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One after another, a dozen young cheerleaders raced across a springy blue mat and flung themselves into a series of roundoffs and backflips, the thump of their hands and feet reverberating through the open Ohio gym. Mishelle Robinson, the gym owner and coach, called out instructions across the cavernous warehouse. "Arms up!" Photos of beaming… Continue reading Cheerleading has a list of people banned from the sport. It was missing 74 convicted sex offenders
By Friday, March 6, there was no escaping the fact that the spread of the novel coronavirus would soon upend American life. There were confirmed cases in two dozen states, including Washington, where a state of emergency had been declared after at least 10 people died in the previous week in connection with a single nursing home.… Continue reading Golf, handshakes and a Mar-a-Lago conga line: Squandered week highlights Trump’s lack of COVID-19 focus
CAMP HILL, Pa. – On a Sunday morning in late 2017, Oakwood Baptist Church pastor Donald Foose stood before a congregation that had been blindsided by the sudden departure of their previous head pastor. Foose offered no answers to their lingering questions. Instead, his voice booming through the sparse sanctuary, he preached about the destructive… Continue reading ‘The tongue is a fire’
AZIZABAD, Afghanistan – Once the Americans left, the survivors started digging. There were too many dead and not enough shovels, so a local politician brought in heavy machinery from a nearby construction site. He dug graves deep enough to fit mothers with children, or children with children. Some were still in their pajamas, their hands… Continue reading Show of Force
In 1995, Leonard Forte was due in a Vermont courtroom to face charges that he'd repeatedly raped and molested his daughter's 12-year-old friend. Instead, he started dying. Forte, then a 54-year-old former detective with the Suffolk County District Attorney’s Office in New York, told the Vermont court his heart had failed and that he was… Continue reading ‘I’ve been dying for 25 years’: How a cop has stalled his child sex abuse trial for decades
Matthew Doig 