Path – USMAIL24.COM

Disabled woman, 50, who was jailed for angrily waving a cyclist, 77, off the sidewalk and into the path of the car that killed her, is ‘thrilled’ to be back home as she is released on bail after won the right to challenge the manslaughter conviction

Albert Elence — Fri, 22 Mar 2024 17:18:33 +0000

A disabled pedestrian jailed for causing the death of a cyclist in the street has been released on unconditional bail after winning the right to challenge her manslaughter conviction.

Auriol Gray is ‘excited’ to be back home and was welcomed with ‘big hugs’ from supportive neighbors and after doing a supermarket shop.

She was jailed for three years in March last year for aggressively waving at a retired midwife who then fell into the path of an oncoming car, killing her.

Polite and well-spoken, Gray confirmed to MailOnline today that she was now back home, but refused to say how she was feeling or answer questions, simply saying: ‘No comment.’

Her good friend Roman Ramsay, who bailed her out, said: “We are so happy that Auriol is back home and it is really nice to see her again. She should never have been in jail in the first place.”

Auriol Gray (pictured) was jailed for three years in March last year for aggressively waving at a retired midwife who then fell into the path of an oncoming car, killing her.

Gray shouted “Get off the sidewalk” when a retired midwife approached her on the sidewalk

CCTV footage showed Ms Ward falling onto the road just before she was hit by a car

He added: “She is happy to get bail.”

Another friend and neighbor Robert Reed told our website: ‘She was granted bail and left jail last night.

‘I welcomed her home and we had a quick cuddle before she went to the Aldi store to buy some stuff.

“One of our friends got her out of jail and we’re all so happy she’s back. She is in good spirits and happy to be home.”

She had spent a year behind bars at HMP Peterborough.

Gray returned to her adapted flat in a gated complex in Huntingdon, Cambridgeshire, owned and maintained by the Papworth Trust, which had been ‘sparklingly cleaned’ by her neighbours.

Mr Ramsey said Gray, now 50, was also “pleased and relieved” at the prospect of her name being cleared if her appeal was successful, and had told friends: “I’m not a murderer!”

After three judges at the Court of Appeal this week allowed her to challenge her conviction, he said: ‘Auriol was very angry about being in prison in the first place.’

The retired stonemason, 78, who regularly visited her in prison and last saw her inside on Saturday, said: ‘Her friends, family and neighbors all thought it was completely ridiculous that she had been convicted of manslaughter and given a custodial sentence.

“So did she, and she has always maintained that she is not a murderer.”

A spokesperson for the Criminal Appeal Office told MaiOnline: ‘Auriol Gray has been granted unconditional bail pending her appeal against the conviction.

‘She has been released. It is expected that the appeal will be heard in May 2024.”

Gray, who suffers from cerebral palsy and partial blindness, denied manslaughter but was found guilty after a retrial.

She lost her appeal against her sentence in May last year, but has since hired new lawyers who took her case to the Court of Appeal in London.

Mr Ramsey said: ‘She feared she would lose her flat after receiving a three-year prison sentence, but fortunately she was not deprived of that sentence.

“She has been looking forward to the thought of coming home.

‘We prepared it for her with great anticipation, it has been cleaned and it shines!

“She has many friends and neighbors here who care about her and will care for her, and we will all give her a warm welcome.

“She also has caregivers who help.”

Gray repeatedly told police she “couldn’t remember” details of the incident that led to Ms Ward’s death

Gray left the scene of the collision before emergency services arrived and went to a local supermarket

CCTV footage showed Celia Ward (pictured with her husband David) wobbling on the road in Huntingdon, Cambridgeshire, where she was hit by a VW Passat

He added: ‘She is pleased with the appeal hearing and the fact that her conviction could be overturned.

‘She just wants to get on with her life.

‘She was not present at the hearing but was allowed to watch the proceedings via video link from the Governor’s office at HMP Peterborough.’

Gray has few surviving relatives – her mother Verna Gray, 87, from Sudbury, Suffolk, is not in the ‘best of health’ and has rarely been able to visit her in prison.

She has a businessman brother-in-law who lives in Chiswick, West London.

Her father and sister are both deceased.

Gray was caught on CCTV gesturing to grandmother Celia Ward, 77, while shouting at her to ‘get off the sidewalk’ in Huntingdon in October 2020.

A spokesman for the Criminal Appeal Office said: ‘This case was heard on Tuesday and the application for leave to appeal against a conviction was granted.

“A new hearing date will be set in due course for the final outcome of the appeal.

“The court has granted the lawyer the liberty to file a bail application.”

Ben Rose, of lawyers at Hickman & Rose, who are representing Gray, said: ‘Auriol Gray is an autistic, disabled person with reduced vision.

“In a case like this, the prosecutor must prove to the jury that she intended to harm, or feared harm, to Ms. Ward.

‘We say this did not happen and will therefore ask the Court of Appeal to quash Ms Grey’s conviction when the case is heard in May.’

Mr Ramsey told how Gray had appeared ‘in good spirits’ whenever he visited her – and before he was released yesterday.

He said: ‘She has been inside for a year and is doing well considering the circumstances. She is well cared for in a special wing because of her needs, keeps her head down and does not cause any problems.

“She is a smart and very literate lady and instead of going crazy inside, she has put her mind to good use.

“She is always reading and taking quizzes, and even learning advanced math from another inmate.

‘She has a lot of knowledge and the people there are amazed at what she knows.

‘But she can’t wait to get out of prison and get on with her life.

“She feels like she has been wronged.”

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My dad is a Rugby World Cup winner – now I’m carving my own path in Six Nations

Jeffrey Bailey — Sat, 09 Mar 2024 16:12:13 +0000

LOUIS LYNAGH won’t be in father Michael’s shadow for long, judging by his Six Nations debut.

Lynagh Junior played for England up to Under 19 level and his father is an Australian legend.

Louis Lynagh played for the England juniors but made his senior Italy debut at home against Scotland on SaturdayCredit: EPA

Father Michael Lynagh won 72 caps from 1988 to 1995Credit: Getty

But the 23-year-old scored a try for Italy in Saturday’s memorable clash with Scotland.

The wing was even called up once by former Red Rose boss Eddie Jones for training in England.

But he has never been part of Steve Borthwick’s plans since Jones was replaced as head coach in December 2022.

Lynagh was born in Treviso, Italy, but grew up in England.

And he has been playing for Premier League club Harlequins since 2019.

His call-up to the Azzurri comes after he announced he will join Italian giants Benetton next season.

But although he started his international caretaker with a fine score, it will be virtually impossible to match Lynagh Senior’s performance.

The 60-year-old was vice-captain when the Wallabies won the World Cup in 1991.

And when he retired four years later after the defeat to England in the quarter-finals of the World Cup, he had won 72 caps.

He was also the then world record points scorer with 911 points.

I was the poster boy for the Rugby World Cup, but I’m skipping Six Nations to play another match ahead of the Olympics

Meanwhile, son Louis was introduced to Six Nations rugby in more ways than one in dramatic fashion.

He scored Italy’s second try during a tense second half.

He raced for a grab, fended off a few potential tackles and went over.

And when Italy smelled a famous victory, he was replaced by Federico Mori in the 71st minute after a thrilling baptism.

The Italian-born star will swap Harlequins for Benetton next seasonCredit: Getty

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In search of a path to peace in Southeast Africa

Jeffrey Bailey — Thu, 07 Mar 2024 10:46:18 +0000

This article is part of our Special Report Women and Leadership which coincides with global events in March celebrating women’s achievements. This conversation has been edited and condensed.

Deborah Julio, 36, has a past that has shaped her role as an advocate for women’s rights and conflict mediator between the southeast African country of Malawi, where she lives, and neighboring Mozambique.

Ms. Julio lost her father when she was 2 years old and dropped out of primary school after losing her mother. She eventually studied to become a minister and now owns a grocery store in her town. Her first husband died in a car accident in 2016 and she has since remarried. Today, she has two stepchildren and three children from her previous marriage. In addition to advocating women’s rights as chairman of the Women’s Movement in Mangochi District, Malawi, and as secretary of the District Peace and Unity Committee (DPUC), Ms. Julio assists in conflict mediation, supported by UN Women Malawi.

Ms. Julio’s work is especially relevant because she lives in an area affected by religious conflict, violence surrounding border disputes, and a high rate of early marriage.

How did you end up becoming a peace mediator?

In 2016 I followed a conflict and peace building training in Mangochi. Then I was selected to become one of the first members of the DPUC, a volunteer group that supports the local council in resolving conflict and building peace. I was chosen as secretary.

UN Women learned about our work and invited me to attend a Women’s Movement training where they provided us with skills to tackle gender-based violence. I was then elected chairman of the Mangochi Women’s Movement group.

What initiatives have you worked on?

They include a row over central government and religious disputes between Muslims and Christians in the district. I also intervened in a possible human trafficking case where a person from Mozambique pretended to have an interest in marrying a community member from Lulanga (in Malawi) but intended to traffic her.

For the Women’s Movement, I have intervened on issues that have the potential to disrupt community peace. For example, in Lulanga there was a case where five boys raped a fourteen-year-old girl. Her parents decided to keep the matter hidden to avoid public embarrassment, but we informed them about the need to take the child to a hospital and also helped them report the matter to the police. The perpetrators are now serving their prison sentences.

There was also a case where a community health worker tried to entice a 14-year-old girl to sleep with him in exchange for a job. The girl needed money to survive. The matter was reported to the chief, who ordered the health worker to leave his area and pay a fine of three goats and 100,000 Malawian Kwacha ($60).

Can you give a specific example where your gender influenced the way you approached conflict mediation?

There was recently an issue in a village in the district where men opposed a woman taking on a leadership role in the community. The village chief led the opposition. I approached him and used my own example as a woman in a leadership role to show him that women can succeed as leaders. A few weeks later I heard that the community had accepted the woman, and that she had now taken over the position.

Can you explain the approach you have taken to prevent tensions from escalating into violence? What role does early warning play in your work?

Historically, some areas have been prone to violence, especially when it comes to land disputes. By monitoring these areas, the Women’s Movement saw undercurrents of tension brewing in a place called Makanjira, along the Mozambican border. We had to intervene when accusations started between two villages around land demarcation.

Before the villagers could mobilize each other to do more damage, we intervened by meeting with leaders from both the Malawian and Mozambican sides. We came up with a solution where communities were given a piece of land. At this time there is no discussion about the boundary for that piece of land. Another positive side is that women and girls are often affected by these border disputes, but in this case, women from both sides are allowed to farm on their designated lands and help support their families.

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The winding path of the American aviator ended in self-immolation in protest against Israel

Sabir Ansary — Thu, 29 Feb 2024 00:25:29 +0000

Dressed in his U.S. Air Force uniform, Aaron Bushnell walked to the Israeli embassy in Washington one afternoon this week and calmly described his intention to “engage in an extreme act of protest” against Israel’s military offensive in Gaza.

He then poured a flammable liquid over his severed head, pulled his camouflage cap tight over his forehead and set himself on fire. “Free Palestine!” he shouted several times before falling onto the cement.

In the days since his stunning act, which Mr. Bushnell live, friends and family members have tried to understand how a young man they once knew as a shy, thoughtful boy in an isolated Christian community in Massachusetts, who later became a senior airman working in cyber defense in Texas, and came to organize such a final, fatal protest.

“It’s hard to keep my wits about me,” said Ashley Schuman, 26, who met Mr. Bushnell since his youth. “I’m like, ‘How? How did you get here?'”

Mr. Bushnell’s self-immolation has prompted a series of vigils in his honor, sparked new protests against Israel’s attacks and drawn criticism from some who saw the protest as a suicidal act that should not be celebrated.

It was the second such protest in the United States in recent months. In December, a woman carrying a Palestinian flag set herself on fire outside the Israeli consulate building in Atlanta; she was not identified and she remains in hospital, currently in stable condition. On Wednesday, Senator Tom Cotton, Republican of Arkansas, asked the Defense Department whether Mr. Bushnell had ever shown any “extremist tendencies” in the past.

Recent writings by the 25-year-old Bushnell suggest that he carefully planned his action to draw attention to Israel’s attack on Palestinians in Gaza, where nearly 30,000 Palestinians have been killed, according to the local health ministry. Israel launched its campaign in October after a Hamas-led attack that killed about 1,200 Israelis and took another 250 hostage, according to Israeli authorities.

In the hours before Mr. Bushnell’s protest, he sent an email to several independent news outlets with the subject line “Against Genocide,” which included a link to a website where a video of his self-immolation later appeared. “I ask that you ensure that the images are preserved and reported,” he wrote. Mr Bushnell had also sent a will to a friend in recent days, dividing his assets.

In recent years, Bushnell had grown increasingly distant from both his conservative upbringing and his military career, according to those who knew him. He threw himself into left-wing and anarchist activism, often speaking about alleviating poverty and fighting capitalism. Along the way, he rejected the small, deeply religious enclave along Cape Cod Bay where he grew up, friends said.

Some former members of the neighborhood, known as the Community of Jesus, have claimed that they have been psychologically abused. Mr. Bushnell’s relatives have not spoken publicly, and a woman who answered the phone at the listed Community of Jesus number declined to respond or take a message.

Ms Schuman, who like Mr Bushnell was born in the community, said they both suffered from anxiety in their teenage years due to the high expectations and strict restrictions imposed by the community’s leaders and teachers. They attended a common home school there, although Mr. Bushnell also spent a year in public high school.

In the summer of 2016, after graduating high school, he visited Israel and the West Bank on a trip led by the Community of Jesus that took members to historical sites in the Bible, Ms. Schuman said. She did not recall any significant discussion about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict during the trip, but said the students spent a day in the West Bank city of Bethlehem and spoke with several students from Bethlehem University, a Catholic university there.

Mr. Bushnell during a visit to Jerusalem in July 2016 after graduating from high school.Credit…Ashley Schuman

“I know that trip meant a lot to all of us in the group,” she said.

In the years after Ms. Schuman and Mr. Bushnell graduated from high school, they both began to consider whether they wanted to remain in the community. That of the community constitution, known as ‘The Rule of Life’, describes a system of progression whereby adherents can achieve a status over several years that involves taking a vow of membership ‘for life’. Instead, Mr. Bushnell told Ms. Schuman in the fall of 2019 that he was leaving.

He left the community, where he had lived with his parents and younger brother, and worked for a brief period at a pawn shop elsewhere in Massachusetts before starting active duty in the Air Force in May 2020, stationed in San Antonio.

Ms. Schuman, who had also chosen to leave the community, said they spoke regularly by phone about handling the transition; Mr. Bushnell told her he had spoken to a therapist and urged her to see one as well, she said.

During their phone calls, Mr. Bushnell told Ms. Schuman that he spent most of his work time at a computer. He often sounded stressed, she said, and seemed to lack the enthusiasm he had shown in boot camp or at school, when he was a quiet boy who became passionate about history lessons and C.S. Lewis novels.

Outside of work, he seemed increasingly focused on solving the problem of homelessness. Ms. Schuman said she became concerned when Mr. Bushnell told her he had sent a significant amount of money to a woman in another state who said she was a homeless mother. Ms. Schuman believed the two had never met.

“He didn’t really say much, except that he wanted me to keep her in my prayers,” Mrs. Schuman recalled. “I was like, ‘Whoa, Aaron, you don’t even know this person.’ But I think what fueled him was helping someone else who was less fortunate than him.

In 2021, Mr. Bushnell was still talking about a possible return to the commune on Cape Cod, something that Ms. Schuman found difficult to hear as she sought a new life outside. Eventually they stopped talking.

Another friend said that Mr. Bushnell complained mildly about his Air Force job — varying schedules, lack of sleep — and occasionally talked about his disagreements with the U.S. military over past conflicts, such as the invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan.

In November 2022, fresh off a vacation to Hawaii with his younger brother, Mr. Bushnell appeared alone at an event hosted by the Party for Socialism and Liberation in San Antonio, where he quickly made a new group of friends.

Lupe Barboza, 32, said she and her friends invited him to join their mutual aid group’s weekly visits to homeless camps. She said Mr. Bushnell told her group, known as San Antonio Collective Care, that his political views had changed dramatically not long after he joined the military.

“He said he went from one extreme — the conservative beliefs he had grown up with — to the opposite, forming his anarchist, anti-imperialist values,” Ms. Barboza said. “And he said it was a very rapid shift, and he just said it went from one extreme to another.”

Mr. Bushnell volunteered to assist with the mutual aid group’s internal communications and mission statement. He set up a discussion channel on Discord, a messaging app, and launched a “constitutionalization” effort by drawing up a list of questions for members to answer in writing.

“I’d like to think I bring an open mind to the table, a desire to help and learn, and a commitment to radical ideals,” he wrote in one of his own responses in February 2023.

He also wrote that he was frustrated because he had difficulty connecting with new people.

“Although I care deeply about people, I tend to find social interactions very challenging, especially with strangers or with someone I am not close to,” he said.

But shortly after leading that initiative, he announced he had to step back from the group because he was dealing with a trauma from his past that had resurfaced, Ms. Barboza said. Still, he kept in touch with many of his friends in the group.

He told them he looked forward to leaving the military when his military service expired in the spring of this year, Ms. Barboza said. On his LinkedIn profile, he wrote that he was “truly passionate about writing software and can’t wait to help drive innovation in the civilian world.”

Mr. Bushnell’s friends in San Antonio threw him a party at a karaoke bar last fall before he moved to Ohio.Credit…Lupe Barboza

Late last year, Mr. Bushnell had decided he would move to Ohio to participate in the Army’s SkillBridge program, which allows members nearing the end of their service to get paid while they train or work for private companies. He created a flyer asking someone to bring his cat, Sugar, and sang old songs — including a Bon Jovi tune — at a karaoke broadcast hosted by his friends.

Friends in San Antonio said he did not share with them the nature of the past trauma he was dealing with.

Susan Wilkins, 59, who also lived in the Community of Jesus from 1970 to 2005 before leaving it, said she was not close to Mr Bushnell and his family but knew them and worried he may not have had enough support to transition to a community. less structured world.

“I understand that if you grew up in a somewhat restrictive environment, anarchy has appeal,” she said.

Ms. Schuman, like other former community members, has struggled to understand Mr. Bushnell’s fatal protest.

“I will never be able to support the extreme measures,” she said. “But where we grew up, and because we didn’t have a say in what we really wanted or what we believed in, it’s admirable what he did for people who don’t have a voice right now.”

Air Force officials did not discuss the incident in detail. When a reporter asked the Air Force’s top spokesman this week whether Mr. Bushnell’s protest could signal broader discord within the ranks over the civilian deaths in Gaza, he declined to answer directly.

“This is certainly a tragic event,” said Maj. Gen. Patrick S. Ryder at a press conference. “We express our condolences to the pilot’s family.”

Erik Schmitt reporting contributed. Kirsten Noyes research contributed.

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How the Senate GOP scored a top recruit and widened its path to a majority

Sabir Ansary — Wed, 28 Feb 2024 11:35:32 +0000

Larry Hogan may not be running for Senate this year, but because of a letter he received in early January.

The popular former Republican governor of Maryland had rejected years of pleas and lobbying from a parade of powerful Republicans. But when he received an e-mail letter on Jan. 8 from a lifelong Maryland resident that appealed less to partisanship than to a call to public service, Mr. Hogan responded within an hour — with an invitation via a assistant for a private meeting in Annapolis.

The letter’s author, Darin Thacker, was not a regular voter. He is the chief of staff to the chairman of the GOP Senate campaign arm.

Once Mr. Hogan broke open a locked door, Mr. Thacker quickly informed his boss of his personal outreach, setting in motion a frantic three-week sprint of private meetings and polling. Mr. Hogan finally pulled off a dramatic upset during the racing hours before the Feb. 9 filing deadline. The decision caused a real shock in the Senate landscape, which was already heavily tilted towards Republicans in 2024.

“Without that letter, I don’t think Larry Hogan is in the race,” said Mr. Thacker’s boss, Senator Steve Daines of Montana, chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee. People close to Mr. Hogan agreed.

Hogan’s recruitment capped months of quiet success for Mr. Daines and Senate Republicans, after more than a decade of recruiting disappointments, failures and outright self-sabotage.

The group’s previous attempts to intervene in primaries have often led to infighting. Attempts to be more hands-off have also backfired. The result is a series of battered, broke and bad candidates who have underscored a years-long power struggle between the party’s right-wing base and the old guard establishment. There was Christine O’Donnell’s denial that she was a witch in 2010, Roy Moore’s denial that he was a sexual predator in 2017, and Herschel Walker’s denial that he paid for a woman’s abortion years ago in 2022.

In 2024, the Republican Party appears to be on the verge of avoiding nasty primaries in several states, including Montana, Pennsylvania and Nevada. Mr. Daines has helped bridge the divide between Republicans and Republicans, especially between the party’s Donald J. Trump bloc and forces aligned with Senator Mitch McConnell, the minority leader who has not been in a relationship with the former president since 2020 has spoken. Daines was the leading Republican in the Senate in early 2023 to support Trump, forging an important alliance.

Mr. Daines traveled to Mar-a-Lago shortly after his selection as Republican Senate chairman and said he told Mr. Trump that “one of the most important things we can offer you as president in January 2025 is the Republican majority is. Since then, he has had frequent contact with the Trump operation.

Democrats are already running out of room to make mistakes to maintain control of the Senate in 2024. The party currently holds 51 seats and has already functionally lost one when Sen. Joe Manchin, a Democrat, retired in West Virginia. (His departure came after Republicans successfully recruited the state’s popular Republican governor, Jim Justice, to run against him).

Now Democrats would have to win every remaining competitive race to retain just a bare minimum of 50 seats. The party is defending two seats in red states (Ohio and Montana) and in a slew of presidential battlegrounds (Arizona, Nevada, Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania). Maryland is widely seen as a reach for Republicans, but is no longer a state that Democrats can simply ignore.

Currently, no Republican-held Senate seats are considered threatened.

“Obviously the odds are against you if you have to take the lead,” said Justin Barasky, a Democratic strategist who covers Senate races. But he noted that the party “just did that last election” and won one seat in 2022 when widespread losses were expected.

The McConnell team had taken a serious swipe at the previous chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, Senator Rick Scott of Florida. He had taken a non-interventionist approach, but had worked closely with the Daines team. Mr. Daines has brought a disarmingly simple philosophy to candidate recruitment.

“It’s about finding candidates who can win both the primaries and the general election,” he said.

In some cases, this formula has translated into strong-arming more extreme candidates. In Pennsylvania, Mr. Daines publicly denounced Doug Mastriano, a failed 2022 candidate for governor, while other Republican senators lobbied the state party to support David McCormick, a former hedge fund executive who lost a 2022 Senate primary.

In others, the strategy of recruiting candidates who can win both primaries and general elections has led to resignation among the Republican base. In Arizona, the party is now backing Kari Lake, who lost a bid for governor and made denying the 2020 election results a central part of her candidacy.

In Ohio, the party has stayed out of the primaries entirely, arguing that all three leading Republicans could topple Sen. Sherrod Brown, the Democratic incumbent, in the increasingly conservative state. Those primaries also have the advantage of taking place very early in the year – March 19 – giving the eventual nominee ample time to campaign against Mr. Brown.

Perhaps the best test case was Montana, Daines’ own state and home to one of the country’s most crucial Senate races: the battle for Senator Jon Tester’s seat. Mr. Tester has proven to be a durable Democrat in a conservative state.

Mr. Daines recruited Tim Sheehy, a former Navy SEAL and business owner, introduced him to the former president at Mr. Trump’s Bedminster property and brought him to a Trump rally in South Dakota. Mr. Sheehy met again with the former president in Nevada the day before Representative Matt Rosendale, a right-wing alternative who Daines’ team had publicly argued was unelectable, entered the race.

Mr. Trump endorsed Mr. Sheehy the next day and immediately deflated Mr. Rosendale’s candidacy. He soon quit the race.

Steven Law, leader of the main Republican super PAC in the Senate, called the approval “a cannonball into the shallow end of the pool.”

“That was decisive,” Mr. Law said, “and 100 percent the result of Senator Daines cultivating that relationship with President Trump.”

The one-two punch of Mr. Hogan’s submission and Sheehy’s endorsement — on the same day — was a cause for celebration at the National Republican Senatorial Committee’s donor retreat at the Breakers hotel in Palm Beach, Florida. Some officials popped champagne.

Mr. Barasky, the Democratic strategist, said Republicans were celebrating far too early.

“They have mistakenly believed that they would solve their candidate quality problems by recruiting candidates with weak or no ties to the state in which they operate,” Mr. Barasky said, referring to Mr. Sheehy and Mr. McCormick.

For Republicans, the tone was set in battleground Indiana, which had one of the first Senate seats of 2024 without a sitting president.

Representative Jim Banks quickly jumped into the race. He was a favorite of the anti-tax group Club for Growth, which often sparred with Republican Senate leadership, and of the Trump family, including former Donald Trump Jr. Indiana Gov. Mitchell E. Daniels, who was considering a run and fit. the model of a traditional recruit, and he made a trip to Washington to discuss a possible run with Mr. McConnell.

That same day, Mr. Daines met with Donald Trump Jr. at the Capitol Hill Club in Washington. (“We fish and hunt together,” Mr. Daines said of their relationship). The message was clearly communicated that month that the party would support Mr. Banks, and Mr. Daniels opted for a run.

Josh Holmes, Mr. McConnell’s top political adviser for many years, said Mr. Daines’ early support for the former president had proven “very smart.”

“To succeed in that job you have to be able to communicate clearly with every constituency in the party, and the largest constituency is Trump,” Mr. Holmes said.

Mr. Holmes was recently a middleman in talks for a McConnell endorsement of Mr. Trump and was also part of Hogan’s recruitment, traveling to Annapolis in the final days before the filing deadline.

Mr. Thacker’s letter, first reported by The Washington Post, was just the beginning. The Senate GOP quickly ordered a poll, which Mr. Thacker took to Annapolis on Jan. 17, that showed Mr. Hogan with a lead, giving Republicans a chance to win a Senate seat for the first time in a generation in Maryland to run.

But Mr. Hogan, who declined to comment through a spokesman, wanted his own pollster to get involved, so the party paid for a second investigation. Still, Mr. Hogan considered his options until the final days.

Mr. Hogan had previously run for president in 2024 on the No Labels ticket, which could have complicated Mr. Trump’s election. The former president is not expected to comment on Mr. Hogan’s Senate candidacy. as Axios reportedalthough Mr. Hogan has sharply criticized Mr. Trump in the past.

Democrats remain convinced that Maryland will not be competitive. David Bergstein, the communications director for the Democratic Senate Campaign Committee, noted that Democrats have won every Senate race there for more than four decades. “A vote for Larry Hogan is a vote to put Mitch McConnell in charge of the Senate, and that is a losing argument in this state,” he said.

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Self-taught chef behind West African restaurant Chishuru – who became the first black woman to win a Michelin star in Britain – studied to be a biologist before a supper club set her on the path to making culinary history

Sabir Ansary — Tue, 27 Feb 2024 09:47:56 +0000

She made history last month, becoming the first black woman in Britain to earn a Michelin star, but the owner of the West African-inspired Chishuru – currently the hottest table in town – should never have become a restauranteur.

Nigerian chef Adejoké Bakare, 51, founder of the Westminster-based restaurant that has food critics raving, received the prestigious award for dishes such as roasted goat belly and ginger fried rice.

The menu is a snip compared to some of London’s luxury restaurants, with a four-course lunch priced at £40, while a five-course dinner costs £75 per person.

Despite being ‘stunned’ by the culinary body’s recognition, the self-taught chef and her restaurant manager Matt Paice have resisted the ‘fine dining’ label, saying they want to appear ‘homely’ instead.

Speak with Michelin Great Britain, she said: ‘At the core of what we do, we are very homely. When you see our interior, you will see that we are homely and simply welcome you.’

Her journey to excellence has been both remarkable and unique, dating back to her time as a university student in Nigeria, where she found herself adventurously juggling a fish and chips cart alongside her studies.

Adejoké Bakare (pictured), 51, made history after becoming the first black woman in Britain to be awarded a prestigious Michelin star, but a restaurant was never part of her plan (Image: Adejoké celebrating on Instagram)

Adejoké is the founder and chef of luxury eatery Chishuru in Westminster, offering a modern take on West African cuisine (photo: char-grilled guinea fowl breast, caramelized onion and lemon sauce, yaji peanut spice)

The delectable menu can be enjoyed in the form of just two set menus, priced at £40 or £75 per person (pictured: Newlyn cod fillet, fermented tomato sauce, Scotch bonnet, okra)

Born in Port Harcourt, in the southern Rivers State region of Nigeria, but raised in the northern Kaduna region, she studied biology before moving to Britain in the 1990s to pursue a career path that included both healthcare and property management included.

However, her passion for food refused to budge and the industrious chef began organizing supper clubs in London, hoping to raise awareness of West African cuisine in the capital.

Word of her enchanting twist on native dishes quickly spread and in 2019 she won the Brixton Kitchen competition, a competition set up to seek out the best in local culinary innovation and talent.

The following year, she opened a three-month pop in South London titled Chishuru, which means “silent eating” in Hausa, a dialect spoken in the northern parts of Nigeria.

The chef runs Chishuru with manager Matt Paice (pictured left)

Adejoké continues to impress customers with exciting dishes such as fermented rice cake and shiitake mushrooms, charcoal grilled guinea fowl breast and whole fried quail with uda and uziza – the latest West African spices (not pictured)

The pop-up became a great success and quickly turned into a permanent fixture, while retaining the Chisuru name.

Although the Brixton branch closed in 2022, Adejoké ran several pop-ups in the capital before finally settling in posh Fitzrovia last year – where she has remained.

There she has dazzled customers with dishes such as fermented rice cake and shiitake mushrooms, charcoal-grilled guinea fowl breast and whole fried quails with uda and uziza – the latest West African spices.

For those expecting Nigerian main dishes, all main courses are served with rice and plantain.

The chef has resisted a fine dining label and instead wants her restaurant to be ‘homely’ (pictured: the interior of Chishuru in Fitzrovia)

Although Adejoké’s cooking is largely self-taught, she admits that she may have picked up some things from her parents, especially her father, whom she praised as a “great cook.”

To talk with BBC good food in 2022, the chef recalled the inspiration behind her cultured dishes: ‘In Nigeria and West Africa we use many of the same ingredients and spices, such as selim grains (similar to black pepper) or gourd nutmeg. In southern Nigeria, the food is bolder, spicier and uses more pepper.

‘But in the east people use more indigenous ground peppers, such as uziza. At home, the food was a mix of these different zones and cultures, and similarly at Chishuru I cook my take on traditional Nigerian food.”

Adejoke’s fearless embrace of her roots is perhaps aptly seen in a note on the restaurant’s website chishuru.com: ‘If you have no tolerance for spices at all, we recommend you choose another restaurant, sorry’.

The post Self-taught chef behind West African restaurant Chishuru – who became the first black woman to win a Michelin star in Britain – studied to be a biologist before a supper club set her on the path to making culinary history appeared first on USMAIL24.COM.

Is an engineering job the right career path for you?

Jeffrey Bailey — Fri, 23 Feb 2024 15:13:50 +0000

ENGINEER yourself a secure future.

Whether you are an IT engineer or a traditional engineer, all engineering roles involve conceiving, designing, building and maintaining something, be it machines and structures or IT and data systems.

Traditional engineering firms are struggling to fill vacanciesCredit: Alamy

As people who design the systems on which society depends, engineers are sought after and can command high salaries – but Britain is not training enough new workers.

Just under half of traditional engineering firms say they are struggling to recruit staff and one in five engineers currently working in Britain will retire by 2026, making shortages more pressing.

In the digital sector, a quarter of companies cannot find enough IT and software engineers.

So if you’re looking for an exciting new career path that offers job security and good pay, here’s how to move into tech.

What is the difference between a traditional and a digital engineer?

Say the word “engineer” and you probably think of someone working on building a machine or a road. That is the traditional role of an engineer.

It is usually split into sub-disciplines, including civil engineers who create buildings, roads and other infrastructure, electrical engineers, mechanical engineers and even nuclear engineers.

Digital engineers also create, but they design and build software systems so that organizations can run their IT programs.

What salary can I earn as an engineer?

The average salary for a traditional engineer is £38,900.

The starting salary for qualified engineers is around £25,000, but chief engineers can easily earn more than £100,000.

The average salary for a software engineer is £52,500, but the entry-level salary is also high, around £42,000. Experienced workers earn up to £75,000 per year.

What are the routes to work as an engineer?

Most traditional engineering jobs require a degree, so you can study engineering at university and then get a job, or do an internship and ‘earn while you learn’.

To progress to an engineering degree you will usually need at least two A-levels, with the most popular courses requiring three A-levels and A/B grades.

Entry requirements vary from CCC to AAA, with universities and colleges most often requesting ABB.

More information can be found at: www.prospects.ac.uk/jobs-and-work-experience/job-sectors/engineering-and-manufacturing/how-to-become-an-engineer.

To become a software engineer, you can obtain a foundation diploma, a higher national diploma or a degree in computer science. Discover the best route for you at: nationalcareers.service.gov.uk/job-profiles/software-developer.

What prospects are there for climbing the career ladder?

A lot of! Engineers create the systems we all need to live and work, so there will always be high-quality jobs in the sector.

Software engineers can advance to senior developers or move into related areas such as systems design, IT architecture and business systems analysis.

There is a high demand for well-paid consulting positions or you can even start your own business.

For traditional engineers, the next step is Senior Engineer, and then a direct route through related roles such as Technical Manager, Chief Engineer or Program Manager. The highest role is that of Director of Engineering.

Ready to build your own future? These are the best tech jobs on offer this week from Sun Jobs.

Software Engineer – Full Stack, Aviva, London

Looking for stacks of cash? This exciting opportunity is for you.

The job: Aviva is looking for one Software Engineer – Full Stackwith a strong programming background, based in Bristol, Norwich or London, requiring travel to the London office at least once every two weeks.

What you will do: You will deliver excellent and timely customer results through continuous development and delivery, contributing to improvements to development standards and practices with the aim of increasing delivery quality and efficiency.

You need: You have experience developing in a wide range of programming languages, and you are eager to learn and implement new languages. You have a good working knowledge of Agile and continuous implementations, DevOps and AWS, Azure or Google Cloud.

Apply now: See further details of this rolealong with other jobs Aviva.

Manufacturing Engineer, Babcock International, Plymouth

Can you produce the goods? Then this is an excellent first or second job.

The job: Babcock International is recruiting a Production engineer on the Davenport site.

What you will do: You will support maintenance, repair and overhaul activities, inventory management, technical and life support.

You need: You have proven production experience, good knowledge of engineering and production processes and a high level of computer knowledge. You will be trained to degree/ONC/HNS level, or study for a degree in a technical discipline, and have the opportunity to obtain security clearance for this role.

Apply now: Find out moreor discover more options with Babcock International.

Cloud engineer, UBS, London

This job as a cloud engineer has much more to offer than just a bright spot!

The job: Global asset manager UBS is looking for a new one Cloud engineer.

What you will do: Working collaboratively across the organization, you’ll help design and build next-generation business applications, write high-quality, reusable code, and write professional, clear, and comprehensive documentation; and apply best development and DevOps practices, making effective use of available technologies.

You need: A background in development using a major language such as Python, Golang, Java, C# or JavaScript, and proven experience using tools such as Terraform, Azure DevOps, GitLab Cl, Maven, Gradle, Jenkins and TeamCity. You are used to contributing to open- or inner-source projects and have worked with scripting languages such as Windows PowerShell and Bash.

Apply now: Apply for this positionalong with other options UBS.

Discover thousands of open vacancies for jobs across the UK now on The Sun Job Board.

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Democrats hope the path to home control starts on Long Island

Sabir Ansary — Mon, 19 Feb 2024 08:55:47 +0000

“Anything that will defeat Trump and the Republican madness,” said Mark Rubin, 64, a retired manufacturing company founder who voted emphatically for Mr. Suozzi, especially because Mr. Suozzi is not a member of Mr. Trump’s party. “Make sure the Democratic Party can be counted on.”

Victor Basile, 71, and his wife, Lois Basile, said they had been Republicans all their lives but switched to becoming registered Democrats after the Jan. 6 Capitol riot. Still, they said they were trying to support the best candidate, regardless of party affiliation, and voted for Mr. Suozzi.

“After what was going on with the Republican Party, we just said, 'You know, I don't want to be associated with it,'” said Mr. Basile, a retired advertiser. “I have never remembered people being so decisive, one party against the other, for the sake of the party.”

Ms Basile, 68, a retired nurse, added: “It's a bit scary, the country as it is now.”

Voter interviews showed that crime was still a concern. Robyn Smith, who lives in Roslyn, said surveillance video showed attempted thefts of her family's cars. Her children had lived through multiple school closures, she said, and she fears for her safety when she shops at Roosevelt Field in nearby Garden City, one of the county's largest malls: “Every time I go there, I have to take off all my shoes.” put out. jewellery. I can't carry anything.”

Chris Cavalli, 37, a restaurateur and Republican from Mineola, said when it comes to crime, he gives his party an edge. “I would like to see Republicans take a more conservative approach to spending and take a tough stance on crime, illegal immigration and accountability,” he said, adding that Democrats were trying to “restrict American freedoms on everything, from speech to weapons.”

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Matt Cooke, once one of the NHL's most-hated players, is charting a new path

Jeffrey Bailey — Fri, 16 Feb 2024 20:59:42 +0000

ST. JOHN’S, Newfoundland — The morning fog grows so thick outside Mary Brown’s Centre that South Side Hills, an imposing rock outcropping standing between St. John’s and the rough waters of the north Atlantic Ocean, isn’t visible a few hundred meters away.

Inside the empty arena, the only voice is not loud but still penetrating.

A coach is standing in the middle of a group of professional hockey players. He turns his head side-to-side, looking for recognition, any sign of life.

“Whatever the f— is up,” he barks at players kneeling before him, “make sure you’re ready to go tonight.” After that, he turns and leaves the morning skate hours before a game.

The coach is Matt Cooke. He is wearing a beige ball cap and he’s added a few pounds from his own playing days. But he hasn’t lost any of the energy of his 16-season NHL career. He’s the same Matt Cooke who would rise to the top of the list of most reviled NHL players of the past two decades.

His unprovoked open-ice shoulder check on Marc Savard in March 2010 is still one of the most universally condemned hits in modern NHL history. It left the Boston Bruins forward with a concussion, contributed to the end of his career and led to a change in the NHL rules meant to deter blindside hits.

A year later, Cooke was suspended for 17 games for a punishing elbow to the head of New York Rangers defenseman Ryan McDonagh.

Cooke also lacerated Erik Karlsson’s Achilles’ tendon when his skate came down on the NHL All-Star’s left leg during a board battle. The questions about whether Cooke was a hard-nosed player gave way to questions about whether he was a malicious one.

Then-Ottawa Senators owner Eugene Melnyk echoed many in the hockey world when he labeled Cooke a “goon” who “should never be playing in this league.”

Cooke’s final suspension was seven games for a knee-on-knee hit on Colorado Avalanche defenseman Tyson Barrie in the 2014 playoffs.

Many believed he was incapable of changing. When his career ended a year later, any player looking to skate through the middle of the ice untouched breathed a sigh of relief.

But now he’s a rookie head coach of the Newfoundland Growlers, the ECHL affiliate of the Toronto Maple Leafs. A leader of young men. The shaper of young hockey minds.

For those who remember Matt Cooke on the ice, it might be a chilling thought.

“Matt Cooke the person has always been different from Matt Cooke the player,” he says.

The first hint of Cooke’s future came when he was just a 5-foot-1 13-year-old playing minor hockey for the Quinte Red Devils, in Belleville, Ont. Physical play was ingrained in his game in the early 1990s, but he was never taught what that should look like.

“My first game, I’m scared. I’m flying on my knees trying to cannonball guys because I’m scared,” Cooke says. “I was taught to give the biggest hit possible. But I never intentionally tried to hurt anybody, ever.”

Just like many of the players he now coaches, Cooke was overlooked. He was not picked in the 1996 NHL Draft.

But he was tenacious. He refused to accept his fate. As an undrafted 18-year-old, he attended Toronto Maple Leafs training camp on a professional tryout and earned a contract. He impressed the Leafs coaching staff with his determined style of play and surprisingly strong set of hands.

An unfortunate clerical error meant his three-year contract offer with the Leafs wasn’t filed to the league office in time, forcing him to return to the OHL’s Windsor Spitfires. Armed with confidence from his tryout success, Cooke showed a new side to his game. After scoring just eight goals during his draft year, he led his Spitfires team with 45 goals.

“I was always undersized, not fast enough, not skilled enough,” Cooke says proudly. “And I beat the odds.”

At the 1997 draft, he wasn’t forgotten. The Vancouver Canucks picked him in the sixth round, 144th. He had a nine-season stint with the Canucks before moving to the Penguins, developing into not just a reliable goal scorer but a gregarious teammate. Coaches could not escape special teams meetings without being peppered with questions from Cooke.

“He was not a guy who was quiet in the room,” Cooke’s former teammate Tyler Kennedy says.

But even with his ability to find the back of the net, Cooke made his name turning the middle of the ice into a hazardous place for the opposition.

That’s when the harmful hits piled up.

In the aftermath of his headshot on Savard, as the hate toward him swelled, he realized he needed to change.

Kennedy noticed his once-chatty teammate growing reticent. “When you hurt someone, no matter who you are, you think about it,” Kennedy says.

It led Cooke to then-Penguins bench boss Dan Bylsma. After the 2010-11 season, Bylsma took Cooke under his wing for repeated one-on-one video and on-ice sessions.

“It was a point of reflection about his career, who he was as a player and how he was perceived,” Bylsma says. “He had a desire to change that.”

Cooke says if he could, one thing he’d change is that March 7, 2010, hit on Savard.

“At the time, to survive in the game, I felt like Matt Cooke the player was the guy that made the middle of the ice harder for people to get to,” he says.

“Now there’s a specific rule in place that I would have been suspended for a lot of games for that hit. But at the time, legally within the game, I didn’t do anything wrong. I didn’t get a penalty and I wasn’t suspended. I hate the fact that Marc was hurt.”

When Savard returned to the ice, he sustained another concussion in a hit from Matt Hunwick on Jan. 23, 2011, ending his career.

Cooke has never spoken to Savard. He said he tried to get in touch for a month after the hit. “You can only get rejected so many times,” Cooke says softly.

Savard, now an assistant coach for the Calgary Flames, did not reply to a text message seeking comment.

For Cooke, it’s a part of his past.

“I haven’t thought about it in a long time,” he says. “Back then, I wanted to apologize. I wanted to tell him it wasn’t personal. It could have been Milan Lucic who crossed the middle. The play would have been the same.”

When his playing career ended after the 2014-15 season, Cooke ran a hockey academy in Minnesota and coached at two high schools. If Cooke’s players expected him to teach them how to deliver thunderous checks, they were disappointed.

“The reality is different from the perception (of Cooke),” Bylsma says.

Instead, he stressed how to compete relentlessly without hunting for heads.

Cooke would throw his old gear on and mingle with players on the ice. They might have complained he talked too much. But Cooke was undeterred. “Even though you don’t see it with your eyes, I want you to hear it with your ears, so you can be successful,’” Cooke would tell them.

His NHL experiences were only important if they were shared.

“Most people don’t know, but through the last six or seven years, Matt has been doing a lot of work with his coaching,” Bylsma says.

He also has stayed busy doing other things. Cooke paid for suites for underprivileged children to watch NHL games in multiple stops during his career. He traveled to war-torn Haiti to donate time and money to charities and help build orphanages. But none of that got him any closer to a return to the league. When he applied for dozens of professional coaching vacancies across North America, he felt like his legacy followed him.

“Not even a discussion with some teams,” Cooke says.

On a whim, he applied for the Toronto Marlies head coaching vacancy in the AHL this offseason. He shrugged when he learned the organization went with the uber-experienced John Gruden, fresh off an assistant coaching stop with the Bruins. But he was encouraged when he received a phone call from Marlies GM Ryan Hardy, who wondered if Cooke would be interested in the Growlers’ vacancy.

“We all had some sort of preconceived notion of how (Cooke) might be as a coach based on how he was as a player,” Hardy says. “We found him to be a really intelligent guy who had a passion for teaching. He was able to reflect on his experience as a player.”

The shoreline of St. John’s, Newfoundland. (Jeff Parsons / Special to The Athletic)

Cooke had never been to Newfoundland when he and his wife traveled east to begin his second act.

“We’ve always had resistance to live in the moment,” Cooke says. “In doing this, the two of us made the decision to be present more. I’ve put a lot of boots in the ground to earn respect.”

Cooke understands the ebbs and flows of a season in a place like Newfoundland can suck players of their mojo. The inexperienced professionals are mostly fresh out of college or junior hockey.

But the Leafs take the Growlers seriously. Leafs regular Bobby McMann, for example, developed in Newfoundland in 2021.

“There are guys on this team who will play in the NHL,” Cooke says. “It may take them three years, but they’ll play.”

The organization is trusting Cooke, 45, to teach players how to become professionals.

And he is learning how to do just that.

When Cooke has to halt a special-teams drill to tell his players to protect the middle of the ice, he is ultimately sniffing out a lack of effort. He believes his team is “going through the motions.”

“This is your practice for tonight’s game,” he warns them. “Don’t do it half-assed.”

That attitude and approach is what drove Cooke as a Stanley Cup winner with the Pittsburgh Penguins.

“(Cooke) earned my respect because he was always honest with his decisions,” Kennedy says. “Everyone he played with had his respect. He was the definition of a guy who everyone hated to play against but loved to play with.”

Matt Cooke is working to connect with his players, on the ice and off of it. (Jeff Parsons / Special to The Athletic)

Cooke is over an hour late for lunch when he enters a dark restaurant, shaking his head with embarrassment. He is still learning the realities of coaching two steps below the NHL.

Like how after a 3 p.m. game on a Sunday outside of Montreal, commercial flight delays mean his team can’t fly out until 9:30 p.m. Monday, arriving home at 2:30 a.m.

A practice on Tuesday, despite three games on the horizon? No chance.

Or how — an hour earlier — Cooke had one foot out of the arena when he had to turn around. The Growlers’ young Russian goalie Vyacheslav Peksa was called up to the AHL for the first time.

Cooke had to coordinate with the arena staff and ensure doors wouldn’t be locked so Peksa, 21, could return to collect his gear. Cooke answered Peksa’s questions and reminded him to bring a suit, a tie and enough clothes for what could be a multi-week trip.

Oh, and here’s the time you probably need to wake up and be out the door to catch the 5 a.m. flight.

“They don’t know,” Cooke says. “I need to make sure that as he’s leaving here we have at least somewhat prepared him.”

To return to hockey’s biggest stage, he wants Matt Cooke the communicator to replace the image of Matt Cooke ingrained in the hockey world.

“Communicating is one thing I feel I overdo at times,” he says, tongue planted firmly in cheek.

His office door is open. He extends his arms to two plush off-white couches for discussions. During practice, Cooke buzzes around, chattering and smiling.

“It’s my job to make sure (players) understand little nuances I’ve learned throughout my playing career,” Cooke says. “It may not be that a player can’t master those nuances. They might not even know they exist.”

Cooke hopes to follow two of his former assistant coaches, Tony Granato with the Pittsburgh Penguins and Darby Hendrickson with the Minnesota Wild. They backed him while also delivering important direction from coaching and management. Lines were never crossed and trust was never broken.

“I view myself as that guy,” Cooke says. “I feel like I’d be an awesome assistant coach in the NHL.”

Ironically, Cooke’s most meaningful impact could be if his players don’t follow his lead.

Earlier this season, 2018 second-round NHL Draft pick Serron Noel threw a hit that looked like a Matt Cooke special. Noel skated from behind into the back of Trois-Rivières Lions forward Anthony Beauregard. The boards shook violently from the force of it.

Noel vehemently protested his two-game suspension to Cooke, who listened patiently. “But it’s the right call,” Cooke told him. “You have the ability to limit the risk (to other players) and still be physical.”

Cooke placed an arm around the player as they slowly reviewed clips of Noel’s physical approach. Cooke instructed. Noel listened. Different skate positioning and improved movement will lead to better results. The goal: Apply physicality without malice.

“If a guy needs direction on how to reign in physicality, then it’s my responsibility to make sure he gets that support,” Cooke says. “Because that may be the only thing holding him back.”

Matt Cooke is hopeful his work in Newfoundland creates a pathway back to the NHL. (Jeff Parsons / Special to The Athletic)

The 2,693 raucous fans at Mary Brown’s Centre who welcome the Growlers are a fraction of the number of fans Cooke used to play in front of. But in this cheerful coastal town, the Growlers are beloved.

“Our fans put up with us playing horribly the last time we were here,” Cooke tells players before puck drop on a Thursday night against the Worcester Railers. Veterans nod to his messages about responsibility. He stresses that without the fans in the small town, his players would not have a job.

Fans bark at referees, players and Cooke, and $5 beers disappear when the “Chug Cam” flashes onto a video screen above the sheet of ice.

The fans’ anger at the team is justified. The Growlers were not ready to go and trailed 2-0 after the first period.

Often, that kind of performance would lead an NHL coach to avoid the dressing room, leaving players to sort out their failures. Cooke contemplates that approach.

But he reminds himself that most of these players have rarely faced off against veterans clawing for paychecks to feed their families. So Cooke wonders aloud if his players are prepared to be professionals.

“The worst part?” Cooke says to his team. “This should bother you.”

His younger players keep their eyes glued to the floor.

“Unless you put your pride on the line,” Cooke says, “the result will be the same.”

The message lands: The Growlers storm back to tie the score before they give up a late goal and lose 5-4. The loss is a blow for a team on the ECHL playoff bubble.

Cooke knows he needs their ears at a more private moment soon enough.

“That feeling when you’re lacing your skates should be, ‘I can’t wait to go out there and compete,’” he says of his team. “Some of them have it. Some of them, it has to be at a whole other level.”

Well past midnight, Cooke remains in his office delivering updates to the Leafs organization. His voice grows hoarse as the hours pile up. He contemplates sleeping on the couch in his office.

“Engage. Be present,” he tells himself as his eyes grow heavy. “When they come in in the morning, I can be the first person they see. I need to get to know where they’re at and get to know them personally.”

And so as the final revelers leave nearby pubs, Cooke remains in his office, thinking about how he can help each player advance on their hockey journey.

Cooke wants them to craft stories they’re proud of. Maybe when they do, his own story will change.

“There comes a point in time,” he says, “when people know you’re in this realm for the right reasons.”

(Illustration: Daniel Goldfarb / The Athletic. Photos: Present-day Matt Cooke images, Jeff Parsons / Special to The Athletic; with Penguins, Gregory Shamus / NHLI via Getty Images)

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A cancer diagnosis and an uncertain path forward

Sabir Ansary — Thu, 15 Feb 2024 09:00:14 +0000

Times Insider explains who we are and what we do, and offers behind-the-scenes insights into how our journalism is made.

When Buckingham Palace announced last month that King Charles III had been admitted to a London hospital for a prostate procedure, Mark Landler, the London bureau chief of The New York Times, was surprised by the palace's transparency.

Mr Landler has covered the British Royal Family since 2019. The family is typically reluctant when it comes to disclosing private information to the public, he explained in a recent conversation.

“It was interesting that, at King Charles's insistence, the Palace made a conscious decision to share a little more information about his medical condition and treatment than it had with Queen Elizabeth throughout her life,” Mr. Landler said. “It is a milestone in the royal family's communications that they have said so much publicly.”

Mr. Landler's surprise only deepened after the palace announced this month that the king had been diagnosed with cancer, although it did not disclose what type of cancer it was.

Although several journalists at The Times write about aspects of the royal family, Mr. Landler keeps a close eye on them. In an interview, he discussed his experiences with the British monarchy and what questions he hoped to answer in the future. This interview has been edited and condensed.

Why do you think Buckingham Palace has been transparent about Charles' health?

Charles has a lot to do with it. In the various announcements made about his prostate treatment and cancer diagnosis, the palace said the king wanted to encourage men of his age to have a prostate check. He also wanted to put an end to wild speculation about his condition. There is no doubt that when a prominent figure like Charles talks openly about his health condition and medical treatment, it can have a positive impact.

What are the immediate implications of his diagnosis?

Although the king and the palace were more open than historically, this was not the case complete Open. They wouldn't say what type of cancer he has or how advanced it was. There was no discussion about the prognosis. They warned that there will be no ongoing update on his condition. What they've done is left us in a kind of middle ground: we know the king is dealing with a potentially life-threatening illness, but we don't know it. How is life-threatening. It has caused quite a bit of unrest.

What questions do you want to answer in your reporting in the future?

A big question is how serious this cancer is. If the king becomes incapacitated at some point, certain things are set in motion. There is an institution called the State Advisors, which consists of other senior members of the royal family who can perform a number of duties on behalf of the king if he is unable to do so. But there are certain things that constitutionally only a sitting monarch can do, so not every loophole will be closed.

For example, only a sitting monarch can agree to a request from the prime minister to dissolve parliament or invite the leader of the political party that has just won a majority in an election to form a new government. There will be a general election in Britain sometime next year, meaning the king will be called to do so regardless of his health.

The general signals from the palace are that Charles' cancer is manageable, that he is receiving appropriate treatment and that he will be able to carry out these tasks. But none of this can be taken for granted. If he is truly incapacitated, that will raise some substantial constitutional questions.

What was the reaction in Britain?

The country is largely in a wait-and-see attitude. When Elizabeth died, she had been queen for seventy years. Most people in Britain had never known another monarch. So it was a huge historical and emotional event, especially for the elderly. It almost felt like a death in the British family.

Charles has been king for less than eighteen months. People watched him grow up; they saw his failed first marriage to Princess Diana. They have seen him grow into a more dignified figure. Although he is not as loved as his mother, it is fair to say that people are 'getting used to him' on the throne.

Yet we don't know how this story will end. Many 75-year-old men who undergo cancer treatment do just fine and live for many years.

What is the biggest challenge in your role as head of the London office?

One challenge, which has been particularly evident in recent weeks, is how to strike a balance between serious, incisive reporting on British politics and society, and reporting on the Royal Family, which is of endless interest to many of our readers, but often the appearance of little more than a soap opera.

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