The Full Belmonte, 12/19/2022
Cop15: historic deal struck to halt biodiversity loss by 2030
Agreement on ’30 by 30’ target forced through by Chinese president, ignoring objections from African states
“Governments appear to have signed a once-in-a-decade deal to halt the destruction of Earth’s ecosystems, but the agreement seems to have been forced through by the Chinese president, ignoring the objections of some African states.
After more than four years of negotiations, repeated delays due to the Covid-19 pandemic and talks into the night on Sunday in Montreal, nearly 200 countries – but not the US or the Vatican – signed an agreement at the biodiversity Cop15, which was co-hosted by Canada and China, to put humanity on a path to living in harmony with nature by the middle of the century.
In an extraordinary plenary that began on Sunday evening and lasted for more than seven hours, countries wrangled over the final agreement. Finally, at about 3.30am local time, news broke that an agreement had been struck.
The Democratic Republic of Congo appeared to block the final deal presented by China before, moments later, China’s environment minister and the Cop15president, Huang Runqiu, signalled that the agreement was finished and agreed, and the plenary burst into applause.
Negotiators from Cameroon, Uganda and the DRC expressed incredulity that the agreement had been put through. The DRC said it had formally objected to the agreement, but a UN lawyer said it had not. The negotiator from Cameroon called it ‘a fraud’, while Uganda said there had been a ‘coup d’état’ against the Cop15.
Amid plummeting insect numbers, acidifying oceans filled with plastic waste, and the rampant overconsumption of the planet’s resources as humanity’s population grows wealthier and soars past 8 billion, the agreement, if implemented, could signal major changes to farming, business supply chains and the role of Indigenous communities in conservation.
The deal was negotiated over two weeks and includes targets to protect 30% of the planet for nature by the end of the decade, reform $500bn (£410bn) of environmentally damaging subsidies, and restore 30% of the planet’s degraded terrestrial, inland water, coastal and marine ecosystems.
Governments also agreed urgent actions to halt human-caused extinctions of species known to be under threat and to promote their recovery.
The deal follows scientific warnings that humans are causing the start of Earth’s sixth mass extinction event, the largest loss of life since the time of the dinosaurs.” Read more at The Guardian
Lionel Messi-inspired Argentina wins World Cup after beating France in sensational final
Lionel Messi kisses the World Cup trophy during the presentation ceremony.
“Lionel Messi’s wait for World Cup glory is finally over after Argentina beat France in a dramatic penalty shootout on Sunday.
It was a final for the ages, with momentum swinging both ways throughout a pulsating 120 minutes before Gonzalo Montiel scored the winning penalty after the game had finished 3-3 after extra time.
Messi, playing in his fifth and final World Cup, scored twice but France’s Kylian Mbappé netted a stunning hattrick – the first in a final since 1966 – as both superstars brilliantly slugged it out on the biggest stage of all.
Messi’s penalty and Angel di Maria’s first-half goal looked to have settled the tie in normal time but Mbappé scored two late goals – one from the penalty spot – in as many minutes to draw France level.
With both side’s feeling the effects of the scintillating finale, Messi looked to have scored a winner in the 108th minute but Mbappé, yet again, replied with an equalizer from the spot to take the game to penalties.
France’s Kingsley Coman saw his spot kick saved by Emiliano Martinez, who was named as the tournament’s best goalkeeper, and Aurelien Tchouameni pulled his effort wide before Montiel secured Argentina’s third World Cup title and a first since 1986.” Read more at CNN
Jan. 6 Committee Considers Criminal Referrals for Donald Trump, Allies
Panel is wrapping up its investigation into former president’s effort to overturn election results
The committee held hearings this year relating to an attempt to overturn the 2020 election results.PHOTO: DREW ANGERER/GETTY IMAGES
“WASHINGTON—The House select committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021 attack on the Capitol is expected to vote Monday on potential criminal referrals to the Justice Department for former President Donald Trump and some of his allies, related to an attempt to overturn the 2020 election results.
The vote will amount to one of the final acts of the committee. Over nine previous public hearings this year it laid out its case that Mr. Trump launched a campaign to reverse the election results and, in his efforts, summoned supporters to Washington and incited them to storm the Capitol. The hearings featured new disclosures and allegations regarding Mr. Trump’s efforts to pressure state and government officials to help keep him in power, as well as witness testimony, often from senior Republicans and top officials from his own administration, about his actions on the day of the riot.
The committee, made up of seven Democrats and two Republicans, is expected to release the final report on its investigation later in the week. The panel will disband with the forming of the new Republican-led House in January.
Rep. Adam Schiff (D., Calif.), a Jan. 6 committee member, said Sunday the group will vote on whether to send criminal referrals, but he declined to say what those specific referrals would be.
‘I think the evidence is there that Donald Trump committed criminal offenses in connection with his efforts to overturn the election and viewing it as a former prosecutor, I think there is sufficient evidence to charge the president,’ he said on CNN.
Rep. Adam Schiff (D., Calif.) said the group will vote on whether to send criminal referrals. PHOTO: JABIN BOTSFORD/POOL/SHUTTERSTOCK
Mr. Schiff said he thought Mr. Trump should be prosecuted, as it was his belief that he had committed crimes in connection with his efforts to overturn President Joe Biden’s win in the 2020 election.
‘This is someone who in multiple ways tried to pressure state officials to find votes that didn’t exist, this is someone who tried to interfere with a joint session, even inciting a mob to attack the Capitol. If that is not criminal then I don’t know what is,’ Mr. Schiff said.
The 1 p.m. hearing on Monday is expected to include votes on criminal and ethical referrals for Mr. Trump. The committee could potentially also vote on referrals for members of Congress or former members of the Trump administration who stymied the committee’s investigation, according to comments by committee members.
The Justice Department has been pursuing its own investigation related to Jan. 6 and could act regardless of the committee’s referrals, which don’t carry legal weight, since Congress has no formal say in Justice Department decisions. Any ethical referrals would go to the House Committee on Ethics.” Read more at Wall Street Journal
GOP's Jan. 6 rebuttal
Pro-Trump rioters storm the Capitol during the Jan. 6 attack. Photo: Eric Lee/Bloomberg via Getty Image.
“House Republicans are privately plotting to release their own 100+ page rebuttal timed to the Jan. 6 committee report, which is expected Wednesday, Axios' Alayna Treene and Andrew Solender report.
Why it matters: Republicans aim to cast the select committee's report as partisan by contrasting its expected focus on former President Trump with their concentration on Capitol security.
What we’re watching: The precise timing is still being worked out, Axios is told, with Republicans waiting to see what the select committee does at its Monday hearing.
Details: Rep. Jim Banks (R-Ind.), the leader of the shadow group, told Axios their report will ‘focus on security failures,’ arguing the select committee has ‘never dealt with the serious issues.’
The Republicans probed the Capitol Police and FBI's intelligence gathering and dissemination, plus insufficient law enforcement — including by interviewing Capitol Police officers.
By contrast, Banks claimed, the select committee's plan to have Trump as the focal point of its report is ‘all about political payback.’
The other side: The select committee’s report is expected to focus on Trump, but the findings on security failures are included in the attachments likely being released with the report, per Politico.” Read more at Axios
Proud Boys Trial Is Set to Open, Focusing on Role in Jan. 6 Violence
The charge of seditious conspiracy is the same as in a recent trial of members of the Oath Keepers militia, but the Proud Boys defendants are accused of a central role in the fighting at the Capitol.
“On the morning of Jan. 6, 2021, as scores of Proud Boys were getting ready to take their place in a pro-Trump mob outside the Capitol, a leader of the far-right group sent a message to his colleagues.
‘I want to see thousands of normies burn that city to ash today,’ he wrote.
Almost two years later, the notion that the Proud Boys wanted to provoke violence among the ‘normies’ — or the normal people — in the crowd that day rests at the heart of the government’s case against five members of the group who are facing trial on charges of seditious conspiracy in connection with the Capitol attack.
At the trial, which begins with jury selection on Monday, prosecutors intend to argue that the five defendants turned the mob into a weapon on Jan. 6 and pointed it at the Capitol, where lawmakers had gathered to certify the results of the 2020 election, according to court papers and pretrial hearings. It was all part of a plot, the government will say, to stop the lawful transfer of power and ensure that President Donald J. Trump remained in office.
The Proud Boys trial is opening in Federal District Court in Washington less than a month after Stewart Rhodes, the leader of another far-right group, the Oath Keepers militia, was convicted along with one of his lieutenants of seditious conspiracy at a separate trial in the same courthouse, which sits within sight of the domed Capitol building….” Read more at New York Times
Musk polls Twitter users about whether he should step down
“Elon Musk is asking Twitter’s users to decide if he should stay in charge of the social media platform after acknowledging he made a mistake Sunday in launching new speech restrictions that banned mentions of rival social media websites.
In yet another drastic policy change, Twitter had announced that users will no longer be able to link to Facebook, Instagram, Mastodon and other platforms the company described as ‘prohibited.’
But the move generated so much immediate criticism, including from past defenders of Twitter’s new billionaire owner, that Musk promised not to make any more major policy changes without an online survey of users.
‘My apologies. Won’t happen again,’ Musk tweeted, before launching a new 12-hour poll asking if he should step down as head of Twitter. ‘I will abide by the results of this poll.’
The action to block competitors was Musk’s latest attempt to crack down on certain speech after he shut down a Twitter account last week that was tracking the flights of his private jet.
The banned platforms included mainstream websites such as Facebook and Instagram, and upstart rivals Mastodon, Tribel, Nostr, Post and former President Donald Trump’s Truth Social. Twitter gave no explanation for why the blacklist included those seven websites but not others such as Parler, TikTok or LinkedIn.
Twitter had said it would at least temporarily suspend accounts that include the banned websites in their profile — a practice so widespread it would have been difficult to enforce the restrictions on Twitter’s millions of users around the world. Not only links but attempts to bypass the ban by spelling out ‘instagram dot com’ could have led to a suspension, the company said.
A test case was the prominent venture capitalist Paul Graham, who in the past has praised Musk but on Sunday told his 1.5 million Twitter followers that this was the ‘last straw’ and to find him on Mastodon. His Twitter account was promptly suspended, and soon after restored as Musk promised to reverse the policy implemented just hours earlier.
Musk said Twitter will still suspend some accounts according to the policy but ‘only when that account’s (asterisk)primary(asterisk) purpose is promotion of competitors.’…” Read more at AP News
El Paso Declares Emergency as Migrant Influx Raises Safety Concerns
Thousands of asylum seekers arrive this month, with hundreds sleeping on streets
Asylum seekers in the El Paso, Texas, area have quickly overwhelmed federal immigration and city authorities.PHOTO: PAUL RATJE FOR THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
“EL PASO, Texas—The city of El Paso declared a state of emergency Saturday a week after the start of an influx of asylum seekers crossing the border illegally, which quickly overwhelmed federal immigration and city authorities.
Mayor Oscar Leeser said he declared the emergency after consulting with federal, state and local officials about the rising number of migrants being released into the community after processing by the U.S. Border Patrol.
‘We’ve been talking all day about what’s the best way to make sure that everyone is safe,’ Mr. Leeser said. ‘I said from the beginning that I would call it when either the asylum seekers or our community were not safe, and I really believe today our asylum seekers are not safe as we have hundreds and hundreds on the street.’
Mr. Leeser said this past week that he was hesitant to declare an emergency despite recommendations to do so from city staffers, out of concern that such a move would have little impact. On Saturday, he said he was concerned for the safety of the rising number of migrants sleeping on the streets overnight, with temperatures at or below freezing.
Mario D’Agostino, a deputy city manager for public safety, said the declaration will allow the city to expand its shelter operations, which to date have relied on nongovernmental organizations’ shelters and local hotels.
The Biden administration this past week pledged about $6 million to help the city cope with the rising costs of its response.
Mr. D’Agostino said that the Biden administration has reimbursed the city about $2 million and that about $3.5 million is expected from the Federal Emergency Management Agency.
Officials said the city had spent more than $9.5 million managing an earlier surge this year. The city previously requested emergency assistance from the state of Texas.” Read more at Wall Street Journal
11 people seriously injured amid turbulence on Hawaii flight
“HONOLULU (AP) — Severe turbulence rocked a flight from Phoenix to Honolulu Sunday, seriously injuring 11 people in what an Hawaiian Airlines official called an isolated and unusual event.
Jon Snook, the airline’s chief operating officer, said the airline hasn’t experienced ‘an incident of this nature in recent history.’ The flight was full, carrying 278 passengers and 10 crew members, he said during an afternoon news conference.
Jim Ireland, director of Honolulu Emergency Medical Services, said 20 people were taken to hospitals, including 11 people deemed to be in serious condition.
At least one person was reported to have been rendered unconscious but all patients were awake and talking when they arrived at hospitals, he said.
Patients suffered cuts, including to the head, as well as bumps and bruises. Some people were nauseous and vomited as a result of extreme motion, he said. Altogether 36 people received treatment….” Read more at AP News
J. Robert Oppenheimer Cleared of ‘Black Mark’ After 68 Years
The physicist and architect of the American atomic bomb was stripped of his security clearance in 1954 after what is now called a flawed investigation.
“The Secretary of Energy on Friday nullified a 1954 decision to revoke the security clearance of J. Robert Oppenheimer, a top government scientist who led the making of the atomic bomb in World War II but fell under suspicion of being a Soviet spy at the height of the McCarthy era.
In a statement, the Energy Secretary, Jennifer M. Granholm, said the decision of her predecessor agency, the Atomic Energy Commission, to bar Oppenheimer’s clearance was the result of a ‘flawed process’ that violated its own regulations.
As time has passed, she added, ‘more evidence has come to light of the bias and unfairness of the process that Dr. Oppenheimer was subjected to while the evidence of his loyalty and love of country have only been further affirmed.’
Historians, who have long lobbied for the reversal of the clearance revocation, praised the vacating order as a milestone.
‘I’m overwhelmed with emotion,’ said Kai Bird, co-author with Martin J. Sherwin of ‘American Prometheus,’ a 2005 biography of Oppenheimer that won the Pulitzer Prize.
‘History matters and what was done to Oppenheimer in 1954 was a travesty, a black mark on the honor of the nation,’ Mr. Bird said. ‘Students of American history will now be able to read the last chapter and see that what was done to Oppenheimer in that kangaroo court proceeding was not the last word.’
Christopher Nolan has a movie coming out on Oppenheimer that’s based on Mr. Bird and Mr. Sherwin’s book. A trailer for the film, named ‘Oppenheimer,’ began playing Thursday at movie theaters.
Alex Wellerstein, a historian of science at Stevens Institute of Technology in Hoboken, N.J., called the reversal long overdue.
‘I’m sure it doesn’t go as far as Oppenheimer and his family would have wanted,’ he said. ‘But it goes pretty far. The injustice done to Oppenheimer doesn’t get undone by this. But it’s nice to see some response and reconciliation even if it’s decades too late.’
In April and May of 1954, after 19 days of secret hearings, the Atomic Energy Commission revoked Oppenheimer’s security clearance. The action blocked Oppenheimer’s access to the government’s atomic secrets and brought his career to a humiliating end. Until then a hero of American science, he lived out his life a broken man and died in 1967 at the age of 62.
In 2014, the Obama administration made public hundreds of newly declassified pages from the commission’s secret hearings. The testimony suggested that Oppenheimer had been anything but disloyal.
Historians and nuclear experts who studied the declassified material — roughly a tenth of the hearing transcripts — said it offered no damning evidence against him, and that the testimony, on balance, tended to exonerate him.
‘It’s hard to see why it was classified,’ Richard Polenberg, a historian at Cornell University who edited a much earlier, sanitized version of the commission’s hearings, said in 2014. ‘It’s hard to see a principle here — except that some of the testimony was sympathetic to Oppenheimer, some of it very sympathetic.’
An eccentric genius fond of pipes and porkpie hats, Oppenheimer grew up in an elegant building on Riverside Drive in Manhattan, attended the Ethical Culture School and graduated from Harvard in three years. After studies in Europe, he taught physics at the University of California, Berkeley.
As a young professor, he crashed his car while racing a train, leaving his girlfriend unconscious. His father gave the young woman a Cézanne drawing.
In the 1930s, like many political liberals, Oppenheimer belonged to groups led or infiltrated by Communists; his brother, his wife and his former fiancée were party members.
In the 1940s at Los Alamos in New Mexico, in great secrecy, he led the scientific effort that devised the atomic bomb. Afterward, as chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission’s main advisory body, he helped direct the nation’s postwar nuclear developments.
Oppenheimer’s downfall came amid Cold War fears over Soviet strides in atomic weaponry and Communist subversion at home. In 1953, a former congressional aide charged in a letter to the F. B.I. that the celebrated physicist was a Soviet spy.
Troubled by the allegation, President Dwight D. Eisenhower ordered ‘a blank wall’ erected between Oppenheimer and any nuclear secrets.
A key element in the case against Oppenheimer was derived from his resistance to early work on the hydrogen bomb, which could explode with 1,000 times the force of an atomic bomb. The physicist Edward Teller had long advocated a crash program to devise such a weapon, and told the 1954 hearing that he mistrusted Oppenheimer’s judgment. ‘I would feel personally more secure,’ he testified, ‘if public matters would rest in other hands.’
No evidence came to light that supported the spy charge. But the security board found that Oppenheimer’s early views on the hydrogen bomb ‘had an adverse effect on recruitment of scientists and the progress of the scientific effort.’
The material declassified in 2014, which was released by the Energy Department, suggested that Oppenheimer’s opposition to the hydrogen bomb project rested on technical and military grounds, not Soviet sympathies.
Richard Rhodes, author of the 1995 book ‘Dark Sun: The Making of the Hydrogen Bomb,’ said the records showed that making fuel to test one of Teller’s early H-bomb ideas would have forced the nation to forgo up to 80 atomic bombs.
“Oppenheimer was worried about war on the ground in Europe,” Mr. Rhodes said in an interview at the time. He saw the need for “a large stockpile of fission weapons that could be used to turn back a Soviet ground assault.”
Experts who examined the declassified transcripts said they shed much light on the famous case. Dr. Polenberg of Cornell, for example, expressed bewilderment that 12 pages of testimony from Lee A. DuBridge, a friend and colleague of Oppenheimer’s who discussed the atomic trade-offs and the European standoff with the Soviet Union, had remained secret for 60 years.
‘A difference of opinion doesn’t mean disloyalty,’ Dr. Polenberg said in 2014. ‘It’s hard to see why it was redacted.’
Dr. Polenberg also pointed to 45 pages of declassified testimony from Walter G. Whitman, an M.I.T. engineer and member of the Atomic Energy Commission’s advisory body.
‘In my judgment,’ Mr. Whitman said of Oppenheimer, ‘his advice and his arguments for a gamut of atomic weapons, extending even over to the use of the atomic weapon in air defense of the United States, has been more productive than any other one individual.’
Asked his opinion of Oppenheimer as a security risk, he called him ‘completely loyal.’
In her Friday statement, Ms. Granholm said her department, as a successor agency to the Atomic Energy Commission, had been entrusted with the responsibility to correct the historical record and honor Dr. Oppenheimer’s ‘profound contributions to our national defense and the scientific enterprise at large.’
‘I am pleased,’ she added, ‘to announce the Department of Energy has vacated the Atomic Energy Commission’s 1954 decision In the Matter of J. Robert Oppenheimer.’” Read more at New York Times
Georgia Grand Jury’s Probe of Donald Trump Nears End
High-profile witnesses have been compelled to testify after losing court challenges
Former President Donald Trump recently announced a third bid for the White House. PHOTO: ANDREW HARNIK/ASSOCIATED PRESS
“ATLANTA—A criminal investigation into former President Donald Trump‘s efforts to overturn his election defeat in Georgia has produced a flurry of activity in the last month, with several high-profile witnesses appearing before a special grand jury that is now nearing its end, according to a person familiar with the matter.
While the panel in Atlanta can’t issue indictments, the 23 citizens sitting on it are expected to write a report on their findings, which could include recommendations that indictments be brought. That process could extend into next year, the person said.
Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis, the Democrat leading the investigation, has prevailed in several court cases brought by Trump allies trying to avoid testifying before the special grand jury. Ms. Willis isn’t expected to issue a subpoena to Mr. Trump for his testimony, however, a possibility she floated earlier in the year.
Michael Flynn, Mr. Trump’s former national security adviser, and Sen. Lindsey Graham (R., S.C.) both appeared before the grand jury in the last month. Rudy Giuliani, a longtime adviser to Mr. Trump, testified this summer. Mr. Trump’s final chief of staff, Mark Meadows, was ordered to testify by South Carolina’s highest court but hasn’t done so.
Messrs. Giuliani, Flynn and Meadows all lost legal fights against the subpoenas in their home-state courts. Some Texas-based witnesses whose testimony Ms. Willis sought haven’t complied after one of them won a state court ruling that she couldn’t be compelled to go to Georgia.
The lengths to which Ms. Willis has gone to speak to members of Mr. Trump’s inner circle suggests that she is closely investigating the former president’s actions, said Clark D. Cunningham, a professor at the Georgia State University College of Law.
‘What these witnesses have in common is that they offer, for the district attorney, real potential for tying Donald Trump personally to what happened,’ Mr. Cunningham said.
Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis, right, is leading the investigation in Georgia. PHOTO: BEN GRAY/ASSOCIATED PRESS
Ms. Willis’s probe is separate from the federal investigations, headed by special counsel Jack Smith, into the handling of classified documents at Mr. Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort and broader efforts by Mr. Trump and his allies to overturn his 2020 election loss.
The jurors’ report, which can recommend criminal charges or that none be brought, would be reviewed by a panel of Fulton County judges before Ms. Willis’s office decides whether to pursue any charges through a separate grand jury.
Some Georgia lawyers have expressed skepticism about the investigation, saying convening a special grand jury was an unnecessary step designed to maximize publicity for Ms. Willis.
The panel ‘was a good way to build her national profile and talk to a lot of reporters,’ said Andrew Fleischman of the Georgia law firm Sessions & Fleischman, who isn’t involved in the investigation.
Joe Biden beat Mr. Trump in Georgia by about 12,000 votes out of about five million cast, becoming the first Democratic presidential candidate to win the state since 1992. Two statewide recounts and a partial forensic audit, all conducted by the office of Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, confirmed President Biden’s narrow victory. Legal challenges to the outcome failed.” Read more at Wall Street Journal
Sam Bankman-Fried Is Expected to Consent to Extradition From Bahamas
FTX co-founder has been in custody in Nassau since his arrest Monday
Sam Bankman-Fried after his arrest in the Bahamas this month.PHOTO: DANTE CARRER/REUTERS
“FTX co-founder Sam Bankman-Fried is planning to consent to extradition to the U.S. to face criminal charges related to the cryptocurrency exchange’s collapse, people familiar with the matter said.
Mr. Bankman-Fried has been in custody in the Bahamas since he was arrested last Monday in connection with several U.S. criminal charges, which were unsealed a day later. Federal prosecutors in Manhattan have charged Mr. Bankman-Fried with fraud and money-laundering offenses, alleging he defrauded customers, lenders and investors. They also alleged he violated campaign-finance rules by making illegal political contributions.
Mr. Bankman-Fried’s legal plans are still in flux and could change in the coming days depending on developments surrounding his case, one of the people familiar with the matter said. Mr. Bankman-Fried’s team is expecting that he will appear in a Nassau court for additional proceedings as soon as Monday, the person said.
Lawyers for Mr. Bankman-Fried didn’t respond to requests for comment. A spokesman for the U.S. attorney’s office declined to comment.” Read more at Wall Street Journal
Starbucks Union Strikes at Dozens of Stores as Talks Stall
Workers are pressing for a contract and accuse the company of anti-labor tactics. Management blames the union for the lack of bargaining progress.
“The union organizing Starbucks workers declared a strike at dozens of stores on Friday, the latest escalation in its campaign to secure a labor contract.
The strike is intended to last for three days at many of the stores, according to Workers United, the union representing the workers. It follows a one-day strike at roughly 100 stores last month.
Workers involved in the strike say they are protesting the company’s slow pace of bargaining and its recent closing of unionized stores, including one near Broadway and Denny Way in Seattle. They also complain about understaffing and cuts to their hours.
‘Starbucks sent a clear message when they closed the Broadway and Denny store,’ Michelle Eisen, a Buffalo-based barista who has been a leader of the union campaign, said in a statement. ‘They’re doubling down on their union-busting, so we’re doubling down, too. We’re demanding fair staffing, an end to store closures, and that Starbucks bargain with us in good faith.’” Read more at New York Times
Musk's media-shifting machine
Photo illustration: Sarah Grillo/Axios. Photo: Dimitrios Kambouris/Getty Images for The Met Museum/Vogue
“Elon Musk and allies are building a new anti-left media ecosystem almost overnight.
Why it matters: It's as if the New York Times editorial page suddenly flipped to the right.
With the reins in Musk's hands, the right is gaining power in online spaces the left once dominated, Axios' Erica Pandey reports.
‘The furious and enthusiastic reactions to Musk’s takeover resemble the furious and enthusiastic reactions to presidential races,’ writes Ross Douthat, a conservative columnist for the New York Times (subscription).
In both cases, Douthat says, ‘the leadership change really affects how people experience their daily lives,’
Look who's driving the news on Twitter:
Anti-mainstream-media journalists — like Bari Weiss and Matt Taibbi — are driving the narrative, getting the clicks and earning new followers on Musk's Twitter.
They're thriving in an environment where alternative, anti-left and anti-establishment media has taken center stage.
Case in point: Bari Weiss' new media company, The Free Press — which launched 10 days ago — has amassed nearly 125,000 followers.
That's about three times as many as Puck, the buzzy news outlet with big names that launched in 2021, has picked up.
Look who's gotten the boot:
Twitter suspended a slew of journalists who cover tech and Musk at mainstream media outlets like the New York Times, the Washington Post and CNN on Thursday, alarming free-speech advocates. Many of the suspended accounts were reinstated over the weekend.
Taylor Lorenz, a tech columnist for the Washington Post, had her Twitter account suspended late Saturday night after she tweeted requesting Musk's comment on a story, she writes.
Susan Li of Fox Business also got a ban after reporting on the suspensions, she told CNN's Oliver Darcy.
What we're watching: Musk's moves at Twitter are part of a larger — growing — anti-left, alternative media ecosystem.
For example, Joe Rogan's podcast, with a fan base that leans heavily conservative, per Morning Consult, was the most listened-to show of the second half of 2022, according to Edison Research.
Right-wing commentator Ben Shapiro's podcast is at No. 7 — and climbing.
Reality check: Musk and his allies say they're pursuing a platform where free speech reigns. But some of his changes to Twitter might reinforce echo chambers.
The intrigue: Musk announced a new potential Twitter feature Saturday that would allow Twitter Blue users — those who subscribe for verified, blue-check-mark accounts — to ‘downvote’ other accounts by muting or blocking them.
Billionaire investor Mark Cuban replied: ‘My guess is the blue checks lean pro-Elon and will use the impact of blocks, mutes and likes to create intentional echo chambers that reflect Elon's positions.’
What's next: Musk's Twitter — like Musk himself — can be unpredictable. The CEO has already turned on Weiss, just days after offering the Twitter Files trove to her as a trusted journalist.” Read more at Axios
Silent downtown
San Francisco's skyline. Photo: Justin Sullivan/Getty Image
“Here's a stunning stat: During a typical week, San Francisco's office buildings are at roughly 40% of their pre-COVID occupancy.
Why it matters: Once bustling, ‘today San Francisco has what is perhaps the most deserted major downtown in America,’ Conor Dougherty and Emma Goldberg write in the New York Times (subscription).
San Francisco's office occupancy rates are 7 percentage points below the average major U.S. city.
That's because its downtown — more than that of other metros — relies on the tech industry, which has by and large been enthusiastic about letting employees work from anywhere, forever.
The stakes: The silent downtown has consequences for an entire ecosystem of businesses that counted on office workers' foot traffic — like cafes, salad joints and sandwich shops.” Read more at Axios
New lingo: ‘Bleisure’ travel
Illustration: Aïda Amer/Axios
“Business travel hasn't bounced back post-pandemic, but ‘bleisure’ travel, combining work and fun, is on the rise.
Why it matters: People who travel for work make up 10% of passengers but 55% to 75% of airline revenue.
The end of business travel means fewer flight options and pricier tickets for everyone else.
But it may be coming back, the Wall Street Journal reports(subscription).
What's happening: The work-from-anywhere revolution means people can combine business travel with vacation — and extend business trips to explore new cities for fun.
One trend to watch: These new ‘bleisure’ travelers are filling a key void left by the business travelers of the past. They're booking flights on off days, like Tuesday, because they're not rushing back to the office and can even work from the skies.
One pandemic casualty: Airlines say same-day business trips — flying out in the morning and back at night — are down.” Read more at Axios
Amid allegations at Juilliard, classical music leaders demand change
About 450 composers, musicians and arts leaders sign letter asking the music school to address new reports of sexual harassment and misconduct
“An open letter calling on the Juilliard School to take disciplinary action against composer Robert Beaser for alleged ‘decades-long abuse of women and power’ has attracted the signatures of about 450 composers, musicians, educators and arts leaders.
By late Friday, after an initial 120 people had signed the letter, Beaser, 68, a former chair of the prestigious Manhattan music school’s composition department, had taken leave from his teaching post as the school launched a third-party inquiry into the allegations.
‘In light of the ongoing investigation, and following discussions with Bob earlier this afternoon, we want to notify you that Bob will step away from his teaching duties and other faculty responsibilities while the investigation is being conducted,’ Juilliard Provost Adam Meyer wrote in a letter to composition faculty members on Friday. ‘This change will be effective immediately.’
Last week, the Berlin-based classical music website VAN magazine published the results of a six-month investigation into allegations of misconduct against several Juilliard faculty members, including Beaser, who, the magazine said, “faces multiple, previously-undisclosed allegations of sexual harassment and misconduct from the late 1990s and 2000s.”
These include alleged ‘repeated sexual advances to sexual relationships with students,’ as well as claims that these relationships directly affected critical decisions Beaser enacted as department chair at Juilliard.
The report cites the account of one anonymous former student who described an ‘instance in which Beaser offered her a promising career opportunity before attempting to obtain sexual favors in return.’
‘What will you do for me?’ Beaser allegedly asked.
‘I am more than willing to participate in Juilliard’s outside investigation in order to protect and defend my reputation,’ Beaser wrote Sunday in a statement to The Washington Post. ‘Until the school concludes this process, I have agreed to be on leave from my teaching position.’
The VAN story also included accounts of other abuses at the school, including claims from a student alleging uninvited advances by Pulitzer- and Grammy-winning composer and Juilliard professor Christopher Rouse, who died in 2019, as well as allegations against Juilliard professor John Corigliano, a longtime composer and faculty member accused by eight former Juilliard attendees for an alleged “unofficial policy” against taking on female students. (Corigliano denied the claims in an email to VAN.)…” Read more at Washington Post
Grant Wahl Died of a Burst Blood Vessel, His Family Says
An autopsy in New York showed that the journalist had a tear in the ascending aorta, a large vessel that carries blood from the heart.
The sports journalist Grant Wahl covering the Wales-U.S. World Cup match on Nov. 21 at Ahmad bin Ali Stadium in Qatar. He collapsed and died on Friday.Credit...Doug Zimmerman/ISI Photos, via Getty Images
“Grant Wahl, the celebrated soccer journalist who died suddenly last week at the World Cup in Qatar, had a rupture in a blood vessel leading from the heart, his family announced on Wednesday.
His death resulted from a weakness in an artery wall called an aneurysm, which may balloon outward and then tear open. An autopsy conducted in New York revealed that Mr. Wahl, 49, experienced a catastrophic rupture in the ascending aorta, which carries oxygenated blood from the heart.
The autopsy puts an end to rampant speculation that followed Mr. Wahl’s death. Posts on social media hinted at links to Covid vaccines or retaliation by the Qatari government for an article Mr. Wahl had written about immigrant deaths.
Mr. Wahl’s wife, Dr. Celine Gounder, is a leading infectious disease physician who rose to prominence during the coronavirus pandemic and advised President Biden’s transition team on Covid-19. She and the rest of the family rejected, in particular, the speculation linking his death to vaccines, saying that it was especially insulting because of her work….” Read more at New York Times
Charted: Sleeper hit
Data: Luminate; Chart: Axios Visuals
“The second most-streamed song of 2022 in the U.S. was "Heat Waves," by the English group Glass Animals.
Why it matters: ‘Heat Waves’ only really took off after a snippet of it became ubiquitous on TikTok. As such, it's a prime example of how a song that almost no one loves can become huge just thanks to social media, Axios' Felix Salmon writes.
Between the lines: ‘Heat Waves’ didn't look like a megahit upon its release.
It amassed 2.3 million U.S. streams in its first week — respectable, not earth-shattering.
Compare it with Taylor Swift's ‘Anti-Hero,’ which picked up 51 million.
The big picture: It's not uncommon for a song to reach 1 billion U.S. cumulative streams. Journey's ‘Don't Stop Believin,’ was initially released in 1981 and is still in the 200 most-streamed songs of 2022.” Read more at Axios