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Zachary Parker wasnt up against a Green Team incumbent in Ward 5, but in many other other respects, his convincing primary win sure feels a lot like the one Ward 4 Councilmember Janeese Lewis George pulled off two years ago.

In both cases, most politicos were expecting things to come down to the wire; instead, both won handily. The candidates themselves arent so different either: young, Black, and generally outspoken about their left leanings. Lewis George even endorsed Parker, one of just a few sitting elected officials to do so.

And perhaps most crucially, both benefited from a small army of volunteers from D.C.s coterie of left-leaning groups, such as D.C. for Democracy, a constellation of labor unions, and the local chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America. The latter group alone says its 60 volunteers knocked on a total of 40,000 doors for Parker since late Januaryfor context, theres about 53,300 registered Democrats in the entire ward, per elections officials latest estimates. Loose Lips is beginning to suspect theyve found a model for winning ward races thats replicable.

DSA has a very focused strategy and its clearly a smart one, says Zach Teutsch, who helped manage Lewis Georges 2020 bid and supported Parker this time around. They knew that if they could knock 30,000 to 40,000 doors it would be the difference in the race, and they were correct.

Its difficult to see what else couldve helped Parker win so decisively. The candidates all raised pretty similar amounts of money via the citys public financing program, so its not as if Parker had some huge cash advantage.

It wasnt exactly a weak field either: Councilmember Kenyan McDuffie bowed out, but proven Ward 5 vote-getter Vincent Orange was in the race (for full disclosure, Orange is suing LL for defamation over several past articles). Gordon-Andrew Fletcher and Faith Gibson Hubbard have deep ties in community organizing there, too, and Gibson Hubbard specifically had the benefit of McDuffies backing (and the implicit support of Mayor Muriel Bowsers administration).

Yet Parker won in a walk anyway, with his race one of the first called on election night (he beat second-place finisher Gibson Hubbard by more than 18 points, according to preliminary results). Parker himself says his message of bringing change to Ward 5 plainly resonated with voters and put him over the top, but the on-the-ground organization was probably just as important.

Tom Lindenfeld, a longtime political strategist in the city whos run organizing efforts for both Bowser and Adrian Fenty, suspects that Parkers success in lining up that much volunteer support was the decisive factor. He rejects the notion that most voters care much about the moderate-progressive divide among D.C. Democrats, arguing that if a candidate can present as an advocate on issues people care about (and then reach people with that message at the doors) they dont need a rigid ideology to win votes. Hes no great fan of the Democratic Socialists, per se, but does suspect theyre embracing the right tactics.

Theres a reason why progressive people win: Theres a lot more of them knocking on doors, Lindenfeld says. If mail turned out voters, we wouldve had a million people voting. Mailboxes were filled everyday in wards with competitive races. But it was the canvassing that got people to come out.

Of course, Teutsch cautions that those volunteers wouldnt have come out with such zeal had Parker not won them over with his extremely clear support for issues that lefty groups care about. He wasnt wishy washy, Teutsch says, so organizers were actually energized to devote so many weekends to hitting the doors for Parker. DSA, for instance, saw a clear example of a candidate who would fight to create social housing, defend Initiative 82 and expand worker protections, invest in alternatives to policing, and raise taxes on the rich to fund housing and early childcare and was inspired to support him, the groups 11-member steering committee writes in a joint statement to LL.

He doesnt shy away from his values, but works really hard to find common understanding with people, says Ed Lazere, an early supporter of Parker who helped him build credibility among progressives. And its pretty clear he occupied a progressive lane by himself, while the other candidates were swimming together in much murkier waters.

The real question for D.C. politicos is whether these tactics can work elsewhere. Progressives pulled off these wins in two very different wards, so theres reason to believe it could happen again. What happens, for instance, if Ward 7 Councilmember Vince Gray decides to retire when his term expires in 2024 and sets off an open-seat contest there?

DSAs steering committee argues that its last two victories were valuable not only for adding Parker and Lewis George to the Council but for building the power necessary to win a harder race next time. Knocking a bunch of doors is never enoughmaking sure you can knock more next time is just as important, the committee writes.

But can this success translate citywide? Progressives were heartened by Parkers big win (alongside apparent victories by Ward 1 Councilmember Brianne Nadeau and Matt Frumin in Ward 3) but the races for mayor, Council chair, and the at-large seat were all disappointments. Lazere himself has seen how hard it is for a lefty candidate to win citywide, having lost races for chair and a different at-large seat in consecutive cycles.

Part of the problem for lefty groups is winning over poorer voters, particularly those living east of the river. Ari Theresa, an Anacostia activist and lawyer who backed Ward 8 Councilmember Trayon Whites mayoral bid, observed on Twitter that the citys old guard was still very successful in precincts below the citys median income.

If progressives are for all D.C., lower income voters did not appear to believe it, Theresa says in a tweet.

But Teutsch notes that the margins of victory for Bowser, Chairman Phil Mendelson, and At-Large Councilmember Anita Bonds all declined compared to four years ago (including those in wards 7 and 8). Lindenfeld agrees, seeing it as perfectly possible to run a progressive, citywide campaign based on door-to-door organizing with enough dedication. That strategy was a big part of Fentys success back in 2006, he notes.

The DSA certainly seems eager to try someday, arguing in its statement to LL that this ward-level work is part of a strategy that gets DSA into a position to win things like the mayors office down the line.

By focusing on the ward-level race this cycle, we were able to talk to the same voters multiple times, build trust with them, and make it clear that Zachary was the people-powered candidate, the steering committee writes. Were looking forward to eventually making that case again for DSA candidates citywide.

Lazere and Teutsch both say that such an effort would really require finding the right person for progressives to back up with this organizing muscle. There arent any obvious answers just yet (maybe Lewis George someday, should she win again in 2024?) but recent success has them ready to start looking.

It will not be that progressive organizations can anoint a candidate thats going to win, Lazere says. It needs to be someone connected to the community, period. If that person does emerge, if there are people who have those deep community connections and the energy to connect with voters, I just think theres a huge opportunity for a victory.

This article has been updated to correct the number of members on Metro DC-DSAs steering committee.

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Zachary Parker Delivered Another Win for Progressive Organizers in Ward 5. Can They Keep Repeating This Success? - Washington City Paper

The exact circumstances are still to be determined, but the man came walking in the remote wilderness terrain at Korpfjell in the northern sector of the Norwegian-Russian border. He was detained shortly after noon on Thursday, Finnmark Police District informs in a tweet.

The police are reluctant to disclose details.

We dont want to give further information at this point, saysPolice Prosecutor Lisa Sneve. She adds that the investigationis still underway.

The case is unusual as we dont have many such cases, Sneve says to the Barents Observer. A lawyer is not yet appointed.

Norway has military border guards patrolling the land border with Russia, but it is the police that formally is in charge oflaw enforcement. It is strictly illegal to cross the border in the terrain, and such incidents happen rarely. Last successful border crossing in the terrain happened in November 2015 when aChinese citizensuddenly appeared near Grense Jakobselv, the most remotearea along the 200 kilometers border.

On the Russian side, a barbed wired fence stretches the entire area of a highly secured and surveilled border zone.

A few illegal attempts to enter this border zone, however, happenannually.In 2018, theBarents Observerreported about seven such incidents. Last year, three Egyptian citizens were arrested just off the road near Zapolyarny. From there,the distance to the actual border line is nearly 10 kilometers.

Korpfjell is also about 10 kilometers from the nearest civilian road in Pechenga. Due to its proximity to the heavily militarized Pechenga valley, the Norwegian intelligence service has a facility in the areawith a view over Russia.

As Putin launched the massive military attack on Ukraine on February 24, hundreds of troopers from the military garrisons in the Pechenga valley took part in the war. In late March, the Barents Observer reported that allegedly more than 300 soldiers from the north were killed in action. Only a few are officially named by regional authorities in Murmansk.

In autumn 2015, some 5,500 migrants were allowed to leave Russia and enter Norway at the Borisoglebsk-Storskog border checkpoints. The so-called Arctic Migrant Route ended in late November 2015. Amid the crisis, FSB warned that migrants could try to cross the state border up north illegally.

According to the European Border and Coast Guard Agency, Frontex, 2021 saw a record of 8,184 illegal border-crossings at the Eastern land borders. That was more than a tenfold increase in comparison to 2020 and was mainly caused by the migrant crisis artificially created on the borders to Lithuania and Poland by Lukashenkos regime in Belarus.

Norways land border to Russia in the north is traditionally considered to be the least problematic among all of Schengen Europes external borders.

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First illegal border crossing from Russia to Norway since 2015 - The Independent Barents Observer

Dominic Raab, the Justice Secretary, on Wednesday introduced a new "British Bill of Rights" which he argued would give the UK powers to overrule European judges on migrant policy.

The last time Mr Johnson and the Prince met face-to-face was shortly before the Platinum Jubilee Party at the Palace, when they held a brief meeting before taking their seats in the royal box.

Clarence House sources insist that the Prince enjoys a good relationship with both the Prime Minister and Priti Patel, the Home Secretary overseeing the migrant policy.

A source previously admitted that it was quite awkward to be going to Rwanda for the Commonwealth summit when there was so much debate about the migrant crisis.

The Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting will see representatives from all 53 nations of the grouping gather, with Mr Johnson due to arrive on Thursday.

Togo and Gabon are set to join the Commonwealth this week, becoming the latest countries to join despite having no historic ties to Britain.

It is the first time that new nations have joined in over a decade, and the first time since 1995 that two have joined at once.

But a row over allegations that Baroness Scotland suppressed a report that criticises her administration as toxic flared up on Wednesday, generating negative headlines on the eve of the summit.

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PM to tell Prince Charles he is 'proud' of migrant plan which HRH called 'appalling' - The Telegraph

Former President Donald Trump on Saturday extended his victory lap following the Supreme Courts decision to overturn Roe v. Wade, which he said was made possible by the three conservative justices he nominated.

Mr. Trump called the ruling a victory for the rule of law and, above all, a victory for life.

I promised to nominate judges and justices who would stand up for the original meaning of the Constitution and who would honestly and faithfully interpret the law as written, the former president said at a campaign-style rally in Illinois. We got almost 300 federal judges and three great Supreme Court justices confirmed to do exactly that.

Mr. Trump nominated three of the six justices Neil M. Gorsuch, Brett M. Kavanaugh, and Amy Coney Barrett who joined the majority in Fridays 6-3 ruling.

His remarks Saturday follow a similar sentiment conveyed in a statement by Mr. Trump through his political action committee soon after the ruling.

I did not cave to the Radical Left Democrats, their partners in the Fake News Media, or the RINOs who are likewise the true, but silent, enemy of the people, he said.

Democrats have turned the decision into a campaign rallying cry, urging voters to flood the polls and give Congress the needed votes to restore the protections from the Roe ruling.

Voters need to make their voices heard. This fall we must elect more senators and representatives who can codify the womans right to choose into federal law, President Biden said from the White House on Friday. Congress must act. With your vote, you can have the final word.

Mr. Biden lamented the ruling that overturned the 1973 Roe decision as an ideological remnant of his predecessor.

It was three justices, named by one president, Donald Trump, who was at the core of todays decision to upend the scales of justice and eliminate the fundamental rights of women in this country, he said.

Make no mistake, this decision is the culmination of a deliberate effort over decades to upset the balance of our law, he said. Its a realization of extreme ideology and a tragic error by the Supreme Court.

Mr. Trump on Saturday was unmoved by the threats of an energized Democratic base.

As for the Republican Party, we are today the party of life and we are the party of everyone, he said. Were the party of everyone.

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Donald Trump extends victory lap over Roe - Washington Times

After the committee investigating the January 6, 2021 Capitol riots has held five hearings, there is still a question as to just how much damage the hearings will actually do to former President Donald Trump.

The House Select Committee, which has spent a year investigating the events which led up to the Capitol riot, had been building up to proceedings in the weeks and months before the first live televised presentation, promising to deliver evidence that some hoped would force the Department of Justice to act and charge the former president.

However, there is no guarantee that Attorney General Merrick Garland will take the unprecedented step and charge the former president with a crime over his alleged attempts to overturn the 2020 election results or incitement of his supporters to storm the Capitol as a last-ditch attempt to hold onto power.

Even if no charges are brought against Trump or any of his allies, there is still hope from the panel that their findings could at least prevent Trump from running for office again for allegedly inciting an insurrection, or ruin the former president's reputation entirely by reminding the American people of his actions and rhetoric before the attack on January 6.

However, this is not the first time that Trump has faced a potential legacy-destroying hearing over the past six years.

Trump is the only president in U.S. history to be impeached twice, with the Senate voting to acquit Trump both times, and the former president also survived Special Counsel Robert Mueller's investigation into Russian collusion during the 2016 election.

This is on top of the seemingly endless run of scandal and controversies which dogged Trump over the years, from the Access Hollywood "grab them by p****y" recordings to his emboldening of far-right groups and handling of the coronavirus outbreak.

Speaking to Newsweek, Thomas Gift, founding director of University College London's Center on U.S. Politics, described Trump as the "Teflon president" while in office, and that there is nothing to suggest that his "ability to avoid scandals from sticking to him" has lessened since January 6 or the subsequent live hearings.

"Trump's grip over the GOP may have loosened somewhat, but he's stillby far the most dominant figure within the party. So despite the enormity of the evidence proving Trump's malfeasance, the odds that the MAGAverse will abandon him in response to the January 6 hearings are essentially zero," Gift said.

Gift added that it appears Republican voters may only be viewing the hearings as a "replay of impeachment 2.0" where Trump was accused of inciting the attack, or as "yet another witch-hunt and political smokescreen" designed to take down Joe Biden's most likely opponent in 2024.

"Democrats may be glued to the TV enraptured by every new detail unfolding in the hearings, but their minds were set against Trump anyway. For all those reasons, it's hard to see the January 6 hearings budging public opinion toward Trump even a little," Gift said.

In order to build pressure against Trump, the panel already knew that they must present new findings that are not already public knowledge such as how often Trump falsely declared he was the winner of the last election.

The committee was also aware that they needed to maintain the public's interest in the congressional hearings.

In order to do so, they brought in former ABC News television executive and documentary filmmaker James Goldston to help turn the proceedings into a captivating presentation suitable for primetime television.

The move appears to have paid off. The first live primetime hearing on June 9 attracted 20 million viewers across the news networks, according to the Nielsen ratings.

However, those numbers have started to fall, albeit with the subsequent hearings not being played in primetime slots.

The first daytime hearing on June 13 was watched by 13 million, with the third on June 16 falling further still to around nine million.

The ratings appear to be backed by some polls, which suggest the public is not as interested in the hearings as they go on.

An Ipsos poll conducted after the third hearing found that just two-thirds of Americans (66 percent) are not following the hearing closely/closely at all, compared to 33 percent who said they are keeping top of proceedings very or somewhat closely.

However, a Quinnipiac University National Poll released Wednesday gave an opposing view. The survey found that a majority of Americans say they are following the January 6 hearings either "very closely" (26 percent) or "somewhat closely" (32 percent).

Where the hearings appear to be having a detrimental effect on Trump is the view on whether he should be charged with a criminal offense over the January 6 attack.

According to the recent Ipsos/ABC News poll, nearly six in 10 (58 percent) of Americans think Trump should be charged with a crime for his role in the riot.

Another survey conducted by Navigator Research also found that 54 percent of respondents support the idea of the Department of Justice indicting the former president in connection with the Capitol riot.

David Niven, a political science professor at the University of Cincinnati, said that the fact that the January 6 hearings are able to focus entirely on Trump's efforts to overturn the election results could be what damages Trump.

"Ironically, one of Trump's great political strengths is that there are so many things wrong with him that it is hard to hold people's focus on just one thing for any length of time," Niven told Newsweek. "Each session is a reminder that Trump lied, Trump connived, and ultimately, Trump unleashed a torrent of violence against innocent people trying to lawfully do their jobs."

However, Christa Ramey, co-founder of Los Angeles-based civil litigation firm Ramey Law PC, does not believe that the January 6 hearings are hurting the former president at all, especially within the GOP.

"His group of followers are within their own echo chamber, calling the hearings a 'witch hunt' and not bothering to watch them, so it's very unlikely to move the needle with them," Ramey told Newsweek.

"Republicans who aren't necessarily Trump supporters are much more likely to be swayed by the evidence presented in the hearings. But there's definitely a ceiling on how many Republicans will be swayed," she continued. "The fact that viewership of the hearings has been modest also provides an indication that there's a ceiling on how much of the public even cares at this point."

Clark D. Cunningham, a professor of law at Georgia State University, said the issue is not whether Trump's reputation is damaged by the proceedings, but whether authorities believe he committed a crime.

"The question is going to be will people be open-minded about the evidence that's been presented in these hearings," Clark said. "The battleground is not so much did Trump win or not, was there fraud or not. Now the battleground is what did Trump do," he said. "He didn't just talk about his belief that there had been fraud. He put into motion a scheme which a judge in California has described as a criminal act."

Ultimately, it doesn't matter if the live televised hearings ratings fall and people begin to tune out of the proceedings, or if opinion polls on Trump slightly differ in the wake of the January 6 hearings.

What matters is if the committee persuades the Department of Justice that Trump committed a number of crimes during his attempts to overturn the election results in the run-up to the January 6 attack.

In his opening remarks on June 9, Committee chair Rep. Bennie Thompson described January 6 as the "culmination of an attempted coup" which was Trump's "most desperate chance" to prevent Biden from becoming president.

"The committee has shown that Trump knew, or that he should have known, that the 2020 election was free and fair," Ramey said.

"It has shown the pressure Trump put on Vice President Mike Pence and on state officials to violate their oaths and it has shown the deadly consequences of the whirlwind of hate that Trump set into motion," she said. "The evidence presented in these hearings meets the burden of proof necessary to result in charges."

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Have the Jan.6 Hearings Hurt Donald Trump?: Analysis