The Full Belmonte, 1/19/2022
“An HHS/Postal Service website where Americans can request free, at-home rapid COVID tests launched today and is now accepting orders.
Axios reporters tried the site, and it worked smoothly.
The website went live in its beta phase and is operating at a limited capacity a day before its official launch, Axios' Yacob Reyes reports.
Every home in the U.S. is eligible for up to four COVID tests.
The context: President Biden announced the program in December, amid criticism about the availability of home tests as Omicron surged. Read more Axios
“The Biden administration, facing calls from public health experts to distribute high-quality masks to the American public, will announce on Wednesday that it is making 400 million nonsurgical N95 masks available, free of charge, at community health centers and retail pharmacies across the United States.
The move, which officials are calling the ‘largest deployment of personal protective equipment in U.S. history,’ comes just days after the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention updated its mask guidance to acknowledge that cloth masks do not offer as much protection as surgical masks or respirators.
N95 respirators, so named because they can filter out 95 percent of all airborne particles when used correctly, were in short supply early in the pandemic. According to the C.D.C.’s new description of masks, well-fitting respirators, including N95s, offer the highest level of protection.
Wednesday was also the formal launch day for covidtests.gov, the administration’s new website enabling Americans to order at-home coronavirus tests free of charge. The site was quietly rolled out on Tuesday.
The administration has come under intense criticism for not moving sooner to distribute both tests and masks to the public, especially as the Omicron variant fuels a huge spike in cases. Some public health experts have suggested that the federal government should send N95 masks to every household.” Read more at New York Times
“Pfizer’s Paxlovid Covid-19 pill can fight the Omicron variant, the company said.
The drugmaker cited three separate lab studies for the promising data, though the research hasn’t been published yet in a peer-reviewed medical journal. Last month, the Food and Drug Administration authorized using the treatment, called Paxlovid, in newly infected people who are considered at high risk for severe Covid-19. Patients take two pills containing nirmatrelvir, plus one tablet of the antiviral ritonavir twice daily for five days. Pfizer plans to make seven million courses of the treatment this quarter and 120 million by the end of the year.” Read more at Wall Street Journal
“John Roberts asked his fellow Supreme Court justices to wear masks, and Neil Gorsuch refused, NPR’s Nina Totenberg reports.” Read more at New York Times
“The House committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol attack could get access to a small portion of former President Donald Trump's White House documents as soon as Wednesday, according to a court filing late Tuesday. The National Archives was scheduled to release about a half-dozen pages of records that had not been blocked from release as Trump pursues a Supreme Court challenge to the House committee's demand for a swath of his White House records, officials said. Trump's attorneys had ‘not raised any arguments about those six pages in this appeal.’
Also late Tuesday, the New York attorney general's office told a court its investigators uncovered evidence Trump's company used ‘fraudulent or misleading’ asset valuations to get loans and tax benefits. Letitia James' office said state authorities haven't yet decided whether to bring a civil lawsuit in connection with the allegations, but Trump and his two eldest children - Donald Trump Jr. and Ivanka Trump - need to be questioned. Trump and his lawyers say the probe is politically motivated.” Read more at USA Today
“(CNN)The House select committee investigating the January 6 riot issued a subpoena Tuesday for Rudy Giuliani, a central figure in former President Donald Trump's failed bid to overturn the 2020 election on the basis of unfounded allegations of widespread voter fraud.
In addition to Giuliani, the committee issued subpoenas to two other attorneys who pushed various election fraud conspiracies on Trump's behalf: Jenna Ellis and Sidney Powell.
Former Trump campaign adviser Boris Epshteyn, who was among those working with Giuliani at the post-election Willard Hotel ‘command center,’ was also subpoenaed Tuesday.
‘The four individuals we've subpoenaed today advanced unsupported theories about election fraud, pushed efforts to overturn the election results, or were in direct contact with the former President about attempts to stop the counting of electoral votes,’ Democratic Rep. Bennie Thompson of Mississippi, who chairs the committee, said in a statement Tuesday.” Read more at CNN
“Home truths | Aside from challenges abroad, Biden is facing a cascade of domestic perils, including the prospect Democrats will lose control of Congress in the midterms. Today he’ll hold a news conference to defend his record and outline plans for another year. Justin Sink lays out the highsand lows of his presidency so far.” Read more at Bloomberg
“The Supreme Court will hear arguments Wednesday in a case that has bitterly divided Republicans and Democrats over how candidates fund their campaigns . The case, brought by Texas Republican Ted Cruz, centers on the 2002 Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act, which set new limits on political donations, tried to quash ‘soft money’ that skirted those limits and required federal candidates to include the ‘I approve this message’ tag line on TV ads. On the surface, Cruz wants the court to strike down part of the law that restricts a campaign's ability to raise money after an election to repay a candidate's personal loan. The Biden administration says the provision helps prevent corruption, but critics say it's a perk that benefits incumbents.” Read more at USA Today
“WASHINGTON — The City of Boston, which refused to let a private group raise a Christian flag in front of its City Hall, seemed to be headed for a loss after a Supreme Court argument on Tuesday.
Justices across the ideological spectrum, noting that the city had approved many similar requests from organizations seeking to celebrate their backgrounds or to promote causes like gay pride, seemed ready to rule that the city had violated the free speech rights of Camp Constitution, which says it seeks ‘to enhance understanding of our Judeo-Christian moral heritage.’
The group’s application said it sought to raise a ‘Christian flag’ for one hour at an event that would include ‘short speeches by some local clergy focusing on Boston’s history.’ The flag bore the Latin cross.
The city, which had granted 284 requests to raise flags in connection with many kinds of events over a 12-year period, rejected the application, saying that flying the flag would amount to government endorsement of religion. Camp Constitution sued, arguing that the decision violated its right to free speech.
As the argument reached its conclusion, Justice Elena Kagan said the city had made an understandable mistake in relying on the part of the First Amendment that prohibits government establishment of religion when it should have been focusing on its free speech clause. Putting a permanent cross on the roof of City Hall would violate the establishment clause, she said, but banning a religious group from conveying its message in a transient setting open to lots of speakers violates the amendment’s guarantee of freedom of speech.
The central question in the case, Shurtleff v. City of Boston, No. 20-1800, was whether the city had created a public forum by allowing private groups to use its flagpole or whether it was conveying its own speech by choosing and endorsing the flags it approved. When the government is speaking for itself, it is immune from First Amendment scrutiny.” Read more at New York Times
“Voting rights are the focus on Capitol Hill this week as Senate Democrats seek to advance legislation that would impact voting procedures nationwide ahead of the midterm elections. Several Republican-controlled states have enacted new restrictions on such things as mail-in voting and early voting in the name of election security -- measures Democrats fear may affect turnout, especially in battleground states. In response, Democrats are considering measures to counter such restrictions, including making Election Day a federal holiday and setting minimum national standards for voting by mail. Prospects are slim, however, as Democrats do not have the votes to break a Republican filibuster and pass the legislation.” Read more at USA Today
“The Federal Trade Commission and US Justice Department announced yesterday they are reviewing guidelines for corporate mergers and will announce updated rules by the end of the year. The move is an effort to combat the concentration in a range of industries that can reduce competition and consumer choice. Decades of less aggressive antitrust enforcement has led to an increase in merger filings, which nearly doubled from 2020 to 2021. The FTC and the Department of Justice have recently cracked down on the tech industry for antitrust violations, filing a lawsuit targeting Google's dominance in search and advertising, and a separate suit aiming to break up Meta, Facebook's parent company.” Read more at CNN
“Berlusconi’s decision | Media mogul Silvio Berlusconi may quit the race for Italy’s presidency within days, sources say, which would boost Prime Minister Mario Draghi’s chances of being elected the next head of state. After canvassing for support, Chiara Albanese and Alessandra Migliaccioreport, the 85-year-old former premier and Forza Italia leader realized he won’t win enough votes in the balloting that starts on Jan. 24.” Read more at Bloomberg
“Broadening appeal | India’s opposition Congress Party is fielding a slew of women candidates in Uttar Pradesh in a bid to reach out to female voters in a bellwether state. As Upmanyu Trivedi reports, it’s part of a campaign led by Priyanka Gandhi Vadra, the granddaughter of Indira Gandhi, aimed at reinventing her party to take on Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s BJP in state elections that start next month.” Read more at Bloomberg
“The world’s youngest republic, Barbados, holds snap elections today as the ruling party seeks a fresh mandate to guide the island out of an economic slump.” Read more at Bloomberg
“Afghanistan lost more than half a million jobs in the economic crisis since the Taliban seized power, a figure expected to riseabove 900,000 by mid-year, the International Labour Organization says.” Read more at Bloomberg
“The tsunami triggered by the massive volcanic eruption near Tonga caused an oil spill off the coast of Peru, closing beaches and halting fishing after the country’s Navy failed to issue a warning. The blast almost 6,800 miles away jarred an oil tanker carrying 1 million barrels of crude as it was unloading near the capital, Lima. The government says the leak has been contained and a cleanup is underway.” Read more at Bloomberg
“U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken flew to Europe this week in an urgent effort to defuse tensions over Ukraine, after weeks of strained negotiations resulted in an impasse….
Blinken will first meet with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock, before concluding his trip in Geneva with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov. Previous talks with the Kremlin ended inconclusively, with Russian officials dismissing the negotiations as a ‘dead end.’ In recent days, Moscow has deployed more troops to Belarus and evacuated its embassy staff from Ukraine, an ominous move that could be a ruse—or signal a worrying future….
Last week, a sweeping cyber-attack—which Kyiv has attributed to Moscow—forced key Ukrainian government websites offline for an extended period of time. U.S. officials have also received intelligence that Moscow is planning a false-flag operation in Ukraine to justify war, FP’s Amy Mackinnon, Jack Detsch, and Robbie Gramer reported….
As the threat of invasion grows, Washington is now planning for a high-profile U.N. showdown to spotlight Russia’s diplomatic isolation, as FP’s Colum Lynch reported last week. U.S. officials are also preparing to sanction at least four pro-Russian agents in Ukraine, an action that may help deter Moscow from invading.” Read more at Foreign Policy
“Verizon and AT&T have announced they will delay launching 5G networks around some airports after several airline executives warned the rollout could cause major flight disruptions.” [Vox] Read more at NBC / Chantal Da Silva and Jay Blackman
“In a letter sent to economic and transportation officials Monday evening, CEOs of airlines including Delta, United, and Southwest said activating the C-band radio frequencies that new 5G networks will run on within two miles of airways could impact low-visibility equipment pilots use in bad weather.” [Vox] Read more at Reuters / David Shepardson
“It’s unclear whether 5G networks would actually interfere with aviation equipment; networks in Europe haven’t negatively impacted travel, but the Federal Aviation Administration is concerned 5G could scramble altimeters in older planes.” [Vox] Read more at Recode / Rebecca Heilweil
“Out of caution, airlines were planning to cut back flights. To avoid stranding thousands of Americans, the executives had asked the Biden administration to delay the rollout of Verizon and AT&T 5G service, planned for Wednesday.” [Vox] Read more at BBC / Jonathan Josephs
“The White House said it’s ‘actively engaged with the FAA, FCC, wireless carriers, airlines, and aviation equipment manufacturers to reach a solution that maximizes 5G deployment while protecting air safety and minimizing disruptions.’” [Vox] Read more at CNBC / Leslie Josephs
“In response to the concerns, AT&T and Verizon will limit 5G service around some US airports, though the broader launch will continue Wednesday as planned.” [Vox] Read more at Axios / Margaret Harding McGill
“Emily’s List and NARAL, two abortion-rights groups, threatened to cut off support for Democrats who support the filibuster.” Read more at New York Times
“President Joe Biden intends to nominate a Muslim woman for a federal judgeship for the first time in U.S. history. Nusrat Jahan Choudhury is Biden's nominee for the United States District Court for the Eastern District of New York.” Read more at USA Today
“Jury selection is set to begin Thursday in the federal trial of three ex-Minneapolis police officers in the murder of George Floyd.
Tou Thao, Thomas Lane and J. Alexander Kueng are accused of violating Floyd’s civil rights during his May 2020 arrest by willfully failing to aid him. Thao and Kueng also are charged with willfully failing to intervene to stop unreasonable force by Derek Chauvin, the former officer who was convicted of second-degree murder in a state trail last year over his kneeling on Floyd’s neck and back for more than eight minutes. He was sentenced to 22.5 years in prison in that case. Last month, Chauvin pleaded guilty to separate, federal civil-rights charges.” Read more at Wall Street Journal
“MIAMI — Puerto Rico received approval from a federal judge on Tuesday to leave bankruptcy under the largest public-sector debt restructuring deal in the history of the United States, nearly five years after the financially strapped territory declared it could not repay its creditors.
Since Puerto Rico entered bankruptcy, its economic crisis has only been further deepened by Hurricanes Irma and Maria, a series of earthquakes and the coronavirus pandemic.
The restructuring plan will reduce the largest portion of the Puerto Rico government’s debt — some $33 billion — by about 80 percent, to $7.4 billion. The deal will also save the government more than $50 billion in debt payments.
And, though at a discount, Puerto Rico will start repaying creditors, something it has not done in years. The government said in 2015 that it could no longer pay its loans.” Read more at New York Times
“Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis has announced plans to create a special police force to oversee the state’s elections, which critics say is intended to scare people away from voting.” Read more at The Week / Joel Mathis
“A year after winning the more votes than any US presidential candidate in history, President Biden is unpopular; a poll last week found his approval rating at 33 percent. Some experts believe that may have more to do with the pandemic and Democrats’ high expectations than Biden’s actual record.” Read more at Guardian / Lauren Gambino
Activision Blizzard’s Call of Duty is one of the popular game franchises Microsoft would add to its portfolio.
PHOTO: RICHARD B. LEVINE/LEVINE ROBERTS/ZUMA PRESS
“Microsoft is buying Activision Blizzard, and CEO Bobby Kotick is on his way out. The deal, valued at $75 billion, would make Microsoft the third-largest gaming company by revenue in the world, the company says. Activision’s game franchises include Call of Duty and Candy Crush, while Microsoft has its Xbox console business, Minecraft and Doom. Shares in Activision have been down nearly 30% since last summer amid a workplace misconduct scandal.” Read more at Wall Street Journal
“Justice Neil Gorsuch is reportedly the only member of the Supreme Court to refuse to wear a mask to help protect his colleague Justice Sonia Sotomayor, whose diabetes puts her at high risk for severe illness from COVID-19. NPR reports that after Sotomayor made clear she felt vulnerable amid an Omicron-driven surge in cases, Chief Justice John Roberts asked the other justices to wear a mask on the bench. All of them did except Gorsuch, who also happens to sit next to Sotomayor, according to NPR. As a result, Sotomayor has attended weekly conferences remotely. Gorsuch, who was tapped by then-President Donald Trump for SCOTUS in 2017, was forced to call out sick from oral arguments as recently as November due to a ‘stomach bug,’ but his office said at the time that he was vaccinated and had tested negative for COVID.” [Daily Beast] Read more at NPR
“The level of chemical pollution in the world is so high today that it ‘is not consistent with staying within a safe operating space for humanity,’ a group of scientists behind a new study have warned. ‘There has been a fiftyfold increase in the production of chemicals since 1950 and this is projected to triple again by 2050,’ Patricia Villarrubia-Gómez, a research assistant at the Stockholm Resilience Centre (SRC), was quoted as saying by The Guardian. The production of plastics, thousands of synthetic chemicals, and industrial compounds has created pollution that goes beyond what the study called a ‘planetary boundary,’ meaning global ecosystems on which humanity depends are on the brink of destruction. ‘There’s evidence that things are pointing in the wrong direction every step of the way,’ said Prof. Bethanie Carney Almroth at the University of Gothenburg, who also took part in the study. She noted that ‘the total mass of plastics now exceeds the total mass of all living mammals.’ ‘That to me is a pretty clear indication that we’ve crossed a boundary,’ she said.” [Daily Beast]
Read more at The Guardian
“U.S. authorities are investigating allegations of improper technology transfer to China. Some U.S. shareholders pointed fingers at a Chinese-government-backed company that is the largest shareholder in Icon Aircraft, a manufacturer of recreational amphibious planes, claiming that the California-based company’s tech has military applications, which Icon has denied.” Read more at Wall Street Journal
“The U.S. might soon impose financial sanctions against pro-Russian agents in Ukraine. That would involve freezing at least four unnamed people’s assets. Russia has been moving more than 100,000 troops as well as military firepower to its border areas. Talk of sanctions comes as U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken prepares to meet with Ukranian leaders and the Russian foreign minister in Europe.” Read more at Wall Street Journal
“Gilead Sciences is accusing suppliers and distributors of selling fake versions of its HIV medications. In a lawsuit filed in July but unsealed today, the pharmaceutical company alleges that over the past two years, 85,247 bottles worth more than $250 million were sold to pharmacies through a counterfeiting network. They contained bogus pills or real meds with fake documentation or altered packaging, Gilead claims.” Read more at Wall Street Journal
“Norwegian mass murderer Anders Behring Breivik began his parole hearing Tuesday by giving a Nazi salute and holding up a sign warning of ‘genocide’ against white people. The far-right extremist made the gesture just before trying to bill himself as a parliamentary candidate to the judge, Reuters reports. Breivik, who killed 77 people in a July 2011 rampage, including dozens of teenagers at an island retreat, is serving a 21-year sentence and lost a bid last year for early release. Under Norwegian law, he is entitled to a review of his release terms after having served 10 years of his sentence. The current parole hearing will take up to four days, with a decision expected next week. But prosecutors have already made clear they still view Breivik as a threat to society. ‘Our position is that it is necessary with (continued) confinement to protect society,’ prosecutor Hulda Karlsdottir told Reuters ahead of the hearing.” [Daily Beast] Read more at Reuters
“No confidence | Boris Johnson faces a growing rebellion from his party’s parliamentary group that threatens to further weaken his hold on the U.K. premiership. Among those pushing for a leadership contest are a group of Conservative lawmakers who rode Johnson’s Brexit-fueled landslide win into Parliament in 2019. A no-confidence vote is triggered if 54 MPs call in writing for Johnson to quit.” Read more at Bloomberg
Olympic security concerns. When thousands of athletes arrive in Beijing for the Winter Olympics in February, they will be required to download MY2022, an app that tracks COVID-19 test results, health data, and travel information. But the app may have major security flaws: According to Citizen Lab, a cybersecurity watchdog, the mobile app contains encryption vulnerabilities that leave users’ personal data largely unprotected from hackers.
Several governments have now reportedly advised athletes to leave their phones at home, while the cybersecurity firm Internet 2.0 has recommended that all attendees bring burner phones.” Read more at Foreign Policy
“Sudan’s continued unrest. After anti-coup protests rocked Sudan on Monday, security forces fired back with bullets, tear gas, and sound bombs, killing at least seven people and injuring more than 100 others. The deadly clashes added to a mounting death toll: Since the Sudanese military captured power in the Oct. 2021 coup, 71 civilians have died in ongoing demonstrations against its rule.
Pro-democracy groups have now been striking for two days. Their walkouts come as David Satterfield, the new U.S. Horn of Africa envoy, and Molly Phee, the Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs, visit the country to encourage a democratic transition.” Read more at Foreign Policy
“Israel’s spyware scandal. For years, Israeli authorities have reportedly used spyware to hack the cellphones of Israeli citizens, according to an investigation by Israeli newspaper Calcalist. The military-grade spyware, which was developed by the NSO Group, allowed police to target leading activists who opposed former prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Israeli authorities have rejected the allegations.” Read more at Foreign Policy
“Nazarbayev speaks out. Weeks after protests first swept Kazakhstan, the country’s former president, Nursultan Nazarbayev, emerged Tuesday to publicly support his successor and quell rumors of internal political disputes. Nazarbayev, who held power for roughly three decades, was largely absent during the demonstrations, fueling rumors that he had fled the country.” Read more at Foreign Policy
Covid patients at a Brooklyn hospital last week.Victor J. Blue for The New York Times
“The latest Omicron developments continue to be encouraging. New Covid-19 cases are plummeting in a growing list of places. The percentage of cases causing severe illness is much lower than it was with the Delta variant. And vaccines — particularly after a booster shot — remain extremely effective in preventing hospitalization and death….
Since early last week, new cases in Connecticut, Maryland, New Jersey and New York have fallen by more than 30 percent. They’re down by more than 10 percent in Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Massachusetts and Pennsylvania. In California, cases may have peaked….
If anything, the official Covid numbers probably understate the actual declines, because test results are often a few days behind reality….
Many hospitals are still coping with a crushing number of patients, because Covid hospitalization trends often trail case trends by about a week. But even the hospital data shows glimmers of good news: The number of people hospitalized with Covid has begun declining over the past few days in places where Omicron arrived first….
Some of the clearest research on Covid’s risks comes from a team of British researchers led by Dr. Julia Hippisley-Cox of the University of Oxford. The team has created an online calculator that allows you to enter a person’s age, vaccination status, height and weight, as well as major Covid risk factors. (It’s based on an analysis of British patients, but its conclusions are relevant elsewhere.)
A typical 65-year-old American woman — to take one example — is five foot three inches tall and weighs 166 pounds. If she had been vaccinated and did not have a major Covid risk factor, like an organ transplant, her chance of dying after contracting Covid would be 1 in 872, according to the calculator. For a typical 65-year-old man, the risk would be 1 in 434.
Among 75-year-olds, the risk would be 1 in 264 for a typical woman and 1 in 133 for a typical man.
Those are meaningful risks. But they are not larger than many other risks older people face. In the 2019-20 flu season, about 1 out of every 138 Americans 65 and older who had flu symptoms died from them, according to the C.D.C.
And Omicron probably presents less risk than the British calculator suggests, because it uses data through the first half of 2021, when the dominant version of Covid was more severe than Omicron appears to be. One sign of Omicron’s relative mildness: Among vaccinated people in Utah (a state that publishes detailed data), the percentage of cases leading to hospitalization has been only about half as high in recent weeks as it was last summer.
For now, the available evidence suggests that Omicron is less threatening to a vaccinated person than a normal flu. Obviously, the Omicron wave has still been damaging, because the variant is so contagious that it has infected tens of millions of Americans in a matter of weeks. Small individual risks have added up to large societal damage….
The Covid situation in the U.S. remains fairly grim, with overwhelmed hospitals and nearly 2,000 deaths a day. It’s likely to remain grim into early February. Caseloads are still high in many communities, and death trends typically lag case trends by three weeks.
But the full picture is less grim than the current moment.
Omicron appears to be in retreat, even if the official national data doesn’t yet reflect that reality. Omicron also appears to be mild in a vast majority of cases, especially for the vaccinated. This combination means that the U.S. may be only a few weeks away from the most encouraging Covid situation since early last summer, before the Delta variant emerged.
If that happens — and there is no guarantee it will, as Katherine Wu of The Atlantic explains — it will be time to ask how society can move back toward normalcy and reduce the harsh toll that pandemic isolation has inflicted, particularly on children and disproportionately on low-income children.
When should schools resume all activities? When should offices reopen? When should masks come off? When should asymptomatic people stop interrupting their lives because of a Covid exposure? Above all, when does Covid prevention do more harm — to physical and mental health — than good?
These are tricky questions, and they could often sound inappropriate during the Omicron surge. Now, though, the surge is receding.” Read more at The New York Times
“Lives Lived: The fashion editor André Leon Talley went from the Jim Crow South to the front rows of Paris couture, parlaying his knowledge of fashion history and his quick wit into roles as author, public speaker, television personality and curator. He died at 73.” Read more at New York Times
“Yvette Mimieux found stardom in the early 1960s portraying delicate, fragile women in ‘The Time Machine,’ ‘Where the Boys Are’ and other films. She died at 80.” Read more at New York Times
“Airbnb CEO Brian Chesky tweeted that he's going to be ‘living on Airbnb,’ starting in Atlanta this week.
‘I'll be coming back to San Francisco often, but for now my home will be an Airbnb somewhere,’ wrote Chesky, who rode the pandemic's shutdown phase at his San Francisco home.
Between the lines: Chesky is using his ‘digital nomad’ status to embody one of the big ways Airbnb has thrived during the COVID era, after a scare when travel first came to a halt.
‘In the past year, 100,000 Airbnb guests booked stays of 3 months or longer,’ Chesky said. ‘In 2022, I think the biggest trend in travel will be people spreading out to thousands of towns and cities, staying for weeks, months, or even entire seasons at a time.’” Read more at Axios
“Historians have spent almost 80 years puzzling over how Jewish teenage diarist Anne Frank and her family were discovered by Nazi authorities in the Netherlands. Now, a group of researchers led by a former FBI agent say they may have identified the individual who betrayed them.
The most likely scenario, according to the cold case team, was that Arnold van den Bergh, a Jewish notary, tipped off authorities to the Frank family’s hiding place in a secret annex of a building in Amsterdam.
Though they didn’t present any direct evidence, the researchers suggested that van den Bergh may have been privy to lists of addresses where Jewish people had been hiding through his work on the city’s Jewish Council, and that he may have divulged the information to protect his own family.
The researchers also identified a typed copy of an anonymous note sent to Otto Frank, Anne’s father, overlooked in previous investigations, that named the Franks’ betrayer as van den Bergh.
The Frank family hid alongside a handful of others, concealed in an annex behind a bookcase for about two years, to protect themselves from persecution. They were discovered in a police raid on Aug. 4, 1944. Anne was taken to Auschwitz and later to the Bergen-Belsen camp, where she and her elder sister Margot died in 1945 — just months before World War II ended.
‘A kind of creeping oppression’: Anne Frank’s haunting newly published letters to her grandmother
Otto Frank was the only member of the family still alive when Auschwitz was liberated by Soviet troops. He later published his daughter’s chronicles, which have since been translated into more than 70 languages.” Read more at Washington Post
“The nation's hottest job market is the City of Boise, Idaho, with 94.8% job growth compared to its pre-pandemic baseline in February of 2020, Axios' Erica Pandey writes from a dataset by the jobs site Indeed.
Boise, a burgeoning tech hub, has seen steady job growth — and outpaced other U.S. cities — for the last decade or so, AnnElizabeth Konkel, an economist at Indeed, tells Axios.
Axios insight: Almost every city in the top 10 for job growth has a lower cost of living than the national average, Konkel notes.
The exceptions are the Austin and Phoenix metro areas, which are right around the average.
Most of the top 10 are also cities in warm climates.
The metro area that's lagging the most in job growth is Honolulu. That's due in large part to the hit that Hawaii's tourism industry has taken.” Read more at Axios
Photo: Rich Myers/National Constitution Center
“The National Constitution Center in Philadelphia announced that a 50-ton marble tablet, engraved with the 45 words of the First Amendment, has been moved successfully 150 miles from the former Newseum façade.
The tablet now spans a 100-foot-wide wall on the Center’s Grand Hall Overlook.
An unveiling ceremony will be held this spring, along with a First Amendment symposium featuring leading experts and scholars.
Photo: Rich Myers/National Constitution Center
The tablet, made of Tennessee pink marble, was engraved and erected in 2007 at the Newseum's former home at 555 Pennsylvania Ave., and it was seen for years during the opening of ABC's “This Week.”
After the museum closed in 2019, the Freedom Forum donated the tablet to the National Constitution Center.” Read more at Axios