The Washington Nationals are finally starting to make some noise in the offseason, but there is still plenty of work to be done. 

For quite some time this winter, the Nationals were a very quiet team in free agency. However, that recently changed as the they signed pitcher Michael Soroka to a one-year, $9 million deal. 

The right-hander was an All-Star back in 2019, but has missed a ton of time because of injuries while bouncing back and forth between the starting rotation and the bullpen. Washington appears like they will be giving him a chance to be a starter in 2025, but it’s hard to expect anything from him after the last number of years. 

While the Nationals do have five starters under contract now and projected to be in the rotation to start the season, they are really lacking a reliable veteran to help lead this rotation. The starting pitching market has been wild, but if Washington is hoping to compete, they should be thinking about adding another arm, even after signing Soroka. 

Recently, Jeff Passan of ESPN.com wrote about the starting pitcher market and highlighted Jack Flaherty’s value on the rise, which could affect the Nationals. Passan pointed out that the “exorbitant” price of pitching helps Flaherty. And it’s not just deals for pitchers like Blake Snell and Max Fried.

He noted examples like Luis Severino’s $67 million, three-year deal and Frankie Montas’ $34 million, two-year deal, as examples. All of those, he wrote, lifts Flaherty’s potential value.

“However long Flaherty’s free agency takes to flesh out, he’s still bound to do well because every team needs starting pitching, and all it takes is one suitor to step up,” Passan wrote.

After seeing some of the other deals starters have received so far this offseason, it’s easy to understand why Flaherty’s value has gone up. While the right-hander isn’t an ace, he had a strong season in 2024 for both the Detroit Tigers and Los Angeles Dodgers. Also, he won a World Series, which never hurts a resume. 

The right-hander showed top-end of the rotation production with the Tigers in 2024, as he totaled a 7-5 record and 2.95 ERA before being traded. 

For Washington, they have to be thinking about adding a more established starter than Soroka this offseason. Besides MacKenzie Gore and Jake Irvin, there are a lot of question marks in this rotation. 

Even though the price tag might be on the rise, the 29-year-old right-hander could be exactly what the Nationals need in their starting rotation to take a step forward in 2025 and beyond. 

A 66-year-old American citizen has been in the DC jail for almost 10 months awaiting extradition to the Philippines for a crime her attorneys say there’s no evidence she committed.

Air Force veteran Grace Lourenco earned commendations for her service. In 1981, she was part of the flight crew aboard the Air Force plane that returned 53 U.S. diplomats and citizens who had been held hostage in Iran, her family said – a moment seen around the world.

She went on to earn a business degree, get married and have a daughter.

Court filings from a 2023 divorce proceeding between Lourenco and her husband, Hans Brunner, show a D.C. judge believed her statements that she had suffered physical abuse in the marriage.

The decree of divorce also contains the judge’s assessment of the alleged crime for which Lourenco was arrested at her Georgetown home earlier this year. It describes an incident in October 2018 at a home the couple owned in the Philippines, where Brunner worked.

“After lunch, on the ride back to their Manila home, Mr. Brunner told Ms. Lourenco he wanted to have an open relationship with [a German woman he’d met] and that he wanted to open a trust fund for her.”

“[Lourenco] remembers waking up in a hospital a couple days later,” said her attorney, William Zapf. “She had been unconscious, and it is believed that she had taken some medication that made her unconscious.”

The judge’s conclusions went on to say: “Later … while standing on the balcony, Mr. Brunner was attacked from behind. The perpetrator hit Mr. Brunner on the back of the head with a sharp, hard weapon. He did not see who attacked him.

“He was in a coma for two days.

“He asserts Ms. Lourenco was the perpetrator. Not only did Mr. Brunner fail to present evidence that Ms. Lourenco was the perpetrator, but he also failed to present evidence that (she) had wanted to kill him to get his pension.”

The judge concluded: “Both parties have committed intrafamily offenses against the other, but Mr. Brunner committed more offenses against Ms. Lourenco, and the Court finds (him) to have been the primary aggressor.”

Lourenco’s attorneys say her future is in the hands of the U.S. State Department.

“In cases like this where there are very serious humanitarian concerns about our client, Grace, this is the type of case where the Secretary of State can say no and should say no,” Zapf said.

Several people she served with in the Air Force have written letters supporting Lourenco.

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About 13,000 registered lobbyists plied their trade in Washington last year, at a total cost of more than $4.2 billion. Most represent industry groups ranging from the Chamber of Commerce to Big Pharma to Big Tech to oil, gas, and chemical producers. This holiday season, they have a golden opportunity to score big gifts for their clients and themselves through an obscure law only known to Washington insiders.

The Congressional Review Act allows a new lineup in the House, Senate, and Oval Office to repeal regulations issued during the last few months of the previous presidential administration with a simple majority vote (no filibuster) and a maximum of ten hours of floor debate (often much less). Historically, it has only really worked when Republicans take over the presidency, the House, and the Senate, and decide to destroy the work of a Democratic administration. The last time Donald Trump was president, Republican lawmakers eliminated 15 rules with little fuss and not much publicity.

The process is designed to allow Republican lawmakers, with almost no effort, to eliminate protections that took years to write. Prominent law firms and consultants are already working to sell lobbying campaigns to their clients. The law only applies to rules issued during the final 60 days that Congress is in session, and we don’t know when the House and Senate will adjourn. But this uncertainty is not stopping lobbyists from drumming up lucrative work.

This year’s list of rules to kill is chilling, targeting everything from pay increases for teachers at Head Start to limits on teenage smoking to drinking water purification. President-elect Donald Trump’s highly successful efforts to dominate the national news has so far masked these potentially destructive lobbying efforts.

Head Start provides early education for children from low-income families and focuses on their cognitive, social, and emotional development. Research shows that the program has produced great benefits for the children who are enrolled, preparing them for primary school where they would otherwise flounder. The program costs are modest, with funding of $12 billion last year.

The rule under attack was issued in August and would raise the salaries of Head Start teachers and improve their working conditions. Like Trump’s threatened Medicaid cuts, cancelling this rule would hurt people who need government help the most. Notably, the complete elimination of Head Start was among the radical proposals contained in the far-right Project 2025. Unknown industry players support this radical change to curry favor with the incoming administration.

Next up in the fight to shrink government is the age limit on buying cigarettes and smokeless tobacco. The targeted rule raises the age from 18 to 21. The Food and Drug Administration’s apparent sin here was following congressional instructions set out in a 2019 law.

If this rule experiences a rapid death, many members may not realize the significance of reversing a decision they made a mere five years ago. Because manufacturers deliberately add addictive nicotine to cigarettes, people who start smoking in adolescence most often do not quit. Smoking during childhood causes severe health problems, including the onset of respiratory disease, decreased physical fitness, and problems with lung growth.

Other regulations under scrutiny include an Environmental Protection Agency rule that would require the replacement of an estimated 9.2 million lead water pipes serving older housing and distribution systems across the country. The CDC advises that no safe level of lead is known for children under six, who can suffer brain and kidney damage when exposed to even minute amounts of lead.

Methane is released into the air from a variety of sources including facilities that produce oil and natural gas. It is 28 times more potent than carbon dioxide in causing climate change and causes one-third of the warming produced by human emissions of greenhouse gases. A rule being targeted by oil and gas producers would impose a fee for excessive emissions, as required by the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act. In our hearts, most Americans have a sense that something is very wrong with the climate, as we watch drought, floods, and wildfires overcome communities across the country. If this rule is swept from the books and we take no further action to reduce emissions, conditions will grow intolerable.

Of course, one response to this prediction of doom and gloom is that when a majority of Americans become disgusted enough, they’ll elect different politicians who will resurrect the rules. But the Congressional Review Act has a wrinkle that is even more destructive than sweeping the rules into the garbage with no debate. It is commonly referred to inside the Washington Beltway as “salting the earth.”

Once a rule is killed, an agency is forever barred from writing a new rule that is “in substantially the same form” as the vetoed rule. The first rule killed under the act was an effort under the Clinton administration to prevent ergonomic injuries in a variety of jobs, from meatpacking to manufacturing to health care. The Bureau of Labor Statistics found that 30 percent of injuries that caused employees to miss work were ergonomic injuries.

Ever since, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration has been too intimidated to try regulating this serious harm. Today we run the risk of other agencies being similarly deterred from making common-sense rules. Head Start may not get support for its teachers and other staff; teen smoking may increase; lead may remain in drinking water; and climate change may reach a breaking point unless and until Congress comes to its senses.

Rena Steinzor is professor emerita at the University of Maryland Carey Law School. James Goodwin is the policy director at the Center for Progressive Reform.

The views expressed in this article are the writers’ own.