The Full Belmonte, 1/14/2022
“The Supreme Court on Thursday stopped the Biden administration’s vaccination-or-testing requirement on the nation’s largest employers, expressing doubt that there is legal authority for such a broad mandate.
But the court allowed a different policy, which requires vaccinations for most health-care workers at the facilities that receive Medicaid and Medicare funds.
Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. and Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh were the only members of the court in the majority of both orders.
The White House said the order covered about 17 million health-care workers, while the requirement on large companies would have covered more than 80 million employees, about two-thirds of the American workforce.
The administration had argued both were needed to push Americans to get vaccinated against covid-19.
Lower courts were split on the ability of federal agencies to impose such requirements. The Supreme Court on Friday held a highly unusual oral argument on the policies, lasting more than three and a half hours.
Businesses and 27 Republican-led states asked the court to put on hold the workplace requirements proposed by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), which had been upheld by a lower court.
The Biden administration asked that the requirements for health-care workers, which courts had put on hold for about half the states, be allowed to move forward.
In weighing previous challenges to coronavirus restrictions and requirements, the court has been largely deferential to state responses to the pandemic — but skeptical of the powers of federal agencies.” Read more at Washington Post
“Covid crisis | Across the U.S., a coronavirus surge claiming record numbers of victims is disrupting a federal civilian workforce of 2 million. As Ari Natter reports, that has delayed the processing of tax returns, drug approvals and even foreign travel by diplomats as workers call in sick, quarantine or stay home to care for ill family members.” Read more at Bloomberg
“Another key inflation measure reached a record high in 2021. The US producer price index, which tracks what America's producers get paid for their goods and services on average over time, rose 9.7% last year — the biggest increase since the Bureau of Labor statistics began recording such data in 2010. This metric is important because it can help show what cost increases contributed to rising wholesale prices, and how that is passed on to the consumer. The government also sees it as a reliable bellwether of inflation. According to a new survey, more than half of global CEOs fear inflation will stay elevated until mid-2023 or beyond.” Read more at CNN
“Queen Elizabeth II revoked Prince Andrew's military associations and royal patronages on Thursday, a day after a federal judge in New York refused to dismiss a sexual-abuse lawsuit by an American woman against him.
Buckingham Palace released a statement announcing the news.
‘With The Queen's approval and agreement, The Duke of York's military affiliations and Royal patronages have been returned to The Queen. The Duke of York will continue not to undertake any public duties and is defending this case as a private citizen,’ the statement said.
Andrew, 61, the queen's second son, is being sued by Virginia Roberts Giuffre, 38, who alleges that Andrew raped and sexually assaulted her in New York in 2001 when she was 17. She claims Andrew's friend Jeffery Epstein trafficked her to him and that the prince knew it at the time.
The move to disassociate Andrew from his much-prized military associations has been a long time coming but gained force in recent weeks as proceedings in the civil suit in New York persisted, despite Andrew's lawyers' efforts to get it dismissed.
Many senior members of the royal family hold military associations and royal patronages, distributed by the monarch and considered a major part of the job of being a royal. Andrew served in the Royal Navy as a pilot, and saw service in the 1982 Falklands War, from which he returned as something as a hero to many royal fans.
But in the wake of developments in the lawsuit, British military leaders complained publicly and anonymously to the media that continued links with the prince were embarrassing and untenable.” Read more at USA Today
“The House select committee investigating the Capitol attack subpoenaed Twitter, Meta, Alphabet and Reddit on Thursday for records related to the 6 January insurrection, as it seeks to review data that could potentially incriminate the Trump White House.
Facebook is part of Meta and Google is part of Alphabet.
The move by the select committee suggests the panel is ramping up its examination of social media posts and messages that could provide evidentiary evidence as to who might have been in contact with the Trump White House around 6 January, one source said.
Congressman Bennie Thompson, the chairman of the select committee, said in a statement that he authorized the four subpoenas since those platforms were used to communicate plans about the Capitol attack, and yet the social media companies ignored earlier requests.
The subpoenas to the four social media companies were the last straw for the select committee after repeated engagements with the platforms went unheeded, Thompson said in letters that amounted to stinging rebukes over the platforms’ lack of cooperation.
Thompson said in the subpoena letter to Twitter that the select committee was interested in obtaining key documents House investigators suspect the company is withholding that could shed light on how users used the platform to plan and execute the Capitol attack.” Read more at The Guardian
“Stewart Rhodes — founder and leader of the extremist group Oath Keepers, whose members are accused of being key players in the Jan. 6 attack on Congress — has been indicted and arrested, people familiar with the matter said Thursday.
The 56-year-old, who was at the Capitol that day but has said he did not enter the building, is the most high-profile person charged in the investigation so far. He is charged with seditious conspiracy, along with 10 other Oath Keepers members or associates, said the people familiar with the investigation, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss an ongoing probe.
Rhodes was arrested Thursday, after a federal grand jury leveled new charges focusing on what prosecutors say is a core group of Oath Keepers adherents who allegedly planned for and participated in obstructing Congress on the day lawmakers certified President Biden’s 2020 election victory.” Read more at Washington Post
“WASHINGTON— Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (D., Ariz.) repeated that she wouldn’t support rules changes that get rid of the Senate’s 60-vote threshold, dealing another blow to President Biden’s push to pass legislation to set guidelines for elections nationwide.
‘While I continue to support these bills, I will not support separate actions that worsen the underlying disease of division infecting our country,’ Ms. Sinema said on the Senate floor. She cited the 50-50 split in the Senate, and Democrats’ narrow majority in the House as voters asking both parties to ‘work together and get stuff done for America.’
Her comments came as Democratic leaders moved ahead with efforts to approve new federal standards for elections although no route has emerged for passage. Mr. Biden was set to meet Thursday with Senate Democrats in a push to win over holdouts within the caucus.
The meeting was to take place after the Democratic-led House earlier in the day passed a new elections bill to send to the Senate, with a vote expected there in coming days. The new bill, which passed 220-203, wraps together two bills that previously passed the House but were blocked last year by Republicans in the Senate.Democrats are pushing to pass changes to elections law nationwide, which they say are needed to protect voter access to the polls but Republicans criticize as a politically motivated federal overreach into matters best left to states. If that fails, Democrats, who control the 50-50 Senate, hope to alter the rules of the chamber to ease passage.” Read more at Wall Street Journal
“Novak Djokovic's visa canceled again — The world's No. 1 tennis player might not defend his Australian Open title after all, as Australian Minister for Immigration Alex Hawke announced early Friday that Djokovic's visa would be canceled for a second time.
This comes after an initial cancellation last week, followed by a successful appeal from Djokovic to have the visa reinstated. Djokovic can appeal this decision, too, but it has to be quick: the tournament begins Monday.” Read more at The Athletic
“The Republican National Committee is threatening to keep its party’s future presidential nominees from participating in debates sponsored by the Commission on Presidential Debates, the nonprofit organization that has hosted them for more than three decades.
In a letter dated Thursday, RNC Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel wrote that Republican voters have ‘lost faith in your organization.’ She also expressed frustration with the commission’s unwillingness to adopt several ‘commonsense’ changes that the RNC has advocated.
‘Accordingly, the RNC will initiate the process of amending the Rules of the Republican Party at our upcoming Winter Meeting to prohibit future Republican nominees from participating in CPD-sponsored debates,’ McDaniel wrote in a letter first reported by the New York Times.
In a statement, Frank J. Fahrenkopf, co-chairman of the debates commission, noted that his organization has dealt ‘directly’ with the candidates for president and vice president who qualify for general-election debates, not their party organizations.
‘The CPD’s plans for 2024 will be based on fairness, neutrality and a firm commitment to help the American public learn about the candidates and the issues,’ Fahrenkopf said.
Republicans have previously accused the Washington-based commission of bias. During the 2020 cycle, then-President Donald Trump complained vociferously about the commission, at one point tweeting that it was ‘stacked with Trump Haters & Never Trumpers.’
Trump for months considered not participating in debates, although he was ultimately won over by the national television ratings and his belief that he could embarrass then-Democratic nominee Joe Biden onstage, people close to him said.
In the 2024 cycle, the RNC could force Republican candidates to pledge before participating in primary debates — which the commission does not sponsor — that they would not participate in a commission-led general-election debate.” Read more at Washington Post
“One of the nation’s largest student-loan processors will cancel the debt of 66,000 borrowers, totaling $1.7 billion, in an agreement with 40 state attorneys general.
The agreements resolve all six outstanding state lawsuits against Navient Corp., the company said. The loans in question are private loans, meaning they are not guaranteed by the federal government. As part of the settlement, the company will make a one-time payment of approximately $145 million to the states.
‘The company’s decision to resolve these matters, which were based on unfounded claims, allows us to avoid the additional burden, expense, time and distraction to prevail in court,’ said Mark Heleen, Navient’s chief legal officer.
All of the loans forgiven in the agreement were in default, and most originated between 2002 and 2010 at Sallie Mae, prior to Navient’s spinoff from the student-lending giant.
Navient has faced numerous lawsuits in recent years that alleged the company engaged in unfair and deceptive conduct against borrowers. Last March, a Seattle-area judge ruled that the company had broken a consumer protection law in a case brought by Washington’s attorney general.
N’avient repeatedly and deliberately put profits ahead of its borrowers—it engaged in deceptive and abusive practices, targeted students who it knew would struggle to pay loans back, and placed an unfair burden on people trying to improve their lives through education,’ Pennsylvania Attorney General Josh Shapiro said.” Read more at Wall Street Journal
“SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — Sirhan Sirhan, who assassinated presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy in 1968, was denied parole Thursday by California’s governor, who said the killer remains a threat to the public and hasn’t taken responsibility for a crime that altered American history.
Kennedy, a U.S. senator from New York, was shot moments after he claimed victory in California’s pivotal Democratic presidential primary. Five others were wounded during the shooting at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles.
Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom, who has cited RFK as his political hero, rejected a recommendation from a two-person panel of parole commissioners who said Sirhan, 77, should be freed. The panel’s recommendation in August had divided the Kennedy family, with two of RFK’s sons — Douglas Kennedy and Robert F. Kennedy Jr. — supporting his release, and their siblings and mother vehemently opposing it.” Read more at Boston Globe
“A potent winter storm is forecast to wallop tens of millions of peopleacross the central, southern and eastern U.S. with snow, ice, wind and rain over the next few days . The Weather Channel, which has named the storm Winter Storm Izzy, said the sprawling storm is likely to produce ‘major travel headaches’ from North Dakota down to northern Georgia and up to Maine. The first area to see snow will be the upper Midwest on Friday, where winter storm warnings have been issued by the National Weather Service. A wide swath of 6 to 12 inches of snowfall is expected to encompass the eastern Dakotas to western Minnesota and Iowa. Cities such as Minneapolis, Des Moines, St. Louis and Kansas City are all in the path of the storm. Stay safe!” Read more at USA Today
“A week of diplomatic talks between Russia and Western powers has come to a less-than-optimistic end. The US and its NATO allies had hoped to convince Russia to de-escalate aggressive military maneuvers along its border with Ukraine. However, Russia did not commit to pulling back the more than 100,000 troops amassed there, and made demands of NATO that the organization said were non-starters. The Russian military even conducted live-fire exercises along the border as the talks were ongoing. After the meetings, a senior US official said the ‘drumbeat of war is sounding loud and the rhetoric has gotten rather shrill.’ It's still unclear what the US plans to do if Russia doesn't de-escalate, but also doesn't invade Ukraine.” Read more at CNN
“Ukraine has been hit by a ‘massive’ cyber-attack, with the websites of several government departments including the ministry of foreign affairs and the education ministry knocked out.
Officials said it was too early to draw any conclusions but they pointed to a ‘long record’ of Russian cyber assaults against Ukraine, with the attack coming after security talks between Moscow and the US and its allies this week ended in stalemate.
Suspected Russian hackers left a message on the foreign ministry website, according to reports. It said: ‘Ukrainians! … All information about you has become public. Be afraid and expect worse. It’s your past, present and future.’
The message reproduced the Ukrainian flag and map crossed out. It mentioned the Ukrainian insurgent army, or UPA, which fought against the Soviet Union during the second world war. There was also a reference to ‘historical land.’” Read more at The Guardian
“Boris Johnson’s government won’t face a police inquiry into alleged pandemic rule-breaking parties in Downing Street unless a probe by a senior civil servant finds evidence of criminal behavior.” Read more at Bloomberg
“The Danish intelligence service warned China and Russia are looking to destabilize parts of the Kingdom of Denmark, including Greenland, as their geopolitical ambitions in the Arctic region grow.” Read more at Bloomberg
“Armenia and Turkey are holding talks in Moscow today in a bid to overcome more than a century of enmity by establishing diplomatic relations and open borders.” Read more at Bloomberg
“The Czech government won confirmation from lawmakers three months after elections, promising to repair relations with the European Union.” Read more at Bloomberg
Photo: Getty Images
“These empty roads are closed off because of a COVID outbreak in Anyang, a city of 5.5 million people in China's central Henan province.
The lockdown was announced this week after two — not a typo — Omicron cases were reported, per AP.
Why it matters: The approach of the Winter Olympics, which opens three weeks from today, has brought back citywide lockdowns in China, which has a ‘zero-tolerance’ COVID policy.
The lockdowns — which affected at least 20 million Chinese this week, at a time when there's normally heavy travel ahead of Lunar New Year — are the broadest since Wuhan closed in early 2020.” Read more at Axios
“The Supreme Court offers a window into partisan Covid fallacies.
The Supreme Court justices last spring.Erin Schaff/The New York Times
Maskless and inaccurate
When the Supreme Court justices emerged from the red drapes at the front of the courtroom last Friday and took their seats — to hear arguments about President Biden’s vaccine mandate — all but one of the justices there were wearing masks. The exception was Neil Gorsuch.
That Gorsuch would resist mask wearing is no surprise. He is a conservative judge with a libertarian streak who has spent his life around Republican politics. In conservative circles, masks have become a symbol of big-government subjugation.
But his decision not to wear one — while the other Republican appointees on the court all were — still felt surprising. The justices usually make an effort to treat one another respectfully. They disagree on the law, sometimes harshly, while maintaining productive and even warm relationships, like the famous friendship between Antonin Scalia and Ruth Bader Ginsburg.
‘When you’re charged with working together for most of the remainder of your life, you have to create a relationship,’ Sonia Sotomayor said a few years ago, describing her welcoming of Brett Kavanaugh. ‘This is our work family.’
Gorsuch had to know that his masklessness could make other justices uncomfortable, including the 83-year-old Stephen Breyer and the 67-year-old Sotomayor, who has diabetes, a Covid risk factor. Sotomayor sits next to Gorsuch on the bench and, notably, chose not to attend Friday’s argument in person. She participated remotely, from her chambers.
When Ruth Marcus of The Washington Post asked a Supreme Court spokesperson whether Sotomayor had done so because Gorsuch was maskless, Marcus got no response.
One of the few public comments from somebody close to Gorsuch came from Mike Davis, a conservative activist and former Gorsuch clerk. On Twitter, Davis defended his former boss by writing, ‘We know cloth masks don’t [work].’ It was a statement that managed to be both exaggerated and beside the point.
Masks, especially medical masks like KN95 and N95 masks, reduce the spread of Covid, studies show. In response to that evidence, the Supreme Court tells lawyers and reporters in the courtroom to wear medical masks.
The effect of masks may not be as large as their advocates sometimes claim, and masks can impede communication. So I recognize that well-meaning people can disagree about when they should be worn. Still, Gorsuch’s lack of a mask inside the courtroom seemed needlessly risky and disdainful of his colleagues.
‘Wearing a mask is the decent thing to do,’ Marcus wrote in her Washington Post column, ‘especially when you are around vulnerable individuals.’ This week, Gorsuch again appeared without a mask at the court.
His decision seems emblematic of a country where partisan loyalty can trump Covid reality. It also seems emblematic of a court on which the justices are increasingly willing to behave as partisan actors rather than impartial judges.
And if you’re a liberal reader who’s tempted to believe that those descriptions apply only to Republicans — or a conservative reader who’s frustrated that I have focused on Gorsuch — I hope you will read the rest of today’s newsletter.
A sketch from this week shows Gorsuch, with no mask, next to Sotomayor’s empty chair.Art Lien
‘Wildly incorrect’
During the first hour of last Friday’s two-hour argument, Sotomayor listed the evidence of Covid’s continuing threat, to illustrate the benefits of a vaccine mandate. (Yesterday, the court ruled in the case, blocking Biden’s vaccine mandate for large employers, while allowing a narrower one for health care providers. Gorsuch opposed both mandates, while Sotomayor favored both.)
In making the case for mandates last week, Sotomayor first noted that Covid cases were surging and hospitals were near capacity. She then turned her attention to children: ‘We have over 100,000 children, which we’ve never had before, in serious condition and many on ventilators.’
That last sentence is simply untrue.
PolitiFact called it ‘way off.’ Khaya Himmelman of The Dispatch described it as false and misleading. Daniel Dale of CNN wrote that Sotomayor had made ‘a significant false claim.’ Glenn Kessler, The Washington Post’s fact checker, called it ‘wildly incorrect.’
Fewer than 5,000 U.S. children were in the hospital with Covid last week, and many fewer were in ‘serious condition’ or on ventilators. Some of the hospitalized children probably had incidental cases of the virus, meaning they had been hospitalized for other reasons and tested positive while there.
Covid, as regular Morning readers have heard before, is overwhelmingly mild in children, even those who are unvaccinated. The risks are not zero, and they have risen during the current wave of infections, especially for children with major underlying health problems. But the risks remain extremely low.
Consider these numbers: Over the past week, about 870 children were admitted to hospitals with Covid, according to the C.D.C. By comparison, more than 5,000 children visit emergency rooms each week for sports injuries. More than 1,000 are hospitalized for bronchiolitis during a typical January week.
Similarly, the risk of Covid hospitalization for children — even in recent weeks — has been much lower than the risk from the respiratory virus known as R.S.V., as the epidemiologist Katelyn Jetelina has shown.
Or consider this: Vaccinated elderly people are at much more risk of severe Covid illness than unvaccinated children.
Sotomayor’s statement may not have been central to the case. But it was not a random error, either. Many other Americans on the left half of the political spectrum have also been exaggerating Covid’s risks to children. As the authors of a Gallup poll last year wrote, ‘Republicans consistently underestimate risks, while Democrats consistently overestimate them.’
I understand that these exaggerations often stem from an admirable desire to protect children from harm. But the result has been the opposite: The pandemic’s disruptions have led to lost learning, social isolation and widespread mental-health problems for children. Many American children are in crisis — as a result of pandemic restrictions rather than the virus itself.
Last week’s Supreme Court session was striking because it highlighted both halves of the country’s partisan-based self-deceptions. Many conservatives are refusing to wear masks — or, even worse, refusing to be vaccinated — out of a misplaced belief that Covid is harmless. Many liberals are sensationalizing Covid’s risks out of a misplaced belief that it presents a bigger threat to most children and vaccinated adults than continued isolation and disruption do.
Partisanship, as some political scientists like to say, is a helluva drug.” Read more at New York Times
“In the two months since signing the $1 trillion infrastructure bill into law, President Biden has by almost every measure bombed big time on the things that matter most.
Biden, who marks one year in office next Thursday, has never been less popular nationally, after personally lobbying his party and the public on Build Back Better and voting rights — and failing.
Baffling COVID messaging caused former Biden advisers to stage a media intervention, going public with a call for a less reactive strategy. And, yesterday, the Supreme Court overturned his vaccine mandate for businesses.
Why it matters: Biden is on the verge of losing two big fights of his choosing — with his party controlling both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue.
It's rare for a president to be at odds with Republicans, moderate Democrats and liberal Democrats — all at once. But that's where Biden finds himself at the start of an election year that many Democrats believe will result in the loss of the House and maybe the Senate.
The latest: Yesterday was the third time in 3½ months Biden made an in-person trip to the Hill — and the third time he walked away having failed to persuade his party to back his plans.
Biden can't be faulted for having a 50-50 Senate and an unmovable Democratic centrist in Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.). But he knew the daunting numbers game full well as he went into these fights.
Biden aides point out he passed bigger legislation than any president in history, with a signing ceremony for infrastructure just two months ago.
As America reopened, the U.S. broke records for the number of jobs created in a year, and for reduction in the unemployment rate.
Biden sources sketch this plan for coming weeks:
White House officials hope for progress soon on a reworked version of Build Back Better, based on Manchin’s public statements.
Biden soon will send the Hill a COVID supplemental budget request to buy more boosters, antiviral pills, masks and tests.
Third, aides say Biden will keep pushing for voting-rights legislation. Even as he conceded likely defeat for now, Biden said on the Hill yesterday: ‘Like every other major civil rights bill that came along ... we can come back and try it a second time.’
President Biden talks to reporters after meeting with Senate Democrats yesterday in the Russell Senate Office Building. Photo: Rod Lamkey/CNP via Reuters
What's happening:
Rising anger among Black activists: Members of some civil-rights group refused to appear with Biden for his voting speech in Atlanta. New York Times columnist Charles Blow piled on: ‘Biden has been dillydallying on getting rid of the filibuster to protect voting rights for essentially his whole administration, until this week.’
Sen. Dick Durbin of Illinois, the Senate's No. 2 Democrat, distanced himself from some of Biden's rhetoric in Atlanta, where he invoked the Confederacy and Bull Connor. ‘Perhaps the President went a little too far,’ Durbin told CNN.
Most polls put Biden around 42-43% approval, with over 50% disapproval. In a Quinnipiac poll this week, Biden had a 33% approval. The White House calls that an ‘outlier.’
The Afghanistan pullout played out about as poorly as it could have.
Russia is messing with him: Biden's warnings haven't deterred Vladimir Putin from continuing to build toward a Ukraine invasion.
Inflation is soaring: It's the worst in 39 years.
Empty grocery shelves get network-news coverage. It's partly the weather, partly COVID, partly the supply chain — but makes a handy visual shorthand for national pessimism.
The bottom line: Build Back Better was supposed to be Biden's FDR moment. Voting rights could have been his LBJ moment. Instead, he's likely to end Year 1 with neither.” ” Read more at Axios
“The U.S. is likely reaching the end of the road on new vaccinations, after the Supreme Court blocked the Biden administration's vaccine mandate for large employers, Axios' Tina Reed and Emily Peck write.
Why it matters: Cash prizes and other incentives barely moved the needle on vaccinations. So the government turned from carrots to sticks — but now has lost its biggest stick.
Celine Gounder, an infectious disease expert and former Biden administration advisory board member, tweeted: ‘It is now highly unlikely that the U.S. will hit the ~85-90% of Americans vaccinated to get to the other side of the pandemic.’
By the numbers: 63% of eligible Americans are fully vaccinated and about 38% have gotten boosted.
About 75% of Americans have at least one dose of a COVID vaccine, according to the CDC.” Read more at Axios
“The shortage of workers in the U.S. has become a flywheel of doom, messing up our lives and society writ large.
And many of the underlying problems that led to this breakdown are bigger than the pandemic, Axios' Emily Peck writes.
Millions of immigrants, older workers and mothers are missing from the labor force. Those labor shortages create problems like supply chain woes, school closures, and skyrocketing childcare costs — and some of those problems further exacerbate the worker shortages.
U.S. CEOs say labor shortages are the top threat to their businesses this year, in a survey released by the Conference Board yesterday.
These problems have pre-pandemic roots:
Lost immigrants: There are about 2 million fewer working-age immigrants in the U.S. because of COVID immigration restrictions, according to calculations by U.C. Davis economists. The immigration slowdown began during the Trump administration.
The Great Retirement: Flush with cash from the booming stock market and fearful for their health in a pandemic, many older workers left the workforce.
Beleaguered moms: Lack of social policy support for parents, particularly mothers — a key issue during the pandemic — has long depressed labor force participation rates for women in the U.S.” Read more at Axios
“Lives Lived: Alan Scott, the ‘Father of Botox,’ turned a toxin into a medical treatment — and then watched as his innovation became a cosmetic phenomenon. He died at 89.” Read more at New York Times
“Some TikTok stars make more money than top U.S. CEOs.
Charli D’Amelio, for example, earned $17.5 million last year, according to Forbes. That’s compared with Exxon Mobil CEO Darren Woods’s $15.6 million pay package in 2020, Starbucks CEO Kevin Johnson’s $14.7 million (fun fact: coffee rival Dunkin named a drink after D’Amelio), Delta Air Lines CEO Ed Bastian’s $13.1 million and McDonald’s CEO Chris Kempczinski’s $10.8 million, according to a Wall Street Journal analysis of recent compensation figures. D’Amelio has 133 million followers on TikTok and makes her money from a clothing line and promoting products in TikTok videos and other ads.” Read more at Wall Street Journal
“You’re not dreaming it: Many are finding it harder to fall asleep and stay asleep these days.
More than 50% U.S. adults reported having more sleep disturbances during the pandemic, according to a March 2021 survey by the American Academy of Sleep Medicine. Chronic insufficient sleep can impact your health, cognitive function and mood. Experts say there are things to do both during the day and at night to ensure you catch enough Zs, such as having a regular wake-up time and making a clear distinction between active days and inactive nights—something many people have found difficult in this confusing WFH era. Sleep coaches and researchers also suggest doing your best to reduce stress despite the toll of the pandemic, establishing a pre-sleep routine that signals to your brain that bedtime is approaching and creating a separation (perhaps with a physical barrier) between where you work and where you sleep, especially if your bedroom now doubles as an office.” Read more at Wall Street Journal
Photo by James Black/Icon Sportswire via Getty Imagess
“Major League Baseball submitted a proposal to the players association Thursday on core economics for a new central bargaining agreement. Good and bad news:
Good: The sides talked for the first time since Dec. 2. Encouraging!
Bad: Players weren’t happy with the proposal at all. But at least it’s a start?
The distance between the two sides is large, according to our Evan Drellich, and we shouldn't expect spring training to start on time. At this rate, it’s hard to hope the season starts on time, either.
It’s hard to tell which of the core issues are close to agreement right now — minimum salaries, draft tweaks, arbitration changes, service-time manipulation and the competitive-balance tax are all items where the sides are still miles apart.
It goes without saying that losing games would be bad for baseball. Those around for 1994 and 1995 can attest to how dire the sport’s future felt then. It is in a stronger place than it was before that work stoppage, but in a landscape where football is king and basketball’s popularity continues to swell, it’s hard to find silver linings in baseball slipping away, even by a few inches.
Don’t lose too much hope, though: as Drellich’s story points out, these issues are often solved at the last minute. No follow-up meeting is scheduled for now, though.” Read more at The Athletic