Washington, D.C
Veteran court reporter Lynn Els taking her skills to U.S. Capitol
Coshocton court reporter talks about her new job in the US Capitol
Lynn Els, who has been the court reporter for Coshocton County Common Pleas Court for 40 years, has a new job with the U.S. House of Representatives.
COSHOCTON − Court reporter Lynn Els has always wanted to see the cherry blossoms in bloom in Washington, D.C., and she’ll get that chance this spring thanks to a new job.
Starting Jan. 12, Els will work as a court reporter for the U.S. House of Representatives on the floor in the Capital building in Washington D.C. She’ll write for 10 to 15 minutes before a new reporter comes on.
The 62-year-old will then go to the downstairs office and enter what she wrote into the official Congressional record before going back to the floor, or what they call the well. One might be able to spot Els during hearings aired on C-SPAN.
“It’s not verbatim like I’m used to taking in the courtroom. Because of parliamentary procedures, things are supposed to be worded a certain way in the Congressional record. So, you have to clean it up or insert special language,” Els said of what she’ll be doing. “Now I always have transcripts hanging over my head. I won’t have that backlog of transcripts, because you’re continuing throughout the day building the Congressional Record.”
Distinguished duties
Els has been a court reporter since 1984 and and started with Coshocton County Common Pleas Court in 1986. She can type up to 300 words a minute. She was one of the first people in the nation to obtain a Certified Realtime Reporter designation in 1995.
“I’m excited for what’s new, but sad because I’ve done this for so long and it’s comfortable,” Els said of leaving her current court post. “The thing about this job is that I always have work to do.”
Along with serving as a court reporter for Coshocton County, Els has also done closed captioning for a variety of events. Everything from Cincinnati Bengals football games to the funeral services of Billy Graham and Whitney Houston to “Fox and Friends” to the royal weddings of Prince Harry and Prince William; all working remotely.
This has also included congressional hearings and recognition ceremonies at the Capital starting in 2013, which was the connection to Els’ new job. She worked as an independent contractor through Alderson Court Reporting.
Landing the job
With a laugh, she said living in a small, rural community was actually beneficial. Since she worked remotely and transmitted captions via landlines, the older equipment in Washington D.C. could keep up better with Els’ transmission, over digital lines from larger cities.
“They always kind of liked it when it was me. They knew they wouldn’t have any disconnection problems. So, I became their preferred writer,” Els said.
She was encouraged to submit her resume for the new position last summer. Els never dreamed she would get it, she just always wanted to travel to Washington D.C. to see what it looked like on-site.
Els went to D.C. for an interview and sat in on a committee hearing. She took notes and then typed them up back at the office. This was followed by a writing test and current events test. Els said captioning for the morning news program “Fox and Friends” helped her with that part.
“Just being there was exciting. I did it. I survived that day and it wasn’t bad,” Els said.
Els was slated to start in October, but that was pushed out due to the government shutdown. She will be living in a condo owned by a court reporter friend who works for the International Monetary Fund. Els said she’s received a lot of questions on her living situation, but she’ll be back in Coshocton when not working.
She’ll also continue to do some captioning work on weekends and her off hours, such as captioning for screens in the stadium for Bengals’ home games.
“I do want to keep my skills built up. It’s like playing a sport with captioning, because it’s fast,” Els said. “If you don’t do it, you lose that skill.”
Leonard Hayhurst is a community content coordinator and general news reporter for the Coshocton Tribune with more than 18 years of local journalism experience and multiple awards from the Ohio Associated Press. He can be reached at 740-295-3417 or llhayhur@coshoctontribune.com. Follow him on X at @llhayhurst.
Washington, D.C
12th Honor Flight Tallahassee returns home from successful trip to Washington D.C.
TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (WCTV) – Seventy-two veterans took a trip Saturday to our nation’s capital to visit memorials honoring their service in the armed forces.
This year marks the 12th trip to Washington, D.C. for Honor Flight Tallahassee.
Early Saturday morning, veterans and their guardians met to take a charter flight up to D.C.
Throughout the day, veterans were taken to the World War II memorial, as well as the Korean and Vietnam War memorials. The veterans also visited Arlington National Cemetery and the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier.
More Tallahassee news:
The day ended with a wonderful welcome home celebration.
Our Jacob Murphey, Julia Miller, Taylor Viles, and Grace Temple accompanied the veterans, capturing moments from throughout the day.
The team will have live coverage from Washington, D.C. on Monday to share more from the day’s events.
We will continue to have coverage throughout the month of May, leading up to our Honor Flight special on Memorial Day.
To keep up with the latest news as it develops, follow WCTV on Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, Nextdoor and X (Twitter).
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Copyright 2026 WCTV. All rights reserved.
Washington, D.C
Storm Team4 Forecast: A chilly, gusty Sunday before a cool start to the week
4 things to know about the weather:
- Chances of rain in the morning
- Gusty Sunday
- Chilly Monday
- Temps will rise again through the work week
Download the NBC Washington app on iOS and Android to check the weather radar on the go.
After a nice and warm Saturday, changes arrive for part two of the weekend.
The first half of your Sunday will have a chance for showers. Winds will pick up with our next system and are expected to gust to about 20-30 mph. Cooler air will settle in, and lows Sunday night fall into the 40s.
Highs temps Monday will reach only into the mid to upper 50s.
However, temperatures will rise through the week, so you won’t need your jackets every day.
QuickCast
SUNDAY:
Showers, then partly cloudy
Wind: NW 10-15 mph
Gusts @ 30 mph
HIGH: Lower 60s
MONDAY:
Partly cloudy
Wind: NW 10-15 mph
Gusts @ 25 mph
HIGH: Upper 50s
Stay with Storm Team4 for the latest forecast. Download the NBC Washington app on iOS and Android to get severe weather alerts on your phone.
Washington, D.C
‘It’s a twilight zone’: Iran war casts deep shadows over IMF gathering in Washington
The most severe energy shock since the 1970s, the risk of a global recession and households everywhere stomaching a renewed surge in the cost of living – hitting the most vulnerable hardest.
In a sweltering hot Washington DC this week, the message at the International Monetary Fund meetings was chilling: things had been looking up for living standards around the world. But then came the Iran war.
“Some countries are in panic,” said the fund’s managing director, Kristalina Georgieva, addressing the finance ministers and central bank bosses in town for the IMF and World Bank spring meetings. “The sooner it [the Iran war] ends, the better for everybody.”
Such gatherings are not typically used to fight geopolitical battles. “You don’t get people shouting at one another at these things,” one senior figure remarked. But, as a record-breaking April heatwave swept the US capital, no one could ignore the mounting damage from the Iran war.
Those familiar with the mood over breakfast at a meeting of the G20’s representatives on Thursday, which included Donald Trump’s treasury secretary, Scott Bessent, and the outgoing US Federal Reserve chair, Jerome Powell – said the atmosphere in the room was sombre amid an open exchange of serious views.
“It is such a twilight-zone meeting,” said Mohamed El-Erian, a former IMF deputy managing director who is now chief economic adviser at the Allianz insurance group. “There are several shadows hanging over it: one is the shadow that comes from concern about the global economy as a whole.
“The second is that some countries are going to be particularly hard hit, and it’s mostly countries that very few people are talking about. But the third concern is the adding of insult to injury: the fact that the US, which started a war of choice, is going to be hit, but by a lot less than elsewhere in relative terms.”
Before Thursday’s breakfast, Rachel Reeves had started her day with an early-morning jog. Joined by her counterparts from Spain, Australia and New Zealand for a run down the iconic National Mall, she posted an Instagram selfie with a not-so-subtle dig: “Friends that run together – work together.”
A day earlier, the chancellor had told a CNBC conference that she thought “friends are allowed to disagree on things” as she criticised Trump’s Iran war as a “mistake” and a “folly” that had not made the world safer.
Speaking at a venue just steps away from the White House, before a one-on-one meeting with Bessent, she said this “fair message” was needed because UK families and businesses were feeling the pain from higher energy prices triggered by the conflict.
Those close to Reeves insist her meeting remained cordial. Britain and the US have significant shared interests in AI, financial services and trade. The chancellor also said the UK government had little time for the Iranian regime.
But with the IMF having warned on Tuesday that the Iran war could risk a global recession – in which Britain would be the biggest G7 casualty – it was clear Reeves had travelled to Washington ready to pick a fight.
“I’m struck by how vocal she has been and the words she used,” said one global financier. “We know the disagreement between Bessent and [European Central Bank president] Christine Lagarde earlier in the year. But that was in private.”
At a cocktail party held at the British ambassador’s residence for hundreds of diplomats and financiers – including the Bank of England’s governor, Andrew Bailey, the chief executive of Barclays, CS Venkatakrishnan, and dozens of senior figures – this transatlantic tension, weeks before King Charles’s US state visit, was a major topic of conversation.
The other, in the balmy residence gardens, was one of its former occupants, Peter Mandelson, as revelations about the former ambassador’s appointment threatened to further rock the UK government.
Before the war, the agenda for the IMF had been about global cooperation; the adoption of AI, jobs and work to eradicate poverty. Each of those tasks had now been complicated, but not least the task of countries working together.
For many at the meetings, the focus was on forging closer global cooperation without the world’s pre-eminent superpower.
“Everybody is talking about how you hedge against American decisions,” said David Miliband, the former UK foreign secretary, who now runs the International Rescue Committee. “You can’t do without them, because they’re 25% of the global economy. But, in a lot of fora, they’ve pulled out.
“So everyone has to think, how does one structure international cooperation? The old west is not coming back. And so everyone has to figure out how to position themselves for that world.”
For those gathering in Washington, there was irony in the fact that they were meeting in the halls of institutions founded, under US leadership, to promote global cooperation after the second world war. The whole idea of the Bretton Woods institutions was to avoid the dire economic conditions and warfare of the 1930s and 1940s. Yet this year’s meeting was taking place amid these intertwining problems.
In their conversations about the best economic policy response to the shock of conflict, the economists also knew the real power to make a difference lay two blocks across town from the IMF and the World Bank – behind the security cordons and construction equipment blocking the White House from public view. “It is not clear they can do anything about it,” said El-Erian.
Still, with a booming economy driven by AI – including Anthropic’s powerful Mythos model, the topic of much conversation – most countries cannot afford to completely break off US ties.
“People want to find ways to insulate themselves from the mess. But, on the other hand, they admire the US private sector,” El-Erian said. “The best way I’ve heard it put, is: they want to go long the private sector and short the mess. But it’s almost impossible to do.”
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