Transcript

2.24.25 · Washington Post

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Speaker 1: Happy Monday, everybody, and welcome to the reading of the
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Washington Post for this Monday, February twenty fourth. As a reminder,
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Radio I is a reading service intended for people who
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are blind or have other disabilities that make it difficult
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to read printed material. Your reader for today is Rod Brotherton,
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and since it's Monday, by listener request, we begin by
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reading Paul Prather's weekly column from the Lexington Herald Leader.
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This week's article is entitled we can use our pain
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to reach greater heights of Spirituality. Earlier this month, I
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wrote a Q and A piece in which I interviewed
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John Weese, the lead pastor of Central Kentucky Southland Christian Church.
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As is typical with such articles, for reason of space,
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I omitted much of our conversation. Since then, I've realized
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what struck me the most is something I left out.
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I lead a tiny congregation, yet even I sometimes find
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myself emotionally battered by my pastoral duties. As a minister,
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you're something of a spiritual first responder. When people get
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that terminal diagnosis, those divorce papers that layoff notice, You're
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among their first calls. Watching so many friends suffer so
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much heartache across so many years has been hard. Wee
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leads fourteen thousand people. I can't fathom what told that
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would take on him. So I ask him about it
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my phone just ings all day long with sadness and
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tragedy and heartache. He said, But I signed up for that.
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I love people. I think the common language of humanity
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is suffering. We're all fluent in the language of pain.
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Those last two sentences have stayed in my head. The
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common language of humanity is suffering. We're all fluent in
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the language of pain. That's truth, my friends. With a
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capital T. This column isn't about Wes though, It's about suffering,
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of which I've written before. Just this morning I learned
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a close friend has been diagnosed with a rare, incurable
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and potentially dangerous autoimmune disease. Another friend learned a week
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or two ago she has lupus. This while caregiving her
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disabled husband a relative in church. Member, is this moment
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in the last throes of copd in not expected to
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survive the day? If the suffering among my friends, parishioners
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and ken warn enough. I think about the war in
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Ukraine and the one in Gaza, and the one in
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congo baby, slaughtered, women raped, hospitals pounded to rubble, people displaced,
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society's collapsing. Suffering, indeed, is our common language, regardless of
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your age, gender, race, ethnicity, religion, politics, or marital status.
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Every person reading this column has suffered someone you haven't,
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hasn't yet you will. This may be the greatest impediment
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to believing in a loving and all powerful God. From
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the beginning, people of crit If God exists, why doesn't
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he stop this pain? The Old Testament includes a whole
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book devoted to that question job and its confounding solution
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is to offer no answer at all. God is God
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and you're not. It says, there may be a reason
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why you're suffering, but you wouldn't understand it even if
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you were told. Thanks Bible scribe, that clears up everything
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right now, and I feel all better. Christians have spent
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too millennia trying to formulate their own answers for this
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dark mystery, and we haven't had great success either. Jesus
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had the best approach. Not surprisingly, he seemed not to
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deliberately overly deliberate overly on the causes of suffering, and
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he viewed pain as an unavoidable condition of life here
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on earth. The time being, suffering is built into the
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fabric of our universe. I have told you these things
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so that in me you may have peace, Jesus says
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in John's Gospel. In this world you will have trouble,
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But take heart, I have overcome the world. The idea
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I think was that we should not allow our difficulties
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to shut out our hearts and steal our faith. Instead,
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our pain and setbacks, no matter how unfair they might be,
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can be employed for the opposite purpose, to help mold
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us into better people and help us depend on the Lord.
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Reflecting on this idea, Thomas Merton wrote, the Lord did
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not create suffering. Pain and death came into the world
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with the fall of man. But after man had chosen
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suffering and preference to the joys in the union with God,
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the Lord turns suffering itself into a way by which
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man could come to the perfect knowledge of God. All
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great spiritualities about what we do with our pain. The
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Catholic contemplative Richer Roar wrote, the long term benefits of
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suffering can be myriad. Pain teaches us sympathy and compassion
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for others who are hurting. Suffering strips us of the
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self delusion, of imagining that money, beauty, titles, and fame manner.
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It's impossible to care about such baubles when we're fighting
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just to draw another breath. As we fall, fail, and wail,
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and arrive at the raw end of ourselves, we may
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discover amid our misery, a counterintuitive peace, paradoxically, even a
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type of joy. This Christian view of suffering, which is
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quite similar to the Buddhist view, by the way, encourage
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us us not to run from it, but to accept it,
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to bow to it humbly, as if greeting not exactly
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a friend but a wise teacher. The truth that many
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people never understand until it's too late is that the
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more you try to avoid suffering, the more you suffer.
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Merton said, But of course I write these lofty spiritual
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observations knowing full well, knowing how impossible they are to practice.
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All suffering is by definition unpleasant, so I'm suffering. It's
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truly awful. Death can look like a relief. In the main.
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We suffer without discovering great truths. We writhe and moan,
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We shake our fists at the silent sky. We pity ourselves,
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and then somewhere along the line, wrung out, we collapse
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into the arms of the Lord. We hope, we despair again,
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We hope some more we've visually emerged from this difficulty,
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and we forget it. Then we do it all the
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next time. That cause we're human, because this is the
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world we've been given. And as you know, Paul Praythro
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his pastor of the Bethesda Church near Mount Sterling, and
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you can email him and prt at yahoo dot com. Now,
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let's see what the headlines are today in the Washington
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Post at our lead story today, weight loss drugs aren't
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just slimming waists, They're shifting the economy. Chicago trial attorney
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John Drews, like many well employed Americans, has always given
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himself a generous discretionary spending budget. As a divorced empty nester.
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His purchase priorities, in no particular order, include Scotch, chocolate, pretzels,
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eating out in beach resorts. Then, in May of twenty
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twenty two, following reports by celebrities and influencers about blockbuster
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weight loss drugs, he decided to go on one himself
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and everything changed. He lost twenty five pounds the first year,
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and then seventy five pounds more the following year. Afterwards,
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Drew said he didn't just feel like a different person.
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He basically was one with food, clothing, workout, and vacation
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habits that have almost completely overridden everything else he used
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to spend money on to the tune of more than
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one hundred thousand dollars annually. It's a whole new life,
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Drew said. He is just one consumer, but multiply his
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experience by the roughly sixteen million people that's six percent
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of American adults taking GOLP one weight loss drugs, and
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their collective purchasing power has the potential to profoundly reshape
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the economy in the coming years. There's evidence that the
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demographic of people on the drugs overlaps with those who
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like to spend a group some analysts have dubbed over
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consumers cutting their daily calorie counts in half or more
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is resulting in all sorts of ent interesting consequences still
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coming to light Ozempic and its GLP one cousins Munjarno
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we go vis zep bound may not be the light bulb,
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jet airplane, or the Internet, but their impact is expected
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to be so significant that Jan has Zius, chief economist
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at Goldman Sachs, predicts that if sixty million people take
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the medications by twenty twenty eight, GDP would be boosted
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by one percent, or several trillion dollars. Hat Zeus's analysis
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was based primarily on the idea that healthier people mean
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a healthier workforce and in turn lower health care costs.
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But there's a lot more to it when we think
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about how the drug works. It directly changes the purchase
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of foods, but then there are spillover effects on a
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lot of sectors, said Alijosa Jansen, an assistant professor of
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economics at Singapore Management University who is studying spending by
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US consumers who are diabetic or overweight. A study by
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Cornell University and Numerator shows that GLP one users are
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spending less at coffee shops and fast food change price
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Waterhouse Coopers sees upside and fitness in this group. Thirty
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five percent of weight loss drug users PwC surveyed said
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they're exercising for the first time or more than ever before,
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and sixteen percent hired a personal trainer for the first
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time or are having those sessions more often than before.
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There's a major opportunity in supporting GLP one users through
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this transformational period and capture the value from enabling their
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new behaviors, the author wrote. Companies are already reporting tremors
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adjusting their products lines to marketing to match. Walmart's CEO
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has talked about seeing a slight pullback in the overall
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basket for food purchases among some shoppers. Rent The Runway,
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a high end online clothing rental shop, has reported that
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customers are choosing smaller sizes and in more body hugging styles.
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Lifetime Incorporated, which is where a decent chunk of Drew's
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money is going these days, has launched a performance and
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longevity subscription program that includes doctors inside it's fitness clubs
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who can prescribe GOLP one drugs when appropriate, metabolic blood testing,
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meetings with a dietitian, and access to personal trainers. It
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focuses the importance of the long term three hundred and
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sixty degree view of health and wellness that begins for
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many people losing weight on the medications. A Midwesterner born
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and raised, DREWZ taught himself computer programming and worked for
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manufacturing companies in the steel industry before pivoting to law school.
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He had a lot of success in his new career,
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but the high stress job working sixteen hours a day,
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six days a week did not leave a lot of
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room to focus on his health. At sixty three in
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standing five foot eleven, he hit two hundred and eighty
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seven pounds and was told by his doctor that he
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was pre or borderline for a lot of health conditions,
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including high pretension and diabetes. He had also become frustrated
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he was missing out on hiking and other activities with
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his four grown kids, who were then twenty seven to
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thirty four, because he became tired and out of breath
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so quickly. Drew's transformation began pretty quickly after he started
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on a GLP one drug. He lost the first couple
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of dozens of pounds on ozimpic, later switched to Monjarno,
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which is considered more potent because it targets two hormones
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rather than one, and without much effort, mostly because of
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being less hungry and what he described as sporadic exercise.
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At his annual checkup a year later, Drew's doctor's reiterated
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concerns about muscle loss and lectured him about increasing his
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fitness activity. This time, Drews was all in a lot
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of money. He saved on food, went into paying for
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a personal trainer, and at one hundred and forty dollars
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an hour twice a week, who put together a comprehensive
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plan that included a strength coach, cardio coach, pilates class
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for stability, pool time, and more. These days, he's up
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at four thirty am and at the Lifetime in bur Ridge, Illinois,
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near his home. Shortly afterward. His eating habits completely changed too.
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He wasn't exactly a decision, he says, it was mostly instinctive.
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He had zero interest in food and often forgot to eat,
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a common experience among GLP users who have reported on
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social media and doctors of what they call food noise
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and it's gone, some saying they even feel ill at
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the thought of eating Hostess cupcakes, Doritos or other altar
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processed foods. I'd eat a handful of peanut M and
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ms at night for no good reason. Now I can't
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imagine doing that. It's hard for me to even remember
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what I was eating. It's been that long, he said,
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Drew's eating became more deliberate and about putting the right
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kinds of calories into his body rather than enjoyment or whimsy.
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A typical breakfast is three eggs, a half cup of
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egg whites, along with overnight oats and blueberries, and half
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a banana. For lunch, ground venison or bison, and vegetables.
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Dinner salmon, sweet potatoes, brussels sprouts and broccoli. Snacks are
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combo of yogurt, raspberries, cacao, nibs and honey or walnuts,
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peanuts and macadamia nuts. Drinks exclusively water, coffee, and mokta.
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He mostly eats at home, despite his family teasing him
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that he's become an anti social eater. He's heard that
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some food companies have created new products optimized for GLP one,
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but he hadn't tried him and doesn't intend to for now.
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Nesley is betting on meal and nutrient replacements for those
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eating less cook unity and daily harvest mealed Livery companies
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have created GLP one companion lines focused on smaller but
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calorie and protein rich foods. Drew's is what consumer marketers
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might describe as a premium purchaser might reoallocate money spent
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on total consumption to higher qual foods. Why not buy
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filet mignon when you only have the appetite for a
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few ounces of steak? KPMG's Andrew Lindsay, the company's top
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consumer and retail strategy analyst, wrote in a recent report
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about golp one, an analysis by research firm gro Grocery
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Dopio shows plenty of ups and downs and food online
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food spending nationally, with sales of lean meats increasing twenty
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seven percent in the first half of twenty twenty four
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compared with the same period in twenty twenty three, wild
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sales of whole fruits and vegetables or of thirteen percent.
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Sales of snacks and confectionery purchases, which include chocolate, candy,
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and sugar coated treats, were down fifty two percent while
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compared while prepared baked goods tumbled forty seven percent. Gaorav Pont,
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chief insights officer at Grocery Dopio, said that while the
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company initially saw grocery basket sizes fall, they jumped back
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up as shopper shifted toward higher quality foods such as
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organic produce and premium protein. We believe that a decent
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portion of glp IE users may actually increase their grocery
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food spending over time, Punt said. Cruz calculates his spending
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on food is more than it was in the past.
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His biggest ticket items are venison and bison, high protein,
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lean red meat he's having flown in from Hawaii following
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a recommendation from a friend. It's super high in nutrients,
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raised on grass grown on lava from Maui. He said.
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It runs thirty one dollars a pound versus about five
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dollars a pound for ground beef at the grocery store,
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and he eats it every day of the week. By
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June twenty twenty three, he had fourteen point five percent
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body fat and he's now at ten and a half percent.
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The average American man has twenty eight point one percent.
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He was thrilled with results and went into maintenance mode.
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I've been having my whole life, he said, and I
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never had six pack abs before. I can't have enough
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mirrors in my house. How vain is that the changes
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in his weight led to changes in his clothing. When
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he began to work out every day, he noticed that
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baggy t shirts and shorts from Dick's Sporting Goods weren't
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cutting it, and during a trip to the mall, walked
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into Lululemon for the first time. With the frequency of
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his workouts, he said, and in all honesty emerging muscles,
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he wanted clothes that were more durable, fitted stylish. He
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dropped hundreds of dollars on workout wear basics and kept
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coming back. While his taste and dress shirts and suits
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for court didn't change, he still favored Nordstrom's selection. He
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needed to buy the same or similar clothes and new
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sizes three times. As his body shrank, losing two and
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a half inches in his neck and eight inches around
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his waist. He went from XXL down to Excel, then Large,
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and most recently Medium, which he says as small as
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he will go. Recently, Drews was reading a lot of books,
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such as Hermann Ponzer's Burn about health, activity, longevity, and
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modern medicine. Ponzer is an evolutionary anthropologist at Duke University
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and for about fifteen years has been measuring metabolisms of
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all kinds of people, ultra athletes, office workers, members of
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the Hadza tribe in Tanzania who still hunt and gather
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their food pods are found that despite how active the
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huntss are, they burn the same amount of calories as
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more sedendary people in industrialized countries, meaning that efforts to
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boost metabolism in the past through being more active were
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probably in vain. Druze is intrigued by the thought of
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the GLP one drugs changing the course of our evolutionary dispositions.
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On vacation with one of his sons in September, the
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two went to the southwest US. In the past, he
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probably would have argued for an all inclusive resort in Mexico,
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the Dominican Republic, or Florida, where the farthest he might
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walk is from his hotel room to the water, and
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he could do what all the other people do there,
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which is misbehave, or maybe someplace in Europe where the
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focus would be on eating and drinking. This time he
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agreed to an adventure through the National Parks Grand Canyon,
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Brice Zion. They hiked seventy seven miles in eight days.
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I was leading the march. I was beating him up
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the mountain. Drew said, Ah, incredible, and next from the
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International News German Christian Democrats claimed victory in Germany election
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and the far right surges. Veteran politician Fredrick Mrz, the
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leader of Germany's conservative Christian Democrats, claimed victory in the
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federal election Sunday evening, as preliminary returns indicated the party
22:32
would win a plurality in the Bundestag. Far right, meanwhile,
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was projected to make historic gains. The far left also
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served the country's increasingly fractured politics could complicate the job
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of forming a coalition to govern. Merz, Germany's likely next chancellor,
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warned that the task ahead will not be easy. It's
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the man thing to do is to create a functioning
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government in Germany as quickly as possible with a good
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parliamentary majority, he told supporters at the Christian Democrats headquarters
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in Berlin. The world is not out there waiting for us,
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and it is not waiting a lengthy coalition talks and
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negotiations to emerge. We must now quickly become capable of
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acting again, so that we can do the right thing
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at home, so that we are present in Europe again,
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so that the world sees that Germany will govern reliably again.
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The government will be expected to take on the country's
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most pressing challenges, boosting its stagnating economy and deficient infrastructure,
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and reassessing its role in the shifting global order. Migration
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also emerged as a major issue during the campaign. Merz
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said he was in close communication with European Union leaders
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about changing relationships with the United State States under President Trump.
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For me, it is an absolute priority to strengthen Europe
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as quickly as possible so that we achieve independence from
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the US step by step, he told public broadcaster Ard
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after the vote. I never thought that I would ever
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need to say something like that on television, but after
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the latest statements made by President Trump last week, it
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is clear that the Americans at case, in any case, these
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Americans and this administration mostly don't care about the fate
24:33
of Europe one way or the other. He also said
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the intervention from Washington, a reference to Vice President j
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d Vance and tech billionaire Elon Musk expressing support for
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the far right Alternative for Germany Party before the vote,
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was no less drastic, dramatic, and ultimately no less outrageous
24:55
than the intervention that we have seen from Moscow. Trump
24:58
declared Sunday, a Great Day for Germany. Much like the USA,
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the people of Germany got tired of the no common
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sense agenda, especially on energy and immigration, that has prevailed
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for so many years, he wrote on his Truth Social
25:17
platform and a post that did not mention Merz. A
25:21
preliminary final result released early Monday showed the Christian Democrats
25:26
or CDU along with their Bavarian sister party, the Christian
25:30
Social Union, with twenty eight and a half percent. The
25:34
far right Alternative for Germany or AfD followed with twenty
25:38
point eight percent, double its twenty twenty one vote percentage.
25:43
Chancellor OLEV Schultz Social Democrats took a drubbing with sixteen
25:48
point four percent, and the Greens were fourth with eleven
25:52
point six percent. The left wing Dlinka party saw a
25:57
surprising surge, finishing with eight point eight eight percent In
26:02
the country that gave rise to Adolf Hitler and the Nazis.
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The establishment parties reiterated a longstanding commitment to the political
26:10
firewall against the far right. They said they would refuse
26:14
to form a coalition with the AfD. More than fifty
26:18
nine million people were eligible to cast their ballots in
26:21
the early election, which prompted by the collapse of Schull's
26:24
center left government in November. Merz, a self described social
26:30
conservative and economic liberal, has pulled the Christian Democrats to
26:34
the right, particularly on immigration, since succeeding former Chancellor Angela
26:40
Merkel as party leader in twenty twenty one. During the campaign,
26:45
Merz called Europe's immigration system dysfunctional and pledged to implement
26:50
permanent border controls and more restrictive asylum rules. He criticized
26:55
Germany's generous subsidies to immigrants, calling the aid and incentive,
27:01
and said the country should quickly turn away illegal arrivals.
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Merkel openly criticized Murr's last month for relying on the
27:09
far right support to move a non binding motion on
27:13
immigration through Parliament. Outside of politics, Murz worked as a
27:18
high paid lawyer who specialized in mergers and acquisitions and
27:23
chaired the German arm of the investment company Blackrock. The
27:27
AfD achieved its best federal election results since its founding
27:32
as a eurosceptic party in twenty thirteen. The party won
27:36
its first regional election victory in the eastern state of
27:39
Thuringia in September. The AfD branches, which are classified by
27:45
domestic intelligence as extremist has tapped into the grievances of
27:49
a significant portion of the electorate, were concerned about the economy,
27:54
worried about immigration, and dissatisfied with the political establishment. In
27:58
the words of its leaders, Cartel Parties a f D
28:03
co leader Alice Wheedel described her party's gains as historic success.
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We are open to coalition negotiations with the CDUs, she said.
28:14
Otherwise no policy change is possible in Germany. But her
28:19
party has little chance of being part of the next
28:21
government because of the other party's pledges not to co
28:24
operate with the a f D. Still, it will probably
28:28
be the largest opposition party in a Bundestag led by
28:31
a fragmented coalition government. The party will likely welcome that role,
28:37
said Leona fix, A fellow for Europe at the Council
28:40
on Foreign Relations. They can present themselves as an alternative,
28:45
but at the same time they don't really have to
28:48
show anything for it. Thousands of people around Germany protested
28:53
the far right in the weeks before the election. Two
28:55
more demonstrations were planned in the German capital Sunday evening.
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The next task for the election winners would be to
29:02
form a coalition one possibility would be a grand coalition
29:06
or gro co of Christian Democrats and the Social Democrats.
29:10
After hours of uncertainty late on Sunday, it emerged that
29:13
two smaller parties, the neoliberal Free Democrats and the left
29:17
populist Sahrai wag Wagenck Alliance, had not crossed the five
29:22
percent threshold to hold seats in Parliament, which meant that
29:26
a grand coalition was possible, at least in theory. Schuls
29:32
will remain chancellor until a coalition deal is settled and
29:36
his successor sworn in. Addressing supporters at his party's Villi
29:40
Brandt has on Sunday night, he congratulated Murz and took
29:45
responsibility for the Social Democrats a bit to election results.
29:50
It is a result from which we must now move
29:52
forward together, he said. Schultz has ruled out taking a
29:56
ministerial position himself in a GROC. Three of the country's
30:01
nine coalition governments since the reunification of East and West Germany,
30:05
including two under Merkel, were grand coalitions. Some Germans say
30:11
they promote centrist stability, Others warned they leave vacuums at
30:15
either end of the political spectrum. There's a message is
30:19
that the role of the major parties center, left, center
30:22
right a dwindling, said Sudha David Whip of the German
30:27
Marshal Fund. It is a new era for Germany. Germany's
30:32
left wing Dailinke provided some surprise Sunday night. Plagued by
30:38
internal riffs, the party just weeks ago seemed unlikely to
30:42
remain in the Bundestock, but a surgeon youth driven momentum
30:45
boosted membership for the unexpected success at the polls. A
30:50
head of the election, Vance and Musk expressed support for
30:54
the AfD, prompting uproar here, but Musks claim that only
31:01
the AfD can save Germany. Advance's statement that there's little
31:06
room for fire walls and a democracy appeared to have
31:09
had little effect on the campaign. Rachel Rizzo, a non
31:14
resident Senior Fellow at the Atlantic Council's Europe Center, said
31:18
Murz will probably want to focus on domestic issues such
31:21
as the economy and immigration, but the Trump administration will
31:25
be pressuring it to increased defense spending. Murz will have
31:30
a heavy weight on his shoulders right out of the gate,
31:32
Rizzo said. The campaign kicked off with concerns for Europe's
31:37
sputtering economic motor, but deadly attacks by foreigners in recent
31:42
months shifted discussion to stricter policies on immigration and asylum.
31:47
A stabbing Friday, allegedly by a Syrian refugee, kept the
31:52
issue in the headlines until the final hours of campaigning.
31:56
At a polling station in Berlin's Prinzlaudberg neighbor hood, popular
32:01
among the wealthy, young and left leaning families, Nadine Nimisik,
32:06
a forty seven year old city administrator and mother of two,
32:10
said she was concerned that the future of the country
32:13
will no longer be democratic. For us as a family,
32:17
it is important that everything is still possible, that the
32:20
future is guaranteed for the children, that it is possible
32:24
to get a doctor's appointment, but at the same time
32:27
do something for climate protection, she said, I don't want
32:30
to have to send my children off to a broken world.
32:34
In the Liechtenburg district, a long time stronghold of the
32:38
left the AfD, ran Beatrix von Storch, a granddaughter of
32:43
Hitler's finance minister, as a candidate, A first time AfD voter,
32:48
said he was the most concerned about the economy and migration.
32:53
Nick Schuster said he was concerned about Germany's slide to
32:56
the right. I think it's sad, said Schuster, a twenty
33:00
four year old electronics engineer. And as a homosexual man,
33:05
I'm even more worried and back domestically, their loved ones
33:12
were sent to a crematory. Horror and questions followed. Her
33:19
father's ashes had been setting the family home for two
33:22
weeks when her phone rang. Emily Hooper answered, confused why
33:27
the company that cremators her dad would be calling down
33:30
nearly a month after his death. A woman she recalled
33:34
introduced herself as an employee from heaven Bound Cremation Services
33:38
in Maryland. She was calling to tell Hooper twenty five,
33:43
that the remains of her father, Donald Hooper Junior, fifty
33:46
six had been taken to a state facility. Hooper's head spun.
33:53
She thought of her father, a former Calvert County Sheriff's
33:56
deputy who took her hunting for deer and cared deeply
33:59
about his knine partner, a German shepherd named Hassen, And
34:03
then she thought of the ashes in her stepmother's home.
34:07
If those weren't her fathers, whose were they? She tried
34:12
to ask, she said, but the woman hung up. That day,
34:16
January seventeenth, heaven Bound was shut down by state officials.
34:21
A Washington Post analysis of hundreds of pages of disciplinary documents,
34:26
state records, and statutes found that the board charged with
34:30
regulating Maryland's death industry had four years seen alarming activity
34:36
at heaven Bound, including the improper disposal of human remains
34:40
and boxes of bodies crawling with flies, But instead of
34:44
using its authority to close the crematory, the board repeatedly
34:49
put the business on probation, allowing it to continue to
34:53
take in people from funeral homes and the DC Medical
34:56
Examiner's office. Heaven Bound was the sole cremation service contractor
35:02
for the district, which over seven years paid it more
35:05
than nine hundred thousand dollars for handling thousands of bodies,
35:10
many of them were the district's poorest and most vulnerable residents,
35:15
including those who died as crime victims, while homeless or
35:18
his wards of the state. Heaven Bound was forced to
35:22
stop operating only after investigators found a broken crematory chamber
35:28
and a pile of decomposing bodies. Governor Wes Moore, the Democrat,
35:33
has called what happened at heaven Bound despicable and so
35:36
those responsible need to be held accountable. He has ordered
35:40
a top to bottom operational review of the board and
35:44
pressured four executive officers to resign. The board now half
35:48
Vagant said in a statement that it is cooperating with
35:52
the Governor's review and that its past disciplinary decisions were
35:56
guided by state law at of February fourteenth. Here, Maryland
36:01
lawmakers questioned board representatives, who did not speak directly about
36:05
heaven Bound because of the ongoing investigation, but said that
36:09
the oversight body faced years of funding and staffing shortages
36:14
that hindered its ability to check on businesses as state
36:17
law demands, and created a backlog of hundreds of inspections.
36:23
Heaven Bound's co owner, Rosa Williams and her husband Brandon Williams,
36:27
have not spoken publicly and did not respond to multiple
36:30
requests for comment the Post made through calls, emails, conversations
36:34
with the business associate, and a letter left on the
36:37
crematory's front door. The crematory's abrupt shut down forced d
36:42
C and Maryland, along with funeral homes, to reclaim hundreds
36:47
of cremated remains, commonly referred to as creamings, and at
36:51
least two dozen bodies. Families across the region meanwhile, have
36:56
been left waiting for ashes and answers. The Post spoke
37:01
with the friends and relatives of ten people who were
37:03
taken to heaven Bound. They described making calls about their
37:07
loved ones that went on return for weeks, smelling decay
37:11
when they entered the crematory, and feeling haunted by the unknowns.
37:17
They all raised the same question, how was this allowed
37:22
to happen? When the district opened bids for a place
37:27
to send its dead in late twenty seventeen, one rose
37:29
to the top, heaven Bound. There are no crematories within
37:34
DC city limits, so officials had to look to businesses
37:37
and other jurisdictions. Heaven Bound's prices were low, and its pitch,
37:43
written by Rosa Williams, whose last name was then Turner,
37:46
was compelling. Our goal is to make sure the decedents
37:51
of the District of Columbia get an adequate final disposition
37:56
in the most meaningful and respectful manner. At the times,
38:00
Williams was serving as heaven Bound supervisory crematory operator after
38:06
taking over the business from her parents a year earlier.
38:08
Record show. Since its founding in twenty fourteen, heaven Bound
38:13
had marketed itself as affordable and compassionate, and as a
38:18
black owned business. It had gained the trust to funeral
38:22
homes that largely served black communities. On December eighteenth, twenty seventeen,
38:28
DC signed its first contract with heaven Bound. The very
38:32
next day, an investigator with Maryland's Board of Morticians and
38:35
Funeral Directors received a complaint from a licensed mortician who
38:40
shared photos taken inside the crematory. According to board records,
38:45
the pictures depicted two trash cans that held cremaines. One
38:50
contained a red biohazard bag, a pile of loose cremains,
38:56
and a fetal demise pouch that was uns that was
38:59
Zipper's shut The remains, the tipster said, had clearly come
39:04
from more than one person. A week later, the board
39:09
launched a formal investigation. It took twenty more months for
39:15
the board to formerly discipline Williams for violating numerous state
39:19
health codes and regulations, and reported that disciplinary action to
39:24
the public. Documents posted to the board's website in August
39:28
of twenty nineteen detailed the investigation. Williams told the Board
39:34
that the remains spotted by the tipster were left over
39:38
from the numerous cremations, though she didn't know which or
39:42
how many people. According to the documents, she said she
39:46
wasn't aware that mixing cremains with other biohazard waste, including
39:50
bloodied paper and gloves used to transport bodies, was forbidden.
39:55
She also said she had not been previously or properly trained,
40:00
despite records showing she held several professional certifications and earlier
40:06
that year had hosted an education seminar at Heaven Bound
40:10
non cremation laws and Ethics. The board placed Williams's crematory
40:16
operator's license on probation for a year, with mandated conditions.
40:21
Pay a five thousand dollars fine, choose a board proved
40:25
mentor to supervise twenty five cremations, complete an ethics course,
40:30
document it all, and submit it to the board. Williams
40:34
failed to comply, record show, and in January of twenty
40:37
twenty one, the board extended her probation for two years.
40:43
Williams probationary status in Maryland was noted on her public
40:47
crematory license profile. Still, d C renewed the city's contract
40:53
with Heaven Bound six times. A spokesperson with the DC
40:59
OFFI Office of Contract and Procurement said before the city
41:03
awards any contract, it verifies contractors business and legal status.
41:10
The office had initially verified heaven Bounds good standing with
41:14
the Maryland Health Department and received verification of the company's license,
41:19
the spokesperson said, but since twenty seventeen, no information was
41:24
received by OCP on any probationary action on heaven Bounds
41:29
license in Maryland. Heaven Bounds set up a satellite office
41:34
in the district inside a co working space on Massachusetts
41:38
Avenue Northeast. Those who visited the wei work location said
41:44
it was typical for cremains tucked inside cardboard boxes and
41:48
plastic bags fastened with twist tied to be lined up
41:52
on a table inside the chic office, not far from
41:55
clusters of professionals hunched over laptops and a collection of
42:01
In twenty twenty three, the DC Board of Funeral Directors
42:04
referred the crematory for consumer protection investigation, according to public
42:09
meeting minutes. The minutes don't detail what prompted the referral,
42:13
and those who initiated the inquiry declined to discuss it.
42:16
In recent weeks. The agency responsible for investigating, the d
42:21
C Department of Licensing and Consumer Protection, said in a
42:25
statement that city officials ultimately took no action against heaven Bound.
42:31
The crematory's presence in the district did not give the
42:34
city's board legal oversight of business, since it was licensed
42:39
and located in Maryland. DC officials said the city relied
42:44
on Maryland regulators to do their due diligence, But Maryland's
42:49
board appears to have had no staff inspector from July
42:53
twenty twenty to January of twenty twenty two, according to records.
42:58
Even after it hired one, the board said staffing shortages
43:02
kept him from performing any inspections until the beginning of
43:06
twenty twenty four. That March, at heaven Bound record show
43:11
and inspector found horrific conditions. Bodies in cardboard boxes stacked
43:18
top one another, bodies in ripped body bags with arms
43:23
and legs hanging out, bodies stored in two warm temperatures,
43:29
body fluids on the floor, and blood on the refrigerator.
43:34
A month later, conditions had not improved, and inspector documented
43:40
flies coming out of boxes containing human bodies and a
43:43
strong odor of decomposing remains. Several more months passed before
43:49
the board again disciplined heaven Bounds owners. In September, it
43:54
fined Rosa Williams, put her on probation for another two years,
43:59
and ordered her to take educational in ethics classes for
44:04
the first time. The board also escalated her discipline, suspending
44:09
her crematory operator's license for ten days. Her husband, who
44:15
had no prior disciplinary record, was put on probation, but
44:19
his license was not suspended, and heaven Bound kept operating.
44:26
Destiny was twenty weeks pregnant when a scan revealed that
44:30
her unborn girl child, a girl she had named Elise Anastasia,
44:36
had a heart deformity, cleft lip, and other abnormalities. Follow
44:41
Up tests led to a diagnosis of Trisonomy eighteen or
44:46
Edwards syndrome, a genetic order that is almost always fatal.
44:52
Doctors warned that if Alice survived to full term, she
44:56
would not live long. Destiny, at twenty four year old
45:00
with a three year old son, lives in Central Florida,
45:03
where it's illegal to perform an abortion later than six
45:06
weeks into pregnancy in most cases. For that reason, she
45:10
asked the post to identify her only by her first name.
45:14
She said that she and her partner didn't want their
45:17
daughter to suffer for a short life. So with the
45:19
help of nonprofits that specialize inating women who need travel
45:23
for reproductive health care, Destiny made her way to d C.
45:28
On December nineteenth. Destiny's pregnancy was terminated at twenty six
45:33
weeks and two days after the procedure, she held her
45:38
daughter's tiny body tight, she grieved. Clinic's staff made prints
45:43
of the baby's hands and feet. They gave Destiny a
45:47
list of crematory and funeral homes. Destiny called every place
45:52
on the list. She chose heaven Bound, she said, because
45:55
it was the least costly option and the nonprofits that
45:59
had helped her, we're going to pay. But Destiny soon
46:03
began to regret her decision heaven Bound. She said it
46:07
was hard to reach an evasive about her daughter's remains.
46:12
On December thirtieth, when a staff answered the phone, Destinia
46:16
made her plea, are you guys going to be kind
46:18
to her? It's my baby girl, What do you mean
46:21
be kind? She recalled the staffer, saying she didn't hear
46:25
from anyone again for weeks. Meanwhile, family seeking post mortemcare
46:32
continued to turn to heaven Bound after fifty two year
46:36
old Lorne Kennedy died unexpectedly on January ninth. His daughters,
46:41
Jamie Pinat and Caitlyn Reese wanted to say their final
46:45
goodbyes before he was cremated at heaven Bound. As the
46:50
sisters pulled into the location in White Plains, Maryland, they
46:53
planned to share one last peaceful moment with their dad. Instead,
46:58
the sister said, they into the building were hit with
47:01
a wall of stitch. Neither had ever handled a loved
47:07
one's death before. They figured this, just what might crematories
47:12
might smell like. What the sisters didn't know was that
47:16
heaven Bound was once again under investigation. On January tenth,
47:21
documents show Maryland officials found heaven Bound's cremation chamber broken
47:27
and at least two dozen bodies piled up at the facility.
47:33
Eighteen of the bodies were not kept at the right temperature,
47:36
and at least three of them were visibly decomposing. One
47:41
had been there since the March inspection. On January fourteenth,
47:46
the day after the sisters visited, the Maryland Health Department
47:50
ordered Charles County to declare the conditions at the crematory
47:53
dangerous to public health. On January seventeenth, Maryland's board suspense
48:00
the licenses for heaven Bound and its owners, forcing the
48:04
crematory to shut down. A heaven Bound employee called Reese
48:09
and Pena to say the crematory was closing, the sister said,
48:13
but told him it was through no fault of their own.
48:17
They made it seem like it was no big deal
48:19
at all. Pinia said after the sisters read the Maryland
48:23
inspection more closely, they had a disturbing realization because their
48:28
father was one of the last people having bound accepted,
48:32
he may have been left outside of the overflowing refrigeration chamber.
48:38
I feel like the whole state let them go under
48:41
the radar and allowed them to do this, Penia said.
48:45
Maryland State Health officials said they were not aware of
48:47
the conditions at the crematory until after the January tenth inspection.
48:52
When asked to explain its disciplinary choices, including why it
48:56
did not strip heaven Bound if its license sooner, the
49:00
board declined to comment. The Post attempted to contact all
49:04
eleven people who were on the board when it moved
49:06
to shut down heaven Bound and most did not respond
49:10
or declined to comment. The former board president, Michelle Kuta,
49:15
said the panel followed administrative processes laid out in the
49:18
state laws and acted on the advice of its lawyer.
49:22
The Maryland Attorney General's Office, whose lawyers advised the board,
49:26
said the board is the ultimate authority when it comes
49:29
to crematory regulation. State law gives the board discretion and
49:33
empowers it to consider aggregating factors, including previous disciplinary history,
49:39
potential harm, and whether the violation was part of a
49:42
pattern of detrimental conduct. In several forced statements, Maryland's governor
49:48
has said that the board failed the families and that
49:51
he shares their outrage. His order to the board, which
49:54
includes members he appointed, is being performed by a private
49:58
attorney asked with finding ways to improve oversight and determine
50:03
whether changes to state law are needed. After heaven Bounds
50:08
shut down, the DC Medical Examiner took back five bodies
50:11
along with hundreds of cremains. The Maryland State Anatomy Board
50:15
claimed eighteen bodies, but declined to confiscate any cremains, instead
50:20
directing families to work with Heaven Bound to locate their
50:22
loved ones. Rodney Adams, the General Counsel of the DC
50:26
Office of Chief Medical Examiner, said his office only learned
50:30
of the crematory's problems last month when Maryland alerted it
50:35
to heaven bound suspended license. Medical Examiner staff members had
50:39
been working to catalog and cross reference remains and notify families,
50:44
but Adams said the collision of an Army helicopter and
50:46
an American Airlines plane that killed sixty seven people near
50:49
Reagan National Airport last month delayed those efforts. The city
50:54
has yet to hire a new crematory to process the
50:57
remaining bodies or any one who has died in the
51:01
last month and been subject to public disposition. Families whose
51:07
loved ones were sent by d C to heaven Bound
51:10
say the city should have looked more closely at the crematory,
51:14
and it continued to re up its contract four months.
51:19
Cousins Kelly Young thirty nine and Amelia Thomas thirty seven,
51:23
struggled to find their favorite uncle, Michael Anthony Young, after
51:27
his aging sister put him in the district's custody following
51:30
brain surgery. They called hospitals rehab Sinners, and eventually the
51:36
Medical Examiner's office staff confirmed his death and said his
51:41
remains had been sent to heaven bound. Young and wanted
51:44
to make mementos for her family little pieces of jewelry
51:48
with her uncle's ashes. Uncle Michael, lifelong collector, would have
51:52
liked that, she thought. But when she went to pick
51:55
up his cremains at the we work last month, Young
51:58
said the ashes were nowhere to be found. Eventually, Young
52:02
said the crematory stopped answering her calls. Rachel Ellison, fifty six,
52:09
a homeless advocate in the district, has for the past
52:12
seven years, helped recover the cremains of those who died
52:15
on the street and if possible, reconnect them with family.
52:19
That has meant going through heaven Bound. But when Ellison
52:24
called the DC Medical Examiner on January seventeenth to ask
52:27
about her friend, Charles Evan, she was told his ashes
52:31
weren't ready and wouldn't be for some time. The district,
52:35
a staffer told her had suddenly ended its crematory contract.
52:40
That's when Allison knew something was wrong. There are so
52:45
many people who have been mishandled in this mess, and
52:47
the majority of them are people who have lived in
52:49
poverty or were unhoused and living without the dignity of
52:53
a home, said Ellison, who was homeless for seventeen years.
52:58
Now they're being mishandled in death and treated like this
53:02
without dignity. It's not right. After weeks with no news
53:06
about her friend, Ellison decided she was done waiting, and
53:10
on a blustery Saturday, she gathered members of Evans's street
53:13
family to release balloons in his memory. Evans, a chronically
53:18
homeless man described by friends as a fierce protector and
53:21
loyal companion, died of a terminal illness while unhoused on
53:26
December twenty ninth. As the group stood in the circle
53:29
on the grass, each person spoke. He was the godfather
53:33
to my kids, said a thirty three year old family friend.
53:37
He was our family, and I'm missing Charlie. Showed me
53:41
the ropes out here, said a man who was homeless
53:43
for years. He'll always be a part of me. As
53:47
balloons floated skywards, some called after them. We'll see on
53:51
the other side, and we love you, Charlie, We love you.
53:55
Ellison says she won't stop calling DC until she gets
53:58
the answer she's looking for. When will her friend's body
54:02
finally be cremated? When can those who loved him finally
54:05
lay him to rest. Destiny has also spent weeks begging
54:09
for answers. On February third, she said she learned of
54:13
the investigation into heaven Bound from the clinic where she
54:16
terminated her pregnancy. Destiny was livid. She messaged the crematory
54:22
in every way she could, calls, text, emails, and on
54:26
February fifth, she wrote, just because I had to terminate
54:29
doesn't mean that my child meant nothing. Who knows what
54:32
they've done with her? She later told the Post. Destiny
54:36
keeps replaying the moments she held Alice in her arms.
54:39
She felt hazy. Just emerging from the general anesthesia, Destiny
54:44
had hoped receiving her daughter's ashes would give her more
54:46
time with the child she lost too soon. A package
54:50
remarked cremains remains finally arrived in Florida on February thirteenth.
54:56
Destiny hesitated to open it, nervous about what she would
54:59
f inside. She sliced through the packing tape and folded
55:04
back cardboard to reveal ashes, a cremation certificate, and a
55:09
tag with her daughter's information. Still doubts lingered, the cremation
55:16
process destroys most DNA, making any identification nearly impossible. There's
55:23
no real way, she said, for me to know that
55:27
it is her. And finally today, in first month, Trump
55:33
upends century old approach to the world. In his first
55:37
month in office, President Trump has upended the nation's nearly
55:42
century old approach to global affairs. The speed and energy
55:47
with which the president has moved to remake Washington's role
55:50
in the world has been most visible in his approach
55:54
to war between Russia and Ukraine. He has embraced Russia's
55:58
strength and blasted the small country, falsely accusing President Vladimir
56:03
Zelensky of starting a conflict that began with a Russian invasion.
56:08
He has insulted US allies in Europe, who for decades
56:11
have relied on the United States to check Russian power.
56:16
The result, diplomats and analysts say, has been to sed
56:19
influence to Moscow, but that might just be the beginning.
56:25
At worst, Trump's strategy could embolden other global powers, notably China,
56:30
to adopt a more bellicost policies toward their neighbors, They say,
56:34
the opposite of what some of his allies say needs
56:38
to be the focus of US foreign policy. Trump has
56:42
gone further than he did in his first term to
56:44
redefine whom the United States embraces and who it combats,
56:49
surprising fellow world leaders who thought they knew Trump's playbook
56:53
and had been working to please him. Instead, the president
56:56
is spurning a post World War II international system built
57:00
to block global aggressors, embracing far older ideas of allowing
57:05
military powers to build regional spheres of influence and exert
57:09
dominion over their neighbors. He appears to be turning back
57:13
the clock to a time in world history when countries
57:16
with the biggest militaries constructed empires, demanded tribute from weaker nations,
57:22
and expanded their territories through coercion. And Lys say, this
57:28
is classic geopolitics. Actually influence on the areas that are
57:32
closest to you geographically, says Rose A. Balfour, the director
57:36
of the Brussels office of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace,
57:39
a think tank. If you pair that up with this
57:43
conversion conversation with Putin, then you see the potential immersions
57:47
of a worldview where the world is carved up by
57:50
different powers. This fits very well with the Russian view
57:55
of things. And now this concludes the reading of the
57:59
Washington Post today, Monday, February twenty fourth. Your reader today
58:03
has been Rod Brotherton. If you have any questions, comments,
58:07
or suggestions concerning the program, please feel free to call
58:11
us at eight five nine four two two sixty three ninety.
58:15
Thank you for listening, and now please tune stay tuned
58:18
for continued programming right here on Radio I