a big picture '60s movie going like "Chitty Chitty Bang Bang" or "The Great Escape" or "Million Years B.C." or "The Sound of Music"--all these things that completely immersed and enveloped me in these big ritual trips that the family would make, these dark, massive palaces where it was such a contrast to the sort of the gray and the monotone of often a rainy Belfast. It's a beautiful place, in my view, but it does have rain a lot, and a sort of monochrome was how I remember the streets of my childhood.
But to sort of answer your question on a more personal level, I think what surprised me was to try and consider and understand the sacrifice that my parents made in making the choice that they made to deal with their relationship to The Troubles, and I think that it was--it was--became much more of a--it became much more of an exercise in a kind of compassion for what they were doing and how we all reacted. And I was reminded of that phrase, which I think is useful when you're in a difficult situation and frustrated by others, you’ve got to remember that you are doing the best you can and so is everyone else. It may not seem that way sometimes.
In going back to write this film and then to make it, it was to try and see what at the time seemed such a terrifying and terrible rupture. It seemed that before The Troubles visited us, we were in, if not an idyll, certainly in this home that was functioning. And I think that in our neighborhood, the neighborhood of this simple block, the idea that it takes a village to raise a child was absolutely at work with--in the clip you showed there. Mother stands on doorstep, yells name, and via this sort of, you know, bush telegraph three streets away, you get to hear it and you come in. And that happened whether the mother shouting was a Protestant mother or a Catholic mother or the kid was either of those religions.
When all of that changed not over days or months but in an afternoon, in a couple of hours, processing that, trying to come to grips with how to adjust was something that, you know, writing this was part of trying to understand it, and particularly how my parents, my family and my grandparents all dealt with what was going to be a tremendous loss for us all.
MS. HORNADAY: So in the film, the opening scenes when Buddy, your analog, the 9-year-old boy at the center of the film, like you said that, it did all that, that playful back street, the Belfast scene suddenly turns violent. It's just a flip of a switch. Is that how it was for you? I mean, do you remember the moment when you wonder, you know, that something--it all changed? Was it--was it really that stark and that momentary?
MR. BRANAGH: It was, Ann. It was--because I mean, so many things sort of settled the sort of journey into it. It was a hot day. It was a hot summer's day in August. There was this sense, of course, that the civil rights movement in Belfast and in the north of Ireland had been sort of on the march really for the previous three years. And you could see that on the news. So even as a young person, I was aware that out there were things going on. I was aware that things were going on in America. It was the summer of love. The very weekend, the very day that the story begins in this film, the Woodstock film festival--the Woodstock music festival was happening. And the riots in Paris had also occurred in the--in the previous summer. So, there was a sense that the world at large had, you know, much disturbance going on.
But we were, basically, we felt protected. But on that summer's day, from the sound of what seemed to me like bees buzzing in my head that I couldn't understand because although I'd heard a bee before, I'd never heard a swarm of bees. It got so loud. And then at the bottom of the street, there was a crowd that I thought, is that a--is that--is that swarm of bees. But it wasn't. It was people. And then in that surreal, slow-motion realization suddenly, and literally, a bomb went off, petrol bomb, and then all chaos broke out. And I was grabbed by my mother, and we were sort of engulfed in this parade of people just panicking. The hysteria was instant. The screams of the children were instant. And when I was sort of shoved under the table in the back room, I remember just being completely hysterical, my brother having to really sort of, you know, hold on to me and calm me down, because the noise outside was incredible.
And then after just--I mean, it passed through like a swarm of bees, but of such sort of intensity. And then there was this eerie, eerie, eerie calm, and then everybody burst out of their houses. And this activity like I've never seen, suddenly, the ground beneath our feet was lifted up. All of these men, I don't know how they suddenly knew they must get tools, but they did. So, picks and shovels came up, and all of the paving stones were lifted up. And so within a couple of hours of that initial sense of what is that strange sound in the air on a beautiful summer's day, the ground from underneath our feet had been lifted up and those paving stones were now a barricade at either end of the street, which from having been a playground an hour or two before was now a fortress.
And when I walked back out onto the street, I've never seen anything like it. And it's that image, that intensity of change that really is what has haunted me and sort of--and sent me back there, because I think the legacy in your personality is that it just makes you more protected. If something like that can happen, if your world can literally turn upside down, the ground from beneath your feet is taken, then in such instantaneous fashion I think you have the slight concern that it will happen at any point in your life. So, I think the guardedness that I think has accompanied my personality was also something that I wanted to kind of unpack through looking at this story again.
MS. HORNADAY: You know, just hearing that, it’s so moving, and it’s so sobering. And it makes me realize how easily this could have been a story of sheer terror, you know, of sheer kind of incomprehension and terror. But you suffused this story with so much optimism and so much childlike--I mean, you’ve really preserved that point of view of the 9-year-old, both that kind of incomprehension and misunderstanding, but then those--just those funny little 9-year-oldisms--you know, the first crush and the schoolyard dynamics. And it was clearly important to you that you balance all of those tonal dynamics throughout the movie.
MR. BRANAGH: Well, it’s--you analyze it very interestingly, because one of the challenges I think for anybody writing about Ireland, I think there is this sort of tremendous weight of history that says somehow you have to acknowledge respect and revere the long historical struggles across many episodes of history and many warring factions. And it’s so impossible. It’s--many greater minds than I have struggled to do this, certainly in the context of a play or a film. And books struggle to do the same thing, although some have done magnificently.
I know here that the child’s point of view was key because, although what you say is right about how one could have chosen to characterize this with that terror infusing the tone of the film, it of course, with the adrenaline and the cortisol levels sky-high, seeing the street transform like that also had a level of excitement. You know, it was different. And I mean later on we were going to see an armored car, I mean--and a tank, a tank come up the street. I mean, this was--these were--you know, so I’d seen a John Wayne film the night before with--playing the Red Berets or something, and then suddenly it's in your street. And of course, very quickly that becomes absurd and surreal, so you can--it can get very--it's so extreme that it can become funny, partly because you are almost hysterical. So I think you’re very close to tears and you’re very close to hysterical laughter as well. This was something Ciarán Hinds who plays Pop and who lived half a mile away from me said that for a day or two, it seemed like the most incredible fun, the most exciting adventure, and then the hangover really kicked in.
But when I thought about should this film be more political, I thought, well, what do politics mean to the 9-year-old me? Well, it would have meant more middle-aged men in suits on television talking. And I don't know that that helped me understand politics or life back then. What I understood by politics was that my access to my own street was restricted, that I was being subtly encouraged to potentially do things that would ultimately perhaps involve me in joining some kind of gang/movement/organization, and that I, at nine, had to suddenly be very aware of that, not wanting to do that and trying to recognize when it was happening. And the things that I threw myself at were the ones that I loved from before--football, films, and a fairly hopeless crush on a girl called Catherine, who was much smarter than me, rather inspiringly smarter than me, always at the top of the class. But a friend of mine used to put it, something to aim for.
And in a way, I mean, obviously without much life experience I think you were--you are holding onto those coping mechanisms. How can I make it the same? How can I not be, you know, carried away by this change that is unsettling everything from literally the moment I leave my front door I am reminded that what used to be settled is no longer settled. There isn't a pavement anymore. When you have that sort of living metaphor in your life every day, I think then you just--then, you know, you're going to all of your default steadiers and mine were football and movies and romance.
MS. HORNADAY: Absolutely. Well said. You know, there's--one of the most memorable scenes in this film, it sort of illustrates what you're getting at, that kind of dichotomy, and it follows the wake of a beloved character, and it is a show stopper. I'd like to play it now and then circle back and ask you a little bit more about it. But let's roll the clip.
MS. HORNADAY: Of course, that's Jamie Dornan and Caitríona Balfe who play Pa and Ma. How did you see your parents? Tell us about that scene and your parents and how those things relate?
MR. BRANAGH: Well, that scene was a response which I had seen sort of live. In that particular instance, my father, he slept in the same room as the open casket of the departed character for five days while the wake was sort of ongoing. People visiting, having a drink and sharing stories about this character, and after it, after this tense and taut holding onto of the grief and the real experience of the loss, the desire for the affirmation of life, the music, for wildness, for screaming and shouting and singing and laughing and at great extremes about how you were seizing life in every moment, whether it was the people that you loved, whether it was music that you like, that--the yin and yang of that in--the yin and yang in Ireland, you know, where literally in grief, you know, as in different cultures, but we refer to it as keening when you see people's whole bodies possessed by the act of sobbing, that is so painful and probably necessary, and it needs its opposite.
My mother loved dancing. My father so loved to see her dancing. And they had a tremendous, you know, fierce and tremendously passionate relationship. And I think that Jamie Dornan and Caitríona Balfe, they're an immensely sort of glamorous pair, but they also, I think, represent what a 9-year-old can sometimes see in terms of idealizing his parents, as well as seeing the drama of it. So certainly, the crockery flying across the kitchen in moments of dispute was something I most certainly witnessed. And this, I would say particularly so with my mother, the sort of fieriness of the sort of Irish warrior queens and the women who ran this society, thank God, who suffered so much and bore so much, she brings that quality, that that large-hearted quality that is so, you know, indicative of the Irish, who as Caitríona put it once, you know, they’re so quick to laugh, to fight, to argue, to love. And that sort of--that very vital, very fizzy energy between my parents was what Jamie and Caitríona fought, I think, in a way.
And then in this scene we've just looked at, the everlasting love at the wake, they just released that, you know, desire to affirm that they've come through something. In fact, I quoted. It sounds sort of a ridiculous thing to bring up. But there's a series of poems by D.H. Lawrence which he wrote after a very traumatic time as he became involved with Frieda Weekley, who left her husband and her three children to elope with Lawrence. And they were subject to every kind of drama. Heartbreaking for all concerned. But he eventually wrote a volume of poems called "Look! We Have Come Through!" A very small volume. And the poems are often quite simple. There’s an absolutely beautiful called "Bei Hennef", which I recommend to all.
But I remember talking on that day on that dance floor with this popular song and saying to Caitríona, remember that, "Look! We Have Come Through!" Not everybody gets to be able to say that in a relationship. And it might be a small victory, but sometimes in terms of the challenging business of being in love and being married, it can be something to really relish.
MS. HORNADAY: Wonderful. We have a question from Twitter. Jack asks: "I heard that Belfast was made in about 25 days, which amazed me. I want to ask how do you maximize time so that it is efficient, and how do you control all of it to keep it organized?" I think that's a question we all have about life.
MR. BRANAGH: It is a question about life. Well, like life, "Belfast," in fact, could not be achieved in 25 days. It was--it took probably 35 days, I think. How did we do it?
MS. HORNADAY: Still impressive.
MR. BRANAGH: Well, yeah, it's still--it's still swift. But, you know, they say freedom means having no choice. So, what were the choices we didn't have? Well, we couldn't do anything about COVID. We’d just come out of the first lockdown, and so our protocols were tight. It meant that there were shorter days. And so I had to be very decisive about what I wanted to shoot, and when, and how, and where. We had young children with limited working hours, because they had to continue their education. Again, it just makes you very, very decisive about what you do.
We had good fortune. The sun shone in that summer of 2020, in the U.K. and in Belfast. And it led me to do what I had been doing since I began work on the script, which was to try and follow my instinct. So, whether that was to shoot in black and white, whether that was to put a camera at the height of the boy of nine, you know, often at his visual head height, and how to stage a scene where it might all take place in one shot. That's a time saver. Although you can't do it just because it's saving time. Nobody’s going to say--nobody’s going to whistle out of a cinema going, golly, what an amazing schedule that was. It's only going to work if the film is any good.
But those decisions, of course, are now based on a great deal of experience of making films and so--and access to instinct. And then of course, I am blessed in a lot of regular collaborators, my first assistant director, cinematographer, editor, many of the actors here, including the great Judi Dench--these are people who also make it possible because they come on and they are so ready. So, we had the discipline enforced, imposed of COVID. And then we had the brilliance of regular collaborators. And then we had a great deal of luck.
MS. HORNADAY: You know, I know you mentioned that so many of your cast members came from this area, right? I mean, Jamie, Ciarán, I think Caitríona all kind of emanated from--did you find that their memories coincided with yours or converged on yours? Did they diverge? Did you talk? I mean, this is such a memory piece. It's such a personal memory piece. But then I wonder how the collective memory also informed it and whether you--what those conversations were like.
MR. BRANAGH: Well, I like that way of pointing to the collective memory. It was what I think we tried to do from day one was, I--in a way I didn't discourage but I posited the idea that an encyclopedic questioning of me for details about every element of my parents’ life or my grandparents’ life would be fine, but what we started with was actually talking about their families. So, for instance, Caitríona Balfe has a very interesting story. She grew up in Monaghan, which is on the border. She had a very lively sense of the volatility in the world of segregation. Her father was a Garda Sergeant of the Irish police. That's not an easy thing to negotiate when you're in a place where opposite communities are in conflict. So Caitríona had some very interesting insights about just the level of volatility on a day-to-day basis when you went shopping, with bomb scares, all of that.
Same with Jamie. Jamie Dornan was talking about how when he’d bring, you know, friends back who'd be from England, and they would say, oh, that's--what was that noise. That was a car backfiring. And he would say, no, that was a bomb. They’d say you’re kidding me. And he’d switch the television on and 10 minutes later the bomb would be reported. He wasn't blasé about this. It was sort of built into his DNA.
Ciarán had, you know, the same experiences I had, because he was--he was on the other side of the park. He was on the Catholic side of the park. I was on the Protestant side of the park. But we saw and eventually saw the massive wall that now divides those two communities in Alexandra Park, which is the park next to--next to our house. And he brought--his father was a doctor who worked on both--who worked for both religions and treated anybody, was much respected from both communities. So they all had a ton of experience.
And also from young Jude Hill, our 10-year-old star, you know, you also had the fascinated experience of someone who, thank goodness, has not lived through this. So his innocence about this in a way, real Jude in the real here and now was something that really authentically infused this in the same way as my own 9-year-old self was completely perplexed by how this thing could happen from a position of us all, apparently, you know, liking each other and getting on. So, all of those personal experiences made their own blend. And I think they got quite quickly away from anything documentary style about my life, which clearly inspired it, but from an emotional point of view allowed all of them to own it.
MS. HORNADAY: You mentioned that the film just opened in England. Has it opened in Northern Ireland yet?
MR. BRANAGH: It is the biggest movie in Northern Ireland and the biggest opening bar "Spider-Man" for as long as we can remember. It's on in every single cinema that's open in Northern Ireland.
MS. HORNADAY: Well, and I cannot ignore the fact that we just recognized the 50th anniversary of Bloody Sunday, and to have this movie be something that people can go to, and like you said, process their own memories and their own evolving understanding of these events and wherever they kind of--however they affected it, I'm sure it's a very powerful experience for the audiences.
MR. BRANAGH: I think that there's--I've heard from people in the north of Ireland that there's this great sense of pride and a great sense that the compassion that we try to find in the film for, you know, the complete experience is something that can be a tiny but valuable part of the mosaic that is processing the experience of very, very traumatic and defining events like the one you mentioned.
But also, the lifetime--my lifetime has been leaving at the beginning of 30 years of violence that cost the lives of 3,700 people and wreaked havoc way beyond that, and then 25 or so years of a challenged peace and one that is more fragile than ever in the wake of Brexit. But I think the sense of an enormous and important and at its best important story, occasionally inspiring sometimes tragically disturbing, but the story of a nation across a lifetime that has gone through a quite staggering period of development and learning is something that people can't--you know, if you're from there or even if you're just watching from--it's quite an extraordinary arc of experience for one group of people. And stories like this, I think many stories in many media are part of letting people absorb and understand that.
MS. HORNADAY: Indeed. Kenneth Branagh, we are unfortunately out of time. I also had to get ready to go to a screening tonight of a little movie called "Death on the Nile."
MR. BRANAGH: Well, I hope you enjoy that. There's an Irishman in it.
MS. HORNADAY: You never quit, Kenneth Branagh, and we are the better for it.
MR. BRANAGH: Back home they say, you know, it's like waiting for buses. You know, you wait for hours for one and then three come along at once. So, my apologies. But the Irishman in that is secretly in the disguise of a Belgian sleuth called Hercule Poirot. So you’ll never know it was me.
MS. HORNADAY: I'll look out for him. Thank you so much for joining us today, Kenneth.
MR. BRANAGH: Thank you.
MS. HORNADAY: And thank you for joining us today. I am Ann Hornaday. For more information about upcoming programming, please do go to WashingtonPost.com. And we always want to hear from you, our audience, with ideas, thoughts, questions. And please share those on Twitter by tweeting it @PostLive. Once again, thank you for joining us. Good afternoon. | null | null | null | null | null |
The reason: The omicron variant rendered the coronavirus vaccines significantly less effective at stopping the spread. “What’s the point of vaccines or vaccine mandates?” a bunch of powerful people asked. They did so while deliberately ignoring both the vaccines’ continued assistance in slowing the spread (albeit at a reduced rate) and their continually strong performance in keeping people alive and out of the hospital.
Interestingly, that larger 25-jurisdiction study showed that the smaller gap between the unvaccinated and the vaccinated-but-unboosted remained similar to the spring and summer: You were about 13 times more likely to die if you were unvaccinated, compared with 11 times before.
But layering on boosters has expanded the gaps even further between the unprotected and the most-protected. That shows up in both the larger study, which mostly covered the delta period, and the more specific omicron data from Los Angeles County. | null | null | null | null | null |
The National Butterfly Center is closing indefinitely. A fringe Va. candidate is partly to blame.
The National Butterfly Center in Mission, Tex., in 2019. (Carolyn Van Houten/The Washington Post)
Kimberly Lowe, a fringe candidate running against Rep. H. Morgan Griffith in Virginia’s 9th Congressional District Republican primary, hadn’t come to the National Butterfly Center to see the butterflies.
She had come to investigate illegal immigration, according to the center’s executive director, Marianna Trevino-Wright.
Trevino-Wright knew what this was about. The National Butterfly Center in Mission, Tex., had been targeted for years by right-wing figures falsely claiming that human smuggling and child sex-trafficking took place on the center’s property, located near the Rio Grande. And when Trevino-Wright asked Lowe and her friend to leave, telling them their agenda was “not welcome here,” Lowe told her, “I’m sorry you’re okay with children being raped and murdered,” according to audio of the Jan. 21 incident provided to The Washington Post.
The incident — which soon culminated in Trevino-Wright calling the police — was just one of several at the National Butterfly Center in recent days that ultimately led the center to decide to close indefinitely.
Lowe’s visit preceded a “We Stand America” border-security rally, in which some participants showed up at the butterfly center and repeated false claims about smuggling on the property — pushing the center over the edge as staff members feared for their safety at work.
“The safety of our staff and visitors is our primary concern,” Jeffrey Glassberg, president and founder of the North American Butterfly Association, wrote in a newsletter announcing the closure, which linked to two articles about the incident involving Lowe. “We look forward to reopening, soon, when the authorities and professionals who are helping us navigate this situation give us the green light.”
Lowe is running a long-shot bid against Griffith — largely self-funded, according to her most recent campaign finance report, which shows one donor besides herself — after abandoning a bid to challenge Rep. Bob Good (R) in Virginia’s 5th District.
The day before she showed up at the butterfly center, Lowe’s Jan. 20 Facebook videos show her seeking to investigate drug smuggling and child sex-trafficking by following what she identifies as a government bus, claiming the federal government is “using taxpayer dollars to traffic people from other countries across the border,” where she said children and babies were being abused. Baseless claims alleging the government is involved in child sex-trafficking echo the extremist ideology of QAnon, a sprawling set of false claims that have at times incited real-world violence, such as when a gunman showed up at Washington’s Comet Ping Pong in 2016 seeking to investigate false claims of child sex-trafficking.
Lowe claimed in a five-page statement to The Post that she showed up at the butterfly center because a person told her it would be the best way to access the Rio Grande to watch what was happening at the border, and that she had no idea the National Butterfly Center had been targeted with harmful misinformation in the past.
Yet when Trevino-Wright asked Lowe and her friend to leave, Lowe and the other woman proceeded to heckle Trevino-Wright, according to the audio, accusing her of being indifferent to child sex-trafficking.
“So we’re here with a woman who is not a very nice person, who’s okay with children,” Lowe can be heard saying on the audio provided to The Post — which was previously reported on by the Daily Beast — and that’s when the altercation began.
Lowe was cut off as Trevino-Wright tried to block Lowe from filming her. In an affidavit filed with the Mission Police Department and provided to The Post, Trevino-Wright said she either knocked Lowe’s phone away or took it, panicking because of her past experiences with right-wing harassment. The National Butterfly Center became a target after it filed a lawsuit seeking to block the Trump administration from building the border wall — but things escalated after Brian Kolfage, founder of the crowdfunding endeavor “We Build the Wall,” baselessly accused the center of engaging in child sex-trafficking. Kolfage and “We Build the Wall” leader Stephen K. Bannon were charged with federal wire fraud related to the fundraising. On his last day in office, President Donald Trump pardoned Bannon on the fraud charges.
Lowe grabbed her phone back and retreated to the car. But Trevino-Wright said the altercation continued with Lowe’s friend Michelle, who had identified herself as a Secret Service agent, and somehow Trevino-Wright ended up on the ground. A voice can be heard yelling aggressively to get down.
In a Facebook video deleted by Lowe but saved by Trevino-Wright, Lowe began filming from the car — with her children in the back seat — and yelling for Michelle to come. The two women can be seen quarreling over Trevino-Wright’s phone before Michelle returns to the car, saying that everything is fine and that she mistakenly believed Trevino-Wright had possession of Lowe’s phone.
As Lowe began to leave, Trevino-Wright’s son was standing in the driveway trying to close the front gate, believing in the chaos that the women had taken his mother’s phone. “Get the … out of my way!” Lowe yells. She claimed in the statement that she “safely drove around him,” though Trevino-Wright said her son feared she was going to run him over.
Lowe denied Trevino-Wright’s allegations about the incident, claiming that in fact she was the victim of assault, though she declined to pursue charges, and said she would be suing news organizations for publishing what she described as false stories about her.
A spokesman for the Mission Police Department said that no charges had been filed so far against Lowe, but that the incident remained under investigation and police were reviewing video footage.
Trevino-Wright said harassment from the right wing has made it difficult for her and her staff to focus on their work as butterfly scientists. She has been so stressed, she said, that she went to the emergency room for an electrocardiogram earlier this week.
“It’s been horrible, and that’s probably putting it mildly,” Trevino-Wright said in an interview.
“When you’re subject to this kind of disparagement and the activity that it brings about,” she said, “it’s practically impossible to focus on your mission and get about your regular business.” | null | null | null | null | null |
To those measures of success we would add a third: Apparently, U.S. personnel completed the raid with few civilian casualties. Indeed, it seems that Mr. Qurayshi died at his own hand, detonating a bomb rather than fighting Americans — or surrendering to them — and killing much of his family. Mr. Baghdadi similarly killed himself and others as U.S. troops closed in on him during a raid in 2019. Eyewitness reports confirmed official U.S. reports that civilians were warned to exit the targeted building and that some were escorted to safety by U.S. troops. This would represent a courageous effort to protect innocent life — even at the risk to American lives — and, as such, a welcome change from the disastrous U.S. drone strike on a supposed terrorist in Kabul last August, which killed 10 civilians.
The raid on Mr. Qurayshi exemplified Mr. Biden’s preferred approach to global terrorist groups: containing them via “over the horizon” strikes and local allied forces rather than through long-term U.S. ground commitments such as the one he terminated in Afghanistan in August. It does not, by itself, vindicate that approach. To the contrary, the defeat of the Islamic State’s dangerous prison assault demonstrated the wisdom of keeping roughly 900 U.S. troops in Syria to support the Kurds, as Mr. Biden has quietly decided to do. The president has his hands full with deterring Russia in Ukraine and the longer-term effort to counter China. Yet, as Mr. Biden’s decision to strike the terrorist leader showed, those goals cannot be pursued at the expense of vigilance against jihadist terrorism. | null | null | null | null | null |
Protecting women, a partisan divider. Ain’t that America?
Much like Commanders owner Daniel Snyder, the Republicans on the House Committee on Oversight and Reform are refusing to stand up as leaders to ensure accountability.
If there were any, Snyder long ago would have been removed from the franchise. And if every member on that committee Thursday believed in protecting female employees from intimidation and unwanted sexual advances, they would unify by demanding the NFL release the report on Washington’s toxic workplace environment that was completed last year.
The female former employees of Washington’s NFL franchise who shared their firsthand stories of sexual harassment on the job were younger then. Some were fresh out of college. They were unaware of taking their complaints to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, as Rep. Virginia Foxx (R-N.C.) suggested they should have.
The women are older now — and sharper. Melanie Coburn sat in front of congressional members — some of the words of her statement highlighted in yellow — and alleged, in a steady voice, that Snyder once held a drunken party for employees at his Aspen, Colo., home and invited over prostitutes. And Tiffani Johnston shared publicly for the first time her allegation that Snyder inappropriately touched her thigh at a work dinner, then later placed his hand on her lower back while encouraging her to take a ride in his limousine. Snyder denied both women’s accounts Thursday.
To these women, accountability remains absent because the man responsible for dragging the team’s culture into the gutter remains at the top. The name of the team can change, and the Commanders can pretend that new crest of theirs holds depth and dignity befitting a 90-year-old franchise. But no amount of glossy rebranding matters. As long as Snyder’s in charge, the rot still exists.
“You know what’s going to come of this hearing?” Norman told the women. “Nothing. I wish I could say something differently. But we’re having it. You’re all victims of it, and it’s not right.”
Anything can be under Congress’s purview if lawmakers want it to be. In 2005, this same committee, known as the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, held hearings about steroid use in baseball. Then, a member deemed the hearing was vital to address “important questions for baseball, its fans and the nation.” The issues of sexual harassment and workplace misconduct — with a high-profile NFL franchise front and center — deserve the same oversight. | null | null | null | null | null |
ZHANGJIAKOU, China — When the world met Jamie Anderson eight years ago, she became the eccentric Olympic champion, the woman whose candles, crystals and essential oils stirred as much curiosity as her snowboarding prowess. She was the alpha free spirit in a sport of unorthodox characters, musing about chi and chakras, talking of yoga and meditation like religion, the queen of mindfulness and self-care.
The South Lake Tahoe, Calif., native called the past year “an absolute nightmare” as she continued to compete during a pandemic and watched a wildfire smolder near her hometown. Anderson thought about not coming to the Beijing Olympics to compete for a third straight slopestyle gold medal. She’s a person who, in normal times, struggles with her relationship to the world, so much so that she agonizes about flying so often because of how aircraft emissions affect the environment. But she decided that she needed to compete. At 31, this might her last Olympics moment.
“It was pretty challenging for myself,” Anderson said. “But at the end of the day, I felt really grateful and privileged to have this opportunity and use this platform to inspire young girls and athletes all over the world that, with hard work and dedication, you can do anything.”
She’s the only woman to win a slopestyle gold in Olympic history. Anderson won the sport’s debut in Sochi in 2014, and she repeated under dangerously windy conditions four years later at the PyeongChang Games. She stands as the most accomplished female slopestyle snowboarder ever. All the while, she has insisted on making her wellness as important as the results. She is an antidote for all the misguided beliefs about the crushing sacrifices that winners must make.
“I really believe that a lot of my success in sports, it’s not just being a physically strong and active snowboarder,” Anderson said during a pre-Olympics virtual event promoting an outdoor apparel company. “I really think it’s mind, body, spirit and aligning all those things together, because you can’t just be one thing. Like, in our sport, the ego takes such a big role and trying to be the best and trying to win. And ever since I was a little kid, my mom always ingrained in me and all my sisters and brothers to be humble, to never take anything for granted, and it’s okay to be confident, but you don’t want to be cocky.
She always brings her favorite book to events: “You Can Heal Your Life.” It’s the life-changing gift her mother gave her when she suffered a punctured spleen at 17. As she lay in the hospital bed, Anderson started doing the mental work that keeps her in balance now.
As she steps onto the Olympic stage again, Anderson is not an entertaining outlier. She is a model competitor, an example of how critical preventive care can be to a healthier sports environment. Here’s hoping she brought enough essential oil to share. | null | null | null | null | null |
Winter Games are often tests of design and engineering. May the best gear win.
Jamie Anderson stayed focused on wellness. The world finally caught up.
Mr. T is putting his muscle behind curling
Earlier Thursday: U.S. women’s hockey team beats Finland but loses a key player
U.S. men's figure skater Nathan Chen speaks to his coach Thursday during a practice session at the Beijing Olympics. (How Hwee Young/EPA-EFE/Shutterstock)
Declaring that “curling is cool,” none other than Mr. T took to Twitter Thursday to show his support for Team USA.
“It’s time for The Winter Olympics!” tweeted the 69-year-old star of “Rocky III” and “The A-Team.” “And you know what that means! My Favorite! The U.S. A Curling team is back!”
As Mr. T (real name: Laurence Tureaud) noted, the United States has the defending gold medal champions, led by John Shuster, in the men’s competition. In a follow-up tweet, he also noted that, in the Lunar New Year celebrated in China and many other parts of Asia, it is now the Year of the Tiger. That gave Mr. T all the opening he needed to drop a couple of well-worn catchphrases.
“The Eye Of The Tiger!” Grrr!” he tweeted. “So let the Games Begin. I pity the Competition!”
It’s not the first time Mr. T has given a shout-out to Olympic curling. In 2018, he tweeted, “I like curling, it’s less wear and tear on the body. I wrestled, boxed, and studied martial arts. I have nothing else to prove. Therefore I choose curling.”
After he learned that the U.S. women’s beach volleyball tandem of April Ross and Alix Klineman was being referred to as the “A-Team” at last summer’s Tokyo Games, he tweeted that he “had to cheer you on.” Ross and Klineman lived up to the billing by going on to win the gold medal.
Presumably, Mr. T’s tweets Thursday were just a prelude to him settling in for the evening to watch the mixed doubles curling competition.
More medical personnel arrived in blue gowns and carefully loaded Decker on the stretcher before wheeling her off. She unbuckled her chinstrap and bowed her head as her teammates, never expecting to be this rattled this early in the tournament, gingerly tapped their sticks in support. Their captain, Kendall Coyne Schofield, gathered the players and urged everyone to stay poised. She could see the devastation and nervousness in her teammates eyes.
Even after the Americans dug deep for a 5-2 win to open their gold medal defense at these Olympics, the screams they heard still haunted them afterward, as they eventually learned that Decker would miss the remainder of the Games. | null | null | null | null | null |
They describe the thunder of helicopters and a terrible clatter of gunfire ‘from the sky’
A destroyed building in the aftermath of a counterterrorism mission conducted by U.S. armed forces in Atma, Syria, on Feb. 3. (Mohamed Al-Daher/Reuters)
Ahmed, who for safety reasons spoke on the condition that he be identified by only his first name, went up to his roof, he said in a telephone interview. The thunder of the helicopters was eclipsed by a terrible clatter of gunfire “from the sky,” he said.
It was sleepless night across Syria’s northern Idlib province, with alarming sounds, deadly violence and a barrage of breathless rumors. Grainy cellphone videos were passed around depicting fragments of an event — muzzle flashes, shouted entreaties — whose contours emerged only later, after the sun rose Thursday on a partially demolished and bloodied cinder block home.
Mahmoud al-Sheikh, who works at an auto repair shop less than a mile from the house, had also been kept awake by the sounds. He said he heard a soldier giving orders over a loudspeaker: “Children and women, leave. We are entering the house,” someone said.
There was nothing terribly extraordinary about the men in the house, he added, saying they did not outwardly match the description of hard-line Islamist fighters who often wore long beards.
Residents who lived close to the house told Omar Nezhat, a local journalist, that they were interrogated by the soldiers, who marked their foreheads with numbers and told them not to worry, because American forces were there to kill an ISIS leader.
The group was not sure how the other people died. “Truthfully all the bodies were largely covered in blood, sometimes it could not be discerned if it was bullets or explosions,” a spokesman said in a message. | null | null | null | null | null |
Montgomery council asks planning board to ‘encourage transparency’
The focus on the board’s practices has intensified as the county council begins to consider the Thrive Montgomery long-term growth policy
Montgomery County Council's president, Gabe Albornoz (D-At Large), asked the county's planning board to “create an environment that will encourage transparency and facilitate public participation.” (Bill O'Leary/The Washington Post)
The Montgomery County Council has asked county planning officials to “encourage transparency” following complaints that they didn’t enforce lobbyist registration requirements or better help the public access some virtual meetings during the pandemic.
In a Feb. 2 letter to Montgomery Planning Board Chair Casey Anderson, the council said the board also had improperly signed off on major changes to some approved development proposals before holding public hearings.
“In isolation, any of these procedural concerns would be troubling,” said the letter signed by the council’s president, Gabe Albornoz (D-At Large). “Taken together, it creates an impression that the Planning Board’s procedures are lacking in transparency and public participation.”
The council, which appoints the five-member board, asked Anderson to “outline the specific steps” taken in response to the complaints and to “create an environment that will encourage transparency and facilitate public participation.”
Montgomery planners' proposal to relax single-family zoning divides neighborhoods
The letter was first reported by the Seventh State blog written by David Lublin, an American University government professor and former mayor of the Town of Chevy Chase. Lublin had written recent posts about what he called the board’s “problematic ethics.”
The focus on the board’s practices has intensified as the Montgomery County Council begins to consider the board’s proposal for Thrive Montgomery 2050, an update of the county’s general plan. The plan, which has sparked intense debate, will guide land use and growth for 30 years.
In an interview Thursday, Anderson said the planning board has responded to the complaints, including by updating and starting to enforce its lobbying disclosure requirements.
“We take transparency and openness very seriously,” Anderson said. “Whenever anyone points out gaps in our procedures, we never hesitate to make improvements.”
He said that he, previous planning board members and the department’s staff had been unaware of the 1983 lobbyist registration requirement.
“No planning board had ever implemented it, probably because no one ever noticed this requirement,” he said.
Montgomery planners reject Takoma Park development proposal
The council’s letter also noted the Maryland Open Meetings Compliance Board’s Jan. 3 finding that the planning agency hadn’t provided enough information to help the public attend virtual meetings of the Development Review Committee after they moved online at the start of the pandemic. Such meetings gather planning staff and employees from other government agencies, along with development proposals’ applicants, to discuss proposals before they go to the planning board.
The planning department began streaming those committee meetings in December and has begun to upload recordings of previous virtual meetings to its website, according to department staff.
The council also said the planning board had improperly agreed to major changes to some approved development proposals, such as to increase building heights or shrink open space. The problem, the council said, stemmed from the proposals being considered as part of the board’s “consent agenda” for quick approval rather than after soliciting public testimony. Though the planning board has allowed the public to ask to testify on such issues — and thereby have them removed from the consent agenda — many people probably were unaware they could do so, the council said.
Anderson said the board plans to make it more obvious and “as clear as possible” on its online meeting sign-up page that people may testify about items on the consent agenda. | null | null | null | null | null |
Harvard University’s Hasty Pudding Theatricals 2022 Man of the Year, actor Jason Bateman, left, kisses the Pudding Pot during a news conference after being presented with the theatrical award, in Cambridge, Mass., Thursday, Feb. 3, 2022. (AP Photo/Steven Senne)
By Stephanie Morales | AP
CAMBRIDGE, Mass. — “Ozark” actor Jason Bateman was honored Thursday as Man of the Year by Harvard University’s Hasty Pudding Theatricals in Cambridge. | null | null | null | null | null |
Robin Herman, who broke sports journalism barrier, dies at 70
Robin Herman, sportswriter for the New York Times, outside the Chicago Black Hawks dressing room in 1975. (AP)
Robin Herman, a sports reporter at the New York Times in the 1970s who was among the first female journalists to interview players in the locker room after an NHL game, died Feb. 1 at her home in Waltham, Mass. She was 70.
Her husband, Paul Horvitz, confirmed the death to the Times and said the cause was ovarian cancer.
Ms. Herman was a hockey reporter covering the New York Islanders when she and a female reporter from a local radio station were allowed to interview players in the locker room — as their male counterparts were commonly permitted to do — following the 1975 All-Star Game in Montreal.
Ms. Herman, in a piece for the Times a few weeks later, recalled how she’d hoped her “mini sports history” moment would go unnoticed. Instead, the locker room quickly devolved into a “circus scene” as “players scrambled for towels and photographers scrambled for cameras” and the two female reporters suddenly were “the news of the hour,” she wrote.
“It was an important moment, for it loudly heralded the fact that female sportswriters are a reality and that they must be dealt with,” Ms. Herman wrote. (Houston broadcast journalist Anita Martini conducted a locker room interview a year earlier at the Astrodome after a major league baseball game.)
Ms. Herman went on to other assignments at the Times, including covering the early years of the AIDS crisis, later wrote for the International Herald Tribune and worked a few years at The Washington Post in its health section. She also wrote the 1990 book “Fusion: The Search for Endless Energy.”
Ms. Herman became assistant dean for communications at Harvard University’s School of Public Health in 1999 and retired in 2012.
Robin Cathy Herman was born in New York City on Nov. 24, 1951, and grew up in Port Washington, on Long Island. She was part of the first Princeton University class that admitted women and graduated in 1973.
In addition to her husband, survivors include two children. | null | null | null | null | null |
GAINESVILLE, Fla. — In 58 previous meetings spanning more than four decades, Florida’s often-feeble women’s basketball program never did anything like this to mighty Tennessee: A complete beatdown.
“It was an onslaught coming right at us,” Harper said. “These turnovers resulted in wide-open layups. ... We could play them tomorrow and I don’t know if we’d beat them.” | null | null | null | null | null |
Ex-officer who killed Laquan McDonald released after serving less than half his sentence
Former Chicago police officer Jason Van Dyke, left, attends his January 2019 sentencing hearing in Chicago for the 2014 murder of Laquan McDonald. (Antonio Perez/AP)
The former Chicago police officer who was convicted of murdering 17-year-old Laquan McDonald was released from prison on Thursday after serving less than half of a nearly seven-year sentence, renewing anger over a case that has shaken the city and forced a years-long reckoning with law enforcement abuses.
Jason Van Dyke, the White former officer, was convicted in 2018 of second-degree murder and 16 counts of aggravated battery after shooting McDonald, a Black teen, 16 times nearly four years earlier. Van Dyke’s conviction — the first time in decades one of the city’s officers was found guilty of murder for an on-duty killing — was heralded by some as a distinct sign of progress, a signal that police would begin facing increased accountability.
But activists and local leaders now say Van Dyke walking free amounts to a miscarriage of justice, and calls for federal intervention have grown louder in recent days.
“It’s really a black eye on Lady Justice,” Rep. Bobby L. Rush (D-Ill.) said in an interview. “Justice is supposed to be blind, but this is the opposite of blind justice. This is justice that has been denied — this is a denial of justice.”
Rush has been among the most vocal lawmakers advocating for federal civil rights charges against Van Dyke, imploring the U.S. attorney’s office to take action.
“This has been a mockery since he was charged with less than first-degree murder, and I think this mockery continues even to this very hour,” Rush said.
Van Dyke was released from Taylorville Correctional Center in central Illinois early Thursday morning, corrections officials confirmed, after the state for years declined to discuss his specific whereabouts, citing security concerns with high-profile prisoners. It was long expected that Van Dyke would get out of prison well before the end of his 81-month sentence, due to Illinois rules that credit inmates for good behavior.
His attorney, Jennifer Blagg, said Van Dyke would not be giving interviews and stressed that he “has received no preferential treatment.”
“To the contrary, for his safety, he was required to serve the majority of his time in solitary confinement, which is atypical for most prisoners,” Blagg said in an email to The Washington Post.
Demonstrators, including some of McDonald’s family members, planned to protest Van Dyke’s release and renew demands for a federal civil rights charges at a rally in downtown Chicago on Thursday. But the Rev. Marvin Hunter, McDonald’s great-uncle, who has acted as a family spokesman, has said he and other relatives do not plan on participating.
“We feel we got justice, because he got prosecuted for the crime that he did,” Hunter told CNN. “He did not do the amount of time that we felt like he should have done, but he did get prosecuted.”
Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot said in a statement Thursday that Van Dyke’s initial sentence was “a supreme disappointment” and that she understands the outpouring of outrage over his release, “especially when many Black and brown men get sentenced to so much more prison time for having committed far lesser crimes.”
“It’s these distortions in the criminal justice system, historically, that have made it so hard to build trust,” she added.
Lightfoot, who served as president of the Chicago Police Board oversight group before she was elected mayor, said the city has achieved “historic reforms” but acknowledged that “there is much work to do.”
This week, the NAACP sent a letter to Attorney General Merrick Garland, urging him to bring federal civil rights charges against McDonald. The state’s two senators, Democrats Richard J. Durbin and Tammy Duckworth, sent Garland a letter of their own on Tuesday, asking for an update on the investigation into McDonald’s killing, which has been ongoing since 2015.
“We urge the Justice Department to carefully and expeditiously complete its investigation,” they wrote, pointing to the federal civil rights case against Derek Chauvin, the former Minneapolis police officer found guilty of murdering George Floyd, as precedent.
Illinois Lt. Gov. Juliana Stratton and Cook County State’s Attorney Kim Foxx echoed the sentiment on Thursday.
“If there’s an ability to do something about it on the federal level, then, by all means, something should be done,” Foxx wrote.
McDonald was killed in 2014, on the city’s Southwest Side, after officers were called to investigate reports of someone with a knife trying to break into vehicles. Video of the incident — which shows Van Dyke firing all of the ammunition in his clip at McDonald, continuing to shoot the teen’s prone body — was released 13 months later, undermining initial police accounts and sparking massive protests.
It has been more than seven years since McDonald’s murder, and the impact of the killing has been far-reaching. A civilian-led oversight board was established, and Chicago police officers must now wear body cameras while on duty. The superintendent who oversaw the department was ousted, the prosecutor who waiting more than a year to file charges lost her bid for reelection and then-Mayor Rahm Emanuel declined to seek a third term.
Yet even after the Justice Department released a blistering report detailing a pattern of racist policing, yearly watchdog reports have found that the Chicago Police Department continues to miss significant reform deadlines.
Van Dyke’s release “says that we have a long way to go,” Rush said, linking McDonald’s death to the “same system of injustice that killed Fred Hampton and Mark Clark,” members of the Black Panther Party who were shot to death by police in Chicago in 1969.
“There is a pantheon of pain surrounding police murders,” Rush said, “that too many families in our nation have had to endure.”
Kim Bellware contributed to this report. | null | null | null | null | null |
Hoyas drop 10th straight, crumble at home against St. John’s
What to know from Georgetown’s 90-77 loss
Dante Harris walks past a celebrating St. John's bench during Georgetown's 90-77 loss, the Hoyas' 10th straight. (John McDonnell/The Washington Post)
The Georgetown men’s basketball team, staring at the prospect of a 10-game losing streak, welcomed fellow Big East bottom-dweller St. John’s into McDonough Arena on Thursday night. Another struggling team coming to the cozy confines of the Hoyas’ campus gym seemed like a perfect recipe for Patrick Ewing’s team to get right.
But wayward shooting and defensive lapses, particularly in transition, instead contributed to a 10th consecutive defeat, 90-77, extending the Hoyas’ worst start in conference history and a slide entering its third month.
“We’ve got to get back to the drawing board,” Ewing said. “We’ve got to keep fighting. I’m playing guys a lot of minutes, and it’s unfortunate, but that’s just part of the rut that we’re in. Guys just have to step up and get it done.”
The Hoyas (6-14, 0-9) last won Dec. 15, an 85-73 victory over Howard.
The outcome became all but certain behind the Red Storm’s 21-7 run bridging the first and second halves in a game Georgetown never led and trailed for all but 53 seconds. St. John’s shot 50.7 percent while the Hoyas hit at just 37.5 percent, including 9 for 24 on three-pointers, and missed seven second-half layups.
The Hoyas, who fell behind by as many as 26, staged a nominal rally in the closing minutes to draw within 82-71 with 3:49 left on Collin Holloway’s layup, but St. John’s (12-9, 4-6) scored the next six points to secure a sweep of the regular season series.
It was Georgetown’s third straight loss to St. John’s and fourth in the past five meetings in a series that dates from 1909.
Donald Carey led Georgetown with a career-high 23 points on 7-for-14 shooting and added seven rebounds. Kaiden Rice scored 20 points, making 5 of 10 three-pointers. Dante Harris was the only other Hoyas player in double figures (10 points), but he shot 4 for 12 and committed a team-high three turnovers.
Carey was not with the Hoyas in the first meeting with St. John’s, nor was Ewing. Both missed the 88-69 loss Jan. 16 at Madison Square Garden because of illness.
“We don’t have tine to exhale or get down on ourselves,” Ewing said. “We’ve got to keep on playing, keep on getting ready. We have another game against Providence on Sunday, so we can’t afford to be down on ourselves.”
The good news is that the game against the Friars is at Capital One Arena. The bad news: No. 15 Providence (19-2, 9-1) leads the Big East and has won 14 of 15.
Julian Champagnie sparked St. John’s on Thursday, busting out of a funk with a game-high 27 points, shooting 6 for 12 from behind the arc. He added six rebounds and four assists and has scored 52 points this season against Georgetown.
The junior guard entered second in the Big East in scoring (18.3) after leading the conference last season but had failed to reach double figures for four consecutive games. Champagnie had scored in double digits in 40 consecutive games before that slump.
“We did not do a good job of guarding him,” Ewing said. “The shots that he got, it was just like workout shots. He was [making] shots even with us right there.”
Misfiring Mohammed
Aminu Mohammed, the Hoyas’ leading scorer, went 1 for 13 from the field and finished with four points. He labored to get clean looks against longer defenders.
The freshman guard entered averaging 13.8 points and had scored at least a dozen in each of the past six games before matching his season low in points and his fewest in a Big East game. Mohammed’s last game in single digits came Jan. 13 in a 72-58 loss to Butler, when he had seven and shot 2 for 16.
“I’m very confident in him,” Ewing said. “He’s a warrior. He had a bad outing tonight, but it’s part of his learning. Part of his maturation is learning, is growth. He’s got to learn when they have size on him what to do. They’re coming over to collapse on him. Sometimes he’s got to make the pass; sometimes he’s got to make the shot.”
Back on campus
The Hoyas faced a Big East opponent at McDonough Arena in a game with fans for the first time since Jan. 18, 1984, when Ewing, then a junior, was the centerpiece of a team that captured the program’s first and only national championship later that season.
Georgetown and St. John’s were originally scheduled to play Jan. 1 at Capital One Arena, but coronavirus-related complications in the Hoyas’ locker room forced a postponement. The Hoyas wound up having four straight games postponed over nearly three weeks.
McDonough, on the Georgetown campus, became the replacement site for Thursday’s game because Capital One Arena was hosting a Kacey Musgraves concert. | null | null | null | null | null |
Ashley Owusu exits early, but Maryland battles for a win at Michigan State
What to know about the Terps’ 67-62 win over the Spartans
Maryland Coach Brenda Frese was pleased with her team's play, grinding out a road win at Michigan State: “I thought we grew as a team on both ends of the floor. … That was just a 40-minute game of complete toughness.” (Katherine Frey/The Washington Post)
By Brian Calloway
EAST LANSING, Mich. — Shyanne Sellers has been playing with confidence lately for the Maryland women’s basketball team. And when adversity struck Thursday, Sellers provided a huge lift off the bench to lift the Terrapins on the road.
With star guard Ashley Owusu exiting with a first-half injury, Sellers stepped up in the Terrapins’ 67-62 victory over Michigan State at Breslin Center.
Sellers had nine points, seven rebounds, five assists and four steals to help No. 17 Maryland (16-6, 8-3 Big Ten) weather the loss of Owusu to earn its fourth straight win.
“I just think my teammates put me in good positions to be successful,” Sellers said. “I was giving everything I had with Ashley out because that was a big loss for us. I had to give everything I can.
“Just giving that extra effort — we were down a body but we’ve been there before so it wasn’t anything new for me. I just had to step up and do my part.”
Angel Reese paced Maryland with a game-high 25 points, including 16 in the second half, and added nine rebounds to help it fend off the Spartans’ comeback. She scored the final six points for the Terps and buried a big basket in the paint in the final 30 seconds to help seal the outcome.
“She’s a problem,” Michigan State Coach Suzy Merchant said. “That kid is a double-double. We can’t keep her off the boards.”
Diamond Miller added 14 points and three blocks for Maryland, which led by as much as 10 in the late stages of the third quarter following a three-point play by Sellers.
But Michigan State star Nia Clouden — the Big Ten’s third-leading scorer — helped the Spartans respond by hitting a three-pointer as time expired in the third quarter.
Alisia Smith and Clouden also had big baskets in the fourth to help the Spartans (12-9, 6-4) keep it tight, with Clouden making a three-pointer with 2:29 to play that cut Maryland’s lead to two. Reese responded by knocking down a pair of free throws.
Michigan State, which had its four-game winning streak halted, got to within two points with 48 seconds left after a pair of free throws by Tamara Farquhar before Reese converted inside with 26 seconds to play. Reese also came away with a rebound following a missed Spartans free throw in the closing seconds.
“I thought we grew as a team on both ends of the floor,” Maryland Coach Brenda Frese said. “We had to have our defensive rebounding — that was huge. That was just a 40-minute game of complete toughness. I thought Angel made some big, big plays for us down the stretch and wanted those opportunities inside.
“I’m proud of these guys. This was a great, tough road win against a really tough Michigan State team. We’re excited about building on this momentum.”
What to know from the Terrapins win over the Spartans:
Awaiting word on Owusu
Frese had no immediate update on Owusu after the game. The junior guard went down after making a basket with 1:55 to play in the opening quarter. She had to be helped off the court. Owusu returned to the bench after halftime with crutches.
Asked about Owusu’s status after the game, Frese said, “We need to get back to College Park. She will have X-rays done by the medical staff and then we’ll see what they say.”
Slowing Clouden late
Clouden finished with a team-high 22 points to pace the Spartans, with 15 coming in a third quarter in which she knocked down five three-pointers. Maryland limited Clouden to just three points in the final quarter.
“I thought we were really tuned into her,” Frese said. “We had some missed opportunities in the third quarter with our hands down and she hit some really deep threes. We really just got outside the three-point line and were really aware of where she was at. They were just locked in — all five on the defensive end.”
High school reunion
Thursday’s contest served as a high school reunion for Clouden and Reese, who were standouts at St. Frances Academy in Baltimore. It was the first time they competed against each other at the college level and Reese was glad to come away with bragging rights.
“It’s always fun playing against Nia,” Reese said. “She’s a great player, great point guard and she’s done great things at Michigan State leading them. It’s always fun playing against her. We got the win today so I will talk to her about that after.” | null | null | null | null | null |
Chicago Bulls’ DeMar DeRozan drives past Toronto Raptors guard Fred VanVleet (23) during the first half of an NBA basketball game Thursday, Feb. 3, 2022, in Toronto. (Frank Gunn/The Canadian Press via AP)
TORONTO — Pascal Siakam had 25 points and 13 rebounds, Chris Boucher added 16 points and 10 rebounds, and the Toronto Raptors beat the Chicago Bulls 127-120 in overtime on Thursday night. | null | null | null | null | null |
BEIJING — On Friday morning, American skating star Nathan Chen came into the Capital Indoor Arena with four years of burden and expectation on his shoulders. His disastrous 2018 Olympics was followed by a near-perfect run since, which only raised expectations — and tension — as he entered the men’s short program at the team event.
But instead of stumbling as he did in PyeongChang as a wide-eyed teenager, the 22-year-old Chen skated with confidence, brilliantly working through his routine, nailing each element with precision and easily winning the first event of the team competition with a score of 111.71.
Dressed in a slim black suit over a white T-shirt, Chen moved with a cool that was the opposite of the two, error-riddled short programs he managed in 2018. His performance on Friday also put the U.S. in excellent shape to improve upon the bronze medal it got in the team event in 2018.
“I’m happy with the way I skated,” Chen said after his performance. “It was great to be able to have a short program that I skated well at the Olympics. Take as much as I can from the experience and take it day by day from here.”
He said he came into Friday trying not to think about the previous Olympics, something he has said repeatedly that he has tried to do in the years after the PyeongChang Games. His comfort was clear from the start Friday, even before landing his first jump, a quad flip.
Friday’s short program was filled with many of Chen’s hardest jumps, including a highly challenging quad Lutz triple toeloop, but he hit them all as if he was simply floating across the ice.
Chen has a fraught history with the Olympics. In his only other Games, he appeared in the same position — leading the U.S. in the team event’s short program — and made three uncharacteristic mistakes that seemed to foreshadow his eventual collapse in the men’s individual short program. Then, he failed to complete almost all of his jumps and finished 17th, leading to his eventual fifth-place finish in South Korea.
He has recently said that he was not prepared for the size and power of the Olympics back then, when he was just 18. In the years since, he has tried to look at the Olympics as just another competition, choosing to focus on the joy of skating instead of putting pressure on himself to be perfect.
“You learn the most from your mistakes and I certainly learned a lot from that competition and I don’t think I would be able to be here where I am now without having had that experience,” he said Friday when asked if his skate had “exorcised a demon” for him. “So rather than that being a demon, I think that was a very helpful learning experience.”
The men’s short program is the first of eight programs in the team event.
Chen will skate again Tuesday in the men’s individual short program, the first of two events that will go a long way if he is to create a legacy as one of the top skaters of his generation. | null | null | null | null | null |
Jaguars hire Super Bowl winner Doug Pederson as their next head coach
Doug Pederson will return to the NFL, while the Jacksonville Jaguars’ meandering head coaching search has ended. The Jaguars announced Thursday night that they’ve hired Pederson as their next coach.
Pederson replaces Urban Meyer, who was fired by the Jaguars in December. Darrell Bevell took over as the team’s interim coach and finished the season.
“Doug Pederson four years ago won a Super Bowl as head coach of a franchise in pursuit of its first world championship,” Jaguars owner Shad Khan said in a written statement. “I hope Doug can replicate that magic here in Jacksonville, but what is certain is his proven leadership and experience as a winning head coach in the National Football League. It’s exactly what our players deserve. Nothing less.”
Pederson, 54, spent five years as the Eagles’ head coach, posting a regular season record of 42-37-1 and a postseason mark of 4-2. The Eagles made three postseason appearances under Pederson and won the Super Bowl in the 2017 season. That memorable triumph over the New England Patriots included the sideline consultation between Pederson and quarterback Nick Foles that resulted in the famed “Philly Special” gadget-play touchdown.
Pederson inherits a Jaguars team coming off a 3-14 season and will have the top pick in the NFL draft for a second straight year. One of Pederson’s top tasks will be to oversee the development of quarterback Trevor Lawrence, last year’s No. 1 draft choice who struggled this season as a rookie. Lawrence finished tied for the NFL lead with his 17 interceptions and posted an unsightly passer rating of 71.9.
Khan and the Jaguars must hope that they made the proper choice this time. Khan, to much fanfare, lured Meyer out of retirement last year and brought him from the college ranks to the NFL. The results were calamitous. Meyer couldn’t win and had a string of public embarrassments. He apologized and was reprimanded by Khan in October after he remained in Ohio following a defeat at Cincinnati and video surfaced of him in a bar with a young woman dancing alongside him. His firing came soon after former Jaguars kicker Josh Lambo accused Meyer of kicking him in the leg on the practice field during training camp.
The Jaguars become the sixth of the nine NFL teams with head coaching vacancies this offseason to make their coach. The confirmed hires include Nathaniel Hackett by the Denver Broncos, Matt Eberflus by the Chicago Bears, Brian Daboll by the New York Giants, Josh McDaniels by the Las Vegas Raiders and Pederson by the Jaguars. The Minnesota Vikings have chosen Los Angeles Rams offensive coordinator Kevin O’Connell, according to a person familiar with the situation. But that move cannot be official, under NFL rules, until after the Rams play in the Super Bowl.
No minority head coaches have been hired during this cycle. The NFL has only one active Black head coach, the Pittsburgh Steelers’ Mike Tomlin. Brian Flores, the former coach of the Miami Dolphins, filed a lawsuit against the league and teams this week accusing them of racial discrimination.
The Dolphins, Houston Texans and New Orleans Saints continue to search for new head coaches. | null | null | null | null | null |
Doug Pederson will return to the NFL, and the Jacksonville Jaguars’ meandering coaching search has ended. The Jaguars announced Thursday night that they’ve hired Pederson as their next coach.
Pederson replaces Urban Meyer, who was fired in December. Offensive coordinator Darrell Bevell took over as interim coach and finished the season.
Pederson, 54, spent five years as the Eagles’ coach, posting a regular season record of 42-37-1 and a postseason mark of 4-2. The Eagles made three postseason appearances under Pederson and won the Super Bowl in the 2017 season. That memorable triumph over the New England Patriots included the sideline consultation between Pederson and quarterback Nick Foles that resulted in the famed “Philly Special” gadget-play touchdown.
Pederson inherits a Jaguars team that is coming off a 3-14 season and will have the top pick in the draft for a second straight year. One of Pederson’s top tasks will be to oversee the development of quarterback Trevor Lawrence, last year’s No. 1 choice who struggled this season as a rookie. Lawrence finished tied for the NFL lead with his 17 interceptions and posted an unsightly passer rating of 71.9.
Khan and the Jaguars must hope they made the proper choice this time. Khan, to much fanfare, lured Meyer out of retirement last year and brought him from the college ranks to the NFL. The results were calamitous. Meyer couldn’t win and had a string of public embarrassments. He apologized and was reprimanded by Khan in October after he remained in Ohio following a defeat at Cincinnati and video surfaced of him in a bar with a young woman dancing alongside him. His firing came soon after former Jaguars kicker Josh Lambo accused Meyer of kicking him in the leg on the practice field during training camp.
The Jaguars become the sixth of the nine NFL teams with vacancies this offseason to find their coach. The confirmed hires are Nathaniel Hackett by the Denver Broncos, Matt Eberflus by the Chicago Bears, Brian Daboll by the New York Giants, Josh McDaniels by the Las Vegas Raiders and Pederson by the Jaguars. The Minnesota Vikings have chosen Los Angeles Rams offensive coordinator Kevin O’Connell, according to a person familiar with the situation. But that move cannot be official, under NFL rules, until after the Rams play in the Super Bowl.
No minority coaches have been hired in this cycle. The NFL has only one active Black head coach: the Pittsburgh Steelers’ Mike Tomlin. Brian Flores, the former coach of the Miami Dolphins, filed a lawsuit against the league and teams this week accusing them of racial discrimination.
The Dolphins, Houston Texans and New Orleans Saints continue to search for a new coach. | null | null | null | null | null |
Emilien leads Saint Francis (BKN) against Sacred Heart after 20-point game
Sacred Heart Pioneers (7-14, 3-5 NEC) at Saint Francis (BKN) Terriers (7-15, 4-7 NEC)
BOTTOM LINE: Saint Francis (BKN) faces the Sacred Heart Pioneers after Patrick Emilien scored 20 points in Saint Francis (BKN)’s 81-64 victory over the Fairleigh Dickinson Knights.
The Terriers have gone 3-6 at home. Saint Francis (BKN) is sixth in the NEC with 29.5 points per game in the paint led by Emilien averaging 2.0.
The Pioneers are 3-5 against conference opponents. Sacred Heart is 2-7 in games decided by 10 points or more.
The teams meet for the second time in conference play this season. The Terriers won 71-66 in the last matchup on Jan. 28. Michael Cubbage led the Terriers with 21 points, and Cantavio Dutreil led the Pioneers with 13 points.
TOP PERFORMERS: Rob Higgins is averaging 10.9 points and 3.4 assists for the Terriers. Emilien is averaging 13.6 points over the last 10 games for Saint Francis (BKN). | null | null | null | null | null |
Jacksonville visits Jacksonville State after Nolan's 20-point game
BOTTOM LINE: Jacksonville visits the Jacksonville State Gamecocks after Kevion Nolan scored 20 points in Jacksonville’s 56-50 victory over the North Alabama Lions.
The Gamecocks are 7-2 on their home court. Jacksonville State has a 0-1 record in one-possession games.
The Dolphins are 6-3 against ASUN opponents. Jacksonville averages 66.6 points while outscoring opponents by 8.3 points per game.
The Gamecocks and Dolphins meet Saturday for the first time in conference play this season.
TOP PERFORMERS: Darian Adams is scoring 14.8 points per game and averaging 5.5 rebounds for the Gamecocks. Demaree King is averaging 13.4 points and 2.0 rebounds over the last 10 games for Jacksonville State.
Bryce Workman is averaging 8.9 points for the Dolphins. Nolan is averaging 2.7 made 3-pointers over the last 10 games for Jacksonville. | null | null | null | null | null |
For around three days, he has been stuck more than 100 feet underground in a village in northern Morocco, after he fell into a dry well and became stuck between its narrow walls.
The dramatic efforts to save him have gripped Morocco and neighboring countries, as rescuers work around-the-clock to pull him to safety and broadcasters live-stream their efforts.
Attempts to pull him out have been complicated by the depth and diameter of the location where he is lodged. The well is too narrow to send someone down to rescue him directly but aggressive digging around the area could cause the walls to collapse, forcing workers to move very carefully and deliberately to avoid injuring him further.
Mustapha Baitas, a government spokesman, said Thursday that Morocco has the resources needed to oversee his rescue, but “we can ask for help if the need arises when it comes to saving the lives of citizens.”
Abdelhadi Tamarani, who is part of the team working to rescue him, told Moroccan TV channel 2M on Thursday evening that they had managed to dig to a depth of around 82 feet in the hole parallel to the well. By Friday morning, the same news channel said workers had dug another 13 feet toward him.
Accidents involving children and wells have often transfixed audiences around the world. One of the more famous rescues happened in Midland, Tex., in 1987 when 18-month-old “baby Jessica” was rescued from a well after a parallel shaft was dug — much like what is being attempted in the Morocco.
The cases don’t always end happily, however. In 2019, 2-year-old Julen Rosello fell into a similar well in Spain. The complicated rescue efforts included digging multiple tunnels to try to recover the boy. Hundreds of experts contributed to the operation, which included moving more than 17,000 tons of rocks. But they could not reach him in time, and his body was finally recovered after 13 days. | null | null | null | null | null |
BEIJING — On Friday morning, U.S. figure skating star Nathan Chen came into Capital Indoor Stadium with four years of burden and expectation on his shoulders. His disastrous 2018 Olympics were followed by four years of international dominance, raising expectations — and tension — for these Olympics.
But instead of stumbling as he did in PyeongChang as a wide-eyed teenager, the 22-year-old Chen skated with confidence, nailing each element in his short program to open the team competition with a first-place score of 111.71. It was the start of a huge day for the United States, as ice dancers Madison Hubbell and Zachary Donohue also placed first in the rhythm dance and Alexa Knierim and Brandon Frazier finished third in pairs.
That left the Americans team in first place with 28 points after the first day of the three-day event. The athletes representing the Russian Olympic Committee were second with 26 and China third, with five more events over the remaining two days of the competition.
Dressed in a slim black suit over a white T-shirt, Chen moved with a cool that was the opposite of the two error-riddled short programs he managed in 2018. His performance Friday also put the United States in excellent shape to improve upon the bronze medal it won in the team event in 2018.
“I’m happy with the way I skated,” Chen said. “It was great to be able to have a short program that I skated well at the Olympics. Take as much as I can from the experience and take it day by day from here.”
Chen has a fraught history at the Olympics. In his only other Games, he appeared in the same position — leading the United States in the team event’s short program — and made three uncharacteristic mistakes that seemed to foreshadow his collapse in the men’s short program. Then he failed to complete almost all of his jumps and finished 17th, leading to his eventual fifth-place finish in South Korea.
He has recently said he was not prepared for the size and power of the Olympics back then, when he was 18. In the years since, he has tried to look at the Olympics as just another competition, choosing to focus on the joy of skating instead of putting pressure on himself to be perfect.
“You learn the most from your mistakes, and I certainly learned a lot from that competition and I don’t think I would be able to be here where I am now without having had that experience,” he said Friday when asked whether his skate had “exorcised a demon.” “So rather than that being a demon, I think that was a very helpful learning experience.”
Visual story: In Beijing, you have to be well-equipped to win gold
His comfort was clear from the start Friday, even before landing his first jump, a quad flip. His program was filled with many of his most challenging jumps, including a quad Lutz triple toe loop, but he hit them all as if he were floating across the ice.
“Nathan certainly set the bar high,” Hubbell later said.
She and Donahue had arrived at the arena right after Chen’s skate and immediately felt a buzz from the other skaters. “Walking into the rink wearing your Team USA gear, everyone turns their head like he just laid it down. It’s inspiring.”
Knierim later laughed that she had been asked several times whether she and Frazier had been inspired by Chen.
“I see it every day,” said Knierim, who shares a coach with Chen.
She and Frazier seemed thrilled with their performance, given that Frazier missed the finals of the U.S. Figure Skating Championships after “getting really sick with covid.”
“That was probably the hardest obstacle we’ve had to face since we teamed up,” Frazier said.
The Olympic team event debuted in 2014, and the United States has finished third both times. But the Americans never had a first day like Friday’s. In 2018, it didn’t win a single discipline. Now it already has won two.
Hubbell was asked if the U.S. team members had talked about winning since arriving here.
“Of course Team USA talked about winning gold!” she exclaimed.
“There’s Team USA; there’s a medal on the line; that’s one of our goals,” Donahue added. “It would be so silly to count ourselves out and plan for silver or bronze, you know? We’ve all trained to do our very best, and gold is what we are going for.”
In the first hour of the first day of Olympic skating, Nathan Chen landed just fine And everything felt as good for U.S. figure skating as it has in years. | null | null | null | null | null |
A Santa Fe, N.M., couple told the sheriff's office they found a stranger in their home when they returned there on Sunday. The man, who apologized for breaking in, had a rifle and a duffle bag, according to an incident report. (Jennifer A Smith/Getty Images)
As the owners of a Santa Fe, N.M., home opened their front door on Sunday after a few days away, they were hit with the harsh stench of rotting food. Dirty dishes were soaking in the sink and empty beer bottles had been tossed in the trash, an incident report says. Something was amiss.
The husband told investigators the burglar might have hitchhiked into town, since he said his car broke down about 100 miles away. The man smashed a window into the homeowners’ office using metal tool, investigators said. He then allegedly cooked food, slept in one of the bedrooms and bathed in the master bathroom. Deputies noted in the report that none of the couple’s items had been stolen. | null | null | null | null | null |
They level social critiques in an accessible way
Two books of the graphic novel “Maus” by the American cartoonist Art Spiegelman are pictured in this illustration in Pasadena, Calif., on Jan. 27, 2022. (Mario Anzuoni/Reuters)
By Viola Burlew
Viola Burlew is a graduate student of history at the University of Colorado, researching the history of 20th century comics in relation to gender and censorship.
In a unanimous vote on Jan. 10, Tennessee’s McMinn County Board of Education voted to ban the use of the graphic novel “Maus” in its eighth-grade classrooms. The board removed Art Spiegelman’s Holocaust memoir, which depicts Jewish victims of the Holocaust as mice and Nazi perpetrators as cats, on the grounds that it promoted the use of obscene language and included scenes of nudity.
As noted by other writers and analysts, the district’s decision to ban “Maus” is part of broader conservative efforts to control classroom curriculum and “ban” certain books and topics of discussion. But putting “Maus” at the center of these conversations sparks another set of debates, one born of the comics medium itself.
Censorship has a long history when it comes to the comics industry, with 20th-century critics of comics claiming to protect young readers by censoring comics on the basis of language and imagery. Yet, buzzwords like “obscenity,” “nudity” and “decency” distract from a more sinister argument driving the censorship of comics: that progressive, accessible storytelling is somehow dangerous in the hands of young readers.
The modern comics industry has roots in the late 1930s, with “Action Comics #1” and the “Superman” series propelling its growth. The 1938 issue that featured the original Man of Steel sparked a copycat craze that launched some of the most memorable characters. Wonder Woman, Captain America and Batman were born of the same era. From 1938 to 1945, these superheroes dominated the comics scene, defining what enthusiasts now refer to as the comics’ “Golden Age.”
By 1954, science fiction, crime and horror comics had taken over as the industry’s most popular publications, replacing the superhero genre, which declined in popularity after the end of World War II. Some crime and horror stories focused on shocking audiences with the unthinkable, using fantasy to sell issues to readers. But science fiction comics also extended beyond pulp story lines, using effective communication strategies in the form of social protest comics to highlight liberal calls for change.
For example, the 1952 “Shock SuspenStories” series featured a number of these protest comics, also known as “preachies,” specifically designed to make readers think about the consequences of hate and prejudice. The series included stories that featured Black men tried and executed for crimes they did not commit, stories of Black soldiers being denied burial rights in local cemeteries after World War II and stories of White, non-Jewish characters terrorizing their Jewish neighbors. The hope was that the “shocking” nature of these story lines, which intentionally reflected contemporary social issues, would inspire real-world change.
Seemingly because of new comics’ popularity, in the 1950s, parents and school administrators blamed them for the degradation of the youths and a rise in what they, and the anti-comics psychiatrist Frederic Wertham, broadly referred to as “juvenile delinquency.” After a federal hearing and pressure from the public, the comics industry developed a set of 41 guidelines that would govern the publication of new issues, imposing self-regulation before the state interfered. The Comics Code Authority (CCA) operated as the central censorship body that enforced what guidelines called “sound, wholesome entertainment.” This regulatory body could sink any issue of a book of comics that did not receive code approval.
General Standards Part C Guideline No. 1 banned “profanity, obscenity, smut, [and] vulgarity.” Guidelines under the label “Costumes” banned “nudity in any form,” along with “indecent or undue exposure.” There would be no sex or homosexuality. There would be no violence. There would be no criminal activity. There would be no drug use, no scenes of torture and no story of evil triumphing over the forces of good.
There also would be no Black protagonists. For example, the CCA refused to approve the sci-fi comic “Judgment Day!” in 1956. The comic featured a helmeted astronaut encountering a society of orange and blue robots with intense segregation practices, despite the robots all being made with identical parts. In the final scenes of the issue, in which one robot asks whether there is any hope for their society to move past segregation, the astronaut assures them that they will undoubtedly learn to live together just as the citizens of Earth had. He later returns to his rocket and removes his helmet, revealing to the reader that he is Black.
CCA administrators denied approval of the striking anti-segregationist story, subsequently stopping its continued publication. When asked why, administrators replied: “You can’t have a Negro.” “Where in the Code does it say that I can’t depict a Negro?” asked “Judgment Day!” editor Al Feldstein.
The administrator replied again: “I say you can’t have a Negro.”
As this incident demonstrated, once a comic could be censored for language and imagery, it could be censored for any language or image, including ones that depicted a Black man in a position of power or that preached a message of justice or equality. So was the official, and unofficial, letter of the censorship rules.
This was especially significant considering the readership of the comics: youths. Comic-book consumers did not need a degree in history, sociology, psychology or political science to understand the critique of segregation in “Judgment Day!” All they required was access to the comic.
Perhaps that accessibility is what made CCA administrators so nervous; if students saw past the pulp and the fiction, they might begin to dig at the uncomfortable truths embedded in history. They might move beyond “sound” and “wholesome” categories. They might begin to think and learn.
Indeed, this is why “Maus” has been so significant. It has made the history of the Holocaust accessible to more people, a particularly powerful ability, given how few Holocaust survivors are left to share their stories. Its first book release in 1986 and subsequent completion in 1991 were met with resounding success, disseminating the memoir among the mainstream public as well as among lovers of classic comics. It gained critical acclaim, untouched by the CCA guidelines that technically were still in effect.
The CCA had not operated with any measured effectiveness since 1971, meaning that “Maus” and other releases of the 1980s, such as Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons’s massively popular series “Watchmen,” could bring the harsh realities of the world into the realm of pulp publications. This new wave of comics, and “Maus” specifically, could tug at the darkest threads of history in a way that invited all readers in, not to traumatize them or encourage violence, but to educate them.
The CCA officially disbanded in 2011, long after its stranglehold on the comics industry had ended. But its impact has, apparently, remained. McMinn County has not banned the teaching of the Holocaust — although board members did toy dangerously with the idea of cutting the unit entirely from the curriculum. The district has, instead, cast its decision in the same language of decency, calling for the censored, “sound” and “wholesome” history that “Maus” is not. The board’s decision adheres to a set of codes nearly 70 years removed from the event, calling back to a moment in which “decency” was about more than language or nudity, no matter what the rules claimed. | null | null | null | null | null |
Will the diplomatic boycott of the Olympics push China on human rights?
The United States may be emboldened to take a harder line thanks to the state of play in East Asia
The Olympic Rings on Feb. 3 in Zhangjiakou, China. (Alessandra Tarantino/AP)
By Meghan Herwig
Meghan Herwig is a PhD candidate in History and the Brian Layton Blades Jefferson fellow at the University of Virginia, broadly interested in global political economy and US foreign relations. Her dissertation examines the global turn toward an open trading system in the late-1980s and early-1990s.
The Winter Olympics begin Friday in Beijing, and the event has brought China’s human rights practices back into the public spotlight. Several countries, the United States among them, have announced that their governments will boycott the games to signal their disapproval of recent Chinese actions, especially how the country has treated its Uyghur minority.
Many say Clinton, whose presidential campaign famously, and irreverently, made clear its top political priority — “It’s the economy, stupid!” — was unwilling to cross American business leaders seeking to safeguard their commercial interests in China. But in fact, history shows us that the administration ran up against a different constraint: fear of the collateral damage such sanctions might cause to other East Asian economies and to America’s alliances in the region. Today, when China’s relations with its neighbors are already strained, U.S. efforts to punish China for its human rights practices may be more enduring, as Washington finds a confrontation with Beijing poses less of a threat to U.S. relations with other partners in the Asia.
But when Clinton upset Bush in the 1992 presidential election, giving Democrats unified control of government, economic sanctions on China became a real possibility. During his presidential campaign, Clinton had famously lambasted Bush for propping up “‘the butchers of Beijing.’”
Over the next year, the Sino-American relationship stumbled along from crisis to crisis, and in the end the U.S. State Department failed to convince Beijing to make meaningful changes in its human rights behavior to safeguard the trade relationship. By spring 1994, it was apparent that the Clinton administration was not going to win enough concessions to clearly claim success.
Today, the regional dynamics have shifted and China’s relations with its neighbors are strained. The United States may have less to lose in terms of its standing in the region should it saber rattle. That calculus might make Washington more willing to confront Beijing. | null | null | null | null | null |
Photos are a powerful reminder of the struggles of the civil rights movement, still relevant today
Farm workers at the Grand Marie Vegetable Producers Cooperative in Louisiana in 1968. From “A Civil Rights Journey” by Doris Derby (Mack, 2021). (Doris Derby)
Life is always undergoing some sort of upheaval. It’s like a pot of water boiling — from when the bubbles start forming to when it comes to a roiling, rollicking boil. I guess whichever part we’re in right now depends on your point of view. But I doubt anyone would argue that we’re not in a state of flux.
All you have to do is pay attention to the news. It seems like every week brings some new outrage or conflict to keep us frothed up. Yet much of what is happening now seems to be related to things we’ve already gone through.
Photographer Doris Derby’s new book, “A Civil Rights Journey,” is a timely reminder of some of those lessons from our history. And after seeing her photos and reading her words and reflecting on current events, we may wonder: Have we learned anything at all?
Derby’s book brings together images and reflections from the civil rights movement of the 1960s. During that time, she was a photographer, activist, organizer and teacher. These roles put her on the front lines of the movement, and the book gives a vivid look at some of that era’s most enduring moments and figures, including Muhammad Ali, Alice Walker, Fannie Lou Hamer and Jessie Jackson.
The images take us along with Derby as she documented political events, meetings, funerals and literacy and community theater programs. Derby took most of the photos in the southern United States, with an emphasis on Mississippi, where she was working at the time.
“A Civil Rights Journey” is a vital record of the struggle to be seen as and treated like a human being, something that should be a given. It seems like such a simple concept. But we know that it wasn’t, and we know that it still isn’t.
It seems incredulous that in 2022, more than 60 years after Rosa Parks refused to move to the back of the bus, some are contemplating banning books and making it more, not less, difficult for people to vote. One of the implicit questions the book asks is, “What makes one person more human than another?” Again, the answer seems so simple. Again, some people believe it’s not.
With all of our technology, advances in medicine and all our money and power, we still seem to have trouble answering simple questions. Day after day and year after year the same debates pop up: Who has the right to do this or that? One of our biggest failures as a species is the inability or unwillingness to strip everything down to its essence and give a straight answer. Will we ever?
It is work like Derby’s that serves as a reminder that we still need to grapple with important questions about our humanity. History and its lessons never go out of fashion nor lose their relevance.
It takes a great amount of courage to look at something and say it’s wrong and then fight to change it (as did Rosa Parks). Few of us have the gumption it takes to do that. We owe our deepest gratitude to those who push for what is right and who, more often than not, suffer life-altering consequences for their bravery.
You can find out more about “A Civil Rights Journey” here. You can buy the book here. | null | null | null | null | null |
Anonymous testimonials about workplace culture grip Capitol Hill
A viral Instagram account has become a safe space for congressional aides to anonymously call out congressional members and share their experiences on the Hill.
The U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C. on Jan 31. Photographer: Al Drago/Bloomberg (Al Drago/Bloomberg)
The frequency of posts, which have been multiple times per hour on the account’s Instagram stories, has picked up recently and the number of people following it has grown from 13,000 to roughly 23,000 in just two days. The account was created in January 2020 and its first post was a meme in January during the Trump administration mocking how minorities are paid less than White staffers, but its profile on Capitol Hill has risen steadily since the New Year.
“It’s a moment in time where people are saying ‘I don’t know if I can work in these conditions and I’m not alone in feeling that way',” Courtney Laudick, a senior legislative aide for Rep. Andy Levin (D-Mich.) said about the attention the account is getting on Capitol Hill. “The pandemic, many people leaving the Hill due to turnover and pressure in an office have all contributed to people feeling open to talking about these conditions anonymously.”
The person who runs the account also remains nameless, liking a direct Instagram message sent by The Washington Post requesting comment but not writing back.
But in interviews roughly a dozen congressional aides echoed many of the frustrations aired on the account. They said morale on Capitol Hill among staff is low as longtime concerns about pay and how people are treated have become exacerbated by the pandemic and the increasingly toxic work environment following the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol.
The flood of testimonials tell a similar story about lawmakers singled out as bad bosses who are unrealistically demanding, expect staff to meet their every need immediately, without thanks or acknowledgment, and don’t interact with low-level stuff much — and if they do, it’s often to complain about something. One testimony talked about meetings where members ate lunch but staffers were required to stand with their backs against the wall, and not allowed to eat or sit. Another claimed that a member once asked them ‘if they wanted to be a postal worker for the rest of [their] life’ because they delivered an envelope on the House floor. One staffer shared that a member threw a pair of reading glasses at them after bringing the wrong pair. Another post described interviewing in a member office at the same time as other job candidates, where among other things they were asked to state their salary request in front of the people with whom they were competing for the job.
Many of the people whose testimonials have been posted said they worked for Democratic lawmakers. It’s unclear why more aides from Republican offices have not participated, but many of the issues discussed on the account — whether to unionize, equal pay, discrimination — tend be ones that animate liberals more than conservatives.
The page has caught the attention of chiefs of staffs and communications directors who are now clicking through Instagram stories with bated breath, with some aides interviewed noting that they have heard it has become a topic of conversation among members.
“Members are pissed and starting to talk to each other about it,” said a Democratic staffer, who, like others, spoke to The Post on the condition on anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to the media.
Asked about the account at her weekly news conference Thursday, Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) declined to comment. Asked if she supported congressional staff unionizing, she said “Well we just unionized at the [Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee] and I supported that.”
Pelosi’s Deputy Chief of Staff Drew Hammill later tweeted: “Like all Americans, our tireless congressional staff have the right to organize their workplace and join together in a union. If and when staffers choose to exercise that right, they would have Speaker Pelosi’s full support.”
House Majority Leader Steny H. Hoyer (D-Md.) said he wasn’t aware of “Dear White Staffers,” but said he takes complaints about Congress as a workplace seriously.
“If there are legitimate complaints, then we ought to look at that and we ought to call attention to it, because that’s not the kind of workplace we want to maintain in the House,” he said in an interview.
The median pay for House staffers was $59,000 as of July 1, 2021, according to a House Office of Diversity and Inclusion report, with entry level staffers making far less, often in the $30,000 range.
The cost of living in Washington, D.C. is so high that unpaid internships and low pay for entry level jobs are enough to dissuade many minorities who cannot rely on their family’s income from applying for jobs or leaving them soon after being hired, according to posting on “Dear White Staffers.”
A new report from the group Issue One released last week found that 13 percent of D.C.-based congressional staff, or one in eight congressional staffers, aren’t paid a living wage, with entry level staff in particular earning 30 percent less than the national average salary in 2020. The report covers a time frame before the current surge in inflation that has made it even more difficult to live in D.C. for people already living paycheck to paycheck.
The group, which compiled staff data collected by Legistorm, also determined that the number of congressional staff has declined 16 percent over the last decade, a concerning “brain drain” trend happening before the traumatic events of Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol.
Some prospective job candidates have taken a look at the “Dear White Staffers” account and said no thanks to the idea of working for Congress.
“Getting my masters in public policy right now and had thought about looking at hill jobs. now definitely not,” someone anonymously responded to a post asking if anyone was reconsidering applying to Hill offices after reading firsthand testimonials.
House Democratic staff, in particular, are eyeing the exits, looking to get out before the midterm elections when Republicans are favored to retake the majority moving Democrats into the minority where their priorities are unlikely to be considered.
“The great resignation,” as one aide put it, has already begun with almost 30 Democratic members deciding not to seek reelection and their staff quitting to seek new opportunities off the Hill.
Sensing the rise in frustrations, the recently founded congressional Progressive Staff Association (CPSA) sent a survey for other student associations to circulate starting on the one year anniversary of Jan 6. Laudick, who sits on the executive board of the association, acknowledged that while the sample size was small, it did include a question about workplace protection for staff that could come through a union. Ninety-one percent of respondents, a majority of whom self-identified as a Democrat, said yes.
“Congress cannot function without staff. We do a lot of the heavy lifting. A lot of people who come to the Hill came here to either work on policy, make changes for working people or wanting to dig in to handle casework,” Laudick said. “It’s hard when you get here and advocate for people and then you come home and look at your bank account and wonder if you can make this month’s rent.”
She also made a decision last summer that senior staff could make close to $200,000 which exceeds the legal base pay for members by roughly $25,000.
Many opinions shared on the “Dear White Staffers” Instagram page have acknowledged the various reforms being pushed by leaders and individual lawmakers, but the posters repeatedly note how they are not happening fast enough to improve the work environment through better salaries and holding members accountable for unprofessional behavior.
“We’re at a point where no matter how much we slug our guts out, we move inches at a time and every moment is fleeting,” a senior Democratic staffer said. “When margins are this thin and we keep coming up short on small ticket items, especially since this is our one shot possibly for another decade until we have the White House and Congress again, it’s hard to look at the picture and know it will only get worse.”
Theodoric Meyer contributed to this story. | null | null | null | null | null |
Games will begin — without American dignitaries
In December, the Biden administration announced a diplomatic boycott of the Beijing Games. The United States was followed in that move by the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia and others, with India this week the latest country to join the boycott.
In 2008, when the Summer Olympics were held in Beijing, then-President George W. Bush attended the Opening Ceremonies. There will be no high-ranking American official on hand at any event this year.
“We were very close to having the athletes bear the burden of trying to send a message that the government wanted to send,” Susanne Lyons, chair of the U.S. Olympic & Paralympic Committee board, said on Friday. “We think that diplomats and government agencies should be working one with the other to resolve the world’s differences. We think that the athletes should be able to do what they do best, which is come together with other athletes from around the world in a demonstration of peace and harmony.” | null | null | null | null | null |
Short-track speedskating was expanded to include nine events ahead of the Winter Olympics in Beijing. (Vincent Jannink/Agence France-Presse/Getty Images)
Short-track speedskating, a 1992 addition to the Winter Olympics program, encompasses a series of events contested on a rink about four times smaller than long track, which is known simply as speedskating.
Short-track traces its origins from 1905, when American and Canadian athletes developed techniques to better compete on smaller tracks, which demanded tighter turns and featured shorter straightaways. The sport, which runs Feb. 5 to Feb. 16 in Beijing, includes nine events, up from eight in previous years with the inclusion of the mixed team relay.
Here’s what to know about short-track speedskating at the Winter Olympics:
How do you qualify for short-track speedskating at the Winter Olympics?
What are the short-track speedskating events?
What are the rules of short-track speedskating?
What country has won the most gold medals in short-track speedskating?
What is the schedule for short-track speedskating? | null | null | null | null | null |
At the time, said Hirasaki, practically everyone — Democrats and Republicans — seemed in support of the amendment, which would bar any state from denying or abridging someone’s rights on the basis of sex. The Texas state legislature ratified it in March 1972, the same month it passed the U.S. Senate. President Richard M. Nixon endorsed it, and within a year, 30 states had voted to ratify it. | null | null | null | null | null |
Yet, not even he is immune to China’s new climate, and there were gasps when his film “One Second” was pulled at the last minute from the Berlinale festival in 2019. A version of the film, set during the politically sensitive Cultural Revolution, finally made it out last year.
Even as censorship is tightened, Zhang has balanced his patriotic films with edgier ones. His latest film, “Cliff Walkers,” however, falls firmly in the former category and is about 1930s Chinese spies seeking to expose Japanese crimes against humanity on the eve of World War II.
In a measure of China’s political freedom at the time, the irreverent Beijing artist helped design the famous Bird’s Nest stadium for the 2008 Games, despite his cheeky, political-themed art, such as photos of him giving Tiananmen Square the middle finger.
In 2019, after he held a concert in sympathy with Hong Kong protesters, thousands of his songs were removed from Chinese online music stores. As Hong Kong’s space for free speech narrowed, Leung moved to Taiwan, where he remains politically active.
Then, in December 2021, his wife, Lee Jinglei, wrote a lengthy public note accusing him of serial infidelity, soliciting prostitutes and bullying. Authorities came down hard against Wang as part of a broader celebrity-morality campaign that was quite selective: For example, allegations against former vice premier Zhang Gaoli by Chinese tennis star Peng Shuai that surfaced at the same time were quashed.
The American-born Hong Kong singer — the son of the martial arts movie star Jackie Chan — was one of the artists featured in the anthem “Beijing Welcomes You.” He was arrested in Beijing in 2014 and jailed for six months after police found marijuana in his apartment and he tested positive for the drug.
A nationwide drug sweep took place that year after President Xi Jinping said he would “harshly” crack down on drugs and other activities deemed immoral. Chan’s father continues to be well-received in China, where he is steadfastly patriotic in his comments, including remarking last year that he wanted to join the Chinese Communist Party. | null | null | null | null | null |
Judge John McBain rejected in 2016 a jury's findings when he issued a prison sentence to a woman convicted in a 2015 murder. He took a similar action in 2020 after he was ordered to resentence her. (J. Scott Park/MLive.com/Jackson Citizen Patriot/AP)
Michigan judge John McBain — thinking jurors blundered in convicting a woman of second-degree murder for stabbing her boyfriend twice in the heart on Valentine’s Day 2015 — punished her as harshly as if she’d been found guilty of premeditated murder, a state appeals court said this week.
“You brutally murdered him in cold blood and for that, by the power vested in me by the state of Michigan, you’re to serve 35 years to 70 years” in prison, McBain told Dawn Dixon-Bey at the 2016 hearing, drawing applause from the gallery.
In 2020, McBain again punished Dixon-Bey as if she’d premeditated her boyfriend’s murder, this time giving her a sentence of 30 to 70 years, far above the 12 to 20 years the guidelines called for.
No, he can’t, the appeals court ruled earlier this week. On Tuesday, the higher court once more vacated McBain’s sentence and, in a highly unusual move, ordered another judge to resentence Dixon-Bey. In doing so, the three-judge appellate panel criticized McBain’s courtroom behavior, floated the possibility of him being investigated for misconduct and suggested he is unfit to sit on the bench.
McBain is no stranger to controversy and criticism. In 2014, he told a convicted murderer he hoped she’d die in prison. In 2015, as he ordered a court officer to Taser a defendant, McBain cast off his robe, stormed down from the bench, charged the defendant and then physically helped a court officer pin him to the ground. At another 2015 hearing, as he sentenced a defendant who’d broken into a police officer’s home, McBain told him he wished the owner had returned in time to catch him in the act.
In its Tuesday opinion, the state appeals court stuck to the Dixon-Bey case, focusing on two issues: McBain’s insistence on punishing her for a crime she’d been acquitted of — first-degree murder — and what it called an “interrogation” during the part of a hearing reserved for a defendant to address a judge before the sentencing.
The appellate judges were especially plain in rebuking McBain. In chastising him for defying the appeals court’s previous ruling, they reminded him of one of the foundational principles of the state’s legal system: While McBain didn’t have to agree with the higher court’s decision, he did have to obey it.
One of those judges, Amy Ronayne Krause, was more blunt on Dec. 14 when the court heard oral arguments in the case. She said she’d read the transcript of Dixon-Bey’s sentencing hearing. Her verdict: It was “hideous,” the AP reported.
Even as McBain has occasionally made headlines and stirred controversy, he’s kept his job with relative ease. According to the elections website in Jackson County where McBain presides, he won a fourth six-year term on the bench in 2020 in at least the third election in which he ran unopposed. | null | null | null | null | null |
Gorsuch is scheduled to speak to the right-wing Federalist Society. Americans find such speeches inappropriate.
Americans don’t approve of justices appearing with politicians, our research finds.
Supreme Court Justice Neil M. Gorsuch. (Andrew Harrer/Bloomberg News)
By Nathan T. Carrington
Logan Strother
Supreme Court Justice Neil M. Gorsuch is slated to speak Friday night at a Federalist Society conference. The Federalist Society is a conservative legal organization; this weekend’s event includes talks and appearances by Republican Party luminaries including former vice president Mike Pence, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, and Kayleigh McEnany, who served as White House press secretary under President Donald Trump. The news media have been barred from attending.
Supreme Court justices routinely speak at partisan gatherings like this. However, our research suggests that Americans see this as inappropriate for a judge — and that if the justices regularly repeat such behavior, they could erode public support for the court.
What is the Federalist Society?
The Federalist Society was founded in 1982 by students at elite laws schools who wanted to counter what they perceived to be a liberal legal establishment. Since its founding, the Federalist Society has had a profound influence in the legal world, becoming the intellectual core of the conservative legal movement, in several ways.
The society has been incredibly effective at training and screening potential judges who are then seated in some of the most prestigious judgeships in the country, including on the Supreme Court. For example, Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. and Associate Justices Samuel A. Alito Jr., Clarence Thomas, Brett M. Kavanaugh, Gorsuch and Amy Coney Barrett all have ties to the Federalist Society. The organization has been influential in reshaping lower federal courts, as well.
Further, research finds that the Federalist Society influences the development of the law through its writings, trainings, advocacy and ability to exert pressure on members to stay on message. For instance, as political scientist and TMC editor Amanda Hollis-Brusky has shown, on issues like campaign finance regulation and the right to keep and bear arms, the Federalist Society helped get the Supreme Court to accept legal arguments that were previously outside the mainstream, rejected by the conventional legal establishment.
The Federalist Society regularly hosts events throughout the country discussing law and the Constitution. These events commonly feature speeches by prominent conservative politicians, and Supreme Court justices regularly show up or even deliver keynote addresses.
To be sure, the Federalist Society would not classify itself as a “political organization,” although some of its founding documents would suggest that it is. Whatever its categorization, it regularly brings together conservative judges and Republican politicians, indicating a clear political leaning.
Do Americans care what Supreme Court justices do?
Americans do indeed pay attention to how the justices behave off the bench, research finds, particularly when and where they give speeches or make comments on law. Their private remarks can change how Americans see the court. When the justices speak at conferences or events alongside prominent politicians, Americans generally think that’s unbecoming of a judge. That could hurt the Supreme Court’s desired image as an independent institution above the political fray.
What do people mean when they talk about the Supreme Court's 'legitimacy'?
To understand what Americans think of how judges behave, in March 2021 we fielded an online survey of 491 respondents, delivered by the online survey platform Lucid. The survey was quota-sampled to match national benchmarks from the U.S. census.
We asked respondents whether they felt it was appropriate for various kinds of people to speak at a meeting hosted by a political organization. Federalist Society events, like the one at which Gorsuch will be speaking, are consistent with our survey questions, as they frequently feature keynote addresses by prominent Republican and conservative politicians to discuss law and policy.
Specifically, we asked survey participants:
Political organizations will often host meetings and invite high-profile individuals to give speeches. Speaking at these events is very common in the political world, but we’re interested in how the public thinks of it. Please answer the following questions that relate to speaking at meetings hosted by political organizations. How appropriate is it when each of the following people speaks at a meeting hosted by a political organization?
We then asked about a Supreme Court justice, a D.C. Circuit Court judge, a member of Congress, the president and the head of the Environmental Protection Agency. Respondents could choose from a six-point scale that ranged from “very inappropriate” to “very appropriate.”
A few things stand out from our results. First, Americans assess the appropriateness of judges’ behavior consistently, treating appeals court judges and Supreme Court justices similarly. More important, a majority of our respondents think it is inappropriate for Supreme Court justices to give speeches at these sort of events. In contrast, a clear majority (63 percent) thinks it is appropriate for elected politicians or bureaucrats to engage in this sort of behavior. These findings suggest that so long as Federalist Society events continue to feature prominent conservative Republican politicians, Americans will probably think it inappropriate for a Supreme Court justice to speak at the same events.
The Supreme Court’s vaccine mandate ruling shows it’s ready to second-guess government policy
What are the possible implications for the Supreme Court?
So long as justices keep appearing at events alongside prominent politicians, Americans are likely to have less confidence in the Supreme Court. That’s true not just for Federalist Society events, but for other events as well. Last year, Barrett gave a speech at the McConnell Center at the University of Louisville alongside Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.).
Although Roberts famously argued during his confirmation hearing that judges are merely umpires calling “balls and strikes,” an umpire who routinely goes out to dinner with one of the coaches is likely to erode public support for the institution.
Nathan T. Carrington (@NateCarrington) is a PhD candidate in political science at Syracuse University and a research associate at the Campbell Public Affairs Institute.
Logan Strother (@LoganRStrother) is an assistant professor of political science at Purdue University. | null | null | null | null | null |
Friday briefing: An alleged Russian plot; Olympic Opening Ceremonies; healthier school lunches; ‘super emitters’; and more
The U.S. accused Russia of planning a fake attack by Ukraine.
Why? Russia would then use “graphic” video of the attack as justification to invade, U.S. officials said yesterday, although they didn’t provide evidence.
How we got here: Russia has over 100,000 troops on Ukraine’s border, and so far, efforts to defuse the situation haven’t made much progress.
Today: Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese leader Xi Jinping met in Beijing.
The U.S. spent months planning a raid that killed the leader of ISIS.
How it happened: Abu Ibrahim al-Hashimi al-Qurayshi detonated a bomb that killed him, his family and at least three civilians as American forces closed in yesterday in Syria, U.S. officials said.
Why now? Some officials were worried that the Islamic State was in the midst of a comeback. The U.S. had located the terrorist leader by early December.
A major winter storm will continue moving east today.
The latest: Hundreds of thousands of people have lost power from Texas to Pennsylvania. The situation is worst in Tennessee because of ice buildup on trees and power lines.
In the southeast: A large tornado left one person dead and at least eight injured yesterday in Sawyerville, Ala.
The Beijing Olympics kick off with Opening Ceremonies this morning.
The schedule: The event started at 7 a.m. Eastern time in the “Bird’s Nest” stadium built for the 2008 Summer Olympics. Beijing is 13 hours ahead.
Where to watch: NBC (and Peacock, its streaming service) has live coverage this morning. A recorded version will air at 8 p.m. Eastern time.
Main weekend events: Figure skating tomorrow and Sunday. Team USA already has an early lead. We have a full TV schedule here.
Schools will have stricter nutrition rules this fall.
The details: They must serve milk with less fat, among other things, and mostly whole grains, today’s announcement said.
Why? This is basically a return to standards set in 2012. Guidelines had relaxed during the Trump administration and the pandemic.
Will this make a difference? Yes. Students’ diets got much healthier with these rules, a government study found.
Queen Elizabeth celebrates 70 years on the throne on Sunday.
What to know: The 95-year-old is the longest-reigning British monarch and the only one many Britons have ever known. She became queen on Feb. 6, 1952.
How will the U.K. mark this milestone? The big events take place in May and June, with shows and street parties. In the meantime, the country is searching for a new royal dessert.
Satellites have discovered “super emitters” around the world.
What are they? Enormous methane leaks from fossil fuel operations in places like Russia, Iran and the U.S., a new study found.
What is methane? A greenhouse gas that’s more effective than carbon dioxide at trapping heat in the atmosphere.
The takeaway: Cracking down on leaks would be a quick, low-cost way to slow global warming.
And now … what to watch this weekend: “Jackass Forever,” which is dumb, hilarious — and surprisingly touching, according to The Post’s review. Plus, what to read: Five great thrillers publishing this month. | null | null | null | null | null |
An economist at home in many cultures
Nobel laureate Amartya Sen in 2017 in New Delhi. “Our ability to learn from each other must not be underestimated,” he writes in his memoir. (Raj K. Raj/Hindustan Times/Getty Images)
By Mythili G. Rao
Mythili G. Rao is an audio journalist and book critic in London.
“Where do you consider to be your home?” a BBC interviewer chatting with Amartya Sen before a 1998 recording asked the Nobel Prize-winning economist. It was just after Sen left Harvard to rejoin Trinity College at Cambridge University in Britain. “I feel very much at home here right now,” Sen gamely replied, explaining that his residence in Trinity College felt like home to him, as did his house near Harvard Square, as did India and, in particular, the little thatched house in Santiniketan where he was born. “So,” the interviewer concluded, “you have no concept of home!” “On the contrary,” Sen replied, “I have more than one welcoming home, but I don’t share your idea that a home has to be exclusive.”
This answer was not well received. “The BBC interviewer looked completely unconvinced,” Sen writes.
It’s no mystery why Sen, a real-world economist whose work has looked at questions of resource distribution — particularly as it affects society’s poorest members — chose this anecdote to open his memoir, “Home in the World”: It perfectly encapsulates his conviction that there is much to be gained by refusing to be defined or confined by borders, as well as his enduring faith that multiple cultures can and should constructively coexist, even within one person. It’s a theme that Sen, 88, returns to repeatedly in this warmhearted, clear-eyed account of the formative years of his life, a book that reaches from Myanmar to Berkeley and that is less about economic theories — or his own later achievements in the field — than about the contours of an early intellectual journey across multiple continents.
One clue as to where Sen first developed the idea that “home” might transcend geography can be found in the name of his family home in Dhaka — “Jagat Kutir,” or “the cottage of the world.” This idyllic house, with a garden full of mangoes and jackfruits and a “protruding champa tree that made the veranda upstairs so fragrant,” was where the Sen family lived before their lives were upended by partition in 1947. Amartya’s father, Ashutosh, taught chemistry at Dhaka University, and his mother, Amita, defied conservative social mores as a dancer in dramas staged by the poet Rabindranath Tagore, a close family friend. (Tagore’s influence on the Sen family was so great that he persuaded Amita to give her son the Sanskrit amalgamation Amartya — translated as “immortal” — for a name, an utterly original if “grandiose” choice instead of something more “boring.”)
Tagore’s influence would extend further. At age 7, Sen became a student at the progressive school the poet had founded in Santiniketan. There, classes were held outside, Indian texts and arts were prioritized as much as their Western counterparts, and freedom of thought was emphasized. Long after he left the school, Santiniketan’s broad-minded approach to inquiry and Tagore’s “willingness to accept that many questions may be unresolved even after our best efforts, and our answers may remain incomplete,” remained profoundly persuasive to Sen. “The domain of unfinished accounts would change over time, but not go away,” he writes, “and in this Rabindranath saw not a defeat, but a beautiful, if humble, recognition of our limited understanding of a vast world.”
This book is also a testament to just how far, in one life, one man might go into that vast world. This volume covers only the early years of Sen’s career, tapering off after his arrival in Delhi in 1963 — well before his most groundbreaking work — but even in those years, he managed to cross paths with figures such as novelist E.M. Forster, future Greek prime minister Andreas Papandreou, and cancer researcher Shyamala Gopalan and her husband, economist Donald Harris, Vice President Harris’s parents.
Through it all, the imprint of his early days remained evident. After he was awarded the Nobel Prize, the Nobel Foundation asked Sen to provide two objects to be displayed in the Nobel Museum in Stockholm. Sen chose a copy of “Aryabhatiya,” a classical Sanskrit work on mathematics, and his first bicycle, an Atlas he regularly rode from 1945 to 1998 — first as a schoolboy and later as a researcher pedaling village to village to gather data on the impact of the Bengal famine on gender inequality. His message, once again, was clear: For all his studies and travels, the source of the rigor of his thinking and his methodology could be traced back to a few sturdy gifts from his upbringing.
It’s lofty stuff, but there is a lightness with which all of this is recounted. Sen’s writing style in “Home in the World” is even-keeled and gently humorous. He writes poetically of the psychological footprint that the region’s waterways have left on Bengali culture (“Bengal’s enthralment with the creative beauty of its normally quiet rivers is matched only by its fascination with the destructive splendour of the rivers in rage”), pokes fun at his ineptitude as a musician (“I remain very glad that it is possible to enjoy music without having to produce it oneself”) and confesses that his first impression of economics was that it was nothing more than “useless fun.”
“Good language is a product of discerning love,” he observes in a passage praising the sophistication of one of his mother’s favorite Bengali poets — and there is no shortage of good language in this book. But there is also a noticeable reticence when it comes to love that isn’t primarily academic or professional. This book has very little to say about Nabaneeta Dev Sen, the Bengali poet he married in 1960 and divorced in 1973, or Eva Colorni, to whom he was married from 1978 until her death in 1985, or Emma Rothschild, his wife since 1991. “I sometimes think that so much has been written in literature about love and so little about friendship that there is a real need to redress the difference,” Sen says by way of partial explanation. Still, many of the colleagues, teachers, students and friends who appear on these pages are treated with similar reserve: They’re “talented,” “brilliant,” “original.” Sen’s own children are simply “wonderful.”
That’s not to say he ignores the emotional ups and downs of his lived experience altogether. Sen’s fight with oral cancer, which he first diagnosed himself in 1952 using a few volumes from the Calcutta Medical College library, is told in moving detail. He doesn’t shy away from describing his early encounters with racism, either — the English landlady who asked Sen if his color would come off in the bath, for example.
But through it all, Sen’s focus is less on hardship than on generative possibility, particularly as it might be applied to difficult problems. Unlike Kshiti Mohan Sen, his religiously observant Hindu grandfather, Sen is a “godless social scientist,” but his grandfather’s scholarly readings of Sanskrit texts made a lasting impression on him. Despite the rise of intolerant, austere and divisive interpretations, “We must not ignore the receptive and pluralist features in the history of Indian religions,” he concludes. Applying his idea to his own experience, the economist puts it another way: “As we move around we cannot escape clues to broader and more integrative stories. Our ability to learn from each other must not be underestimated.”
Home in the World
By Amartya Sen
Liveright. 480 pp. $30 | null | null | null | null | null |
A more sympathetic perspective on Silicon Valley’s venture capitalists
An Apple billboard in San Francisco in 2018. Author Sebastian Mallaby shares fresh details about venture capitalists' investments in the tech firm in its early days. (David Paul Morris/Bloomberg News)
By Bethany McLean
Bethany McLean is a contributing editor at Vanity Fair and the author of “Saudi America: The Truth About Fracking and How It’s Changing the World.”
In his new book, “The Power Law: Venture Capital and the Making of the New Future,” journalist and Council on Foreign Relations senior fellow Sebastian Mallaby covers mind-numbingly well-trodden ground: Silicon Valley’s venture capitalists, who have financed start-up businesses turned all-powerful giants, from Apple to Google to Facebook. The book’s title comes from what Mallaby calls “the most pervasive rule in venture capital,” the “power law,” which posits that a few good investments will compensate for a host of losers. That’s because the successful companies are usually wildly successful, or, as Mallaby writes, “Winners advance at an accelerating, exponential rate.” For instance, Mallaby reports that at VC firm Y Combinator, in 2012, three-quarters of its gains came from just two of the 280 outfits in which it had invested.
But Mallaby’s angle is fresh. Most people who write about Silicon Valley do so from the viewpoint of entrepreneurs who built companies with the backing of venture capitalists. Mallaby writes from the perspective of the venture capitalists themselves. He tells his story through an accumulation of smaller stories, each one phenomenally detailed and engaging. In so doing, he’s written a book that is a must-read for anyone seeking to understand modern-day Silicon Valley and even our economy writ large.
Start with the characters who populate Mallaby’s book. In a bit of a contrarian spin, he traces the founding of venture capital to 1957, when a group of eight engineers wanted to break free of a company that had been started by William Shockley (regarded as the father of the semiconductor) because they were “fed up with Shockley’s heavy-handed leadership.” With financing from a New York broker named Arthur Rock, who in 1961 quit the brokerage business and moved to San Francisco, they started a semiconductor company called Fairchild. Mallaby reports that by 2014, an “astonishing 70 percent of the publicly traded tech companies in the Valley could trace their lineage to Fairchild.”
Some of the stories Mallaby tells, like that of Apple, may be well known, but he brings fresh details to them. When Apple set out to raise money, many established VCs refused to invest with the very odd-seeming Steve Jobs, but they kept passing Jobs’s name along. Eventually, Jobs and Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak found their way to an engineer named Mike Markkula, who had made his money at Fairchild (of course) and was arguably the Valley’s first angel investor, meaning an entrepreneur who after getting rich becomes a venture capitalist themselves. Once Apple had money, and the whispers started to spread, everyone wanted in. (Independent thinking is only worth so much.) Rock even shut out a young partner named Dick Kramlich because there wasn’t enough Apple equity to share.
But Kramlich got the last laugh. A London-based friend of his came to visit, so desperate to invest in Apple that he sat in the company’s lobby all day. Eventually, he was told he’d gotten lucky: That very day, Wozniak had decided to sell $450,000 of equity. He wanted to buy a house. The friend gave Kramlich half of his stake, which was a bigger share than any other VC had gotten. Mallaby says that while Kramlich generally stays quiet about his windfall, “on the front gate of [his] San Francisco home, the iron handle is shaped like an apple.”
Mallaby also recounts stories from the early days of Facebook, such as when Mark Zuckerberg arrived at the offices of a prominent VC firm called Accel Ventures with a business card that said “I’m CEO . . . bitch!” and refused to speak for more than two minutes about his vision. Accel wasn’t deterred by the rudeness because, as a firm, it had focused on something it called “the prepared mind,” and it had decided that characters like Zuckerberg fit the profile. Nor in those days — when bad behavior and rampant sexism were sure signs of brilliance — was it put off by a mural in the women’s bathroom of the nascent Facebook of one naked woman embracing the legs of another.
In what might be the book’s most controversial — but also convincing — segment, Mallaby argues that Silicon Valley effectively created China’s technology boom. He details how the Chinese VCs that emerged were “quasi-American” in their educations, professional formations and approach to venture capital. “Both Chinese and foreign observers tend to ascribe the nation’s technology success to the country’s supposedly farseeing political leaders,” Mallaby writes. “But the truth is more surprising. Far from vindicating the industrial strategy of the Communist Party, China’s tech success was a triumph for the financial model created by Arthur Rock.”
Later, Mallaby returns to China to wonder about the new geopolitics of venture capital, now that in both countries, leaders are “less inclined to see globalization as a win-win and more inclined to view the world in terms of competition.” He adds, “Venture capital has become a pillar of national power; it cannot be left out of geopolitical calculations.”
Unlike most journalists who write about Silicon Valley, Mallaby doesn’t treat the people he profiles as invincibles, superheroes who simply aren’t capable of screwing up. Kleiner Perkins was once the Valley’s most celebrated firm; lead partner John Doerr, whose investments included Amazon and Google, was “magnetic and messianic” and “the go-to investor for fearless founders.” But Kleiner got culture wrong. In part because no one could say no to Doerr, the firm made a number of beautifully intentioned but failed bets on cleantech energy, despite the fact that its capital needs and dependence on government policy make it a very different industry than software.
The schadenfreude can be quite delightful. Take Goldman Sachs, which essentially told partner Syaru Shirley Lin to get lost when she served up an investment in the Chinese e-commerce company Alibaba on a silver platter. Senior people at Goldman insisted that she offload the $1.7 million stake she’d taken. Upon Alibaba’s IPO, that stake would have been worth an astounding $4.5 billion.
As the amount of money going toward technology investments has exploded and the cult of founders has tipped over into excess — hello, WeWork’s Adam Neumann, who burned through billions of dollars, some of it spent on private planes and over-the-top offices, and almost bankrupted his company — the questions about venture capital have grown. Are venture capitalists better at enriching themselves than developing useful businesses? Does venture capital make the world a better place, or does it just skim money? Does pushing entrepreneurs to grow at the speed of light cause the implosion of businesses that might have been successful, while destroying everything else in their path? Is it the power law, or something that sounds far less pretentious — namely, dumb luck — that creates a successful VC? Why is venture capital dominated by a small group of mostly White men?
Mallaby raises all these questions and more, but in the end, he’s an unabashed defender of venture capital. He says, and it’s true, that while luck does play a role, the stories he tells show that isn’t the only factor that makes a VC firm succeed. He argues that most of the out-of-control behavior at Big Tech has happened after companies have grown beyond venture capital, and that it is not up to VCs to rein them in but rather government and society. About the complaint that the Valley has turned its focus to businesses that are socially useless, he points to venture capital’s financing of cleantech and Boston-based Flagship Pioneering’s backing of coronavirus vaccine developer Moderna. He argues that WeWork-type excess has been enabled not by venture capitalists but rather by the flood of money from mutual funds and banks, which in their desperation to grab hold of the magic fail in their due diligence. The only true cause for concern, according to Mallaby, is that venture capitalists seem to prefer to finance White men and that the Valley is too often a “mirror-tocracy” rather than a “meritocracy.”
Mallaby makes good points. He caused me to question some of my skepticism about venture capital. But there’s a tension in part of his argument, because he also acknowledges that “venture capital is suitable only” for a small minority of entrepreneurs who have steep ambitions and are willing “to take the risk of growing fast.” With more and more money flooding in, will the capital go to companies that might have been better off without it? And can investors who have gotten used to the dopamine hits from low-capital, high-growth software businesses tolerate businesses that may take more money and time to develop? I guess the good news is that we’re likely to find out.
The Power Law
Penguin Press. 482 pp. $30 | null | null | null | null | null |
Laura Coates at a radio event in Washington in 2017. Coats worked for four years as a federal prosecutor, and in her book she grapples with how her substantial powers in that role ran up against issues of race, gender, class and bias. (Larry French/Getty Images for SiriusXM)
By Ronald S. Sullivan Jr.
Ronald S. Sullivan Jr. is a professor of criminal law at the Harvard Law School. He previously served as the director of the Public Defender Service for the District of Columbia.
Coates was conflicted. Her obligations as prosecutor required her to do as instructed. However, her personal morality pushed in the opposite direction. It felt as though she was luring an unsuspecting witness to facilitate his own arrest. She could not warn him, and her bosses would not allow her to dismiss the case. In the end, she watched him get arrested in the lobby of the prosecutor’s office. Coates took it upon herself to call his family to tell them that their loved one was being taken into custody.
Coates’s book, “Just Pursuit: A Black Prosecutor’s Fight for Fairness,” stands out among a growing confessional literature regarding the role of Black prosecutors in a criminal legal system that disproportionally investigates, arrests, charges and imprisons African Americans. While most works in this genre read as elaborate apologias, Coates immediately strikes a different tone. With brutal honesty and descriptive precision, she reveals the complex moral universe in which prosecutors live but far too many refuse to confront. Indeed, reflecting on her four years as a prosecutor, Coates bravely owns her shortcomings and admits to episodes of moral cowardice early in her stint at the U.S. attorney’s office. She also describes the many subsequent instances when she bucked the system in an effort to correct what she perceived to be an injustice.
Law professor Angela J. Davis, widely (and correctly) regarded as the country’s leading authority on prosecutorial discretion, argues repeatedly in her scholarship that the prosecutor is the most powerful person in the criminal legal system. The power to charge, along with the power to offer or reject plea bargains, enlarges the prosecutor’s ability to affect the outcome of a proceeding.
“Just Pursuit” is organized around vignettes detailing experiences Coates had as a federal prosecutor. Nearly all of them wrestle with how the enormous power of a prosecutor intersects with issues of race, gender and class and sundry forms of bias. It becomes clear to Coates, very early in her prosecutorial career, that the ideal of justice is contingent on a complex set of factors.
The cases highlighted in “Just Pursuit” include murder, rape, child abuse and theft. But the case of the illegal immigrant was one she would never forget. She spent the rest of her time in that office pushing the boundaries of office policy and challenging norms when she believed that justice was not being served. In a subsequent case, Coates effectively ground the court proceedings to a halt when a young Black man, arrested on a warrant, ardently protested that he had been misidentified. Both the judge and her fellow prosecutors ridiculed Coates for even entertaining the possibility. But after investigating the matter, she found that the accused was correct. He looked nothing — absolutely nothing — like the true subject of the warrant. In this case, Coates recognized that “blackness is an implicit charge in the criminal justice system” and, against advice, offered an apology on behalf of the U.S. attorney’s office, which may have subjected the government to civil liability.
The connective thread binding all the cases Coates describes in “Just Pursuit” is that the decisions she was required to make often left her wondering whether she was engaged in justice or whether she was guilty of “a complicity [she] did not intend.” Many times, both propositions were, at once, arguably true. What differentiates “Just Pursuit” from similar texts, though, is that Coates makes the tough decisions and accepts the consequences that flow from those decisions.
Many legal ethicists resolve the sorts of moral dilemmas illustrated in “Just Pursuit” by referring to what they call role-differentiated behavior — that is, the right or ethical decision is contingent on the role of the actor. For example, if Coates were the neighbor of the man with the deportation warrant and learned that the court subpoena was actually a trap to arrest him, she, as a neighbor, may have advised him to consult a lawyer to determine his rights, rather than going to the U.S. attorney’s office to be arrested. However, in her role as prosecutor, the right or ethical decision was to do as her superiors instructed. The end result was that a victim of a crime, a government witness, was lured to his own arrest.
Rather than feeling a sense of moral absolution by dint of her role as a prosecutor, Coates fully accepts the moral consequences of her decisions. She grapples with the power of her office and refuses the “luxury of wearing sociological blinders”when evaluating what prosecutorial conduct is appropriate. If more prosecutors thought like this, perhaps our criminal legal system would live up to its ideal of equal justice under law.
A Black Prosecutor’s Fight for Fairness
By Laura Coates | null | null | null | null | null |
By the time of that pronouncement, the charmingly goofy celebration concocted by Bengals running back Elbert “Ickey” Woods had already been banished from the end zone, leaving him to perform it on Cincinnati’s sideline. But even that was not enough for a stodgy corporation that, when confronted with an act of individual joy that would look innocuous today and was embraced by fans then, very much lived up to its reputation as the No Fun League.
Woods chose to stay in the Cincinnati area, where he remained beloved as a symbol of happier times for the Bengals, while working a succession of odd jobs. Eventually, his “Ickey Shuffle” was brought back to life in several 2014 Geico commercials and made its mark on a younger audience. Then this season arrived, re-energizing a Bengals team that notched its first playoff win in 31 years, during which tight end C.J. Uzomah broke out a version of Woods’s dance after catching a touchdown.
“I have to, Mom, I have to,” he replied. Sure enough, Woods unveiled a prototype of the dance after scoring against the Browns, but upon hearing from a teammate that it was “wack,” Woods added some extra steps. The finished product was launched two weeks later, when Woods reached the end zone against the New York Jets.
“Coach [Sam] Wyche asked me to do the shuffle on the sidelines, so as not to be penalized,” Woods said in December 1988.
Even the team’s 80-year-old owner, NFL legend Paul Brown, was inspired to mimic Woods’s moves. “It’s ridiculous, but people laugh when they see it,” said Brown, who acknowledged he favored a more stoic approach to touchdown-scoring. “I told him, ‘I think it’s all right to do your little dance.’ I don’t care much for it, but my wife likes it.”
Given the biggest stage in American sports to potentially build on that showman image, Woods instead shared a self-deprecating assessment: “The Ickey Shuffle is just some stupid dance.”
“I think it’s okay to celebrate your accomplishments,” school president Angela Frith said in a subsequent phone interview. “I don’t think it needs to be turned into a bragging moment, but for our kids — especially for our kids — it’s good to celebrate your successes. Sometimes there are a lot of obstacles you have to overcome, and challenges you have to overcome, so it’s okay to say: ‘Hey, I did that. I was able to do that.’”
“I tell everybody that I was fortunate enough to be in the right place at the right time,” he told the children. “We were winning ballgames and we made it to the Super Bowl that year, and that’s why the ‘Ickey Shuffle’ took off. … I was blessed by the good lord up above to put me in that situation.” | null | null | null | null | null |
Judge John McBain ignored court orders in 2020 when he resentenced a woman convicted in a 2015 murder. (J. Scott Park/MLive.com/Jackson Citizen Patriot/AP)
Michigan judge John McBain — thinking jurors blundered in convicting a woman of second-degree murder for stabbing her boyfriend twice in the heart on Valentine’s Day 2015 — punished her as harshly as if she had been found guilty of premeditated murder, a state appeals court said this week.
“You brutally murdered him in cold blood, and for that, by the power vested in me by the state of Michigan, you’re to serve 35 years to 70 years” in prison, McBain told Dawn Dixon-Bey at the 2016 hearing, drawing applause from the gallery.
In 2020, McBain again punished Dixon-Bey as if she had premeditated her boyfriend’s murder, this time giving her a sentence of 30 to 70 years, far above the 12 to 20 years for which the guidelines call.
No, he can’t, the appeals court ruled earlier this week. On Tuesday, the higher court once more vacated McBain’s sentence and, in a highly unusual move, ordered another judge to resentence Dixon-Bey. In doing so, the three-judge appellate panel criticized McBain’s courtroom behavior, floated the possibility of his being investigated for misconduct and suggested he is unfit to sit on the bench.
McBain is no stranger to controversy and criticism. In 2014, he told a convicted murderer he hoped she would die in prison. In 2015, as he ordered a court officer to Taser a defendant, McBain cast off his robe, stormed down from the bench, charged the defendant and then physically helped a court officer pin him to the ground. At another 2015 hearing, as he sentenced a defendant who had broken into a police officer’s home, McBain told him he wished the owner had returned in time to catch him in the act.
In its Tuesday opinion, the state appeals court stuck to the Dixon-Bey case, focusing on two issues: McBain’s insistence on punishing her for a crime of which she had been acquitted — first-degree murder — and what it called an “interrogation” during the part of a hearing reserved for a defendant to address a judge before the sentencing.
The appellate judges were especially plain in rebuking McBain. In chastising him for defying the appeals court’s previous ruling, they reminded him of one of the foundational principles of the state’s legal system: McBain didn’t have to agree with the higher court’s decision, but he did have to obey it.
One of those judges, Amy Ronayne Krause, was more blunt on Dec. 14 when the court heard oral arguments in the case. She said she had read the transcript of Dixon-Bey’s sentencing hearing. Her verdict: It was “hideous,” the AP reported.
Even as McBain has occasionally made headlines and stirred controversy, he has kept his job. According to the elections website in Jackson County, where McBain presides, he won a fourth six-year term on the bench in 2020 in at least the third election in which he ran unopposed. | null | null | null | null | null |
British Prime Minister Boris Johnson is embroiled in a protracted political saga dubbed “Partygate” over a string of gatherings alleged to have violated his government’s own coronavirus restrictions. (Jason Alden/Bloomberg News)
Is the house of cards falling in? Several top aides to embattled British Prime Minister Boris Johnson announced their departures Thursday and Friday, prompting speculation and swirling questions about whether he will resign — and who could replace him.
Johnson is embroiled in a protracted political saga dubbed “Partygate” over a string of gatherings alleged to have violated his government’s own coronavirus restrictions, a controversy that has led to a police investigation. A separate, highly anticipated report published this week by senior civil servant Sue Gray has concluded that there were “failures of leadership and judgment,” at 10 Downing Street, the prime minister’s residence and office.
Johnson has so far resisted any pressure to step down, but some politicians and pundits believe his government is in “total meltdown,” and several members of his party have submitted letters of no confidence against him in an attempt to oust the leader.
Rishi Sunak has been widely touted in the British press as the key contender to succeed Johnson as prime minister. Currently based next door at No. 11 Downing Street, Sunak, 41, became chancellor of the exchequer, or finance minister, in 2020 just as the coronavirus pandemic began.
“My parents sacrificed a great deal so I could attend good schools,” Sunak, whose parents are immigrants with Indian roots, wrote on his official website. He attended prestigious boarding school Winchester College, then Oxford University and Stanford University. He worked in finance at Goldman Sachs and other companies before co-founding his own investment firm, and said he believes in “free enterprise and innovation” to ensure future prosperity.
Sunak was first elected to Parliament in 2015 and has been dubbed “Dishy Rishi” by some U.K. tabloids because of his charismatic presentations and slick use of social media.
Sunak has commented publicly on race and his Hindu faith and identity. During his debut speech to Parliament he joked about people remarking on his “tan” compared to his White predecessor. He is married to the billionaire heiress Akshata Murthy and has two children.
Foreign Secretary Liz Truss would become the Conservative Party’s third female prime minister if she got the job, following in the footsteps of Theresa May who took office in 2016 and Margaret Thatcher in 1979.
Like both women, Truss also studied at Oxford University, earning a degree in philosophy, politics and economics. In an interview with the BBC, she recalled her “left wing” parents taking her to anti-nuclear marches as a child and chanting for Thatcher to leave office. However, she eventually joined the Conservative Party, entering Parliament in 2010. She worked in ministries for education, environment and justice. She was appointed minister for women and equalities in 2019 and succeeded Dominic Raab as foreign minster in 2021.
Truss supported staying in the European Union during the Brexit referendum in 2016 but soon got on board with the project after the decision to leave had been made. She has previously worked in the energy and telecommunications industries and is a qualified management accountant. She is married with two children.
Former foreign secretary Jeremy Hunt was relegated to the backbenches of Parliament in 2019 after a bid to lead the Conservative Party that he lost to Johnson. The former health secretary chairs an influential health committee that has scrutinized the government’s handling of the coronavirus pandemic.
An elected parliamentarian since 2005, Hunt has in-depth institutional knowledge of the party and British politics and climbed the political ranks under Prime Minister David Cameron. Hunt had a long tenure as health secretary before the pandemic hit, and he was known for a protracted dispute with junior doctors over their contracts in a confrontation that led to several strikes over pay and working conditions.
He went on to become foreign secretary in 2018 and handled political clashes with Iran and China. Oxford-educated Hunt was a “remainer” in the Brexit debate.
Before politics, Hunt worked briefly in Japan and later ran an educational publishing business and set up a charity to help AIDS orphans in Kenya. He is married with three children. | null | null | null | null | null |
The U.S. economy added 467,000 jobs in January as the omicron variant spiked to record heights, with the labor market performing better than many expected two years after the pandemic began.
But the labor market, according to the new data, performed very well during that stretch.
In addition to the robust January, the Department of Labor also revised upward the figure for December’s jobs report, to 311,000 from 199,000. The December and January data sets show a labor market that continues to recover at a strong pace from the pandemic’s worst disruption in March and April of 2020. New outbreaks and variants have sent shockwaves through the economy since then, but the labor market has continued to return, with companies working to add jobs and wages steadily rising.
The labor market’s participation rate, a critical measurement that has never fully recovered from losses during the pandemic’s earliest days, also went up significantly, to 62.2 percent from 61.9 percent. That shows more people are reentering the labor force, looking for work.
Average hourly earnings increased by 23 cents on the month to $31.63, up 5.7 percent over the last year. However, those gains for many people have largely been wiped out by rising prices from inflation.
The data was collected during a tumultuous period. Nearly nine million workers were out sick around the time the survey was taken, and some of them could have been counted as unemployed based on the way the survey is conducted. With such high levels of infection in many parts of the country, it is likely that many businesses also paused hiring.
Last year was a strong year for growth in the labor market, with the country adding an average of more than 550,000 jobs a month — regaining some 6.5 million jobs lost in the pandemic’s earlier days, after the Department revised its numbers. The country still has more than 3 million fewer jobs than it had before the pandemic. | null | null | null | null | null |
Professor Carolyn Chun has twice been denied tenure at the U.S. Naval Academy, and she believes the reason is bias. Now she says she is seeking justice.
Assistant Professor Carolyn Chun.
At the U.S. Naval Academy, assistant professor Carolyn Chun stood alongside a memorial outside of the academic building where she teaches math to midshipmen. To the untrained eye, the installation — a bunch of metal dots, embedded, on the diagonal, across the plaza’s courtyard — looks like a giant game of steppingstones. The memorial, Chun told me, represents the location where Albert Michelson conducted his experiment to accurately measure the speed of light along the old sea wall of the academy, receiving the 1907 Nobel Prize in physics for his efforts. The building next to where Chun holds class is named after Michelson, in fact. Chun has passed by these stones innumerable times over the past six years; it’s one of her favorite places on campus. These days, however, she has come to see the pathway in a new light.
“It’s funny,” said Chun. “The USNA named a building after an expert in light and is, at the same time, doing bad deeds in the dark.” Chun is making a veiled reference, based on her experience, to the ways in which the Naval Academy awards tenure.
Yard-wide (“Yard” is academy vernacular for campus) in 2021, 11 men and four women, including Chun, applied for tenure. Ten of those men and no women were successful. (The lone male denied tenure was from the math department.) Chun explains: “There are 3,003 scenarios where 10 people can be chosen from the 15 applicants, and only 11 scenarios where all 10 are men. All things being equal, the chance that the top 10 applicants would all be male is 11 out of 3,003.” Or, as Chun calculates it, the likelihood that gender discrimination occurred in the tenure process last year is over 99.6 percent.
“This is a straightforward, discrete math problem that my students would compute for you.”
This past fall, according to numbers provided to me by the USNA public affairs department, a total of 299 civilians had tenure; 223 were White — with 219 being White men — and 23 were Asian (seven were women). Moreover, there are 12 full math professors in the department, nine of which are male. Nine men and four women are associate professors (the second-highest rank), and out of 13 assistant professors, seven are male. “It’s telling that, at the highest level, women comprise only 25 percent of the faculty,” says Chun. “At the middle level, it’s 31 percent, and at the lowest level, it’s 46 percent. This suggests that women are being held back compared with our male counterparts.”
The USNA is a storied service academy where the Honor Concept and Uniform Code of Military Justice have shaped generations of military officers and war heroes. It’s also a place where military and civilian instructors teach side-by-side. Chun, a civilian, operates by her own code of honor and integrity, as she sees it. And since 2020, she has cast herself as a one-woman brigade, seeking justice within the academy. When her campaign eventually ends, and however it ends, Chun’s objective is to bring real change to the academy.
Chun’s father, Keith Chun, a trivia ringer who won $12,801 as a contestant on “Jeopardy!” in 1987, is Asian American; her mother, Diane, who is White, was part of the third graduating class that allowed women at Princeton. Chun has a twin sister named Deb and two younger brothers. Growing up in a mixed-race family in their small New Jersey town, the sisters were often made fun of in school for being Chinese, which Deb says provided them with a keen sense of right and wrong.
“Even when we were kids, we were very focused on fairness,” Deb told me.
In middle school, the sisters advanced through their math classes and participated in MathCounts (after-school math tests and an annual competition), where they were among the top scorers in their school. By eighth grade, having exhausted the math curriculum, they were provided private tutoring by the school. In high school the pair continued to excel at math, wrote poetry and stayed after school to work on an onion genome experiment with a researcher from Rutgers University. (Today, Deborah Chun, like Carolyn, is one of the few experts in the field of matroid theory, the study of combinatorial properties of collections of points in space; she’s an associate professor and chair of the department of mathematics at West Virginia University Institute of Technology.)
Carolyn was the school’s top scorer on the American High School Mathematics Exam in her junior year and one of the 20 winners of the Rutgers-Newark High School Poetry Contest in both her junior and senior years. She finished high school at 17 and attended Rutgers, graduating with a degree in math and physics after spending the summer between her junior and senior years at CERN, the European Organization for Nuclear Research in Geneva, working on an accelerator physics project.
She married Michael Brown in 2011, and the couple have a boy and a girl, both under 4. Along with bachelor of science and master of science degrees, and a PhD, Chun also has a master of fine arts degree in creative writing. As we sat together in her office, she quoted from Whitman and Yeats to explain the beauty of graphs and vertexes.
“I’m super into Yeats,” she said. “Emotions don’t become available to us until they’re expressed. There’s this palette that language gives us.” Chun noted a symmetry in the two disciplines. “I see them as different ways to view and present truth. Truth becomes obvious when stated correctly. That’s poetry. That’s math.”
Chun’s path to the Naval Academy is also a lesson in geography. After earning a PhD in mathematics from Louisiana State University, she did six years of postdoctoral work, in New Zealand and London, submersing herself in matroid theory.
While at a conference on discrete mathematics in Germany, Chun met a woman in the USNA math department with whom she shared research interests. “She put USNA on the map for me,” Chun told me. When she saw an opening at the academy, she decided to apply, eventually accepting a job offer and turning down an opportunity to teach in Botswana. She and Brown, who co-owns a company that builds and installs solar panels, were planning to have children, and with Chun’s parents close by, it made practical sense to be on this continent.
Chun outside the building where she teaches math at the U.S. Naval Academy.
“I was excited about serving — I view teaching as service — with women in male-dominated spaces,” Chun says. “I love that my midshipmen and I both have the same boss — the Navy — and that we’re colleagues of sorts. I respect their commitments to serve their country and admire the dedication and drive that they display every day. My school days are utterly aimless by comparison.”
Even with a boss as orderly as the Navy, Chun says she didn’t receive any training for working in an environment where most of the student body is male and on track to become naval officers. (She says that in a typical class of 24 students, perhaps two or three in the room are female.) She did, however, have what she calls vestigial training. “I learned how to evade my captors and which color spiders were safe to eat should I ever get lost in the jungle,” she says ruefully.
Early on, she found the math department extremely collegial and her classrooms filled with engineering students. In her third semester, after completing a Google poll of other courses she’d be willing to instruct, Chun shifted to teaching other classes, where, instead of budding engineers, a lot of her students were cyber operations and information technology majors. “To them, I teach unpopular classes,” she says. “Students say, ‘Why do I have to take this class when I’m not going to need it later?’ ”
Chun noticed one day that women were underrepresented in her discrete-math class compared with the percentage of women at USNA. She remembered raising a question with this conundrum: Why are there so few women in STEM? Chun told her students that she had run some numbers, and it turned out that the women in her classes, on average, tested better than men. “After I had this conversation, they all wanted to know how the class did on their test,” she says. “And the women did better.”
Five students from that class complained on their written student opinion forms (SOFs), later read by both the chair of the math department and the department’s performance evaluation committee. At the Naval Academy, midshipmen submit anonymous feedback through these forms toward the end of the semester for each course, providing their opinions on course content and the instructor.
“Their complaints said that I graded women differently from men,” Chun says. “I was upset and disappointed.” She also felt betrayed by the students who complained. “These guys have this ‘no pain, no gain’ when it comes to physical training, going to the gym and pushing a heavy bar up and down to work their deltoids,” Chun says, “but they don’t have the same ‘no pain, no gain’ mentality with academics.”
“One hundred percent of my colleagues in the math department told me that I was 100 percent getting tenure, that I was a shoo-in,” says Carolyn Chun.
Chun says that a person on the departmental promotion and tenure committee, which is made up of full professors, expressed worries that even the suggestion that Chun was giving preferential treatment to her female students would have much larger implications with the Yard-wide tenure committee. The concern would prove to be prophetic. After teaching at the academy for 4½ years, Chun applied for tenure in 2020.
“I was really optimistic about my chances,” says Chun, who had the support of her department. According to the academy’s Annual Performance Review Expectations, sent annually by Provost Andrew Phillips, “One requirement for the granting of tenure (and promotion to the rank of Associate Professor, as appropriate) is that a faculty member must have completed a minimum of five years of college-level teaching experience following receipt of the terminal degree (Ph.D. or equivalent).”
Chun’s college-level teaching experience came in at just under the five-year mark, but she had six years of postdoctoral work, which included teaching. “A senior colleague told me that I deserved tenure, but the Yard-wide committee was an unknown quantity,” says Chun. “I figured I had a 50-50 shot. I knew it was considered an early application, but I also knew that people on the math faculty all come in with postdoc experience.”
About two months later, she learned in a phone call from math chair Vrej Zarikian that she did not receive the promotion. “I was disappointed,” she admits.
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In April 2020, Chun met with the members of the promotion and tenure committee for her outbrief, a meeting granted to faculty candidates who were not recommended for promotion. Vice Provost Dan O’Sullivan, who declined to speak to me for this article, said in his outbrief letter that the decision was based on her student opinion forms and the committee’s claim that there were “several courses in which Professor Chun appeared to have poor rapport with the class or a cohort within the class.” When Chun learned this, “I immediately thought back to those five student complaints and the conversation I had had with the departmental committee member.”
In her outbrief meeting, Chun questioned O’Sullivan about the use of student opinion forms, asking if there was a mechanism in place to ensure that bias, implicit or explicit — particularly student bias — doesn’t affect tenure package review. According to Chun, O’Sullivan told her that the committee members have access to articles about bias in student opinion forms. Chun then pressed, asking, according to her notes from that meeting, “Other than this education that you do on a voluntary basis, is there any mechanism in place?” O’Sullivan said that there is not.
Chun filed an 18-page appeal to Vice Adm. Sean Buck, the Naval Academy superintendent, submitting a letter along with copies of her classroom visitation reports. In one, a senior faculty member who visited Chun’s Discrete Math and Probability class wrote, “The atmosphere of the class was professional and relaxed. Prof Chun communicated her enthusiasm for mathematics and the students seemed to enjoy the lesson.” Later, the same senior faculty member noted, “Chun also talked to me about how she strives to broaden midshipmen’s perception of mathematics and make them aware of more advanced subjects than they encounter in their core courses. I think this is a very valuable aspect of her teaching and contributes directly to the mathematics department’s mission to open our students’ minds to the power, beauty, and utility of mathematics.”
Buck denied her appeal in a letter dated June 30, 2020. (Commander Alana Garas, Buck’s public affairs officer, wrote in an email, “Carolyn Chun’s case is still active; it would be inappropriate for Vice Adm. Buck to provide any comment on your story.”)
At that point, Chun filed a complaint with the Naval Academy’s Equal Employment Opportunity Office. Chun alleged that O’Sullivan and Paul Mikulski (co-chair of the tenure committee, who didn’t respond to my emails asking for comment), discriminated against her in the decision of her tenure application. According to Chun, “The EEO told Paul and Dan my name and my accusations of sex discrimination and asked them to comment on my accusations.” (The office didn’t resolve her complaint until March 2021, and a representative of the office found that Chun had not filed the complaint in a timely manner.) O’Sullivan and Mikulski did not comment on Chun’s accusations of sex discrimination, and the USNA would not comment on this process. “I felt like they were holding me to a standard that was disadvantaging me,” Chun says. “I could see that the characterization of my teaching was wrong and that the people most negatively impacted by the overreliance on SOFs were the underrepresented groups to which I belong.”
In a 2014 article published in the journal Innovative Higher Education titled “What’s in a Name: Exposing Gender Bias in Student Ratings of Teaching,” authors Lillian MacNell, Adam Driscoll and Andrea N. Hunt write: “Student ratings of teaching play a significant role in career outcomes for higher education instructors. Although instructor gender has been shown to play an important role in influencing student ratings, the extent and nature of that role remains contested.” In the article, their analysis showed that “Students rated the male identity significantly higher than the female identity, regardless of the instructor’s actual gender, demonstrating gender bias. Given the vital role that student ratings play in academic career trajectories, this finding warrants considerable attention.”
Two years later, Anne Boring, an economist and the lead author of a 2016 paper published in ScienceOpen titled “Student Evaluations of Teaching (Mostly) Do Not Measure Teaching Effectiveness,” performed new analysis of the gender-switch study mentioned above and found that when they ran statistical tests on U.S. university students, the female students rated the instructors they believed to be male more highly across the board. The same instructor received higher marks as Paul than as Paula. In a 2016 article for NPR’s website, reporter Anya Kamenetz extrapolated Boring’s findings this way: “Student evaluations are systematically biased against women — so much so, in fact, that they’re better mirrors of gender bias than of what they are supposed to be measuring: teaching quality.”
Midshipmen salute during the national anthem before a football game against Houston at Navy-Marine Corps Memorial Stadium in Annapolis in 2020. (Jonathan Newton/The Washington Post)
Generally, female faculty of color fare even worse. In her research report “Race and Gender Bias in Student Evaluations of Teaching,” Therese Huston found that women received significantly lower course evaluations than male instructors and that faculty of color received lower course evaluations than their White peers. Female faculty of color, Huston reported, received particularly low course evaluations. “It’s a deep-seated tradition,” Huston told me. “We value students’ perceptions.”
According to Huston, whose book “Let’s Talk: Make Effective Feedback Your Superpower” reveals how to curb gender and racial bias in feedback, committees put a lot of faith in one question: Would I recommend this professor to another student? Whether they know it or not, Huston says, students award their teachers with what she calls “idiosyncrasy credits,” the number of points that an individual can deviate from the group’s expectations. “They see a White man in uniform and think, ‘That’s what a professor looks like. You met my expectations.’ ”
On the other hand, she says, “If you’re Asian, petite, young and female, you’ve used up a lot of idiosyncrasy credits.” Huston told me about a study that looked at 39,000 teachers listed on the site Rate My Professors. Asian women were rated less humorous, less inspirational, too lecture-heavy, and unfair or harder in their grading. “If she is defying your perspective norm,” Huston says of Chun’s situation, “she is penalized more.”
“Of course,” Huston adds, “there continues to be some debate about whether women always receive lower ratings, such as in a recent study led by Michael Rivera at Temple University [“Are Traditional Performance Reviews Outdated? An Empirical Analysis on Continuous, Real-Time Feedback in the Workplace,” published last year in the journal Information Systems Research], but the vast majority of studies will confirm what we’ve long suspected: There is racial and gender bias in feedback.”
Ultimately, Huston says, research shows that student evaluations don’t reflect teaching. They do, however, reflect bias.
With the unanimous support from her department, Chun applied for tenure a second time in January 2021. She implemented the feedback from her 2020 outbrief and requested additional comments (using Google polls) from her students during the semester regarding class format. Chun summarized her efforts in her teaching reflections as part of the tenure application.
In March, Zarikian called her at home and informed her that she’d been turned down again. Chun says she was speechless.
“I 100 percent believed I was getting tenure,” she says. “One hundred percent of my colleagues in the math department told me that I was 100 percent getting tenure, that I was a shoo-in.” (One of the full professors in her department, who asked not to be named, confirmed for me this unanimous recommendation.) She says that one of her math department colleagues told her that if Chun didn’t get tenure, he’d quit his job in protest. (He did not.)
In his outbrief letter this time around, Vice Provost O’Sullivan stated: “Open and constructive reflection on student feedback, can often lead to a teaching innovation that captures a cohort of students that may not have been engaged previously. ... Assistant Professor Chun’s teaching reflections left the committee unclear as to whether Assistant Professor Chun is fully engaged in this aspect of the teaching process. The Committee needs to hear directly from Assistant Professor Chun in her reflections on teaching, this forward-looking perspective (reflecting on the finished semester in preparation for the next).”
After she learned that no woman received tenure in 2021, Chun ratcheted up her mission to include other women in the same situation. “I hunted out the names of the other people who were denied and formed a sort of support group with them to consider our different cases and plan a way forward together,” she explains.
“If I was being treated unfairly, I suspected others were being treated unfairly,” she says. “I wanted those mistreated by the system to have an advocate. Dealing with the fallout became my full-time job. … Correcting the mistake, finding other allies.” Chun eventually enlisted three women in filing a joint appeal, feeling that showing a unified front would be more persuasive. (The appeals for the others all share the same cover letter; their individual attachments are different.)
Chun filed a formal 98-page appeal of the promotion and tenure committee’s decision to Buck in June, submitted in solidarity with three other professors, all of whom, through Chun, asked to remain anonymous out of concern for damaging their careers. In her appeal, Chun remained focused on the role the student opinion forms seemed to play. “The bias within the metric used to determine tenure outcomes is evidence of gender discrimination,” Chun argued in her opening.
Chun felt “somewhat removed from the personal-ness of the reviews, like something died when I didn’t get tenure, and these documents are the body of that thing, and this appeal is like an autopsy to find the cause of death and show that it was murder and not natural causes.”
In reading Chun’s appeal, I learned that in her career at the Naval Academy, she received the same high marks in the three areas that determine tenure: teaching, scholarship and service.
In the 2015-16 academic year, for example, former department chair and supervisor Will Traves noted that under teaching and classroom work, “Chun did an immense amount of preparation for her course, creating beamer [slide] presentations and handouts for each class. These were well received by the students. She clearly connected with many of her students who praised her friendliness and positive attitude as well as her knowledge and passion for the material.” He also wrote that “several midshipmen commented that she gives clear explanations and is ‘not afraid to spend extra time on a subject when people are confused,’ both characteristics of strong teaching.” (Through an email, Traves declined to comment further.)
“For a woman to attend the Naval Academy, it takes enormous guts,” says David Joyner, who spent decades in the math department there.
In 2018, Chun “received near universal praise in the Student Opinion Forms for revising the curriculum for a SM242 [Discrete Math and Probability] and used a combination of worksheets and slides that she developed to teach the course. This approach required a significant investment in time outside of the classroom on her part,” according to her performance evaluation. Her teaching and service were deemed “Fully Successful,” while her scholarship received the highest rating of “Outstanding.”
When Traves completed his term as department chair, he handpicked Vrej Zarikian as his successor. In Chun’s 2019 annual performance review, Zarikian, who declined to speak to me for this story, wrote, “Prof. Chun continues to be a very effective instructor while diversifying her teaching portfolio.” He recognized that students appreciated “how much outside investment she put into teaching.” Chun’s student opinion forms, he continued, were “very positive,” with students “praising her knowledge, communication skills, and passion.”
As part of her tenure appeal, Chun included five recent articles on the subject of bias in student opinion forms, including two that were emailed, Yard-wide, to all faculty inboxes (including those on the tenure committee) from Karyn Sproles, dean of faculty development. The first, sent by Sproles on Feb. 18, 2021, is an “expansive” metastudy of 100 other studies on bias in student evaluations. Quoting from Inside Higher Ed’s reporting, Sproles summarized the findings in the body of her email:
“Crucially, the paper urges administrators to restrict or eliminate the use of qualitative or write-in comments, which have the ‘strongest evidence of equity bias.’ Over and over again, women and faculty members of color have been shown to receive more negative comments about personality traits, appearance, mannerisms, competence and professionalism, according to the study.”
Chun also included an email Sproles sent on Nov. 15, 2019, this one citing an article from the Chronicle of Higher Education that centered on the ways in which professors’ gender influences how students perceive them. “This is a fascinating piece that confirms what I have been noticing in our student evaluations,” Sproles wrote.
Dean Sproles was quick to respond to my request for an interview. When I reached her by phone, I asked her, “If you know how harmful student evaluations are to women and women of color in gaining tenure, why is the academy still using them?”
“Students can tell us things that no one else can,” she said. “Such as if the environment in the classroom is conducive to learning.”
One of the articles Sproles sent to faculty concluded that there was “no demonstrable correlation between student feedback and student learning.” Moreover, the use of student feedback for career-critical decisions is strongly discouraged by at least 18 professional organizations, including the American Sociological Association and the American Historical Association. Some schools have stopped using them entirely, most notably the University of Southern California and Ryerson University in Toronto, where the use of student feedback in promotion and tenure decisions is considered an illegal form of discrimination.
“You knew that the articles you emailed to faculty contained evidence that women and women of color rate the lowest on SOFs,” I told Sproles. “Why, then, did you decide to send them if you didn’t think they were significant?”
“I send out a lot of things,” she said.
Amy Ksir, a math professor who specializes in algebraic geometry, began teaching at the Naval Academy in 2003, receiving tenure in 2007. In the classroom visitation report included in Chun’s 2021 appeal, Ksir noted that Chun’s teaching — asking her students to think about what kinds of problems might be on the test rather than just telling them — is “all well-known to promote deep, lasting learning,” she wrote. Ksir thinks Chun deserved tenure. “It’s been bad for morale,” she told me of the academy’s rejection. “It’s harder to be a cheerleader [for the academy]. I didn’t used to feel that way, and now I do.”
When I asked Ksir why she thought she got tenure and Chun did not, she paraphrased something gleaned from the 1997 book “Ms. Mentor’s Impeccable Advice for Women in Academia”: “Keep your head down, don’t make waves, smile and nod.” Ksir said she’d like to see the student opinion forms go away completely: “Faculty have to be the ones saying, ‘Well, this is what we think is good teaching.’ ”
David Joyner, who retired from the math department in 2018 after more than 30 years there, says that before stepping down he considered becoming the department chair. “I went to the provost, Andrew Phillips” — Phillips didn’t respond to multiple email requests for an interview — “and told him I wanted to open up the conversation about eliminating SOFs from use in promotion and tenure decisions.” According to Joyner, Phillips said that that wouldn’t work and that they were not interested in finding another way to evaluate professors.
Joyner knows Chun well and hopes any noise her appeal attracts, both internally and externally, “will benefit women and people in general,” he says. “For a woman to attend the Naval Academy, it takes enormous guts.”
I spoke to one of the women who added her name to Chun’s joint appeal after being denied tenure last year; she declined to be named out of concern for her job security. A person of color and a member of the LGBTQ community, she moved to Annapolis in 2015, leaving a tenured position at another university for her job at the academy. When she was first interviewed for the teaching position, she says, she knew she was being recruited to fill a specific need — enlisted, she told me, to “help usher in a transformative curriculum and attitude” in the post-“don’t ask, don’t tell” Naval Academy. Yet despite some initial pushback from students over what they called a “liberal agenda,” her evaluations from 2019-2021, when she applied for tenure, were very good, she says. “The promotion committee said that there were no problems with my application materials or with any of my accomplishments,” she told me. “The bias I experienced was around the tenure process itself.”
The problem, she continued, was that two people from the tenure committee observed her class (held via Google Meet because of the pandemic), and one of them reported that her class was, “too quiet, began late, and finished early.”
“If I’m going to be let go because I point out that the system is biased, then I’m okay with that,” Chun says. “I keep saying there’s bias, and people keep saying there’s bias, and I want to put my money where my mouth is.”
She was incredulous. “I began class with a mental health check-in,” she told me, in accordance with, she says, online pedagogy, and reserved time at the end for meetings with students who desired more individual attention.
“The bigger problem is that the committee overruled my whole record,” she says. “I’m talking about my annual performance ratings by my department chair, teaching observations by senior colleagues, my advising work with student sports teams — they decided that the concerns voiced in these snapshots, these 75-minute teaching observations, were enough evidence to prove that I did not deserve a promotion. And they considered that fair treatment.”
She appealed the committee’s decision but when we spoke had not heard anything back. On the day she and I talked — right before our call, in fact — she resigned from her job at USNA and accepted a teaching position at another university. “It was quite emotional and not an easy decision to uproot my life,” she says. “But deep down I knew I couldn’t stay.
“The thing that turned it sour,” she says of her decision to leave, “was this rotten system within the institution that ignores and overrules the will of the people who mentored me, who understand my research, and who work the closest with me.” She told me she would have stayed if she thought the process was fair or if it wasn’t going to take so much out of her to try to change it. “There are people with power and seniority who know this tenure system is flawed, but they’re sitting on their hands,” she says. “I shouldn’t have to fight these battles for them. They should fight for me.”
Other departures might be imminent. “If I’m going to be let go because I point out that the system is biased, then I’m okay with that,” Chun told me. “I keep saying there’s bias, and people keep saying there’s bias, and I want to put my money where my mouth is.”
Chun figures it may take years for her to become a full professor at the Academy, when she might be able to effect change from within the system. “I won’t be complicit until then,” she says. “There is a lack of justice here.”
While waiting for Buck’s decision on her appeal, Chun contacted Rep. Dutch Ruppersberger (D-Md.), who chairs the academy’s Board of Visitors. Chun is asking Ruppersberger’s office to look into why there is currently no rubric to decide on the criteria for awarding tenure when the prior committee had created and used one. Ruppersberger’s office did not respond to multiple emails asking for comment.
In October, Chun received Buck’s judgment, dated Aug. 30, in which he supported the tenure committee’s findings and its decision to deny Chun promotion and tenure a second time.
She responded by seeking legal representation from Jason Ehrenberg, a lawyer specializing in Title IX investigations, tenure denials and academic dismissals. Ehrenberg has had plenty of experience at the Naval Academy, most notably representing English professor Bruce Fleming, who, among other transgressions, was fired for sending his students shirtless photos from his modeling days. Ehrenberg successfully represented five military service members facing sexual assault charges before military tribunals (including three academy football players charged in 2013 with raping a female midshipman).
“I have a strong connection to the Navy,” Ehrenberg told me when I reached him by phone. “It’s just that the Navy is not always happy about it.”
Ehrenberg is assisting Chun with two complaints that she filed with the Naval Academy’s Equal Employment Opportunity Office (stemming from each tenure decision). The first claim is pending an assignment of an EEO administrative judge. A backlog of cases, coupled with pandemic delays, means a longer wait. The second claim, filed in early December, is awaiting an investigation of evidence. Ehrenberg hopes to have a resolution of the first claim in six months.
When I ask Ehrenberg what he hopes will happen with Chun’s tenure decisions, he says, “Having them undone.” Should the case not be resolved to Chun’s satisfaction, he says, there is a good chance her gender discrimination claims would ultimately be heard in front of a U.S. district court judge, since Chun is a civilian employee of the Defense Department.
For now, Chun is staying open to other possibilities, including applying for tenure again this year. “Part of me wants to leave to do good work elsewhere,” she says, “and part of me wants to stay because they want me to leave.”
Cathy Alter is a writer in Washington and a frequent contributor to The Washington Post. | null | null | null | null | null |
Except it wasn’t. While both described their conversation as easy overall, it wasn’t long after they sat down that the seams began to show. Genevieve said that while she was happy to put the surveillance out of her mind, Max checked in to make sure his rating would be above a 4. “A couple of times he apologized for being awkward when I really didn’t think there was anything awkward occurring,” recalled Genevieve. | null | null | null | null | null |
A pack of peacocks at an intersection in the Coconut Grove neighborhood of Miami on April 27, 2017. (Al Diaz/Miami Herald/AP)
The magnificent jeweled-toned birds, which are not native to Florida, have become an intriguing fixture across Miami’s neighborhoods. But what began as an exotic mystery has quickly turned into a battle pitting neighbors against each other — while some treasure the iridescent birds, others loathe them for their excessive numbers, extensive property damage and ample defecation, Regalado said.
“The county has not been able to identify a sanctuary that peacocks can safely be confined in; there’s been no interest,” Labrada told the county’s commissioners on Tuesday. “We searched statewide for a sanctuary or zoo that would be willing to accept them. So the alternative would be humane euthanasia.”
That same divide is present across the communities where some residents find parallels of Miami’s melting pot of cultures within the birds that arrived by happenstance. | null | null | null | null | null |
Golden Gate Funeral Home owner and director John Beckwith Jr. looks through a window during a double funeral in Dallas on July 30, 2020. (Bryan R. Smith/AFP/Getty Images)
“Some families … were forced to view their loved ones in a grotesque state of decomposition,” Ryan Sellers, an attorney representing the plaintiffs, said in a statement announcing the lawsuits.
During a service for Virginia Palmer Rankin following her death in December 2019, Golden Gate Funeral Home played a slide show of another person as mourners paid their respects, according to a lawsuit filed by her children. The children also said they believe they were given the wrong ashes, as Golden Gate did not identify the remains with the proper documentation, according to their lawsuit.
The family told Spectrum News 1 they believe Golden Gate’s mishandling of remains is a result of it taking on too much business, as well as “greed.” | null | null | null | null | null |
A shattered glass window in 2018. (Jennifer A Smith/Getty Images)
As the owners of a Santa Fe, N.M., home opened their front door on Sunday after a few days away, they were hit with the stench of rotting food. Dirty dishes were soaking in the sink and empty beer bottles had been tossed in the trash, an incident report says. Something was amiss.
The husband told investigators the burglar might have hitchhiked into town, since he said his car broke down about 100 miles away. The man smashed a window into the homeowners’ office using a metal tool, investigators said. He then allegedly cooked food, slept in one of the bedrooms and bathed in the master bathroom. Deputies noted in the report that none of the couple’s items had been stolen. | null | null | null | null | null |
Abby Roque, right, hugs teammate Grace Zumwinkle before Tuesday's practice session. (Petr David Josek/AP)
BEIJING — The players skated around Tuesday afternoon at Wukesong Sports Center without their helmets and — briefly, mercifully — without their masks, stopping and smiling for the camera that would capture the official team portrait of the 2022 U.S. Olympic women’s hockey team, not to mention their own camera phones that were tucked under pads on their hips or their shoulders. After the large group photo came the subsets: first-time Olympians in one shot, the goalies in another; University of Minnesota players followed by those from the University of Wisconsin — rivals in everyday life, teammates here.
The tribe is a fundamental part of who Roque is. Its people have supported her career as she developed from a coach’s kid — her father, Jim, was the head coach at Lake Superior State from 2004 to 2015 and is now a scout for the Toronto Maple Leafs — into a national team player and potential star. Until she matriculated at Wisconsin, she didn’t realize that her teammates might never have shared a meal with an Indigenous person.
“I didn’t perceive myself to be a little bit different than my peers because I always grew up through high school and earlier playing with other Indigenous players,” she said. “And when I got to college, I knew I was going to be probably one of few in the NCAA but not as little as I was.
Roque is in position to change that — both with her play and her willingness to embrace her pioneering position.
When the puck drops Thursday for the U.S. women’s opener against Finland — a game that takes place a day before the Opening Ceremonies — Abby Roque will be on the ice not as some sort of groundbreaker but as a playmaking forward who, even in her first Olympics, is a central part of what the Americans do.
“She brings some of that different, unique energy that she’s able to sort of light up a room,” said American teammate Hilary Knight, a four-time Olympian. “Very charismatic individual.”
Part of that is her acceptance — even her embracing — of her status as a role model. The Winter Olympics in general, or hockey specifically, are for White people? Think again. | null | null | null | null | null |
A City of Westminster worker cleans on Feb. 4 outside 10 Downing Street, the official residence of Britain's prime minister. (Daniel Leal/AFP/Getty Images)
She followed other top aides who quit Downing Street on Thursday night as the fallout from a scandal dubbed “Partygate” continues to engulf the British government and raise questions about Johnson’s leadership.
On Thursday night, Johnson’s communications director, chief of staff, policy director and private secretary all announced their resignations.
“Meltdown in Downing Street,” said the Daily Mail in its front-page headline on Friday. “Will the last one to leave please turn out the lights?” the paper asked, a nod to a famous headline by the Sun newspaper during the 1992 election.
Johnson’s office is under investigation for gatherings over the past two years that are alleged to have breached the government’s own coronavirus restrictions. A damning report published this week by senior civil servant Sue Gray found that there were “failures of leadership and judgment” at 10 Downing Street. The London Metropolitan Police are looking into 12 of the most serious alleged breaches.
Ministers on Friday were describing some of the departures as a clearing out after the Gray report, with Energy Minister Greg Hands telling Sky News that the personnel changes were a result of “the prime minister taking charge.”
“The prime minister was absolutely clear on Monday that there would be changes at the top of Number 10, and that is what he has delivered,” he said. “The Sue Gray report update said that there were failings at the top of the operation.”
Some of the staffers who are leaving have been directly linked to Partygate. Martin Reynolds, the prime minister’s principal private secretary, was responsible for an email encouraging Downing Street staffers to “bring your own booze” to a party on May 20, 2020 — at a time when the public was banned by law from meeting with more than one person outside households.
Mirza, one of Johnson’s longest-serving allies, made a point that she was leaving on principle. In a blistering resignation letter, Mirza urged Johnson to apologize for an “inappropriate and partisan” slur of opposition Labour Party leader Keir Starmer.
“You are a better man than many of your detractors will ever understand,” she wrote, “which is why it is so desperately sad that you let yourself down by making a scurrilous accusation against the Leader of the Opposition.”
In Britain, lawmakers have the right under “parliamentary privilege” to say what they like in the House of Commons, without worrying about being sued for defamation.
Still, Commons Speaker Lindsay Hoyle rebuked the prime minister for his language, saying he was “far from satisfied that the comments in question were appropriate on this occasion.”
Johnson later backed away from his comments, saying he was not referring to Starmer’s “personal record,” but he did not offer an apology.
Rishi Sunak, seen as a possible successor to Johnson if he is ousted, was asked about the Savile comments during a news conference Thursday.
Who could replace Boris Johnson? Here are some of the possible contenders.
It’s unclear whether a shake-up of Johnson’s inner circle will be enough to revive his premiership.
Nikki da Costa, a former legislative affairs director at Downing Street, suggested that rebuilding the team around Johnson would not be easy. The operation at Number 10 is “demoralised, already quite dysfunctional, with remaining good people neutered by the hierarchical, often ego driven, culture that has developed,” she wrote. “They can’t just bounce back, and they are also dealing with this and sudden loss of colleagues.” | null | null | null | null | null |
Covid-19 live updates Despite omicron surge, U.S. added 467,000 jobs in January
Job seekers speak with representatives at a job fair in Detroit. (Anthony Lanzilote/Bloomberg)
The rapid spread of the virus during that period upended many parts of the economy, closing schools, day cares and a number of businesses, and forcing parents to scramble. The data in the new report is believed to be heavily affected by distortions from the virus, and there are signs the labor market has improved markedly since mid-January.
The World Health Organization in Europe said Thursday the continent could soon enter a “cease-fire” and a “long period of tranquility” in the battle against the coronavirus, thanks to vaccination rates and the less-severe omicron variant.
Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said Thursday that sending in the army to end a protest that has paralyzed the nation’s capital for nearly a week is “not in the cards right now.” The protesters oppose the government and its vaccine mandate.
South Africa is seeing more cases of the BA.2 sub-variant of the omicron variant and is monitoring it, but there is no clear sign that BA.2 is substantially different from omicron, a senior scientist said Friday. Michelle Groome, from the National Institute for Communicable Diseases, showed in a presentation that BA.2 accounted for 23 percent of the 450 samples from January sequenced by South Africa’s genomic surveillance network and that the original variant accounted for 75 percent. | null | null | null | null | null |
Travis McMichael withdraws plea of guilty to federal hate crime charges in ...
Travis McMichael withdraws plea of guilty to federal hate crime charges in murder of Ahmaud Arbery
Travis McMichael, left, speaks with his attorney Bob Rubin at the hearing where McMichael and his father father, Greg McMichael, and their neighbor William “Roddie” Bryan were sentenced in the Glynn County Courthouse in Brunswick, Ga., on Jan. 7, 2022. (Stephen B. Morton/Pool/Reuters)
BRUNSWICK, Ga. — Travis McMichael on Friday withdrew his guilty plea to federal hate crimes charges in the murder of Ahmaud Arbery, opting to stand trial with his father after a deal with prosecutors fell apart.
The two White men have already been sentenced to life in prison without parole for the killing of Arbery, a 25-year-old Black man. They will now face a jury along with their neighbor, 52-year-old William “Roddie” Bryan, on the federal charges despite having previously agreed to admit that racism played a role in the February 2020 killing.
As the federal trial neared, prosecutors reached a deal with the McMichaels: The pair would plead guilty and serve a 30-year sentence in federal prison before returning to state custody. But days after the plea deal was signed, Arbery’s family announced they were vehemently opposed. Arbery’s mother, Wanda Cooper-Jones, said she did not need the McMichaels to validate what she and activists have been saying for nearly two years — that racism fueled her son’s murder. | null | null | null | null | null |
Opinion: D.C. is a leader on affordable housing
By Stephen Glaude
Stephen Glaude is chief executive and president of the Coalition for Nonprofit Housing & Economic Development.
As D.C. contends with the ever-evolving challenge of the pandemic, it is hard to believe we are on the verge of a third consecutive budget cycle to be affected by the coronavirus. In most ways, D.C. leaders have done remarkable work balancing public health necessities such as vaccinations and testing with emergency financial benefits including rent assistance while maintaining commitments to longer-term imperatives. These imperatives include Mayor Muriel E. Bowser’s (D) goal to produce 36,000 units of new housing by 2025, with 12,000 of those serving low-income households, and her Housing Equity Report’s targets for equitably locating those affordable units across all D.C. communities.
Few investments offer greater long-term impact for inclusion and equity than affordable-housing development, and few factors affect health and prosperity more than where you live. To promote equity and inclusion now and in the future, we must continue to invest heavily in safe, healthy, affordable housing.
Bowser has led the charge to expand affordable housing in D.C. She started with a commitment to invest $100 million in D.C.'s Housing Production Trust Fund (HPTF) each year of her first term. She continued that commitment in her second term and increased HPTF funding to $250 million per year in 2022. For the first time, she also committed in D.C.'s four-year financial plan enough funding for the Local Rent Supplement Program to enable the HPTF to meet its statutory requirement to expend half its funds annually for housing affordable for households earning zero to 30 percent of the median family income. On Wednesday, she announced that 10 projects will receive $135 million from the HPTF in the first round of awards from the summer 2021 request for proposals, including the first project in Ward 3 to receive HPTF money.
The D.C. Council has been her partner in these commitments, resulting in D.C.'s affordable-housing investments reportedly being the largest per capita in the United States. As the D.C. Council begins its annual performance oversight hearings for D.C. agencies and programs, council members will examine the effectiveness of housing policies and resources and the effects of historic investments in affordable-housing programs such as the HPTF.
Recent criticisms of the HPTF detailed in the Office of the Inspector General’s report published late last year offer recommendations for improvements that can help this nationally acclaimed resource improve its effectiveness. The council also must consider the inspector general’s report in context: The HPTF continues to be the primary tool for affordable-housing developers to preserve and develop affordable rental units across all eight wards of the District; it is an essential tool for tenants exercising their Tenant Opportunity to Purchase Act rights to preserve or create affordable housing; rental units produced using HPTF dollars generally must be maintained at affordable rent levels for 40 years, ensuring long-term affordability; and the HPTF has produced more than 6,000 affordable housing units since 2015.
The HPTF, as with any government program, can be improved. The good news is that we have data, guiding principles and council legislation already introduced this session to bring about improvements in administration and transparency. The Bowser administration and the D.C. Council should collaborate with affordable-housing advocates to make these changes, bring about greater oversight transparency and thereby improve D.C.'s effectiveness in creating and preserving affordable housing and equitably locating it across all eight wards.
As we all work to emerge from the pandemic and to better serve those most in need of housing stability in our community, the mayor and the council must be resolute and maintain historic investment levels in the HPTF and commit to investing half of these funds in deeply affordable housing units to bring about a more equitable and resilient District of Columbia. | null | null | null | null | null |
Opinion: Maryland is wasting its pensioners’ money
By Jeff Hooke
Jeff Hooke, the author of “The Myth of Private Equity: An Inside Look at Wall Street’s Transformative Investments,” is a senior finance lecturer at the Johns Hopkins Carey Business School and a former investment banker and private investment executive.
Seven hundred and forty-four million dollars. That is the amount of Wall Street fees paid by the Maryland state pension plan for investment advice in fiscal 2021.
Over the past 10 years, the fees totaled roughly $4.5 billion, or about 15 percent of the plan’s earnings. For that kind of money, you would think the state gets only the prime stock and bond picks from its advisers, but, during that time, Maryland, as with most other states, failed to beat the returns of a simple 60 percent stocks/40 percent bonds index. Many large institutional investors, including public pension plans, use this 60/40 index as a barometer to gauge their portfolios’ results. They structure their portfolios to avoid a 100 percent exposure to the sometimes volatile stock market. If their results are better than the index for a given year, they claim success. Many mutual funds attract smaller individual retail and 401(k) retirement accounts by copying the index and charging low fees for passive management.
The $70 billion Maryland pension fund acts as a giant piggy bank for state retirees. Current employees contribute a portion of their monthly paycheck to the fund, and taxpayers supplement these amounts with an annual billion-dollar payment. Adding to these two sources is fund investment income. From this combined pool of money come the allowances paid to retirees. People assume that the promised retirement benefits are guaranteed, but financial problems in other jurisdictions have resulted in retirement benefit cuts and higher taxpayer costs. Thus, proper fund management is important for both state workers and other taxpayers.
The Maryland legislature has a broad oversight role with respect to the pension fund’s investment activities, but it has little power to interfere directly in decisions, such as which stocks to buy or sell. For such matters, the fund’s professional civil service staff selects a small army of outside money managers to pick and choose investment opportunities. The fund staff negotiates the payments to outside managers, and such payments are off-budget. In political speak, “off-budget” means the payments do not appear anywhere in the state budget, nor do such payments require legislative approval.
Designed to keep retirees’ savings depoliticized, the fund’s independence comes at the cost of accountability. Being hands-off, the legislature and executive branch don’t say much about pension investments, even though almost $750 million in fees sounds like a lot of money. Most other states, unfortunately, have similar arrangements.
The investment underperformance problem that is evident at Maryland and other public pension plans is a bipartisan affair, with plan trustee boards typically composed of elected officials, political appointees and union leaders. Traditionally, public plan trustees have had limited financial expertise and, in the pre-2000 days, focused the portfolio on blue-chip stocks and bonds. Nowadays, the in-house staffs have become enamored with exotic, complex investments such as hedge funds, private equity and illiquid real estate. Many public plans have 30 percent or more of their portfolios in such assets. These investments carry sizable fees, long-term contracts and opaque information disclosures. They promise but do not guarantee higher yields. In an attempt to boost plan returns and to forestall greater employee and taxpayer contributions, plan trustees in Maryland and elsewhere have approved these costly alternatives in lieu of proven, low-cost 60/40 indexing. Between the persistent fees and mediocre returns, these exotic investment choices produce a drainage of $30 billion per year from public plans.
This drainage damages the financial security of public workers in Maryland and other states, and it forces greater taxpayer contributions to the plans. The ongoing situation has a secondary effect as well: The massive wealth transfer — from public workers and average taxpayers — to a small coterie of Wall Street money managers fosters a new plutocracy, successful at obscuring the problem and blocking reform.
The obvious fix for public plans is to shift from expensive fee investments to low-fee indexing, a tactic endorsed by none other than Warren Buffett, the noted value investor and philanthropist. For large public plans, including Maryland’s, this shift, if implemented, would be gradual. Extricating the fund from its long-term contractual commitments and replacing them with passive investments is going to take time. | null | null | null | null | null |
Opinion: Protecting transgender students is essential to creating safe Virginia schools
School buses are parked at the Arlington County Bus Depot on Jan. 26 in Arlington. (Olivier Douliery/AFP via Getty Images)
By Jennifer B. Boysko
Jennifer B. Boysko, a Democrat, represents parts of Fairfax and Loudoun counties in the Virginia state Senate.
The journey from kindergarten through 12th grade is a challenge for many children, even under the best circumstances. Not only are they learning new concepts, exploring their interests and building relationships with their peers, but they are also navigating the changes in their growing bodies. The things that happen to children during their school years will stay with them for life.
Now imagine that, on top of all of this, students also feel discriminated against simply because of who they are. Imagine trying to focus on classwork while educators and peers keep calling you by the wrong name. Imagine wanting to fit in and make friends but being forced to use a separate locker room from the rest of your classmates. Imagine the discomfort you would feel from not using the restroom for the entire school day because you don’t feel safe doing so, or because the only one you’re allowed to use is too far from your classroom.
This is something that transgender and nonbinary students across Virginia go through every day. Unfortunately, new legislation proposed during the 2022 General Assembly session would only make things harder.
Instead of feeling safe and valued at school — as every child should — transgender students often must contend with mistreatment and invalidation around every corner. The very place where they are supposed to learn and grow is telling them that their identity is wrong by enforcing discriminatory school policies and procedures. Transgender students often end up feeling isolated from or rejected by their peers, which causes their grades to slip and their mental health to suffer.
As a legislator, I have heard stories like this from transgender youths and their families, educators and community advocates time and time again. A common thread in many of these stories was that the school division did not have consistent policies to protect transgender students’ rights. I heard from educators and administrators who, though having the best intentions, had no idea how to navigate supporting the transgender students in their classrooms.
Seeing this need for ways to ensure that schools are safe and affirming for all students, I sponsored Senate Bill 161 during the 2020 General Assembly session. This bill directed the Virginia Department of Education, with community input, to formulate a set of model policies using evidence-based best practices for the treatment of transgender students. It also required all school boards to adopt policies that were consistent with or more comprehensive than the VDOE’s model policies.
The bill passed with support from Republicans and Democrats, and it directed a VDOE work group made up of parents and students, teachers and school administrators from around the commonwealth to craft the model policies. Once they were published, many school divisions quickly took the guidance into consideration. A significant group of school boards passed some version of the policies in summer 2021 without any difficulty. However, many school boards saw a great deal of pushback, and some even voted to reject the policies altogether.
These past few months have been anything but easy for transgender students and their families. They have had to wait weeks and months to see whether their school boards would choose to protect them by passing the model policies, and many have had to witness negative and harmful statements about transgender youths made by members of their own communities. And now, three bills have been filed in the Virginia state legislature that seek to roll back these students’ rights.
House Bill 988 would remove the requirement for school boards to adopt policies consistent with the VDOE guidance. (A similar Senate bill died in committee Thursday.) House Bill 1126 contains a section that would require school boards to adopt new policies ensuring that restrooms in school buildings are used only by people of the same biological sex. All three of these bills would be detrimental to the safety and well-being of students in Virginia’s public schools.
Let me also be clear: These bills would make educators’ and administrators’ jobs much harder, as they would allow school boards to eliminate the very guidance that these school professionals had expressed a need for before 2020. House Bill 1126 would present school staff with an impossible dilemma, as Title IX and case law in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit protect transgender students’ rights to use the restroom that aligns with their gender identity.
For the sake of transgender students, their families, educators, administrators and anyone else who cares about the impact of bullying and discrimination, these bills cannot pass. Transgender and nonbinary students are kids just like their peers are, and they deserve the same right to an affirming and unencumbered educational experience. Only by protecting transgender youths can we make sure that our schools are safe places for all children to grow and thrive. | null | null | null | null | null |
Opinion: Virginia film crews can’t do their jobs if elected officials don’t do theirs
Michael Keaton in a scene from "Dopesick." (Gene Page/Hulu via AP)
By Beau Cribbs
Beau Cribbs is a Richmond-based writer and media consultant.
This time last year, I was Michael Keaton’s personal assistant while he worked in Virginia on the Hulu limited series “Dopesick.” I realize that sentence sounds made up, but, thanks to good timing, dumb luck and a previous life as a politician’s body man, it’s true.
I’ll admit to being a fish out of water at first. For more than a decade, my day job has been as a political communications consultant and occasional comedy writer. And though being my own boss allowed me to take this sabbatical, I had never been on a big-budget production such as this.
My duties with Keaton were fairly straightforward: I made sure he knew his schedule, wrangled some press availabilities and, on days when I was exceedingly lucky, I looked after his yellow Lab, Amos.
The days were long. Often, we worked more than 12 hours to shoot only 90 seconds of footage for the final product. I didn’t mind, though. It was fun to chat with my literal childhood superhero between takes about everything from baseball to politics to Harold Ramis. And I’d be lying if I said it wasn’t thrilling to watch Keaton do his job.
But here’s something I didn’t expect: I loved watching everyone else do their jobs, too. All told, the cast and crew of “Dopesick” totaled more than 450 people — and nearly all of them worked off-screen. They were truck drivers, grips, coronavirus testing teams and everything in between.
'Dopesick' author Beth Macy: More than 1 million have died in the overdose crisis, but still the response is scandalously inadequate
Early on, while shooting in Clifton Forge, I took Amos for a walk — partly to stretch his legs, and partly because I knew that he provided a great way to make new friends on set. That day, I met a caterer from Virginia Beach, an actress from Harrisonburg, a production assistant from Arlington and a costumer who lives near me in Richmond’s Church Hill neighborhood.
These weren’t short-term transplants from New York or California, as I naively assumed; they were Virginians doing what they loved in their home state. And it led me down a rabbit hole to learn everything I could about what the commonwealth does to cultivate and attract more creative projects — and jobs — like this.
According to the National Conference of State Legislatures, Virginia is one of 34 states offering film/television production incentives. Our programs are the Governor’s Motion Picture Opportunity Fund (providing grants) and the Virginia Motion Picture Tax Credit Fund (providing refundable tax credits) — the latter of which was last revamped in 2010 with bipartisan legislative support under then-Gov. Robert F. McDonnell (R).
These investments have paid off. The Virginia Film Office cites a 2020 economic study that estimates the industry’s impact was $862 million in 2019, providing 5,600 full-time jobs and a $13 average annual return for every public dollar spent.
But our incentives pale in comparison with those of nearby states. Virginia’s annual funding cap is $10.5 million, which lags behind Maryland ($14 million), Tennessee ($13 million) and North Carolina ($31 million) — the same states Gov. Glenn Youngkin (R) singled out in his inaugural address when talking about our need to remain competitive in the region.
Variety reports that Georgia’s film/television tax credit topped $1.2 billion last year. That isn’t a typo. Virginia’s programs equal 1 percent of Georgia’s.
Those of us who live and work in Virginia aren’t surprised when out-of-towners rave about all we have to offer. “Dopesick” showrunner Danny Strong gushed at a Virginia Film Festival panel about how much he loved working here. Actor Will Poulter said Richmond was "one of the best places [he had] visited in America.” And I have it on good authority that Keaton frequently enjoyed local restaurants and the Capital Trail.
After the show wrapped, several of my new friends moved on to new gigs in the industry — none of them in Virginia. One moved to New York full time; another got work in Cleveland; another in Asheville, N.C. This is anecdotal, but it shows that Virginia is at a competitive disadvantage compared with our counterparts jockeying for the same creative projects — projects that hire local workers and contribute to local economies. It’s time to change that.
By modernizing and expanding our existing incentives, gig workers could turn into full-time workers right here at home. It’s an obvious opportunity to bring permanent high-wage jobs to Virginia before we fall even further behind.
For me, working on “Dopesick” was like visiting a small but interconnected city. When the cameras rolled and the actors delivered their lines, I saw with my own eyes that it was the result of hundreds of people doing specific jobs to prepare for that moment. But these opportunities will be in short supply if our elected officials don’t make them a greater priority.
In other words, the crew did their jobs. It’s time for Virginia to do the same. | null | null | null | null | null |
Support has been growing across all parts of Ukraine — not just regions close to Europe.
U.S. troops deploy for Europe from Pope Army Airfield at Fort Bragg, N.C., on Thursday. (Allison Joyce/AFP via Getty Images)
By Olga Onuch
Javier Pérez Sandoval
The Biden administration sent additional U.S. troops to Eastern Europe this week, amid concerns that Russia — with more than 100,000 soldiers stationed along Ukraine’s border — is preparing to extend a possible invasion of Ukraine. The U.S. move comes after Russian President Vladimir Putin claimed that Moscow would be forced into conflict with NATO if the alliance extends membership to Ukraine.
Since the 2000s, Ukrainian policymakers were well aware that if Ukrainians supported NATO membership at rates similar to those of their neighbors like Poland, Ukraine might have a clearer path to membership. Our team has followed Ukrainian public opinion in a series of 11 surveys over eight years (as part of the UCEPS, IBIF and MOBILISE projects, based in part at the University of Manchester). We present data from six of these surveys below.
Our survey, conducted in February 2021 — before the Russian military buildup — reveals that a majority of Ukrainians now supports joining NATO. For the first time, a plurality in each region agree on this point. This recent rise in support is most pronounced in the eastern and southern oblasts — closest to the ongoing conflict.
What explains the growing number of Ukrainians who favor NATO membership, and what does this support mean for ongoing negotiations?
Ukraine has reason to be concerned about Russia
Following Ukraine’s EuroMaidan protests in 2013 and 2014, Russia annexed the Ukrainian territory of Crimea, while Russian-backed separatist forces occupied parts of Donetsk and Luhansk in the east.
Eight years later, fears of a full-scale Russian invasion have prompted a coordinated effort by the European Union, United Kingdom, Canada and the United States to stave off further Russian incursions. In recent negotiations, Putin has sought assurances that Ukraine will never join NATO. And the United States and other NATO members have made it equally clear the alliance stands behind its 2008 declaration welcoming Ukraine’s aspirations.
For his part, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has asserted that not only does Ukraine aspire to join NATO, but also that no discussions on the matter should take place without Ukrainian diplomats in the room or on the call.
But what do ordinary Ukrainians think?
A major obstacle to past discussions of Ukraine’s NATO aspirations was the low rate of support among ordinary Ukrainians. And even though, as analysts point out, Ukraine’s NATO membership has never truly been on the table, in our surveys we asked Ukrainians a series of foreign policy questions, including this one: “Do you agree with the following statement: Ukraine should join NATO?” Other surveys have also asked how Ukrainians would vote if a referendum on NATO membership were to take place tomorrow.
For years, surveys found a minority (20 percent to 30 percent) of Ukrainians approved of Ukraine joining NATO. In our own survey from May 2014, conducted in the aftermath of the Euromaidan protests and the annexation of Crimea, just 30 percent of Ukrainians were in favor of NATO membership (see figure below). Even after the July 2014 escalation to all-out war in parts of eastern Ukraine, this number rose to just 37 percent and hovered around 40 percent until recently. Our research finds that preferences shifted dramatically after 2019.
Survey responses from 2014-2021 — should Ukraine join NATO?
Just how high is support for NATO membership now?
Surveys by Ukrainian pollster KIIS from December 2021 suggest that support for NATO membership might now be as high as 59 percent. Of course, it’s possible this reflects a temporary shift in attitudes following months of escalation in Russian action and rhetoric. But our surveys from February 2021 show that 56 percent of respondents agreed that Ukraine should join NATO — and these surveys were taken before Russia began massing additional troops on the border.
Support for NATO membership is now an all-Ukrainian phenomenon
Further, we found support for NATO membership has been growing across all regions of Ukraine, not just among citizens in the western regions closer to the E.U. border. Our MOBILISE data show that between 2019 and 2021, support for NATO membership increased by 20 percent in central Ukraine. In regions with close historical ties to Russia, this support doubled: Our survey results show support for NATO rising from 15 percent to 31 percent in the south, and from 19 percent to 40 percent in the east.
Why is support for NATO membership rising?
In 2021, we found two interesting trends when we re-interviewed Ukrainians first surveyed in 2019. First, Ukrainians who voted for President Zelensky’s party in 2019 were 19 percent more likely than others to have switched their view of NATO by 2021. In fact, most of the subsequent gains in support for NATO membership are among supporters of the president’s party and residents of the eastern and southern regions.
We interpret this as a “Zelensky effect” — a phenomenon our team first uncovered when studying support for E.U. membership. Political scientists note that when a politician with roots from a specific province or ethnic background moves to support a policy, the population from those regions or groups often follow suit. Since his April 2019 election, Zelensky — a Russian speaker from southeastern Ukraine — has been highly supportive of NATO.
Our analysis of his speeches also shows that Zelensky embraces a unifying approach — that all Ukrainians, regardless of which language they speak, share a goal common to the whole of Ukraine. Zelensky also uses this unifying frame when he mentions NATO — that he’s the first Ukrainian leader who is both Russophone and from the southeast to openly champion NATO membership. Ordinary Ukrainians from the east and south may be mirroring Zelensky’s support for membership in NATO.
Ordinary Ukrainians are key to resolving the conflict
For now, the United States and other NATO members appear firmly resolved to support Ukraine and the nation’s NATO ambitions but stop short of a membership offer, given that this would further inflame the current tensions. But surveys that reveal rising support for NATO membership suggest Russia’s increasingly aggressive policy toward Ukraine may have backfired, and that Moscow has failed to divide Ukrainians along regional or ethnic lines. On the contrary, the escalation of tensions, coupled with Zelensky’s unifying leadership, is likely to only further increase anti-Russian and pro-NATO sentiment.
Olga Onuch (@oonuch) is a senior lecturer at the University of Manchester, where she specializes in the comparative study of protest in Eastern Europe and Latin America. She is the principal investigator of www.mobiliseproject.com and the author of “Mapping Mass Mobilizations” (Palgrave MacMillan 2014).
Javier Pérez Sandoval (@javierpsandoval) is stipendiary lecturer in politics at Pembroke College, Oxford University, and a postdoctoral research associate with the MOBILISE Project. He specializes in the comparative study of subnational regimes across Latin America. | null | null | null | null | null |
Coronavirus: Impact on Hospitals with Shereef Elnahal, MD & Anne Zink, MD
As the United States enters its third year of the coronavirus pandemic, hospitals and health systems remain strained for resources and support services. On Thursday, Feb. 10 at 3:00 p.m. ET, Washington Post’s national health reporter Dan Diamond speaks with Anne Zink, MD, chief medical officer of Alaska, and Shereef Elnahal, MD, president and CEO of the University Hospital in Newark, about the path forward.
Shereef Elnahal, MD
Provided by EFK Group for University Hospital.
Dr. Shereef Elnahal is President and CEO of University Hospital in Newark, New Jersey’s largest safety net hospital with over 500 licensed beds and $738.2 million in patient service revenue. The hospital serves as the main academic medical center for Rutgers New Jersey Medical School and the Rutgers School of Dental Medicine, both in Newark. Previously, Dr. Elnahal served as New Jersey’s 21st Commissioner of Health. He joined the Department of Health (DOH) in January 2018 and quickly established a new vision for the Department with specific goals to eradicate the opioid epidemic; decreasing maternal mortality and improving access to women’s health care; reducing disparities in public health outcomes, increasing access to health coverage and mental health care; expanding the medicinal marijuana program; and expanding telehealth and interoperability.
Anne Zink, MD
Provided by the office of Anne Zink, MD.
Anne grew up in Colorado and moved through her training from College in Philadelphia to Medical School at Stanford and then Residency at University at Utah. As a mountaineering guide she had fallen in love with Alaska and after residency in Emergency Medicine became lucky enough to call Alaska home. Not only does she love people and the place, but also the medicine. Alaska is a small, isolated microcosm on the US health care where certain forces like the distance, lack of referral centers, and community involvement help create better systems of care that are directly related to bedside care. She quickly became involved in helping improve systems of care as the medical director of her group, then in her hospital and with state and federal legislation, including state legislation to improve care coordination, opioid addiction treatment option, integration between private systems and the VA, DOD, and IHS facilities and more.
Dr. Zink had the honor of becoming the State of Alaska Chief Medical Officer in July 2019. In all the work she does, she strives to create work environments, policies, and practices that are data-driven, foster collaboration and build system efficiencies that put patients first. | null | null | null | null | null |
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