Meet the diplomat in Seattle who's become a social media star by folding origami cranes

Jun 17, 2024

The origami cranes pour out of Whole Foods and Metropolitan Market bags, a Hammermill crate and a Häagen-Dazs box.

More than 1,000 pile up on the table: hot pink cranes. Orange and yellow and green cranes. Cranes with stylized waves crashing along their wings, cranes patterned with wisteria and gold fans, cranes with constellations, cranes with chrysanthemums, cranes made from paper commemorating the 2020 Summer Olympics in Tokyo.

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Tuesday

NFL

BALTIMORE — Devin Wilson, 18, pleaded guilty to involuntary manslaughter last week in the fatal shooting of his 8-year-old brother, Dylan King, in Baltimore. Wilson was sentenced to 10 years in prison with four years suspended, plus another five years of probation, according to court documents.

BASEBALL

Prosecutors in southern Mexico say at least six men have been killed in an ambush in a township near Guatemala border that is known as a migrant smuggling route. Prosecutors in the southern state of Chiapas said the killings occurred Tuesday along a rural road in the township of Siltepec, about 30 miles (50 kilometers) from the border with Guatemala. The area has long been known as a migrant smuggling route. But it has also become the scene recently of bloody turf battles between the Jalisco and Sinaloa cartels for control of the smuggling and extortion businesses.

A judge has vacated the double-murder conviction of a Chicago man who has spent the last 34 years in prison for the shooting deaths of two 14-year-old boys. Fifty-two-year-old Francisco Benitez maintained his innocence in a motion for post-conviction relief, saying he had an alibi for the April 28, 1989, slayings of Prudencio Cruz and William Sanchez and that he was being framed by Chicago police detectives. Cook County Judge Sophia Atcherson made the ruling Tuesday, citing evidence supporting Benitez’s innocence presented during a hearing earlier this year. Benitez still faces murder charges because prosecutors haven't dropped the case.

DURHAM, N.C. — The press box at N.C. Central’s O’Kelly-Riddick Stadium casts a long shadow across the field after a late-afternoon August practice, and Davius Richard is savoring the shade. His work done for the day, he gestures to the two signs on the face of it, newly updated with last sea…

A convicted rapist who authorities say used a jet ski during an escape from an Arkansas prison has been arrested in West Virginia. The U.S. Marshals Service says Samuel Paul Hartman was taken into custody Tuesday along with his wife, his mother and his mother’s boyfriend at a Lewisburg hotel. Authorities say the women are accused of helping Hartman escape in August 2022. Hartman was on a work detail when a pickup truck approached and he ran to the vehicle. Hartman and the women later jumped on jet skis and apparently crossed the Mississippi River. Investigators determined that Hartman’s mother had ties to West Virginia. Hartman had been sentenced to life in prison in 2013, and an official says he's expected to be extradited to Arkansas.

Vivek Ramaswamy praises himself for grilling Al Sharpton in 2003

NEW YORK — New York City mosques can now broadcast the Islamic call to prayer freely on Fridays and during evenings in the month of Ramadan without a permit, Mayor Eric Adams said Tuesday, seeking to foster a spirit of religious inclusivity in the five boroughs.

MIAMI — The day before he announced the end of his short-lived presidential campaign, Francis Suarez filed a financial disclosure statement with the Federal Elections Commission revealing more than a dozen previously undisclosed lucrative side gigs held by the Miami mayor since the beginning…

ATLANTA — The state agency that oversees high school sports has rescinded a volunteer coach’s certification after he was arrested on charges of simple battery Saturday.

Myon Burrell, who was sent to prison for life as a teenager but then set free after 18 years behind bars, has been arrested in a Minneapolis suburb on potential gun and drug charges. Now 37, Burrell was released in 2020 after his sentence was commuted in a high-profile murder case. Robbinsdale Police say an officer on routine patrol Tuesday stopped an SUV that was driving erratically. The driver was identified as Burrell. Police say a loaded handgun and drugs were found in the vehicle. Burrell, who is Black, had always maintained his innocence in the 2002 killing of 11-year-old Tyesha Edwards, when he was 16.

ATLANTA — Harrison Floyd, the only one of the 19 people charged in the sprawling Fulton County election probe to spend time in jail, has been given a $100,000 bond.

WASHINGTON — The Justice Department on Tuesday said the FBI led a multinational effort involving the authorities from France, Germany, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, Romania and Latvia to take down criminal infrastructure, disabling malware known as Qakbot.

A Connecticut man says he didn't steal the $5,000 in cash he found in a bag, lying in a parking lot in May. But police disagree and have charged him with larceny. It turns out, the money was in a bank bag and belonged to the town of Trumbull. Police say an employee in the Trumbull Tax Collector’s office couldn’t find the bag after arriving at the bank to make a deposit. That's when Trumbull resident Robert Withington picked up the bag, telling Hearst Connecticut Media it felt like he had won the lottery. He says he doesn't think he did anything wrong.

An Alabama legislator was arrested Tuesday on felony voter fraud charges accusing him of voting in a district where he did not live. Madison County jail records show Republican Rep. David Cole of Huntsville was arrested on charges of voting in unauthorized locations. The arrest comes after accusations that Cole did not live in the district in which he was elected. Cole was elected to the House of Representatives last year. The charge is a Class C felony punishable by up to 10 years in prison. The Alabama attorney general’s office is prosecuting the case. House Speaker Nathaniel Ledbetter issued a statement Tuesday, saying he had learned of Cole’s arrest and is waiting to learn more details.

New Mexico’s Supreme Court will hear oral arguments regarding a request to strike down recent abortion-ban ordinances in several cities and counties. The high court on Tuesday announced it will hear arguments in December that may include comments from an array of advocacy groups that filed briefs in the case. The state attorney general in January petitioned the high court to strike down abortion-ban ordinances approved by local governments spanning much of eastern New Mexico. Attorney General Raúl Torrez argued that the local laws violate state constitutional guarantees. State abortion laws in New Mexico are among the most liberal in the country.

The new Professional Women’s Hockey League has unveiled its Original Six franchises. All six teams will be in NHL markets with track records of supporting the women’s game. Boston, the New York City area and Minneapolis-St. Paul are the U.S. sites. The Canadian franchises will be in Toronto, Montreal and Ottawa. The teams have not been named and play will not begin until January. The PWHL also announced each team will have a 10-day window to sign three free agents before a 15-round draft on Sept. 18. Teams will play a 24-game schedule the playoffs expected to run into June.

The U.N. chief is warning that an alarming rise in global distrust and division coupled with efforts by countries to improve the accuracy and destructive power of nuclear weapons is “a recipe for annihilation.” Secretary-General Antonio Guterres' comment is in a statement he released Tuesday to mark the International Day Against Nuclear Tests. He says that with nearly 13,000 nuclear weapons stockpiled around the world “a legally binding prohibition on nuclear tests is a fundamental step in our quest for a world free of nuclear weapons.” The Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty has not entered into force because it needs ratification by eight nations that had nuclear power reactors or research reactors when the U.N. adopted the treaty in 1996.

MIAMI — Following his failure to qualify for the first Republican presidential debate, Miami Mayor Francis Suarez publicly acknowledged Tuesday what had been evident for at least a week: that a yearslong effort to build his national profile and mount a credible presidential campaign had gone bust.

A judge ordered Kansas authorities to destroy all the electronic copies they made of a small newspaper’s files when police raided its office this month. Tuesday's order comes nearly two weeks after computers and cellphones seized in the search were returned. It's still not clear what action local authorities might take in response to the much criticized Aug. 11 raids of the Marion County Record's office and the homes of its publisher and a City Council member. Supporters of the small Kansas newspaper can now order T-shirts emblazoned with the Marion County Record's defiant headline: “SEIZED but not silenced.”

AUSTIN, Texas — Senators met behind closed doors in the state Capitol on Tuesday, a week before Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton’s impeachment trial is scheduled to start.

Wil Lutz is reuniting with Denver coach Sean Payton after the Broncos acquired the veteran kicker from the New Orleans Saints. The Broncos also traded tight end Albert Okwuegbunam to the Eagles. The Broncos released veteran kicker Brandon McManus in the spring and they let Brett Maher go after dealing for Lutz, who made 23 of 31 field goals last season after missing 2021 with an injury. The Saints will roll with undrafted rookie Blake Grupe out of Notre Dame.

ROOT, Switzerland--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Aug 29, 2023--

A jury has convicted a central Indiana man of three counts of murder in the 2021 execution-style slayings of three people that authorities say resulted from an ongoing feud between one of the victims and a friend of the defendant. Forty-two-year-old Chad Grimball of Thorntown also was found guilty of firearm offenses in the slayings of 42-year-old Larry Stogsdill Jr.; Stogsdill’s 20-year-old son, Brannon Martin; and Martin’s 19-year-old girlfriend, Grace Bishop, all of Lebanon. Officers found their bodies on Sept. 8, 2021, at a Lebanon apartment after receiving a report that three people may be dead. All three had been shot in the head.

A South Korean company plans to build a $72 million factory in Georgia to make parts for electric vehicles, hiring more than 140 workers. Daesol Ausys announced its plans on Tuesday to build a factory in West Point. It will build luggage boards and covers for compartments in electric vehicles. The company's corporate family has two other factories in the same industrial park, supplying a nearby Kia plant. It’s another in a wave of electric vehicle suppliers announcing plants in Georgia after Hyundai said in 2022 that it would build a $5.5 billion plant to assemble electric vehicles and batteries near Savannah.

Virginia lawmakers will reconvene in Richmond next week to consider a compromise General Assembly negotiators recently reached on the long-delayed state budget. Gov. Glenn Youngkin's office said Tuesday he has called the Legislature into session Sept. 6 to consider the deal. Negotiators representing the Republican-controlled House of Delegates and Democratic-controlled Senate announced last week the bare-bones outlines of a compromise budget. It would boost education spending and offer some tax relief, mostly in the form of one-time rebates. The full details of the plan haven’t been released.

U.S. Customs and Border Patrol says a migrant woman died in South Texas after spending just under a day in federal custody. The agency said in a statement Tuesday that border agents encountered the 29-year-old woman and her family in the Rio Grande Valley on Sunday afternoon. While she was in their custody, she experienced a “medical emergency” and was treated by an on-site medical team and then taken to a hospital in Harlingen where she was pronounced dead. The agency says the woman spent less than 20 hours in custody. Agency guidelines say migrants must be processed within 72 hours. No details were offered about the woman’s medical condition or her nationality.

ANN ARBOR, Mich. — With Michigan’s highly anticipated season set to begin in unusual circumstances, Jim Harbaugh opened in an unusual way, naturally. He delivered a lengthy treatise on the state of college football, lamenting the unbalanced economic structure that enriches the NCAA, TV netwo…

1. Former President Trump will face trial for four felony charges related to his alleged efforts to stay in power after he lost the 2020 election starting when?

The actions of a ranger for the Pyramid Lake Paiute Tribe Reservation in northwestern Nevada are under review after he pointed a weapon Sunday at climate activists blocking the road to the annual Burning Man counter-culture festival in the desert. The tribe's chairman declined to say if the weapon pointed at protesters was a handgun or a Taser. Videos on social media showed the ranger plowing into the group's blockade and announcing on a bullhorn, “I will take you all out.” The coalition that organized the protest criticized the ranger's actions as excessive.

Third baseman Josh Donaldson’s unproductive two seasons with the New York Yankees ended Tuesday when the former AL MVP was released. The 37-year-old hit .207 with 25 homers and 77 RBIs over two seasons since he was acquired from Minnesota in March 2022. Donaldson played in just 33 games this season. The three-time All-Star was on the injured list from April 5 to June 2 because of a strained right hamstring, then went back on the IL on July 16 with a strained right calf sustained while running out a grounder.

Daniil Medvedev sent an early message that this U.S. Open might be more than a two-man race between Carlos Alcaraz and Novak Djokovic. The 2021 champion rolled into the second round by beating Attila Balazs 6-1, 6-1, 6-0 in just 1 hour, 14 minutes. About 12 hours after Djokovic won easily in his return to the U.S. Open, the No. 3-seeded Medvedev looked just as impressive as when he beat Djokovic for the 2021 title. Alcaraz, the No. 1 seed, was set to begin his title defense Tuesday night against Dominik Koepfer.

Hurricane Idalia is forecast to strike Florida’s Gulf Coast as a Category 3 major hurricane on Wednesday and then move across the state and southeast U.S. out into the Atlantic. There is at least one model that suggests the storm could loop back toward Florida’s east coast.

After some Florida insurance companies were accused of shortchanging customers’ claims after Hurricane Ian last year, Gov. Ron DeSantis and state regulators are warning insurance companies to make whole homeowners who experience damage from Hurricane Idalia.

West Virginia University plans to eliminate its world languages department but is recommending letting students take some language elective courses as it faces a growing budget shortfall. The state’s flagship university announced recently it was considering slashing the Department of World Languages, Literatures and Linguistics despite criticism from students and faculty. The school is facing declining enrollment and a $45 million budget shortfall. After an appeals hearing, the university’s office of the provost announced Tuesday it plans to still go forward with seeking the bulk of the cuts, but allow continued face-to-face instruction in Spanish and Chinese. A final decision by its board of governors is expected in September.

LOS ANGELES — Officials are warning that thousands across Northern California could experience planned power outages Wednesday, facing a critically elevated fire threat as the region is already dealing with poor air quality, smoky skies and growing devastation from multiple ongoing wildfires.

PHILADELPHIA — The man accused of killing five people during a multi-day shooting rampage in Kingsessing earlier this summer has been ordered to receive inpatient mental health treatment before his court case can proceed.

A longtime superintendent at a New York City building fatally stabbed his wife and two young children before taking his own life earlier this week. Police said the four bodies were discovered with multiple stab wounds inside a building on Manhattan's Upper West Side. The attack shocked neighbors, who described the family to police as stable and “very loving” and said there were few signs of outward trouble. Lopez was set to leave his job for a new role in Westchester County in the coming weeks — a relocation that police say they are investigating as a possible factor in the murder-suicide.