Security Council Tightens Economic Vise on North Korea, Blocking Fuel, Ships and Workers

Experts, and even the White House, agree that the United States is running out of sanctions options. The C.I.A. assessment is that no amount of economic sanctions will force the North Korean leader, Kim Jong-un, to give up his country’s nuclear program.

“President Trump has used just about every lever you can use, short of starving the people of North Korea to death, to change their behavior,” the White House homeland security adviser, Thomas P. Bossert, said Tuesday. “And so we don’t have a lot of room left here to apply pressure to change their behavior.”

The vote came just four days after the United States charged that the North was responsible for the “Wannacry” cyberattack that crippled computers around the world in May, and nearly a month after the country launched a new intercontinental missile that appears capable of reaching any city in the United States.

The United States, which has led the sanctions effort at the Security Council, drafted the latest round in consultation with other members, notably China, which historically has been reluctant to impose them for fear of destabilizing North Korea, its neighbor.

There were some last-minute changes in the final version of the resolution, partly to satisfy Russian complaints. The changes included doubling the deadline for the return of North Korean workers to 24 months from 12 months.

Russia’s deputy ambassador, Vladimir Safronkov, who attended the Security Council vote, made a point of complaining about negotiations over the resolution, in which he said Russia had not been adequately consulted.

Still, Russia went along with the new measures — though American officials have charged that in recent months the Russians have secretly opened new links to the North, including internet connections that give the country an alternative to communicating primarily through China.

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The unanimous decision was a diplomatic achievement for the Trump administration, only a day after most members of the United Nations General Assembly, brushing aside President Trump’s threats of retaliation, condemned the United States’ new recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital.

Nikki R. Haley, the American ambassador, thanked the other Council members — especially China — for coming together on the resolution and said further North Korean defiance would “invite further punishment and isolation.”

Ms. Haley called North Korea’s intercontinental ballistic missile test last month “another attempt by the Kim regime to masquerade as a great power while their people starve and their soldiers defect.”

China’s deputy ambassador, Wu Haitao, said the latest measures reflected “the unanimous position of the international community” and he urged North Korea to “refrain from conducting any further nuclear and missile tests.”

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A view of a street in Pyongyang, North Korea’s capital. Under the new sanctions, the amount of refined petroleum North Korea can import each year will be cut by 89 percent, exacerbating fuel shortages.



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Ed Jones/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

But he also emphasized China’s longstanding position that all antagonists in the dispute needed to de-escalate and find ways to resume a dialogue, asserting that there was “no military option for settling the nuclear issue” on the Korean Peninsula.

Speaking to reporters before the meeting, Matthew Rycroft, the British ambassador, said the unity of Council members on North Korea showed they were “seeing the bigger interests we all have.”

Asked if the new measures would make life even harder for ordinary North Koreans, Mr. Rycroft blamed their government, saying it “uses every cent, every penny that it can on its nuclear program and its intercontinental ballistic missile program and nothing at all on the welfare of the poor people of North Korea.”

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Under Mr. Kim, a grandson of the country’s founder, Kim Il-sung, the impoverished country of 25 million has exalted nuclear weapons and threatened to use them against the United States, its No. 1 perceived enemy since an armistice halted the Korean War in 1953.

The increased sanctions are part of a strategy that, so far, has relied more on coercive diplomacy than on military action, though there is a long history of American efforts to sabotage North Korea’s missile and nuclear programs.

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But inside the administration, there are clear differences of opinion over how long Mr. Trump can, or will, tolerate a growing threat from North Korea without resorting to some kind of military force.

While diplomacy backed by sanctions is the clear preference of Secretary of State Rex W. Tillerson and Defense Secretary Jim Mattis, others inside the administration say there is little time left for the sanctions to stop the North from achieving the ability to strike the United States with a nuclear weapon.

Yet to prove effective, sanctions must be strictly enforced and require many months or several years to take effect. Even then, there is no guarantee: Despite all the sanctions heaped on North Korea in recent years, its economy grew 3.9 percent last year, by most estimates.

Mr. Trump’s national security adviser, Lt. Gen. H. R. McMaster, has said in recent weeks, “There isn’t much time left.” That would suggest that even the new sanctions may not bite in time to change the calculus of the North Korean leadership. The fear in Washington, among those looking for a diplomatic solution, is that Mr. Trump will decide on some kind of pre-emptive strike, betting that the North will stop short of major retaliation.

The North Koreans have conducted six nuclear tests and have demonstrated major progress with their missiles even though the United Nations has prohibited them.

Experts on North Korea said the new measures had the potential to dissuade Mr. Kim from further escalating tensions with more tests, but they were cautious about predicting his behavior.

“If the international community, including countries like China and Russia, implements these measures fully, faithfully and quickly, it will apply an unprecedented and irresistible level of pressure on the North Korean regime,” said Evans J. R. Revere, a former senior State Department diplomat for East Asia.

If that happens, he said, it would force North Korea “to make a choice” between defiance and negotiations.

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Others were more skeptical.

“If we are playing the long game, the accumulation of sanctions could eventually force North Korea to come to the table and negotiate,” Sue Mi Terry, a former C.I.A. analyst now at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said in an email.

However, she said it was doubtful that the move would persuade Mr. Kim “to give up his nuclear arsenal or even discuss a freeze” in 2018.

Jae H. Ku, director of the U.S.-Korea Institute at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies, said he feared that North Korea would “continue to weather the pressure” of sanctions.

“The upshot,” he said, “would be the Trump administration admitting that maximum pressure to gain a diplomatic solution is a lost cause.”


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Teen who pleaded guilty in Slender Man stabbing case to remain in institutional care for 25 years, judge says

A judge has sentenced one of the two Wisconsin teenagers accused of stabbing their friend in the woods to please the online fictional character Slender Man.

Anissa Weier, 16, will now spend 25 years under a mental health institution’s supervision, with credit for her 1,301 days already spent in incarceration. More than two years and six months of her sentence will be spent in a mental hospital before she can petition the court for release every six months. If released, Weier will remain under institutional supervision until year 2039 and will be 37 years old.

“I just want everyone involved in this to know that I do hold myself accountable for this,” Weier told the court. “I want everybody involved to know that I deeply regret everything that happened that day, and that I know that nothing I say is going to make this right, your honor, and nothing I say is going to fix what I broke. I am just hoping that by holding myself somewhat accountable and making myself responsible for what I took part in that day, that I can be responsible and make sure this doesn’t happen again. I’m never going to let this happen again.”

Weier pleaded guilty earlier this year to attempted second-degree intentional homicide, as a party to a crime, with the use of a dangerous weapon as part of a plea deal. A jury then found Weier not guilty by reason of mental disease or defect.

Earlier this year the court also accepted a plea deal for co-defendant Morgan Geyser, who pleaded guilty to attempted first-degree intentional homicide. In accordance with the plea deal, the court also found Geyser not guilty by reason of mental disease or defect despite her earlier guilty plea. Geyser’s sentencing is set for 2018.

In a victim impact statement, Stacie Leutner, mother of the stabbing survivor Payton Leutner, wrote that she and her family accept the plea deals but petitioned Judge Michael Bohren to “consider everything Payton and those closest to her have endured over the last three-and-a-half years” prior to the sentencing.

In the victim impact statement, Stacie Leutner wrote that some of her daughter’s wounds from the attack still “tingle and ache and remind her of their presence every day.”

“Shopping for homecoming dresses leaves only a few options because far too many dresses will show off her scars,” Stacie Leutner wrote. “Beach vacations are harsh reminders that swimsuits aren’t made for young girls with 25 scars.”

The lingering physical pain from being stabbed 19 times in the attack, Stacie Leutner wrote, is only part of the trauma that “has defined our lives” for three-and-a-half years.

In spite of what Stacie Leutner describes as the appearance of a quick recovery since the attack, she wrote “[Payton] held everyone at arm’s length and never let anyone get too close. She immersed herself in school in an attempt to distract herself from the uncertainty of her life.”

“We accepted the plea deals for Morgan and Anissa for two reasons,” Stacie Leutner wrote. “First, because we believed it was the best thing to do to ensure Payton would not have to testify. Traumatizing her further didn’t seem worth it. She has never talked about her attack so asking her to testify and relive her experience in front of a courtroom of strangers felt cruel and unnecessary. And second, because Payton felt placement in a mental health facility was the best disposition for both girls.”

Although she has accepted the plea deals, Stacie Leutner writes that her daughter “still fears for her safety.”

Weier and Geyser were arrested May 31, 2014, after the stabbing of Payton Leutner, whom they left in the woods in Waukesha, Wisconsin. Leutner crawled to a nearby road and was helped by a passing bicyclist before she was hospitalized with life-threatening injuries but survived. Weier, Geyser and Payton Leutner were 12 years old at the time.

Prosecutors have said that both girls were obsessed with the character Slender Man, who is often depicted in fan fiction stories online as a horror figure who stalks children.

In January, Weier’s parents told “Good Morning America” that their daughter had expressed remorse.

Her mother, Kristi Weier, said that according to police interview tapes of Geyser and her daughter, “They thoroughly believed that Slender Man was real and wanted to prove that he was real.”

Her father, Bill Weier, said that if he had the chance to meet Payton Leutner’s family face to face, “I would tell them I’m sorry. I would tell them that I’m thankful that Payton survived. And I would tell them that for as much as they are struggling with trying to process this in what happened to their daughter, we are struggling equally trying to process this with what happened not only to their daughter but to our daughter.”

Senate has spent over $1.45M settling harassment, discrimination cases in last 20 years

The Senate spent more than $1.45 million settling workplace harassment and discrimination cases over the past 20 years, according to data released by the Senate Rules Committee on Thursday.

The Office of Compliance (OOC) paid nearly $600,000 in claims stemming from senators’ offices across a total of 13 settlements, according to the data.

They also paid more than an additional $853,000 as part of 10 settlements in response to claims from other Senate-employing offices, according to the data.

Senators have been under pressure to release the information on sexual and workplace harassment claims after the House Office of Compliance began disclosing information on settlements.

Sen. Richard ShelbyRichard Craig ShelbyObstruction of justice watch: Trump attacks the FBI The Hill’s 12:30 Report Alabama businesses fear Moore victory would hurt state economy: report MORE (R-Ala.) said they had received assurances from Senate Legal Counsel that the release of the data didn’t violate the confidentiality of those involved in the settlements. 

“While the Rules Committee has been eager to provide this information in a transparent manner, it has been our priority to protect the victims involved in these settlements from further harm,” he said. 

Sen. Thad CochranWilliam (Thad) Thad CochranObstruction of justice watch: Trump attacks the FBI America isn’t ready to let Sessions off his leash The Hill’s Whip List: Where Republicans stand on Senate tax bill MORE (R-Miss.), the chairman of the Appropriations Committee, added “harassment of any kind is unacceptable. The Senate should hold itself to the highest standards of professionalism and respect.”Capitol Hill has been rocked by a recent string of sexual harassment and misconduct claims leading to several members, including Sen. Al FrankenAlan (Al) Stuart FrankenDemocrats turn on Al Franken Schumer called, met with Franken and told him to resign Overnight Finance: Trump says shutdown ‘could happen’ | Ryan, conservatives inch closer to spending deal | Senate approves motion to go to tax conference | Ryan promises ‘entitlement reform’ in 2018 MORE (D-Minn.) and Reps. John ConyersJohn James ConyersAbortion-rights group endorses Nadler in race to replace Conyers on Judiciary Democrats turn on Al Franken Michigan state senator to run for Congress MORE Jr. (D-Mich.) and Trent FranksHarold (Trent) Trent FranksHouse forges ahead with Dec. 22 spending bill Conservatives fear end-of-year ‘Christmas tree’ spending bill Adoption tax credit restored after conservative backlash MORE (R-Ariz.), resigning or announcing they would step down.The Senate’s Office of Compliance previously rejected Sen. Tim KaineTimothy Michael KaineDemocrats turn on Al Franken Avalanche of Democratic senators say Franken should resign Senate panel moves forward with bill to roll back Dodd-Frank MORE’s (D-Va.) request for information about sexual harassment settlements in Congress, citing the Congressional Accountability Act’s confidentiality rules.

Kaine submitted his request on the day that Franken announced his resignation from the Senate after multiple women alleged that Franken had groped or forcibly kissed them in the past.

In a letter to Kaine earlier this week, the OOC noted that it traditionally hasn’t “separated allegations of sexual harassment from those involving sex­-based disparate treatment or pregnancy discrimination.”

“In fact, for many years, the office simply classified all claims alleging discrimination of any kind as civil rights cases without any further differentiation,” wrote Susan Tsui Grundmann, the executive director of the OOC. 

Kaine commended the move to release the data on Thursday night, calling it a “first step.”

“I appreciate that the Senate Rules Committee did the right thing today by heeding calls to release this data. This is the first step toward a more transparent reporting system for harassment in Congress to hold people accountable for their actions,” he said.

Updated: 8:34 p.m.

Coroner says Las Vegas gunman Stephen Paddock killed himself

The Clark County, Nevada coroner said Thursday that Stephen Paddock, who killed 58 people in the deadliest shooting in modern U.S. history, died from a gunshot wound to the head. All 58 victims died from gunshot wounds, the coroner said. 

The findings reveal that none of the victims killed at an outdoor concert Oct. 1 died of injuries received trying to escape the festival grounds. Clark County Coroner John Fudenberg told The Associated Press that all the deaths were determined to be homicides. 

Fudenberg said Thursday that the 64-year-old shooter died of a self-inflicted gunshot to the mouth. It was, Stephen Paddock’s only wound, and his death was ruled a suicide.

According to the timeline provided by Clark County Sheriff Joe Lombardo, Paddock opened fire on the crowd at the music festival at 10:05 p.m. It appeared that he shot a security guard, Jesus Campos, about 40 seconds before he fired into the crowd.

Campos used his radio to call for help, the statement said. A maintenance worker, Stephen Schuck, has said he also called for help on his radio, asking a dispatcher to call the police because someone was shooting a rifle on the 32nd floor. 

Officers arrived on the 32nd floor at 10:17 p.m., two minutes after Paddock stopped firing. The police officers who stormed Paddock’s hotel room on the 32nd floor of the Mandalay Bay described the scene to “60 Minutes.”

Paddock had screwed shut the door in the stairwell going out to the hallway right by his door “with a piece of metal and some screws,” said Officer Joshua Bitsko.  

“‘Cause he knew we’d be coming out that door to gain entry into his door. So he tried to barricade it as best he could. But thankfully Levi had– a pry bar and was able to easily pop that door,” said Officer Dave Newton. 

Bitsko described the scene in the hallway as a “deadly game of hide and seek because when you’re the one hiding you always know a person’s looking for you.”

Around 11 p.m. the team began to execute a plan. They had heard no gunfire since reaching the hallway, and had no idea what or who was behind the door.  

When they entered the room, officers said they saw shell casings all over the floor and they were “trippin’ over long guns inside.”

“My initial scan, coming in the room with my rifle is just seein’ I’m seeing one male down, bleeding from the face,” said Officer Matthew Donaldson. “He was not a threat. Kept going, kept going, kept going.” The man down was Paddock. 

Authorities say more than 500 people were injured when Paddock unleashed gunfire from an upper floor of a high-rise hotel onto a country music festival below.

Fudenberg said he waited to release autopsy findings until all the families had the information.

Republicans warn Trump of 2018 bloodbath

A few weeks before Alabama’s special Senate election, President Donald Trump’s handpicked Republican National Committee leader, Ronna Romney McDaniel, delivered a two-page memo to White House chief of staff John Kelly outlining the party’s collapse with female voters.

The warning, several people close to the chairwoman said, reflected deepening anxiety that a full-throated Trump endorsement of accused child molester Roy Moore in the special election — which the president was edging closer to at the time — would further damage the party’s standing with women. McDaniel’s memo, which detailed the president’s poor approval numbers among women nationally and in several states, would go unheeded, as Trump eventually went all-in for the ultimately unsuccessful Republican candidate.

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The backstage talks provide a window into how those closest to Trump are bracing for a possible bloodbath in the 2018 midterms, which could obliterate the Republican congressional majorities and paralyze the president’s legislative agenda. The potential for a Democratic wave has grown after Republican losses this fall in Virginia, New Jersey and Alabama, and as the president’s approval ratings have plummeted to the 30s.

In recent weeks, some of the president’s advisers have taken it upon themselves to warn him directly about the fast-deteriorating political environment. White House officials have convened to discuss ways to improve his standing with suburban voters. And on Wednesday, the president met with Kelly, political director Bill Stepien, communications director Hope Hicks, former Trump campaign manager Corey Lewandowski and Brad Parscale, Trump’s digital director in the 2016 campaign, to discuss the political landscape. Lewandowski forcefully raised concerns about the party’s efforts, according to one attendee and another person briefed on the meeting.

In an interview this week, Stepien acknowledged the pattern of presidents losing seats in Congress in their first midterm election. But he argued that it’s far too early to write off the GOP in 2018.

Stepien pointed to positive economic numbers that could buoy the party, along with a favorable Senate map and an RNC field deployment program that has been ramping up for months. Trump is also set to sign major tax cut legislation that Republicans are betting voters will reward them for, despite its unpopularity in polls before passage.

The White House political chief also noted that polling during the presidential election failed to pick up on Trump’s support. It was a pattern, he argued, that could be repeating itself.

“History tells us it will be challenging. How challenging, time will tell,” Stepien said. “But we have a strong sense of optimism.”

Among GOP leaders, however, there is widespread concern heading into 2018. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) has said privately that both chambers could be lost in November. House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) has told donors that he fears a wave of swing district Republican lawmakers could retire rather than seek reelection.

During a conference meeting last week, House Republicans listened as the past five chairmen of the party’s campaign arm addressed the political environment. One endangered lawmaker said his main takeaway was that incumbents should spend little time worrying about Trump or the White House and focus only on controlling what they can. Another person who was present came away with the impression that if lawmakers didn’t shore up their political standing now, they shouldn’t expect the national party to be able to save them down the road.

“In a year like this, you better not take anything for granted,” said Pennsylvania Rep. Charlie Dent, a moderate Republican who is retiring. “I think most members know this is going to be a really tough challenge this cycle.”

Trump is well aware of the dangers his party faces in 2018, those who’ve discussed it with him say. During political briefing sessions, top aides highlight positive developments — but also more concerning ones, such as his declining numbers among well-educated voters and higher earners. He has peppered advisers with questions about his approval ratings, and about whether he is getting enough credit for his accomplishments.

Trump has also questioned friends and advisers about how particular races are developing, sometimes in granular detail. He has recently asked, for example, about who will be running for the seat former Rep. Trent Franks (R-Ariz.) recently resigned from.

The president, however, has shrugged off some early setbacks. After the Alabama loss, he gathered with Vice President Mike Pence, Kelly, Stepien and deputy chief of staff Rick Dearborn. The group dived into the results, talking through why the race played out as it did.

As they raft a 2018 campaign plan, White House officials are cognizant that the president isn’t popular in some parts of the country. Trump is most likely to hit the trail in conservative states like Missouri or Montana with an eye toward mobilizing his core supporters. Discussions are underway, for example, about sending Trump and Pence to campaign in a southwestern Pennsylvania congressional district that the president won by nearly 20 percentage points that’s holding a special election in March.

Trump aides expect his campaign schedule to more fully take shape in late spring or early summer, as legislative business takes a back seat to an intensifying midterm season.

“If the president is going to be campaigning, he needs to be very discreet and selective about where he goes,” said Dent.

While the president’s numbers are cratering in some swing states, he’s expected to take on an expanded role on the fundraising circuit in 2018, which Republicans hope will allow them to swamp Democrats in campaign spending. The president has proven to be a major draw for donors, raising around $30 million for the RNC this year. There are talks about possibly holding an event next month in South Florida, where Trump is expected to spend part of winter.

The president often seems most at ease hobnobbing with friends at fundraisers. During a recent event in New York City, Trump cracked that the tax bill was so good he might go back into business, recalled one person who attended. He also joked that while many of his contributors had expected ambassadorships in return for their largess, another one, North Carolina businessman Louis DeJoy, just wanted to be his friend.

Behind the scenes, though, the White House has been racing to find solutions to the electoral challenge. Following the Virginia gubernatorial race, the administration commissioned an after-action report to examine why the party under-performed among suburban voters.

And at a staff meeting following the Virginia loss, aides discussed a range of issues important to those voters. Among the ideas suggested: underscoring the administration’s efforts to curb the opioid crisis and to assist veterans, perhaps by increasing the visibility of Veterans Affairs Secretary David Shulkin.

For much of the year, Capitol Hill Republicans worried about whether Trump’s team fully recognized the political realities they faced in 2018 and vented that the administration wasn’t always responsive to their concerns.

In some corners of the Republican world, there is anxiety about the White House political operation and its readiness for next year’s races. During Wednesday’s meeting, Lewandowski laced into the RNC, saying that it had raised a fraction of the money it should have, according to an attendee and another person briefed.

Afterwards, Lewandowski and Stepien had a heated exchange outside the Oval Office that stretched for around 10 minutes. The incident was first reported by the Washington Post and the New York Times.

With the election year approaching, the White House is considering beefing up its political team. Among the possibilities under discussion, one Trump aide said, is elevating staffers with political backgrounds into the administration’s political shop.

Yet as a challenging 2018 grows ever closer, many senior Republicans say they’ve seen greater coordination with the White House political department. The administration and Senate Republicans have embarked on a joint effort to recruit North Dakota Rep. Kevin Cramer into the state’s U.S. Senate race. Trump has personally spoken to Cramer, and last week the congressman met with McConnell and National Republican Senatorial Committee Chairman Cory Gardner (R-Colo.).

Earlier this month, Cramer and his wife, Kris, met with the NRSC’s executive director, Chris Hansen, who made the case to the couple that Cramer had performed well in polling the committee had conducted.

The White House and McConnell’s team have also been in talks about wooing former Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty into next year’s special election for the seat being vacated by Democratic Sen. Al Franken.

On Wednesday, Stepien met with top aides from the RNC and House and Senate GOP campaign arms.

Some senior Republicans believe the departure of former White House chief strategist Steve Bannon, an avowed McConnell critic who is closely aligned with the conservative insurgency, has eased tensions with the administration.

“I think there have been incredible signs of progress in recent weeks,” said Josh Holmes, a former McConnell chief of staff and top political lieutenant, adding that “almost everything seems to be headed in a much more productive direction.”

But some Republicans are still sounding the alarm. Scott Jennings, a former top political adviser in the George W. Bush White House who is close to McConnell, said the president has major political challenges in the coming year: improving his approval numbers, ensuring the party nominates strong general election candidates, and selling his economic accomplishments.

“There are 10 months to improve the fundamentals here, and the Senate map is, on paper, good. But maps don’t make majorities and I think there’s a realization that there’s at least a 50 percent chance one or both chambers could fall,” Jennings said. “In less than one year, this first term could be, for all intents and purposes, over if the Democrats take control of either chamber.”

Hall of Fame broadcaster Dick Enberg dies at age 82

Dick Enberg, the Hall of Fame broadcaster whose “Oh my!” calls rang familiar with so many sports fans, has died, his wife and daughter confirmed Thursday night.

He was 82.

Enberg’s daughter, Nicole, said the family became concerned when he didn’t arrive on his flight to Boston on Thursday, and that he was found dead at his home in La Jolla, a San Diego neighborhood, with his bags packed. The family said it was awaiting official word on the cause of death, but believed he had a heart attack.

Enberg was one of America’s most beloved sports broadcasters, with his versatile voice spanning the world on networks like NBC, CBS and ESPN. In all, he covered 28 Wimbledons, 10 Super Bowls and eight NCAA men’s basketball title games, including the Houston-UCLA “Game of the Century” in 1968 and the Magic Johnson-Larry Bird showdown in 1979.

His work was celebrated in a host of honors, including the National Baseball Hall of Fame’s Ford C. Frick Award (2015), the Pro Football Hall of Fame’s Rozelle Award (1999) and the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame’s Gowdy Award (1995).

Most recently, Enberg had served as the primary play-by-play television voice of the San Diego Padres, retiring in 2016 after seven seasons with the team.

“Baseball,” he said then, “has been in my DNA from the time I was in diapers.”

Born and raised in Michigan, Enberg graduated from Central Michigan University, where he began his broadcasting career as an undergraduate. He later moved to California, doing TV work for the UCLA Bruins and radio work for the California Angels and Los Angeles Rams.

In 1975, Enberg joined NBC Sports and remained with the network for 25 years, covering the World Series, NFL games and Wimbledon, among other sports and marquee events.

He went on to do work for CBS Sports and ESPN, with his voice commonly associated with the NFL and college basketball games, as well as the all-grass tennis tournament in England.

An Enberg interview was published Thursday as part of his “Sound of Success” podcast. His guest was veteran TV producer and executive Andy Friendly. At one point in the extensive interview, Friendly pauses to share his admiration for the legendary Enberg.

“I’m especially honored to be talking to you,” he said. “I mean — ‘Oh my!’ I grew up watching you do the NFL, especially Wimbledon, I was a tennis player growing up. … I’m a golfer, a bad one now. … And I just watched you religiously. …

“This is a true honor, and I can’t wait to read your book on Ted Williams, who is a true hero of mine.

“You are one of my true heroes and one of the true greats of our business, Dick. It’s a real honor, and I’m not just blowing smoke, and I know your listeners know this already. I am talking to broadcast royalty today, and I am thrilled to be doing it.”

Enberg is the only person to win Emmy Awards as a sportscaster, a writer and a producer.

His death comes just weeks shy of his 83rd birthday, which would have been on Jan. 9.

Congress Passes Stopgap Bill to Avoid Government Shutdown Against a Friday Deadline

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Representative Nancy Pelosi, the House Democratic leader, in Washington on Thursday, as negotiations continued on funding the government to avert a shutdown that would go into effect Friday at midnight.CreditMark Wilson/Getty Images

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Dec. 21, 2017

WASHINGTON — Congress gave final approval on Thursday to legislation to keep the government funded into January, averting a government shutdown this weekend but kicking fights over issues like immigration, surveillance and health care into the new year.

The stopgap spending bill extends government funding until Jan. 19 while also providing a short-term funding fix for the Children’s Health Insurance Program, or CHIP, whose financing lapsed at the end of September.

After the House and Senate succeeded in passing a $1.5 trillion tax overhaul this week, the stopgap bill includes language to prevent automatic spending cuts that would be required to offset the tax bill’s effect on the deficit.

The House passed the bill 231 to 188, with most Republicans voting for it and most Democrats opposing it. The Senate later gave its approval, as well, in a 66-to-32 vote.

The extension of government funding saves Republicans from what would have been a colossal embarrassment just after they celebrated passage of the biggest tax rewrite in decades. But the lack of a resolution to several pressing issues leaves lawmakers facing a tough task when they return after the holidays, with the possibility of a high-stakes showdown when the next government funding deadline approaches.

“I guess we better recharge our batteries,” said Senator John Cornyn of Texas, the No. 2 Senate Republican. “It seems like Groundhog Day. We get up and do the same thing over and over and over again. It’s maddening.”

Separately, the House voted Thursday to approve $81 billion in additional disaster aid in response to this year’s hurricanes and wildfires. But the Senate does not plan to take action on the aid package until the new year.

The failure to resolve so many issues left bruised feelings in both parties. Promised bills to shield young immigrants from deportation, extend a surveillance program, bolster the military and stabilize health insurance markets were all left for another day.

Representative Nita M. Lowey of New York, the ranking Democrat on the House Appropriations Committee, declared the stopgap bill to be an “epic failure of governing.”

But the disappointment was not enough to keep Congress away from its holiday break.

Lawmakers needed to take action because government funding was set to lapse at the end of Friday, though as Thursday began, it was unclear whether Republican leaders would be able to find the votes they needed to avert a crisis.

President Trump weighed in on Twitter in the morning, accusing House Democrats of wanting a government shutdown in order to take attention away from the tax overhaul.

Representative Alcee L. Hastings, Democrat of Florida, read Mr. Trump’s tweet aloud at a House committee meeting and said that he knew no Democrat or Republican who wants to shut the government down. Mr. Trump, he said, needs to put his Twitter account “under his pillow and sleep on it rather than continue to divide this country the way that he has.”

On Capitol Hill, the big question was whether enough Republicans would support the stopgap spending bill in the House in order to pass it.

Many Republicans in the House have grown impatient as they seek to raise military spending. An earlier stopgap bill would have included long-term funding for the Defense Department, but Republicans ended up backing away from that approach, which would not have been able to get through the Senate. The stopgap bill does include funds for missile defense and for repairs to two Navy destroyers involved in collisions this year.

House Democrats showed little willingness to support a stopgap measure as they push for other priorities, including securing a deal to shield from deportation young undocumented immigrants brought to the country as children. Such “Dreamers” will have to wait until at least January for action on that issue.

“All of us as members of Congress, we’re eager to return to our families as soon as possible back across America,” said Representative Lloyd Doggett, Democrat of Texas. “But our Dreamers are left with fear and uncertainty about returning to their families and about their future.”

Democrats complained that Congress was lurching from one crisis to the next, with a stack of big issues still unresolved, including a long-term spending deal.

“We shouldn’t be funding the government week to week, month to month, but yet my Republican friends have ended up doing just that,” said Representative Jim McGovern, Democrat of Massachusetts. “They can’t seem to get their act together.”

The stopgap bill provides money for CHIP and community health centers through March. And it directs the secretary of health and human services to distribute leftover CHIP funds to states with the most urgent financial problems so they do not have to shut down the program.

But the $2.85 billion provided for CHIP is far less than the five years of funds that congressional leaders had promised, and it is unclear whether those funds will be adequate. Some states had already begun to inform parents that their children could lose coverage early next year if Congress did not act. The bill does not provide the certainty that state officials had been seeking.

“I do not think this is anywhere close to enough money,” said Bruce Lesley, the president of First Focus, a child advocacy group. “For a $12 billion to $14 billion program, this provides less than $3 billion for what is effectively six months” — the first half of the 2018 fiscal year, which began in October.

Leaders of both parties in the House and the Senate support legislation to provide five years of funds for CHIP, but they have been unable to agree on how to pay for it. The standoff over CHIP is remarkable because the program has had strong bipartisan support since it was created 20 years ago, when Bill Clinton was president and Republicans controlled both houses of Congress.

It also comes after the Republicans passed the $1.5 trillion tax measure with little effort to pay for it.

The stopgap bill also extends through Jan. 19 a statute that provides the legal basis for the National Security Agency and F.B.I.’s warrantless surveillance program, Section 702 of the FISA Amendments Act, which is set to expire on Dec. 31. Congress will have to return to the issue of whether to impose new privacy safeguards on that program as part of a longer-term extension.

The bill also includes $2.1 billion to prop up the Veterans Choice program, which pays for veterans facing barriers to care within the government’s health system to get outside help. Lawmakers have been trying for months — thus far, unsuccessfully — to reach an agreement to permanently overhaul and fund the program, and a funding extension would buy them more time.

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Bernard Law and the civil rights legacy he squandered by covering up clergy sex abuse

On March 13, 1964, a tiny diocesan newspaper edited by a young Catholic priest with no prior journalism experience laid out the case for racial desegregation in Mississippi.

The editorial in the Mississippi Register, headlined “Legal Segregation is Dying,” was stunning for its controversial position at the time, particularly in a racially charged state at the center of the American civil rights movement. Only months before, a prominent civil rights leader had been shot in the back and killed.

In 862 words, the editorial’s author — the Rev. Bernard Law — argued that it was critical for the state to begin working immediately toward a “smooth and peaceful desegregation.”

“Mississippi has the leadership, if it can be freed, to push the state forward on many fronts,” Law wrote. “For too long we have been wasting time, talent, effort and money in a senseless, doomed struggle to maintain the corpse of enforced segregation.”

Any notion that sudden change would shatter society was “the construct of the racist,” he added, not mincing words.

Then 32 years old, Law was neither a seasoned politician nor an experienced civil rights activist. He had only a few years earlier moved from Ohio to Mississippi, when he was ordained a priest for the Diocese of Natchez-Jackson. Nevertheless, Law’s words were so powerful that his piece would later win the Catholic Press Association’s editorial of the year award in 1964.

That editorial was just one of many that Law penned while in Mississippi, where he ran the Register for five years and threw himself into civil rights activism. All signed “(BFL),” the editorials tackled a variety of subjects including the Voting Rights Act and the 1967 bombing of a synagogue in Jackson. Law, who was white, became known for his willingness to work with the local African American community and for taking firmly progressive positions on civil rights issues — to the extent that he reportedly received death threats.

But none of that, of course, would be Law’s legacy, although he climbed the ranks of the Catholic Church in part on the strength of his work in the South. Law died Wednesday in Rome at age 86 and is remembered overwhelmingly for his role in helping cover up widespread sexual abuse of children within the Catholic Church by moving abusive priests around from parish to parish. The scandal prompted him to resign as archbishop of Boston in 2002.

The Vatican announced Law’s death Wednesday with little comment about his role in the abuse and coverup scandal. The church also said Law would receive a Vatican funeral Thursday, with a “final commendation” by Pope Francis, plans that angered many of the church’s sexual abuse victims.

For his obituary, the Jesuit publication America magazine described Law as “the face of the church’s failure on child sexual abuse.” Boston Globe journalist Kevin Cullen, who was part of the Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative team that uncovered the pattern of abuse in the church, excoriated Law in a column Wednesday as “one of the greatest enablers of sexual abuse in the history of the world,” comparing him to Hollywood’s Harvey Weinstein.

Even at the height of the church scandal, however, many in Mississippi struggled to reconcile Law’s downfall with the work of young priest they remembered fighting for equal rights on their behalf in their state decades earlier. After the 1963 assassination of civil rights activist Medgar Evers in Jackson, Law was among the first to visit the Evers family to comfort and pray with them.

“I also personally saw him and the bishop walk in the ashes of a burned black church about 30 or 40 miles away from Jackson in 1964,” the late Bill Minor, a journalist who covered the civil rights movement and later befriended Law, told the Clarion-Ledger in 2002. “He did it because he was concerned about people — all people.”

Law would maintain his outreach with Mississippi’s African American community in ways large and small: The year after the notorious murder, Law joined Evers’s brother, Charles Evers of the NAACP, to help distribute Christmas turkeys to the poor in Jackson, according to a brief article in the Dec. 23, 1964, issue of The Washington Post. (Reached by phone Wednesday morning, Charles Evers, now 95, said he did not remember Law specifically. “We worked with so many people back then,” he added. Medgar Evers’s widow, Myrlie Evers-Williams, could not be reached.)

“I’ll always be grateful to him for the great constructive work he did in Mississippi in the 1960s in creating a more satisfactory racial climate in the state,” former Mississippi governor William Winter told the Clarion-Ledger in 2002, after Law resigned. “He actually got me involved in some activities and helped me open up my understanding to some of the issues we were confronted with at that time.”

By 1973, when Law was appointed bishop of the diocese of Springfield-Cape Girardeau in Missouri, his imminent departure from Mississippi made the front page of the Clarion-Ledger, where local religious leaders sang his praises.

“Mississippi is a better place because of his zealous labors,” Joseph Brunini, the bishop of Jackson, told the newspaper then. Mack B. Stokes, the American Bishop of the United Methodist Church, said he had known and admired Law for many years and held him “in high esteem.”

For the next decade, Law’s star would continue to rise until, in January 1984, Pope John Paul II appointed Law archbishop of Boston. About two weeks later, Judge Gordon Martin of the Roxbury District Court wrote a glowing guest column for the Boston Globe vouching for Law’s character. They had crossed paths in the early 1960s when Martin was a trial lawyer with the Civil Rights Division of the U.S. Justice Department in Mississippi.

In the piece, Martin highlighted more than half a dozen of Law’s old editorials for the Mississippi Register.

“Fr. Law doubtless would not have won a popularity contest in Mississippi in the Sixties. His coverage of the march at Selma cost the Register subscriptions, but he was true to his faith and his conscience,” Martin wrote of Law in 1984. “Then he was a rising young priest. Today Bishop Law is an established member of the hierarchy, and the same qualities of courage and genuine concern for all people that he demonstrated then should make him an outstanding archbishop of Boston.”

It was on this reputation that Law moved to Boston, which was at the time emerging from its own racial problems related to school desegregation. Even the fact that he had chosen to become a priest in Mississippi was significant, James O’Toole, a history professor at Boston College, told The Post on Wednesday.

“Usually, when somebody becomes a priest, the most likely thing is for them to become a priest in the place where they were originally from,” O’Toole said. Law, who was born in Mexico and frequently moved throughout his childhood because of his pilot father, didn’t have such roots. “Because of his background, especially the civil rights activity, he really came to Boston with a great deal of promise.”

That promise would eventually crumble.

Law was soon elevated to cardinal and stayed in his role, acquiring great power and influence (among Catholics and generally in the Boston area), for nearly two more decades — until the Boston Globe exposed the extent to which church leaders had kept the child sexual abuse problem from being publicized. A 2003 report by the Massachusetts attorney general’s office was further damning to Law, stating that the cardinal “had direct knowledge of the scope, duration and severity of the crisis experienced by children in the Archdiocese; he participated directly in crucial decisions concerning the assignment of abusive priests, decisions that typically increased the risk to children.”

Law would eventually express remorse in public remarks at the Cathedral of the Holy Cross in Boston, just before his resignation in December 2002, as The Post reported:

[Law] said that “the forgiving love of God gives me the courage to beg forgiveness of those who have suffered because of what I did.”

He acknowledged the “devastating effects of this horrible sin” — substance abuse, depression, in some cases suicide — and sought to assuage the sense of shame many victims suffer by assuring them that the perpetrators were to blame. He urged anyone living “with the awful secret of sexual abuse by clergy or by anyone else to come forward so that you may begin to experience healing.”

“No one is helped by keeping such things secret,” he said. “The secret of sexual abuse needs to be brought out of the darkness and into the healing light of Jesus Christ.”

His attempt at contrition would not restore the reputation he had spent years building before Boston.

“I think the damage was so substantial and serious and evil that I think that really overshadowed everything,” O’Toole said. “The scale of the sex abuse crisis, as we all came to learn it, was just such that everything else had to be seen in that context.”

To this day, O’Toole is hard-pressed to understand why Law and other church leaders handled their knowledge of abusive priests the way they did.

“They were disposed to look at it as a moral problem, as individual cases instead of a bigger problem,” he said. “They would say, ‘Oh, well this is just Father so-and-so. We’ll take care of Father so-and-so and that’ll solve the problem.’ They couldn’t see a larger systemic kind of problem. Some of that obviously was, perhaps, they didn’t want to see it as a problem.”

That Law came up through the ranks of the church in part by passionately addressing one systemic problem — racism — only to utterly fail to address another one is an irony not lost on O’Toole.

“It is at odds with what you would think for someone who had been involved in the civil rights movement,” he said.


Roman Catholic Cardinal Bernard Law of Boston accepts his cardinal’s red cap from an altar boy during the cardinal’s weekly mass in the Cathedral of the Holy Cross in Boston on Mar. 17, 2002. (Jim Bourg/Reuters)

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Trump issues first commuted prison sentence

President TrumpDonald John TrumpHouse Democrat slams Donald Trump Jr. for ‘serious case of amnesia’ after testimony Skier Lindsey Vonn: I don’t want to represent Trump at Olympics Poll: 4 in 10 Republicans think senior Trump advisers had improper dealings with Russia MORE on Wednesday issued his first commuted sentence for a federal prisoner, freeing Sholom Rubashkin, the former owner of the country’s largest kosher meat-processing plant who in 2009 was sentenced to 27 years in prison for a litany of financial crimes.

The commutation had bipartisan support from lawmakers and had become a cause among many leading voices in the legal community, petitioning the Obama and Trump administrations to draw attention to a sentence they said was wildly disproportionate to the crime that had been committed.

Rubashkin, a father of 10, will have served eight years of his sentence. The commutation is not a presidential pardon — Rubashkin’s conviction will stand, as will his terms of release and the restitution payments he will be obliged to pay.

Still, the commutation will clear Rubashkin of the remaining 19 years of a sentence that had been condemned by politicians on the left and the right as cruel and unusual. 

“The President’s review of Mr. Rubashkin’s case and commutation decision were based on expressions of support from Members of Congress and a broad cross-section of the legal community,” the White House said in a statement. 

“A bipartisan group of more than 100 former high-ranking and distinguished Department of Justice (DOJ) officials, prosecutors, judges, and legal scholars have expressed concerns about the evidentiary proceedings in Mr. Rubashkin’s case and the severity of his sentence. Additionally, more than 30 current Members of Congress have written letters expressing support for review of Mr. Rubashkin’s case.”

Rubashkin was the CEO of a kosher meatpacking plant in Iowa, the largest in the country. Federal law enforcement raided the company in November 2008 and Rubashkin was found guilty of bank fraud and money laundering. Hundreds of Rubashkin’s employees were arrested for working in the country illegally.

Scores of the country’s leading legal experts, including four attorneys general, wrote to Trump earlier this year asking that Rubaskin’s sentence be commuted, arguing that the 27-year sentence was excessive because he was a first-time, non-violent offender.

“Essentially, Mr. Rubashkin was convicted of fraud offenses stemming from inflating collateral to obtain a higher line of credit for Agriprocessors, his father’s kosher meat business, and for paying some cattle owners 11 days late,” the lawyers wrote.

“Mr. Rubashkin is a devoted husband and father, a deeply religious man who simply  doesn’t deserve a sentence of this length, or anything remotely close to it,” the letter continued. “Indeed, his sentence is far longer than the median sentences for murder, kidnapping, sexual abuse, child pornography and numerous other offenses exponentially more serious than his.”

This is the first time Trump has used the executive power to commute a federal prisoner’s sentence, although earlier this year he pardoned Joe Arpaio, the controversial former sheriff of Maricopa County, Ariz.

Arpaio had been convicted of criminal contempt for disobeying a Justice Department edict against racially profiling Latinos.