World News: I was team Kamila – till Russia reduced me to a spiteful fan

Wednesday, February 16

Kamila Valieva of Russia reacts after skating in the team competition during the 2022 Beijing Olympics.

I was team Kamila – till Russia reduced me to such a spiteful fan

The Russian Olympic Committee, Higher Education and Police

Today's lead column is about Kamila Valieva, the Russian skating darling who made history by landing a quad — then testing positive for banned substances. Editor Thuan Le Elston talks about how the scandal changed her opinion of the athlete.

I was team Kamila – till Russia reduced me to such a spiteful fan

By Thuan Le Elston

I have never wanted a 15-year-old to fail so much in my life.

But when Russian figure skater Kamila Valieva executed her short program Tuesday, that's exactly what her team's handling of her positive drug test had reduced me to – a spiteful fan who loved her during the pre-Olympics competitions but now feels betrayed.

I've been a figure skating fan since I watched my first Winter Games in the 1970s. In this Olympics season, from October's Skate America in Las Vegas through all the Grand Prix competitions around the world, my husband and I savored the feast of tournaments that featured 44 women, 38 men, 25 pairs teams and 34 ice dance duos from 21 countries.

And there was no question we'd be watching the Winter Olympics, despite Beijing's genocide of Muslim Uyghurs and human rights violations – because China is not the fault of athletes who have worked so hard and sacrificed so much to be Olympians.

Today's Editorial Cartoon

Marc Murphy, USA TODAY Network

USA TODAY Network

Conservatives, don't give up on going to college

By Daniel A. Cox

It's no secret that Republicans have lost faith in higher education. But the decline is both more recent and more dramatic than many people realize.

Despite universities' obvious failings and deepening ideological homogeneity, a major political party withdrawing from higher education poses a risk to American democracy itself.

Republicans aren't just losing faith in the institution. Many Republicans say a college education is simply not worth it. In a September survey by the Public Religion Research Institute, only 37% of Republicans say a college education is a smart investment in the future: a 15-point decline from 2016 when more than half (52%) offered this assessment. In 2019, only 33% of Republicans in a Pew survey said colleges and universities have a positive effect on the country, a drop from 54% in 2015.

Police officers are getting killed on duty. Is there a war on cops?

By James Alan Fox and Alex R. Piquero

Who would want to become a police officer nowadays? If you're not getting suspended, terminated or even prosecuted for making a poor split-second decision in a high-pressure situation, there is what appears to be an increasing likelihood of being injured or killed on the job.

The news has been littered with tragic stories of police officers being gunned down in the line of duty. Earlier this month at Bridgewater College in Virginia, a pair of officers responding to a report of a suspicious person on campus was shot and killed by a former student. New York's finest has been hit hard by several recent fatalities, including two young officers who were killed while responding to a risk-filled domestic violence call. And just recently, nine Phoenix police officers were injured – five by gunfire and the others from flying shrapnel – when ambushed during a domestic violence incident.

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