Off to the dance Academy Awards Carlson unfiltered

Howard men make Top two nominees Fox host’s texts

the NCAA tourney are polar opposites about Trump $119
for the first time in generational contradict on-air
since 1992 Sports appeal Arts & Style rhetoric Page A12

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Prices may vary in areas outside metropolitan Washington.

A p.m. shower 46/40 • Tomorrow: Morning showers 47/35 C12 Democracy Dies in Darkness sunday, march 12 , 2023
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Grindr app Asylum seekers are stuck in squalid camps in Mexico, struggling to use
Customs and Border Protection’s new app to enter the United States
Bailout
data mined debated
to expose
gay priests in bank
Colo. group legally paid
collapse
millions in a new frontier
of private surveillance calls grow for aid
to big depositors
BY M ICHELLE B OORSTEIN
Government rescue may
AND H EATHER K ELLY provoke public backlash
A group of conservative Colo-
rado Catholics has spent millions BY J EFF S TEIN
of dollars to buy mobile app AND T ONY R OMM
tracking data that identified
priests who used gay dating and Federal officials faced growing
hookup apps and then shared it pressure Saturday to bail out even
with bishops around the country. the biggest customers of the col-
The secretive effort was the lapsed Silicon Valley Bank, ignit-
work of a Denver nonprofit called ing a ferocious political debate
Catholic Laity and Clergy for Re- over Washington’s role in tamping
newal, whose trustees are philan- down potential threats to the
thropists Mark Bauman, John broader U.S. financial sector.
Martin and Tim Reichert, accord- Tech executives, former gov-
ing to public records, an audio ernment officials and at least two
recording of the nonprofit’s presi- Democratic lawmakers called for
dent discussing its mission and safeguarding depositors with
other documents. The use of data money at stake in the collapse if a
is emblematic of a new surveil- buyer for the bank’s assets isn’t
lance frontier in which private found by Monday, arguing that it’s
individuals can potentially track the only way to limit a cascade of
photos by Sergio Flores for The Washington Post
other Americans’ locations and bigger problems.
activities using commercially Companies that did business
available information. No U.S. with Silicon Valley Bank are al-
data privacy laws prohibit the
sale of this data.
The project’s aim, according to
tax records, is to “empower the
church to carry out its mission”
At the border, a technology wall ready warning that the bank’s fail-
ure may force thousands of layoffs
or furloughs, and prevent many
workers from receiving their next
paycheck.
by giving bishops “evidence- BY A RELIS R . H ERNÁNDEZ in MATAMOROS, Mexico Some experts worry that large
based resources” with which to numbers of companies could
identify weaknesses in how they move to transfer their money from

I
train priests. t was supposed to be his last about 50 families, including his. regional banks similar to SVB to
In response to requests for day in Mexico. The 7-year-old They’d all made appointments safer giant commercial banks
comment and a detailed list of Venezuelan boy beamed as he online as family units. But agents Monday, leading to a fresh round
questions, a spokesperson for bade farewell to his teacher, were now enforcing a rule requir- of destabilization.
Catholic Laity and Clergy for Re- Liliana Carlos, at a school for ing each child to register individ- A move to make Silicon Valley
newal initially said the group’s migrant children living in tents ually. Bank’s depositors whole without a
president, Jayd Henricks, would while waiting for their chance to “We are never going to leave,” buyer would probably require
agree to an interview at a certain enter the United States. Carlos recounted the boy telling Congress to pass legislation draw-
time, but Henricks did not call or His family, finally, had ob- her as she ushered the wailing ing on an insurance fund paid into
return several messages seeking tained an appointment in Febru- child into an alcove known as the by all banks and backed by U.S.
comment. After The Washington ary with U.S. Customs and Border “calm corner.” taxpayers — a fund that typically
Post reached out again, Henricks Protection after weeks of trying to As the Biden administration only covers deposits up to the
on Wednesday posted a first-per- use a new app to secure a slot. struggles to bring order to the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp.’s
son piece on the site First Things, Now they hoped to be allowed border, some of the most vulner- limit of $250,000. But more than
saying he was proud to be part of to begin a new life in America. No able migrants are finding them- 90 percent of SVB’s accounts were
the group, whose purpose was “to more sleeping on the ground. No selves stuck in squalid camps in over that limit. Critics of using the
love the Church and to help the more threats of kidnapping. No Mexico. A significant number are fund to help larger depositors ar-
Church to be holy, with every tool more watching his mother cry. seeking asylum in the United gue that it would establish a trou-
she could be given,” including But instead of the safety his States and were expecting the bling precedent, leading other
data. He wrote that the group has family longed for inside the Unit- TOP: A migrant encampment in Matamoros, Mexico, sanctuary of the nation’s immi- banks in similar circumstances to
done other research, in addition ed States, the boy returned to the across the border from Brownsville, Tex. ABOVE: A gration law, which allows mi- expect federal authorities to
to the analysis of dating and Sidewalk School, inconsolable, migrant in Reynosa, Mexico, trying to book an grants fleeing persecution to re- swoop in and save them as well.
hookup apps. his teacher recalled. CBP officials appointment with U.S. Customs and Border Protection quest protection no matter how see Bank on A8
The Post interviewed two peo- on the border bridge sent back through the CBP One app finds the time slot already full. see Border on A10
ple with firsthand knowledge of SVB: After bank’s failure, start-ups
see App data on A18 are scrambling to pay workers. A8

‘It’s like turning the clock back to the Soviet years’ After Hurricane Ian, insurers
Russian antiwar artists and activists defy state censorship with underground exhibitions cut payouts for Fla. residents
BY R OBYN D IXON around a pool filled with palm
fronds.
ST. PETERSBURG — The meeting Some claims diminished The home, which belongs to
place to visit the exhibition is an by more than 80%, retired couple Terry and Mary
anonymous bus stop opposite a Sebastian, sits on a canal in Ro-
snowy park in the Russian city of
Post investigation finds tonda West, Fla., a coastal com-
St. Petersburg at nightfall. There munity that bore the brunt of Ian
are no tickets and no website when the storm made landfall on
promoting the show — a secret, BY B RIANNA S ACKS Sept. 28. The entire place would
underground display of antiwar need to be dehumidified, the roof
protest art. FORT MYERS, Fla. — When in- completely replaced, the insula-
A few people gather, eyes flick- surance adjuster Jordan Lee en- tion torn out and the tattered pool
ing from one face to another. A tered the cream-colored house enclosure rebuilt. It would be
thin artist with skinny black battered by Hurricane Ian, the about $200,000 to repair the
pants, a dark puffer jacket and a smell from the rain-soaked carpet damage, the licensed adjuster cal-
black shawl covering her hair made it hard to breathe. Piles of culated in his estimate for Heri-
strides up, nods subtly and tells pink insulation covered the worn, tage Property & Casualty Insur-
us to turn off our cellphones to white couches, he recalled, and ance Co.
avoid tracking by security agents. poured from the collapsed ceil- But when Lee checked in on his
Amid President Vladimir Pu- ing, left gaping from the storm’s report about 10 days later, his
tin’s crackdown on human rights 150 mph winds. He photographed stomach dropped, he said. It had
activists, lawyers and journalists, debris flecked on the carpet and been drastically whittled down,
Russian antiwar artists are going walls, chunks of roof in the yard, with entire portions, such as the
underground, reprising the co- and broken screens and gutters see Insurance on A14
vert exhibitions of Soviet times,
meeting in secret and passing on
details by word of mouth.
For some, going underground Did you spring ahead?
is liberating. For others it is a
painful choice, as the regime Mary Gelman/Vii for The Washington Post Daylight saving time began
stifles public dissent and por- The work of artists seeking to avoid arrest and prosecution is displayed in February at a covert antiwar at 2 a.m. Clocks should

7
see Russia on A13 exhibition in St. Petersburg. Some of the art had previously been seized by Russian authorities. be moved forward one hour.

Arts..................................................................E1 Classifieds.....................................................g7 Metro...............................................................c1 Weather ........................................................ c12

CONTENT © 2023
book world....................................................B1 Comics......................................................Insert Obituaries.......................................................c7 World News..................................................a16
The Washington Post / Year 146, No. 53422
Business..........................................................G1 Editorials/Letters...................................... a23 Travel .............................................................. f1
A2 EZ RE the washington post . sunday, march 12 , 2023

Tennessee congressman
Andrew Ogles’s résumé
is too good to be true
“That is the state of
politics in
America today.
They want power
and control so
badly that they are
The Fact willing to say and
Checker do anything to get
Glenn there. If you don’t
Kessler have the integrity
to just be you and
run on what
you’ve done, then I don’t want you
in Congress. And so that’s how I
present myself to you.”
— Rep. Andrew Ogles (R-
Tenn.), speaking to supporters
while running for election, July
23
Ogles, a newly elected member
of Congress, has been the subject
of news reports by a Nashville
television station for having
exaggerated his background.
When Ogles was one of the
holdouts to approving Rep. Kevin
McCarthy (R-Calif.) as House
speaker, he claimed he was “an
economist” — a claim he has
made several times — along with
other embellishments. But
NewsChannel 5 in Nashville
found that he had taken only one
course in economics, at a
community college, and received
a C. Ogles first entered college in
1990 and did not get a degree
until 2007.
Now The Fact Checker has
uncovered more evidence of
résumé inflation by Ogles — this
time about his business career —
KLMNO
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that sheds light on a politician
who said in his recent
congressional campaign that you
shouldn’t be in Congress “if you
don’t have the integrity to just be
you and run on what you’ve
done.”
Our reporting shows that
Ogles’s résumé enhancement is
not a recent development. In a
2009 résumé submitted for a job,
he claimed numerous roles with
businesses and on boards of
organizations that were
exaggerated or could not be
corroborated. A consulting firm
he claimed to run from 2003 to
2010 cannot be found in
Tennessee corporate records.
Indeed, during his various bids
for public office in this period,
local newspapers described him
as a restaurateur, not a business
consultant.
Ogles now tends to skip over
this period of his past. His
LinkedIn page lists job history
starting only in 2011, when he was
about 40. In a January ­C-SPAN
interview, when asked what he
did before he came to Congress,
Ogles said: “I was an
entrepreneur young in my career.
Fast-forwarding to my midlife
crisis, I was in law enforcement
and international sex crimes.”
As NewsChannel 5
documented, Ogles was sworn in
as a volunteer reserve deputy
with the Williamson County
Sheriff’s Office in July 2009 but
lost that position two years later
for not meeting minimum
standards, making no progress in
field training and failing to attend
required meetings. The
“international sex crimes”
referred to a part-time position as
chief operating officer of an anti-
trafficking group, Abolition
International, that paid a total of
$4,000 in 2011, according to the
tax filing of the organization.
We sent a long list of questions
to Ogles’s communications
C o r r ec ti o nS
l The Dining review of The
Bazaar restaurant by José
Andrés in today’s Arts & Style
section, which was printed in
advance, incorrectly said the
location of the chef ’s next Bazaar
will be Los Angeles. The
restaurant will open in New
York.
The Washington Post is committed to
correcting errors that appear in the
newspaper. Those interested in
contacting the paper for that purpose
can:
Email: corrections@washpost.com.
Call: 202-334-6000, and ask to be
connected to the desk involved —
National, Foreign, Metro, Style, Sports,
Business or any of the weekly sections.
Comments can be directed to The
Post’s reader advocate, who can be
reached at 202-334-7582 or
readers@washpost.com.
Reps. Andrew Ogles (R-Tenn.), center, and Tom Emmer (R-Minn.) in the House during voting in the speaker election on Jan. 6.
director and then to his staff
director but did not get a
response.
In response to the
NewsChannel5 coverage, his staff
had said that he had condensed
his résumé on the campaign trail
and that the reporting was fueled
by political bias. In a statement,
Ogles acknowledged he had
wrongly claimed to have earned a
college degree in international
relations.
Now let’s look at his
entrepreneurial claims, using a
2009 résumé originally posted by
NewsChannel5 that covers the
period now not listed on Ogles’s
LinkedIn bio. (Ogles has not
disputed that this is his résumé.)
Consulting business
Ogles lists impressive
achievements as an executive at
E. Net Media & Consulting of
Nashville from 2003 to 2010. (The
résumé says he was an executive
vice president, but his 2015
LinkedIn profile described him as
president and owner.) The
résumé states that at E. Net Media
he represented “a variety of
clients ranging from small start-
ups to Fortune 500 companies.”
We could not corroborate his
assertions.
No corporate record exists for
E. Net in Tennessee state records,
although Ogles has set up other
corporate entities, public records
show. Tennessee corporate
records show two companies with
similar names were formed by
other people before 2003, but
neither was associated with
Ogles.
Ogles claimed that while with
E. Net Media, he:
“Developed recruiting and
training program to reduce
attrition for Merrill Lynch, saving
up to $15 million annually.”
had lost his first race for Congress
in 2002.) Halldin declined to
comment on whether Ogles
would have performed consulting
work for Merrill.
As a stockbroker, Ogles would
have needed to acquire Series 7
and Series 66 licenses, which are
required by law. On his résumé,
Ogles listed having those licenses,
but he does not mention having
been a stockbroker at Merrill. The
National Association of Insurance
Commissioners has an online
record of Ogles holding an
“insurance producer” license for
one year, from March 25, 2003, to
March 24, 2004. Kevin Walters,
the communications director for
the Tennessee Department of
Commerce and Insurance, said
the one-year license was for
selling life and accident/health
insurance.
The résumé also claims Ogles
“secured [a] $10 million tax
incentive, for film industry
positioned VR Limited, to
negotiate $35 to $50 million
development package in
Tennessee.” But no such deal can
be found in a search of Tennessee
news clips, let alone a company
called VR Limited in the film
industry. Bob Raines, the
executive director of the
Tennessee Entertainment
Commission, has been with TEC
since 2002 and said he was
unfamiliar with any such deal.
Other claims on the résumé,
such as guiding a $15 million
Korean venture fund, are too
vague to verify. Not a word about
E. Net appeared in Tennessee
newspapers, despite the
significant deals that Ogles has
claimed the company made.
The Tennessean reported in
2009 that Ogles had started a
company with a partner called
“Clipazine.com,” described as an
Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call/Getty Images
The résumé says that the Association’s IRS filings for 2005
company had “varied and 2006 do not show Ogles as a
investments in retail, restaurant, member of its policy/governing
real estate, hotel, and apartment board. “Rep. Ogles wasn’t ever a
properties” and that Ogles member of that board,” said
“increased portfolio share” by 25 Jessica P. Fain, the chief strategy
percent and achieved continued officer of YMCA of Middle
growth of 18 to 25 percent per Tennessee. She said it’s possible
year. he was on a non-policy advisory
But Tennessee corporate committee, with no fiduciary or
records show the firm, formed policy authority, at the local
with Ogles’s brother Justin and a branch. Fain checked with the
third partner, was in existence
only for a fraction of that time. It
most tenured Franklin staff
member, who arrived in 2007, and
was created in August 2001 and confirmed that Ogles was not a
then dissolved a year later. volunteer board member at that
Ogles did create a company time.
called Ogles Enterprises Inc. in The city of Franklin has no
1996. This was a short-lived travel “board of directors.” The city is
agency that was part of Travel governed by a board consisting of
Professionals International. The an elected mayor and eight
company and Ogles were sued by elected aldermen (four from city
a landlord in 1997, and the wards and four at-large). Ogles
company was cited by a travel never served in any elective
arbiter for having “failed to pay position, and he does not appear
for dishonored sales drafts worth on any of the various city advisory
$7,123.” It was dissolved by the committees where citizens serve
state the same year. alongside aldermen, according to
With his father-in-law co- archived lists from 2004 to 2008.
signing a loan, Ogles bought a Ogles claimed to have served
doughnut shop in 1997. Then, in from 2002 to 2007 on the board of
2001, he expanded it to serve Nurses for Newborns — an
three meals a day, with his organization based in Missouri
brother Justin as full partner, that has an office in Nashville —
according to a June 10, 2001, but according to IRS filings, Ogles
Tennessean article. has never served on the board of
In 2002, before being directors. Matt Robertson, the
dissolved, Franklin Investment executive director of the
received a business license to Tennessee office, said Ogles was a
operate the Mason Jar Café in member of a nonvoting advisory
nearby Brentwood, Tenn. In April board for the local office from
2003, during Ogles’s first, July 1, 2005, to June 30, 2006.
unsuccessful run for Congress, As for DDCA, which stands for
the Ogles brothers’ Daylight Dallas Downs Community
Donuts was put up for sale, with Association, in Franklin. Ogles’s
owner financing offered. That mother, Beverly, had helped Ogles
same year, the state issued a tax and his wife buy a house there in
lien on the business. 2002; the home was known for its
The LinkedIn page for Justin Christmas lighting display.
Ogles lists him as owner/operator Archived webpages show Ogles
of Daylight Donuts and Café from was briefly president (and in
June 1998 to February 2010. charge of the pool) toward the

ENTRY DOOR
“Evaluated management
structure of Merrill Lynch and
recommended reducing regional
districts from 19 to 12, with
online portal for coupons for local
restaurants. That business is not
mentioned on the résumé. An
online mention of Clipazine from
Reached by phone to explain his end of 2008, but in 2009 his name
brother’s role in the company, disappears from the list of board
Justin Ogles demurred. “I’m not members.
in politics or anything,” he said.
The Pinocchio Test

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projected savings of up to $30
million annually.”
Neither of these statements
can be verified. Bill Halldin, a
spokesman for Bank of America,
which acquired Merrill in 2008,
said that Ogles for less than a year
Quality Entry Doors Installed In One Day worked as a financial adviser for
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2009 leads to a dead domain
name, and Ogles’s partner does
not list it on his LinkedIn page.
Archived webpages exist only up
to 2011.
Investment firm
Ogles’s 2009 résumé says he
was vice president of another
Nashville company, called
Franklin Investment & Holding,
from June 1995 to January 2002.
“It’s best you take it up with my
brother.” Ogles’s résumé suggests that he
was a savvy business consultant
Directorships and investor with a number of
The 2009 résumé also says board memberships. But even as
Ogles served on the boards of he was supposedly saving Merrill
directors of the YMCA of Franklin Lynch millions of dollars through
from 2005 to 2006, Nurses for his consulting work, he was also
Newborns in Tennessee from briefly a stockbroker there and
2002 to 2007, the City of Franklin co-owned a doughnut shop. He
from 2004 to 2008, and also exaggerates or invents his
something called “DDCA” in service on various boards.
Franklin from 2006 to the He earns Four Pinocchios.
present.

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sunday, march 12 , 2023 . the washington post EZ RE A3

Politics & the Nation B

Meta’s reluctance to police metaverse
may put children at risk, experts say
BY N AOMI N IX
Zach Mathison, 28, sometimes
worries about the hostility in
Meta’s virtual-reality-powered
­social media game “Horizon
Worlds.” When his 7-year old son,
Mason, explores the app he en-
counters users, often other chil-
dren, screaming obscenities or
racist slurs.
He is so uneasy about his son
that he monitors his every move in
VR through a television connect-
ed to his Quest headset. When
Mathison decides a room is un-
safe, he’ll instruct Mason to leave.
He frequents online forums to ad-
vise other parents to do the same.
“A lot of parents don’t really
understand it at all so they just
usually leave it to the kids to play
on there,” he said. He will say, “If
your kid has an Oculus, please try
to monitor them and monitor who
they’re talking to.”
For years, Meta has argued that
the best way to protect people in
virtual reality is by empowering
them to protect themselves — giv-
ing users tools to control their
own environments, such as the
ability to block or distance other
users. It’s a markedly less aggres-
sive, and costly, stance than the
one it takes with its social media
networks, Facebook and Insta-
gram, which are bolstered by au-
tomated and human-backed sys-
tems to root out hate speech, vio-
lent content and rule-breaking
misinformation.
Meta Global Affairs President
Nick Clegg has likened the compa-
ny’s metaverse strategy to being
the owner of a bar. If a patron is
confronted by “an uncomfortable
amount of abusive language,”
they’d simply leave, rather than
expecting the bar owner to moni-
tor the conversations.
But experts warn that this mod-
eration strategy could prove dan-
gerous for the kids flocking to
Horizon Worlds, which users say
is rife with bigotry, harassment
and sexually explicit content.
Though officially Meta bars chil-
dren under 18 from its flagship VR
app, researchers and users report
that kids and teens are using the
program in droves, operating ac-
counts held by adults or lying
about their ages.
In some cases, the adolescent
users are ill equipped to handle
dicey situations they find in the
metaverse, according to research-
ers. Others report young users in-
appropriately harassing other
people while they are outside the
watchful eyes of adults. Mean-
while, emerging research suggests
victims of harassment and bully-
ing in virtual reality often experi-
ence similar psychological effects
as they would in real-life attacks.
Children “don’t even know that
there’s not monsters under the
bed,” said Jesse Fox, an associate
professor at Ohio State University
who studies virtual reality. “How
are they supposed to be able to
figure out that there’s a monster
operating an avatar?”
Despite the risks, Meta is still
pitching the metaverse to younger
and younger users, drawing ire
from child-welfare activists and
regulators. After Meta disclosed
it’s planning to open up Horizon
Worlds to younger users, between
13 and 17, some lawmakers urged
the company to drop the plan.
“In light of your company’s rec-
ord of failure to protect children
and teens and a growing body of
evidence pointing to threats to
young users in the metaverse, we
urge you to halt this plan immedi-
ately,” Sens. Richard Blumenthal
(D-Conn.) and Edward J. Markey
(D-Mass.) wrote this month in a
letter to Meta chief executive
Mark Zuckerberg.
Meta spokesperson Kate
McLaughlin said in a statement
that before the company makes
Horizon Worlds “available to
teens, we will have additional pro-
tections and tools in place to help
provide age-appropriate experi-
ences for them.”
“We encourage parents and
caretakers to use our parental su-
pervision tools, including manag-
ing access to apps, to help ensure
safe experiences,” she added.
New research from the Center
for Countering Digital Hate, an
advocacy group focused on tech
companies, illustrates some of the
dangerous scenarios users who
appear to be children confront in
the metaverse. The study recorded
a litany of aggressive, prejudiced
and sexually explicit conversa-
tions in virtual comedy clubs, par-
ties and mock court, taking place
in front of users who appeared to
be young.
“The metaverse is targeted at
younger people. It is inevitable
that children will find their way
up to it,” said Imran Ahmed, CEO
at the Center for Countering Digi-
tal Hate. “When you look after the
kids and you seek to commercial-
ize their attention, you have a
responsibility to their parents to
ensure that your platform is safe.”
The controversy arrives as Meta
attempts to transform the way
people interact through its push
into immersive virtual realms
known as the metaverse. Meta
executives envision a future in
which people will work, play and
shop together in digital experi-
ences that look and feel like the
real world but are powered by
virtual and augmented reality de-
vices.
Under Meta’s rules, sexually ex-
plicit content, promotion of illegal
drugs and extreme violence are
banned. Users can report prob-
lematic incidents to safety special-
ists, block users, garble the voices
of users they don’t know or re-
move themselves from the social
experience.
Those tools haven’t stopped il-
licit content from proliferating
across the metaverse, often ap-
pearing in front of users who ap-
pear to be children.
Researchers from the Center
for Countering Digital Hate en-
tered rooms on the Horizon
Worlds top 100 worlds list — a
eaut
i
fu
l
C
lo
th
es,
I
mpec
cab
le
S
erv
ic
e
ranking determined by user re-
views. They recorded the interac-
tions they witnessed, sorting for
mature content or concerning in- NI
NA
teractions between apparent mi-
nors and adults. MCLEMORE
They determined a user was a
minor if two researchers agreed TrunkShow
the person sounded like a child or Thurs-Sat,
if the user explicitly said their age. Ma r
ch16-18
They found users engaging in a
group sex game, which posed
questions such as “What is your
porn category?” At the Soapstone MeetNi
nain
Comedy Club, a female user in the per
sonSat
urday
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crowd responded to being told to
“shut up” with a barb: “I’m only 12
guys, chillax.”
In total, the group recorded 19
incidents in which it appeared
that minors were being exposed to
prejudiced comments, harass-
ment or sexually explicit content.
In 100 recordings in Horizon
Worlds, it found 66 of them con- Cl
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bypass Meta’s age restrictions or
how the prevalence of explicit con-
tent in Horizon Worlds compares
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into something that they don’t
necessarily want to be exposed to,”
said Jeff Haynes, senior editor of
video games and websites at Com- learned from one of her mentors. of democracy and technology at
mon Sense, an advocacy group “I felt kind of weirded out,” she the Atlantic Council.
that evaluates entertainment con- said. “I asked him to stay away and And critics say that Meta’s bar
tent for children. he wouldn’t.” owner approach puts a lot of onus
Haley Kremer, 15, said she turns The nascent research about vir- on regular users to regulate these
to Horizon Worlds to socialize, tual reality suggests that the vis- immersive virtual spaces — a re-
especially with her older mentors, ceral experience of being in VR sponsibility that is more difficult
who guide her through problems makes aggressive harassment in for younger users to execute. And,
in her life. It’s been nice, she said, the space feel similar to real-world they argue, Horizon Worlds was
to get to know more people who attacks. Users often say their vir- designed by a tech giant that has a
care about her. tual bodies feel like an extension poor track record responding to
But not all of her interactions of their actual bodies — a phenom- the proliferation of dangerous
with adults in the app have been enon known as embodiment in rhetoric on its social media plat-
so positive. A couple of months the scholarly research. forms.
ago, a user using a gray-haired “When somebody says that they “Meta is not running a bar. No
male avatar approached her in were harassed, attacked or as- bar has ever caused a genocide,”
one of Horizon Worlds’ main hubs saulted in VR, it’s because all of Ahmed said. “No bar has ever been
and told her she was pretty. When their biological systems are hav- a breeding ground for the coun-
she told him to stay away from her, ing the same reactions as if they try’s most dangerous predators.
he kept following her until she were being physically attacked,” Facebook has been all those
blocked him — a strategy she said Brittan Heller, a senior fellow things, and so is the metaverse.”

Calif. takes another

beating from another
atmospheric river
More flooding, more
evacuations — and the
forecast has more rain
BY E MMANUEL F ELTON
AND M ATTHEW C APPUCCI
Heavy rains are washing out
roads and leading to emergency
rescues in central California as
the state braces for more storms
in the coming days.
The California National Guard
helped with at least 56 rescues in
the early hours of Saturday
morning after a levee breach
inundated the small community
of Pajaro in Monterey County. On
Saturday, the governor’s office
said it was working to help the
largely Latino community, which
has a population of just under
3,000.
“My heart hurts tonight for the
residents of Pajaro,” Luis Alejo,
chair of the Monterey County
Board of Supervisors, said in a
tweet. “We were hoping to avoid
and prevent this situation, but
the worst case scenario has ar-
rived with the Pajaro River over-
topping and levee breaching at
about midnight.”
The local water district
warned residents not to drink or
cook with tap water until officials
had a chance to test its quality
after the system’s wells took on
floodwater.
As the sun rose over the state,
more than 9,000 residents were
still under evacuation orders as
California continued to be pum-
meled by what meteorologists
call an atmospheric river, ex-
tremely moist storms common to
the West Coast. It is the 10th such
event to hit the state this season.
By early Friday afternoon, the
scale of the flooding was already
immense. In the San Francisco
Bay Area, commuters had to
navigate around the flooding,
which closed several roads, in-
cluding a major freeway in Oak-
land. As of Saturday afternoon,
about 32,000 customers in the
state remained without power
after about 55,000 customers
were affected Friday. According
to officials, at least two people
have died as a result of the latest
storms.
The situation only continued
to worsen along the state’s Cen-
tral Coast and Salinas Valley —
often called the nation’s “Salad
Bowl” because of the leafy greens
and other vegetables grown
there. In parts of the region, key
evacuation routes were impass-
able as raging floodwaters
poured across roads. There was a
separate levee break nearly 150
miles away from Pajaro in the
community of Cutler in central
California’s Tulare County.
Forecasters project that the
unrelenting rainfall will last
through the coming week.
Although the main slug of
moisture associated with the at-
mospheric river had moved
through on Friday, additional
moderate to heavy downpours
were expected to fan through
central and northern California
late Saturday and into Sunday.
Then, yet another atmospheric
river originating from near Ha-
waii is projected to come ashore.
By Tuesday, 3 to 6 more inches
of rain is likely along the coast,
with double-digit perception to-
tals in the highest peaks of the
Sierra Nevada. That is projected
to come down as another 4 to 8
feet of snow in the highest eleva-
tions, leading to more flooding,
rapid snowmelt and avalanches.
Flood watches remained in
effect for locations below 4,000
feet elevation in central and
northern California. The Nation-
al Weather Service office in Han-
ford, Calif., said many of the
creeks and rivers that have been
in flood stage since Friday would
continue to rise through the
weekend.
The Weather Service started
issuing flash flood warnings Fri-
day as heavy rain combined with
swift snowmelt to turn creeks
and streams into roaring rapids.
The community of Springville
in Tulare County, home to about
1,000 residents along Highway
190, was placed under a dire
“flash flood emergency” during
the morning hours.
People wade through a flooded neighborhood Saturday in the unincorporated community of Pajaro in Monterey County, Calif. Residents
were forced to evacuate in the middle of the night after the Pajaro Levee broke, sending floodwater downstream.
“This is a particularly danger-
ous situation. SEEK HIGHER
GROUND NOW!” warned the
Hanford office.
Cristian Nunez shovels a snowbank at a motel in Mammoth Lakes, Calif., in the Sierra Nevada. The
eastern Sierra Nevada is holding 243 percent of its regular snowpack for this time of the year.
Drone footage revealed dozens
of homes treading water, at least
one structural collapse and a
number of others on the brink of
destruction.
In an online warning to resi-
dents, the Tulare County Re-
source Management Agency de-
Mario Tama/Getty Images
Josh Edelson/AFP/Getty Images
scribed the flooding as “unprec-
edented,” writing, “Roads crews
cannot sign every flooded road-
way at this time.”
Up to 4.3 inches of rain was
reported in Tulare County —
which is southeast of Fresno and
northeast of Bakersfield — with-
in 24 hours ending Saturday
morning. Three to eight feet of
water is contained in the Sierra
snowpack — probably much
more in spots — meaning the
warmth of an atmospheric river
can quickly melt enough water to
effectively double what pours
into creeks and streams during a
snowstorm.
Meanwhile, mountain com-
munities in the Sierra are work-
ing to sort out where to put their
ever-accumulating snow. While
mostly snow has fallen above
8,000 feet, rain has fallen into the
spongy snowpack beneath that.
The Central Sierra Snow Lab
off Interstate 80 near Donner
Pass, near 7,000 feet, measured a
“rain-soaked” 9.3 inches of snow
Friday and has tallied 617 inches
of snow since October.
That’s converted the snow into
a cement-like sludge, which in
some instances has caused struc-
tural collapses. In other cases,
high avalanche danger remains a
concern.
A4 EZ RE the washington post . sunday, march 12 , 2023

In the deeply partisan and polarized House, every day feels like Jan. 7, 2021
Two months into
@PKCapitol their new
Paul Kane majority, some
House
Republicans
cannot stop fixating on the Jan. 6,
2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol.
One veteran Republican has
been poring over transcripts
from last year’s Democratic-led
probe into the insurrection, part
of his investigation into security
failures before and during the
attack.
Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene
(R-Ga.) is preparing to lead a
delegation to visit D.C. jails to
examine the conditions of alleged
rioters still awaiting their trials.
She’s signed up to watch
thousands of hours of U.S.
Capitol Police security video and
wants to focus on the events
leading up to the deaths of two
women who were staunch
supporters of former president
Donald Trump.
In deep contrast, senators have
largely moved on from that
horrific attack, deferring to the
Justice Department’s
investigation. They don’t quite
understand why their House
colleagues keep fighting over it.
“I think they need to watch a
little less cable TV,” Sen. John
Cornyn (R-Tex.) told CNN.
For more than two years
running, every day the House is
in session can feel as if it’s Jan. 7
— the day after, when each side
began to blame the other for
what went wrong. First came
Democratic investigations, along
with allegations that some
Republicans helped the
insurrectionists. That’s now
given way to the counter-
investigations.
It’s just different in the Senate.
Only eight Senate Republicans
voted against certifying
President Biden’s victory and just
five have endorsed Trump’s 2024
campaign.
Two-thirds of House
Republicans objected to Biden’s
win and more than 30 are
endorsing Trump.
“We have a lot of them here. I
mean, we have people that were
— a lot of people who are openly
using their platforms to promote
insurrectionists, to promote the
idea that Jan. 6 didn’t happen,
that it was a friendly thing,” said
Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.),
who was in the House gallery
during the attack and heard the
police gunshot that killed one
rioter.
“This is the people’s House,”
Jayapal added in an interview on
Thursday, “and in some ways, we
are closer to both the good and
the awful than the Senate is.”
House Republicans, hearing
words like that, still feel as if
Democrats unfairly accused them
of aiding and abetting rioters.
“What they did to me was
inexcusable in my estimation,
because of the significant risk
that was placed on me, my staff
and my family,” said Rep. Barry
Loudermilk (R-Ga.), who
appeared in a video that the
Jan. 6 committee used to suggest
he might have given surveillance
tours the day before the attack. “I
mean, we got 200 death threats
within a few days.”
The House has always been a
more boisterous place than the
The House select committee on the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol holds a hearing on Oct. 13. Rep. Barry Loudermilk (R-Ga.), who is leading
an investigation of the Capitol’s security, believes the Jan. 6 committee intentionally overlooked security lapses to focus on Donald Trump.
Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) is preparing to lead a delegation to visit D.C. jails to examine the
conditions of alleged rioters, and she has signed up to watch thousands of hours of Capitol Police video.
Senate. But the pandemic started
to exacerbate polarization in the
House, where Democrats issued
mask rules and unilaterally
permitted a proxy voting system
that allowed members to vote
without attending Capitol
sessions in person.
As so often happens, members
of the House got treated like
second-class citizens compared
with senators during the Jan. 6
attack. And some lawmakers
contend that their experiences
that day left such strong feelings
— suspicion and distrust — that
the House is much more
dysfunctional than usual.
By 2:15 p.m. on Jan. 6, as
rioters began making their way
into the building, the Senate was
quickly locked down and was
Photos by Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post
The Senate reconvened after
8 p.m. that night. Vice President
Mike Pence led off several
unifying speeches that prompted
standing ovations. Senators sped
through debate and held votes on
Arizona and Pennsylvania,
overwhelmingly rejecting
Trump’s wishes by 12:30 a.m. on
Jan. 7.
The House, after some
perfunctory unifying speeches,
returned to intense, fiery debate.
Just before 2 a.m., a tussle in the
center aisle involving a dozen
lawmakers and senior staff
nearly turned into a brawl. The
House concluded its votes after 3
a.m.
Five months later, two Senate
committees, in bipartisan
agreement, released a more than
100-page report on the failures
and security breakdowns that
allowed the Capitol to come
under siege — the last official
word to come from the upper
chamber on the insurrection.
Two weeks after that report,
House Democrats announced the
creation of the Jan. 6 select
committee. But McCarthy
fully evacuated within 15 location in one of their office refused to name Republicans to
minutes. Almost no one saw a buildings and held heated the panel after House Speaker
rioter. discussions about what to do, Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) rejected a
The House was a more chaotic mostly in a bipartisan fashion. couple of his initial choices in
scene, stopping its consideration They agreed to speed up the July 2021.
of the GOP challenge to Biden’s process by only allowing debate For the next 18 months, several
win, then starting again. When on two slates of electoral votes, House Republicans fumed at the
the House finally halted debate, not six, so that Biden could be panel’s work and vowed to
rioters were trying to break into officially declared the winner investigate the investigation.
the chamber, forcing Capitol that night. Now, Loudermilk is leading an
Police into a guns-drawn standoff By 4 p.m., staff arrived with investigation of the Capitol’s
by the back door. hundreds of boxed lunches — security through a subcommittee
Most members were evacuated chicken or beef — and bottled of the House Administration
a few minutes later, but some water. Committee, which oversees the
lawmakers were trapped in the House members, once they all Capitol Police and other internal
gallery above, where they heard escaped, gathered in one of their functions. He believes the Jan. 6
the gunshot that stopped and office buildings and clashed over committee intentionally
killed Ashli Babbitt, a Trump pandemic rules as some overlooked security lapses to
supporter, as she tried to jump Republicans refused to wear a instead focus on Trump.
through a broken window to get mask; the gathering is believed to But part of Loudermilk’s probe
close to the House floor. have turned into a virus involves reviewing the select
Senators gathered in a secure superspreader. committee’s investigation last
year, and he’s recently been going
through the transcripts of the
Georgians whom he showed
around portions of the
congressional office buildings, a
scene that was shown during
nationally televised hearings last
year.
Loudermilk said the
transcripts of those interviews
clear him of accusations of
wrongdoing. The video of him
was released following
accusations from nearly three
dozen House Democrats, lobbed
in the days after the 2021 attack,
that unnamed Republicans
guided rioters through
reconnaissance tours.
No evidence, aside from the
relatively benign Loudermilk
video, has emerged to back up
those accusations, and he wants
to examine whether anyone was
falsely accused of misdeeds by
the committee.
“These are the types of things
we have to look at,” he said in an
interview Wednesday.
Although Democrats had
braced for those types of GOP
actions, none expected the recent
decision by House Speaker Kevin
McCarthy to selectively give
access to 41,000 hours of security
videos to Fox News personality
Tucker Carlson — who asked the
California Republican to release
the videos to win the speaker’s
vote in early January. To date, no
other media outlets have been
allowed to see those videos, while
lawmakers are now signing up to
get a glimpse.
“It’s really insulting. And it
shows a degree of callousness
that is even surprising, even in
this environment,” Rep. Daniel
Kildee (D-Mich.) said.
Kildee, a member of the
“Gallery Group,” noted that he
was one of many who had a
“really bad personal experience
on that day.”
Whether some Republicans
had assisted MAGA rioters before
the attack no longer matters to
Democrats.
“These are enormous
platforms that are being used to
promote anti-democratic
insurrectionists,” Jayapal said.
She now labels these Republicans
as “insurrectionist-assistants.”
On Thursday, Greene said that
she spoke to McCarthy and his
advisers about releasing the
security videos last year, during
the time when the far-right
lawmaker went from being a
thorn in leadership’s side to a
boisterous pro-McCarthy ally.
She said that “release the tapes”
became her personal mantra last
year.
Greene wants to watch the
video of Babbitt getting shot and
another protester getting
crushed in a throng of rioters, a
death that was later ruled to have
resulted from an amphetamine
overdose. She wants to highlight
the alleged mistreatment of an
inmate charged with committing
some of the most violent acts on
Jan. 6, including spraying police
with chemical irritants and
assaulting them during a violent
clash by a Capitol door.
“My interest is the two-tier
justice system,” she said
Thursday.
Every day, for some in the
House, continues to be Jan. 7.

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A6 EZ SU the washington post . sunday, march 12 , 2023

EXPERIENCE Judge schedules, delays announcing

BETTER HEARING hearing for abortion pill lawsuit
BY P ERRY S TEIN, Attorneys on the planning call abortion protocol to be safe and
A NN E . M ARIMOW with Kacsmaryk on Friday in- effective. But the lawsuit argues
with one of the AND C AROLINE K ITCHENER cluded representatives from the
Alliance Defending Freedom,
that the regulatory agency never
should have approved mifepris-

Smallest The Texas judge who could

undo government approval of a
key abortion drug has scheduled
which filed the lawsuit; the Jus-
tice Department, which repre-
sents the FDA; and the drug
tone back in 2000, claiming the
government purposely ignored
what the plaintiffs contend are

Custom Fit
the first hearing in the case for
Wednesday but took unusual
steps to keep it from being publi-
cized, according to people famil-
company that makes mifepris- harmful side effects.
tone. Representatives for each Leading organizations of phy-
declined to comment or did not sicians and other public health
immediately respond to requests professionals have strongly dis-

Hearing Aids
iar with the plans.
The hearing will be an oppor-
tunity for lawyers for the Justice
Department, the company that
for comment Saturday evening. puted those allegations and have
Kacsmaryk told the attorneys told Kacsmaryk that reversing
that he also wanted to delay FDA approval of mifepristone
publicizing the hearing because would “cause profound and irrep-

Ever Made! makes the drug and the conserva-

tive group that is challenging it to
argue their positions before U.S.
District Judge Matthew Kacs-
maryk. After they do, the judge
could rule at any time.
Kacsmaryk scheduled the
Now hearing during a call with attor-
Now neys Friday, said multiple people
You You familiar with the call, who spoke
See It... Don’t! on the condition of anonymity
because they were not authorized
to discuss it. Kacsmaryk said he
would delay putting the hearing
on the public docket until late
• 48 channel digital signal processing Tuesday to try to minimize dis-
ruptions and possible protests,
• Digital engineering allows 1,000’s of custom settings and asked the lawyers on the call
not to share information about it
• Controlled by state-of-the-art software before then, the people said.
Public access to federal court
proceedings is a key principle of
the American judicial system,
and Kacsmaryk’s apparent delay
in placing the hearing on the
docket is highly unusual. The
judge and his staff did not re-
spond to emails requesting com-
ment on Saturday evening.
CALL 1-888-387-3068 TO BOOK YOUR The lawsuit seeks to revoke
Food and Drug Administration
approval of mifepristone, one of
courthouse members have re-
ceived threats in the wake of the
lawsuit, according to the people
familiar with the call. Several
people close to Kacsmaryk say the
judge and his family have faced
security threats since he ascend-
ed to the federal bench in 2019,
and those threats have intensi-
fied ahead of the abortion pill
ruling.
Before and after the Friday
phone call with lawyers, The
Washington Post repeatedly
called and emailed Kacsmaryk’s
chambers seeking information
about it but received no response.
Kacsmaryk’s chambers also did
not respond to a request that
reporters be allowed to join the
call.
Kacsmaryk was nominated by
President Donald Trump and is
known for his conservative views
on issues such as same-sex mar-
riage and abortion.
By waiting to publicize the
time of the hearing, Kacsmaryk
and his staff could make it diffi-
cult for the public, the media and
others to travel to the courthouse
in Amarillo, Tex. The rural, deeply
arable harm to patients across the
country.”
Medication abortions with
mifepristone — which account
for more than half of the abor-
tions performed in the United
States each year — have “an ex-
ceptionally low rate of complica-
tions,” according to their brief.
A patient first takes one mife-
pristone pill, which blocks the
hormone progesterone, prevent-
ing a pregnancy from progress-
ing. About 24 hours later, the
patient typically takes a four-pill
dose of misoprostol, a drug intro-
duced in 1973 to treat stomach
ulcers, to soften the cervix and
prompt contractions that expel
the embryo or fetus.
The two-step procedure is
standard in the United States and
is approved as safe for the first 10
weeks of gestation, which begins
on the first day of a person’s last
menstrual cycle. (The World
Health Organization says medi-
cation abortion is safe in the first
12 weeks of pregnancy.)
It is also possible to terminate
a pregnancy using just misopros-
tol, a procedure that requires

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Antonio and is at least a four- on its own to perform abortions
hour drive from any of the state’s around the world, studies show it

Hearing Evaluation A decision by Kacsmaryk to

suspend FDA approval of mife-
pristone would immediately
prompt major changes in how
major, heavily Democratic cities.
Still, over 150 abortion rights
advocates gathered there on a
Saturday in mid-February to
is less effective than the two-step
regimen, and usually causes more
cramping and bleeding.
Since the Supreme Court over-

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many abortion clinics across the
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Alliance Defending Freedom
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behalf of four antiabortion medi-
cal organizations and four doc-
tors who say they have treated
patients with mifepristone.
The FDA has repeatedly
deemed the two-step medication
turned Roe v. Wade last summer,
eliminating a person’s constitu-
tional right to terminate a preg-
nancy and triggering abortion
bans in more than a dozen states,
many antiabortion advocates
have focused on trying to limit
the availability of medication
abortions, even in states where
the procedure is legal.

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sunday, march 12 , 2023
McCarthy aims to thread needle in visit with Taiwanese leader
BY E LLEN N AKASHIMA
AND M ICHELLE Y E H EE L EE
Last year, House Speaker-
hopeful Kevin McCarthy said he
would “love” to visit Taiwan. But
now that he has become the
Republican leader, a trip to Tai-
pei, he has been advised, would
get tangled up in Taiwanese
presidential election politics.
In recent weeks, an opportu-
nity arose to meet Taiwanese
President Tsai Ing-wen in early
April in California, where she has
been invited to make a public
speech at the Reagan Library.
McCarthy said in the past week
the trip to California “has noth-
ing to do with my travel, if I
would go to Taiwan.” China, he
said, cannot tell him “where I can
go at any time, at any place.”
China claims the self-governed
island as its own territory and has
not ruled out taking control of it
by force.
Taiwanese officials have ad-
vised McCarthy’s staff, according
to people familiar with the mat-
ter, that a trip this year would be
exploited for political purposes
by the opposition Nationalist
Party, also known as the Kuom-
intang. The KMT favors closer
ties with Beijing and, in the
run-up to next year’s presidential
election, has sought to portray
Tsai’s Democratic Progressive
Party’s cross-strait policy as dan-
gerous, unnecessarily provoca-
tive and raising the risk of war
with China.
Tsai is visiting the United
States in late March and early
Pence says ‘history will hold Donald Trump accountable’ for Jan. 6 attack
At the Gridiron dinner,
former vice president
calls episode a ‘disgrace’
BY B EN T ERRIS
In a speech Saturday night,
former vice president Mike
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PAYMENTS*On Approved Credit*
. the washington post
Taiwan’s President Tsai Ing-wen is expected to speak at the Reagan
Library in April; the House speaker plans to meet her on that trip.
April on her way to Central Amer-
ica, making at least two U.S. stops
— in New York and Simi Valley,
Calif. She is due to speak March
30 at a private event in New York
City hosted by the conservative
think tank the Hudson Institute.
Congressional leaders, including
McCarthy and Senate Majority
Leader Charles E. Schumer
(D-N.Y.), will be invited, accord-
ing to people familiar with the
matter, who like others inter-
viewed for this article spoke on
the condition of anonymity be-
cause of the matter’s sensitivity.
The flurry of developments
around Tsai’s trip comes as Bei-
jing has intensified its rhetoric
toward Washington. In the past
week, Chinese President Xi Jin-
Pence delivered what amounted
to his strongest rebuke of Don-
ald Trump, criticizing the former
president for his role in the
lead-up to the Jan. 6 attack on
the United States Capitol as well
as attempts to rewrite the his-
tory of that day.
“President Trump was wrong,”
Pence said. “I had no right to
overturn the election. And his
reckless words endangered my
family and everyone at the Capi-
Carlos Garcia Rawlins/Reuters
ping directly accused the United
States of leading Western nations
in a campaign of “all-around
containment, encirclement and
suppression of China.” Xi has
typically refrained from naming
Washington, instead criticizing
“certain countries” as deploying a
“Cold War” mentality and trying
to suppress China.
On Wednesday, Foreign Minis-
try spokeswoman Mao Ning said
“China firmly opposes any form
of official interaction between
the U.S. and the Taiwan region,”
and “firmly opposes the U.S. hav-
ing any form of contact with
‘Taiwan independence’ separatist
elements.”
A spokesman for Tsai said her
office had no comment because
tol that day. And I know that
history will hold Donald Trump
accountable.”
The former vice president was
speaking at the Gridiron dinner,
a white-tie event thrown by jour-
nalists in Washington, D.C. that
this year featured speeches by
Secretary of State Antony Blink-
en and New Jersey Gov. Phil
Murphy (D) in addition to Pence.
The annual event tends to be a
lighthearted affair, with skits
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the president’s “schedule is still
being worked out.” The spokes-
man also said no one in the
president’s office had asked Mc-
Carthy not to visit Taiwan.
The Reagan Library on Jan. 24
invited Tsai to give a public
speech, according to a copy of the
invitation obtained by The Wash-
ington Post. She gave her first
public address in the United
States as president at the library
in 2018. A Reagan Foundation
spokeswoman said that as of
Saturday, she still could not con-
firm Tsai’s visit, but two other
people directly familiar with the
matter said she had accepted the
invitation.
McCarthy plans to meet with
her in Simi Valley, and the hope is
that he will introduce her before
she makes a major policy ad-
dress, the person said. He has
begun to invite Democratic law-
makers to join him on the trip.
Tsai’s appearance at the Hud-
son Institute event and McCar-
thy’s plan to meet with Tsai in
California were first reported by
the Financial Times.
At the Hudson Institute pri-
vate dinner, Tsai will deliver a
speech and be given a global
leadership award that was previ-
ously bestowed on former secre-
tary of state Henry Kissinger, the
media tycoon Rupert Murdoch
and then-U.S. Ambassador to the
United Nations Nikki Haley. It
will be Tsai’s first time appearing
in person with the organization,
which hosted her for a virtual
event in 2020.
McCarthy’s meeting with Tsai
and parody songs performed by
members of the Washington
press corps.
The night also features com-
edy routines from politicians,
where they often are more will-
ing to cut loose, perhaps because
the Gridiron does not allow tele-
vision cameras.
Pence’s performance included
his own attempt at a comedy
routine, which included knocks
on his former running mate.
703-258-1750
© 2023 ShelfGenie SPV LLC. All rights Reserved.
in California threads the needle
of showing support for Taiwan
while making it difficult for Chi-
na to mount an aggressive re-
sponse, said Eric Sayers, a non-
resident fellow at the American
Enterprise Institute: “It’s a win
for a DPP that is sensitive ahead
of next year’s election, for Tsai
who will get to speak to an
expanded American audience
about her country’s role in the
world, for McCarthy who has a
unique opportunity to elevate the
importance of Taiwan inside the
United States, and it will really
complicate Beijing’s ability to de-
ploy a provocative military re-
sponse around Taiwan.”
The Reagan Library event,
scheduled for April 5, comes less
than a year after then-House
Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.)
visited Taiwan, becoming the
first sitting speaker to do so in 25
years. In Taipei, she met with Tsai
and received a presidential
award.
China responded in the days
after with a show of military
force, rattling neighbors in the
region. Ballistic missiles it fired
over the self-ruled island landed
in Japan’s exclusive economic
zone. It closed off areas of the sea
around Taiwan in what some
analysts said appeared to simu-
late an economic blockade. Its
naval ships and military jets
crossed the median line, the unof-
ficial maritime boundary halfway
between Taiwan and the Chinese
mainland that both sides tradi-
tionally had respected.
Tsai’s U.S. visit will incur Bei-
“I once invited President
Trump to Bible study,” Pence said
early in his speech. “He really
liked the passages about the
smiting and perishing of thine
enemies. As he put it, ‘Ya know
Mike, there’s some really good
stuff in here.’”
Pence also hinted about his
own potential run for president.
“I will wholeheartedly, unreserv-
edly support the Republican
nominee for president in 2024,”
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jing’s ire, but probably not to such
a degree that the People’s Libera-
tion Army mounts a military
response similar to what was
done after Pelosi’s visit. “We’re in
election season in Taiwan, and it’s
almost certain that the KMT [Na-
tionalist Party] is messaging Bei-
jing, essentially saying ‘don’t stir
the waters here,’” said Jude
Blanchette, a China specialist at
the Center for Strategic and In-
ternational Studies.
Tsai is the first woman to be
elected president of Taiwan and
is in the final year of her second
four-year term. While her Demo-
cratic Progressive Party has in the
past advocated for formal inde-
pendence, its more recent stance
is to maintain the current deli-
cate balance with Beijing while
also strengthening Taiwan’s ties
with the United States and other
Western democracies.
Polls show a competitive race
for the presidential election in
January.
“President Tsai likely sees
more downside than upside from
a visit by Rep. McCarthy this
year,” said Bonnie Glaser, the
managing director of the German
Marshall Fund’s Indo-Pacific pro-
gram.
Rep. Mike Gallagher (R-Wis.),
who chairs the new Select Com-
mittee on China, plans to hold a
hearing in Taiwan this year. He
has suggested that a better time
for McCarthy to visit might be
after next year’s election on a trip
that could be informed by what
Gallagher learns in Taipei.
Lily Kuo and Christian Shepherd in
Taipei and John Hudson in
Washington contributed to this
report.
he said. “If it’s me.”
But near the end of Pence’s
speech he turned serious, saying
that there was one topic he
would not joke about.
“The American people have a
right to know what took place at
the Capitol on January 6th,” he
said.
“But make no mistake about it,
what happened that day was a
disgrace, and it mocks decency to
portray it in any other way.”
A8
Tech executives say bailout is how to avert wider problems
Bank from A1
That could lead to a backlash, in
an echo of the fury directed at
government rescue measures for
Wall Street during the 2008 finan-
cial crisis. But this time taxpayers
would be bailing out the would-be
lords of tech rather than the lords
of finance.
Another possibility is that larg-
er Wall Street banks, fearing wider
contagion, acquire what’s left of
SVB and make all of its depositors
whole. That could be a tricky bet,
however, and bigger banks might
ask for the federal government’s
help before agreeing to a poten-
tially unprofitable purchase.
“All the choices are bad choic-
es,” said Simon Johnson, an econ-
omist at MIT who previously
served as chief economist of the
International Monetary Fund.
“You don’t want to extend this
kind of bailout to people. But if
you aren’t doing that, you face a
run of really big — and really hard
to predict — proportions.”
Created during the Great De-
pression to provide a federal back-
stop on bank runs, the FDIC is
meant to insure only a portion of
customer deposits — both to re-
duce the risk to taxpayers and to
encourage customers to perform
due diligence and not put their
deposits in banks that take irre-
sponsible risks.
But officials at the FDIC —
which, in a stunning move Friday,
took over Silicon Valley Bank dur-
ing normal trading hours — are
facing some calls to go beyond
giving smaller customers their
money back.
On Friday, the FDIC said in a
statement that everyone with an
insured deposit — meaning ac-
counts worth less than $250,000
— would have full access to their
money by Monday morning. The
statement said that uninsured de-
positors — those with accounts
exceeding $250,000 — would get
some of their money back, but it
did not specify how much. Unin-
sured depositors make up the
overwhelming majority of the
bank’s customers.
In deciding how to respond,
federal authorities will have to
weigh what the extent of the risk
posed by the collapse is to other
parts of the banking sector and
U.S. economy. Experts differ
sharply on the answer to that
question. Many banking experts
see SVB’s implosion as an anoma-
ly confined to a specific part of the
economy — important to the vola-
tile tech sector but little else, at
least for now. Nothing on the scale
of SVB’s collapse emerged in other
parts of the banking system, but
some of the largest Wall Street
firms — JPMorgan Chase, Bank of
America, Citigroup, Wells Fargo
and Goldman Sachs — saw their
stock prices sink amid the chaos.
“The question the Fed has to
deal with is how broadly is this
happening. Is it a problem with
just a couple banks, which is un-
Silicon Valley Bank collapse leaves start-ups scrambling to pay workers
BY G ERRIT D E V YNCK
AND R ACHEL L ERMAN
SAN FRANCISCO — Employees at
start-up Flow Health didn’t get
their paychecks Friday morning.
When deposits didn’t go out,
those in human resources were
confused. But Alex Meshkin, the
CEO of Flow Health, said he im-
mediately knew what had gone
wrong.
The company uses another
start-up called Rippling to run its
payroll process. “I said, ‘I guaran-
tee you they’re in Silicon Valley
Bank. We’re screwed,’ ” he said.
Flow Health employees were
just a fraction of the thousands of
people likely to be affected by the
stunning collapse of Silicon Valley
Bank on Friday, marking the sec-
ond-largest bank failure in U.S.
history and sending shock waves
through the tech and finance
worlds.
While the government took
over the bank, which is known for
lending to start-ups but also does
private banking providing mort-
gages and other services, deposits
are only insured up to $250,000.
The bank’s assets totaled more
than $200 billion. Around $42 bil-
lion was withdrawn from the bank
on Thursday alone, according to
California’s Department of Finan-
cial Protection and Innovation.
Start-up founders worried
they’d be forced to lay off workers
if money held by the bank was
frozen or lost. Large companies
such as connected TV provider
Roku and video game maker Rob-
lox warned investors that they had
hundreds of millions in cash de-
posited with Silicon Valley Bank
that may be in jeopardy. And ven-
ture investors canceled planned
meetings with start-ups, unsure of
the knock-on effects for the indus-
try. Other start-ups publicly as-
sured customers they weren’t ex-
Silicon Valley Bank’s headquarters in Santa Clara, Calif., on Friday, when the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. took over the bank. More
than 90 percent of SVB’s accounts exceed the $250,000 limit for being covered by an insurance fund that’s backed by taxpayers.
fortunate but manageable, or is
there a broader movement here
which might be systemic, in which
case they have to step in and use
the powers they have,” said Barney
Frank, the former Massachusetts
congressman who played a lead-
ing role in writing the legislation
to regulate Wall Street following
the 2008 crisis.
Frank said he told senior offi-
cials at the Federal Reserve on
Friday that the risk to the broader
financial system could be “more
widespread.”
A slew of federal regulators —
including those with the FDIC,
Federal Reserve and Treasury De-
partment — have scheduled a
number of private briefings with
top lawmakers since the bank’s
collapse, including members of
the House Financial Services
Committee, which oversees bank-
ing, according to two people fa-
miliar with the matter who spoke
on the condition of anonymity to
describe the conversations.
“The committee is in touch
with regulators and closely moni-
toring the situation,” said Laura
Peavey, a spokesman for Rep. Pat-
rick T. McHenry (R-N.C.), the
chairman of the panel.
One of the committee’s mem-
bers, Rep. Brad Sherman (D-
­Calif.), said the government need-
ed to “do everything possible so
that payroll is met,” citing the
financial blow to his tech-heavy
home state if companies are not
able to pay their workers prompt-
posed.
Silicon Valley Bank had rela-
tionships with more than half of
the venture-backed companies in
the United States, according to its
website.
If there isn’t a quick rescue of
the bank, the consequences could
be dire for many start-ups and the
broader tech scene, said Garry
Tan, chief executive of Y Combina-
tor, one of the most important
Silicon Valley start-up incubators.
“This is an extinction-level
event for start-ups and will set
start-ups and innovation back by
10 years or more,” Tan said.
Silicon Valley Bank did not re-
spond to a request for comment.
The Federal Deposit Insurance
Corporation, which took over the
bank Friday, said Silicon Valley
Bank had about $209 billion in
total assets and about $175.4 bil-
lion in total deposits as of the end
of December, but that it was un-
clear how much the bank had on
its balance sheet now.
Deposit holders would be able
to withdraw up to $250,000 on
Monday, the FDIC said. For those
with more than that deposited, it
provided a hotline number to call.
The collapse of Silicon Valley
Bank adds to a challenging period
for tech companies, following
months of plummeting stock pric-
es and tens of thousands of layoffs.
After years of rapid growth, things
have slowed and become less sta-
ble — an apparent disconnect with
the broader U.S. economy.
The sudden collapse of one of
the industry’s key institutions is
stoking fears that the sector’s eco-
nomic situation may be worse
than suspected and sending tech
leaders scrambling to deal with
the aftermath of losing a key part
of the financial plumbing the in-
dustry relies on.
“There’s a bunch of companies
that can’t make payroll because
EZ RE
ly because they can’t access their
deposits.
“The last thing I want to hear is
40 companies go under because
they can’t make payroll … [and]
they get it 40 weeks from now and
their company is gone,” he said.
California Gov. Gavin Newsom
(D) said in a statement Saturday
that he’d been discussing the situ-
ation with the Biden administra-
tion: “Everyone is working with
FDIC to stabilize the situation as
quickly as possible, to protect
jobs, people’s livelihoods, and the
entire innovation ecosystem that
has served as a tent pole for our
economy.”
Rep. Katie Porter (D-Calif.) said
she had been in contact with
Newsom, since state law requires
employees to be paid within “so
many days of work.” That, she said,
raised the potential that payroll
processors without access to their
money come Monday could create
a wave of “unnecessary layoffs.”
Porter said the easiest solution
is for the bank to “find a buyer,”
which could set the stage for even
uninsured depositors to access
their money. “I think we wait and
see if that can happen. If it doesn’t,
we can start to think about other
kinds of ways … that the govern-
ment can bridge [the gap],” she
explained, noting the bank did
hold “assets of real value.”
Unwinding the bank’s balance
sheet will begin in the next few
days if the FDIC can’t find another
bank to take over all of SVB’s
their money is locked up in SVB,”
said Brad Hargreaves, who co-
founded the coding boot camp
General Assembly and sits on sev-
eral start-up boards. “I think there
will be layoffs coming from this.”
Founded in 1983, Silicon Valley
Bank has served the tech industry
during the ups and downs of the
past four decades. During the
start-up boom that came after the
2008 financial crisis, the bank
grew rapidly, trading on its reputa-
tion for catering to the needs of
fast-growing, ambitious start-ups.
Companies that raised money
from venture capitalists deposited
it with the bank. Venture capital-
ists themselves banked with the
firm too, loaning money to fund
investments in new start-ups. And
tech workers and executives used
the bank for their own personal
wealth management and to fund
mortgages.
“They view themselves as a
community lender for the entire
ecosystem,” Hargreaves said. “The
best analogy would almost be a
credit union in a small town, ex-
cept way bigger than that and
imagine the small town is tech.”
The bank required some clients
to work exclusively with it to ac-
cess loans, further centralizing its
role within the tech ecosystem.
One founder who spoke on the
condition of anonymity to pre-
serve his relationship with the
bank said he had previously
spread his money across multiple
banks until a deal with Silicon
Valley Bank forced his company to
put all its cash there.
Concerns about the bank’s col-
lapse spreading to other firms and
the broader economy reverberat-
ed around Wall Street and Wash-
ington on Friday. Treasury Secre-
tary Janet L. Yellen said she was
monitoring the situation and Ceci-
lia Rouse, chair of the White
House Council of Economic Advis-
business. Customers who had un-
insured deposits will receive some
amount of money back this week,
the FDIC said, without specifying
how much. The FDIC is expected
to sell the bank’s remaining assets
and use the proceeds to pay the
uninsured depositors.
The FDIC has a fund paid into
regularly by U.S. banks that is
intended to protected insured de-
positors. That fund is ultimately
backed by U.S. taxpayers. Con-
gress would need to pass a law
authorizing the FDIC to use the
insurance fund to protect unin-
sured deposits, said Todd Phillips,
who served as an attorney for the
FDIC and is now a fellow at the
Roosevelt Institute, a center-left
think tank. That raises the pros-
pect of special federal assistance
for uninsured depositors, even
though experts downplay the
odds of that occurring.
“I think it’s unlikely that Con-
gress will pass a law making these
uninsured depositors whole,”
Phillips said. “The $250,000 ceil-
ing is really meant to cover real
people, and Congress has not pre-
viously shown much of an interest
in bailing out businesses that hold
millions of dollars with banks. I
don’t think it’s likely to start now,
but stranger things have hap-
pened.”
SVB held roughly $150 billion
in uninsured deposits, according
to the company’s latest finan-
cial statement, issued late last
month. That amounts to more
ers, said that bank stress tests in-
stituted in the wake of the 2008
crisis meant the financial system
was prepared to “withstand these
kinds of shocks.”
Shares in other regional banks
fell, including First Republic
Bank, which also serves the Bay
Area and caters to start-ups and
wealthy tech employees.
One Bay Area start-up founder
anxious about the fallout from Sili-
con Valley Bank went on Friday to
First Republic Bank to transfer his
money to Chase, a much bigger
firm, to beat what he feared could
be a run on deposits. The founder,
who spoke on the condition of
anonymity to avoid jeopardizing
his relationship with the bank,
tried to visit a more obscure loca-
tion in Oakland but said there was
still a line outside the door of
customers requesting wires.
“I just raised a lot of money, and
I can’t believe it could just evapo-
rate,” he said in a text message sent
from a conference room at the
bank, waiting for the wire to proc-
ess. Some of his friends who are
start-up founders and banked
with Silicon Valley Bank “think
they’ve lost everything but
$250,000,” he wrote. His transfer
ultimately went through before
the cutoff.
Because Silicon Valley Bank
served start-ups and wealthy indi-
viduals, the majority of its depos-
its were above the $250,000 that is
federally insured, raising the pros-
pect that billions of dollars worth
of money might not be recovered.
In the past, the government has
paid out sums larger than
$250,000, but it’s unclear whether
that will be the case here.
On Friday, Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-
Fla.) said he opposed a “taxpayer
bailout” of the bank.
The potential financial toll be-
came apparent Friday, as publicly
traded companies were forced to
the washington post
Philip Pacheco/Bloomberg News
than 93 percent of the firm’s de-
posits, Bloomberg News reported.
Many of the deposits came from
wealthy venture capitalists or tech
firms that Washington would face
certain fury for aiding, although
the precise percentage held by
businesses is unknown. Roku, Cal-
ifornia vineyards and philan-
thropic efforts backed by venture
capitalists were all among the
firms that had money at SVB.
SVB held more than $200 bil-
lion in assets at the end of last year.
California regulators estimated
that the bank had seen roughly
$40 billion in outflows, suggest-
ing somewhere in the neighbor-
hood of $160 billion in outstand-
ing assets.
While acknowledging that the
precise math is not immediately
clear, Phillips estimated that the
uninsured depositors could face
losses of between 10 and 15 per-
cent from the returns on the sales
of these assets, which would be
difficult for them but not cata-
strophic for the economy.
The FDIC could coordinate its
work with the nation’s other top
authorities for regulating the
banks, the Federal Reserve and
the Treasury Department. On Fri-
day afternoon, Treasury Secretary
Janet L. Yellen said she had con-
vened a meeting of top banking
regulators but announced no ac-
tions. Cecilia Rouse, a top White
House economist, also expressed
confidence Friday in the resilience
of the banking system.
warn investors about the risk.
Roblox told investors that
about $150 million of its $3 billion
in cash was deposited at Silicon
Valley Bank. Roku said $487 mil-
lion of its $1.9 billion of cash was
held by the bank. Medical equip-
ment maker iRhythm Technol-
ogies said in a filing that $54.5
million of its $213 million in cash
and short-term investments was
there.
Other companies said they
faced serious consequences, with-
out disclosing details. Pharmaceu-
tical company Axsome Therapeu-
tics said it had “material” cash
deposits at Silicon Valley Bank and
at another bank, but that it be-
lieved the second bank’s account
and an existing loan would be
enough for it to keep funding oper-
ations. The national toy store
chain Camp urged customers on
Friday to buy from its online col-
lection of stuffed animals, art sup-
plies and toy cars with a 40%
discount during a special “BANK-
RUN sale.”
One entrepreneur based in San
Francisco said he withdrew
$250,000 after investors urged
him to remove at least some mon-
ey Thursday, but attempts to wire
out the rest of the money failed.
The company now has $2 million
in funds frozen.
With about 90 percent of his
company’s reserves frozen, it is at
risk of bankruptcy within weeks.
But he knew other start-ups with
all of their cash and credit lines
now frozen who could fail much
sooner.
“That’s my bigger fear right
now,” said the start-up founder,
who spoke on the condition of
anonymity over concerns about
revealing the company’s finances.
“I’m really hoping investors can
bail us out.”
“Everyone I know has their
money in SVB,” he added.
. sunday, march 12 , 2023
Spokespeople for the Fed, FDIC
and Treasury declined to com-
ment on the prospect of govern-
ment aid for the uninsured depos-
its.
Calls for action emerged Friday
and were only expected to intensi-
fy. Larry Summers, the former
Democratic treasury secretary,
told The Washington Post that
making all uninsured depositors
whole could prevent a broader
financial panic.
“We must make sure all depos-
its exceeding the FDIC $250K lim-
it are honored. Banking is about
confidence,” Rep. Eric Swalwell
(D-Calif.) said on Twitter. “If de-
positors lose confidence on the
safety of their deposits over 250k
then we are in trouble.”
Rep. Ruben Gallego (D-Ariz.)
also tweeted that the FDIC “must
work to protect deposits exceed-
ing the 250k limit and keep [Arizo-
nans’] money protected.”
Garry Tan, chief executive of Y
Combinator, one of the industry’s
most influential start-up incuba-
tors, tweeted that failure to act
could represent an “extinction lev-
el event” for start-ups and could
set back innovation “by 10 years or
more.” David Sacks, general part-
ner of Craft Ventures and a long-
time venture investor, also direct-
ly petitioned Yellen and Federal
Reserve Chair Jerome H. Powell
for help. “Where is Powell? Where
is Yellen? Stop this crisis now.
Announce that all depositors will
be safe. Place SVB with a Top 4
bank,” Sacks tweeted. “Do this be-
fore Monday open or there will be
contagion and the crisis will
spread.”
Bill Ackman, a billionaire
hedge fund manager, also predict-
ed a run on all but the biggest
banks Monday absent govern-
ment intervention or the emer-
gence of another bank to buy SVB,
which he described as unlikely.
As soon as calls for intervention
began, so did the outcry from the
left and right against any poten-
tial bailouts.
Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) tweet-
ed, “I will NOT support a taxpayer
bailout of Silicon Valley Bank.”
“Bailing out SVB would em-
bolden banks to take irresponsi-
ble risks,” Max Ghenis, a policy
analyst at PolicyEngine, wrote on
Twitter. “A tiny, disproportionate-
ly rich share of US jobs are at
stake. … How is this debatable.”
Another awkward challenge:
Greg Becker, the CEO of SVB, was
a director of the Federal Reserve
Bank of San Francisco from 2019
until Friday.
“There’s a balance to strike
here. The FDIC wants to maintain
confidence in markets, but how
much they go beyond their statu-
tory duties is certainly the ques-
tion of the hour,” said Eswar Pras-
ad, an economist at Cornell Uni-
versity. “I don’t think they’ll stick
their necks out that much.”
Gerrit De Vynck contributed to this
report.
Many start-up chief executives
are at a loss for how they will pay
their employees and run their
businesses.
Parker Conrad, chief executive
of the payroll company Rippling,
tweeted Friday that the company
was switching its processing bank
to JPMorgan Chase and would get
money to employees by Monday at
the latest. He apologized to em-
ployees who didn’t get paid on
time.
“You rely on us, and we didn’t
deliver. Although payroll is in
flight, I know delays of any length
have a real impact, particularly for
anyone living paycheck to pay-
check,” he posted.
Meshkin, the health tech start-
up CEO, said before Rippling’s lat-
est update that if the funds don’t
make it to workers early this week,
the company will need to figure
out a way to manually pay their
more than 1,000 employees in the
United States and Canada, some-
thing they don’t have infrastruc-
ture for.
“We have a lot of angry employ-
ees,” Meshkin said.
Shondra Washington, who
works as a part-time chief finan-
cial officer with multiple compa-
nies, said one of her clients worked
with Rippling and was waiting for
payroll. Other clients used Silicon
Valley Bank for their own funds
and can’t access their accounts.
“We don’t even know where the
money is. It’s somewhere in the
ether,” she said. “We don’t really
know where it is or when it’s com-
ing.”
They’re trying to move their
money to other banks but aren’t
able to access it. Some of her cli-
ents have been unable to pay ven-
dors. “We’re panicking,” she said.
Michael Coren, Aaron Gregg, Lisa
Bonos, Naomi Nix and Joseph Menn
contributed to this report.
sunday, march 12 , 2023 . the washington post EZ RE A9

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A10
Along the U.S. border, migrants now hit a technology wall
Border from A1
they reach the country. Advocates
estimate close to 7,000 people
were spread out in encampments
in Matamoros and Reynosa in
January.
All are trying to use a new CBP
app that is supposed to make
entering the country more effi-
cient. Each day, migrants awake
before sunrise to search for a WiFi
signal and try to get one of the 700
to 800 appointments available at
eight entry points. Advocates esti-
mate there are more than 100,000
people seeking entry. The ap-
pointments fill up within five
minutes.
Previously, attorneys could in-
tervene to make a case for asylum
seekers to get emergency admis-
sion into the United States. Now
those fleeing gang violence are
fighting for appointments on
their own, alongside those facing
less dire conditions.
“We thought things were going
to be different, but here we are
fighting the same types of battles
and begging to let in victims of
torture,” said Jessica Riley, a staff
attorney with nonprofit Lawyers
for Good Government who works
with asylum seekers.
The Department of Homeland
Security says the app is designed
to remove some of the perils from
having long lines of migrants
waiting in border cities such as
Matamoros, where U.S. citizens
were recently kidnapped from
and where two were killed. In-
stead, many can now apply from
their home country and show up
on the date of their appointment.
“This app cuts out the smug-
glers, decreasing migrant exploi-
tation, and improving safety and
security,” DHS spokesman Luis
Miranda said in a statement.
More than 9,900 people have
used the app to enter the country
by getting an exemption from the
Title 42 pandemic-era public
health restriction since it went
live in January, CBP data shows.
Over 10,000 more have used the
app to obtain humanitarian pa-
role under a new program for
those from Haiti, Venezuela, Cuba
or Nicaragua — offering a lifeline
for many who can avoid embark-
ing on a treacherous journey.
Yet at migrant camps, shelters
and safe houses along the
U.S.-Mexico border, asylum seek-
ers who arrived before the app
was launched or faced such immi-
nent danger that they could not
wait to get an appointment strug-
gle to get a WiFi signal. Families
scramble to register all their rela-
tives only to find out that all of the
day’s appointments have been
taken. Desperation mounts as
they look toward a country within
eyeshot but perpetually out of
reach.
Two weeks after the boy was
sent back to the Sidewalk School,
Carlos said her once hopeful stu-
dent still doesn’t have a new
appointment. The child’s name is
being withheld by The Washing-
ton Post out of concerns for his
safety.
She tried to console him, she
recalled, but he was despondent,
telling her: “I want to die.”
A perilous hunt for WiFi
Lourdes Gonzalez has been
housing the most at-risk asylum
seekers in the border state of
Tamaulipas, Mexico, since 2018.
Inside the protective walls of her
shelter, migrants find a bed, a
kitchen for communal cooking,
medical supplies and some priva-
cy. She tends to sexually assaulted
children and bandages the
wounds of violence victims.
“There are traumas here you
cannot imagine,” she said.
On a recent afternoon, there
TOP: Migrants visit at a shelter in Reynosa, Mexico. Advocates estimate there were close to 7,000 people in encampments in Reynosa
and Matamoros in January. CLOCKWISE FROM ABOVE LEFT: Marco Alcazar, a transgender woman presenting as male for her
safety, at the Matamoros encampment. A Venezuelan boy gets a haircut at the Reynosa shelter. Children play at the Matamoros site.
EZ RE
were about a dozen families seek-
ing refuge in the shelter. Among
them were Yohana Cardona, her
husband, Gerardo Carías, and
their three children. The couple
owned a bodega in Honduras and
fled after being attacked by gang
members upset they’d stopped
paying extortion fees.
The family arrived penniless at
the border. They also didn’t have a
smartphone but quickly realized
they wouldn’t get into the United
States without one. So together
they sold candy on the streets
until they earned enough to buy a
used phone at a pawnshop.
Now they struggle to buy data
credits to use the internet. About
100 Mexican pesos or $6 can buy
two weeks worth of access to the
online world. But the family typi-
cally earns no more than 20 to 50
pesos a week — meaning they
sometimes go days without being
able to try their luck with the CBP
One app.
“Do they know where we are?”
Cardona said, bursting into sobs.
“The most dangerous place on the
continent. Kids can’t play outside
because of gunshots. Taxi drivers
help kidnap people. We had to
sleep on the streets for days be-
fore finding a shelter.”
Her husband, Carías, added:
“It’s stressful enough with what
we had to do to get here. This
[app] is one more obstacle. We
feel powerless.”
WiFi service in northern Mexi-
co is spotty at best and, at worst,
nonexistent. The signal may be
strong enough to log on, but the
PHOTOS BY Sergio Flores for The Washington Post
the washington post
low bandwidth falters the deeper
into the app one goes. Migrants
say the signal drops completely
when taking a photo or uploading
information.
Those challenges are leading
some to take new risks.
Twenty-year-old Oliver of Hon-
duras is hoping to reunite with
his mother across the U.S. border.
But when he got to Reynosa, he
was kidnapped. His mother paid
several thousand dollars in ran-
som to the cartels to secure his
release.
Then, searching for a WiFi sig-
nal to make an appointment, Oli-
ver climbed onto the roof of a
building in the predawn hours
and ran into low-hanging power
lines. Shocked by the electrical
current, he fell and spent several
. sunday, march 12 , 2023
hours unconscious on the
ground, he recounted in an inter-
view. Eventually someone found
him and called for help. Oliver
woke up in a hospital. He sur-
vived, but barely.
Oliver’s burns run across his
neck and down his arms and
back. He lies prone in bed at
Gonzalez’s safe house for most of
the day with a Red Cross blanket
draped across the dark marks on
his back. Volunteers help clean
his wounds and try to keep the
covers from sticking to his peel-
ing skin. But they fear the young
man could contract an infection
without more advanced care.
“My life is in danger here,”
Oliver said in a muffled voice as
he strained to lift his chin from
the pillow sustaining his head. “I
need help. I just want to heal and
be with my mother.”
These are the kinds of cases
Gonzalez said she encounters ev-
ery day.
“I understand the frustration
of U.S. citizens and not letting
everyone come in, but I also know
these people really need it,” Gon-
zalez said. “The app is good, but it
doesn’t give them a chance to tell
their horror stories.”
Cartels and photo glitches
Nearby in Reynosa, a three-
acre lot covered in human feces
near a sandy river peninsula over-
run by Mexican cartel members
sits adjacent to a camp for mi-
grants.
They sleep and eat 50 feet away
from the open pit. Soiled toilet
paper clings to cactus needles. A
toxic plume of nostril-singeing
smoke rises over the encamp-
ment from a trash heap at the
river’s edge where plastic burns.
Nearby, a collection of tall glass
candles bearing the image of La
Santa Muerte, a Grim Reaper-like
Mexican folk saint worshiped by
narcos, have been placed in a
circle drawn into the sand.
This is Camp Rio, where at
least 1,000 Haitian asylum seek-
ers are spending each day they
can’t get an appointment.
Many Black migrants are
pushed to the fringes of border
cities to wait in subhuman condi-
tions. They have more difficulty
accessing shelters than those
with lighter skin and often experi-
ence racism in Mexico.
With nowhere else to go, Hai-
tian families lay out mattresses in
abandoned gas stations and
stretch old nylon political ban-
ners across pillars to engineer
some privacy. Some of their tents
are recycled from camps that
arose during the Trump era, when
70,000 asylum seekers were sent
back across the border as part of
the “Remain in Mexico” program.
Haitians are frequently target-
ed by petty thieves and heavily
armed drug dealers. Volunteer
doctors with nonprofit Global Re-
sponse Medicine have treated
strange rashes, severe respiratory
infections and at least one case of
sunday, march 12 , 2023 . the washington post EZ RE A11

cholera at the border camp. When Charlene D’Cruz trav-

“The reason these camps exist
is because they are waiting to
legally cross,” said Felicia Rangel-
Samponaro, founder of Sidewalk
School, which has two locations.
She is one of the few Black Ameri-
cans serving migrants in the bor-
der region.
Advocates and families say the
CBP app has posed additional
hurdles for Black migrants; ini-
tially, instructions were not avail-
able in Creole and migrants with
darker skin said they had more
difficulty with the facial-capture
feature.
Biden administration officials
reject claims that the app’s func-
tions don’t work as well for Black
migrants, pointing to recent DHS
data showing that 40 percent of
applicants who used CBP One to
secure their entry into the United
States were Haitian.
Ricot Picot, 42, of Haiti wres-
tled with the app’s photo feature
for weeks before he obtained ap-
pointments for him, his wife and
two of his three children. He
showed a reporter how the app’s
camera struggled to recognize
and capture his dark-skinned
face. It was a miracle, he said, that
it finally worked for him. But his
youngest daughter, 7, still had not
succeeded.
“You hold on because of your
kids, but it’s your kids who suffer
the most,” he said.
Picot received good news earli-
er this month when he reported
for his appointment. The CBP
officer at the Hidalgo Interna-
tional Bridge allowed the family
to cross, even though his young-
est didn’t have an appointment.
They are now safe in New Eng-
land.
Kidnapped, beaten
and waiting
Within a northern Mexico safe
house, a 30-something-year-old
asylum seeker ran his fingers
across the bumpy scar tissue that
had healed unevenly around his
wrists. The marks are remnants
of the torture he endured two
weeks earlier.
His voice quivered as he re-
called black-clad kidnappers am-
bushing the house where he was
living at 1 a.m. in late January.
They bound his hands and feet
with electric cables and threw
him in the trunk of a vehicle.
For two days, he was repeatedly
burned and beaten.
The Washington Post is with-
holding the man’s name and oth-
er identifying characteristics for
safety reasons because he is still
in Mexico. But the man showed a
reporter the cuts and described
how men pistol-whipped and
beat him. Dark circular scars
mark the spots on his legs where
his captors pressed lit cigarettes
into his flesh.
“The app doesn’t feel fair,” said
the man, who was denied an
exemption to the Title 42 rule
barring most migrants from en-
tering and has failed to secure an
appointment. “I need protection
in the United States.”
Riley, the attorney, represents
the man and another asylum
seeker also who was attacked and
is under threat from Mexican
criminal organizations. Both are
now in hiding. Riley said she
made formal requests to CBP for
her clients to be quickly exempt-
ed from Title 42 for their security.
The requests were denied. Offi-
cials said to use the app.
Border officials say case-by-
case determinations are still be-
ing made, but there are no op-
tions to check a box or otherwise
indicate that one belongs to an
especially vulnerable group when
applying for an appointment
through CBP One.
Marco Alcazar is a transgender
woman but presenting as male
for her safety while living in an
open-air encampment atop a riv-
er levee. She is surrounded by
compatriots who like her try to
find ways to feel human: stream-
ing Top 40 Latin hits through a
speaker for dancing, offering
haircuts for a nominal fee or
selling food.
But the vibrant scene belies the
perils Alcazar faces. The trans-
phobia and discrimination that
propelled her flight from Ven-
ezuela are more virulent in Mexi-
co, the second-most-dangerous
Photos by Sergio Flores for The Washington Post
place in the world to be transgen-
FROM TOP: Residents of the migrant shelter in Reynosa wait der after Brazil.
for food. A phone-charging station in Reynosa. U.S. Customs She said she believes that in the
and Border Protection data shows that nearly 20,000 people United States, “I will be protect-
have used the agency’s CBP One app to enter the United States. ed.”
‘We will lose everything’
At the Matamoros school, more
teary-eyed children arrive each
“The app is good, but it doesn’t give them a day. Fathers and mothers trying
to register for immigration ap-
chance to tell their horror stories.” pointments are blocked by error
messages, stymied by frozen
Lourdes Gonzalez, operator of a shelter in Tamaulipas, Mexico, for the
screens or run out of time before
most at-risk asylum seekers, on the CBP One app for U.S. entry
all the day’s slots are taken.
eled to Matamoros on a February
morning, word spread quickly
that she was a lawyer. Within
seconds, she and another advo-
cate were surrounded by pan-
icked mothers, dumbstruck fa-
thers and wide-eyed children ask-
ing for advice.
“I’ve been here four months!”
“This system is horrible and
forcing us to separate from our
kids!”
“They leave us no way out!”
According to dozens of families
interviewed, it is difficult to regis-
ter and take photos of multiple
people on the CBP One app with-
in the small window in which
appointments for the same day
are available. Single adult regis-
trants were getting dates. Fami-
lies weren’t.
Miranda, the DHS spokesman,
said the agency is “committed to
family unity” and had always re-
quired that each family member
secure an appointment, but that
some officers made exemptions
in the early days of the app’s
rollout.
The crowd of people around
the attorneys swelled. Parents
with upcoming dates wondered
what would happen if they sent
their small children across the
bridge alone as unaccompanied
minors. D’Cruz begged them not
to.
“If we don’t, we will lose every-
thing we’ve worked for,” a woman
from Nicaragua said, pressing her
bewildered daughter against her
leg.
Advocates counted between 40
and 50 children surrendered at
the bridge alone days later.
Back at the Sidewalk School,
the number of children enrolled
has swelled. Carlos, the coordina-
tor, said they went from teaching
a handful of kids each day to more
three dozen in recent weeks. She
said that means more and more
children, and their families,
aren’t getting appointments.
The longer they despair in
Mexico, parents say, the more
they consider sending their chil-
dren to the United States alone.
Valentina Sanchez, 24, of Ven-
ezuela, and her husband had ap-
pointments in February. Their 3-
year-old son did not. He crossed
and she stayed behind with the
toddler.
“I worry for my son, because he
asks me constantly, ‘Where’s
papi?’” she said. “I tell him, ‘You
see those lights on the other side?
That’s where he is, waiting for
us.’”

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A12
What Tucker Carlson said about
Trump in private texts vs. on Fox News
Tucker Carlson is the most-watched cable news host in the country. He is a primary source of pro-Trump political punditry and has advanced the false no-
tion that the Jan. 6, 2021, attempt to violently overtake the Capitol was a peaceful protest. ¶ But Carlson’s on-air rhetoric was in dramatic opposition to
private sentiments he shared with colleagues, in which he professed to “passionately” hate Trump and yearn for the end of his presidency. Those private
communications, which were released as part of Dominion Voting Systems’ $1.6 billion defamation lawsuit against Fox News, show how Carlson struggled
to publicly support the president’s false voter-fraud theories that he privately scoffed at. ¶ Fox has said that Dominion used “cherry-picked quotes stripped
of key context, and spilled considerable ink on facts that are irrelevant under black-letter principles of defamation law.” The cable news juggernaut has ac-
cused the voting technology company of trying “to silence the press” through its lawsuit. Carlson has not responded to inquiries about his internal commu-
nications. But the vast distance between what he said privately and what he said on-air deepens questions about what Fox’s biggest star really believes.
‘He could easily destroy us
if we play it wrong’
On Nov. 5, votes were still being count-
ed, but Trump’s path to victory in the
presidential election had narrowed con-
siderably. With defeat looming, Trump
and his surrogates began making in-
creasingly outlandish false claims about
election fraud, fueling pro-Trump pro-
tests across the country. “If you count the
illegal votes,” Trump said, “they can try to
steal the election from us.”
The unfolding chaos seemed to rattle
Carlson and his producer, Alex Pfeiffer. In
a string of text messages, they voiced
reservations about covering “dema-
gogues” in Trump’s camp while at the
same time appearing bothered that the
Fox News decision desk had accurately
projected that Biden would win Arizona.
They agreed that it was in the net-
work’s interest for the election to be
called as soon as possible.
As Carlson and Pfeiffer agreed in pri-
vate that the best scenario for Fox News
was a decisive end to the election, Carlson
said the opposite on his show.
In a Nov. 5 segment on the election, the
host urged against “hasty calls,” saying
news media shouldn’t “shut it down
artificially with unelected news anchors.”
He seemed to portray the election false-
hoods frothing in Trumpworld as “legiti-
mate discourse and inquiry.” He told
viewers, “If people air concerns, resolve
the concerns.”
“Normal people are becoming paranoid.
Americans who love this country are beginning
to fear it. Why? We know exactly why. Because
shutting down legitimate discourse and
inquiry always has that effect. It destroys
social trust and it sets the table for awful
things to come. So let’s stop this right now.
Slow down. No hasty calls. Our system works.
It has worked before. If people air concerns,
resolve the concerns. Don’t call them names.
Don’t sweep those concerns under the rug.
Don’t shut it down artificially with unelected
news anchors. Let our system work.”
Tucker Carlson, on his show Nov. 5, 2020
Later in the text exchange between
Pfeiffer and Carlson, the two ridiculed
Trump’s business background. But Carl-
son seemed to acknowledge that Trump
could wreck their careers and livelihoods
if he didn’t like their coverage.
Pfeiffer did not immediately respond
to multiple messages from The Washing-
ton Post seeking comment.
EZ
BY D EREK H AWKINS, S ARAH E LLISON
‘It’s disgusting. I’m trying
to look away.’
On Nov. 10, 2020, days after news or-
ganizations called the election for Joe
Biden, some conservatives criticized Carl-
son for not mentioning election fraud
claims on his show that night. Carlson told
Pfeiffer in texts that he hated the issue but
said it was a “mistake” to have ignored it.
In further correspondence highlighted
in court documents, Pfeiffer proposed
they take an alternative approach in their
upcoming shows and cover allegations
that dead people voted in 2020. This
ostensibly would allow them to sidestep
some of the more outrageous election
conspiracy theories — such as the bogus
claims from Trump allies that voting ma-
chines were rigged to change votes —
while still catering to an audience hungry
for material on voter fraud. Carlson said
he was on board and sent Pfeiffer to collect
evidence.
The following day, the Trump campaign
sent them the names of a few supposedly
dead Americans who cast ballots in 2020.
Carlson aired some of the names on his
show that night, saying that voter fraud
“happened, and we can prove it.”
“So, was there voter fraud last week? That’s a
question we’ve been working on since
election night. We’ve tried to be careful and
precise as we report this out. In moments like
this, truth really matters more than ever.
False allegations of fraud can cause as much
damage as the fraud itself. Jussie Smollett
hurt more people with his lies than any actual
hate crime. And the last thing America needs
right now is more damage. So we want to be
accurate. What we’re about to tell you is
accurate. It’s not a theory. It happened and
we can prove it. Other news organizations
could prove it, too. They’ve simply chosen not
to. The position of corporate media across the
country this week has been very simple:
There was no voter fraud.”
Tucker Carlson, on his show Nov. 11, 2020
Reporting by other news organizations
later showed that some of the people
identified by the Trump campaign were
still alive, while others were mistaken
identities. In other cases, Republican vot-
ers were charged with casting ballots in
their dead relatives’ names. Carlson is-
sued a correction on the Fox News web-
site.
Amid the exchange about voter fraud,
Pfeiffer said he had heard from Rep. Matt
Gaetz (R-Fla.) that Trump was planning to
skip Biden’s inauguration. Carlson
seemed appalled that Trump would buck
the long-standing tradition, calling the
move “destructive.”
RE
AND B LAIR G UILD
‘He’s only good at destroying’
Possibly the most prescient text ex-
change occurred between Carlson and
Pfeiffer on Nov. 13, 2020. Carlson said any
allegations of fraud involving Dominion
needed to be “bulletproof.”
A week later, on Nov. 19, 2020, Carlson
found himself trying to navigate a mine-
field he had helped create.
That morning, Trump’s lawyer, Rudy
Giuliani, held a news conference in Phila-
delphia where he aired more baseless
claims about voter fraud. A dark liquid
could be seen trickling down his face as
he spoke. Carlson texted about it with Fox
executive Ron Mitchell and producer
Justin Wells.
In private, Carlson shared images of
the scene, saying “my mind is blown.”
While Carlson privately wanted to ig-
nore the spectacle on-air, he left the door
open for Trump’s team to prove that fraud
really existed on the level they claimed. In
a Nov. 20 segment on his show, he said
that if Trump lawyer Sidney Powell could
actually unearth this crime, “no one will
be more grateful for that than us.” He
seemed to be soliciting evidence of voter
fraud while acknowledging he had not
seen any of it.
the washington post
“They have not seen Powell’s evidence either.
No testimony from employees inside the
software companies, no damning internal
documents, no copies of the software itself. So
that’s where we are. Sidney Powell came on
Fox this morning and suggested we may not
have to wait much longer. ‘I fully expect,’ she
says, ‘that we will be able to prove all of it in a
court within the next two weeks.’ Well, as far as
we’re concerned, that is great news. If Sidney
Powell can prove the technology companies
switched millions of votes and stole a
presidential election, she will have almost
single-handedly uncovered the greatest crime
in the history of this country. And no one will be
more grateful for that than us.”
Tucker Carlson, on his show Nov. 20, 2020
‘There isn’t really
an upside to Trump’
By Trump’s final weeks in office, Carl-
son’s frustration with the president was
boiling over. “I hate him passionately,” he
texted Pfeiffer on Jan. 4, 2021, while
musing about how they would soon be
able to ignore Trump “most nights.”
And yet, Carlson devoted the opening
of his show that night to the phone call
Trump made days earlier in which Trump
pressured Georgia Secretary of State Brad
Raffensperger to overturn the state’s elec-
tion result.
In a style Carlson has perfected over the
years, he made little mention of what
Trump actually said to Raffensperger.
Instead, he took on the role of media
critic, baselessly claiming that other news
organizations were focusing on the call to
divert attention from the upcoming Sen-
ate election in Georgia. He told viewers to
listen to the recording themselves but
said he was willing to bet they wouldn’t
find it “the single most important thing
happening in the world right now.”
“But no matter what you conclude about vote
counting in Georgia, we’re willing to bet that
you won’t decide Donald Trump’s latest phone
call is the single most important thing
happening in the world right now. Probably not
even close. And yet CNN is claiming that it is.
Why are they doing that? Well, that’s a good
question and worth pondering.”
Tucker Carlson, on his show Jan. 4, 2021
‘He’s a demonic force, a destroyer’
After police cleared the mob from the
U.S. Capitol on the evening of Jan. 6, 2021,
Carlson and Pfeiffer debated what led to
the riot. Pfeiffer said Trump was to blame.
Carlson differed, calling Trump and his
election lies a “symptom” without elabo-
. sunday, march 12 , 2023
rating further. They both agreed that
Trump would use his final weeks in office
to keep riling up his supporters.
In a rare moment of emotional candor,
both admitted that covering Trump had
affected their mental health. Pfeiffer
spoke of a “Trump anger spiral.” Carlson
said he had felt it, too, and that it had
almost consumed him in the post-elec-
tion chaos. “It was very difficult to regain
emotional control,” he texted, “but I knew
I had to.”
In his opening monologue that night,
Carlson seemed to wrestle with his own
response to the attack. He said he was
horrified by the violence but vaguely
suggested that some form of unrest was
inevitable because people had lost faith in
democracy. Leaders — he didn’t say who
— “don’t care to learn or listen,” he said.
“But if you don’t bother to pause and
learn a single thing from it — from your
citizens storming your Capitol building —
then you’re a fool. You lack wisdom and
you lack self-awareness, you have no place
running a country,” Carlson concluded.
“When thousands of your countrymen storm
the Capitol building, you don’t have to like it.
We don’t. You can be horrified by the violence.
And as we said, and we’ll say it again, we are
horrified. It’s wrong. But if you don’t bother to
pause and learn a single thing from it — from
your citizens storming your Capitol building —
then you’re a fool. You lack wisdom and you
lack self-awareness. You have no place running
a country. We got to this sad, chaotic day for a
reason. It is not your fault. It is their fault.”
Tucker Carlson, on his show Jan. 6, 2021
In the segment, he made no mention of
Trump.
Portions of the text exchanges are redacted in
the court records. Azi Paybarah and Tyler
Remmel contributed to this report.
sunday, march 12 , 2023 . the washington post EZ SU A13

Census chief prioritizing better
count of non-White populations
BY S ILVIA F OSTER- F RAU
For the past four decades, U.S.
Census Bureau Director Robert
Santos has checked “Some Other
Race” on his census form. Under-
neath it, he would write in “mes-
tizo” to describe his Mexican
American heritage.
“That was the best way for me
to be able to tell my own story of
who I believe I am, as a Tejano
and a Chicano,” Santos said.
Santos was not alone: In 2020,
about 50 million people marked
“Some Other Race” on their cen-
sus form, and 90 percent of them
were Latinos — a sign, Census
Bureau officials have said, that
the form is incompatible with
how many people, particularly
Latinos, identify.
A proposal by the Biden ad-
ministration’s Office of Manage-
ment and Budget could change
that, potentially providing clari-
ty for millions of Latinos filling
out the form — including the
Census director himself.
The efforts are a revival of
Obama-era reviews of the once-
in-a-decade survey that were put
on hold under President Donald
Trump. Biden has made them a
“top priority,” according to the
country’s chief statistician, Karin
Orvis. It’s swiftly moving
through the process with the goal
of completing the revisions be-
fore the 2024 presidential elec-
tion, Census officials said.
The proposed changes would
diminish the White population
count, while presenting a coun-
try in 2030 that is more multicul-
tural than previously thought.
Santos said one of his priori-
ties as bureau director is improv-
ing the count of non-White popu-
lations. He is the first Latino to
lead the bureau and its first
Senate-confirmed person of col-
or. (James Holmes led the Bureau
as acting director in 1998, the
first person of color to do so.)
His identity as person of color
informs and influences his work
as a statistician and bureau di-
rector, Santos says. He was born
and raised in the “barrio” of San
Antonio and went on to become
the vice president and chief
methodologist at the nonparti-
san Urban Institute and was
executive vice president and
partner of the NuStats, a social
science research firm.
Since being sworn in last year,
Santos said, he has been working
to create stronger ties between
the bureau and local communi-
ties, to help them make use of the
bureau’s data and to encourage
them to fill out the once-a-decade
survey.
On the current Census form,
one question asks for the respon-
dent’s ethnicity — regardless of
whether they are Hispanic — and
a following question asks for the
respondent’s race, which in-
cludes White and Black but does
not include Hispanic or Latino.
The proposal would combine
these questions into one, with
Latino listed alongside Black,
White and other racial catego-
ries. It would also add Middle
Eastern or North African
(MENA) as an ethnic category
alongside the others, instead of
including MENA people under
the White racial category.
The current census’ approach
to recording race and ethnicity
“is not optimal, is not the best
approach,” Santos said. “The gen-
eral public does not separate race
and ethnicity.”
The OMB’s proposal also rec-
ommends removing outdated ra-
cial language from the census’s
race and ethnicity policy stan-
dards, which were crafted in 1977
and include words such as “ne-
gro” to describe African Ameri-
cans and “far east” for Asian
Americans.
Those proposed changes could
lower the “Some other race”
count, which grew 129 percent in
the last decade, becoming the
second-largest race group after
White. The growth of that cat-
egory has troubled census ex-
perts who have said it muddies
the picture the census paints
about who lives in the United
States and diminishes federal
funding to non-White popula-
tions.
A small number of Afro-Lati-
no-focused groups have pushed
back against the changes, argu-
ing that the consolidated race
and ethnicity question could un-
dercount their community, who
in the current census can mark
“Hispanic” as their ethnicity and
“Black” in their race. Rogelio
Sáenz, a professor at the Univer-
sity of Texas at San Antonio who
is also a member of the govern-
ment’s interagency working
group, Census Scientific Advi-
sory Committee (CSAC), flagged
those concerns during the
group’s public presentation
Thursday.
But Nicholas Jones, the direc-
tor of race and ethnic research
and outreach in the Census Bu-
reau’s Population Division, said
in the meeting that the 2015
research into this change found
the single question led to a better
count, specifically for Afro-Lati-
nos as well as Latinos overall.
The proposals also don’t ad-
dress Latinos of indigenous de-
scent who may have immigrated
from Central America and speak
indigenous languages but don’t
necessarily fit under the
“U.S.-centered” definition of Na-
tive American on the form, said
Sáenz. He also pointed out that
White is often listed as the first
race on the form and suggested
the list of races and ethnicities be
listed in alphabetical order to
avoid a perception of racial hier-
archy.
“We know the indigenous pop-
ulation within the Latino com-
munity has been growing in
numbers and becoming much
more diverse, many who do not
speak Spanish as well, so there
are all those issues that need to
be considered with the indig-
enous population and making
sure we have racial and ethnic
categories for them,” Sáenz said.
During Thursday’s presenta-
tion, Santos said the working
group’s efforts show that above
all else, the Census Bureau must
be as fluid and nimble as the
country’s ever-changing demo-
graphics. “Society is not static,
and the only thing I know for
sure is that our perceptions of
who we are and how we like to
call ourselves are going to
change,” he said.

In Russia,
secret
antiwar art
exhibits
Russia from A1

trays the war as an existential

battle for Russia’s survival that
only traitors oppose. In Russia,
criticizing the military or even
publicizing Russian military
abuses in Ukraine is a crime.
We head away from the bus
stop in a straggly group, walking
a big circle around half a block,
ducking through a courtyard
with snowy puddles, past a cafe
and finally through a door and up
many flights of narrow steps. We
are warned not to speak to any-
one we pass on the stairs.
Inside the narrow apartment
hallway, coats and shoes are piled
high. A group of activists and
friends congregate in the kitchen,
drinking tea at a table crammed
with plates of cakes, cookies,
marshmallows and candies.
The lights are dimmed, as the
artist who met us at the bus stop
acts as a guide. It is the second
exhibition here, organized by art-
ists who have been arrested for
protesting the war or had their
works seized by police in exhibi-
tions since the invasion.
“We were afraid if we had an
exhibition the police would come
and arrest us, so we decided to be
underground. It’s like turning the
clock back to the Soviet years,”
said the artist, leading the way
into a room with portraits of
arrested activists, political pris-
oners and scenes of Russian riot
police dragging protesters away.
There are grim portraits of Putin,
portrayed as a demonic figure
surrounded by chaos and war.
The works are not refined,
consisting largely of visceral pro-
test art in vivid colors, including
some of the antiwar banners
people held up at protest rallies.
The small lavatory, with its dank
odor, is decked out with bloody
images of Putin and Kremlin
spokesman Dmitry Peskov.
“The art here is by people who
were arrested for protests;
they’re people we know,” the art-
ist said. “You just come and put
up your work. It’s all free here.
There’s no censorship.”
And yet the exhibition itself is
a product of fear. Even as they
Photos by Mary Gelman/Vii for The Washington Post
enjoy their secret freedom, the
artists know that going under- With criticism of the military outlawed in Russia, artists opposed to the war in Ukraine put together an underground exhibition in St. Petersburg, shared by word of mouth.
ground suits the regime.
“This process of fear, this Rus-
sian complex of being a small
person, is a state of mind,” the banner containing “political After graduating from art Russians’ indifference to the war, protest.” east Ukraine that was nearly
artist said. “We grew up with it overtones.” school, Dmitry Shagin took up and the shrinking space for dis- Another artist, a mother of two destroyed by bombing. Some of
and we’re always afraid. You’re a The offending slogan on the art in the late 1970s, but also got a sent and artistic expression. young children who was seated at Nikolai’s works have been seized
tiny person opposed to a huge banner, “The Mitki don’t want to job shoveling coal in a boiler “A lot of artistic people have the kitchen table in the apart- by police at exhibitions.
country and it treats you as a tool defeat anybody,” is a reference to room — like many nonconformist left the country because it is not ment, said seeing videos and “We’re in a situation where the
to serve its purpose.” She added: the Mitki, a beloved Soviet hippie artists — because between inten- possible to create art here be- images of civilians killed by Rus- government calls us criminals
“You’re supposed to follow the art collective that Shagin found- sive shifts there was time off to cause of censorship,” Osipova sian forces in Ukraine’s Bucha because we’re against the war,” he
rules and keep quiet, and if you’re ed in the 1980s, when the group’s paint. In Putin’s wartime Russia, said. “There is much less freedom was “like an earthquake. I felt I said.
different, they’ll crush you.” vibrant, colorful works and play- where denunciations are rife, now. Exhibitions are going deep needed to get it out of me. I could The artist guiding visitors
Outside this underground art ful themes were at odds with the even venerated artists are now underground. No one talks about not keep silent.” around the exhibition said it was
show, Russia’s wider art world dour Soviet era. At the time, the vulnerable. them openly, but they are hap- She was arrested at a demon- a source of mutual support and
has come under tightening state Soviet Union was fighting in Af- “For artists like us, the atmos- pening all the time.” Osipova said stration last year, but later comfort for artists. But she sees
control. ghanistan. phere is not great because we see she does not fear arrest and stopped protesting for fear au- hard times ahead for Russia.
Last month in Moscow, Zelfira Shagin said the slogan dated censorship is returning,” Shagin exhibits her work openly. thorities could jail her and take “Sometimes you feel really low,
Tregulova, the director of the back to 1984 and merely summa- said. “I started out as an artist in But the vacant St. Petersburg away her children — an increas- because not many people see
renowned State Tretyakov Gal- rized the group’s peaceful philos- the late 1970s and the last time a apartment of a Russian woman ingly common practice. Instead, what you’re doing and there’s no
lery, was replaced by Yelena Pron- ophy. “The main idea of the Mitki painting of mine was banned was who moved to the United States she poured her feelings into way to influence what is going
icheva, daughter of a former sen- art is kindness,” he said. “And, in 1986.” He added: “The atmos- is a cozy haven for underground sketches of a weeping mother of on,” she said. “I feel that the
ior official of the Federal Security you know, we tried to bring phere is strange. I don’t know artists and activists. The emi- God icon watching a flying mis- protests and drawings are not
Service (FSB), after the Culture people joy, and our works are whether they will ban the Mitki grant told the organizers to use it sile. enough to change things. I don’t
Ministry demanded that the mu- very humanist and peaceful and or let us exist.” whenever they want, but to leave “I started to draw, just so as not believe in the salvation of the
seum promote Russian moral positive.” Yelena Osipova, a 77-year-old the curtains closed and keep a to be silent,” she said. “I felt as if country.”
and spiritual values. Shagin grew up hanging St. Petersburg artist and high- hush at night. words were not enough to de- But Shagin, a lifelong optimist,
In January, a painting by well- around secret art exhibitions in profile peace activist, is frequent- Our guide points to her own scribe what I was feeling.” says artists, like his father in the
known contemporary St. Peters- private apartments. His father, ly led away by police for staging work on one wall, scenes in blue One artist, Nikolai, displayed a repressive Soviet era of the 1950s
burg artist Dmitry Shagin was Vladimir Shagin, was an under- protest pickets. Last month, po- and yellow acrylic, the colors of broken red brick on a black base, and 1960s, cannot be trampled.
removed from Moscow’s All-Rus- ground nonconformist artist who lice raided an exhibition of her Ukraine. When painting scenes resembling a ruined building, “Art is free,” he said. “It cannot be
sian Decorative Art Museum be- was jailed for six years for his art antiwar posters and seized them. outdoors she uses only those two with the title “Mariupol” — the controlled from outside, and it
cause it depicted figures with a in Soviet times. She said she was dismayed by colors, in what she calls “a quiet Russian-occupied city in south- will always be free.”
A14
Insurance from A1
one detailing issues in the pri-
mary bedroom, removed. The
amount of insulation that needed
to be redone was cut by half, and
his estimate now said one-third of
the roof should be fixed, instead
of it being fully replaced. The
homeowners were slated to re-
ceive a total of $27,000. The
changes were made without Lee’s
knowledge or consent, he said,
but his name was still on the final
report, according to documents
seen by The Washington Post.
After major disasters like Ian,
insurance companies often bring
on third-party firms like Tristar
Claim Solutions, an independent
adjusting company that Lee
worked for as a contractor, to help
with the hundreds of thousands
of claims.
During the insurance claims
process, it’s standard for field ad-
justers, who are trained to assess
damaged homes, to collaborate
with those back in the office to
make minor edits, discuss aspects
of the claim and alter line items if,
for example, the carrier has evi-
dence that damage was from a
prior event, according to adjust-
ers and insurance industry ex-
perts. That is how the system is
supposed to work.
But that’s not what has been
happening in the aftermath of
Hurricane Ian, Lee and others
said.
Instead, Lee and other adjust-
ers contracted by regional insur-
ance carriers say managers have
been changing their work by low-
ering totals, rewriting descrip-
tions of damage and deleting ac-
companying photos without their
approval. These actions to deval-
ue damage are the latest example
of the insurance crisis in Florida.
After years of more frequent
and intense storms, national car-
riers have pulled back from the
market and smaller, regional car-
riers with smaller financial re-
serves jumped in. In the wake of
Hurricane Ian, those companies
have been aggressively seeking to
limit payouts to policyholders by
altering the work of licensed ad-
justers, according to a Post inves-
tigation. As a result, homeowners
are left footing much of the bill for
repairs, exposing an untenable
gap between the cost of storm
damage and what insurers are
willing to pay to fix it.
The Post’s examination includ-
ed interviews with dozens of poli-
cyholder advocates, attorneys
and Hurricane Ian survivors as
well as five insurance adjusters,
who oversaw more than 100
claims for Heritage and Florida
Peninsula Insurance Co., another
regional carrier. The Post also
reviewed 13 original and modi-
fied claims, which included hun-
dreds of pages of estimates, pho-
tos and general loss reports, as
well as internal records, final pay-
ment letters, emails and carrier
guidelines.
The documents show that a
dozen policyholders and their
families had their Hurricane Ian
claims reduced by 45 to 97 per-
cent.
In one claim reviewed by The
Post, a nearly $500,000 damage
estimate on a house with a mostly
tarped roof was reduced to about
$13,000. In another, the desk ad-
justers blamed roof storm dam-
age on past wear and tear, mean-
ing it would not be covered.
In three cases, The Post ob-
tained final determination let-
ters, and the amounts sent to
homeowners matched the altered
claims. For two of those families,
their original claims were cut be-
low their deductibles, resulting in
no payment.
The adjusters, attorneys and
policyholder advocates allege
that the independent adjusting
firms were internally lowering
estimates under the direction of
the insurance carriers who con-
tracted them. Emails obtained by
The Post detail how independent
adjusting firms followed orders
from carriers to write claims in
specific ways that significantly
reduced payouts.
The people interviewed for this
investigation decided to speak
out because, they allege, the ease
and scale with which Ian claims
have been altered and gutted rep-
resents a tipping point for Flori-
da’s insurance industry. The re-
vised claims inaccurately repre-
sent their work, for which they
said they still have not been fully
paid, and they want more over-
sight, reform and accountability.
The Post made multiple at-
tempts to interview and seek
comment from Heritage, Florida
Peninsula and Tristar, sending
each company detailed lists of
questions pertaining to the alle-
gations and evidence in this in-
vestigation. Heritage did not re-
ply to calls and emails. Represen-
Fla. residents left in insurance crisis after storm
tatives for Florida Peninsula said
that “everyone is tied up at the
moment” and that they would not
be able “to help with this one.”
Tristar said that because of a
“confidentiality agreement with
Heritage Insurance we are unable
to comment on Heritage Policy,
procedures and/or estimating
guidelines.” However, the compa-
ny said that it has reasons for
altering claims and that “esti-
mates are revised/collaborated
throughout the entire industry at
the direction of the insurance
carriers. They have the final say.”
Some in Florida’s insurance in-
dustry blame the flailing market
on lawyers and contractors who
they allege have taken advantage
of the system to sue carriers, jack
up estimates and use roofing
scams as ways to profit off disas-
ters. It’s actually the carriers, they
argue, that have been the victims
of fraud and bad behavior.
“Florida is the worst of all
states when it comes to frivolous
lawsuits and roof-replacement
fraud schemes. Many claims are
not legitimate,” said Mark Fried-
lander, the director of communi-
cations for the Insurance Infor-
mation Institute, an industry as-
sociation. To combat those issues,
lawmakers have recently passed
several pro-insurance industry
laws that target attorneys and
contractors, he said.
Friedlander also attributed the
unusually long delays and lower
payouts to “the complexity of the
claims” and hurricane deduct-
ibles. For the most part, compa-
nies “have been taking care of
their customers,” he said.
However, the American Policy-
EZ RE
holder Association, a nonprofit
insurance industry watchdog
group, disagrees. It said in a state-
ment that it has found “compel-
ling evidence of what appears to
be multiple instances of systemat-
ic criminal fraud perpetrated to
cheat policyholders out of fair
insurance claims” and will be sub-
mitting criminal referrals to au-
thorities “in Florida & several
other states” in the coming
months.
Four homeowners confirmed
to The Post that they had received
only a small portion of what they
had been promised in their deter-
mination letters from Heritage
and Florida Peninsula, or were
struggling to get straight answers
and considering taking legal ac-
tion. Meanwhile, their homes are
still heavily damaged or uninhab-
itable. And more than 33,000
Florida homeowner claims linked
to Ian are still open without pay-
ment, while more than 125,000
were closed without payment, ac-
cording to the Florida Office of
Insurance Regulation. Nearly
56,000 claims were open with
payment and 183,235 were closed
with payment.
Florida’s insurance market has
been teetering toward collapse
for years. After destructive
storms in 2005, several big carri-
ers including State Farm pulled
back coverage in the state, and
newer, more thinly financed,
smaller companies swooped in
and began to operate. Then came
2017, one of the costliest hurri-
cane seasons ever. Hurricane Mi-
chael battered Florida the follow-
ing year.
Adjusters said they started to
photos by Thomas Simonetti For The Washington Post
FROM TOP: Retired couple
Terry and Mary Sebastian at
their damaged home in
Rotonda West, Fla., five
months after Hurricane Ian
hit the area. Insulation
covers furniture and the
floor at the Sebastians’
home. Regional insurers
have sought to cut payouts
after the storm by altering
the work of licensed
adjusters, a Washington
Post investigation found.
A billboard for an insurance
attorney in Fort Myers
Beach, Fla., in January.
the washington post
see carriers greatly reduce dam-
age estimates, fully deny roof re-
placements more often and force
claims of a certain value into
litigation. Payouts started to get
delayed or not come at all, adjust-
ers and attorneys said.
At the same time, rates kept
rising, and fast. Florida home-
owners paid an average of $4,231
for home insurance in 2022, near-
ly three times the price in any
other state — and rates are ex-
pected to increase again this year.
Ten property insurers that operat-
ed in Florida have gone insolvent
since January 2021. About 125
property insurers remain in the
state, but experts said many are
either not taking on new business
or are greatly limiting policies
because of the volatile market.
But the adjusters interviewed
for this investigation said the ma-
jor cuts and revisions to Hurri-
cane Ian survivors’ claims are
unlike anything they’ve ever seen
before.
“I wrote 44 reports for Heritage
Property & Casualty, and 100 per-
cent of them were altered to where
I did not recognize them. Every
single one,” Lee said in an inter-
view. “They manipulated our esti-
mates without actually collaborat-
ing. I didn’t get a phone call from
someone saying, ‘Hey, Jordan, can
we go over this estimate?’ I didn’t
get a text. I didn’t get an email.
Nothing. I can get in trouble for
that. It’s my name going on these
reports, no one else’s.”
‘They are ruining my life’
Mary Sebastian, 70, spent
hours on her knees earlier this
month trying to scrub storm gunk
and other crusted filth out of their
tiled kitchen floor. Five months
after Ian, half the walls in their
home are still gutted to the studs
with wires hanging down, and the
couple has been trying to do as
many of the repairs as they can on
their own. The Sebastians said
Heritage has been trying to “wear
them out” by not paying their
claim or answering their calls and
emails and sending them to four
different desk adjusters.
So far they had received one
$2,500 check for living expenses,
despite having submitted hun-
dreds of receipts for their hotels,
food and other expenses, emails
show, and another for $10,000,
which went directly toward re-
pairing their roof. Much of their
furniture is ruined, the couple
said, and they are in the process of
applying for a loan to continue
the repair work. After The Post
contacted their insurer and the
Florida Department of Financial
Services regarding their case, the
Sebastians said they received an
additional $4,092 to repay what
they’d spent on food and housing
through Jan. 28.
Terry Sebastian said he filed
two complaints with the state’s
insurance commissioner about
Heritage before he started speak-
ing with The Post. He’d had a
feeling, he said, that his insurance
company was “lying.”
“They are ruining people’s
lives. They are ruining my life,”
the 69-year-old said. “I tell them
I’m going to go bankrupt if they
don’t pay me, but they don’t care.”
State data, last updated Thurs-
day, shows 708,255 Hurricane Ian
claims — including those of
homeowners and other policy-
holders — but about 34 percent of
them have either been rejected or
are still unpaid. The 90-day peri-
od that insurance companies
have to pay or deny a claim ended
in late December.
Hurricane Ian, a Category 4
hurricane and one of the stron-
gest storms to ever hit the United
. sunday, march 12 , 2023
States, was Florida’s costliest on
record and the most expensive
natural disaster globally of 2022.
The densely populated south-
western part of the state had not
experienced a storm of that mag-
nitude since 2004, the National
Oceanic and Atmospheric Ad-
ministration said, and its “intense
winds, heavy rainfall, and cata-
strophic storm surges” peeled off
roofs and inundated homes with
“1-in-1000 year” amounts of wa-
ter. Ian caused $112.9 billion in
damage, the second-largest in-
sured loss on record after Hurri-
cane Katrina, according to a re-
port from reinsurer Swiss Re.
As the weeks after the storm
turned into months and claims
continued to pile up, Lee and
other adjusters said they kept
getting calls from increasingly
frustrated and anxious policy-
holders about their final claim
estimates or lack thereof. For
many, that 90-day deadline was
coming up, and they were still
without answers, habitable
homes and now savings.
“It’s messed up. You know, the
whole point of having insurance
is to be able to properly put your
property back as if the disaster
never happened,” Lee said.
“That’s the whole point for that
protection.”
Major damage
but only partial payout
Five days after Ian ripped
across Florida, Lee received an
email from a Tristar claims man-
ager he’d worked with in the past.
The company was looking for “ex-
perienced adjusters for our client
Heritage Property and Casualty,”
and promised good pay and “all
the volume one could ever hope
for.” Lee decided to join the team.
But two weeks into his assign-
ment, Lee said, Heritage gave ad-
justers updated guidelines essen-
tially barring them from writing
claims to replace any roofs. Hear-
ing nothing about the 44 reports
he had turned in, Lee started to
become suspicious. It was taking
unusually long to get paid. Lee
and other adjusters make a com-
mission on claims based on a fee
schedule set by the carrier.
Lee said he logged in to the
systems that adjusters and insur-
ance companies use to track
claims. Like his 113-page report
for the Sebastians’ home, his oth-
er estimates were rearranged and
cut down, he said, with photos
and line items deleted, and sum-
maries changed.
Many of his photo captions
were changed, too, he said, and
entire sections missing, accord-
ing to a review of the documents
by The Post. An image showing a
crack in the garage ceiling, which
suggests structural problems
from the storm’s impact, now
read, “Apparent non-loss related.”
Documents reviewed by The Post
show that his claims manager had
heavily revised his photo sheet
and made other major changes.
Cutting a valid claim estimate
without factual basis “is potential
fraud,” said Friedlander, who also
worked for two major insurance
companies and who did not re-
view the Sebastians’ case. In most
cases, if a field adjuster has done
his job correctly and broken down
every line in great detail, the desk
adjuster will not need to make
significant changes, he said. It’s
usually a “smooth process with
communication between the
two,” Friedlander said.
“If a company intentionally
changes the estimate to not pay
out a loss, that could be consid-
ered fraud,” he said.
As Lee walked through an es-
sentially totaled home in Venice,
Fla., in early October, water from
the still-mushy carpet splashed
onto his calves, he recalled. Like
in the Sebastians’ house, insula-
tion hung from the exposed ceil-
ing. The drywall would need to be
removed, rooms deeply sanitized
and the entire roof replaced, as it
“was blow[n] off,” he wrote in a
loss report for Heritage obtained
by The Post, “causing significant
damage to the interior of the
home.”
Repairing it would cost nearly
$200,000, he estimated. But in
the final report for the home-
owners, Daniel and Amy Van
Sickle, entire sections of his work
such as “tear out and bag wet
insulation” and “water damage
dry out” were removed, and the
final amount lowered to $24,619.
Weeks later, on Jan. 9, Heritage
emailed the Van Sickles telling
them it would issue a payment.
The explanation letter said the
carrier “received the detailed
field adjuster estimate in the
amount of $24,619.46 for covered
damage.” Along with it was the
revised estimate, with Lee’s name
on it.
However, after subtracting
from their deductible, the couple
sunday, march 12 , 2023 . the washington post
would get only $3,204.60.
After The Post contacted Heri-
tage with questions about the Van
Sickles’ claim, the couple said
they received a revised estimate
with an additional $1,000.
“It’s the classic horror story
right now,” Van Sickle said. “This
is a lot of money to a lot of people,
and you can’t help but wonder
what happens to them when they
don’t get it. Those people will
suffer greatly.”
‘We have never
seen that before’
At the end of September, Ben
Mandell and Mark Vinson, two
veteran independent adjusters,
started handling claims for Flori-
da Peninsula Insurance Co., a re-
gional carrier that is rated as fi-
nancially stable and insures about
181,000 homes across the state.
Shortly after starting on 30 Ian-re-
lated claims, they too started no-
ticing unusual behavior, such as
claims not being processed, or
desk adjusters or supervisors gut-
ting or rejecting their reports of
what they saw was credible dam-
age. These actions further delayed
payouts to residents.
What was also strange, the ad-
justers said, was that they were
seeing the same or similar edits in
all of their reports, even though the
homes were in different areas and
built in different years. The denial
of wind-battered roofs seemed to
be a “pattern,” Vinson said.
“We had 150-mile-per-hour
winds come through and destroy
roofs, and these folks decided
they would not replace any of the
roofs, but pick an arbitrary num-
ber of shingles to repair and just
replace those,” said Mandell, who
owns a home in Florida. “We have
never seen that before.”
When hiring contracting com-
panies to help out on major disas-
ters, insurance companies set
guidelines for each storm that
those workers have to follow, in-
surance experts, adjusters and at-
torneys said. Essentially, those
guidelines dictate how much the
insurer believes should be allocat-
ed for that storm, what it will
cover, and how to describe and
document the damage.
In multiple emails obtained by
The Post, managers at Tristar and
another third-party adjusting firm
referenced these agreements.
On Oct. 27, for example, a
claims director at Tristar wrote to
all adjusters that “we are seeing
too many reports describing dam-
age and mentioning ‘wind’ as the
cause of loss. Per Heritage: WE
DO NOT DETERMINE COVER-
AGE!” he wrote, reminding them,
“Do NOT say what caused it!”
“Heritage does not want to see
that word [wind] in photo de-
scriptions or in the General loss
reports,” he said. “Let’s make sure
we are just describing the damag-
es we see and leave the cause
(wind) out of it!”
He thanked them for their
“hard work” and said higher-ups
were “seeing the fruits of [their]
efforts.”
Mandell said that after he real-
ized what was happening to his
reports, he grew uncomfortable,
spoke up to his manager and was
fired. In their email exchange, the
manager lambasted Mandell for
arguing over revisions.
“You have been told repeatedly
that the desk adjusters have the
final say for what coverages are
afforded, yet you continue to ar-
gue with the carriers when revi-
sions are requested,” the manager
wrote. “As an independent adjust-
er it is not your responsibility to
make coverage decisions on be-
half of the insurance carrier.”
In his reply, Mandell said he
did not have a problem with desk
adjusters making decisions, but
what crossed the line was “a desk
adjuster or anyone else demand-
ing or threatening me to remove
items off an estimate that are
legitimately on that estimate. . . . I
also have a problem with you
folks removing items off of my
estimates and leaving my name
on that estimate making it look
like I made the decision to remove
those items when I did not.”
“I am not the only adjuster you
are doing this to,” he said. “This
illegal practice seems to be a stan-
dard practice on this deployment
with you folks.”
His manager did not reply.
Asking lawmakers
to take action
Over the past year, Florida Re-
EZ RE
Thomas Simonetti For The Washington Post
Daniel Van Sickle at his
damaged property in
Venice, Fla., this month.
Many homeowners have
been left footing much of the
bill for repairs after
Hurricane Ian, exposing an
untenable gap between the
cost of storm damage and
what insurers in Florida are
willing to pay to fix it.
publicans called two special legis-
lative sessions focused on the
state’s insurance industry and
passed more laws that further
protect and insulate property in-
surance carriers, largely at the
expense of homeowners. Two ma-
jor industry wins include funnel-
ing $1 billion in taxpayer money
into a reinsurance fund and stop-
ping carriers from having to pay
policyholders’ attorneys’ fees
when they sue.
At the December session, Lee,
Mandell, Vinson and other ad-
justers joined residents in speak-
ing out against the legislation.
Their testimony was covered by
Insurance Journal.
After Mandell accused insur-
ance carriers of fraudulent behav-
ior that is “more widespread than
any of us could have imagined,”
state Rep. Bob Rommel (R), the
chair of the Commerce Commit-
tee, asked the group of adjusters
to come to his office later with
that information “to make sure
the attorney general and [Office
of Insurance Regulation] takes
care of that.”
They did. And according to
four people present, Rommel
A15
asked to see evidence and told the
group, “If this is really happening,
this needs to be taken care of,” Lee
recalled. Vinson had brought a
flash drive with dozens of files to
show, but the representative said
it was not safe for a government
computer.
The next day, Dec. 14, Mandell
emailed Rommel’s office with the
evidence the lawmaker request-
ed, including a file of four docu-
ments showing how his estimate
of $40,468.54 of damage was re-
vised to show $2,658. “You will
note that they left my name on
this bogus estimate,” the adjuster
wrote in the email, obtained by
The Post.
In an email, Rommel told The
Post that the adjusters came to his
office with “no evidence. Told
them the door was open if they
could produce the evidence.”
After multiple emails from The
Post, Rommel’s office said that it
had forwarded the adjuster’s
email to the state’s chief financial
officer, Jimmy Patronis, and that
Patronis’s office will contact Man-
dell.
“We have asked the CFO’s office
to keep us in the loop,” a spokes-
person for Rommel said. The
CFO’s office said in a statement
that it has received the informa-
tion from Rommel, met with the
property owners from the report
and that “an investigation is cur-
rently open and ongoing.”
Meanwhile, homeowners like
the Sebastians don’t know how
much longer they can last without
a payment, let alone answers.
Their temporary housing ended
Monday and they had no choice
but to move back into their home,
which has a new roof but feels like
a “construction zone,” Mary Se-
bastian said. Heritage promised
them a check soon, she said, but
they’ve heard that before. If they
do get anything, they’re bracing
for “pennies on the dollar.”
“I don’t know how much fight
we have left in us,” she sighed. “I
want to walk away.”
Her husband, though, refuses
to.
“That’s what they want us to
do,” Terry Sebastian said.
A16
BY M EAGHAN T OBIN
AND V IC C HIANG
in MATSU, Taiwan
F
or the past month, an en-
tire island has depended
on Li Tsui-yun’s mobile
phone store for internet
access.
Since the undersea internet ca-
bles that serve the Matsu island
chain — part of Taiwan but at
points only a few miles from Chi-
na — were severed just over a
month ago, Li has felt like every-
one on the island of Nangan has
turned up at her outpost of Chun-
ghwa Telecom to get online: sol-
diers calling family, kids doing
their homework, hotel owners
checking online bookings.
On the coldest days, Li handed
out hot tea at the door and kept
the store open late so people
could sit inside. “The other night
there were cars stopped all
around,” said Chen Pao-chung,
who had parked his empty bus
outside Li’s store to check his
messages.
The cause of Matsu’s internet
outage is familiar: Chinese fish-
ing boats, so omnipresent that the
nightly glow of their green lights
has become known as the islands’
own aurora borealis.
Wayward anchors and trawling
nets have taken out the islands’
two internet cables 27 times in the
past five years. But this is the first
time Matsu has faced such a long
outage, as one of the world’s few
dozen repair ships won’t be avail-
able to fix the breaks until the end
of April.
The first cable was damaged
Feb. 2 by a Chinese fishing boat
and the second Feb. 8 by a Chinese
cargo ship, according to Taiwan-
ese authorities. That plunged
residents back in time and forced
them to confront what life would
be like if increasing tensions with
China made Taiwan’s internet in-
frastructure an intentional tar-
get.
Tensions have flared in recent
months following then-U.S.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s vis-
it to Taipei in August.
Taiwan’s military maintains a
major presence in Matsu. On a
recent night people in fatigues
jogged around Nangan harbor,
across the street from Li’s store,
and played basketball outside the
Matsu islands’ only Starbucks.
There is no evidence that the
cables were severed intentionally,
according to Chunghwa Telecom.
But analysts and local officials
have said the frequent cable
breaks caused by Chinese vessels
amount to purposeful harass-
ment that keeps Taiwan’s govern-
ment and telecom companies
scrambling to provide basic ser-
vices.
“What happened in Matsu can
be seen as a warning signal,” said
Wen Lii, the head of the local
chapter of Taiwan’s ruling Demo-
cratic Progressive Party (DPP). “If
an internet outage could happen
for Matsu, the same thing could
happen for Taiwan — what would
we do if Taiwan’s 14 international
undersea cables were damaged?”
The Matsu island chain was on
the front line of fighting during
the Chinese civil war in the 1940s,
and its closest island is just six
miles off the coast of China’s Fuji-
an province. The islands, home to
about 14,000 people, depend
heavily on tourists drawn to the
quiet, once heavily fortified
beaches where bunkers have be-
come hip cafes and guesthouses.
But without the internet, busi-
ness has slowed to a trickle. Half a
dozen hotel and restaurant own-
ers said that the ongoing outage
meant their business was down at
least 50 percent compared with
the same time last year.
“At its worst point, the phone
barely rang at all, and the calls
that did get through were full of
noise,” said Wang Yuan-song, who
owns a hotel near the airport on
Beigan, one of the Matsu islands.
“There was no way to communi-
cate normally.”
After a shorter outage put his
business on hold last April, Wang
was prepared for this one. He had
friends on Taiwan’s main island
send him prepaid mobile SIM
cards, then put the cards into his
own internet routers to make
shareable WiFi hotspots for
ISRAEL
Saudi deal with Iran
shakes up Middle East
News of the rapprochement
between longtime regional
rivals Saudi Arabia and Iran
sent shock waves through the
Middle East on Saturday and
dealt a symbolic blow to Israeli
Prime Minister Benjamin
Netanyahu, who has made the
threat posed by Tehran a public
diplomacy priority and personal
Residents of Matsu use the WiFi at the Chunghwa Telecom store on Nangan island. The store has acted as a hotspot after internet service to the island went down.
CLOCKWISE FROM TOP LEFT: Chen Pao-chung checks messages on Chunghwa Telecom’s WiFi. Chen’s bus outside the store.
Microwave transmitters provide stopgap internet service. Matsu Mayor Wang Chung Ming wants a cable link with China.
Internet outage has Taiwan worried
about threat from Chinese sabotage
guests. The weak signal was bare-
ly usable, but better than nothing,
he said.
Chunghwa Telecom has set up
a high-powered microwave radio
transmission from towers near
Taipei to provide a backup signal
for online banking and other ba-
sic services for Matsu residents,
but service is intermittent and
slows to a crawl during peak use.
Chinese military ships, fishing
vessels and sand dredgers regu-
larly cross into Taiwan’s waters
using what military analysts de-
scribe as gray-zone tactics — part
intimidation campaign, part re-
source extraction — intended to
keep Taiwan’s people and govern-
ment on alert.
The Chinese Communist Party
crusade.
The breakthrough also
became ensnared in Israel’s
internal politics, reflecting the
country’s divisions at a moment
of national turmoil.
The agreement, which gives
Iran and Saudi Arabia two
months to reopen their
respective embassies and
reestablish ties after seven years
of rupture, more broadly
represents one of the most
striking shifts in Middle Eastern
diplomacy over recent years. In
EZ RE
The World
government shelled Matsu for
decades after the nationalist Kuo-
mintang (KMT) government re-
treated to Taiwan in defeat in
1949, and gained control of some
of the outlying islands that are
much closer to China than Tai-
wan.
In doing so, they drew an invisi-
ble boundary across previously
free-flowing fishing grounds.
Matsu’s rocky coastline, lined
with the same type of stone hous-
es built in Fujian, was fortified
with land mines.
But China’s proximity is not
just a threat for Matsu residents
— for many, their neighbor is also
a source of practical solutions.
During the most acute parts of the
outage, some Matsu residents
Digest
countries such as Yemen and
Syria, long caught between the
Sunni kingdom and the Shiite
powerhouse, the announcement
stirred cautious optimism.
In Israel, it caused finger-
pointing and disappointment.
— Associated Press
ITALY
Coast guard vessels
bring migrants ashore
Italian coast guard and navy
stayed online using SIM cards
from China.
Some locals found ways to get
SIM cards from China and con-
nect to cell signals from inside the
Great Firewall — a lifeline despite
Beijing’s restrictions.
In January, when Beijing loos-
ened its strict “zero covid” policy
that had sealed China off from the
rest of the world, ferries between
Matsu and Fujian — which have
long allowed people from both
sides to visit relatives and check
on properties and investments —
resumed service.
A couple of weeks ago, Matsu’s
mayor, Wang Chung Ming, took a
ferry to Fuzhou with a proposal:
laying an undersea internet cable
between Matsu and Fujian.
vessels on Saturday ferried
hundreds of rescued migrants
toward shore, while elsewhere
in the Mediterranean Sea
thousands of migrants
overflowed from a shelter on a
tiny tourist island.
The influx of sea arrivals
came in the face of a crackdown
by Italy’s right-wing government
on people smugglers announced
only two days earlier.
The coast guard said in a
statement that overcrowding on
two vessels and adverse sea and
the washington post
Photos by An Rong Xu For The Washington Post
The mayor — a fixture of Mat-
su’s Kuomintang establishment,
which has historically main-
tained closer ties to China than
the DPP — told officials in Fuzhou
and the vice chairman of China
Mobile Communications Group
that he hoped Matsu could be like
Kinmen, another Taiwanese is-
land chain a few miles off the
coast of China that shares an
internet cable connected to
southern Fujian.
Though he has laid the ground-
work for a deal, the cable outage is
a “national security” problem
that can’t be solved at the local
level, he said.
Wang now needs Taipei’s ap-
proval. “Fuzhou has basically said
yes. The rest is up to our side,” he
weather had complicated rescue
operations that began Friday in
the Ionian Sea off Calabria.
Separately, a boat carrying
487 people, intercepted by
Italian vessels some 60 nautical
miles off Crotone in Calabria on
Friday, was aided by coast guard
and border police boats.
— Associated Press
Islamic State group says it
killed 35 in Congo: The Islamic
State group has issued a
statement claiming
. sunday, march 12 , 2023
said.
The problem posed by the fre-
quent cable breakages — and
their costly repairs — is one thing
officials from Taiwan’s two rival
political parties can agree on.
Kuomintang and DPP leaders
have expressed concerns about
Taiwan’s preparedness for future
breaks.
“Taiwan needs to be better pre-
pared in case of any type of emer-
gency, regardless of whether it’s a
natural disaster or a military
threat,” said Lii, the head of the
local DPP chapter, who called on
the international community to
help strengthen Taiwan’s commu-
nication capabilities.
Military analysts and officials
said the frequent breaks highlight
the vulnerability of Taiwan’s in-
ternet infrastructure.
“Cable sabotage could become
our era’s blockade — and unlike
past generations’ blockades, it
can be conducted on the sly,” Eliz-
abeth Braw, a fellow at the Ameri-
can Enterprise Institute, warned
in an analysis for Foreign Policy.
Taipei is reportedly in talks
with domestic and international
investors to establish its own low-
Earth-orbit satellite internet
service, similar to Elon Musk’s
Starlink, which has provided in-
ternet to Ukraine with some assis-
tance from the United States gov-
ernment.
“When wars occur, this tech-
nology has its purpose,” said Mat-
su mayor Wang.
Taiwan’s Ministry of Digital Af-
fairs declined to comment on the
status of proposals for its own
satellite internet network.
In the meantime, a bulked-up
version of the microwave radio
signal could suffice, Wang said.
Taiwan’s National Communica-
tions Commission said the system
is still under construction and
that it would more than double its
bandwidth by the end of the year.
Anita Tsai, who runs a restau-
rant in Dongyin, Matsu’s north-
ernmost island, shared the same
frustrations over the frequent in-
ternet disruptions. “At its worst, it
took me five minutes to watch a
ten-second video,” said Tsai.
Tsai isn’t worried about wheth-
er the internet comes from a ca-
ble, a satellite, a radio wave or
from China — she just wants her
children to be able to attend their
online classes.
“Matsu people have always
been practical,” said the Beigan
hotel owner, Wang Yuan-song.
“They can’t take on matters of
ideology, because ideology is not
something you can eat.”
responsibility for killing more
than 35 people and wounding
dozens in eastern Congo. In the
statement, posted Friday by
Aamaq, the militants’ news
agency, it said it killed
“Christians” with guns and
knives and destroyed their
property in Mukondi village in
North Kivu province. The
announcement comes after local
authorities confirmed that at
least 45 people were killed last
week in several attacks.
— From news services
sunday, march 12 , 2023 . the washington post
Tweet on asylum
kicks up huge culture
war and BBC boycott
‘Match of the Day’ host’s comments divide nation
over broadcaster’s social media policy
BY A DELA S ULIMAN
LONDON — There’s only one topic
of conversation feverishly con-
suming the United Kingdom this
weekend: soccer. But it’s not
what’s going on between two rival
teams on the pitch that’s causing a
stir.
Instead, it’s a fierce debate
about free speech, impartiality
and a proposed government im-
migration law, which has seem-
ingly pitted two hugely popular
British institutions — the public
broadcaster BBC and soccer, in-
cluding its most famous present-
ers and commentators — against
each other.
Several BBC TV and radio
sports shows have been pulled off
air this weekend as presenters,
football stars and commentators
have boycotted the broadcaster,
including its beloved Saturday
night sports show, “Match of the
Day” — which has been recog-
nized by the Guinness World Rec-
ords as the longest-running foot-
ball TV show in history.
It began when the British gov-
ernment this week proposed to
send almost all asylum seekers
arriving on small boats via the
English Channel back to their
home country or to a “safe third
country,” like Rwanda. The bill has
been criticized by rights groups,
and the United Nations has de-
scribed it as a “clear breach” of
international law.
Among the critics was the for-
mer England soccer captain
turned star television pundit Gary
Lineker, who hosts “Match of the
Day” — which describes itself as
“the world’s most famous football
show” and is watched by millions.
Lineker decried the govern-
ment proposal as an “immeasur-
ably cruel policy directed at the
most vulnerable,” in a tweet Tues-
day that compared the govern-
ment’s language to that used “by
Germany in the 30s.”
He drew reaction from both
sides of the political spectrum.
Many urged him to stay out of
politics and stick to soccer, while
others championed him as the
moral conscience of the people.
Conservative politicians criti-
Indian families despair after police crack down on underage marriage
BY S HAMS I RFAN
AND K ARISHMA M EHROTRA
DHUBRI, India — Police showed
up late at night, pulling husbands
and fathers away from their fami-
lies. They lured religious leaders
out of their homes by pretending
to need a marriage solemnized.
They said in some cases that the
hospital sent them, convincing
married couples to divulge per-
sonal details before coming back
to arrest them on grounds of par-
ticipating in underage marriages.
At least 2,700 people, mostly
men, have been arrested since late
January for such marriages across
the poorest districts in the Indian
border state of Assam, according
to its chief minister. The actions
led to scenes of wailing women.
Police used batons and tear gas
against female protesters. Several
people killed themselves, accord-
ing to local reports.
Critics say the state govern-
ment is exploiting the already
waning practice of underage mar-
riage to sow fear for political ends.
Underage marriage, they say,
while problematic, is mostly a
consequence of poverty, and im-
prisoning individuals will not
solve it.
“I married him out of my free
will. … [Now] there is no point in
living if he continues to be jailed,”
said a 19-year-old woman search-
ing for her husband and cradling
her baby outside Assam’s remote
Matia detention center. “I don’t
know why the government is pun-
ishing us. Is it because we are
Muslims?”
When the woman was three
months shy of 18, India’s legal age
of marriage for women, she mar-
ried Akher, a 20-year-old con-
struction painter from Satgaon,
Assam. Her single mother, unable
to afford enough food, saw the
proposal as a blessing for their
family of five children, four of
them daughters. The young wom-
an was able to send new clothes to
her mother for the Muslim holi-
day of Eid, previously an unimagi-
nable purchase. “My mother
couldn’t take care of me the way
my husband can,” she said.
In February, five men came to
their new home stating that they
were conducting a health survey
for the local hospital, the young
cized Lineker’s tweet, and his em-
ployer, the BBC, came under pres-
sure from right-wing commenta-
tors to sanction him.
The broadcaster — one of the
most trusted sources of news and
a producer of some of the most
popular television entertainment
in the country — is publicly fund-
ed and has strict impartiality and
social media guidelines for its staff
who work in news, which prevent
them from expressing opinions on
controversial subjects.
Following days of pressure, the
BBC said Friday that Lineker’s so-
cial media activity was in fact “a
breach” of its guidelines, and that
Lineker would therefore “step
back from presenting Match of the
Day until we’ve got an agreed and
clear position on his use of social
media.”
The reaction has been swift.
Lineker’s fellow hosts and side-
line commentators said they
would not be appearing on “Match
of the Day” in “solidarity” with
Lineker, and fans began urging
players not to give post-match in-
terviews to the BBC.
The BBC was forced to an-
nounce it would be airing “Match
of the Day” in a bare-bones format,
with no studio presenters or pun-
ditry. The boycott also spread to
other BBC TV and radio sports
shows, leading to hours of footage
being pulled at the last minute, the
BBC reported.
On Twitter, the hashtags #Im-
WithGary and #BoycottBBC were
both trending Saturday as people
vowed to boycott the show, and a
petition to reinstate Lineker has
garnered almost 180,000 signa-
tures so far.
Britain’s opposition Labour
Party has called the BBC’s decision
“cowardly” and “an assault on free
speech,” while the National Union
of Journalists described it as a
“massive own goal,” adding that
“yielding to sustained political
pressure in this way is as foolish as
it is dangerous.”
The BBC, which denies suc-
cumbing to political pressure, did
not respond to a request for com-
ment from The Washington Post.
The overall mood of the BBC
newsroom Friday evening was one
woman said. Three days later, the
same men came back to arrest
Akher and detained him 75 miles
away. Nearby jails were already
filled to capacity with others ar-
rested for underage marriages.
After she traveled to see him,
the young woman was swept up
into a crowd inside the Matia de-
tention center. An iron gate sepa-
rated the desperate families from
the imprisoned, and the woman
had to shout above the others to
her husband 10 feet away.
“All I could make out in the
noise was ‘Please get me out of
here’ and ‘I miss my son,’” she said,
with pain in her eyes.
(The Washington Post is with-
holding the names of the affected
women because they were minors
at the time of marriage and is
identifying the men only by their
first names to avoid indirectly
identifying their wives.)
Over the past month, Assam
Chief Minister Himanta Biswa
Sarma has championed his crack-
down, giving frequent updates on
the count of arrests. He has said
the arrests would in part target
spouses who were now above the
legal age of marriage but had not
been when they were wed. Nearly
100 of the arrested were women,
Sarma said.
Some critics allege that Sarma
is exploiting religion for political
gain. “He wants to be seen as the
savior of Hindus and the biggest
enemy of Muslims. This he knows
is going to help him create a fan
base beyond Assam borders,” said
Sherman Ali Ahmed, an inde-
pendent legislator in Assam.
But Sarma has said in a tweet,
“The arrests in Assam [are] not
done after verifying their reli-
gious affiliations.”
A symptom of poverty
Other critics have questioned
whether the crackdown is needed
at all. Across Indian social groups,
the average age of marriage has
been consistently rising. In the
1980s, more than half of Indian
women in their teens were mar-
ried before the legal age, accord-
ing to the National Family Health
Survey. Now, it is fewer than a
fourth.
“Underage marriage is simply
not the single most important is-
sue facing women today,” said
BBC TV presenter Gary Lineker at the English FA Cup quarterfinal match between Leicester City and Manchester United on March 21,
2021. Lineker was asked to “step back” from the show “Match of the Day” after he tweeted about a proposal involving asylum seekers.
of shock, according to a journalist
working there, who agreed to
speak candidly about their work-
place on the condition of anonym-
ity.
The journalist joked they would
remove their BBC badge when
they left the building for the day —
a reference to how popular
­Lineker is with much of the public
and how contentious the row has
become across Britain.
Employees’ use of social media,
impartiality and the expression of
opinions have regularly caused
controversy and debate, including
at The Washington Post.
However, many of Lineker’s sup-
porters have also argued that the
BBC’s impartiality guidelines are
aimed at employees working in
news, rather than pundits or sports
presenters. The BBC has previously
argued that, as one of the BBC’s
highest-profile stars, Lineker was
considered to have “an additional
responsibility” to the BBC.
British press expert and former
newspaper editor Alan Rusbridg-
er told The Post on Saturday the
focus on Lineker and the BBC was
likely a “godsend” to the govern-
ment, creating a distraction from
the underlying issue of their im-
migration and asylum stance.
A relative of an imprisoned man walks outside a detention center in Matia, in India’s Assam state, after
traveling about 90 miles. His niece was 17 when she got married last year.
Mary John, a former professor at
Delhi’s Center for Women’s Devel-
opment Studies who has conduct-
ed extensive statistical research
on India’s underage marriages.
Researchers say underage mar-
riage is a symptom of poverty and
should not be treated as a crime.
Since many women have slim
prospects for education and a job,
families are eager to get their
daughters married young, espe-
cially because dowries — payment
usually made from the bride’s
family to the groom’s — are lower
for underage girls.
“Early marriage exists in a
country where marriage is the
single source of security for wom-
en,” John said. “There is an eco-
nomic logic.”
Assam’s female underage mar-
riage rate of 32 percent is above
the national rate of 23 percent,
according to the National Family
Health Survey.
Nationally, a little under a quar-
ter of Hindu women marry before
the legal age and a little over a
EZ RE
Britain’s opposition Labour Party has called the BBC’s decision to
remove Lineker “cowardly” and “an assault on free speech.”
“Everyone’s arguing about Gary
Lineker and not the policies
they’ve just announced,” he said.
He added that the BBC had a
number of “enemies” from com-
mercial competitors to political
parties of all stripes and had a
tough job maintaining strict im-
partiality rules. “There is a culture
war here. The BBC gets pulled into
“I married him out of
my free will. … [Now]
there is no point in
living if he continues to
be jailed. I don’t know
why the government
is punishing us.
Is it because we
are Muslims?”
A 19-year-old woman who was
searching for her husband outside
the Matia detention center
Henry Nicholls/Reuters
that because it has a huge output
… across music, sports, politics,
current affairs.”
“There’ll be something that of-
fends culture warriors on one side
or the other.”
A former BBC director-general,
Greg Dyke, made a rare public
statement Saturday against the
company he used to run, stating
Shams Irfan for The Washington Post
quarter of Muslim women do, ac-
cording to John’s research. Other
studies have found poverty to be
more prevalent among India’s
Muslims compared with other so-
cial groups.
While Assamese Hindu women
marry before 18 at roughly the
national rate for Hindu women,
Muslim women in the state marry
below the legal age at almost dou-
ble Muslim women’s rate nation-
ally, according to John’s research.
The prevalence of poverty among
Muslims in the state is also partic-
ularly high.
The toll on the poor is multilay-
ered. Just after the arrests began,
rumors spread on WhatsApp that
local health workers had revealed
the details of underage marriages
to the police, which the workers
and local police officers denied.
But the rumor promoted fear
among women. Health workers
cited a dip in women seeking med-
ical attention.
“It took us years of hard work …
to get rural women to hospitals for
A17
Oli Scarff/AFP/Getty Images
that “the BBC has undermined its
own credibility,” with the Lineker
debacle. “There is a long-estab-
lished precedent in the BBC that if
you are an entertainment present-
er or a sports presenter then you
are not bound by those same
rules,” he said of the company’s
impartiality guidelines.
However, current BBC director-
general Tim Davie stood by the
broadcaster’s decision, telling a
BBC reporter, “We always look to
take proportionate action, and
that’s what we’ve done.”
Lineker, who has previously
opened his home to at least two
refugees, has been an outspoken
critic of the government on asy-
lum issues and has been repri-
manded by the BBC in the past. He
has yet to publicly comment on his
sanctioning, and his representa-
tives did not immediately respond
to a request for comment from The
Post.
However, earlier in the week he
tweeted his thanks to supporters.
“I want to thank each and every
one of you. … I’ll continue to try to
speak up for those poor souls that
have no voice.”
Helier Cheung in London contributed
to this report.
delivery,” said one health worker.
“We lost decades of hard work and
goodwill we built in these remote
villages because of this crack-
down.”
Arrests concentrated in
Muslim areas
The northeastern state of As-
sam was also the battleground
over a campaign by the ruling
party to verify citizenship records,
which drew accusations that it
would disproportionately target
Muslims and contributed to na-
tionwide protests in 2019.
Many of the underage marriage
arrests were concentrated in As-
sam’s Muslim-majority districts,
such as Dhubri.
A senior police officer in Dhu-
bri, Aparna Natarajan, said the
drive was “secularized” to “de-
clare village by village child mar-
riage-free.”
In one of the few affected
­Hindu-majority districts, Kokra-
jhar, a head police officer said that
most of the arrests there were also
of Muslims.
Mofidul Islam, an Islamic
preacher in Dhubri who solem-
nizes weddings, known as a qazi,
said he believes underage mar-
riage takes place as a form of
“sexual protection.”
“In big cities, we often hear
about women getting raped,
which I believe is a much bigger
issue than early marriage,” he
said. “In our villages, there is no
such thing as rape … because we
marry our boys and girls at a
young age.”
Legal experts say the govern-
ment is unlikely to win many con-
victions. India’s child marriage
law deems the act of marrying
below adult age illegal, but the
marriage itself is valid until either
party annuls it once they reach
adulthood.
Justices on Assam’s High Court
expressed concern about the
events in February when they re-
leased several of the arrested on
bail. “This is causing havoc in the
private life of people,” the court
said. “[Child marriage] may not be
a good idea — obviously it is a bad
idea — but we will give our views
when the right time comes.”
Anant Gupta in New Delhi contributed
to this report.
A18
App data from A1
the project, heard an audio re-
cording of Henricks discussing it,
and reviewed documents that
were prepared for bishops as well
as public records. One of the two
people works for the church and
spoke on the condition of ano-
nymity because they were not
authorized to talk about it. The
second person is active in the
church in Colorado, knows some
of the project’s organizers, and
spoke on the condition of ano-
nymity because the project is not
supposed to be public. Both dis-
approve of the project because
they see it as spying and coercive
in ways that are damaging to
priest-bishop relations and to the
reputation of the Catholic Church
and thus its ability to evangelize.
They also see the project as taking
a simplistic approach to morality
that they call un-Catholic.
Some of the men who are part
of the Renewal project were also
involved in the July 2021 outing of
a prominent priest, Monsignor
Jeffrey Burrill, according to the
two people with firsthand knowl-
edge of the project and comments
by the group’s president on the
audio recording. Burrill, who de-
clined to comment for this story,
resigned from his post as the top
administrator at the U.S. Confer-
ence of Catholic Bishops (USCCB)
after a Catholic news site, the
Pillar, said it had mobile app data
showing he was a regular on
Grindr and had gone to a gay bar
and a gay bathhouse and spa. The
Pillar did not say where its data
came from.
The anonymous tracking of a
gay priest through his phone
made news around the world,
with critics calling it a kind of
weaponized, anti-gay surveil-
lance.
Until now, the people behind
Burrill’s outing and the extent of
the project were not public, nor
was the fact that the effort contin-
ued — for at least another year
after that incident, according to
the people familiar with it and
documents.
“The power of this story is that
you don’t often see where these
practices are linked to a specific
person or group of people. Here,
you can clearly see the link,” said
Justin Sherman, a senior fellow at
Duke University’s public policy
school, who focuses on data pri-
vacy issues. The number of data
privacy laws in the country, he
said, “you can count them on one
or two hands.”
According to two separate re-
ports prepared for bishops and
reviewed by The Post, the group
says it obtained data that spans
2018 through 2021 for multiple
dating and hookup apps includ-
ing Grindr, Scruff, Growlr and
Jack’d, all used by gay men, as
well as OkCupid, a major site for
people of various sexualities. But
most of the data appears to be
from Grindr, and those familiar
with the project said the organiz-
ers’ focus was gay priests.
In the First Things piece, Hen-
ricks said: “It’s not about straight
or gay priests and seminarians.
It’s about behavior that harms
Millions spent to out gay priests
everyone involved, at some level
and in some way, and is a witness
against the ministry of the
Church.”
One report prepared for bish-
ops says the group’s sources are
data brokers who got the infor-
mation from ad exchanges, which
are sites where ads are bought
and sold in real time, like a stock
market. The group cross-refer-
enced location data from the apps
and other details with locations
of church residences, workplaces
and seminaries to find clergy who
were allegedly active on the apps,
according to one of the reports
and also the audiotape of the
group’s president.
Sherman said police depart-
ments have bought data about
citizens instead of seeking a war-
rant, domestic abusers have ac-
cessed data about their victims,
and antiabortion activists have
used data to target people who
visit clinics.
But Bennett Cyphers, a special
adviser to the Electronic Frontier
Foundation, a digital rights or-
ganization, said the Burrill story
was the first time he had heard of
a private group buying commer-
cial data and using it against a
specific individual.
“It was the first needle-in-a-
haystack case, where someone
sifts through millions of locations
in apps and looks for one person
and then tries to use that info to
impeach them,” Cyphers said. “It
was a character assassination of a
private citizen for some kind of
political reason based on infor-
mation [the citizen] didn’t know
they were being tracked on.”
Still, some have celebrated
Burrill’s outing as a way to purify
the church by making other cler-
ics more fearful of breaking their
promise of celibacy.
The Rev. Gerald Murray, a New
York City canon lawyer who offers
church commentary on the Cath-
olic channel EWTN and Fox
News, said Burrill being a priest
in a prominent role makes any
misbehavior “a much greater
scandal” and essentially elimi-
nates his right to privacy.
“The promise of celibacy is a
public act; it’s not a private com-
mitment. It’s of public interest
when those are violated in a scan-
dalous way,” he said.
The Renewal group has spent
at least $4 million, according to
the recording of Henricks, and
approached more than a dozen
bishops with the information. It’s
not clear what impact the project
is having on clergy who the data
suggests have actively used a dat-
ing or hookup app on their phone.
Except for Burrill, it is not known
whether the data has led to the
resignation or termination of any
other priests or seminarians. One
of the two people familiar with
the project said people may be
kept from promotions or wind up
in early retirement but not know
EZ RE
why.
The project’s existence reflects
a newly empowered American
Catholic right wing that sees en-
forcing its interpretation of
church teaching on sexuality and
gender as an existential issue for
the church and that no longer
trusts bishops to do so. It is a flip
of traditional church power dy-
namics, with the Colorado lay-
people in a position to pressure
bishops.
At the most intimate level, it
shows a new generation of sur-
veillance technology moving into
different realms, now including
the religious.
“Revealing information that
harms a person’s reputation with-
out an objectively valid reason —
even if it’s true — is considered a
sin,” said a member of the USCCB
who offers church commentary
who knows Burrill and watched
on the Catholic channel EWTN
the monsignor experience “in-
tense emotional distress” when
his orientation and use of Grindr
were made public in 2021. This
person spoke on the condition of
anonymity because of their work-
ing relationship with bishops.
This person had heard about the
data project before the Burrill
news from another person who
was approached by the nonprofit
who told the USCCB member the
effort was mainly focused on ex-
posing gay priests.
A data project
In 2018, a man “concerned with
reforming the Catholic clergy”
approached a few Catholic or-
ganizations, including the Catho-
lic News Agency, according to a
cryptic article CNA published the
day before the Burrill story broke.
That 2018 pitch, CNA reported,
“was to provide this information
privately to Church officials in the
hopes that they would discipline
or remove those found to be using
these technologies to violate their
clerical vows and possibly bring
scandal to the Church.” CNA had
declined the man’s offer, the story
said, “but there are reports this
week that information targeting
allegedly active homosexual
priests may become public.”
Catholic Laity and Clergy for
Renewal opened for business in
June 2019, incorporation records
show. The nonprofit was created
to “support the commitment of
Roman Catholic clergy to living
the teachings of the church,” its
2019 tax filing states. Its purpose
is “to work systematically with
bishops, priests, religious and
seminarians to … provide evi-
dence-based resources to bishops
that enable them to effectively
judge and support quality forma-
tion practices, and [to] identify
weaknesses in current formation
practices and priestly life.”
It’s not clear if or how the
Renewal group is connected to
the man who approached CNA.
Bauman, Martin and Reichert
are listed as trustees on the non-
the washington post
Illustration by Lisk Feng For The Washington Post
profit’s tax filings for the two
“The promise of years they are publicly available.
Martin is a co-founder of one of
celibacy is a the largest natural gas producers
in the western United States, Mc-
public act; it’s not Murry Oil Co. He supports many
charitable efforts through his and
a private his wife’s Martin Family Founda-
tion. Those include his co-found-
commitment. It’s ing of the Amazing Parish, a na-
tional consulting firm to help
of public improve parishes, and major do-
nations to the causes of campus
interest when evangelization, antiabortion, an-
ti-poverty and religious educa-
those are violated tion. He contributed $555,000 to
Catholic Laity and Clergy for Re-
in a scandalous newal over two years, tax records
show.
way.” Bauman is a former entertain-
ment company executive who is
The Rev. Gerald Murray,
now president of the board of
a New York City canon lawyer
Christ in the City, a nonprofit
organization that trains mission-
aries and serves the homeless. He
and Fox News
is a benefactor of some of the
same Denver-area groups as Mar-
tin and Reichert, including Cath-
olic Charities and Focus campus
ministry. He did not donate mon-
ey to the Renewal group in 2019
or 2020, according to tax docu-
ments.
Reichert is the founder of Eco-
nomics Partners, a consulting
firm that employs dozens of econ-
omists. He ran unsuccessfully for
Congress last year in the central
7th District as a Republican. With
his wife, he gives major gifts to
Catholic Charities, Mother Tere-
sa’s order Missionaries of Charity
and college evangelization. The
couple also gave $600,000 to
Catholic Laity and Clergy for Re-
newal over two years, according
to the group’s tax returns.
In a speech last year given to a
Catholic Charities men’s break-
fast, Reichert said Christians
need to oppose false ideas like
“post-Christianity” or “plural-
ism,” which he calls a “fool’s er-
rand.” Instead, he said, they need
to boldly proselytize and not wor-
ry about being unpopular or can-
celed. “To be free, one has to be
willing to lose one’s reputation.
That’s the way they’ve set up the
game.”
According to two people with
knowledge of the project, the
philanthropists hired Henricks,
the former head of government
relations for the USCCB, the orga-
nized body of Catholic leaders in
the United States. Henricks by
then had moved from D.C. to
Denver to work for the Augustine
Institute, a Catholic graduate
school. Martin and Bauman have
donated to the school. Reichert’s
wife, Martha, is listed as a staff
member there.
Tax documents for Catholic La-
ity and Clergy for Renewal show
revenue of $1.5 million in 2019
and $1.8 million in 2020, the most
recent year information is public.
Most of the money each year was
spent on “data and computing,”
staff salaries and attorneys’ fees.
. sunday, march 12 , 2023
The law firm representing the
group is D.C.-based Schaerr-Jaffe,
founded by Gene Schaerr, a mem-
ber of the Church of Jesus Christ
of Latter-day Saints who has
called fighting same-sex marriage
“a religious duty.” Schaerr advises
evangelical colleges on how to
protect their government fund-
ing while upholding practices
such as barring LGBTQ student
clubs.
In an email to The Post,
Schaerr confirmed the group is a
client. “My charge was and is to
help them ensure that their ef-
forts — which are focused on
empowering Catholic bishops to
more effectively oversee and
mentor their priests and seminar-
ians — comply with all relevant
privacy and other laws.”
He deferred other questions to
the group.
Other donors to the nonprofit
include the Catholic Foundation
of Northern Colorado, which
works in tandem with the Archdi-
ocese of Denver to support its
ministries and parishes. The
foundation gave the Renewal
group $400,000 in the two years
for which tax forms are available.
The Catholic Foundation of
Northern Colorado did not return
messages seeking comment.
Henricks knows many bishops
from his previous job with the
bishops’ conference. According to
the person who works for the
church and to the audio record-
ing, Henricks’s role has been to
take the data sets to various bish-
ops and use their knowledge of
priests’ and seminarians’ loca-
tions to match the known device
locations with actual people.
Henricks wrote in First Things
that he shared this information
with “a handful of rectors and
bishops” and did not make the
information available for public
use, so as to be able to “have
honest and frank conversations
with Church leaders, and protect
the privacy of those affected.”
However, one of the people
with knowledge of the project
said some bishops felt pressure
from the group to take action.
The Post has seen copies of two
different reports presented to
bishops. One is from the Renewal
group to a diocese and the other is
the one that the Pillar presented
to the USCCB about Burrill. The
information in both is mostly
about Grindr, although the re-
ports also say they have used data
from other gay dating apps
Growlr, Scruff and Jack’d, as well
as OkCupid.
These dating and hookup apps
let people create profiles, search
for other users and send private
messages back and forth. The
apps can use a person’s exact
location to show them potential
matches nearby, in real time, for
in-person meetups.
The data covers periods from
2018 to 2021 and the reports
include images of certain ad-
dresses with location pings
marked on top, such as parishes,
rectories and seminaries.
The documents The Post re-
viewed do not name the ad bro-
kers and exchanges where they
say the data came from. It isn’t
sunday, march 12 , 2023
clear whether the Renewal do-
nors purchased data directly
from brokers, or from someone
else who had, or a combination of
the two.
According to one of the people
familiar with the project and the
audio tape, the philanthropists,
Henricks and church officials
have varying views about how
best to use the data.
Some wanted to out the men,
like Burrill, believed to have the
apps on their phones, the person
said.
Others want to use data to
work behind the scenes, to moni-
tor the men, perhaps confronting
them without saying how their
app use was known, or maybe
keeping such men from rising in
their careers, the person said.
Vulnerable tech
The digital advertising indus-
try has compiled and sold such
detailed data for years, claiming
that stripping away information
like names made it anonymous.
Researchers have long shown,
however, that it is possible to take
a large amount of data for a
specific location and re-identify
people using additional informa-
tion such as known addresses,
and the outing of Burrill showed
the practice in action. This buy-
ing and selling of data — from
demographics and political be-
liefs to health information — is a
multibillion-dollar, almost un-
regulated industry, said Sherman
of Duke University.
Although no names were in the
original data from brokers, it in-
cluded enough identifying details
and location pings that the group
was able to analyze it for specific
locations and narrow down likely
people using the apps. The infor-
mation the group told bishops
they had included: the type of
device, the location, the device ID
and the internet service provider
being used, among other charac-
teristics, according to the reports.
The group also focused on de-
vices that spent multiple nights at
a rectory, for example, or if a
hookup app was used for a certain
number of days in a row in some
other church building, such as a
seminary or an administrative
building. They then tracked other
places those devices went accord-
ing to location information and
cross-referenced addresses with
public information.
Henricks said in his First
Things piece that they were “me-
ticulous” about complying with
all applicable laws, including
data and privacy ones.
The app companies say they
have changed what information
they share.
Grindr spokesman Patrick
Lenihan told The Post that the
company stopped sharing loca-
tion information in early 2020.
The company says it only shares
limited information with ad part-
ners now. Grindr has said it asked
the Pillar several times to see the
data to verify it came from the
app but no data was provided.
Growlr said it previously
shared location data with adver-
tisers but stopped in May 2022,
“in light of potential vulnerabili-
ties that could lead to unintended
misuse,” said a spokesperson for
its owner, the Meet Group.
“Location data, while the user
was using the app, was made
available to advertisers in real
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. the washington post
According to two separate reports prepared for bishops and reviewed by The Post, the group says it obtained data for multiple dating and
hookup apps, but most of the data appears to be from Grindr, and those familiar with the project said the organizers’ focus was gay priests.
time for the purposes of advertis- Grindr said the connections
ing. Growlr no longer shares GPS are harmful.
location data.” “We are infuriated by the ac-
Match Group, which owns Ok- tions of these anti-LGBTQ vigi-
Cupid, says the app did not share lantes. Grindr has and will con-
that kind of location data during tinue to push the industry to keep
that time and does not currently. bad actors out of the ad tech
“Location data is obfuscated ecosystem, particularly on behalf
within a kilometer for safety rea- of the LGBTQ community,” Leni-
sons,” said Match Group spokes- han said. “All this group is doing
woman Justine Sacco. is hurting people.”
Perry Street Software, which After the Pillar’s reporting in
owns Jack’d and Scruff, did not 2021 on Burrill, it initially seemed
reply to requests for comment. as though the then-anonymous
Buying and selling precise lo- project was about to explode in
cation data is still common in the public across the country.
digital ad industry, despite a few Three days after the Pillar
bigger apps changing their own wrote about Burrill, it published a
policies, said Matt Voda, chief story saying its analysis of signal
executive of marketing analytics
company OptiMine.
Regardless, the data used by
data within the Archdiocese of
Newark showed “patterns of loca-
tion-based hookup app use” at
the Denver group shows only
when and where dating apps have
been activated on a phone; they
various church residences. It said
it did not de-anonymize the New-
ark data.
don’t prove conversations or in- A few days later, the Pillar
person meetings took place. That reported that its data analysis
lack of information was cited by showed that 32 devices in the
critics of the Pillar’s 2021 report- Vatican complex put off signals in
ing, which said Burrill was guilty 2018 from hookup apps.
of “serial sexual misconduct.” The A Newark spokesperson told
Pillar also described Grindr, The Post that the Pillar provided
which is used by 11 million people no actual data or evidence of
around the world each month, as misconduct and that the matter
a tool of child predators. The site was being reviewed. The Vatican
did note that there was no sugges- complex in Rome declined to
tion or evidence Burrill was in comment to the Pillar.
communication with minors. After that, the stories stopped.
In 2021, Pillar editor JD Flynn
defended their reporting, saying A Catholic debate
a priest shouldn’t be on Grindr for The topic of clergy sexuality
the same reason a priest has vexed the U.S. Catholic
shouldn’t ride alone in a car with
a child.
Church for decades. Several
prominent experts on clergy sex-
“It seems totally reasonable to uality estimate a third of U.S.
say the Church must ask: ‘Is there priests are gay men, who serve a
a similar technological analog church that teaches being gay is
where no cleric would use such an “disordered,” in opposition to
app because of the way in which God’s plan. Social conservatives
an infinitesimally small number have noted that abuse victims of
of clerics have already been dem- Catholic clergy in recent decades
onstrated to use the app inappro-
priately?’”
were mostly male and have tried
to paint gay priests as the prob-
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internet is just a new tool. There
is a tension between these pol-
icies about sins involving the
Sixth Commandment, and the
fact that [the Church] has never
defined that in law. It always
shifts and is up to the opinions of
moral theologians,” said Jennifer
Haselberger, a canon lawyer in
private practice who worked for
several dioceses, including Min-
neapolis-St. Paul, where she was
head of the canonical depart-
ment.
Simply having Grindr on a
phone, as a priest, is not against
the Sixth Commandment, she
said. Church law “isn’t there at
all.”
Monsignor Fred Easton, a can-
on lawyer who was top judge for
the tribunal of the Archdiocese of
Indianapolis, said there is no au-
tomatic penalty under the code of
canon law against a priest for
having a dating app on his phone,
but bishops have discretion.
In Burrill’s case, after an ex-
tended leave, his bishop, William
Callahan of La Crosse, Wis., in
June appointed Burrill to serve as
the parochial administrator of a
parish there.
Murray, the New York City
priest, noted that church law calls
for clerics to “behave with due
prudence toward persons whose
company can endanger their obli-
gation to observe continence or
Leon Neal/Getty Images
give rise to scandal among the
faithful.”
The tracking and outing of
Burrill was “a very good thing,” he
tholicism teaches, is also consid- said.
ered a spiritual discipline created Murray, like many Catholic
for the good of the church. conservatives, is concerned about
Church law requires priests not to increased acceptance of LGBTQ
have sex, but church leaders have relationships in the church. That
long disagreed about what that said, it’s “gaslighting” to call sto-
literally means, long before the ries focused on Grindr anti-gay,
complex digital era. Experts dis- he said. “The issue is unchastity
agree whether actions such as and the scandal given to the
having a hookup app on your people in the pews.”
phone, engaging in sexual talk on
an app or watching people have Researchers Magda Jean-Louis,
sex at a bathhouse qualify under Razzan Nakhlawi, Monika Mathur
church law as sex. and Alice Crites, and reporter Gerrit
“These aren’t new issues; the De Vynck contributed to this report.
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A20
House votes 419-0 to declassify
U.S. intelligence on covid origins
BY M ARK J OHNSON
In a rare show of bipartisan-
ship near the third anniversary of
the pandemic, the House voted
unanimously Friday to declassify
all U.S. intelligence information
on the origins of the coronavirus.
The 419-0 vote in favor of the
bill, which passed the Senate by
unanimous consent earlier,
sends it to President Biden’s desk.
If the bill is signed, the declassi-
fied information would have to
be released within 90 days, al-
though the language in the bill
does not establish a mechanism
for enforcement.
When asked Friday evening
whether he would sign the meas-
ure, Biden told reporters outside
the White House, “I haven’t made
that decision yet.”
“This is strong on symbolic
value,” said Rep. Jim Himes
(Conn.), the top Democrat on the
Intelligence Committee, adding
that the measure does allow
Biden “wide discretion” to with-
hold information to protect
sources and keep methods secret.
The theory that the coronavi-
rus, which causes covid-19, may
have escaped from China’s Wu-
han Institute of Virology has
been one of the most heated
South Korea makes a pitch for a 69-hour workweek, up from 52
Opposition says proposal
could lead to layoffs,
increase unemployment
BY A NDREW J EONG
SEOUL — South Korea’s con-
servative government has pro-
posed increasing the legal cap on
weekly work hours from 52 to 69,
triggering backlash from the op-
position and wage-earners who
fear the plan will ruin work-life
balance in a country already well
known for workaholism.
The opposition Democratic
Party, which introduced the 52-
hour workweek in 2018, said the
new plan risks increasing unem-
ployment as it could allow em-
ployers to lay off workers and ask
those who stay to work longer
hours.
South Koreans already toil
more than many of their overseas
counterparts. They work an aver-
age of 1,915 hours a year, com-
pared with 1,791 hours for Ameri-
cans and 1,490 hours for the
French, who have a 35-hour
workweek, according to figures
from the Organization for Eco-
nomic Cooperation and Develop-
ment. The OECD average is 1,716
hours.
South Korea’s proposal comes
as the four-day workweek gains
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sources of debate since early in
the pandemic.
House Intelligence Committee
Chairman Michael R. Turner (R-
Ohio) said in a written statement
that if the bill is signed into law, it
“will give the American public a
unique insight as to what was
happening at a Bio Safety Level
laboratory in Wuhan, China, in
late 2019 and early 2020. This
laboratory, and who was working
there, might be the key to unrav-
eling the truth.”
But the information Ameri-
cans would see would not be the
raw transcripts of intercepted
phone calls, Himes said, but rath-
er the finished intelligence re-
ports.
“There are clearly thousands of
pages of raw intelligence,” Himes
said, but as far as the actual
information that would be de-
classified, “I think we’re probably
talking hundreds of pages.”
One Democrat, who spoke on
the condition of anonymity to
share private conversations, said
that their side of the House voted
for the bill because it doesn’t
move the needle much beyond
what Biden has already asked of
the intelligence community. In
May 2021, the president had
asked intelligence agencies to
South Koreans work an average of 1,915 hours a year, according to the Organization for Economic
Cooperation and Development, about 124 hours more than Americans.
traction from Britain to Califor-
nia.
In a bid to sway public opinion,
President Yoon Suk Yeol’s admin-
istration says some workers
might ultimately have more free
time under the new rules, as the
government would also intro-
duce a cap on the number of
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probe the origins of the virus and
deliver a report, which was sub-
mitted to the White House in
August 2021.
A declassified summary said
that four intelligence agencies
and the National Intelligence
Council believed with low confi-
dence that the coronavirus most
likely came from natural spill-
over from an infected animal.
One agency said with moderate
confidence that the virus most
likely came from a lab leak in
Wuhan, while three other intelli-
gence community agencies were
“unable to coalesce around either
explanation without additional
information.”
Friday’s vote comes about two
weeks after the Wall Street Jour-
nal reported that an updated
report from the intelligence com-
munity revealed that the Energy
Department now favors the lab
leak scenario, although it does so
with “low confidence.” Previous-
ly, the department had taken a
neutral stance on the matter.
The updated intelligence com-
munity report remains classified,
and the Energy Department did
not respond to an email seeking
comment.
Steven Aftergood, a secrecy
specialist at the nonprofit Feder-
working hours per month, quar-
ter or year. There would also be
restrictions on working more
than three 60-plus-hour weeks in
a row. This means four-day work-
weeks are a possibility, Labor
Minister Lee Jung-sik said at a
recent news conference.
The plan would let employees
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Security personnel outside the Wuhan Institute of Virology during a 2021 visit by a World Health
Organization team investigating the origins of covid-19.
ation of American Scientists, said
the crucial question is what pre-
viously unreported information
might be revealed that would not
be redacted to protect sources or
methods.
He added that it’s possible the
intelligence includes research pa-
pers from Chinese journals that
may offer insight into work that
was conducted at the Wuhan
Institute of Virology. There may
Jeon Heon-Kyun/EPA-EFE/Shutterstock
choose how long and when they
work, the ministry said.
“The current work-hour sys-
tem does not convey the increas-
ingly diverse and sophisticated
needs of employers and employ-
ees by restricting the choices of
workers and firms alike,” Lee said
in a statement this week. “This
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the washington post
also be some unclassified por-
tions of classified reports that can
be made public.
But Aftergood said that “if
intelligence agencies had a solid
conclusion,” on whether the virus
originated in nature or from a lab
leak, “we would likely know
about it.”
Himes said there probably will
be little practical effect from al-
lowing the public to see the
does not fit global standards that
stress the right to choose and the
right to health.”
The ministry also pointed to
new requirements mandating a
minimum 11-hour rest period be-
tween shifts. However, critics say
that the new rule doesn’t take
into account commutes, after-
work emails and text messages.
The proposal has sparked a
backlash from workers who fear
it will give employers legal
grounds to encourage grueling
hours on busy weeks.
“They say that the total hours
we work every year will stay the
same or come down,” said one
34-year-old worker at a Samsung
affiliate, who spoke on the condi-
tion of anonymity because they
were not authorized by their
employer to speak publicly. “But
there’s always more work to do.
We might now see more over-
work-related deaths if there’s a
69-hour workweek.”
Minbyun, a lawyers’ group
that has close ties to the opposi-
tion, said in a statement Tuesday
that the plan doesn’t address
problems resulting from a long
workweek, even if it caps hours
on a quarterly or yearly basis.
The government is overlook-
ing that work-related injuries
and deaths “tend to increase
when the workweek is not re-
stricted to under 52 hours,” the
group said, citing South Korean
labor laws that consider medical
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703-552-4480 VA
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. sunday, march 12 , 2023
Ng Han Guan/Associated Press
reports of a half-dozen U.S. agen-
cies.
“There are agencies that be-
lieve with very low confidence
that [covid-19] was a natural
occurrence, and there are agen-
cies that with very low confi-
dence believe it was a lab leak,” he
said.
“The bottom line here is that
we simply don’t know the an-
swer.”
issues that occur after multiple
60-hour workweeks to be work-
related.
The government is seeking to
submit the plan to parliament for
approval by July, according to the
semiofficial Yonhap News Agen-
cy. But the Democratic Party
holds a parliamentary majority,
meaning it can block the pro-
posed amendments.
Long work hours have been
cited as a major reason that
South Korea’s fertility rate is the
world’s lowest, at 0.78, while its
suicide rate is one of the world’s
highest at 24.1 per every 100,000
people, according to the OECD.
The World Health Organiza-
tion has linked long working
hours to increased risk of stroke
and heart disease. “Working 55
hours or more per week is a
serious health hazard,” Maria
Neira, director of the Depart-
ment of Environment, Climate
Change and Health, said in 2021.
For some workers, the propos-
al rings hollow.
“Working until 9 or 10 p.m. is
normal for me,” said an employee
at an LG affiliate, who spoke on
the condition of anonymity be-
cause they were not authorized
by their employer to speak pub-
licly. “The 52-hour thing didn’t
prevent me from working longer
hours. So when I see headlines
mentioning the 69-hour work-
week, I can’t relate. I’m working
long hours anyway.”
*with approved credit.
Call for details.
Offer expires 3/31/23
sunday, march 12 , 2023 . the washington post
Would
America
shut down
again?
Debate about pandemic
response still intense
three years after covid hit
BY J OEL A CHENBACH
In early March 2020, Allison
Arwady watched in horror as
covid-19 devastated northern Ita-
ly. Hospitals were overrun, pa-
tients jamming the corridors. The
crematoriums operated day and
night, while the local newspaper’s
obituary section expanded to 10
pages.
Just a few weeks earlier, about
40,000 soccer fans from Bergamo
had traveled to Milan to watch
their team triumph in a presti-
gious Champions League match.
But the coronavirus, a silent
spreader, had surely been there,
too. It went off like “a biological
bomb,” as one doctor put it. By the
time local officials imposed quar-
antines, the virus was running
wild in its human hosts.
Arwady, the health commis-
sioner for the city of Chicago, told
herself: We’re next. We have to act.
“I have never been a part of
something that moved that fast at
that scale with that amount of
urgency,” Arwady said. “It was a
compression of what might have
taken six months into six days.”
Arwady and her colleagues had
to find ways to limit community
spread. But how far should they
go? Close all the restaurants? She
recalls looking at her chief medi-
cal officer and saying: “Oh my
God, schools too?”
Yes, schools, and much more,
not just in Chicago but across the
country. What unfolded in March
2020 was a national shutdown
unlike anything the country had
tried before.
The shutdown was profoundly
strange and has had lasting ef-
fects on our national psyche. But
memories fade, circumstances
change, opinions shift. Three
years later, the decision by local,
state and federal government offi-
cials to limit spread of the virus
continues to spark rancorous bat-
tles in the pandemic-fueled are-
nas of the culture wars.
So what will the country do the
next time a deadly virus comes
knocking on the door?
A traveler from China brought
the first documented coronavirus
case to the United States, the
Centers for Disease Control and
Prevention announced on Jan. 20,
2020. For weeks afterward there
was only a smattering of isolated
cases, and no deaths.
But this was a stealthy virus,
able to move among people who
didn’t show any symptoms.
During a late February telecon-
ference, Nancy Messonier of the
CDC said the virus probably
would spread within the United
States, a grave scenario that offi-
cials had avoided discussing pub-
licly. She outlined the concept of
non-pharmaceutical interven-
tions — working from home,
school closures, canceling mass
gatherings, cleaning surfaces.
“I understand this whole situa-
tion may seem overwhelming and
that disruption to everyday life
may be severe,” she said.
For many Americans, the real
sign that the coronavirus had ar-
rived came on March 11, when the
National Basketball Association
suspended its season. That same
day, the World Health Organiza-
tion declared the outbreak a pan-
demic.
In truth, no one knew the ex-
tent of infections at that time. An
early error in test development by
the CDC, as well as inflexibility
about the use of externally devel-
oped tests, limited national sur-
veillance.
“We had no eyes on the virus.
We were flying completely blind,”
said Deborah Birx, the White
House covid task force coordina-
tor.
But modeling, according to the
infectious-disease experts,
showed exponential spread. Ev-
ery infected person was spread-
ing the virus to more than two
other people, creating an epidem-
ic curve that threatened to go
vertical, as if aiming for the moon.
It was obvious to epidemiologists
that dramatic actions were neces-
sary to prevent an explosion of
sickness and death in major cities
across the country.
“I could see the tsunami com-
ing,” Birx said. “The whole thing
was, could we limit it to 15 of our
major metros, and what does it
look like if spreads to all 25 or 30
major metros?”
The administration’s top doc-
Cars at a drive-through coronavirus testing site in the parking lot of Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles on Nov. 23, 2020. Mass testing sites were common ahead of the holidays.
Cindy Trevino hands bread and pastries to a resident while volunteering at a San Antonio Food Bank
distribution in July 2020. As the coronavirus pandemic hit the United States, millions lost their jobs.
tors ultimately persuaded Presi-
dent Donald Trump to issue a
national public health order, a
stay-at-home guideline titled “15
Days to Slow the Spread,” effective
March 16. The doctors knew a
mere 15 days of social distancing
and other precautions would not
be enough to bring the contagion
under control. But that’s all they
thought they could sell to Trump
and his aides.
“I learned in that White House
there’s only so far you can push at
one time,” Birx said.
“The president listened — to
his credit — listened to what Dr.
Birx and I said about it,” said
Anthony S. Fauci, until recently
the director of the National Insti-
tute of Allergy and Infectious Dis-
eases.
The scale of the viral calamity
became increasingly clear. At a
briefing on March 31 to announce
the 30-day extension of the shut-
down, Birx provided shocking
new modeling projections:
100,000 to 240,000 people would
die of covid-19 in coming months
even if the country followed the
mitigation efforts. Without the
restrictions, modelers forecast as
many as 2.2 million deaths.
Trump was persuaded.
The guideline set out for those
45 days had no force of law. It
certainly was not a lockdown akin
to what had been imposed in
China. But it was a dramatic dic-
tate from the pinnacle of govern-
ment, carrying the imprimatur of
An armed protester stands at the Michigan Capitol in Lansing on
April 30, 2020. Many Americans opposed stay-at-home orders.
Trump in concert with the doctors
and scientists advising him.
Among the directives:
“If you are an older person, stay
home and away from other peo-
ple.”
“Avoid social gatherings in
groups of more than 10 people.”
“Avoid touching your face.”
“Disinfect frequently used
items and surfaces as much as
possible.”
Everyone was forced to play the
role of amateur epidemiologist.
The pandemic created fertile
ground for rumor and bunk. In-
formation went to war with mis-
information.
People also had to make sense
of confusing guidelines. Stay
three feet apart, the World Health
Organization said. Stay six feet
apart, the CDC said. A study from
MIT said the coronavirus could
theoretically travel 27 feet across
a room. One study that seized
global attention showed how the
virus can linger ominously in a
jogger’s slipstream.
No wonder some people went
into a kind of hibernation, ventur-
ing no farther than the porch,
maybe daring to wave at a neigh-
bor barely within earshot.
Downtowns emptied. Much of
the national workforce discov-
ered that it was “nonessential.”
Tens of millions of people began
working from home. Restaurants
switched to takeout, though many
simply went out of business.
Gyms and bars closed. So did
Matthew Hatcher/Bloomberg News
EZ RE
care workers.
But of course there was also
much to hate about the national
shutdown. It was chaotically im-
plemented, and inequitable in its
effects. The privileged drew their
usual salaries at home, sourdough
rising in the kitchen. The “essen-
tial workers” had no such flexibili-
ty. Some health-care workers
came to resent the banging and
clapping as they struggled with
burnout.
For a brief period, though, bel-
ligerent political warriors largely
went to ground. The new polar-
ization was humanity vs. covid.
“At least in the beginning, fear
is a great mobilizer,” recalls Rob-
ert Wachter, professor of medi-
cine at the University of Califor-
nia at San Francisco. “People kind
of suspended their politics for a
while.”
That didn’t last long.
The shutdown didn’t instantly
halt the surge of cases. Because of
a lag between infections and
Adrees Latif/Reuters
deaths, the death toll nationally
didn’t peak until mid-April. But
the shutdown had an effect.
“That original surge never took
national parks and museums, and down Houston, Miami, Dallas,
even local playgrounds. In the L.A., San Francisco — many of our
nation’s capital, officials ordered major large cities were protected
the removal of basketball rims, in that large surge,” Birx said.
leaving bare backboards. That meant many parts of the
New recommendations and or- country still had not been hit hard
ders from the public health offi- by the virus, and it was easy for
cials kept coming: Wear glasses, people in those places to imagine
because the virus can invade that this was someone else’s prob-
through your eyes. Maybe you lem, or even an invented crisis, a
could catch it from a dog. wild nanny-state overreaction.
Haircuts were put on hold. A In the meantime the economy
nation turned shaggy. was very clearly in shambles. Mil-
There were some things (spo- lions of people were out of work,
ken about sotto voce) to like about and the stock market had tanked.
the pandemic shutdown. Traffic Anti-government protests broke
noise disappeared. People re- out in April in Michigan, where
marked on how easily they could the Democratic governor had is-
hear the birds. sued strict public health orders.
Crises bring out the good in The pandemic response soon be-
people, the desire to help those came fully entangled with the
more desperate. Let’s keep our country’s ongoing culture wars.
spirit up, was the message. In his Some communities stayed in
book on the pandemic, “Apollo’s shelter-in-place mode as if a hur-
Arrow,” Nicholas Christakis de- ricane was nigh, while others
scribes a favorite moment in that largely shrugged off the crisis,
early period: “Orchestra musi- treating the pandemic as if it were
cians, all of them isolated in their a coastal rumor.
own homes, recorded themselves Trump pivoted, persuaded by
individually performing their economic advisers that the mod-
parts in a symphony; the videos elers had been excessively dire in
were then edited together to show their forecasts, Birx writes in her
each musician playing beautiful- pandemic memoir “Silent Inva-
ly. The New York Philharmonic’s sion.” She recalls Trump saying
rendition of Ravel’s Bolero re- one day in early April, “We will
duced many people to tears.” never shut down the country
Citizens of New York City, emu- again. Never.”
lating the Italians who had been Fauci today is the primary tar-
hit by an earlier wave of sickness get of those furious about the
and death, banged pots and pans pandemic mitigations. #Prose-
every night in the windows to cuteFauci is a popular social me-
signal solidarity with the health- dia message.
Jeenah Moon for The Washington Post
Empty seats on the subway in Manhattan on March 21, 2020. As
the virus spread, people fled cities and began working remotely.
A21
Bing Guan/Bloomberg News
Many disease experts worry
that the rage over pandemic re-
strictions has kneecapped public
health leaders. The country may
now have fewer tools to fight the
next contagion.
“Nobody likes mandates,” Fau-
ci said. “But we have a tradition of
accepting mandates when they
are for the common good or for
the good of the individuals. For
example, the requirement of vac-
cinations for students before they
go to school. This has now taken a
very, very sharp turn.”
Birx has a different concern:
The country’s public health estab-
lishment hasn’t fixed many of the
testing problems that under-
mined situational awareness
when the virus began spreading
in early 2020.
“There are simple common-
sense innovations we can put in
place today so we are never
crushed by infectious disease
again,” she said in an email.
The public health establish-
ment admits its mistakes and
stumbles — “Everything we did
we could have done better,” Fauci
recently told The Washington
Post — but it has portrayed the
efforts as necessary and success-
ful moves in a highly volatile situ-
ation. An incalculable number of
lives were probably saved by de-
laying what would have been the
natural spread of the virus. That
gave doctors more time to devel-
op techniques and drugs for treat-
ing patients in the brutal period
before vaccines helped lower the
fatality rate.
“It is entirely plausible that we
might have seen a million or more
dead before anyone had the
chance to be vaccinated, had we
done nothing,” suggests Harvard
epidemiologist William Hanage.
In public health, though, suc-
cess is measured against counter-
factual outcomes: hypothetical
infections, conjectured suffering,
imaginary deaths.
By contrast, the pain of the
national shutdown — businesses
going under, weddings post-
poned, protracted isolation of the
elderly, learning losses among
schoolkids — is glaringly obvious.
Critics of pandemic restrictions
contend that the cure was worse
than the disease. In response, Re-
publican-dominated legislatures
in many states have passed laws
limiting public health interven-
tions, such as vaccine or mask
mandates.
The pandemic schooled every-
one. It taught many office workers
how to function remotely. It
taught restaurateurs how to turn
sidewalks into dining spaces. It
taught the CDC how critically im-
portant it is to communicate
clearly with the public — and the
consequences of failing to do so.
And it taught the opponents of
the public health authorities how
to block government mandates
and restrictions.
This is not an esoteric dilem-
ma: There are more pathogens
out there poised to spill into the
human species. A novel strain of
avian influenza, H5N1, already
has seized the attention of scien-
tists as a potential spillover haz-
ard.
Wachter, of UC San Francisco,
said the opposition to emergency
measures “will emerge on Day
One” of any new pandemic: “It
will create a tension and a level of
pushback against any public
health mandates to do anything.”
A22 EZ RE the washington post . sunday, march 12 , 2023

Coming Up This Week

MON. MARCH 13 AT 1:00 P.M.
EXPLAINING AMERICA
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Ulukaya discusses his entrepreneurial journey, his contribution to relief efforts following the devastating earthquakes in Turkey and
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TUES. MARCH 14 AT 11:00 A.M. P RE S E N T I N G S P O N S O R

TECH AT WORK: COLLABORATION

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THIS IS CLIMATE: WATER

Sen. John Hickenlooper (D-Colo.)
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sunday, march 12 , 2023 . the washington post
See no evil. Hear no evil. Speak no evil.
N
ot since the Know-Nothing Party disap-
peared in the 1850s has a public figure
boasted about his ignorance with as much
gusto as Kevin McCarthy does.
It doesn’t seem to matter what you ask the
speaker of the House. He hasn’t read it, seen it or
heard about it.
The explosive documents from the Dominion case
showing Fox News hosts privately said Donald
Trump’s election lies were hokum but promoted the
lies on air anyway?
“I didn’t read all that. I didn’t see all that,”
McCarthy told The Post.
The way Fox News’s Tucker Carlson (predictably)
manipulated the Jan. 6, 2021, security footage
McCarthy (foolishly) gave the propagandist, giving
the false appearance that the bloody insurrection
was “mostly peaceful”?
“I didn’t see what was aired,” McCarthy asserted.
Senate GOP leader Mitch McConnell, in an implic-
it rebuke of McCarthy, blasting the Carlson propa-
ganda while holding up a statement from the Capitol
Police chief denouncing Fox News’s “outrageous,”
“false” and “offensive” portrayal of the insurrection?
You guessed it. McCarthy “didn’t see” McConnell
do that.
The benighted McCarthy has been amassing this
impressive body of obtuseness for some time. If
ignorance is bliss, the California Republican has
been in nirvana for years now.
How about Trump’s speech on the Ellipse on
­Jan. 6, 2021, provoking the sacking of the Capitol?
“I didn’t watch it,” McCarthy said.
Rep. Andrew Clyde (R-Ga.) calling the insurrec-
tionists’ rampage a “normal tourist visit”?
“I don’t know what Congressman Clyde said,”
quoth McCarthy, and “I didn’t see it.”
When his own designated negotiator reached a
bipartisan agreement to form a commission to probe
the Jan. 6 attack (a commission McCarthy ultimately
killed)?
“I haven’t read through it.”
Trump, in a recorded phone call, demanding
Georgia’s secretary of state “find” enough votes to
overturn the election results?
“I have to hear it first.”
Trump telling four congresswomen of color (three
of them U.S.-born) to “go back” where they came
from, prompting chants of “send her back” among
his rallygoers?
“I didn’t get to see the rally.”
Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) harassing
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) with shouts
and slander just off the House floor?
“I didn’t see that. I don’t know what happened.”
Trump’s ludicrous allegation that former GOP
congressman and MSNBC host Joe Scarborough
might have murdered a staffer?
“I don’t quite know about the subject itself. I don’t
know this subject well.”
Trump’s scandalous claim that Democrats inflat-
ed the death toll from a hurricane in Puerto Rico to
“make me look as bad as possible”?
“I haven’t read it yet,” McCarthy pleaded.
At best, McCarthy’s willful cluelessness is just a
dodge. But last week, McCarthy’s see-no-evil ap-
proach was just plain evil.
After Carlson aired his phony portrayal of the
insurrection, several Republicans finally spoke up
about Fox News’s lies: “Inexcusable and bull----”
(Sen. Thom Tillis, N.C.), “whitewashing” (Sen. Lind-
sey Graham, S.C.), “dangerous and disgusting”
(Sen. Mitt Romney, Utah).
Then there was McCarthy, questioned by report-
ers just outside the speaker’s office, which the
supposedly “peaceful” insurrectionists had ran-
sacked that terrible day.
“Do you regret giving him this footage so he could
whitewash the events of that day?” asked CNN’s
Manu Raju.
“No,” McCarthy replied, adding some gibberish
about “transparency” (which is the very opposite of
Carlson’s fabrication).
“Do you agree with his portrayal of what hap-
pened that day?” Raju pressed.
“Look,” McCarthy said. “Each person can come up
with their own conclusion.”
Talk about dangerous and disgusting. Given a
choice between fact and fiction, between law and
anarchy, between democracy and thuggery, the
speaker of the House proclaimed his agnosticism. In
doing so, he threw the power of the speakership
Alyssa Rosenberg
Parenting is an epic. Just look at the 2023 best picture nominees.
A
nxious about having children? The 2023
Academy Awards on Sunday just might be
the thing to ease your mind. The best picture
nominees show that parenthood is an un-
beatable source of joy and meaning, even an epic
journey right up there with space operas.
Hollywood might be financially addicted to block-
busters. But taken together, this year’s Oscar-
­nominated movies make the case that children are
the world’s greatest source of adventure and plot
twists — even for a Navy ace like Pete Mitchell (Tom
Cruise) in “Top Gun: Maverick.”
That uncertainty can be frightening, and hum-
bling. No prenatal test can reveal a baby’s future
temperament, aptitude or sexual orientation. Neither
the warmest nor the strictest parent can shape their
child’s path with certainty. And no book can prepare
parents to raise the person their child turns out to be.
Nor can any one movie, of course. But some of the
best films of 2022 succeed by channeling the awe of
seeing who a child becomes and the satisfaction of
rising to meet the challenge of parenting them.
Take best picture front-runner “Everything
­Everywhere All at Once.” It dramatizes this unpre-
dictable journey in absurd fashion. Evelyn, a day-
dreaming laundromat owner played by best actress
nominee Michelle Yeoh, is disconcerted to discover
that a version of her daughter from an alternate
reality has become a nihilistic supervillain armed
with a world-annihilating everything bagel. To save
the multiverse, Evelyn has to become a braver, more
attentive mother.
Kids bring surprise in wonderful ways too. Jake
Sully (Sam Worthington), the space Marine turned
blue alien in “Avatar: The Way of Water,” is stunned
and humbled when his teenage daughter is revealed
SUNDAY Opinion
Dana Milbank
House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) on Capitol Hill on March 7.
behind the insurrectionists and against the constitu-
tional order he swore to uphold. McCarthy’s leader-
ship team even endorsed Carlson’s fakery, promot-
ing a link to the segment from the House GOP
conference’s official Twitter account with four alarm
emojis and a “MUST WATCH” recommendation.
Of course, were McCarthy to turn against Fox
News, the speaker, weakened by the promises he
made to secure the speakership, would be swiftly
replaced by the likes of GOP caucus chair Elise
Stefanik of New York (who claimed Carlson’s propa-
ganda “demolished” the “Democrats’ dishonest nar-
rative” about Jan. 6), or Rep. Tom Massie (R-Ky.),
who went on Carlson’s show to congratulate him on
his deception.
So McCarthy sells out democracy to preserve his
title. He gave the security footage to Carlson in the
first place because he promised that to the far-right
Republicans denying him the speakership during
his 15-ballot quinceañera in January.
Even Fox Corp.’s chairman, Rupert Murdoch, has
expressed some regret over the network’s role in
perpetrating Trump’s “big lie,” saying it should have
been “stronger in denouncing it.” The internal
documents exposed in the Dominion lawsuit show
beyond any doubt that Fox News hosts knew the
truth about the 2020 election and yet encouraged
viewers night after night to believe Trump’s lies.
Those hosts continue to deceive and manipulate
viewers nightly. The same day Carlson aired his
Jan. 6 fabrication, Trump said on Sean Hannity’s
radio show that he would have been willing to let
Vladimir Putin “take over” parts of Ukraine. But
when Hannity played excerpts of the interview on
Fox News, the network edited out Trump’s proposed
surrender.
The latest Fox News lies have proven too much for
the Senate GOP leader. Though McConnell has
enabled Trump at crucial moments, he said at a news
conference last week that it was “a mistake” for Fox
News to portray the insurrection “in a way that’s
completely at variance with what our chief law
enforcement official here in the Capitol thinks.”
Yet McCarthy continues to put himself before his
country. In just two months on the job, McCarthy
“already . . . has done more than any party leader in
Congress to enable the spread of Donald Trump’s Big
Lie,” the Senate majority leader, Chuck Schumer,
charged on the Senate floor last week. The speaker,
he said, “has made our democracy weaker.”
And McCarthy isn’t finished with his depredations.
Greene, given a position of influence and respectabili-
ty by the speaker, is launching a probe, complete with
a field trip to a D.C. jail, into the “inhumane treat-
ment” allegedly suffered by the accused insurrection-
ists awaiting trial. McCarthy has also given the green
light to a new probe designed to challenge the
conclusions of the Jan. 6 committee. The man who
will lead that panel, Rep. Barry Loudermilk (R-Ga.),
declared last week that Americans “didn’t see the
Stephanie Hsu, left, Michelle Yeoh and Ke Huy Quan in “Everything Everywhere All at Once.”
to be a powerful mystic. In “The Fabelmans,” Burt
(Paul Dano) and Mitzi (Michelle Williams) must
figure out how to nurture a child possessed of artistic
genius.
The best picture nominees also illuminate par-
enting as a source of meaning. It’s an arena in which
ordinary people do heroic work; every small battle
to help a child become a good person assumes
significance.
Consider the abused, illiterate Mennonite women
EZ RE
Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post
other side” of the insurrection.
“I think the truth is going to be somewhere
between the violent videos and the supposedly
peaceful actions there,” he said.
No. The only truth is that Jan. 6 was a violent
attack on the seat of American democracy. There was
nothing peaceful about an armed insurrection at-
tempting to overturn an election — even if some
people there that day weren’t themselves violent.
But that truth — and this democracy — are
threatened by a dangerously weak speaker of the
House, who has concluded that the only way to
preserve his own power is to support Fox News in its
sabotage of this country.
Jim Jordan comes up empty — again
Spare a moment of pity for Jim Jordan. The Ohio
Republican, chairman of the subcommittee probing
the “weaponization of the federal government,” can’t
find a smoking gun.
Heck, he hasn’t identified so much as a squirt gun.
His panel’s first hearing last month proved to be a
dud, as witnesses (including two GOP lawmakers
and a Fox News contributor) merely rattled off a
catalogue of personal grievances and tired conspira-
cy theories about hydroxychloroquine, Hunter
Biden’s laptop and the “fake dossier.”
Jordan had promised that a symphony of “whis-
tleblowers” would expose dramatic instances of
wrongdoing by the feds. But earlier this month came
a New York Times report that the first three of these
supposed whistleblowers, financially supported by a
pro-Trump group, were “a group of aggrieved former
F.B.I. officials who have trafficked in right-wing
conspiracy theories” about Jan. 6 and more.
Conservatives, including Fox News’s Jesse Wat-
ters, have complained about Jordan’s slow start and
lack of results. Jordan has responded by firing off yet
more subpoenas and more unsupported allegations.
Clearly, he’s feeling defensive. “I feel like our staff is
working their tail off and we’re getting things up and
rolling,” he protested to Semafor’s Kadia Goba.
When his weaponization panel assembled for
another hearing on Thursday, the pressure on
Jordan was showing. Still lacking evidence that
conservatives had been victimized by the govern-
ment, he instead spent much of the hearing shouting
at Democrats.
While the ranking Democrat, Del. Stacey Plaskett
(Virgin Islands), delivered her opening statement,
Republicans interrupted with laughs and heckling
(the word “crazy” could be heard). Rep. Mike
Johnson interrupted Plaskett mid-sentence, calling
her “out of line” and demanding her description of
the day’s witnesses be “struck down.”
“I’m not striking down that, and I get to have an
opinion,” she replied.
“You don’t get to determine what’s struck down!”
said Johnson.
Jordan leaped in. “You do get an opening state-
Allyson Riggs/a24 films/AP
debating whether to leave their isolated community
in Sarah Polley’s “Women Talking.” They’re no super-
heroes. But parenthood makes them incredibly cou-
rageous. One walks for days to get antibiotics for her
daughter, who has been raped. When the women
determine they can’t stay, they make the audacious
decision to take their sons, rather than abandoning
them to a warped culture. Even secular parents will
recognize the intensity of devotion that these moth-
ers understand as a holy obligation.
A23
ment and it’s about over.”
Jordan, though he had already given his state-
ment, then launched into a fist-shaking tirade: “I’m
talking now . . . You guys don’t care! You don’t care!
. . . You don’t want the American people to see! You
don’t want the American people to see! What
happened! The full video! Transparency! You don’t
want that!”
Jordan’s disjointed harangue continued at length.
“Is this your question time?” Plaskett inquired.
“No! I’m responding to your ridiculous state-
ments!” Jordan shouted back.
“Okay,” Plaskett said, “well let’s get on with it.”
“Oh, so now you want to get on with it!” Jordan
roared. He shouted his way through the introduc-
tions, botching his lines.
It continued similarly from there. Johnson inter-
rupted again. The Republican witnesses interrupted
to argue with Democrats on the panel. Jordan
repeatedly granted himself impromptu rebuttals of
Democratic lawmakers. “You’ve got the wrong un-
derstanding!” he shouted at Rep. Gerry Connolly
(D-Va.), going on a tangent about a “left-wing
journalist” and Black Lives Matter.
It was all sound and fury signifying nothing but
the obvious fact that, once again, Jordan hadn’t
delivered the goods.
They’re on a mission from God
Republican culture warriors have been exception-
ally busy making sure that American schoolchildren
are freed from the terrible burden of learning.
Among the treatises being removed from class-
rooms, The Post’s Hannah Natanson reports: Mary
Wollstonecraft’s 18th-century classic “A Vindication
of the Rights of Woman.” Mark Twain’s “Adventures
of Huckleberry Finn.” John Steinbeck’s “Of Mice and
Men.” Anne Frank’s “The Diary of a Young Girl.” And
Christopher Columbus’s journal. A quarter of teach-
ers say their classes have been affected by the new
educational gag rules.
Last week, the House Committee on Education
and the Workforce took up the battle to dumb down
America’s youth. It marked up a national “Parents
Bill of Rights” and a companion bill aimed at
keeping trans girls from competing in youth sports.
Democrats pointed out that both were solutions
in search of problems. Controversies involving
trans kids in sports number only in the double
digits — hardly enough to merit federal action that
further stigmatizes children who are just over
1 percent of the population and already face high
suicide rates. And despite the right’s “parents
rights” crusade, parents are largely satisfied with
their children’s education and the lessons they are
taught.
But the panel’s Republicans were not to be
persuaded on these points. They claimed to be doing
God’s will.
Chairwoman Virginia Foxx (R-N.C.) announced
that parents’ “God-given right to make decisions for
their children has been ignored and at times
attacked.”
Rep. Bob Good (R-Va.) declared that “Democrats
reject that God created science of sex” and further
informed the panel that “the fact is, God does not
make mistakes. He creates us perfectly unique as
individuals, and all of us are either immutably male or
immutably female.” This is a “moral” matter, he said.
And Rep. Burgess Owens (R-Utah) affirmed that
“parents and not school employees are charged by
God to raise their own children.”
It rarely ends well when politicians claim to be
doing God’s bidding. To see the evil it produces, look
no further than the Grand Hyatt in Washington,
where on Sunday the Development Corporation for
Israel, the formerly reputable group that sells Israel
Bonds, will be hosting Israel’s finance minister,
Bezalel Smotrich. Just a week ago, Smotrich, from
the Orthodox, far-right Religious Zionist Party,
called for a Palestinian village in the West Bank to be
“wiped out.” This fundamentalist zealot, who claims
“I work for God,” tried to walk back his murderous
remark after an outcry.
Smotrich, and House Republicans such as
Foxx, Good and Owens, might think that God
supports their brands of persecution. But I side with
Rep. Jahana Hayes (D-Conn.), who responded to the
moralizing Republicans on the House Education
Committee this way: “I can tell you that the God that
I serve teaches me to love my neighbor — all of my
neighbors.” Amen.
Indeed, parenting is in some ways the hero’s
journey: No one is unchanged by becoming a mother
or father.
For Evelyn in “Everything Everywhere All at Once,”
the shock of her daughter’s depressive crisis puts an
end to her longing for another life. The world Evelyn
actually lives in, where she must do her superhuman
work, is the reality in which she is the mother to her
particular, miraculous daughter. Her victory comes
when she rises to the task. It is a redirection of
ambition, not an abandonment of it.
In “Top Gun: Maverick,” Pete is spurred to confront
his self-destructive tendencies when he becomes a
surrogate father to a group of trainee pilots. In “The
Fabelmans,” Burt absorbs his wife’s volatile emotions
and his children’s anger. His tenderness gives them
all, himself included, a sense of ballast.
But parents can be villains — or antiheroes — too.
Bad parents, in the best picture nominees’ telling,
are those who abuse their role to become their worst
selves. In “Tár,” imperious conductor Lydia handles a
schoolyard bully in the same ruthless way she han-
dles her professional life: She threatens to destroy a
little girl who is hassling her daughter. “The Banshees
of Inisherin” illustrates the social dysfunction of its
small Irish community with a local police official who
beats and molests his son.
It’s no coincidence that so many of these best
picture nominees reach their emotional climax when
their central caregivers let go of their expectations
and embrace who their charges have become: A
lesbian. A filmmaker. An ace Navy pilot. Even a
7-foot-7 teal warrior bonded with an outcast whale.
That’s the essence of parenting: an intimate epic
where wild hope triumphs over fear, even though we
don’t know how the story ends.
A24 EZ RE
ABCDE
AN INDEPENDENT NEWSPAPER
Editorial
Jahi Chikwendiu/The Washington Post
A phonics lesson at Hunt Valley Elementary School last year in Springfield.
Yes, U.S. children should be
hooked on phonics
S
O YOU can read. But how?
People learn to talk simply through listening — to
our parents talking to us and to each other, to the TV
talking to the ether, to strangers on the street. But
that’s not how people learn to read. People need to be
taught to read. And the trouble is, educators, parents and
politicians can’t seem to agree on the best way to do that.
Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee (R) submitted a bill to his state’s
legislature this year that would command all Tennessee Because this includes a “look right” component, there’s
school districts to rely on phonics for reading in kindergar- some element of phonics involved — hence the marketing
ten through third grade. More than 30 states and D.C. have of this teaching strategy as “balanced literacy.” But too
taken this approach, instituting various degrees of phonics heavy an emphasis on the “make sense” part of the
instruction on their turf. Yet teachers unions in many equation, combined with many of those helpful pictures,
places have been resistant, and some politicians are on means some children can get by without sounding out
their side. anything. This approach breaks down when the words
The so-called reading wars have been raging for decades become longer, less familiar and when the pictures disap-
now, sometimes pitting teachers against publishers or pear.
publishers against academicians — and also sometimes, as About 40 percent of students will learn to read no matter
too many things do these days, pitting progressives against what. They’ll manage to sound words out without system-
conservatives or Democrats against Republicans. That’s atic phonics instruction, or without any phonics instruc-
unfortunate, because — as perhaps too few things do these tion at all. That’s part of why the whole-language approach
days — the debate over how best to teach children to read looks, sometimes, like it works. But research shows that the
lends itself to a conclusive answer. That’s phonics. children who struggle most aren’t likely to stop struggling
unless they’re taught to sound words out — unless they’re
What is phonics? taught to read.
In phonics, students learn a letter or a pair of letters at a
time. The reading wars
The Carnegie Corporation of New York released in the
1960s a comprehensive literature review that emphasized
the importance of phonics in reading instruction. The
U.S. Education Department and the National Institute of
Child Health and Human Development convened a Nation-
al Reading Panel that came to the same conclusion in 2000.
Recent numbers bear this out: The “Mississippi miracle”
saw the state vault from 49th in fourth-graders’ reading
proficiency test scores to 29th in a mere six years, after
implementing phonics-based curriculums. Meanwhile,
That’s how most Americans learned to read. Slowly, reading scores nationwide are dropping, and only about
letters add up to words. one-third of fourth- and eighth-graders across the country
are proficient at reading.
So why do so many teachers refuse to adopt methods
that work — and hold fast to those that don’t?
Many of those most devoted in recent decades to
balanced literacy see phonics as, well, boring: “drill and
kill,” as some put it. Especially in schools with fewer
resources, the chances instructors will be skilled enough to
bring these lessons to life might be slim. The thinking goes
that kids won’t improve at reading if they don’t enjoy
Eventually, through a process called “orthographic map- reading, and that to enjoy reading the focus should be on
ping,” some words will lodge themselves in a child’s understanding the story a book is trying to tell rather than
memory so they’ll know them on sight. And it turns out the on getting each and every word exactly right. Who cares, for
most efficient and effective route to this mapping is linking example, if a student says “puppy” instead of “dog?”
sounds, letter by letter, to written words. Our brains light Certainly kids can get bored laboring all day over cats
up in the right places when we do it. and rats who can’t do much more than be fat until the
What’s more, knowing the sounds “a,” “m,” “n” and every students have progressed to more challenging combina-
vowel team and consonant blend on the long journey to “z” tions of letters. And sounding out words can only take a
will eventually allow a young reader to decode any word, student so far, if they have no idea what any of those words
even when they don’t recognize it. mean. Reading — really reading — requires myriad skills,
Not everyone, however, is sold. starting with word recognition but reaching to background
knowledge, vocabulary, syntax and semantics and even-
What is the whole-language approach? tually coping with irony, metaphors, genres and themes.
Phonics isn’t new — it dates to at least the 19th century. Some of these skills might come more naturally to
What’s newer is the “whole language” approach to reading. students growing up in households with, say, college or
The idea is to teach words rather than letters. It was high-school educated parents. They’ll definitely come
persuasive in the mid-20th century, when “Dick and Jane” more naturally to students growing up in English-speaking
books replaced phonics-based McGuffey Readers. households. The students whose homes infuse them with
In the whole-language approach, students are shown less background knowledge, vocabulary and beyond than
simple sentences and learn by logical association. their peers will most need their schools to step in and
provide it.
But balanced literacy isn’t really balanced — phonics
instruction is usually sprinkled here and there rather than
instituted systematically in the manner that’s required for
students actually to benefit from it. And three-cueing
methods sometimes teach students hacks. For those who
don’t immediately catch on to sounding out words, those
hacks can discourage them to ever learn how.
Recognizing that students will bring a range of vocabu-
They learn entire words at a time. lary and experience to the classroom is important, but that
doesn’t negate the reality that phonics is essential, because
learning a new word starts with sounding out what the
word is and because unspooling a good metaphor requires
drinking in an entire sentence.
Parents and advocates are understandably squeamish
about government dictates involving so intimate and
traditionally local a matter as education — particularly
when ideology enters the equation. School boards and
other bodies closer to the ground are the ideal places for
But some students just memorize the narrow set of these decisions to happen. But they should happen. The
words in their books and exercises. techniques that will help students master “Bob Books” so
In the more modern version of this approach, heavily someday they might make it to Robert Wright books aren’t
reliant on what’s known as the “three-cueing system,” a question of ideology. They’re a question of science.
students are essentially encouraged to guess words: Does it Kids should absolutely learn to love to read. First,
make sense? Does it sound right? Does it look right? though, they need to learn to read.
ABCDE CAMERON BARR.....................Senior Managing Editor
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the washington post . sunday, march 12 , 2023
Michael de Adder
Letters to the editor
letters@washpost.com
Keep religion out of my rights
Regarding the March 7 Metro article
“ ‘My body, my choice,’ argue advocates of
and they risk stifling the robust hydrogen
growth likely needed to foster broad end-
use applications and meet long-term cli-
mate goals.
aid-in-dying bill” :
For years, I have been following the
issue of the right to die in Maryland.
Annually, I reach out to my representa-
We applied no such barriers to the
nascent solar and wind industries two
decades ago, nor should we for hydrogen
today. Treasury should provide simple,
tives to add my voice and understand workable guidance that industry can lev-
what the impediments are. I find it repug- erage to scale hydrogen this decade. Any
nant that religion has been a constant other approach would preempt technol-
obstacle. ogy development and deployment, under-
Comments from state Senate President cutting hydrogen’s potential to help us
Bill Ferguson (D-Baltimore City) that his decarbonize.
caucus lacked the emotional and political Marty Durbin, Washington
capital to entertain the bill this year The writer is president of the Global
smacks of a laissez-faire attitude toward Energy Institute at the
an issue that is of critical importance to U.S. Chamber of Commerce.
the thousands of Marylanders who might
want or need this legal escape from a dark I agree with the concerns that environ-
and painful existence. mental advocates and scientists voiced in
This issue has languished too long in the March 4 news article “Scientists fear a
Annapolis, and this session needs to be tax break meant to curb climate change
the one that finally leads us to freedom on could worsen it” about any loosening of
this front. green hydrogen fuel requirements in the
Elizabeth Cummings, Kensington Inflation Reduction Act. But the article
did not discuss in which circumstances
and industries green hydrogen fuel
Putting women at risk should actually be used.
Green hydrogen fuel is only suitable
I appreciated Monica Hesse’s gentle when electrification isn’t an option, such
pushback in her March 6 Style column, as long-haul maritime shipping, commer-
“Listening to Rowling’s podcast is exhaust- cial air travel and steel production. Elec-
ing,” on some of J.K. Rowling’s more trification powered by renewable energy
breathless assertions about transgender is the more energy-efficient option in al-
women and prisons, but more needs to be most every other situation. It’s cheaper,
said. and we already have the necessary tech-
This issue is not a new one. In 1994, the nology to scale. Energy companies and the
Supreme Court held that the Bureau of fossil-fuel industry are trying to sell us the
Prisons’ decision to house Dee Farmer — a story that their version of green hydrogen
transgender woman — in the general pop- will help us reach our climate goals. How-
ulation of a men’s prison violated the ever, producing hydrogen fuels their way
Eighth Amendment’s prohibition against will continue to emit greenhouse gases. By
“cruel and unusual punishments” because focusing on responsibly developing
her jailers “knew that the penitentiary had sources of renewable energy, we can easily
a violent environment and a history of meet our energy needs and power the
inmate assaults and that petitioner would creation of truly green hydrogen to pick
be particularly vulnerable to sexual attack.” up where electrification leaves off. Off-
Nearly 30 years on, the Bureau of Pris- shore wind alone has the potential to
ons continues to house transgender wom- power the world four times over and will
en among men with a history of violence. also benefit from consistent tax credits.
Ms. Farmer alleged that her male cellmate Green hydrogen is a label that should
violently beat and raped her. In this, she is only apply to fuel with zero lifecycle green-
not alone. A 2007 study from the Univer- house gas emissions. We can’t let the fossil-
sity of California at Irvine found that fuel industry deceive us yet again into
incarcerated transgender people were thinking that we need fossil-fuel-derived
13 times more likely to be sexually assault- energy that pollutes our lungs, communi-
ed than a random sample of incarcerated ties, ocean and planet to power the future.
men. Fifty-nine percent of transgender Anna-Marie Laura, Washington
prisoners reported having been sexually The writer is senior director of climate
assaulted within a California correctional policy at Ocean Conservancy.
facility compared with just 4.4 percent of
the incarcerated population as a whole.
The Supreme Court is correct: Trans- Study masks more
gender women are not safe behind bars
when housed with violent male offenders. The March 6 editorial “They work” was
That does not mean reflexively housing correct in pointing out the likely value of
them with other women, though this might masks and N95 respirators in protecting
be the best choice for nonviolent offenders. against infection from the inhalation of
All transgender women deserve to be safe. aerosols containing the coronavirus. As
Ms. Hesse was right. No woman should an infectious-disease research physician,
have to share a cell with a rapist — includ- I know that scientists working with highly
ing transgender women. virulent viruses and bacteria transmitted
Charlotte Achelois Scherer, Alexandria by inhaling aerosols are required to wear
respirators because they have been dem-
onstrated to prevent infections.
‘Green’ hydrogen’s promise The editorial also emphasized the im-
portant distinction that was initially not
To meet the global climate challenge, we appreciated by the public health commu-
will need every tool at our disposal, includ- nity between large particle droplets that
ing ample volumes of clean hydrogen, can infect people over short distances and
which will help us decarbonize our top- small particle aerosols that remain sus-
emitting sectors such as transportation, pended in the air and can infect over
industry and power. Federal support for much longer distances.
hydrogen has come in the form of funding The first author of the study published
for a hub program and a tax credit. in the Cochrane Reviews misleadingly
As reported in the March 4 news article said masks make no difference. But the
addressing implementation of the hydro- conclusions reported in the published
gen tax credit, “Scientists fear a tax break review, representing the views of all 12 au-
meant to curb climate change could wors- thors, indicate otherwise. “The high risk
en it,” some groups are urging the Treas- of bias in the trials . . . and relatively low
ury Department to allow only hydrogen adherence with the interventions . . .
production that meets some of the strict- hampers drawing firm conclusions.”
est rules to qualify for the tax credit. These Thus, bias in the trials and low adher-
include building new renewable genera- ence prevented drawing firm conclusions
tion specifically for hydrogen production about whether masks do or do not work in
and adhering to a highly prescriptive the studies reported to date. It remains
time-matching framework that would imperative that bias does not prevent us
award incentives only at certain times in a from accepting results that do not support
given day. Though these might be well- our preconceived opinions.
­intentioned efforts, they are allowing the Arthur M. Friedlander,
perfect to become the enemy of the good, Montgomery Village
Editorial and opinion
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sunday, march 12 , 2023 . the washington post
Fareed Zakaria
How Mexico’s
president
is gutting
fair elections
M H
exico — perfectly placed to
benefit from the growing ten-
sions between the United
States and China — could be
entering a golden age. Parts of the coun-
try are already seeing a boom as compa-
nies diversify away from China and invest
in it. In fact, a good chunk of that
investment is being made by Chinese
companies that are
finding a way to con-
tinue to sell goods to
the United States.
But these promis-
ing economic winds
are being stifled by
bad politics. For
most of the past
three decades, Mexi-
Luis Cortes/Reuters co had a run of presi-
Andrés Manuel dents who were seri-
ous about policy and
López Obrador
tried to modernize
the country, albeit with varying degrees of
success. Alas, that luck has run out. Mexi-
co’s president since 2018, Andrés Manuel
López Obrador, also known as AMLO, is a
populist demagogue straight out of the
worst pages of Latin American history.
López Obrador’s covid policies were a
disaster; Mexico has had one of the high-
est rates of excess mortality in the world.
His economic policies have been anti-
growth; by one estimate, 4 million Mexi-
cans have slipped into poverty during his
presidency. He has failed to take on the
drug cartels. And he has attacked and
dismantled Mexican political institutions,
many of which had acquired legitimacy
and competence only recently. His cur-
rent effort might be the most dangerous.
For most of the 20th century, Mexico
was a one-party state whose fraudulent
elections ensured that the ruling party
always won. That changed in 2000, when
President Ernesto Zedillo’s electoral re-
forms enabled the country’s first free and
fair elections, which the ruling party lost.
Out of the same spirit of democratization
came the National Electoral Institute,
which has developed a reputation for
being independent and competent.
That agency is now López Obrador’s
target. He initially pushed an election
reform package that would have killed it
altogether and replaced it with a new
body, but he failed to pass the necessary
constitutional amendments. So he has
settled for getting legislation passed that
hollows out the agency. Its budget will be
cut by nearly a third. Hundreds of local
offices will be closed, and 6,000 employ-
ees will be laid off. Its powers will be
curtailed, taking some teeth out of the
watchdog.
López Obrador cannot run for a second
term as president; he is taking these steps
to ensure that the next elections result in
legislative victory for his party, which he
plans to continue to dominate. The Su-
preme Court is expected in the near future
to hear challenges to the president’s gut-
ting of the agency.
The elections agency has not been
perfect, but it is a pillar of Mexico’s
fledgling democracy. Polls show it is the
country’s most trusted institution after
the armed forces. López Obrador’s attack
on it has been part of his assault on several
nongovernmental organizations and in-
dependent government agencies, includ-
ing those dealing with corruption and
human rights. In an excellent article,
Bloomberg’s Shannon K. O’Neil writes
that López Obrador has raided the coffers
of public funds for artists and academics,
weaponized the judiciary, and routinely
used government agencies to attack those
who criticize him.
López Obrador’s entire term in office
has been out of a Peronist textbook: Claim
to speak for the poor, attack the elites, and
meanwhile run a shoddy, incompetent
and corrupt government. When a journal-
ist reported on the lavish life his son lived
in the United States, he released the
journalist’s personal income information
— which was both illegal and unconstitu-
tional. Though López Obrador attacked
previous government projects for corrup-
tion, today more than three out of four
government contracts are awarded with-
out competitive bids.
Meanwhile, the state has lost its capac-
ity to rein in the drug cartels, which run
large parts of the country. López Obrador
campaigned on the slogan of “hugs, not
bullets,” but in office he simply ceded the
issue to the military, which is deeply
riddled with corruption and drug money.
When the United States apprehended the
former defense minister in 2020, on
charges of being in league with the cartels,
López Obrador’s government demanded
his return and exonerated him. Former
U.S. attorney general William P. Barr
recently described López Obrador as “the
cartels’ chief enabler.”
López Obrador’s attack on the election
agency is essentially personal. He claims
that he won the 2006 election — the first
of his three runs for the presidency — but
was denied his due (independent observ-
ers do not agree). In fact, much of his
presidency is an act of narcissism — he
holds daily news conferences that go on
for hours, he attacks the state because its
agencies limit his powers, he uses his
presidential powers to go after his politi-
cal opponents, and now he is attempting
to rig the 2024 election. They have their
differences, of course, but López Obrador
has turned out to be the Mexican Donald
Trump.
A “Now Hiring” sign is seen outside a store in Arlington in January 2022.
Catherine Rampell
Everyone keeps underestimating
the strength of this economy
J
ob growth in February came in a
lot higher than expected
(311,000 jobs, compared with a
forecast of about 223,000). If that
phrasing sounds familiar, that’s
because it happened the previous
month, too. And the month before that.
And the month before that.
For 11 consecutive months now, hir-
ing has beat consensus Wall Street fore-
casts. Which is pretty unusual. Look,
forecasting is always hard, and num-
bers rarely come in exactly as predicted,
but it’s surprising that month after
month, the experts keep getting it
wrong in the exact same direction. That
is, they’re always too pessimistic.
To be clear, there was good reason to
have expected, month after month, a
slowdown in key economic indicators
such as hiring. After all, the Federal
Reserve has raised interest rates eight
times in the past year with the explicit
goal of cooling the hot economy, to get
inflation back down to more normal
levels. For months, economists and poli-
ticians have warned these rate hikes
might not just drag on the economic
recovery — they might cause a reces-
sion.
Yet, thankfully(!), a recession still
hasn’t materialized. Like Godot, it’s al-
ways just around the corner. Why,
though, does almost everyone keep un-
derestimating the strength of the econo-
my? Or, put another way, why has the
economy remained so hot, despite all
those rate hikes?
The answer isn’t that forecasters are a
bunch of negative Nellies, or right-wing
partisans downplaying the economy’s
strength (to make President Biden look
bad, or whatever the conspiracy theory
might be). Wall Street forecasters are
definitely trying to predict the numbers
correctly, so they can make money.
A few possible explanations:
1) Maybe something weird has been
Leana S. Wen
Loneliness is an epidemic.
The surgeon general has 8 ideas to tackle it.
S
urgeon General Vivek H. Murthy,
the nation’s top doctor, under-
stands the danger of the loneliness
epidemic.
Defined as a subjective feeling of want-
ing social contact but feeling alone, lone-
liness is not only associated with higher
rates of depression and anxiety but also
physical consequences such as cardiovas-
cular disease, dementia and early mortal-
ity. According to a 2021 Harvard report,
more than 1 in 3 Americans struggle with
loneliness.
Fortunately, Murthy has some advice
for how to rebuild social connection, as he
laid out in a recent wide-ranging discus-
sion with me:
Set aside time every day to reach out
to people you love. For Murthy, that’s
when he calls a close friend, plays with his
kids and has a FaceTime call with his
parents. Just 15 minutes can increase our
sense of connectedness.
When interacting with people, give
them your full attention. Murthy recalls
the many conversations he has had when
he gets distracted by emails and other
alerts on his phone. “Our attention is
extraordinarily powerful,” he said. Being
fully present “can make five minutes feel
like 50 minutes.”
Find ways to serve. This can range
from volunteering in your community to
seeking out small ways to help a work
colleague or a neighbor. “Service is one of
the most underrecognized antidotes to
loneliness,” Murthy said. It “reaffirms to
ourselves that we have value to add to the
world.”
Form a “moai.” In 2018, Murthy and
two close friends formed their own moai,
which is a tradition from Okinawa, Japan,
in which a small group of people serve as
EZ RE
happening with the numbers, and our
measurements are off.
I don’t mean that anyone is cooking
the books. Rather, response rates to the
government surveys used to calculate
key economic metrics have plummeted.
That might skew the numbers in ways
that are hard to account for upfront, and
lead to bigger revisions to data later on.
Or, maybe we’re not paying attention
to the right numbers. For example, there
have been recent problems in the bank-
ing sector, which might not be reflected
yet in federal data on jobs or consumer
spending. Other, “softer” measures of
the economy, such as consumer senti-
ment, also look quite negative.
2) Maybe monetary policy operates
with longer lags than expected, and
we’ll see the effects of those interest rate
hikes a little further on. The housing
market, among the most interest-rate-
sensitive sectors of the economy, has
already been declining; perhaps other
sectors will follow. (Though, curiously,
construction firms continue to add
workers, another puzzle I’ll get to in a
moment.)
3) We don’t know what the economy
would have looked like in the absence of
all those Fed rate hikes. Maybe things
would have been booming even more.
So perhaps the Fed has already been
slowing things down quite a bit — it’s
just not terribly obvious because we’re
comparing current conditions to the
wrong alternative scenario (“counter-
factual,” in geekspeak).
4) Maybe fiscal policy — i.e., spending
and tax decisions — is continuing to
stimulate the economy more than econ-
omists had expected or understood.
That could be counteracting some of the
things the Fed has been doing.
The conventional wisdom is that fis-
cal policy is, if anything, dragging on the
economy right now. Which makes
sense: Federal stimulus checks, the ex-
lifelong supports for one another. Their
commitment to one another includes a
two-hour call once a month and more
frequent text check-ins. This moai, Mur-
thy said, “has been an extraordinary force
in my life that has helped ground me, has
helped me feel connected and is also
helping me make critical decisions in my
life about work and family.”
Murthy also has advice for employers
and managers who are navigating hybrid
and remote workplaces.
Recognize that remote work has its
challenges. “When people don’t have any
face time together, there is a cost that we
incur,” he said. “It can be harder to build
relationships.” That’s not to say that work-
places must all be in-person; rather, it
means managers must be intentional
about fostering relationships.
Use tools to help people get to know
one another. Murthy recommends that
employers start by talking with employ-
ees to find out what they need. Then,
create opportunities to help people get to
know one another “as human beings and
not just skill sets.”
For instance, at the Office of the Sur-
geon General, Murthy has an all-staff
meeting every month where two people
are assigned to interview one another. For
10 to 15 minutes, the interviewee is asked
questions about their childhood, hobbies
and dreams.
“We learn so much about our team-
mates,” he told me. “We learn facts about
them. We learn stories about them that
humanize them. That makes us feel close
to them, and that changes positively how
we work together.”
Track how employees are doing with
building relationships. “If we want to
foster connection, we have to measure
Olivier Douliery/AFP/Getty Images
panded child tax credit and other emer-
gency covid-19 programs that boosted
consumer spending are for the most
part in the rearview mirror. But remem-
ber, the feds aren’t the only ones making
significant tax-and-spending decisions.
Virtually every state has cut taxes in
the past two years. About half the states
are now considering further tax cuts.
These state tax cuts were enabled partly
by the strong economy and partly by
generous, deficit-financed funding
from the federal government (such as
Biden’s American Rescue Plan). States
are flush, and rather than holding onto
their surpluses for a rainy day, many of
them are doling out cash to residents.
Who might just spend it.
Because the available data on state-
level fiscal decisions aren’t great, econo-
mists might not be paying sufficient
attention to how they affect the broader
economy.
Also: Even at the federal level, a lot of
spending from industrial policy pro-
grams (infrastructure, climate, semi-
conductor subsidies) is coming down
the pike. It’s early, so those programs
likely haven’t been particularly stimula-
tive yet. But some economists have
suggested that one reason the construc-
tion sector continues to add workers,
despite the softening housing market,
might be that employers expect to be
competing with government contrac-
tors for labor pretty soon.
5) Covid’s effects are weird and wild
and hard to understand.
We haven’t been through anything
like the recent pandemic in a long, long
time, and never in a tightly intercon-
nected global economy that looks like
this one. Even the experts don’t have
great precedents or models to base their
predictions on.
Maybe everyone’s erring on the side
of being a bit more conservative — and
stingy with their optimism.
connection,” he said. “Then we have to
adjust our strategy so that we are optimiz-
ing the level of connection that our
workforce experiences.”
Plan some in-person gatherings.
These can help, including in fully remote
workplaces. “When done strategically, in
the right way, those can be shots in the
arm,” Murthy said. “They can be oppor-
tunities for people to build on the
­relationships that they’ve already been
cultivating.”
I found a lot of inspiration and comfort
in Murthy’s words. The “diseases of de-
spair” manifesting as depression and
substance addiction can seem so over-
whelming that it’s often hard to know
where to begin to address them. There’s
no question that major reforms, such as
reducing stigma for mental health care
and increasing treatment, are needed. In
the meantime, it’s empowering to find
actions anyone can take as individuals
that can help strengthen the social fabric.
Since our conversation, I’ve been try-
ing some of these recommendations. Ev-
ery day, I’ve been setting aside 15 minutes
to call or write to someone I haven’t been
in contact with for a while. My husband
and I have committed to putting our
phones away during dinner and around
our kids’ bedtime. We are intentionally
looking for ways to help people around us,
such as volunteering for a community
fundraiser and assisting a new parent at
our son’s school.
These simple steps are helping me to
feel more connected. I hope you will try
them, too.
This column is excerpted from Leana S. Wen’s
Post Opinions newsletter, The Checkup. To
sign up, go to wapo.st/checkup-newsletter.
A25
George F. Will
Overreliance
on plea deals
can undercut
justice
erewith a two-question quiz:
What is the only right affirmed
both in the Constitution of 1787
and in the Bill of Rights? And
what governmental practice produces
the most pervasive and glaring civil
rights deprivations?
The answer to the first question is:
the right to trial by jury. (Article III,
Section 2: “The trial of all crimes, except
in cases of impeachment, shall be by
jury”; Sixth Amendment: “In all crimi-
nal prosecutions, the accused shall en-
joy the right to a speedy and public trial,
by an impartial jury.”) The answer to the
second is: plea bargaining as currently
practiced, which often effectively nulli-
fies this right.
A just-published report by an Ameri-
can Bar Association task force says plea
bargaining has not only become the
primary way to resolve criminal cases,
“some jurisdictions have not had a crim-
inal trial in many years.” Think about
that: Years can pass without a defendant
exercising the constitutional right to an
adversarial process conducted in public
in front of a neutral judge and a jury of
the defendant’s peers.
Eighteen percent of the more than
2,000 persons known to have been
exonerated of crimes — not just found
to have been convicted in flawed legal
proceedings: exonerated — had plead-
ed guilty. As of 2020, according to the
Innocence Project, of 375 convicts exon-
erated by DNA evidence, 11.7 percent
had pleaded guilty. Many of the
­exonerees, caught up in an intimidating
process that can be fast-moving and be-
wildering, were from racial ­minorities.
Last year, 98.3 percent of federal
criminal convictions, and about 95 per-
cent in the states, resulted from bar-
gained guilty pleas. Why? To a signifi-
cant extent, coercion.
This often begins with detention in
frightening conditions: To be arrested is
to be suddenly plunged into control by a
government speaking an often arcane
legal language. Then there is “stacking”
— prosecutors piling on charges which,
in a context of mandatory minimum
sentences, force defendants to choose
between risking potentially life-ruining
trials and pleading guilty to lesser
charges, even if innocent.
This “trial penalty” for exercising a
fundamental constitutional right is in-
tolerable. In terms of justice, what is the
superiority of confessions achieved by
the coercion of “stacking” in a court-
house negotiation, and those achieved
in the bad old days by beatings with
truncheons in the back rooms of police
stations?
The task force’s report stresses that
plea bargaining has legitimate uses. It
incentivizes defendants to accept re-
sponsibility for criminal conduct, and
offers finality to their victims and the
community. Furthermore, prosecutori-
al resources are scarce, and plea bar-
gaining is a mechanism for efficiently
resolving cases. No value in life, howev-
er, invariably supersedes all others, and
the pursuit of efficiency has too often
become “the driving force of criminal
adjudication,” supplanting transparen-
cy and justice.
A consequence of excessive plea bar-
gaining is, the ABA’s report says, that
“police and government misconduct of-
ten goes unchecked because so few de-
fendants proceed to pre-trial hearings
where such misconduct is litigated.”
Furthermore, prosecutors become less
skeptical of their witnesses, and less
scrupulous about not advancing weak
cases. Defense lawyers become less rig-
orous in investigating cases that seem
destined for a plea deal. With such deals,
defendants waive the right to confront
adverse witnesses, and perhaps to chal-
lenge unconstitutionally procured evi-
dence and to receive materials prosecu-
tors acquired during discovery.
The task force recommends, among
other reforms, that “sentences should
not be punitively inflated simply be-
cause a defendant exercised” the right to
a trial. So, judges should be allowed to
judge, departing from any mandatory
minimum sentences in order “to avoid a
substantial differential between the tri-
al sentence and any lesser sentence
offered as part of a plea bargain.” And
there never should be the “inherently
coercive” use of the threat of capital
punishment or life without parole to
induce a guilty plea.
Policies pursued by ideologically
blinkered progressive mayors and dis-
trict attorneys (hello, Chicago, Philadel-
phia, San Francisco, Seattle, etc.) have,
to say no more, coincided with surges of
violent crime. This is, therefore, an un-
propitious moment to pursue criminal
justice reforms that sensible progres-
sives might favor — e.g., concerning plea
bargaining — but that opportunistic
politicians can stigmatize as coddling
criminals.
Undaunted, the Cato Institute’s Clark
Neily and others suggest that plea bar-
gaining on today’s “industrial scale”
could be countered by a “trial lottery”: A
small percentage of cases in which plea
agreements have been reached should
be randomly sent to trials. How often
would the government be unable to
secure a conviction after it has managed
to induce a pre-trial guilty plea? Let’s
find out.
A26 EZ RE the washington post . sunday, march 12 , 2023

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 KLMNO
book world sunday, march 12 , 2023 . Section B
Shattering J
ennifer and Sarah Hart were a White married
couple, together since college, who adopted a
set of three biracial siblings in 2006 and three
Black siblings two years later. All six adopted
children — Ciera, Abigail, Jeremiah, Devonte,
young lives
Hannah and Markis — came from the Texas
foster-care system. For 10 years, Jen maintained a
flamboyant Facebook presence, filled with adorable
photos of the children, proclamations of Black allyship,
and proud endorsements of meditation and vegetari-
anism. Many on social media bought into the image of
devoted parents taking on a burden others would
‘We Were Once a Family’ uses the Hart flinch at, providing a home for children who, in Jen’s
murder case to present a riveting telling, had been mistreated and forgotten before she
and Sarah came along.
indictment of the child welfare system But all of that was a smokescreen. In the early hours
of March 26, 2018, the Harts’ SUV veered off the Pacific
Coast Highway, fell off a sharp cliff and crashed on the
BY R OBERT K OLKER jagged rocks below. There were no survivors.
It soon came out that the Harts had moved twice in
recent years — from Minnesota to Oregon, and Oregon
to Washington — with complaints filed against them
RON CHARLES HISTORY EDUCATION
Guerrilla gardeners battle a The coordinated effort to promote An inside look at the realities of
billionaire. No one wins. b2 a free market above all. B4 teaching in America today. b5
EZ EE
Illustration by Hokyoung Kim for The Washington Post
with children’s protective services agencies every-
where they went. An inquest found that there were no
skid marks on the cliff where the Harts’ SUV went
flying — and that the Harts had dosed the children,
who ranged in age from 12 to 19, and themselves with
extraordinary amounts of Benadryl. This was premedi-
tated, the culmination of a nightmarish family life.
Even so, the local sheriff cast it as “a ‘Thelma and
Louise’ situation” — two harried idealists, done in by
the pressures of a world gone mad. This prompted the
journalist Roxanna Asgarian to wonder why so few
people were saying what actually happened. “What is
drugging your family and driving them off a cliff,” she
asks, “if not murder?”
Asgarian is based in Texas, where the six Hart
children came from. She is the law and courts reporter
for the Texas Tribune and has experience reporting on
the child welfare system. That vantage point, and her
interest in how power shapes and controls social
narratives, drew her inexorably to this case. “I knew
that there was much more to this story,” she writes,
see family on B7
FICTION
Searching for a portal to the
multiverse? Open these novels. b6
B2
Ten years ago, Eleanor Catton
soared up from Down Under to
grab the Booker Prize. At 28,
the New Zealand author was
Ron
Charles
the youngest-ever winner, and
at 832 pages, “The Luminaries”
was the longest. A notoriously
complicated historical mystery
about the gold rush involving
multiple narrators plotted across astrological
charts, “The Luminaries” dazzled — and
intimidated — readers around the world.
Fans might assume Catton has spent the
last decade concocting something even more
gargantuan and byzantine. But her new novel,
“Birnam Wood,” is a sleek contemporary
thriller. Still, it’s not so much a change of tack
as a demonstration that Catton is a master at
adapting literary forms to her own sly
purposes. (Indeed, in 2020, you may have seen
her arch adaptation of “Emma,” starring Anya
Taylor-Joy.)
“Birnam Wood” opens with “a spate of
shallow earthquakes” in a remote part of New
Zealand, but by the end those tremors will
reverberate across the planet. The title, aside
from being a prophetic allusion to “Macbeth,”
is the name of an obscure environmental
group. The members of Birnam Wood are
guerrilla gardeners, who raise vegetables on
public land and unattended private property,
sometimes with permission, sometimes
without. While they might think of
themselves as fearless revolutionaries, their
antics rarely extend much beyond stealing a
hoe from a wealthy neighbor’s garden shed.
Nevertheless, Mira, the de facto leader of
this supposedly leaderless collective, dreams
of “nothing less than radical, widespread, and
lasting social change, which would be entirely
achievable, she was convinced, if only people
could be made to see how much fertile land
This underdog story asks: What if the hero isn’t a good guy?
BY C ASEY M C Q UISTON
A
targeted ad slips into your feed. The algo-
rithm knows, because you’ve read an arti-
cle on the holistic benefits of cordyceps or
watched a video about biohacking, that you’ll be
interested in this item. It’s a small device, a sleek
and photogenic array of magnets and lights and
sensors, that can guide you through a process
called “synthesis” to unclog your mind of past
trauma and set you free into true enlighten-
ment. It’s called the Bliss-Mini.
You’d like to be enlightened. You click the
embedded link, and a landing page loads.
Welcome, it says, to NuLife. Welcome to the
Goop-meets-Theranos-meets-Heaven’s-Gate
sham wellness empire at the heart of “Confi-
dence,” the new novel from Rafael Frumkin.
Like most great capers, “Confidence” begins
with a scrappy underdog down on his luck.
Frumkin’s narrator, the spiky but vulnerable
Ezra Green, was born poor; he has terrible
eyesight and finds himself at reform camp after
one of his schemes for quick money seriously
injures a classmate. It’s there that he meets
fellow grifter Orson Ortman, the handsome
and magnetic Jay Gatsby to his Nick Carraway,
rich with contraband weed and easy charm. For
Ezra, it’s soul-deep devotion at first sight. We’re
not sure what it is for Orson, even after they
start sleeping together.
The two run increasingly high-stakes cons to
support themselves, until Orson invents some-
thing called “synthesis,” a scientifically dubious
form of fake hypnosis they can sell to rich people
desperate for fulfillment. The Synthesis con be-
comes a corporation — and a cultish spiritual
collective — called NuLife. At NuLife’s peak, Or-
son reigns over a commune of dedicated disciples
EZ EE
Fiction
The end of
the world
creeps up fast
was going begging, all around them, every
day.” In the words of Mao, “Let a hundred
flowers bloom,” but make sure they’re peas,
tomatoes and cucumbers.
As the novel opens, Mira spies a potentially
rich new target. A landslide has buried a
stretch of highway, almost completely cutting
off the town of Thorndike and canceling
development of a 375-acre plot abutting a
national park. What better place for Mira’s
BIRNAM WOOD merry band of subversive farmers to till the
By Eleanor soil in relative secrecy! If they get arrested,
Catton even better: The publicity will amplify their
Farrar, Straus cause.
& Giroux. The only problem is that this land has
432 pp. $28 already caught the attention of Robert
Lemoine, an American billionaire. He plans to
construct a luxurious bunker here where he
can, when the moment arrives, wait out the
apocalypse. In her characteristically athletic
style, which flexes from fury to parody, Catton
describes Lemoine as “a far-sighted, short-
selling, risk-embracing kleptocrat, an
incarnation of unapologetic zero-sum self-
interest, a radical misfit, a ‘builder’ in the
Randian sense, a genius, a tyrant, an
obsessive, a prophet, a status-symbol
while Ezra does the dirty work of steering their
billion-dollar company. All this, in the name of
taking what they’re owed from the one percent.
Ezra’s acerbic narration skewers celebrity-
led wellness influencing, empty-eyed business
tycoons and Silicon Valley scammers with the
merciless verve of an episode of “Succession.”
Highlights of Frumkin’s dark and cutting hu-
mor include an Elon Musk-esque billionaire
inventor who magnanimously hands out
Confidence drones to children begging for money and a
By Rafael tabloid referring to Orson as “L. Ron Hotboy.”
Frumkin But it’s under this salty, toothsome crust that
Simon & Frumkin does his most complicated and compel-
Schuster. ling work: the deconstruction of Ezra’s morality.
320 pp. $27.99 At the novel’s outset, Ezra scrabbles through
his world with honest hunger and understand-
able, if sometimes pedantic, disdain for those
with more than him.
He’s a millennial Robin Hood, pausing occa-
sionally to wonder if he’s gone too far. In this
economy, we want to root for the guy taking
rich idiots for a ride. Ezra is us in our late-on-
rent fantasies. He steals what he needs —
deserves — from a class of people who won’t
even miss it, and if he momentarily forgets
their humanity, it must have been an accident.
But as the human costs of his schemes add
up, we begin to see what Ezra can’t (literally, as
his vision deteriorates). We think we know an
underdog story when we see one, and by defini-
tion, we hold the underdog as morally good.
“Confidence” challenges us to ask: What if our
protagonist isn’t a good person? What if we
know this, but Ezra doesn’t? And what happens
when an unreliable moral compass enters the
magnetic field of a narcissist like Orson?
Orson is a genius, a visionary, a magician, a
god with a golden touch. Even if he had never
the washington post
Illustration by Hailey Haymond/The Washington Post
survivalist hedging his bets against any
number of potential global catastrophes that
he himself was doing absolutely nothing to
prevent, and might even be taking active
measures to encourage if there was a profit to
be made, or an advantage to be gained, in the
pursuit.”
He’s also a liar.
The moment Lemoine spots Mira snooping
around this land, they both begin trying to
deceive each other, but it’s not a fair match.
Equipped with a vast array of spyware and
surveillance drones, Lemoine thinks he can
use these scruffy environmentalists, while
Mira imagines that his $100,000 donation
will finally make Birnam Wood a success —
without contaminating the group’s principles.
Clearly, something else, bigger and far
more nefarious, is going on.
Deep beneath this rich soil — and layers of
deceit — lie a trillion dollars worth of rare-
earth elements. Just as the 19th century
revolved around fantasies of buried gold, the
21st is obsessed with these valuable minerals.
With fantastical names like lanthanides,
scandium and yttrium, rare-earth elements
play a crucial role in renewable-energy
technology, which may be our best hope for
avoiding catastrophic global warming. Two of
the many essential questions “Birnam Wood”
raises are who will control those minerals,
and how will they be extracted without
inflicting even more environmental damage?
The billionaire and the gardeners would
seem to be moral opposites, but Catton writes
with a satiric edge that leaves no survivors. In
fact, she’s most incisive when it comes to the
members of the Birnam Wood co-op. As a
narrator, she demonstrates a kind of vicious
sympathy, hitching a ride along with their
thoughts while poking a stick in their spokes.
Mira and her friends are intimately drawn
Fig Tree
Rafael Frumkin’s novel delights
in skewering the rich and
the wellness industry, but it also
asks deeper questions
about morality.
. sunday, march 12 , 2023
portraits of liberal narcissism and naivete.
“Like all self-mythologising rebels,” Catton
writes, “Mira preferred enemies to rivals, and
often turned her rivals into enemies, the
better to disdain them as secret agents of the
status quo.” Along with vegetables, these
privileged young people find plenty of time to
sow their own anxieties and reap a bumper
crop of conflicts within their pious group of
recyclers and scavengers.
Catton has somewhat less success bringing
that level of verisimilitude to Lemoine,
although she’s wonderfully attentive to the
atmospheric disturbance created around her
brash billionaire. Perhaps the truly super-rich
are so unfettered by reality that the
dimensions of ordinary life aren’t relevant,
but Lemoine comes off at times more like a
swaggering cartoon villain than a man
enmeshed in the infinite details of a vast
financial empire. He’s the kind of character
who says things like, “I’m a billionaire. Money
is not an issue for me,” a line so silly that it
momentarily shifts these pages into primary
colors.
But that feels like a minor distraction in a
novel that dramatizes political, technical and
environmental crises with such delicious wit.
And once an accidental death upsets
everyone’s competing machinations, readers
are unlikely to notice anything except the
story’s acceleration toward ever more toil and
trouble. With terrifying intensity, Catton
propels these characters to a finale that
prefigures the very apocalypse they’re all
trying to forestall. It’s a wry indictment of all
the poor players who strut and fret their
hours upon this stage and then are heard no
more.
Ron Charles reviews books and writes the Book
Club newsletter for The Washington Post.
ascended from con man to cult leader, he would
still be all of these things to Ezra, as withhold-
ing narcissists assume superhuman hugeness
in the eyes of the people who loves them.
In Ezra’s narrowing vision, there’s room for
nothing but Orson and his diminishing emo-
tional returns. No room to notice that he praises
Ezra only for his utility in their cons, or that
Ezra’s assignments for NuLife keep him far from
Orson and close to incrimination, or that his
dream of finally getting Orson’s attention long
enough to marry him is never going to happen.
When Ezra wonders at last if he could have
possibly been Orson’s first mark, it’s a poetic
stab to the heart. How pitiful, how tragic, how
morbidly romantic, that Ezra should be Orson’s
greatest con, and the last to know.
“Confidence” asks the reader to weigh pas-
sion against greed, genius against narcissism,
love against addiction. Yes, Frumkin accom-
plishes this by holding an unflattering mirror
to bloviating billionaires, scam start-ups and
the wellness industrial complex, but he also
does it by digging into our confidence in our
own morality. How easy would it be to lose,
under the right circumstances? Would we no-
tice if we did? Or would we wind up like Ezra:
too convinced he’s still the good guy, doing bad
things for good reasons, to see the truth?
As a crime novel, “Confidence” is a propul-
sive, cheeky, eat-the-rich page-turner to satisfy
the craving for a well-crafted caper. As a crimi-
nal, Ezra Green learns the hard way that, once
the staff has cleared the gilded china, you are
what you eat.
Casey McQuiston is the author of the novels “Red,
White & Royal Blue,” “One Last Stop” and “I Kissed
Shara Wheeler.”
sunday, march 12 , 2023 . the washington post
Georgie Eliot-Gould
My very big, very
heavy reading
goal for 2023
I’m reading ‘Clarissa,’ a doorstopper of a novel,
with other gluttons for punishment on TikTok.
And it’s actually fun.
BY K RISTEN H ARTKE
W
hen it comes to aspirational
reading — those books we
think we should read but never
get around to cracking open —
many people think of epic
novels like “War and Peace” or “Infinite Jest.”
But those two doorstoppers are still no
match, at least in terms of length, for Samuel
Richardson’s “Clarissa: Or The History of a
Young Lady.” That 1748 classic, at 1,494 pages
(a variety of appendixes in my edition,
including a page of relevant sheet music,
round the whole thing out to 1,534 pages), is,
by most measures, the longest English-lan-
guage novel in a single volume. As Judith
Pascoe, an English professor at Florida State
University who has studied and taught
“Clarissa,” says, “Once you’ve read it, you join
a fairly small club of other people who’ve
made it all the way through.”
That club is getting bigger. Perhaps unsur-
prisingly, the reason is TikTok. It is there that
Henry Eliot, a freelance editor and podcaster
for Penguin books, is hosting a year-long
read-along of “Clarissa.” Through December,
Eliot is posting frequent videos to his
account, recapping the book’s most recent
events as they unfold and responding to
readers’ questions and comments.
On Jan. 12, Eliot uploaded his first video,
filmed in a bookcase-lined corner of his West
London home. He thought perhaps a few
dozen people might decide to join him.
Unlike much of TikTok’s content, this wasn’t
a quick-fix life hack but a 12-month commit-
ment to reading a novel that is very weighty,
in all senses.
Surprisingly, though, Eliot’s initial install-
ment garnered some 270,000 views and
nearly 1,000 comments from eager readers.
Asked one participant: “All I want to know, is
the style of content ‘proper’ or is it ‘scandal-
ous.’” (I’d say a little of both.)
I joined the group in January, and while
tackling a book of this size and complexity
might have daunted me in the past, this
read-along has made the task more digestible
and, well, fun. As a writer, I love to read —
and talk about — books, and there’s a real
infectious joy in Eliot’s “Clarissa” recaps,
which offer insight and encouragement along
with context. For me, an unabashed lover of
the great female novelists of the 19th century,
including Jane Austen, the Bronte sisters and
George Eliot, it’s also a chance to experience a
book that would have influenced their writ-
ings.
The novel, written in the form of letters
between the various characters, begins with
the first letter on Jan. 10 and ends with the
final letter (No. 537) on Dec. 18. Eliot’s videos
focus on the letters in chronological order,
providing a neat way for readers to make
their way through the book.
In the early stages of reading “Clarissa,” it
seems that the biggest difficulty for 21st-cen-
tury TikTokers is simply getting used to
Richardson’s 18th-century style of writing.
“This book is very dense,” says Akouto
Vonwogbe, 32, a participant in Los Angeles. “I
have to reread a few sentences just to
understand a scene, but it’s interesting to
read about the life of Clarissa in the 18th
century.” (Her most recent favorite read was
Prince Harry’s “Spare,” which arguably cov-
ers similar themes around familial duty.)
Llewelyn Griffiths, 28, reading from Stock-
holm, concurs, saying, “It takes more concen-
tration to read, the long sentences are a bit
tricky.” Growing up watching adaptations of
Jane Austen novels, however, laid the
groundwork for his interest in devoting time
this year to focusing on earlier literary works
such as “Clarissa.”
Griffiths also hit on a clever way to grasp
EZ EE B3
Book World
ABOVE:
Henry Eliot,
an editor and
podcaster, is
hosting a year-
long read-
along of
Samuel
Richardson’s
“Clarissa” on
TikTok.
RIGHT: First
published in
1748,
“Clarissa” is
the longest
novel in the
English
language and,
Kristen Hartke
in this edition,
weighs about
three pounds.
BELOW: the unfamiliar writing style of the period, by but I’ve decided to be more intentional with requiring the reader to work out who is being
Akouto listening to an audiobook version while “Clarissa” — I’ve gone so far as to note the a good friend to Clarissa and who is not. The
Vonwogbe, simultaneously reading the print edition. dates of the upcoming letters on my calendar, family dynamic and the power plays are
left, and “I’ve found listening has really improved my and I sit down to read earlier in the day, often great.”
Llewelyn understanding,” he explains. “The acting during lunch. Published between 1747 and 1748, the novel
Griffiths are makes the language much easier to digest.” A The plot is engrossing and has something was a wildly popular sensation in its time.
reading along, great idea, though at nearly 100 hours, the for just about everyone, especially those who Richardson, a printer by trade, had already
too. audiobook is also a major undertaking. love drama. “Clarissa” is an operatic tale of had success with his first novel, “Pamela: Or,
As for myself, I knew it would be a big sibling rivalry, feminine virtue, prostitution, Virtue Rewarded,” published in 1740. “Claris-
book, but I was still surprised at its heft when drug-induced rape, anorexia, insanity and sa” was quickly translated into several other
I finally got my hands on it. Weighing in at duels to the death, all revolving around a languages, including French, German and
nearly three pounds, “Clarissa” is not the beautiful young heroine — Clarissa Harlowe Dutch; Mary Shelley, author of “Franken-
kind of book that you can easily carry on a — who refuses to allow either her greedy, stein,” read the book in both English and
morning subway commute or take to the park social-climbing family or Robert Lovelace, Italian while living in Italy between 1818 and
on a sunny spring day. Pascoe suggests taking her dashing and evil suitor, to force her into a 1822. Clara Barton, founder of the American
a knife to the book and cutting through the life she does not choose. Richardson inhabits Red Cross, was actually christened Clarissa
spine to divide it into the original seven his characters, both male and female, fully; Harlowe Barton, after the novel’s title charac-
volumes — a handy chart in the back of the they are, by turns, obedient, defiant, support- ter.
book even provides the corresponding page ive, calculating, cruel and, quite often, laugh- While the book had legions of fans around
numbers for each volume — or downloading out-loud funny. the world, its ending did not sit well with all
a digital version to an e-reader or your phone. “There’s such an immersive quality to the of Richardson’s readers, and some cam-
I haven’t yet sliced my volume, although book,” Pascoe says, citing “the complexity of paigned for a happier result. Richardson,
it’s tempting. I typically reserve my recre- emotional response that Richardson was able however, was steadfast in remaining true to
ational reading hours for the end of the day, to convey over the course of the novel, the original conclusion, although he did
make considerable revisions in later editions.
In particular, he removed Letter 208, in
which Lovelace outlines to a friend his rather
shocking plan to kidnap and rape Clarissa’s
best friend and her mother, along with their
maidservant, holding them captive on a ship
for several days. It is, as Pascoe wrote in a
2003 essay in the Hudson Review, the “most
lurid letter in the novel” — but Richardson
still left plenty of lurid drama intact.
In fact, even though Eliot is a first-time
reader of “Clarissa,” he had heard enough
about the tragedies that would befall its
heroine that he felt compelled to post a
trigger-warning video, alerting readers that
upcoming scenes might be painful for some
to read.
“There are parts of this book,” Eliot says,
“that may be quite difficult and quite bleak. I
felt a kind of responsibility, especially be-
cause I invited people to read along with me.”
Indeed, Sarah Burr, 42, an assistant direc-
tor for the National Trust who lives in West
Sussex, England, and was inspired to join the
read-along when she saw Eliot’s first video,
says, “I read a review on Good Reads that said
‘Don’t read this book because it will break
your heart.’ ” She couldn’t resist anyway. And
for her, only the mammoth volume will do, in
all its heavy paperback glory. “There’s some-
thing about the physicality of the book,” she
says. “I look forward to having ‘Clarissa’
taking up space on my shelf one day and
being able to say I read the whole thing.”
I know how she feels. “Clarissa” will
certainly take pride of place on my own
bookcase at the end of the year — but I may
devote 2024 to reading haiku.
Kristen Hartke is a journalist and children’s
Akouto Vonwogbe Llewelyn Griffiths
book author in New York.
B4
BY B ETHANY M C L EAN
I
n their new book, “The Big Myth: How
American Business Taught Us to Loathe
Government and Love the Free Market,”
Naomi Oreskes and Erik M. Conway,
professors at Harvard and the Califor-
nia Institute of Technology, respectively, tell
the important and frequently infuriating
history of how it is that Americans came to
equate the broad concept of freedom with an
almost religious belief in the free market. The
so-called “Tripod of Freedom” — which
positions free enterprise, along with civil
liberties and democracy, as “one of the three
great elements” in the American way of life —
was an invention of the business lobby, one
that was accompanied by abhorrence for any
government involvement. But as Oreskes and
Conway note, the words “free enterprise”
appear in neither the Declaration of Inde-
pendence nor the Constitution.
It wasn’t always thus. “The nineteenth
century American economy was laced with
government involvement in the market-
place,” they write. But in the 20th century,
American business leaders began a cam-
paign to construct what the authors call an
“intellectually coherent — if historically
and logically misleading — framework for
market fundamentalism.” Led by industry
groups like the National Association of
Manufacturers and the National Electric
Light Association, business leaders fought
child-labor laws and workmen’s compensa-
tion as unfair limits on companies while
insisting that “anything less than total
business freedom was a step on the road to
socialism, or worse.”
Even some of the philosophical fathers of
free-market enterprise, like Adam Smith,
whose phrase “the invisible hand” has be-
come the defining cry of capitalism, and
Friedrich Hayek, whose book “The Road to
Serfdom” argued that preserving economic
freedom is the key to preserving political
freedom, were not as dogmatic as we might
think. Smith advocated for restraints on the
marketplace to “protect public safety” and
even taxation to pay for public goods. “We
bought the myth that the invisible hand
could do things even Adam Smith didn’t
think it could do,” Oreskes and Conway write.
Hayek, for his part, did worry that govern-
ment involvement would start a slippery
slope to communism, yet he also acknowl-
edged that the “free” market isn’t really free
and supported social security, workmen’s
compensation and even a guaranteed mini-
mum income. “Hayek argued that the key to
deciding whether a government intervention
was warranted was to consider the scale and
gravity of the social ill or unmet social need to
which the intervention was addressed,” the
authors write.
The campaign to change this to “market
fundamentalism,” a belief that only markets
have all the answers for everything, was both
subterranean and sophisticated, so much so
that modern business lobbying looks posi-
tively basic in comparison. Business interests
worked to rewrite textbooks for high school
and college students, to summarize Smith
and Hayek for broader audiences in ways that
A stolen South Seas treasure helps reveal Germany’s colonial crimes
BY J OSHUA K EATING
I
n “The Magnificent Boat: The Colonial
Theft of a South Seas Cultural Treasure,”
Götz Aly, one of Germany’s most promi-
nent historians of the Third Reich and the
Holocaust, brings to light one of his country’s
lesser-known historical crimes: the campaign
of looting and destruction carried out as part
of Imperial Germany’s colonization of New
Guinea and Micronesia in the late 19th and
early 20th centuries.
Published two years ago in Germany and
now available in English, translated by
Jefferson Chase, “The Magnificent Boat” is a
major contribution to the debate over wheth-
er and how to repatriate the countless objects
and artworks acquired through dubious
means that reside in the museums of former
colonial powers. The recently opened Hum-
boldt Forum has been at the center of these
debates. Just last year, the German govern-
ment agreed to send 20 valuable Benin
Bronzes to Nigeria, from which they were
looted in a late-19th-century raid. Here, Aly’s
“jumping off point” to explore this dark
history of colonial violence is a 50-foot-long
outrigger sailboat, ornamented with ornate
carvings and built out of wood without a
single nail.
The stunning craft in question comes from
the island of Luf, which is now part of Papua
New Guinea but was part of the German
Empire from 1884 to 1914. The archipelago in
which it is located still bears the name of
German Chancellor Otto von Bismarck. Aly
has his own, more personal relationship to
the region: The author first took an interest
in the boat and this period of German
colonial history because of a relative of his
who had served as a chaplain in the imperial
navy in the region at the time.
Today, the boat sits in Berlin’s Humboldt
Forum museum. The exact method by which
the boat was originally acquired is still a little
murky. But the circumstantial evidence un-
covered by Aly’s formidable research is pretty
damning. The Germans at the time were
interested in the islands for their natural
resources, most notably copra, or dried
coconut, which can be used to make soap and
a variety of other products. The Indigenous
inhabitants of these islands were devastated
by the import of European diseases —
syphilis worst of all — and by punitive
expeditions carried out by the German navy
in response to perceived acts of rebellion.
Not long before the boat was acquired in
1903, Luf was subjected to one of these raids,
during which, Aly writes, “Germans burned
down all the huts, smashed all the canoes,
murdered and raped, and allowed the Indig-
enous population to perish from starvation
EZ EE
nonFiction
Big Business’s push
to equate the free market
with freedom
eliminated their nuances, to pay academics
to promote business-friendly ideas, and to
infiltrate popular culture. The popular TV
show “General Electric Theater” “was not
just pitching electricity, it was pitching
capitalism.” Of course, Ronald Reagan, who
hosted the program, essentially turned into a
character who could have been one of the
show’s heroes. The forces shaping Rose
Wilder, Laura Ingalls Wilder’s radical daugh-
ter, were more diffuse than corporate inter-
ests, but they led her to rewrite the “Little
House on the Prairie” books into paeans to
“heroic individualism,” even though the real
story of the Ingalls family was anything but
that.
The path to this fundamentalism was
paved with stones of hypocrisy. The National
Association of Manufacturers was created in
the late 19th century “to advocate for the
federal imposition of protective tariffs, and to
encourage the U.S. government to build the
Panama Canal.” Business talked about the
glory of competition but embraced the
creation of monopolies to fend off any such
thing. From the failure of the market to
or disease.” The exact number of islanders
killed in the raid itself is unknown, but by a
few years later, as a result of the devastation,
Luf ’s population of 300 to 400 had been
reduced by about half.
In one of his best-known books, “Architects
of Annihilation,” co-authored with Susanne
Heim, Aly examined the role that Germany’s
top scientists and academics played in the
Holocaust. His latest work is something of a
continuation, showing how the leading lights
in the then-cutting-edge field of ethnography
worked hand-in-hand with the German im-
perialist enterprise, eagerly paying high pric-
es for cultural artifacts. The Luf Boat is just
one particularly notable example: Today
there are approximately 65,000 South Seas
objects in Berlin’s museums, and, Aly writes,
“every one of these items carries the legiti-
mate suspicion of having been acquired at an
unfair price or with deceit and violence by
hunters, collectors, and traders of ethno-
graphic valuables.”
the washington post
John Taggart/Bloomberg news
provide electricity to rural customers in the
1930s to the financial crisis in 2008, those
who touted the power of markets rarely
acknowledged when they didn’t work as
intended. Most of all, those who talked most
grandly of freedom usually meant their own
freedom — certainly not freedom for en-
slaved people, for children or for workers
who had little choice of employment.
As the world has evolved, there’s been an
increasingly ridiculous refusal on the part
The Big Myth
of market fundamentalists to recognize
How American
what has become obvious. As Oreskes and
Business Taught
Conway write, “Economic liberalization
Us to Loathe
does not necessarily lead to political liber-
Government
alization.” Hello, China! Nor have safety
and Love the
nets for the vulnerable in European societ-
Free Market
ies destroyed democracy. (Some argue that
By Naomi Oreskes
such things might preserve democracy.)
and Erik Conway
There’s also an absurdity at the heart of the
Bloomsbury.
argument that rules are inherently destruc-
565 pp. $35
tive. As the authors write, to claim that any
reforms are “a step toward unfreedom is
Wall Street, like claiming that road signs, stop lights
symbol of U.S. and speed limits are steps toward the
capitalism. elimination of driving.”
“The Magnificent Boat” appears at a time
of renewed focus on Germany’s pre-Nazi
colonial history and atrocities such as the
campaign of extermination against the Here-
ro in what is now Namibia in the early 20th
century. Aly said in a 2021 interview that until
recently, he also shared the widespread view
in Germany that the country’s colonial hold-
ings outside Europe had been small and that
“compared to what the English and Belgians
did over the centuries, it wasn’t that bad.” It’s
The hard to imagine still holding such a view after
Magnificent reading this book.
Boat As an indictment of German colonial
The Colonial policies and leading scholars’ complicity in
Theft of a South them, the book is unsparing and convincing.
Seas Cultural Its publication caused a stir in the German
Treasure media, and its findings are now addressed in
By Götz Aly, the Humboldt Forum’s publicity materials
translated by around the boat.
Jefferson Chase If anything feels missing from this ac-
Belknap. count, it’s the islanders themselves. Given
207 pp. $29.95 that this is not a work of pure historical
. sunday, march 12 , 2023
For the most part, the book is admirably
nuanced. The authors acknowledge that
markets do have a role in generating infor-
mation and allocating resources, one that
central planning has never been able to
replicate. Their argument is not that capital-
ism is bad but rather that we should
acknowledge its limits. “We need a more
realistic vision of what markets are and are
not good at, of where they succeed and where
they fail,” they write. Indeed.
But especially as the book progresses, the
authors slip into cursory rewrites of well-
known history and other elisions that, while
sometimes small, nevertheless undermine
their credibility. About Paul Volcker, the
onetime Federal Reserve chairman who is
legendary for taming inflation, Oreskes and
Conway write that his interest rate hikes “hit
hundreds of millions of people” by shocking
them with higher rates, causing unemploy-
ment and triggering financial crises in sev-
eral countries — and that the hikes failed to
“vanquish inflation.” If there should be a
retelling of the Volcker-as-hero narrative, it
needs to be more substantive than this and at
least acknowledge that while the cure for
inflation may hurt the least well-off, high
inflation hurts them even more. Oreskes and
Conway blame the “five hundred thousand
dead from opioids” on unfettered capitalism,
ignoring that it was a government agency —
the Food and Drug Administration — that
had the power to stop the opioid crisis from
ever happening. And they write that during
the coronavirus pandemic, “things changed
in America when Joe Biden was elected and
mobilized the capacities of the federal gov-
ernment to expedite vaccine production.”
Failing to note the well-known role played by
the Trump administration’s Operation Warp
Speed might be ideologically convenient, but
it made me wonder about the truth of all the
other assertions Oreskes and Conway make
where I don’t already know the full story.
Another theme in the book is that even
those thinkers who have voiced skepticism
about an unfettered market have not
calibrated exactly what the role of govern-
ment should be. “The key question — one
that Hayek never adequately answers — is
how to evaluate the social costs and judge
when government should act and when it
should not,” they write. That surely is the
key question for our times. But instead of
attempting to answer it, Oreskes and
Conway fall into the same trap by ap-
proaching the problem from the other
direction. “Our most consequential prob-
lems have arisen not because of too much
government, but because of too little,” they
write in the last two sentences of the book.
“Government is not the solution to all our
problems, but it is the solution to many of
our biggest ones.” Those are awfully broad
and cliched assertions, especially coming
from authors who have spent the previous
425 pages eviscerating the overreach of
those on the other side.
Bethany McLean is a contributing editor at
Vanity Fair and the author of “Saudi America: The
Truth About Fracking and How It’s Changing the
World.”
scholarship but a contribution to contempo-
rary debates, it’s striking that Aly seems to
have little interest in the current condition of
this region or how these events are now
viewed in Papua New Guinea. A reader of the
book might not even realize that the island of
Luf is still inhabited. These omissions feel
particularly glaring in light of how Aly
excoriates the scholars of the era for viewing
the islanders as history-less primitives who
simply “died out” after contact with the
modern world.
Aly writes at the end of the English edition
that he is particularly happy that the transla-
tion will allow “interested Anglophone read-
ers in Papua New Guinea to learn how many
of their cultural treasure were once removed
to Berlin.” This book might have benefited if
its author had also tried to learn something
from them.
Joshua Keating is a global security reporter for
Grid and the author of “Invisible Countries.”
The Luf Boat in
Matupi Bay, Papua
New Guinea. It is
now in a Berlin
museum.
Richard Parkinson
sunday, march 12 , 2023 . the washington post
Three educators
and the brutal
challenges
of teaching
Alexandra Robbins tells their stories
and reveals stress, successes and burnout
BY MELANIE MCCABE
A
nyone contemplating going into
teaching might be dissuaded af-
ter reading Alexandra Robbins’s
latest work, “The Teachers: A
Year Inside America’s Most Vul-
nerable, Important Profession.” That is not
a disparagement of her book but rather a
testament to its scope, accuracy and un-
flinching honesty. Never before have I read
any work that so clearly depicts the current
realities of teaching in America’s public
The Teachers
schools, a subject I have followed closely as
A Year Inside
a recently retired teacher with 22 years of
America’s Most
experience.
Vulnerable,
It isn’t that Robbins fails to shine a light
Important
on the considerable joys and rewards of
Profession
working with young people. She herself
By Alexandra
took on a long-term sub gig in a third-grade
Robbins
classroom and writes movingly about the
Dutton.
impact these students had on her life. And
373 pp. $29
the book abounds with heart-tugging sto-
ries of students struggling because of a
disability, an emotional issue or a situation
at home, who were able to make a
breakthrough or considerable gains thanks
to the teachers profiled in the book. It is
impossible to read about these students
without being drawn into their stories and
the efforts to reach them: Eli, a bright but
volatile student whose mother shows little
interest in his schooling; Zach, a selective
mute whose past trauma has kept him from
speaking to adults; Robert, a boy on the
autism spectrum who finally achieves suc-
cess by passing a state exam. The hope of
experiencing moments like these was what
attracted me and my former colleagues to
teaching.
But the realities of teaching in 2023 are
considerably different from when I entered
the profession in 1999. Robbins notes that
pressures on teachers began to shift in
1983, with the publication of the Depart-
ment of Education’s report “A Nation at
Risk.” Not long after, teachers found that
their jobs now also required the manage-
ment of high-stakes tests and the incorpo-
ration of new pedagogical practices and
curriculum. Over the years, teachers were
Teachers face an “unmanageable workload, high-stakes testing, time pressure … and a wide variety
of student needs without the resources to meet those needs,” writes Alexandra Robbins.
Book World
required to take instruction in social-emo-
tional learning and accept an increase in
mandated compliance training to monitor
for neglect and child abuse. A sharp surge
in school shootings brought a significant
rise in lockdown drills.
As the duties placed on teachers piled
on, no extra time was built into their day to
manage them. Robbins cites several stud-
ies revealing that as teachers struggle to
keep up, forsaking their evenings, week-
ends and lunch hours, the result is often
burnout, exacerbated by “inadequate
workplace support and resources, unman-
ageable workload, high-stakes testing,
time pressure, unsupported disruptive stu-
dents, lack of cooperative time with col-
leagues, and a wide variety of student
needs without the resources to meet those
needs.”
The result of these pressures is depicted
in brutal detail in Robbins’s reporting on
three teachers. There is Rebecca, an ele-
mentary-school teacher, whose high expec-
tations of herself and lack of support from
the school system have left her so exhaust-
ed that she is unable to manage any kind of
a social life. She starts the school year with
plans to begin online dating and get
involved again with musical theater, a
pastime she has forsaken, but school
demands on her time have her working
straight through most weekends, making
her plans all but impossible. Further
complicating her life is a year-long mystery
in her classroom: One of her students is
stealing Rebecca’s possessions, as well as
her students’, and she has devoted herself
to trying to get to the bottom of it. She
finally discovers the culprit, a girl named
Illyse, whose mother agrees to get her
daughter into counseling. By year’s end,
Rebecca resolves to give up the social life
she attempted, at least for the short run,
and concentrate only on teaching, which
takes all the energy she has.
Penny is a sixth-grade math teacher who
struggles to maintain her high standards
in the midst of a toxic workplace environ-
ment and the breakup of her marriage. Her
school’s faculty is cliquish and unwelcom-
ing, and Penny often draws the ire of a few
women who see her as a threat. Penny
seems to succeed with students the others
can’t manage, and her colleagues’ retalia-
tion is to make her life as miserable as they
can. As if this weren’t stressful enough,
Penny spends much of the year sick with
recurring respiratory infections caused by
unaddressed mold in her classroom. Her
complaints about it are ignored.
Especially unsettling is the experience of
Miguel, a middle-school special-education
teacher, who is teetering on the brink of
leaving the profession because of the
excessive requirements placed on him
without adequate time and resources. His
previous school year was a nightmare of
abuse, with his students frequently attack-
ing him; every few months he had to get
HIV and hepatitis tests because of student
bites. Complaints to a district administra-
tor resulted only in Miguel’s being told,
“That’s part of the job.” Ultimately, Miguel
sued the district because of permanent
disabilities caused by the attacks and won
lifetime medical care.
Teachers nationwide endure similar sce-
EZ EE
Jon Cherry/Getty Images
narios and are leaving the profession at an
alarming pace. Robbins reports that de-
mand for U.S. teachers outstripped supply
by more than 100,000 in 2019, while
graduates from teacher prep programs
plummeted by a third between 2010 and
2018. Along came the pandemic in 2020,
and a serious teacher shortage became
dramatically worse.
At first, when schools moved to online
instruction in the spring of 2020 and
parents saw firsthand the hardships teach-
ers were enduring, plaudits poured in for
the educators showing remarkable com-
mitment to their profession in a difficult
situation they had never trained for.
Virtual teaching took much more time to
prepare, execute and evaluate. And be-
cause students were often not required to
turn on their cameras, it was a lot like
teaching into a void. But as time crawled
on and schools remained closed to in-per-
son instruction, parents became critical,
even angry. The hostility parents leveled
against teachers was astonishing. In Sep-
tember 2021 alone, 30,000 public school
teachers nationwide gave notice. Between
August 2020 and August 2021, Florida’s
teacher vacancies surged 67 percent, ac-
cording to a count by the Florida Educa-
tion Association. In 2021, California’s
largest district, Los Angeles Unified, had
five times the number of vacancies as in
previous years, according to Shannon
Haber, a spokeswoman for the district. The
number of retirements skyrocketed, and I
joined the exodus. I was within a couple of
years of my target retirement date, but I
left earlier than planned because of the
mounting stress around the pandemic and
an ever-increasing workload. My col-
leagues who remained have said that the
2021-22 school year was unbelievably
hard.
One of these colleagues, who was named
2019 Teacher of the Year by my school in
Arlington, Va., spoke recently before the
school board to detail how her experience
highlights some of the inequities facing
teachers. Based on her careful record
keeping, she stated that she expects to
work a staggering 454 hours outside of her
contract hours in any school year. “My job
is impossible to do well in the time you pay
me to work,” she told the board members.
“I couldn’t even be average in the time you
pay me.”
Almost every page of my review copy of
“The Teachers” is marked with my com-
ments and exclamation points as I encoun-
tered situations and circumstances re-
markably similar to those I experienced
myself. This is an important book that will
come as no surprise to the nation’s teach-
ers. But for those who seek a fuller
understanding of what educators are cop-
ing with these days, it should prove
invaluable. And for those who most need to
read it — those in a position to effect
change in the lives of conscientious and
talented teachers who are considering
abandoning the profession — one can only
hope that its message will be heeded before
it is too late.
Melanie McCabe is a retired teacher and the
author of a memoir and three collections of
poems, most recently “The Night Divers.”
B5
SCIENCE FICTION
by Charlie Jane Anders
Science fiction and fantasy are almost
always most innovative when they’re at their
briefest. Imaginative short stories have the
freedom to make a huge mess, because they’re
not obligated to stick around and clean up
afterward. Some of my favorite examples have
all the casual abandon of a cat knocking things
off a table, just to watch them fall.
If you want to see how gloriously messy
short stories can get, “Evil Flowers” (Farrar,
Straus and Giroux) by Gunnhild Oyehaug is
a great place to start. A Norwegian poet and
author, Oyehaug seems to delight in keeping
you off-balance. When “Evil Flowers,” which
was translated by Kari Dickson, isn’t
pranking Baudelaire (whose volume of
poetry “Les Fleurs du mal” provides its title),
it’s pulling the rug out from under the reader
in the style of a Monty Python sketch, except
gentler and weirder.
More than one story begins with its
narrator lodging a formal protest against the
story that just ended, and non-sequiturs
abound. A story about a crow turning into a
dove suddenly pivots and becomes a tale of
how the person who witnessed this
transformation later fell in love. Leeches eat
through fiber-optic cables only to become
celebrities, interviewed on television. It’s all
delightfully silly and exceedingly strange.
When it comes to keeping you guessing,
Sarah Pinsker is no slouch. Her new
collection, “Lost Places” (Small Beer Press),
puts memorable characters into bewildering
situations. As that “lost” in the title suggests,
many of these stories involve people who’ve
misplaced themselves: in the wilderness, in
the fog of dementia, in strange
circumstances. Pinsker’s characters always
make the best of tricky situations, which
only makes their struggles in her topsy-turvy
worlds more heartbreaking.
Some of the stories in “Lost Places” are
unsettling: There are swimming holes that
make people disappear,
and a sinister version of
“Mister Rogers’
Neighborhood” whose
host tells stories that
warp the fates of the
children in his studio
audience. But there are
also stirring tales of
rebellion, in which
ordinary people escape
confinement, organize
their neighbors to protest
injustice and speak out
against abuses.
Curses, shape-shifters
and meddlesome gods
abound in “Drinking From
Graveyard Wells”
(University Press of
Kentucky) by Yvette Lisa
Ndlovu, a searing collection
of stories about Black
women in tough situations.
Ndlovu draws on southern
African traditions, and the
results are endlessly
thrilling. (Full disclosure:
Ndlovu studied at Clarion
West, a workshop where I
was an instructor for a
week.) Many of the stories
are set in Zimbabwe, and
the brutal legacy of British
colonialism seeps into
everything.
Ndlovu has a gift for
clever conceits and knife-
twist endings. In one of her
stories, a woman dies and
her husband can’t bury her
until he finishes paying off
her bride price to her birth
family, so she risks turning
into a vengeful spirit called
a ngozi. In another, the
goddess of wealth blesses a
student with endless
abundance, but the
blessing soon becomes a
curse. As one of her
characters says, “It is this
world that makes monsters of us all.”
To glimpse the full potential of short
fiction, check out “New Suns 2” (Solaris), an
anthology of “original speculative fiction by
people of color” edited by Nisi Shawl. The first
volume of “New Suns” won the World
Fantasy, Locus, IGNYTE and British Fantasy
awards, and this one more than holds its own.
In these pages you’ll encounter giant owls,
self-aware space probes, and a magical house
that has a mind of its own. Some of genre’s
most exciting new authors are represented
here, including Darcie Little Badger, Nghi Vo
and Saad Hossain. An anthology with multiple
authors can sometimes leave you wanting
more of some voices, and less of others, but
“New Suns 2” offers a composite of the best
work being done in genre fiction right now.
Tananarive Due is the master of Black
horror. So her new collection, “The Wishing
Pool” (Akashic), out in mid-April, is a major
treat, full of major scares. Due excels at twist
endings but also brilliantly creates an
atmosphere of creeping dread in which you
know something terrible is coming.
“The Wishing Pool” is helpfully divided
into four sections. There are classic tales of
horror, then a series of stories set in a Florida
town where the swamp tends to swallow
people up; the final two sections shift to
science fiction about post-apocalyptic
futures. (These last sections include
pandemic stories, written before 2020, which
hit harder now.) Due shows just how much
territory she can cover in one short book and
just how versatile terrifying tales can be.
Charlie Jane Anders is the author of “Promises
Stronger Than Darkness,” the final book in a young
adult trilogy that began with “Victories Greater
Than Death.” Her other books include “The City in
the Middle of the Night” and “All the Birds in the
Sky.” She’s won the Hugo, Nebula, Sturgeon,
Lambda Literary, Crawford and Locus awards.
B6
If you liked ‘Everything Everywhere All at Once,’
try these novels that explore infinite realities
A multitude of multiverses
BY S ILVIA M ORENO- G ARCIA
AND L AVIE T IDHAR
W
ith “Everything Everywhere All
At Once” sweeping up award
nods all across this Earth and
(we assume) some parallel real-
ities besides, the multiverse is
firmly back in the spotlight. The idea that the
universe we know is just one in an infinity of
worlds has captivated writers for generations.
So what’s old, what’s new, and what lies just
beyond the thin membrane of reality? Join us
as we try to make sense of it all, through books.
Silvia: A few years ago, someone asked me
if I could predict an emerging trend in
speculative fiction, and I said more multivers-
es. Most literary predictions don’t come true,
but I think I was on the right track. Books like
Matt Haig’s “The Midnight Library” (2020),
about a woman who is able to see the alternate
existences she might have lived, or Micaiah
Johnson’s “The Space Between Worlds”
(2020), where a multiverse traveler must find
out who murdered her counterpart in another
reality, have struck a chord with many readers.
But who invented the concept of the multi-
verse? One popular answer is Michael Moor-
cock, who imagined a series of parallel reali-
ties inhabited by the Eternal Champion, a
figure who maintains the balance between
order and chaos. One of these champions is
Elric, a tormented albino prince with a magi-
cal sword that feeds on the souls of the ones
killed by it. The Elric stories have been
collected in several volumes, including last
year’s “The Citadel of Forgotten Myths.” Be-
cause it is technically a prequel, “Citadel”
offers a good entry point to the saga. This
summer, Titan Comics will release “The Mi-
chael Moorcock Library: Multiverse, Vol. 1,”
which collects comic books from the 1990s.
Elric’s stories originally appeared in the
1960s, but I read them as a teen in the early
’90s, and they were my first foray into multi-
verses, along with the TV show “Sliders.” What
was the first book with the concept of a
multiverse that you read?
Lavie: The multiverse is a very current
theme — Alix E. Harrow’s “The Ten Thousand
Doors of January” (2019) is a charming take on
the topic, as is Susanna Clarke’s “Piranesi”
(2020), which draws for inspiration on C.S.
Lewis’s “The Magician’s Nephew” (1955) with
its “Wood Between the Worlds” that connects
multiple realities. But I’m going to go old-
12 SUNDAY | 3 P.M. Stephanie Foo discusses “What My
Bones Know” with Kat Chow at Politics and Prose, 5015
Connecticut Ave. NW. 202-364-1919.
5 P.M. Leigh Goodmark discusses “Imperfect Victims:
Criminalized Survivors and the Promise of Abolition
Feminism” at Politics and Prose.
14 TUESDAY | 5 P.M. Andrea Rogers and artist Jeff
Edwards discuss “Man Made Monsters” with Allie Genia
and Malin Moeller, streamed through Politics and Prose
Live at politcs-prose.com/events.
6 P.M. Megan Wagner Lloyd discusses “Squished” at
Scrawl Books, 11911 Freedom Dr., Reston. 703-966-
2111.
6:45 P.M. Rebecca Boggs Roberts discusses “Untold
Power: The Fascinating Rise and Complex Legacy of First
Lady Edith Wilson,” streamed through Smithsonian
Associates at smithsonianassociates.org. $20-$25.
7 P.M. Lynne Olson discusses “Empress of the Nile: The
Daredevil Archaeologist Who Saved Egypt’s Ancient
EZ EE
Book World
school and reference a couple of short stories.
Isaac Asimov’s “Living Space” (1956) has an
infinity of empty Earths, so that every person
gets an entire planet to themselves. At least
until some unsavory characters move in next
door. And in Clifford Simak’s “The Big Front
Yard” (1958), an intergalactic stargate opens
up one day in a man’s home. Simak revisited
the theme in his classic novel “Way Station”
(1963), about the human keeper of one such
portal.
The big one, though, is undoubtedly Roger
Zelazny’s classic “The Chronicles of Amber,”
beginning with “Nine Princes in Amber”
(1970), which starts, in classic hard-boiled
style, with Prince Corwin of Amber waking up
on our Earth (following an “accident”) with-
Stephanie Hsu as Jobu
Tupaki, a.k.a. Joy Wang, in
the Oscar-nominated movie
“Everything Everywhere
All at Once.”
Literary Calendar
March 12 - 18
Temples From Destruction” at Politics and Prose.
7 P.M. Jonathan Noyalas discusses “Slavery and
Freedom in the Shenandoah Valley During the Civil War
Era,” streamed through Smithsonian Associates. $20-
$25.
7 P.M. Zeba Shahnaz discusses “Midnight Strikes” with
Gina Chen at One More Page Books, 2200 N.
Westmoreland St. #101., Arlington. 703-300-9746.
7 P.M. Elizabeth Wein discusses “Stateless” at Politics
and Prose.
15 WEDNESDAY | 10:30 A.M. Jeanette Bradley, Keila V.
Dawson and Lindsay H. Metcalf discuss “No World Too
Big” at Politics and Prose.
6 P.M. C.S. Lewis’s “The Great Divorce” is presented as
a dramatic reading, followed by a discussion, at National
Presbyterian Church, 4101 Nebraska Ave. NW. 202-537-
0800.
7 P.M. Alissa Quart discusses “Bootstrapped: Liberating
Ourselves from the American Dream” at Politics and Prose.
the washington post
Allyson Riggs/A24
out his memory. It doesn’t take him long to
figure out that he is heir to the throne of
Amber, the one true world of which all other
worlds are “shadows” — and that he has the
ability to move between them. Zelazny was
inspired by Philip José Farmer’s “World of
Tiers” sequence, beginning with “The Maker
of Universes” (1965), in which an immortal
who also lost his memory on our Earth
discovers he is the lost ruler of a pocket
universe and has the ability to move between
worlds.
Charles Stross’s “Merchant Princes” series,
beginning with 2004’s “The Family Trade,” is
an homage to Amber, where merchants ex-
ploit the commercial possibilities of the multi-
verse. George R.R. Martin, a close friend of
Zelazny, was himself inspired by the Amber
novels for his “A Song of Ice and Fire”
sequence, beginning with “A Game of
Thrones” (1996), which eschews the multi-
verse but keeps the murderous machinations
of royalty for the throne. (Martin has been
behind several attempts to bring Zelazny’s
work to screen, and the “Amber” books have
recently been picked up again, this time by
Stephen Colbert.)
Silvia: I loved the “Amber” books when I
was younger. I also read the “Morgaine Cycle”
by C.J. Cherryh, beginning with “Gate of Ivrel”
(1976), in which a mysterious woman travels
between worlds on a mission to close the gates
connecting them. This is one of those novels
where any sufficiently advanced technology is
indistinguishable from magic, so even if it
feels like sword and sorcery, there’s a scientific
explanation.
Finally, Philip Pullman’s young-adult series
“His Dark Materials,” which began with
“Northern Lights (The Golden Compass)” in
1995, takes place in a multiverse across several
worlds, and concerns, among other things, a
quest to find the nature of a mysterious
element called “Dust.” Are there any other
multiverses you remember fondly?
Lavie: I have a soft spot for the original
“Gunslinger” stories by Stephen King, which
became the “Dark Tower” sequence. But pick
up any of these, and I don’t think you could go
wrong! What about you, dear reader: Which
multiverse book is your favorite?
Silvia Moreno-Garcia is the author of “The
Daughter of Doctor Moreau” and “Mexican Gothic.”
Her newest novel, “Silver Nitrate,” will be published
in July. Lavie Tidhar’s latest novels are “Maror”
and “Neom.”
16 THURSDAY | 5 P.M. Michelle Fishburne discusses
“Who We Are Now: Stories of What Americans Lost and
Found During the COVID-19 Pandemic,” streamed
through Lewes Library at lewes.lib.de.us.
7 P.M. Meg Zucker discusses “Born Extraordinary:
Empowering Children With Differences and Disabilities”
with Karen Guilbault at Politics and Prose.
7 P.M. Deborah Cohen discusses “Last Call at the Hotel
Imperial: The Reporters Who Took On a World at War” at
Politics and Prose.
7 P.M. Alma Katsu discusses “Red London” at One More
Page Books.
18 SATURDAY | 11 A.M. Patricia Tanumihardja presents
“Ramen for Everyone” at Scrawl Books.
5 P.M. Bettina Judd discusses “Feelin: Creative Practice,
Pleasure, and Black Feminist Thought” at Politics and
Prose.
For more literary events, go to wapo.st/literarycal.
. sunday, march 12 , 2023
Washington Post
Paperback Bestsellers
Courtesy of the American
Booksellers Association
Fiction
1 DAISY JONES & THE SIX (Ballantine,
$17). By Taylor Jenkins Reid. A singer
and her band look back at their days
as one of the most iconic rock groups
of the 1970s.
2 THE SEVEN HUSBANDS OF EVELYN
HUGO (Washington Square Press, $17).
By Taylor Jenkins Reid. A Hollywood
icon recounts the story of her
glamorous life to a young reporter, and
both discover the cost of fame.
3 THE PARIS APARTMENT (Morrow,
$18.99). By Lucy Foley. A woman
investigating her brother’s
disappearance suspects his neighbors
might have been involved.
4 IT ENDS WITH US (Atria, $16.99).
By Colleen Hoover. A woman questions
her relationship with a commitment-
phobic partner when her old flame
appears.
5 THE MAID (Ballantine, $18). By Nita
Prose. A hotel maid cleaning a room
finds a dead body and becomes the
lead murder suspect.
6 NEVER NEVER (Canary Street Press,
$17.99). By Colleen Hoover and Tarryn
Fisher. Two high schoolers suddenly
lose all memory of each other and
must rediscover their relationship.
7 IT STARTS WITH US (Atria, $17.99).
By Colleen Hoover. After separating
from her abusive husband, a woman
considers whether to rekindle her first
love.
8 THE THURSDAY MURDER CLUB
(Penguin, $17). By Richard Osman.
Four septuagenarians join forces to
catch a killer.
9 A COURT OF THORNS AND ROSES
(Bloomsbury, $19). By Sarah J. Maas. A
threat is growing over a magical land
where a huntress is being held captive.
10 THE SONG OF ACHILLES (Ecco,
$17.99). By Madeline Miller. The
legend of Achilles retold through the
lens of his friend Patroclus.
Nonfiction
1 BRAIDING SWEETGRASS:
INDIGENOUS WISDOM, SCIENTIFIC
KNOWLEDGE AND THE TEACHINGS
OF PLANTS (Milkweed Editions, $18).
By Robin Wall Kimmerer. Essays by an
Indigenous scientist offer lessons in
reciprocal awareness between people
and plants.
2 ALL ABOUT LOVE (Morrow, $15.99).
By bell hooks. The first volume in the
feminist’s “Love Song to the Nation”
trilogy considers compassion as a form
of love.
3 THE BODY KEEPS THE SCORE
(Penguin, $19). By Bessel van der Kolk.
A scientific look at how trauma can
reshape a person’s body and brain.
4 CASTE (Random House, $20). By
Isabel Wilkerson. America’s racial
divisions are examined and reframed
as a caste system.
5 WE DON’T KNOW OURSELVES
(Liveright, $20). By Fintan O’Toole. An
Irishman born in the mid-20th century
looks at cultural change in his country
through the lens of his own life.
6 SOUTH TO AMERICA (Ecco, $19.99).
By Imani Perry. A reflection on how the
culture and history of the Southern
United States are integral to
understanding the rest of the country.
7 THE NINETIES (Penguin, $18). By
Chuck Klosterman. A look at the
cultural history of the 1990s.
8 STOLEN FOCUS (Crown, $18). By
Johann Hari. Why we are losing our
ability to pay attention, and how to fix
it.
9 THESE PRECIOUS DAYS (Harper
Perennial, $18). By Ann Patchett.
Essays from the best-selling writer
highlight important relationships in her
life.
10 ENTANGLED LIFE (Random House,
$18). By Merlin Sheldrake. A biologist
explains the importance of fungi to our
bodies and the environment.
Rankings reflect sales for the week ended March 5. 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 2023 American Booksellers
Association. (The bestseller lists alternate between hardcover
and paperback each week.)
sunday, march 12 , 2023 . the washington post
Tragedy upon tragedy in the child welfare system
family from B1
“and that it started earlier, way earlier, when
these kids were still in their homes with their
birth parents.”
Her bracing gut punch of a book, “We Were
Once a Family,” is a provocative mix of
immersive narrative journalism, rigorous so-
cial policy analysis and proud advocacy. It
pulls back the focus from the horrific crash to
investigate, thoroughly and intimately, why
these six children were sent out of Texas in the We Were Once
first place — away not just from their parents a Family
but from responsible family members who A Story of Love,
could have kept the children close. In Asgari- Death, and
an’s telling, the child welfare system in Child Removal
America — a “large web of state, county and in America
city agencies” as she explains it, responsible By Roxanna
for some 425,000 children — may not be Asgarian
specifically designed to tear children away Farrar, Straus &
from the people who love them and place Giroux. 297 pp.
them into the homes of swiftly and carelessly $28
vetted strangers, but time and again it does
exactly that.
Asgarian begins with a powerfully ren-
dered narrative of how the second set of three
children the Harts adopted — Ciera, Devonte
and Jeremiah — were caught up in the wheels
of a Texas family court plagued by cronyism,
xenophobia and a zeal for placing children
anywhere but near their families. The chil-
dren’s mother, Sherry Davis, was a drug user,
but her partner, Nathaniel, much older and
not living with Sherry, was a more-than-ideal
caregiver for the children. So was the chil-
dren’s aunt Priscilla, who played by the rules
of the system and applied for custody. In
reality, neither Nathaniel nor Priscilla had a
FROM LEFT: Members of the Hart family at a celebration of “The Goonies” in Astoria, Ore., in June 2014. Law enforcement officers gather on March 28, 2018, at
the site where two days earlier the Harts’ SUV plunged over a cliff on the Pacific Coast Highway near Westport, Calif., killing all eight. Dontay Davis at home in
Houston in 2019; his three younger siblings were adopted by the Harts. When he learned of their deaths, he said, “That was the last little hope I had in my life.”
This hearing?
File under:
Grandstanding.
BY R ON C HARLES
F
or most of its history, the National Ar-
chives — that august repository of Ameri-
ca’s documents — kept itself filed far from
the fray of partisan politics. But that was before
the chaotic reign of Donald Trump.
The shredder-in-chief posed a unique chal-
lenge for officials charged with preserving
White House records. And evidence that
Trump sometimes flushed documents down
the toilet plunged the agency into fresh alarm. Colleen
When boxes of government documents were Shogan,
discovered at Trump’s lair in Florida, the archi- President’s
val gloves came off. The FBI searched Mar-a- Biden
Lago, the former president cried “witch hunt,” nominee to
and the enmity between Republicans and the lead the
National Archives reached 451 degrees Fahren- National
heit. Archives, was
Last year, President Biden — who has his questioned
own challenges with errant documents — nom- about her past
inated Colleen Shogan to be the first woman to tweets.
permanently lead the National Archives.
Shogan is senior vice president and director
of the David M. Rubenstein National Center for
White House History. She’s worked for the
Library of Congress, she’s taught at George
Book World
Thomas Boyd/Oregonian/AP
chance: The family court judge, the larger-
than-life, brash and braying Patrick Shelton,
locked them both out of the process. Without
them knowing it even happened, the three
children were sent to Minnesota, into the
hands of the Harts. A fourth brother —
Sherry’s oldest son, Dontay — was left to
languish in a residential program, without
ever being told his three siblings had left the
state.
Asgarian was so far ahead of any other
reporter that she became the first to locate the
family of the other set of adopted children:
Abigail, Hannah and Markis. No one before
Asgarian had bothered to notify their mother,
Tammy Scheurich. (“I was floored when I
realized she didn’t know,” Asgarian writes.) By
the time Tammy first became a mother, at 18,
she’d experienced enough trauma for several
lifetimes: sexual abuse as a child, domestic
violence, mental illness and hospitalizations;
suicide attempts and homelessness would
follow. The three children were taken from
her during a health emergency for Hannah —
which becomes a chance for Asgarian to note
how hospitals serve as an arm of the child
welfare complex. Tammy lived in a world
where bringing a child to the hospital could
result in that child never coming home. And
that’s what happened. Tammy’s distrustful
relationship with the hospital was interpret-
ed by one Child Protective Services official as
evidence of child neglect. A “blindsided”
Tammy was then charged with child endan-
germent. And when she failed to pay $225 in
court fees she was sent to jail for 30 days,
received no mental health support and devel-
oped an abiding hatred for the caseworker
Manuel Balce Ceneta/AP
Mason University, and she’s published a series
of mystery novels set in Washington. But amid
the contentious debate over secret documents
and presidential papers, Shogan’s qualifica-
tions weren’t enough to get her confirmed.
After a fiery hearing in September, her nomina-
tion was — to borrow the title of one of her
novels — “Dead as a Duck.”
This year, with what could be a lack of
foresight or a surfeit of loyalty, Biden nominat-
ed Shogan again. She had a new Senate hearing
late last month.
A few substantive issues were addressed.
Shogan stressed the need to accelerate digitiza-
tion of the archives. And she committed to
resolving a backlog of 300,000 requests for
EZ EE
who took the children away. Other family
members were never considered as an option;
instead Tammy’s children went to the Harts.
The Harts made me think of cult leaders,
broadcasting messages of love and compas-
sion to conceal something more sadistic and
pathological. Asgarian suggests that their
intensely cultivated image of perfection was
destined to crack — and once it did, there was
no going back. In reality, there weren’t
enough beds in their home for all six of the
kids. Hannah, twice reported with bruises,
had her two front teeth knocked out, and at
age 12 she stood just 3 feet, 7 inches tall and
weighed about 50 pounds. One friend who
reported the Harts to the Oregon Department
of Human Services said that Jen “views the
children as animals before they came to her,
and she as their savior.” And yet for the
longest time, no complaint seemed to stick.
The Harts’ first investigations for abuse,
astonishingly, took place before they adopted
the second set of children. Those reports,
Asgarian notes, slipped through the cracks;
unlike the birth families, the Harts “were met
with the benefit of the doubt.”
The children are killed with more than 100
pages left in the book. It is here that Asgarian
fully steps into the narrative, developing deep
personal ties with the children’s birth parents,
their partners, their other children and their
caseworkers, getting to understand the
depths of their impossible life situations and
the institutional neglect.
The most affecting story is of Dontay Davis,
the brother left behind, first institutionalized
and later incarcerated. It took almost a year,
Asgarian writes, for Dontay to even talk to
military records that veterans need to receive
benefits. But Republicans spent much of the
hearing producing sound bites for Fox News
about right-wing goblins, conspiracies and pet
peeves.
Sen. Roger Marshall (R-Kan.) wanted to
know if Shogan thought the Constitution
should be labeled with a trigger warning. “Ab-
solutely not,” she replied.
Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) wanted to know if
visitors to the National Archives should be
forced to cover up antiabortion slogans on
their clothing. “Absolutely not,” Shogan re-
plied.
Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.), who’s so packed
with incendiary misinformation that he might
spontaneously combust if he stepped foot in
the National Archives, wanted to know if Sho-
gan would respond to questions from members
of Congress about the origins of the coronavi-
rus. “I will,” she replied.
But the real diva of the day was manhood
guru Josh Hawley. The Republican senator
from Missouri was irate that Shogan had
locked her Twitter account. She had previously
said that her tweets were about events at the
White House Historical Association, sports
teams, her dog and her mystery novels, but
Hawley wasn’t falling for that.
For eight contemptuous minutes, Hawley, a
Yale-trained lawyer, pounded away on tweets
he’d managed to extract from the ether. It turns
out that on Feb. 18, 2022, Shogan bemoaned the
lifting of mask requirements for children un-
der the age of 5, “one of whom I happen to have,”
the senator preened. And on May 26, 2022,
Shogan retweeted a post about banning assault
B7
Alvin Jornada/Press Democrat/AP
Annie Mulligan for The Washington Post
her. And later on, when he learned that his
three siblings were gone, his heart was
shattered: “That was the last little hope I had
in my life.” Asgarian’s portrait of this trauma-
tized boy as he becomes an even more scarred
and dysfunctional man works as a microcosm
for all the book’s arguments. “Many of the
systems that could now help him as an adult
remind him too much of CPS, the entity he
blames for the destruction of his family and
the death of his siblings,” she writes. And later
we see history repeating, as Dontay’s own son
enters the sights of the child welfare bureau-
cracy.
Asgarian views many of the people in this
book through the prisms of psychology (do-
mestic violence, trauma, PTSD), policy (mass
incarceration, child welfare agencies) and
cultural bias — even as she becomes intimate-
ly involved in their lives. “In this book, I’m not
a passive observer of injustice,” she writes.
“The child welfare system didn’t cause the
trauma Tammy or Sherry experienced at a
young age, but neither did it help them deal
with it.” Their birth families “were not beating
their children or starving them; they were
clearly struggling with substance use and
mental illness, but instead of receiving help,
the parents were punished.”
Priscilla puts it more bluntly: “They got it
all backwards. They should have done some-
thing with the mother, put her in rehab — but
you have people here, loved ones, to take them
in, and you take them away. They got it all
messed up.”
Robert Kolker is the author of “Hidden Valley
Road.”
weapons. Once, she even tweeted about Repub-
lican efforts to overturn the 2020 election.
Like Perry Mason swelling toward a tri-
umph, Hawley kept asking, “Is that a post about
sports teams or your dog or mystery novels?”
But Shogan wouldn’t budge. Over and over,
she replied, “My social media is in my personal
capacity.”
“You lied to us under oath!” Hawley scoffed.
“This is the most extraordinary thing I have
seen in my brief time in the Senate,” which is
extraordinary, considering what we’ve seen of
Hawley during his brief time in the Senate.
When that performance petered out, it fell to
Paul to take a different, perfectly reasonable
tack. “Being a liberal should not disqualify
you,” he said. “If we got rid of liberals, we might
not have a lot of librarians or archivists.” But
Paul noted that his office wouldn’t even hire
interns without checking their social media
accounts. Such posts can reveal important
clues about an applicant’s character, prejudices
and biases. (On Wednesday, the committee
postponed its vote to advance Shogan’s nomi-
nation for about a week.)
Indeed, there’s something disingenuous
about Shogan’s refusal to take responsibility for
statements she once posted publicly. We de-
serve more candor and transparency from
someone aspiring to be our nation’s chief re-
cord-keeper.
Unseal your tweets, Dr. Shogan. You have
nothing to lose but Hawley’s hysterics.
This article was excerpted from our free Book Club
newsletter. To subscribe, visit wapo.st/
booknewsletter.
B8
The roots of Zelensky’s courage
and Ukraine’s courageous fight
BY
I
n a recent interview with Volodymyr
Zelensky on “My Next Guest Needs No
Introduction,” David Letterman asked
the Ukrainian president about the
source of his country’s fighting spirit.
Letterman also suggested that he already
knew the answer: that it came from Zelensky
himself. The president demurred, instead
praising the courage of Ukrainians in military
uniform defending their country.
The basis of Zelensky’s personal courage
and the solidarity of Ukrainians resisting
unprovoked Russian aggression are among
the key themes of Olga Onuch and Henry E.
Hale’s deeply researched and well-argued
book, “The Zelensky Effect.” They locate the
roots of Zelensky’s ability to captivate and
mobilize the imagination of his fellow citi-
zens in the rise of Ukrainian civic identity.
“This is not simply Zelensky’s doing,” the
authors write, adding that the Ukrainian
president is “a product of a Ukrainian culture
steeped in the same sense of civic national
belonging and duty that he advocates, ad-
vances and now symbolizes.”
The Zelensky effect, as the authors define
it, is the manifestation of Ukrainian civic
identity since the start of the all-out war,
though its origins are far older. Looking for
the sources of Ukraine’s inclusive national
identity, which crosses linguistic, ethnic and
What does it really take
to master a skill?
BY T OM V ANDERBILT
W
e know mastery, we like to think,
when we see it in action: the kinetic
poetry of Lionel Messi dancing
through defenses; Whitney Houston crushing
the notoriously difficult national anthem at
the Super Bowl. Explaining mastery, however,
is more elusive. We tend to romanticize it
(reaching for phrases like “God-given talent”)
or instrumentalize it (positing it as the prod-
uct of those 10,000 hours of “deliberate prac-
tice” espoused by sociologist K. Anders Erics-
son and popularized by Malcolm Gladwell in
“Outliers”).
One major problem is that masters them-
selves can rarely disentangle the alchemical
process that has gotten them to where they are,
in part because of a fundamental disconnect
between “declarative knowledge” — knowing
about something — and “procedural knowl-
edge” — knowing how to do something. One
can theoretically learn all there is to know
about how to ride a bike without being able to
do it; conversely, you can ride a bike really well
and struggle to explain it. The philosopher
Gilbert Ryle theorizes this divide as “knowing
that” vs. “knowing how.”
Adam Gopnik, a longtime staff writer and
EZ EE
nonFiction
S ERHII P LOKHY
religious lines, Onuch and Hale follow the life
story of Zelensky and his generation from the
final decades of the U.S.S.R. to the current
war. The results of that history were succinct-
ly expressed in the words “I’m Ukrainian”
printed on the hoodie that Zelensky wore on
“My Next Guest.” But it’s even clearer in the
language he used in that interview, respond-
ing to questions in Ukrainian but slipping in a
few Russian words when telling a Jewish joke
from Odessa. As Onuch and Hale explain, the
The Zelensky rise of independent Ukraine in the early
Effect 1990s helped to overcome the obstacles that
By Olga Onuch had long divided Ukrainians and Russians
and Henry E. from each other and from their Jewish and
Hale Crimean Tatar fellow citizens.
Oxford University Zelensky, who today represents the entire
Press. Ukrainian nation, was long regarded by
224 pp. $24.95 supporters and opponents alike as a repre-
sentative of Ukraine’s Russian-speaking east,
a region whose inhabitants had stood apart
Ukrainian from the struggle for democracy and sover-
President eignty embodied by the revolutions of 2004
Volodymyr and 2014. But Russia’s annexation of Crimea
Zelensky in and its attack on Donbas in 2014 changed
Kyiv on April Zelensky and Ukraine itself. A comedian who
9, 2022. He made a name for himself in Russia before
has become a becoming known in Ukraine, Zelensky left
symbol of political news to others. But in 2014 he turned
Ukraine’s civic political, reacting to the annexation of
identity. Crimea with pointed barbs and sarcasm.
critic for the New Yorker — one of those rare
literary figures of sufficient authority to play
himself on-screen, in Todd Field’s “Tár” —
notes that he was inspired to write his latest
book, “The Real Work: On the Mystery of
Mastery,” as an effort to bridge the “knowing
that” and “knowing how” gap.
That phrase, “the real work,” comes from
Gopnik’s fascinating glimpse into the world of
magic, a trade in which the normal obscurities
of skill acquisition are rendered even more
opaque; first, because its participants don’t
want to give away the game (“it is considered a
cardinal sin to reveal methods,” Gopnik
notes); second, because mastery in magic is
often defined by its seeming absence (“the
better it is done,” he writes, “the harder it is to
see that anything has happened”). The real
The Real
work — the phrase becoming a sort of stand-in
Work
for mastery itself — isn’t just knowing the trick
On the Mystery
or inventing the trick, it “is the complete
of Mastery
activity, the accumulated practice, and the
By Adam Gopnik
total summing up of traditions.” Mastery “is
Liveright.
what makes a magic effect magical.”
241 pp. $30
Gopnik’s impetus was a professional crisis
of faith. After a few decades of work as an art
critic, judging “other people’s drawings,” he
decided to finally try to learn to draw himself.
“We miss the whole,” he writes, “if we don’t
attempt to grasp, in however limited and even
feeble a form, what the real work feels like for
other people as they do it.” Sound out some
Gershwin on the piano, however clumsily, and
you’ll have a new appreciation for what Erroll
Garner does. Gopnik writes, “Fingers know, or
rather don’t know, things that ears cannot.”
the washington post
Zelensky and his cohort, politically inactive
up to that point, adopted the big-tent Ukrai-
nian civic identity that Onuch and Hale
regard as a result of decades of civic activism.
The vision of a multiethnic and multicul-
tural Ukrainian nation was initially formulat-
ed in the middle of World War I by Mykhailo
Hrushevsky, who was the first scholar to
make a persuasive historical case that Russia
and Ukraine were separate entities. Hrush-
evsky envisioned the rise of a free Ukraine as
the result of common efforts of Ukrainians,
Jews, Russians and Poles. Jews, as fellow
victims of Russian imperial rule, were at the
top of Hrushevsky’s hierarchy of friends of
Ukrainian freedom. He also welcomed Rus-
sians and Poles who wanted to support the
cause, promising Ukrainian support and
cultural autonomy in return.
In 1917, Hrushevsky’s vision of a multieth-
nic and multicultural Ukraine served as the
political foundation of the first modern
Ukrainian state, known as the Ukrainian
People’s Republic. It did not survive the
Bolshevik invasions of 1918 and 1919, which
brought civil strife and violence, often direct-
ed against minorities. To pacify Ukraine,
however, Vladimir Lenin eventually made
concessions to the Ukrainian cause that
Vladimir Putin now finds unforgivable. The
Ukrainians were recognized as a distinct
people, and their language and culture re-
ceived state support in the Ukrainian Soviet
Socialist Republic, one of the founding poli-
ties of the Soviet Union. Joseph Stalin re-
neged on many of those concessions, pushing
a Russification agenda that produced a new
category of citizens, Russian-speaking Ukrai-
nians, consisting largely of Ukrainian peas-
ants who moved to the cities, where they lost
their language but not their identity.
In December 1991, when Ukrainians went
to the polls to vote on the future of their
Brigitte Lacombe
Adam Gopnik, a longtime art critic,
writes of his efforts to learn how to draw.
Guided by that same ethos, he decides to
plunge into the pursuit of other skills that have
long eluded him, from boxing to dancing to
driving a car. He brings some noticeable bag-
gage. He is, for one thing, in late middle age.
After his first, less-than-impressive drawing
lesson, “filled with feelings of helplessness and
stupidity and impotence that I had not experi-
enced since elementary school,” he concludes,
“Much of what feels like mastery in adult life is
actually the avoidance of a challenge.” He is a
bit of a luftmensch. “A print addict since I was
4,” he writes, “by now words have insidiously
. sunday, march 12 , 2023
Evgeniy Maloletka/AP
republic, the results were astounding: More
than 92 percent chose independence, with
huge majorities registered not only in all
regions of Ukraine but also among all ethnic
groups. Jews demonstrated slightly greater
support for independence than did ethnic
Russians.
A week after the Ukrainian referendum,
the Soviet Union was dissolved by the leaders
of Russia, Ukraine and Belarus. Independ-
ence created a new country that faced the
difficult task of reconciling its borders with
the politically, culturally and linguistically
diverse population that it inherited from the
U.S.S.R. At the time, some observers wrote of
two Ukraines: the largely Ukrainian-speak-
ing and Europe-oriented west and the Rus-
sian-speaking and Russia-oriented east.
Those were the divisions that Russia tried to
exploit in 2014, annexing Crimea and starting
a hybrid war in Donbas that succeeded in
some Russian-speaking areas but failed in
others.
That was the juncture at which Zelensky
and his generation of Russian-speaking citi-
zens from Ukraine’s east and south joined the
battle to preserve the Ukrainian nation and
state. When Putin ordered his armies into
Ukraine in February 2022, the new Ukraine
embodied by Zelensky fought back. Zelensky
was both product and architect of Ukraine’s
new sense of identity. That identity has grown
stronger over the course of the war, helping to
ensure Ukraine’s survival as an independent
nation-state after Putin’s Russia confronted it
with an existential challenge. In their conclu-
sion, Onuch and Hale write that “Ukrainian
civic identity was what had produced not only
Zelensky, but 44 million Zelenskys.”
Serhii Plokhy is the author of “The Russo-
Ukrainian War: The Return of History,” to be
published in May.
repopulated my ganglions and synapses.”
Meaning: He likes reading — and writing —
about many pursuits more than doing them.
Which works in this book, a lot of the time,
because of the fluidity and incision of his
prose, his ranging interest and knowledge, his
capacity for deploying profound koans with
casual verve: “Activities that are interesting to
read about (science experiments) are probably
dull to do, while activities that are dull to read
about (riding a bike) are interesting when you
attempt them.” At other times, however, it all
feels a little too low-stakes and languorous, the
lessons too oblique. “I’ve tried not to sum up
too neatly the point or moral of each adventure
as it happened,” he writes, in an all-too-antici-
patory disclaimer. Like the magicians he is so
taken with, he sometimes employs a touch of
sly misdirection, but without ever quite arriv-
ing at an aha moment. The chapter on driving,
for example, starts with throat-clearing decla-
rations of what it’s not going to be, without
settling on a notion of what it is, in the end
revealing very little about mastery — driving
itself an arguably odd choice to explore the
subject, since it’s a skill acquired so widely and
so easily.
Then again, one of Gopnik’s salutary aims
here is to demystify — and democratize —
mastery. “Everybody’s good at something,” he
writes. “Being bad at something reminds us of
how we ever got good at anything.”
Tom Vanderbilt’s most recent book is “Beginners:
The Joy and Transformative Power of Lifelong
Learning.”

8 a.m. Noon 4 p.m. 8 p.m.
36 43 45 41
° ° ° °
Ugly feud
roils city’s
beauty
industry
Rift over school leads to
allegations that prompt
probe, threat of lawsuit
BY P AUL S CHWARTZMAN
Olivia French says she was im-
pressed when David Brunson told
her he had worked as a drummer
with Michael Jackson and knew
his brothers, Tito and Jermaine.
She was flattered when she says
he would bring her flowers and
candy.
Brunson was impressed by the
famous clients French had tended
to as a beautician — boxer Sugar
Ray Leonard and the wife of
former D.C. mayor Marion Barry,
among others — and that she was
a mayoral appointee to D.C.’s Bar-
ber and Cosmetology Board.
French and Brunson met in
2020 when she says she spotted
his junk-hauling ad on Craigslist
and called him. As an unlikely
friendship blossomed — she is 78
and he is 52 — French says she fell
in love with Brunson. He says he
thought of her as a maternal
figure, someone he wanted to
help.
She needed it. Her beauty
school, the French Institute, had
lost its license and was in finan-
cial trouble. In the ensuing
months, they agreed on a plan in
which Brunson would invest tens
of thousands of dollars in the
school and give its bedraggled
Northwest Washington head-
quarters a makeover.
But their alliance fractured
when they disagreed over who
would control the school and
French says she learned that
Brunson was married. As their
rift deepened, Brunson accused
French of scheming with a D.C.
government official to sell bogus
cosmetology licenses — an allega-
tion that has prompted an inves-
tigation and the threat of a law-
suit, and roiled the city’s beauty
industry.
“It’s like ‘Peyton Place,’ ” said
Anwar Saleem, chair of the Bar-
ber and Cosmetology Board, re-
ferring to the 1960s soap opera.
“It has everything — a little love, a
little drama and a little craziness.
I’m still trying to figure out what
the hell is going on.”
In a television interview and in
a letter to D.C. officials, Brunson
has alleged that French “devised a
see Feud on C4
50 years after he jumped,
a brother’s life is honored
Two days after
John Miltimore
Wolff died, his
name appeared at
the bottom of a
page inside The
Theresa Washington Post
Vargas under a five-word
headline.
“Northwest Man Leaps to
Death,” it read.
What followed were two short
sentences that described
witnesses seeing Wolff, who was
28, running south on the William
Howard Taft Bridge “when he
placed both hands on the railing
and fell to the ground below.”
That news brief was published
on March 12, 1973, and in the 50
years that followed, nothing else
appeared in any newspaper
about Wolff. There was no
obituary or death notice that
described the life he had led or
mentioned those whom he had
left behind. There was no
published photo that showed the
world what he had looked like.
Shame and embarrassment
followed his death, his sister
Patricia Wolff Hartman
explained. At the time, mental
illness and suicide were not
METRO
High today at John Kelly’s Washington
approx. 3 p.m.
Answer Man digs into the
46° rail and forge roots of
Precip: 55% Cinder Bed and Furnace
Wind: SE
6-12 mph roads in Fairfax County. C3
Metro leaders still envision a golden
future for the Silver Line expansion
But so far, the six new stations account for just a sliver of the system’s weekday trips
BY J USTIN G EORGE
Ken Reid put his political future at stake
11 years ago when he became the deciding
vote on whether to bring Metro deeper into
Virginia.
A Loudoun County supervisor at the
time, Reid opposed the Silver Line exten-
sion for years. He had a “No to Metro”
sticker on his car. He said the cost of the $3
billion project wasn’t worth the benefits or
tax burden.
When the Loudoun County Board of
Supervisors voted 5-4 to support the proj-
ect in July 2012 — pitching in the county’s
$270 million share — Reid sided with
supporters, persuaded by a last-minute
funding plan and its overwhelming sup-
port from constituents. He still didn’t
believe the rail line would live up to
projections.
“I’m a realist,” Reid told The Washington
Post after the vote. “I don’t think it’s going
to get the ridership people think it’s going
to get.”
More than a decade later and four years
overdue, the extension arrived to much
fanfare in November. Confetti blanketed
the entrance of the Ashburn station as
see silver line on C2
Ken Burns gets a taste of a battle he chronicled
New Gettysburg museum focuses on the experiences of residents during and after the 1863 conflict
talked about publicly, and her
parents weren’t the type of
people who were open to having
those conversations even
privately, she said.
Hartman, who was 23 at the
time of her brother’s death,
recalled shaking for days after
learning how he died and then
living for years with the worry
that her life would end the same
way. She avoided driving over
bridges, out of fear that a
random thought might suddenly
compel her to jump.
“No one ever said to me, ‘This
is not going to happen to you,’”
Hartman, who is now 73 and
works as a psychotherapist in
Rockville, told me Friday, the
anniversary of her brother’s
death. “I was left with this fear
that I would be the next in line.”
Time has, thankfully, changed
what is known about mental
health and how we talk about it.
Conversations that once weren’t
held or were held behind closed
doors are now part of the public
discourse. There is still much
work, of course, to be done
toward encouraging people to
seek help and making sure that Filmmaker Ken Burns takes part in a panel discussion at the Adams County Historical Society’s
see vargas on C5 Gettysburg Beyond the Battle Museum during a February preview. The museum opens in April.
KLMNO
sunday, march 12 , 2023 EZ RE C
Virginia Obituaries
Negotiators in the General Actor Robert Blake, 89,
Assembly hope to make known for “In Cold Blood”
progress on a billion-dollar and “Baretta,” faced trial,
budget stalemate. C6 acquittal in wife’s death. C7
O∞cials
to revise
voucher
rents
D.C. housing agency
reverses stance
Investigation found city
overpays landlords
BY S TEVE T HOMPSON
D.C. Housing Authority offi-
cials say they plan to comply with
local and federal rules requiring
the agency to ensure rents for
low-income voucher holders are
not paid at above-market rates,
but they are not ready to detail
how.
The move is a reversal for
agency head Brenda Donald, who
Amanda Andrade-Rhoades for The Washington Post
dismissed an internal memo by
her predecessor warning about
the problem and last year sided
with landlords and developers
who were pushing to prevent
lower payments. She is now re-
visiting the issue after discus-
sions with federal housing offi-
cials who delivered a scathing
report in September flagging the
problem, among many others.
Donald told the board on
Wednesday she wouldn’t yet pre-
view DCHA’s plans. “Because
we’re not ready, and we’re not
ready for all of the comments and
reactions,” she said.
Last month, a Washington
Post investigation found the
agency overpays landlords by
millions of dollars every year
because it doesn’t check to en-
sure subsidized rents are in line
with market rates. The Post
found, and Donald acknowl-
edged in an interview, that
DCHA has no process for setting
rents, other than staying under
rent caps that were put in place
years ago for large swaths of the
city with little regard for market
rates. If a landlord asks for the
cap, that’s what DCHA pays.
The path forward will involve
deploying a “rent reasonable-
ness” software platform, Donald
said to the agency’s recently re-
constituted board, which is
Justin George/The Washington Post
mired in trying to address the
The Ashburn station, top, is the western terminus of Metro’s Silver Line expansion, U.S. Department of Housing and
and along with the Dulles International Airport stop has been the most successful Urban Development report cata-
of the system’s six newest stations. Collectively, they have been responsible for loguing dozens of findings over
3,700 daily weekday trips and about 25,000 trips each week since opening in deficiencies rooted in misman-
November, according to Metro data. agement.
The absence of a process for
see rent rates on C3
Retropolis
BY M ICHAEL E . R UANE
GETTYSBURG, Pa. — Filmmaker
Ken Burns sits at a small table in a
shuttered dining room built to
re-create the evening of July 1,
1863. Two whale oil lamps cast a
dim light. The floor boards shake
from the sound of artillery out-
side.
A coffee cup is overturned on
the table. Flashes of light from
explosions come through the
shutters and illuminate the dark.
It is the close of the first day of
the Civil War’s Battle of Gettys-
burg, and public television’s re-
nowned student of the war has
come to imagine what it was like,
not for the soldiers, but for the
terrified residents as the conflict
raged around them.
The location was the Adams
County Historical Society’s new
state-of-the-art museum that fo-
cuses on the experience of people
as bullets flew through homes,
buried themselves in mirror
frames and bedsteads, and in one
case killed a young woman while
Matt McClain/The Washington Post
she was making bread.
Called the Gettysburg Beyond
see Gettysburg on C6
C2 EZ RE the washington post . sunday, march 12 , 2023

commuter
Slow start for new the Silver Line.
“It’s just going to grow,” Quay-
nor said. “There are going to be
more riders in the next couple of

Silver Line stations years because more people are

probably going to realize: ‘Hey,
we can move out this way because
there is transportation all the way
back from Ashburn.’”
silver line from C1 gion,” Metro Board chairman
Paul C. Smedberg said last month. The car vs. rail equation
cheery Metro workers handed out “There’s a lot of people moving The future of the Silver Line is
commemorative pennants. Four out there.” not without challenges.
months later, it’s replaced by Silver Line supporters note Metro is facing unprecedented
handfuls of bleary-eyed commut- that estimates from years ago — budget problems with the loss of
ers, air travelers and often-empty when ridership was twice as high fare revenue from commuters,
rail cars that snake up and down — would be the equivalent of contributing to a projected $500
the burgeoning Silver Line tech about 2.5 percent of daily trips, million budget hole next year that
corridor. Trains arrive about which isn’t significantly different is expected to widen. Metro lead-
­every 15 minutes along the six from current numbers. Still, ers have called on regional offi-
stations, frequently opening ­recent weekdays have lured a cials and Congress to establish a
doors to no one. smattering of commuters to the permanent source of funding that
Reid’s prediction, so far, seems system’s newest and most ad- could replace the missing rev-
prescient. A 2012 environmental vanced stations. enue, but no plan has surfaced.
analysis estimated the extension The budget problems spurred
would generate 17,900 daily trips Three factors reducing the transit agency to propose a 5
by its seventh year, while a ridership percent fare hike, on average, for
­Virginia study three years later The 11.5-mile Silver Line exten- most riders beginning July 1. But
estimated 50,000 daily riders. But sion stretches from the Wiehle- among those who would be hit
Amanda Andrade-Rhoades for The Washington Post
on weekdays between mid­- Reston East station in Fairfax hardest are Silver Line riders,
November and early February, County to Ashburn in Loudoun The confetti that blanketed the Ashburn Metro station’s entrance for its grand opening has given way who travel the farthest and could
the new stations accounted for County, forming the second seg- to often-empty rail cars frequently opening their doors to no one. see a more than $2.50 increase
about 3,700 daily trips, or 1.4 ment of a line that opened in per ride during off-peak hours.
percent of the rail system’s total, 2014. Developers and civic lead- Transit worker strike has hobbled Metro ridership on the Silver Line extension Other riders say the lengthy
according to Metro data. ers have long viewed a Metro bus service and connections to Six new stations on the 11.5-mile Silver Line extension account for 1.4 percent of train rides can be a deterrent.
It’s too soon to know whether connection between the region’s Metro stations, county officials systemwide Metrorail rides. Here are the average number of station entries each For Mardelle Singleton, 22, a
early predictions will be reached, international airport and its say. day at the new stations. Leesburg resident who com-
but figures from the extension’s ­central business district — via a Metro also continues to recov- mutes to D.C. five days a week to
first months show light usage at burgeoning Tysons — as key to er from a train shortage that Ashburn Dulles Airport Herndon Innovation Center work at a technical theater, Metro
new stations, which emerged dur- spurring regional growth and began in fall 2021, when its regu- Loudoun Gateway Reston Town Center
has mostly become a welcome
ing a pandemic that has slashed easing commuter traffic from latory agency suspended more addition except for the travel time
transit ridership. In the weeks fast-growing Loudoun. than half of the transit system’s of a 35-mile rail trip.
since a six-decade dream to con- The parking garage at the Ash- rail cars because of a defect found “It’s fairly convenient,” she
nect Dulles International Airport burn station, the line’s western in wheels and axles of some cars. 1,000 said. “The only problem is that it
and downtown D.C. became a terminus, swells with cars on the While the cars have been return- takes 90 minutes for me to get to
reality, Metro’s westward expan- busiest mornings as commuters ing, the transit agency doesn’t where I’m going.” (On average,
sion hasn’t budged its ailing drive in from points west. Dulles expect to be at full strength until 500 Metro estimates it takes 74 min-
­financial prospects as transit offi- has been the busiest and most at least summer. Metro General utes to ride from Ashburn to
cials pin their hopes on growth high-profile station from the Manager Randy Clarke said lon- Union Station.)
along the booming tech corridor. start. ger waits are discouraging poten- Clarke has floated ideas such as
0
Regional leaders and transit The other four stations see far tial riders. Weekdays Saturday Sunday
creating “express” trains that stop
officials, whose expectations have fewer passengers. Loudoun Gate- “I’m still convinced that the at fewer stations, but Metro, un-
been reshaped by the realities of way, for example, is averaging 184 service delivery will also corre- Daily averages taken from station entry totals between Nov. 15 and Feb. 4. like some other subway systems,
the pandemic, say they are opti- weekday entries — about 10 rid- spond a lot to ridership,” he said Source: WMATA THE WASHINGTON POST
was built with one set of tracks in
mistic after the slow start. Many ers per hour. On Sundays, that recently. “As we keep improving each direction, making those
say they are pleased at early rider- average number of daily entries is our frequency, more and more ­logistics difficult. Adding more
ship trends they believe already 80. The Herndon, Innovation people will come to rely on the Metro opens the 11.5-mile Silver Line extension trains — something Clarke said
are demonstrating the exten- Center and Reston Town Center system … Overall, I feel pretty The six new stations include a Dulles International Airport stop, extending will occur in the coming months
sion’s worth. stations average about 500 good where we are.” Metro's coverage to Loudoun County in Virginia. — could also exacerbate a labor
“The Silver Line extension has ­entries each weekday. The most significant factor al- shortage that has reduced the
really been great, not only for the The ridership numbers would tering ridership is the coronavi- availability of train operators.
Metro system in general, but it be greater if not for three circum- rus pandemic, which has reduced Leesburg Red “The challenge of the Silver
has been extremely important for stances out of the Silver Line’s transit usage nationwide and cut MARYLAND Line is that the length of the
the commonwealth and the eco- control, Metro leaders say. Metrorail ridership in half. Those Ashburn Silver Line is so long compara-
nomic development in that re- A two-month Loudoun County numbers have ticked up recently, Loudoun Silver Line tively, you need so many more
Yellow
Gateway extension Silver train sets and operators to run the
Spring length,” he said. “If you’re strug-
Dulles Orange gling with operators and train
Airport sets, it’s so much more to run 20
Innovation Reston Town D.C. miles than it is to run five miles.”
Center Center Lighter traffic on some days is
Herndon holding back potential riders
from using the rail extension, said
BUY 1, GET 1
Green
Loudoun County Supervisor Mat-

50%
V IR G IN IA Alexandria
thew F. Letourneau (R-Dulles),
Blue
who is also a Metro board mem-
5 MILES ber. That could change if more
people return to offices or start to
Sources: Metro, OpenStreetMap contributors HANNAH DORMIDO/THE WASHINGTON POST feel the financial pinch of rising
tolls on the Dulles Toll Road, he

OFF!
coinciding with more people re-
* turning to offices and Metro add-
ing more trains into service.
Metro has recently set multiple
pandemic-era daily ridership rec-
ords as commuters return to the
on Custom Blinds, system, which also has brought
Shades & Drapery more passengers to the Silver
Line.
Airport because of its Metro
­station.
“It’s more convenient, because
it’s pretty inconvenient to ask a
friend to drive you from D.C. to
Dulles,” said Cameron Batchelor,
24, who recently arrived at the
Dulles station on a Metro train
while on his way to Ireland.
said.
“There are so many things that
go into the equation, especially
for the longer-haul commuters
like me,” he said. “Time is money
for people. When the traffic is
light, then the Metro equation
doesn’t look as attractive.”
The transportation benefits
were only part of the Silver Line’s

FREE
Airport workers such as Isabel allure. Planners, developers and
Dulles station as a selling Velasquez, a Starbucks employee, multiple studies indicated it

PLUS
point
The six new stations — three in
Loudoun and three in Fairfax —
In-Home Design Consultation average about 3,700 entries on
weekdays, nearly 3,300 on Satur-
days and more than 2,700 on
Sundays, according to Metro rec-
ords through early February. On
average, riders are taking about
25,000 trips each week on the
HIGH QUALITY CUSTOM new extension, Clarke said.
said the extension is quicker than
the bus she rode before the exten-
sion.
“I go faster in the train,” said
Velasquez, who estimated she
saves about an hour getting home
to Chantilly. “Before, I had to
wait. There was only one bus
coming over there for me to go
home.”
Among the commuters on a
would lead to an economic boom.
Even as commuting and office use
has dropped during the pandem-
ic, interest from companies look-
ing to relocate to the corridor
hasn’t waned, said Michael Rocks
of Tysons-based Rocks Engineer-
ing.
The company is building sev-
eral projects along the line, in-
cluding offices, homes and hotel

BLINDS • SHADES
Unlike other stations, Dulles is
busiest on Sundays, a hectic day
for travel. More than 1,300 peo-
ple, on average, come through the
sparsely filled train one recent space next to the new Herndon
morning was Francis Quaynor, station and another that includes
55, who also lives near Chantilly two large office buildings near
and rides Metro once or twice a Innovation Center.

SHUTTERS • DRAPERY
station that day compared with
more than 1,100 on other days.
Over the Thanksgiving and
Christmas holidays, Metro served
We Design, We Measure, We Install, You Relax ®
nearly 11 times more rides from
Dulles than a year earlier, when
bus service preceded the rail
­extension, Metro spokeswoman
Sherri Ly said. According to a
Metropolitan Washington Air-
ports Authority (MWAA) custom-
er survey, 7 percent of travelers
took Metro when arriving at the
airport in recent weeks, while 11
percent used Metro to return
home.
The Silver Line has become a
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revenue officer, said she is
pleased with early ridership num-
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ously looked to Reagan National
week to downtown’s McPherson
Square, where he works at a law
firm.
Before the Silver Line, Quaynor
would drive to work, spending
about $6.85 in tolls each way,
compared to between $3.85 and
$6 for a Metro ride and $65 a
month to park at the Loudoun
Gateway station — a fraction of
what he spent in D.C. As impor-
tant as the financial savings, he
said, he no longer deals with
stifling traffic and the anxiety of
not knowing if a downtown park-
ing spot awaits.
“My commute to the station is
only barely 10 minutes, and
there’s plenty of parking, so I
don’t have to reserve parking,” he
said. “No stress.”
While he always has a train
seat to himself, he said it won’t be
long until the rail cars are fuller.
He watches more and more peo-
ple enter and exit at Reston Town
Center, a station surrounded by
large office buildings and new
development. Quaynor said he
expects the Silver Line will draw
people from crowded and expen-
sive D.C. neighborhoods to the
more spacious suburbs, a trend
that emerged during the pandem-
ic with the aid of telework.
He said Beltway traffic is less of
a consideration with the arrival of
“We were about four years de-
layed on Metro’s opening, and we
went through the worst global
pandemic in 100 years,” Rocks
said. “So with that backdrop,
we’re pretty excited about the
ridership we’re seeing.”
More than a decade has passed
since Reid cast the deciding vote
to advance the project as a
­Loudoun supervisor. An early op-
ponent, he changed his mind af-
ter a plan was created for special
tax districts around stations in
which new development would
bear much of the cost, rather than
county residents.
“I never expected the ridership
to be what they expected. But
again, if I hadn’t voted to opt in,
I’m sure there was going to be
another supervisor there who
was going to do it,” he said. “The
pressure from the public was so
great.”
Now living in McLean, Reid,
64, has ridden the Silver Line
extension but isn’t a regular user.
His employer recently ordered
workers to return to the office five
days a week, but despite living
near a Metro station, Reid drives.
There’s no station near his office
in southern Fairfax County.
Of the Silver Line, he said, “you
can build it, but they don’t neces-
sarily come.”
sunday, march 12 , 2023 . the washington post EZ RE C3

maryland
Answer Man is hot on trail of two Fairfax County street names
Child porn Would you more easily obtainable material:

charges for consider doing a

story on two
seemingly related
cinders. Steam locomotives ran
on coal. Cinders are “all the stuff
that didn’t burn,” Solomon said.

suspected John
Kelly's
road names?
Furnace Road is
where Fairfax
Cinders and ashes dropped into a
box on the locomotive that would
be emptied into a pit back at the

vandal Washington County’s main

He is alleged to have
spray-painted ‘groomer’
on two library buildings
BY J ASMINE H ILTON
A 31-year-old Takoma Park
man alleged to have spray-paint-
ed the word “groomer” on two
Maryland library buildings last
year in an act of hate directed at
LGBTQ people has been charged
with possessing child pornogra-
phy, according to charging docu-
ments.
Charles Sutherland is charged
with multiple counts of possess-
ing child pornography in Mont-
gomery County, according to on-
line court records filed in Febru-
ary. He separately faces hate-
crime and malicious destruction
of property charges in Prince
George’s County in connection
with the vandalism at two librar-
ies in June 2022.
Police said in charging docu-
ments that Sutherland confessed
to spray-painting the libraries,
acts that were caught on surveil-
lance video. During an interview
with law enforcement last year,
authorities allege he “made sev-
eral comments expressing his dis-
dain for the LGBTQ Community
and the Prince George’s County
Memorial Library System while
expressing no remorse for what
he did.”
An attorney listed online for
Sutherland did not immediately
respond to a request for com-
ment. According to WUSA9,
Sutherland was a librarian at
Northview Elementary School in
Bowie and has been on adminis-
trative leave since his arrest.
Prince George’s County Public
Schools did not immediately re-
spond to requests for comment
Friday night.
According to Prince George’s
County charging documents,
Sutherland vandalized the Green-
belt Branch library on June 4,
2022, and the New Carrollton
Branch library five days later,
painting the word “groomer” on
the front doors. The phrase, police
said in the documents, was “be-
lieved to have been directed at the
library because of their open sup-
port of the LGBTQ community.”
The Prince George’s County
Memorial Library System re-
ceived a letter signed by “Charles
M. Sutherland” in 2021 that said,
“I am asking you humbly to recon-
sider celebrating pride month
next year. Or at least refrain from
making pride displays for small
children,” according to the docu-
ments.
The letter opposed teaching
sexuality to children and included
waste-processing
facility and trash
incinerator is
located, only 61/2 miles from
Cinder Bed Road. Cinder Bed
Road, on the other side of
Interstate 95, seems to have a
much longer history — but
maybe Furnace Road also had
something burning a long time
ago?
— Kate Schwarz, Fairfax
Officially, the names are not
that old. Unofficially, they hark
back to an earlier time in that neck
of Fairfax County, near where I-95
crosses the Occoquan River.
Furnace Road and Cinder Bed
Road assumed their official
designations on April 1, 1965. The
previous June, Fairfax’s Board of
Supervisors had approved a
resolution naming or renaming
hundreds of the county’s streets
and secondary roads. This was
necessary because — as in the
song by U2 — some streets had no
names. Other streets had
duplicate names.
It was necessary to do some
tidying, said Christopher
Barbuschak, Virginia Room
archivist-librarian at the City of
Fairfax Regional Library.
East-west and north-south streets
would bear the same name for
their entire length, beginning at
the Potomac. Street numbers
would begin at the Potomac and
rise as the distance from the river
increased.
The county produced a
30-page pamphlet outlining the
changes. Virginia Route 611
between Route 123 and Route 1 —
labeled Telegraph Road on earlier
Housing o∞cials plan
review of voucher rents
rent rates from C1
determining reasonable rents —
which entails estimating a mar-
ket rate for each unit based on
factors such as size, location, age
and quality — has led to overpay-
ments that mean fewer people
are helped. It also has incentiv-
ized landlords to create, in es-
sence, privately run public hous-
ing complexes, where residents
frequently don’t receive the so-
cial services they need. Tenant
associations say the infusion of
inflated rents puts upward pres-
sure on the market, which makes
housing less affordable for peo-
ple who don’t hold vouchers.
The agency is testing a soft-
ware tool created by Novogradac,
a national accounting firm spe-
cializing in real estate and hous-
ing issues, Donald has said, and
agency officials are also review-
ing another industry standard
Steam locomotives produced cinders as a byproduct of burning coal. Cinder Bed Road in Fairfax
County, Va., near where I-95 crosses the Occoquan River, probably takes its name from this material.
maps — would become Furnace
Road. What had been Virginia
Route 637/877, off Route 617,
would become Cinder Bed Road.
Why those names? Barbuschak
suspects Furnace Road came
from a feature on the other side of
the Occoquan, in Prince William
County: a blast furnace and iron
forge founded in 1755 by John
Ballendine that made ingots of
pig iron.
But Earnie Porta, mayor of
Occoquan and author of a 2010
history of the town, has his
doubts. The Ballendine
ironworks closed in 1775. He
thinks it is more likely Furnace
Road was named after the brick
kiln that operated at the
Occoquan Work House, later the
plied.
“I mean, this is their business,”
Slover said. “And so what did
they say when you said, ‘Your tool
doesn't work?’ ”
Donald turned to then-DCHA
official Victor Martinez, who
said, “We had several meetings
with them, and we never got back
from them a real answer because
they felt that telling us exactly
how things worked behind the
curtain was going to spill some
business secrets on how they
come to those numbers.
“What we could tell,” Martinez
went on, “was that, in fact, the
numbers that were coming, that
they were reporting back to us
were much, much higher than
even what we were paying right
now.”
Martinez left the agency a few
months later.
Donald, asked last week why
she feels Novogradac’s tool may
Lorton Correctional Complex, on
the Fairfax County side.
Answer Man is a little more
certain about Cinder Bed Road.
The name accurately describes
what people living nearby would
have seen on that thoroughfare,
though trains, not cars, would
have originally traveled on it.
Cinder Bed Road was the
original right of way of the
Richmond, Fredericksburg &
Potomac Railroad, when the line
from Richmond to Washington
was completed in 1872, Barbuschak
said. A railroad station called Long
Branch stood approximately where
Cinder Bed Road and Newington
Road are today.
Increased railroad traffic
prompted the RF & P to
Paying above-market rates means fewer voucher holders receive help and also provides incentive for
landlords to turn buildings like the Havana, above, into, in essence, privately run public housing.
round house. When enough
cinders had been collected, a
team of workers would head to
the tracks to distribute them.
“It’s a waste product that didn’t
really cost the railroads anything
and allowed them to make good
use of something they had to get
rid of anyway,” Solomon said.
There was another benefit. A
profusion of weeds along a track
bed can harm the surface and
make it difficult for the track to be
inspected. Because cinders are
alkali, they restrict the growth of
plants.
When diesel locomotives
started replacing steam
locomotives in the 1930s,
railroads lost their supply of
cinders. Faster, longer and
heavier trains meant rail lines
Carol M. Highsmith/Library of Congress
needed to be straighter — it’s hard
to take a curve at speed — leading
to alterations in track geometry
and the replacement of some
double-track the entire line sections.
beginning in 1903. The original While the names Furnace Road
right of way was eventually and Cinder Bed Road have their
abandoned. But even with the roots in the past, they are
railroad tracks and ties removed, appropriate for their modern
it had the makings of a fine road, neighbor: Covanta’s I-95 Energy/
for the tracks and ties had sat Resource Recovery Facility, where
upon a bed of ballast. That’s the waste is burned to produce
material that supports railroad electricity.
ties and tracks, serving as a Another street near the
semi-porous foundation. Covanta plant seems to take
“Today when people say inspiration from the volcanic
ballast, they tend to think of hellscape in “The Lord of the
crushed stone,” said Brian Rings”: Mordor Drive. The road
Solomon, railroad historian and was originally a landfill access
author of such books as “Railway road constructed in the 1970s. It
Maintenance: The Men and doesn’t appear on county maps as
Machines That Keep the Mordor Drive until 2010. Who
Railroads Running.” would like to step forward and
But in the 19th century, the take credit for suggesting that
railroads used a cheaper and name?
Bonnie Jo Mount/The Washington Post

a line that said, “And that reason is
because, typically, they are too
young to understand vital parts of
tool.
“So our hope and expectation,”
Donald told members of the D.C.
THE
work for DCHA now, replied in
emails, “Stay tuned,” and “That’s
all I have for now.”
BIG COUPON! BIG SAVING$!

sexuality, like the sex act, the
differences between sexes, etc.”
Investigators also learned of a
Facebook account they alleged
Sutherland used that “voiced his
displeasure for the LGBTQ cele-
brations during this month of
Council’s housing committee this
month, “is that we would do that
over the next couple of months
and would have a time that we
could say going forward with all
new [voucher] contracts, we will
be determining rent using this
BIG COUPON
Asked whether the agency Your Place To Save -
would issue another request for
Every Day in Metro
quotes, as it did to acquire No-
vogradac’s tool, Donald said, “An
RFQ would be premature at this
point.”
At the recent council commit-

50
June (Pride Month).” Police said tool.” tee meeting, several legal aid and
Save now with

the spray-painting “can be in-
ferred to be a reaction to the
Prince George’s County Memorial
Library System continuing to cel-
ebrate Pride Month and contin-
The agency is racing against a
March 31 deadline to correct
issues identified by HUD or risk
escalating actions by the federal
government. Novogradac adver-
%
housing advocates urged the
agency to stop paying inflated
rents.
“It was a problem that was
raised, recognized and anytime

Get the most out of OFF*

ued support of the LGBTQ Com- tises its rent reasonableness plat- somebody tried to address it, it
munity.” Both library branches form as a way for housing author- seems like they were kind of

your lawn this spring. Your First Application

had Pride Month and LGBTQ fli- ities to avoid HUD audits by hushed,” said Amanda Korber, a
ers at the entrances of the librar- appropriately setting rents and supervising attorney at the Legal
ies, police said. documenting the process. The Aid Society of the District of
According to Montgomery firm says it will collect represen- Columbia, who called the failure

County charging documents, af-
ter Sutherland admitted to the
vandalism in June, he consented
to a search of his home. Police
found “numerous diapers, chil-
dren’s dolls, and a child sized doll”
in his bed, the documents say.
tative rental market data for an
area, analyze it and “customize a
rent calculator that will suggest
an appropriate rent” for each
unit. The rent calculator is main-
tained online, and the housing
authority can access it through a
to address the issue “disgraceful.”
Several landlords who spoke
at the meeting pointed to a flip
side of DCHA’s haphazard rent
limits. While they are too high in
some affluent neighborhoods,
they are too low in some poorer
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Sutherland said he has no chil- web browser. neighborhoods, such as Anacos-

dren or nieces or nephews.
“Sutherland also stated he had
images consistent with child por-
nography on a laptop in his resi-
dence,” police said in the charging
documents.
Police found the laptop, which
a digital forensics examination
ultimately determined contained
child pornography, authorities
said.
Online court records list a trial
for Sutherland in April in the
child porn case, and in August for
the hate-motivated vandalism.
Clarence Williams contributed to this
report.
DCHA’s pledges to address the
problem predate Donald, who
was installed as director in 2021.
That year the agency signed a
$40,000 contract with Novogra-
dac for its rent reasonableness
software and began testing it.
But the rollout never happened.
In May, Donald told board
members she had concluded No-
vogradac’s tool did not make
sense for the agency.
“It’s your determination that it
doesn’t work?” then-board mem-
ber Bill Slover, who had been
pressing for a rent reasonable-
ness process, asked Donald.
“That’s correct,” Donald re-
tia.
Brandt Tingen said he has
rented to voucher holders since
2015, and has grown close to
many. But the low rent limits in
Southeast have frozen rents paid
on their behalf since 2019, while
his operating expenses have
grown rapidly.
“This, in addition to other
D.C.-specific pitfalls related to
operating residential rentals in
D.C., such as the never-ending
lease, make it untenable to do
business here as a residential
low-income housing provider, es-
pecially as it relates to DCHA,” he
said.

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C4
Fight over beauty school rankles cosmetology industry
Feud from C1
fraudulent scheme” to obtain cos-
metology licenses for unqualified
students, including himself. His
attorney, Raymond Jones, in a
May 30 letter to D.C.’s Office of
Risk Management, threatened to
sue the D.C. government for fraud
unless it paid Brunson an
$800,000 settlement.
During an hour-long telephone
interview with The Washington
Post, Brunson declined repeated
requests to provide evidence of
French’s wrongdoing. “I want
D.C. to do their investigation,”
Brunson said. “They’ll figure this
out for themselves.” His attorney,
who was listening to the inter-
view, said: “I don’t want to litigate
this in the press.”
Yet, it was Brunson who ap-
proached WJLA’s 7 News I-Team,
according to an account the sta-
tion posted on its website Feb. 6,
to allege that French sold bogus
licenses. When the 7 News I-Team
confronted French outside her
home, she delivered what ap-
peared to be an on-air confession
about a scheme that reaped her
“thousands” of dollars. “It’s a sad
commentary that this is what
happens in the government — if
you can pay, you can play,” she
said in the interview.
“I’m guilty,” French told the
station. “And I’m ready to pay the
price.”
In a subsequent interview with
The Post, French acknowledged
that she got bogus licenses, but
said the scope was far smaller
than what she appeared to admit
to in the television interview. She
attributed the difference in her
accounts to having taken “heavy”
medication and having drunk
wine before the unexpected tele-
vision interview. She said she was
“confused” and in “shock” when
the news crew approached her
and that she told them what she
thought they wanted to hear “to
get rid of them.”
“I just wanted to get it over
with,” she said. “I just damaged
myself.”
In the interview with The Post,
French said that with help from
the D.C. official, she improperly
procured three provisional li-
censes for Brunson even though
he hadn’t taken the required
hours of classroom training. She
said she also helped a couple of
his associates. It is unclear
whether Brunson or his associ-
ates knew beforehand that
French was getting them licenses
for which they were not qualified.
Neither Brunson nor his attorney
responded to a question about his
awareness of what French was
doing. French says that Brunson
knew.
As her relationship with
Brunson unraveled, French
stepped down from the cosmetol-
ogy board, citing “medical prob-
lems” in her Feb. 26, 2022, resig-
nation letter.
“I’m going to jail, I know I’m
going to jail,” she told The Post
during the tearful interview at
her Southwest apartment. “I got
his licenses for him because I
thought we were going to be
partners and he was going to
invest in my school.”
French said she did not make
any money off the licenses and
that her landlord is seeking to
evict her, a fact confirmed by the
owner of her apartment, Chuck
Goldston, who told The Post she
owes nearly $13,000 in back rent.
French also owes more than
$25,000 to the Tenleytown office
building where her school leased
three units, according to the
property manager there.
“I am flat, cold broke,” French
Maryland
Ex-police chief of Laurel convicted of serial arson Hints of spring emerge
Howard County jury
found him guilty on 12
counts related to the fires
BY J ASMINE H ILTON
Former Laurel police chief
­ avid Crawford was found guilty
D had a greater degree of respect
Thursday of first-degree arson
and attempted first-degree mur-
der in Howard County, officials
said.
A Howard County jury convict-
ed Crawford of eight counts of
attempted first-degree murder,
three counts of first-degree arson
and one count of first-degree
malicious burning in connection
with four Howard County fires,
prosecutors said in a news re-
lease.
Crawford, 71, was arrested in
March 2021 in connection with 12
fires from 2011 to 2020 spanning
Howard, Frederick, Charles,
Montgomery, Anne Arundel and
Olivia French is a former member of the D.C. Barber and Cosmetology Board. Her beauty school, the French Institute, lost its license and
was in financial trouble when she met a man who agreed to invest tens of thousands of dollars in it and give it a makeover.
said. She portrayed herself as
Brunson’s victim, saying he had
“wined and dined” her as he
moved in to take over her busi-
ness. “I fell in love with him,” she
said. “That’s what I did wrong.”
In July, the D.C. Department of
Licensing and Consumer Protec-
tion opened an investigation into
Brunson’s allegations, according
to an email from an agency
spokesman, Charles Basham III.
He said DLCP had referred the
matter “to the appropriate agen-
cies” but declined to be more
specific because it’s “a part of an
active investigation.”
As of mid-February, a total of
5,600 cosmetology-related licens-
es have been issued citywide, ac-
cording to the agency. Since Janu-
ary 2020, the agency has received
four complaints “related to oper-
ating without a cosmetology and/
or barber license,” Basham wrote.
“One investigation resulted in en-
forcement activity.”
The D.C. official whom
Brunson and French identified as
French’s accomplice has left the
government, Basham said. He de-
clined to provide the reason, say-
ing it was a personnel matter. He
did not disclose when the official
departed.
Saleem, the chair of the Barber
and Cosmetology Board, said
agency officials are reviewing
thousands of cosmetology licens-
es to verify their validity and have
found “only a handful that are
questionable.”
Saleem, who owns a hair salon
on H Street NE and is the execu-
tive director of H Street Main
Street, a community advocacy or-
ganization, says he first met
Brunson after French texted him
in August 2021, saying she want-
ed him to meet with her and a
potential investor in her school.
At the meeting at Ben’s Chili
Bowl on H Street, Saleem said
Brunson showed him a curricu-
lum plan. “He said he was going
to train kids to work with celebri-
ties. It sounded good,” Saleem
before daylight saving
Prince George’s counties in Mary-
land, authorities said.
“Our heart goes out to the
victims; and we hope this verdict
and the sentence we are seeking
will provide them with some
sense of justice,” Howard County
State’s Attorney Rich Gibson said
in the release. “Furthermore,
Crawford, who had a long career
in law enforcement, should have
for the rule of law and today’s
verdict is a reminder that no one
is above the law.”
The four fires in Howard Coun-
ty occurred in Ellicott City and
Elkridge from March 2017 to
September 2018. They each hap-
pened in the early morning hours
between about 3 a.m. and 4:30
a.m. Three of the cases were
reported house fires and one was
a reported vehicle fire.
In two of the cases, the homes
were occupied. One place was set
on fire twice, prosecutors said.
On June 23, 2017, units
­responded to the 6000 block of
Avalon Drive for a reported house
EZ SU
said. “He was going to get a bus
and travel around to different
places to do hair. He was selling
his dream.”
At the meeting, Saleem said,
Brunson also talked of his experi-
ence in the music business, saying
he had worked as “Michael Jack-
son’s drummer.” At one point,
Brunson texted Saleem several
short videos of Tito and Jermaine
Jackson talking about him in
what appeared to be, at least in
one case, the digital version of a
character reference.
“David Brunson is a very good
human being, David Brunson is
very devoted, very much on time
and he takes his work very seri-
ously,” Jermaine Jackson says in
the 46-second video that Brunson
sent to Saleem, who shared it and
two others with The Post.
“Whoever employs David
Brunson is going to have a very
good worker,” Jackson says in the
video, adding that he had worked
for the Jacksons for “about six
years.”
Jermaine Jackson’s entertain-
ment company did not respond to
an email seeking comment.
Brunson, a licensed pilot who
grew up in D.C., attended the
University of Maryland Eastern
Shore, where he earned a master’s
degree in career and technical
education in 2010, according to
the university. Asked about his
association with the Jacksons,
Brunson said only that he has
worked with “hundreds” of
groups and has experience in
music production and as a musi-
cian. “I’m not going to give my
work information,” he said.
He said he met French at the
end of 2020 when she, while
cleaning out her apartment, hired
him to haul away trash. As they
became acquainted, Brunson said
she told him about her failing
school, a subject that interested
him because he had taken cosme-
tology classes years before.
“She said, ‘I’m tired of this, I
wish you could take over,’ that she
fire and found a blaze in the
attached garage of a ­single-family
home, where three adults and
two juveniles were sleeping. They
escaped, prosecutors said.
On Dec. 9, 2017, units respond-
ed to the 4000 block of Spring
Meadow Drive for a reported
house fire and found a
­single-family home ablaze, pros-
ecutors said. A family of two
adults and one juvenile was
home and escaped, prosecutors
said.
Nearly a year later, on Sept. 22,
2018, units responded to a report-
ed house fire at the same home as
renovations had just finished
from the previous fire, prosecu-
tors said. The home was unoccu-
pied.
Prosecutors said Crawford’s
victims include a former Laurel
official, three former law enforce-
ment officials, including a former
Laurel police chief, two relatives,
two of Crawford’s chiropractors
and a resident in his neighbor-
hood. Investigators said Craw-
ford knew his targets and had
was too old to be doing this
anymore,” he said. At one point,
he said, she told him she would be
willing to work for him.
As they became closer,
Brunson said he helped her man-
age her affairs. Goldston, her
landlord, recalled that Brunson
identified himself as French’s son
when he called to make a repair
request on her behalf.
“I looked at her as a mom,”
Brunson said. His interest in in-
vesting in the school, he said, was
driven partly by the idea that “if I
can make this successful, I will
take care of her.”
In the early 1990s, French’s
salon — then known as Olivia’s
Institute of Beauty on Pennsylva-
nia Avenue NW — was featured in
magazines alongside Lord & Tay-
lor and Elizabeth Arden as places
in Washington to get facials and
massages.
“The Great Face Saver,” read
the headline of a brief 1990 Wash-
ington Post Magazine article
about French. “She does won-
ders,” Sugar Ray Leonard told the
magazine. Effi Barry, the second
wife of Marion Barry, also praised
French in the article: “She’s a line
item in my budget.”
In 2014, Mayor Vincent C. Gray
(D) nominated French to the cos-
metology board. Mayor Muriel E.
Bowser (D) reappointed her in
2021.
By then, French’s troubles had
deepened. Her school’s operating
license expired in 2015 after she
failed to renew, according to the
Office of the State Superinten-
dent of Education. Two years lat-
er, the Higher Education Licen-
sure Commission ordered French
to stop hosting classes after an
agency official found that the
school was operating without a
license. French, who has two in-
structor licenses, said she kept
teaching because she needed to
earn money and expected that the
school would renew its license.
Susana Castillo, a Bowser
spokeswoman, said in a state-
previous disagreements with
them all.
Robert Bonsib, an attorney
representing Crawford, said he
was disappointed in the verdict.
“While we did not think the
evidence was sufficient on the
arson charges, it was particularly
deficient on any basis to believe
that Mr. Crawford intended to kill
anybody,” Bonsib said. He said his
client plans to appeal.
The cases in Montgomery and
Prince George’s counties are
pending, Bonsib said.
Crawford served as Laurel po-
lice chief from 2006 until 2010,
when he resigned, prosecutors
said. He previously worked as the
District Heights police chief and
as a major for the Prince George’s
County Police Department.
He faces sentencing on June
27. The state’s attorney’s office
said that it is seeking the maxi-
mum sentence allowed, which is
eight life sentences plus 95 years.
Katie Mettler and Dan Morse
contributed to this report.
the washington post
Paul Schwartzman/The Washington Post
ment that French’s appointment
was the result of a recommenda-
tion that “emanated from the
agency in question, and the mat-
ter remains under review.” She
did not respond to an email seek-
ing additional clarity.
The school was in disrepair
when Brunson began renova-
tions. There was a hole in the
ceiling, a broken mirror and
equipment that had become dis-
colored, according to the build-
ing’s property manager, a descrip-
tion that was confirmed by
French.
“I was like, ‘Oh my gosh, it’s
going to look like a real school,’ ”
said the property manager, who
spoke on the condition of ano-
nymity because of the nature of
the dispute.
As he became more involved
with her business and the renova-
tion, Brunson said he encoun-
tered “red flags,” including
French’s rent debt — thousands of
dollars by that point — and un-
paid phone bills. When she said
she could get him cosmetology
licenses, Brunson said, “Honestly,
I didn’t believe her. I thought she
was trying to impress me. The
next thing, these came through. I
was taken a little aback.”
French and Brunson both say
she gave him $10,000 for the
project, part of which he used to
pay down the rent she owed.
From August to December 2021,
Brunson paid $1,000 a month, the
property manager said. He got far
enough into the renovation to
stencil a design on a wall — an
ornate “B” beneath a crown and
over “The Brunson International
Institute of Cosmetology Arts and
Science, LLC.”
“I went in one day and it was
there,” recalled French, saying she
never consented to the change.
She also said she was unaware
that the school was registered
with the city as a limited liability
corporation under Brunson’s
name. The filing listed Brunson,
French and another woman as
the region
Highest temperature on
Saturday was 5 degrees
below average for date
BY M ARTIN W EIL
Saturday was our last full day
this season of standard time, but
the day seemed a bit substandard
in providing the sense of spring
we often expect as we prepare to
adopt daylight saving time.
Switching to daylight saving
time, with its later sunsets and at
least the illusion of more light in
our lives, may seem the biggest
boost mere mortals can give to
hasten the arrival of spring, in
our minds if not always on the
thermometer.
In a way, Saturday seemed to
dwell just on the winter side of
the great March divide between
. sunday, march 12 , 2023
officers. “He did all of that with-
out contracting with me,” she
said.
French and Brunson disagreed
over who would control the
school and how it would be man-
aged. Then, French said, she re-
ceived an email from a woman
whom she thought was Brunson’s
friend. The woman, French said
she now learned, was married to
Brunson.
“This is Mel, David’s wife of 4.5
years, we’ve been in a relation-
ship for over 8 years,” read the
Jan. 18, 2022, email, which
French provided The Post. The
email was signed “Melanie” and
was sent from Brunson’s account.
“You are behaving like a spiteful,
delusional old woman,” it said.
French had known Brunson for
more than a year by then. She was
crestfallen. In an email she sent
later that night to Saleem — a
message he shared with The Post
— French wrote that “Brunson
never told me that he was mar-
ried” and that “I would never
have dated him if I knew he was
married.”
A few days later, Saleem said,
Brunson contacted him to make
his allegations against French.
They met again at Ben’s Chili
Bowl, only this time Brunson
brought a woman whom he iden-
tified as his wife.
Saleem said the woman, whose
name he cannot recall, was angry
the school project was collapsing.
“She said she had put up $50,000
for it‚” Saleem said. When
Brunson told him that French
was selling bogus licenses, Sal-
eem said he asked him, “How do
you know?”
“He said, ‘I was there, she was
making a lot of money off of this, I
saw the transactions,’ ” Saleem
recalled. He said he told Brunson
he needed evidence before notify-
ing investigators. “ ‘If you have
proof, I’ll take it up the ladder,’ ”
Saleem said. “But he didn’t give
me nothing to take. I’m not going
to defame someone’s character.”
Brunson, who declined to iden-
tify his wife during the interview
with The Post, did not specify
what he told Saleem. “I wish
everyone could take a polygraph
and then you would get a full
picture,” Brunson said. “Why
would I ask for an investigation if
I did something wrong?” He then
stopped responding to emailed
follow-up questions about the
identity of his wife, the email that
“Melanie” sent from his account,
and the corporation set up under
his name.
His attorney declined to com-
ment on French’s suggestion that
Brunson had misled her or an-
swer follow-up questions related
to their dispute or about the
nature of their relationship. “Mr.
Brunson has no further comment
until The District has had enough
time to complete their investiga-
tion,” Jones wrote in an email.
French, in the interview with
The Post, insisted that she had
been duped. “He bought me flow-
ers. He bought me lots of candy,”
she said. “I was angry because he
used me.”
Once their partnership frac-
tured, Brunson removed the new
equipment and other improve-
ments from the school, including
flooring, he had installed.
French’s office lease expired in
April. At that point, the property
manager said, the amount of
overdue rent she owed was
$26,891.
The property manager said she
advised the landlord that it
wasn’t worth what it would cost
to pursue French for the back
rent, since in all likelihood “she
doesn’t have the money.”
the season of darkness and the
season of light.
On Saturday afternoon in
Washington, hours of gray clouds
joined chilly temperatures to sig-
nal that winter had yet to depart.
The day’s high temperature of
50 degrees was five below average
for the date. Winds and gusts
throbbed in our ears. A peak wind
of 30 mph whipped across Wash-
ington from the frosty northwest,
and a gust reached 40 mph.
A few signs of spring appeared:
some trees blossomed, pale leaves
sprouted in certain places, if you
knew where to look. But perhaps
little would signal the change of
seasons so vividly as the expected
sight of Sunday’s sunset.
On Saturday, the National
Weather Service said, the sun
went down at 6:11 p.m. On Sun-
day, it would linger until well
after 7 p.m. It may be one of the
greatest immediate effects of fed-
eral decree on daily life.
sunday, march 12 , 2023
Theresa Vargas
What it looks like to let go of stigmas surrounding suicide and mental illness
vargas from C1
when they do, there are enough
resources to address their needs.
But a simple action Hartman
took recently shows what it looks
like when stigmas surrounding
these issues are shed.
She decided to give her
brother what he didn’t get after
he died by suicide: public
acknowledgment that he had
lived and was loved and is
missed. Fifty years after the
police arrived at her family’s
door to say he was gone,
Hartman wrote a death notice
for her brother.
The notice is more than 600
words long and is scheduled to
appear in today’s print edition of
The Post — exactly 50 years to
the day after that news brief
about his death was published in
the newspaper.
In it, Hartman describes
playing in a homemade sandbox
with her brother and shares how
he was the subject of many of his
classmates’ crushes. She writes
that her brother studied hard
and made it into Dartmouth
College, where he experienced
his first “breakdown” at the
beginning of his second
semester.
The death notice not only
acknowledges Wolff ’s mental
health struggles; it also
addresses what he and his family
experienced in painful detail.
Hartman writes that over the
next nine years, the family faced
“many ups and downs, starts and
stops, diagnoses and
medications.”
“John graduated from George
Washington University, but it
didn’t feel like much of an
accomplishment to him because
it should have been Dartmouth
or Harvard,” she wrote. “On the
morning of March 10 John was
found by the police wandering
naked in Rock Creek Park. The
police took him home, wrapped
only in a blanket.”
Hours later, he returned to the
bridge. When the police came to
the family’s house a second time,
she wrote, “It was the worst of
the worst and nothing could be
done.”
Hartman told me she decided
to write the death notice to
Balance.
Harmony.
Beauty.
® Our commitment to providing a safe, healthy,
and respectful worksite and experience.
. the washington post EZ RE
John Miltimore Wolff, above as a child and at left with Patricia
Wolff Hartman, his sister. On March 10, 1973, at age 28, he leaped
from the William Howard Taft Bridge. Other than a news brief
about his suicide, there was never an obituary or death notice.
acknowledge that “there was this
beautiful person who didn’t feel
valued and didn’t feel he was
good enough.” She also wrote it,
she said, to help advance the
public conversation about
mental illness.
“I hope people understand
that mental illness is not an
embarrassment,” she said. “We
should all be able to discuss it.”
In the death notice, she
applauds D.C. for dedicating
funding toward the design and
construction of a suicide barrier
on Taft Bridge. In a previous
column, I told you about how
Chelsea Van Thof started calling
for a barrier after her longtime
partner, Peter Tripp, a
29-year-old veterinarian, died by
suicide at the Taft Bridge last
April. I also told you in a
different column how after Van
Thof pleaded for city officials to
provide support and funding for
that barrier, another death
occurred there.
City data shows that at least
26 suicides occurred at
Washington area bridges
“There have been too many suicides off the Taft Bridge between 2010 and 2022, and of
those, at least 11 took place at the
and each suicide affects lots of people.” Taft Bridge.
“There have been too many
Patricia Wolff Hartman, in the death notice she wrote for her brother, published in today’s Washington Post
suicides off the Taft Bridge and
each suicide affects lots of
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people,” wrote Hartman in that
death notice.
It affects them in the days —
and in the decades — that follow.
Hartman shared with me a
poem her brother wrote that she
has kept all these years. Before
his death, he had hoped to see it
published.
It begins: “You never quite
achieved them — is that right?
The dreams you always had. You
strove for godly Olympian
heights far above you, distant,
and beyond. All the struggling
years to make it be. It was there!
Almost in sweating grip — you
believed, and then, some-quirky-
fate, some-strange-thing tore it
all away.”
It ends: “Though I may have
been a failure my whole life,
damn, I know in my heart I am,
God, no coward.”
Hartman said she wishes she
could tell her brother now, “John,
of course you were no coward.”
But back then, when he wrote
those words, it was a different
time. All she knew to do then,
she said, was keep her distance.
If you or someone you know needs
help, call the Suicide and Crisis
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844.831.5966
C6
Virginia
State lawmakers aim to make progress on $1 billion impasse in budget plan
BY G REGORY S . S CHNEIDER
RICHMOND — General Assembly
budget negotiators hope to meet
this week to try to break the
billion-dollar stalemate that pre-
vented them from passing chang-
es to the state’s two-year spend-
ing plan when the legislative
session ended last month.
“We’re still trying to hammer
out the details” of the meeting,
Del. Barry D. Knight (R-Virginia
Beach), the chairman of the
House Appropriations Commit-
tee, said Friday.
Knight said he expects to gath-
er in Richmond with his Senate
counterparts — Sens. Janet D.
Howell (D-Fairfax) and George L.
Barker (D-Fairfax), co-chairs of
the Senate Finance and Appro-
priations committee — by the
middle of the week.
New immersive museum focuses on the experiences of Gettysburg residents
Gettysburg from C1
the Battle Museum, it is located at
a spot north of town where the
Confederate army overran Union
forces and stormed into Gettys-
burg on the first day of the three-
day battle.
It is filled with images, ac-
counts and artifacts that show
how the people of Gettysburg
coped with the horror of the battle
and its gruesome aftermath: a
bullet-pocked store sign, a coffin
maker’s saw, a comb taken from
the body of a Union soldier before
his burial.
It displays a children’s anti-
slavery book, torn apart by South-
ern soldiers as they ransacked a
home outside town.
And it includes the immersive
“Caught in the Crossfire” room,
with a disclaimer at the entrance
that warns, “may be disturbing for
some visitors.”
There, visitors can get a sense of
what it might have been like for a
besieged family as artillery shells
shrieked overhead, windows shat-
tered and the lamps went out.
Bullets recovered from the
­battlefield are embedded in the
exterior of one wall.
At the end of the four-minute,
30-second immersion, the voice of
a rebel soldier announces, “Your
Yankees have done run off. . . .
This is our house now.”
Burns, wearing a sport coat,
jeans and sneakers, rose from the
table during his visit last month,
and said, “I don’t think I’ve ever
seen anything like this.”
“It’s just a visceral experience,”
he said.
The $12 million, 25,000-
square-foot museum and history
center on Biglerville Road opens
to the public on April 15. It also
displays items reflecting the his-
tory of the town and artifacts from
Abraham Lincoln’s Gettysburg
Address, delivered Nov. 19, 1863.
Admission is $15.
It was funded with the help of
Burns, whose blockbuster 1990
documentary, “The Civil War,”
captivated viewers and set public
TV audience records.
Support also came from
­novelist Jeff Shaara, actor Ste-
phen Lang and Susan Eisenhow-
er, granddaughter of President
Dwight D. Eisenhower, who with
his wife, Mamie, lived on a farm
The Adams County Historical Society
Sallie Myers, a Gettysburg
resident, assisted the wounded
after the Civil War battle there.
Subscriber Exclusives
It’s the first sign of progress on
the budget since the General
Assembly wrapped up the rest of
its business on Feb. 25. The
Republican-controlled House
passed changes to the state budg-
et that would deliver $1 billion in
tax cuts sought by Gov. Glenn
Youngkin (R), while the Demo-
cratic-controlled Senate instead
used that money to increase
spending for underfunded pro-
grams, primarily in the area of
public education.
Youngkin has sought the tax
cuts on top of $4 billion in tax
cuts the legislature passed last
year, citing some $3.6 billion in
excess revenue in state coffers.
Youngkin and Republicans in the
House want to further increase
the state’s standard deduction
for personal income tax filers;
cut the top marginal income tax
People experience the “Caught in the Crossfire” exhibit at the Gettysburg Beyond the Battle Museum during a preview event.
nearby after his presidency, the
museum said.
The battle was a Union victory,
and a turning point in the war and
the nation’s history — helping to
preserve the Union and free mil-
lions of African Americans from
enslavement.
Yet it left behind the bodies of
thousands of dead soldiers, nu-
merous destroyed buildings, and
farm fields littered with unex-
ploded ordnance and other debris
of combat.
The town was traumatized.
Sallie Myers, a 21-year-old
schoolteacher who hid in a base-
ment, recalled in diary entries and
reminiscences:
The noise above our heads, the
rattle of musketry, the screeching
of shells and the unearthly yells,
added to the terror and cries of the
women and children, were enough
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rate; cut the corporate tax rate;
and offer a cut for small busi-
nesses.
Knight said he had proposed a
compromise package to his
­Senate counterparts before the
General Assembly adjourned,
featuring some tax cuts and some
spending increases, but Demo-
crats ultimately balked.
Instead, lawmakers left town
after passing a handful of basic
amendments to the budget —
collectively known as a “skinny
budget” — that address an acci-
dental $200 million shortfall in
state aid to schools that the
Youngkin administration ac-
knowledged in January as well as
bookkeeping items such as a
mandatory deposit in the state’s
rainy day fund.
Howell could not be reached
for comment, but Barker said in
to shake the stoutest heart. Never
were there more fervent prayers
borne heavenward.
Seminary student Martin
­Luther Culler remembered in a
newspaper article years later:
We could hear the ‘Union Cheer’
and the ‘Rebel Yell’ out on the
bloody field, while the shells
shrieked and moaned, flying over
our heads, and . . . the terrific
cannonading which caused the
house to shake, while ever and
anon we heard [bullets] crashing
through the doors and windows
above us.
Andrew Dalton, executive di-
rector of the museum and the
county historical society, said of
the crossfire immersion: “We
wanted to make it really authen-
tic. . . . We really felt like we
shouldn’t water it down. These
people deserve to have their story
weaving meandering tales that draw you in” (allmusicmagazine.com).
See details at washingtonpost.com/my-post.
an interview Friday that opposi-
tion to the corporate tax cut is
one area where Democrats are
not planning to budge.
“That’s not one that we’re
going to find a way to live with,”
Barker said. Closing the gap
between the two chambers “is a
bit difficult because we’re com-
ing from different perspectives —
their focus is on reducing taxes,
and ours is more trying to build
up the areas where we need to
make investments,” he said.
One of those areas, Barker
added, is mental health services
— a priority for Youngkin as well.
While the governor has proposed
increases of some $230 million
for mental health, the Senate
budget goes more than $100 mil-
lion further.
“When Sen. Howell and I had
met with [Youngkin], we
re-created as close to how we
think it actually was.”
Gettysburg is the county seat of
Adams County.
“A lot of the audio, almost all of
it, is real,” he said. “We went out to
a firing range in Virginia and
captured the real sounds. So when
you hear a bullet going through
glass, it’s actually the sound of a
Civil War bullet going through
glass.”
He said live rounds had been
fired from cannons and rifles, the
sounds recorded as they dis-
charged and struck glass, metal
and wood.
“There’s never been a museum
that really talks abut the civilian
experience . . . especially the re-
covery effort after the battle,” he
said.
The population of the town was
2,400. There were about 7,000
Matt McClain/The Washington Post
the washington post
thanked him for that and point-
ed out we were going to go higher
when we did our budget — which
we did. And he said he’s not going
to complain about that. So there
are some indications we might
be able to reach some kind of
compromise on things,” Barker
said.
Knight agreed with that as-
sessment.
“We just have to get our heads
together and see what’s the best
compromise for House Republi-
cans and Senate Democrats,”
Knight said. “I’m willing to nego-
tiate some stuff, but I can’t
negotiate everything.”
Knight said there’s a chance
negotiators will reach a deal
before the General Assembly re-
turns to Richmond on April 12 to
take up any vetoes or amend-
ments proposed by Youngkin.
Matt McClain/The Washington Post
dead bodies to be buried.
Farmer John Forney found 79
dead Confederates on his land,
according to historian Drew Gil-
pin Faust. Fifty more were count-
ed on the farm of George Rose,
and some were photographed.
Barnyards and orchards be-
came cemeteries. Historians say
the smell of the battlefield could
be detected from afar. Residents
carried around bottles of pepper-
mint oil and pennyroyal to mask
the stench.
Elsewhere, homes and church-
es became hospitals. Twenty-two
thousand men had been wound-
ed.
Sallie Myers went to a church to
help.
“The groans of the suffering
and dying were heartrending,”
she recalled in a quote displayed
in the museum. “I knelt beside the
LEFT: A photograph of Dr. J.W.C. O’Neal and a book he used to
record grave locations of Confederate soldiers following the Battle
of Gettysburg. ABOVE: A bullet-riddled sign from the battle is
among the artifacts at the Gettysburg Beyond the Battle Museum.
. sunday, march 12 , 2023
“But not before that,” he said.
Both Knight and Barker said
they’re keeping an eye on state
revenue, with the Youngkin ad-
ministration expected to provide
updated projections this week.
Some states have seen a decline
in tax collections — Maryland,
for instance, recently reported a
dip.
“I think [revenue collections]
are starting to sag a little bit,”
Knight said. “But we’ve baked
that into our plans. We’ve had a
growth trend line going up and
the pitch of the line has come
down some, and now I believe
the line is going to level off. But
I’d be shocked if we show a
deficit.”
That’s another area of agree-
ment. “We are holding up pretty
well,” Barker said. “We’re actually
in pretty good shape in Virginia.”
first man near the door and asked
what I could do. ‘Nothing,’ he
replied. ‘I am going to die.’ I went
outside the church and cried.”
One man, Absalom Shetter,
hanged himself in an orchard
­after the Confederates looted his
farm of grain and livestock,
­according to a local paper.
A blacksmith named Ephraim
Wisler was stunned by the explo-
sion of an artillery shell and died
five weeks after the battle,
­Timothy H. Smith, the historical
society’s director of education,
­reported.
Others were killed handling ri-
fles or unexploded artillery shells
found on the battlefield. Many
such items were gathered, often
by children, for their parents to
sell to tourists. (Last month, an
old artillery shell was found on
the battlefield by an archaeolo-
gist, and destroyed by Army ex-
perts.)
After 15-year-old Allen Frazier
was killed when an unexploded
shell picked up by a visitor blew
up near him, the Gettysburg Star
and Banner pleaded:
“Will the people never become
sensible to the danger they incur
by handling these shells? We have
boys, and grown up men who still
persist in this rash work of open-
ing shells, not only at the risk of
their own lives, but of those of
their neighbors.”
As the days after the battle
passed, many dead Southern sol-
diers were buried in trenches with
little ceremony. “Buried 42 rebels
in one grave and 31 rebs in an-
other,” a Union soldier wrote after
the battle, according to historian
Gregory A. Coco.
But a local doctor, J.W.C.
O’Neal, who was originally from
Fairfax, Va., and treated the
wounded from both sides, began
documenting where some South-
erners were buried, so families
could take them home.
The museum has a makeshift
medical notebook he used, which
listed the dead under the pre-
printed heading, “Obstetric Rec-
ord.”
A North Carolina woman
whose son had been killed on July
1, later wrote to thank O’Neal for
his work: “Only a mother who has
lost a son in that awful battle can
. . . appreciate fully such goodness
as you have shown.”
Matt McClain/The Washington Post
sunday, march 12 , 2023 . the washington post
Robert Blake, 89
Troubled ‘Baretta’ actor later acquitted in wife’s killing
BY A DELA S ULIMAN
AND B RIAN M URPHY
Robert Blake, a child actor who
grew into roles playing characters
on both sides of the law, including
a murderous drifter in “In Cold
Blood” and a master-of-disguise
detective in the 1970s series “Ba-
retta,” but then became the center
of a real-life whodunit after being
tried and acquitted in the slaying
of his wife, died March 9 at his
home in Los Angeles. He was 89.
The cause was heart disease,
according to a statement by a
niece, Noreen Austin.
Mr. Blake’s screen credits
spanned six decades starting with
the “Our Gang” cast in the late-
1930s as the mischievous Mickey.
In a brief moment opposite Hum-
phrey Bogart in “The Treasure of
the Sierra Madre” (1948), Mr. Blake
played a Mexican boy who sells a
winning, but fateful, lottery ticket
to a down-and-out prospector.
Later, Mr. Blake built his career
around a hardscrabble, tough-
guy image that he said reflected
his difficult road through life:
recounting tales of an abusive
father and moments as an adult in
which he contemplated suicide.
“A lot of things about this world
deserve hating,” he told an inter-
viewer in 1975.
Directors and actors described
Mr. Blake as notoriously unpre-
dictable. He became known for
benders of alcohol and drugs and
spent time in the 1990s living in
his van parked in the Hollywood
Hills. He was so temperamental
that other actors refused to work
with him, including being banned
from “Saturday Night Live” after a
guest appearance in 1982.
“You just had to strap in real
tight,” the creator of “Baretta,”
Stephen J. Cannell, told People
magazine.
At the height of his fame in the
1970s, Mr. Blake appeared to bask
in his live-wire reputation. He car-
ried a streetwise snarl into talk
show interviews — one time
­insulting filmmaker and actor Or-
son Welles on “The Tonight Show”
for being fat, another time going
monosyllabic on “The Merv Griffin
Show” with mostly just “man” and
“cool” as replies. He often wore
skintight T-shirts that showed off
his compact 5-foot-4 frame.
Sometimes, he would be ac-
companied by a white cockatoo,
Fred, who was his sidekick on
“Baretta,” which ran on ABC from
1975 to 1978. Baretta’s catch-
phrase, “You can take that to the
bank,” was both a pat-on-the-back
for solving a case and a commen-
tary on life’s enduring miseries.
He had largely faded from the
public eye by May 2001 when he
and his second wife, Bonny Lee
Bakley, went to dinner at Vitello’s,
an Italian restaurant in Los Ange-
Amy Schwartz, 68
Author’s books captured the lives of children — and parents — on the page
BY E MILY L ANGER
Amy Schwartz, the author and
illustrator of dozens of picture
books that captured the lives of
children — from the nighttime
feedings of infancy to the first day
of kindergarten and beyond —
with a sprightly touch that made
her a favorite of kids and grown-
ups alike, died Feb. 26 at her
home in Brooklyn. She was 68.
She had cardiovascular dis-
ease, said her husband, Leonard
S. Marcus, a historian and au-
thority on children’s literature.
Ms. Schwartz made her literary
debut in 1982 with the publica-
tion of the picture book “Bea and
Mr. Jones,” the story of a
­kindergarten-age girl who trades
places with her father, reporting
for work at his office while he, an
advertising executive, goes to
school in her stead.
The book landed a spot on
“Reading Rainbow,” the televi-
sion show hosted by LeVar Bur-
ton, and marked the beginning of
Ms. Schwartz’s long career in
children’s literature.
Over the next four decades, she
kept up a steady output of books —
more than 50 in all — that show-
cased her narrative wit and artis-
tic whimsy. The quality that most
distinguished her work, however,
was her sense of ­childhood, which
remained undimmed despite the
passage of time.
“I can’t think of anyone whom I
think understood and portrayed
the day-to-day routines of families
with young children with more
intelligence and joy,” Mary Cash,
the editor in chief of Holiday
House, one of Ms. Schwartz’s sev-
eral publishers, said in a statement
after her death. “Amy was an acute
Actor Robert Blake during an episode of “Baretta,” a 1970s show in which he played the titular, master-of-disguise detective. In 2005, Mr.
Blake — known for his live-wire, unpredictable personality — was acquitted in the May 2001 death of his second wife, Bonny Lee Bakley.
les’s Studio City district. After the
meal, Bakley was fatally shot at
point-blank range inside their car
in the parking lot.
Mr. Blake told investigators
that he had gone back to the
restaurant to retrieve a handgun
he had left behind. (A different
gun used in the murder was found
in a trash bin.)
Nearly a year later, on April 18,
2002, police arrested Mr. Blake at
his home in Hidden Hills, a gated
community in the Santa Monica
Mountains. The three-month ­trial,
beginning in late 2004, ­became a
spellbinding mix of rise-and-fall
celebrity and salacious details.
Bakley — who had a string of
fraud-related crimes on her rap
sheet, went by various aliases and
had nine former husbands — had
met Mr. Blake in 1999 at a night-
club and had sex with him in his
car, according to court testimony.
She later gave birth to a daughter,
Rose. Tests confirmed that Mr.
Blake was the father, despite Bak-
ley’s earlier belief the baby was
the child of Christian Brando, the
eldest son of Marlon Brando.
Mr. Blake married Bakley in
2000, but witnesses described their
marriage as turbulent and said Mr.
Blake had said he wanted to “snuff”
her. Bakley lived on a separate
home on the property. “This was
hardly a marriage made in heaven,”
observer of all the tiny details that
together make up a child’s life. Her
wonderful books celebrated,
laughed at, and offered so much
insight into that existence.”
In the book “Busy Babies”
(2019), she documented the many
ways that babies fill their time —
among them “visiting ducks” and
“playing trucks,” “building
blocks” and “removing socks.”
Her book “I Can’t Wait!” (2015),
geared toward children who had
advanced beyond baby- and tod-
dlerhood to the more mature years
of preschool, explored the intermi-
nable marking of time that chil-
dren endure, often without know-
ing what they are waiting for.
In her “100 Things” series —
including “100 Things That Make
Me Happy” (2014), “100 Things I
Love to Do With You” (2017) and
“100 Things I Know How to Do”
(2021) — Ms. Schwartz helped
children scale that Mount Everest
of early numeracy, 100, while also
indulging their love of lists. (“100
Things That Make Me Happy”
included “hula-hoops” and “dou-
ble scoops,” “Grandpa’s tools” and
“swimming pools.”)
Amid the hundreds of happy
things in childhood, there are
also plenty of hard ones, and Ms.
Schwartz acknowledged chil-
dren’s anxieties and embarrass-
ments in books such as “Starring
Miss Darlene” (2007), about an
ungainly hippopotamus who, in
one episode, is cast as “the Flood”
in a theatrical staging of the story
of Noah’s ark.
Rather than sprinkling some
water on the stage, as her role
dictates, she accidentally douses
the front-row audience. A porcine
theater critic takes a shine to Dar-
lene, however, and lauds the show
obituaries
Los Angeles County’s deputy dis-
trict attorney, Shellie Samuels, told
the jury. “He hated her.”
Mr. Blake was charged with
“murder with special circum-
stances,” a capital offense, but
prosecutors did not seek the
death penalty. Mr. Blake pleaded
not guilty.
During the trial, two stuntmen
testified that Mr. Blake had tried
to hire them for the killing.
­Outside the courthouse, he some-
times strummed a guitar and
sang “Over the Rainbow” and
“Amazing Grace.” A jury in March
2005 decided that the prosecu-
tors had not proved Mr. Blake’s
guilt. In post-trial interviews,
some ­jurors said the stuntmen
had credibility problems because
of acknowledged drug addictions.
Ms. Bakley’s four children later
won a $30 million civil judgment
for wrongful death. The amount
was reduced to $15 million. Mr.
Blake filed for bankruptcy.
In an interview in 2006 near
the anniversary of his acquittal,
Mr. Blake flashed his trademark
mix of darkness and volatility as
he tried to rebuild his life. He was
then working as a stable hand at a
ranch in Malibu, Calif.
“I’ve woken up some nights
and wanted to drive till the car
goes off a cliff,” he told the Associ-
ated Press. “And an hour later,
Amy Schwartz, who died at 68, was a beloved author of children’s
books, but her work showed an understanding of parents, too.
for its “audience participation.”
In her illustrations, Ms.
Schwartz favored gouache, a form
of watercolor, and pen and ink.
The poet Eve Merriam, writing in
the New York Times, offered a
review in rhyme of the pictures in
the book “Mother Goose’s Little
Misfortunes” (1990), a collabora-
tion between Ms. Schwartz and
her husband:
Amy Schwartz’s pictures are
buoyant, up in the airy,
goofy, guffaw-y, never too
scary …
the watercolors are bright,
there are white open spaces
to leave laughing room for the
fuming faces,
the merry mishaps, the clown-y
rages.
One capsule complaint: not
enough pages.
Amy Margaret Schwartz was
born in San Diego on April 2,
1954. Her father was a real estate
investor and writer, and her
EZ SU
poetry is coming to me. I want to
go act. I want to go teach. I want to
dance.”
He then almost stopped the
interview and snapped at the AP
journalist.
“You ask too many questions,”
he barked. “Don’t you know not to
interrupt an actor when he’s on a
roll?”
Performing at age 2
Michael James Vijencio Gubi-
tosi was born in Nutley, N.J., on
Sept. 18, 1933, and described his
childhood as a pitiless struggle.
Many of his accounts could not be
corroborated, but there was no
doubt that he saw himself as bear-
ing emotional scars.
He told CNN in 2012 that his
mother attempted to abort him
with a coat hanger. He accused his
father, described in articles of the
time as a blacksmith, of sexual
abuse and locking him in a closet
even as he sought to profit from his
children during the Depression.
Mr. Blake said that when he was
just 2, he joined his older brother
and sister in a song-and-dance
act, “Three Little Hillbillies,” in
parks while his father played gui-
tar. “Fear,” Mr. Blake recalled the
feelings in those days as a child
performer. “We had to eat and my
parents saw it as good way to go.”
The family uprooted to Califor-
Amy Schwartz/Abrams Books
mother taught chemistry at a
community college.
The third of four daughters,
Ms. Schwartz called upon her
memories of her family for the
volume “Annabelle Swift, Kinder-
gartner” (1988), about a rising
kindergartner and her worldly,
wise older sister, who coaches her
in what to expect.
Ms. Schwartz recalled that as a
girl she was almost always read-
ing. “I developed the ability to
read while walking home from
school,” she wrote in a biographi-
cal sketch, “as well as that of
reading aloud to my grandmoth-
er and silently reading ahead,
simultaneously.”
She also showed an early inter-
est in drawing, keeping a sketch-
book and taking art classes with
the encouragement of her moth-
er. Her first illustrations were
birthday and holiday cards that
she made for her family.
Ms. Schwartz received a bach-
ABC/Getty Images
nia in 1938 and soon the young
Michael (whose name evolved into
Bobby Blake and then Robert
Blake by the 1950s) was hired as an
extra, and then a regular, on “Our
Gang” film shorts, which were lat-
er aired on television as “The Little
Rascals” with characters such as
Spanky, Alfalfa and Buckwheat.
Mr. Blake found steady work as
a child, emphasizing his soulful
chestnut eyes and mop of dark
hair. In 1942, he had the title role
in “Mokey” as a boy adjusting to
his new stepmother played by
Donna Reed. He had a small part
in a drama about concentration
camp escapees, “The Seventh
Cross” (1944), with Spencer Tracy.
Mr. Blake was conscripted into
the Army in 1950 for failing to
register for the draft. He was sta-
tioned in Alaska for several years.
He returned to acting, but work
was infrequent, and he drifted
into long spells of drug use.
His breakthrough role came in
“In Cold Blood,” the 1967 film
adaptation of Truman Capote’s
true-crime account of the killing
of the Clutter family in Kansas.
Mr. Blake’s portrayal of one of the
killers, Perry Smith, received
­major acclaim for his sociopathic
starkness.
“I thought Mr. Clutter was a
very nice gentleman,” Mr. Blake’s
character says in the film. “I
elor of fine arts degree from what
is now the California College of the
Arts in San Francisco in 1975. She
later took a course in children’s
book illustration before moving to
New York City, where she worked a
clerical job while trying to make
her way into publishing.
She began by offering her ser-
vices as an illustrator and started
drafting story manuscripts as
well after editors advised her that
she would have more luck if she
marketed herself as an author
and illustrator.
She continued her studies in
children’s literature at New York’s
School of Visual Arts.
In addition to working with her
husband, Ms. Schwartz collaborat-
ed over the years with her father,
Henry Schwartz. Their books to-
gether included “How I Captured a
Dinosaur” (1989), “Albert Goes to
Hollywood” (1992) and “Make a
Face: A Book With a Mirror”
(1994). She worked with author
Eve Bunting on the 1984 picture
book “Jane Martin, Dog Detective.”
Among Ms. Schwartz’ more re-
cent books were “13 Stories About
Harris” (2020) and “13 Stories
About Ayana” (2022), in which she
chronicled the adventures of two
children in a diverse urban neigh-
borhood. Harris, for example, uses
sidewalk chalk to sketch a dragon
whose tail is so long that it stretch-
es up and down the block.
Besides her husband of 32
years, Ms. Schwartz’s survivors
include their son, Jacob Marcus,
of New York; and three sisters.
Although she was roundly
praised for her understanding of
children, Ms. Schwartz displayed
an equally intuitive understand-
ing of parents. She wrote one of
her best-known books, “A Teeny
C7
thought so right up to the time I
cut his throat.”
Reviewer Roger Ebert called Mr.
Blake and Scott Wilson (playing
the other killer, Richard Hickock)
“so good they pass beyond per-
formances and almost into life.”
Mr. Blake’s next films passed
with little notice, including “Tell
Them Willie Boy Is Here” (1969)
as a Native American hunted by
lawman Robert Redford, and
“Busting” (1974), a crime story
co-starring Elliott Gould. Mr.
Blake told Playboy that he consid-
ered suicide and sought psychiat-
ric treatment. (His father took his
own life in 1955 at age 48.)
Mr. Blake often spoke of his
disdain for TV as unworthy of his
talents. When the chance came
along for “Baretta” — a character
Cannell named after the Italian-
made firearm — Mr. Blake said
the steady paycheck and potential
for millions of viewers each week
was too much to pass up.
Mr. Blake received an Emmy in
1975 for outstanding lead actor in
“Baretta,” a detective who lived a
fleabag life and relied on clever
disguises to solve crimes. The
show took shape as a tweaked
version of the cop drama “Toma”
after star Tony Musante quit. Mr.
Blake said he had a hand in writing
and directing many “Baretta” epi-
sodes but never asked for ­credit.
In the 1980s, he appeared in a
made-for-television movie,
“Blood Feud” (1983), as Teamsters
boss Jimmy Hoffa, and in 1985 in
an NBC series he created, “Hell
Town,” playing a rough-but-kind
priest in Los Angeles. Mr. Blake
said that, once again, thought of
suicide bubbled up.
“One morning I realized I was
only days — maybe hours — away
from sticking a gun in my mouth
and pulling the trigger,” he told
the Los Angeles Times in 1992.
His last prominent acting role
was in David Lynch’s 1997 movie
“Lost Highway,” about a man
­accused of killing his wife. Mr.
Blake’s character, called “Mystery
Man” in credits, is an ashen-faced
wanderer seen as a manifestation
of the killer’s mind and guilt.
Mr. Blake’s first and third mar-
riages, to actresses Sondra Kerr
and Pamela Hudak, respectively,
ended in divorce. In addition to
his daughter with Blakey, survi-
vors include two children from
his first marriage.
In 2011, Mr. Blake wrote a mem-
oir, “Tales of a Rascal: What I Did
for Love,” detailing his career and
life. Shortly after, he appeared on
CNN, where he told British jour-
nalist Piers Morgan he did not
want to discuss Bakley’s death,
noting that it was “not the most
significant thing in my life.”
Timothy Bella contributed to this
report.
Tiny Baby” (1994), clad in her
nightgown, in what she described
as “one groggy stretch” in her
son’s first weeks of life.
“I’m a teeny tiny baby,” read the
book’s opening words, “and I
know how to get anything I want.”
Elisabeth Bumiller, a Times
journalist who is the author of two
books about women and mothers,
wrote in a review that her favorite
illustration in the book depicted
“a dark and silent Brooklyn street,
lit only by the glow from the teeny
tiny baby’s house.”
“In one window we see Mom
quietly nursing, while in another
stands Dad, staring into the dis-
tance and looking a little left out
and perplexed,” Bumiller wrote.
“New parents will instantly rec-
ognize that mix of confusion,
exhaustion and intimacy that
comes with the 2 a.m. feeding.”
In “What James Likes Best”
(2003), Ms. Schwartz captured a
universal experience of parenting:
the execution of a maximally stim-
ulating outing, followed by the
discovery that your child was most
entranced not by the wonders you
had marshaled but rather some-
thing you had scarcely noticed.
The story, Ms. Schwartz said,
was inspired by her own “endless
quest to be the ideal mother,” and
how she was over and again
“humbled in [her] endeavors.”
She once took her young son to
a sculpture garden only to find
that the towering works of artist
Isamu Noguchi held little interest
for him compared with the hilari-
ty of her accidentally turning on
the windshield wipers in their car
when it was not raining.
James, the character in her
book, liked the windshield wipers
best, too.
C8
Bert I. Gordon, 100
B-movie auteur’s horrors gained a cult following
BY H ARRISON S MITH
Bert I. Gordon, who unleashed
a parade of cinematic horrors as
the filmmaker behind Atomic
Age movies about mutant ants,
60-foot giants, rampaging grass-
hoppers and a bloodthirsty spi-
der that proved too big to squash,
died March 8 at a hospital in Los
Angeles. He was 100.
His death was confirmed by
his daughter Christina Gordon,
who did not cite a cause.
Mr. Gordon, a B-movie auteur
who wrote and produced almost
all of his two-dozen films, was
known for working quickly and
cheaply — he shot his first fea-
ture, “King Dinosaur” (1955), in a
single week for about $15,000 —
while trying to terrify or titillate
audiences in an anxious, para-
noid age.
Critics called his storylines
ludicrous and his special effects
schlocky, and highlighted the
absurdity of lines like, “You can’t
drop an atom bomb on Chicago!”
His film “The Food of the Gods”
(1976), about a mysterious sub-
stance that causes rats, wasps
and chickens to grow into giants,
was “unintentionally hilarious”
and “stunningly ridiculous,”
wrote New York Times reviewer
Vincent Canby.
But many of his films turned a
profit and gained a cult follow-
ing, attracting later generations
of moviegoers with their imagi-
native monsters — rendered with
the help of miniatures, mattes
and rear-projection effects —
and casts that featured actors
who were on their way up, like a
young Ron Howard, or seeking a
paycheck near the end of their
career, like Orson Welles, Ida
Lupino and Zsa Zsa Gabor.
Mr. Gordon “didn’t do much in
the way of character develop-
ment or psychological subtlety,”
New Yorker film critic Richard
Brody wrote in 2012, “but he sure
knew how to make a visual
metaphor — to convey extrava-
gant emotions, indeed, the men-
tal overdrive of youth itself, in
simple images.”
That was especially true for
“The Amazing Colossal Man”
(1957), about an Army officer
(Glenn Langan) who is showered
with nuclear debris while trying
to save a downed pilot near the
site of an atomic-bomb test. He
loses his hair, and his mind,
while growing ever taller, and
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obituaries
Director and writer Bert I. Gordon, right, on the set of “The Magic
Sword” with stars Basil Rathbone and Estelle Winwood in 1962.
rampages through a cardboard
approximation of the Las Vegas
Strip before falling over the
Hoover Dam to his doom.
The film capitalized on the
success of Universal’s “The In-
credible Shrinking Man,” and its
box-office returns were good
enough to revive the character
for a sequel, “War of the Colossal
Beast” (1958), which took the
colossus to Los Angeles.
Over the next two decades, Mr.
Gordon continued to make mov-
ies about larger-than-life charac-
ters and creatures, earning the
nickname “Mr. B.I.G.” because of
his initials and his preferred
subject matter. (One notable ex-
ception: “Attack of the Puppet
People,” a 1958 horror film about
a toymaker who shrinks his en-
emies to the size of dolls.)
Shooting gargantuan crea-
tures on microscopic budgets, he
often turned to rudimentary
techniques.
For “Beginning of the End”
(1957), which starred Peter
Graves as a scientist trying to
stop a swarm of giant locusts
from destroying Chicago, he or-
dered grasshoppers from Texas,
then placed the bugs atop still
photographs of the city’s down-
town landmarks. He used a simi-
lar approach for “Earth vs. the
Spider” (1958), employing a real
arachnid for some shots and
building a single, hairy prop leg
for sequences in which the giant
creature picks off members of
the cast.
At times he found it more
difficult to deal with actors than
monsters, as when he filmed
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GHI
EZ RE
“Empire of the Ants” (1977), in
which Joan Collins is chased
through a swamp by a swarm of
irradiated ants.
“She was not one of my most
cooperative stars,” he recalled,
adding in a 2003 interview with
Marty McKee that he resorted to
pushing the actress into a Flori-
da river to get her into the water
while shooting on location.
While preparing to shoot
“Necromancy” (1972), which
starred Welles as a mysterious
cult leader, Mr. Gordon was
warned by colleagues that his
leading man would be demand-
ing and uncooperative. Trying to
get on Welles’s good side, he
arranged for the actor to have a
special grill and refrigerator on
the set, filled with the star’s
favorite foods.
“I got ribs from Chicago,” he
recalled, “and I had a chef with a
hat. Honest to God. Really.” The
actor “was like a baby the rest of
the way,” he added. “No prob-
lems.”
Mr. Gordon also made more
realistic horror films like “Pic-
ture Mommy Dead” (1966),
which featured Don Ameche,
Martha Hyer and Gabor, and
ventured outside the genre with
movies like “The Magic Sword”
(1962), a fantasy adventure, and
“How to Succeed With Sex”
(1970), a raunchy comedy that
the Times called “an occasionally
pleasant dirty movie.”
The younger of two children,
Bert Ira Gordon was born in
Kenosha, Wis., on Sept. 24, 1922.
His parents ran a tavern and
then a health food store.
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When he was 9, his aunt gave
him a camera and he began
making home movies. He later
filmed football games and school
events while attending the Uni-
versity of Wisconsin at Madison,
and moved to St. Paul, Minn., to
make TV commercials and cor-
porate films.
“I woke up one morning and I
was shaving, and I said to myself,
‘You’re fooling yourself. You’re
not making movies. People make
movies in Hollywood,’ ” he re-
called in a 2010 interview with
the Madison Capital Times.
Against the advice of friends
and family, he moved to Califor-
nia and soon directed his first
Everett Collection film, about astronauts who travel
to another planet and battle
prehistoric animals, including a
dinosaur that was played on-
screen by an iguana. His follow-
ups included “The Cyclops”
(1957), which featured Gloria
Talbott, Lon Chaney Jr. and Dun-
can “Dean” Parkin as the disfig-
ured title character, and “Village
of the Giants” (1965), an H.G.
Wells adaptation with Howard
and Beau Bridges.
Mr. Gordon was aided on
many of his films by his first wife,
the former Flora Lang, a produc-
tion manager and special effects
technician. That marriage ended
in divorce, and in 1980 he
­married Eva Marklstorfer, with
whom he lived in Beverly Hills,
Calif.
She survives him, as do two
daughters from his first mar-
riage, Patricia and Carol Gordon;
a daughter from his second mar-
riage, Christina Gordon; six
grandchildren; and a number of
great-grandchildren. Another
daughter from his first marriage,
former child actress Susan Gor-
don Aviner, died in 2011.
Mr. Gordon was still working
in recent years, and released his
last film, “Secrets of a Psycho-
path,” the year he turned 93.
More than half a century into his
career, he said he was still
thrilled by the experience of
going into a movie theater and
waiting to see how the audience
would respond.
“If they’re supposed to scream
in fright, and the spider [is
sneaking up on its victim] and
you’re waiting, waiting, and the
sweat is building up, and all of a
sudden, it happens, and they
scream — that’s what it’s all
about,” he told McKee. “I love it.”
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sunday, march 12 , 2023 . the washington post
IN MEMORIAM
WOLFF
JOHN MILTIMORE WOLFF
FEBRUARY 9, 1945 – MARCH 10, 1973
John was born in New York and grew up
in Washington, DC. He attended Lafayette
Elementary School, Alice Deal Junior High
and Woodrow Wilson High School (now
called Jackson-Reed). I was born 4 years
and 4 months later. We were very close.
Yes, he teased me, but we also had great
times together, mostly outside because we
grew up in a quiet dark house. Our father
had sensitive eyes and sensitive ears. Our
mother built a sandbox and filled it with
construction dirt so that we could build forts
and stables and pretend we were fighters
or farmers. We had a wading pool and ulti-
mately learned to swim at the Crystal Pool
at Glen Echo. John went to Camp Waradaca
and I got to stay there a few times. When I
was in third grade at Lafayette my teacher
asked if I was John’s sister and then told me
that all the girls had a crush on him when he
was in her class. He was a hard act to fol-
low. Our sister Margaret/Maggie was born
toward the end of that school year and life
changed dramatically. I had been so excited
about the prospect of a sister, but then John
and I felt almost invisible. We had already
felt unheard, but now we also felt unseen.
Our parents were truly good people who
may have lacked the capacity to tune in, in
certain ways.
DEATH NOTICE
BROADBENT
PAUL WILLIAM BROADBENT
Paul William Broadbent of Arlington, VA
passed away peacefully on Tuesday, Febru-
ary 7, 2023, at the age of 81 of congestive
heart failure. He was born February 13,
1941, in Cleveland, Ohio and attended St.
Joseph’s High School. Upon completing his
enlistment in the U.S. Marine Corps (59-63),
he enrolled and graduated from John Car-
roll University with a BA degree in history/
philosophy (67). During his 35+ years as an
operations officer in the Central Intelligence
Agency (CIA), he took his family on wonder-
ful adventures around the world. Through
HARDING
REV. RONA R. HARDING
The Rev. Rona R. Harding died of natural
causes on February 28, 2022 in Charleston,
WV. Born in Cleveland, Ohio on November
9, 1948, she was the daughter of Talbot and
Cecilia Harding of Cleveland Heights. She
attended Muskingum College and gradu-
ated with Honors from the University of St
Andrew’s in Fife, Scotland earning a Master
of Theology in 1973. She returned to Ohio as
a campus minister at Cleveland State Uni-
versity and then moved to serve in campus
ministry at Miami University in Oxford, Ohio.
Following the Episcopal Church’s historic
vote to ordain women in 1977, Rona was or-
dained as one of the first women later that
year. In 1980, she moved to Boston Univer-
sity where she worked in campus ministry
for two years before becoming a Canon on
the staff at the Cathedral Church of St. Mark
in Minneapolis.
In 1988, she became the rector of The
Church of the Ascension in Lexington Park,
MD, where her ministry continued for the
next 21 years. While there, she helped build
and support a homeless men’s shelter, ac-
quired a house to shelter battered women
and their children, helped start programs
giving emergency financial support to needy
HERDMAN
ROGER C. HERDMAN
September 22, 1933 ~ January 15, 2023
Dr. Roger C. Herdman has died, leaving
a legacy of problem-solving on medical,
scientific and technological issues in a
decades-long career spent in academia,
state and federal government agen-
cies and non-profit research. He was 89.
Herdman was born in Newton, MA and
prepared at Phillips Exeter Academy. He re-
ceived undergraduate and medical degrees
at Yale University, and was elected to Phi
Beta Kappa in 1954. Following an internship
at the University of Minnesota and a stint
in the U.S. Navy, he returned to Minnesota
to complete a residency in pediatrics and
fellowships in immunology and nephrology.
Upon moving to New York, he taught pedi-
atrics at Albany Medical College, directed
the state Kidney Disease Institute and was
deputy commissioner of the state Health
Department for eight years. Subsequently,
as the state’s director of public health, he
oversaw the preparation of the dramatic re-
port “Love Canal: Public Health Time Bomb,”
which documented the causes of the trag-
edy of Love Canal and the responses to it.
Herdman served for four years as vice
president of the Memorial Sloan-Kettering
Cancer Center in New York City. In 1982,
he joined the Congressional Office of Tech-
nology Assessment (OTA) as assistant direc-
tor and became its director in 1992. OTA’s
mission was to provide Congress, at the
request of its committees, with non-ideo-
logical advice on policy issues involving
complex technical and scientific content. It
was, according to his wife, Ellen, the most
satisfying job of his professional career.
Herdman was OTA director when, in 1995,
Republican Speaker Newt Gingrich chose
it as the first agency to eliminate in what
came to be called “the Gingrich revolution.”
Herdman, a Republican but nonpolitical,
commented in his legendary understated
manner shortly before it closed that “There
are those who said the speaker didn’t want
an internal Congressional voice on science
and technology that might differ from his.”
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IN MEMORIAM
John began to study very hard and ulti-
mately went to Dartmouth. In the begin-
ning of his second semester, he had his
first breakdown and he was hospitalized
at Phipps Clinic in Baltimore. I was told that
my brother had a mental illness. I was sad
and scared. Would the same thing happen
to me? Over the next nine years there many
ups and downs, starts and stops, diagno-
ses and medications. John graduated from
George Washington University, but it didn’t
feel like much of an accomplishment to him
because it should have been Dartmouth or
Harvard.
On the morning of March 10th John was
found by the police wandering naked in
Rock Creek Park. The police took him home,
wrapped only in a blanket. At about 5:00
that afternoon he was seen by witnesses
running south on the Taft Bridge. He placed
both hands on the railing and fell 86 feet
to the ground below. This information was
reported by the Washington Post two days
later. We found out when the police came
to the house for the second time that day.
It was the worst of the worst and nothing
could be done. My body shook for days.
Who was to blame: no one or everyone? It
had been an accident waiting to happen for
a long time but was it really an accident?
It was purposeful and yet, if he didn’t even
know his own name, how purposeful could
he be?
The good news is that last month the DC
government gave $850,000 toward de-
signing and building suicide barriers on
the Taft Bridge. There have been too many
suicides off the Taft Bridge and each suicide
affects lots of people. Often those who are
stopped and given help do not go on to try
again. “Committing suicide”, as it used to be
called, was a crime at one point and even
later was made to sound like a purposeful,
malicious act. Death by suicide is so much
gentler. Sometimes those who attempt
suicide are acting impulsively and not fully
intentionally.
On the 50th anniversary of his death, I can
truly say that I will always remember my
brother as fun, outdoorsy, smart, compas-
sionate and handsome. Patricia Wolff Hart-
man, Rockville, MD.
DEATH NOTICE
these experiences he instilled in his family
an appreciation of different cultures; the val-
ue of life-long learning; and the importance
of making the most of life and creating ev-
erlasting memories. Upon retirement what
was most important to Paul was spending
time with his family; spoiling his grandchil-
dren; traveling the globe; and remaining in
regular contact with his high school class-
mates. He showed love and care for his
family and friends not only with words but
through his deeds and generosity. We will
always remember his intellect, integrity,
humor, charm, and love of God and country.
Paul is survived by his wife of 31 years,
Norah; his daughter Suzanne (Stan) Ledford
of Peach Tree City, Georgia, his son Jason
(Chelsa) of Newnan, Georgia, and his grand-
children Ashley, Bella, Julianna, William Paul,
Alexandria; nephews and niece Tom, Mary
Jane and Jon, and his former wife Carole. He
is preceded in death by his parents Florence
(Hawk) and Joseph; his brothers Richard and
Donald; and granddaughter Ella Broadbent.
Funeral services were held at DeJohn Funer-
al Home in South Euclid, Ohio on February
24. A funeral Mass was held on February
25, at Holy Rosary Church, Cleveland, Ohio.
Internment services immediately followed
at Lake View Cemetery. In lieu of flowers,
donations can be made to Villa Angela-St.
Joseph High School, 18491 Lakeshore Bou-
levard, Cleveland, Ohio 44119.
community members for medications, heat-
ing bills, and started a food pantry with oth-
er local churches.
Her stated goal in preaching was to give in-
sight to the word of God and to motivate the
listeners to live out their Christian calling.
She is also remembered by her parishioners
for comforting the sick.
Rona retired in 2009 but was soon back in
the pulpits of country parishes in Southern
Maryland and later as an interim minister at
St Mark’s Church in Durango, CO.
She studied Clinical Pastoral Education on
the West Coast and St. George College in
Jerusalem, worked with Mother Theresa in
India for two months, and studied at the In-
stitute of African Studies in Nairobi.
Her passion for the Gospel, learning, teach-
ing, and caring for the communities she
lived in was only matched by her empathy
for the people whom she met and served.
Rona is survived by brothers Martin Hard-
ing of Springfield, VA, Nicholas Harding of
Stratford, CT, and twin sister Fargo Harding
De Sanchez of Liberia, Costa Rica and their
respective families.
Private burial in Vincennes, IN at later date.
Following OTA’s closure, Herdman moved
to the National Academy of Sciences’ In-
stitute of Medicine (IOM). At IOM he served
as director of the National Cancer Policy
Board and National Cancer Policy Forum.
In those roles he oversaw the development
of numerous influential studies and reports
on cancer policy ranging from research
priorities to prevention and detection.
In addition, as director of the IOM’s Health
Care Services Board he oversaw many re-
ports on a wide range of topics, including
health care quality, Medicare payment,
pharmaceutical development, graduate
medical education, and medical procedure
evaluation. He personally led studies on
the safety of silicone breast implants, the
VA National Formulary, and organ trans-
plantation. According to Clyde Behney, a
colleague for nearly 40 years, many of the
reports had significant national impact
and resulted in important policy changes.
Behney said Herdman leaves behind hun-
dreds of colleagues whom he mentored.
“Even more impressive than his scientific
and public health accomplishments was the
type of person he was,” he said. “Despite his
achievements he remained a down-to-earth
friend of great humility.As a colleague he was
unmatched in compassion, caring, and will-
ingness to play whatever role was needed.
He was a tireless advocate and tremendous
resource for any friend or colleague who
developed cancer, going above and beyond,
researching, counseling, talking to their phy-
sicians, doing his utmost to get the best out-
comes possible under the circumstances.’’
“I’ve never met someone who combined
brilliance and impressive achievements
with empathy and caring as dramatically
and as consistently as he did,” Behney said.
“He was the best boss I ever had,” said Jill
Eden, who worked with Herdman at OTA
for nine years and at IOM for 17. “He was
straightforward and diplomatic and au-
thoritative and very supportive not only
career-wise but personally.” When she
learned that her 27-year-old son was suf-
fering from a gastrointestinal malady, “Rog-
er immediately got on the phone with his
Sloan-Kettering contacts, who arranged for
a consultation and surgery within days.”
“He never stopped being a doctor,”
said Hellen Gelband, another long-time
staff member at both OTA and IOM.
“In a sense, he carried that care-giv-
ing with him in all the work that he did.”
He and his wife Ellen Tifft Herdman had
four daughters, 10 grandchildren and one
great grandson. The daughters are Jennifer
Murrin (Jim), Granite Bay, CA; Lisa Nozari
(Farhad), Woodinville, WA; Prudence Har-
ris (Jeff), Kirkland, WA; and Betsey Herd-
man (David Goldstein), Stinson Beach,
CA. He is also survived by his sister, Kirk
Randol, Hartsdale, NY. Services private.
IN MEMORIAM
SIMPSON
JAMES G. SIMPSON SR.
September 21, 1922 - March 15, 2016
Gone but not forgotten, gone but ever
here. No longer living in this world,
but always and ever near. He was the
greatest gift God has given our family.
Your loving wife, Delois, children,
Cynthia, Joyce, James, Jr., Gail and
John, grandchildren, great-grandchil-
dren and great-great-grandchildren.
DEATH NOTICE
ALEXIOU
BETH L. ALEXIOU (Age 85)
Of Arlington, VA, passed peacefully with
family by her side Thursday, March 2, 2023.
She was 85. Loving mother of Gregory
Alexiou (aka Gig) and Philip Alexiou (Lori).
Also left to cherish her memory are her
nieces, nephews, cousins, all of her friends,
especially Anissa, Hicham, and their
daughter Zyna and everyone at The Belve-
dere condo. A visitation will be held at Jef-
ferson Funeral Chapel, 5755 Castlewellan
Dr., Alexandria, VA on Saturday, March 18,
2023 from 12 Noon until time of service at
1PM. The service will also be live streamed
at www.jeffersonfuneralchapel.com. In
lieu of flowers, please consider donations
in Beth’s name to St. Jude’s Hospital.
BOYLE
LTC FRANCIS JOSEPH BOYLE
USAF RET.
10/24/1938-4/5/2020
Inurnment Arlington National Cemetery on
March 13. Please arrive at 2:15 p.m.
BROWN
JUNE P. BROWN
On February 20, 2023, Holy
Reedemer Sodalists are noti-
fied of the death of our Sister.
Janet Rollins, Prefect
Rev. David A. Bava, Mod.
BUHNER
RAYMOND BUHNER
Raymond Buhner on March 5, 2023, died
at home. He served honorably in the USMC
and is survived by his beloved wife, Susan,
and three children, Karl (Linda), Keith, and
Deborah (William), and grandson, Andrew.
A private ceremony will be held. Please
make contributions to the American Heart
Association.
CHABOT
LEWIS A. CHABOT
Lewis A. Chabot of Gaithers-
burg, MD, passed away very
suddenly and most unex-
pectedly, from a brief illness,
on March 2, 2023. Lewis is
preceded in death by his
father, Herbert, and his feline companions,
Cricket, Sippy, and Sammy. He is survived
by his mother Aleen; brother Elliot (Chris),
identical twin brother Donald (Nicki), sister
Nancy (Parker); nephews Jules and Niko,
niece Sophie. Funeral service will be held
on Sunday, March 12, 2023, 10 a.m. at
Judean Chapel with interment to follow at
Judean Memorial Gardens, 16225 Batchel-
lors Forest Road, Olney, MD 20832. Shiva
will be held via Zoom for two evenings.
Donations may be made to Nature
Conservatory (www.nature.org), American
Red Cross (www.redcross.org) (you also
can give blood), and the National Multiple
Sclerosis Society of America (nationalms-
society.org).
www.SagelBloomfield.com
CRAWFORD
DELORES VIRGINIA CRAWFORD
On Sunday, February 26, 2023, Delores
peacefully transitioned. Beloved mother
of Renee Berkeley (William, Jr.), Ronald
Crawford (Brenda) and Robbin Crawford
(Georgia); loving grandmother to Cornelius,
William III, Jeremy, Vincent, Philip, Robbin
Jr., Chanee, James and John; great grand-
mother to 26, and dear sister to Angela
Taylor (Emerson), Justin Wyatt (Beatrice)
and James Wyatt, Jr. On Monday, March
13, 2023 visitation 10 a.m. until service 11
a.m. at the First Baptist Church of Highland
Park, 6801 Sheriff Rd., Landover, MD. In-
terment National Harmony Memorial Park
Condolences to
www.pridgenfuneralservice.com
DENHARD-OLSON
LAVINIA E. BETTY DENHARD-OLSON
Lavinia E. (Betty) Denhard-Olson of Silver
Spring, MD passed away on February 28,
2023. Beloved wife of the late Gilbert Mi-
chael Denhard; devoted mother of Michael
B. Denhard, Coleen Sanderson (spouse:
Terence), Dale Denhard (spouse: Gina) and
Bradley Denhard (spouse: Lucia); loving
grandmother of Candace, Courtney and
Bret Sanderson and Vittoria, Alessia and
Luca Denhard; and Aunt of Darlene Spara-
cino. At Hines-Rinaldi Friday, March 17: Vis-
itation at 10:30 a.m. and services at 12:30
p.m.; Burial to follow at Gate of Heaven
cemetery.
www.hinesrinaldifuneralhome.com
DUNN
EDWARD DELANO DUNN (Age 89)
Edward Delano Dunn “Edd” of Fairfax, Vir-
ginia passed away on February 27, 2023 at
INOVA Fairfax Hospital. Beloved husband
of Irma Jean Starkey. Devoted father of
Keith Dunn. Son of Robert Dunn and Hattie
Blevins. Brother of Opal Dunn, Betty Dunn,
Roland Dunn, Juanita Thompson, Catherine
Vannoy, Eileen Stewart, Rance Dunn, Wil-
ma Miller, Teen Buckley, Harold Dunn and
Dixie McCracken. He is also survived by
two grandchildren, Caleb Dunn (Danielle)
and Casey Dunn (Michelle-fiance). Services
will be held at Braddock Baptist Church,
6519 Braddock Rd., Alexandria, VA 22312
on March 13, 2023 at 11 a.m. Burial will be
at Arlington National Cemetery at a later
date.
EZ RE
DEATH NOTICE
FRYE
DONALD WARREN FRYE (Age 83)
On Tuesday, February 28,
2023, Donald Frye, of Silver
Spring, Maryland passed
away at the age of 83. Don, a
native Washingtonian, is sur-
vived by his wife of 47 years,
Mary Anne, with whom he shared a love of
dance as members of the D.C.
Hand Dance Club; one sister, Barbara Mun-
ro; and four nephews. He will be missed
by his many friends. Study in journalism
at the University of Maryland led Don to
a rewarding career in advertising, writing
and producing. Don was known as an avid
sailor, music lover and car enthusiast. For
many years he was an active member of
the Chesapeake Bay Yacht Racing Associa-
tion. He proudly served as the Commodore
of the Shearwater Sailing Association, was
co-founder of the Annapolis Good Old Boat
Regatta, and maintained membership in
the DC Blues Society and the Mustang Club
of Maryland. Don was particularly proud to
be an active member of the American Le-
gion Post 41 of Silver Spring and served as
its historian. Private burial. Donations may
be directed to the animal rescue league of
your choosing.
www.COLLINSFUNERALHOME.com
GOLDBERG
CAROL RUTH GOLDBERG
On March 9, 2023, Carol Gold-
berg of Bethesda, Maryland
died peacefully at home. Carol
is predeceased by her loving
husband of 63 years, Ger-
ald, her children Eric (Becca)
Goldberg and Lynn (Brian) Abrams, and her
grandchildren Lucy Goldberg, Gabriel Gold-
berg, Henry Goldberg, Orli Abrams, Talya
Abrams, and Adina Abrams.
Carol grew up in Hanover, Pennsylvania
and graduated from the University of Mary-
land in College Park. After graduation, Car-
ol travelled to Germany to join Jerry, who
had just started his career in the military,
and begin their life together. After three
years in Germany and a few stations at
military bases in the states, Carol and Jer-
ry founded a successful equipment rental
company in the DC area.
Carol’s passions included cooking, horses,
exercise, mahjong, and spending time with
family. Funeral Services will be held at
Beth Sholom Congregation, 11825 Seven
Locks Rd., Potomac, MD 20854 on Monday
March 13, at 2 p.m.
In lieu of flowers, kindly make donations to
Jewish Social Services Agency (jssa.org).
www.SagelBloomfield.com
HAIRSTON
MARK ANTHONY HAIRSTON
Peacefully passed away on Monday, Feb-
ruary 27, 2023. He leaves to cherish his
memory, a devoted mother Lessie G. Hair-
ston, a devoted uncle and aunt William
and Charlotte Engram, a devoted cousin
Michael Engram, and a host of family and
friends. Visitation on Monday, March 13,
2023 at Peace Baptist Church, 712 18th
St. N.E., Washington, DC from 10 a.m. until
time of service at 11 a.m. Interment Wash-
ington National Cemetery, Suitland, MD.
Send condolences to
www.marshallmarchfh.com
HUDSON
DARYL JACK HUDSON III
10/17/1952 ~ 2/2/2023
Passed away after a short battle with pan-
creatic cancer. He practiced law in the DC
area for many years, and was an active
member of St. Alban’s Episcopal Church.
Music was his greatest passion in life. Me-
morial Service will be private.
ISRAEL
DIANE JEAN ISRAEL
Diane Jean Israel, 83 of Candler, NC passed
away on February 10, 2023. She was born
on April 26, 1939 in Wichita, KS to the late
Eugene and Billie Jean Rutledge Elgin. She
was also preceded in death by Yvonne and
Del Dietrich (aunt and spouse), Bill France
(stepbrother), and Said Haddad (second
Husband). Surviving to cherish her memory
is her son, Tomas Charles Miller (Sharon);
daughter, Wendy Jean Boiles (Scott); Sister,
Debbie Grondin (Roger, four children); and
Diane Towne (Lee, two children). A celebra-
tion of her life will be announced. To read
about Diane’s life, offer online condolenc-
es, or donate in her memory, please visit
https://mtnviewcremation.com/obituar-
ies/diane-jean-israel/
DEATH NOTICE
IRWIN
MADGE WYATT IRWIN
Madge Wyatt Irwin, age 94, passed away on
February 24, 2023 at her home in Sparta,
NC. Madge lived an incredibly rich life with
laughter, kindness and an unmatchable wit.
Madge (or “Meme” as she was known to
her grandchildren and others) was born in
1928 in Alleghany County, NC to the late
Glenn Wyatt and Sally Coffey Wyatt. Her first
years were spent living on the family farm
and having fun with her beloved sister Ma-
bel. Madge was married to Dr. Wade Irwin
who predeceased her. Madge’s children
are Bobby Irwin, Kellye Betancourt, and
Jill Mattocks. Madge’s grandchildren and
great-grandchildren are numerous.
After finishing high school in Sparta, Madge
moved to Georgetown where her husband,
Wade, was a student and then eventual
Professor and Dean at Georgetown’s Dental
School. Madge then moved with her family
to Bethesda, MD.
Madge’s life in the Washington area includ-
ed wonderful friendships with people from
around the country and the world, putting
on estate sales, and even helping run the
Van Ness bookshop on Connecticut Avenue.
KAIBNI
SAMIR MICHAEL KAIBNI
It is with great sorrow that we announce the
passing of Samir Michael Kaibni on Thurs-
day, March 9, 2023.
He was born in Ramallah, Palestine on Jan-
uary 10, 1941 to Michael Kaibni and Katrina
Totah.
Samir arrived in the U.S. in 1967, where he
worked at the World Bank for twenty years
and then as a Conference Interpreter for the
MONTGOMERY
ALFRED WILDER MONTGOMERY
Alfred Wilder Montgomery passed peace-
fully on February 22, 2023, in his home in
Washington, DC. A native Washingtonian,
Alfred was born on August 4, 1953, to Thel-
ma Johnson Montgomery and James Henry
Montgomery, who predeceased him. He
graduated from the Tuskegee University
School of Veterinary Medicine in 1982 and
was a decidcated public servant, spending
decades in regulatory veterinary medicine
at the U.S Department of Agrilculture and
the U.S Food and Drug Administration. He
served in the U.S Army Veterinary Corps (Re-
serves), deploying within the Operation Des-
ert Storm, and was a retired Commander for
WESTWATER
NELLIE KATHRYN WESTWATER
(Age 94)
It is with great sadness that our family
announces the death of our dear mother,
grandmother and friend, Nellie Kathryn
Westwater, of McLean, VA and Fenwick Is-
land, DE, on February 20, 2023. Nellie was
born in Monson, MA on March 7, 1928 to
Elizabeth (née Sudol) and Andrew Kwasnik,
immigrants from Poland. She graduated
from University of Massachusetts Amherst
and earned an MA at Wayne State Univer-
sity, with additional graduate studies at
Mount Holyoke College. Nellie married Joe
Westwater in 1954 and raised five children,
modeling for them the importance of fun,
hard work and knowledge. A natural ath-
lete, Nellie loved basketball, golf, and tennis.
Later in life she became a geriatric nurse
after graduating from NOVA.
A child of the Great Depression, Nellie com-
bined her deep faith with a commitment to
WHOLEY
MARGARET “MIDGE” WHOLEY
Margaret Smith Wholey died peacefully in
her sleep on March 4, 2023 after a long ill-
ness.
Born in Westchester County, NY, to Edith
McGuire of Canada and Joseph V. Smith of
Ireland, Midge was raised in Greenwich,
Connecticut. She received her BS in nursing
from Catholic University in 1956, where she
met her future husband, Joseph S. Wholey
of Stillwater, RI. Midge and Joe had five chil-
dren, Megan, Jane, Kathleen “Kate” (died in
2003), Skef, and Sarah. She served as a pub-
lic health nurse in Boston for a year, ending
with the birth of her first child. The couple
moved to Arlington, Virginia, in 1962.
Midge was very active in the local commu-
nity and volunteered on behalf of many local
Independent and Democratic candidates,
including her husband’s races for Arlington
county board. She worked for the national
Civil Rights movement and social justice by
boycotting grapes, housing Vietnam protest-
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C9
DEATH NOTICE
Madge’s annual Christmas morning “North
Carolina breakfast” at her Bethesda home
was a particularly fun experience for all who
attended.
Madge eventually returned to her native
Sparta, where she enjoyed spending time
with friends, old and new, and her family.
Madge loved reading, a good glass of cham-
pagne or two (with a nibble of brie), and
entertaining guests with old stories and her
gift of repartee. She loved animals, especial-
ly her faithful canine companion, Percy.
Madge’s passing is felt deeply among her
family and friends but our memories of her
will always remain.
In lieu of flowers, please consider a gift to
the Dr. Wade Irwin Scholarship Fund at the
Alleghany Education Foundation, or the Al-
leghany County NC Library.
A Celebration of Life will be held at 2 p.m.
on Saturday April 29, 2023 in Sparta, NC at
a location to be determined. Thomas Fam-
ily Funeral Service is assisting the family
in making the Celebration of Life arrange-
ments. Please call or text 202-315- 8113 for
further information.
U.S. Department of State and other Interna-
tional organizations.
He is survived by his wife Eva Schirokauer
Kaibni and by his children: Residing in Swe-
den Ulrika Engman (Goram), Joanna Michie
(Jacob); Residing in the U.S.: Tijan Kaibni
Brown (Matt), Adham Kaibni, Maysoon Kaib-
ni Sprowls (Ryan), and by seven grandchil-
dren and three great-grandchildren. He is
also survived by his siblings residing in the
U.S.: Nihad Kaibni and Naheda Kaibni. His
daughter Katrina Sundgren (Olle) prede-
ceased him.
Family and friends will be received at PUM-
PHREY’S BETHESDA-CHEVY CHASE FUNER-
AL HOME, 7557 Wisconsin Ave., Bethesda,
MD 20814 on Tuesday, March 14, 2023 from
5 to 7 p.m. Mass of Christian Burial will be
offered at St. Raphael’s Catholic Church,
1513 Dunster Road, Rockville, MD 20854
on Wednesday, March 15 at 11 a.m. Inter-
ment Gate of Heaven Cemetery. In lieu of
flowers, donations can be made to Ramallah
Friends School. Please enter “Friends Unit-
ed Meeting” on the “to” line of your check,
and in the memo section, indicate that the
gift should be given to Ramallah Friends
School, in memory of Samir Kaibni. Checks
can be mailed to Friends United Meeting,
101 Quaker Hill Drive, Richmond, IN 47374.
the U.S Public Health Service.
He is survived by hs loving wife Cecily E.
Collier-Montgomery, adoring children Mea-
gan, Cecily (Reza), Alexina, and Yasiman;
cherished grandchildren Landon, Zoe, Jacey,
and Wilder, and a host of extended family
and friends. Funeral services will be held on
Saturday, March 18, 2023, at 11 a.m. at the
Dunbarton Chapel, Howard University Law
School, 2900 Van Ness St. N.W, Washington,
DC, with visitation beginning at 10 a.m. In
lieu of flowers, the family requests that con-
tributions be made to the Dr. Alfred Mont-
gomery Endowed Scholarship Fund, created
at Tuskegee University to support students
at the college of Veterinary Medicine. If in-
terested in supporting this scholarship in
Alfred’s name, please use the information
below:
Please make checks payable to Tuskegee
University. C/O Dr. Alfred Montogomery En-
dowed Scholarship Fund, memo code: Al
Montgomery DVM
For Credit Card payments, please go to:
https://www.tuskegee.edu/support-tu/give.
Name of account: Dr. Alfred Montgomery
Endowed Scholarship Fund
You can contact Wakenia Spinks, Gifts Ac-
countant at the Office of Advancement for
further questions and details on giving at,
wspinks2@tuskegee.edu
www.mcguire-services.com
social justice. She was a longtime parishio-
ner of St. Luke’s Catholic Church and, with
her keen mind and great heart, worked
throughout her life to support organizations
that lifted people out of poverty. Nellie was
a quiet doer: registering people to vote, de-
livering food for Meals on Wheels, collecting
clothing for the Quixote Center. She also
stood up for her beliefs, joining countless
DC demonstrations, from the March on
Washington in 1963 to the Women’s March
in 2017 when she was 87 years old.
Nellie loved nothing more than bringing her
family together for reunions at her beach
cottage in Fenwick Island, DE, where she
never hired a repair person before trying
to fix the problem herself. She supported
her husband, family and friends with love,
steadiness, and frequent chocolate cakes.
Her shining heart, good cheer and intelli-
gence will be forever missed by those who
knew and loved her.
Nellie was the beloved wife of the late Jo-
seph James Westwater, Sr.; loving mother
of the late Joseph Westwater Jr. (Virgin-
ia Kraus), St. Paul, MN; Joann Westwater
(George Schneider), La Farge, WI; Jennifer
Bellwoar (Andy), Chester Springs, PA; Kath-
ryn Westwater (Seungjae Lee), New York,
NY; and Patricia Westwater (Robert Chap-
man), Washington, DC. She is also survived
by seven grandchildren whom she loved
deeply: Andrew, Nathan, Emily, Maggie,
Charlotte, Chloe and Ian. Nellie’s ashes will
be interred with her husband’s at Arlington
National Cemetery.
Nellie requested that no funeral or memorial
service be held. Should you care to make a
donation on her behalf we suggest support-
ing the Maria Droste Counseling Services of
Quincy, MA. https://mariadrostecounseling.
com/give-back/
ers, and picketing Arlington Hospital against
segregation. She sought a vibrant faith
community including participation in the
Catholic Interracial Council, Christian Fam-
ily Movement, Nova Catholic Community,
Cursillo, and the Ignatian Volunteer Corps,
and was a parishioner for decades at Our
Lady Queen of Peace.
Midge worked as a registered nurse for
many years in the office of Dr. Charles Sche-
hl, Sibley Hospital and medical director of
Community of Hope, a charitable health
care provider in Washington, DC. A lifetime
learner, Midge earned her MS in nursing in
1987, again from Catholic University.
Midge and Joe were among four couples
who founded the not-for-profit Arlington
Partnership for Affordable Housing (APAH)
in 1993, which now comprises over 2300
affordable rental units with another 400 un-
der construction. In retirement, Midge pro-
duced and acted in a video on how to care
loved ones at home, with her good friend
Gen Timpane.
Midge will be sorely missed by many. She
is survived by her loving husband of 66
years, Joe, her sister and brother-in-law
Edith “Tuty” and Bob Lockhart of San Fran-
cisco, her children, Megan, Jane, Skef and
Sarah, her sons- and daughter-in-law Rich
Tepel, Brian Cubbage, Hilary Donovan, and
her grandchildren Kristen Devine, Jessica
Schipp, Maggie Schipp, Elias Cubbage, Erin
Wholey, and Bridget Wholey.
A wake will be held Friday, March 17, from 3
to 5 p.m. at Murphy Funeral Home in Arling-
ton, VA. The Funeral Mass will be held at Our
Lady Queen of Peace Catholic Church, also
in Arlington, at 11 a.m. Saturday, March 18.
In lieu of flowers the family suggests dona-
tions to APAH, Doctors without Borders, or
Community of Hope.
www.murphyfuneralhomes.com
C10
DEATH NOTICE
JACKSON
RALPH E. JACKSON
Ralph E. Jackson of Washington, DC peace-
fully departed this life at his residence on
February 26, 2023. Ralph was the first child
born to the late George E. and the late Ro-
setta A. Jackson. He was a lifelong resident
of DC and especially loved his neighbor-
hood in S.E. DC. Ralph is survived by his
children, Jeanette Jackson, Ralph (Helen)
Jackson, Eric Jackson, Louis Jackson, and
Robert Jackson. He is also survived by five
grandchildren, two great-grandchildren,
two brothers, three sisters, nieces, neph-
ews, cousins, other relatives, and friends.
The family will receive friends on Friday,
March 17, 2023, from 10 a.m. until the time
of service at 11 a.m. at Allen Chapel AME
Church, 2498 Alabama Avenue, SE, Wash-
ington, DC. Interment at Lincoln Cemetery,
in Suitland MD.
www.marshallmarchfh.com
JEFFERSON
JOSHUA LEE JEFFERSON JR.
“Jeff” (Age 82)
On Sunday, March 5, 2023, quietly entered
into eternal rest. Husband of Gloria, father
of Monica and Monique (Greg), stepfather
of David and Kim. Also surviving are a host
of other relatives and friends. Viewing: 9
a.m. Service: 11 a.m., Wednesday, March
15, Trinidad Baptist Church, 6611 Walk-
er Mill Road, Capitol Heights, MD 20743.
Interment Maryland Veterans Cemetery,
date to be determined.
www.thorntonfuneralhomepa.com
LANCASTER
GREGORY THOMAS LANCASTER SR.
“Greg” (Age 61)
On Thursday, March 2, 2023 of Bryans
Road, Maryland. Survived by his children,
mother and other loving family. Viewing:
9 a.m., Service: 11 a.m., Friday, March 17,
Pleasant Grove Missionary Baptist Church,
5560 Pleasant Grove Road, Marbury, Mary-
land 20658. Interment Church Cemetery.
LAPP
LINDA GUENTHER LAPP (Age 84)
Beloved wife, mother, and grandmother,
Linda Guenther Lapp, passed away Febru-
ary 28, 2023, in Woodbridge, VA. Mrs. Lapp
was preceded in death by her parents and
husband, Ernest Lapp, Jr. She is survived
by her daughter Jennifer (Ken) Rosenfeld,
son David (Kari) Lapp, her three grandchil-
dren, her sister Marsha (Joe) Menke, and
many nieces and nephews. A funeral Mass
is scheduled March 16, 2023, 11 a.m. at St.
John Neumann Catholic Church, Reston,
VA. An interment will take place March 17,
2023, 1 p.m. at St. George Catholic Ceme-
tery in Scottsville, VA.
MEEHAN
PAULINE MEEHAN
Pauline Meehan of Arlington, VA passed
away on March 6, 2023. Beloved wife of
the late James Meehan she leaves behind
daughters Catherine Goldschmidt (Larry)
and Mary Meehan (Norm Jacob), grand-
children Laura Cambridge (Bob) and Peter
Goldschmidt, and great grandchildren Matt
and James. She was active in her retire-
ment with Shillelagh Travel Club and Mt.
Olivet UMC. The family will receive friends
from 2 to 4 p.m. Sunday, March 12, at
Murphy Funeral Home, 4510 Wilson Blvd.
Arlington, VA. A memorial service will be
held 11 a.m. Monday, March 13, at Mt. Oliv-
et United Methodist Church, 1500 N. Glebe
Rd. Arlington, VA.
www.murphyfuneralhomes.com
NELSON
DARRELL E. NELSON
Darrell E. Nelson passed away peacefully
at home in Lanham, MD on February 21,
2023. Mr. Nelson was born in Chalk Hill,
PA in 1939 to Robert and Leila Nelson. He
graduated with honors from Brownsville
High School in 1958, and by the end of the
year had enlisted in the Army. He worked
in aircraft maintenance for three years.
After his discharge he met a local Pennsyl-
vania girl, Kay Sullivan. They married a year
later and welcomed their daughter Crystal
in 1964. Mr. Nelson worked as a machinist
for various DC area factories and retired
from The Washington Post after 28 years.
He is well known among his friends and
family for his ability to fix anything and his
love of fast cars and motorcycles. He espe-
cially loved traveling to motorcycle races in
his motor home. He was preceded in death
by Kay and his sister Elizabeth Levin (David)
and sister in law Barbara. He is survived
by his daughter Crystal and his brothers
Robert and Dale (Linda), and many nieces
and nephews. The family wants to express
their gratitude to Adrian Bendermeyer for
her companionship in his final years. The
funeral was held on March 11 at Chambers
Funeral Home in Riverdale, MD.
SLAVIN
THOMAS ANTHONY SLAVIN
(Age 103)
On Tuesday, March 7, 2023, of
Silver Spring, MD. Beloved hus-
band of Grace M. Slavin; father
of Michael Slavin (Terri) and
Robert Slavin. Also survived
by four grandchildren and six
great-grandchildren. Relatives and friends
may call at Collins Funeral Home, 500 Uni-
versity Boulevard West, Silver Spring, MD,
(Valet Parking), Thursday, March 16, 2023,
from 3 to 5 p.m. Mass of Christian Burial
at St. John the Evangelist Church, 10103
Georgia Avenue, Silver Spring, MD, on Fri-
day, March 17, 2023 at 11 a.m. Entomb-
ment Gate of Heaven Cemetery. Memorial
contributions may be made to St. John the
Evangelist Church, C/O Endowment Fund,
10103 Georgia Avenue, Silver Spring, MD
20902
www.COLLINSFUNERALHOME.com
HAMLIN
JEFFREY MICHAEL HAMLIN
Jeffrey Michael Hamlin passed away sud-
denly on February 23, 2023 at the age of 70.
Jeff is survived by Betsy, his beloved wife of
30 years, his loving children, Jake (24) and
Laura (27) and his future son-in-law, Aus-
tin Lutz. He is also survived by countless
friends and his many family members.
Jeff was born August 23, 1952 in Woodbury,
New Jersey. He graduated Phi Gamma Mu
and Summa Cum Laude from James Madi-
son University, majoring in Political Science.
DEATH NOTICE
TAYLOR
ERICA NANCY TAYLOR (Age 70)
Erica Nancy Taylor went home on Friday,
March, 3, 2023. She leaves behind her
daughter Meredith Ergun and son-in-law
Kaan, her loving sister Robin Taylor Web-
ster and nephew Jesse Taylor. Erica was
born and raised in Washington, DC, a proud
graduate of Coolidge High School and
Howard University. She spent her life mak-
ing wonderful friendships with classmates,
co-workers, neighbors, church members,
and family members.
Service will be held on Wednesday, March
15, 2023 (Viewing 10 a.m. Service 11 a.m.)
at Peoples Congregational United Church
of Christ, 4704 13th St NW, Washington, DC
20011. Interment private.
Arrangements by McGuire
www.mcguire-services.com
VAN VLEET
SHIRLEY S. VAN VLEET
Shirley “Graka” Van Vleet of Fairfax, Virginia
passed away January 31, 2023. Daughter of
the late Maxwell and Edith Sherwood. Wife
of Darryl Van Vleet. Shirley will be remem-
bered for her love and devotion to family.
Pianist, chef, author, historian, genealogist,
and perfect mother. A woman who filled a
spot in the hearts of so many. We love you,
Graka. Shirley is preceded in death by her
husband Darryl and her brother Cullen. She
is survived by her sister Rebecca and her
children: Joseph, Edith, David, Mary, Anna,
Amy and John. Grandchildren: Nathan,
Amanda, Diana, Sarah, Maxwell, Savan-
nah, Samuel, Killian, Sophia, Jack, and Paul.
Great- Grandchildren: Ava, Aliza, Jay Brad-
ley, Kennedy, Nolan, Colton, Monroe, Aali-
yah, and Mikah. All your children, by blood
or by love, will greatly miss you. Celebra-
tion of Shirley’s life will be at a future date.
Services will be private. There was always
a place at her table for anyone that was
hungry. The family asks in remembrance of
Shirley that you donate to your local food
pantry. Arrangements are being handled by
Enders & Shirley Funeral Home, Berryville,
VA. To view the obituary and send condo-
lences online, please visit
www.endersandshirley.com
WAGNER
IRENE CARRIE WAGNER
Died on February 24, 2023 after a brief
illness. Born on October 10, 1943, Dodge
City, Kansas.
Life In brief: K-12 Huntington, NY; BA ‘65
Oneonta; MS ‘68 Syracuse; Math Teacher;
IT at JPL; 20 years at IBM; planning/man-
agement/facilitation consultant.
Awarded “Business Volunteer of the Year”
in 2005 from Cultural Alliance of Greater
Washington, DC. Founder/Board Member
Washington Area Performing Arts Video
Archive (WAPAVA) to preserve live theater.
Irene was mentor and inspiration to the
many people whose paths she crossed. In
lieu of a funeral, a celebration of her life
will be held. Survived by sister, Edrie Cote,
of New York. Donations may be made to
WAPAVA, https://www.wapava.org/
IN MEMORIAM
JACKSON
GRACE BRANCHE JACKSON
In Loving Memory
February 19, 1931 – March 10, 2003
Twenty years have come and gone,
but not a day has gone by with-
out us missing your precious love
We cherished the memories of you as a wife,
mother, sister, aunt, daughter and friend
Your royal and regal presence, com-
bined with your style, strength and grace
Made you a remarkable woman
who possessed tremendous faith.
Lovingly Your Family!
Your Husband – Sidney Jackson, Jr.
Your Daughters- Dr. Gwendolyn J. Mason &
Regina Renee Jackson
Your Grandsons – Gerald H. Mason Jr., &
Jared Christopher Mason
DEATH NOTICE
He bled purple his whole life. After gradu-
ation he had a long and successful career
as Cyber Security Director of Sales in the
Federal Agency Market.
Jeff’s life was filled with the joys of a life well
lived. He loved to make people laugh with
his numerous jokes and “true stories”. He
enjoyed traveling around the world with his
family, driving his sports cars, and exploring
his roots on ancestry.com. He loved to play
with Bandit the Wonder Dog (their family pet
of 13 years) and he taught himself to play
the guitar during Covid. He was so proud
of his children and loved to spend time with
them (especially for tech advice!)
Jeff was best known for being an honest,
compassionate, protective and extraordi-
nary husband, father and friend.
In lieu of flowers : SHE BELIEVES IN ME
https://shebelievesinme.org/donate/
Or the Jeff and Betsy Hamlin Scholarship En-
dowment in Political Science, Fund #25469.
Send to JMU Foundation Inc, Foundation
Hall, MSC 8501 1031 Harrison St., Harrison-
burg, VA 22807.
For more information regarding his ser-
vice please contact Floris United Meth-
odist Church at https://urldefense.com/
v3/__http://www.florisumc.org__;!!M9L-
bjjnYNg9jBDflsQ!Fuu2pFsLgXBWrLT-0AIbb-
nL-4QKu68RM9NCBvLSfL49mn3gImmt8bB-
FZJIjC-QNTJpME2ONRlCcwta_dgnvZgxbH$
EZ RE
DEATH NOTICE
ABELMANN
MAUD ABELMANN
July 19, 1930 - December 13, 2022
Family forever misses and loves her,
daughter Juanita Andrea, son Stefan and
wife Heather, grandsons Matthew, John
and wife July, and Kevin. She was a caring
and loving daughter, wife, mother, Oma
and friend. Always concerned for others,
a phenomenal home maker and well re-
spected men’s furnishings sales advisor
during her 32 years in retail. Inurnment
was private.
BLOUNT
LETHA MAE BLOUNT
Entered into eternal rest on Sunday, Feb-
ruary 26, 2023. She is survived by her
five grandchildren: Ayman Blount, Angela
(Blount) Valentine, Glenda Gaither, Aretha
Pryor, Marie Overton; and a host of family
members, faithful friends and the commu-
nity-at-large which she dearly loved. Mrs.
Blount will lie in state at New Bethel Bap-
tist Church, 1739-9th St., NW on Thursday,
March 16 from 9:30 a.m. until service at 11
a.m. Interment at Elmwood Cemetery in
Goldsboro, NC at a later date.
www.stewartfuneralhome.com
BROWN
JUNE PLATER BROWN
June Plater Brown passed on February 20,
2023. She is survived by daughter-in-law
Mica Swanson of Gulfport, Mississippi,
step-daughter Karen Brown and a host
of other relatives and friends. 9:30 a.m.
Viewing until 10:30 a.m. Mass of Christian
Burial, Tuesday, March 14 at Holy Redeem-
er Catholic Church, 206 New York Avenue
NW, Washington, DC 20001. Interment Mt
Olivet Cemetery. In lieu of flowers dona-
tions can be made to St. Anns Center for
Children Youth and Families 4901 Eastern
Avenue, Hyattsville, MD 20782. Arrange-
ments by Robinson Funeral Home, Inc.
BULLA
PATRICIA R. BULLA
Patricia R Bulla (Rossomondo), age 87,
died peacefully in her sleep on March 5,
2023. She was born in Hackensack, New
Jersey on March 16, 1935. Patricia grew
up and attended school in the district. She
married John Bulla in June, 1959, and had
three sons. Although she worked a variety
of jobs, she discovered in her mid 50s her
true calling as a realtor, mostly at Long &
Foster in College Park. Very much a ‘people
person’, she loved working with her clients
(many with whom she made long-term
friendships) to find them a home. She is
survived by her husband, John, her three
sons; Daniel, Gregory, and Christopher, her
sister Judy Doucette, and her granddaugh-
ter Jamie. Services are private.
HO
CLAUDINE L. HO (Age 83)
Claudine L. Ho, formerly of Silver Spring,
MD, passed away on March 5, 2023.
She was born in Chongqing, China, on
November 18, 1939. Claudine received a
BA in French Literature from the George
Washington University in 1963. She was
married to Dr. Louis T Ho.
Most notably, Claudine founded the Mei-
Hwa Chinese School in 1974, the first
school of its kind in the DC metro area
where Chinese American children could
learn the language and culture of their
heritage. She was also involved in the Or-
ganization of Chinese American Women,
and the American Association of University
Women.
Claudine is survived by her husband Lou-
is, children Charlton and his wife Agnes,
Denise and her husband Werner, grand-
children Bryan and his wife Tran, Rebec-
ca, Rachel, Miya, and great-grandchildren
Madelynn and Maverick.
A private service will be held. Sentiments
can be left on Claudine’s page found on the
Hines-Rinaldi website.
DEATH NOTICE
JORDAN
SILAS LEVANNE JORDAN (Age 84)
Silas LeVanne Jordan passed away peace-
fully at his home in Forestville, Maryland
on Friday, March 3, 2023. Silas was born
March 10, 1938, to General W. and D. Re-
becca (Monroe) Jordan in Esmont, Virginia,
the ninth of twelve children. He is survived
by his wife, Geneva; daughters Tuajuan-
da (Eric) and Felecia; sons Thaddeus and
Barry (Laurita); three grandchildren; five
great-grandchildren; a sister, Dorothy Har-
ris; and numerous nieces and nephews. On
March 13, 2023, a viewing beginning at 10
a.m. and immediately followed by a service
at 11 a.m. at St. John Baptist Church, 5228
Call Pl., SE, Washington, DC.
www.marchfh.com
RIDDICK
LESLIE RENEE RIDDICK
(Age 68)
In the calmness of the early morning, on
Friday, March 3, 2023, Leslie Renee Riddick
passed away peacefully, in her home, af-
ter a courageous battle with cancer and
chronic kidney disease. Leslie’s memory
will be treasured by her lifelong love and
spouse of 40 years, Sandra Hinton; her
adoring mother, Sarah (Autry) Riddick; a
loving sister, El-Lisa Taylor (Charles) and
a brother, Dwight Riddick. Leslie was
preceded in death by her father George
Riddick; siblings, Janice Riddick-Musgrove,
George Riddick III, Kevin and Eric Riddick.
She leaves to cherish her beautiful memo-
ry a host of family (by blood and love) and
many friends. A celebration of her incred-
itbble life and the interment at Arlington
National Cemetery will both be sched-
uled, in the near future. In lieu of flowers,
donaions in Leslie’s honor can be made
to National Association of Black Military
Women (NABMW).
SANES
ELLIE SANES
(1941-2023)
Departed this life on Saturday, February
25, 2023. Ellie is survived by his six chil-
dren, two brothers, four sisters along with
a host of grand and great-grandchildren.
Homegoing services will be held March
14, at Ebenezer AME Church 10 to 11 a.m.
viewing, service to follow. Interment is on
Monday, March 27, 2023 at Cheltenham
Veterans Cemetery.
MICHAEL BURKE
May 8, 1949 - March 5, 2023
Michael McGuirk Burke, lifelong Kansas
Citian, attorney, and civic leader passed
away on Sunday, March 5, 2023 at the age of
73. He was born May 8, 1949, in Kansas City,
Missouri, to James E. and Jeanne McGuirk
Burke. He grew up in the Crestwood neigh-
borhood and attended St. Francis Xavier
Grade School. He graduated from Rockhurst
High School, with honors, in 1967. He was ac-
tive in speech, debate, theater, and student
council.
He attended Georgetown University and
earned his AB in History in only three years.
Mike entered Georgetown Law Center where
he earned his Juris Doctor degree in 1973. He
was particularly interested in international
law and served as Research Editor and Ed-
itorial Board Member of Law and Policy in
International Business, the international law
journal of Georgetown.
Following graduation, Mike returned to Kan-
sas City to practice law with his father, the
late James E. Burke. It was at the law firm
that he met Melinda Stoeger, the love of his
life. They were married in November of 1974
at St. Therese Catholic Church in Parkville,
Missouri. This last year Mike and Melinda cel-
ebrated 48 years of marriage.
Mr. Burke pursued his interest in real estate
law and in 1978 negotiated what was then
the largest sale of development ground in
Kansas City history, conveying three thou-
sand acres of land in Clay County to a sub-
sidiary of the Mormon Church.
Mike was always balancing his legal career
with his civic and community interest and
love of his native city. A dedicated Northland-
er, Mike became alarmed at the number of
fatal accidents on Barry Road, then a narrow
two-lane road with one-lane bridges. Burke
formed a coalition of neighborhood and busi-
ness groups to campaign for Barry Road im-
provements. The campaign was successful in
developing the main east west corridor in the
Northland.
Mike was active in numerous civic endeav-
ors. He served as President of the Platte
County Business and Professional Associa-
tion, a predecessor to the Northland Cham-
ber of Commerce. Mike was a founding
member and President of the Platte County
the washington post
DEATH NOTICE
THOMAS
GREGORY L. ATTY THOMAS
Beloved father Morgan Thomas passed
away on March 3, 2023. Funeral services
Wed. March 15, 2023 11 a.m. at the EF-
Boyd & Son Funeral Home, 25900 Emery
Rd., Warrensville Heights., OH 44122 where
family will receive friends at 10:30 a.m.
IN MEMORIAM
STRASBURGER
FRANK W. STRASBURGER
June 9, 1924 - March 13, 2022
In loving memory of a kind and honorable man. Dad, you are forever loved by your family,
and fondly remembered by all those who knew you.
Love always, Your devoted family
DEATH NOTICE
BANKS
JOELLEN BANKS
JoEllen Banks passed peacefully on Febru-
ary 17, 2023 at home in McLean, VA with the
love of her life, high school sweetheart, and
husband of 69 years, Ronald Banks by her
side. JoEllen is survived by Ron, her three
loving sons, Jim Banks, John Banks and Bob
Banks, daughters-in-law Lori Banks and
Lisa Banks, eight grand children, and two
great-grandchildren. She was 89.
Born on May 11, 1933 in New York City, JoEl-
len lived her entire life guided by kindness,
compassion and grace. After graduating
from Ohio University with a degree in Edu-
cation, JoEllen taught junior high school in
Atlantic City, NJ where she was newly mar-
ried to Ron, then serving in the U.S. Navy at
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DEATH NOTICE
BURKE
Industrial Development Commission and
President of the Industrial Development Au-
thority. Mike was selected as Platte County
Citizen of the Year in 1981. Mike also served
as board member or director of the follow-
ing organizations: Northland Chamber of
Commerce, Kansas City Community Video
Advisory Board, Planned Industrial Expan-
sion Authority of Kansas City, Regional Ur-
ban Design Implementation Committee, the
International Trade Club, the Mid-Continent
Public Library, the Georgetown Alumni As-
sociation of Kansas City (President), Jackson
County Rate Shock Task Force, Metropolitan
Area Naturalization Council, Platte County
Sheltered Facilities Board, Park Plaza Homes
Association (President), Heart of America
Friends of Scouting, Kansas City Corporation
for National Conventions, Citizens Advisory
Committee on Noise Control, Saint Therese
Church Parish Council, Synergy Services,
Northland Genealogy Society (founding
member), Native Sons and Daughters of Kan-
sas City, Jackson County Historical Society ,
Northland Battered Persons Association (lat-
er named Safehaven and Synergy), Park Hill
School District Planning Advisory Committee,
Greater Kansas City Chamber of Commerce,
Mid America Regional Council Bi-State Fund-
ing Task Force, Kansas City Community In-
frastructure Committee, Economic Develop-
ment Corporation (EDC), the National Civic
League (Denver CO), Our Lady of Sorrows
Parish Council (President) and the Centuri-
ons Leadership Program.
Mike’s broad civic interests led him to run
successfully for Kansas City 1st District City
Council. There he served on the City Council
Aviation Committee, the Operations Commit-
tee and led a task force studying KC’s solid
waste program. He introduced and success-
fully passed KC’s first seat belt ordinance
and an ordinance regulating private alarm
services.
In the 1980s Burke began what was to be a
lifelong interest in Kansas City’s Riverfront.
He Chaired the Riverfront Redevelopment
Task Force, a joint City and Chamber en-
deavor. He later served as Board member
and Chair of the Kansas City Port Authority
(now Port KC). He was a founding member
and Chairman of Friends of the River and was
the Kansas City chair of A Journey Fourth—
Celebrating the Bicentennial of the Lewis and
Clark Expedition. He started and chaired KC
Riverfest, the City’s Fourth of July celebration
at the Riverfront. He was a board member
of Kansas City River Trails and an Adviso-
ry Board Member of the Waterfront Center
(Washington D.C.).
In 1988 Burke made a fortuitous decision
when he joined in partnership with the late
Richard A. King. The partnership continued
under various firm names for twenty-five
years. In the 1990s Burke served as General
Counsel to the Port Authority and helped to
secure funding for the cleanup of the contam-
inated riverfront property as well as funding
for road improvements. The Missouri Depart-
ment of Transportation (MODOT) appointed
Mike to serve on KC-ICON and to score the
design of the new Bond Bridge. One accom-
plishment he was proud of was drafting and
successfully lobbying for passage of the Port
Improvement Act by the Missouri Legislature.
This became a valuable tool in riverfront de-
. sunday, march 12 , 2023
DEATH NOTICE
UNDERDUE
WILLIAM HENRY UNDERDUE JR.
(Age 92)
On Saturday February 25, 2023, William
Underdue, Jr. of Upper Marlboro peacefully
passed away at home. He leaves to cher-
ish his memory wife, Marilyn Underdue;
daughters, Angela Underdue, Fern Under-
due and Alia Jones-Harvey (Phillip); grand-
son, Dominic Douglas Underdue Frazier;
great-granddaughter, Aniyah Frazier; and a
host of other relatives and friends.
Viewing will be held on Saturday March 18,
2023 from 10 a.m., until time of service at
11 a.m., at Calvary Episcopal Church 820
6th St. NE. Interment private. Everyone
must wear a mask to enter church.
In lieu of flowers contributions should be
made to The Bachelor Benedict Commu-
nity Foundation, Inc. https://www.bache-
lor-benedict.org/BBCF/donate
www.mcguire-services.com
IN MEMORIAM
DEATH NOTICE
the nearby Naval Air Station after returning
from Japan and Korea.
Two years after getting married, JoEllen and
Ron had son Jim Banks followed thereafter
by John and Bob Banks. At that time, JoEllen
decided to switch her focus from teaching
to raising their children, a move consistent
with her constant selflessness as well as
with her overwhelming love of family.
With Ron’s extensive travel and work load
throughout his long and very successful
career, JoEllen played the long time role of
the family’s rock of stability and guided the
day to day with Jim, John and Bob based on
lightness, fun, and humor.
Over the course of JoEllen and Ron’s long
and loving relationship, they enjoyed trav-
eling around the world together as well as
with many friends, sharing new experiences
with laughs, joy and always an interest in
learning.
Beyond their travels together, for many
years JoEllen and Ron split time between
their homes in McLean, VA and Palm Springs,
CA enjoying many deep and long-standing
friendships in both places.
JoEllen, with her extraordinary love of life
and of people, will be greatly missed by all
who knew her. She was beautiful in every
way.
A private service will be held at a future
date.
DEATH NOTICE
velopment and other projects. Mike played a
key role in negotiating on behalf of the city
for the sale of the former Richards Gebaur Air
Force Base to private interests.
Burke kept up his involvement in City Hall. He
served five years as chair of the Public Im-
provements Advisory Committee (PIAC). and
oversaw recommendations on over $500
million in capital improvements and deferred
maintenance. One of Mike’s most cherished
assignments was serving as Chair of the KC
All America City Committee and in 2006 Kan-
sa City won the title of All America City.
In 2011 Mike ran for Mayor of Kansas City,
losing to Sly James in what many consid-
ered one of the most cordial campaigns in
recent memory. James afterward worked
closely with Burke. He appointed Mike to
be the KC Chair of the Mayors’ Bi-State In-
novation Team (MBIT) to study the impact of
high-speed fiber on the KC area. The team
made recommendations which led to the
establishment of an Innovation Office in City
Hall. Mike helped to found KC Digital Drive
to help implement the team’s recommenda-
tions. He also was a founding member and
chair of Launch KC, a program of the EDC and
Downtown Council to encourage startups in
Kansas City. Collaborating with partners at
UMKC Mike assisted in finding funding for the
UMKC Digital Sandbox and served on its advi-
sory board. In 2013, Government Technology
Magazine named Mike as one of the nation’s
“Top 25 Innovators in Government”.
Mayor James also appointed Burke to chair
the Mayor’s Task Force on the Arts. The Task
Force report led to establishment of the of-
fice of the Arts in City Hall and the KC Film
Office at Visit KC. Governor Nixon appointed
Mike to the Missouri Arts Commission which
oversees millions in state art grants annually.
Mike served as an advocate for the arts for
many years.
Mike served for several years on the board
of the Kansas City Convention and Visitors
Bureau (now Visit KC). In that capacity he
served on a committee to study the need for
a convention headquarters hotel. Following a
failed City attempt to lure investors, Mike put
together a developer team and worked with
the team and City staff to craft a workable fi-
nance plan. After nine contentious years, two
city councils, two initiative petitions, and a
lawsuit the new Loews Hotel opened in 2020.
Mike is survived by his wife of 48 years, Me-
linda Stoeger Burke; his son, John Michael
(Victoria), North Kansas City, MO; sister,
Suzanne Noonan (Gerald), Northbrook, IL;
brother, James (Edna), Murfreesboro, TN, and
brother, John, Kansas City.
A visitation will be held at Our Lady of Sor-
rows Catholic Church, 2552 Gillham Blvd.,
Kansas City, MO from 5 p.m. to 8 p.m. on
Wednesday, March 15 and Rosary at 5:30
p.m. Mass of Christian Burial will be held at
10 a.m. on Thursday, March 16 at Our Lady
of Sorrows Catholic Church, 2552 Gillham
Blvd., Kansas City, MO. Burial is in Calvary
Cemetery, 6901 Troost, Kansas City, MO.
The family suggests donations to Operation
Breakthrough or Synergy Services. Condo-
lences may be offered at www.mcgilleymid-
townchapel.com.
sunday, march 12 , 2023 . the washington post
DEATH NOTICE
BLAKEMAN
DAVID THOMAS BLAKEMAN
David Thomas Blakeman of Falmouth, Vir-
ginia passed away on Thursday, March 9,
2023.
David was the beloved and cherished hus-
band of his devoted wife of decades, Amy
Swift Jernigan. When he and Amy met in
1995, they quickly knew they had met the
loves of their lives.
David was the son of Kenneth Thomas and
Edna Muriel Blakeman. He was the loving fa-
ther to his son Todd Christopher Blakeman
(Melissa) and grandfather to Max, Riley and
CULVER
JOAN CATHERINE PHILLIPS CULVER
Joan Catherine Phillips Culver died peaceful-
ly at her home on February 7, 2023 after a
decades long, stubbornly fought battle with
congestive heart failure. She was 80. She is
survived by her daughters, Jenny Culver of
Falls Church, VA and Mindy Culver of Annan-
CUNNINGHAM
RICHARD EVANS CUNNINGHAM
Richard Evans Cunningham passed away
February 21, 2023, his loving wife, Margaret
of 57 years by his side. He was born in Wex-
ford, PA, December 3, 1928, eldest son of
Col. Hugh J. Cunningham (USA Ret) and Anna
Evans Cunningham. He is predeceased by
his brother, Roy T. Cunningham and sister
Pat Golbitz. He is survived by many nieces
and nephews in D.C., Massachusetts and
Hawaii.
Richard received a BA in Physics from Wash-
ington and Jefferson College, an MS in Ra-
diological Physics from Harvard University
and was a Fellow at the Woodrow Wilson
School of Public and International Affairs.
He served in the United States Army from
1953 to 1955.
His career spanned 39 years of service with
the U.S. Atomic Agency Commission and the
Nuclear Regulatory Commission. For many
years prior to retirement from government
in 1994, he directed a major NRC division,
the Division of Fuel Cycle and Material
Safety, with responsibilities for the regula-
tion of the nuclear fuel cycle facilities, the
transportation of nuclear materials and the
use of radioactive materials in research, in-
dustry and medicine. Technical aspects of
the program included nuclear and radiation
DEBOLT
EDWARD S. DEBOLT
9/17/1938 - 2/23/2023
Ed DeBolt passed away peacefully in Ran-
cho Mirage, California on February 23,
2023, thus ending a life dedicated to ser-
vice and family. Born in Sacramento, Cal-
ifornia in 1938 and moved to Stockton in
1954. He met Sharron, the love of his life,
there, and they were married in 1960.
Their first son, Edward Jr., was born in
1962 and their second son, Eric, in 1966.
Ed attended the University of San Francis-
co and was active in state politics, serv-
ing as Executive Director of the Repub-
lican Party of California in the late 1960’s.
1971 he was named Deputy Chairman
of the Republican National Committee.
There he directed the GOP’s 1972 nation-
al voter identification and turnout pro-
gram and oversaw its research division.
He founded his own communications firm,
the DCM Group, in 1979. Ed was instrumental
in furthering the careers of many diplomats,
Governors, U.S. Senators, and Congressmen.
“He was a chief campaign strategist for Vir-
ginia Governor John Dalton, Senator John
Warner and Congressman Frank Wolf and
a key advisor to Gerald Ford’s and Ronald
FROBERG
ELSE HOLM GRETZ FROBERG
On Thursday, March 2, 2023, Else Holm
Froberg, of Rockville, MD passed away at
her home. She was born September 13,
1928 in Brooklyn, NY to Einar and Thora
Holm, recent Norwegian immigrants.
She graduated from Beaver College in 1950
DEATH NOTICE
Harper Blakeman. He also leaves to mourn
his much loved dogs ‘Molly’ and ‘Forrest.’
David was born in Nashua, New Hampshire
and spent his adult life in Long Beach, Cali-
fornia and Falmouth, Virginia.
David was a proud Veteran of the U.S. Navy
and of the Vietnam War.
His career focus was as a transportation
security and safety consultant after a long
career in the defense sector with Northrop
Grumman.
For condolences, please contact David’s
family via the Mullins and Thompson Funer-
al Service website https://www.dignityme-
morial.com/obituaries/fredericksburg-va/
david-blakeman-11189606.
A visitation for David will be held Friday,
March 17, 2023 from 1 to 2 p.m., followed by
a 2 p.m. Service, presided over by the Rever-
end John Hodgins, at Mullins and Thompson
Funeral Service, 1621 Emancipation Hwy,
Fredericksburg, Virginia 22401. The inter-
ment will occur at Chattanooga National
Cemetery, 1200 Bailey Avenue, Chattanoo-
ga, Tennessee at a later date. A Celebration
of Life will be held in Virginia in September
of this year.
In lieu of flowers, please consider making
a donation in David’s honor to his favorite
charity, Labrador Retriever Rescue of the
Potomac (LRCP), P.O. Box 1814, Annandale,
VA 22003 or via their website https://www.
lab-rescue.org/giving.
dale, VA and her beloved cat, “Bubble.” Ad-
ditional survivors include her sisters, Chris
Ann Farhood of NYC and Mary Hemingway
of Silver Spring, MD. She is also survived by
her ex-husband, Thane Culver, of Arlington,
VA.
She is predeceased by Bill Farhood of NYC,
her brother-in-law, who was killed in 1995
but whom she and the family never got over
missing. She also outlived “Pookie / Ubu”
her first beloved kitty, who died in 2004.
Joan literally lived to be a gardener and she
spread her love and passion for growing
plants and flowers everywhere she went,
even as far as the license plate of her car,
which through three vehicles, was always
“TO GROW.” She loved to bring home broken
pieces of plants to get them to root. More
often than not, she succeeded.
Her favorite charities were “Animal Welfare
League of Arlington,” (www.awla.org) and
“Food For Others” (foodforothers.org). As
per her wish, Joan was cremated. A memo-
rial service will be held April 1. Please email
joanculver@yahoo.com for details. This date
is approximately when her favorite flower,
the Virginia Bluebell blooms. She was and
forever will be greatly loved and missed.
safety assessment; environmental protec-
tion; emergency response; decommission-
ing and waste management. Richard was
fully involved with the evolution of the AEC/
NRC regulatory program governing the use
of radioisotopes; the nuclear fuel cycle; mill
stabilization, and storage of special nuclear
material and irradiated fuel.
Related international activities include ser-
vice as the NRC Delegate to and past Chair-
man of the OECD/Nuclear Energy Agency’s
Committee on Radiation Protection and
Public Health, Paris, France; expert con-
sultant on numerous occasions to the In-
ternational Atomic Energy Agency, Vienna,
Austria and member of the International
Commission on Radiological Protection’s
Committee Four Application of Commis-
sion Recommendations. His extensive
consulting services to the IAEA included
the development of guidance documents
related to safety and national infrastruc-
tures for safety, preparation of IAEA criteria
for assessment of national radiation safety
infrastructures, participation in team as-
sessments of national radiation and waste
safety infrastructures in Viet Nam, Armenia
and Cypress, and the preparation of coun-
try radiation and waste safety profiles and
country status reports for 14 countries, in-
cluding Uzbekistan, Pakistan and China.
Richard’s awards and publications include:
Oak Ridge Institute of Nuclear Studies Fel-
lowship, Princeton University Fellowship,
Nuclear Regulatory Commission Meritorious
Service Award, Society of Nuclear Medicine,
Distinguished Service Award, Presidential
Senior Executive Service Award. Richard
was invited to publish or present numerous
papers on the regulation of nuclear activi-
ties, radiation safety transportation, low-lev-
el waste and other subjects.
No services are scheduled at this time.
www.murphyfuneralhomes.com
Reagan’s presidential campaigns. He men-
tored many more associates and friends.
He was particularly proud to be part of the
effort that secured congressional authori-
zation for the Vietnam Veterans Memorial.
He also assisted the Medical Society of
Virginia in passage of the Virginia Birth-Re-
lated Neurological Injury Compensation Act
and Program. Ed was an original member of
the 123 Club, a group of influential business
leaders that advocated for education, fis-
cal and transportation policies that helped
transform Northern Virginia into today’s
vibrant region. In 1987 he originated the
idea for the Northern Virginia Transporta-
tion Alliance to promote greater citizen
involvement in the advancement of many
planned regional transportation priorities
including the Fairfax and Prince William
County Parkways, the widening of I-66 from
two to three lanes outside the Beltway and
upgrading of Route 28 near Dulles Airport.
In the 1990s the DCM Group produced land-
mark transportation studies for the Greater
Washington Board of Trade and Hampton
Roads Partnership that identified the most
important transportation investments.
In 2000 Ed moved to Reno, Nevada and
later Rancho Mirage, California. In Reno
he continued his commitment to pub-
lic service by volunteering with CASA as
a Court Appointed Special Advocate to
represent neglected or abused children.
He was very proud that all were adopted
into good homes. Ed was an avid read-
er, sports fan, and lover of classic movies.
Ed leaves behind his wife of 62 years,
Sharron; his son, Edward, Jr. of Rancho
Mirage; his son Eric, wife Faith and daugh-
ters Lucy and Ellie of Kirkland, Washing-
ton; two sisters Cynthia DeBolt of Reno,
Nevada, and Corinne Buterbaugh of Ska-
neateles, New York; and sister-in-law
Pam DeBolt of Lake Tahoe, California.
He will be greatly missed. The fami-
ly requests that those who knew him
do a service or kindness for someone
in his memory. Services are private.
with a degree in teaching and spent over
30 years teaching first and second grade
at Green Acres School, a private school in
North Bethesda. With her second husband,
Howard C. Froberg, she retired to Seabrook
Island, South Carolina in 1999, and enjoyed
many wonderful years there and traveling
abroad before moving back to Maryland in
2012. Wherever she lived, she was always
busy with several volunteer activities for her
children and community.
She is survived by her three children Jo-
anne W. Gretz (husband, Frank Bova), Marit
K. Gretz, and Peter H. Gretz (wife, Janie Ka-
plan). She is also survived by four stepchil-
dren, six grandchildren, seven step-grand-
children, three great-grandchildren, and
four step-great-grandchildren.
A Celebration of Life will be held at Ingleside
at King Farm on Sunday, April 2 at 11 a.m.
In lieu of flowers, contributions may be
made to Green Acres School directly or via
their website at www.greenacres.org/sup-
port/make-a-gift-or-pledge.
For a full obituary and to view and sign the
family guest book, please visit:
www.PumphreyFuneralHome.com
DEATH NOTICE
HARDING
MATTHEW J. HARDING “Matt”
Matthew “Matt” J. Harding was born on
October 10, 1982 in Chicago, Illinois and
passed away on January 23, 2023 in his
home in Alexandria, Virginia. Matthew grew
up in Hyde Park, Chicago and San Marino,
California. At his core, Matt was a proud
South Side Chicagoan. He is survived by his
domestic partner, Elesha Nightingale, and
beloved parents, Desiree Mitchell and Jan
Harding, brother, Nate Harding, and many
closely held aunts, uncles, and lifelong
friends. Matt was a great son from infancy
to adulthood, and his Jewish faith was a
core part of his life and guiding principles.
Matt also attended People Church in Chica-
go with his partner and enjoyed the services
with an open heart and mind.
In his lifetime, he partied with the best of
them and was a devoted partner. Matt con-
sidered being in a loving and mutually sup-
portive relationship as one of his greatest
and fulfilling accomplishments. He gave the
best hugs, fully engulfing the receiver. He
had a deeply sensitive nature that allowed
him to show compassion for not just those
close to him, but to all of mankind. He would
never back down from a tough conversation
about community, policy, law, the U.S. Con-
stitution, the economy, international affairs
and trade, religion and culture, and was
witty enough to pick his battles wisely. This
kept Matt and his partner, family, and close
friends discussing these topics at great
length. His love and thirst for knowledge
fed his insatiable need to read; he was al-
ways finding ways to challenge his intellect
HOCKENBERRY
RICHARD ALLEN HOCKENBERRY
Richard Allen Hockenberry, 81, of Walton,
KY passed away peacefully surrounded by
his loved ones at Inova Fairfax Hospital on
February 28, 2023 after a brief illness. Rich
was born on January 3, 1942 in Johnstown,
PA to Howard Henry Hockenberry and Clara
Mae (Ream) Hockenberry. Rich joined the
United States Navy where he served on the
USS Kidd during the Cuban Missile Crisis and
MALONE
MARY AMANDA GARNETT MALONE
Mary Amanda Garnett Malone was born Jan-
uary 22, 1934, in Bowling Green, Virginia to
Marian Evelyn Robinson Garnett and Benja-
min F. Garnett, who predeceased her. Mary
was blessed to have seven siblings. She was
predeceased by four sisters and two broth-
ers: William (Bill) Garnett, Sr., Marian Matilda
Garnett Harris, Evelyn Garnett, James (Bo)
Garnett, Verniece Garnett James, and Jean
Delores Garnett Williams.
After attending Bowling Green elementa-
ry school and graduating from Union High
School in 1950, she journeyed to New York
City where she would spend the next two
decades laying a foundation for a nurs-
ing career. In 1952, Mary married Weldon
Malone. The marriage lasted until 1965.
During her years in New York City she at-
tended Central School for Practical Nursing,
passed the NY State LPN Board Certification
and practiced nursing in hospitals and pub-
lic health settings from 1954 – 1972. Not
satisfied with having her LPN, she earned
her Registered Nurse license from the Uni-
versity of the State of New York under an
Associate degree program that did not re-
quire college entrance exam if the students
could maintain a C average. Mary went fur-
ther and made a B average.
After relocating to Washington, DC in 1972,
she began working at the Washington Hos-
pital Center in their Medical, Surgical and
Coronary Care Units. In 1974, Mary joined
Howard University Hospital, working in the
Intensive Care Unit and Outpatient Clin-
ic, being an important team member until
1982. Significant moments during her years
at Howard University Hospital included par-
ticipating in the orderly transfer of patients
from Freedman’s Hospital to Howard Uni-
versity Hospital in 1975 when Freedman’s
MALONEY
MARY ELIZABETH WILSON MALONEY
“Betty’ (Age 102)
4th Generation Washingtonian
Betty died peacefully at her home with fam-
ily on February 17, 2023. Betty was born on
October 8, 1920, and was a graduate of Holy
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and encourage self-betterment. Matt could
do anything he set his mind to and, in his
lifetime, he set his mind to a lot. He loved
sports, the art of politics, and volunteered
on several local campaigns.
Matt believed in people even when they
didn’t believe in themselves. He was starkly
honest, but always had a positive word to
say about everyone. There was no hate in
Matt’s heart, only a drive and commitment
to make the world a better place. Matt was
a man of grace and forgiveness. He was a
loyal friend and beamed with pride when
sharing his life-partner, friends, and family’s
many accomplishments. He accepted peo-
ple from all walks of life into his community
and felt that everyone belonged at the table.
He never set himself above or below anyone
but instead walked beside them.
In 2004, Matthew graduated from Temple
University where he played football and was
a member of Alpha Epsilon Pi (AEPi). In 2018,
he graduated from John Marshall (UIC Law)
in Chicago with a Juris Doctorate (JD) with a
focus on intellectual property and traveled
to China to study intellectual property law.
In 2021, Matt and Elesha relocated from
their home in Hyde Park, Chicago to DC to
pursue Matt’s lifelong dream of working for
the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. For
the past three years Matt has worked as a
workers compensation attorney for a Chica-
go law firm.
Matt was driven and career-minded, yes,
but he also had a fun side. He was a profes-
sional disk jockey for over 15 years, DJing in
Philadelphia and Chicago, even interviewing
many hip hop icons. He was an avid Black-
hawks fan, ice skater, and hockey player.
Matt spent time working for the 76ers, Tren-
ton Thunder, NY Rangers, and did legal work
for Music Dealers.
Matt laughed with his entire body and
when combined with his ear-to-ear smile, it
couldn’t help but make you more cheerful.
He was a bright light who left a positive im-
print on the lives of many.
Jewish services and burial were held in Chi-
cago at Congregation Rodfei Zedek and Oak
Woods Cemetery. A Celebration of Life will
be held in Matt’s honor on April 22, 2023 at 6
p.m. on the steps of the Lincoln Monument
in Washington, D.C. with a private reception
to follow in Alexandria, Virginia.
on the USS Tidewater. Rich spent his career
in the airline industry, serving in a variety
of roles while working for National Airlines,
Pan American World Airways, and Delta Air-
lines for more than 40 years in Washington,
DC and Cincinnati. Rich was predeceased by
his parents and brothers William Hocken-
berry of Johnstown, PA and Howard Daniel
Hockenberry of Peoria, AZ. He is survived by
his beloved daughter, Dr. Shelby M. Hocken-
berry of Gainesville, VA, his dear sister Pa-
tricia (Hockenberry) Haer and her husband
Randy of Somerset, PA, and his brother
Kenneth Hockenberry of Carbondale, KS.
He is also survived by his extended family
including his former spouse, Lorelei (Haley)
Van Sickel, her husband Michael, and their
son Ryan Van Sickel, of Gainesville, VA, many
closely loved nieces, nephews, great nieces,
great nephews, several lifelong cherished
friends, work colleagues and neighbors, and
one much adored grand puppy, Bella Rose.
A celebration of life will be held at a later
date in conjunction with a service and inter-
ment at Arlington National Cemetery. In lieu
of flowers, please make donations in Rich’s
name to the Knights Templar Eye Founda-
tion or St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital.
Online condolences and fond memories of
Rich may be offered to the family at
www.moneyandking.com
Hospital closed. She often reminisced about
this delicate task of moving these patients
between the hospitals, comforting their
fears while tending to their medical needs
throughout the physical transfer.
In 1978, she decided that she wanted to
complete her Bachelor degree. So, while
working during the day, she attended night
classes at the University of the District of
Columbia and in 1982 received the Bache-
lor of Science Degree in Nursing. Fresh off
this matriculation, Mary accepted a position
with the Veterans Administration Hospital in
1982. Her time in public health while in New
York City beckoned her back into the com-
munity and in 1986, she became a School
Health Nurse and helped to direct student
programs for disease inoculations, preven-
tative health screenings, doctor referrals
and follow-up appointments. For the last
ten years of her career, Mary impacted pub-
lic health just as she had at the beginning of
her nursing career, a career that spanned a
full 42 years from 1954 to 1996.
Although Mary didn’t give have children of
her own, her nursing career provided care
and comfort to thousands of those who
were acutely ill, chronically ill, shut-in, and
children. Her nursing services for patients in
emergency rooms, surgical units, and inten-
sive care units was delivered with the same
compassion as the community received for
the prevention of epidemic diseases. She
provided advice and support to her own
family of sisters, brothers, nieces, and neph-
ews and was known by all for her thirst for
knowledge.
Mary A. Malone loved her family. She loved
staying current on news. She enjoyed bowl-
ing, Scrabble, meals with family and friends,
and church. Mary is survived by her devot-
ed sister, Omega Estelle “Katz” Garnett, of
Washington, DC. and by her loving sister-in-
law, Fannie L. Garnett, of Manassas, Virgin-
ia. She is also survived by a host of nieces,
nephews, grandnieces, grandnephews,
great-grandnieces, great-grandnephews,
great-great grandnieces, great-great grand-
nephews, great-great-great grandnieces,
and great-great-great grandnephews. Mary
was a beloved Aunt to all who called her
“Aunt” and she will be missed immensely.
She lived life to the fullest, truly showing
how special Aunts can be and how to care
for humanity.
The service for Mary will be March 17, at
First Baptist Church of Suitland, 5400 Sil-
ver Hill Rd., District Heights, MD 20747. The
viewing is 10 to 11 a.m., service 11 to 12
noon, burial after service at Ft. Lincoln Cem-
etery, 3401 Bladensburg Rd., Brentwood,
MD 20722. Repass will be at First Baptist
Church of Suitland.
Cross High School and Dunbarton College.
Betty and her husband, Charles P. Maloney
Jr. (Chuck) were married in 1943 and en-
joyed 59 years together until Chuck’s death
in 2002. Mimi was preceded in death by her
son, Robert Wilson Maloney 1 and her three
younger sisters: Virginia McMaster, Marian
Kelty and Nancy Mulligan. She is survived by
five children: Charles P. Maloney III (Carole)
of Leesburg, VA, Betsy Maloney of Chevy
Chase, MD, Paul J. Maloney (Lois) of Bethes-
da, MD, Jane F. Moloney (Brian) of Placerville,
CO, and Matthew P. Maloney (Deidre) of
Kensington, MD. She is also survived by 17
grandchildren and 14 great-grandchildren.
Mass of Christian Burial will be offered at 11
a.m. on March 15, 2023 at the Shrine of the
Most Blessed Sacrament, 5949 Western Ave.
NW, Washington, DC. Family and friends will
be received at the Church at 10 a.m. for one
hour before the Mass. Interment will be pri-
vate. In lieu of flowers, memorial donations
may be made to a favorite charity.
Please view and sign the family guestbook
at
www.pumphreyfuneralhome.com
DEATH NOTICE
ANDERSON
DOLORES C. ANDERSON “Dee”
Dolores “Dee” C. Anderson 92 of Reston, VA
passed away on Sunday, February 26, 2023,
after a brief illness. Born in Hammonton, NJ,
she was the youngest of nine children born
to Joseph and Bettina Angello. Dee grad-
uated high school at age 16, and attended
George Washington University. Her first job
was with the US Coast Guard in the Publi-
cations Office. In 1957, Dee was part of an
administrative team in Las Vegas for the
testing of an atomic bomb. The Federal Civil
RUBENS
LINDA SUE RUBENS (Age 77)
Linda Sue Rubens passed away on Friday,
March 3, 2023 after suffering a catastrophic
stroke at her home in Annandale, VA. She is
survived by her loving husband of 55 years,
Gary Rubens, her sisters Debbie MacPher-
SANDE
CLAY ANN GOETZE SANDE
On March 7, 2023 Clay Ann Sande passed
away peacefully with her son at her side.
Clay Ann was born March 31, 1945 to Arthur
and Cecelia (Maros) Goetze in Chicago and
grew up in the Black Hills outside of Rapid
City, South Dakota, where she loved riding
horses. She graduated high school in 1963
and then attended the University of South
Dakota, graduating with a BA in 1968 and a
Masters in 1969. Upon graduation she was
a speech pathologist, primarily in San Diego,
California, before marrying Kermit Sande in
1976 and moving to Reston, Virginia, where
TOWER
BARBARA STOWE TOWER
(Age 87)
Barbara Stowe Tower passed away on Sun-
day, March 5, 2023 surrounded by loving
family. She is survived by relatives including
her three children Elizabeth Tower Powell
(Robert), John Julius Tower (Juliette) and Alex
Tower Sears (Jonathan); her eight grandchil-
dren Isabel, Daisy and Georgia Sears, Olivia
and John Tower, Jr. and Victoria, William and
Edward Powell; her sister, Joan Pittroff; niec-
es Cate and Lydia Tower and nephews Peter
and Matthew Pittroff. Her beloved husband
of 63 years, Frederick Julius Tower II, and her
sister, Linda Stowe Eney, predeceased her.
A lifelong resident of Maryland and a res-
ident of Annapolis since 1969, she was
loved and admired by a wide circle of fam-
ily, friends, neighbors and professional col-
leagues. Born in Baltimore in 1935, she was
raised in the city where she met Fred, the
love of her life, in 1951. During her teen-
age years, she protested segregation and
marched with members of the Congress of
Racial Equality in Baltimore.
Intelligent, hard-working and resourceful,
she won a four-year Senatorial Scholarship
to the college of her choice in Maryland.
She attended St. John’s College and married
Fred in 1956. A faithful Episcopalian, she
completed Education for the Ministry at The
University of the South’s School of Theology
in 1991. In the mid-1990s, she spearhead-
ed the expansion of St. Anne’s School of
Annapolis to its current location and was
YANOWITZ
HELEN YANOWITZ
5/8/27 - 2/24/23
Helen Yanowitz née Helen John Nanchu
born in Dudley, Massachusetts on May 8,
1927 died at her home in Florida after a brief
illness on February 24, 2023, 3 Adar, 5783.
Helen, an R.N., worked at Worcester Memo-
rial Hospital and later attended Boston Uni-
versity School of Nursing. She moved to the
Washington, DC area following her marriage
to Dr. Bernard Yanowitz and became active
in residential real estate for more than thirty
years.
A long-time resident of the Town of Somer-
set in Chevy Chase, Maryland, she did ex-
tensive volunteer work including Tri-County
Animal Rescue, United Givers Fund, Flor-
ence Crittenton Home and Planned Parent-
hood; serving on the Board of Directors. She
was a Past President of the Ladies Auxiliary
of the Maimonides Dental Society. As Cap-
C11
DEATH NOTICE
Defense Administration morphed into a vari-
ety of agencies, the last one being the Office
of Telecommunications Policy where she
worked as a Public Information Officer until
her retirement in 1982. Dee began a new ca-
reer at Burke Enterprises where she worked
in sales for two years before opening her
own business. Ad Specialties Unlimited, a
business selling promotional items, was run
by Dee from 1985 until a few months before
her death.
Dee was very active. In addition to working,
she was a ballroom dance teacher, teach-
ing lessons at the Kurt Schoen Studio on
Connecticut Avenue, and privately at the
Reserve Officers Club in D.C., as well as in
her home studio. Dee was a member of the
Washington Club from 2007 until the Club
was sold in 2018. She served as a special
events chairman of the Women’s Club
of Greater Reston, was a volunteer ESOL
teacher at Vienna Presbyterian Church
(VPC), as well as a member of the Seniors
group at VPC.
Dee was married to William Chrisman from
1955 until his passing in 1989 and to Curt
Anderson from 1994 until his passing in
2021. She had no children, but is survived
by many nieces, nephews and friends. A
celebration of life will take place at a future
date. In lieu of flowers, donations may be
made to Vienna Presbyterian Church, www.
viennapres.org.
son of Crofton, MD and Brenda Clark of
Leesburg, VA, and her nieces Allie MacPher-
son and Katie Chase.
Gary and Linda met in 1961 and soon be-
came “high school sweethearts”. They
married in Laurel, MD in 1967, and moved
shortly afterwards to their current home in
Annandale, VA. In 1968 they joined the Ski
Club of Washington, DC and remained active
until her death.
Linda spent most of her working career as
a budget analyst working for defense con-
tractors such as System Development Cor-
poration, Unisys, Titan Corporation, and L-3
Systems. She was an avid skier and tennis
player, and enjoyed travel adventures such
as ski trips, cruises, and Club Med vacations.
She had a very wide circle of friends who
loved and admired her for her sweet and
caring personality, and her gentle spirit. She
will be sorely missed by all who knew her.
Linda’s family is hosting a Celebration of Life
in her honor at Demaine Funeral Home in
Springfield, VA on Saturday, March 25 at 3
PM. Details are available
www.demainefunerals.com
she lived the majority of her life on Lake
Audubon and Lake Newport. She worked
for the Fairfax County Public School system
for 34 years, first as an administrator work-
ing with special education students and
most notably as the principal of Lees Corner
Elementary School for 18 years, a true call-
ing for her, until she retired in 2011.
After retirement she spent her years trav-
elling, whether visiting her son in Colorado
or on vacations with her husband and cher-
ished sister Suzy.
She was a wonderful wife, mother, grand-
mother and sister, and loved her animals,
whether they were her dogs or the ducks
she adopted from her school’s embryology
unit. She truly loved the life she helped
build for herself and her family. Clay was a
friend and mentor to so many in the educa-
tional community.
Survivors include her son Tyler Leif Sande
and grandchildren Ruthanne Darden Sande
and Phillip Anders Sande. She was preced-
ed in death by her parents, brother Fred,
sister Suzy, and husband Kermit.
Her family will gather privately to celebrate
her life. In lieu of flowers, memorials may be
directed to the Alzheimer’s Association, 225
N. Michigan Ave., Fl. 17, Chicago, IL 60601.
Website: https://www.alz.org.
Founding Chair of the Board of Trustees. She
also served on the board at Key School in
Hillsmere.
Barbara worked in the real estate business
for more than 50 years. She co-founded An-
napolis Properties in the Maryland Inn and
was a talented broker who specialized in
historic properties in downtown Annapolis.
Clients appreciated her expertise and their
repeat business and recommendations to
family and friends were an important source
of her success. Barbara’s appreciation for
historic properties lives on in her children.
Her son, John, is the Chief of Historic Pres-
ervation in Annapolis. Her daughter, Alex,
learned the business at her mother’s knee
and continues the family real estate tradi-
tion in Annapolis.
The family home at 30 Maryland Avenue
was the site of memorable parties and hol-
iday celebrations. Barbara was giving and
light-hearted. She enjoyed entertaining her
many friends and she welcomed lots of
guests to her homes. Most summers she
went to Edgartown on Martha’s Vineyard
and relaxed with her family at the Chap-
paquiddick Beach Club.
Barbara had a soft spot for animals and
raised lots of dogs including her dear Boston
Terriers. She kept a gorgeous house and gar-
den, both of which were included in Historic
Annapolis tours, cooked delicious food and
adored flowers. In her later years on Frank-
lin Street, she could be spotted in her front
yard watering beautiful plants and flowers.
She was a long-time member of The Garden
Club of Annapolis.
A devoted and giving sister, mother, grand-
mother and godmother, she was extremely
proud of her family and taught them the
joys and importance of togetherness. She
kept her sense of humor until the end and is
remembered with utmost respect, fondness
and love.
The family will host visiting hours at John M.
Taylor Funeral Home, 147 Duke of Glouces-
ter Street, Annapolis, on Monday, March
13 from 5 to 7 p.m. A memorial service
will be held at St. Anne’s Episcopal Church
on Church Circle in Annapolis on Tuesday,
March 14 at 3 p.m. In lieu of flowers, the
family requests that donations be made
to St. Anne’s School of Annapolis at www.
stannesschool.org An online guest book is
available at
www.johnmtaylorfuneralhome.com
tain of an integrated tennis team she made
New York Times front page news champion-
ing the rights of players, “Capital Club Bars
Integrated Tennis” August 25, 1968. An ac-
tive tennis player, she was a Gold Medalist in
the Senior Olympics, a USTA team member
representing the Middle Atlantic area and in
2004 she had a USTA National ranking of 23
for Women’s Singles 75 and over.
After becoming a resident of Deerfield
Beach, Florida, she continued to spend her
summers in Bethesda, Maryland and Betha-
ny Beach, Delaware.
Helen treasured her marriage and family.
Her beloved husband of more than 70 years,
Dr. Bernard Yanowitz, died May 17, 2022.
She is survived by their five children, Me-
lissa Yanowitz (John Robey), John Yanowitz
(Suanne), Julie Alter (Leo), Beth Devlin (Joe),
Mark Yanowitz (Amy Belscher) and sister
Dorothy Nanchu. She is also survived by
eight grandchildren, Allison Alter Martin
(Keith), Bryan Alter, Conor Devlin (Melis-
sa), Becca Devlin Spresser (Michael), Kayla
Devlin, Sam Yanowitz, Alva Yanowitz, Jack
Yanowitz and six great-grandchildren Lilian,
Grace, Miriam, Brooks, Ruby and Charlie
along with many nieces, nephews, cousins
and countless friends. Preceded in death by
her parents John Michael Nanchu and Vasili-
ki Beltson Nanchu, brother James J. Nanchu
and sister Athina Kotseas.
Celebration of life to be held at a later date.
Memorial contributions may be made in her
name to Planned Parenthood https://www.
plannedparenthood.org or the Jewish Fed-
eration https://www.shalomdc.org or the
Washington Hebrew Congregation https://
www.whctemple.org/give/. Please practice
random acts of kindness.
C12 EZ RE the washington post . sunday, march 12 , 2023

The Weather
washingtonpost.com/weather . Twitter: @capitalweather . facebook.com/capitalweather

Cloud cover and spotty rain Today Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday OFFICIAL REC ORD
A p.m. shower Morning Mostly cloudy; Partly sunny Pleasant and Partly sunny
Clouds will thicken around sunrise. showers windy and windy milder and mild Temperatures AVERAGE RECORD ACTUAL FORECAST

Light rain will probably move into

the area during the late morning or
early afternoon. It’s going to be quite
cold aloft, so some sleet or snow is
possible, but temperatures will probably be in the
40s by then. Precipitation may be mainly light
and spotty. At night, clouds will hang tough, and
some more rain seems likely, particularly the
46° 40 ° 47° 35 ° 46° 32 ° 52° 36 ° 61° 43 ° 67° 48 °

FEELS*: 47° FEELS: 43° FEELS: 36° FEELS: 46° FEELS: 60° FEELS: 67°
farther east you are. Lows will be in the upper 30s CHNCE PRECIP: 55% P: 80% P: 5% P: 0% P: 5% P: 20%
to lower 40s. WIND: SE 6–12 mph W: NW 7–14 mph W: WNW 15–25 mph W: NW 12–25 mph W: W 6–12 mph W: SSW 8–16 mph
HUMIDITY: Moderate H: High H: Low H: Low H: Low H: Moderate
Tu W Th F Sa Su M Tu W Th F Sa Su M Tu
Statistics through 5 p.m. Saturday

REGION NAT ION Weather map features for noon today.

National Dulles BWI
High 50° 1:15 p.m. 47° 12:46 p.m. 49° 2:06 p.m.
Low 39° 6:00 a.m. 37° 6:00 a.m. 37° 5:18 a.m.
Harrisburg Philadelphia
49/38 Normal 55°/37° 53°/32° 53°/32°
47/38 Record high 79° 2021 79° 2021 79° 2021
Hagerstown Record low 15° 1960 13° 1996 6° 1960
Baltimore
42/35
45/40 Dover Difference from 30–yr. avg. (National): this month: +3.7° yr. to date: +6.7°
44/38
Davis Cape May Precipitation PREVIOUS YEAR NORMAL LATEST
Washington Annapolis
34/29 46/40 44/40
44/40 OCEAN: 45°

Charlottesville Ocean City

40/36 45/42
OCEAN: 46°
Lexington
39/34
Richmond
44/39 Virginia Beach
48/44 National Dulles BWI
Norfolk OCEAN: 50°
47/42 Past 24 hours 0.12" 0.03" 0.14"
Total this month 0.56" 0.64" 0.74"
Kitty Hawk
46/41
Normal 1.17" 1.17" 1.38"
OCEAN: 50° Total this year 4.29" 4.27" 4.60"
Normal 6.65" 6.72" 7.36"
Pollen: Moderate Air Quality: Good Snow, past 24 hours 0.0" 0.0" 0.0"
Grass Low Dominant cause: Particulates Snow, season total 0.4" 0.4" 0.2"
Trees Moderate
Weeds Low UV: Moderate Moon Phases Solar system
Mold Low 5 out of 11+
Rise Set
Sun 7:25 a.m. 7:12 p.m.
Blue Ridge: Today, cloudy. Snow showers this afternoon, Moon none 9:53 a.m.
T-storms Rain Showers Snow Flurries Ice Cold Front Warm Front Stationary Front Mar 14 Mar 21 Mar 28 Apr 6
accumulating a coating to an inch in central parts; Yesterday's National World
Last New First Full
Venus 8:46 a.m. 9:55 p.m.
occasional rain, drizzle all day in southern parts. An High: Cotulla, TX 98° High: Matam, Senegal 113° Mars 11:46 a.m. 2:55 a.m.
Quarter Quarter
<–10 –0s 0s 10s 20s 30s 40s 50s 60s 70s 80s 90s 100s 110+ Low: St. Mary, MT –7° Low: Deputatsky, Russia –34° Jupiter 8:24 a.m. 9:01 p.m.
afternoon shower in spots in northern parts. High 29 to 36. for the 48 contiguous states excludes Antarctica Saturn 6:38 a.m. 5:22 p.m.
Winds south 10–20 mph.
NATIONAL Today Tomorrow Des Moines 33/22/c 33/17/c Oklahoma City 52/31/pc 49/31/c WORLD Today Tomorrow Islamabad 80/55/pc 84/55/s Rio de Janeiro 82/75/c 82/73/c
Atlantic beaches: Today, partly sunny. An afternoon Detroit 36/30/sf 37/21/sf Omaha 33/19/c 34/19/s Addis Ababa 68/57/sh 69/55/sh Istanbul 53/43/r 50/42/c Riyadh 81/61/t 82/62/t
shower in spots in central parts; rain, drizzle in the south Albany, NY 45/34/pc 40/33/sn El Paso 75/49/pc 75/49/pc Orlando 87/67/s 84/56/t Amsterdam 50/46/sh 58/44/r Jerusalem 73/52/s 72/53/pc Rome 68/46/s 65/50/pc
this afternoon. High 43 to 47. Winds east–northeast 6–12 Albuquerque 61/38/sh 60/38/pc Fairbanks, AK 13/4/sn 7/2/s Philadelphia 49/38/s 47/35/r Athens 67/49/r 59/47/s Johannesburg 81/54/t 81/54/s San Salvador 86/66/s 87/67/pc
mph. Tonight, a bit of rain. Low 38 to 42. Winds east– Anchorage 26/24/s 26/19/s Fargo, ND 23/4/sn 22/9/s Phoenix 80/55/s 80/55/s Auckland 72/61/pc 73/59/c Kabul 61/43/t 65/43/s Santiago 83/56/s 86/58/s
southeast 7–14 mph. Atlanta 56/46/r 60/33/pc Hartford, CT 50/34/s 42/35/c Pittsburgh 39/32/c 39/24/sf Baghdad 80/55/c 76/59/c Kingston, Jam. 86/73/s 86/75/s Sarajevo 48/27/pc 64/35/s
Austin 75/51/pc 67/50/pc Honolulu 83/69/pc 83/73/s Portland, ME 43/27/s 42/34/c Bangkok 94/77/pc 93/77/c Kolkata 97/76/pc 98/75/pc Seoul 47/23/r 45/31/pc
Waterways: Upper Potomac River: Today, mostly cloudy, showers Baltimore 45/40/s 46/33/sh Houston 81/52/pc 70/47/pc Portland, OR 48/45/r 51/37/r Beijing 54/26/s 55/34/c Kyiv 39/27/c 46/37/c Shanghai 59/38/c 61/42/pc
around in the afternoon. Wind southeast 4–8 knots. Waves 2 feet Billings, MT 29/16/pc 52/36/pc Indianapolis 43/27/c 35/24/c Providence, RI 44/32/s 44/36/r Berlin 41/36/sh 56/48/r Lagos 89/79/r 89/80/t Singapore 87/75/r 88/76/pc
or less. • Lower Potomac and Chesapeake Bay: Today, partly sunny, Birmingham 67/45/t 58/34/s Jackson, MS 70/46/t 59/36/pc Raleigh, NC 41/38/r 56/32/c Bogota 63/50/r 63/48/sh Lima 81/72/pc 81/71/pc Stockholm 32/13/pc 38/35/sn
a shower in the afternoon. Wind southeast 6–12 knots. Waves 1–2 Bismarck, ND 19/–1/c 21/12/c Jacksonville, FL 82/64/pc 74/45/t Reno, NV 53/40/pc 54/44/c Brussels 55/49/c 62/43/r Lisbon 68/54/c 65/51/pc Sydney 78/66/sh 75/67/r
Boise 48/40/c 56/44/c Kansas City, MO 43/23/pc 39/23/pc Richmond 44/39/sh 50/33/sh Buenos Aires 93/78/s 91/81/s London 57/51/c 57/39/c Taipei City 79/54/s 61/55/c
feet on the Lower Potomac; 1–3 feet on the Chesapeake Bay.• River
Boston 40/33/s 43/39/c Las Vegas 70/51/s 71/56/s Sacramento 61/51/sh 64/55/sh Cairo 83/63/s 81/57/s Madrid 73/46/pc 68/45/pc Tehran 69/55/pc 68/51/c
Stages: The stage at Little Falls will be around 4.40 feet today, falling Buffalo 38/31/sn 37/26/c Little Rock 61/38/pc 58/32/s St. Louis 50/30/pc 39/25/pc Manila 91/74/s 88/73/r Tokyo 64/58/c 66/44/sh
Caracas 75/65/sh 75/65/pc
to 4.30 Monday. Flood stage at Little Falls is 10 feet. Burlington, VT 41/30/c 41/33/sn Los Angeles 66/53/pc 63/52/c St. Thomas, VI 84/73/s 84/74/s Copenhagen 40/35/c 48/44/r Mexico City 81/49/c 80/49/pc Toronto 33/29/sn 38/24/sn
Charleston, SC 67/50/r 66/42/pc Louisville 48/32/c 44/28/c Salt Lake City 47/38/sh 55/42/pc Dakar 83/68/s 82/66/s Montreal 39/27/c 39/32/sn Vienna 48/38/c 62/45/c
Charleston, WV 41/34/r 44/28/sn Memphis 54/37/pc 49/33/s San Diego 66/55/pc 67/55/pc Dublin 55/50/r 55/31/sh Moscow 44/20/r 33/21/c Warsaw 40/30/sn 51/44/r
Today’s tides (High tides in Bold)
Charlotte 46/40/r 60/31/pc Miami 86/70/pc 88/69/c San Francisco 61/53/sh 62/56/sh Edinburgh 51/45/sh 48/31/r Mumbai 100/82/pc 96/78/pc
Key: s-sunny, pc-partly cloudy, c-cloudy, r-rain,
Washington 6:27 a.m. 11:57 a.m. 7:14 p.m. none Cheyenne, WY 35/20/s 49/32/pc Milwaukee 37/30/sn 32/18/sf San Juan, PR 87/72/c 89/72/s Frankfurt 53/45/sh 63/49/t Nairobi 84/62/pc 85/60/pc sh- showers, t-thunderstorms, sf-snow flurries,
Chicago 38/29/sn 34/22/sf Minneapolis 33/19/sn 28/11/pc Seattle 51/44/r 48/37/sh New Delhi 91/67/s 91/67/pc sn-snow, i-ice
Annapolis 1:53 a.m. 9:25 a.m. 3:59 p.m. 9:17 p.m. Geneva 60/39/r 67/45/c
Cincinnati 42/29/c 38/24/c Nashville 54/35/c 50/30/c Spokane, WA 46/38/pc 49/30/sh Oslo 33/23/c 34/25/sn Sources: AccuWeather.com; US Army Centralized
Ocean City 5:38 a.m. 11:34 a.m. 5:41 p.m. none Ham., Bermuda 64/58/s 64/59/sh Allergen Extract Lab (pollen data); airnow.gov (air
Cleveland 38/31/sf 37/24/sf New Orleans 85/56/pc 65/50/pc Syracuse 42/35/s 40/32/sn Helsinki 30/17/sf 34/29/c Ottawa 37/26/pc 36/31/sn quality data); National Weather Service
Norfolk 12:09 a.m. 7:28 a.m. 1:28 p.m. 7:27 p.m. Dallas 63/43/pc 60/42/pc New York City 47/37/s 44/35/r Tampa 81/74/s 78/58/t Ho Chi Minh City 94/71/pc 93/71/s Paris 58/53/c 64/44/r * AccuWeather's RealFeel Temperature®
combines over a dozen factors for an accurate
Point Lookout 5:14 a.m. 12:24 p.m. 5:24 p.m. 11:14 p.m. Denver 40/23/s 54/33/c Norfolk 47/42/r 49/39/sh Wichita 50/24/pc 46/27/pc Hong Kong 77/65/c 72/62/c Prague 41/38/sh 55/44/r measure of how the conditions really “feel.”

3/31/2023.
 KLMNO

SPORTS sunday, march 12 , 2023 SU D

hockey soccer high school basketball
The Capitals dominate the Islanders on the road, 5-1, Chris Durkin finds the late equalizer as D.C. United The Meade boys fall short of the ultimate goal in the
in one of their most impressive outings in weeks. d5 notches a 1-1 draw with Orlando City at Audi Field. d6 Maryland 4A final, but the Lackey girls prevail in 2A. d8

With Ruiz, For Tide’s Oats, how loyal is too loyal?

the Nats Coach of No. 4 Alabama
potentially historic stretch.
Nate Oats kept smiling as noon
ship 11 years ago, scored 18 points
in his homecoming to Tennessee

take a risk. has stood by star player

linked to January slaying
came and went, and his Crimson
Tide rewarded him with a blow-
out of Mississippi State in the SEC
before celebrating with Crimson
Tide fans near the tunnel.
“It’s a great group of kids. They

Finally. tournament. Alabama was physi-

cal, fast, merciless in transition
and from three-point range — a
all love each other,” Oats told
reporters. “Everybody always
says they’re going to have great
BY K ENT B ABB vision Oats has been teaching and culture at the beginning, and you
WEST PALM attempting to realize for two dec- go through the season and face
BEACH, Fla. — NASHVILLE — The basketball ades. Bediako had five “birthday adversity. Your culture gets tested
The Washington coach’s Friday started with a cel- blocks,” Oats said, and was a little bit, and our guys really
Nationals have ebration: players and staffers sur- awarded the honorary plastic have responded.”
spent hundreds of rounding him at Alabama’s team hard hat for scoring the most That adversity would seem to
millions of dollars breakfast and singing “Happy “blue-collar points.” include the fact that a Crimson
Barry more on Birthday” to 7-foot center Charles Brandon Miller, the first player Tide player, Darius Miles, was
Svrluga individual players Bediako on the morning he to be the SEC’s freshman of the charged with capital murder in
Logan Hannigan-Downs/Associated Press
than they just turned 21. There were hugs. year and solo player of the year January after he allegedly provid-
spent on Keibert Ruiz, who is A historic season for Coach Nate Oats’s Alabama team is “stained Laughs. Pledges that this may be since Anthony Davis led Ken- ed the firearm that shot and
now locked in as their catcher in the blood of Jamea Harris,” the victim’s stepfather said recently. just the start of an extraordinary, tucky to the national champion- see Alabama on D4
not just for the next five years
but maybe the next decade. Yet
this contract — eight years for
$50 million, finalized Friday and
announced at a news conference
Saturday — is in so many ways
new ground. It is a gamble on a
young player years away from
free agency. The takeaway, long
before we can be certain what
Ruiz will become: Finally.
“I think the best deals you
could do are [ones] that both
sides are a little uneasy about,”
General Manager Mike Rizzo
said at the Nats’ spring training
headquarters. “Where there’s a
long-term deal on the table, the
team has a little bit of risk there,
and the player has a little bit of
risk that he’s locked in for that
many years. . . . When there’s a
little uneasiness on both sides, I
think you’ve come to a good, fair
deal.”
It’s important to remember
that signing a 24-year-old
catcher with just one year in the
majors to an eight-year
extension — which could be a
decade because the deal includes
one-year options for 2031 and
2032 — isn’t like signing, say,
Trea Turner or Bryce Harper to
decade-long extensions after
they were established all-stars.
Those $300 million-plus
contracts lock up funds in the
present and the future, and a
single franchise can only have so
many. (Right, Phillies?)
Rather, this is the kind of deal
the rival Atlanta Braves have
see Svrluga on D5

For Rivera, Tim Nwachukwu/Getty Images

free agency HOWARD 65, NORFOLK STATE 64: Bryce Harris and the Bison won the MEAC men’s basketball tournament Saturday in Norfolk to clinch an NCAA berth.

has added
intrigue
Ownership uncertainty
looms with Commanders
facing many roster issues
BY N ICKI J HABVALA
AND S AM F ORTIER
The Washington Commanders
have become accustomed to
transition. In 2020, the team
overhauled nearly its entire
coaching staff. A year later, it
reconfigured the front office.
Quarterbacks have cycled in and
out, the secondary has changed
multiple times, and the system
has undergone tweaks.
As Washington continues its
quest for improvement, it could
face its biggest transition yet,
with not just a new offensive
scheme but also the prospect of
new ownership. The changes will
have long-term implications, but
the Commanders’ immediate fu-
ture still rests with Coach Ron
Rivera and his staff, who will
guide the team in free agency.
The NFL’s legal tampering pe-
riod, when free agents can agree
to deals with new teams, starts at
noon Monday. Players can sign
those agreements starting
Wednesday at 4 p.m.
Washington released quarter-
back Carson Wentz and safety
Bobby McCain last month to
clear salary cap room, but the
heavier lifting is yet to come.
Here’s what to expect:
Will the potential sale affect
spending? Rivera and General
Manager Martin Mayhew say it’s
business as usual.
see Commanders on D8
Bison dance, at long last
Howard wins thrilling MEAC championship game to qualify for its first NCAA tournament since 1992
NORFOLK — tournament final, and the tears came over, it took Blakeney a few the door.”
Kenny Blakeney were flowing everywhere. seconds to stand up. When he Saturday was a long time
couldn’t stop But Blakeney was the leader in did, he wept on Frederick’s coming for Blakeney and for
crying. It was 3:30 waterworks. shoulder and said, “Thank, you, Howard. The Bison were 4-29 his
on Saturday Each new hug produced thank you, thank you.” first season and only got to play
afternoon at another torrent of tears. When It was Frederick who told five games in the coronavirus-
John Scope Arena, freshman Shy Odom, the MVP of Athletic Director Kery Davis to plagued 2020-21 season. But
Feinstein Howard had just the MEAC tournament, wrapped hire Blakeney four springs ago, Blakeney’s recruiting began to
ended a 31-year him up, screaming, “Coach, I love even though Blakeney had never kick in a year ago, and Howard
NCAA tournament drought with you, I love you!” Blakeney been a head coach. “As soon as I went 16-13. This season has
a heart-stopping 65-64 victory couldn’t even respond. A met him, I said, ‘Hire him,’ ” produced 22 wins, a MEAC
over Norfolk State in the Mid- moment later, when Howard Frederick said. “I knew he was regular season title and now —
Eastern Athletic Conference President Wayne A.I. Frederick our guy the minute he walked in see Feinstein on D3
Selection Sunday: Men’s bracket reveal, 6 p.m., CBS | Women’s bracket reveal, 8 p.m., ESPN
Online: The ACC men’s tournament title game ended late. Visit us at postsports.com.
Longhorns stampede to Big 12 crown
Rather than any taut wrestling, All manner of telltale numbers
Texas 76, a whopping score of 76-56 turned spilled out, from Kansas’s puny
Kansas 56 up in the Big 12 tournament eight assists (compared with 16.8
championship game Saturday per the previous 33 games) to
night, and it favored No. 7 Texas Texas’s bench-scoring advantage
BY C HUCK C ULPEPPER over No. 3 Kansas, providing an of 20-3 to the four often-hopeless
apex to the Longhorns’ trying sea- turnovers of Kansas point guard
KANSAS CITY, Mo. — From late son. It looked odd even though Dajuan Harris Jr. against laudable
December to mid-March, they Texas had beaten Kansas, 75-59, defense to Kansas’s 15 turnovers
rammed into each other in the hot just a week earlier in Austin, and overall to the evidence that the
barns of the Midwest plus West even though Kansas played its ball moved beautifully for the
Virginia plus Texas until every- third straight game without hos- Longhorns (26-8): 18 points on
body in the country’s best league pitalized coach Bill Self, and even 7-for-9 shooting for senior for-
had lost at least five conference though Kansas lacked primo de- ward Dylan Disu, 17 points for
games and just one more tussle fender Kevin McCullar Jr. after his guards Marcus Carr and Sir’Jabari
Jamie Squire/Getty Images
remained. back started groaning again Fri- Rice, eight points each for fresh-
Dylan Disu dunks during the first half for two of his 18 points for That, too, blurred any assump- day night in a semifinal against man guard Arterio Morris and
Texas, which rolled past Kansas for the second time in eight days. tions. Iowa State. see Big 12 on D2
D2 EZ SU the washington post . sunday, march 12 , 2023

Di g e s t College basketball roundup

Tennis
Top-ranked Swiatek
and Mikey Weisshaar had three
for the Tigers (1-5). . . .
In snowy Albany, N.Y., Braden
Golden Eagles roll to first Big East title
cruises in her opener Erksa and Daniel Maltz netted
four goals each to pace the No. 4
Top-ranked Iga Swiatek Maryland men to a 16-9 victory Marquette 65,
routed Claire Liu in 65 minutes over the Great Danes. Jack Koras Xavier 51
to win her opening match at the added three goals for the
BNP Paribas Open in Indian Terrapins (4-2). Jack Pucci had
Wells, Calif., on Saturday. three goals for Albany (1-4). . . . A SSOCIATED P RESS
Swiatek, the defending Tucker Dordevic scored four
champion, won, ­6-0, 6-1. goals to lead the No. 20 Tyler Kolek and No. 6 Mar-
Taylor Fritz, the defending Georgetown men over Richmond, quette raced out to a hefty lead
men’s champion, rallied past Ben 13-12, at Cooper Field. Nicky and never looked back, beating
Shelton, 4-6, 6-4, 6-3. Solomon, Graham Bundy Jr. and No. 15 Xavier, 65-51, on Saturday
Jannik Sinner defeated Brian Minicus added two goals night to win the Big East tourna-
Richard Gasquet, 6-3, 7-6 (7-2), each for the Hoyas (2-3), who ment for the first time.
and another 21-year-old, Jack trailed 8-4 in the third quarter. Kolek, the conference player of
Draper, beat No. 24 Dan Evans, Aidan O’Neil and Joe the year, had 20 points and eight
6-4, 6-2. Sheridan netted two goals apiece rebounds as the top-seeded Gold-
No. 10 Felix Auger-Aliassime for the Spiders (4-3). . . . en Eagles (28-6) dominated a Big
reached the third round with a 7-6 Caroline Godine had three East final that brought a Mid-
(7-5), 6-4 win over Pedro goals and two assists to spark the western flavor to Madison Square
Martinez. top-ranked North Carolina Garden.
Andy Murray had just 18 women to a 17-12 win over No. 11 Kolek was selected the tourna-
unforced errors and never faced a Virginia in Chapel Hill, N.C. ment’s most outstanding player
break point in beating Radu Five other players added two as Marquette heads into the
Albot, 6-4, 6-3. goals each for the Tar Heels (6-0, NCAA tournament on a nine-
On the women’s side, No. 5 3-0 ACC). Rachel Clark and game winning streak.
Carolina Garcia got past Dalma Ashlyn McGovern scored four Adam Kunkel scored 12 points
Galfi, 6-1, 6-7 (7-4), 6-4, and goals each for the Cavaliers (6-1, to lead the Musketeers (25-9),
Emma Raducanu beat No. 20 ­2-1), and Jaime Biskup and Kiki who had a five-game winning
Magda Linette, 7-6 (7-3), 6-2. Shaw each scored twice. . . . streak that was snapped.
John Minchillo/Associated press
Karolina Muchova beat two- The ninth-ranked Maryland l HOUSTON 69, CINCINNA-
time Indian Wells champion women (5-3) got three goals TI 48: When Marcus Sasser Tournament MVP Tyler Kolek (20 points) and No. 6 Marquette punched their NCAA ticket Saturday.
Victoria Azarenka, 7-6 (7-1), 6-3. apiece from Libby May, Kori crumpled awkwardly to the court
Edmondson and Shaylan after his feet slipped from under the conference final for the sec- first eighth seed to win the South- knocking off the No. 2 and No. 3
WINTER SPORTS Ahearn in a 15-6 rout of Villanova him while he was dribbling past ond straight year. They will meet western Athletic Conference seeds.
Olympic champion Marco in Villanova, Pa. Sydney Pappas midcourt, Cougars Coach Kelvin Penn State, which beat Indiana, tournament championship in l IONA 73, MANHATTAN
Odermatt won a men’s World Cup scored three goals for the Sampson knew something was on Sunday. Birmingham, Ala. 60: Juana Camilion scored 22
giant slalom in Kranjska Gora, Wildcats (5-2). wrong even without really seeing l TEXAS A&M 87, VANDER- l IONA 76, MARIST 55: points, Ketsia Athias had the first
Slovenia, as the Swiss skier locked what had happened. BILT 75: Wade Taylor IV scored Daniss Jenkins scored 22 of his 27 triple-double in program history,
up the overall title. AUTO RACING Sasser, the American Athletic 25 points as the 18th-ranked Ag- points in the second half and and the Gaels (26-6) handled the
Odermatt built on his first-run In Avondale, Ariz., Kyle Conference player of the year, gies (25-8) dominated from the Walter Clayton Jr. scored 17 Jaspers (16-17) to win the Metro
lead to beat Alexis Pinturault of Larson won the pole for Sunday’s suffered an apparent groin injury opening tip to turn back the points as the Gaels (27-7) punched Atlantic Athletic Conference
France by 0.23 seconds. Norway’s NASCAR Cup Series Work United with about 61/2 minutes left in the Commodores (20-14) and reach their ticket to the NCAA tourna- tournament for the second time
Henrik Kristoffersen was 0.37 500 at Phoenix Raceway. first half of top-ranked Houston’s their second consecutive SEC ment with a rout of the Red Foxes in Atlantic City.
behind in third. Larson’s 130.237-mph lap in his blowout win over Cincinnati in championship game. (13-20) in the Metro Atlantic Ath- Iona, the top seed in the confer-
Odermatt, the defending No. 5 Chevrolet was another their AAC tournament semifinal Now they will try to beat Ala- letic Conference tournament title ence tournament for the first
overall champion, secured the positive for Hendrick game in Fort Worth. bama for the second time in nine game in Atlantic City. time, continued to dominate
title by increasing his lead to Motorsports, which finished one- Sampson indicated Sasser days. The Aggies beat the Crim- MAAC competition, winning
486 points over Norway’s two-three at Las Vegas Motor might not play Sunday when the son Tide in the final game of the Princeton women rule Ivy three tournament games after
Aleksander Aamodt Kilde, who Speedway last weekend, led by Cougars compete for their third regular season March 4. Kaitlyn Chen scored 21 points, going 18-2 in the regular season.
sat out this weekend’s races. race winner William Byron. straight tournament title against l PENN STATE 77, INDIANA Ellie Mitchell had four in the final Athias, a 6-foot-2 senior center,
Byron qualified third in his Memphis. 73: Jalen Pickett scored 28 points, minute, and the second-seeded had 11 points, 10 rebounds and 11
COLLEGE LACROSSE No. 24 Chevrolet. Denny Hamlin Houston (31-2), which led Seth Lundy had 16, and the Nitta- Princeton women (23-5) rallied assists. Camilion made 9 of 12
Connor Shellenberger scored will start on the outside of Row 1 throughout, was up eight when ny Lions (22-12) ousted the 19th- from an 11-point third-quarter shots, including 4 of 5 from be-
four times and added six assists to in his No. 11 Toyota for Joe Gibbs Sasser got hurt and expanded the ranked Hoosiers to advance to the deficit to upend Harvard, 54-48, yond the arc.
power the top-ranked Virginia Racing. . . . advantage to 15 by halftime. Big Ten tournament champion- and win the Ivy League tourna- l FLORIDA GULF COAST
men to a 19-12 victory over Sammy Smith won the Xfinity Landers Nolley II had 14 points ship game. ment title in Princeton, N.J. 84, LIBERTY 60: Tishara More-
Towson in Charlottesville. Series race, the first victory for for the Bearcats (21-12). Trayce Jackson-Davis had 24 McKenzie Forbes finished with house scored 20 points to help the
Xander Dickson also scored the 18-year-old high school l ALABAMA 72, MISSOURI points, 10 rebounds and seven 16 points to lead the Crimson Eagles (32-3) cruise to a victory
four goals and contributed two student. 61: Crimson Tide Coach Nate assists for Indiana (22-11). (17-11), which was trying to earn over the Flames (24-8) and cap-
assists for the Cavaliers (6-0). Making his 13th start in the last Oats had one request of Alabama l SAN DIEGO STATE 62, its first trip to the NCAA tourna- ture the Atlantic Sun tournament
Thomas McConvey had three two years for Joe Gibbs Racing, fans: Make the short drive to the UTAH STATE 57: In Las Vegas, ment since 2007. crown in Fort Myers, Fla.
goals and two assists, Jeff Conner Smith led the final 52 laps. Music City and pack the arena Matt Bradley scored 16 points and l TOLEDO 73, BOWLING l SOUTHERN UTAH 82,
chipped in with two goals and a Ryan Truex finished second, Sunday for the SEC tournament Jaedon LeDee added 13 to lead GREEN 58: Quinesha Lockett CALIFORNIA BAPTIST 73:
pair of assists and Peter Garno followed by Sheldon Creed. championship game. the 20th-ranked Aztecs (27-6) scored 17 points, and the top- Cherita Daugherty scored 26
scored twice for Virginia. — From news services That came after freshman past the Aggies to win the Moun- seeded Rockets (28-4) led wire- points and Lizzy Williams and
Nick DeMaio scored four goals and staff reports Brandon Miller scored 20 points tain West tournament champion- to-wire to clinch their ninth Tomekia Whitman had double-
and grabbed 11 rebounds to help ship for the seventh time. NCAA tournament berth with a doubles to propel the Thunder-
fourth-ranked Alabama (28-5) Utah State (26-8) shot 16.7 per- victory over the Falcons (27-6) in birds (23-9) to the Western Ath-
advance by beating No. 25 Mis- cent (4 for 24) from beyond the the Mid-American Conference letic Conference tournament title
TELEVISION AND RADIO souri (24-9) in Nashville. arc. tournament championship game in their first year in the league
NBA Alabama (28-5) will play Sun- l VERMONT 72, MASSA- in Cleveland. with a victory over the Lancers
6 p.m. Washington at Philadelphia » NBC Sports Washington, WTEM (980 AM) day in its 15th tournament cham- CHUSETTS LOWELL 59: Dy- l SOUTHERN 62, ARKAN- (19-13) in Las Vegas.
9 p.m. New York at Los Angeles Lakers » ESPN pionship game against No. 18 lan Penn scored 21 points and SAS PINE BLUFF 53: Genovea
Texas A&M. Matt Veretto (15 points) ignited a Johnson scored 18 points and WKU’s Stansbury resigns
mlb spring training
1 p.m. Washington vs. St. Louis » WJFK (106.7 FM)
l PURDUE 80, OHIO STATE game-breaking run with nine Amani McWain changed the mo- Rick Stansbury resigned after
1 p.m. Boston vs. Baltimore » WIYY (97.9 FM) 66: Zach Edey took over for the consecutive points as the Cata- mentum with two three-pointers seven seasons as Western Ken-
1 p.m. Tampa Bay vs. New York Mets » MLB Network fifth-ranked Boilermakers in the mounts (23-10) turned back the in the fourth quarter to propel the tucky’s men’s coach and cited a
4 p.m. Milwaukee vs. Chicago » MLB Network semifinals of the Big Ten tourna- River Hawks (26-8) to win the Jaguars (18-14) into the NCAA need to focus on his health and
ment, scoring 32 points and America East tournament cham- tournament with a win over the family.
NHL
snatching 15 rebounds to power pionship in Burlington, Vt. Golden Lions in the SWAC tour- l WICHITA STATE: Isaac
1:30 p.m. Boston at Detroit » TNT
Purdue (28-5) to a commanding l TEXAS SOUTHERN 61, nament championship game in Brown was fired as coach of the
4 p.m. New York Rangers at Pittsburgh » TNT
7 p.m. Vegas at St. Louis » NHL Network
win over the Buckeyes (16-19) in GRAMBLING 58: PJ Henry Birmingham. Shockers, one day after Wichita
Chicago. scored 19 points, and Texas Demetria Shepherd scored 13 State was bounced from the quar-
MEN’S COLLEGE BASKETBALL The top-seeded Boilermakers Southern (14-20) denied Gram- points to pace Arkansas Pine terfinals of the AAC tournament
Noon Ivy League, final: Princeton vs. Yale » ESPN2 (28-5) started to take control late bling (24-9) its first NCAA tourna- Bluff (14-17), which had never and two years after he was voted
1 p.m. SEC, final: Alabama vs. Texas A&M » ESPN in the first half and cruised into ment berth while becoming the reached the title game before the league’s coach of the year.
1 p.m. Atlantic 10, final: VCU vs. Dayton » WUSA (Ch. 9), WJZ (Ch. 13)
3:15 p.m. American Athletic, final: Houston vs. Memphis » ESPN
3:30 p.m. Big Ten, final: Purdue vs. Penn State » WUSA (Ch. 9), WJZ (Ch. 13)
6 p.m. NCAA tournament selection show » WUSA (Ch. 9), WJZ (Ch. 13)

WOMEN’S COLLEGE BASKETBALL

Noon Patriot, final: Holy Cross vs. Boston University » CBS Sports Network
Texas easily wins Big 12 tournament championship
Noon Northeast, final: Sacred Heart vs. Fairleigh Dickinson » ESPNU
2 p.m. Colonial, final: Towson vs. Monmouth » CBS Sports Network Big 12 from D1 really missed him today,” Roberts
2 p.m. Missouri Valley, final: Drake vs. Belmont » ESPNU said later: “We’re at Kansas. We
2 p.m. Big 12, final: Texas vs. Iowa State » ESPN2 graduate forward Brock Cunning- don’t make an excuse. You just
8 p.m. NCAA tournament selection show » ESPN
ham. keep on playing. We just didn’t
WORLD BASEBALL CLASSIC “I felt like we were all just flow- guard the way we needed to. We’re
6 a.m. Pool B: Australia at Japan » Fox Sports 1 ing,” Carr said. not going to make any excuses.
7 a.m. Pool A: Netherlands vs. Italy » Fox Sports 2 “A team award,” Disu called his They played the same amount of
Noon Pool D: Nicaragua vs. Israel » Fox Sports 2 tournament most outstanding [tournament] games we played.
3 p.m. Pool C: Britain vs. Canada » Fox Sports 1 player nod. No excuses.”
7 p.m. Pool D: Venezuela vs. Puerto Rico » Fox Sports 1 “They wanted to be champi- He concluded of Texas, “They
10 p.m. Pool C: Mexico at United States » Fox Sports 1 ons,” interim coach Rodney Terry have been all year probably the
11 p.m. Pool B: Australia vs. Czech Republic » Fox Sports 2
said. “They really did, and they most talented team in the league.”
AUTO RACING made it happen.” As the teams had played along
Noon NHRA: Gatornationals » WTTG (Ch. 5), WBFF (Ch. 45) The Longhorns ran their two- to 28-28 in a scrap of a first half,
3:30 p.m. NASCAR Cup Series: Work United 500 » WTTG (Ch. 5), WBFF (Ch. 45) man plays with beauty, and they Texas’s impending dominance
got more layups than the sea- didn’t seem to appear in the fore-
GOLF
soned fans in the stands like to see cast. Then Carr made a driving
1 p.m. PGA Tour: Players Championship, final round » WRC (Ch. 4), WBAL (Ch. 11) any Jayhawks yield. “What sepa- layup 3:34 before halftime for 30-
SOCCER rated us,” said 6-foot-8 herculean 28, Morris made a fast-break
8 a.m. French Ligue 1: Lens at Clermont » beIN Sports Kansas star Jalen Wilson, “was layup 3:06 before halftime for 32-
8:30 a.m. Women’s Super League: Manchester United at Chelsea » the easy points they got. That’s 28 and Morris made a three-point
CBS Sports Network one of the things we try to hang shot 2:44 before halftime for 35-
10 a.m. English Premier League: Aston Villa at West Ham United » USA Network our hat on — no easy points — and 28.
10 a.m. French Ligue 1: Nice at Nantes » beIN Sports they got a lot of them today.” At 2:01, Morris’s three rattled
Noon French Ligue 1: Reims at Monaco » beIN Sports The considerable defense on Jamie Squire/Getty Images out narrowly, whereupon Wilson
12:30 p.m. English Premier League: Wolverhampton at Newcastle United » Harris played by Tyrese Hunter Under interim head coach Rodney Terry, the No. 7 Longhorns ran went charging up the court on a
USA Network
and Morris stoked praise from away from a 28-all tie for an easy victory over third-ranked Kansas. fast break to wreak a three-point
3:45 p.m. French Ligue 1: Strasbourg at Olympique Marseille » beIN Sports
9 p.m. Mexican Liga MX: Tijuana at Santos Laguna » Fox Sports 2
Cunningham, who said: “Dajuan play to narrow matters. That lent
Harris is famous for initiating with domestic violence and con- an undisclosed illness Wednes- hope to the Jayhawks-minded,
TENNIS their offense, and having another tinued in January when the uni- day, said he expects Self to coach and the 39-33 halftime deficit
2 p.m. ATP/WTA: Indian Wells Masters, third round » Tennis Channel player have to initiate their of- versity fired Beard. He has gone the big tournament. “He’s doing wasn’t bad, but soon enough after
professional football
fense and bring the ball up doesn’t 19-7 with a policy of “Man, it’s a well,” Roberts said. “We plan on halftime Texas senior forward
allow them to get into a rhythm. great day to be alive; I say that him coaching next week.” Christian Bishop kicked one back
3 p.m. XFL: Arlington at St. Louis » ESPN2
7 p.m. XFL: Vegas at D.C. » ESPN2
And it makes them start their every day to my guys,” even as his If so, Self will coach a program to Carr, and Carr banged in a
offense closer to 18 to 20 seconds own voice stopped and cracked that just won its 17th regular sea- cocksure three-point shot, mak-
PROFESSIONAL BASKETBALL [on the shot clock], which is a when he said: “I’m really trying to son title under him but closed ing it 52-41 — and it was off to the
4:30 p.m. NBA G League: G League Ignite at Texas » NBA TV benefit for us.” dedicate this season to my dad. I with a thud here — not a harbin- rout from there as the grind of the
It became a second Big 12 tour- lost my dad in August and” — he ger of doom given that seven of the Big 12 season had found its way to
MEN’S COLLEGE GYMNASTICS
nament title in three years for paused for a short while here — past 10 national champions lost in one last sharp turn.
4 p.m. Nebraska at Illinois » Big Ten Network
Texas as it prepares to move to the “he would be really excited right their conference tournaments. Pretty soon it was 70-50, and
COLLEGE SOFTBALL SEC in 2024, and it became the now.” “I thought we did a pretty good pretty soon after that Terry ex-
Noon Mississippi at Tennessee » SEC Network largest loss ever in this tourna- It left defending national job early on in the game,” Roberts changed emphatic hugs with Carr
Noon Notre Dame at North Carolina State » ACC Network ment for Kansas, which has won it champion Kansas at 27-7 and left said, “and then we missed a bunch and Morris as he removed them
2 p.m. Kentucky at Missouri » SEC Network 12 times since its origins in 1997. its presumed No. 1 seed for the of bunnies, easy shots, putbacks from the game to give the subs
2 p.m. Louisville at Duke » ACC Network Terry, a former head coach at NCAA tournament perhaps a tad and things that could have kept us some light. Pretty soon after that
3 p.m. Oregon at Washington » Pac-12 Network Fresno State and UTEP who came in doubt. Norm Roberts, the long- in the game. And then I think the Longhorns ran onto the court
4 p.m. LSU at South Carolina » SEC Network to Texas only last season as an time Kansas assistant filling in for fatigue kind of took over.” in jubilation as the last winner in a
4 p.m. Georgia Tech at Virginia » ACC Network
assistant, took over in December Self since the 20-season Kansas While guard Joseph Yesufu said league that had been very, very
5 p.m. Arizona at Arizona State » Pac-12 Network
when Chris Beard was charged coach entered the hospital with of McCullar’s absence, “We just hard.
sunday, march 12 , 2023
John Feinstein
Tears flow as Blakeney leads Howard to its first NCAA tournament since 1992
Feinstein from D1
finally — the tournament title
and the first trip to the NCAA
tournament since Butch Beard
was Howard’s coach in 1992.
“Wow,” Blakeney said softly
standing in front of his team, the
net around his neck and the
MEAC trophy next to him. He
paused and choked up again.
“Just wow. I mean, holy s---.
Everything you’ve gone through,
the 6 a.m. practices, getting
thrown out of the locker room —
all of it — was for this.”
This was an extraordinary
basketball game. Norfolk State
had won the past two MEAC
titles and has been the class of
the conference along with North
Carolina Central for most of
Coach Robert Jones’s 10 seasons
at the school. Howard went into
halftime with a 33-27 lead, but
the Spartans scored the first five
points of the second half and
neither team led by more than
four the rest of the way.
In the final 20 minutes, there
were six ties and 11 lead changes.
Two straight baskets were as
close to a run as anyone came.
“It was everything we
expected,” Howard’s Jelani
Williams said. “It was what a
championship game is supposed
to be.”
Williams and Odom were the
final pieces Blakeney added this
season. Williams came to
Howard as a graduate student
after four years at Pennsylvania.
Bison lose to Spartans in MEAC final, fall just short of second straight berth
Norfolk State 56,
Howard 52
BY T RAMEL R AGGS
For the second time in three
years, Howard’s women’s basket-
ball players watched in despair
with confetti in their hair as their
opponents celebrated clinching a
spot in the NCAA tournament.
That was the scene Saturday at
Scope Arena in Norfolk, where
Norfolk State prevailed, 56-52, in
the Mid-Eastern Athletic Confer-
ence tournament championship
game.
After seeing the men’s team
clinch its first trip to the NCAA
tournament since 1992 with a dra-
matic win against the same oppo-
nent, the third-seeded Howard
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Howard guard Jelani Williams (5) was fouled in the final seconds and made two free throws to win it.
Earlier this season, Williams said
he decided to play at Howard
because he wanted to be the
leader on a team that had a
chance to win a championship.
That dream became real
Saturday, although it looked for a
while as though the Bison would
come up just short. Two free
throws by Norfolk State’s Joe
Bryant Jr. with 23.7 seconds left
gave the Spartans a 64-60 lead.
women hoped to make a repeat
trip after claiming the MEAC tour-
nament title last season. On Satur-
day, the Bison (16-14) opened with
a spirited effort and sprinted to an
11-2 advantage. But top-seeded
Norfolk State (26-6) used a sizable
advantage on the boards to climb
within 30-29 at halftime.
In the third quarter, the Spar-
tans held Howard to five points to
grab a six-point lead, and they
remained in front for the entire
fourth quarter to claim a spot in
the NCAA tournament for the first
time since 2002.
After losing the rebounding
battle in 19 of its first 24 games,
Howard seemingly had fixed its
issues; the Bison had outrebound-
ed five straight opponents leading
into the MEAC final. But those
rebounding issues returned: Nor-
folk State dominated the boards
Pat Jacob
college basketball
But Marcus Dockery drained a
three-pointer — Howard’s only
three-pointer of the second half
— with 13.2 seconds left, and
Blakeney called his final timeout.
The Bison came out in their
“41” defense, meaning they were
trying to deny any inbounds pass.
It worked. The Spartans had a
miscommunication, and the
inbounds pass ended up going
past everyone and out of bounds.
Deja Francis shoots over Howard defenders during first-half action
in Norfolk. The Spartans proved too big and physical for the Bison.
J0712 3x9
EZ SU
Mike Caudill/Associated Press
The clock never moved. When
Howard inbounded, there was no
doubt where the ball was going:
to Williams. He already had 18
points — the only Howard player
in double figures — and he had
been the Bison’s rock down the
stretch.
“I’m supposed to be the tough
guy, especially in close games,” he
said. “I understand that role, and
I want that role.”
Tim Nwachukwu/Getty Images
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there?
Only one way
to find out.
WashingtonPostJobs.com
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Williams caught the ball at the
top of the key and drove into the
teeth of the Norfolk State
defense. As the Spartans
collapsed on him, he twisted his
body and drew a foul. The
Spartans had complained about
fouls early and often, but this
time there was no arguing.
Williams drained the first shot
to tie the score at 64. Jones called
a timeout to make him think
about the second one.
He did. “I thought, ‘This is why
I came to Howard,’ ” Williams
said, still clutching the ball he
made the shots with. “I’ve waited
all my life for a moment like this.
I’m never letting go of this ball. I
knew this was my last chance to
go to the NCAAs, and I was going
to make it happen.”
He made the free throw for a
65-64 lead with 6.1 seconds left.
NSU got the ball to midcourt and
called its final timeout with 4.3
seconds to go. The inbounds
came to Kris Bankston, and he
drove the baseline. But the Bison
defense came to meet him, and
his shot hit the bottom of the rim
as time ran out.
Heartbreak for the Spartans.
Euphoria for the Bison. It took
several minutes for the Norfolk
State players to find their legs to
walk to the locker room. The
Howard celebration was well
underway by then. Former
Howard players flooded the floor.
Former coach A.B. Williamson,
who guided Howard to its first
NCAA tournament bid in 1981,
45-30.
“When you’ve played a team as
many times as we have played
Norfolk State, it’s really difficult to
surprise or expose a weakness,
specifically in a tournament type
of setting,” Howard Coach Ty
Grace said beforehand. “But re-
bounding will always shift games
because it’s something that you
can’t really plan or scout for be-
cause you don’t know how the ball
is going to bounce.”
Destiny Howell, the MEAC
player of the year, hit eight three-
pointers to lead Howard with
30 points. She made two from the
perimeter in the final 20 seconds,
but Norfolk State held on at the
free throw line. Aziah Hudson
added 10 points for the Bison.
After falling to North Carolina
A&T by two points in the 2021
MEAC title game, Howard was
D3
stood and watched as the nets
came down.
“I remember Kenny at
DeMatha when he played for
Morgan [Wootten],” he said with
a smile. “Then he went to Duke
and played for [Mike
Krzyzewski]. I guess he learned a
few lessons from those two.”
Even 30 minutes after the final
buzzer, standing in front of his
players with the net draped
around his neck — “My new
necklace,” he said — Blakeney
was having trouble drinking it all
in.
“It’s surreal, isn’t it guys?” he
said. “It’s one thing to dream
about doing something like this.
It’s another thing to actually do
it. I mean, it’s real. We really did
it.”
It is entirely possible Howard,
with a 22-12 record, will be sent
to Dayton, Ohio, as a No. 16 seed
for a play-in game. Blakeney
could not care less. “Wherever
they tell us to go, we’ll just get on
the bus and go,” he said.
Wherever the Bison go, it
won’t be by bus. When you make
the NCAA tournament, you travel
by charter plane. The last time
Blakeney did that was 1994,
when he was a Duke junior. He’s
51 now and, like his school, has
been down a lot of roads to get
back to where he was Saturday.
“I’m speechless,” Blakeney said
to his players, who laughed
because he is almost never
speechless. “What a run.”
And what an ending.
seeking consecutive trips to the
NCAA tournament for the first
time since it made three straight
appearances from 1996 to 1998.
That won’t happen, but the pro-
gram continues to improve under
Grace. In her eight seasons, the
Bison have made three appearanc-
es in the MEAC title game and
have one NCAA tournament victo-
ry — over Incarnate Word in a First
Four game last season before a
lopsided loss to eventual cham-
pion South Carolina in the round
of 64.
ESPN projects the Spartans are
in position to avoid the First Four
and could miss a meeting with
South Carolina, an experience the
Bison know all too well. Makoye
Diawara led the way Saturday
with 11 points and nine rebounds.
Niya Fields had 11 points and six
rebounds.
J0711 3x9
D4
Alabama’s Oats always has his players’ backs. Has he gone too far?
Alabama from D1
killed a 23-year-old woman in
Tuscaloosa. (Miles was quickly
removed from the team.) Among
the supposed tests to Alabama’s
culture are that police say Miller,
the best player on the nation’s
baddest team, delivered the gun
to the crime scene after Miles
texted Miller asking for it. An-
other man, Michael “Buzz” Davis,
is alleged to have fired the shots
that killed Jamea Jonae Harris.
An attorney for Miller said
Miller’s vehicle was struck by
bullets but that he “never touched
the gun, was not involved in its
exchange to Mr. Davis in any way,
and never knew that illegal activi-
ty involving the gun would occur.”
Oats has said Miller did noth-
ing wrong, and therefore he has
faced no discipline. Nor has
Jaden Bradley, another Alabama
player who police say was also at
the scene. In Miller’s first game
after being publicly linked to the
deadly shooting, he scored 41
points and made the winning
basket — his best outing of a
dominant season.
It’s a season in which the Crim-
son Tide is in line to be a No. 1
seed in the NCAA tournament
and could reach the Final Four for
the first time — but one “stained
in the blood of Jamea Harris,” the
victim’s stepfather recently told
AL.com, “and it’s not ever wash-
ing out.”
Unyielding loyalty
Oats, 48, directs a fast-paced,
mega-physical style that has lift-
ed Alabama from a men’s basket-
ball backwater to near the top of
the mountain. Now he presides
over an unprecedented moment
and a widely debated example of
sports anthropology: What do
you do when the biggest opportu-
nity and the greatest controversy
of your coaching career are hap-
pening at the same time and
centering on the same player?
“It’s got to be very conflicting,”
said Bobby Hurley, the former
Duke superstar who, as coach at
the University at Buffalo a decade
ago, plucked Oats out of the
Michigan high school coaching
ranks. “It’s easy for me to say how
I might’ve handled it, but I don’t
think that’s fair or appropriate for
me because I’m not living it.”
Hurley, now at Arizona State,
said any good coach’s first in-
stinct is to protect his or her
players. Teams are insular, us-
against-the-world micro-commu-
nities, and American culture
tends to lionize those who close
off the rest of the world, ignore
criticism and win anyway. Coach-
es are painted as parental figures
and the shepherds of a young
person’s future, and in no other
sport is this more true than col-
lege basketball.
There are legions of young men
who played for Oats and say
better futures were possible be-
cause of him. When Will Clyburn,
who played for Oats at Romulus
High outside Detroit, was about
to drop out of school and get a job
because his family couldn’t afford
rent, it was Oats who talked him
out of it, Oats who took him on
college visits and Oats who tu-
tored him so he could graduate
on time.
Clyburn said he doesn’t know
Miller or the details of the situa-
tion in Tuscaloosa but he knows
the covenant made by coaches,
prospects and their families. Mil-
ler grew up in Antioch, Tenn., a
suburban area of Nashville, a city
that historically has pushed Black
residents to the outskirts and
deeper into generational poverty.
A 2022 study reported a 36
percent increase in Nashville’s
murder rate from the previous
year, and Tennessee has the
eighth-highest rate of gun homi-
cides in the country. Antioch, just
a dozen miles southeast of Nash-
ville’s sparkling city center, has
experienced the following in the
past six years: one dead, seven
injured at a church in 2017; four
dead, four injured at a Waffle
House in 2018; and four shot, two
fatally, at a pool party in 2022.
“Oats probably sat in his living
room, talked to this guy’s parents,
said he’s going to treat him as one
of his own,” Clyburn said. “He’s
got to stick by him, no matter
what. I don’t think anybody is
going to throw their child under
the bus, because that’s what these
kids are to these coaches. You’re
going to have his back until you
can’t have it anymore.”
Oats and Alabama have tested
this idea to its extreme — result-
ing in repeated public-relations
missteps. Less than three weeks
after one of Oats’s players was
handcuffed and led into Tusca-
loosa County Jail, the university
announced a contract extension
that raised the coach’s annual
salary to an average of $5 million
per year. Last month, Oats apolo-
gized for saying Miller had simply
been at the “wrong spot at the
wrong time” on the night of the
shooting, then apologized again
days later when Miller received a
“pat down” from a teammate
Coach Nate Oats has said that freshman star Brandon Miller, who police said delivered a gun to a crime scene, has done nothing wrong.
during player introductions be-
fore a game. Oats claimed he was
unaware of the ritual, which pre-
ceded Harris’s killing, and said it
was intended to mimic an airport
security check — that Miller was
“cleared for takeoff.”
“We, as the adults in the room,
should have been more sensitive
to how it could have been inter-
preted,” Oats said. “I dropped the
ball. That’s it — I dropped the ball
on it. I can assure you it won’t
happen again.”
If Oats is adored by current
and former players for his un-
yielding commitment to having
their backs, peers have occasion-
ally taken note of how far he will
take it. During a decade in which
he built Romulus into a state
power, Oats learned a player had
gotten into a fight during class
and wouldn’t be allowed to grad-
uate on time. According to a
former assistant, Oats called the
assistant principal who handled
discipline, then the principal,
then the human resources direc-
tor, then the school board presi-
dent — eventually finding some-
one who would overturn a ruling
Oats saw as unjust.
“Whatever we’re going to do,”
former top assistant Josh Baker
said, “we’re not ruining his life
over this. [Oats] is as loyal of a
person as you’re going to find.”
At Buffalo, Oats recruited Jus-
tin Moss, whom he had coached
at Romulus, to play for Hurley.
Moss had been dismissed from a
community college in Iowa and
then found himself on probation
at Buffalo for stealing. A few
months after Moss was named
Mid-American Conference player
of the year and led the Bulls to
their first NCAA tournament ap-
pearance, he and two other bas-
ketball players stole $650 from
the dorm room of two football
players. Oats, who had recently
replaced Hurley as head coach,
spent two months fighting for
Moss to remain in school and
eligible to play before the univer-
sity’s student judiciary expelled
him.
The two other players — one of
whom was another former Ro-
mulus star — were allowed to
remain on the team, though Oats
suspended them for the season
opener.
Miller did not go to Romulus,
but he is one of Oats’s guys. The
coach has defended his star for-
ward, even as media pressure
escalates and opposing crowds
chant “Lock him up!” when Miller
shoots free throws. Has Oats gone
too far in protecting a player who
could help him cut down the nets
in the NCAA tournament? Or has
he done precisely what a coach is
supposed to do?
“Everybody’s got an opinion,”
said Marlin Simms, who coached
Miller at Cane Ridge High. “Every
kid has their own story, and
nothing you can say to me will
make me think he did anything
wrong that night. All you can do is
support kids if you love kids.”
Shortly before tip-off Friday,
Simms wore a white sweatshirt
emblazoned with photos of Miller
as he watched his former player
EZ SU
warm up.
“I agree with Coach Oats,”
Simms continues. “But I’m bi-
ased. I’m very biased.”
Going for it
Oats spent his Friday after-
noon being whisked from one
postgame interview to the next.
Supporters patted his back in a
corridor at Bridgestone Arena,
and he spoke glowingly about his
players, his system, his team.
“A good start to the tourna-
ment,” he said. “The question is:
Can we continue to play like this
for the next two days?”
Or through the remainder of
March and into April? One of
Oats’s longtime friends, who
spoke on the condition of ano-
nymity to protect his relationship
with the coach, wondered if a
Final Four berth would validate
the past two months for Oats. Or
would a national championship
make the experience worth it?
The friend said he hopes Oats’s
choices have been driven less by
on-court glory than by his sup-
port of a college freshman who, in
a few months via the NBA draft, is
likely to become a millionaire
overnight and have a chance to
uplift his family and the commu-
nity where he grew up.
Still, the friend said, “I
would’ve suspended him prob-
ably indefinitely.”
Oats has built a career on going
for it — and on taking chances.
Oats used to call in sick from his
job teaching math at Romulus
because he was visiting UCLA or
the Memphis Grizzlies to watch
practice and learn new plays and
strategies. One year he visited
Pepperdine, where Coach Vance
Walberg was something of a math
whiz himself.
“Every time you shoot the ball,”
Walberg said now, “wouldn’t it be
nice to get three points instead of
two?”
His “dribble drive” strategy
was that driving toward the bas-
ket and taking three-pointers are
the most efficient ways to score,
and players who shot midrange
jumpers during practice had to
run laps. If they did so during
games, they would be benched. It
was Walberg’s way to protect his
team’s hopes even during a poor
shooting game.
“This is it,” Baker, the former
Romulus assistant, remembers
Oats saying. “This is the system.”
They returned to Michigan and
installed a reproduction of Wal-
berg’s formula, and soon Romu-
lus was beating opponents by 20
and 30 points, advancing further
than it ever had in the state
tournament. Oats went 93-7 in his
last four seasons and won seven
straight conference champion-
ships. Weeks after Oats’s team
won the 2013 state champion-
ship, Hurley offered him a college
job, and Oats jumped. He brought
Walberg’s concepts with him, as
well as a willingness to recruit
junior college transfers, who gen-
erally are perceived as prospects
who can help a coach win sooner
but come with more risk. With
Oats as Hurley’s defensive spe-
cialist and ace recruiter, Buffalo
signed more transfers in two
years than Hurley’s predecessor
had in 14.
Moss got expelled, Hurley went
to Arizona State, and now Oats
could mold the program as he
saw fit. He kept filling his roster
with win-now guys who could
shoot the three and attack the
rim, and Buffalo reached the
NCAA tournament in three of his
four seasons.
Alabama called in 2019, and
with Power Five resources, he
didn’t need so many junior col-
lege players. His first full recruit-
ing class wound up ranked 12th in
the country and included a 6-
foot-7 wing named Darius Miles.
“Tremendous upside,” Oats said.
In 2020-21, Alabama attempt-
ed more three-pointers than all
but three schools in college bas-
ketball and wore opponents out
with its suffocating tempo. Oats
studied postgame reports from a
third-party analytics firm and
found that the key to victory is
shooting at least 30 three-point-
ers per game. That season, the
Crimson Tide attempted 43 dur-
ing a win against LSU, and it was
Miles who made Alabama’s 23rd
three-pointer to set the SEC rec-
ord.
On Friday against Mississippi
State, Alabama had a relatively
cold shooting day, but in part
because Walberg’s system pro-
tects teams from that, Oats’s team
still won by 23.
After Alabama handled Mis-
souri in an SEC semifinal Satur-
day, the Crimson Tide is one win
from the conference tournament
title, then four more from the
Final Four. That means Oats’s
mastery of his sport’s empirical
data and a math-don’t-lie philos-
ophy are difficult to call into
question. But the gray areas seem
to befuddle him. On Friday, he
went on about defensive turnover
percentage and scoring efficiency
but muttered rehearsed answers
about why Miller was allowed to
play and why it took a police
detective to disclose that three
Alabama players had been at a
crime scene in January.
“Everybody was comfortable,
and, I mean, based on the infor-
mation we had, Brandon didn’t
break any school policy or team
policy,” he said. “So I was comfort-
able with the decision that was
made.”
Two months after a young
woman lost her life, has a coach
who seems to value humanity and
compassion spoken with the vic-
tim’s family?
“What you ask is a private
matter I’m not going to discuss
publicly with everybody,” he said.
“A lot of this is just hard to deal
with, to be honest with you.”
Has he tried?
“It’s a private matter,” he said.
Protecting the future
About 200 miles south of
Bridgestone Arena, DeCarla Cot-
ton’s Friday evening started with
rush-hour Taco Bell. Kaine, her
5-year-old grandson, wanted a
chicken quesadilla and a blue
raspberry slushie.
“For you,” she told him, “I will
the washington post
Andy Lyons/Getty Images
get in traffic tonight.”
Almost two months ago, Cot-
ton had spent a few days thinking
about how to tell the boy his
mother was gone. She would
muster the words, then feel a
wave of anger and sorrow about
how her daughter died, then flee
into the next room before Kaine
saw her crying. She’s an angel
now, she eventually told him.
No, Cotton said, Oats hasn’t
reached out. Nor has anyone from
Alabama. Doing so now, she said,
wouldn’t feel genuine. “Every-
body has seen the way he’s talked
about what he knew, what he
didn’t know,” Cotton said. “It’s a
whole mess. Just a mess.”
Those surrounding the Ala-
bama basketball program insist
it’s their job to protect a young
person’s future, to prevent the
events and uncertainty of Jan. 15
to stain a life permanently. The
same is true in this home outside
Birmingham, where Cotton has
temporarily suspended her grief
amid worries that Kaine will
grow up angry and resentful.
“Just his future, just overall,”
she said. “I worry about how he’s
going to cope in the years to
come. He’s small, and you kind of
explain things visually, but I
know there’ll be a day he’s old
enough to go to Google and try to
figure out things on his own.”
She lets out a long sigh.
“You want to say the right
things to him as a small child,”
Cotton continues, “but you want
him to understand.”
It’s almost impossible, she ad-
mits, given the boy’s age and the
circumstances surrounding his
mother’s death. Earlier that day,
Cotton’s husband, Kelvin Heard,
had the news on television when
a photo of Jamea came on the
screen during a report about Ala-
bama’s basketball team. Cotton
whisked Kaine out of the room
and told Heard to turn off the TV.
Among other reasons, Cotton
said, she doesn’t want Kaine to
blame basketball. He used to talk
about being a ninja when he
grows up, but now he says he
wants to play hoops. Cotton said
she doesn’t want him to associate
the game with tragedy, even
though that will be the theme of
whatever NCAA tournament run
Alabama may or may not make.
Since it was Friday, Cotton let
Kaine stay up later than usual
and play Roblox on his tablet.
When the game ended and Cotton
locked the device, Jamea’s picture
came up as the wallpaper. Kaine’s
eyes filled with tears, and his
grandmother wrapped him in a
hug.
“I miss my mom,” he said.
“She’s still in our hearts,” Cot-
ton told him.
Then she handed Kaine his
light-up teddy bear in an angel
costume, suggesting that if he
gave it a hug, his mother might
feel it. He hugged it, then his
grandmother, and she tucked
him into bed with a kiss on the
cheek.
“We always say we’re going to
be brave,” she told him, the last
thing the boy heard as another
long, emotional day ended.
. sunday, march 12 , 2023
Baseball roundup
Hot Ohtani
helps team
advance
in the WBC
Japan 10,
Czech Republic 2
A SSOCIATED P RESS
Shohei Ohtani had another RBI
double, 21-year-old right-hander
Roki Sasaki reached 100 mph 21
times in 66 pitches, and Japan
beat the Czech Republic, 10-2, on
Saturday night in Tokyo to clinch a
quarterfinal berth in the World
Baseball Classic.
Shugo Maki hit his second
home run of the tournament and
new Boston Red Sox outfielder
Masataka Yoshida had three RBI,
including a go-ahead, two-run
double in the third inning off On-
drej Satoria, as the Samurai War-
riors overcame a 1-0 deficit.
Ohtani went 1 for 3 with a walk
before a crowd of 41,637 in the
Tokyo Dome, leaving for a pinch
hitter in the eighth inning. He is 5
for 10 with three doubles, four RBI
and five walks for Japan (3-0),
which has one more group game
and will host a quarterfinal
Wednesday or Thursday. He also
has pitched four scoreless innings.
Sasaki struck out eight in 32/3 in-
nings and got the win. He allowed
an unearned run, two hits and two
walks.
Sasaki threw the 16th perfect
game in Japanese major league
history in April, then pitched eight
perfect innings in his next start
before being pulled after 102
pitches.
In the opener, Rixon Wingrove
had four RBI as Australia (2-0)
won in a 12-2 rout of China (0-3) in
a game shortened to seven innings
by the 10-run mercy rule.
In Group B in Taichung, Bos-
ton’s Yu Chang hit a tiebreaking,
second-inning grand slam that
lifted host Taiwan (2-1) to a 9-5 win
over the Netherlands (2-1). Also,
Panama (2-2) won, 2-0, over Italy
(1-2).
Tatis snaps out of slump
A hit is a hit, even if it’s only
spring training. For Fernando Ta-
tis Jr., it’s been a long time coming.
The San Diego Padres star was 0
for 16 this spring before hitting a
smash shot off the glove of Chica-
go White Sox shortstop Erik Gon-
zalez for a single in the first inning
Saturday in Peoria, Ariz. The hit
came against former teammate
Mike Clevinger. Tatis later added a
two-run double.
They were the first hits in 526
days for Tatis, who missed all of
last season. He was on the cusp of
returning from surgery on his left
wrist when he was suspended for
80 games by MLB after testing
positive for a performance-en-
hancing drug.
“He hasn’t played in a while.
He’s going to hit,” Manager Bob
Melvin said earlier in the week
when asked about Tatis’s slump.
“I’m sure he’s a little frustrated
right now, and he’s doing a lot of
work, too. The last thing I’m wor-
ried about is Fernando Tatis hit-
ting or not.”
Tatis isn’t eligible to return to
the active roster until April 20.
When he comes back, he’ll be in
right field. The Padres signed
shortstop Xander Bogaerts to an
11-year, $280 million contract in
December.
l CARDINALS: Rookie out-
fielder Jordan Walker, one of the
sensations of spring training, left
the game against the Houston As-
tros with a strained right shoulder
suffered on a slide at second base
in the first inning.
Manager Oliver Marmol said he
was not “overly concerned,” call-
ing the injury “day-to-day.”
Marmol said he hadn’t intend-
ed to play Walker on Sunday any-
way and that Monday is a sched-
uled off day for the team. Walker
will be reevaluated Sunday, but it
seems he will be able to play later
in the week.
Before Sunday’s 3-2 loss to
Houston, the 6-foot-6, 250-pound-
er led the Grapefruit League in
hits (14), batting average (.438),
slugging percentage, OPS, total
bases and extra-base hits.
l DIAMONDBACKS: Out-
fielder Corbin Carroll and Arizona
agreed to an eight-year, $111 mil-
lion contract that also has a club
option for the 2031 season, accord-
ing to a person familiar with the
deal.
The person spoke to the Associ-
ated Press on the condition of
anonymity because the agreement
hadn’t officially been announced.
MLB.com first reported the deal.
The 22-year-old Carroll is one of
baseball’s top prospects and
among the favorites to win rookie
of the year this season after an
impressive late-season cameo last
year.
sunday, march 12 , 2023 . the washington post EZ SU D5

In front of their mentors, Caps take New York to school

Capitals 5,
Islanders 1
BY R OMAN S TUBBS
ELMONT, N.Y. — The crowd at
UBS Arena had fallen into
stunned silence, which only am-
plified the cheers emanating
from Suite 36 on Saturday night.
That’s where a group of the
Washington Capitals’ fathers and
mentors had gathered for their
annual trip with the team for a
crucial matchup with the New
York Islanders, and after T.J.
Oshie had scored a go-ahead goal
late in the first period, some of
them hollered and climbed out of
their seats to give one another
fist bumps.
With their playoff chances tee-
tering, the Capitals seemed ener-
gized by the presence of their
loved ones in a resounding 5-1
win — and nearly every one of
their elders had something to
cheer about. That included Os-
hie’s goal, which came after sur-
gical passing in the offensive
zone, from Sonny Milano to Trev-
or van Riemsdyk to Rasmus San-
din, who dropped off the puck
from the right circle to the front
of the crease for Oshie to shovel it
into the open net.
The Capitals were aggressive
throughout but especially in the
first 40 minutes, when they doled
out 20 hits and blocked 14 shot
attempts in front of goaltender
Darcy Kuemper (17 saves). The
Capitals ended up outshooting
the Islanders 27-18 in their most
complete performance in weeks
to keep their flickering playoff
hopes alive with 15 games to go.
With Sandin’s father, Patric, in
attendance after traveling from
Sweden, the 23-year-old defense-
man continued to look like a
significant acquisition, finishing
with three primary assists. He
flashed on the top defense pair-
ing, quarterbacked the power
play and, after the Islanders had
taken a 1-0 lead on a Pierre
Engvall goal at 5:18 of the first
period, used a slick backhand off
the boards to set up a Dylan
Strome goal at 6:41. In the final
Defenseman Rasmus Sandin — whose father, Patric, was in attendance after traveling from Sweden — finished with three primary assists.
minute of the period, he fed
Oshie, which gave Sandin his
third multi-point game since be-
ing acquired from the Toronto
Maple Leafs on Feb. 28. He has
eight points (one goal, seven
assists) in his first four games
with Washington.
Also in attendance Saturday
night was Anthony Mantha’s fa-
ther, Daniel Pronovost, who wore
his son’s custom letterman jacket
that he received before a game
earlier this season. He watched
as his son prowled on the power
play early in the third period,
looking to break a 19-game goal
drought. Across from Mantha
was Alex Ovechkin, who took a
pass at the doorstep and tried to
chip the puck over the pad of
Islanders goalie Semyon Varlam-
ov (22 saves) before collecting his
own rebound and nudging the
puck to Mantha, who scored at
4:15. Mantha shook both fists
and seemed to offer a sigh of
relief after scoring for the first
time since New Year’s Eve.
New York had outscored its
opponents 17-1 in the third peri-
od over its previous 10 games,
but the Islanders were stymied
Bruce Bennett/Getty Images
by Kuemper at every turn Satur-
day. The Capitals remained re-
lentless in the final minutes. Nic
Dowd scored on a snipe after a
turnover at 12:18 of the third, and
fellow center Nicklas Backstrom
redirected a Sandin point shot
past Varlamov at 13:19. That sent
the home crowd for the exits, but
the party in Suite 36 was just
getting started.
c apitals’ ne x t three
at New York Rangers
Tuesday 7 ESPN
vs. Buffalo Sabres
Wednesday 7 NBCSW
vs. St Louis Blues
Friday 7 NBCSW
Radio: WJFK (106.7 FM),
WFED (1500 AM)
Capitals 5, Islanders 1
Washington ......................... 2
N.Y. Islanders ...................... 1
0
0
3 —
0 —
5
1
FIRST PERIOD
Scoring: 1, Washington, Strome 16 (Sandin, van Riems-
dyk), 6:41. 2, Washington, Oshie 17 (Sandin, van
Riemsdyk), 19:13.
THIRD PERIOD
Scoring: 3, Washington, Mantha 10 (Ovechkin, Strome),
4:15. 4, Washington, Dowd 11, 12:18. 5, Washington,
Backstrom 4 (Sandin, Mantha), 13:19.
SHOTS ON GOAL
Washington ....................... 12
N.Y. Islanders ...................... 4
8
8
7 — 27
6 — 18
Power-play opportunities: Washington 0 of 4; N.Y.
Islanders 0 of 5. Goalies: Washington, Kuemper 20-20-5
(18 shots-17 saves). N.Y. Islanders, Varlamov 11-8-2
(27-22). A: 17,255 (17,113). T: 2:22.
Here’s what else to know about
the Capitals’ win:
Extension for van Riemsdyk
The Capitals continued to so-
lidify their defense core for next
season by giving van Riemsdyk a
three-year contract extension
worth $3 million annually. Wash-
ington now has four blue-liners
under contract for next season;
van Riemsdyk joins John Carl-
son, Sandin and Nick Jensen,
who signed an extension late last
month. Fellow defenders Alexan-
der Alexeyev and Martin Feher-
vary are set to be restricted free
agents.
Jensen, Fehervary return
Washington’s defense received
a boost with the returns of Jens-
en and Fehervary after they
missed the previous three games
with injury. Washington had re-
lied heavily on call-ups in their
absence, including Gabriel Carls-
son, who was a healthy scratch
Saturday, and Vincent Iorio, who
was sent back to the team’s
American League Hockey affili-
ate in Hershey, Pa.

With his new deal signed, Ruiz wants to ‘take responsibility’ with Washington
BY A NDREW G OLDEN
WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. —
Dressed in black dress shoes,
black dress pants and a black
dress shirt covering a gold chain,
Keibert Ruiz strode into the news
conference room at Ballpark of
the Palm Beaches on Saturday to
a packed house.
Several players stood along the
walls, including MacKenzie Gore,
Trevor Williams, Riley Adams,
Luis García and Ildemaro Vargas.
Coaches and front-office mem-
bers joined them. All were there
to see the Washington Nationals’
catcher of the present and the
future.
On Saturday, Ruiz signed an
eight-year, $50 million contract
extension with two club options.
The switch-hitting Venezuelan,
who still had two more years until
he was arbitration-eligible, is set
to be with the Nationals through
his first three years of free agency
until 2030. The team controls
Ruiz, 24, through the 2032 sea-
son. In short, the Nationals have
their backstop for potentially the
next decade.
“I’m really excited to stay here
for a long time,” Ruiz said. “I feel
like we got a good group. All these
young guys — MacKenzie Gore,
Josiah Gray, all the guys coming
up from the minor leagues. So I
feel like I’ve got to take responsi-
bility now. I’ve got to do my job to
help this team win.”
Ruiz got a taste of a champion-
ship in 2020 as a young catcher
on the Los Angeles Dodgers’ taxi
squad. But in 2021, he moved to
the Nationals in the deal that sent
Max Scherzer and Trea Turner to
the Dodgers.
The trade, along with others
that summer, signaled the Na-
tionals’ transition from a peren-
nial contender to a rebuilding
franchise. That path was expedit-
ed last August when Washington
traded Juan Soto and Josh Bell
for six players at the deadline.
Last season, Ruiz hit .251 with
seven home runs, 36 RBI and an
OPS-plus of 95. (The MLB average
is 100.) Behind the plate, he threw
out 20 runners — the second most
in the majors — despite missing
the final 24 games with a testicu-
lar contusion.
Ruiz entered spring training
not thinking an extension would
happen. (He switched agencies
from Scott Boras to Octagon last
month.) Nationals General Man-
ager Mike Rizzo said he was
impressed by Ruiz’s demeanor
last season and his leadership
this spring training, which led to
the idea of signing the catcher
long term.
Upon receiving the contract
offer he wanted, Ruiz joked that
he immediately said yes but wait-
ed a few days before actually
agreeing. He called his parents
and cried. By signing, Ruiz be-
came the first National to sign a
contract extension before he was
eligible for arbitration.
“You look at a lot of champion-
ship-caliber clubs, the catcher is
the core piece,” Rizzo said. “He’s
kind of the captain or the general
on. . . the field. It’s a different
task, not only the rigors of catch-
ing and taking foul tips off the
mask and getting little nicks and
that. . . . When you’re trying to
build this thing from the ground
up, I think that’s an important
aspect to it.”
Ruiz said he looks forward to
the responsibility of handling the
pitching staff — if he handles his
pitchers, he says, his production
at the plate will take care of itself.
He has had no trouble with con-
tact in previous seasons but is
expecting to hit for more power
this year by being more selective
at the plate.
“I’m planning on throwing to
him for a long time,” pitcher Cade
Cavalli said. “So I’m really excited
about it. He’s a great leader, great
teammate. It’s going to be fun.”
In the past, the Nationals have
struggled to lock down players
for the future. Washington has
signed only two players to signifi-
cant pre-free agency extensions.
Ryan Zimmerman agreed to two
deals, one in 2009 and another
before the 2012 season. Stephen
Strasburg signed a seven-year,
$175 million extension in the
middle of the 2016 season, after
which he was scheduled to be a
free agent.
Players such as Turner, Juan
Soto, Ian Desmond, Jordan Zim-
mermann and Bryce Harper
didn’t reach extensions and later
left Washington. After Ruiz’s con-
tact, Rizzo can focus on potential-
ly signing more deals to keep the
rest of the Nationals’ young core
— Gore, García, Gray, Cade Caval-
li and CJ Abrams — intact.
Rizzo said Saturday that
there’s no limit on how many
similar deals the team can pur-
sue. He said he tends to look at
the caliber of not only the player
but the person. He believes
there’s a handful of candidates on
the team who fit that billing. A lot
could still change. The Nationals’
ownership situation is in flux.
Rizzo and Manager Dave Marti-
nez are in the final year of their
contracts.
For now, Washington has
locked up one of its young players
at one of the game’s most impor-
tant positions. Ruiz joined the
Nationals in 2021 after the trade
deadline for 23 games. He played
in 112 games behind the plate last
season and probably will play
more this year as he gels with the
young pitching staff.
“I’ve always said this about
him: I think eventually he will be
one of our leaders in that club-
house,” Martinez said. “I’m really
happy for him. I’m really happy
for his family. But we often talk
about how we invest in players. I
think it’s kind of the other way.
He’s investing in us for the long
term, and that means a lot. It
really does.”

Barry Svrluga Almost nothing is more well the clubhouse with your own
documented about the players.

For once, Nats place a bet Nationals’ inability — or

reluctance or whatever — to
retain homegrown talent. Ryan
One indication that this deal
is low-risk for the Nats: It’s on
the books at least through 2030,

on still-developing player Zimmerman signed pre-free

Svrluga from D1
specialized in — a development
Nats fans have noted, ruefully. As
Rizzo said, there’s risk here, just
not the franchise-crippling risk
that comes with a lengthy deal
that covers only astronomically
expensive free agent years. (See:
Strasburg, Stephen, and seven
years for $245 million.)
The first two years of Ruiz’s
extension are when he was
completely under team control
and could have been assigned, by
the club, the major league
minimum salary, which in 2023
is $720,000. In terms of total
compensation, those two years
are negligible. The next three
years, 2025 to 2027, are when
Ruiz’s salary would have
bumped up through arbitration
— the system that is essentially
akin to real estate comps. What
do houses (catchers) of the same
neighborhood (experience) and
size (production) sell for (get
paid)?
To be clear, Ruiz would have
been a National through 2027
had they never struck this deal.
So the important part is really
the final three seasons, which
cover what would have been
those free agent years, and what
Ruiz has become by then. A
person familiar with the contract
said those three seasons will pay
$7 million for 2028, $9 million
for 2029 and $9 million for 2030,
good for a total of $25 million,
and added that the contract
includes a signing bonus and
more money in Year 2, when the
Nationals’ payroll is expected to
remain low.
One recent contract that
might be a reasonable
comparison to Ruiz’s is the six-
year, $73 million deal the Braves
granted to Sean Murphy, the
catcher they acquired in
December in a trade with
Oakland. Murphy, 28, is older
than Ruiz and has two more
years of experience, so his
contract covers only his
arbitration years and three years
of free agency. He also hits for
more power (a .429 career
slugging percentage to Ruiz’s
.373) and is generally more
productive (a .755 OPS to Ruiz’s
.689).
So Ruiz is cheaper. But the
Nats’ bet here is that after
coming over in the Turner-Max
Keibert Ruiz posted a .251 batting average, .313 on-base percentage
and .360 slugging percentage in his first full season with the Nats.
Scherzer trade with the Los
Angeles Dodgers in 2021, he isn’t
done developing.
“We see upside with Keibert,”
Rizzo said. “. . . He was thrown
into a situation — strange city,
strange organization, strange
pitching staff — and I thought he
handled himself remarkably last
year. I think that he came into
this winter and this offseason
and into spring training as more
of a kind of a leadership mode
even before we started talking
about any types of extension and
that type of thing. It gave me the
onus to really think hard about
who we want to lock into these
John McDonnell/The Washington Post
positions and to build this team
around.”
Ruiz doesn’t have to turn into
J.T. Realmuto, Philadelphia’s
­all-star catcher — and he almost
certainly won’t. But it’s
instructive to point out that
Realmuto, as a 24-year-old
rookie with Miami, had a
.259 batting average, a .290 ­on-
base percentage and a
.406 slugging percentage. Ruiz’s
slash line in 2022, his age-23
season: .251/.313/.360.
Put the money aside, and
there’s a cultural element to this
signing that’s at least as — and
probably more — important.
agency extensions with
Washington. Strasburg signed
one. The rest of the cores of
competitive teams gone by — Ian
Desmond, Jordan Zimmermann,
Harper, Anthony Rendon,
Turner, Juan Soto — either
reached free agency and
departed or were traded before
they got there.
“This is the first one we’ve
ever got done, yeah,” Rizzo said.
“But it wasn’t the first attempt at
it.”
Breaking down and
understanding those outcomes
individually is an exercise we
have been through ad nauseam.
But there’s a collective wear not
only on the fan base but on the
clubhouse. Players would love to
grow up with a team that has a
reputation for taking care of and
building around its own.
Those are the players the front
office and ownership know the
best — their work habits, how
they respond to adversity and
success, how they relate to
teammates, how they take
instruction. No amount of
research, no number of phone
calls can provide the same
information about a would-be
free agent signee from outside
the organization than years
spent on planes, in hotels and in
when there’s no way to know
who will own the team. The
defining thing about this spring
training isn’t Ruiz’s extension or
the excitement around some of
the prospects the Nats have
recently collected. It’s the
uncertainty around the Lerner
family’s exploration of a sale, an
exploration that is now
11 months old.
“We’re business as usual,”
Rizzo said. “We do things the
way we think that’s best for the
Nationals today and long term.
And we thought this kind of
accomplished both of those
goals.”
Doable with this kind of high-
upside, low-exposure deal. Not
with what might be needed next
offseason, when there could be
impactful free agents to pursue.
Baby steps.
It’s not next offseason, after
all. Right now, in the spring of
2023, this is the bet: Keibert
Ruiz is a player who is
foundational in the clubhouse
and on the field. He will improve
in production to the point that
$25 million or whatever over the
last three years of the contract is
a bargain rather than a burden.
And for a franchise that seems
wayward, there is at least a
temporary sense of both stability
and possibility.
D6
NHL ROUNDUP
Boston is
the fastest
to 50 wins
in history
Bruins 3,
Red Wings 2
A SSOCIATED P RESS
The Boston Bruins’ T-shirt fac-
tory is struggling to keep up with
all the milestones the team is
cruising past on its way to the
Presidents’ Trophy.
“Fifty wins, it’s amazing,” said
forward A.J. Greer, who was wear-
ing a shirt commemorating Pa-
trice Bergeron’s 1,000th NHL
point while discussing Boston’s
50th win of the season, a 3-2 victo-
ry over the Detroit Red Wings at
home Saturday. The Bruins are the
fastest team to the half-century
mark in NHL history.
“I love playing for this team,”
Greer said after assisting on Gar-
net Hathaway’s game-winner with
six minutes left. “I love wearing
the Bruins logo, and especially
with the results, it’s been an amaz-
ing journey so far. But we’re not
really focused on anything right
now besides playing the right way
for 60 minutes every night.”
Hathaway gathered in a re-
bound and poked it in to break a
third-period tie as Boston — al-
ready the fastest team ever to
100 points — rallied from a two-
goal deficit to beat Detroit and
improve to 50-9-5 on the season.
The 50 wins in 64 games broke the
record of 66 set by the 1995-96 Red
Wings and matched by the 2018-19
Lightning.
“Congrats to us, then, I guess,”
said goalie Linus Ullmark, who
stopped 30 shots. “But we focus on
the process, and our process is
what’s important.”
After blowing a two-goal lead
and losing, 3-2, to Edmonton on
Thursday night, snapping a
­10-game winning streak, the Bru-
ins fell behind 2-0 on Saturday
before the game was five minutes
old. But Hampus Lindholm and
Bergeron scored 88 seconds apart
in the second period, when Boston
had the first 12 shots on goal and
an 18-2 edge in shots overall.
Hathaway broke the tie in the
third to avert what would have
been the Bruins’ first back-to-back
losses at home this season.
l GOLDEN KNIGHTS 4,
HURRICANES 0: In Raleigh,
N.C., Jonathan Quick recorded his
first shutout since he joined Vegas
by making 33 saves in a win over
Carolina.
Jonathan Marchessault, Reilly
Smith, Paul Cotter and Brett How-
den had goals as the Golden
Knights scored in every period.
Vegas has won five of its past six
games.
l DEVILS 3, CANADIENS 1:
Nico Hischier had a goal and an
assist, and visiting New Jersey
beat Montreal.
Nathan Bastian and Tomas Ta-
tar also scored to help the Devils
get their sixth win in eight games
and move two points behind Caro-
lina for first place in the Metropol-
itan Division.
l RANGERS 2, SABRES 1
(OT): Igor Shesterkin bailed out
New York by stopping 32 shots to
force overtime, and Artemi Pan­-
arin scored on a power play 2:02
into the extra period for a win in
Buffalo.
Patrick Kane scored his second
goal in four games since he was
acquired by the Rangers, who
have won four of six.
l PENGUINS 5, FLYERS 1:
Sidney Crosby scored the
86th game-winning goal of his
NHL career as host Pittsburgh de-
feated Philadelphia.
Crosby moved past Glenn An-
derson and Marian Hossa and into
a tie with Pierre Turgeon, Daniel
Sedin and Joe Sakic for 25th in
league history.
l LIGHTNING 3, BLACK-
HAWKS 1: In Tampa, Brayden
Point scored his second goal of the
game with a minute left, and Tam-
pa Bay beat Chicago after losing
Steven Stamkos to a leg injury.
Point broke a tie with a one-tim-
er from between the circles that
beat Petr Mrazek. Brandon Hagel,
acquired from Chicago in a trade
last year, hit the empty net with
two seconds remaining.
l AVALANCHE 3, COYOTES
2 (OT): In Denver, Cale Makar
scored at 1:38 of overtime, Nathan
MacKinnon ran his team-record
home goals streak to nine games,
and Colorado beat Arizona.
Denis Malgin opened the scor-
ing for the Avalanche in the first
period, Alexandar Georgiev made
18 saves, and Mikko Rantanen had
two assists.
l BLUES 5, BLUE JACKETS
2: Jordan Kyrou scored three
goals, seldom-used goaltender
Thomas Greiss stopped 38 shots,
and St. Louis cruised in Columbus.
Shiffrin sets mark for World Cup skiing victories
BY C INDY B OREN
Mikaela Shiffrin broke Inge-
mar Stenmark’s Alpine skiing rec-
ord for career World Cup victo-
ries Saturday, claiming her
87th win in a slalom event in Are,
Sweden, Stenmark’s home coun-
try.
Shiffrin, who broke Lindsey
Vonn’s women’s record in Janu-
ary with her 83rd victory, entered
this week’s competition with 85,
one win shy of tying Stenmark, a
slalom and giant slalom star in
the 1970s and 1980s. Shiffrin tied
Durkin scores late to salvage point for United on frustrating night
D.C. United 1,
Orlando city 1
BY S TEVEN G OFF
D.C. United remains an evolv-
ing enterprise under Coach
Wayne Rooney, still missing piec-
es and still finding its way
through the early stage of the MLS
season. At the very least, United
plays hard for the former English
superstar, whose fierce determi-
nation as a player in Washington a
few years ago won over skeptical
fans.
For the second time in two
appearances at Audi Field this
season Saturday, United’s resolve
produced another stirring finish
— albeit this time one that yielded
only one point. Midfielder Chris
Durkin scored a wonderful goal in
the 80th minute, ending a night of
frustration for goal-averse United
in a 1-1 draw with Orlando City.
Opportunities were aplenty for
United (1-1-1), but it took Durkin’s
strike to offset Duncan McGuire’s
goal early in the second half.
At the top of the box, Durkin
cut the ball back on César Araújo,
then ripped a 16-yard, left-footed
shot with terrific technique and
execution. The ball took flight and
beat goalkeeper Pedro Gallese to
the far side for his third career
MLS goal.
Aside from McGuire’s goal,
United was much tighter and tidi-
er defensively than it was against
Columbus last weekend. In the
attack, however, it remained inef-
ficient with scoring opportunities
and should have had two before
halftime.
Orlando (1-0-2) played its first
SOCCER ROUNDUP
Chelsea finally looks as if it is figuring things out under Potter
chelsea 3,
Leicester CITY 1
A SSOCIATED P RESS
Chelsea might finally be find-
ing its stride under Manager
Graham Potter.
Chelsea made it three straight
wins in all competitions for the
first time since October by beat-
ing host Leicester City, 3-1, an-
other sign that the expensively
assembled team is jelling under
Potter. After knocking out Borus-
sia Dortmund from the Champi-
ons League to reach the quarterfi-
nals, Chelsea followed with its
first away win in the league since
Oct. 16.
“It’s been a really good week,”
said Potter, whose job looks a lot
more secure than it did last week-
end. . . .
Liverpool’s up-and-down sea-
son took another nosedive as it
followed its record 7-0 win over
archrival Manchester United by
losing, 1-0, at relegation-threat-
ened Bournemouth — a team it
beat, 9-0, at home in August. . . .
Manchester City again looked
far from its best but still kept the
GOLF ROUNDUP
After a long day, Scheffler leads by two at Players Championship
A SSOCIATED P RESS
Scottie Scheffler won early, hol-
ing a chip from the deep rough for
an eagle on the par-5 second hole
at the Players Championship in
Ponte Vedra Beach, Fla., to win a
bet with his caddie on the number
of times the Masters champion
would chip in during the season.
The bigger payoff was the way
Scheffler navigated 26 holes Sat-
urday — eight in the morning to
finish the rain-delayed second
round, 18 in the afternoon when
TPC Sawgrass was as soft and vul-
nerable as it gets — for a 7-under-
par 65 to build a two-shot lead over
Min Woo Lee of Australia.
EZ SU
the record by winning Friday’s
giant slalom, then broke it Satur-
day in the slalom.
“I’ve said it the whole time: I
don’t know how to define that,”
Shiffrin said of the record, per the
Associated Press. “But when you
have these special moments . . .
seeing my brother and [sister-in-
law] Kristi and my mom [and
coach, Eileen,] in the finish today,
that’s what makes it memorable.”
Shiffrin, whose first World Cup
win came in Are in December
2012, entered this season with
74 World Cup wins. Last week-
Chris Durkin, right, provided D.C. United with its second dramatic finish at Audi Field this season.
away match in league play after
defeating the New York Red Bulls,
1-0, and drawing with FC Cincin-
nati, 0-0. At the moment, though,
the Lions’ priority is the Concacaf
Champions League. The visit to
Washington fell between legs of a
round-of-16 series with Mexican
power Tigres. A 0-0 draw in Mon-
terrey, Mexico, on Tuesday posi-
tioned them well for the return
match in Florida on Wednesday.
With that in mind, Orlando
Coach Oscar Pareja made six line-
up changes Saturday. Among the
newcomers was McGuire, the No.
6 overall draft pick from Creigh-
ton, who made his MLS debut.
Through three matches this
year, the Lions had not conceded a
goal. United was coming off a
scoreless effort at Columbus, and
for the first time, attacker Ted
Ku-DiPietro, the hero on opening
Kai Havertz, left, scored the winner and Mateo Kovacic added an
insurance goal Saturday as Chelsea won its third straight outing.
pressure on leader Arsenal by
beating host Crystal Palace, 1-0,
thanks to a second-half penalty by
Erling Haaland. That cut Ar-
senal’s lead to two points ahead of
its visit to Fulham on Sunday. . . .
Tottenham beat Nottingham
Forest, 3-1, in London after Harry
Kane scored twice.
l FRANCE: Paris Saint-Ger-
main refocused on its last shot at
silverware and beat host Brest,
2-1, in Ligue 1 with a late goal by
Kylian Mbappe.
Mbappe beat the offside trap to
Still to come: a chance for Schef-
fler to capture another big prize
against a strong field, return to
No. 1 in the world and cash a
$4.5 million winner’s check.
“I would much rather win the
tournament than get back to No. 1
in the world,” Scheffler said. “So
that will be my focus going into
tomorrow, just going out and hav-
ing a solid round of golf.”
Scheffler capped his long day
with what amounted to a two-shot
swing.
Lee, the younger brother of U.S.
Women’s Open champion Minjee
Lee, took three putts from 70 feet
on the fringe at the 18th hole for a
66. Scheffler, in the final group
end, she clinched her fifth World
Cup overall title, which goes to
the skier with the most points
over the course of the season.
“At the start of the season, I
didn’t think I was coming close to
this 86 number [this year], so my
goal was the overall globe,” she
said then.
Stenmark, 66, has described
Shiffrin as being a “much better”
skier than he was.
“You cannot compare,” he re-
cently told the AP. “She has every-
thing. She has good physical
strength. She has a good tech-
night, was in the lineup, replacing
Nigel Robertha, who was side-
lined by illness.
Center back Derrick Williams
and Brazilian right back Ruan,
who arrived via trade this offsea-
son after four years in Orlando,
also made their first starts.
Seeking to rebound from a last-
place finish in 2022, United has
emphasized the importance of
winning at home and picking up
points on the road here and there.
In the opener, stoppage time was
needed to defeat visiting Toronto,
but the away debut in Columbus
was a lost cause after intermis-
sion.
On Saturday, United set the
terms and buzzed with activity
but continued to labor in the
penalty area. In the 27th minute,
Christian Benteke was alone
12 yards out after settling Durkin’s
Rui Vieira/Associated press
collect a throughball from Lionel
Messi in the 90th minute and
rounded goalkeeper Marco Bizot
to slot into an empty net.
PSG was knocked out of the
Champions League by Bayern
Munich and is left with winning
Ligue 1. PSG leads by 11 points.
l SPAIN: Vinícius Júnior
sparked host Real Madrid’s 3-1
comeback win over Espanyol in
La Liga, keeping first-place Barce-
lona within reach ahead of the
rivals’ match next weekend.
Barcelona, which leads Real by
behind him, hit the ideal approach
to the right side of the green and
rode the slope to 10 feet for one
final birdie.
Scheffler was at 14-under 202,
and no one else from the top 10 in
the world is within seven shots of
him at the strongest field of the
year. Lee holed out for an eagle
from 131 yards on the first hole and
stayed with Scheffler stride-for-
stride — occasionally leading —
until the end.
Lee got into the Players Cham-
pionship only two weeks ago when
he narrowly stayed in the top 50
after the Honda Classic. He made
news Thursday when he suffered a
cramp on his tee shot at the 15th
the washington post
nique, strong head. I think it’s the
combination of everything that
makes her so good. And I’m also
impressed that she can ski good
both in slalom and in super-G
and downhill also. I could never
have been so good in all disci-
plines.”
All 86 of Stenmark’s wins were
in slalom (40) or giant slalom
(46); Shiffrin’s 87 wins have come
in slalom (53), giant slalom (20)
or parallel (five), super-G (five),
downhill (three) and combined
(one).
Stenmark said he planned to
Jonathan Newton/The Washington Post
cross, but with most of the net at
his pleasure, he shot too close to
Gallese, who made a brilliant div-
ing save. Seven minutes later, Gal-
lese thwarted Ku-DiPietro’s
­12-yard one-timer, and Benteke’s
ensuing header streaked wide of
the far post.
United’s failure to capitalize
proved costly as Orlando went
ahead eight minutes into the sec-
ond half. On the back side, Dagur
Thorhallsson headed Kyle Smith’s
cross to the face of the goal, where
McGuire gained inside position
on Birnbaum and tapped the ball
in from two yards.
Moments later, referee Jon
Freemon awarded United a penal-
ty kick after a deflection struck
Wilder Cartagena in the elbow.
Upon video review, however, Free-
mon ruled Cartagena’s arm was
tucked in and the spot kick was
six points, visits Athletic Bilbao
on Sunday.
l ITALY: Runaway Serie A
leader Napoli extended its advan-
tage to 18 points after beating
visiting Atalanta, 2-0, as Khvicha
Kvaratskhelia and Amir Rrah-
mani scored in the second half. . . .
Lazio missed the chance to
leapfrog second-place Inter Milan
when it was held to a scoreless
draw at Bologna.
l GERMANY: Host Schalke
twice fought back to dent Borus-
sia Dortmund’s Bundesliga title
ambitions in a 2-2 draw in the
100th Ruhr derby.
Schalke forward Marius Bülter
scored one equalizer, then set up
the next to end Dortmund’s eight-
game winning run in the league
and leave Bayern Munich two
points clear at the top of the
table. . . .
Benjamin Pavard scored two
first-half goals as Bayern earlier
defeated visiting Augsburg, 5-3,
in their Bavarian derby.
l MLS: Defender Caleb Wiley,
just 18 years old, had two goals
and an assist in the first half, and
Atlanta United cruised to a 3-0
victory over host Charlotte FC. . . .
The host Vancouver Whitecaps
and FC Dallas played to a 1-1 draw
hole. And now he’s in the final
group with the Masters champ.
“Tomorrow could be the biggest
day of my life, but I’m going to go
out there and have fun again,” Lee
said. “It’s been the motto for the
last three months.”
Cam Davis of Australia had a 67
and was four shots behind, fol-
lowed by a group five back that
included Tommy Fleetwood and
Aaron Rai of England, who made a
hole-in-one on the 17th.
Storms kept half the field from
finishing Friday. Scheffler re-
turned at 7 a.m. with eight holes to
play, made a pair of birdies to get
within two-shots of 36-hole leader
Adam Svensson and then
. sunday, march 12 , 2023
watch the competition in Are
from his home outside Stockholm
rather than attend in person.
“I will, of course, watch on TV,”
he said, adding that “it would be a
little bit strange for me to go to
Are to celebrate Shiffrin when we
have the Swedish girls also. If it
would have been another place, it
would be easier.”
Shiffrin is expected to compete
in the 2026 Winter Olympics in
Italy.
“It’s pretty hard to describe —
and it’s not over yet, which is even
more ridiculous,” she said.
unwarranted.
United’s pressure did not sub-
side, but clean chances were hard
to come by. Orlando absorbed one
blow after another before Durkin
broke through.
Here’s what else to know about
United’s draw:
Hamstring sidelines Najar
Ruan replaced Andy Najar, who
suffered a hamstring injury late in
the week. He will undergo further
evaluation this coming week, but
at the very least, he seems unlikely
to play next Saturday against New
York City FC at Yankee Stadium.
Forward Taxi Fountas, the
team’s leading scorer last season,
is making good progress in his
recovery from a hamstring ail-
ment suffered the week of the
opener, club officials said, and
might be back for the April 1
match in Chicago.
Leagues Cup schedule set
United will visit Montreal on
July 26 and host Mexican club
Pumas on July 30 in the group
stage of the Leagues Cup, organiz-
ers announced. Two of the three
teams will advance to the round of
32 of the month-long tournament
featuring all 29 MLS teams and 18
Liga MX clubs.
Audi Field is included in the
pool of venues under consider-
ation for matches between Liga
MX clubs in the knockout round.
The MLS regular season will
pause during the Leagues Cup,
which was designed to grow the
rivalry between the circuits and
expose the U.S. league to audienc-
es with deep ties to Mexican clubs.
D.C. United at New York City FC
Saturday, 7:30 p.m., Apple TV Plus
thanks to a game-tying own-goal
by Dallas’s Paul Arriola in the
34th minute. . . .
Jimmy Medranda’s goal in the
75th minute enabled the Colum-
bus Crew to pull out a 1-1 draw
with host Toronto FC. . . .
Joaquin Torres’s goal in the
90th minute gave the Philadel-
phia Union a 1-0 victory over the
Chicago Fire in Chester, Pa. . . .
Santiago Rodriguez’s free kick
was deflected in by an opposing
defender in the first half as New
York City FC defeated Inter Mi-
ami, 1-0, at Yankee Stadium. . . .
Brenner scored in the
63rd minute, and host FC Cincin-
nati beat the Seattle Sounders,
1-0.
NWSL returning to Utah
The Royals are returning to
Utah and the National Women’s
Soccer League.
The NWSL and Major League
Soccer’s Real Salt Lake an-
nounced the second iteration of
the Utah Royals on Saturday. The
Royals were part of the NWSL for
three seasons from 2018 to 2020.
When FC Kansas City, one of the
NWSL’s founding clubs, folded in
2017, its players were transferred
to a new team in Utah.
swapped turns at the top with Lee
most of the day.
Tom Hoge set the record on the
Players Stadium Course when he
holed a 10-foot putt for his
10th birdie of the round and a 62.
He opened with a 78, bounced
back with a 68 and now is at
8 under, six shots out of the lead.
l DP WORLD TOUR: Jorge
Campillo made eight birdies and
finished with four in a row for a 63
to take the lead after three rounds
of the Kenya Open in Nairobi.
Campillo is a shot ahead of Scot-
land’s Robert MacIntyre, who put
himself in the reckoning with a
6-under 65 on the par-71 Muthaiga
Golf Club course.
sunday, march 12 , 2023 . the washington post EZ SU D7

scoreboard Bud Grant, 95

PR O Bas k et b a l l H oc ke y Baseball S occeR College Basketball

Stoic coach
NBA
EASTERN CONFERENCE W L Pct GB
NHL
ATLANTIC GP W L OT Pts GF GA
MLB spring training
NATIONAL W L AMERICAN W L
MLS
EAST W L T Pts GF GA
NCAA men
Conference tournaments
led Vikings
x-Milwaukee............................... 48
Boston ........................................ 47
Philadelphia................................ 44
Cleveland .................................... 42
Brooklyn ..................................... 38
18
21
22
27
29
.727
.691
.667
.609
.567
—
2
4
71/2
10 2
1/
Boston ........................ 64
Toronto ....................... 65
Tampa Bay.................. 66
Florida......................... 67
x-Ottawa .................... 64
50
40
39
33
33
9
17
21
27
27
5 105 242 137
8 88 223 175
6 84 231 203
7 73 229 226
4 70 204 202
Los Angeles
Chicago
St. Louis
Philadelphia
7
9
8
7
3
5
5
6
Kansas City
Boston
Los Angeles
Toronto
12
9
8
9
2
2
5
6
Atlanta..............................2
Cincinnati ..........................2
New England .....................2
Inter Miami CF ..................2
Philadelphia ......................2
0
0
0
1
1
1
1
0
0
0
7
7
6
6
6
6
3
4
4
5
2
1
0
1
3
America East
Championship
Vermont 72, Massachusetts Lowell 59
American Athletic
four times to
Super Bowl
Cincinnati 8 7 Houston 6 4
New York .................................... 39 30 .565 101/2 Buffalo........................ 65 32 28 5 69 238 236 Orlando City ......................1 0 2 5 2 1 Semifinals
New York 6 6 Chicago 7 5
Miami.......................................... 36 33 .522 131/2 Detroit ........................ 65 29 27 9 67 194 214 x-Nashville........................1 0 1 4 2 0 Houston 69, Cincinnati 48
San Diego 7 8 Minnesota 7 6
Atlanta ....................................... 34 34 .500 15 Montreal..................... 66 26 34 6 58 180 236 Columbus ..........................1 1 1 4 4 5 Memphis 94, Tulane 54
Colorado 6 7 Detroit 8 7
Toronto ....................................... 32 36 .471 17 D.C. United ........................1 1 1 4 4 5
Atlanta 5 6 New York 8 7
Washington................................ 31 36 .463 171/2 METROPOLITAN GP W L OT Pts GF GA New York City FC ..............1 1 1 4 2 3 Atlantic 10
Milwaukee 5 8 Seattle 6 6
Indiana........................................ 31 37 .456 18 Carolina....................... 64 43 13 8 94 217 162 Toronto FC ........................0 1 2 2 4 5 Semifinals
Washington 4 7 Tampa Bay 6 6
x-Chicago .................................... 30 36 .455 18 Chicago..............................0 1 1 1 1 2
Orlando ....................................... 28 40 .412 21
New Jersey ................. 65
N.Y. Rangers............... 65
43
37
16
19
6 92 232 177
9 83 215 183
Arizona 5 9 Oakland 5 7
x-New York .......................0 1 1 1 0 1
Dayton 78, Fordham 68
VCU 90, Saint Louis 78
BY D AVE C AMPBELL
Pittsburgh 4 9 Texas 6 9
Charlotte .................................... 22 47 .319 271/2 Pittsburgh .................. 65 33 22 10 76 214 208 x-CF Montréal ...................0 2 0 0 0 3
San Francisco 4 10 Baltimore 5 8
Detroit ........................................ 15 53 .221 34 Charlotte FC ......................0 3 0 0 1 7 Big 12
N.Y. Islanders ............. 68
Washington ................ 67
34
32
26
28
8 76 196 187
7 71 208 200 Miami 2 9 Cleveland 4 8 Championship MINNEAPOLIS — Bud Grant, the
WESTERN CONFERENCE W L Pct GB Philadelphia................ 66 24 31 11 59 169 217 WEST W L T Pts GF GA Texas 76, Kansas 56 stoic and demanding Hall of Fame
Denver ........................................ 46 21 .687 — Columbus.................... 65 20 38 7 47 169 244 Friday’s results Seattle ..............................2 1 0 6 6 1
x-Memphis ................................. 39 26 .600 6 Miami 7, Washington 2 x-St. Louis City SC ............2 0 0 6 6 3 Big East coach who took the Minnesota
Championship
x-Sacramento............................. 39
x-Phoenix.................................... 37
26
29
.600
.561
6
81/2
CENTRAL GP W L OT Pts GF GA Minnesota 5, Baltimore 5
Atlanta 3, Tampa Bay 2
FC Dallas ...........................1
x-Los Angeles FC ..............1
1
0
1
0
4
3
4
3
3
2 Marquette 65, Xavier 51 Vikings and their mighty Purple
x-Dallas....................... 65 35 17 13 83 225 175
L.A. Clippers ............................... 36 33 .522 11 x-Minnesota ............... 65 37 21 7 81 186 171
Toronto 2, Boston 0 x-Minnesota United..........1 0 0 3 1 0
Big Ten
People Eaters defense to four Su-
x-Dallas....................................... 34 33 .507 12 N.Y. Yankees 4, Detroit 3 x-Austin FC .......................1 1 0 3 3 3
x-Golden State ........................... 34 33 .507 12
Colorado...................... 64
Winnipeg .................... 66
36
37
22
26
6 78 206 181
3 77 207 187
Philadelphia 10, Pittsburgh 4 x-Portland .........................1 1 0 3 3 3 Semifinals per Bowls in eight years and lost
N.Y. Mets (ss) 7, Houston 2 Penn State 77, Indiana 73
Minnesota .................................. 34 34 .500 121/2 x-Nashville ................. 62 31 24 7 69 179 184 L.A. Dodgers 6, L.A. Angels 5
x-San Jose.........................1 1 0 3 3 3
Purdue 80, Ohio State 66
all of them, died Saturday. He was
L.A. Lakers.................................. 33 34 .493 13 St. Louis...................... 65 29 31 5 63 202 237 x-Real Salt Lake................1 1 0 3 2 3
Utah ............................................ 33 35 .485 131/2 Arizona ....................... 66 23 32 11 57 183 233
Chi. White Sox 4, Chi. Cubs 3
Kansas City 1, San Diego 0 x-Sporting KC....................0 1 1 1 0 1 Ivy League
95.
x-New Orleans............................ 32
x-Oklahoma City......................... 31
34
35
.485
.470
131/2
141/2
Chicago ....................... 66 22 38 6 50 165 236 Oakland 12, Texas 11 Vancouver .........................0
x-Colorado.........................0
2
1
1
1
1
1
3
0
5
4
Semifinals The Vikings announced Grant’s
Seattle 11, Cincinnati (ss) 3
Portland...................................... 31 36 .463 15
PACIFIC GP W L OT Pts GF GA Milwaukee 12, Cleveland 3 LA Galaxy ..........................0 1 0 0 1 3 Yale 80, Cornell 60
Princeton 77, Penn 70
death on social media.
San Antonio................................ 17 49 .258 281/2 Colorado 8, San Francisco 1 Houston ............................0 2 0 0 1 5
Houston ...................................... 15 51 .227 301/2 Vegas .......................... 66 40 20 6 86 212 182 St. Louis 7, N.Y. Mets (ss) 5 Metro Atlantic Athletic
“No single individual more de-
x-Los Angeles............. 66 38 20 8 84 227 219 x-Late match
x-Late game x-Seattle..................... 65 37 22 6 80 229 207
Cincinnati (ss) 6, Arizona 5 Championship fined the Minnesota Vikings than
Edmonton ................... 67 36 23 8 80 258 228 Saturday’s results Saturday’s results Iona 76, Marist 55 Bud Grant. A once-in-a-lifetime
Friday’s Results Calgary........................ 66 29 24 13 71 204 204 Washington 10, N.Y. Mets 7 Orlando City 1, at D.C. United 1
Atlanta 114, at Washington 107 x-Vancouver ............... 64 27 32 5 59 217 251 Toronto 8, Baltimore 6 Atlanta 3, at Charlotte FC 0
Mid-American man, Bud will forever be synony-
Championship
at Philadelphia 120, Portland 119 Anaheim ..................... 66
x-San Jose .................. 66
22
19
35
35
9 53 168 266
12 50 191 252
Minnesota 4, Boston 3
Detroit 16, Atlanta 7
FC Dallas 1, at Vancouver 1 Kent State 93, Toledo 78 mous with success, toughness, the
at San Antonio 128, Denver 120 at New York City FC 1, Miami 0
at Miami 119, Cleveland 115 x-Late game
Philadelphia 6, N.Y. Yankees (ss) 3
Columbus 1, at Toronto FC 1 Mid-Eastern Athletic North and the Vikings,” team own-
Houston 3, St. Louis 2
Brooklyn 124, at Minnesota 123 (OT) Pittsburgh 3, N.Y. Yankees (ss) 0 at Cincinnati 1, Seattle 0 Championship ers Zygi Wilf and Mark Wilf said in
at L.A. Lakers 122, Toronto 112 Friday’s Results Chi. Cubs 5, L.A. Dodgers (ss) 2 Howard 65, Norfolk State 64
at Florida 4, Chicago 3 (OT) Texas 8, Cincinnati 7
at Philadelphia 1, Chicago 0
LA Galaxy at Sporting KC, late
a joint statement. “In short, he was
Saturday’s Results Anaheim 3, at Calgary 1 L.A. Dodgers (ss) 13, San Francisco 8 Mountain West the Vikings.”
Cleveland 4, Oakland 2 New York at Minnesota, late Semifinals
at L.A. Clippers 106, New York 95
Utah 119, at Charlotte 111 Saturday’s Results Miami 5, Tampa Bay 3 CF Montréal at Nashville, late Utah State 72, Boise State 62 Wearing his trademark purple
L.A. Angels 11, Arizona 10 Austin FC at Real Salt Lake, late
Indiana 121, at Detroit 115 Washington at N.Y. Islanders, late
Kansas City 12, Milwaukee 2 St. Louis City SC at Portland, late
Championship Vikings cap and a stone-faced de-
at Orlando 126, Miami 114 (OT) at Boston 3, Detroit 2 San Diego State 62, Utah State 57
Boston 134, at Atlanta 125 at Pittsburgh 5, Philadelphia 1
Seattle 4, Colorado 2
San Diego 6, Chi. White Sox 5
Colorado at San Jose, late meanor, Grant displayed a steely
Southeastern
Chicago at Houston, late N.Y. Rangers 2, at Buffalo 1 (OT)
Sunday’s Games
Sunday’s Match
Semifinals sideline gaze that became synony-
Dallas at Memphis, late at Colorado 3, Arizona 2 (OT)
Milwaukee at Golden State, late at Tampa Bay 3, Chicago 1
Boston (ss) vs. Baltimore at Sarasota, Fla., 1 New England at Los Angeles FC, 10:30 Alabama 72, Missouri 61 mous with his teams. He was a
Miami vs. Houston at Palm Beach, Fla., 1 Texas A&M 87, Vanderbilt 75
Oklahoma City at New Orleans, late at Toronto 7, Edmonton 4 N.Y. Yankees vs. Boston (ss) at Fort Myers, Fla., 1 mainstay among coaches of his
Sacramento at Phoenix, late New Jersey 3, at Montreal 1 Washington vs. St. Louis at Sarasota, Fla., 1 Orlando City 1, D.C. United 1 Southwestern Athletic era, a decorated group that includ-
St. Louis 5, at Columbus 2 Atlanta vs. Pittsburgh at Bradenton, Fla., 1 Championship
Sunday’s Games Vegas 4, at Carolina 0 Minnesota vs. Detroit at Lakeland, Fla., 1 Orlando City 0 1 1 Texas Southern 61, Grambling State 58 ed Don Shula, Tom Landry, Chuck
Washington at Philadelphia, 6 Toronto vs. Philadelphia at Clearwater, Fla., 1 D.C. United 0 1 1
Brooklyn at Denver, 3:30
Winnipeg 5, at Florida 4 (OT) Tampa Bay vs. N.Y. Mets at Port St. Lucie, Fla., 1:10
First Half: None.
Noll, John Madden and Hank
Dallas at Seattle, late L.A. Angels vs. Chi. White Sox at Phoenix, 4
Cleveland at Charlotte, 5 Ottawa at Vancouver, late Cleveland vs. Kansas City at Surprise, Ariz., 4 Second Half: 1, Orlando City, McGuire, 1, 53rd minute; 2, Stram. Grant, however, had little
D.C. United, Durkin, 1, 80th.
Oklahoma City at San Antonio, 7 Minnesota at San Jose, late L.A. Dodgers vs. Cincinnati at Goodyear, Ariz., 4 interest in accolades.
Portland at New Orleans, 7 Nashville at Los Angeles, late Milwaukee vs. Chi. Cubs at Mesa, Ariz., 4 Goalies: Orlando City, Pedro Gallese, Mason Stajduhar; Howard 65, Norfolk State 64
New York at L.A. Lakers, 9 Oakland (ss) vs. San Francisco at Scottsdale, Ariz., 4 D.C. United, Tyler Miller, Alex Bono. “The only reason I can see for a
Sunday’s Games San Diego vs. Oakland (ss) at Mesa, Ariz., 4 Yellow Cards: Asad, D.C. United, 65th; Smith, Orlando Norfolk State (22-11)
Monday’s Games Colorado vs. Arizona at Scottsdale, Ariz., 4:10 City, 77th; Ruan, D.C. United, 87th. Bankston 2-3 2-2 6, Tate 8-15 0-0 19, Bryant 5-13 8-11 head coach getting credit for
Boston at Detroit, 1:30
Indiana at Detroit, 7 N.Y. Rangers at Pittsburgh, 4
Texas vs. Seattle at Peoria, Ariz., 4:10 Orlando City, Pedro Gallese; Abdi Salim (Robin Jansson,
46th), Rafael Santos, Rodrigo Schlegel, Kyle Smith
18, Jones 2-6 2-2 6, Jenkins 2-7 1-2 5, Doumbia 2-7 0-0 4,
C.Brown 0-2 3-5 3, Ford 1-4 1-2 3, Chambers 0-1 0-0 0,
something good is that he gets so
Memphis at Dallas, 7:30
Minnesota at Atlanta, 7:30
Carolina at New Jersey, 7 Monday’s Games (Michael Halliday, 84th); Wilder Cartagena, Mauricio Bottoms 0-0 0-0 0. Totals 22-58 17-24 64. much blame when something is
Vegas at St. Louis, 7 Baltimore (ss) vs. Atlanta at North Port, Fla., 1 Pereyra (Cesar Araujo, 64th), Dagur Dan Thorhallsson, Howard (22-12)
Utah at Miami, 7:30 Winnipeg at Tampa Bay, 7 Detroit (ss) vs. Baltimore (ss) at Sarasota, Fla., 1 Facundo Torres (Martin Ojeda, 46th); Ivan Angulo Odom 3-7 3-5 9, Settle 2-4 4-6 9, Wood 0-3 0-0 0, Dockery bad,” Grant once said. “The whole
Detroit (ss) vs. Tampa Bay at St. Petersburg, Fla., 1
Boston at Houston, 8 Ottawa at Calgary, 9 Houston vs. Washington at Palm Beach, Fla., 1
(Gaston Gonzalez, 68th), Duncan McGuire. 2-7 0-0 5, Hawkins 2-8 4-6 9, Williams 6-11 7-8 20, Harris secret, I think, is to not react to
Milwaukee at Sacramento, 10 Minnesota at Arizona, 9:30 D.C. United, Tyler Miller; Steven Birnbaum, Mohanad 3-4 1-1 8, Dickson 0-2 2-4 2, Robinson 1-1 0-0 3, Okojie
Phoenix at Golden State, 10 Nashville at Anaheim, 9:30
N.Y. Yankees vs. Minnesota at Fort Myers, Fla., 1
Boston vs. Toronto at Dunedin, Fla., 1:07 Jeahze, Ruan, Pedro Santos (Jackson Hopkins, 87th), 0-0 0-0 0. Totals 19-47 21-30 65. either the good or the bad.”
N.Y. Mets vs. Miami at Sarasota, Fla., 1:10 Derrick Williams; Chris Durkin (Kristian Fletcher, Halftime: Howard 33-27. Three-point goals: Norfolk State He guided the Vikings from
Tuesday’s Games Monday’s Games Arizona vs. Texas at Surprise, Ariz., 4 90th+3), Mateusz Klich, Theodore Ku-DiPietro (Yamil 3-13 (Tate 3-7, Bryant 0-1, Doumbia 0-2, Jenkins 0-3),
Detroit at Washington, 7 Buffalo at Toronto, 7:30 Cleveland vs. L.A. Dodgers at Phoenix, 4 Asad, 59th), Russell Canouse; Christian Benteke. Howard 6-20 (Robinson 1-1, Harris 1-2, Settle 1-2, Williams 1967 to 1985, with a one-year hia-
Milwaukee vs. Cincinnati at Goodyear, Ariz., 4 1-2, Hawkins 1-4, Dockery 1-6, Wood 0-3). Fouled out: Settle.
Cleveland at Charlotte, 7
Denver at Toronto, 7:30
Colorado at Montreal, 7:30
Oakland vs. Colorado at Scottsdale, Ariz., 4:10 Rebounds: Norfolk State 27 (Tate 7), Howard 33 (Odom 7). tus in 1984, on his way to a
Dallas at Seattle, 10
Brooklyn at Oklahoma City, 8
Seattle vs. L.A. Angels at Tempe, Ariz., 4:10
San Francisco vs. San Diego at Peoria, Ariz., 4:10
Atlanta United 3, Charlotte FC 0 Assists: Norfolk State 8 (Jones, Jenkins 3), Howard 10
(Hawkins 5). Total fouls: Norfolk State 22, Howard 21.
­158-96-5 record with 11 division
L.A. Lakers at New Orleans, 8 Tuesday’s Games championships in 18 seasons. He
Atlanta 3 0 3
Orlando at San Antonio, 8 Washington at N.Y. Rangers, 7 Charlotte FC 0 0 0
Milwaukee at Phoenix, 10 Montreal at Pittsburgh, 7 First Half: 1, Atlanta, Wiley, 1 (Almada), 5th minute; 2,
went 10-12 in the playoffs. When
New York at Portland, 10 Tampa Bay at New Jersey, 7 World Baseball Classic Atlanta, Araujo, 1 (Wiley), 12th; 3, Atlanta, Wiley, 2, 45th+2. NCAA women he retired, Grant was eighth on the
Vegas at Philadelphia, 7 Second Half: None.
Winnipeg at Carolina, 7 Tuesday’s result Goalies: Atlanta, Brad Guzan, Quentin Westberg; Char- Conference tournaments NFL’s all-time victory list.
Detroit at Nashville, 8 Netherlands 4, Cuba 2 lotte FC, Pablo Sisniega, George Marks. Atlantic Sun “Underneath his outwardly sto-
Boston at Chicago, 8:30 Yellow Cards: Berry, Atlanta, 26th; Sejdic, Atlanta, 35th; Championship
Clippers 106, Knicks 95 Ottawa at Edmonton, 9
Wednesday’s results
Wiley, Atlanta, 69th; Sanchez, Atlanta, 85th; Copetti, Florida Gulf Coast 84, Liberty 60
ic demeanor that some misunder-
Panama 12, Taiwan 5
New York ......................... 19 30 25 21 — 95 Calgary at Arizona, 10 Australia 8, South Korea 7
Charlotte FC, 90th.
Atlanta, Brad Guzan; Andrew Gutman, Brooks Lennon, Big 12
stood as a coldness laid the warm
L.A. Clippers .................... 20 27 29 30 — 106 Dallas at Vancouver, 10 Netherlands 3, Panama 1 Miles Robinson, Juan Sanchez, Caleb Wiley (Derick Semifinals heart of a man who truly loved his
Columbus at San Jose, 10:30 Etienne, 70th); Thiago Almada, Franco Ibarra, Amar
NEW YORK: Barrett 5-12 0-0 11, Randle 5-24 6-8 19,
N.Y. Islanders at Los Angeles, 10:30
Thursday’s results
Sejdic (Santiago Sosa, 70th); Luiz Araujo (Ajani Fortune,
Iowa State 82, Oklahoma 72
Texas 64, Oklahoma State 57
players and the sport of football,”
Robinson 2-8 2-2 6, Grimes 3-8 1-1 7, Quickley 8-18 7-8 Japan 8, China 1
26, Toppin 4-9 2-2 10, Hartenstein 2-5 0-0 4, Hart 3-6 4-4 Italy 6, Cuba 3 (10) 90th+3), Miguel Berry (Giorgos Giakoumakis, 59th).
Big West
Pro Football Hall of Fame Presi-
10, McBride 0-0 2-2 2. Totals 32-90 24-27 95. Charlotte FC, Pablo Sisniega; Nathan Byrne (Harrison
Czech Republic 8, China 5
Cuba 13, Panama 4 Afful, 67th), Adilson Malanda, Bill Tuiloma; Brandt Championship dent Jim Porter said.
L.A. CLIPPERS: Leonard 14-22 7-7 38, Morris Sr. 4-7 0-0
11, Zubac 4-6 0-0 8, George 10-21 0-0 22, Westbrook 3-8 Bruins 3, Red Wings 2
Friday’s results
Bronico, Derrick Jones, Kamil Jozwiak, Ashley West-
wood; Enzo Copetti, Andre Shinyashiki (Kerwin Vargas,
Hawaii 61, UC Santa Barbara 59 After replacing Hall of Famer
1-3 7, Plumlee 1-4 4-5 6, Batum 1-4 0-0 2, Coffey 0-0 0-0 Detroit .................................. 2 0 0 — 2 Japan 13, South Korea 4 67th), Karol Swiderski (Nuno Valente Santos, 82nd). Colonial Athletic Association Norm Van Brocklin, Grant assem-
0, Mann 1-6 0-0 2, Gordon 4-9 0-1 10. Totals 42-87 12-16 Boston ................................... 0 2 1 — 3 Semifinals
106.
Taiwan 11, Italy 7
Australia 12, China 2 (7) Monmouth 73, Northeastern 60 bled the revered defensive line
FIRST PERIOD
Three-point Goals: New York 7-31 (Quickley 3-8, Randle Panama 2, Italy 0 FC Dallas 1, Whitecaps 1 Towson 76, William & Mary 59 dubbed the Purple People Eaters.
3-10, Barrett 1-3, Hart 0-1, Hartenstein 0-1, Grimes 0-4, Scoring: 1, Detroit, Copp 7, 1:36 (sh). 2, Detroit, Chiasson
Toppin 0-4), L.A. Clippers 10-30 (Morris Sr. 3-4, Leonard 1 (Perron, Larkin), 4:32 (pp). Saturday’s results Dallas 1 0 1 Conference USA The line — whose motto was “Meet
Vancouver 1 0 1 Championship
3-6, Gordon 2-5, George 2-8, Mann 0-2, Westbrook 0-2, SECOND PERIOD
Britain at United States, late
Japan 10, Czech Republic 2 First Half: 1, Dallas, Ibeagha, 1 (Tafari), 5th minute; 2, Middle Tennessee 82, Western Kentucky 70
at the quarterback” — was joined
Batum 0-3). Fouled Out: None. Rebounds: New York 54
(Robinson 14), L.A. Clippers 39 (George 8). Assists: New Scoring: 3, Boston, Lindholm 8 (Coyle, Frederic), 12:43. 4, Taiwan 9, Netherlands 5 Vancouver, Arriola, 34th.
Ivy League
by a powerful offense that helped
Boston, Bergeron 24 (Orlov, DeBrusk), 14:11 (pp). Puerto Rico 9, Nicaragua 1 Second Half: None.
York 21 (Grimes, Hart, Quickley 4), L.A. Clippers 22
(George 8). Total Fouls: New York 17, L.A. Clippers 20. A: Colombia 5, Mexico 4 (10) Goalies: Dallas, Maarten Paes, James Maurer; Vancou- Championship Minnesota reach the Super Bowl
19,068 (18,997) THIRD PERIOD Dominican Republic at Venezuela, late ver, Yohei Takaoka, Thomas Hasal. Princeton 54, Harvard 48 in 1970, the final edition of the big
Scoring: 5, Boston, Hathaway 10 (Greer, Nosek), 13:54. Czech Republic at South Korea, late Yellow Cards: Cubas, Vancouver, 42nd; Tafari, Dallas,
69th; Schopf, Vancouver, 75th; Obrian, Dallas, 88th.
Mid American game before the AFL-NFL merger.
Taiwan at Cuba, late Championship
SHOTS ON GOAL A: 16,780.
The heavily favored Vikings fell,
Sunday’s games Dallas, Maarten Paes; Marco Farfan (Sam Junqua, 89th), Toledo 73, Bowling Green 58
Detroit ................................ 15 2 15 — 32
Jazz 119, Hornets 111 Boston ................................. 11 18 9 — 38 Japan at Australia, 6 a.m. Sebastien Ibeagha, Nkosi Tafari; Paul Arriola (Jader Mid Eastern Athletic 23-7, to Kansas City, setting a tone
Netherlands at Italy, 7 a.m. Obrian, 60th), Edwin Cerrillo, Sebastian Lletget (Jose
Utah .................................. 32 26 39 22 — 119 Power-play opportunities: Detroit 1 of 2; Boston 1 of 4. Nicaragua at Israel, noon Antonio Martinez, 60th), Paxton Pomykal, Ema Twuma-
Championship for the infamous run of Super
Goalies: Detroit, Hellberg 4-7-1 (38 shots-35 saves). Norfolk State 56, Howard 52
Charlotte ....................... 29 20 32 30 — 111
Boston, Ullmark 33-4-1 (31-29). A: 17,850 (17,565). T:
Britain at Canada, 3 p.m.
Venezuela at Puerto Rico, 7 p.m.
si (Geovane Jesus, 77th); Jesus Ferreira, Alan Velasco.
Vancouver, Yohei Takaoka; Tristan Blackmon, Javain Brown,
Bowl losses to Miami, Pittsburgh
Missouri Valley
UTAH: Markkanen 3-22 6-6 13, Olynyk 7-9 1-1 17, 2:37. Mexico at United States, 10 p.m. Julian Gressel (Mathias Laborda, 83rd), Ranko Veselinovic; Semifinals and Oakland following the 1973,
Kessler 8-10 1-2 17, Agbaji 3-10 2-2 10, Horton-Tucker Australia at Czech Republic, 11 p.m. Andres Cubas, Ryan Gauld, Ryan Raposo (Ali Ahmed, 83rd),
14-24 7-8 37, Fontecchio 4-8 0-0 9, Toscano-Anderson Alessandro Schopf (Sebastian Berhalter, 78th); Cristian Da-
Belmont 69, Northern Iowa 62 1974 and 1976 seasons.
1-2 0-0 2, Azubuike 0-0 0-0 0, Gay 2-6 0-0 4, D.Jones 0-1 Monday’s games Drake 74, Illinois State 54
0-0 0, Dunn 3-8 1-1 7, Juzang 1-3 0-0 3. Totals 46-103
Penguins 5, Flyers 1 South Korea at China, 6 a.m.
jome (Sergio Cordova, 46th), Brian White (Pedro Vite, 70th). “You’ve got to handle losing,”
Southwestern Athletic
18-20 119. Philadelphia ........................ 1 0 0 — 1 Dominican Republic at Nicaragua, noon Championship Grant said during his Pro Football
Pittsburgh ........................... 1 1 3 — 5 Colombia at Britain, 3 p.m.
CHARLOTTE: Hayward 4-10 2-2 11, Washington 7-16 0-0
Israel at Puerto Rico, 7 p.m. New York City FC 1, Southern 62, Arkansas Pine Bluff 53 Hall of Fame induction speech in
18, Richards 4-7 1-1 9, Oubre Jr. 7-20 4-4 24, Rozier 10-23 FIRST PERIOD
0-0 22, Thor 1-2 0-0 3, K.Jones 2-5 2-2 6, Mykhailiuk 1-2 Canada at United States, 10 p.m. Inter Miami CF 0 Western Athletic 1994 in Canton, Ohio. “You die
Scoring: 1, Pittsburgh, Rakell 22 (Pettersson, Granlund), Championship
0-0 3, McGowens 0-2 2-2 2, Smith Jr. 4-11 3-4 13. Totals
40-98 14-15 111. 5:52. 2, Philadelphia, Bellows 2 (Braun), 10:04. Tuesday’s games Miami 0 0 0
Southern Utah 82, Cal Baptist 73
every time you lose, but you’ve got
Nicaragua at Venezuela, noon New York City FC 1 0 1
Three-point Goals: Utah 9-32 (Olynyk 2-3, Horton-Tuck- SECOND PERIOD Canada at Colombia, 3 p.m. First Half: 1, New York City FC, McVey, 36th minute.
to get over it.”
er 2-5, Agbaji 2-7, Fontecchio 1-2, Juzang 1-2, Mark- Scoring: 3, Pittsburgh, Crosby 29 (Letang, Guentzel), Israel at Dominican Republic, 7 p.m. Second Half: None. Grant also was a successful
kanen 1-9, Dunn 0-2, Gay 0-2), Charlotte 17-40 (Oubre Jr. 6:49 (pp). Britain at Mexico, 10 p.m. Goalies: Miami, Drake Callender, Nick Marsman; New
6-12, Washington 4-8, Smith Jr. 2-3, Rozier 2-8, coach in the Canadian Football
Mykhailiuk 1-1, Thor 1-2, Hayward 1-5, McGowens 0-1). THIRD PERIOD Wednesday’s games York City FC, Luis Barraza, Matt Freese.
Yellow Cards: Negri, Miami, 6th; Cufre, New York City
Te nn is League who became the first per-
Fouled Out: None. Rebounds: Utah 60 (Kessler 16), Pool B Runner-Up at Pool A Winner, 6 a.m. FC, 32nd; Mota, Miami, 47th; Yedlin, Miami, 51st; Ilenic,
Scoring: 4, Pittsburgh, Zucker 23 (Pettersson, Malkin),
Charlotte 43 (Richards 8). Assists: Utah 22 (Horton- Venezuela at Israel, 12 p.m. New York City FC, 53rd; Krivtsov, Miami, 59th; Pellegri- son elected to the Hall of Fame in
Tucker 10), Charlotte 24 (Rozier 8). Total Fouls: Utah 17,
14:24. 5, Pittsburgh, Guentzel 27 (Dumoulin, Carter), Mexico at Canada, 3 p.m. ATP
Charlotte 15. A: 17,221 (19,077)
18:22 (en). 6, Pittsburgh, Granlund 10 (Rutta, Kulikov), Puerto Rico at Dominican Republic, 7 p.m.
ni, New York City FC, 70th; Gray, New York City FC, 77th.
Miami, Drake Callender; Sergey Krivtsov, Christopher
both the CFL and NFL. He won
19:04. BNP Paribas Open
United States at Colombia, 10 p.m. McVey, Franco Negri, DeAndre Yedlin; Gregore (Ariel At Indian Wells (Calif.) Tennis Garden four league championships dur-
SHOTS ON GOAL Lassiter, 73rd), Jean Mota, Rodolfo Pizarro, Nicolas
Philadelphia ...................... 14 7 10 — 31
Thursday’s game
Stefanelli (Robert Taylor, 68th); Corentin Jean (Bryce
Purse: $8,800,000 ing his 10 years in Canada.
Pool A Runner-Up at Pool B Winner, 6 a.m. Surface: Hardcourt outdoor
Pittsburgh ........................... 6 15 11 — 32 Duke, 56th), Josef Martínez. Harry Peter Grant Jr. was born
Friday’s game New York City FC, Luis Barraza; Maxime Chanot, Brian Men’s Singles — Round of 64
Pacers 121, Pistons 115 Power-play opportunities: Philadelphia 0 of 3; Pitts-
burgh 1 of 4. Goalies: Philadelphia, Hart 17-21-10 (31 Pool C Runner-Up at Pool D Winner, 7 p.m. Cufre, Mitja Ilenic (Tayvon Gray, 67th), Thiago Martins Jannik Sinner (11), Italy, def. Richard Gasquet, France, in Superior, Wis., on May 20, 1927,
Indiana ............................. 35 34 21 31 — 121 shots-27 saves). Pittsburgh, DeSmith 13-13-4 (31-30).
Saturday’s game
Bueno; Keaton Parks, Matias Pellegrini, Santiago Rodri-
guez, James Sands; Gabriel Pereira (Andres Jasson,
6-3, 7-6 (7-2); Jack Draper, Britain, def. Daniel Evans and given the nickname Bud by
A: 18,254 (18,387). T: 2:25. (24), Britain, 6-4, 6-2; Felix Auger-Aliassime (8), Cana-
Detroit ............................. 30 27 33 25 — 115
Pool D Runner-Up at Pool C Winner, 7 p.m. 77th), Talles Magno (Alfredo Morales, 82nd). da, def. Pedro Martinez, Spain, 7-6 (7-5), 6-4; Stan his mother. He overcame a bout
INDIANA: Hield 7-15 0-0 17, Nesmith 1-5 4-6 6, Jackson Sunday, Mar. 19
Wawrinka, Switzerland, def. Miomir Kecmanovic (26),
Serbia, 7-6 (10-8), 6-4; Tommy Paul (17), United States,
with polio as a child and became a
7-10 5-7 19, Duarte 2-11 1-1 6, Nembhard 6-15 5-6 19,
Johnson 4-8 0-0 8, Nwora 4-9 1-2 11, Smith 7-11 5-6 20, Rangers 2, Sabres 1 (OT) Semifinalist 1 at Semifinalist 3, 7 p.m. Crew 1, Toronto FC 1 def. Jan-Lennard Struff, Germany, 6-3, 6-3; Alex Molcan, three-sport high school star. He
Brissett 3-5 5-6 11, Hill 2-4 0-0 4. Totals 43-93 26-34 121. Slovakia, def. Borna Coric (18), Croatia, 6-3, 6-3; Marton
N.Y. Rangers ................... 0 1 0 1 — 2 Monday, Mar. 20 Columbus 0 1 1 Fucsovics, Hungary, def. Alex de Minaur (16), Australia, played football, basketball and
DETROIT: Bagley III 3-9 0-0 6, Livers 7-20 1-2 18, Buffalo ........................... 0 1 0 0 — 1 Semifinalist 2 at Semifinalist 4, 7 p.m.
Wiseman 6-11 3-5 16, Hayes 7-17 3-4 17, McGruder 3-6
Toronto FC 1 0 1 6-4, 6-2; Andy Murray, Britain, def. Radu Albot, Moldova, baseball at the University of Min-
SECOND PERIOD Tuesday, Mar. 21 First Half: 1, Toronto FC, Kerr, 1 (Osorio), 24th minute. 6-4, 6-3; Tallon Griekspoor (31), Netherlands, def. Guido
2-2 11, Omoruyi 5-9 0-0 11, Duren 4-8 8-10 16, Hampton
Finalist 1 at Finalist 2, 7 p.m. Second Half: 2, Columbus, Medranda, 1 (Morris), 75th. Pella, Argentina, 7-6 (7-3), 7-6 (7-4); Taylor Fritz (4), nesota and was drafted by both
3-6 1-4 8, Joseph 5-8 0-0 12. Totals 43-94 18-27 115. Scoring: 1, Buffalo, Skinner 29 (Lyubushkin, Thompson), United States, def. Ben Shelton, United States, 4-6, 6-4,
Three-point Goals: Indiana 9-35 (Hield 3-8, Nwora 2-5,
7:52. 2, N.Y. Rangers, Kane 18 (Trouba, Miller), 11:28.
Goalies: Columbus, Eloy Room, Patrick Schulte; Toronto
FC, Sean Johnson, Tomas Romero. 6-3; Francisco Cerundolo (27), Argentina, def. Jack Sock,
the NBA and NFL. He played two
Nembhard 2-6, Smith 1-3, Duarte 1-6, Brissett 0-1, Hill OVERTIME Yellow Cards: Quinton, Columbus, 32nd; Kaye, Toronto FC, United States, 4-6, 6-3, 6-4; Adrian Mannarino, France, seasons for the Minneapolis Lak-
0-1, Johnson 0-2, Nesmith 0-3), Detroit 11-34 (McGrud- 60th; Morris, Columbus, 66th; Hedges, Toronto FC, 80th. def. Lorenzo Musetti (19), Italy, 6-4, 6-4; Hubert Hurkacz
er 3-5, Livers 3-10, Joseph 2-3, Omoruyi 1-3, Wiseman Scoring: 3, N.Y. Rangers, Panarin 20 (Fox, Zibanejad), PRO football Columbus, Eloy Room; Milos Degenek, Mohamed Ramz- (9), Poland, def. Alexei Popyrin, Australia, 6-3, 6-3; ers, winning a title with them in
1-3, Hampton 1-4, Bagley III 0-2, Hayes 0-4). Fouled Out: 2:02 (pp). dine Farsi, Steven Moreira, Philip Quinton; Alexandru Sebastian Baez (30), Argentina, def. Rinky Hijikata, 1950.
None. Rebounds: Indiana 58 (Jackson 11), Detroit 42 Matan (Kevin Molino, 90th+4), Aidan Morris, Darlington Australia, 6-3, 6-1.
SHOTS ON GOAL XFL Then Grant switched to foot-
(Duren 11). Assists: Indiana 24 (Nembhard 8), Detroit 25 Nagbe, Lucas Zelarrayan; Cucho Hernandez, Yaw Yeboah
N.Y. Rangers ................... 7 5 11 3 — 26 Women’s Singles — Round of 64
(Hayes 14). Total Fouls: Indiana 20, Detroit 24. A: 20,190
(20,491) Buffalo ........................... 6 13 14 0 — 33 NORTH W L Pct PF PA
(Jimmy Medranda, 73rd).
Toronto FC, Sean Johnson; Matt Hedges, Richie Laryea, Varvara Gracheva, Russia, def. Petra Martic (25), ball, first for the Philadelphia Ea-
Power-play opportunities: N.Y. Rangers 1 of 3; Buffalo 0 D.C........................................ 3
St. Louis............................... 2
0 1.000
1 .667
74
66
52
67
Raoul Petretta (Kobe Franklin, 73rd), Sigurd Rosted; Croatia, 6-3, 6-2; Marketa Vondrousova, Czech Republic,
def. Marie Bouzkova (28), Czech Republic, 6-1, 6-1;
gles. He was second in the NFL
of 2. Goalies: N.Y. Rangers, Shesterkin 28-11-7 (33 Federico Bernardeschi, Mark-Anthony Kaye, Michael
shots-32 saves). Buffalo, Luukkonen 15-10-2 (26-24). A: x-Seattle.............................. 1 2 .333 66 68 Bradley, Jonathan Osorio, Brandon Servania (Victor Emma Raducanu, Britain, def. Magda Linette (20), with 56 receptions and 997 yards
Vegas ................................... 0 3 .000 52 70 Poland, 7-6 (7-3), 6-2; Karolina Muchova, Czech Repub-
19,070 (19,070). T: 2:33. Vazquez, 73rd); Deandre Kerr (Hugo Mbongue, 61st).
lic, def. Victoria Azarenka (14), Belarus, 7-6 (7-1), 6-3;
in 1952 before a contract dispute
Magic 126, Heat 114 (OT) SOUTH W L Pct PF PA Iga Swiatek (1), Poland, def. Claire Liu, United States, steered him to Winnipeg in the
Houston ............................... 4 0 1.000 122 55 6-0, 6-1; Leylah Annie Fernandez (30), Canada, def.
Miami ............................ 24 31 23 30 6 — 114 Avalanche 3, Coyotes 2 (OT) Arlington.............................. 2 1 .667 46 52
FC Cincinnati 1, Sounders 0 Emma Navarro, United States, 6-2, 6-4; Beatriz Haddad CFL. After starring as a two-way
Orlando ...................... 34 24 23 27 18 — 126 Arizona ........................... 2 0 0 0 — 2 x-San Antonio...................... 1 2 .333 58 52 Seattle 0 0 0
Maia (13), Brazil, def. Katerina Siniakova, Czech Repub-
lic, 5-7, 7-6 (4), 6-3; Bernarda Pera, United States, def.
player for the Blue Bombers, once
Colorado ........................ 1 1 0 1 — 3 Orlando ................................ 0 4 .000 49 117
MIAMI: Butler 14-25 8-8 38, Love 0-1 4-4 4, Adebayo Cincinnati 0 1 1 Liudmila Samsonova (12), Russia, 2-6, 7-6 (10-8), 7-6 snagging five interceptions in a
7-17 0-0 14, Herro 6-13 0-0 14, Vincent 5-10 2-2 13, Cain FIRST PERIOD x-Late game First Half: None. (8-6); Daria Kasatkina (8), Russia, def. Tatjana Maria,
0-0 0-0 0, Zeller 0-1 2-2 2, Strus 3-5 0-0 8, Yurtseven 0-1 Second Half: 1, Cincinnati, Brenner, 1 (Moreno), 63rd minute. Germany, 6-2, 6-1; Caroline Garcia (5), France, def. playoff game, he became their
0-0 0, Lowry 4-8 1-2 12, Oladipo 3-13 2-2 9. Totals 42-94 Scoring: 1, Colorado, Malgin 8 (Newhook, Hunt), 2:00. 2, Week 4
19-20 114. Arizona, McBain 11 (Maccelli, Crouse), 6:50. 3, Arizona, Saturday’s results
Goalies: Seattle, Stefan Frei, Stefan Cleveland; Cincin-
nati, Roman Celentano, Alec Kann.
Dalma Galfi, Hungary, 6-1, 6-7 (7-4), 6-4; Elena Rybakina coach and took them to six Grey
(10), Kazakhstan, def. Sofia Kenin, United States, 7-6
ORLANDO: Banchero 5-14 6-6 17, F.Wagner 7-10 2-4 17,
Keller 27 (Hayton), 17:18.
Houston 44, at Orlando 16 Yellow Cards: Barreal, Cincinnati, 24th; Acosta, Cincin- (8-6), 7-6 (7-5); Martina Trevisan (23), Italy, def. Cup games — winning the title in
nati, 39th; Joao Paulo, Seattle, 57th; Gomez Andrade,
Carter Jr. 12-17 1-2 27, Fultz 6-15 0-0 12, G.Harris 4-13 SECOND PERIOD San Antonio at Seattle, 10
Seattle, 93rd+11.
Madison Brengle, United States, 5-7, 6-1, 6-2. 1958, 1959, 1961 and 1962. Grant
0-0 11, Okeke 0-1 0-0 0, Bol 1-2 0-0 2, M.Wagner 3-8 1-1 Scoring: 4, Colorado, MacKinnon 28 (Rantanen, Leh- Sunday’s Games
8, Anthony 5-9 5-5 16, Houstan 0-0 0-0 0, Suggs 5-10 2-2 konen), 11:25 (pp). Vegas at D.C., 7
Red Cards: Hagglund, Cincinnati, 84th. won 102 games as a CFL coach.
Seattle, Stefan Frei; Yeimar Gomez Andrade, Jackson
16. Totals 48-99 17-20 126.
OVERTIME Arlington at St. Louis, 4 Ragen, Nouhou Tolo (Kelyn Rowe, 87th); Joao Paulo (Leo The Vikings hired him in 1967.
Three-point Goals: Miami 11-37 (Lowry 3-6, Strus 2-4,
Herro 2-6, Butler 2-7, Vincent 1-4, Oladipo 1-8, Love 0-1, Scoring: 5, Colorado, Makar 15 (MacKinnon, Rantanen), Week 5
Chu, 73rd), Nicolas Lodeiro, Alex Roldan, Cristian Roldan
(Josh Atencio, 87th), Albert Rusnak; Fredy Montero
GolF With such stars as Fran Tarkenton,
Zeller 0-1), Orlando 13-37 (Suggs 4-6, G.Harris 3-10, 1:38. Thursday’s Game (Raul Ruidiaz, 58th), Jordan Morris. Carl Eller, Alan Page, Paul Krause
Carter Jr. 2-7, Anthony 1-1, Banchero 1-3, F.Wagner 1-3, Houston at Seattle, 9 Cincinnati, Roman Celentano; Raymon Gaddis, Nick
M.Wagner 1-4, Bol 0-1, Fultz 0-1, Okeke 0-1). Fouled SHOTS ON GOAL
Saturday’s Games Hagglund, Matt Miazga, Yerson Mosquera (Alvas Pow- PGA Tour and Ron Yary — all Pro Football
Out: None. Rebounds: Miami 35 (Adebayo 7), Orlando 54
(Carter Jr. 11). Assists: Miami 19 (Lowry 4), Orlando 34
Arizona ......................... 12
Colorado ...................... 12
8
12 18
0 0 — 20
2 — 44 D.C. at St. Louis, 7
ell, 90th+4); Luciano Acosta (Marco Angulo, 90th+3), PLAYERS CHAMPIONSHIP Hall of Famers — Grant led the
Alvaro Barreal, Junior Moreno (Yuya Kubo, 80th),
(Banchero 9). Total Fouls: Miami 17, Orlando 20. A: Power-play opportunities: Arizona 0 of 1; Colorado 1 of 3. Orlando at Vegas, 10 Obinna Nwobodo; Brenner (Ian Murphy, 86th), Brandon
At TPC Sawgrass; In Ponte Vedra Beach, Fla.
Purse: $25 million
Vikings to 10 Central Division
17,347 (18,846) Vazquez (Sergio Santos, 90th+6).
Goalies: Arizona, Ingram 5-13-6 (44 shots-41 saves).
Colorado, Georgiev 28-14-5 (20-18). A: 18,124 (18,007).
Sunday, March 19 Yardage: 7,275; Par: 72 crowns in 11 seasons.
Arlington at San Antonio, 10
T: 2:30. THIRD ROUND Disciplined and insisting on
Union 1, Fire 0 Scottie Scheffler .......................... 68 69 65 — 202 -14 sharp mental focus, Grant went so
Min Woo Lee ................................. 68 70 66 — 204 -12
Celtics 134, Hawks 125 Blues 5, Blue Jackets 2 High Schools Chicago 0 0 0 Cameron Davis .............................. 69 70 67 — 206 -10 far as to have his players practice
Christiaan Bezuidenhout .............. 68 70 69 — 207 -9
Boston ............................. 37 34 30 33 — 134 St. Louis ................................. 3 0 2 — 5 Philadelphia 0 1 1
Tommy Fleetwood ........................ 72 70 65 — 207 -9 standing at attention during the
Columbus .............................. 1 0 1 — 2 First Half: None.
Atlanta ........................... 38 23 28 36 — 125
Friday’s results Second Half: 1, Philadelphia, Torres, 1 (Martinez), 90th
Aaron Rai ......................................
Chad Ramey ..................................
73 69 65
64 75 68
—
—
207 -9
207 -9
national anthem. He infamously
FIRST PERIOD BOYS’ BASKETBALL
BOSTON: Brown 10-18 3-4 24, Tatum 12-25 5-6 34,
Private
minute.
Goalies: Chicago, Christopher Brady, Spencer Richey;
Tom Hoge ...................................... 78 68 62 — 208 -8 took the Vikings outdoors in the
Horford 3-7 0-0 9, Smart 4-12 0-0 11, White 7-10 2-2 18, Scoring: 1, St. Louis, Saad 17 (Schenn, Blais), 7:19. 2, Sungjae Im .................................... 75 69 64 — 208 -8
B.Griffin 4-6 0-0 8, Hauser 4-5 0-0 12, Brogdon 8-12 0-0 Columbus, Laine 21 (Blankenburg, Gaudreau), 9:14 (pp). McNamara 76, Gonzaga 64 Philadelphia, Andre Blake, Joseph Bendik. David Lingmerth ........................... 72 68 68 — 208 -8
frigid winter for workouts and
18. Totals 52-95 10-12 134. Yellow Cards: Teran, Chicago, 12th; Kamara, Chicago,
3, St. Louis, Kyrou 27 (Blais, Thomas), 13:38. 4, St. Louis,
Blais 4 (Schenn, Saad), 18:07.
Virginia
37th; Navarro, Chicago, 42nd; Martinez, Philadelphia,
Denny McCarthy ........................... 68 72 69 — 209 -7 banned sideline heaters during
ATLANTA: Collins 5-13 1-1 11, Hunter 7-12 0-0 16, Hayfield 52, Patriot 41 Taylor Montgomery ...................... 70 73 66 — 209 -7
Capela 6-6 0-0 12, Murray 7-18 0-0 14, Young 12-27 7-7 THIRD PERIOD
45th+2; Herbers, Chicago, 45th+2; Elliott, Philadelphia, Justin Rose ................................... 69 73 67 — 209 -7 games at Metropolitan Stadium.
GIRLS’ BASKETBALL 64th; Bedoya, Philadelphia, 74th; Sullivan, Philadelphia,
35, A.Griffin 0-4 2-2 2, Bey 6-9 1-1 17, Johnson 3-6 1-2 7,
Scoring: 5, St. Louis, Kyrou 28 (Toropchenko), 12:15. 6, Maryland 90th+6; Torres, Philadelphia, 90th+3.
Patrick Cantlay .............................
Jason Day ......................................
72 70 68
70 70 70
—
—
210 -6
210 -6
Grant, who enjoyed hunting
Okongwu 4-5 3-3 11, Holiday 0-0 0-0 0. Totals 50-100
15-16 125. Columbus, Jenner 20 (Johnson, Gaudreau), 15:55. 7, St. Glen Burnie 43, Churchill 40
Chicago, Christopher Brady; Kendall Burks, Rafael Cz-
ichos, Miguel Navarro, Arnaud Souquet (Robert Jona-
Rickie Fowler ................................ 72 70 68 — 210 -6 and fishing trips with friends and
Louis, Kyrou 29 (Buchnevich, Thomas), 18:43 (en). Howard 64, Poly 52 Ben Griffin .................................... 67 71 72 — 210 -6
Three-point Goals: Boston 20-42 (Tatum 5-14, Hauser than Dean Jr, 55th), Carlos Teran; Gaston Gimenez Adam Hadwin ............................... 71 70 69 — 210 -6 family, is survived by his partner,
4-5, Horford 3-5, Smart 3-6, Brogdon 2-3, White 2-4, SHOTS ON GOAL Virginia (Mauricio Pineda, 65th), Xherdan Shaqiri (Javier Casas,
Brown 1-5), Atlanta 10-34 (Bey 4-7, Young 4-11, Hunter Carroll County 78, Brentsville District 41 76th); Fabian Herbers, Kei Kamara, Kacper Przybylko
Viktor Hovland .............................. 69 71 70 — 210 -6 Pat Smith; six children; 19 grand-
St. Louis ................................. 9 8 7 — 24 Taylor Moore ................................ 70 75 65 — 210 -6
2-6, A.Griffin 0-2, Johnson 0-2, Collins 0-3, Murray 0-3). Columbus ............................ 10 7 23 — 40 Madison 49, Manchester 46 (OT) (Chris Mueller, 55th). Collin Morikawa ............................ 65 73 72 — 210 -6 children; and, as of 2021, 13 great
Fouled Out: None. Rebounds: Boston 40 (Tatum 15), Philadelphia, Andre Blake (Joseph Bendik, 34th); Jack
Atlanta 48 (Capela, Collins 9). Assists: Boston 35
Power-play opportunities: St. Louis 0 of 2; Columbus 1 of
3. Goalies: St. Louis, Greiss 7-8-0 (40 shots-37 saves).
BOYS’ TENNIS Elliott, Jakob Glesnes, Olivier Mbaizo (Quinn Sullivan,
Jordan Spieth ................................
Justin Suh .....................................
69 75 66
68 73 69
—
—
210 -6
210 -6
grandchildren. His wife of
Private 83rd), Kai Wagner; Alejandro Bedoya, Leon Maximilian
(Brown, White 7), Atlanta 24 (Young 13). Total Fouls:
Boston 21, Atlanta 17. A: 17,884 (18,118)
Columbus, Hutchinson 0-1-1 (23-19). A: 18,222 (18,500). Tampa Jesuit 6, Gonzaga 2 Flach (Joaquin Torres, 61st), Daniel Gazdag, Jose Marti-
Adam Svensson ............................ 68 67 75 — 210 -6 59 years, Pat, died in 2009.
T: 2:30. Dylan Wu ...................................... 69 73 68 — 210 -6
nez; Julian Carranza, Mikael Uhre (Jack McGlynn, 61st). — Associated Press
D8
Maryland boys’ basketball 4A final
Mustangs can’t hold on to lead in second half, fall short of their ultimate goal
Parkville 72,
Meade 56
BY V ARUN S HANKAR
Near the end, all Shawn Jones
could do was watch.
A late Meade intentional foul
sent Parkville to the free throw
line to extend an already impene-
trable lead. The senior forward
stood at midcourt, looking to the
Xfinity Center rafters as Knights
players high-fived and chest-
bumped around him. After the
buzzer sounded, he joined fellow
senior Xavion Roberson and
Coach Mike Glick for a hug
before they entered one of their
final huddles together.
Jones led all scorers with
25 points, but it wasn’t enough.
Maryland girls’ basketball 2a final
For Chargers, led by two sophomores, big finish feels as if it’s just the start
lackey 53,
Kent island 33
BY V ARUN S HANKAR
The Lackey girls’ basketball
team cemented its place in
school history well before Satur-
day’s Maryland 2A final. It offi-
cially became the program’s most
successful team March 1, when it
won the program’s first region
championship.
Every win from then on fur-
thered the distance between
these Chargers and those of the
past. Three victories later, they
stand atop every school in their
classification after taking down
Kent Island, 53-33, in the title
game at Xfinity Center in College
Park.
NBA Roundup
Leonard, George power Los Angeles past New York for third straight victory
Clippers 106,
Knicks 95
A SSOCIATED P RESS
Kawhi Leonard scored 38 points,
and the Los Angeles Clippers
pulled away in the fourth quarter
for a 106-95 victory over the visit-
ing New York Knicks on Saturday.
Paul George added 22 points for
the Clippers, who have won three
games in a row after they dropped
five straight.
It was Leonard’s seventh
straight game with at least
21 points, and he is averaging
31 points during that stretch.
Commanders enter free agency with ownership uncertainty, many roster issues
Commanders from D1
Rivera, who went through a
similar situation in 2018 after
Carolina Panthers owner Jerry
Richardson put the team up for
sale, recalled having the same
approach then.
“I’ve got a lot of support in the
things that I want to do from
ownership,” Rivera said at the
combine. “. . . We put our plan
together; I’ve met with [owner-
ship], I’ve let them know exactly
what we’re doing, and they’ve
been very supportive and said,
‘Go out and do the things you
need to do.’ ”
How much salary cap room
does Washington have? Wash-
ington has about $16 million in
cap space, according to Overthe-
Cap.com and Spotrac.com.
(Only a team’s top 51 contracts
count against the cap in the
offseason.) The team gained a
lot of space by releasing Wentz
($26.2 million) but spent a
chunk of it giving defensive
tackle Daron Payne ($18.9 mil-
lion) the franchise tag.
Which positions are the
Commanders likely to target?
Washington has needs across
the roster, but adding to its
linebacking corps and offensive
line may be the primary focus.
Injuries have created issues at
both positions, and the veteran
market is deep.
It’s plausible Washington
could follow its recent history of
eyeing second-tier talent —
players unlikely to get top dollar
but who could provide value and
depth and maybe start. They
could target a swing tackle or a
linebacker to rotate in with
Jamin Davis.
“[Free agent linebackers are]
The Meade boys’ basketball team
achieved two of its three goals —
securing county and region titles
— but lost in the Maryland 4A
state championship to Parkville,
72-56.
The senior’s efforts featured
six blocks, including one with
under three minutes left, as he
smacked away what looked like a
wide-open Knights layup. But the
ensuing fast-break turned into
an air-balled three, and the Mus-
tangs’ deficit remained too steep
to overcome.
“We had an incredible season,”
Jones said. “. . . It’s not the out-
come that we wanted, but we
always just want to keep our
heads up and move forward.”
The loss concluded Glick’s
30th season as a high school
head coach. He has spent 17 of
those at public schools and led
“Bringing it back home means
a lot for us,” Coach Jo’nel Barnes
said. “. . . I think it’s going to do a
lot for our school. The legacy is
definitely left. The mark is there,
but it’s always bigger than bas-
ketball.”
Lackey (24-4) relied on two
sophomores: Nadeya Regala and
Kennedy Hall. The two im-
pressed with measured play and
poise. Regala finished with
25 points and eight rebounds;
Hall had 23 points and 10 re-
bounds.
Hall stands 6-foot-2 and is
listed as a forward and center
but showcased her back-
court skills in the second quar-
ter. An ill-advised inbound pass
sent Lackey scrambling, but
Hall made herself available
as an outlet to relieve the pres-
sure.
Immanuel Quickley had
26 points and 10 rebounds for the
Knicks, who have dropped three
straight after a nine-game win-
ning streak. Quickley started in
place of Jalen Brunson, who was
sidelined with a sore left foot.
Julius Randle scored 19 points
but was only 5 for 14 from the field.
New York had a 74-73 lead late
in the third quarter before the
Clippers scored nine straight
points to take control.
The run started when Randle
was assessed a technical foul with
0.3 seconds remaining after he
elbowed Clippers center Mason
Plumlee in the face while both
were going for a rebound.
Leonard tied it by making the
a market that always gets
burned,” Joel Corry, a former
agent and current CBS Sports
salary cap expert, said. “There
are a couple guys that get paid,
and there are a bunch of guys
who overprice themselves, and
they end up going for peanuts.
. . . There won’t be a ton of guys
who get over $5 million or
$6 million [a year]. Obviously,
[Tremaine] Edmunds will get
over that. I think T.J. Edwards
will, too. That is not a seller’s
market.”
Will Washington try to re-
sign Cole Holcomb? Yes, at the
right price. The knee and foot
injuries that limited Holcomb to
seven games last season could
hurt his market.
Holcomb’s agent could pursue
a one-year deal in the hopes he
stays healthy and plays well,
which would maximize his value
in free agency again in 2024. Or
she could prioritize security via
a two- or three-year deal with a
lower average value per year
(APY) but more guaranteed
money. Recently, those deals
have been between $3 million
and $5 million APY.
What other free agents make
sense for the Commanders? It’s
tempting to link them to one of
the best players available at
linebacker or offensive line,
such as Kansas City left tackle
Orlando Brown Jr. But at more
than $20 million per year,
Brown probably will be out of
Washington’s price range.
In the second tier, Washing-
ton could target linemen who fit
the mold of those new offensive
coordinator Eric Bieniemy had
in Kansas City: centers who
stand about 6-foot-3 and weigh
about 300 pounds and guards
EZ SU
Amanda Andrade-Rhoads for The Washington Post
Meade senior Shawn Jones (30) led all scorers with 25 points, but
it wasn’t enough as the Mustangs fell to Parkville on Saturday.
Amanda Andrade-Rhoads for The Washington Post
Lackey won its first state championship Saturday. “I think it’s
going to do a lot for our school,” Coach Jo’nel Barnes said.
technical shot, and Plumlee con-
verted the next two free throws to
give the Clippers a 76-74 advantage
going into the final 12 minutes.
Los Angeles extended its lead to
14 with less than four minutes
remaining in the fourth.
Knicks Coach Tom Thibodeau
said Brunson is day-to-day and
X-rays were negative.
Brunson has missed three of the
past four games since being hurt
during a win March 3 over Miami.
The Clippers’ Russell West-
brook had three assists to pass
Isiah Thomas for ninth on the
NBA’s career list. Westbrook has
9,062 during his 15-year career.
l CELTICS 134, HAWKS 125:
Jayson Tatum led a balanced at-
and tackles 6-5 or taller who
weigh between 305 and
320 pounds.
There are some starting-cali-
ber options at center (Garrett
Bradbury, Bradley Bozeman),
guard (Dalton Risner, Nate Da-
vis, Connor McGovern) and
tackle (Kaleb McGary, Jermaine
Eluemunor, Andrew Wylie).
Wylie was in Kansas City with
Bieniemy.
Another guard, Will Hernan-
dez, checks several boxes, except
height (6-2).
Linebacker is a deep group. In
the middle tiers, the Command-
ers could splurge a little on
players such as Bobby Okereke,
Bobby Wagner or Leighton
Vander Esch. But given the
team’s history, it seems more
likely it will go for a bargain at
the level of Holcomb — such as
Alex Singleton, Kyzir White or
Azeez Al-Shaair.
What type of veteran quar-
terback do they want? The
Commanders have said Sam
Howell will get every chance to
be the starter. He will have to
earn it in camp, but the plan is
to surround him with a veteran
backup and maybe even another
rookie, if not Jake Fromm. Plans
can always change, but the
thinking is that by keeping the
quarterback position relatively
cheap, the Commanders can
spend elsewhere.
Retaining Taylor Heinicke,
who has said he would be open
to a backup role, would make a
lot of sense. But the Command-
ers may not be inclined to pay
top backup money, so Heinicke’s
return may be dependent on his
options on the open market.
“I’d say anywhere from
$5 million to $7 million [a year]
tack by scoring 11 of his 34 points
in the fourth quarter as Boston
held on to win in Atlanta.
The Celtics opened a six-game
trip by having six players score in
double figures. Jaylen Brown had
24 points. Tatum added 14 re-
bounds.
Trae Young had 35 points and
13 assists for the Hawks, who re-
main eighth in the Eastern Con-
ference standings.
With 1:25 to go and Boston lead-
ing 129-121, Young and Marcus
Smart had to be separated after
the two were entangled and fell to
the court under the Celtics’ basket.
Smart was called for an initial foul
before a lengthy review by the
officials resulted in both players
on a one- or two-year deal, and
you [add incentives] where, if
he’s on the field, it can go as high
as $10 [million], $11 [million],
$12 million,” Corry said of a
potential deal for Heinicke.
“Ideally, you want someone like
him to come back.”
If not Heinicke, perhaps the
Commanders could consider a
quarterback such as Andy Dal-
ton, a veteran with a proven
willingness to mentor and back
up a younger player.
Could they make a surprise
cut to create cap room? It
seems unlikely Washington will
cut the veterans who would
offer the most cap savings: cor-
ner Kendall Fuller ($8.5 mil-
lion), left tackle Charles Leno Jr.
($8 million) and wide receiver
Curtis Samuel ($5.8 million).
Early in the offseason, tight end
Logan Thomas ($5.2 million)
looked like a cut candidate, but
since the Bieniemy hire, team
officials have repeatedly ex-
pressed confidence in Thomas’s
ability to return to form.
If Washington makes another
veteran cut, the most likely are
center Chase Roullier ($4.3 mil-
lion), backup tackle Cornelius
Lucas ($3.5 million) and
guard Andrew Norwell
($2.3 million).
The Commanders also could
restructure contracts by con-
verting base salaries into bonus-
es and spreading out the cap hit.
This essentially creates short-
term relief in exchange for long-
term commitment.
Which free agents from last
season are likely to return?
Besides Holcomb and Heinicke,
there’s also Payne. The team
placed a nonexclusive franchise
tag on him, but the hope is to
the washington post
squads to the state semifinals six
times. He has never won a state
title, with five losses in the final
four and now two in the champi-
onship game.
“Oh, my God. You kidding
me?” Glick said before the game
when asked what the achieve-
ment would mean to him. “It
would be maybe one of the
crowning achievements of my
coaching career, personally. . . .
It’s been elusive.”
His previous appearance in
the semifinals came last year
when Meade lost to Churchill
after blowing a 14-point lead. The
Mustangs (24-4) seemingly made
up for that defeat this year by
beating Sherwood in the semis,
quelling a pair of comeback at-
tempts in the process.
The season started with an
18-1 run before back-to-back loss-
She received a pass beyond
the three-point line and at-
tacked an out-of-position Kent
Island defense. When defend-
ers converged, she dished a
pass for a three-pointer that
rattled home. The Chargers led
by 13 at halftime and sailed to
victory.
The success is new for the
Charles County school. Barnes
was hired in 2019 and felt last
season’s squad was her most
talented on paper.
Hall and Regala, then fresh-
men, started but suffered inju-
ries that muted the Chargers’
success. So many players got hurt
that the team had to cancel its JV
program to bring those players
up to the varsity team.
“Last year was unfinished
business for us, and so coming
out this year, it was like a rebirth
earning technical fouls and an
ejection for Smart.
l JAZZ 119, HORNETS 111:
Talen Horton-Tucker scored a sea-
son-high 37 points and had 10 as-
sists and eight rebounds as Utah
won in Charlotte.
Walker Kessler added 17 points
and 16 rebounds and Kelly Olynyk
had 17 points for the Jazz, and
Lauri Markkanen had 13 points
and 13 rebounds. Kelly Oubre Jr.
scored 24 points for the Hornets.
l PACERS 121, PISTONS 115:
Jalen Smith scored 11 of his
20 points in the fourth quarter as
visiting Indiana sent Detroit to its
11th consecutive loss.
Isaiah Jackson added 19 points
and 11 rebounds for the Pacers,
sign him to a long-term deal
before the July 15 deadline.
Washington has nine other
unrestricted free agents and two
restricted free agents (players
with fewer than four accrued
seasons).
Among the restricted free
agents is all-pro special teamer
Jeremy Reaves, and it wouldn’t
be a surprise if the Command-
ers try to re-sign him to a new
deal.
What would a long-term
deal for Payne look like? The
floor is north of $20 million per
year, according to Corry. For a
time, the ceiling for defensive
tackles was Aaron Donald’s deal,
which has a $22.5 million APY.
DeForest Buckner and Leonard
Williams ($21 million) came in
just underneath.
But in June, the Los Angeles
Rams dramatically raised the
ceiling by giving Donald a con-
tract extension that bumped his
APY to $31.7 million. Joel Segal,
the agent who negotiated Buck-
ner’s deal, represents Payne.
“I’d imagine the first thing
Joel Segal is going to do [is] he’s
going to adjust that [Buckner]
deal for cap inflation,” Corry
said. “That’s going to get you
close to $24 million [a year].
Payne won’t get $24 million, but
I don’t see anything for under
$22 million, $22.5 million.”
Would such hefty defensive
line spending hurt the team
long term? As Corry put it: “You
can do a lot of different things if
you’re not paying a quarterback.
You pay your good players.
You figure out how to make it
work.”
Howell’s contract has cap hits
of $960,400 in 2023 and approx-
imately $1.1 million in 2024 and
. sunday, march 12 , 2023
es to Broadneck and South River
prompted internal reexamina-
tion.
Meade recovered, beating
Broadneck in the Anne Arundel
County championship game be-
fore galloping through the region
for another title.
It looked as if their final goal
might be reached, with Jones
scoring to put the Mustangs up
by three at the half. He scored
again exiting the break, dunking
to extend the lead to five. But
Parkville (27-1) swung the game
in its favor and ended the third
quarter ahead by six.
“We’re devastated right now,”
Glick said. “You know, I’m a little
bit older than the guys with me; I
think everybody will look back
on this when they become older,
and I think they’ll realize the
incredible journey that we had.”
— we had to reinvent,” Barnes
said before the game.
The Chargers excelled and
won the Southern Maryland Ath-
letic Conference regular season
championship, but they were
trounced by St. Charles in the
SMAC tournament title game by
30 points. It was Lackey’s last
loss and fueled this run.
“We didn’t show up that
game,” Barnes said. “. . . We know
we did not play Lackey basket-
ball, and so the goal for the
playoffs definitely reflected we
have to play our game.”
The Chargers aren’t done.
Their young duo, who combined
for 48 of their 53 points, could
have two more seasons to add to
this success.
“You never know what the
future is going to hold for us,”
Regala said.
wizards’ next three
at Philadelphia 76ers
Today 6 NBCSW
vs. Detroit Pistons
Tuesday 7 NBCSW
at Cleveland Cavaliers
Friday 7:30 NBCSW Plus
Radio: WTEM (980 AM)
who have won five of seven. Isaiah
Livers scored a career-high
18 points for the Pistons, and Kil-
lian Hayes had 17 points and 13 as-
sists.
$1.2 million in 2025 — peanuts
compared with most starting
quarterbacks.
But is it possible to devote so
much of the leftover resources
to one position group and still
build a balanced team?
“We’ll find that out,” Mayhew
said at the combine. “It would be
great, wouldn’t it? But there’s a
salary cap, so we’ll have to find
that out.”
What about Chase Young’s
fifth-year option? The Com-
manders have until May 1 to
exercise Young’s fifth-year op-
tion ($17.452 million), and Rive-
ra has indicated picking it up
isn’t a lock.
Young recently met with
James Andrews, his surgeon,
and got high marks for his
recovery from the knee injury he
suffered in 2021, according to a
person with knowledge of the
matter.
But Washington has to con-
sider the long term.
Picking up the option now
would avoid the situation the
New York Giants faced this
offseason with Daniel Jones.
Instead of paying him
$22.384 million on a fifth-year
option in 2023, they will pay
him a reported average of
$40 million a year on a new
contract.
“The Commanders need to
figure out who Chase Young is,”
Corry said. “If he’s the guy that
won [defensive] rookie of the
year, you pick up the option. If
he’s the guy in Year 2 who
couldn’t get a sack to save his
life before he tore up his knee,
then you don’t pick up the
option. I pick it up for this one
reason: so I could trade him if I
had to.”
 KLMNO

Arts&Style sunday, march 12 , 2023 . Section E EZ EE

The 95th Academy Awards

Antonello Silverini for The Washington Post

The fine art

BY M ICHAEL A NDOR B RODEUR

F
irst off, I just want to say thank you.
As a classical music critic, I never imagined I’d one day have the

of playing opportunity to write about the Academy Awards, but look at me now!
[Pause for extended applause.] So many people to thank: my
assigning editor, the entire Bach family, my parakeet (we did it, Wolfgang!)

people off at
and the whole crew at – hey, what’s that music? Wait! I didn’t mention my
mother yet! Unhand me!
The Oscar acceptance speech: Perhaps nowhere else in pop culture does the
individual dream of Hollywood stardom collide so unforgivingly with the

award shows
Musicians get thankless job of cutting
moments of a lifetime off at 45 seconds
indifferent plod of show business. If you’re an actor, accepting an Oscar is the
stuff of dreams. If you’re one of the show’s producers, it’s a source of great dread.
A decade ago, one report found the average Oscar speech had doubled in
length – from a tight 44 seconds in 1960 to nearly two minutes by 2009. (Three
if you’re Julia Roberts.)
“Sir, you’re doing a great job,” Roberts told conductor Bill Conti from the
stage at the 73rd Academy Awards in 2001 after her best actress win for “Erin
Brockovich.” “But you’re so quick with that stick! So why don’t you sit?
Because I may never be here again.” see music on E13

A singularly weird leap for Oscar representation Faded cultural relevance

BY J ADA Y UAN
Let it be said for the record:
The movie with 11 Academy
Award nominations — the odds-
on best picture front-runner that
has steamrolled through awards
season — features a sex toy that’s
a portal to another dimension.
And a raccoon that sits on a chef ’s
head to make him a virtuoso. And
a fanny pack as a lethal weapon.
Just five years ago, the idea of a
kung fu multiverse action com-
edy about Asian American laun-
dromat owners co-directed by an
interracial duo dubbed the Dan-
iels (Kwan and Scheinert) being
an Oscar favorite would have
sounded like something from an
alternate reality. “Everything Ev-
erywhere All at Once” is in many
ways the exact opposite of the
standard prestige Oscar bait that
preceded it — biopics, austere
dramas, 2018’s “Green Book.”
(How did that happen?)
So how in the world did this
insane, perverse, delightful film
get in pole position to win the
biggest prize in American cinema?
see asian on E12
of our era’s silver screen
BY A NN H ORNADAY
Will this year’s Academy
Awards ceremony mark the end
of an era, the beginning of a new
one, or both? The presumed front-
runners for best picture, “Top
Gun: Maverick” and “Everything
Everywhere All at Once,” repre-
sent polar opposites in terms of
sensibility and generational ap-
peal: one, a throwback to the
stirring, straightforward block-
busters of the 1980s, starring Tom
Cruise, avatar of old-school Amer-
ican stardom. The other, a manic,
undefinable mash-up of genres
and tonal values, populated by a
mostly Asian cast playing differ-
ent versions of their characters in
a rapidly expanding multiverse.
Each, in its own way, repre-
sents a medium that finds itself
Jae C. Hong/AP
stalled, between repetitive nostal-
gia and chaotic attempts to use
old tropes to say something new. The Academy Awards
Allyson Riggs/A24 Films The result is movies that, even 8 p.m. Sunday on ABC,
From left, Stephanie Hsu, Ke Huy Quan, Michelle Yeoh and James Hong star in “Everything when they have something pro- DirectTV Stream, FuboTV and
Everywhere All at Once,” in many ways the exact opposite of standard prestige Oscar bait. see movies on E6 other streaming services.
E2
Artist Holley finds
beauty amid terror
on intimate album
BY J OHN L INGAN
W
hen musician and
artist Lonnie Hol-
ley arrived in Paris
in 2019, Notre
Dame was still
smoldering. He was touring to
support his 2018 album, “MITH,”
but the venue was only blocks
from the cathedral and he want-
ed to bear witness. During previ-
ous visits, Notre Dame’s grand-
ness had inspired him to sponta-
neously sing, and when he saw it
eaten away by flames, he sang
again, this time in sorrow. Walk-
ing through fourth arrondisse-
ment, he improvised a tune he
would later name “I Smell Smoke
on the Streets of Paris.”
This is Holley’s way. Whether
in his celebrated multimedia vis-
ual work or as a performer, he
finds transcendence in apocalyp-
tic imagery and beauty in terror.
The most recent fruit of his fe-
cund and turbulent imagination
is the new album “Oh Me Oh My.”
By some measure, it is his most
seemingly mainstream project,
featuring production by Jacknife
Lee (U2, Modest Mouse, Taylor
Swift) and guest vocals by
R.E.M.’s Michael Stipe, Bon Iver’s
Justin Vernon and the acclaimed
poet-musician Moor Mother,
among others. But the vision is
wholly Holley’s, and the music is
his signature ambient-soul: half-
spoken, half-crooned, built on
pillowy keyboards but almost un-
comfortably intense and inti-
mate. His words are improvised,
drawing on that same attention
to sensory detail — and destruc-
tion — that compelled his Paris
outburst.
“I think if you listen to my
music and close your eyes, it’s
almost like me painting a picture
of it,” he says from his studio in
Atlanta. “The artistic brain, the
musical brain, they come from
the same place. I have to go into
the ocean of thoughts, the well of
thoughts.”
On “Better Get That Crop in
Soon,” Holley sings over Lee’s
hard-swinging drums, speaking
as an enslaved person, address-
ing “Massah”: “That old leather
whip … split her back wide open.”
On “I Can’t Hush,” Holley remem-
bers looking at his mother and
grandmother as a child, wonder-
ing why they never spoke about
the terrible pain they’d endured
in the Jim Crow South, promising
he will speak for them now.
History is always present in Hol-
ley’s music, but so is the hopeful
future. “As we grow we learn each
other more and more and more,”
he sings on the title track, “We
learn how precious life is.”
By the time Lonnie Holley
turned 10, he had experienced
more strife and trauma than
most people can imagine. He was
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BEVERLY HILLS BOSTON
CONNECTICUT NEW JERSEY
born in Birmingham, Ala., in
1950, one of 27 children. The
poverty was so intense that his
parents agreed to give him to a
burlesque dancer who could
breastfeed him. But that dancer
eventually passed baby Lonnie
along to the McElroys, a local
couple who owned a whiskey
house. Holley was a toddler when
he arrived there, and the cruelty
was immediate and unrelenting.
He was beaten by his alcoholic
adopted father and stabbed in his
head with a fireplace poker by a
drunk visitor. He was the only
one home when kindly, maternal
Mrs. McElroy died, and 7-year-
old Lonnie spent days in the
house alone with her corpse.
When he returned from carous-
ing, Mr. McElroy chased the boy
out, and Lonnie was hit by a car
and dragged down the street,
putting him in a weeks-long
coma.
This harrowing childhood is
recounted in the first episode of a
new podcast, “Unreformed: The
Story of the Alabama Industrial
School for Negro Children,”
which is written and hosted by
Josie Duffy Rice, a journalist who
studies the criminal justice sys-
tem. The show concerns the title
institution, better known as
Mount Meigs, where hundreds of
black juveniles were abused,
starved and effectively enslaved
in the 1960s. Holley was sent
there at age 11, after being picked
up by police for breaking curfew.
Like Satchel Paige, the legend-
ary Negro Leagues pitcher who
spent six years imprisoned at
Mount Meigs, Holley is what
Duffy Rice calls “one of the lucky
ones.” Many of the institution’s
“graduates” became criminals,
but Holley became a world-re-
nowned visual artist, with work
in New York’s Museum of Modern
Art, Atlanta’s High Museum, the
Philadelphia Museum of Art and
the White House. Holley’s sculp-
tures, often made from found
objects and full of human forms
and faces, are also in the Smithso-
nian National Gallery’s perma-
nent collection and are featured
in a current exhibition, “Called to
Create: Black Artists of the Amer-
ican South.”
Rice comes from an art-loving
family, but when she met Holley
to interview him for the podcast,
she only then realized that he was
one of the people her parents
revered. “Now that I’m aware of
him,” she says, “I’ve had so many
people reach out who love his
work. He’s traveled all over the
world. He’s a prolific artist be-
yond comprehension, across so
many mediums.”
“Unreformed” is a welcome
showcase for Holley’s inimitable
drawl and his storytelling talent.
He recounts his biography with
solemn forthrightness but with-
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music
“Oh Me Oh My” is another out a trace of self-pity. He is quick
piece of expression from to sympathize with those adults
musician Lonnie Holley. who helped him, especially Mrs.
McElroy and his beloved grand-
mother, a rural Alabama morti-
cian. On “Mount Meigs,” the dark,
roiling centerpiece of “Oh Me Oh
My,” he recalls the sexual abuse
and hard labor of his early adoles-
cence but repeatedly places his
own memories in a wider legacy
“In my lifetime, of “children after children after
children” who suffered in the
will I be able to exact same way.
Holley is volcanically self-ex-
make a difference? pressive in his visual art, whether
rending tiny wires into human
Have I done profiles or planning massive stat-
ues from uncut granite and
enough?” gleaming metal. His first work
was directly informed by trauma
Lonnie Holley,
— he created sandstone graves
on the impact of his work
for his sister’s children — and he
was initially deemed an “outsider
artist” due to his lack of formal
training. But collectors and bene-
factors including Bill Arnett and
Jane Fonda recognized his open-
hearted emotionalism and his
facility with painting, drawing,
sculpture, mobiles and installa-
tions. A lifelong music lover, he
began recording and releasing
albums commercially in 2012.
Michael Stipe knew Holley’s
artwork for decades but was un-
aware of the man’s music until he
heard a track from “MITH” called
NOW
OlneyTheatre.org | 301-924-3400
the washington post
“I Woke Up in a F---ed Up Ameri-
ca.” That track was released the
same year as Childish Gambino’s
visceral song and video “This Is
America,” and Stipe saw them as
powerful, complementary vi-
sions of Black pain from polyma-
thic artists.
“Visually and musically, I
would regard Lonnie as a trance
artist,” Stipe says. “He has ency-
clopedic knowledge of so many
things, and such life experience.
He takes all these different things
that are swirling around in his
head and he applies it to the
medium in the moment, and in
that moment it either happens or
it doesn’t. Being able to tap into
that trance state is profoundly
powerful, and Lonnie does it very
well. It’s not easy to access.”
Creative collaboration
“Oh Me Oh My” was spear-
headed by Lee, who has been a
fan of Holley’s music for more
than a decade. While his produc-
tion credits might point to a
mainstream pop sensibility, Lee
has worked with plenty of more
offbeat artists and sought Holley
out through a mutual friend.
“Lots of people say they love
Lonnie, artists especially,” says
Lee. “I thought this would be a
good opportunity to get those
people to give him attention.”
Holley came to Topanga Can-
yon, Calif., to begin their collabo-
ration. Lee asked him personal
questions and played keyboard
underneath his flowing respons-
es, continuing until Holley’s en-
ergy was spent. Then Lee would
edit the results into cohesive
songs and add overdubs. Occa-
sionally outside musicians would
join them in the studio, while
others, like Stipe and singer-
songwriter Sharon Van Etten, re-
corded their parts from afar.
Van Etten met Holley in 2015
when they were both on tour. “I
felt like he saw my soul,” she says.
“He looked deep into my eyes and
held my hand when he first shook
it, and I felt like he knew me and
embraced me with love at first
meeting. I haven’t ever met any-
one like him.” She wasn’t given
any real instruction for their
track, “None of Us Will Have But
a Little While,” just a request to
add her voice and guitar. She
embraced Holley’s sense of over-
flowing creativity. “The music
moved me in this way where I felt
the notes resonate with my body
and I tried to respond to the
emotions in his music.”
This is a common refrain from
those who work with him. “Lon-
nie doesn’t hide himself, ever,”
says Lee, who is already working
on another album with Holley.
. sunday, march 12 , 2023
Tim Duffy
“He reveals himself easily, he
cries. He kind of changed my
whole approach to music and
living. When you’ve been through
so much and still find the joy …
He does with his art what he did
with his life: He takes difficult,
awful experiences and makes
them beautiful.”
Strong sense of place
“We were right on the ocean
shore, and right on the earth-
quake line,” Holley recalls of the
Topanga sessions. “A lot of time,
that’s in my music: disasters,
whether hurricanes, tornadoes,
floods. Seeing the mountains and
the slopes, seeing the fall come in,
memories came back for me. To
go through those canyons, it re-
minded me of Birmingham,” spe-
cifically the hills that fed the city’s
local pig iron and coal mining
industries. “A lot of musical work
is conditioned by where I am.”
The talk of digging reminds
him of his grandmother: “She
dug three graves of the four girls
who died in the 16th Street Bap-
tist Church bombing in Birming-
ham. I was helping her. I had just
gotten out of Mount Meigs.” He
was a teenager and did his work
quickly so he could go be with his
older cousins, but his grand-
mother called him back. “She
said, ‘You can’t put a straight
coffin in a crooked grave.’ I didn’t
know how to write that down, but
I engraved that thought on my
brain. It keeps me even now. If I
can’t do it powerful enough to
make an impact on the world, I
won’t do it.”
He carries an enormous
weight in his work and in conver-
sation. Ruminating on environ-
mental collapse, he says, “I’m
trying to sing about the biblical
truth of ‘the fire next time.’ The
heat factor alone is going to
suffocate us. I can’t help but sing
about it. In my lifetime, will I be
able to make a difference? Have I
done enough?”
Holley says his goal is “to pick
up the torch” from artists who
paved the way, such as Quincy
Jones and Stevie Wonder, who
contributed to global causes with
their instruments and their mon-
ey. Even though he makes his art
solo, often from castaway junk he
finds on his walks, his yardstick is
the chorus of superstars on “We
Are the World.”
He has seen the worst life can
offer, and now his art, whether by
paintbrush, pliers or micro-
phone, is made with those stakes
in mind. “Oh Me Oh My” radiates
that sense of purpose. As our
conversation ends, he asks a fa-
vor, something to share: “Do let
’em know that we did try.”
sunday, march 12 , 2023 . the washington post EZ EE E3

art

great works, in focus

Cassatt was brilliant even before she was an Impressionist

BY S EBASTIAN S MEE Pennsylvania and grew up in Philadel-
phia, was already kicking away from the

B
alconies are like stages. For
painters, they provide a ready-
made tableau. They’re places
where people naturally hud-
dle, ready to watch and be
watched.
“On the Balcony,” at the Philadelphia
Museum of Art, is a relatively early work
by Mary Cassatt. She painted it while in
Seville, Spain, in 1873. It’s not a classic
Cassatt — she was still finding her voice
— and to modern eyes, it looks a bit
staged, even cheesy. But I love its liveli-
ness.
Part of its effect comes from the jaun-
ty composition. We see the balcony at an
angle, so the figures, although very
close, recede slightly in space. Against
that expected recession, the closer fig-
ure tilts her head away while the more
distant woman leans forward and
toward us, creating an interesting kind
of spatial torque.
We’re made curious, too, about the
interplay between the three figures. The
man, his face cast in shadow by his
wide-brimmed hat, appears to be flirt-
ing with the closer woman, while some-
thing below has caught the attention of
the woman in red. What is it? (I’m
guessing a cute dog.) The colors are
wonderfully fresh: Red against green.
Pink on light blue. Lots of complementa-
ry notes in between.
By 1873, after years of effort and
frustration, Cassatt’s career was finally
shifting into gear. But she had not yet
begun to fraternize with the likes of
Claude Monet, Edgar Degas, Berthe
Morisot, Camille Pissarro and Pierre-
Auguste Renoir. Those painters, soon to
be labeled Impressionists, were at that
very moment planning their first group
exhibition, breaking from the official
annual Paris Salon, whose conservative
juries had been stifling their moderniz-
ing efforts for years.
Cassatt (1844-1926), who was born in
slickly painted styles and outdated sub-
ject matter favored by the all-powerful
Salon. But she was not yet as bold as
Degas or Édouard Manet. She was still
under the spell of realism, the gritty style
pioneered by Gustave Courbet. And
there was no more decisive influence on
Courbet or Manet than the Spanish
school of painting. So it wasn’t by acci-
dent that Cassatt found herself in Spain.
“On the Balcony” looks like an hom-
age to Bartolomé Esteban Murillo and
Francisco Goya, and at the same time to
Manet, who had painted a picture titled
“The Balcony” for the 1869 Salon. Ma-
net’s work featured, like Cassatt’s, a
green balcony railing. It was intended as
an homage to — or an ironic take on —
Goya’s “Majas on a Balcony,” a painting
of courtesans wearing mantillas and
flirting behind fans, with shadowy men
behind.
Painting is so often circular in this
way. Painters are always lifting ideas,
scenarios and styles from other paint-
ers, then cannibalizing ideas they’ve
come to think of, rightly or wrongly, as
their own. Cassatt clearly loved the bal-
cony motif. It conveniently combined
aspects of spectacle and voyeurism. In
fact, the Philadelphia Museum of Art
also holds two ravishing later Cassatts,
which she exhibited when she debuted
at the fourth Impressionist exhibition in
1879. They show young women not on
balconies but in loges at the theater, in
both cases holding fans.
If they are brighter, bolder and more
daring in their handling of space and
color than her “On the Balcony,” that’s
surely because of the impact of the
Impressionists, especially Degas. But
“On the Balcony,” with its figures’ full-
wattage smiles, robustly modeled bod-
ies and beautifully painted costumes,
also reminds us of how good Cassatt was
even before she became an Impression-
ist.

Mary Cassatt (b. 1844)

On the Balcony, 1873

At the Philadelphia Museum of Art

A series featuring art critic Sebastian Smee’s favorite works in

permanent collections across the United States Philadelphia Museum of Art

A monthlong celebration
of the world’s rivers and
their cultures
C Evgeny

H OW D O YO U P ROT ECT A C H I L D

Blue
B O R N I N TO DA N G E R?

Music by Jeanine Tesori

Libretto by Tazewell Thompson
In English with Projected English Titles
Marco Borggreve

STANISLAV KOCHANOVSKY, MIDORI, KEVIN JOHN EDUSEI, AND STEPHEN HOUGH World-class performances
inspired by our world’s
Tchaikovsky’s “Pathétique” waterways, exhibitions by
Rachmaninoff’s Piano acclaimed international artists,
Karli Cadel

fun and educational activities,

Concerto No. 3 documentaries, literary panels,
Experience the passion of Tchaikovsky’s glorious, heartbreaking
final symphony led by Stanislav Kochanovsky in his NSO climate experts, and more!
debut. Also on the program: “keyboard colossus” (The Guardian)
Stephen Hough performs Rachmaninoff ’s monumental Third
Piano Concerto.

Mar. 23–25 | Concert Hall

Midori plays Korngold

Kevin John Edusei SAVE WITH
RIVERPASS!
conducts Ravel Buy 2 performances to save 20%, or 3+ to save 30%!*
Visionary artist, activist, educator, and Kennedy Center
Honoree Midori performs Korngold’s glamorous, glittering
“Best New Opera of 2020” *Discount will be applied automatically. Purchase must be made in one
transaction to receive the discount.
—T H E M U S I C C R I T I C S A S S O C I AT I O N O F N O RT H A M E R I C A
Violin Concerto—an extraordinary fusion of Hollywood and
Old Vienna. Kevin John Edusei completes the program with
kaleidoscopic works by Maurice Ravel and Samy Moussa. MARCH 22–APRIL 22, 2023
Visual Arts Installations
Mar. 31 & Apr. 1 | Concert Hall Mar. 11–25 | Eisenhower Theater APRIL 4–16, 2023
Performances, Exhibits, Literature,
Dynamic Talks, Film, Family Fun
Groups call (202) 416-8400
Kennedy-Center.org For all other ticket-related customer service inquiries, Scan to view the brochure
or visit tkc.co/RiverRun
call the Advance Sales Box Office at (202) 416-8540
(202) 467-4600
Kennedy-Center.org/COVIDsafety
E4 EZ EE the washington post . sunday, march 12 , 2023

I n T he G a l l e r i e s “Owl’s” schema is typical of

these pictures. Some are
monochromatic, with robust

Magical images spun areas of black. Most of the others

are defined by the same line-
oriented style, but smartly

from ordinary objects complemented by one or more

BY M ARK J ENKINS
For Maggie Siner, an unmade
bed is an entire universe. The
painter’s “Hommage to Ordinary
Things,” at Calloway Fine Art
and Consulting, includes scenes
of picturesque European towns
and still lifes of fruit and
vegetables, such as the pungent
“Limes & Garlic Red.” But Siner’s
exemplary subject is creased
fabric, whether in the form of a
rumpled tablecloth, a messy pile
of pillows or clothing draped
loosely on hangers. Nothing is
crisp in Siner’s oils, which are
rendered in a style that’s
unbridled and seemingly
improvisational, yet easily
legible.
Siner was previously dean of
faculty at the Washington Studio
School, and still maintains a
home and studio in Northern
Virginia. But since 2008, the
artist has spent most of her time
in Venice, which she loves for its
“ever-changing surfaces,”
according to her biography.
A fine example of Siner’s eye
for surfaces is “Green Door,”
which is all white, tan and black
save for a rectangular slab of
vivid emerald and the fluid
reflections of that color in water
below. The brushstrokes are a
whirlwind of eloquent smudges
and slashes, suggesting that the
picture was completed in a few
flurried minutes. In fact, Siner’s
style is more considered than it
appears. “Much scraping and
repainting occurs,” her
statement notes.
The painter sometimes
depicts people, mostly women,
but in this show only clothing,
furniture and other accessories
attest to human existence. White
garments — and, in one picture,
four rolls of toilet paper — are
rendered as landscapes of light
and shadow, their brightest
regions contrasted by soft blues
and grays. Touches of red,
including a tie, a label and a
ribbon, set off the whites, but
these pictures would be dynamic
even without the crimson
accents. All Siner needs to
compose a lively picture is an
expanse of wrinkled whiteness
and the way light plays across it.
Maggie Siner: Hommage to
Ordinary Things Through March 15
at Calloway Fine Art and Consulting,
1643 Wisconsin Ave. NW.
Women at War
Eleven female Ukrainian
artists respond to the Russian
invasion of their homeland in
“Women at War,” an exhibition
whose work is both harrowing
and defiant. (There’s also a
linocut by the late Alla Horska,
whose 1970 murder has been
attributed to the KGB.) A version
of the show was reviewed in this
newspaper last year, when it was
on display in New York. The
incarnation now at the Art
Gallery at Stanford in
Washington is reportedly slightly
different.
Most of the pieces predate the
2022 Russian assault, referring
to incursions that began earlier
in eastern and southern Ukraine,
as well as to broader issues of
wartime violence against
women. Dana Kavelina’s pencil
drawings on rumpled paper
employ red lines, whether drawn
or laced with thread, to
represent raw and often sexual
aggression. Alena Grom’s
photographs portray women and
children in the Donbas war zone,
sheltered precariously in the
tight, dark wombs of mines and
cellars.
Among the entries that play
on art-world tropes: Anna
Scherbyna’s miniature
watercolors of Donbas ruins,
shrouded under gray cloths as if
they were aged and rare, and
Olia Fedorova’s antitank
“hedgehogs” made of paper and
photographed in a snowy field,
where they resemble land art.
Visually arresting but harder
to translate is Zhanna Kadyrova’s
“Palianytsia,” a large stone partly
sliced like a loaf of bread. A
gallery note explains that a
typical Ukrainian bread is called
palianytsia, a Ukrainian word
“Yoruba Couple” by the late David C. Driskell, a local African American artist-scholar and printmaker.
that Russians can’t pronounce
like native speakers — and thus
is used to identify the invaders.
Playful and serious at the same
time, the simulated loaf links
Ukrainian identity to elemental
features of the country’s
landscape.
Women at War Through March 21 at
the Art Gallery at Stanford in
Washington, 2655 Connecticut Ave.
NW.
Stereo Vision Photography/Pyramid Atlantic Art Center
David C. Driskell
The prints in Pyramid Atlantic
Art Center’s current show are
credited to David C. Driskell
(1931-2020), a local African
American artist and scholar. But
the show is titled “A
Collaboration of Creativity”
because it exhibits artworks
made with printer Curlee Raven
Holton, founder of
Pennsylvania’s Raven Editions.
The two worked together from
2003 until Driskell’s death.
The prints are listed primarily
as serigraph, also known as silk-
screen, or relief, which includes
woodcut and linocut. Most
depict people, sometimes
distilled to masklike faces, and
often framed by or even
immersed in foliage. The other
subjects include a few near-
abstract nature scenes and an
owl rendered in bold black lines
overprinted with areas of
arboreal brown and tan.
additional colors. A few pairings
present the same image with and
without the added hues, or with
different color schemes.
Although such works as “Accent
of Autumn” and “Yoruba Couple”
are as boldly colorful as
paintings, chiseled black strokes
are the bones of Driskell’s
printmaking style.
A Collaboration of Creativity:
Print Works of David C. Driskell
Through March 19 at Pyramid
Atlantic Art Center, 4318 Gallatin St.,
Hyattsville, Md.
Nicole Santiago
In one of Nicole Santiago’s
domestic scenes, a pregnant
woman reveals her bare belly
while alphabet blocks spell out
“B-A-B-Y.” Motherhood is a
frequent concern of the artist’s
realist pictures, which are full of
children and, often, cakes,
balloons, party hats and bottles
of Coca-Cola. Birthday
celebrations seem to occur
regularly in what the gallery’s
statement calls “semi-
autobiographical narrative
paintings.”
The show includes black-and-
white prints, drawings and one
piece that combines charcoal,
crayon and acrylic pigment.
These pictures, some of which
feature nudes, are solemnly
appealing. But the show is
dominated by larger pieces,
painted with oils whose bright
colors and gooey textures seem
to emulate the icing on all those
cakes.
Santiago, who teaches at the
College of William and Mary in
Williamsburg, Va., achieves a
strong sense of intimacy. Yet her
larger pictures often adopt an
elevated vantage, as if the artist
is above rather than within the
action. A woman in a pink party
dress, reclining on a red-and-
white polka-dot cloth, is viewed
from directly above. What makes
Santiago’s personal scenes only
semi-autobiographical, perhaps,
is their sense of distance.
Nicole Santiago Through March 19
at the Athenaeum, 201 Prince St.,
Alexandria.

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sunday, march 12 , 2023
If her married boyfriend
divorces his wife, is he
destined to cheat again?
Carolyn Hax is
away. The
following first
appeared Nov. 12,
2008, and Feb. 11
and 27, 2009.
Carolyn
Hax Dear Carolyn:
My boyfriend is
married to
another woman. You can’t
imagine the scolding I’ve
endured from my close friends
over this. Some of it is beginning
to sink in, and I’m doubting
whether he will ever end his
marriage for me. In your
opinion, if I am deeply in love
with this man, is it worth the
wait? In other words, do you
believe the philosophy that he
will cheat on me, too, because
he’s cheating on her?
— Philadelphia
Philadelphia: Those are two
separate questions: Should you
wait, and, if he ever becomes
eligible, should you trust him?
The first is the easiest call
you’ll ever have to make: No.
You don’t “wait.” You move on
with your life.
For one thing, you don’t want
him to end his marriage “for
me.” You want him to end it only
if, and only when, it’s the right
outcome for that marriage.
Being the reason a marriage
ends might look purty in a
novel, but in real life it means
you took someone else’s candy
just because you wanted it. Not
exactly epitaph material.
And no, “The marriage was
already in trouble” doesn’t
count, not if you’re there to help
it collapse.
Meanwhile, when you “wait,”
you fall for another bit of fiction.
Continuing to see him is not the
only way to keep him, stay in
love or whatever else you hope
to accomplish. In this case, the
reverse is true: If you love him
and love yourself, then you will
walk away. No calls, texts —
. the washington post EZ EE E5
possibly guilty conscience, any
history of compulsive behavior,
are more than capable” of
paying for college and that she
and any behavior on your
husband’s part that would
justify spousal suspicion.
would appreciate if I kept my
ideas to myself.
I just don’t want to see my
Not that justified suspicion
would justify snooping; it
wouldn’t. However, if it turns
nieces burdened down with
debt. No one explained debt to
me at that age. Am I out of line?
out you do have grounds to — Overbearing Auntie?
nothing. That’s because a love question his behavior, then
worth your attention not only facing that would allow you to Overbearing Auntie?: Way.
will survive the wait for better deal with the problem in a more Even if the family can’t pay the
circumstances, but it also honest and transparent way. tab, your being right doesn’t
deserves better circumstances. If make it okay to keep pressing
it isn’t and doesn’t, it won’t. Dear Carolyn: My eldest niece your point after you’ve been
Of course, decisions can be has been accepted to a told, quite explicitly, that your
easy to make and hell to execute. prestigious design school. Her opinion isn’t welcome.
You’ll feel devastated, you’ll mom is ecstatic and so am I. I Because of your close
have cravings, you’ll jump when helped her prepare a portfolio, relationship, you had a right to
your phone rings, you’ll be take the SATs and apply to warn your niece about debt.
terrified that the secrecy was the schools. Once. When that raised hackles,
substance, that you’ll feel like a Tuition will cost her well over the right thing to do was
fool. $100,000. Since I am a practical apologize for overstepping —
However, whenever your person still paying loans 15 years and thereafter bite your tongue.
resolve weakens, remind after graduating, I have advised
yourself that your show of her to consider studying in Write to Carolyn Hax at
strength will help answer the state. tellme@washpost.com. Get her
trickier question (assuming he Her mom called me enraged column delivered to your inbox each
becomes available and you still that I would “discourage her morning at wapo.st/gethax.
Nick Galifianakis for The Washington Post
want him): Should you trust daughter from pursuing her
him? dreams.” When I pointed out  Join the discussion live at noon
Why people cheat and that it's not realistic to take on Fridays at washingtonpost.com/live
whether they’ll cheat again are that kind of debt, she said, “We -chats.
case-by-case questions. Right
now, by being available to him
on the side, you’re enabling the
worst case: that he feels entitled
to something on the side. If Mike Du Jour By Mike Lester
you’re available to him only
when he’s available to you, then
you starve the worst case of its
oxygen, at least for now. Choose
best case or nothing at all.
Dear Carolyn: I check my
husband’s email without his
knowing it and I don’t know
why I do it. I’m not suspicious of
anything, I guess I’m just
curious. What do you think this
means?
— Snooper
Snooper: It means either that
you care more about your
curiosity than you do your
husband’s privacy (or your
integrity, for that matter) — or
you’re lying to yourself about
the depth of your insecurity.
Stop looking. Have some
decency.
If you can’t stop or just don’t,
then please take a hard look at
what’s going on — including
your own motives, your own
E6 EZ EE the washington post . sunday, march 12 , 2023

movies

Carolyn Figel for The Washington Post

movies from E1
found to say about family, connec-
tion, friendship and self-belief,
feel long on spectacle and short
on substance.
In 1968, in an Esquire article
called “The Movies Will Save
Themselves,” screenwriters Rob-
arguing about, if only to divine
what they meant, what they could
and should be, how they might
help nudge America away from
calcified 1950s conformity and
help define a generation just be-
ginning to claim the political and
cultural power it would wield for
decades to come.
berg’s Oscar-nominated explora-
tion of his alternately idealized
and troubled past, chronicles a
boy first terrified of film’s immer-
sive power, then determined to
harness it for his own emotional
salvation.
“Babylon,” Damien Chazelle’s
delirious homage to Hollywood’s
when we paid the price of admis-
sion. But as they accrued — to the
frequent indifference of wide au-
diences — they began to feel more
like whistling past a graveyard
than soaring hymns to the reposi-
tory of our shared hopes and
dreams.
Despite Kidman’s dewy-eyed

Films long
ert Benton and David Newman
wrote: “Millions of cocktail par-
ties subsist on potato chips, on-
ion-cheese dip and discussions of
‘The Graduate.’ . . . All in all,
That generational power is
now waning, along with the no-
tion that movies — as distinguish-
able from the undifferentiated
wash of visual storytelling that
wild early days that is up for three
awards, casts a fond eye back to
cinema at its most ungovernable
and liberated, before it was de-
fanged by Wall Street capital and
protestations, not to mention the
crowds who thronged to “Avatar:
The Way of Water,” AMC wound
up suffering a 15 percent drop in
business in late-2022. (The com-

on spectacle
there is a kind of momentum
going with the movies now which
indicates that, of all art forms
extant, the films are going to
make it intact, robust and still
now pervades nearly every wak-
ing hour on screens as wide as
Imax and as tiny as an Apple
Watch — could ever matter that
much again. Not only is global
decency codes.
Sam Mendes’s “Empire of Light,”
nominated for Roger Deakins’s
lambent cinematography, is set in a
crumbling Art Deco palace in the
pany’s solution: push filmgoers
away even more by charging extra
for the best seats. Movies, they’re
magic! If you can afford it!)
People did go to the movies last

and short on
growing, into the twenty-first
century.”
Benton and Newman, whose
film “Bonnie and Clyde” had
helped revolutionize American
attendance down in a post-pan-
demic world of changing viewing
habits and skinnier production
slates. The very idea that films —
art house fare and mainstream
1980s, which becomes not just a
venue for crowd-pleasing movies
of that era, but a secular humanist
house of worship.
Along with similarly themed
year: Few were surprised when
franchise installments like “Black
Panther: Wakanda Forever” and
“Dr. Strange in the Multiverse of
Madness” did strong business. So

substance
RIGHT: Michelle Williams as Mitzi Fabelman in “The
Fabelmans,” director Steven Spielberg’s homage to film and
his family. BELOW: From left, Caitriona Balfe, Jamie
Dornan, Judi Dench, Jude Hill and Lewis McAskie
in“Belfast,” another movie that celebrates the cinema.
cinema the year before, were writ-
ing at the height of postwar ex-
pressive ferment, when the baby
boomers came into their own as
creators and audiences, pushing
nearly every form of art and mass
entertainment to new edges of
possibility.
The stakes could not have been
higher: Movies — and literature
and music and theater and, even-
tually, television — were worth
motion pictures alike — could
provoke debate over martinis and
hors d’oeuvres increasingly seems
like a relic from a vanished age.
That slippage is palpable in
Hollywood, and it helps explain
why filmmakers seem more in-
tent than ever to resuscitate the
romance of filmmaking and film-
going, most often through the
lens of their own artistic youths.
“The Fabelmans,” Steven Spiel-
recent films such as “Belfast” and
“Mank,” these movies-about-mov-
ies were made just before or dur-
ing the pandemic lockdown,
when shuttered theaters made
many of us long for the collective
ritual of moviegoing, and when
filmmakers had the time and
space to sink into their memories.
By the time they came out,
though, it felt like the era had
passed them by. As people were
inching back into having cocktail
parties — masks optional! — they
were far more likely to be arguing
about “The Queen’s Gambit” and
“The White Lotus” than the most
recent best picture winners
(those would be “Nomadland”
and “CODA,” in case you forgot).
Deeply personal bagatelles like
“Belfast” and “The Fabelmans”
felt like the feature-film version of
Nicole Kidman’s widely mocked
“We make movies better” ad for
AMC: sweetly sincere, but per-
haps protesting a skosh too much.
Movies-about-movies were clear-
ly meant to remind us of why we
loved watching films in the first
place, and to reward our loyalty
did other kinds of movies. At an
awards event last month, Spiel-
berg made headlines after he was
overheard telling Cruise that he
“saved Hollywood’s ass” with “Top
Gun: Maverick,” which proved
that old-fashioned values like
strong scripts, human-scale char-
acters and earthbound, non-CGI
effects can still draw and dazzle
audiences.
Baz Luhrmann’s frenetic biopic
“Elvis” did surprisingly well, not
just with its core audience of
nostalgic boomers, but also with
their nostalgic grandkids who
grew up watching the film’s star,
former Nickelodeon idol Austin
Butler. George Clooney and Julia
Roberts proved their fizzy chem-
istry still pops in the agreeably
undemanding rom-com “Ticket
to Paradise.”
Even a movie about movies be-
came a rare hit: Jordan Peele’s
“Nope” crossed $120 million at the
box office, perhaps because it was
not just a celebration of why cin-
ema is so great, but also an explo-
ration of its not-so-great past.
see movies on E7

Rob Youngson/Focus Features /AP Merie Weismiller Wallace/Universal Pictures and Amblin Entertainment
sunday, march 12 , 2023 . the washington post PG EE E7

movies

movies from E6

The biggest story of 2022, by

far, was “Everything Everywhere
All at Once,” Daniel Scheinert and
Daniel Kwan’s reality-skipping
head trip that became a cult phe-
nomenon with the younger view-
ers who had supposedly aban-
doned brick-and-mortar theaters
for idly browsing social media
and zoning out on true-crime
podcasts.
Nominated for 11 Academy
Awards, “Everything Everywhere
All at Once” is the odds-on favor-
ite going into the best picture
race, not just because of its scat-
tershot structural audacity and
off-the-wall tone, but also be-
cause it helped keep movies rel-
evant at a time when many are
questioning how we even define
them. Is a movie still a unitary
visual and aural experience un-
dertaken with a group of strang-
ers in a darkened theater? Or has
it evolved into something else:
something more sprawling, less
specific, more ubiquitous, less
tied to time and place? When
Millennials and Gen-Z spend
most of their collective life on
Instagram and TikTok, hasn’t life
become the movie?
These existential impondera-
bles aren’t new. In “The Movies
Will Save Themselves,” Benton
and Newman extolled the grow-
ing sophistication of audiences,
who were starting to lose interest
in starchy traditionalism and
were eager to embrace the un-
known, whether by way of new
visual languages inspired by the
French New Wave and cinema
verité or un-pretty character ac-
tors who were becoming the new
stars. “That sense of adventure
Scott Garfield/Paramount Plus
now appeals to people,” they
wrote, describing the perform- Filmmakers are focusing on the romance of moviemaking, as in Damien Chazelle’s “Babylon,” an homage to Hollywood’s wild early days. It’s nominated for three Oscars.
ances of actors like Dustin Hoff-
man, and the enigmatic, unpre-
dictable visions of auteurs like seem to speak directly to a genera- decades, exemplified what people “movie,” our dominant narrative have devalued film’s cultural cur- thirty without alienating every-
Ingmar Bergman, Richard Lester tion that can instantly parse their meant when they said “movie”: tradition for the past 60 years rency. It’s the movies themselves. body over thirty.” “Top Gun: Mav-
and Stanley Kubrick. “[T]heir rapid-fire winks to anime and Whether it was “The Godfather,” looks like it’s facing a massive Regardless of how the genera- erick” was a gas to watch, and
films can get personal, even video games and martial arts “All the President’s Men,” extinction event. tional divide between “Top Gun: instantly disposable. “Everything
quirky, and not lose an audience.” films and “Ratatouille” and, well, “Tootsie” or “Annie Hall,” these Movies will continue to be Maverick” and “Everything Ev- Everywhere All at Once” alienat-
The same holds true today, everything else in the Millennial were narratives that felt urgently made, of course, and people will erywhere All at Once” is resolved ed as many viewers as it beguiled.
with some crucial differences. pop culture closet. of their time, unfolding in a recog- continue to see them, on big on Oscar night, it’s unlikely that All movies reach into the past — of
The majority still overwhelming- As generational norms and ref- nizably real world populated with screens and small. But filmgoing either film will have entered the their makers or the medium itself
ly gravitates toward endlessly erences shift, so have expecta- non-superheroic characters. will increasingly be reduced to national bloodstream five years — to be legible in the present. The
self-iterating comic book and ani- tions of what movies should be, With human-scale stories now mere spectatorship, with Benton from now, let alone 50. question is what kind of future
mated movies. But, even at their both as a means of mass enter- largely relegated to television and and Newman’s cocktail conversa- Benton and Newman wrote they’ll bring forth in the process.
most impenetrable and dizzying- tainment and cultural identifica- streaming, and with a new gener- tions happening within social me- that “the movies that unified the That’s the thing about movies:
ly incoherent, filmmakers like tion. The revolutionaries of Ben- ation of auteurs more likely to dia silos and YouTube comments. postwar generation in the 1960s They’ll always save themselves.
Peele and the Daniels (as Schein- ton and Newman’s generation think of “Spider-Man” than “Ser- And it’s not just technology and 1970s were those that could But to survive, they always leave
ert and Kwan are known) now went on to create films that, for pico” when they say the word and changed viewing habits that hit a nerve with everybody under someone behind.

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E8
The magical challenge
of re-creating Dior
The reward: The costume designer’s 12th Oscar nomination
T
BY A SHLEY he set was in Budapest. The costum-
F ETTERS M ALOY er and dressmaker were in London.
The fashion house that had to give
its stamp of approval before any of
the costumes could appear on film
was in Paris. And it was the spring of 2020.
“It was all Borders were closed — as were fabric shops.
lastminute.com, to These were not, in other words, ideal condi-
be honest,” Oscar- tions for making a movie about the magic of
winning costume fashion.
designer Jenny But Jenny Beavan, the costume designer of
Beavan says of her “Mrs. Harris Goes to Paris,” got to work, buying
work on “Mrs. fabrics online — “which is not the way to buy
Harris Goes to fabric; you need to feel it, feel the weight and
Paris,” which came sculptural qualities,” she says — and FaceTim-
together amid ing with models in France as they tried on
logistical hiccups replica 1950s Christian Dior gowns at the
during the label’s headquarters. “It was all last-
pandemic. minute.com, to be honest.”
You’d never know it from watching the final
product, an acclaimed, visually sumptuous
dramedy about a widowed English cleaning
lady in the 1950s who has a chance encounter
with a Dior gown and embarks on a whirlwind
adventure to acquire one. “Mrs. Harris,” based
on a 1958 Paul Gallico novel, makes the case
that painstakingly made-to-measure French
haute couture can inspire, impassion and
empower. But the convincingly glamorous
styles on-screen were in fact a bit of a magic
trick, made on a modest budget and through
resourceful sleight-of-hand amid a global lo-
gistics catastrophe. The feat has earned Beav-
an, 72, her 12th Oscar nomination, and a win
EZ EE
would be her fourth.
As Beavan is quick to point out, “All the films
in contention this year would have had to cope
with” a lot of complications from the coronavi-
rus pandemic. “I’m by no means the only one.”
Modest? Yes. But that’s also the magic of Jenny
Beavan — a humble, practical approach that
makes the task at hand seem suddenly very
simple.
Beavan, born and raised in London, started
her career working in set design. But in the late
1970s, a friend introduced her to Ismail Mer-
chant and James Ivory, who often made films
set in Edwardian England. “They thought I was
a costume designer, so they then started to
employ me,” Beavan remembers. “Stuff hap-
pened organically. I never decided anything in
my life.” But in 1987, she won her first Academy
Award alongside her friend and frequent col-
laborator John Bright, for “A Room With a
View.” Beavan won again in 2016 for “Mad Max:
Fury Road” and in 2022 for “Cruella.”
“Mrs. Harris” director Anthony Fabian says,
“I thought, ‘Anyone who can do E.M. Forster
and Mad Max is definitely the girl for me.’”
“Mrs. Harris” would have presented a daunt-
ing challenge for any costume designer, even
without the pandemic. Although the idea was
to convey the splendor of 1950s Christian Dior
on-screen, especially through one particular
scene involving Mrs. Harris’s attendance at a
fashion show, the very real and very much
still-existent fashion house could only provide
limited help with costuming. Beavan learned
the washington post
movies
Sean Scheidt for The Washington Post
quickly that “In those days, [Christian] Dior
would do his collection, they would make it,
they would sell it and they’d move on. They
didn’t see the need to keep pieces,” she says.
“They have a few, and they have a few accesso-
ries. But it’s very little — and you would never
be allowed to wear it.” (The company did not
respond to a request to comment for this
story.)
Dior did lend Beavan five replicas of ’50s
Dior outfits made in the ’90s, as well as other
materials — like a catalogue with notes, fabric
samples and sketches. All five outfits, howev-
er, were black and white, “which meant that
Mrs. Harris, being a woman who enjoys a bit of
color . . . would not have been attracted to
them,” Beavan says. A fashion show, too, tends
to have far more than just five looks. So the rest
of it would have to be re-created from sketches
and photographs — or created entirely from
Beavan’s imagination.
Beavan called on her friend Bright and his
costume company Cosprop to help with the
dressmaking. He and Beavan watched footage
from a 1957 Dior show — the same year the
label’s namesake died — in addition to looking
at photographs from the same era to get a
sense of how a Dior gown moved through
space: “It moves away from the body, but it’s
still part of the body. It’s a very gentle move-
ment, but that’s because the material is so
fine,” he says. “We wouldn’t have known that if
we hadn’t seen the video.”
Three pieces of faux-haute couture from
. sunday, march 12, 2023 EZ
Dávid Lukács/Focus Features
“Mrs. Harris,” Beavan explains, are original
Jenny Beavans passing for Diors (with the
label’s stamp of approval, of course): the
“Venus,” a dark jade-colored ball gown with a
jewel-encrusted bodice; the “Temptation,” a
deep-burgundy ensemble consisting of a light-
ly twinkling sleeveless dress with a full skirt
and a smart taffeta bolero jacket of the same
color; and the “Ravissant,” the glittering, soft-
pink strapless number with floral appliqués
that first catches Mrs. Harris’s eye when she
sees it in a snobby housecleaning client’s
wardrobe.
The Ravissant was perhaps the most impor-
tant illusion to pull off. It had to both look
convincingly like a Christian Dior and credibly
pique a 1957 character’s — and a 2022 audi-
ence’s — interest in Christian Dior, without
actually being Christian Dior. Plus, Beavan
says, it had to be believable that the snooty
client had chosen it and bought it, and “it also
had to be believable that Mrs. Harris would
just go ‘Wow.’” And it had to be floral: “We
know Mrs. Harris likes floral, because she’s
wearing double floral at that moment she
discovers it.”
The real Dior “would have hand-sequined,
hand-appliqued, hand-whatevered. And it
would have cost, even in those days, probably
10,000 pounds,” Beavan explains. “And it
would have taken months.” With neither the
Cinecom Pictures/Everett Collection
time nor the budget for such an undertaking,
Beavan and Bright began experimenting and
found that the best way to achieve Ravissant’s
delicate but luxe look was to layer an inexpen-
sive colored fabric under “an embroidered,
appliquéd net. And then we put quite a strong
mauve behind it, which is lovely, iridescent,
EE
Dávid Lukács /Focus Features
and then we added extra glitter on top.”
Fabian, the director, says he wanted the
Ravissant to have “that fairy-tale, magical
quality.” And when he saw the fashion-show
gowns, he knew he’d hired the right designer.
“That’s the genius of Jenny, that she’s able to
make those decisions: What should be authen-
tic Dior, and then what needs to be enhanced
to help tell the story better.”
Beavan’s collaborators marvel at her knack
for finding inspired yet practical ways to use
clothing to enhance the believability of story-
telling. To hear Beavan tell it, though, is like
hearing someone explain that she simply
decided to go to the grocery store before
starting to cook dinner: She always starts the
creative process by thinking about what the
characters need rather than what might look
best. Superhero uniforms, for example, some-
times seem to be designed with aesthetics in
mind rather than function, Beavan says. In
“Fury Road,” by contrast, “We were trying to
make sure that everything was there for a
purpose. So the weird masks, like Rictus and
Immortan Joe wear, were actually about
breathing tubes, and Rictus’s weird backpack
is oxygen,” Beavan says. “They happen to have
decorated them weird, and there’s certainly a
wackiness about them. But it’s all about keep-
ing them alive.”
Beavan’s character-driven approach to cos-
tuming proved miraculous for the cast of “Mrs.
Harris.” “My costume fittings with Jenny were
the single most influential thing for me in
creating her character,” wrote Lesley Manville,
who played the title character, in a statement
to The Washington Post.
“Of course Jenny is used to telling a story
E9
Laurie Sparham/Disney
Jasin Boland/Everett Collection
TOP LEFT: Lesley Manville, as Mrs.
Harris, beholds the “Ravissant” dress for
the first time in “Mrs. Harris Goes to
Paris.” The dress was a Dior-inspired (and
approved) Jenny Beavan original.
TOP RIGHT: Emma Stone in “Cruella,”
which earned Beavan an Academy Award
for costume design last year.
LEFT: The “Caracas” dress is modeled at a
fashion show in “Mrs. Harris.”
ABOVE: Nathan Jones as Rictus in “Mad
Max: Fury Road,” which also won Beavan
an Oscar in 2016.
BELOW: Helena Bonham Carter and
Maggie Smith in 1985’s “A Room With a
View,” which won Beavan and John Bright
an Oscar for costume design.
through costume — that’s what she does so
brilliantly. But for me, her thoughts about Ada
as a postwar ‘make do and mend’ woman, who
genuinely liked clothes but didn’t have the
money and was quite adept with a needle and
thread herself, was like character gold dust for
me,” Manville wrote. “She has no ego as a
designer. She wants what is best for the
character, for the color palette of the set and,
most crucially, for the story. She’s a rare
genius.”
Of course, Beavan may be unfussy, but she’s
devoted to the craft. Caitlin Albery Beavan, a
film producer and Beavan’s daughter, says she
traveled with her mother to gigs all over the
globe when she was a small child, attending
school in India, Prague and Paris and sitting
under costume rails on film sets playing soli-
taire. (Eventually, she grew miserable and
asked her mother to stop moving around so
much, which she did.)
Today, Albery Beavan often applies her
mother’s wisdom. “She makes everything pos-
sible and achievable. ‘Bite-sized chunks’ is her
big phrase,” Albery Beavan says.
Beavan’s humility tends to stay with those
who know her, and it’s gotten her jobs but has
probably cost one or two along the way. “I
remember once being asked to do a film by a
very nice American director who said, ‘So how
are you going to put your stamp on it?’” Beavan
muses. “And I thought, Put my stamp on it? I
said, ‘I don’t want my stamp on it.’ I’m sure I
have a style,” but “it’s rather naturalistic.”
“Mrs. Harris goes to Christian Dior. She
talks about Christian Dior. We’re in the house
of Christian Dior,” Beavan adds with a laugh.
“So why would you want Jenny Beavan?”
E10 EZ EE the washington post . sunday, march 12 , 2023

Free At Last: A
Musical Tribute to
Dr. King’s Legacy
Shear Madness
The Kennedy Center
Theater Lab
B FEATURED LISTING B
Tuesday, April 4th, 2023
7:30 pm
Regular Schedule:
Tuesday–Friday at 8
Saturday at 6 & 9
Sunday at 3 & 7
Join The Washington Chorus and Artistic
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commemorate the 60th anniversary of Dr. Hall
Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” 2700 F Street NW
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MUSIC - CONCERTS

Chad Lawson, The genre-crossing, “beyond classical” Lawson leads

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Poetry and music together evoke un-

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Voices of the Enjoy works by Latin American masters

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MUSIC - CHORAL
Cantate Chamber Singers explores love,
life, and the passage of time with Bradley Hills Presbyterian
Gwyneth Walker’s overview of a poet’s Church $20 - $45
Plentiful onsite
Sunday, March 19, life in “An Hour to Dance,” Adolphus 6601 Bradley Boulevard (Children
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MUSIC - ORCHESTRAL
Viola-centric works anchor this concert, Rachel M. Schlesinger Con-
featuring the rich tones of lower strings cert Hall & Arts Center
Marine Chamber Sunday, March 12 in Bach’s Brandenburg Concerto No. 6 4915 E Campus Dr FREE, no Free parking in
Orchestra at 2 p.m. & a viola solo in Max Bruch’s Romanze. Alexandria, VA 22311 tickets garage
“Bratsche” Contemporary selections by Jessica Mey- required
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capabilites of the whole string family. mil
This concert is sure to delight all ages! Jim Rouse Theatre Call (410) 465-
Music from The Wizard of the Oz, Jaws, 5460 Trumpeter Rd 8777 or visit
Symphonic Pops March 18, 7:30pm
Lord of the Rings, The Godfather, Columbia, MD 21044
$10-$30
our website for
Strauss, Wagner, and more! columbiaorchestra.org more info!
The Guide to the Lively Arts appears: • Sunday in Arts & Style. deadline: Tues., 12 noon
• Monday in Style. deadline: Friday, 12 noon • Tuesday in Style. deadline: Mon., 12 noon • Wednesday in Style. deadline: Tues., 12 noon
• Thursday in Style. deadline: Wed., 12 noon • Friday in Weekend. deadline: Tues., 12 noon • Saturday in Style. deadline: Friday, 12 noon
For information about advertising, call: Raymond Boyer 202-334-4174 or Robin Wilkerson 202-334-7089
To reach a representative, call: 202-334-7006 | guidetoarts@washpost.com 22-0776

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sunday, march 12 , 2023 . the washington post EZ EE E11

How to respond after ex-wife’s husband tells his kids their mom is a cheater?
Dear Amy: I have
Ask Amy been divorced for
Amy 10 years, after my
Dickinson ex-wife had an
affair. She
married the man
she had the affair with. My ex
and I share joint custody of our
two daughters, ages 17 and 11. My
ex and I have only
communicated via text
messaging for the past five years,
and it is infrequent and only
about the children.
Recently I found out through
my children that their mother is
getting divorced from her
current husband. My youngest
came downstairs crying and
displayed a text from her
mother’s soon-to-be-ex, which
didn’t only throw mom under
the bus, but completely
napalmed her.
He told the children and her
own mother (their grandmother)
via text message that she has
been having an affair with a co-
worker and that she has done it
before (with him). Now the kids
are super-mad at their mother.
How do I bring it up that I don’t
want to get involved in her
personal life, but what this guy
did by using MY kids as cannon
fodder was not cool …?!
— Perplexed in Phoenix
Perplexed: You should keep
images of these texts, and
instruct/urge your children to
block their stepfather’s number
from their phones immediately
(you should keep his cell number
on hand). Convey to the kids that
no adult has the right to
communicate with them in this
way, that it is unacceptable, and
that you feel extremely sorry that
this has happened. You do not
need to offer up any additional
explanations.
Yes, the kids are angry with
their mother, but the primary
violation at this point was
committed by the outraged
person who is attempting to
weaponize your children against
their mother (and in the short
term, it seems to have worked).
You should reach out to your ex
— personally or by phone (not
text) — to let her know what has
happened, if she doesn’t know
already. The kids might be better
off staying with you full time
until the stepfather is out of the
household.
If these allegations are true,
your ex-wife has a terrible track
record. Adultery is adult
behavior, but your ex-wife’s adult
choices have a potentially
extremely destabilizing effect on
her children.
I think you should also contact
your lawyer to see what your
longer-term options are, in terms
of ensuring that your children
reside in the most stable
environment possible. Currently,
their mother’s household doesn’t
qualify.
Dear Amy: I’ve been attending
the same small Protestant
church for several years. I’ve
gotten involved with committees,
have served on the board, and
have been a financial mainstay —
helping the church to keep its
doors open. My main motivation
is to worship for an hour or two
on Sunday, and to receive the
sort of spiritual uplift that I seek
through my faith practice.
Unfortunately, even though
we’ve managed to keep the
church running, welcoming a
revolving door of disinterested
ministers for the past several
years, I sit in the pew on
Sundays, my mind racing with
church business and completely
unable to focus on the service.
I’m seriously considering
leaving this church and looking
for another that will better meet
my needs, but I feel very guilty.
I’m wondering if you have any
ideas or words of wisdom for me.
— Tired
Tired: I believe this is a fairly
common issue, which I assume
crosses aisles and affects people
from many different faith
practices. Once you start to run
an organization and become
involved in its finances,
personnel and building
maintenance, it’s a challenge to
detach from these worldly
concerns and enjoy its mission.
It’s hard to access the divine
when you’re wondering if last
month’s light bill got paid.
Pulling back on some of your
duties, even temporarily, might
help you to refocus.
Also — I suggest that you and
some other congregants might
want to form a study group.
There are scores of multiweek
programs designed to guide
participants through various
spiritual courses of study.
You might also want to
worship at other churches. Even
if you maintain your position
and involvement with your
church, occasionally attending
services elsewhere — where you
don’t know anyone — can be a
rewarding and renewing
experience.
Dear Amy: At least once a week I
think you’re totally out to lunch.
I wonder if your staff gets the
blame for some of your more
boneheaded responses?
— Wiser
Wiser: I sometimes wish I had a
staff to blame, but alas — even if
I’m occasionally out to lunch, I
assure you that I’m dining alone.
Amy's column appears seven days a
week at washingtonpost.com/advice.
Write to askamy@amydickinson.com
or Amy Dickinson, P.O. Box 194,
Freeville, N.Y. 13068.  You can also
follow her @askingamy.
© 2023 by Amy Dickinson. Distributed by
Tribune Content Agency.

MUSIC - ORCHESTRAL
The Apollo orchestra presents
Montgomery College Cul-
The Apollo Or- Tchaikovsky’s Violin Concerto in D Major
tural Arts Center
chestra Presents featuring Metropolitan Opera Concert-
Sunday, March 12, 2023 master David Chan, Verdi’s Overture to La 7995 Georgia Ave Silver
Violinist David Spring, MD 20910 Free Free parking
at 4 PM Forza del destino, and Britten’s Four Sea
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Chan Interludes and Passacaglia from Peter
et-sales/MCCAC/6907/
David Neely Conducts Grimes. FREE ADMISSION–Advance
reservations highly recommended! event/1312593

Schedule:
We’re looking for The Little Theatre of Freaky Friday: 7/22-8/12 Phone:
“A Few Good Two on the Aisle; Three in a Van: 9/8-30 Contact: Hilary Adams, 600 Wolfe
Alexandria has been 703-683-5778
Young Frankenstein: 10/20-11/11 LTA Governor for Street,
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Season Murder on the Orient Express: 3/22-4/13
Is He Dead?: 5/17-6/8
The Guide to the Lively Arts appears: • Sunday in Arts & Style. deadline: Tues., 12 noon
• Monday in Style. deadline: Friday, 12 noon • Tuesday in Style. deadline: Mon., 12 noon • Wednesday in Style. deadline: Tues., 12 noon
• Thursday in Style. deadline: Wed., 12 noon • Friday in Weekend. deadline: Tues., 12 noon • Saturday in Style. deadline: Friday, 12 noon
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S0431 6x10.5
E12
How EEAO
became
an Oscars
juggernaut
asian from E1
Director Barry Jenkins, whose
“Moonlight” won at the 2017 Os-
cars, puts it succinctly: “It’s a
dope film,” he says. “You watch it
and it’s just so clearly dope.”
“The movie is so special and
singular that I almost don’t want
to say that this is an Asian
American film that will benefit
Asian Americans,” says Randall
Park, the star of “Fresh Off the
Boat,” who just directed his first
feature, about a Japanese Ameri-
can film snob. “It’s just a great
movie, and I can’t wait to see that
cast on that red carpet, getting
their names called out and possi-
bly winning.”
And part of EEAO’s success is
just that: Wanting to see this
group of people get their due. It
stars the incredible Michelle
Yeoh, who, at 60, has never re-
ceived this kind of mainstream
acclaim in her career, and Ke Huy
Quan, 51, who was a beloved child
actor with roles in “The Goonies”
and “Indiana Jones and the Tem-
ple of Doom,” but quit acting for
20 years because he couldn’t find
roles. Their nominations, along-
side EEAO’s Stephanie Hsu (who
plays their daughter) and Hong
Chau for her role in “The Whale,”
have set a record for the most
actors of Asian descent to get
Oscar nods in a single year. If
Yeoh wins, she’ll be the first Asian
woman to take home the lead
actress trophy; she’s also only the
second ever to be nominated,
following Merle Oberon, who
passed for White in 1935. If both
Yeoh and Quan take home tro-
phies, it will be the first time two
Asian actors have won in the
same year. (Just four have won
since the first Oscars ceremony in
1929.)
“I’m gonna say I don’t know
why it took so long,” Jenkins told
The Post at the Independent Spir-
it Awards the weekend before the
Oscars. “Usually, I say to people,
‘Why are you asking me to talk
about diversity? Talk about the
people in power who have re-
stricted diversity and kept people
like myself or Ke [Huy Quan] or
Stephanie [Hsu] from breaking
through,’” Jenkins said.
When his coming-of-age film
about a young gay Black man
struggling with his sexuality won
best picture in 2017, it was seen as
a watershed moment for diversi-
ty in the wake of the #Os-
carsSoWhite movement. That
same year the Academy made a
giant push to diversify member-
ship, admitting a new class that
was 46 percent women and 41
percent people of color. But prog-
ress is ongoing. “My frame is not
so much about when White peo-
ple choose which minoritized
group each year is their favorite,”
says Nikyatu Jusu, director of last
year’s Sundance-winning horror
film, “Nanny,” about a Senegalese
caretaker for a White family. “I
think that we need to think about
sustained change, as opposed to
focusing on who’s let in.”
It’s not just welcome on-screen
representation that has pro-
pelled EEAO to phenomenon sta-
tus, though. In many ways, it feels
like the one movie in step with
the collective mood post-covid.
For several years, the world got
weirder, we got darker, and we’re
all trying to find our way back
from that.
“If you look at lockdown, we
were isolated and lonely. We were
longing for connection. We were
cynical, we were nihilistic. This
film was all about that stuff and
redirecting our nihilism to be a
weapon for good and for hope,”
says EEAO’s editor, Paul Rogers.
Says director Scheinert: “We just
went through a collective trauma
on planet Earth right before the
movie’s release, and this movie
makes some folks feel seen and
less alone, but it also lets them
laugh about it.” Getting to watch
Yeoh and Quan destroy bad guys
after a year in which Asian Amer-
icans were subject to inordinate
amounts of violence and hate
also offered some gratification.
Jenkins saw the movie on its
opening weekend in April 2022
and immediately wrote a 15-
tweet thread about just how awe-
some he thought it was and how
much money he thought it would
make. It was just the second
movie he’d seen in a theater since
the pandemic started, and the joy
in that packed house on a Sunday
in Pasadena was palpable. “If the
movie I saw in that theater didn’t
yield these kinds of results, criti-
cally, commercially, and now in
an awards context — that would
say some very bad things about
the world,” he says.
Twenty-three years ago, an-
other groundbreaking, box-of-
fice-smashing martial arts action
film starring Yeoh was nominat-
ed for 10 Academy Awards, the
most for any non-English-lan-
guage movie at the time. But
none of the actors in “Crouching
Tiger, Hidden Dragon” were rec-
ognized for their work. “I thought
at least three of them should get
nominated, but no one made a
fuss,” says Ang Lee, the Taiwanese
American filmmaker who got his
first Oscar nomination for
“Crouching Tiger” and later won
Oscars for 2005’s “Brokeback
EZ EE
movies
Chan Kam Chuen/Sony Pictures Classics/Everett Collection
Mountain” and 2012’s “Life of Pi”
— making him the first non-
White person to get that award.
Lee had cast Yeoh, who’s Ma-
laysian, because he was a fan of
the Hong Kong action films that
had made her an international
star before she came to Holly-
wood. “I just had a feeling she
would be really good because
your heart raced to her when you
see her,” Lee says. “She seemed
like she had a lot of emotion
repressed inside, waiting to be
discovered.”
The EEAO stars have talked
about the discrimination they
faced coming up in the industry.
James Hong, 94, who plays the
grandfather, was working at a
time when Asian parts went to
White actors in “yellowface” with
their eyes taped so they slanted
upward. The crew on the set
called him “Chinaman.” During
the pandemic, after Quan filmed
EEAO but before it came out, he
lost his Screen Actors Guild
health insurance because he
wasn’t cast in any roles. Yeoh has
said American casting agents
seemed shocked that she spoke
English, even though most peo-
ple in Malaysia speak four or five
languages. “Oh, she speaks great
English. But her Mandarin ac-
cent was a big problem for me,”
says Lee, laughing.
When Lee’s cast didn’t get
nominated, he figured Academy
members just didn’t know who
the actors were. He, too, had been
snubbed five years earlier, when
his first English-language movie,
1995’s “Sense and Sensibility,” got
seven nominations, but he failed
to get a best director nod. He
shrugged it off at the time. “The
Academy Award is American,
and it’s establishment,” he said.
“It had language restrictions.
And you really do need populari-
ty. It’s a social activity and not
about the real value of a movie,
which is what it does to the
human heart.”
In 2008, though, the same
thing that happened with
“Crouching Tiger” happened to
TOP: From left, Jamie
Lee Curtis, wearing hot
dog fingers based on a
prop from the film,
Michelle Yeoh, Daniel
Kwan, Stephanie Hsu,
Jonathan Wang, Daniel
Scheinert and Ke Huy
Quan pose in the press
room at the Film
Independent Spirit
Awards. The cast and
crew won the award for
best feature for
“Everything Everywhere
All at Once.” ABOVE:
Zhang Ziyi, left, and
Michelle Yeoh starred in
the 2000 film
“Crouching Tiger,
Hidden Dragon.” The
martial arts action movie
received 10 Academy
Awards, but none of the
actors in the cast were
recognized for their
work.
“I can’t wait to see
that cast on that
red carpet, getting
their names called
out and possibly
winning.”
Randall Park, star of “Fresh
Off the Boat,” about the
actors in “Everything
Everywhere All at Once”
the washington post
“Slumdog Millionaire” — 10
nominations, eight wins and
none for the actors. It happened
again in 2019 with Bong Joon-
ho’s “Parasite.” The Korean-lan-
guage film got six nominations.
Its best picture win was seen as a
boon for diversity and interna-
tional perspective at the Acad-
emy. But the lack of nominations
for the actors created an outcry
over Asian achievements being
recognized but not Asian faces.
Is EEAO a sea change? “I just
hope that this becomes the
norm, what is it, 23 years later?”
says Lee. “I’m honored to be part
of that progress.”
For all its insanity and multi-
ple universes, at its heart, EEAO
is an immigrant story. Both Kwan
and producer Jonathan Wang
added bits of their parents to the
script. Wang’s Taiwanese father,
who died in 2016, had an incredi-
ble knack for butchering movie
names — which is how we have
Raccaccoonie, the master-chef
raccoon who’s a spin on “Rata-
touille.” Kwan interviewed his
mother, June, while writing the
screenplay. She was opening sev-
eral vegan Chinese restaurants in
New York at the time, while also
being a grandmother and dealing
with health issues in the family —
demonstrating an ability to be,
well, everything everywhere all at
once, a trait that’s baked into
Yeoh’s character.
“The more I dug in, the more I
realized how perfect the immi-
grant story was for a multiverse
premise,” says Kwan. “The multi-
verse story and the immigrant
experience have to deal with the
question of ‘what if.’ They both
involve straddling or inhabiting
different spaces and ‘universes’ at
the same time.”
That doesn’t always translate,
though. Kwan’s mother, June, is
baffled by the film’s success. “I
love that June’s honest. She’s like,
‘I don’t get it. What’s so good
about it?'” says Wang. “But she’s
really, earnestly trying to under-
stand the movie more, and that’s
beautiful.” All three of their
mothers, though, will proudly
accompany them to the Oscars.
Lee, too, isn’t fully onboard.
“To be honest, it was a little fast
for me. I’m getting old,” he says,
laughing. “I get it and I’m happy
for them and for Asian Ameri-
cans. But emotionally, I’m a little
behind in the movie’s pace. All
the things in it jam together like
in a laundry machine.”
Joel Kim Booster, the Korean
American who wrote, directed
and starred in the gay rom-com
“Fire Island,” says he doesn’t have
any Asian friends who’ve said
they don’t like EEAO, but he’s not
sure “that’s a real thing.” They
just might be staying quiet, he
posits, for the same reason gay
people might have stayed quiet
about not liking “Fire Island.”
“It’s the scarcity of representa-
tion in this industry,” Kim Boost-
er says. “We are told that if we do
not support this movie, then we
will not get another one.” A big
reason he wrote “Fire Island,” he
says, is because he was tired of
always going up for the same
parts as his good friend, “Satur-
day Night Live” cast member
. sunday, march 12 , 2023
Jordan Strauss/Invision/AP
Bowen Yang, but never getting to
be in the same production with
him. “It was so frustrating be-
cause we’re so different. Why
can’t we be on screen together
and as friends?” says Kim Boost-
er. “I think the thing that’s
changed a lot is the solidarity
among our community within
the industry. For a long time, we
were pitted against each other
because there was only one role
available for all of us, and they
were often bad [roles], and I
think we really came together
and decided to tell our own
stories.”
At the Spirit Awards, the free-
wheeling indie film antidote to
the Oscars, EEAO ran the table,
just as it had swept the major
guild prizes — Directors Guild of
America, Writers Guild of Ameri-
ca, Producers Guild of America
and SAG. The EEAO gang treated
the press room like a carnival
photo booth, doing high kicks
with their Spirit Awards. Jamie
Lee Curtis at one point wore the
hot dog fingers that feature so
prominently in the movie and
stroked Michelle Yeoh’s face.
Curtis says EEAO’s awards run
has had her thinking hard about
what the movie means for all
immigrants, which is why she
brought up her family’s history
during her SAG Awards speech
for winning best supporting ac-
tress. Her grandparents were
working-class immigrants from
Hungary and Denmark whose
children, Tony Curtis and Janet
Leigh, became huge movie stars.
“In the movie, my role was to be
the antagonist to those immi-
grants and their dream. And to
question them was an important
role,” she says. “But I’m very
moved by the importance of this
emotional story of these immi-
grants. And if we win, it will be a
win for them. I will be there, of
course, cheering, but all my en-
ergy and my emotion will be
toward my bae, Michelle, and to
the Daniels.”
If EEAO wins acting awards,
that will make history. But there
are other kinds of progress, too.
For Park, what’s revolutionary
about the movie isn’t the multi-
verse but seeing a family argu-
ment in a parking lot, or Yeoh and
Quan doing their taxes. “I kept
thinking about how you rarely
get to see Asian Americans in the
context of the mundane, just
doing everyday things,” he says.
“With Asian Americans, there’s
this expectation to tell our story a
certain kind of way, and I think
the Daniels did it in such a
unique and inventive way that it’s
going to inspire people to tell
their stories, too.”
And for Jenkins, this movie is a
huge win for weirdos — and
thereby, cinema.
“I mean, there’s a scene where
Michelle Yeoh is fighting some-
one with a dildo,” says Jenkins.
“Literally, it happens in this mov-
ie. That means that when some
random-ass kid sends out a ran-
dom-ass script with just wild s---
in it, someone like Jamie Lee
Curtis is going to listen when it
hits her desk. If there’s anything
that this film has opened up,
that’s it.”
sunday, march 12 , 2023 . the washington post EZ EE E13

movies

The fight
between
speech and
schedule
Kevork Djansezian/AP

music from E1

From there, she launched into

three solid minutes of gasping
flabbergasted appreciation, a
speech that, over time, grew self-
aware: “I love it up here!” she
yelped as Conti glared expectant-
ly from the pit.
Roberts is no Greer Garson ­–
the best actress of 1943, whose
acceptance speech held an audi-
ence captive at the Cocoanut
Grove for seven minutes (of
which only about three minutes
and 56 seconds have survived in
the Academy’s database).
Since then, the Academy has
tried everything short of releas-
ing hounds to curb rampant ce-
lebrity loquaciousness: a 45-sec-
ond rule (which still holds today);
a backstage “thank-you cam” for
more robust acknowledgment of
the little people; a speedy ticker of
pre-submitted thankees running
along the bottom of the screen.
But it never quite seems to
work — despite how tightly
reined the schedule, the final
batch of big winners always
comes across like a lightning
round at the end of a game show,
the telecast chronically and clum-
sily crossing into the time-slot
turf of local news affiliates. And
this is hardly a phenomenon spe-
cific to the Oscars – every major
awards show seems to contend
with its own play-off dramas,
even when there’s no one actually
playing. After this past January’s
Golden Globes, pianist Chloe
Flower had to defend herself from
online attacks when audiences
(and some winners) assumed she
was cutting off speeches from her
high-profile perch.
“I would never play piano over
people’s speeches!!” she tweeted
soon after her name started
trending for all the wrong rea-
sons. “I’m only playing when you
see me on camera!”
From most viewers’ vantage
points on their respective couch-
es, the latitude granted to an
Oscar winner’s gratitude often
seems gallingly arbitrary – guided
solely by cryptic calculations of a
given star’s power and the whims
of some conductor or director in
the shadows, who’s heard enough
about your agent.
Bill Ross, a conductor and or-
chestrator who served as music
director and arranger for the Os-
cars telecast several times be-
tween 2007 and 2016, is credited
for penning “Too Long,” a creep-
ing nondescript (and apparently
discontinued) instrumental that
offered a polite but insistent mu-
sical gesture toward the wings.
According to a 2012 interview
with the American University ra-
dio station WAMU, Ross had to
save face with his own kid, who’d
pleaded with his father to quit
cutting people off.
“It’s the director of the show,”
said Ross. “People think it’s the
guy with the baton who’s making
that call, and I assure you it’s not.”
Whoever is actually in charge
of yanking the proverbial hook,
the act of playing folks off the
stage has developed over the dec-
ades into a fine art, insofar as it
begs for interpretations that
reach beyond the bounds of mere
time management.
Occasionally, this abrupt ixnay
on the eechspay is plainly politi-
cal: In 2003, just three days after
U.S. military forces invaded Iraq,
Michael Moore claimed the best
documentary feature trophy for
“Bowling for Columbine.”
“We like nonfiction,” Moore
said, surrounded by fellow docu-
mentary nominees he’d invited to
join him on-stage. “We like non-
fiction and we live in fictitious
times. We live in a time when we
have fictitious election results
that elect a fictitious president.
We live in a time where we have a
man sending us to war for ficti-
tious reasons!”
As Moore continued (“Shame
on you, Mr. Bush!”) a din of boos
rose from the hall and a hail of
nothing-to-see-here horns reared
up from the orchestra. Moore
raged on: “Any time you’ve got the
Pope and the Dixie Chicks against
you, your time is up!”
And then his time was up.
Kevork Djansezian/AP
Other approaches to shooing
the stars have skewed more
consciously obnoxious, like in
2013 when producers deployed
John Williams’s foreboding
two-note theme from “Jaws” to
take bites out of rambling
speeches. The theme surfaced
with eerie irony less than a
minute into visual effects super-
visor Bill Westernhofer’s accep-
tance for “Life of Pi” – a film that
takes place on a lifeboat. West-
ernhofer put up a valiant 20-
second battle before getting
pulled under.
(And while I get the idea with
“Jaws,” it’s a tad on the nose. If
we’re looking for a soft-approach-
ing, tick-tocking, quickly intensi-
fying encouragement to wrap
things up, Grieg’s “In the Hall of
Bettmann Archive/Getty Images
the Mountain King” is sitting
right there.)
Indeed, the thrill of the fight is
one of the only things that makes
the Oscars worth watching.
Like in 2015, when the Polish
filmmaker Pawel Pawlikowski
won best foreign language feature
honors for “Ida,” and thanked like
no one was watching, speaking
unbothered through the swelling
intrusion of the orchestra and
earning extra applause for his
defiance in the face of deference.
“I know I have a little bit of
time,” an exultant Cuba Gooding
Jr. offered as preface in 1997,
when he nabbed best supporting
actor honors for “Jerry Maguire.”
“So I’m gonna rush and say every-
body! You can cut away, I won’t be
mad at you!”
Matthew Lee/Long Beach Press Telegram/AP
CLOCKWISE FROM He made it about 30 seconds
TOP: Julia Roberts before Conti struck up the orches-
reacts after winning the tra and triggered a minute-long
Academy Award for standoff with Gooding, who con-
best actress in a leading tinued shouting the names of ev-
role for “Erin eryone involved with the film (“I
Brockovich” in 2001; love you! I’m a keep going!”) and
Cuba Gooding Jr. bringing whole sections of the
celebrates his best auditorium to their feet – the
supporting actor win play-off theme surrendering into
for “Jerry Maguire” something more like an amplifi-
backstage in 1997; cation of his leaping, hooting,
Greer Garson, left, and fist-pumping ecstasy. They did
James Cagney in 1943 not cut away, and he was not mad.
after their wins for best (Or, not angry, at least.)
actress and best actor in The same cannot be said of
“Mrs. Miniver” and recent viewers, more and more of
“Yankee Doodle whom read the playing-off of
Dandy,” respectively; those who win lesser-seeming
filmmaker Michael awards earlier in the evening as
Moore speaks out acts of institutional disrespect. In
against President 2022, many viewers were deeply
George W. Bush and the peeved by the 15 or so seconds
war in Iraq while granted on-stage to director Ry-
accepting the award for usuke Hamaguchi, whose “Drive
best documentary My Car” was named best interna-
feature for “Bowling for tional feature.
Columbine” in 2003. (The year prior, during the pan-
demic, the absence of an Oscars
orchestra meant no play-off mu-
sic at all — much to the chagrin of
that year’s music director and
in-house DJ, Questlove, who de-
scribed play-off music to Variety
as “my all-time favorite thing.”)
This is hardly a This year’s telecast, airing Sun-
day evening on ABC, will welcome
phenomenon back music director Rickey Mi-
nor, who last presided over a 2020
specific to the ceremony that sported zero play-
offs, despite some real ice-melters
Oscars — every by Joaquin Phoenix and Renée
Zellweger.
major awards This year will also restore the live
telecast award count back to the
show seems to full 23 categories (eight were con-
troversially and unceremoniously
contend with its demoted last year), a return to over-
stuffed-Oscars form that will re-
own play-off quire Lydia Tár levels of control
freakiness to keep on schedule. I
dramas. feel equal parts gratitude and pity
for whoever in the control room
gets put in charge of chopping
nearly two dozen moments of a
lifetime – truly a thankless task.
E14 EZ EE the washington post . sunday, march 12 , 2023

Diversions

Answers to last week’s puzzle. Ccrossword

R O SS W O R D
STATE SECRETS (MARCH 5)
“DIRECTOR’S CUT” BY EVAN BIRNHOLZ MARCH 12, 2023
0
$ 0 ( 7 6 $ 5 $ 6 & $ 5
ACROSS 80 Societal problems                  
3 $
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1 Rudeness from a child 82 Man’s name found in
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7 5 , 3 5 ( $ * $ 1 : $ 7 7 “line drawings”
   
5 Honesty or integrity, e.g.
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3 , ( ( 7 + ( / $ ' ' 6 , 1 15 Sergeant’s ride Happened One Night”)     
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2 3 6 1 ( ( ' 3 2 5 ( ' ( 0 , 20 Distance unit in Derby 91 Unnaturally formal    

/ ( 7 + ( & $ 7 ( 5 ( 5 ) 5 < ( 5 6 21 Galvanic cell’s negative 95 Soft ___ (area of
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$ 6 + * $ ( / $ < ( ( 7 ( 5 1 $ / 23 Up to the challenge 97 Sedimentary deposit
99    
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1 $ 7 2 3 $ / 6 , 6 7 2 2 ' ' 26 Lyft or Uber cost with a maze, maybe)     
27 Dating activities 100 Texas Revolution
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29 “Industry Baby” rapper figure for whom
/ $ 2 ) , ( 5 , % $ / ' 1 , % % / (
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% 2 % $ , 6 $ : 0 $ 5 $ & $ 1 , 1 ( 32 “I’m tired of discussing of the Sierra Madre”)       

$ % ( 7 6 , 5 ( 1 6 ( 5 $ 6 , 1 * this” 104 Bitter, public feud    

% 2 5 ( % ( $ 8 7 $ * 5 ( ( ' 33 Woolen jacket worn by (“The Quiet Man”)
       
$ 7 7 1 ' 5 1 2 0 ( 7 $ 6 a sailor 108 “___ you okay?”
36 Arranged by date, say 109 Run-of-the-mill     
©2023 Tribune Content Agency, LLC. 37 Type of musician 110 Quinceañera prop
       
who “will lead us to 111 Dull situation
reason,” per the lyrics 112 Money in Matsumoto    
to “Stairway to Heaven” 113 Oscar-winning film
     
Answers to last week’s L.A. Times Sunday puzzle. 39 Deliberately misinform whose Oscar-winning
ANSWER TO TODAY’S PUZZLE 41 Goalie’s equipment director is spelled out     

45 “Dead Man’s Party” by the letters cutting     
band with a rhyming the circled Oscar-
name (“Parasite”) winning directors
49 “Be with you in a 117 Swinger on a walk? 5 Drive while dreaming? 31 Noise at a dairy farm 57 Architectural overhang 87 Attempted
few ___” 118 “Such a strange and 6 Feudal system worker 34 Small unit of energy 59 With 72 Across, soft 88 “Oh, please”
53 Picker-uppers in a bar? meaningless word,” 7 Increases, as the grade 35 With 60 Down, storied drinks sold since 1886 89 “Oh, please”
55 Undeveloped, as talent per the rock musician of a ramp infiltrator of a thieves’ 60 See 35 Down 92 Rooftop party space
56 Concurs about Davey Havok 8 Key period of history den 63 Stop weighing options 93 Keeps going
58 Of battles at sea 119 Band whose final studio 9 Inventor who helped 38 Rooting creature 64 ___ City (flowery 94 Dry floor-cleaning
59 Movie star, e.g., briefly album was “Collapse design a hydroelectric 40 See 43 Down nickname of Spokane) item
61 “Wolf Children” genre Into Now” (2011) power plant at Niagara 41 Sticky application on a 65 Gownlike garment 96 State that served as
62 Altered, as an article 120 Feature of many an Falls baseball bat 66 Dimly illuminated a filming location for
64 Examines online crossword puzzle 10 “Book of Questions” 42 Professor’s environment during the evening “Touched by an Angel”
66 RCA cassette, say 121 Chew some chips, say author Neruda 43 With 40 Down, hard- 68 Casual attire 98 R&B singer Benét
67 Attractive to viewers 122 AOL or CVS head, e.g. 11 “Smoke Painting” artist boiled hors d’oeuvre clarification 101 Very strange
(“Brokeback 123 It makes grass glisten Yoko 44 ___ Island Ferry 70 Nitwits 102 Worker distributing
Mountain”) 124 Before, to Chaucer 12 Short piece that may 46 The Most ___ ___ 73 Hardly cheerful playbills
69 Brand that touts itself 125 Gives off have three movements (limited-edition cookie 74 Agricultural tool that 103 “Tell it to the judge if
as “The King of Beers” 126 Southwest locale? 13 Forbidden fruit venue released in 2023) breaks up soil you don’t like it!”
(“The Sound of Music”) 127 Subject of the Stargate 14 Circuit board part 47 Refuse to, with “at” 77 Get-up-and-go 105 “The Borgias” actor
71 Reply during a sermon Project, for which the 15 Villainous grand vizier 48 Has unsettled debts 79 Retreat with treatments David
72 See 59 Down CIA recruited alleged of Agrabah 49 Submitted 81 Poli ___ 106 ___ accident (rare,
3/5/23 74 Vietnamese Women’s mind readers 16 Praise to the heavens 50 Boomer once on the 83 Major for an aspiring unfortunate event)
Museum city 17 Like the sight of glowing Bengals cryptographer, maybe 107 Bumpy like a toad’s
75 Make a mental ___ DOWN eyes in a dark forest 51 Be in the running 84 Unmitigated skin
76 British telephone box 1 Burn with hot water 18 Beg (for) 52 Made a derisive face 85 Oxygenating devices 114 Cup edge
shade 2 Garden structure 25 The first X of a winning 54 Cassini who designed 86 One of the “Bye Bye 115 “LMAO you shouldn’t
77 Flatbread with a pocket 3 Artillery discharge X-X-X combo the “Jackie look” Binky” singers on be sharing that”
78 CO location 4 Deal with a dirty floor 28 Cup edge wardrobe “Sesame Street” 116 “___ me help you”

H o r osc op e L.a. times sunday puzzle

RELEASE DATE­­—Sunday, March 12, 2023

B Y G E O R G IA N IC O L S Los Angeles Times Sunday Crossword Puzzle

edited by Patti Varol and Joyce Nichols Lewis
Edited by Patti Varol and Joyce Nichols Lewis
Happy Birthday | March 12: You will rise to any challenge. You’re competitive and determined, and you love
“EXCUSES, 84 Midday 115 British elevators maybe 47 Grapefruit 82 Tries to live up to
adventure. Simplicity is the key to your life this year. It’s important to create solid foundations right now. Take EXCUSES!” BY 85 On the clock 116 Pie feature 15 “The Canterbury wedge 87 Smart __
charge of your health. Stay grounded and levelheaded. It’s a good time to work or build something. ROBIN STEARS 86 Setting for many 117 Young 67-Down Tales” character 48 __ guard 89 Most uncanny
Stephen King 118 Batik artist 16 Beverage 50 Lighting effect 91 Cooking oil
ACROSS novels 119 Sherwin- brewed with 51 “Poor, pitiful me!” option
1 Jorts fabric 88 After the whistle Williams product solar energy 52 Puny parasite 92 Weighed in
Moon Alert: There are no express yourself in a meaningful, risks and disclose personal 6 North Africa’s __ 90 Wallpaper 120 Toast opener 17 Go to 54 “... __ quit!” 93 “The Addams
restrictions to shopping or sympathetic way that makes others information. They feel there is a Mountains hanger’s 18 Gets rid of 55 Sulu player John Family” uncle
11 Cranberry sites calculation DOWN 24 Appliance in 56 Choose 94 Foot part
important decisions. The Moon is respect you. sense of mutual respect and 15 TV ads for good 91 “I always 1 “Say So” singer some hotel room 61 Routes without 95 Totally worthless
in Scorpio. sympathy. causes wanted to be a __ Cat closets tolls 96 Recipe amt.
CANCER (June 21-July 22) 19 One who may gardener, but I 2 Some Down 25 Reggae pioneer 62 Person of the 97 Built for NASA,
live by the Strait ... ” Under sprinters Peter Year designator say
ARIES (March 21-April 19) This is a romantic day! This is also LIBRA (Sept. 23-Oct. 22) of Hormuz 98 Sugar shack 3 Graham in the 26 Like a ram or a 63 Skip over 98 Athlete’s award
This is the perfect day for important a day where you will feel You will feel courageous and 20 Go surrounders Rock and Roll lamb 64 So-so 102 Soul mate?
21 Old Testament 99 Actress Mireille Hall of Fame 31 Balanced 65 Some med. 103 Scrape covered
discussions about shared property, sympathetic to the needs of relaxed enough to speak candidly twin 100 MLB stat 4 QB misfire 32 Curry of the plans with a Paw
inheritances or private, personal children. Social events will go well about your job, your health or 22 Actress Wilson 101 Massive old 5 __-of-the-road NBA’s “Splash 66 Company abbr. Patrol bandage,
matters that might concern you. in a gentle, fun-loving way. People anything that concerns you. You of “His Dark computer 6 Pasta Brothers” 67 Guys e.g.
Materials” 102 Amazon crime specification 33 Bypass 68 “Frozen” sister 104 Library
You know that people will listen to will be kind and genuinely know that others will listen to you 23 “I always wanted series based 7 Till stack 34 Home with cells 70 Advent convenience
you with respect and there will be a interested in each other. There’s a with understanding and sympathy. to be a ballerina, on Michael 8 Muscles near 35 Tel __, Israel 71 Ramadan, e.g. 105 Memo abbr.
but I ... ” Connelly novels delts 36 Main points 74 Essential fatty __ 106 Cowpoke’s
sense of mutual concern and sense of mutual consideration and It might be a relief to have this 27 Specimen for a 104 Fanny pack’s 9 Batting stat 37 Taking action 75 Brooks’s country poker
sympathy. respect. conversation. volcanologist spot 10 Vacillate 38 Captain of music partner 107 “Will there be
28 Gown 106 Needle a bit 11 “You __!”: industry 76 Gets into anything __?”
29 Long Beach’s 109 “I always wanted “Yep!” 39 Novelist shape? 108 Dampens
TAURUS (April 20-May 20) LEO (July 23-Aug. 22) SCORPIO (Oct. 23-Nov. 21) location, to be a wedding 12 Dept. of Labor Turgenev 77 Castle trench 110 Drift off
This is a wonderful day to This is an excellent day for important Romance is in the air! People feel informally officiant, but I ... ” arm 40 Family room 78 Standard 111 Fjord kin
30 “I __”: Election 113 Not aweather 13 Fine __: Irish 44 Pants part 79 Koala hangout 112 One of five
schmooze with friends as well as family discussions, especially about close and warmhearted with each Day sticker 114 Canine pal of political party 45 Award quartet 80 Genre of the principal
groups and organizations because inheritances, shared property, other. They’re ready to divulge 31 North Carolina Nermal and 14 Dine by for John Legend, Mighty Mighty resources in the
not only will you be heard but you shared responsibilities and where to secrets. You sense that this is a university Garfield candlelight, for short Bosstones game Catan
32 Uniform
are willing to listen to others as draw the line or define boundaries. good time for people to listen as accessory
well. Feelings of empathy and People are open-minded and willing well as disclose their deep feelings. 33 Ambulance
wailers
mutual sympathy will promote a to listen to each other. Take 34 “I always
meaningful understanding with all advantage of this trust to tell your SAGITTARIUS (Nov. 22-Dec. 21) wanted to be a
parties. story. This is the perfect day for a baker, but I ... ”
40 __ bar
meaningful family discussion with 41 German article
GEMINI (May 21-June 20) VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22) all members of the family, 42 Northeastern
especially younger people. People octet
This is an excellent day to talk to This is a lovely day to enjoy the 43 Show clearly
bosses and people in authority, company of others, especially will trust each other and be willing 46 Small tastes
especially about your health or partners, close friends and to share their hopes and fears. 48 Vega, e.g.
49 Phony
your job. Or perhaps you are the spouses. Today’s the kind of day 53 “I always
person in authority. If so, you will where people are willing to take CAPRICORN (Dec. 22-Jan. 19) wanted to be
It will please you to have a warm, a Gregorian
monk, but I ... ”

Engagements | Weddings
meaningful discussion with 57 Undefeated
neighbors, siblings and relatives. boxer Laila
58 Means of access
People are more willing to disclose 59 Goatee spot
Anniversaries their feelings and share their ideas
because there is a sense of mutual
60 Key of
Beethoven’s
“Eroica”
To place an announcement: respect and affection. 62 Soy-based
frozen dessert
email: weddings@washpost.com brand
AQUARIUS (Jan. 20-Feb. 18) 65 Think of, as a
phone: 202-334-5736
You might impress your boss or a solution
fax: 202-334 - 7188 parent. This could be about 67 “__ Place”:
1990s TV drama
financial matters. Or you might use 69 Classic Windows
your wealth in a charitable way to catchphrase
Declare Your Love! help others. (Remember: True 70 Bygone Dodge
subcompact
generosity is giving what is 71 Messy scuffle
Announce your Engagement, Wedding or Anniversary in The Washington Post’s needed.) 72 Customizable
Sunday Arts & Style Section. (Birthdays, Graduations & other Special Events Wii Sports
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have moved to Thursdays.) You may provide text and photos. Color is available. 73 “I always wanted
PISCES (Feb. 19-March 20)
Many packages include keepsake plaques of your announcement. to be a perfumer,
You are a sensitive, compassionate but I ... ”
To place an order and for more information, including rates: sign, and you will attract people to 81 French infinitive
Contact The Weddings DropBox at: weddings@washpost.com you. They know you will respect 83 Give more than
a darn?
Or call 202.334.5736, toll free 877.POST.WED, fax 202.334.7188 what they say and listen with
3/12/23 ©2023 Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
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count on others who will listen to
you with respect and affection.
ANSWER TO TODAY’S PUZZLE
sunday, march 12 , 2023
MOVIE DIRECTORY
DISTRICT
AMC Georgetown 14
3111 K Street N.W.
Top Gun: Maverick (PG-13)
CC: 7:50
Jesus Revolution (PG-13) CC:
4:05
65 (PG-13) CC: 12:30-2:45-
7:30-9:50
Ant-Man and the Wasp:
Quantumania (PG-13) CC: 1:05-
4:00-6:50-9:45
Operation Fortune: Ruse De
Guerre (R) CC: 9:40
Tár (R) CC: 4:25
The Fabelmans (PG-13) CC:
1:10
The Quiet Girl (PG-13) 2:20-
4:40-7:05-9:25
Cocaine Bear (R) CC: 12:35-
2:55-5:15-7:35-9:55
Champions (PG-13) CC: 1:20-
4:10-9:50
Creed III: The IMAX 2D Experi-
ence (PG-13) CC: 1:45-4:30-
7:15-10:00
Avatar: The Way of Water 3D
(PG-13) CC: 12:40-4:40-8:40
Puss in Boots: The Last Wish
(PG) CC: 2:05-4:35
Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yai-
ba -To the Swordsmith Village Creed III (PG-13) CC: 1:00-
(R) 1:30-4:10-6:45-9:20
Scream VI (R) CC: 12:50-3:40- Ant-Man and the Wasp:
6:35-9:30
Scream VI 3D (R) CC: 7:05-10:00 4:30-7:20
Creed III (PG-13) CC: 1:00-3:45- 65 (PG-13) CC: 2:15-4:45-7:30 Quantumania (PG-13) CC:
6:30-9:15
Jesus Revolution (PG-13) OC: Guerre (R) CC: 5:30
1:15
65 (PG-13) OC: 5:05
Operation Fortune: Ruse De
Guerre (R) OC: 7:00
Champions (PG-13) OC: 7:00
Scream VI (R) CC: 2:00-5:00-
8:00
Alamo Drafthouse Cinema - Jesus Revolution (PG-13) CC: Yaiba -To the Swordsmith
DC Bryant Street
630 Rhode Island Ave NE
Scream VI (R) 12:30-4:00-
7:00-8:30
Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure Quantumania (PG-13) CC:
(PG) 6:30
Bram Stoker's Dracula (R)
11:00AM
Scream VI 3D (R) 10:30
Champions (PG-13) OC: 3:15
Creed III (PG-13) 10:30-12:00- 8:00-9:50
1:15-2:00-3:30-4:45-5:15-7:40- Operation Fortune: Ruse De
8:00-9:45-10:30
Cocaine Bear (R) 10:45-1:30-
2:25-4:15-7:20-11:00
Champions (PG-13) 11:45-
6:40-10:15
Scream VI (R) 11:00-2:30-
6:00-9:30
Ant-Man and the Wasp:
Quantumania (PG-13) 11:15-
2:45-6:20-9:50
Angelika
Pop-Up at Union Market
550 Penn Street NE - Unit E 12:50-1:50-3:40-4:40-6:30-7:30-
65 (PG-13) OC: 5:15
Cocaine Bear (R) OC: 2:50
Scream VI (R) 12:15-1:30-4:15
Cocaine Bear (R) 11:15-1:00-
5:00-7:15
65 (PG-13) 11:00-3:10-7:30
Scream VI (R) OC: 7:00
Avalon Theatre
5612 Connecticut Avenue
Living (PG-13) 7:00
2023 Oscar Nominated Short
Films - Documentary 11:30AM Guerre (R) CC: 4:00
The Quiet Girl (PG-13) 12:30-
3:00-5:15-7:30
RRR Fan CelebRRRation 3:00
Landmark
Atlantic Plumbing Cinema
807 V Street Northwest
65 (PG-13) 4:30-7:40
Creed III (PG-13) 1:10-4:10-
4:50-7:20
Cocaine Bear (R) 1:30-4:20-7:10
Scream VI (R) 1:40-4:00-4:40- Jesus Revolution (PG-13) CC: 10:15
7:00-7:30
Operation Fortune: Ruse De
Guerre (R) 1:20-7:50
65 (PG-13) 1:50
Scream VI (R) 1:00
Landmark E Street Cinema
555 11th Street Northwest
Creed III (PG-13) 12:50-3:35-
7:15
Everything Everywhere All At Guerre (R) CC: 2:30-5:15
Once (R) 1:00-3:50
The Quiet Girl (PG-13) 12:30-
2:45-5:00-7:15
Women Talking (PG-13)
3:45-7:30
Return to Seoul (R) 1:00-3:30- The Quiet Girl (PG-13) 12:05-
7:25
Of an Age (R) 1:30
2023 Oscar Nominated Short
Films - Animation 1:00-3:15-
5:35-7:45
2023 Oscar Nominated Short
Films - Live-Action 12:45-3:00- 6:35-9:35
5:25-8:00
2023 Oscar Nominated Short
Films - Documentary 12:00-
3:15-6:30
Everything Everywhere All At ba -To the Swordsmith Village
Once (R) 6:45
Regal Gallery Place
701 Seventh Street Northwest
Avatar: The Way of Water (PG- Creed III (PG-13) CC: 12:10-
13) OC: 4:10
65 (PG-13) 11:20-2:00-4:40-
10:00
Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quan- 7:00-8:00
tumania (PG-13) 10:50-11:50-
1:50-3:50-4:50-6:50-7:50-9:50
Operation Fortune: Ruse De
Guerre (R) 3:10-6:40-9:40
Cocaine Bear (R) 11:40-2:20-
5:00-7:40-10:15
Champions (PG-13) 12:40-
7:10-10:10
Avatar: The Way of Water 3D
(PG-13) 12:00-8:20
Scream VI (R) 11:00-11:30-2:10- 9:30-10:45
2:50-5:20-6:00-9:10
Scream VI 3D (R) 12:30-3:50-
7:00-10:10
65 (PG-13) OC: 7:20
Creed III (PG-13) 11:30-12:20- Magic Mike's Last Dance (R)
1:30-2:30-3:00-3:30-4:30-5:30- CC: 3:15
6:30-7:30-8:30-9:00-9:30-10:30 The Fabelmans (PG-13) CC:
Champions (PG-13) OC: 3:50
. the washington post
Scream VI 3D (R) 8:30
Operation Fortune: Ruse De
Guerre (R) OC: 12:10
Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yai-
ba -To the Swordsmith Village
(R) 11:10-6:10
MARYLAND
AFI Silver Theatre
Cultural Center
8633 Colesville Road
The Rules of the Game (La
Regle du jeu) (1939) (NR)
5:05-7:20
The Conformist (Il conformista) Scream VI (R) CC: 3:45-6:45-
(1970) (R) 7:25
The Quiet Girl (PG-13) 11:15-
3:20-5:20
Argentina, 1985 (R) 1:30
The Manchurian Candidate
(1962) (PG-13) 11:00-7:00
2023 Oscar Nominated Short
Films - Animation 1:15
2023 Oscar Nominated Short
Films - Live-Action 2:45
2023 Oscar Nominated Short
Films - Documentary 11:30AM Scream VI 3D (R) CC: 12:45
Fellini's 8½ (Otto e Mezzo)
(NR) 4:20
AMC Academy 8
6198 Greenbelt Road
4:00-6:50
Quantumania (PG-13) CC: 1:30-
Operation Fortune: Ruse De
Cocaine Bear (R) CC: 1:45-
4:20-6:40
Scream VI (R) CC: 1:15-4:15-
7:10
Scream VI 3D (R) CC: 2:30-8:10 Avatar: The Way of Water 3D
AMC Annapolis Mall 11
1020 Annapolis Mall Road
12:50-3:40-6:30-9:20
Knock at the Cabin (R) CC:
10:45
Ant-Man and the Wasp:
11:00-1:00-4:00-7:20-10:15
65 (PG-13) CC: 10:10-12:10-
2:40-5:15-7:45-10:10
Creed III (PG-13) CC: 10:30-
11:30-1:20-2:20-4:10-7:00-
Guerre (R) CC: 2:00-4:45-7:40- 5:30-8:30
10:30
Cocaine Bear (R) CC: 12:25-
2:50-5:25-7:50-10:15
Champions (PG-13) CC: 10:00- 5:45-8:25
12:30-3:30-6:40-9:40
Puss in Boots: The Last Wish
(PG) CC: 10:00AM
Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yai- Creed III: The IMAX 2D Experi-
ba -To the Swordsmith Village ence (PG-13) CC: 4:30-7:30
(R) 11:10-1:50-4:30-7:10-10:00
Scream VI (R) CC: 10:00-11:00- Avatar:
9:20-10:20
Creed III (PG-13) OC: 5:10
AMC Center Park 8
4001 Powder Mill Rd.
Ant-Man and the Wasp:
Quantumania (PG-13) CC: 1:30- 5:00-8:00
4:40-7:40
65 (PG-13) CC: 2:00-4:30-6:50 6:00-8:45
Creed III (PG-13) CC: 2:10-
5:00-7:45
Operation Fortune: Ruse De
Cocaine Bear (R) CC: 1:40-
5:10-7:30
Avatar: The Way of Water 3D
(PG-13) CC: 1:10-6:45
Champions (PG-13) CC: 1:00- CC: 7:15
4:00-7:00
Scream VI (R) CC: 1:15-4:15-
7:15
AMC Columbia 14
10300 Little Patuxent Parkway
12:20-3:20-6:20-9:20
Top Gun: Maverick (PG-13)
CC: 7:45
65 (PG-13) CC: 12:00-2:25-4:50- Operation Fortune: Ruse De
7:15-9:40
Ant-Man and the Wasp:
Quantumania (PG-13) CC:
12:05-3:05-6:05-9:05
Operation Fortune: Ruse De
Cocaine Bear (R) CC: 1:40-4:20- 2:55-5:25-8:00-10:25
7:05-9:45
Tár (R) CC: 4:00
The Fabelmans (PG-13) CC:
12:30
2:35-5:05-7:30-9:55
Puss in Boots: The Last Wish
(PG) CC: 12:00
Avatar: The Way of Water 3D
(PG-13) CC: 12:00-4:00
Champions (PG-13) CC: 12:35- 1:20-8:00
Creed III: The IMAX 2D Experi- Nu) 12:10-2:45-5:20-7:55-10:30
ence (PG-13) CC: 1:10-4:10-
7:10-10:00
Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yai- Cinemark Egyptian 24 and XD
(R) 12:30-3:30-6:30-9:30
Scream VI (R) CC: 12:00-3:00-
6:00-9:00
Scream VI 3D (R) CC: 10:00
3:10-6:10-8:10-9:10
Champions (PG-13) OC: 3:35
Scream VI (R) CC: 1:00-4:00-
AMC DINE-IN Rio Cinemas 18 tumania (PG-13) 1:00-6:15-7:10-
9811 Washingtonian Center
Jesus Revolution (PG-13) CC: Operation Fortune: Ruse De
11:30-3:35-6:40
65 (PG-13) CC: 11:30-4:30-
7:00-9:30
Ant-Man and the Wasp:
Quantumania (PG-13) CC:
12:15-1:30-4:30-6:15-7:30-
Operation Fortune: Ruse De
Guerre (R) CC: 5:25-8:05-10:45 Scream VI (R) XD: 10:20-1:30-
Knock at the Cabin (R) CC:
10:00
4:30
Cocaine Bear (R) CC: 12:15-
2:40-5:15-8:00-10:30
Champions (PG-13) CC: 1:15-
4:15-7:15-10:15
Creed III: The IMAX 2D Experi-
ence (PG-13) CC: 1:30-4:30-
7:30-10:30
Avatar: The Way of Water 3D
(PG-13) CC: 11:30-2:30-6:25-
9:30
Puss in Boots: The Last Wish
(PG) CC: 11:40-2:15-4:50-7:25
Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yai-
ba -To the Swordsmith Village
(R) 12:00-2:45-5:30-8:15-10:30
9:45
Tu Jhoothi Main Makkaar
11:45-8:00
Southern Gospel (PG-13) 12:15
Scream VI 3D (R) CC: 8:45
65 (PG-13) OC: 2:00
Creed III (PG-13) CC: 11:30-
3:30-5:30-6:30-8:30-9:30
Scream VI (R) CC: 11:45-1:45-
2:45-4:45-5:45-7:45-10:45
Creed III (PG-13) OC: 2:30
AMC Loews
St. Charles Town Ctr. 9
11115 Mall Circle
65 (PG-13) CC: 11:45-2:15-
4:45-7:15
Creed III (PG-13) CC: 10:00-
11:15-1:00-4:00-5:15-7:00
Ant-Man and the Wasp:
11:00-2:00-5:00-8:00
Operation Fortune: Ruse De
Guerre (R) CC: 10:00AM
Cocaine Bear (R) CC: 11:15-
1:45-4:15-7:00
Champions (PG-13) CC: 10:30-
1:30-4:30-7:30
(PG-13) CC: 12:45-7:45
Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no
Village (R) 5:00
Scream VI (R) CC: 11:45-2:15-
2:45-8:15
Scream VI 3D (R) CC: 5:45-8:45
AMC Magic Johnson
Capital Center 12
800 Shoppers Way
65 (PG-13) CC: 2:15-7:15
Creed III (PG-13) CC: 2:30-
5:30-8:30
Ant-Man and the Wasp:
Quantumania (PG-13) CC: 2:30-
Operation Fortune: Ruse De
Guerre (R) CC: 7:30
Cocaine Bear (R) CC: 3:00-
Missing (PG-13) CC: 2:00-4:45
Champions (PG-13) CC: 2:15-
5:15-8:15
The Way of Water 3D
(PG-13) CC: 3:00
Puss in Boots: The Last Wish
(PG) CC: 3:15-7:00
Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yai-
ba -To the Swordsmith Village
(R) 2:20-5:15-8:00
Scream VI (R) CC: 2:00-3:45-
Southern Gospel (PG-13)
65 (PG-13) OC: 4:45
Scream VI (R) OC: 6:45
AMC Montgomery 16
7101 Democracy Boulevard
Avatar: The Way of Water (PG-
13) CC: 12:20-4:15-8:30-9:45
Top Gun: Maverick (PG-13)
Jesus Revolution (PG-13) CC:
1:05-4:05-7:05-9:55
65 (PG-13) CC: 12:00-5:00-
7:35-10:00
Creed III (PG-13) CC: 12:05-
1:15-3:15-4:15-6:15-7:15-9:15-
Ant-Man and the Wasp:
Quantumania (PG-13) CC: 1:10-
4:10-7:10-10:05
Guerre (R) CC: 1:45-4:35-7:25-
10:10
Tár (R) CC: 3:45
The Fabelmans (PG-13) CC:
12:15
Cocaine Bear (R) CC: 12:25-
Champions (PG-13) CC: 1:30-
4:30-7:30-10:30
Puss in Boots: The Last Wish
(PG) CC: 12:15-4:30-7:30-10:15
Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yai-
ba -To the Swordsmith Village
(R) 1:00-4:00-7:00-10:20
Scream VI (R) CC: 1:00-3:00-
5:00-6:00-7:00-9:00-10:00
Tu Jhoothi Main Makkaar
The House of No Man (Nhà Bà
65 (PG-13) OC: 2:30
Scream VI (R) OC: 4:00
7000 Arundel Mills Circle
65 (PG-13) 10:45-12:00-2:30-
5:00-6:15-7:30-8:45-10:05
Creed III (PG-13) XD:
11:00-1:55-4:50-7:45-10:40;
12:05-3:00-5:55-8:50; 3:00;
11:25-12:40-2:20-3:35-5:20-
6:10-6:30-8:15-9:05-9:25;
12:05-5:55-8:50
Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quan-
9:15-10:25
Guerre (R) 10:00-12:50-6:35-
9:25
Cocaine Bear (R) 11:35-5:25-
8:00-10:35
Champions (PG-13) 12:45-6:55-
8:15-9:55
Puss in Boots: The Last Wish
(PG) 11:55-3:40-7:15
4:30-7:30; 4:55; 10:45-11:20-
12:20-12:50-1:50-2:25-3:25-
3:55-6:25-7:00-8:00-8:35-11:00
Scream VI 3D (R) XD: 10:30;
10:05
Oscar Shorts (NR) 2:00
Jesus Revolution (PG-13) 11:00-
2:15-6:10-9:35
65 (PG-13) OC: 3:45
Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quan-
tumania (PG-13) OC: 4:00
Operation Fortune: Ruse De
Guerre (R) OC: 3:40
Knock at the Cabin (R) 11:45AM
Tár (R) 2:45
Cocaine Bear (R) OC: 2:50
Women Talking (PG-13) 12:15
Champions (PG-13) OC: 3:50
Avatar: The Way of Water 3D
(PG-13) 11:10-3:20-7:35
Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no
Yaiba -To the Swordsmith
Village (R) 7:35
The House of No Man (Nhà Bà
Nu) 2:50-6:00
Scream VI (R) XD: 10:20-1:30-
4:30-7:30
Southern Gospel (PG-13)
10:15-1:15
Scream VI 3D (R) XD: 10:30
Martyr or Murderer 10:35
Cinépolis Gaithersburg
629 Center Point Way
Jesus Revolution (PG-13)
1:40-5:00
65 (PG-13) 4:00-7:20
Creed III (PG-13) 1:00-3:20-4:20-
6:40-7:40-10:00
Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quan- 3:30-6:30
tumania (PG-13) 3:00-6:20-9:40 Puss in Boots: The Last Wish
Operation Fortune: Ruse De
Guerre (R) 8:20
Cocaine Bear (R) 2:40-6:00-9:00 (PG-13) 1:00-5:10
Champions (PG-13) 2:00-5:20- Scream VI (R) 12:50-2:00-4:00-
8:40
Scream VI (R) 1:20-3:40-4:40- Tu Jhoothi Main Makkaar
8:00
Scream VI 3D (R) 7:00
Landmark
Bethesda Row Cinema
7235 Woodmont Avenue
Creed III (PG-13) 4:00-7:00-7:45
Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quan-
tumania (PG-13) 1:10-4:10-6:50
Operation Fortune: Ruse De
Guerre (R) 1:05
Living (PG-13) 6:45
Everything Everywhere All At 3:20-4:20-6:20-7:20-9:30-10:30
Once (R) 1:05-4:50
Women Talking (PG-13) 1:50
Emily (R) 1:15-4:05-6:45
Champions (PG-13) 4:25-7:15 Operation Fortune: Ruse De
2023 Oscar Nominated Short
Films - Animation 4:40
2023 Oscar Nominated Short
Films - Live-Action 1:20-7:20
Creed III (PG-13) 1:00
Operation Fortune: Ruse De
Guerre (R) 4:00-6:30
Living (PG-13) 4:20
Champions (PG-13) 1:45
Landmark at
Annapolis Harbour Center
2474 Solomons Island Road Unit H-1
Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quan-
tumania (PG-13) 1:05-4:00-7:05
80 for Brady (PG-13) 1:40-7:00
A Man Called Otto (PG-13) 3:50 65 (PG-13) 11:30-2:00-4:45-7:20
65 (PG-13) 1:10-3:40-7:25
Creed III (PG-13) 1:20-4:10-
6:50-7:30
Operation Fortune: Ruse De
Guerre (R) 1:25-7:15
Avatar: The Way of Water 3D
(PG-13) 1:00-3:30
Cocaine Bear (R) 2:00-4:30-7:40 Guerre (R) 12:00-3:00-5:45-8:45
The Amazing Maurice (PG) 4:45 Cocaine Bear (R) 11:20-1:50-
Champions (PG-13) 1:30-4:20- 4:30-7:10
7:10
Scream VI (R) 1:45-4:45-7:45
Old Greenbelt Theatre
129 Centerway
Marcel the Shell with Shoes On 3:45-5:00-6:00-8:00-9:00
(PG) 5:00
The Quiet Girl (PG-13) 2:45-5:15 Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no
Mrs. Harris Goes to Paris (PG) Yaiba -To the Swordsmith
2:30
Phoenix Theatres Marlow 6
3899 Branch Avenue
Creed III (PG-13) 11:00-1:30-
2:00-4:00-4:30-6:30-7:00-9:05-
9:30
65 (PG-13) 12:30-2:45-5:00-
7:15-9:30
Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quan-
tumania (PG-13) 1:00-4:05-7:15
Cocaine Bear (R) 11:30-2:05-
4:30-7:00-9:15
Scream VI (R) 12:00-3:00-
6:00-9:00
Regal Bowie
15200 Major Lansdale Boulevard Cocaine Bear (R) 11:45-2:20-
65 (PG-13) 1:10-3:50-6:20
Creed III (PG-13) 1:00-2:00-3:00- Triangle of Sadness (R) 8:10
4:00-5:00-6:00-7:00-7:45
Ant-Man and the Wasp:
Quantumania (PG-13) 12:10-
3:20-6:30
Operation Fortune: Ruse De
Guerre (R) 12:10-3:15
Cocaine Bear (R) 12:40-6:35
Champions (PG-13) 12:50-
4:00-7:10
Avatar: The Way of Water 3D
(PG-13) 12:00-3:35
Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no
Yaiba -To the Swordsmith
Village (R) 7:55
Scream VI (R) 12:30-2:00-
4:15-5:20
Scream VI 3D (R) 7:30
Regal Cinemas Majestic
Stadium 20 & IMAX
900 Ellsworth Drive
Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yai- Operation Fortune: Ruse De
ba -To the Swordsmith Village Guerre (R) 3:10-6:10-9:10
(R) 1:45-4:30-7:15-10:00
Scream VI (R) OC: 3:45
Saturday Afternoon (Shonibar Once (R) 12:30
Bikel) 6:10-9:00
Jesus Revolution (PG-13) 1:20- 5:30-8:15
4:10-7:10-10:00
65 (PG-13) 11:35-2:10-4:50-
7:20-9:55
Creed III (PG-13) 11:15-12:00- (PG-13) 12:10-4:20-8:45
1:20-2:20-3:05-4:40-5:20-6:15- Puss in Boots: The Last Wish
7:50-8:30-9:30
Ant-Man and the Wasp:
Quantumania (PG-13) 12:40-
3:40-6:40-9:40
Operation Fortune: Ruse De
Guerre (R) 11:10-2:00-5:10-8:10 Scream VI 3D (R) 7:45
The Fabelmans (PG-13) 4:30
Everything Everywhere All At Yaiba -To the Swordsmith
Once (R) 1:00
Cocaine Bear (R) 1:50-4:20-
6:50-9:20
Champions (PG-13) 12:45-3:55-
7:05-10:10
Creed III: The IMAX 2D
Experience (PG-13) 12:50-4:00-
7:10-10:00
Avatar: The Way of Water 3D
(PG-13) 11:50-4:10-8:20
Puss in Boots: The Last Wish
(PG) 12:10-3:20
Scream VI (R) 11:30-12:30-1:30-
2:15-2:45-4:45-5:30-6:00-7:00-
8:00-8:45-9:15
Tu Jhoothi Main Makkaar
11:00-2:40-6:20-10:00
Southern Gospel (PG-13) 11:50-
2:50-5:50-8:50
Scream VI 3D (R) 10:00
Regal Germantown
20000 Century Boulevard
65 (PG-13) 12:25-4:15-6:50
Creed III (PG-13) 12:25-1:20-
3:20-4:30-6:20-7:30
Ant-Man and the Wasp:
Quantumania (PG-13) 12:35-
3:40-6:40
Operation Fortune: Ruse De
Guerre (R) 1:10-2:50-5:40
Cocaine Bear (R) 12:45-3:10-
5:50
Champions (PG-13) 12:30-
(PG) 12:25
Avatar: The Way of Water 3D
5:00-6:00-7:00
1:40-5:30
Scream VI 3D (R) 8:00
Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yai-
ba -To the Swordsmith Village
(R) 12:40-3:50-6:10
Scream VI (R) OC: 3:00
Regal Hyattsville Royale
6505 America Blvd.
65 (PG-13) 12:00-2:30-5:00-
7:30-10:00
Creed III (PG-13) 12:20-1:20-
Ant-Man and the Wasp:
Quantumania (PG-13) 12:15-
3:10-6:40-9:50
Guerre (R) 12:50-3:30-6:50-9:40
Cocaine Bear (R) 1:00-4:00-
7:50-10:15
Champions (PG-13) 12:40-3:50-
7:10-10:10
Avatar: The Way of Water 3D
(PG-13) 8:50
Scream VI (R) 12:30-1:30-3:40-
4:40-7:00-8:00
Scream VI 3D (R) 10:20
Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yai-
ba -To the Swordsmith Village
(R) 12:10-3:15-6:00
Regal Laurel Towne Centre
14716 Baltimore Avenue
Creed III (PG-13) 11:25-12:20-
1:15-2:30-3:20-4:15-5:30-6:30-
7:30-8:30
Ant-Man and the Wasp:
Quantumania (PG-13) 12:30-
3:30-6:45
Operation Fortune: Ruse De
Champions (PG-13) 12:10-
3:10-6:15
Avatar: The Way of Water 3D
(PG-13) 11:50-4:00-8:15
Scream VI (R) 11:30-12:40-2:45-
Scream VI 3D (R) 7:00
Village (R) 1:30
Regal Rockville Center
199 East Montgomery Avenue
65 (PG-13) 11:25-2:00-4:40-7:20
Creed III (PG-13) 11:30-12:30-
1:20-2:30-3:30-5:30-6:30-7:30-
8:30-9:30
Ant-Man and the Wasp:
Quantumania (PG-13) 11:40-
2:40-5:50-9:00
Operation Fortune: Ruse De
Guerre (R) 1:40-4:30-7:40
The Fabelmans (PG-13) 4:00
Everything Everywhere All At
Once (R) 12:35
5:00-8:00
Champions (PG-13) 12:20-
3:40-6:50
Scream VI (R) 11:50-12:40-2:50-
3:50-7:00
Tu Jhoothi Main Makkaar 1:00-
5:15-8:50
Scream VI 3D (R) 6:00
Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no
Yaiba -To the Swordsmith
Village (R) 4:20
Regal UA Snowden Square
9161 Commerce Center Drive
Jesus Revolution (PG-13) 12:35-
3:30-6:30-9:40
65 (PG-13) 2:10-4:45-7:15
Creed III (PG-13) 12:25-3:20-
5:00-6:20-8:00-9:20
Ant-Man and the Wasp:
Quantumania (PG-13) 12:00-
2:50-6:00-9:00
The Fabelmans (PG-13) 3:50
Everything Everywhere All At
Cocaine Bear (R) 12:40-3:00-
Champions (PG-13) 12:50-
4:00-7:10
Avatar: The Way of Water 3D
(PG) 12:20
Scream VI (R) 12:45-1:30-3:45-
4:50-6:45-8:10-9:50
Tu Jhoothi Main Makkaar 1:50-
5:45-9:30
Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no
Village (R) 4:00
crunching noise in her head…
EZ
Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quan-
tumania (PG-13) 7:30
Scream VI (R) OC: 2:00
Regal Waugh Chapel & IMAX
1419 South Main Chapel Way
Jesus Revolution (PG-13) 12:00-
3:00-6:00-8:50
65 (PG-13) 11:40-2:10-4:50-7:20
Creed III (PG-13) 1:10-4:10-7:10
Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quan-
tumania (PG-13) 1:20-4:20-7:30
Operation Fortune: Ruse De
Guerre (R) 11:00-1:50
The Fabelmans (PG-13) 3:30
Everything Everywhere All At
Once (R) 12:00
Cocaine Bear (R) 11:50-2:30-
5:10-7:50
Champions (PG-13) 12:40-
3:40-6:50
Creed III: The IMAX 2D
Experience (PG-13) 12:10-3:10-
6:10-9:00
Avatar: The Way of Water 3D
(PG-13) 11:30-4:00-8:20
Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no
Yaiba -To the Swordsmith
Village (R) 3:20
Scream VI (R) 12:30-3:50-
7:00-7:40
Creed III (PG-13) OC: 7:00
Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yai-
ba -To the Swordsmith Village
(R) 12:20-6:00-8:40
Scream VI (R) OC: 4:40
Regal Westview & IMAX
5243 Buckeystown Pike
Jesus Revolution (PG-13) 12:20-
3:20-6:30-9:30
65 (PG-13) 11:50-2:20-4:50-
7:20-9:40
Ant-Man and the Wasp:
Quantumania (PG-13) 12:30-
3:30-6:40
Cocaine Bear (R) 12:00-2:30-
5:10-8:00
Creed III: The IMAX 2D
Experience (PG-13) 12:10-3:10-
6:20-9:20
Scream VI (R) 1:30-7:50
Scream VI 3D (R) 12:40-3:40-
6:50-9:50
Creed III (PG-13) 1:10-4:00-7:10
Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yai-
ba -To the Swordsmith Village
(R) 12:50-3:50-7:00-9:45
Scream VI (R) OC: 4:30
Xscape Theatres
Brandywine 14
7710 Matapeake Business Drive
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles
(1990) (PG) CC: 1:00-4:00-7:00
Ant-Man and the Wasp:
Quantumania (PG-13) CC: (!)
10:20-1:20-4:20-7:20-9:00
65 (PG-13) CC: (!) 11:00-1:30-
4:10-7:00-9:20
Creed III (PG-13) CC: (!)
10:30-11:50-12:30-1:10-2:30-
3:10-3:50-5:10-5:50-6:30-7:50-
8:30-9:10
Missing (PG-13) CC: 2:25
Operation Fortune: Ruse De
Guerre (R) CC: (!) 10:45-7:05
Cocaine Bear (R) CC: (!) 11:45-
2:15-4:45-7:15-9:35
Champions (PG-13) CC: (!)
10:00-12:50-3:40-6:40-9:30
Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yai-
ba -To the Swordsmith Village
(R) CC: (!) 1:25
Creed III (PG-13) CC: (!) 11:10-
1:50-4:30-7:10-9:50
Scream VI (R) CC: (!) 11:30-4:05-
5:20-8:10-9:40
Scream VI 3D (R) CC: (!) 10:10-
1:00-6:50
Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yai-
ba -To the Swordsmith Village
(R) CC: (!) 4:15-9:45
Scream VI (R) CC: (!) 10:50-1:40-
4:40-7:30
iPic Pike & Rose
11830 Grand Park Avenue
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles
(1990) (PG) 3:30
65 (PG-13) (!) 1:45-4:30-7:15-
10:00
Creed III (PG-13) (!) 11:30-12:00-
2:45-3:15-6:00-6:30-9:15-9:45
Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quan-
tumania (PG-13) 12:15-4:00-
6:45-10:30
Operation Fortune: Ruse De
Guerre (R) (!) 1:00-7:30-10:45
Cocaine Bear (R) 11:45-3:00-
6:15-9:00
Champions (PG-13) (!) 12:30-
4:15-7:45-10:15
Scream VI (R) (!) 12:45-3:45-7:00
Scream VI 3D (R) (!) 11:00
VIRGINIA
AMC Courthouse Plaza 8
2150 Clarendon Blvd.
Ant-Man and the Wasp:
Quantumania (PG-13) CC: 1:10-
4:10-7:10
65 (PG-13) CC: 1:00-3:30-
6:00-8:30
Creed III (PG-13) CC: 1:50-
4:40-7:30
Operation Fortune: Ruse De
Guerre (R) CC: 2:00-4:50-7:40
Cocaine Bear (R) CC: 12:50-
3:15-5:40-8:10
Champions (PG-13) CC: 1:05-
4:00-7:00
Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yai-
ba -To the Swordsmith Village
(R) 1:30-4:20
Scream VI (R) CC: 2:00-5:00-
8:00
Scream VI 3D (R) CC: 7:00
AMC Hoffman Center 22
206 Swamp Fox Rd.
Creed III (PG-13) CC: 12:00-
2:00-3:00-5:00-6:00-8:00-9:00-
10:30
Scream VI (R) CC: 12:00-12:30-
3:00-3:30-6:00-6:30-9:00
Top Gun: Maverick (PG-13)
CC: 7:30
Jesus Revolution (PG-13) CC:
1:30-4:30-7:30-10:30
65 (PG-13) CC: 2:00-4:30-
7:00-9:30
Ant-Man and the Wasp:
Quantumania (PG-13) CC: 1:15-
4:15-7:15-8:30-10:15
Unwelcome (R) 4:15-9:45
She had a loud, nonstop
Read “Medical Mysteries,” Tuesdays in Health & Science.
wapo.st/medicalmysteries
EE
(!) No Pass/No Discount Ticket
Operation Fortune: Ruse De
Guerre (R) CC: 1:15-4:15-7:15-
10:15
Knock at the Cabin (R) CC:
10:00
The Magic Flute 2:00-10:30
Tár (R) CC: 4:00
The Fabelmans (PG-13) CC:
12:30
Living (PG-13) CC: 5:45
Cocaine Bear (R) CC: 2:00-4:45-
7:30-10:15
Missing (PG-13) CC: 2:45-6:15
Champions (PG-13) CC: 1:30-
4:30-7:30-10:30
Creed III: The IMAX 2D Experi-
ence (PG-13) CC: 1:00-4:00-
7:00-10:00
Avatar: The Way of Water 3D
(PG-13) CC: 1:45-6:00-9:05
80 for Brady (PG-13) CC:
1:00-3:30
Puss in Boots: The Last Wish
(PG) CC: 12:00-1:45-4:30-7:15
Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no
Yaiba -To the Swordsmith
Village (R) 12:00-1:00-3:00-4:00-Operation Fortune: Ruse De
6:00-7:00-9:00-10:00
Scream VI (R) CC: 1:30-4:30-
7:30-10:30
Southern Gospel (PG-13)
5:00-7:45
Scream VI 3D (R) CC: 9:30
Martyr or Murderer 1:30-7:00
AMC Potomac Mills 18
2700 Potomac Mills Circle
Top Gun: Maverick (PG-13)
CC: 9:30
Jesus Revolution (PG-13) CC: 6:15-9:00
10:50-12:20-3:20-6:15-9:10
65 (PG-13) CC: 11:15-1:45-4:15- tumania (PG-13) 12:15-3:30-
6:45-9:20
Ant-Man and the Wasp:
Quantumania (PG-13) CC:
10:00-11:20-1:00-4:00-5:15-
7:00-10:00
Unwelcome (R) 10:00
Operation Fortune: Ruse De
Guerre (R) CC: 12:45-3:30-
6:20-9:20
Knock at the Cabin (R) CC: 9:20 3:00-4:30-7:05-8:15
The Magic Flute 11:40-9:50
Tár (R) CC: 6:00
The Fabelmans (PG-13) CC:
10:40AM
Cocaine Bear (R) CC: 11:10-
1:40-4:10-6:35-9:10
Missing (PG-13) CC: 4:30
Champions (PG-13) CC: 12:15- Return to Seoul (R) 5:05
3:15-6:30-9:40
Creed III: The IMAX 2D Experi- Scream VI 3D (R) 8:00
ence (PG-13) CC: 10:15-1:00-
4:00-7:00-10:00
Avatar: The Way of Water 3D
(PG-13) CC: 10:00-2:00-6:00-
10:00
Puss in Boots: The Last Wish
(PG) CC: 10:45-1:20-4:10-6:40
Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yai- 2:15-4:45-7:15
ba -To the Swordsmith Village
(R) 10:30-1:15-4:15-7:10-9:50
Scream VI (R) CC: 11:00-2:00- A Beautiful Mind (PG-13) 3:30 Puss in Boots: The Last Wish
5:00-8:00
Tu Jhoothi Main Makkaar
2:40-6:15
Southern Gospel (PG-13)
1:45-7:15
Scream VI 3D (R) CC: 10:00
Creed III (PG-13) CC: 12:15-
2:15-3:00-6:00-8:15-9:00
Scream VI (R) CC: 10:00-12:00- Champions (PG-13) 1:15-4:20- Scream VI 3D (R) 9:10
1:00-3:15-4:00-6:15-7:00-9:15
AMC Shirlington 7
2772 South Randolph St.
Ant-Man and the Wasp:
Quantumania (PG-13) CC: 1:10- 1:35-2:20-3:15-4:00-4:40-6:15- 3:15-6:15
4:10-7:10
Magic Mike's Last Dance (R)
CC: 2:30-5:20
65 (PG-13) CC: 12:00-12:40-
3:00-5:25-7:50
Creed III (PG-13) CC: 12:00-
2:20-5:10-8:00
Cocaine Bear (R) CC: 12:05-
2:40-5:10-7:40
The Quiet Girl (PG-13) 12:10-
2:35-5:00-7:25
Scream VI (R) CC: 1:30-4:30-
7:30-8:10
AMC Tysons Corner 16
7850e Tysons Corner Center
Creed III (PG-13) OC: 2:15
Top Gun: Maverick (PG-13)
CC: 7:35
Jesus Revolution (PG-13) CC: 2:30-7:30
12:15-3:15-6:15-9:20
65 (PG-13) CC: 12:10-2:45-5:10- 2023 Oscar Nominated Short
7:45-10:15
Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quan- 2023 Oscar Nominated Short
tumania (PG-13) CC: 11:40-
12:50-4:00-7:10-9:35-10:35
Operation Fortune: Ruse De
Guerre (R) CC: 11:15-2:05-4:55- Guerre (R) 5:05
7:55-10:45
Knock at the Cabin (R) CC:
10:00
Tár (R) CC: 4:05
The Fabelmans (PG-13) CC:
12:25
The Quiet Girl (PG-13) 12:20-
2:50-5:20-7:50-10:20
Cocaine Bear (R) CC: 11:10-
12:05-2:40-5:25-8:05-10:40
Champions (PG-13) CC: 11:00-
2:00-5:00-8:00-10:55
Creed III: The IMAX 2D Experi- tumania (PG-13) OC: 2:10
ence (PG-13) CC: 12:45-3:45-
6:45-9:45
Avatar: The Way of Water 3D
(PG-13) CC: 1:45-6:00-10:10
Puss in Boots: The Last Wish
(PG) CC: 11:30-2:10-4:45-7:20
Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yai-
ba -To the Swordsmith Village (PG) 10:00-11:30-2:15
(R) 11:05-1:50-4:40-7:25-10:25
Scream VI (R) CC: 1:30-4:30-
7:30-10:30
Tu Jhoothi Main Makkaar
2:55-10:50
Scream VI 3D (R) CC: 6:30
Creed III (PG-13) CC: 11:20-
5:15-8:15
Scream VI (R) CC: 11:25-2:30-
5:30-8:30
AMC Worldgate 9
13025 Worldgate Drive
65 (PG-13) CC: 11:45-2:15-
4:45-7:15
Creed III (PG-13) CC: 1:00-2:45- Cocaine Bear (R) 10:20-12:55- Tu Jhoothi Main Makkaar 1:10- Puss in Boots: The Last Wish
4:00-7:00-8:00
E15
Sunday, March 12, 2023
www.washingtonpost.com/movies
Ant-Man and the Wasp:
Quantumania (PG-13) CC:
Champions (PG-13) 10:05-4:05-
7:05-10:05
Scream VI 3D (R) 12:30-3:45-
7:00-10:15
12:30-3:30-4:45-6:45 Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yai- Creed III (PG-13) 12:20-3:30-
Operation Fortune: Ruse De ba -To the Swordsmith Village 6:30-9:30
Guerre (R) CC: 12:45-3:45-7:45 (R) 10:10-3:50-9:40 Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yai-
Cocaine Bear (R) CC: 12:15- Scream VI (R) 10:35-12:05-3:10- ba -To the Swordsmith Village
2:25-5:30-7:45 4:45-6:15-7:50-9:20 (R) 12:10-3:20-6:20-9:00
Avatar: The Way of Water 3D
(PG-13) CC: 11:15-3:15
Cinemark Champions (PG-13) 12:45-
3:55-7:05-10:10
Fairfax Corner and XD
Puss in Boots: The Last Wish
Champions (PG-13) CC: 11:30- 11900 Palace Way
1:30-4:30-7:30 (PG) 11:10AM
Oscar Shorts (NR) 11:00AM
Puss in Boots: The Last Wish Jesus Revolution (PG-13) 12:20- Creed III (PG-13) 11:20-2:20-
(PG) CC: 11:00AM 5:20-8:20
3:25-6:30
Scream VI (R) CC: 11:00-2:00- Scream VI 3D (R) 9:15
Creed III (PG-13) XD: 10:30-
5:00-8:00 1:25-4:20-7:15-10:15 Regal Kingstowne & RPX
Scream VI 3D (R) CC: 6:30
Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quan- 5910 Kingstowne Towne Center
Alamo Drafthouse Cinema - tumania (PG-13) 12:55-3:55- 65 (PG-13) 11:35-12:55-2:10-
One Loudoun 7:05-10:05 3:15-4:50-5:50-7:20-8:25-9:55
20575 East Hampton Plaza Operation Fortune: Ruse De Ant-Man and the Wasp:
Bram Stoker's Dracula (R) Guerre (R) 9:35 Quantumania (PG-13) 11:45-
11:00AM Tár (R) 2:45 2:35-5:25-8:15
Scream VI (R) OC: 3:00; 1:30- Agilan 9:30 Operation Fortune: Ruse De
4:45-8:00 Cocaine Bear (R) 11:40-2:15- Guerre (R) 12:35-3:20-6:05-8:45
Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure 4:50-7:25-10:00 Cocaine Bear (R) 12:20-2:40-
(PG) 6:30 Women Talking (PG-13) 12:15 5:00-7:40-10:00
Scream VI 3D (R) 10:30 Puss in Boots: The Last Wish Champions (PG-13) 12:45-
(PG) 12:40-3:20 3:55-7:05-10:10
Guerre (R) 4:35-10:50 Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yai- Avatar: The Way of Water 3D
Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yai- ba -To the Swordsmith Village (PG-13) 11:40-3:40-7:45
ba -To the Swordsmith Village (R) 10:45-4:25 Scream VI (R) 12:30-3:45-7:00
(R) 1:00-7:45 Tu Jhoothi Main Makkaar Tu Jhoothi Main Makkaar
Creed III (PG-13) 11:45-2:45- 6:00-9:45 12:00-3:30-7:10-10:40
6:00-9:15 Scream VI (R) XD: 11:15-2:20- Scream VI 3D (R) 10:15
Cocaine Bear (R) 10:15-1:30- 5:25
Creed III (PG-13) 11:55-1:00-
4:25-7:15-9:25 Scream VI 3D (R) XD: 8:30 2:55-4:15-6:15-7:30-9:00-10:20
Champions (PG-13) 10:00-1:15- Creed III (PG-13) 12:00-2:55-
Ant-Man and the Wasp:
4:10-7:30-10:05 3:40-5:50-6:35-8:45 Quantumania (PG-13) 1:15-
Scream VI (R) 12:15-3:45-7:00 Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yai- 4:05-6:55-9:45
65 (PG-13) 10:45-12:30-3:15- ba -To the Swordsmith Village Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yai-
(R) 1:35-7:20-10:10 ba -To the Swordsmith Village
Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quan- 65 (PG-13) 12:05-2:40-5:15- (R) 12:10-3:10-6:25-9:30
7:50-10:25 Scream VI (R) 11:30-2:45-4:45-
6:45-10:05 Champions (PG-13) 10:30-1:30- 6:00-8:00
Scream VI (R) 10:15AM 4:30-7:30-10:30 Scream VI 3D (R) 9:15
Angelika Film Center Mosaic Scream VI 3D (R) 10:20 Scream VI (R) OC: 1:30
2911 District Ave Scream VI (R) 11:55-12:50-3:05- Regal Manassas & IMAX
Short Film Program (NR) 12:20 4:00-6:10-6:40-7:10-9:15-9:50 11380 Bulloch Drive
Cocaine Bear (R) 1:20-3:35- Medal of Honor Theater - 65 (PG-13) 11:40-4:40-7:20
5:50-8:05 NMMC Creed III (PG-13) 12:20-6:40
18900 Jefferson Davis Highway
Creed III (PG-13) 11:15-1:45- Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quan-
Max (PG) 11:00-2:00
tumania (PG-13) 1:20-4:30-7:40
Ant-Man and the Wasp: We, the Marines (NR) 10:00-1:00 Operation Fortune: Ruse De
Quantumania (PG-13) 11:55- Regal Ballston Quarter Guerre (R) 11:15-2:05-4:55-7:50
1:35-4:20-7:15
671 North Glebe Road Cocaine Bear (R) 2:15-4:50-
Everything Everywhere All At Jesus Revolution (PG-13) 12:20- 7:30
Once (R) 2:00-7:45 Champions (PG-13) 12:40-
3:30-6:40-9:40
The Quiet Girl (PG-13) 11:15- 65 (PG-13) 11:40-2:10-4:50- 3:50-7:00
2:45-5:00-7:20
7:20-9:50 Creed III: The IMAX 2D
Creed III (PG-13) 12:10-1:10- Experience (PG-13) 11:00-2:00-
Scream VI (R) 10:45-5:15 3:20-4:20-6:30-7:30-9:30-10:30 5:00-8:00
Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quan- Avatar: The Way of Water 3D
Operation Fortune: Ruse De tumania (PG-13) 1:00-4:10- (PG-13) 4:00-8:10
Guerre (R) 12:30-5:35 Puss in Boots: The Last Wish
7:40-10:40
Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yai- Operation Fortune: Ruse De (PG) 11:20AM
ba -To the Swordsmith Village Guerre (R) 12:00-3:10-6:20-9:00 Scream VI (R) 11:30-2:40-6:50
(R) 11:00AM Cocaine Bear (R) 12:40-3:40- Tu Jhoothi Main Makkaar
Scream VI (R) OC: 2:30 6:50-9:20 11:10-2:50-6:30
Southern Gospel (PG-13) 11:45- Champions (PG-13) 12:50-4:00- Southern Gospel (PG-13) 1:10-
4:10-7:10
7:10-10:20
CMX Village 14 Avatar: The Way of Water 3D Scream VI 3D (R) 6:00
(PG-13) 11:50-4:30 65 (PG-13) OC: 2:10
1600 Village Market Boulevard
Creed III (PG-13) OC: 3:30
Jesus Revolution (PG-13) 12:30- (PG) 1:20 Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no
Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba -To the Swordsmith
3:30-6:30
Village (R) 12:30
Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quan- Yaiba -To the Swordsmith
tumania (PG-13) 1:50-4:50-7:50 Village (R) 8:50 Scream VI (R) OC: 3:40
Scream VI (R) 11:30-12:30-2:50- Regal Springfield Town Center
65 (PG-13) 2:30-5:00-7:35
Cocaine Bear (R) 12:40-6:50 3:50-7:00-10:10 6859 Springfield Mall
The House of No Man (Nhà Bà Jesus Revolution (PG-13)
Operation Fortune: Ruse De
Guerre (R) 12:50-6:45 Nu)4:40-8:00-10:45 12:10-3:10-6:10-9:30
65 (PG-13) 11:40-2:10-4:40-
7:30 Scream VI (R) OC: 6:00 7:25-9:50
Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Regal Dulles Town Center Creed III (PG-13) 11:50-12:50-
Yaiba -To the Swordsmith 21100 Dulles Town Circle 2:50-3:50-6:10-7:10-9:20-10:20
Village (R) 3:50 Jesus Revolution (PG-13) 11:45- Ant-Man and the Wasp:
Scream VI (R) 12:15-1:00- Quantumania (PG-13) 12:00-
3:00-6:40-9:55
65 (PG-13) 11:35-2:10-4:50-
7:00-7:45 7:20-9:55 Operation Fortune: Ruse De
Guerre (R) 12:40-3:30-6:30-9:40
Southern Gospel (PG-13) 1:45- Creed III (PG-13) 11:10-2:00-
4:30-7:20 3:00-5:00-6:00-7:45-9:00 The Fabelmans (PG-13) 3:20
Scream VI 3D (R) 5:25 Ant-Man and the Wasp: Everything Everywhere All At
Once (R) 11:30AM
Creed III (PG-13) 1:10-2:00-3:00- Quantumania (PG-13) 11:20-
4:10-5:05-6:00-7:10-8:00 Cocaine Bear (R) 2:00-4:30-
2:30-5:45-8:45
Operation Fortune: Ruse De 7:20-10:00
Cinema Arts Theatre
Guerre (R) 11:00-1:45-5:15-8:15 Champions (PG-13) 12:45-
9650 Unit 14 Main St.
All Quiet on the Western Front The Fabelmans (PG-13) 3:30 3:55-7:05-10:10
Avatar: The Way of Water 3D
(R) 10:00AM Everything Everywhere All At
Operation Fortune: Ruse De Once (R) 12:00 (PG-13) 12:30-4:50-9:00
Guerre (R) 9:45-12:05-2:35-7:40 Cocaine Bear (R) 12:10-2:45- Scream VI (R) 11:30-12:30-
2:45-3:45-6:00-7:00-9:10
The Quiet Girl (PG-13) 9:55- 5:30-8:00
12:20-2:25-4:30-7:00 Champions (PG-13) 12:45-3:55- Scream VI 3D (R) 10:10
A Man Called Otto (PG-13) 7:05-10:10 Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yai-
12:10-7:20 Scream VI (R) 12:30-7:00-10:00 ba -To the Swordsmith Village
Scream VI 3D (R) 9:15 (R) 11:10AM
Emily (R) 1:10-7:15
Champions (PG-13) 9:40-12:00- Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Regal Virginia Gateway & RPX
Yaiba -To the Swordsmith 8001 Gateway Promenade Place
80 for Brady (PG-13) 10:00-2:40 Village (R) 12:20 Jesus Revolution (PG-13)
Scream VI (R) OC: 3:45 11:00-12:50-3:40-6:40-9:40
Films - Animation 12:15-4:40 Regal Fairfax Towne Center 65 (PG-13) 11:40-2:10-4:35-
4110 West Ox Road 7:20-9:50
Films - Live-Action 9:50-2:20- 65 (PG-13) 11:50-2:20 Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quan-
tumania (PG-13) 1:00-4:20-
7:10
Operation Fortune: Ruse De
Creed III (PG-13) 12:10-1:10-
4:20-7:30 7:30-10:30
Operation Fortune: Ruse De
Ant-Man and the Wasp:
Everything Everywhere All At Quantumania (PG-13) 12:30- Guerre (R) 12:20-3:20-6:20-
Once (R) 4:10 3:30-6:30 9:10
Champions (PG-13) 5:00 Operation Fortune: Ruse De Cocaine Bear (R) 1:20-4:30-
80 for Brady (PG-13) 4:50 Guerre (R) 1:30-4:30-7:40 7:40-10:50
Cinemark Centreville 12 Cocaine Bear (R) 1:20-4:10-6:40 Champions (PG-13) 12:40-
6201 Multiplex Drive Champions (PG-13) 12:50- 3:45-6:50-10:00
3:50-7:00 Scream VI (R) 12:30-3:50-7:00
Jesus Revolution (PG-13) OC: Tu Jhoothi Main Makkaar
3:30 Scream VI (R) 12:40-1:40-
4:40-7:10 12:00-4:00-8:20
65 (PG-13) OC: 1:50 Scream VI 3D (R) 10:20
Creed III (PG-13) OC: 1:35 Scream VI 3D (R) 7:50
Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quan- Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yai- Creed III (PG-13) 11:10-12:10-
ba -To the Swordsmith Village 1:10-2:20-4:10-5:10-6:10-7:10-
(R) 12:00-2:40 8:10-10:10
Operation Fortune: Ruse De Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yai-
Guerre (R) 4:50-7:40-10:35 Scream VI (R) OC: 3:40
ba -To the Swordsmith Village
Cocaine Bear (R) OC: 2:05 Regal Fox & IMAX
(R) 3:10-9:00
Champions (PG-13) OC: 1:05 22875 Brambleton Plaza Scream VI (R) 11:30-1:30-2:00-
Avatar: The Way of Water 3D 65 (PG-13) 11:40-2:10-4:50- 2:50-4:50-5:20-6:00-8:00-8:30
(PG-13) 12:40
7:20-9:50 Scream VI 3D (R) 9:20
Puss in Boots: The Last Wish
Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quan- Smithsonian -
tumania (PG-13) 12:50-4:00- Airbus IMAX Theater
Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yai- 7:10-10:20 14390 Air and Space Museum Parkway
ba -To the Swordsmith Village Operation Fortune: Ruse De
Top Gun: Maverick - The IMAX
(R) 1:00-6:30 Guerre (R) 12:40-3:40-6:50-
Scream VI (R) OC: 1:40 10:00 2D Experience (PG-13) 3:50
Tu Jhoothi Main Makkaar Cocaine Bear (R) 11:00-1:40- University Mall Theatres
4:55-8:30 4:10-6:40-9:20 10659-A Braddock Road
Scream VI 3D (R) 11:00 Creed III: The IMAX 2D Creed III (PG-13) 12:25-2:45-
Jesus Revolution (PG-13) 11:00- Experience (PG-13) 1:20-4:30- 7:40
6:40-9:25 7:30-10:30 Ant-Man and the Wasp:
Quantumania (PG-13) 12:00-
65 (PG-13) 11:15-4:25-7:00-9:35 Avatar: The Way of Water 3D
Creed III (PG-13) 10:40-12:10- (PG-13) 11:50-4:20-8:40 2:30-7:30
3:05-4:35-6:00-7:30-9:00-10:30 Mitran Da Naa Chalda 12:00- Creed III (PG-13) OC: 5:05
Ant-Man and the Wasp: 3:10-6:10-9:40 80 for Brady (PG-13) 7:00
Quantumania (PG-13) 11:10- Scream VI (R) 11:30-1:30-2:00- Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quan-
5:10-8:10 2:45-4:45-5:15-6:00-8:00-8:30 tumania (PG-13) OC: 5:00
4:40-7:20-9:55 5:00-8:50 (PG) 12:10-2:20; 4:30
S0137-6x4
E16
“Jose’s taco” — a delectable bite composed of nori, jamon Ibérico, osetra caviar and gold leaf — at The Bazaar, the new restaurant by José Andrés in the Old Post Office building.
The Bazaar is a D.C. dream come true
I
t took him 30 years, but
José Andrés long José Andrés finally has a
wanted to open a restaurant in the Old
Post Office building. It’s
restaurant in the called The Bazaar by
Old Post Office José Andrés, and it overlooks
the expansive, chandelier-lit
lobby of the Waldorf Astoria,
not far from the White House.
The Chef Who Needs No In-
BY T OM S IETSEMA troduction but who’s made
Washington a better place to
eat thanks to Jaleo, Zaytinya,
Oyamel and the avant-garde
Minibar says Bazaar was the
one notion “missing in my
portfolio in D.C.”
Thanks for filling the gap,
sir, with a restaurant that
looks backward and forward
but also lets diners savor the
here and now.
I’ve been to The Bazaar,
introduced last month, three
times now, and I still feel as if
I’ve only scratched the surface
of a menu that weighs as
much as a book and reads like
the son of Spain’s résumé. Be
prepared, then, to spend lots
of face time with your waiter
as he introduces you to the
sweep of it all. And brace your-
self to be amused, challenged
TOP: The Bazaar’s dining room overlooks the lobby of the Waldorf Astoria hotel.
ABOVE: Baby Japanese peaches with burrata, hazelnut praline and a sherry reduction.
EZ EE
DINING
and well-fed at what became
one of the hottest tickets in
town the day it set sail.
The eyes don’t know where
to focus. Nearby, we observe a
carver expertly sliding a sharp
knife through the ever-slim-
mer cured leg of an Iberian
pig fed a diet of acorns (yours
for $40 an ounce). Closer still
is a table of diners watching
their caipirinha getting
whipped up from a bowl of
liquid nitrogen, the spirit
cachaça and fresh lime juice.
“Cotton candy foie gras,” a
server says as he brings three
of us our own little snacks. I’m
acquainted with the treat
made popular by Minibar yet I
still smile at the confection,
now widely copied, which
finds a cube of cognac-spiked
foie gras torchon beneath a
pink tuft of spun sugar.
Meanwhile, the Spanish de-
signer Lárazo Rosa-Violán
has dressed the space with all
manner of opulent details:
handmade tiles, fringed fab-
rics, velvet banquettes and a
forest of plants. Multiple long
tables in the restaurant rein-
force the chef ’s long-held idea
of the American Dream: “Lon-
ger tables,” says Andrés, “not
higher walls.”
Some history. Andrés origi-
nally planned to stage a spe-
cial-occasion restaurant in
this space before it involved
lodging and before Donald
Trump announced his plans
to make a run for the White
House. The chef pulled out
after the then-candidate dis-
paraged Mexican immigrants
and went on to open the
Trump hotel, within which
went BLT Prime by David
Burke, a steakhouse and the
only D.C. restaurant Trump
dined in during his adminis-
tration. Today, the lone detail
linking then and now is the
bird’s-eye view of the lobby
from the second-floor dining
room.
Even earlier background:
Andrés was 23 and cooking at
Jaleo when he befriended
Daniel Patrick Moynihan, a
frequent customer and ardent
supporter of downtown spac-
es. (Moynihan Train Hall in
New York is named after the
late Democratic senator.) As
the chef recalls it, the senator
imagined a hotel within
Washington’s historic post of-
fice, to which Andrés re-
sponded, “I’ll have a restau-
rant there!”
The new Bazaar has sib-
lings in Miami, Las Vegas and
Chicago and will next expand
to Los Angeles, where it made
its debut in 2008. “I feel like a
baby, opening a new toy,” says
the chef, fresh off a trip that
took him to Syria, Turkey and
Ukraine. He sees the Wash-
ington Bazaar as a “gift to my
city” for having made him
who he is today.
With some dishes, The Ba-
zaar functions as a time ma-
chine, whisking diners back
to America Eats Tavern, the
pop-up Andrés opened in
Penn Quarter in 2011 in part-
nership with the National Ar-
chives and later relocated to
Georgetown. The “Philly
cheesesteak” is a high-end
makeover of the Philadelphia
classic in which slices of
torched Wagyu beef cling to
the outside of a blimp of “air
bread” with the texture and
flavor of oyster crackers. The
expected flavors are there, al-
beit in fresh guises; filling the
air bread is cheddar cheese
espuma. “Eat it over the
plate,” a waiter instructs us.
Keep a napkin handy, I’d add.
Crab Louie, created with sea-
food from the Chesapeake
and sauced with what tastes
like Thousand Island dress-
ing, is stuffed into fragile, Lil-
liputian cones with creamy
avocado mousse. The single-
bite sensations come with a
PSA: “These are time-sensi-
tive,” we’re informed. (Delays
lead to soggy pastry; shoot
any photos fast.) The Bazaar
also serves the country’s dain-
tiest chicken wings, which are
confited, deboned, pressed,
fried and treated to a doll-size
the washington post . sunday, march 12 , 2023
photos by Scott Suchman for The Washington Post
cube of blue cheese and a zaar; the latter is found
housemade hot sauce en- among the “traditional”
riched with chicken jus. tapas, which are essentially
Served on skewers, the good- upgrades of small plates at
ness sidesteps the need for — Jaleo and include cheese-
take your pick — moist tow- stuffed piquillo peppers deco-
elettes or licking fingers. rated with same-shaped tuiles
In contrast to those trips made from piquillo puree. At
down memory lane, the Jaleo, the tapa, tangy with
“Eisenhower stew” is pleasant goat cheese, goes for $9. The
if staid. An assembly of beef Bazaar charges $14 for the
cheeks and bright vegetables, glamour treatment, whose
it’s lightly sweet with toma- filling features three-milk,
toes and sherry vinegar, and hay-smoked cheese from the
the sort of dish you’d expect of Canary Islands. Both are
a play-it-straight hotel restau- good, but who doesn’t appre-
rant, a mold The Bazaar re- ciate being bumped from
sists with most of its dishes. coach to first class?
The food shows up in well- One of the costliest dishes
paced waves. Some dishes will on the menu — Monterey aba-
make you laugh, like the cevi- lone ringed in frothy smoked
che that arrives in what ap- butter and sliced over a rustic
pears to be sea foam but is in chickpea stew — is priced at
fact passionfruit-infused $42. But one of the admirable
leche de tigre, the citrus- things about The Bazaar,
based marinade used to something important to the
“cook” raw fish. “Dig deep man on the marquee, is the
with your spoons,” coaches a relative affordability of his lat-
server. The chuckles yield to est attraction. Let me be clear.
murmurs of pleasure as we This is no populist Jaleo. But it
retrieve bites of cobia, spar- isn’t as exclusive — price- or
kling with lime. Other combi- otherwise — as the 12-seat
nations lead you to believe Minibar or any number of
Andrés partnered with Willy Washington-area tasting-
Wonka. Take the demitasse of menu destinations. The Ba-
onion soup that’s piping-hot zaar might be a challenge to
stock on the bottom, cool reserve, but once you’re there,
whipped foie gras “cappucci- there’s no required minimum
no” on top and garnished with purchase.
tiny diced apple. In lesser The few desserts are a re-
hands, these could be mere flection of a staff required to
gimmicks. At The Bazaar, serve three meals a day. An
where David Thomas, the airy wedge of espresso-fueled
brand’s “concept chef part- meringue topped with mas-
ner,” heads a kitchen staff of carpone tastes in keeping
45, the flights of fancy are with what precedes it.
designed for all the senses — Served on the ground floor,
taste most of all. “Some of the lunch is a trimmed-down ver-
modern tapas are so beauti- sion of dinner, easier to access
ful, I hate to see people eat (a companion and I strolled in
them,” a waiter tells us one on a recent Friday afternoon
night. Yes, I took a photo- without a reservation) and
graph of the baby Japanese less operatic, although even as
peaches artfully arranged I type that, I have to admit the
with fresh burrata, hazelnut “ah!” and awe attached to
praline and a sherry reduc- “José’s taco,” which emphasiz-
tion. es great ingredients over
Frying and fritters are fas- cooking and arrives atop a
cinations of the star chef and white ceramic brick. Picture a
humanitarian. Make them thin sheet of nori arranged
yours. The Bazaar serves with a sliver of that prized
sumptuous conch fritters — nutty jamon, a dab of osetra
near-liquid with béchamel caviar and shimmering gold
and onion inside, with a shell leaf. What tasted like a celes-
as light as the best tempura — tial last meal request was
and oxtail croquettes so rich heightened by — I kid you not
with beef and truffles that — harp music wafting from
each ball tastes like a full the lobby on my visit.
meal. Andrés thinks of the Divine intervention? No,
former, better than anything it’s just José Andrés making us
Florida has served me, as a glad he never settles for ordi-
“must” experience at The Ba- nary.
The Bazaar by José Andrés
1100 Pennsylvania Ave. NW. 202-868-5088. thebazaar.com. Open
for indoor dining for breakfast 6:30 a.m. to 10:30 a.m. daily, for
lunch 11:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. daily, for dinner 5 p.m. to 10 p.m.
Sunday through Thursday, 5 p.m. to 11 p.m. Friday and Saturday.
Prices: Snacks, tapas and medium-size dishes $9 to dishes $9 to
$68 (for a Waygu rib-eye steak). Sound check: 71 decibels/
Conversation is easy. Accessibility: Wheelchair users can enter
the hotel via a ramp and reach the second-floor dining room via an
elevator; ADA-compliant restrooms. Pandemic protocols: Staff
are not required to wear masks or be vaccinated.
 KLMNO

Travel sunday, march 12 , 2023 . Section F EZ EE

Hey, ChatGPT, how do I spend a day in D.C.?

Here’s a sample itinerary for a day in D.C.:

Head to a museum, such as the National Air and Space Museum.

For lunch, visit La Jambe in Northeast Washington’s Union Market.

illustration by stephanie hays/The Washington Post; photos by Andrea Sachs/The Washington Post; iStock

The ideal D.C. itinerary,

according to ChatGPT
We asked the bot to plan the perfect tour of the city. Here’s how it went. F6

Food Guides Pets The Upgrade

How to eat on vacation A local’s guide on where to eat Thanks to commercial rules, One chef implores: Bring your
without feeling terrible. F2 and what to do in Mexico City. F3 owners are flying private. F5 own lunch to the airport. F5
F2
BY H ANNAH S AMPSON
Vacation can introduce us to
the most memorable meals of our
lives. It can also lead to rushed
airport breakfasts, skipped
lunches or panic-bought fast food
— none of which are particularly
exciting or good for us.
Who hasn’t, near the end of a
road trip filled with fried food,
longed for a fresh vegetable?
“The moment you begin to
travel, you are out of your base
routine,” said Maya Feller, a
Brooklyn-based registered dieti-
tian nutritionist and author of
the cookbook “Eating From Our
Roots.” “Because we’re creatures
of habit, when we’re out of our
routine, it also means that some
of our things that we fall back on
in terms of nutrition, physical
activity, mindfulness, all of that …
go out the window.”
Travelers can end up with a
dearth of healthy options, and a
vacation mind-set can lead them
to flood their diets with far more
additives than they would con-
sume at home. Unrelated to calo-
rie-counting or weight manage-
ment, their eating and drinking
patterns away from home can
simply make them feel sick.
Kayla Kopp, a registered dieti-
tian with Cleveland Clinic’s Cen-
ter for Human Nutrition, said
foods with a lot of saturated fat
can digest slowly, leaving people
feeling bloated and sluggish. Eat-
ing too many foods without nutri-
tional value can leave travelers
with irregular bowel movements.
Eating something highly pro-
cessed and high in sodium —
like many fast-food options —
can take their toll, said Paige
Macauley, director of dietetics for
CoreLife Novant Health in North
Carolina.
“You don’t digest it well, it
doesn’t sit great on your stomach,
and then you don’t feel well,” she
said.
Three nutrition experts offered
tips and suggestions for how to
eat on a trip to feel your best.
1. Don’t let mealtimes catch
you off guard
Macauley, a registered dieti-
tian, says a food plan should
consider when you need to be at
the airport, what mealtime that
will include and what kind of
food is allowed through security.
Or, for a road trip, travelers
should know how long they’ll be
in the car and pack easily accessi-
ble foods accordingly — or have
an idea of what to buy at a pit
stop.
“Knowing what your schedule
is going to look like is going to
help you look ahead for your food
choices,” she said.
Kopp says she and her family
like to swing by the grocery store
right away on a trip, so they have
plenty on hand for meals or
snacks, such as eggs, Greek yo-
gurt, whole-wheat bread, string
cheese and fresh fruit.
It’s time to book your summer trip — especially if you’re planning to go overseas
If you’re thinking
about taking a
summer vacation
this year, stop
what you’re doing
and start booking
The your trip now.
Navigator Hotel rooms
Christopher and flights are
Elliott filling up quickly,
particularly for
international
travelers. If you wait too long, you
might be taking a staycation this
summer instead.
According to booking data
provided by Expedia, this spring
break will be the busiest since
2019, with searches up 40 percent
over last year. The online travel
agency expects the trend to
intensify this summer. If you’re
flying domestically, the ideal
booking window is 28 to 35 days
before departure. But for
international flights, you’ll get
your best fare six months in
advance — and maybe more.
Seriously? Yes, says Jay
Jaishankar, CEO of Visitor
Insurance Services, a travel
insurance company. “Ideally, plan
six months to a year in advance to
get the best deals,” he says.
That’s the kind of year 2023 is
shaping up to be, even with
inflation and other economic
worries. Everyone wants to go
somewhere. And it’s not just
airfares that require booking far
in advance. Hotels, tours and
vacation rentals are more
expensive and less available than
they’ve been in years, experts say.
The outlook for travel prices
Flights: The cost of airline
tickets is taking off. By May, the
average domestic ticket will cost
$348, up about 7 percent from
April, according to data provided
by the airfare app Hopper. That’s
about 10 percent higher than the
same period in 2019.
Rental cars: Nationwide,
prices for rental cars are about
the same as last year, according to
Hopper. But in some cities, they
9 tips for creating healthier
eating habits while on vacation
She said it’s also important to
have reservations, especially in
busy areas, so vacationers don’t
end up with fast food as the only
option.
2. Don’t skip meals
This was one of the top pieces
of advice from dietitians.
“Oftentimes, we’re on the road,
and we’re like, ‘This food’s not
good, that food’s not good, so I’m
just not going to eat that,’” Feller
said. “Inevitably, when we restrict
and we undernourish ourselves,
then we’re really, really hungry.”
If travelers know they’ll be in a
time crunch during mealtime,
then they should plan to have
something on hand that they can
easily grab at that time, Kopp
said.
Macauley said vacation plan-
ning needs to include working in
the time to eat a typical breakfast
and lunch. When that happens,
she said, travelers have the band-
width to be mindful at every
meal.
“If you get there and you’re
ravenous, … you’re going to be
like, ‘I want the quickest, easiest,
most palatable thing,’” she said.
Illustration by Katty Huertas/The Washington Post; iStock
are significantly higher. For
example, rates average $76 a day
in Indianapolis, up 57 percent
from 2022. In Philadelphia,
they’re up 30 percent, to $57 a
day. “We’re seeing pretty big
increases in prices, especially in
California and Florida,” says Mark
Mannell, CEO of
CarRentalSavers.com.
Hotels: Room rates are
trending higher. According to an
American Express projection,
hotel rates will rise this year in
many major markets.
Domestically, rates will increase
by more than 8 percent in New
York and more than 7 percent in
San Francisco. Internationally,
American Express projects that
hotel rates will climb by 10
percent in Paris and 9 percent in
Stockholm. Some markets won’t
be as pricey. In Melbourne,
Australia, and Hong Kong, rates
will remain essentially
unchanged.
Vacation rentals: Short-term
rentals are in high demand. Many
vacation homes in top summer
EZ EE
3. Prioritize protein
Say you’re in Paris and you’ve
got a perfect croissant in front of
you for breakfast. Great. But grab
some protein, too, Macauley says,
such as yogurt, eggs or cottage
cheese. Nuts and oats can also be
good sources of protein. Same
idea if you’re at a resort buffet
with coffee and a breakfast pas-
try.
“Protein is what’s going to help
you stay full and fuel yourself for
the rest of the day,” she said.
For snacks, she said, the ideal
combo is a protein with a color,
whether that colorful item is a
fruit or a vegetable.
4. Compose a balanced meal
Feller urges her clients to put
together a meal with everything
they need, not just a quick yogurt
or granola bar. For a yogurt, she
said, think about what else to
add, so it’s more nourishing: gra-
nola, nuts or dried fruit, for exam-
ple.
She likes sandwiches as an
option, which, she said, “can be a
wonderful vessel for a lot of
things” and can be accompanied
by a small bag of plain potato
beach locales, such as North
Carolina’s Outer Banks, as well as
the Jersey Shore destinations of
Cape May and Ocean City, are
already booked up for the
summer, according to Vrbo. July
is particularly busy, with
availability below 40 percent in
these busy markets.
Should I lock in a fare now
or wait for a sale?
Experts say it may be tempting
to hold out for a fare sale,
especially if the economy cools or
inflation heats up. But as of now,
it doesn't look like either of those
is going to happen.
Cindy Salik, a travel adviser
with Embark Beyond, says many
of her clients have been surprised
by the lack of availability in
popular summer destinations.
Some resorts in Italy, France and
Greece are almost fully booked. If
you’re interested in one of the top-
tier summer destinations in
Europe, “you have to plan now
and book,” she says.
Pattie Haubner, a retired
Illustration by Katty Huertas/The Washington Post; iStock
chips and a piece of fruit.
When patients are going to a
resort with a buffet, she urges
them to make intentional choices
about how to fill their plates
instead of trying everything.
“If we eat everything in one
sitting, most of us don’t feel well,”
Feller said.
Experts said travelers
shouldn’t feel the pressure to
make every meal fit to some ideal.
But they can think about their
overall health over the course of a
vacation. Macauley said if there’s
an option to cook, maybe one
night’s dinner can include some-
thing grilled with a big salad.
5. Satisfy cravings (sensibly)
If you’re itching for something
sweet or salty, don’t ignore the
craving, Macauley says. But it
helps to have more nutritional
options in mind.
She said that, for a sweet tooth,
she likes dates with peanut but-
ter, which pack high fiber, some
creaminess and sweetness all to-
gether. “Still nice and filling, nice
little energy burst, still nice and
sweet,” she said.
For something salty, she said
communications professional
and frequent air traveler from
Manchester Center, Vt., wishes
she’d done that. In January, she
was looking for airfares to Milan
late this spring and saw a
reasonable fare: just $600 round-
trip on Emirates. But she
hesitated. A few weeks later, the
price had risen by $200 per ticket.
“I expect I’m also going to pay
more for late booking of
accommodations and
transportation,” Haubner says. “I
should have purchased the airline
tickets in early January.”
How is this summer different
from past seasons?
The upcoming late spring and
summer travel seasons will differ
from the past in several ways,
travel professionals say. It will be
the most expensive in years — and
maybe ever.
“Everything will cost more,
from air to hotels to dining out,”
says Lauren Doyle, president of
the Travel Mechanic. “For most
people, they will need to make
decisions. It may mean traveling
to a less popular destination or
cutting down the number of days
they travel.”
Everything is happening at the
last minute. Kaleigh Kirkpatrick,
who runs the travel planning site
the Shameless Tourist, has
received more last-minute
requests for summer trips than
ever.
“It seems as though travelers
are totally okay planning a last-
minute trip to Paris with less than
six weeks’ notice or so,” she says.
But she says that’s a terrible idea.
In fact, she just had a client who
decided to cancel a spring break
vacation because prices were too
high. And she says summer is
shaping up to be even worse.
It’s not a repeat of last summer
(even though it looks that way).
One key difference: The car rental
shortage appears to be over.
“There’s slightly more hotel
availability due to fewer rollover
bookings from the previous year,”
the washington post
that roasted nuts are a good
option, because they have high-
quality fat as well as salt.
And Feller said even if the
craving is more specific, such as a
bag of Doritos, don’t let it take
over your life. “Get the bag, enjoy
it and move on from it,” she said.
6. Snack with a purpose
Snacks are an excellent oppor-
tunity to add protein, fresh fruit
and vegetables into the daily mix,
experts said.
Macauley likes fruits with a
peel for durability and sturdy
veggies such as celery, carrots,
parsnips and radishes. If there’s a
lunchbox handy, cheese sticks
and yogurt are good options.
Feller said rest stops will often
have cups filled with sliced veg-
etables and hummus or guaca-
mole. She also loves seeded crack-
ers, tinned mini-fish and even a
staple such as peanut butter and
jelly. “You can literally have a
PB&J in your bag, and at the end
of the day, you’re like, ‘This is
delicious,’” she said.
She acknowledged that some
choices, such as nuts, seeds and
hard-boiled eggs, can be expen-
says Sarah-Leigh Shenton,
director of marketing at Red
Savannah. “But airports seem far
better prepared for the season
ahead, as do staff across the
various travel sectors, including
hotels and restaurants.”
There’s still a lot of economic
uncertainty, despite surging
demand. So experts say anything
could happen in the next few
months.
“Airlines continue to struggle to
meet the demands and
expectations of travelers,” says
Angela Borden, a product
strategist at travel insurance
company Seven Corners. Another
meltdown just as the summer
travel season is getting started
could deflate demand and spur a
midsummer fare sale, for example.
What are the best strategies
for booking ahead?
For international vacations,
time is short. Much of the hotel
and vacation rental inventory is
depleted at the most popular
destinations.
Even if you miss the window,
you can still find a reasonably
priced hotel by visiting a “second
city.” For example, if you’re
interested in Switzerland, you can
head to Basel instead of Zurich. If
you’re interested in Croatia, you
can spend a week in Split instead
of Dubrovnik. In France, swap out
Paris for Nice. But if you decide to
stay in the United States, you have
time.
Take vacation rentals, for
example. True, many of the top-
rated rentals are already booked.
But Jamie Lane, vice president of
research at AirDNA, a rental
analytics firm, says the optimal
window for savings is just two to
four weeks before your trip.
“On average, guests saved
about 9 percent by booking two
weeks in advance instead of more
than six months in advance,”
Lane says. That’s because hosts
typically lower their prices as
the date gets closer to make
their homes more attractive
. sunday, march 12 , 2023
sive amid the increase in food
costs.
“I think the best snack is the
one that a person enjoys and will
actually eat and helps quell their
hunger between meals,” Feller
said.
7. Drink (water) all day
Nutrition experts say it’s essen-
tial to stay hydrated, especially
because so many parts of travel —
flying, eating sodium-packed
food — can be dehydrating.
“When we travel, that’s one of
the first things to go out the
window: the quantity of what we
drink,” Feller said.
Kopp said travelers should try
to get 64 ounces of water a day
and limit caffeine and alcohol,
which can also be dehydrating.
If clients plan to drink sweet
cocktails, Kopp urges them to
limit the number to one, then
drink eight ounces of water after.
Sticking to drinks without a lot of
sugar, such as clear liquor, is also
a good idea.
Macauley said it’s important
not to drink alcohol if a traveler is
already dehydrated, and people
should not skip meals if they’re
drinking. If someone has a plan
for how much they intend to
drink, they should make sure the
rest of their group is aware and
on board with that plan.
8. Savor the special stuff
For those meals that travelers
have especially been looking for-
ward to — the ones to write home
about — Kopp recommends tak-
ing it slow, truly savoring and
engaging in conversation with
the rest of the party. If people
aren’t sure whether they’re full,
just wait 10 minutes and check in
with hunger cues again.
Feller said travelers should
plan and look forward to those
meals.
“Map out the places you want
to go and the things you’re excited
to have, and go and have them
and enjoy them,” she said.
9. Move because you enjoy it
Experts agree that being active
on a trip is a great thing, but
they’re careful not to tie it to
vacation eating practices.
“I always say that movement
should be pleasureful and that
you don’t need to exercise in
relationship to what you’re con-
suming,” Feller said. She loves
when people “are able to engage
in intentional movement that’s
appropriate for their bodies,” so
they can get the cardiovascular
benefit from it.
Kopp said that, rather than
thinking of activity as a chore or
exercise, vacationers should take
part in movement that makes
them feel good or that they enjoy
with their families.
She describes the idea as “do-
ing things you truly enjoy on
vacation, things good for heart
health and joints rather than
burning off calories.”
to last-minute guests.
If you’re flying domestically,
you may be rewarded for waiting
until a month before departure
before booking your trip. Hopper
projects that fares within the
United States will peak in May
but start to ease, dropping by 2
percent in June and 7 percent in
July. If you can find a flight a few
weeks before your vacation, you
might be able to save some money
— although the savings will be
negligible.
But for international travel,
this isn’t the year to hesitate. You
might have a little time for your
domestic vacation, but Michael
Holtz, CEO of SmartFlyer, advises
against taking chances: “Don’t
wait to book.”
Elliott is a consumer advocate,
journalist and co-founder of the
advocacy group Travelers United.
Email him at chris@elliott.org.
Travel
 Get our newsletter every
Thursday: washingtonpost.com/
newsletters/by-the-way
 Read us online:
washingtonpost.com/travel
 Follow us on Instagram:
@bytheway
To respond to one of our
articles: Email
travel@washpost.com, call 202-334-
7750 or write: Washington Post
Travel section, 1301 K St. NW
Washington, D.C. 20071.
Editor: Amanda Finnegan
Deputy editor: Gabe Hiatt
Art directors: Stephanie Hays,
Katty Huertas
Photo editor: Lauren Bulbin
Staff writers: Natalie B. Compton,
Andrea Sachs, Hannah Sampson
Copy editors: Rachael Bolek,
Jamie Zega
Travel advertising: Ron Ulrich,
202-334-5289,
ronald.ulrich@washpost.com
sunday, march 12 , 2023 . the washington post EZ EE F3

A local’s guide
to Mexico City

photos by Alicia Vera for The Washington Post

BY I SSA P LANCARTE

O
ne of the largest urban centers in the world, Mexico City overflows with life, traffic and great food. It’s a city of Cyclists ride on
Paseo de la Reforma
contrasts, a place where you’ll find street vendors and world-class fine dining on the same block. There’s al- in Mexico City.
ways something happening, a new restaurant to try, a new museum or art exhibit, a concert from artists who
travel from around the globe. ¶ Residents are known as “chilangos,” and although the roots of that nickname
have been scrutinized, many of us carry it with pride. It’s like a badge that means we can endure anything. Even though
it rains most afternoons from June to October, we never carry an umbrella. We take long drives to work, eat quick
lunches and stretch out long chats with post-meal coffee and desserts. At this sobremesa, or roundtable, there is always
room for a carajillo, a coffee spiked with sweet liqueur. We are loud, warm and friendly. We love to show off our city.

Neighborhoods

Juárez San Miguel Chapultepec Santa María la Ribera

This romantically dilapidated colonia, once home to movie stars and
Mexico’s elite, was hit hard by the 1985 earthquake and has recently
undergone a hipster renaissance. In addition to the many small
boutiques and trendy cafes that have taken over historic buildings, the
area is also the center of the city’s gay scene (Zona Rosa, or the red-light
district, is littered with sex shops and bustling bars), and Little Korea is
where most of the city’s best Asian food can be found. — Allegra
Ben-Amotz
Allegra Ben-Amotz contributed to this report.
This sleepy sliver of a residential neighborhood is one of the city’s
most architecturally interesting: Pritzker Prize-winning architect Luis
Barragán designed two homes in the area. If you peek your head behind
some of the foreboding doors on San Miguel’s tree-lined streets, you’ll
find art galleries, creative food and stately homes. Next door to one of
the biggest city parks in the world, it makes for a perfect detour from
the typical tourist itinerary. — A.B.A.
Santa María la Ribera was one of the first planned “modern”
colonias, or suburbs within the city, and its history is visible from its
streets, where old mansions intersect with abandoned buildings. Still a
little rough around the edges, it’s on the verge of gentrification. Start at
the center, at Alameda Park’s Kiosco Morisco (where on Sundays you
can find couples taking cumbia dance lessons), and make your way
around the quiet side streets that wind out from there. — A.B.A.
continued on F4
F4 EZ EE the washington post . sunday, march 12 , 2023

E at
from F3

breakfast lunch dinner

El Cardenal
This is hands down the best breakfast spot since 1969. Between the
hot chocolate, sweet conchas served with fresh nata — a clotted cream
made from fresh milk — and ant egg omelets, you can’t miss.
BTW: El Cardenal has several locations, but the best one is on Calle de
Palma. Get there early to secure a table, or you might have to wait an
hour before getting seated.
Nicos
In 1957, Raymundo Vázquez and Elena Lugo opened a small
restaurant. Today, thanks to Gerardo, their son, it is one of the best in
Mexico City. Nicos is famous for its breakfast, all-Mexican wine list and
traditional dishes, including sopa seca de natas served at lunch. This is
the place to try the family recipes that make Mexican food unique.
BTW: During August and September, you have to make a reservation to
eat its version of chiles en nogada, Mexico’s national dish.
Páramo
When pop star Dua Lipa shared a list of her favorite restaurants in
Mexico City, it had the usual suspects — Pujol, Contramar — but a lot of
chilangos were surprised by a hidden gem called Páramo. It offers a
range of tacos, craft beers and mezcals, along with a great selection of
dance music. Located in the Condesa neighborhood, it is upstairs from
El Parnita, a beloved seafood taco restaurant.
BTW: Don’t miss the house mezcal that owner Paulino Martínez
produces in Guerrero. If you’re lucky, maybe you’ll run into artists such
as Scottish rock band Travis, the Arctic Monkeys, Pepe Aguilar or Jared
Leto.

Sta y

in the action low-key

Roma Norte Cuauhtémoc
Roma is to Mexico City what The most beautiful avenue in
Williamsburg is to Brooklyn: a Mexico City, Paseo de la Reforma,
headquarters for hipsters. In re- was built during the 19th century
cent years, Americans and Euro- for Carlota, empress of Mexico. It
peans have moved here, attracted is close to museums, embassies
by the gorgeous buildings. It was and five-star hotels, so you will
built during El Porfiriato, a peri- enjoy options for restaurants and
od at the turn of the 20th century, bars. Little Tokyo and a cluster of
when Mexico was obsessed with Korean businesses are within
all things French, including ar- walking distance, and the neigh-
chitecture and design. Now it borhood is free from the chaos
boasts some of the city’s best bars, that surrounds the traffic-con-
art galleries and restaurants. gested Polanco district.

Do

Cineteca Nacional Arca Tierra Museo Universitario Arte Contemporáneo

This modern campus continues the legacy of a national film archive
established in 1974. Renovated by architects Michel Rojkind and
Gerardo Salinas, it’s now one of the top destinations in the southern
part of the city, screening art films and hosting other attractions for
movie lovers.
BTW: Be there early to have lunch at Señorito, eat an ice cream at
Nevería Roxy and discover temporary exhibits.
When the Mexicas ruled 500 years ago, Mexico City was like Venice.
The city was built in the middle of a lake, so people used to travel by
boats in canals. You can still get a glimpse of this lifestyle in the
Xochimilco neighborhood. Arca Tierra is a project devoted to rescuing
this model of agriculture, and its weekly experiences bring on some of
Mexico’s most recognized chefs.
BTW: Every week, Arca Tierra sells a canasta (basket) full of produce
delivered to fair trade and organic shops throughout the city.
(MUAC)
With more than 170 registered museums in Mexico City, it’s difficult
to pick a favorite. But a lot sets MUAC apart: its proximity to the
national university’s sculpture garden, amazing architecture designed
by Teodoro González de León, the range of contemporary Mexican art
in the permanent collection and temporary exhibits from around the
world.
BTW: Don’t skip the gorgeous gift shop that offers artwork from local
designers, such as Omorika textiles made in Chiapas.

Tips
Meet your local l The best time to visit is in spring, when the area is full of

Issa is a food writer who was trees with purple jacaranda flowers in full bloom. It is so
born and raised in Mexico City. pretty.
She loves to travel to new places, l Lunch time is at 2 p.m., which is why our breakfast is

find stories and write for maga- humongous. Dinner, on the contrary, is really light. We
zines. prefer to go out for drinks and finish with late-night tacos.
l We are well known as an unpunctual people, so be ready to

wait 15 to 30 minutes for any appointment. Sorry.

Illustration by Rebeca Anaya
for The Washington Post
sunday, march 12 , 2023 . the washington post
Fluffy and Fido go for a (private) flight
BY A NDREA S ACHS
On a charter flight from Dublin
to New Jersey last July, the passen-
ger manifest resembled the at-
tendance sheet at an obedience
class. There was a Labrador re-
triever, a Leonberger, a cavalier
King Charles spaniel, a cavapoo-
chon, a French bulldog, a wheaten
terrier and two vizslas. Also on the
list: several humans toting dog
blankets and puppy pads for the
red-eye journey.
“If I sent the wheaten terrier
the traditional way, he would’ve
had a heart attack,” said Jennifer
Kirkham, whose two dogs, Fen-
way the terrier and Dublin the
bulldog, flew on the private trans-
port. “They’re better travelers
than most kids.”
For travelers with pets, the op-
tions for long-distance hauls are
limited and often stressful for
both species. Commercial airlines
place tight restrictions on air-
borne animals, especially ones
that are too large for the cabin and
must fly in the cargo hold or as
freight. Owners pay hundreds of
dollars to transport their pets by
plane, plus more if their supersize
dog requires a customized crate.
No more subpar snacks: Elevate your airport lunch by packing your own
BY N OAH G ALUTEN
To submit a travel hack to The
Upgrade, visit wapo.st/upgrade.
Have you ever read the ingredi-
ents list for a “fried egg patty”? Of
course not. Why would you have?
Allow me to explain:
Fried egg patties are the pre-
cooked eggs that get shipped
around the country in giant fro-
zen boxes, then handed off to
places such as airport lounges,
where they get reheated, then slid
into a steam-table buffet next to
the soup well of “surprise me”-
textured oatmeal. You put these
patties onto your plate, or maybe
onto a slice of toast. Egg patties
are, both legally and officially,
food.
(The first two ingredients, by
the way, on a box of frozen fried
egg patties are egg whites and egg
yolks. This sounds totally normal,
until you ask yourself why it
doesn’t just say “egg.”)
Where is this going? So my wife
travels a lot for work. One morn-
ing, she rose bleary-eyed for a
flight, sighing about the inevi-
table culinary lounge mediocrity
and gate-adjacent price-gouging
of her upcoming food options. I’d
also lived my own version of this
experience countless times.
But this time, for some reason,
I did something really obvious: I
made her a sandwich. I wrapped
it in foil, and I put it in a bag with
some Ziplocs of carrots and roast-
ed almonds. That’s right: I packed
her a lunch. Several hours later,
while waiting for her connecting
flight out of O’Hare, she texted me
with maybe the purest joy she had
ever expressed in our marriage.
Call me a food snob. I get it. I’ve
opened restaurants, I shop at
For example, to fly her dogs from
Germany to the States last year,
Jamie Klepper contacted several
pet-shipping companies for pric-
es. The lowest quotes she received
were $12,000 for Lenny, her 16-
month-old Leonberger, and
$5,000 for Bailey, her “exception-
ally tall” golden retriever.
Passengers with brachycephal-
ic dogs contend with even fewer
choices because of a widespread
ban on snub-nosed canines,
which are prone to breathing is-
sues. Adding to the anxiety: On
occasion, airlines deliver animals
to the wrong address. In Decem-
ber, British Airways flew Bluebell,
a Lab mix, from London to Saudi
Arabia instead of Nashville. Some
animals fall ill or worse. Bailey, the
Lab, suffered bloat, or a twisted
stomach, soon after landing at
JFK. She survived, but not all do.
According to Transportation De-
partment statistics, 11 animals
died on U.S. commercial carriers
in 2019, and six died in 2020.
The charter air industry, which
flourished during the height of the
coronavirus pandemic, offers pet
owners greater latitude and peace
of mind than commercial air. All
animals, regardless of size or
farmers markets, and I write
cookbooks. When I want an egg, I
cook a whole one, in its entirety,
rather than allow a corporation to
combine an amalgam of an inde-
terminate number of whites, then
shape some portion of them into a
circle with a yolk from some-
where else, cook it, freeze it and
serve it to customers.
Why, I often wonder, do we
subject ourselves to this?
The lounge-less traveler has
even greater challenges. You
could wait in line, once you’re
already inside of an airport, for
an upcharged coffee and a Wake-
Up Wrap from Dunkin’ (its eggs,
by the way, boast around a dozen
ingredients), so that you can chug
your caffeinated beverage, then
wait in line again, this time for
the airport or plane bathroom.
It is a sad reality that Starbucks
is one of the better options, and it
almost always has a stunningly
long line, too. Then there is “In-
sert: Weirdly Branded Bar & Grill
You Have Never Heard Of,” where
you are forced to decide what is a
safer bet (Buffalo wings, a quesa-
dilla or a Caesar salad), while
hoping that there’s enough over-
priced beer at this establishment
to make the food taste good.
Then there’s the food on the
plane. It’s an old trope that air-
plane food is bad, though chefs
are trying to improve it. I recently
ate “vegan soup” on a flight that
was actually a cardboard cup of
just-add-boiling-water couscous
and dehydrated vegetables that
never seemed to get their hydra-
tion back.
We subject ourselves to this
inevitable torment, over and over
again, because it’s the way things
have always been. We are pleas-
antly surprised when something
breed, fly with their people in the
cabin. Dogs can lounge like cod-
dled rock stars in the leather seats,
stretch out on the floor or curl up
in their owners’ laps. Cats must be
crated because, well, they’re cats.
“People are trying to avoid their
pets going through an emotional
experience,” said Adam Golder,
whose private jet charter compa-
“You might think it’s all rich people wanting
to fly with their dogs, but some of them
are going through divorces or have health
issues or a family reason or a senior dog.”
Jennifer Kirkham, whose two dogs have flown on private transport
ny, G6 Aviation, flew more than
100 dogs across the Atlantic last
year. “It’s the most stress-free way
to travel with your pet.”
This sector of air travel is often
associated with exclusivity. How-
ever, a charter plane for pets has
more in common with a school
carpool than Kim Air, the second-
eldest Kardashian’s gilded chari-
ot. (Kylie has one, too.) The main
The Upgrade
“actually isn’t that bad.” We eat
food that, in almost any other
scenario, would not dare grace
our kitchen counters.
It didn’t have to be this way. I
could have rolled up a homemade
breakfast burrito or put scram-
bled eggs inside of an English
muffin. I could even have pur-
chased a sandwich in advance in
EZ EE
Illustration by Katty Huertas/The Washington Post
privilege for these passengers,
many of whom are relocating
abroad or repatriating to the Unit-
ed States, is the ability to accom-
pany their four-legged compan-
ions.
“You might think it’s all rich
people wanting to fly with their
dogs, but some of them are going
through divorces or have health
issues or a family reason or a
senior dog,” said Kirkham, whose
dogs and two teenage daughters
moved to Connecticut after sev-
eral years in London and Dublin.
“You almost become a psycholo-
gist or a friend trying to pull this
together.”
To organize a group charter for
a small menagerie, one passenger
takes the lead. Kirkham was the
the real world, from a place that
actually makes a good sandwich,
and brought it with me into the
airport. I could have packed my-
self a lunch, like millions of adults
do for their children every single
day but inevitably won’t do for
themselves.
I still look back wistfully at the
time I stopped at Emily’s Pork
volunteer organizer for her jour-
ney. One of her biggest responsi-
bilities was securing an aircraft
that would allow as many pets as it
would people, which is not the
norm: Many private planes will
cap the number of pets and not
mix dogs from different families.
She also had to recruit enough
travelers to cover the $155,000
price tag (each person paid just
under $8,600) and devise a seat-
ing chart like a wedding planner
with potentially disruptive guests.
“You don’t put the 1-year-old
puppy next to the grumpy senior,”
Kirkham said.
Kirkham connected with kin-
dred travelers on Chartered Air
Travel With Pets, a Facebook
group founded by Katy Prochaska
in January 2021. The retired Cali-
fornian created the platform after
the pandemic foiled her plans to
sail her four dogs on the Queen
Mary 2 and fly her two cats to
London. “We were the pioneering
group,” said Prochaska, who lives
in Porto, Portugal. “Suddenly,
chartering a plane became not a
cheap option but a possible op-
tion.”
In just over two years, the group
has ballooned to about 30,000
Illustration by Min Heo for The Washington Post
Store in Brooklyn to get a sand-
wich before I raced off to JFK. At
some airports, I’ve even resorted
to fasting out of indignant pro-
test.
I will add one caveat: You have
to be conscious of the people
around you. This is, after all, still a
society. Your opinion may vary on
a full rack of pork ribs on the tray
F5
members. Prochaska said the
most requested routes are be-
tween the United States and Eu-
rope, but the map is expanding —
to the United Arab Emirates and
Thailand.
“We have about 20 flights in the
planning stage,” said Prochaska,
whose long-term goal is to awaken
commercial air to the possibilities
of pet travel. “They could charge
$1,000 per animal and have a
pet-friendly flight once a month,”
she proposed.
Golder, a private pilot in Eng-
land, and his wife and business
partner, Kirsty, are taking a small
but significant step in that direc-
tion with his newest venture, K9
Jets. The pet-forward charter
company will take care of all the
heavy lifting. Passengers will only
need to submit their details, such
as the animal’s breed and tem-
perament, then choose one of the
scheduled monthly or bimonthly
flights and pay for their seat. Since
unveiling the site in early January,
more than 3,000 people have ex-
pressed interest in booking pas-
sage between New Jersey’s Teter-
boro Airport and London, Lisbon
or Paris.
“We will have the leisure mar-
ket as well. Canary Islands,
Greece: That’s really where we see
the expansion going,” Golder said.
“Rather than people using the
service just for relocation, it will
be more from a leisure perspec-
tive.”
Golder had planned to open
reservations last month and start
flying in late April, but an applica-
tion issue with the Transportation
Department has delayed the
launch. Once tickets become
available, flights to England will
cost $8,750 for one passenger and
up to two pets weighing less than
50 pounds combined or one heavi-
er dog. Travel to Paris and Lisbon
is slightly higher, at $8,995 and
$9,450, respectively.
Tom Shore, who organized his
charter plane group, paid $14,000
to fly his wife, Sharyn; their Irish
wolf hound, Carri; and Rocky the
Labrador to London. The quartet,
who will reside on a narrow boat
in England, left North Carolina a
few months before K9 Jets’ antici-
pated debut. Shore said he would
have gladly relinquished the lead-
ership role to someone else.
“It would have taken six
months of stress and worry off my
shoulders,” he said. “I would have
been much more relaxed if I didn’t
have to deal with paying $135,000
and finding 20 people to fill the
plane.”
Shore crossed the Atlantic with
nine dogs and eight humans, all of
whom met in a New Jersey hotel
parking lot for a play date. The
next day, the dogs gathered in the
airport lounge before trotting up
the airplane’s stairs and settling in
for the 61/2-hour overnight flight.
“The dogs snoozed for about 99
percent of the time,” Shore said.
Back on the ground, a company
that handles pet paperwork
boarded the plane to check the
manifest and the dogs’ micro-
chips. After receiving the all-clear,
the passengers disembarked and
headed for the closest patch of
grass, much to everyone’s relief.
table next to you, but I think we all
agree that maybe the warm tuna
casserole should stay at home.
There is a better way. I implore
you: Pack a lunch.
Noah Galuten is a Los Angeles-based
chef, as well as the host and author of
“Don’t Panic Pantry.” You can follow
him on Instagram @galuten.
F6
What to do in D.C., according to ChatGPT
H
i, ChatGPT. We haven’t of-
ficially met, but I’ve heard
so much about you. Nice to
make your acquaintance.
“Hello! Nice to make your ac-
quaintance as well. How can I
assist you today?”
I know that you are incredibly
busy writing high school essays,
debugging code, offering rela-
tionship advice and performing
other AI tasks, but I have a favor
to ask. I wondered if you could
plan a D.C. itinerary for me.
“Absolutely! Washington D.C.
is a fantastic destination with so
much to see and do.”
ChatGPT, as you may have
heard, is the latest AI darling —
or enemy, depending on your
position on knowledge engineer-
ing. You can ask it anything, and
it will usually have an answer. If it
doesn’t, it will politely demur.
The platform can perform an
array of travel-related tasks, de-
pending on the prompt question.
It can act as a vacation planner,
tour guide or friendly stranger
who offers directions, though not
always correctly.
“Using ChatGPT as a travel
adviser is probably one of the
better uses of these platforms,”
said Anton T. Dahbura, co-direc-
tor of Johns Hopkins University’s
Institute for Assured Autonomy.
“I do think it could work for
recommendations or planning.”
I wanted to put ChatGPT’s
travel-planning capabilities to
the test in my hometown of
Washington. My plan was to fol-
low a generated itinerary and
decide whether it’s an inspired
and reliable adviser or as fusty as
an out-of-print guidebook. As a
longtime D.C. resident, I have
more than 20 years of local infor-
mation stored in my head. But I
have not been a tourist in my own
backyard for years, so I am basi-
cally a born-again Washingto-
nian.
I quickly learned that ChatGPT
suffers from a few flaws, such as
dated content. Because it was fed
data available in September 2021,
it is generally unaware of events
that occurred in the months
since. For a query about D.C.
restaurants that opened last year,
it admitted, “As an AI language
model, I do not have access to
real-time information, and my
training only goes up until 2021.”
As a consolation, it supplied re-
sources with current dining in-
formation, including Eater DC
and Thrillist Washington DC.
In addition, Vincent Conitzer,
director of the Foundations of
Cooperative AI Lab at Carnegie
Mellon University, warned that
ChatGPT fabricates information,
a function of its programming and
not intentional subterfuge. He
compared the technology to a
college student stumped by an
Could AI be trusted to guide me through my hometown? Only one way to find out.
CLOCKWISE FROM TOP: ChatGPT recommended lunch at Union Market. The bot suggested spending the late afternoon exploring the
shops and restaurants in Georgetown. The tour began on the National Mall and included visits to several of its monuments.
exam question. Instead of leaving
it blank, the test-taker fakes the
answer.
“[ChatGPT] figures it may as
well have a go at it because that’s
still more likely to be correct than
writing nothing or responding, ‘I
don’t know.’” Conitzer said.
“While it tends to do better on
other aspects of putting together
an itinerary, it is still possible
that some aspects are hallucinat-
ed.”
To start, I typed in a simple and
straightforward question: “How
do I spend a day in D.C.?” Chat-
GPT responded in its signature
conversational style, suggesting
seven activities in consecutive
order. It even carved out time for
meals, because unlike bots, hu-
mans need to eat.
Morning at the monuments
I had not requested a timetable
for my ChatGPT challenge, so I
signed back in for advice on a
kickoff time.
Me: “When is the best time to
visit the monuments?”
“If you want to avoid the
crowds, consider visiting early in
the morning or late in the evening
when there are fewer people
around.”
I relied on my own experience
— and sleep schedule — to an-
swer the question, “How early?”
At around 9 a.m., I started
where most tourists’ visits begin:
on the National Mall.
ChatGPT, possibly aware of my
physical and time limitations,
didn’t overwhelm me by suggest-
ing I visit every monument and
memorial. It mentioned three
landmarks, so off I went to climb
the 87 steps of the Lincoln Memo-
rial and belatedly honor No. 16 a
EZ EE
BY A NDREA S ACHS
few days after Presidents’ Day.
At the Washington Monument,
I stood among a group of fidgety
families waiting for the elevator to
zip them up to the observation
deck. I consulted with ChatGPT
on how to book a ticket to the top.
It sent me to the attraction’s web-
site. Instead, I turned to a ranger
and asked.
En route to the Capitol, I de-
toured to my second stop, the
Smithsonian museums. Again
sensitive to my constraints (or so
I anthropomorphized), it high-
lighted three museums on the
Mall. I chose the National Air and
Space Museum, which had re-
opened Oct. 14 after a months-
long closure. ChatGPT was aware
of the renovation project, but I
had to dig elsewhere to learn
about the eight new and renovat-
ed galleries and to reserve a free
timed-entry ticket.
While waiting in line to enter
the museum, I hit up ChatGPT for
advice on displays. It recom-
mended six, of which three — the
Wright Flyer, the Apollo 11 Com-
mand Module and Charles Lind-
bergh’s Spirit of St. Louis — were
on exhibit. I gave ChatGPT a
break so I could poke around on
my own.
Me, after reading about the
man who flew over Los Angeles in
1982 by tethering helium-filled
weather balloons to a lawn chair:
“What ever happened to Larry
Walters?”
“Although his flight was dan-
gerous and potentially put him-
self and others at risk, Walters’
story has become a part of avia-
tion folklore and is still talked
about today as an example of the
human desire to fly and ex-
plore.”
A bold and uncharted frontier,
indeed.
Dumplings and Leonardo
da Vinci
Lunchtime, but first I had to
figure out how to get from the
National Mall to Union Market in
Northeast Washington. ChatGPT
provided instructions — catch
the Red Line from L’Enfant Plaza
to NoMa-Gallaudet U — that I
didn’t question until I entered
the station and remembered: The
Red Line does not leave from
here. After consulting the Metro
map, I took the Green Line and
transferred at Gallery Place.
The bot partially redeemed
itself at the global food hall. It
rattled off several vegan dining
options, with a few hiccups: DC
Empanadas permanently closed;
Chaia is in Chinatown; and the
Indian spinach paneer crepe at
DC Dosa is not plant-based. After
pruning the list, I was left with
shiitake and scallion dumplings
at Laoban Dumplings or Korean
tofu tacos at TaKorean — or both,
because ChatGPT doesn’t judge.
For my first post-lunch attrac-
tion, I headed to the National
Portrait Gallery and Smithsonian
American Art Museum. I ap-
proached the information desk
and inquired about the location
of the Rembrandt and Leonardo
da Vinci paintings, two painters
highlighted on my itinerary. “We
only have American art here,” the
volunteer told me.
I cursed ChatGPT, then
checked my schedule and apolo-
gized. Human error. I was sup-
posed to go to the National Gal-
lery of Art, a few blocks away.
In the West Building, I followed
the map to the second-floor galler-
the washington post
ies with 13th- to 16th-century Ital-
ian art. A portrait of a woman with
soft brown curls and skin as pale
as the moon took center stage.
(Instead of hanging on the wall,
she sat on a pedestal, encased in
glass.) A nearby sign explained
that the painting of Ginevra de’
Benci was the only artwork by
Leonardo in the Americas. How-
ever, unlike that other lady with
the enigmatic expression, I didn’t
have to stand on my tiptoes to see
her hairline over a wall of people. I
could stand inches from her flaw-
less face.
After racing through the
rooms of Rembrandts and not
finding the ones ChatGPT men-
tioned (not that it mattered; I still
saw a half-dozen of the Dutch
master’s works), I hailed a ride to
Georgetown at 4:30 p.m. — the
next suggested area to explore. Of
the four suggested routes, ride
booking was the easiest and
quickest mode of transportation;
walking “30 minutes, depending
on your speed” was the most
delusional.
My purpose here was to explore
the shops and restaurants on M
Street and Wisconsin Avenue NW.
I strolled the main arteries with a
renewed sense of wonder. My last
visit was during the height of the
pandemic and protests. I was
grateful to see bustling shops and
packed restaurants, with no ply-
wood in sight.
Dinner and a moonlight tour
of the Mall
For the final two stops, I
worked backward.
ChatGPT recommended a
moonlight spin around the mon-
uments. A follow-up question
resulted in the names of several
. sunday, march 12 , 2023
photos by Andrea Sachs/The Washington Post
tour operators. One was not
offering excursions so early in
the season; another was sold out
because of the unseasonably
warm weather. Crossing enemy
lines to query Google, I found an
electric car tour departing at 8
p.m. Then I quickly returned to
ChatGPT for restaurant recom-
mendations in the Dupont
neighborhood.
It failed this test. The restau-
rants were either permanently
closed (Beefsteak), located else-
where in the city (HipCityVeg) or
in a different state (Sunflower
Vegetarian Restaurant). Because
I was in a rush, I siphoned from
my own pool of knowledge and
grabbed dinner at Ala, which
opened in March 2021. You have
no excuse, ChatGPT.
I met WeVenture at the Nation-
al Law Enforcement Officers Me-
morial, near Judiciary Square.
Our group of seven — a family of
four from New York and a mom
and young daughter from New
Jersey — boarded the red vehicles
that purred like a Tesla mini.
Nick, our guide, puttered off
under a star-spangled sky, shar-
ing historical notes and anec-
dotes as we passed by some of the
city’s most eminent landmarks.
We hopped out at several attrac-
tions, including the Tidal Basin,
Washington Monument, Martin
Luther King Jr. Memorial and
White House.
For the entire two-hour outing,
I silenced ChatGPT. It had led me
here, and I was now in good
hands.
The takeaway
ChatGPT was an admirable
tour planner, despite the few
fumbles. The itinerary was di-
verse and interesting and would
appeal to first-time visitors as
well as lapsed Washingtonians.
Of course, it overlooked signifi-
cant swaths of the city, but a more
detailed prompt could fill in
those gaps.
When asking ChatGPT for ad-
vice, Johns Hopkins University’s
Dahbura said your query should
be neither too broad nor too
specific. “It should be somewhere
in the middle,” he said. He added
that the itinerary won’t be as
personalized as one from, say, a
local tour operator or friend fa-
miliar with your likes and dis-
likes. For this reason, you might
need to pursue a second line of
questioning — a strategy I fol-
lowed.
After spending the day with
ChatGPT as my guide, I came to
the conclusion that I would use
the platform for new destinations
but would supplement its infor-
mation with a Google search or
recommendations from someone
who would check the box that
says, “I’m not a robot.”
 KLMNO

BusineSS sunday, march 12 , 2023 . Section G AX FN FS LF PW DC BD PG AA FD HO MN MS SM

IRS braces
for oddity:
A normal
tax season
Agency has spent nearly
$1 billion to improve service;
it’s paying off, experts say
BY J ACOB B OGAGE

The Internal Revenue Service’s mas-

photos by Anne Moffat for The Washington Post
sive — and controversial — funding
boost has begun to reach the front lines
of tax season, and it’s vaulted the agency
from more than a decade of disarray, tax
experts say, to a once-unimaginable
position: a functioning tax service.
The IRS is answering 90 percent of its
phone calls, has squashed its backlog of
overdue returns, introduced new online
taxpayer tools to keep pace with private
software companies and processed
99.7 percent of returns filed this tax
season, according to agency reports.
“An appropriately funded IRS, given
its skill set and people, can make a filing
season work,” said Timur Taluy, CEO of

The next big tech innovation FileYourTaxes.com and a member of an

IRS consulting panel of tax industry
experts.
The IRS has tapped nearly $1 billion

is all in your head from the Inflation Reduction Act, one of

Companies, including one launched by Elon Musk, are racing to innovate
brain implants that could help disabled people move and communicate
BY D ANIEL G ILBERT
AUSTIN — Inside a high-ceiling building, shaded
with live oaks, engineers and scientists are building
an electronic brain implant that would allow the
mind to communicate directly with a computer,
enabling a person to type by thinking about it.
It is the stuff of science fiction, popularized by
billionaire Elon Musk, but with a different focus:
restoring the voice of people who have lost the ability
to speak or type. The company, Paradromics Inc., has
lined up investors betting it can get to market ahead
of Musk’s better-funded, crosstown rival Neuralink
Corp.
Musk has moved the field into the limelight with
his talk of using brain implants to help humans keep
up with advances in artificial intelligence, even
suggesting he might get one himself. Yet in plowing
his extraordinary resources and star power into
Neuralink, Musk has raised the profile of rivals who
in some ways are ahead of him, legitimizing them in
the eyes of investors and accelerating the race to
connect human brains with electronic devices.
Paradromics and three other leading companies
have raised more than $240 million since Musk
launched Neuralink in 2017, according to a review of
financial disclosures, and his fellow billionaires Bill
Gates and Jeff Bezos have entered the picture to back
President Biden’s chief legislative victo-
ries, to fund those initiatives, according
to Treasury Department data obtained
by The Washington Post.
The law allocated the IRS $80 billion
over 10 years to stiffen tax enforcement
on high-income earners and major cor-
porations and improve the agency’s
customer service and technology sys-
tems. Republicans criticized the propos-
al by saying it would “supersize” the IRS,
and some falsely claimed it would lead
armed government agents to harass
taxpayers, prompting threats against
agency employees.
So far, the IRS has hired more than
5,000 employees, mostly to answer tax-
payer-assistance phone lines and staff
walk-in tax clinics, agency officials said.
Last month, it posted job openings for
5,300 more workers.
The law requires IRS leaders to gain
approval from Treasury Secretary Janet
In an interview by text message with The L. Yellen before spending most of the
Washington Post, Rodney Gorham, a former new funding, but it can use limited
software salesman who has amyotrophic lateral resources to prepare for the 2023 filing
sclerosis (ALS), uses a Synchron implant to type season.
his responses at his home in Australia. The IRS so far has used $847.6 million
of the new funds — just more than
a rival, Synchron Inc. At least 42 people globally have 1 percent of the total — according to
used brain-computer implants in clinical trials, Treasury Department data. Roughly half
including a paralyzed man who used a robotic hand of that money, $426 million, has gone
to fist-bump Barack Obama in 2016. toward taxpayer services.
In an interview by text message with The Wash- Another $315.4 million has been
ington Post, Rodney Gorham, an Australian in his spent on operations support, training
see brain on G3 new employees and preparing software
systems for changes in tax laws.
The agency also spent $99.6 million
on modernizing outdated business sys-
tems, a long-term goal of generations of
agency officials, and $6.6 million on tax
enforcement.
see irs on G5

Sam Bankman-Fried is under house arrest Rise of the machine: A computer

at Stanford. Students are obsessed.
WASHINGTON POST ILLUSTRATION; Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images; iStock
BY L ISA B ONOS
STANFORD, Calif. — A Stanford freshman stopped
by Sam Bankman-Fried’s house for the first time on
a Friday night in January. He spotted something he
wanted: a large sign secured to a metal blockade
proclaiming: “PATH CLOSED.”
Bankman-Fried, the disgraced founder of the
bankrupt cryptocurrency exchange FTX, has been
under house arrest at his parents’ home on the
Stanford University campus since December, mak-
ing the elite university the unlikely host to one of
America’s most notorious alleged white-collar crim-
will decide if you get audited
IRS audits aren’t
personal.
It’s not you. It’s all
about your return — and
the inconsistencies
identified by the agency’s
Michelle computer system.
Singletary For instance, if you
The Color declare $40,000 in
of Money income but also claim
$10,000 in charitable
contributions, your
return will probably spark the live
auditor equivalent of “I don’t think so.”
Or maybe you run a small printing
business and your return shows
extravagant meal, travel and
entertainment deductions. You could
find yourself facing an audit.
Here’s the thing: If you have a right
to take a deduction, claim it. But you
better have the documentation to prove
it.
Audit fearmongering is all the rage
among many congressional
Republicans unhappy about the
funding boost the IRS secured thanks
inals. Surrounded by student co-ops, fraternity to the Inflation Reduction Act. Part of
houses and other faculty homes, he’s the talk of the the money is being spent on beefing up
neighborhood. tax enforcement. However, the goal
The student, a cryptocurrency enthusiast who isn’t to terrorize people trying their
spoke on the condition of anonymity so as not to get
in trouble with campus police, withdrew the roughly
$80,000 he had on the exchange just days before it
collapsed in November — unlike the millions of
fraud
other former FTX customers who remain unable to
access their accounts. But he was still angry at Scammers are using AI tools to
Bankman-Fried for the role he’s accused of playing impersonate the voices of
in perpetrating a massive fraud in connection with
see stanford on G5 victims’ friends and family. g2
best to file accurate returns. The agency
is looking for tax compliance, which
can lead to cases against individuals
and businesses that are intentionally
trying to avoid their tax obligations.
For the most part, if you get audited,
it’s not a personal attack on your
integrity. Rather, the IRS’s automated
system has spotted something that
doesn’t appear right. In fact, read IRS
Publication 556 (Examination of
Returns, Appeal Rights, and Claims for
Refund), and you’ll see that the agency
says it accepts most federal tax returns
as filed, no questions asked.
But, as the agency points out: “If
your return is selected for examination,
it does not suggest that you made an
error or are dishonest. Returns are
chosen by computerized screening, by
random sample, or by an income
document matching program.”
A return can be selected for an audit
based on a computer score that assigns
a numeric value to each individual and
some corporate tax returns after they
have been processed, according to the
IRS.
But this is one test where you don’t
want a high score, because it could cost
see singletary on G4
spending
How did the national debt reach
$31 trillion? Here’s a look at
nine key moments. g4
G2
BY P RANSHU V ERMA
T
he man calling Ruth Card
sounded just like her grand-
son Brandon. So when he
said he was in jail, with no wallet
or cellphone, and needed cash for
bail, Card scrambled to do what-
ever she could to help.
“It was definitely this feeling of
… fear,” she said. “That we’ve got
to help him right now.”
Card, 73, and her husband,
Greg Grace, 75, dashed to their
bank in Regina, Saskatchewan,
and withdrew 3,000 Canadian
dollars ($2,207 in U.S. currency),
the daily maximum. They hurried
to a second branch for more mon-
ey. But a bank manager pulled
them into his office: Another pa-
tron had gotten a similar call and
learned the eerily accurate voice
had been faked, Card recalled the
banker saying. The man on the
phone probably wasn’t their
grandson.
That’s when they realized
they’d been duped.
“We were sucked in,” Card said
in an interview with The Wash-
ington Post. “We were convinced
that we were talking to Brandon.”
As impersonation scams in the
United States rise, Card’s ordeal is
indicative of a troubling trend.
Technology is making it easier
and cheaper for bad actors to
mimic voices, convincing people,
often the elderly, that their loved
ones are in distress. In 2022,
impostor scams were the second
most popular racket in America,
with more than 36,000 reports of
people being swindled by those
pretending to be friends and fam-
ily, according to data from the
Federal Trade Commission. More
than 5,100 of those incidents hap-
pened over the phone, accounting
for over $11 million in losses, FTC
officials said.
Advancements in artificial in-
telligence have added a terrifying
new layer, allowing bad actors to
replicate a voice with an audio
sample of just a few sentences.
Powered by AI, a slew of cheap
online tools can translate an au-
dio file into a replica of a voice,
allowing a swindler to make it
“speak” whatever they type.
Experts say federal regulators,
law enforcement and the courts
are ill-equipped to rein in the
burgeoning scam. Most victims
have few leads to identify the
perpetrator, and it’s difficult for
the police to trace calls and funds
from scammers operating across
the world. And there’s little legal
precedent for courts to hold the
companies that make the tools
accountable for their use.
“It’s terrifying,” said Hany Far-
id, a professor of digital forensics
at the University of California at
Berkeley. “It’s sort of the perfect
storm … [with] all the ingredients
you need to create chaos.”
Although impostor scams
come in many forms, they essen-
tially work the same way: a scam-
mer impersonates someone trust-
worthy — a child, lover or friend
— and convinces the victim to
send them money because they’re
in distress.
But artificially generated voice
technology is making the ruse
more convincing. Victims report
Fitness instructor is fired but not told why: Inappropriate behavior with clients
Reader: I work in
a gym. One of our
fitness instructors
was recently fired
over problematic
patterns of
Work behavior
Advice involving young
Karla L. women. He’s in his
Miller mid-30s, and the
amount and type
of attention he
was paying to clients in the 16- to
20-year-old range was pretty
disturbing — nothing that
crossed a legal boundary, but
stuff that seemed like grooming
behavior over a long period of
time.
To my knowledge, none of the
clients ever complained, but all
of the other staff recognized it
and were uncomfortable.
The final incident that got him
fired involved him using his
hands to “coach” an 18-year-old
in a way that should never be
part of fitness instruction. I work
in an at-will state, and our boss
decided it would be easier to not
tell him the actual reason he was
fired, which obviously caused
him to feel distressed and
confused about his termination.
He is now working at another
gym, and I feel torn over whether
any further action is necessary.
Part of me wonders if he would
get help for his behaviors if
someone pointed them out to
him, and part of me also wants to
warn his new job. Any advice on
whether either of those things is
appropriate for this situation?
Sign me “Trying to Avoid the
Missing Stair”
Karla: Congratulations to your
Bus ine ss Editor: Lori Montgomery • Art Directors: Andrew Braford, Tucker Harris, Emily Wright • Photo Editor: Haley Hamblin • E-mail: sundaybiz@washpost.com • Telephone: 202-334-9800 • Mail: The Washington Post, Sunday
Business, 1301 K St. NW, Washington, D.C. 20071 • Advertising: Noelle Wainwright, 202-334-7610, wainwrightn@washpost.com
They thought
loved ones were
calling for help.
reacting with visceral horror
when hearing loved ones in dan-
ger.
It’s a dark impact of the recent
rise in generative artificial intelli-
gence, which backs software that
creates texts, images or sounds
based on data it is fed. Advances
in math and computing power
have improved the training
mechanisms for such software,
spurring a fleet of companies to
release chatbots, image-creators
and voice-makers that are
strangely lifelike.
AI voice-generating software
analyzes what makes a person’s
voice unique — including age,
gender and accent — and search-
es a vast database of voices to find
similar ones and predict patterns,
Farid said.
It can then re-create the pitch,
timbre and individual sounds of a
person’s voice to create an overall
effect that is similar, he added. It
requires a short sample of audio,
taken from places such as You-
Tube, podcasts, commercials, Tik-
Tok, Instagram or Facebook vid-
eos, Farid said.
“Two years ago, even a year ago,
you needed a lot of audio to clone
a person’s voice,” Farid said. “Now
… if you have a Facebook page …
or if you’ve recorded a TikTok and
boss, I guess, on successfully
making a potential predator
someone else’s problem before
any customers complained about
him.
Meanwhile, how many of your
female clients quietly changed
their schedules to avoid this guy,
or just stopped showing up
altogether and warned their
friends away? Because I
guarantee they noticed his
behavior, even the ones who
lacked the experience to fully
grasp how inappropriate this 30-
something was behaving because
they were — and I can’t
emphasize this enough —
teenage girls.
For that matter, even
sophisticated, experienced adult
women have the right to a creep-
free workout.
The first time one of you
noticed Handsy McGroomer’s
winkwink-not-technically-illegal
shenanigans, the boss should
have pulled the guy into his
office, stated what was observed,
explained why it was a problem,
and outlined the correct
alternative. Even if the instructor
genuinely hadn’t realized his
habit of fawning exclusively over
female clients 10 years younger
was out of line, he would know
better from that point on. And
the boss would have had clear
grounds to fire him if he failed to
shape up.
Unfortunately, your boss’s
winkwink at-will cop-out has
either left a clueless dude to
fumble his way into further
trouble, or given a creep
plausible deniability to continue
preying elsewhere.
EZ EE
your voice is in there for 30 sec-
onds, people can clone your
voice.”
Companies such as Eleven-
Labs, an AI voice synthesizing
start-up founded in 2022, trans-
form a short vocal sample into a
synthetically generated voice
through a text-to-speech tool.
ElevenLabs software can be free
or cost between $5 and $330 per
month to use, according to the
site, with higher prices allowing
users to generate more audio.
ElevenLabs burst into the news
following criticism of its tool,
which has been used to replicate
voices of celebrities saying things
they never did, such as Emma
Watson falsely reciting passages
from Adolf Hitler’s “Mein Kampf.”
ElevenLabs did not return a re-
quest for comment, but in a Twit-
ter thread, the company said it’s
incorporating safeguards to stem
misuse, including banning free
users from creating custom voic-
es and launching a tool to detect
AI-generated audio.
But such safeguards are too
late for victims like Benjamin
Perkin, whose elderly parents lost
thousands of dollars to a voice
scam.
His voice-cloning nightmare
started when his parents received
Reader wonders whether to tell a former colleague that his behavior toward women was the cause.
I don’t mean to implicate you
or your fellow staffers in this. It’s
not easy to take action when the
strategy from the top is
avoidance. But you’re on the
right track when you refer to
your former colleague as a
“missing stair” — a problematic
individual in a group whose
other members know to avoid
and try to warn newcomers
about. In an employment
context, a missing-stair employee
is especially hazardous because
when it comes to sexual
harassment and assault in the
workplace, “we all noticed and
were uncomfortable but tiptoed
a phone call from an alleged law-
yer, saying their son had killed a
U.S. diplomat in a car accident.
Perkin was in jail and needed
money for legal fees.
The lawyer put Perkin, 39, on
the phone, who said he loved
them, appreciated them and
needed the money. A few hours
later, the lawyer called Perkin’s
parents again, saying their son
needed $21,000 in Canadian dol-
lars (U.S. $15,449) before a court
date later that day.
Perkin’s parents later told him
the call seemed unusual, but they
couldn’t shake the feeling they’d
really talked to their son.
The voice sounded “close
enough for my parents to truly
believe they did speak with me,”
he said. In their state of panic,
they rushed to several banks to
get cash and sent the lawyer the
money through a bitcoin termi-
nal.
When the real Perkin called his
parents that night for a casual
check-in, they were confused.
It’s unclear where the scam-
mers got his voice, although Per-
kin has posted YouTube videos
talking about his snowmobiling
hobby. The family has filed a
police report with Canada’s feder-
al authorities, Perkin said, but
around it” is not the defense you
want to present.
So what is a well-meaning
bystander-who-wants-to-
become-an-upstander to do?
Justice, in my mind, would be
for your boss to have to go
confess to the new gym owner
that he passed along a potentially
toxic candidate like a used
tumbling mat covered with
poxvirus.
But unless you’re convinced
your former co-worker is an
imminent threat, I’m leery of
suggesting you go do that dirty
work for him. For one, it still
wouldn’t do anything to address
the washington post
It was an AI scam.
Illustration by Elena Lacey/The Washington Post
that hasn’t brought the cash back.
“The money’s gone,” he said.
“There’s no insurance. There’s no
getting it back. It’s gone.”
Will Maxson, an assistant di-
rector at the FTC’s division of
marketing practices, said track-
ing down voice scammers can be
“particularly difficult” because
they could be using a phone based
anywhere in the world, making it
hard to identify which agency has
jurisdiction over a particular
case.
Maxson urged constant vigi-
lance. If a loved one tells you they
need money, put that call on hold
and try calling your family mem-
ber separately, he said. If a suspi-
cious call comes from a family
member’s number, understand
that, too, can be spoofed. Never
pay people in gift cards because
those are hard to trace, he added,
and be wary of any requests for
cash.
Eva Velasquez, the chief execu-
tive of the Identity Theft Resource
Center, said it’s difficult for law
enforcement to track down voice-
cloning thieves. Velasquez, who
spent 21 years at the San Diego
district attorney’s office investi-
gating consumer fraud, said po-
lice departments might not have
enough money and staff to fund a
iStock
the behavior if the new boss just
fires the guy, no questions asked.
And if your former colleague
learns about a whisper campaign
or the truth of his previous firing,
he might well be angry and
humiliated enough to try to
retaliate, legally or physically.
If you believe your former
colleague would be mortified and
reform his behavior if alerted to
it, then it would be a kindness to
Department of Data
The Department of Data column is off this week. It will return to print next
Sunday.
. sunday, march 12 , 2023
unit dedicated to tracking fraud.
Larger departments have to
triage resources to cases that can
be solved, she said. Victims of
voice scams might not have much
information to give police for
investigations, making it tough
for officials to dedicate much
time or staff power, particularly
for smaller losses.
“If you don’t have any informa-
tion about it,” she said, “where do
they start?”
Farid said the courts should
hold AI companies liable if the
products they make result in
harms. Jurists, such as Supreme
Court Justice Neil M. Gorsuch,
said in February that legal protec-
tions that shield social networks
from lawsuits might not apply to
work created by AI.
For Card, the experience has
made her more vigilant. Last year,
she talked with her local newspa-
per, the Regina Leader-Post, to
warn people about these scams.
Because she didn’t lose any mon-
ey, she didn’t report it to the
police.
Above all, she said, she feels
embarrassed.
“It wasn’t a very convincing
story,” she said. “But it didn’t have
to be any better than what it was
to convince us.”
him, and an act of heroism to
womankind, for a friend to call
him in. Knowing how to have
that conversation well after the
fact and out of the blue is trickier.
But if you want to try, I
recommend searching online
under “upstander sexual
harassment” for examples of
scripts and approaches.
Finally, what if your workplace
used this experience as impetus
to adopt some conduct policies,
instead of relying on everyone to
just sort of know what’s
appropriate? Gym health and
safety policies aren’t just for
workout equipment. Staff
training on acceptable and
unacceptable teaching
techniques, a policy manual for
staff-client interactions, a client
list of rights and responsibilities,
and protocols for handling
concerns would ensure that
cluelessness is no excuse.
Pushing for preventive policy
change probably doesn’t feel as
righteous and direct as reporting
or confronting your former
colleague, but it has the highest
probability of protecting a lot
more people.
Maybe your chance to fix this
particular missing stair has
passed. But there will always be
another rotten step to fix. And
you don’t have to wait till then to
install handrails.
karla.miller@washpost.com
sunday, march 12 , 2023 . the washington post
An iPhone charging feature touts ‘clean energy.’ But it’s generating blowback.
BY C HRIS V ELAZCO
Imagine waking up in the mid-
dle of the night and groggily
rolling over to check the time on
your iPhone. Instead of seeing an
already full battery indicator,
though, you spot something else
— a blurb at the bottom of the
screen that says your phone is
“scheduled to finish charging”
sometime later.
What’s up with that?
It isn’t the stuff of dreams — it’s
something iPhones in the United
States now do, thanks to a “Clean
Energy Charging” feature built
into recent versions of Apple’s iOS
16 software.
While it barely raised eyebrows
when it was first released in an
update in October, the feature —
which attempts to charge iPhones
using electricity generated
through supposedly cleaner
methods — has gotten Apple cus-
tomers and critics debating on
social media.
Some, like popular YouTuber
Marques Brownlee, have called it
a win for the environment. Others
have decried the feature as
Tech mission: Restore voices of patients who have lost ability to speak or type
brain from G1
60s with amyotrophic lateral
sclerosis (ALS), used a Synchron
implant to type his responses.
Asked about his hopes, he re-
sponded one minute later: “I will
try to improve the system for
other people,” he wrote.
To successfully bring such a
device to market, companies will
have to prove to the Food and
Drug Administration that their
technology is sufficiently safe and
reliable to be implanted in peo-
ple. They also face profound ethi-
cal and security questions raised
by a device that could one day
give a cognitive advantage to
healthy people who get an im-
plant.
Though their approaches vary,
the major players are trying to
hack the brain’s instructions to
the body and transmit them di-
rectly to an electronic device —
enabling, for example, a person to
move a cursor by thinking about
it. While the initial applications
of the technology would be for
people with severe disabilities,
Musk has also talked openly of
enhancement.
“We’re confident that someone
who has basically no other inter-
face to the outside world would
be able to control their phone
better than someone who has
working hands,” Musk told an
audience in November.
Neuralink, by far the biggest
operation, has staked out perhaps
the most ambitious goal: building
a high-speed interface between
brain and device for the public,
and finding ways of treating spine
and brain injuries along the way.
Neuralink has designed a com-
puter chip to be stitched into the
surface of the brain, and a robot
to perform the surgery. Musk
envisions people regularly up-
grading their brain implants, say-
ing at the November event, “I’m
pretty sure you would not want
the iPhone 1 stuck in your head if
the iPhone 14 is available.”
Nearly all executives and inves-
tors in this niche of neurotechnol-
ogy acknowledge Musk’s impact
on the field, though some say it is
double-edged.
Marcus Gerhardt, chief execu-
tive of Blackrock Neurotech,
credits Musk with “the rising tide
that kick-started broader inter-
est” of consumers and investors.
Nonetheless, he worries that Neu-
ralink “may try things that the
FDA may disapprove of,” and “if
anyone behaves in an irresponsi-
ble manner, it can put the field
back decades.”
Matt Angle, Paradromics’s CEO
and in some ways Neuralink’s
closest rival, said that all of his
competitors “have responsible
people” who “want to make sure
the devices are safe.”
Reuters reported recently that
the FDA had rejected Neuralink’s
application last year to conduct
trials in people, citing anony-
mous sources. Musk said in No-
vember that the company had
submitted most of its paperwork
to the FDA and expected to begin
human trials in six months.
Musk and Neuralink didn’t re-
spond to interview requests. A
reporter who approached Neu-
ralink’s Austin campus was asked
to leave.
Neuralink’s competitors em-
phasize they are focused on help-
ing people stricken by paralysis
recover control of the body. Their
prowess is increasingly impres-
sive — from that presidential fist
bump to converting the garbled
vocalizations of a woman with
ALS to text at 62 words per
minute, according to a January
study by Stanford researchers
that hasn’t yet been
­peer-reviewed.
“woke” and a tool for “globalists.”
Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene
(R-Ga.) said on one of her Twitter
accounts that she had chosen to
turn off the feature to increase
her carbon footprint.
“I believe in feeding trees,” she
added.
There’s a pretty good chance
this eco-minded feature is run-
ning on your phone right now.
Here’s what you need to know.
How does the feature work?
Broadly speaking, it’s meant to
reduce your carbon footprint — if
only just — by charging your
iPhone at specific times of day.
A support page on Apple’s web-
site spells out how the feature is
supposed to work, at least a little:
When clean energy charging is
enabled and your iPhone is
plugged in, it will access a “fore-
cast of carbon emissions in your
local energy grid.”
Using that forecast, your de-
vice will try to fully charge itself
when “lower carbon emission
electricity” is most available from
the power grid. Apple also says
your iPhone “learns from your
Julia Robinson For the Washington Post
CLOCKWISE FROM TOP:
Synchron engineer Zafar Faraz
helps Rodney Gorham use a
brain-computer interface.
Sipho Muze of Paradromics
inspects a chip. Matt Angle is
CEO of Paradromics, which is
making technology to help
disabled people communicate.
The brain as a stadium
Scientists have explored the
brain’s electrical signals over the
past century, but the modern era
of connecting brain activity to
computers accelerated in the ear-
ly 2000s with a pioneering com-
pany called Cyberkinetics, which
ran out of money. The field has
separated into companies aiming
to read brain activity with exter-
nal devices that are worn and
those implanted inside the body.
People in the field, known as
brain-computer interface tech-
nology, often offer an analogy to a
sporting event. For devices that
go on top of the head, it’s like
hearing the crowd roar from out-
side the stadium. For those that
penetrate the brain, it’s like low-
ering microphones into the
stands and picking up conversa-
tions of individual people.
Several companies designing
implants want to record from as
many of these metaphorical mi-
crophones as possible, betting
this will provide the clearest sig-
nal of brain activity and the fast-
est way to transmit it to a comput-
er. Others say they can get a
decent signal without piercing
the brain, and can do so with less
risk.
A study published in January
daily charging routine,” so this
more selective approach to charg-
ing should, but may not always,
result in a full battery when you
need it.
“Clean energy charging engag-
es only where you spend the most
time and regularly charge your
iPhone for long periods of time,
such as your home and place of
work,” Apple’s support page says.
“The feature doesn’t engage if
your charging habits are variable
or you’re in a new location.”
There are a few other things to
keep in mind about this feature. If
you’ve installed Apple’s iOS 16.1
update or newer on your iPhone,
clean energy charging is already
on unless you’ve specifically
turned it off.
The feature is also only avail-
able on U.S. iPhones, and there’s a
pretty good chance you’ll know
when it’s running — you’ll see a
clean energy charging notifica-
tion on your lock screen when it’s
active.
Why are people upset?
Well, there are a few reasons.
One of people’s biggest con-
found relatively few adverse
events among 14 adults who have
received a brain-computer im-
plant going back to 2004. The
outcomes involved no deaths or
disabling complications, leading
the authors to conclude its safety
record is “comparable to other
chronically implanted medical
devices.”
The brain-computer implant
in that study is now manufac-
tured by Blackrock and has been
used by 35 patients. The Utah
Array, as it is known, resembles a
tiny hairbrush with about 100
spikelike electrodes and is part of
a system Blackrock hopes to bring
to market this year. The device
also has been found to produce
inflammation where it penetrates
the brain that can eventually
damage tissue.
Such side effects can be an
acceptable risk for people with
severe disabilities, such as Ian
Burkhart, who had a diving acci-
dent at age 19 that left him para-
lyzed. His Blackrock-built brain
implant allowed him — while
hooked up to a computer in a lab
— to move individual fingers and
grasp objects with his right hand
for the first time since his acci-
dent. Surgeons removed the de-
vice, which protruded from his
EZ EE
cerns is that the feature is on by
default. That is, Apple automati-
cally turned the feature on once
you installed the update, rather
than letting device owners make
that decision for themselves.
“I’m glad Apple is working on
dynamic charging to shift to low
carbon hours,” said Tim Latimer,
CEO of a geothermal power com-
pany called Fervo Energy, on
Twitter. “But the way they rolled it
out isn’t great: limited awareness,
default position is opted in.”
“We should demand better
transparency and choice for clean
energy solutions, or it’s going to
backfire,” he added.
When asked why the company
turned the feature on automati-
cally rather than letting people
opt in, an Apple spokesperson
declined to comment.
For better or worse, this isn’t
exactly new territory for Apple:
When it launched a feature to
“optimize” iPhone charging in a
way that would reduce wear on
the battery, it was also turned on
by default.
Other people are just generally
worried that, because of this fea-
head like a bottle cap, after about
seven and a half years due in part
to an infection at the site.
With the implant gone,
­Burkhart felt a sense of loss. “I
still feel myself being careful
when I’m brushing my hair,” he
said in an interview. “I miss the
possibility of going back into the
lab and moving my hand again.”
Burkhart has become an advo-
cate for people with spinal-cord
injuries and hopes he may be able
to get a new implant — in the
hemisphere of his brain without
scar tissue. “There’s some virgin
territory that could be useful,” he
said.
Some companies promise an
implant that is less invasive. In a
TED Talk last year, Tom Oxley,
Synchron’s chief executive, called
up an enlarged image of a Utah
Array on a giant screen behind
him. As he paced the stage, he
drew a breath over his teeth and
said, “The brain doesn’t really
like having needles put into it.”
Synchron, he said, has found a
“secret backdoor” to the brain —
threading a stent-like device
through the jugular vein to rest
atop the brain’s motor cortex,
allowing it to eavesdrop on neu-
ral chatter without being inside
the brain.
ture, their iPhone might not be
fully charged when they need it.
Some users have reported that
their iPhones are also charging
more slowly than expected and
suspect clean energy charging
may be to blame, though we
haven’t experienced behavior like
this on any of our test phones.
How can I turn it off ?
If you have concerns about the
way this feature works, or if you
just want to see what life is like
without it, you can manually turn
it off.
Open the Settings app, scroll
down and tap Battery, then tap
Battery Health & Charging. The
clean energy charging option will
be at the bottom of your screen —
when you tap the green “switch”
to toggle it off, you’ll get the
choice to turn the feature off
either until the following day or
indefinitely.
Alternatively, if you see a mes-
sage on your phone’s screen say-
ing it’s scheduled to finish charg-
ing later, you can press and hold
the notification to make the
phone charge immediately.
Anne Moffat for The Washington Post
Julia Robinson For the Washington Post
Synchron is among the fur-
thest along of companies seeking
to commercialize a brain implant,
launching a clinical trial with its
device in seven patients so far.
One of them is Gorham, an Aus-
tralian former software salesman
who has ALS.
In an interview by text mes-
sage, Gorham displayed the de-
vice’s promise and, rivals would
say, its shortcomings. Answering
how the implant has changed his
life, he took five minutes to write
“‘t has made my life easier.”
Gorham was assisted by eye-
tracking software, which helps
him move the cursor faster. To
click, he must think about press-
ing a switch with his foot. Syn-
chron’s device then decodes the
neural signal, recognizing his in-
tent and executing a computer
command. A peer-reviewed, Syn-
chron-funded study earlier this
year found that four patients av-
eraged 16.6 correct characters per
minute, roughly equivalent to
about three or four words per
minute, when using its implant
and eye-tracking software.
“We’re able to go safely where
nobody’s gone before,” said Kurt
Haggstrom, Synchron’s commer-
cial chief. “We don’t know yet
what the limitations are.”
G3
If you haven’t noticed anything
unusual about the way your
phone has been charging, though,
it might be worth leaving the
feature on. An untold number of
iPhones in the United States are
trying to prioritize charging
when more sustainably generat-
ed electricity is available — it
couldn’t hurt to see whether the
feature manages to make a dent
in carbon emissions.
What other gadgets try to use
clean energy?
Apple isn’t the only company
working on how to make its gad-
gets more carbon-conscious.
When the right kind of carbon
“intensity” data is available, com-
puters that run Microsoft’s Win-
dows 11 software can install up-
dates when it thinks electricity
generated through cleaner meth-
ods is available.
The same goes for Microsoft’s
popular Xbox game consoles. As
of a February software update,
they can also be set to download
game and system updates at
times when it expects cleaner
energy to be available.
Friendly fire
At a recent cocktail party in a
D.C. hotel, top executives of five
rival brain-tech companies min-
gled and talked shop while din-
ing on garlic-studded leg of lamb
and parmesan truffle potatoes.
They had come to present at a
Commerce Department confer-
ence on Feb. 16 seeking informa-
tion on whether brain-computer
technology could give the United
States or adversaries a military
or intelligence advantage, as reg-
ulators weigh restricting ex-
ports.
The after-party — sponsored
by Paradromics — was a friendly
affair. But in separate interviews,
executives are harsh judges of
their rivals. Though they say
there’s room for multiple types of
brain implants to serve different
patient needs in the future, they
are keenly aware of their present
— a battle royale for the investor
capital they need to develop their
devices.
Gerhardt, Blackrock’s CEO,
said Synchron’s stent technique
might have useful applications
but the bandwidth is too limited
to meaningfully restore people’s
function. “Without getting data
from the brain, that’s not going to
be possible now,” he said.
Ben Rapoport, a neurosurgeon
and electrical engineer, indirectly
criticizes devices that penetrate
the brain. After a stint at Neu-
ralink, Rapoport co-founded Pre-
cision Neuroscience Corp. to
build an ultrathin, electrode-lad-
en implant that can be inserted
through narrow slits in the skull
and rest atop the brain’s surface.
His goal is to cover the brain in
electrodes to transfer more data
“in a way that doesn’t damage the
brain,” he said.
Angle, Paradromics’s CEO, ar-
gues that implanting a device on
the surface of the brain is too far
from neurons to read their indi-
vidual signals. He is betting on a
variation of the Utah Array, con-
figuring a device for higher band-
width and less risk of damaging
brain tissue.
In the company’s North Austin
lab, two machines use an electri-
fied brass wire to chisel 400
spikelike electrodes into a square
of platinum-iridium smaller than
a fingertip. The electrodes meas-
ure 1.5 millimeters long and half
the width of a human hair, de-
signed to penetrate the brain to
where neurons fire and be thin
enough to avoid provoking in-
flammation, according to compa-
ny executives.
The components have to be
hermetically sealed to withstand
the body’s moisture, and a trans-
ceiver — implanted in the chest
to ferry data from brain to com-
puter — is designed not to over-
heat. The system is powered by a
device that fits over the chest; on
a translucent dummy, it is held in
place with a gun holster.
So far, Paradromics has only
tested its devices in sheep, but it is
aiming to start a clinical trial in
humans within a year. Of all the
risks the company faces, from
surgical to regulatory, the one
Angle worries about most is mon-
ey.
Paradromics received $18 mil-
lion in government grants and
has raised $47 million from ven-
ture capital, but Angle knows it
will take more to get to market.
While Paradromics lacks the
deep pockets behind Neuralink,
the company presses a different
advantage: speed.
That’s what Amy Kruse, a neu-
roscientist and venture capitalist
who sits on Paradromics’s board,
highlighted in her firm’s decision
to invest in the company. “I think
they’re going to get to market
first,” she said.
G4 EZ EE the washington post . sunday, march 12 , 2023

See how the national debt grew to $31 trillion

BY J EFF S TEIN

T
he United States owes $31 trillion. Washington now spends about $1 trillion more each year than it collects in revenue, forcing the Treasury Department to
borrow to make up the difference. Which means the national debt is still growing. Without big changes, the debt will soon be bigger as a share of the econo-
my than when it peaked at the end of World War II. Most of that debt has accumulated over the past 20 years. In 2001, the nation actually had a cash surplus,
when the Treasury collected more in taxes than it spent on government services. Since then, four presidents, 10 sessions of Congress and two wars have contributed
to the tide of red ink. Thanks in part to policy decisions made generations ago, Social Security and Medicare are growing in cost, also adding to the debt. Although
interest payments remain low by historical standards as a share of the nation’s economy, that could change quickly. More recent decisions — budget-busting tax
cuts, bipartisan spending deals and staggering sums to cope with the coronavirus pandemic — have all forced the nation to sink more deeply in debt. Here are nine
key moments that show how we got here.

1. The Bush tax cuts, June 7, 2001

Total debt: $5.7 trillion U.S. national debt $30 trillion 9

President George W. Bush signs the first of two major tax

cuts into law, slashing rates on ordinary income as well as
on capital gains and dividends. In 2012, the Congressional 8
Budget Office estimated that the Bush tax cuts added
roughly $1.5 trillion to the national debt. The majority of
these tax cuts would later be made permanent in a deal
between congressional Republicans and President Barack
Obama, adding to their cost.
$20 trillion 7

6
2. Wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, March 19, 2003
Total debt: $6.5 trillion
5
After the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, the United States
invades Iraq. America would go on to spend roughly 20
years fighting wars in the Middle East, leading to a surge
in spending on the Pentagon and veterans. A Harvard
analysis has found that the conflicts in Iraq and Afghani- $10 trillion
stan cost the nation between $4 trillion and $6 trillion. 4

3
3. Prescription drug expansion, Jan. 1, 2006 2
Total debt: $8.4 trillion 1

Medicare Part D — a major expansion of Medicare that of-

fers prescription drug coverage to seniors — goes into ef-
fect nearly three years after being signed into law by 0
Bush. Republicans who controlled Congress did not pay 1995 2000 2005 2010 2015 2020
for the popular, but expensive, initiative.

4. 2008 recession and response, Feb. 17, 2009
Total debt: $11.1 trillion
A crisis in financial markets triggers the Great Recession,
the worst downturn since the Great Depression. This dra-
matically expands the national debt in two ways: First,
there is a sharp drop in tax collections. Second, there is a
big jump in spending on increased unemployment ben-
efits and other programs to help people weather the
downturn. Congress and the Obama administration also
approved a major economic stimulus package. Brian
Riedl, an economist at the Manhattan Institute, estimates
the Bush and Obama administrations together enacted
about $2 trillion in emergency measures to respond to
the financial crisis and the ensuing recession.
6. The Trump tax cuts, Dec. 22, 2017
Total debt: $20.5 trillion
President Donald Trump signs a sprawling tax cut bill,
centered on a plan to reduce the rate paid by large U.S.
corporations from 35 percent to 21 percent. The law also
cut taxes for most individual taxpayers. The Joint Com-
mittee on Taxation of Congress estimated the measure
would cost roughly $1.5 trillion over 10 years. A later
analysis by the Committee for a Responsible Federal
Budget, a Washington think tank, found the cumulative
impact of the law could be closer to $2.9 trillion if Con-
gress votes to extend certain provisions, which are set to
expire in different years throughout this decade.
8. Congress spends trillions in coronavirus
emergency response, Dec. 27, 2020
Total debt: $27.7 trillion
Trump signs into law the second of what will eventually
be three major relief packages approved by Congress in
response to the coronavirus pandemic. The first and most
expensive is a bipartisan $3.4 trillion deal reached in
March 2020, with the U.S. economy in a black hole. An-
other $900 billion follows in December 2020. In 2021,
Democrats under Biden approve an additional $1.9 tril-
lion with no Republican support.

5. Obama-Republican deal to extend Bush tax cuts,
Jan. 1, 2013
Total debt: $16.8 trillion
With the Bush tax cuts set to expire amid a sluggish re-
covery, Obama agrees to make almost all of them perma-
nent, extending tax relief for all but the very richest
Americans. Congressional Republicans, in turn, agree to
extend some economic stimulus measures. At the time,
the Congressional Budget Office estimated the deal would
cost roughly $4 trillion over 10 years.
7. Bipartisan spending deals under Trump,
Aug. 1, 2019
Total debt: $22.7 trillion
Democrats and Republicans in Congress agree to ramp
up federal spending as Trump disregards Republican or-
thodoxy on shrinking the size of government. It is the sec-
ond such deal in two years. The spending helps fuel a
strong labor market but exacerbates budget deficits. The
bills added a combined $2 trillion to the national debt, ac-
cording to the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budg-
et.
9. The Biden economic agenda, Aug. 24, 2022
Total debt: $31 trillion
Biden announces a $400 billion plan to cancel student
debt, which is quickly put on hold while awaiting review
by the U.S. Supreme Court. Meanwhile, Biden pushes
Congress to spend more on veterans health, physical in-
frastructure, and government agencies. Biden’s Inflation
Reduction Act spends more on an array of other pro-
grams, including the Internal Revenue Service, but is pro-
jected to slow borrowing by imposing higher taxes on
businesses.

About this story

Debt totals are according to the Treasury Department via Federal Reserve Economic Data. The dollar amounts represent total debt at the end of
the quarter for each moment rather than on specific dates. Graphic by Alyssa Fowers.

MICHELLE SINGLETARY

It’s not you — it’s the computers: 6 reasons the IRS might flag you for an audit
singletary from G1
you. So let’s examine six com-
mon red flags for an audit.
1. Being a millionaire
The more you earn, the high-
er the likelihood of an audit.
“Although audit rates de-
creased more for higher-income
taxpayers, IRS generally audited
them at higher rates compared
to lower-income taxpayers,” ac-
cording to a 2022 report by the
Government Accountability Of-
fice.
Based on 2019 returns, 1.3
percent of taxpayers earning $1
million to $5 million were audit-
ed, according to the latest IRS
data. Audits for taxpayers earn-
ing more than $10 million
reached close to 9 percent.
That’s compared with 0.2 per-
cent for taxpayers earning
$25,000 to $50,000. Interesting-
ly, that was the same audit rate
for taxpayers with income rang-
ing from $200,000 to $500,000.
In a statement last year about
the audit rate, the agency said it
was “taking steps toward ad-
dressing high-end noncompli-
ance.”
“Field Revenue Agents are fo-
cused on high-income individu-
als and their related entities
and, to a lesser degree, large cor-
porate and complex pass-
through entities,” the IRS said.
It is important to note that
lower-income taxpayers claim-
ing the earned-income tax credit
generally have a higher-than-av-
erage audit rate, the GAO report
said.
“The EITC audit rates can be
higher than audit rates for some
higher-income taxpayers be-
cause EITC audits are limited in
scope and less time consuming,
allowing IRS to conduct more
audits,” the GAO said.
2. Not reporting all your
income
The IRS compares what it re-
ceives on documents such as
W-2s or 1099s with what you re-
port on your tax return. You
might get a letter that was gen-
erated as part of the agency’s
“automated underreporter” pro-
gram, which issues notices if it
appears you haven’t reported all
income. When a discrepancy is
found, the IRS sends you a pro-
posal to adjust your return. How
you respond could result in ad-
ditional taxes owed or possibly a
refund.
The IRS closed nearly 2.4 mil-
lion cases under the automated
underreporter program in fiscal
2021, resulting in nearly $10.3
billion in additional tax assess-
ments.
Substantially understating
your income could result in a
pretty severe penalty. The IRS
Audits are more likely higher up the income ladder without triggering a tax bill. The mate profit-making enterprise.
reporting rule change is intend- Before, you could claim hobby
Audit rate for tax year 2019 by total positive income ed to help the IRS track income expenses — up to the income it
received, not the exchange of generated — as part of the class
Returns with EITC 0.8% funds between family and of miscellaneous itemized de-
friends. ductions that needed to exceed 2
No total positive income 1.1 If you receive an IRS CP2000 percent of adjusted gross in-
notice generated by the auto- come. However, starting in 2018
$1 - $25K 0.4 mated underreporter program, and until 2025, these types of
$25K -$50K 0.2 respond right away, because it deductions are no longer al-
could be an error. lowed.
$50K- $75K 0.2
4. Out-of-the-ordinary 6. Claiming business
$75K - $100K 0.2 deductions deductions for meals, travel
Wondering why your return is and entertainment
$100K - $200K 0.2 selected for review? “Sometimes I’ve been at seminars where
$200K - $500K 0.2 returns are selected based solely “experts” have openly encour-
on a statistical formula,” the IRS aged people to use a business as
$500K- $1M 0.6 says. “We compare your tax re- a tax shelter.
turn against ‘norms’ for similar To help steer clear of trouble
$1M - $5M 1.3 returns.” with the IRS, you’ll find much of
If the deduction is legit, take what you need to know on this
$5M - $10M 2.0
it. But large deductions that issue in IRS Publication 535
Over $10M 8.7 seem out of line for your income (Business Expenses).
or business can be a red flag. “If you do not carry on your
For instance, if you have a business or investment activity
Audit rate as of May 2022 home-based business, claim ev- to make a profit, you cannot use
Source: IRS THE WASHINGTON POST ery legitimate deduction, even if a loss from the activity to offset
it might increase your odds of other income,” the agency says
an audit. Just be prepared to in the publication.
has the authority to hit filers rule for Form 1099-K. Starting prove you meet all the deduc-
with an accuracy-related penal- next year, the IRS will require tion requirements.
ty equal to 20 percent of their all third-party payment proces- If you have a personal finance
underpayment of taxes. sors to report payments received 5. Showing a pattern of question for Michelle, please call 1-
for goods and services of $600 losses for your small 855-ASK-POST (1-855-275-7678). Her
3. Forgetting the IRS is or more a year. business award-winning column The Color of
receiving income You can still use the payment Changes made under the 2017 Money is syndicated by The
information about you applications to split a restaurant Tax Cuts and Jobs Act mean it’s Washington Post News Service and
Under the American Rescue check with friends or send crucial to know the difference Syndicate and carried in dozens of
Plan Act, there’s a new reporting birthday money to relatives between a hobby and a legiti- newspapers.
sunday, march 12 , 2023 . the washington post
A bolstered IRS is answering calls, processing returns and squashing backlog
irs from G1
The influx of funding could
have major effects for taxpayers
this year. The IRS, tax profession-
als told The Post, is on track for a
“normal” tax season — one in
which the agency will be able to
keep up with phone calls and
written correspondence and dis-
burse refunds in a timely manner
— for the first time in years. And
agency leaders are trying to show
that the new investments are
paying off.
“I think they understand a
disastrous filing season would be
catastrophic,” said Mark Mazur,
the Biden administration’s for-
mer assistant treasury secretary
for tax policy. “That would basi-
cally mean, ‘We gave you money
— you did such a bad job spend-
ing it, we’re taking it back.’”
Bankman-Fried home becomes uno∞cial campus landmark at Stanford
stanford from G1
FTX and its related companies.
Removing a “PATH CLOSED”
sign was the student’s way of
signaling to Bankman-Fried that
he’s not welcome.
In recent months, the Bank-
man-Fried home has become an
unofficial campus landmark
that’s famous for all the wrong
reasons. Like many large univer-
sities, Stanford has several spots
honoring its legacy, such as
Hoover Tower, which houses a
library and archive founded by
alumnus Herbert Hoover before
he went on to become a U.S.
president.
Bankman-Fried, the son of two
Stanford law professors, was re-
leased on a $250 million bond
secured by the Craftsman-style
house. While awaiting his fraud
trial later this year, Bankman-
Fried wears an ankle bracelet to
track his movements and plays
with his new dog, Sandor, accord-
ing to a Puck News report.
The university seems keen to
play down his presence. Officially,
the university doesn’t talk about
Bankman-Fried. Stanford Law
School didn’t respond to requests
for comment. When asked
whether they could confirm a
rumor that a nearby student co-
op had attacked the Bankman-
Fried home with eggs, Stanford
campus police did not respond.
Socially, however, Bankman-
Fried is a source of deep fascina-
tion. There are party fliers with
his likeness. He’s a punchline in
campus comedy sketches. Stu-
dents ride their bikes by on dates.
Through his spokesman Mark
Botnick, Bankman-Fried de-
clined to comment for this arti-
cle.
Bankman-Fried, who grew up
on campus, “certainly fits into
what I regard as the kind of
culture of Stanford,” says Richard
White, a retired Stanford history
professor — even if the 31-year-
old former billionaire left Silicon
Valley to attend MIT.
White and others characterize
Stanford’s culture as a place
where faculty and students are
emboldened to take big risks in
conceiving the next hot start-up
or breakthrough innovation, of-
ten with easy access to capital,
the conviction that they’re chang-
ing the world — and few conse-
quences if things go south.
Bankman-Fried founded FTX
in 2019, which received hefty
backing from well-known invest-
ment firms such as Sequoia Capi-
tal, SoftBank and others — plus
endorsements from celebrities
such as football star Tom Brady,
supermodel Gisele Bündchen
and comedian Larry David. The
Bahamas-based company was
valued at $32 billion as recently
as early 2022 before it imploded
in November.
It remains to be seen what
consequences Bankman-Fried,
who pleaded not guilty, might
face. So far, his ability to be
detained at home, instead of jail,
is an exception to how most
federal defendants are treated.
The quiet, traffic-light Stanford
neighborhood is quite the up-
grade from Fox Hill, a notoriously
rough prison in the Bahamas
where Bankman-Fried was brief-
ly held before being extradited.
If Bankman-Fried violates the
terms of his bail agreement, his
parents could lose their house,
which they’ve owned since 1991
and is worth over $3.5 million,
according to public property rec-
ords.
Three of Bankman-Fried’s for-
mer colleagues — Caroline Elli-
son, Gary Wang and Nishad
Singh — have pleaded guilty to
fraud charges connected to FTX
and its sister company, Alameda
Research, and are cooperating
with U.S. prosecutors. Wang’s
lawyer declined to comment.
Lawyers for Ellison and Singh did
not immediately respond to re-
quests for comment.
The two non-relatives to guar-
The IRS is using some money
now to improve services immedi-
ately for this year, Deputy Treas-
ury Secretary Wally Adeyemo
said. But Biden administration
and IRS officials are drafting a
plan to spend the rest of the
funding over the next decade.
“Many of the improvements
that we’re going to make in terms
of service are going to come
through investments and tech-
nology that will take a long time,”
Adeyemo said in an interview.
Yellen has instructed the agen-
cy not to use any of the money to
increase audits of taxpayers
earning less than $400,000 per
year. During a hearing last
month, Daniel Werfel, Biden’s
nominee for IRS commissioner,
said he would abide by that order
and prioritize taxpayer service.
“The IRS has been told what it
Stanford University’s culture has been characterized as a place where faculty and students are emboldened to take big risks in conceiving the next hot start-up or
breakthrough innovation, often with easy access to capital, the conviction that they’re changing the world — and few consequences if things go south.
antee Bankman-Fried’s bond are
both connected to Stanford. Lar-
ry Kramer, a former dean of
Stanford’s law school, said in an
email that his decision to back
Bankman-Fried’s bond was made
in a personal capacity. Kramer
said the Bankman-Frieds, whom
he and his wife have known since
the 1990s, have “been the truest
of friends” when they went
through a difficult period. “In
turn, we have sought to support
them as they face their own
crisis.”
The other bond guarantor, a
Stanford senior research scien-
tist, didn’t respond to a request
for comment.
The campus community is well
aware that he’s there. An annotat-
ed map, locating the Bankman-
Fried home, was posted on a
student-only social network. Col-
loquially, some on campus refer
to the faculty neighborhood by a
cheeky nickname that lumps to-
gether Bankman-Fried with the
Sam Bankman-Fried, the disgraced founder of the bankrupt cryptocurrency exchange FTX, leaves a
U.S. federal courthouse in New York in February. He has been under house arrest since December.
needs to do to improve for years,
but it hasn’t gotten the resources
to do it,” Adeyemo said. “So now
that it does have the money, we
are in a pretty good place of
knowing where it needs to go to
be a 21st-century tax service.”
The IRS has made significant
progress on its backlog of paper
tax returns and entered the year
with a “healthy” level of paper to
process, Taluy said.
At the end of February, the
agency reported it had 2 million
unprocessed individual returns
from the 2022 and 2021 tax years
that needed to be reviewed or
corrected. At the same point in
2022, it had a backlog of nearly
24 million returns.
To sort through the backlog,
the IRS last year moved employ-
ees from roles answering the
phones to other departments
tarnished reputation of his neigh-
bor, university President Marc
Tessier-Lavigne, who is under in-
vestigation for alleged miscon-
duct with his medical research.
Still, there have been security
threats. A Jan. 19 letter from
Bankman-Fried’s lawyers to the
district court judge presiding
over Bankman-Fried’s case noted
that a car had driven into the
security barricades set up outside
his parents’ home. Before taking
a recent hiatus from teaching,
Joseph Bankman taught tax law
and mental health law at the
university, and Bankman-Fried’s
mother, Barbara Fried, who re-
cently retired, taught contract
law. Law students frequently rave
about Bankman and Fried, call-
ing both of them brilliant and
kind professors, and expressing
disappointment that they’re not
in the classroom.
From his childhood home,
which has its shades drawn and
“no trespassing” signs out front,
EZ EE
that processed paperwork.
Now that the quantity of unre-
solved returns is more manage-
able, IRS officials have shifted
many of those employees back to
the phones while training new
hires to handle paper files, a
complex, weeks-long process.
The agency still doesn’t have
much flexibility, some experts
said.
“We’re concerned that we
could be one step away — one big
problem away — from needing
additional customer service [em-
ployees] having to process more
correspondence, which would
then build up that backlog,” said
Ed Karl, vice president of taxa-
tion at the American Institute of
CPAs.
But there’s a noticeable differ-
ence in how the agency is func-
tioning now, Karl and Taluy said.
Bankman-Fried has found many
ways to remain connected to the
outside world. He’s done inter-
views with journalists and
launched an online newsletter.
Prosecutors say he’s contacted
former FTX officials who may be
witnesses in his trial. The U.S.
government has tried to restrict
his access to virtual private net-
works and certain apps where
messages disappear, but a final
ruling has not been made. The
judge presiding over his case
asked in a hearing last month,
“Why am I being asked to turn
him loose in this garden of elec-
tronic devices?” highlighting that
despite any restrictions the court
might place on Bankman-Fried’s
use of technology, he remains in a
home with his parents who also
have a plethora of ways to be
wired.
On March 3, prosecutors pro-
posed limiting Bankman-Fried to
a flip-phone or “non-smart-
phone” that cannot access the
John Taggart for The Washington Post
At the end of February 2021,
the IRS had processed 86 percent
of returns submitted, and 93.2
percent in 2022, according to IRS
weekly data reports. This year,
the agency is up to 99.7 percent of
returns processed.
“That means returns are com-
ing in more accurately,” Taluy
said. “The IRS systems are able to
process them more quickly.
That’s a real benefit to taxpay-
ers.”
The IRS has also introduced
new online tax-filing tools, a
major step for an agency whose
technology has for decades
lagged behind even the most
basic capabilities of private-
sector tax software firms.
In January, the IRS debuted a
program that allows businesses
to file information reports for
independent contractors
internet, and that he be issued a
new laptop “with limited func-
tionalities.” Prosecutors also
want to place strict limits and
monitoring tools on his parents’
devices.
Tyler Benster, a 31-year-old
neuroscience PhD student who
also works and invests in crypto,
cycled by the home on a date
recently, pointing it out as he
might Steve Jobs’s old home or
the campus sculpture garden.
Compared with how hard stu-
dents work to get to Stanford,
Benster sees Bankman-Fried’s
physical presence on campus as
eye-poppingly incongruous.
“People spend years and years of
their life working hard and pre-
paring to then have the privilege
of being here, using the resourc-
es, being in the heart of Silicon
Valley,” Benster said. “And the
idea that someone could end up
sort of living on campus due to a
massive uncovered fraud is fairly
ironic.”
Seraj Desai, a 24-year-old law
student, who was curious if he
could pry information out of a
security guard in front of the
house, was told: “Everything that
you need to know is on the
internet.”
When asked whether Bank-
man-Fried reflects poorly on the
university, the common response
is: It’s not as bad as Elizabeth
Holmes. She attended Stanford
before dropping out at 19 to start
the blood-testing company Ther-
anos, and her board included
several heavyweights who were
affiliated with Stanford’s Hoover
Institution think tank. Unlike
Bankman-Fried, who’s only been
charged with fraud, she’s been
convicted and sentenced to 11
years in prison.
“We already had Elizabeth
Holmes. … we’ve already dug the
grave,” said Desai, the law stu-
dent. “If anything, if a white-col-
lar criminal is found guilty, peo-
ple will get more interested and
… there’s a fascination in how
they did it. Stanford has a very
strong reputation that won’t be
tainted, but it’ll trend on Twitter.”
Some students are too busy
G5
through a secure portal on the
IRS website.
In February, it updated soft-
ware to let individuals filing
amended returns receive refunds
via direct deposit rather than a
paper check, and released a
product to allow taxpayers to
respond to mailed notices by
uploading documents to the IRS
website.
“This is exactly the direction
they need to go in,” said Nina
Olson, executive director of the
Center for Taxpayer Rights and
the former national taxpayer ad-
vocate. “They need to look at
what makes it easier for taxpay-
ers to respond to their notices,
get it into a digital format, get it
into the hands of an IRS em-
ployee quickly. I just think this is
an important first step, and
they’ll continue to build on that.”
Justin Sullivan/Getty Images
with midterms to pay attention to
Bankman-Fried’s presence, while
others have no interest in him. A
sophomore who spoke on the
condition of anonymity because
she wants to work in politics and
doesn’t want to be associated
with Bankman-Fried, declined
her friends’ invite to go by his
house. There’s “a weird voyeur-
ism about it,” she said, adding
that others’ fascination with him
might be connected to their own
aspirations.
“There’s a perverse desire to
know what could have been, or
knowing what you could have
been,” she said of her friends’
interest in Bankman-Fried. He
soared to heights they’ve only
dreamed of, she notes. And then,
the schadenfreude kicked in.
Watching his downfall, she said,
is “really engaging.”
Adrian Daub, a Stanford pro-
fessor of comparative literature
and German studies and author
of “What Tech Calls Thinking,”
sees an encouraging sign in Stan-
ford being only peripherally in-
volved in the Bankman-Fried
scandal. That might not have
been the case 10 years ago, he
notes, when the Silicon Valley
hype machine operated at more
of a fever pitch than it does today.
“Other than his physical loca-
tion, it’s actually not that con-
nected to us for once,” Daub said.
“In that way, it’s a sign of prog-
ress,” and also “a little bit melan-
choly.”
“Stanford was a place where
the future was shaped, and it’s
quite possible that’s not happen-
ing anymore — that it’s happen-
ing in the Bahamas now and only
comes to Palo Alto once it gets
indicted.”
The freshman who’d eyed that
“PATH CLOSED” sign went back
to the Bankman-Fried home later
in January. All he needed to get
his memento was wire cutters
and some courage. He snipped off
the zip ties securing it to a metal
blockade and paraded it around
for selfies at a cryptocurrency
networking event.
The sign is currently growing
mold in his dorm-room closet.
 SUNDAY, MARCH 12, 2023 . WASHINGTONPOST.COM/COMICS

ZITS By Jerry Scott & Jim Borgman DOONESBURY By Garry Trudeau

BABY BLUES By Rick Kirkman & Jerry Scott

SC2 EZ EE the washington post . sunday, march 12 , 2023

GARFIELD By Jim Davis

THE ARGYLE SWEATER By Scott Hilburn

FRAZZ By Jef Mallett

sunday, march 12 , 2023 . the washington post EZ EE SC3

NANCY By Olivia Jaimes NON SEQUITUR By Wiley

HAGAR THE HORRIBLE By Dik Browne

PEARLS BEFORE SWINE By Stephan Pastis

SC4 EZ EE the washington post . sunday, march 12 , 2023

BLONDIE By Dean Young & John Marshall WUMO By Mikael Wulff & Anders Morgenthaler

DUSTIN By Steve Kelley & Jeff Parker

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BIG NATE By Lincoln Peirce

REPLY ALL LITE By Donna A. Lewis LOOSE PARTS By Dave Blazek

sunday, march 12 , 2023 . the washington post EZ EE SC5

THE AMAZING SPIDER-MAN By Stan Lee

JUDGE PARKER By Francesco Marciuliano & Mike Manley

SC6 EZ EE the washington post . sunday, march 12 , 2023
sunday, march 12 , 2023 . the washington post EZ EE SC7

RED AND ROVER By Brian Basset

POPEYE By Randy Milholland

SC8 EZ EE the washington post . sunday, march 12 , 2023

SAMURAI SUDOKU (c) www.djape.net

How to Play
The rules of Samurai Sudoku are the same as in the popular
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As with standard Sudoku, the Samurai version requires no math,
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Last Sunday’s Solution

CLASSIC PEANUTS By Charles Schulz

BALDO By Cantú & Castellanos

PRICKLY CITY By Scott Stantis