News
D.C. businessman Ted Harris dies at 73
Served in Department of Transportation
Harris, 73
Theodore P. “Ted” Harris Jr., a recognized expert in U.S. transportation policy and longtime airline industry consultant, died May 21 at Sibley Memorial Hospital in Washington, D.C. from complications associated with spinal fusion surgery. He was 73.
Prior to his retirement, Harris served as president of Airline Industry Resources, an airline industry consulting company he founded in the 1980s in McLean, Va.
William Kiely, a business associate and longtime friend, said Harris, a lifelong Democrat, served as an undersecretary at the Department of Transportation under the administration of President Gerald Ford in the 1970s where, among other things, he played a role in saving Pan American Airlines from closing its doors.
Although the airline giant eventually went out of business in 1991, the efforts by the government and airline industry advocates to keep it in business in the mid-1970s have been credited with saving thousands of airline industry jobs for more than 15 years.
Harris also played a role in helping the U.S. Postal Service expand and improve its Express Mail service in the 1980s and early ‘90s through a coordinated air transport system at a time when private mail and parcel carriers were cutting into the Postal Service’s revenue from business customers and consumers.
The Chicago Tribune reported in 1991 that under a Postal Service contract from 1988 through 1991, Harris’s Airline Industry Resources firm prepared a detailed report on air transport and postal delivery services for the Postal Service called “Air Transportation Management Strategy: 1990 and Beyond.”
In the 1980s, Harris also served as publisher of two magazines that reported on airline industry issues, Airline Executive and Commuter Air.
At the time, he emerged as an outspoken opponent of airline industry deregulation, writing newspaper commentaries and speaking on television news programs, including the Public Broadcasting System’s MacNeil-Lehrer Report, urging Congress to scrap an extensive deregulation proposal that it eventually approved.
A Dec. 30, 1984 story in the Washington Post reports that Harris personally filed a last-minute lawsuit to block the now-defunct Civil Aeronautics Board, which for years had regulated practices of U.S. airline companies, from ending anti-trust immunity for travel agents. Deregulation opponents argued that the immunity status for travel agents helped consumers by enabling travel agents to remain independent from airline companies and to search for the best possible fares for passengers.
In a December 1990 commentary in the Chicago Tribune called “Air Deregulation: Chaos Out of Order,” Harris and co-author Paul Steven Dempsey pointed out that, at that time, deregulation polices resulted in far fewer airline companies than there were prior to deregulation.
Kiely and others who knew Harris said that in addition to his airline industry work he served diligently as an informal counselor and mentor for people with alcohol and substance abuse problems in a volunteer capacity. Harris, who was open about his own alcoholism and his success in overcoming it through a 12-step program, often took the initiative to take under his wing others struggling with drinking or drug problems, including members of the LGBT community.
In one of many similar examples, Kiely said a neighbor from McLean, Va., who moved next door to Kiely’s home near Albuquerque, N.M., told him about a son who became addicted to drugs after completing his service in the military, where he performed air traffic control-related work.
“After he got out he got into drugs, but he was finally doing OK, was married and had a kid,” Kiely quoted the neighbor as saying. “To my amazement, he told me a guy named Ted Harris was instrumental in getting him off drugs and even got him a job as an air traffic controller at Washington National Airport,” Kiely said.
According to Harris’s sister, Rosemary Harris Abate, Harris was born in New York City, where he attended St. Raymond’s Elementary School and graduated from Xavier Military Prep High School in Manhattan. He received his undergraduate degree in business from New York’s Fordham University and received master’s degrees from both the University of Tennessee and the University of Maryland, Abate said in a family prepared obituary.
Kiely said Harris later taught business at the University of Maryland. Harris served on the board of directors of River Park Mutual Homes, a cooperative apartment and townhouse development in Southwest D.C. where Harris lived since the mid-1990s.
Friends said Harris’s friendly demeanor and support for their personal needs continued in recent years despite his own serious medical challenges. He had been under treatment for an auto immune disorder called Myasthenia Gravis for more than 10 years. In April, he underwent complicated and risky spinal fusion surgery at Georgetown University Hospital for a spinal condition that doctors told him could lead to paralysis if not corrected by surgery.
Following the surgery he spent nearly four weeks at two local rehabilitation centers undergoing physical therapy to help him recover from the spinal operation. He was taken to Sibley Memorial Hospital on May 21 after developing a urinary tract infection that doctors said appears to have triggered a heart attack or pulmonary embolism that took his life.
“He loved the outdoors, particularly sailing the Intra Coastal Waterway and the Chesapeake Bay,” Abate said.
“Ted was very fortunate in having amazingly kind friends to whom the family is extremely grateful,” Abate said. “If anyone wishes to remember Ted, please do so by doing something kind for someone else today.”
Harris is survived by his sisters Rosemary Abate and her husband Robert of Hopkinton, Mass., and Virginia Harris Bartot and husband Morris of Chicago, six nieces and nephews, and many friends in Washington, D.C. and across the nation.
A memorial gathering in honor of his life is scheduled for 1 p.m., Saturday, Aug. 6, in the upstairs room at Mr. Henry’s restaurant at 601 Pennsylvania Ave., S.E., Washington, D.C. A scattering of his ashes at the Chesapeake Bay is scheduled to take place shortly after the memorial.
Netherlands
Rob Jetten becomes first gay Dutch prime minister
38-year-old head of government sworn in on Monday
Rob Jetten on Monday became the Netherland’s first openly gay prime minister.
Jetten’s centrist D66 party won the country’s elections last October, narrowly defeating Geert Wilders’ far-right Party for Freedom.
King Willem-Alexander on Monday swore in Jetten, who is also the country’s youngest-ever prime minister. The Associated Press notes Jetten’s coalition government includes the center-right Christian Democrats and the center-right People’s Party for Freedom and Democracy.
“Proud to be able to do this together,” said Jetten in an X post before Willem-Alexander swore him in.
COC Nederland, a Dutch LGBTQ advocacy group, in a statement said Jetten “becoming prime minister shows that your sexual orientation doesn’t have to matter.”
“You can become a construction worker, a doctor, a lawyer, and even prime minister,” said COC Nederland.
The advocacy group noted Jetten has said his government will implement its “Rainbow Agreement” that include calls for strengthening nondiscrimination laws “to better protect transgender and intersex people,” appointing more “discrimination investigators … to address violence against LGBTQ+ people and other minorities,” and introducing measures “to promote acceptance in schools.”
“COC will hold the Cabinet to that promise,” said COC Nederland.
Jetten’s fiancé is Nicolás Keenen, an Argentine field hockey player who competed in the 2024 Summer Olympics in Paris.
Jetten is one of two openly gay heads of government: Andorran Prime Minister Xavier Espot Zamora came out in 2023. Gay Latvian President Edgars Rinkēvičs, who is the country’s head of state, took office in 2023.
Leo Varadkar, who was Ireland’s prime minister from 2017-2020 and from 2022-2024, and Xavier Bettel, who was Luxembourg’s prime minister from 2013-2023, are gay. Ana Brnabić, who was Serbia’s prime minister from 2017-2024, is a lesbian.
Former Icelandic Prime Minister Jóhanna Sigurðardóttir in 2009 became the world’s first openly lesbian head of government. Former Belgian Prime Minister Elio Di Rupo, former San Marino Captain Regent Paolo Rondelli, and former French Prime Minister Gabriel Attal are also openly gay.
Colombian presidential candidate Claudia López, who is the former mayor of Bogotá, the Colombian capital, would become her country’s first female and first lesbian president if she wins the country’s presidential election that is taking place later this year.
District of Columbia
D.C. police arrest man for burglary at gay bar Spark Social House
Suspect ID’d from images captured by Spark Social House security cameras
D.C. police on Feb. 18 arrested a 63-year-old man “of no fixed address” for allegedly stealing cash from the registers at the gay bar Spark Social House after unlawfully entering the bar at 2009 14th St., N.W., around 12:04 a.m. after it had closed for business, according to a police incident report.
“Later that day officers canvassing for the suspect located him nearby,” a separate police statement says. “63-year-old Tony Jones of no fixed address was arrested and charged with Burglary II,” the statement says.
The police incident report states that the bar’s owner, Nick Tsusaki, told police investigators that the bar’s security cameras captured the image of a man who has frequently visited the bar and was believed to be homeless.
“Once inside, the defendant was observed via the establishment’s security cameras opening the cash register, removing U.S. currency, and placing the currency into the left front pocket of his jacket,” the report says.
Tsusaki told the Washington Blade that he and Spark’s employees have allowed Jones to enter the bar many times since it opened last year to use the bathroom in a gesture of compassion knowing he was homeless. Tsusaki said he is not aware of Jones ever having purchased anything during his visits.
According to Tsusaki, Spark closed for business at around 10:30 p.m. on the night of the incident at which time an employee did not properly lock the front entrance door. He said no employees or customers were present when the security cameras show Jones entering Spark through the front door around 12:04 a.m.
Tsusaki said the security camera images show Jones had been inside Spark for about three hours on the night of the burglary and show him taking cash out of two cash registers. He took a total of $300, Tsusaki said.
When Tsusaki and Spark employees arrived at the bar later in the day and discovered the cash was missing from the registers they immediately called police, Tsusaki told the Blade. Knowing that Jones often hung out along the 2000 block of 14th Street where Spark is located, Tsusaki said he went outside to look for him and saw him across the street and pointed Jones out to police, who then placed him under arrest.
A police arrest affidavit filed in court states that at the time they arrested him police found the stolen cash inside the pocket of the jacket Jones was wearing. It says after taking him into police custody officers found a powdered substance in a Ziploc bag also in Jones’s possession that tested positive for cocaine, resulting in him being charged with cocaine possession in addition to the burglary charge.
D.C. Superior Court records show a judge ordered Jones held in preventive detention at a Feb. 19 presentment hearing. The judge then scheduled a preliminary hearing for the case on Feb. 20, the outcome of which couldn’t immediately be obtained.
District of Columbia
Judge rescinds order against activist in Capital Pride lawsuit
Darren Pasha accused of stalking organization staff, board members, volunteers
A D.C. Superior Court judge on Feb.18 agreed to rescind his earlier ruling declaring local gay activist Darren Pasha in default for failing to attend a virtual court hearing regarding an anti-stalking lawsuit brought against him by the Capital Pride Alliance, the group that organizes D.C.’s annual Pride events.
The Capital Pride lawsuit, initially filed on Oct. 27, 2025, accuses Pasha of engaging in a year-long “course of conduct” of “harassment, intimidation, threats, manipulation, and coercive behavior” targeting Capital Pride staff, board members, and volunteers.
In his own court filings without retaining an attorney, Pasha has strongly denied the stalking related allegations against him, saying “no credible or admissible evidence has been provided” to show he engaged in any wrongdoing.
Judge Robert D. Okum nevertheless on Feb. 6 approved a temporary stay-away order requiring Pasha to stay at least 100 feet away from Capital Pride’s staff, volunteers, and board members until the time of a follow-up court hearing scheduled for April 17. He reduced the stay-away distance from 200 yards as requested by Capital Pride.
In his two-page order issued on Feb. 18, Okun stated that Pasha explained that he was involved in a scooter accident in which he was injured and his phone was damaged, preventing him from joining the Feb. 6 court hearing.
“Therefore, the court finds there is a good cause for vacating the default,” Okun states in his order.
At the time he initially approved the default order at the Feb. 6 hearing that Pasha didn’t attend, Okun scheduled an April 17 ex parte proof hearing in which Capital Pride could have requested a ruling in its favor seeking a permanent anti-stalking order against Pasha.
In his Feb. 18 ruling rescinding the default order Okun changed the April 17 ex parte proof hearing to an initial scheduling conference hearing in which a decision on the outcome of the case is not likely to happen.
In addition, he agreed to consider Pasha’s call for a jury trial and gave Capital Pride 14 days to contest that request. The Capital Pride lawsuit initially called for a non-jury trial by judge.
One request by Pasha that Okum denied was a call for him to order Capital Pride to stop its staff or volunteers from posting information about the lawsuit on social media. Pasha has said the D.C.-based online blog called DC Homos, which Pasha claims is operated by someone associated with Capital Pride, has been posting articles portraying him in a negative light and subjecting him to highly negative publicity.
“The defendant has not set forth a sufficient basis for the court to restrict the plaintiff’s social media postings, and the court therefore will deny the defendant’s request in his social media praecipe,” Okun states in his order.
A praecipe is a formal written document requesting action by a court.
Pasha called the order a positive development in his favor. He said he plans to file another motion with more information about what he calls the unfair and defamatory reports about him related to the lawsuit by DC Homos, with a call for the judge to reverse his decision not to order Capital Pride to stop social media postings about the lawsuit.
Pasha points to a video interview on the LGBTQ Team Rayceen broadcast, a link to which he sent to the Washington Blade, in which DC Homos operator Jose Romero acknowledged his association with Capital Pride Alliance.
Capital Pride Executive Director Ryan Bos didn’t immediately respond to a message from the Blade asking whether Romero was a volunteer or employee with Capital Pride.
Pasha also said he believes the latest order has the effect of rescinding the temporary stay away order against him approved by Okun in his earlier ruling, even though Okun makes no mention of the stay away order in his latest ruling. Capital Pride attorney Nick Harrison told the Blade the stay away order “remains in full force and effect.”
Harrison said Capital Pride has no further comment on the lawsuit.
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