training

It began as a typical political foray: Prominent defense attorney Jack McMahon, the Republican candidate for district attorney in Philadelphia, called the incumbent Lynn Abraham “racially insensitive.” A familiar campaign claim, yet it uncommonly irked those in the D.A.’s office who knew McMahon from his eight-year tenure as an assistant D.A. After reading his comments in the local newspapers, two prosecutors stepped forward to say they recalled seeing a not-terribly-sensitive training videotape McMahon made back in 1987 for the D.A.’s office. One prosecutor, in fact, had the tape in hand. He had found it in his desk drawer.

Abraham, surrounded by her top deputies, settled before a VCR. The donnybrook that erupted soon after has yet to subside. Politics, legalisms, morals, ethics and barefaced hypocrisy all share center stage; which truly define this melee remains an open question.

First, the genesis. Here are excerpts from McMahon’s one-hour videotaped lesson on jury selection:

“You do not want smart people. I wish we could ask everyone’s IQ. If you could know their IQ, you could pick a great jury all the time. You don’t want smart people because smart people will analyze the hell out of your case. . . . They take those words ‘reasonable doubt’ and they actually try to think about them.

“You don’t want social workers. That’s obvious. They got intelligence, sensitivity, all this stuff. You don’t want them. . . . Teachers, you don’t like. Teachers are bad, especially young teachers. Like teachers who teach in the grade-school level.

“In selecting blacks, you don’t want the real educated ones. This goes across the board. All races. You don’t want smart people. If you’re going to take blacks, you want older black men and women, particularly men. Older black men are very good.

“Blacks from the South, excellent. . . . If they are from South Carolina and places like that, I tell you, I don’t think you can ever lose a jury with blacks from South Carolina. They are dynamite. They are on the cops’ side.

“My experience, young black women are very bad. There’s an antagonism. I guess maybe they’re downtrodden in two respects. They are women and they’re black . . . so they somehow want to take it out on somebody, and you don’t want it to be you.

“Let’s face it, the blacks from the low-income areas are less likely to convict. I understand it. There’s a resentment for law enforcement. There’s a resentment for authority. And as a result, you don’t want those people on your jury.

“It may appear as if you’re being racist, but you’re just being realistic. You’re just trying to win the case. The other side is doing the same thing. . . . The only way you’re going to do your best is to get jurors that are unfair, and more likely to convict than anybody else in that room.

“The case law says the object of getting a jury . . . is to get a competent, fair and impartial jury. Well, that’s ridiculous. You’re not trying to get that. Both sides are trying to get the jury most likely to do whatever they want them to do. . . . . You are there to win. . . . If you think that it’s some noble thing, some esoteric game, you’re wrong and you’ll lose.”

Advice to novices indeed. When McMahon’s videotape reached its end, Abraham and her deputies huddled. They had just seen something obviously repugnant and arguably illegal; the U.S. Supreme Court in 1986 ruled you can’t take race into consideration in selecting jurors. They had also, of course, just seen something that appeared to put a political opponent in an awfully bad light. “All of us,” Abraham would later say, “to a man and to a woman, concluded that it was absolutely necessary, essential and right that this tape be revealed.”

With a cover letter saying “We have determined that disclosure to you is the ethically appropriate course,” Abraham’s office sent the videotape to defense attorneys who represented the 36 people McMahon had successfully prosecuted for murder between 1982 and 1990. Eyes widened with delight in a lot of Philadelphia lawyers’ offices that day. Here were grounds for seeking new trials for convicted clients, and not just in cases McMahon himself had prosecuted. Any young prosecutor who had seen McMahon’s tape was fair game. A cop killer, a barroom shooter, a mobster goon–all had second chances now.

Declared one defense attorney: “That tape is the most disgraceful thing I’ve ever seen. . . . My client deserves a new trial. My client’s been sitting in jail for a decade and a half and never got a fair trial.”

Opined another: “This may have opened a Pandora’s box of hundreds, maybe thousands of tainted convictions. . . . There’s no telling how many attorneys in that office saw that tape.”

The impact even reached into a murder trial then underway, where McMahon was toiling as defense attorney. His client worried what the jurors were thinking about that week’s headlines. McMahon didn’t know. The judge declared a mistrial.

Then came the unexpected turn in this tale. Despite some clucking from law professors–”inappropriate . . . crosses the line . . .troubling”– McMahon didn’t really draw much heat. Local politicos, even black leaders, held their tongues. So did state Supreme Court Justice Ronald D. Castille, who had been D.A. when McMahon made the tape. Suddenly, it was Abraham on the defensive. A backlash had set in.

All sorts of people declared themselves stunned by her release of the videotape. A crass move, they suggested, a new low in politics. For political gain, she had let 36 convicted murderers walk. What’s more, she had trafficked in hypocrisy, not being known herself for much racial sensitivity. Low-down dirty stuff, declared one black city councilman.

Soon McMahon was happily doing the television talk-show route, showing up on everything from “Geraldo” to “Good Morning America.” People were approaching him on Philadelphia streets, shaking his hand, saying: “We’re with you.” Regret and retreat were the furthest thing from his mind.

“It’s done today, it’s going to be done tomorrow, and I don’t apologize for it,” McMahon declared about his jury-selection advice. “I only said what any good jury consultant would charge hundreds of thousands of dollars to tell you: Some people, black or white, help your case, other people hurt it. That’s not being racist–that’s being realistic. Every lawyer in the world uses these techniques.”

For awhile, Abraham tried to counter.

“The sentiments and practices discussed on that videotape are repugnant to me, and they are in direct contradiction to my beliefs and to the policies of this office,” she offered. She was “ethically, morally and legally compelled to make it public” once she learned of its existence. McMahon was a “rogue assistant district attorney.” At a press conference Abraham flatly declared: “I am morally right. I am legally right. I am ethically right.”

Despite the election-year context, some truly believed that this former judge was speaking in earnest. Yet in the end it didn’t much matter. One likely reason: People sensed truth in McMahon’s claims. Whatever Abraham’s motives, the D.A. basically had declared herself shocked–shocked!–at repugnant but fairly common practices.

Three Philadelphia judges, speaking on condition of anonymity in recent days, have told local reporters that McMahon’s techniques are routinely employed by both the D.A.’s office and defense attorneys. One defense lawyer and former prosecutor, on the record, has advised: “I’m not saying everyone does it, but it’s part of real life in the real courthouse.” Philadelphia’s mayor, Edward G. Rendell, a former two-term D.A., has been quoted as saying: “If you look at the totality of what he’s talking about, I think it is a veteran prosecutor lecturing young prosecutors about jury selection.”

Thus, this particular extravaganza rolls on, heading toward a November election, perceived and described in multiple ways. This much, at least, can be fairly said: What finally is extraordinary about McMahon’s remarks is not their content, but their wide and unabashed public circulation.

“It’s flabbergasting,” pointed out jury consultant Paul Tieger, “that this guy put this on a videotape.”

Players’ injuries are usually announced through official club channels or a manager’s news conference.

But a planned appearance by Manchester United striker Matheus Cunha to turn on the Christmas lights in Altrincham has sparked injury concerns among fans.

The Brazil forward had been due to attend the event alongside Sam Aston – who plays Chesney on Coronation Street – on Saturday evening, just two days before United host Everton in the Premier League on Monday.

However, just hours before the festive extravaganza, organisers Visit Altrincham said in a Facebook post that Cunha would not be attending “due to medical reasons” as the player “had an accident in training”.

United have not yet confirmed any further details or whether this will affect Cunha’s availability for the Everton match.

BBC Sport has contacted United for comment. It is understood the appearance was not arranged through the club.

Cunha, who signed for £62.5m from Wolves in the summer, has played a key role in United’s resurgence this season – with Ruben Amorim’s side unbeaten in their past five games.

He scored his first goal for the club in a 4-2 win over Brighton in October and played in both of Brazil’s friendlies in the recent international window.

On Friday, head coach Amorim confirmed striker Benjamin Sesko would be out until the middle of next month with a knee injury.

If Cunha is not available for Monday’s game, it would force Amorim into a major reshuffle.

Mason Mount would come into contention, but Kobbie Mainoo and Joshua Zirkzee could also be drafted into Amorim’s starting line-up for the first time this season in the Premier League.

It also raises the possibility of a call-up for England Under-20 international Shea Lacey, who has impressed in United’s Premier League 2 squad this season.

A spokesman for the Long Beach Unified School District announced on Wednesday that it has completed an internal investigation regarding seven athletes who had violated CIF rule 202, which states all transfers must file accurate paperwork, and imposed punishment on three football coaches involved with transfers, including removing head coach Justin Utupo.

In a media release, the district stated that Poly’s walk-on head coach has been released and won’t be allowed to coach in the district. One assistant coach who resigned is also barred from coaching. Another assistant has been relieved from all coaching duties and transferred to another location to be a campus staff assistant. The district said it concluded “three coaches engaged in unethical conduct inconsistent with CIF eligibility rules.”

Utupo said he resigned Wednesday morning after meeting with his players and was unaware of the district announcement.

Utupo came from Lakewood this season to be head coach for a Long Beach Poly program that has won 20 CIF titles. After a 5-5 season, the school announced it would not allow the team to be part of the Southern Section playoffs.

Going forward, the district said it will review all athletic programs in its district to ensure “protocols, training and expectations are clearly understood and consistently applied.” The district is also waiting to see if the Southern Section has any additional sanctions. Seven Poly athletes are listed in the Southern Section transfer portal as having been denied eligibility for two years for violating bylaw 202.

Hundreds of National Guard troops deployed to Chicago and Portland, Ore., are being sent home, and those who will remain will continue to stay off the streets amid court battles over their deployment by the Trump administration, a defense official said Monday.

The withdrawal of soldiers — sent from California and Texas — is part of a larger change to troop deployments after President Trump began his immigration crackdown in various cities with Democratic leadership. The official requested anonymity because they were not authorized to publicly discuss the issue.

U.S. Northern Command said in a statement Sunday it was “shifting and/or rightsizing” units in Portland, Los Angeles and Chicago. Although it said there would be a “constant, enduring, and long-term presence in each city.”

In the coming days, 200 California National Guard troops currently deployed to Oregon will be sent home, and about 100 will remain in the Portland area doing training, the official said. The military also plans to cut in half the number of Oregon National Guard troops on deployment there from 200 soldiers to 100, the official said.

About 200 Texas National Guard troops in Chicago also are being sent home and about 200 soldiers will be on standby at Fort Bliss, an Army base that stretches across parts of Texas and New Mexico, the official said.

About 300 Illinois National Guard troops will remain in the Chicago area, also doing training, but they currently are not legally allowed to conduct operations with the Department of Homeland Security, the official said.

The official said the upcoming holiday season may have played a role in the change in deployments.

Diana Crofts-Pelayo, a spokesperson for California Gov. Gavin Newsom, said Trump “never should have illegally deployed our troops in the first place.”

“We’re glad they’re finally coming home,” she wrote in an email. “It’s long overdue!”

Separately, the Trump administration has stepped up immigration enforcement in Charlotte, North Carolina, expanding an aggressive campaign that’s been spearheaded by U.S. Customs and Border Protection.

National Guard deployments have been one of the most controversial initiatives of Trump’s second term, demonstrating an expanded willingness to use the military to accomplish domestic goals.

Troops, including active-duty Marines, were deployed to Los Angeles during immigration protests earlier this year.

The National Guard was also sent to Washington, D.C., where they were part of a broader federal intervention that Trump claimed was necessary because of crime problems.

The deployments later expanded to Portland and Chicago.

Although they don’t play a law enforcement role, members of the National Guard have been tasked with protecting federal facilities, particularly those run by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

About 100 troops who have been in Los Angeles will remain on deployment, the defense official said.

Watson writes for the Associated Press. AP writer Chris Megerian in Washington contributed to this report.

Seasoned fitness coaches Mary Pelino and Lizzy Picardi met at their local powerlifting gym, where they instantly became friends in meet-cute fashion. The hours they spent together sparked the beginning of an idea: to open an inclusive, women-owned gym. After finding a space, Pelino and Picardi officially launched the small-but-mighty Rose City Barbell in the summer of 2022.

“Our mission from the beginning,” Pelino told me, “has been to make humans stronger. That includes everyone — women, men, any gender, from beginners to advanced lifters.” This is why Pelino designs the Monday through Friday barbell programming with modifications in mind: so that everyone can perform the same lifts, no matter their skill level.

I am self-conscious about my piddly strength, but when I walked into Rose City’s brick-lined main room, where there were daisies painted on the lilac-colored deadlift platforms, my lizard brain felt at ease. The gym was also stocked with a variety of inclusive, high-quality equipment, such as 15 to 55 pound specialty barbells, belts of all sizes, 10-pound bumper plates and fractional plates as light as a quarter pound.

That morning, I was greeted by my coach, Sionann, as well as my gym-mate, Davida, before preparing to work on our bench presses. We warmed up together, then performed a light set of bench presses, three sets of six. In between sets, I learned that Davida was a gallery owner, a mother of two, and like me, found Rose City through word-of-mouth. Pumping iron, as it turns out, is a social affair — especially when the classes, which are capped at eight, are this intimate.

“The beauty of the gym comes from the people who we spend time with,” said Picardi, which is why Rose City hosts an array of social events for the community, including clothing swaps, lettering classes and Friendsgiving potlucks. The gym also hosts seasonal mock meets where attendees compete in a setting that emulates the experience of a professional powerlifting meet, prizes and all.

After the main lift, we moved onto accessory work. Sionann gently corrected my form as I performed gorilla rows, instructing me to picture my arms as if they were chains. I pulled the dumbbells off the floor toward my hips, mimicking the movements of a majestic ape. By the end of the class, I did indeed feel like a stronger Homo sapien.

Parking: Plenty of street parking

Pricing: $45 per drop-in; $325 for 13 classes per month; $433 for unlimited classes plus gym access

She doesn’t have a driver’s license. Often doesn’t get movie references. Reminds many of their little sisters.

There’s always some story or tidbit involving Meila Brewer that will make her teammates laugh or gush about playing alongside the freshman center back who’s believed to be the youngest athlete in UCLA history.

Why, it wasn’t so long ago that Brewer floored everybody else on the women’s soccer team when each player shared how old they were when the pandemic hit. As almost everybody ticked off one year or another in high school, all eyes turned to Brewer.

“Oh,” she announced, “I was in fifth grade.”

That doesn’t mean that she’s easily identifiable. Coach Margueritte Aozasa has made an informal game of asking anyone who inquires about having a 16-year-old on her roster to pick her out when scanning the players on the field.

No one has gotten it right on the first handful of attempts.

“They’ll point out three or four players,” Aozasa said, “and I’ll be like, ‘No, it’s probably the one you would least expect.’ ”

Being one of the tallest players on the team at 5-foot-8 provides some cover, but it’s also her precocious nature and the skills she developed while training with a professional team and playing for the U.S. youth national team that give her a veteran presence.

There’s been no underage shrinking, Brewer living up to every moment as fourth-seeded UCLA (11-5-3) prepares to open the NCAA tournament at 6 p.m. Saturday at home against Pepperdine (11-6-2).

OK, maybe a hint of her youth emerged when she was asked how she felt about playing on college soccer’s biggest stage.

“Freaking out,” Brewer said. “Like, when you think about it, I’m soooo excited, that’s like the only way you can put it.”

This will be just her eighth game with the Bruins as a result of her recent participation in the FIFA under-17 Women’s World Cup in Morocco, where the Americans won their group before losing to the Netherlands on penalty kicks in the Round of 16.

Her UCLA teammates followed the action from afar, one posting a picture of herself shedding celebratory tears in a group chat after Brewer scored in the opening game. After the competition ended, Brewer boarded one flight for Atlanta before getting on another one bound for Los Angeles, only to hop back on a third plane a little more than 12 hours later to accompany her Bruins teammates to West Lafayette, Ind., for the Big Ten tournament.

“Coming back from Morocco, I had missed a decent amount of games,” Brewer said, “but I feel like the girls have been so supportive of helping me get reintegrated and getting right back into the flow just because we’re in tournament time and we want to succeed.”

Aozasa said she’s reminded her players that there’s a 16-year-old on the team and to behave appropriately. Brewer’s roommate, Payten Cooper, is two years older than her even though she’s also a freshman. Lexi Wright, a redshirt senior forward, is seven years older.

But those age gaps aren’t a big deal to Brewer considering she’s already spent a year and a half training with players in their 30s on the Kansas City Current, a team in the National Women’s Soccer League.

“It’s no surprise that she’s gonna be able to fit in right away and be successful at that level at UCLA,” said Vasil Ristov, the coach of the Current’s second team who was also Brewer’s youth club coach, “because she’s seen some of the top talent in the world and she’s participated in training sessions with them.”

Just reaching UCLA at such a young age was a major triumph.

Having taken a heavy class load in middle school and her first two years of high school to lessen the academic burden on her later, Brewer had reclassified once by the time she visited UCLA last spring. That’s when her love for a place she had long considered her dream school truly took hold, Brewer feeling the pull to play immediately even though she had more than a year of high school remaining.

“She was like, ‘What if I just come in this fall?’ ” said her father, Austin Brewer, who was also on the trip. “And I’m like, ‘Well, I don’t think it works that way.’ ”

After checking it out, the family realized it was a possibility. Meila (pronounced MEE-luh) worked nonstop from April through the end of July. She didn’t get to participate in high school graduation ceremonies but was rewarded with something greater — a chance to play for the Bruins.

Her schedule includes nearly as many parent check-ins as classes. Austin and Shelly Brewer routinely call in the morning, midday and evening, sometimes adding oldest daughter Sasha, a freshman defender for the University of Miami women’s soccer team, to FaceTime chats.

Classes haven’t been as hard as Brewer imagined, though she’s still trying to pick a major.

“Coming into college,” she said, “I was prepping myself for the worst, so I feel like I was ready for it.”

On the field, Brewer is known for a physical style that allows her to impede opposing forwards in her role as a defender and smart playmaking while on the attack. They’re all traits that could help her fulfill her goal of playing for the U.S. national team.

Having always played up one or more levels on club teams, sometimes alongside boys, Brewer developed a strong sense of self.

“I asked her once who her favorite player was, who did she want to be like,” Shelly Brewer said, “and I’ll never forget this — we laugh about it all the time — she said, ‘I don’t want to be like anyone; I want to be like me.’ ”

In a nod to her age and the fact that she’s still growing, Brewer sometimes gets tendinitis in her knees. She wants to be just one of the girls, her youth a novelty but not a defining characteristic.

“I want to be seen as an equal on the field or a leader on the field in what I can do besides my age,” she said. “I just want to be able to stand out for how I play and not on the age side of it.”

That’s not to say that someone who won’t turn 17 until March isn’t having as much fun as everybody else whenever the subject comes up.

“It’s like, ‘Oh my gosh, you’re a baby,’ ” Brewer said, “and I’m like, ‘Yep, I am.’ ”