The Full Belmonte, 2/9/2023
© Associated Press / Patrick Semansky | The Capitol in June.
Republicans probe for liberal conspiracy, corruption
“House conservatives on Wednesday tried to cast President Biden and fellow Democrats as the swaddled darlings of Twitter while also accusing the Justice Department of conspiring against former President Trump and other Republicans.
In the majority since January, House Republicans are using their sway on oversight and investigative panels to try to turn the tables on the president, his son Hunter Biden, and officials in the FBI and at the top of the Justice Department, asserting that alleged past actions were corrupt and must come to light.
The back-and-forth at GOP hearings this week and the heckling heard during Tuesday’s State of the Union portend a venomous year filled with attempts to stoke public distrust of government.
The Hill: GOP divided over whether heckling Biden hurts them.
Republican lawmakers grilled former Twitter executives on Wednesday about the company’s initial decision, later reversed more than two years ago, to limit the dissemination of a New York Post article critical of the president’s son, his business dealings and his associates. Democrats on the panel blasted their GOP colleagues for ‘wasting our time,’ The Hill’s Rebecca Klar reports.
Twitter’s former leaders, during a combative Wednesday hearing, maintained that the company’s initial reaction to the newspaper report was not evidence of anti-conservative ‘censorship’ but rather a mistake explained long ago, which resulted from caution about false information tied to the 2020 presidential election (The Washington Post and NBC News).
Twitter is now owned by Elon Musk, an ally of some Republicans, including Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.).
House Oversight and Accountability Chairman James Comer (R-Ky.) alleged that Twitter’s handling of news accounts showed a ‘coordinated campaign by social media companies, mainstream news and the intelligence community to suppress and delegitimize the existence of Hunter Biden’s laptop’ and its contents. Former Twitter executives denied a conspiracy or suppression of GOP lawmakers’ First Amendment rights.
Today’s House fireworks are expected to be similarly backward gazing under the guidance of House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), who plans to use a new subcommittee to assert the ‘weaponization’ of the FBI and the Justice Department against Republicans, an accusation also favored by Trump (CNN and Fox News).
The Hill: Rep. Jordan requested communications between the Biden administration and social media companies.
The Hill: Twitter on Wednesday experienced widespread outages.
The Hill: Florida Rep. Matt Gaetz (R) is now a member of the House weaponization panel, replacing Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas).
The Hill: The House on Wednesday approved a measure that would end the federal COVID-19 vaccine requirement for most international travelers to the United States.
House Republicans show no signs they want to work with Biden and Democratic colleagues on major legislation, such as raising the debt ceiling or negotiations to keep the government funded. Senate Republicans are allowing McCarthy to craft a debt ceiling strategy.
I think he can do it,” Sen. Shelley Moore Capito (R-W.Va.) said this week, referring to McCarthy (Politico). “I've seen him quoted saying he doesn't think we should default on the debt. And, you know, I believe him.”
Biden on Tuesday during his address to the nation allied himself with the majority of Americans who tell pollsters they frown on the House GOP brinkmanship over the debt ceiling.
To jeers from House Republicans as he spoke, the president said the federal debt rose every year during Trump’s presidency with little pushback from GOP lawmakers. “No president added more to the national debt in any four years than my predecessor,” Biden said, telling the naysayers to “check it out.”
The Hill: Here are the spending cuts House Republicans have pitched in debt limit talks.
The Hill: Here’s what Republicans have said about cuts to Social Security and Medicare.
The Hill: What the pundits are saying about Biden’s State of the Union speech.
Forbes: More than 23 million viewers watched the president’s address on Tuesday, compared with 38 million viewers last year across 16 broadcast and cable networks.” [The Hill]
Takeaways from the Hunter Biden laptop hearing
“The House hearing Wednesday into Twitter’s brief suppression of a story about Hunter Biden’s laptop outlined the queasiness of former executives to block links to the article and provided a bare-knuckle arena for partisan lawmakers to debate allegations against President Joe Biden.
The background: Former Twitter executives told the House Oversight and Accountability Committee the company blocked links to the New York Post story in October 2020 because of similarities to the posting of leaks from hacked Democratic computers before the 2016 election.
•The executives called the 24-hour suppression a mistake and said it was difficult to judge between contentious and dangerous speech during a campaign. But Republican lawmakers argued Twitter’s decision could have thrown the election to Biden rather than former President Donald Trump.
•The laptop has become a focal point of Republican investigations because it contains a trove of documents and pictures about Hunter Biden. The first accusation in the New York Post story is that vice president Biden pressured Ukraine to fire its prosecutor general for investigating Burisma, a company that employed Hunter Biden.
•Democrats called the hearing ‘silly’ and a ‘bizarre political stunt’ because Twitter is a private company free to make its own decisions about what to publish. Democrats also questioned the basic allegations against Biden stemming from the laptop as ‘categorically false.’” [USA Today]
From left, James Baker, Former Deputy General Counsel at Twitter, Vijaya Gadde, Former Chief Legal Officer at Twitter, Yoel Roth, Former Global Head of Trust & Safety at Twitter, and Anika Collier Navaroli, a former Twitter employee, are sworn in during the House Committee on Oversight and Accountability hearing on Feb. 8, 2023 in Washington. Jack Gruber, Jack Gruber-USA TODAY
A man walks past a partially collapsed building in the aftermath of a deadly earthquake in Pazarcik, Turkey.
Earthquake
“The death toll from the magnitude 7.8 earthquake that hit Turkey and Syria on Monday is now at least 16,000 -- an increase of more than 5,000 people in one day, according to authorities. Crews are still sifting through the rubble as thousands of workers, volunteers and companies attempt to deliver much-needed aid to the region. Meanwhile, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan admitted to his government's ‘shortcomings’ amid growing anger over the state's preparedness and course of action. But Erdogan also angrily pushed back against ‘some dishonest people’ for ‘falsely slandering’ his government's quake response, saying the moment called for unity. Amid the discontent, access to Twitter was briefly restricted in Turkey on Wednesday.” [CNN]
Covid-19
“The Biden administration will soon release a roadmap to transition the US out of the Covid-19 public health emergency, sources say. The goal of the expected roadmap, one source said, is to try to lay out for the public in a clear way what the end of the declaration ‘does and does not mean,’ as well as possibly provide guidance on masking and testing. In his State of the Union address on Tuesday, President Joe Biden said the US has "broken Covid's grip" on the nation. ‘While the virus is not gone, thanks to the resilience of the American people, we have broken Covid's grip on us,’ he said, adding Covid deaths are down nearly 90%. As the administration aims to turn the page on the pandemic, officials are investigating how at least $191 billion in pandemic unemployment benefits may have been improperly paid.” [CNN]
El Paso Walmart gunman who killed 23 pleads guilty to hate crimes
Image caption, The attack left nearly two dozen people dead - most of them were Hispanic
“A gunman who killed 23 people at a Walmart in Texas four years ago after posting an online rant about a ‘Hispanic invasion’ has pleaded guilty.
Patrick Crusius, 24, admitted 90 federal counts, including hate crimes and firearms charges.
He drove 11 hours to the store in the border city of El Paso on 3 August 2019 to spray shoppers with bullets after posting his hate-filled screed online.
It is one of the deadliest mass shootings in US history.” [BBC]
Sen. John Fetterman hospitalized after feeling lightheaded
FILE - Pennsylvania Lt. Gov. John Fetterman takes the stage at an election night party in Pittsburgh on Nov. 9, 2022. Fetterman, the Pennsylvania Democrat who suffered a stroke during his campaign last year, was hospitalized Wednesday night, Feb. 8, 2023, after feeling lightheaded while attending a Senate Democratic retreat, his office said. (AP Photo/Gene J. Puskar, File)
“WASHINGTON (AP) — U.S. Sen. John Fetterman, the Pennsylvania Democrat who suffered a stroke during his campaign last year, was hospitalized Wednesday night after feeling lightheaded while attending a Senate Democratic retreat, his office said.
Initial tests at George Washington University Hospital did not show evidence of a new stroke, Fetterman’s communications director, Joe Calvello, said in a statement issued Wednesday night. Doctors were running more tests and the senator remained at the hospital for observation, according to the statement.
‘He is in good spirits and talking with his staff and family. We will provide more information when we have it,’ Calvello said.
Fetterman, 53, succeeded Republican Sen. Pat Toomey after a hard-fought contest against Republican nominee Mehmet Oz. He defeated the celebrity heart surgeon by 5 percentage points and flipped a seat that was key to Democrats holding the Senate majority. More than $300 million was spent during the campaign, the most expensive for the Senate in 2022….” Read more at AP News
America's extreme January
Data: NOAA. Chart: Jacque Schrag/Axios
“Every state in New England, plus New Jersey, recorded their warmest January in records going back to 1895.
Another 20 states had a top 10 warmest January in those 129 years, Axios Andrew Freedman writes from NOAA data.
The U.S. had its fifth warmest January since 1895.” [Axios]
Southwest Airlines
“Congress is set to receive new evidence about the internal chaos at Southwest Airlines over the Christmas holiday meltdown. At a hearing today, the pilots' union is prepared to characterize the operation as held together by ‘duct tape,’ while Southwest's chief operating officer is expected to apologize for the disruptions. At the time, more than 16,700 flights were canceled and 2 million passengers were stranded, scuttling holiday plans and leaving mountains of unclaimed baggage nationwide. Since then, Southwest says it has been testing a scheduling software update, launched a new team in its command center, improved telephone systems, and is investing in better preparedness for cold weather. The Department of Transportation is still investigating the causes of the meltdown, including whether the airline scheduled more flights than it could handle.” [CNN]
A Southwest Airlines traveler looks for her baggage at Chicago Midway International Airport on Dec. 27. Photo: Kamil Krzaczynski/Reuters
Courthouse evacuated after reported bomb threat during Murdaugh trial
“The South Carolina Law Enforcement Division confirmed that a bomb threat was received by personnel at the Colleton County Courthouse Wednesday. The threat interrupted the double murder trial of Alex Murdaugh, 54, who has been accused of killing his family in an attempt to distract from his alleged financial crimes and buy time and sympathy. Just a few hours after jurors began hearing testimony, Judge Clifton Newman ordered that the courtroom be evacuated. The South Carolina Attorney General's Office confirmed that the threat was ‘phoned in.’ Read more at USA Today
Alex Murdaugh walks into the courthouse before his double murder trial at the Colleton County Courthouse on Wednesday, Feb. 8, 2023, in Walterboro, South Carolina. Andrew J. Whitaker, AP
Officials lift evacuation order for residents near Ohio train derailment
“Evacuated residents can return to the Ohio village where crews burned toxic chemicals after a train derailed five days ago now that monitors show no dangerous levels of toxins in the air, authorities said Wednesday. Around-the-clock testing inside and outside the evacuation zone around the village of East Palestine and a sliver of Pennsylvania showed the air had returned to normal levels that would have been seen before the derailment, said James Justice of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. ‘Hundreds and hundreds of data points we've collected over the time show the air quality is safe,’ he said.” Read more at USA Today
This photo provided by the Ohio National Guard, ONG 52nd Civil Support Team members prepare to enter an incident area to assess remaining hazards with a lightweight inflatable decontamination system (LIDS) in East Palestine, Ohio, Tuesday, Feb. 7, 2023. AP
73% of SOTU viewers were 55+
President Biden takes a selfie yesterday with workers at a union training center in DeForest, Wis. Photo: Patrick Semansky/AP
“27.3 million viewers watched President Biden's State of the Union address on TV — the second smallest SOTU audience in at least 30 years, AP's David Bauder writes from Nielsen data.
That was down 28% from the 38.2 million people who saw Biden's SOTU last year.
Stunning stat: 73% of the people who watched Biden's speech were 55 and older. Only 5% were under age 35.
The only smaller audience since 1993 was the 26.9 million who watched Biden's address to Congress in 2021 — an ‘address to Congress’ rather than a State of the Union, since he had just taken office a few months earlier.
Nielsen didn't have figures from before President Clinton's first address to Congress, which reached 66.9 million people in 1993, when entertainment options were fewer.
Biden's biggest audience was Fox News, which drew 4.69 million ... ABC: 4.41 million ... NBC: 3.78 million ... CBS: 3.64 million ... MSNBC: 3.55 million ... CNN: 2.4 million ... Fox broadcast stations: 1.66 million.” [Axios]
”U.K. Considers Sending British Jet Fighters to Ukraine - The announcement was a significant victory for Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, who visited London to press allies for jet fighters amid a mounting Russian offensive.” [Wall Street Journal]
Ukraine
“Russia has potentially lost up to half of its operational tank fleet since the start of the Ukraine war -- or about 1,500 tanks -- according to information collected by Oryx, a monitoring group that has been collecting visual evidence of military equipment losses in Ukraine since Russia's invasion began. Tanks have been a major focus of the conflict and are seen as key for either country to take territory on the battlefield. The total figure for Russia's equipment losses -- including tanks and other fighting vehicles -- is almost 9,100, Oryx says, while Ukraine's total equipment losses stand at about 2,900. While Kyiv has received pledges of modern tanks from Germany, the US, Britain and other Western partners, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky today reiterated his plea to the West for more weapons.” [CNN]
Turkish opposition blames Erdogan. As the death toll passed 16,000 in the wake of the 7.8 magnitude earthquake that shook the country on Monday, anger is growing, too. Kemal Kilicdaroglu, leader of Turkey’s main opposition party, blamed Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan for the scale of destruction, saying, “If there is one person responsible for this, it is Erdogan.” Kilicdaroglu said Erdogan’s government had “not prepared for an earthquake for 20 years” (Erdogan was prime minister of the country from 2003 to 2014, and has been president since then).
Some in the hardest-hit areas, meanwhile, have said that the government was too slow to respond. Twitter was briefly blocked in Turkey on Wednesday—a frequent response from Ankara amid disasters or when criticism of the government spreads on social media—prompting furious protests from opposition figures and rescuers who use the platform to locate people trapped under rubble. Access was restored on Thursday.
Erdogan, for his part, said it was “not possible” to prepare for something like this, and that those who have said they had not seen security forces at all since the earthquake were “provocateurs.”
“This is a time for unity, solidarity. In a period like this, I cannot stomach people conducting negative campaigns for political interest,” he told reporters. Earlier this week, Erdogan announced a three-month state of emergency, which is expected to end just before Turkish elections this May.
Kim Jong Un brings daughter to visit troops. North Korean leader Kim Jong Un brought a person believed to be his daughter to visit his country’s troops. The visit was meant to mark the 75th victory of the army’s founding, and amid reports that North Korea is planning a military parade to show off the latest in its nuclear weapons program.
Kim praised the “limitless strength” of his military, which he hailed as the “world’s strongest.” CNN described the visit as “latest sign the girl is possibly being groomed as his eventual successor in an authoritarian family regime dating back decades.” She is thought to be around 9 years old and was seated at the center of the lead table.
“Infamous Russian mercenary killed in Ukraine. Igor Mangushev, a Russian army captain and mercenary, was reportedly shot and killed in Ukraine. His wife has described his killing as an execution. Mangushev led an anti-drone unit in Luhansk. He was an ultra-nationalist who claimed Russia was at war with the idea of Ukraine as an ‘anti-Russian state’ and how many Ukrainians died was not important.
He was known to be a close associate of the most famous mercenary boss in Russia, Yevgeny Prigozhin. There has been much speculation about who was behind the killing, as he was apparently shot in the head at close range in the occupied town of Kadiivka some distance from the front line.” [Foreign Policy]
“Uganda condemned for closing of U.N. human rights office. Human rights activists blasted the Ugandan government’s decision to shut down the country’s U.N. human rights office just months after a report criticized the government for the continued use of torture and called for investigations of top officials for excessive use of force.
In a letter earlier this month, Uganda’s foreign affairs ministry informed the Office of the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights that it would not renew its host country agreement. The current mandate, signed in 2020, expires in August. Adrian Jjuuko, executive director of the Human Rights Awareness and Promotion Forum, tweeted that the decision to close the office showed that the government had ‘lost all sense of shame.’” [Foreign Policy]
Spy balloon
“A day before the suspected Chinese spy balloon entered US airspace over Alaska, the Defense Intelligence Agency quietly sent an internal report that a foreign object was headed towards US territory, officials told CNN. The report was shared through classified channels accessible across the US government. But it wasn't flagged as an urgent warning and top defense and intelligence officials who saw it weren't immediately alarmed by it, according to sources. Instead of treating it as an immediate threat, the US moved to investigate the object, seeing it as an opportunity to observe and collect intelligence. It wasn't until the balloon entered Alaskan airspace and took a sharp turn south that officials came to believe its mission might be to spy on the US mainland, according to a new timeline of events.” [CNN]
Zelenskyy wraps up European tour with visit to EU summit
By RAF CASERT and SAMUEL PETREQUIN
Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, centre, gestures as European Parliament's President Roberta Metsola, right, applauds during an EU summit at the European Parliament in Brussels, Belgium, Thursday, Feb. 9, 2023. On Thursday, Zelenskyy will join EU leaders at a summit in Brussels, which German Chancellor Olaf Scholz described as a "signal of European solidarity and community." (AP Photo/Olivier Matthys)
“BRUSSELS (AP) — Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy was wrapping up a whirlwind tour of his major European backers on Thursday, seeking assurances that Ukraine could one day become part of the European Union.
Zelenskky will already head home with heaps of goodwill and commitments of more military aid.
He arrived to the European Parliament to rapturous applause, cheering and hoots from legislators, insisting in his plenary speech that Ukraine’s fight against Russia was one fought for the freedom of Europe as a whole.
‘A Ukraine that is winning is going to be member of the European Union,’ Zelenskyy said to applause, building his address around the common destiny that Ukraine and the 27-nation bloc face in confronting Russia head-on.
‘Europe will always be, and remain Europe as long as we are together and as long as we take care of our Europe, as we take care of the European way of life,’ he said….” Read more at AP News
“New weapon | North Korean leader Kim Jong Un may have rolled out a new fast-strike intercontinental ballistic missile at a military parade, an event he also used to elevate his daughter, whom he could be grooming for a leadership position. Kim, his wife and ‘beloved’ Kim Ju Ae attended the parade in Pyongyang marking the 75th anniversary of the Korean People’s Army, state media reported.” [USA Today]
A broadcast showing Kim and his daughter during the parade. Photographer: Chung Sung-Jun/Getty Images
“3.5 tons of cocaine worth over $300 million were discovered floating in the Pacific Ocean.” [USA Today]
In this undated photo supplied by the New Zealand police, a shipment of cocaine floats on the surface of the Pacific Ocean with Royal New Zealand Navy vessel HMNZS Manawanui behind. New Zealand police said Wednesday, Feb. 8, 2023 they found more than 3 tons of cocaine floating in a remote part of the Pacific Ocean after it was dropped there by an international drug-smuggling syndicate.
NZ Police via AP
February 9, 2023
Good morning. We explain why the Biden administration is trying to crack down on those sneaky fees charged by hotels, rental cars, internet providers and more.
Ticketmaster is especially aggressive about imposing fees.Paul Sakuma/Associated Press
A market failure
“Sneaky fees have become a big part of America’s consumer economy.
Hertz charges almost $6 a day simply for using a toll transponder in a rental car. Marriott and Hilton add nightly ‘resort fees’ to the bill even at hotels that nobody would consider to be resorts. American, Delta and United list one airfare when you first search for a seat — and then add charges for basic features like the ability to sit next to your spouse.
Ticketmaster is especially aggressive about imposing fees, as I experienced recently while buying two tickets to a football game. When I initially selected my seats on Ticketmaster’s online stadium map, they cost $48. The bill at checkout was more than one-third higher — $64.40.
President Biden has announced a crackdown on these fees (which his administration calls ‘junk fees’), and he devoted a section of his State of the Union address to them. ‘Look, junk fees may not matter to the very wealthy, but they matter to most other folks in homes like the one I grew up in,’ he said Tuesday night. ‘I know how unfair it feels when a company overcharges you and gets away with it.’
Today, I want to explain why anybody is even worrying about this problem. After all, in a competitive capitalist economy like ours, shouldn’t the market have already solved it?
‘Sludge’
The market solution to sneaky fees seems straightforward. When Marriott starts charging $50 nightly ‘resort fees,’ Hilton can call out its competitor and try to steal Marriott customers. And some companies do take this approach: Southwest Airlines advertises a ‘Bags Fly Free’ policy, an obvious swipe at rivals.
But the mushrooming number of fees has made clear that competition does not usually eliminate the practice. Why not? Academic research has suggested that there are two main reasons.
First, human beings are not the efficiently rational machines that economic theory pretends they are. An entire branch of the field, behavioral economics, has sprung up in recent decades to make sense of our limited attention spans.
If you are familiar with the best-selling book ‘Thinking, Fast and Slow,’ by Daniel Kahneman, you will recognize these ideas. We lead busy lives that keep us from analyzing every purchase, and we get distracted by salient but misleading information (like a low list price). Big companies, with the resources at their disposal, have learned to take advantage of these limitations. The economist Richard Thaler refers to practices like these as ‘sludge,’ the evil counterpart to nudges that use behavioral economics to improve life.
True, one company could call out another for using sludge. But doing so often requires a complex marketing message that tries to persuade people to overcome their psychological instincts (like the appeal of a low list price). For that reason, Hilton can probably make more money by charging its own sneaky resort fees than by criticizing Marriott’s.
‘Once some subset of hotels start charging these fees and generating a significant amount of revenue,’ Bharat Ramamurti, a Biden adviser, told me, ‘that creates pressure on hotels to do this, or otherwise they’re getting left behind.’
No choices
The second major reason is monopoly power. In some markets, consumers don’t have much choice. Ticketmaster’s fees outrage many people. But I didn’t have any choice when I bought those football tickets. There was no rival service selling them.
In recent decades, many American industries have become more concentrated, partly because Washington became more lax about enforcing antitrust laws. Thomas Philippon, an N.Y.U. economist, has estimated that increased corporate concentration costs the typical American household more than $5,000 a year.
In some industries, sludge and monopoly power feed off each other. The small number of dominant internet providers, for instance, reduces the chances that a new entrant can design a business strategy around undercutting Comcast’s and Verizon’s sneaky fees. Those new entrants don’t exist. Comcast and Verizon have also figured out how to make the cancellation of internet service unpleasant and time-consuming. Airlines — another concentrated industry — use frequent-flier programs in a similar way, effectively punishing customers for switching to a different carrier.
Bharat Ramamurti, a Biden adviser.Oliver Contreras for The New York Times
The crackdown
The Biden administration is trying to address both causes of sneaky fees. On antitrust, it has adopted a policy more confrontational than that of any other administration in decades. That effort is in its early stages, without many big victories. Still, the administration does seem to be taking corporate concentration seriously.
As for the sludge itself, the administration has already taken steps to restrict a few examples, such as charges for late payments on credit cards. Biden has asked Congress to pass a law with stricter rules for other industries.
The administration’s bigger focus for now is on disclosure — requiring companies to tell consumers up front what the full cost will be. The Transportation Department has proposed such a rule for airlines.
Disclosure rules often have the advantage of being easier to enforce than outright bans on sneaky fees: If the government bans one kind of fee, companies can often repackage it in another way. ‘The best we could hope for is that consumers see the full costs transparently and that the government facilitates that,’ Thaler, a Nobel laureate in economics, told me.
Ramamurti, the Biden adviser, put it this way: ‘We don’t want firms to be competing with each other to be hiding the true price of their product.’
How much of a difference Biden’s actions will make remains unclear. But the administration’s effort is based on an idea supported by a lot of evidence: The free market doesn’t solve all problems.
The U.S. government over the past half-century has moved toward an economic policy that often allows corporations to behave as they want, based on the theory that the free market will solve any excesses. The results haven’t been very good. During that same half century, economic growth has slowed, corporate profits have risen faster than wages, income inequality has soared, and living standards have grown slowly.
Sneaky fees turn out to be a small but telling example of why the modern economy isn’t working so well for many Americans.” [New York Times]
Podcast shrinkage
Illustration: Brendan Lynch/Axios
“After years of rapid growth and a pandemic boom, podcasts are producing a host of down arrows:
Fewer people are creating new shows. Networks aren't recouping investments. And longtime podcasters are hunting for ways to keep their shows sustainable, Axios' Peter Allen Clark writes.
Why it matters: Podcasts changed the listening habits of millions of people over the past decade. But the once-groundbreaking format is entering a precarious middle age.
By the numbers: The podcast ad market hasn't grown as quickly as many hoped. Its $1.5 billion size in 2022 was minuscule compared to the nearly $70 billion spent on TV ads.
Podcast search engine Listen Notes found an 80% drop in new podcasts created last year.
Listener growth last year shrank to only 5% after years of double-digit percentage growth, according to Insider Intelligence.
An annual report from Edison Research in December found declines for the first time in monthly and weekly U.S. listening habits.
What's happening: These shrinking numbers can partly be chalked up to the boom in new shows after the pandemic began, and people had more time to listen.
Listen Notes' CEO and founder Wenbin Fang told Axios: ‘The big drop is mostly low-quality shows (e.g., one-episode shows), which is actually a good thing for the industry ... People tried out podcasting during COVID, created one or two short episodes, then moved on and abandoned the show.’
Between the lines: Podcasting suffers from a lack of innovation and new blood.
The top 10 most-listened-to podcasts last year are stacked with shows that have been around for years, according to Edison. The most recent top show dates from 2019. Six of the top 10 are at least seven years old.
Reality check: Millions of new podcasts are still being made every year — Listen Notes found over 25 million new episodes were released in 2022. Edison's data shows 74 million weekly listeners in the U.S. last year.” [Axios]
Google AI chatbot Bard sends shares plummeting after it gives wrong answer
Chatbot Bard incorrectly said James Webb Space Telescope was first to take pictures of planet outside Earth’s solar system
“Google’s riposte to ChatGPT has got off to an embarrassing start after its new artificial intelligence-powered chatbot gave a wrong answer in a promotional video, as investors wiped more than $100bn (£82bn) off the value of the search engine’s parent company, Alphabet.
The sell-off on Wednesday came amid investor fears that Microsoft, which is deploying an ChatGPT-powered version of its Bing search engine, will damage Google’s business. Alphabet stock slid by 9% during regular trading in the US but was flat after hours….” Read more at The Guardian
Ex-Twitter exec details ‘homophobic and antisemitic’ abuse over handling of Hunter Biden story
Yoel Roth testifies before congressional committee that Elon Musk’s release of company’s internal records led to harassment
“A former Twitter executive testified on Wednesday that he was forced to leave and sell his home following a campaign of ‘homophobic and antisemitic’ harassment over the company’s handling of a New York Post story about Hunter Biden.
Yoel Roth, the former head of safety at Twitter, made the comments while speaking to a committee in the newly Republican-controlled House of Representatives, at a hearing convened to scrutinize the social network’s handling of a 2020 report on Joe Biden’s son.
Roth said the release of the so-called Twitter Files by Twitter’s new CEO, Elon Musk, lead to a campaign of harassment against him and other employees. The harassment intensified when Musk and others amplified ‘defamatory’ claims that he condones pedophilia, Roth said.
The Twitter Files, shared by Musk in December 2022, was a series of internal records showing how the company initially stopped the story – which the Post said was based on a copy of Hunter Biden’s laptop hard drive from Donald Trump’s then personal attorney, Rudy Giuliani – from being shared, citing the company’s internal policy on ‘hacked materials’ and concerns from Biden’s campaign, among other factors.
Roth said the release of the Twitter Files, which included his name along with those of other decision makers at the company, had ‘very real consequences’ for his safety. ‘This lie led directly to a wave of homophobic and antisemitic attacks against me … of which Twitter has removed vanishingly little. And following the Daily Mail’s decision to publish where I live. I had to leave my home and sell it.’
Roth noted he was not the only one affected, saying lower-level Twitter staff around the world, including the Philippines, ‘had their families threatened and experienced harm equal to or greater than what I’ve experienced’.
‘Those are the consequences for this type of online harassment and speech,’ he concluded.
Delegate Eleanor Holmes Norton, a Democrat representing the District of Columbia, said Roth’s testimony showed the dangers of ‘legitimizing unsubstantiated conspiracy theories about the deep state, big tech and government and government censorship for political gain’.
‘Committee Republicans are holding a match to a powder keg,’ she said.
Her point was underscored when the extremist Republican congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Green, who was temporarily banned from Twitter for sharing Covid-19 misinformation, used her questioning period to attack Roth, doubling down on unfounded and homophobic conspiracy theories.
‘I’m so glad you’ve lost your jobs,’ she said. ‘I am so glad Elon Musk bought Twitter.’
Wednesday’s hearing underscored a renewed interest from Republicans in wielding their power to pursue unproven claims that social media firms have anti-conservative biases, fanning partisan flames along the way. The lawmakers seem to have found an ally in Musk, who has given more fuel to such assertions with the Twitter Files and other tweets.
Experts say Musk’s takeover of Twitter and sympathetic views towards such conspiracy theories could increase the risk for misinformation and harassment on the platform.
‘This is somebody who flirts with conspiracy theories, has regularly retweeted conspiracy theories has replatformed conspiracy theorists and hate-mongers and white supremacists and all kinds of nefarious actors,’ Jessica J González, co-chief executive officer of the civil rights group Free Press, said of Musk.
Other former senior Twitter staff, including Vijaya Gadde, the social network’s former chief legal officer, former deputy general counsel James Baker and former safety leader Anika Collier Navaroli, also testified in the hearing, stating that decisions around content moderation are complex and difficult.
Democratic lawmakers said during the hearing that attacks on former Twitter staff were a ‘distraction’ and that the witnesses had already declared under oath there was no collusion between the government and Twitter to suppress conservative speech.
‘We’re wasting our time here bullying former Twitter employees,’ said Maxwell Frost, a Democratic representative from Florida. ‘I’ve been sitting here for over two hours and I’m not really seeing the point of this hearing.’ [The Guardian]
Disney unveils layoffs, restructuring
To commemorate this year's 100th anniversary of the Walt Disney Co., Sleeping Beauty Castle at Disneyland in Anaheim, Calif., is adorned with platinum-infused decor. Photo: Sandy Hooper/USA Today via Reuters
“The Walt Disney Co. announced yesterday on a call with investors that it expects to cut 7,000 jobs this year — 3.6% of its global workforce — as part of a broad restructuring and a bigger effort to save $5.5 billion in costs.
Disney stock, which dropped 44% in 2022, was up 5% in after-hours trading after the changes and the company's fourth-quarter earnings report were announced.
Why it matters: Returning CEO Bob Iger is undoing many organizational changes made under his dethroned predecessor, Bob Chapek, Axios' Shawna Chen and Sara Fischer report.
What's happening: Disney aims to return greater authority to the company's creative leaders and would make ‘them accountable to how their content performs financially,’ Iger said.
The former structure, he said, ‘severed that link.’
Creative teams will be responsible for ‘what content we're making, how it is distributed and monetized, and how it gets marketed ... Managing costs, maximizing revenue, and driving growth from the content being produced will be their responsibility.’
The new structure, which will be implemented immediately, will divide the company into three parts: Disney entertainment ... ESPN .... Disney Parks, Experiences and Products.
Disney expects the Disney+ streaming service will be profitable by the end of fiscal '24.” [Axios]
Brad Penner / USA Today
Suns land Durant in stunner
“Late last night, the Brooklyn Nets agreed to trade superstar Kevin Durant to the Phoenix Suns in a shocker that shakes the power balance in both conferences. The details:
Phoenix sends four first-round picks, Mikal Bridges, Jae Crowder, Cam Johnson and additional draft compensation to Brooklyn for Durant and T.J. Warren. The Suns are all-in under new owner Mat Ishbia, who assumed power over the franchise just this week and immediately OK’d a complete overhaul of the roster. Bold.
The Nets went from title contender to rebuilder in a week’s time. Durant is gone, so is Kyrie Irving and now Brooklyn has a boatload of draft picks to retool. It makes plenty of sense, but it’s still mind-blowing all the same.” [The Athletic]
“First time in 30 years: Marquette’s women’s basketball team upended No. 4 UConn last night, giving the Huskies back-to-back losses for the first time since 1993.” [New York Times]
Lost Letters by Mary, Queen of Scots, Uncovered by Amateur Code Breakers
The messages, written while she was imprisoned by her cousin Queen Elizabeth I, were mistakenly listed as Italian texts in France’s national library.
“Deep in the archives of France’s national library, an assortment of coded letters listed as Italian texts lay untouched for more than 400 years. But when three code breakers — a German pianist, an Israeli computer scientist and a Japanese physicist — stumbled upon them, they discovered something remarkable.
They were, they found, not Italian texts at all.
Instead, they were part of the secret prison correspondence of Mary, Queen of Scots, whose tragic life and tangled role in the lethal dynastic and religious politics of 16th-century Europe have long fascinated writers and historians. One leading biographer of Mary described the discovery as the most significant in the study of her life for more than a century.
‘We found treasure lying in plain sight,’ said George Lasry, the Israeli computer scientist who led the yearlong project, which was released to the public on Wednesday, the 436th anniversary of Mary’s death.
Mary became the queen of Scotland when she was just 6 days old, in 1542, but was imprisoned and forced to give up her throne in 1567. She escaped to England, only to be jailed again by her cousin Queen Elizabeth I as a threat to her own rule. After 19 years as a prisoner, she was eventually executed in 1587, at age 44, accused of involvement in a Catholic plot to assassinate the Protestant Elizabeth.
The 57 letters, written between 1578 and 1584 and previously believed lost, include her thoughts about her ailing health, her conditions as a captive in a series of English castles and her failed attempts to secure her freedom.
Secret Messages Throughout History
For centuries, people have exchanged information in writing. Science is now casting new light on what was once meant to be private.
Uncensored: Using an X-ray technique, scientists have revealed the content of redacted letters between Marie Antoinette and Count von Fersen, her rumored lover.
Original Encryption: To safeguard their missives against snoops, writers through the ages have employed a complicated means of security: letterlocking.
Decoded Defiance: A scholar claims to have uncovered a hidden message from Catherine of Aragon in the design of a pendant she commissioned as Henry VIII was trying to divorce her.
She also expressed her deep anguish over her separation from her son, James, made king of Scotland at age 1 by her forced abdication, as well as her mistrust of Elizabeth’s spymaster, Sir Francis Walsingham.
The bulk of the coded letters were intended for France’s ambassador to England, Michel de Castelnau, who supported Mary’s claim to the throne. As a descendant of King Henry VII, she was regarded by many of her fellow Catholics not only as a potential champion for their faith but as England’s legitimate queen: Elizabeth was the child of King Henry VIII’s second wife, Anne Boleyn, whose marriage the Catholic Church did not recognize.
Instead, Elizabeth was eventually succeeded by James, who was raised as a Protestant by Scottish nobles.
The existence of a confidential line of communication between Mary and the ambassador was already well known to historians, but the code breakers’ findings indicated that it was in place much earlier than previously thought.
‘I cannot thank you enough for the care, vigilance and entirely good affection with which I see that you embrace everything that concerns me and I beg you to continue to do so more strongly than ever, especially for my said release,’ Mary wrote to the ambassador in one letter, dated to April 16, 1583.
As the code breakers — Mr. Lasry, Norbert Biermann of Germany and Satoshi Tomokiyo of Japan — were cast into the international spotlight on Wednesday, they reflected on the year of late nights they had put into deciphering the some 50,000 words, initially without knowing their famous author.
‘It took a lot of time and effort,’ Mr. Lasry said. ‘We all have our day jobs. We just do this in our evenings and weekends.’
After deciphering that the woman writing the messages had a son, the team spotted several mentions of ‘ma liberté,’ as well as the name ‘Walsingham.’ It was only then that they understood the significance of the documents.
‘When we finally realized what it was,’ Mr. Lasry said, ‘I remember thinking: ‘No way, it cannot be that we just stumbled upon this by chance. It surely would have been discovered much, much earlier.’” [New York Times]
Photo of the day: Award-winning 'dream' image of a leopard at sunset
“A German photographer has won The Wildlife Photographer of the Year People's Choice Award. Out of 25 images selected as finalists, Sascha Fonseca's image of a snow leopard posed against the Indian Himalayas was chosen by thousands of voters. Click here to read more about the story behind the image.” [USA Today]
Sascha Fonseca's image of a snow leopard posed against the Indian Himalayas was chosen by thousands of voters for The Wildlife Photographer of the Year People's Choice Award. SASCHA FONSECA, WILDLIFE PHOTOGRAPHER OF THE YEAR
“Lives Lived: Mukarram Jah was the heir of India’s richest royal family, but he abandoned his throne and became a sheep farmer in Australia. He died at 89.” [New York Times]