The Full Belmonte, 3/24/2024
THE LATEST NEWS
Russia Concert Attack
Mourners in Moscow. Nanna Heitmann for The New York Times
“Russia began a national day of mourning for victims of a terrorist attack on a suburban Moscow concert venue that killed at least 133 people.” [New York Times]
“U.S. officials said the attack was carried out by ISIS-K, an Islamic State affiliate. In a televised address, Vladimir Putin signaled some Ukrainian involvement, a charge that Kyiv has denied.” [New York Times]
“The Islamic State has long threatened to strike Russia for helping Syria’s president, Bashar al-Assad, stay in power.” [New York Times]
“The attack shatters Putin’s promise of security to Russians, Anton Troianovski writes.” [New York Times]
Politics
“President Biden signed a $1.2 trillion spending package, ending the prospect of a government shutdown.” [New York Times]
$1.2T bipartisan spending deal signed into law: Five things to know
BY STEFF DANIELLE THOMAS
“President Biden signed the $1.2 trillion spending package into law Saturday afternoon.
‘The bipartisan funding bill I just signed keeps the government open, invests in the American people, and strengthens our economy and national security,’ Biden wrote after signing the bill. ‘This agreement represents a compromise, which means neither side got everything it wanted.’”
Read the full story here at The Hill
“While the coronavirus pandemic has largely receded from public attention, its shadow continues to play a role in voters’ pessimism and distrust in public institutions.” [New York Times]
Trump spirals as bond deadline in fraud case nears
BY ELLA LEE AND BRETT SAMUELS
© Greg Nash
“The eye-popping judgment against former President Trump in his New York fraud case has laid bare his precarious financial status, a matter that has sent the notoriously incensed real estate mogul off the rails.
In Truth Social posts, Trump has laid out mini diatribes lambasting the judge and attorney general in the case, claiming they want to swindle him out of precisely the amount of cash he has on hand to the tune of half a billion dollars.”
Read the full story here at The Hill
Elaborate PAC scheme helping pay Trump's legal fees — for now
“MAGA Inc.'s donation refunds have kept Save America afloat as it bleeds tens of millions of dollars on legal bills.”
READ MORE at USA Today
Biden steps up efforts to reach voters of color
BY JULIA MUELLER
“President Biden's campaign is stepping up efforts to reach voters of color ahead of a November showdown with former President Trump and amid signs that some Black and Latino voters are turning away from the Democratic Party.
President Biden’s campaign last week launched ads speaking directly to Black voters in battleground states, arguing another Trump term would be a ‘disaster’ for the demographic. A day later, the campaign announced a program to engage Latino voters — and Biden said during a campaign stop in Arizona that they're ‘the reason why, in large part, I beat Donald Trump.’”
Read the full story here at The Hill
Texas Democrats see political opportunity in hardline immigration law
BY RAFAEL BERNAL
“Judicial whiplash over Texas’s controversial new immigration law has delayed its implementation, but potentially not its political effects.
S.B. 4 is the latest in a string of local- and state-level immigration crackdowns that goes back at least to California’s Proposition 187, a 1994 ballot measure supported by then-Gov. Pete Wilson (R) that deputized individual Californians to report anyone suspected of being undocumented to immigration authorities.”
Read the full story here at The Hill
Gingrich reacts to Greene’s motion to oust Speaker Johnson: Gaetz ‘unleashed the demons’
BY FILIP TIMOTIJA
“Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.) said that Congressman Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) ‘unleashed the demons’ when he spearheaded an effort last year to oust former Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) from his leadership post.
Gingrich was responding to a question from Fox host Laura Ingraham on why some House Republicans, like Reps. Ken Buck (R-Colo.) and Mike Gallagher (R-Wisc.), have been leaving Congress before their terms ended.”
Read the full story here at The Hill
Cohen slams DOJ for lack of transparency in Trump hush money case
BY LAUREN IRWIN
“Michael Cohen, the ex-personal attorney of former President Trump, slammed the Department of Justice (DOJ) for a lack of transparency in the New York hush money case ahead of a hearing Monday.
Cohen, Trump’s former fixer, joined MSNBC’s ‘The Weekend’ Saturday where he said he is ‘very angry’ that there’s been ‘absolute silence’ to his request for documents in the case, while his former boss puts in a request and ‘all of a sudden’ documents appear.”
Read the full story here at The Hill
Only Bob Casey, David McCormick eligible for Pennsylvania Senate ballot
BY LAUREN IRWIN
“Sen. Bob Casey (D-Pa.) and his Republican challenger David McCormick are the only candidates that will appear on the Pennsylvania Senate ballot, the state’s highest court ruled Friday.
The ruling boots several other challengers from appearing on the ticket and was a successful challenge to having the relatively unknown candidates appear on the primary ticket next month, The Associated Press reported.”
Read the full story here at The Hill
Jasmin Paris Jacob Zocherman
“Jasmin Paris became the first woman to complete the Barkley Marathons, a footrace that requires participants to navigate 100 miles of rugged Tennessee terrain in no more than 60 hours.” [New York Times]
“People don’t tend to take the medication prescribed to them. But anecdotally, doctors have said that new obesity drugs might be an exception.” [New York Times]
“NASA is recruiting a new class of astronauts.” [New York Times]
College chaos
Illustration: Maura Losch/Axios
“The college admissions rat race is suddenly more frustrating and complex than ever:
A new federal financial aid form is buggy and baffling. Colleges keep changing their minds about the value of standardized tests. And this is the first application season without affirmative action — adding a host of unknowns, Axios' Erica Pandey writes.
Why it matters: Chances of making a bad choice are rising. The financial aid process is working so poorly that some students are enrolling without knowing whether they'll be able to afford to go, The Wall Street Journal reports.
Zoom in: When the new financial aid forms rolled out in December, technical issues prevented important revisions and system glitches kept some families from submitting it at all.
29% of high school seniors had submitted forms as of March 1, compared with 45% at the same point in 2023, The Journal notes.
Major changes to standardized testing are also making the admissions process more confusing.
Many schools made standardized tests optional during the pandemic, but some elite institutions, including Yale and Dartmouth, are requiring them again.
And the SAT itself is undergoing major changes.
Colleges are also navigating their first application season without affirmative action.
Colleges have changed their software to hide applicants' race from admissions officers, per The Journal.
Students are unsure if they should be mentioning race in essays.” [Axios]
OpenAI goes to Hollywood
Illustration: Sarah Grillo/Axios
“OpenAI is knocking on Hollywood studios' doors.
The company has scheduled meetings with Hollywood executives and talent agencies this week to encourage them to use its new AI video generator in the movie business, Bloomberg reports.
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman made the rounds of parties during Oscars weekend.
Why it matters: Many studios already use AI in their work. Generative AI — which can spin up text, images and now videos from prompts — is raising fears about stripping jobs from voice actors, illustrators and more.
Open AI told Axios: ‘OpenAI has a deliberate strategy of working in collaboration with industry ... in order to ensure safe implementation and to give people an idea of what's on the horizon.’
What to watch: OpenAI isn't the only company courting Hollywood. Meta, Google and a slew of startups are also working on text-to-video tech.” [Axios]
Mapped: America's commute
Data: Replica. Map: Alice Feng/Axios
“Residents in Monroe County, Pa. (70 miles); Coconino County, Ariz.(68.6); and Parker County, Texas (66.7), travel the most daily miles per person among counties with more than 100,000 residents, Axios' Alex Fitzpatrick and Alice Feng report.
The flip side: New York City accounts for all three counties with the lowest daily miles traveled.
It's 12.9 miles for New York County (Manhattan), 15.5 for Kings County (Brooklyn) and 16.6 for Bronx County.
On average, Americans travel 42 miles every day, including driving, walking, biking and public transit, per data from mobility analytics platform Replica.” [Axios]
LSU coach blasts reporter, threatens lawsuit against Washington Post
“LSU coach Kim Mulkey said a reporter from the Washington Post has been trying to ‘put a hit piece together’ and she has hired a defamation law firm.”
READ MORE at USA Today
“Lives Lived: David Harris was a former Air Force bomber pilot who became the first Black pilot hired by a major commercial airline in the U.S. He died at 89.” [New York Times]
Laurent de Brunhoff, author of Babar children’s books, dies at 98
Painter and storyteller, who revived father’s picture-book series about elephant king, said he didn’t consciously write for young people
“Babar author Laurent de Brunhoff, who revived his father’s popular picture-book series about an elephant-king and presided over its rise to a global multimedia franchise, has died at the age of 98.
De Brunhoff, who was from Paris and moved to the US in the 1980s, died on Friday at his home in Key West, Florida, after being in hospice care for two weeks, according to his widow, Phyllis Rose.
Just 12 years old when his father, Jean de Brunhoff, died of tuberculosis, Laurent was an adult when he drew upon his own gifts as a painter and storyteller and released dozens of books about the elephant who reigns over Celesteville, among them Babar at the Circus and Babar’s Yoga for Elephants. He preferred using fewer words than his father did, but his illustrations faithfully mimicked Jean’s gentle, understated style.
‘Together, father and son have woven a fictive world so seamless that it is nearly impossible to detect where one stopped and the other started,’ author Ann S Haskell wrote in the New York Times in 1981.
The series has sold millions of copies worldwide and was adapted for a television program and such animated features as Babar: The Movie and “Babar: King of the Elephants. Fans ranged from Charles de Gaulle to Maurice Sendak, who once wrote: ‘If he had come my way, how I would have welcomed that little elephant and smothered him with affection.’”…. Read more at The Guardian
A woman lights candles at a memorial near Crocus City Hall on the outskirts of Moscow.
“Flags are flying at half-staff as Russia observes a day of national mourning for the 133 people who died in the assault on a concert hall near Moscow. The attack was the deadliest inside Russia for more than two decades, and nearly a dozen people have been detained. Follow live updates.
The Prince and Princess of Wales expressed their gratitude for the outpouring of support they have received from the public after Catherine, Princess of Wales, announced she has cancer. The princess, known as Kate, described her diagnosis as a ‘huge shock.’
President Joe Biden signed into law the $1.2 trillion legislation that completes the funding of federal agencies through the fiscal year, which ends September 30. The House passed the package on Friday, and the Senate passed it early Saturday morning.
Nearly 300 schoolchildren kidnapped in Nigeria earlier this month have been released, the governor of the country’s Kaduna state said. They were abducted by armed bandits on motorcycles who demanded a ransom and threatened to kill the children.
Prosecutors say new video and documents show that ‘religious extremism’ motivated popular parent blogger Ruby Franke’s abuse of children. She has pleaded guilty to four counts of aggravated child abuse.
MONDAY
Former President Donald Trump faces a deadline to secure a nearly half-billion-dollar bond to appeal his civil fraud case in New York. Trump’s lawyers said last week that the presumptive Republican presidential nominee was unable to secure a bond after he was turned down by 30 insurance companies. They told the appeals court the insurers wanted cash or stock as collateral worth about half a billion dollars and they would not take real estate as collateral. If Trump is unable to secure the cash — or unless the appeals court agrees to grant his motion to delay fronting the money until after the appeal is heard — New York Attorney General Letitia James may begin seizing some of his assets to finance his obligation to the state. Filings show New York officials are first preparing to try to seize Trump's golf course and private estate north of Manhattan, known as Seven Springs.
Elsewhere in Trump's legal troubles, a hearing is scheduled in his criminal hush money trial in Manhattan to address the production of tens of thousands of documents turned over this month by the Department of Justice, as well as Trump’s motions to dismiss the case and sanction District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s office over what he says are repeated discovery violations. The trial itself had been slated to begin Monday, but the judge overseeing the trial agreed to delay its start. A new trial date is yet to be determined but is not likely before mid-April.
TUESDAY
The Supreme Court will consider whether to restrict access to a widely used abortion drug, even in states where the procedure is still allowed. The case concerns the drug mifepristone, which — when coupled with another drug — is one of the most common abortion methods in the US. A federal judge in Texas issued a ruling that would have halted the FDA’s initial approval of the drug in 2000.
Independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. will announce his running mate in Oakland, California. In an interview with CNN earlier this month, Kennedy said he had ‘made up his mind’ on his running mate, selected from a shortlist that included NFL quarterback Aaron Rodgers and former Minnesota Gov. Jesse Ventura. Other names on the list included former Democratic Rep. Tulsi Gabbard, GOP Sen. Rand Paul and former Democratic presidential candidate Andrew Yang, a campaign spokesperson said.
THURSDAY
Onetime cryptocurrency billionaire Sam Bankman-Fried is scheduled to be sentenced for stealing billions of dollars from customers and defrauding investors in his now-bankrupt crypto exchange, FTX. Bankman-Fried was convicted in November of stealing more than $8 billion and engaging his employees in a yearslong coverup, in what has been called one of the largest financial frauds in history. Federal prosecutors are asking for a sentence of 40 to 50 years in prison. Lawyers for Bankman-Fried are urging the judge to consider a far shorter prison sentence of no more than 6.5 years.
FRIDAY
March 28 marks one year that Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich has been wrongfully detained in Russia. He was arrested in 2023 while on a reporting trip in the country. The FSB, Russia’s main security service, accused Gershkovich of trying to obtain state secrets — a charge that he, his employer and the US government have strenuously denied. If convicted, he faces up to 20 years in prison.” [CNN]