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Neil King’s walk from Washington, D.C., to New York City uncovered the gems of slowing down

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Neil King’s walk from Washington, D.C., to New York City uncovered the gems of slowing down


In a world that moves at the speed of the internet, the details of life’s best relationships can speed by in blips, missed by the distracted eye. It’s difficult to remember that walking, as a mode of transportation, was the most common way to move about only 150 years ago. While the adventurous few coursed the sea, drove wagons or rode horses, most people in human history have depended on their own two feet, moving one step at a time.

Perhaps that’s why, when retired Wall Street reporter and cancer survivor Neil King wanted to rediscover the depth of the human spirit, he took a walk, a 330-mile ramble to see a small part of America’s beginnings.

“I was off to do something that was very pure and basic,” Neil said, “which was just to notice things and immerse myself in a walk through one spring that had kind of cleansed my eyes in some ways, or my spirit.”

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It seemed fitting to start a stroll into America’s past in Washington, D.C.

“This is the front yard, the nation’s front yard,” he said. “It just seemed like the perfect place to start this walk.”

Stepping off the front porch of America and strolling through her history on foot brings an intimacy you can’t experience any other way. Neil crossed the Mason-Dixon Line that delineated slavery on one side and freedom on the other, which runs through the middle of a 19th-century farm. It’s as if the land has taken back demarcation but remembers its history as a cautionary tale. In York, Penn., he strolled through Lebanon Cemetery, where several Underground Railroad conductors are buried, along with 32 African American troops from the Civil War, and volunteers were working to recover the memories and rescue stories. On the Susquehanna River, Neil observed a Native American petroglyph over a thousand years old. In Pennsylvania, he stopped for an afternoon to socialize with a group of Mennonites while they played softball before gathering for choir practice.

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“I met so many great people that I almost felt were put there by some higher power to interact with me,” Neil said. And indeed, are we not all offspring of a power greater than us, the power of community?

Neil King navigated the New Jersey Turnpike and made his way to the tangle of pathways of New York’s Central Park, the ingenious interweaving of peaceful nature and city buzz. The health benefits of walking are obvious: increased cardio capacity, deeper breaths that enliven the lungs, propelled by almost every muscle in the body. On another level, moving through the small details of lives intertwined with history and emotion gives us a sense of what we can accomplish.

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“In the end,” Neil said. “I think the walk, despite all the gloomy thoughts that you can have about various episodes from our history and our past, left me a lot more optimistic, in a way, about our future than had been the case when I walked out the door!”

Travel light. Enjoy the slow pace. Take time to appreciate.

The Foundation for a Better Life promotes positive values to live by and pass along to others. Go to PassItOn.com.

The Foundation for a Better Life promotes positive values to live by and pass along to others. Go to PassItOn.com.



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Washington, D.C

Preparations underway in DMV for snowstorm

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Preparations underway in DMV for snowstorm


Local and state snow crews are preparing to treat secondary and neighborhood streets throughout D.C., Maryland and Virginia.

“It’s me and three other fellas, so it’s fairly small,” said Jason Swain with the Department of Public Works in Kensington Maryland.

He says his team may be small, but they’re mighty and ready.

“We get the plows ready, make sure everything’s working,” Swain said. “We have salt, which has been kindly given to us by the state, ready to put into the spreaders.”

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He says the biggest hurdle when plowing snow, oftentimes, is cars.

“Some people don’t have driveways, but if they’re going to park on the street, try not to park directly across from each other because when we come through, you literally got inches between the edge of our plow and the cars,” Swain said.

In the District, plenty of people decided to step out before snow crews put plow to pavement for a potential all day snow event.

“Mayor Bowser activated the snow team, and they’ll begin their operations tonight, treating and then plowing roads throughout the day tomorrow,” said Clint Osborn with the District’s Homeland Security and Emergency Management Agency.

D.C.’s smaller plows will be on back roads and alleys, while heavy trucks will focus on primary streets.

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“We’ll have a full deployment out throughout all day tomorrow into Monday as we support the inaugural activities in the District,” Osborn said.

Icy conditions in Prince George’s County during the region’s last snowstorm led to different strategies this go round.

In a statement, the county’s Department of Public Works and Transportation says, “We have implemented adjustments to strengthen our response, and these improvements have prepared us for this round of winter weather.”

The biggest piece of advice for tomorrow:

“Tomorrow would be a good day, since it’s a Sunday, to stay home,” Swain said. “Read a book, have some hot chocolate, relax. Can come out after we finish.”

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Days before Trump takes office, thousands of protestors march in Washington, D.C.

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Days before Trump takes office, thousands of protestors march in Washington, D.C.


WASHINGTON (AP) — Thousands of people from around the United States rallied in the nation’s capital Saturday for women’s reproductive rights and other causes they believe are under threat from the incoming Trump administration, reprising the original Women’s March days before President-elect Donald Trump’s second inauguration.

READ MORE: Trump arriving in nation’s capital for inaugural celebrations to mark his return to power

Eight years after the first historic Women’s March at the start of Trump’s first term, marchers said they were caught off guard by Trump’s victory and are determined now to show that support remains strong for women’s access to abortion, for transgender people, for combating climate change and other issues.

The march is just one of several protests, rallies and vigils focused on abortion, rights, immigration rights and the Israel-Hamas war planned in advance of inauguration Monday. Around the country, over 350 similar marches are taking place in every state.

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Jill Parrish of Austin, Texas, said she initially bought a plane ticket to Washington for what she expected to be Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris’s inauguration. She wound up changing the dates to march in protest ahead of Trump’s swearing-in instead, saying the world should know that half of U.S. voters didn’t support Trump.

“Most importantly, I’m here to demonstrate my fear, about the state of our democracy,” Parrish said.

Demonstrators staged in squares around Washington ahead of the march, pounding drums and yelling chants under a slate-gray sky and in a chilly wind. Protesters then marched to the Lincoln Memorial for larger rally and fair, where organizations at the local, state and national level will host information tables.

They held signs with slogans including, “Save America” and “Against abortions? Then don’t have one” and “Hate won’t win.”

There were brief moments of tension between protesters and Trump supporters. The march paused briefly when a man in a red Make America Great Again hat and a green camo backpack walked into a line of demonstrators at the front. Police intervened and separated him from the group peacefully as marchers chanted “We won’t take the bait.”

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As the protesters approached the Washington Monument, a small group of men in MAGA hats walking in the opposite direction appeared to draw the attention of a protest leader with a megaphone. The leader veered closer to the group and began chanting “No Trump, no KKK” through the megaphone. The groups were separated by high black fencing and police officers eventually gathered around.

Rick Glatz, of Manchester, New Hampshire, said he came to Washington for the sake of his four granddaughters: ” I’m a grandpa. And that’s why I’m marching.”

Minnesota high school teacher Anna Bergman wore her original pink pussy hat from her time in the 2017 Women’s March, a moment that captured the shock and anger of progressives and moderates at Trump’s first win.

With Trump coming back now, “I just wanted to be surrounded by likeminded people on a day like today,” Bergman said.

Rebranded and reorganized, the rally has a new name — the People’s March — as a means to broaden support, especially during a reflective moment for progressive organizing after Trump’s decisive win in November. The Republican takes the oath of office Monday.

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Women outraged over Trump’s 2016 presidential win flocked to Washington in 2017 and organized large rallies in cities throughout the country, building the base of a grassroots movement that became known as the Women’s March. The Washington rally alone attracted over 500,000 marchers, and millions more participated in local marches around the country, marking one of the largest single-day demonstrations in U.S. history.

This year, the crowd was far fewer than the expected 50,000 participants, already just one-tenth the size of the first march. The demonstration comes amid a restrained moment of reflection as many progressive voters navigate feelings of exhaustion, disappointment and despair after Harris’ loss.

WATCH: Harris loss causes some to question what it will take to elect a woman president

“Before we do anything about democracy, we have to fight our own despair,” said one of the event’s first speakers, Rachel O’Leary Carmona, executive director of Women’s March.

The comparative quiet contrasts sharply with the white-knuckled fury of the inaugural rally as massive crowds shouted demands over megaphones and marched in pink pussyhats in response to Trump’s first election win.

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“The reality is that it’s just hard to capture lightning in a bottle,” said Tamika Middleton, managing director at the Women’s March. “It was a really particular moment. In 2017, we had not seen a Trump presidency and the kind of vitriol that that represented.”

The movement fractured after that hugely successful day of protests over accusations that it was not diverse enough. This year’s rebrand as a People’s March is the result of an overhaul intended to broaden the group’s appeal. Saturday’s demonstration promoted themes related to feminism, racial justice, anti-militarization and other issues and ended with discussions hosted by various social justice organizations.

The People’s March is unusual in the “vast array of issues brought together under one umbrella,” said Jo Reger, a sociology professor who researches social movements at Oakland University in Rochester, Michigan. Women’s suffrage marches, for example, were focused on a specific goal of voting rights.

For a broad-based social justice movement such as the march, conflicting visions are impossible to avoid and there is “immense pressure” for organizers to meet everyone’s needs, Reger said. But she also said some discord isn’t necessarily a bad thing.

“Often what it does is bring change and bring in new perspectives, especially of underrepresented voices,” Reger said.

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Middleton, of the Women’s March, said a massive demonstration like the one in 2017 was not the goal of Saturday’s event. Instead, it’s goal was focusing attention on a broader set of issues — women’s and reproductive rights, LGBTQ rights, immigration, climate and democracy — rather than centering it more narrowly around Trump.

“We’re not thinking about the march as the endgame,” Middleton said. “How do we get those folks who show up into organizations and into their political homes so they can keep fighting in their communities long term?”

Associated Press writers Gary Fields, Ellen Knickmeyer and Mike Pesoli contributed to this report.



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DCA warns flyers to bundle up after heating system outage

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DCA warns flyers to bundle up after heating system outage


The primary heating system at Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport (DCA) has been out since Friday evening, and the airport is warning travelers to bundle up before they arrive.

“We apologize for any discomfort to travelers as we work diligently to return the heat to normal levels,” DCA said on its website.

DCA is still operational, and the broken heating system has not affected flights, TSA or airline operations, or any of the shops and restaurants inside. Temperatures outside in Alexandria hovering around 45 degrees Fahrenheit, and according to a statement from the airport, temperatures inside the building are “generally in the 60s.”

“We are conserving heat in the building and are running alternate heating sources in a few locations,” DCA said in a statement posted to X.

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Airport maintenance crews are working to repair the heating system, and have been since Friday night.



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