goid,title,date,publisher,article_type,section,start_page,pagination,edition,desk,dateline,copyright,lexile_score,word_count,authors,subjects,geographic_terms,people,companies,company_tickers,keywords,full_text 3297937912,EAT YOUR WAY UP THE COAST AND THE CANYON: SUPPORT L.A.'S COASTAL COMMUNITIES IN REBUILDING AFTER THE PALISADES FIRE BY VISITING LOCAL RESTAURANTS,2026-02-01,Los Angeles Times,Feature,Weekend; L; Food Desk,L.6,L.6,Home Edition,Food Desk,,"Copyright Los Angeles Times Feb 1, 2026",1400,2856,"['Danielle Dorsey', 'Stephanie Breijo', 'Betty Hallock', 'Bill Addison', 'Jenn Harris']","['Bakeries', 'Crustaceans', 'Restaurants', 'Neighborhoods', 'Farmers markets', 'Coasts']","['United States--US', 'Pacific Palisades California', 'Malibu California']",[],[],[],"['RESTAURANTS', 'PACIFIC PALISADES (CA)', 'TOPANGA CANYON', 'MALIBU (CA)']","L.A.'S COASTAL AND CANYON communities are resilient and rebuilding since the Palisades fire destroyed nearly 7,000 structures, including some of the city's most locally beloved and iconic restaurants. Those that survived the blaze have become even more vital as communal linchpins and gathering places of Palisades, Topanga and Malibu residents. In the Palisades, Sunset Boulevard snakes past swaths of burned-out lots, some punctuated by scaffolding and excavators beginning the rebuilding process. It winds past signs for road closures, park closures, business closures, and past signs that declare ""REBUILDING TOGETHER"" and ""THEY LET US BURN."" Neighboring Topanga Canyon saw fewer destroyed structures than the Palisades but faces its own extended rebuilding. Powerline repairs and landslides blocked the canyon's PCH entry for much of 2025, and this access point, when open, is often whittled down to a single lane. Restaurants, the weekly farmers market and other businesses regularly post to social media to raise awareness that ""Topanga is open."" Farther north along PCH, Malibu restaurants are just beginning to recover. The scenic highway closed to nonresidents for the first five months of 2025. In the time since, business has gradually returned -- but chefs, restaurateurs and staff say it still feels far more depleted than before the fire. Even toward the northern edge of the city, where Lily Castro sells burritos far from the Palisades fire's reach, the popular restaurateur says business fell as much as 50% last year. Some online listings and maps still mark destroyed restaurants as currently open, misrepresenting how affected many of these businesses remain. -- A few restaurants managed to relocate and reopen, such as Flour Pizzeria in Brentwood and Cinque Terre West in Venice, both previously in the Palisades. Others already had additional locations, such as Cholada Thai's Long Beach outpost or Cafe Vida's in Culver City and El Segundo. Some are gradually rebuilding and readying to reopen, such as Duke's, which survived the fire but suffered more than a year of closure due to the ensuing mudslides and flooding. Some, like the Reel Inn, are navigating an arduous rebuilding process rife with red tape and mixed messages. You can help by visiting and supporting local dining spots. Here's how to eat your way through some of the best restaurants of the coast and Topanga Canyon, including new Malibu destinations for sake, sushi and oysters; one of L.A.'s most scenic farmers markets; some of the city's best burritos; and the sibling restaurant to the iconic Moonshadows. ---- PACIFIC PALISADES -- Gladstones A landmark at the intersection of PCH and Sunset Boulevard since 1981, Gladstones was forced to close for six months after the Palisades fire. Last summer, the seaside restaurant known for its clam chowder and lobster rolls debuted a new public deck and seating area alongside a truncated menu, with plans to reopen its dining room and a new speakeasy later this year. The long-term future of the restaurant remains uncertain, with a new restaurant from Wolfgang Puck slated to take over the location eventually, though construction has been delayed. The expanded deck and public viewing area quickly became a local gathering spot and haven for neighborhood residents, with no purchase required to enjoy the open seating and shoreline views. Murals from local artist Jonah Never brighten the walls around a communal firepit, depicting a '53 Corvette cruising down PCH from Malibu and storefronts of local businesses lost in the fire, including Reel Inn and Rosenthal Wine Bar. The shortened food menu still has plenty of seafood favorites such as crab cakes, ceviche, fish and chips and lobster mac and cheese, plus a burger and steak for those who prefer turf over surf. The tiki-leaning beverage menu features refreshing cocktails that pair perfectly with a beach day, like a watermelon mojito, a strawberry daquiri and a house mai tai, as well as wine and draft beer. -- Danielle Dorsey l 17300 CA-1, Pacific Palisades, (310) 454-3474, gladstones.com -- Moku Sushi This sushi bar of roughly a dozen years is well-loved in the neighborhood; just look to the Polaroids of smiling regulars that spell out ""MOKU"" for proof. They come to this Highlands strip-mall spot for the lengthy menu of house rolls, temaki and sashimi, as well as Japanese classics such as takoyaki and udon. But they also come for the curries and stir-frys: Over the years Moku's menu has expanded with Thai flair, given the heritage of one of its owners, who added Bangkok-style crab fried rice, satay and more. It's the kind of place where you'll find both kakigori and mango sticky rice for dessert. Look for house specials such as the Super Bowl, donburi piled with toro, uni, marinated ikura and quail egg, or the Snowman, which tops lemon and Hokkaido scallop with mounds of garlic-butter crab, scallion and ikura. -- Stephanie Breijo l 524 Palisades Drive, Pacific Palisades, (424) 272-9329, mokusushi.org -- Palisades Garden Cafe As a stalwart of more than two decades, Palisades Garden Cafe has become a gathering place deeply rooted in the community -- in addition to a chipper restaurant and coffee shop that serves sandwiches, all-day breakfast, pastries, Wagyu burgers, matcha, fresh juice, boba, teriyaki plates and milkshakes. Many of its surrounding businesses burned in the Palisades fire, but PGC survived with minimal damage and, after two months, reopened for business. It remains ingrained in the community, sponsoring numerous Palisades schools, events and organizations, and has taken on new, post-fire meaning as a casual gathering place for coffee meetings and more as the neighborhood rebuilds. -- S.B. l 15231 La Cruz Drive, Pacific Palisades, (310) 459-6160, paligardencafe.com -- Prima Cantina x Spumoni The Palisades location of this Cal-Mexican local chain debuted just before the fire, and briefly closed after it. But shortly after it reopened as one of the few restaurants and bars serving the region, the team added items from Santa Monica sibling spot Spumoni to further cater to the neighborhood. Now you can find esquites, enchiladas, margaritas, tortas and tacos in handmade tortillas along with meatballs, lasagna bolognese and fried calamari. This particular Prima Cantina also uniquely offers an item that weds the two cuisines: the Mexicana, which adds Prima's chorizo, red onions, cilantro and jalapenos to Spumoni's Neapolitan-leaning pizza. -- S.B. l 15246 W. Sunset Blvd., Pacific Palisades, (310) 456-0193, primacantina.com ---- TOPANGA CANYON -- The Canyon Bakery Find the Canyon Bakery in one of the rustic houses on the magical grounds of Will Geer Theatricum Botanicum under a stand of oak trees in the heart of Topanga. Longtime Topanga resident and baker Patrice Winter set up shop in the outdoor theater's mountainside gardenscape in 2020, selling her whole-grain, wild-leavened croissants, tarts, bagels, cookies, blocky slices of cake and round loaves of breads. Locals line up on weekends for their fix. Children have been known to cry when Winter runs out of cookies. The quiche always sells out. So do the cinnamon buns. In the fall there might be vegan pumpkin doughnuts, and in the spring the roasted shallot buns are showered with herbs and flowers from the bakery's garden. There's no better place to enjoy these than under the trees. -- Betty Hallock l 1419 N. Topanga Canyon Blvd., Topanga, @thecanyonbakery -- Inn of the Seventh Ray There is real pleasure, particularly in a setting as densely green as Topanga Canyon, to occasionally surrendering to California stereotypes. Inn of the Seventh Ray, run by Lucille and Ralph Yaney since the 1970s, revels in its role as community New Age haven, complete with an attached bookstore full of crystals and volumes on spiritual esoterica. There's no denying, though, that the setting does feel like a kind of communion. Follow a winding path down to the brick-lined patio, next to a creek with a burbling stream that's especially worth visiting on a sunny afternoon after a day or two of welcome rain. The restaurant may have hippie origins, but the lunch and dinner menus endearingly hark more to the 1990s: turkey and artichoke panini with a just-melted layer of Brie, vegetable pasta glossed in sunflower pesto, oven-roasted Chilean sea bass drizzled with chimichurri, filet mignon perched alongside a buttery mound of roasted garlic mashed potatoes. Slowly making your way through a thick breakfast burrito while hypnotized by the beauty of the Santa Monica Mountains? Timeless. -- Bill Addison l 128 Old Topanga Canyon Road, Topanga, (310) 455-1311, innoftheseventhray.com -- Topanga Farmers Market One of L.A.'s most bucolic farmers markets disappeared for six years before returning under new management in 2024. The Friday event relaunched at the community center -- nestled into the mountains and surrounded by scenic views -- offering fresh produce, bread loaves, handmade pottery, pickled goods, candles, clothes and beyond. But the Topanga Farmers Market ran for less than one year before the Palisades fire tore through the region. It closed temporarily, then reopened with its continued community mindset: free bags of produce for all affected by the fires and fundraising merch to aid the canyon's fire station. The last year hasn't been easy. Organizers say that the continued road construction is making attendance a challenge even for locals, stretching some attendees' previously five-minute commutes into 30 minutes or longer. Still, the market continues on with its rainbow of produce, weekly music classes for children, feeding seniors in the area, and adding new vendors. Drop by for this great local market every Friday from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. -- S.B. l 1440 N. Topanga Canyon Blvd., Topanga, topangafarmersmarket.com -- Cafe on 27 Brunch lovers come in droves for Cafe on 27's breathtaking views of the best of Topanga's landscape -- chaparral-covered hillsides and lush corridors of coast live oaks, sycamores and bay laurel, fragrant and wild. The cafe's terraced patio, covered with shade sails, is often described as an adult tree house, and the best seats ""in the house"" are the barstools directly overlooking the canyon. This is a daytime spot for taking in all those views. The restaurant is open seven days a week -- 9 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. on weekdays and 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. on weekends, serving breakfast and brunch all day: toasts (avocado or smoked salmon), several versions of eggs Benedict (the gluten-free one features tahdig), pancake combos, big salads, sandwiches, burgers and mains such as baby back ribs and chicken Milanese. Cafe on 27 recently started roasting its own coffee, bags of which are available for purchase in its shop. -- B.H. l 1861 N. Topanga Canyon Blvd., Topanga, (424) 272-7267, cafe-27.com ---- MALIBU -- Basqueria Tucked in the hills of Malibu is Basqueria, a quaint market specializing in Basque pantry items -- think: tinned fish, jars of brined lentils and spices sourced directly from Spain -- along with candles, textiles and artisanal kitchenware. But it's not the thoughtful market selection that has patrons lining up outside of the cottage before it opens each day. No, they're waiting for founder and chef Sebastien Pourrat to arrive with a satchel of sandwiches that he makes fresh daily and which typically sell out within the first hour. On the day I visited, Pourrat had two options: duck-fat roasted chicken with coleslaw and a pork tenderloin sandwich, both served on crusty Spanish bread. The shop has all of the accouterments you need to complete your beachside picnic, like Spanish-branded potato chips and a gluten-free chocolate chip cookie, plus a full coffee bar. -- D.D. l 3730 Cross Creek Road, Malibu, basqueria.co -- Broad Street Oyster Co. Malibu has, for decades, been a seafood destination, with stalwarts Malibu Seafood and Neptune's Net drawing countless diners from around the globe. But in 2019 a more modern iteration planted its flag, and now those diners craving shellfish, lobster rolls and fried shrimp flock to a corner of the Malibu Village shopping complex. Founder Christopher Tompkins' funky, nostalgia-tinged take on the seafood shack trades in high-low: There's cheap beer, but also caviar on the hot dog. There are dependable staples like clam chowder and fried calamari, but also delicate seasonal crudos, spiny-lobster spaghetti, seafood towers and a range of natural wines. The merch and decor hark to the '90s, and the all-outdoor setting is always a scene perfect for people watching. -- S.B. l 23359 Pacific Coast Highway, Malibu, (424) 644-0131, broadstreetoyster.com -- Clark's Oyster Bar One of the newest restaurants to open in Malibu is also one of the chicest: The Austin, Texas-founded Clark's Oyster Bar debuted post-Palisades fire in the Cross Creek Ranch complex, shucking an array of oysters and pouring bracingly cold martinis and a few dozen wines and sakes by the glass. A range of caviars can be ordered alongside jumbo shrimp cocktails, crudos, ceviches, Louie salads and from-the-grill plates such as oysters with melted leeks and bacon breadcrumbs; just-charred Spanish octopus; an inventive take on shrimp toast; and the catch of the day. Finish with affogato or a Key lime tart -- or simply order another martini from its ample selection. -- S.B. l 23465 Civic Center Way Suite 210, Malibu, clarksoysterbar.com/locations/malibu -- Lily's Lily Castro is a local legend. Before she served the most famous burritos in Malibu, the Salvadoran chef operated the storefront as a doughnut shop with her family. Soon she began incorporating some of her savory specialties, and with the encouragement of her late husband and their customers, rebranded the Point Dume Village shop as her own eponymous restaurant in 1989. Here she makes everything from scratch: the silken, flavorful beans, the piquant yellow-green salsa with its own cult following, the piled-high tortas, and of course the beloved burritos. She sells thousands of them each year, with local schools sometimes ordering 500 burritos at a time. ""Everything you see here is my own recipe: the salsa, the way we marinate chicken,"" she said. ""Nobody can compete with me because my food is my Lily style."" But following the fires, Castro says she saw business dip as much as 50%. Thankfully, she added, business is returning now that tourists can access PCH again, and she is grateful to them and the Malibu community for their support in the last year -- and over the last four decades. -- S.B. l 29211 Heathercliff Road, Malibu, lilysmalibu.com -- Malibu Farm Find Helene Henderson's Malibu Farm cafe and restaurant at the beginning of the Malibu Pier, with seating that spills onto both sides of the walkway and an outdoor patio perched above the water. Order a quick coffee and pastry at the host stand and enjoy your selections at one of the public tables, or sit down for a full farm-to-table brunch or dinner, with highlights such as crab cakes stuffed with Maryland blue jumbo lump crab, zucchini crust pizza and hearts of palm linguine, with plenty of vegan, nut- and gluten-free options to choose from. Henderson is also behind the Malibu Farm Pier Cafe at the end of the pier, which is temporarily closed due to ongoing repairs. -- D.D. l 23000 CA-1 Building A, Malibu, malibu-farm.com -- Sake House Perched above Pacific Coast Highway, just across the street from Nobu Malibu, is the new Sake House. It's a sprawling outdoor space with a mix of lounge and table seating that offers sweeping views of the Pacific Ocean. It's one of the best places to watch the sun set on PCH. The menu is a mix of traditional nigiri and what the restaurant refers to as ""sushi tacos."" They're temaki gilded with things like miso butter, caviar and freshly shaved truffle. The sake selection is sizable but not expansive, with a bottle or glass to pair with whatever you're eating. If you need a recommendation, the staff is eager to assist. -- Jenn Harris l 22741 Pacific Coast Highway, Malibu, (424) 422-7512, sakehousemalibu.com -- The Sunset Restaurant Moonshadows, one of the California coastline's most iconic restaurants, burned in the Palisades fire. While the decades-beloved hot spot known for its ocean view and celebrity sightings is gone, its memory lives on farther up the coast, at sibling spot the Sunset Restaurant. The Sunset Restaurant, from the same owners, sits practically on the sand at the border of Westward and Zuma beaches. Though not hanging over the sea as Moonshadows did, its dining room still boasts an ocean view that's particularly scenic at sundown, and even offers some of the same dishes that Moonshadows served through the years. That familiar, cylindrical stack of tuna tartare layered with avocado, seaweed salad and razor-thin cucumbers can be found here, as can the house-made pumpkin tortelloni in brown butter and sage sauce. Moonshadows' takeout bags -- one of the few remnants of the since-destroyed restaurant -- are used at its counterpart in ode to the remembered restaurant, and much of its staff carried over too, filling the Sunset Restaurant with faces that will be familiar to Moonshadows fans. -- S.B. l 6800 Westward Beach Road, Malibu, (310) 589-1007, thesunsetrestaurant.com -- Taverna Tony The 35-year-old restaurant underwent a remodel in 2025, with a revamped dining room surrounded in white plaster walls that mimic the cliffsides of the Greek isles. The dining room may be brighter, but it's the same Taverna Tony that diners fell in love with in the '90s. The skillets of saganaki cheese are still set aflame at the table. Mountains of Greek salad are built from fresh tomatoes, cucumber and feta cheese. The house dip, a fluffy avocado and garlic paste, still makes its way to every table alongside a basket of warm, crusty bread. The surrounding storefronts of the Malibu Country Mart may change, but Taverna Tony remains a Malibu neighborhood staple. -- J.H. l 23410 Civic Center Way, Malibu, (310) 317-9667, tavernatony.com CREDIT: BY L.A. TIMES STAFF" 3297937913,"A PALISADES RESTAURANT RISES AGAIN: A year after the fire, a local-favorite Italian restaurant reopens in Venice",2026-02-01,Los Angeles Times,Feature,Weekend; L; Food Desk,L.5,L.5,Home Edition,Food Desk,,"Copyright Los Angeles Times Feb 1, 2026",1160,1000,['Jenn Harris'],"['Restaurants', 'Pasta']",['Italy'],[],[],[],"['RESTAURANTS', 'VENICE (CA)', 'BRUSH FIRES', 'PACIFIC PALISADES (CA)']","The patio at Cinque Terre West in Venice is petite but cozy, with a handful of tables and counter seating that offer a prime view into the bustling kitchen. Nestled onto a busy stretch of Rose Avenue, it feels smaller and even livelier than the original Cinque Terre West, a local favorite in the Gardens at Palisades strip mall in the center of the town. But the chef gliding from one end of the kitchen to the other, pan-frying veal chops, draining fresh pasta and dimpling pans of focaccia, is still a smiling Gianbattista ""Gianba"" Vinzoni. Vinzoni and his wife, Marlo, who lost multiple businesses in the Palisades fire, and whose home was also damaged, are once again starting to feel like part of a thriving community. The two reopened Cinqure Terre West, the restaurant they first introduced to the Palisades in 2019, in Venice at the end of June. The bright blue facade is a beacon of hope at a time when many residents and business owners are still caught in the difficult process of rebuilding after the fires. ""Even before we opened, when we were working on the space, people came to welcome us to the neighborhood,"" says Marlo. ""They said they wanted to help us build a new community here in Venice."" Gianba, who grew up in the Cinque Terre region of Italy, always dreamed of owning his own restaurant. After running the kitchen in places like Soho House, the Beverly Hilton and Fig and Olive, he and Marlo opened Cinque Terre West with a menu inspired by his family's Ligurian roots. Two years later came Enoteca 5 wine bar in the same Palisades shopping center, followed by Deliziozo Cinque bakery and cafe in 2023. The couple were aboard the last flight to land at Los Angeles International Airport on Jan. 7, 2025. They returned from their winter vacation but couldn't go home to their condo in the Palisades. The next morning, Gianba walked from Santa Monica to the Palisades to find his entire neighborhood burning. His condo was still standing, but there were firefighters on the roof of the strip mall that housed his restaurant and wine bar. ""There was smoke damage, a lot of damage,"" he says. ""It was terrible. I walked to the back of the building and it was burned. Everything was gone."" It's difficult to quantify what was lost in both the Palisades and Eaton fires that ravaged opposite ends of our city a little more than a year ago. The fires collectively burned nearly 40,000 acres and destroyed more than 16,000 structures. People lost homes. Businesses closed forever. And a sense of community built over decades went up in smoke. ""It's a very difficult topic for us because we didn't just have a business in the Palisades. We lived there for 22 years,"" says Gianba. ""We raised two kids there,"" adds Marlo. ""Their preschool, elementary school, the church where they were baptized. We loved it. All of it is gone."" Like thousands of other fire victims, Gianba and Marlo spent hours turning their lives into inventory lists of possessions. How much was their couch worth? The TV? The windows of their condo were open when they left town before the fire. When they returned, everything needed to be thrown away. Amid the urgent tasks of finding temporary housing and replacing cherished belongings, the couple was simultaneously dealing with the uncertain future of their restaurants. The Vinzoni's built a loyal base of customers over the years, and many reached out to see how they could help. Two months after the fires, someone from the Colony ghost kitchens offered a space to start cooking again, and a break on the rent. Gianba operated out of the space for a short while but longed to have his own restaurant again. ""The community even started a GoFundMe for us, which was pretty amazing,"" Gianba says. ""They were able to raise some funds, but one of our customers stepped in and said, 'Look, you guys are such a part of the community, you can't not be in business.' "" Marlo and Gianba moved into the former Bluestone Lane space on Rose Avenue and opened Cinque Terre West on June 23. The building's facade features a name at the top that lists both the Palisades and Venice as locations. ""It's great, but totally different, with a different clientele,"" says Gianba. ""People dine later, so the hours are a little different. It's really a different crowd."" There are flaky croissants, poached eggs and omelets for breakfast. And for lunch and dinner, fans of the original restaurant can relish in Gianba's familiar regional cooking, with standouts like his grandmother's pesto. It's a sauce he learned to make at his family's home in Bonassola, Italy, where his grandmother would make everything by hand or feet, including stomping grapes to make wine. She used to pummel the fresh basil, Pecorino, pine nuts and olive oil in a mortar and pestle until a deep forest green paste formed. Gianba uses the wonderfully herbaceous sauce to coat tightly coiled spirals of fresh trofie pasta, then finishes the dish with a handful of more cheese. His pizzas are slender, crisp discs, with amber blistered crusts and surfaces blanketed with tender artichokes or spicy salami and mushrooms. On a chilly, late December evening, I found solace and warmth in a bowl of buridda, another one of Gianba's signature Ligurian dishes. It's a light tomato broth crowded with mussels, clams, scallops and shrimp. Big boulders of tomato are soft and sweet, nestled up to razor-thin, ""Goodfellas"" style slivers of garlic and wilted leaves of basil. It's a bowl I've found myself craving in recent weeks, an anchor to something that feels steady, hearty and grounding. Marlo and Gianba are uncertain if they will ever reopen a restaurant in the Palisades. But for now, they're focused on rebuilding what they can. ""We see a lot of Palisadians come here,"" says Marlo. ""Everybody says the same thing. It feels like a piece of home when we are here with you."" l Cinque Terre West, 523 Rose Ave., Venice, (310) 394-1315, cinqueterrewest.com" 3297937928,"COME FOR THE SEQUOIAS, STAY FOR THE LOCAL CHARMS: Why Visalia is a worthy destination in its own right",2026-02-01,Los Angeles Times,Feature,Weekend; L; Travel Desk,L.2,L.2,Home Edition,Travel Desk,,"Copyright Los Angeles Times Feb 1, 2026",1580,2722,['Jessie Schiewe'],"['Farmers', 'Coffee', 'Farms', 'Autism', 'Recipes', 'Restaurants', 'National parks', 'Museums', 'Breweries']","['United States--US', 'Central Valley', 'Tulare County California', 'California', 'Visalia California']",[],[],[],['VISALIA (CA)'],"EVEN THOUGH VISALIA holds the title of being the oldest city in the San Joaquin Valley, it's more likely a place you've passed through on your way to visit General Sherman or the infamous carved Tunnel Log. Many Angelenos don't even know how to properly pronounce its name. But Visalia (say it: vai-SAY-lee-uh) -- a place long known as ""the gateway to the Sequoias"" for its proximity to Sequoia and Kings Canyon national parks -- is becoming a destination in its own right. The 151-year-old Central Valley city has been working hard to shed its bucolic stereotypes and reinvent itself as a cosmopolitan oasis with hip boutiques, craft breweries and a revamped downtown. Changes started happening about five years ago when the Darling Hotel opened in the bones of the former 1930s Tulare County Courthouse annex. The Art Deco boutique hotel offers chic accommodations, catering to design-savvy travelers. Nowadays, downtown's East Main Street, which plays host to tchotchke-laden antique stores and patio dining, is a vibrant, walkable hub. At First Friday Downtown Art Walks, people can groove to a steady playlist of popular tunes thanks to a speaker system the city installed along the sidewalks. And although its Chinatown has been dismantled for years, many Chinese restaurants and a sizable Asian population remain, along with some of the community's original Asian-inspired architecture along Main Street. -- With farmlands nearby, farmers markets are held not once but twice a week in Visalia's downtown area, while local farms offer pick-your-own visits and plenty of restaurants make use of the local and seasonal produce at their disposal (seek out the honey glazed shrimp made with locally grown walnuts at Canton Restaurant as well as the berry pies and fruit preserves at the Vintage Press Restaurante). Counterculture types will find respite at music and vintage store Velouria Records, cult film fans can catch free and low-cost screenings at the historic Visalia Fox Theater and paranormal enthusiasts can chase spirits on ghost tours or late-night jaunts to the notoriously haunted Visalia Public Cemetery. There is even an extensive underground tunnel system -- once used to operate gambling joints and opium dens -- that still exists below downtown. Some people still find their way into them -- those who aren't deterred by massive spiders or trespassing charges, that is. The city comes together for annual events, such as the twice-yearly downtown Wine Walk, the culinary extravaganza Taste of Visalia or the wintertime tradition Candy Cane Lane Parade, which celebrated its 79th anniversary in December. Also notable: Visalia became the first city in the United States to be designated a Certified Autism Destination in 2022, training at least 80% of its guest and public-facing staff in autism and sensory disorders. As the city continues shucking its former reputation as a drive-by dot on the map, SoCal residents seeking a weekend escape only a few hours away would do well to take note. There is plenty of natural beauty to be found in the area, and one doesn't have to drive into the higher elevations of the Southern Sierra Nevada Mountains to get some adventure time in. Rent a boat or a kayak at nearby Lake Kaweah, strap on a helmet and do some whitewater rafting in Three Rivers or wander through preserved wetlands that have been untouched for centuries. It might not be the first place on your California vacation bucket list, but Visalia is worthy of a visit -- and with its rapidly changing cityscape, will likely have more to offer with each passing year. -- Relax under oak trees at Mooney Grove Park Steeped in history and cloaked in shade provided by more than 1,000 trees, Mooney Grove Park is one of Visalia's oldest natural gems and California's first county park. One-hundred fifty-five acres of dense oak groves occupy the city's south end, a swath of land originally owned by early ranchers that now serves as a key location for outdoor recreation and local history museums. Nature enthusiasts can dine alfresco at the covered picnic tables or try to spot some of the local wildlife, including Indian peafowls, California ground squirrels, Western toads and American bullfrogs. The pond is stocked with trout (so bring fishing poles) and a 1.8-mile loop trail welcomes runners, walkers and cyclists. There's an 18-hole disc golf course as well as a playground and dog park. With free admission, the Tulare County Museum complex -- consisting of the main museum, the History of Farm Labor and Agriculture Museum and the outdoor Pioneer Village -- showcases antique fashion, historic weaponry and farming machinery, Native American baskets and a historic one-room schoolhouse. l 27000 S. Mooney Blvd., Visalia -- Shop for salves at Organic Apothecary & Communitique The place in town to go for natural, locally made skin and body care products, Organic Apothecary & Communitique is run by Tulare County native April Treona Lancaster, a clinically trained herbalist who also operates the Thursday night farmers market on Church Street. She provides high-quality, small-batch products through her line Lancaster Creations, including a popular salve based on a Civil War recipe used to treat amputees on the battlefield. Regulars also flock to the shop for immune-system-fortifying tonics, infused vinegars, tea blends and traditional herbs sold by the gram. As a small-batch distiller, Lancaster also makes essential oils and hydrosols from rare and aromatic plants she grows in her organic-certified home garden. Serendipitously, the apothecary's 133-year-old corner storefront, located off East Main Street, is in the same unit that housed one of California's first pharmacies, Old Drug House, in the mid-1800s. l 105 S. Church St., Visalia, (559) 786-8826, lancastercreations.com -- Make a stop at Barrelhouse Brewing Co. on a Main Street bar hop Visalia is brimming with breweries, taprooms, taverns and bars, particularly on East Main Street, where they are within walking distance of one another, and in some cases, even side by side. A newer addition -- one that has given Main Street's nightlife scene a much-needed boost -- is Barrelhouse Brewing Co. Located in an old warehouse that opens to the street, this brewery is popular for its year-round staples, specialty drafts and event calendar that's packed with activities such as live music, trivia, bingo, line dancing and vinyl swaps. The dog-friendly establishment, which regularly hosts food trucks and allows outside food, also has vintage arcade games like pinball, hockey foosball and table shuffleboard. If you're making it a night of bar hopping -- and why not? -- don't miss Brewbakers Brewing Co., one of the city's oldest establishments, serving house beers, homemade flavored sodas and pub grub -- including a double-chocolate stout brownie -- in wood-panneled booths lighted by Tiffany-style pendant lights. (See if you can spot the mermaid perched in the rafters.) l 521 E. Main St., Visalia, (559) 713-6690, barrelhousebrewing.com/locations-visalia -- Elevate your mood at Component Coffee Lab Wedged between two buildings in its own little nook, Component Coffee Lab is easy to miss -- your map might even mistakenly direct you to its coffee-roasting unit down the block. But it's worth the effort to track down this trendy yet quaint coffee shop and cafe, the likes of which wouldn't be out of place in Los Feliz or Silver Lake. It's sort of like the Central Valley's version of Blue Bottle. While the baristas here will gladly serve you a drip coffee, pour over, Gibraltar or ""flash brew"" (their version of iced coffee), don't ignore the specialties, like the espresso tonic or whatever seasonal flavored latte is on the menu (right now, there's a Mexican-inspired atole latte spiced with cinnamon and vanilla). Component is both a popular breakfast spot -- many customers come specifically for the sprouts-topped avocado toast, decadent brioche sandwich and myriad egg dishes -- and a great place to bring a laptop and get some work done. There's outdoor seating and a covered patio, but the earthy vibes are strongest indoors, where the blond wood paneling, brick walls and proliferation of indoor plants take center stage. The shop has locations in nearby Tulare and Fresno's hipster Tower district and offers a home delivery coffee bean subscription. l 513 E. Center Ave., Visalia, (559) 624-1334, component.coffee/pages/visalia -- Enjoy a classy meal at the Vintage Press Restaurante Melding Old World Victorian charm with French bistro-inspired decor, the Vintage Press Restaurante is where folks go for a classy culinary experience not unlike the continental restaurants and steakhouses of last century. Opened in 1966, it's the longest-running family-owned eatery in Visalia, with four themed dining rooms, white-clothed tables and frequent visits from celebrities and politicians traveling through the Central Valley. Come for a Sunday brunch and munch on a three-tiered tea tray brimming with pastries, local fruit and homemade butters and jams that come complimentary before every meal. At a popular monthly event called Recipe Club, head chef David Vartanian, who co-owns the restaurant with his brother Greg, hosts a cooking demonstration before serving up a multicourse meal. With its commitment to using only fresh, seasonal ingredients, the Vintage Press' menu changes often, which is part of the fun. That blackberry crisp you devoured after your dinner last week might be replaced with a cherry crisp the next. l 216 N. Willis St., Visalia, (559) 733-3033, thevintagepress.com -- Keep sight of the goal (and your beer) at SoccerCity 1852 A unique mash-up of two cultures, SoccerCity 1852 Visalia (named for the year the city was founded) aims to be a conduit for community and culture. There's always something happening at the indoor soccer field and microbrewery taproom: youth soccer training, lively lucha libre fight nights, jumbotron watch parties or event partnerships with local organizations like the Tulare County Library Foundation. SoccerCity has netted indoor and outdoor fields and also runs soccer leagues with divisions ranging from a recreational co-ed ""Sunday Funday"" to men's and women's Division 1. But even those without cleats can come to the spot to watch a game, rent the field for a private party or enjoy any of the dozen-plus craft brews on tap. Make sure to try the hazy IPA Golden Goal, which won a gold medal in the Juicy IPA category at the Great American Beer Festival in 2023. l 707 W. Murray Ave., Visalia, (559) 746-1852, 1852visalia.com -- Boat, paddle or kayak across Lake Kaweah The massive reservoir that is Lake Kaweah was constructed by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in 1962 to prevent downstream flooding by the Kaweah River and provide irrigation to farmers in the San Joaquin Valley. Today it also offers something a bit less utilitarian: beauty and recreation for locals and travelers. Since 1964, the family-owned Kaweah Marina has been renting out boats, kayaks, paddle boards and aqua cycles on the scenic lake. In 2022, founder Dale Mehrten, who grew up on the property the lake currently sits on before it was filled with water, replaced and expanded the business' original wood marina to more than twice its size after it was decimated by a winter storm. Mehrten's daughter and son-in-law now own the marina, and they plan to pass the business on to their son in the coming years. You can rent a fishing pole and buy tackle at the shop to catch bass, crappie, bluegill, trout or catfish. Dogs are welcome too. There's a beach up the lake called Slick Rock for those who prefer stationing themselves on land. l 34467 Sierra Drive, Lemon Cove, (559) 597-2526, kaweahmarina.com -- Catch a show at the historic Visalia Fox Theatre Whether you're watching ""Real Housewives"" icon Countess Luann de Lesseps' one-woman show or a rollicking concert by Morissey, a night at the 95-year-old Visalia Fox Theatre will transport you to the past. Part of a former chain of early-20th century movie theaters, the theater is now a nonprofit 501(c)3 organization committed to preserving the historic elements of its East Indian-themed building. Listen to the music of an original 1916 Wurlitzer organ and look up at the illuminated star features on the ceiling, which are still fully operational. Of course, there have been plenty of upgrades through the years. The theater got a full state-of-the-art sound system installation in late 2023 and recently acquired a new laser projector to enhance the audio-visual experience. The calendar features both contemporary musicians and comedians regularly as well as nostalgia-fueled events like Beatles and Amy Winehouse tribute shows, big band concerts and a cocktail speakeasy paired with four Edgar Allan Poe stories. l 308 W. Main St., Visalia, (559) 625-1369, foxvisalia.org -- Hunt for vinyl at Velouria Records Parts of Visalia might conform to the country aesthetic of the agrarian Central Valley, but the counterculture scene holds firm at downtown's Velouria Records, where hipster, emo, goth and alternative folk are welcomed with open arms. Of course, it's a record store first and foremost, but current owners Adam Furtado and Tawnya Zito say the 17-year-old shop strives to be a safe haven for exploring both music and self-expression. Music-wise, Velouria prides itself on having ""something for everyone,"" whether that's new releases, iconic greats (think Miles Davis or Led Zeppelin) or obscure cuts in their bargain bin. For quality control, Furtado and Zio play every single vinyl on the shop's record player before putting it on their shelves. Doing this also helps them become better acquainted with the music, as many customers come in looking for recommendations. In addition to vinyl, Velouria sells vintage men's and women's clothing, used books, posters, pins, CDs, tapes and record cleaning supplies. Their biggest event of the year is Record Store Day in April. With special releases and can't-miss deals, it's such a big deal that lines often form around the block before the shop even opens. l 109 E Main St., Visalia, (559) 625-8000, velouriarecords.bigcartel.com -- Dine at Canton Chinese Restaurant in Visalia's former Chinatown Located in the heart of what was once Visalia's Chinatown, the family-owned Canton Restaurant has continued the tradition of serving up tasty Cantonese-style food since 1990. Owners Che and Chui Lee built the stucco and brick building on a plot of land purchased from a railroad company, topping the structure with traditional glazed clay roof tiles purchased in China. The restaurant is popular for its shrimp with honey walnut (using walnuts grown in the Central Valley), pan-fried pot stickers and orange chicken made with three fried chicken breasts served sliced, not cubed. Another popular dish, which might have originated at this restaurant, is the spicy fish made with flaky sea bass lightly coated in Japanese Panko crumbs. With its proximity to downtown's bars and breweries, as well as the Regal Visalia movie theater next door, Canton is the go-to spot for larger parties looking to eat family-style at circular tables using the traditional lazy Susan. l 419 E. Main St., Visalia, (559) 732-5716, canton-chinese.restaurants-world.com -- Pick blueberries at Big L Ranch Just a 20-minute drive north of Visalia is a family-run farm where visitors can pick five varieties of organic blueberries to their hearts' content from roughly May to June. Owners Matt and Jada Lee planted their first blueberry bushes in the rich soils of their 10-acre Tulare County property back in 2016 and now welcome upward of 10,000 visitors every blueberry season. A grassy lawn bordering the Lower Kaweah River makes for an excellent spot to relax and munch on local bakery goods, cold drinks and sandwiches sold at their snack stand. The riverside property is also populated by numerous wildlife, such as great blue herons, mallards, Canada geese and sandhill cranes. When picking berries, keep an eye out for our state bird, the California quail, which has taken up residence in the cover of the blueberry fields. l 20899 Ave. 322, Woodlake, (559) 280-2767, biglranch.com -- Spend the night in style at the Darling Hotel A chicly renovated boutique hotel located in the bones of the 1935 Tulare County Courthouse Annex, the Darling Hotel is a newer gem in the downtown area. The 32 guestrooms pay homage to the hotel's Art Deco past through upgrades like marble-finished bathrooms, vintage-style clawfoot bathtubs and meticulously preserved original mahogany paneling and woodwork. As a reference to Darlene, the late-mother of two of the hotel's owners, each bed comes adorned with a cheeky ""Hello Darling"" velvet throw pillow (which is also sold at the front desk). Cool off in the outdoor swimming pool fed by spouting water fountains and escape the sun on chaise lounges shaded by striped umbrellas. The heart of the operation is Elderwood, the hotel's fine dining restaurant and cocktail bar. Located on the top floor with sweeping views of the Sierra Nevada Mountains, it claims the title of being Visalia's only rooftop eatery, although the cobalt blue club chairs and speakeasy vibes of its interior are not to be missed either. l 210 N. Court St., Visalia, (559) 713-2113, thedarlingvisalia.com" 3297937935,"REVIEW: Two Altadena restaurants bring light and comfort: AT ONE NEIGHBORHOOD CORNER, BETSY AND MIYA ARE HEARTENING SIGNS OF LIFE",2026-02-01,Los Angeles Times,Review,Weekend; L; Food Desk,L.4,L.4,Home Edition,Food Desk,,"Copyright Los Angeles Times Feb 1, 2026",1270,1565,['Bill Addison'],['Restaurants'],[],[],[],[],[],"Stand looking out from the wide intersection of East Mariposa Street and Lake Avenue for one potent, representative view of Altadena a year after the catastrophic Eaton fire. You see rows of businesses, some returned to operation and others still shuttered, possibly forever; emptied lots surrounded by chain-link fencing; and smatterings of short trees, in front of awnings or next to a bus-stop bench, that look almost startling here in their steadfast shades of green. Over 9,000 structures, residential and commercial, burned across Altadena last January. Bureaucracy has made rebuilding slow. Many who lost their homes -- including generations of Black locals who gave the mountain town a defining part of its identity for decades -- remain displaced. -- It is human instinct to search for hopefulness amid overwhelming destruction. On this corner, where low buildings and rising elevation make the sky appear especially vast, two heartening signs of life sit 279 feet apart: Betsy and Miya, restaurants both owned by Altadena residents whose houses were consumed in flames, and whose businesses were spared enough damage that they could reopen last year. They are entirely different places. Betsy falls into the category of ambitious American bistro, powered by a central open hearth. Just across the street, Miya is a quirky, two-room Thai charmer with a relatively concise menu of curries, noodles, soups, salads and vegetables. Geography and tragedy unite them, as does the purr of comfort inherent in their cooking. In an era of extreme division and cynicism, I have all but shed the naive idea of espousing restaurants as hubs of community that bring people closer. Dine at either of these establishments, though, and you feel it. The neighborly goodwill. The ache for vitality among ruin. The absolute rightness of being together. -- Betsy Park along Betsy's block on a dark winter night, walk past the sobering charred brick shell that housed Altadena Hardware for decades and look for the restaurant's inviting string of lights hung over the entrance. Inside, light from shaded lamps and sconces glows amber-soft. Knotty patterns ripple through the wood paneling like images of sound waves. The playlist is classic soul and '90s hip-hop, with a few discos tunes thrown in early evening. Tables fill nightly. The din registers as cheering, not deafening. Betsy's emphasis on coziness feels almost prescient -- as if knowing how imperative an enveloping, intimate atmosphere would be needed -- given that the place opened only a month before the Eaton fire. It was called Bernee at first, started by the team of Tyler Wells and Ashley Bernee, then married, who also ran All Time in Los Feliz. The couple split last year. Ashley took over All Time. The Altadena space suffered minimal damage, and after months of introspection and urging from his employees, Tyler rechristened the place as Betsy in August. Tyler is an upbeat, engaged presence, a blur of motion in a bow tie or snappy hat, delivering plates or uncorking bottles of wine. Executive chef Paul Downer, who previously held the same title at All Time, stands at the center edge of the open kitchen framed by the hearth. Cooks jostle blazing logs and tend to cast-iron pots set on tiered grates. It's hard not to pause at this sight, noticing the layers of ash beneath the grating and the blackened tiles behind the hearth, without thoughts flashing to the subject of humans and fires. Regulars of All Time will recognize the succinct, broadly Californian-Italian tenor of the menu: sharply-dressed, cheese-boosted salads with lettuces and seasonal produce from local farms; entrees that include usually at least one pasta or plate of fish but lean into handsome hunks of meat with well-seasoned sides. Ricotta gnocchi takes after the Parisian model, finished in a pan until each piece has a deep-brown oval sear, arriving simply sauced in lemon and fragrant black pepper under a blanket of Parmesan. A massive pork chop, roughly in the shape of Australia, lands smoky and sliced and surrounded by market inspirations: succotash in the warmer months, roasted squashes and heartier greens in January. A tomahawk steak rings in at $185, served with chimichurri and a Worcestershire-powered steak sauce, and it could easily be the meal's centerpiece for four people. A side of potatoes, roasted in beef tallow, crackle and yield in elementally satisfying ways. I admire the subtle twists of inspiration here and there. For cheeseheads like me, so bored with the repetitive appearance of standards like Humboldt Fog, it's fun for a daily-changing cheese plate to present a ripe slice of Linedeline, a goat's-milk beauty made in Wisconsin with a thin mottled rind and a wobbly cream line that nicely contrasts the pleasantly chalky center. A special of Rancho Gordo fava beans, paired with buttery Chanterelle mushrooms, was earthy sustenance ideally suited to chase away the chill of recent rainy evenings. ""Yeah, we're a band of trauma survivors here,"" says server Courtney Johnson, who also curates the wine list, as she opens a bottle of full-bodied white from the Savoie while conversing. Johnson grew up two blocks from Betsy and was also forced to relocate after the fire. She doesn't say the words with bitterness. Like this whole operation, she's conveying realism, and chosen purpose, and possibility. -- Miya At Miya, more often than anything else, I'm disappearing into a plate of fried chicken at lunchtime. The dish begins as a riff on a recipe most associated with Hat Yai, the largest city in southern Thailand. Chicken thighs first absorb a garlicky, peppery spice marinade stained with turmeric to accentuate the golden crust. Together with thin shallot rings, the bird fries in a coating of rice flour to achieve an airy crispness and plenty of splintered, shattering bits of batter. For effective contrast alongside: a bundle of sticky rice, papaya salad with gently limey punch and sweet chile sauce for dipping. It's become a favorite midday meal, especially when I have the time to settle in the sunny two-room space. Owner David Tewasart, who also operates four locations of Sticky Rice plus Moon Rabbit in Grand Central Market, tells me he's Gen X without telling me he's Gen X. We may have grown up in different cultures, but the nostalgia in his decor mirrors my own: the '80s-era Panasonic boombox displayed with a shelf full of Thai pop music cassettes below; the vintage movie poster of Star Wars, its name written in Thai abugida; the iconic art from Duran Duran's ""Rio""; and, in the newer 30-seat room embellished with black-and-white geometric tiles and colorful stained glass, a blown-up cover of Madonna's first album hung by the window in view of passersby. These objets d'art have personal resonance: While the menu at Sticky Rice leans into Thai street food, Tewasart envisioned Miya serving a homier style of multiregional cooking. The location also happened to be near his home: He and his family moved to Altadena in 2016 and opened Miya seven years later. Little remained of their house after the Eaton fire. Miya's landlord was able to remediate the restaurant's building and Tewasart determinedly reopened in May, when at first there were few customers around to serve. Now more diners are flowing through, gazing at the handwritten menu on the wall affixed with neat strips of orange tape, or calling ahead. Miya prepares a lot of takeout. Those who stick around often wind up bent over bowls of calming khao soi, the thatch of fried noodles slowly sinking and softening in the coconut broth tinted orange from spices. The kitchen tends to leave the heat customizable, with extra-large bottles of chile sauce close at hand, or splashes of green chile-laced prik nam pla to add funk and edge to dishes like easy-to-love crab fried rice. With almost anything I order a side of appealingly reedy stir-fried morning glory (water spinach). Curries -- nutty beef panang, a ruddy meatless variation made with pumpkin -- emphasize creaminess and mild aromatic complexity. Among noodles, the staff quickly recommends pad kee mao, crowded with vegetables, for its wok-smoky intensity. Because I'm a lunchtime habitue, I made a point this week to come for dinner, when the menu includes a few additional items. Among them are rad na, a Thai-Chinese dish of wide rice noodles that arrive with a visible sear from the wok, tangled with pieces of chicken and shrimp and slicked with gravy. A zenith of comfort food. At night something else stood out: a pink neon sign that reads ""delicatessen,"" with the blinking horizontal bulbs of an old-fashioned movie marquee. Kern's Deli occupied the space for decades in the mid-20th century. It closed in the 1980s, when Tewasart was a teenager. Looking up at this switched-on electric relic, though, draws out a lopsided smile. We never know what might endure to light our way, even if only from the street to the door. -- Miya 2470 Lake Ave., Altadena, (818) 561-8660, miyaonlake.com Prices: Dinnertime appetizers $12, soups $15, entrees (including noodles, curries and fried rice) $17-$18. Most lunchtime dishes $15 Details: Tuesday to Sunday, 11 a.m. to 9 p.m. Beverage selection includes a fun mix of beer, wine and canned sake. Street parking Recommended dishes: Fried chicken and papaya salad, khao soi, pad kee mao, rad na with chicken and shrimp, morning glory -- Betsy 875 E. Mariposa St., Altadena, betsyaltadena.com Prices: Salads and other starters $14 to $21, most entrees $29 to $59, desserts $12 to $14 Details: Open daily for dinner 5 to 10 p.m. Wine-focused beverage program. Street parking Recommended dishes: Seasonal salads, ""cheese we are liking,"" pork chop, tomahawk rib-eye, wood-oven cheesecake CREDIT: RESTAURANT CRITIC" 3297937941,"A rugged adventure in SoCal -- all on two wheels: An expert cyclist shares 6 scenic spots for bikepacking, backpacking by bike",2026-02-01,Los Angeles Times,Feature,Weekend; L; Travel Desk,L.8,L.8,Home Edition,Travel Desk,,"Copyright Los Angeles Times Feb 1, 2026",1070,1306,['Brian E Clark'],"['All terrain bicycles', 'Satellite communications', 'Backpacking', 'Mountains', 'Camping', 'National parks', 'Roads & highways', 'Bicycling']","['Santa Barbara California', 'Los Angeles California', 'United States--US', 'San Gabriel Mountains', 'Southern California']",[],[],[],"['BICYCLING', 'BACKPACKS', 'CATALINA ISLAND', 'ANGELES NATIONAL FOREST', 'JOSHUA TREE (CA)', 'JOSHUA TREE NATIONAL PARK', 'OJAI (CA)', 'LOS PADRES NATIONAL FOREST', 'LOS ANGELES']","GROWING UP, Daniel Connell loved bicycling on streets near his home in Cheviot Hills. In college, he began camping. But it wasn't until he combined the two that his adventures really began. Connell was bikepacking -- backpacking by bike. Bikepackers are usually found off-road, pedaling up and down dirt trails and then finding sites to set up their tents and spend the night. With a bicycle, you can cover more terrain than by foot yet still access rugged trails closed off to cars. In his early days with the sport, Connell rode from Santa Barbara to Medellin, Colombia, on a 1980s mountain bike he bought for $100. He then pedaled from Egypt to South Africa with a couple of friends. Last year, he completed a ""Triple Everest"" in Santa Barbara, riding the equivalent of three trips up the globe's tallest mountain, more than 87,000 vertical feet. He also rode nearly 3,000 miles from Canada to Mexico on a route that traverses the Rockies in a self-supported race called the Tour Divide. This summer, he plans to set off from Prudhoe Bay, Alaska on his bike and eventually end up at the tip of South America in Patagonia in an effort to break the world speed record for the 13,500-mile ride. Much of the lengthy pedal will be along the Pan American Highway. -- ""I feel focused, incredibly free and alive when I'm on my bike,"" says Connell, known in the cycling world as ""Dirty Dan,"" whose adventures are sponsored by the Trek Bicycle Corp.. Interested in trying bikepacking? Connell says novices should have ""at least some exposure to trail riding and camping in the wilderness."" He recommends starting small: load up your bike with gear and just practice pedaling with all that extra weight. (His own Trek Supercaliber cross-country mountain bike weighs 55 pounds when completely loaded.) And go with someone more experienced. You can find bikepacking groups on Facebook, Meetup, Reddit or by checking your local bike shop. Topanga Creek Outpost, Connell says, is focused almost entirely on bikepacking. Connell believes that Los Angeles is a great place for bikepacking ""as long as you're willing to get outside of the city center and up into the hills away from the cars. Here are six rides he suggests in Southern California, most of which come from bikepacking.com, a website Connell calls an ""online bikepacking mecca."" Note that the markers on this map are rough starting points for the routes. For links to the routes, scan the QR code at the end of the story. -- Catalina Route: ""Catalina Bikepack Getaway"" via Ride With GPS Connell calls this two-day tour of 22-mile-long Catalina Island the Los Angeles area's ""crown jewel of beginner bikepacking"" because it's almost free (aside from the ferry ride from San Pedro); it's logically straightforward when it comes to camping; and it offers stunning views throughout. The 40.8-mile route starts in Two Harbors, ends in Avalon, and you might even see breaching whales, island foxes and bison. The ride has a total elevation gain of 4,897 feet and a maximum uphill grade of 14.3% and downhill grade of 18.8%, so make sure your bike has good brakes. For camping reservations contact the Catalina Conservancy. Connell's pro tip: Be sure to pack binoculars in case you see whale spouts in the distance, which would not be uncommon. Distance: 40.8 miles Difficulty: Strenuous -- Angeles National Park via the San Gabriel Mountains Route: ""L.A. Observer"" via bikepacking.com Located directly behind Pasadena, Connell says this 60-mile, two-day trip in Angeles National Forest will have you ""dancing around"" some of the highest parts of the San Gabriel Mountains at more than 5,000-plus feet, with great views of 10,069-foot Mt. Baldy. And even though it's a short distance from the busy L.A. metropolis, he says the route provides solitude. The Observer jaunt connects the Mt. Wilson Observatory with Mt. Lukens and offers miles of abandoned dirt roads, two-track and flowing single-track trails. The start up Chaney Trail is challenging, averaging a 10.8% grade -- with some parts as steep as 16% -- so you may find yourself walking your bike. Connell's pro tip: Wear shoes you can hike in, in case some of the steep climbs feel unrideable. l 100 Mt. Wilson Circle Road, Mt. Wilson Distance: 60 miles Difficulty: Strenuous Elevation: 5,700 -- Joshua Tree Route: Bikepacking Joshua Tree via bikepacking.com Connell calls this an easy two- to three-day nontechnical route that -- at around 120 miles from Los Angeles -- is worth the drive. Getting out into the vast landscape of Joshua Tree National Park, camping and experiencing a spectacular starry night sky is a delight, he adds. This trip covers 80 miles and two-thirds of it is unpaved. It has a total climb of just 1,805 feet and reaches a high point of 4,500 feet. In addition to namesake Joshua trees and cactuses, you might see bighorn sheep, coyotes, a desert tortoise and maybe a bobcat. Check ahead with the National Park Service on camping in Joshua Tree. Connell's pro tip: Pay close attention to weather forecasts as climate in the desert can change rapidly and with short notice. Hot days and very cold nights are not uncommon, so plan accordingly. Distance: 80 miles Difficulty: Strenuous Elevation: 4,500 -- Ojai Route: Ojai Rim Loop via bikepacking.com The Ojai Rim Loop is a relatively short (at 67 miles) and sometimes difficult ride around the scenic Ojai Valley with what Connell describes as ""out-of-this-world views"" primarily of the Topatopa Mountains to the east and Channel Islands out in the Pacific. This overnight jaunt has a variety of dirt roads, single-track trails, some bike paths and a 6,700-foot halfway point at Hines Peak, which requires a three-mile hike on foot. The Loop is about 80 miles north of L.A. Be sure to bring extra water and expect to walk your bike on steeper sections. Connell's pro tip: Pack more food and water than you think you need. The terrain can be challenging, and it may take longer than you expect to get through this beauty of a route. Distance: 67 miles Difficulty: Strenuous Elevation: 6,700 feet -- Southern Los Padres National Forest in Central California Route: Tour de los Padres via Bikepacking Roots For a longer trip of four to five days, Connell says none can compare to the wilderness feel of the Tour de Los Padres route. ""It's for more advanced riders with rugged, varied terrain with steep climbs and creeks crossings,"" he says. It's a proper backcountry experience but certainly should not be anyone's first-ever bikepacking trip. The route has steep sections, covers 186 miles and has a total elevation gain of 18,500 feet on rough gravel and single-track trails. It begins in Frazier Park, a village in Kern County set at nearly 5,000 feet, and ends in Ventura, so you'll need to arrange a shuttle. Connell's pro tip: Bring a satellite communication device such as a Spot device or a Garmin In-Reach. This is a wilderness experience with no cell service, and a satellite communication device can be a lifesaver if an unexpected issue arises, like a rattlesnake bite. Distance: 186 miles Difficulty: Strenuous Elevation: 18,500 feet -- The 'Escape LA' tour in November Route: Escape LA tour at labikepackingsucks.com For something totally out there on the edge, the 311-mile, six-day Escape LA bikepacking tour starts and ends at the Santa Monica Pier. It has more than 44,000 feet of climbing. It was designed by Gregg Dunham, who organizes a ""grand departure"" each November for hardcore bikepackers who are also skilled mountain bikers familiar with technical terrain. Putting you deep into the wilderness, it is not for the faint of heart. ""Whether you like dodging beachgoers on the oceanfront, climbing endless coastal canyons, going totally aero on a road section, ripping chunky singletrack, or traversing endless forest roads, this route has it,"" the route's website reads. Connell's pro tip: Prepare for this epic ride by spending time riding a loaded bicycle up steep climbs and down technical terrain. You don't want this challenging route to be your first time learning those skills. l 200 Santa Monica Pier, Santa Monica Distance: 311.3 miles Difficulty: Strenuous Elevation: 44,195" 3297937955,"L.A. AFFAIRS: Ultimate deception: In our time together, there were many questions and lies",2026-02-01,Los Angeles Times,Feature,Weekend; L; Features Desk,L.10,L.10,Home Edition,Features Desk,,"Copyright Los Angeles Times Feb 1, 2026",800,1241,['Margaret Keane'],['Actors'],"['United States--US', 'Virginia']",[],[],[],[],"OUR MEET was not cute; he wrote psychological thrillers, not rom-coms. I appeared in his suggested profiles on Instagram. He followed, and I, a wannabe actor who shrewdly noted the CAA tag in his bio, followed back. No matter how much this city jades you, that hope of getting ""discovered"" is stubborn. I ignored all the other female actors he followed. I ignored the absence of tagged posts and friends in his photos. On our first date, I was 10 months sober in AA and I had been celibate for a year and a half. I had sworn that the next time I had sex would be antithetical to all the sex I'd had before: sober, consensual and with genuine trust and care for each other. He took this oath seriously, and I was grateful. After two months of hand stuff and dry humping, Malibu hiking, making out at Yamashiro and dressing up for Cinespia at Hollywood Forever Cemetery, I finally let him put the P into the V in an Airbnb in Joshua Tree. We had sex under the late October stars, and in the morning, we went at it again on top of a rock in the middle of the park. He bought me vegan Van Leeuwen on the drive back, and from then on, we were sufficiently hooked. He spoke of his past infrequently, but would answer when asked. He was born in Virginia, he told me, where I am also from. But shortly thereafter, he moved to Beachwood Canyon with his parents and younger brother. He promised to one day show me the house he grew up in. He went to UCLA and had been living in Hollywood with his brother ever since they graduated. He mentioned a few friends, but I never saw them. I reasoned that he was in his 30s, and he worked in a lonely, every-man-for-himself kind of industry. And he had his brother, with whom he was supremely close, though I had yet to meet him either. By Christmas, I was antsy. He told me he loved me as the ball dropped on New Year's Eve. A week later, the January wildfires came. We escaped together, and my worried father on the East Coast paid for a hotel room further south. We made romance out of tragedy and took our time on the way back when the Sunset fire evacuation orders were lifted. Driving up PCH, he flipped a U to pull into a shake shop. ""We used to go here all the time as kids,"" he said. Then he grabbed his credit card and instructed me to order us two shakes. I figured this nostalgia must have distracted him from the fact that my weak stomach could not handle dairy in such large quantities. Still, I ordered one -- I didn't want to put a dimmer on his inner child indulgence. Later, I threw up, but it was worth it; I was grateful to be included in such a joyous memory of his. The initial chaos of the fires subsided, and I had still yet to meet anyone in his life. We were nearing six months. I never felt suspicious. Just restless. He took my impatience in stride and spoke of plans for me to meet his younger brother soon. Later, he reasoned that he was waiting until after my birthday -- he didn't want to ruin my celebratory state with the truth. An anonymous woman online struck first, just one week before. It was in one of those Facebook groups. You know the one: Are We Dating the Same Guy? Los Angeles LA. He was in my bathroom when I got the alert. He didn't grow up in L.A., the woman wrote. He lived with his twin. He didn't go to UCLA. He'll never commit to you. When he returned, all I could do was hand him my phone. He didn't pull away from the screen in shock. He simply sat on the bed, took a deep breath and repeated the same monologue he'd delivered to all of the young female actors before me. It was true. His brother wasn't two years younger, but two minutes. They were twins. He didn't grow up in L.A., but in Virginia and then all over the U.S. He didn't go to UCLA, but to a university in Virginia. He said he and his twin were in cahoots on this bizarre lie. They had been telling it to women for years. He said the industry would take him more seriously if he were from here. He said people had prejudices against male twins. (Huh? I thought.) He looked at me with his sad baby blues and shared how he told these innocuous falsities, ultimately, out of deep-seeded self-hatred. My pity outweighed my pride, and we stayed together another month and a half. I fought for us. I wanted to fix him, to give him the love he claimed to never have gotten. Being a positive influence became a new addiction. I gave him bell hooks' ""All About Love,"" which emphasizes the necessity for honesty in all partnerships. I gently suggested therapy. We distracted ourselves by maximizing my AMC Stubs membership to see all the Oscar-nominated movies. But questions kept coming, and my trust was crumbling. ""What about that shake place?"" I asked one day abruptly. ""It was just a random shake place."" He smirked. I'd like to say that was the end -- the realization that he let me make myself physically sick for his lies -- but it wasn't. That same month, I moved to Silver Lake, and he helped immensely. He went on tours with me, built my bed and schlepped all my clothes over from Hollywood. And that's what's so frustrating: As much as it was sick, it was also sweet. As much as he may have appeared psychotic, he was also romantic. Just like this city. Eventually, my suspicions outgrew my compassion. I finally called him out for all the Instagram baddies he followed, and he blew up, accusing me of self-sabotaging. The sad part is I believed it. It took a long call with my sponsor to understand my misgivings were valid and that I deserved someone who would put in the work to regain my trust when they'd broken it. He wasn't capable of that. We went no contact for a week and then met for take-out Thai food in Silver Lake Meadow. He had read ""All About Love"" (allegedly) and claimed he'd made a therapy appointment. I told him maybe in some time he could call me. It was bittersweet and cinematic. We kissed and then walked off in opposite directions. I cried for a week and I had hope for about a month. We did meet up again in the summer. He had quit therapy and started smoking, and I caught him stumbling in some random lies again. I ended it for good over text. Early on, he joked that ""the worst thing you can call someone in L.A. is a poser."" I wish I'd noted that line as foreshadowing, but just like any good mystery, the clues are only evident in hindsight. -- > L.A. Affairs chronicles the search for romantic love in all its glorious expressions in the L.A. area, and we want to hear your true story. We pay $400 for a published essay. Email LAAffairs@latimes.com. You can find past columns at latimes.com/laaffairs. CREDIT: The author works as a freelance production assistant and at the front desk of a local yoga studio. She lives in Silver Lake. She's on Instagram: @margaretkeanee." 3297937956,WOULD YOU TRY CALIFORNIA'S FASTEST ZIP LINES? BUELLTON'S HIGHLINE ADVENTURES OFFERS A ZOOM WITH A VIEW,2026-02-01,Los Angeles Times,Feature,Weekend; L; Travel Desk,L.9,L.9,Home Edition,Travel Desk,,"Copyright Los Angeles Times Feb 1, 2026",1290,1078,['Jaclyn Cosgrove'],"['Families & family life', 'Adventure', 'Drought']","['California', 'United States--US', 'Santa Ynez Valley']",[],[],[],"['BUELLTON (CA)', 'ZIP LINING']","I FELT LIKE A HAWK catching a gentle breeze as I flew about 400 feet over the oak woodlands and ranchland below me. I was harnessed into the first of three zip lines available at Highline Adventures near Buellton, an expansive adventure park where Californians of every age can find something fun to do -- including zooming down the fastest zip line in the state. Highline Adventures, which opened in 2023, is less than a 10-minute drive from Solvang, situated right behind OstrichLand USA, meaning you can spend your morning scarfing down danishes, go feed dinosaur-like birds and then scoot over to Highline for an afternoon of adventure. I spoke to owner and operator Jeff Hartman about his adventure park, which makes up about 200 acres of his family's 1,200-acre ranch (which you can learn about on your trip). Here's what to know before you visit. -- 1 Highline has the biggest* and fastest zip lines in California On your zip line tour, you will travel down three lines, starting with a 3,360-foot-long journey -- about 7.5 times the length of the Hollywood Sign -- where you gently zoom 400 feet above lush oak woodlands. ""Zip line No. 1 is the longest single span that I know of in California,"" Hartman said, adding there's a private zip line in the Central Coast that's longer but isn't open to the public, hence the asterisk. The second line is 1,600 feet and offers a faster ride, but not the fastest. That comes third when you rocket 2,650 feet down a zip line built at a 26-degree angle, ""which is the steepest the engineers can build a zip line with the technology that we have,"" Hartman said. ""That one, I can get you going 55 or 60 miles an hour."" Or faster. Your speed will depend on your weight and weather conditions. Riders must be between 75 and 275 pounds. The larger the guest, the faster they will likely go. -- 2 Your adventure begins before the zip lines -- with an epic drive up the mountain and optional hike To reach the first zip line, the Highline staff will take you in 4x4 open-air Humvees on a steep path where you'll gain 1,000 feet of elevation. I found it thrilling (and kind of wanted to drive)! You might spot wildlife as you head up, including bobcat, deer, owls, foxes and if lucky, a mountain lion, Hartman said. Guests can choose the ""hike and fly"" tour where they can take either a 2-mile fire road or a 2.25-mile trail up through the hillside. Either way, you will end up at a lookout spot above zip line No. 1 where you can, on a clear day, see the ocean. -- 3 Don't feel like zip-lining? Try the ropes or aerial net course Highline's Adventure Park features a ropes course with 80 elements on two separate levels. Guests can choose four routes, ranging in difficulty from easy to ""very hard,"" per the website. Ropes course guests must be at least 4 feet tall, able to reach 70 inches straight up with your arm fully extended overhead, and weigh less than 275 pounds. But fear not, wee children! (I'm going to pretend a 3-year-old might read this.) Last spring, the Highline staff built Skynet Playground, an aerial netted adventure park featuring 10 netted zones. (Hartman has three children, ages 6, 3 and newborn, and wanted to build something his kids could enjoy too.) The sturdy, bouncy netting used in the aerial park is the same used in the commercial fishing industry. ""What's really cool about the Skynet Playground and these aerial net parks is that, one, you don't have to get into a harness, so that saves a lot of time and energy... and (two), we can get kids as young as 2 years old in there with their parents holding their hands,"" Hartman said. -- 4 You can zip line at night too Highline offers full moon zip line opportunities monthly, except for January and February when it's too chilly. Workers will give you a headlamp and glow sticks as you zip above a moonlit ranch. Additionally, in October, Highline hosts ""fright flights"" where guests can also zip line at night. For all of the adventures, the Highline crew regularly checks the safety of their equipment. Hartman said his team performs daily, weekly and monthly inspections along with having a third-party manufacturer provide an annual inspection of the zip line equipment. -- 5 On the farm, you can take home one of the oldest flowering plants in the world Hartman was previously (legally) growing cannabis on the ranch. However, when the market became oversaturated, it was no longer profitable to be a small-scale cannabis grower in the Santa Ynez Valley, he said. Hartman loves growing crops, and his mother mentioned protea, an ancient type of flowering plant found in South Africa and Australia. Protea are drought-tolerant and do well in California's Mediterranean climate, he said. In the summer, the staff only has to provide a gallon of water to the plants. Hartman said his family took a ""massive gamble"" and picked out 16 of the best cultivars that they thought would grow well, planting them in 2020. They've found the South African varieties, like the Safari Sunset and Goldstrike, do the best. ""These protea plants go back in the fossil record like 300 million years,"" Hartman said. ""They're some of the oldest flowers on the planet."" Hartman said he plans to open a nursery, hopefully later this year, so people can buy potted protea and plant them around their homes, given how drought-tolerant they are. The tour through the ranch's 8 acres of proteas includes a U-pick option where guests can take cut flowers home. -- 6 And you can learn how to drive a 4x4 Bronco Highline Adventures offers 2.5-hour Bronco tours where guests can either drive or ride along as a guide takes them through 1,200 acres of diverse terrain. There are two 12-mile routes that guests can choose from. Hartman said he thought he'd get die-hard off-roaders. ""What we're getting is people who've never off-roaded before, and it's a really nice intro course for people to go get a safe, fun experience and have a guide with you without having to buy the super expensive 4x4 vehicle and then just be out in the woods by yourself,"" Hartman said. Guests will gain 1,400 feet in elevation as the Bronco climbs hillsides, including lookout spots where you can see the ocean and Santa Ynez Valley. It's ""a rugged piece of California, but you're still a five-minute drive into a danish and glass of wine in Solvang,"" Hartman said." 3297937959,LA Pizza Alliance returns to fight hunger with pies: A growing coalition of pizzerias plans more mutual aid,2026-02-01,Los Angeles Times,Feature,Weekend; L; Food Desk,L.5,L.5,Home Edition,Food Desk,,"Copyright Los Angeles Times Feb 1, 2026",1150,758,['Stephanie Breijo'],"['Pizza', 'Chefs', 'Restaurants']","['Los Angeles California', 'United States--US']",[],[],[],"['PIZZA', 'HUNGER', 'LOS ANGELES', 'VOLUNTEERS', 'RESTAURANTS']","On a Wednesday night in Chinatown last month, the sidewalk was filled with several mobile pizza ovens. Cardboard boxes of every color and design shuffled in and out of La Sorted's, where the pizzeria once again served as a home base offering food-relief for anyone in need. Some of the region's most famous chefs came together to cook pizzas, sandwiches and tiramisu cups, which then spread to all corners of the city. The LA Pizza Alliance was back, and twice the size of last year's operation. In response to 2025's January fires, roughly two dozen local pizzerias banded together to create a coalition that could feed Los Angeles in its time of need. The free meals were coordinated and delivered by a volunteer team. It returned Jan. 14, sending free pizzas to those affected by the Altadena and Palisades fires, as well as by immigration raids or any other misfortunes in the last year. The message was simple: If you need a warm meal, the LA Pizza Alliance has it covered. ""This isn't an anniversary, this isn't a celebration,"" organizer David Turkell said. ""This is just a commitment to the promise we made a year ago to the people of Los Angeles. ... We just want to make sure that the public knows we have their back, no matter what happens in the face of anything that's occurring."" According to Turkell, the event delivered more than 1,000 whole pizzas last year. This year it topped 1,800, plus desserts, bagels, salads and other items. ""I need 36 pies, y'all, 36!"" a voice called out to the ovens on the sidewalk. Chefs sprang into action. Off to one side, Taqueria Frontera owner Juan Carlos ""JC"" Guerra sliced al pastor from a trompo, helping to fuel the participating pizzaiolos. After the success of the initial LA Pizza Alliance event, chefs asked Turkell about participating throughout the year. He expected 2026's night of free pizza to be bigger but didn't foresee it doubling. Last year more than two dozen participants stepped up to provide food. This year, there were roughly 75. The inaugural event came together in 48 hours, in what Turkell called sheer chaos. This year, he and host Tommy Brockert, owner of La Sorted's, planned the event in a week's time. ""It's twice the size,"" Brockert said, ""but twice as organized."" The additional days helped them streamline a system for using the ovens. Delivery drivers lined up in Mandarin Plaza's adjacent garage, awaiting their stacks of pizza boxes. One new vendor, Jeffrey Vance of Los Feliz's Old Gold Tomato Pies, called the event a good excuse for camaraderie and networking within the pizza community. But the most important factor, he said, was providing community aid. ""It's a tough place to live, and it's expensive and housing is rough,"" Vance said. ""Seeing what these guys did after the fires last year was pretty inspiring, so it was a no-brainer for us to say yes when David [Turkell] reached out."" Other new vendors included William Joo, chef-owner of Pizzeria Sei, a widely acclaimed pizzeria on the L.A. Times 101 Best Restaurants list. Joo set up a table in the corner of La Sorted's kitchen, firing flatbreads for sandwiches in the oven, some slathered with his pesto and mortadella, others with marinated meats from Korean destination Soban. Legendary pizzaiolo Chris Bianco wanted to participate last year but was out of town. This year, he prepared dozens of slices from his Arts District restaurants, Pizzeria Bianco and Pane Bianco. ""The hospitality community, in this case the pizza community, is a very tight-knit group,"" Bianco said. ""This is one of the kindest groups of people. They'll be around when people are in need. They show up. They don't ask questions. A part of me came here just to convene and interact with humanity, and just make sure that we don't give up."" In 2025 restaurants traveled from San Diego. This year Bettina from Montecito joined, as well as Fat Lip Pizza and Beer from Corona. Nearly every 2025 vendor returned this year, including Lupa Cotta chef-owner Ines Glaser. ""Last year I was in a dark, dark hole looking at my phone and the news,"" Glaser said. ""[Now] everyone seems in a better place, and happier. I think everybody's just ready to make pizza and feel good. Brockert and Turkell are planning multiple new ways to fundraise and feed the community this year, including an event to coincide with March's International Pizza Expo in Las Vegas. And, Turkell added, the LA Pizza Alliance will continue to work with mutual-aid organizations such as Slice Out Hunger, a national nonprofit that fights food insecurity with free pizza." 3299129313,A great American artist who urges us all to hush down,2026-02-01,The Washington Post,News,Arts,E.7,,Final,,INBOSTON,Copyright WP Company LLC d/b/a The Washington Post 2026,1170,1391,['Sebastian Smee'],"['Architecture', 'Traditions', 'Modernism', 'Birds', 'Monks', 'Sculpture', 'Art galleries & museums']","['United States--US', 'Atlanta Georgia']","['Puryear, Martin']",['Cleveland Museum of Art'],[],[],"Coming upon a sculpture by Martin Puryear can be like greeting a cowled monk standing sentry at the gates of a mountain monastery. You can try using your words. But chances are nothing will come back. You're best off finding some other way to build rapport. The great American artist, who represented the United States at the 2019 Venice Biennale, is the subject of a traveling career survey at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, this winter. Organized by Emily Liebert with Reto Thüring, it will travel to the Cleveland Museum of Art in the spring and the High Museum of Art in Atlanta in the fall. Puryear is a first-rate draftsman and printmaker, but he's best known for his sculptures, which register as both three-dimensional forms and poetic images. They may, over time, produce meanings. But Puryear's ambivalence about this second function is palpable. Meanings, after all, are just another kind of noise. So much of Puryear's work, as the architect Billie Tsien notes in the catalogue, ""feels as if it is trying to make the world more quiet."" Having come across a Puryear masterpiece in a Swedish forest last year, I can vouch for Tsien's take. ""Meditation in a Beech Wood,"" as the piece is titled, seemed to be imploring even the birds and the breeze to quit their histrionics. Deranged by noise, we crave quiet. To spend time with Puryear sculptures like ""Alien Huddle,"" ""On the Tundra,"" ""Big Phrygian"" and ""Noblesse O"" is to sense the power of certain kinds of silence or opacity. But there's more to them than that. ""I am soft sift/ In an hourglass,"" wrote Gerard Manley Hopkins - ""at the wall/ Fast, but mined with a motion, a drift,/ And it crowds and it combs to the fall."" Hopkins's image of sand in an hourglass, undermined by its own weight, is both sculptural and kinetic. To read it is to imagine yourself circling around the hourglass looking for signs of the sand's silent, ineluctable motion. You circle around the sculptures of Puryear, 84, in a similar spirit. But, as Hopkins wrote, we are ""mined with a motion, a drift."" It's that drift - call it doubt, call it mortality - that powers the production of meaning. Like the wake formed by an advancing boat, the meanings of Puryear's sculptures trail behind their formal and material richness. They're suggested as much by the recurrence of a form in different contexts as by the forms themselves. One bronze sculpture, for instance, was inspired by a type of headwear, a fila gobi cap, worn by the Yoruba people of West Africa. Cast from an open-mesh-like structure made from rattan and twine knots, it has a drooping component that links it to Phrygian caps worn by formerly enslaved people, freed by manumission, in ancient Rome. These Phrygian caps were adopted in turn by French revolutionaries to symbolize freedom and democratic values, and they also appeared in the context of the American Revolution. The very elasticity of these meanings - their adaptability to different situations in history and to different forms in Puryear's work - keeps the assertion of meaning both in play and at bay. Whenever the noise of interpretation around his work rises to a din, Puryear is always there, smiling like a benign monk, with a gentle hand gesture that signals ""hush."" Puryear has a penchant for rounded, three-dimensional forms that are heavier or more bulbous above than below. As a result, many of them appear in tension with gravity. A recurring theme in his work, as Julia Phillips notes in the catalogue, is ""the dramatic turning point, the moment gravity gets the best of the volume."" What happens then - at least in the viewer's imagination - is that the static sculpture begins to move, transforming itself from a mere object into a kind of event. Not just evidence of a process (how was it made?) but a prompt to speculation (what will happen next?). Hopkins again: His poem ""The Windhover"" describes the flight of a falcon as a phenomenon, an expression of natural virtuosity and the achievement of a dynamic equilibrium: ""Striding/ High there,"" he wrote of the falcon, ""how he rung upon the rein of a wimpling wing/ In his ecstasy! then off, off forth on swing,/ As a skate's heel sweeps smooth on a bow-bend: the hurl and gliding/ Rebuffed the big wind. My heart in hiding/ Stirred for a bird, - the achieve of, the mastery of the thing!"" On the face of it, Puryear's sculptures are much less dynamic than this. Even those suggesting animals (perched falcons, crouching cats, pointy-nosed moles) are in states of repose. They are conspicuously still. But they're enlivened by a tremendous latent energy. Puryear's forms can be (among other possibilities) open, closed, elliptical, spherical or conical. But as you try to describe them, verbs begin to feel more useful than adjectives: circling, spiraling, slumping, drooping, creasing, connecting, tapering, twisting, pleating, looping. Birds are one recurring motif. Puryear fell in love with gyrfalcons when he was a boy, having discovered them in folios of John James Audubon's ""Birds of America"" at the Smithsonian's Museum of Natural History. (He was born and raised in Washington.) He went to the zoo, too: ""A zoo can be as stimulating as an art museum,"" he rightly notes. You can feel the spirit of Constantin Brancusi's abstracted birds behind ""On the Tundra,"" a hooded, avian form that Puryear has addressed in bronze, white marble, glass and wood. But Brancusi's drive toward a sublimated purity of form holds limited interest for Puryear, who also rejects the modernist avant-garde's aversion to anything looking like ""craft."" Puryear loves vernacular traditions and is fascinated by utilitarian objects. A committed and curious traveler, he has been a student of local craft traditions wherever he has lived. Those places include Sierra Leone and Stockholm, where he lived in the '60s, and Japan, which he visited in 1982, on a Guggenheim fellowship, to study architecture and garden design. Like any good woodworker, Puryear, who lives in Upstate New York, sees his work as a collaboration with the living material. Wood, as he points out, is always moving as you work. ""It's shrinking and swelling all the time."" Puryear sometimes works with softer woods, including red cedar, basswood, pine and spruce. Elsewhere he will choose dense, durable woods such as black locust, pear wood, maple or oak. Each decision makes sense for the form, although not always with a straightforwardly modernist form-follows-function logic. Puryear also works with cast iron, aluminum, gold leaf, hemp rope, rawhide and marble. All his works are distinct - they all emanate silent power - but certain forms and ideas recur. Cumulatively, they create a kind of soft and beautiful babble, a murmuration. Sometimes the babble speaks of politics and history. As his exhibition in Venice made clear, Puryear, who is African American, has long grounded his work in an appreciation of liberty and justice - and what it means to be deprived of them. He has made works concerning Sally Hemings (the enslaved woman believed to be the mother of some of Thomas Jefferson's children), Booker T. Washington, Jim Beckwourth (a biracial frontiersman who was born to an enslaved woman and an enslaving father) and the Great Migration (via Jean Toomer's novel ""Cane""). His appreciation of various cultural traditions in Africa is at one with his ethical approach, as is his love of the natural world. Puryear's sculptures can be as solid and opaque as a brick wall. But he also loves basketry and mesh and other open forms. When he wants extra malleability, he might use birch plywood or rattan. But, as if to keep us guessing, he will cast a woven rattan and twine structure in hardest bronze. Some of his most commanding works involve thatching or rawhide. Some artists' importance isn't established until after their death. What I find striking about Puryear is how timeless his work already seems. You feel that his sculptures' latent energies will keep folding over in the imagination, like rich cake batter in a mixer, for decades to come. Martin Puryear: Nexus Through Feb. 8 at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. It will travel to the Cleveland Museum of Art (April 12-Aug. 9) and the High Museum of Art in Atlanta (Sept. 25-Jan. 17)." 3299129314,"After cancellations, Kennedy Center has no Black History Month events",2026-02-01,The Washington Post,News,A-Section,A.10,,Regional,,,Copyright WP Company LLC d/b/a The Washington Post 2026,1460,703,"['Fritz Hahn', 'Travis M Andrews']","['Black history', 'Performing arts centers']",[],"['Trump, Donald J', 'Kennedy, John Fitzgerald (1917-1963)']",['Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts'],[],[],"As the calendar turns to February, many museums and cultural centers across the country are readying their programming for Black History Month. At the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, however, the online calendar lists no scheduled events to honor Black History Month, following artist relocations and cancellations. In the past, the national center for the arts has offered an array of programming keyed to the month-long celebration of Black history, including an annual concert and tributes to African American icons, such as D.C. native Duke Ellington. But the choirs that long performed those concerts moved their performances to other venues after President Donald Trump took over the Kennedy Center by purging its board of trustees last year, and it appears no other thematic programming was added in those events' stead. Last February, the Kennedy Center's newly installed trustees elected Trump their chairman and named his ally Richard Grenell as the center's leader. Over the months that followed, a slew of artists pulled out of scheduled performances and ticket sales plunged. In December, the board voted to rename the institution ""The Donald J. Trump and The John F. Kennedy Memorial Center for the Performing Arts,"" prompting a fresh wave of cancellations, with many artists citing the politicization of an institution once considered nonpartisan. In January, Washington National Opera said it would cut ties with the center, and Philip Glass pulled out of plans to debut a new symphony there. In mid-January, the center said it had hired entertainment veteran Kevin Couch as its new senior vice president of artistic programming; less than two weeks later Couch resigned. The upheaval at the center has also scrambled its programming department, leading to staffing changes, performance cancellations and a break with long-running traditions. Previous events related to Black History Month appeared on the center's website with the tag ""In celebration of Black History Month."" No event this year bears this tag. The Kennedy Center did not respond to a request for comment. As the center's president, Grenell has repeatedly said he wants the center to focus on popular events that either turn a profit or can be underwritten by sponsors. ""I want there to be common-sense programming from the left, right and center,"" he said in a News Nation interview on Thursday. A long-standing tentpole of the Kennedy Center's Black History Month programming has been the annual ""Living the Dream … Singing the Dream"" concert presented by Washington Performing Arts and the Choral Arts Society of Washington. But this year, the 38th annual ""Living the Dream"" is being held 10 miles north, at the Music Center at Strathmore in Bethesda. Washington Performing Arts is eschewing the Kennedy Center entirely for the moment, performing at a half-dozen other venues during a season of programming dubbed, ""The City is Our Stage!"" Washington Performing Arts declined to comment on the decision to move the concert, beyond a statement from a publicist saying, ""Strathmore is an exceptional acoustic space that … will beautifully showcase [the] ""Living the Dream … Singing the Dream"" program, and provide audiences with a wonderful concert experience."" The Howard Gospel Choir, which has performed multiple times at the Kennedy Center during Black History Month, scheduled its one area concert in February at the BlackRock Center for the Arts in Germantown. And last month saw the absence of ""Let Freedom Ring!"" - an annual Martin Luther King Jr. Day concert organized by Georgetown University, which was held at the Howard Theatre after years at the Kennedy Center. A Georgetown spokesperson said that the university decided last spring to move the ceremony ""in part to contribute to a set of proactive steps to protect the university's financial health amid ongoing challenges."" Adding to the dearth of Black programming, the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, frequent visitors to the Kennedy Center, moved 2026's performances to the Warner Theatre instead. The Kennedy Center does have some cultural fare on its February lineup, including a Feb. 7 ""Lunar New Year Celebration with Mongolian Dance."" Not all of the center's events depend on the participation of directors and performers. It also hosts regular movie nights. Currently on the docket for February: ""Groundhog Day,"" ""Hitch,"" ""Sleepless in Seattle"" and ""Roman Holiday.""" 3299129315,The Supreme Court can and should rein Trump in,2026-02-01,The Washington Post,Commentary,Editorial-Opinion,A.19,,Regional,,,Copyright WP Company LLC d/b/a The Washington Post 2026,1280,756,['George F Will'],"['Presidents', 'Constitutional law', 'State laws']",[],[],['University of Virginia'],[],[],"As the Supreme Court prepares a landmark ruling about the scope of presidential power, the current president is acting more unleashed than any predecessor. He is demonstrating that a president not self-restrained by his or her constitutional conscience is almost unrestrainable. The court case concerns whether presidents have the power to remove, for any reason, all principal officers of executive agencies exercising significant executive power. The ruling will emphatically bolster or substantially quarantine the ""unitary executive theory."" It holds that all executive power is vested in the president, who exercises sole authority over executive branch activities. The theory says Congress has no authority to limit the president from exercising command over administrative policymaking by denying the president's power to remove agencies' principal officers. The Framers could have, but did not, limit the president's removal power. Some unitary executive advocates construe this silence as implied permission. Jurist James Kent wrote to Daniel Webster in 1830: ""the power to appoint and reappoint, when all else is silent, is the power to remove."" James Madison said ""the power to annul an appointment is in the nature of things incidental to the power which makes the appointment."" And Madison said the presidential duty to ""take care that the laws be faithfully executed"" entails the power of removing subordinates to accomplish this. Furthermore, the Constitution's opinions-in-writing clause says: ""The President … may require the Opinion, in writing, of the principal Officer in each of the executive Departments."" This is an empowerment, not a duty: ""may"" means it is the president's choice. University of Virginia law professor Saikrishna Bangalore Prakash, in ""Imperial from the Beginning: The Constitution of the Original Executive,"" notes that a principal official has an ""opinion,"" but the president decides. In ""The President Who Would Not Be King: Executive Power Under the Constitution,"" Stanford law professor Michael W. McConnell says the opinions-in-writing clause ""prevented Congress from trying to make the heads of departments independent of presidential oversight."" Hence, the clause is ""further evidence"" that the court erred in its unanimous 1935 ruling ""that some regulatory agencies can be made 'independent' of the president."" But the argument against an unlimitable removal power is stronger. Even if the Constitution's silence about the president's general removal power, or the vesting clause, implies such a power, why cannot Congress stipulate, in laws the president is duty-bound to faithfully execute, exceptions to that power? University of Virginia law professor Caleb Nelson argues that Congress can decide when limiting the reasons the president can remove officers is ""necessary and proper"" for the intended functioning of laws it passes: ""The power to execute the law is itself subject to the law."" Besides, ""Congress is in charge of creating offices within the executive branch,"" and the president has no unlimited power to dictate how - or for how long - those who fill those offices shall perform their duties. Congress can decide some necessary and proper limits on presidential power that the Constitution does not stipulate. The unitary executive theory charges that ""independent"" agencies are insulated from accountability. But voters can hold both Congress and the president accountable for the administrative state's behavior. And Nelson, a self-described constitutional ""originalist,"" adds: ""If most of what the federal government currently does on a daily basis is 'executive,' and if the President must have full control over each and every exercise of 'executive' power by the federal government (including an unlimitable ability to remove all or almost all executive officers for reasons good or bad), then the President has an enormous amount of power - more power, I think, than any sensible person should want anyone to have."" If the court gives its imprimatur to a strong version of the unitary executive theory, presidential power will become even more formidable and less circumscribable than current events reveal it to be. This is a recipe for enhanced presidentialism - more government by executive fiats, more president-centric politics, more congressional anemia. As Nelson says, the Constitution's provisions concerning presidential power ""are far more equivocal than the current Court has been suggesting … I hope the Justices will not act as if their hands are tied and they cannot consider any consequences of the interpretations that they choose."" Yes. When considering the logic of our constitutional structure, the justices should not disregard their conclusions' likely consequences for the nation's political practices and civic culture. Quoting a member of Congress in 1789, the year the Constitution was adopted, Nelson warns against ""interpretations of the Constitution that 'legaliz[e] the full exertion of a tyrannical disposition.'""" 3299129316,Flirting is trickier than ever. Here's how to approach it.,2026-02-01,The Washington Post,Letter to the Editor,Editorial-Opinion,A.18,,Regional,,,Copyright WP Company LLC d/b/a The Washington Post 2026,890,658,[],['Women'],[],[],[],[],[],"Following Sarah Fletcher's Jan. 4 Sunday Opinion essay, "" The magic has gone out of flirting. Maybe this infamous book had a point. ,"" Post Opinions asked readers: ""What should flirting look like in 2026?"" Here are some of the responses. Flirting in 2026 should be slow, intentional and honest. It should not rely on tricks, scripts or performance, but on creating respectful tension. A small tease that invites curiosity, an open smile held a second longer than necessary, the courage to meet someone's gaze and not look away too quickly. There is bravery in vulnerability. Opening with something real, not rehearsed or strategic, is a way of saying, ""I'm taking a small risk here."" That risk breaks the ice. It signals interest without entitlement. I was never good at pickup lines or techniques. What worked for me was a willingness to build something over time. The love of my life made me wait a month from my first approach to our first kiss. That wait mattered. It allowed anticipation to grow, trust to form and intention to become clear. When the kiss finally came, it carried meaning because of everything that preceded it. In an age of instant replies, swipes and outcomes, choosing to slow down may be the most radical form of flirting we have left. The old ways were not better. But taking time to build tension, to be seen and to choose each other is still worth preserving. Diego Hijano, Memphis What is flirting, anyway? Whether young or old, I think it's establishing a connection, realizing together that the moment may be fleeting but that it has captured some nexus that makes you feel you count. It requires exposing yourself in a way, leaving your self-absorption behind and touching someone's senses, though the ""touch"" is not necessarily physical. For women in midlife, especially, who can often feel unseen, it's showing that they are ""seen"" and alive. Patricia Aiken O'Neill, Naples, Florida Flirters should not outdo or talk over the flirtee, or discuss other relationships. No work, politics or religion! That is third-date material. Ask about how they ended up ""here"" (party, bar, grocery store, theater). Show genuine interest in their lives. See where the common ground is and run with it. Then ask where they'd like to meet again for another lovely conversation. Carlyn Hampton, Huntington Beach, California A friend once told me that I should avoid talking about social justice on a first date. I argued that I didn't want to waste my time with someone who would either blow me off or be intimidated by the topic. That friend and I have been married (to each other) for 15 years and have three kids. We still talk about the world, our values and our role in all of it. So my advice for flirting in 2026 would be the same as it has always been: Be yourself. Life is too short to waste on people who can't or won't get you. Nikki D'Adamo-Damery, Mechanicsville, Virginia I think a lot of women are hungry for men to flirt with them, as long as it's done right. The right way involves smiling, looking into the woman's eyes, and saying something funny or cute or giving her a sincere, polite compliment. (Nothing suggestive or aggressive, and never flirt with a co-worker you have some power over. Many women have been punished career-wise for saying no in these situations, and this led to a lot of the anger women felt toward men.) If the woman is looking back into the man's eyes and smiling, he can ask her if she'd like to go get coffee, or if he can buy her a drink, or if he can take her to dinner. The key thing at this point is to graciously accept her answer if she says no. It's pretty simple. Just go easy, be polite, and back off if she doesn't say yes. Allison Gentile, Albuquerque" 3299129317,The TSA PreCheck Touchless ID program is expanding to more airports,2026-02-01,The Washington Post,News,Travel,F.6,,Final,,,Copyright WP Company LLC d/b/a The Washington Post 2026,1330,1072,['Natalie B Compton'],"['Airline security', 'Passports & visas', 'Biometrics', 'Loyalty programs', 'Airports', 'Air travel', 'Facial recognition technology', 'Privacy', 'Passenger screening']","['United States--US', 'Alaska']","['Kennedy, John Fitzgerald (1917-1963)']","['Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport', 'John F Kennedy International Airport']",[],[],"A faster way to get through airport security may be coming to an airport near you. TSA PreCheck Touchless ID, a new program that uses facial recognition, is expanding to 65 airports this spring. The expansion will prioritize 2026 World Cup host cities, where travel is expected to surge, said Transportation Security Administration spokesperson R. Carter Langston. ""Passengers seem to absolutely appreciate it - the speed, the efficiency,"" Langston said. ""All they show is their face, and the officer just waves them right into the checkpoint. No hassling with passports or IDs or phones."" The TSA launched the first iteration of the program in 2021 in partnership with Delta Air Lines at Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport. It's now available for five airlines across 28 airports. Critics worry that the program raises privacy concerns. It is voluntary, and travelers can opt out at any time and use a standard ID verification instead. What is PreCheck Touchless ID? The TSA said in an email that the initiative is a joint effort from U.S. Customs and Border Protection, airports and airlines that allows travelers ""to move through dedicated lanes with ease, enjoying a smoother and more convenient airport experience."" The program uses the CBP Traveler Verification Service to create ""a secure biometric template of a passenger's live facial image taken at the checkpoint and matches it against a gallery of templates of pre-staged photos that the passenger previously provided to the government (e.g., U.S. Passport or Visa),"" the agency website said. Who is eligible? To use the program, fliers must be a current TSA PreCheck member with a valid ""known traveler number"" and an active airline profile (such as being enrolled in a loyalty program). They must also have a valid passport uploaded to their airline profile. The airlines currently participating in the program include: --Alaska --American --Delta --Southwest --United TSA PreCheck Touchless ID offers current TSA PreCheck members an expedited airport security screening by way of ""facial comparison technology."" It's only available at select airports, through participating airlines - which vary. For example, travelers at John F. Kennedy International Airport, but only if they are flying with Alaska, American, Delta or United. For a list of availability, visit tsa.gov/touchless-id. How can travelers opt in? To use the program, travelers must first opt in through their airline's website or app before checking in to their flight. The process varies by airline, but you can generally find the prompt under a ""travel documents"" section (where you add your known traveler number or passport details) of your airline loyalty program app or website. American Airlines customers, for example, will find the opt-in choice toward the bottom of the ""Information and password"" page of their AAdvantage profile, while Alaska Airlines customers should go to their account settings, then click into the ""travel documents"" section. Once travelers have opted in, then checked in for their flight, a TSA PreCheck Touchless ID symbol should appear on their boarding pass. If the symbol is not on your boarding pass, you won't be able to use the lane, even if you show an employee that you are enrolled in the program. At the airport, travelers should follow signs to a separate TSA PreCheck Touchless ID lane. Instead of handing an ID over to an officer to verify your identity, you'll instead pause to scan your face, then keep moving. Is it really faster? It can be, for two reasons. First: There is no slowdown to hand over and scan your ID; travelers must only pause during their walk through the line dividers before proceeding to the X-ray machines. Second: Because the program is new, requires signing up in advance and is not available for every airline, it's getting a fraction of the traffic that regular security, Clear or PreCheck lanes are. We've had mixed results. When it works, it's incredible; you really are through in seconds. But we've also been delayed when the facial comparison machine was undergoing maintenance and was out of use, sending us back into the longer PreCheck lane. Which airports offer it? TSA PreCheck Touchless ID is already available at 28 airports (however, participating airlines will vary): --Boston Logan International Airport --Charlotte Douglas International Airport --Chicago O'Hare International Airport --Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport --Dallas Love Field --Denver International Airport --Detroit Metropolitan Wayne County Airport --Dulles International Airport --George Bush Intercontinental Airport --Harry Reid International Airport --Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport --John F. Kennedy International Airport --John Wayne Airport --Kansas City International Airport --LaGuardia Airport --Los Angeles International Airport --Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport --Newark Liberty International Airport --Norman Y. Mineta San Jose International Airport --Oakland International Airport --Palm Beach International Airport --Philadelphia International Airport --Portland International Airport --Reagan National Airport --Salt Lake City International Airport --San Francisco International Airport --Seattle-Tacoma International Airport --William P. Hobby Airport What are the privacy concerns? The TSA is using more facial recognition at the airport, including in regular security lanes and CBP checks. The CBP says its Enhanced Passenger Processing involves taking a traveler's photo using ""auto capture technology"" to simplify the inspection and adjudication process. Travelers can also use biometric screenings to speed through Global Entry, using a CBP app. The TSA says on its website that it may share your information with ""CBP, DHS S&T, or others as necessary."" The agency confirmed that that includes sharing information about travelers with Immigration and Customs Enforcement to check for deportation orders. There has been a bipartisan effort to put more guardrails on its use at airports. In 2019, the Department of Homeland Security said that photos of travelers were taken in a data breach, accessed through the network of one of its subcontractors. (The TSA says its databases are encrypted.) A Senate bill would allow officers to continue scanning travelers' faces if they opt in; it would ban the technology's use for anything other than verifying identities. It would also require the agency to immediately delete the scans once the check is complete. If you change your mind about TSA PreCheck Touchless ID, you can opt out at any time and ask for standard ID verification instead. You can opt out of any facial recognition at the airport by saying, ""I'd prefer a standard ID check."" The agency also says it deletes photos and personal data within 24 hours of scheduled flight departures. The TSA website's FAQ section addresses some privacy concerns and says that all data collected during facial comparison checks is protected." 3299129318,Republican Dan Cox files to again run for governor,2026-02-01,The Washington Post,News,Metro,B.16,,Regional,,,Copyright WP Company LLC d/b/a The Washington Post 2026,1350,721,"['Olivia George', 'Katie Shepherd']","['Primaries & caucuses', 'Local elections', 'Congressional districts', 'State elections', 'Governors', 'Voters', 'Political parties']","['Maryland', 'United States--US']","['Trump, Donald J']","['Republican Party', 'Democratic Governors Association']",[],[],"Republican Dan Cox has filed to run for governor of Maryland again, setting up a potential rematch with Democratic Gov. Wes Moore, who beat the MAGA-aligned Cox in a landslide four years ago. A former state delegate, Cox has been vying for statewide or congressional office for a decade, with no luck in a state where Democrats outnumber Republicans 2 to 1. Cox's candidacy was posted on the Maryland elections board website Friday and listed Rob Krop as his running mate. Cox did not respond to a request for comment Saturday morning. He first ran for governor in 2022, earning the endorsement of President Donald Trump and catapulting the Republican primary into a high-profile tug of war between two starkly different visions of the GOP: one embraced by Cox and Trump, underpinned by claims of election fraud; the other favored by then outgoing-Gov. Larry Hogan (R), buoyed by cross-party coalitions. News of Cox's second attempt for the governor's office ricocheted across the state, with Democratic operatives quick to tie him to the president while some Republicans nudged a more moderate potential candidate to consider a run as the GOP struggles to find its footing in Maryland in a post-Hogan landscape. Hogan - who has previously disavowed Cox as a ""whack job"" unworthy of endorsement - recently said he would not run for his old job, capping months of speculation. During his 2022 campaign, Cox won the Republican nomination after the Democratic Governors Association pumped more than $2 million into political ads and mailers promoting his ties to Trump, with the hope that his extreme positions would put off independent voters in the general election. Cox, for example, has said he believes the 2020 election was ""stolen,"" and unsuccessfully sued and tried to impeach Hogan over restrictions during the coronavirus pandemic. In the general election, Cox lost resoundingly to Moore, an author and then a political outsider who won more than 64 percent of the vote. Despite a fundraiser at Mar-a-Lago, Trump's residence and resort, Cox's campaign never raised more than a tenth of Moore's resources. Moore's reelection campaign declined to comment Saturday. ""At a time when Donald Trump is attacking the state every day, Marylanders need a governor who will fight for them - not a Donald Trump clone,"" Democratic Governors Association spokesperson Kevin Donohoe said in a statement. The sentiment was echoed by Maryland Democratic Party Chair Steuart Pittman, who in a statement said Cox serves ""as a reminder to Marylanders what Donald Trump has done for us: his economic assault on farmers, blue collar workers, small businesses, and public servants; his disdain for the rule of law; his disrespect for our veterans; and his lack of fiscal discipline."" His candidacy, Pittman added, ""creates a historic opportunity for Maryland Democrats to expand our base of support everywhere."" After dabbling in local politics, Cox's first attempt for higher office came in 2016 when he won the Republican primary to fill Maryland's 8th Congressional District seat but lost in the general to Rep. Jamie Raskin (D). Cox was later elected to the Maryland House of Delegates, representing Frederick County from 2019 to 2023. In 2024, Cox threw his hat into the Republican primary for Maryland's 6th Congressional District. He struggled to build a coalition of voters without the infusion of outside cash he benefited from in the governor's race two years earlier. He lost to former state delegate Neil Parrott. With Friday's filing, Cox now joins a Republican field for governor that includes Baltimore businessman and sports team owner Ed Hale Sr., a longtime Democrat and self-described moderate who recently swapped his party affiliation. State Senate Minority Leader Steve S. Hershey Jr. is also considering getting into the governor's race. A more moderate Republican with a long record serving in party leadership in the General Assembly, Hershey launched an exploratory committee in the fall. Hershey said he received calls and texts encouraging him to run Saturday as the news of Cox's campaign spread. But Hershey told The Washington Post in a text that Cox's decision would not change his calculus. ""I'm not going to make this decision based on who enters a primary or pressure to represent the party,"" he said. ""The driving factor for me is whether I truly believe I can make a meaningful difference for Maryland at this moment.""" 3299129319,'Ice is unpredictable': Coast Guard helps cruise ship stuck in Antarctica,2026-02-01,The Washington Post,News,Travel,F.2,,Final,,,Copyright WP Company LLC d/b/a The Washington Post 2026,1220,868,['Andrea Sachs'],"['Cruises', 'Cooperation']","['New Zealand', 'United States--US', 'Antarctica']",[],[],[],[],"On the 12th day of their Antarctica cruise, a group of passengers aboard the Scenic Eclipse II helicoptered into the McMurdo Dry Valleys, the largest ice-free area on the frozen continent. Hours later, they found themselves in the polar opposite situation. Sea ice had surrounded the luxury cruise ship, hindering its passage to open water. According to the U.S. Coast Guard, the Australian-owned ship rang for help around 11 p.m. local time. Polar Star, the U.S. military's only active heavy icebreaker, took two ""passes,"" or laps, around the 551-foot cruise ship, slicing through the ice slabs as easily as a knife in soft butter. ""It was just a happy coincidence that she was there and it happened to be the ship's 50th birthday as well, which was a pretty cool coincidence,"" James Griffiths, general manager of ocean operations at Scenic Group, said from New Zealand, the cruise's endpoint. ""It was a great experience, and our guests loved it."" An unexpected show On a danger scale of 1 to Endurance, the Scenic Eclipse II's predicament was low-risk, according to Griffiths. The ship's ice-strengthened hull is categorized as 1A Super, the strongest of the Finnish-Swedish ice classes. The vessel can maneuver through ice; however, it can't chop through dense blocks with the same force and speed of an icebreaker like Polar Star, which the Coast Guard describes as the world's most powerful nonnuclear icebreaker. ""Sea ice can be three feet thick, or two or three times that if it's accumulated over multiple years,"" said Robert Sherrell, a professor in the Department of Marine and Coastal Sciences at Rutgers University in New Jersey. ""It takes raw power to break through ice."" Polar Star has been stationed in Antarctica since November in its 29th deployment with Operation Deep Freeze, a multi-armed-forces mission that provides operational and logistical support to the National Science Foundation's U.S. Antarctic Program. One of the ship's primary duties is to maintain a navigable channel by blasting through miles of ice as thick as 21 feet, according to the Coast Guard. An unobstructed path is critical to transporting fuel and supplies to scientists working in research stations and in the field. Griffiths said Polar Star was visible, within 10 nautical miles, when the cruise captain asked for assistance. The cruise ship, he said, could have pushed through the ice but at a much slower pace, possibly delaying the 24-day itinerary from Tasmania to the South Pole to New Zealand. ""It took an hour, whereas without them, it might have taken five hours,"" Griffiths said. ""It made our life a little easier and allowed us to keep to the schedule we had in mind."" Under the midnight sun, passengers gathered on the bow and the bridge to watch Polar Star in action. Crew members served champagne, and the expedition staff provided commentary. A few Americans, inspired by the icebreaker's U.S. flag, sang the national anthem. Griffiths said about 50 of the 191 passengers stayed up late to observe the event. According to the Coast Guard, Polar Star escorted the cruise ship about four nautical miles to open water. ""It's a great example of cooperation in polar regions, and we are very grateful they were there,"" Griffiths said. ""It highlighted what a wonderful place Antarctica is and has given a little bit of visibility to the cooperation between everyone down there."" The Scenic Eclipse II wrapped up its ""Antarctica's Ross Sea: Majestic Ice & Wildlife"" journey in Timaru, New Zealand, on Thursday. After a quick turnover, the ship then set sail for its last Antarctic cruise of the season. The full fare started at $73,710 per person, or $29,805 on sale. 'Ice is unpredictable' Antarctica cruising season generally runs from November to March, the continent's austral summer. January is peak travel time, when the warm temperatures melt the icy formations. However, wind and storms can blow sea ice - slabs of frozen seawater, which are different from icebergs - and create pack ice. With little warning, a football field of pack ice can hem in a ship. ""Ice is unpredictable, especially with limited observations in the Southern Ocean,"" Ellen Buckley, an assistant professor in the University of Illinois' Department of Earth Science and Environmental Change, said from a research vessel in Antarctica. ""Because satellite and in situ measurements are limited, unavoidable conditions arise that are challenging to navigate."" Adriane Lam, an assistant professor in the Department of Earth Sciences at Binghamton University, State University of New York, who is also on the 30-day research trip, said their ice-capable vessel encountered ice that was much thicker than anticipated. Sherrell said a single piece of sea ice, or floe, can measure 10 feet to more than a mile across. Pushed together by wind, the slabs can form a stretch of ice extending for miles. ""It looks like you're driving your ship through a winter cornfield in Nebraska,"" he said. A ship can free itself by repeatedly backing up and accelerating forward, ramming the ice. However, this tactic can be extremely slow and burns a lot of fuel, Sherrell said. ""Cruise ships are not meant to do that,"" Sherrell said. ""They're meant to stay out of trouble and gently push some ice floes away.""" 3299129320,Judge orders release of 5-year-old held by ICE,2026-02-01,The Washington Post,News,A-Section,A.1,,Regional,,,Copyright WP Company LLC d/b/a The Washington Post 2026,1360,845,['Gaya Gupta'],"['Immigration policy', 'Families & family life', 'Deportation', 'School districts', 'Detention centers', 'Demonstrations & protests', 'Judges & magistrates']","['Texas', 'United States--US', 'Minnesota']",[],"['US Immigration & Customs Enforcement', 'Department of Homeland Security']",[],[],"Detention of child and his father in Minneapolis added to searing tensions A federal judge has ordered 5-year-old Liam Conejo Ramos and his father, Adrian Alexander Conejo Arias, to be released from federal immigration custody after the pair were detained in their driveway in Minnesota last month, sparking outrage nationwide and protests at the family detention center in Dilley, Texas, where they have been held. In a sharply worded statement, U.S. District Judge Fred Biery said the administrative warrants issued by the executive branch to its own agents ""do not pass probable cause muster."" ""That is called the fox guarding the henhouse,"" he wrote. ""The Constitution requires an independent judicial officer."" Below his signature, the judge also included the now well-known photo of Ramos as he was taken into custody wearing a Spider-Man backpack and a bright blue hat. The photo and Liam's detainment sparked outrage across the country and further inflamed tensions between Minnesota residents and the Trump administration's immigration enforcement efforts there. Jennifer Scarborough, one of the attorneys representing Liam and his father, said in a statement that they were ""grateful"" for the decision. ""We are now working closely with our clients and their family to ensure a safe and timely reunion,"" Scarborough and the other attorneys wrote in a joint statement. ""We are pleased that the family will now be able to focus on being together and finding some peace after this traumatic ordeal."" The Justice Department did not respond to a request for comment. The judge ordered that Liam and his father be released from custody ""as soon as practicable,"" and no later than Tuesday. ""Ultimately, Petitioners may, because of the arcane United States immigration system, return to their home country, involuntarily or by self-deportation,"" Biery wrote. ""But that result should occur through a more orderly and humane policy than currently in place."" The detention of children has prompted a widening backlash in recent weeks - protests in Minnesota and Texas, criticism from elected officials and now, unusually, a sharply personal response from the bench. In ordering the release of Liam and his father, Biery went beyond conventional judicial language, including by citing two Bible verses. One, Matthew 19:14, urges that children not be hindered from approaching ""the kingdom of heaven""; the other, John 11:35, consists of just two words: ""Jesus wept."" Liam was returning from preschool when he and his father were approached by Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers, according to the boy's school district, Columbia Heights Public Schools. The Department of Homeland Security said Conejo Arias fled on foot and was pursued by several ICE officers, while another officer remained with Liam for his safety. An adult who was living in the home but outside at the time of the incident ""begged the agents"" to leave Liam with them, but ICE agents refused, the school district said. DHS said it was not targeting Liam and that ICE's policy is to ask parents if they want to be removed with their children, or ICE will place the children with a safe person designated by a parent. Authorities said they took Liam into custody because relatives abandoned or refused to take him. The family's lawyer, Marc Prokosch, said in a previous statement that Liam and his father are not U.S. citizens but ""have been following the legal process perfectly, from presenting themselves at the border to applying for asylum and waiting for the process to go through."" The detention of children at the South Texas Family Residential Center in Dilley has drawn mounting backlash in recent weeks. Outside the heavily secured compound on Wednesday, hundreds of faith leaders, labor organizers and advocates marched toward the detention center, calling for the release of families held inside. In a statement Saturday afternoon, Rep. Joaquin Castro (D-Texas) thanked people across the country and world for ""speaking out in support of Liam and so many other children in detention."" He added that he had also reached out to Liam's mom and lawyers to tell them he would continue ""to do everything I can to make sure he is safe."" Last week, Castro said on social media that he had visited Conejo Arias and Liam at the detention center. Conejo Arias said his son ""hasn't been himself,"" and had been sleeping a lot because ""he's been depressed."" Castro said he told Liam's father that his classmates at Valley View Elementary School ""miss him"" and that ""they're waiting for him to get back."" Biery, who was appointed by President Bill Clinton, cited lines from the Declaration of Independence and the Fourth Amendment in his justification of Liam's and his father's release. He said the case ""has its genesis in the ill-conceived and incompetently-implemented government pursuit of daily deportation quotas, apparently even if it requires traumatizing children."" ""Observing human behavior confirms that for some among us, the perfidious lust for unbridled power and the imposition of cruelty in its quest know no bounds and are bereft of human decency,"" he wrote. ""And the rule of law be damned."" Andrew Jeong and María Luisa Paúl contributed to this report." 3299129321,"U.S. arms sales to Israel, Saudi Arabia approved",2026-02-01,The Washington Post,News,A-Section,A.7,,Regional,,,Copyright WP Company LLC d/b/a The Washington Post 2026,1520,491,['Frances Vinall'],"['Military sales', 'Armed forces', 'Congressional committees']","['Iran', 'Middle East', 'Gaza Strip', 'United States--US', 'Saudi Arabia', 'Israel']","['Trump, Donald J']",[],[],[],"House Democrat says administration bypassed congressional review The United States on Friday approved arms sales worth close to $6.7 billion for Israel and $9 billion for Saudi Arabia, deals that come as the Middle East remains on edge with President Donald Trump weighing military strikes on Iran. The sales were approved by the State Department, according to news releases published through the Defense Department. Congress has been notified of the approvals, according to the releases. But Rep. Gregory W. Meeks (New York), the ranking Democrat on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, said the Trump administration had sidestepped the committee review process for significant arms sales for the transactions involving Israel. ""This is yet another repudiation by Donald Trump of Congress' Constitutional oversight role,"" he said in a statement, adding that the administration was also ""refusing to engage Congress on critical questions about the next steps in Gaza and broader U.S.-Israel policy."" Meeks said Secretary of State Marco Rubio had ""failed to provide any justification or documentation"" for bypassing the review process. The State Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The U.S. in 2024 said that while Israel may have violated international law using U.S. weapons during its military campaign in Gaza, there was insufficient information to prevent the flow of American military aid to the country. Amid famine in Gaza last year, a number of Democrats called for sales of offensive weapons to Israel to be cut off, in a notable shift for the party. In the sales announced Friday, Israel is set to buy 30 Apache attack helicopters and related equipment for an estimated $3.8 billion and more than 3,000 joint light tactical vehicles worth almost $2 billion, including weapons and personnel carriers. The rest of the sales include light utility helicopters and power packs for armored personnel carriers. ""The United States is committed to the security of Israel, and it is vital to U.S. national interests to assist Israel to develop and maintain a strong and ready self-defense capability. This proposed sale is consistent with those objectives,"" the State Department said in one of the news releases. The U.S. provides at least $3.8 billion in aid to Israel every year, a figure that has risen sharply in recent years - making it the largest cumulative recipient of U.S. aid in the world. The State Department also approved the $9 billion sale of 730 advanced Patriot missiles to Saudi Arabia, which the release said would ""improve Saudi Arabia's capability to meet current and future threats by providing advanced air defense missiles."" After threatening strikes against Iran in the wake of mass protests that left thousands of Iranians dead, Trump backed away from an attack after foreign allies and military advisers raised concerns about a less-than-adequate U.S. military presence in the region to repel a potential response from Tehran. He has since dispatched the Abraham Lincoln carrier strike group and other military assets to the Middle East." 3299129322,"For travelers with feline friends, 'pet-friendly' hotels can be anything but",2026-02-01,The Washington Post,News,Travel,F.6,,Final,,,Copyright WP Company LLC d/b/a The Washington Post 2026,1220,1532,['Andrea Sachs'],"['Travel', 'Rentals', 'Cats', 'Vacations', 'Pets', 'Dogs', 'Airports', 'Hotels & motels']","['North America', 'Japan', 'Europe']",[],[],[],[],"Traveling is the cat's meow, unless you're actually a cat. Liebchen, a rescue tabby from the Netherlands who travels with an E.U. pet passport, learned this hard truth at the Max Brown Hotel in Amsterdam. A few days before Christmas, the property refused to honor his family's reservation because he was a cat, not a canine. ""Hotels will say they're pet-friendly, but they really mean dogs,"" said Erin Geldermans, who adopted ""Liebs"" in Colorado. ""So we'll show up with our cat, and they're like, 'Oh, sorry, cats aren't allowed.'"" Cast into the night without a room, Geldermans and Liebs landed on their feet, finding more inclusive accommodations at the Jan Luyken Amsterdam next door. The hotel didn't even charge them a pet fee. However, the experience was a stark reminder that, for jet-setting cats, it's a dog's world. Travelers who vacation with their feline companions say they have encountered an anti-cat bias around the world. They come across it in airports and on planes, at hotels and vacation rentals. The owners say they must often overcome hurdles to earn the same trust and acceptance granted to dogs. ""This is discrimination,"" said Anna Karsten, a France-based travel blogger who has faced a double standard when traveling with her Ragdoll, Poofy. ""It's a higher risk, apparently, which, if you think about it, is outrageous. The cat is literally going to sleep, but the dog might destroy the entire room if it's stressed."" During check-in at a rental in the Dutch city of Leiden, Karsten had to provide references that Poofy was a model guest. Stung by a previous incident involving cat pee, the apartment's owner said the family would have to keep Poofy in a ""cage."" After several minutes of negotiations, the two sides agreed to sequester the cat in the bathroom whenever the family was out. Karsten abided by the rule the first day but eventually left the door ajar. By the end of the week-long stay, the host had experienced a change of heart. ""She loved the cat,"" Karsten said triumphantly. Cons include cat pee, clawed-up furniture Dogs, which were domesticated thousands of years before felines, have better optics. Cats are often stereotyped as homebodies, territorial in familiar settings and timid in new ones. A productive day may involve 16 hours of sleep and shredding the sofa. A cat that feels wronged may express its indignation by intentionally missing the litter box. Many cat owners dispute these tropes, describing their pets as outgoing, curious and sociable, but the generalizations still shape the travel industry's policies. To boost bookings at his New York City rental properties, Andrew McCauley mulled the idea of allowing cats. (But never dogs, because of the barking.) He queried a Facebook group of vacation rental hosts about loosening his pet restrictions and received nearly 175 replies. The majority of respondents vehemently opposed feline guests, citing their claws, urine and dander, which could trigger allergic reactions in future travelers. According to the Cleveland Clinic, up to 3 out of 10 people in the United States are allergic to cats and dogs, with the likelihood of being sensitive to cats twice as high. ""If they pee in there one single time, you're going to have a ridiculously hard time trying to get the smell out, and probably never will,"" wrote Sara Van Valkenburgh, who owns six cats. ""And one cat can murder your couch in one weekend."" The replies spooked McCauley, who makes his living off the properties, and he quashed the idea. ""For a person to be separated from their cats for an extended period of time - that would be a painful thing,"" McCauley said. ""Maybe 9 out of 10 will be well-behaved, but if that 1 in 10 causes damage, that's a problem."" Cats that break stereotypes A new generation of cat experts and owners is attempting to recast the descendant of the wildcat as an adventurous globe-trotter with tidy habits. With committed training and the proper gear, they say, cats with the right disposition (curious and itching to go outside) can start racking up the miles in their carrier and naps in international time zones. Frequent European travelers will carry an E.U. pet passport, which contains health information and streamlines border crossings. When Louie and Todd were kittens, Lazar Joksimovic taught the British shorthair cats to use a leashed harness and to not scratch the furniture. They are now adult cats, though Joksimovic still packs a toddler's worth of supplies for their trips, including a stroller, scratch pads and Tractive GPS tracker. He carries a collapsible travel litter box and pouch of litter that he can quickly assemble for brief bathroom breaks, such as in an airport family restroom or airplane lavatory. The Chicago-based trio - plus Joksimovic's wife, when she gets a break from medical school - have visited 13 national parks and 14 countries in Europe and North America. This year, they plan to backpack ski in the Austrian and Italian alps and traipse around Japan and South Korea. Joksimovic, a biomedical researcher, has struggled to find cat-fancying accommodations in a handful of destinations, such as Arizona, Utah and Nevada. In Paris, he said, the host of the ""pet-friendly"" Airbnb canceled their reservation after he disclosed that Louie and Todd were cats. ""I guess they were worried about scratches,"" Joksimovic said, ""but I always mention that they're very well-behaved and well-trained."" For their upcoming trip to Japan, Joksimovic said, the Kimpton and Four Seasons, two of the hospitality industry's most pet-pampering brands, were too rich for his budget. In Tokyo, he settled for a rental a distance from the main tourist attractions, requiring him to navigate the public transportation system and its pet regulations. ""A lot of buses in Japanese cities don't allow pets,"" Joksimovic said, ""and on a lot of trains, you're not allowed to open the carrier so that your cat or dog can poke its head out and you can give it treats or water."" Mansum Yau, a veterinarian from Vancouver, has faced a similar anti-cat attitude on her first trip with Boo. The hotel in Calgary had touted its pet-friendly policy, but a sign at the front desk stated that cats were not allowed. An employee suggested that Yau put her cat in the car for the night. Yau found alternate accommodations for Boo and checked out the next morning, bolting earlier than planned. ""That was a rude introduction to traveling with a cat,"" Yau said. Adventure cats trail behind dogs The adventure cat movement has been picking up momentum over the past decade, but it still lags behind that of dogs. ""We're beginning to see a change, but people are traveling more often with dogs,"" said Laura Moss, who founded Adventure Cats in 2015. ""You'll go to a pet-friendly hotel that may take both cats and dogs, but they're more prepared for dogs. They will have dog beds or treats, but they won't necessarily have litter boxes."" In its most recent pet trend report, the American Pet Products Association noted an increase in the use of outdoor training aids for cats, from 34 percent of cat owners in 2018 to 48 percent in 2024. During the same period, it also saw a rise in the number of people owning leashes (32 percent) and harnesses (22 percent) for their cats. A lot of cats traveled in 2024, too, according to an earlier report - by car (90 percent of cat owners) and plane (80 percent). And the percentage of owners who took their cats on three or more trips reached 30 percent (car) and 22 percent (plane). Aliza Bodzin, whose company, Bodzin Pet Travel Solutions, plans trips for pet owners, said the cat travel scene is five to 10 years behind that of dogs in North America. The gap is twice as big in Europe. When traveling by air, cats have a few advantages over dogs. Because of their size, all but the chunkiest of cats can accompany their owners in the cabin. Depending on a cat's comfort level and the airline's rules, the four-legged passenger can use the airplane's lavatory, in a portable and foldable litter box. ""I put the litter box on the floor, and Liebs did his business over the Atlantic Ocean,"" Geldermans said of the successful potty break. Pet relief areas in airports overwhelmingly favor dogs with artificial grass, poop bags, treats and a fake fire hydrant. But a few airports have started catering to cats' needs. Ottawa International added a public litter box. Istanbul has several, plus a cat tree, scratching post and kibble dispensers. Airlines require all non-service pets to stay inside their carriers during the flight. Though their cats are out of sight, tucked under the seat by their feet, owners say some passengers will still vocalize their concerns or complaints. Samantha Bell, a cat expert at Best Friends Animal Society, was transporting two kittens from Los Angeles to Columbus, Ohio, when her tiny travelers started mewling. Irritated by their cries, the ""grumpy"" passenger next to Bell demanded a new seat. The flight attendant complied and even threw in a $100 credit for the inconvenience. ""She got rewarded for not liking cats,"" Bell said." 3299129323,Nice Breeze is taking its lo-fi sound to new heights,2026-02-01,The Washington Post,News,Arts,E.3,,Final,,,Copyright WP Company LLC d/b/a The Washington Post 2026,1410,498,['Chris Richards'],['Musical performances'],[],[],[],[],[],"'Everything Disappears"" is a pretty great album title for a band that keeps sticking around. It's been more than a decade since Nice Breeze formed somewhere between D.C. and Northern Virginia, but back in November, after a long, strange drip of digital releases, the trio finally issued its first vinyl record - the kind of black plastic saucer that scientists say might take more than a millennium to biodegrade. As for the music, it's aptly encoded with cosmic winks and shrugs - layers of paradoxical noises that feel messy and mannered, casual and serious, loose and tight, hungry and wise. Try to imagine three Xers drilling down on some median coordinate between early Pavement, earlier Half Japanese and earliest Sonic Youth, then try not to, because the more you listen to this stuff, the more Nice Breeze sounds like an entity unto itself. At first, it's vocalist Andy Fox who makes the band's shaggy clang feel so personal, with lyrics that contemplate the fates of strangers in restaurants, the provenance of unnamed tattoos, the metaphysical implications of ""diplomatic immunity"" and more. When Fox's phrasing falls off the beat like a toppled beverage, it's that much easier to clock drummer Martha Hamilton's locomotive steadiness - a rhythmic dependability that also frees John Howard to make his guitar jangle, mumble and gnash. Melodies and textures continuously swap roles as foreground and background. If you've forgotten what a band sounds like, this is it. Different people being themselves, together. And while Howard is credited with recording ""Everything Disappears"" in a modest Arlington basement, the album's distinctive lo-fi sound isn't the result of circumstance. With today's home recording software, making songs this rumpled and unclean requires effort, and Nice Breeze put meticulous care into the mess-making. Sometimes we get entangled, like when the guitars go fritzy during the album closer ""PS Brix!"" - it sounds more like our earbuds shorting out than a guitar amp glitch. Where is this music happening, exactly? Fox's stumbly phrasing feels just as absorbing. Over the Suicide-shaped groove of the title track, he gets caught holding too many syllables and not enough song, then growls with an irritation he might have learned from Jeff Mentges of No Trend. ""Everything disappears,"" Fox declares, as if now reading a life-changing fortune cookie. ""Sometimes it takes seconds, sometimes it takes years."" (On the following track, ""Now What,"" he cracks open a second one: ""There is so, so much frustration. Do not leave it unexplored."") The album's clanking keystone, ""Hope,"" finds Fox and Hamilton singing about trying to channel a time ""back when we had hope,"" reminding us that - oh right - this music is being made by three people past 50. ""Now it feels like failure not to have proper glassware,"" Fox deadpans, sending the point home. But when the refrain circles back, it's your age that matters more than theirs: ""Some people feel the rain. Other people just get wet. Some people feel the pain others haven't yet.""" 3299129324,This doctor has a remedy for depression: Cure society's ills,2026-02-01,The Washington Post,News,BookWorld,C.3,,Final,,,Copyright WP Company LLC d/b/a The Washington Post 2026,1320,1277,['Becca Rothfeld'],"['Patients', 'Mental depression', 'Psychiatry', 'Textbooks', 'Colonialism', 'Mental health care', 'Books', 'Mental disorders']","['Zimbabwe', 'Rhodesia-pre-1979']",[],[],[],[],"""Psychiatry underwent two major shifts during the twentieth century,"" writes the doctor and medical anthropologist Khameer Kidia, ""from biological to psychoanalytic, then back to biological."" First came crude physical treatments like shock therapy and lobotomies, then came Freudian analysis. Finally, we traded in surgeries for pills but otherwise ended up back where we started - or so goes Kidia's implausibly simplistic story. Now, he hopes to usher in yet another shift, this time from the reductively biological to the expansively social and political. In his ambitious but uneven new book, ""Empire of Madness: Reimagining Western Mental Health Care for Everyone,"" Kidia argues that the medicalization of thorny human problems is a double-edged sword. On the one hand, deeming distress a ""disease"" is a way of destigmatizing it. A malfunctioning brain is no more the fault of a patient than, say, a malfunctioning spleen. On the other hand, to define a person's suffering as an illness is to individualize it - to sequester it in the ""private realm"" and thereby remove it from the knottier domains of politics and history. Kidia writes provocatively that he is ""calling for the end of psychiatry, or at least a kind of end."" What he means is partially that the clinical solutions on offer - pills, sessions on the couch and, in extreme cases, stints in the psychiatric ward - are overly individualistic. Rather than involving a person's community in her care, we exile her to the margins and keep her out of view. ""The more we medicalize mental distress,"" he writes, ""the less help we will get from the social support structures in which patients are embedded, and the more likely we are to fail."" But Kidia means to question not only the going therapies but also the usual repertoire of diagnoses. In some cases, he goes so far as to contest a behavior's very designation as an ""illness."" Often, he argues, anguish is not a dysfunction but a ""rational reaction"" to injustice. Take the case of Kidia's mother, a Zimbabwean Indian woman who suffered periodically from what she called ""nervous breakdowns."" Doctors eventually diagnosed her with depression and prescribed her the corresponding medications, but her agony was eminently understandable, even reasonable, in the context of her situation. She came of age in the late 1950s in what was then Rhodesia, and her childhood, Kidia writes, was ""rife with violence and abuse,"" both at home and in the largely White schools where she excelled despite the racism she faced. Later, she struggled to make ends meet as Zimbabwe's economy cratered and eventually succumbed to hyperinflation. Who can blame her for panicking as she careened from one failed venture to another, trying to feed her family as prices changed by the hour? Or consider the plight of a student diagnosed with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder, as Kidia was during college, solely because he has difficulty staying up all night to study. Is the sleepy student the problem, or is the problem the expectation that he must work himself into the ground? In this instance, Kidia writes, ""it is not madness itself that hurts but rather the way madness butts up against the rigid structures around us."" In some cases, the demand for productivity at all costs is the real sickness. Kidia's apt if rather grating slogan is that his ""patients are not suffering from depression; they're suffering from oppression."" The solution, then, must be far more wide-ranging than a pill. Not that pills are off limits: As a doctor, Kidia has prescribed medications and talk therapy, and as a patient, he has received both. But he views these measures as no more than a stopgap that buys time and alleviates pain as we work to combat the real culprits - poverty, precarity, housing shortages, debt, the legacy of colonialism and the like. As the pioneering doctor and activist Jack Geiger told an official who chastised him for misappropriating the funds he received to buy drugs for hungry community members under his care, ""The last time I looked in my medical textbooks, they said the specific therapy for malnutrition was food."" Much of the time, cash and housing may be more effective treatments for depression and anxiety than Xanax or Prozac. Kidia's conclusions are compelling, but by now they are somewhat familiar. Few would deny that poverty and other forms of injustice take a mental toll, and there is a vast body of literature about the adverse effects of imperialism. Indeed, the claim that colonialism is itself a kind of madness was articulated with much greater precision and sophistication by the Martinican philosopher and psychiatrist Frantz Fanon, who is mentioned only in passing in ""Empire of Madness."" Of course, there can be value in repeating or popularizing unoriginal points, but ""Empire of Madness"" is too shambolic to make its case clearly or charismatically. Sometimes, it is organized by diagnosis (one chapter treats addiction, another ADHD), sometimes by chronology (there are sections about the various stages of Zimbabwe's postcolonial trajectory), sometimes by autobiography (Kidia recalls his childhood in Zimbabwe, his difficulty adjusting to the cutthroat culture of Princeton University, his efforts to found and manage a nonprofit dedicated to improving mental health in his native country, and his work as an ICU doctor in Boston), sometimes by particular injustices that often cause mental illness (debt, conditions in prisons). There are so many threads in ""Empire of Madness"" that it is no wonder Kidia cannot tie them all together. Just as his capsule history of psychiatry omits a great deal, many of his forays into, among other topics, debt, the history of colonial Rhodesia and the limitations of the medical system are schematic of necessity. Nor does the book take its time with the more philosophical issues it raises. At one point, Kidia pauses to pose its implicit question explicitly: ""So, what's the difference between someone with a bad personality and a mental illness? Semantics, really. Psychiatry simply medicalizes personality."" Instead of pausing to linger on this insight or tease out the implications of this shocking (and fascinating) statement, Kidia dashes on to the next lesson. Funnily enough, ""Empire of Madness"" suffers from several of the problems it attributes to Western psychiatry. Its moral prescriptions are strident and scolding; it often turns away from the muddle of human emotion and retreats into abstraction, reciting statistics or summarizing the results of studies that tidy rather than complicate. Kidia proves his own diagnosis true: If he is at his most facile when he tries to tie up all the loose ends, he is at his most winning when he simply tells stories about the human dramas and dilemmas he witnesses in the clinic - about the patient with mysterious psychosomatic fainting spells, about the difficult decision to sedate one of his older patients when another needed immediate treatment for sepsis. In these passages, we sense the presence of the element that is so often absent from psychiatry, with its mania for taxonomy and its penchant for all-too-neat solutions. In each case something irresolvable remains. Why was the patient fainting? How could Kidia ever manage the demands of all his patients without shortchanging some of them some of the time? We can never know for sure, despite what the psychiatry textbooks might tell us. But when Kidia accepts and even embraces uncertainty and moral complication, we can see at least the glimmer of a better kind of cure. Becca Rothfeld is the nonfiction book critic for The Washington Post and the author of ""All Things Are Too Small: Essays in Praise of Excess."" Empire of Madness Reimagining Western Mental Health Care for Everyone By Khameer Kidia. Crown. 355 pp. $32" 3299129325,Siblings can't persuade parents to address the clutter in their home,2026-02-01,The Washington Post,News,Arts,E.5,,Final,,,Copyright WP Company LLC d/b/a The Washington Post 2026,930,830,['R Eric Thomas'],[],[],[],[],[],[],"Dear Eric: My parents are retired and enjoying the empty-nest stage of life. They have a rather large home, and my mother's mobility has been severely hampered in the past few years. They refuse to get rid of the things that no longer serve them. My mother overbuys for everything, and at times I think she forgets what they already have and just buys more, never cleaning out what she already has. My siblings and I are growing extremely frustrated, as there are rooms in the house that are no longer able to be moved through or are overrun with stuff from decades ago. We have offered to help clean areas out; we've offered to hire a professional organizer to get the home in order and create a safe environment for them. They refuse all help. We've also explained to them that we do not believe it is fair that they are going to leave this large home of stuff for us to clean up one day, not knowing what may be important or an heirloom, and they tell us to just throw it all away. We love our parents dearly, but we are also extremely frustrated with how cavalier they seem to be when it comes to putting the burden of cleaning all this up on us when they are gone when we are more than happy to help now. Your thoughts would be deeply appreciated. - Overwhelmed by Clutter Overwhelmed: If you believe that the clutter in the house poses a safety risk and they've refused your help, it may be time to reach out to the hoarder task force at your local fire department or seek out other municipal resources to pay your parents a house call. They can assess the risk (to your parents and to any paramedics/firefighters who might have to come into the home to help) and provide solutions. There's a separate issue here, however, and it's an anticipatory frustration that may not really be something your parents need to deal with. You're envisioning how hard it's going to be to clean up after them, which is understandable from a logistical standpoint. But they're still living their lives; this is still their stuff. So, it's not really fair to characterize them as cavalier about what happens after they're gone, when they're still here and enjoying retirement life. If you're worried about missing some heirlooms, ask them if you can walk through the house with them and hold on to some things for safekeeping. Today's problem is the clutter. The figurative tomorrow's problem is disposing of everything. Let tomorrow's problem stay tomorrow's problem. Dear Eric: About a year ago, a good friend lost her mother at an advanced age. Six months later she lost a brother rather suddenly to cancer. We've been friends for decades and are now both retired. We've seen each other through everything. Her mom was a huge challenge. Uncooperative, unsupportive, critical; my friend is everything her mom was not. When her mom was going downhill physically, my friend was taking care of her. During all this, I was the sounding board for my friend. Every detail. Every procedure, argument. Same when her brother passed. I was more than glad to be there for her. Unfortunately, not long after her brother passed her cousin's wife also passed. About the same time, I lost a good friend. It was especially hard. By the time the cousin passed I was full up. I know grieving takes time and everyone is different. When I resisted any more minute-by-minute details about the cousin, I was told I wasn't a good friend. Am I really a bad friend because I just did not want every detail again? I miss her, but I don't miss walking-on-eggshells conversations. - Eggshells Eggshells: You both were under a lot of stress and also grieving. It's easy, and common, in those moments to say the wrong thing or to take something the wrong way. We have to give each other grace. It's also reasonable and healthy to know when you're at emotional capacity. Sometimes we have to find the right words for it, such as: ""I want to be there for you, and I understand that this is hard, but some of the details are overwhelming me. Is there another way I can help, or can we revisit this later?"" It's also fine to say: ""You're going through it, I'm going through it. I don't have much to give right now and maybe you don't either, but can we just sit with each other?"" If you can, let the experience be water under the bridge. Reach out to your friend. Tell her you miss her. Ask her if you and she can start again. Send questions to R. Eric Thomas at eric@askingeric.com or P.O. Box 22474, Philadelphia, PA 19110. Follow him on Instagram and sign up for his weekly newsletter at rericthomas.com. 2025 by R. Eric Thomas. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency." 3299129326,Americans now know what they're against. They saw it in Minneapolis.,2026-02-01,The Washington Post,Commentary,Editorial-Opinion,A.19,,Regional,,,Copyright WP Company LLC d/b/a The Washington Post 2026,1220,805,['Kathleen Parker'],"['Fascism', 'Border patrol']","['United States--US', 'Minnesota']",[],[],[],[],"A proven antidote to political division is a common enemy. The greater the powers organized against people, the stronger the bond becomes among disparate groups. Think 9/11. Now turn your gaze to Minneapolis. Never did I imagine that the existential threat to America's democratic republic would be posed by our own government. Maybe I've been naive, but I've always believed that a constitutional commitment to moral principles, especially the rule of law, meant we were protected from the fates of less blessed nations. America was the exceptional country, created by a confluence of great men and minds at a unique moment in history. But something has happened to the nation. We're not the same people we were as recently as 2016, when the norm-shattering Donald Trump came to power. He stepped into a role tailor-made for him at a time when the future seemed up for grabs. His vision for the United States has hardened into something unrecognizable while his methods have escalated into lawlessness. I'm reminded of the character Randall Flagg from Stephen King's 1978 novel, ""The Stand."" Flagg was a sorcerer and cult leader who served chaos, darkness, destruction and conflict to bring down civilization. King's horror story, which culminates in a showdown between good and evil, could be a metaphor for today's partisan hostility. The recent killings of two Minnesota citizens protesting the roughly 3,000-strong federal invasion and stormtrooper tactics make King's masterpiece seem hauntingly prescient and, perhaps, prescriptive. The Minneapolis chaos isn't random but likely politically retributive (note the preference from Immigration and Customs Enforcement for blue states) and perhaps tied to the midterms and 2028 election, both of which Trump probably wouldn't mind canceling. By creating chaos, this unrestrained president can justify imposing stricter controls, potentially leading to more military occupation across the country. That's one way to obstruct the nation's electoral system. The Jan. 6 storming of the U.S. Capitol didn't quite do the trick. I'm convinced by the evidence - thanks to citizen cameras - and my own eyes that using lethal force against Renée Good and Alex Pretti was not justified. My colleague George F. Will hit a sweet spot with his column arguing ""it is good citizenship to assume that everything ICE says, and everything the administration says in support of its deportation mania, is untrue until proved to be otherwise."" Jonathan Rauch, writing in the Atlantic, laid out a convincing case for calling Trump's policies ""fascism,"" discarding the word he previously used, patrimonialism, to describe them. Patrimonialism, he explained, is a governing style while fascism is ideological, aggressive and, at first, revolutionary. Rauch provided 18 examples of Trump-style fascism, including glorifying violence and a might-is-right worldview. Not using ""fascist"" now, he said, would be ""perverse."" Do yourself a favor and read the article. Then mentally scroll through what you've seen in Minneapolis: Masked, armed men girded with bulletproof vests and other military effects, dragging people out of their homes into frigid streets, tossing women to the ground, detaining children, and shooting and killing civilians who are peacefully protesting. Pretti was holding a phone when agents used pepper spray on him, before he was beaten and shot multiple times. Although Trump has taken some measures to mitigate the public outcry following Pretti's killing, they're not enough. He sidelined Homeland Security Secretary Kristi L. Noem for her mindless jabber that included calling Pretti a ""domestic terrorist"" for using a cellphone to film agents abusing a woman. Noem should be sent home to South Dakota. Trump also swapped out his top gun in Minnesota, Border Patrol commander Gregory Bovino, for border czar Tom Homan, who said he plans to ""draw down"" agents there. Some cold comfort, that. ICE agents involved in the killings should be charged rather than merely suspended. But Trump's White House, whose officials lately have been posting racist and antisemitic coded messages on social media, doesn't see things this way. Trump likes chaos, and his self-serving goals become more achievable as long as it lasts. This means ICE will continue its dangerous deployments with Trump's blessing - and journalists who try to expose the reality on the ground pay the price. On Thursday night and Friday morning, former CNN anchor Don Lemon and independent journalist Georgia Fort were arrested by federal agents in connection to their coverage of an anti-ICE protest at a church in St. Paul. Into this darkness, a slice of light pierces the gloom. The worm seems to be turning. Most Americans oppose what is happening, while other countries file formal protests and issue travel warnings to citizens considering a U.S. destination. Even some MAGA voters must loathe what they're seeing. Welcome to the light, friends. America's partisans, and all of those trapped between, have a common enemy and a unifying mission to stop the madness. It's time to take a stand." 3299129327,Right on cue: Toddler is recognized for his mastery of trick shots,2026-02-01,The Washington Post,News,A-Section,A.16,,Regional,,,Copyright WP Company LLC d/b/a The Washington Post 2026,1260,553,['Victoria Craw'],['Billiards'],[],[],[],[],[],"He loves cartoons and is tucked in bed by 6:15 p.m. But with a cue in his tiny hand, this toddler can perform feats many adults can only dream of. Jude Owens, a 3-year-old from Manchester in northern England, holds two Guinness World Records for mastering trick shots, maneuvers on a billiards table that require significant skill. The first he achieved at the age of 2 years 261 days in September, when he became the youngest person to make two balls sink into different pockets from a single strike of the cue, known as a snooker double pot, GWR said in a statement Tuesday. The following month, Jude nabbed the record for being the youngest person to make a pool bank shot - which GWR described as when the cue ball hits another ball off one or more rails before sinking it in a pocket - at the age of 2 years 302 days. It makes him the youngest person ever to perform both trick shots, and one of the youngest double record holders in Guinness World Records history, the organization said. ""To see someone as young as Jude display such skill, enthusiasm and determination is incredibly special,"" said Craig Glenday, editor in chief of Guinness World Records. Jude is not yet tall enough to take his shots standing on the ground, so he must first clamber onto a stool. Videos online show him stretched across a table, or dressed in a tiny waistcoat and bow tie and expertly chalking his cue. ""There's a lot of snooker stars that have started young, but I don't think ever this young,"" Jude's mother, Sinead Owens, said in a phone interview Wednesday. She said Jude's father, Luke, is an avid fan of snooker - a sport similar to pool that is also played on a billiards table and is popular in the United Kingdom. Jude started playing just after he turned 2 when he got a miniature table for Christmas. He quickly showed a knack for it, despite having to use half a cue. ""He doesn't know the rules or anything,"" Sinead said, adding that it ""started with trick shots and then it kind of went from there."" The family started a TikTok page for him that has accumulated a large following, made up of thousands of fans across Instagram, Facebook and YouTube. It has also led to an appearance at the World Snooker Tour U.K Championship and a sponsorship deal. Sinead said the GWR certificates are hung in the family home but her son is unfazed by his talent. He also loves to play golf and watch the local soccer team Manchester United, and he was recently gifted a dartboard for Christmas. ""We only usually play maybe once a week at the weekend,"" she said, referring to his snooker routine. ""We don't like to push it on him."" ""Because he's so young at the minute, it's more of just a hobby. There's no pressure or anything for him to play."" Jude's father, Luke, described the two world records as a ""pinnacle moment"" in an interview with GWR and said he expects his son to surpass his abilities in the near future. ""He doesn't beat me at snooker at the moment,"" he said, ""but I like to think he would in the next few years easily.""" 3299129328,"In Sin City, a commitment to Excel(lence)",2026-02-01,The Washington Post,News,Sports,B.1,,Suburban,,IN LAS VEGAS,Copyright WP Company LLC d/b/a The Washington Post 2026,1070,2839,['Jesse Dougherty'],"['Athletes', 'College sports', 'Students', 'Coaches & managers', 'Weightlifting', 'Gaming machines']","['New York', 'United States--US', 'Austria', 'Arizona']",['Carrot Top (comedian)'],"['National Collegiate Athletic Association--NCAA', 'Starbucks Corp']",[],[],"You know how hard it is to be the most distinct person at the Luxor Hotel & Casino on a Monday afternoon? In the hotel check-in line, there's a woman with a safari hat on her head and a giant plastic parrot on her shoulder. In the bathroom, there's a man brushing his teeth, his eyes a little bloodshot, a foot-high stack of $100 chips forming a perfect triangle on the sink to his right. And on the casino floor, an older man uses Google Maps to find his way, though he seems confused about whether to turn right at the Wizard of Oz slot machine or keep walking past a sleeping roulette table, where he would eventually hit a sign for an overpriced buffet, then another for tickets to see Carrot Top do whatever Carrot Top does. And yet, near the front desk, at what might be the world's saddest Starbucks, sits Benjamin Weber, who traveled 24 hours from rural Austria, not far from the Hungarian border, to defend his individual title in college Excel. Yes, competitive spreadsheeting. Weber types a formula in the amount of time it takes to blink twice. He types a lot. If his jeans fit him a bit better, you wouldn't see he's wearing Christmas-themed socks - red, green and striped - three weeks before the holiday. But in this reality, the socks are impossible to ignore, as is the fact that, straight behind him, two paramedics are pushing an empty stretcher to God knows where. ""Two years ago, I came out of nowhere,"" Weber says, looking up from his laptop. ""No one knew me, then I almost won the whole thing. Then last year, boom, I won it all. So now I just hope there isn't someone like that, someone I don't even know yet who could take me down."" He pauses. ""You know, I'd really like to win again."" The formula for success Nathan Wang also came to Vegas for the Excel competition, but at the moment he's trying to set the record for food consumed at an all-you-can-eat buffet. ""You should see the carving station,"" Wang says, narrating his five-course meal to his mother on FaceTime, his iPhone propped on a tripod that doubles as a selfie stick. ""And they have breakfast,"" he adds, talking through a mouthful of room-temperature eggs. ""And pretty good salad,"" he says, right as he chomps a wad of lettuce off his fork. The first Microsoft Excel Collegiate Challenge finals were held in Tucson in 2023. But for the past two years, the MECC upgraded to Vegas, bringing hundreds of Excel obsessives to Sin City. In the mornings, everyone gathers in a windowless ballroom, listening to presentations about Excel tricks and new technology. In the evenings, the college competition is a warmup for the professional side, which started in 2021. And in between, when they aren't learning or trying to crush one another at Excel, the students eat, network, do their homework, eat more, glance at the blackjack tables, consider losing money, eat instead, then daydream about formulas they might plug into some future spreadsheet, all in no particular order. ""I'm going to be onstage tomorrow,"" Wang, a senior at the University of Wisconsin, says to his mom. ""So if you watch the live stream, you'll see me in the semifinals."" Another big bite of eggs. ""Mmhm. A stage."" Wang will be one of 12 students featured onstage for the semifinals, in the Luxor's esports arena, because of how well he fared in the online qualifying rounds. From there, the top 12 of 64 will advance to the individual finals, in which eternal Excel glory awaits (not to mention a decent amount of cash). For each competition, there is a case, which consists of seven levels plus a handful of bonus questions. The students have 30 minutes to complete as much of the case as they can, which could include sorting giant datasets in specific ways or working through a visual puzzle, such as how to keep an animated bird from flying into certain cells of a spreadsheet. The more a competitor solves, the more points they accrue, the better chance they have to win. Easy? Not quite. College Excel might not involve play calls or weight training, but it does require an abundance of skill. And while the term ""student-athlete"" has become a punch line in college sports, it does apply here (depending on what you think about people sweating while typing). The NCAA has those commercials - you've seen them - about how most athletes go pro in something other than sports. But in Vegas, most of these students, many of them finance majors, will go pro in spreadsheeting. Winning is both fun and a useful résumé line. ""These are students who aren't athletes athletes, like NCAA athletes,"" says Dwayne Safer, a professor and the Excel coach at Messiah University, a small college in Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania. ""But they are, like, finance athletes."" There's also a team competition, though Wang won't take part in that because Wisconsin doesn't have an Excel program. Unlike most students in Vegas, he arrived alone - no coach, no teammates, no curious professor happy to skip a few days of classes. So at lunchtime, he eats by himself, surrounded, at an arm's length, by logos for Arizona, Tennessee, Kentucky, Texas and Illinois Chicago, among others, to say nothing of all the international schools. A few tables from Wang's booth, Weber, the individual favorite, laughs with three Arizona students. They're asking him about public transportation in Austria, which they figure is just a tad different from Vegas's monorails. But Wang keeps talking straight into his iPhone camera, inspired by his favorite genre of video, in which strangers narrate what they're cooking and film from creative angles. He has stretched his tripod back into a selfie stick so he can walk and talk and hopefully not collide with someone who has chosen gambling over a shower. A future audience keeps Wang company. He hopes to eventually post this footage on YouTube. ""I've read a lot about Benjamin Weber,"" he says, no more than an hour after one coach referred to Weber as the ""LeBron James of college Excel,"" a marvel on the keys, the only competitor his students won't stop yapping about (and know by a single name: Beni). ""Man, it would be really cool to meet him."" Hitting the streets Vegas and fresh air don't often go hand in hand. Tinted windows and the lack of clocks work hard to keep gamblers, vacationers and conference-goers inside. But a few hours after Wang left the buffet - and shortly after Weber sat at that Starbucks - David Brown looks around the ballroom, grins and raises his voice. ""All right!"" Brown shouts, hushing an entire happy hour. ""Parade time! Let's go!"" For Brown, who's always hustling and promoting, this is his resting state. A professor of finance at Arizona, Brown, 42, co-founded competitive college Excel - and the MECC - in 2022. Officially, he is Arizona's coach and one of the event's main organizers. Unofficially, he's a hype man for the whole thing. And if the college side is Brown's baby, the Monday night parade is like a wacky cousin, rumbling into the room, making everyone just a bit uncomfortable, then stirring something like love. In lawless Las Vegas, some people drink on the sidewalk. Others flood those sidewalks and chant about spreadsheets. ""Parade time!"" Brown repeats. ""Okay! Outside!"" Just beyond the Luxor's back entrance, Brown tests the crowd. ""Who loves Excel?! Come on!"" No immediate takers. A cabdriver takes a drag of his cigarette. ""Well,"" Brown says much more quietly, laughing to himself. ""At least we do."" They march down to the Strip in a jagged line, a few dozen of them, maybe more. Brown and three others carry two big photo backdrops, the kind you would see on a red carpet, as banners. There are lots of signs. POWER TO THE PIVOT TABLES STAND TOGETHER, EXCEL FOREVER YOU CAN TAKE MY EXCEL FROM MY COLD, DEAD HANDS. They're hardcore but self-deprecating. In this group, FREAKS IN THE SHEETS is played out. They pass the Statue of Liberty at New York-New York, the Waldorf Astoria, those giant fountains at the Bellagio. At an escalator, they all go up. At the end of a pedestrian bridge, they all take another escalator down. Strangers rubberneck, catching an odd collection of words - Excel … Collegiate … Challenge - before the banner is gone. Then a person dressed as Chewbacca fist-bumps a guy wearing a bedazzled Excel varsity jacket. ""Hey hey! Ho ho! Rows and columns are what we know!"" Brown chants, waving his arms for others to join him. ""Hey hey! Ho ho! Rows and columns are what we know!"" ""E-X-C-E-L!"" starts another coach. ""Google Sheets can go to hell!"" A pack of young women, heading for a night out, giggle at that attempt. One says competitive Excel sounds kind of cool. Cashing in Of all the teams here for the college competition, only one, Tennessee, has a name, image and likeness (NIL) deal. Those are, of course, typically reserved for athletes who play high-revenue sports or have big social media followings because they are often tied to an individual's commercial value (or worth on the field or court). But Weigel's, a convenience store chain in Tennessee, asked the Excel squad to be part of a marketing campaign with some of the school's other teams. The ad, a hype video, calls the Excel team the ""ONLY Vols to bring home a Natty last year."" Tennessee won the MECC championship in 2024. ""It's not exactly an NIL deal like the real athletes get,"" Eric Kelley, Tennessee's coach, says the morning after the parade, his team waiting in the buffet line. ""Um,"" says junior Sean Li, one of three students on Tennessee's competition team. ""Yeah, wait a second,"" says senior Tommy Houser, the second. ""Real athletes?"" says senior Nathaniel Insko, the third. They all laugh. The NIL money did pay for their hotel rooms at the Luxor. Insko, who has the muscles of someone who lifts weights, not laptops, flexed his biceps in the ad. In a few hours, Tennessee will start its title defense, though none of its current athletes were on the stage for that win. And that's why, if they're being honest, they're nervous about the semis. Twelve teams will compete. Just four will advance. ""Arizona is so damn good,"" Houser says. If most students are looking up at Weber in the individual competition, the Wildcats are the front-runners in the team bracket, the group to beat and fear. Not only are they all seniors, but two of them, Jackson Weber and Desirae Hoaglin, were on the squad that finished second in 2024. Tess Patton helped Arizona win the team championship as a sophomore in 2023. The Tennessee students list off those names as if they're opening a pack of trading cards. (And although there are, in fact, official trading cards for the event, very few college competitors are featured. Beni Weber is an exception. He is considered a rare find.) ""They're like those old [San Antonio] Spurs teams that were so dominant,"" Insko says, staying on the topic of Arizona. ""Tim Duncan, Manu Ginóbili, Tony Parker. Just so much experience."" ""Yeah,"" Houser answers. ""Damn."" ""Yeah,"" Insko says, and then they talk about something else. Their worst fears are confirmed that evening. HyperX Arena, tucked right off the casino floor, is full, the stage lit up with 12 computer stations. There's an Excel version of an awards show entrance, including an electric green carpet, a photo station and taped interviews with a host from Microsoft. At the bar, a $16 cocktail called ""Countdown"" is made with vodka, lime juice, raspberry puree and ginger beer. The college team semis are first. One by one, the competitors come down a hype tunnel, their dances and poses flashing on a giant screen. The two commentators, watching from a second-floor booth, stoke the crowd, their voices pumped into the arena (and streamed live on YouTube). The case has a ""senioritis"" theme, asking competitors to sort through huge datasets to plan trips for 500 of their closest friends. Toward the end of the round, Arizona is way ahead. Jackson Weber and Patton huddle around Hoaglin's computer, the three of them solving the last bit of the case together. Brown, almost out of breath, having led chants for close to 30 minutes, crouches in front of the monitor showing Hoaglin's screen to the audience. No Excel competitor uses a mouse, only hot keys, so Hoaglin's fingers fly across the keyboard, her glasses changing colors as the tabs change. When the last formula works, they have the rare perfect score with just over a minute left on the clock. Patton throws her arms in the air. Tennessee finishes sixth, meaning Li, Houser and Insko are eliminated before the finals. And in the individual semis, with a case built around a make-believe dating app for birds, Beni Weber places seventh, good enough to advance, though disappointing because one faulty formula slowed him down. Wang finishes 34th, ending his run. He competed with his iPhone on the tripod, filming every keystroke. But now he walks into the casino with it back on the selfie stick, spilling his heart to the camera. Hitting close The last morning of the competition, it's absolutely freezing, a harsh wind whipping off the desert. The Arizona students - Jackson Weber, Patton and Hoaglin, plus a dozen others - are packing up the bus for the seven-hour drive back to Tucson, which they will make after the team and individual finals. Their arms shake as they toss bags into the luggage compartment. ""I've been thinking since last night of what to say to you guys,"" Brown says to Weber, patting his shoulder. ""Well, what did you come up with?"" Weber asks. ""Still working on it."" The four teams in the finals are Arizona, Messiah, University of Technology Sydney and INSCAE, a business school from Madagascar. Members of the winning team will get $2,000 each. The individual champion nets $5,000. Patton has an upcoming trip to London and would love to defray the costs. In the finals, there will be a new strategic wrinkle. Only the two fastest teams can complete each bonus question. The other two teams are locked out, lowering their highest possible score. That means, at the beginning of the 30-minute round, there will be an all-out race to the bonus questions, making speed a major factor. ""It was cool to get a perfect score,"" Patton says as the team walks to lunch. ""It's really hard to get a perfect score!"" Hoaglin chimes in. ""But if we don't get those bonuses first …"" Patton says. ""It doesn't really matter."" And then they're back in the arena. And then, with a case called ""Green Excel Club,"" built on sorting data and solving puzzles about dancers, INSCAE blitzes the bonus questions, racing way ahead. When INSCAE reaches its maximum score, finishing with more than five minutes left, Arizona can't make up the deficit. Well before the clock runs out, the INSCAE students celebrate, one of them wrapped in the Madagascar flag. Soon, Beni Weber is introduced for the individual final and drapes an Austrian football scarf behind his computer. He does this every round. But like the Arizona team, it's not his night. The case is newspaper-themed, asking competitors to use formulas to solve parts of various Sudoku puzzles, building toward completing many at once. Weber places fourth, but it's not an out-of-nowhere underdog who beats him. Pieter Pienaar, a college Excel veteran from South Africa, is the winner. ""I am sad, if I'm being completely honest with you,"" Weber says, leaning against the stage afterward. ""But I had so much fun this week. I'm going on a quick trip with a couple of guys from here. I imagine we'll talk about the competition. But after that? I'm going skiing back home, and I plan to not think about spreadsheets for at least a few weeks."" Right outside the arena, at the edge of the casino floor, every seat is filled at a small bar. A group of adults cheers a round of beers at a high top. The Philadelphia Flyers are playing the Buffalo Sabres, the New York Knicks are playing the Charlotte Hornets, Auburn is playing North Carolina State in men's basketball. At a digital blackjack machine, a couple leans way back, arm in arm, playing music from a little speaker. They share a cigarette. Every third person, it seems, is smoking a cigarette or about to spark one up. Two Excel competitors, having just finished the individual finals, plan to check out a restaurant that's known for its servers being total jerks. They are in Vegas for only one more night, they figure, and soon they will go back to being anonymous college students. Plus, everyone at the Excel event has been so nice." 3299129329,How commutes have changed since covid,2026-02-01,The Washington Post,News,Metro,B.16,,Regional,,,Copyright WP Company LLC d/b/a The Washington Post 2026,1160,1196,['Rachel Weiner'],"['Work at home', 'Commuting', 'Tolls', 'Traffic', 'Pandemics', 'Telecommuting', 'Return to office']","['Maryland', 'United States--US', 'Virginia']",[],[],[],[],"Despite the upheaval of the past six years, one thing has not changed - D.C. traffic is bad. A new survey taken by the Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments (MWCOG) between March and June of last year finds that at 41 minutes, the average commute in the area is about as far and long as it was in 2019. Commuting patterns have changed, however. More people are teleworking at least two days a week and taking transit; on the other hand, the region has grown, and a larger proportion of suburbanites in Maryland and Virginia are driving to work alone. ""More and more people are coming into the office just for a few hours,"" Kanti Srikanth, head of planning at the regional group. ""All of that shift is going to change when there is demand on our roadways and on our transit system."" The peak rush hour is not 6:30 to 7:30 in the morning; it's now about an hour later. All of that will have to be considered as plans are made for new transit and road infrastructure. The group interviewed 7,524 commuters in D.C. and 11 surrounding jurisdictions. Here's what else we learned. 1. People are back in offices, but not all the time While working from home part of the time remains far more common than it was before the pandemic, more people are returning to the office. In 2022, the last time this survey was taken, 75 percent of hybrid commuters teleworked at least three times a week. In 2025, that percentage was 35 percent. Remote work ""does not appear to be the ultimate solution we expected and hoped for"" to deal with traffic congestion, Neil Harris, chair of MWCOG's Transportation Planning Board said Wednesday at a discussion of the survey results among local leaders. The decrease has largely been driven by federal workers. Before the pandemic, they were the group most likely to telework. Now, because of return-to-office policies under the Trump administration, they are the only one with fewer teleworkers than in 2019, down from 48 to 23 percent. Nearly half of workers who can telework are doing ""split shifts"" at least once a week, where they do some work from home and some from an office. 2. Driving still dominates, but solo drivers are unhappy The least happy group of commuters is also the largest: people who drive to work alone. Fifty-five percent of commutes in the region are made by someone alone behind the wheel. In 2016, 57 percent of these workers were satisfied with their commutes. Now, it's only 44 percent. That's despite the fact that the average car commute length - around 43 minutes - hasn't changed much since 2019. The least happy, with the longest commutes, are people who live in the ""outer ring"" exurbs. In that group 81 percent drive alone, the average commute is 50 minutes, and only 38 percent say they are happy with their long commutes. 3. Satisfaction among train commuters is up While the average transit commute is about the same distance as the average driving commute - 17 to 18 miles - transit commutes take longer, with an average of 52 minutes on a train or bus. But commuters who get to work by Metro are happier than they were three years ago, with 62 percent saying they were satisfied or very satisfied with their commute compared to 46 percent in 2022. That echoes a Washington Post-Schar School poll taken in the spring of 2025, which found that 80 percent of riders rate Metro positively. Overall, Metro commuter satisfaction rose between 2016 and 2019, after the agency started tackling a plethora of safety and reliability issues. That upward trend was halted by the pandemic, when few people were riding and manufacturing defects forced the agency to sideline much of its fleet. Since then Metro has won riders over again with increased frequency and fewer disruptions. Commuter rail riders are also relatively content, with 58 percent saying they are satisfied with their commute. 3. Satisfaction among bus commuters is down Metrobus ridership has rebounded the fastest from the pandemic, climbing to over 10 million rides a month, according to agency statistics. But only half of commuters are satisfied with the bus, according to the survey. While satisfaction rose from 44 percent in 2022, it is lower than it was in 2019 (66 percent) and 2016 (62 percent). That's a challenge as local leaders look to the bus network as the way to expand public transit access in the area, saying adding new rail lines is too expensive and difficult. One serious problem is reliability. Buses get stuck in traffic and absenteeism messes with schedules. Train stations are also much more of a draw than bus stops. Forty-three percent of people polled who either moved or took a new job in 2025 said they considered proximity to a Metro rail station when they did. Only 22 percent considered bus stops. However, the survey was done just before Metro redid the entire bus network, implementing changes that benefited some commuters while leaving others frustrated. 4. Toll lanes have changed some behavior Since the 2019 survey, Virginia has added toll lanes to Interstate 66 - on express lanes outside the Beltway and for all single-car drivers during rush hour inside the Beltway. Even though carpoolers and buses are exempt from tolls, only 17 percent of commuters using those roads take advantage of those options. But 15 percent of high-occupancy vehicle and express lane users said they did change their schedules to avoid paying high tolls. And 9 percent said they shifted to taking a shared car, van or bus to use the toll lanes at least some of the time. Kimberly McCool, an official at the Virginia Department of Transportation told reporters the state is ""proud of our 97 mile network of HOV and express lanes,"" which have generated over $150 million in funding for transit and other alternatives to driving. Virginia has put toll roads on its half of the Beltway, and Gov. Wes Moore (D) recently said he was considering a public-private partnership on the Maryland side to rehabilitate the American Legion Bridge. 5. Bike and bus lanes have not slowed D.C. down Inside the ""core"" of D.C., Arlington and Alexandria, commutes are the shortest - about 33 minutes one way. That number hasn't changed despite the fact that D.C. has 50 more miles of bike lanes and 11 miles more of bus lanes than it did in 2019. District Department of Transportation Director Sharon Kershbaum said that was an achievement. ""I know there is a misperception that when you use travel lanes for bike lanes or for bus lanes, it's going to create congestion and slow things down,"" she said. ""But this data is showing in fact … commuter times haven't changed."" The happiest commuters are the ones who bike, walk or take a scooter to work; they are also far more likely to live close to work with an average commute of four miles and 22 minutes. They are also one of the smallest groups, as fewer than 2 percent of commutes are made on foot or by bicycle." 3299129330,Why communist leaders inevitably purge their generals,2026-02-01,The Washington Post,Commentary,Editorial-Opinion,A.19,,Regional,,,Copyright WP Company LLC d/b/a The Washington Post 2026,1160,896,['Miles Yu'],"['Paranoia', 'Leadership', 'Armed forces', 'Collusion']","['China', 'Union of Soviet Socialist Republics--USSR']",[],[],[],[],"The dramatic purge of China's highest-ranking uniformed officer, Gen. Zhang Youxia, last weekend is the latest evidence that communist dictatorships require absolute loyalty from their senior military leaders. And because absolute loyalty can never be absolutely verified, pursuing it inevitably breeds paranoia. This is not an accident or a pathology unique to individual leaders. It is the structural logic of communist rule itself. From Joseph Stalin to Mao Zedong, from Kim Jong Un to Xi Jinping, concentrated power demands total obedience - and demanding total obedience produces endless purges. At the core of every communist regime sits a single supreme leader who monopolizes authority over the party, the state, the military and the security apparatus. Such concentration of power leaves no room for genuine collective leadership. Yet the leader must still rely on human agents who wield enormous operational authority. This dependency creates a fatal contradiction: Those closest to power are simultaneously the most indispensable and the most dangerous. The result is predictable. The supreme leader becomes obsessed with hidden dissent, double loyalty, and especially foreign collusion. Xenophobic paranoia becomes the most lethal weapon of regime survival. Accusations of conspiring with hostile external forces provide a perfect justification for eliminating rivals while preserving the moral mythology of the system. The leader is never wrong; traitors are simply everywhere. Stalin perfected this logic. In 1937, Marshal Mikhail Tukhachevsky, the Red Army's most brilliant commander, was accused of colluding with Nazi Germany to overthrow Stalin. The charge was fabricated, but that was beside the point. Tukhachevsky's modernizing vision, prestige within the military and proximity to power made him intolerable. He was executed, along with much of the Red Army's senior leadership. During the Great Purge, Stalin fixated on ""Trotskyites"" - figures with international connections who could plausibly be portrayed as agents of foreign subversion. Of the Soviet Union's five marshals, three were killed. Only Kliment Voroshilov and Semyon Budyonny survived, largely because they were militarily incompetent and politically harmless. The People's Republic of China has followed a similar script. Since 1949, military purges have come in waves, each reflecting the same underlying fear: The officers commanding the guns might one day turn them inward. Under Mao, marshals were purged not for incompetence, but for insufficient ideological submission. Peng Dehuai was forced out in 1959 after criticizing the catastrophic Great Leap Forward, accused of colluding with the Soviet Union to undermine Mao. Lin Biao, Mao's anointed successor, was later accused of plotting a coup with Soviet backing; his death in a mysterious plane crash in 1971 ended the last illusion of security at the top. Mao's paranoia was not irrational within his system. The 1964 ""Malinovsky Incident"" left a deep scar. After Soviet Defense Minister Rodion Malinovsky suggested to Marshal He Long in Moscow that China should remove Mao as the U.S.S.R. had removed Nikita Khrushchev, Mao became convinced that foreign-backed coups were not theoretical threats but living possibilities. He Long, who was also vice chairman of the Central Military Commission, was later purged and persecuted to death. Even Mao's closest collaborator, Liu Shaoqi - the regime's chief enforcer and nominal head of state - was not spared. Mao labeled him a ""renegade, traitor and scab"" and Liu died after brutal torture. Absolute loyalty offered no immunity. Instead, proximity only increased danger. The post-Mao era did not escape this logic. Zhao Ziyang, though not a military man, learned the same lesson. His fatal sin was telling Mikhail Gorbachev the truth - that China was ruled not by collective leadership but by ""retired"" Deng Xiaoping. Combined with Zhao's reluctance to authorize mass killing during the Tiananmen Square protests, this honesty sealed his political demise. Under Xi, purges have intensified. Since he took power in 2012, more than 110 senior People's Liberation Army officers have been removed in what is the most extensive military cleansing since the Cultural Revolution. Initially framed as anti-corruption, the campaign has increasingly targeted the highest command, especially at the Central Military Commission. The CMC vice chairmanship is arguably the most dangerous job in China. The vice chairs sit closest to the supreme leader and wield enormous control over the world's largest armed force. Since 1949, nine vice chairmen have been purged - most accused, explicitly or implicitly, of colluding with hostile foreign forces. Under Xi alone, Guo Boxiong and Xu Caihou were the first military leaders removed. Then, in 2023, an unprecedented purge began: Rocket Force commanders, procurement chiefs, theater commanders and finally Xi's own loyalists. In 2025, He Weidong and Adm. Miao Hua were expelled. Now, the purge of Zhang Youxia - Xi's longtime ally and fellow princeling - is especially revealing. Having exhausted corruption charges and loyalist purges, Xi now appears poised to invoke the oldest communist accusation of all: treason through foreign collusion. Reports suggest Zhang may be accused of leaking nuclear secrets to the United States. How convenient! The purpose is clear. Xi must convince the system that this purge is not personal, not political, but righteous - an act of national salvation against an external enemy. This is the paranoia-fueled logic of communist purges. The higher one rises, the more likely one is to be cast as a traitor. In such systems, survival depends not on competence, integrity or service - but on remaining invisible to the supreme leader's fear. The writer is director of the China Center at Hudson Institute." 3299129331,Horoscope,2026-02-01,The Washington Post,News,Arts,E.10,,Final,,,Copyright WP Company LLC d/b/a The Washington Post 2026,790,653,['Georgia Nicols'],"['Families & family life', 'Peace']",[],[],[],[],[],"Happy Birthday | Sunday Feb. 1: You are multitalented, charismatic and quick to evaluate a situation. You're strong-willed, grounded and sensible. This is a year of building and construction. It's time to create foundations, both internally and externally. Simplicity is key. Take charge of your health. Physical exercise will be important. Moon Alert: There are no restrictions to shopping or important decisions. The Moon is in Leo. ARIES (March 21-April 19) Parents will have to be tolerant with their kids because this is the classic day for hissy fits, meltdowns and rebellions. Be patient with yourself and cut others some slack. This same tension could arise with romantic partners as well. Stay chill to keep the peace. (You'll be happier.) TAURUS (April 20-May 20) This is the classic day for difficulties with bosses, parents, VIPs and the police. Authority figures will oppose you at home, as well as with your family. Do what you can to keep the peace. Do not challenge others. And do not underestimate the power of courtesy if you are challenged. GEMINI (May 21-June 20) Steer clear of arguments with others. Not only will this ruin your peace of mind, it could also trigger an accident because of the distraction it could create. Be patient with siblings, relatives and daily contacts to get through this day. Be smart. CANCER (June 21-July 22) You're never casual about money, and this might be one reason financial discussions with others about shared property, shared costs, shared responsibilities - whatever - could lead to arguments. Do your best to keep a lid on things. Postpone these discussions for a better time. Not today. LEO (July 23-Aug. 22) This is a challenging day for you. With the Moon in your sign, you're a bit more emotional than usual. However, your luck is better. Three planets oppose your Moon, which will create difficulties if dealing with partners and close friends. Use patience and your Leo charm to keep the peace. VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22) Be patient with work colleagues, or anything related to your pet or even your health, because people are quick to anger. Or they might take issue with what you say or feel resentful. Or the reverse might occur: You might not like what they say to you! Patience. LIBRA (Sept. 23-Oct. 22) Romantic disputes, as well as difficult dealings with your kids, might erupt because the Moon is opposite Pluto, opposite Mars and opposite the Sun. Not good! Wait until next week to air your views. Patience will pay off. SCORPIO (Oct. 23-Nov. 21) Be considerate when dealing with family members, especially females, mothers and older relatives. It will be easy for you to be annoyed. Do not open this Pandora's box. People remember accusations and derisive comments. Let this one go. SAGITTARIUS (Nov. 22-Dec. 21) Steer clear of sensitive topics, because people are argumentative. Subjects such as politics, religion and racial issues will quickly escalate into nasty confrontations. You don't need this. Mum's the word. CAPRICORN (Dec. 22-Jan. 19) Avoid financial disputes or arguments about your possessions. In all likelihood, nothing will come of it except a disappointment in someone or a grudge. Wait until another day to raise your objections about financial matters or money that might be owed. AQUARIUS (Jan. 20-Feb. 18) ""Houston, we have a problem."" This is a grumpy day for many people. The fact is that the Moon is opposite your sign challenging a handful of planets in your own sign, which is why you might feel easily annoyed with those who are closest to you. Consider this an opportunity to practice patience. PISCES (Feb. 19-March 20) Be patient when dealing with others, especially people at work or people who are involved with your health care, and also anyone you talk to who might relate to your pet. These are the very areas where you might lose it or be quick to anger. Stay chill." 3299129332,Gamers' backlash to AI forces studios to regroup,2026-02-01,The Washington Post,News,Business,B.11,,Regional,,,Copyright WP Company LLC d/b/a The Washington Post 2026,1350,1423,['Hunter Tatum'],"['Role playing', 'Artists', 'Computer & video games', 'Virtual communities', 'Art', 'Consumers', 'Film adaptations', 'Generative artificial intelligence', 'Chatbots']",[],[],[],[],[],"Smartphones, social networks and search engines are being flooded with ""smart"" new features as the tech industry bets that artificial intelligence will revolutionize every facet of life. But in one segment of the digital economy, a growing pocket of resistance from consumers is holding back the AI flood. Video game developers are, like companies in other industries, experimenting with AI tools to help workers be more productive. But as more studios have released games with AI-generated art, characters and dialogue, a growing number have later backtracked or sworn to limit their use of the technology. The reversals have come after aggressive pushback from gamers online, who argue that AI threatens what they love about games if it replaces the creative work of human developers. In December, Running With Scissors, a game publisher known for the Postal shooter franchise, scrapped a forthcoming title after online accusations there were AI-generated graphics in its trailer. The role-playing game ""Clair Obscur: Expedition 33"" won Game of the Year at this year's prestigious Indie Game Awards, but the accolade was rescinded after its developer, Sandfall Interactive, said it had experimented with AI-generated images but ultimately didn't include them. Some players and industry employees say gaming's battle over AI could foreshadow the rise of resistance to AI's encroachment into other spheres. Despite survey data showing a majority of Americans have negative feelings about the technology, use of AI is surging and many people are being compelled to adopt it at work, school and home. If gamers can leverage online communities and targeted campaigns to keep AI out of their favorite products, perhaps other groups could, too. Others suggest the protests are a doomed campaign against the technology's inevitable adoption. For now, gaming companies must tread carefully - or face a brutal dressing-down from their most vocal and internet-savvy customers. ""Our whole professional careers got canceled in one hour,"" said Artem Korovkin, co-founder of game studio Goonswarm, which made the recently canceled Postal title for Running With Scissors. Sandfall did not respond to a request for comment. Running With Scissors co-owner Mike Jaret-Schachter said it is grateful to its community of fans for flagging concerns with the art in Goonswarm's Postal game. ""Their initial concerns allowed us to kill a project that would have done irreparable damage to our brand,"" he said. Gamers are better positioned than most other consumers to influence the companies they patronize. Their habit of forming online communities around specific titles on Discord, Reddit or Twitch makes it relatively easy to drum up coordinated resistance to unpopular moves by game studios. The industry's stalled growth after a decade of rapid expansion also gives fans leverage. Adrienne Massanari, a professor at American University who studies gaming communities online, said players' deep emotional connections to their favorite titles and genres and these games' rising prices can make for intense backlash. Last year, many players expressed surprise and outrage after Nintendo launched its latest Mario Kart game with an $80 price tag, about $10 more than most games of its type. ""There's increasingly a sense of, 'If I'm asked to pay for this game, I want it to be created by humans,'"" Massanari said. Artificial intelligence has long played a role in video games, with earlier forms of the technology powering background characters and dynamic environments. The generative AI behind recent chatbots such as ChatGPT is being embraced by game developers to help fill imaginary worlds with interesting characters and visuals. But some gamers worry the technology will reduce the work needed from artists and voice actors, or lead to low-quality games filled with AI-generated ""slop"" that lacks a creative touch. In November, when Everstone Studio launched the role-playing game ""Where Winds Meet,"" some players noticed that its background characters appeared to be powered by general purpose AI chatbots. While the game was set in 10th-century China, these characters were totally familiar with present-day commodities such as ketchup, prompting players to complain online that it compromised the game's historical feel. The company did not respond to a request for comment. Other companies have run into trouble just for suggesting they will use AI. In December, Swen Vincke, chief executive of Larian, producer of the popular Baldur's Gate fantasy games, said in an interview with Bloomberg that the company was using generative AI to ""explore ideas"" for its upcoming release ""Divinity."" The outrage was immediate, with gamers taking to Reddit and X to criticize Vincke for what they saw as a blanket endorsement. ""Well Divinity is AI slop so all my interest in that game and Larian as a studio is dead now,"" one user wrote on X. Vincke quickly took to X himself to respond. ""We're not 'pushing hard' for or replacing concept artists with AI,"" he wrote. He added that Larian's artists use generative AI only to make reference images, in the same they would use ""art books or Google."" But the most-liked responses to his post were largely negative about AI. Larian executives ended up vowing in a January Reddit thread that the technology would play no role in the images its artists use as reference material. Larian did not respond to a request for comment. Vincke and Larian's response illustrates the unusual influence gamers have over the industry, which - although bigger than Hollywood - has a history of responding to pressure from its customers. In 2012, players were so unhappy with the ending of intergalactic war story ""Mass Effect 3"" that the developer, BioWare, released an expanded version that catered to fans' demands. In 2019, gamers offended by Paramount Pictures' film adaptation of Sonic the Hedgehog, the beloved video game character from Sega, led Paramount to delay its release for a redesign. ""There's been a lot of outrage in the gaming community for a long time about a lot different things,"" said Steve Zatzke, a chemical engineer in Michigan who's active in gaming corners of Reddit. AI is ""just one more thing added to the pile."" In its State of the Gaming Industry report released in 2024, the Game Developers Conference reported that a majority of developers see harassment from consumers as a major problem for their work. A track record of successful pressure campaigns emboldens the online gaming community to ask for what it wants and ridicule what it doesn't, said Joost van Dreunen, author of the book ""One Up: Creativity, Competition, and the Global Business of Video Games."" Gamers have consistently rejected anything that feels like a cash grab. Pushback against in-game payments, for example, led major franchises including Elden Ring and Star Wars: Battlefront to avoid that business model, according to van Dreunen. There's a feeling that AI is causing ""a cheapening of the experience overall, and gamers are uniquely attuned to that,"" he said. For the targets of these campaigns, the consequences can be severe. Goonswarm Games, which developed the recently-canceled Postal game, shuttered entirely after AI accusations tanked what the studio said took six years of work. In a post on X in December, the company said it had been flooded with ""false AI accusations"" and would be forced to close. ""We've received a large number of threats, insults, and mockery, which pushed us toward a very difficult decision,"" it said. A day later, the company posted another update that apologized to players and said an internal review had found their concerns about AI-generated images were ""valid."" ""I don't think we deserved all the hate we got,"" Korovkin, Goonswarm's co-founder said. ""But when someone writes to you and says you deserve to be skinned alive, for me, that's a reason to stop."" Gamers' streak of recent victories against AI is unlikely to last, said Matt Workman, a digital effects producer for movies and video games. If new technology can make game development faster or easier, he said, companies will adopt it even if that means weathering a storm of player discontent. ""Every major game studio in the world is using it. They're just doing different PR spins,"" Workman said. Nicole Greene, an AI industry analyst with the consulting firm Gartner, said how the video game industry navigates this terrain could guide companies in other sectors. ""This is a passionate consumer group,"" she said of gamers. ""They don't want to go in and see cheap AI backgrounds because a company wanted to cut costs."" Seeing how developers find ways to make AI acceptable to that tough audience could help companies in areas such as enterprise software or consumer finance, Greene said - if the gaming studios can actually pull it off." 3299129333,"Skater taps grief, achieves glory",2026-02-01,The Washington Post,Feature,A-Section,A.1,,Regional,,,Copyright WP Company LLC d/b/a The Washington Post 2026,970,3955,['Robert Samuels'],"['Parents & parenting', 'Music', 'Olympic games', 'Skating', 'Figure skating', 'Grief', 'Coaches & managers', 'Competition']","['Italy', 'United States--US']",[],[],[],[],"The ice rink at the base of the lush mountains of northern Italy became Maxim Naumov's sanctuary. The wood rafters sloped upward like the ceiling of a cathedral, and the sun beamed through slits of stained-glass windows. Benoît Richaud, a pale, bald French figure skating choreographer who ran a camp for elite skaters there, often wondered whether the place was sometimes visited by the Holy Spirit. Naumov, 24, had his mother's square jaw and his father's penetrating eyes, and in the summer of 2025, he longed for his athletic pursuits to connect with something divine. He relished this time outside the Boston suburbs, away from the familiar sheet of ice where he spent hours being coached by his mom and dad, far from the home filled with pictures that devastated him and videos he could not bear to watch. ""What do you want to accomplish?"" Richaud recalled asking him. ""I want to make the Olympic team,"" he said. The childhood dream was no longer just his own. One year ago, on Jan. 29, 2025, his parents and coaches - Evgenia Shishkova and Vadim Naumov - were two of 28 people associated with figure skating who died when a plane on its way to Reagan National Airport and an Army helicopter flying over the Potomac River collided. Sixty-seven died in all. Families of victims often search for ways to graft logic onto the inexplicable. They find purpose in testifying before Congress and in starting foundations; they hug their loved ones tighter and discern deeper meaning from each rising sun. Some try to protect their inner peace by shielding themselves from the public glare. Naumov decided to lace up his skates. In doing so, his journey became the most public quest to process last year's tragedy. ""I think everybody saw him as the center of their grief,"" reflected Scott Hamilton, a 1984 Olympic gold medalist and the sport's elder statesman in the United States. ""There was such an unspeakable loss that I think people were just looking for somebody, something, to hang on to, because … it just didn't make any sense."" Over the course of the past year, Naumov had to consistently outperform about a half-dozen American skaters at his level. Naumov was regularly the fourth-best men's skater in the United States. Only three go to the Olympics. Then, he did it. When Naumov's selection to the team was announced last month, Hamilton looked to the skies and said, ""Thank the Lord."" To get there, he first needed to create programs. Last summer in Italy, Richaud asked him to skate to music that Naumov had selected - epic instrumentation to which he moved frantically, shifting from edge to edge. Richaud didn't think it would work. ""He needed direction because - this is not a criticism - he was coached by his parents,"" Richaud said. ""I saw a skater who is not free."" Richaud plugged his phone into a speaker and played Chopin's Nocturne No. 20. It is an emotive violin and piano arrangement, the violin sliding from fluttery runs to long, guttural bellows. The music moved Naumov. Richaud asked him to make the moves mean something. Out came the story about what it feels like to lose everything. This piece would be music he would use in the first phase of competition, his short program. It came together, Richaud said, in a few hours. When millions around the world tune in to the Winter Olympics in Milan, those who watch the men's short program will witness the embodiment of Naumov's grief. In the final half, Naumov shakes his head no - that's the discovery. The music softens, and the sounds of his blades carving into the ice overwhelm the music. He begins to move backward, shifting, twisting, turning. He covers his eyes, his face, then his mouth as if he's trying to protect himself. The symbolism of personal pain pours out on the ice until he comes to a stop, regaining his center of gravity. Then he begins to move forward, bringing the program to its quiet denouement. For the legacy of himself and his parents, he would have to challenge himself to be vulnerable to get over the nerves that had long existed within. ""It's a whole new way of looking at the sport for me, period,"" Naumov told The Washington Post this past summer. ""Or a whole new way of existing, being in this sport. I feel much, much different. Different good sometimes, different bad sometimes. So much of what my foundation, or my backbone, was is obviously not here anymore."" His new backbone includes his coach and surrogate family, a group of accomplished skaters who settled in the United States after the fall of the Soviet Union. Genia and Vadim, as most everyone called his parents, qualified twice for the Olympics skating as a pairs team, finishing fifth in 1992 and just missing a bronze medal in 1994. Judges marveled at their acrobatic lifts, their balletic lines and her featherlight landings. But judges also found them reserved, and they often did not get as high marks as more emotive Russian pairs. Once their international competition careers were through, they joined a group of elite skaters who had migrated to Simsbury, Connecticut, lured by a world-class facility and one of the few places in the United States that had an Olympic-size rink. They joined former Olympic gold medalists such as Viktor Petrenko, Oksana Baiul and Ekaterina Gordeeva. Together, they learned about the intricacies of American capitalism: filing taxes, establishing credit, securing insurance. When they wanted a taste of home, they would travel to Russian immigrant communities in Brooklyn to find ingredients for soups and salads. While the gold medalists spent their time touring, Genia and Vadim stuffed their medals in a bag, tossed them in a closet and dedicated their lives to coaching. They were known for being good conversationalists, kindhearted and especially devoted to their only child. Vadim was a dad who would put his son on his lap as he played the Half-Life video game series and delighted every Christmas when his son gave him a new watch, each one fancier than the year before. Genia was the one who always said she loved him, who got so nervous for him that she could not watch him compete, who would worry when things are too hard. Vadim would always respond: ""Stay strong. We will find a way."" Naumov was 3 years old when Genia and Vadim first put him in a pair of white skating boots. Vadim intermingled lessons about waltz jumps and three-turns with lessons about the planets. Naumov spent countless hours before and after school at the International Skating Center, where his parents worked as coaches. They shared an office with a blue couch and another couple, Vladimir Petrenko, a stoic former junior world champion from Ukraine, and his wife, Elena, an ebullient rhythmic gymnast. They became tight-knit family friends. Many of the Simsbury coaches' children took up skating, but none were as successful as Naumov. In 2013, he became the national juvenile champion; in 2017, the national novice champion. By 2020, he was the national junior champion. His success stalled when he joined the senior ranks. An ankle injury stifled his progress on landing jumps with four rotations, an elevated standard from the usual three. One of his peers, Ilia Malinin, was picking up the skill so quickly that he became known as the ""Quad God."" His family left Simsbury after his parents got jobs at venerated Skating Club of Boston, where they started a youth development program. But at home, the mix of coaching, injury and adulthood added too much tension, Naumov has said, and he needed space. In 2022, he took seven months away from the sport and worked as a barista at Starbucks. By 2023, he had moved out of their home. At the encouragement of his peers, he decided to continue skating, and his parents returned to being his coaches. In January 2025, after Naumov finished in fourth place at nationals for the third year in a row, he had a heart-to-heart in his parents' hotel room at the Hyatt Regency in Wichita. He and his dad pulled two chairs from the table and faced each other. His mother wasn't feeling well and stayed in bed. ""We have to change our mindset,"" Vadim told him. ""We have to change our approach."" The upcoming year was an Olympic season. Vadim felt his son needed to master landing the quadruple salchow, a jump that did not require digging his toe pick into the ice to launch, and to hit two of them in the free program. He also needed a clean one in the short program. ""If we're able to do this and get all these things in order, then there will be a very, very good opportunity for you to do it, and it can be done,"" Vadim said of his chance to make the Olympics. ""My dad and I were very good at creating plans,"" Naumov said to The Post. ""Two minutes here, three minutes there. And when you have a plan like that, I mean, half of the battle is already done because you're not guessing."" The conversation lasted about 45 minutes. He could not hug his sick mother, so he said goodbye by grabbing one of her toes. He headed back to suburban Boston, and his parents stayed in Wichita to help coach at a national camp for promising young skaters. Three days later, his parents boarded American Eagle Flight 5342 for a connecting flight to Washington. Naumov waited for his mother's customary text message saying she had arrived in Boston safely. The message never came. ""All I wanted to do in that moment was to lay in my bed or lay in my couch and just rot, essentially,"" Naumov said. ""I had to figure out what was the right thing to do, the responsible thing to do."" Daniel and Anton Petrenko moved in with him for a few weeks to field phone calls and pick up groceries until their surrogate brother could help figure out his next steps. The first thing he decided to do was take over his parents' youth development program at the skating club. Slowly, he began skating on his own again. ""It was strange"" at first, Naumov said. ""I mean, my body knows what to do, but my mind was just not even remotely thinking about skating."" As he began to glide on the ice, though, the activity he feared most became the activity that began to heal. He could hear his father's coaching and his mother's encouragement. After he performed to his parents' favorite song at a fundraiser in Washington in March, Naumov said, ""a switch was flipped."" He wanted to try for the Olympics. The path to get there was far from guaranteed. One of the three spots on the U.S. team would certainly go to Malinin, a floppy-haired 21-year-old whose prodigious jumping had made him the most formidable skater in the world. Barring any major disaster, the second spot would go to a 31-year-old veteran named Jason Brown who was consistently one of the top 10 in the world. And the others - some of whom Naumov had never outscored in a competition - were months ahead of him in intense training. ""What if I just give it a try?"" Naumov recalled thinking. ""I mean, again, it doesn't hurt to try. … What if I can do it? What if, despite everything that happened to me, I can still go out there and do it?"" Naumov asked Vladimir Petrenko, his parents' close friend, to coach him. He was not surprised. ""Vadim and Genia would have wanted it,"" Petrenko told The Post. ""We did not push him. We just had to wait."" By October, the plan wasn't exactly going as designed. He had ventured to Angers, France, a charming city that is a 90-minute train ride from Paris, for his toughest competition before the national championships. Twelve of the best skaters were going to be competing, including Malinin and Andrew Torgashev, the leading candidate for that third spot. When Naumov stepped onto the ice, he could see the tattoo with the Half-Life logo he had below his wrist. He wore a ring with a small diamond that his father gave to him. He made a sign of the cross and stuffed a gold chain with a crucifix, the one he received at his baptism, under his shirt. Chopin's Nocturne No. 20 played overhead, and he began to prepare for attempting the quadruple salchow. He skated two-thirds of the way down the long axis of the rink, gathering speed before swinging one leg in front of the other to take off. But he only rotated in the air three times, not four. It was a major mistake. ""I was a little bit nervous, not going to lie,"" he said. He ended the competition in ninth place, behind the other Americans. Vladimir and Elena had been customizing exercises to help his jump efficiency - warming up in a regimented way, singles, doubles, triples, then the quad. They worked on elongating moves he might have once rushed, such as a glide on the ice in which he lunges with his arms outstretched and his head tilted back. He got fitter. But they also realized they were not trying to restore an athlete; they were trying to help a human they deeply loved. They needed to learn when to push, when not to push, when to be emotionally honest. ""It's not a secret because Max saw us many times crying and we saw Max many times crying and we are the three of us crying between practices,"" Elena said. ""And when he saw us and what we're experiencing, I think it made him believe and pushed him through because he's caring like his parents and he wouldn't let us down. And we would never let him down."" One day, Vladimir remembered telling him, ""I don't know how you can do this every day."" Naumov told The Post that he was discovering ways to cope. His work coaching children ensured that he had something to giggle at. He tried to shift his perspective from anxiety and nervousness about landing that quadruple salchow to feeling excited about his willingness to try. Off the ice, the memories of his parents would sometimes consume him. He assigned himself 30 minutes to an hour once a week to sit and reflect on his parents, which helped him concentrate. ""It could be a photo, it could be visiting them, it could be talking to someone about them,"" he said. ""It could be anything, but just a moment for me and them to connect and kind of just have space to deal with that and to process it."" He deepened his faith with another skater and his former roommate, Spencer Akira Howe, who is training to be a military chaplain. Sometimes, they would talk about God. Sometimes, they played ping-pong. ""It's been quite the journey for me as well,"" Naumov said. ""And lots of questions, lots of questions that need answers, that you'll never get answers to."" One question that those around him didn't ask: whether Naumov was prepared for the possibility that he might not make the Olympic team. According to Elena Petrenko, ""We just believed."" The sport's U.S. governing body selects the Olympic team after examining a year's worth of results, but no American skater - aside from Malinin - had pulled away from the pack by the time about 13,000 fans descended on Enterprise Center in St. Louis in January for nationals. The deciding factor would be this competition. Before the top competitors went on the ice that evening, they found different ways to find the right mindset. Jacob Sanchez, an 18-year-old up-and-comer, played ""Demon Slayer"" on Xbox and enjoyed his mother's chicken-and-broccoli dish. Tomoki Hiwatashi, a now 26-year-old who moved to Japan to train with a highly regarded coach, hyped himself listening to music from Pokémon. Jason Brown, the 31-year-old presumed to get the second spot, watched ""Emily in Paris,"" made a smoothie with berries, spinach, creatine and protein, and danced to Taylor Swift. Malinin took a nap. Naumov found a quiet place. He took out some photos of his parents that had been sitting above the fridge back home. He could look at them now without crumbling. He fixated on a picture of him with his parents on one of his days on the ice, back in Simsbury. He said no words, just stared. ""Look at how far we've come,"" he recalled thinking. ""Look at all the sacrifices we made, everything we've been through, everything that we've planned. All coming to fruition. Today is the day we get it."" At 8:06 p.m., the announcer called, ""From the Skating Club of Boston, Maxim Naumov!"" Naumov made two signs of the cross, then stepped onto the ice. He warmed up practicing a single salchow, then a double salchow, then a triple. Soon, it was time for the program to start. He stuffed the chain inside his white shirt. ""Let's go, Max!"" yelled one person in the audience. ""Come on, Max!"" yelled a man with a Russian accent. ""Go, Max!"" squealed a child. Then, there was quiet. He skated to the center of the rink and raised his hand to get into the program's opening position. Chopin's Nocturne No. 20 started to play, and he began to invite the audience into his meditation. Then, the quadruple salchow. He skated to the two-thirds mark of the rink again, swung and rotated four times. He stumbled a bit out of the landing - not ideal but not a major mistake, either. Then, came a big triple axel that he fought to land. Then a big and gorgeous jump combination to thunderous applause. The audience hushed as he entered the special footwork section. The carve of his edges echoed in the crowd. The performance was not perfect, but it was gutsy and emotional. As the music ended, the audience began to stand. He took a bow and put his hand on his heart. ""Thank you,"" he said, catching his breath. Then he began to tear up. Vladimir hugged him as he exited the ice. They sat down as he waited for his scores. From a small pack, Naumov pulled out the photo of him and his parents and lifted it up to the audience, heaving and wiping his eye. Vladimir stared at nothing but the score. The score was good enough to put Naumov in a familiar position: fourth place. The final phase of competition would be two nights later. He and three other men found themselves within striking distance of securing that final Olympic spot. Skaters and coaches alike began congratulating Genia and Vadim's son. They hugged him and said they were so proud. Hamilton put his hands on his shoulders and reminded him: ""Don't overthink it. Your body knows what to do."" ""I'm just thinking about them - their smile, their laugh,"" Naumov said later. He thought his father would be proud of him but wanted a little more confidence in the salchow. His mother would probably say: ""Good job, but we already forgot about it. We're thinking about the free already."" The night before the free program, Naumov could hardly sleep. His mind was racing with the thought that he might make it to Milan. He found five to 10 minutes to spend with another photo of his parents and then tried running through the emotions conveyed in the final program. The free program was also put together during his time in Italy. His choreographer said they didn't spend as much time on the tiny details because Naumov would need to focus on his jumps, including those two quadruple salchows that his father had planned out for him. With Naumov skating to the song ""In This Shirt,"" the program was supposed to evince the silent triumph of living alongside pain, not avoiding it. Naumov took the ice. He made a sign of the cross three times and started in the center of the rink looking down. As the notes of a piano started to play, he pantomimed looking around, and then he was off, picking up speed and squaring his shoulders to land that quadruple salchow. He leaped into the air. One. Two. Three. Four. And then a perfect landing. The crowd roared. As he lurched forward to launch into the triple axel, the most dangerous of the triple jumps, the song's lyrics began to play: ""I am lost in a rainbow/ Now our rainbow is gone/ Overcast by your shadow/ As our worlds move on/ In this shirt, I can be you/ To be near you for a while."" He landed so insecurely that his hand touched the ice. The second quadruple salchow attempt didn't have enough speed going in, and he could only manage to rotate three times. He would not have the two quadruple jumps he and his father thought he needed to secure the Olympic spot. He ended the program with a spin, his arm raised in victory, but the stumbles made him fall behind the music. ""I tried my best,"" he said as he left the ice. ""Everybody was hugging me and surrounding me, which obviously felt amazing, but I needed to have a moment to myself,"" Naumov recalled. ""And I took a step away and just sobbed. I just bawled my eyes out. That it's done, my work is done. Whatever it is next that happens is not in my hands."" His final score was nine-hundredths of a point ahead of Sanchez but far behind Torgashev. Naumov stood at the edge of the rink, watching the rest of the competition. His Olympic dream of getting that third spot seemed unlikely. Torgashev probably would get second. Malinin was so far ahead of the field that bombing at this event - or any event, actually - seemed impossible. And Brown, one of the country's most consistent skaters, was still due to skate. Those three seemed likely to make the team, barring any misfortune. But then, a catastrophe came. Brown got on the ice, fell twice, only managed an axel when he planned a triple and turned planned triple jumps into doubles. It was his worst performance at nationals in 14 years. The audience, and Brown himself, seemed flabbergasted. Television cameras encircled Naumov's face. His godmother came down to support him and used her hands to smooth his out-of-place stray hairs. Naumov had won the bronze medal. His surrogate family of support - the skaters from Boston, the Petrenkos and his family friends from Simsbury - gathered around him, hugging and crying and declaring the wonders of this country. Elena and her husband had been coaching for 30 years but never had coached an Olympian. To have it be Max, Genia and Vadim's son, felt like the most meaningful milestone. The path was not perfect, not pretty, but was paved with grit and guts and, maybe, miracles. ""I feel like we are living the American Dream,"" she said. The next day, the governing body for American figure skating officially said Maxim Naumov was going to the Olympics. After the selection, Naumov was introduced to skate in front of the crowd in St. Louis one last time - not in competition but as a celebration. He stepped on the ice, fiddling with that chain again, the one holding the crucifix from his baptism. A lilting folk song began, and Naumov was drifting along the ice before entering a simple double axel jump. Then the chain popped open and the golden cross flew free." 3299129334,"Another federal shutdown begins, but a speedy end is likely this time",2026-02-01,The Washington Post,News,A-Section,A.1,,Regional,,,Copyright WP Company LLC d/b/a The Washington Post 2026,1350,1253,['Jacob Bogage'],"['Immigration policy', 'Agreements', 'Bipartisanship', 'National security', 'Funding', 'Legislators', 'Appropriations', 'Government shutdowns', 'Accountability', 'Bills', 'Budgets', 'Deadlines']","['New York', 'United States--US', 'Louisiana']","['Trump, Donald J']","['Department of Defense', 'Department of Homeland Security', 'Internal Revenue Service--IRS', 'Senate-US', 'Republican Party', 'Congress-US', 'Democratic Party', 'US Immigration & Customs Enforcement']",[],[],"The second government shutdown of President Donald Trump's second term began early Saturday, as aggressive immigration enforcement in Minneapolis derailed congressional negotiations to fund the agencies driving the administration's policies. Lawmakers missed a midnight deadline to approve six new spending bills because the Senate changed some of the measures after the House passed them, in response to deadly shootings of U.S. citizens by federal immigration agents in Minnesota. Without funding, the IRS will shutter just days into tax season. Money for housing assistance programs could be at risk in the aftermath of a winter storm that sent temperatures in much of the country plummeting to historic lows. Federally backed scientific research will immediately halt. Military service members, transportation security agents and air traffic controllers will continue to work - unpaid. But this shutdown may be brief and have limited effects: The Senate on Friday evening approved a bipartisan agreement backed by Trump to pass five major appropriations bills and a temporary funding extension for the Department of Homeland Security. House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-Louisiana) has said his chamber will aim to pass the package when lawmakers return early next week, despite frustrations from conservative members of the Republican caucus and skepticism from House Democrats. ""The House is going to do its job,"" Johnson said Thursday night. Congress faced a similar situation less than three months ago, when Republicans and Democrats deadlocked over expiring subsidies that made Affordable Care Act health insurance plans less expensive. Without a deal in place to preserve them, Senate Democrats refused to back new spending bills, leading to the longest government shutdown in U.S. history. Lawmakers eventually brokered a compromise to reopen federal agencies, funding some for the full fiscal year. For others - including the Departments of Defense, Homeland Security, Labor, Treasury, Health and Human Services and more - Congress set a Jan. 30 deadline to construct a fresh deal. But the killings of two people in Minneapolis, Renée Good and Alex Pretti, in recent weeks led Democrats to demand new accountability measures for immigration enforcement efforts. They demanded that Republicans break off the bill to fund DHS - which includes ICE and Border Patrol, as well as agencies such as the Transportation Security Administration and the Federal Emergency Management Agency - from other government spending bills, which have broader bipartisan support. Most Senate Republicans said they were open to negotiating additional oversight for ICE, but at first resisted splitting up the bills, arguing Democrats' demands could be met through an executive order or separate legislation. Senate Democrats struck a deal with Trump to temporarily extend the DHS funding to buy time for additional policy negotiations. In a social media post Thursday, Trump urged lawmakers of both parties to give the package ""a very much needed Bipartisan 'YES' Vote."" But getting the funding agreement through the House may still prove challenging. Republicans control the House by a razor-thin margin, and several House Republicans have said they will oppose any changes to the DHS funding bill. ""I will not vote for a DHS bill that does not fully fund and empower ICE. Immigration enforcement operations might offend the sensibilities of some of my colleagues. But perhaps they should also show compassion for the families of Laken Riley, Jocelyn Nungaray, and so many other victims,"" Rep. Dan Crenshaw (R-Texas) wrote on X, referencing a woman and a child killed by undocumented immigrants. ""Those victims lost their right to due process because of men that should never have been here. And now there are politicians demanding we disarm the only agency that could've stopped these senseless murders."" Meanwhile, House Democrats have not committed to supporting the bipartisan agreement struck in the Senate, though they do plan to support the other five funding bills. ""We have to deal with the issue of reining ICE and the Department of Homeland Security in with the fierce urgency of now,"" House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-New York) told reporters Friday. ""A two-week window - we'll evaluate whether that's sufficient time."" If House lawmakers are able to pass the funding package and end the shutdown early next week, lawmakers will turn to finding an agreement on new accountability measures for the administration's immigration enforcement operations. Senate Democrats demanded a list of changes this week, including tightening warrant rules, implementing a code of conduct for ICE and other federal agents, requiring independent investigations of misconduct, removing masks on agents, and requiring they wear body cameras. ""Understand that what we're asking for are what police departments do. It's what your local cop does. It's what any well-trained law enforcement force does,"" said Sen. Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii.) ""We're not asking for some progressive wish-list."" Republicans said they would be pushing their own changes in the negotiations, including a crackdown on so-called ""sanctuary cities."" Sen. John Neely Kennedy (R-Louisiana) predicted that the immigration debate over the next two weeks would ""have all of the substance and efficiency of an eighth-grade car wash."" ""I'm not going to vote for a bunch of so-called reforms that are designed to cripple ICE, nor do I think my Republican colleagues will,"" he said. ""And I hope I'm wrong on this prediction, but what I smell coming is a long, long shutdown for DHS."" Senators of both parties acknowledge it will likely be challenging to find a compromise. ""It's going to be hard, but let's get to it,"" said Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska.) Federal functions necessary for public safety, national security and protecting government property are exempt from shutdowns. Presidents also have broad latitude to keep other agencies open in the absence of funds. Despite the funding lapse, Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Customs and Border Protection - the main targets of Democrats' outrage - will remain open. DHS and its subagencies also have access to a $170 billion pool of money approved in this summer's One Big Beautiful Bill, Trump and the GOP's massive tax and immigration law. Administration officials have tapped those funds to continue operations without an annual agency budget and could continue that strategy during a shutdown. If the government remains partially closed for longer than expected, Trump could make other budget maneuvers. During the shutdown last year, the administration aggressively shifted resources to sustain certain federal functions - and reward or punish political allies and opponents. Trump ordered the Pentagon to continue making payroll even though the Defense Department lacked congressional authorization to do so. After the shutdown ended, he also repurposed housing assistance money for troops to hand out $1,776 Christmastime bonuses. To keep the IRS operating last fall, the Treasury Department used money from the Biden administration's 2022 Inflation Reduction Act that had been meant to beef up the tax agency's enforcement and customer service. Republicans had previously sought to rescind much of those funds. Partway through the shutdown, the Trump administration cut off those resources, furloughing much of the IRS's staff. White House budget director Russell Vought attempted to cancel $8 billion in clean energy funds for a group of 16 Democratic-run states. A federal judge said this month that the move was unlawful and reinstated the money. The Office of Management and Budget also paused billions of dollars for New York subway and rail projects. Most big social benefit programs, which drive the vast majority of federal spending, will remain open during a shutdown. Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid are funded through separate tax receipts, rather than annual appropriations. Mail delivery will also continue; the U.S. Postal Service is generally funded through the sale of postage." 3299129335,Seahawks could be put on the market soon,2026-02-01,The Washington Post,News,Sports,B.2,,Suburban,,,Copyright WP Company LLC d/b/a The Washington Post 2026,1200,367,['Mark Maske'],['Sports franchises'],[],[],['Portland Trail Blazers'],[],[],"The Seattle Seahawks could be put up for sale after they play in the Super Bowl next weekend. Some NFL team owners believe Jody Allen, chair of the Seahawks, is ready to sell the franchise, according to two people familiar with the owners' views and their deliberations on the matter. There have been discussions within the ownership ranks that the sale process could begin soon after the Super Bowl, according to those people, who spoke on the condition of anonymity Friday because the prospective sale has not been announced. Those people warned that the timing may not be certain. The Seahawks face the New England Patriots on Feb. 8 in Super Bowl LX in Santa Clara, California. ESPN reported Friday that the team is expected to be put up for sale after the Super Bowl. The trust of late owner Paul Allen has owned the team since the Microsoft co-founder's death in 2018. Jody Allen, his sister, has served as the de facto owner of the franchise in her role as trustee. She serves as chair of the NBA's Portland Trail Blazers under the same circumstances. A spokesperson for the Paul G. Allen Estate said in a statement Friday that the Seahawks are not for sale. ""We don't comment on rumors or speculation, and the team is not for sale,"" the spokesperson said. ""We've already said that will change at some point per Paul's wishes, but I have no news to share. Our focus right now is winning the Super Bowl and completing the sale of the Portland Trail Blazers in the coming months."" The NFL declined to comment. The estate said in May that it started the process of selling the Trail Blazers. The team said in a statement at the time that it was ""consistent with Allen's directive to eventually sell his sports holdings and direct all estate proceeds to philanthropy."" A group led by Tom Dundon, owner of the NHL's Carolina Hurricanes, agreed in August to buy the Trail Blazers at a reported valuation of approximately $4.25 billion. The sale is not yet complete. CNBC's 2025 NFL franchise valuations estimated the Seahawks were worth $7 billion; that ranked 19th among the league's 32 franchises." 3299129336,"Einstein was out of reach, so the Nazis went after his family",2026-02-01,The Washington Post,News,BookWorld,C.4,,Final,,,Copyright WP Company LLC d/b/a The Washington Post 2026,1200,1053,['Clare McHugh'],"['Jewish people', 'Nazi era', 'War crimes', 'Massacres', 'Books']","['Italy', 'Switzerland', 'United States--US', 'Germany']","['Einstein, Albert (1879-1955)']",[],[],[],"As the Allies battled their way up the Italian peninsula in the summer of 1944, behind German lines reprisal killings became sickeningly common. In answer to partisan attacks, Italian civilians - men, women and children - were shot by German soldiers ""in cold blood, looking the innocent in the eyes,"" as one war crimes prosecutor later put it. To those who committed these atrocities, their victims - more than 2,000 - had no names. But one incident from that murderous period, described in Thomas Harding's new book, ""The Einstein Vendetta,"" stands out, because the three people killed were targeted precisely on account of the name they bore. Harding tries, with missionary zeal, to uncover the facts of this crime. Best known for ""The House by the Lake: One House, Five Families, and a Hundred Years of German History,"" a 2015 book about his grandmother's childhood home outside Berlin, the author has set himself a difficult task here. So much valuable information has been lost to time. Still, Harding skillfully and suspensefully recounts the events, their aftermath and the struggles of other earnest investigators over the decades to bring the perpetrators to justice. Albert Einstein, the renowned theoretical physicist, grew up in the 1880s in a household that included his first cousin, Robert, four years younger. Their fathers were brothers and partners in an electrical engineering business in Munich and later in Milan. Albert called Robert ""Bubi,"" little boy. Whereas Albert studied in Switzerland and later settled in Berlin, Robert Einstein, trained as an engineer in Italy, married an Italian Christian woman named Nina Mazzetti, and they had two daughters. In 1937, Robert moved his family to the Villa Il Focardo, an elegant stucco house down a narrow lane, deep in the Tuscan countryside. As a Jew and a vocal critic of the Nazi party, Albert Einstein could no longer live in Germany after Adolf Hitler's takeover. Press reports revealed that the Nazis had placed a bounty, the equivalent of 1,000 British pounds, on the scientist's head. After a stay in Belgium, he slipped their net, sailing to the United States in October 1933, never to return to Europe. The rest of Einstein's extended family joined him in the U.S., or lived in neutral Switzerland, with the exception of Robert, who remained in Italy. Benito Mussolini's laws restricting the rights of Italian Jews, imposed in 1938, had ""little practical impact"" on the Einsteins, Harding reports. Older daughter Luce continued studying medicine in Florence, younger daughter Cici attended a local high school. Only when the Germans invaded Italy in September 1943, and Jews were subjected to razzia (roundups), did the family consider fleeing. But the risks on the road seemed higher than staying at Il Focardo, surrounded by a loyal staff and 250 acres of wheat fields, peach orchards and olive groves. One day in July 1944, soldiers from the Wehrmacht's elite Hermann Göring Division knocked loudly on the door of Il Focardo demanding to see Robert Einstein. Nina could answer honestly that he was away, without adding that he'd gone out to work in the fields. After that visit, Robert and his wife decided he must hide in the woods behind the estate until liberation - BBC Radio reported that Allied troops were approaching the area rapidly from the south. The Germans returned, seven of them, on the morning of Aug. 3, smashed down the villa's wooden door and searched the house. When they again failed to find Robert, they locked the family in the basement - along with servants and four female relatives of Nina's staying at the villa. Each prisoner was interrogated in turn, names and ages noted. Desperate, Nina suggested that Robert might be in the woods and led the Germans there. She called out for him, confident he would not appear, as the couple had agreed that for security's sake she would come only at prearranged times. Back at the villa, empty-handed, the German commander grew angrier. At 9 p.m., he ordered the Einstein women, mother and two daughters, separated from the others. They were brought into the large salon of the villa and shot - Nina, 58, with one arm around Luce, 27, the other around Cici, 18. The Germans set the villa on fire and departed. Two days later, on the afternoon of Aug. 5, British soldiers marched into the nearby village. A partisan soldier named Alberto Droandi met up with a distraught Robert, who asked for his gun so he could kill himself. ""He was convinced that he was responsible for his family's end … if he had revealed himself to the Germans, the family would probably have survived,"" Harding quotes Droandi recalling. No one gave Einstein a gun, and an American, Maj. Milton Wexler of the War Crimes Commission, was ordered in September to investigate the killings. ""This was highly unusual,"" Harding writes. ""With just three victims, the Einstein murder case was far smaller than the massacre at [nearby] Sant'Anna di Stazzema."" (There, 560 Italians, including 130 children, were shot on Aug. 12.) Was there a private request from Albert Einstein that prompted the probe? No one knows for sure, but Harding believes it possible. Robert Einstein, still in despair about his family's fate, took an overdose of sleeping pills in 1945. Wexler's investigation was inconclusive, and the Italian authorities did not swiftly gather evidence about the identity of the murderers, nor who might have tipped off the Germans to where Einstein, cousin of their enemy, resided. This was not an unusual outcome in the chaotic postwar years. ""By the mid-1950s, only thirteen Germans had been found guilty of committing war crimes in Italy,"" Harding reports. ""The Einstein Vendetta"" suffers, ultimately, from lack of definitive answers. But Harding lays out how various later probes in Germany and in Italy identified three different soldiers who may have been involved, giving the reader the chance to weigh the evidence, alongside family members who even now, 80 years later, hope the killers can be revealed by name. Most of all, the book is a harrowing reminder of how the Nazi regime pursued its maniacal aims to the bitter end. Clare McHugh is the author of the novel ""The Romanov Brides."" The Einstein Vendetta Hitler, Mussolini, and a True Story of Murder By Thomas Harding. Union Square. 288 pp. $27.99" 3299129337,Trump's 250-foot arch would dwarf Lincoln Memorial,2026-02-01,The Washington Post,News,A-Section,A.1,,Regional,,,Copyright WP Company LLC d/b/a The Washington Post 2026,1400,1292,"['Dan Diamond', 'Hannah Dormido', 'Tim Meko']","['Design', 'Architecture', 'Presidents', 'Military cemeteries and funerals', 'Architects', 'Memorials & monuments', 'Construction']","['United States--US', 'Atlanta Georgia', 'Washington DC']","['Trump, Donald J']","['Arlington National Cemetery', 'Truth Social', 'Commission of Fine Arts']",[],[],"Monument proposed for nation's 250th Architectural experts worry about scale and location The White House stands about 70 feet tall. The Lincoln Memorial, roughly 100 feet. The triumphal arch President Donald Trump wants to build would eclipse both if he gets his wish. Trump has grown attached to the idea of a 250-foot-tall structure overlooking the Potomac River, according to two people who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe his comments, a scale that has alarmed some architectural experts who initially supported the idea of an arch but expected a far smaller one. The planned Independence Arch is intended to commemorate the United States' 250th anniversary. Built to Trump's specifications, it would transform a small plot of land between the Lincoln Memorial and Arlington National Cemetery into a dominant new monument, reshaping the relationship between the two memorials and obstructing pedestrians' views. Trump has considered smaller versions of the arch, including 165-foot-high and 123-foot-high designs he shared at a dinner last year. But he has favored the largest option, arguing that its sheer size would impress visitors to Washington, and that ""250 for 250"" makes the most sense, the people said. Architectural experts counter that the size of the monument - installed in the center of a traffic circle - would distort the intent of the surrounding memorials. ""I don't think an arch that large belongs there,"" said Catesby Leigh, an art critic who conceived of a more modest, temporary arch in a 2024 essay - an idea that his allies championed and brought to the White House. His allies also passed along Leigh's recommendation of an architect, Nicolas Leo Charbonneau, who has been retained by the White House to work on the project. Charbonneau did not respond to requests for comment. Asked about the arch's height, the White House on Saturday referred to the president's previous comments. ""The one that people know mostly is the Arc de Triomphe in Paris, France. And we're gonna top it by, I think, a lot,"" Trump said at a White House Christmas reception in December. The Arc de Triomphe - already one of the world's largest triumphal arches - measures 164 feet. Trump also told Politico in December that he hoped to begin construction of the arch within two months, a timeline that appears unlikely given that White House officials have yet to make the final plans public or submit them to federal review panels. Memorial Circle, the plot of land that the president has eyed, is controlled by the National Park Service. The White House reiterated the president's desire to have an iconic monument. The arch will become ""one of the most iconic landmarks not only in Washington, D.C., but throughout the world,"" spokesman Davis Ingle said in a statement sent to The Washington Post after this article's publication online. ""President Trump's bold vision will be imprinted upon the fabric of America and be felt by generations to come."" Washington does not have a triumphal arch, making it unusual among major cities that have built arches to commemorate wars and celebrate milestones, and some historians and civic leaders have long argued that such a monument is needed. Rodney Mims Cook Jr., an Atlanta-based developer and president of the National Monuments Foundation, proposed a peace arch to Washington leaders in 2000 before the plans were withdrawn in the wake of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. Cook later built a monumental arch in Atlanta, the Millennium Gate Museum, intended to celebrate Georgia's history. Trump in January appointed Cook to the Commission of Fine Arts, a federal panel that would be set to review and approve the design of new monuments in Washington - including the president's potential arch. Trump on Jan. 23 also posted images on his Truth Social platform with no comment that depict three versions of a large triumphal arch, including one option with gold gilding - a hallmark of Trump's construction projects. Asked about the president's post, White House officials said that the arch design continues to be refined. The White House also said the plan to put a large Lady Liberty statue atop the arch, which was included in previous concepts presented by Trump and Charbonneau but not in the president's Truth Social post, has not been abandoned. City planners have eyed the land around what is now Memorial Circle for more than a century. A 1901-1902 report overseen by the Senate Park Commission, which laid the groundwork to construct the National Mall and beautify much of the city's core, appears to envision some sort of structure in the circle, drawings show. Architect William Kendall in 1928 also presented plans to the Commission of Fine Arts to construct a memorial there. Local historians and architectural experts have said that a large arch could change the relationship between several historic sites, including Arlington Memorial Bridge itself, which was intended as a bridge between North and South in the wake of the Civil War, and memorials for Lincoln and Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee. ""It's a very somber corridor,"" said John Haigh, the chair of Benedictine College's architecture program, who visited Memorial Circle with his students last year to consider the arch project. ""We discussed the gravity of putting an arch there,"" particularly one intended to be triumphal. The structure as planned could obstruct views of Arlington House, the former Lee estate that sits on a hillside in Arlington National Cemetery. ""I would be very concerned about the scale,"" said Calder Loth, a retired senior architectural historian for the Virginia Department of Historic Resources, warning that a 250-foot-high arch could alter pedestrians' views as they approach Arlington National Cemetery from Washington. ""It would make Arlington House just look like a dollhouse - or you couldn't see it all, with the arch blocking the view."" They also cautioned that, barring major changes to the circle, it could be difficult for pedestrians to visit a potential monument there, given the busy motor traffic. Loth also invoked the vantage point from Arlington National Cemetery, where visitors often look across the river toward the Lincoln Memorial and the capital beyond - a view he said the proposed arch would reshape. ""How does it impact the panorama of Washington?"" Loth said, invoking a question that he said should guide designers of monuments. ""What is supposed to be doing the speaking?"" Leigh initially proposed a 60-foot arch that could pop up as a temporary structure to mark America's 250th. Trump instead wants a permanent arch, more than four times larger, funded with leftover private donations to his White House ballroom project, which he has said could cost about $400 million. Publicly identified donors to the ballroom project, such as Amazon, Google and Lockheed Martin, collectively have billions of dollars in contracts before the administration. (Amazon founder Jeff Bezos owns The Post.) Any construction plan for the arch would probably need to go through several review panels and potentially require the sign-off of Congress, given laws around constructing monuments in Washington. Trump's interest in enlarging the arch mirrors his desire to expand the White House ballroom, which last year sparked clashes with James McCrery II, the architect initially tapped for the project. Shalom Baranes, the architect now leading that work, told federal review panels in January that White House officials have halted plans to make the ballroom even larger. Leigh suggested a compromise location that could allow Trump his large monument without imposing on other structures. ""If you're going to build an arch that big, you should build it in another part of town and one possible site that comes to mind is Barney Circle,"" Leigh said, referencing a site in Southeast Washington next to Congressional Cemetery, overlooking the Anacostia River. ""There's nothing around it competing with it.""" 3299129338,"Where to go in 2026, without crowds",2026-02-01,The Washington Post,News,Travel,F.1,,Final,,,Copyright WP Company LLC d/b/a The Washington Post 2026,1300,2402,"['Natalie B Compton', 'Hannah Sampson', 'Andrea Sachs']","['Tourism', 'Art galleries & museums']","['Portugal', 'Mexico', 'Wisconsin', 'United States--US', 'Dominica', 'Uruguay', 'Uzbekistan']",[],[],[],[],"More than 1.5 billion people traveled internationally last year, according to a United Nations estimate. Depending on where you went in 2025, it may have felt as if they were all right there with you. Paris, Tokyo, Mexico City, Barcelona? Amazing places - and all bursting with tourists. Perhaps this is the year to expand your horizons. John Montgomery, co-founder of Landed, a luxury travel company that plans custom trips in South and Central America and Antarctica, said his company is working with more customers who are seeking solitude this year. They're ""looking for a place where they can think, where they can reconnect with nature,"" he said. They desire destinations where they can feel ""the concept of awe."" Maybe that's a quiet place to stargaze and ponder the universe. Maybe it's a boiling lake at the end of a rigorous hike or a world-renowned wine region on the other side of the globe. We asked industry experts for their favorite less-traveled destinations (and mined our own recent travels) to bring you inspiration for 2026. Flagstaff, Arizona Often part of a Grand Canyon game plan, this high-altitude city is worth its own pin. Especially this year, when Flagstaff celebrates 25 years as the first International Dark Sky City and the 100th anniversary of Route 66. A 14-mile section of the Mother Road runs through the city. A few vintage buildings are still standing, such as Motel Du Beau, which opened in 1929 and has retained such vintage features as motor court parking and ""mountain air cooling,"" a fancy name for window fans. For nonmotorized activities, consider the world's largest ponderosa pine forest and the Flagstaff Urban Trails System, which will boast 130 miles of recreational pathways when completed. Several national monuments are within an hour's drive, including Sunset Crater Volcano, which last erupted less than 1,000 years ago, and the ancient pueblo of Wupatki. José Ignacio, Uruguay Tucked in a coastal pocket between Argentina and Brazil, Uruguay has long been a favorite vacation destination for wealthy neighbors - and an escape for Europeans with harsh Northern Hemisphere winters. But it's not as popular with Americans, despite the obvious appeal. For Montgomery, of Landed, the appeal wasn't just the ""coastline that goes on forever"" and the ""barefoot-toes-in-the-sand restaurants,"" or the kite-surfing and boating excursions to see penguins and whales. It was also the proximity to the country's stunning interior. With short day trips, he could canoe or walk in pine forests or head to the rolling grassland to visit wineries and boutique cheese makers. Uruguay has become a hub for art galleries while preserving its gaucho (cowboy) culture. That explains why it has been characterized as ""Wyoming meets St. Tropez,"" said Maximiliano Broquen, who helped open Vik Retreats in José Ignacio, a resort town on the coast that's a few hours away from Montevideo by bus. Broquen recommends that you avoid a visit during the holiday rush (mid-December through January), when the country is packed and prices skyrocket. Instead, try November, or February through April. Dominica The ""Nature Island"" isn't all beaches - though Dominica has its share. Situated in the Eastern Caribbean between Guadeloupe and Martinique, it boasts waterfalls, black sand, hot springs, nine potentially active volcanic centers and a Champagne Reef with bubbling water. Travelers come to observe the sperm whales. Or to take an hours-long hike to Boiling Lake, a vaporous cauldron within Morne Trois Pitons National Park, a UNESCO World Heritage site. Hikers can explore the Waitukubuli National Trail, which stretches for 115 miles. In the northern region, the Indigenous Kalinago community showcases a model village and guesthouses. ""We're really rugged, and we're not your typical Caribbean island,"" said Michael Eugene, owner of the Experiences Caribbean tour company. He said visitors ""feel like they're disconnected and can disappear from everything else."" Hurricane Maria devastated the island in 2017; rebuilding has come with an emphasis on resilience to extreme weather. ""The nature was never lost,"" Eugene said. A cable car is expected to start operating late this year, bringing more visitors to Boiling Lake. Tepoztlán, Mexico After traveling more than 20,000 miles across Mexico, cookbook author Rick Martínez had a lot of time to think about his favorite places in the country. His recommendation for a 2026 escape: Tepoztlán. Just 50 miles south of Mexico City, the small mountain town is nestled in a lush valley surrounded by rugged cliffs. Its ""incredible food"" and music scene reminds Martínez of New Orleans, but with a distinctly Mexican spirituality. ""There's a deeply restorative side to it that comes from the landscape and from the presence of ancient, pre-Hispanic cleansing and healing traditions that are still practiced today,"" Martínez said. On the weekends, you'll find groups of people hiking up to El Tepozteco, a pyramid built to honor the god of pulque, a fermented agave drink. Once you take in the view and hike back down, Martínez recommends stopping by a vendor selling tlacoyos, tacos and tostadas. ""It's a place that feels alive, communal, grounding and joyful,"" he said, ""and it's why I keep going back."" The Driftless Area It's a playground for the outdoor enthusiast - home to some of the country's best fly-fishing and beautiful terrain for hiking, boating and birding. You'll find charming towns, organic farms, crafts and Midwestern cheese. And yet, the Driftless Area is a mystery to much of America. ""We are a forgotten pocket of the Upper Midwest,"" said Luke Zahm, the chef and owner of the Driftless Café in Viroqua, Wisconsin. That pocket spans parts of southeast Minnesota, southwest Wisconsin, northeast Iowa and northwest Illinois - all tied together by a geological oddity. The region wasn't covered by continental glaciers during the last ice age and is thus free of ""drift"" (materials carried by glaciers or ice sheets). That history makes for a wilder landscape full of hills and valleys, compared with its glacier-flattened neighbors. Zahm recommends making the Hotel Fortney in Viroqua your home base for your trip, or staying at the Charmant Hotel in La Crosse, Wisconsin, right on the Mississippi River. From there, take day trips to hike, or head to Frank Lloyd Wright's Wisconsin estate, Taliesin. Don't forget to ""stop at a local farmers market or six,"" Zahm said, and get to know the people behind the goods. Kea, Greece When the Mediterranean heats up, many Athenians flee to Kea, also known as Tzia. Though only about an hour-long ferry ride from Athens, the roughly 50-square-mile island has resisted the mass tourism of Santorini and Mykonos. ""It is a popular island for Greek tourists but has very few foreign tourists,"" said Tony Wheeler, co-founder of Lonely Planet Publications. ""A lot of Athenians have holiday homes there."" Visitors can explore a smattering of villages and settlements, including the car-free capital of Ioulida and Stavroudaki, a starting point for the trek to Karthea, a city-state that thrived from the Archaic period to late antiquity and that is accessible only by foot, boat or donkey. Ancient walking paths lead to other pots of gold, such as the temple ruins of Athena and Apollo; the monastery of Panagia Kastriani, the island's patron saint; and Gialiskari Beach, a popular spot among the locals. The Kea Underwater Historic Site, a marine preserve, attracts shipwreck divers who wish to swim with maritime history. The island's waters are the final resting place for several ill-fated vessels, including the HMHS Britannic, the sister ship of the Titanic that was hit by a German mine during World War I. Alentejo, Portugal A ""slow living"" philosophy guides the Alentejo region in south-central Portugal. The regional capital, Évora, is about an hour and a half from Lisbon. Visitors to the region can take their time exploring the vineyards, olive groves and cork forests; the medieval villages, castles and Roman ruins; and the more than 85 miles of coast, which tour guide Paulo Conceição describes as ""still very pristine."" Évora boasts some of the region's top sites: a Roman temple dating back to the 1st century; the Chapel of Bones, which is filled with about 5,000 skulls; the Cadaval Palace; and the country's largest medieval cathedral. Driving just minutes outside the city leads to peace and quiet in ""the middle of nowhere in the countryside,"" said João Matos, who, like Conceição, is a tour guide with Évora Cultural Experience. ""I think that the best way of describing the region is that it's as preserved as you can have in the 21st century."" Virginia Irurita, founder of Made for Spain & Portugal, recommends visiting Almendres Cromlech, a megalithic monument outside Évora that is older than Stonehenge: ""You leave your car, you walk a little bit, and all of a sudden you're surrounded by old stones."" Uzbekistan Many countries have introduced new entry fees for U.S. citizens, but not Uzbekistan. As of Jan. 1, the country no longer requires visas from Americans for stays of up to 30 days. ""It was largely isolated and less accessible to tourism until about 10 years ago,"" said Hunter Ansorge, Asia regional specialist at Wilderness Travel, a California-based tour operator. ""Western travelers are only just starting to see it as a tourist destination."" Ansorge said the government has been investing in infrastructure and tourism projects, such as high-speed trains and higher-quality hotels. Uzbekistan is also planning to build the largest airport in Central Asia, though it won't be ready for some years. Uzbekistan, a major artery on the Silk Road, is no stranger to travelers. Michael Pullman, head of marketing at Wild Frontiers, a London-based tour operator, said the trading centers of Khiva, Bukhara and Samarkand continue to flourish centuries later, drawing modern-day visitors with their turquoise-domed mosques, grand forts, opulent palaces and lively bazaars. Sporting types can ski at Amirsoy, which some call the ""St. Moritz of Central Asia,"" or hike from village to village in the Nuratau Mountains, breaking for the national drink at teahouses. Shikoku, Japan A whopping 42.7 million foreign tourists visited Japan last year, prompting government officials to sound the alarm on overtourism. One approach to dispersing the crowds is to steer people away from the Golden Route of Tokyo, Kyoto and Osaka. To dodge the masses, Don George, a Geographic Expeditions trip leader and editor in chief of its Wanderlust blog, heads to the smallest and most remote of Japan's four major islands - a sacred site for a variety of seekers. ""All travelers on the island are welcomed as pilgrims,"" said George, whose wife hails from Shikoku. Spiritual adventurers can embark on Shikoku Henro, an 88-temple journey that can take anywhere from about 10 days (by car) to six weeks (by foot). Kagawa prefecture is noodle central, with hundreds of udon restaurants. But you can also slurp pork-based Tokushima ramen, Kochi prefecture's nabeyaki ramen - thin noodles in a chicken broth, served piping-hot - or Yawatahama champon, which tastes of the sea with bonito and kelp, from Ehime. The latter prefecture is also steamy with hot springs. Dating back to 1894, Dogo Onsen Honkan is recognized as Japan's oldest public bathhouse. George is especially fond of the mountainous and magical Iya Valley, which has open-air baths reached only by cable car. Adelaide, Australia The state capital of South Australia is known as a ""20-minute city"" because beaches or hills are a 20-minute drive away, and in-town attractions - a botanic garden, art museum and the National Wine Center - are within walking distance. In December, the city landed its first direct flight route from the United States, on United Airlines from San Francisco. Travel adviser Lora Greene said she was impressed by the ""charming"" city, highlighting the Adelaide Central Market and the Adelaide Oval venue, where fans can watch cricket, football and concerts, and also climb the roof. A self-described ""varietal playground,"" South Australia is a wine powerhouse, with 18 regions. McLaren Vale, about 45 minutes from Adelaide, and the Barossa Valley, about an hour away, both offer art alongside pours. The d'Arenberg Cube in McLaren Vale showcases the Alternate Realities Museum and a Salvador Dalí exhibition, among other collections. Greene said Adelaide is a perfect launching point to explore nearby marvels such as Kangaroo Island and the Eyre Peninsula. ""Especially if someone has already been to the country or if you have a lot of time, I've found it's a really great place to start,"" she said. Brda, Slovenia In the terraced valley of Slovenia's premier wine region, Brda, you can rent e-bikes to visit natural wineries, and pick up some burek (a flaky, stuffed Balkan pastry) along the way for a picnic lunch. Or you can hike through trenches preserved from World War I, learning about the region's wartime past while taking in its natural beauty between the Alps and the Adriatic Sea. After a golden-hour dip in the hotel pool, you can take a nap before walking to a walled city for dinner beneath a vine-covered trellis. Whatever you choose, it'll make you glad you picked Slovenia over a European hot spot. After a few days in wine country, don't miss a side quest to Hisa Franko, a three-Michelin-star restaurant (and a hotel) that lives up to the hype. The menu is a celebration of ingredients from Slovenia's Soca Valley, such as marble trout, foraged mountain plants and cheese aged in a cellar on-site. The drive to the property - through misty mountains and bright green farmland - is worth the time. Algeria Africa's largest country by area is the definition of undertourism, said Wheeler, of Lonely Planet, which included Algeria in its ""Best in Travel 2026"" book. ""The hotels were really good. It was easy to get around,"" Wheeler said. ""There was a lot to see, and there were no tourists."" Algiers, the seaport capital, harmonizes multiple architectural styles and cultures, including French colonial, Byzantine and Moorish designs, Ottoman influences, and Islamic landmarks such as the 17th-century Ketchaoua Mosque. George, of Geographic Expeditions, encourages visitors to explore the whitewashed Casbah and to take a moment at Martyrs' Memorial in Victory Park, which commemorates the country's hard-won independence from France. Though most of Algeria is uninhabited and blanketed by the Sahara, visitors can do more than play in the dunes. They can eat bowls of seafood couscous in beach towns along the Mediterranean Sea and poke around Roman ruins, such as the impeccably preserved Timgad, known as the Pompeii of Africa and one of the Algeria's seven UNESCO World Heritage sites." 3299129339,Don Winslow is soft-spoken. His fiction smashes you in the teeth.,2026-02-01,The Washington Post,News,BookWorld,C.1,,Final,,,Copyright WP Company LLC d/b/a The Washington Post 2026,1080,1988,['Travis M Andrews'],"['Fiction', 'Criminal sentences', 'Writing', 'Novels', 'Books', 'Text messaging']","['California', 'United States--US', 'Rhode Island']",[],[],[],[],"Walk down the Otter Point Trail at the Trustom Pond National Wildlife Refuge in South Kingstown, Rhode Island, and you'll emerge from a narrow path lined with trees to the edge of a coastal salt pond. At sunrise, your camera is ready to immortalize some water fowl, but you might be surprised to find all is quiet. You might think it's empty. You're wrong. You have to watch the edges. Ask crime writer Don Winslow. He often comes here at dawn, when the birds are active and most people are still in bed. ""I can't tell you how many times I've come to a place like this and been like, yeah, there's nothing,"" Winslow said. ""But then to have the discipline and patience to go ahead and glass it, to slowly glass the edge, and all of a sudden: 'Oh! There's a heron!'"" Winslow built a life by watching the edges to see what others miss, even back when he was cobbling together a living to support his writing habit. It helped him spot the lies perps would tell when he worked as a private investigator in California and New York. It helped him as a safari guide for amateur wildlife photographers touring Kenya and western China. ""Detail is critical when trying to put your clients in a position to take great photos,"" he said. ""You want light in the animals' eyes."" First, he said, you have to find the animals, which you do by searching for details in the biome. The clues are everywhere. ""Looking for leopards, for instance,"" he says: Don't look for the big cat. Look for the type of tree they lounge in. ""Then, look for the tail hanging down from a limb."" Winslow learned to be still so birds and animals grew comfortable enough to reveal themselves. He learned to keep things moving so the tourists didn't get restless. ""He's had a lot of different jobs, and he's seen a lot of life,"" said fellow crime writer Lou Berney. ""He's seen it as a writer, even when he wasn't a writer."" The skills port. Keep the story moving. But guide the reader's eyes to the interesting things they probably wouldn't see, the things you see only with the patience to watch the edges. Winslow has done just that since publishing his first novel, ""A Cool Breeze on the Underground,"" in 1991, earning himself a reputation as a totemic figure in crime fiction, one of the most successful, lauded and imitated to ever do it. He planned to walk away from all that, announcing his retirement in 2022. But we don't need to watch the edges to know how this goes. Here's Winslow again, coming out of retirement for … ""The Final Score,"" his aptly titled new collection of six short stories - all quintessential Winslow - that might be his last book. Winslow built a career writing hyperrealist books set in various unsteady realms around the world, from the narco states along the southern border to the surf-sick beaches of SoCal to the mobland of New England. He broke out with the Cartel Trilogy, beginning with ""The Power of the Dog"" in 2005. The books follow Drug Enforcement Administration agent Art Keller's war with the Barrera cartel and examine decades of the complicated geopolitics of the American war on drugs. His novels are often epic in scope, winnowing into various disciplines - from drug runners to cops, journalists to sex workers, the government to the stoners trying to catch a wave or maybe a score. He applies a journalist's eye to every subject, allowing him to flesh out worlds he doesn't himself inhabit. ""He's fearless in the subject matter he takes on,"" Berney said. ""He's like, 'I'm going to go anywhere I want, and I'm going to handle it however I want.'"" When Winslow announced his retirement from fiction, his plan was to focus on political activism, calling Donald Trump and his supporters a ""severe threat to our democracy,"" which wouldn't surprise any of his nearly 1 million followers on X, where he prolifically and ardently tweets about politics. (As horror writer Joe Hill, a colleague of Winslow's, quips, ""It's hard to tell where he's coming from politically because he's so reserved about his opinions."") But he had a little more to say. The six stories in ""The Final Score"" touch on all of Winslow's greatest hits - surfers, mobsters, drugs, prisons, the rot of institutions - but they also feel a bit more personal, even if not autobiographical, a collection filled with bits and pieces of the shadows of memories, twisted into fiction. To write it, he had to refamiliarize himself with the edges of the town where he was born and where he now lives for the half of the year he isn't in California: Perryville, a village within the coastal city of South Kingstown, Rhode Island, 30 miles south of Providence. ""At first I found it very difficult,"" Winslow said of the writing. ""It was too emotionally evocative, which I didn't enjoy."" These stories are born of the place. In ""The Sunday List,"" a teenager in 1970 is making money to put toward college by illegally delivering booze on the Lord's Day, when the liquor stores are closed by law. Did Winslow do the same job? ""Maybe."" The surfers in ""The Lunch Break"" speak in the same slang and tag one another with the same types of nicknames as the guys Winslow surfs with now, like Flipper Eddie (he wears flippers) and Ice Pack (he's always getting hurt). One of Winslow's strengths as a writer is an ear for how people really speak. ""He writes in the tradition of George Higgins and Gregory McDonald and especially Elmore Leonard,"" Hill said. ""Guys who tell stories through dialogue and action, and who understand that dialogue is itself a form of action."" Hill added that the realism of the dialogue makes readers feel immersed in ""a vividly painted world based on fact."" As in most of Winslow's work, the prose in the new book is lean and muscular. The sentences in ""Collision"" smash the reader in the teeth. The story follows a white-collar protagonist, Brad McAlister, learning how to be inhuman to survive an 11-year prison sentence for one drunken punch gone wrong, all to ironically protect his humanity and get back to his family. Winslow often writes rat-a-tat one-sentence paragraphs, every ounce of fat carved off with a switchblade. Phrases as tight as a body forged from 30 years on a prison yard bench-press. ""The books have a real warrior spirit to them,"" Hill said. ""They're real bare-knuckle works of fiction."" So it was no surprise when Winslow joked, ""On a good writing day, it's ice packs and ibuprofen at the end."" Don't get the wrong impression. For a guy who began a novel with a chapter composed of nothing but the words ""F--- you,"" Winslow was warm and welcoming and often giggled as he led me on a personal safari around South Kingstown in a 2010 Chrysler Town & Country he has lovingly dubbed the Beast. Which shouldn't be surprising, because within all of that muscular prose is a search for true humanity, a belief that there are soft spots in a hard world. He pours a certain sort of hope into his fiction. When he learned I had a newborn on the way, he lit up and told me, ""It's the best thing in the world."" When he and his wife found out ""we were pregnant - which I think is kind of silly, I was far from pregnant"" - he said, he knew that ""one: the next 18 years or so were going to be primarily about that kid and not me. Two: I was going to enjoy every minute of it."" When he said that, something clicked in my brain, and I looked back at ""Collision."" Before the prison time in the story, before the inhumanity begins, is this sentence: ""When he found out that Rachel was pregnant, McAlister made two promises to himself: one, that the next eighteen years were primarily about the kid; two, that he was going to enjoy every minute of it."" Winslow, on the page. ""He never flinches at the darkness of the world,"" Berney said, ""but he also never misses the humanity that's there."" In person, Winslow is gentle and soft-spoken, offering kind advice and wry observations when not doling out his deeply held opinions and beliefs. He thinks Jim Harrison's ""The Road Home"" is the great American novel. He thinks Hemingway's short stories are great but most of his novels are lesser. He loves Richard Russo. ""When I read Russo, I think, 'Why do I even f---ing bother writing?'"" He hates text messaging, particularly the baffling contemporary custom of texting to ask if one can call. Sometimes, he wants to respond that he requires an email requesting permission to send the text requesting permission for the call. He loves Rhode Island clam chowder, ""real clam chowder,"" and hates New England's creamy imitation, which is ""an abomination under the Lord that should bring about the resumption of capital punishment."" ""I laugh at myself: 'Man, you must just be old,'"" he said. His books sing with the small details that transport you to real places, and it's obvious why, as he points out various landmarks, both personal and historic: The beachside land filled with potato and corn fields that are probably worth millions but the owners won't sell; the old inn, from when this was the main road to New York via horse-drawn carriage; his friend's restaurant, which appears in one of his Danny Ryan novels; the riptide so steady, it earned a name (Edgar the Riptide). The places come with stories. On this shore, an old friend, a state trooper, bugged a bicycle and left it along the seawall where members of the New England mafia would walk-and-talk. In the parking lot of this fish-processing plant, his father killed the engine, let a young Winslow hoover up the odor and told him that working there would be his fate if he didn't apply himself. Here's Jerusalem, and there's Galilee, two small fishing towns in Narragansett, separated by 50 yards of boat-congested water. As kids, Winslow and his friends would pack a water bag, jump off the seawall and swim to the other shore, dodging boats along the way. And here is where the cars collide in ""The North Wing,"" the third story in the new collection. ""I always like to be on the ground when I can,"" he said. Winslow's first writing gig came when he was 7 years old. His neighbor Joey Palombo wanted to produce plays, so Winslow wrote him one: ""Daniel Boone and Texas John Slaughter and Go West to Find More Elbow Room."" ""Highly derivative piece,"" said Winslow. ""He paid me 25 cents and then never produced it."" Some 31 years later, ""I remember when my first book was published, thinking, 'Oh, now I've arrived,'"" he said. But ""it sold for $7,500 and sold about eight copies. That's not gonna do it."" But then, he made enough to do it. And then he retired. And now? He's busy birding and surfing. He's got his political activism. He's got his family, and his biannual cross-country road trips from California to Rhode Island and back. He's got the local Ocean State Waves baseball team, which he supports by sponsoring ""stolen bases, so every time the Waves steal a base you hear, 'Well, that stolen base was brought to you by Don Winslow's crime novels,'"" he says. Ask him if he's putting his pen down, though, and he'll tell you. ""I haven't decided."" After all, when you keep your eyes on the edges, who knows what you'll see. Who knows what you'll find; who knows what you'll need to share. Travis M. Andrews is a feature writer for The Washington Post." 3299129340,Judge denies Minnesota's request to scale back ICE surge,2026-02-01,The Washington Post,News,A-Section,A.7,,Regional,,,Copyright WP Company LLC d/b/a The Washington Post 2026,1440,1067,"['Mark Berman', 'Jeremy Roebuck']","['Immigration policy', 'Court hearings & proceedings', 'Attorneys general', 'Public safety', 'Cooperation', 'Racial profiling', 'Border patrol', 'Judges & magistrates']","['United States--US', 'Minnesota']",[],[],[],[],"The state argued that the agency's operations endangered public safety A judge on Saturday declined to order the Trump administration to immediately scale back its immigration enforcement surge in Minnesota, rejecting pleas from state officials who said the campaign was stepping on their sovereignty and endangering the public. Minnesota and the Twin Cities had not definitively shown that the administration's decision to flood the state with thousands of agents was unlawful or designed to force local officials into cooperating with the administration's objectives, U.S. District Judge Kate Menendez said in her ruling. Although Menendez acknowledged evidence that immigration agents had engaged in acts of racial profiling, excessive force and other disruptions in nearly all aspects of Minnesotans' lives, the judge stressed she was not tasked with ruling on any of those claims. Menendez said the Trump administration also had presented plausible arguments for the need for its enforcement operation, dubbed Operation Metro Surge. ""The Court is particularly reluctant to take a side in the debate about the purpose behind Operation Metro Surge,"" she wrote. ""Not only is it difficult to identify a single motivation for a significant multifaceted operation, but doing so would venture into a uniquely controversial political question."" Although the judge did not grant a preliminary injunction to end the immigration crackdown, she noted in her 30-page opinion that she was not making a final determination on the state's claims until the lawsuit is heard fully. Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison (D) also emphasized that the decision was not the last word in the case. ""We're obviously disappointed in the court's ruling today, but this case is in its infancy and there is much legal road in front of us, so we're fighting on,"" Ellison said in a statement. ""We're not letting up in defending our state's constitutional powers."" The ruling is a setback for state and local officials who have sought an end to the mammoth federal operation, which has reshaped daily life for people across the Minneapolis region and beyond for weeks. Attorney General Pam Bondi hailed Menendez's order in a post on social media. ""Neither sanctuary policies nor meritless litigation will stop the Trump Administration from enforcing federal law in Minnesota,"" she wrote. Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey (D) said city leaders were disappointed in the decision, but he vowed in a statement to continue fighting the case. ""This decision doesn't change what people here have lived through - fear, disruption, and harm caused by a federal operation that never belonged in Minneapolis in the first place,"" he said Saturday. ""This operation has not brought public safety. It's brought the opposite and has detracted from the order we need for a working city. It's an invasion, and it needs to stop."" The Trump administration's decision to deploy roughly 3,000 federal officers and agents to Minnesota - a deluge of personnel five times the size of the Minneapolis police force - has prompted sustained protests and an intensive effort among residents to track and document the enforcement actions. Federal authorities have shot and killed two people in Minneapolis since this surge began, prompting widespread outrage in Minnesota and across the country. Minnesota officials sued the Trump administration on Jan. 12 in response, saying that federal agents had ""stormed the Twin Cities to conduct militarized raids and carry out dangerous, illegal, and unconstitutional stops and arrests."" In court and in public remarks, they have described the situation in and around Minneapolis as dire. After an ICE officer shot and killed Renée Good on Jan. 7, Minneapolis launched its emergency preparedness protocols, leading to ""significant additional work"" for police and others in the city, Minnesota officials wrote in a court filing. Federal agents fatally shot Alex Pretti, a 37-year-old ICU nurse and U.S. citizen, on Jan. 24. In a letter to the court the same day, Minneapolis and Minnesota officials said Pretti's killing further illustrated the need for ""a court-ordered respite"" to the ongoing situation. Local authorities have accused the Trump administration of launching the immigration crackdown ""to punish political opponents and score partisan points."" They have also said the federal operation has disrupted residents' access to education, government services and health care. The Trump administration has maintained that Minnesota officials were ""effectively seeking a state veto over the enforcement of federal law by federal officers"" and said the courts do not have the authority to second-guess the president's law enforcement priorities. In the wake of the public outcry over Pretti's killing, U.S. Border Patrol commander Gregory Bovino, who initially said that Pretti wanted to ""massacre law enforcement,"" was sent back to California. President Donald Trump's border czar, Tom Homan, went to Minnesota after Pretti's death to manage the operation. Homan initially said his team was working on a plan to ""draw down"" the number agents but said it hinged on increased state and local cooperation on enforcement with the Department of Homeland Security. Ellison, Minnesota's attorney general, said leaders had not reached such an agreement. Federal officials wrote in court papers that the immigration crackdown has been a success despite attacks and threats against federal personnel. Trump campaigned on enforcing immigration laws, the Justice Department wrote, and ""Minnesota is a crucial priority for immigration enforcement."" During a hearing Monday, Menendez said that while ""we are in shockingly unusual times,"" she was skeptical about whether her authority allowed her to decide if the immigration agents could remain deployed in Minnesota. The judge reiterated that hesitation in her ruling Saturday, writing that halting the crackdown ""could overstep the judicial role."" Menendez also addressed Minnesota officials' argument that the Trump administration's crackdown was meant to force them into helping with immigration enforcement. The day Pretti was killed, Bondi wrote a letter to Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz (D), demanding access to the state's voter rolls and records relating to food assistance. Her letter appeared to link these moves to a possible end to the crackdown, though the Justice Department denied this was her intent. In a filing on Wednesday, the agency said her letter contained ""no hint of a quid pro quo"" and did not commit to ending the federal surge. Menendez suggested in her ruling that the letter gave her pause. Minnesota officials offered evidence to back up their argument that the federal operation was meant to compel cooperation with the Trump administration, including Bondi's letter, ""which states as much,"" Menendez wrote. Maegan Vazquez contributed to this report." 3299129341,"With six sidelined, Caps stage unlikely comeback",2026-02-01,The Washington Post,News,Sports,B.1,,Suburban,,,Copyright WP Company LLC d/b/a The Washington Post 2026,1070,1191,['Bailey Johnson'],['Professional hockey'],"['United States--US', 'Detroit Michigan']","['Andersen, Frederik']",['Capital One Financial Corp'],[],[],"Capitals 4, Hurricanes 3 (OT) Washington 'just found a way' after trailing 3-0 Jakob Chychrun had a feeling. Though his Washington Capitals were trailing the Carolina Hurricanes by three goals and missing six players from their lineup Saturday, Chychrun had an intense belief Washington was going to find a way to win. Chychrun scored the tying goal with 6:42 left in the third period as the Capitals erased that three-goal deficit to force overtime. And in overtime, rookie forward Justin Sourdif scored the winner for Washington to beat Carolina, 4-3, at Capital One Arena and win back-to-back games for the first time since early December. ""I just felt like we were playing so well,"" Chychrun said. ""… We just had a great first, had a great second and just kept pushing. It's a heck of a job by [goaltender] Clay [Stevenson] to keep us in it, and [we] just found a way. It's just a really, really fun game to be a part of. That's what we needed."" What was already going to be a difficult game for the Capitals - a matchup with the No. 1 team in the Metropolitan Division after they slogged through a 12-day, six-game road trip - became even more challenging as their injury list grew in recent days. They knew they would be without center Pierre-Luc Dubois, who has missed most of the season; goaltender Logan Thompson, who has an upper-body injury; and defenseman Matt Roy, who has a lower-body injury. Then forward Connor McMichael (week-to-week, upper body) and goaltender Charlie Lindgren (lower body) were injured in Thursday's 4-3 win in Detroit, and shortly before warmups Saturday, defenseman Martin Fehervary was ruled out for personal reasons. ""We don't feel sorry for ourselves at any point,"" Chychrun said. ""We just continue to push. Feels like we've had a lot of adversity throughout the year already, and they're all good learning moments for this group. We just continue to fight."" Stevenson, who backed up Lindgren against Detroit and earned the starting role Saturday because of Lindgren's injury, made 19 saves on 22 shots to earn his first NHL win. Frederik Andersen stopped 38 of 42 for Carolina. ""That's a really special one, especially against that team, against Frederik Andersen, one of my favorite goalies in the NHL,"" Stevenson said. ""It was incredible. I'm lost for words a little bit."" The Hurricanes are known for their high-pressure, high-shot volume style of play, but the Capitals more than held their own in the first period - despite coming out of the frame trailing 2-0. Carolina took advantage of two misplays by Washington to score its two goals, which has been a common theme for the Capitals in recent weeks. On the Hurricanes' first goal, defenseman Dylan McIlrath tried to box out against William Carrier but couldn't collect the puck, and Carrier slipped it to Mark Jankowski one-on-one with Stevenson from the edge of the crease. For the second, defenseman John Carlson bobbled an attempted breakout pass, and Sebastian Aho scooped up the puck and scored. Shayne Gostisbehere made it 3-0 at the 4:16 mark of the second period with a shot from the edge of the ice that fooled Stevenson and flew into the net between Stevenson's stick and his body. The shot came in so fast that Stevenson was looking around for the puck, not realizing it was in the net. ""Just one that catches me off guard,"" Stevenson said. ""You can't really see it, and then it's in the back of your net and we're down three. I have a really good next puck mindset. Just try to do my job to give them faith to keep pushing, and they did that."" Added Washington Coach Spencer Carbery: ""I thought he was excellent. Really tough circumstances. He gets thrown into the fire a little bit with what's going on. … His calmness - which I think is a staple of his; I don't think you can rattle Clay Stevenson - to keep the game at 3. We just needed to keep that game at 3. He did a phenomenal job of that."" The Capitals were still keeping pace with the Hurricanes despite the disparity on the scoreboard. Meetings between these two clubs often feature Carolina running up the shot total and toying with Washington in the defensive zone, but that wasn't the case Saturday. Forward Hendrix Lapierre scored his second goal of the season at 7:52 of the middle frame to get the Capitals on the board, and center Dylan Strome pulled them within one with a tip at the net front at 14:58. ""They obviously play a certain style of game that you have to match or else they run you right out of the rink,"" Strome said. ""It seems like they bring the best out of us. It's a good hockey game, lots of action. Even though we were down 3-0, it felt like one of those games where we were playing really well. That belief in here stayed strong."" Winger Ryan Leonard narrowly missed on the tying goal late in the second period after captain Alex Ovechkin set him up on the power play for a backdoor chance. The puck rolled off Leonard's stick, and Washington then had to wait until late in the third period before evening the score. The fans at Capital One Arena were already in raptures after two big hits on Logan Stankoven helped the Capitals mount a stretch of offensive pressure when Chychrun stepped into a lane of space with the puck on his stick. Chychrun has one of the strongest wrist shots in the NHL, and with one flick of his stick, he sailed the equalizer past Andersen. ""What we were doing, shift to shift, was excellent,"" Carbery said. ""There was a lot of belief in our room that we were going to find a way if we just kept to our game and stuck with it."" Perhaps Stevenson's biggest stop of the game came in the final two minutes, when the puck rolled off defenseman Trevor van Riemsdyk's stick in front of Washington's net. Stevenson had to dive and cover the puck to keep Carolina from poking it in for an all-too-easy go-ahead goal. In overtime, Andersen stopped Sourdif's initial shot off a feed from Carlson, but Sourdif followed up the rebound and deposited it into the open net. The dramatics weren't quite finished; the goal was reviewed for goaltender interference, but when it was upheld, another round of elation went up throughout the arena - and among Washington's players on the ice. ""It's huge. We all know we can do it in here with everybody,"" Sourdif said. ""Guys stepped up tonight. Obviously we were missing some bodies, and everybody just played super hard the whole night. To a man, everybody just played a really solid game."" Added Carbery: ""That's our locker room, and that's the Caps' resiliency that I've grown accustomed to over the last couple of years. You can feel it. It feels a little bit different right now with our group. There's a focus to it. They understand what's at stake and where we're at.""" 3299129342,TV and radio listings,2026-02-01,The Washington Post,News,Sports,B.2,,Suburban,,,Copyright WP Company LLC d/b/a The Washington Post 2026,1440,619,[],"['Professional soccer', 'Women', 'College basketball', 'Professional basketball', 'Professional golf']","['Mexico', 'United States--US', 'Ohio', 'Illinois', 'Tennessee', 'Florida', 'Alabama', 'North Carolina', 'Michigan', 'Iowa', 'Oklahoma']",[],['Ligue 1'],[],[],"NBA top16%3:30 p.m. top84% Milwaukee at BostonESPN top16%6 p.m. top84% Sacramento at WashingtonMonumental Sports Network, WJFK (106.7 FM) top16%7 p.m. top84% Los Angeles Lakers at New YorkWRC (Ch. 4), WBAL (Ch. 11) top16%9:30 p.m. top84% Oklahoma City at DenverWRC (Ch. 4), WBAL (Ch. 11) NHL top16%6:30 p.m. top84% Boston at Tampa BayESPN top16%9:30 p.m. top84% Vegas at AnaheimESPN Women's professional basketball top16%7:30 p.m. top84% Unrivaled: Phantom vs. Lunar OwlsTruTV top16%8:45 p.m. top84% Unrivaled: Breeze vs. RoseTruTV Men's college basketball top16%Noon top84% Rhode Island at DuquesneUSA Network top16%1 p.m. top84% Purdue at MarylandWUSA (Ch. 9), WJZ (Ch. 13), WTEM (980 AM) top16%1 p.m. top84% Alabama at FloridaWJLA (Ch. 7), WMAR (Ch. 2) top16%1 p.m. top84% Chattanooga at FurmanESPN2 top16%2 p.m. top84% Iowa State at Kansas StateWTTG (Ch. 5), WBFF (Ch. 45) top16%2 p.m. top84% TCU at ColoradoTNT top16%2 p.m. top84% Wichita State at TulsaESPNU top16%2 p.m. top84% Kansas City at St. ThomasCBS Sports Network top16%3 p.m. top84% Tulane at MemphisESPN2 top16%4 p.m. top84% Illinois at NebraskaFox Sports 1 top16%7 p.m. top84% East Tennessee State at WoffordCBS Sports Network top16%8 p.m. top84% Iowa at OregonFox Sports 1 Women's college basketball top16%Noon top84% Tennessee at ConnecticutWTTG (Ch. 5), WBFF (Ch. 45) top16%Noon top84% Wake Forest at DukeACC Network top16%Noon top84% Richmond at VCUESPNU top16%Noon top84% Alabama at LSUSEC Network top16%Noon top84% Michigan at Michigan StateFox Sports 1 top16%Noon top84% Ball State at Kent StateCBS Sports Network top16%1 p.m. top84% Baylor at West VirginiaESPN top16%1 p.m. top84% North Carolina Wilmington at William & MaryMASN top16%2 p.m. top84% George Washington at DaytonUSA Network top16%2 p.m. top84% Louisville at CaliforniaWDCW (Ch. 50), WNUV (Ch. 54) top16%2 p.m. top84% Boston College at Georgia TechACC Network top16%2 p.m. top84% Kentucky at ArkansasSEC Network top16%2 p.m. top84% North Carolina A&T at HamptonMonumental Sports Network top16%2 p.m. top84% TCU at Texas TechFox Sports 1 top16%3 p.m. top84% Oklahoma at TexasWJLA (Ch. 7), WMAR (Ch. 2) top16%3 p.m. top84% Creighton at Seton HallTruTV top16%4 p.m. top84% Iowa at UCLAWTTG (Ch. 5), WBFF (Ch. 45) top16%4 p.m. top84% Notre Dame at StanfordWDCW (Ch. 50), WNUV (Ch. 54) top16%4 p.m. top84% Florida State at ClemsonACC Network top16%4 p.m. top84% Florida at VanderbiltSEC Network top16%5 p.m. top84% Marquette at GeorgetownTruTV top16%6 p.m. top84% Illinois at WashingtonFox Sports 1 top16%6 p.m. top84% Nebraska at Ohio StateBig Ten Network Golf top16%1 p.m. top84% PGA Tour: Farmers Insurance Open, final roundGolf Channel top16%2 p.m. top84% LPGA Tour: Tournament of Champions, final roundWRC (Ch. 4), WBAL (Ch. 11) top16%3 p.m. top84% PGA Tour: Farmers Insurance Open, final roundWUSA (Ch. 9), WJZ (Ch. 13) Soccer top16%6:30 a.m. top84% Italian Women's Serie A: Como at LazioCBS Sports Network top16%9 a.m. top84% English Premier League: Brentford at Aston VillaUSA Network top16%9 a.m. top84% Scottish Premiership: Rangers at HibernianCBS Sports Network top16%9 a.m. top84% French Ligue 1: Lille at LyonBeIN Sports top16%11:15 a.m. top84% French Ligue 1: Brest at NiceBeIN Sports top16%2:45 p.m. top84% French Ligue 1: Paris Saint-Germain at StrasbourgBeIN Sports Tennis top16%2 a.m. (Monday) top84% ATP: Open Occitanie, early rounds; WTA: Abu Dhabi Open, Transylvania Open and Ostrava Open, early roundsTennis Channel Baseball - caribbean series top16%2 p.m. top84% Mexico (Green) vs. Puerto RicoMLB Network top16%8:30 p.m. top84% Dominican Republic vs. Mexico (Red)MLB Network Men's professional basketball top16%3 p.m. top84% NBA G League: Rio Grande Valley at Oklahoma CityNBA TV top16%5 p.m. top84% NBA G League: Memphis at Motor CityNBA TV Track and field top16%4 p.m. top84% Millrose GamesWRC (Ch. 4), WBAL (Ch. 11) Women's college gymnastics top16%4 p.m. top84% Michigan State at MichiganBig Ten Network top16%5 p.m. top84% Iowa State at DenverESPN2 top16%6 p.m. top84% Auburn at GeorgiaSEC Network College wrestling top16%Noon top84% Michigan at Ohio StateBig Ten Network top16%2 p.m. top84% Northwestern at Michigan StateBig Ten Network" 3299129343,Is building more homes enough to lower prices? Experts are still arguing.,2026-02-01,The Washington Post,News,Business,B.10,,Regional,,,Copyright WP Company LLC d/b/a The Washington Post 2026,1210,1492,['Julie Z Weil'],"['Regulation', 'Urban planning', 'Median', 'Books', 'Zoning', 'Homeowners', 'Housing prices', 'Supply & demand', 'Affordable housing']","['Montana', 'United States--US', 'Los Angeles California', 'San Francisco California']",[],['London School of Economics & Political Science'],[],[],"For years, housing activists couldn't agree on what was driving prices higher, let alone how to fix it. The divide stems from two schools of thought: One side lays the blame on a lack of inventory. Build more housing - especially in dense, transit-accessible neighborhoods - and the laws of supply and demand will lower prices for everyone, goes the thinking of the YIMBY (Yes in My Back Yard) movement. On the flip side are the ""supply skeptics,"" who tend to believe housing affordability calls for government policies, not just market forces. From city council hearings to the halls of academia, the debate raged for years. Then came 2020, and Americans raced to buy homes during the early stages of the coronavirus pandemic. Prices shot up, pushing the U.S. median to $410,800, a 30 percent increase in five years, Federal Reserve data shows. Median prices go significantly higher in the West ($531,100) and Northeast ($796,700). Now even starter homes are increasingly out of reach. The political pressure to rein in housing costs has led to a wave of YIMBY legislative victories. Last year, 13 states passed laws peeling back regulations to remove barriers to home construction, according to the group Welcoming Neighbors Network. Dennis Shea, a housing expert at the Bipartisan Policy Center, says the YIMBYs have put the housing debate to rest. ""They've won,"" he says flatly. Most Americans seem to agree, a YouGov survey found, with nearly 7 in 10 saying the amount of available housing contributes ""a great deal"" or ""a fair amount"" to the cost of housing. Nearly 6 in 10 also blame government regulation for housing costs. But supply skeptics like Michael Storper, an urban planning professor at UCLA and the London School of Economics, say there's enough home construction. ""To put it bluntly, in America we haven't actually been underbuilding,"" said Storper, an urban planning professor at UCLA and the London School of Economics. ""The problem is demand is now split in a very unequal society. The supply you get is the wrong kind of supply."" Six years ago, Storper co-authored a paper with colleague Andrés Rodríguez-Pose arguing that regulations like zoning and parking requirements aren't driving up home prices. It sparked an uproar in research circles. In a newly published paper, Storper and new co-authors say that despite ""broad consensus in public discourse"" embracing the YIMBY push for deregulation: ""Links between regulation and supply, and between supply and prices, are weak at best."" Simply unleashing developers to build more homes won't make housing affordable, the paper says. It explores a hypothetical: Imagine that a city increases its housing stock by 1.5 percent each year - a rate that is more than twice the growth of New York or San Francisco from 2000 to 2020, though lower than Denver, Phoenix or Houston. If all that new housing caused prices to fall by 4 percent a year, it would take 18 years before a median one-bedroom apartment becomes affordable for a worker without a college education in San Francisco, or 11 years in the District or eight years in Boston, the paper says. If housing prices fall more slowly, less than 1 percent per year, it would take as much as 124 years in San Francisco and 109 years in Los Angeles. That's no way to fix affordability, they insist. Focusing on deregulation is a ""harmful distraction"" to more direct approaches like publicly funded vouchers to help pay for housing. The National Bureau of Economic Research recently published a working paper attacking the idea of constrained supply as the problem with housing, claiming instead that rising home prices basically tracked local income, regardless of zoning laws in a given city. The paper called the idea that regulation drives up prices ""the standard view"" and ""the prevailing view,"" but claimed that it is wrong. YIMBYs rushed to poke holes in the argument. One author, Schuyler Louie, said in an interview that he concluded developers have basically been able to build housing at the cost that each local market will bear. Removing regulations wouldn't necessarily lead developers to build more. ""Per capita income growth is correlated pretty much one-to-one with house prices,"" Louie said. ""If I get richer in a city, I'm not going to demand more units of housing. I'm going to demand a nicer house, which is going to increase the price without actually increasing the demand for units."" Rodríguez-Pose takes issue with a YIMBY view known as ""filtering"" - that even the construction of high-priced luxury housing will improve housing affordability, because the people who pay to live in the luxury buildings will no longer be competing for another apartment that will become available for a lower-income renter. ""What was, for me, very weird was the claim by many scholars that the best way to address urban inequality … was to start building the most expensive homes in the most desirable locations, and hope that everything was going to trickle down,"" Rodríguez-Pose said. He doesn't think the conventional laws of supply and demand function well in the housing market. Houses, he said, ""are not necessarily interchangeable. It doesn't mean if you start building houses in Montana, then people are going to move to Montana."" Across the country, a wave of pro-housing supply sentiment has been building in recent years, with politicians in both parties enthusiastically embracing the view that obstacles to housing construction are a problem to be cleared away. Maryland, for instance, will require counties to let homeowners build accessory dwelling units starting this year. Florida blocked local apartment building moratoriums and cut down on parking requirements. Arizona forced cities to allow construction starting at 5 a.m. A large group of cities, from Philadelphia to Denver to Seattle, passed YIMBY laws. While Republicans tend to promote less regulation, the new YIMBY laws have support on both sides of the aisle. ""Today as many people on the left as on the right, maybe more on the left even, acknowledge that local [regulations] are the major if not the main obstacle to building housing. It's just so clear of a story. … And people are witnessing it in the places where they live, where prices are so high,"" said Kevin Corinth, a former Senate and White House staffer who works for the right-leaning American Enterprise Institute. ""I think there's just a recognition, if we want these places to be at all available for moderate- to middle-income families, we just need to build more."" That said, he added, there's growing concern among some on the right about density. Some Republicans say: ""We worry about preserving suburban areas as they are. We worry about homeowners potentially seeing a decline in the value of their homes."" Journalists Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson pushed for removing obstacles to housing and other forms of construction in their influential 2025 book ""Abundance."" Giselle Hale, a former mayor of Redwood City, near San Francisco, is involved in the advocacy group YIMBY Action and also leads the ""Abundance Network,"" a group of state and local elected officials across the country who espouse the ideas of the book. ""I do think that it has definitely turned the tide. We have seen so many more leaders get elected for whom this is a top priority,"" she said. The book and the formation of new advocacy groups helped people learn about the topic, come to believe in the ideas, and prioritize the policies. And the increasing stress in the housing market upped the urgency. ""We hit the tidal wave where the pain of not building housing for so long became undeniable."" Adam Guren, a housing economist at Boston University, thinks some key questions are still up for debate. ""The real question is: How segmented are housing markets? There's one model where if you add floor space to the city, that drives down prices. Another where luxury apartments … are completely different, and there's not going to be this trickle-down cascade where that drives down prices."" Democrats are divided, with some taking up ""Abundance""-inspired objections to rules that make it expensive to build housing, like parking requirements and mandated minimum lot sizes, while some left-leaning groups favor less market-driven ways to make housing more affordable. ""If we really were focused on getting and keeping people housed, we wouldn't be playing around with all these things around the margins,"" said Unai Montes-Irueste, a leader of the left-leaning group People's Action. Instead of reforming permitting and zoning laws to allow housing to be built, he thinks, the government should just build it. ""The housing that we need is housing for working people, and that housing is really hard to produce"" just by letting developers build more, said Meghan Choi, executive director of the Los Angeles tenants' group Power. ""In order for people to be truly safe, then yes, public housing has to be treated like public education. …. It should be protected as a right."" Scott Clement contributed to this report." 3299129745,Economy's growth rests on some shaky pillars,2026-02-01,The Washington Post,News,Business,B.9,,Regional,,,Copyright WP Company LLC d/b/a The Washington Post 2026,1210,933,"['Abha Bhattarai', 'Alyssa Fowers']","['Gross Domestic Product--GDP', 'Consumer spending', 'Investments', 'Artificial intelligence', 'Unemployment', 'Economists', 'Economic growth', 'Securities markets', 'Pandemics', 'Labor market']",['United States--US'],[],['Moodys Investors Service Inc'],[],[],"On paper, the economy is booming. Low unemployment, strong consumer spending and steady business investments have helped fuel the largest expansion in years. The U.S. economy grew at a robust annual rate of 4.4 percent in the most recent quarter, defying fears of an imminent slowdown. But economists caution that growth is increasingly concentrated. The result is a steady but fragile economy, built on a series of narrowing pillars. ""There are one-legged stools everywhere you look and yet when you put it all together, we're still standing,"" said Diane Swonk, chief economist at KPMG, who began using the phrase last summer to describe the economy. ""The question is, how long can we keep ourselves upright?"" Here, in charts, are three pillars holding up the U.S. economy. The job market has been surprisingly sturdy, even in the face of high interest rates, changing economic policy and looming uncertainty. The unemployment rate, at 4.4 percent, is near historic lows. But the bulk of the job market's recent gains has come from one industry: health care. Health care and social assistance positions accounted for 97 percent of the 733,000 private-sector jobs created across the economy last year. Hospitals, doctor's offices and residential care facilities added hundreds of thousands of positions in 2025, helping make up for losses in manufacturing, transportation and white-collar professions such as advertising and computer science. ""It's really impressive how much job growth has been driven by health care and social assistance,"" said Daniel Zhao, chief economist at careers site Glassdoor. ""It's the last remaining pillar of growth."" But having nearly all job growth concentrated in one sector is risky for the economy, he added. It'd be much better if gains were spread across a variety of industries, especially given that health care hiring has slowed in recent months. Employers added an average 421,000 health care and social assistance jobs a month in the first half of 2025; in the second half, that figure fell to 363,000. The post-pandemic recovery has favored the richest Americans. Fast-rising home values and a rapid run-up in stock valuations have disproportionately padded the fortunes of the wealthiest, allowing them to keep spending in a way that's lifting the entire economy. The top 10 percent of Americans - those earning $275,000 or more - now account for a record 45 percent of all spending, up from about 39 percent before the pandemic, according to Moody's Analytics. That imbalance helps explain why spending on extras such as dining out and travel has kept rising over the past year, even as many households say they're cutting back. ""There's been a dramatic narrowing: The folks at the top account for a much higher share of spending than the folks in the bottom 80 percent, and that gap is widening,"" said Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody's Analytics. ""It very clearly shows that the economy is dependent on spending by the folks at the top."" Rising consumer spending has been a major driver of growth in recent quarters, accounting for nearly 70 percent of the country's gross domestic product. But after adjusting for inflation, spending by lower- and middle-income Americans has largely stayed flat since the pandemic, Zandi said. The top 20 percent, though, are splurging: Their spending is up by more than 4 percent per year since 2020. That dynamic is worrisome, Zandi said - both because it leads to growing disparities, and also because so much of the wealthiest Americans' recent spending power is tied to the whims of the stock market. ""Surging stock prices have made the wealthy even wealthier, giving them the willingness to spend,"" he said. ""But what happens if something were to disrupt that equity party? That source of growth would go away, and it would be enough to send the economy into a recession, or darn close to one."" Spending on artificial intelligence is driving billions in business investments and helping lift stocks to record highs, boosting company valuations and Americans' portfolios. The four richest companies developing AI - Microsoft, Google, Amazon and Meta - have spent roughly $360 billion, combined, in the past year on big-ticket projects, including building AI data centers and outfitting them with computer chips, software and other equipment, according to a recent Washington Post analysis. (Amazon founder Jeff Bezos owns The Post.) Overall business spending on equipment and software has grown every quarter since January 2025. ""There is one horse drawing the carriage right now, and that's AI,"" said Mark Muro, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution who studies the AI economy. ""But it's not necessarily a reassuring source of growth. There are worries about a bubble, and a lot of questions about what happens next."" Although there is growing debate over just how much those investments are contributing to the U.S. economy, experts say it's clear that AI-related enthusiasm has translated to real gains, especially in the stock market. Among the biggest beneficiaries of that boom have been the 'Magnificent Seven,' a group of tech giants - Alphabet, Amazon, Apple, Meta Platforms, Microsoft, Nvidia, and Tesla - that have seen their share prices balloon by nearly 20 percent, on average, in the past year, translating to trillions in value. ""The two engines of today's economy are the AI ecosystem and wealthy consumers,"" Richmond Fed president Tom Barkin said in a recent speech. The two, he noted, are closely linked: AI ""has been supporting virtually all of the growth in business investment. And any drop in valuations of the Magnificent Seven would surely flow through to net worth and, in turn, to consumption."" Shira Ovide contributed to this report." 3299129746,Trump calls for Grand Prix-like race around D.C. landmarks,2026-02-01,The Washington Post,News,Metro,B.14,,Regional,,,Copyright WP Company LLC d/b/a The Washington Post 2026,1410,631,['Jenny Gathright'],"['Automobile racing', 'Executive orders', 'Birthdays', 'National parks']",['United States--US'],"['Trump, Donald J']",['US Capitol'],[],[],"An IndyCar Grand Prix race could be coming to the streets of D.C. in August, President Donald Trump announced in an executive order he signed Friday. Trump's ""Freedom 250 Grand Prix"" would coincide with the massive celebration his administration is planning for the nation's 250th birthday. As part of the slate of events - which so far includes a fair, a competitive youth athletic event and a UFC fight on the grounds of the White House - cars would speed around areas near the District's monuments in a yet-to-be-determined route, Trump's order said. ""This race, the first motor race ever to be held in our Nation's capital near the National Mall, will showcase the majesty of our great city as drivers navigate a track around our iconic national monuments in celebration of America's 250th birthday,"" the executive order reads. The event will be held Aug. 21 to 23, according to a news release from the Department of Transportation - presenting Trump and local D.C. officials with about seven months to organize the event and navigate regulations related to advertising on federal lands. Trump's order said that within two weeks, Doug Burgum and Sean P. Duffy, the secretaries of the interior and transportation, respectively, should determine a suitable route through the nation's capital. It also instructs the secretaries to ensure that necessary approvals are granted ""as expeditiously as possible."" The executive order said the government may need to take steps to make sure that drones and other forms of aerial photography can be used around the events without compromising government facilities nearby; the District's airspace is highly regulated. Trump has also instructed his Cabinet members to coordinate with D.C. Mayor Muriel E. Bowser (D), who was enthusiastic about the prospect at an unrelated news conference Friday. ""We love it. We absolutely love it,"" said Bowser, who said she was briefed on the event a few weeks ago. Bowser has long emphasized sports as key to her economic strategy for the city - a reputation she cemented last year when she struck a $3.7 billion deal with the Washington Commanders to redevelop the long-vacant RFK Stadium site with a new NFL stadium. Bowser said Friday that she had seen growing interest in auto racing in the city. ""I think it could attract a lot of visitors to the District,"" Bowser said. But the mayor cautioned that organizers will need to focus on safety and potential impacts to city roads. ""As long as it's done right and with enough time, it can be done right,"" she said, adding that if the race is going to happen, key approvals should happen quickly. Organizers also will need to grapple with the rules that govern advertising around the National Mall and on U.S. Capitol Grounds. Advertisements are allowed at special events permitted through the National Park Service, but they must follow specific regulations, such as restricting the size of ads and making sure their form is ""consistent with the special nature and sanctity of the National Mall"" and other park areas. Advertisements are prohibited on the streets around the U.S. Capitol, according to the Capitol grounds traffic regulations, which could mean that the race route would require congressional approval. The event's boosters are projecting confidence that it will move forward as planned. Asked Friday, a White House official said ""there is no need for congressional approval."" IndyCar owner Roger Penske celebrated Trump in a news release from the company. ""Like the sport of racing itself, this administration, under President Donald J. Trump, is moving at record speed to make life better for all Americans and ensure that the United States marks its 250th birthday with the celebration that it deserves,"" Penske said. ""Start your engines, America!"" Meagan Flynn, Ellie Silverman and Rachel Weiner contributed to this report." 3299129747,Why deporting 'worst of the worst' isn't a good idea for one family,2026-02-01,The Washington Post,News,A-Section,A.2,,Regional,,,Copyright WP Company LLC d/b/a The Washington Post 2026,1300,1064,['Karen Tumulty'],"['Prison overcrowding', 'Immigration policy', 'Criminal sentences', 'Deportation', 'Murders & murder attempts', 'Imprisonment', 'Immigrants', 'Families & family life', 'Criminals', 'Convictions']","['Mexico', 'United States--US', 'Minnesota']","['Trump, Donald J']",['US Immigration & Customs Enforcement'],[],[],"On April 20, 1999, the nation's attention was fixed on a shooting massacre that occurred at Columbine High School near Littleton, Colorado, killing 12 students and one teacher. That same day, in the small southern Minnesota town of Waseca, another horror was unfolding: Jayme Larson, 16, returned home from school to find the body of her 12-year-old sister, Cally Jo, stabbed, sexually assaulted and left hanging in the stairwell of their bungalow. It took police nearly a year to find the man who would be convicted. He turned out to be Lorenzo Bahena Sanchez, a Mexican citizen in the United States illegally who is now serving a life sentence in Minnesota Correctional Facility-Stillwater. The soonest he could be released on parole is 2030. The review process will begin in early 2027, and Cally's family has vowed to fight every step of the way. Cally's loved ones now have a new terror: Under the Trump administration's aggressive immigration enforcement effort, Sanchez might be turned over to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, deported and sent elsewhere, perhaps to his native Mexico, where he might walk free. Last week, Jayme's husband, Chad, sent a frantic, anguished email to state officials, including Attorney General Keith Ellison, Minnesota Corrections Commissioner Paul Schnell and his two U.S. senators. (The couple spoke on the condition that neither their last name nor their location be used.) ""We do not care if he was born here or born in Mexico, he committed a crime here. He needs to finish his sentence here - where we know exactly where he is and we know that he won't hurt anyone else,"" Chad wrote Tuesday. ""We want him to take his last breath in a Minnesota prison. When he is up for parole in about a year, we will be there demanding he remain in prison. Until that time, we are seeking confirmation that he will never be turned over to ICE for deportation."" President Donald Trump has repeatedly pledged to deport the ""worst of the worst"" immigrants who are in the U.S. illegally, calling out rapists, murderers and other felons. Sanchez would certainly appear to fall into that category. That, however, is what terrifies Cally's family. According to Schnell, there is an active ICE detainer on Sanchez - an order for him to be turned over to federal authorities. In the white-hot, polarizing debate that is going on over immigration policy, there is one issue upon which practically everyone agrees: Violent criminals who are in the country illegally should be deported. In an Economist/YouGov poll published Wednesday, 87 percent agreed with that proposition. But there are complexities behind what seem to be the most straightforward questions when it comes to immigration. Data suggests the vast majority of immigrants lately being taken into ICE custody are not hardened criminals. An October review of ICE's numbers by the Cato Institute found that in the previous weeks, nearly 3 in 4 booked into ICE custody had no criminal conviction, and only 5 percent had a conviction for a violent criminal offense. Department of Homeland Security spokeswoman Tricia McLaughlin pointed out, in response to an inquiry by The Washington Post, that the way detainers - such as the one that applies to Sanchez - work is that ""the criminals serve their time and then are turned over to ICE. They aren't taken out prematurely before they serve their time."" But in an interview, Schnell said handing over incarcerated inmates to ICE is indeed a new policy that is being sought by border czar Tom Homan and top officials, as part of ongoing negotiations that could lead to the withdrawal of the surge of thousands of enforcement personnel in Minneapolis. ""We've been asked to release people from our custody who are actively serving sentences, and that's not something that we have an interest in doing,"" Schnell said. The administration's desire to take custody of prisoners who are here illegally has also been expressed publicly by top Trump officials on a number of occasions. To bring about ""a clear and simple path to restoring law and order in Minnesota,"" White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said at a briefing last week, ""number one, Governor Walz, Mayor Frey, and all Democrat leaders should turn over all criminal illegal aliens currently incarcerated in their prisons and jails to federal authorities, along with any illegal aliens with active warrants or known criminal histories for immediate deportation."" Leavitt said that was a condition conveyed by Trump in a conversation with Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz (D). What might happen when someone such as Cally's convicted killer is simply deported, perhaps to his own country? That is far from clear. ""The policy has always been for sentences to be carried out in the U.S., i.e. not to release early just because someone is deportable for the crime that was committed,"" Doris Meissner, who in the 1990s was head of what was then known as the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service, wrote in an email. She noted that some states have sought to release to federal authorities for deportation foreign-born criminals before their sentences to ease prison overcrowding and costs. ""In a case like this, if he were released early, the U.S. would have to work with Mexico to have him finish his sentence,"" Meissner said. ""But Mexico could be expected to object, saying it doesn't have authority to incarcerate someone who wasn't convicted in its criminal justice system."" She also added that countries may object to bearing the costs of incarcerating someone who committed a crime outside their borders. As it happens, Cally's relatives say, Sanchez had been deported - after he had killed her. He subsequently reentered the country illegally, and returned to Waseca, where local police arrested him on suspicion of a subsequent home burglary. It was during that probe that he became a suspect in Cally's murder, when the state's Bureau of Criminal Apprehension found one of her hairs and some of her possessions where he was living. The Trump administration has been quick to criticize local law enforcement officials for not cooperating with federal agents. Cally's family sees it differently. They ""never gave up finding justice for Cally. Many have become like family,"" Jayme said. ""I have every confidence that they will continue to support our family and advocate that Cally's killer serve his full life sentence."" Marianne LeVine contributed to this report." 3299129748,A divorce memoir with a mystery at its center: Why did he leave?,2026-02-01,The Washington Post,News,BookWorld,C.2,,Final,,,Copyright WP Company LLC d/b/a The Washington Post 2026,1080,1056,['Jennifer Reese'],"['Autobiographies', 'Marriage', 'Hedge funds', 'Divorce']",[],[],[],[],[],"I didn't expect to relish ""Strangers: A Memoir of Marriage,"" the surprise bestseller by first-time author Belle Burden. A Harvard-educated heiress descended from Vanderbilts, Burden didn't seem relatable, nor was I keen to dive into a saga of wounding midlife divorce, having observed too many of these in real life. I picked the book up doubtfully, tore through it feverishly and have been thinking about it ever since. ""Strangers"" turns out to be a hypnotic nail-biter, unfolding like a true-crime novel, though not a drop of blood is shed, and no laws are broken. The circumstances of Burden's divorce were peculiar and profoundly mysterious, and she writes about the experience with grace and candor. But what gives the story its chilly resonance in 2026 are the undercurrents of brittle masculine entitlement, meanness and greed. In March 2020, Burden and her husband, James (a pseudonym), fled covid-ravaged Manhattan for the safety of their secluded vacation home on Martha's Vineyard. They brought their two daughters, 12 and 15, while their son, 17, quarantined with friends. All seemed enviably snug. Burden deftly grounds her story in details that evoke moods ranging from smug complacency to blistering humiliation. James cuts firewood and mixes whiskey sours, appearing ""proud of his role as father and husband, nurturing us, protecting us."" A week into their stay, James roasts a chicken ""using our outdoor grill as an oven, standing on our deck in the dark, adjusting the knobs, making sure the temperature stayed at four hundred degrees. It came out perfectly: moist and golden brown."" Later, as Burden mops the kitchen, a stranger leaves a message on her phone: James is having an affair with his wife. In the immediate aftermath, James assured Burden that the dalliance meant nothing. Listening to his avowals, she experienced a creeping sense of shame, newly aware of ""my matronly pajamas and my socks, an oil stain from dinner on the thin cotton of my pajama pants."" This is how Burden wins you over: You quietly begrudged her that golden-brown chicken on the bucolic estate, but you flinch in sympathy at the oil stain. Early the next morning, everything changed. James turned up, fully dressed, at the door of the room where Burden had spent a sleepless night. He wanted a divorce and was heading back to Manhattan. Burden could have custody of their children; he wasn't interested. No more whiskey sours. No more golden-brown chickens. No more marriage. Marriages end unexpectedly every day, but what made Burden's situation bizarre was that James (a lawyer and hedge fund executive whose real name you can find easily on the internet) categorically refused to talk about it. Indeed, he seemed put out when she phoned or texted, begging to know what had happened. ""I'll answer what I want, when I want,"" James frostily replied. His most detailed explanation was that he wasn't happy and didn't want their life together anymore. ""I feel like a switch has flipped. I'm done,"" he said. A flipped switch explains why a room goes dark, not a two-decade marriage. Over the ensuing days, weeks and then years, Burden sifted through their past, looking for clues. She found some, if never enough to fully understand the breakup. Burden had been an insecure, somewhat childlike young woman when she met James. Part of her allure for him, she suspects in hindsight, may have been her pedigree. And part of his appeal to her, though she initially resists it, was his familiarity. ""I could tell he was a typical New York private-school kid, the boarding school and Ivy League variety, just like me,"" she writes. ""And he looked like my father - blond, six-foot-one, lean, with proper shoes, his shirtsleeves rolled up."" She fell into their marriage as one falls into a feather bed, becoming, in effect, an exceedingly affluent trad wife. While she focused on children and volunteering at their private schools, James clocked in at the hedge fund. ""It felt like he was taking care of us, each time he put on his suit, each time he labored at his desk on a Saturday,"" Burden writes, a confession that is as excruciating to read as it must have been to write. ""There was something romantic about it too - the smart and honorable man, the devoted husband and father, shouldering this part of our life."" She so trusted James that she never even bothered to look at their tax returns. ""I settled into the vagueness, the luxury and privilege of not knowing,"" she writes. Had she been more attentive, she might have noticed that James was funneling millions of dollars a year into assets that bore his name alone. Meanwhile, she emptied her inherited trusts to purchase their homes, affixing both their names to the deeds. ""It felt like an offering to him, to our marriage,"" she writes. ""And I thought that was what you did when you were married - share everything."" When their union ended, James was poised to walk away with half the funds she had brought to the partnership and all of what he earned over its duration. As a writer, Burden has excellent manners. There is an admirable graciousness and restraint to her storytelling, and she is scrupulously fair to James, offering him the benefit of every doubt. Of his desire to forgo custody of the children, a decision that horrified her, she writes, ""I think he believed, genuinely, that he was making a selfless choice, that he was making things easier for them."" But she is also a cool, clear-eyed chronicler of her experience, and it was an ugly, bewildering one. James's inner life remains maddeningly unknowable, so perhaps it is unfair to make him a stand-in for the powerful and peremptory men who populate contemporary American life. But the parallels between what I was reading on the pages of this memoir and what I was watching on the news were inescapable. James does have a story to tell about his marriage, but he couldn't - or couldn't be bothered to - find the words. And so Burden found her own words - and what indelible and lethal words they are. Jennifer Reese, the author of ""Make the Bread, Buy the Butter,"" is a freelance writer and critic. Strangers A Memoir of Marriage By Belle Burden. Dial Press. 241 pp. $30" 3299129749,Why the pope is right to weigh in on AI,2026-02-01,The Washington Post,Commentary,Editorial-Opinion,A.17,,Regional,,,Copyright WP Company LLC d/b/a The Washington Post 2026,1360,850,['Nuno Castel-Branco'],"['Popes', 'Science', 'Artificial intelligence', 'Christianity', 'Industrial Revolution', 'Diplomatic & consular services']",[],[],[],[],[],"Earlier this month, Pope Leo XIV addressed the Holy See Diplomatic Corps, as is customary at the beginning of every year, where he warned of the danger of pairing artificial intelligence with nuclear weapons. It is a warning that speaks to the broader and ongoing debate regarding AI and its potential. As the pope put it, artificial intelligence ""is a tool that requires appropriate and ethical management."" Yet, tech titans Elon Musk and Sam Altman's increasing permissiveness toward immoral sexualized uses of AI and President Donald Trump's executive order to curtail the ability of states to regulate this technology run directly against this calling. Most of the AI debate is about whether it will achieve some of its early promises. But as these cases show, and the pope suggests, the debate should also focus on what it shouldn't achieve. Leo's intervention is a reminder that the papacy has often been a dual force that promotes innovation and tempers it with moral principles when necessary. I still remember learning in my early years as a graduate student in the history of science about the impressive engineering project that placed an Egyptian obelisk at the center of St. Peter's Square, and which today serves as the pointer of a giant sundial. At the core of this Renaissance enterprise was the promotion not only of technology, but also of Egyptian knowledge and culture. In the past millennium, popes have regularly promoted ideas drawn from outside Christianity and adapted them to their needs and faith. Just as today's AI research emerged from the secular, non-Christian culture of Silicon Valley, so too Hindu-Arabic numerals came to Europe a thousand years ago after Pope Sylvester II studied them in Islamic Iberia. Perhaps the most famous case is that of Nicolaus Copernicus who dedicated his groundbreaking theory placing the sun at the center of the universe to Pope Paul III. True, papal intervention in science has sometimes been too strong, especially if you think of the Galileo affair. Yet, as I teach my students at Oxford, even Galileo's condemnation - often described as the defining drift between science and religion - was more complex than it seems. Pope Urban VIII who condemned Galileo had previously been his friend and admirer. He was also the most generous pontiff in granting scholarly access to banned books and led rigorous efforts to scientifically scrutinize reported miracles of potential saints. The same institution that censored Galileo also founded anatomical museums and supported women in science centuries before it became common. One of them, Anna Morandi Manzolini - a gifted wax modeler and anatomy instructor in Bologna - became a leading figure in anatomical education, merging scientific knowledge with extraordinary technical craft. Scientific sponsorship continued even in the Church's more diplomatically fraught moments. In the 1660s, after the Thirty Years' War, the pope who commissioned Bernini's Colonnade in St. Peter's Square made Rome a haven for foreign intellectuals. As I explain in my new book, a direct result of this effort was the conversion of prominent scientists to Catholicism. Among them were Rudolf von Bodenhausen, a mathematician who collaborated with Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz in physics, and his close friend Nicolaus Steno, a pioneering anatomist and geologist. There is no doubt that papal promotion of science often carried a proselytizing agenda, but it also displayed the charitable concerns of religion. In the 19th century, Pope Pius VII led a massive child vaccination campaign against smallpox. In the early 20th century, the papacy was one of the lone voices to condemn the eugenics movement without condemning evolution outright. Just a few decades ago, Pope John Paul II entered this historical trend during the nuclear arms race. His intentional silence regarding President Ronald Reagan's ""Star Wars"" program was perceived by the U.S. government as an endorsement. Leo seems to be quite aware of this historical legacy. In his first official address to the College of Cardinals following his election in May, he linked the new ""industrial revolution"" of AI with his name choice. His predecessor Leo XIII famously created the social doctrine of the church to respond to the industrial revolution. This was done with a positive outlook toward scientific innovation, tempered by the charitable principles of the church. Leo XIII also codified into church teaching the arguments of Galileo about faith and science, namely that the Bible serves ""to teach us how to go to heaven, not how the heavens go."" Today, popes continue this legacy of promotion and ethical temperament as new forms of science and technology emerge. In the same speech to the diplomats, Leo condemned the modern practices of abortion and surrogacy. But unlike with such cases, he is aware of the positive outcomes of AI and does not outright condemn it. Instead, he has spoken of AI's ""immense potential"" and of applying the Church's ""academic strength"" to engage with it. If history is any guide, the church will issue many more remarks to guide us through the uncertain future of AI. Nuno Castel-Branco is a historian of science at All Souls College, Oxford and the author of ""The Traveling Anatomist.""" 3299129750,Literary Calendar Feb. 1-7,2026-02-01,The Washington Post,News,BookWorld,C.4,,Final,,,Copyright WP Company LLC d/b/a The Washington Post 2026,1000,481,[],"['Libraries', 'Book clubs']","['United States--US', 'Washington DC']",[],[],[],[],"1 SUNDAY | 2 P.M. Francene Hill discusses ""Tiny Tots in Tiaras and Tuxedos"" and Linda R. Moore discusses ""Reaching for Resilience"" at the Olney Public Library, 3500 Olney Laytonsville Rd., Olney. 240-773-9545. 2 P.M. Ashanté M. Reese discusses ""Black Food Geographies: Race, Self-Reliance, and Food Access in Washington, D.C."" at the Arlington Central Library, 1015 N. Quincy St., Arlington. 703-228-5990. 5 P.M. Cheryl W. Thompson discusses ""Forgotten Souls: The Search for the Lost Tuskegee Airmen"" with Leonard Downie at Politics and Prose, 5015 Connecticut Ave. NW. 202-364-1919. 5 P.M. Jay Martel 's ""Codebreaker"" is discussed at Wonderland Books' Teen Book Club at Wonderland Books, 7920B Norfolk Ave., Bethesda. 301-347-7136. 2 MONDAY | 6 P.M. Clay Cane discusses ""Burn Down Master's House"" with Ibram X. Kendi at the Arlington Central Library. 7 P.M. John Sayles discusses ""Crucible"" at Politics and Prose. 7 P.M. Rachel Gillig 's ""The Knight and the Moth"" is discussed at Wonderland Books' Romantasy Book Club at Wonderland Books. 3 TUESDAY | 7 P.M. Tammye Huf discusses ""Inharmonious"" at One More Page Books, 2200 N. Westmoreland St., Arlington. 703-300-9746. 7 P.M. Kwame Alexander discusses ""The Mighty Macy"" at Wonderland Books. 7 P.M. Lily Meyer discusses ""The End of Romance"" at Politics and Prose. 4 WEDNESDAY | 6:30 P.M. Mychal Threets presents ""I'm So Happy You're Here: A Celebration of Library Joy"" at the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Library, 901 G St. NW. 202-727-0321. 7 P.M. Jon Ralston discusses ""The Game Changer: How Harry Reid Remade the Rules and Showed Democrats How to Fight"" at Politics and Prose at the Wharf, 610 Water St. SW. 202-488-3867. 7 P.M. Jeffrey L. Katz discusses ""Unsettled Ground: Reflections on Germany's Attempts to Make Amends"" at Wonderland Books. 7 P.M. Brooke N. Newman discusses ""The Crown's Silence: The Hidden History of the British Monarchy and Slaver2y in the Americas"" with Cassandra Good at Politics and Prose. 5 THURSDAY | 6 P.M. Kwame Alexander discusses ""The Mighty Macy"" at the C. Burr Artz Library Community Room, 110 East Patrick St., Frederick. 301-600-1630. 7 P.M. Eugene Robinson discusses ""Freedom Lost, Freedom Won: A Personal History of America"" at Politics and Prose. 6 FRIDAY | 7 P.M. Lachi discusses ""I Identify as Blind: A Brazen Celebration of Disability Culture, Identity, and Power"" at Politics and Prose. 7 P.M. J. Lester Feder discusses ""The Queer Face of War: Portraits and Stories From Ukraine"" at Politics and Prose at the Wharf. 7 SATURDAY | 10:30 A.M. Alicia McKenzie presents ""These ABCs Belong to Me!"" at Wonderland Books. 5 P.M. C. Riley Snorton and Darius Bost discuss ""A Black Queer History of the United States (ReVisioning History)"" at Politics and Prose. 6 P.M. Ana Patricia Rodríguez discusses ""Avocado Dreams: Remaking Salvadoran Life and Art in the Washington, D.C. Metro Area"" at Politics and Prose at Union Market, 1324 Fourth St. NE. 202-544-4452. For more literary events, go to wapo.st/literarycal." 3299129751,"While some towns depend on wildlife, others can barely bear it",2026-02-01,The Washington Post,News,Arts,E.2,,Final,,"INPARK CITY, UTAH",Copyright WP Company LLC d/b/a The Washington Post 2026,1260,1087,['Jada Yuan'],"['Polar bears', 'Helicopters', 'Theater', 'Audiences', 'Documentary films', 'Tranquilizers', 'Motion picture festivals', 'Wildlife conservation', 'Inuit']","['Manitoba Canada', 'Canada']",[],['Inuit Tribe'],[],[],"In the snowy subarctic wilds of northern Manitoba, the Inuit have a word for polar bears who've lost their fear of being around humans: avinnaarjuk, or ""nuisance bear."" That's a rather sweet name for a hypercarnivorous, unpredictable apex predator that can weigh 1,500 pounds and outrun or outswim any human. But the documentary ""Nuisance Bear,"" which premiered at the Sundance Film Festival, thrusts us so thoroughly into the bears' perspective that it turns the whole notion of who is predator and who is prey completely on its head. This is no typical nature documentary. It's an edge-of-your-seat thriller from A24 that plays out like ""The Fugitive,"" as the bears are chased by humans who want to capture or kill them. Then, as we switch to the perspective of the Inuit fighting off the growing horde of polar bears invading their streets, it starts to feel, thrillingly, like a zombie movie. It produced the kind of audience reactions usually reserved for midnight horror films, with the entire theater shouting commands to the screen or cheering in unison. (It's still seeking distribution.) Canadian directors Jack Weisman and Gabriela Osio Vanden essentially have been making this movie since 2015. That's when they started taking their cameras to Churchill, Manitoba, a town that used to house a military base, with a mixed Inuit and White population of roughly 870 people. It's known, at least in ecotourism marketing, as the ""Polar Bear Capital of the World."" The Sundance film is an extension of a wordless, widely viewed 14-minute documentary short from 2022. While more than half of the feature's 86 minutes are spent immersed with bears, it also adds the perspectives of two human communities with opposite views on how to combat what they see as a growing polar bear menace. In Churchill, polar bear tourism is the economic lifeblood, and a vigilant ""bear patrol"" guards over the town's border with big trucks, helicopters and tranquilizer guns. In Arviat, an Inuit community 160 miles to the north, the population is being beset by ""Churchill"" nuisance bears who are helicoptered out of town and into forests abutting Inuit land. All they can do is bring their children in before dark and hope the Canadian government eases bans so they can hunt polar bears like they used to. In their director's statement, the filmmakers said they wanted to use the plight of nuisance bears to raise larger questions about Western ideas of conservation. Are the ways in which we're trying to protect bears, such as through wildlife photography expeditions and bear patrols to protect town borders, actually desensitizing them to humans in a way that puts them in far more danger? From the start, there's no question of whom audiences are supposed to root for. The bear's-eye footage is so immersive, you could practically do dental work given how much detail you can see of their teeth. It's the closest most us will get to a polar bear in our lifetimes. Half the experience of watching the movie is wondering how they got those shots. (A camera mounted to the front of a truck with elaborate stabilizers and controls inside the cabin, it turns out.) It's impossible not to fall for the bears pretty much from the opening shots: a mama sleeping with two fuzzy cubs, a young male taking a languid swim. From there, we're following the so-called troublemakers, who can't help it that Churchill was built right in the middle of their migratory path, or that humans dump all kinds of tasty things in landfills that are way easier to feast on than having to go out there and kill a seal. Much of this footage plays out wordlessly, with natural sound or with a heart-bruising score from ""The White Lotus"" composer Cristóbal Tapia de Veer. But then we learn about the town's conservation-minded ""bear jail,"" which locks up problem bears, gets them tagged and then helicopters them to wild forestland, which is essentially dropping them off for the Inuit to deal with. Any bear breaking into properties or showing up in town is, essentially, a fugitive. Every time they're doing normal bear things, it's like an entire SWAT team descends. We see bears being corralled by trucks, chased off with a barrage of flares and hunted down by helicopters bearing wildlife agents brandishing tranquilizer guns that look like AK-47s. It's a lot. The film essentially puts the audience on the side of the ""criminals,"" who we're pretty convinced are the good guys. The audience at the premiere was so rapt that, 18 minutes in, when a bear dramatically and successfully manages to escape a trap and come away with the seal-meat bait, too, the theater exploded with cheers and applause. And when the inevitable happens, and the movie's ""lead"" bear gets caught, flown miles and miles while dangling midair below a helicopter in a net, then tagged and marked with green paint like a badge of infamy, it's wrenching. ""Bro, I straight-up cried at the helicopter part,"" one audience member said while leaving the theater. The shift to the Inuit perspective in the second half makes you question everything that came before it. The tone shifts, ominously. We watch townspeople scurry indoors with their children as a polar bear steps onto their streets - a prowling shadow appearing from a swirl of nighttime snow. The polar bears aren't going extinct, the Inuit insist; their population is actually increasing, and they know this because they keep seeing more and more in town, including one that killed a man in 2018. The bears are adapting, the film's narrator, Inuit elder Mike Tunalaaq Gibbons, says in the film. They're losing their hearing from human noise, but their other senses are sharpening. They're getting bolder. The solution isn't obvious, but it seems it will arise only from a shift in perspective. What's causing these polar bears to continually enter human spaces? What's it like to be an Indigenous community fighting for survival in a harsh environment, with none of the technology or financial resources of the Westernized community that keeps dropping troublemaking polar bears off on your doorstep? Early on, Gibbons delivers a haunting line that lingers long after the credits roll. ""The tourists come because they want to see a bear,"" he says. They believe they're heading for extinction and want to see them in the wild while they're still around. ""Inuit never say, 'I want to see a bear,'"" he continues. ""If you do, one might show up when you don't expect it.""" 3299129752,Airplane food doesn't have to be terrible. These standout meals prove it.,2026-02-01,The Washington Post,News,Travel,F.2,,Final,,,Copyright WP Company LLC d/b/a The Washington Post 2026,1220,1091,['Hannah Sampson'],"['Rice', 'Beef', 'Meals', 'Seafood', 'Food', 'Airlines']","['Qatar', 'Japan']",[],"['Ethiopian Airlines', 'Qatar Airways', 'All Nippon Airways Co Ltd', 'Air France', 'Japan Airlines Corp']",[],[],"In the photo, the tray table meal was supposed to be first class, but the traveler who received it called it a ""bowl of sadness."" Shiny layers of meat, squares of cheese and a bruised whole tomato are visible in the X post that has more than 15 million views since it was posted Jan. 4. The robust response included commenters sharing photos of their own sad airline meals. A few compared the food to the famously paltry offerings at Fyre Festival. Many suggested flying private or a BYO meal approach. For a select few, it was an opportunity to do a little bragging. ""Caviar service is always on point"" on Lufthansa, one person wrote. Turkish Airlines, Emirates, KLM, Qatar Airways and Singapore Airlines all got shout-outs with photos of multiple courses and beautiful spreads. Aside from a Delta Shake Shack burger here and there, the praise was almost entirely heaped on airlines based outside the United States. Proving that airline food doesn't always have to be the butt of a joke - or bane of a flight - travel experts shared some of the most memorable meals they've had in the air. Bibimbap on Korean Air Rani Cheema, a former culinary travel specialist who now focuses on creative retreats, loves the bibimbap - a mix of rice, beef and vegetables - in economy class on Korean Air. ""There was a flight where I ate bibimbap for dinner and woke up and ate it for breakfast,"" she said in an email. The dish comes with a tube of gochujang, which Cheema said she couldn't eat because of an allergy. But friends asked her to collect the condiment for them because the version the airline used was so good. She said she upgraded herself to business class on Korean Air but doesn't even remember that meal. She still remembers how amazed she was at the bibimbap. ""Must have been one of the most surprising meals on a flight I've ever had,"" she said. Vegetable soups on Virgin Atlantic It was a chilly day last March when Madison Blancaflor, managing editor at the Points Guy, boarded her Virgin Atlantic flight from London to New York City. The smooth winter vegetable soup in what Virgin calls its upper-class cabin, served with chive oil and vegetable crisps, made an impression. ""I wasn't expecting bad food,"" she said. ""But I wasn't expecting to be talking about it coming up on 10 months later. I would pay Virgin Atlantic if they would give me the recipe to the soup so I could make it at home."" Blancaflor said she also had a delicious potato and leek soup in the Virgin Atlantic lounge before leaving John F. Kennedy International Airport on the first leg of her trip. ""I think I'm just comfortable naming Virgin Atlantic the soup queen of the skies,"" she said. Christmas Eve chicken on Air France Travel adviser Kathi Evans of Best Travels to Paradise knew she was in for a treat on her Air France flight when she and her family were greeted with champagne. ""You kind of have an indication that things are going to go well,"" said Evans, who took a Christmas Eve flight in business class with her husband, daughter, son-in-law and granddaughter in 2024. Dinner was chicken, scalloped potatoes and carrots. For her 2-year-old granddaughter, the carrots had been cut into the shape of small flowers. ""I've had chicken on planes before. And it's either dry or chewy or parts of it are cold or whatever,"" Evans said. ""This was perfect. The little sauce that they put on top of it was delicious, the potatoes were delicious, the carrots were delicious."" Ethiopian spread on Ethiopian Airlines Michelle Baran, a deputy editor at Afar who has written about plane meals, generally does not eat on domestic flights. For international flights, however, she is at the carriers' mercy. During a long-haul flight in business class on Ethiopian Airlines several years ago, she said her meal - a full spread of Ethiopian food with injera - was a ""total out-of-the-blue surprise."" ""You point to all the different things that you want from the trolley and they put together a proper Ethiopian plate like you would expect at a restaurant,"" she said. She doesn't even remember exactly what she picked from the ""rotating roster of saucy things."" ""I know it was just tasty,"" Baran said. Uni on Japan Airlines Kyle Potter, executive editor of Thrifty Traveler, described the main meal on his 2019 first-class flight on Japan Airlines as ""laughably extravagant."" He said the meal on the Tokyo-to-Chicago flight was between five and 13 courses, depending on how you counted, and included ""a parade of different dishes,"" such as cold bites, soup, seafood, beef and dessert. There was eel in yuzu sauce, egg custard with caviar on top, a prawn dumpling in seafood broth. One dish included uni, the edible bits of a sea urchin, which Potter called ""nearly on par with some of the best uni I've ever had in Tokyo."" ""I do still very vividly remember that meal, because it's like, 'Oh my gosh, you can get this in a metal tube at 35,000 feet?'"" he said. ""How is that possible?"" Sashimi on All Nippon Airways Freelance travel reporter Chris Dong said Japanese carriers Japan Airlines and All Nippon Airways have served his favorite in-flight meals. One standout during a first-class flight on ANA a few years ago was the sashimi as part of a multicourse meal: ""a dedicated raw fish course, which was insane."" It was followed by an entrée of ""super tender"" beef, Japanese rice and pickles. ""It was delightful,"" he said. In economy, he remembers an ""amazing"" version of the Malaysian dish nasi lemak - coconut rice with sambal, chicken, hard-boiled egg, fried anchovies and peanuts - that he preordered on the budget carrier AirAsia. Caviar service and lobster on Qatar Airways Charmaine Lamsin, a physician from Washington state and a frequent traveler, said she loves the caviar service in first class on Qatar Airways, part of the appetizer course. She has had it twice, in 2024 and 2025. ""It includes the accoutrements with blinis, diced red onion, eggs and chives and sour cream and lemon,"" she said in an email. She said more courses follow, so she's never hungry. Actually, she gets ""so full I can't eat most of it."" She said she will also get lobster when she sees it on the menu. She loves seafood, but she said most airlines offer dry salmon or bland shrimp." 3299129753,SPORTS ROUNDUP,2026-02-01,The Washington Post,News,Sports,B.2,,Suburban,,,Copyright WP Company LLC d/b/a The Washington Post 2026,1300,1100,[],"['Tournaments & championships', 'Stadiums', 'Women', 'Professional basketball', 'Professional golf']","['Maryland', 'Pittsburgh Pennsylvania', 'Los Angeles California', 'United States--US', 'Virginia', 'Oregon', 'Japan']",[],['National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing'],[],[],"colleges Maryland women lose fourth straight contest Ehis Etute had a career-high 26 points and grabbed 11 rebounds for Oregon in a 68-61 win over No. 16 Maryland in a women's basketball game Saturday night at Xfinity Center. The Ducks (17-7, 5-6 Big Ten) pulled ahead off an 11-0 run in the fourth quarter. A ddi Mack made a layup and hit two free throws to get the Terrapins (17-6, 5-6) within two with 27 seconds remaining, but Oregon made 5 of 6 free throws to seal the win. Maryland finished the first half with a 14-0 run to lead 36-30. Oluchi Okananwa was 11-for-17 shooting and scored 27 points, 23 in the first half. Mack added 17. The loss is Maryland's fourth straight. … In other area women's games, Howard beat Norfolk State, 68-59, at Burr Gymnasium; American beat host Lafayette, 70-60; James Madison beat South Alabama, 88-52, in Harrisonburg; George Mason beat Saint Louis, 66-51, at EagleBank Arena; and Navy won at Loyola Maryland, 68-62. … Vincent Iwuchukwu and KJ Lewis scored 17 points each in the Georgetown men's basketball team's 77-64 win against Butler in Indianapolis. Iwuchukwu added six rebounds for the Hoyas (12-10, 4-7 Big East) against the Bulldogs (13-9, 4-7). Lewis was 5 for 9 from the field, including 3 for 5 from three-point range, and added three steals. Malik Mack had 14 points for Georgetown. … Thijs De Ridder had 17 points, Malik Thomas added 14 points, and No. 17 Virginia (18-3, 7-2 ACC) held off host Boston College (9-12, 2-6) for a 73-66 victory. … Cameron Boozer finished with 24 points to lead No. 4 Duke (20-1, 9-0 ACC) to a 72-58 win over Virginia Tech in Blacksburg for its 31st win in its past 32 ACC games. Amani Hansberry had 20 points for the Hokies (16-7, 5-5). … In other area men's games, American lost, 67-65, to Lafayette on a last-second layup at Bender Arena; George Washington lost, 79-65, to Fordham at Smith Center; James Madison lost at Southern Mississippi, 73-65; Howard won, 66-49, at Norfolk State; George Mason won at St. Bonaventure, 77-73; Navy defeated Loyola Maryland, 79-64, in Annapolis; and Richmond lost at home to Davidson, 79-54. … The Ohio State football team hired Arthur Smith as offensive coordinator. Smith was the offensive coordinator for the NFL's Pittsburgh Steelers the past two seasons. He coached the Atlanta Falcons from 2021 through 2023. pro basketball 76ers' George receives a 25-game suspension The NBA said Philadelphia 76ers forward Paul George must serve a 25-game suspension without pay for violating its antidrug policy. George, 35, began his ban by sitting out the team's 124-114 victory over the New Orleans Pelicans and will remain sidelined until a March 25 game against the Chicago Bulls. The nine-time all-star - who has averaged 16.0 points, 5.1 rebounds and 3.7 assists this season - will be eligible to return for a possible playoff run; entering the day, Philadelphia (26-21) was in sixth place in the Eastern Conference. In a statement to ESPN, George apologized to the 76ers and their fans for taking an ""improper medication"" while ""seeking treatment for a [mental health] issue of my own."" The suspension will cost him more than $11.7 million of his $51.7 million salary this season. The suspension is the latest chapter of a challenging tenure in Philadelphia for George, who signed a four-year, $212 million contract to join the 76ers in 2024 after five seasons with the Los Angeles Clippers. - Ben Golliver golf Rose breaks a record at Torrey Pines - again Justin Rose shot a 4-under-par 68 to lead by six shots going into the final round of the PGA Tour's Farmers Insurance Open in San Diego. It is the largest 54-hole lead at the event since Tiger Woods led by eight shots in 2008. Rose was at 21-under 195, breaking by three shots the 54-hole tournament record that he shared with Woods and two others - a day after he surpassed his own record for 36 holes at Torrey Pines. … Calum Hill of Scotland salvaged a rough start with a pair of birdies on the back nine for an even-par 72, giving him a two-shot lead over Freddy Schott in the DP World Tour's Bahrain Championship. Patrick Reed (66) and Sergio Garcia (68) were both in the mix at four shots back in Al Mazrowiah. … Nelly Korda shot an 8-under 64 in frigid, blustery conditions at the LPGA Tour's season-opening Tournament of Champions before play was suspended in Orlando. Korda was at 13-under 203, six shots ahead of Brooke Henderson among those who finished. Amy Yang was at 10 under with two holes to play. soccer Arsenal extends lead in the Premier League Arsenal opened up a seven-point lead in the Premier League after beating host Leeds, 4-0. Martin Zubimendi, Viktor Gyokeres and Gabriel Jesus were all on target, and Leeds goalkeeper Karl Darlow added an own goal. Chelsea trailed 2-0 before beating West Ham, 3-2, in London and climbed up to fourth. … In Italy, Antonio Vergara had a goal and an assist as host Napoli beat Fiorentina, 2-1, to pull within six points of Serie A leader Inter Milan, which plays at Cremonese on Sunday. … In France, second-place Marseille followed its embarrassing Champions League exit by losing a two-goal lead in a 2-2 draw at Paris FC in Ligue 1. … In Spain, 18-year-old Spanish star Lamine Yamal had a goal and an assist as Barcelona defeated Elch, 3-1, to increase its lead in La Liga to four points over Real Madrid before it hosts Rayo Vallecano on Sunday. … In Germany, Bundesliga leader Bayern Munich, defeated for the first time this season by Augsburg last weekend, was held to a 2-2 draw at Hamburger SV. baseball Ohtani will not pitch for Japan during WBC Shohei Ohtani won't pitch for Japan in the World Baseball Classic in March, Los Angeles Dodgers Manager Dave Roberts said. Ohtani will focus solely on being the designated hitter. … The San Francisco Giants signed second baseman Luis Arraez, a three-time batting champion, on a reported one-year, $12 million contract. misc. Storm forces NASCAR to postpone exhibition NASCAR postponed the preseason exhibition race at Bowman Gray Stadium from Sunday until Monday night because of ice and snow blanketing the Winston-Salem, North Carolina, area. … The NFL's Buffalo Bills hired Jim Leonhard as defensive coordinator under new coach Joe Brady. … NHL defenseman Kris Letang will miss at least four weeks for the surging Pittsburgh Penguins because of a fractured foot. - From news services and staff reports" 3299129754,"Israeli airstrikes kill 32 in Gaza Strip, enclave officials say",2026-02-01,The Washington Post,News,A-Section,A.15,,Regional,,JERUSALEM -,Copyright WP Company LLC d/b/a The Washington Post 2026,1490,436,"['Gerry Shih', 'Siham Shamalakh', 'Lior Soroka']","['Militancy', 'Military air strikes', 'Truces & cease fires', 'Civil defense']","['Gaza Strip', 'Israel', 'Egypt']",[],['Hamas'],[],[],"Attack precedes opening of border crossing agreed to by Netanyahu in truce JERUSALEM - Airstrikes killed at least 32 people in the Gaza Strip late Friday into Saturday, according to hospital and emergency response officials in the enclave, as Israel launched what it said were extensive strikes targeting Hamas militants and weapons sites. It was one of the bloodiest nights in Gaza since the Israel-Hamas ceasefire brokered by President Donald Trump in October, as the peace process enters its precarious second phase. Israel is due to open the key Rafah border crossing with Egypt on Sunday and begin allowing the limited entry and exit of people - a concession made by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu under pressure from Trump. Egypt, a mediator in the conflict, condemned the strikes as the latest of Israel's ""repeated violations"" of the ceasefire. An Israeli security official said Hamas had provoked Israel with ""blatant violations"" of the ceasefire by sending eight militants out of a tunnel in Rafah the previous night. Israel also struck weapons storage, manufacturing and launch sites in Gaza, the Israel Defense Forces said in a statement. The Gaza Civil Defense emergency response team and hospital officials said Israel struck a tent in Khan Younis that housed the Abu Hadayed family, killing seven people; a residential building in the al-Nasr neighborhood west of Gaza City; and a police station in Gaza City's Sheikh Redwan area. The majority of the 32 dead as of Saturday afternoon were women and children, according to Gaza Civil Defense spokesman Mahmoud Bassal. The Israeli military has killed 509 Gazans and injured more than 1,400 since the ceasefire took effect Oct. 11, according to the Gaza Health Ministry. The Israeli campaign has killed more than 71,000 people in the enclave since October 2023, according to the ministry, which does not distinguish between combatants and civilians. The Israeli government launched the campaign after Hamas led an assault on southern Israel that killed 1,200 people and took 251 back to Gaza as hostages, according to Israeli officials. The IDF believes the number of deaths in Gaza is about 70,000, not including bodies buried under rubble, a senior Israeli military official told Israeli reporters on background last week. The IDF is still reviewing how many of the dead were combatants and how many were civilians, the official said. After Israeli media reported the official's comments, the IDF clarified that it was not disclosing formal casualty estimates. ""The details published do not reflect official IDF data,"" Lt. Col Nadav Shoshani wrote on X. ""Any publication or report on this matter will be released through official and orderly channels.""" 3299129755,China's efforts to boost births have failed. Is coercion next?,2026-02-01,The Washington Post,News,A-Section,A.14,,Regional,,,Copyright WP Company LLC d/b/a The Washington Post 2026,1350,1261,['Simon Elegant'],"['Birth rate', 'Feminism', 'Population', 'Cooling', 'Family planning', 'Marriage', 'Demographics', 'Maternity & paternity leaves', 'Divorce', 'International relations', 'Political parties', 'Fertility', 'Children & youth', 'Women', 'Abortion', 'Babies']","['Beijing China', 'China']",[],[],[],[],"Women may hold up half the sky, as Chinese Communist Party founder Mao Zedong once famously declared, but these days they must do so while also holding a baby - or preferably three - in their arms at the same time. Since the end of the disastrous ""one child policy"" a decade ago, Chinese authorities have tried with increasing desperation to boost the country's birth rate: They allowed families to have two children. Then three. They encouraged people to get married, and made it harder to get divorced. They've offered tax incentives to have babies and financial support for raising them. When these efforts failed, the authorities moved to more punitive measures like taxing condoms and making it harder to get abortions and vasectomies. Family planning officials - once responsible for keeping birth numbers low - intrusively call women of childbearing age every month to ask why they're not pregnant yet. Beijing's abject failure to boost the birth rate was underscored last month when official data showed only 7.9 million babies were born in China last year, down 17 percent from 2024, falling to the lowest level since Mao established the People's Republic of China in 1949. The issue risks turning into an existential crisis for Beijing, which sees a growing economy with a large workforce as critical to enabling China to realize leader Xi Jinping's vision to eclipse the United States as a superpower. The unfolding demographic crash is on course to slash China's working-age population as the overall population ages, straining the health care and pension systems. Now, experts are worried that Chinese authorities may be tempted to return to their former habits and use the machinery of the state to bludgeon demographic trends to their will. China's large population-planning bureaucracy is ""currently being repurposed in the service of the state's new pronatalist goals,"" said Carl Minzner, a senior fellow in China studies at the Council on Foreign Relations. ""Party authorities are steering China back to an earlier, more patriarchal era with respect to women,"" Minzner said. ""I'm particularly worried what might happen if Chinese authorities decide to prioritize China's demographic future as a political imperative."" First instituted in 1979 as China's population neared a billion, the one-child program led to an entire generation of only children. To keep the population low, family planning officials oversaw forced sterilizations and abortions, imposed crippling fines for excess births, surveilled women, and kidnapped children. When it became clear that the birth rate was in sharp decline, Beijing in January 2016 reversed course, allowing two births per family. It made no difference. Only five years later, another pronouncement came from Beijing: Couples should now aim to have three children. Minzner said Chinese authorities might set out explicit fertility targets and make them part of performance evaluation systems for local officials. There is already some evidence that the authorities are considering doing this. There have been reports of Communist Party attempts to tie cadres' careers to the size of their own families. In one case, the health commission in the southern city of Quanzhou urged party members and officials to take the lead in having three children, according to a policy proposal leaked to Jiemian News, a state-affiliated news site, in 2024. Local authorities later said the document was an internal draft and that they would decide later whether to release it publicly. While local officials were the key drivers of abuses during the one-child years, then as now they were responding to policy set in Beijing. Xi has begun emphasizing pronatalist policies, even if it means a rethinking of his own pronouncements about the status of women in Chinese society. China's women, Xi said in 2023, must not only think of their own work but should ""actively cultivate a new culture of marriage and childbearing"" based on ""national development and national progress."" China's fertility rate currently hovers around one child per woman of childbearing age, far below the replacement rate of about two needed to maintain a stable population. China's population has fallen for four consecutive years, and the pace of decline has been worsening: Official statistics showed a net loss of 3.4 million people last year, taking the population count to 1.4 billion. Most demographers forecast the population dropping to about 500 million or 600 million by 2100, though the demographer Yi Fuxian, who studies China's demographics at the University of Wisconsin at Madison, believes it could fall to as low as 330 million. The reality for women in China today is a far cry from the ideals of equality laid out by Mao. Instead, women are increasingly being viewed as baby-making machines, activists and scholars say. ""The relaxation of the one-child policy did not create a fertility recovery,"" said Yun Zhou, a demographer at the University of Michigan who specializes in China's population policies. ""What it did create was intensified labor market discrimination for women."" Zhou cites as an example the case of China's generous maternity leave, which can last up to a year. Instead of encouraging women to give birth, the policy is making it much more difficult for women to get and maintain jobs because of fears that they might leave their jobs to start a family. It is not matched by an equally generous paternity leave policy, Zhou said. ""So even at the hiring stage, there is intense preference for men, and women must navigate these discriminations, not only while they are on the job, but also before they even get the job."" The promotion of marriage and increased barriers to divorce have also had a significant impact. For the Communist Party, marriage is deeply important as a ""a guarantor of social stability,"" said Leta Hong Fincher, a journalist and writer who has penned several studies on the repression of feminism in China. In a country where the vast majority of children are born to married couples, it also goes hand in hand with fertility. But the number of marriages has also experienced a precipitous drop in recent years, Hong Fincher said, with a record low 6 million registered in the most recent figures, from 2024, less than half the 2013 number. Another new policy proving severely detrimental to Chinese women is the government's imposition in 2020 of a ""cooling-off period"" of 30 days before courts could grant divorce petitions. The online reaction was swift and furious, with people arguing that the cooling-off period can trap women in abusive relationships. Their predictions proved all too prescient. In July 2023, a husband stabbed his wife to death during a meeting arranged during the 30-day cooling-off period. And in May 2024, a man in Guizhou poisoned his 10-year-old son and 7-year-old daughter with pesticide during the cooling-off period. During annual legislative meetings last year, Jiang Shengnan, one of the few women active in high-level Chinese politics, proposed eliminating the ""divorce cooling-off period"" clause from the Civil Code. Her proposal failed to gain any traction. In China, ""officials just do not respect women"" or women's rights when making policy, said Li Maizi, a feminist and LGBT activist who was one of the ""Feminist Five"" arrested and detained for their activities in 2015. She now lives in New York City. This could turn out to be even more self-defeating for a Communist Party trying to grow its population, Minzner said. It could be, he said, a recipe for ""angering an entire generation of young Chinese women, polarizing gender relations between men and women yet further, and causing marriage and fertility rates to crash to global lows."" Rudy Lu contributed to this report." 3299129756,S.C. measles outbreak nation's worst in a quarter-century,2026-02-01,The Washington Post,News,A-Section,A.1,,Regional,,,Copyright WP Company LLC d/b/a The Washington Post 2026,1310,1797,['Lena H Sun'],"['Vaccines', 'Students', 'Epidemics', 'Religious exemptions', 'Quarantine', 'Measles', 'Families & family life', 'Public health', 'Childhood', 'Infections', 'Viruses', 'Children & youth', 'Immunization', 'Adults']","['South Carolina', 'Texas', 'United States--US', 'Spartanburg County South Carolina']",[],[],[],[],"South Carolina is battling the country's largest measles outbreak since the disease was eliminated from the United States more than a quarter-century ago, with more than 840 cases overwhelmingly in unvaccinated children and adults. The outbreak that started in October has taken hold in the Spartanburg area where vaccination coverage has fallen below levels needed to stop transmission. Vaccination rates for measles have slipped nationwide, as religious exemptions to school immunization mandates rise and clusters of susceptible people allow the highly contagious virus to spread. In 16 weeks, South Carolina infections surpassed the case count over seven months in Texas, where an outbreak last year drove the country's highest annual measles tally in 33 years. ""This is a milestone that we have reached in a relatively short period of time, very unfortunately,"" South Carolina's state epidemiologist, Linda Bell, recently told reporters in a briefing. In South Carolina, 19 adults and children have been hospitalized for measles, which can cause fatal pneumonia, long-term complications and damage the immune system, leaving the person vulnerable to other diseases. More than 440 unvaccinated people in South Carolina, many of them schoolchildren, are being told to stay home in quarantine for up to 21 days after being exposed because they weren't immunized and have been exposed to someone contagious. Unlike the rural swath of West Texas struck by measles nearly a year ago, Bell said South Carolina is susceptible to sustained transmission because of a dense, relatively under-vaccinated population. South Carolina has already seeded cases across the country, including some in neighboring North Carolina, which has reported 15 cases. In Washington state, three members of a South Carolina family visited King and Snohomish counties while infectious, leading to three cases there. Across the United States, more than 500 measles cases have been reported in January, primarily driven by South Carolina's outbreak, compared with more than 2,000 in all of 2025. As a result, experts fear the vaccine-preventable virus has regained a foothold and will result in the United States losing its measles-free designation. Losing measles elimination status means the same strain of measles has been spreading within the country for at least 12 months, showing gaps in vaccination coverage and disease control. Several European countries and Canada have lost that status. In April, the Pan American Health Organization will review data to determine whether the United States will, too. Ralph Abraham, the No. 2 official at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention chosen by Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., recently told reporters that losing the measles elimination status would be the ""cost of doing business."" ""We have these communities that choose to be unvaccinated,"" said Abraham, who until recently was Louisiana's top health official known for unwinding vaccine promotion events. Abraham said vaccination was the best way for people to prevent measles, but added: ""That's their personal freedom."" Kennedy, who was an anti-vaccine activist before becoming health secretary, has espoused a similar message and promoted unproven alternative treatments. Public health officials say measles spreads so efficiently that once vaccination coverage drops, individual choices can quickly have consequences far beyond any single household. Infants who are too young to be vaccinated and immunocompromised people are susceptible. ""We are losing decades of public health successes, and children will get very sick and die from preventable illnesses,"" said Martha Edwards, a pediatrician who heads the South Carolina chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics. How an outbreak unfolds The outbreak's epicenter is in Spartanburg County, in South Carolina's Upstate region at the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains. The area has long had lower childhood vaccination rates than much of the state, public health officials say. Spartanburg is home to a mix of rural communities, conservative faith groups and immigrant families, including a sizable Slavic population - a cross-section of groups that are less likely to be vaccinated across the nation. ""Measles is no longer an abstract headline,"" said Justin Moll, a pediatrician at Parkside Pediatrics, with 84 doctors across Upstate locations. They have treated dozens of measles patients. They don full protective gear including gowns and masks to meet families outside. Most children recover after mild symptoms such as fever, cough, congestion and pink eye. This is the first time the doctors, including Moll, have seen measles outside of textbooks. ""We thought it had been eliminated,"" said Moll, 51. In the current outbreak, officials say the airborne virus began spreading in elementary and middle schools in October. Holiday gatherings and travel accelerated transmission. The virus has moved quickly through more than 30 schools - sending some students into quarantine multiple times - and across the communities. Measles is one of the most contagious diseases because it spreads through droplets that hang in the air for hours, and its carriers are contagious four days before and four days after the telltale rash appears. Two doses of the childhood vaccine are 97 percent effective against infection and nearly wiped out a virus that once infected millions of children. But because the virus is so easily transmitted without immunization, 95 percent of a community needs to be vaccinated to prevent the disease from spreading once the virus is introduced. The student vaccination rate for all required immunizations in Spartanburg County fell from 95 percent in the 2019-2020 school year to 89 percent this school year, according to a Washington Post examination of falling vaccination rates across the country. Like elsewhere in the United States, more families in South Carolina are seeking exemptions from routine childhood vaccinations for religious reasons. In Spartanburg County, 3 percent of students, or 1,608, received religious exemptions during the 2018-2019 school year. By the 2025-2026 school year, that had more than tripled to 9.6 percent, or about 5,490 students. At one charter elementary school in Spartanburg where exposure took place early in the outbreak, only 21 percent of students had the required immunizations. The soaring case count has sparked at least one local lawmaker to urge reconsideration of how broadly religious exemptions are granted. While he supports allowing religious exemptions, state Sen. Josh Kimbrell (R-Spartanburg) said officials need to take public health considerations into account. ""It's crazy,"" he said in an interview. ""The number just keeps climbing. I'm deeply concerned about an eventual death."" Lt. Gov. Pamela Evette (R), who is running for governor, said last week that vaccination to prevent measles is a parental choice. The stakes of vaccination As in Texas, South Carolina's outbreak is expected to eventually reduce to a simmer as the virus runs out of unvaccinated people to infect. New cases seem to be declining. But other parts of the country with vaccination rates below 95 percent - including metropolitan areas around Atlanta, Memphis and Nashville - are also at risk, said Scott Thorpe, a former South Carolina health department epidemiologist. Outbreaks in those comparable southern regions would be ""terrifying,"" he said. ""We will continue to see measles cases all over the country as vaccination rates continue to fall,"" said Thorpe, who runs the nonprofit Southern Alliance for Public Health Leadership. ""I don't see a clear end to this."" Public health officials say the success of vaccination in nearly eliminating illness can backfire. Parents don't see the urgency to protect their children - until outbreaks arrive. In Spartanburg County, Holly Springs-Motlow Elementary school in Campobello had 59 students in quarantine as of Friday, the highest of any school in the state. Just under 80 percent of the school's 482 students were up-to-date on their vaccinations in the current school year, health department data shows. Hope Gray, who heads the school's PTO, said some parents on social media say they focus on ""natural"" approaches, such as avoiding medications like Tylenol, she said. Gray said some bristle at being told what they must put into their children's bodies. Gray's family has never received covid vaccines and does not get flu shots. Her two older children are fully immunized for measles and have gotten all vaccines required for school. But Gray said she postponed getting the measles shot for her 4-year-old daughter, Raimy, who has anemia and often had fevers when she was due for vaccines. But the growing numbers in the outbreak changed her mind. Gray took her daughter to a pediatrician on Friday for her first MMR dose. ""I do feel more relieved that if she is exposed she won't get sick or as sick from it,"" Gray said in a text message Friday. Vaccine resistance in communities Health officials emphasize that measles outbreaks follow immunity gaps, not specific communities - and that once the virus begins spreading, it rarely stays confined to any single group. Still, the South Carolina outbreak highlighted the need for public health officials to build trust in some close-knit immigrant communities more resistant to vaccination. Physicians and public health advocates say the outbreak has been affecting the region's Slavic communities. Public health officials have not shared demographic data beyond age. Doctors in South Carolina said attitudes toward vaccination in the Slavic community are shaped less by opposition to vaccines themselves and more by experiences many immigrants carry with them from Ukraine and Russia - including deep mistrust of government-run institutions. That history includes a widely publicized incident in 2008, when a teenager in Ukraine died of bacterial meningitis shortly after receiving a measles vaccine during a mass immunization campaign. Although investigators found no evidence that the vaccine caused the death, public confidence in vaccination dropped sharply. Eliza Varadi, a pediatrician in private practice in Charleston who is originally from Russia, said the health department has reached out to leaders in the Slavic community. Varadi has also volunteered her own services as public health officials develop a more formal vaccine outreach plan. ""It's important that you don't go storming in with needles,"" Varadi said, who is also the immunization chair for the American Academy of Pediatrics' state chapter. ""You have to tread very gently to gain the trust."" Public health officials say they are trying to tailor messages to counter myths and misinformation with science-based information ""about how vaccines work, what they do and do not do,"" Bell, the state epidemiologist, said. But vaccine uptake is not as rapid as they would like, she said. At the Tabernacle of Salvation Church, a man who answered the phone and identified himself as the church's secretary said leaders have urged Slavic congregants to stay home if they are sick. Some of the church's roughly 800 members have fallen ill, he said. But the man, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, rejected the idea of hosting a vaccine clinic in partnership with the state health department. ""We wouldn't do anything like that,"" he said. ""We're a religious organization. We don't push big pharma products."" Caitlin Gilbert contributed to this report. Graphics by Adrián Blanco Ramos." 3299129757,Nick Reiner's life,2026-02-01,The Washington Post,News,Arts,E.1,,Final,,,Copyright WP Company LLC d/b/a The Washington Post 2026,1170,4692,['Amy Kaufman'],"['Thanksgiving', 'Cocaine', 'Parents & parenting', 'Heroin', 'Shootings', 'Addictions', 'Drug abuse', 'Childhood']","['Los Angeles California', 'United States--US', 'Maine']","['Fonda, Henry', 'Reiner, Rob']",[],[],[],"by Amy Kaufmann Rob Reiner lifted a turkey leg and asked those gathered around the Thanksgiving table to partake in a holiday tradition. The guests would pass the meat to one another, each taking a turn sharing what they were grateful for. Nick Reiner, Rob's son, was seated next to his father. It was 2018, and Nick was living in the guesthouse on his parents' $13.5-million compound in Brentwood, where the garden was filled with roses planted by the home's original owner, Henry Fonda. Unemployed at 25, Nick had spent a decade bouncing between this gated enclave and at least 18 rehab facilities paid for by his parents, Rob and Michele Singer Reiner. He struggled to kick his addictions to the substances he began experimenting with as a teenager. He has told stories on an addiction podcast about going to downtown Los Angeles's Skid Row to procure heroin and shooting crack cocaine in a McDonald's bathroom in Maine. But after each bout of degeneracy or failed treatment, he always seemed to end up back here, with his parents. For as much as he resisted their interventions, Nick had become accustomed to the trappings of his privileged upbringing. Unlike at rehab, he had a staff to tidy up for him at home. He was so attached to his private quarters that he once demanded the family's housekeeper retrieve him from a friend's house across town so he could use his own bathroom, a childhood friend recalled. Tensions were high that Thanksgiving, according to a guest who attended the meal with roughly 20 others. This person saw signs that Nick might be using again - using air freshener to cover smells in the billiard room, ""screaming, yelling, cursing,"" throwing tantrums so violent one longtime household employee threatened to quit. As the turkey leg made its way around the personalized place settings and professional flower arrangements, guests and family waxed rhapsodic about the bountiful blessings in their lives. Then it was Nick's turn. ""Well, I'm certainly not grateful for this fucking food, and I'm not grateful for any of you freeloaders in my house. I just can't wait to get through this fucking dinner so I get back my room,"" Nick yelled, according to the friend. Then he threw the turkey leg at his father's plate. Rob smiled, the dinner guest said, and picked up the leg. Rob Reiner lifted a turkey leg and asked those gathered around the Thanksgiving table to partake in a holiday tradition. The guests would pass the meat to one another, each taking a turn sharing what they were grateful for. Nick Reiner, Rob's son, was seated next to his father. It was 2018, and Nick was living in the guesthouse on his parents' $13.5-million compound in Brentwood, where the garden was filled with roses planted by the home's original owner, Henry Fonda. Unemployed at 25, Nick had spent a decade bouncing between this gated enclave and at least 18 rehab facilities paid for by his parents, Rob and Michele Singer Reiner. He struggled to kick his addictions to the substances he began experimenting with as a teenager. He has told stories on an addiction podcast about going to downtown Los Angeles's Skid Row to procure heroin and shooting crack cocaine in a McDonald's bathroom in Maine. But after each bout of degeneracy or failed treatment, he always seemed to end up back here, with his parents. For as much as he resisted their interventions, Nick had become accustomed to the trappings of his privileged upbringing. Unlike at rehab, he had a staff to tidy up for him at home. He was so attached to his private quarters that he once demanded the family's housekeeper retrieve him from a friend's house across town so he could use his own bathroom, a childhood friend recalled. Tensions were high that Thanksgiving, according to a guest who attended the meal with roughly 20 others. This person saw signs that Nick might be using again - using air freshener to cover smells in the billiard room, ""screaming, yelling, cursing,"" throwing tantrums so violent one longtime household employee threatened to quit. As the turkey leg made its way around the personalized place settings and professional flower arrangements, guests and family waxed rhapsodic about the bountiful blessings in their lives. Then it was Nick's turn. ""Well, I'm certainly not grateful for this fucking food, and I'm not grateful for any of you freeloaders in my house. I just can't wait to get through this fucking dinner so I get back my room,"" Nick yelled, according to the friend. Then he threw the turkey leg at his father's plate. Rob smiled, the dinner guest said, and picked up the leg. ""Well, that's really easy to follow. Thanks, Nick."" Like most who The Washington Post spoke to for this story, the people who described Nick's behavior requested anonymity due the sensitivity of his situation in the wake of his parents' slaying in December. Facing murder charges that could carry the death penalty, Reiner, now 32, and his attorneys have repeatedly postponed his plea hearing, amid reports of mental illness and questions about where his two surviving siblings, Jake, 34, and Romy, 28, stand in regard to his defense. A spokesperson for the Los Angeles County Public Defender's Office, which is representing Nick, declined to answer questions for this story. Unlike his famous parents, Nick rarely sought the spotlight. In 2016, he co-wrote a movie that Rob directed, ""Being Charlie,"" based on his substance abuse struggles. Beyond the burst of publicity he and his father did surrounding the film's release, little has been publicly disclosed about Reiner's life. Interviews with 14 individuals who knew Reiner, as well as interviews he gave to an addiction podcast between 2016 and 2018, paint a portrait of a complicated young man struggling to find his footing in the world. The son of one of the most celebrated filmmakers in Hollywood, he viewed himself as a black sheep in his family and was often consumed by feelings of inadequacy, with occasional bursts of temper or violence that usually coincided with drug use. His parents committed endless resources toward Nick's recovery, sending him to treatment centers where most of his peers told The Post he was goofy and well-liked. But after each rehab stint, he would return to treating his addictions casually, even when they led him to despondence and destitution. Reiner was not the only one with famous parents at the Wildwood School, an elite K-12 with two campuses in West L.A. His classmates included the sons of actors Bill Pullman and Robert Downey Jr. But Reiner stood out to Jon De Carlo, a friend who met him at Wildwood in Kindergarten, for his relatively ""sheltered"" childhood. Reiner wasn't a loner, nor was he ""super popular,"" De Carlo said - an assessment shared by others. ""He would hang out with the same two or three guys at the beginning of every class,"" said Paul Manning, who taught Reiner's physical education class from sixth through eighth grade. ""Growing up, he very rarely slept out at people's houses,"" De Carlo said. ""In the summertime, instead of going to sleepaway camp or even day camp, his parents would host 'Camp Reiner' at their house for some of the kids from school."" On the final day of eighth grade, not having been invited to any end-of-year gatherings, Reiner and De Carlo decided to smoke marijuana. It was Reiner's first time trying pot, De Carlo recalled. Reiner said he didn't start dabbling with harder drugs for a couple more years. In a 2016 interview on the podcast ""Dopey,"" a comedy show about addiction on which he was frequently a guest, he told a story about the drug bust that would lead his parents to send him to rehab for the first time. One night, when he was 14 or 15, he attended a house party where a friend became so ill after taking drugs that he had to go to the hospital. Afterward, Reiner recalled on the show, he confessed to an adult at the party that he had also taken some pills, including Percocet. The news made its way to Michele Singer Reiner, who ""being a hysterical Jewish mother, rushed me to the hospital,"" he said. Reiner's parents sent him to Visions, an adolescent treatment center for mental health and substance abuse in Malibu. He would later describe it as ""fluffy,"" replete with private chefs, a pool, yoga and art classes. One of his roommates at Visions said Reiner was quick to make a goofy joke, endearing him to the fellow patients. At night, the boys would come up with nicknames for staff members. ""Traffic Cop"" for the former-military guy, ""Paul Blart"" for a lazy one. ""His parents were there every single weekend for every session,"" the roommate said. ""They really never, ever gave up on him."" It was the beginning of the couple's all-consuming, years-long commitment to their son, said many who knew them. ""They tried everything,"" said a Brentwood mother who met the ""absolutely miserable"" couple at a community group where they sought support. ""If Nick had come from a middle-class family, he wouldn't be alive. The time these two parents spent. They're both very high-powered, busy parents. But it literally felt like they put everything down to be there physically for him. At one point, they had a 24/7 sober companion for him."" Unbeknownst to Rob and Michele, Nick was being exposed to a tantalizing world of harder drugs at Visions. He shared a room with a boy addicted to heroin, he said on ""Dopey."" ""When I hear for 126 days how good shooting up heroin is every single night, you're gonna tell me I'm not gonna go out and try fucking heroin?"" he said in 2016. ""I didn't try heroin until three or four years later. [But] the seed was planted."" A representative for Visions did not respond to a request for comment. Around age 15, in 2009, Reiner stopped attending school regularly and began working with a private tutor. ""When the lights were on and you conversed with him, he was witty - and being witty takes a certain mental agility,"" said one person who worked with the family around that time. But Reiner also seemed listless, this person said, expressing concerns about being in the shadow of his father, the filmmaker. ""Which is so sad, because they didn't treat him like that or place that burden on him. They would have loved him no matter what,"" the person said. ""I remember specifically telling him: 'I think in every interview with your dad, they've asked him about his dad [comedian Carl Reiner]. He's 60 and he's still asked about it. So you can stress about it, but you're going to be asked about it for the rest of your life. You have to find a way to be OK with that.'"" But Reiner apparently continued to compare himself to others. At 15, when many of his peers began having sex, he said he stole $200 from his parents and hired a sex worker via Craigslist to take his virginity. ""I tried to kiss her. It didn't work,"" he said on ""Dopey"" in 2017. ""I didn't care because I was young and I was like, 'This is awesome.'"" De Carlo, Reiner's childhood friend, remembers thinking it was an odd move - but Reiner ""had done weird shit before."" ""There was one point where he stole his parents' car and tried to drive to Las Vegas. And I was like, 'Go, Nick,'"" De Carlo said. ""It all seemed harmless at the time, because I thought he had such a safety net that things would always go well for him. … I could never have imagined that he would be truly destitute, because his parents would always be there to take care of him and bail him out of whatever situation he was in."" ** By the time Reiner was 16, however, Rob and Michele were growing tired of his antics and launched him on a more intensive series of interventions. On ""Dopey,"" Reiner said he was sent to a program called Second Nature, a three-and-a-half month-long wilderness program in Utah where struggling teens lived outdoors, building fires and cooking their own food. When the program was completed, Reiner enrolled at Summit Preparatory School, a therapeutic boarding school in Montana. ""I vividly remember him saying, 'You know, if I could just get my Escalade and a bunch of cocaine,' I'd be fine. That was his end goal,"" said Chris Crowley, one of four boys Reiner shared a room with. Students were allowed to see their parents every 12 weeks, and families participated in group therapy retreats. During these sessions, Crowley said, Reiner argued more loudly with his parents than other kids did with theirs. ""Him and his parents did not get along very well,"" Crowley said. ""His parents would fly in on a private jet in this little Montana town, they would get into an argument and then next thing you know, they're flying back out."" (Summit closed in 2020; its former executive director did not respond to a request for comment.) Reiner didn't appear to resent his parents for sending him to treatment after he returned to Los Angeles, De Carlo said. ""It was never like, 'Oh, God, I hate my parents for what they've done.' He would just kind of move on about it."" In between Reiner's rehab stints, De Carlo said, the two friends would hang out, smoke weed, play with Airsoft guns and watch poorly-reviewed scary movies like ""Sorority Row."" They often ate dinner with Rob and Michele, and De Carlo said he never witnessed ""any big outbursts or arguments"" between them. Reiner had returned from the Utah and Montana programs with new prescription drugs like Adderall and Klonopin, which De Carlo said he, Reiner and their friends began experimenting with. If they tried a drug and nothing bad happened, they felt emboldened to continue their exploration. ""Parents would say, 'drugs are bad.' And then we would try cocaine and the next morning we'd be like, 'whoa, I'm not suddenly a crackhead,'"" De Carlo said. ""Then it seemed like we could do any drug."" They bought bath salts from a souvenir shop on Hollywood Boulevard, dropped acid in Pan Pacific Park when their parents thought they were seeing a movie at the Grove, De Carlo said. Then, when he was 18, Reiner reconnected with a friend from Second Nature. On ""Dopey"" in 2016, he recounted how he and his former classmate drove downtown to Skid Row to purchase heroin. After what Reiner described as an ""incredible"" first experience on the drug, De Carlo said, the two of them began seeking out more on Craigslist. ""You would look up 'black roofing tar' and could find all of these different people selling 'roofing supplies,'"" De Carlo said, adding that the friends would also use the on the dark web to purchase substances like 2C-B. Once, when Reiner and his friends were looking up the medications he'd been prescribed in rehab, they were surprised to discover one meant for bipolar disorder. ""We were just kind of confused by that,"" De Carlo said. ""There was never an indicator to me that he had any serious mental health problems. That may have been something that developed later on as he got older and I just wasn't aware of it."" Since his parents' murders, The New York Times has reported that Reiner was diagnosed with both schizophrenia and schizoaffective disorder at various points in his life. In 2020, the outlet reported, he was placed under a mental health conservatorship that ended a year later. Roughly a month before Rob and Michele were found dead, a doctor suddenly changed Nick's medication, the Times said. ** With new addictions mounting, the Reiners sent Nick to Alina Lodge, a New Jersey recovery center colloquially known in the community as the ""Last Chance Ranch."" ""He was not happy about being there,"" said a person who worked at the facility during Reiner's stay. The former staff member said Reiner would frequently disobey instructions, and described him as ""violent angry."" ""Everything was a joke to him,"" the employee said. ""He could care less. And he stunted other people in there, as far as their recovery went. He was troublesome. Loud in groups. Talked out of turn. Just disruptive."" One night, after Reiner complained staff refused to give him necessary medication, he grew so angry that he threw a rock through the stained glass window of a campus chapel, he later recounted on ""Dopey."" ""I was like, 'How do I show these motherfuckers I'm crazy?'"" Reiner said in a 2016 episode. ""Some woman saw me, ratted on me and then they put me on Wellbutrin."" The former employee said Reiner was nearly kicked out of Alina Lodge after the incident, but his parents paid ""upwards of 20 grand"" to have the window fixed and Reiner was allowed to stay a while longer. Reiner said he was eventually asked to leave the program after six months. Representatives for Alina Lodge did not return requests for comment. From there, Reiner was sent to another long-term treatment center in rural Texas: Burning Tree Ranch, which staffers referred to as ""the Navy SEALs of rehab,"" according to a person who was treated there with Reiner in 2012. Despite the gravity of his circumstances, this person said, Reiner maintained a dry sense of humor and a ""goofy"" energy. He arrived days before the Christmas holiday, and spent days walking around singing the hook from Paul McCartney's ""Wonderful Christmastime."" ""He would make fun of himself and commiserate about how miserable the circumstances were that we were in,"" the former patient said. But occasionally, Reiner and others in his cohort would have serious discussions about their drug use and its repercussions. ""I remember him saying, 'Oh, I hope I haven't fucked up my life so badly that I can't do something with it,'"" the person said. Reiner had still not hit his rock bottom. By his own accounts, he refused to attend more rehab programs in subsequent years, and at one point found himself living out of homeless shelters in Maine. He said he befriended an unhoused man who taught him to shoot crack in a McDonald's bathroom and inject Wellbutrin intravenously. Afterward, Reiner told the man that his father had once starred on ""All in the Family."" ""He didn't believe me to the point where I had to take out my ID and show him my last name was Reiner,"" he said on ""Dopey"" in 2016. ""He was like, 'Rob Reiner's son would not be under a birch tree shooting Wellbutrin.'"" In fact, it was his father who Nick would often seek out during his darkest moments. Around 2013, he took a tab of acid at his parents' home. Finding himself unexpectedly alone, became frightened he might lose it. He turned on an episode of HBO's ""Eastbound & Down"" in an attempt to distract himself; it didn't work. ""I started to have this thought process of, like, 'I'm tripping by myself. God forbid I do a horrible thing like jump out a window, [or] get so disillusioned that I do something crazy,"" Reiner recalled on ""Dopey"" in 2016. He said he couldn't stop thinking about Ariel Castro, a Cleveland man in headlines at the time after being convicted of kidnapping and raping three women. With his mind continuing to spiral into the night, Reiner decided to wake his parents. It was 2013, and Rob and Michele Reiner had already spent the better part of five years trying to help their son with his drug addictions. After being roused, Michele retreated to the couch downstairs to continue sleeping. Rob invited his son to lie next to him on the bed. ""Calm down, buddy. It's OK,"" Nick said his father told him. ""I used to do this in the 60s. You come down eventually."" The two stayed on the mattress next to one another for eight hours until the trip ended, he recalled. ** Reiner managed to get clean again and returned to Hollywood around 2014. His dad - fresh off a cameo in ""The Wolf of Wall Street"" and directing Diane Keaton and Michael Douglas in the little-seen rom-com ""And So It Goes"" - asked an executive producer on Fox's ""Family Guy"" if he would be willing to give Nick an internship on the show to help keep him on the straight and narrow. The three-month gig didn't require much responsibility, recalled Andrew Hollandsworth, a production assistant who supervised Reiner at ""Family Guy"" studios. For four hours each day, he would help stock snacks, print scripts and greet celebrities who arrived for recording sessions. ""Rob would drop off Nick and pick Nick up every day from this internship,"" Hollandworth said. ""It's not like Rob Reiner isn't a busy person, and mid-city isn't that close to Brentwood. It was really admirable from that side."" Hollandsworth said people in the studios found Nick to be a ""really interesting, dynamic person"" who was refreshingly honest about his previous struggles. ""He felt like his family were all these pristine, amazing people, and he was sort of the fuck up of the family,"" Hollandsworth said. ""We sort of had heart to hearts, and I was like, 'You have everything in front of you - all the best connections in the world. What do you want to do?' And he said he wanted to start stand up comedy."" During the internship, Hollandsworth said, Reiner started performing at a handful of reputable comedy clubs in LA, including the Comedy Store. No footage of his sets could be found by The Post. Reiner also began working on a project that would eventually turn into the 2016 film ""Being Charlie,"" which he co-wrote with Matt Elisofon, a friend he met in rehab. Initially, the duo envisioned the story as a half-hour sitcom. It evolved into an hour-long comedy/drama that Rob Reiner's production company, Castle Rock, pitched to various networks. When no one expressed interest, Nick and Elisofon turned their script into a film that the elder Reiner agreed to direct. ""All along, I, for lack of a better way of coping, had been asking myself, 'What can I do to make art of this?'"" Rob Reiner told the New Yorker in 2016. ""Now that Nick was doing better, I told them, 'Maybe we can make it a movie.'"" Nick would later tell the ""Dopey"" co-hosts that the film's publicity team urged him to discuss his sobriety while promoting the film. But he was, in fact, still smoking marijuana and drinking alcohol during the press circuit. ""I don't got [addiction] licked by any means,"" Reiner admitted to Howard Stern during one interview with his dad that year. ""And I'm still very young, so who knows what will happen in five years."" Ultimately, the film made less than $33,000 worldwide and received poor reviews. ""There's something admirable about the fact that 'Being Charlie' exists at all,"" a Post critic wrote. ""It's a testament to Nick Reiner's survival. That doesn't mean it's a great movie."" Reiner tried to keep his creative career going. In 2017, he began working on a documentary about his famous grandfather, Carl Reiner. But a little over a year after ""Being Charlie"" was released, Nick relapsed. After reconnecting with one of his old drug dealers in 2017, Reiner said on ""Dopey,"" he got ""totally spun out on uppers"" and cocaine, stayed up for days in a row and ""wrecked"" his parents' guest house. He punched a television and a lamp, and was put on a plane with an interventionist to yet another treatment program. During the flight, he said he had a ""cocaine heart attack,"" passed out and woke up in a hospital in Boston. He went from the hospital to a detox program to a sober house in Maine, and said he stayed sober just long enough to obtain permission to leave. ""I kind of knew that I wanted to relapse, basically,"" Reiner said. ""I just wanted to get back to my old life of smoking weed, just taking some pills, doing whatever I wanted."" ** And that's what he did when he returned to Los Angeles. On one of his last appearances on ""Dopey ""in August 2018, Reiner said he was ""smoking weed to prevent myself from smoking any other hard thing right now."" Living life as a ""functional addict"" was Reiner's ideal situation, said De Carlo. ""I think that's what he really wanted. Like, 'Maybe one day, once I'm old enough, my parents are just going to step aside and realize that I can do drugs and it's not going to destroy me.'"" But as much as he wanted to escape his parents' rules, Reiner had become accustomed to the home life he knew. ""He needed his security blanket of living in a comfortable house where he could make a mess or leave dirty dishes out and not have to make his bed because someone else would take care of it,"" De Carlo said. Once, when Reiner was hanging out at his friend's house, he had to use the bathroom. ""So he actually demanded that his housekeeper come and drive all the way to my parents house in Hollywood, pick him up, take him back to Brentwood so he could take a poop and then bring him back to Hollywood in the middle of rush hour,"" he continued. ""He would not have accepted 'no' as an answer. He was very coddled."" Reiner rarely left his family's property during this period, and when he did, his parents and their staff kept close tabs on him. According to a friend of the family who stayed with the Reiners intermittently between 2016 and 2019, Reiner cloistered himself in the guesthouse, above the family's billiard and screening rooms a few steps from his parents' residence. The building was equipped with a wet bar, but Reiner had to cook in the main house, where his family placed a camera after he accidentally ""left the burner on, got distracted and almost burned down the fucking house,"" the friend said. Signs eventually emerged that Reiner was using again. ""He would run to the gate to get deliveries for things that clearly weren't food, or suddenly it would start smelling like Febreeze in the billiard room,"" the family friend said. His behavior became more volatile - ""screaming, yelling, cursing, throwing shit"" - to the point where an employee who'd worked in the home for 20 years threatened to quit because he was ""genuinely scared"" of Reiner, this person said. One morning, the friend sat with Rob, drinking coffee before the rest of the house awoke. ""It's like a mansion prison,"" Rob said, looking around his $13.5-million home. ""If I knew it could be this bad with one kid, I wouldn't have had any."" Still, Rob and Michele were reluctant to escalate matters. To place an involuntary psychiatric hold on Nick, Rob would have had to watch the ""cops rustle my fucking kid to the ground and handcuff him to a stretcher and then put him in a psych ward,"" he told the friend. ""I don't want to live through that."" ** Jon De Carlo last saw Reiner in person in 2020. After Rob and Michele were killed and his friend was arrested, he checked his Facebook messages for the first time in a while, and saw Reiner had been asking to hang out and reconnect. ""Regretfully, it seemed like he'd been reaching out to me kind of a bit over the last couple of months,"" he said. ""And I just had been dealing with my own things, so a lot of the messages went unresponded to on my end."" De Carlo has since scheduled a forthcoming visit to Twin Towers Correctional Facility, where Reiner is currently being held without bail. De Carlo said he has reached out to some of their other old friends to check if anyone else wants to go with him. No one has yet to take him up on the offer." 3299129758,"privilege, pills and pain",2026-02-01,The Washington Post,News,Arts,E.1,,Final,,,Copyright WP Company LLC d/b/a The Washington Post 2026,1170,4692,['Amy Kaufman'],"['Thanksgiving', 'Cocaine', 'Parents & parenting', 'Heroin', 'Shootings', 'Addictions', 'Drug abuse', 'Childhood']","['Los Angeles California', 'United States--US', 'Maine']","['Fonda, Henry', 'Reiner, Rob']",[],[],[],"by Amy Kaufmann Rob Reiner lifted a turkey leg and asked those gathered around the Thanksgiving table to partake in a holiday tradition. The guests would pass the meat to one another, each taking a turn sharing what they were grateful for. Nick Reiner, Rob's son, was seated next to his father. It was 2018, and Nick was living in the guesthouse on his parents' $13.5-million compound in Brentwood, where the garden was filled with roses planted by the home's original owner, Henry Fonda. Unemployed at 25, Nick had spent a decade bouncing between this gated enclave and at least 18 rehab facilities paid for by his parents, Rob and Michele Singer Reiner. He struggled to kick his addictions to the substances he began experimenting with as a teenager. He has told stories on an addiction podcast about going to downtown Los Angeles's Skid Row to procure heroin and shooting crack cocaine in a McDonald's bathroom in Maine. But after each bout of degeneracy or failed treatment, he always seemed to end up back here, with his parents. For as much as he resisted their interventions, Nick had become accustomed to the trappings of his privileged upbringing. Unlike at rehab, he had a staff to tidy up for him at home. He was so attached to his private quarters that he once demanded the family's housekeeper retrieve him from a friend's house across town so he could use his own bathroom, a childhood friend recalled. Tensions were high that Thanksgiving, according to a guest who attended the meal with roughly 20 others. This person saw signs that Nick might be using again - using air freshener to cover smells in the billiard room, ""screaming, yelling, cursing,"" throwing tantrums so violent one longtime household employee threatened to quit. As the turkey leg made its way around the personalized place settings and professional flower arrangements, guests and family waxed rhapsodic about the bountiful blessings in their lives. Then it was Nick's turn. ""Well, I'm certainly not grateful for this fucking food, and I'm not grateful for any of you freeloaders in my house. I just can't wait to get through this fucking dinner so I get back my room,"" Nick yelled, according to the friend. Then he threw the turkey leg at his father's plate. Rob smiled, the dinner guest said, and picked up the leg. Rob Reiner lifted a turkey leg and asked those gathered around the Thanksgiving table to partake in a holiday tradition. The guests would pass the meat to one another, each taking a turn sharing what they were grateful for. Nick Reiner, Rob's son, was seated next to his father. It was 2018, and Nick was living in the guesthouse on his parents' $13.5-million compound in Brentwood, where the garden was filled with roses planted by the home's original owner, Henry Fonda. Unemployed at 25, Nick had spent a decade bouncing between this gated enclave and at least 18 rehab facilities paid for by his parents, Rob and Michele Singer Reiner. He struggled to kick his addictions to the substances he began experimenting with as a teenager. He has told stories on an addiction podcast about going to downtown Los Angeles's Skid Row to procure heroin and shooting crack cocaine in a McDonald's bathroom in Maine. But after each bout of degeneracy or failed treatment, he always seemed to end up back here, with his parents. For as much as he resisted their interventions, Nick had become accustomed to the trappings of his privileged upbringing. Unlike at rehab, he had a staff to tidy up for him at home. He was so attached to his private quarters that he once demanded the family's housekeeper retrieve him from a friend's house across town so he could use his own bathroom, a childhood friend recalled. Tensions were high that Thanksgiving, according to a guest who attended the meal with roughly 20 others. This person saw signs that Nick might be using again - using air freshener to cover smells in the billiard room, ""screaming, yelling, cursing,"" throwing tantrums so violent one longtime household employee threatened to quit. As the turkey leg made its way around the personalized place settings and professional flower arrangements, guests and family waxed rhapsodic about the bountiful blessings in their lives. Then it was Nick's turn. ""Well, I'm certainly not grateful for this fucking food, and I'm not grateful for any of you freeloaders in my house. I just can't wait to get through this fucking dinner so I get back my room,"" Nick yelled, according to the friend. Then he threw the turkey leg at his father's plate. Rob smiled, the dinner guest said, and picked up the leg. ""Well, that's really easy to follow. Thanks, Nick."" Like most who The Washington Post spoke to for this story, the people who described Nick's behavior requested anonymity due the sensitivity of his situation in the wake of his parents' slaying in December. Facing murder charges that could carry the death penalty, Reiner, now 32, and his attorneys have repeatedly postponed his plea hearing, amid reports of mental illness and questions about where his two surviving siblings, Jake, 34, and Romy, 28, stand in regard to his defense. A spokesperson for the Los Angeles County Public Defender's Office, which is representing Nick, declined to answer questions for this story. Unlike his famous parents, Nick rarely sought the spotlight. In 2016, he co-wrote a movie that Rob directed, ""Being Charlie,"" based on his substance abuse struggles. Beyond the burst of publicity he and his father did surrounding the film's release, little has been publicly disclosed about Reiner's life. Interviews with 14 individuals who knew Reiner, as well as interviews he gave to an addiction podcast between 2016 and 2018, paint a portrait of a complicated young man struggling to find his footing in the world. The son of one of the most celebrated filmmakers in Hollywood, he viewed himself as a black sheep in his family and was often consumed by feelings of inadequacy, with occasional bursts of temper or violence that usually coincided with drug use. His parents committed endless resources toward Nick's recovery, sending him to treatment centers where most of his peers told The Post he was goofy and well-liked. But after each rehab stint, he would return to treating his addictions casually, even when they led him to despondence and destitution. Reiner was not the only one with famous parents at the Wildwood School, an elite K-12 with two campuses in West L.A. His classmates included the sons of actors Bill Pullman and Robert Downey Jr. But Reiner stood out to Jon De Carlo, a friend who met him at Wildwood in Kindergarten, for his relatively ""sheltered"" childhood. Reiner wasn't a loner, nor was he ""super popular,"" De Carlo said - an assessment shared by others. ""He would hang out with the same two or three guys at the beginning of every class,"" said Paul Manning, who taught Reiner's physical education class from sixth through eighth grade. ""Growing up, he very rarely slept out at people's houses,"" De Carlo said. ""In the summertime, instead of going to sleepaway camp or even day camp, his parents would host 'Camp Reiner' at their house for some of the kids from school."" On the final day of eighth grade, not having been invited to any end-of-year gatherings, Reiner and De Carlo decided to smoke marijuana. It was Reiner's first time trying pot, De Carlo recalled. Reiner said he didn't start dabbling with harder drugs for a couple more years. In a 2016 interview on the podcast ""Dopey,"" a comedy show about addiction on which he was frequently a guest, he told a story about the drug bust that would lead his parents to send him to rehab for the first time. One night, when he was 14 or 15, he attended a house party where a friend became so ill after taking drugs that he had to go to the hospital. Afterward, Reiner recalled on the show, he confessed to an adult at the party that he had also taken some pills, including Percocet. The news made its way to Michele Singer Reiner, who ""being a hysterical Jewish mother, rushed me to the hospital,"" he said. Reiner's parents sent him to Visions, an adolescent treatment center for mental health and substance abuse in Malibu. He would later describe it as ""fluffy,"" replete with private chefs, a pool, yoga and art classes. One of his roommates at Visions said Reiner was quick to make a goofy joke, endearing him to the fellow patients. At night, the boys would come up with nicknames for staff members. ""Traffic Cop"" for the former-military guy, ""Paul Blart"" for a lazy one. ""His parents were there every single weekend for every session,"" the roommate said. ""They really never, ever gave up on him."" It was the beginning of the couple's all-consuming, years-long commitment to their son, said many who knew them. ""They tried everything,"" said a Brentwood mother who met the ""absolutely miserable"" couple at a community group where they sought support. ""If Nick had come from a middle-class family, he wouldn't be alive. The time these two parents spent. They're both very high-powered, busy parents. But it literally felt like they put everything down to be there physically for him. At one point, they had a 24/7 sober companion for him."" Unbeknownst to Rob and Michele, Nick was being exposed to a tantalizing world of harder drugs at Visions. He shared a room with a boy addicted to heroin, he said on ""Dopey."" ""When I hear for 126 days how good shooting up heroin is every single night, you're gonna tell me I'm not gonna go out and try fucking heroin?"" he said in 2016. ""I didn't try heroin until three or four years later. [But] the seed was planted."" A representative for Visions did not respond to a request for comment. Around age 15, in 2009, Reiner stopped attending school regularly and began working with a private tutor. ""When the lights were on and you conversed with him, he was witty - and being witty takes a certain mental agility,"" said one person who worked with the family around that time. But Reiner also seemed listless, this person said, expressing concerns about being in the shadow of his father, the filmmaker. ""Which is so sad, because they didn't treat him like that or place that burden on him. They would have loved him no matter what,"" the person said. ""I remember specifically telling him: 'I think in every interview with your dad, they've asked him about his dad [comedian Carl Reiner]. He's 60 and he's still asked about it. So you can stress about it, but you're going to be asked about it for the rest of your life. You have to find a way to be OK with that.'"" But Reiner apparently continued to compare himself to others. At 15, when many of his peers began having sex, he said he stole $200 from his parents and hired a sex worker via Craigslist to take his virginity. ""I tried to kiss her. It didn't work,"" he said on ""Dopey"" in 2017. ""I didn't care because I was young and I was like, 'This is awesome.'"" De Carlo, Reiner's childhood friend, remembers thinking it was an odd move - but Reiner ""had done weird shit before."" ""There was one point where he stole his parents' car and tried to drive to Las Vegas. And I was like, 'Go, Nick,'"" De Carlo said. ""It all seemed harmless at the time, because I thought he had such a safety net that things would always go well for him. … I could never have imagined that he would be truly destitute, because his parents would always be there to take care of him and bail him out of whatever situation he was in."" ** By the time Reiner was 16, however, Rob and Michele were growing tired of his antics and launched him on a more intensive series of interventions. On ""Dopey,"" Reiner said he was sent to a program called Second Nature, a three-and-a-half month-long wilderness program in Utah where struggling teens lived outdoors, building fires and cooking their own food. When the program was completed, Reiner enrolled at Summit Preparatory School, a therapeutic boarding school in Montana. ""I vividly remember him saying, 'You know, if I could just get my Escalade and a bunch of cocaine,' I'd be fine. That was his end goal,"" said Chris Crowley, one of four boys Reiner shared a room with. Students were allowed to see their parents every 12 weeks, and families participated in group therapy retreats. During these sessions, Crowley said, Reiner argued more loudly with his parents than other kids did with theirs. ""Him and his parents did not get along very well,"" Crowley said. ""His parents would fly in on a private jet in this little Montana town, they would get into an argument and then next thing you know, they're flying back out."" (Summit closed in 2020; its former executive director did not respond to a request for comment.) Reiner didn't appear to resent his parents for sending him to treatment after he returned to Los Angeles, De Carlo said. ""It was never like, 'Oh, God, I hate my parents for what they've done.' He would just kind of move on about it."" In between Reiner's rehab stints, De Carlo said, the two friends would hang out, smoke weed, play with Airsoft guns and watch poorly-reviewed scary movies like ""Sorority Row."" They often ate dinner with Rob and Michele, and De Carlo said he never witnessed ""any big outbursts or arguments"" between them. Reiner had returned from the Utah and Montana programs with new prescription drugs like Adderall and Klonopin, which De Carlo said he, Reiner and their friends began experimenting with. If they tried a drug and nothing bad happened, they felt emboldened to continue their exploration. ""Parents would say, 'drugs are bad.' And then we would try cocaine and the next morning we'd be like, 'whoa, I'm not suddenly a crackhead,'"" De Carlo said. ""Then it seemed like we could do any drug."" They bought bath salts from a souvenir shop on Hollywood Boulevard, dropped acid in Pan Pacific Park when their parents thought they were seeing a movie at the Grove, De Carlo said. Then, when he was 18, Reiner reconnected with a friend from Second Nature. On ""Dopey"" in 2016, he recounted how he and his former classmate drove downtown to Skid Row to purchase heroin. After what Reiner described as an ""incredible"" first experience on the drug, De Carlo said, the two of them began seeking out more on Craigslist. ""You would look up 'black roofing tar' and could find all of these different people selling 'roofing supplies,'"" De Carlo said, adding that the friends would also use the on the dark web to purchase substances like 2C-B. Once, when Reiner and his friends were looking up the medications he'd been prescribed in rehab, they were surprised to discover one meant for bipolar disorder. ""We were just kind of confused by that,"" De Carlo said. ""There was never an indicator to me that he had any serious mental health problems. That may have been something that developed later on as he got older and I just wasn't aware of it."" Since his parents' murders, The New York Times has reported that Reiner was diagnosed with both schizophrenia and schizoaffective disorder at various points in his life. In 2020, the outlet reported, he was placed under a mental health conservatorship that ended a year later. Roughly a month before Rob and Michele were found dead, a doctor suddenly changed Nick's medication, the Times said. ** With new addictions mounting, the Reiners sent Nick to Alina Lodge, a New Jersey recovery center colloquially known in the community as the ""Last Chance Ranch."" ""He was not happy about being there,"" said a person who worked at the facility during Reiner's stay. The former staff member said Reiner would frequently disobey instructions, and described him as ""violent angry."" ""Everything was a joke to him,"" the employee said. ""He could care less. And he stunted other people in there, as far as their recovery went. He was troublesome. Loud in groups. Talked out of turn. Just disruptive."" One night, after Reiner complained staff refused to give him necessary medication, he grew so angry that he threw a rock through the stained glass window of a campus chapel, he later recounted on ""Dopey."" ""I was like, 'How do I show these motherfuckers I'm crazy?'"" Reiner said in a 2016 episode. ""Some woman saw me, ratted on me and then they put me on Wellbutrin."" The former employee said Reiner was nearly kicked out of Alina Lodge after the incident, but his parents paid ""upwards of 20 grand"" to have the window fixed and Reiner was allowed to stay a while longer. Reiner said he was eventually asked to leave the program after six months. Representatives for Alina Lodge did not return requests for comment. From there, Reiner was sent to another long-term treatment center in rural Texas: Burning Tree Ranch, which staffers referred to as ""the Navy SEALs of rehab,"" according to a person who was treated there with Reiner in 2012. Despite the gravity of his circumstances, this person said, Reiner maintained a dry sense of humor and a ""goofy"" energy. He arrived days before the Christmas holiday, and spent days walking around singing the hook from Paul McCartney's ""Wonderful Christmastime."" ""He would make fun of himself and commiserate about how miserable the circumstances were that we were in,"" the former patient said. But occasionally, Reiner and others in his cohort would have serious discussions about their drug use and its repercussions. ""I remember him saying, 'Oh, I hope I haven't fucked up my life so badly that I can't do something with it,'"" the person said. Reiner had still not hit his rock bottom. By his own accounts, he refused to attend more rehab programs in subsequent years, and at one point found himself living out of homeless shelters in Maine. He said he befriended an unhoused man who taught him to shoot crack in a McDonald's bathroom and inject Wellbutrin intravenously. Afterward, Reiner told the man that his father had once starred on ""All in the Family."" ""He didn't believe me to the point where I had to take out my ID and show him my last name was Reiner,"" he said on ""Dopey"" in 2016. ""He was like, 'Rob Reiner's son would not be under a birch tree shooting Wellbutrin.'"" In fact, it was his father who Nick would often seek out during his darkest moments. Around 2013, he took a tab of acid at his parents' home. Finding himself unexpectedly alone, became frightened he might lose it. He turned on an episode of HBO's ""Eastbound & Down"" in an attempt to distract himself; it didn't work. ""I started to have this thought process of, like, 'I'm tripping by myself. God forbid I do a horrible thing like jump out a window, [or] get so disillusioned that I do something crazy,"" Reiner recalled on ""Dopey"" in 2016. He said he couldn't stop thinking about Ariel Castro, a Cleveland man in headlines at the time after being convicted of kidnapping and raping three women. With his mind continuing to spiral into the night, Reiner decided to wake his parents. It was 2013, and Rob and Michele Reiner had already spent the better part of five years trying to help their son with his drug addictions. After being roused, Michele retreated to the couch downstairs to continue sleeping. Rob invited his son to lie next to him on the bed. ""Calm down, buddy. It's OK,"" Nick said his father told him. ""I used to do this in the 60s. You come down eventually."" The two stayed on the mattress next to one another for eight hours until the trip ended, he recalled. ** Reiner managed to get clean again and returned to Hollywood around 2014. His dad - fresh off a cameo in ""The Wolf of Wall Street"" and directing Diane Keaton and Michael Douglas in the little-seen rom-com ""And So It Goes"" - asked an executive producer on Fox's ""Family Guy"" if he would be willing to give Nick an internship on the show to help keep him on the straight and narrow. The three-month gig didn't require much responsibility, recalled Andrew Hollandsworth, a production assistant who supervised Reiner at ""Family Guy"" studios. For four hours each day, he would help stock snacks, print scripts and greet celebrities who arrived for recording sessions. ""Rob would drop off Nick and pick Nick up every day from this internship,"" Hollandworth said. ""It's not like Rob Reiner isn't a busy person, and mid-city isn't that close to Brentwood. It was really admirable from that side."" Hollandsworth said people in the studios found Nick to be a ""really interesting, dynamic person"" who was refreshingly honest about his previous struggles. ""He felt like his family were all these pristine, amazing people, and he was sort of the fuck up of the family,"" Hollandsworth said. ""We sort of had heart to hearts, and I was like, 'You have everything in front of you - all the best connections in the world. What do you want to do?' And he said he wanted to start stand up comedy."" During the internship, Hollandsworth said, Reiner started performing at a handful of reputable comedy clubs in LA, including the Comedy Store. No footage of his sets could be found by The Post. Reiner also began working on a project that would eventually turn into the 2016 film ""Being Charlie,"" which he co-wrote with Matt Elisofon, a friend he met in rehab. Initially, the duo envisioned the story as a half-hour sitcom. It evolved into an hour-long comedy/drama that Rob Reiner's production company, Castle Rock, pitched to various networks. When no one expressed interest, Nick and Elisofon turned their script into a film that the elder Reiner agreed to direct. ""All along, I, for lack of a better way of coping, had been asking myself, 'What can I do to make art of this?'"" Rob Reiner told the New Yorker in 2016. ""Now that Nick was doing better, I told them, 'Maybe we can make it a movie.'"" Nick would later tell the ""Dopey"" co-hosts that the film's publicity team urged him to discuss his sobriety while promoting the film. But he was, in fact, still smoking marijuana and drinking alcohol during the press circuit. ""I don't got [addiction] licked by any means,"" Reiner admitted to Howard Stern during one interview with his dad that year. ""And I'm still very young, so who knows what will happen in five years."" Ultimately, the film made less than $33,000 worldwide and received poor reviews. ""There's something admirable about the fact that 'Being Charlie' exists at all,"" a Post critic wrote. ""It's a testament to Nick Reiner's survival. That doesn't mean it's a great movie."" Reiner tried to keep his creative career going. In 2017, he began working on a documentary about his famous grandfather, Carl Reiner. But a little over a year after ""Being Charlie"" was released, Nick relapsed. After reconnecting with one of his old drug dealers in 2017, Reiner said on ""Dopey,"" he got ""totally spun out on uppers"" and cocaine, stayed up for days in a row and ""wrecked"" his parents' guest house. He punched a television and a lamp, and was put on a plane with an interventionist to yet another treatment program. During the flight, he said he had a ""cocaine heart attack,"" passed out and woke up in a hospital in Boston. He went from the hospital to a detox program to a sober house in Maine, and said he stayed sober just long enough to obtain permission to leave. ""I kind of knew that I wanted to relapse, basically,"" Reiner said. ""I just wanted to get back to my old life of smoking weed, just taking some pills, doing whatever I wanted."" ** And that's what he did when he returned to Los Angeles. On one of his last appearances on ""Dopey ""in August 2018, Reiner said he was ""smoking weed to prevent myself from smoking any other hard thing right now."" Living life as a ""functional addict"" was Reiner's ideal situation, said De Carlo. ""I think that's what he really wanted. Like, 'Maybe one day, once I'm old enough, my parents are just going to step aside and realize that I can do drugs and it's not going to destroy me.'"" But as much as he wanted to escape his parents' rules, Reiner had become accustomed to the home life he knew. ""He needed his security blanket of living in a comfortable house where he could make a mess or leave dirty dishes out and not have to make his bed because someone else would take care of it,"" De Carlo said. Once, when Reiner was hanging out at his friend's house, he had to use the bathroom. ""So he actually demanded that his housekeeper come and drive all the way to my parents house in Hollywood, pick him up, take him back to Brentwood so he could take a poop and then bring him back to Hollywood in the middle of rush hour,"" he continued. ""He would not have accepted 'no' as an answer. He was very coddled."" Reiner rarely left his family's property during this period, and when he did, his parents and their staff kept close tabs on him. According to a friend of the family who stayed with the Reiners intermittently between 2016 and 2019, Reiner cloistered himself in the guesthouse, above the family's billiard and screening rooms a few steps from his parents' residence. The building was equipped with a wet bar, but Reiner had to cook in the main house, where his family placed a camera after he accidentally ""left the burner on, got distracted and almost burned down the fucking house,"" the friend said. Signs eventually emerged that Reiner was using again. ""He would run to the gate to get deliveries for things that clearly weren't food, or suddenly it would start smelling like Febreeze in the billiard room,"" the family friend said. His behavior became more volatile - ""screaming, yelling, cursing, throwing shit"" - to the point where an employee who'd worked in the home for 20 years threatened to quit because he was ""genuinely scared"" of Reiner, this person said. One morning, the friend sat with Rob, drinking coffee before the rest of the house awoke. ""It's like a mansion prison,"" Rob said, looking around his $13.5-million home. ""If I knew it could be this bad with one kid, I wouldn't have had any."" Still, Rob and Michele were reluctant to escalate matters. To place an involuntary psychiatric hold on Nick, Rob would have had to watch the ""cops rustle my fucking kid to the ground and handcuff him to a stretcher and then put him in a psych ward,"" he told the friend. ""I don't want to live through that."" ** Jon De Carlo last saw Reiner in person in 2020. After Rob and Michele were killed and his friend was arrested, he checked his Facebook messages for the first time in a while, and saw Reiner had been asking to hang out and reconnect. ""Regretfully, it seemed like he'd been reaching out to me kind of a bit over the last couple of months,"" he said. ""And I just had been dealing with my own things, so a lot of the messages went unresponded to on my end."" De Carlo has since scheduled a forthcoming visit to Twin Towers Correctional Facility, where Reiner is currently being held without bail. De Carlo said he has reached out to some of their other old friends to check if anyone else wants to go with him. No one has yet to take him up on the offer." 3299129759,Violent crime in D.C. is dropping,2026-02-01,The Washington Post,News,Metro,B.14,,Regional,,,Copyright WP Company LLC d/b/a The Washington Post 2026,1330,1356,"['Emma Uber', 'Peter Hermann']","['Shootings', 'Councils', 'Gun violence', 'Law enforcement', 'Vending machines', 'Robbery', 'Firearm laws & regulations', 'Murders & murder attempts', 'Violent crime', 'Cities', 'Pandemics', 'Immigration', 'COVID-19']",[],[],[],[],[],"Only one homicide so far in 2026 Varied reasons for fall, but mirrors national shift Four minutes after midnight on Jan. 21, D.C. police raced to a deadly shooting inside a residence in Northeast Washington. The high school student they found inside the gray-bricked rowhouse on Varnum Street was the District's first homicide victim of 2026, ending a three-week respite from deadly violence. As of Friday, 18-year-old Malik Delonte Moore was the only person killed in D.C. in January. It capped a remarkable period of calm for a city entering its third year recovering from a generational crime spike that in 2023 thrust the nation's capital into the top tier of the country's deadliest urban centers. D.C. hadn't started a year with more than 10 days without a slaying in three decades. By this time last year, there had been nine homicides in the city. Carjackings have also plummeted, dropping fivefold compared with the first month of last year and tenfold compared to 2024. ""It's a testament to the work the members of the Metropolitan Police Department have been doing,"" interim D.C. police chief Jeffery Carroll said in an interview. ""Those are people's families that don't have to deal with a loved one who's no longer here."" And to Moore's family, he pledged police are ""going to do everything we can to try to solve and bring to justice the person who killed Malik."" Violent and property crimes in the District have largely fallen to or below pre-pandemic levels, police statistics for January show. Those include homicides, robberies, carjackings, burglaries and vehicular thefts. Assaults with dangerous weapons, which include nonfatal shootings, are the lone crime category up this month, although they are still lower than in the years immediately after covid struck in 2020. Crime spiked in cities across the country during pandemic-induced shutdowns that upended routines and jobs and shattered the social safety net. Reasons for the crime drop are complex, and just as authorities and politicians spread blame when crime spikes, officials are racing to accept credit. One criminal justice expert said D.C. appears to be mirroring a national trend in the years after covid. City leaders and a council member credit the drop to a reversal two years ago of progressive laws meant to rein in police tactics in the aftermath of the murder of George Floyd. A police official has cited increased arrests in homicide cases. Last year marked the city's highest homicide clearance rate in more than a decade. President Donald Trump has touted his surge of federal law enforcement officers in the District last summer and fall, after casting D.C. as one of the nation's dystopian Democrat-led cities incapable or unwilling to safely guard its citizenry. Though violent crime in D.C. was already trending down before Trump declared a crime emergency in August, the number of homicides plummeted afterward. In September, the first full month after the federal law enforcement surge, five people were killed - the lowest September figure since 2011. At the time, some D.C. police officials credited the surge with helping reduce crime, though they also worried that it cost them credibility and increased tensions in communities distrustful of law enforcement. Homicides and robberies dropped by more than half during the surge, and the extra agents augmented a police force struggling with half-century-low staffing. Trump declared victory in D.C., saying in October ""we've got no crime"" after a weekend in which three people were fatally shot. The next month, the president falsely proclaimed that no homicides had occurred in the District in six months. Sixty people were killed during that period. The shooting this January on Varnum Street devastated Moore's family. The victim's father runs a support group called the ""Spirit of Fatherhood,"" which attempts to ease pain for families and young men in some of the city's most challenging wards. The killing, said Moore's sister, Ja'Kila Tate, ""was just a dispute over something small. This could have been prevented."" The precise details remain murky. D.C. police would not comment on the ongoing investigation. Police found five rifle casings on a second-floor landing of the rowhouse in the Michigan Park neighborhood. A blood trail led down a set of stairs to Moore, who wrote rap music, played football and aspired to open his own vending machine company. Moore had been shot multiple times and died 40 minutes later at a hospital. Tate blamed violence in D.C. largely on youth lacking support and resources from young parents. Her brother's violent death, Tate said, added to a string of family tragedies. His mother - suffering from kidney failure, diabetes and covid - died in 2020 when Moore was 11, and his great-grandmother died two years later. Tate said her brother grew up in Columbia Heights, where he lost friends to street violence. He most recently lived with his father in Southeast Washington and was about to become a father himself. She said he aspired to running a vending machine company and ""was tying to navigate through life"" when he was killed. The District's homicide count soared to 274 in 2023, a two-decade high, and dropped to 187 in 2024 and 127 in 2025. A wave of carjackings, often more random, sparked fear across the city in 2023, and dropped in the following years and are now at or below pre-pandemic levels. David Muhammad, executive director of the National Institute for Criminal Justice Reform, attributed the decline in District crime to multiple factors, including the return to normal from the pandemic, and conducting more effective community-based violence intervention efforts. Muhammad, who is consulting with D.C. and has partnered with police departments and cities across the country, said District leaders are continuing with a program called People of Promise, designed to pour resources at more than 200 people believed most likely to be a future victim or perpetrator of homicide. The program struggled in 2022, but Muhammad said he is encouraged by meetings with D.C. leaders as recently as three months ago. He described the city's efforts as ""focused better and much more organized and data driven, and better at cooperating with other city agencies."" Still, Muhammad said, police ""have to focus better on what is most serious and important, like gun violence."" D.C. Council Member Brooke Pinto (D-Ward 2), credited the crime drop in part to the passage in 2024 of legislation she sponsored that enhanced laws governing policing and harsher punishments to address the crime 2023 crime surge. ""I am tremendously proud of the progress we have made to keep our city safe,"" Pinto said in a statement. The council member, who chairs the public safety committee and is running for the congress as D.C.'s nonvoting representative in the U.S. House, also urged passage of new legislation that she said would assist people with employment, housing and youth development, often seen as root causes of crime. Carroll said the surge in federal law enforcement resources first ordered by Trump, then later extended in an executive order from D.C. Mayor Muriel E. Bowser, contributed to the drop in crime. He said partners like the Drug Enforcement Administration have provided technology and databases that helped city police close cases. ""That's the area where we see some of the most benefits,"" Carroll said. But the federal law enforcement surge has been met with criticism by D.C. Council members, local advocacy groups and city residents, many of whom urged Bowser and Carroll to do more to extricate the department from Trump's immigration agenda. As D.C. police have continued to patrol with immigration authorities, residents have expressed distrust in the department. Carroll said police do not participate in civil immigration enforcement, and that their goal whenever they patrol with federal agents is to drive down crime. Moore's father, like his son, lost his mother at an early age. ""He did everything he could to help Malik navigate life, grief, and growth without his mom, the same way he had to learn to do himself,"" said Tate, the victim's sister. ""Malik was a part of that story, and his life and loss will forever be woven into this work."" Lydia Sidhom contributed to this report." 3299129760,Clearing the 'snowcrete',2026-02-01,The Washington Post,News,Metro,B.20,,Regional,,,Copyright WP Company LLC d/b/a The Washington Post 2026,1160,1532,"['Brittany Shammas', 'Michael Laris', 'Ruby Mellen']","['Walkways', 'National parks', 'Ice', 'School districts']",[],[],[],[],[],"Cindy Sherman didn't want to take her chances on city plows making their way to her block, a tidy cul-de-sac dotted with colonial houses on the D.C. side of Chevy Chase. So after a monster storm left the Washington region encased in ice-crusted snow, she sent an email to her neighbors: would anyone want to go in on hiring a private snowplow? The price she was initially quoted - $1,500 for the stretch of road bounded by 44 houses - struck her as steep. But as a 28-year resident, Sherman knew from experience that the little street would be low on the city's list of priorities. And she wanted to see her grandchildren. Maybe her neighbors, who had doctor's appointments and work to get to, would want to chip in. Sure enough, 10 responses hit Sherman's inbox within about a half hour. Others followed, bringing the price to a more reasonable level. It wasn't long before a snowplow was rumbling down the street, clearing the layer of snow and ice until, by Monday night, the pavement shone through again. Later, when an advisory neighborhood commissioner noted in an update to residents that Stuyvesant Place NW had amazingly been plowed even as other streets were thick with snow, Sherman felt compelled to set the record straight. ""I thought, 'I am not letting the city take credit for this one,'"" she said in an interview. ""I emailed her back and said, 'I'm going to solve your mystery for you. We hired a private company to do it.'"" As mounds of stubborn snow remained on some residential streets, across national park land and piled on sidewalks that businesses or homeowners had neglected to clear, and around some Metro stops, many Washingtonians found their own ways of digging out, whether through charity, camaraderie or commerce. Across the region, scenes played out of people taking their shovels to carve out pathways, banding together to push out stuck cars, sharing tips on the right equipment for the ""snowcrete"" - pickaxes, pitchforks, metal shovels and hammers, reported commenters on one Reddit thread - and helping each other get around. Others took the opportunity to make some hard-earned cash, toiling away at removing the snow for a price. Many shared Sherman's frustration with local governments, believing they should have taken care of the snow more quickly or effectively. That some major school districts remained shuttered all week left many parents reeling. ""We know this objectively, empirically, from covid: It's bad when kids aren't in school,"" said education researcher Liz Cohen, who lives in Chevy Chase, Maryland, and whose son attends a Montgomery County high school. Officials in D.C. and its surrounding suburbs have stressed the extraordinary nature of the Jan. 25 storm, which began with 4 to 7 inches of snow and was followed by up to 4 inches of sleet. The amount of sleet - snow that falls, melts and refreezes into ice pellets before hitting the ground - was more than had hit the region in at least three decades, according to the Capital Weather Gang. Brutally frigid temperatures in the days since has kept things from melting. D.C. Mayor Muriel E. Bowser (D) noted on Friday that the city's government and schools had reopened and Metro was running, while also saying she understood people were frustrated about not being able to walk to bus stops or get to their cars in alleys. Sidewalks are the responsibility of homeowners and businesses, while streets are up to the city to handle. ""Listen, I know everybody is frustrated. ... They just want to go back to normal,"" she said during a news conference. ""We want that too, but we have a lot of snow and ice to move and we're moving that snow and ice. I think that we have prioritized the right things, we pivoted and we've added resources to accommodate this."" The mayor has also touted a city program called ""Snow Team Heroes,"" through which more than 600 people have volunteered to clean off walkways for seniors and the disabled. But Ashley Ruff, an advisory neighborhood commissioner representing the Benning, Dupont Hill and part of the Hill East neighborhoods in Southeast, said she was bombarded with messages from people who said they had requested help and not received it. She forwarded their messages to city officials, but when no one had come by Thursday, she decided to take things into her own hands: She went outside with a shovel and started digging. ""I figure being a public servant, what am I doing? Let me go outside to help,"" she said. Nathan Harrington, who runs the park cleanup nonprofit Ward 8 Woods and spent most of the week working to chip away iced-over sidewalks and paths to people's doors, described the scale of the mobilization as ""not equal to the task at all."" Harrington and his crew cleared the walkways of about 60 homes assigned to them by the city, he said, but thousands remained untouched. One resident told him her husband had already missed two medical appointments while trapped by the frozen muck. Another brought them hot chocolate, a gesture of thanks for the backbreaking work that had left the team exhausted. ""It is satisfying,"" Harrington said. ""But there's also some frustration, knowing what we're doing is kind of a drop in the bucket."" The conditions created dangerous situations for some. Maggie Snow and her sister spent a long Monday at the emergency room with their mother, who has multiple sclerosis. The trio was nearly home when they rode up the Metro elevator at the Cleveland Park station and headed into the icy night. Then, Snow's mother's 200-pound electrical wheelchair became stuck on a block of ice outside the elevator. The sisters couldn't pry her loose, and were scared she could tip over as they attempted to jostle her free. Two Metro police officers tried to help, but no luck. Finally two men came by and asked, in Spanish, if they needed help, then heaved the chair up and over the frozen hump so they could get to the street. The three women stayed in the street the rest of the way home, believing it was safer than getting stuck again in the cold. That people rallied together to help was meaningful, Snow said. Yet it didn't make up for the frustration. ""I will say, the sense of community I feel in Cleveland Park, and the warm, fuzzy feelings I have about that, were really not top of mind that night,"" she said. ""It's just complete frustration with WMATA and the city for putting me in that situation."" Others have given Metro high marks for keeping the system running in treacherous conditions, allowing much of the region to continue functioning when many roads were unpassable. Metro general manager Randy Clarke said the effort took thousands of people. ""This is arguably the heaviest and hardest snow I've ever felt in my life, and I grew up in Canada,"" Clarke said at a Metro meeting. ""It was just very, very difficult to maneuver and clear; still is."" Some locals decided it was worth paying to get rid of the nearly impenetrable layers of snow and ice. Leonel Marroquin, a DMV-based contractor, said he and five of his workers toiled for most of the week from around 7:30 a.m. to 6:30 p.m. clearing the entrances and driveways of houses. By Thursday they were spending three hours per job cutting through up to 5 inches of ice with metal shovels. Marroquin finally took a rest day on Friday despite his phone blowing up with continued requests for help. The 52-year-old said he had ""pain all over my body today."" But, with business slow otherwise during the colder months, he was grateful for the work. He said he charged up to $300 a house. ""First and foremost, we helped many people,"" said Marroquin, who was planning to cook a hearty beef soup that night and get back outside Saturday. ""And we will continue to do so."" Lee Stillwell, who plowed Sherman's street estimated he had received about 100 calls. He won't be able to get to all of them, he said, even as he's spent full days in his truck, heated seats and massager switched on. He slept two to three hours a night until Thursday, when he got six. The snow-ice combo is so impervious that it has been ""tearing up equipment left and right,"" said Stillwell. He's been in this line of work for more than 40 years, since he got his driver's license, and sees this storm as one that will ""definitely go down in the books."" Given that, he thinks people should be a little more patient about snow-removal efforts. ""Until you do it, I don't think you understand how hard it is,"" he said. ""I've been in my truck since Saturday, basically."" Stillwell was bracing for more long days. Then he was going to get out of the cold for a trip to Las Vegas. In his truck Friday, he checked the weather there. It might even be warm enough to get in the pool, he said, sitting there surrounded by snow. Rachel Weiner contributed to this report." 3299129761,What's good - and scary - about Google's quest to personalize its AI tools,2026-02-01,The Washington Post,News,Business,B.9,,Regional,,,Copyright WP Company LLC d/b/a The Washington Post 2026,1190,1049,['Geoffrey A Fowler'],"['Personal information', 'Artificial intelligence', 'Privacy', 'Chatbots']",[],[],[],[],[],"Google's artificial intelligence now wants to access your Gmail, photo library and search history. Should you let it? That's a new privacy decision you'll need to make if you use Google's increasingly popular Gemini chatbot and AI Mode web search. Last month, the company introduced a tech in beta called Personal Intelligence that promises to deliver smarter tailored responses, once it's allowed to ingest some of your most intimate data. It's off by default, but raises some privacy issues we've not had to deal with before. My advice: It's worth experimenting with Personal Intelligence if you find Gemini or AI Mode useful. But I wouldn't leave it turned on permanently. Let me explain what's to like - and what to be wary of. But first, why is this happening? Personalization is a big focus right now for AI companies. You might have noticed ChatGPT, Claude and Meta AI using your chat histories or a ""memory"" file they build about you to tailor responses. Their goal is to make their bots more useful, and also (in some cases) to fuel targeted advertising businesses. This means AI companies are gathering a lot more data, and sometimes their tailored answers can veer into creepy sensitive topics. In December, I wrote a guide to the broader AI privacy settings you should adjust, so look for that article if you want tips. What to like about Personal Intelligence If Gemini helps you keep up with life and work, giving it access to what Google already knows about you makes some sense. Once you turn it on, Personal Intelligence can tap into the contents of your Gmail, Google Photos, past Search queries and YouTube history when you ask it a question. That means it can use your data to inform its ""reasoning,"" better understanding your personal context and surfacing personal insights in its answers without you having to tell it where to look. For example, after switching on Personal Intelligence, I tried asking: ""When should I make my next appointment for a haircut?"" After thinking for a few seconds, Gemini found records of my past appointments in my Gmail and, based on that information, told me I should make another appointment for the next week. It doesn't quite rise to the level of a personal assistant, but certainly a competent intern. (Apple's Siri can't answer a question like that.) Personal Intelligence is also being integrated into the AI Mode that's part of Google search, so it can use your preferences or existing plans to inform your hunts for information and products. Google says Personal Intelligence is available to personal Gemini users with paid accounts in the U.S., and it plans to expand the tool over time to free users and more countries. What to worry about Google says turning on Personal Intelligence doesn't give it the right to train its AI directly on your Gmail inbox or Google Photos library. There are no ads in Gemini, for now. But there's a different kind of privacy problem to consider: Giving Google permission to mix together information from different contexts in your life could lead to embarrassment, or worse. The issue is called ""data bleed,"" said Miranda Bogen, director of the AI Governance Lab at the Center for Democracy and Technology. Everybody has personal information that's appropriate in certain conversations that doesn't belong in others. Think: Medical information, emotional support from a friend, and data going into a work report. Once Gemini brings a piece of personal content into your chat history, it could pop back up at an inappropriate time. ""Now it's all getting put into one big blob and moved back and forth across different products,"" Bogen said. ""It is harder and harder to keep track of what's even happening, let alone draw lines around when something shouldn't happen."" For example, she said information regarding your health records sitting in your email could be pulled into a chat while you are drafting a message to your boss. Or, the AI might rely on proprietary work documents when answering a personal query about your retirement portfolio. The AI could also misunderstand you, and its prediction of what is ""most useful"" may not actually align with your best interests. Or it could pigeonhole you. Google acknowledged in a white paper it released with Personal Intelligence that Gemini struggles to understand context perfectly. For example, Google said if Gemini spots an email about your employment, it might start anchoring all its responses around the fact that you're a software engineer. Or, based on a receipt in your email, Gemini might keep suggesting heavy metal concerts nearby, when you actually purchased the tickets as a birthday gift for your brother. Google said its latest Gemini 3 has an improved grasp of nuance, allowing the AI to better interpret personal context and determine exactly when to retrieve relevant information. And the company has built some guardrails: Gemini is designed to avoid making proactive assumptions about sensitive data such as your health, although it will discuss that data if the user explicitly asks. Google also said its primary defense against unwanted data mingling is user choice. Personal Intelligence is off by default, although I noticed Google kept nudging me to turn it on when I ignored it at first. You can also choose which data sources Gemini can access - for example, you could connect Gmail but not Google Photos. Once Personal Intelligence is on, you can also tell Gemini to not personalize a specific response - but only after the fact. You have to tap a button and tell it to answer again without using your data. What you should do To mitigate these risks, Bogen recommends thinking carefully about what personal information - such as health data - exists in your email and photos, and whether you are comfortable with an AI potentially accessing it. And treat it as a sandbox, for now. Turn on Personal Intelligence to experiment and see how it works, but then turn it off rather than leaving it permanently enabled. To deactivate Personal Intelligence, go to your Gemini account settings and switch off access for each of the apps you connected. ""The whole field is moving so quickly ... a choice you think you're making today might actually have different implications tomorrow,"" Bogen said." 3299129762,I've reported on UFO sightings for decades - and come to this conclusion,2026-02-01,The Washington Post,Commentary,Editorial-Opinion,A.17,,Regional,,,Copyright WP Company LLC d/b/a The Washington Post 2026,1480,938,['Michael Shermer'],"['Aircraft', 'Venus', 'Meteors & meteorites', 'Extraterrestrial life', 'Books', 'Armed forces', 'Religiosity']",['United States--US'],[],"['Department of Defense', 'National Aeronautics & Space Administration--NASA']",[],[],"On Jan. 13, Vermont legislator Troy Headrick (I) proposed creating a state task force that would get to the bottom of ""unidentified anomalous phenomena,"" or UAPs, that appeared to be buzzing about U.S. military air bases. Days later, Helen McCaw, a former senior analyst in financial security at the Bank of England, urged the bank's governor to prepare for possible financial collapse should the White House disclose the existence of alien intelligence. I have been following and writing about UFO phenomena and the people who believe they represent alien visitation since the 1990s, and until recently the topic was always largely treated by the public and media as fringe and beneath serious consideration. That began to change in 2017, when the New York Times published a front-page story about the Pentagon having established the secret Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program to learn what was really going on with all these sightings, many of which happened over military facilities. Since then there have been congressional hearings involving, not tinfoil-hat-wearing kooks, but - for example - former Navy pilots David Fravor and Ryan Graves and government intelligence employees Luis Elizondo and David Grusch, who told Congress and millions of online viewers that the U.S. government was covering up evidence of alien visitation. The UAP initialism, gradually adopted by the Pentagon around 2020, signifies the subject's transformation into the official conversation. All of this was packaged into a documentary released last year by the noted filmmaker Dan Farah, ""The Age of Disclosure,"" which has been widely reviewed in mainstream media and discussed not only on popular podcasts with UFO enthusiasts but at the highest levels of government, including by Secretary of State Marco Rubio. Before we consider how this happened, let me address the claims themselves. First, even some ufologists admit sightings are overreported. In her 2010 book ""UFOs: Generals, Pilots, and Government Officials Go on the Record,"" Leslie Kean wrote that ""roughly 90 to 95 percent of UFO sightings can be explained"" as such prosaic phenomena as weather balloons, blimps, planes flying in formation, secret military aircraft, the planet Venus, meteors or meteorites, satellites, lights on the ground and the like. So only a small number of sightings even qualify as unidentified. What about the reports of unexplained phenomena by pilots and astronauts? According to Scott Kelly, who has logged more than 15,000 hours over 30 years in planes and in space, ""the environment that we fly in is very conducive to optical illusions."" At a NASA news conference on UAPs, he recalled his co-pilot seeing a mysterious object that turned out to be ""a Bart Simpson balloon."" Kelly added that his brother Mark, a former NASA astronaut and now a U.S. senator, told about being on the space shuttle when someone spotted a dropped tool apparently floating near their ship, only to discover the object was the International Space Station, 80 miles away. In my own classification system, I put reported UFO and UAP sightings in three categories: 1. ordinary terrestrial (balloons, camera/lens effects, visual illusions, etc.), 2. extraordinary terrestrial (Russian or Chinese spy planes or drones capable of feats unheard of in the U.S.) and 3. extraordinary extraterrestrial (alien presence). I strongly suspect that all UAP sightings fall into the first category, but other commentators suggest the second, noting that they could represent Russian or Chinese assets using technology as yet unknown to American scientists, capable of speeds and turns that seemingly defy all their physics and aerodynamics. That hypothesis is highly unlikely. It is simply not possible that some nation, corporation or lone individual - no matter how smart and creative - could have created an aircraft of any sort that would be centuries ahead of the West's present technologies. It would be as if the United States were flying biplanes while the Russians or Chinese were flying Stealth fighter jets, or we were still experimenting with captured German V-2 rockets while they were testing SpaceX-level rocketry. Impossible. We would know about all the steps leading to such technological wizardry. Finally, could UAPs really be space aliens? It's not impossible, but it is highly improbable. While intelligent life is probably out there somewhere, the distances between the stars are so vast that it is extremely unlikely that any have come here, and what little evidence is offered by UAP believers comes in the form of highly questionable grainy photographs, blurry videos and stories about strange lights in the night sky. What I think is actually going on is a deep, religious-like impulse to believe that there is a godlike, omnipotent intelligence out there who 1. knows we're here, 2. is monitoring us and is concerned for our well-being and 3. will save us if we're good. Researchers have found, for example, an inverse relationship between religiosity, meaning and belief in aliens; that is, those who report low levels of religious belief but high desire for meaning show greater belief in extraterrestrials. They also found that people who self-identified as either atheist or agnostic were more likely to report believing in ETIs than those who reported being religious (primarily Christian). From this research, and my own on the existential function served by belief in aliens, I have come to the conclusion that aliens are sky gods for skeptics, deities for atheists and a secular alternative to replace the rapidly declining religiosity in the West - particularly the United States and the United Kingdom, where, not coincidentally, most UAP sightings are made. Michael Shermer is the publisher of Skeptic magazine and author of the new book ""Truth: What It Is, How to Find It, and Why It Still Matters.""" 3299129763,Jennette McCurdy's novel dials up the squirm factor,2026-02-01,The Washington Post,News,BookWorld,C.3,,Final,,,Copyright WP Company LLC d/b/a The Washington Post 2026,1030,977,['Sophia Nguyen'],"['Autobiographies', 'Writing', 'Novels', 'Books']",[],"['McCurdy, Jennette']",[],[],[],"When Jennette McCurdy's ""I'm Glad My Mom Died"" was published in 2022, it landed like a glitter bomb: It got everywhere and had almost freakish staying power. The memoir pulled back the curtain on McCurdy's career as a teen star on the Nickelodeon sitcom ""iCarly,"" recounting her struggles with bulimia, alcohol, the entertainment industry and her abusive stage mom. Even by the standards of celebrity tell-alls, it was a blockbuster, selling more than 3 million copies and earning McCurdy a multimillion-dollar advance for her next two book projects. (She is also writing, executive producing and show-running a TV series inspired by the memoir.) As first impressions go, it's hard to outdo the one left by ""I'm Glad My Mom Died."" The cover design, featuring the author in a sarcastic simper, evoked the nostalgic, tooth-rotting thrills of Sweet Valley High. The title dared readers to flinch. But in her debut novel, ""Half His Age,"" McCurdy takes a stab at besting it. We're dropped right in the middle of a sex scene, narrated by 17-year-old Waldo, who is utterly unimpressed by her partner's technique - with his ""slimy tongue that loop-de-loops over and over like a carnival ride, mechanical and passionless"" and penchant for squeezing her ""like a kid with a ball of Play-Doh."" Readers of McCurdy's memoir will immediately clock the parallels: Our protagonist is a high school senior, financially responsible for her household's bills - she works at Victoria's Secret - and emotionally responsible for her erratic mother. She has learned to feel embarrassed by their working-class background and is tortured by impossible beauty standards. She has a frank, spiky sense of humor: When, in bed, a boy asks if she's ""ready,"" Waldo thinks: ""I want to remind him this isn't Apollo 13."" Restless and impulsive, Waldo is driven by a gnawing emptiness that she tries to fill with shopping binges and underwhelming hookups. Then she finds a worthier pursuit: her creative-writing teacher, Mr. Korgy, who is 40 and married. She instigates a sexual relationship, over his paper-thin protestations. ""What in my life is age-appropriate?"" she asks, with impeccably warped logic. ""I don't spend my days worrying about what house party I'm gonna get wasted at, I worry about if water's gonna come out of the faucet the next time I turn it on."" The story unfolds at an almost frantic clip (an effect heightened in the audiobook; McCurdy might break a land-speed record for her narration). The chapters are brief, often abrupt, as when some light commentary about the fast-fashion giant Shein - ""Velvet trousers? Not worth the cancer. Crop top? It stays"" - suddenly cuts to a classroom scene. The tonal shifts - hilarious, gross, disturbing, poignant - seem designed to induce motion sickness. McCurdy has entered a crowded subgenre - so crowded, in fact, that a book editor told Vulture last year that she hoped age-gap novels would die out soon: ""I'm happy for you or I'm sorry that happened, but I'm not reading another one."" That Waldo is not just young, but a minor, gives ""Half His Age"" a more provocative - even alienating - edge; McCurdy is clearly interested in challenging her readers' sensibilities. Still, to those acquainted with the trend, the book's insights will mostly feel familiar: how our desires endanger us; how teenagers look for a sense of identity in all the wrong places; the vulnerability and power of girlhood. But the novel does put at least one twist on the setup: Its younger woman has zero interest in being educated. In teacher-student romances, the older man's allure often lies in the opportunities he can bestow, the future he represents, the guidance he offers, the thrill of being recognized by genius. None of the above apply to Waldo. (She's turned on when Mr. Korgy calls himself a failure, and finds herself strangely attracted to his thinning hair and visible nose pores.) The novel mines dark comedy from her impatience with the Eliza Doolittle shtick. He declares that he wants to show her the world; she texts back, ""i'm down to watch whatever movies or look at whatever paintings or listen to whatever songs, but just know i don't need you to show me casablanca to feel like our time together is worthwhile."" Then there's the sex writing. McCurdy, in both her books, tends toward a bluntly explicit style; in these scenes, the sentences shrink down to one or two words. Waldo thinks: ""We're so connected. Too connected. Painfully connected,"" describing Mr. Korgy as ""Pulsing. Throbbing. For me."" Later: ""He kisses my clavicle. Bites my ear. Cups my face. Devours me."" Here, the flatness - even ugliness - of the prose feels pointed. It prevents the reader from romanticizing these encounters, even as Waldo does. It also reveals the naiveté beneath her world-weary air. When her hunger for connection is met with mechanical clichés and warmed-over cultural scripts, she fills her plate and then asks for seconds. This technique is much less persuasive when it's used to evoke inner life. As the affair curdles, Waldo thinks: ""My body's instincts are loud. And they're right. And they're appropriate and reasonable and they are not a nuisance. They are wise."" At another critical juncture, she feels ""a wave of recognition. Of peace. Of freedom."" This ""I am enough""-style therapy speak is deflating to read. It makes the novel feel about as edgy as an obscenity needlepointed onto a throw pillow. It also undermines what's most compelling about McCurdy's writing: her talent for discomfiting readers. Can you begrudge McCurdy wanting her heroine to experience a little self-actualization? As the story ends on the image of Waldo bravely forging her own future, I thought, I'm happy for her. But also: I'm sorry that happened. Sophia Nguyen is the news and features writer in Book World. Half His Age By Jennette McCurdy. Ballantine. 276 pp. $30" 3299129764,Minn. volunteers step up ICE monitoring after 2 killings,2026-02-01,The Washington Post,News,A-Section,A.6,,Regional,,MINNEAPOLIS -,Copyright WP Company LLC d/b/a The Washington Post 2026,1330,1543,['Annie Gowen'],"['Criminal investigations', 'Coffee', 'Neighborhoods', 'Enforcement', 'Volunteers', 'Political dissent', 'Border patrol', 'Immigration', 'Diplomatic & consular services', 'Coffeehouses', 'Grocery stores']","['United States--US', 'Minnesota']",[],[],[],[],"Thousands in Minnesota train to monitor, protest immigration personnel MINNEAPOLIS - Jordan's parents didn't want her to become an ICE watcher. But on Tuesday, after a single day of training, she climbed into her Jeep and joined hundreds of neighbors patrolling the streets of this embattled city, where federal immigration agents have shot and killed two people last month who were monitoring and attempting to disrupt their activities. ""I'm not really nervous, it's more like, I want to prevent bad things from happening in my neighborhood,"" Jordan, 40, said as she headed out. Her family, however, had deeper worries - that she too might get shot, or federal agents could identify and harass her. She agreed to be interviewed on the condition that her last name not be used, for fear of government reprisals. More than 34,000 Minnesotans have signed up to be trained as U.S. Immigration and Custom Enforcement observers with various activist groups in recent weeks, many of them since Jan. 7, when a federal agent shot and killed Renée Good, a poet and mother of three, after an encounter with an ICE convoy in South Minneapolis. The killings of Good and, on Jan. 24, ICU nurse Alex Pretti underscore the dangers for the city's widespread resistance movement, a loosely connected network of neighborhood volunteers who communicate on Signal, the private messaging app, as they play cat and mouse with heavily armed and masked federal agents on snowy streets. Last week, those ICE observers vowed to continue their work despite signs of a political thaw on the national stage, after Trump removed border patrol head Greg Bovino from Minneapolis and renewed talks with Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz (D), a frequent critic. Bovino's replacement, border czar Tom Homan, said at a news conference Thursday that the administration would focus on ""targeted"" operations and that the 3,000 agents deployed to the city could be reduced if state and local leaders cooperated more with federal authorities. But, he warned, ""justice is coming"" for those who have been disrupting deportation actions in the city for weeks. Trump has called the protesters ""paid agitators and insurrectionists,"" and FBI Director Kash Patel said this week the agency is investigating the activists' group chats. On Wednesday, the Justice Department announced criminal charges against 16 people in Minneapolis accused of assaulting officers or interfering with federal immigration enforcement operations. ""What we have built in Minnesota is why Bovino is no longer here. It is the reason why the tone has changed nationally,"" said Edwin Torres DeSantiago, a manager for the Immigrant Defense Network, which is training more than 2,000 people a week to become ""constitutional observers"" - even in places as far-flung as Moorhead, a town more than 200 miles from Minneapolis where 400 showed up Tuesday. The influx of new volunteers is a ""blessing,"" Torres DeSantiago said, because it means more citizens to gather video footage of immigrant removals that could be used in ongoing state and local lawsuits and in the future. ""It's a long-term game,"" he said. Jordan had never been an activist, but that changed when a neighbor sent her the video of Pretti's shooting death. A Washington Post analysis of the videos showed that Border Patrol personnel had secured a handgun he was carrying just before they opened fire. ""I just had such a visceral reaction,"" Jordan said. She was shaking and crying ""angry and sad tears at the same time."" After that, she said, ""I couldn't just not get involved. Working seems pointless at this point … it feels wrong not to want to help when they're killing, murdering our community members on the street."" She heard Homan's threat, she said, but ""getting arrested is the least of my worries right now."" ICE agents were still out in full force this week in Jordan's neighborhood, the diverse and artsy Northeast part of the city, so there was plenty to do. On Tuesday alone, federal agents tried to enter the Ecuadorian consulate on Central Avenue, prompting a diplomatic furor, and arrested two customers at a Latino grocery store, witnesses said. The Department of Homeland Security did not immediately respond to a list of questions about the enforcement activity, but issued a statement that said ICE officers had been pursuing a ""criminal illegal alien"" who fled into the diplomatic building. They were not immediately aware the building was a consulate, the statement said, because it was not clearly marked. (In fact, the building has a sign with the country's seal over the door.) Jordan's observer security training in Northeast was taught by Alyssa Winter, a disabled military veteran who has trained more than 500 people in twice-daily sessions since Jan. 7. Winter, 50, cuts an arresting figure on patrols - with gray curls held back by a headband and a lanyard around her neck that has a pin from an ICE stun grenade used as a charm. ""Remember, they look like us, they drive cars like us but they don't behave like us,"" Winter told a small group of new trainees on Tuesday. ICE agents would probably be in groups, she warned them, masked, parked at the edge of places like the Home Depot parking lot, looking for Latino faces. She went over basic safety measures, cautioning them to stay a safe distance away while tailing ICE vehicles and filming agents. Leave your dogs, kids and guns at home, she said. ""I would prefer nobody brings guns. Don't give them a reason to hurt any more of us,"" she said. ""Even if people have concealed carry permits"" - like Pretti - ""please just don't."" After Tuesday's training, Winter and Jordan ended up at the buzzy local coffee shop in Northeast Minneapolis that has become a haven for the resistance movement. The shelves are stacked with bottled water, boxes of granola bars, hand warmers and the brightly colored, 3D-printed whistles that the protesters blow to warn neighbors when ICE officers are near. ""FREE RESOURCES. Take what you need,"" the sign said. Federal agents had come into the coffee shop that morning and threatened to return and make multiple arrests, witnesses said. Many nearby immigrant-owned businesses had locked their doors or closed early after ICE agents arrested two customers shopping in a Mexican grocery store, according to the store owner. Now, volunteers brought a Black man in a heavy puffer coat into the coffee shop, saying he had been roughed up by federal agents in front of a local library. Winter called for a volunteer medic and helped hide the man in a bathroom, fearful that federal agents would return. The man - who did not respond to questions - appeared overwhelmed, hiding his face in his hands. Winter knelt down and tried to comfort him, then gave him a hug. Eventually, the medic arrived and drove him away for treatment. ""Jesus Christ,"" Winter muttered. The man was a Black American citizen, she said, not an immigrant or an ICE watcher. ""I had no idea Central [Avenue] was going to turn into a war zone today."" Shortly after, Jordan left for her patrol, climbing in her Jeep littered with Starbucks cups and a dog sling and calling in to the live Signal patrol chat with about three dozen others, most of them using fake nicknames inspired by fruits or cartoon characters. She drove circles around the icy streets of her neighborhood, looping by the high school, the McDonald's and the Target, with the call on speaker. The central dispatcher tried to keep the surveillance organized, but the frenetic pace made that difficult. A steady stream of callers reported license plates of suspected ICE vehicles and jumped out of their cars to warn immigrant-owned businesses to lock their doors when agents drew near. At one point, Jordan heard another volunteer on the live line report that a black Jeep was following him and began reading the numbers of the license plate. ""That's me!"" Jordan said. She drove by several ICE watchers standing guard in front of the Ecuadorian consulate, then several more outside a modest apartment complex where a suspected ICE agent sat idling in a large black Suburban. Around the time school began letting out, local folks stationed themselves on their own street corners to keep watch, like quiet little sentinels. Jordan stood down for the day at about 6 p.m. She was exhausted and behind on her actual work - a job in marketing sales she does remotely. She was still trying to assuage her worried parents, retirees who kept checking in on her from their snowbird perch in Arizona. On Thursday, her dad sent her a link to a Washington Post story titled, ""The Powerful Tools in ICE's Arsenal to Track Suspects - and Protesters."" ""I try to reassure them by telling them I'm always out there with a buddy, I've done the training and I would never get right up in an ICE agent's face, and not do anything to agitate them deliberately,"" she said. She said she would patrol until the last immigration agent has left the city. ""Locally, nothing has changed. There is still stuff happening on our streets,"" she said. ""Until we feel anything differently, it's going to be business as usual."" María Luisa Paúl contributed to this report from Washington." 3299129765,"In shift, trade workers gain edge in labor market",2026-02-01,The Washington Post,News,Business,B.11,,Regional,,,Copyright WP Company LLC d/b/a The Washington Post 2026,1430,1576,['Telford Taylor'],"['Students', 'College graduates', 'Employment', 'Community colleges']","['South Carolina', 'United States--US']",[],[],[],[],"For nearly 50 years, research has shown that having a bachelor's degree or higher led to better employment prospects, from higher pay to greater job security. Now, with the stability of white-collar work in question as U.S. companies embrace artificial intelligence, federal data suggests that's beginning to change. The unemployment gap between workers with bachelor's degrees and those with occupational associate's degrees - such as plumbers, electricians and pipe fitters - flipped in 2025, leaving trade workers with a slight edge for six months out of the past year, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. It's the first time trade workers have had a leg up since the BLS started tracking this data in the 1990s. This shift coincides with a broad reassessment of what the best career paths are in today's labor market, which economists have called one of the most vexing in generations - especially for entry-level applicants. The soaring costs of a four-year degree, combined with an uncertain outlook amid the rise of AI, are prompting young people to consider alternative routes to economic prosperity. Community colleges and blue-collar employers are trying to harness the rising interest in skilled trades, amping up recruiting efforts aimed at young people. With more students pursuing occupational and technical degrees in fields with labor shortages such as construction, manufacturing and health care, enrollment at community colleges rose 3percent in the fall compared with the year before, according to data from the National Student Clearinghouse, more than double the growth seen at public four-year colleges. Enrollment at private four-year institutions declined by more than 1.5 percent. ""For decades, college graduates have typically faced lower unemployment rates, found jobs faster, and experienced more stable employment than high school graduates without college experience,"" according to a 2025 report from the Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland, adding that recent job data is ""indicating that a long period of relatively easier job-finding prospects for college grads has ended."" The unemployment gap between college and high school graduates has been narrowing since the 2008 financial crisis, BLS data shows. Workers with a bachelor's degree or higher had a 2.8percent unemployment rate in December, compared with 4 percent for high school graduates and 3.8percent for those with some college or an associate's degree. It's the narrowest these gaps have been since the 1970s. ""Certainly, the softness we're seeing in the labor market is mostly white-collar, mostly workers in business, professional services and technology,"" said Laura Ullrich, director of economic research in North America at the Indeed Hiring Lab. Fields such as manufacturing and construction have a legacy of constrained labor supply that's coming to bear now, she added, because of a stigma that such jobs offered less professional success and economic stability. ""But now the stigma's being pulled back."" Jeff Strohl, director of Georgetown University's Center on Education and the Workforce, cast the shifts as a ""historic anomaly."" ""The question becomes, are we talking about a structural break? Is this in any way indicative of what the world is going to look like in two or three years?"" Strohl said. His research suggests not. The center's ""Future of Good Jobs"" report predicts that ""economic opportunity will increasingly favor workers with higher levels of education and training"" in the next five years. It puts the median pay of a ""good job"" at $82,000. By 2031, only 15 percent of good jobs will be available to workers on the high school pathway, the report says, compared with 66percent for those with a bachelor's degree and 19 percent for those who have more than a high school diploma but less than a four-year degree. The last time workers with a high school education dominated the U.S. economy was in the 1970s, Strohl explained, when a decades-long manufacturing boom was winding down and computers had yet to transform the workplace. During the 1980s, Strohl said, as manufacturing struggled and technology took off, guidance counselors began to funnel students, especially high-performing ones, toward pursuing four-year degrees. Those not bound for college were guided toward technical education programs, many of which offered little opportunity for growth and were ""highly susceptible to economic shocks"" wrought by the rise of automation and other forces, he noted. ""Overdoing college for all has done a disservice to many,"" Strohl said. ""What we didn't do was set up viable alternative pathways for students to succeed, to the detriment of the economy and the detriment of those students."" Now, according to a January report from Associated Builders and Contractors, the construction industry needs to attract 349,000 net new workers this year. Anirban Basu, chief economist with ABC, said interest in the skilled trades is rising, particularly among younger workers whose parents were saddled with hefty student debt. The total average balance for U.S. student loan borrowers is estimated to be more than $42,600, according to the Education Data Initiative. Meanwhile, mean hourly wages for plumbers, pipe fitters, electricians and boilermakers - all of which typically require apprenticeships - eclipsed the overall hourly mean wage for U.S. workers in 2023, which was about $31.50, according to BLS data. The highest-paying role requiring an apprenticeship, elevator and escalator repair, earned an hourly mean of more than $48. Young people ""are realizing the world is changing; they're seeing more and more college grads working as baristas,"" said Basu, whose group represents more than 23,000 general contractors and construction firms. He added that ""many are quite savvy in recognizing that AI doesn't threaten the blue-collar workforce the way it threatens the livelihoods of the white-collar workforce."" Workers ages 22 to 25 have seen a 13 percent drop-off in employment in the most AI-exposed occupations - such as software developers and customer service representatives - since 2022, according to recent research from Stanford University. C-suite leaders are fueling worker anxiety. Anthropic's Dario Amodei has said he thinks AI will wipe out about half of entry-level white-collar roles in the next five years. In a December interview, LinkedIn CEO Ryan Roslansky argued that having a five-year career plan is ""outdated"" and ""a little bit foolish"" in an era when workers should be more adaptable, given that ""technology and the labor market and everything is moving beneath you."" Community and technical colleges are seeing an influx of interest as tides turn, including among mid-career workers. Galen DeHay, president of Tri-County Technical College in South Carolina, said enrollment in the fall was up 4 percent compared with 2024, attracting students in advanced manufacturing, health care, business administration and computer service. Programs such as nursing have extensive wait lists. Nearly 10 percent of the college's students already have bachelor's or master's degrees, he noted, which is much higher than in the past and reflects mid-career workers seeking new skills in the age of AI. Young people are seeking out dual-enrollment programs in nursing, HVAC, welding and other disciplines, DeHay said, which allow students to build skills and rack up certifications at low or no cost during high school, and then, ""by 19, they're in the workforce."" ""Whether students are younger or older,"" DeHay said, ""one of the first things they want to know is, 'What am I going to make when I come out and where can I go immediately?'"" At 21, Caleb Clement already has an associate's degree in mechatronics from Tri-County and a job he loves at the BMW plant in Spartanburg, South Carolina. Clement joined the robotics team in middle school, having grown up transfixed by the Transformers movies. In high school, he took part in Tri-County's dual-enrollment programs, building mechanical and electrical skills and learning advanced math and equipment safety at no cost. The school also trained him in networking and interviewing - how to dress professionally, shake hands, make eye contact - which he said has served him well in forging a career path. Now, through the BMW Scholars Program, he splits his time between coursework and night shifts at the plant, where he maintains the robots that help assemble everything from windowsills to body panels. Every day, Clement said, ""I'm doing something new."" ""I get to genuinely go into work and work with my hands, but I'm also working with my mind,"" Clement added. ""Don't just think we're turning wrenches."" Many blue-collar companies are also focusing their recruiting efforts on younger people to meet the moment. Power & Construction Group, a New York-based contractor that works on utilities, recently opened a new 15,000-square-foot training center replete with simulators and other high-tech training equipment. Construction is a maturing industry - the median worker age in 2023 was 42, according to data from the National Association of Home Builders - so the firm's vice president, Thomas Murphy, said outreach to ""younger and younger"" ages is a top priority. ""Our customers keep asking us to do more, but until we can get more people and get them properly trained, we can't take on that work,"" Murphy said. He recently arranged for 80 fifth-graders to explore the training center - where existing employees come for safety and training courses. He also devotes time to talking with high school guidance counselors about opportunities for students in the trades. Like DeHay, Murphy is noticing that incoming workers are more focused on long-term professional pathways than those in the past, which marks ""a major change,"" he said. Many want to know how they can progress from being laborers to owning their own firms. ""We can show them a career path, and that's a retention tool.""" 3299129766,"Final cost, impact on wildlife unknown in Potomac spill",2026-02-01,The Washington Post,News,Metro,B.14,,Regional,,,Copyright WP Company LLC d/b/a The Washington Post 2026,1380,1329,"['Dana Hedgpeth', 'Jenny Gathright']","['Invertebrates', 'Pathogens', 'Drinking water', 'Wildlife', 'Rivers', 'Repair & maintenance', 'Bacteria']","['Maryland', 'Potomac River', 'United States--US']",[],"['Potomac Riverkeeper', 'University of Maryland']",[],[],"Repair crews working to stem overflow but don't have a completion date More than a week after part of a major D.C. Water sewage pipeline collapsed, causing more than 200 million gallons of untreated wastewater to spill into the Potomac River, concerns are rising about the impact on wildlife and experts warn that the cleanup and emergency repair costs will likely be several million dollars. The Washington Post talked to D.C. Water and city officials, engineering and water management experts and environmental groups to answer some questions about what the spill means for the D.C. region. What happened? On the evening of Jan. 19, D.C. Water officials - through security cameras at one of their nearby facilities - discovered the collapse of part of a large pipeline, known as the Potomac Interceptor, along the Clara Barton Parkway near the Capital Beltway in Maryland. The interceptor is a 54-mile sewer line that is roughly 60 years old and carries up to 60 million gallons of wastewater daily from Loudoun and Fairfax counties and areas near Washington Dulles International Airport, Vienna, Herndon and Montgomery County, Md., to the Blue Plains wastewater plant in D.C. for treatment. The break caused an estimated 40 million gallons of untreated sewage a day initially to spill into the Potomac River - an amount D.C. Water called a ""significant overflow."" There's a certain amount of sewage and stormwater that already leaks from D.C. Water's pipelines - about 600 million gallons a year on average, according to its reports and experts. This incident spilled roughly two-thirds of that amount in a few days. ""It's a nasty, massive sewage spill,"" said Gussie Maguire, a scientist for the Chesapeake Bay Foundation's Maryland office. What's being done to fix the pipe, and when will it be finished? Late Thursday afternoon, D.C. Water officials said engineers had reported ""no sanitary sewer overflows escaping from a damaged section"" of the interceptor, according to a news release. Officials said a ""small amount of residual wastewater is still in the creek bed, but most of the flow to the river has stopped in the interim."" D.C. Water crews have worked around-the-clock to stop the overflow. They hauled in heavy equipment and installed eight industrial-sized pumps that reroute the wastewater around the damaged pipe about 125 feet away to an isolated section of the Chesapeake & Ohio Canal, where it is being redirected into the sewer line. The canal's locks 11, 12 and 13 were removed to accommodate the bypass, officials said. The sewage did not overflow onto the towpath, which remains open. D.C. Water has not given an estimate on when the complex repair will be finished. What caused the problem? D.C. Water officials say they don't know what caused the rupture. The interceptor pipeline is part of an aging system. A 10-year, $625 million ""high priority"" project is underway to rehabilitate its ""most vulnerable sections,"" D.C. Water officials said. John Lisle, a spokesman for D.C. Water, said the section where the collapse occurred was to undergo rehabilitation, but crews had not been working in that area. There was work recently completed about a quarter-mile from the site of the collapse, he said. Is the region's drinking water in danger? No. D.C. Water's drinking water system is separate from the wastewater system. The drinking water is ""safe to drink and water service is NOT affected by this incident,"" D.C. Water has said in a statement. The primary intake facility for the Washington Aqueduct, which supplies drinking water from the Potomac to the region, is upstream from the sewage spill. As a precaution, an intake facility downstream remained closed after the spill was discovered, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers said. What will happen to wildlife? Are fish dying? It is uncertain what will happen to wildlife in the area, experts said, and it could take time to see any harmful impacts. Wastewater carries toxic chemicals, microplastics, pharmaceuticals, excess nutrients, viruses and bacteria - all things that can be harmful to fish and wildlife. Nutrients can drain oxygen quickly and contribute to fish kills and harmful algae blooms. Some wildlife experts are worried that ducks, gulls and Canada geese overwintering in D.C. could be susceptible to bacteria and pathogens found in the sewage. There could also be a cascading effect, biologists said, where invertebrates, including bugs, spiders, water beetles and worms, could die from bacteria in the sewage. Then, when shad, rockfish and other species eat those invertebrates in the spring they too could be impacted - creating a chain reaction that could lead to a reduction in wildlife populations. Days after the spill, Dean Naujoks of the Potomac Riverkeeper Network, said his group had documented signs of fish kill. Still, experts caution that it's not a sky-is-falling scenario. ""Short term, this is a pretty bad spill,"" said Gary Belan, a senior director of the national clean water program at American Rivers, a nonprofit based in D.C. ""Long term, it could end up in sediment and soils."" But, he and other experts said, the sewage will get diluted as it passes through the river - especially with the heavy snowmelt - and will wash away and eventually break down. Is it safe to be near the river? People - and their pets - are advised to avoid touching wastewater in the area and to seek medical attention if needed. Untreated sewage can cause a variety of illnesses. Is the river being tested? Yes. On Wednesday morning, a team of scientists from the University of Maryland took water, sediment and sewage samples from the river. They plan to check what microorganisms and pathogens are in the water and continue to check it for weeks, according to Rachel Rosenberg Goldstein, an assistant professor of public health at the University of Maryland who led the group. The scientists are also monitoring dissolved oxygen levels, which were significantly lower than normal seasonal levels at the spill site as of Wednesday - creating a hazardous environment for fish. Already, there's some cause for concern. Testing done just a few days after the spill found that E. coli levels were high in the water near the spill - more than 11,000 times the levels deemed safe for humans - and had dissipated significantly four miles down the river in D.C., though were still 40 times safe limits, according to the Potomac Riverkeeper Network. Christopher Brown, a spokesman for D.C. Department of the Environment, said Thursday in an email that ""as far as we are aware this should not impact the city's ultimate goal for a swimmable, fishable river, but we will be closely monitoring the river's health going forward."" Brown said it is ""too early to tell what the situation will be by the summer, but we will be testing after the repairs are complete"" and working with D.C. Water and other partners to ""ensure the river will return to safe use."" How much will this incident cost? And who pays for the cleanup? Several engineers and environmental cleanup experts estimate that fixing the break - with the costs of equipment, overtime for workers and other related repairs - could cost between $5 million and $10 million. Lisle of D.C. Water, said officials did not have an assessment yet of how much it will cost to cleanup and fix the ruptured pipeline. Lisle said D.C. Water - along with some of its wholesale customers, including Washington Suburban Sanitary Commission, Loudoun and Fairfax counties - will pay for the cleanup and repairs. The portions paid by D.C. Water's wholesale customers, he said, will be based on the percentage of the capacity of the pipe they use. D.C. Water is working with several partners from D.C.; Montgomery, Fairfax and Loudoun counties; state agencies; plus federal offices, including the Environmental Protection Agency, National Park Service and U.S. Coast Guard to contain the overflow and monitor environmental impacts - and many agencies have toured the collapsed site to see the ongoing cleanup operations, officials said." 3299130311,Trump's tariffs can't cover a bill this staggering,2026-02-01,The Washington Post,Commentary,Editorial-Opinion,A.18,,Regional,,,Copyright WP Company LLC d/b/a The Washington Post 2026,1140,1066,[],"['Sovereign wealth funds', 'Federal budget', 'One Big Beautiful Bill Act 2025-US', 'Child care', 'National debt', 'Income taxes', 'Budget deficits', 'Defense spending', 'Tariffs']","['United States--US', 'Ukraine']","['Trump, Donald J']",[],[],[],"Every time a big expense comes up, President Donald Trump assures Americans that all the money raised from tariffs will take care of it. The Cato Institute, a libertarian think tank, has been tracking Trump's promises on how he would spend the revenue going back to the campaign. Added together, Trump has said the windfall from his tariffs will help cover nearly $6 trillion in costs. That's over 22 times more than the administration's own estimates for how much revenue his taxes on imports will generate this year. We ran the numbers, and they just don't pencil. Here's the math: According to the Treasury, tariffs raised $264 billion in revenue in 2025. In 2024, tariff revenue was $79 billion. The tariff revenue funded a lapse in appropriations for the WIC program during the government shutdown last October, which provides baby formula and services to low-income mothers. ""President Trump and the White House have identified a creative solution to transfer resources from Section 232 tariff revenue to this critical program,"" said Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt. That transfer cost $0.3 billion. The money would also cover child care. He called child care costs relatively small when compared to the ""very substantial tax"" that foreigners would pay at a September 2024 event. ""Those numbers are so much bigger than any numbers that we're talking about, including child care."" The One Big Beautiful Bill Act contained the expansion of three child care tax credits, which is estimated to cost $16 billion over 10 years, or $1.6 billion per year. At the same event, Trump said that tariff revenue would also seed a new sovereign wealth fund for the U.S.: ""We'll put tremendous amounts of money, through all this money that will be taken in through tariffs and other intelligent things."" Once in office, he issued an executive order to plan for creating a sovereign wealth fund. Though there is still no single entity called a sovereign wealth fund, the federal government under Trump has taken stakes in several private companies, portraying these as investments in the national interest. They total roughly $10 billion. In December 2025, Trump said that members of the military would receive a ""warrior dividend"" of $1,776 each. He said it was possible to do so because the government ""made a lot more money than anybody thought because of tariffs."" That payment would total around $2.5 billion. The government did not actually use tariff money to fund this payment. Instead, it repurposed money that Congress had already appropriated to the Department of Defense. Just as he did during his first term in office, Trump has bailed out farmers who are hurt by his trade policies. ""The United States will be taking a small portion of the hundreds of billions of dollars we receive in tariffs,"" he said in December, ""and we're going to be giving and providing it to the farmers in economic assistance."" The bailouts cost the Agriculture Department$12 billion. In October 2025, Trump talked to Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent about establishing a ""Ukraine victory fund."" The U.S. would redirect tariffs collected from Chinese goods to support Ukraine's defense. The administration never put a dollar amount on the fund, but we estimate it to be around $20 billion. (Assuming Ukrainian victory is the goal, Ukraine has said it would need $120 billion in total defense spending this year. About half of Ukraine's military spending was from foreign donors in 2024. Even if Europe pulls more of the weight like Trump wants and contributes, say, $40 billion of the $60 billion in foreign money for Ukraine's military, the U.S. would still contribute $20 billion.) At this point, we've only spent $46 billion of the tariff revenue, which doesn't seem too bad. But that's only scratched the surface of what Trump has promised to do with the money raised by taxing imports. Now, we have spent all the tariff money. But the full fiscal impact of Trump's promises is just getting started. Trump said in November that the money raised by tariffs should be rebated to taxpayers: ""A dividend of at least $2000 a person (not including high income people!) will be paid to everyone."" If the cutoff was set at $100,000 to exclude higher-income people, the Tax Foundation estimated that a $2,000 payment to eligible tax filers would cost $280 billion. Trump mentioned in multiple Truth Social posts that tariffs would help offset the deficit increase that resulted from the One Big Beautiful Bill Act. That means tariffs would need to cover $545 billion this calendar year. Trump called in January for increasing the defense budget to $1.5 trillion per year. ""Because of the Tariffs, and the tremendous Income that they bring,"" Trump posted, ""we are able to easily hit the $1.5 Trillion Dollar number."" The current military budget is about $900 billion per year. That means tariffs need to cover $600 billion. ""Tariffs will pay off our debt."" Trump posted to X this month. When talking about his tariffs in August, Trump said: ""The purpose of what I'm doing is primarily to pay down debt, which will happen in very large quantity."" The national debt is $38 trillion and rising. Being charitable and assuming Trump meant the annual budget deficit rather than the national debt, that was $1.8 trillion last year. But as you can already see, there is no money left over. Finally, Trump has also promised that tariffs will replace the income tax. He has said he wants the budget to rely on the ""External Revenue Service"" instead of the Internal Revenue Service. ""We'll be cutting income tax, could be almost completely cutting it because the money we're taking in is going to be so large,"" he said in November. ""I believe at some point in the not too distant future, you wouldn't even have income tax to pay because the money we're taking in is so great,"" he said in December. ""Whether you get rid of it or just keep it around for fun or have it really low, much lower than it is now, but you won't be paying income tax."" The individual income tax raised $2.7 trillion in 2025. All told, for Trump to keep his promises on what tariff revenue would be used for, he'd need them to raise almost $6 trillion this year. The U.S. imported $3.61 trillion in goods last year, so such a number isn't even possible." 3299130312,of,2026-02-01,The Washington Post,News,Arts,E.1,,Final,,,Copyright WP Company LLC d/b/a The Washington Post 2026,1170,4692,['Amy Kaufman'],"['Thanksgiving', 'Cocaine', 'Parents & parenting', 'Heroin', 'Shootings', 'Addictions', 'Drug abuse', 'Childhood']","['Los Angeles California', 'United States--US', 'Maine']","['Fonda, Henry', 'Reiner, Rob']",[],[],[],"by Amy Kaufmann Rob Reiner lifted a turkey leg and asked those gathered around the Thanksgiving table to partake in a holiday tradition. The guests would pass the meat to one another, each taking a turn sharing what they were grateful for. Nick Reiner, Rob's son, was seated next to his father. It was 2018, and Nick was living in the guesthouse on his parents' $13.5-million compound in Brentwood, where the garden was filled with roses planted by the home's original owner, Henry Fonda. Unemployed at 25, Nick had spent a decade bouncing between this gated enclave and at least 18 rehab facilities paid for by his parents, Rob and Michele Singer Reiner. He struggled to kick his addictions to the substances he began experimenting with as a teenager. He has told stories on an addiction podcast about going to downtown Los Angeles's Skid Row to procure heroin and shooting crack cocaine in a McDonald's bathroom in Maine. But after each bout of degeneracy or failed treatment, he always seemed to end up back here, with his parents. For as much as he resisted their interventions, Nick had become accustomed to the trappings of his privileged upbringing. Unlike at rehab, he had a staff to tidy up for him at home. He was so attached to his private quarters that he once demanded the family's housekeeper retrieve him from a friend's house across town so he could use his own bathroom, a childhood friend recalled. Tensions were high that Thanksgiving, according to a guest who attended the meal with roughly 20 others. This person saw signs that Nick might be using again - using air freshener to cover smells in the billiard room, ""screaming, yelling, cursing,"" throwing tantrums so violent one longtime household employee threatened to quit. As the turkey leg made its way around the personalized place settings and professional flower arrangements, guests and family waxed rhapsodic about the bountiful blessings in their lives. Then it was Nick's turn. ""Well, I'm certainly not grateful for this fucking food, and I'm not grateful for any of you freeloaders in my house. I just can't wait to get through this fucking dinner so I get back my room,"" Nick yelled, according to the friend. Then he threw the turkey leg at his father's plate. Rob smiled, the dinner guest said, and picked up the leg. Rob Reiner lifted a turkey leg and asked those gathered around the Thanksgiving table to partake in a holiday tradition. The guests would pass the meat to one another, each taking a turn sharing what they were grateful for. Nick Reiner, Rob's son, was seated next to his father. It was 2018, and Nick was living in the guesthouse on his parents' $13.5-million compound in Brentwood, where the garden was filled with roses planted by the home's original owner, Henry Fonda. Unemployed at 25, Nick had spent a decade bouncing between this gated enclave and at least 18 rehab facilities paid for by his parents, Rob and Michele Singer Reiner. He struggled to kick his addictions to the substances he began experimenting with as a teenager. He has told stories on an addiction podcast about going to downtown Los Angeles's Skid Row to procure heroin and shooting crack cocaine in a McDonald's bathroom in Maine. But after each bout of degeneracy or failed treatment, he always seemed to end up back here, with his parents. For as much as he resisted their interventions, Nick had become accustomed to the trappings of his privileged upbringing. Unlike at rehab, he had a staff to tidy up for him at home. He was so attached to his private quarters that he once demanded the family's housekeeper retrieve him from a friend's house across town so he could use his own bathroom, a childhood friend recalled. Tensions were high that Thanksgiving, according to a guest who attended the meal with roughly 20 others. This person saw signs that Nick might be using again - using air freshener to cover smells in the billiard room, ""screaming, yelling, cursing,"" throwing tantrums so violent one longtime household employee threatened to quit. As the turkey leg made its way around the personalized place settings and professional flower arrangements, guests and family waxed rhapsodic about the bountiful blessings in their lives. Then it was Nick's turn. ""Well, I'm certainly not grateful for this fucking food, and I'm not grateful for any of you freeloaders in my house. I just can't wait to get through this fucking dinner so I get back my room,"" Nick yelled, according to the friend. Then he threw the turkey leg at his father's plate. Rob smiled, the dinner guest said, and picked up the leg. ""Well, that's really easy to follow. Thanks, Nick."" Like most who The Washington Post spoke to for this story, the people who described Nick's behavior requested anonymity due the sensitivity of his situation in the wake of his parents' slaying in December. Facing murder charges that could carry the death penalty, Reiner, now 32, and his attorneys have repeatedly postponed his plea hearing, amid reports of mental illness and questions about where his two surviving siblings, Jake, 34, and Romy, 28, stand in regard to his defense. A spokesperson for the Los Angeles County Public Defender's Office, which is representing Nick, declined to answer questions for this story. Unlike his famous parents, Nick rarely sought the spotlight. In 2016, he co-wrote a movie that Rob directed, ""Being Charlie,"" based on his substance abuse struggles. Beyond the burst of publicity he and his father did surrounding the film's release, little has been publicly disclosed about Reiner's life. Interviews with 14 individuals who knew Reiner, as well as interviews he gave to an addiction podcast between 2016 and 2018, paint a portrait of a complicated young man struggling to find his footing in the world. The son of one of the most celebrated filmmakers in Hollywood, he viewed himself as a black sheep in his family and was often consumed by feelings of inadequacy, with occasional bursts of temper or violence that usually coincided with drug use. His parents committed endless resources toward Nick's recovery, sending him to treatment centers where most of his peers told The Post he was goofy and well-liked. But after each rehab stint, he would return to treating his addictions casually, even when they led him to despondence and destitution. Reiner was not the only one with famous parents at the Wildwood School, an elite K-12 with two campuses in West L.A. His classmates included the sons of actors Bill Pullman and Robert Downey Jr. But Reiner stood out to Jon De Carlo, a friend who met him at Wildwood in Kindergarten, for his relatively ""sheltered"" childhood. Reiner wasn't a loner, nor was he ""super popular,"" De Carlo said - an assessment shared by others. ""He would hang out with the same two or three guys at the beginning of every class,"" said Paul Manning, who taught Reiner's physical education class from sixth through eighth grade. ""Growing up, he very rarely slept out at people's houses,"" De Carlo said. ""In the summertime, instead of going to sleepaway camp or even day camp, his parents would host 'Camp Reiner' at their house for some of the kids from school."" On the final day of eighth grade, not having been invited to any end-of-year gatherings, Reiner and De Carlo decided to smoke marijuana. It was Reiner's first time trying pot, De Carlo recalled. Reiner said he didn't start dabbling with harder drugs for a couple more years. In a 2016 interview on the podcast ""Dopey,"" a comedy show about addiction on which he was frequently a guest, he told a story about the drug bust that would lead his parents to send him to rehab for the first time. One night, when he was 14 or 15, he attended a house party where a friend became so ill after taking drugs that he had to go to the hospital. Afterward, Reiner recalled on the show, he confessed to an adult at the party that he had also taken some pills, including Percocet. The news made its way to Michele Singer Reiner, who ""being a hysterical Jewish mother, rushed me to the hospital,"" he said. Reiner's parents sent him to Visions, an adolescent treatment center for mental health and substance abuse in Malibu. He would later describe it as ""fluffy,"" replete with private chefs, a pool, yoga and art classes. One of his roommates at Visions said Reiner was quick to make a goofy joke, endearing him to the fellow patients. At night, the boys would come up with nicknames for staff members. ""Traffic Cop"" for the former-military guy, ""Paul Blart"" for a lazy one. ""His parents were there every single weekend for every session,"" the roommate said. ""They really never, ever gave up on him."" It was the beginning of the couple's all-consuming, years-long commitment to their son, said many who knew them. ""They tried everything,"" said a Brentwood mother who met the ""absolutely miserable"" couple at a community group where they sought support. ""If Nick had come from a middle-class family, he wouldn't be alive. The time these two parents spent. They're both very high-powered, busy parents. But it literally felt like they put everything down to be there physically for him. At one point, they had a 24/7 sober companion for him."" Unbeknownst to Rob and Michele, Nick was being exposed to a tantalizing world of harder drugs at Visions. He shared a room with a boy addicted to heroin, he said on ""Dopey."" ""When I hear for 126 days how good shooting up heroin is every single night, you're gonna tell me I'm not gonna go out and try fucking heroin?"" he said in 2016. ""I didn't try heroin until three or four years later. [But] the seed was planted."" A representative for Visions did not respond to a request for comment. Around age 15, in 2009, Reiner stopped attending school regularly and began working with a private tutor. ""When the lights were on and you conversed with him, he was witty - and being witty takes a certain mental agility,"" said one person who worked with the family around that time. But Reiner also seemed listless, this person said, expressing concerns about being in the shadow of his father, the filmmaker. ""Which is so sad, because they didn't treat him like that or place that burden on him. They would have loved him no matter what,"" the person said. ""I remember specifically telling him: 'I think in every interview with your dad, they've asked him about his dad [comedian Carl Reiner]. He's 60 and he's still asked about it. So you can stress about it, but you're going to be asked about it for the rest of your life. You have to find a way to be OK with that.'"" But Reiner apparently continued to compare himself to others. At 15, when many of his peers began having sex, he said he stole $200 from his parents and hired a sex worker via Craigslist to take his virginity. ""I tried to kiss her. It didn't work,"" he said on ""Dopey"" in 2017. ""I didn't care because I was young and I was like, 'This is awesome.'"" De Carlo, Reiner's childhood friend, remembers thinking it was an odd move - but Reiner ""had done weird shit before."" ""There was one point where he stole his parents' car and tried to drive to Las Vegas. And I was like, 'Go, Nick,'"" De Carlo said. ""It all seemed harmless at the time, because I thought he had such a safety net that things would always go well for him. … I could never have imagined that he would be truly destitute, because his parents would always be there to take care of him and bail him out of whatever situation he was in."" ** By the time Reiner was 16, however, Rob and Michele were growing tired of his antics and launched him on a more intensive series of interventions. On ""Dopey,"" Reiner said he was sent to a program called Second Nature, a three-and-a-half month-long wilderness program in Utah where struggling teens lived outdoors, building fires and cooking their own food. When the program was completed, Reiner enrolled at Summit Preparatory School, a therapeutic boarding school in Montana. ""I vividly remember him saying, 'You know, if I could just get my Escalade and a bunch of cocaine,' I'd be fine. That was his end goal,"" said Chris Crowley, one of four boys Reiner shared a room with. Students were allowed to see their parents every 12 weeks, and families participated in group therapy retreats. During these sessions, Crowley said, Reiner argued more loudly with his parents than other kids did with theirs. ""Him and his parents did not get along very well,"" Crowley said. ""His parents would fly in on a private jet in this little Montana town, they would get into an argument and then next thing you know, they're flying back out."" (Summit closed in 2020; its former executive director did not respond to a request for comment.) Reiner didn't appear to resent his parents for sending him to treatment after he returned to Los Angeles, De Carlo said. ""It was never like, 'Oh, God, I hate my parents for what they've done.' He would just kind of move on about it."" In between Reiner's rehab stints, De Carlo said, the two friends would hang out, smoke weed, play with Airsoft guns and watch poorly-reviewed scary movies like ""Sorority Row."" They often ate dinner with Rob and Michele, and De Carlo said he never witnessed ""any big outbursts or arguments"" between them. Reiner had returned from the Utah and Montana programs with new prescription drugs like Adderall and Klonopin, which De Carlo said he, Reiner and their friends began experimenting with. If they tried a drug and nothing bad happened, they felt emboldened to continue their exploration. ""Parents would say, 'drugs are bad.' And then we would try cocaine and the next morning we'd be like, 'whoa, I'm not suddenly a crackhead,'"" De Carlo said. ""Then it seemed like we could do any drug."" They bought bath salts from a souvenir shop on Hollywood Boulevard, dropped acid in Pan Pacific Park when their parents thought they were seeing a movie at the Grove, De Carlo said. Then, when he was 18, Reiner reconnected with a friend from Second Nature. On ""Dopey"" in 2016, he recounted how he and his former classmate drove downtown to Skid Row to purchase heroin. After what Reiner described as an ""incredible"" first experience on the drug, De Carlo said, the two of them began seeking out more on Craigslist. ""You would look up 'black roofing tar' and could find all of these different people selling 'roofing supplies,'"" De Carlo said, adding that the friends would also use the on the dark web to purchase substances like 2C-B. Once, when Reiner and his friends were looking up the medications he'd been prescribed in rehab, they were surprised to discover one meant for bipolar disorder. ""We were just kind of confused by that,"" De Carlo said. ""There was never an indicator to me that he had any serious mental health problems. That may have been something that developed later on as he got older and I just wasn't aware of it."" Since his parents' murders, The New York Times has reported that Reiner was diagnosed with both schizophrenia and schizoaffective disorder at various points in his life. In 2020, the outlet reported, he was placed under a mental health conservatorship that ended a year later. Roughly a month before Rob and Michele were found dead, a doctor suddenly changed Nick's medication, the Times said. ** With new addictions mounting, the Reiners sent Nick to Alina Lodge, a New Jersey recovery center colloquially known in the community as the ""Last Chance Ranch."" ""He was not happy about being there,"" said a person who worked at the facility during Reiner's stay. The former staff member said Reiner would frequently disobey instructions, and described him as ""violent angry."" ""Everything was a joke to him,"" the employee said. ""He could care less. And he stunted other people in there, as far as their recovery went. He was troublesome. Loud in groups. Talked out of turn. Just disruptive."" One night, after Reiner complained staff refused to give him necessary medication, he grew so angry that he threw a rock through the stained glass window of a campus chapel, he later recounted on ""Dopey."" ""I was like, 'How do I show these motherfuckers I'm crazy?'"" Reiner said in a 2016 episode. ""Some woman saw me, ratted on me and then they put me on Wellbutrin."" The former employee said Reiner was nearly kicked out of Alina Lodge after the incident, but his parents paid ""upwards of 20 grand"" to have the window fixed and Reiner was allowed to stay a while longer. Reiner said he was eventually asked to leave the program after six months. Representatives for Alina Lodge did not return requests for comment. From there, Reiner was sent to another long-term treatment center in rural Texas: Burning Tree Ranch, which staffers referred to as ""the Navy SEALs of rehab,"" according to a person who was treated there with Reiner in 2012. Despite the gravity of his circumstances, this person said, Reiner maintained a dry sense of humor and a ""goofy"" energy. He arrived days before the Christmas holiday, and spent days walking around singing the hook from Paul McCartney's ""Wonderful Christmastime."" ""He would make fun of himself and commiserate about how miserable the circumstances were that we were in,"" the former patient said. But occasionally, Reiner and others in his cohort would have serious discussions about their drug use and its repercussions. ""I remember him saying, 'Oh, I hope I haven't fucked up my life so badly that I can't do something with it,'"" the person said. Reiner had still not hit his rock bottom. By his own accounts, he refused to attend more rehab programs in subsequent years, and at one point found himself living out of homeless shelters in Maine. He said he befriended an unhoused man who taught him to shoot crack in a McDonald's bathroom and inject Wellbutrin intravenously. Afterward, Reiner told the man that his father had once starred on ""All in the Family."" ""He didn't believe me to the point where I had to take out my ID and show him my last name was Reiner,"" he said on ""Dopey"" in 2016. ""He was like, 'Rob Reiner's son would not be under a birch tree shooting Wellbutrin.'"" In fact, it was his father who Nick would often seek out during his darkest moments. Around 2013, he took a tab of acid at his parents' home. Finding himself unexpectedly alone, became frightened he might lose it. He turned on an episode of HBO's ""Eastbound & Down"" in an attempt to distract himself; it didn't work. ""I started to have this thought process of, like, 'I'm tripping by myself. God forbid I do a horrible thing like jump out a window, [or] get so disillusioned that I do something crazy,"" Reiner recalled on ""Dopey"" in 2016. He said he couldn't stop thinking about Ariel Castro, a Cleveland man in headlines at the time after being convicted of kidnapping and raping three women. With his mind continuing to spiral into the night, Reiner decided to wake his parents. It was 2013, and Rob and Michele Reiner had already spent the better part of five years trying to help their son with his drug addictions. After being roused, Michele retreated to the couch downstairs to continue sleeping. Rob invited his son to lie next to him on the bed. ""Calm down, buddy. It's OK,"" Nick said his father told him. ""I used to do this in the 60s. You come down eventually."" The two stayed on the mattress next to one another for eight hours until the trip ended, he recalled. ** Reiner managed to get clean again and returned to Hollywood around 2014. His dad - fresh off a cameo in ""The Wolf of Wall Street"" and directing Diane Keaton and Michael Douglas in the little-seen rom-com ""And So It Goes"" - asked an executive producer on Fox's ""Family Guy"" if he would be willing to give Nick an internship on the show to help keep him on the straight and narrow. The three-month gig didn't require much responsibility, recalled Andrew Hollandsworth, a production assistant who supervised Reiner at ""Family Guy"" studios. For four hours each day, he would help stock snacks, print scripts and greet celebrities who arrived for recording sessions. ""Rob would drop off Nick and pick Nick up every day from this internship,"" Hollandworth said. ""It's not like Rob Reiner isn't a busy person, and mid-city isn't that close to Brentwood. It was really admirable from that side."" Hollandsworth said people in the studios found Nick to be a ""really interesting, dynamic person"" who was refreshingly honest about his previous struggles. ""He felt like his family were all these pristine, amazing people, and he was sort of the fuck up of the family,"" Hollandsworth said. ""We sort of had heart to hearts, and I was like, 'You have everything in front of you - all the best connections in the world. What do you want to do?' And he said he wanted to start stand up comedy."" During the internship, Hollandsworth said, Reiner started performing at a handful of reputable comedy clubs in LA, including the Comedy Store. No footage of his sets could be found by The Post. Reiner also began working on a project that would eventually turn into the 2016 film ""Being Charlie,"" which he co-wrote with Matt Elisofon, a friend he met in rehab. Initially, the duo envisioned the story as a half-hour sitcom. It evolved into an hour-long comedy/drama that Rob Reiner's production company, Castle Rock, pitched to various networks. When no one expressed interest, Nick and Elisofon turned their script into a film that the elder Reiner agreed to direct. ""All along, I, for lack of a better way of coping, had been asking myself, 'What can I do to make art of this?'"" Rob Reiner told the New Yorker in 2016. ""Now that Nick was doing better, I told them, 'Maybe we can make it a movie.'"" Nick would later tell the ""Dopey"" co-hosts that the film's publicity team urged him to discuss his sobriety while promoting the film. But he was, in fact, still smoking marijuana and drinking alcohol during the press circuit. ""I don't got [addiction] licked by any means,"" Reiner admitted to Howard Stern during one interview with his dad that year. ""And I'm still very young, so who knows what will happen in five years."" Ultimately, the film made less than $33,000 worldwide and received poor reviews. ""There's something admirable about the fact that 'Being Charlie' exists at all,"" a Post critic wrote. ""It's a testament to Nick Reiner's survival. That doesn't mean it's a great movie."" Reiner tried to keep his creative career going. In 2017, he began working on a documentary about his famous grandfather, Carl Reiner. But a little over a year after ""Being Charlie"" was released, Nick relapsed. After reconnecting with one of his old drug dealers in 2017, Reiner said on ""Dopey,"" he got ""totally spun out on uppers"" and cocaine, stayed up for days in a row and ""wrecked"" his parents' guest house. He punched a television and a lamp, and was put on a plane with an interventionist to yet another treatment program. During the flight, he said he had a ""cocaine heart attack,"" passed out and woke up in a hospital in Boston. He went from the hospital to a detox program to a sober house in Maine, and said he stayed sober just long enough to obtain permission to leave. ""I kind of knew that I wanted to relapse, basically,"" Reiner said. ""I just wanted to get back to my old life of smoking weed, just taking some pills, doing whatever I wanted."" ** And that's what he did when he returned to Los Angeles. On one of his last appearances on ""Dopey ""in August 2018, Reiner said he was ""smoking weed to prevent myself from smoking any other hard thing right now."" Living life as a ""functional addict"" was Reiner's ideal situation, said De Carlo. ""I think that's what he really wanted. Like, 'Maybe one day, once I'm old enough, my parents are just going to step aside and realize that I can do drugs and it's not going to destroy me.'"" But as much as he wanted to escape his parents' rules, Reiner had become accustomed to the home life he knew. ""He needed his security blanket of living in a comfortable house where he could make a mess or leave dirty dishes out and not have to make his bed because someone else would take care of it,"" De Carlo said. Once, when Reiner was hanging out at his friend's house, he had to use the bathroom. ""So he actually demanded that his housekeeper come and drive all the way to my parents house in Hollywood, pick him up, take him back to Brentwood so he could take a poop and then bring him back to Hollywood in the middle of rush hour,"" he continued. ""He would not have accepted 'no' as an answer. He was very coddled."" Reiner rarely left his family's property during this period, and when he did, his parents and their staff kept close tabs on him. According to a friend of the family who stayed with the Reiners intermittently between 2016 and 2019, Reiner cloistered himself in the guesthouse, above the family's billiard and screening rooms a few steps from his parents' residence. The building was equipped with a wet bar, but Reiner had to cook in the main house, where his family placed a camera after he accidentally ""left the burner on, got distracted and almost burned down the fucking house,"" the friend said. Signs eventually emerged that Reiner was using again. ""He would run to the gate to get deliveries for things that clearly weren't food, or suddenly it would start smelling like Febreeze in the billiard room,"" the family friend said. His behavior became more volatile - ""screaming, yelling, cursing, throwing shit"" - to the point where an employee who'd worked in the home for 20 years threatened to quit because he was ""genuinely scared"" of Reiner, this person said. One morning, the friend sat with Rob, drinking coffee before the rest of the house awoke. ""It's like a mansion prison,"" Rob said, looking around his $13.5-million home. ""If I knew it could be this bad with one kid, I wouldn't have had any."" Still, Rob and Michele were reluctant to escalate matters. To place an involuntary psychiatric hold on Nick, Rob would have had to watch the ""cops rustle my fucking kid to the ground and handcuff him to a stretcher and then put him in a psych ward,"" he told the friend. ""I don't want to live through that."" ** Jon De Carlo last saw Reiner in person in 2020. After Rob and Michele were killed and his friend was arrested, he checked his Facebook messages for the first time in a while, and saw Reiner had been asking to hang out and reconnect. ""Regretfully, it seemed like he'd been reaching out to me kind of a bit over the last couple of months,"" he said. ""And I just had been dealing with my own things, so a lot of the messages went unresponded to on my end."" De Carlo has since scheduled a forthcoming visit to Twin Towers Correctional Facility, where Reiner is currently being held without bail. De Carlo said he has reached out to some of their other old friends to check if anyone else wants to go with him. No one has yet to take him up on the offer." 3299130313,A dozen states advance in DNC's early-primary effort,2026-02-01,The Washington Post,News,A-Section,A.2,,Regional,,,Copyright WP Company LLC d/b/a The Washington Post 2026,1460,422,['Maeve Reston'],"['Primaries & caucuses', 'Committees', 'Nominations', 'Presidential elections', 'Voters']","['South Carolina', 'New Hampshire', 'Nevada', 'United States--US', 'Michigan', 'Iowa', 'Georgia']",[],[],[],[],"A powerful Democratic committee that will determine which states hold the party's first nominating contests in the 2028 presidential race voted Saturday to advance 12 states that had applied to hold the first in the nation contests. Iowa had traditionally held the first caucuses, and New Hampshire has long relished its status as the first-in-the-nation primary. But in 2024, Joe Biden's allies pressed the Democratic Party to move up South Carolina's primary ahead of New Hampshire to highlight his strength among Black voters. After steep losses in the 2024 general election, party leaders have said they are ready to completely rethink the early-state lineup. On Saturday, Democrats advanced the 12 states that applied to hold the first nominating contests: Delaware, Georgia, Illinois, Iowa, Michigan, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Mexico, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee and Virginia. Over the course of this year, the members of the Democratic National Committee's Rules and Bylaws Committee will winnow that list to four states - one from each geographic region. The committee is also expected to choose one additional state to hold its contest in the early window. The states that want to be in the early lineup were required to prove their fairness, rigor and efficiency, said Rules and Bylaws Committee Co-Chair Minyon Moore. The intent is to craft ""a calendar that produces the strongest possible Democratic nominee for president,"" she said Saturday. Party representatives from the 12 states will be invited to present their arguments to members of the Rules and Bylaws Committee. The early states in the nominating cycle are more likely to have their voters' issues heard by the candidates vying for the presidential nomination as well as the financial investment that campaigning brings. The shake-up of the map also exemplifies the broader debate among Democrats over how to come back from the political wilderness by winning back young voters, Black and Hispanic men, and other critical blocs who gravitated toward Donald Trump in the 2024 election. Many Democratic strategists and state party officials have told The Washington Post in several dozen interviews in recent months that they believe party's longtime viability could hinge on the list of early states helping to ensure that 2028 candidates appeal to the key racial and socioeconomic groups Democrats will need to win the general election. States like New Hampshire, South Carolina and Nevada are all vying to hold the first nominating contest. Party officials from states like Georgia and Michigan have made it clear that they will be satisfied being anywhere in the early rotation." 3299130314,Understated Rybakina is a champion Down Under,2026-02-01,The Washington Post,News,Sports,B.1,,Suburban,,"MELBOURNE, AUSTRALIA -",Copyright WP Company LLC d/b/a The Washington Post 2026,1100,848,['byJohn Pye'],"['Tennis', 'Tournaments & championships']","['Australia', 'Kazakhstan']",[],[],[],[],"Australian Open titleis the second major win for quietly rising star MELBOURNE, Australia - Elena Rybakina finally won her second Grand Slam title with a victory over top-ranked Aryna Sabalenka at the Australian Open on Saturday, and it was something of a testament to quiet achievers. After some tumult at the start of 2025, including the suspension of her coach, Rybakina finished off last year with a title at the WTA Finals in November. And now she has started the new year with a major championship. Her low-key celebration was symbolic of her understated run through the tournament: a small fist pump, a quick embrace with Sabalenka, a handshake with the chair umpire, a smile, and a few hand claps on the strings of her racket and a wave to acknowledge the crowd. It came after Rybakina closed with an ace to cap a third-set comeback and a 6-4, 4-6, 6-4 win over a regular rival who beat her in the final here in 2023. ""The heart rate was definitely beating too fast. Even maybe [my] face didn't show, but inside it was a lot of emotions,"" the 26-year-old Rybakina, who was born in Moscow but represents Kazakhstan, said of her calm and clinical finish. She knew she had to capitalize quickly this time after she admitted getting tight and needing almost a half hour from her first match point to her match-winning point in a semifinal win over Jessica Pegula. Three years ago, Rybakina won the first set of the Australian final but dropped the last two. This time, after breaking in the first game and taking the first set, she rallied after losing the second set and going down 3-0 in the third. She won five straight games to regain control. ""It gives me a kind of relief,"" she said. ""Also, a lot of confidence, for sure, for the rest of the season."" It was the second major title for the fifth-seeded Rybakina, who won Wimbledon in 2022 and entered that Australian final three years ago as the only major winner in the contest. While Sabalenka went on to win another three majors - including back-to-back triumphs in Australia and the 2024 and 2025 victories at the U.S. Open - Rybakina's results dipped, and she didn't reach another major final until this tournament. A win over Sabalenka at the season-ending WTA Finals has changed her career trajectory. She has the most match wins on tour since Wimbledon and is now on a roll of 20 wins in 21 matches. ""Last year, I didn't start so well,"" she said. ""I qualified for the [WTA] Finals late. I just hope I can carry this momentum. Do a good job with the team and continue this way."" Rybakina is 10-0 in her past 10 matches against top-10 players, and she will return to No. 3 in the world rankings. Kazakhstan's flag was unfurled on the court at Rod Laver Arena after Rybakina paraded the trophy around and posed for photos with her team. She paid tribute to her coach, Stefano Vukov, who spent time under suspension last year by the women's tour. Vukov received a silver plate from the tournament organizers for being the champion's coach. ""Of course I would like to thank my team,"" she said. ""Without you it wouldn't have been possible. Really. We had a lot of things going on [last year]. Thank you to all of you, and hopefully we can keep on going strong this year. ""It's a win for all the team, all the people who support me,"" she said. ""I just hope that I can carry this moment throughout the whole season and keep on improving."" She said she had been working with Vukov since 2019, and she finds it helpful to hear the constant stream of technical and tactical advice he conveys from his seat beside the court. The more, the better, she said, because eventually she listens. ""We won many titles together,"" Rybakina said. ""And even last year in Ningbo, WTA Finals, and now this trophy, I felt just, again, proud and thankful to my team for the work."" It's the second straight loss in the Australian final for Sabalenka, who suffered an upset last year against 19th-seeded Madison Keys. ""Of course, I have regrets. When you lead 3-love and then it felt like in few seconds it was 3-4 and I was down with a break - it was very fast,"" she said. ""Great tennis from her. Maybe not so smart for me. ""But as I say, today I'm a loser; maybe tomorrow I'm a winner. Hopefully I'll be more of a winner this season than a loser. Hoping right now and praying."" Rybakina went on the attack from the start. Her serve was strong with six aces, and - apart from the two breaks at the end of the second set and the start of the third - she fended off six of the break-point chances she faced. While Sabalenka's emotions intensified, Rybakina maintained a determined quietness throughout. In the end, she let her tennis do the talking." 3299130315,The economy's strength is built atop three tenuous pillarsHealth care jobs are propping up the labor marketThe wealthiest Americans are driving spendingAI-related investments are propelling business spending and the stock market,2026-02-01,The Washington Post,News,Business,B.9,,Regional,,,Copyright WP Company LLC d/b/a The Washington Post 2026,930,23,[],[],[],[],[],[],[],"The top 10 percent account for a record 45 percent of spending Changes since 2022 in ... Consumer spending Labor market Investment returns" 3299130316,The winds might be shifting in Trump's war against offshore energy projects,2026-02-01,The Washington Post,News,Business,B.10,,Regional,,,Copyright WP Company LLC d/b/a The Washington Post 2026,1430,1580,['Jake Spring'],"['Injunctions', 'Computer centers', 'Wind power', 'Infrastructure', 'Electricity', 'Energy industry', 'Wind farms', 'Endangered & extinct species', 'Renewable resources', 'Presidents', 'Alternative energy sources', 'Offshore', 'Coasts', 'Litigation']","['New York', 'United States--US', 'Virginia', 'Rhode Island']","['Trump, Donald J']",['Orsted AS'],[],[],"On his first day in office, President Donald Trump launched a campaign against wind energy with an executive order to stop leasing and permits for offshore wind farms. The administration went on to block wind farms already under construction, while Trump himself vowed in Cabinet meetings that he would not allow any to be built under his watch, as he criticized them as ugly, inefficient and harmful to animals. A year later, Trump appears to be losing his war on wind on several fronts. In court last month, four of the five offshore projects that were blocked won injunctions to continue construction. And in recent months, an informal coalition of companies has emerged across the energy industry, including oil and clean energy firms, to push for an end to the targeting of wind energy, fearing they could fall prey to the same tactics in the future. ""We know what administrations can do to our projects when they have opposition to building pipelines or other energy infrastructure. This has never just been about wind,"" said Mike Sommers, president of the American Petroleum Institute lobby group. The blocked wind projects have become inextricably linked to a push in Congress to overhaul the system for permitting infrastructure projects, a top legislative objective for oil firms. While a bill passed in the House, Senate debate broke down after the administration's Dec. 22 stop-work orders for all five offshore wind projects under construction on the East Coast. Negotiations remain on hold. ""It's time for both sides to put their weapons down and let's work on getting comprehensive permitting reform done in this Congress,"" Sommers said. Still, analysts agree that Trump's personal preferences are driving the anti-wind policy. More than a decade ago, he unsuccessfully sued to stop offshore wind turbines built near a Scottish golf course he owned and has apparently nursed a grudge ever since. The mounting court losses and industry pressure may not change his mind. ""Given the legal rulings so far, we can expect the projects that are under construction to finish and to ultimately start operating,"" said Julia Hoos, an analyst at Aurora Energy Research. ""That said, I think this is a war of attrition more than a war of a single ruling … the administration might very well succeed in doing long-term damage to the industry as a whole."" Legal defeats Trump officials last year began targeting individual wind projects, generally citing unspecified concerns that their permits were improperly granted, a move that companies were able to fend off. New York Gov. Kathy Hochul (D) negotiated an agreement in May to lift a stop-work order on Empire Wind, slated to help power half a million homes in the New York City area, in exchange for reconsidering her stance against natural gas pipelines. Revolution Wind, off the coast of Rhode Island, successfully sued to lift a stop-work order in September, winning a preliminary injunction that allowed construction to resume. And in early December, a federal judge struck down the administration's order to halt permitting for wind projects, ruling that it was ""arbitrary and capricious."" The administration quickly pivoted to targeting offshore leases instead of permits. On Dec. 22, the Interior Department announced stop-work orders for all five projects under construction, citing national security concerns in a classified report that has not been publicly released. Last month, separate courts delivered a swift rebuke by granting preliminary injunctions to Revolution, Empire, Vineyard and Coastal Virginia Offshore Wind, with all companies announcing intentions to quickly restart construction. Sunrise Wind, off the coast of New York, is also awaiting a hearing. It's unclear what effect the court losses have had on the administration's wind policy. ""President Trump has been extremely transparent: wind energy is the scam of the century,"" said White House spokeswoman Taylor Rogers. ""The Administration looks forward to ultimate victory on the issue."" Rogers did not comment on the court losses or pending litigation. ""The likelihood of the administration continuing to lose in court, hopefully, would factor into their recognition that supporting all forms of American energy is actually their job,"" said Jason Grumet, chief executive officer of the American Clean Power Association. A Senate stalemate Immediately after the Dec. 22 stop-work orders, Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-Rhode Island) halted negotiations over a permitting reform bill. ""The illegal attacks on fully permitted renewable energy projects must be reversed if there is to be any chance that permitting talks resume,"" Whitehouse said in a joint statement with Sen. Martin Heinrich (D-New Mexico). ""There is no path to permitting reform if this administration refuses to follow the law."" Whitehouse's office said last month that permitting reform is ""dead in the water,"" and congressional aides confirmed that negotiations on the bill have not resumed since the stop-work orders were issued. Permitting reform is a shorthand for overhauling how infrastructure projects are vetted and authorized under a constellation of laws including the National Environmental Policy Act, the Endangered Species Act, and the Clean Air and Water acts. Companies have argued for decades that onerous restrictions make it too difficult to build infrastructure such as big energy projects, power lines and highways. They particularly want shorter time limits for filing lawsuits to challenge their permits. Democrats want assurances written into the law that projects will be evaluated fairly, regardless of whether they involve oil, gas, wind or solar energy. They, along with industry, also want guarantees that once a permit is issued, it cannot later be revoked just because another political party wins the White House. Energy firms across the board, including oil companies, are trying to stop the war on wind in exchange for a more stable and predictable business environment. ""If you've got a project that's gotten all of its approvals and started construction, there ought to be some kind of safe harbor, so that we don't have the next administration coming back and rethinking or stopping it,"" said Marty Durbin, president of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce's Global Energy Institute. ""All sides here, the oil and gas industry, the renewables industry, and everyone else involved are saying, 'Yeah, we all get it,'"" he added. ""If there's a flip in administration and the Democrat president follows the Trump approach of weaponizing the permitting process, the impacts on oil and gas would be profound,"" Grumet said. The oil industry has made the case to the administration that all companies will benefit from neutrality regardless of energy source and certainty that issued permits will be honored, even if that would rule out blocking the offshore wind projects, according to one industry representative who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the discussions were private. Lobbyists say that permitting reform hinges on Trump changing his position on blocking renewables projects, although there are no signs of that happening. Even if Republicans broke ranks to pass permitting reform that included constraints on targeting wind, Trump could still veto it or direct staff to reject renewables permits. ""If you have an administration that is bent on the obstruction of a sector of the economy, there's no amount of congressional constraint that ultimately can protect that industry,"" Grumet said. And a looming energy crunch Industry groups and analysts say what's at stake is the ability of the United States to meet surging electricity demand from artificial intelligence, data centers and the increasing electrification of society in general. Headed into the midterm elections later this year, the White House is also feeling pressure to respond to voters' concerns about rising prices and affordability, including ballooning electricity bills. PJM, the electricity authority in 13 states and the District of Columbia, said last month in a court filing that delaying Dominion Energy's Coastal Virginia Offshore Wind (CVOW) project will hurt the 67 million customers in their region. Those concerns are real, as PJM struggles to maintain electricity capacity at 20 percent above peak demand, said Hoos, the energy analyst, a margin that ensures there will be enough power to prevent blackouts even in a crisis. In its most recent auction with electricity producers, PJM has been able to reach only 15 percent above peak demand. CVOW could help close the gap. ""Ultimately, the physics of needing power has to win out,"" she said. The administration on Jan. 16 called on PJM to hold another emergency auction ""to address escalating electricity prices and growing reliability risks,"" while also proposing tech companies build their own power generation for data centers. Responding to the December stop-work orders, New England's electricity authority similarly said that stopping Revolution Wind as well as Vineyard Wind would hurt grid reliability and increase costs for consumers. Rogers said that former president Joe Biden is to blame for rising electricity bills, saying that his promotion of wind and solar required unnecessary investments in grid infrastructure, while he also shut down existing coal and oil infrastructure. Durbin and others in the energy sector say the only way to alleviate the expected shortfall in electricity through the end of the decade is to build more energy projects, regardless of the source. Bureaucratic delays and bottlenecks will just drive prices up, he said. ""The full energy sector is aligned … 'Hey, let us build things,'"" Grumet said. ""With prices going up so precipitously, the administration is now feeling appropriate pressure."" The White House ""will lose the war on wind power because the fundamentals of the national interest are on the other side of that equation,"" he added. ""The question is how much harm will happen in the interim.""" 3299130317,Democrats look for a winning message on ICE tactics,2026-02-01,The Washington Post,News,A-Section,A.4,,Regional,,,Copyright WP Company LLC d/b/a The Washington Post 2026,1450,1480,"['Yasmeen Abutaleb', 'Marianna Sotomayor', 'Theodoric Meyer']","['Immigration policy', 'Primaries & caucuses', 'Polls & surveys', 'National security', 'Political leadership', 'Enforcement', 'Funding', 'Border security', 'Election results', 'Presidential elections', 'Voters', 'Border patrol', 'Political advertising']","['Texas', 'United States--US', 'Massachusetts', 'Maine', 'Illinois']",[],[],[],[],"After a year of relative silence on immigration, Democrats in tough races across the country are making President Donald Trump's aggressive enforcement tactics the focus of their campaigns. But there are still divisions over just how far to go, with many carefully avoiding the ""abolish ICE"" slogan that leaders concluded was politically toxic and may have contributed to recent election losses. Many Democrats are calling for an overhaul of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and making clear they oppose ""Trump's ICE"" - without uttering the word ""abolish."" Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Massachusetts) advocated stripping the agency ""down to its studs."" Sen. Tina Smith (D-Minnesota) said ""we need to start over with ICE"" and ""reimagine"" it. Sen. Ruben Gallego (D-Arizona), a possible 2028 presidential candidate, called for cleaning house to ""bring new leadership, bring in new standards, protocols, rules."" Steve Israel, former chair of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, said the party learned the hard way that slogans like ""abolish ICE"" and ""defund the police"" alienated centrist and independent voters. ""Voters want fairness, and they want fixes, but very few of them want anarchy,"" he said. ""Democrats have a real opportunity to lean into ending ICE abuses without falling into the trap of appearing to oppose the constitutional enforcement of immigration laws."" That has not stopped some Democrats from resurrecting the slogan - which became popular with some progressives during Trump's first term - particularly those involved in tough primaries ahead of the 2026 midterm elections, where they are trying to win over the party's left. Sen. Edward J. Markey (D-Massachusetts), who is facing a primary challenge, said last week that Democrats had an opportunity to ""defund and abolish ICE."" Democratic Senate candidates in Illinois and Michigan have also used the phrase in recent days. In Maine, Democratic Senate candidate Graham Platner said ""dismantling ICE is the moderate position."" And in Texas, Rep. Jasmine Crockett (D-Texas) and her Democratic primary rival in the Senate race there, state Rep. James Talarico, both agreed the agency needs to be overhauled. ""It's time to tear down this secret police force and replace it with an agency that actually is going to focus on public safety,"" Talarico said during a debate. Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker, a potential 2028 presidential candidate, said on a podcast that Trump had corrupted ICE so deeply that Democrats ""have to abolish it."" Other Democrats, playing offense on immigration for the first time since Trump's second term began, are more wary of overplaying their hand. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vermont) energized progressive Democrats in 2020 in part by promising to break up ICE and U.S. Customs and Border Protection if he won the presidency. But in a speech Friday on the Senate floor, Sanders criticized ""what amounts to a domestic army … terrorizing occupants,"" without calling for its demise. It's unclear whether that semantic distinction will matter with voters, or if the party's base will see it as a retreat. Democrats in Congress are united for the moment around a narrow set of demands for changes within ICE as a condition for funding the Department of Homeland Security. Republicans, who are increasingly breaking with Trump on ICE's tactics in Minneapolis, have indicated they plan to use Democrats' rhetoric against them in upcoming elections regardless of the specifics. Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) described Democrats last week as ""the same crowd that called for defunding the police - how did that work out? - or for abolishing ICE."" ""Are these people who want no enforcement of our immigration laws? Well, apparently so,"" Cornyn said on the Senate floor. GOP pollster Whit Ayres said the Democrats using the phrase are at risk of squandering an opportunity. ""It is a classic example of Democrats overreaching and going overboard on an issue where the public is currently on their side,"" Ayres said. Democrats' debate over rhetoric reflects a broader uncertainty over longer-term policy. The party for years has struggled to unite around a comprehensive immigration plan as polls have continually shown voters trust Republicans more on the issue. Democrats have whipsawed on the issue as public sentiment has shifted throughout Trump's first and second terms. But a more limited consensus is emerging among the public that DHS agents and Secretary Kristi L. Noem have gone beyond Trump's campaign promise to deport undocumented criminals. That has galvanized Democrats on Capitol Hill, almost uniformly, to demand accountability and changes. A Jan. 24 YouGov poll showed 46 percent of people supported abolishing ICE, compared with 41 percent who oppose it. That is a slight uptick from earlier in January, when a YouGov poll conducted days after Good was killed showed 42 percent of voters supported eliminating ICE as a federal agency, compared with 45 percent who opposed it. In July 2019, 33 percent of voters supported abolishing ICE. ""There seemed to be confusion coming out of the 2024 election that mass deportation was necessary, was popular and was not going to involve a level of interior enforcement we've never seen in history,"" said Andrea Flores, a former immigration adviser under Presidents Barack Obama and Joe Biden. ""This is the first time I've seen Democrats talk about reforming both ICE and the Border Patrol together, and you're seeing them be quite bold in naming longtime problems at DHS."" But there is a belief among Democrats that they should avoid tackling broad immigration changes given that, overall, polling still shows voters trust Republicans more with handling immigration, border security and crime. Many Democratic leaders concluded that their losses in 2024 were fueled by voter frustration over Biden's failure to control a surge of migrants at the southern border. Having moved left on immigration during Trump's first term, party leaders saw the results as a warning - one that pushed them toward tougher border security and away from openly resisting Trump's enforcement crackdown. Since then, Democrats have more frequently joined Republicans in backing the detention of undocumented migrants convicted of certain violent crimes and in funding DHS. They drew the line, however, at Trump's sweeping tax and budget bill, unanimously opposing the measure's $75 billion boost for ICE when it came to a vote in July. The politics have swiftly shifted as Trump's deployment of ICE agents to Minneapolis has turned chaotic and deadly. Federal agents shot and killed Renée Good on Jan. 7 and Alex Pretti on Jan. 24, and the administration immediately tried to paint both of them as violent actors threatening officers' lives. Video evidence of both shootings contradicted the administration's claims, and the outrage over Pretti's killing has forced Trump to change course. Democratic candidates have begun featuring ICE prominently in launch videos and ad buys. Maine Gov. Janet Mills (D), who is seeking to unseat Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine), featured footage of ICE agents' aggression during an operation in her home state while Mills decries their tactics and calls them ""unconstitutional."" In a crowded New Jersey House Democratic primary, an outside group has released an ad targeting former congressman Tom Malinowski for a 2019 House vote that provided $200 million for ICE. It has also united the most moderate Democrats on Capitol Hill, who oppose funding DHS until changes are made to ICE - a stark change from last year, when most moderates were joining Republicans on immigration votes. Rep. Gabe Vasquez, a moderate Democrat who represents a swing district along the New Mexico-Mexico border, told vulnerable colleagues that the vote isn't about whether they support defunding ICE, but rather about standing on the right side of the law. ""You can go back home to your districts and not only defend your position, but also do it with the moral clarity and with the courage that this moment demands of us,"" he recounted telling his colleagues. Rep. Tom Suozzi, a moderate Democrat who represents a swing district in New York and who supported funding DHS as recently as December, expressed regret in an email to constituents that he had ""failed to view the DHS funding vote as a referendum on the illegal and immoral conduct of ICE in Minneapolis."" Other moderates have made similar pivots - a sign of how the issue is resonating with swing voters. Democratic leaders have in private been pointing to recent memos from Searchlight, a newly formed Democratic think tank seeking to move the party back to the center. The group has urged Democrats not to get caught in another debate about abolishing ICE, warning that voters support immigration enforcement but want ICE's tactics to be reined in, believing its agents have been too aggressive. Instead, Searchlight says Senate Democrats should ""play hardball"" and use their leverage in government funding negotiations to demand changes to the agency. ""A majority of voters want changes to immigration enforcement,"" the memo says, citing a number of external polls. ""Taken together, these findings indicate that reform, not abolition or expansion, is the option with the strongest public consensus.""" 3299130318,"Inside Nick Reiner's life of privilege, pills and pain",2026-02-01,The Washington Post,News,Arts,E.12,,Final,,,Copyright WP Company LLC d/b/a The Washington Post 2026,1200,3907,['Amy Kaufman'],"['Thanksgiving', 'Cocaine', 'Parents & parenting', 'Heroin', 'Shootings', 'Addictions', 'Murders & murder attempts', 'Childhood']","['Los Angeles California', 'United States--US', 'Maine']","['Fonda, Henry', 'Reiner, Rob']",[],[],[],"by Amy Kaufmann in los angeles Rob Reiner lifted a turkey leg and asked those gathered around the Thanksgiving table to partake in a holiday tradition. The guests would pass the meat to one another, each taking a turn sharing what they were grateful for. Nick Reiner, Rob's son, was seated next to his father. It was 2018, and Nick was living in the guesthouse on his parents' $13.5 million compound in Brentwood, where the garden was filled with roses planted by the home's original owner, Henry Fonda. Unemployed at 25, Nick had spent a decade bouncing between this gated enclave and at least 18 rehab facilities paid for by his parents, Rob and Michele Singer Reiner. He has told stories on an addiction podcast about going to downtown Los Angeles's Skid Row to procure heroin and shooting crack cocaine in a McDonald's restroom in Maine. But after each bout of degeneracy or failed treatment, he always seemed to end up back here, with his parents. For as much as he resisted their interventions, Nick had become accustomed to the trappings of his privileged upbringing. Unlike at rehab, he had a staff to tidy up for him at home. He was so attached to his private quarters that he once demanded the family's housekeeper retrieve him from a friend's house across town so he could use his own bathroom, a childhood friend recalled. LOS ANGELES - Rob Reiner lifted a turkey leg and asked those gathered around the Thanksgiving table to partake in a holiday tradition. The guests would pass the meat to one another, each taking a turn sharing what they were grateful for. Nick Reiner, Rob's son, was seated next to his father. It was 2018, and Nick was living in the guesthouse on his parents' $13.5 million compound in Brentwood, where the garden was filled with roses planted by the home's original owner, Henry Fonda. Unemployed at 25, Nick had spent a decade bouncing between this gated enclave and at least 18 rehab facilities paid for by his parents, Rob and Michele Singer Reiner. He has told stories on an addiction podcast about going to downtown Los Angeles's Skid Row to procure heroin and shooting crack cocaine in a McDonald's restroom in Maine. But after each bout of degeneracy or failed treatment, he always seemed to end up back here, with his parents. For as much as he resisted their interventions, Nick had become accustomed to the trappings of his privileged upbringing. Unlike at rehab, he had a staff to tidy up for him at home. He was so attached to his private quarters that he once demanded the family's housekeeper retrieve him from a friend's house across town so he could use his own bathroom, a childhood friend recalled. Tensions were high that Thanksgiving, according to a guest who attended the meal with roughly 20 others. This person saw signs that Nick might be using again - using air freshener to cover smells in the billiard room, ""screaming, yelling, cursing,"" throwing tantrums so violent one longtime household employee threatened to quit. As the turkey leg made its way around the personalized place settings and professional flower arrangements, guests and family waxed rhapsodic about the bountiful blessings in their lives. Then it was Nick's turn. ""Well, I'm certainly not grateful for this f---ing food, and I'm not grateful for any of you freeloaders in my house. I just can't wait to get through this f---ing dinner so I get back my room,"" Nick yelled, according to the dinner guest. Then he threw the turkey leg at his father's plate. Rob smiled, the guest said, and picked up the leg. ""Well, that's really easy to follow. Thanks, Nick."" Like most whom The Washington Post spoke to for this story, the people who described Nick's behavior spoke on the condition of anonymity due to the sensitivity of his situation after his parents were fatally stabbed in their home in December. Facing murder charges that could carry the death penalty, Nick, now 32, and his attorneys have repeatedly postponed his plea hearing, amid reports of mental illness and questions about where his siblings Jake, 34, and Romy, 28, stand in regard to his defense. A Reiner family spokesperson declined to comment. A spokesperson for the Los Angeles County Public Defender's Office, which is representing Nick, declined to answer questions for this story. His previous attorney, Alan Jackson, has said emphatically, ""Nick Reiner is not guilty of murder."" Interviews with 14 individuals who knew Reiner, as well as interviews he gave to an addiction podcast from 2016 to 2018, paint a portrait of a complicated young man struggling to find his footing in the world. The son of one of the most celebrated filmmakers in Hollywood, Reiner viewed himself as a black sheep in his family and was often consumed by feelings of inadequacy, with occasional bursts of temper or violence that usually coincided with drug use. His parents committed endless resources toward his recovery, sending him to treatment centers where most of his peers told The Post he was goofy and well-liked. But after each rehab stint, he would return to treating his addictions casually, even when they led him to despondence and destitution. Reiner was not the only one with famous parents at the Wildwood School, an elite K-12 with two campuses in West L.A. His classmates included the sons of actors Bill Pullman and Robert Downey Jr. But Reiner stood out to Jon De Carlo, a friend who met him at Wildwood in kindergarten, for his relatively ""sheltered"" childhood. Reiner wasn't a loner, nor was he ""super popular,"" De Carlo said - an assessment shared by others. ""He would hang out with the same two or three guys at the beginning of every class,"" said Paul Manning, who taught Reiner's physical education class from sixth through eighth grade. ""Growing up, he very rarely slept out at people's houses,"" De Carlo said. ""In the summertime, instead of going to sleepaway camp or even day camp, his parents would host 'Camp Reiner' at their house for some of the kids from school."" On the final day of eighth grade, not having been invited to any end-of-year gatherings, Reiner and De Carlo decided to smoke marijuana. It was Reiner's first time trying pot, De Carlo recalled. Reiner said he didn't start dabbling with harder drugs for a couple more years. In a 2016 interview on the podcast ""Dopey,"" a comedy show about addiction on which he was frequently a guest, he told a story about the drug bust that would lead his parents to send him to rehab for the first time. One night, when he was 14 or 15, he attended a house party where a friend became so ill after taking drugs that he had to go to the hospital. Afterward, Reiner recalled on the show, he confessed to an adult at the party that he had also taken some pills, including Percocet. The news made its way to Michele, who, ""being a hysterical Jewish mother, rushed me to the hospital,"" he said. Reiner's parents sent him to Visions, an adolescent treatment center for mental health and substance abuse in Malibu. He would later describe it as ""fluffy,"" replete with private chefs, a pool, yoga and art classes. One of his roommates at Visions said Reiner was quick to make a goofy joke, endearing him to the fellow patients. At night, the boys would come up with nicknames for staff members. ""Traffic Cop"" for the former military guy, ""Paul Blart"" for a lazy one. ""His parents were there every single weekend for every session,"" the roommate said. ""They really never, ever gave up on him."" It was the beginning of the couple's all-consuming, years-long commitment to their son, said many who knew them. ""They tried everything,"" said a Brentwood mother who met the ""absolutely miserable"" couple at a community group where they sought support. ""The time these two parents spent. They're both very high-powered, busy parents. But it literally felt like they put everything down to be there physically for him. At one point, they had a 24/7 sober companion for him,"" she said. Unbeknownst to Rob and Michele, Reiner was being exposed to a tantalizing world of harder drugs at Visions. He shared a room with a boy addicted to heroin, he said on ""Dopey."" ""When I hear for 126 days how good shooting up heroin is every single night, you're going to tell me I'm not going to go out and try f---ing heroin?"" he said in 2016. ""I didn't try heroin until three or four years later. [But] the seed was planted."" A representative for Visions did not respond to a request for comment. Around age 15, in 2009, Reiner stopped attending school regularly and began working with a private tutor. ""When the lights were on, and you conversed with him, he was witty - and being witty takes a certain mental agility,"" said one person who worked with the family around that time. But Reiner also seemed listless, this person said, expressing concerns about being in the shadow of his father, the filmmaker. ""Which is so sad, because they didn't treat him like that or place that burden on him. They would have loved him no matter what,"" the person said. At 15, when many of his peers began having sex, he said he stole $200 from his parents and hired a sex worker via Craigslist to take his virginity. De Carlo, Reiner's childhood friend, remembers thinking it was an odd move - but Reiner ""had done weird s--- before."" ""There was one point where he stole his parents' car and tried to drive to Las Vegas. And I was like, 'Go, Nick,'"" De Carlo said. ""It all seemed harmless at the time, because I thought he had such a safety net that things would always go well for him. … I could never have imagined that he would be truly destitute, because his parents would always be there to take care of him and bail him out of whatever situation he was in."" By the time Reiner was 16, Rob and Michele were growing tired of his antics and launched him on a more intensive series of interventions. On ""Dopey,"" Reiner said he was sent to a program called Second Nature, a 3 1/2 -month-long wilderness program in Utah where struggling teens lived outdoors, building fires and cooking their own food. When the program was completed, Reiner enrolled at Summit Preparatory School, a therapeutic boarding school in Montana. ""I vividly remember him saying, 'You know, if I could just get my Escalade and a bunch of cocaine, I'd be fine.' That was his end goal,"" said Chris Crowley, one of four boys Reiner shared a room with. Students were allowed to see their parents every 12 weeks, and families participated in group therapy retreats. During these sessions, Crowley said, Reiner argued more loudly with his parents than other kids did with theirs. ""Him and his parents did not get along very well,"" Crowley said. ""His parents would fly in on a private jet in this little Montana town, they would get into an argument, and then next thing you know, they're flying back out."" (Summit closed in 2020; its former executive director did not respond to a request for comment.) Reiner didn't appear to resent his parents for sending him to treatment after he returned to Los Angeles, De Carlo said. In between Reiner's rehab stints, De Carlo said, the two friends would hang out, smoke weed, play with airsoft guns and watch poorly reviewed scary movies such as ""Sorority Row."" They often ate dinner with Rob and Michele, and De Carlo said he never witnessed ""any big outbursts or arguments"" between them. Reiner had returned from the Utah and Montana programs with new prescription drugs such as Adderall and Klonopin, which De Carlo said he, Reiner and their friends began experimenting with. If they tried a drug and nothing bad happened, they felt emboldened to continue their exploration. ""Parents would say, 'Drugs are bad.' And then we would try cocaine, and the next morning we'd be like, 'Whoa, I'm not suddenly a crackhead,'"" De Carlo said. ""Then it seemed like we could do any drug."" They bought bath salts from a souvenir shop on Hollywood Boulevard, and dropped acid in Pan Pacific Park when their parents thought they were seeing a movie at the Grove, De Carlo said. Then, when he was 18, Reiner reconnected with a friend from Second Nature. On ""Dopey"" in 2016, he recounted how he and his former classmate drove downtown to Skid Row to purchase heroin. After what Reiner described as an ""incredible"" first experience on the drug, De Carlo said, the two of them began seeking out more on Craigslist. Once, when Reiner and his friends were looking up the medications he had been prescribed in rehab, they were surprised to discover one meant for bipolar disorder. ""We were just kind of confused by that,"" De Carlo said. ""There was never an indicator to me that he had any serious mental health problems. That may have been something that developed later on as he got older, and I just wasn't aware of it."" Since his parents' murders, the New York Times has reported that Reiner was diagnosed with both schizophrenia and schizoaffective disorder at various points in his life. In 2020, the outlet reported, he was placed under a mental health conservatorship that ended a year later. Roughly a month before Rob and Michele were found dead, a doctor suddenly changed Nick's medication, the Times said. With new addictions mounting, the Reiners sent Nick to Alina Lodge, a New Jersey recovery center colloquially known in the community as the ""Last Chance Ranch."" It was here, Reiner later recounted on an episode of ""Dopey,"" that he threw a rock through the stained glass window of the campus chapel after staff refused to give him a certain medication. A former employee at the facility said Reiner was nearly kicked out after the incident, but his parents paid ""upwards of 20 grand"" to have the window fixed, and he was allowed to stay another six months. ""Everything was a joke to him,"" the former employee said, describing Reiner as ""violent angry."" ""He was troublesome. Loud in groups. Talked out of turn. Just disruptive."" Representatives for Alina Lodge did not respond to requests for comment. But Reiner left different impressions on different people in different circumstances. After Alina, he was sent to a long-term treatment center in rural Texas called Burning Tree Ranch. A patient who was also treated there in 2012 recalled Reiner's dry sense of humor and ""goofy energy."" He arrived just before the Christmas holiday and spent days walking around singing the hook from Paul McCartney's ""Wonderful Christmastime."" ""He would make fun of himself and commiserate about how miserable the circumstances were that we were in,"" the former patient said. He recalled Reiner once telling him, ""I hope I haven't f---ed up my life so badly that I can't do something with it."" But Reiner had still not hit rock bottom. By his own accounts, he refused to attend more rehab programs in subsequent years and at one point found himself living out of homeless shelters in Maine. He said he befriended an unhoused man who taught him to shoot crack in a McDonald's restroom and inject Wellbutrin intravenously. Afterward, Reiner told the man that his father had once starred on ""All in the Family."" The man didn't believe him, so Reiner took out his ID, he recalled on an episode of ""Dopey."" ""He was like, 'Rob Reiner's son would not be under a birch tree shooting Wellbutrin.'"" Nick would often seek out his father during his darkest moments. On another episode of ""Dopey,"" he recalled once taking acid at his parents' home. ""I started to have this thought process of, like: 'I'm tripping by myself. God forbid I do a horrible thing like jump out a window, [or] get so disillusioned that I do something crazy,"" Reiner said. He said he couldn't stop thinking about Ariel Castro, a Cleveland man in the news at the time who had been convicted of kidnapping and raping three women. With his mind continuing to spiral into the night, he decided to wake his parents. Michele retreated to a couch downstairs, and Rob invited his son to lie next to him on the bed. ""Calm down, buddy. It's okay,"" Nick said his father told him. ""I used to do this in the '60s. You come down eventually."" Reiner managed to get clean again and returned to Hollywood around 2014. His dad - fresh off a cameo in ""The Wolf of Wall Street"" and directing Diane Keaton and Michael Douglas in the little-seen rom-com ""And So It Goes"" - asked an executive producer on Fox's ""Family Guy"" if he would be willing to give Nick an internship on the show to help keep him on the straight and narrow. The three-month gig didn't require much responsibility, recalled Andrew Hollandsworth, a production assistant who supervised Reiner at ""Family Guy"" studios. For four hours each day, he would help stock snacks, print scripts and greet celebrities who arrived for recording sessions. ""Rob would drop off Nick and pick Nick up every day from this internship,"" Hollandsworth said. ""It's not like Rob Reiner isn't a busy person, and mid-city isn't that close to Brentwood. It was really admirable from that side."" Hollandsworth said people in the studios found Nick Reiner to be a ""really interesting, dynamic person"" who was refreshingly honest about his previous struggles. ""He felt like his family were all these pristine, amazing people, and he was sort of the f---up of the family,"" Hollandsworth said. ""We sort of had heart-to-hearts, and I was like: 'You have everything in front of you - all the best connections in the world. What do you want to do?' And he said he wanted to start stand-up comedy."" During the internship, Hollandsworth said, Reiner started performing at a handful of reputable comedy clubs in L.A., including the Comedy Store. No footage of his sets could be found by The Post. Reiner also began working on a project that would eventually turn into the 2016 film ""Being Charlie,"" which he co-wrote with Matt Elisofon, a friend he met in rehab. Initially, the duo envisioned the story as a half-hour sitcom. It evolved into an hour-long comedy/drama that Rob's production company, Castle Rock, pitched to various networks. When no one expressed interest, Reiner and Elisofon turned their script into a film that Rob agreed to direct. ""All along, I, for lack of a better way of coping, had been asking myself, 'What can I do to make art of this?'"" Rob told the New Yorker in 2016. ""Now that Nick was doing better, I told them, 'Maybe we can make it a movie.'"" Nick Reiner would later tell the ""Dopey"" co-hosts that the film's publicity team urged him to discuss his sobriety while promoting the film. But he was, in fact, still smoking marijuana and drinking alcohol during the press circuit. ""I don't got [addiction] licked by any means,"" Reiner admitted to Howard Stern during one interview with his dad that year. ""And I'm still very young, so who knows what will happen in five years."" Ultimately, the film made less than $33,000 worldwide and received poor reviews. Reiner tried to keep his creative career going. In 2017, he began working on a documentary about his famous grandfather, Carl Reiner. But a little over a year after ""Being Charlie"" was released, he relapsed. After reconnecting with one of his old drug dealers in 2017, Reiner said on ""Dopey,"" he got ""totally spun out on uppers"" and cocaine, stayed up for days in a row and ""wrecked"" his parents' guesthouse. He punched a television and a lamp and was put on a plane with an interventionist to yet another treatment program. During the flight, he said he had a ""cocaine heart attack,"" passed out and woke up in a hospital in Boston. On one of his last appearances on ""Dopey"" in August 2018, Reiner said he was ""smoking weed to prevent myself from smoking any other hard thing right now."" Living life as a ""functional addict"" was Reiner's ideal situation, said De Carlo. ""I think that's what he really wanted. Like, 'Maybe one day, once I'm old enough, my parents are just going to step aside and realize that I can do drugs, and it's not going to destroy me.'"" But as much as he wanted to escape his parents' rules, he ""needed his security blanket of living in a comfortable house where he could make a mess or leave dirty dishes out and not have to make his bed because someone else would take care of it,"" De Carlo said. Reiner rarely left his family's property during this period, and when he did, his parents and their staff kept close tabs on him. According to a friend of the family who stayed with the Reiners intermittently from 2016 to 2019, Reiner cloistered himself in the guesthouse, above the family's billiard and screening rooms, a few steps from his parents' residence. He had to cook in the main house, where his family placed a camera after he accidentally ""left the burner on, got distracted and almost burned down the f---ing house,"" the friend said. Signs eventually emerged that Reiner was using again. ""He would run to the gate to get deliveries for things that clearly weren't food, or suddenly it would start smelling like Febreze in the billiard room,"" the family friend said. His behavior became more volatile - ""screaming, yelling, cursing, throwing s---"" - to the point where an employee who had worked in the home for 20 years threatened to quit because he was ""genuinely scared"" of Reiner, this person said. One morning, the friend sat with Rob, drinking coffee before the rest of the house awoke. ""It's like a mansion prison,"" Rob said. ""If I knew it could be this bad with one kid, I wouldn't have had any."" Still, Rob and Michele were reluctant to escalate matters. To place an involuntary psychiatric hold on Reiner, Rob would have had to watch the ""cops wrestle my f---ing kid to the ground and handcuff him to a stretcher and then put him in a psych ward,"" he told the friend. ""I don't want to live through that."" De Carlo last saw Reiner in person in 2020. After Rob and Michele were killed and his friend was arrested, he checked his Facebook messages for the first time in a while and saw that Reiner had been asking to hang out and reconnect. ""Regretfully, it seemed like he'd been reaching out to me kind of a bit over the last couple of months,"" he said. ""And I just had been dealing with my own things, so a lot of the messages went unresponded to on my end."" De Carlo has since scheduled a forthcoming visit to Twin Towers Correctional Facility, where Reiner is being held without bail. De Carlo said he has reached out to some of their other old friends to check if anyone else wants to go with him. No one has yet to take him up on the offer. see reiner on E8" 3299130319,"From Gaza to Chicago, a life in pieces and personas",2026-02-01,The Washington Post,News,BookWorld,C.2,,Final,,,Copyright WP Company LLC d/b/a The Washington Post 2026,1280,1077,['Ron Charles'],"['Novels', 'Books']","['Chicago Illinois', 'Gaza Strip', 'United States--US']",[],[],[],[],"For too long, Naeem Murr's name has been whispered among judging panels instead of toasted in book clubs. Since his 1998 debut, ""The Boy,"" he has received the kind of critical accolades that confer honor but not sales. His latest novel, with the poetic if enigmatic title ""Every Exit Brings You Home,"" deserves to awaken a much larger audience. This is one of those rare stories that feels at once universal and impossibly strange, rooted in the ordinary challenges of the American Dream but lashed to horrors unfolding on the other side of the planet. Murr's hero is a handsome Middle Eastern man in his late 30s named Jack. He serves, dutifully, as the president of his condo association in Chicago. With the Great Recession decimating the housing market, he and all his fellow owners are underwater on their mortgages, and their shoddily converted building is groaning for costly repairs. None of that is known to Marcia, a pugnacious woman who moves into the basement garden apartment with her young daughter and elaborately tattooed partner. Immediately, Jack swoops down from the top floor to serve as host, therapist and diplomat. Juggling angry texts from an embittered neighbor - ""ARE YOU HERDING ELEPHANTS? WHAT IS HORRIBLE NOISE?"" - he welcomes Marcia and her family, sweeps their daughter up to his wife for babysitting and helps them get settled. This expansive role as the ultimate hospitality director seems natural to Jack, but we quickly learn that it's another persona constructed by ""an inchoate being,"" a lost man who's been ""diffusing himself throughout this country"" for almost 20 years. At home, Jack - actually Jamal - is a devoted husband to Dimra, a Palestinian woman who's suffered several miscarriages and hopes that IVF might finally bring them a child. But at work, Jack is a flight attendant posing as a gay man in a long-term relationship with an imaginary partner. How this bizarre duplicity began is not nearly as interesting as what it suggests about Jack's fluid desires and the clashing demands he navigates. The structure of ""Every Exit Brings You Home"" is a work of magic. The story shifts between past and present, near and far, as gracefully as dusk gives way to night. At home, Jack's contentious neighbors clamor for his attention like needy children even as his wife, whom he regards with a mixture of ""love, regret, and sorrow,"" denies her excruciating symptoms to maintain the sanctuary of their loving marriage. Meanwhile, at work, aloft in the friendly skies, Jack assumes a Midwestern accent and pretends his affections for a young stewardess are merely platonic. Murr's deft interweaving of domestic drama and political memory is the novel's central triumph. What transforms the story and will never leave you are Jack's memories of growing up in Beach Camp in Gaza. The only son of an aristocratic Egyptian and a militant Palestinian, young Jack lived in a terrarium of Western culture amid a chaotic maze of shacks. His mother home-schooled him on British classics, and by 7, he was speaking Parisian French and BBC English. He became expert at code-switching and suppressing his effeminate manners. But deeply alienated from his father, who spent half his life in Israeli jails, Jack has no way to navigate his erotic desires, which flow far outside the boundaries of Gaza's violently conservative culture. The Israeli military's cruelty inflames these pages, but any partisan reading of this novel would require ignoring Murr's attention to the structural tragedy of the quagmire in Gaza. Yes, IDF soldiers overreact with wanton disregard for human life, but Palestinian militants depend upon those overreactions - and purposely provoke them - to win more converts. And the novel's most shocking scenes involve the actions of an emerging faction called Hamas, which sadistically sacrifices Palestinians to further its cause. In short, this is not a book animated by political grievance; it's a work of art wet with the tears of generations. ""There was plenty of joy in Gaza too,"" Jack insists. But his memories of what he and his family endured there are so visceral that we return to the story of his troubles in Chicago in the same disoriented daze that he feels when his attention is wrenched back to the present day. ""The lees of the past stirred up in him,"" Murr writes, ""and he was rife with anxiety about his wife's health, her parents' survival, their own dire finances, the growing realization that he'd never be a father. This life of being no one, nowhere, would go on and on."" Freighted with this ""endemic shame,"" Jack thinks of himself as a pervert and a deviant, constantly wrestling with ""all the misaligned vectors of his being."" His wife's uncomplaining devotion starts to feel like an acid bath on his conscience. In this impossibly conflicted world, Jack's fluid sexuality becomes indicative of his struggle to transcend the strict boundaries laid out for him, to find love in a life strafed by hate. To some extent, Murr's own history mirrors that unsettled existence. The son of an Irish woman and a Lebanese-Palestinian father, he was born in England, but spent several years as a child in Beirut and finally moved to the United States in his 20s. In an interview more than a decade ago, he recalled the way his mother trained him to speak with a posh English accent, which made him an outsider almost everywhere he went. ""I grew up in a world and culture that in some ways was alien, even inimical to me. Not Lebanese, not Irish, not English, neither upper nor lower class,"" he said. ""I was without an identity - an outsider, an impostor."" Jack responds to that chronic unease with a desperation to please, to comfort, to heal everyone around him. It's an exhausting, doomed endeavor, rendered in lush searching prose that's quietly mesmerizing. The timeliness of ""Every Exit Brings You Home"" registers as both a coincidence and an indictment. The story unfolds as an exquisite sigh of desperation, of hope singed by denial and disappointment but not entirely burned away. ""This world was tragic to him,"" Murr writes, ""doubly tragic, then, that he should love it."" As Jack hovers between cultures, between wars and desires, you can't help but yearn for him to land somewhere safe. Ron Charles reviews books and writes the Book Club newsletter for The Washington Post. Every Exit Brings You Home By Naeem Murr. W.W. Norton. 320 pp. $31.99" 3299130320,Epstein photos appear to show Andrew kneeling over a female,2026-02-01,The Washington Post,News,A-Section,A.1,,Regional,,LONDON -,Copyright WP Company LLC d/b/a The Washington Post 2026,1180,720,['Karla Adam'],"['Electronic mail systems', 'Sex offenders', 'Females', 'Privacy', 'Photographs', 'Documents']",[],"['Epstein, Jeffrey']",[],[],[],"LONDON - A man who appears to be Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, the now former prince and Duke of York, is photographed kneeling on all fours and positioned over a female person. An email account labeled ""The Duke"" messages convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein to suggest dinner ""and lots of privacy"" at Buckingham Palace, a month after Epstein's house arrest ended in 2010. The message is signed ""A."" Epstein emails ""The Duke"" account to say he has a ""beautiful"" Russian woman he would like him to meet. The latest tranche of Epstein documents released on Friday by the Justice Department offers yet more documentary evidence of the long-running association between Epstein and Andrew, who was stripped of his royal titles and evicted from his longtime residence as punishment for their friendship. The documents, including previously unseen photographs and email messages, contain no allegations of criminal activity by Andrew, who has long denied any wrongdoing. But they mark a new reputational low, reinforcing how a scandal Andrew sought to paper over refuses to fade. Among the materials are photographs showing a man who appears to be Andrew crouched on all fours over a female, who is fully clothed. In one image, he is touching her stomach; in another, he looks directly at the camera. The disclosures dominated the British press over the weekend. ""Andrew invited paedophile to Palace a month after his release,"" screamed a front-page headline in the Daily Mail. ""Epstein email to Andrew: I have Russian friend for you. She's 26,"" the Daily Telegraph proclaimed. While the newly released files do not allege any criminal activity, the photographs and emails are already intensifying scrutiny of his judgment and associations - particularly given their timing. In emails sent in early August 2010, just weeks after Epstein completed a jail sentence in Florida for soliciting sex from a minor - Epstein writes to the account named ""The Duke"" saying he wants to introduce him to a Russian woman whom he ""might enjoy having dinner with."" Epstein says the woman will be in London in August 2010. ""The Duke"" replies that he will be in Geneva ""until the morning of the 22nd but would be delighted to see her."" He then asks: ""Will she be bringing a message from you? Please give her my contact details to get in touch."" ""The Duke"" asks if there is any information about the woman that might be useful, to which Epstein replies: ""she 26, russian, clevere beautiful, trustworthy and yes she has your email."" In another email, in September 2010, Epstein writes that he is in London and says, ""What time woudl you like me and [redacted], we will also need/ have private time."" ""The Duke"" replies: ""I am just departing Scotland should be down by 1800. I'll ring you when I get down if you can give me a number to ring. Alternatively we could have dinner at Buckingham Palace and lots of privacy. A."" Epstein replies: ""bp pleease."" It is unclear if Epstein ever visited Buckingham Palace. Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor did not immediately reply to a request for comment by The Washington Post. Other emails in the new trove of material appear to be from Andrew's ex-wife, Sarah Ferguson, written in April 2009. Ferguson writes that she is landing in Palm Beach in a few hours and asks, ""Is there any chance on my quick layover, that I can get to have a quick cup of tea …"" She addresses Epstein as ""My dear spectacular and special friend Jeffrey. You are a legend, and I am so proud of you."" The note is signed, ""Love, Sarah, The red Head.!!"" In another email from that month she thanks Epstein ""for being the brother I have always wished for."" Asked for a comment, a spokesperson for Buckingham Palace referred to a statement from October, when the palace said that Andrew, who is a younger brother of King Charles III, would no longer use the title of prince and would be evicted from his residence at Royal Lodge. ""These censures are deemed necessary, notwithstanding the fact that he continues to deny the allegations against him,"" the palace said, adding that ""their Majesties wish to make clear that their thoughts and utmost sympathies have been, and will remain with, the victims and survivors of any and all forms of abuse.""" 3299130321,The real-life Murdoch saga is even odder than TV,2026-02-01,The Washington Post,News,BookWorld,C.5,,Final,,,Copyright WP Company LLC d/b/a The Washington Post 2026,1170,2012,['Casey Schwartz'],"['Diaries', 'Siblings', 'Biographies', 'Books']","['New York', 'United States--US']","['Murdoch, Rupert']",['New York Post'],[],[],"BONFIRE OF THE MURDOCHS How the Epic Fight to Control the Last Great Media Dynasty Broke a Family - and the World By Gabriel Sherman. Simon & Schuster. 256 pp. $29 Journalist and screenwriter Gabe Sherman never seems to tire of the media-mogul beat. He wrote a biography of Fox CEO Roger Ailes. He wrote ""The Apprentice,"" the feature film about Donald Trump's rise in 1980s New York and his relationship with Roy Cohn. But even spending time with those psychohistories did not prepare him for the generations of cruelty he encountered while writing ""The Bonfire of the Murdochs,"" a fast-paced, personality-driven chronicle of Rupert Murdoch's family and the dramatic bequeathing of his media empire. ""A member of the family told me that 'Succession' was good but that the family was even weirder,"" Sherman said of the HBO series that was inspired by the Murdochs. ""And that stuck in my head when I was doing the book: that the real-life story was even more unexpected than the TV show."" Sherman, 46, bespectacled and jet-lagged after returning from a Christmas trip to his home state of New York, was speaking from London, where he recently relocated with his family. So what, one might reasonably ask, could possibly be ""weirder"" than ""Succession""? One example, for Sherman, is the way that Wendi Deng, Murdoch's third wife, 38 years his junior, found out that their two daughters, Chloe and Grace, would not be included in the family trust as full voting members like their four much older siblings from Murdoch's previous marriages: Lachlan, James, Elisabeth and Prudence. Wendi learned of this life-altering fact by watching an interview with her husband on ""The Charlie Rose Show."" When Rupert returned to their ranch house in Monterey, California, after the show aired, Wendi made him sleep in the garage and even, Sherman told me, disinvited Rose from a conference the couple was hosting shortly afterward. (Murdoch is on his fifth marriage now.) ""Rupert is the opposite of Logan Roy [in 'Succession'],"" Sherman said. ""Brian Cox plays him as this volatile, charismatic character. And I think Rupert is scary because he's so quiet. You have to lean in to hear him. He mumbles."" Last year, while Sherman was underway on the book, a seismic shift occurred in the Murdoch power dynamic. A lawsuit that began in the secrecy of a Nevada courtroom made clear that Rupert Murdoch was unhappy with the terms of the long-established trust, which granted the four eldest siblings equal voting rights. He wanted to give control of the kingdom, which includes Fox News, the New York Post and the Wall Street Journal, to Lachlan, the firstborn son and the one whose politics most closely mirror his father's. Lachlan supported his father's desire to rip up the terms of the irrevocable trust that would leave his intentions vulnerable to his siblings' votes. Last September, father and son got their wish. (Lachlan's three siblings closest to him in age each got $1.1 billion to help ease the pain.) Sherman has spent more than 20 years covering Murdoch and his business, starting when he was a young reporter at New York magazine. No biographer has been granted full access to Murdoch since Michael Wolff published ""The Man Who Owns the News"" in 2008. After which, Wolff told me, Murdoch, feeling betrayed, raked him over the coals for weeks in the New York Post, and the family put up walls against reporters that they still haven't fully taken down. But if anything, the family's reticence has only fueled the fiercely competitive business of breaking news about them, and in the past year major scoops have appeared in the New York Times Magazine, by reporters Jonathan Mahler and Jim Rutenberg, and in the Atlantic, by McKay Coppins. Ken Auletta, who wrote a definitive profile of Murdoch for the New Yorker in 1995 and is now working on a documentary about the family, joked that when scoops break, there's always an initial feeling among rival journalists of: ""How did they get that? I want that!"" But that quickly gives way to admiration, and a sense of the scope and urgency of the Murdoch beat. Sherman said he considers the reporting done by others additive to his mission: in this case, to write not a hyper-timely media book but a full family biography. He said that what felt revelatory in his reporting was the way in which ""the seeds of the family's destruction"" were planted from the very beginning. He learned in his research that Rupert's mother threw him into a pool to teach him to swim. Rupert almost drowned. Sherman's book maps out a long history of personal and professional betrayals. Murdoch has disposed of close mentors with barely a blink; divorced at least one wife (who happened to be Jerry Hall) over email; instructed one of his daughters (Liz) to fire one of his sons (James) - the siblings didn't speak for years because of it. Sherman describes how Murdoch was willing to boost his papers' circulation at almost any cost. In 1983, in the Sunday Times of London, Murdoch pushed through a scoop: what his paper claimed was an English translation of Hitler's lost diaries. Murdoch had done the bare minimum of due diligence, sending a non-German-speaking historian to verify the diaries' authenticity. When the story blew up in his face - it turned out that the diaries had been forged in East Germany by a petty thief using school notebooks stained with tea - Murdoch was indignant at his staff's outrage. ""We are in the entertainment business,"" he told them. When ""The Apprentice"" premiered at Cannes, Trump wrote on Truth Social that Sherman was a ""lowlife and talentless hack."" Shortly thereafter, Sherman accepted a new global talent visa and moved to London. ""It wasn't that we fled the country,"" he said. And yet, making his way back to New York for the winter holiday, he was nervous as he went through American customs. ""I was terrified that they would take my phone or look at my sources or ask me why I am living in the U.K., and I think that maybe the fear is the point, all that wasted energy of worrying about it - it creates its own kind of power for [Trump],"" he told me. Power is Sherman's great subject. Looking at the three men who have dominated his thinking in the last decade - Ailes, Trump and Murdoch - he can't help but laugh. ""I joke to my friends, I'm the most square person you can imagine. I have the most conventional life, and yet in my professional life, I'm drawn to these incredibly dark characters."" Sherman sees clear psychological commonalities in those characters. ""These were three men who came from toxic households,"" he said. ""They all acted like they needed to outpace their fathers in a way that would leave no doubt of who was the stronger man."" They all succeeded. Murdoch first got his taste for the news business from his father: When Sir Keith was home, little Rupert would sit on his bed, watching him correct manuscripts. Rupert later staged a brief rebellion against his father's right-wing values, becoming a communist while at Oxford. Locked out of his dorm one night, he slept in the local party headquarters. In the morning, a fellow member walked in. ""Morning, comrade,"" he said to the future capitalist avatar. But by the time Murdoch was 21, when his father died of a heart attack, he was ready to ditch his leftist politics and assume the mantle of his father's legacy - and so much more. As Sherman makes clear, Murdoch's great skill ever since has been making political alliances and reaping the benefits. In 1977, Murdoch's New York Post backed an unlikely candidate in the city's race for mayor: the moderate, Jewish Ed Koch, then widely rumored to be gay. When Koch won, he gave permission for the Post's delivery trucks to drive on the city's highways. ""The secret of Murdoch's power over the politicians is, of course, that he is prepared to use his newspapers to reward them for favors given and destroy them for favors denied,"" another journalistic lion, Harold Evans, who died in 2020 at 92, once wrote. Though the Murdochs didn't formally participate in Sherman's book, the author said he has spent time over the years with the four oldest children, as well as their father. ""Each family member is their own country,"" he told me. ""Each family member has their own PR adviser, their own sources that are loyal, their friends, and you have to approach each family member as its own distinct entity."" From the beginning, Sherman writes, Rupert cultivated competition and division among his offspring. Prudence, his firstborn, from a marriage to Patricia Booker, a flight attendant, largely stayed away from the family business. Elisabeth, his next daughter and first child with Anna Torv, proved herself outside her father's circle, making a success of her own production company, Shine. But there was always an old-fashioned sense that the empire would pass to a male child. And when it came to his boys, Lachlan and James, Rupert fulfilled Anna's worst fears, poisoning the sibling dynamic with rivalry and guessing games. The most three-dimensional portrait that emerges in Sherman's telling is of James, a year younger than Lachlan. James took the fall for News Corp's infamous scandal in 2011, when journalists at the tabloid News of the World were found to have hacked the phones of several people, including a murdered 13-year-old named Milly Dowler. ""I look at James and think he's someone who just needs a hug,"" Sherman said. ""There's a sadness about him that I find very genuine."" While James was a teenager, the Murdochs moved to the West Coast and left him alone in New York with the family's butler to finish high school at Horace Mann. There, he played the brooding intellectual and volunteered on archaeological digs in the summer; later, at Harvard, he pierced his eyebrow, then dropped out to follow the Grateful Dead on tour. James continued to morph identities like he was pulling clothes from a closet, a common second-son syndrome, Sherman observed. James is seen as the comparatively liberal brother, the one who, along with his wife, Kathryn, cares about climate change and peaceful transfers of power. But, Sherman told me, the story of his ""moral awakening"" is less clean than one might like. ""I think it would have been much braver if he had come out 20 years ago and said, 'I don't agree with these politics,'"" Sherman said. ""But he played the game until he lost the game."" And he resoundingly lost that game. Even Anna, who for years had fought to prevent the siblings' relationships from splintering, celebrated Rupert's final decision. ""I'm sure James and Kathryn are very comfortable in their own circle of like-minded Woke friends,"" she emailed Murdoch. ""Fox is playing a huge and important role in calling out the idiocies that surround us."" She had become, as Sherman puts it, ""Fox-ified."" (She also now has dementia, Sherman writes.) James, the eternal second son, was finally cast aside even in the judgment of his mother. Rupert Murdoch, at 94, the succession question answered, has experienced more than one health crisis in recent years that people around him thought might be The One. In a cover story for Vanity Fair in 2023, Sherman reported that Murdoch had suffered ""a broken back, seizures, two bouts of pneumonia, atrial fibrillation, a torn Achilles tendon, and Covid-19,"" many of which had been kept out of the media. ""Imagine ending your life having enabled the rise of an American autocrat,"" Sherman said when we talked. ""Every day, the more unhinged and reckless the Trump administration gets, I see that as a further indictment of Rupert's willingness to compromise his values for profit."" ""The pathology of this family,"" he added; ""we are all living with the consequences of it."" Casey Schwartz, a Book World contributing writer, is the author of ""Attention: A Love Story.""" 3299130322,Republicans relearn the lesson that shutdowns tend to go poorly for them,2026-02-01,The Washington Post,News,A-Section,A.8,,Regional,,,Copyright WP Company LLC d/b/a The Washington Post 2026,1390,1405,['Paul Kane'],"['Immigration policy', 'Local elections', 'Presidents', 'Government shutdowns', 'Deportation', 'Bipartisanship', 'Political activism', 'National security', 'Tax credits', 'Funding']",[],[],"['Department of Homeland Security', 'Republican Party']",[],[],"Just two and a half months removed from a painful government shutdown, Republicans have learned a lesson that these standoffs almost never break their way politically and should be avoided whenever possible. By a wide bipartisan vote, 71-29, the Senate approved a government funding bill late Friday that takes almost all of the fiscal risk off the table until late in the year. With President Donald Trump's support, Republicans agreed to demands from Democrats to peel off one bill funding the Department of Homeland Security and let a slew of other big agencies get their full budgets for the rest of the fiscal year. There is a lapse of funding over the weekend, technically a brief, partial shutdown that should have little impact. And that should be resolved when the House returns to session Monday and is expected to approve the plan. Lawmakers have two more weeks to try to find a compromise for Homeland Security Department funding, which if unsuccessful will leave agencies such as the Transportation Security Administration and Federal Emergency Management Agency in shutdown territory. Congress did not pass a single one of the 12 bills funding federal agencies last year and instead approved several resolutions largely maintaining the previous year's level of funding, effectively running the government on autopilot. By Monday, 95 percent of all federal funding could be set for this year. That's still four months behind schedule, but compared with last year, it's the sort of bipartisan agreement that has been in short supply of late. This also marks a real pivot from just last weekend, when both sides appeared to dig in and a shutdown seemed likely for major departments, including Defense, Labor, Homeland Security and Health and Human Services. After the Jan. 24 killing of an intensive care unit nurse by immigration authorities in Minneapolis, Trump administration officials labeled the victim a ""domestic terrorist."" Democrats threatened to block the funding bill without some tangible restrictions on federal personnel working in the mass deportation effort. The public backlash to tactics used by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents, as well as other federal authorities, led to a recalibration by Trump and many other Republicans, who watched the video of the killing and realized the initial labeling was wrong. And at the same time, both parties realized that another shutdown would not be in anyone's interest, particularly Republicans, who suffered a large degree of political blame for the 43-day government shuttering in October and November. ""I think last Saturday was a demonstration by lots of people on all sides of the issue that your impulse is oftentimes your undoing. And so I think everybody has, since then, been taking a step back, taking a breath,"" said Sen. Kevin Cramer (R-North Dakota). Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (New Hampshire), the key Democrat who negotiated the end of the fall shutdown, used more blunt terms. ""Well, hopefully people learned some lessons,"" she said Friday. Shaheen declined to say specifically what those lessons were, but the fall shutdown turned into a political debacle for Republicans, as well as Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-New York). Liberal activists felt that Trump and Republicans handled the shutdown so poorly - polls consistently showed voters blamed the GOP more than Democrats - that the minority party should have exacted more concessions, such as the extension of health care tax credits they had initially demanded. Many blamed Schumer for letting Shaheen and seven other members of his caucus cut a less-than-desirable deal. On Friday's vote, almost half the Democratic caucus joined Schumer in voting for the legislation, which was negotiated by several senior Democrats and included many liberal policy wins. The bigger shift came from Republicans, who had another chance to try to blame Democrats for causing a shutdown with their last-minute demands. This time, though, Trump set a different tone, making clear to Republicans that he did not want to go through another round of shutdown showdowns. ""I think the president was really clear that, and rightly in my view, that he didn't want to shut down. I think that was it. I think he said, 'We're not going to do this,'"" Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Missouri) said. In that regard, Trump was taking a lesson from an old GOP nemesis: Sen. Mitch McConnell (Kentucky), who during his tenure as the GOP leader had to negotiate Republicans out of several bad fiscal standoffs in the past decade. At the conclusion of a politically painful government shutdown in October 2013, McConnell used a farm metaphor to implore his GOP colleagues to never go down that path again. ""There's no education in the second kick of the mule,"" McConnell said in an interview. He turned to a theatrical metaphor to argue that shutdowns always go poorly for Republicans. ""We've seen that movie before,"" McConnell said in 2013. ""We know how it ends."" Over the last 30 years, Congress has blundered into a handful of partial or full government shutdowns, and all but one broke politically against the GOP. In the mid-1990s, then-House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Georgia) went toe-to-toe with President Bill Clinton during a pair of shutdowns. Those ended with Gingrich becoming politically unpopular and Clinton elected to a second term. In 2013, House Republicans instigated a shutdown to try to defund the Affordable Care Act, which President Barack Obama considered his landmark achievement. That ended with no concessions and a GOP brand at an all-time low. In late 2018 and early 2019, Trump instigated a shutdown over demands for Congress to fund a border wall. After five weeks Senate Republicans were in open revolt, demanding Trump back down. In early 2018, Democrats attempted a shutdown over demands for legislation to create a path to citizenship for undocumented immigrants. They backed down on the third day, realizing they had overplayed their hand. Last fall, as Democrats laid plans to block funding over their demands to extend health care tax credits, Republicans predicted that Democrats would fold quickly because they would get blamed for government services not being available. ""Democrats are playing a losing game,"" Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-South Dakota) said in a Senate floor speech Oct. 2, the second day of that shutdown. But Republicans did not run a disciplined political campaign to pressure Democrats. Trump spent a large chunk of the 43 days focused on foreign affairs, traveling overseas multiple times, and Speaker Mike Johnson (R-Louisiana) decided to keep the House shuttered to try to force Senate Democrats to break - which opened him up to bipartisan criticism. Trump's approval rating continued its slow and steady decline, dropping from 40 percent in September to 36 percent in mid-November, according to Gallup. Democrats swept early November governor's races in New Jersey and Virginia and won big in other local elections. ""I think it was pretty obvious by public opinion,"" Cramer said of the GOP's shutdown defeat. Trump's continued focus on foreign policy, including ordering the capture of Venezuela's leader, Nicolás Maduro, has done little to help Trump politically at home. A Pew Research Center poll released Thursday showed his approval rating at 37 percent, with an alarming drop in support from Republicans for the president's policies. The violence in Minneapolis came against that backdrop, leading Trump and Republicans quickly to realize their political footing on immigration and border security - traditionally one of their strongest issues - had turned into quicksand. Trying to shut down the government with such poor political standing would have been seen by many Republicans as malpractice. After a couple days of bluster, most Senate Republicans liked the idea of approving the funding bills for everything except Homeland Security. One privately likened it to a football coach strategically deciding to kick a field goal and regroup rather than going for a touchdown and risk getting no points. ""I think that this is the right outcome. People just really get it. It's really, really harmful to people when you shut the government down. You know, it really hurts working people,"" Hawley said. Cramer said the final piece of the puzzle came when Democrats agreed to pass a stopgap bill for Homeland Security and leave a few weeks to negotiate over the policy differences on the deportation effort. A painful shutdown - assuming the House can approve the package - will have been averted. ""There's a recognition on both sides that this isn't really where we want to be, so let's get through it,"" Cramer said." 3299130323,Barrier-breaking mathematician helped develop GPS,2026-02-01,The Washington Post,Obituary,Metro,B.18,,Regional,,,Copyright WP Company LLC d/b/a The Washington Post 2026,1450,1127,['Harrison Smith'],['Deaths'],"['United States--US', 'Virginia']",[],[],[],[],"As a young girl in the Jim Crow-era South, Gladys West passed the time counting fenceposts, dreaming of life beyond her family farm south of Richmond. Each day, she walked three miles to a segregated one-room schoolhouse with a leaky roof and a solitary, underpaid teacher. And each way, there and back, she counted the fenceposts along the road, discovering that she had an aptitude for numbers that would help her bridge the distance between poverty and opportunity, between a life working in the fields and a career helping society advance beyond its limits. Dr. West, who died Jan. 17 at 95, used her mathematical skills to become a barrier-breaking researcher for the Navy, mastering a bulky supercomputer known as Stretch while calculating satellite orbits and developing a precise model of the Earth's surface. Her research laid the groundwork for the Global Positioning System, GPS, a technology that has made getting lost a thing of the past. Thanks in part to Dr. West, anyone with a smartphone - or a receiver-equipped car, airplane or boat - can navigate easily from one place to the next, without having to stop to ask for directions. Without the mathematical model that she and her team helped develop, ""the extraordinary positioning, navigation, and timing accuracy of GPS would be impossible to achieve,"" the U.S. Space Force said in an online biography of Dr. West, who was named one of the military's Space and Missile Pioneers in 2018. ""I have to be honest with you, it's mind-boggling that they pulled it off,"" said Reza Malek-Madani, a retired mathematics professor at the U.S. Naval Academy, who interviewed Dr. West for a 2021 paper on her work. ""We are finding, now, that GPS finds our position within a few meters of where we are. Just the fact that we can come within the scale of a kilometer, say, was a significant accomplishment."" Dr. West's achievement was all the more remarkable given that she faced twin prejudices, as an African American and as a woman, from the outset of her 42-year career at the Naval Surface Warfare Center Dahlgren Division. When she was hired in 1956 at the base on the lower Potomac, she was one of only four Black professionals there. The installation had recently integrated, and while it took years for the surrounding town to follow suit, she sought to pave the way for other African Americans, excelling at her job even as some co-workers refused to socialize with her. ""When many of my white colleagues saw me in the bathroom, they would get this look on their face like they had seen a ghost or something,"" she wrote in her 2020 memoir, ""It Began With a Dream."" One of the base's few other Black mathematicians, Ira West, became her husband, working on Navy missile programs while Dr. West conducted the classified research that contributed to GPS's development in the late 1970s and '80s. The program's architects, including scientists such as Bradford Parkinson, Roger Easton and Ivan Getting, gained recognition even as Dr. West's name remained unknown. Her story mirrored that of mathematicians like Mary Jackson, Katherine Johnson and Dorothy Vaughan - NASA staffers who, like Dr. West, were long marginalized because of their race and gender, even as their calculations helped America win the space race. After the work of her NASA contemporaries was featured in the 2016 book and movie ""Hidden Figures,"" Dr. West stepped into the spotlight as well, aided by a fellow college sorority alum who wanted to help share her story. A 2018 profile in the Fredericksburg, Virginia, Free Lance-Star was followed by a flurry of news coverage and a commendation from the Virginia General Assembly, which passed a joint resolution honoring ""her trailblazing career in mathematics and vital contributions to modern technology."" In 2021, she became the first woman to receive the Prince Philip Medal from Britain's Royal Academy of Engineering. ""The Navy stands on the shoulders of the geniuses that have been advancing our technology,"" retired U.S. Navy Adm. Philip S. Davidson said in 2023, when Dr. West was honored in an awards ceremony at Dahlgren. ""We're standing on Dr. West's shoulders,"" he continued, ""to execute the mission of the United States."" The second of four children, Dr. West was born Gladys Mae Brown in Sutherland, Virginia, on Oct. 27, 1930. Her mother had a job at a tobacco factory, and her father worked for the railroad in addition to looking after the farm. Dr. West helped out by chopping wood, feeding chickens and joining in the tobacco harvest. After graduating first in her class, she enrolled at Virginia State College, a historically Black institution (now a university) in the nearby town of Ettrick. She majored in math - she said she liked ""the preciseness of it, the neatness of it"" - and received a bachelor's degree in 1952, followed by a master's in 1955. At Dahlgren, she helped calculate range tables for Navy weapons systems and joined an astronomical research team that established the regularity of Pluto's motion relative to Neptune. The project was said to require 5 billion arithmetic calculations and 100 hours of computing time. By the late 1970s, she was using satellite data to develop a more accurate model of the Earth's bumpy, irregular shape, one that accounted for variations in gravity and factored out the effects of the tides, winds and other forces. The shape, known as the geoid, was lumpy and potatolike - far from the traditional image of Earth as a slightly squashed sphere - and was further refined as GPS satellites took flight. While still working at Dahlgren, Dr. West received a master's of public administration degree from the University of Oklahoma and, near the close of her career, began working on a PhD in public administration from Virginia Tech. She continued to pursue the degree even after she suffered a stroke that sapped her strength and mobility. ""You can't stay in the bed,"" she recalled a voice saying. ""You've got to get up from here and get your PhD."" In 2000, she earned her doctorate. After her husband died in 2024, Dr. West moved to Fredericksburg to live with her daughter, Carolyn Oglesby. She died at her daughter's home of complications from Alzheimer's disease, Oglesby said. In addition to her daughter, survivors include two sons, David and Michael West; seven grandchildren; and eight great-grandchildren. When it came to new technologies, Dr. West proved adaptive, using Zoom to chat with journalists during the pandemic and embracing digital innovations that made computers ever smaller. GPS, of all things, was an exception. The system didn't offer the tactile experience of navigation that she had enjoyed since childhood. As she told a Virginia public television interviewer in 2020, ""I prefer maps.""" 3299130324,Husband is neglecting family dinners and chores in favor of … pickleball,2026-02-01,The Washington Post,News,Arts,E.4,,Final,,,Copyright WP Company LLC d/b/a The Washington Post 2026,870,790,['Carolyn Hax'],"['Marriage', 'Pickleball']",[],[],[],[],[],"Dear Carolyn: Can pickleball destroy my marriage? Seems like a silly question - even my therapist chuckled at the idea. But I am truly struggling. We are middle-aged, working full time, and have two elementary school kids. My husband picked up a pickleball hobby about a year ago, and it has now consumed him. His quest for more medals, tournament wins and a higher player rating has overshadowed his other priorities. He plays 20 hours a week or more - no joke, I've tracked it - averaging three hours per weekday evening and four or more on weekend days. I work an intense job, and his pickleball has resulted in my carrying much more of the child care load - pickups, bedtimes, etc. Most significantly, he regularly misses family dinners and skimps on his household duties (piles of laundry sit for weeks), and when I'm busy or traveling, the poor kids are dragged to his pickleball courts until far past bedtime on school nights. We used to have slivers of family time in our busy schedules; now it's gone. And couple time - forget it. I have no problem with the hobby itself. He has gotten healthier and made friends, and it's great for his mental health. But every time I bring up that the pickleball and family time balance is just really off, he takes offense, gets angry and accuses me of trying to tell him to stop doing something he loves. Help. I don't want him to stop completely. But the kids need their dad back, and I need to feel like I have a hubby again. I worry if this goes on, we won't survive it. - Pickleballed Out Pickleballed Out: Um. Anything to excess can destroy a marriage, of course. (And a chuckle can destroy trust in a therapist, if a real answer doesn't ensue.) Take out ""pickle,"" and everything about your question is serious. Emotional neglect of spouse and children, defensiveness, gaslighting, plus burnout for you as you pick up 20-plus hours of your husband's logistical and emotional slack every week. So, yes, your marriage is dying of pickleball. Next. The ""next,"" unfortunately, is to hold your ground calmly against his resistance to seeing it, or admitting it. Anger and accusations are painful things to have to withstand. But you also have the truth to shield you. You have it in writing here to show your husband, in recorded hours of his absences, in piles of his ignored household duties and in expanding lists of chores devolving to you. You have it in anger form at his not doing this math himself. You can wield it in unflinching repetition of your intent in bringing up balance, until he agrees to speak calmly, too: ""No, I don't want you to stop. I want some family dinners back."" Or however you'd phrase it. Some husband back. Just stay on a message that's calm, brief, unwavering - and a hard ask for him to say no to. ""So you're saying no to meals with our kids."" Not for their ears, of course. ""So if you're not at pickup, who is?"" The point of this isn't to coax or logic or shame him back into the family fold. (You want him to want it, or there really is no point.) This is about planting your flag in reality. You simply cannot communicate until you're meeting at the facts. Your husband is behaving as if the only problem with subtracting these swaths of time from you, his young kids and his duties without accounting for his absence is that YOU have a problem with it. That is someone living outside the confines of fact. Somewhere near the moon. People who do this have a reason. Depression, affairs, hyperfocus or time blindness, alienation of affection, selfishness or a basic lack of empathy. Stubbornness, even. I'll reel off possibilities, but I won't speculate as to what has hijacked your husband. Getting to some mutual agreement on reality (or discovering you can't), plus context, will help you identify it. That, in turn, will show you what's next. Ideally, it involves his ""aha"" and cutting back ladder time for family time. (He can hire and supervise coverage for his share of chores, finances permitting.) If he's immovable, then you escalate - physician, couples counselor, mediator, attorney (regardless, precautionary). Seems drastic, but these aren't the perilous spots. It's carrying all the weight and having your objections ignored while he plays on - the slow, helpless burn till your feelings are ash. That's the scariest place. The time to force the issue is while you still want him back. Write to Carolyn Hax at tellme@washpost.com. Get her newsletter delivered to your inbox each morning at wapo.st/gethax." 3299130325,Post readers rang in the new year with blossoms and a big snow,2026-02-01,The Washington Post,News,Metro,B.15,,Regional,,,Copyright WP Company LLC d/b/a The Washington Post 2026,1170,752,['Alisa Tang'],"['New year', 'Newsletters', 'Snow']","['Maryland', 'United States--US', 'Virginia']",[],[],[],[],"As editor of the Post Local newsletter, I invite readers to share their photos of life across D.C., Maryland and Virginia. In January, your photos ranged from flowers in bloom during a warmer spell to a frozen stream and fun in the snow after the winter storm. Here's how we began the new year. As editor of the Post Local newsletter, I invite readers to share their photos of life across D.C., Maryland and Virginia. In January, your photos ranged from flowers in bloom during a warmer spell to a frozen stream and fun in the snow after the winter storm. Here's how we began the new year. Remember the warm spell this month? The Capital Weather Gang says the high temperature in D.C. was 63 degrees on Jan. 7 - which was when Margaret Dikel, of North Bethesda, took this photo. ""The camellia bush in front of my house is blooming with the warmth, and some bees are taking advantage of the flowers,"" she wrote. Sandy Pugh, 74, of Vienna, took two of her grandkids to the State Fairs exhibit at the Renwick Gallery. A retired art teacher and volunteer gallery guide, she prepared quite an outing for them. ""I printed out 10 images (5 for each) of various pieces in the exhibition - and we went on a scavenger hunt,"" Sandy wrote. ""I was making my morning latte, and I saw these two foxes dart across the meadow, stop and start playing with/chasing each other in the tall grass/brush,"" wrote Noel Anderson, 58. ""Our lot is close to a neighborhood tree house and open field, which is great for observing the foxes, deer and hawks that appear often."" ""I have visited the Peacock Room several times to enjoy those Thursdays when the shutters are open. Experiencing the room as it was intended at creation is very rewarding in a subtle way,"" wrote Capitol Hill resident Molly Mullin. ""You can imagine the 19th-century London dinner parties that would have been held in it."" ""The front yard, after the storm, before the shoveling dumped more on this poor flamingo,"" wrote Eileen Schramm, 67, of Silver Spring. ""The two buddies are completely buried. Maybe they're happier there."" ""Usually she enjoys playing in the snow with her friend, Kirby,"" wrote Amanda Schwartz, 53, of Rockville. ""I was taking her out as the storm was switching from snow to sleet, and she looked at me as if I was punishing her. … We had to wait until the sleet softened to go out for our walk."" ""Oliver and his friends dug that fort out of the snow bank that the plow had pushed up in our cul-de-sac in Falls Church,"" wrote Aaron Truax, 50, Oliver's father. ""Then during the early morning, the snowplow came again and destroyed the whole thing! Now [on Jan. 26] the neighborhood kids are working to reconstruct it."" Henry Nathanson, 14, of D.C., spent Tuesday sledding at the U.S. Capitol with his sisters and mom. ""I asked my sister if she wanted to climb the 'mountain of snow' with me. … When we got on top, we were looking at the sheen of the ice layer,"" he wrote. ""I thought it would make a really cool photo."" Elizabeth Eden, 38, of Laurel, sent in this picture taken by her husband of the igloo he and their two older kids built. ""Walter and the kids say this is the coolest thing they have ever built and are happy that with these chilly temps it may last another month!"" Elizabeth wrote. ""We were in Bluemont Park, which we walked to from our house,"" wrote Stephanie McCutcheon, 50. ""It's where the big sledding hill is located, which was our original goal, but they were so excited that the stream had iced over (Four Mile Run) that we instead spent almost the entire time playing on the ice instead of sledding."" ""My pup Lottie loves to play in the snow, but she wasn't a fan of the falling sleet on Sunday and instead opted for a cozy nap on the sofa at our home in Alexandria,"" wrote Amy McPherson. ""It felt so nice and cozy to watch a movie with the fire going,"" wrote Marie Caterini, of Silver Spring. Make living in D.C. a little easier and more fun Scan this QR code to sign up for the Post Local newsletter to get local news, weather and expert advice - where to eat, where to drink and how to get around - every week day." 3299132502,Death Notice: Elizabeth Mae Shimmin,2026-02-01,Chicago Tribune,Obituary,Obituaries,,,,,,"Copyright Tribune Publishing Company, LLC 2026",1420,177,[],[],"['United States--US', 'Illinois']",[],[],[],[],"Elizabeth “Betty” Mae (Krieger) Shimmin, passed away on January 26, 2026. On January 3, 1926 Betty was born in South Bend, Indiana to Darold Krieger and Florence (Hanna) Krieger. She was the 5th among 12 children. Betty is survived by her daughter Deana (Jeff) Stillman, her “daughter” Elsa Pillar, her grandchildren Matt (LeeAnna) Pallet, David Pendleton, Tim Pendleton, Linda Pendleton, Liz (Josh) Kulzer, Becky (Sam) Brown, Mandy Stillman, 11 great grandchildren, cousin Doty Lepak who attended Betty’s wedding, nieces, nephews, and friends. She is preceded in death by her parents, her siblings, her husband Bernie, and her daughters Cindy (Larry) Pendleton, Sharon (Norman) Shimmin, and Jackie (Chuck) Forbes. Visitation will be held Wednesday, February 4, 2026 from 10 am until time of the service at 11 am at N.H. Scott & Hanekamp Funeral Home, 1240 Waukegan Road, Glenview, Illinois. Live Stream Link. In lieu of flowers or plants, memorials can be sent to support online ministries at Village Bible Church – Sugar Grove, Illinois or St. John’s Lutheran Church, Chaska, Minnesota. For full obituary go to www.nhscotthanekamp.com." 3299132503,Death Notice: Linda Manis,2026-02-01,Chicago Tribune,Obituary,Obituaries,,,,,,"Copyright Tribune Publishing Company, LLC 2026",1150,251,[],[],[],[],[],[],[],"Linda Kritz Manis, a beloved wife, mother, grandmother, and friend, passed away on January 19, 2026, at her home in Oswego, Illinois. Born on July 14, 1954, in Whiting, Indiana, Linda’s vibrant spirit and kind heart touched the lives of everyone she met. Linda was the cherished daughter of Joseph and Doris (nee Koskell) Kritz, who preceded her in death along with her beloved grandparents, Sylvia and Bill Matteson. She is lovingly remembered by her husband, Jeff Manis, with whom she shared a beautiful life filled with love and laughter. She is survived by her three children: John Manis, Karalee Manis, and Lauren (Ben) Moon and her grandchildren: Benjamin Moon, Matthew Moon, Madelynn Moon, Emma Moon, Micah Moon, Mason Manis, and Madison Manis, who were a constant source of pride and joy for her. In addition to her immediate family, Linda is also survived by her siblings: Joellen Hein, Joseph Kritz, Cindy Kruis, and Jeff Kritz. When she wasn’t busy with family or work, Linda had a passion for crafts and photography, capturing the essence of life’s precious moments through her lens. She found joy in the simple pleasures, including her love for Hallmark movies, which brought warmth and comfort to her heart. A gathering of family and friends was held on Saturday, January 31, 2026, from 3:00 PM – 4:00 PM with a prayer service at 3:30 PM at DUNN FAMILY FUNERAL HOME with CREMATORY 1801 S. Douglas Road, Oswego, IL 60543. For information, 630-554-3888 or visit her memorial page at www.dunnfamilyfuneralhome.com" 3299132504,Death Notice: Robert A. Shonk,2026-02-01,Chicago Tribune,Obituary,Obituaries,,,,,,"Copyright Tribune Publishing Company, LLC 2026",1080,241,[],[],[],[],[],[],[],"Robert A. Shonk, age 94, died peacefully Thursday, January 15, 2026, after a long illness. Born in Logan, OH, Bob served in the U.S. Army and earned accounting degrees from the University of Notre Dame and DePaul University. As finance director of the City of Evanston (1971-1998), Bob was respected for his knowledge and integrity. Bob was married to his beloved wife, Marguerite Delacoma, for 58 years, and was a devoted father to their three children. He was a fan of Notre Dame football, an avid reader, and he volunteered for St. Athanasius Catholic Church in Evanston. Bob was preceded in death by his parents, Dr. Charles Shonk and Grace Murtha Shonk. He is survived by his wife, Marguerite; his children, Katherine (Victor Hernandez), Robert, and Carrie (Chris Kranz); his sisters, Sr. Grace Shonk, CSC, Martha Laughlin (the late Michael), and Rosemary Brandl (the late Thomas); his grandchildren, Evan and Lillian; his sisters-in-law, Dorothy Andries and Wynne Delacoma; his brother-in-law, Steven Nidetz; and many beloved nephews and nieces. Visitation, Saturday, February 7, 2026, from 9 a.m. until time of Mass of Christian Burial, 10 a.m., at St. Athanasius Church of St. John Henry Newman Catholic Parish, 1615 Lincoln St., Evanston. Private Interment, Memorial Park Cemetery, Skokie. In lieu of flowers, memorial contributions may be made to the Jim Raeder Helping Hand Scholarship for students of Logan High School in Logan, OH. Funeral info: 847.673.6111 or habenfuneral.com to leave a condolence message." 3299132505,Death Notice: Jerome P. Craven,2026-02-01,Chicago Tribune,Obituary,Obituaries,,,,,,"Copyright Tribune Publishing Company, LLC 2026",1140,148,[],[],[],[],[],[],[],"Jerome “Jerry” P. Craven, U.S. Marine Corps Veteran, Retired Chicago Fireman and Local 134 IBEW. Beloved husband of Marie nee Burns for 56 years. Loving father of Annmarie (Mike) Savitski, Karen Craven, Jennine Craven, Kevin (Jami) Craven, & Brian (Maura) Craven. Cherished grandfather of Taylor Craven, Thomas Craven, Michael Craven, Bridget Finco, Fiona Craven, Hannigan Chambers, & Claire Chambers. Dear brother of Steve (Cathy) Craven, & the late Thomas & Barb Craven, Francis “Frank” & Helen Craven, Mary & George Liskewicz, Eugene & Patricia Craven, & Patricia “Patsy” & Bill Ryan. Proud uncle of many nieces & nephews. Family will greet friends and neighbors, Friday, February 6th from 9:00 am until the time of the Memorial Mass at 10:00 am at St. Bede the Venerable Church, 8200 S. Kostner Ave. in Chicago. Inurnment following at Holy Sepulchre Cemetery. Arrangements entrusted to Thompson & Kuenster Funeral Home. thompsonkuensterfuneralhome.com 708-425-0500" 3299132506,Death Notice: Albert & Susan Roupp,2026-02-01,Chicago Tribune,Obituary,Obituaries,,,,,,"Copyright Tribune Publishing Company, LLC 2026",1220,286,[],[],"['Chicago Illinois', 'United States--US', 'Vermont']",[],[],[],[],"Albert Allen Roupp (September 12, 1930–January 19, 2026) and Susan Carol (Nagy) Roupp (July 5, 1941–March 15, 2025), beloved husband and wife of 59 years, died in Vermont after long, full lives. Sue was born in Chicago, IL, and later made her home in Evanston, where she and Al raised their children. Sue had a deep love of poetry, cooking, writing, women’s rights, and liberal politics. Later in life, she discovered a passion for memoir writing and taught classes encouraging others to tell their stories. She also had a lifelong soft spot for animals, especially cats. Sue was the daughter of Charlie and Esther Nagy. Charlie was a typesetter for the Chicago Tribune during the era of linotype machines, when newspapers were still set in hot metal. Al was born in Hesston, KS, to Walter and Bertha Roupp, and raised in Elkhart, IN. After World War II, he traveled with PAX, a Mennonite service organization, helping rebuild Europe. He later studied architecture at the Illinois Institute of Technology and spent his professional life in commercial property review in Chicago, including work on major downtown buildings. He was known for his dry humor and constant projects, whether gardening, restoring woodwork, or building for his family. Al and Sue met while working at the Chicago Civic Center and married in 1966. In 2021, they moved to Vermont to be closer to family. Sue died on March 15, 2025, and Al followed on January 19, 2026, both at the Miller McClure Respite House. They are survived by their children Aimee (Roupp) Loiter (Jeffrey) and Chris Roupp (Daniella), and by their grandchildren Zachary, Talia, Cecilia, Caroline, and Augie. Donations in Sue and Al’s memory may be made to the Miller McClure Respite House, Colchester, VT." 3299132507,Death Notice: Josephine A. Koza,2026-02-01,Chicago Tribune,Obituary,Obituaries,,,,,,"Copyright Tribune Publishing Company, LLC 2026",1020,132,[],[],[],[],[],[],[],"Josephine A. Koza, age 101 years, of Mundelein, formerly of Morton Grove; beloved wife of the late Walter; dear mother of Connie (the late Jim) Scanlon, Paul (Maureen) Koza, Claudia (Richard) Ovington and David Koza; loving grandmother of 10 and cherished great grandmother of 18. She was preceded in death by 7 brothers and sisters. A memorial visitation will be held at Simkins Funeral Home 6251 Dempster St. Morton Grove, IL on Wednesday February 11th from 8:30 a.m. until departure for church at 9:30 a.m. Memorial Mass 10 a.m. at St. Martha Church 8523 Georgiana Ave. Morton Grove. Inurnment to follow at All Saints Cemetery in Des Plaines. In lieu of flowers, donations may be made to Center For Enriched Living 280 Saunders Rd. Riverwoods, IL 60015. Sign online guestbook at www.simkinsfh.com" 3299132508,Death Notice: Richard J. Loewenthal,2026-02-01,Chicago Tribune,Obituary,Obituaries,,,,,,"Copyright Tribune Publishing Company, LLC 2026",730,54,[],[],[],[],[],[],[],"Richard J. Loewenthal, age 95. Husband of the late Audrey. Dear father of Anne (Eric) Shain, Jean (Mark) Burnstine and John. Devoted grandfather of Brian (Joanna) Shain, Kevin (Jessica) Shain, Jill (Adam) Cohn and Jeffrey Burnstine. Loving great-grandfather of four. Memorials may be made to the charity of your choice. Chicago Jewish Funerals, (847)229-8822." 3299132509,Death Notice: Warren P. Brown,2026-02-01,Chicago Tribune,Obituary,Obituaries,,,,,,"Copyright Tribune Publishing Company, LLC 2026",1160,357,[],['Music'],"['United States--US', 'Illinois']",[],[],[],[],"Warren Pierce Brown died peacefully on December 28, 2025, surrounded by the love of family. The son of Robert C. Brown, Jr. and Alice Haas Brown, Warren grew up in Highland Park. After receiving his BA and MA in Education and Administration, his career highlights included teaching 5th grade science in Deerfield, Illinois, and serving as a K-12 principal in rural Ohio, Illinois. After retirement, Warren lived in the eclectic Evanston community for over 28 years. He was truly part of the fabric of the neighborhood – everyone seemed to know the kind, gentle man with his little white dogs. Warren found great joy in all kinds of music throughout his life. He was an avid listener of classical music, sang in church choirs, and played jazz piano. He passed on his love of music to his daughters and grandchildren who all became accomplished musicians and art appreciators. Warren attended many Northwestern University dance and music performances, and WFMT classical radio programming was his musical lifeline in the later years. Warren was a beloved father, papa/grandfather, neighbor, and friend – known for his compassion, unconditional love, soft-spoken advice, and cute quirky interests that he loved to share. Warren is survived by his beloved dog Lucy; his three daughters Karen A. Brown of Thiensville, Wisconsin, Kristin M. Brown of Portland, Oregon, and Karla J. Brown (Eric Traynor) of Boise, Idaho; his seven grandchildren Sean Condon (Rebecca), Emily McArdle (Tanner), Will Condon, Mia Cywinski, Clara Cywinski, Wren Traynor, and Leo Traynor; his brother Lawrence Brown (Ann); and his former wife Barbara J. Brown. Warren was preceded in death by his beloved Maltese dogs Teddy and Minnie, his parents Robert C. Brown and Alice Haas Brown, and, recently, his younger brother Ronald Brown of San Diego, CA. A memorial service will be held on February 21, 2026, at 11:00 AM in the Chapel of Peace Mausoleum at Memorial Park Cemetery, 9900 Gross Point Rd, Skokie, IL 60076. The burial will follow the service, and all are invited to attend. In lieu of flowers, kindly consider making a donation to WFMT Classical Radio or Orphans of the Storm, the animal shelter where Warren volunteered regularly and adopted his precious dog Lucy." 3299132510,Death Notice: Joseph T. Magee,2026-02-01,Chicago Tribune,Obituary,Obituaries,,,,,,"Copyright Tribune Publishing Company, LLC 2026",500,14,[],[],[],[],[],[],[],"2/4/1928 – 2/8/2021 Happy Birthday, Hon. You are in our hearts, always and forever. Your beloved Maureen." 3299132511,Death Notice: Paul Menely Randle,2026-02-01,Chicago Tribune,Obituary,Obituaries,,,,,,"Copyright Tribune Publishing Company, LLC 2026",1340,294,[],[],[],[],[],[],[],"Paul Menely Randle, age 66, died peacefully on Thursday, January 15, 2026, surrounded by his family. He was born on June 14, 1959, in Chicago, Illinois, to Mariann (Menely) Randle and the late Burton (Givens) Randle. Devoted husband of Tina M. Randle for the last 11 years. He was preceded in death by his father Burton G. Randle (2023), his eldest brother John K. Randle (2004), his aunt Virginia Randle Loveland (James), and cousin Janice Loveland Jaworsky. He leaves behind his wife, Tina M. Randle, his mother Mariann M. Randle, his daughter Jennifer M. (Matthew) Randle-Kilbride, his step-son Aaron J. (Tiffany) Landers, his five grandchildren who he absolutely adored, Adalynn, Loegan, & Ashlynn Kilbride, Kenosha, WI, AJ Landers & Jamie Landers, Grayslake, IL, his elder brother David B. Randle, Skokie, IL, and cousin Randle J. (Cate) Loveland, Vancouver, WA. Paul had the biggest heart imaginable. He was humble, kind, funny, and hard working. Whenever someone needed a hand with anything big or small, Paul was always there to help in any way he could, with a big smile. He always put everyone ahead of himself. Paul’s Celebration of Life will be held on Saturday, February 7, at Warren Cemetery, 1475 N. Cemetery Road, Gurnee, IL, with Visitation at 10:00am, Service at 11:00am, Burial at 12:00pm, and Light Reception at 12:30pm. www.warrencemetery.com . In Lieu of flowers, at Paul’s request as an avid animal lover, gifts may be given to Save-A-Pet, a No-Kill animal shelter, 31664 N. Fairfield Rd in Grayslake, IL, with a note saying “In Memory of Paul Randle.” Donations of time volunteered, monetary gifts, or items listed on their website are greatly appreciated. https://www.saveapetil.org . A donation box will be present that day at the service. A memorial brick will be given in Paul’s memory from the family at Save-A-Pet." 3299143700,BESTSELLERS,2026-02-01,Los Angeles Times,News,Sunday Entertainment; E; Calendar Desk,E.10,E.10,Home Edition,Calendar Desk,,"Copyright Los Angeles Times Feb 1, 2026",740,508,[],"['Autobiographies', 'Books']",[],[],['Simon & Schuster Inc'],[],[],"Paperback bestsellers lists and more at latimes.com/bestsellers. Southern California bestsellers from CALIBA *--* Fiction weeks on list 1. The Correspondent by Virginia Evans (Crown: $28) A 21 lifelong letter writer reckons with a painful past. 2. Half His Age by Jennette McCurdy (Ballantine Books: 1 $30) A teenager embarks on a secret relationship with her teacher in the debut novel by the author of the bestselling memoir ""I'm Glad My Mom Died."" 3. Heart the Lover by Lily King (Grove Press: $28) A 17 woman reflects on a youthful love triangle and its consequences. 4. What We Can Know by Ian McEwan (Knopf: $30) A 18 genre-bending love story about people and the words they leave behind. 5. The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny by Kiran Desai 16 (Hogarth: $32) The fates of two young people intersect and diverge across continents and years. 6. Lost Lambs by Madeline Cash (Farrar, Straus & 2 Giroux: $28) A family comes undone in a small coastal town. 7. James by Percival Everett (Doubleday: $28) An 82 action-packed reimagining of ""The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn."" 8. The First Time I Saw Him by Laura Dave (Scribner: $29) 3 A woman and her stepdaughter must go on the run after someone from their past reappears in the sequel to ""The Last Thing He Told Me."" 9. Crucible by John Sayles (Melville House: $33) A 1 sweeping historical novel about Henry Ford and his attempt to rule Detroit. 10. Twelve Months by Jim Butcher (Ace: $30) Professional 1 wizard Harry Dresden struggles to move on after narrowly managing to save Chicago. *--* *--* Nonfiction weeks on list 1. Firestorm by Jacob Soboroff (Mariner Books: $30) An 3 account of the Palisades fire from a journalist who reported on the ground as his hometown was destroyed. 2. A Marriage at Sea by Sophie Elmhirst (Riverhead 18 Books: $28) The true story of a young couple shipwrecked at sea. 3. One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against 25 This by Omar El Akkad (Knopf: $28) Reckoning with what it means to live in a West that betrays its values. 4. Football by Chuck Klosterman (Penguin Press: $32) 1 The culture writer gets to the bottom of the country's most popular sport. 5. Bread of Angels by Patti Smith (Random House: $30) 11 A new memoir from the legendary writer and artist. 6. 1929 by Andrew Ross Sorkin (Viking: $35) An 14 exploration of the most infamous stock market crash in history. 7. The Let Them Theory by Mel Robbins (Hay House: $30) 50 How to stop wasting energy on things you can't control. 8. Separation of Church and Hate by John Fugelsang 8 (Avid Reader Press/Simon & Schuster: $30) A takedown of Christian hypocrisy and a call for compassion. 9. Strangers by Belle Burden (The Dial Press: $30) A 2 woman explores her marriage, its end and the man she thought she knew. 10. The Uncool by Cameron Crowe (Avid Reader 11 Press/Simon & Schuster: $35) The filmmaker recounts his wild experiences as a teenage music journalist. *--*" 3299143702,"Voices: Impeaching Noem would send a message: People notice who is protected, who is sacrificed and who is allowed to lie with impunity",2026-02-01,Los Angeles Times,Commentary,Main News; A; Opinion Desk,A.17,A.17,Home Edition,Opinion Desk,,"Copyright Los Angeles Times Feb 1, 2026",1040,698,['Matt K Lewis'],"['Border patrol', 'Immigration']",[],"['Noem, Kristi L', 'Trump, Donald J']",[],[],[],"The Trump administration's response to the two recent killings in Minneapolis has achieved the peculiar distinction of being both horrifying and ridiculous at the same time -- like watching ""The Death of Stalin,"" except without the self-awareness or the courtesy of being fiction. One of the faces of this farce is that of Kristi Noem, the cowgirl-hat-wearing secretary of Homeland Security, who told the nation that Renee Good and Alex Pretti were ""domestic terrorists,"" while the immigration officers who killed them were just practicing, you know, wholesome, all-American defensive shooting. It takes a special kind of audacity to announce the exact opposite of what everyone can plainly see on viral videos. Which raises an obvious question: Why would anyone attempt a lie this naked and doomed? Noem became a serial prevaricator the same way that teenager in the old anti-drug ad learned to smoke weed: ""I learned it by watching you."" Trumpworld is a finishing school for shamelessness. Graduates are taught that prudence is weakness, apology is surrender and reality itself is alterable -- if you just say the right words with enough swagger. In this environment, everyone must butch up, flex, overcompensate and constantly project toughness, cruelty and dominance. But strictly adhering to the MAGA prime directive isn't enough to guarantee your job. Eventually, some loyalists get thrown under the bus. They're sacrificed not for disobedience, but for no longer being useful. We saw this recently when the Border Patrol commander, Gregory Bovino, was ousted from his role in Minneapolis. Bovino wasn't demoted because Trumpworld suddenly discovered he did something immoral or incompetent, but because the polls moved, Republicans got spooked and the boss needed a scapegoat. Which brings us back to Noem -- and the question of whether she deserves to be the focus of our attention and lawmakers' next impeachment campaign. Noem didn't create this culture. Nor did she pull the trigger. So why focus on Noem? Why obsess over mere words? Norm Macdonald once recalled a fellow comedian saying the worst part about Bill Cosby's fall from grace was the hypocrisy. Macdonald disagreed. The worst part in his opinion? It was the sexual assault. (Cosby was convicted in 2018.) Likewise, in Minneapolis, the killing is obviously the worst part. But Noem's lying is the part that probably tells us the most. The killings reveal a poisonous enforcement culture on the ground. But the subsequent propaganda campaign exposes the political culture upstream that nourished it and that now insists black is white and 2+2=5. Critics argue that removing Noem would change nothing. The structure remains. The incentives remain. Trump and Stephen Miller would still be perched at the drafting table, designing systems that incentivize brutality and punish restraint. This critique is fair -- but incomplete. Messages do not always flow neatly from the top. They seep downward through example. People notice who is protected, who is sacrificed and who is allowed to lie with impunity while staring straight into the camera. Cultures don't change overnight; they change when consequences interrupt the status quo. Besides, going after Noem does not preclude other efforts to rein in immigration agencies or dismantle Trump's cruelty-industrial complex. This is not the whole war. It's one front. Noem is not the source of the rot. But she is one of its most prolific messengers. Holding her accountable would not cleanse the system -- but it would expose it. A Senate trial could unearth new information and force a further public confrontation with the lies told to excuse violence. If Republicans vote to defend the indefensible, that's their choice. Conversely, in the event that some moderate Republicans decide to break from Noem and Trump, that's helpful in a different way. And if Trump refuses to remove Noem, that refusal also clarifies the stakes -- stakes that can be revisited, loudly and publicly, in November's midterm elections. The argument is not that impeaching Noem would fix everything. It's that refusing to try -- when action is warranted, meaningful and achievable -- would be a missed opportunity and an abdication of responsibility. A line has been crossed. Kristi Noem crossed it. And in any functioning republic, that's when someone -- at or near the top -- must be shown the door. CREDIT: CONTRIBUTING WRITER, Matt K. Lewis is the author of ""Filthy Rich Politicians"" and ""Too Dumb to Fail.""" 3299143708,Voices: State violence can dehumanize us all. You aren't powerless: The worst response to killings by immigration authorities would be acceptance. There's a lot you can do instead.,2026-02-01,Los Angeles Times,Commentary,Main News; A; Opinion Desk,A.16,A.16,Home Edition,Opinion Desk,,"Copyright Los Angeles Times Feb 1, 2026",1070,1114,['Pablo Alvarado'],"['Violence', 'Deportation', 'Manual workers', 'Oppression', 'Murders & murder attempts', 'Immigrants', 'Dehumanization', 'Immigration']",[],"['Trump, Donald J']",['National Day Laborer Organizing Network'],[],[],"Millions of us saw what the killers did to Renee Good and Alex Pretti on the icy streets of Minneapolis. Millions of us are witnesses to the violence. Like it or not, this forces us to make a decision. We know what happened -- what are we going to do about it? For many thousands, the answer is to keep showing up and speaking out. The good people of Minneapolis are carrying on the work of Good and Pretti. They are bearing nonviolent witness to a campaign of dehumanized violence against immigrants and people of color. In the face of terrifying armed aggression, they are fighting back, armed only with their humanity. As disaster rages around them, they have decided to be the helpers. And in working to save immigrants, they are also saving themselves. Today I'm asking everyone, all of us, all across the country -- to do the same. I'm not asking you to step into any line of fire. We don't want more martyrs. I'm just trying to persuade you to take some action wherever you are, now, today, this week -- to stop yourselves from being dehumanized. At this moment, in this terrible time, we should all be deeply worried about state violence. Worried about the death of our democracy. Worried about the violations of human rights that always go hand in hand with dehumanization. But although we all talk of President Trump dehumanizing his many enemies and victims, too few of us are identifying the dehumanization of the rest of the population, of those not in the deportation crosshairs. I am speaking, respectfully, of you -- you who are watching the news, sharing the videos, reading op-eds and wondering what to do. People can bring dehumanization upon themselves when they commit cruelty and violence. When they brutalize the weak and innocent. But they can also shed their humanity when they tolerate such abuse by others, or ignore it, or allow themselves to grow numb to it. Facing up to horrors is difficult. But we damage our souls by tuning out. The rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel, a refugee and survivor of Nazi genocide, warned of the danger when he said that the opposite of good was not evil but indifference. ""There is an evil which most of us condone and are even guilty of: indifference to evil,"" he wrote. ""We remain neutral, impartial, and not easily moved by the wrongs done to other people."" This is one reason the second Trump administration has been a humanitarian catastrophe -- not just for immigrants who live face to face with terror every day, but also for Americans who are going on with their lives, looking in the other direction. This dehumanization doesn't happen immediately. Of course we are moved by tragedy and sickened by state-sanctioned brutality. We feel anger and anguish. We want to do something. But over time we feel helpless. And when the next video circulates, we might not click the link. We close our eyes. We distract ourselves with something less grim. I've been defending immigrant workers ever since I immigrated here myself from El Salvador in the 1990s. All of our efforts at the National Day Laborer Organizing Network have been to build immigrant power from the bottom up -- often in the face of dehumanizing language and harassment. Where there are large groups of day laborers, mostly men, seeking work in public, we have worked, joyfully, to defend their rights, ease neighborhood tensions and help them make their communities more prosperous. We immigrants have faced xenophobic headwinds for decades, but things got precipitously worse after 2015. Trump went down his golden escalator and said he was running for president to stop the flow of rapists and criminals from Mexico. Everything since then -- the border wall, the Muslim bans, the workplace raids, the deportation quotas, the vigilante gangs, the slurs and lies about ""shithole countries"" and immigrants eating cats and dogs, the executions in the street -- has been built on and flowed from the attempted dehumanization of brown and Black immigrants. Two innocent white allies of immigrants were slaughtered in Minneapolis this month, by armed men enforcing Trump's dehumanizing lies. But innocent Latino shoppers were also slaughtered at a Walmart in El Paso in 2019 by a man who believed Trump's dehumanizing lies. Last September, a Mexican immigrant, Silverio Villegas Gonzalez, was shot dead by federal agents near Chicago. These shootings are steadily increasing and all are horrifying, though not all of them have resonated equally. Then there are the deaths in immigration detention and the deaths from causes other than gunfire. If you know about the tragic toll and turn the page, if you see and look away, then you, too, have been dehumanized. If you have no more time or patience to read the stories about the violence and terror, if you are numb to the point of indifference about deportations, torturous detention conditions, the suffering of little children separated from their mothers and fathers-- then I would suggest that maybe it's your humanity in peril. We cannot succumb to indifference. We cannot give in to helplessness -- that's where dehumanization happens. Think of the shameful acts of the men with masks and guns. The ICE agent who puts on his boots and armor and mask, and makes himself into a faceless instrument of terror. No wonder he hides his face! There is no pride in his work, only shame. Whatever tokens of humanity he might possess -- kindness, understanding, mercy -- he sheds for his shift. He is failing the test. Is there any escape from this dehumanization trap? The Brazilian philosopher Paulo Freire says yes. ""As the oppressors dehumanize others and violate their rights, they themselves also become dehumanized,"" he writes. But when the victim stands up and resists, something shifts: ""As the oppressed, fighting to be human, take away the oppressors' power to dominate and suppress, they restore to the oppressors the humanity they had lost in the exercise of oppression."" In the first Trump term, people often remarked that ""the cruelty is the point."" This time it's the numbness. What can we do to free ourselves and our country? Something. Anything. Just don't remain silent. Don't go on about your day. Do something in your community. Do something good for someone this president hates and targets. Visit someone stuck at home. Patronize an immigrant small business. Adopt a day-labor corner. Join an ICE watch patrol. Give to a GoFundMe campaign. Go to a food bank. Share this op-ed. Post something on social media. You don't have to fail. There's a lot you can do. Be good. Be yourself. Be human. CREDIT: GUEST CONTRIBUTOR, Pablo Alvarado is co-executive director of the National Day Laborer Organizing Network, which advocates for immigrant and low-wage workers." 3299143710,"NOTHING'S CERTAIN, BUT COUNT ON THE GRAMMYS TO SHAKE THINGS UP: WITH KENDRICK, GAGA AND BAD BUNNY AT THE TOP OF THE LISTS, ALL BETS ARE OFF. HERE ARE PREDICTIONS ON WHO WILL WIN AND ALSO WHO SHOULD.",2026-02-01,Los Angeles Times,News,Sunday Entertainment; E; Entertainment Desk,E.8,E.8,Home Edition,Entertainment Desk,,"Copyright Los Angeles Times Feb 1, 2026",1490,1667,['Mikael Wood'],"['Nominations', 'Awards & honors', 'Musical performances', 'K-pop music', 'Voters']",[],"['Lamar, Kendrick', 'Nelson, Willie', 'Doechii', 'Bieber, Justin', 'Antonoff, Jack', 'Nelson, Lukas', 'Lady Gaga (musician)', 'Church, Eric', 'Mars, Bruno', 'Cyrus, Miley', 'Eilish, Billie']","['Linkin Park', 'Bon Iver']",[],"['GRAMMY AWARDS', 'MUSIC INDUSTRY']","A year after Beyonce finally took home a long-overdue award for album of the year, music's royalty will gather Sunday night to find out what fresh justice or outrage might be served up during the 68th Grammy Awards. Kendrick Lamar leads the field with nine nominations, followed by Lady Gaga and the producers Cirkut and Jack Antonoff, each of whom have seven, and Bad Bunny, Sabrina Carpenter, Leon Thomas and the recording engineer Serban Ghenea, each of whom has six. The telecast, set to air live on CBS from Crypto.com Arena in downtown Los Angeles, will be hosted by Trevor Noah (for what he says is the final time) and will feature performances by Carpenter, Thomas, Clipse, Pharrell Williams, Addison Rae, Alex Warren, Olivia Dean and others. Here are my predictions for how the night will go down across 13 categories -- along with the winners I'd pick if I were handing out the awards. -- ALBUM OF THE YEAR Bad Bunny, ""Debi Tirar Mas Fotos"" Justin Bieber, ""Swag"" Sabrina Carpenter, ""Man's Best Friend"" Clipse, ""Let God Sort Em Out"" Lady Gaga, ""Mayhem"" Kendrick Lamar, ""GNX"" Leon Thomas, ""Mutt"" Tyler, the Creator, ""Chromakopia"" Most insiders agree that the Grammys' top category amounts to a three-way race between Kendrick Lamar, Lady Gaga and Bad Bunny, none of whom has ever won album of the year. Lamar and Gaga both have been nominated four previous times, which means either could benefit from the kind of ""It's their turn"" energy that helped push Beyonce to victory with ""Cowboy Carter"" after four earlier losses; a win for Bad Bunny would mark the first time a Spanish-language LP took album of the year -- an attractive prospect, perhaps, to voters longing to send a message to President Trump amid his aggressive actions with ICE. That said, the Recording Academy never goes too long without making a choice that baffles everybody, as when Jon Batiste beat Olivia Rodrigo and Taylor Swift in 2022. Will win: Kendrick Lamar, ""GNX"" Should win: Bad Bunny, ""Debi Tirar Mas Fotos"" -- RECORD OF THE YEAR Bad Bunny, ""DTMF"" Sabrina Carpenter, ""Manchild"" Doechii, ""Anxiety"" Billie Eilish, ""Wildflower"" Lady Gaga, ""Abracadabra"" Kendrick Lamar with SZA, ""Luther"" Chappell Roan, ""The Subway"" Rose and Bruno Mars, ""Apt."" Among the nominees, Bruno Mars owns this category: If he and Rose win with ""Apt."" -- the first song by a K-pop act to be nominated for record of the year -- he'll become the only artist with four record trophies to his name. (Right now he and Paul Simon each have three.) Yet with ""Luther,"" which prominently samples Luther Vandross and Cheryl Lynn's rendition of Marvin Gaye and Tammi Terrell's ""If This World Were Mine,"" Lamar and SZA have precisely the kind of intergenerational hit that Grammy voters love. Lamar also has some momentum after taking home record and song last year with ""Not Like Us."" Only three other acts have gone back to back in record of the year: Billie Eilish, U2 and the late Roberta Flack. Will win: Kendrick Lamar with SZA, ""Luther"" Should win: Kendrick Lamar with SZA, ""Luther"" -- SONG OF THE YEAR ""Abracadabra,"" written by Cirkut, Lady Gaga and Andrew Watt (performed by Lady Gaga) ""Anxiety,"" written by Doechii (performed by Doechii) ""Apt.,"" written by Amy Allen, Brody Brown, Roget Chayahed, Cirkut, Omer Fedi, Philip Lawrence, Bruno Mars, Rose and Theron Thomas (performed by Rose and Bruno Mars) ""DTMF,"" written by Bad Bunny, Marco Daniel Borrero, Scott Dittrich, Benjamin Falik, Hugo Rene Sencion Sanabria, Tyler Spry and Roberto Jose Rosado Torres (performed by Bad Bunny) ""Golden,"" written by Ejae and Mark Sonnenblick (performed by Huntr/x) ""Luther,"" written by Jack Antonoff, Roshwita Larisha Bacha, Matthew Bernard, Ink, Scott Bridgeway, Sam Dew, Kendrick Lamar, Sounwave, SZA and Kamasi Washington (performed by Kendrick Lamar with SZA) ""Manchild,"" written by Amy Allen, Jack Antonoff and Sabrina Carpenter (performed by Sabrina Carpenter) ""Wildflower,"" written by Billie Eilish and Finneas O'Connell (performed by Billie Eilish) As usual at the Grammys, the nominees for song of the year overlap heavily with those for record of the year. (The record prize goes to performers and producers, while the song prize goes to songwriters). Here, in place of Chappell Roan's ""The Subway"" is ""Golden,"" the chart-topping K-pop banger from Netflix's animated ""KPop Demon Hunters."" That addition would seem to bode well for ""Golden,"" which just won a Golden Globe and is nominated for original song at March's Academy Awards. Don't count out Eilish or Mars, though -- both are two-time victors in a category nobody's ever won three times. Will win: ""Golden"" Should win: ""Golden"" -- BEST NEW ARTIST Olivia Dean Katseye The Marias Addison Rae Sombr Leon Thomas Alex Warren Lola Young Only Leon Thomas has a second nod in one of the four big categories, which tells you something about the strength of his support among voters compared to that of his fellow nominees. Yet Thomas faces stiff competition from Olivia Dean, a young English soul singer in the mold of previous Grammy faves like Adele and Amy Winehouse; what's more, she seemed to peak as a pop-cultural presence in December, right as academy members were filling out their ballots. Also worth considering: Nine of the last 10 winners in best new artist have been women. Will win: Olivia Dean Should win: Addison Rae -- POP VOCAL ALBUM Justin Bieber, ""Swag"" Sabrina Carpenter, ""Man's Best Friend"" Miley Cyrus, ""Something Beautiful"" Lady Gaga, ""Mayhem"" Teddy Swims, ""I've Tried Everything But Therapy (Part 2)"" In the last decade, only two LPs -- Ed Sheeran's ""/"" and Ariana Grande's ""Sweetener"" -- have won this award without also being nominated for album of the year. So figure that Miley Cyrus and Teddy Swims are both long shots. Among the remaining nominees, ""Mayhem"" feels likeliest to win, though it's worth pointing out that after Carpenter's triumph last year with ""Short n' Sweet,"" she could become the first artist to carry pop vocal album twice in a row. Will win: Lady Gaga, ""Mayhem"" Should win: Lady Gaga, ""Mayhem"" -- RAP ALBUM Clipse, ""Let God Sort Em Out"" GloRilla, ""Glorious"" JID, ""God Does Like Ugly"" Kendrick Lamar, ""GNX"" Tyler, the Creator, ""Chromakopia"" Lamar has lost this award exactly one time -- to Macklemore & Ryan Lewis (as though any serious Grammy watcher could forget). The fact that two of the other nominated LPs -- Clipse's ""Let God Sort Em Out"" and Tyler, the Creator's ""Chromakopia"" -- made it into album of the year suggests the race is probably as tight as it's ever been. I still expect Kendrick to prevail. Will win: Kendrick Lamar, ""GNX"" Should win: Kendrick Lamar, ""GNX"" -- CONTEMPORARY COUNTRY ALBUM Kelsea Ballerini, ""Patterns"" Tyler Childers, ""Snipe Hunter"" Eric Church, ""Evangeline vs. the Machine"" Jelly Roll, ""Beautifully Broken"" Miranda Lambert, ""Postcards from Texas"" After Beyonce won the country album prize last year, the academy split that award into two: one Grammy for contemporary country album, another for traditional country album. (The academy insists its decision had nothing to do with complaints from Nashville types about Beyonce's win.) This is the 11th nomination for Eric Church, who's never won a Grammy; his ""Evangeline"" album is the type of ambitious concept piece that voters often admire. Will win: Eric Church, ""Evangeline vs. the Machine"" Should win: Eric Church, ""Evangeline vs. the Machine"" -- TRADITIONAL COUNTRY ALBUM Charley Crockett, ""Dollar a Day"" Lukas Nelson, ""American Romance"" Willie Nelson, ""Oh What a Beautiful World"" Margo Price, ""Hard Headed Woman"" Zach Top, ""Ain't in It for My Health"" As Lukas Nelson pointed out to me a few weeks back, nods for him and his dad, Willie, mean the Nelson family has a 40% chance of winning this category. So too does producer Shooter Jennings, who oversaw the recording of both Lukas' ""American Romance"" and Charley Crockett's ""Dollar a Day"" at the historic Sunset Sound studio in Hollywood. Will win: Willie Nelson, ""Oh What a Beautiful World"" Should win: Zach Top, ""Ain't in It for My Health"" -- ROCK ALBUM Deftones, ""Private Music"" Haim, ""I Quit"" Linkin Park, ""From Zero"" Turnstile, ""Never Enough"" Yungblud, ""Idols"" Only one woman or female-fronted act (in this case Paramore) has won rock album in the last quarter-century -- not a great sign for Haim and its underappreciated ""I Quit."" To my mind, this category comes down to the reunited Linkin Park versus Yungblud, who likely caught many an older voter's eye with a show-stopping performance of Black Sabbath's ""Changes"" at Ozzy Osbourne's 2025 farewell concert. Will win: Yungblud, ""Idols"" Should win: Haim, ""I Quit"" -- ALTERNATIVE MUSIC ALBUM Bon Iver, ""Sable, Fable"" The Cure, ""Songs of a Lost World"" Tyler, the Creator, ""Don't Tap the Glass"" Wet Leg, ""Moisturizer"" Hayley Williams, ""Ego Death at a Bachelorette Party"" The Cure has never won a Grammy, which is obviously dumb (and which probably means the band won't now). Previous wins by Wet Leg and Bon Iver put the odds in their favor; Bon Iver's talk of retiring might give him a slight edge among voters eager to celebrate his entire career. Will win: Bon Iver, ""Sable, Fable"" Should win: Bon Iver, ""Sable, Fable"" -- TRADITIONAL POP VOCAL ALBUM Laila Biali, ""Wintersongs"" Jennifer Hudson, ""The Gift of Love"" Elton John & Brandi Carlile, ""Who Believes in Angels?"" Lady Gaga, ""Harlequin"" Laufey, ""A Matter of Time"" Barbra Streisand, ""The Secret of Life: Partners, Volume 2"" Would you believe Barbra Streisand has somehow lost this award 13 times? Standing in her way this year are Lady Gaga, who's previously won it twice for both of her duet albums with the late Tony Bennett, and Laufey, who's built a very devoted following as a kind of jazz-adjacent Taylor Swift. Will win: Lady Gaga, ""Harlequin"" Should win: Laufey, ""A Matter of Time"" -- SONGWRITER OF THE YEAR Amy Allen Edgar Barrera Jessie Jo Dillon Tobias Jesso Jr. Laura Veltz Amy Allen and Tobias Jesso Jr. both have previously won this award, which was handed out for the first time in 2023. Each had enough success last year to justify another win, though Barrera's work with Karol G, Shakira and Juanes might inspire voters to recognize another worthy talent. Will win: Amy Allen Should win: Edgar Barrera -- PRODUCER OF THE YEAR Dan Auerbach Cirkut Dijon Blake Mills Sounwave Despite his work on two album of the year nominees in ""GNX"" and ""Man's Best Friend,"" Jack Antonoff was passed over for a nod in this category for the second year in a row. (Perhaps members of the committee that selects nominees for producer of the year are trying to spread the love after Antonoff's three earlier wins.) Cirkut's seven total nominations -- for his work on ""Mayhem"" and ""Apt."" -- make him the favorite. But Dijon's creativity was the most exciting to behold as heard on Bieber's ""Swag"" and his own album ""Baby."" Will win: Cirkut Should win: Dijon CREDIT: POP MUSIC CRITIC" 3299143726,"BUSINESS: Don Lemon's arrest escalates Trump's clashes with journalists: The former CNN anchor arrested Friday has never been afraid of controversy, despite some career setbacks.",2026-02-01,Los Angeles Times,News,Main News; A; Business Desk,A.12,A.12,Home Edition,Business Desk,,"Copyright Los Angeles Times Feb 1, 2026",1310,1382,['Stephen Battaglio'],"['Journalism', 'Presidents', 'Journalists', 'Careers', 'Arrests', 'Television news', 'Social networks']","['Chicago Illinois', 'Los Angeles California', 'United States--US']","['Haley, Nikki', 'Trump, Donald J', 'Lemon, Don']",['CNN'],[],"['LEMON, DON', 'REPORTERS', 'ARRESTS', 'CONSPIRACY', 'MINNEAPOLIS (MN)', 'CHURCHES', 'DEMONSTRATIONS', 'IMMIGRATION AND CUSTOMS ENFORCEMENT (U.S.)', 'IMMIGRANTS', 'DEPORTATION', 'JOURNALISM', 'CENSORSHIP', 'HARASSMENT']","For years at CNN, Don Lemon had been a thorn in the side of President Trump, frequently taking him to task during his first term over his comments about immigrants and other matters. On Friday, the former CNN anchor -- now an independent journalist who hosts his own YouTube show -- was in a federal courtroom in Los Angeles and charged with conspiracy and interfering with the 1st Amendment rights of worshipers during the Jan. 18 protest at the Cities Church in St. Paul, Minn. Lemon was arrested by federal agents in Los Angeles on Friday, along with a second journalist and two of the participants in the protest of the U.S. government's immigration enforcement tactics in Minneapolis. Lemon identified himself at the protest as a journalist. His attorney said in a statement Lemon's work was ""constitutionally protected."" ""I have spent my entire career covering the news,"" Lemon told reporters after he was released on his own recognizance Friday afternoon. ""I will not stop now. There is no more important time than right now, this very moment, for a free and independent media that shines a light on the truth and holds those in power accountable. Again, I will not stop now. I will not stop, ever."" The scene of a reporter standing before a judge and facing federal charges for doing his job once seemed unimaginable in the U.S. The arrest marked an extraordinary escalation in the Trump administration's frayed relations with the news media and journalists. Last month, the FBI seized the devices of Washington Post reporter Hannah Natanson in a predawn raid as part of an investigation into a contractor who has been charged with sharing classified information. Such a seizure is a rare occurrence in the U.S. Last spring, the Associated Press was banned from the White House. The AP sued White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt and two other administration officials, demanding reinstatement. Even the Committee to Protect Journalists, an organization that monitors and honors reporters imprisoned by authoritarian government regimes overseas, felt compelled to weigh in on Lemon's arrest. ""As an international organization, we know that the treatment of journalists is a leading indicator of the condition of a country's democracy,"" CPJ Chief Executive Jodie Ginsberg said in a statement. ""These arrests are just the latest in a string of egregious and escalating threats to the press in the United States -- and an attack on people's right to know."" For Lemon, 59, it's another chapter in a career that has undergone a major reinvention in the last 10 years, largely due to his harsh takes on Trump and the boundary-pushing moves of his administration. Lemon's journey has been fraught, occasionally making him the center of the stories he covers. ""He has a finely honed sense of what people are talking about and where the action is, and he heads straight for it in a good way,"" said Jonathan Wald, a veteran TV producer who has worked with Lemon over the years. A Louisiana native, Lemon began his career in local TV news, working at the Fox-owned station in New York and then NBC's WMAQ in Chicago, where he got into trouble with management. Robert Feder, a longtime media columnist in Chicago, recalled how Lemon was suspended by his station for refusing to cover a crime story that he felt was beneath him. ""A memorable headline from that era was 'Lemon in Hot Water,' "" Feder said. But Lemon's good looks and smooth delivery helped him move to CNN in 2006, where his work was not always well-received. He took over the prime time program ""CNN Tonight"" in 2014 and became part of the network's almost obsessive coverage of the missing Malaysia Airlines Flight 370. (Lemon was ridiculed for asking an aviation analyst if the plane might have been sucked into a black hole.) Like a number of other TV journalists, Lemon found his voice after Trump's ascension to the White House. He injected more commentary into ""CNN Tonight,"" calling Trump a racist after the president made a remark in the Oval Office about immigrants coming from ""shithole countries"" to the U.S. After George Floyd was murdered by a police officer in Minneapolis in May 2020, Lemon's status as the lone Black prime time anchor on cable news made his program a gathering place for the national discussion about race. His ratings surged, giving CNN its largest 10 p.m. audience in history with 2.4 million viewers that month. Lemon's candid talk about race relations and criticism of Trump made him a target of the president's social media missives. In a 2020 interview, Lemon told The Times that he had to learn to live with threats on his life from Trump supporters. ""It's garnered me a lot of enemies,"" he said. ""A lot of them in person as well. I have to watch my back over it."" Lemon never let up, but CNN management had other ideas. After Warner Bros. Discovery took control of CNN in 2022, Chief Executive David Zaslav said the network had moved too far to the political left in its coverage and called for more representation of conservative voices. Following the takeover, Lemon was moved out of prime time and onto a new morning program -- a format where CNN has never been successful over its four-decade-plus history. Lemon's ""CNN Tonight"" program was built around his scripted commentaries and like-minded guests. Delivering off-the-cuff banter in reaction to news of the moment -- a requirement for morning TV news -- was not his strong suit. He had a poor relationship with his co-anchors Poppy Harlow and Kaitlan Collins. The tensions came to a head in February 2023 after an ill-advised remark he made about Republican Nikki Haley, who had been running for president. Lemon attempted to critique Haley's statements that political leaders over the age of 75 should undergo competency testing. ""All the talk about age makes me uncomfortable -- I think it's a wrong road to go down,"" Lemon began. ""She says politicians, or something, are not in their prime. Nikki Haley isn't in her prime -- sorry -- when a woman is considered to be in her prime in her 20s and 30s, maybe 40s."" Harlow quickly interjected, asking Lemon a couple of times, ""Prime for what?"" Lemon told his female co-anchors to ""Google it."" It was one of several sexist remarks he made on the program. Lemon was pulled from the air and forced to apologize to colleagues, some of whom had called for his dismissal. He was fired in April 2023 on the same day Fox News removed Tucker Carlson. Lemon was paid out his lucrative CNN contract and went on to become one of the first traditional TV journalists to go independent and produce his own program for distribution on social media platforms. ""Others might have cowered or taken time to regroup and figure out what they should do,"" said Wald. ""He had little choice but to toil ahead."" Lemon first signed with X in 2024 to distribute his program as the platform made a push into longer-form video. The business relationship ended shortly after new X owner Elon Musk sat down for an interview with Lemon. Musk agreed to the high-profile chat with no restrictions, but was unhappy with the line of questioning. ""His approach was basically 'CNN but on social media,' which doesn't work, as evidenced by the fact that CNN is dying,"" Musk wrote. An unfazed Lemon forged ahead and made his daily program available on YouTube, where it has 1.3 million subscribers, and other platforms. He has a small staff that handles production and online audience engagement. In addition to ad revenue from YouTube, the program has signed its own sponsors. While legacy media outlets have become more conscious of running afoul of Trump, who has threatened the broadcast TV licenses of networks that make him unhappy with their coverage, independent journalists such as Lemon and his former CNN colleague Jim Acosta have doubled down in their aggressive analyses of the administration. Friends describe Lemon as relentless, channeling every attempt to hold him back into motivation to push harder. ""You tell him 'you can't do it,' he just wants to do it more,"" said one close associate. Wald said independent conservative journalists should be wary of Lemon's arrest. ""If I'm a conservative blogger, influencer, or YouTube creator type, I would be worried that when the administration changes, they can be next,"" Wald said. ""So people should be careful what they wish for here.""" 3299143727,IT'S TIME FOR THE HAPPY COUPLE TO RIP OFF MASKS: LUKE THOMPSON AND YERIN HA ON NAVIGATING THE SPOTLIGHT AS THE LATEST FANTASY MATCH IN A NEW 'BRIDGERTON' SEASON. SPOILERS AHEAD.,2026-02-01,Los Angeles Times,Interview,Sunday Entertainment; E; Entertainment Desk,E.4,E.4,Home Edition,Entertainment Desk,,"Copyright Los Angeles Times Feb 1, 2026",920,2574,['Yvonne Villarreal'],"['Television programs', 'Actors']",[],[],['Netflix Inc'],[],"['THOMPSON, LUKE', 'HA, YERIN', 'BRIDGERTON (TELEVISION PROGRAM)']","Luke Thompson and Yerin Ha are lounging on a blue velvet couch in a swanky green room inside of Netflix's offices in New York, bracing for the whirlwind that inevitably envelops every pair of actors who become the central couple in a season of the popular romance drama ""Bridgerton."" And they're still settling into the idea of being romantic leads. ""It doesn't feel real,"" Ha says fresh into their first press day in early December. ""Because for a very long time, I didn't think that it was possible for me -- maybe I should have dreamed bigger. To keep saying that I'm the lead of a season feels really bizarre."" ""But maybe that's a way of coping with it,"" Thompson says. ""I remember in Season 1, I just finished a Zoom call and I just sat in my living room and it was the first time I really touched into the idea that millions of people are watching this thing. Millions of people. And I never did it again."" ""You just did it for me now,"" Ha says with a smidgen of dread that launches the pair into laughter. ""That's not really helping."" Thompson, though, isn't feeling the pressure of keeping the romance alive and extremely meme-able as they take up the mantle of the Regency-era fairy tale. ""It's a show that's proven time and time again that there's huge appetite for romance,"" he says. ""It was a genre that might have been, not looked down on, but not really taken very seriously. To be able to incarnate some projection of romance for people, particularly in January and February, when people are feeling a bit miserable, maybe, it's lovely to be part of that."" The duo play Benedict and Sophie, affectionately dubbed #Benophie, a couple whose story gives the classic Cinderella tale a bit of steam and is one that readers of Julia Quinn's ""An Offer From a Gentleman,"" which inspired this season, know well. Thompson's Benedict, whom ""Bridgerton"" viewers have come to know as the artistic, pansexual second-oldest son of the Bridgerton clan, has long shown disinterest in settling down or adhering to societal norms. But then in Part 1 of Season 4, released Thursday, he meets Sophie Baek, a maid in her abusive stepmother's home, at a masquerade ball hosted by his mother. Viewers eventually learn Sophie's servitude is forced after her parentage is revealed -- she's the illegitimate daughter of an earl. Showrunner Jess Brownell says this season, they were interested in prodding the wish-fulfillment fantasy many of us were introduced to at a young age. ""We learn about them as children from Disney movies,"" she says. ""For us, though, in interacting with this trope, it was really important to interrogate it a little bit. I think what our interrogation hopefully reveals is that oftentimes it's the prince figure or the man of a 'higher station' who ... needs to do some work on himself, to step out of his fantasy life a little bit and step more into reality to be worthy of the love of a Cinderella-type. It's not to say that the Sophie character doesn't have her own journey to go on, I think that she absolutely has to let her walls down and has to allow herself to dream of and believe in the possibility of love."" Over a video call from that cozy couch inside Netflix's offices, Thompson and Ha discussed navigating the spotlight as the newest ""Bridgerton"" couple, this season's very unromantic declaration of love and trying to capture a swoon-worthy meet-cute behind an oversized mask. -- The excitement for this season is already in full effect. How are you feeling about Benophie as the couple name? Am I even pronouncing it right? Thompson: I don't know! Ha: I think that is right. I initially said Ben-off-ee like Banoffee pie, but then I realized it wouldn't make sense because it's So- fee. So Ben-o-fee would make more sense. Thompson: There's been a couple of fun AI pictures. Ha: I actually just got one yesterday from my mom about our kids, our future kids. [Thompson laughs.] And I was like, ""Mom, why are you on the internet looking at these things?"" So it's really out there, and I'm really being fed it out of my own will, but it's amazing to see people already so excited about it and wanting to create things and future possibilities. It's quite amazing. And the fans are actually so lovely. Thompson: I think that's one of the best things about social media, actually; that whole aspect of people projecting or imagining themselves or creating stuff sometimes. That's something that we never used to be able to really get a handle on, but to be able to see the amount of energy and thought that people put into it is kind of amazing. Ha: Also creative artistry. So many fans are drawing, sketching. It's incredible. The amount of talent that people just share with us, it's really beautiful. -- This being ""Bridgerton,"" the chemistry between Benedict and Sophie is so crucial to the magic of their story and how it develops over time. Tell me about the chemistry read. What do you remember about meeting each other? Thompson: It was like this. Ha: You're third wheeling with us. Thompson: It was on Zoom. Ha: I was in Korea. It was 11 p.m. and I was trying to manage my nerves the entire day, which was quite stressful. And then I logged on, you [Thompson] were there. You had a striped shirt on, I remember -- quite vividly, actually. I said that he looked quite tired. Maybe it was me projecting, thinking that he was having lots of auditions, reading with lots of people by then. Thompson: I'm trying to think how many; we hadn't auditioned that many people because it's a very particular part. What we were asking or looking for was fairly particular. That's the other thing I thought: How are we going to be able to do a chemistry read on Zoom? With all the awkwardness of doing it on Zoom -- having to pretend that you're turning your back and there's a lake and having to sort of mime in front of the camera is so, so cheesy -- despite all of that, I just remember reading scenes with you and feeling very relaxed. You know it when you see it. As soon as the Zoom call ended, I told you, Tom Verica [an executive producer and a director of the series] was a bit teary, and we were like, ""Well, obviously it's her."" Ha: Obviously the stakes are so high on my end, because he's already in the show, so I was so focused on just trying to be present and not trying to force anything. I think that's when it gets a little bit weird. I just remember looking at you in the screen, and Luke's such an open person anyways, and so it was quite easy to do the scene, despite that there was lots of interjections in the audition scene that we had to do, but we just pushed through. -- What were the scenes that you had to do together that day? The lake scene -- Thompson: The lake scene and the tea scene. Just two. -- In the world of romance, how two characters meet is often as important as how they get together. And the masquerade ball holds a lot of excitement and expectations for fans of the book. How did you feel tackling that scene? Did the masks help alleviate any nerves? Ha: For me, it was a bit more pressure in the sense that my mask is so big [ Thompson laughs], it's hard to actually be quite expressive when your cheekbones are hidden under this mask. I just remember sometimes Tom would be like, ""You got to express more with your eyes and your lips."" Thompson: It's basically like you were wearing a paper bag. Ha: Yes! So, that was a challenge, but also, in a way, sometimes masks make you feel a little bit invincible ... Sophie, especially in that night, the mask makes her brave and courageous; when she takes off the physical mask, that's when the metaphorical mask actually comes into play. Thompson: You're right. The mask thing is integral to how they both meet. They even talk about it when they're on the gazebo, the terrace; they have that whole scene where it is all about asking questions, not answering questions. To Benedict, [with] Sophie you're constantly like, ""Is she in earnest? Does she actually not know how to dance? Is she joking that she doesn't know how to dance? Is she playing the role of someone?"" There's so many different questions about it -- and I think that's what's so romantic about it. It's so recognizable because that's always what love at first sight is. It's not that in that moment, two people completely see each other; there's a game that starts happening. It's all about what they allow the other to see or not, and sometimes there's these really nice bits where they keep missing each other. There's that amazing bit ... when she's spying through the door, and then just as she leaves, Benedict looks. It's the pattern of their relationship, it's how it's always been -- and it starts in this amazing little dream. -- Benedict's sexuality, his fluidity, has been something the writers have explored in building his overall arc. How will that be discussed or addressed as his relationship with Sophie develops? Thompson: It's a tricky one, right? Benedict is quite striking as a character -- I can understand why people see all sorts of identities and words that would apply to him in a modern context. A lot of particularly male sexuality, generally, can be portrayed in quite a box-y, angsty way -- where it's like, ""Oh, you're either gay or you're straight, or this or that."" What's nice about a character is that it's a unique construction. It's not a representation of any particular experience. It seems like, for him, his sexuality isn't necessarily a big determiner of his identity; it is a symptom of him wanting to explore. He's curious and he's open. I guess what I'm trying to say is, if you're truly open, that means you can form a connection with anyone. You could argue that it's a force that has kept him, so far, at least, in a relentless chase for freedom and dodging the falling in love part, and I think I'm more interested in that. -- About that -- let's get into his misguided declaration of love at the end of Part I. You read the books, you knew it was coming. It was the moment we've come to expect from this show -- until the last line where he asks her to be his mistress. How did you decide to play that moment? Thompson: It is contextual, historically. There's that scene in the Gentleman's Club where, clearly, he can see that there are people who have that arrangement and do love each other. But I also think that's a cop-out. That's maybe trying to soften what is essentially Benedict's main flaw. He's been shown to be caring in many ways. But I also think the problem with someone like that is, if you're charming to everyone, how can you develop something specific with one person? All of his front makes it very difficult for him to fall for someone, and to really engage and really commit to someone. Him saying that thing can be seen as him trying to have his cake and eat it -- like, I'm going to splice the sort of fantasy I've got and the real world, and just mash it together and that will work. -- Yerin, how did you feel about it? Ha: I was so disappointed. I remember when we were doing the scene, I did actually feel genuinely angry. Benedict lives more in the fantasy realm, and Sophie definitely lives in more of the reality realm, but in that moment, it's almost like she's getting drunk on his words. She's almost imagining as if there's going to be a proposal, even though she knows that back in those days, that wouldn't even really work. But she's hoping and dreaming. But the minute he says that, she wakes up and she realizes, ""Actually, this can never be""; her walls are back up. It almost takes her back to a place of her childhood and how she feels as a kid. ... It brings a lot of trauma back for her. I just remember doing that scene and feeling like I wanted to slap Benedict. Thompson: We should have tried it. One take. I think people would have loved that. -- Did you work with an intimacy coordinator for that scene? How was it to film that first moment of intimacy between the characters? Ha: It was really hot on the set -- literally, metaphorically. It was hot. It was the candles, and the air traveled up and it was a tiny, narrow set. But Lizzie, our intimacy coordinator, she is the best, she is incredible. There's different ways that you can kind of go about it, where it's paint by numbers or a blueprint, and just find your way to like A, B and C, which is more the vibe that we went through. She's so amazing in the energy and space that she creates. She guides us and listens to each of us and what we need and how to make it maybe look a little bit nicer or rougher or whatever it is. I really lean on her as an intimacy coordinator, and felt very safe in those scenes because it is quite vulnerable and exposing. Thompson: It was a security blanket, isn't it? It's just nice having someone to monitor it, so you're not just stuck, just you two, or you and the director, who sometimes, in my previous ... experience, directors are often quite embarrassed about those scenes, which drives me mad because I'm like, ""You're not the one that has to do this."" It's all about trust. It's very important to have that person there to facilitate and to have an outside eye on it because what feels good doesn't necessarily look good. You need to have them choreographed because the actors can only really relate from the inside out, so they don't know what stories are being told outside. -- The first half ends with Benedict and Sophie at a crossroads, an impasse. Thompson: Benedict and Sophie meet in dream scenarios. They meet in the masquerade ball, which is Sophie's dream. Then they meet in [Benedict's] cottage, which is sort of Benedict's dream place. Then in [Episode] 4, they have to go back to the ton and the real world. It's a struggle that everyone knows very well, when you fall for someone, and there's the honeymoon period where you're spinning this story together. Then it's like, how do you deal with the real world, and how do you deal with getting bored with each other or getting angry with one another? It'll be interesting to see how they find each other again. Ha: Even reading the scripts, I was like, how are they going to make this work, especially acknowledging the class difference as well, nobility and her being a servant. Fans will really want to see how it all plays out. When society tells you can't be with someone, what are you going to do about it? Are you going to surrender to that or are you going to fight for it? That's going to be the journey for Part 2." 3299143728,LETTERS,2026-02-01,Los Angeles Times,Letter to the Editor,Main News; A; Letters Desk,A.16,A.16,Home Edition,Letters Desk,,"Copyright Los Angeles Times Feb 1, 2026",1310,862,[],"['Immigration policy', 'Stock prices', 'Recycling', 'Executive orders', 'Plastic pollution']","['Los Angeles California', 'United States--US']","['Trump, Donald J']",[],[],[],"An overreach or needed action? Re ""Trump order skirts permit rules,"" Jan. 28 PRESIDENT Trump's executive order attempting to override Los Angeles and California authority over rebuilding permits after the January 2025 wildfires is an unprecedented and dangerous federal overreach. Permitting and land-use regulation have always belonged to cities and counties, protected under the 10th Amendment. The Federal Emergency Management Agency is not equipped to replace local building departments, and allowing developers to ""self-certify"" compliance risks unsafe rebuilding and added confusion for Palisades and Altadena families trying to recover. If Washington truly wants to help survivors, it should deliver long-delayed disaster funding, ensure insurers pay claims fairly and support the local systems already moving recovery forward. This order is not about speeding rebuilding -- it is about political control. Los Angeles needs partnership and resources, not a federal permitting takeover. Steven Kern Los Angeles :: I haven't cheered Trump for a very long time, but I certainly did when he signed the executive order in an effort to help fire victims rebuild sooner. I only regret that this order was top-down rather than bottom-up. We should all be challenging the permitting requirements right here. Property owners should have the right to move forward with rebuilding right now. After all, they pay taxes, including property taxes, and their tax money should not be used against them in rules and regulations. Plus, these excessive permitting requirements have obviously discouraged building and therefore, I believe, been a factor in homelessness. Building permit requirements must go. The executive order is hopefully a start. The real reason local and state officials are upset is because the order is a threat to their power and their ability to fill government coffers. Alice Lillie Pomona -- Rethinking plastic pollution Re ""How to fight epic fail in plastics recycling,"" Jan. 26 It has been clear for some time that recycling will not be the answer to the problem of plastic pollution. Even disregarding cost, there are just too many types of plastics, too many objects that mix plastic types or combine them with other materials, too many small bits and too many items that are impossible to disassemble. Instead, we need to rethink our approach. An easy one is to replace plastics with other substances when possible (e.g., using paper or cloth bags instead of plastic ones), but that's also not practical in general -- the truth is that plastic is often a far superior solution to a problem. My hope is that chemists are working on alternative molecules that will do what plastics can do, but won't break down into microplastics and instead will become something that can be disposed of safely. For more than a century, we have been inventing new materials without consideration to what will happen to them when we are finished with our creations. It is time to think about the full life cycle of what we build, and be sure we are building things that won't kill us later. Geoff Kuenning Claremont :: James Rainey misses the entire concept of recycling in his first sentence. Too much of the current packaging and too many of the products are not recyclable. Unless manufacturers produce more truly recyclable packaging and products, nothing will ever change. It can be done! Jim Robinson Encinitas -- Trump needs to shift priorities Re ""How officials propose to address housing costs,"" Jan. 26 The article written by Gavin J. Quinton points out that we have a housing shortage and increased housing costs. Per the polls cited, the majority of Americans disapprove and are unhappy with the way President Trump is handling the economy, and he now says that affordability is a hoax. That's despite the fact that he championed affordability at his rallies in 2024, which helped get him elected. Prices are up in home- buying, rent, groceries and healthcare. Wages are not keeping up with inflation, but Trump has a concept of a plan. To add gasoline to the fire, Trump is targeting blue states and threatening to revoke federal funding based on child-care and immigration policies. We currently have a labor shortage in the construction business, and his immigration policies are making it harder for home builders to meet the demand. Trump's priorities need to shift from appeasing his billionaire friends with tax cuts, and instead focus on the majority of Americans who need help. As Bill Clinton famously stated, ""It's the economy, stupid."" Anastacio Vigil Santa Monica -- Hype doesn't equal success Re ""Why Tesla shares rise even as profit outlook sinks,"" Jan. 28 The recent rise in Tesla's stock price, even as the company's sales outlook has weakened, shows a worrying disconnect between Wall Street and the real state of its business. While investors focus on future opportunities like autonomous vehicles and robotics, the core electric-vehicle business is showing slowing demand and weaker earnings prospects. Tesla's forecasted profits have dropped sharply while its stock valuation keeps rising far beyond what traditional measures would justify. This trend suggests that excitement and speculation are driving the market more than actual performance. Rewarding companies based on future dreams rather than present results risks creating bubbles that can harm everyday investors when reality catches up. Strong leadership and innovation matter, but they must be matched by solid sales and financial health. True value does not come from hype. We should be cautious when stock prices climb despite clear signs of struggles in the underlying business. Arav Mestry Fremont" 3299143729,ESSENTIAL CALIFORNIA: This hardware store has love on its shelves,2026-02-01,Los Angeles Times,News,California; B; Metro Desk,B.1,B.1,Home Edition,Metro Desk,,"Copyright Los Angeles Times Feb 1, 2026",1010,781,['James Rainey'],[],"['California', 'United States--US']",[],[],[],"['LOS ANGELES COUNTY', 'HARDWARE STORES', 'FAMILY OWNED BUSINESS', 'CUSTOMER SERVICE']","The Urban Dictionary offers many definitions for the noun ""baller,"" including this one: ""An individual with status derived from possession of 'game.' "" I like that. And it might also be applied to Baller Hardware, the store that has been a Silver Lake staple for 66 years. It's clearly a place that's gained status, derived from the possession of a certain kind of old-school game. That game involves fairness, customer service and heart. When I dropped by Tuesday for a visit, customers couldn't tell me enough about how much they love the place and its employees for being so relentlessly familiar, noncorporate and adept at advising on everything from kitchen cleaners to bathroom remodels. I visited Baller because Essential California reader Laurie MacDonald wrote when we asked readers to name local businesses they couldn't live without. The E.C. team still wants to hear about other essential local places, from Imperial County in the south to Siskiyou County, way up north. So write EssentialCalifornia@latimes.com with your favorites. What makes Baller (the name rhymes with ""valor"") so unusual is that it has been run by the same family for four generations, since Edward and Edith Baller founded the place in 1959. The Hyperion Avenue store is a throwback to a time of individualized service in an era of big-box anonymity and diminishing expertise. (There's a second store in Highland Park.) -- Inventory full of small-town charm Among the things you can get at Baller that you'll find almost nowhere else: a personal store account. Once approved, you can come in and buy whatever you want and the checker will just add it to your tab, to be billed later, when you're not in such a hurry. ""I think especially for people who live here in Silver Lake, they just love this place,"" said Michael Koepke, a 30-year customer who works in the entertainment industry. ""It has kind of a family, small-town feel in the middle of the big city. I've seen everyone here get older, myself included. That's what this represents: just local. No big-box."" Koepke stopped in Tuesday to pick up a Baller hoodie for his daughter, away at college in Boston, so she can rep her Silver Lake pride. The hoodies and T-shirts have been flying off the shelf recently, an ode to both the store and the street cred of being associated with all things ""Baller."" David Woodard, a producer in show business, said he's not the least bit mechanical. ""The people here really know what they're doing. They can tell me what I need,"" said Woodard, who lives nearby and stopped by Tuesday for some paint. ""If they sold food, I wouldn't have to go any place else."" That feeling of security became even more important recently, one shopper said, when federal immigration agents began regularly detaining workers outside Home Depot locations in Southern California. ""I was here early one morning and all of a sudden there were a lot of Black and brown people here and they were like, 'No, we're not going to Home Depot,' "" said Jan Jacobsen, a former executive in Disney's theme park division. ""You could see the relief on their faces to be here. And it warmed my heart, because everyone is treated with dignity and respect here."" -- Four generations selling bolts, bulbs Baller isn't big. Or fancy. It's got gray linoleum floors, worn to nothing in front of the cash register. Tools hang from peg-board walls. Trays of nuts, bolts and screws mean you can buy just as much as you need. The family also operates an art supply store, just across the street. Joe Klaas, 46, is one of a fourth generation of descendants of the Baller family elders who founded the place. He's been stocking shelves and mixing paint here since he was 10 years old. Asked if he is now the manager, Klaas replied: ""We don't really do titles here. Everyone just kind of does what needs to get done."" Klaas said many regulars take seriously a local business promotion that urges ""Keep the silver in Silver Lake."" ""I have people who want something common like a light bulb and if we're out of it, we will put in on order and call them when we get it,"" Klaas said. ""They'll wait a week to get this light bulb, just from us. That's how loyal they are."" Klaas and his brother, Derek, run the place along with a couple of uncles. Joe Klaas' two teenage children have shown no interest in taking over. ""But I don't think I'd ever want to retire,"" he said. ""Mostly now, I'm coming in and talking to customers and hanging out with them. That's what I like more than anything."" -- This article originally appeared in The Times' Essential California newsletter. To subscribe, visit latimes.com/newsletters." 3299143730,BUSINESS: L.A. pipe maker says law firm filed bogus asbestos lawsuits,2026-02-01,Los Angeles Times,News,Main News; A; Business Desk,A.12,A.12,Home Edition,Business Desk,,"Copyright Los Angeles Times Feb 1, 2026",1510,951,['Laurence Darmiento'],"['Mesothelioma', 'Conspiracy', 'Manufacturing', 'Attorneys', 'Asbestos', 'Law firms', 'Litigation', 'Racketeering', 'Fraud']","['Los Angeles California', 'United States--US']",[],['JM Eagle'],[],"['LOS ANGELES', 'JM EAGLE (COMPANY)', 'SUITS', 'ASBESTOS', 'EMPLOYEES', 'LAW FIRMS', 'FRAUD']","A Los Angeles pipe manufacturer that has been sued thousands of times for allegedly causing asbestos-related disease in workers handling its products is accusing a leading law firm of filing fraudulent cases. J-M Manufacturing, which does business as JM Eagle, filed a federal RICO lawsuit Wednesday in Illinois alleging the Gori Law Firm in Edwardsville, Ill., brought sham lawsuits against it as part of a strategy to reach costly mass settlements. The lawsuit alleges the law firm's plaintiffs -- who might suffer from lung cancer or mesothelioma, a rare aggressive organ cancer caused by asbestos -- were coached by trained attorneys to identify the company's pipe as the source of their exposure, even when that was demonstrably false. It accuses the law firm of a ""systematic scheme of fraud operating beneath the surface of ostensibly ordinary asbestos litigation."" The company said it learned of the alleged fraud after a former attorney at the firm came forward. ""We are outraged by these ridiculous claims from an asbestos company. These scare tactics will not stop us from fighting for justice for our clients who are hurt by manufacturers like J-M Manufacturing Co.,"" the firm said in response to the lawsuit. The firm's website says it has ""recovered"" more than $4 billion for its clients. Asbestos is a mined fibrous silicate that was widely used in home insulation, automobiles and other applications through the 1970s until its use was slowly phased out as its health effects became widely known. JM Eagle is a large producer of plastic and PVC pipe, a business it got into in 1982 after purchasing those operations from Johns-Manville Corp., which went bankrupt because of asbestos claims. It is privately held by Los Angeles billionaire Walter Wang, chairman and chief executive, and has about $2 billion in annual revenue. From 1983 to 1988 the company also supplied asbestos-cement pipe used by municipal water systems, sewer systems and other customers. The company contends the pipe poses no health threat unless improperly handled, such as by cutting it with a power saw or drill. This is the second RICO, or Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, lawsuit filed by JM Eagle against big plaintiff firms, which advertise widely for clients suffering from asbestos-related illnesses and then file cases against makers of products containing the mineral. The federal lawsuits, which originally targeted organized crime, are commonly filed in big civil disputes because they allow for triple damages. However, they are complex to litigate since a conspiracy must be proved among the defendants in addition to any wrongdoing. The first lawsuit was brought in May 2024 against Simmons Hanly Conroy, an Alton, Ill., firm JM Eagle says filed more than 430 cases against it since 2001. It similarly accused the law firm of coaching patients with asbestos diseases to incorrectly identify the company as the source of their exposure. The firm's website says it has recovered more than $10.7 billion for its clients. JM Eagle said in its lawsuit that it became aware of the alleged fraud after a former Simmons attorney hired to handle asbestos cases was terminated and filed a lawsuit accusing the firm of unlawful and unethical conduct. The law firm and its former employee later reached a private settlement. JM Eagle alleges that it conducted reviews of past Simmons and Gori cases and found ones that were blatantly bogus, such as those involving plaintiffs who had stopped working before the company supplied its asbestos pipe. It alleges the cases were filed in plaintiff-friendly jurisdictions and used as ""bargaining chips"" by the firms, which would agree to dismiss them in negotiating a settlement. A judge dismissed the Simmons lawsuit last year, ruling JM Eagle had failed to properly allege a conspiracy as required under RICO law. However, the company amended the suit in November by adding a second firm it said fed leads to Simmons. John Storino, an attorney representing Simmons and other defendants, called the amended lawsuit a ""recycled version of claims the court has already rejected."" It is estimated by ratings agency A.M. Best that insurers have spent more than $100 billion paying asbestos-related claims since the 1970s. The cases are ongoing, with plaintiffs also filing claims against the trusts of companies bankrupted by the litigation. Payouts to mesothelioma victims can top $1 million. Consulting firm KCIC found that the number of cases filed in the first half of last year rose 4% to more than 4,300. Robert Weissman, president of Public Citizen, a Washington, D.C.-based consumer group, characterized the JM Eagle litigation as dismissive of even legitimate asbestos claims, noting victims suffer a ""horrible, painful early death"" by the tens of thousands even today. ""It is 100% true that law firms advertise for asbestos victims and help them identify who might have exposed them to asbestos and develop the cases. They're doing a public service by doing it and helping victims realize if they're sick, there's compensation available to them,"" he said. Weissman, an attorney, said that if law firms are filing bogus cases, defendants can seek sanctions from judges, who take such allegations ""incredibly seriously,"" rather than filing a ""powerful"" RICO case with triple damages. ""Even if this case is ultimately dismissed, it is intended to deter others from bringing these cases, and will for sure deter or prevent individuals who have legitimate asbestos exposure claims for bringing their cases forward,"" he said. The company said it has tried to raise the fraud issue in individual cases but has not been successful. It also defended its use of the RICO statute as appropriate. In its Simmons litigation, JM Eagle alleges the fraud was shown through the comparison of multiple cases in which plaintiffs make specific claims about the source of their asbestos exposure -- JM Eagle's pipes -- while being unable to recall much else, making it hard to dispute the allegations." 3299143731,"PERSPECTIVES: Voices: Kentucky's Beshear is un-Gavin in his approach: The red state's blue governor sees healing, not antagonizing, as way to White House.",2026-02-01,Los Angeles Times,Commentary,Main News; A; National Desk,A.2,A.2,Home Edition,National Desk,"FRANKFORT, KY.","Copyright Los Angeles Times Feb 1, 2026",1160,1148,['MARK Z BARABAK'],"['Presidents', 'Governors', 'Sexual orientation discrimination', 'Voters', 'Political parties']","['Davos Switzerland', 'California', 'Switzerland', 'United States--US', 'Kentucky']","['Beshear, Andy', 'Trump, Donald J']",[],[],"['BESHEAR, ANDY', 'KENTUCKY', 'GOVERNORS', 'DEMOCRATIC PARTY', 'PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATES', 'POLITICAL STRATEGY']","Gavin Newsom was in his element, moving and shaking amid the rich and powerful in Davos. He scolded European leaders for supposedly cowering before President Trump. He drew disparaging notice during a presidential rant and captured headlines after being blocked from delivering a high-profile speech, allegedly at the behest of the White House. All the while, another governor and Democratic presidential prospect was mixing and mingling in the rarefied Swiss air -- though you probably wouldn't know it. Flying far below the heat-seeking radar, Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear leaned into the role of economic ambassador, focusing on job creation and other nutsy, boltsy stuff that doesn't grab much notice in today's performative political environment. Like Newsom, Beshear is running-but-not-exactly-running for president. He didn't set out to offer a stark contrast to California's governor, the putative 2028 Democratic front-runner. But he's doing so just the same. Want someone who'll match Trump insult for insult, over-the-top meme for over-the-top meme and howl whenever the president commits some new outrage? Look to Sacramento, not Frankfort. ""I think by the time we reach 2028, our Democratic voters are gonna be worn out,"" Beshear said during a conversation in his state's snowy capital. ""They're gonna be worn out by Trump, and they're gonna be worn out by Democrats who respond to Trump like Trump. And they're gonna want some stability in their lives."" Every candidate enters a contest with a backstory and a record, which is condensed to a summary that serves as calling card, strategic foundation and a rationale for their run. Here's Andy Beshear's: He's the popular two-term governor of a red state that three times voted overwhelmingly for Trump. He is fluent in the language of faith, well-liked by the kind of rural voters who have abandoned Democrats in droves and, at 48, offers a fresh face and relative youth in a party that many voters have come to see as old and ossified. The fact he's from the South, where Arkansas Gov. Bill Clinton emerged the last time Democrats experienced this kind of existential freak-out, also doesn't hurt. Beshear's not-yet-candidacy, still in the fledgling phase, offers a mix of aspiration and admonition. Democrats, he said, need to talk more like regular people. Addiction, not substance use disorder. Hunger, not food assistance. And, he suggested, they need to focus more on things regular people care about: jobs, healthcare, public safety, public education. Things that aren't theoretical or abstract but materially affect their daily lives, like the costs of electricity, car insurance and groceries. ""I think the most important thing we should have learned from 2024 is [Democratic voters are] gonna be looking for somebody that can help them pay that next bill,"" Beshear said. He was seated in the Old Governor's Mansion, now a historic site and Beshear's temporary office while the nearby Capitol undergoes a years-long renovation. The red-brick residence, built in the Federal style and completed in 1798, was Beshear's home from age 6 to 10 when his father, Steve, lived there while serving as lieutenant governor. (Steve Beshear went on to serve two terms as the state's chief executive, building a brand and a brand name that helped Andy win his first public office, attorney general, in 2015.) It was 9 degrees outside. Icicles hung from the eaves and snowplows navigated Frankfort's narrow, winding streets after an unusually cold winter blast. Inside, Beshear was seated before an unlit fireplace, legs crossed, shirt collar unbuttoned, looking like the pleasantly unassuming dad in a store-bought picture frame. He bragged a bit, touting Kentucky's economic success under his watch. He spoke of his religiosity -- his grandfather and great-grandfather were Baptist preachers -- and talked at length about the optimism, a political rarity these days, that undergirds his vision for the country. ""I think the American people feel like the pendulum swung too far in the Biden administration. Now they feel it's swung way too far during the Trump administration,"" Beshear said. ""What they want is for it to stop swinging."" He went on. ""Most people when they wake up aren't thinking about politics. They're thinking about their job, their next doctor's appointment, the roads and bridges they drive, the school they drop their kids off at, and whether they feel safe in their community. ""And I think they desperately want someone that can move the country, not right or left ideologically, but actually forward in those areas. And that's how I think we heal."" Beshear doesn't shy from his Democratic pedigree, or stray from much of the party's orthodoxy. Seeking reelection in 2023, he seized on the abortion issue and the Supreme Court's overturning of Roe vs. Wade to batter and best his Republican opponent. He's walked the picket line with striking autoworkers, signed an executive order making Juneteenth a state holiday and routinely vetoed anti-gay legislation, becoming the first Kentucky governor to attend an LGBTQ+ celebration in the Capitol Rotunda. ""Discrimination against our LGBTQ+ community is unacceptable,"" he told an audience. ""It holds us back and, in my Kentucky accent, it ain't right."" For all of that, Beshear doesn't shrink from taking on Trump, which, essentially, has become a job requirement for any Democratic officeholder wishing to remain a Democratic officeholder. After the president's rambling Davos address, Beshear called Trump's remarks ""dangerous, disrespectful and unhinged."" ""From insulting our allies to telling struggling Americans that he's fixed inflation and the economy is amazing, the President is hurting both our families' financial security and our national security,"" Beshear posted on social media. ""Oh, and Greenland is so important he's calling it Iceland."" But Beshear hasn't turned Trump-bashing into a 24/7 vocation, or a weight-lifting contest where the winner is the critic wielding the heaviest bludgeon. ""I stand up to him in the way that I think a Democratic governor of Kentucky should. When he's doing things that hurt my state, I speak out,"" Beshear said. ""I filed 20 lawsuits, I think, and we've won almost all of them, bringing dollars they were trying to stop from flowing into Kentucky. ""But,"" he added, ""when he does something positive for Kentucky, I also say that too, because that's what our people expect."" Asked about the towel-snapping Newsom and his dedicated staff of Trump trollers, Beshear defended California's governor -- or, at least, passed on the chance to get in a dig. ""Gavin's in a very different situation than I'm in. I mean, he has the president attacking him and his state just about every day,"" Beshear said. ""So I don't want to be critical of an approach from somebody that's in a very different spot. ""But the approach also has to be unique to you. For me, I bring people together. We've been able to do that in this state. That's my approach. And in the end, I've gotta stay true to who I am."" And when -- or make that if -- both Newsom and Beshear launch a formal bid for president, they'll present Democratic voters a clear choice. Not just between two differing personalities. Also two considerably different approaches to politics and winning back the White House. CREDIT: COLUMNIST" 3299143732,Voices: People must take to the streets: Protests remain a powerful tool for shaping public opinion and forcing leaders to act,2026-02-01,Los Angeles Times,Commentary,Main News; A; Opinion Desk,A.17,A.17,Home Edition,Opinion Desk,,"Copyright Los Angeles Times Feb 1, 2026",1200,1081,['Robin Abcarian'],"['Due process of law', 'Raids', 'Demonstrations & protests']","['New York', 'United States--US']","['Trump, Donald J']",['New York Times Co'],[],[],"Before June, when the ICE raids first began in Los Angeles, Daniel Sosa had not been active in the immigrants' rights movement. A cannabis dispensary owner, he'd previously directed his political energy to fights around legalization and the implementation of California's onerous rules around weed dispensaries. On June 6, however, the first day of major, aggressive ICE raids all over Los Angeles County, something changed in him. ""ICE really started snatching people off the streets in L.A.,"" Sosa told me Thursday. ""These are just people that are in my community, and people that I know."" That evening, Sosa joined hundreds of protesters at the downtown Metropolitan Detention Center, the federal prison that sits on Alameda Street next to the Roybal federal building. It has been -- and still is -- the site of round-the-clock anti-ICE protests. Some protesters were graffiting the building, a few threw water bottles and, according to news reports, some chucked rocks and broken concrete at law enforcement vehicles. ""I don't engage in that stuff,"" Sosa told me. But he was still caught in the turmoil. A flash-bang stun grenade that exploded close to his ear that night sent him to urgent care the next morning, where he was diagnosed with an inflamed cochlea and given prednisone. That next evening, undaunted, he returned to the protests. After dark, once again, things got ugly. ""Describe what happened to you,"" encouraged a KCAL News reporter on the scene, holding a microphone to Sosa, 42, who wore dark glasses and a beanie pulled down over his ears. ""I tasted a little tear gas,"" Sosa said. ""Tasted like fascism."" A few days later, Stephen Colbert aired the clip, which has been viewed millions of times, and pronounced Sosa ""the most L.A. guy ever."" What's happening in cities like L.A., Chicago and, of course, Minneapolis, does feel like something out of a dystopian novel about the crumbling of the American experiment. Unidentified masked men carry weapons of war in residential neighborhoods. Their hair-trigger tempers and violent responses to being ""disrespected"" have resulted in the shooting deaths of Renee Good, a mother and poet, and Alex Pretti, an ICU nurse, and now widespread calls to abolish ICE. ""State terror has arrived,"" columnist M. Gessen warned in the New York Times last week. Gessen, a Russian dissident, has written extensively about authoritarian regimes. The trampling of the Constitution and the disregard for due process has indeed made a mockery of America's view of itself as a democracy where the rule of law reigns supreme. Soon enough, Americans will be able to make their displeasure known at the ballot box (if given the chance). But until then, we must exercise our rights to free speech and assembly. What alternative is there but to take to the streets? Obviously most people -- even those with strong feelings about President Trump's immigration crackdowns, the appalling tactics of ICE agents and the Justice department's overzealous prosecutions of protesters armed with sandwiches -- will not get off their couches. They don't need to. In a 2017 Washington Post essay about the extraordinary nationwide turnout at the ""Women's Marches"" that were inspired by Trump's misogyny, political scientists Erica Chenoweth and Jeremy Pressman explained why the turnout of an estimated 1.3% of the American population -- a seemingly paltry number -- was so meaningful. ""Marching requires a much higher level of commitment than voting,"" they wrote. ""It takes more time, is not anonymous, often involves financial costs and could put the marcher in harm's way or at risk of arrest or retaliation."" Chenoweth is well known for popularizing the ""3.5% rule,"" which posits that almost ""no government has withstood a challenge of 3.5% of their population mobilized against it during a peak event."" The rule applies to campaigns aimed at overthrowing an unpopular government or achieving territorial independence, but many -- including organizers of the ongoing No Kings marches -- have adopted it as an aspirational figure. About 342 million live in this country today; nearly 12 million people would have to turn out to test the rule. In any case, sociologist Zeynep Tufkekci wrote in the New York Times in 2017 that mass protests should be looked upon as ""a first, potential step."" ""A large protest today is less like the March on Washington in 1963 and more like Rosa Parks's refusal to move to the back of the bus,"" Tufkekci wrote. ""What used to be an endpoint is now an initial spark. More than ever before, the significance of a protest depends on what happens afterward."" So, something is starting to change. Nearly two-thirds of Americans believe the ICE raids are doing more harm than good. Nearly half support abolishing ICE. And on Friday, the Department of Justice announced it had opened a civil rights investigation into Pretti's killing. And in response to last week's events, Trump has pulled his Nazi cosplaying border chief Greg Bovino out of Minneapolis. Democrats are urging that Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem be impeached. Some Republicans are urging Trump to fire her. Some are even demanding that Trump's virulently anti-immigrant advisor Stephen Miller, who falsely suggested that Pretti intended to massacre federal agents, has to go. In the meantime, Sosa has returned dozens of times to the Metropolitan Detention Center and does not plan to stop. On Oct. 10, he was there with a custom banner that read ""F-- ICE."" As Sosa tells it, he was holding his sign when officers chased a protester into the crowd, then ripped his sign out of his hands. Sosa went to his car, retrieved an identical banner and returned. ""It was my way of saying, 'You are going to violate my 1st Amendment right to speak? You are going to unreasonably seize my property without due process? You can't stop me.'"" He was arrested, held for about an hour and a half in a cell and now faces two federal criminal Class C misdemeanor charges: obstruction and failure to comply with a lawful order. The maximum penalty per count is 30 days in prison. At Sosa's arraignment, he was offered a deal: Plead guilty to one of the charges, pay a $35 fine, receive a year of probation and stay 100 feet away from the detention center. He refused. ""It's important -- really important -- to exercise our right to speak and to assemble,"" Sosa said. ""It's so fundamental to what America is. We can't just take it for granted because it's written on an old piece of paper. We have to exercise our rights if we want to keep them."" His trial is scheduled to begin April 2. -- Bluesky: @rabcarian Threads: @rabcarian CREDIT: COLUMNIST" 3299143738,"A WORST-TO-BEST RANKING BEFORE WINNER TAKES ALL: THE OSCAR BEST PICTURE NOMINEES WILL FACE FINAL SCRUTINY COME MARCH, BUT FOR NOW, WHERE DO THE HOPEFULS FALL IN A CRITIC'S LINE OF SIGHT?",2026-02-01,Los Angeles Times,Feature,Sunday Entertainment; E; Entertainment Desk,E.2,E.2,Home Edition,Entertainment Desk,,"Copyright Los Angeles Times Feb 1, 2026",1160,1306,['Amy Nicholson'],"['Table tennis', 'Nominations', 'Audiences', 'Voters', 'Motion picture directors & producers', 'Academy awards', 'Motion pictures']",[],"['Chalamet, Timothee']",[],[],"['MOVIES', 'ACADEMY AWARDS']","This was a year of big swings and I'm not just talking about Timothee Chalamet's ping-pong serve. The Academy Awards feel like they're in motion too -- a body less affixed to an idea of what a best picture contender is and more willing to race after talent from around the globe. But they can't all be winners. Here's my ranking of the 10 nominees, from whiff to smash. -- 10. HAMNET Chloe Zhao's ye olde dysfunctional marriage weepie deserved a supporting actor nomination for 12-year-old Jacobi Jupe, who is so heartbreaking as William Shakespeare's brave son that he casts a spell over the movie. He turns on the waterworks; his parents Paul Mescal and Jessie Buckley just come off soggy. As with Maggie O'Farrell's original novel, ""Hamnet"" soft-pedals the reveal that Mescal's pasty, ordinary-seeming father of three is the greatest wordsmith in English literature. Frankly, even after we find out, it's impossible to believe. Unlike ""Shakespeare in Love,"" the script doesn't have Tom Stoppard punching up the dialogue. Audiences who endured the Miramax era have been browbeaten to believe that the best picture Oscar should go to a period piece that chokes out a sob from audiences. Get me to a nunnery, but I'm weary of presenting filmland's biggest honor to the kind of movie people rarely want to watch twice. -- 9. F1 Nominating this popcorn trifle for best picture is silly, but at least it didn't get a screenplay nod for a script that's simply: See Brad Pitt go, go, go. Still, I'll admit that I recommended this rumbler to everyone who wanted an excuse to speed to the multiplex. (I elbowed my uncle, a hobbyist racer, to go see it a half-dozen times.) Not once in ""F1"" does it feel like we're invested in Pitt's bizarrely constructed character, a throwback fossil with jokey Gen-Z tattoos. The movie is fueled by pure star power and you can't fault Oscar voters for huffing its fumes. -- 8. SENTIMENTAL VALUE Director Joachim Trier's follow-up to 2021's ""The Worst Person in the World"" also feels like it's playing a dated version of the Oscar game. ""Sentimental Value's"" scenes of bittersweet family disconnection are well done, but I kept feeling like the movie really wanted to be a chippy satire about the movie business. Trier has so much to say about the modern film industry and what he sees as a soul-deep mismatch between art-house cinema and Netflix streaming that his own leading lady, the lanky, depressive Renate Reinsve, sidles off in the second half and isn't particularly missed. We're more taken by the scenes in which her father, Stellan Skarsgard's faded filmmaker Gustav, dusts off his moth-eaten charisma to charm Elle Fanning's Hollywood starlet into doing his new project. I'm aching to know which old director inspired Gustav (and whether they've seen the film). -- 7. FRANKENSTEIN Suturing Mary Shelley's novel to his own 21st century anti-technocrat ferocity, Guillermo del Toro cranked up his ambitions in every element from costumes to cinematography and thrillingly brought his favorite ghoul to life. (Only the CG wolves were a whiff.) Del Toro's ""The Shape of Water"" starred a boyfriend from the Black Lagoon who seduced voters into awarding it best picture and best director in 2018. ""Frankenstein"" is better. But I don't see Del Toro scaring up enough ballots to repeat that success. -- 6. THE SECRET AGENT Kleber Mendonca Filho's Carnival-set drama about a watchful man (Wagner Moura) attempting to survive the 1970s Brazilian military dictatorship is so light on its feet that it's tough to hang on to. It's a serious story coated in slippery sunscreen. The threat of death and/or disappearance is real, even as the mood is dangerously groovy. This solid, slightly overlong watch is best at capturing how time and trauma turn daily life into valuable history. Here, present-day students rewind old audio tapes to hear a band of underground revolutionaries risk their necks for a better tomorrow. From vintage polo shirts to retro radio reports, Filho faithfully re-creates the era to prove that the bad times did happen. Having witnessed former President Jair Bolsonaro's attempted coup in 2022, he knows how easy it is to rewrite the past. -- 5. MARTY SUPREME What will come first: Josh Safdie wins an Oscar or someone has a heart attack watching one of his movies? The former preferably, but I hope he never stops jackhammering on my nervous system. A salute to the madcap misadventures of a real life ping-pong hustler, ""Marty Supreme"" is an '80s movie in '50s clothing, an empathy-mangling satire where the quest for success comes at a high cost (and triggers buckets of cold sweat). The ding on the movie is that Timothee Chalamet's self-centered striver isn't that different from Adam Sandler's diamond hawker in ""Uncut Gems."" They're both the toxic products of a winner-take-all society. But here, Safdie smartly ships his main character around the world to see how outsiders react to the mad energy of New York. -- 4. TRAIN DREAMS Lord knows how director Clint Bentley managed to shoot half of his American epic at magic hour but the result is, well, magical. At the dawn of the 20th century, a logger played by Joel Edgerton tromps through the woods cutting down timber that will build a country which is rapidly leaving him behind. The film vaults across eight decades, but tonally it's as still as a waiting snare, letting the audience creep up to its theme of human obsolescence. When the trap snapped at the end, I shed a well-earned tear. Pity that ""Train Dreams"" will likely go as unheralded as Edgerton's humble laborer. -- 3. BUGONIA Yorgos Lanthimos' sci-fi black comedy tickles the audience to wonder if Emma Stone's pharmaceutical CEO could really be an alien. Kidnapped by bumbling conspiracy theorists Jesse Plemons and Aidan Delbis, Michelle stares at her jailer calmly as she pitches them on letting her go. ""Could we have a dialogue about this?"" she says with a smile. This girl boss couldn't feel less human if antennae sprouted from her eyebrows. We're not rooting for her or her internet brain-rotted captors and ultimately, we leave the film barely rooting for humankind's survival. ""Bugonia"" looks too bleak to win best picture, but three decades from now, it might feel like it should have. (Same goes for Ari Aster's ""Eddington,"" which deserves to be up here too.) It's a pyramid of matches teetering on today's destabilizing reality -- and Lanthimos likes to spark fires. -- 2. ONE BATTLE AFTER ANOTHER Is ""One Battle After Another"" Paul Thomas Anderson's masterpiece? No, but this buoyant comedy-drama combines all of his storytelling talents: the ensemble world-building of ""Boogie Nights,"" the shambolic misadventures of ""Inherent Vice,"" the domestic inquisitions of ""Magnolia"" and the probing psychology of ""The Master."" Anderson's body of work is about the fight to make your mark in America -- even when, like Leonardo DiCaprio's Bob Ferguson, you're more of a smudge of hashish. It's tempting to argue that ""One Battle's"" all-but-inevitable Oscar victory is a make-do for the half-dozen times Anderson should have won before. But then you cue up that first sequence in which Teyana Taylor's insurgent group, the French 75, liberates a concentration camp of Spanish-speaking immigrants, and ""One Battle"" once again feels like the most vital film of the year. -- 1. SINNERS What do vampires and Hollywood have in common? They're both thirsting for fresh blood. Finally freed from the preexisting Marvel and ""Rocky"" franchises, Ryan Coogler seized the opportunity to do something totally new with a sexy, gruesome bootlegger musical that drove a stake into the blockbuster blahs. ""Sinners"" is ambitious, perfectly crafted pop moviemaking that got pulses racing in the theater while burrowing earwormy ideas about music and liberation into your head. Right now, this town seems terrified that it no longer knows what audiences want. I suspect Coogler has an idea. Even if he doesn't win the big prize, give him the keys to the city. CREDIT: FILM CRITIC" 3299143745,"New downtown L.A. gallery goes for the win: POP ARTIST SETS UP FAB LA IN THE HISTORIC FINE ARTS BUILDING. ITS LATEST SHOW FEATURES POSTER ART OF GRAMMY WINNERS, JUST IN TIME FOR THE CEREMONY.",2026-02-01,Los Angeles Times,News,Sunday Entertainment; E; Entertainment Desk,E.9,E.9,Home Edition,Entertainment Desk,,"Copyright Los Angeles Times Feb 1, 2026",1420,1216,['LINA LECARO'],"['Fine arts', 'Design', 'Visual artists', 'Buildings', 'Posters', 'Art exhibits']","['Los Angeles California', 'United States--US']","['Parton, Dolly']",[],[],"['ARENS, KII', 'CONCERTS', 'POSTERS', 'GALLERIES', 'ART EXHIBITS']","Pop artist Kii Arens made a name for himself in music over the years, creating concert posters for bands and vocalists such as Radiohead, Elton John, Dolly Parton, the Weeknd, Sonic Youth, Tame Impala, Diana Ross and more. That work is taking center stage at Arens' new downtown Los Angeles gallery, FAB LA, in a show titled ""And the Winner Is."" Curated by Arens and featuring poster art of Grammy winners, the exhibition opened Friday, two days before the 2026 Grammys descended on the city, and just in time to welcome plenty of visiting celebrity faces to the gallery's third-ever event. A glittering party scene is part of every exhibition Arens hosts, dating back to his previous gallery, LA-LA Land, which he opened two decades ago on Santa Monica Boulevard in Hollywood and ran until its lease came up last year. FAB LA officially launched in October with ""XO, LA: A Love Letter to Los Angeles,"" an exhibition that reflected the eclectic voices and existential challenges that define L.A. culture with paintings, illustrations and mixed media works by Shepard Fairey, Corita Kent, Anthony Ausgang, Ashley Dreyfus, Paul Frank and others. The flamboyant ""Mick Rock's Rocky Horror Art Show"" followed in December. The exhibition was among the last events marking the famous cult film's 50th anniversary, and featured Rock's famous photographs alongside pieces by pop star designer Michael Schmidt and digital portraitist Plasticgod. As with previous events at LA-LA Land, the opening attracted rockers, drag queens and club world cognoscenti. DJs Sean Patrick (Simon Says) and Chris Holmes (Paul McCartney's touring DJ, and creative collaborator with Cosm) manned the decks, and ""RuPaul's Drag Race All Stars"" winner and podcaster, Alaska Thunderf--, performed as Tim Curry's Dr. Frank-N-Furter, dancing and prancing around the grand environs. There are galleries all over Los Angeles, but few can be described as works of art unto themselves. FAB LA is that and more. Its majestic headquarters are housed inside downtown's historic Fine Arts Building -- a palace-like structure with a 100-year history of craftsmanship and creativity. Located near the intersection of 7th and Flower streets, the landmark building was featured in the 2009 film ""(500) Days of Summer,"" a hidden gem overshadowed in recent years by hectic street life, chain food spots and bustling business energy. Used primarily as an office building, its ornate design, carvings and sculptures -- including a ground floor fountain with frolicking bronze youths -- hadn't invited much public attention or appreciation. That changed late last year when Arens took over the first two floors. ""Historically, artists lived and worked inside this building,"" he said during a recent opening. ""This idea really resonated with me."" Originally from St. Paul, Minn., Arens moved to L.A. in 2004 and promptly opened LA-LA Land. The Hollywood showroom debuted on election night 2004 with a group exhibition called ""Happy War,"" featuring anti-war works and Fairey as DJ. Wild and kitschy shows followed with opening fetes dedicated to colorful subjects including Andy Warhol, circus clowns, and Canadian television creators and puppeteers Sid and Marty Krofft. In addition to creating art and DJing, Arens is also a musician, and his eclectic music projects reflect his nostalgic proclivities. They include a rock outfit called FLIPP, which he describes as ""the Sex Pistols meets the Spice Girls,"" as well as a pop-duo called Jinx, and solo work that counts 4 Non Blondes' Linda Perry as a collaborator. Arens is a largely self-taught visual artist. His work has always leaned toward entertainment figures and musical subject matter, which led to major commissions for album covers and tour poster art -- some of which will be featured in the upcoming exhibition at FAB LA. When LA-LA Land's lease expired, Arens sought a new place that would embrace his experimental energy. He also wanted a unique backdrop for showcasing imagery that ""treats pop culture as a shared memory for all to take in,"" he said. ""Something worthy of being preserved, not just consumed."" The Fine Arts Building's longtime real estate representative, Gibran Begum, was looking for the same thing. Preservation was part of the conversation when the two connected, but both were also focused on revitalization and augmenting the structure's old-world charms with something fresh and modern. The goal was to once again bring art lovers to the neighborhood. A cohesive arts event had been lacking in the area since the monthly Downtown Los Angeles Art Walk scaled down in the face of traffic and permit issues, and more recently COVID closures. The event recently resumed, and though it's much smaller Arens said he has high hopes for its growth, and for FAB LA's place in its future. As does Begum, who calls the Fine Arts Building ""a rare and special space."" ""The second you enter, you're somewhere else, it's almost like walking into something in Florence, Italy,"" Begum said. ""We were looking for someone to help rejuvenate and reenergize it and who understood the culture of it."" Designed in the Romanesque revival style by revered architects Albert R. Walker and Percy A. Eisen, who also created the nearby Oviatt Building as well as the Beverly Wilshire Hotel in Beverly Hills, the building's exterior is embellished with dramatic columns and arches. Its interior features gargoyles, griffins and other mystical figures by sculptor Burt W. Johnson, as well as hand-crafted tiles by Ernest Batchelder and murals by Anthony B. Heinsbergen. A vintage elevator ferries guests between floors. The opulent building opened on Dec. 8, 1926, attracting an estimated crowd of 27,000, and was named a Historic-Cultural Monument in 1974. Though various artists have shown in the building over its 100-year history, FAB's vibrant vision, focused on the intersection of design and fine art media, feels like the right fit for the current moment. ""I almost feel like the ghosts of some of the artists are looking down at me and smiling, knowing that what they loved is happening here again,"" Arens said. This includes immersive gatherings, which are a big part of Arens' plans for FAB. ""We'll have movie premieres, live music events, poetry and I definitely want to have fashion,"" Arens said. ""The room would make a great runway!"" Charity is also part of the picture. ""And the Winner Is,"" serves as a fundraiser for Oxfam, which works to relieve global poverty. Arens said he's been hosting charity events for the group for the last five years -- always right around the Grammys. ""We'll have a bunch of amazing vinyl records donated by Rhino, and we'll have clothing donated from famous musicians. Matt Pinfield is DJing and so is Jeffrey Ross,"" Arens said ahead of the event. The exhibition, which closes March 8, will feature some of what Arens calls his ""greatest hits,"" including an ebullient Liza Minnelli portrait, and other significant prints such as a black-light poster design of Dolly Parton, and a Van Halen print representing Eddie Van Halen's famed red-, black- and white-splattered ""Frankenstein"" guitar design on a notebook. ""I'm into simplifying images until they become familiar, immediate and emotional,"" Arens said of his work. ""I like to strip images down to what people recognize instantly. The feeling comes first, then I'm focused on evoking optimism, color and joy."" Up next: A show in April in association with the animation studio Titmouse and dedicated to the art of animation. ""In this moment where everything feels disposable, I want to make something that is solid, something you stand in front of, not scroll past,"" Arens said." 3299143747,Voices: He's taking the civil rights fight home to Minneapolis: Californian is among the attorneys aiding civilians there,2026-02-01,Los Angeles Times,Commentary,California; B; Metro Desk,B.1,B.1,Home Edition,Metro Desk,,"Copyright Los Angeles Times Feb 1, 2026",1280,1342,['ANITA CHABRIA'],"['Official misconduct', 'Kickboxing', 'Law', 'Shootings', 'Attorneys', 'Civil rights', 'Immigration']","['United States--US', 'Minnesota']","['Trump, Donald J']",[],[],"['CALIFORNIANS', 'CIVIL RIGHTS', 'ATTORNEYS', 'LEGAL AID', 'MINNEAPOLIS (MN)', 'IMMIGRATION AND CUSTOMS ENFORCEMENT (U.S.)', 'IMMIGRANTS', 'ARRESTS', 'DEPORTATION', 'DEMONSTRATIONS']","How do you find the missing? If you do find them, how can you help? Oakland civil rights attorney James Cook has been on the ground in Minnesota for months figuring out answers to these question as he goes. A fast-talking Minneapolis native who still lives in the Twin Cities part time, Cook is one of a handful of attorneys who have dropped everything to aid (for free) those caught up in the federal crackdown -- protesters, immigrants and detained citizens -- too many of whom have found themselves facing deportation, arrest or even been disappeared, at least for a time. ""They are leaders that are on the ground really helping people through this process,"" Minnesota school board member Chauntyll Allen told me. She's one of the protesters arrested inside a local church, charged with conspiracy to deprive others of their constitutional rights by Pam Bondi's politicized Department of Justice, which Friday also arrested journalist Don Lemon for the same incident. Cook is one of the lawyers now representing Allen. ""It shows us that the judicial arm, or some of the judicial arm of our democracy, is willing to step up and ensure that our democracy stands strong,"" Allen said of Cook and others like him. While it's the images of clashes in the streets that captivate media and audiences, it's lawyers like Cook who are fighting an existential battle in the background to preserve the rule of law in a place where it is increasing opaque, to put it gently. The legal work behind detentions has largely been an overlooked battlefield that will likely rage on years after ICE departs the streets, leaving in its wake hundreds if not thousands of long-and-winding court cases. Beyond the personal fates they will determine, the outcome of the civil litigation Cook and others are spearheading will likely force whatever transparency and accountability can be pulled from these chaotic and troubling times. It's time-consuming and complicated work vital not just to people, but history. Or, as Cook puts it, ""I'll be 10 years older when all this s-- resolves."" Cook told me this while on his way to the Bishop Henry Whipple Federal Building, where some detainees are being held, maybe. It's hard to find out. A few years ago, when immigration enforcement in Minnesota ramped up under the first Trump term, activists tried to get the name of the building changed, arguing that Whipple, the first Protestant Episcopal bishop in the state, had been an advocate of the marginalized and wouldn't want his name associated with what the feds were up to. It didn't work, but the movement's slogan, ""What would Whipple do?"" still has resonance in this town, where two American citizens, Alex Pretti and Renee Good, have been fatally shot while protesting -- incidents ugly enough that Bruce Springsteen wrote a song about them. Cook is well aware that the guns carried by the federal agents are not for show, even without the Boss' new ballad. Just a few days ago, one of the first times he drove his beat-up truck up to the gate, the federal guards at Whipple pointed their guns at him. ""I'm like, 'Hey, I'm going to take my keys out of the ignition, drop them on the ground. So please don't shoot,' "" he said. They lowered the guns, but Cook was scared, a feeling that doesn't come easy. Long before his law degree, when he was a punk-rock-loving teen in the 1980s, fresh out of Southwest High, the public school not too far from Whipple, a former coach persuaded him to give up college dreams and instead pursue a shot at making the first Muay Thai kickboxing team at the Olympics. The martial art ended up not making it as an official Olympic sport, but the experience launched Cook into a professional boxing and kickboxing career that took him to competitions around the world, and taught him fear is not a reason to back down. But, ""Father Time is undefeated,"" Cook said. ""I got older and I started losing fights, and I was like, all right, time to get back to life."" That eventually led him to obtaining a law degree in San Francisco, where after an intern stint as a public defender, he decided he wanted to be a trial attorney, fighting in court. He started cold-calling John Burris, another Bay Area lawyer who is an icon of civil rights and police misconduct cases. Burris, who has been called the ""Godfather of Police Litigation,"" was involved in the ""Oakland Riders"" case in 2000, when officers were discovered to have planted evidence. He also represented Rodney King, the family of Oscar Grant, and the family of Joseph Mann among many others. But Burris, a boxing fan, didn't respond to Cook's calls until the young lawyer offered him free tickets to one of his fights, which he was still doing on the side. ""And then immediately I got a call back,"" Cook said. Burris said Cook's history as a fighter intrigued him, but ""I did say to James, you can't be a fighter and lawyer. You can't get punched in your head all the time."" Cook did not take this advice. Still, Burris said, ""it was his persistence that I admired, because the type of work we're involved in, you need people who are dedicated, who have some real commitment to the work, and he showed that kind of consistency and dedication."" Cook's been working with Burris more than 20 years now, but until recently, the labyrinth of the immigration system wasn't his area of expertise. It's been a crash course for him, he said, on the often arcane laws that govern who gets to stay in America and who doesn't. It's also been a crash course on what a civil rights emergency looks like. Along with his work looking for locked-up immigrants, Cook spends a lot of time on the streets at protests, helping people understand their rights -- and limitations -- and seeing firsthand what is happening. ""If you ever wondered what you would have done in Germany, now is the time,"" he said. ""Now is the time to do something. People are being interned."" In the hours after Pretti was shot, Cook was at the location of the shooting, in the middle of the tear gas, offering legal help to anyone who needed it and bearing witness to conduct that will almost certainly face scrutiny one day, even if government leaders condone it now. ""The way the officers chase people down, protesters who were really just protesting lawfully and were beaten and pepper sprayed and gassed -- all those are civil rights violations,"" Burris said. ""And so the law is the guardrails. So there has to be lawyers who are prepared to protect those guardrails and to stand as centurions, as I refer to us."" Cook has tried to calm protesters, he told me, and prevent clashes. But people are mad, and resolute. His greatest fear is summer, when warm weather could bring larger crowds if enforcement is still ongoing. He's worried the actions of the federal agents will spill over into anger at local cops enforcing local laws, leading to even more chaos. ""I've always supported cops as long as they do their job correctly,"" Cook said. For now, he's taking it one day at a time, one case at a time, one name at a time. Tuesday, Cook passed through the armed checkpoint at Whipple carrying a list of about seven people, folks who have been picked up by federal agents for one reason or another, or reasons unknown, and now cannot be located. They are not in the public online system that is meant to track detainees, and family and friends have not heard from them. If he's lucky, Cook will get information on one or two, that they are indeed inside, or maybe at a detention center in Texas, where many have been sent. But there will be more whose location remains unknown. He'll make calls, fill out forms and come back tomorrow. And the tomorrow after that. ""This is what we do,"" he said. ""I'm always in it for the long run. I mean, you know, shoot, yeah, that's kind of the way it works."" CREDIT: COLUMNIST"