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. O R I G I N A L C O P Y
in the news
. O R I G I N A L C O P Y
W E D N E S D A Y , D E C E M B E R2 5,2 0 2 4. $ 3 Biden mulls action onoil
B Y AN T H O N Y FA I O L A A N D ST E F A N O PI T R E L L I
Holy Door’s opening is a mixed blessing in Rome
Rebranding to paradiseOnce war-torn, the southern islands of the Philippines aim to market the area as a tourism destination.A6
A very Trumpy ChristmasThe president-elect has been busy hawking branded Christmas gear, with the profits going to the family business.A3
B YKA R E NDEYO U N G
ABCDE Prices may vary in areas outside metropolitan Washington.
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CONTENT © 2024 The Washington Post Year 148, No. 54076
Retropolis:Under U.S. control, the canal’s racial divide was stark.A4
B YMI C H A E LLA R I S
THE NATION Rep. Kay Granger’ssit-uation has renewed scru-tiny on the nation’s aging elected officials.A2 U.S. whooping coughcases hit the highest lev-els in a decade amid fall-ing vaccination rates.A4
B Y JE F F ST E I NA N D EL L E N NA K A S H I M A
President Joe Biden is weigh-ing major new sanctions against Russia’s energy sector in his final weeks in office, four people famil-iar with the matter said, as the administration considers a part-ing blow in its financial war against Vladimir Putin. The move would also give the incoming team of President-elect Donald Trump more leverage in its negotiations with Putin over ending Russia’s war with Ukraine, said the people, who spoke on the condition of ano-nymity to describe deliberations that aren’t public. The thrust of the sanctions would be to target the “dark fleet” of international ships carrying Russian oil to non-Western coun-tries as well as certain Russian oil exporters who have not been sanctioned until now, according to several of the people familiar with the matter. The options also include revoking a license en-abling banks to process Russian energy transactions, the people said. If implemented, the penalties could help shape Biden’s eco-nomic and foreign policy legacies before Trump’s inauguration. A major move against Russia be-fore leaving office would bolster Biden’s claims to have rallied Western allies to respond force-fully to the 2022 invasion of Ukraine. He is also set on hand-ing his successor a strong econo-my — a feat that could be under-mined by a sudden energy shock reprising the price spikes earlier in his administration. S E EB I D E N O NA 2
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Left behind as data centers boom iving on one of the largest swaths of cerns about how the funds would be used,” Thousands on Navajo Nation land in America without electric adding that customers are not “responsible power, Thomasina Nez’s entire lifeland remain in the dark,for extending electricity to all tribal areas of L is a scramble to complete basic the state.” even as Arizona seeks to tasks. Ann Porter, a spokesperson for the power increase electricity production To take a hot shower, she must wait for company Arizona Public Service (APS), said buckets of water to come to a boil on a small that its process for raising rates is “back-propane stove outside her wood-framedB YPR A N S H UVE R M Award-looking.” The organization aims to roundhouse. To make meals, she relies most-I N C A M E R O N , A R I Z .“recover money we’ve already spent and ly on canned goods because unrefrigerated better align with the cost to maintain a produce rots quickly in the Arizona heat. It’s reliable energy grid for Arizona.” a struggle to stay warm at night, because she But it rejected a plan to bring electricity to After a years-long courtship of Big Tech by refuses to use her coal-powered heater after parts of the Navajo Nation land, concluding local politicians, power companies and utili-its fumes killed her two dogs. that electric customers should not be asked ty regulators eager for the promise of tax A fierce battle for electric power is being to foot the nearly $4 million bill. revenue and jobs, the strain on Arizona’s waged across the nation, and Nez is one of “We’ve been without [power] for quite a power grid is already apparent. Often, vul-thousands of people who have wound up on long time,” said Nez, who lives separately nerable communities are paying the price. the losing end. Amid a boom in data centers, from her teenage children so they have While Nez and her neighbors lost a shot at the energy-intensive warehouses that run electricity to complete their schoolwork. getting power, the historically Black town of supercomputers for Big Tech companies, Tech companies “already have it,” she said, Randolph, almost 60 miles south of Phoe-Arizona is racing to increase electricity pro- “and for them to get more power, it’s kind of nix, faces the expansion of a massive natural duction. In February, the state utility board not right.” gas plant that emits particulate matter approved an 8 percent rate hike to bolster Nicole Garcia, a spokeswoman for Ari- linked to asthma and lung cancer. power infrastructure throughout the state, zona’s utility board the Arizona Corporation In 2022, the Arizona Corporation Com-where data centers are popping up faster Commission (ACC), said it did not approve mission halted a planned expansion of the than almost anywhere in the United States. the Navajo aid provision because of “con-S E EC E N T E RD A T A O NA 1 1
Thomasina Nez, 49, lives separately from her teenage children so they have electricity to do schoolwork. Nez must boil water if she wants a hot shower and relies mostly on canned goods, since unrefrigerated produce rots quickly in Arizona’s heat.
THE WORLD AU.S. citizenheld in Russia was sentenced to an additional 13 years on espionage charges.A7 With upheavalin Syria, the fate of camps holding suspected Islamic State militants is unclear.A8
THE REGION Adnan Syed,subject of the “Serial” podcast, asked for a reduced sen-tence while challenging his conviction.B1 In an unexpectedtwist, an owl flew down the chimney of an Ar-lington home, which livened up a family’s holidays.B1
THE ECONOMY A technical glitchgrounded all of Ameri-can Airlines’ U.S. flights for about an hour, lead-ing to widespread de-lays.A3 NewsGuard,which of-fers nonpartisan assess-ments of online publish-ers’ credibility, has be-come a GOP target.A9
STYLE Since the election,CNN has seen a 45 per-cent drop in prime-time viewership, raising anxi-eties at the network.C1
FOOD Whataburger,Texas’s most iconic fast-food chain, is going national — and disappointing some loyal fans.E1
MICHAEL A. MCCOY FOR THE WASHINGTON POST The Christmas display outside of Bill Vaughan’s home in Northern Virginia on Dec. 17. In 2020, he fell from a 16-foot ladder while preparing for that year’s display and sustained a severe leg injury.
Parting shot could assist Trump in Ukraine talks
NEW SANCTIONS TARGETING RUSSIA
Creator’s devastating injury left a beloved Christmas display dark, but he refused to let it stay that way
Bill Vaughan limped through the grass, trying to perfect his spitting fish. After hanging hundreds of thousands of Christmas lights, the skin on his fingers was cracked, his hand was smudged with blood and his mind was drowning in details. He was also feeling the pressure of time. He’d been building toward this mo-ment for years. Now, it was De-cember, and he wasn’t sure he could get his display done in a week — or at all. He pounded rebar into the cold ground, then attached a bendy black pole lined with blue lights that when lit would look like a fish was shooting water from its mouth, ending in a nice splash. But he wasn’t sure if he grabbed the right pole, and the wrong one would throw off his intricate ani-mation, so he trudged back to his workshop. “I don’t move like I used to move,” said Vaughan, 69, who relies on a cane. “That’s why I’m S E EC H R I S T M A S O NA 1 0
BUSINESS NEWS...........................A9 COMICS.........................................C5 OBITUARIES..................................B4 OPINION PAGES..........................A12 TELEVISION...................................C4 WORLD NEWS...............................A6
ADRIANA ZEHBRAUSKAS FOR THE WASHINGTON POST
tion and renewal. Catholics who visit designated sacred sites and engage in redemptive activities can obtain a jubilee indulgence — a sort of spiritual deep cleaning and mega-pardon for earthly sins. For many Romans, though, this jubilee feels like a mixed blessing. It is set to give a massive boost to the tourism industry, a pillar of the Roman economy. It has also helped motivate Rome’s biggest facelift since the 1960 Olympic Games. With $5 billion worth of projects funded by the national government, the city is transforming in ways that will outlast the pilgrims. But the coming jubilee has left Romans living amid a giant con-struction site and has once again highlighted the double-edged sword of tourism. The Spanish Steps are already overcrowded. Officials have been talking about how to limit the number of visitors at the Trevi Fountain. What happens when millions more people pour in? From his office overlooking the S E EJ U B I L E E O NA 8
An electric return nearly four years in the making
Threat to Panama is a signal to China, too
Mostly sunny 44/33 Tomorrow: Mostly sunny 44/31B6
Democracy Dies in Darkness
President-elect Donald Trump’s threat last weekend to reclaim the Panama Canal was designed to make clear that “decades of U.S. commerce financing China’s growth and strategic footprint in the Americas is over,” according to a senior Trump appointee. Successive administrations have allowed a “vacuum of control and influence” in the Western Hemi-sphere, Mauricio Claver-Carone, named by Trump as his incoming administration’s special envoy for Latin America, said Monday. But those earlier administra-tions also included Trump’s first term, when his policy in the hemi-sphere focused primarily on mi-gration and sanctions against Venezuela, even as Panama sev-ered diplomatic relations with Tai-wan and established ties with Chi-na in 2017. That opened the door to Chinese investments and compa-nies that were already winning bids for major infrastructure proj-ects elsewhere in the region. Trump’s recent comments may reflect a newly muscular interpre-tation of his America First policy amid rising alarm about what the commander of U.S. forces in the region this year called China’s sig-nificant presence on America’s “20-yard line.” At the same time, the incoming administration may see Latin America as an easier place to exert foreign policy pres-sure — or at least the image of toughness — than some other parts of the world. Following declarations that the canal is a “vital” U.S. “national asset,” Trump made a similar claim Sunday regarding another part of the hemisphere. In a social media post, he said that U.S. “own-ership and control of Greenland is an absolute necessity” for Ameri-can national security and for “Freedom throughout the World.” S E ET R U M P O NA 4
In Latin America, Trump sees chance to challenge Beijing’s influence
POWER GRAB
Pope Francis inaugurates jubilee expected to draw record 32 million pilgrims
rome —Romans are gesticulat-ing in overdrive and griping in snarled traffic as the Eternal City overhauls piazzas, fountains, bridges and tunnels. Even more are ranting about surging rents and greedy landlords poised to cash in on a coming tsunami of tourists. On Christmas Eve, Pope Fran-cis symbolically opened the sealed Holy Door of St. Peter’s Basilica from his wheelchair, in-augurating a jubilee year that is expected to draw a whopping 32 million visitors to Rome — 10 million more than this year’s rec-ord high. Jubilees are a Catholic Church tradition dating to 1300. They are considered a time for reconcilia-
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C O R R E C T I O N S
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Retropolis he past, rediscovered
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Rep. Granger’s Hill absence reignites debate about aging leaders
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Revelations that Rep. Kay Granger (R-Texas) has been re-siding at an independent living facility for seniors and is experi-encing dementia symptoms while missing months of votes have renewed a national discus-sion about Washington’s aging leaders. Granger, 81, left her post as chair of the powerful House Ap-propriations Committee in March after announcing last year that she would retire at the end of this congressional term. She has been “having some dementia is-sues late in the year,” her son Brandon Granger told the Dallas Morning News on Sunday and confirmed to The Washington Post. A conservative outlet in Texas revealed Friday that Granger had been living in a facility for seniors in Fort Worth and that her office had not pub-licly disclosed the move or reason for her absence from Washing-ton. “As many of my family, friends, and colleagues have known, I have been navigating some un-foreseen health challenges over the past year,” the congresswom-an said in a statement shared by her office on Tuesday. “However, since early September, my health challenges have progressed mak-ing frequent travel to Washing-ton both difficult and unpredict-able. During this time, my staff has remained steadfast, continu-ing to deliver exceptional con-stituent services, as they have for the past 27 years.” The statement said Granger returned to Washington in No-vember to oversee the closure of her office and thank her staff. She downsized from her home in Texas and moved into an apart-ment at an independent living facility, according to a person familiar with her situation who spoke on the condition of ano-nymity to share details.
J. SCOTT APPLEWHITE/AP Rep. Kay Granger quit as chair of the Appropriations Committee in March. Her son said she has been “having some dementia issues.”
Her situation has reanimated a simmering debate over the health and mental acuity of aging elected officials, with several of Granger’s colleagues calling for changes and voicing alarm about the nation’s oldest leaders. Donald Trump, 78, became the oldest president-elect last month, eclipsing the record of 77 set in 2020 by President Joe Biden, whose signs of aging con-cerned voters and those who have interacted with him. After a shaky debate performance against Trump last summer rein-forced worries that the president had slowed down and that his aides had concealed his decline, Biden announced in July that he would end his reelection bid. He endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris to replace him atop the Democratic ticket. Meanwhile, in Congress, where seniority is often priori-tized for leadership roles, some top positions are controlled by lawmakers in their 70s and 80s — despite the presence of new gen-erations of legislators who hope to lead. House Democrats have
made changes ahead of the next congressional term that could help stymie concerns within their caucus about age and health. The Post previously re-ported that Reps. Raúl Grijalva (Arizona) and Jerry Nadler (New York) — who are 76 and 77, respectively — dropped their bids to retain their positions as the top Democrats on the Nation-al Resources and Judiciary com-mittees because they would not have significant support from their fellow Democrats. Grijalva and Rep. David Scott (D-Geor-gia), 79, missed the majority of votes this term as they battled illnesses. Another longtime House Dem-ocrat, Rep. Gerry Connolly (Vir-ginia), prevailed over 35-year-old Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (New York) to be their party’s top member on the powerful Over-sight and Accountability Com-mittee next term. Caucus mem-bers had health concerns about the 74-year-old Connolly, who announced a cancer diagnosis last month, but he said he plans to work while receiving treat-
ment and has rarely been absent from the chamber. The revelations about Granger came as two other longtime con-gressional leaders faced health scares in recent weeks. Former House speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-California) underwent hip re-placement surgery at a U.S. mili-tary base in Germany this month after being hospitalized in Lux-embourg following a fall. That same week, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ken-tucky) fell during a closed-door Republican lunch, spraining his wrist and suffering a minor cut to his face. McConnell suffered three falls in 2023, including one that led to a concussion and a broken rib and kept him away from the Senate for six weeks. The 82-year-old announced in February that he would step down from his leadership posi-tion but plans to serve the re-mainder of his term. “Kay Granger’s long absence reveals the problem with a Con-gress that rewards seniority & relationships more than merit & ideas,” Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Cali-fornia), 48, posted on X. “We have a sclerotic gerontocracy. We need term limits. We need to get big money out of politics so a new generation of Americans can run and serve.” It is unclear whether Republi-can leadership and Granger’s col-leagues were aware of her living situation since July, when she last cast a vote. Summer recesses, the closing weeks of the election and a slim Republican majority made votes infrequent in recent months. The office of House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-Louisi-ana) declined to comment about Granger on Tuesday. Rep. Tony Gonzales (R-Texas) said Sunday on CBS News’s “Face the Nation” that he did not know Granger had moved to the senior living facility. “I think there’s no doubt a lot of us knew that she was gaining
in age, like a lot of members do,” Gonzales said. “And, sadly, some of these members wait until it’s too long — things have gone too far.” Other Republicans voiced dis-may over the lack of transparen-cy about Granger’s condition and the possibility that other older lawmakers aren’t being held to account. “I’m more concerned about the congressmen who have dementia and are still voting,” Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Kentucky) posted on X while resharing a post with the news of Granger’s condition. A spokesman for Massie declined to answer a question from The Post about which lawmakers the congressman was referring to. Resharing the same post as Massie, Republican Kari Lake — whom Trump has tapped to lead the federally funded broadcaster Voice of America — said Granger and her constituents deserved better. “Washington D.C. shouldn’t be a retirement home, but the en-trenched forces there are so des-perate to hold on to power that they will reject fresh voices while pulling stunts like this,” Lake wrote. Granger, like other aging poli-ticians, maintained influence de-spite the calls for change. She won reelection in 2022 with 64 percent of the vote. Despite ques-tions about whether Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-California) was well enough to continue to serve after a shingles diagnosis, the long-time senator stayed in office until her death last year at 90. The oldest sitting senator, 91-year-old Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), is poised to reclaim the gavel as chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee when the GOP takes control of the chamber next month. The 118th Congress was one of the oldest classes of lawmakers in history, with a median age of 59, according to a Post analysis.
Biden ponders oil sanctions, a parting blow to Putin’s war chest
B I D E NF R O MA 1
1 / In the 22since Russia’s years invasion of Ukraine, the White House has been wary of cracking down too hard on Russian energy exports, fearing a sharp rise in global oil prices — and gas prices for U.S. motorists. But inflation has declined dramatically from a few years ago, and the election is over, changing the political calcu-lus. Outside advocates have made the case for Biden to tighten the vise on Russia’s energy sector, and some officials are concerned they are running out of time, the people said. Bloomberg previous-ly reported some of the new sanctions under consideration. “The Biden administration has been worried about increasing gas prices and worsening infla-tion. That was the main con-straint on their Russia sanctions policy — the domestic ramifica-tions,” said Edward Fishman, senior research scholar at Colum-bia University’s Center on Global Energy Policy, who has called for Biden to target Russian energy sales in the last weeks of his presidency. “But the election is over, and inflation is under con-trol. The reasons to be this cau-tious on sanctions don’t apply anymore.” The United States and its Euro-pean partners have provided hundreds of billions of dollars in aid to Kyiv, while implementing a range of financial penalties on Russian banks, defense firms, in-dustrial producers and other companies. Those sanctions have hit with increasing force: Annual inflation in Russia is set to soar beyond 9 percent, according to official government data, with a recession possible next year. Rus-sia’s central bank has raised in-
HE ALTH Clinton treated for flu; leaves hospital
Former president Bill Clinton, 78, was discharged from a hospital in Washington on Tuesday, a day after being admitted with a fever. Angel Ureña, Clinton’s deputy chief of staff, said the former president was treated for the flu. “[Clinton] and his family are deeply grateful for the exceptional care provided by the team at MedStar Georgetown University Hospital and are touched by the kind messages and well wishes he received. He sends his warmest wishes for a happy and healthy holiday season to all,” Ureña wrote on X. On Monday, Ureña said Clinton
ALEXEY MALGAVKO/REUTERS An oil refinery in Siberia. Further U.S. sanctions could target exporters and ships carrying Russian oil.
terest rates to 21 percent. Russia’s energy sector, howev-er, has remained only partially affected, sustaining Putin’s forces on the battlefield while minimiz-ing the economic damage at home. Somewhere between one-third and one-half of Russia’s budget revenue comes from the sale of oil and gas. The Kremlin earned roughly $100 billion from energy sales last year, S&P Global said in a report in January. “The goal of a new major sanctions action should be a dou-ble-digit decline in their export revenue, over a period of six to 12 months,” said Peter Harrell, a former Biden administration sen-ior director for international eco-
had been admitted to the hospital “for testing and observation after developing a fever.” — Brianna Tucker
COLORADO FBI offers reward in fatal shooting of boy
The FBI is offering a $10,000 reward for help finding a man suspected of fatally shooting a 7-year-old boy on a tribal reservation in Colorado earlier this month. The agency announced the reward Monday for information leading to the arrest and conviction of Jeremiah Hight, 23, in the Dec. 11 shooting at a home in Towaoc on the Ute Mountain Ute Reservation. The FBI investigates serious
nomics who is now a nonresident fellow at the Carnegie Endow-ment for International Peace. Harrell tempered expecta-tions, however. “Even if there is a sizable hit, Russia is going to continue to enjoy substantial ex-port revenue,” he said. “Sanctions are an iterative game where you’re looking to make sequential base hits. Additional energy sanc-tions could be a solid double.’’ A senior administration offi-cial framed the effort as neces-sary to ensure that Ukraine is in the “best possible position” to defend itself and negotiate peace on “just” terms. “This action would be another step toward achieving that objec-
D I G E S T
crimes on the reservation in the Four Corners region, where New Mexico, Arizona, Utah and Colorado meet. It said an arrest warrant was issued for Hight, a member of the Ute Mountain Ute tribe, on Thursday after he was charged with murder, assault with a dangerous weapon and discharging a firearm during a crime of violence. The boy who died was identified as Zamias Lang, Montezuma County coroner George Deavers said Tuesday. — Associated Press
MINNESOTA Airport straddling U.S.-Canada border to close The Piney-Pinecreek Border Airport has a unique claim to
tive,” the official said, also speak-ing on the condition of anonym-ity to discuss the decision. A Western “price cap,” led by the United States and European allies, has curbed the Kremlin’s energy revenue by setting a maxi-mum price at which participating countries can legally purchase Russian oil. But Russia has con-tinued to find non-Western mar-kets for exports to get around the cap, particularly in China and India. Global energy markets may now be giving Biden more lati-tude to tighten that effort. The International Energy Agency said last month that it expects supply to outrun demand next year, as
fame — its runway straddles the U.S.-Canada border. But after seven decades of operation, the small airport that sits near Roseau, Minnesota, and Piney, Manitoba in Canada, will close for good on Friday. The Minnesota Department of Transportation said earlier this month that the airport had very low use and faced large maintenance expenses. The international agreement required to operate the airport expires on Dec. 26 and will not be renewed. The airport opened in 1953 with a grass runway — a paved runway was added in 1978. It is one of six airports straddling the border, but the only one with a paved runway. It was often used by Americans traveling to Canada to hunt and fish. Under the international
the United States, Canada and other countries ramp up produc-tion. Gas prices remain far below their 2022 highs, and few experts believe even a major shock to Russian energy production would send the cost at the pump soaring. “If [the sanctions package] does result in some Russian bar-rels coming off the market, there will obviously be a bit of an impact on global price, but I think that’s modest,” said one of the people familiar with the mat-ter, noting the gas price modera-tion and production increase. “So I think we’re actually at a time when the market could handle energy coming off the market.” Yet the end of the election may not have freed the president from worrying about gas prices. Biden is widely described by aides as determined to leave the economy in a good place on his way out of office. And both Biden and Trump vowed to crack down on Iran’s oil sales — a double blow that some analysts say could re-verse predictions of an energy glut. “While the softer global funda-mentals since a couple years ago leave room for President Biden and President Trump to tighten sanctions on Russia and Iran, that room is not unlimited,” said Bob McNally, founder and presi-dent of Rapidan Energy Group. As the clock ticks down on Biden’s term, holding Russia to account for its aggression against Ukraine remains a high priority. “Clearly energy has remained Russia’s biggest revenue source to finance its war,” Harrell said. “And a move to tighten up would be a welcome close to Biden’s sanctions campaign against Rus-sia.”
agreement, staff at the airport are allowed to cross between the two countries for their work without going through the typical customs process. — Associated Press
1 killed in Florida boat explosion:A boat explosion at a South Florida marina has left one person dead and five others injured, officials said. The explosion occurred Monday night at the Lauderdale Marina, Fort Lauderdale Fire Rescue said. Rescue workers transported five people to local hospitals. A sixth person was found dead in the water several hours later by the Broward Sheriff ’s Office. Fire rescue officials said they didn’t immediately know what caused the explosion. — Associated Press
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A Trumpy Christmas, with profits for the president-elect
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The Trump Store has a gift for every patriot on your Christmas list. It’s a little late for this year’s celebrations, but you can get a very early jump on next year and count down with the $38 Trump Advent calendar. Or trim the tree with a $95 Mar-a-Lago bauble or a $16 MAGA hat ornament, sold in nine colors. (A glass version of the hat ornament is $92.) Stuff stockings with an $86 “GIANT Trump Chocolate Gold Bar” and a $22 pair of candy cane socks printed with “Trump.” Prepare a holiday feast with a $14 Trump Christmas tree pot holder and $28 Trump apron featuring Santa waving an American flag. The profits from these holiday trinkets do not benefit a political committee or a charitable cause, but the Trump Organization, the Trump family’s privately owned conglomerate of real estate, hotel and lifestyle businesses. As the company encouraged customers to celebrate the holidays with Trump gifts for all ages, Presi-dent-elect Donald Trump person-ally profited off of his upcoming term in a manner that is unprec-edented in modern history — even during his unconventional first stint in the White House. The Trump Organization thought of everyone celebrating Trump’s nonconsecutive terms this yuletide season, rolling out a line of merchandise printed with “45-47,” including $195 quarter-zip sweatshirts, $85 cigar ash-trays and $38 baseball caps. Fido can’t go without his gear, of course: The store also sells gifts for dogs, including orange leash-es and camo collars emblazoned with Trump’s name. And don’t forget the kids! How about a $38 teddy bear wearing a red, white or blue Trump sweater, $8 MAGA hat stickers or an array of Trump sweets, including $16 gummy bears? All of these gifts can be wrapped in $28 golden Trump wrapping paper or stuck into Trump ornament gift bags ($14 a pair), and accompanied by a note on $35 stationery featuring bot-tles of Trump wine. “Make the holidays that much greater this year with essentials from the Trump Home and Holi-day collection,” the website says, over a photo of an Elf on the Shelf toy and a lime-green MAGA hat. Trump has long delighted in finding new ways to market his name, creating a merchandise empire that includes digital trad-ing cards, pricey sneakers, expen-sive watches and signed Bibles. But his expansion of offerings in the run-up to the inauguration has further concerned ethics ex-perts and watchdogs, who say his behavior is the opposite of what they expect from a president-in-waiting during the transition. “How much is he going to use the presidency just to sell Trump products?” said Jordan Libowitz, vice president for communica-tions for the nonprofit Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington. Karoline Leavitt, the Trump-Vance transition spokeswoman,pushed back on claims that Trump was profiting off his elec-tion victory. “President Trump removed himself from his multi-billion-dollar real estate empire to run for office and forewent his gov-ernment salary, becoming the first President to actually lose net worth while serving in the White House,” Leavitt said in a state-ment. “President Trump didn’t get into politics for profit — he’s fighting because he loves the people of this country and wants
BEATA ZAWRZEL/NURPHOTO/AP
Merchandise at the Trump Store in Trump Tower in New York. As a politician, Donald Trump has long offered items with his likeness and slogans, but this month, he hawked products for the holidays — $95 Mar-a-Lago baubles and $22 golden gift paper, among other items.
to make America great again.” Trump’s wealth oscillated over the course of his presidency and his years out of office. In 2021, he fell off the Forbes list of the country’s 400 richest people for the first time in 25 years as his real estate portfolio took a hit because of the pandemic. He was back on the list this year, buoyed by his stake in Trump Media & Technology Group. The Trump Organization and Trump Media & Technology Group did not respond to re-quests for comment. During Trump’s first term, his company sold merchandise in-cluding hats and products related to his prominent real estate prop-erties and hotels, Libowitz said. However, he said, the 45-47 Col-lection and other products refer-encing the presidency represent a greater overlap between Trump’s business and political activities than was apparent during his first term. Traditionally, presidents-elect are expected to take steps to limit conflicts of interest and adopt ethical guidelines in the run-up to the inauguration, Libowitz and other government ethics experts said. In the weeks since Trump won the election, he has not yet made commitments like the ones he made in 2017 to limit his financial conflicts. In 2016, he said he had sold all of his stock holdings, and the Trump Organi-zation limited foreign deals, say-ing it turned down a $2 billion real estate deal in Dubai. Trump has not resumed work-ing at the Trump Organization since he handed over control in 2017 to his sons, but he continues to own a stake in the privately held firm. The president-elect placed all of his shares in Trump Media & Technology Group, the parent company of his social me-dia platform Truth Social, into a trust controlled by his older son, Donald Trump Jr., according to a regulatory filing this week. The president-elect continues to own those shares. Days after the elec-tion, Trump posted on Truth So-cial that he had “NO INTENTION OF SELLING!” Trump’s campaign previously said he will follow ethics guide-
SCOTT OLSON/GETTY IMAGES
Gifts in paper featuring Trump’s image sit on the stage during a rally hosted by the former president last December in Waterloo, Iowa. Melania Trump has her own line of ornaments and necklaces.
lines in office. The Trump-branded merchan-dise is just one of the most visible examples of how the president-elect’s vast network of businesses — which now includes the crypto company World Liberty Financial — could profit from Trump’s new position. Eric Trump, his son who serves as executive vice president of the Trump Organization, said in an interview with CNBC that his father would be “walled off ” from the business when he returns to office and that he takes ethics concerns very seriously. Eric Trump plans to continue to do foreign real estate deals, includ-ing in the Middle East, he said in the interview. “I’m going to be very sensitive to ethics,” he told CNBC. “He’s going to have nothing to do with the company. I’m going to have nothing to do with the adminis-tration.” Eric Trump did not immedi-ately respond to a request for comment. Presidents and vice presidents are not held to the same ethics
requirements as other executive branch employees, who are sub-ject to strict rules on financial conflicts of interest and misuse of their positions for private gain. Some advocates for greater over-sight of politicians’ finances say the holiday merchandise and Trump’s other financial dealings signal that existing regulations are ill-equipped to address the modern presidency. “It’s kind of amazing the presi-dent is held to a significantly lower ethical standard than an accountant at the Social Security Administration,” Libowitz said. Presidents since Jimmy Carter in the 1970s have used blind trusts to shield their assets and avoid any appearance of a con-flict. Historically, presidents have faced congressional scrutiny of their business practices, but Trump is unlikely to face such challenges while his party con-trols both chambers of Congress. Also, under the Constitution, Trump cannot run for office again, so the political stakes of his decisions are lower. “This time he goes in as a lame
duck,” said Don Fox, former gen-eral counsel for the U.S. Office of Government Ethics. “He didn’t really care the first term. I don’t think he would care any more this time.” Throughout December, Trump has used his account on Truth Social to hawk products for the holidays. In between posts laying out his positions on the chaos in Syria and the government spend-ing bill, Trump posted that the “hottest gift” this Christmas is his $99 coffee table tome, “SAVE AMERICA.” The book is sold by Winning Team Publishing, a company co-founded by his son Donald and Sergio Gor, the next director of the White House Of-fice of Presidential Personnel. Incoming first lady Melania Trump promoted her own line of Christmas ornaments and neck-laces during a December inter-view with Fox News, where she discussed her husband’s “incredi-ble” election victory. She de-scribed the ornaments as “very patriotic” and said the design was inspired by the election. The $90 brass ornament features “USA” in
red, white and blue, and the gold “Vote Freedom” pendant retails for $600. A representative for Melania Trump did not respond to a re-quest for comment. Earlier this month, the presi-dent-elect also announced he had launched a fragrance line, which includes the $199 “VICTORY 47” perfume for women and the “FIGHT FIGHT FIGHT” cologne for men. Products for Christmas delivery were sold out as of Dec. 19. Trump promoted the fra-grances on Truth Social with a photo of Jill Biden smiling at him during a service this month cel-ebrating the reopening of Notre Dame cathedral in Paris. “A FRAGRANCE YOUR EN-EMIES CAN’T RESIST!” the cap-tion said. The fragrance website is operated by 45Footwear LLC, the same company that operates GetTrumpSneakers.com, a web-site currently selling $499 “Trump Won Gold Low Top Sneakers.” The fragrance website says that Trump’s name and asso-ciated design are trademarks of CIC Ventures LLC and that 45Footwear uses Trump’s like-ness under a licensing agree-ment. “Trump Fragrances are not de-signed, manufactured, distribut-ed or sold by Donald J. Trump, The Trump Organization or any of their respective affiliates or principals,” the website says. The precise structure of the fragrance deal is unclear. CIC Ventures is a Trump company, The Washington Post has previ-ously reported, and 45Footwear is affiliated with an LLC of the same name that is based in Sheri-dan, Wyo., according to state records. The LLC was filed by a Wyoming lawyer named Andrew Pierce. Politicians have long sold T-shirts, hats, bumper stickers and even ugly Christmas sweaters to finance their campaigns or politi-cal action committees, and the Trump National Committee is also selling some Christmas mer-chandise, including a variety of MAGA stockings that feature a photo of Trump in a Santa hat. After leaving office, presidents often make money from speaking fees or by selling their memoirs. But a president privately prof-iting off merchandise related to his election is highly unusual. Government ethics experts say Trump’s merchandise sales are just one example of the new financial conflicts of interest that Trump’s presidency will raise. It is unprecedented for a president to own a multibillion-dollar stake in a publicly traded company, as Trump does in Trump Media & Technology Group. Because the stake represents a significant portion of the president-elect’s net worth, ethics experts are con-cerned that wealthy individuals, companies and funds associated with foreign governments could seek to influence Trump by pour-ing money into the business. Trump also has signaled that he will pursue a deregulatory cryptocurrency agenda with Cab-inet picks like Paul Atkins, an adviser to cryptocurrency com-panies, for the top job at the Securities and Exchange Com-mission. The moves come just months after Trump launched his own new cryptocurrency ven-ture. “Is the president more interest-ed in using the office to make himself more wealthy?” said Dan-ielle Caputo, a legal counsel at the Campaign Legal Center. “Or is he acting as president and using that office to do what’s best for the people who put him in of-fice?”
Technical glitch briefly grounds American Airlines flights across country
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American Airlines grounded all of its U.S. flights for about an hour Tuesday morning after a glitch with its flight operations system, leading to widespread flight delays. The flight-tracking website FlightAware showed at least a few dozen American Airlines flights delayed Tuesday morning, includ-ing five whose departures from the Washington area’s Reagan Na-tional Airport were pushed back more than 90 minutes. Nine were delayed an hour or more at Ameri-can’s hub at Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport. American reported a “technical issue” affecting all flights in a 6:37 a.m. social media post. Less than an hour later, around 7:35 a.m., a pilot on an American Airlines
flight from Washington to Chica-go told passengers that the issue had been resolved, and a spokes-person for the Federal Aviation Administration said around 8 a.m. that the ground stop had been lifted. The company later said the ground stop was caused by a tech-nology issue with one of its ven-dors, which impacted the system it uses to release flights. “We sincerely apologize to our customers for the inconvenience this morning,” the airline said in a statement. The airline told pilots that there had been a systemwide out-age of its Flight Operations Sys-tem, said Dennis Tajer, a spokes-man for the Allied Pilots Associa-tion, a union representing Ameri-can Airlines pilots. The system handles flight planning, dispatch, and weight and balance data, he
said. The system, which American has used for many years, “is at the heart of everything we do … ev-erything feeds out of it,” Tajer said, adding that one pilot was asked to take all passengers off the flight and reboard them because the system lost their information. When the ground stop was first implemented, more than a dozen American Airlines flights were waiting at National Airport, even as planes from Southwest, United and other rival airlines took off. American Airlines passengers fretted about missing connecting flights and holiday gatherings. After the ground stop was lift-ed, airline staffers scrambled to load bags, deice planes and com-plete other tasks that pushed some flights’ estimated departure back more than two hours. Pas-sengers complained about being
rebooked for connecting flights, with some pushed to Christmas Day. “It’s all hands on deck as our team is working diligently to get customers where they need to go as quickly as possible,” American Airlines said in a statement. Although flights resumed rela-tively quickly Tuesday morning, American Airlines was still seeing delays into the afternoon. As of 2 p.m., less than a quarter of flights systemwide were departing on time, according to Tajer, although almost 60 percent were leaving within an hour of their scheduled departure. The outage “happened at the worst part of the day, but getting a resolution so early in the day is a real relief,” Tajer said. “These are all indications that the system is recovering and we are not seeing a major cascading failure.”
SHAWN THEW/EPAEFE/SHUTTERSTOCK An American Airlines ticket agent talks to a passenger at Reagan National Airport in Arlington on Tuesday.
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U.S. whooping cough cases soar to highest in a decade
B Y SA B R I N A MA L H I
Whooping cough continues to surge in the United States, with reported cases soaring to more than 32,000 this year — nearly five times the 6,500 cases record-ed during the same period last year — marking the highest levels in a decade. Health experts cite as main culprits for the increase waning vaccination rates and a loss of broad immunity tracing to coro-navirus lockdown protocols. The disease, caused by the bacteriumBordetella pertussis, is highly transmissible from person to person through the air. Be-cause of their immature immune systems, infants younger than 1 year old are at highest risk of contracting whooping cough — also known as pertussis — and are at most significant risk of severe illness. Vaccination rates with the DTaP shot — which protects against diphtheria, tetanus and pertussis — declined from March through September 2020 at the height of the coronavirus pan-demic. But because people were following pandemic protocols such as masking and social dis-tancing, cases did not soar. Some children who missed getting their shots during that period may
never have received them, ex-perts have said. There are two types of pertus-sis vaccines in the United States. The DTaP for young children and the Tdap for teenagers and adults. The DTaP vaccine is adminis-tered as a series of five shots to infants and young children up to age 6. DTaP provides protection against illness for 98 percent of children within a year of their final dose, and about 71 percent of children remain protected five years later, according to the Cen-ters for Disease Control and Pre-vention. With the nation almost five years removed from the early days of the pandemic, cases are back to pre-pandemic levels, with more than 10,000 cases reported yearly — this year, substantially more than that. Zachary Rubin, a pediatric im-munologist in Illinois, said he has seen children in his clinic with coughs that last for months and said public sentiment toward vaccines has probably fostered immunization hesitancy among some parents. “We tend to land on the same issue with vaccines, and it’s not just about preventing death,” Ru-bin said. “It’s how you live with the disease.”
Trump aims to push back on Beijing’s influence in region
T R U M PF R O MA 1
Neither claim was new. Trump in 2019 first proposed purchasing Greenland, an autonomous terri-tory of Denmark, which refused the offer. Last year, in an interview with Tucker Carlson on X, the Elon Musk-owned social media site, Trump inaccurately said that Chi-na “controls” and runs the Pana-ma Canal. “If I’m president, they’ll get out, because I had a very good relation-ship with Xi,” Trump said in the August 2023 interview, referring to Chinese President Xi Jinping. “He respected this country. He re-spected me, and he’ll get out. We can’t let them run the Panama Canal. We built the Panama Canal. Should have never been given to Panama.” Trump has long been an admir-er of the Monroe Doctrine, the early-19th-century warning to Eu-ropean powers that the United States would forcibly resist Euro-pean colonialism and interference in the Western Hemisphere. Later administrations disclaimed the policy as America’s own justifica-tion for a history of U.S. interven-tions across the region. But the doctrine is “the formal policy of our country,” Trump said in a 2018 address to the United Nations. Both Panama and China reject-ed Trump’s most recent threat. In a televised address to the nation Sunday, Panamanian President José Raúl Mulino said that “every square meter of the Panama Canal and its adjacent zone belongs to Panama and will remain so.” Holding up a leather-bound copy of the 1977 Panama Canal treaties, Mulino said that “the sov-ereignty and independence of our country are not negotiable.” Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Mao Ning, referring to Mulino’s statement, said there is “no control, direct or indirect, from any power” over the canal. Wang Youming, of the China Institute of International Studies in Beijing, had a different take on Trump’s rationale. “Trump’s ulti-mate goal seems to be negotiating better port fees for American ships with the Panamanian govern-ment; this is just a bargaining tactic,” he said, according to the Global Times, a Communist Party tabloid published in English. More than half of the ship traf-fic through the Panama Canal is to or from U.S. ports, avoiding the long trip around Cape Horn at the southern end of South America. Passage fees can reach hundreds of thousands of dollars for the largest commercial and passenger cruise vessels. Since 2017, Chinese companies have won bids for a number of major infrastructure projects, from power plants and a railroad to expanded locks and other canal improvements. In 2018, Xi made a state visit to Pana-ma, after Panama signed on to its Belt and Road initiative. “Our navy and commerce have been treated in a very unfair and injudicious way,” Trump said in a weekend social media post. “The fees being charged by Panama are ridiculous.” Prices, which are set by an inde-pendent Panamanian commis-sion, have increased recently for all transits, first because of a drought that lowered water levels and caused a reduction in the number of ships that could pass through and this year under a new
booking system that imposes fines for ships that do not arrive for passage within a set time frame. “The tariffs are not set on a whim,” Mulino said. Panama has been widely praised for its man-agement of the canal since the turnover from U.S. ownership was completed nearly a quarter-cen-tury ago. Any U.S. attempt to take over the waterway would prob-ably face massive legal and inter-national opposition. While there is little evidence China has sought a military pres-ence in the Americas, the South-ern Command has raised flags about Chinese investment in criti-cal infrastructure, including deep-water ports, and cyber and space facilities that “can have a potential dual use for malign commercial and military activities.” Many years of U.S. warnings about the risks of debt and dependence on China largely have gone unheeded as Latin American countries have found Beijing a more willing and less demanding economic partner than the United States. Panama became a country in 1903 after breaking away from Colombia with the assistance of the United States under the presi-dency of Teddy Roosevelt, who had long envisioned constructing a canal across the narrow isthmus separating South and Central America. The waterway was built by U.S. engineers largely using labor re-cruited from Caribbean islands. Although Trump told Carlson that 35,000 Americans had died of mosquito-borne illnesses during construction — and put the figure at 38,000 last weekend — various scholars and official records have cited about 5,600 total deaths dur-ing the period of U.S. construction, most of them foreign laborers. The original U.S.-Panama treaty gave the United States rights in perpetuity to both the canal itself and a zone consisting of five miles on either side of the center of the waterway. In the late 1960s and early 1970s, as colonialism increasingly was rejected and the United States competed with the Soviet Union for the moral high ground in what was then called the Third World, anti-U.S. demonstrations roiled Panamanian cities. The adminis-tration of President Richard M. Nixon began negotiations with the Panamanian dictatorship of Omar Torrijos to relinquish both the ca-nal and the zone. In debating agreements even-tually reached between Torrijos and President Jimmy Carter, op-ponents in the U.S. Senate de-manded a second treaty in addi-tion to the one agreeing to turn over the canal by 2000. Under the separate Permanent Neutrality Treaty, the United States and Pan-ama agreed that the waterway would remain “permanently neu-tral” under Panamanian owner-ship, with no discrimination toward any country regarding tolls or access. A key amendment, insisted upon by U.S. critics of the agree-ment before ratification in 1977 and cited by some ongoing critics of the treaties, states that if any canal operations are “interfered with,” the United States and Pana-ma “each independently” have the right to take steps to restore its operations, “including the use of military force in the Republic of Panama.”
ANGIE WANG/AP Sara Goza explains an infant’s upcoming vaccinations to his motherin Fayetteville, Georgia, on Aug. 17, 2021.
Whooping cough is also known as the 100-day cough, and some people endure prolonged cough-ing spurts that can cause ribs to fracture. “The cough is not just affecting your respiratory system,” Rubin said. “It affects your whole body, your mood and your sleep, and it can create more anxiety if you’re missing school or work.” California, Illinois, New York and Ohio have reported some of the highest rates of whooping cough, and experts say an urgent
need exists for increased vaccina-tion efforts and public health initiatives to protect vulnerable populations. In December, the Department of Health and Human Services launched the Let’s Get Real Cam-paign to share information with parents about the importance of vaccines and tools for pediatric medicine professionals to edu-cate about childhood vaccines. “Unless we really take public health measures, I worry starting with the next administration,
we’ll see an uptake in the dis-ease,” said Scott Roberts, an infec-tious-disease physician at Yale School of Medicine. Health experts worry that the incoming administration could impede efforts to increase vacci-nation rates among vulnerable populations. Robert F. Kennedy Jr., whom President-elect Donald Trump se-lected to lead HHS, will have significant influence over vaccine production and safety. Kennedy has been a longtime anti-vaccine activist, and many health experts express concerns that he could contribute to waning vaccination rates. Although he has said he is not anti-vaccine, Kennedy has criti-cized the recommended list of childhood vaccines and promot-ed debunked claims about autism and vaccines. Pertussis is challenging to di-agnose because early symptoms can resemble a common cold, meaning that many cases go un-reported. Roberts said increased testing for the disease does not explain the significant rise in cases this year. “It’s still the same testing appa-ratus as last year — there haven’t been any changes in testing sur-veillance,” Roberts said. “This isn’t a mild uptick. This is an
exponential uptick, and that is striking and overcomes any test-ing bias.” Testing for pertussis is done by collecting a sample from the back of the throat. That sample can then be analyzed several ways, including through a PCR evalua-tion, which looks for DNA evi-dence and can be completed rap-idly, or it can be cultured in a laboratory to grow the bacteria, a process that takes longer. In later states of illness, testing can also be done to check for antibodies. But the tests for whooping cough are expensive. Rubin said in his clinic, he has seen charges for a single test reach hundreds of dollars. Treating pertussis early is the best way to minimize the severity of illness. Antibiotics such as azithromycin, clarithromycin and erythromycin are recom-mended by the CDC. Prevention might become in-creasingly more difficult if the bacterium evolves to evade vac-cines, according to Anita Patel, a pediatric critical care physician at Children’s National Hospital in D.C. “Waning immunity is part of the picture, but we’re seeing a rise in cases because the vaccine is less effective because it’s evolving to outsmart bacteria,” Patel said.
JOHN DURICKA/AP People gather outside the Capitol in 1977 to protest the Torrijos-Carter Treaties, which gradually passed control of the canal to Panama.
RETROPOLIS Panama Canal’s racial, social divide
B YPE T U L ADV O R A K
The social and racial divide along the Panama Canal Zone in its American heyday was stark: a silver and gold, segregated system of pay — and life. “Separate schools, clubhouses, commissaries, etc., are provided for ‘silver’ employees,” the gover-nor of the Panama Canal, J. C. Mehaffey, wrote on Aug. 20, 1946, in a letter intended to dispel sto-ries of racism and inequity in the Canal Zone. “… but every effort is being made to see that the facili-ties provided for these employees are reasonably comparable with those provided for ‘gold’ employ-ees,” he said. Reports from the people of Pan-ama said it was not. Separate bathrooms, neighbor-hoods, water fountains and schools, all labeled silver or gold, a system that began with worker payrolls in 1904. Gold dollars for the high-ranking, mostly White workers, silver pesos for workers of color. It was Jim Crow, imported. And it was this disparity that festered and eventually erupted in violence in 1964, sparking the handover of the Panama Canal’s control to Panamanians in 1977. When President-elect Donald Trump on Sunday proposed retak-ing control of the Panama Canal, it was not only a call for American domination of trade. Some could call it a signal back to a time when “Zonians,” the Americans who lived idyllic lives in the tropics, ruled. “It was a strange kind of artifi-cial place,” Michael Donoghue, au-thor of “Borderland on the Isth-mus: Race, Culture, and the Strug-gle for the Canal Zone,” told the BBC in 2014. Donoghue said his father trav-eled through the zone during World War II and compared it to “a small Southern town trans-planted into the middle of Central America.”
Zonians were primarily Ameri-cans who lived and worked in the Canal Zone, building and then running it — some for genera-tions. One of the United States’ most well-known Zonians was the late Sen. John McCain (R-Arizona), who was born there. The Zonians began coming in 1904, along with thousands of workers hired when the United States bought the land that would become the Panama Canal from a frustrated French government that failed — to the tune of more than $230 million — to engineer a canal in a forbidding climate. It was in the 1500s that Euro-peans first suggested slashing a passage through the 51-mile-wide isthmus connecting North and South America to join two oceans. Spain dabbled in the idea, but it was the French, emboldened after completing the Suez Canal, who started the big dig in the late 19th century. They hired the count who led the Suez project, Ferdinand de Lesseps. But Central America was a different terrain, not the rela-tively straightforward, sea-level sand dig through the desert. Of the 19 French engineers who signed off on the project, only one had visited Central America. Mudslides, mountains and unre-lenting tropical disease killed thousands and stalled progress. More than 25,000 workers died building the canal. Corruption sullied even the be-loved engineer Gustave Eiffel, who was hired to change the un-tenable, sea-level plan to a canal locks system. The engineer of the Eiffel Tower became one of those charged with bribery. Meanwhile, President Theo-dore Roosevelt was talking to planners who suggested building a canal in Nicaragua. But even-tually, the United States bought the land from France and restart-ed the project with American verve and innovation.
While the engineering of locks and cranes to remove the moun-tains of dirt made heroes out of people like George Washington Goethals, perhaps the biggest breakthrough in the canal project was led by doctors. “One of the most important as-pects of isthmian occupation was sanitary control,” wrote Alexan-dra Minna Stern, dean of the divi-sion of humanities at the Univer-sity of California at Los Angeles. And in this case, eliminating malaria and yellow fever helped the United States win the con-struction site, Stern wrote. When it opened in 1914, it helped reshape the world’s ship-ping routes, shaving thousands of miles off the journey around Cape Horn off the coast of Chile. It was after its completion that the Zonians flourished in a land of country clubs, exclusive schools and uniform homes, all provided by the U.S. government. “Whatever you write, please don’t say we have manicured lawns,” a spokesperson for the Panama Canal Company, a U.S. government agency, told the New York Times in 1973. “Well, as a matter of fact, we do have manicured lawns,” the Canal Zone’s governor, David E Parker, responded. The stratification of Panama began to chafe Panamanians, leading to the infamous flag inci-dent outside the American schools in 1964, a battle of symbol-ism that culminated in bloodshed. The Zonians had reached an agreement in 1963 that Panama-nian flags would fly alongside all American flags. “The old flag-raising issue took a reverse twist Tuesday when sev-eral hundred American students ceremoniously raised the Stars and Stripes in front of Balboa High School,” the Associated Press reported on Jan. 9, 1964. Hearing about the American flag raising, about 200 Panamani-an students marched across the
Canal Zone line — a fence along some parts of the line said to calm traffic — to the schools with their flag. The American and Panamani-an students clashed. A historic Panamanian flag was torn and word spread that there was a dese-cration. The clashes escalated. More po-lice and protesters came. Tear gas was sprayed, rocks were thrown, and police began to shoot. In the end, 22 Panamanians and four U.S. soldiers were killed. That day, Jan. 9, is still called Martyr’s Day in Panama. The segregation ended, and re-lations between the United States and Panama broke down as Pana-ma pushed to renegotiate the 1904 agreement and regain control of the Canal Zone. It was the firestorm that Presi-dent Jimmy Carter inherited in 1977, an issue that divided Ameri-cans along party lines. The 34,000 Zonians worried about life under Panamanian control. “It is a remarkably stable popu-lation, made up for the most part of children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren of Canal workers,” wrote Egon Tausch in a 1977 report for the U.S. Industrial Council. “The Zonians have no intention of being ignored,” wrote Tausch, an attorney and investigator sent to write a report about the Zo-nians. They “were the victims of the 1964 riots, sporadic violence incidents since then, including the bombings of American auto-mobiles in November 1976, and harassment by the Panamanian Guardia Nacional and secret po-lice.” The Torrijos-Carter Treaties were signed in Washington on Sept. 7, 1977, guaranteeing that Panama would gain control of the canal after 1999. Thousands of Zonians left, many moving to Florida, California and Arizona as Panama took possession of the territory.
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