Manuel Roig-Franzia: Most Recent Articles and Archives

In novels and life, Khaled Hosseini grapples with his homelands

Manuel Roig-Franzia — Fri, 24 May 2013 17:58:00 GMT

The little girls were beautiful. Breathtakingly beautiful, with the brightest of green eyes.

Their home was in a village that could hardly be called a village, more like a collection of shacks out on the windy Shomali Plain north of Kabul.

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Ariel Castro, Cleveland suspect, has a dark past that foreshadowed crimes he’s now accused of

Manuel Roig-Franzia, Jerry Markon, Luz Lazo — Sun, 12 May 2013 01:23:00 GMT

Shorty needed a ride home.

She got confused sometimes, the result of some undefined mental condition, and wasn’t always sure where she’d wandered. Her family knew this about Michelle “Shorty” Knight, all 4 feet 7 inches of her, and that’s why they worried.

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Alleged captor of Amanda Berry, Gina DeJesus, Michelle Knight charged with kidnapping, rape

Manuel Roig-Franzia — Thu, 09 May 2013 02:31:00 GMT

CLEVELAND — The little girl wore pink tights. Just a sliver of a child, skinny and shy.

Moises Cintron watched Ariel Castro lift her out of a red pickup truck and take her hand. “A little affection,” Cintron observed. They stopped at the fence, as always, so the girl could pet Cintron’s miniature Dobermans, then walked to the park across the street.

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Ariel Castro, under arrest in Cleveland kidnapping, had contradictory sides

Jerry Markon, Kimberly Kindy, Manuel Roig-Franzia — Thu, 09 May 2013 00:47:00 GMT

With his love for music and seemingly friendly personality, Ariel Castro was a familiar presence in his heavily Latino neighborhood on Cleveland’s west side.

Castro, 52, drove a school bus, attended neighborhood barbecues, played bass in a number of local bands and was known for the musical equipment that filled his living room, especially his beloved bass guitars.

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3 missing women rescued from Cleveland home; questions raised over police visits

Manuel Roig-Franzia, Jerry Markon — Wed, 08 May 2013 03:48:00 GMT

CLEVELAND — The families of three women who spent years in captivity inside a Cleveland home celebrated on Tuesday their remarkable rescue, as questions began emerging about why police were called to the house at least twice in recent years yet never went inside.

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A nation comes around to noticing Ted Cruz

Manuel Roig-Franzia — Tue, 07 May 2013 00:15:00 GMT

Dinner with Ted Cruz required prep work. A strategy. This much Jessica Herrera-Flanigan knew about her friend of many years, the conservative Harvard Law School standout who later became the solicitor general of Texas.

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White House writers’ jokes can get cut by tragic current events

Manuel Roig-Franzia — Fri, 26 Apr 2013 23:32:01 GMT

Washington buries paper with manic speed and brutish efficiency.

It needs warehouses to stash all the stuff, the secret files, the humdrum boilerplate, the memos and markups.

Somewhere in this archaeologically dense, ever-spreading pile exist a few glum, little personal archives, forgotten artifacts of what might have been. We could call them the Presidential Archives of the Shtick That Never Was.

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Hispanic consciousness lends weight to Jeb Bush as GOP eyes 2016 presidential race

Manuel Roig-Franzia, Peter Wallsten — Wed, 24 Apr 2013 16:48:00 GMT

MIAMI — She was almost like a member of the family. An employee, but almost one of them.

For three years, Maria Magdalena Romero had tended to the suburban Miami home of Jeb and Columba Bush, had helped to raise their three children, had twined into the fabric of their lives.

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Rep. Steve Cohen makes another splash on Twitter

Manuel Roig-Franzia — Sat, 13 Apr 2013 01:40:00 GMT

Oh, @RepCohen.

Naughty, naughty @RepCohen.

@RepCohen the misunderstood one. @RepCohen the cyber-messaging mastermind. @RepCohen the prankster, the victim, the scold.

@RepCohen gives complicated and confusing voice to the complicated and confusing Democratic Tennessee congressman Steve Cohen, or if you prefer Steve #Cohen. In just two months, @RepCohen has managed to play a vital role in outing #Cohen’s long-lost love child, to proclaim then un-proclaim Cyndi Lauper’s hotness and to elicit a kind of collective, “Say whaaaa?”

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Pandora and Internet radio royalty

Manuel Roig-Franzia — Thu, 04 Apr 2013 01:07:00 GMT

The fast-talker in the plaid shirt flashes with inspiration.

“I know what mood I’m in. So, so, you could have a color dial! So, you have red, blue. So, I’m in an angry mood — red. Blue? I’m just chillin’ out with a glass of wine.”

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For Robert Menendez, a senator set apart, closeness to rich donor draws scrutiny

Peter Wallsten, Carol D. Leonnig, Manuel Roig-Franzia — Sun, 17 Mar 2013 00:19:00 GMT

The intimate gathering stretched late into the night. Cigars and champagne toasts, a “picadera” of Dominican appetizers — only the finest at the well-appointed Caribbean retreat of the rich American doctor.

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Book review: ‘Immigration Wars: Forging an American Solution’ by Jeb Bush and Clint Bolick

Manuel Roig-Franzia — Fri, 08 Mar 2013 18:22:00 GMT

In the spring of 2002, a young Florida state representative named Marco Rubio sized up one of his mentors, Jeb Bush.

“He’s practically Cuban, just taller,” Rubio quipped to a journalist. “He speaks Spanish better than most of us.”

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Online and anonymous: A key facet of Web culture is a double-edged sword

Manuel Roig-Franzia — Wed, 06 Mar 2013 00:51:00 GMT

Anonymity is great!

Except when it’s not.

It shields the whistleblower from blowback and the deep-background source from getting deep-sixed. It helped women publish novels way back when . . . when that was a pretty novel idea. But it can also embolden the kook to get kookier and the racist to get . . . well, you get the picture.

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Univision, ABC News team up on TV network for English-speaking Latinos

Manuel Roig-Franzia, Peter Wallsten — Tue, 19 Feb 2013 01:15:00 GMT

DORAL, FL — On Jan. 18, Univision’s star anchor, Jorge Ramos, arrived at the U.S. Supreme Court for a high-profile interview with special appeal to his massive audience. Ramos, by far the most recognized and respected face of Spanish-language news in the United States, greeted Associate Justice Sonia Sotomayor, the self-styled “Wise Latina” who’d made history as the first Hispanic on the court.

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Marco Rubio emerges as GOP’s star. But is he the answer for Republicans?

Karen Tumulty, Manuel Roig-Franzia — Sun, 10 Feb 2013 23:35:00 GMT

Lately, it seems just about everyone is fascinated by the junior senator from Florida.

Time’s current cover proclaims Marco Rubio “The Republican Savior.” The Web site BuzzFeed last week solicited his views on immigration, climate change, gay rights — and the relative artistic merits of Tupac Shakur and the Notorious B.I.G. That test of his hip-hop fluency came after Rubio released a Spotify playlist of 16 songs he is listening to, generating a flood of instant analysis in the blogosphere.

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Casa de Campo, exclusive Dominican resort, is at the center of Menendez allegations

Manuel Roig-Franzia — Thu, 07 Feb 2013 00:57:54 GMT

CASA DE CAMPO, DOMINICAN REPUBLIC — Everyone is someone, it’s said, at Casa de Campo.

And such someones.

Dominican real estate tycoons. Venezuelan oil honchos. Cuban American sugar barons. European heirs and heiresses.

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Marvin McIntyre, Washington’s invisible ‘broker king,’ finds outlet as an author

Manuel Roig-Franzia — Wed, 06 Feb 2013 00:28:00 GMT

The Three Billion Dollar Man has something to say.

Always has.

When Marvin H. McIntyre III came back from Vietnam, tooling around in a convertible Corvette he won in a poker game, he tried to say it in song. He drove down to Nashville to become a star.

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Inaugural balls give Obama fans chance to party

Manuel Roig-Franzia, Monica Hesse — Wed, 23 Jan 2013 05:52:00 GMT

The enormity of the occasion met the enormity of the room.

Like, wowza. What a room!

Acres of concrete floor at the Walter E. Washington Convention Center to sashay across in gowns and heels, to clippity-clop around in tuxes and shiny dress shoes. All in search of that special “I-was-there” moment, an inauguration night when a city consumed by its quarrels stopped its sniping for a few, and just smiled.

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Inaugural balls give Obama fans chance to party

Manuel Roig-Franzia, Monica Hesse — Tue, 22 Jan 2013 02:57:14 GMT

The enormity of the occasion met the enormity of the room.

Like, wowza. What a room!

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Jay Rockefeller, likely the last of a political dynasty

Manuel Roig-Franzia — Sat, 12 Jan 2013 02:08:00 GMT

Uncle Nelson was vice president. Uncle Winthrop a governor. Great-grandfather Nelson a senator.

Political bloodlines, he had.

But the great American electoral dynasty that abruptly announced its end Friday, or at least signaled what looks to be a long, long pause, always evoked more. That name on the ballot — Rockefeller — meant money. It meant epic-scale success. It meant everything.

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Kyrsten Sinema: A success story like nobody else’s

Manuel Roig-Franzia — Thu, 03 Jan 2013 02:35:00 GMT

PHOENIX — Something is bugging Kyrsten Sinema.

It tugged at her while she spoke to kids at the elementary school where she once served as a social worker. It rubbed her wrong while she told the pack of teachers and staff members trailing her into the parking lot afterward about the time she got pulled over by a police officer on her way home from a similar speech. He asked for her license. She had left it in the school office.

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Researcher finds slaves quarried sandstone used to build Smithsonian Castle

Manuel Roig-Franzia — Fri, 14 Dec 2012 05:00:00 GMT

The iconic red sandstone used to build the Smithsonian Castle, one of Washington’s most recognizable buildings, was quarried by slaves, including some who were once most likely owned by Martha Washington, according to new historical research to be published Thursday.

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Christie’s to auction letter detailing George Washington’s impressions of L’Enfant

Manuel Roig-Franzia — Thu, 06 Dec 2012 20:32:00 GMT

He might just be a Metro stop to you. A transfer point to the Yellow, Blue and Orange lines. A space to squeeze into — and out of — on the way to the ballgame.

But in his day, Pierre Charles L’Enfant conjured a grand city, a federal capital that married European style with American egalitarianism. He saw wide boulevards and lush public spaces where others saw swamps and bogs.

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All eyes on Susan Rice now that she’s presumptive front-runner to become secretary of state

ManuelRoig-Franzia — Fri, 30 Nov 2012 03:58:00 GMT

Susan Rice was miffed, all right. Her frequent foil, the Russian ambassador to the United Nations, Vitaly Churkin — an outsize personality whom she might be yelling at one moment, then laughing with the next — was at it again. This time, he was mocking her pet project to let youths from around the world ask the U.N. Security Council questions via video link-up.

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Pulitzer wanted for reporter who broke story on Nazi Germany’s surrender

Manuel Roig-Franzia — Fri, 23 Nov 2012 20:22:00 GMT

In headier days, Ed Kennedy personified the hard-drinking, hard-charging war correspondent of another era. The first time his future wife saw him, he was sidled up to a hotel bar in Paris with none other than Ernest Hemingway, both of them so “dead drunk” they could hardly stand.

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