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Opinion: Finding hope for America on Washington’s M Street

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Opinion: Finding hope for America on Washington’s M Street


Is America headed within the mistaken course? Ought to we brace for the top of civil society?

These are questions which were on my thoughts, in addition to these of many Individuals, whereas I’ve been dwelling and dealing in Washington, D.C., with interns from Brigham Younger College in the course of the previous eight months.  

Throughout that point, I’ve had the privilege of speaking with U.S. senators, congressmen, ambassadors, diplomats of overseas nations and media representatives. Strife, partisanship, worrisome inflation and a lengthening warfare in Europe give ample trigger for concern.  

Nonetheless, I’ve discovered hope among the many common public within the streets of Washington. Much less usually showcased are the realities that Individuals assist brave causes, admire the accomplishments of others and embrace excellence. If our nation is to maneuver towards unity, we should exemplify these ideas that embody the spirit of tolerance.   

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That is the temporary story of my stroll down one American road, D.C.’s M Avenue, which has renewed my religion in American society.  

M Avenue is basically no totally different than every other avenue within the nation’s capital. It does, nonetheless, characterize a ribbon in time that winds via the nation’s historical past in addition to the very best aspirations of its residents.  

From the west, the C&O Canal, constructed within the 1830s, connects with the avenue correct simply down the hill from the hovering gothic spires of Healy Corridor on the campus of Georgetown College. It extends on this telling towards one other instructional establishment, Howard College, a storied traditionally Black college within the Shaw District’s Georgia Avenue.  

It’s not too tough to search out brave causes that Individuals have embraced alongside the best way. Simply previous the Francis Scott Key Bridge, we discover the Forrest-Marbury home, the place Basic Uriah Forrest and varied native patriots regaled the brand new nation’s president, George Washington, with a particular dinner in 1791. Many amongst Forrest’s circle had supplied land for the institution of the District of Columbia.  

What of the destiny of that constructing over two centuries later? Immediately it’s blanketed in recent minimize yellow and purple-blue flowers, expressing assist for the nation whose embassy now occupies the constructing: Ukraine.  

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Stuffed toys remind that kids have been caught within the battle. Poignant messages from Individuals and considerate residents around the globe grace the steps.  

Not too far up Wisconsin Avenue, which veers off from M Avenue, an empty Russian Embassy stands behind an emphatic message scrawled in chalk on concrete, “SURRENDER PUTIN.” Standing not too far-off is a makeshift road signal studying “Zelenskyy Approach.” Certainly, Individuals embrace worthy causes.  

Farther down the road, between 14th and 15th avenues, stands the non secular anchor of M Avenue, the almost 150-year-old Metropolitan African Methodist Episcopal Church. Consolidated from two earlier African American church buildings, together with one which served as a method station on the Underground Railroad, right this moment the church supplies non secular steering for its members, in addition to assist for civil rights.

Pastor William Lamar IV pointed me to the church’s “towering theological (and neighborhood primarily based) custom,” born within the aftermath of Reconstruction, which continues to succor its members in addition to battle for voting rights which he believes “had been safer in my dad and mom’ era than in (our) personal.” Pastor Lamar ties the mission of the church to its geographic location, squarely within the historic Black Shaw neighborhood, the place the likes of Ida B. Wells championed the dignity of all women and men, amongst different notable civil rights advocates.  

Second, M Avenue epitomizes Individuals’ penchant for recognizing the accomplishments of others. We do it is a variety of methods, together with how we behave as customers. Again on the west aspect of M Avenue, nestled just a few blocks up Wisconsin Avenue, we findL.A. Burdick’s Chocolate Store. Ajane, an enterprising younger African American barista, proudly served up the world’s certifiably “second-best” darkish scorching chocolate on this planet, whose hovering, brilliant notes stability completely the strong physique of a recipe perfected in america.  

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Towards the japanese finish of M Avenue, Mexican American Alfredo Solis opened his third Latin-themed restaurant, Mariscos 1133. Whereas we loved his tackle Peruvian ceviche, which he defined to us included a creamy fusion of the Peruvian condiment, aji, with a Mexican contact of habanero chiles, he instructed us that he got here to america 22 years in the past and continues to transit the Americas, bringing again the very best of the hemisphere for his extremely profitable trio of eating places. Solis is an American success story.  

Lastly, Individuals proceed to embrace excellence and wonder. In fact, that is the best manifestation of tolerance, once we transfer past mere acceptance to wholeheartedly respect these pearls of creativity that we uncover inside all Individuals.  

We discover a becoming instance of this simply off of 27th and M Avenue, the place a retired College of Chicago professor, John Ulric Nef, and his spouse, Evelyn, established a house and sanctuary for artwork. As a lot as they cultivated a style for high-quality sculptures and work, additionally they developed friendships that introduced out the very best of their acquaintances. Considered one of these people was none aside from the Belorussian (the present-day location of his hometown of Liozna) Marc Chagall.  

Chagall so appreciated their friendship that he endowed the Nefs’ yard with a 17-by-10-foot mosaic composed of 10 Carrara marble plates, lined with numerous tesserae in myriad colours that inform the hopeful story of refugees and the muses of creativity,titled “Orphee.”  

The unusually optimistic tableau now sits in an not noticeable clearing on the northwest aspect of the Nationwide Gallery of Artwork’s Sculpture Backyard. It is just this writer’s guess that the cheerful 4 onlookers on the underside (dealing with) lefthand of the mosaic are none aside from Chagall, his spouse and two kids. The bigger group of immigrants characterize these, like Chagall, who made their option to security in the course of the monstrous German Holocaust.  

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The overwhelming ensemble calls to thoughts the phrases of the biblical apostle Paul, whose cost would possibly properly describe what we as a nation pursue once we see the Judeo-Christian values that assist our society:  

“(W)hatsoever issues are true, in any way issues are trustworthy, in any way issues are simply, in any way issues are pure, in any way issues are pretty, in any way issues are of fine report; if there be any advantage, and if there be any reward, suppose on these items.”

In the end, if Individuals can restrict public corruption (via elected good women and men to workplace), tame rivalry and step up cooperation, we must be eager for the long run. Certainly, Individuals, like these in all these tales I discovered on M Avenue within the nation’s capital, assist worthy causes, acknowledge excellence in others (even within the market), and embrace all that’s good, if they’re given an opportunity to heed their higher angels.  

Evan Ward is affiliate professor of historical past at Brigham Younger College the place he teaches programs on world historical past. 

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Years after his dad drowned, this Commanders starter is teaching kids to swim

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Years after his dad drowned, this Commanders starter is teaching kids to swim


Cornelius Lucas III remembers everything about the day his father drowned on a family camping trip outside their home in New Orleans.

“We had a little campfire going. … I was running around. I was in and out the water, but I didn’t really go deep. My dad had went in the water deep a couple times, and I feel like this was his second or third time, maybe third or fourth time going back in the water.

“He literally asked me, ‘You want to come with me?’ I was like, ‘Nah, I’m just gonna stick back here and throw the football around.’ And I just remember seeing him walk out — as a kid, everything seemed bigger — but maybe like 40, 50 yards deep into the water. And then he — I saw his hands waving at me, and he just dipped underwater.”

People rushed out to help, but when they got there, they couldn’t find his father. He had been dragged under by a rip tide.

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“Forty-five minutes later, he floated back,” Lucas said.

“At the age of seven, I was out of having a dad, out of having my best bud, my best friend, my greatest — my best teacher, you know what I’m saying? Like, the guy that was put in this world to give me all the game that I’ve been searching for since then.”

Twenty-six years later, Lucas is a man, 6-foot-8, 327 pounds, a professional hitter with a goofball grin and the self-confidence he lacked growing up without his dad. Lucas believes his unlikely journey has led him to this moment with the Washington Commanders, where, entering the 11th season of his improbable NFL career, the longtime backup is competing for the huge role of starting left tackle and blindside protector for new franchise quarterback Jayden Daniels.

Lucas, 33, feels he’s doing well early in the competition with rookie Brandon Coleman, and unlike his first shot at being a full-time starter (his second season, with Detroit), he feels ready.

Many players who go undrafted out of college, as Lucas did out of Kansas State in 2014, get chewed up by the NFL. Their moment is darkened by the ever-present possibility of getting fired, and they’re often forced out of the league against their will, broken or brokenhearted. In his fifth year, Lucas was overwhelmed by repeated rejection and tried to quit by ignoring calls from his agent.

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It was in those difficult moments Lucas felt his father’s absence most.

“Outside of my coaches and my teammates to push me and tell me I could do this, I haven’t had someone I could call on and just tell them how I’m feeling, what’s going on,” he said.

“It’s really been a me situation. Like, me figuring it out. Me going home and sitting in silence for two hours because I got beat in practice, and I’m thinking about why I got beat and how I can’t get beat no more because I’m on the edge of getting cut, and you know — I’m saying it’s been stressful. ”

As he honed his skills, Lucas has grown mentally tough, observing people around him, looking for “life tidbits” and refining who he wants to be.

In 2018, everything came together. Lucas caught a break, played well in one game for his hometown New Orleans Saints and parlayed it into a job with Chicago, where he shined. In 2020, he signed a two-year deal with the Commanders, and in 2022, he signed another. Last summer, he felt like he finally “filled myself up enough to pour into others.”

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And he had an idea how: Swim camp. Every summer, NFL players host youth football camps across the country, and while he saw the value in them, he wanted to do something more personal. He attended pool parties growing up, even after his father’s death, but he still had never gone in a pool deeper than his height.

So he partnered with Son of a Saint, a nonprofit organization for fatherless boys in New Orleans, and figured he could show boys like him how to be a man and teach them a potentially lifesaving skill.

“I live in New Orleans, Louisiana,” Lucas said. “We are currently seven feet under sea level. In New Orleans, we get flooding. Hurricane Katrina, it was flooding for 45 days.”

This year, at his second camp, the only boy scared of the water was too big for anyone but Lucas to hold while learning to doggy paddle. Lucas encouraged him to go into the pool, urging him to fight their fear together.

“Trust me,” Lucas said. “I won’t let you drown.”

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Weeks later, Lucas left New Orleans for training camp extra motivated. His girlfriend — with whom he bonded, in part, over missing a parent — is pregnant with their first child, a son, due in early November. Sometimes, when Lucas notices her belly growing, it makes him want to go outside in the sun and practice.

“When he gets here, I just want him to see his daddy doing the right thing.”

Lucas wants to teach his son all the lessons he had to gather from others, such as how to mow the lawn or drive on the highway. He’s picking up even more from Instagram and TikTok. He hopes to one day teach his son to play tackle.

And he wants to throw his son in the water. He wants him to flail on his own at first, to fight to float, because he believes struggling will help his son get comfortable. Even if he doesn’t like to swim, Lucas’s top priority is for his son to never feel how he sometimes felt around water.

“He’s not gonna have a fear of it,” he said.

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Advice | Carolyn Hax: Fiancé secretly tracks ‘gold digger’s’ contribution to shared home

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Advice | Carolyn Hax: Fiancé secretly tracks ‘gold digger’s’ contribution to shared home


Adapted from an online discussion.

Dear Carolyn: My fiancé and I bought a house late last year, with help from his parents. Though we both make good salaries, he comes from a rich family, and I was raised by a single mom. His parents insisted on giving us the money for our down payment and closing costs, and my mom gave us a dishwasher, which was very generous of all of them and also appreciated.

We have been working like mad on fixing the house up to get it ready for our wedding. Neither of us is very experienced with DIY, so it’s been a difficult, stressful process and caused some tension between us. We were discussing what kind of flooring to get for the front hall, and I wanted the more expensive but easier-to-work-with stuff. We got into a fight that escalated to the point of him accusing me of being a gold digger who was after his money. I was in shock and asked him why he would think that, and he said, “Because you told me about how you grew up poor,” and he’s had the thought in the back of his head since we bought the house. He told me he has a spreadsheet where he keeps track of how much he’s spent on me versus how much I’ve spent on him and he has spent thousands more on me, not even counting the money his parents gave us.

I told him that didn’t sound right since we split all costs 50/50, and he admitted it included my engagement ring. It is a family heirloom his great-aunt gave him, but he was counting the value of it.

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Later he apologized, but I’m still hurt and angry. I feel paranoid that maybe his family said something. I’m really sad that all this time I’ve been loving him and thinking he was wonderful, and he’s been thinking this way about me and even documenting it so he could throw it in my face.

He’s said the spreadsheet is just an “anxiety thing” and he loves me and wants us to work on fixing things. I think I do, too, but then I think of what he said and I get overwhelmed. How can I get over this?

“Gold Digger”: Whoo. I don’t know. I don’t know that I could.

He not only has kept the thought in the back of his mind for months? years? that you have poor values and ulterior motives and can’t be trusted, but kept records in the event he needs to prove it.

I wish I had a more hopeful answer for you. But he either lashed out impulsively and didn’t mean it, or accidentally told the truth — those are the only two choices — and the first is a stretch when there’s a spreadsheet as evidence of the second.

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Plus, the first is so vicious in its own right.

He says he loves you, okay. But trusts? Respects? Believes in?

Does he feel lucky every day to be the person you chose?

Best case, “just an ‘anxiety thing,’” still casts you as a threat to be controlled. So the “work on fixing things” doesn’t sound like DIY, but instead couples counseling at the least.

The family paranoia, by the way, is wasted stress — each of you stands on your own authority in choosing your partner, 100 percent, or you’re not ready to be anyone’s partner. If he’s that susceptible to their influence, then the problem is still between the two of you, so that’s where your attention belongs.

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Trump ally who denies 2020 election results threatens law enforcement

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Trump ally who denies 2020 election results threatens law enforcement


Patrick Byrne, who has funded efforts to undermine the results of the 2020 election, said in an online forum Thursday that law enforcement would face “a piano wire and a blowtorch” if they did not drop a case against an ally.

Byrne, a former CEO of online retailer Overstock, used the phrase half a dozen times Thursday as he participated in a nearly three-hour-long event on X Spaces. His remarks came amid heightened worries about political violence, and he acknowledged during the event that his references to strangling or blowtorching officials were threatening and could be considered felonies. On Friday, he downplayed his comments, saying he had been speaking metaphorically and is committed to peace.

The “Cyber Crisis: Saving Tina Peters” event was aimed at rallying support for the former clerk of Mesa County, Colo., who faces charges accusing her of tampering with election equipment three years ago. Peters has pleaded not guilty, and her case goes to trial next week.

Byrne called out law enforcement and prosecutors during the forum, saying they would face violence if they did not drop the case.

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“If you have any brains at all, which I’m not sure they do, they should be throwing in the towel and just surrendering and dropping this case against Tina because those who don’t are going to end up facing a piano wire and a blowtorch before this is over if I have anything to do with it,” Byrne said. “So I know that’s probably another felony, but f— it — threatening them like that — but there we are.”

Byrne, who said he was participating in the event from Azerbaijan, accused law enforcement of committing treason and claimed he had been hacking Venezuela’s government for two years.

“I don’t care how many felonies I’ve committed, and I don’t care that I’m committing felonies by threatening you,” he said of law enforcement. “You folks do your job or when this is over, the folks who are part of this are going to be facing, you know, piano wire and blowtorches before this is over. So you start doing your job and stop worrying about me.”

Byrne said Friday that his comments were “obviously a metaphor.”

“Please be aware that my turns of phrase like that are metaphoric expressions,” he said by text message. “There’s been no one more committed to peaceful resolution of this than I.”

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He said his views on peace do not extend to people like former ambassador Manuel Rocha, who pleaded guilty this year to serving as a secret agent for Cuba for decades. “The only exception to peaceful resolution will be for any who turn out of Cuba and Venezuela, such as ambassador Rocha,” Byrne said by text message.

Byrne noted it was 4 a.m. in Azerbaijan when he participated in the event on X, and he may not have spoken as carefully as he otherwise would.

Spokespeople for the Colorado attorney general’s office and Mesa County district attorney’s office did not immediately comment Friday.

Byrne’s comments come three-and-a-half months ahead of the presidential election, as scholars, law enforcement agencies and election administrators raise alarms about the risk of political violence. Election officials have faced an onslaught of threats and harassment since the 2020 election and the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol by a mob chanting about Donald Trump’s false election claims.

Two weeks ago, Trump was injured during an assassination attempt that left one of his supporters dead at a rally in Butler, Pa. The violence fueled new warnings of the risk to public officials and ordinary Americans, regardless of their political views.

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Before today’s combustible political environment, the phrases Byrne used might have prompted outreach by authorities to advise against using such language, said Paul Charlton, a former U.S. attorney under President George W. Bush. These days, state and federal officials tend to take such talk more seriously. Byrne’s language, he said, “sounds not only like a threat but a confession and an acknowledgment that it could be a felony to make such a threat.”

Words alone can be sufficient to prosecute threats against public officials if authorities can show proof of intent to do harm, he said.

“That is an instance in which, in my mind, it is very much worth law enforcement’s attention,” Charlton said.

Byrne’s repeated references to the Peters trial — and the prosecutors involved in it — are important aspects of his overall comments, said Carol Lam, a former U.S. attorney for the Southern District of California who was also appointed by Bush.

“Because he references a specific trial and he’s talking about the people who are bringing the case, that should be very troubling to law enforcement,” she said. Even if he said he was speaking metaphorically, she added, “What does that matter if someone went out and bought piano wire at his suggestion?”

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Two hours after The Washington Post contacted Byrne, he posted a statement on X that reiterated what he told a reporter about meaning his comments metaphorically. He said he wanted people to remain peaceful, but added information would come out that would “test our ability to remain peaceful and my ability to contribute to that cause.”

Byrne used this week’s online forum to argue for dropping the charges against Peters, who is accused of participating in a scheme to allow a purported data expert to secretly copy files from Dominion Voting Systems equipment in 2021. She faces seven felonies and three misdemeanors in a case that is scheduled to go to trial on Wednesday.

He has long championed Peters and others who have questioned the results of the 2020 election. Four days after members of the electoral college voted to give Biden a victory in December 2020, Byrne joined other Trump allies in the Oval Office to argue Trump could use the National Guard to seize voting machines. Also in the meeting were Trump-aligned attorneys Sidney Powell and Rudy Giuliani and former national security adviser Michael Flynn.

In the years since, Byrne has used his fortune and his nonprofit America Project to bankroll efforts meant to uncover problems with how elections are run, including a partisan review of the 2020 election in Arizona. Byrne and the America Project have helped fund groups like We the People Ariz. Alliance, an Arizona-based political action committee whose co-founder in March said she would “lynch” a Republican official who helps oversee elections in the state’s largest county. She later said her comment was a joke.

Courts and independent agencies have found no evidence of widespread election fraud.

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Byrne led Overstock for two decades. He resigned in 2019 after it came to light that he had been romantically involved with Maria Butina, a Russian gun activist who pleaded guilty in 2018 to conspiring with a Russian official to infiltrate conservative politics in the United States. She was deported after serving a 15-month prison sentence. Byrne published a memoir this year that included a preface by Butina.

Dominion, the voting machine company, filed a $1.6 billion defamation lawsuit against Byrne in 2021. The case is ongoing. Dominion won settlements of $787.5 million with Fox News and $243 million with Newsmax and is seeking $1 billion or more from Giuliani, Powell and MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell.

Spencer S. Hsu and Rachel Weiner contributed to this report.



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