As the Senate advances a deal to end the longest government shutdown in U.S. history, airports around the country have reduced flights and services with airports in Los Angeles and New York seeing hundreds of delays on Sunday, according to data from the flight tracking system FlightAware.

However at BWI, the impact so far has been muted. BWI wait times have barely been affected, with flight reductions and delays happening at rates only marginally higher than usual.

As of Tuesday evening, BWI had 29 delays and 27 cancellations in the past 24 hours,  according to FlightAware.

According to a BWI spokesperson and data from the flight tracking system FlightAware, 38 flights were canceled and 189 flights were delayed at BWI on Monday. On Sunday, 36 flight were canceled and 280 were delayed; and on Saturday, 41 flights were canceled and 145 were delayed. The cancellations include those that were unrelated to the FAA’s new guidelines.

Overall, BWI had a 4% cancellation rate and a 35% delay rate on Sunday, numbers that are within the range of standard BWI operations, although the number of canceled flights is expected to rise.

Passengers like Anne Shaw said they didn’t see a difference in their airport experience, even though two of the main security checkpoints, B and C, were closed as of Monday.

“I haven’t really noticed a difference to be honest with you,” Shaw, from Baltimore, who was taking a Southwest Airlines flight to Cleveland on Monday night.

All of that may change by Friday when greater flight reductions are expected to be in place, depending on the progress of the bill to end the government shutdown, which has already passed the Senate and is on its way to the House.

In a statement to The Baltimore Sun, the FAA said it is still aiming to reach a 10% reduction in flights across the country even with the shutdown potentially ending soon.

“Since the beginning of the shutdown, controllers have been working without pay, and staffing triggers at air traffic facilities across the country have been increasing,” according to the statement. “This has resulted in increased reports of strain on the system from both pilots and air traffic controllers.”

According to the Bureau of Transportation Statistics, BWI had an overall delay rate of 31% in 2024 and a cancellation rate of 1%. Delays also depend on the airline, with some, like American Airlines, having higher rates of delays and cancellations.

“Due to the FAA-mandated flight reductions, passengers may experience cancellations or delays in their travel,” Jonathan Dean, spokesperson with BWI, said. “The carriers are working to modify their schedules in a way to minimize impact on their passengers. Travelers are advised to check flight schedules with their airlines.”

Despite the reconfiguration of BWI, with two out of three security checkpoints closed and passengers mostly checking in on kiosks rather than with an employee, wait times for TSA on Monday night were between 1 and 7 minutes for general, priority, TSA pre-check and CLEAR lines.

Transportation Security Administration staff have been working without pay since the shutdown began. In a statement sent to The Sun, TSA asked the public to be patient with its workforce being “forced to work” while unpaid.

“While the vast majority of TSA’s nationwide operations remain minimally impacted by the government shutdown, occasional delays at some security checkpoints are to be expected,” according to the statement. “The longer the shutdown goes on, the more severe the impact on our TSA workforce who have expenses they must pay for, making it harder to show up for work when not being paid.”

Have a news tip? Contact Chevall Pryce at cpryce@baltsun.com.

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Three paintings from famously chill public television legend Bob Ross sold Tuesday for more than $600,000 at auction. The paintings were the first of 30 Ross works being sold to benefit public TV stations hurt by cuts in federal funding.

At the live auction at Bonhams in Los Angeles, a serene, snow vista called “Winter’s Peace” that Ross painted entirely during a 1993 episode of “The Joy of Painting” went for $318,000 to a bidder on the phone.

“For a good cause — and you get the painting,” auctioneer Aaron Bastian said during the bidding. He invoked a common sentiment of Ross, who died in 1995, during a brief lull. “Bob would remind you that this is your world, and you can do anything you want.”

Another painting done on a 1993 episode, a lush, green landscape called “Home in the Valley,” went for $229,100. A third, “Cliffside,” sold for $114,800.

The final prices include a charge for the auction house added to the final bid known as the buyer’s premium. The identities of the buyers weren’t immediately revealed.

Bids for all three paintings went well past pre-auction estimates of their value, which topped out around $50,000.

Three more Ross paintings will be up for auction at Bonhams in Marlborough, Massachusetts, on Jan. 27, with others to follow in New York and London.

All profits are pledged to stations that use content from distributor American Public Television.

Ross, a public television staple in the 1980s and ’90s, was known for his dome of hair and warm demeanor.

The special sales seek to help stations in need of licensing fees that allow them to show popular programs that along with Ross’ show include “America’s Test Kitchen,” “Julia Child’s French Chef Classics,” and “This Old House.” Small and rural stations are particularly challenged.

The stations “have been the gateway for generations of viewers to discover not just Bob’s gentle teaching, but the transformative power of the arts,” Joan Kowalski, president of Bob Ross Inc., said in a statement.

As sought by the Trump administration, Congress has eliminated $1.1 billion allocated to public broadcasting, leaving about 330 PBS and 246 NPR stations.

Ross died at age 52 of complications from cancer after 11 years in production with the therapeutic how-to show, “The Joy of Painting.” The former Air Force drill sergeant was a sort of pioneer, known for his calm — and calming — manner and encouraging words.

Ross spoke often as he worked on air about painting happy little clouds and trees, and making no mistakes, only “happy accidents.”

He has only became more popular in the decades since his death, and his shows saw a surge in popularity during the lockdowns of the COVID-19 pandemic.

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump boasts that his tariffs protect American industries, lure factories to the United States, raise money for the federal government and give him diplomatic leverage.

Now, he’s claiming they can finance a windfall for American families, too: He’s promising a generous tariff dividend.

The president proposed the idea on his Truth Social media platform Sunday, five days after his Republican Party lost elections in Virginia, New Jersey and elsewhere largely because of voter discontent with his economic stewardship — specifically, the high cost of living.

The tariffs are bringing in so much money, the president posted, that “a dividend of at least $2000 a person (not including high income people!) will be paid to everyone.’’

Budget experts scoffed at the idea, which conjured memories of the Trump administration’s short-lived plan for DOGE dividend checks financed by billionaire Elon Musk’s federal budget cuts.

“The numbers just don’t check out,″ said Erica York, vice president of federal tax policy at the nonpartisan Tax Foundation.

Details are scarce, including what the income limits would be and whether payments would go to children.

Even Trump’s treasury secretary, Scott Bessent, sounded a bit blindsided by the audacious dividend plan. Appearing Sunday on ABC’s “This Week,” Bessent said he hadn’t discussed the dividend with the president and suggested that it might not mean that Americans would get a check from the government. Instead, Bessent said, the rebate might take the form of tax cuts.

The tariffs are certainly raising money — $195 billion in the budget year that ended Sept. 30, up 153% from $77 billion in fiscal 2024. But they still account for less than 4% of federal revenue and have done little to dent the federal budget deficit — a staggering $1.8 trillion in fiscal 2025.

Budget wonks say Trump’s dividend math doesn’t work.

John Ricco, an analyst with the Budget Lab at Yale University, reckons that Trump’s tariffs will bring in $200 billion to $300 billion a year in revenue. But a $2,000 dividend — if it went to all Americans, including children — would cost $600 billion. “It’s clear that the revenue coming in would not be adequate,” he said.

Ricco also noted that Trump couldn’t just pay the dividends on his own. They would require legislation from Congress.

Moreover, the centerpiece of Trump’s protectionist trade policies — double-digit taxes on imports from almost every country in the world — may not survive a legal challenge that has reached the U.S. Supreme Court.

In a hearing last week, the justices sounded skeptical about the Trump administration’s assertion of sweeping power to declare national emergencies to justify the tariffs. Trump has bypassed Congress, which has authority under the Constitution to levy taxes, including tariffs.

If the court strikes down the tariffs, the Trump administration may be refunding money to the importers who paid them, not sending dividend checks to American families. (Trump could find other ways to impose tariffs, even if he loses at the Supreme Court; but it could be cumbersome and time-consuming.)

Mainstream economists and budget analysts note that tariffs are paid by U.S. importers who then generally try to pass along the cost to their customers through higher prices.

The dividend plan “misses the mark,” the Tax Foundation’s York said. ”If the goal is relief for Americans, just get rid of the tariffs.’’

Late-night talk show host Jimmy Kimmel is mourning the death of one of his oldest friends — his show’s bandleader, Cleto Escobedo III.

Kimmel announced Escobedo’s death Tuesday on Instagram, saying “that we are heartbroken is an understatement.” Escobedo was 59.

Escobedo and Kimmel met as children in Las Vegas, where they grew up across the street from each other.

“We just met one day on the street, and there were a few kids on the street, and him and I just became really close friends, and we kind of had the same sense of humor. We just became pals, and we’ve been pals ever since,” Escobedo said in a 2022 interview for Texas Tech University’s Southwest Collection oral history archive, disclosing that he and Kimmel were huge fans of David Letterman as kids.

Escobedo would grow up to become a professional musician, specializing in the saxophone, and touring with Earth, Wind and Fire’s Phillip Bailey and Paula Abdul. He recorded with Marc Anthony, Tom Scott and Take Six. When Kimmel got his own ABC late-night talk show in 2003, he lobbied for Escobedo to lead the house band on “Jimmy Kimmel Live!”

“Of course I wanted great musicians, but I wanted somebody I had chemistry with,” Kimmel told WABC in 2015. “And there’s nobody in my life I have better chemistry with than him.”

In 2016, on Escobedo’s 50th birthday, Kimmel dedicated a segment to his friend, recalling pranks with a BB gun or mooning people from the back of his mom’s car.

“Cleto had a bicycle with a sidecar attached to it. We called it the side hack. I would get in the sidecar and then Cleto would drive me directly into garbage cans and bushes,” Kimmel recalled.

News of Escobedo’s death comes after Thursday’s episode of “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” was abruptly canceled. David Duchovny, Joe Keery and Madison Beer were set as the show’s guests. The date and cause of Escobedo’s death weren’t immediately known.

Escobedo’s father is also a member of the Kimmel house band and plays tenor and alto saxophones. In January 2022, the father-son duo celebrated nearly two decades of performing on-screen together.

“Jimmy asked me, ‘Who are we going to get in the band?’ I said, ‘Well, my normal guys,’ and he knew my guys because he had been coming to see us and stuff before he was famous, just to come support me and whatever. I’d invite him to gigs, and if he didn’t have anything to do he’d come check it out, so he knew my guys,” Escobedo recounted in the 2022 interview. “Then he just said, ‘Hey, man, what about your dad? Wouldn’t that be kind of cool?’ I was like, ‘That would be way cool.’”

In the 2022 interview, Escobedo said the bandleader job had one major benefit: family time.

“Touring and all that stuff is fun, but it’s more of a young man’s game. Touring, also, too, is not really conducive for family life. I’ve learned over the years, being on the road and watching how hard it is, leaving your kids for so long. Sometimes they’re babies; you come back and then they’re talking, it’s like, ‘What?’” he said.

Escobedo is also survived by his wife Lori and their two children.

“The fact that we got to work together every day is a dream neither of us could ever have imagined would come true. Cherish your friends and please keep Cleto’s wife, children and parents in your prayers,” Kimmel wrote.

Border Patrol Cmdr. Gregory Bovino, the top official on the ground leading the Trump administration’s efforts, was expected to depart Chicago for another assignment within days, and most of the agents under this command would soon be redeployed elsewhere, three sources told the Tribune Monday morning.

An on-call task force composed of FBI and assistant U.S. attorneys is also expected to close up shop in the coming days, two of the sources said.

But the winding down of Operation Midway Blitz, which began in early September, does not mean that enhanced immigration enforcement will end anytime soon. The sources said the feds planned to leave in place a still-to-be-determined force of some Border Patrol agents as well as extra Enforcement and Removal Operations, or ERO, officers with the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

In a statement Monday, a spokesperson for the Department of Homeland Security, which is overseeing the operation, did not confirm or deny the agency’s plans, saying: “every day DHS enforces the laws of this country, including in Chicago. We do not comment or telegraph future operations.”

Bovino did not respond to repeated attempts to contact him Monday and Tuesday. In a statement on X, DHS spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin posted, “We aren’t leaving Chicago,” but did not directly address the issue of Bovino’s departure.

CBS and CNN have both reported that Bovino will head to North Carolina next.

“If the reports are true, it could not have come soon enough,” Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson told reporters at an unrelated Veterans Day event at Soldier Field on Tuesday. He said Border Patrol agents are leaving behind “trails of tears and chaos” in their wake.

The mission officially began Sept. 8 in honor of Katie Abraham, who was killed in a drunk driving hit-and-run car wreck caused by an undocumented immigrant downstate. It started with an influx of ICE agents who were purportedly tasked with making targeted arrests of what the agency called the “worst of the worst,” or immigrants in the country without legal permission who had committed violent felony offenses.

President Donald Trump’s administration has touted the mission as a resounding success, highlighting convicted murderers, sex abusers and other violent criminals it says were able to avoid deportation due to Illinois’ sanctuary policies. At the two-month mark of the operation last week, DHS said agents had surpassed 3,000 total immigration arrests since the surge began.

“President Trump and DHS Secretary (Kristi) Noem have a clear message: No city is a safe haven for criminal illegal aliens,” the agency said in a statement on Nov. 5. “If you come to our country illegally and break our laws, we will hunt you down, arrest you, deport you, and you will never return.”

The reality on the ground, however, has never matched the administration’s narrative. Within days of the operation’s start, it was clear agents were making many “collateral arrests,” or arrests of people on the streets and in homes across the city and suburbs who had no warrants and were not the target of any law enforcement operation. Many had no criminal histories whatsoever, let alone convictions for violent crime.

Hundreds of those arrests are now being challenged in federal court, where a judge this week could order the release of many of the people on ankle monitors while it’s decided if their cases violated a 2018 consent decree limiting “warrantless” immigration arrests.

“The people of Chicago have deserved better than having CBP and Greg Bovino in this city,” said Gov. JB Pritzker after a Veterans Day event in Little Village on Tuesday. “But I would not say that we’re now going to be free of these terrorized neighborhoods, because ICE and CBP probably will still be here, though they will have fewer people, and we’ll have to continue to protect our neighbors and our friends and our families.”

In mid-September, the operation took an even more drastic turn with the arrival of Bovino, whose high-and-tight haircut and penchant for militaristic jargon quickly made him the face of the mission.

“Well, Chicago, we’ve arrived!” Bovino announced on social media on Sept. 16, in a highly produced video of Customs and Border Protection vehicles driving into the city and picturesque downtown shots. A week later, Bovino caused a stir by striking poses on a Border Patrol boat on the Chicago River, cruising past Trump Tower on a warm weekday afternoon surrounded by heavily armed agents in fatigues as a videographer filmed him and tourists gawked.

Once in Chicago, Bovino’s rotating crew of some 200 Border Patrol agents — who are trained to interdict migrants and drug smugglers along the nation’s borders, not conduct urban law enforcement — began infiltrating city neighborhoods in armed convoys and questioning and arresting people on the street, at bus stops, and near schools and Spanish-speaking businesses.

On Sept. 30, Bovino led a high-profile military-style raid on a large, dilapidated apartment building in Chicago’s South Shore neighborhood, including agents rappelling from Blackhawk helicopters, flash-bang grenades, doors busted off their hinges, and residents — including U.S. citizens — zip-tied and questioned.

Other controversies soon followed, as Bovino’s masked-up and heavily armed border agents filled multiple residential blocks with tear gas and other chemical munitions amid neighbors pushing back on their actions, shot U.S. citizens whom they claim “rammed” their vehicles, killed an undocumented man whom they alleged was trying to evade arrest, and left swaths of the city and suburbs blanketed in fear.

Bovino and his bosses at DHS repeatedly claimed that it was the agents who were being subjected to violence from “rioters” and gang members, some of whom allegedly threw rocks and bottles, tossed fireworks and boxed in agents trying to make lawful arrests.

But two Chicago federal judges found that those claims were either exaggerated or not credible. Last week, U.S. District Judge Sara Ellis granted a preliminary injunction restricting the use of force, including tear gas and other chemical munitions, on protesters and the media, and requiring agents to wear body cameras and identification on their uniforms.

The Trump administration is appealing Ellis’ order, as well as a separate restraining order from U.S. District Judge April Perry that bars the president from deploying National Guard troops, which Trump said was necessary to quell the violence and allow immigration enforcement to continue.

Meanwhile, as Operation Midway Blitz winds down, the controversies continue unabated.

Over the weekend, Bovino and scores of federal agents engaged in a series of arrests and detainments in the Little Village neighborhood, and DHS officials said someone fired at agents. Many community members later in the day confronted the agents, touching off a chaotic series of confrontations. Bovino and federal officials were seen circling the neighborhood and deploying chemical crowd-control measures at several locations.

Local politicians later called the sweeps “a reign of terror” and declared that the agents who carried it out were “a new American gestapo.”

“At the end of the day, I think there’s a lot of trauma that’s been inflicted on the community,” Democratic state Sen. Celina Villanueva, who represents Little Village, said Tuesday at the same event where Pritzker spoke. “We have to talk about the real trauma that has been inflicted on behalf of the federal government, on communities, on residents and American citizens.”

A day earlier, Pritzker on social media blasted the Border Patrol after dozens of agents posed for a picture in front of the Cloud Gate sculpture in Millennium Park on Monday. Block Club Chicago reported that an agent shouted, “Everyone say, ‘Little Village!’” as an embedded photographer took the picture of the agents, many of whom were masked, and as snow covered the top of the Bean.

Pritzker posted that “making fun of our neighborhoods and communities is disgusting.”

“Greg Bovino and his masked agents are not here to make Chicago safer,” he wrote. “… they are posing for photo ops and producing reality TV moments.”

In response, Bovino — whom a federal judge declared had lied repeatedly in a deposition late last month — said Pritzker was “lying” and added, “feel free to join us in Little Village tomorrow.”

Chicago Tribune’s Caroline Kubzansky, Alice Yin, Olivia Olander and Jeremy Gorner contributed.

jmeisner@chicagotribune.com

WASHINGTON (AP) — British political commentator Sami Hamdi is going to voluntarily leave the U.S. after spending more than two weeks in immigration detention over what his supporters say was his criticism of Israel. The Trump administration has accused him of cheering on Hamas.

Hamdi, who is Muslim, was on a speaking tour in the U.S. when he was arrested by Immigration and Customs Enforcement on Oct. 26. He had just addressed the annual gala for the Sacramento, California, chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, or CAIR, the day before his arrest.

In a statement late Monday, the organization said Hamdi had “chosen to accept an offer to leave the United States voluntarily.”

“It is this simple: Sami never should have spent a single night in an ICE cell. His only real ‘offense’ was speaking clearly about Israel’s genocidal war crimes against Palestinians,” said the CEO of CAIR’s California chapter, Hussam Ayloush, in a statement.

Hamdi’s detention was part of broader efforts by the Trump administration to identify and potentially expel thousands of foreigners in the United States who it says have either fomented or participated in unrest or publicly supported protests against Israel’s military operations in Gaza.

Those enforcement actions have been criticized by civil rights groups as violations of constitutional protections for freedom of speech, which apply to anyone in the United States and not just to American citizens.

Zahra Billoo, Executive Director of CAIR’s San Francisco office, said Tuesday that the logistics of Hamdi’s departure were still being worked out but that it might happen later this week. Billoo said there were “no conditions to the voluntary departure” and that he’s not barred from seeking another U.S. visa in the future.

CAIR said Hamdi’s charging document in immigration court did not accuse him of criminal conduct or security concerns but only listed a visa overstay, which they blamed on the government revoking his visa.

Tricia McLaughlin, a Department of Homeland Security spokeswoman, said in a statement Tuesday that Hamdi had requested voluntary departure and “ICE is happily arranging his removal from this country.”

The State Department said due to “visa record confidentiality,” it could not comment on specific cases.

CAIR has said that Hamdi, 35, was detained in response to his vocal criticism of the Israeli government during a U.S. speaking tour.

The Department of Homeland Security said at the time of Hamdi’s arrest that the State Department had revoked his visa and that ICE had put him in immigration proceedings. Homeland Security later accused him of supporting Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, attacks on Israel.

In a statement at the time, McLaughlin cited remarks he made in a video posted online shortly after the Hamas attacks in which he asked: “How many of you felt it in your hearts when you got the news that it happened? How many of you felt the euphoria? Allah Akbar.”

Hamdi said later his intent was not to praise the attacks but to suggest that the violence was “a natural consequence of the oppression that is being put on the Palestinians.”

The State Department has not said specifically what Hamdi said or did that initiated the revocation but in a post on X the department said: “The United States has no obligation to host foreigners” who the administration deems to “support terrorism and actively undermine the safety of Americans. We continue to revoke the visas of persons engaged in such activity.”

“They’ve been fantastic,” Trump said. “They’re incredible people. They also voted for me about 92% or something. So we have to remember that it’s always nice when you have that they’re spectacular people.”

During the call, McAfee asked Trump what Veterans Day — the federal holiday observed on Nov. 11 that honors all military personnel who served — means to him.

“Well to me, it means taking care of the veterans because they’ve taken care of us,” Trump answered.

He also went on to praise Veterans Affairs Secretary Doug Collins.

“We’ve done a really good job,” Trump said. “Doug Collins is the secretary and we have a tremendous approval rating.”

Trump participated in a wreath-laying ceremony at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier at Arlington National Cemetery on Tuesday and also spoke to veterans to commemorate the day. He was joined by Vice President JD Vance, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, House Speaker Mike Johnson and other administration officials for the event.

“Today, to every veteran, we love our veterans, we say the words too often left unsaid. Thank you for your service. Thank you,” Trump said. “We will never forget what you’ve done to keep America safe, sovereign and free.”

On McAfee’s show, the president touted his past with the VA, including allowing veterans to get care in the civilian sector when they couldn’t get it at the VA.

In 2017, Trump signed the Veterans Choice Program Extension and Improvement Act, where it gave veterans more freedom to see doctors they wanted.

Trump also said on the “Pat McAfee Show” that under the Biden administration, there were a lot of people who had to be fired because they didn’t care about veterans.

“We had sadists in there,” he said. “We had people that were just horrible. You couldn’t to anything about it. I got rid of that. We ended up putting in 9,000 people who love our Vets.”

McAfee is a former NFL punter who hosts “The Pat McAfee Show” on ESPN.

Trump on Sunday became the first sitting president to attend a regular-season NFL game since Jimmy Carter in 1978. Trump appeared at the Detroit Lions and Washington Commanders game in D.C.

Content from The National Desk is provided by Sinclair, the parent company of FOX45 News.

At first glance, the nearly 90-year-old motel appears to be another crumbling relic from the famed highway’s early years as a bustling thoroughfare for hundreds of thousands of Americans traveling between Los Angeles and Chicago.

But this isn’t just a fading Route 66 roadside attraction.

Six years after El Pueblo motel opened its doors, with the country plunged into World War II following the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, the motel’s proprietor, Philip Johnston, devised a plan to enlist Navajo men into the U.S. Marines Corps. Their mission: create a secret code based on Diné Bizaad, the unwritten Navajo language, that could not be broken.

It’s believed that Johnston’s motel served as a recruitment outpost and way station for some new recruits en route to the Southern California base where they would train to become Navajo Code Talkers.

From an initial group of 29, more than 400 Navajo men would eventually become Code Talkers, rapidly transmitting hundreds of thousands of encrypted messages through some of the fiercest battles in the Pacific theater — messages that opposing forces never deciphered.

“Without these brave men and their knowledge of their language, the war in the Pacific would have been prolonged with great human loss,” then-U.S. Sen. Ben Nighthorse Campbell, R-CO, said during a 2001 congressional Gold Medal ceremony for the first 29 Code Talkers. “And maybe it would not have turned out the way it did.”

Of the 400 or so Code Talkers, only two are alive today: Peter MacDonald and Thomas H. Begay. Both men sat down with the Chicago Tribune this summer to talk about their experiences during the war and their hopes for the El Pueblo Motor Inn.

This is the story of the last two Code Talkers and the mastermind behind the top secret program whose Route 66 motel faces an uncertain future.

Two teens join the Marines

Fearful those same planes would strike closer to home, Begay found a Marine Corps recruiter in Gallup, N.M., near his family’s home. There was one catch: Begay was likely only 16 — his birthdate was never recorded. Because his age was “flexible” as Begay once described it, the recruiter said he could enlist with a parent’s permission. His mom signed the necessary form with a thumbprint in place of her name.

Like Begay, MacDonald wouldn’t let his age stop him from joining the fight.

The way he saw things, a soldier had to run fast and shoot straight. And he was just as fast as his 18-year-old cousin, who was already a Marine, and just as accurate with a hunting rifle.

So, in 1944, a then-15-year-old MacDonald and his cousin drove to a recruitment office in northwest New Mexico, where the cousin signed a form saying MacDonald was 17.

Later, sitting on a cold steel truck bed on a chilly evening heading to his barracks, he would briefly regret his decision and entertain the notion of desertion — until a Navajo friend sitting next to him reminded MacDonald that he could either stay in the Marines or go to jail for lying on an official government document.

MacDonald had hoped to join an artillery or tank unit. Begay wanted to be an aerial gunner. Instead, both were shipped to the Marine Corps communications school outside San Diego. They learned Morse code, how to repair radios, how to quickly climb coconut trees to tie telephone lines and rapidly descend before being picked off by Japanese sharpshooters.

Once that training was over, they and other Marines — all of them Navajo — were sent to a restricted area on the base with separate barracks. A large sign warned all others to keep out.

That was when MacDonald and Begay first learned they were training to become Code Talkers, and when they first met the staff sergeant leading that training: Philip Johnston.

“He’s the one,” joked Begay, “who got us in trouble.”

‘The one who got us in trouble’

He was apparently so well-versed in the language that in 1901, at age 9, he traveled with his dad to Washington, D.C., to translate land negotiations between a group of Navajo leaders and newly elected U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt.

Johnston attended what’s now called Northern Arizona University in Flagstaff and served in the U.S. Army during World War I. It’s possible it was during that conflict that the seeds that became the Navajo Code Talkers first took root; soldiers from at least a half-dozen different Native American tribes — including the Choctaw, Ho-Chunk and Comanche — sent coded messages in their native languages during the Great War.

Around 1936, he and his wife opened the El Pueblo Motor Inn on Route 66, commissioned a decade earlier. Three Spanish colonial-style buildings with attached carports provided six rooms for guests. A fourth building near the road served as the office.

By the time the United States entered World War II in 1941, a nearly 50-year-old Johnston was living in Los Angeles and working as a civil engineer for the city.

In a collection of his writings and photographs kept in a special collection at Northern Arizona University’s Cline Library, he wrote of his frustration at being too old, it seemed, to join the conflict.

“Chances were overwhelming,” he wrote, “that the most deadly weapons I could wield in this war were a slide rule and pencil.”

After reading a news story about an armored division’s attempt to send secret messages via soldiers from one Native American tribe, he met with a lieutenant colonel at Camp Elliott, near San Diego.

“Colonel,” he wrote of that meeting, “what would you think of a device that would assure you of complete secrecy when you send or receive messages on the battlefield?”

What Johnston proposed was impossible, the lieutenant colonel responded. No code was completely secure. Even codes based on Native languages, as Johnston had suggested, were inherently flawed. They either lacked certain words for essential military terms or had been studied by other countries after the success of Native Code Talkers in WWI.

The Navajo language had never been written down, Johnston argued, so it could not be studied. Its complexities made it difficult to learn outside of Navajo members or those who, like Johnston, grew up immersed in the language.

To illustrate the point, Johnston wrote, he uttered a few Navajo words to the lieutenant colonel and asked, “Tell me if you honestly believe that anyone but a Navajo could understand them.” He repeated them again, slower.

“Dammit, Mr. Johnston,” the man replied, “you may have something there! I’d like very much to see some of these Navajos.”

About two weeks later, Johnston returned to the base with a few Navajo men, ready to demonstrate for select commanders how the code could work.

Soon, the newly enlisted Marine Corps staff sergeant would head into the Navajo Nation to find recruits, using El Pueblo motel as a base for that effort and as a place for candidates to stay before heading to their Southern California base.

Twenty-nine Navajo men were eventually tasked with crafting the code.

The irony of the moment was not lost on those first Code Talkers and the ones who came after. Here was a country that repeatedly sought to eradicate their culture, if not their very existence. That had, less than 80 years earlier, forced at gunpoint tens of thousands of Navajo men, women and children to march some 300 miles from their homes to an internment camp at Bosque Redondo, N.M. That set up boarding schools where Native American children were punished for speaking their language.

Now, that same country needed their language.

‘It was a bad place’

By the time Begay, and later MacDonald, arrived at Camp Pendleton, the battle-tested code contained hundreds of words.

All 26 letters in the alphabet were represented by a corresponding Navajo word or words. The letter A, for example, could be wol-la-chee (ant) or be-la-sana (apple) or tse-nill (axe). A submarine was a besh-lo, or iron fish. A bomber plane was a jay-sho, or buzzard.

Code Talkers had to commit every word to memory. Nothing could be written down to ensure the code would not fall into enemy hands.

Begay would find himself thrust into one of the war’s most infamous and deadly battles. In February 1945, while aboard the USS Cecil, his unit landed on the beach at Iwo Jima. One Code Talker, a friend of his, had been killed in a bombing at an airfield. A second died from a Japanese sniper’s bullet. Begay was ordered to replace that Code Talker.

He made his way to the front, through gunfire and exploding mortar rounds.

“It was a bad place,” he remembered, sitting in a veterans memorial park in Albuquerque, N.M. “Nothing but rock. No place to hide. No place to dig a fox hole.”

Japanese troops dug a network of tunnels in the 8-square-mile island’s volcanic rock. At one point, Begay remembered, three Japanese soldiers “came out of nowhere,” maybe 40 feet away. Begay raised his rifle in their direction. Someone in his unit yelled for him to hold his fire. One of the Japanese soldiers was naked. The others wore tattered uniforms. They repeated only one word: mizu.

Water.

During the first two days of the invasion, six Code Talkers “sent and received more than 800 error-free messages,” reported Maj. Howard Connor, 5th Division signal officer. “Were it not for the Navajos, the Marines would never have taken Iwo Jima.”

A post-war secret revealed

After serving with units in Guam and northern China, MacDonald earned an engineering degree from the University of Oklahoma and worked to develop the Polaris missile system for the Hughes Aircraft Co., founded by eccentric billionaire Howard Hughes.

In 1971, he was elected chairman of the Navajo Nation. His four nonconsecutive terms ended in scandal. Ousted by the Nation’s council in 1989 amid corruption allegations — his removal sparked a deadly riot in an attempt to restore his chairmanship — MacDonald was eventually convicted in tribal and federal court of charges including fraud, racketeering and bribery. He was later pardoned by the Nation and his sentence commuted by President Bill Clinton.

Struggling to find post-war employment, Begay enlisted in the U.S. Army and fought in the Korean War. Back home, he worked as a senior administrator with the Bureau of Indian Affairs.

For years after WWII, both men were forced to say nothing about the Code Talkers. Not even their families knew what they had done during the war. Their work remained classified until 1968. One night, sitting with his family around the dinner table, Begay revealed his secret.

“We didn’t know what he was talking about,” remembered his son, retired Army Lt. Col. Ronald C. Begay.

The Navajo Code Talkers were eventually honored in 1982 with a congressional resolution establishing National Navajo Code Talkers Day on Aug. 14, and congressional Medals in 2001.

“In war, using their native language, they relayed secret messages that turned the course of battle,” then-President George W. Bush said during a medal ceremony. “At home, they carried for decades the secret of their own heroism. Today, we give these exceptional Marines the recognition they earned so long ago.”

A motel’s uncertain future

As for Johnston, his post-war years are a bit of a mystery. He retired from civil service and gave talks on the Navajo language — including one in 1954 (14 years before the Code Talker program was declassified) that, according to a Los Angeles Times brief, touched on its use “as code for secret communications” during the war. He died in 1978, six days before his 86th birthday.

Johnston and his wife sold El Pueblo motel in 1947. It changed hands several times in the ensuing years. Subsequent owners sold off pieces of the property, converted carports to guestrooms, added a roadside sign and a fifth building and transitioned the motel from tourists to weekly rentals.

The property was last sold in 2007, county records show. Current owner Nava Thuraisingam also heads the Tempe, Arizona-based Kind Hospitality, which operates around two-dozen restaurants, most in Arizona.

Thuraisingam did not respond to interview requests for this story.

Around 2018, Thuraisingam hired Flagstaff realtor Jacquie Kellogg to sell the now-vacant El Pueblo motel. After learning its history, she tried to marshal public awareness and resources toward restoring the motel and commemorating its association with the Code Talkers.

The campaign garnered plenty of attention but ultimately fizzled.

“Everyone thinks it’s the coolest thing,” she said, “but nobody wants to do anything about it.”

Though eligible, the property does not appear on the National Register of Historic Places, nor does it have local historic landmark designation. A Flagstaff City Council report from last month says Thuraisingam did not want to pursue local historic designation and had been advised by financiers not to seek its inclusion on the national register in fear it “may limit the development potential of the property.”

An architect hired by Thuraisingam submitted plans in 2020 to restore the motel’s three guest room buildings and office. Two years later, revised plans from a different architect called for a “substantial motel building” behind the three historic buildings, which had been essentially gutted in preparation for rehabilitation.

Those plans also noted the office had deteriorated to the point it could not be saved. It has since been razed.

“It’s not in great shape right now,” said Flagstaff Councilmember Khara House, who requested a council discussion on the motel’s preservation. But, she added, “there’s a glimmer of hope.”

Kellogg is less optimistic.

“It’s just gonna rot away until somebody tears it down,” she said. “It’s very frustrating.”

“The guy that actually envisioned the Navajo code was Philip Johnston, and he needs to be recognized,” MacDonald said from his home in Tuba City, Arizona, on the Navajo Nation. “Flagstaff should be proud. Set up a huge statue of some sort for (Johnston). Yes, the motel may be bad. But do something.”

This summer, a new realty firm listed the property for sale. Asking $2.75 million, the listing notes that two of the five original buildings are gone, “with the remaining structures reduced to studs, providing an open slate for redevelopment.”

“With high traffic flow and prominent exposure, this site is ideal for a variety of commercial uses including lodging, dining, retail, or mixed-use development,” the listing continues. “Don’t miss this rare opportunity to reimagine a landmark location in a high-demand area.”

JACKSON, Miss. (AP) — Twenty people, including 14 current or former Mississippi law enforcement officers, have pleaded not guilty to federal charges that allege a widespread drug-trafficking conspiracy.

The indictments accuse officers from multiple law enforcement agencies in Mississippi of taking bribes to provide safe transport to people they believed were drug traffickers. Six other people — three in Mississippi and three in Tennessee — were also arrested.

The officers are alleged to have understood they were helping to transport 25 kilograms (55 pounds) of cocaine through Mississippi counties and into Memphis. Some of the officers also provided escort services to protect the transportation of drug proceeds.

Two Mississippi sheriffs, Washington County Sheriff Milton Gaston and Humphreys County Sheriff Bruce Williams, were among those arrested. Both Gaston and Williams are accused of accepting thousands in bribes from someone they believed to be a member of a Mexican cartel. In return, the sheriffs allegedly gave the cartel their “blessing” to operate in their counties.

Michael Carr, an attorney representing Williams, said his client maintains his innocence.

“Let’s just get to the merits of it and get in front of a jury so the officers and my sheriff, Bruce Williams, can have his name cleared, can be publicly vindicated, and can hopefully get back to work,” Carr said.

A lawyer for Gaston did not immediately respond to messages seeking comment.

All law enforcement officers charged in the case were offered a $10,000 bond with a condition that bars them from continuing or seeking employment as law enforcement officers. The Mississippi Board on Law Enforcement Officer Standards and Training has also suspended the officers’ law enforcement certificates, pending a full hearing before the board.

In addition to the two sheriffs, those charged include: Brandon Addison, Javery Howard, Truron Grayson, Sean Williams, Dexture Franklin, Wendell Johnson, Marcus Nolan, Aasahn Roach, Jeremy Sallis, Torio Chaz Wiseman, Pierre Lakes, Derrik Wallace, Marquivious Bankhead, Chaka Gaines, Martavis Moore, Jamario Sanford, Marvin Flowers and Dequarian Smith.

The Associated Press spoke with several lawyers representing those charged who emphasized that their clients are innocent until proven guilty.

“He is absolutely innocent of any wrongdoing whatsoever, and everybody knows it,” attorney Thomas Levidiotis said of his client, Dequarian Smith.

Smith served as a law enforcement officer with the Humphreys County Sheriff’s Office and Isola Police Department at the time of the alleged crime.

The indictments are a blow to already shaky public trust in law enforcement, Robert Eikhoff, special agent in charge of the FBI’s Jackson Field Office, said when the charges were announced last month.

During the same press conference, U.S. Attorney Clay Joyner called the alleged scheme a “monumental betrayal of public trust.”

A photo shared on an unofficial Air Force social media group showed what appeared to be an email from Balfour Beatty Communities, which manages privatized military housing across 55 Army, Navy and Air Force installations.

“While driving [through] the neighborhoods yesterday, it was noticed that Christmas decorations have already begun to appear within the community,” the message noted, per the post. “All holiday decorations should be reflective in their respective months and not any sooner than 30 days before the given holiday. If you currently have Yuletide decor present on the outside of your home, please remove it and reinstall it in accordance with your community guidelines listed below.”

Air Force Capt. Justin Davidson-Beebe, public affairs chief at Tyndall, reportedly said Balfour was well within its rights.

“They are enforcing the community standards outlined in the legally binding lease agreement all residents voluntarily sign,” Davidson-Beebe told Task & Purpose, a military news outlet.

Davidson-Beebe added that the standards note that winter decorations can be displayed starting the week after Thanksgiving through the first week of the New Year.

“These guidelines are not part of a broader Air Force policy,” Davidson-Beebe said, per the media outlet. “Since community standards are set by the privatized housing management company at some installations, standards may vary from base to base.”

“While this is not a Department of Defense policy, it is common practice across rental communities and homeowners’ associations to help ensure neighborhoods remain neat, consistent, and enjoyable for all residents,” the spokesperson said, according to Task & Purpose. “Most residents appreciate clear, reasonable guidelines so that the community remains a pleasant place to live and celebrate.”

The policy, however, didn’t stop people from expressing their thoughts, with several sharing images of “How The Grinch Stole Christmas.”

“I’m the Grinch until the day after Thanksgiving. But it’s wild that they have it in writing,” one person wrote in reply to the photo of the email.

“Mail them a ton of Christmas cards. Seems appropriate. (With extra glitter),” a second person wrote.

Another appeared to agree with the policy.

“I mean, can we give Thanksgiving a chance??!!”

Have a news tip? Contact Jessica Botelho at jabotelho@sbgtv.com or at x.com/J_Botelho_TND. Content from The National Desk is provided by Sinclair, the parent company of FOX45 News.