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Bidens dine out with French President Emmanuel Macron, wife at DC restaurant
President Biden and first lady Jill Biden dined out at an expensive Washington, DC, restaurant on Wednesday with French President Emmanuel Macron and his wife, Brigitte, ahead of Thursday’s White House state dinner.
The Bidens and the Macrons went out to Fiola Mare, an Italian restaurant on the Georgetown Waterfront overlooking the Potomac River that boasts of its “see and be seen ambiance.”
The world leaders and their wives headed to dinner after the Bidens preceded over the lighting of the National Christmas Tree Wednesday night.
“Welcoming some friends to town,” a tweets read from the 80-year-old president’s Twitter account Wednesday that included a photo of the two power couples sitting at a table in the restaurant with a window view.
Fiola Mare is the same DC restaurant where the president and his wife flouted local indoor masking requirements last year.
In October of 2021, the first couple were filmed walking maskless through a high-end seafood establishment with masked-up Secret Service agents in tow.
The White House will host a state dinner Thursday in recognition of France’s status as America’s oldest ally.
It’s the first state dinner Biden has hosted as president. The formal affairs have been on hold because of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Macron will visit New Orleans following tomorrow night’s state dinner to become the first French leader to set foot in the Big Easy in 45 years.
Office holiday parties are back in the Twin Cities
Grab that Santa hat. Holiday office parties are back.
After two years of pandemic shut downs and distancing, Twin Cities companies are shoving aside worry and rolling out celebratory red carpets instead.
The holiday teas at the exquisitely decorated St. Paul Hotel are sold out and “we are getting a lot of ticket sales” for showings of its annual live December radio show, “It’s a Wonderful Life,” said Leslie Ingiald, the hotel’s director of sales and marketing.
Ingiald said the past two years of show and party cancellations, mask mandates and vaccination checks have been hard on employees.
“It will be a big relief and much more fun [to party this year]. It’s already definitely much more of a joyful holiday season,” he said.
That sentiment is echoing statewide as employers inject some fun — and financial heft — into the holidays after fretful years characterized by empty restaurants, unemployed chefs and restaurant workers, as well as worries over the war in Ukraine, inflation and lurking COVID-19 variants.
To be sure, COVID-19 is still around, but its punch is lessening. So, holiday elves are busy stringing lights and polishing cocktail glasses while caterers, bartenders and restaurants eagerly await the buzz of cash registers. No one group tracks exact numbers, but event planners and chamber officials generally agree that holiday parties funnel millions into Minnesota’s economy.
That’s why it hurt when D’Amico Catering had to lay off all employees in 2020. But now 250 workers are back catering 100 revived holiday parties in clients’ offices and venues such as the Mill City Museum, Walker Art Center, Metropolitan Ballroom, McNamara Alumni Center and Loring Park’s Café and Bar Lurcat.
“The corporate holiday party is, in fact, back,” said Christie Altendorf, D’Amico Catering’s senior event planner. “We have been waiting a really long time to say that.”
Corporations generally spend $50 to $250 per holiday guest depending on whether it’s an intimate function, an office luncheon or an extravagant affair, Altendorf said.
Holiday revenue is a lifeline, especially during the slow, pre-wedding months of January, February and March, said D’Amico operations director Cathy Bovard. “To have those types of holiday events back is not only important financially [for the company] but for the retention of workers.”
Things tilted toward normal earlier this year. In September, D’Amico held a winter tasting event during which Fortune 500 clients could try new dishes that might tempt their holiday party planning instincts.
“We definitely were getting a sense that our corporate partners were looking at possibly getting events budgets together again,” Altendorf said. “We saw that was an opportunity.”
And why not?
“Who doesn’t love office parties?” said Joe Spencer, president of the St. Paul Downtown Alliance. “My inbox has a fair number of holiday parities, so from my perspective, it feels like we are 80% back to ‘normal.'”
The 1,600-member St. Paul Area Chamber, which counts Ecolab, 3M, Medtronic, Securian Financial, Travelers, Xcel Energy and others among its members, is bringing back its Holiday Chamber Connect extravaganza, a $5,000 event that traditionally has 900 guests sampling donated fare from St. Paul’s finest chefs.
“Two years ago, we canceled. Last year, we had it small and masked” with about 200 guests, said the Chamber’s marketing vice president Megan Ryan. “This year, we are indeed returning to our tradition at the Landmark Center … [and] are expecting 400 to 500 guests.”
Cheer is similarly bubbling in Minneapolis.
“No ‘bah, humbug’ to be found here,” said Steve Cramer, CEO of the Minneapolis Downtown Council. “The restaurants we talk to are seeing a big increase in restaurant bookings for holiday gatherings and private events.”
Separately, downtown human resource leaders told the Council they are reviving Christmas and New Year celebrations as a way to reconnect remote workers and restore office culture.
“This [holiday party] is seen as [one] of the way to encourage people to come in and be together,” Cramer said.
Gordon Braun, a managing director at internal audit and IT consulting firm Protiviti, said his 110 Minneapolis staffers will have a pot of luck in December and a fancy holiday party in January at the Walker Art Center.
It’s the first big get-together since the pandemic started, and the first with spouses.
“Our people are excited and looking forward to it after a couple of years of hiatus,” Braun said, noting that they were expecting to spend more than $10,000. “We see this as a good investment. Our culture is real important.”
Restauranteur Erik Forsberg is seeing that same sentiment prevail at his Dan Kelly’s Broadway Pizza and Devil’s Advocate in downtown Minneapolis and Joseph’s Family Restaurant in Stillwater. Each had two company holiday parties or happy hours booked for customers such as Ameriprise, SPS, Henson Efron and other law firms through December and January. More reservation inquiries
‘Shockingly unimpressed’ judge orders prison for man who killed girlfriend with spiked drink
A man found guilty of manslaughter after his girlfriend died from a drug he put in her drink was sentenced Tuesday in 3rd District Court. (Yukai Peng, Deseret News)
Estimated read time: 5-6 minutes
WEST JORDAN — Stacey Buchanan’s four kids had to grow up fast when she died unexpectedly in 2016 from a drink her boyfriend spiked with methamphetamine.
Aaliyah Angelique, Buchanan’s oldest daughter, told the court on Tuesday that she and her siblings were split up and sent to live with different family members, some of whom they barely knew. Angelique was close to graduating from high school at the time, and had been looking forward to sharing the occasion with her mom; when, suddenly, she was ordering flowers and doing her mom’s hair and makeup for the funeral.
Angelique said the months after her mother’s death were absolutely difficult. She couldn’t leave the house for work and school and she struggled eating and drinking, afraid it was all being poisoned. She “self-sabotaged” her relationships out of anger, and at one point was hospitalized with anxiety and panic disorder.
Eventually, Angelique said she gained legal custody of two of her siblings and has since been their sole provider — putting her own plans and dreams on hold to pay for an apartment, car, food, clothes and other expenses.
“I had to abandon my youth … because of one man’s selfish actions and decisions,” Angelique said in a 3rd District courtroom on Tuesday. “I feel as if we all died along with (my mother) that day.”
Angelique’s comments came during the sentencing proceedings for Taylorsville resident Joshua Ryan Bridgewaters, 41, who was found guilty in September of manslaughter, a second-degree felony, and tampering with a witness, a third-degree felony.
Judge L. Douglas Hogan ordered that Bridgewaters serve one to 15 years in prison on the manslaughter charge and one to five years on the witness tampering charge. The sentences will run consecutively, and Hogan will recommend Bridgewaters receive “zero” credit for the time served.
He added that while the parole board isn’t bound by his recommendations, “I don’t believe you deserve credit for any of the time served.”
Bridgewaters spent nearly five years at the county jail as he rotated through different attorneys. His trial was set 10 different times, Hogan noted Tuesday, and all but one of those date changes occurred because Bridgewaters dropped “numerous competent counsel.”
Buchanan was 33 when she died on May 29, 2016. Bridgewaters told police, at the time, that the two were drinking wine when Buchanan started to feel sick. According to the police, Bridgewaters sought help from a neighbor who was a paramedic, but the neighbor later told investigators that by the time he saw Buchanan she was not breathing and her lungs were full of vomit and fluid. Police said Bridgewaters had not called 911, despite his girlfriend’s condition.
Police affidavits said that earlier in the day, Buchanan called her mother, Robin Bingham, “and told her someone had poisoned her drink.” When Bingham was called back a short time later, she said she could hear Buchanan tell Bridgewaters to “stop it” and “stop grabbing my phone,” before Bridgewaters took the phone and told Bingham that everything was fine, according to the court documents.
Bridgewaters contacted a friend who was with them earlier that day and asked what he had told police so their stories would match, the charges state. This made the friend suspicious and prompted him to confront Bridgewaters about what had happened.
Police also found marijuana in Bridgewater’s coat, something he asked his friend to take the blame for because he was on parole and was not supposed to be around drugs, the state charges. Court records show Bridgewaters pleaded guilty in 2007 to aggravated robbery, a first-degree felony.
Bridgewaters was charged in 2017 with murder, a first-degree felony, along with obstructing justice, a second-degree felony, and tampering with a witness, court records show.
During his trial in September, the jury was given the option to convict Bridgewaters of a reduced charge of manslaughter, instead of murder — meaning he recklessly caused his girlfriend’s death but did not show indifference to human life or knowingly create a great risk of death. The jurors found Bridgewaters guilty of manslaughter and tampering with a witness, but not guilty of obstructing justice.
‘A piece of me that I will never be able to get back’
During Tuesday’s sentencing, friends and family members described Buchanan as “a beautiful soul,” “fun to be around” and someone with “such a big heart.”
Bingham, Buchanan’s mother, said Bridgewaters had caused her family to become additional angry by dragging out the proceedings, “keeping us from getting the justice we deserve. … He was still just looking out for himself.”
Wendy Ortega, Buchanan’s aunt, added that Bridgewaters deprived