The Washington Post - USA (2021-12-25)

IllUsTRATIon By KEVIn TUDBAll

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 Dave Barry’s Year in

Review Our point is not that

2021 was massively better

than 2020. Our point is that

at least it was different. A

variant, so to speak. And like

any year, it had both highs

and lows. No, we take that

back. It was pretty much all

lows. Magazine

On break The Travel section

will return after the holidays.

 ‘JFK’ is still with us

Thirty years ago, Oliver Stone

defied Washington,

Hollywood and history itself

to make his kaleidoscopic

drama about the 1963

assassination. Its legacy

endures. Arts & Style

In Sunday’s Post

$ 76 DAMon CAsAREz FoR WAshIngTon PosT

Inside

REAL ESTATE

A festive respite The section is off this week. For listings and the latest news, go to washingtonpost.com/realestate.

THE ECONOMY An NFT under the tree This year’s hot, unwrappable gift is ethereal, confusing, controversial — and, for some, perfect. A

THE NATION

Diversity in the jury box Many American juries are mostly White, prompting states to take action to target discrimination. A

THE REGION An exodus of clergy A first Christmas as a layperson in D.C.: Burned out and disheartened by the pandemic and politics. B

BY MARISA IATI, SILVIA FOSTER-FRAU, PAUL SCHWARTZMAN, EMILY DAVIES AND REBECCA TAN

T

hrough surges and respites, month after virus-rattled month, there has always been an expectation that this will end, that life will return to something familiar. Maybe it won’t be a restoration of what was. Maybe it won’t happen all at once. ¶ But the hope has persisted, a hope that the isolation and the anxiety, the waiting and the watching, will subside and people will be able to look up one day and say, “Hmm, this is sort of normal,” or “This is different, but it’s okay again.” ¶ This season, in another stretch of spiking concern, it can be hard to believe in those who say we’re heading back to the way things used to be. But people are increasingly insisting that they are going to live again, to come out of hiding, to do the things they’ve put off and put aside. ¶ Today, we offer five stories of return — a couple who pushed their wedding date back three times, a mother and daughter whose separation had gone on too long, a funeral director who dreams about getting a little less business, a boy who rediscovered the faces and frolics of other kids, and a Santa who insisted on finding a way once again to hug and to ho-ho-ho. SEE CHRISTMAS ON A

IllUsTRATIon By BEyA REBAI FoR ThE WAshIngTon PosT

A Christmas gift

Stories of a return to something familiar

ABCDE

Prices may vary in areas outside metropolitan Washington. RE V1 V2 V3 V

Shower 67/50 • Tomorrow: Partly sunny, breezy 60/39 B6 Democracy Dies in Darkness saturday, december 25 , 2021. $

BY GRIFF WITTE

AND MARK BERMAN

When the coronavirus struck
American shores in early 2020,
the red-brick courthouse that has
stood sentry on Main Street in
Newport, Vt., since the late 19th
century abruptly shut down.
So did courthouses nation-
wide. But unlike most, the one in
Newport — a small, lakeside com-
munity nestled near the Cana-
dian border — has never fully
reopened.
With jury trials still suspend-
ed, cases are being dismissed by
the dozen. Defendants live with
charges they can’t shake. And
Dick Collier lies awake at night,
wondering if he will die before
the man accused of killing his
daughter faces justice.
“That’s my fear,” said Collier,
81, and in precarious health.
“That I might not live long
enough to see him go to trial.”
Nearly two years after the
American justice system was par-
alyzed by a pandemic, the reper-
cussions continue to radiate
through communities nation-
wide, from tiny towns to the
largest cities.
District attorneys face some of
the longest case backlogs in living
memory. Defendants languish in
jails that have become breeding
grounds for the coronavirus. Oth-
ers are set free — and, some
prosecutors say, may be contrib-
uting to a spike in violent crime
that is only compounding the
pileup.
Although the shutdown in
Newport is extreme — most
courthouses are back in action,
even if they are not yet at their
pre-pandemic capacity — legal
officials from coast to coast say
justice delayed by covid-19 will
continue to be a feature of the
SEE BACKLOGS ON A

Courts’

backlog

prolongs

suffering

Victims and defendants in limbo as pandemic’s trial delays continue

BY MARISA IATI

An airplane passenger is accused of attacking a flight atten- dant and breaking bones in her face. Three New York City tour- ists assaulted a restaurant host who asked them for proof of vaccination against the coronavirus, prosecutors say. Eleven people were charged with misde- meanors after they allegedly chanted “No more masks!” and some moved to the front of the room during a Utah school board meeting. Across the United States, an alarming number of people are lashing out in aggressive and often cruel ways in response to policies or behavior they dislike. “I think people just feel this need to feel powerful, in charge and connected to someone again,” said Jennifer Jenkins, a school board member in Brevard County, Fla., who said she has faced harassment. The Federal Aviation Adminis- tration has initiated over 1, unruly-passenger investigations this year, more than five times as many as in all of 2020, amid fury over mask mandates and record flight cancellations — including about 3,800 canceled on Christ- mas Eve and Christmas Day because of coronavirus-related staffing issues. SEE TRAUMA ON A

As virus

rages on,

many at

wits’ end

IMPACT SEEN FROM COLLECTIVE TRAUMA

Some Americans act out anger in public outbursts

BY HEATHER KELLY

AND EMILY GUSKIN

You’ll find all the usual technology suspects inside Mary Vesel- ka’s Pearland, Tex., home. There’s her iPhone, a school-issued iPad for her young daughter and the latest boxes delivered from Ama- zon. The full-time mother has an active Facebook account and a TikTok account, and sitting in her living room is an Echo speaker, its Alexa voice assistant always ready to add items to her shopping list or turn off the lights. Like many Americans, Vesel- ka’s daily life is saturated with the products and services pushed by big technology companies, paid and free. And like many Ameri- cans, she simultaneously does not trust the businesses or the people running them when it comes to privacy issues, but can’t simply shake them off, either. She doesn’t SEE POLL ON A

Poll: In U.S.,

low trust of

Big Tech with

personal data

Many flights canceled Travelers in a bind for holiday. A Omicron spikes in children Unvaccinated age groups at risk. A

BY SYDNEY TRENT

Emmanuel Johnson doesn’t
believe in Christmas.
After a largely loveless child-
hood in which he was “moved
around like a chess piece,” and
more than two decades in and out
of prison and on the streets, his
holiday spirit vanished a long
time ago.
Even so, Johnson says he’s re-
ceived a miraculous gift: his first
apartment at the age of 43 — a
bright, one-bedroom shotgun flat
in Southeast Washington.
After his last release from pris-
on, Johnson spent three years on
the streets, mostly at Second and
L streets in Northeast. His out-
door struggles ended this fall,
along with those of 32 other peo-
ple in the NoMa underpass tent

encampments, after the District announced that, as part of clearing the enclave and two other large encampments, it would partner with nonprofit agencies to find housing for those residents. The pilot program, which is focused on placing the homeless in apartments or hotel rooms for a year while connecting them with social service programs, has generated controversy. Advo- cates, unhoused residents and some D.C. Council members say that the clearing of the encampments has been rushed and inhu- mane, and that the barriers being erected to prevent people from returning to the sites amount to the criminalization of homeless- ness. An emergency measure to tem- porarily stop the sweep and chal- lenge the city’s decision to remove the homeless from public spaces was rejected by the D.C. Council on Tuesday. Those voting against the measure said the tent encampments pose health and safe- SEE HOUSING ON A

After years on D.C.’s streets, a home just in time for the holidays

AMAnDA VoIsARD FoR ThE WAshIngTon PosT Christina Giles, 42, hugs her grandchildren Thursday at her new apartment in Northeast Washington, not far from where she used to live in a tent encampment under the L Street Bridge.

3 people reflect on fresh

starts, and new struggles,

in their own apartments