WASHINGTON — Donald Trump’s impeachment ended with a reminder of why House Speaker Nancy Pelosi resisted the idea for so long — an acquittal everyone saw coming, followed by a bombastic presidential victory lap and a bump in his poll numbers just as the 2020 campaign officially began.

Now Democrats have to decide how to navigate the legislative and political landscape that they’ve helped reshape.

Pelosi’s nationally televised ripping of her copy of Trump’s State of the Union address Tuesday night underscored the acrid atmosphere that will make partisan cooperation on any issue difficult. Major legislative compromises were always going to be hard this election year, but the impeachment fight only deepened partisan bitterness and made progress less likely.

“Because we have to,” No. 2 House Democratic leader Steny Hoyer of Maryland said when asked how Congress and Trump could cooperate on health care and other issues. He added, “I’d be foolish to be optimistic because we have not done that so far.”

Democrats must also decide how vigorously to continue investigations, including into impeachment’s focus: Trump’s effort to pressure Ukraine’s leaders to bolster his reelection by seeking dirt on rival Joe Biden. The GOP-controlled Senate acquitted Trump on Wednesday of both articles of impeachment, with Utah Sen. Mitt Romney the sole lawmaker defying party lines.

Former White House national security adviser John Bolton could still have damaging information about Trump and has expressed a willingness to testify if subpoenaed. House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerrold Nadler, D-N.Y., told reporters Wednesday that House panels would likely summon Bolton and pursue other Trump probes as well.

“When you have a lawless president, you have to bring that to the fore, you have to spotlight that,” Nadler said.

Speaking to reporters at the White House on Friday, Trump pushed back once again and argued that his impeachment should be expunged from the congressional record. He also claimed that he was willing to work with Democrats, but then accused the party’s elected leaders of suffering from “Trump derangement syndrome.”

“They’ve got a bad case of it,” Trump said. “That was on display the other night when (Pelosi) ripped up the speech. That was terrible … so disrespectful to our country.” He added that the Democrats were “not constructive people.”

Even as they consider the path ahead, neither Pelosi nor Democrats controlling the House are second-guessing their decision to impeach Trump.

Pelosi stood as a bulwark against impeachment for months as pro-impeachment sentiment rose steadily in her caucus, but when Trump’s dealings with Ukraine came to light in September, the floodgates were forced open.

“Once Ukraine happened, we had no choice but to proceed,” said Rep. Peter Welch, D-Vt.

“And had we not (acted),” Welch added, “there would have been a huge price to pay politically.”

While that’s a popular view with Democrats’ dominant liberal wing, many think an overemphasis on Trump investigations risks feeding the Republican narrative that overreaching Democrats are obsessed with pursuing him. They also worry about detracting from Democrats’ focus on pocketbook issues that helped them capture House control in the 2018 elections.

“I’m hoping that’s a side show, and the big show is let’s work for the American people” on issues like health care and infrastructure,” said Rep. Lou Correa, D-Calif., co-chairman of the Blue Dog Coalition, which represents around 25 moderate House Democrats.

Assessing impeachment’s political impact ahead of November’s elections is at least as fraught.

Democrats say say despite Trump’s acquittal, the trial trained prolonged attention on his sordid behavior and lashed GOP senators to him with their votes absolving him. They say that will weaken their reelection bids of GOP senators in swing states like Colorado, Maine and Arizona.

“This reinforced the view that Trump is unethical and lacking in integrity,” said Democratic pollster Geoffrey Garin. “And it’s exposed a number of Republican senators as hacks beholden to the president and Mitch McConnell,” the Senate majority leader from Kentucky whom Democrats love to target.

Republicans counter that the effort has electrified GOP voters just months before Election Day, citing a Gallup Poll showing Trump with a 49% job approval rating, the highest of his presidency. They say Pelosi made tactical errors that exposed Democrats’ impeachment drive as a blatantly political exercise, in the process weakening more than two dozen House Democrats from Trump-won districts.

“The President has his highest approval rating since he’s been in office,” said Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky. “I can tell you as a poll watcher who’s looking at polls in certain Senate races every one of our people in tough races, every one of them, is in better shape today than they were before the impeachment trial started.”

Republicans were especially critical of House Democrats’ decision to not fight more in the courts to obtain testimony and documents. Democrats said they dropped such efforts because Trump could have forced legal battles lasting months, effectively derailing the impeachment effort. Republicans said that decision made it easy to portray Democrats as caring less about a serious investigation than politics.

“You didn’t even bother to pull all the levers,” said Scott Jennings, a longtime political adviser to McConnell.

Many Democrats say there would have been no way to prevent Republicans from complaining that the investigation was political and lacked sufficient evidence.

“They’d have said that if you’d produced volumes more evidence,” said John Lawrence, Pelosi’s chief of staff for eight years ending in 2013.

And while Democrats collected compelling evidence against Trump, they made the mistake of thinking they’d win by appealing broadly to voters, said Brendan Buck, a GOP consultant who’s advised congressional leaders. Republicans prevailed by aiming their arguments at the GOP’s core conservative supporters, a tactic that has driven Trump’s presidency.

“Democrats seemed to play by the old rules and the president played by the new rules,” Buck said.

One moderate House Democrat said Democrats facing difficult reelection fights from Trump-leaning districts think Pelosi made tactical decisions that could jeopardize them.

That includes her one-month delay in formally sending the House’s impeachment articles to the Senate. That fed the GOP argument that the effort was political, said the Democrat, who spoke on condition of anonymity to describe private conversations.

This Democrat said lawmakers also recoiled at Pelosi’s decision to sign the impeachment articles and distribute pens as mementos to colleagues. The Democrat said voters in their districts often cited that televised ceremony as evidence that impeachment was politically motivated.

“They ran as, ‘I’m not just a regular Democrat, I’ll reach across party lines,’” said former Rep. Tom Davis, R-Va., who once ran the House GOP’s campaign organization. “And here they are impeaching the president like this.”

One thing many from both parties agree on: By November, impeachment could well be superseded by other issues and will likely be conflated into an overall referendum on Trump.

“My honest guess is that the public will very rapidly turn to kitchen table issues,” said former Rep. David Obey, D-Wis.

BEIJING — China’s ruling Communist Party faced public anger and recrimination Friday over the death of a doctor who was threatened by the authorities after trying to sound the alarm about the new coronavirus back in December. The death toll, meanwhile, rose to nearly 640, and the number of people infected worldwide climbed past 31,400.

Cruise ship passengers faced more woe as Japan reported 41 new cases on one quarantined vessel and turned away another. President Xi Jinping spoke with President Donald Trump and urged the U.S. to “respond reasonably” to the outbreak, echoing complaints that some countries are overreacting by restricting Chinese travelers.

A look at the latest developments:

TREATMENT OF WHISTLEBLOWER DOCTOR INVESTIGATED

Following an online uproar over the government’s treatment of Dr. Li Wenliang, the Communist Party struck a conciliatory note, saying it is sending a team to “fully investigate relevant issues raised by the public.”

Li, a 34-year-old ophthalmologist, contracted the virus while treating patients, and his death was confirmed early Friday. Li, one of eight medical professionals in Wuhan who tried to warn colleagues and others when the government did not, had said that police forced him to sign a statement admitting he spread falsehoods.

Even the staunchly pro-government Global Times newspaper said the whistleblowers’ treatment was “evidence of local authorities’ incompetence to tackle a contagious and deadly virus.”

The episode has raised longstanding complaints that party officials lie about or cover up disease outbreaks, chemical spills, dangerous consumer products or financial frauds. Chinese citizens can be jailed on charges of rumor-mongering or making trouble.

Most of the deaths from the virus have been of older people with existing health problems, but disease specialists said Li’s work — eye doctors sit very close to their patients during examinations — may have subjected him to an extra large dose of the virus that made his illness more severe.

CRUISE SHIP WOES

Japan confirmed 41 new cases of the virus on the quarantined Diamond Princess, adding to 20 escorted off the ship earlier. The nearly 3,700 passengers and crew still on board remain under 14-day quarantine.

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said foreign passengers on another ship, Holland America’s Westerdam, won’t be allowed into Japan. He said suspected virus patients were on board. The ship, with more than 2,000 people, was near Okinawa and was seeking another port, said Overseas Travel Agency official Mie Matsubara.

“We are getting desperate,” she said. “We hope we can go somewhere so that passengers can land.”

XI, TRUMP TALK VIRUS RESPONSE, TRADE

China’s state media quoted Xi as saying China has launched “a people’s war against the virus.”

“We hope the U.S. side can assess the epidemic in a calm manner and adopt and adjust its response measures in a reasonable way,” he added.

Beijing has complained that the U.S. is flying its citizens out of Wuhan but not providing any assistance to China.

The U.S. announced later Friday that it is prepared to spend up to $100 million to help China and other countries fight the outbreak. The government also said it helped with the effort to deliver nearly 18 tons of medical supplies donated to the Chinese by the American people, including masks, gowns, gauze and respirators.

All but one the deaths in the outbreak have been in China. China’s National Health Commission said about 4,800 of those being treated, or nearly 17 percent, are in serious condition. The vast majority of the infected are in China; roughly 290 others are in about two dozen other countries, including Japan, Thailand, Singapore and South Korea.

The U.S. has reported 12 cases.

Hundreds more Americans evacuated from the stricken zone in China began arriving Friday in the U.S., where they will be quarantined on military bases for two weeks.

WUHAN RESIDENTS SAY GETTING HELP NOT EASY

Wuhan, the epicenter of the outbreak, has added thousands of beds by building two new hospitals and converting gyms and other spaces into places where patients can be held in isolation. Thousands of military and civilian medical workers have been sent in.

Still, those inside the quarantine zone of some 50 million residents speak of a medical system completely overwhelmed.

Chen Jiaxin, 22, said by telephone from Wuhan that his father fell ill on Jan. 28 but had to return home because no hospital would accept him. When he called for an ambulance after his father’s fever spiked on Thursday, Chen said, he was told 400 people were ahead of him and “we were just told to wait and wait.”

Mother-of-two Rong Qin, 32, said that her 67-year-old father is feeling sick and is awaiting test results, but that she was told by local officials that even those with a positive diagnosis have to wait for beds.

“What I am hoping now is to put my father in a public quarantine facility so that he doesn’t pass the infection on to other family members,” she said.

MILLSBORO — An ambulatory medical campus in Peninsula Regional Health System Inc.’s growing healthcare network is being proposed on rural property bordering Millsboro’s northern town limits.

Annexation is an initial step.

Town of Millsboro officials and council are working diligently to consider a request from Kenneth Adams on behalf of a family entity to annex an approximate 39.2-acre piece of land along U.S. 113 north of the current town limits, according to Millsboro Town Manager Sheldon Hudson.

Mr. Adams, whose Joseph Family of Companies includes Melvin Joseph Construction Inc., M.L. Joseph Sand & Gravel Company Inc., and Stockley Materials, said the proposal has gone through the state of Delaware’s Preliminary Land Use Service process.

The medical campus project is coined Patriot’s Bluff Commercial.

Peninsula Regional Health System was looking to do this type of project in the Millsboro area, and through a real estate connection, their property was identified, Mr. Adams said.

“And the word that everybody has been saying all along is, ‘That property checks all the boxes,’” said Mr. Adams. “We’re contiguous to the town of Millsboro. We are not currently in, but we touch the town of Millsboro. We’re close to existing infrastructure. We’re right on the highway. The property is sized appropriately for what they are trying to do. It looks like it’s the ideal place for them to do what they want to do.”

The town of Millsboro has identified the property in the annexation area on the Town Comprehensive Plan.

“According to the property owner, the plan is for Peninsula Regional Health System to construct an ambulatory campus on the land in question (Patriot’s Bluff Commercial),” said Mr. Hudson. “Obviously, it is certainly exciting news for Millsboro.”

Requested zoning through annexation is Highway Commercial. Current zoning with Sussex County is AR-1 (Agricultural/Residential).

The Patriot’s Bluff Commercial project includes up to approximately 200,000 commercial square footage.

The concept, Mr. Adams says, is a medical campus theme.

“With the size of the property there is room for other commercial presence,” said Mr. Adams. “The concept here is for it to be a medical campus. So, on the residual land, after they have kind of created the footprint for their campus, in my mind it would be medical related commercial.”

At Millsboro’s Feb. 3 town council meeting, a town committee unanimously recommended that the town take the next step. Council voted 6-0 to accept the committee’s recommendation that the town schedule a public hearing at the March 2 council meeting.

Additionally, Mr. Hudson shared a prepared statement from Peninsula Regional Health System Inc. sent to the town of Millsboro. The statement reads in part:

“Peninsula Regional Health System, which opened a family medicine practice in the Millsboro Health Pavilion in 2014, is seeking to expand in eastern Sussex County to better support a rapidly growing population. While Millsboro and the surrounding population have been a focus of the system for several years, PRHS seeks to establish an ambulatory campus that will provide an enhanced variety of healthcare services for the community.”

“While those have not been finalized, the new health complex will create jobs and offer services similar to what are available at our other ambulatory campuses,” PRHS’s statement continued. “Acute care needs will continue to be supported by the PRHS’s hospitals in Seaford (Nanticoke Memorial) and Salisbury (Peninsula Regional).”

Noting annexation is the immediate focus, Mr. Adams said it is far too early and premature to venture a ballpark guess on when construction could proceed, and the completed campus might open.

“I would just say we are going to be working diligently to get shovels in the ground as soon as the permit process allows,” Mr. Adams said. “Within a year, hopefully we’ll be seeing dirt fly, or less than a year — maybe.”

PRHS’s Delmarva Health Pavilion on Commerce Drive off U.S. 113 features the Peninsula Regional FamilyLab and Peninsula Regional Family Medicine. PRHS also has FamilyLab and Family Practice locations in Laurel.

PRHS has also opened an ambulatory medical campus in Ocean Pines, Maryland.

Recently, Peninsula Region Health System’s presence in Delaware expanded with state and federal regulatory approval of the affiliation with Seaford-based Nanticoke Health Services. On Jan. 2, it was officially announced that Nanticoke Memorial Hospital, Nanticoke Physician Network and all other Nanticoke healthcare services have joined Peninsula Regional Health System.

President Donald Trump won impeachment acquittal Wednesday in the U.S. Senate, bringing to a close only the third presidential trial in American history with votes that split the country, tested civic norms and fed the tumultuous 2020 race for the White House.

A majority of senators expressed unease with Trump’s pressure campaign on Ukraine that resulted in the two articles of impeachment. But the final tallies — 52-48 favoring acquittal of abuse of power, 53-47 of obstruction of Congress’ investigation — fell far short. Two-thirds “guilty” votes would have been needed to reach the Constitution’s bar of high crimes and misdemeanors to convict and remove Trump from office.

• The way it should be!! Democrats in this country should be ashamed of themselves for acting the way they do!! They don’t want to make America better. They just want to trash America and make America fall — Amber Brummitt

• So, according to some of these post, you are not innocent until proven guilty. — Kevin McCarthy

• He was proven guilty. It’s called jury nullification. He was tried by his peers. They are a bunch of cowardly crooks like him. — William Mazzariello

• Actually if I’m not mistaken, on the the prosecutors actually stated on the lines of “we accused, we see coincidences. It’s up to Trump to prove his innocence.” They told him to prove his innocence without having concrete proof, just hearsay and speculation, which is never enough to convict. — Walt Speakmen

• The Senate can only evaluate the merits of the charges that the House forwarded in the articles of impeachment; the Senate can’t expand upon those charges or add additional ones. And since there are no accusations of illegality within the aforementioned articles of impeachment, there’s no objective threshold for the Senate to establish. That’s why the charges are being dismissed. If a willful violation of the Impoundment Control Act is what actually transpired, then the articles of impeachment must charge the president with that. He can’t be convicted of something he hasn’t been charged with. — John Daliani

• On November 3, 2020 President Trump will be re-elected in a landslide never seen before all because America is tired of the corruption and lies from the entire democratic party and fraudulent media who work hand in hand with the Democrats to deceive the public! — Marc Auger

• I don’t think he’ll overtake Reagan’s 1984 victory, or Nixon’s 1972 victory, or FDR’s 1936 victory. Those are landslides. — Dale Lambert

• Mitt Romney had enough courage to put country ahead of party! The rest are cowards! They need their jobs! — Brandan Warner

• He’ll always be impeached. That stain on his record is eating him alive, and it’s somewhat satisfying. — Peter Rispoli

• Oh it gets better Democrats. Just wait until November. After seeing the nonsense of the DNC exposed and in the full light people will vote against them. It’s going to be nothing but bad and worse all year. Get your tissues stocked up! — Jim Green

Sussex Central High collected six pins before topping intra-district rival Indian River, 42-30, in wrestling on Friday night.

Tarryl Sturgis (160 pounds) won in 32 seconds for the quickest of those six falls for the Golden Knights (8-3).

Also winning by pin for Central were Mason Ankrom (126), Ethan Vickers (145), Jaden Savage (152), Kody Lankford (170) and Terrance Frisby (195). The Knights won five straight matches between 138 and 170 pounds.

The Indians answered with pins from Ryan Bunting (106), Ian Shaubach (120), Ta’Jon Knight (132) and Will Keller (192).

Cape Henlopen 48, St. Georges 15: The Vikings took control from the start by winning the night’s first seven individual bouts.

Juan Lares (160) started the match with a first-period pin before Cameron Smith (195) won by fall later for Cape.

Caravel 45, Caesar Rodney 21: The Buccaneers won six matches in a row between 106 and 138 pounds, with three pins, to put away the Riders.

CR got a 12-second fall from Kevin Hudson (285) after a pin from Shamar Nelson (220) to hold an early 18-16 advantage.

Jays win twice: Seaford picked up a pair of non-conference wins on Friday, downing Tatnall 54-30 and Wilmington Friends, 51-29.

Laurel 63, Dover 12: The Bulldogs downed the Senators in a non-divisional matchup.

Girls’ basketball

Delmarva Christian 56, Salisbury Christian, Md. 17: Grace Fetterman tallied 14 points with Sierra Troyer adding 13 for the Royals.

Delmarva Christian (16-1) built a 47-12 lead after three quarters.

St. Elizabeth 66, Sussex Central 20: Ja’Marah Hopkins netted eight points for the Golden Knights in the non-conference loss.

St. Peter & Paul, Md. 34, St. Thomas More 12: The Ravens dropped to 0-17 with the setback on Friday.

Boys’ basketball

Seaford 77, First State Military 34: Brent Ricketts netted 20 points for the Blue Jays, who used a 22-7 second-quarter run to pull away.

Tyrese Fortune added 12 points with Jayden Palmer scoring 10 for Seaford.

Jasiah Brooks (14) and Nicholas Doldon (11) led First State Military.

Delmarva Christian 87, Salisbury School, Md. 50: The Royals improved to 15-2 with the victory.

College basketball

WOMEN, Delaware 81, Northeastern 69: Nicole Enabosi netted 28 points as the Blue Hens picked up their second-straight CAA win.

Delaware (4-6 CAA, 8-13 overall) opened up a 41-26 halftime lead before holding off the Huskies (6-4 CAA, 10-11 overall).

Jasmine Dickey (14 points, 13 rebounds) and Abby Gonzales (12 points) also scored in double figures for the Hens.

College softball

Hens split opener: Delaware shut out Georgetown, 4-0, before falling to the host Eagles, 4-1, as the Blue Hens opened their season at the Florida Gulf Coast Kickoff Classic.

In the opener, Halle Kisamore and Brittney Mendoza belted consecutive run-scoring triples in the fourth. Blue Hen pitchers Sarah Piening and Emily Winburn made the lead stand up by combining for a six-hit shutout.

As a teacher at the Delaware Military Academy I am gravely concerned about the misinformation e-cigarette companies have targeted at kids about vaping.

Despite what teens have been told, these products are not safe for youth. E-cigarettes can contain unusually high levels of nicotine. In fact, one e-cigarette pod can contain as much nicotine as an entire pack of cigarettes. Youth who vape are particularly susceptible to nicotine addiction, which can harm their still developing brains and bodies.

More than one in four high school students are vaping now, and a total of more than 5 million teens are vaping – a figure that doubled in the past two years alone.

E-cigarettes come in thousands of flavors that strongly appeal to kids, including “strawberry watermelon,” “cotton candy” and “mint berry.” I was not surprised to learn that 97% of current youth who vape report using a flavored product.

I am proud to support the American Heart Association’s national #QuitLying Day initiative, where demand accountability by e-cigarette companies for spending millions of dollars marketing products directly to teens and help them learn the facts about vaping. I encourage all schools and organizations who care about our youth to do the same.

I would also like to encourage equally concerned members of our community to sign the American Heart Association’s letter to Big Vape at QuitLying.org. We need to let them know that our children’s health is not for sale.

Amy Krzyzanowski
Social studies teacher
Delaware Military Academy
Wilmington

By Michael Reagan

It started Sunday night with an exciting and hard-fought Super Bowl game, which I was happy to see end with the Kansas City Chiefs defeating the San Francisco 49ers.

Then the next day came the Iowa caucus, aka the Democrat Party’s Iowa fiasco.

For weeks, the liberal mainstream media and cable TV had been building up the importance of a win in Iowa.

They treated the state’s obsolete caucus process like a sacred ceremony of grassroots democracy that was going to play a crucial role in deciding the Democrats’ choice to dethrone President Trump.

The caucus was over on Monday.

As of Thursday afternoon, we still didn’t know who won, thanks to the incompetence and serial screw-ups of the state’s Democrat Party election officials.

The two “winners” – Mayor Pete and Bernie Sanders – are essentially tied. But since those results were riddled with many inconsistencies, the final score can never be trusted.

At this point, though, Iowa doesn’t matter. No one cares.

The candidates and the media already have flown off in their private jets to New Hampshire for next week’s primary.

While Democrats were still re-counting in Iowa, President Trump was winning the 2020 election.

On Tuesday night his State of the Union address got high marks from Republicans for content, tone and a handful of emotional stories from special guests, while the Democrats in Congress showed what losers they are.

A bunch of them sat on their hands, made sour faces, yelled comments, stared into their phones and acted like bratty high school girls.

If Stuntwoman of the House Nancy Pelosi hadn’t torn up her copy of the president’s speech, the rude and childish behavior of her young Democrats might have been a bigger story.

On Wednesday, President Trump had another pretty good day. He was easily acquitted by the Senate of abuse of power and obstruction of Congress in his impeachment trial.

With a two-thirds majority needed to remove him from office, everyone on the planet had known for months that he would be acquitted in a walk. We just had to wait to see what the official final score would be.

The only “news” made at the impeachment trial was Mitt Romney’s split vote on the two articles of impeachment.

He voted guilty on abuse of power, becoming the only Republican in the trial to vote to remove the president, and not guilty on obstruction of Congress.

It was typical Mitt.

He’s always standing in the middle of the road – and then wonders why he gets run over. That was his big problem in 2012 when he ran against President Obama as a wishy-washy conservative.

Looking back over the week’s wild events, I think the craziest one was the halftime show put on by Shakira and Jennifer Lopez at the Super Bowl.

I enjoyed it. The dancing was great. The Latin music was great, though I don’t remember what J.Lo was singing – or if she even was.

But excuse me, isn’t the Super Bowl supposed to be family entertainment?

As a male I was perfectly OK with watching two Latina superstars performing 15-minutes of seductive hip-shaking, butt-shaking, crotch-thrusting and pole dancing.

But should nine-year-old boys or girls or teenagers with raging hormones have been watching J.Lo shake her booty and everything else in their faces?

Was the NFL really OK with what she and Shakira were essentially doing – selling simulated sex to the guys watching football?

I thought that kind of stuff was in violation of the #MeToo Movement. Or is it OK as long as women do it?

I don’t know the answers to those questions.

But I do know if a male responded to J.Lo’s seductive sales pitch in a natural way and said something like “Great legs” or “Nice butt he might find himself looking for a new job.

Michael Reagan is the son of President Ronald Reagan, a political consultant, and the author of “Lessons My Father Taught Me: The Strength, Integrity, and Faith of Ronald Reagan.”

By Armand Carreau

School board elections are coming soon, May 12, less than three and a half months away. The deadline for filing as a candidate is March 6, a mere month away. It is well past time to begin thinking seriously about perhaps the most important event that will occur this year, with the possible exception of the general election on Nov. 3.

The most important event this year? Think about our children and how innocent, naïve and vulnerable they are. Our schools are charged with making virtuous and informed citizens of them. Sad to say our leaders have dropped the ball, or worse, are complicit with the forces of change.

But who’s in charge of teaching them? Who’s in charge of overseeing that it is done right? And who’s accountable to the parents? Delaware schools are near the bottom of the barrel nationwide and have been for some time. We, as parents, have final responsibility for the education of our children, whether homeschooling or sending them to governmet schools.

Vladimir Ilyich Lenin, “Father of Soviet Russia”, stated: “Give me four years to teach the children and the seed I have sown will never be uprooted.”

Think about what the children are learning, or not learning. Are you reading their text books and homework assignments? Can we afford to leave this to chance, to teachers unions, to fluffy and biased curricula, and to watered down courses that push social activism, to a secular world-view that will not tolerate opposing views, to a twisted history that makes our children ashamed of, and harbor hatred for, their country, to children who graduate half-literate and/or don’t understand math thanks to the state’s hunger for federal grants that usher in atrocious federal programs like Common Core.

Even worse than the above, is the influence of Planned Parenthood promoting sexual promiscuity and experimentation to your children. This program masquerades as sex education, to keep abortion indispensable to the future (talk about a business plan). Then there is an anti-bullying program normalizing dangerous LGBTQ lifestyles, often ending in ruined lives.

I am not stating these programs are in every school, but as a parent, you must be aware these programs are real, and some schools have adopted them. Has your school?

We like to believe our teachers are dedicated to our children, and most of them are. But you must also understand that there are forces out there that are hell-bent on fundamentally transforming our country, and our children are mere collateral damage. We must all be aware of the concerns mentioned above, and more. Even the most dedicated teachers are cowed into worrying about losing their jobs and being blacklisted. We are dealing with fascist forces. Many of you already understand you are accountable for everything you say, especially if you have a job. Few of us are safe!

Cicero stated in 46 BC: “Not to know what happened before you were born is to be a child forever.” Many of our kids are confused, can’t distinguish good from evil, right from wrong, what is truth, what are lies, or what the future consequences may be.

What to do:

Find out what school district you are in as that is the only place your vote counts.

Attend school board meetings if possible, learn about the school board members up for election and where they stand on the issues I’ve mentioned, as well as others important to you. Remember to confirm their records or what other parents think about them. Unfortunately, the honor system is dead. When you have decided incumbent or challenger, remember to vote.

If you are not happy with the member up for election, do not let him/her run unopposed. We have only till March 6 to find a candidate to file. There isn’t much time!

After you have voted, don’t sit on your hands. Begin preparing for next year’s vote. Learn all you can. Yours and other children’s lives and happiness hang in the balance.

These elections are typically under the radar and not well attended. They are often de-ided by fewer than 50 votes. That is how the unions like it. We are in an ideological war; progressivism, socialism, fascism, and communism are winning. Schools are factories of future warriors. Which side will those warriors be on, liberty or tyranny?

Armand Carreau is a resident of Bridgeville

DOVER — Great teams don’t play great every night.

Certainly, Dover High’s effort against Woodbridge on Friday night wasn’t its finest.

But, as great teams do, the Senators still found a way to notch another victory.

Dover survived a seven-point third quarter before finally registering a 78-71 win over the upset-minded Blue Raiders in a battle of Henlopen Conference boys’ basketball division leaders.

After going up by as many as 16 points in the first half, Northern Division leader-Dover (16-1) watched as South co-leader Woodbridge (13-4) closed within just four with 3:36 still remaining.

The Senators, however, answered with a 12-5 run before improving to 40-2 over the past two seasons.

“We made it tougher than it should have been but we still dug it out and got the win,” said senior guard Elijah Allen, who netted a game-high 30 points. “We’ve got to keep our foot on the gas. We can’t let up on anybody because everybody wants to give up their best shot.

“They’re not going to give up so we’ve got to keep it going 100 percent the whole game.”

Woodbridge did have something to do with Dover’s offensive struggles.

The Senators held a 47-34 halftime lead with Allen and Eden Davis both scoring 15.

That advantage shrunk to just 54-45 going into the fourth quarter. And that lead was only 64-60 when Ricky Kane (26 points) sank a pair of free throws with 3:36 on the clock.

Woodbridge then forced a turnover and went to the foul line only five seconds later but missed both free throws. The Raiders were 18-of-27 on free throws in the second half.

“It was a tough loss,” said Woodbridge coach Julius Cannon. “They (missed free throws) always come back to haunt you. I like our fight — we fought until the end. A loss is a loss but we have things we can build off.

“That’s in our DNA, we’re going to fight until the end. They played hard all four quarters so I’m proud of them.”

Senior center Jy’Heim Spencer tallied six straight points in Dover’s game-ending run to finish with 14 points. Davis netted 19 points.

“Dover’s a good team,” said Cannon. “That’s the thing with good teams that have senior leadership, they didn’t get rattled.”

Right now, the Raiders are tied with Laurel for first place in the South. The two teams have already split their two regular-season meetings.

Woodbridge’s goal, though, is to win the South and get another shot at Dover in the Henlopen Conference championship game.

Coach Stephen Wilson knows the Senators need to play better than they did on Friday.

“If they make free throws, it’s a different ballgame,” he said about Woodbridge. “I know we’re a much better product than what we showed out there today. But a win is a win.

“We’ve got a lot of work we have to do in order to reach our goals. And I think we will. We’ve got to remember that we’re dealing with young kids that they’re going to have those ups and those downs.”

SMYRNA — After every win in the middle of the lineup, Smyrna High’s wrestlers would turn to the crowd and ask for more noise.
First was Amir Pierce with a pin, then Isaiah Jenkins with a decision.

Joey Natarcola, Bryce Mullen and Nathan Lesniczak followed with three more pins and each one implored the fans to get louder.

That run gave Smyrna a comfortable advantage and led to another Henlopen Conference Northern Division championship for the Eagles.

Smyrna clinched the Henlopen North thanks to 27 unanswered points from that portion of its lineup for a 45-25 victory over Milford High on Friday night.

“We knew the guys in the middle would give us that lead,” said Smyrna coach Aaron Harris. “That’s what we had on paper, the middle was going to give us a cushion.”

The Eagles moved to 6-0 in the Henlopen North and 11-2 overall. They have one more North match, today at Dover (10:30 a.m.).

It was the first defeat of the year for Milford, which finished the regular season at 20-1. The Buccaneers end their first year back in the Henlopen North at 6-1.

Whoever won Friday night’s contest would be crowned the Henlopen North champions and a big crowd came out to witness it.

“The energy from the crowd really hyped us up a lot,” said Smyrna sophomore Gabe Giampietro. “The energy from the crowd, it’s the best.”

Milford led 10-9 after four matches but Pierce gave the Eagles the lead for good with his pin at 132 pounds. Jenkins followed at 138 pounds in a long bout delayed numerous times due to blood stoppages and won that 7-1 for an 18-10 Smyrna advantage.

Natarcola (145), Mullen (152) and Lesniczak (160) kept the train rolling for Smyrna with three-straight pins — all of which came in 2:36 or earlier.

After back-to-back pins by Gage Copes (170) and Rafael Mejia (182) for Milford, the Eagles won two more matches to seal it. J.T. Davis had a decision at 195 while Hugo Harp won via forfeit at 220 pounds.

While the middle of the order was the decider for the Eagles, the possible matchup most fans were looking forward to came to fruition early in the night.

Smyrna’s Giampietro and Milford’s Corey Messick, two of the state’s two wrestlers, faced off at 113 pounds. The bout was scoreless until the final period where Giampietro earned a takedown and back points to record a 5-2 victory.

“Gabe always does his job,” Harris said. “We expect that. If you watch me when he’s out there, I’m a little more quiet than everyone else. He always does his job and steps up to the plate to do what we ask of him.”

The two have faced each other plenty of times over the last year, including for the individual state title in 2019.

“Me and Corey have history from last year with conferences and the state finals,” Giampietro said. “I was a little more pumped up than a usual match.”

Garrett Hudson also added a pin for Smyrna in the first match of the night at 106 pounds.

Jack Thode (120) won his match for Milford via major-decision while Trenton Grant (126) followed with a pin to give the Buccaneers their only lead of the night. Anthony Diaz recorded a decision to win the 285 match for Milford to end the dual meet.

DOVER — Few people are better qualified to weigh in on racial tensions and the criminal justice system in the United States than Bryan Stevenson.

Mr. Stevenson, a Delaware native who founded and runs the Equal Justice Initiative in Montgomery, Alabama, is the subject of a recent film that highlights his efforts fighting for the disadvantaged, particularly death row inmates. The movie, “Just Mercy,” was released in December to positive reviews and big box office numbers.

Starring Michael B. Jordan as Mr. Stevenson and also featuring Jamie Foxx and Brie Larson, the film is based on Mr. Stevenson’s memoir of the same name.

A prominent lawyer and activist, Mr. Stevenson, 60, has spent decades fighting for greater equality in society, particularly a reformation of the criminal justice system he feels is vastly unfair to many, especially minorities and the poor. He has successfully argued cases before the U.S. Supreme Court and been involved in more than 135 reversals, relief or release from prison for death row inmates found to be wrongly convicted.

‘Original sin’

His life and work is in many ways is defined by America’s “original sin” of slavery and the racial animosity that exists today, more than 150 years after the nation abolished the practice.

Raised in Milton, Mr. Stevenson had to deal with racism at an early age.

“I started my education in a colored school in the 1960s. The effort at racial integration in schools like Milford was disrupted by fear and anger and it took lawyers and ‘rights’ to end the racial bigotry that defined education in our community,” he wrote in an email. “When I finished law school I wanted to use that same rule of law to protect people who are vulnerable, poor, incarcerated and condemned.”

In a 2007 interview with New York University School of Law’s magazine, he recalled how regularly attending church as a child influenced his world view that people are more than their greatest sins, that they are, after all, human, with all the foibles that entails. That attitude of forgiveness continues to shape him today.

After graduating from Cape Henlopen High School, Mr. Stevenson earned a degree from Eastern University and went to Harvard Law School. At the time, he said, he had never met a lawyer before.

It was there he found his passion: fighting for those who could not fight for themselves.

Death penalty

Many see the death penalty as a way to protect against the worst of the worst, using it as a deterrent to crime and as punishment for some of society’s most dangerous offenders. But others view it differently.

To Mr. Stevenson, capital punishment is disproportionately used against black and brown men, as well as individuals who lack the financial means to defend themselves. Compounding matters, he believes, is the fact far too many innocent people end up on death row.

According to the Death Penalty Information Center, 167 inmates on death row have been exonerated and freed nationwide since 1973. That count does not include individuals who were executed and later found or believed to be innocent.

While attending Harvard, he interned at the Southern Center for Human Rights, where he successfully argued for two inmates to have their death sentences replaced with prison time.

In 1989, just a few years out of Harvard, he founded the Equal Justice Initiative. Today, the nonprofit employs nearly 40 people, according to its website, and has successfully argued before the nation’s top court that mandatory sentences of life without parole for individuals 16 and younger are unconstitutional.

Mr. Stevenson found some notoriety and perhaps his greatest victory early in his career, when he led a crusade to free Walter McMillian, a black man sentenced to death in 1988 for killing a white woman two years earlier.

The case had strong racial overtones: Not only did it take place in Alabama, one of the bastions of the Confederate “Lost Cause,” Mr. McMillian had been having an affair with a white woman.

Because of the circumstances (including that Mr. McMillian had only a single prior misdemeanor on his record), Mr. Stevenson became very invested in the case. Despite finding evidence that had been withheld during the trial, he was unable to get the sentence overturned, prompting him to turn to an outside source: the media.

After speaking with the lawyer, CBS’ “60 Minutes” aired a special on Mr. McMillian. He was freed a few years later.

‘Just Mercy’

“Just Mercy” centers on the case, which Mr. Stevenson hopes can play at least some small part in changing public opinion.

“It’s an enormous step forward to see the McMillian case as the subject of a major motion picture. Mostly because of the impact it can have in getting people to understand things about our system of justice,” he said. “If people saw what I see on a regular basis, they’d want the same things I want. They’d want people treated fairly, innocent people released, people in great need helped.”

In the decades since that ruling, he has continued to fight for criminal justice reform. Although the stigma is changing, he sees the attitude that drug addiction and mental health issues are criminal as backward, believing individuals need treatment and rehabilitation rather than punishment.

“There is an epidemic of trauma and violence in some communities that requires an intervention that is informed by health perspectives which could not only lower the prison population but improve public safety,” he said. “We also need to recognize that a system that treats you better if you’re rich and guilty than if you’re poor and innocent is a system that needs to be reformed.”

In 2016, Mr. Stevenson came to Delaware to argue for the abolition of the death penalty. Although lawmakers defeated a measure that would have repealed it, Delaware’s top court struck down the statute later that year, finding it to be unconstitutional.

A bill to reinstate capital punishment is currently sitting in the legislature, although its path to passage is uncertain

Delaware has taken several steps to make its criminal justice system less punitive in recent years, which gives hope to Mr. Stevenson the state can serve as a model for the country at large.

Racism

To him, many of the nation’s issues can be traced back to racism, even if it is subconscious.

“All over the nation there is a need for us to begin talking more honestly about our history of racial injustice in America. What we’ve done to Native people, black people and other groups that were disfavored is not something we should ignore if we want to become a healthy country,” he said.

“I believe we need an era of truth and justice. We have to acknowledge the mistakes that have been made to have the awareness necessary to avoid problems in the future. Dr. King said that true peace is not the absence of violence but the presence of justice.

“It takes courage but in Rwanda and Germany, something powerful has emerged from horrific violations of human rights. We should try to learn from that.”

While some deny racism is a big problem in the country — a recent Gallup poll found 36 percent of respondents are somewhat or very satisfied with the state of race relations here — others can point to myriad ways it continues to impact Americans. That’s especially relevant for Mr. Stevenson and his life’s passion.

Per the Death Penalty Information Center, since 1976, 21 executions have involved a white offender and black victim, compared to 294 with a white victim and black offender. The center also reports as of July, 41.7 percent of death row inmates across the United States are black, despite the fact just 12.7 percent of Americans are black.

In a 2016 interview with The New Yorker, Mr. Stevenson noted Alabama until recently had dozens of monuments to the Confederacy and its leaders. Despite its celebration of the unsuccessful secession effort and its role in the civil rights struggle, his adopted home state displayed almost nothing commemorating the slaves and free blacks who suffered gross injustices.

In 2018, he opened the National Memorial for Peace and Justice and the Legacy Museum in Montgomery, Alabama. The memorial, the first such monument “dedicated to the legacy of enslaved black people, people terrorized by lynching, African Americans humiliated by racial segregation and Jim Crow, and people of color burdened with contemporary presumptions of guilt and police violence,” recognizes the 4,000-plus individuals lynched by their fellow Americans. The museum focuses more broadly on racism and slavery in the United States.

The memorial consists of more than 800 steel slabs, one for each county in the United States that saw a race-based lynching, with the names of victims inscribed on them.

“The memorial is more than a static monument. In the six-acre park surrounding the memorial is a field of identical monuments, waiting to be claimed and installed in the counties they represent,” its website states. “Over time, the national memorial will serve as a report on which parts of the country have confronted the truth of this terror and which have not.

“EJI is inviting counties across the country to claim their monuments and install them in their permanent homes in the counties they represent. Eventually, this process will change the built environment of the Deep South and beyond to more honestly reflect our history.”

MANCHESTER, N.H. — Scrambling to salvage his presidential campaign, Joe Biden escalated his criticism of Pete Buttigieg on Saturday, mocking Buttigieg’s experience as a small city mayor and cutting down the comparisons Buttigieg has drawn to the last Democratic president, declaring: “This guy’s not a Barack Obama.”

Biden’s biting attacks on Buttigieg’s relatively thin resume mark a new, more aggressive attempt to slow the momentum of the youngest candidate in the Democratic field. The 38-year-old emerged from Iowa in an effective tie with Sen. Bernie Sanders, but faces questions about whether his eight years as mayor of South Bend, Indiana — a city of about 100,000 people — prepared him for the presidency.

“I do not believe we’re a party at risk if I’m the nominee,” Biden told voters in Manchester. “I do believe we’re a party at risk if we nominate someone who has never held a higher office than the mayor of South Bend, Indiana.”

Biden is trying to avoid falling far behind both Buttigieg and Sanders in a second straight nominating contest. Both appear in strong position in New Hampshire ahead of Tuesday’s primary, while Biden has conceded he expects to take a “hit” in the state.

Biden’s campaign is urgently trying to recalibrate, shaking up its senior leadership and signaling that the former vice president won’t go down without a fight. On Saturday morning, the campaign posted an online video attacking Buttigieg that was one of the harshest intraparty broadsides of the Democratic primary.

The 90-second video compares Biden’s record as vice president with Buttigieg’s service as mayor. While Biden helped President Barack Obama pass sweeping health care legislation and orchestrate a bailout of the auto industry, the ad says, Buttigieg was installing decorative lights on bridges and repairing sidewalks.

Buttigieg’s inexperience is among his chief vulnerabilities as he pitches voters on his preparedness for the Oval Office. He’s argued that his tenure as mayor, particularly of a Rust Belt city, gives him a better feel for the concerns of voters Democrats need to win back in 2020. But he has not yet had to defend the substance of his record against the kind of specific attack Biden launched.

Buttigieg’s campaign accused Biden of trivializing the work that goes on in small cities across the country, and of political desperation.

“The vice president’s decision to run this ad speaks more to where he currently stands in this race than it does about Pete’s perspective as a mayor and veteran,” said Chris Meagher, Buttigieg’s campaign spokesman. The campaign also highlighted criticism from other mayors around the country who said Biden was denigrating the importance of small cities.

Buttigieg’s calls for generational change and his criticism of Washington has irked some of his rivals, including Biden, who has accused the former mayor of undercutting the work of the Obama administration.

Buttigieg has argued that while the Obama administration had successes, the country is in a different place than it was four years ago and requires new leadership. He’s also tried to draw comparisons to Obama, highlighting his ability to overcome questions about his own inexperience during the 2008 campaign.

The former vice president made clear on Saturday that he sees the comparison as ill-fitting.

“This guy’s not a Barack Obama,” he told reporters. “Barack Obama had laid out a clear vision of what he thought the international society should look like and what the order should be. Barack Obama had laid out in detail what he thought should happen with regard to the economy.”

Biden’s advisers are well-aware that two weak performances will chip away at Biden’s core argument: that he’s the most electable candidate in a general election faceoff against President Donald Trump. The former vice president hopes to stay viable through South Carolina, which votes at the end of the month and is the first state on the primary calendar with a large black population. Biden has polled significantly better than his rivals with black voters throughout the campaign.

Buttigieg, meanwhile, has struggled to build support with black voters, raising questions about whether his early momentum will be blunted when the campaign heads south.

“This is a diverse party,” Biden said. “It’s the reason why we’re strong. Our nominee has to reflect that strength.”

It’s not just Buttigieg who is blocking Biden’s path. Sanders also appears poised for a strong showing in New Hampshire, a state he won by more than 20 percentage points in 2016.

During a campaign event on Saturday, Sanders said that previous victory gave him crucial credibility with voters.

“New Hampshire broke through and said to the establishment, ‘You know what, standing up for working families is not a radical idea,’” he said.

Sanders, a self-described democratic socialist, still faces questions from some Democrats about whether he would damage the party in the general election. Biden and Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar have led that charge, with Klobuchar being the only candidate to raise a hand in Friday’s debate when moderators asked if anyone was worried about having Sanders at the top of the ticket.

“People know I’m straightforward and I tell them the truth,” Klobuchar said of the moment on Saturday. She also announced to voters that her campaign had raised $1.5 million since the debate.

Sen. Elizabeth Warren, who represents neighboring Massachusetts in the Senate, also needs a strong finish in New Hampshire to prove her campaign viability in the primary. As she spoke to supporters before they headed out to knock on doors, she noted that it had been three years since Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., admonished her on the Senate floor with the phrase “nevertheless, she persisted” — an expression that Warren has turned into a motto for her campaign.

“I’ve been winning unwinnable fights pretty much all my life,” she said.

NAKHON RATCHASIMA, Thailand — A gunman described as a soldier angry over a financial dispute killed two people and then went on a far bloodier rampage Saturday in northeastern Thailand, shooting as he drove to a busy mall where shoppers fled in terror. At least 20 people were killed in all, 31 were injured and others were believed to be still inside the building as more gunshots rang out early Sunday.

Defense Ministry spokesman Lt. Gen. Kongcheep Tantrawanich said Sgt. Jakrapanth Thomma was behind the attack in Nakhon Ratchasima, a hub for Thailand’s relatively poorer and rural northeastern region. Much of the shooting took place at Terminal 21 Korat, an airport-themed mall filled with colorful Lego sculptures, a merry-go-round and huge replicas of landmarks from around the world.

Video taken outside the mall showed people diving for cover as shots rang out mid-afternoon Saturday. Many were killed outside the mall, some in cars, others while walking.

Nattaya Nganiem and her family had just finished eating and were driving away when she heard gunfire.

“First I saw a woman run out from the mall hysterically,” said Nattaya, who shot video of the scene on her phone. “Then a motorcycle rider in front of her just ran and left his motorcycle there.”

Public Health Minister Anutin Charnvirakul said a doctor was shot while helping an injured person.

Hundreds of people were evacuated from the mall in small batches by police while they searched for the gunman.

“We were scared and ran to hide in toilets,” said Sumana Jeerawattanasuk, one of those rescued by police. She said seven or eight people hid in the same room as her.

“I am so glad. I was so scared of getting hurt,” she said.

Shortly before midnight, police announced they had secured the above-ground portion of the mall, but were still searching for the shooter. Anutin said there were no more bodies left inside, but added, “we don’t know whether there are any additional injuries or deaths or not.”

Some shoppers remained trapped in the mall, presumably in the below-ground portion.

“We are worried for those who are still trapped inside. Some still couldn’t come out,” Lt. Col. Poonsap Prasertsak, a senior police commander for the region, said early Sunday morning. He told reporters police were in touch with some of those still trapped.

“We told them to stay calm, stay still and keep their heads down,” he said.

Gunfire could be heard coming from the mall around 3 a.m. as ambulances were brought closer to the scene, but reporters were kept away and no announcements were immediately forthcoming.

A police officer contacted by phone in Nakhon Ratchasima, about 250 kilometers (155 miles) northeast of Bangkok, said the gunman initially killed another soldier and a woman, and wounded a third person, apparently over a land dispute.

Defense Ministry spokesman Kongcheep told Thai media that the first person killed was the commanding officer of the 22nd Ammunition Battalion, in which the suspect also served. He said the gunman had fired at others at his base and took guns and ammunition before fleeing in an army Humvee.

City and neighborhood police officers, who asked not to be identified because they were not authorized to release information, said the man fired shots as he drove to the mall. Thai Rath television aired mall security camera footage showing a man with what appeared to be an assault rifle.

The man believed to be the gunman appears to have posted updates to his Facebook page during the rampage.

“No one can escape death,” read one post. Another asked, “Should I give up?” In a later post, he wrote, “I have stopped already.”

A photo circulated on social media that appeared to be taken from the Facebook page shows a man wearing a green camouflaged military helmet while a fireball and black smoke rage behind him. Jakrapanth’s profile picture shows him in a mask and dressed in military-style fatigues and armed with a pistol. The background image is of a handgun and bullets. The Facebook page was made inaccessible after the shooting began.

Terminal 21 Korat, a multi-level glass and steel mall is designed to resemble an airport terminal, complete with a mock control tower and departure gates. A large model passenger jet dangles from wires beside one of the main escalators.

Each of its seven retail floors is decorated to represent a different country. A giant replica of Paris’ Eiffel Tower soars to the ceiling, while a model of London’s Big Ben dominates another area, and a massive model of California’s Golden Gate Bridge spans an open courtyard. A two-story golden Oscar statue towers over a food court.

Nattaya did not know the full extent of the carnage until she arrived home. When she learned of the death toll, she fainted.
“I can’t believe this is happening in my hometown,” she said. “I mean, this shopping mall, we go there almost every other day.”

Many malls in Thailand, including Terminal 21’s namesake in Bangkok, have metal detectors and security cameras at entrances manned by uniformed but unarmed security guards. Checks on those entering are often cursory at best.

Gun violence is not unheard of in Thailand. Firearms can be obtained legally, and many Thais own guns. Mass shootings are rare, though there are occasional gun battles in the far south of the country, where authorities have for years battled a long-running separatist insurgency.

The incident in Korat comes just a month after another high-profile mall shooting, in the central Thai city of Lopburi. In that case, a masked gunman carrying a handgun with a silencer killed three people, including a 2-year-old boy, and wounded four others as he robbed a jewelry store. A suspect, a school director, was arrested less than two weeks later and reportedly confessed, saying he did not mean to shoot anyone.

A state panel last week approved a request for $3 million from Wesley College, with conditions.

The funding is expected to help the college continue operations until it can come to an accord on a merger with another higher education institution, which could be announced in the coming weeks.

In November, the private school submitted a request for $3.2 million from the state’s Higher Education Economic Development Investment Fund. The group, which consists of the director of the Office of Management and Budget, the secretary of state, the co-chairs of the General Assembly’s Joint Legislative Committee on Capital Improvement and the controller general, previously awarded $2 million to the college in 2019.

Readers reacted:

• Why? Just sell the college to UD! Stop bailing out failing businesses, Delaware. — Andrew Dale

• I have always loved Wesley. I do not think this is the right thing to do. — Ellen Jarrell Hamilton

• So, help me understand. They gave them $2 million last year and said they wouldn’t receive any more aid without submitting a strategic plan. They didn’t submit a strategic plan, so they were given another $3 million this year. All to help a private school with outrageous tuition costs. Wow! — Alexa Mobley

• So the state wasted 3 million dollars of our tax money. On a school that is attended mainly by out of state students. I hope everyone remembers this when elections come around. — Alex Tkachuk

• Since the Democrats are just playing fast and loose with our tax dollars I sure could use a little.— Mark Schmalhofer

•It was all legislators, not just Democrats. — Jody Sweeney

• How about having them sell buildings they got for pennies on the dollar? — James Cannon

• Why doesn’t the state bring in some finance advisers and find out what the college is doing with their money? — Mike Hofstetter

• It’s OK. I’ll just keeping smiling and struggling to pay my student loans – thanks. — Susan R L Reimer

• This is so wrong! And now they want the City of Dover to forgive their utility bill, which of course means the rest of us will pay more cos the money has to come from somewhere. How long will we be expected to prop this loser college up? Because it seems to me they have no plan.— Ronnie Ponde

• Who do you think pays for the kids going to Deltech and U o fD using the SEED program? That’s tuition free college people. You don’t have to have a financial need to get the SEED money. Just a 2.5 or higher GPA. Where do you think Pell Grant money comes from? It all comes from our taxes. — Toni Kump-Feldman

• Taking hard-earned taxes from hard working Delawareans in order to fund a high-priced university? — Victor Santillan

Caesar Rodney High swept the boys’ and girls’ team titles at the Henlopen Conference championship swim meet on Saturday, hosted at Sussex Academy.

The Riders also set three conference records in the process.

Ethan Herring broke the Henlopen Conference boys’ 100-yard backstroke record with a time of 52.81. Ryan Woodzell set a new conference mark in the 500-yard freestyle, finishing in 4:55.12.

Danielle Stewart meanwhile broke the conference’s girls’ 100-yard freestyle girls’ record, swimming a time of 54.97.

Stewart and Herring each won the Vince Morris Outstanding Swimmer award. Sussex Academy’s Tom Martiner won the conference’s Coach of the Year for both boys and girls.

The Riders not only won the meet but also collected their trophy for winning the boys and girls Henlopen Northern Division title. Sussex Academy was the Henlopen South champion for boys and girls.

Caesar Rodney recorded 388 points for the boys’ title, besting second-place Sussex Academy (308.5) and third-place Indian River (308). The Riders had 373 points in the girls’ competition to edge Cape Henlopen who was second with 371 while Sussex Academy was third with 347.

Evan Davis of Sussex Tech won a pair of individual events, taking home first in the 100 and 200 freestyle. Sussex Tech also had Owen Pogwist (100 butterfly) and Trey Mitchell (100 breaststroke) win titles.

Breyden Wright of Sussex Central was first in the 200 IM and Will Douds of Indian River won the 50 freestyle to round out the boys’ individual winners.

Caesar Rodney won four individual events in the girls’ competition.

Georgia May was the 200 and 500 freestyle champion while Victoria May won the 200 IM and the 100 backstroke.

Other girls’ winners included Aya Daisey of Cape Henlopen in the 50 freestyle, Molly Dopler of Sussex Tech in the 100 butterfly and Gracie Maughan of Sussex Academy in the 100 breaststroke.

Wrestling

Smyrna 75, Dover 3: Bryce Mullen (152 pounds), Drew Mayhall (160), Gavin Sembly (170) and Hugo Harp (220) each recorded a pin as the Eagles finished their Henlopen North schedule unbeaten.

J.T. Davis (195) added a technical-fall for Smyrna.

Cape Henlopen 65, Sussex Tech 0: The Vikings ended their regular season with a Henlopen North victory.

Holt Baker (106), Joshua Wright (113), Austin Bacot (120), Charles Fritchman (126) and Luke Bender (132) each had a pin to lead Cape Henlopen.

Men’s basketball

Wesley 83, Immaculata 71: The Wolverines won their third game in a row to improve to 8-1 in the AEC.

Three Wolverines had double-doubles on this weekend’s matchup. Brian Cameron led the team with 27 points, 15 rebounds and six assists. He was followed by Greg Bloodsworth with 22 points and four assists.

Another big contributor was Terrence Braxton who helped lead the team with 10 points and 10 rebounds.

Norfolk State 85, Delaware State 57: The Hornets trailed but only six at halftime but dropped a road MEAC contest.

Myles Carter came off the bench to lead Delaware State in scoring with 13 points. Pinky Wiley had 11 points while Fahim Jenneto scored 10.

John Crosby had nine and Omari Peek-Green contributed eight points and topped the Hornets with eight rebounds.

Women’s basketball

Norfolk State 65, Delaware State 57: The Hornets led by as much as 13 late in the third quarter, but fell on the road to the MEAC co-leader.

Cam Platt-Morris sank a game-tying three-pointer for Norfolk State with five seconds left in regulation to send the game to overtime. She hit another three on the first possession of overtime and the Hornets never led again.

The Spartans were in the midst of an 8-2 run before Platt-Morris’ game-tying shot, digging themselves out of a 51-42 hole with 4:39 left in the game.

Delaware State made just one field goal in the last nine minutes of the game.

Delaware State shot just 16-of-60 from the field. Lyric Turner led three Hornets in double figures with 16 points, five rebounds and one steal. Lanayjha Ashe added 15 points and two rebounds, while Tierra Floyd had 12 points, a team high four steals and three rebounds.

Immaculata 70, Wesley 41: The Wolverines remained winless in conference play falling to 0-9.

Scoring for the Wolverines was led by Katelyn Watson with nine points and two rebounds. Followed by Shervohnia Tolson with seven points and nine rebounds.

NEWARK — Asked if he called ‘bank’ on his game-winning shot, Nate Darling just laughed.

“Yeah, of course,” the Delaware guard answered with a smile.

Not that Darling particularly cared if his short jumper from a step inside the foul line — which banked in off the backboard — was picture-perfect or not.

He only cared that the shot, which came with just five seconds left, gave the Blue Hens another heart-pounding victory, this one, 80-78, over underdog James Madison in a CAA men’s basketball thriller at the Carpenter Center on Saturday afternoon.

Even after Darling’s shot, Delaware had to hang on as the Dukes’ Deshon Parker raced down the court and drove to the basket only to have his shot fall off the rim just before the final buzzer. Only then could the Hens (8-4 CAA, 18-7 overall) claim their sixth win in a row.

Despite the disparity in records with JMU (2-11 CAA, 9-15 overall), Delaware was ahead for just 11:50 of the contest.

The Hens led only twice in the final 15 minutes. Four of their last six victories have now come by one two points.

“Every game in this league has come down to the wire,” said coach Martin Ingelsby. “It’s not for the faint of heart. … I mean our league is brutal. It’s unbelievably balanced and competitive.

“I just keep telling them, ‘Let’s keep winning and see what happens above us (in the CAA standings).’ We can only control what we can control.”

In a contest where Delaware trailed by as many as seven points in the second half, the final 23 seconds played out without any stoppages.

After Parker (23 points) tied the contest at 78-78 with 15.2 seconds remaining, the Hens quickly brought the ball upcourt and got it to Darling. The junior guard, who netted a game-high 27 points, pulled up in the lane and banked in the shot from straight on.

“I shot a little float shot,” said Darling. “It had some soft touch up there. It happened to hit the glass and go in. That was like the first real game-winner (of his college career). It feels great, especially to get a win like that.”

Rather than Delaware having a letdown, the Hens thought Saturday’s battle was the case of JMU being a pretty talented team. Delaware only beat the Dukes by four in Harrisonburg, Va. on Jan. 9.

“I wouldn’t consider this a letdown,” said Darling. “In any conference game, they’ll all battle to the end. These guys are good. They’ve lost some tough ones. Every conference game (win) is a plus for us.

“I think our group is just growing. We’re resilient. We weren’t going to lose that game, no matter what. I had no second thoughts. We were confident.”

The Hens, who also got 21 points from Kevin Anderson and a double-double from Justyn Mutts (18 points, 14 rebounds), says there’s something to be said for winning a game when their shots aren’t falling.

Delaware was just 6-of-23 from three-point range, with Darling going 4-for-6 in the first half. Instead, the Hens simply started driving to the basket and either scoring or going to the foul line — or sometimes both.

Delaware hit 24-of-31 free throws in the contest with Darling going 9-for-9.

Anderson also came up with a big steal that eventually led to him scoring with 53 seconds remaining to give the Hens a 77-76 advantage. Delaware never trailed again. 

“It shows a lot about our team,” said Anderson. “It always feels good to get a win. We keep winning games like this — four of our last six games that we won were all close games. But we have better teams coming up so we’ve just got to keep this going.”

After leveling off following a school-record 9-0 start to the season, the Hens are starting to put up some interesting stats again.

Saturday’s victory already gives them one more than they had all last season — as well as the most wins they’ve had since 2014. This is also the program’s longest CAA winning streak since 2014 when Delaware started 11-0 in the league.

But now comes the hard part. The Hens play four of their last six regular-season games on the road and still have to face the three teams ahead of them in the CAA standings for a second time.

“I still think there’s a lot of growth in this basketball team,” said Ingelsby. “We can continue to get better. Every game in this league is come down to the wire.

“We’re trying to keep these guys focused and grounded and not getting too caught up in any of the noise on the outside. Let’s stay on the tracks and have fun doing it together.”

Free throws

The Hens have won seven of their last eight meetings with JMU, with four straight wins in Newark. … Anderson has scored 20 or more points in three of the last seven games. … Mutts’ double-double was his eighth of the season. … Delaware plays at Elon on Thursday night before going to William & Mary on Saturday night for a big matchup.

What a fantastic experience we had attending the March for Life in Washington on Jan. 24. It was the first time a sitting president of the United States ever attended the March in person, yet virtually no coverage by the mainstream media of President Trump’s speech or the 100,000-plus who attended.

Science shows us that life begins at conception, yet national and Delaware laws allow abortion up to the time of birth, no limits. This national/local disgrace must stop. Call, write you elected officials now.

Jim Anderson
Millsboro

OCEAN VIEW — A 30-year-old Dover man was charged with additional thefts stemming from an incident on Monday in which he led police in pursuit, authorities said.

Police said Bryan Denegal was linked to several more thefts from motor vehicles in the Ocean View area, in addition to charges filed Thursday.

New charges included five counts each of theft and felony theft and 10 counts of criminal trespass.

Mr. Denegal was arraigned before Justice of the Peace Court on all charges and committed to Sussex Correctional Institution in Georgetown on $38,732 secured bond, spokeswoman Master Cpl. Melissa Jaffe said.

MILFORD — A wanted 21-year-old Milford man was arrested on gun-related charges following a violation of probation warrant execution
on Jan. 31, Milford Police spokesman Det. Timothy Maloney said.

Marc Johnson was located without incident at a residence in the 900 block of SE Front Street, authorities said, and a residential search located a loaded .22 caliber pistol. Police said Mr. Johnson is a convicted felon and unable to possess any firearms.

Police charged Mr. Johnson with firearm by person prohibited-related counts. He was committed to the Delaware Department of Correction in default of $35,000 cash bail only.

GEORGETOWN — The recent season of giving was accentuated by a collective lesson in helping the less fortunate.

Sussex County’s Caroling on The Circle food drive campaign during the 2019 holiday season is being hailed a huge success, thanks in large part to generosity of businesses, the community and schools.

“We raised over $4,000 and 28,000 donated items that we distributed throughout the county,” said Sussex County administrator Todd Lawson, during a recognition program at the Feb. 4 county council meeting. “We partner with over 20 food pantries throughout the county to distribute food that is donated that makes its way to those less fortunate.”

Tops on the donation list was the collective effort at Millsboro Middle School, which checked in with 3,419 food items.

Not far behind, at No. 2, was First State Manufactured Housing Association, with a donation of $1,235 that equated to 3,398 items.
Also publicly recognized at the county council session for monetary and/or food donations were: G.W. Carver Academy (60 items), Sussex Academy (250); Sussex Central High School Student Government (300); Georgetown Middle School (300); Delmarva Christian High School (337); Little Einstein Preschool (450); Flex World ($300, for 825 items), Colonial East LP ($500, for 1,375 items); ALOFT AeroArchitects ($450 plus 50 items, totaling 1,388 items); Sussex County Association of Realtors ($500 and 50 items, totaling 1,425); Milton Elementary (1,800); Cape Henlopen High School (2,000); Georgetown Elementary (2,300); and the law firm of Fuqua, Willard, Stevens & Schab, P.A. ($1,000, for 2,750 items).

Mr. Lawson shared a letter the county received from Seaford Community Food Closet, thanking the county for its donation that helped the Seaford Community Food Closet in 2019 assist 935 people — including 323 children — with a total of $19,745 of food and supplies given to those less fortunate.

The 2019 food drive, which began in November and carried through December, was punctuated by the annual Caroling on The Circle, held in early December.

Mr. Lawson also saluted county employees.

“They volunteer their time to receive these items and distribute them throughout the county. They also are able to donate 4,444 food items throughout the year as well,” Mr. Lawson said. “But ultimately it comes down to the donations that you help facilitate. We could not do it without you. Without you we would not be able to help our friends and neighbors during the holiday season.”