Washington
Washington Post writer roasts his own outlet for passing on Samuel Alito flag story
Media critic Erik Wemple bashed The Washington Post, his employer, for giving The New York Times an opportunity to break the story about an upside-down American flag flown in Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito’s front yard.
Alito said his wife was responsible for flying the flag in that position amid a dispute with a neighbor who put up a “f— Trump” sign about 50 feet away from a children’s bus stop. Though the Times broke the story and tied upside-down flags to connect the Jan. 6 riots, the Post passed on the scoop over three years ago.
“The Post … sat back and watched the New York Times nail down a precious exclusive whose epicenter is a leisurely drive from its K Street newsroom,” Wemple wrote in an op-ed Wednesday. He called it a “black eye” for his paper and criticized the Post for “inaction.”
ALITO SAYS WIFE DISPLAYED UPSIDE-DOWN FLAG AFTER ARGUMENT WITH INSULTING NEIGHBOR
Erik Wemple bashed The Washington Post for giving The New York Times an opportunity to take a story from his outlet about the Alito flag story. (Getty Images)
Wemple pointed out that no one from the paper appeared to have reached out to Emily Baden, the neighbor who got into an argument with the Alitos, “until after the Times’s May 16 story was published.”
“All signs point to a failure of The Post to publish something about this fracas, whatever its focus or takeaway,” Wemple wrote.
Cameron Barr, the Post’s managing editor when it first had the scoop, said he regretted not publishing the story. Barr also said the neighborhood dispute would have involved the Post’s Metro section, but Wemple wrote that he found no evidence that Metro was consulted.
“When I asked Martin Baron, who served as executive editor at the time, about how things proceeded, he responded, ‘I don’t know how things proceeded. I never knew about any of those discussions. I only learned about them when The Post inquired about the story.’”
“Against that backdrop, the Times’s flag scoop — and The Post’s breakdown — became a big story,” Wemple continued. “The episode has left The Post in the position of having to play second fiddle on a story that it should have owned from the start.”
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Wemple argued that the “Alitos received deference to which they were not entitled,” explaining that the Alitos’ neighbor, Emily Baden, said the Alito family’s explanation of the neighborhood argument was “absolutely ridiculous and everybody knows it.” (Alex Wong/Getty Images)
Wemple also argued that the “Alitos received deference to which they were not entitled.” He wrote that Baden called the Alito family’s explanation of the neighborhood argument “absolutely ridiculous and everybody knows it.”
The Washington Post did not respond to a request for comment from Fox News Digital.
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Fox News’ Shannon Bream and Greg Norman contributed to this report.
Trinity Rodman signs record deal with Washington Spirit
USWNT forward Trinity Rodman signed a three-year deal with the NWSL’s Washington Spirit. The deal makes Rodman the highest-paid female footballer in the world.
unbranded – Sport
Washington Spirit goalkeeper Aubrey Kingsbury has announced that she and her husband Matt are expecting a baby in July.
The couple made the announcement in a video on the Spirit’s social media channels, holding a baby goalkeeper jersey on the pitch at Audi Field.
Kingsbury becomes the most recent Spirit star to go on maternity leave, following defender Casey Krueger, midfielder Andi Sullivan and forward Ashley Hatch.
Sullivan gave birth to daughter Millie in July, while Hatch welcomed her son Leo in January.
Krueger announced she was pregnant with her second child in October.
Kingsbury has served as the Spirit’s starting goalkeeper since 2018, and has been named the NWSL Goalkeeper of the Year twice (2019 and 2021).
The 34-year-old has two caps with the U.S. women’s national team, and was named to the 2023 World Cup roster.
The club captain will leave a major void for the Spirit, who have finished as NWSL runner-up in back-to-back seasons.
Sandy MacIver and Kaylie Collins are expected to compete for the starting role while Kingsbury is on maternity leave.
The Spirit kick off their 2026 campaign on March 13 against the Portland Thorns.
YAKIMA, Wash. — Yakima could soon take a major step toward redesigning Sixth Avenue after the Washington State Public Works Board awarded the city a $985,600 loan.
The loan was approved for the design engineering phase of the Sixth Avenue project. The funding can also be used along Sixth Avenue for utility replacement and updated ADA use.
The Yakima City Council must decide whether to accept the award. If the council accepts it, the city’s engineering work will move forward with the design of Sixth Avenue.
The cost of installing trolley lines is excluded from the plan. The historic trolleys would need to raise the funds required to add trolley lines.
The award is scheduled to be discussed during next week’s City Council meeting.
Microsoft will ramp up its investment in the University of Washington.
Brad Smith, the company’s president, made the announcement at a press conference with University of Washington President Robert Jones on Tuesday.
That means hiring more UW graduates as interns at Microsoft, he said.
And he said all students, faculty, and researchers should have access to free, or at least deeply-discounted, AI.
“ Some of it is compute that Microsoft is donating, and some of it is pursuant to an agreement where, believe me, we give the University of Washington probably the best pricing that anybody’s gonna find anywhere,” Smith said. He assured the small group of reporters present that it would be “many millions of dollars of additional computational resources.”
The announcement today didn’t include any specific numbers.
But Smith said Microsoft has already invested $165 million in the UW over several decades.
He pointed to Jones’ vision to spur “radical collaborations with businesses and communities to advance positive change,” and eliminate “any artificial barriers between the university and the communities it serves.”
Microsoft’s goal is for AI to help UW researchers solve some of the world’s biggest problems without introducing new ones.
At Tuesday’s announcement, several research students were present to demonstrate how AI supports their work.
Amelia Keyser-Gibson is an environmental scientist at the UW. She’s using AI to analyze photographs of vines, to find which adapt best to climate change.
It’s a paradox: AI produces carbon emissions. At the same time, it’s also a new tool to help reduce them.
So how do those things square for Keyser-Gibson?
“ That’s a great question, and honestly, I don’t know the answer to that,” she said. “I’m highly aware that there’s a lot of environmental impact of using AI, but what I can say is that this has allowed us to make research innovations that wouldn’t have been possible otherwise.”
“If we had had to manually annotate every single image that would’ve been an undergrad doing that for hours,” Keyser-Gibson continued. “And we didn’t have the budget. We didn’t have the manpower to do that.”
“AI exists. If we don’t use it as researchers, we’re gonna fall behind.”
Microsoft reports on its own carbon emissions. But like most AI companies, it doesn’t reveal everything.
That’s one reason another UW student named Zhihan Zhang is using AI to estimate how much energy AI is using.
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