The Full Belmonte, 1/21/2022
“President Biden insisted Thursday that the United States would not accept even a ‘minor incursion’ of Ukraine by Russia, as the White House continued efforts to clarify Biden’s remarks Wednesday suggesting that it might.
‘I’ve been absolutely clear with President [Vladimir] Putin. He has no misunderstanding: Any, any assembled Russian units move across the Ukrainian border, that is an invasion,’ Biden told reporters Thursday at the start of a White House event on infrastructure.
Such an invasion would be met with a ‘severe and coordinated economic response,’ Biden added, noting that those consequences have been ‘laid out very clearly for President Putin.’
‘Let there be no doubt at all: If Putin makes this choice, Russia will pay a heavy price,’ Biden said.
In the second news conference of his presidency Wednesday, Biden said he expected Russia to take some sort of action to ‘move in’ and invade Ukraine and that the U.S. response ‘depends on what it does.’
‘It’s one thing if it’s a minor incursion and then we end up having a fight about what to do and not do, et cetera,’ Biden said. ‘But if they actually do what they’re capable of doing with the force they’ve massed on the border, it is going to be a disaster for Russia if they further invade Ukraine.’
Biden was swiftly criticized for appearing to give a green light to Russia to attack Ukraine as long as it didn’t amount to a full-scale invasion. Soon after, the White House issued a statement seeking to clarify Biden’s comments, saying that if Russia sends its forces across the border, it will be met with ‘a swift, severe, and united response from the United States and our allies.’
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky pushed back against Biden’s remarks Thursday morning without naming him.
‘We want to remind the great powers that there are no minor incursions and small nations. Just as there are no minor casualties and little grief from the loss of loved ones. I say this as the President of a great power,’ Zelensky said in a tweet.
GOP lawmakers slammed Biden on Thursday for what they called a message of weakness regarding the escalating situation in Russia and Ukraine.
‘Words matter when you’re in this type of crisis, and words matter when you’re standing at the presidential podium,’ Rep. Michael Waltz (R-Fla.) said. ‘Now, [Biden] may have used his team to try to spin and backtrack afterwards, but Putin got the message, the Kremlin got the message, the Ukrainian people got the message.’
A bipartisan delegation of senators traveled to Ukraine over the weekend to reassure leaders in Kyiv that the United States stood with them, amid a Russian troop buildup on the border with Ukraine. Those senators spoke with Biden on Wednesday morning to brief him on their trip.
In a phone call with Biden in December — their second in a month — Putin warned that any new sanctions on Moscow could result in “a complete rupture of relations” between their countries. Putin has demanded that the United States and NATO agree to sweeping security guarantees that would bar Ukraine from joining NATO and rule out any eastward expansion by the U.S.-led military alliance.
Earlier this month, U.S. and Russian delegations met for talks in Europe but hit an impasse, as Russia continued to deny plans to invade Ukraine. White House officials have repeatedly emphasized that there will be ‘massive consequences’ for Russia if it renews its aggression against Ukraine.” Read more at Washington Post
“Jobless claims jumped to 286,000 last week, the highest number since October. The week ending Jan. 15 saw an increase of 55,000 initial claims for unemployment benefits, in part due to the Omicron surge. Experts anticipate some volatility in new claims data, though demand for employees is expected to remain high.” Read more at Wall Street Journal
“The Atlanta-area prosecutor weighing whether former president Donald Trump and others committed crimes by trying to pressure Georgia election officials has requested a special purpose grand jury to aid in her investigation.
In a letter Thursday, Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis (D) told the chief judge of Fulton County’s Superior Court that the move was needed because a ‘significant number of witnesses and prospective witnesses have refused to cooperate with the investigation absent a subpoena requiring their testimony.’
Willis cited Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger (R) as an example. Willis has previously confirmed that part of her probe centers on the Jan. 2, 2021, phone call between Trump and Raffensperger in which Trump asked Raffensperger to ‘find’ enough votes to overturn Joe Biden’s win in the state’s presidential election.
Willis launched the criminal probe in February. At the time, a Trump spokesman dismissed the investigation, calling it ‘the Democrats’ latest attempt to score political points by continuing their witch hunt against President Trump.’” Read more at Washington Post
Rudy Giuliani speaking to supporters near the White House on January 6, 2021.
“On Dec. 14, 2020, the day of the electoral college vote, Republican electors convened in the capitals of five states that Joe Biden had won. They declared themselves ‘duly elected and qualified’ and sent signed certificates to Washington purporting to affirm Donald Trump as the actual victor.
At the time, the gatherings in Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada and Wisconsin — all states that had officially approved Biden electors — were widely derided as political stunts intended to bolster Trump’s baseless allegations of fraud.
Understanding the origins of the rival slates has now become a focus of the House committee investigating the Jan. 6 insurrection, according to people familiar with the panel’s activities. Two Democratic attorneys general have asked federal prosecutors in recent days to investigate whether crimes were committed in assembling or submitting the Trump slates.
The Trump electors gathered in plain sight, assisted by campaign officials and Trump attorney Rudolph W. Giuliani, who said publicly that the rival slates were necessary and appropriate. Internally, Giuliani oversaw the effort, according to former campaign officials and party leaders who, like some others interviewed for this report, spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss private conversations. One of the people familiar with the plan said Giuliani was assisted at times by an anchor from the right-wing network One America News.
The extent and particulars of the behind-the-scenes coordination — and the refusal by some Trump electors to go along with the plan — have not been previously reported. The campaign scrambled to help electors gain access to Capitol buildings, as is required in some states, and to distribute draft language for the certificates that would later be submitted to Congress, according to the former campaign officials and party leaders.
The campaign also worked to find replacements for the electors who were unable to participate, or unwilling. Among the unwilling were a state GOP chairman, a lawmaker who was one of the first in Congress to endorse Trump and a son of legendary Republican senator Johnny Isakson, The Washington Post found.
When the electoral college votes were cast, Trump’s allies claimed that sending rival slates to Washington echoed a move by Democrats in a close race in Hawaii six decades earlier. They said they were merely locking in electors to ensure they would be available if courts determined that Trump had won any of those states. Republican electors in two additional states, Pennsylvania and New Mexico, sent certificates, but those documents explicitly stated that they were to be considered only if the election results were upended.
In ways that were not publicly known until months later, however, the rival slates were leveraged as evidence in last-ditch efforts to give Vice President Mike Pence the ability to reject Biden’s victory when he presided over the electoral vote count in the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.
Before Election Day, presidential candidates or their parties nominate a slate of potential electors in each state where they appear on the ballot. After the popular vote is certified, the governor in each state is required under federal law to certify the winning candidate’s electors. The electors then meet in mid-December and send signed certificates recording their votes to, among other places, the national archivist and the president of the U.S. Senate. The votes are tallied on Jan. 6.
In a subpoena Tuesday to lawyer Jenna Ellis, who worked closely with Giuliani, the House committee wrote that she ‘prepared and circulated two memos purporting to analyze the constitutional authority for the Vice President to reject or delay counting electoral votes from states that had submitted alternate slates of electors.’
Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel (D), who referred the matter to federal prosecutors, last week said that submitting the electoral certificates to historical archives and government officials turned what might have been a political event into a ‘an open-and-shut case of forgery of a public record.’
‘This is not political theater. It’s not protected speech,’ Nessel said in an interview. ‘It’s an attack on the very fabric of our system of government. And so it deserves to have federal prosecutorial and investigative scrutiny.’” ” Read more at Washington Post
“The Jan. 6 House panel asked Ivanka Trump to cooperate voluntarily with its probe. Congressional investigators are interested in what the former White House adviser might know about alleged Oval Office conversations around stopping the certification of the 2020 election results and her role in convincing her father to ask the rioters to go home. A spokeswoman for her didn’t say whether Trump would comply with the request.” Read more at Wall Street Journal
“WASHINGTON — Congressional Democrats on Thursday urged President Biden to overhaul his counterterrorism strategy and targeting criteria for drone strikes, citing grave concerns about ‘repeated civilian casualties arising from secretive and unaccountable lethal operations.”
The letter came a day after The New York Times published newly declassified surveillance footage providing additional details about the final minutes and aftermath of a botched drone strike in Kabul, Afghanistan, in August that killed 10 innocent civilians, including seven children. Eleven senators and 39 members of the House, led by Senators Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts and Christopher S. Murphy of Connecticut, cited that strike as ‘emblematic of this systemic failure that has persisted across decades and administrations.’
‘When there is little policy change or accountability for repeated mistakes this grave and this costly,’ the senators wrote, ‘it sends a message throughout the U.S. armed forces and the entire U.S. government that civilian deaths — including deaths where there was no military target — are the inevitable consequence of modern conflict, rather than avoidable and damaging failures of policy.’
The letter, which was also led by Representative Ro Khanna of California, was a stinging rebuke of the administration’s current policies amid growing evidence of recurring episodes over multiple administrations in which civilian bystanders have been killed during drone strikes. And it came as top officials in Mr. Biden’s administration were working on a new policy governing drone warfare away from traditional battlefields.” Read more at New York Times
“A 63-year-old Arizona man charged with seditious conspiracy for his role in the deadly Jan. 6 riot at the Capitol said he returned to the scene the next morning for ‘recon’ as Congress was completing its delayed election certification, according to court documents. Edward Vallejo, who prosecutors say told others he was ‘waiting for orders from [Oath Keeper founder] Stewart Rhodes,’ is accused of playing a central role in the far-right paramilitary group’s attempt to thwart the transfer of power to Joe Biden. In a court filing late Tuesday calling for Vallejo to be detained ahead of trial, prosecutors say he continued to plot against the federal government even after the violence of Jan. 6 ended. The next morning, he allegedly messaged other members of the group in a Signal chat: ‘We are going to probe their defense line right now 6 am they should let us in. We’ll see.’ He and other members of a ‘quick reaction force’ he led were apparently also prepared to wage battle in the city for weeks. Ahead of the Jan. 6 riot, Vallejo and others ‘wheeled in bags and large bins of weapons, ammunition, and essential supplies to last 30 days,’ prosecutors wrote.” Read more at Daily Beast
“For the first time, court papers have revealed that prosecutors asked at least one Capitol rioter about whether former President Donald Trump was part of an “organized conspiracy” to prevent Congress from certifying Joe Biden’s election victory. Over the past year, the Justice Department has kept quiet about whether it’s investigating Trump’s role in the riot. But, on Tuesday, The New York Times obtained court papers showing prosecutors asked Brandon Straka—a ex-hair stylist turned right-wing media darling who pleaded guilty to Capitol riot charges—about Trump’s alleged involvement. Straka’s lawyer, Bilal Essayli, wrote in his client’s sentencing memo that, in an interview with prosecutors, ‘the government was focused on establishing an organized conspiracy between defendant, President Donald J. Trump, and allies of the former president to disrupt the joint session of Congress on Jan. 6.’ Essayli went on to note that Straka ‘denied the existence of any such plot.’ The U.S. attorney’s office in Washington declined to comment on the Times report.” [Daily Beast] Read more at The New York Times
“The Fox News host Sean Hannity had some blunt advice for President Donald J. Trump on Jan. 7, 2021: ‘No more stolen election talk.’
His guidance did not take. But documents disclosed on Thursday showed in vivid detail just how closely Mr. Hannity had worked with White House aides in a fervent, if brief, effort to persuade Mr. Trump to abandon his false claims about voter fraud after the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol.” Read more at New York Times
“(CNN)Over the furious dissent of three liberal justices, the Supreme Court on Thursday rejected another attempt by abortion providers to block Texas' six-week abortion ban.
The court's order is the latest setback for providers who are trying to revive challenges to the law five months after it was allowed to go into effect, bringing a halt to most abortions in the country's second-largest state.
Last month, the Supreme Court allowed the controversial law to remain in effect but it cleared limited path forward for the providers to sue a handful of licensing officials in Texas in order to block them from enforcing the law. The court's ruling was a devastating blow to supporters of abortion rights who had hoped the justices would block the law outright. Instead, the case was returned to the conservative 5th US Circuit Court of Appeals.
The dispute settled Thursday centered on whether the appeals court should immediately return what is left of the providers' case to a district court judge who has expressed deep skepticism over the law, or whether the case could remain in the 5th Circuit for proceedings that could take months to resolve, further delaying the providers' case.” Read more at CNN
“Anti-abortion activists will take to downtown Washington D.C. Friday for the 49th annual March for Life event, held every year on the anniversary of the 1973 Supreme Court decision in Roe v. Wade . The rally will begin at noon on the National Mall including a live concert and remarks from speakers, followed by a 1 p.m. march from Constitution Avenue to the U.S. Supreme Court building. Speakers at this year's event include actor Kirk Cameron, best known for his role on the sitcom Growing Pains; Rep. Julia Letlow, R-La.; Rep. Chris Smith, R-N.J.; Toni McFadden, founder of Relationship Matters, a youth education program, and Lisa Robertson of the reality show ‘Duck Dynasty,’ among others.” Read more at USA Today
“The US will require essential travelers entering the country via land ports of entry and ferry terminals to be fully vaccinated for Covid-19 and provide proof of vaccination starting Saturday. The move, announced yesterday by the Department of Homeland Security, is an attempt to combat the rising number of Omicron cases and help relieve the stress on overwhelmed hospitals and health care workers. In Georgia, at least one Atlanta-area hospital is running at 110% capacity and ambulances are being turned away because it is so packed. To date, the US has recorded nearly 69 million total Covid-19 cases since the start of the pandemic, and nearly 18 million of those cases have been reported over the past month.” Read more at CNN
“Covid-19 patient counts are down at hospitals in early Omicron hot spots. Those in places such as New York and Washington, D.C., seem to have turned a corner, though experts said the variant hasn’t peaked nationally yet. Covid-19 hospitalizations remain at record highs.” Read more at Wall Street Journal
“A Senate panel advanced a bill that would prevent large tech platforms from favoring their own goods and services. Supporters say consumers would benefit from increased competition from smaller companies—the not-Googles and not-Amazons of the world. Tech giants have lobbied heavily to oppose the bipartisan antitrust legislation, which the Judiciary Committee approved 16-6 after making some amendments to address industry concerns.” Read more at Wall Street Journal
“Intel Corp. said it plans to invest at least $20 billion in new chip-making capacity in Ohio, bolstering the company’s semiconductor-production ambitions as greater demand for digital products and a global chip shortage have amplified the need for more manufacturing.
Intel said Friday it will invest in two new chip factories just outside of Columbus, Ohio, to add to Intel’s effort to expand its chip-making business that has seen the company make more than $100 billion in investment pledges over the past year.
Planning for the first two factories will start immediately, with construction expected to begin late in 2022, the company said, and production is expected to come online in 2025. The company also pledged $100 million toward partnerships with educational institutions to build a pipeline of talent and bolster research programs in the region.
The White House early Friday said Intel’s investment plan augmented U.S. efforts to strengthen domestic chip-making. Governments, particularly in the U.S. and Europe, have become concerned with securing their semiconductor supply after years in which manufacturing has gravitated to lower-cost countries in Asia. The chip drought during the pandemic has only amplified those worries.” Read more at Wall Street Journal
“Existing-home sales swelled to a 15-year high last year.
According to the National Association of Realtors, they grew 8.5% from 2020 to 2021 to hit 6.12 million. Buyers competed over a limited supply of homes on the market, as very low interest rates inspired many to take the hardwood-floor/fire-pit/second-bathroom plunge. Last year’s median existing-home price jumped to a record $346,900, 16.9% higher than it was in 2020. The buying frenzy is likely to cool off now that mortgage rates are expected to rise. News Corp, owner of the Journal, also operates Realtor.com under license from NAR.” Read more at Wall Street Journal
“On Wednesday, President Joe Biden announced in a speech that he was open to breaking up his signature legislation, the Build Back Better Act, into separate pieces of legislation targeting issues like clean energy and universal prekindergarten. Democrats have struggled to find a way to pass these legislative priorities — something they likely need to do to stand a chance in midterm elections.” [Vox] Read more at Wall Street Journal / Ken Thomas, Katherine Lucey, and Natalie Andrews
“The original bill failed in December, before the holiday break, because Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV) refused to support a bill with a roughly $1.75 trillion price tag. Manchin’s vote was crucial; in a Senate split 50-50, no Republican supported the legislation.” [Vox] Read more at Vox / Li Zhou
“Sen. Tim Kaine (D-VA) admitted last Sunday that the Build Back Better Act as Biden sold it last year is ‘dead’ but expressed optimism. ‘I think we have to go into that Build Back Better bill and do the core provisions that reduce costs for Americans,’ Kaine told CBS’s Face the Nation.’ [Vox] Read more at Axios / Yacob Reyes
“Manchin does not appear in a rush toward even a smaller deal. He told a CNN correspondent on Thursday that he wants Democrats to ‘get your financial house in order. Get this inflation down. Get Covid out of the way. Then we'll be rolling.’ He added: ‘We will just be starting from scratch’ with any new spending legislation.” [Vox] Read more at Manu Ranju / Twitter
“Democrats’ strategy — carving away at legislation until it fits in with Manchin’s priorities — hasn’t worked thus far, though a recent push by the West Virginia coal miners’ union to have Manchin support the Build Back Better Act may bring more urgency.” [Vox] Read more at CQ Roll Call / Paul M. Krawzak and David Lerman
“How Democrats plan to move forward with the effort to pass smaller bills is unclear. However, there is potential movement on a bill to address clean energy and climate change, which Manchin has signaled he might back.” [Vox] Read more at NYT / Coral Davenport and Lisa Friedman
“BOSTON — Federal prosecutors on Thursday dropped the government’s charges against Gang Chen, a professor of mechanical engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, in an embarrassing setback to the government’s drive to crack down on economic and scientific espionage by China.
The case against Dr. Chen was among the most visible of the China Initiative, an effort started in 2018 under the Trump administration. China has made aggressive efforts to steal American technology, through methods including the recruiting of overseas scientists as ‘non-traditional collectors.’
But many of the prosecutions of researchers that resulted, like like the case against Dr. Chen, did not allege espionage or theft of intellectual property, but something narrower and highly technical: failing to disclose Chinese affiliations in grant proposals to U.S. funding agencies.
The prosecutions have come under criticism for singling out scientists based on their ethnicity, and for overreach, blurring the line between disclosure violations and more serious crimes like espionage. Critics in academia say it has instilled a pervasive atmosphere of fear among scientists of Chinese descent.
Dr. Chen was arrested on Jan. 14, 2021, during President Donald J. Trump’s last full week in office, and charged with omitting affiliations with Chinese government institutions in grant applications to the U.S. Department of Energy in 2017. He pleaded not guilty to all the charges.
In recent weeks, however, officials at the Department of Energy have told prosecutors that Dr. Chen had no obligation to declare the seven affiliations, calling into question the basis of the charges, according to people familiar with the matter.
The move for dismissal comes as the Justice Department is reviewing the China Initiative, considering steps such as retiring the name and reclassifying the pending cases.
Government officials under the Obama, Trump and Biden administrations have warned that China’s push for global power poses significant national security and economic threats to the U.S.
The officials who started the China Initiative were concerned that Beijing could steal research and other intellectual property using nontraditional collectors of intelligence, like professors groomed to voluntarily share sensitive information in the name of academic cooperation.
The program has resulted in numerous pleas and convictions, such as those of a Monsanto employee who was intercepted leaving the country with a proprietary algorithm and a Coca-Cola chemist convicted of stealing a valuable formula. Last month, after less than three hours of deliberation, a jury in Boston found a Harvard chemist, Charles Leiber, guilty of six felonies, including making false statements and failing to declare income earned in China.
But other cases against academics have unraveled. The first case to reach the trial stage, against Anming Hu, a professor of engineering at the University of Tennessee, ended in acquittal last September after a judge ruled that the government had not provided sufficient evidence of intentional fraud. The Justice Department has also dismissed seven cases against researchers in recent months.
The case against Dr. Chen, a naturalized U.S. citizen since 2000, is the most prominent of the cases to be dismissed to date, involving an elite scientist who had robust support from his university.
Dr. Chen, who has been on paid leave from M.I.T. since his arrest, thanked friends and colleagues on Thursday for supporting him through ‘this terrible year’ and offered sharp criticism of the China Initiative.
‘While I am relieved that my ordeal is over, I am mindful that this terribly misguided China Initiative continues to bring unwarranted fear to the academic community and other scientists still face charges,’ he said in a brief statement released by his lawyer.” Read more at New York Times
“Surgeons at the University of Alabama at Birmingham reported Thursday that they had for the first time successfully transplanted kidneys from a genetically modified pig into the abdomen of a 57-year-old brain-dead man.
The announcement was the latest in a series of remarkable feats in organ transplantation. Earlier this month, surgeons at the University of Maryland transplanted a heart from a genetically modified pig into a 57-year-old patient with heart failure. That patient is still alive and under observation.
In September, surgeons at NYU Langone Health attached a kidney from a genetically modified pig to a brain-dead individual who was being maintained on a ventilator. Although it remained outside the body, the kidney worked normally, making urine and creatinine, a waste product.” Read more at Boston Globe
“ST. PAUL, Minn. (AP) — A jury of 18 people who appeared mostly white was picked Thursday for the federal trial of three Minneapolis police officers charged in George Floyd’s killing, a case that the judge told potential jurors has ‘absolutely nothing’ to do with race.
The jurors chosen to hear the case against former Officers Tou Thao, Thomas Lane and J. Kueng appeared to include one person of Asian descent among the 12 jurors who would deliberate if no alternates are needed, and a second person of Asian descent among the six alternates, with all others appearing white. The court declined to provide demographic information.
Thao, who is Hmong American; Lane, who is white; and Kueng, who is Black, are broadly charged with depriving Floyd of his civil rights while acting under government authority as Derek Chauvin, who is white, used his knee to pin the Black man to the street. The videotaped killing triggered worldwide protests, violence and a reexamination of racism and policing. Opening statements are scheduled for Monday.” Read more at AP News
“DALLAS — The F.B.I. is treating the attack on a suburban Fort Worth synagogue on Saturday as ‘an act of terrorism targeting the Jewish community,’ Christopher A. Wray, the bureau’s director, said on Thursday.
‘This was not some random occurrence,’ Mr. Wray told viewers of a webinar hosted by the Anti-Defamation League. ‘It was intentional, it was symbolic and we’re not going to tolerate antisemitism in this country.’
The bureau initially said that the attacker, a British citizen named Malik Faisal Akram, was not driven by antisemitism when he held four people at the synagogue hostage for 11 hours. At a news conference on Saturday night after all four hostages were free, the special agent in charge of the F.B.I.’s Dallas field office, Matthew DeSarno, said Mr. Akram was motivated by an issue ‘not specifically related to the Jewish community.’
During the attack at Congregation Beth Israel in Colleyville, which was partly livestreamed, Mr. Akram was heard referring to Aafia Siddiqui, a Pakistani neuroscientist who is serving an 86-year prison sentence in nearby Fort Worth. Ms. Siddiqui was convicted in a federal court in 2010 for ‘terroristic events’ in Afghanistan, including trying to kill American soldiers and plotting to blow up the Statue of Liberty.” Read more
“‘African American voters are voting in just as high a percentage as Americans’: U.S. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell was trending after he implied that African Americans are not Americans.” Read more at USA Today
“Starbucks rescinded its vaccination requirement after the Supreme Court struck down Biden’s mandate.” Read more at New York Times
“An American Airlines flight from Miami to London turned around and headed back to the U.S. after a passenger refused to wear a face mask.” Read more at USA Today
“Chief Justice John Roberts said that he had not asked Neil Gorsuch or any other justices to wear masks on the bench, disputing an NPR report.” Read more at New York Times
“The University of Michigan will pay $490 million to more than 1,000 people who accused a doctor of sexual abuse.” Read more at New York Times
“The overhaul of a controversial loan forgiveness program was projected to erase the debt of 22,000 student loan borrowers in the effort's first weeks. Three months in, more than triple that figure have had their debts wiped out.” Read more at USA Today
“Drug-resistant bacteria have become one of the leading causes of death worldwide, fueled by antibiotic misuse. These deadly new strains of bacteria are causing untreatable blood infections, fatal pneumonia, relentless urinary tract infections, gangrenous wounds and terminal cases of sepsis, among other conditions.” Read more at NPR
“New York City Mayor Eric Adams will get paid tomorrow—in cryptocurrency. His first paycheck, expected Friday, will be converted into bitcoin and ethereum through the online platform Coinbase. Last year, Adams said he wanted his first three paychecks in crypto.” Read more at Wall Street Journal
“In anticipation of a potential incursion, the State Department will allow the three Baltic states — Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia — to send US-made weapons, including Javelin anti-tank missiles and Stinger missiles, to Ukraine. The State Department has also approved third-party weapons transfers from Britain.” [Vox] Read more at Reuters / Andrea Shalal
“UNITED NATIONS (AP) — As he starts his second term as U.N. secretary-general, Antonio Guterres said Thursday the world is worse in many ways than it was five years ago because of the COVID-19 pandemic, the climate crisis and geopolitical tensions that have sparked conflicts everywhere — but unlike U.S. President Joe Biden he thinks Russia will not invade Ukraine.
Guterres said in an interview with The Associated Press that the appeal for peace he issued on his first day in the U.N.’s top job on Jan. 1, 2017 and his priorities in his first term of trying to prevent conflicts and tackle global inequalities, the COVID-19 crisis and a warming planet haven’t changed.” Read more at AP News
“United States prosecutors in Manhattan have charged four officials of the government of Belarus with conspiracy to commit aircraft piracy in the 2021 forced landing of a European airliner in Minsk, where a prominent opposition journalist aboard the plane was seized.
The charge was contained in an indictment filed on Thursday in Federal District Court.
In response to a purported bomb threat, Aleksandr G. Lukashenko, Belarus’s authoritarian president, sent a fighter jet on May 23 to intercept the Ryanair Boeing 737-800 carrying some 170 passengers from Athens to Vilnius, Lithuania — among them the journalist, Roman Protasevich. The forcing down of the plane and his seizure led to international outrage.” Read more at New York Times
“British Prime Minister Boris Johnson is having a terrible day at work. First, one of his members of Parliament quit his Conservative Party to join the opposition Labour Party; then one of his most well-known colleagues humiliated him with a very public call for his resignation. Johnson’s position as PM is looking increasingly shaky as more and more revelations are spilled about the lockdown-breaking parties he attended or hosted—one of which was held hours before Prince Philip’s socially distanced funeral last April. On Wednesday, rumors swirled in Parliament that Conservative MPs were getting closer to triggering a no-confidence vote to remove Johnson. Then came the twin blows of a defection and a public call to resign. Former minister David Davis told the PM to his face: ‘You have sat too long here for any good you have been doing. In the name of God, go.’ BBC political editor Laura Kuenssberg said the intervention ‘massively upped the ante,’ adding: ‘For such a prominent and well known MP to add his voice is a huge moment.’” [Daily Beast] Read more at BBC News
“The Australian government is pinning its hopes on backpackers to save the country’s COVID-battered workforce. In a pitch made to travelers on Wednesday, Prime Minister Scott Morrison offered to waive the visa application fee for backpackers arriving in the next three months. ‘Come on down now because you wanted to come to Australia,’ he said at a press conference. ‘Move all the way around the country, and at the same time join our workforce and help us in our agricultural sector, in our hospitality sector, and so many of the other parts of the economy that rely on that labor,’ he said. His comments come a day after the country reported its deadliest day of the pandemic with 77 fatalities, and as the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention cautioned against travel to the country due to a spike in cases.” [Daily Beast] Read more at Reuters
“The French government announced it will relax some Covid-19 restrictions, including a partial work from home obligation, while tightening the screws on the unvaccinated.” Read more at Bloomberg
“SINGAPORE—France’s TotalEnergies SE said it is withdrawing from Myanmar over shareholder pressure and a deteriorating human-rights situation since the country’s military seized power in a coup last year.
Western energy companies have faced growing calls to divest or withhold revenue from the junta, while governments including the U.S. and France have come under pressure to sanction the sector. Myanmar’s oil-and-gas industry is the country’s single largest source of foreign revenue.
TotalEnergies is the largest shareholder and operator of Myanmar’s largest natural-gas project, an offshore field called Yadana, providing energy for domestic use and export.” Read more at Wall Street Journal
“Brazilian kids are studying less and quitting school more during the pandemic, reversing decades of educational advances. Dropout rates among 5- to 9-year-olds rose from 1.4% in 2019 to 5.5% by end-2020, the highest since 2006, according to the Getulio Vargas Foundation think tank. Poor, Black, mixed-race, indigenous students and those in remote areas are spending fewer hours hitting the books than their White and Asian-Brazilian counterparts.” Read more at Bloomberg
“The rightwing Fox News host Laura Ingraham has stoked outrage by announcing that the chairman of the US joint chiefs of staff had tested positive for Covid-19 – and applauding as she did so.
One critic called the host a ‘merchant of death’. Another said he was ‘not sure when hate became a Christian value’.
Gen Mark Milley became a target of rightwing anger after extensive reporting showed how he worked to contain Donald Trump at the end of his time in power, keeping US armed forces out of domestic affairs.
Milley has also defended the teaching in military institutions of critical race theory, an academic discipline which conservatives have turned into a profitable election issue.
On Monday, Ingraham introduced a section of her show called Positively Boosted, in which she gleefully recounts which vaccinated public figures have tested positive.” Read more at The Guardian
“Meat Loaf, the rock superstar loved by millions for his ‘Bat Out of Hell’ album and for such theatrical, dark-hearted anthems as ‘I’d Do Anything for Love (But I Won’t Do That),’ has died. He was 74. The singer, born Marvin Lee Aday, passed away Thursday, according to a family statement posted on his official Facebook page . No cause or other details were given, but Aday had numerous health scares over the years. ‘Our hearts are broken to announce that the incomparable Meat Loaf passed away tonight,’ the statement said. ‘We know how much he meant to so many of you and we truly appreciate all of the love and support as we move through this time of grief in losing such an inspiring artist and beautiful man... From his heart to your souls…don’t ever stop rocking!’ He is survived by Deborah Gillespie, his wife since 2007, and by daughters Pearl and Amanda Aday.” Read more at USA Today
Meat Loaf, born Marvin Lee Aday, passed away Thursday, according to a family statement posted on his official Facebook page.USA TODAY
“‘I can’t give you what I have right now’: Adele has postponed her Las Vegas residency due to COVID-related production delays, the singer announced, a day before her first show was set to kick off.” Read more at USA Today
“The Nazis planned the ‘final solution’ 80 years ago. It took 90 minutes.” Read more at New York Times
“Lives Lived: Laurel Cutler was a rare female executive in the testosterone-driven ‘Mad Men’ era of 1960s New York advertising. She died at 94.” Read more at New York Times
André Leon Talley in 2018.George Etheredge for The New York Times
A towering force in fashion
“André Leon Talley’s approach to fashion could best be described as ‘more.’ More glamour, more decadence, more delight. He evoked drama in both his personal style — wearing capes and furs — and his declarations. ‘It’s a famine of beauty, honey!’ he once proclaimed. ‘My eyes are starving for beauty!’
Talley, who died this week at 73, was a pioneering figure in fashion. Using his encyclopedic knowledge of fashion history and his quick wit, he became an editor, author, adviser and TV personality. In the 1980s, he worked his way up to creative director at Vogue, and he spent decades there in various roles.
A 1994 New Yorker profile called Talley ‘The Only One ‘— a reference to him often being the sole high-powered Black editor in a field that is notoriously white. His influence is hard to overstate: He mentored the supermodel Naomi Campbell and helped dress Michelle Obama as first lady.
Growing up in the Jim Crow South, Talley wallpapered his bedroom with images ripped from Vogue. ‘I went to school and to church and I did what I was told and I didn’t talk much,’ he told Vogue in 2018. ‘But I knew life was bigger than that. I wanted to meet Diana Vreeland and Andy Warhol and Naomi Sims and Pat Cleveland and Edie Sedgwick and Loulou de la Falaise. And I did. And I never looked back.’ — Sanam Yar, a Morning writer Read more at New York Times
“The top-selling brand of chewing tobacco in the United States — a brand long associated with Richmond’s tobacco industry — is changing its name and removing a stereotypical image of a Native American from its product packaging.
Red Man chewing tobacco, which has been sold in the U.S. for more than 100 years, is changing its name to America’s Best, starting this week. The owner of the brand, tobacco company Swedish Match, announced the change on Thursday.
Swedish Match AB is a Sweden-based company with its North American headquarters in Richmond. The company sells a variety of chewing tobacco and snuff tobacco brands, along with cigar brands and alternative, novel nicotine products such as the Zyn pouch product.
Red Man chewing tobacco has long been an iconic brand among chewing tobacco brands. It was introduced in the U.S. market more than a century ago by The Pinkerton Tobacco Co., which was acquired by Swedish Match in 1985. Pinkerton then moved its headquarters to Richmond the next year.
For decades, Red Man chewing tobacco has been sold in packages featuring its brand name in bold red colors along with a prominent, drawn image of a Native American man wearing a feathered head dress.
The brand change comes as various companies, sports teams and other institutions have been reconsidering their use of stereotypical Native American imagery and names.” Read more at Richmond Times-Dispatch
“M&M's branding is getting a refresh.
The candy's anthropomorphized chocolate characters are being made over, and the logo is also getting a tweak.
But the most noticeable change is to the six M&M characters: new shoes. Green has swapped her go-go boots for sneakers. Brown is sporting lower, more sensible heels. Red and Yellow's shoes now have laces. Orange's shoes laces are no longer untied. And Blue's shoes, while little changed, resemble what Anton Vincent, president of Mars Wrigley North America, described as ‘a bad version of Uggs.’
Mars Wrigley, which owns M&Ms, is trying to make the characters — particularly the female ones — more ‘current’ and ‘representative of our consumer,’ Vincent said. The revamped footwear is ‘a subtle cue, but it's a cue people really pick up on,’ he added, noting that Mars gets a lot of feedback on the characters' shoes.
The logo adjustment is also slight: Instead of resting on its side, it's set up straight. The new orientation is designed to emphasize the ampersand. The logo was last tweaked in 2019.
The changes are rolling out online this week and they'll be incorporated into M&Ms' packaging and other marketing materials this year.
The changes may be subtle, but even small shifts can help brands avoid falling out of fashion, said David Camp, co-founder and managing partner of Metaforce, a marketing company. ‘Every brand has to continuously reinvent itself to remain relevant.’
Better gender representation
M&Ms were first sold in 1941, and the characters arrived on the scene in 1954. Old M&Ms commercials starred Red and Yellow, representing regular and peanut M&Ms. In the late 1990s, new characters were added to the mix. Brown, the most recent addition, joined the crew in 2012.
Over the years the brand has switched between highlighting its characters more heavily or less frequently, Vincent noted. Now, it's putting them front and center.
Currently, there are two female characters and four male ones. Adding another couple of female characters to balance out the ratio is possible, said Vincent, but there are ‘implications’ for the product itself. Namely, M&Ms would have to add new permanent colors to its mix.
The solution, then, was to give the female Green and Brown a promotion. They'll have more prominent placement in ads, with the aim of ‘a little bit more gender balance,’ said Vincent.” Read more at Richmond Times-Dispatch