President Donald Trump’s tariffs are roiling global markets
and triggering layoffs
, but now the widely derided economic policy is coming after several areas of leisure and fun.
Nintendo announced on
Friday that preorders for the highly anticipated Switch 2 game console will be delayed for Americans because of the tariffs.
“Pre-orders for Nintendo Switch 2 in the U.S. will not start April 9, 2025 in order to assess the potential impact of tariffs and evolving market conditions. Nintendo will update timing at a later date. The launch date of June 5, 2025 is unchanged,” Nintendo said in a statement.
This policy will affect multiple U.S.-based retailers who offer preorders of the game, including Best Buy, Walmart, Target, and GameStop. Customers hoping to get access to titles like “Mario Kart World” will have to wait, thanks to Trump’s actions.
In his rambling
tariff announcement speech on Wednesday, Trump singled out the nations of China and Vietnam for retaliatory tariffs. Those nations are two of the largest toy manufacturers in the world and the tariffs could lead to a 50% price hike
—right before the back-to-school season.
“This is going to have massive negative repercussions for the consumer and for our industry,” Greg Ahearn, president and CEO of The Toy Association, told CNBC.
Eric Handler, an industry analyst for Roth, told investors in a research note, “The consumer should soon see price increases to partially offset the tariff impact.”
Board game companies are also in Trump’s crosshairs.
The Game Manufacturer’s Association said in a statement
on Friday that Trump’s tariffs are “dire news” for the industry. Many tabletop gaming companies manufacture their games in China.
“Tariffs are essentially taxes on consumers, not on the countries where the products are produced. Publishers will be forced to pass these costs along to their customers or face the prospect of ceasing operations,” the group added.
Meredith Placko, CEO of Steve Jackson Games, noted
on their website that while the company would like to manufacture games within the U.S., “the infrastructure to support full-scale board-game production—specialty dice making, die-cutting, custom plastic and wood components—doesn’t meaningfully exist here yet.”
She added, “There is no national plan in place to support manufacturing for the types of products we make.” Placko said costs for games will increase and asked fans of the company’s games to contact elected officials.
“Ask them how these new policies help American creators and small businesses. Because right now, it feels like they don’t,” she wrote.
Comic book costs for many publishers are also set to increase. Many books, particularly collections of existing titles in trade paperbacks and graphic novels, could be hit
with a 54% tariff. The tariffs will also hit independently produced titles backed by Kickstarter campaigns.
“My already-funded Kickstarters, awaiting printed books to be shipped out to me next week, will now collectively lose a small fortune. It might actually be cheaper to pay off the printer, trash the books, and refund every Kickstarter buyer,” David Campiti of Glass House Graphics wrote.
Trump’s tariffs are affecting
multiple sectors of the global economy, from auto manufacturing to basic household items, even Trump merchandise
—and now leisure products. Just about the only entity escaping the backlash is Russia
, led by Trump ally Vladimir Putin, who escaped the tariff barrage.
But fun will now cost more, with new policies that tax the very distractions people need in times of economic upheaval.
This commentary is part of a series on the rogue prosecutors around the country backed by liberal billionaires such as George Soros and the threat those prosecutors pose to victims and others alike. Previous entries in the series have focused on the rogue prosecutor movement in general and on specific prosecutors in?Baltimore, Philadelphia,?Chicago,?Boston,?St. Louis,?San Francisco,?Los Angeles,?and?Fairfax, Virginia; and?a U.S. attorney.
To read all our scholarship on rogue prosecutors, click?here or read our book “Rogue Prosecutors: How Radical Soros Lawyers Are Destroying America’s Communities.”
The State of Louisiana has had more than its fair share of shady politicians. Household names include Edwin Edwards, Cleo Fields, Ray Nagin Jr., and one of our favorites, William Jefferson—who was convicted by the Feds of bribery and, at the time of his arrest, had $90,000 in cold hard cash in his household freezer!
Voters in the state, and especially the City of New Orleans, have picked some real corkers over the years. Locals found it unsurprising and strangely amusing when Edwards was convicted of racketeering, Fields was caught on an FBI surveillance video taking $20,000, Nagin was convicted on 20 counts of wire fraud, and Jefferson was pinched for bribery.
But public safety is no laughing matter in the Big Easy, which brings us to Soros rogue prosecutor and District Attorney Jason Williams.
Another Soros-Funded Radical
Williams, like most Soros-backed rogue prosecutors, was a criminal defense attorney before he decided to run for district attorney. He was elected in 2020, in large part because he received $220,000 from Soros
that flowed through Fair and Just Prosecution, Color of Change, and the Louisiana Justice and Public Safety Political Action Committee.
Williams took office in January 2021 and promised to make good on his campaign pledge to end the “tough on crime” approach of his predecessor. A quick aside: When did it become verboten to be tough on crime?
Williams promised to correct the “sins of the past.” This meant lowering the state’s incarceration rate by making sure that his office sent fewer people to prison. Like all of his rogue colleagues, Williams buys into the twin myths of “mass incarceration” and systemic racism in the criminal justice systems. Neither is true, as my colleague Zack Smith and I wrote about in Chapter 11 of our book “Rogue Prosecutors
.”
Acting Like a Public Defender
By now, it shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone that these Soros-backed rogue prosecutors don’t really consider themselves prosectors, at least not in the normal sense of the word. That is, lawyers who are dedicated to keeping the public safe and enforcing the criminal laws of their jurisdiction by, gasp, prosecuting criminals. To them, the word “prosecution” is a four-letter word.
Need proof?
On the night he was elected in 2017 as Philadelphia DA, criminal defense attorney-turned-prosecutor Larry Krasner
called himself a “public defender with power.” Thanks to $1.7M from Soros-funded groups, Krasner won his race and unleashed a tidal wave of crime due to his pro-criminal, anti-victim policies. Like former Los Angeles DA George Gascon
, Krasner, Williams, and other members of this movement view defendants as the victims.
Every single policy of these pseudo-prosecutors inures to the benefit of criminals. Sadly, Jason Williams is no exception.
All Policies Benefit Criminals
When he ran for office, Williams promised to water down requests for bail, not prosecute violent juveniles as adults, refuse to prosecute illegal drug possession, and not let his prosecutors add sentencing enhancements for career criminals charged with new crimes.
Sound familiar? It should, because that’s the standard fare for Soros-supported rogue prosecutors, and part of the unspoken quid pro quo for getting the money to run for office. Rogues like L.A.’s Gascon, Philly’s Krasner, former Baltimore DA Marilyn Mosby, former Chicago DA Kim Foxx, former St. Louis DA Kim Gardner, former San Francisco DA Chesa Boudin, former Boston DA and U.S. Attorney Rachael Rollins all enacted similar policies. They were so notorious that Zack and I gave each an entire chapter in our book.
One of Williams’ “solutions” was to void hard-fought convictions or reduce the sentences of violent felons. This wasn’t a new or original idea in the rogue prosecutor community. Those who were elected before him, like Foxx (2017), Gascon (2017), Krasner (2018), Rollins (2019) and Boudin (2019) all did the same thing.
Williams is a piker compared to Gascon, who created a “resentencing unit” immediately upon taking office. That unit was charged with expediting the review of 20,000 to 30,000 cases where his office had earned a conviction, but the sentences were, in his view, “out of policy.” For Gascon, an “out of policy” sentence was any sentence longer than 15 years.
Williams’ unique way of unwinding cases, voiding convictions, or reducing sentences was through a process called “post-conviction relief.” This is when the court is allowed to consider new evidence after all other appeals have been exhausted. Williams claims that he took that action to undo “past wrongs of his predecessors.”
Mainstream prosecutors are obligated to alert the court and opposing counsel if/when new evidence is discovered after a conviction that calls into question the culpability of the defendant. Not only does the law require that, but it’s also the right thing to do. But that’s not what Williams was doing. There was no “new evidence” at all. Nor was there any evidence provided of these “wrongdoings” or specific figures
on the numbers of resentencing cases his office’s Civil Rights Division has handled.
The post-conviction relief process is supposed to be, and had been used sparingly, up until “just-let-em-out Jason” was elected. In fact, St. Tammany, Jefferson, and East Baton Rouge parishes (counties) each only had one case where the post-conviction relief was granted in 2024. East Baton Rouge and Jefferson Parish are the largest and second largest parishes by population.
Compare this to the Orleans parish which had 42 resentencing
hearings in 2024 alone, and 349 offenders who have been resentenced since Williams was elected.
A Contentious Senate Hearing
Williams’ policies and practices were so controversial that the Judiciary Committee of the Louisiana State Senate held a hearing on Sept. 5, 2024, to find out more about the justification, if any, of his approach and the impact of his policies.
During the hearing, Laura Rodrique (former Orleans parish prosecutor and daughter of the former DA Leon Cannizzaro) and Louisiana Attorney General Liz Murrill railed against Williams’ approach.
In summing up her concerns with Williams’ abuse of the post-conviction process, Murrill testified
that “it is not the job of the district attorney to disagree with the legislature, the judge and the jury on criminal justice policy.” She stated that her office is reviewing approximately 40 resentencing cases from Williams’ office to ensure that the law was followed, and that Williams did not abuse his authority.
Williams attempted to justify his actions to state senators, going so far as to say that his policies are “working and we have the public safety numbers to prove it.”
Ignoring Victims and Unjustified Leniency
One of hallmarks of Soros-backed rogue prosecutors is their blatant and deliberate violation of victims’ rights. That’s because in their minds, the “real” victims are those accused of crimes. Actual victims of crimes don’t matter to these modern-day radicals.
One of the worst examples in the country was former Los Angeles District Attorney George Gascon. He issued a policy directive immediately upon taking office that forbade his deputy district attorneys from attending parole hearings. Victims had to face the convicted felon at his parole hearing alone, rather than have a line prosecutor there to remind the parole board what the criminal did, how he did it, and why he should remain behind bars. Talk about disregarding, and disrespecting, victims!
While Jason Williams isn’t as bad as Gascon when it comes to victims and victim’s rights, he’s close.
In Feb. 2025, following completion of her office’s review of the 40 cases she mentioned during her Senate testimony, Murrill announced
that there were “at least 35 murder cases that involve first-degree or second-degree murder” where she believed that sentencing relief was “improperly granted.” Murrill is exploring whether her office can get the original convictions and sentences reinstated.
Giving Violent Teens a Pass
Another trademark policy for Soros rogue prosecutors is their abject refusal to prosecute violent teens, even 17-year-olds, as adults, even when they commit murder.
When he took office in Jan. 2021, Williams deployed the same playbook, only later realizing in a very personal way that his hands-off-violent-juvenile scheme poses safety risks.
In 2020, 15-year-old John Honore and two 17-year-old friends were charged as adults for carjacking by former New Orleans District Attorney Leon Cannizzaro. After Williams took office, instead of pursuing the case in adult court, or removing the case back to juvenile court, he dropped the charges altogether.
Two years later, the 17-year-old John Honore and three teen friends were accused
of second-degree murder after they carjacked 73-year-old Linda Frickey in broad daylight and dragged her for more than a block.
In Nov. 2023, Honore’s three friends pleaded guilty
to attempted manslaughter. Honore was found guilty at trial, and on Jan.12, 2024, was sentenced to life in prison. During his sentencing hearing,
Honore did not apologize to the Frickey family. Frickey, like so many other victims of violent crime, would be alive today had the prosecutor held the juvenile violent assailant accountable for the previous charge of carjacking.
Williams’ lenient approach to violent juvenile crime came back to haunt him and his 78-year-old mother. On Oct. 16, 2023, they were the victims of an armed carjacking committed by four teens. The attorney general’s office charged each of the four violent teens as adults. Not surprisingly, Williams did not object to the juveniles being tried as adults. Hypocrisy knows no bounds.
Missing Deadlines Has Deadly Consequences
Another common attribute of Soros-backed rogue prosecutors is that, for the most part, none has been a district attorney before they were propped up and hoisted into office. They have little-to-no management experience, much less experience running a prosecutor’s office where tight timelines, punctuality, court orders, and the like matter.
Defendants have a Sixth Amendment right to a speedy trial. The onus falls, as it should, on the government to charge and try a person accused of a crime in a timely manner, not only to uphold the defendant’s constitutional rights, but also statutory or court-created speedy trial timelines.
Under our Constitution and state laws, criminal suspects (who are presumed innocent) are not supposed to languish in jail while the DA dilly-dallies and tries to figure out whether to charge the person. Professional career prosecutors know this. Soros-supported rogue prosecutors for the most part don’t.
Which brings us to Williams and inexcusable 701 releases.
Louisiana Code of Criminal Procedure Article 701 is the state speedy trial statute. If a person is charged with a felony in Louisiana and is in custody, the state must bring the defendant to trial within 120 days. If the state doesn’t bring the defendant to trial within those 120 days, he must be released from custody. The charges aren’t dropped, but the defendant, regardless of what he may have done, is to be released.
In rare instances, this time deadline can be excused, such as when a prosecutor cannot bring a defendant to trial within 120 days because of delays in processing forensic evidence, witness issues, or other complications in a case.
But that’s not what happened once Williams took office.
Once Williams took control, the 701 release rate exploded and was eight times
higher than his predecessor. In 2021, 125 people facing at least one felony count were in pretrial detention. Because of Williams’ lackluster approach, his office failed to bring them to trial within 120 days and 100 were released from jail. To make matters worse, at least 50 of those suspects were accused of violent crimes or domestic violence.
Mike Wyatt
is one of the worst examples of a Williams 701 release. Wyatt was arrested by the New Orleans Police Department for being the triggerman in a double shooting committed in July 2021. One of the victims died and the other sustained serious injuries. Wyatt was arrested
and placed in pretrial detention in the Orleans Justice Center on suspicion of second-degree murder.
After Hurricane Ida hit New Orleans a month later, and his pretrial hearings were rescheduled several times, Wyatt walked out of jail in Dec. 2021 as a 701 release. Six months later, Williams dropped the case altogether. In Aug. 2023, Wyatt allegedly murdered Johnny Huntley by shooting him in the forehead.
Arrests Down and Crime Is Up
Not surprisingly, Soros-backed rogue district attorneys refuse to accept any responsibility for rising crime rates that naturally occur after they inflict their pro-criminal, anti-victim policies on an unsuspecting electorate. Denial and deflection are their specialty.
Confronted with rising crime rates in their cities, rogue prosecutors blame anyone but themselves. Williams blames the New Orleans Police Department, but they aren’t taking that allegation laying down.
According to a Metropolitan Crime Commission report
covering Williams’ first year in office, there has “been a drastic decline in accountability for violent felony offenders.” To help solve crimes, New Orleans police have “secured the cooperation of victims and witnesses to make 1,411 violent felony arrests between Jan. 11, 2021 [when Williams took office] to Sept. 10, 2021.”
The commission report noted that Williams’ office either refused to prosecute or dismissed 937 violent felony cases during that time, including against defendants charged with murder, attempted murder and robbery.
By comparison, the commission noted that under the previous district attorney, the New Orleans DA’s office accepted 67% of violent felony arrests in 2019 and 75% in 2020 for prosecution. Under Williams, the acceptance rate fell to 54%.
In virtually every city that has elected a Soros-backed rogue prosecutor, crime rates have skyrocketed compared to their “tough on crime” predecessors. Williams is no exception.
Murder
After New Orleans saw its lowest homicide rates in 2019 under the leadership of Cannizzaro (122 murders), the city faced its worse homicide rate in 2022 (266 murders), a 131% increase just two years after Williams took office. While the murder rate has dropped since then, it has not returned to the (already too high) rate experienced under his predecessor.
Rape
In 2019, there was 794 cases of rape, which decreased to 708 cases in 2020. In 2021, after Williams’ first year in office, that number increased to 808, although it did appear to drop to 756 in 2024.
Carjacking
In 2019, there were only 109 carjackings. By the end of Williams’ first year in 2021, there were 288. The number of carjackings once again increased in 2022 to 382, but have dropped to 215 in 2023 and 111 in 2024.
Shootings
Between 2019 and 2022, shootings increased 88%
. There were 256 shootings in 2019 and 490 shootings in 2021. The number of shootings dropped in 2022 to 470 and have continued to decline in 2023 and 2024.
Robbery
In 2019, there were 747 robberies. In 2021 this number had decreased to 722 and then rose again in 2022 to 823. This number once again dropped in 2024 to 417.
Soft on Crime Impact
As Zack and I have written elsewhere, violent crime is geographically and demographically concentrated in the inner cities. The vast majority of homicide victims in the inner city are minority men, and New Orleans is no exception. Their perpetrators are, for the most part, other minority men.
But a less obvious impact of a soft-on-crime approach is the devastating impact it has had on police moral, recruiting, and retention. When the district attorney refuses to prosecute most misdemeanors, and waters down felonies or simply refuses to prosecute some felonies, refuses to prosecute violent juveniles as adults, and refuses to prosecute those who resist arrest, such policies increase the risk to police officers and decrease their motivation to patrol dangerous areas and make arrests.
In turn, police officers in those jurisdictions think—because it’s true—that the district attorney is not for law and order and is not interested in keeping communities safe.
The cumulative impact of those policies has caused police officers to quit.
The Metropolitan Crime Commission found
that police officers’ efforts to hold violent offenders accountable were “undermined by the DA’s office,” and that “safety in New Orleans deteriorated from 2019 to 2022 as major violent crime surged 69%.” As a result, the report found that there were 23% fewer commissioned police officers in 2022 compared to 2019, from 1,226 to 940 officers.
On Thin Ice
Of the 2,300 elected district attorneys across the country, only about 72 or so are Soros-funded or inspired rogue prosecutors. But they reign over 65% of the population in the country, as they tend to be elected in large blue cities with dense populations.
When first arriving on the national stage in 2017 with the election of Chicago’s Kim Foxx, they were all the rage. Voters had high hopes that their lofty language about “reimagining” prosecution and reforms will result in a new way of addressing criminal justice matters. But they also wanted public safety, which, they assumed would come along with these edgy new candidates.
Voters were deceived. They found out the hard way that there is nothing progressive about the progressive prosector movement.
The electoral backlash took time, but eventually voters ousted rogues such as Chesa Boudin, George Gascon, and Marilyn Mosby. Others faltered under their own incompetence or ethical lapses like Kim Gardner and Rachel Rollins. Kim Foxx was urged not to run for reelection last year because her abysmal track record was a political albatross for the Democratic Party, which held its national convention in her town of Chicago, and party elders didn’t want a repeat of the 1968 protests surrounding the Democratic Convention.
Each of them failed because voters in their cities realized, eventually, that their district attorney’s pro-criminal, anti-victim, cop-hating policies were the reason that crime exploded in their cities.
It’s only a matter of time before voters in New Orleans do the same thing.
A federal judge blocked
President Trump’s takeover of a federal agency that invests in Latin America and the Caribbean, finding Friday that he likely went beyond his authority.
U.S. District Judge Loren AliKhan ordered the administration indefinitely reinstate Sara Aviel, the ousted president of the Inter-American Foundation (IAF), and stop various other efforts to gut the foundation as her lawsuit proceeds.
“Because accepting Defendants’ arguments would leave parts of the Constitution in tatters, Ms. Aviel has shown a substantial likelihood of success on the merits,”said AliKhan, an appointee of former President Biden.
Established by Congress in 1969 as a nonprofit corporation, the IAF funds efforts to combat poverty, migration and instability in Latin America and the Caribbean.
The administration began efforts to gut the agency on Feb. 19, when Trump signed an order
directing the IAF and several other groups be “eliminated to the maximum extent consistent with applicable law.”
Within days of Trump’s directive, the administration removed Aviel and the IAF board as the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) injected itself into the foundation. At a court hearing Wednesday, the government said IAF now only has one employee and one active grant remaining.
Trump appointed Peter Marocco, a State Department official who has played a central role in the administration’s efforts to dismantle the U.S. Agency for International Development, as IAF’s sole acting board member.
The judge’s order Friday effectively reverses Marocco’s takeover of the agency, blocking him from serving on the board and unwinding all actions he has taken, including any grants that were frozen.
The Justice Department had insisted both Aviel’s termination and Marocco’s appointment were legal, part of a broader theory advanced by the administration that the president has expansive authority to hire and fire officials across the federal bureaucracy.
In her ruling, AliKhan called the logical extension of the argument “frightening.”
“Then the President could appoint an ‘acting’ board member indefinitely without ever needing to seek the advice and consent of the Senate,” AliKhan wrote. “That reading eviscerates the Appointments Clause. When the court pressed Defendants’ counsel for a limiting principle at oral argument, Defendants had no response — convincing or otherwise.”
The government also asserted Aviel wasn’t entitled to an injunction at the early stage of the case because she hadn’t made the necessary showing of irreparable harm, pointing to two recentappeals rulings
that cleared the way for Trump to fire other federal agency leaders. The judge rejected that argument, too.
Build a Bouquet event planned for Mother’s Day weekend
The Build a Bouquet event is returning to downtown Naperville on Saturday, May 10, organizers announced.
Participants visit downtown businesses to pick up fresh flowers as well as treats, gifts and other special surprises at each stop. Ticket-holders check in at staggered start times beginning at 10 a.m. at the Naperville Woman’s Club, 14 S. Washington St., where they will receive a map and instructions for the day.
Tickets are $50 and are only needed for the mom participating and not others in her group. The Mother’s Day-themed event is expected to sell out, organizers said.
Naperville Park District open houses for ADA plan Tuesday
The Naperville Park District is seeking community feedback on its updated Americans with Disabilities Act transition plan at open house events to be held at 1 and 6 p.m. Tuesday, April 8, at the Fort Hill Activity Center, 20 Fort Hill Drive.
Information will be provided, but no formal presentation given at the events, which will help ensure the district identifies and addresses accessibility issues throughout the park system. The plan was created in 1992 and last updated in 2014.
Residents who cannot attend an open house can offer feedback on the district’s website, www.napervilleparks.org
, from April 9 to 25.
Cradles to Crayons drop-off site at Bank of America on Ogden
The Bank of America at 1301 E. Ogden Ave. in Naperville has set up a donation unit in its parking lot to collect clothing for Cradles to Crayons, a nonprofit that donates clothing for children in need throughout the Chicago area.
Its “2025 Spring Greening Initiative” reduces textile waste and repurposes clothes to help fight clothing insecurity, a news release said. The initiative will be availabel through the month of April.
The bank asks that no large toys or furniture be placed in or near the donation box. Community members should not leave donations outside of the unit, the release said.
The Naperville bank is one of about 40 drop-off locations throughout the Chicago area. This year Cradles to Crayons will distribute one million packages of clothing, shoes, diapers and other essentials to families and children across its network, the release said.
The organization is also seeking volunteers to help sort, inspect and package donations for distribution and is in need of monetary donations.
Temple Grandin, seen here autographing a books before an event at Fermilab in Batavia, will speak about her autism journey on April 12 at Benedictine University. (Beacon-News file photo)
Autism advocate Temple Grandin to speak at Benedictine
Temple Grandin, a renowned autism advocate, will speak about her autism journey at 1:30 p.m. Saturday, April 12, at Benedictine University’s Goodwin Auditorium, 5700 College Road, Lisle.
The event includes a question-and-answer session and is open to the public. A book signing will follow at 2:30 p.m. Tickets are $25 and available at bit.ly/3E68yT3
.
Proceeds from the event benefit Lisle-based Giant Steps’ students and young adults with autism by supporting specialized programs and services such, including individualized education, therapy, job training and family support, a news release said.
The event is part of Giant Steps’ Denim & Diamonds Gala, where Grandin will be headlining speaker. It will be held from 6 to 10:30 p.m. April 12 at the Embassy Suites by Hilton, 1823 Abriter Court, Naperville.
A bill that would ban transgender women from collegiate sports in Indiana will head to Gov. Mike Braun’s desk after the Senate gave final approval to the bill Thursday.
State Rep. Michelle Davis, R-Whiteland, authored House Bill 1041 prohibiting a male, based on the student’s biological sex at birth, from participating on a women’s athletic team. The bill also allows for a student or parent to file a grievance if a college isn’t following the law.
Davis, R-Whiteland, previously testified before the Senate Education and Career Development Committee that House Bill 1041 mirrors — in language and bill title — the piece of legislation the legislature passed in 2022 banning transgender athletes from girls sports at the K-12 level, but it extends it to the collegiate level.
Sen. Stacey Donato, who is one of the Senate sponsors of the bill, said Thursday that House Bill 1041 is “a common sense” piece of legislation.
“We will be protecting the integrity of female sports in Indiana at the collegiate level on a fair and equal playing field,” Donato, R-Logansport, said.
The bill passed 42-6, with four Democrats joining all Republicans present to support the bill. Sen. Rodney Pol Jr., D-Chesterton, and Sen. Lonnie Randolph, D-East Chicago voted in favor of the bill.
Randolph said he voted in favor of the bill because he has many religious constituents who supported the bill, and because men and women have different physical builds. Pol did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Sen. J.D. Ford, D-Indianapolis, said President Donald Trump in February signed an executive order banning transgender athletes from girls’ and women’s sports. The next day, the National Collegiate Athletic Association amended its transgender athlete policy to limit competition in women’s sports to student-athletes assigned female at birth, he said.
Ford also said NCAA President Charlie Baker recently testified before a U.S. Senate committee that fewer than 10 student-athletes were transgender.
Ford raised concerns that the bill allows anyone to file a complaint against an athlete they believe to be transgender, even if the complaint was made in bad faith. The bill also doesn’t prohibit a student-athlete from having to expose intimate body parts during the grievance process, he said.
“I just don’t feel like this bill is about fairness or about protecting women’s sports,” Ford said. “Women who work really hard, spending their lives training tirelessly to be an elite athlete, will be accused of being trans because their work has made them bulky or too muscular or not feminine enough.”
Sen. Shelli Yoder, D-Bloomington, said the bill isn’t about fairness in women’s sports, but “it’s about fear, it’s about control, it’s about gender policing.”
Yoder said the bill won’t protect student-athletes from inappropriate physical interactions under the guise of settling a grievance process.
“There’s no language that protects against genital inspections, forced disclosure of medical history or invasive questioning by coaches or school officials,” Yoder said. “What is in this bill is the license to discriminate, a license to sexually harass. We’ve seen what happens when adults in positions of authority abuse that power.”
Sen. Liz Brown, R-Fort Wayne, said she was a collegiate athlete, and she would often practice and run drills with the men’s team. But, there are physical differences between men and women, she said, “and it matters.”
“I don’t want to compete against a man. There were certainly women who I competed against who were far superior to where I was, but I knew I had literally and figuratively a fighting chance,” Brown said.
The bill doesn’t require physical examinations, Brown said. Viral videos circulating on social media showing girl athletes being injured by another player, who others state are transgender athletes, justify the bill, Brown said.
“The only reason we’re passing these bills now is because opportunities are being taken away from women,” Brown said.
Donato recalled the committee testimony of Elle Patterson, a sophomore who plays NCAA Division I volleyball for the Indiana University-Indianapolis Jaguars, who said she was recruited to San Jose State University in California “with the understanding” that she would be a scholarship athlete on the volleyball team.
While at San Jose State, Patterson said “unbeknownst” to her she played with an athlete who she claimed was a transgender woman. Ahead of her sophomore year, Patterson said she was told she wouldn’t receive a scholarship, while Patterson said her teammate received a full scholarship.
“This bill is about maintaining the integrity of women’s sports and the scholarships that have been earned by these women who train and work to be an athlete. I ask for your support on this women’s sports bill and I ask for Elle.” Donato said.
Baseball players entering their walk year typically get scrutinized more since they’re playing for a new contract and perhaps a new team.
But baseball executives entering their walk year seldom receive the same kind of probing treatment. Rarely are the terms of their contracts publicized, and even when they are, most fans believe presidents and general managers are as expendable as a box of balls.
That’s not the case, of course. A talented executive can change the direction of a franchise, as Theo Epstein proved during the Chicago Cubs’ rebuild.
“It’s just as cold on opening day, it’s the same,” Hoyer said from the Cubs dugout, awkwardly attempting to inject some humor into a subject he didn’t want to discuss.
“No, it feels a little different,” he admitted. “I said that in spring training that everything feels a little bit different. But I’m excited we have a good team and I just focus on that aspect of it so I don’t have to focus on myself.”
That’s exactly what you expected him to say. Still, most observers believe Hoyer is entering a playoff-or-bust season
after failing to take the Cubs to the postseason in his first four years as president. Chairman Tom Ricketts has said the Cubs should be the “team to beat” in the National League Central, and they were the consensus favorites.
Would Hoyer like to have contract talks with Ricketts?
“If we ever have talks, I’d keep that internal, just like a Kyle Tucker extension,” he replied.
Naturally. But would Hoyer like to have them?
“Listen, I’ve been here 14 years and I love this place,” he said. “My family loves this place. Even driving into the ballpark today, it doesn’t get better than a home opener at Wrigley. I don’t think you can say that everywhere and I don’t take that for granted.”
Fans stand for the national anthem before the Cubs host the Padres at the home opener at Wrigley Field on April 4, 2025. (Armando L. Sanchez/Chicago Tribune)
In an interview with CNBC last month,
Ricketts said Hoyer “has done a pretty good job of bringing us back up from a couple bad years we’ve had,” apparently referring to 2021 and 2022 as the “bad years.” The Cubs were 83-79 the last two seasons, which technically is “up.”
Ricketts also mentioned the improved farm system and the fact Hoyer “supplemented it with several good free agents over the last couple years.” Other than Dansby Swanson and Shota Imanaga, it’s unknown whom Ricketts was referring to when he said “several.”
Ricketts added that “if we win our division, then anything can happen, and we believe we’ll be back in the mix this year.”
Hoyer probably will never get the credit he deserves for being the general manager of the Cubs’ only championship team in the last century-plus. But he knew when he left San Diego in 2011 to rejoin Epstein in Chicago that Epstein would run the show and he’d be the trusty sidekick. It worked to perfection for a while, and Epstein will be a certain Hall of Famer when he’s nominated.
Hoyer’s term as president has not gone as smoothly, though he did execute the great summer sell-off of 2021 after failing to come to terms with Anthony Rizzo, Kris Bryant and Javier Báez. With the exception of Pete Crow-Armstrong, who arrived from the New York Mets in the Báez deal, none of the other prospects he got in return for those three stars have made a dent with the Cubs.
But Bryant and Báez have been on downward slides since leaving Chicago, and Rizzo, who rejected a five-year, $70 million offer from Hoyer before his walk year of 2021, remains unsigned after the New York Yankees declined his $17 million option for 2025.
Rizzo told The Athletic in 2022:
“It’s not like I’m sitting here saying I wish I had taken it. If I play four to six more years, I’m going to make more money than I would doing that. When it’s all said and done, we’ll see. But as of now, no regrets.”
Hoyer saved Ricketts tens of millions of dollars by holding the line in negotiations with three popular players from the championship team, and we all know how much Ricketts likes saving money. But the team’s late-season crash in 2023 proved to be Hoyer’s biggest disappointment and led to his cold-blooded decision to fire David Ross and hire Craig Counsell
. It was a critical success, but did not lead to any better results in 2024.
In essence, Hoyer’s fate is likely tied to the Tucker acquisition. If Tucker can put up the kind of numbers expected, he could put the Cubs on his shoulders and take them to the postseason, which should be enough for Ricketts to give Hoyer an extension.
If not, Hoyer shouldn’t have to worry about finding another job, though he might have to return to a GM role. Many of Epstein’s former lieutenants
are in front offices around baseball, and the old boys network hasn’t really changed, even if the modern-day version are highly educated, analytically-minded guys who never played, instead of former drinking buddies like the old days.
The Hoyer saga will be part of the Cubs’ story for the next six months.
CIUDAD DE MÉXICO (AP) — Kevin Kaarl nació en el 2000, pero sus inspiraciones incluyen a Bob Dylan, José José y Cesaria Evora, la Diva de los Pies Descalzos a la que rinde homenaje en su más reciente álbum.
El cantautor mexicano se suele presentar armado de una guitarra acústica y sus canciones son dulcemente melancólicas, como las de “ULTRA SODADE” cuyo título surgió de la canción “Sodade” de Evora.
“Mi novia siempre ponía esa canción, la poníamos en la troca (camioneta)”, dijo el músico originario de Chihuahua. “La ponía y se me quedaba muy pegada y una noche cuando no podía dormir, (ella) se puso a investigar un poquito y encontró que era todo un género que se originó en Cabo Verde, que es de donde es Cesaria”.
Sodade es una palabra del criollo caboverdiano que Evora tomó para cantar con mucho sentimiento las ausencias. Un sampleo de esa canción se puede escuchar en el tema que da título al álbum en el cual Kaarl tiene como invitado al rapero mexicano NSKQ.
“Le puse ‘ULTRA SODADE’, siento que sodade por más que si sea ese significado de nostalgia o añoranza, siento que al menos con Cesaria Evora lo llevó a algo un poco más importante, un sentimiento más fuerte”, dijo Kaarl. “Esa canción está hablando de cómo ella extraña su hogar porque hubo una dictadura en su país, entonces me imagino que mucha gente tuvo que salir de ahí e irse a otras partes”.
A pesar de esta base emocional delicada, el álbum tiene piezas más rítmicas y con toques electrónicos que las producciones anteriores de Kaarl como “Esta noche” y “búscame otra vez”, que se han convertido en favoritas de sus fans. Kaarl logró este sonido renovado gracias a la colaboración de su hermano mellizo Bryan, quien fungió como su productor principal, siendo el primer álbum de Kaarl en el que trabajó completamente con un productor, lo que le llevó a experimentar en otros temas como “Dime”.
“Bryan le metió sintetizadores y como un acordeón que embona (encaja) muy bien con el ritmo”, dijo Kaarl sobre esta última canción. “Bryan se puso a aprender a darle de todo, programas (de producción), es muy bueno, terminó haciendo las cosas muy bien y entendiendo muy bien cómo funciona cada cosa”.
Los hermanos tienen ahora su propio estudio en Chihuahua, lo que facilitó que trabajaran en cada canción. Sus horarios e intereses llevaron a un sonido muy nocturno. Kevin solía grabar sus voces y guitarra de día y Bryan completaba la producción de noche, hasta la madrugada.
“Lo siento como un álbum de noche y sí me gustaría que la gente lo viera con esa vibra, siento que es un álbum que embona mucho esos sentimientos que llegan en la noche, cuando estás solito y más tranquilo”, dijo Kaarl.
Para Kaarl es su tercer álbum tras “Paris Texas”, “Hasta el fin del mundo” y su EP “San Lucas”. En el caso de “ULTRA SODADE” dedicó casi dos años en su producción.
“Cambió mucho mi forma de escribir y mi forma de percibir las letras, siento también que obviamente los sonidos porque voy reconociendo nuevos artistas, nuevas bandas”, dijo. “Nos tardamos porque íbamos componiendo y luego grabábamos y al ser mi primera vez con un productor, a veces yo batallaba para darle mis ideas o para darle qué esencia quería llevar. Pero también porque le estuvimos metiendo exactamente lo que queríamos y buscábamos y no queríamos que se quedara una canción con sonidos que no cascaran tanto”.
Kaarl dijo que estuvo una época “traumadito con la música de Bob Dylan” y que encuentra algunos puntos en común con la evolución que ha tenido en su música.
“Vivió lo mismo que yo en el sentido de pasar de solamente folk a meter más instrumentos y cambiar el estilo con el que la gente lo reconocía”, señaló.
Otro de sus guías musicales es José José, de quien lanzó recientemente una versión de “El triste” para conmemorar el 55 aniversario de la primera interpretación del tema, compuesto por Roberto Cantoral, en aquella histórica interpretación del Festival de la Canción Latina.
Kaarl está por comenzar su internacional ULTRA SODADE, que lo llevará por México, Estados Unidos, Europa y Sudamérica. La gira, que comienza el 22 de abril en Atlanta, incluye paradas en Nueva York, Chicago, Los Ángeles, Ciudad de México, Madrid, Barcelona, Londres, París, Bogotá, Montevideo, Buenos Aires y Santiago de Chile, entre otras ciudades.
“Vamos a estar en todas partes y vamos a estar tocando un concierto muchísimo más elaborado”, dijo Kaarl. “Va a ser un concierto muy diferente a los que hemos tenido desde que inicié, yo siento que a la gente le va a gustar más y siento que va a conectar más con las canciones”.
Kaarl también adelantó que estará lanzando más contenido visual.
“Soy una persona a la que le gusta mucho el cine y todo eso, así que quiero continuar con la historia para terminar de contar bien todo lo que ha pasado en este álbum”, señaló.
While Virginia’s current
governor is facing more partisan pushback from the Democrat leadership in the General Assembly over his nominees to serve on state boards and commissions in the waning months of his administration (more regarding that issue coming soon to this space), two former Democrat governors have reached across the aisle to make suggestions to President Donald Trump for Virginia’s two open U.S. attorneys positions.
It is tradition that, regardless of party, when there are U.S. attorney vacancies in a state, the U.S. senators
of that state recommend to the president potential replacements.
Sens. Tim Kaine and Mark Warner have jointly recommended to the president that he hire either Virginia House of Delegates Republican Minority Leader Todd Gilbert of Shenandoah County or former Albemarle County Commonwealth’s Attorney Robert Tracci, a Republican, to serve as the U.S. attorney for the Western District of Virginia
.
Tracci is currently senior assistant attorney general and head of the Major Crimes and Emerging Threats Section of the Virginia Attorney General’s Office.
The senators also recommended Michael Gill, assistant counsel for shipbuilder Huntington Ingalls Industries, and Erik Siebert for the U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia. Siebert has served in that role since Jan. 21 in an interim capacity.
Long-term Richmond politics-watchers might cravenly think that the recommendation of Gilbert could be motivated by a desire to take one of the GOP’s leaders out of the General Assembly. However, Gilbert said in an interview with the Virginia Scope that he had put his name in for the position, pointing out that he was a “prosecutor in four different jurisdictions over 14 years, and certainly, criminal justice policy has been at the core of my service in the General Assembly since I got there.”
Tracci touted his experience as a prosecutor in the western region of the state when he told The Daily Signal that he had served as a special assistant U.S. attorney for the Western District of Virginia
and served in two Commonwealth’s Attorney’s Offices in Albemarle and Louisa Counties, both in the Western District. He said that plus his experience in the Virginia Attorney General’s Office uniquely qualify him to lead the U.S. Attorney’s Office “on Day One.”
The senators’ joint statement on the four candidates doesn’t hint at any other agenda. “We find these four candidates to be exceptionally qualified for the position of U.S. attorney,” they wrote.
The president will nominate one person for each office. Nominees will be considered first by the Senate Judiciary Committee and then be subject to a confirmation vote in the full Senate
.
