The Full Belmonte, 12/24/2022
Massive winter storm brings rolling blackouts, power outages
“MISSION, Kan. (AP) — Tens of millions of Americans endured bone-chilling temperatures, blizzard conditions, power outages and canceled holiday gatherings Friday from a winter storm that forecasters said was nearly unprecedented in its scope, exposing about 60% of the U.S. population to some sort of winter weather advisory or warning.
More than 200 million people were under an advisory or warning on Friday, the National Weather Service said. The weather service’s map ‘depicts one of the greatest extents of winter weather warnings and advisories ever,’ forecasters said.
Power outages have left about 1.4 million homes and businesses in the dark, according to the website PowerOutage, which tracks utility reports. The Tennessee Valley Authority, the nation’s largest public utility, ended its rolling blackouts Friday afternoon but continued to urge homes and businesses to conserve power. In Georgia, hundreds of people in Atlanta and northern parts of the state were without power and facing the possibility of sub-zero wind chills without heat.
And nearly 5,000 flights within, into or out of the U.S. were canceled Friday, according to the tracking site FlightAware, causing more mayhem as travelers try to make it home for the holidays.
‘We’ve just got to stay positive,’ said Wendell Davis, who plays basketball with a team in France and was waiting at O’Hare in Chicago on Friday after a series of flight cancellations.
The huge storm stretched from border to border. In Canada, WestJet canceled all flights Friday at Toronto Pearson International Airport, beginning at 9 a.m. as meteorologists in the country warned of a potential once-in-a-decade weather event.
And in Mexico, migrants waited near the U.S. border in unusually cold temperatures as they awaited a U.S. Supreme Court decision on whether and when to lift pandemic-era restrictions that prevent many from seeking asylum.
Forecasters said a bomb cyclone — when atmospheric pressure drops very quickly in a strong storm — had developed near the Great Lakes, stirring up blizzard conditions, including heavy winds and snow.
Multiple highways were closed and crashes claimed at least six lives, officials said. At least two people died in a massive pileup involving some 50 vehicles on the Ohio Turnpike. A Kansas City, Missouri, driver was killed Thursday after skidding into a creek, and three others died Wednesday in separate crashes on icy northern Kansas roads.
Michigan also faced a deluge of crashes, including one involving nine semitrailers.
Brent Whitehead said it took him 7.5 hours __ instead of the usual six __ to drive from his home near Minneapolis to his parents’ home outside Chicago on Thursday in sometimes icy conditions.
‘Thank goodness I had my car equipped with snow tires,’ he said.
Activists also were rushing to get homeless people out of the cold. Nearly 170 adults and children were keeping warm early Friday in Detroit at a shelter and a warming center that are designed to hold 100 people.
‘This is a lot of extra people’ but it wasn’t an option to turn anyone away, said Faith Fowler, the executive director of Cass Community Social Services, which runs both facilities.
In Chicago, Andy Robledo planned to spend the day organizing efforts to check on people without housing through his nonprofit, Feeding People Through Plants. Robledo and volunteers build tents modeled on ice-fishing tents, including a plywood subfloor.
‘It’s not a house, it’s not an apartment, it’s not a hotel room. But it’s a huge step up from what they had before,’ Robledo said.
In Portland, Oregon, nearly 800 people slept at five emergency shelters on Thursday night, as homeless outreach teams fanned out to distributed cold-weather survival gear. Shelters called for volunteers amid high demand and staffing issues. Employees were laid low by flu or respiratory symptoms or kept from work by icy roads, officials said.
DoorDash and Uber Eats suspended delivery service in some states, and bus service was disrupted in places like Seattle.
The power ceased at Jaime Sheehan’s Maryland bakery for about 90 minutes Friday, shutting off the convection oven and stilling the mixer she needed to make butter cream.
‘Thankfully, all of the orders that were going out today already finished yesterday,’ she said a few moments before the power returned.
At about the same time, Corey Newcomb and his family were entering their sixth hour without power at their home in the small town of Phenix, Virginia.
‘We are coping and that’s about it,’ Newcomb said in a Facebook message.
South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem said she was deploying the National Guard to haul timber to the Oglala Sioux and Rosebud Sioux tribes and help with snow removal.
‘We have families that are way out there that we haven’t heard from in two weeks,’ Wayne Boyd, chief of staff to the Rosebud Sioux president, said.
Fearing that some are running out of food, the tribe was hoping to get a helicopter on Saturday to check on the stranded.
The Oglala Sioux Tribe, meanwhile, was using snowmobiles to reach members who live at the end of miles-long dirt roads.
‘It’s been one heck of a fight so far,’ said tribal President Frank Star Comes Out.
On the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation, Harlie Young was huddled with five children and her 58-year-old father around a wood stove as 12-foot (3.6-meter) snow drifts blocked the house.
‘We’re just trying to look on the bright side that they’re still coming and they didn’t forget us,’ she said Friday, as the temperature plunged to frigid lows.
The weather service is forecasting the coldest Christmas in more than two decades in Philadelphia, where school officials shifted classes online Friday.
Atop New Hampshire’s Mount Washington, the tallest peak in the Northeast, the wind topped 150 mph (241 kph).
In Boston, rain combined with a high tide, sent waves over the seawall at Long Wharf and flooded some downtown streets. It was so bad in Vermont that Amtrak canceled service for the day, and nonessential state offices were closing early.
‘I’m hearing from crews who are seeing grown trees ripped out by the roots,’ Mari McClure, president of Green Mountain Power, the state’s largest utility, said at a news conference.
Calling it a ‘kitchen sink storm,’ New York Gov. Kathy Hochul declared a state of emergency. In parts of New York City, tidal flooding inundated roads, homes and businesses Friday morning, with police trudging through knee-deep water to pull stranded motorists to safety in Queens.
In Iowa, sports broadcaster Mark Woodley became a Twitter sensation after he was called on to do live broadcasts outdoors in the wind and snow because sporting events were called off. By midday Friday, a compilation of his broadcasts had been viewed nearly 5 million times on Twitter.
‘I’ve got good news and I’ve got bad news,’ he told an anchor. ‘The good news is that I can still feel my face right now. The bad news is, I kind of wish I couldn’t.’” Read more at AP News
House Clears $1.7 Trillion Spending Package, Averting Shutdown
The bill, which passed the Senate on Thursday, now heads to President Biden’s desk for his signature.
“WASHINGTON — Congress on Friday cleared a roughly $1.7 trillion government funding package that would provide significant increases to national security and domestic spending and billions of dollars to aid Ukraine, sending the measure to President Biden’s desk for his signature.
The bill was the last major legislative accomplishment of the 117th Congress and set aside $858 billion in funds for the military that Republicans pushed for and more than $772 billion for the education, health and veterans programs Democrats have championed. The measure, approved just before Christmas Eve, is the second major government funding bill passed during the Biden administration and served as the final opportunity for congressional Democrats to shape the federal budget while they retain control of both chambers.
On nearly party lines, the House approved the more than 4,000-page bill by a vote of 225 to 201, with one lawmaker voting present, a day after it was shepherded through the Senate. It concluded a scramble driven by the threat of both a government shutdown and a winter storm, a desire to enact unfinished legislation before the start of divided government next month, and a surprise appearance in Washington this week by President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine, who urged continued investment in his country’s fight against Russian invasion.
Mr. Biden, who is expected to sign the measure in the coming days, said that it ‘advances key priorities for our country and caps off a year of historic bipartisan progress for the American people.’
‘This bill is further proof that Republicans and Democrats can come together to deliver for the American people, and I’m looking forward to continued bipartisan progress in the year ahead,’ he added.
To ensure that the government does not run out of funds and shut down at the end of Friday as the legislation is processed, the House also approved a one-week stopgap bill, which Mr. Biden signed into law Friday afternoon. The president also signed a military policy bill on Friday that will be funded by the government spending package.
‘We have a big bill here because we have big needs for our country,’ Speaker Nancy Pelosi of California said on Friday, noting that it was most likely her last speech on the House floor as speaker. Evoking a common Democratic slogan this Congress, she added, ‘This is truly a package for the people.’
The legislation guarantees that the government will remain open through the end of the current fiscal year on Sept. 30. In a concession to secure the necessary Republican support in the Senate, Democrats agreed to a higher overall increase for military spending that matched the funding outlined in the defense policy package Mr. Biden signed into law on Friday.
It unlocks key funding accounted for in bipartisan legislation approved earlier this session, including money previously set aside in the infrastructure law and the industrial policy law. The package also sets aside more than $15 billion for lawmakers to direct money to over 7,200 community projects in their districts and states, the rebranded form of earmarks.
The annual government funding legislation includes a substantial increase in spending for the Pentagon and adds more money for health, education and veterans affairs programs. By providing billions of dollars to aid the Ukrainian government and replenish U.S. weaponry already sent abroad, it also brings the American investment in the country’s war effort to more than $100 billion this year.
Lawmakers also included about $40 billion to assist federal agencies and local communities as they rebuild after droughts, wildfires and hurricanes this year.
“It’s not a question of whether it’s perfect or not — it’s a very good bill,” said Representative Rosa DeLauro of Connecticut, the chairwoman of the Appropriations Committee. “It addresses some of the serious issues that this country faces and its challenges.”
The package contains a multitude of bipartisan legislative and fiscal priorities beyond the basic requirement that Congress continue to fund the government. It expands federal protections in the workplace for pregnant and breastfeeding mothers, bans TikTok on federal government devices and establishes new rules that would change how millions of Americans handle their retirement savings. It also includes changes related to infant formula supply and how the Food and Drug Administration regulates and tracks cosmetics.
Under the bill, states will be allowed in April to begin reassessing which Americans are still eligible for Medicaid, after a pandemic-era policy required people in the program to be covered during the federal Covid-19 public health emergency declaration. It shores up access to health care, including proposals that guarantee children enrolled in Medicaid and the federal Children’s Health Insurance Program can retain access for a full year regardless of whether their family income changes, and that establish a set funding stream for the Indian Health Service in the months ahead.
The package also includes substantial elements of a bipartisan plan to ensure the United States is better prepared for future pandemics, though lawmakers jettisoned another round of emergency aid to counter the toll of the coronavirus pandemic and a proposal to establish an independent commission to investigate how the government handled the spread of the virus.
And at the end of a Congress that began with a mob storming the Capitol during the certification of Mr. Biden’s 2020 election victory, lawmakers agreed to overhaul an archaic 135-year-old law, the Electoral Count Act, which former President Donald J. Trump and his supporters tried to exploit so he could remain in power.
Not every unfinished bipartisan priority made it into the package. In order to retain some Republican support, lawmakers dropped proposals that would have changed the tax code, including a revival of expanded monthly payments to most families with children, as well as bipartisan marijuana banking legislation, an effort to address the limit on the nation’s borrowing cap and a proposal that would have given Afghan refugees a direct path to legal immigration status.
The vote was sparsely attended, after more than half of the House members submitted the pandemic-era letter that allows a colleague to vote on their behalf. Both parties used proxy voting, though hard-line Republicans made a point of railing against the practice and the distortion of its use in speeches on the House floor.
The spending package is widely seen as the last guaranteed bill to keep the government funded, as Republicans prepare to take control of the House on Jan. 3 and leverage their new majority to force the Biden administration and Democrats to accept deep spending cuts that liberals have vowed to oppose. It served as a swan song for lawmakers retiring after decades in Congress — notably, Senators Patrick J. Leahy, Democrat of Vermont, and Richard C. Shelby, Republican of Alabama, from the helm of the Appropriations Committee — and champions of the spending process who are stepping away from leadership, like Ms. Pelosi and Representative Steny H. Hoyer of Maryland, the majority leader.
The vote tally exposed the stark contrast between House and Senate Republicans and their opposing approaches to government spending, foreshadowing potentially bitter political battles in the new year. More than a third of Republicans in the Senate voted in favor of the bill, including Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the minority leader; only nine House Republicans backed the measure.
‘I have concerns about the size and scope of the package,’ said Representative Kay Granger of Texas, who is poised to remain the top Republican on the Appropriations Committee.
‘I’m disappointed that I’m unable to support this bill,’ she added, citing the increase for programs unrelated to military spending.
Representative Kevin McCarthy of California, the minority leader trying to lock up the elusive votes needed to be the House speaker over a narrow Republican majority, delivered a barbed, roughly 25-minute speech in opposition to the sprawling package. He directly criticized the retiring lawmakers who crafted the measure, pilloried the proxy voting system that lawmakers in both parties used to avoid voting in person and lamented the opaqueness of the laborious process that led to the release of the sprawling package this week.
“This monstrosity is one of the most shameful acts I have ever seen in this body,” Mr. McCarthy said, ticking through what he called the worst parts of the legislation. That list included the increase in spending for domestic programs, some of the projects requested by Democrats like Mr. Leahy and Ms. DeLauro, and what he condemned as “woke handouts.”
The speech came as several far-right lawmakers, including those who have not yet publicly committed to supporting Mr. McCarthy’s speakership, have pledged to not only oppose the spending package but the legislative priorities of any Republican senatorwho voted for the measure.
After Mr. McCarthy concluded to a standing ovation from some Republicans gathered in the chamber, Representative Jim McGovern of Massachusetts, a Democrat and the chairman of the Rules Committee, stood up and shot back, ‘after listening to that, it’s clear he doesn’t have the votes yet.’
Of the nine Republicans who broke with Mr. McCarthy and his top lieutenants to vote for the measure, two are set to return to Congress next month: Representatives Brian Fitzpatrick of Pennsylvania and Steve Womack of Arkansas. One Democrat, Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York, opposed the measure; another, Representative Rashida Tlaib of Michigan, voted present.
Aides and staff members could be seen carting papers and materials across the building in preparation for the transition of power next month and the departure of retiring lawmakers.
Even before the short debate over the legislation ended, lawmakers were lined up to vote, eager to leave for the holidays and the remainder of the year. As the vote was called, the few Democrats who remained broke into applause.” Read more at New York Times
New law ends COVID-19 vaccine mandate for US troops
“WASHINGTON (AP) — U.S. military forces around the world will no longer be required to get the COVID-19 vaccine, after the mandate was lifted under an $858 billion defense spending bill passed by Congress and signed into law Friday by President Joe Biden.
The department has 30 days to work out the details for rescinding the mandate. The Pentagon said Friday that in the meantime the military services would pause any personnel actions, such as discharging troops who refused the shot, and all troops would still be encouraged to get vaccinated and boosted.
Biden had opposed the Republican-backed provision, agreeing with Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin that lifting the mandate was not in the best interests of the military, according to White House officials. But he ultimately accepted GOP demands in order to win passage of the legislation.
The contentious political issue, which has divided America, forced more than 8,400 troops out of the military for refusing to obey a lawful order when they declined to get the vaccine. Thousands of others have sought religious and medical exemptions.
The new law effectively ends those exemption requests, but questions remain about whether any limited restrictions may continue for troops on specific missions or assigned to areas of the world where vaccination is still required….” Read more at AP News
Title 42 border rules confound Washington, migrants alike
“WASHINGTON (AP) — The drawn-out saga of Title 42, the set of emergency powers that allows border officials to quickly turn away migrants, has been chaotic at the U.S.-Mexico border. In Washington, it hasn’t unfolded much better.
The Supreme Court is weighing whether to keep the powers in place following months of legal battles brought on by Republican-led states after President Joe Biden’s administration moved to end the Trump-era policy, which was set to lapse this week until the court agreed to take it up.
The administration has yet to lay out any systemic changes to manage an expected surge of migrants if the restrictions end. And a bipartisan immigration bill in Congress has been buried just as Republicans are set to take control of the House.
In short, America is right back where it has been. A divided nation is unable to agree on what a longer-term fix to the immigration system should look like. Basic questions — for example, should more immigrants be allowed in, or fewer? — are unanswered. Meantime the asylum system continues to strain under increasing numbers of migrants.
The Biden administration has been reluctant to take hardline measures that would resemble those of his predecessor. That’s resulted in a barrage of criticism from Republicans who are using Title 42 to hammer the president as ineffective on border security. The rules were introduced as an emergency health measure to prevent the spread of COVID-19.
‘The Democrats have lost the messaging war on this,’ said Charles Foster, a longtime immigration attorney in Texas who served as an immigration policy adviser to Republican George W. Bush but now considers himself independent. ‘The tragedy is, Democrats more than anyone should focus on this issue, because unless and until it can be fixed, and the perception changes, we’ll get nothing ever through Congress.’
Anyone who comes to the U.S. has the right to ask for asylum, but laws are narrow on who actually gets it. Under Biden, migrants arriving at the border are often let into the country and allowed to work while their cases progress. That process takes years because of a 2-million-case backlog in the immigration court system that was exacerbated by Trump-era rules.
Title 42 allows border officials to deny people the right to seek asylum, and they have done so 2.5 million times since March 2020. The emergency health authority has been applied disproportionately to those from countries that Mexico agreed to take back: Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador and more recently Venezuela, in addition to Mexico.
‘There is not going to be a good moment, politically speaking,’ to end the restrictions, said Jorge Loweree of the American Immigration Council. ‘The administration should have been preparing all along to create a better system for asylum seekers,’ Loweree said.
‘It has allowed the other side to weaponize this issue. And the longer it remains in place, the longer the weapon will remain effective.’
The authority was first invoked at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic by President Donald Trump, whose immigration policies were aimed at keeping out as many migrants as possible. He also drastically reduced the number of refugees allowed into the country, added restrictions to the asylum process that clogged the system and kept migrants in detention, and reduced legal immigration pathways.
Biden has been working to expand legal immigration and has undone some of the most restrictive Trump policies. But the administration kept the policy in place until this spring, and even expanded its use after announcing it would end.
Republican say there will be even more chaos if it’s lifted. But even with Title 42 in place, border officials have been encountering more migrants than ever before. In the budget year that ended Sept. 30, migrants were stopped 2.38 million times, up 37% from 1.73 million times the year before.
‘I don’t know why it’s taking them so long to get serious about deterrence,’ Republican Sen. Shelley Moore Capito of West Virginia said of the Biden administration. Capito is an incoming member of the Senate Republican leadership and the top GOP senator on the committee that oversees money for Homeland Security, the federal agency that manages border security.
Border officials have braced for an expected increase, and migrants who have arrived are unsure of how asylum processes will work when the policy ends. Homeland Security officials have reported faster processing for migrants in custody on the border, more temporary detention tents, staffing increases and more criminal prosecutions of smugglers.
They say progress has been made on a plan announced in April but large-scale changes are needed. Meanwhile, the Senate’s Republican leadership killed a bipartisan immigration bill that would have addressed some of these issues.
The split isn’t just inside Congress. One in 3 U.S. adults believes an effort is underway to replace native-born Americans with immigrants for electoral gains, according to an AP-NORC survey.
Biden and his aides have said they are working to divert migrants coming out of Central America and helping provide aid to poorer nations that are bleeding people headed for the U.S. But the president is limited without action from Congress.
White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said the administration is surging assistance to the border and will continue to do so. But ‘the removal of Title 42 does not mean the border is open,’ she said. ‘Anyone who suggests otherwise is simply doing the work of these smugglers who again are spreading misinformation, which is very dangerous.’
A year-long appropriations bill passed the Senate on Thursday that would give the Border Patrol 17% more money, as well as 13% more for the Justice Department to develop an electronic case management system for immigration courts.
But Citizenship and Immigration Services, central in the asylum process, only got one third of what Biden had proposed to speed up the system.
Democrats, for their part, say they want policies that reflect America’s reputation as a haven for those fleeing persecution. But they can’t agree on what that looks like.
Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., has been working on the issue for 20 years. This week, he stood on the Senate floor, sounding dejected as he talked about how Congress couldn’t push through reform.
‘It is a humanitarian and security nightmare that is only getting worse,’ he said. ‘We’re being flooded at the border by people who want to be in the United States, safely in the United States.’
Why, he asked, can’t Washington figure out a better way?” Read more at AP News
IRS Delays Gig-Tax Filing Rule for Side Hustles of More Than $600
“The Internal Revenue Service gave millions of Americans a one-year reprieve on new tax-reporting requirements, delaying implementation of a law that requires e-commerce platforms such as eBay, Etsy and Airbnb to give the tax agency information on users with more than $600 in revenue.” Read more at Wall Street Journal
U.S. life expectancy continued to fall in 2021 as covid, drug deaths surged
“The numbers: An American born in 2021 could expect to live to 76.4 years, according to government data released yesterday. That’s a drop from 77 years in 2020.
What’s driving this? The coronavirus pandemic and illegal drugs, which together took the lives of more than 500,000 people.” Read more at Washington Post
Immigration
“Migrants at the US-Mexico border are struggling to find shelter while enduring freezing temperatures. In Texas, El Paso is in the midst of a declared state of emergency over thousands of migrants living in unsafe conditions. The city has opened government-run shelters at its convention center, hotels, and several unused schools, but is unable to accept migrants who don't have documentation from Customs and Border Protection, city officials said. US border officials are also warning migrants about the potential dangers of crossing rivers or deserts during the dangerously cold weather. ‘Help avoid human death and tragedy, stay home or remain in a safe shelter,’ Hugo Carmona, Acting Associate Chief of US Border Patrol Operations, said in a statement.” Read more at CNN
University of California Academic Workers End Strike
The nearly six-week walkout had disrupted research and classes across the renowned public system as employees sought higher pay and benefits.
“SACRAMENTO — Academic employees at the University of California have voted to return to work, union leaders announced on Friday night, ending a historically large strike that had disrupted research and classes across the renowned public system for nearly six weeks.
The ratification votes by significant majorities of two fractious bargaining units of the United Auto Workers ensure that tens of thousands of employees will return in January once the winter break ends across the 10-campus system. The deals were praised by union officials, though some negotiators had argued that the agreement still did not provide enough pay and benefits to members beleaguered by California’s high cost of living.
‘These agreements redefine what is possible in terms of how universities support their workers, who are the backbone of their research and education enterprise,’ said Rafael Jaime, a doctoral candidate at the University of California, Los Angeles, and the president of U.A.W. 2865, in a statement. ‘They include especially significant improvements for parents and marginalized workers, and will improve the quality of life for every single academic employee at the University of California.’
Some 48,000 unionized workers, most of them graduate students, walked off the job in November, and about 36,000 remained on strike after postdoctoral employees and researchers separately ratified their contracts this month. The work stoppage was the largest among university-based workers in national history.
The workers whose contracts were ratified on Friday perform much of the day-to-day labor involved in classroom instruction, from conducting office hours to leading discussion groups, and their absence has already disrupted research, fall examinations and grading….
Key to the strike was California’s notoriously high cost of housing. The union had sought relief from soaring rents by demanding that the university tie compensation explicitly to the cost of campus-area housing. The workers also had asked the university to raise their base pay for part-time work to about $54,000 a year.
The deal ratified on Friday did not increase pay to that level, but it significantly raised starting salaries over the course of a two-and-a-half-year contract, with higher pay scales for more experienced workers and those facing particularly expensive housing costs at campuses in Berkeley, San Francisco and Los Angeles.
Starting pay will rise from roughly $22,000 to $35,500 for graduate student researchers, and about $23,000 to $34,000 for teaching assistants.
The agreement also included enhanced benefits for transportation, health care and child care, and offered recently organized student researchers their first-ever contractual protections….” Read more at New York Times
Gunfire at Mall of America Leaves One Dead and Shoppers Fleeing
A dispute between two groups of young men quickly led to a shooting in the nation’s largest mall on one of the busiest shopping days of the year.
“On one of the busiest shopping days of the year, a verbal altercation between two groups of young men quickly escalated to gunfire inside the Mall of America on Friday night, turning the sprawling retail and entertainment complex in Bloomington, Minn., into a chaotic crime scene where a 19-year-old lay dead, the authorities said.
The shooting came at a precarious moment for the mall, the nation’s largest, which has been considering new safety measures, including the installation of metal detectors, at a time of rising concern over gun violence.
The chief of the Bloomington Police Department, Booker Hodges, said he could not recall another fatal shooting at the immense mall, which welcomes millions of visitors every year with its hundreds of stores and attractions like the indoor theme park Nickelodeon Universe and the Sea Life Aquarium.
‘We had 16 cops in the mall, and they still decide to do this,’ Chief Hodges said. ‘I’m at a loss.’
The shooting occurred shortly before 8 p.m. inside a Nordstrom store when the two groups — between five and nine people — got into a verbal dispute that in about 30 seconds turned deadly as shots rang out, causing panicked shoppers to flee, Chief Hodges said….” Read more at New York Times
Gunman Kills at Least 3 in Paris in Suspected Racist Attack
The shooting, which prompted protests, took place at a Kurdish community center, and a 69-year-old has been taken into custody. The authorities said he ‘clearly wanted to target foreigners.’
“A gunman killed three people and wounded three others Friday at a Kurdish community center, a hair salon and a restaurant in central Paris in an attack that French officials said appeared directed at foreigners.
A 69-year-old man with a criminal record was taken into custody in the attack, which ignited neighborhood protests that led to violent clashes with the police. Riot police officers fired tear gas and clashed with dozens of angry protesters who lit trash cans on fire and threw projectiles at the police.
One of the wounded in the shooting was seriously injured, according to the Paris prosecutor, in the attack shortly before noon on Rue d’Enghien, a narrow street in the 10th Arrondissement of the French capital.
The gunman ‘clearly wanted to target foreigners,’ Gérald Darmanin, the French interior minister, told reporters in Paris, though he said his ‘exact motivations’ were unknown. He added that the gunman appeared to have acted alone.
Laure Beccuau, the Paris prosecutor, also told reporters that the police were investigating a possible racist motive for the attack, which killed one woman and two men.
On Twitter, President Emmanuel Macron said: ‘The Kurds of France were targeted by an odious attack in the heart of Paris.’
French officials said that the gunman had been arrested after shots were fired at a restaurant and a hair salon as well as at the Kurdish community center, and that he had been taken to the hospital after being slightly injured in the face….” Read more at New York Times
“Xi Jinping’s sudden retreat from ‘Covid-zero’ has been followed by more than 248 million Chinese contracting the deadly coronavirus this month alone—some 18% of the nation’s population. On one day this week, almost 37 million people became infected, according to Beijing.” Read more at Bloomberg
Covid-19 patients rest in a ward of the No. 5 People’s Hospital in Chongqing , China on Dec. 23 Photographer: Noel Celis/AFP
“Climate-driven weather disasters across a dozen African countries are threatening the physical and mental development of an entire generation, and their plight is expected to get even worse next year. The worst drought in at least four decades across the Horn of Africa in the east and floods and water shortages in West Africa’s Sahel region have left 76 million people food insecure. Parts of Somalia are on the verge of famine.” Read more at Bloomberg
“Russian forces conducted limited counterattacks along the Kreminna-Svatove line in the east of Ukraine as Kyiv’s troops maintained counteroffensive operations in the area. Russians also continued their siege of Bakhmut while Ukrainian partisans target Russian occupation authorities behind the lines. Russia also struck Kherson Friday, killing two people and damaging residences and critical infrastructure, Ukraine authorities said. Here’s the latest on the war.” Read more at Bloomberg
“Facebook’s parent agreed to pay $725 million for allowing a UK research firm connected to Trump’s 2016 campaign, Cambridge Analytica, access to the data of as many as 87 million subscribers. Last month,Google agreed to pay a total of $391.5 million to 40 US states to resolve a probe into controversial location-tracking practices in what state officials called the largest such privacy settlement in US history.” Read more at Bloomberg
‘Morning after’ pill label changed to clarify it does not cause abortion
The drug works mainly by delaying ovulation, or possibly by preventing fertilization, regulators said
“The Food and Drug Administration approved a change in labeling for the Plan B “morning after” pill on Friday to clarify it does not prevent a fertilized egg from implanting in the uterus — language that had been cited by abortion opponents to argue the medication causes abortions and should be restricted.
For years, the FDA-approved label for Plan B One-Step and its competitors said the medication works mainly by stopping the release of an egg from the ovary or possibly by preventing fertilization of an egg by sperm. But it also suggested that if an egg is fertilized, the drug may prevent it from attaching to the wall of the uterus.
That was revised on Friday to say ‘Plan B One-Step works before release of an egg from the ovary. As a result, Plan B One-Step usually stops or delays the release of an egg from the ovary. Plan B One-Step is one tablet that contains a higher dose of levonorgestrel than birth control pills and works in a similar way to prevent pregnancy.’
The change was welcomed as long overdue by abortion rights groups, who worry that antiabortion groups, emboldened by the Supreme Court decision in June to overturn Roe v. Wade, will use misinformation about the morning-after pill to push for restrictions and bans on emergency contraception in state legislatures next year.
Since the court’s ruling, demand for the pills has soared, as women worry that their options for reproductive health are under threat, advocates said.
‘It’s great that the FDA is reflecting the science. But I believe that the folks who are opposed will still keep coming after it,’ said Mara Gandal-Powers, director of birth control access and senior counsel at the National Women’s Law Center.
Antiabortion activists and conservative state lawmakers have long cited the label on morning-after pills in describing them as “abortifacients” — drugs that can induce abortions. For those who believe that a life begins when an egg is fertilized by a sperm, a drug that prevents implantation is tantamount to killing a human being.” Read more at Washington Post
Tory Lanez found guilty in 2020 shooting of Megan Thee Stallion
“A Los Angeles jury on Friday found rapper and singer Tory Lanez guilty of three charges related to the July 2020 shooting of fellow rapper Megan Thee Stallion in the Hollywood Hills, the Los Angeles County District Attorney told CNN.
Lanez had pleaded not guilty to assault with a semiautomatic firearm, carrying a loaded unregistered firearm in a vehicle, and discharge of a firearm with gross negligence, according to prosecutors.
The jury convicted him on all three counts.
Megan accused Lanez of shooting her in the foot after she exited a vehicle they had been riding in following an argument.
In her testimony during the trial, Megan said things were tense in the car between her, Lanez, and her former friend and assistant, Kelsey Harris, Billboard Magazine reports. The artist testified Lanez wanted her to come clean with Harris about the fact that the two of them had been intimate. But Billboard reports Megan was uncomfortable doing so because she knew Harris had a crush on the Canadian singer and rapper.
Megan said she had exited the car when Lanez shot her.
‘I started walking away and I hear Tory yell, ‘Dance, b***h,’ she tearfully testified, according to Billboard. ‘I froze. I just felt shock. I felt hurt. I looked down at my feet and I see all of this blood.’
Megan ‘showed incredible courage and vulnerability’ during her testimony ‘despite repeated and grotesque attacks,’ LA County DA George Gascón said in a statement to CNN following the verdict.
‘You faced unjust and despicable scrutiny that no woman should ever face and you have been an inspiration to others across LA County and the nation,’ he said, in reference to Megan.
‘Women, especially Black women, are afraid to report crimes like assault and sexual violence because they are too often not believed. This trial, for the second time this month, highlighted the numerous ways that our society must do better for women,’ Gascón added, referring to Harvey Weinstein being found guilty of three out of seven charges on Monday.
He also thanked the jurors for ‘their time and thoughtful deliberation.’
Lanez did not take the stand in his defense during the nine-day trial.
The jury, comprised of five men and seven women, began deliberating Thursday and a verdict was reached on Friday afternoon.
Lanez was taken out of the courtroom by bailiffs in handcuffs after the verdict was read, according to CNN affiliate KCBS. He faces a maximum sentence of 22 years in prison and possible deportation back to his native Canada.” Read more at CNN
Adnan Syed of ‘Serial,’ Newly Freed, Is Hired by Georgetown University
The university said that Mr. Syed, who spent more than two decades in prison, will work with its Prisons and Justice Initiative to help wrongfully convicted people.
“Adnan Syed, who was freed in September after he spent 23 years in prison fighting a murder conviction that was chronicled in the hit podcast ‘Serial,’ has been hired by Georgetown University as an associate for an organization whose work mirrors the efforts that led to his release, the university has announced.
Mr. Syed, the subject of the 2014 podcast and pop-culture sensation that raised questions about whether he had received a fair trial after being convicted of strangling his high school classmate and onetime girlfriend Hae Min Lee in 1999, will work for Georgetown’s Prisons and Justice Initiative.
Mr. Syed, who was 17 at the time of Ms. Lee’s death in Baltimore, has steadfastly maintained his innocence.
The university said that Mr. Syed, now 41, will help support programs at the organization, such as a class in which students reinvestigate wrongful convictions and seek to ‘bring innocent people home’ by creating short documentaries about their findings. The program, founded in 2016, ‘brings together leading scholars, practitioners, students and those affected by the criminal justice system to tackle the problem of mass incarceration,’ according to its website….” Read more at New York Times
Ali Ahmed Aslam, 77, Dies; Credited With Inventing Chicken Tikka Masala
A Glasgow restaurateur, he was part of the rise of the British curry house — and played an essential part in its story.
“Ali Ahmed Aslam, the restaurateur who was often credited with the invention of chicken tikka masala, died on Monday in Glasgow. He was 77.
His son Asif Ali said his death, at a hospital, was caused by septic shock and organ failure after a prolonged illness.
Much like Cartesian geometry, chicken tikka masala was most likely not one person’s invention, but rather a case of simultaneous discovery — a delicious inevitability in so many restaurant kitchens, advanced by shifting forces of immigration and taste in postwar Britain.
Many cooks claimed that they were the ones who served it first, or that they knew a guy who knew the guy who really did. Others insisted it wasn’t a British invention at all but a Punjabi dish. None of those stories seemed to stick.
Instead, the bright tomato-tinted lights of fame shone on one man: Mr. Aslam, who immigrated to Scotland from a village outside Lahore, Pakistan, when he was a teenager, and who opened the restaurant Shish Mahal in Glasgow in 1964.
What seems to have established Mr. Aslam as the inventor of the dish was an unsuccessful 2009 bid by the Scottish member of Parliament Mohammad Sarwar to have the European Union recognize chicken tikka masala as a Glaswegian specialty. In an interview with Agence France-Presse, Mr. Aslam explained that he had added some sauce to please a customer once, and you could almost hear him shrug.
In Aslam family lore, it was a local bus driver who popped in for dinner and suggested that plain chicken tikka was too spicy for him, and too dry — and also he wasn’t feeling well, so wasn’t there something sweeter and saucier that he could have instead? Sure, why not. Mr. Aslam, who was known as Mr. Ali, tipped the tandoor-grilled pieces of meat into a pan with a quick tomato sauce and returned them to the table.
‘He never really put so much importance on it,’ Asif Ali said. ‘He just told people how he made it.’
Chicken tikka masala became so widespread that in 2001 Robin Cook, the British foreign secretary, delivered a speech praising the dish — and Britain for embracing it.
‘Chicken tikka masala is now a true British national dish,’ Mr. Cook said, referring to a survey that had placed it above fish and chips in popularity. ‘Not only because it is the most popular, but because it is a perfect illustration of the way Britain absorbs and adapts external influences.’
Mr. Aslam was born on April 1, 1945, into a family of farmers in a small village near Lahore. As a teenager, newly arrived to Glasgow in 1959, he took a job with his uncle in the clothing business during the day and cut onions at a local restaurant at night.
Mr. Aslam was ambitious, and he soon opened his own place in the city’s West End. He installed just a few tables and a brilliantly hot well of a tandoor oven, which he learned to man in a sweaty process of trial and error. He brought his parents over from Pakistan; his mother, Saira Bibi, helped run the kitchen, and his father, Noor Mohammed, took care of the dining room.
In 1969, Mr. Aslam married Kalsoom Akhtar, who came from the same village in Pakistan. In Glasgow they raised five children. In addition to his son Asif, his survivors include his wife; their other children, Shaista Ali-Sattar, Rashaid Ali, Omar Ali and Samiya Ali; his brother, Nasim Ahmed; his sisters, Bashiran Bibi and Naziran Tariq Ali; and 13 grandchildren.
Chicken tikka masala boomed in the curry houses of 1970s Britain. Soon it was more than just a dish you could order off the menu, or buy packaged at the supermarket; it was a powerful political symbol.
In reality, Mr. Cook’s vision of multicultural Britain often grated against reports of daily life in Britain — and in curry houses, where after local pubs closed it was common for racist, drunken diners to file in, demanding the South Asian foods they’d grown to love while also abusing the workers who came from India, Pakistan and Bangladesh.
As the curry house established itself as a British institution, more flourished around Shish Mahal. In 1979, when Mr. Aslam renovated the place, he reopened with a clever gimmick: all of the original 1964 prices, for a limited time. This led to long, frenzied lines down the block. In photos taken around this time, Mr. Aslam is handsome and beaming, in a tuxedo jacket and bow tie, with the thick, floppy hair of a movie star.
There were just a few hundred curry houses in Britain when Mr. Aslam opened his restaurant; by the time Mr. Cook delivered his speech, there were thousands. Mr. Aslam, though not named in the speech, had become an essential part of Britain’s story of itself.
Though two of his sons took over ownership of Shish Mahal in 1994, Mr. Aslam never officially retired, and he continued to drive his white Jaguar to work and to wear the exquisite suits he had tailored on Savile Row. Known for his relentless work ethic, he considered himself a proud Glaswegian, a Scotsman through and through.
The dish, which grew far bigger than the man, was just as likely to be a symbol of British comfort food as one of inauthenticity. Though more recent surveys have named other curries, such as chicken jalfrezi, as the most popular in Britain, chicken tikka masala is pervasive. It is found on airplanes and as a pizza topping, at fast-food chains and premade in grocery stores all over the world.
Shish Mahal closed for 48 hours in honor of Mr. Aslam and posted news of his death on its Facebook page. A multigenerational fan base of Glaswegians joined in remembering the restaurant.
‘Enjoyed my first ever proper curry at the Shish Mahal on Gibson Street,’ wrote one fan, Wendy Russell. ‘A cheeky chicken Madras.’
On Tuesday, Mr. Aslam’s family held a funeral prayer at Glasgow Central Mosque that was open to the public. His son Asif Ali said that about 500 people, young and old, attended.
The restaurant had become part of the fabric of the city. Over the years, Mr. Aslam welcomed generations of tipsy teenagers, who waited in the cold after the pubs closed, as well as new parents who handed pieces of warm naan over to their babies to gum. Families had become regulars. What many seemed to remember wasn’t the famous dish, but rather the man who had made them feel at home.” Read more at New York Times