The Full Belmonte, 1/17/2022
Visitors gather at the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial as snow falls in Washington, DC yesterday.
“More than 50 million people are under winter weather alerts across the Eastern US as freezing rain, ice and snow have left more than 180,000 people without power. Efforts to clear roads are underway in states like South Carolina and Virginia, where hazardous conditions have caused several crashes. Air travel was also snarled by the wintry conditions, with more than 3,000 US flights canceled yesterday and more than 1,200 flights canceled as of this morning, according to FlightAware.com. The winter storm treated some residents of the Florida panhandle to rare snow flurries yesterday, but the system brought much more dangerous conditions to southwest Florida, where at least two tornadoes destroyed at least 28 homes in Lee County.” Read more at CNN
Michael Pitcher, of St. Augustine, Fla., gets a snowball to the face from his stepdaughter at Falls Park in downtown Greenville on Sunday, Jan. 16, 2022. JESSICA GALLAGHER, The Greenville News / USA TODAY NETWORK
“Today is Martin Luther King Jr. Day, a national holiday honoring the civil rights leader who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1964 for advancing racial equality and social justice. In honor of King’s legacy, current civil rights leaders are vowing to keep pressure on Congress to pass voting and election bills in the face of ongoing Senate delays on the legislation. Martin Luther King III, the son of the late civil rights leader who would have turned 93 on Saturday said ‘the stakes could not be higher to protect and expand’ his father's legacy by passing measures that strengthen voter rights. Sens. Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona are both needed to get the bills over the finish line, but the two Democrats remain opposed to changing filibuster rules. The Senate is expected to take up the voting legislation on Tuesday.” Read more at CNN
“Health care professionals are ramping up efforts to inform parents that unvaccinated children face increased vulnerability to Covid-19. While early data indicates Omicron appears to cause less severe symptoms and leads to fewer hospitalizations, its rapid spread indicates more children are likely to become infected. For the week ending January 6, nearly 600,000 child Covid-19 cases were reported nationwide, according to a report from the American Academy of Pediatrics and the Children's Hospital Association -- a 78% increase from the prior week. Schools are also a focus as many struggle to remain open for in-person learning -- but a lack of money isn't the problem. Much of the $190 billion that Congress authorized for schools earlier in the pandemic has yet to be used. In a majority of states, less than 20% of the federal money had been spent by the end of November, according to data from the US Department of Education.” Read more at CNN
“U.S. to step up Omicron response. The public can begin ordering free at-home rapid Covid-19 tests through a new government website on Wednesday, according to Biden administration officials, part of a testing drive that is pressuring suppliers. The president has said he intends to detail plans this week to provide free masks to Americans, while strained hospitals in certain states are due to receive backup from military medical teams.” Read more at Wall Street Journal
“France will exclude unvaccinated people from all restaurants, sports arenas and other venues, one of the strictest measures taken by a country to stop the spread of COVID-19.” Read more at USA Today
“3% — The expected annual rate of U.S. growth during the first quarter of 2022, according to forecasters surveyed by the Journal this month, a number that has fallen from the 4.2% forecast in October as the Omicron variant has darkened the economic outlook.” Read more at Wall Street Journal
“WASHINGTON — The director of national intelligence, Avril D. Haines, has appointed a new officer to oversee threats to elections, filling a critical role in the nation’s efforts to counter foreign election interference, her office said on Friday.
The new officer, Jeffrey Wichman, who has worked at the C.I.A. for more than three decades, will take over as the election threats executive at the Office of the Director of National Intelligence next week, said Nicole de Haay, a spokeswoman for the director of national intelligence.
Individual intelligence agencies like the National Security Agency and U.S. Cyber Command have already begun stepping up election threat monitoring ahead of this year’s midterm elections. But without a new election threats executive, some on Capitol Hill had feared progress had stalled, coordination had diminished and important analytical differences had been left unresolved.
Mr. Wichman’s appointment came after the Office of the Director of National Intelligence was forced to delay plans to create a foreign malign influence center that would oversee efforts from abroad to influence elections and American politics more generally. Creation of that center has been slowed by disagreements on Capitol Hill over the size of the effort and its funding.” Read more at Washington Post
“The former criminal prosecution team investigating the Flint water crisis was building a racketeering case against state officials. Then the team was dismantled
A team of prosecutors and investigators leading the investigation into the Flint water crisis from 2016 through 2018 were assembling a racketeering case against the architects of a bond deal that residents and experts say sparked the health disaster, sources familiar with the criminal investigation have told the Guardian.
The case – which would have come under the Rico (racketeer-influenced and corrupt organizations) laws often used to charge organized crime groups – was widespread and set to implicate additional state officials who played a role in the poisoning of Flint, according to these sources.
But when the team was suddenly broken up and the investigation restarted with a new set of investigators, the Rico case never materialized.
What happened? Critics point to the Michigan attorney general, Dana Nessel.
Running to replace the term-limited Republican attorney general Bill Schuette in 2018, Nessel, a Democrat, criticized the Flint criminal investigation under Schuette as ‘politically charged show trials’ and campaigned on revamping the investigation. Shortly after Nessel won the attorney general race and took office, her administration fired the top prosecutors and investigators working on the Schuette-launched investigation and restarted the prosecution with a new team.
At that point, the prosecution team assembled by Schuette had been working for nearly three years – and filed criminal charges against 15 Michigan state and Flint city officials, including four officials charged with financial fraud that prosecutors said triggered the water crisis.
But when Nessel relaunched the investigation, her office dropped charges against top state and city officials, citing flaws in the Schuette-era investigation. In 2021, Nessel’s office recharged several of those defendants – with a new round of indictments that included involuntary manslaughter, misconduct in office, obstruction of justice, extortion and perjury. But gone were the financial fraud charges.” Read more at The Guardian
“COLLEYVILLE, Texas (AP) — U.S. and British authorities Monday continued an investigation into the weekend standoff at a Texas synagogue that ended with an armed British national dead and a rabbi crediting past security training for getting him and three members of his congregation out safely.
Authorities identified the hostage-taker as a 44-year-old British national, Malik Faisal Akram, who was killed Saturday night after the last hostages ran out of Congregation Beth Israel around 9 p.m. The FBI said there was no early indication that anyone else was involved, but it had not provided a possible motive.
The investigation stretched to England, where late Sunday police in Manchester announced that two teenagers were in custody in connection with the standoff. Greater Manchester Police tweeted that counter-terrorism officers had made the arrests but did not say whether the pair faced any charges.
Rabbi Charlie Cytron-Walker said security training at his suburban Fort Worth congregation over the years is what allowed him and the other three hostages to make it through the 10-hour ordeal, which he described as traumatic.
‘In the last hour of our hostage crisis, the gunman became increasingly belligerent and threatening,’ Cytron-Walker said in a statement. ‘Without the instruction we received, we would not have been prepared to act and flee when the situation presented itself.’” Read more at AP News
“Virginia Gov. Glenn Younkin (R), within hours of his inauguration, issued executive actions overturning the state's mask mandate for public schools + COVID vaccination requirement for state workers.
Also on Day 1, he banned teaching of critical race theory in public schools, and vowed to ‘investigate wrongdoing in Loudoun County,’ the locus of culture-war fights that helped fuel his campaign.
Arlington County Public Schools officials quickly announced they would keep their mask requirements.
Many of the governor's moves could face legal challenges + pushback from state lawmakers, Axios' Erin Doherty notes.” Read more at Axios
“The Australian Open is underway in Melbourne without tennis star Novak Djokovic. The world No. 1-ranked men’s player left the country yesterday after losing a legal challenge against a decision revoking his visa for the second time. In a virtual hearing earlier in the day, three Federal Court judges in Australia unanimously dismissed Djokovic's application to overturn the immigration minister's decision to cancel his visa, but did not publish their reasons for the ruling. The departure brings to an end a protracted drama revolving around whether or not the Serb, who is not vaccinated against Covid-19, could be admitted to the country under a medical exemption. Djokovic had hoped to win a record-breaking 21st men's grand slam title.” Read more at CNN
“Tonga awaits aid, complete picture of volcano impact. Parts of the South Pacific nation sustained significant damage from an underwater eruption and tsunami on Saturday, but ash clouds, power blackouts and loss of communications have complicated the task of fully assessing the situation on some islands. There have been no official reports of casualties.” Read more at Wall Street Journal
“WASHINGTON — The Biden administration is refining a screening tool it developed last year to evaluate the symptoms and injuries of people who experienced the so-called Havana syndrome, as it continues to search for a cause and prepares to compensate federal officials who have been affected.
The next version of the tool — essentially a medical exam with a standardized battery of questions and tests — is likely to include a new section focusing on anxiety and depression. The addition comes as more people have reported psychological symptoms, according to a State Department official familiar with the planning. The officials interviewed for this article spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss elements of the inquiry into the causes of Havana syndrome.
The tool cannot diagnose someone experiencing Havana syndrome, federal officials said, but it can help determine what kind of care the person needs. Although the administration has been trying to improve the tool, it will not be used to determine who qualifies for compensation under the Havana Act, a new law that will provide financial support for affected C.I.A. officers, State Department diplomats and other federal officials.
The ‘anomalous health incidents,’ as the government calls them, started in 2016, when C.I.A. officers and diplomats serving in Havana reported strange sounds and other sensations, then experienced headaches, nausea and dizziness. Since then, U.S. officials around the world have reported similar episodes, with large numbers of cases in Vienna and several locations in China.” Read more at New York Times
“China’s birthrate has fallen to its lowest level in six decades, barely outnumbering deaths in 2021 despite major government efforts to increase population growth and stave off a demographic crisis.
Across China, 10.62 million babies were born in 2021, a rate of 7.52 per thousand people, the national bureau of statistics said on Monday. In the same period 10.14 million deaths were recorded, a mortality rate of 7.18 per thousand, producing a population growth rate of just 0.34 per thousand head of population.
The rate of growth is the lowest since 1960, and adds to the findings of last May’s once-a-decade census, which found an average annual rise of 0.53%, down from 0.57% reported from 2000 to 2010.
China, like much of east Asia, is in the grip of a population crisis, with lowering birthrates, and predictions of imminent negative population growth and an ageing population. Monday’s figures showed the proportion of over-60s in China rose from 18.7% in 2020 to 18.9%.
‘The demographic challenge is well known but the speed of population ageing is clearly faster than expected,’ said Zhiwei Zhang, the chief economist at Pinpoint Asset Management.
‘This suggests China’s total population may have reached its peak in 2021. It also indicates China’s potential growth is likely slowing faster than expected.’
Beijing has announced major reforms to address the decline, including raising the retirement age. A three-child policy has replaced the two-child policy that was introduced in 2016 and had sparked a slight increase in births before falling again.
The high cost of living, delayed marriages and lack of social mobility are frequently cited as contributing factors to young Chinese people’s reluctance to have children. In response, Beijing has banned expensive private tutoring, and pledged better access to childcare and maternity leave.” Read more at The Guardian
“(CNN)Tickets for the upcoming Beijing Winter Olympics will not be sold to the general public in response to Covid-19 but instead be distributed by authorities, the Beijing Winter Olympics Organizing Committee announced Monday.
‘In terms of the grim and complex situation of epidemic prevention and control [and] in order to protect the health and safety of Olympic personnel and spectators, we have decided to change the original plan of public ticket sales,’ the committee said.
It added that audiences will still be required to ‘strictly comply with Covid-19 prevention and control requirements before, during and after watching the Games.’
The announcement comes after Beijing reported its first case of the highly transmissible Omicron variant on January 15.” Read more at CNN
“The leader who often deployed humor to get out of a crisis has become the butt of the joke.
The headlines of possibly illegal boozy get-togethers that took place at British Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s No. 10 residency during Covid lockdowns came thick and fast until he was forced into a humiliating admission that he was present at one of them.
Key reading:
Boris Johnson Apologizes to Queen for Downing Street Parties
U.K. Police Not Probing Downing Street Lockdown Party For Now
His line that these were work events spawned an onslaught of online derision. While an internal investigation into ‘Partygate’ could seal his fate, he’s already lost in the court of public opinion. And that, for a politician who thrives on attention and to whom the normal rules never seemed to apply, is devastating.
In the U.K., it’s often the case that hypocrisy is the undoing of politicians.
Two years of restrictions and on-and-off lockdowns — even if haphazardly enforced — have fueled a sense of injustice that it’s a case of ‘Do as I say, not as I do.’
The opposition Labour party has opened up its biggest lead in seven years against Johnson’s Conservatives. Just four months ago the prime minister looked unassailable.
Johnson's Tories face local elections in May, which will be a bellwether of how much damage this scandal has unleashed. The question is whether he'll still be the leader by then as his rank-and-file lawmakers grow restless. If 54 of them formally call for a leadership challenge, it could be last call on his premiership.
Perhaps the final straw came with the revelation that on the eve of Prince Philip’s funeral, yet another party took place in Downing Street. The image of a stoic Queen mourning her husband on her own in contrast to Johnson aides heading out to buy more booze left a bitter aftertaste. — Flavia Krause-Jackson Read more at Bloomberg
Boris Johnson on his way to attend a questions-and-answers session in Parliament.
Photographer: Hollie Adams/Bloomberg
“Ballistic beginning | North Korea fired two more suspected ballistic missiles as it continues its biggest series of rocket tests since August 2019. Leader Kim Jong Un has shown no signs of returning to talks on his nuclear arsenal and has rolled out new weapons designed to evade U.S. interceptors, perhaps in a bid to see if he can find a breaking point for Joe Biden’s administration.
Read this QuickTake on how Kim has been busy making his nuclear-equipped arsenal bigger, deadlier and better able to strike South Korea, Japan, American forces in Asia — and the U.S. mainland.
China says trade via a railroad link with North Korea has restarted, giving a much-needed boost to Kim’s battered economy.” Read more at Bloomberg
“Judicial support | Serbian voters backed a referendum to overhaul the judiciary to make it more independent and in line with European Union standards. Taking a step closer toward meeting requirements to join the bloc, the vote also showed strong support for President Aleksandar Vucic, who’s running for a second term in April.” Read more at Bloomberg
“UAE attack | Yemen’s Houthi rebels claimed responsibility for attacks on the United Arab Emirates that caused a fire at the main airport in Abu Dhabi and were possibly carried out by drones. It would be a highly unusual strike against targets in the UAE, which has fought in the Saudi-led coalition against the Houthis in Yemen’s civil war.” Read more at Bloomberg
“The Taliban are seeking China’s assistance in persuading the international community to officially recognize their government, a crucial step that would help Afghanistan access some $9 billion in frozen reserves held overseas.” Read more at Bloomberg
“Ibrahim Boubacar Keita, the Malian president overthrown in a coup in 2020, died after an illness at age 76.” Read more at Bloomberg
“LONDON (AP) — Tesla is turning to Mozambique for a key component in its electric car batteries in what analysts believe is a first-of-its-kind deal designed to reduce its dependence on China for graphite.
Elon Musk’s company signed an agreement last month with Australia’s Syrah Resources, which operates one of the world’s largest graphite mines in the southern African country. It’s a unique partnership between an electric vehicle manufacturer and a producer of the mineral that is critical for lithium-ion batteries. The value of the deal hasn’t been released.
Tesla will buy the material from the company’s processing plant in Vidalia, Louisiana, which sources graphite from its mine in Balama, Mozambique. The Austin, Texas-based electric automaker plans to buy up 80% of what the plant produces — 8,000 tons of graphite per year — starting in 2025, according to the agreement. Syrah must prove the material meets Tesla’s standards.” Read more at AP News
“The Dallas Cowboys and Dak Prescott tried to make sense of the final sequence in Sunday's NFC wild-card playoff loss to the San Francisco 49ers.” Read more at USA Today
“Chiefs, Patrick Mahomes crush Steelers: A Chiefs drubbing of the offensively challenged Steelers certainly didn’t come as a surprise.” Read more at USA Today
“The Los Angeles Rams and Arizona Cardinals will make history Monday when they take the field for their wild card round matchup. The tie between the two NFC West foes will be the first-ever playoff game on ‘Monday Night Football.’ The teams split their two regular season games, with the Rams taking the most recent matchup, 30-23 last month. However, Los Angeles will be without both of its starting safeties, with Jordan Fuller and Taylor Rapp out with injuries. Although Arizona won't have receiver DeAndre Hopkins, who is on Injured Reserve with a knee injury, star defensive lineman J.J. Watt is expected to play, according to Fox Sports' Jay Glazer. Monday's game is scheduled to kickoff at 8:15 p.m. ET on ESPN.” Read more at USA Today
“Over the last two decades, workers without four-year college degrees have lost ground in the occupations that used to be ladders to middle-class lives for them and their families.
While the trend has been well known, putting a number on the lost steppingstone jobs has been elusive. A new study, published on Friday, estimates that such workers have been displaced from 7.4 million jobs since 2000.
The research points to the persistent challenge for the nearly two-thirds of American workers who do not have a four-year college degree, even as some employers have dropped the requirement in recent years….
Opportunity@Work is part of an emerging coalition of groups that seek to change the culture of hiring and promotion in corporate America. They are trying to encourage a shift to hiring and career development based on people’s skills rather than degrees.
Part of that effort is to create a body of research that highlights the problem but also the untapped potential of workers.
The group’s researchers analyzed employment trends across a wide variety of occupations. The jobs included business managers, nurses, software developers, sales supervisors, financial analysts, purchasing agents, industrial engineers and administrative assistants.” Read more at New York Times
“At least 230,000 years old: Some of the oldest remains of modern humans in the world are much more ancient than scientists thought.” Read more at USA Today
FILE _ This file photo shows Ausar Vandross taking a photo of Mother Emanuel AME Church in Charleston, S.C., on Thursday, June 16, 2016. The church is among those that have been assisted by a fund to help historic Black churches, and a new, $20 million donation will help additional ones. (AP Photo/Chuck Burton)
“BIRMINGHAM, Ala. (AP) — A new effort to preserve historic Black churches in the United States has received a $20 million donation that will go to help congregations including one that was slammed during the tornado that killed more than 20 people in Mayfield, Kentucky, last month.
Lilly Endowment Inc., which supports religious, educational and charitable causes, contributed the money to the African American Cultural Heritage Action Fund as seed funding for the Preserving Black Churches Project, according to the National Trust for Historic Preservation, which launched the fund.
The announcement about the donation from the Lilly Endowment was timed to coincide with the Martin Luther King Jr. national holiday on Monday.
Rather than simply replacing broken windows or straightening rafters, the project will provide assistance with things including asset management and helping historic churches tell their own stories, said Brent Leggs, executive director of the fund.” Read more at AP News
“Quentin Tarantino’s NFT battle with Miramax heats up. The writer-director is seeking to auction off script pages and other artifacts from his hit movie ‘Pulp Fiction’ as nonfungible tokens starting Monday. A lawsuit filed by producer Miramax in response to the plan, alleging copyright infringement and breach of contract, remains unresolved.” Read more at Wall Street Journal
“Monday marks what would have been the 100th birthday of TV pioneer and Emmy-winning actress Betty White, who died last month. While funeral arrangements for the late actress remain private, fans don't have to mourn her at home. The documentary ‘Betty White: A Celebration,’ which was being prepared before her death, will premiere at almost 900 movie theaters nationwide for one-day-only. The film features key moments in the actress' long career plus cameos from White's friends including Ryan Reynolds, Tina Fey, Robert Redford, Lin-Manuel Miranda, Clint Eastwood, Jimmy Kimmel and others. Meanwhile, many of White's TV shows – including ‘Golden Girls,’ ‘Mary Tyler Moore Show’ and more – are still available to stream.” Read more at USA Today
Betty White honored by fans on her birthday. Getty
Marlon Bundo, former vice president Mike Pence’s family pet who was the main character in a series of children’s books by the second family and a parody book that posited the rabbit as gay in a jab at the couple’s stance against LGBTQ rights, has died.
Charlotte Pence Bond, Pence’s daughter, announced Bundo’s death in posts on social media, remembering him as a ‘ball of love in our lives.’
‘We had some wild times together and I’m forever grateful,’ Pence Bond wrote of the rabbit.
Pence Bond authored a series of children’s books that were illustrated by her mother, Karen Pence, about Bundo’s look at ‘A Day in the Life of the Vice President,’ having ‘A Day in the Nation’s Capital’ and his ‘Best Christmas Ever.’….
Bundo had gained fame as the BOTUS (Bunny of the United States), and his Instagram account has more than 32,000 followers.
Pence Bond found Bundo — named, via a pun, after the actor Marlon Brando — on Craigslist when she was a freshman at DePaul University and needed a rabbit for a film project. When the Pence family moved to Washington, Bundo came along, becoming ‘one of the most popular members of the Trump administration,’ The Post’s Style section wrote in 2018.
After the first book about Bundo was announced, ‘Last Week Tonight’ host John Oliver said he was releasing a parody book, called ‘A Day in the Life of Marlon Bundo.’
Oliver’s book describes Bundo as a ‘Very Special boy bunny who falls in love with another boy bunny.’ The proceeds of the book were donated to the Trevor Project, a suicide prevention organization for young LGBTQ people, and AIDS United. (The proceeds of the Pences’ book went to an art therapy charity and an organization aimed at ending sex trafficking.)” Read more at Washington Post