The Full Belmonte, 1/22/2022
The Justice Department said it was filing an appeal to a ruling that blocked the Biden administration’s Covid-19 vaccine requirement for federal workers.
PHOTO: CHARLES KRUPA/ASSOCIATED PRESS
“A federal judge blocked the Biden administration’s Covid-19 vaccine mandate for federal workers. This is the latest disappointment in the White House’s plan to vaccinate people, and the Justice Department said it intends to appeal. Last week, the Supreme Court blocked a Covid vax requirement for large private employers but allowed such rules for healthcare workers who treat Medicare and Medicaid patients.” Read more at Wall Street Journal
“Vaccines + boosters = great Covid-19 variant protection.
That’s according to three studies the CDC released recently. One of them found that a third dose of the vaccine by either Pfizer-BioNTech or Moderna was at least 90% effective at preventing Covid-19 sufferers from winding up in a hospital during both the Delta and Omicron waves. The CDC also said that vaccination was the safest way to develop immunity against Covid, since catching the virus still poses a threat of death or serious illness even if those risks are low.” Read more at Wall Street Journal
“WASHINGTON — Law enforcement officials, members of Congress and the House committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol are digging deeper into the role that fake slates of electors played in efforts by former President Donald J. Trump to cling to power after he lost the 2020 election.
In recent days, the state attorneys general in Michigan and New Mexico have asked the Justice Department to investigate fake slates of electors that falsely claimed that Mr. Trump, not Joseph R. Biden Jr., had won their states. Representative Mark Pocan, Democrat of Wisconsin, wrote to Attorney General Merrick B. Garland on Friday demanding an investigation into the same issue in his state.
And this week, members of the House committee scrutinizing the Jan. 6 riot said that they, too, were examining the part that the bogus electoral slates played in Mr. Trump’s scheme to overturn the election.” Read more at New York Times
“Thich Nhat Hanh, a Vietnamese Buddhist monk who was one of the world’s most influential Zen masters, spreading messages of mindfulness, compassion and nonviolence, died on Saturday at his home in the Tu Hieu Temple in Hue, Vietnam. He was 95.
The death was announced by Plum Village, his organization of monasteries. He suffered a severe brain hemorrhage in 2014 that left him unable to speak, though he could communicate through gestures.
A prolific author, poet, teacher and peace activist, Thich Nhat Hanh was exiled from Vietnam after opposing the war in the 1960s and became a leading voice in a movement he called ‘engaged Buddhism,’ the application of Buddhist principles to political and social reform.
Traveling widely on speaking tours in the United States and Europe (he was fluent in English and French), Thich Nhat Hanh (pronounced tik nyaht hahn) was a major influence on Western practices of Buddhism, urging the embrace of mindfulness, which his website describes as ‘the energy of being aware and awake to the present moment.’” Read more at New York Times
“Anti-abortion protesters descended on Washington from across the country Friday for the annual March for Life, a ritual that this year took on a tone of hopeful celebration as they anticipated the Supreme Court overturning the decision that established a constitutional right to abortion a half-century ago.
The marchers have arrived by the busload in Washington every January since 1974, the year after the Supreme Court’s decision in Roe v. Wade established a nationwide right to abortion. The tension this year was higher for both sides in the abortion debate as they await the court’s ruling on a Mississippi law that bans abortion after 15 weeks. The Roe decision forbade states to ban abortion before a fetus becomes viable, or roughly 22 weeks.” Read more at Boston Globe
“As anti-vaccine activists from across the country prepare to gather on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial on Sunday, they are hoping their rally will mark a once-fringe movement’s arrival as a lasting force in American society.
That hope, some public health experts fear, is justified.
Almost two years into the coronavirus pandemic, the movement to challenge vaccines’ safety — and reject vaccine mandates — has never been stronger. An ideology whose most notable adherents were once religious fundamentalists and minor celebrities is now firmly entrenched among tens of millions of Americans.
Baseless fears of vaccines have been a driving force among the approximately 20 percent of US adults who have refused some of the most effective medicines in human history: the mRNA vaccines developed against the coronavirus by Pfizer, with German partner BioNTech, and Moderna. The nation that produced Jonas Salk has exported anti-vaccine propaganda around the globe, wreaking havoc on public health campaigns in places such as Germany and Kenya.
That propaganda has also found its way into many reaches of American life. It has invaded people’s offices and shaped the daily decisions of school principals. It has riven families and boosted political campaigns. What was once an overwhelming public consensus on vaccine safety is now a new front in the nation’s culture wars. It is no accident that some in the anti-vaccine movement are describing Sunday’s rally as their first equivalent of the March for Life, the annual antiabortion rally that took place in Washington on Friday.” Read more at Boston Globe
“A Texas man was arrested Friday and charged with threatening election and other government officials in Georgia, in the first case brought by a Justice Department task force formed to combat such threats, authorities said.
In an indictment, federal prosecutors alleged that Chad Christopher Stark, 54, posted a message on Craigslist on Jan. 5, 2021, saying it was ‘time to kill’ an official, whose name is not included in the court documents.
‘Georgia Patriots it’s time for us to take back our state from these Lawless treasonous traitors. It’s time to invoke our Second Amendment right it’s time to put a bullet in the treasonous Chinese [Official A]. Then we work our way down to [Official B] the local and federal corrupt judges,’ Stark wrote, according to the indictment.” Read more at Boston Globe
“Scott Quiner, an operations manager at a transportation company in Minnesota, became sick with Covid-19 in October.
Mr. Quiner, 55, who was unvaccinated, was hospitalized the next month, and his case became so severe that he had to be placed on a ventilator, according to court records. For weeks, he remained on the ventilator at Mercy Hospital in Coon Rapids, Minn., a city of 62,000 people about 16 miles north of Minneapolis.
Then, on Jan. 11, hospital officials told Mr. Quiner’s wife, Anne, that they would be removing him from the ventilator in two days, over her objections.
What followed was a legal case that raised questions over who has the right to make wrenching life-or-death decisions when patients cannot speak for themselves. It also underscored the tensions between people who refuse the coronavirus vaccine and the hospitals that have been filled with patients sick with the virus, a majority of them unvaccinated.” Read more at New York Times
“WASHINGTON — A federal judge handed a crucial free-speech victory to six University of Florida professors Friday, ordering the university to stop enforcing a policy that had barred them from giving expert testimony in lawsuits against the state.
The stinging ruling, by Judge Mark E. Walker of U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Florida, accused the university of trying to silence the professors for fear that their testimony would anger state officials and legislators who control the school’s funding. Judge Walker likened that to the decision last month by Hong Kong University to remove a 25-foot sculpture marking the 1989 massacre of student protesters in Beijing’s Tiananmen Square by the Chinese military, apparently for fear of riling the authoritarian Chinese government.
If the comparison distressed university officials, he wrote, ‘the solution is simple. Stop acting like your contemporaries in Hong Kong.’
A university spokeswoman, Hessy Fernandez, said school officials would review the order before deciding whether to appeal it.” Read more at New York Times
“WASHINGTON — Gov. Doug Ducey of Arizona sued the Biden administration on Friday to block its efforts to claw back pandemic relief money that the state has been using to undercut mask requirements in schools.
The lawsuit is the latest legal fight between a Republican-led state and the Biden administration over how the $350 billion in state and local pandemic aid that Congress allocated last year can be used. It follows a series of warnings from the Treasury Department that Arizona could lose some of the $4.2 billion that it was awarded in the rescue package.
The funds in question relate to two education programs that Mr. Ducey, a Republican, established last year in response to mask requirements that some school districts in the state enacted. The state tried unsuccessfully to enact a law banning school mask mandates last year, but Mr. Ducey continues to oppose rules that require them.
The state has used federal money to help schools and students get around the mandates. A $163 million program, funded by federal relief money, provides up to $1,800 per pupil to public and charter schools but excludes schools that require masks.” Read more at New York Times
“Four months after Gabby Petito went missing while on a cross-country road trip with her fiance, the FBI says all evidence points to her partner as the sole culprit, including a notebook found with his body.
In its final update on the investigation, the FBI on Friday shared its timeline of the Petito case, from last August, when Brian Laundrie, 23, used Petito’s debit card on his drive back to Florida, to the medical examiner’s report that Laundrie died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound. His remains were found after a month-long manhunt on Oct. 20 in Florida’s Carlton Reserve, along with a backpack, revolver and notebook, which the FBI said contained ‘written statements by Mr. Laundrie claiming responsibility for Ms. Petito’s death.’
The 22-year-old’s killing has drawn international interest on social media, including Internet sleuths who scrutinized the couple’s social media posts and those who criticized the lack of similar attention on missing women of color.” Read more at Washington Post
“A former associate of Rudy Giuliani was sentenced by a federal judge Friday to a year and a day in prison on a campaign-finance charge, capping the fall of a key figure in the first impeachment inquiry into former President Donald Trump.
Florida businessman Igor Fruman pleaded guilty in September in a New York federal court to soliciting a political contribution from a foreign national. Federal prosecutors accused him and others of conspiring to funnel money from a wealthy Russian businessman to influence American politics. Federal law prohibits foreign nationals from making political contributions in U.S. elections.” Read more at New York Times
“A British astrophysicist visiting his girlfriend just outside Atlanta was killed by a stray bullet on Jan. 16 that struck him while he was lying in bed. Matthew Willson, 31, died of a single gunshot wound to the head after being transported to a hospital, local law enforcement said Thursday.
Willson, who was from Chertsey, a London suburb, was next to his girlfriend when he was shot in Brookhaven, Ga., around 2 a.m. The couple heard a heavy round of gunshots when she suggested calling the police, she told British media, which reported they had met when he worked as a researcher at Georgia State University.
‘His last words were, ‘Sure, I’m sure they are just messing around,’ said his partner, Katherine Shepard, who saw him slumping over in the dark, only to realize he had been hit. She recalled trying to stop the bleeding from his head with a towel, urging him to ‘stay with me’ as his eyes closed and he struggled to breathe.” Read more at Washington Post
“A single word sparked a dispute this week that ensnared at least three Supreme Court justices, a veteran NPR reporter, and eventually her newsroom’s public editor.
It may all come down to the use of the word ‘asked.’
NPR’s Nina Totenberg reported on Tuesday that Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. had ‘in some form or other, asked the other justices to mask up’ in the courtroom. The broadcast and article caused a small sensation because it seemed to explain why the justices had all appeared in face masks during arguments over vaccine mandates this month, with two conspicuous exceptions: Neil M. Gorsuch, the only bare face on the bench, and his next-seat neighbor Sonia Sotomayor, who was not even in the courtroom and participated remotely from her office.
According to Totenberg, Roberts had asked the justices to mask up at the hearing out of concern for Sotomayor, who has diabetes and thus an elevated risk of becoming seriously ill from covid-19.
The thrust of the article was Gorsuch’s apparent indifference to the request, implying his decision to show up maskless amounted to open defiance of the chief justice, and forced his at-risk colleague to work remotely. Totenberg suggested Gorsuch’s behavior was consistent with his divisiveness on the court: Since he was appointed by President Trump in 2017, she reported, he ‘has proved a prickly justice, not exactly beloved even by his conservative soul mates on the court.’
It seemed like a nice scoop for NPR. Until Roberts dissented.
In an unusual response to a press report, the chief justice said in a statement on Wednesday that he ‘did not request Justice Gorsuch or any other justice to wear a mask on the bench.’ (Gorsuch and Sotomayor also released statements denying that Sotomayor had asked Gorsuch to wear a mask, though NPR hadn’t reported she did.)
The thrust of the article was Gorsuch’s apparent indifference to the request, implying his decision to show up maskless amounted to open defiance of the chief justice, and forced his at-risk colleague to work remotely. Totenberg suggested Gorsuch’s behavior was consistent with his divisiveness on the court: Since he was appointed by President Trump in 2017, she reported, he ‘has proved a prickly justice, not exactly beloved even by his conservative soul mates on the court.’
It seemed like a nice scoop for NPR. Until Roberts dissented.
In an unusual response to a press report, the chief justice said in a statement on Wednesday that he ‘did not request Justice Gorsuch or any other justice to wear a mask on the bench.’ (Gorsuch and Sotomayor also released statements denying that Sotomayor had asked Gorsuch to wear a mask, though NPR hadn’t reported she did.)
The statement quickly became fodder for criticism of NPR and Totenberg, who has covered the Supreme Court and legal issues for NPR since 1975. Fox News carried several segments on the dispute. On social media, the hashtag #DefundNPR trended.
Totenberg and NPR offered a rejoinder on Wednesday. ‘NPR stands by its reporting,’ Totenberg wrote in a news story reporting on the reaction to her original news story.
And there it stood — until NPR’s public editor, Kelly McBride, weighed in with an assessment late Thursday. McBride, who functions as NPR’s ombudsman and has no authority over its newsroom, recommended that the organization issue a ‘clarification’ to Totenberg’s story — not quite as serious as a correction, but still nothing any reporter wants under her byline.
McBride suggested that despite the definitive language in her article, Totenberg wasn’t actually sure how Roberts conveyed his concerns to his fellow justices — whether he ‘asked’ them to wear masks, or made his thoughts known in a subtler way. She quoted Totenberg as saying, ‘If I knew exactly how he communicated this I would say it. Instead I said ‘in some form.’
McBride concluded that using the word ‘asked’ was ‘inaccurate’ and “misleading,” and wrote that NPR should clarify the article accordingly.
Totenberg seemed to reject the advice, telling the Daily Beast on Thursday night that McBride ‘can write any goddamn thing she wants, whether or not I think it’s true. She’s not clarifying anything.’
And indeed, as of Friday afternoon, there is still no clarification or correction on Totenberg’s original article. But both NPR and Totenberg have seemed tacitly to acknowledge the problem elsewhere. In a follow-up report Tuesday afternoon on ‘All Things Considered,’ Totenberg avoided the word ‘asked’ and said Roberts had merely ‘suggested’ masks be worn in the courtroom. Neither she nor NPR indicated that her characterization had changed from her report that morning.” Read more at Washington Post
“Jeremy Smith got sick in October 2020, but it wasn't serious. A stuffy nose. A cough. The proverbial cold-like symptoms of a mild COVID-19 infection, and it passed within a few days.
But he never really got better. Instead, he got worse. Fatigue. Nerve pain. Blood-pressure fluctuations. A brain that fritzes out every so often, leaving him unsure where he's supposed to be or what he's supposed to be doing. Returning to his pre-infection job of helping surgeons in the operating room is out of the question.
After multiple doctors' visits and experimental treatments, Smith, at last, has a diagnosis: long COVID, a condition in which remnants of the virus wreak havoc on a survivors' body. A year after the federal government formally began studying the impacts of long COVID, millions of Americans like Smith are still struggling to get back to work, battling with bureaucrats and employers about their newfound disabilities, and trying to secure financial help as the fast-moving omicron variant is infecting a new surge of Americans.” Read more at USA Today
“LOUISVILLE, Ky. — Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell said Friday there has been an ‘outrageous mischaracterization’ of his history on voting rights and race relations in response to a misspoken comment he made about Black voter turnout.
A backlash built up after McConnell responded Wednesday to a question about voting-related concerns voiced by voters of color by saying: ‘Well, the concern is misplaced, because if you look at the statistics, African American voters are voting in just as high a percentage as Americans.’
Many people decried his comment as implying Black people are not Americans.
From apartheid to affirmative action: Sen. Mitch McConnell's complicated history on race
McConnell clarified Friday that he inadvertently left out the word 'all' before the word 'Americans' in that much-lambasted sentence. He also pushed back against criticisms of his record during his decades-long political career that have accompanied the uproar over what he said Wednesday.” Read more at USA Today
“WASHINGTON — Reprising the rigged-election belief that has become a mantra among their supporters, Republican politicians in at least three states are proposing to establish police forces to hunt exclusively for voter fraud and other election crimes, a category of offenses that experts say is tiny at best.
The plans are part of a new wave of initiatives that Republicans say are directed at voter fraud. They are being condemned by voting rights advocates and even some local election supervisors, who call them costly and unnecessary appeasement of the Republican base that will select primary-election winners for this November’s midterms and the 2024 presidential race.
The next round of voting clashes comes after the apparent demise of Democratic voting rights legislation in Washington on Thursday. It is a reminder that while the Democratic agenda in Washington seems dead, Republican state-level efforts to make voting harder show no sign of slowing down.
Supporters say the added enforcement will root out instances of fraud and assure the public that everything possible is being done to make sure that American elections are accurate and legitimate. Critics say the efforts can easily be abused and used as political cudgels or efforts to intimidate people from registering and voting. And Democrats say the main reason Republican voters have lost faith in the electoral system is because of the incessant Republican focus on almost entirely imagined fraud.
The most concrete proposal is in Florida, where Gov. Ron DeSantis asked the State Legislature last week for $5.7 million to create a 52-person ‘election crimes and security’ force in the secretary of state’s office. The plan, which Mr. DeSantis has been touting since the fall, would include 20 sworn police officers and field offices statewide.
That was followed on Thursday by a pledge by David Perdue, the former Georgia senator who is a Republican candidate for governor, to create his own force of election police ‘to make Georgia elections the safest and securest in the country.’ Mr. Perdue, who lost his Senate seat in 2020, claimed that Gov. Brian Kemp, a Republican who is seeking re-election, weakened election standards and refused to investigate claims of fraud following President Biden’s narrow win in the state.
And in Arizona, a vocal supporter of former President Donald J. Trump’s lies about a stolen election, State Senator Wendy Rogers, has filed legislation to establish a $5 million ‘bureau of elections’ in the governor’s office with the power to subpoena witnesses and impound election equipment.
Ms. Rogers’s bill probably faces an uphill road in the Legislature, where Republicans are only narrowly in control and have been battered for their support of a widely ridiculed multimillion-dollar inquiry into 2020 election results. Prospects for the Florida and Georgia proposals are less clear.” Read more at New York Times
“Starbucks workers across the U.S. are using social media and online meetings to seek guidance from their colleagues in Buffalo, N.Y., who formed the coffee chain’s first union at a corporate store in December. Approximately two dozen of Starbucks’s estimated 9,000 U.S. corporate stores have filed for individual union elections, including ones in Chicago, Boston, Cleveland and the chain’s hometown, Seattle. Roughly 3,500 licensed Starbucks stores in the U.S. already have unions; those locations are usually at hotels, grocery stores and travel plazas. Starbucks has launched efforts to discourage labor organizing within its workforce, saying the company tends to work better with its employees ‘as partners, without a union between us.’ It has been sending managers to stores that are looking to unionize to talk to staffers and convey management’s stance.” Read more at Wall Street Journal
“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.
One day after the attack, Mr. Hannity sent a text message to Kayleigh McEnany, then the White House press secretary, describing a five-point plan for approaching conversations with the president, according to documents released by the House committee investigating the Jan. 6 riot.
After urging Ms. McEnany to avoid discussion of a ‘stolen election,’ Mr. Hannity proffered another talking point to use with Mr. Trump: ‘Yes, impeachment and 25th amendment are real, and many people will quit.
Mr. Hannity appeared to be referring to the possibilities that Mr. Trump could be impeached, face mass resignations from his staff or be temporarily removed from office by a group of his cabinet secretaries invoking the 25th Amendment.
Ms. McEnany replied: ‘Love that. Thank you. That is the playbook. I will help reinforce.’
Fox News, where Ms. McEnany is now a commentator and a co-host of a weekday program, declined to comment on Thursday.
In public, Mr. Hannity and Ms. McEnany remain lock-step supporters of Mr. Trump and his worldview. But their private exchanges show the level of alarm among even the president’s closest allies after the Jan. 6 riot, as Mr. Trump persisted in his false claims that the election had been stolen from him and his political future appeared deeply precarious.
The exchanges were included in a letter sent by the House committee to Ivanka Trump, Mr. Trump’s daughter and one of his senior advisers. The committee is seeking Ms. Trump’s cooperation as it tries to piece together a scramble inside the White House to persuade Mr. Trump to denounce the attackers at the Capitol.
In another exchange included in the letter, Mr. Hannity urged Ms. McEnany to keep the president away from certain advisers. ‘Key now. No more crazy people,’ Mr. Hannity wrote. Ms. McEnany replied: ‘Yes 100%.’” Read more at New York Times
“How Big Beef Is Fueling the Amazon’s Destruction
Jessica Brice investigates how the top beef producer has helped push the world’s largest rainforest to a tipping point at which it’s no longer able to clean the Earth’s air because large swaths now emit more carbon than they absorb.” Read more at BloombergCattle on a farm inside an environmentally protected area in Para state, Brazil.
Photographer: Jonne Roriz/Bloomberg
“PROVIDENCE — The University of Rhode Island voted Friday to revoke honorary degrees previously awarded to retired Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn and former New York City mayor Rudolph Giuliani.” Read more at Boston Globe
“Louie Anderson, the genial stand-up comedian, actor and television host who won an Emmy Award for his work on the series ‘Baskets’ and two Daytime Emmys for his animated children’s show, ‘Life With Louie,’ died on Friday at a hospital in Las Vegas. He was 68.
His death was confirmed by his longtime publicist, Glenn Schwartz, who said the cause was complications of diffuse large B cell lymphoma, a form of blood cancer.
In an entertainment career that spanned more than four decades, Mr. Anderson had a self-deprecating style that won him legions of fans, among them Henny Youngman and Johnny Carson, whose early support catapulted him to stardom.” Read more at New York Times
“22 — The number of new STEM disciplines that international students can now study to qualify for work in the U.S. on their student visas, part of changes the Department of Homeland Security announced today. People in these fields are allowed to work for three years after graduation instead of the one year all foreign students get.
$113 billion — The estimated value of states’ reserved funds for fiscal year 2021, according to the National Association of State Budget Officers. More tax revenue and federal aid are to thank. States could spend the extra cash on tax rebates, worker bonuses, paying down debts, pension obligations and infrastructure projects.
41% — The share of homeowners who use their bathrooms for rest and relaxation, the home improvement website Houzz found. For an ooh-la-la loo, folks are embracing toilets equipped with hidden bidets, self-filling bathtubs and other high-tech bathroom fixtures and accessories.” Read more at Wall Street Journal
“Five months. Forty-one countries. Thirty-two thousand miles. By any count, teenage aviator Zara Rutherford's trip around the world was the journey of a lifetime. But it's also one for the history books: With her feat, the 19-year-old has become the youngest woman to fly around the world solo AND the the first woman to circumnavigate the globe in a microlight aircraft. (Specifically a bespoke Shark ultralight aircraft for you aviation buffs, and I know you're out there!) She took off in August, and after weeks of delays and one very cold flight over Siberia, Rutherford touched down in Belgium on January 20 and got to say those three magic words: ‘I made it.’ Throughout her journey, Rutherford has been supporting charities that focus on women in STEM careers. Only an estimated 5% of airline pilots around the world are women, and Rutherford wants to change that. ‘It's an amazing career with amazing opportunities,’ she says.” Read more at CNN
“Deep in the South Pacific, scientists have explored a rare stretch of pristine corals shaped like roses off the coast of Tahiti. The reef is thought to be one of the largest found at such depths and seems untouched by climate change or human activities.
Laetitia Hédouin said she first saw the corals during a recreational dive with a local diving club months earlier.
‘When I went there for the first time, I thought, ’Wow — we need to study that reef. There’s something special about that reef,’ said Hédouin, a researcher at the French National Center for Scientific Research in Moorea, French Polynesia.
What struck Hédouin was that the corals looked healthy and weren’t affected by a bleaching event in 2019. Corals are tiny animals that grow and form reefs in oceans around the world.
Globally, coral reefs have been depleted from overfishing and pollution. Climate change is also harming delicate corals — including those in areas neighboring the newly discovered reef — with severe bleaching caused by warmer waters. Between 2009 and 2018, 14% of the world’s corals were killed, according to a 2020 report by the Global Coral Reef Monitoring Project.” Read more at AP News
“NEW ORLEANS (AP) — The endangered Sumatran orangutan infant at New Orleans’ zoo is being bottle-fed because his mother wasn’t producing enough milk.
he still unnamed baby was being tube-fed as well, but the tube was removed Jan. 13, Audubon Zoo spokeswoman Annie Kinler Matherne said Wednesday.
The great apes with long red hair are considered critically endangered by the International Union for Conservation of Nature. Threats to the Sumatran species include hunting and the destruction of the forests and peat swamps where they spend nearly all their time in trees.
Twelve-year-old Menari gave birth to the baby on Christmas Eve; a twin brother was stillborn. Days later, the baby was showing signs of weakness and lack of nursing.
Veterinarians examined Menari, a first-time mother, and discovered the lactation problem.
Since then the infant has had round-the-clock care from zoo staffers wearing furry vests that the baby can cling to. Until the feeding tube was removed, their duties included making sure he didn’t pick or pull at the thin tube inserted through his nose.
He’s been eating well and now weighs 1.98 kilograms (4.35 pounds), Audubon Nature Institute Vice President and general curator Bob Lessnau said in a statement sent by Matherne.
Since Jan. 8, six to seven hours a day has been spent in front of the other orangutans so they can get to know him, Lessnau said.
‘Care staff have noticed that the group is most intrigued when there is a diaper change or a bottle feed happening!’ a Jan. 13 update said.
Bulan, at age 2 the oldest of father Jambi’s three New Orleans offspring, ‘is especially interested in the new little guy,’ the statement said. Madu, the second, was born in February 2021.
Experts from Children’s Hospital of New Orleans have helped out, including a speech pathologist brought in to suggest ways to stimulate the baby’s suckling, Lessnau said.
Menari is getting a drug that can help maintain lactation, said Bob MacLean, the zoo’s senior veterinarian.
‘We don’t know if she will maintain or restart lactation if we have a successful reintroduction of the infant to her,’ he said Wednesday.
But there’s hope in Menari’s history: She also was hand-raised.” Read more at AP News
The city’s biggest arthouse cinema may become a live entertainment venue just shy of its 100th birthday
“For years, the San Francisco underground drag performer and cinephile Peaches Christ has filled the city’s renowned Castro Theatre with her Midnight Mass series, juxtaposing cult film screenings with live, drag-parody re-enactments and onstage interviews. These loving but irreverent late-night events have been a staple of LGBTQ+ culture at the city’s pre-eminent arthouse theater, itself one of the most visible landmarks in San Francisco’s most famous gayborhood.
As Peaches Christ puts it: ‘Cinema has been my religion, and the Castro is our Vatican.’
And now, one month after hosting the US premiere of The Matrix Resurrections and a few months before its 100th anniversary, the owners of the opulent, 1,400 seat movie palace announced that it may soon become primarily a venue for live entertainment and no longer screen many films at all.
Wednesday’s news sent shockwaves through the city’s artistic and cinematic communities, revealing a partnership between the Castro and Another Planet Entertainment (APE), a Bay Area concert promoter. Known for preserving other historic venues – and for producing Outside Lands, a three-day music festival typically held in Golden Gate Park every August – APE stated that it plans a major renovation of the interior and the renowned marquee, as well as a dramatic shift in the types of events the Castro will become home to.
The news stunned local film-makers and festival programmers, who urged APE to solicit community input – so much so that the promoter rushed to mollify the reeling city, saying nothing untoward would happen overnight.
Century-old movie houses and single-screen theaters have been disappearing from San Francisco for years, victims of rising operating costs and the popularity of streaming services long before the pandemic struck. But as a cultural institution, the Castro Theatre is unique. It’s home to numerous festivals and premieres as well as matinee screenings of the camp Hollywood classics such as Grey Gardens and Auntie Mame. A destination for American cineastes, it’s where you might see a painstakingly restored 1940s noir, witness the director Peter Bogdanovich badmouthing Cher during a Q&A, or just sing along to Grease.
The Castro had already gone dark for 15 months during Covid, reopening in June 2021 to host the 45th edition of Frameline, San Francisco’s long-running LGBTQ+ film festival.
In continuing a longstanding tradition of preceding each film with live music from the in-house organ – no longer a ‘Mighty Wurlitzer’ but arguably the largest pipe-digital hybrid organ in the world – the theater’s return embodied last summer’s burst of optimism, when California briefly relaxed its pandemic restrictions on indoor gatherings. It’s also very, very gay: San Francisco, the theme, revived by Judy Garland, from the 1936 disaster movie of the same name, is always the last song before the curtain goes up. Consequently, the theater’s large and vocal queer fan base was particularly saddened by the prospect of losing it for good.” Read more at The Guardian