The Full Belmonte, 12/8/2022
“The US Supreme Court appeared split during oral arguments over a case that could fundamentally alter federal elections. The case, Moore v Harper, centers on a fringe legal theory that could give state legislatures almost unlimited power over how those elections are conducted, stripping state judges and other officials of longstanding roles in determining congressional districts, voter eligibility and mail-in ballot requirements. The case involves a North Carolina supreme court ruling invalidating a Republican-gerrymandered district map. Democratic-appointed justices were clear in rejecting a state GOP bid to reverse the ruling, and a few members of the court’s Republican-appointed supermajority also expressed some wariness of the so-called ‘independent state legislature’ theory. Donald Trump-appointee Amy Coney Barrett said it could require the Supreme Court to draw ‘notoriously difficult lines’ separating legitimate state supreme court decisions from those that supposedly usurp the power of state lawmakers. But Samuel Alito, author of the high court’s elimination of federal abortion rights, and two other GOP-appointed justices appeared to lean toward a robust adoption of the theory. At its most extreme, legal scholars warn it could lead to state legislatures ignoring the popular will in presidential elections and choosing their own winner. —Margaret Sutherlin Read more at Bloomberg
SCOTUS steps back from the brink
Illustration: Sarah Grillo/Axios
“One of Republicans’ most audacious attempts to control elections may have hit a wall today at the Supreme Court, Sam writes.
A group of GOP lawmakers from North Carolina asked the court to embrace a sweeping legal theory that could upend nearly every facet of the way states run elections.
Most immediately, they said, state courts should not be able to strike down gerrymandered congressional maps. The same argument could also prevent state courts from reviewing any other changes to election procedures — or even extending an Election Day deadline.
But that seemed to be a bridge too far for most of the justices, even on a conservative court that has almost always taken the Republican side in disputes over voting rights.
At least three of the six conservative justices — John Roberts, Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett — seemed to be looking for a ruling that would preserve the courts’ role in the process, The NY Times reported.
Why it matters: If the North Carolina lawmakers prevail, state legislatures — most of which are controlled by Republicans — would have near-total power to set the rules for the 2024 elections.
‘This is a proposal that gets rid of the normal checks and balances on the way big governmental decisions are made in this country,’ Justice Elena Kagan said during today’s arguments, per Reuters.
‘And then you might think that it gets rid of all those checks and balances at exactly the time when they are needed most.’” Read more at Axios
Theranos Ex-Operating Chief Sunny Balwani Sentenced to Nearly 13 Years in Prison
Prosecutors were seeking 15-year prison term for former startup executive
“SAN JOSE, Calif.—Theranos Inc.’s former No. 2 executive, Ramesh ‘Sunny’ Balwani, was sentenced to nearly 13 years in prison for his involvement in an elaborate fraud scheme at the blood-testing company, marking the capstone of a yearslong saga that is a blemish in Silicon Valley history.
Mr. Balwani’s sentencing comes more than four years after the collapse of Theranos, which promised to revolutionize healthcare but peddled faulty technology to patients and investors, along the way delivering inaccurate health results and squandering hundreds of millions of dollars. Mr. Balwani helped lead the deception as Theranos’s former president and chief operating officer, and along with his longtime romantic partner, he became the focus of one of the highest-profile white-collar cases in recent years.
Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes, Mr. Balwani’s former business partner and ex-girlfriend, was sentenced last month to 11¼ years for four counts of criminal fraud tied to her now defunct blood-testing startup. The result is an unusual white-collar criminal punishment for Mr. Balwani: being sentenced to a longer prison term than his former boss, who was at the center of the fraud at her company.
The Balwani sentence marks the final chapter in a corporate scandal that erupted more than seven years ago following a series of Wall Street Journal articles that called into question Theranos’s claims about its blood-testing technology.
The reporting triggered criminal and civil investigations into the company and led to the 2018 indictments of Ms. Holmes and Mr. Balwani on fraud and conspiracy charges. The scandal entered popular American culture, led to a bestselling book, an award-winning Hulu series and a planned movie, in addition to multiple university case studies on corporate fraud.
The once-highflying Theranos now stands as a cautionary signal to Silicon Valley about the criminal risks of misleading investors and consumers about new technology. The sentencing of the top two Theranos executives delivers a remarkable indictment of corporate leaders lying and obfuscating in pursuit of technological and financial success.” Read more at Wall Street Journal
Items with classified markings found at Trump storage unit in Florida
The former president’s lawyers have told federal authorities no classified material was found in additional searches of Trump Tower in New York and his golf club in Bedminster, N.J.
“Lawyers for Donald Trump found at least two items marked classified after an outside team hired by Trump searched a storage unit in West Palm Beach, Fla., used by the former president, according to people familiar with the matter.
Those items were immediately turned over to the FBI, according to those people, who like others spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive matters.
The search was one of at least three searches for classified materials conducted by an outside team at Trump properties in recent weeks, after Trump’s legal team was pressed by a federal judge to attest that it had fully complied with a May grand jury subpoena to turn over all materials bearing classified markings, according to people familiar with the matter.
There has been a lengthy and fierce battle between Trump’s attorneys and the Justice Department in a Washington federal court in recent weeks, according to people familiar with the matter. Much of the legal wrangling remains under seal by a federal judge, but people familiar with the matter say the Justice Department has raised concerns about what prosecutors view as a long-standing failure to fully comply with the May subpoena by Trump’s team.” Read more at Washington Post
Zelensky is Time's Person of the Year
Cover: Neil Jamieson for TIME, illustrating Volodymyr Zelensky and others who embody the spirit of Ukraine
“Volodymyr Zelensky — along with the ‘Spirit of Ukraine’ — is Time magazine's 2022 Person of the Year.
‘This year’s choice was the most clear-cut in memory,’ editor-in-chief Edward Felsenthal wrote.” Read more at Axios
Flashback: See a full list of every Person of the Year
“Peru descended into political chaos Wednesday after President Pedro Castillo dissolved Congress and called for new elections hours before facing a third impeachment vote in his roughly 18-months in office. A constitutional court called the move a coup and Congress voted to impeach him. Castillo went from being a virtually unknown former school teacher to president of Peru last year, in one of the quickest ascents in political history. A new president has just been sworn in.” Read more at Bloomberg
“Vladimir Putin once again stopped short of pledging not to be the first to use his nuclear arsenal in conflict. He called the weapons a ‘deterrent factor’ and reiterated Russia could use them if it felt threatened. The televised comments came just days after the Kremlin blamed Ukraine for stunning drone attacks on three Russian airfields, two deep in Russian territory. The attacks have raised anxiety from US and European officials that Ukraine’s desire to hit back at an attacker that has killed potentially tens of thousands of Ukrainians could provoke Putin to use weapons of mass destruction in his war.” Read more at Bloomberg
“The UK will open its first deep coal mine in more than 30 years. The decision, made after two years of consideration by successive Tory governments, is a blow to environmental activists and comes after a United Nations climate assembly hosted in Scotland said a global agreement on ‘phasing down’ the dirtiest fuel was a key step in fighting the climate crisis. The decision comes just a day after Prime Minister Rishi Sunak retreated from onshore wind in England, bowing to pressure from his fellow Conservatives.” Read more at Bloomberg
States ramp up their TikTok challenges.
“Indiana filed a pair of lawsuits, alleging the social-media app deceives consumers about its content and data security and should be prohibited from allowing children to access adult content. Last week, the Republican governor of South Dakota issued an executive order banning the platform from state agencies over national-security concerns stemming from its Chinese ownership. Nebraska did the same in 2020. Federal lawmakers from both parties are threatening a ban because they worry about Beijing potentially ordering the company to collect data on American users and influencing public discourse by controlling what people watch. TikTok has said it has never received such requests and wouldn’t comply if asked. Representatives didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment on Indiana’s lawsuits.” Read more at Wall Street Journal
Everyone Is Sick Right Now
For the past two years, social distancing kept seasonal viruses at bay. Now they’re roaring back.
“IF COLD AND flu season seems to be hitting your household harder this year, you’re not alone. This is the year when common viruses that took a backseat to Covid-19 finally return.
Positive tests for the flu in the United States stood at 25 percent in late November, according to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, compared to 8 percent at the same time of year in 2019. Respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) has pushed some children’s hospitals to capacity. And Covid hospitalizations are rising again. It’s the tripledemic that epidemiologists feared—those viruses, with the help of a few other seasonal recurring ones, are working together to fuel weeks of coughing, runny noses, and fevers. So if your kids, your coworkers, and everyone you know has been feeling sick, that’s why.
‘This season is truly unprecedented,’ says Katelyn Jetelina, who writes Your Local Epidemiologist, a newsletter about infectious disease spread. The high rates of flu-like illness could be an early peak, or an early warning of a monumentally bad season. ‘How high it will go, and how severe it will be, is unfortunately something we have to wait and see,’ she says. ‘We’re at the mercy of time.’
The problem goes beyond making everyone feel sluggish and icky. CDC director Rochelle Walensky has confirmed that the flu, RSV, and Covid are putting stress on US hospital systems. It’s the unintended consequence of measures that sought to save lives—social distancing and mask-wearing curbed the spread of flu and RSV in 2020 and 2021. (Although there was a warning sign in 2021, when RSV cases in the US had an out-of-season uptick over the summer, an indicator that things were shifting in the wake of Covid.) Now these viruses are roaring back, and hitting a burned-out health care system that’s spent three years treating Covid infections.
These viruses are sweeping through young children who have no prior exposure to them and no immunity. Older people and the immunocompromised are at higher risk too. Experts aren’t recommending dropping all guards to build immunity. But they do note that social distancing and masking measures played a role in throwing other viruses off their historical patterns. ‘By doing that, you prevent all these other things that are less infectious typically,’ says Mary Krauland, a research assistant professor in the School of Public Health at the University of Pittsburgh. ‘Over time, people are a little more susceptible.’
RSV typically causes mild illness, but it can prove particularly dangerous to young children whose small lungs cannot cough forcefully enough to clear mucus. Nearly all children contract the virus before the age of 2. But more kids are getting sick at the same time now, and pediatric hospitals have been overwhelmed in recent weeks by the sudden surge. In the United States, hospitalizations for kids 4 and younger spiked to 61 per 100,000 in mid-November, according to data from the CDC. That rate peaked at 26 young children per 100,000 in the 2019 to 2020 RSV season. And some hospitals are now short on pediatric beds. Because Covid largely spared children from severe illness, some hospitals pivoted, opening spaces designated for kids up to adults. Some of those beds never went back….
But the flu continues to circulate. This year, the flu has already caused 78,000 hospitalizations and killed 4,500 people, the CDC estimates. It killed an estimated 25,000 people in the US during the winter 2019 to spring 2020 flu season. “Minimal flu activity” left the CDC without estimates in the winter of 2020 and spring of 2021, but the agency noted that less than 1 person for every 100,000 was hospitalized with influenza, compared to 66 people per 100,000 the prior year.
The threats are seen in Europe too, where the World Health Organizationnotes that flu season also got an early start. England is also seeing more than a quarter of influenza tests come back positive, and RSV hospitalization rates there are on the rise. German hospitals are strained with RSV infections. But babies in countries without robust medical systems are most at risk.
Once center stage, Covid is still circulating around the globe, although many people may have dropped their guard as schools went back and now the holiday season has begun. During the last week of November, hospitalizations for Covid-19 in the US averaged 4,200 each day—a 17 percent increase from the prior week, according to the CDC. Across Europe, Covid-19 cases saw a slight drop of 3.5 percent in late November.
Low vaccination rates compound the issue. By mid-November, just 40 percent of kids in the US had received a flu shot, according to the CDC. Only 12 percent of people ages 5 and older in the US have received updated booster shots targeting the Omicron Covid variant. Just under 15 percent of people in Canada have received a Covid booster since August. There is no RSV vaccine, although Pfizer is working on one and plans to submit it for approval to the US Food and Drug Administration before the end of the year. GSK has also submitted an RSV vaccine for older adults for review to regulators in Europe and the US.
Even though some hospitals are under stress, widespread closures of businesses and schools seem unlikely. Lockdowns spare medical systems from being overwhelmed, but they can lead to losses in educational attainment and income, and negatively affect mental health. But letting winter viruses circulate has its own economic costs.” Read more at Wired
A lonely generation
Illustration: Eniola Odetunde/Axios
“There's a growing population of seniors who are aging alone — without any close family around them.
The big picture: A number of demographic trends are coming together to give rise to ‘kinless seniors,’ the New York Times' Paula Span writes.
There are nearly a million Americans over the age of 55 living without a spouse or a partner, any children or siblings.
That's because boomers have lower marriage rates than their parents did, and more of them have remained childless. On top of that, the divorce rate among couples who have crossed 50 has risen.
Rates of kinlessness are projected to grow as generations younger than boomers are even likelier to be aging alone.
Why it matters: Kinless older folks are less likely to participate in community groups, sports or religious organizations — activities that stimulate the body and the brain. And they're less likely to receive the care and help around the home that they need.
As a result, kinless older adults die sooner.
There's reason to be hopeful. While friends and neighbors might not take the place of immediate family, these strong social ties can alleviate a great deal of loneliness.
We can all help our older friends and neighbors with quick tasks — such as carrying heavy grocery bags or picking up a prescription at the local pharmacy.
But don't underestimate the power of talking. One of the most effective antidotes to loneliness is a simple conversation, where we listen deeply to what the other person has to say and take care to respond thoughtfully, experts say.
The bottom line: Look out for older adults in your life who might be in need of a phone call or an afternoon visit.” Read more at Axios
The last 747
Photo: David Ryder/Bloomberg via Getty Images
“The iconic Boeing 747 is entering retirement after more than 50 years. The jet pictured above, which rolled off the assembly line in Everett, Washington, yesterday, is the last 747 Boeing will ever make.
The 747 was the world's dominant jumbo jet for decades, immediately recognizable for both its sheer size and the bubble that houses a partial second level near the front of the plane. Air Force One is a 747.
But it's been eclipsed by newer, more fuel-efficient jetliners.
By the numbers: Production of the 747, the world's first twin-aisle airplane, began in 1967 and spanned 54 years, during which a total of 1,574 airplanes were built, Boeing said.” Read more at Axios
Aaron Judge Sticks With Yankees in $360M Deal
“Aaron Judge is set to stay with the New York Yankees after agreeing to a $360 million, nine-year contract, according to reports on Wednesday. The 30-year-old became a free agent after hitting an American League record 62 home runs this season, having previously declined a seven-year, $213.5 million offer to stay in the Bronx in the spring. But the six-foot-seven outfielder will reportedly be sporting pinstripes once again despite feverish efforts from the San Francisco Giants to secure Judge’s signature. As well as his homer record, he was named the AL Most Valuable Player in 2022. After being drafted by the Yankees in 2013, Judge was named AL Rookie of the Year four years later after hitting a then-rookie record 52 home runs. He only bettered that staggering run in his jaw-dropping 2022 season.” (Daily Beast) Read it at ESPN
Dying to compete
When risking lives is part of the show
“Alena Kosinova was hunched over a fan waiting for her spray tan to dry when she realized she couldn’t move. It was hours before the 2021 Europa Pro contest and the Czech bodybuilder was cramping again — just like she had at a contest in Portugal weeks earlier.
Kosinova was known by friends and competitors for embracing the extremes of bodybuilding — the training, the dieting, the drugs. But on that steamy August morning, her voice quivered as she whispered to another Czech athlete, Ivana Dvorakova, “I won’t be able to do it. I feel really ill.”
Dvorakova helped lay her down on the concrete floor as others gathered and gave Kosinova water, packets of salt and sugar. Kosinova answered questions about the diuretics she had taken before convulsing and losing consciousness.
It took nearly an hour for the ambulance to arrive at the venue in Alicante, Spain, according to four people who witnessed or were briefed on what happened. Kosinova, a 46-year-old mother who dreamed of winning the prestigious Olympia, died before the competition was over.
Czech bodybuilder Alena Kosinova, far right, at a 2021 competition in Portugal. Weeks later, in Spain for the Europa Pro contest, the 46-year-old mother started cramping severely before losing consciousness the morning of the show. (Obtained by The Washington Post)
Her American coach, Shelby Starnes, wasn’t there — he rarely attended shows. But shortly after Kosinova died, Starnes received an alarming email from another client, Jodie Engle.
The 30-year-old single mother wrote that she had been hospitalized and might need open-heart surgery. Doctors blamed the diuretics she saidshe’d been advised to use for more than a week leading into the NPC National Championships in Florida.
Engle won first place in her division and earned a ‘pro card,’ allowing her to compete professionally. But the price she paid was steep: tens of thousands of dollars in medical bills and, doctors told her, she would eventually need a kidney transplant.
Starnes, one of the most popular coaches for female bodybuilders, did not respond to messages seeking comment.
Engle takes responsibility for what happened — no one forced the drugs down her throat.
‘I was stupid because I turned over the reins to somebody that was more reckless than myself,’ she said.
Bodybuilders around the world are risking their lives and sometimes dying for the sport they love because of extreme measures that are encouraged by coaches, rewarded by judges and ignored by leaders of the industry, according to interviews with dozens of bodybuilders, coaches, judges, promoters, medical professionals and relatives of deceased athletes.
The Washington Post investigated the deaths of more than two dozen bodybuilders, focusing mostly on those who died leading up to or in the aftermath of competitions. A review of hundreds of documents including medical and autopsy records, police reports, 911 calls, emails and text messages, along with interviews with more than 70 people, reveals the devastating consequences of a sport that for years has operated under the halo of health and fitness.
Several of the industry’s top coaches, without formal training or medical licenses, supplied their clients with illegal steroids or other illicit substances; instructed them on dosages for using performance-enhancing drugs; or advised athletes not to seek medical care beforecompetitions, The Post found.
Unlike other professional sports, the IFBB Pro League, the largest professional bodybuilding federation in the United States, does not routinely test athletes for steroids or other performance-enhancing drugs. There’s no health insurance or union to protect athletes. Nearly all steroids are illegal without a prescription in the United States, but bodybuilders say they are easily obtained and widely used by competitors.” Read more at Washington Post
“Lives Lived: The Republican congressman Jim Kolbe’s vote for the Defense of Marriage Act in 1996 prompted a gay-interest magazine to prepare to out him. He later regretted his vote and celebrated coming out. He died at 80.” Read more at New York Times