\o7 WASHINGTON\f7 — Here is a chronology of major events that led up to Wednesday’s resignation of House Speaker Jim Wright (D-Tex.). May 18, 1988–Common Cause, a citizens lobbying group, calls for a formal House ethics investigation of Wright, citing possible improprieties in the publication and sale of his 1986 book, “Reflections of a Public Man.”
May 26, 1988–Rep. Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.) files a formal complaint with the House Committee on Standards of Official Conduct, or Ethics Committee as it is known, requesting a probe of the Speaker’s financial dealings.
June 9, 1988–The Ethics Committee, after an eight-hour session lasting late into the evening, votes unanimously to conduct a broad investigation of Wright.
Sept. 14, 1988–Wright testifies before the committee in closed session.
Feb. 22, 1989–After more than six months of investigation and statements from 73 witnesses, committee special counsel Richard J. Phelan submits a 279-page report to the panel on his findings.
April 13, 1989–Wright, in an impassioned House speech, denies that he wrongfully accepted gifts from a business associate or sought to evade House limits on outside income through sales of his book.
April 17, 1989–The Ethics Committee announces it has found “probable cause” to charge Wright with 69 violations of House rules, including acceptance of $145,000 in improper gifts from Ft. Worth developer George A. Mallick Jr. and attempts to evade House limits on honorariums by selling copies of his book to trade associations and other groups in lieu of accepting speaking fees.
May 2, 1989–Wright, denying he knowingly violated any rules, publicly appeals for an early hearing on misconduct charges to “present my side,” but committee members say they first must complete their investigation into other allegations.
May 9, 1989–Wright and a team of attorneys launch his defense against misconduct charges by criticizing the fairness of Phelan’s investigation, charging that it distorted the evidence to place Wright in the harshest light.
May 10, 1989–Ethics Committee votes to expand its inquiry to look into a Texas oil well deal that gave Wright a quick profit of $340,000 last year.
May 23, 1989–At a formal committee hearing, Wright’s attorney, Stephen D. Susman of Houston, asks panel members to drop the major charges against Wright on grounds his actions did not constitute violations of House rules of conduct.
May 24, 1989–Congressional supporters of Wright, working behind the scenes, fail to win agreement from committee members to reduce charges against the Speaker in return for his promise to resign office. Wright later disavows any interest in a “deal” on the charges.
May 31, 1989–In an impassioned one-hour address on the House floor, Wright offers to resign his House seat and his speakership and calls on his colleagues to halt the ethics attacks on opposing party members.
The river rushes white around each of the large, flattish rocks as I tread tentatively over the stepping stones that Dovedale is famous for. This limestone valley on the border between Derbyshire and Staffordshire is a popular spot for day trips and hiking. Thankfully, it’s quiet on this brisk November morning, and I’m able to soak in the scene: the River Dove flowing fast, the autumn trees turning russet and gold, the green fold of hills rising around me.
On days like this, it’s clear why Dovedale has inspired creatives. One of those was the 18th-century artist Joseph Wright of Derby, whose work is being celebrated in a new exhibition at the National Gallery.
Landscapes such as Dovedale were painted by Wright at a time when “people started travelling to places that in those days were hard to get to – places like the Peak District”, says Tony Butler, executive director of Derby Museums Trust. We meet at Derby Museum and Art Gallery, which houses the world’s largest collection of Wright’s paintings. Places such as Dovedale were seen as wild, Butler explains, but there was an increasing appreciation of landscapes like this, with a gradual opening up of the country, and the idea of nature evoking the sublime.
Wright’s Dovedale By Moonlight. Photograph: Alamy
The gallery showcases Wright’s prolific and varied work. In the place of paintings that have gone to the National Gallery exhibition are works from other artists, including paintings inspired by Wright’s use of light and dark by Nottingham-based Joseph Norris.
Much of Wright’s work reflects the industry and invention of the Enlightenment, a time of faith in reason and scientific discovery. As a hub of industrial growth, Derby was one of the Midlands towns at the centre of the movement, and Wright spent time with members of the Lunar Society, the Midlands-based group of Enlightenment thinkers. “The Enlightenment was a way of life in Derby, and he was a documenter of that,” says Butler. “He’s really reflecting the spirit of the age.”
One of Wright’s most famous works, A Philosopher Giving That Lecture on the Orrery (in Which a Lamp Is Put in Place of the Sun), shows a philosopher lecturing on the solar system at a time when talks like this were held in Derby’s town hall. He painted portraits of figures reflecting the area’s role in industry, including Sir Richard Arkwright, the industrialist who built his cotton mill in nearby Cromford and was one of Wright’s patrons.
I have lunch at The Engine Room, a recently opened restaurant that draws on another element of Derby’s industrial heritage, as a centre for railway manufacturing, with railway art decorating the walls. Afterwards, I wander with Alex Rock from Derby Museums along the River Derwent as Canada geese bob by and the breeze throws leaves on the water. It’s a short walk to the Museum of Making, which stands on the site of Derby Silk Mill, often regarded as the world’s first modern factory, near where Wright grew up.
The Museum of Making. Photograph: Kate Lowe
The museum explores 300 years of Derby’s history of making, from the Enlightenment era that inspired Wright through to the city’s contemporary creativity. A Toyota car hangs high in the atrium as a sign of Derbyshire’s modern manufacturing. “In Stoke, we lift up crockery to see where it’s made,” I say, a nod to my own home town’s industry. “I do the same,” Rock says, and we lift our coffee mugs to see them stamped as Denby, the Derbyshire-based pottery company. Afterwards, I join the crowd gathered to watch the trains running on the museum’s impressive model railway.
I look around the Assemblage room, curated so items are displayed by their principal material, such as wood or metal. There are racks of everything from Derby-made train parts to ceramics showcasing the museum’s collection. The museum is also home to a workshop where visitors can book sessions to learn skills such as pot-throwing and woodwork.
We wander to Derby cathedral, striking for how bright it is inside a nave that was rebuilt in 1725 – the large windows symbolically letting in the light of the Enlightenment. I amble down Sadler Gate, a pedestrianised street lined with independent shops, where I settle for a while with a pint of cider at the Old Bell Hotel, a 17th-century former coaching inn that’s been sensitively restored.
Following the Derwent and the A6 north leads to the village of Cromford, home to Cromford Mills, the world’s first successful water-powered cotton spinning mill. I join an hour-long guided tour and learn how it was built in 1771 by Arkwright, and is seen as another important site of the Industrial Revolution. The tour takes us into vast old factory buildings, and we see examples of the machinery that would have been used. Wright painted Cromford Mills in day and night scenes.
Cromford, home to Sir Richard Arkwright’s cotton mill. Photograph: Daniel Matthams/Alamy
I have lunch at Oakhill, built by the Arkwright family in the mid-19th century as a private family dwelling, and now a boutique hotel and restaurant. I eat a delicious and generously sized cauliflower steak in the elegant restaurant, with wide windows offering views over the Derbyshire countryside.
I leave with a sense of the people and places that inspired Joseph Wright, from the valley of Dovedale to the industrial changes of the 18th century, and how places like Cromford and Derby are drawing on that history. As Alex Rock says: “If you really want to experience the culture that Wright came from, you need to come to Derby.”
Nahshon Wright had just made a huge play for the Chicago Bears, and in spectacular fashion.
The fifth-year cornerback leapt high in full sprint with his hand stretched over his head to intercept a pass by Vikings quarterback J.J. McCarthy in the end zone to preserve a 10-3 Bears lead late in the second quarter.
No wild celebration followed. Instead, Wright jogged to the back of the end zone and took a knee in memory of Oakland football legend John Beam, the former football coach at Laney College who died Friday after being shot on campus a day earlier.
“He was watching over me,” Wright, who played for Beam at Laney in 2018, said after the Bears’ 19-17 victory on Sunday . “It’s crazy. He called me the night before he passed and he told me that every game he watched, I just seemed to get a pick. So I just know he was behind me today.”
Just before noon Thursday, the Oakland Police Department responded to reports of gunshots at Laney and found Beam suffering from gunshot wounds. He was transported to an area hospital, where he was listed in critical condition. At approximately 10 a.m. the next day, Beam was pronounced dead.
Oakland police arrested 27-year-old Oakland resident Cedric Irving Jr. as a suspect in the case early Friday morning at the San Leandro BART station. Irving is a former football player at Skyline High School where Beam once coached, but police said he did not play under Beam.
Former Laney Collegefootball coach John Beam holds the trophy after the Eagles won the California Community College Athletic Assn. championship in 2018.
(Peralta Community College District via Associated Press)
Irving and Beam knew each other but were not close, acting Oakland Police Chief James Beere said Friday at a news conference. Beere added that Irving isn’t a student at Laney but “was on campus for a specific reason” on Thursday.
“This was a very targeted incident,” Beere said.
On Monday, Irving was charged with murder and 10 other felonies related to Beam’s death. Alameda County District Attorney Ursula Jones Dickson said during an afternoon news conference that Irving faces 50 years to life in prison if convicted.
Irving is scheduled for arraignment on Tuesday, Jones Dickson said.
Beam coached football in Oakland for more than 40 years. He came to Laney as running backs coach in 2004, was promoted to offensive coordinator in 2005 and was head coach from 2012-2024. Upon retirement from coaching, Beam continued to serve as Laney’s athletic director, a post he had held since 2006.
For many of his players and members of the community, Beam was much more than a coach, as seen by viewers of Season 5 of the Netflix documentary series “Last Chance U,” which focused on Beam and the Eagles during the 2019 football season.
“Filming with him at Laney College gave us a firsthand look at his passion, his integrity, and his unwavering commitment to the young men he coached — and to the city of Oakland,” the show’s creator, Greg Whiteley, wrote Friday on X.
Wright told reporters that Beam was “someone I could confide in, someone that I love dearly.” He added that the coach filled a huge void for him and his brother — New Orleans Saints cornerback Rejzohn Wright, who played at Laney in 2018 and 2019 — after the death of their father in 2017.
“Beam stepped in, stepped in as a father figure, a father role,” Nahshon Wright said. “He did a lot for me and my brother, my family. He’s been there. He’s been there every step of the way, and it won’t stop. I gained an angel, for sure.”
In a scene from “Last Chance U,” Laney coach John Beam talks to player Rejzohn Wright.
(Netflix)
Rejzohn Wright reposted a video clip of his brother’s interception and its aftermath on X and wrote: “Long live Coach beam forever with us!”
In an Oct. 19 Instagram post, Beam wrote that he was “in Chicago to watch the brothers battle” as the Bears hosted the Saints. The pride and love Beam felt toward his former players was more than evident in the photos he posted and the words he wrote.
“The Wright Way — always believe and keep grinding, never give up and believe the path will open up,” Beam wrote.
