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One of the country’s earliest naturalized athletes was London-born Alex Hua Tian, who competed for China in the equestrian triathlon in the 2008 Summer Olympics as part of the Chinese Olympic Committee’s bid to be represented in every event.
Until recently Hua, whose father is Chinese, was an outlier in a sports system dominated by athletes trained in state-run academies. For many individual summer sports, a nationwide effort to identify talented children at a young age and train them in an ultracompetitive environment delivered great results for China.
Sentiment among China’s outspoken nationalists is notoriously fickle, and swings from adulation to attack are also common for ethnically Chinese competing for other nations. At a time when relations between Beijing and Washington are at their most tense in decades, American athletes with Chinese heritage at the Olympics like figure skaters Nathan Chen and Vincent Zhou, who might once have been celebrated for their Chinese roots, have been met with a blend of indifference and derision. | null | null | null | null | null |
The ‘Miracle on Ice’ shaped the Olympics coverage we’re seeing every night
How rooting for American athletes became part of Olympic TV coverage
Silver medalists Karen Chen and Nathan Chen pose for a photo after the team event in the figure skating competition at the 2022 Winter Olympics, Feb. 7, 2022, in Beijing. (AP Photo/David J. Phillip)
By Bruce Berglund
Bruce Berglund taught history for two decades at Calvin University and the University of Kansas. He did research in eight countries for his history of world hockey, "The Fastest Game in the World: Hockey and the Globalization of Sports" (U of California Press, 2021).
The Winter Olympics are here, and with them comes wall-to-wall television coverage on NBC and its cable networks and streaming service, Peacock. We can expect to see plenty of snowboarders Shaun White and Chloe Kim, Alpine skier Mikaela Shiffrin, curler John Shuster, figure skater Nathan Chen and other American medal contenders. NBC will feature these athletes in promos, interviews and pre-produced profiles, as well as in actual competition. We will also be reminded of their previous medal-winning performances — in addition to other great American triumphs from Winter Olympics past.
That includes the most celebrated moment in American Winter Olympics history — the 1980 “Miracle on Ice.” The U.S. hockey team’s upset over the Soviet Union at the Lake Placid Games, and the subsequent win over Finland for the gold medal, was the ultimate American underdog story. But this stunning triumph also changed how American networks broadcast the Winter Games, in the process transforming the Olympics as a whole. The lasting influence of the Miracle on Ice will be on display as we watch NBC present the games — and it also helps explain why the network pays so much for the right to air the Winter Olympics.
Starting with the 1964 Winter Games in Innsbruck, Austria, ABC established many of the features that still distinguish Olympic television broadcasts, from the opening fanfare of Leo Arnaud’s “Bugler’s Dream” to the pretaped, edited summaries of events shown during prime time. In 1964, the produced show was a technical necessity. In the age before reliable satellite links, ABC had to fly tapes of each day’s events from Europe to New York, where they were broadcast from the network’s studios.
Prime-time broadcasts of the Olympics followed the model of ABC’s popular Saturday-afternoon program, “Wide World of Sports.” Each weekend, host Jim McKay introduced a variety of sports into American living rooms, from lumberjack competitions in Wisconsin to auto racing in Le Mans. Because the athletes and often the sports themselves were unfamiliar, ABC producers borrowed from journalism and documentary filmmaking to highlight both the broader context of the event and the intensity of competition — “the thrill of victory, and the agony of defeat,” as McKay intoned in the program’s introduction.
The head of ABC Sports, Roone Arledge, saw “Wide World of Sports” as education as much as entertainment — a vision he replicated for the Olympics. The broadcasts from Innsbruck included McKay’s overview of the town’s history and geography. Four years later, ABC introduced “Up Close and Personal” profiles of athletes at the Grenoble Winter Games. Most Olympic viewers weren’t sports fans, McKay explained. “We can get them interested if we bring the athletes to life as individuals.”
The profile and travelogue features were necessary in broadcasts of the Winter Olympics, because American audiences didn’t have much to cheer for. At Innsbruck in 1964, Norwegians won twice as many medals as Americans. At Grenoble, figure skater Peggy Fleming won the only gold medal for the United States. By 1976, Sports Illustrated treated Americans’ lack of success in the Winter Olympics as something of a joke. In its preview to that year’s Winter Games, the magazine profiled the “hapless” American lugers. “We have no hope for the Olympics,” SI admitted.
The 1980 Lake Placid games changed everything. In the lead-up to the Games, the preview issue of Sports Illustrated had a vastly different look, starting with the striking cover photo: speedskater Eric Heiden in his gold racing suit. True to the magazine’s prediction, Heiden completed a historic sweep of all five speedskating events. Ratings for ABC’s prime-time broadcasts spiked on days Heiden raced. By the second week, average viewership was well ahead of the 1976 Winter Games. On the best nights, ratings were comparable to the Montreal and Munich Summer Olympics.
Meanwhile, the hockey team moved through the tournament without a loss, setting up their medal-round showdown against the Soviets on Friday, Feb. 22. With the game scheduled for 5 p.m. Eastern time, ABC appealed to Soviet hockey officials to move the start time back, so the game could be shown live during prime time. But the Soviets refused, since people back home would have to watch in the middle of the night.
Thanks to the Americans’ shocking upset, even the tape-delayed broadcast of the game drew big numbers: 34.2 million average viewers. Two days later, on Sunday afternoon, the gold medal game drew 32.8 million average viewers. Hockey sealed a win for ABC. The two weeks of prime-time broadcasts had an average rating of 23.6, still the second-highest rated Winter Olympics of all time, surpassed only by the Nancy Kerrigan-Tonya Harding circus that tore apart the U.S. women’s figure-skating team and dominated coverage of the Lillehammer Games in 1994.
Arledge recognized that the value of the hockey team’s stunning win went beyond ratings. Just before the start of the Lake Placid Games, the network had secured rights for the next Winter Olympics. But when the contract for the Lake Placid Games expired, rights to footage from those Olympics reverted to the International Olympic Committee (IOC). Looking to change this arrangement, Arledge finalized a new deal later that spring: ABC would pay $91.5 million not only for broadcast rights to the 1984 Winter Games but also for exclusive control over footage from all previous Olympics. The new contract ensured that ABC would get paid any time we saw the U.S. hockey team celebrating in 1980 as broadcaster Al Michaels shouted, “Do you believe in miracles?”
Arledge not only wanted to secure ABC’s control over the 1980 miracle but also make sure the network would be home to future miracles. Weeks before the start of the 1984 Games in Sarajevo, ABC held off the other two networks for rights to the 1988 Winter Olympics in Calgary. Five rounds of bidding drove up the price to $309 million — a seismic increase from the $15.5 million ABC had paid to broadcast the Lake Placid Games.
Media hype surrounding the 1984 U.S. Olympic hockey team deflated quickly when early losses knocked the squad from medal contention. ABC ended up having to reimburse advertisers who had paid rates based on projections of Lake Placid-sized numbers. Members of the IOC, meanwhile, congratulated themselves on having locked up the huge contract for Calgary, before the ratings flop in Sarajevo dropped bids from the American networks.
Four years later, the U.S. hockey team got off to a better start in Calgary, yet still missed the medal round. Viewers noticed a change in ABC’s coverage that year. Announcers referred to the hockey team as “we” and “us.” New studio host Kathie Lee Gifford called the players “our boys.” Even Jim McKay got in on the cheerleading, stoking viewers’ expectations with references back to the victory at Lake Placid. Gone was the more educational model of “Wide World of Sports.” Instead, ABC primed viewers to root for their team. Arledge shrugged off complaints about the slanted coverage. “You don’t want boosterism,” he admitted, “but on the other hand you’re showing a pleasant event to people.”
The 1988 Winter Games ended a quarter-century of ABC airing the Olympics, but the network had left its mark by creating the template for what the Games would now look like on television. ABC pioneered the athlete profiles, travelogue sketches and edited presentations of events that we still see on NBC’s prime-time broadcasts, even though all events are streamed live. The coverage of the Beijing Games also centers on the American quest for gold. Beginning with Lake Placid, ABC recognized that American viewers turned on the Winter Olympics to watch American athletes win.
ABC also dramatically drove up the price for showing those winning athletes. The two contracts Arledge negotiated after the Miracle on Ice increased rights fees for the Winter Olympics by nearly 1,900 percent. Since taking over as the Olympics network, NBC has continued to pay ever-growing fees to the IOC. The network forked over $963 million to broadcast the 2018 Winter Olympics, making up the bulk of the $1.4 billion in global television revenue brought in by the PyeongChang Games. In the last four decades, the IOC has ballooned into a multibillion-dollar organization dogged by charges of hubris and graft. American television has bankrolled this transformation as networks hope to thrill us with new Olympic moments even as they remind us of past triumphs. | null | null | null | null | null |
Putin’s aggression toward Ukraine may boost NATO
In times of transatlantic turmoil and drift, Russia has helped save the alliance from itself
The NATO headquarters in Brussels on Feb. 7, before a visit by Polish President Andrej Duda. (Olivier Matthys/AP)
By Susan Colbourn
Susan Colbourn is associate director of the Triangle Institute for Security Studies based at Duke University’s Sanford School of Public Policy. She is the author of the forthcoming book, "Euromissiles: The Nuclear Weapons That Nearly Destroyed NATO" (Cornell, 2022).
Tensions are high in Europe. Nearly 100,000 Russian troops have amassed on the border with Ukraine. The Biden administration just announced plans to deploy U.S. forces to Eastern Europe in an attempt to deter another Russian invasion. President Vladimir Putin’s government remains coy, insisting that Russia will not widen the war in Ukraine, while threatening to do exactly that.
Unless, that is, the United States and the other members of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) make concessions. Late last year, when Russian troops began to gather at the border, Putin made his price clear: He wanted a clear and binding commitment that NATO would not expand eastward to include nations such as Ukraine.
The current tensions are in large part a struggle over historical narratives. Putin has made no secret of that fact. Much of the Russian case revolves around a particular telling of contemporary history in which the United States and its NATO allies violated an earlier promise not to expand the alliance.
But Putin seems to have forgotten the longer history of NATO-Russian relations: In times of transatlantic turmoil and drift, leaders in Moscow have often been the ones to save the alliance from itself.
Fear of the Soviet Union — of the appeal of communism in economically struggling European nations after World War II and of Moscow’s ability to blackmail their governments — drove policymakers to form NATO in the late 1940s. The Kremlin’s grip on Eastern Europe had solidified and, acutely aware of the social and economic dislocation across postwar Europe, officials worried that states outside the Soviet sphere of influence would not be able to stand firm should Moscow ratchet up the pressure.
Soviet actions seemed to confirm these arguments. In February 1948, the Communist Party seized power in Czechoslovakia, touching off fears that similar coups would follow. The next month, reports from Oslo indicated the Soviets were putting the squeeze on the Norwegians to sign a separate deal that would bring the country into Moscow’s orbit. On both sides of the Atlantic, policymakers concluded that it was time to negotiate arrangements to deter further Soviet expansion. The result: 12 allied nations signed the North Atlantic Treaty in April 1949, including the major Western European powers and the postwar period’s most powerful nation — the United States.
Despite a shared goal, NATO experienced regular bouts of angst about the alliance’s value and purpose — an unsurprising development, given the number of countries involved and the different visions and agendas of its member nations. Yet, time and again throughout the Cold War, leaders in the Kremlin unintentionally brought the allies back together by offering well-placed reminders of the fears that had bound them together in the first place.
Take, for example, the early 1980s. NATO, which had expanded to 16 countries by 1982, seemed hopelessly divided. The Western allies disagreed about the wisdom of a sanctions package designed to punish the Russians for the introduction of martial law in Poland. In capitals across the alliance, governments faced record-breaking public demonstrations in opposition to NATO’s plans to deploy new nuclear missiles to Western Europe.
The Soviet Union and its allies across Eastern Europe were determined to make the most of these fissures, stoking popular opposition to foil the alliance’s deployment plans. But that same Soviet pressure also steeled Western nerves. The Kremlin’s efforts to undermine the alliance were proof positive that Western leaders needed to stay the course and see the deployments through. When NATO did so in the autumn of 1983, it injected a much-needed shot of confidence into the alliance, even as popular unrest continued to give the allies pause.
Surviving this political test emboldened allied leaders to renew their efforts to reach diplomatic agreements with the Soviet Union, not least President Ronald Reagan. After Soviet General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev arrived on the scene in 1985, the Western allies found someone who they could really do business with going forward.
Cold War tensions began to thaw in divided Europe. But as the threat from Moscow receded and Gorbachev churned out attractive arms control offers, allied officials worried that this new, more friendly line could unravel their own defense policies. A smiling face from Moscow — like Gorbachev’s — was in fact far more dangerous to NATO than a menacing one that could tightly bind the alliance together.
Then, in November 1989, the unthinkable happened: German citizens toppled the Berlin Wall. Events moved swiftly afterward. By early 1990, with the communist German Democratic Republic, a longtime Soviet ally, coming apart at the seams, the reunification of Germany, which had been divided since the close of World War II, now seemed possible. This was a terrifying prospect for Soviet leaders who had not forgotten the German invasions during both world wars. Allied leaders, no less wary of German power, hoped to keep a unified Germany anchored within NATO to ensure that the country did not revert to its former aggressive patterns.
But there were big questions as to whether Gorbachev would accept that outcome. During one February 1990 exchange with the Soviet leader, U.S. Secretary of State James A. Baker III floated a possible path forward, uttering a now-infamous phrase: NATO, he said, would move “not one inch” to the east.
Much of today’s debate hinges on that phrase. Russia maintains that a promise was made not to expand NATO — and the United States violated it. “You promised us in the 1990s that [NATO] would not move an inch to the East,” Putin fumed at a news conference last December. “You cheated us shamelessly.” In practice, successive U.S. leaders felt no such constraints. Since 1990, NATO’s membership has grown from 16 to 30, including movement into Eastern Europe to encompass former Soviet republics and ex-members of NATO’s former communist adversary, the Warsaw Pact.
Even experts steeped in the historical record cannot agree which interpretation is correct. To some, the available evidence indicates clearly that the United States never made a promise. Others come to the exact opposite conclusion: There was a promise not to expand, and the United States broke it. Most fall somewhere in the middle, arguing over things like the difference between verbal pledges and written agreements in the conduct of diplomacy.
But what matters most for the current tensions is not which interpretation of Baker’s remark is correct, strictly speaking. What matters is that this history is so contentious in the first place.
The current dispute between NATO and Russia is a stark reminder that perception often matters more than reality in international affairs. Recognizing that, NATO has tried to counter Russian claims with a website busting Russian myths about the alliance and its intentions, point by point. It flatly denies the Kremlin’s allegation that NATO promised it would not expand, citing bits of the historical record — including assertions made by Gorbachev.
Yet the irony of Putin putting history center stage to justify his belligerent actions is that he may well fall into a familiar trap. He is missing how aggression from Moscow, akin to Russia’s current troop deployments at the Ukrainian border, has often come to NATO’s rescue — injecting new life into the alliance and uniting fractious allies in moments of disarray.
Even a few months ago, NATO seemed listless and adrift. Allied leaders had publicly levied charges that the organization was in shambles, with quips that the institution was “obsolete” or brain dead. Staring down a more contentious relationship with China, observers wondered whether the alliance could adapt to meet these new challenges and priorities. Officials contemplated new missions and new ways to make the alliance relevant, such as floating proposals to focus on pressing global questions like climate change.
Putin’s troop deployments have changed the conversation and made the case that NATO’s original, well-worn mission to contain Russia is still necessary. Not for the first time, the best arguments for NATO have come not from Brussels, but from Moscow.
In this way, Putin’s effort to wage a historically minded battle may have missed the most relevant history of all. | null | null | null | null | null |
How leaders consolidate their power helps explain why soldiers depose governments.
People gather in Burkina Faso's capital, Ouagadougou, on Jan. 25 to show their support for a coup.
By Kristen A. Harkness
Last week, soldiers in Guinea Bissau surrounded the government palace, attacking President Umaro Sissoco Embaló during a cabinet meeting. Although the coup attempt ultimately failed, the firefight resulted in numerous fatalities. Only a week earlier, widespread mutinies in Burkina Faso prompted army officers to depose another competitively elected African president.
These two latest military moves only add to what U.N. Secretary General António Guterres in October called an “epidemic of coups d’état.” From 2000 to 2020, the average was about two coup attempts per year in Africa. But in the past 12 months, eight coup attempts occurred — in Chad, Guinea, Mali, Niger, Sudan (twice), Burkina Faso and Guinea Bissau. Five of those coups succeeded in removing leaders from power.
What’s behind the extraordinary wave of African coups?
Some analysis points to regional contagion, or lack of international condemnation — while coup plotters tend to blame government corruption, mismanagement and faltering development. All of these explanations have merit. Coups, after all, are a political tactic. They are a means to gain power — rather than an end in themselves — and soldiers depose governments for many reasons.
But my research suggests a deeper trend is driving the upsurge in military interventions across Africa: The renewed turmoil of democratization, aggravated by entrenched ethnic armies and combat grievances.
Long-running authoritarian regimes are ending
Over the past decade, Africa has been experiencing a new wave of fledgling transitions to democracy.
Many of these transitions are occurring in countries with long histories of authoritarian rule. Guinea held its first competitive elections in 2010. In 2014, mass protests in Burkina Faso prevented President Blaise Compaoré from revoking constitutional term limits and extending his 27-year reign. His forced resignation led to free and fair elections.
From 2017 to 2019, protesters similarly helped topple entrenched dictators in Algeria, Gambia, Sudan and Zimbabwe, creating opportunities for political change. And last March, for the first time in its history, Niger transferred power from one democratically elected leader to another.
Other countries emerged from political violence that ended past democratic experiments. In 2012, both Guinea Bissau and Mali embarked on the difficult journey to reestablish democratic institutions after military coups felled their elected governments. Rebuilding from a devastating civil war, the Central African Republic successfully held competitive elections in 2016.
The recent spate of coups has been concentrated in these struggling, transitional democracies — rather than in Africa’s more established democracies such as Ghana and Benin, or in remaining entrenched dictatorships like Cameroon and Togo.
Burkina Faso’s coup makers capitalized on wider grievances within the ranks
Militaries often overthrow new democracies
Analysts have long pointed out the vital role that militaries play in democratization, as either the “midwife” or “gravedigger.”
By refusing to suppress mass protests or toppling staunchly repressive regimes, a country’s soldiers can facilitate democratic openings as “midwives.” Militaries also routinely obstruct democratization — in the extreme, by overthrowing elected governments — especially when efforts to enact changes threaten their entrenched interests. Hence the “gravedigger” moniker.
My research sheds light on how African dictators consolidate their power by building ethnic armies, where soldiers’ shared communal identity ensures loyalty. More than 50 percent of African autocracies have strategically recruited soldiers from the leadership’s ethnic background into their militaries — whether only into key command and control positions, throughout the officer corps, or down to the rank-and-file.
Ethnic armies resist democratization
But democratization often threatens these ethnic armies. In diverse societies, competitive elections may bring to power new leaders who no longer share the identity of the military. And new policy shifts may bring diversification and professionalization of the armed forces. This can be a threat to soldiers who have benefited from ethnically based recruitment and promotion criteria, which often include lucrative financial rewards. I found that in these circumstances, ethnic armies seize power nearly 90 percent of the time, reversing democratic gains.
Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Niger and Sudan are all struggling with a legacy of entrenched ethnic armies that want to preserve their influence over politics and financial benefits.
In Guinea-Bissau, the Balanta-dominated military has deep ties to international drug trafficking. And Sudan’s Jelaba tribes have controlled the army’s officer corps since independence in 1956 — and manage multiple sectors of the Sudanese economy, from defense to agriculture.
In Niger, an alliance of the western Djerma and Hausa ethnic groups has long dominated both the government and army. Niger’s failed 2021 coup occurred just days before an easterner from the Diffa Arabs, President-elect Mohamed Bazoum, was inaugurated. Not coincidentally, the losing candidate’s stronghold was in Niger’s west, the region from which most of the coup plotters also originated.
Armies also may have combat grievances
Of course, many African militaries, even those emerging from authoritarian rule, are already ethnically diverse. Their entrenched interests and potential reasons for opposing democratization might look quite different.
Other research suggests that poorly funded militaries in young democracies are particularly prone to seizing power. That’s a pattern now emerging in the Sahel, where rising extremist violence has placed unsustainable burdens on under-resourced militaries.
Thus far, soldiers’ combat grievances have resulted in coups in struggling democracies in Mali and Burkina Faso. In the run-up to Burkina Faso’s coup last month, mutineers demanded better support, training and resources for soldiers deployed to fight Islamic extremists.
In 2012, junior officers overthrew Mali’s 20-year-old democracy over the government’s handling of the Tuareg insurgency in the country’s north. Soldiers complained of insufficient weaponry, severe neglect and incompetent leadership. Ever since, Mali has experienced an intertwined downward spiral of extremist violence, poor governance and repeated coups.
Are more coups coming?
Almost certainly, yes. Coups have a nasty track record of prompting more coups. Transitional governments in Africa are still struggling with entrenched military privileges — and insurgent and extremist violence continues to proliferate.
The Central African Republic and Ethiopia — two countries that appeared en route to democracy — now face major rebel offensives. There are even signs of civil-military strife in Nigeria, with insurrections flaring across the country. In early 2021, President Muhammadu Buhari “shuffled” top military leaders. In May, he alleged a coup plot.
These types of rumblings may foreshadow more coups. It’s possible that Africa’s coup epidemic is only beginning.
Kristen A. Harkness (@HarknessKristen) is a senior lecturer in international relations at the University of St. Andrews. She is the author of “When Soldiers Rebel: Ethnic Armies and Political Instability in Africa” (Cambridge University Press, 2018).
What would bring stability after the death of Chad’s president?
Sudan’s military has seized control. Will pro-democracy protests continue? | null | null | null | null | null |
Straddling the worlds of Silicon Valley and conservative politics has made Thiel a uniquely influential and polarizing individual, though he’s not as widely known as other well-documented political funders like the Koch brothers. That’s likely to change as he dives deeper into U.S. politics.
A spokesperson for Thiel did not immediately reply to a request for comment. | null | null | null | null | null |
Almost three years passed after Catton’s symptoms first emerged, during which she saw about 10 doctors. Then, in October, she collapsed in pain and took herself to the emergency room. From one of her ovaries, surgeons pulled a cancerous blob weighing roughly 4½ pounds and stretching nearly eight inches — about the size of a volleyball.
Catton didn’t have to pay for her medical care through Britain’s National Health Service and, when she headed south, most of it was covered by Australia’s government-funded health-care system, she said.
Then, one day in October, Catton collapsed in pain after dismounting from her horse. She balked at going to the emergency room, because she had been told the uterine fibroid was benign. So she took some pain relief medication and slept it off. A couple days later, the pain roared back, forcing her to the ER.
“That’s really hard because your parents obviously are really concerned, and they keep asking me these questions. And for the first couple of days, all I could answer to questions was, ‘I don’t know. I don’t know. I don’t know.’ And that’s really quite … hard.”
The coronavirus pandemic complicated matters. If Catton had been diagnosed before the pandemic, her parents would have dropped everything to fly thousands of miles to care for her, even if it was just for a week, she said. They would have taken her to appointments, run her errands and cuddled her. But with Australia’s strict covid restrictions barring almost any outsiders from traveling into the country, that wasn’t an option.
Catton said that she has gone back to her doctors to tell them they got it wrong and, in the process, made her feel voiceless. This time, they listened. Catton said they’ve been responsive to her criticisms and agreed to go through ovarian cancer awareness training to help them spot symptoms in the future.
Catton said she thinks she might have better advocated for herself early on if she had heard from someone like her, and she hopes her experience spares others from what she endured. Catton knew early on that something was wrong, that it wasn’t just stress. Despite that, she acquiesced to the doctors because she didn’t “want to be a patient that wastes time.”
She’s not alone, clinical psychologist Bella Grossman told Northwell Health’s Katz Institute for Women’s Health in the article “Gaslighting in women’s health: No, it’s not just in your head.” Men tend to be more persistent with their doctors when they have concerns about their health, Grossman said.
“As a patient, we should feel comfortable and confident enough to advocate for ourselves,” she said, adding, “If I’d have seen a story like this a year ago, two years ago, maybe it would have made me be a bit more forceful in how I was approaching it with doctors and saying, ‘No, listen to me.’ ” | null | null | null | null | null |
Wednesday afternoon, Stevenson entered the Big Air Shougang unlikely to make the podium and tumbled on the first of his three jumps. He then executed a trick called a Nose Butter Left Triple 1620 Japan, three flips and 4½ spins dappled with technical flourish. He never had tried it before, not even in practice. But it became the linchpin of a silver-medal performance, the first of two jumps that vaulted Stevenson from near the bottom of the 12-skier final to near the top, behind only a surpassing, 21-year-old Norwegian named Birk Ruud.
Stevenson waited and watched after his final jump. American Alex Hall, regarded at the start as the best U.S. medal hope, attempted a double 2160 — the two-flip, six-rotation feat of insanity that had won him an X Games title two weeks ago — but couldn’t land it and finished sixth. No one else could catch Stevenson, either. When the wait ended, Stevenson removed his helmet and goggles and still kept the scar on his forehead concealed behind a green headband. The world could not see the jagged and discolored U right between his eyes.
Hall’s spill protected Stevenson’s silver and enabled Ruud to ski the final run gripping a Norwegian flag in his hand, already assured victory after two flawless runs. Ruud aims to win three gold medals at his second Olympics, his first since his father, Oivind, died of cancer in April 2021.
“We all got something,” Ruud said.
Stevenson could attest. On May 8, 2016, Stevenson was driving home to Park City, Utah, late at night from Hood River, Ore., where he had won a freestyle skiing competition. On Interstate 86 in rural Idaho, Stevenson fell asleep at the wheel. He woke up in a hospital bed surrounded by loved ones, no idea where he was or what had happened.
Stevenson’s truck had veered off the road and flipped eight times, caving in the roof and nearly killing him. Stevenson fractured his skull fractured in more than 30 places and broke bones in his jaw, ribs and neck. A gaping wound opened between his eyes, just above his nose. Doctors induced him into a coma for three days. If his brain had swelled even an imperceptibly small margin more, Stevenson likely would have suffered permanent brain damage.
A surgeon implanted a titanium plate in his skull. Doctors wondered if he would walk out of the hospital and doubted he would ski again. Stevenson thought his career was over, but he was determined to recover. His parents had put him on skis when he was 14 years old, and he had built his life around the sport. In the first days of his recovery, Stevenson could only hobble to the bathroom in intense pain. Eight months after the crash, he won his first World Cup.
Stevenson spoke earlier this week of having moved beyond the car crash, seemingly motivated by the sensible desire not to be defined by the worst thing that has ever happened to him. But Stevenson could not help but have his life molded by an incident that could have stolen his ability to ski, or to walk, or worse.
“Your character is really defined in those tougher times in your life,” Stevenson said. “That’s what defines who you are. It’s your outlook in life, you know? Even though you’re dealt bad cards, it’s how you’re going to look at that in a positive light and move forward and still push toward your dreams, even though they seem so far out of reach. You just stay true to what you love.”
Freestyle skiing brought him Wednesday to the first men’s Olympic competition of its kind, one day after China’s Eileen Gu had won the women’s gold and become and international sensation. Stevenson had reached the pinnacle of freestyle skiing, but not because of big air. Teammates nicknamed him “Slopestyle God” because of his artistic dominance in that event. Stevenson had never landed on a big air podium.
Still, Stevenson entered Beijing with optimism in big air, having learned new big air tricks this year, including one with 4½ spins after a takeoff called a nose butter: Rather than soaring straight off the jump, a skier spins 180 degrees on the lip — as if spreading butter with the nose of their skis.
“If you don’t go off the nose of your skis, you’re risking catching your edge on the takeoff or getting pretty sketchy,” said American Mac Forehand, who finished 11th. “He’s so good at doing nose butters. I kind of idolize him for that.”
In Monday’s qualifying round, Stevenson had landed a 1620 after a nose butter takeoff with two vertical rotations while executing a Japan grab, holding his left ski with his right hand wrapping underneath his leg. I could definitely do three flips with that one, he thought. He asked Hall if he could pull it off, and Hall ensured him he would have enough height off the jump to squeeze in another flip.
Stevenson had a day off to see for himself, but “I didn’t have the balls to do it in training,” Stevenson said. And so he entered Wednesday’s final determined to perform a trick he never had before.
“I’ve been doing it my head for a long time,” Stevenson said. “I had good faith I was going to land it.”
On his first try, Stevenson nailed the takeoff and the rotations but barely bobbled and tumbled when he landed. Though he failed to record a competitive score, nearly pulling it off only enhanced his belief. On the second jump, trying the trick for the second time in his life, Stevenson nailed it. Judges awarded him 91.75, placing him squarely in the podium mix.
“He threw it all out on the comp,” Hall said. “So epic.”
On his last jump, Stevenson had a decision to make. He knew he could land a Switch Left Double 1800 Cuban — ride down the hill backward, flip twice while spinning five times and grab the very tip of his ski — and position himself for a possible podium. He also had a bigger trick in mind, one that might allow him to challenge Ruud. As Stevenson clicked his boots into his skis at the top of the hill, he still was deciding which jump to attempt.
“Just do the trick you know,” his coach, Skogen Sprang, told him.
Stevenson received a 91.25 for his Double 1800, giving him 183.00 points. After the eight remaining riders failed to surpass him, the Slopestyle God had become the big air silver medalist.
Stevenson hoped younger skiers could see in him an example that injury, no matter how serious, can be overcome. He has moved beyond his past, but on the day he won an Olympic silver medal, he wanted others to see him standing on the podium, scarred but strong, and take a lesson from it.
“The body heals,” Stevenson said. “That’s a gift.” | null | null | null | null | null |
He added: “In a conservative setting like Chinese sports, the tolerance for difference and the taste for diversity is still very limited.”
One of the country’s earliest naturalized athletes was London-born Alex Hua Tian, who competed for China in the equestrian triathlon in the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing as part of the Chinese Olympic Committee’s bid to be represented in every event.
Until recently Hua, whose father is Chinese, was an outlier in a sports system dominated by athletes trained in state-run academies. For many individual summer sports, a nationwide effort to identify talented children at a young age and train them in an ultracompetitive environment has delivered great results for China.
Sentiment among China’s outspoken nationalists is notoriously fickle, and swings from adulation to attack are also common for ethnically Chinese people competing for other nations. At a time when relations between Beijing and Washington are at their most tense in decades, American athletes with Chinese heritage at the Olympics, like figure skaters Nathan Chen and Vincent Zhou, who might once have been celebrated for their Chinese roots, have been met with a blend of indifference and derision. | null | null | null | null | null |
Philip Marlowe, we thought we knew thee
Joe Ide reimagines Raymond Chandler’s classic sleuth in ‘The Goodbye Coast.’ Fans of both authors may be perplexed.
(Kaori Suzuki; Mulholland Books)
Perhaps I’m missing something.
“The Goodbye Coast,” by Joe Ide, is billed as a “reinvention” of Raymond Chandler’s Philip Marlowe, one that drops the hard-boiled gumshoe (who first appeared in the 1939 classic “The Big Sleep”) into contemporary Los Angeles. Other folks have tried this time-travel trick, with uneven results.
For instance, there’s Robert Altman’s 1973 film of “The Long Goodbye,” which starred Elliott Gould as a mumbling Marlowe, a suit-and-tie-wearing anachronism surrounded by strung-out hipsters. Even glummer is Lawrence Osborne’s 2018 novel, “Only to Sleep,” in which a 72-year-old Marlowe, retired to Baja California, decides to take one more shuffle down the mean streets of crime. Add to these deliberately anachronistic homages the Chandler resurrections written by the likes of the late Robert B. Parker and Benjamin Black (a.k.a. John Banville) that conjure up further adventures for Marlowe within his own time period of the late 1930s to the early ’50s.
Joe Ide would seem to have a pretty good shot at writing a decent Chandler homage. Like Chandler, Ide is known for writing hard-boiled novels that exalt style over plot. He’s written five books starring private eye Isaiah Quintabe — “IQ” for short — a Black investigator working in East Long Beach. Ide boasts an insider’s knowledge of Southern California (he grew up in East Los Angeles) and has been explicit about his reverence for Chandler. Unfortunately, apart from its moody, Chandler-esque title and a main character called Philip Marlowe, “The Goodbye Coast” has as much connection to Chandler’s novels as Rome, N.Y., has to Rome.
Joe Ide’s IQ series continues with the idiosyncratic marvel ‘Smoke’
The opening chapters adhere to the familiar formula: Marlowe is summoned to the Malibu home of a narcissistic minor movie star named Kendra James. “She looks like Grace Kelly without the grace, thought Marlowe,” in one of the novel’s better lines. It’s a missing-person case. A few weeks earlier, Kendra’s cheating husband, Terry, was shot dead on the beach outside her mansion, and Terry’s daughter from a previous marriage — a 17-year-old named Cody — has vanished. Marlowe locates Cody easily enough and stashes her for safekeeping in his widowed father’s cramped house in South Central L.A. because someone has been taking potshots at her.
You read that right. Ide’s Marlowe has a father: His name is Emmet, and he’s a homicide detective who’s been put on leave because alcohol has gotten the better of him since the death of Marlowe’s mother. A Philip Marlowe “of woman born” rather than the lone knight of Chandlerian myth? Just as we readers may be trying to wrap our heads around that notion, another missing-persons case complicates the story. Ren Stewart is a literature professor teaching in England whose ex-husband, an aspiring actor, has kidnapped their young son and hidden him somewhere in L.A. Marlowe takes the case, mostly because Ren looks like a “young Charlotte Rampling.” (Alert Chandler fans will recognize the allusion to the not-bad 1975 film “Farewell, My Lovely” starring Rampling as Helen Grayle and Robert Mitchum as Marlowe.)
A long-awaited look behind the scenes of ‘The Big Sleep’
Thus ensues a double-helix plot — composed of a secondary cast of sadistic Armenian gangsters — that twirls and unwinds; twirls and unwinds, until it ends abruptly and anticlimactically. No matter, right? As I’ve said, Chandler’s own novels and stories rate a B-plus at most when it comes to plotting. What does matter in any worthy Chandler tribute is language (in particular, those over-the-top metaphors), atmosphere and an all-encompassing vision of “a world gone wrong.” In “The Goodbye Coast,” those essential elements reappear in faint and flattened form. Here, for instance, is Ide’s Marlowe reflecting on L.A.:
“Marlowe drove on. LA was an ugly city. It had no character, no texture, no architecture, nothing to engage you. LA was a hot, endless flatland of streets, telephone poles, strip malls, gas stations and dry cleaners. Some places were brighter and had taller buildings, but you could hardly call that charm, character, or even interesting … Marlowe had lived here all his life and had never once taken the long way home.”
Call it “a world gone crappy.”
The urge to enlarge Marlowe’s caseload is understandable. Who among us doesn’t wish that Chandler had written more than 7½ novels? But unless such reinventions are done with wit and lyricism — as Ide’s own IQ series is — they would be better not done at all. For those pining for more Marlowe, there’s always the pleasure of rereading the originals. And, for any Chandler fans who haven’t read it yet (as I didn’t until a month ago), I strongly recommend “The Annotated Big Sleep,” which came out in 2018. In this edition, every single page of “The Big Sleep” is accompanied by deeply informed, lively commentary on Chandler’s life, Los Angeles in the 1930s, and smart and snappy literary criticism. It’s not a new Marlowe novel, but it’s a pretty fine consolation prize.
Maureen Corrigan is the book critic for the NPR program “Fresh Air” and a professor of literature at Georgetown University.
Mulholland Books. 320pp $28 | null | null | null | null | null |
Even at a time of high vehicle prices and low levels of inventory, automakers have good reason to proceed cautiously. As previously mentioned, the industry is in a once-in-a-lifetime transition from gasoline-powered to electric vehicles. It’s an all-in moment for a capital-intensive industry that can
t afford to stumble until they’re on the other side. Low inventories and high prices give them a margin of safety for any kind of setback. If electric-vehicle demand is slower to materialize than anticipated, for instance, or if there’s a macroeconomic slip, low inventories and higher prices give them more resilience. | null | null | null | null | null |
9 ANXIOUS PEOPLE (Washington Square, $17). By Fredrik Backman. A failed bank robber holds a group of anxious strangers as hostages.
5 LET ME TELL YOU WHAT I MEAN (Vintage, $16). By Joan Didion. A collection of the essayist’s works from 1968 to 2000.
7 MAUS II: A SURVIVOR’S TALE: AND HERE MY TROUBLES BEGAN (Pantheon, $16.95). By Art Spiegelman. The second part of an award-winning graphic novel explores the impact of the Holocaust on survivors.
8 TALKING TO STRANGERS (Back Bay, $18.99). By Malcolm Gladwell. An examination of why humans are so bad at recognizing liars and lies.
9 THE FIELD GUIDE TO DUMB BIRDS OF THE WHOLE STUPID WORLD (Chronicle Books, $15.95). By Matt Kracht. Birds from around the world are mocked in this guidebook parody.
10 HOW TO LOVE (Parallax Press, $9.95). By Thich Nhat Hanh, Jason DeAntonis (Illus.). The Vietnamese Buddhist monk explains how people can expand their capacity for love.
4 CHILDREN OF DUNE (Ace, $9.99). By Frank Herbert. A new generation rises to power in the third book of the Dune Chronicles.
9 GOOD OMENS (Morrow, $9.99). By Neil Gaiman, Terry Pratchett. A novel imagining the end of the world and the fallout.
10 THE LAST WISH (Orbit, $8.99). By Andrzej Sapkowski. The short-story collection introduces Geralt of Rivia, the protagonist of the Witcher series.
Rankings reflect sales for the week ended Feb. 6. The charts may not be reproduced without permission from the American Booksellers Association, the trade association for independent bookstores in the United States, and indiebound.org. Copyright 2022 American Booksellers Association. (The bestseller lists alternate between hardcover and paperback each week.) | null | null | null | null | null |
Harvard did a bad, bad thing
Here’s what I know and what I don’t know about the latest lawsuit against Harvard for protecting its own
Harvard University in Cambridge, Mass., on Jan. 20, 2015. (Brian Snyder/Reuters)
Today’s Spoiler Alerts is about a lawsuit that was filed on Tuesday against Harvard University by three of its PhD students in anthropology. Its very first sentence reads, “This is a case about Harvard’s decade-long failure to protect students from sexual abuse and career-ending retaliation.” The filing in federal court alleges that the university inappropriately handled sexual harassment allegations made by the three female students (and others) against anthropology professor John Comaroff.
A plaintiff’s brief will always present the case in terms most favorable to their cause. Some facts asserted in them might remain in dispute. And there has already been a lot of reporting on this case, most notably from the Chronicle of Higher Education and the Harvard Crimson. So let’s frame today’s column as an exercise in what I know and don’t know and my own state of mind while sequentially reading up on it. Here goes:
I know that John and Jean Comaroff are distinguished anthropologists with a long track record of publications and grants (I cite them in “Theories of International Politics and Zombies”).
I know that back in 2020, both the Harvard Crimson and the Chronicle of Higher Education wrote about the allegations that all three graduate students in the lawsuit made against John Comaroff. They range from accusations of inappropriate physical contact to inappropriate verbal entreaties to efforts by Comaroff to coerce the students into silence.
I know that I thought some aspects of the Chronicle story seemed ambiguous at the time. For example, Comaroff warned one student, Lilia Kilburn, about the dangers of “corrective rape” if she was discovered to be in a lesbian relationship while doing fieldwork in certain parts of Africa. According to the New York Times’s Anemona Hartocollis, Kilburn alleged that Comaroff said it “with a tone of enjoyment” and that “this was not normal office hours advice.” But that gets to gray areas about tone. I know that warnings about the risks of doing fieldwork in dangerous places is an aspect of mentoring PhD students inclined to minimize such risks. I did not know whether this part of the complaint was valid or simply a case of misinterpretation.
I know that Harvard placed Comaroff on paid administrative leave in August 2020, conducted two investigations and then last month placed him on unpaid administrative leave “after University investigations found that he violated the school’s sexual harassment and professional conduct policies” according to the Harvard Crimson’s Ariel Kim and Meimei Xu. Comaroff’s lawyers released a statement stating, “Title IX investigators found John Comaroff responsible solely for verbal sexual harassment.”
I know that 38 Harvard faculty members wrote an open letter to Harvard’s administration protesting the treatment of Comaroff. I know that a part of me gets the inclination to sign that letter. After reading only the Chronicle story and then seeing the decision, I know it is possible to ask questions about due process: why two investigations rather than one, for example?
I also know that, as a good friend texted me, “never start a land war in Asia, never sign a letter of support about a colleague credibly accused of sexual misconduct.” I know that Faculty of Arts and Sciences Dean Claudine Gay responded to that open letter by warning her colleagues about “the obvious dangers of an asymmetry of information in a situation like this … you are necessarily operating without a comprehensive understanding of the facts that have motivated the response.” I know that 73 Harvard faculty members wrote a letter criticizing the first letter, and that some of the signatories to the first letter are trying to walk their words back.
I know that the lawsuit is a terrifying read. It includes allegations that Harvard hired Comaroff knowing full well about his reputation as a serial harasser, and that complaints began almost immediately after he arrived. It cites a Harvard assessment of the anthropology department in which a third of the graduate students said that they had been harassed and that there was a “longstanding pattern of sexism, misogyny, and sexual and gender-base misconduct” that has gone unchecked by faculty. It quotes Harvard’s Title IX officer and the chair of the anthropology department urging the complainants to go to the press because Harvard’s process would not work.
I know that the most hair-raising allegation is: “During the process, Harvard obtained Ms. Kilburn’s private therapy records without her consent and disclosed them to Professor Comaroff.” I know that I want to know a lot more about how exactly that happened.
I know that university investigative procedures can have a star-chamber-like quality for both accusers and accused. I know that universities that used to operate much more on trust-based procedures now have more formal means of adjudicating accusations of sexual harassment and abuses of power.
Unfortunately, I now know that the erosion of trust in institutions like Harvard is not without foundation. | null | null | null | null | null |
Congressional staffers are pushing to unionize. Here's how they could do it.
with research by Marianna Sotomayor
Good morning, Early Birds. BRB, we’re moving to Taipei, where the garbage trucks play Beethoven and residents “enjoy taking out the trash because it’s a chance to catch up with” friends. Send us your tips before we abandon Washington for good: earlytips@washpost.com.
A(nother) workplace reckoning: A group called the Congressional Workers Union has formally announced its intent to unionize “the personal offices and committees of Congress” following the emergence of “Dear White Staffers,” a viral Instagram account that has pulled the curtain back on toxic workplace culture on Capitol Hill.
“While not all offices and committees face the same working conditions, we strongly believe that to better serve our constituents will require meaningful changes to improve retention, equity, diversity, and inclusion on Capitol Hill. That starts with having a voice in the workplace,” the group said in a statement. “We call on all congressional staff to join in the effort to unionize, and look forward to meeting management at the table.”
A survey distributed by the Congressional Progressive Staff Association last month and cited in the statement found that 91 percent of staff surveyed want more protections to give them a voice at work.
The move comes as public favorability for unions is at an all-time high and as unionization grips parts of the political world, from the Democratic National Committee to the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee to state legislative staff members in Oregon. But Hill staffers received their biggest endorsement Tuesday when White House press secretary Jen Psaki told reporters that President Biden “supports the right of any individual to seek to join a union, to collective bargain, and, of course, Capitol Hill staffers are certainly individuals who are pursuing that.”
“I think in the past year, we’ve really seen a moment of reckoning for the Democratic Party,” three Hill staffers who are part of the CWU organizing committee told our colleague Marianna Sotomayor. “I think it’s a moment where Democrats recognize that we need to or we ought to lead by example, and are beginning to take that more and more seriously.”
It’s unclear how unionization on the Hill will move forward, but the 1995 Congressional Accountability Act provides the legal framework for Hill staff to unionize. Lawmakers never adopted a resolution needed to enact the language and Hill aides were excluded from organizing. Other congressional employees like the Capitol Police and Architect of the Capitol staff were not.
Rep. Andy Levin (D-Mich.) will formally introduce a resolution that would grant congressional aides the right to organize and bargain collectively on the floor today when the House is in session. The CAA affords aides the right to unionize once each chamber passes a resolution.
The resolution is necessary because it gives staffers legal guarantees, the three Hill staffers said. “There will be a binding process for workers to elect the union and to require their boss to go to the bargaining table. Without that, it’s all totally voluntary.”
If Congress adopts the resolution, aides can begin organizing office-by-office, but given the massive outpouring of support from lawmakers, the three Hill staffers predicted that it’s only a matter of time before “you see a large number of offices that would start engaging in collective bargaining.”
The staffers told Sotomayor that they plan on organizing independently, instead of joining an existing union.
The CWU also wants to unionize congressional committees. The Office of Congressional Workplace Rights relies on a precedent set by the Federal Labor Relations Authority, which governs labor relations between the federal government and its employees, the staffers said. “They determine an appropriate unit, by what’s called a community of interest and that uses a series of different factors, including whether they have the same mission, same organizational structure [or] same chain of command.”
Under that standard, “it would be perfectly appropriate to have different units for the majority or the minority staff,” they continued. “But it also does not seem to require the chairman from having the committee staff be in the same bargaining unit as their personal office. They can organize separately or together.”
GOP staffers welcome
More than 80 lawmakers, including Reps. Bonnie Watson Coleman (D-N.J.) and Jamaal Bowman (D-N.Y.) have expressed their full support for staff unionization efforts, according to a tally kept by the liberal nonprofit Demand Progress.
“I’m here for them. It’s their organizing campaign,” Levin told Sotomayor. “When [Pelosi] said what she said, they were like, ‘Let’s go’ … They literally came to me at that time, and said, ‘We want this introduced and we want you to introduce it.’”
“The workers in our personal office staff and on committee staff have the same human right that every other worker has to form a union and bargain collectively,” Levin added.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) have endorsed unionization in recent days, galvanizing the Hill staffers organizing the effort.
“We’re just so excited about the Speaker’s support for our right to organize and the support of so many different members of Congress,” the three Hill staffers said. “It’s such an important step toward actually passing this resolution and ending our own exclusion from labor law.”
The unionization effort is likely to face a tougher road in the Senate. Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin (W.Va.) expressed skepticism about the push Tuesday, and aides will need 60 votes to adopt the resolution. Still, the three Hill aides “expect some additional action on the Senate side as well, relatively soon.”
The CWU also stressed that unionization is open to both parties: “We want to make sure that all Republican staff feel welcomed by the Congressional Workers Union, and also recognize that they also have the right to unionize.”
But two House GOP leaders oppose congressional organizing, raising questions about whether unionization efforts will continue if Republicans regain the majority in the fall.
House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (Calif.) told Punchbowl News that organizing wouldn’t be “productive for the government,” and House Republican Conference Chair Elise Stefanik (N.Y.) told reporters that she does not support “unionizing on the Hill.”
Despite these setbacks, the three Hill staffers told Sotomayor, “nothing’s going to stop the Congressional Workers Union from organizing.”
Mitch McConnell on reforming the ECA: ‘I’d be inclined to support it'
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell offered a modicum of support reforming the Electoral Count Act, the 1887 law that a bipartisan group are senators are working to update after Donald Trump tried to exploit its ambiguities to overturn Joe Biden's victory in the 2020 election. But with the next presidential election nearly three years away, he's not in any rush.
“If it were narrowly crafted to deal with the Electoral Count Act, which definitely needs fixing, I’d be inclined to support it,” McConnell told the Washington Examiner's David Drucker in a Tuesday evening interview. "Whether the Democrats can resist the urge to turn it into a Christmas tree with all the stuff we just went through, I don’t know. But what I do know for sure is it’s not urgent.”
Former hedge fund CEO David McCormick racks in fundraising from Trump administration alumni
Annals of fundraising: David McCormick, the former hedge fund executive running for the open Senate seat in Pennsylvania, is getting some fundraising help from some high-profile Trump administration alumni.
Reince Priebus, Trump’s first White House chief of staff; Hope Hicks, Trump’s White House communications director; Pat Cipollone, Trump’s White House counsel; and the Trump administration Treasury Department officials Tony Sayegh and Drew Maloney are among the hosts of a McCormick fundraiser next week in Washington, according to an invitation obtained by The Early.
McCormick is married to the former Trump White House official Dina Powell, and Trump administration officials were among those who encouraged him to run. (Not every former Trump administration official is backing McCormick, though; former Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross maxed out to McCormick’s Republican primary rival Mehmet Oz in December, according to a campaign finance filing.)
McCormick served in the Treasury Department during George W. Bush’s administration, and several Bush alumni are among the nearly three dozen people co-hosting the Feb. 16 fundraiser, according to the invitation. So are many of Wall Street’s representatives in Washington, including Bryan Corbett of the Managed Funds Association, Kevin Fromer of the Financial Services Forum, Rob Nichols of the American Bankers Association and the lobbyists Joe Wall of Goldman Sachs, Jamie Wall of the Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association and Candi Wolff of Citigroup.
Other lobbyists listed as co-hosts include Brian Ballard of Ballard Partners, a top fundraiser for Trump’s campaigns; Kirk Blalock of Fierce Government Relations; Mat Lapinski of Crossroads Strategies; Jim Richards of Cornerstone Government Affairs; Manny Rossman of Harbinger Strategies and Shawn Smeallie of ACG Advocacy.
The price of admission: $1,000. Those who want the “host” title must give $2,900, while co-chairs need to shell out $5,800 each.
RNC's defense of Jan. 6 as ‘legitimate political discourse’ sparks rift among Republicans
An editing mystery: "When the Republican Party voted to censure two of its own members of Congress last week at its winter meeting in Salt Lake City, it justified the move in part by declaring that efforts to investigate the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection amounted to the persecution of individuals engaging in 'legitimate political discourse,'" our colleagues Josh Dawsey and Felicia Sonmez report.
How did those three words — which have sparked a massive backlash from many Republicans — get in there? No one seems to know:
The phrase “did not appear in an original draft of the resolution by top Trump ally David Bossie, according to a copy reviewed by The Washington Post. Instead, Bossie’s version said the committee had a disregard for ‘minority rights’ and ‘due process’ and seemed ‘intent on advancing a political agenda to buoy the Democrat Party’s bleak electoral prospects.’ It is unclear how the words ‘legitimate political discourse’ came to enter the document as it was edited in Salt Lake City by Bossie,” Republican National Committee Chair Ronna McDaniel and others.
"Several RNC members said it was frustrating that, aside from a small number of resolution committee members on Thursday afternoon, no one else saw the text of the resolution until 1:38 a.m. Friday, when the document showed up in inboxes of the committee’s members. It was not read or presented aloud before it was voted on nine hours later."
Potential Supreme Court nominee faces questions on religious rights case. By The Post’s Robert Barnes.
House adopts short-term measure to fund government into early March. By The Post’s Tony Romm.
FDA’s agenda in limbo as Biden’s nominee stalls in Senate. By AP News’s Matthew Perrone.
“You picked the wrong woman today.” | null | null | null | null | null |
When Flores was dismissed last month, after leading the Dolphins to an 8-1 finish and a 9-8 record, he was angered by murmurs that his firing came as a result of him being difficult to work with. On a personal level, this fight — prompted by a series of clumsily mistaken text messages that Belichick sent to another former Patriots assistant coach named Brian, newly named New York Giants coach Brian Daboll — was to explain that there are some requests with which he was unwilling to compromise. | null | null | null | null | null |
It came at age 36, in the latter stage of a long career that includes 30 individual World Cup wins, 10 X Games gold medals, six world championships and one silver medal from 2006. It made her the oldest snowboarder to medal at the Olympics and the oldest American woman to win gold — in any sport — at the Winter Games.
It was also Team USA’s eagerly awaited first gold medal in Beijing, which Jacobellis said felt fitting.
“It kind of just seemed like an unbelievable moment,” she said. “It didn’t seem real at the time.”
To her fellow snowboarders, Jacobellis’s Olympic coronation was a delirious celebration for the godmother of the sport.
The fourth-place finisher from Australia, Belle Brockhoff, raced over afterward and told Jacobellis she was happy because she watched her in 2006 when she was young. Trespeuch, the silver medalist ahead of Canada’s bronze medal winner Odine Meryeta, said in a thick French accent “of course” she was happy for the American.
“She is an example for us because she is very old in the snowboard world,” Trespeuch said, with genuine emotion.
What the gold means to Jacobellis is more nuanced than that. She has faced questions about the 2006 incident before every Winter Olympics and has spent the bulk of her career saying that the pursuit of an Olympic gold would not define her.
She said Wednesday’s victory at Genting Snow Park did not feel like redemption nor closure. Jacobellis kept racing all these years because she is a competitor at her core, not because she was looking to fill a missing line on her resume.
“It was always this fire I had inside of me,” she said.
Racing is where she found joy. She long since had made peace with the fact that an Olympic gold medal might never happen.
“I had that in my mind. But know that that’s okay if that doesn’t come, that it doesn’t define who you are as a person or who you are as an athlete,” Jacobellis said. “Any lady out here had the ability to come out here and win, really. And that’s how our sport can even work at times. It’s just a roll of the dice, and it’s how the stars are aligned and how your body’s feeling and how your board’s running.”
General dominance aside, Jacobellis had earned a reputation for coming up just short at the Olympics. After her silver medal in 2006, she placed fifth in 2010, seventh in 2014 and fourth in 2018 by .03 seconds.
If not for the botched race, she might not have a career at all.
At 20 years old in 2006 and saddled with introducing viewers to her specialized sport when competitive snowboarding was still in its early adolescence, Jacobellis was feeling pressure from the media to be “the golden girl” and live up to her old nickname, “Lucky Lindsey.” In hindsight, a gold medal and its spoils might have broken her.
“I probably would have quit the sport at that point, because I wasn’t really having fun with it,” Jacobellis said. “There was so much pressure on me … and I’d won so many races going into it. It’s a lot for a young athlete to have on their plate, and that’s definitely something that the media doesn’t always understand. You don’t realize how young some of these athletes are.”
Instead, she went on to raise snowboard cross’s profile with her X Games domination and nurture a generation of racers. Fellow Team USA rider Stacy Gaskill, 21, finished seventh Wednesday. Her voice trembled with emotion and her eyes filled with tears when she spoke about Jacobellis winning gold.
“I don’t think there’s any words that can capture that moment, like, for Lindsey to win in her fifth Games and be at the pinnacle at this sport for so long and inspire so many young [riders] like me,” said Gaskill, 21, trailing off. “ … She is the face of this sport. And to see her win and finally get to stand on top of that podium, it means everything to all of us.”
Except, perhaps, to Jacobellis herself. She said her life would not change after gold, and that she had no immediate thoughts of ending her Olympic career. Snowboard cross racers have long careers, and gold at this point signals that Jacobellis has plenty of juice left.
“I’m the same old me. It makes me feel like I just have another accomplishment that I have for myself, just looking at the next way that I can grow as a person and as an athlete,” she said.
She conceded that this accomplishment was even sweeter 16 years later.
“This feels incredible because this level that all the women are riding at is a lot higher than it was 16 years ago. So I felt like I was a winner just that I made it into finals, because that’s been a challenge every time in especially all the World Cups,” she said. “All these ladies out here have the potential to win, and today it just worked out for me that my starts were good, and that my gliding was great, so girls weren’t able to take advantage of the draft. Everything just kind of worked for me today.” | null | null | null | null | null |
Petra Vlhova of Slovakia celebrates her gold medal in slalom. (Jean-Christophe Bott/EPA-EFE/Shutterstock)
YANQING, China — After Petra Vlhova finished a blistering second run down the “Ice River” course at National Alpine Skiing Centre on Wednesday, the only thing she could do was stand around and wait. Seven skiers had a crack at beating her time in the women’s slalom at the Beijing Olympics, but Vlhova had one important thing going for her: The only woman on the planet who is her equal in the event, Mikaela Shiffrin, was not one of those seven.
Moments later, as she stood atop the podium, with the Slovakian flag flying over an Alpine venue for the first time in Olympics history, Vlhova’s eyes unleashed tears that streamed down both cheeks. She didn’t even try to wipe them away. Before Wednesday, Slovakia had never so much as claimed a single Olympic medal in Alpine in its history — and now it had a gold. And hers was the neck from which it dangled.
“Now, everybody is celebrating in Slovakia,” she said. “For us … it’s something huge.”
To call Vlhova Slovakia’s greatest skier would be a severe understatement. Of the past 45 World Cup podium finishes by Slovakians, she owns all 45.
Vlhova, the top-ranked skier in the world in the slalom this season, appeared to have skied herself out of contention with an uncharacteristically shaky first run. Her time of 52.89 left her in eighth place, nearly three-quarters of a second off the lead — close to an eternity in a race that takes less than a minute and is often determined by hundredths of seconds.
But at least Vlhova, 26, got a second run. The same could not be said for Shiffrin, Vlhova’s chief rival, who, for the second race in a row, skied out mere seconds after leaving the starting gate and failed to finish — a stunning result for one of the most dominant skiers in history.
Between runs, a dejected Vlhova — who later described herself then as “angry and sad” — huddled with coach Mauro Pini and dutifully analyzed the video of the first run. But rather than focusing on Vlhova’s technique, Pini wanted to work on her heart.
“We were just asking Petra between the two runs to be really courageous, take a big heart to the slope [for the] second run,” Pini said. “Nothing to lose. Just to be back [in her hotel room] tonight and don’t regret nothing.” The result? “Unbelievable.”
Vlhova, her 5-foot-11 frame making her an unmistakable figure from any vantage point on the course, delivered a near-perfect second run, clocking a time, 52.09, that would stand as the fastest of the day. But was it good enough for a medal, let alone a gold? Some 10 excruciating minutes would creep by until the answer came. Of the seven skiers with a chance to beat her, one, Sweden’s Sara Hector, was disqualified for straddling a gate. Another five failed to eclipse her time.
Finally, the last skier of the day, Germany’s Lena Duerr, the leader after the first run, also came up short — sending Vlhova sprinting out of the waiting area to hug her teammates and coaches. Vlhova’s gold-medal-winning total time of 1:44.98 was less than a tenth of a second better than silver medalist Katharina Liensberger of Austria (1:45.06). Switzerland’s Wendy Holdener (1:45.10) took the bronze. Paula Moltzan (1:46.18) was the top American, finishing eighth.
“For a long time, Mikaela was better than me,” Vlhova told reporters before the Olympics began. “However, in the last seasons I showed clearly I am able to beat her often. We respect each other because we both know very well how difficult it is to become the best in the world.”
Will Mikaela Shiffrin race in super-G? Her mom says, ‘We’re going to wait and
Vlhova’s ascent appears to have coincided with the tumultuous coaching change she undertook last offseason. In 2020, Vlhova had a falling out with Livio Magoni, at the time her coach of five years, after the former made some comments to an Italian newspaper — saying Vlhova is an “iron” compared to the “diamonds” produced by Italy’s elite Alpine pipeline.
The switch to Pini — who had coached four-time Olympic medalist Tina Maze of Slovenia and two-time medalist Lara Gut-Behrami of Switzerland — rekindled Vlhova’s love of the sport, she said, and taught her how to laugh again.
“It’s the best thing ever in my life,” she said of Mini. “He gave something huge for me … He gave me passion again to ski. A few years ago, I start to feel tired feeling [and] not too happy to ski. Right now, every single day, even if I’m tired, I’m happy to be back on the snow.”
After Vlhova’s second run Wednesday, Mini was like everyone else on the course: he knew she had thrown down a monster run, but he wasn’t sure it would be enough to win. But this was a day when all the pieces fell into place for her — from Shiffrin’s DNF in the first run, which removed Vlhova’s biggest threat from the competition, to the way every skier with a chance to beat her came up short.
“I’m sorry for the others,” he said, “but at the end, the winner is always so for a reason.” | null | null | null | null | null |
Clothes dry outside houses in Jiangsu, the Chinese province where a mother was chained to a shed. ( Noel Celis/AFP/Getty Images)
Appalled Internet users questioned whether the woman — who appeared unable to communicate with the blogger, suggesting a degree of cognitive impairment — was forced to have so many children or had been trafficked into her circumstances. Others noticed her loss of teeth and asked whether she was a victim of abuse.
Her husband was previously celebrated online for the enormous size of his family as China moves away from its restrictive child policy. Reports, however, never mentioned his wife.
Some Internet users called for boycotting products from Fengxian county, where the video was taken. On Weibo, women posted photos of signs in support on their cars. One read: “The world has not abandoned you. Your sisters are coming!”
Discussion has turned into a broader debate about the mistreatment of women, the ineffectiveness of local authorities against trafficking, and poverty in rural areas. Bride trafficking — which includes Chinese women often from poor, rural areas, as well as women from Southeast Asia — is a problem in China after decades of family planning, combined with traditional preferences for boys, resulted in a shortage of women.
Discussion has became so heated that social media platforms have begun to censor some comments and articles. The account of the blogger who first uploaded the video has been deleted from Douyin, while accounts of those who reposted it have been barred from publishing new content. | null | null | null | null | null |
Even at a time of high vehicle prices and low levels of inventory, automakers have good reason to proceed cautiously. As previously mentioned, the industry is in a once-in-a-lifetime transition from gasoline-powered to electric vehicles. It’s an all-in moment for a capital-intensive industry that can’t afford to stumble until they’re on the other side. Low inventories and high prices give them a margin of safety for any kind of setback. If electric-vehicle demand is slower to materialize than anticipated, for instance, or if there’s a macroeconomic slip, low inventories and higher prices give them more resilience. | null | null | null | null | null |
Clarksburg basketball star is a rarity in this area: a public school basketball player with a Power Five future
Clarksburg junior guard Riley Nelson has dominated Montgomery County and led her team to a 14-0 start. (Craig Hudson/For the Washington Post)
The defender’s job seemed simple: Remain in front of Clarksburg guard Riley Nelson wherever she stepped on the court. Late in this game last week, though, Nelson proved the opponent’s box-and-one defense couldn’t contain her.
On an inbounds pass, Nelson told her teammates to give her space on the baseline as she called for the ball. After gathering the pass, the junior stepped back to the three-point line in two dribbles, separating herself from Churchill’s defense. Nelson then fired a shot that swished through the hoop to clinch Clarksburg’s victory.
The opponent was left pondering the question everyone in Montgomery County has asked this winter: How do public school players stop one of the country’s top recruits?
While D.C. area private schools perennially produce top girls’ basketball prospects, Nelson, a Maryland commit, is one of just a handful of local public school players in the past decade to field scholarship offers from Power Five programs.
Since arriving at Clarksburg as a freshman in 2019, Nelson has helped the Coyotes, typically an afterthought, transform into the county’s top team. Later this month, Nelson will spearhead Clarksburg (15-0) as it contends for its first Maryland 4A championship.
In accomplishing her childhood dreams, Nelson, 16, has trusted a path few top players in the area pursue.
“There was a lot of doubt,” James Nelson, her father, said. “You hear stories about what you have to do to be ranked. Riley didn’t do any of that stuff.”
A few months after Nelson was born in April 2005, her father brought her to men’s basketball practices at Penn State Abington, where he coached. When Nelson learned to walk, she mimicked her dad’s drills in their living room, running from the couch to the fireplace and returning with a backpedal.
She soon combined that work ethic with competitiveness. After losing to her grandfather in Candy Land at age 3, Nelson cried and refused to speak with him for two weeks. For her fifth birthday, her parents bought a basketball hoop, which she played on outside their home until bedtime.
“Riley’s really good,” Nelson’s mother, Jessica, told her husband as Nelson dominated a Pennsylvania recreation league. “Well,” James responded, “this is rec ball.”
Soon after her family moved to Clarksburg in July 2013, Nelson began playing AAU ball and tripped on her feet out of nerves when she entered her first game.
Nelson later attended a Maryland women’s basketball game with her team. She posed for a photo next to the team’s 2006 national championship trophy, displayed in Xfinity Center’s lobby. Her head reached the middle of the trophy. There, Nelson told her parents she wanted to play for a big-time program.
“We didn’t even think that Maryland was an option,” Jessica Nelson said. “I always was like, ‘Wherever you go, you be thankful.’ ”
An alternate route
A few years later, Nelson decided she’d attend Good Counsel High in Olney and compete in one of the country’s most competitive leagues, the Washington Catholic Athletic Conference. A few months before high school, she reversed course.
Fearing she’d miss her friends, Nelson remained at her hometown school. In the 2019-20 season, Nelson helped Clarksburg post its best record (20-5) and reach the 4A quarterfinals for the second time. She received her first scholarship offer from Rhode Island that summer.
“I made my decision to go to Clarksburg,” Nelson said. “And I haven’t looked back.”
In June 2020, Larry Gray, who helped coach the Fairfax Stars AAU program, saw Nelson playing outside and barely recognized her from a year earlier. Nelson had grown about five inches, to 6 feet.
Missing the high-level competition and national showcases private schools are granted, Nelson began practicing with Fairfax, one of the area’s strongest AAU teams, in Nov. 2020. After thriving in a few games, she officially joined the squad in March 2021 as one of two public school athletes on the 11-player roster.
Many of the area’s top private school players have competed on Fairfax in recent years, including Sidwell Friends’ Kiki Rice, a UCLA signee, and former St. John’s guard Azzi Fudd, who plays for Connecticut. Some public school players have also received recruiting attention through Fairfax, such as Middletown’s Saylor Poffenbarger, who plays for Arkansas, and Aberdeen’s Brionna Jones, who attended Maryland before joining the WNBA’s Connecticut Sun.
“They have to do the extra work to make sure they’re staying at the top of their game,” Fairfax Coach Aggie McCormick-Dix said. “Riley is constantly in a gym. She almost ends up putting in double the amount of work.”
Nelson was shocked when she arrived at her first Nike Elite Youth Basketball League tournament, which attracted top college scouts. As she entered the gym in Hampton, Va., she saw players she had watched on social media platforms Overtime and Ballislife.
In July, Nelson was one of the best players at showcases in Louisville and Chicago, often hearing from scouts: “Where did you come from?” Dozens of scholarship offers from Power Five programs arrived the ensuing week.
The highlight was when Riley walked downstairs to her parents with a shocked face. She had just spoken to Maryland Coach Brenda Frese, who extended an offer to Nelson and encouraged her to celebrate with ice cream. Nelson bought strawberry and cookies-and-cream.
Fantasy fulfilled
In September, Nelson sat in her engineering class when her father texted her a screenshot of her No. 36 standing in ESPN’s Class of 2023 recruiting rankings. Nelson couldn’t stop smiling, drawing questions from her teacher.
In August and September, Nelson, nationally ranked for the first time, traveled the country for college visits. Her final options were Maryland, Virginia Tech and West Virginia. Frese mailed Nelson handwritten letters, and in October Nelson awoke her dad in the middle of the night to inform him she had settled on the Terps.
This winter, Nelson is averaging 18 points, 10 rebounds and five assists, helping Clarksburg win every game by double-digits. Her trainers aren’t certain the county’s competition will prepare Nelson for Big Ten play, but they believe she can improve. While she contributes on Fairfax, Nelson is a focal point on Clarksburg as the county’s only player committed to a Division I program.
She is also an unwitting exemplar within Montgomery County.
At nearby Seneca Valley High, freshman Mina Hashemzadeh considered attending private school but looked toward Nelson’s route as she chose to play with her friends and for her father, Coach Ali Hashemzadeh.
“Mina just sees it as, ‘If she can do it, who’s to say I can’t do it?,’ ” Ali said.
Clarksburg’s Sissy Natoli, who has coached in Montgomery County since 1996, had never worked with a Power Five commit and was elated when Frese attended her team’s game in December. When watching Maryland play Michigan last month, Natoli wondered if Nelson could match the intensity and savvy of the players on her screen.
Then Natoli thought about Nelson’s clutch plays and dominance each game. “She’ll be just fine,” Natoli concluded. | null | null | null | null | null |
Tobias Wendl and Tobias Arlt, of Germany, prepare to start the luge doubles run 1 at the 2022 Winter Olympics, Wednesday, Feb. 9, 2022, in the Yanqing district of Beijing. (AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein)
BEIJING — Another day, another German Olympic luge threepeat. The best sliding nation in the world is leaving absolutely no doubt at the Beijing Games. | null | null | null | null | null |
From left: Julie Collins, Katie Paris and Julie Womack, the leaders of Red Wine and Blue, a group of about 300,000 liberal suburban moms. (Maddie McGarvey for The Washington Post)
The ALA’s Office for Intellectual Freedom recorded a record 330 challenges to books from Sept. 1 through Dec. 1, compared with 377 cases for all of 2019. In recent days, a school board in Tennessee pulled the Pulitzer Prize-winning graphic novel “Maus,” about the Holocaust, from its eighth-grade curriculum, and school officials in North Carolina removed “Dear Martin” — a novel about a Black teen who is racially profiled — as assigned reading.
Tina Descovich, co-founder of Moms for Liberty, which is based in Melbourne, Fla., said the Williamson County, Tenn., chapter of the group recently spent 1,000 hours evaluating grade-school curriculum and creating a spreadsheet of concerns after the Asian mother of a biracial child said he had come home at the conclusion of a civil rights module worried that he should “hate” his White heritage.
Red Wine and Blue plans to continue with friend-to-friend organizing and using digital media to mobilize suburban women. It recently founded a charitable education arm to raise money from nonpartisan donors. | null | null | null | null | null |
On Monday, the Supreme Court stepped in, in a way that was doubly extraordinary. First, divided 5 to 4, it said the lower court had acted too close to the election — even though the primary is not until May and the general election is nine months away. Second, several conservative justices appeared open to Alabama’s radical claim that Section 2, whose goal is to improve minority representation, must be implemented in a way that’s “race-blind.”
Nevertheless, the court’s conservative majority might be poised to rewrite Section 2 in the way that Alabama proposes. Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh, in a concurrence joined by Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr., said that the outcome of the case was not “clearcut” in favor of those challenging Alabama’s map. That can only be true if the court is preparing to transform the law.
More ominously, Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr., while voting to leave the lower court order in place, flagged the only lower court decision to have embraced Alabama’s position, along with the article I co-authored examining the implications of that approach. The message is clear: The court’s conservatives are seriously considering a race-blind interpretation of Section 2 that would neuter its effectiveness. | null | null | null | null | null |
Millennia before UFC, there was the brutal Olympic sport of pankration
Bas-relief on ancient Greek funerary stele from Kerameikos in Athens. Scene from Palaestra — wrestlers in action. On the left an athlete is ready to jump, on the right another one preparing the pit. (Zzvet/Getty Images/iStockphoto)
By Theo Zenou
On Saturday night in Houston, two men will enter a metal cage and proceed to punch, kick, elbow, knee, wrestle and choke each other. There will be blood, sweat and concussions.
Welcome to the Ultimate Fighting Championship, the premier league for mixed martial arts (MMA). In Saturday’s world middleweight championship, Israel Adesanya defends his title against former champion Robert Whittaker as around 1 million people look on.
MMA is the fastest-growing sport on the planet in viewership and participation. Estimates put the UFC’s worth at $9 billion or more. The sport’s popularity is remarkable, considering that the UFC was founded only in 1993, and MMA was banned in most U.S. states until the turn of the 21st century.
But MMA actually stretches back millennia. It has its origins in the ancient Greek sport of pankration, which was added to the Olympics in 648 B.C.
Pankration can be translated as “complete victory.” The basic rules were similar to those of MMA. Pankration combined boxing, kicking and wrestling. But it was so barbarous that MMA looks like golf by comparison.
Pankration had no weight classes, meaning lighter fighters faced vastly more powerful opponents. Matches were contested outdoors in a sandy pit, under the scorching sun. And since there were no rounds, pankratiasts could not take water breaks.
Only biting and eye-gouging were expressly prohibited. If a pankratiast committed either infraction, the referee battered him with a rod.
Pankration matches had no set duration and ended by knockout or submission. A pankratiast could forfeit by raising a finger. (MMA fighters tap out.)
A lost ancient city built by Trojan War captives has been found, Greek officials say
Death was an occupational hazard. But only Arrhichion of Phigalia managed simultaneously to lose his life and win a fight. His opponent had gotten him in a tight stranglehold. Arrhichion kicked him so hard the man forfeited. Alas, it was too late; Arrhichion suffocated to death.
Little is known about how pankration first emerged. The Greeks believed it had been invented by the demigod Theseus to vanquish the Minotaur, the mythological monster with the body of a man and the head of a bull. In some sculptures, Theseus is even depicted with the cauliflower ears characteristic of combat athletes.
In the Olympics, pankratiasts competed naked, their bodies covered in oil. No women were allowed in the audience. Part of the sport’s appeal was homoerotic.
A Florida Republican says Socrates would be canceled today. The philosopher faced a different fate: Execution.
But don’t believe the statues — not all pankratiasts looked like they belonged on the cover of the ancient edition of Men’s Health. Some fighters had potbellies. Ironically, the sophist Philostratus thought this was an advantage: A bulging gut made it easier to keep an opponent at a safe distance.
The greatest pankratiast of all time was Theogenes of Thasos. In the 5th century B.C., he won 1,400 matches. Compare that to the GOAT of MMA, Khabib Nurmagomedov, who retired last year with a perfect record of “only” 29-0.
Pankratiasts were superstars. The philosopher Xenophanes related that “if someone should gain victory … in the terrible contest they call the pankration,” then “the citizens would look upon him with greater admiration” and “he would receive meals from the public stores of the city.”
But pankratiasts did not fight solely for freebies and the adulation of fans. They took pride in representing their “polis” (city-state) and sought to embody ideals of virility and valor.
Pankration was part of the Greek education curriculum, for it was thought to forge character. In one of Lucian’s satirical dialogues, Solon, the father of Athenian democracy, explains the benefits of teaching it to the youths: “It makes them courageous in the face of danger, heedless of their bodies, and at the same time strong and enduring.”
Knowing pankration also came in handy in the thick of battle. At Thermopylae in 480 B.C., after their swords broke, a regiment of 300 Spartans used pankration against the invading Persian forces. They were slaughtered, but their sacrifice helped save Greece, as depicted in the 2007 action film “300.”
Three centuries later, Rome emerged as a superpower and soon conquered Greece. The Romans embraced Hellenic culture and referred to pankration as pancratium.
Marcus Aurelius, who ruled the Roman Empire in the second century A.D., was a fan. To him, pankration served as a metaphor for living with integrity. “In the application of one’s principles,” he declared, “one should resemble a pancratiast. … The pancratiast always has his fist and simply needs to clench it.”
The advent of Christianity, which became the Roman state religion in 380 A.D., spelled doom for pankration. The church spread new values: piety and contrition over defiance and fearlessness. Pankration wasn’t suited to the changing mores. Plus, it was a holdover of “paganism.” The sport fell into disrepute and, finally, oblivion.
Fast forward centuries to Nov. 12, 1993, when the UFC held its first event and MMA was born. Inspired by the Brazilian circus sport Vale Tudo (“anything goes”), it was as wild as pankration in its Hellenic heyday. Almost anything went: Just as with pankration, only biting and eye-gouging were off-limits. (The referees, however, did not wield rods.)
MMA soon drew headlines and intense criticism. In 1996, things got political. Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) launched a crusade against the sport, which he blasted as “human cockfighting.” He urged all 50 governors to ban it; 36 obliged.
Under pressure, the UFC cleaned up its act and adopted the Unified Rules of Mixed Martial Arts in 2000. These new rules, which outlawed head-butting and groin strikes, professionalized the sport and laid the foundations for a golden age.
In the last two decades, MMA has become a global phenomenon. The UFC has been so successful that it is now synonymous with the sport itself. (There are other MMA leagues, including Bellator and ONE Championship, but they haven't crossed into the mainstream.)
Why is MMA so popular? According to UFC President Dana White, it’s because fighting is universal: “As human beings, we’re fascinated by who the toughest guy in the world is.”
This is as true in 2022 as it was in 648 B.C. The world has clearly changed since then, but the thrill of seeing two individuals willingly put everything on the line hasn't abated.
Fighting is more than a physical display of dominance. It’s an act of self-transcendence that requires ανδρεία—or “andreia,” the ancient Greek word for courage.
These days, MMA isn’t an Olympic event — although Khabib Nurmagomedov is determined to make it one. But when Israel Adesanya and Robert Whittaker take the octagon, they’ll be extending a lineage that’s been traced all the way back to Theseus, the OG MMA champion.
MORE ON SPORTS HISTORY | null | null | null | null | null |
FILE - This undated photo provided by the Missouri Department of Corrections shows Michael Politte. Politte, who has insisted for more than 20 years that he was wrongly convicted as a teenager of killing his mother has been granted parole and will be released on April 23, 2022. (Missouri Department of Corrections via AP, FILE) (Uncredited/Missouri Department of Corrections) | null | null | null | null | null |
Jefferson Mays, right, as River City’s Mayor George Shinn, and the musical’s barbershop quartet kick off the opening week of Broadway’s “The Music Man” outside the Winter Garden Theatre on Tuesday, Feb. 8, 2022, in New York. (Charles Sykes/Invision/AP)
NEW YORK — One of the first songs in “The Music Man” is “(Ya Got) Trouble” and the latest Broadway revival has certainly faced its share. | null | null | null | null | null |
First, a new battle has erupted between the White House and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R), now that DeSantis has signaled support for the “Don’t say gay” bill advancing in the Florida legislature. The bill would restrict classroom discussion of sexual orientation and gender identity, and President Biden just slammed it as “hateful.”
In response to critics who argue this will stigmatize LGBTQ people, supporters insist it wouldn’t prohibit such discussions if they arise. But the bill doesn’t define what is “age-appropriate” or “developmentally appropriate.”
This is likely to leave teachers fearing that if they do engage such a discussion, parents might decide it’s not age-appropriate, and object. DeSantis underscored the absurdity here, declaring it’s “entirely inappropriate” for teachers to have such conversations, which seems to give away the bill’s goal of making teachers feel on thin ice when such discussions do come up.
In that regard, it’s important to note that the bill also allows parents to bring legal action against school districts, in which courts can “award damages.” As a PEN America report documents, many proposals across the country require punitive action against teachers and give parents such a right of action.
They also suffer from vague drafting. Some prohibit teaching materials that merely “include” various “concepts,” such as the notions that the U.S. was “founded” as a “racist” nation and is “irredeemably” racist, or concepts that might cause “discomfort,” or even “anti-American ideologies.” It’s reasonable to think certain civil rights and abolitionist tracts might run afoul of such directives.
The chief sponsor of the bill, State Senator Michael Azinger, gave away the game in an exchange with a local news outlet. Azinger suggested that “negative” teachings of U.S. history must be monitored, whatever that’s supposed to mean. Then this happened:
Here’s the rub: It’s the combination of this vagueness along with punitive mechanisms like rights of action and tip lines that is the problem. And proposals for tip lines are proliferating.
It goes without saying that there’s nothing wrong with parents being kept apprised of what’s happening in classrooms, and having input into it. But that’s not what’s going on here. Instead, precisely because teachers may fear they can’t anticipate how they might run afoul of the law — while also fearing punishment for such transgressions — they may skirt difficult subjects altogether.
“They want teachers to be scared in the classroom,” Wilson says. “We’re going to see test cases all over this country.” As Wilson notes, the entire point is to put the base on high alert for “apostasy.”
If you pay close attention not just to the language of these bills, but also to the unstated premises they are trying to advance, you can see this happening all over again. | null | null | null | null | null |
As a series of top Republicans including Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (Ky.) rebuked the censures of Reps. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.) and Adam Kinzinger (R-Ill.), the RNC suggested critics were merely stuck in the “D.C. bubble.”
“Outside of the D.C. bubble, our grass roots are very supportive of the decision to hold Cheney and Kinzinger accountable,” the RNC’s communications director, Danielle Alvarez, told The Post’s Josh Dawsey and Felicia Sonmez.
The quote was about whether Trump pushed for the censures, but it might as well have been about McConnell et al.
That’s decidedly not where McConnell is. He has made a point to lend the committee legitimacy, saying that “what they are seeking to find out is something the public needs to know.” He also reinforced in his comments Tuesday that President Biden’s win was legitimate and that Jan. 6 was indeed a violent “insurrection” — something only 1 in 5 Republicans agree with. | null | null | null | null | null |
The Russian Olympic Committee figure skating team, center, finished first in the team event this week but has yet to receive its medals. (Aleksandra Szmigiel/Reuters)
BEIJING — The Russian Olympic Committee won the gold medal in Monday’s figure skating team event, followed by the United States in second and Japan in third. But the skaters who celebrated on the rink afterward have not yet received their medals, a delay the International Olympic Committee said has been prompted by a legal issue.
When asked Wednesday about the postponement of the medal ceremony, IOC spokesman Mark Adams said the situation “requires legal consultation with the [International Skating Union].”
Adams said he could not provide more information at the time, calling this an “emerging issue.” Adams later added: “You can bet your bottom dollar that we are doing absolutely everything and everyone is doing absolutely everything [so that] this situation can be resolved as soon as possible because we have athletes and athletes that have won medals involved. ... But I’m afraid, as you know, legal issues can sometimes drag on.”
At the Winter Olympics, medal ceremonies usually do not take place immediately after events. Athletes are recognized on the podium in the competition venue and receive a plush replica of the Beijing 2022 panda mascot. They must wait to get their medals at one of two plazas.
While the IOC and the ISU have not provided any additional details, USA Today reported Wednesday that the delay is related to a positive drug test by a member of the gold-winning Russian team.
The Russian participants in the team event were Kamila Valieva, Mark Kondratiuk, pair skaters Anastasia Mishina and Aleksandr Galliamov, and ice dance tandem Victoria Sinitsina and Nikita Katsalapov. Countries are allowed two substitutions, but the Russian Olympic Committee team instead chose to keep the same representatives in the short programs and the free skates.
The Russians finished with the best point total by a comfortable margin. In the team event, countries earn points based on their finish in each of eight segments, with 10 points for the top finisher, nine points for second place and so on. The Russians had 74 points and three top finishes, including two from Valieva, the 15-year-old star who entered these Games as the favorite to win the women’s individual competition, which is scheduled for next week. In only one segment — Kondratiuk’s short program, which placed third — the Russians did not finish in the top two.
The Americans in second had 65 points and narrowly edged the Japanese team, which had 63. Fourth-place Canada was far from medal position with 53 points. The silver medal is the United States’ best finish in this event since it debuted in 2014. In the previous two editions of the team event, the Americans earned bronze. | null | null | null | null | null |
Throckmorton said the idea to unionize the store she worked at, near the University of Memphis, came shortly after what unfolded in western New York. In her almost two years there, Throckmorton said workers regularly operated in what she described as “hazardous conditions,” with fridges leaking water and causing employees to slip and fall. She alleged that the company did not address employee concerns. Borges did not immediately respond to the allegation. | null | null | null | null | null |
Julie’s a bit of a mess. When we meet her, she has no sooner enrolled in pre-med courses at a Norwegian university than she’s shifted her major to psychology — no wait, art. She’s all over the map. Her love life is just as prone to last-minute switchbacks. To paraphrase the singer-songwriter Phoebe Bridgers, she doesn’t know what she wants until she messes it up.
R. At area theaters. Contains sexual material, graphic nudity, drug use and some coarse language. In Danish with subtitles. 127 minutes. | null | null | null | null | null |
First, a new battle has erupted between the White House and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R), now that DeSantis has signaled support for what critics are calling the “Don’t say gay” bill advancing in the Florida legislature. The bill would restrict classroom discussion of sexual orientation and gender identity, and President Biden just slammed it as “hateful.”
In response to critics who argue this would stigmatize LGBTQ people, supporters insist it wouldn’t prohibit such discussions if they arise. But the bill doesn’t define what is “age-appropriate” or “developmentally appropriate.”
This is likely to leave teachers fearing that if they do engage such a discussion, parents might decide it’s not age-appropriate and object. DeSantis underscored the absurdity here, declaring it’s “entirely inappropriate” for teachers to have such conversations, which seems to give away the bill’s goal of making teachers feel on thin ice when such discussions do come up.
In that regard, it’s important to note that the bill also would allow parents to bring legal action against school districts, in which courts could “award damages.” As a PEN America report documents, many proposals across the country require punitive action against teachers and give parents such a right of action.
They also suffer from vague drafting. Some would prohibit teaching materials that merely “include” various “concepts,” such as the notions that the United States was “founded” as a “racist” nation and is “irredeemably” racist, or concepts that might cause “discomfort,” or even “anti-American” ideologies. It’s reasonable to think certain civil rights and abolitionist tracts might run afoul of such directives.
The chief sponsor of the bill, state Sen. Michael Azinger (R), gave away the game in an exchange with a local news outlet. Azinger suggested that “negative” teachings of U.S. history must be monitored, whatever that’s supposed to mean. Then this happened:
Here’s the rub: It’s the combination of this vagueness and punitive mechanisms such as rights of action and tip lines that is the problem. And proposals for tip lines are proliferating.
It goes without saying that there’s nothing wrong with parents being kept apprised of what’s happening in classrooms, and having input into it. But that’s not what’s going on here. Instead, precisely because teachers might fear that they can’t anticipate how they might run afoul of the law — while also fearing punishment for such transgressions — they might skirt difficult subjects altogether.
“They want teachers to be scared in the classroom,” Wilson says. “We’re going to see test cases … all over this country.” As Wilson notes, the entire point is to put the base on high alert for “apostasy.”
If you pay close attention not just to the language of these bills but also to the unstated premises they are trying to advance, you can see this happening all over again. | null | null | null | null | null |
That’s decidedly not where McConnell is. He has made a point to lend the committee legitimacy, saying that “what they are seeking to find out is something the public needs to know.” He also reinforced in his comments Tuesday that Joe Biden’s win was legitimate and that Jan. 6 was indeed a violent “insurrection” — something only 1 in 5 Republicans agree with. | null | null | null | null | null |
More than 100,000 people had signed a petition calling for Zouma to be punished after the video, which was first shared to Snapchat, was viewed by millions.
The video was first published Monday by British tabloid the Sun. In the footage, laughter can be heard as the 27-year-old, who also plays for the French national team, is seen chasing the animal around his home in the county of Essex.
Khan also said, “I think West Ham ... as his employer need to take action,” noting that many view footballers as role models. | null | null | null | null | null |
Lisa Banks, the Washington attorney who represents Johnston and more than three dozen former employees, said it is “utterly absurd” that Snyder has hired a team “to investigate his own actions.” She said Johnston would not participate into what she called a “sham” investigation, and "the public will not be duped into believing that this is anything other than Dan Snyder trying to whitewash his own misconduct.”
“This is a desperate public relations stunt, clearly designed to absolve him of wrongdoing,” Banks said in a statement Wednesday.
Yang is a partner at Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher, LLP in Los Angeles and previously served as the firm’s chair of the white collar defense and investigations practice group. The team said in its statement that Yang will report her findings to Pallas Global Group, “and those findings will be released to the public.”
Banks said any further probes into Snyder’s conduct should conducted by Wilkinson and her team.
“The fact is that Mr. Snyder has gone to great lengths to conceal the truth and his retention of this team is just his latest effort to paint a false picture of his behavior,” she said. “If, as Mr. Snyder claims today, he genuinely wanted the truth about his actions to emerge, he would have embraced the public release of Ms. Wilkinson’s findings. Instead, he worked with the NFL to block the release of the Wilkinson report. And now, he has handpicked new investigators to do what apparently the Wilkinson report did not do – sugarcoat his own actions.”
Snyder’s attorney, Jordan Siev, defended the newly-announced probe and reasserted the team’s intention to release the findings.
“It is notable that Ms. Johnston declined to participate in [Wilkinson’s] investigation, yet her counsel is now is pushing for Ms. Wilkinson to investigate the very matter Ms. Johnston refused to discuss with her during the investigation,” Siev said in a statement. | null | null | null | null | null |
The polling also found that people whose views were furthest from reality on the results of the 2020 election were also those most eager to downplay what occurred at the Capitol. For example, 7 in 10 Republicans who say Trump probably won in 2020 think that too much attention has been paid to Jan. 6. That position was held by 9 in 10 of those who say Trump definitely won. (On the graphs below, the widths of the columns are scaled to the percentage of Republicans who belong to each of the groups indicated along the horizontal axis.) | null | null | null | null | null |
The ID.me stance on facial recognition has also clashed with the leaders of the government’s own identity verification service, Login.gov, which has been used by more than 40 million people to access websites run by 28 federal agencies.
On Tuesday, six Republican senators — Mike Braun (Ind.), Ted Cruz (Tex.), Joni Ernst (Iowa), Josh Hawley (Mo.), John Neely Kennedy (La.) and Tommy Tuberville (Ala.) — announced they were introducing a bill that would ban the IRS from requiring taxpayers to submit face scans or other biometric data. “We must ensure this disastrous idea is never entertained again,” Scott said in a statement.
And on Wednesday, four Democrats in Congress — Sens. Edward J. Markey (Mass.) and Jeff Merkley (Ore.) and Reps. Pramila Jayapal (Wash.) and Ayanna Pressley (Mass.) — sent letters to the departments of Defense, Health and Human Services, Homeland Security, Interior and Justice urging them to stop using facial recognition systems such as Clearview AI, which expanded its database by scraping billions of people’s photos from Facebook, Twitter and YouTube. | null | null | null | null | null |
Smith said Microsoft plans to adapt the Xbox app store to embrace all of the competition principles, though it will take time to do so because of technical limitations. Sarah Bond, corporate vice president of game ecosystem for Xbox, said the company wants to enable “store within a store experiences” but that it requires tech and business model innovation. | null | null | null | null | null |
A protester holds gas cans near Canada's Parliament as truckers protest vaccine mandates in downtown Ottawa, Feb. 8, 2022. (Kadri Mohamed/EPA-EFE/Shutterstock)
By now, you’ve likely heard about the protest underway in the Canadian capital, Ottawa. A number of truckers, incensed at a mandate encouraging full vaccination in order to carry cargo across the border with the United States, have encamped in the city. They have tried to make their presence felt as universally as possible, including by repeatedly blaring their horns until a court order forced them to stop.
It’s useful to assess how Canadians themselves feel about the convoy. There’s not a lot of polling on the subject, but we do have some indicators.
Polling published on Monday by CTV News found that Ottawans themselves are quite tired of the protest. Nine in 10 say it’s time for the protesters to leave, with two-thirds opposing the effort overall. About half of residents oppose it strongly. But, then, this is to be expected: The point of the protest in part has been to be disruptive.
There doesn’t seem to be recent national polling evaluating the effort, but a survey conducted by Maru Public Opinion last month found that fewer than 3 in 10 Canadians felt that no vaccination requirement should be in place. (The mandate is that truckers either be fully vaccinated or quarantine after crossing the border, an obvious imposition on their ability to do their jobs.) Another third thought that truckers should be able to carry cargo over the border if they showed a negative test for the coronavirus.
It’s important to note (as Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has) that most truckers are already fully vaccinated. The Canadian Trucking Alliance estimates that only 10 percent of the country’s truckers have not been vaccinated. At the end of January, the government said there was “no sign whatsoever” that the then-recently implemented rule had reduced cross-border carriage.
Other pages shut down by Facebook this week appear to have been created through a hacked account, as reported by Grid News. But Facebook has been a favorite target of the right for years now, despite the extent to which the site has provided a platform for right-wing rhetoric. So Facebook’s actions have become another rallying point. | null | null | null | null | null |
Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) shifted her public position Wednesday on banning lawmakers and their spouses from owning and trading individual stocks, saying she would support that if members of her delegation wanted to do so.
“There are a number of senators with various proposals, and I have asked my Democratic colleagues to come together and come up with a single bill this chamber can work on,” Schumer said Wednesday. “Some of the proposals ... have bipartisan support. So this is something that the Senate should address. Hopefully we can act on it soon, and hopefully it can be done in a bipartisan way like many of the bills we are looking at this week.” | null | null | null | null | null |
Richard Bonsignore, Foreign Service officer, lawyer
Richard Bonsignore, 73, a Foreign Service officer from 1986 to 1993 who later worked as a senior counsel at Washington-area law firms and then was a CIA political analyst from 2009 to 2014, died Sept. 5 at his home in Bethesda, Md. The cause was posterior cortical atrophy, a rare form of dementia, said a son, Patrick Bonsignore.
Mr. Bonsignore was born in Brooklyn. Early in his career, he worked in the legal departments of Metropolitan Life and Merrill Lynch in New York City. After State Department assignments in Mexico City and Seoul, he worked for the law firms Akin Gump from 1994 to 2005 and then Mayer Brown until 2009. He also did volunteer work for the Catholic Charities Legal Network.
He received awards for his pro bono legal work as well as the State Department’s Meritorious Honor Award. At St. Bartholomew’s Catholic Church in Bethesda, he was council president, catechist and Eucharistic minister. He was a board member of the International Human Rights Law Group and the American University of Rome.
Delores Blount, day-care provider
Delores Blount, 74, a home day-care provider in Alexandria, Va., for 20 years who retired 10 years ago, died Jan. 7 at a health-care facility in Largo, Md. The cause was complications of covid-19, kidney failure, pneumonia and diabetes, said a son, Robert Wilson.
Mrs. Blount was born Delores Butler in Alexandria. She worked at Safeway stores for 13 years before she opened her day-care center.
Janet McGuire, hostess
Janet McGuire, 90, a hostess for the Chesapeake and Ohio Railway from 1955 to 1960 and for the United Service Organization in Manila, Rome and Atlanta from 1967 to 1974, died Jan. 16 at her home in Chevy Chase, Md. The cause was pneumonia, said a nephew, Fred Suss.
Miss McGuire was born in Latrobe, Pa. From 1960 to 1965, she taught at Draper Elementary School in Washington. In 1986, she was the first director of the Village Community Center in Friendship Heights. | null | null | null | null | null |
Sylvester “Syl” Johnson, a leading Chicago blues and soul singer, songwriter, guitarist and record producer whose music was widely sampled by top hip-hop rappers and DJs, died Feb. 6 at 85.
Parts of Syl Johnson’s 1967 single “Different Strokes” were sampled — reused in homage — on later recordings by Kanye West, Public Enemy, Jay-Z, Wu-Tang Clan, Kool G Rap, M.C. Hammer, and the Geto Boys.
“Is It Because I’m Black” — a slow soulful ballad with a reggae beat written by Mr. Johnson, Jimmy Leonard Jones and Glenn Watts — became one of the soundtracks of the civil rights movement. “The dark brown shades of my skin, only add color to my tears, something is holding me back, I wonder … is it because I’m black? Will I survive or will I die?”
The growing sampling phenomenon raised the issue of copyright and royalties. In 2012, Mr. Johnson reached a settlement with rappers Jay-Z and West over their use of elements of his track “Different Strokes” on their 2011 hit song “The Joy.” But he lost an earlier $29 million lawsuit against Cypress Hill for using parts of “Is It Because I’m Black” on their 1993 song “Lock Down” without permission.
Years later, he described himself as “a jack-of-all-trades. More soul than Marvin [Gaye[, more funk than James [Brown]. If I’d gone pop, you’d be talkin’ about me, not them. I rate right at the top, though I’ve been underrated all my life.”
The music publicist Lynn Orman Weiss said in an interview that Mr. Johnson was known “for breaking down barriers and bringing people together with their music. … He delivered ‘Blues Sermons’ before performing onstage, especially in his later years. … He liked to say ‘The Blues is the root and as long as the root is alive the Blues is alive. It’s the root to all popular music.’ ” | null | null | null | null | null |
The Path to Gender Equity: Research and Design with Sara A. Jahnke, PhD
The omission of women from research, development and design has had a significant impact on women’s safety and health. Clinical drug trials are routinely performed on men, and the personal protective gear used across frontline industries are designed for male physiques. Join Washington Post Live on Wednesday, Feb. 16 for conversations on gender equity in two areas with consequences for women.
Sara Jahnke PhD is the Director and a Senior Scientist with the Center for Fire, Rescue & EMS Health Research within NDRI-USA, Inc., a not-for-profit research firm where she also serves as the Chief Operating Officer. With over a decade of research experience on firefighter health, she has been the Principal Investigator on ten national studies as well as dozens of studies as a co-investigator. Her work has focused on a range of health concerns including the health of women firefighters, behavioral health, risk of injury, cancer, cardiovascular risk factors, and substance use with funding from the Assistance to Firefighters Grant R&D Program, the National Institutes of Health and other foundations. | null | null | null | null | null |
Bomb threats were made Wednesday against at least three D.C. public high schools and a charter school, forcing buildings to be evacuated of students and staff, according to police and school officials.
D.C. police said threats also were made against charter schools on Wednesday, but did not immediately identify them. One was Idea Public Charter School, which confirmed the threat on its Internet site.
The message from IDEA said the school, pending guidance from police, planned to open Thursday as planned, but with an increased police presence in and outside of the building.
“Our school is committed to the safety and education of all our scholars,” the statement from IDEA said. “All threats to our school or scholars are taken seriously and investigated thoroughly.”
A D.C. police official said investigators do not think the bomb threat made to Dunbar on Tuesday is related to recent threats made to historically Black colleges and universities, which have caused significant disruptions on campuses in and around the District and across the country. | null | null | null | null | null |
Nor does he seem to care. At the top of his most recent episode, Rogan summoned the evasive calm that’s become his signature while telling his listeners, “You have to be very careful to not apologize for nonsense.” The word “nonsense” came freighted with the resentment you’d expect, but you’d hardly know it from the way its two syllables slid out between Rogan’s teeth. He knows how make his anger sound relaxed, therefore justified, which is something his agitated listenership very much wants to hear. It’s the sound of a breezy bigmouth who talks like he has nothing to answer for, but who ultimately knows he has an audience to answer to. The rest of us should keep our ears sharp for it elsewhere. | null | null | null | null | null |
The move by Belarusian officials forced Andryiuk to miss a qualifying event that could have allowed her to take part in the Beijing Olympics, she told Reuters. She also lost her state job, and said she was considering seeking refuge in Poland.
Darya is one of Belarus’s top junior cross-country skiers, according to Reuters, which first reported on her flight to Poland.
Sergei told The Post that Belarus sports authorities cited what they described as unsportsmanlike conduct by Darya. But he and his daughter believe the real motivation was political. Sergei had previously received reprimands for speaking out against the government.
The move is "their way of showing they can do whatever they want,” he said. “There were no threats but I understood that there is no life for us there, Darya won’t be able to run there and her career basically ended on Dec. 27.”
The International Ski Federation website now lists Darya as “not active” and indicates that she last competed internationally in late December, in Russia.
Sergei said the family left Belarus without telling anyone and reunited in Warsaw on Monday. They are still figuring out where and how long they will stay.
Darya was supposed to finish high school this year. She told Reuters she was “upset” about having to leave and that she didn’t know how she would complete her studies in Poland. Sergei said he and his daughter still hope Belarusian authorities will lift the ban — but if not, “possibly we will consider changing our citizenship.”
Lukashenko, who has ruled the Eastern European country for nearly three decades, has taken increasingly bold steps to quash challenges to his rule. He provoked international outrage in May when he sent a fighter jet to ground a commercial plane carrying a prominent dissident-journalist. And European Union officials accused Lukashenko of weaponizing migrants over the summer as relations between the E.U. and Belarus deteriorated.
President Vladimir Putin’s support for Belarus appears to be paying off: Belarus is hosting a massive joint military exercise beginning Thursday. The event has heightened fears in the West of a Russian invasion of Ukraine.
Belarusian Olympic sprinter who sought protection in Japan granted Polish visa Listen to article 3 min
Why are so many migrants coming to one of Europe’s smallest countries? Blame Belarus, officials say | null | null | null | null | null |
Maryland man charged with murder in shooting of woman in Prince George’s, police said
A 31-year-old Maryland man has been arrested and charged in the shooting death last week of a woman with whom he had a previous relationship, Prince George’s County police said.
Marcus Mitchell of Landover is being held without bond at the county jail. He is charged with first- and second-degree murder, police said.
Authorities believe Mitchell shot 29-year-old Remi Howell multiple times on Feb. 3, 2021, and left her body in a wooded area in the 7900 block of Oxman Road in Landover. Two days later, at about 1:40 p.m. on Feb. 5, county police located the body during a welfare check.
Police are still investigating a motive for the shooting. | null | null | null | null | null |
Nor does he seem to care. At the top of his most recent episode, Rogan summoned the evasive calm that’s become his signature while telling his listeners, “You have to be very careful to not apologize for nonsense.” The word “nonsense” came freighted with the resentment you’d expect, but you’d hardly know it from the way its two syllables slid out between Rogan’s teeth. He knows how to make his anger sound relaxed, therefore justified, which is something his agitated listenership very much wants to hear. It’s the sound of a breezy bigmouth who talks like he has nothing to answer for, but who ultimately knows he has an audience to answer to. The rest of us should keep our ears sharp for it elsewhere. | null | null | null | null | null |
LOS ANGELES — Ally Sheedy’s career boasts hit movies including “The Breakfast Club” and “WarGames,” an award-wining turn in the indie film “High Art” and a string of TV roles scattered over the years.
“’How did you figure out what to do on a film set? How did you know how to do this, that or the other thing?’” Sheedy recounted. She says they’ll learn on the job, as she did, but there’s practical as well as artistic guidance she can offer. | null | null | null | null | null |
President Donald Trump shows a letter he said was from North Korean leader Kim Jong Un in January 2019. (Nicholas Kamm/AFP/Getty Images)
The chairman of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, which has jurisdiction over the National Archives, said this week that reports about torn and missing White House documents provided “a shocking example of long-standing loopholes that exist in our current federal records laws.”
Sen. Gary C. Peters (D-Mich.) said in a statement that “Congress must take action … to ensure that every administration is appropriately handling and preserving important records related to the President’s official duties.” Peters is working on legislation to strengthen records laws and plans to hold hearings on the topic in coming months, a Peters staffer said.
In January 2021, in the waning days of the Trump presidency, some administration staffers also raised flags that some of the gifts Trump had received as president still remained in the White House rather than being properly turned over to the National Archives, said two former staffers familiar with the warning, speaking on the condition of anonymity to share details of a potentially problematic practice. In the final days of the Trump administration, the packing was rushed and aides were concerned that personal items were being mixed with official items, according to former administration officials.
The concern now is that many of those gifts and other government documents improperly made their way to Trump’s private Mar-a-Lago Club in Palm Beach, Fla. This former staffer said, for instance, that after leaving the White House, Trump displayed a mini replica of one of the black border-wall slats — with an engraved plaque on top — on his desk in his private office at Mar-a-Lago. Previously, as president, Trump had kept the replica on the credenza in the private dining room just off the Oval Office, next to some challenge coins he had been given.
Trump also took with him a model of the Air Force One redesign he had proposed — replacing the Boeing 747’s iconic baby blue with a dark blue belly and a similarly dark red stripe — when he left the White House. As president, Trump displayed the model redesign of Air Force One on a table in the Oval Office; now, it sits in a similar place of honor at his private Florida club, atop a coffee table at the entrance to Mar-a-Lago’s opulent gold-plated lobby room, which guests pass through to get to the patio. | null | null | null | null | null |
Maryland Head Coach Mike Locksley has filled out his coaching staff. (Scott Taetsch for The Washington Post)
Maryland football has promoted Brian Williams to defensive coordinator after he served as the Terrapins’ outside linebackers coach, defensive line coach and co-defensive coordinator over Coach Michael Locksley’s first three seasons.
Maryland also added Lance Thompson as its inside linebackers coach and Wes Neighbors as safeties coach.
Locksley initially hoped to hire longtime NCAA assistant Kevin Steele as his defensive coordinator and had received a verbal agreement from him to join the program, but Steele backed out last week to take the defensive coordinator job at Miami.
The Terrapins are hoping to revive a defense that struggled under Brian Stewart, Williams’s co-defensive coordinator in 2021 who left the program after the season. Maryland ranked 13th of 14 teams in the Big Ten in scoring defense, giving up 30.7 points per game. The Terps also were 12th in the league with 404.3 yards allowed per game and struggled to contain some of the conference’s best teams. Maryland allowed at least 40 points in four games, all losses.
Locksley had Williams call the Terps’ defensive plays in their regular season finale against Rutgers, when Maryland needed a win to become bowl eligible. After the victory, Williams held onto that role for the bowl game against Virginia Tech, and the Terps gave up only 10 points in a 44-point victory.
Thompson comes to Maryland from Florida Atlantic, where he had served as recruiting coordinator, defensive line coach and linebackers coach. He also has served under Nick Saban at both LSU and Alabama, while Neighbors both played for and coached under Saban with the Crimson Tide. Last season, Neighbors was safeties coach at Louisiana, and he also has served on the coaching staffs at South Florida and Florida Atlantic.
Read more on the Maryland Terrapins: | null | null | null | null | null |
“U. S. Soccer had the obligation to protect its players — yet it stood by as abuse continued to occur unchecked,” the players wrote in a letter addressed to federation president Cindy Parlow Cone and former president Carlos Cordeiro. In the case of Dames and other NWSL coaches accused of abuse last year, the players alleged, the federation “failed to do the bare minimum — to keep us and the young girls who play in the youth leagues safe."
The letter, signed by top players including Megan Rapinoe, Alex Morgan and Crystal Dunn, is a sign of an increasing focus on U.S. Soccer in the wake of a wave of revelations of abuse against male NWSL coaches that began last year. U.S. Soccer oversaw the NWSL for most of its ten-year existence, and it oversees the country’s sprawling youth soccer system, licensing both youth and professional coaches.
In a statement, a U.S. Soccer spokesman said the organization shared “the concerns from the USWNT players about allegations of abusive behavior and sexual misconduct.” The spokesman said the organization had given Yates "full autonomy, access and the necessary resources to follow the facts and evidence wherever they may lead. We are looking forward to the report from Ms. Yates and her team, and are committed to making those findings public.”
A prominent soccer coach was accused of mosconduct decades ago. He rose to power anyway.
"USSF should have immediately removed coaching licenses from abusers. Instead, USSF allowed those individuals to coach while saying it would investigate,” the players wrote.
U.S. Soccer, which at the time was led by Cordeiro, investigated but did not take any action against Dames that year, allowing him to continue coaching through three more seasons. Dames resigned last year, hours before The Post published allegations by Press and other players that he had been emotionally abusive. In his statement to The Post on Wednesday, Cordeiro denied knowing about Press’s allegations while he was president of US Soccer, saying he learned of them only when The Post published its article last year.
Cordeiro is currently running against Parlow Cone for U.S. Soccer’s presidency. He stepped down in 2020 after facing widespread backlash over U.S. Soccer’s legal arguments in its equal pay case that female athletes were less skilled than men and worked less demanding jobs. He also denied being aware of the use of those legal arguments.
In a 1998 police report obtained by The Post, an Illinois police officer looking into players’ allegations against Dames said he reached out to US Soccer as part of his investigation. It’s unclear what, if any, steps U.S. Soccer took in response.
“Over the years, while we played on the USWNT and in the National Women’s Soccer League, many of us reported to USSF instances where, as adults, we experienced abusive conduct by our coaches," the players wrote in the letter. “Now we have learned that this abusive treatment also was repeatedly reported by minors and that USSF failed to respond to protect these young players. That is utterly disheartening.” | null | null | null | null | null |
Denmark's Frans Nielsen scores on a penalty shot Wednesday. (Bruce Bennett/Pool Photo via AP)
BEIJING — As soon as Denmark was awarded a penalty shot on Wednesday night, in the country’s first-ever Olympic men’s hockey game, there was no question who was going to take it. Out came 37-year-old Frans Nielsen, the first player born and trained in his home country to reach the NHL, now with another chance to do something no Danish player had ever done.
Nielsen barreled toward the net and, after a deke, backhanded the puck over Czech Republic’s goaltender for what turned into the game-winning score. “This is for sure up there,” he said after Denmark’s historic 2-1 victory, his teammates still shouting in pure Olympic joy on their walk back to the locker room. It was still hard for Nielsen to fathom how this night had fallen into place.
Just six months ago, after 15 years in the NHL, his contract was bought out by the Detroit Red Wings. He decided he would play one more year of professional hockey, but he didn’t land with an NHL team before the start of the season. He signed to play professionally in Germany instead, and that exile later came with an ironic twist — had Nielsen remained in the NHL, he would not be here in Beijing.
In December, the NHL opted to keep its players out of the Olympics because of coronavirus concerns. While the absence of the league’s stars has taken some of the luster off the tournament — there’s no Alex Ovechkin or Sidney Crosby or Connor McDavid — there are plenty of players like Nielsen who have been elbowed out of the NHL and, as a result, still have a chance to compete.
“This is a childhood dream. It all worked out for the best,” he said.
It has been a momentous week for the sport in his country: Nielsen and his teammates watched as Denmark’s women’s hockey team, which is also making its first Olympic appearance, beat the Czech Republic earlier in these Games. They followed suit in a bruising contest Wednesday.
Afterward, Danish players spoke as much about the win as they did about the legacy of Nielsen, as if the two were intertwined. In a country with only a few thousand participants in the sport, Nielsen inspired a generation of NHL players after he broke through in the league in 2007, which started a career that spanned nearly 1,000 games with the New York Islanders and the Red Wings.
“We’re a small country that doesn’t have that many participants in hockey,” forward Mikkel Boedker said. “He’s huge. He’s meant everything for the whole hockey of Denmark. First guy to be in the NHL, kind of paved the way for other guys, and now he gets to score in the Olympics.”
As Nielsen established himself in the NHL, Denmark cultivated and produced a handful of NHL players — Winnipeg Jets forward Nikolaj Ehlers, Columbus Blue Jackets forward Oliver Bjorkstrand and Washington Capitals center Lars Eller among them — but the country’s national team, which joined the International Ice Hockey Federation in 1946, fell short of qualifying for the Olympics cycle after cycle. It finally broke through by qualifying for Beijing last August, the same month that slammed the door shut on Nielsen’s NHL career, upsetting Norway, 2-0, in its qualifier.
“Just being here, being a part of the Olympics … this is a big deal for me and for everyone on that team,” Nielsen said. “We missed it so many times in a row and I knew this would be my last chance.”
The absence of NHL players could still be felt Wednesday inside a largely empty National Indoor Stadium. The teams rolled out blended rosters of college prospects, European league mainstays and NHL washouts. It has created parity for this tournament — the Russian Olympic Committee, which opened with a win over Switzerland on Wednesday, is favored to defend the gold medal it won during an NHL-less PyeongChang Winter Games in 2018 — but players can feel the difference in not having the world’s best players here.
Svrluga: The NHL skipping the Olympics makes sense — and is a crying shame
“When you’re out there playing you don’t think about it, but obviously it would’ve created a buzz and it would have been a way different atmosphere having all the biggest superstars in the world in our sport here,” said Boedker, who logged more than a decade in the NHL and now plays professionally in Switzerland. “But at the same time … it’s a privilege for us, it’s a privilege to be here. They couldn’t make it, so other guys get the opportunity to play. That’s one thing the Olympics can do: it’s for everybody.”
Nielsen was one of the country’s flagbearers during the Opening Ceremonies, and he could only hope that fans in Denmark would be watching as he prepared to take his penalty shot at the end of the first period. Only two players in NHL history have more shootout goals than Nielsen, who over the years has been known for his signature backhand in those situations. He knew he would go to it again Wednesday night.
As soon as Czech Republic’s goaltender dropped a pad, it was clear it was the right move once again. Nielsen flipped the puck in to give his team a 2-0 lead, and Denmark held off a late push by Czech Republic, which is considered a medal contender in this tournament. A little over an hour after Nielsen’s goal, his teammates mobbed him on the ice as they celebrated their win. On a night in which the NHL and Olympics hockey could not coexist, there was no place Nielsen would rather be.
“I’ve thought about that a lot, when I saw the NHL didn’t go … you always want to be in the NHL, but at the same time, it’s my last year of playing,” he said. “It would’ve been tough to miss this.” | null | null | null | null | null |
Nathan Chen's musical choices have run the gamut from “La Boheme” to “Rocketman.” (Matthew Stockman/Getty Images)
Don’t be surprised to hear Daft Punk, “Fly Me to the Moon,” the theme from “Schindler’s List” and “Jesus Christ Superstar” during the free skate. But entertainment is only a secondary goal.
“The free skate is always a bigger task,” Canadian skater Madeline Schizas said. “It’s four minutes. You have to pick something that’s fairly serious, generally speaking, that can keep everyone’s attention.”
Nathan Chen, the American bidding for a gold medal after his world record-breaking, 113.97-point performance in the short program, took piano lessons until he was 12, and he has looked to England for inspiration as he hopes to wrap up a gold medal. He’ll skate to a medley from the Elton John biopic, “Rocketman,” according to the official playlist. For his short program, he skated to “La Bohème” by singer and lyricist Charles Aznavour.
Yuma Kagiyama, Japan’s boyishly charismatic skater, had the crowd, limited as it was by coronavirus restrictions, clapping along during the short program as he skated to that old ditty “When You’re Smiling.” He had an outstanding performance, but Chen’s was nearly flawless and Kagiyama is in second place with 108.12 points going into the free skate, for which he has chosen music from the movie “Gladiator.”
Maurice Ravel’s “Bolero” soared in popularity among skaters after Jayne Torvill and Christopher Dean skated to its dramatic rhythms in a gold medal performance in 1984 in Sarajevo. Kamila Valieva, the 15-year-old competing for the Russian Olympic Committee team, used it in her performance in the team event this week, and it’s the choice for Japan’s Shoma Uno, who is in third place in the men’s competition with 105.90 points, in the free skate.
Yuzuru Hanyu, the 2018 and 2014 Olympic champion, had a disappointing short program that left him in eighth place with 95.15 points, well back of the top three. Yuzuru’s musical choice for the free skate was not released ahead of time by Olympic officials. | null | null | null | null | null |
Light to moderate snow could fall in the D.C. area on Super Bowl Sunday. However, it’s still not clear whether it will snow hard enough or be cold enough for it to amount to much and have serious effects on the region.
As in two previous storms this winter, one which produced substantial snowfall in early January and another which ended up mostly as rain later in the month, the snow is forecast immediately following very mild weather. On Saturday afternoon, less than 12 hours before the anticipated snowfall, temperatures are predicted to soar to around 60 degrees.
Here’s how much snow the various models predict right now for the District:
If the snow materializes, it would become the second year in a row snow fell in Washington on Super Bowl Sunday. Last year, a coating to a few inches of very wet snow fell across the region on the morning of Feb. 7. The flakes were enormous.
The UKMet forecasts a period of light snow but has temperatures above freezing for much of the event, meaning very limited accumulation.
One caveat about the potential evolution of this storm as that it is embedded fast-moving flow which makes it difficult for models to accurately simulate. We may not have a firm grasp on the forecast for another couple of days. | null | null | null | null | null |
Darya Dolidovich is one of Belarus’s top junior cross-country skiers, according to Reuters, which first reported on her flight to Poland.
Her father told The Post that Belarusian sports authorities cited what they described as unsportsmanlike conduct by his daughter. But the two believe the real motivation was political. Sergei Dolidovich previously had received reprimands for speaking out against the government.
The move is "their way of showing they can do whatever they want,” he said. “There were no threats, but I understood that there is no life for us there — Darya won’t be able to run there, and her career basically ended on Dec. 27.”
Lukashenko, who has ruled the Eastern European country for nearly three decades, has taken increasingly bold steps to quash challenges to his rule. He provoked international outrage in May when he sent a fighter jet to ground a commercial plane carrying a prominent dissident journalist. And European Union officials accused Lukashenko of weaponizing migrants over the summer as relations between the European Union and Belarus deteriorated. | null | null | null | null | null |
Ratings for almost every kind of TV programming have been falling in recent years, but few have slid as far, as fast or from such commanding heights as the Olympics. NBC has lost nearly half the viewers who tuned in to opening night as recently as eight years ago. Once a towering TV event, the games now look merely … popular. By comparison, the drama series “NCIS” averaged 12.6 million viewers each week last season. | null | null | null | null | null |
Sally Jenkins: NFL owners are committed to diversity — until it’s their turn to make a hire
When Flores was dismissed last month, after leading the Dolphins to an 8-1 finish and a 9-8 record, he was angered by murmurs that his firing came as a result of him being difficult to work with. On a personal level, this fight — prompted by a series of clumsily mistaken text messages that Belichick intended to send to another former Patriots assistant coach named Brian, newly named New York Giants coach Brian Daboll — was to explain that there are some requests with which he was unwilling to compromise. | null | null | null | null | null |
“U. S. Soccer had the obligation to protect its players — yet it stood by as abuse continued to occur unchecked,” the players wrote in a letter addressed to federation president Cindy Parlow Cone and former president Carlos Cordeiro. In the case of Dames and other NWSL coaches accused of abuse last year, the players alleged, the federation “failed to do the bare minimum — to keep us and the young girls who play in the youth leagues safe.”
The letter, signed by top players including Megan Rapinoe, Alex Morgan and Crystal Dunn, is a sign of a growing focus on U.S. Soccer in the wake of a wave of revelations of abuse allegations against male NWSL coaches that began last year. U.S. Soccer oversaw the NWSL for most of its 10-year existence, and it oversees the country’s sprawling youth soccer system, licensing both youth and professional coaches.
In a statement, a U.S. Soccer spokesman said the organization shared “the concerns from the USWNT players about allegations of abusive behavior and sexual misconduct.” The spokesman said the organization had given Yates “full autonomy, access and the necessary resources to follow the facts and evidence wherever they may lead. We are looking forward to the report from Ms. Yates and her team, and are committed to making those findings public.”
A prominent soccer coach was accused of misconduct decades ago. He rose to power anyway.
“USSF should have immediately removed coaching licenses from abusers. Instead, USSF allowed those individuals to coach while saying it would investigate,” the players wrote.
U.S. Soccer, which at the time was led by Cordeiro, investigated but did not take any action against Dames that year, allowing him to continue coaching through three more seasons. Dames resigned last year, hours before The Post published allegations by Press and other players that he had been emotionally abusive. In his statement to The Post on Wednesday, Cordeiro denied knowing about Press’s allegations while he was president of U.S. Soccer, saying he learned of them only when The Post published its article last year.
Cordeiro is currently running against Cindy Parlow Cone for U.S. Soccer’s presidency. He stepped down in 2020 after facing widespread backlash over U.S. Soccer’s legal arguments in its equal pay case that female athletes were less skilled than men and worked less demanding jobs. He also denied being aware of the use of those legal arguments.
In a 1998 police report obtained by The Post, an Illinois police officer looking into players’ allegations against Dames said he reached out to U.S. Soccer as part of his investigation. It’s unclear what, if any, steps U.S. Soccer took in response.
“Over the years, while we played on the USWNT and in the National Women’s Soccer League, many of us reported to USSF instances where, as adults, we experienced abusive conduct by our coaches,” the players wrote in the letter. “Now we have learned that this abusive treatment also was repeatedly reported by minors and that USSF failed to respond to protect these young players. That is utterly disheartening.”
Exclusive: Former NWSL coach Rory Dames was accused by youth players of misconduct decades ago, records and interviews show. He coached his way to power and prominence anyway. | null | null | null | null | null |
Light to moderate snow could fall in the D.C. area on Super Bowl Sunday. But it’s still not clear whether it will snow hard enough or be cold enough for it to amount to much and have serious effects on the region.
As in two previous storms this winter, one which produced substantial snowfall in early January and another which ended up mostly as rain later in the month, the snow is forecast immediately following mild weather. On Saturday afternoon, less than 12 hours before the anticipated snowfall, temperatures are predicted to soar to about 60 degrees.
Here’s how much snow the various models predict for the District:
If the snow materializes, it would become the second year in a row snow fell in Washington on Super Bowl Sunday. Last year, a coating to a few inches of wet snow fell across the region on the morning of Feb. 7. The flakes were enormous.
The UKMet forecasts a period of light snow but has temperatures above freezing for much of the event, meaning limited accumulation.
One caveat about the potential evolution of this storm is that it is embedded in fast-moving flow, which makes it difficult for models to accurately simulate. We may not have a firm grasp on the forecast for another couple of days. | null | null | null | null | null |
The congressional committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol by a pro-Trump mob has issued a subpoena to Peter Navarro, who was the White House trade adviser under President Donald Trump.
Rep. Bennie G. Thompson (D-Miss.), chairman of the bipartisan committee, said in a statement Wednesday that Navarro “appears to have information directly relevant” to the panel’s investigation. | null | null | null | null | null |
FILE - Britain’s Prince William, Duke of Cambridge, 2nd left, talks with Professor Ian Chapman, CEO of the UK Atomic Energy Authority, left, Nanna Heiberg, 2nd right, and Joseph Milnes, head of engineering design unit, right, alongside the MAST Upgrade chamber, during his visit to the UK Atomic Energy Authority (UKAEA) at the Culham Science Centre in Abingdon, southern England, Thursday Oct. 18, 2018. Prince William officially marked the end of the construction of the MAST (Mega Amp Spherical Tokamak) Upgrade Fusion Experiment. Researchers at the Joint European Torus experiment near Oxford managed to produce a record amount of heat energy over a five-second period, which was the duration of the experiment, the U.K. Atomic Energy Authority announced on Wednesday, Feb. 9, 2022. (Adrian Dennis/Pool via AP, File) | null | null | null | null | null |
Pedestrians in the Times Square neighborhood of New York, U.S., on Saturday, Sept. 4, 2021. This month, as Broadway theaters, Lincoln Center, and other stages reopen, New Yorkers will see if the city’s famous love for the arts has held strong enough to play a starring role in its economic revival. (Bloomberg)
By Amanda L Gordon, Kate Krader and Natalie Wong | Bloomberg
It looks like fundraising events and Broadway shows will have a comeback even before the spring, with the virus on the wane. All 350 tickets were already claimed for a Feb. 25 luncheon supporting playgrounds in Central Park. Sutton Foster, who’s starring in “The Music Man” when it opens on Broadway on Feb. 10, will speak as guests dine on chicken cobb salad and petit fours at the Mandarin Oriental. Plaza Suite, starring Matthew Broderick and Sarah Jessica Parker will open for previews on Feb. 25. Broadway theaters will keep its mask and vaccine mandate in place at all theaters until April 30, according to the Broadway League. | null | null | null | null | null |
Raaheela Ahmed to resign from the Prince George’s County school board
She is planning to run for Maryland Senate’s 23rd District
From left, Prince George's school board members Raaheela Ahmed, David Murray, Edward Burroughs III and Joshua Thomas in November 2018 in Upper Marlboro, Md. (Bill O'Leary/The Washington Post)
Prince George’s County school board member Raaheela Ahmed (District 5) announced Wednesday that she will resign from her post, effective Feb. 19, to run for the Maryland State Senate.
Ahmed is seeking the Senate’s 23rd District seat and running on an education platform aimed at furthering financial literacy, supporting early-childhood education opportunities and dismantling the school-to-prison pipeline, according to her campaign website. The latter is a term advocates use to refer to get-tough disciplinary practices that steer students out of schools — through suspension, expulsion or police involvement — and into the criminal justice system.
Her other platforms include initiatives that focus on universal health care, affordable housing, and criminal justice and immigration reform.
Though, she wants to see “a strong education system for the students and the families in Prince George’s County Public Schools — that is first and foremost,” she said in an interview Wednesday.
“This is about making sure that the community that has raised me, that has built me, that interested me to run and support our students — that I’m giving back to the community and standing up for the community in a way that is authentic,” Ahmed, 28, said.
Two Democratic candidates have filed in the race for the 23rd District so far, according to Maryland’s Board of Elections. One of the candidates is incumbent Ron Watson, a Democrat who was appointed to the seat in August by Gov. Larry Hogan (R) to fill a vacancy. The other candidate is Sylvia Johnson, a former research scientist from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and founder of a biomedical research consulting firm, according to her campaign website.
When Ahmed was elected to the school board in 2016, she was part of a small group of young liberal members who clashed with the board’s majority and vocally criticized then-County Executive Rushern L. Baker III (D). Their liberal bloc gained a majority in the November 2020 election and quickly moved to make changes, including hiring new staff and reorganizing committees. They also repeatedly clashed with Juanita Miller, who County Executive Angela D. Alsobrooks (D) appointed as board chair, in what became one of the board’s most divisive periods.
During her term on the school board, Ahmed worked on initiatives that would narrow achievement gaps between nonnative English speakers and native English speakers. The six-month initiative was led by a work group that issued recommendations to the school board, which eventually passed. The recommendations included provisions that would recruit international instructors that match the demographics of the school system’s students, and incorporate native language instruction for core classes. She also helped establish financial literacy as a graduation course requirement.
Ahmed’s departure — which follows that of her ally Edward Burroughs III, who resigned from the board in December to run for county council — means there will be a power shift on the board. School board member Belinda Queen, who also tended to vote with Burroughs and Ahmed, has not officially resigned but has also said she is running for county council. Alsobrooks will appoint their replacements.
Rachel Chason contributed to this report. | null | null | null | null | null |
Plastic pollution in oceans to rise for decades even with immediate action
Already at significant levels, plastic pollution will continue to grow, research review says.
A Hawksbill sea turtle found dead in the United Arab Emirates is shown with the plastic materials, top, it ate in addition to food, bottom. A review of recent research found that almost every species in the ocean has been affected by plastic pollution and that pollution will grow even with immediate action to stop it. (Kamran Jebreili/AP)
The review by Germany’s Alfred Wegener Institute, commissioned by the World Wildlife Fund (WWF), examined almost 2,600 research papers on the topic to provide an overview before a United Nations meeting later this month.
“We find it in the deepest ocean trenches, at the sea surface and in Arctic sea ice,” said biologist Melanie Bergmann, co-author of the study, which was published Tuesday.
Some regions — such as the Mediterranean, East China and Yellow seas — already contain dangerous levels of plastic, while others risk becoming increasingly polluted in the future, the study found.
As plastic breaks down into ever-smaller pieces it also enters the marine food chain, being ingested by marine life of all sizes, from huge whales to turtles to tiny plankton.
Getting the plastic out of the water is nearly impossible, so policymakers should focus on preventing more of it from entering the oceans, Bergmann said.
Some of the studies showed that even if this were to happen today, the amount of marine microplastic would increase for decades, she said.
MacLeod was involved in a separate study that also recently concluded that immediate measures are required because of the possible global impacts. | null | null | null | null | null |
This photo provided by the Audubon Nature Institute shows the baby Sumatran orangutan born on Christmas Eve 2021. The zoo in New Orleans is asking fans of endangered orangutans to help name the baby orangutan. The infant has been getting round-the-clock care since a few days after his birth because his mother wasn’t producing enough milk. (Audubon Nature Institute via AP) (Uncredited/Audubon Nature Institute) | null | null | null | null | null |
Police allegedly urged death for U.S. suspects
Several members of Italy’s Carabinieri paramilitary police force called for the deaths or beatings of two U.S. men arrested in the hours after an officer’s slaying, Italian media reported Wednesday.
A Carabinieri officer has been charged with using unjustified measures in handling a suspect, allegedly blindfolding one of the teens illegally as he awaited questioning. Phone messaging chats involving several Carabinieri hours after the July 2019 arrests of the tourists were introduced as evidence at the officer’s trial on Wednesday.
Gabriel Natale-Hjorth and Finnegan Lee Elder, 18 and 19 at the time of the slaying, were convicted last year of murder and given Italy’s stiffest punishment — life imprisonment. An appeals trial for the two is set to start Thursday.
Mario Cerciello Rega, 35, was stabbed 11 times by Elder, and his police partner was slightly injured in a scuffle with both defendants near their hotel where the Americans were staying while on holiday.
Natale-Hjorth and Elder said they were acting in self-defense against a pair of men they believed were thugs. Cerciello Rega’s partner testified that the two officers had identified themselves clearly as Carabinieri but were attacked without cause.
The officers were on a plainclothes mission to investigate an alleged extortion attempt by the suspects following a botched attempt to buy cocaine.
Shortly after being arrested, Natale-Hjorth was blindfolded as he sat for questioning.
Some messages demanded that the suspects receive the death penalty — which Italy doesn’t have — or that they be put into a closed room and killed. Another message suggested that the two be “dissolved in acid.”
Authorities ease stance on transition timeline
Mali’s transitional government has created working groups with members of West Africa’s regional bloc, the African Union and the United Nations to work toward a return to constitutional order, it said Wednesday.
The West African state was hit hard with sanctions last month after the junta that first seized power in a 2020 coup proposed extending its rule until 2025.
Its leaders have thrown out the agreed transition timeline, lashed out at European allies and condemned the measures taken by the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), but the transitional administration’s latest statement suggested it is softening its stance as sanctions start to bite.
ECOWAS leaders have said they will gradually ease the sanctions if the transitional government proposes an acceptable timetable for elections.
The consultations will take place within a dialogue group at the ministerial level and a larger working group, both of which will include members of ECOWAS, the A.U. and U.N., the Malian statement said.
Madagascar's death toll from cyclone rises to 92: The toll of Cyclone Batsirai in Madagascar has risen to 92 deaths and more than 112,000 people displaced, the national disaster management office said. Batsirai landed on Madagascar's east coast on Saturday with winds of 102 mph and peaks of 146 mph, according to the national weather department. Heavy rains caused flooding and significant damage to homes and infrastructure. The cyclone weakened as it moved southeast across the island and then dispersed.
Iran unveils missile with reported regionwide range: Iran unveiled a new missile with a reported range that would allow it to reach both U.S. bases in the region as well as targets inside archrival Israel. State TV reported that the missile uses solid fuel and has a range of 900 miles. The report said the missile has high accuracy and can defeat missile shield systems. The information has not been independently verified. Israel's closest point to Iran is 620 miles away. Iran has missiles that can travel up to 1,250 miles.
Nicaragua sentences opposition figure for 'conspiracy': A judge in Nicaragua sentenced former presidential hopeful and journalist Miguel Mora to 13 years in prison for "conspiracy to undermine national integrity." Mora was the latest opposition figure convicted and sentenced after a trial lasting just a few hours. The government of President Daniel Ortega accused Mora of having "promoted economic sanctions" and "incited foreign interference in internal affairs." Mora's hopes to run in the Nov. 7 election were truncated when Ortega ordered him and six other contenders arrested in May and June, allowing Ortega to run almost unopposed. | null | null | null | null | null |
The Zucker chapter is a reminder of the yawning gap between the way average Americans and the media elite live. It’s a chasm that has been widening for years. There’s not much overlap left. While the great unwashed struggle to survive amid social and economic unrest, anchors and many correspondents are typically comfortable millionaires who live in a pristine bubble, communing with colleagues and other elites, escaping to the Hamptons, Nantucket and other swanky watering holes to avoid germs and attend gatherings where their elbows are unlikely to ever bump into the sort of people who voted for Trump. | null | null | null | null | null |
When House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) was asked about whether she’d support a bill banning members of Congress from trading individual stocks at all, she was dismissive. “We’re a free market economy,” she said, “and they should be able to participate in that.”
But now, perhaps responding to strongly worded opinion pieces criticizing her position, Pelosi has come around. According to Punchbowl News, she’s working with other House Democrats to fashion a bill that would ban members from trading individual stocks.
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) agrees, and Sen. Jon Ossoff (D-Ga.) has already written a bill banning the practice. Even some Republicans support the idea.
Let’s ask Sen. Tuberville. “I think it’s ridiculous. They might as well start sending robots up here,” he told a reporter when asked about these proposals. “I think it would really cut back on the amount of people that would want to come up here and serve.”
Now let’s consider the unionization question. Congressional staff are treated notoriously poorly: underpaid, overworked, and subject to the whims of bosses for whom a gigantic ego is practically its own job requirement. If you interviewed in any other sector and saw every wall covered with pictures of the boss, you’d probably run. But that’s what a congressional office looks like, and Capitol Hill is full of stories of tyrannical members creating toxic workplaces.
But if you had to guess which Democrat isn’t so enthusiastic, what name would you pick? That’s right, Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia.
When asked about it, Manchin offered up word salad that seemed to indicate skepticism. He implied in a vague way that serving the people of West Virginia and having the best staff he can might not be compatible with unionization.
A different Democrat would say the opposite is true: Unions ensure good pay and fair treatment, and when staff are paid adequately and treated with respect, they perform better. Perhaps Manchin will come to a different opinion once he has had a chance to think about it, much like Speaker Pelosi did on stock trading. | null | null | null | null | null |
Opinion: The deadly threat of antibiotic resistance could be met with vaccines
Brightly colored pharmaceutical medications. (Bloomberg Creative Photos/Bloomberg)
The Jan. 29 editorial “The shadow pandemic” raised the alarm about the persistent and growing problem of infections with antibiotic-resistant bacteria worldwide. It cited a recent study, the largest survey to date, that in 2019 alone, more than 1.2 million people died of infections caused by antibiotic-resistant bacteria, more than the annual death toll from either malaria or AIDS. The editorial recommended there be “accelerated development of new antibiotics” but failed to mention an equally important effort: the development of vaccines that would prevent these infections, reduce the necessity of antibiotics and prevent the transmission of these bacteria.
The antibiotic pipeline has largely dried up, and new antibiotics, mostly modifications of existing classes of antibiotics, are likely to have a short shelf life before resistance develops. There has not been a new class of antibiotics for gram-negative bacteria in more than 40 years. In contrast, vaccines are not subject to the resistance mechanisms associated with antibiotics and already have a record of success.
Alan Cross, Chevy Chase
The writer, a doctor, is an infectious-diseases specialist. | null | null | null | null | null |
PM Update: Not as cold tonight, and it will be another warm day Thursday
A night on P Street NW. (Mike Maguire/Flickr)
On days like today, it’s not hard to believe warmer times are around the corner. Highs in the mid-50s and light winds made for one of the nicer days in a while around here. We’ve got more of that ahead Thursday and even beyond. But before we get too ahead of ourselves, there’s also that chance of snow this weekend.
Through tonight: We’ll see occasional clouds float by, mainly way up high. Lows will be near 30 in the cold spots to near 40 in the mild ones. Winds will be light from the south-southwest.
Tomorrow (Thursday): It will be another day with tons of sun and warmer temperatures. If there’s a downside, it will be the wind, but with highs in the mid- to upper 50s, it won’t be too much of a downside. Those winds will be out of the south-southwest around 10 to 15 mph, with gusts near 30 mph in the midday.
Around the corner: Spring is slowly wandering north, per the National Phenology Network. I even saw a crocus in Washington on Tuesday. Thinking spring on a day like this: | null | null | null | null | null |
The Internal Revenue Service headquarters in Washington. (J. David Ake/AP)
The private contractor ID.me says it will drop the facial recognition requirement in the identity-verification software used by 30 states and 10 federal agencies, a major reversal following a backlash due to the technology’s accuracy and privacy concerns.
The company said agencies that “procured our offline option” will be able to offer people the choice to verify their identities through a live video call or an in-person meeting with a company representative. A company spokesperson did not immediately respond to questions about whether agencies would have to pay more money for that alternative. The Treasury Department signed an $86 million, two-year contract for ID.me services last summer.
The change raises questions about whether applicants will face even more intense delays for verification. People who have gone through the video-chat process — which requires them to hold up official documents for the camera so an agent can verify them — have complained of hours-long delays and technical glitches.
Company officials told The Post last month that only 10 percent of applicants had needed the video-call option and that the company employed 966 agents who handled video-chat verification for the entire country. While this change might quickly multiply the number of people needing to pursue that option, the company has not said whether or how it will be expanding its workforce to handle the potential surge.
How the ID.me controversy might affect the continued debate within the federal government over the use of facial recognition software remains an open question.
But opposition to the use of ID.me’s facial recognition by the IRS has become one of the few areas on which Democrats and Republicans in Congress agree. A flurry of bipartisan letters from roughly two dozen members of Congress slamming federal officials for allowing “an outside contractor to stand as the gatekeeper between citizens and necessary government services” drove the IRS’s decision to abandon its plan.
There is no federal law regulating how facial recognition should be used or secured. But in the wake of the IRS developments, coalitions of legislators are calling for limitations of its use by federal agencies. Five states (Maine, Massachusetts, New York, Virginia and Vermont) and a number of cities (including Boston, Portland and San Francisco) already have passed laws banning or restricting facial recognition use by the police and other public agencies.
On Tuesday, six Republican senators — Mike Braun (Ind.), Ted Cruz (Tex.), Joni Ernst (Iowa), Josh Hawley (Mo.), John Neely Kennedy (La.) and Tommy Tuberville (Ala.) — announced they were introducing a bill that would ban the IRS from requiring taxpayers to submit face scans or other biometric data.
“We must ensure this disastrous idea is never entertained again,” Scott said in a statement.
And on Wednesday, four Democrats — Sens. Edward J. Markey (Mass.) and Jeff Merkley (Ore.) and Reps. Pramila Jayapal (Wash.) and Ayanna Pressley (Mass.) — sent letters to the departments of Defense, Health and Human Services, Homeland Security, Interior and Justice urging them to stop using facial recognition systems such as Clearview AI, which expanded its database by scraping billions of people’s photos from Facebook, Twitter and YouTube.
The ID.me stance on facial recognition also clashes with the leaders of the government’s own identity verification service, Login.gov, which has been used by more than 40 million people to access websites run by 28 federal agencies. | null | null | null | null | null |
The rules come as Microsoft is attempting to win regulatory approval for the largest deal in the company’s history
Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella, President Brad Smith and other company executives at a Washington news conference outlined 11 new principles that would apply to the company’s app stores. The rules parallel the proposals in the Open App Markets Act, a bill that Senate lawmakers recently advanced. The company committed to treat apps equally in its store, without ranking its own programs over those of others. It also said it would allow developers to use their own payment processors in its app stores, a major point of contention with developers who have criticized the large fees tech giants charge for app subscriptions and payments.
Microsoft is trying to win regulatory approval for the largest deal in the company’s history, the $68.7 billion purchase of video game publisher Activision Blizzard. The Federal Trade Commission, led by Lina Khan, is handling the deal, according to a person familiar with the matter. The deal could also face opposition from regulators abroad, with Smith noting that sign-off is required from 17 regulators around the world.
“We literally have to go around the world and help regulators understand what this acquisition means, what is the market it takes place in, and perhaps most importantly, what will Microsoft do if we have the opportunity to play a larger role in the gaming sector,” Smith said.
The executives are convening with members of Congress and think tanks while in Washington, part of an offensive designed to get ahead of regulatory action, he said. “We recognize that there will be more scrutiny of any large acquisition that’s being made by a large tech company,” Smith said. “It really behooves us to step forward quickly and proactively, and be very transparent about how we will manage this business toward competition law issues and responsibilities we have.”
Federal scrutiny of competition in the tech industry has escalated in the past two years, with President Biden naming prominent advocates for antitrust reform to key enforcement positions. On the same day that Microsoft announced its plans, the Federal Trade Commission and the Justice Department hosted a news conference about strengthening merger reviews.
Smith said Microsoft plans to adapt the Xbox app store to embrace all of the competition principles, though it will take time to do so because of technical limitations. Sarah Bond, corporate vice president of game ecosystem for Xbox, said that the company wants to enable “store-within-a-store experiences” but that it requires tech and business model innovation. | null | null | null | null | null |
A protester holds gas cans near Canada's Parliament in Ottawa on Feb. 8. (Kadri Mohamed/EPA-EFE/Shutterstock)
It’s important to note (as Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has) that most truckers are already fully vaccinated. The Canadian Trucking Alliance estimates that 10 percent of the country’s truckers have not been vaccinated. At the end of January, the government said there was “no sign whatsoever” that the recently implemented rule had reduced cross-border carriage.
The energy on the political right has led to the spread of false claims about the protest on social media. CNN’s Daniel Dale documented several, including the assertion that 50,000 trucks had participated in the protest. That would constitute a line of trucks more than 500 miles long, which obviously didn’t happen. Numerous images have also circulated that purport to show the protest, but, in reality, show past, unrelated events.
Part of the reason for this is to make the protest seem far bigger than it is. Consider the column written by the Toronto Sun’s Joe Warmington at the end of last month. Titled “Which poll on support for trucker vaccine mandates do you believe?” his column contrasted the Maru poll mentioned above, a “professional [poll] with a select panel of participants,” with “the reaction of tens of thousands on social media.” Not being familiar with Warmington’s politics, I assumed this was a joke about the tendency to assume that online energy was a useful measure of support, which it isn’t. But the column is not a joke. By exaggerating the scale of and support for the protests, the right, especially in the United States, is indirectly exaggerating the scale of support for similar opposition here. | null | null | null | null | null |
SoFi Stadium in Inglewood, Calif., will host Super Bowl LVI on Feb. 13, 2022. (Morry Gash/AP)
So I threw scenarios at Stabbe. With the first, I asked what might happen if I tweeted a link to The Post’s subscription page with the lure, “Buy The Washington Post the day after the Super Bowl to see the score.” And his unsatisfying answer was: nothing.
“The real question still is whether or not that’s trademark infringement or what’s called ‘nominative fair use,’” he said. “You can use someone else’s trademark to refer to them when there’s basically no other way to refer to them and it’s not misleading; [when] it’s clear you’re talking about the third party, you’re not trying to brand yourself. So to me? In my humble opinion? If you bury Super Bowl in the middle of a declarative sentence, and you don’t draw attention to it, that’s not trademark infringement.”
At its heart, the question is money. If the NFL thinks that your use of “Super Bowl” infringes on the financial agreements it has in place or on its potential to effect future lucrative agreements, you will have a process server on your doorstep before you finish typing “SUPER.” The word “thinks” is the crux of that sentence; as noted, the league takes an expansive view of this. Churches charging a fundraising fee for a Super Bowl party, for example, is a slippery slope toward … uh … something that affects the bottom line, apparently. Someone filing for a trademark for a charity bowling event — “Superbowling Spectacular” — faced opposition from the league because step one is you raise money for nonprofits with a bowl-a-thon, step two is [??], and step three is the NFL goes bankrupt. It’s almost too obvious. | null | null | null | null | null |
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) shifted her public position Wednesday on banning lawmakers and their spouses from owning and trading individual stocks, saying more readily that she would support a ban if members of her caucus wanted to do so.
In January, Pelosi signaled that she could be open to a ban but seemed reluctant.
“I just don’t buy into it, but if members want to do that I’m okay with that,” Pelosi told reporters then.
On Wednesday, Spanberger said Pelosi appeared to sidestep the fact that there is already bipartisan legislation gaining traction in the House.
Spanberger also noted that Pelosi did not outwardly endorse a ban on lawmakers trading stocks, and when asked directly, she also “didn’t speak to the necessity that the ban include spouses.” Pelosi’s husband has been highly active in trading stocks, Business Insider has reported, citing financial disclosure reports.
“I think she spoke very broadly about reforms that need to be made,” Spanberger said. “She looped in staff members, she looped in the judiciary — she basically created a behemoth of an issue that to me signals that maybe the intent is to just talk about this for a lot longer, when there is a bipartisan bill that continues to get more and more co-sponsors every single day.”
“There are a number of senators with various proposals, and I have asked my Democratic colleagues to come together and come up with a single bill this chamber can work on,” Schumer said Wednesday. “Some of the proposals … have bipartisan support. So this is something that the Senate should address. Hopefully we can act on it soon, and hopefully it can be done in a bipartisan way like many of the bills we are looking at this week.”
Spanberger said it is clear that the issue has broad bipartisan support and that she did not want to see a study of it drag on longer than necessary.
“The idea that we wouldn’t actually take action is something I find unacceptable,” Spanberger said. “So I’ll continue to beat the drum on this legislation. And I’ll continue to be very vocal when there may be hand-waving attempts at addressing what is a real issue rather than bringing forth legislation that would really meaningfully address it.”
Asked about a possible ban Wednesday, White House press secretary Jen Psaki said it was “early in the legislative process” but pointed out that President Biden did not own or trade stocks while he was a senator.
“He also believes that all government agencies and officials, including independent agencies, should be held to the highest ethical standards,” Psaki said. “I would just reiterate how the president has operated and conducted himself as he has been in public life for just a few years now.” | null | null | null | null | null |
Maryland owes prison staff nearly $500,000 in overtime
A U.S. Labor Department investigation found that Maryland shortchanged correctional officers and other staff at the Jessup Correctional Institution by nearly a half-million dollars in wages over a two-year period.
The federal labor department mailed notices last month, one of which was reviewed by the Baltimore Sun, to correctional officers to tell them they had been underpaid by the state in violation of the federal Fair Labor Standards Act. That law established the minimum wage, requirements for overtime pay and record-keeping, and youth employment standards.
Joanna Hawkins, a spokeswoman for the Labor Department’s Philadelphia regional office, said the investigation determined that Maryland owes past and present Jessup Correctional Institution correctional officers $468,238.87.
Mark Vernarelli, a spokesman for the Maryland Division of Correction, said the issue was discovered as part of an internal review that “included an audit by the U.S. Department of Labor.” He said management improperly required employees to get a supervisor’s signature on an overtime form when they were held over after the ends of their shifts to cover for late shift changes.
Jessup Correctional is a maximum-security facility that is transitioning to medium security, according to the Maryland Manual, the official guide to state government. It has the capacity for 1,800 inmates.
Olaniyan said prison staff members at Jessup and other state prisons routinely work past their quitting time to deal with issues, brief their relief on problems or cover for workers who arrive late.
Patrick Moran, president of Council 3 of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, said state prison officials sent a systemwide memo in August ordering changes to how management recorded overtime but have yet to acknowledge keeping full wages from the members’ paychecks. The AFSCME council represents correctional officers and tens of thousands of other state workers in Maryland.
“I think they tried to sweep it under the rug,” said Moran, who contended that union leaders have raised the issue repeatedly to the state in the past. “They finally got busted with their hands in the cookie jar, and now they’re going to have to pay.”
The August memo from Department of Public Safety and Correctional Services Secretary Robert L. Green was obtained by the Sun. In the memo, Green ordered that the “automatic rounding of shift assignments . . . will cease” and directs timekeepers to only “manually adjust” an employee’s records in the agency’s timekeeping system with the approval of “an authorized supervisor” and with an accompanying note explaining the reason for the changes.
Vernarelli noted that because the department operates multiple correctional facilities statewide, “there has to be uniformity in policy and procedures. The department wanted to ensure that everyone was following the same policy.”
The memo appeared to have fixed the timekeeping issues and employees have been paid properly since, Olaniyan said. He added that the union will “continue monitoring because we can’t trust the system right now.”
“We showed up for work and followed the process and believe it’s fair for everybody to follow the process,” said Olaniyan. “We just want to be paid from the time [the state] began stealing our time. . . . We want justice and a proper investigation.”
Asked about whether the internal review revealed any individual wrongdoing, whether anyone was disciplined as a result of the investigation and the union allegations that timesheets were intentionally manipulated, Vernarelli said the department’s investigation is ongoing.
“There have been no disciplinary actions because at this time, there has been no evidence calling for discipline,” he said. | null | null | null | null | null |
SoFi Stadium in Inglewood, Calif., will host Super Bowl LVI on Feb. 13. (Morry Gash/AP)
So I threw scenarios at Stabbe. With the first, I asked what might happen if I tweeted a link to The Washingotn Post’s subscription page with the lure, “Buy The Washington Post the day after the Super Bowl to see the score.” And his unsatisfying answer was: nothing.
“The real question still is whether or not that’s trademark infringement or what’s called ‘nominative fair use,’ ” he said. “You can use someone else’s trademark to refer to them when there’s basically no other way to refer to them and it’s not misleading; [when] it’s clear you’re talking about the third party, you’re not trying to brand yourself. So to me? In my humble opinion? If you bury Super Bowl in the middle of a declarative sentence, and you don’t draw attention to it, that’s not trademark infringement.”
At its heart, the question is money. If the NFL thinks that your use of “Super Bowl” infringes on the financial agreements it has in place or on its potential to affect future lucrative agreements, you will have a process server on your doorstep before you finish typing “SUPER.” The word “thinks” is the crux of that sentence; as noted, the league takes an expansive view of this. Churches charging a fundraising fee for a Super Bowl party, for example, is a slippery slope toward … uh … something that affects the bottom line, apparently. Someone filing for a trademark for a charity bowling event — “Superbowling Spectacular” — faced opposition from the league because step one is you raise money for nonprofits with a bowl-a-thon, step two is [??], and step three is the NFL goes bankrupt. It’s almost too obvious. | null | null | null | null | null |
Mitch McConnell has at least picked a side in the brewing internecine GOP conflict; McCarthy, as usual, just hopes it goes away
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) and House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) address reporters outside the White House in May. (Drew Angerer/Getty Images)
Say what you will about Sen. Mitch McConnell, when it comes to Jan. 6, he has staked out a position that is decidedly not where the Republican Party as a whole is right now.
As we wrote earlier Wednesday, McConnell has placed himself on something of an island:
Exactly why McConnell — a pragmatic politician, if there ever was one — has done this is a very valid question. But there’s little disputing that the easy political course would be to attack the Jan. 6 committee, cast doubt on the severity of the attack that day, and play footsie with the election-truthers like plenty of others have.
To be clear, McConnell voted against Donald Trump’s impeachment (on a technicality) and fought the creation of a bipartisan Jan. 6 commission. But he has also provided perhaps the most significant counterpoint to his party’s attempts to downplay and revise the history of Jan. 6. He also staked out a clear position on Trump’s culpability for Jan. 6 and hasn’t backed off it — unlike his House counterpart, Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.).
McCarthy’s attempt to guide his party’s admittedly-more-unwieldy House contingent through the Trump era has long been torturous, but this week has really driven it home.
But apart from that, McCarthy has laser-focused on not getting nailed down on virtually any of this stuff. He recognizes, rightly, that doing so is a recipe for disaster, either way.
So he deputized a top House Republican to negotiate a bipartisan 9/11-style commission and then, after a deal was reached, pulled the rug out from underneath it. He suggested a censure of Trump and said Trump was responsible for not calling off the mob quickly enough on Jan. 6, before dropping that argument like a bad habit. And now he has dragged his feet on punishing Cheney and Kinzinger, allowing the RNC to do that dirty work last week — and he still won’t say whether it was the right thing to do.
It’s surely a strategy of necessity more than anything. McCarthy knows he’s damned if he does and damned if he doesn’t. Attempting to lead much of anything in today’s GOP is a fool’s errand, so you might as well be along for the ride and hope you can hold on long enough to grab hold of some power and get some things done. | null | null | null | null | null |
The demographics of the people fatally shot have remained largely constant since The Post started tracking after police in Ferguson, Mo., killed Michael Brown in 2014, gathering information from news coverage, social media posts and police records. Although the FBI launched its own data collection program to track police use of force in 2019, a lack of participation by departments has put that program’s existence at risk.
Sixteen percent of people fatally shot last year were killed after police responded to a domestic-disturbance call. Eleven percent were fatally shot after someone called 911. (Data on racial demographics were too incomplete to provide meaningful analysis. Such data can require additional months of research to finalize.)
The relative stability of the annual number of fatal shootings does not mean the total is unchangeable. Wheeler said societal interventions, like new policies around use of force, could shift the total from its expected range.
“The data’s consistent with that (range) now,” he said, “but that doesn’t mean that you can’t do stuff to reduce those incidents over time.” | null | null | null | null | null |
The demographics of the people fatally shot have remained largely constant since The Post started tracking after a police officer in Ferguson, Mo., killed Michael Brown in 2014, gathering information from news coverage, social media posts and police records. Although the FBI launched its own data collection program to track police use of force in 2019, a lack of participation by departments has put that program’s existence at risk.
Sixteen percent of people fatally shot last year were killed after police responded to a domestic-disturbance call. Eleven percent were fatally shot after someone called 911. (Data on racial demographics was too incomplete to provide meaningful analysis. Such data can require additional months of research to finalize.)
The relative stability of the annual number of fatal shootings does not mean the total is unchangeable. Wheeler said societal interventions, such as new policies around use of force, could shift the total from its expected range.
“The data’s consistent with that [range] now,” he said, “but that doesn’t mean that you can’t do stuff to reduce those incidents over time.” | null | null | null | null | null |
Shortly before 1:30 p.m. on Feb. 1, authorities said, Painter and Jefferson were responding to a call about a suspicious man on the grounds of Bridgewater’s Memorial Hall. “After a brief interaction … the subject opened fire and shot both officers,” a Virginia State Police spokeswoman said. The alleged gunman, identified as a former Bridgewater student, Alexander Wyatt Campbell, 27, of Ashland, Va., has been charged with multiple murder counts and is being held in a local jail. | null | null | null | null | null |
Inside a vehicle, Contee said, they found a female passenger who had been struck by gunfire and was gravely injured. She died a short time later at a hospital. Her name and age have not been released.
Police said there was at least one other person inside the vehicle at the time. Contee said they “were not the intended targets of the shooting. Someone was shooting at someone else, and as this car passed through this location, a stray round apparently went through this vehicle.”
It was not immediately clear whether the vehicle was moving when it as struck.
There were at least four other shootings in the District on Wednesday morning and afternoon. None appear to be related, police said, and those victims all were expected to survive. A 16-year-old boy was shot and critically wounded Tuesday night in Southeast Washington. | null | null | null | null | null |
Consequently, right now, the fates of Multiracial Multicultural Social Fuller-Democracy and the Democratic Party are conjoined in the United States — and that’s a big problem for Multiracial Multicultural Social Fuller-Democracy. Because to prevent further erosion, Bush/Romney Republicans will have to back most Democratic candidates. And Democrats and independents will need to turn out to vote in large numbers in 2022 and 2024, the way they did in 2018 and 2020. Bush/Romney Republicans are understandably resistant to voting for Democrats, since they disagree with them on many core policy issues. And many Democrats and independents who voted for congressional Democrats and Biden are understandably frustrated with the party’s governing failures and may not be eager to vote for them again.
And that’s why it appears increasingly likely that Republicans will win the 2022 and 2024 elections, even under our current election rules. Once in power, however, expect Republicans to speed down their chosen semi-democratic path. | null | null | null | null | null |
These reflections are stirred by the death last weekend of Todd Gitlin, one of the world’s truly good, thoughtful and committed people. Gitlin was president of SDS from 1963 to 1964 and wrote the best account of the era in which he played an important role. “The Sixties,” published in 1987, captured a kaleidoscopic time in rich detail, but it was also great because Gitlin was so honest, self-reflective and self-critical.
It declared flatly: “The primary source of this danger is one of our two major national parties, the Republican Party, which remains under the sway of Donald Trump and Trumpist authoritarianism.” The Republican National Committee all but ratified this claim last week, when it voted — the day before Gitlin died — for the already-infamous resolution describing the violent rampage at the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, as “legitimate political discourse.” | null | null | null | null | null |
Toyota said Wednesday that it was facing “shortages affecting production at our North American plants,” including in Canada, but the Japanese automaker said it did not “anticipate any impact to employment at this time.”
Magna International, an Aurora, Ontario-based supplier of vehicle components including chassis and seats, said it had shifted some of its shipments to alternative border crossings because of the bridge obstruction.
White House press secretary Jen Psaki said administration officials were working with their Canadian counterparts and industry executives to ease the damage to the auto industry, U.S. agricultural exports and the flow of workers between the United States and Canada.
At the Ambassador Bridge, one lane across the Detroit River remained open on Wednesday, permitting limited traffic to trickle into the United States. Trucks bound for Canada are being rerouted to the Blue Water Bridge in Sarnia, Ontario, about 60 miles away. Given the crush of vehicles and resulting delays in Sarnia, the longer route is adding three hours to the trucks’ customary journey, Wildeboer said.
Martinrea is a “Tier 1” industry parts maker, meaning it directly supplies giants such as GM, Daimler, Bentley and Honda. Headquartered in Vaughan, Ontario, the company has almost 16,000 employees, including about 5,000 production workers in the United States and 2,500 in Canada.
“We make big stuff,” Wildeboer said. “We can’t keep production going and have stuff piled up in our yards. The yard would be full in a day and a half.”
Nearly two years into a pandemic that has upended normal life, Wildeboer is sympathetic to protesters’ frustration over the Canadian government’s requirement that truckers be vaccinated. If it were up to him, he would scrap the mandate, since 90 percent of Canada’s truckers have already been vaccinated, and the rest could easily be assigned to domestic routes.
During the pandemic, the auto industry has endured a roller coaster of plant closures, the worst sales slump since the 2008 financial crisis, an unanticipated recovery and surprising shortfalls of computer chips needed in modern vehicles.
Although conditions improved in the last three months of the year, new supply headaches are constantly emerging. Last week, one of Wildeboer’s customers managed to secure the computer chips it needed but was forced to shut down for three days anyway because it couldn’t obtain enough vehicle headlights, Wildeboer said. | null | null | null | null | null |
Mr. Trump broke the law. After President Richard M. Nixon’s resignation, Congress passed a number of laws intended to preserve the integrity of documents and other materials from Nixon’s presidency, and made the laws applicable to all future presidents. The Presidential Records Act of 1978 ended the practice of records belonging to former presidents and declared that the United States shall “reserve and retain complete ownership, possession, and control of presidential records.” The law requires a president to “take all such steps as may be necessary” to make sure the records are preserved — an important pillar of accountability in a democracy and also essential for historical understanding of the presidency. | null | null | null | null | null |
Consequently, right now, the fates of Multiracial Multicultural Social Fuller-Democracy and the Democratic Party are conjoined in the United States — and that’s a big problem for Multiracial Multicultural Social Fuller-Democracy. Because to prevent further erosion, Bush/Romney Republicans will have to back most Democratic candidates. And Democrats and independents will need to turn out to vote in large numbers in 2022 and 2024, the way they did in 2018 and 2020. Bush/Romney Republicans are understandably resistant to voting for Democrats, since they disagree with them on many core policy issues. And many Democrats and independents who voted for congressional Democrats and Biden are understandably frustrated with the party’s governing failures and might not be eager to vote for them again.
And that’s why it appears increasingly likely that Republicans will win the 2022 and 2024 elections, even under our current rules. Once in power, however, expect Republicans to speed down their chosen semi-democratic path. | null | null | null | null | null |
South Carolina officer charged with manslaughter in the shooting, killing of unarmed man
Police officer charged in fatal shooting
A small-town police officer of nearly 30 years in South Carolina was charged Wednesday in the shooting and killing of an unarmed man who led her on a high-speed chase and then tried to run from his wrecked car, investigators said.
Hemingway police officer Cassandra Dollard, 52, faces one count of voluntary manslaughter in the shooting early Sunday after she chased the driver eight miles outside the limits of the town of 530 people.
Dollard told investigators that she feared for her life but also said she didn’t see a weapon in Langley’s hands, according to the arrest warrant. No weapon was found at the scene, state agents said.
Investigators showed the family dashboard camera footage of the shooting Wednesday morning, family attorney Bakari Sellers said.
Langley, 46, didn’t have any arrest warrants and made no action that would have led the officer to fear she was going to be killed, Sellers said. Langley and the officer are both Black.
Langley, a father of 10 who just became a grandfather, worked at a chicken processing plant, his family said.
Dollard has been a police officer for all but one year since 1994, according to South Carolina Criminal Justice Academy records. She has worked for six agencies and been fired twice.
Former 'Idol' star charged in fatal crash
In a 911 call, Parris’s daughter can be heard screaming for help, and Kennedy can be heard on the tape saying he was sorry as he held the dying man inside the shop, the solicitor said. Parris was later pronounced dead at a hospital.
Kennedy told deputies that he had visited a friend before the crash and took “a deep draw” from a vaping device and then felt the effects of it while he was driving, Barnette said.
Kennedy was also on prescription medication, and “we think there may have been a bad reaction to that,” his lawyer said. No alcohol was involved, Beasley told the Associated Press.
Kennedy is being charged as an adult with the crime, which is a felony, the prosecutor’s office said. The judge denied bond for Kennedy.
Kennedy, whose hometown is listed as Roebuck, just south of Spartanburg, advanced into the top 5 of the ABC talent show last year but dropped out of the singing competition after a video circulated of him sitting next to someone wearing what appeared to be a Ku Klux Klan hood.
Mother who fatally abused girl sentenced
A Colorado mother who fatally abused her 7-year-old daughter and lied about her health to get handouts from charities worth at least $100,000 was sentenced Wednesday to 16 years in prison.
Judge Patricia Herronh issued the sentence after Kelly Turner pleaded guilty in an agreement with prosecutors last month to child abuse resulting in the 2017 death of the girl, Olivia, and to charitable fraud and theft.
Gunman kills 2, later crashes into school bus
Two people were shot and killed in a home in Pennsylvania’s capital early Wednesday by a man who led police on a car chase that ended with him crashing into a school bus carrying several students, authorities said. No children were injured.
The gunman drove away from the scene and police followed, authorities said. The chase ended not long after, as officers deployed a spike strip across the road to stop the man’s vehicle shortly before he crashed into a school bus in Londonderry Township.
The 31-year-old man’s name has not been released, and it wasn’t clear if he was injured. | null | null | null | null | null |
Transcript: “Capehart” with Al Franken
MR. CAPEHART: Good afternoon. I’m Jonathan Capehart, opinion writer for The Washington Post. Welcome to the Capehart podcast on Washington Post Live. As I said, I am Jonathan Capehart.
My guest today was made famous by his role as a writer and performer on "Saturday Night Live" for three decades. But he turned his political activism into a political career, serving as a United States senator from the great state of Minnesota for 10 years. It is his time in that august chamber that provides the comedic fodder for his "The Only Former U.S. Senator Currently on Tour" tour. He is Al Franken.
Senator Franken, welcome to "Capehart" and Washington Post Live.
MR. FRANKEN: Well, thank you, Jonathan, for inviting me.
MR. CAPEHART: And a reminder to our audience, we want you to join our conversation, so please tweet your questions and comments to the handle @PostLive.
So, Senator Franken, as I do with anyone who has had the guts to run for elective office and ask people to vote for them, I always use their titles, whether they are current or former, but would you mind if I call you Al?
MR. FRANKEN: Uh, yes. No.
MR. CAPEHART: You wouldn't?
MR. FRANKEN: Your producer asked me before, and I said, "Call me Al."
MR. CAPEHART: Well, okay. All right, Al. So what inspired--
MR. FRANKEN: --[unclear] very well.
MR. CAPEHART: No, no. They did. I just wanted the audience to know, because they told me--
MR. FRANKEN: You can all me anything, pretty much.
MR. CAPEHART: So Al, what inspired the "Only Former U.S. Senator Currently On Tour" tour?
MR. FRANKEN: What inspires me now?
MR. CAPEHART: Well, what inspired you to do it?
MR. FRANKEN: Well, what inspired me to do the tour?
MR. CAPEHART: Yeah.
MR. FRANKEN: Oh, okay. I love comedy. That's where I started. I actually never really did a single standup tour. I used to comedy with Tom Davis, who we went to high school together and we were two of the original SNL writers. We did 15 seasons there, not 3 decades, but we did it over 2 decades. We left for 5 and came back.
So Tom and I toured as a team, but I've been a big fan of really great standups all my life, and, you know, people--there's a million of them. But people like Carlin and, you know, Lenny Bruce, and Richard Pryor, all those people, and I really admire great standups.
MR. CAPEHART: You know, I do too.
MR. FRANKEN: And I started working out at a place called the Comedy Cellar in Greenwich Village about a year ago, and just trying to get my chops going, and then went on tour in September. I did 15 cities. I did D.C. I did the Warren Theater down there. And I am about to go on and do 16 more cities starting in a week or so.
MR. CAPEHART: Wow. I love the fact that you went back to go to--you said the Comedy Cellar--
MR. FRANKEN: Yeah.
MR. CAPEHART: --to get your chops back. Did it take you longer than you expected to get your chops back?
MR. FRANKEN: Oddly, no, but, I mean, I don't even know if it was chops back, because I had really not done a single. But, you know, I've been public speaking for a long time, and I have been, you know--so no, it was actually fun right away. And I had actually, before the pandemic, gone on the road a little bit, and that was more--a little bit of a different format, more of speech-answering questions kind of thing. But this was really, I just seriously said, okay, you are going to do standup, Al. Let's see if you can do that.
MR. CAPEHART: So then, Al, what material do you cover in this show, and how are you folding the stranger-than-fiction current events into your comedy?
MR. FRANKEN: Well first of all it's comedy, and so, you know, people shouldn't come expecting a lot of, you know, just commentary. I am trying to honor standup comedy. So it's about laughs. But I do talk a lot about what's going on now in this country in terms of our governance. I think you are going to be asking me about the Senate and stuff like that. I do talk a lot about the people I served with and what that was like, and also, of course, about some of the conflicts that we're seeing right now. So it's a mix of stuff.
MR. CAPEHART: All right. Well, let's just talk about it. So who do you talk about in your tour? Like who really gets broiled?
MR. FRANKEN: Cruz. I have a thing called the Ted Cruz section of the show, because there's so much to say. Yeah, I have always said about Ted is that I probably like Ted Cruz more than most of my colleague like Ted Cruz, and I hate Ted Cruz. So I just explain why, and I talk about--I tell a number of stories and they're all pretty unbelievable.
There is a reason people don't like him. I mean, Lindsey Graham said if someone killed Ted Cruz on the floor and they had a trial in the Senate no one would convict them.
MR. CAPEHART: Right.
MR. FRANKEN: You know, and he's kind of right. So I tell some pretty interesting stories about Ted.
MR. CAPEHART: And I knew this, that Ted Cruz takes up a lot of time in your set, in your tour, but who do you broil who most folks wouldn't think you would make a joke about them?
MR. FRANKEN: Well, I do joke about some of my Democratic colleagues, but it's nothing, nothing like Ted.
MR. CAPEHART: Well, nothing like Ted Cruz.
MR. FRANKEN: It's more affectionate kind of stuff about them. I mean, you know, I talk about Bernie having to--you know, I've known Bernie for a long time. I campaigned for him when he was in the House. And, you know, he's sort of had the same stump speech for 30 years, which is [affecting], "This country is run by the millionaires and billionaires." And then I talk about the time he--it turns out he's a millionaire, because he sold a number of best-sellers, not number one New York Times best-sellers like I have. And it was just his time, having to adjust from, "This country is run by the mill--billionaires and multi-billionaires." You know, and it was just having him try not to say millionaires. You know, remember he had that heart attack in November, in the beginning of the 2020 cycle, and a lot of people would say to me, "Well, oh well, I sit for Bernie, and I guess --." Are you kidding? I said, "Bernie has more energy than anyone I know," and I said, "Remember Cheney? He had like 12 heart attacks during the Bush administration, and he had three artificial hearts, two of which rejected him." So there you go.
MR. CAPEHART: [Laughs] Hey, Al, you got me to snort there, in public.
MR. FRANKEN: Hey, that kind of snorting is fine in public.
MR. CAPEHART: As you well know, the intersection of comedy and politics can be fraught. Do you think we are overly sensitive today when it comes to some comedy or all comedy? Are we taking comedy too seriously?
MR. FRANKEN: Yeah. I mean, yes, people are way too sensitive about everything, and it's a problem. And what I think is kind of funny is Republicans complain about woke, and now they're going to actually make it possible for parents to sue teachers in Florida--this is what DeSantis wants to do--for making a child feel discomfort.
MR. CAPEHART: Oh yeah.
MR. FRANKEN: So you can't basically--I mean this is obviously about critical race theory, which is not taught in K through 12 and it's not taught in college. It's taught in law school. And it's just--it's treating our kids--it's going to make it impossible to teach kids in Florida, which is a disservice to kids. You know, when I was growing up, when I was in school, I had right-wing teachers, I had left-wing teachers, I had teachers who were racist and anti-Semitic, I had great teachers. I could tell the difference. I could deal with it. And, you know, also have to be able to talk about the stuff, and I think people are just afraid to talk about things now. And it's on both sides. It goes both ways, obviously.
MR. CAPEHART: You know, on that Florida bill, I wrote a column on Tuesday about the discomfort bill and how idiotic it is, and they are trying to bubble-wrap kids from being challenged about our nation's history.
But let's move from comedy and talk about the situation that Whoopi Goldberg is in. You recently came out in defense of Whoopi, who--
MR. FRANKEN: It wasn't exactly--it certainly wasn't in defense of what she said. I just said that she--I think she didn't really understand--she basically said that she didn't think, you know, the Holocaust was about race, and of course, of course, of course the Nazis believed my people were a race, that Jews are a race. And this is actually part of, if you look at what critical race theory is, it says that race is sort of a social phenomenon. It's what people impose on it.
So, you know, in this country Italians were once not white-white--you know what I mean?--and now they are. And so all this is sort of in our heads, and I think that Whoopi got confused, and it was a dumb or ignorant thing to say. But I think she genuinely was apologetic, and I had no problem with what they did at The View or ABC. Two weeks off is a fine thing, I think. I don't know what the policy has been in the past on things like that.
MR. CAPEHART: Right. So you agree with what ABC did in terms of suspending Whoopi Goldberg. I am wondering if you have any concern about what that kind of suspension--
MR. FRANKEN: [Audio distortion] I would have been fine if they didn't. I know they had someone from the ADL on, the head of the ADL on. I think that was a really good thing. And so I was just saying I don't know what their policy has been when a host or other people on the show have made that kind of mistake.
MR. CAPEHART: Mm-hmm. You know, I don't know if you know this about me but I went to Carleton College in Northfield, Minnesota.
MR. FRANKEN: Oh really?
MR. CAPEHART: Yes.
MR. FRANKEN: Great school.
MR. CAPEHART: It's a fabulous school, and I see you have Mr. Wellstone behind you, and Paul Wellstone, the late senator from Minnesota, was one of my political science professors. That was my major.
MR. FRANKEN: He was amazing, wasn't he?
MR. CAPEHART: He really was.
MR. FRANKEN: Yeah. He--the reason I ran for the Senate was Paul, because Paul died in a plane crash, as you know, in 2002, and just about two weeks before that election, and Coleman ended up winning it. I won't get into some of the stuff that happened right before it in terms of the memorial funeral for him, service for him, and how that was mischaracterized. But Norm Coleman, a few months after being in the Senate, was interviewed by Roll Call and said that he was a 99 percent improvement over Paul Wellstone. And that's when I said, "Who the hell is going to run against this guy?" And that got into my head and then I ended up clobbering him by 312 votes.
MR. CAPEHART: Right. And it took a while to certify that election, which happened in November 2008, and it was certified in, what, June of 2009?
MR. FRANKEN: Yeah, right at the end of June. Now I actually won the recount in January. I won the recount in time to be seated. The Republicans didn't want me there because I ended up being the 60th vote, so they did everything they could to stop me from getting there.
MR. CAPEHART: Right. So Al, I have to ask you about, you know, what led to you leaving the Senate. And it's been four years since you resigned. In 2019, seven current and former senators told The New Yorker that they regretted forcing you out of office. You have also said that you regret resigning. Why?
MR. FRANKEN: Well, I think those seven--now there are nine of them--I have had two since publicly apologize, which is unusual, you know, to get nine senators publicly apologizing for something. They didn't give me--they made it impossible for me to get due process. And I think if you read in the New Yorker--I don't know, did you read the New Yorker article?
MR. CAPEHART: I did not read The New Yorker article.
MR. FRANKEN: Okay. Well, I would hope people would who are interested in this, because it puts a lot of perspective on it. No one investigated this. No one at The Washington Post investigated it. No one at The New York Times investigated. No one did any investigation of this at all. And I had 36 of my colleagues demand that I leave, and I didn't get due process, and it was a pretty awful experience for me and my family.
And Jane Mayer, whom you know, right--
MR. CAPEHART: Mm-hmm.
MR. FRANKEN: --one of the great investigative reporters in our country, actually did an investigation. And one of the people who apologized since was Dick Durbin, and he apologized as soon as he read the article. And people who are interested in this, like yourself, really should read that.
MR. CAPEHART: Okay. I will do that. Of course, we are talking about your resignation over allegations of sexual harassment. I want to read something that feminist author Laura Kipnis said about the 2017 #MeToo fallout that, quote, "There was failed distinction making and political expediency and the impossibility of sorting motives from facts. That's what's starting to get unraveled now."
I'd love your thoughts about how you are unraveling the #MeToo movement, and how this shaped your life the last four years.
MR. FRANKEN: I don't want to spend a lot of time on this, because it's very complicated. But let's say that that's pretty accurate, and that I--you know, this is very, very difficult for me and for my family, and, you know, I do appreciate the nine who have come to me and apologized. Those are public. I've had others apologize to me and won't go public.
And they--I think a lot of people come up to me all the time and say, "That was ridiculous," and, you know, I don't want to discuss it here, right now. How's that?
MR. CAPEHART: That's fine. That's fine. All I do is ask questions. You can answer them or not answer them.
Now, of course, Senator Kirsten Gillibrand was the one who led that effort to get you to leave the Senate. You recently said that you would not run for Gillibrand's seat in the Senate. But this leads to a Twitter question that came in, that asks, "Are you going to run again?" Do you have it in your bones or in your blood to jump back into the political arena and run for elective office again?
MR. FRANKEN: I don't know. I certainly loved my time in the Senate. I loved the job. I got a lot done. I was able to accomplish things I couldn't accomplish anywhere else, I don't think. So yeah, it would be tempting to try to do that again.
MR. CAPEHART: Mm-hmm. At some point.
MR. CAPEHART: Perhaps.
MR. FRANKEN: I'm only 70, so I've got--let's see. Grassley's running for reelection.
MR. CAPEHART: So you've got all the time in the world--
MR. FRANKEN: I do.
MR. CAPEHART: --to run again.
MR. FRANKEN: You know that when someone is 87 and they won't stand up--even though he denounced Trump early on, then he hugged him on the stage--you know that if he won't kind of go down on principle at 87 he's not going to do it at probably any other time.
MR. CAPEHART: So we've gotten to my list of questions here that was getting into political stuff. We talked about the discomfort bill in Florida. You jumped ahead on that. But, you know, you're a former politico. What grade would you give President Biden?
MR. FRANKEN: I think grading people is kind of silly. Asking the question, perfectly valid.
MR. CAPEHART: Okay. All right. So you're not going to answer the question. So don't grade him. What do you think of how he's done so far? It's been a year and a month.
MR. FRANKEN: Well, he's had some ups and downs. What I hope is, is that by November he'll have accomplished a lot of things, including a lot of the elements of Build Back Better. Because I think that there's been a little bit of a disservice, and it's been all around, in terms of, especially in the media, of instead of--I think the Washington media does this a lot, which is it gets into inside baseball and horse race and doesn't cover the content of these bills.
So what I would suggest now for the Senate is for Chuck Schumer and for the rest of my Democratic colleagues and former colleagues there is to put the elements of Build Back Better onto the floor, at least the ones that Manchin and Sinema at least would consider backing. For example, Manchin has said he is for expanded pre-K, universal pre-K. That would be a great thing. Americans would be for that. You put that on the floor, Americans want that, and if Republicans vote against it, if we don't get 60 votes, we put it in a reconciliation package. But at least Americans know what we're fighting for.
The same on extending--or subsidies for childcare. That would be wildly popular. You know, in Europe the average country subsidizes the average kid $14,000 for childcare, and in the United States we do $500. $500. And that would be wildly popular. It would also make sure that people could go to work, that moms could go to work or dads could go to work, and actually would help maybe bring down a little bit of the inflation on salaries and wages, because more people would be able to go out into the workforce.
There's a whole bunch of stuff like this. Getting costs down on prescription drugs, on insulin, on child tax credit. My God. If you put that out there--and I don't understand why we just don't put one after the other out there so the American people can see what the elements of this are, because if they did, we could pass this stuff. And I wish it had been done sooner. I wish that some of this stuff, people could see the results of it before November. But I think people will see what Democrats are for, and it would help us a lot in November.
MR. CAPEHART: So Al, you know, they say that times flies when you're having fun, and time has flown. We've got maybe about three minutes left.
MR. FRANKEN: I wasn't having fun. Now I am. Okay.
MR. CAPEHART: All right. So Al, the last question is another Twitter question that has come in from Miriam E. Tucker [phonetic]. She asks a question that was going to be my final question, and I think a lot of people are wondering, and it is this: "Al, has there been discussion of you hosting SNL or possibly even returning to the cast?" And then I have another one.
MR. FRANKEN: I [audio distortion] in the cast. I was a featured player. I was there for so long that people, in their brains, think I was a cast member, but I was what was called a featured player. And so I don't think that's going to happen. I think that I'm too old to be a cast member now. And also they have a pretty big cast, and a pretty good cast. So, you know, yeah, I don't think that's in the cards.
MR. CAPEHART: All right. And here is the final question. Her question didn't go where I thought it was going, but this one does. Before your tour kicked off you said that you wanted your audience--no, not that one. There are rumors--this is the question. There are rumors about Lorne Michaels retiring. Lorne Michaels, the legendary and long-time executive producer of Saturday Night Live. Would you want to go back to Saturday Night Live as executive producer?
MR. FRANKEN: I don't think so. That's a very--that might be a pretty hard and thankless job, taking Lorne's shoes at this point. And I also think there are other people probably who have been doing that and have been around that. You know, Seth Myers, although he probably wouldn't want to do it because he's got his own great show. But there are people that are working there now, in some capacity as producers. So that's not--I don't think that's in the cards either.
MR. CAPEHART: But if they came to you and said, "Hey, we'd like to have a discussion," would you take that meeting?
MR. FRANKEN: I'd say, "Come on. [Audio distortion] What are we talking about, guys?" I'm probably the only one that could do it. Yeah, I'd have a different negotiating posture than I just had, and I would ask you not to let that out, let people see that. Is this live?
MR. CAPEHART: Yeah. Well, we'll cut that part out.
MR. FRANKEN: [Unclear] there on that negotiation.
MR. CAPEHART: Well, Al, thank you. Former Senator from Minnesota, now on your "The Only Former U.S. Senator Currently on Tour" tour. Thank you so much for coming to Capehart on Washington Post Live.
MR. FRANKEN: Oh, well thank you. Thank you, Jonathan.
MR. CAPEHART: And I should say you have your own podcast as well, "The Al Franken Podcast."
And thank you for joining us. To check out what interviews we have coming up head to WashingtonPostLive.com. Once again, I’m Jonathan Capehart, opinion write for The Washington Post. Thanks for watching “Capehart” on Washington Post Live. | null | null | null | null | null |
“They are getting into the room and they’re getting the interviews,” Goodell said. “In fact, they’re exceeding anything in the Rooney Rule, as far as the interviews. What we want to try to see is the outcomes, right? We want to see Black head coaches in the NFL — coaches and people of color and eventually gender.” | null | null | null | null | null |
Figure skating live updates Nathan Chen continues his quest for gold in men’s free skate
For Mexico’s Donovan Carrillo, the dream is real
The men’s free skate is underway in Beijing
Without a quad, Evan Lysacek was last American man to win individual Olympic gold
Nathan Chen controls his own destiny
Here’s when the top skaters will perform
A skater’s choice of music is personal and important
Nathan Chen delivered a cathartic performance with his short program
The stage is set for the men's free program in Beijing. (Jae C. Hong/AP)
The world is watching Nathan Chen, who returns to Olympic ice today for the men’s figure skating free skate at the Beijing Games. The American skating phenom is on the cusp of becoming Team USA’s first Olympic gold medalist in the men’s discipline since the 2010 Vancouver Games.
Chen skated a dominant short program earlier this week, earning a first-place score of 113.97. His rival, two-time gold medalist Yuzuru Hanyu of Japan, enters the free skate in eighth place. Chen will skate shortly after 12:15 a.m. Eastern.
Follow along for live updates and highlights from the men’s figure skating free skate.
What to know about the men’s free skate
The men’s free skate, the second phase of the men’s figure skating competition, is underway. Chen is the final skater, scheduled to begin at 12:18 a.m. Much of the competition will air live on NBC; it can also be viewed on NBCOlympics.com or Peacock.
Two-time gold medalist Yuzuru Hanyu is scheduled to skate in the third of four groups, around 11:14 p.m. Eastern (12:14 p.m. in Beijing). American Jason Brown, who enters in sixth place, will skate around 11:38 p.m. Chen’s nearest competitors, Japan’s Shoma Uno (12:02) and Yuma Kagiyama (12:10), are the final two skaters before Chen.
Skaters are looking to attain at least 200 points to be competitive. Chen, who is armed with an unequaled war chest of quadruple jumps, is capable of scoring around 225.
Chen's four-minute long program is not traditionally Olympic. He will skate to a medley from the Elton John biopic, “Rocketman.”
Find more live updates from the Beijing Games here.
BEIJING — Earlier this month, Donovan Carrillo, Mexico’s first Olympic figure skater in 30 years, walked into the Opening Ceremonies of the Beijing Olympics beside a skier named Sarah Schleper. Together they carried their country’s flag.
The men’s free skate is underway in Beijing, where American Nathan Chen takes a nearly six-point lead into the second and final phase of the competition. As the leader, Chen will skate last (12:18 a.m. Eastern) and have the benefit of knowing precisely how much he needs to risk to clinch the gold medal.
The 24 men who advanced to the free skate are competing in reverse order of their finish in Monday’s short program, so there aren’t any medal contenders in the first group that took the ice at 8:30 p.m. ET. But there is plenty of earnestness, emotion and promise on display among these potential figure-skating stars of tomorrow. And NBC analysts Johnny Weir and Tara Lipinski are masters of diplomacy, finding something encouraging to highlight while pointing out shortcomings.
If Nathan Chen can hang on to his nearly six-point lead to win Olympic gold, he’ll become the first American individual skater to stand atop the Olympic medal podium since Evan Lysacek at the 2010 Vancouver Games.
Lysacek, now 36, edged Russia’s Evgeni Plushenko for gold (by 1.31 points) without performing a quadruple jump, while Plushenko landed quads in both his short and long programs. The judges’ decision to emphasize Lysacek’s artistry over Plushenko’s athleticism spurred controversy, particularly in Russia.
While the tension between artistry and athleticism endures 12 years later, the notion of a “quad-less” men’s Olympic champion is implausible. Virtually all medal contenders flaunt several quads, with American Jason Brown a notable exception. He’s sixth after a short program of artistic brilliance.
Coming in with a five-point cushion from the short program, Nathan Chen truly commands his destiny in Beijing. The final phase of the competition is typically where he shines because he has an additional minute to pop off the big quadruple jumps. And his scheduled program layout only underscores how much this competition hinges on how his own performance — no one else’s.
Chen plans on performing five quadruple jumps, using four different entrances. If he lands all those jumps cleanly, the number of points he can accrue would create an all-but-insurmountable score.
What’s unclear is whether Chen will stick to this plan. His technical proficiency allows him to substitute one jump for another on the fly, and Chen is known to utilize that option.
Because he will be able to see his competitors perform before he takes the ice, Chen will know precisely what he needs to do to win the event. If other skaters falter, he might opt for easier jumps and skate conservatively to protect his lead. If an earlier skater performs extraordinarily well, Chen might opt to do something more spectacular to steal the show and ensure victory.
BEIJING — Athletes will skate in backward order of how they finished in the short program, so all the medal contenders will go toward the end of the competition. American star Nathan Chen has the best score heading into the free skate, so he is scheduled to close the event at 12:18 a.m. Eastern (1:18 p.m. in Beijing).
Yuzuru Hanyu, Japan’s two-time Olympic gold medalist, had a major error in the short program and is in only eighth place. He could still climb back toward medal position with a strong performance. He skates at 11:14 p.m. Eastern.
Skaters are split into four groups of six, and the final group begins at 11:38 p.m. Eastern. American Jason Brown, who’s in sixth, goes first, followed by Georgia’s Morisi Kvitelashvili, South Korea’s Cha Jun-hwan, Japan’s Shoma Uno, Japan’s Yuma Kagiyama and Chen.
Scores from the short program and free skate are cumulative. Chen (113.97) has nearly a six-point cushion over Kagiyama (108.12) and Uno (105.90). Uno won the silver medal in PyeongChang four years ago.
Les Carpenter: In early warm-ups, Nathan Chen looked relaxed. He skated around the ice with a final group that included fellow American Jason Brown and Japan’s Yuma Kagiyama and Shoma Uno. He wore black warm-up pants and a blue warm-up shirt while the others were in their costume. He looked like a basketball player in a pregame shoot-around. When his free skate music played on the arena speakers he loosely skated through his routine, cleanly landing all his jumps. Later, he went off-script a bit throwing in silly dance moves to others’ music. More significantly, he did not wear a mask today. He has worn a mask in all his practices and warm-ups here as an extra precaution against getting the coronavirus. But with this his last competition of the Games, there was no need to worry about a positive test anymore.
Les Carpenter, Olympics reporter
BEIJING — There was a moment in the middle of Nathan Chen’s short program, early Tuesday afternoon, when the nerves went away and the American skating star was certain he was doing something brilliant on the Capital Indoor Stadium ice.
Looking back, he is sure it was following the quadruple Lutz and triple toe loop that he landed perfectly. They were the last jumps he had to hit, the last significant risks of falling and ruining another Olympics like the one four years ago in PyeongChang — the last potential disasters that weren’t going to happen this time.
And when Chen’s program was over, he didn’t need to wait for his first-place score of 113.97. He knew he had won the day. His rival, two-time gold medalist Yuzuru Hanyu of Japan, had stumbled himself, headed to eighth place entering Thursday’s free skate. Chen’s path to the gold had been cleared. He closed his eyes, clenched his teeth and pumped his fist. All that was missing was the emphatic scream of “yes!” that must have been exploding inside. | null | null | null | null | null |
Keith Humphreys, an addiction researcher at Stanford University School of Medicine, said that researchers haven’t found that providing glass pipes works as intended, in part because of the difficulty of tracking infectious diseases spreading among drug users. But addiction, like other health problems, requires solutions beyond cures to reduce suffering, he said.
“Harm reduction as a practice and as a philosophy is all about helping people make informed and safer decisions,” Vakharia said. “It’s about saying, ‘This is a place where we accept you for who you are and here are the tools for you to help stay safe while you’re smoking, and in addition, we’ve got condoms, and we can teach you about identifying someone overdosing, and here’s naloxone.’” | null | null | null | null | null |
“They are getting into the room, and they’re getting the interviews,” Goodell said. “In fact, they’re exceeding anything in the Rooney Rule, as far as the interviews. What we want to try to see is the outcomes, right? We want to see Black head coaches in the NFL — coaches and people of color and eventually gender.” | null | null | null | null | null |
Keith Humphreys, an addiction researcher at Stanford University School of Medicine, said researchers haven’t found that providing glass pipes works as intended, in part because of the difficulty of tracking infectious diseases spreading among drug users. But addiction, like other health problems, requires solutions beyond cures to reduce suffering, he said.
“Harm reduction as a practice and as a philosophy is all about helping people make informed and safer decisions,” Vakharia said. “It’s about saying, ‘This is a place where we accept you for who you are and here are the tools for you to help stay safe while you’re smoking, and in addition, we’ve got condoms, and we can teach you about identifying someone overdosing, and here’s naloxone.’ ” | null | null | null | null | null |
This image provided by the Costa Mesa, Calif., Police Department shows a 1962 Chevy II Nova owned by Green Day frontman Billie Joe Armstrong. Thieves made off last weekend with Armstrong’s pearl white-finish Nova in Costa Mesa, south of Los Angeles. Acting on tips, authorities found it abandoned Tuesday night, Feb. 8, 2022, in El Modena, an unincorporated Orange County area about 10 miles away, police said. However, two electric guitars and an amplifier that were in the car are still missing. (Costa Mesa Police Department via AP) (Uncredited/Costa Mesa Police Department)
COSTA MESA, Calif. — Green Day front man Billie Joe Armstrong won’t have to walk that Boulevard of Broken Dreams anymore. His beloved vintage car has been found. | null | null | null | null | null |
FILE - This photo provided by the North Korean government shows missiles during a military parade marking the ruling party congress, at Kim Il Sung Square in Pyongyang, North Korea on Jan. 14, 2021. Independent journalists were not given access to cover the event depicted in this image distributed by the North Korean government. The content of this image is as provided and cannot be independently verified. Korean language watermark on image as provided by source reads: “KCNA” which is the abbreviation for Korean Central News Agency. (Korean Central News Agency/Korea News Service via AP, File) (Uncredited/KCNA via KNS) | null | null | null | null | null |
Maryland women win sixth straight with rout of Wisconsin, brace for a brutal stretch run
What to know from the Terrapins’ 70-43 win
Maryland's Diamond Miller shoots between Wisconsin's Brooke Schramek and Julie Pospisilova during Wednesday's win at Xfinity Center. (Katherine Frey/The Washington Post)
The Maryland women’s basketball team wasted little time in determining the outcome against Wisconsin on Wednesday night, opening a commanding lead in the first quarter and rolling to a 70-43 triumph in College Park.
Behind four players scoring in double figures, including game highs of 19 points and nine rebounds from forward Angel Reese, the No. 15 Terrapins (18-6, 10-3 Big Ten) extended their winning streak to six games and defeated Wisconsin for the 11th time in 11 all-time meetings.
They also permitted their fewest points this season and forced Wisconsin to shoot 14 for 41 from the field (34.1 percent). The previous low point total for an opponent against the Terrapins came during an 81-45 win on the road against James Madison on Nov. 14.
“When we’re using our length, our size and our athleticism and scrambling, we’re really hard on the defensive end,” Maryland Coach Brenda Frese said. “I liked our effort and our energy. You see some of that length with Angel coming out and how hard it is when we’re contesting every single shot that goes up.”
Maryland’s swarming defense forced the Badgers (6-17, 3-10) into 26 turnovers, equaling a season high, that led to 27 points for the Terrapins, who finished plus-13 in points off turnovers. They used their superior length to compile a 32-16 advantage in points in the paint as well as 19-3 in second-chance points.
The Terrapins also collected a season-high 17 steals, giving them double-digit steals in four of the past five games and eight of the past 11.
Chloe Bibby scored 16 points and had a game-high five steals for Maryland, which shot 55.6 percent in the first half. Shyanne Sellers chipped in 12 points, five rebounds, four steals and two blocks in the Terrapins’ second consecutive game without ailing guard Ashley Owusu, a first-team all-Big Ten selection last season.
“Definitely love where our chemistry has been built,” Frese said. “We’ve improved defensively in some areas where we really needed to improve on. Our rebounding has definitely cleaned up as well. Obviously we shared the basketball really well with the different lineups we had in there.”
Feinstein: Bob McKillop, in his 33rd year at Davidson, shows no sign of slowing down
The competitive portion of the game concluded when Maryland finished the first quarter on a 16-2 barrage that featured three-pointers from Bibby, Katie Benzan and Sellers that produced a 22-8 margin on the way to a 41-22 advantage at halftime in a game the Terrapins led for all but 57 seconds.
The lead swelled to as many as 29 when Bibby’s third and final three-pointer made the score 61-32 with 8:49 remaining in the fourth quarter.
Brooke Schramek led Wisconsin with 16 points and five rebounds but committed seven turnovers. Katie Nelson (11 points) was the only other Badgers player to score in double digits.
“As Coach said, we have to be able to adjust every game,” Bibby said. “Some nights it’s going to be the post, a big guy, and then other nights it’s going to be a guard on the perimeter. I thought our guards did a great job feeding it in, and then Angel inside is an awesome passer, so if she’s not going to get a bucket out of it then she’s going to make a great pass and a great play.”
Momentum builds
The Terrapins are bracing for what figures to be a defining close to the regular season with four straight games against ranked opponents — starting Monday at No. 25 Iowa, which features Caitlin Clark, the country’s leading scorer.
Maryland entered the week fourth in the conference but has an opportunity to collect a regular season series split against first-place Michigan, second-place Indiana and third-place Ohio State. The Terrapins lost by an average of 11 points in their first meetings with those teams.
“We’ve been able to use this stretch to build confidence with the adversity that we’ve hit, to be able to rebuild some of those rotations and our lineups,” Frese said. “It’s been a good stretch for us to now be prepared to get ready to go on the road and face Iowa.”
Owusu is day-to-day
Owusu, Maryland’s second-leading scorer at 14.3 points per game, remains day-to-day, according to Frese, with a right ankle sprain suffered Thursday during a 67-62 win at Michigan State. She was in a walking boot during Sunday’s victory over Nebraska.
The Big Ten freshman of the year in 2020, a former Paul VI standout, was out of the boot Wednesday while watching the game from the bench with her ankle taped inside of her shoe. | null | null | null | null | null |
“I just was so proud of myself. I had the worst practice, ever,” Kim said. “I probably landed my run twice when I’m used to landing it eight times normally. And so that kind of puts you in a weird head space, and it just felt so inconsistent. I was like, I don’t want to feel all this pressure of not being able to land my first safety run, so I was just overflowed with emotion when I was able to land it on the first go, and then it opened up a lot of opportunity for me to go try something new.”
Queralt Castellet of Spain took silver with a score of 90.25 and Japan’s Sena Tomita captured bronze with a run that scored 88.25, both securing hardware with their second run scores.
“I find it inspirational that everyone’s out there progressing the sport as well,” Kim said, noting that could clearly see progression in her competitors’ runs from four years ago despite the gap between her and the rest of the field. “...It’s such an honor to be part of this sport and help progress women’s halfpipe snowboarding.”
Her second gold will be easier to handle this time around.
“I am more prepared this time. Luckily, it was a learning experience the last time, but I think now that I’ve grown up a little more, and I understand boundaries, and I have an amazing therapist,” she said. “So I think it’ll make the journey a lot more doable for me.” | null | null | null | null | null |
“I just was so proud of myself. I had the worst practice ever,” Kim said. “I probably landed my run twice when I’m used to landing it eight times normally. And so that kind of puts you in a weird head space, and it just felt so inconsistent. I was like, ‘I don’t want to feel all this pressure of not being able to land my first safety run,’ so I was just overflowed with emotion when I was able to land it on the first go, and then it opened up a lot of opportunity for me to go try something new.”
Queralt Castellet of Spain took silver with a score of 90.25 and Japan’s Sena Tomita captured bronze with a run that scored 88.25, both securing hardware with their second-run scores.
“I find it inspirational that everyone’s out there progressing the sport as well,” Kim said, noting that she could clearly see progression in her competitors’ runs from four years ago despite the gap between her and the rest of the field. “... It’s such an honor to be part of this sport and help progress women’s halfpipe snowboarding.”
Her second gold will be easier to handle.
“I am more prepared this time. Luckily, it was a learning experience the last time, but I think now I’ve grown up a little more, and I understand boundaries, and I have an amazing therapist,” she said. “So I think it’ll make the journey a lot more doable for me.” | null | null | null | null | null |
British Prime Minister Boris Johnson will visit the NATO headquarters in Brussels on Thursday. He is also scheduled to head to Warsaw for meetings with Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki and President Andrzej Duda. British Foreign Secretary Liz Truss is also in Moscow for talks.
Kyiv’s political leadership has argued that the deal, focused on the breakaway parts of eastern Ukraine, should be renegotiated. It is widely regarded by Ukrainians as favorable to Moscow-backed separatists, and Ukrainian officials have said it would trigger internal unrest if fully implemented. | null | null | null | null | null |
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