Derrick Bryson Taylor

Much of the drama played out in public, with the newspaper, The Washington Examiner, publishing an article Thursday about Conway’s pressure on its reporter that included a recording of their conversation. Conway then defended herself on Twitter and told reporters outside the White House on Friday, “If I threaten someone, you’ll know it.”

Conway contacted the reporter, Caitlin Yilek, on Wednesday to dispute a line in an article from the previous day that mentioned the White House adviser’s husband, George Conway, who has departed sharply from his wife and become a prominent critic of Trump.

According to The Examiner, the offending line in the Tuesday story — which focused on the possibility that Conway could become the president’s chief of staff — read: “Conway has been in the middle of Trump’s barbs with her husband, George, a conservative lawyer who frequently makes headlines for his criticism of the president.”

That led Tom Joannou, Conway’s assistant, to contact Yilek on Tuesday, The Examiner said. They spoke again Wednesday, and he requested that their conversation be off the record, the newspaper stated, adding that Conway then got on the line without saying that their conversation was off the record as well.

Conway began by questioning why the reporter had mentioned her husband, according to a transcript of the conversation that The Examiner published Thursday in addition to the recording.

“So I just am wondering why in God’s earth you would need to mention anything about George Conway’s tweets in an article that talks about me as possibly being chief of staff,” Conway said to Yilek, according to the transcript.

The reporter defended her decision, saying that mentioning George Conway was “relevant context.”

Conway asked if the reporter routinely talked about people’s spouses in her articles, to which the reporter responded, “My editor requires us to put in context about people’s families or spouses when it’s relevant.”

After the reporter offered to connect Conway with her editor, Conway called herself a “powerful woman” and added: “Don’t pull the crap where you’re trying to undercut another woman based on who she’s married to. He gets his power through me, if you haven’t noticed. Not the other way around.”

At the end of the conversation, Conway said that if the reporter was going to cover her personal life, “then we’re welcome to do the same around here.”

“If it has nothing to do with my job, which it doesn’t, that’s obvious, then we’re either going to expect you to cover everybody’s personal life or we’re going to start covering them over here,” she added.

The White House and The Examiner did not immediately respond to requests for comment about the exchange.

In a long statement posted on Twitter on Thursday, Conway stood by her remarks to the reporter and said, “It seems irrelevant if not sexist to mention my husband in describing me.” Conway added that she and her husband disagree and agree on “many big things.”

“Exactly none of it affects my position as Counselor to the President,” she wrote. “Exactly none of it is anyone’s business.”

The Examiner tweeted a statement Thursday about the recorded conversation from Hugo Gurdon, the newspaper’s editor-in-chief.

“Off-the-record conversations are agreed in good faith and in advance between people known to be participating,” he said. “They are not, and never have been, blanket coverage to shield people who pull a bait and switch, peremptorily enter the conversation, and then spend 10 minutes abusing, bullying and threatening a reporter.”

This article originally appeared in

Kellyanne Conway and Newspaper Face Off Over Warning to Reporter

Kellyanne Conway, a counselor to President Donald Trump and one of his fiercest defenders, found herself in a standoff Friday with a conservative-leaning newspaper after it accused her of threatening to investigate a reporter’s personal life.

“He is in good spirits and is looking forward to recovering at home,” read a statement early Tuesday from The Carter Center, the Atlanta-based nonprofit that Carter and his wife, Rosalynn, founded in 1982.

The center said the 39th president, who served from 1977 to 1981 and became the longest-living president this year at 95, had suffered a “minor pelvic fracture” and was being treated at Phoebe Sumter Medical Center in Americus, Georgia.

This month, Carter received stitches above his eyebrow after falling at his home in Plains, Georgia.

In May he also received treatment for a broken hip after falling at home, and in December 2015, Carter announced that he was cancer free after undergoing treatment for metastatic melanoma that had spread to his brain.

Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter, 92, became the longest-married presidential couple last week, “still going strong” at 26,765 days as of Oct. 17, according to the Carter Center.

The couple beat the record previously held by George Bush and his wife, Barbara, NBC’s “Today” reported.

Despite his health battles, Carter has continued to stay busy in his post-presidential life. He continues to teach Sunday school, and he and Rosalynn Carter have helped build Habitat for Humanity homes for decades. Together, they have worked with more than 92,000 volunteers on nearly 4,000 homes worldwide.

“It’s hard to live until you’re 95 years old,” Carter told People this month about aging. “I think the best explanation for that is to marry the best spouse: someone who will take care of you and engage and do things to challenge you and keep you alive and interested in life.”

Former President Jimmy Carter fractured his pelvis in a fall at home Monday night and was recovering at a hospital, according to representatives for the Carter family.

Jimmy Carter Fractures Pelvis in Fall

“This morning, Leader McConnell tripped at home on his outside patio and suffered a fractured shoulder,” his spokesman, David Popp, said in a statement Sunday. “He has been treated, released, and is working from home in Louisville.”

According to the statement, McConnell had been in contact with Sen. John Cornyn of Texas and Sen. Rob Portman of Ohio to “express his deepest sympathies for the people of El Paso and Dayton” and to discuss the “tragedies.” Two mass shootings erupted over the weekend in Texas and Ohio less than 24 hours apart, leaving 31 dead and dozens wounded.

McConnell will “continue to work from home,” the statement said.

It was unclear exactly what treatment McConnell, 77, had received for his shoulder.

Paul, 56, announced Monday that he had surgery over the weekend to remove part of his lung that he said was damaged in a 2017 attack when a neighbor tackled him as he did yardwork.

“Unfortunately, I will have to limit my August activities,” Paul said on Twitter. “I should be able to return to the Senate in September.” He is recovering at home in Bowling Green, a representative said.

In January, Paul was awarded $580,000 in damages in a lawsuit he filed against the neighbor, Rene A. Boucher, who pleaded guilty to felony assault last year. In the attack, Paul suffered broken ribs and came down with pneumonia, which kept him out of Washington for almost two weeks.

The Republicans’ injuries come as Democrats call for urgent action after the two mass shootings this weekend. Sen. Chuck Schumer, the minority leader, suggested that President Donald Trump demand that McConnell put the universal background checks bill up for vote in the Republican-controlled Senate. McConnell has given no indication that measures would be taken up.

“I hope that Sen. McConnell would bring the Senate back tomorrow and pass the background check bill and send it to the president,” Sen. Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio, told CNN on Sunday. “The president must sign it. Period.”

On Monday during a televised address, Trump stopped well short of supporting the kind of broad gun control measures that activists and Democrats have sought for a long time, even as he condemned white supremacy in the wake of the shootings without recognizing his own reluctance to warn of its rise until now. He instead opted to highlight time-honored Republican alternatives, calling for stronger action to address mental illness, violence in the media and in video games, as well as “the perils of the internet and social media,” without acknowledging his use of those platforms to promote his own brand of divisive politics.

He did not reiterate his earlier request on Twitter for a bipartisan effort to strengthen background checks for prospective gun buyers, but his proposal to link new gun control measures with immigration restrictions is likely to leave Democrats sternly opposed.

Last week, the Senate ended a session without floor votes on key issues like the high cost of prescription drugs, immigration and infrastructure. McConnell had previously promised to end gridlock in the Senate.

McConnell, however, has been successful this year in getting the Senate to approve several of Trump’s judicial and administration nominees. The Senate has confirmed 13 circuit court nominees and 46 of his district court nominees.

This article originally appeared in <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/05/us/politics/mitch-mcconnell-rand-paul-injury.html" id="da92f300-c033-3cfc-a676-e99cd08ea65b">The New York Times</a>.

Mitch McConnell and Rand Paul Are Recovering From Medical Treatment

Sens. Mitch McConnell and Rand Paul, both R-Ky., are recovering at home from medical procedures they had over the weekend, their teams said. McConnell, the majority leader, fractured his shoulder at his home in Louisville, while Paul underwent surgery to remove a portion of his lung.

To that end, lawmakers in two states have recently recognized the importance of the mental health of their students by allowing them to take sick days just for that. The measures “empower” children to take care of their mental health, one expert said.

On July 1, a law in Oregon went into effect giving students five mental health days in a three-month period. In 2018, Utah changed the definition of a student’s “valid excuse” to miss a day to include an illness “which may be mental or physical.” According to a recent study, teenagers named depression as a problem among their peers. Others blamed their anxiety on politics or climate change.

In Oregon, the bill was supported by several teenagers. One recent graduate, Hailey Hardcastle, told The Associated Press that the bill was inspired by politically active students in Parkland, Florida, and that she and her peers wanted to address mental health issues in schools.

Another former student, Derek Evans, voiced his approval. “Dealing with anxiety throughout high school has always left me tired, exhausted up against some weeks, and the difference one day makes is honestly life-changing,” he told Fox 12 Oregon.

Hardcastle said some parents had opposed the bill, raising concerns that students could take mental health days by pretending to be sick. But other parents cited a real need for the days.

The parents of Chloe Wilson, who died by suicide in 2018, told The Associated Press that their daughter, who had faced bullying after coming out as bisexual, had pretended to be sick in order to stay home from school.

“Because she lied to get her absences excused, we didn’t get to have those mental health conversations that could have saved her life,” her mother, Roxanne Wilson, said.

The new laws are “a huge win, especially for individuals and families that are affected by mental health conditions,” said Jennifer Rothman, senior manager for youth and young adult initiatives for National Alliance on Mental Illness.

Suicide rates for children have been rising as well, Rothman said. “The suicide rates for kids are not going down,” she said. “They are actually rising very quickly, which I think is making schools think a little bit more about mental health conditions.”

According to a 2017 report by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, suicide is the second-leading cause of death for 10- to 34-year-olds.

A 2017 Youth Risk Behavior Surveillance report from the centers showed that during the 12 months before the survey, 19% of high school students had been bullied on school property and another 7.4% had attempted suicide.

From 1999 to 2016, suicide rates increased 28.2% in Oregon and rose 46.5% in Utah, according to the centers.

Rothman said the days off not only give students a chance to speak up about their needs but help break the stigma associated with mental health.

She said children who are “quietly suffering” from symptoms of mental illness would most benefit from taking the days.

“We have a lot of kids that are dealing with this in silence because they’re embarrassed or they think people are going to judge them and not believe them,” Rothman said.

She said federal mental health education should be available to students, school staff and family members. The lack of such education hinders the ability to recognize and understand the warning signs, Rothman said. Adults may think that children are overreacting or that their complaining about mental health problems is a phase.

“I don’t know that it coddles children when they have strep throat that keeps them at home and they have a fever,” Debbie Plotnick, vice president of mental health and systems advocacy at Mental Health America, said Monday. “It is not coddling adults when they need a mental health day.”

Plotnick said the laws allow children with mental illness to focus on their health instead of attending school only to suffer from “presenteeism,” which she described as being physically present but “not fully present” and responsive to what is happening around them.

She said that there were few risks to giving children the agency to take mental health days and that the legislation was a step in the right direction for the country.

“We think that this will be a model for other states to follow,” Plotnick said.

“As a matter of public policy, for decades we have waited until stage four, until crisis, and then treating it only through incarceration or having kids thrown out of school,” Plotnick said. “We think that this kind of legislation will help people reach out when they need to, not be afraid to do so and not be ashamed.”

While the legislation in Utah and Oregon has made headlines, it’s not the first time a state has acted in favor of a child’s mental health. Minnesota passed a bill in 2009 that said conditions that “require ongoing treatment for a mental health diagnosis” are sufficient for excused absences and that a written note from a physician or mental health professional may be required to approve the absence.

“I hope this gets out there and schools start to think about it,” Rothman said of the trend. “I hope it continues to spread.”

This article originally appeared in <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/24/health/oregon-mental-health-days.html" id="4aa4fd73-0612-3344-a64b-9207a4490879">The New York Times</a>.

Depression and anxiety. The state of the country. Climate change. Mass shootings. Today’s students are grappling with a variety of issues beyond the classroom.

Need a Mental Health Day? Some States Give Students the Option

In a video posted to her Facebook account, Rep. Erica Thomas said she was “shocked” that a white man had confronted her for having too many items in the express checkout lane at a Publix grocery store in Mableton, Georgia.

She said the man had cursed at her and accused her of being “lazy.” It was unclear if the episode had been captured on surveillance video, but Thomas said she had not recorded it.

“People are getting really out of control with this, with this white privilege,” Thomas said in the video, crying. “People need to see the hate that is going on in this country. The hate is real.”

Thomas had been scared to leave the store because she thought the man was going to follow her or “take out a gun,” she said. “You just never know.”

Thomas, who is nine months pregnant, said she is unable to stand on her feet for long periods of time. She said her 9-year-old daughter had been with her at the store during the encounter.

The lawmaker, who was elected in 2014, wrote on Twitter that her husband had not been with her at the supermarket because he is on active duty “serving the country I came from USA!”

On Saturday, station WSB-TV was preparing to interview Thomas at the store when she saw the man who she said had confronted her. The man, who identified himself as Eric Sparkes, said he was there to speak with managers at Publix.

Sparkes told the station that the episode had started after he had decided to say something about the number of items in her cart on his way out of the store.

Thomas said in her Facebook video that she had between 15 and 20 items in her cart in the express lane, which was designated for 10 items or fewer. Sparkes said he was buying three items.

Sparkes, who denied being racist and said he was Cuban, acknowledged that he had called Thomas “lazy,” but said that had been the “worst” of his comments.

“This woman, Ms. Thomas, is playing the victim for political purposes because she is a state legislator,” he told the station. “I’m a Democrat and will vote Democrat for the rest of my life, so call me whatever you want to believe. For her political purposes, make it black, white, brown, whatever. It’s untrue.”

Thomas is a Democrat. Records about Sparkes’ party registration were not immediately available Sunday.

Asked by the television station if Sparkes had told her “go back where you came from,” Thomas said: “I don’t want to say he said, ‘Go back to your country,’ or ‘Go back to where you came from.’ But he was making those types of references is what I remember.” In her Facebook video and on Twitter, however, she recounted that was what he had said.

In her television interview, she said she wanted him held accountable.

“People can’t just go out in public areas and berate pregnant women,” Thomas said. “Whether it was because I’m pregnant, whether it’s because I’m black.”

Attempts to reach Thomas and Sparkes were unsuccessful Sunday.

Publix did not return a request for comment but told WSB-TV in a statement: “At Publix we are committed to creating a safe and welcoming shopping experience for all our customers. We are cooperating with local law enforcement as they look into the matter.”

The Cobb County Police Department said a report had been filed and that the encounter was under investigation.

Racist rhetoric, including the phrase Thomas said had been directed at her, has made headlines recently. On July 14, President Donald Trump told four congresswomen of color that they should “go back” to their countries. Days later at a rally in North Carolina, Trump suggested the women should leave the country, while the crowd chanted, “Send her back! Send her back!”

CNN reported on Friday that an Illinois convenience store cashier told customers to “go back” to their country and that on July 11 a Burger King manager was told by a customer to “go back to Mexico” for speaking Spanish.

This article originally appeared in <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/21/us/erica-thomas-georgia.html" id="c6ae9057-d856-30ee-af60-2e80220c9fc0">The New York Times</a>.

A black member of Georgia’s House of Representatives said she had been the target of verbal harassment and had been told “go back where you came from” at a grocery store near Atlanta on Friday.

'Go Back Where You Came From,' Georgia Lawmaker Says She Was Told

“Your child has been sent to school every day without money and without a breakfast and/or lunch,” read the letter, which was signed by Joseph Muth, director of federal programs for the Wyoming Valley West School District. “This is a failure to provide your child with proper nutrition and you can be sent to Dependency Court for neglecting your child’s right to food. If you are taken to Dependency court, the result may be your child being removed from your home and placed in foster care.”

David Usavage, vice president of the school board, said Saturday that when he first read the letter, he had thought it was a “joke.”

“It was not approved by anyone,” Usavage said. “We have a policy that says everything should go through the superintendent.”

He said the letter was written by Muth and the district’s lawyer, Charles R. Coslett. Usavage said Muth has apologized. Attempts to reach Muth and Coslett on Saturday were unsuccessful.

Usavage said the district is owed just over $22,000 in breakfast and lunch debt. He said 960 students owe between 5 cents and $9.99. The parents of the 40 students who owe $10 or more received the letter.

The district serves about 5,000 children, Usavage said. “We have never denied anyone because they don’t have money,” he said. “We would never, ever allow a child to go hungry.”

While it was unclear what, if anything, might happen to Muth and Coslett, Usavage said he wanted to call a special meeting with all school board members to discuss the matter. He also said in the next school year that all children in the district would receive free breakfast and lunch, regardless of their need.

“I don’t want the people who live in the Wyoming Valley West School District to think we are so classless as to send out a letter threatening parents,” he said. “I can assure you we will not take one child or one parent to any kind of court to get back the money.”

This article originally appeared in <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/20/us/school-lunch-bills-overdue-payment.html" id="5e075164-8a4d-33cf-aa08-e9e29c81db4c">The New York Times</a>.

A school district in eastern Pennsylvania faced criticism after sending letters this month to more than three dozen parents warning that if their debt for school meals was not paid, their child could be placed in foster care.

Children Face Foster Care Over School Meal Debt, District Warns

“It was not approved by anyone,” Usavage said of the letter. “We have a policy that says everything should go through the superintendent.”

Usavage said the district, which is in Luzerne County, about 115 miles northwest of Philadelphia, is owed just over $22,000 in breakfast and lunch debt.

He said 960 students owe between 5 cents and $9.99. The parents of the 40 students who owe $10 or more received the letter, which has gotten widespread attention.

Usavage said four students owe more than $440. School meals in the district cost between $1 and $2.70.

“We educate kids as best we can with what we have,” he said. “We have a lot of successful kids, but never, never ever have we ever threatened anyone with this kind of letter.”

It’s common for the district to mail letters urging parents to pay debts, but the language has always been “softer,” he said.

The district is made up of seven schools and serves about 5,000 children, Usavage said. “We have never denied anyone because they don’t have money,” he said. “We would never, ever allow a child to go hungry.”

Usavage said he received about six phone calls complaining about the letter. C. David Pedri, the county manager, wrote the district a letter, noting that foster care should never be viewed as punitive.

“It weaponizes Luzerne County’s foster care system,” Pedri said Saturday. “It’s exactly what we’re not here to do. The foster care system is here to help kids who are abused.”

“Taking a kid out of a house is one of the most extreme things that a foster care system has ever tried to do,” he added. “So you don’t do it lightly. We would never take a kid out of a house for failing to pay a school lunch bill.”

Pedri said the foster care system should not be utilized to “terrorize” people into paying their lunch debt. “We’re not the boogey man in the middle of the night coming to take your children out of your house for not paying your school lunch bills.”

While it was unclear what, if anything, might happen to Muth and Coslett, Usavage said he wanted to call a special meeting with all school board members to discuss the matter. He also said in the next school year, starting in August, that all children in the district would receive free breakfast and lunch, regardless of their need.

The New Orleans Fire Department received reports of a collapsed building around 9:12 a.m., Chief Timothy McConnell said in a news conference on Saturday. The top six to eight floors of the building were affected, he said.

McConnell and other officials repeatedly warned people to stay away from the area, noting that the structure and a 270-foot crane remained unstable and still might collapse.

Nineteen people were assessed for injuries at the scene, 18 of whom were transported to area hospitals, he said. All were in stable condition.

There were no reports of any injuries of people on the ground around the construction site.

Additional information on the person who was killed was not immediately available.

“Obviously, it’s a very serious situation here on Canal Street,” Gov. John Bel Edwards said at the news conference. “I’m just asking for everybody to lift up in prayer those who are at the hospital” and people who were “unaccounted for.”

“This is an active scene,” NOLA Ready, New Orleans’ emergency preparedness campaign, said on Twitter. “Please avoid the area &amp; listen to public safety officials.”

Sarah Fischer, an employee at Fischer’s Jewelry on Canal Street who saw the collapse, said that the area was completely blocked off, and that Fischer’s Jewelry employees were being forced to evacuate because of a crane that might fall.

“We saw, all of a sudden, just this thick cloud of white smoke and metal falling,” she said. “You couldn’t see in front of you and it lasted 30 seconds, maybe a minute.”

Fischer said there was metal all over the street. “You can see people stuck up there,” she said of the building, adding that firefighters were trying to rescue people.

It was not immediately clear how many people were in the structure at the time it collapsed or after it began to fall apart.

Fischer said the hotel had been under construction for at least a year. “They were closer to finishing it up.”

A news release announcing Hard Rock’s coming New Orleans location, near the city’s historic French Quarter, said the hotel would have 350 rooms, residential spaces, two ballrooms and 12,000 square feet of event space.

The Hard Rock Hotel did not immediately respond to requests for comment on Saturday.

Hard Rock Hotel in New Orleans Collapses Amid Construction

Parts of a Hard Rock Hotel under construction in New Orleans collapsed Saturday morning, killing one and injuring at least 18 others, a city official said. There are three people who remain unaccounted for.

Sesame Workshop announced Wednesday an effort to support children and families affected by addiction. In several new videos, Karli, a 6 1/2-year-old green Muppet with yellow hair, tells Elmo and other friends that her mother has a “problem” and is in recovery. Karli, who was introduced to viewers in May as part of a foster care initiative, was placed in foster care, it turned out, while her mother was in treatment.

The videos are available for free in English and Spanish through Sesame Street in Communities, an organization that provides “Sesame Street” content, tools and training to vulnerable children and families through community partners like Head Start and the Hazelden Betty Ford Foundation.

It took Sesame Workshop a year and a half to create the videos, Sherrie Westin, president of social impact and philanthropy for Sesame Workshop, said Thursday. This is the first time “Sesame Street” has discussed addiction in any capacity, she added.

“We hear from those partners what they need,” Westin said. “Quite frankly, what we’ve learned over the last year was how much need there was and how little resources there are for some of the traumatic events that children are facing.”

It is not uncommon for “Sesame Street” to introduce characters or expand their backgrounds to explain tough topics to children. In 2011, a Muppet named Lily joined the cast when her family was struggling with hunger, and later she was a part of a focus on family homelessness. Alex, whose father was imprisoned, was added in 2013 as a way for “Sesame Street” to discuss incarceration; Julia, an autistic Muppet, was brought on in 2015.

Addiction and substance abuse are growing concerns in the country. From 2009 to 2014, an annual average of 8.7 million children 17 or younger lived in households with at least one parent who had a substance-use disorder, according to a 2017 report from the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration.

About 1 in 3 children entered foster care in 2017 because of parental drug abuse, Child Trends, a research organization, reported this year.

Westin said she thinks numbers are so high in part because of the opioid crisis.

“So often, it’s only an adult issue and grown-ups are being treated,” Westin said. “Given that we know how much this impacts a young child, in terms of their own development and the trauma that can literally inhibit a healthy development, more and more I think this allows us to raise awareness to the importance of addressing the impact on a child and not just the adult, who is struggling with addiction.”

In one video titled “Lending a Hand,” Karli and an adult named Chris explain to Elmo the daily meetings her mother attends, and why, without naming a substance.

“Karli’s mom has been having a hard time,” Chris says in the video. “So, in order to help her get better, she goes to a meeting with her group. They all sit in a circle.”

Elmo asks if they sing songs in the circle, and Karli responds that they talk about “grown-up problems.”

“She goes every day so that she stays healthy,” Karli tells Elmo. “My mom needs help learning to take better care of herself. So she talks to people with the same problem.”

Karli also says she attends a meeting for children that helps them cope with addiction in their families.

In another video titled “Parental Addiction,” Elmo and his father, Louie, discuss addiction in detail. Elmo tells his father that Karli’s mother was away and that she looks and acts differently than before.

“Karli’s mommy has a kind of sickness, and she had to get some help,” Louie says.

Elmo questions if the “sickness” is like a cold.

“Karli’s mommy has a disease called addiction,” Louie says. “Addiction makes people feel like they need a grown-up drink called alcohol or another kind of drug to feel OK. That can make a person act strange in ways they can’t control.”

Karli on 'Sesame Street' Reveals Her Mother's Addiction Battle

“Sesame Street” is tackling yet another difficult topic: addiction.

The shooting happened around 2:45 a.m. at the Old Skool Sports Bar &amp; Grill, the Lancaster County Sheriff’s Office said in a news release. The gunman was still at large, it said.

The release said 10 people had been shot, two of them fatally, and one person had been treated for injuries sustained in a fall while trying to flee the club. Four victims were airlifted to medical centers, and another four were treated for noncritical injuries.

“This was a violent incident of huge magnitude that was witnessed by lots of people,” said Barry Faile, the Lancaster County sheriff.

A motive for the shooting was unclear, but Douglas Barfield Jr., a spokesman for the sheriff’s office, said Saturday afternoon that the shooting had been the result of a local conflict.

“We have information that our suspect and one of the victims had a beef that has been going on for some period of time,” he said. “We don’t think this was a situation where a random person armed himself and went into a randomly selected location and shot a bunch of unknown people.”

While the exact number of people present during the shooting was not known, Barfield described the crowd as “elbow to elbow” in the bar just outside of Lancaster, which is about 60 miles north of Columbia, South Carolina.

Barfield said the bar, which is in a commercial area of town, draws large crowds, particularly on weekends. The name of the bar owner was not immediately available, but Barfield said the owner had been there at the time of the shooting.

Cynthia McDonald, who owns the property, said Saturday that she had not known about the shooting, and called the bar owner, whose name she could not recall, a “really nice guy.” She said the bar had been there at least 20 years.

The bar, which has a sign calling it “Ole Skool” but that the authorities referred to as “Old Skool,” has a history of trouble, they said.

“We had some issues with this establishment before,” Barfield said. “This was a place we had answered calls at before.”

Barfield said the county has had its share of shootings but that it was not known “as the shooting capital of South Carolina.”

“I think this might be the third homicide we’ve had all year,” he said.

2 Dead and 9 Injured in Shooting at South Carolina Sports Bar, Officials Say

Two people were killed and eight others wounded in a shooting early Saturday morning at a sports bar near Lancaster, South Carolina, authorities said.

“The Navy has confirmed that the three videos that are in wide circulation are indeed recordings made by naval aviators, recorded during their training evolutions,” Susan Gough, a Pentagon spokeswoman, said in a statement. “The Navy has always considered the phenomena observed in those videos as unidentified.”

The “unidentified” part of that statement sparked excitement among UFO enthusiasts, who saw the Navy’s first official acknowledgment of the objects in the videos. (Gough said the Defense Department considered the sightings “part of a larger issue of an increased number of training range incursions by unidentified aerial phenomena in recent years.”)

The three videos show mysterious objects in the sky and contain audio of pilots trying to make sense of what they were seeing. They had gained notoriety since being published in 2017 and 2018 by The New York Times and a company called To the Stars Academy of Arts &amp; Sciences. The academy, founded in 2017, is run by a team of 12, including several former government employees, who try to advance society’s understanding of scientific phenomena through the lenses of entertainment, science and aerospace.

As news of the Navy’s statement spread, many people took note of the academy and more specifically one of its founders: Tom DeLonge, who was from 1993 until 2015 a guitarist and singer for the band Blink-182. How, many wondered, did the guy from Blink-182 become involved in UFO research?

We talked with DeLonge, who is on tour with another band, Angels &amp; Airwaves, and Luis Elizondo, director of global security and special programs for the academy, about the company and what the Navy’s response to the three videos actually means.

The following is an edited and condensed version of the conversation.

Q: I just wanted to say to Tom and Luis, thank you again for giving me a little bit of your time. I know you guys have busy, busy days.

Q: How did you get into UFOs and space research?

DeLonge: Well, ever since I was in junior high I was really kind of a troubled, rebellious kid. I got into a lot of trouble. My parents were working all day, and I was a skateboarder, and I was heavily into punk rock music, which is rebellious by nature. I would just do things, honestly, to try to get security guards and police officers to chase us to get some adrenaline. I remember being so bored during the summer and kind of going, “Wow, there’s got to be more to all this.”

I started becoming very fascinated in the idea of what else is there besides working a 9-to-5 job and coming from a broken family. For some reason I just thought science fiction was just fascinating. My brother and I were so into the whole “Star Wars” thing, obviously, in the early ’80s. It just kind of led to me thinking a little bit broader.

Q: There have been a lot of headlines about the Navy confirming and saying objects seen in three declassified military clips, one from 2004 and two from 2015, are “unidentified aerial phenomena.” Why is the Navy’s response so important to the larger conversation on UFOs?

DeLonge: Everyone still looks up to the United States government as having the resources, the intellect and the duty to deal with subjects like this. We’ve been waiting around as scholars and researchers on the subject for many decades and hoping to God that one day the government would come out and acknowledge what this is. This whole thing could be answered by the government. We’re just waiting for them to come and help us with some of this research. This situation that just happened is literally something I and many other people have been waiting for for not years, but decades. This is what we’ve been hoping it would do so it can really just ignite more smart people and intellectuals to get into this race and help us figure out more about it.

Q: Luis, you have a background in the Department of Defense. What does this response signal to you? (He was a career intelligence officer with the Army, the Department of Defense, National Counterintelligence Executive and the Office of Director of National Intelligence.)

Elizondo: I think it signals an opening of the aperture. A willingness to be more transparent. Particularly when you’re talking about a topic that has classically been seen and looked at with a sense of disdain and some degree stigma. I think this signals a new paradigm. I think it signals a willingness by some of the government to recognize data for what it is and begin to have the conversation that needs to be had.

Q: What did your Blink-182 bandmates and people in the music industry think of your company, To the Stars Academy?

DeLonge: It’s really funny, I think I was kind of groomed for this job because the first time that I left Blink-182, which is a long time ago, all my fans were so angry and the public at large was like, “Why would you do that? You’re crazy.” [The band broke up in 2005 and re-formed in 2009. DeLonge left again in 2015.]

I had a list of this whole kind of reinvention of who I was, and starting my band Angels &amp; Airwaves really gave me a way into that. I had to rebuild up from the ground — who I thought I was, who I wanted to be, where I wanted to go. By the time this happened my band didn’t understand it, I couldn’t tell who I was talking to. Because at the time, a lot of these guys were still in positions that are sensitive and transitioning out of government or whatever. I wasn’t in a place to be able to really say everything, it just wasn’t the right kind of etiquette, if you will. The guys from Blink didn’t know this. But it’s OK. But I knew I was getting into waters that were so important that I had never really even touched before. Going through what I went through earlier with the band, I already had thick skin. So I didn’t really care, is the short of it.

Q: You are a musician, known for outlandish stage behavior including sometimes being naked. How did you get people to take you seriously?

DeLonge: That’s a really good question. It was funny because, fortunately most of the people I was meeting with in the early days weren’t really aware of the crazy rock ‘n’ roll behaviors and antics that I’ve had in my early, mid-20s. I always tell people being a celebrity got me in a few doors, but that’s all it did. My intellect, whatever level it may or may not be [laughs], is what got those meetings to bear fruit. I think from my perspective, the most important thing that I was focused on was being eloquent. Being humble to the subject, because the subject is not a joke. I had to really be respectful about what I was saying, how I was saying it. I think because all those things, I earned trust, and I earned more meetings. It was a process; it did not happen over night; it took me a couple years.

Q: In July, the academy announced the ADAM(Acquisition &amp; Data Analysis of Materials)Research Project, an academic research program focused on exotic material samples from UFOs. How will the academy conduct research on the materials, and what exactly is it looking for?

Elizondo: We’re going to do research employing the scientific method, first and foremost. What we have been doing is trying to find the most qualified individuals at the most respectable institutions to conduct scientific analysis. That scientific analysis includes physical analysis, it includes molecular and chemical analysis, and ultimately it includes nuclear analysis.

Q: Has the academy gotten its hands on any materials to review?

Q: Are you able to share more about that?

Elizondo: Not at this point. We have to let the process take its course. And what we don’t want to do is be presumptive either way. The last thing we want to do is jump to any conclusions, prematurely. Ultimately, the data is going to decide what something is or what something isn’t.

Q: The materials come from a variety of sources?

Q: That could be from people finding them, all the way to government?

Elizondo: Sure. Fill in the blanks. TTSA does not limit itself as to where it obtains material or information. In that process we have to be very discerning. As I’ve said before, there’s a difference between something that’s truly exotic and something that fell from the alternator of a 1984 Cadillac.

Q: When I was a kid, I saw what I believed to be a UFO. I’ll never forget that moment with my mom. No one has ever truly believed me. Have either of you ever seen a UFO?

DeLonge: I saw some really anomalous stuff one night out in the desert, zipping across the stars, horizon to horizon, zigzagging. That really blew my mind because no satellites move that way. But, I can’t tell you what it was. I think like most people, the stuff that I’ve seen is a lot of stuff on the internet where I bet some of it really is true, but you really don’t know which pieces.

How Blink-182's Tom DeLonge Became a UFO Researcher

For decades, the discussion of whether or not UFOs exist has been debated in American pop culture and within science communities. The ongoing conversation reached a fever pitch last week when the U.S. Navy confirmed that three widely shared videos captured by naval aviators in 2004 and 2015 were indeed real and showed what it called “unidentified aerial phenomena.”

The trooper, Tremaine Jackson, 43, was arrested Tuesday after a monthslong investigation, the Arizona Department of Public Safety said in a news release.

Eight victims have been identified so far, authorities said. Others have been urged to come forward.

An Arizona state trooper accused of using his authority to victimize women during traffic stops has been arrested on 61 charges that included sexual abuse, sexual extortion, kidnapping and harassment, officials said.

Derrick Bryson Taylor

Articles written by the author

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