The Full Belmonte, 3/29/2023
“Former US Vice President Mike Pence was ordered by a judge to testify before a federal grand jury hearing evidence from the Special Counsel investigating Donald Trump and his allies for their alleged roles in what the Jan. 6 committee labeled an attempted coup. The probe of Trump’s efforts to block the transfer of power is just one of four criminal investigations faced by the Republican.” [Bloomberg]
U.S. Vice President Mike Pence presiding over a joint session of Congress to count the votes of the Electoral College on Jan. 6, 2021. Hours earlier, Donald Trump’s followers stormed the building in an effort to block the election of Joe Biden. Photographer: Erin Schaff/The New York Times
Shooter's legal guns
An entrance to The Covenant School has become a memorial. Photo: John Amis/AP
“The suspected assailant who killed six people at a Nashville school yesterday is believed to have bought several of the guns legally.
The use of legally purchased weapons in mass shootings is incredibly common, Axios' Erin Doherty reports.
By the numbers: From 1966 to 2019, 77% of mass shooters purchased at least one of the weapons used in the shootings legally, per data compiled by the National Institute of Justice, a research wing of the Justice Department.
Illegal purchases were made by just 13% of mass shooters.
Nashville Police Chief John Drake said today that the suspected shooter had legally purchased seven guns from five local gun stores. Three of the guns were found at The Covenant School, where the shooting occurred.
The parents of the suspect, Audrey Hale, were only aware of one of the firearms — and didn't believe Hale should own weapons, Drake said.
The assailants in the Uvalde and Buffalo massacres legally purchased guns used in the shootings.
Marine One, with President Biden aboard, flies past a White House flag that's at half-staff to honor the Nashville victims. Photo: Stefani Reynolds/AFP via Getty Images
Mourning for the six victims — including three 9-year-olds — continued in Nashville and around the country.
President Biden told reporters today he had exhausted his options ‘to do on my own, anything about guns,’ but reiterated his plea for Congress to act.” [Axios]
“US Senators grilled top US financial regulators in the wake of the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank and Signature Bank Tuesday. The banking crisis has called into question how the sweeping regulatory reforms that followed the Great Recession might have left dangerous gaps in the financial system, as well as how a rollback of certain provisions under the Trump administration played a role. Officials outlined stronger liquidity and capital standards, among other regulations, that would address underlying issues that contributed to the collapse of regional lenders. But the proposals are unlikely to become law in a divided Congress.” [Bloomberg]
Michael Barr, vice chair for supervision at the Federal Reserve, during a Senate Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs Committee hearing on Tuesday in Washington. Photographer: Samuel Corum/Bloomberg
Covid-19 vaccines
“Healthy kids and teenagers may not need to get a Covid-19 shot, according to revised global vaccination recommendations from the World Health Organization. The updated roadmap is designed to prioritize Covid-19 vaccines for those at greatest risk of death and severe disease, according to the organization's vaccine experts. While this latest guidance could change if the pandemic evolves, it comes as some countries are already making their own choices about vaccine recommendations based on their vaccine supply and progress. US officials, for example, are weighing whether to offer people who are at high risk of severe Covid-19 the chance to get another bivalent booster. The UK and Canada have already begun allowing certain people to get an additional bivalent booster.” [CNN]
Court backs victim’s family in Adnan Syed’s ‘Serial’ case
By BRIAN WITTE and LEA SKENE
FILE - Adnan Syed gets emotional as he speaks to reporters outside the Robert C. Murphy Courts of Appeal building after a hearing, Thursday, Feb. 2, 2023, in Annapolis, Md. A Maryland court did not give the family of the murder victim in the case chronicled in the hit podcast “Serial” enough time to attend a court hearing in person that led to Syed's release, a Maryland appellate court ruled Tuesday, March 28, and it ordered a new hearing to be held. (Barbara Haddock Taylor/The Baltimore Sun via AP, File)
“ANNAPOLIS, Md. (AP) — A Maryland appellate court on Tuesday reinstated Adnan Syed’s murder conviction and ordered a new hearing in the case, marking the latest development in the protracted legal odyssey chronicled in the hit podcast “Serial.”
Though Syed’s conviction has been reinstated, he will not immediately be taken back into custody.
In a 2-1 decision released Tuesday, the Appellate Court of Maryland ruled a lower court failed to give sufficient notice to the victim’s family when it scheduled the September hearing that vacated Syed’s conviction and allowed him to regain his freedom after more than two decades behind bars.
The intermediate court’s order does not go into effect for 60 days, which delays any immediate consequences and allows the parties time to decide whether to appeal and schedule upcoming proceedings accordingly.
Syed’s attorney Erica Suter said they will ask the state supreme court to review the case….” Read more at AP News
FTX founder Bankman-Fried charged with paying $40M bribe
By LARRY NEUMEISTER
FILE — FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried leaves Manhattan federal court in New York, Feb. 16, 2023. On Tuesday, Bankman-Fried is accused in new indictment of paying $40 million bribe to unlock frozen crypto in China. (AP Photo/John Minchillo, File)
“NEW YORK (AP) — FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried was charged with directing $40 million in bribes to one or more Chinese officials to unfreeze assets relating to his cryptocurrency business in a newly rewritten indictment unsealed Tuesday.
The charge of conspiracy to violate the anti-bribery provisions of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act raises to 13 the number of charges Bankman-Fried faces after he was arrested in the Bahamas in December and brought to the United States soon afterward. The indictment was returned on Monday.
The charge also contains language revealing that a fifth arrest was imminent in what U.S. Attorney Damian Williams has repeatedly described as a continuing investigation. That unidentified individual, according to the indictment, participated in the bribery conspiracy with Bankman-Fried and ‘will be arrested in the Southern District of New York.’
FTX filed for bankruptcy on Nov. 11, when it ran out of money after the equivalent of a bank run on the global cryptocurrency exchange. He has remained free on a $250 million personal recognizance bond that lets him stay with his parents in Palo Alto, California.
He has pleaded not guilty to charges that he cheated investors out of billions of dollars before his business collapsed….” Read more at AP News
“Fox News fired a producer who claimed she’d been coerced to give false deposition testimony in the $1.6 billion defamation suit by Dominion Voting Systems over the network’s broadcasting of 2020 election-fraud claims.” [Bloomberg]
“Political slant | Four out of five Republicans regard the multiple investigations into former US President Donald Trump, including whether he paid hush money to an adult film star, as a ‘witch hunt,’ while 56% of all adults describe the probes as fair, a national Marist poll showed. Recent surveys still put him as the frontrunner to win his party’s 2024 presidential primary.
Trump’s first wife, Ivana, was under an FBI counterintelligence inquiry into allegations about her connections in her home country of Czechoslovakia in the 1990s, excerpts from her FBI file obtained by Bloomberg News showed.” [Bloomberg]
Ivana Trump in 2018. Photographer: Noam Galai/Getty Images
Guards walked away during fire that killed 38 migrants near US-Mexico border, footage shows
“Surveillance footage from inside the immigration detention center in northern Mexico near the U.S. border where 38 migrants died in a dormitory fire appears to show guards walking away from the blaze and making no apparent attempt to release detainees. The fire broke out when migrants fearing deportation set mattresses ablaze late Monday at the National Immigration Institute, a facility in Ciudad Juárez, south of El Paso, Texas, Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador said. The footage shows guards did not appear to attempt to open cell doors so migrants could escape the fire.” Read more at USA Today
Rescuers work to take the injured and the corpses of the victims out of the premises after a fire at an immigration detention center in Northern Mexico on March 28, 2023 in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico. Getty Images, Getty Images
France protests
“Massive protests in France are showing no signs of letting up as angry demonstrators take to the streets over French President Emmanuel Macron's pension reforms. Major services have come to a halt across the country in recent weeks over Macron's proposal to raise the retirement age for most workers from 62 to 64 -- a move that has riled opposition lawmakers and trade unions. Some 740,000 protesters joined 240 rallies held throughout France on Tuesday, with more than 93,000 demonstrators filling the streets of Paris alone, according to the French Interior Ministry. Today marks the 11th day of nationwide demonstrations, which have turned violent in recent days with some protestors hurling objects at the police, including smoke bombs, rocks and bottles.” [CNN]
Amsterdam launches stay away ad campaign targeting young British men
By Anna Holligan
BBC News, Amsterdam
“Amsterdam has warned rowdy British sex and drug tourists to "stay away".
A digital discouragement campaign targeting men aged 18 to 35 in the UK is being pushed out by the Dutch city's council.
The initiative forms part of efforts to clean up Amsterdam's raunchy reputation as Europe's most liberal party capital.
Typically blunt, the videos show young men staggering in the street, handcuffed by police, finger-printed and having their mugshots taken.
The online ads, highlighting the risks associated with the excessive use of drugs and booze, will be triggered when people in Britain tap in terms like - stag party, cheap hotel or pub crawl Amsterdam.
The message is uncompromising - a long weekend in Amsterdam may create the wrong kind of memories, the escapism you crave in the renowned party capital could result in inescapable convictions.
Brits can find return flights to Amsterdam for £50 (€57; $62).
UK-based travel agencies also offer stag weekends in Amsterdam, including canal boat cruises with unlimited booze, ‘steak and strip’ nights and red light district pub crawls.
For years people have complained of drunken Brits urinating in public, throwing up in canals, stripping off and engaging in drunken brawls.
This is not a new phenomenon. Almost a decade ago, Amsterdam's then mayor invited his London counterpart Boris Johnson, who had described the city as "sleazy", to see for himself what Brits got up to.
‘They don't wear a coat as they slalom through the red light district… they sing 'You'll never walk alone'. They are dressed as rabbits or priests and sometimes they are not dressed at all. I'd love to invite him to witness it,’ Eberhard van der Laan said at the time.
Critics argue the targeted ad campaigns are discriminatory and are based on unfair stereotypes.
In the Netherlands, coffee shops are allowed to sell cannabis as long as they follow certain strict conditions, like not serving alcoholic drinks or selling to minors.
‘Tourists come for the museums and also for the coffeeshops,’ Joachim Helms, owner of the Greenhouse coffee shop, told me.
He nodded towards a woman in her 60s and pointed out his clientele came from all social and economic walks of life, arguing that attempts to exclude some based on their age and gender violated the principles of freedom, tolerance and equality that Amsterdam prided itself on.
Joachim Helm's coffee shop has been visited by many stars, including Miley Cyrus, Snoop Dogg, Rihanna and Justin Bieber
But the narrow, cobbled, bike-laden streets and canals are under pressure.
Amsterdam is one of the world's most visited cities. Around 20 million visitors - including a million Brits - visit the city, which has a population of approximately 883,000, every year.
But over-tourism is testing the locals' tolerance and has compelled the council to act.
Larger-than-life billboards displayed in the red light district show photos of residents, with words reminding visitors: ‘We Live Here’.
The council is in the process of moving the famous neon-lit windows, where sex workers parade for trade, out of the residential heart of the capital to a new "erotic zone".
Whispers about banning the sex trade entirely have faded for now. Instead, more stringent operating rules are being introduced.
Starting this weekend, brothels and bars will have earlier closing times and a ban on smoking cannabis on the streets in and around the Red Light District comes into force in May.
There is still debate about whether tourists should be banned from the Dutch capital's cannabis cafes.
Amsterdam's mission is to make the industry less seedy, more sustainable, and the city, more liveable.
But many locals living in the tall narrow townhouses that line the 17th-Century canal rings tell me it is not the young men who are the problem but the sheer numbers.
‘It feels like we're living in Disneyland or a zoo,’ the Visser family told me.
Deputy Mayor Sofyan Mbarki said Amsterdam was already taking more management measures than other large cities in Europe.
‘Visitors will remain welcome but not if they misbehave and cause nuisance,’ he added.
People have been responding to the anti-tourism campaign on social media, with one man joking it ‘looks more like a commercial to me’ and another remarking it was a ‘mystery why 18-35 [year olds] would be attracted to a city with legalised drug cafes and brothels’.
Others seem sceptical of the campaign, with one woman writing: ‘They want to make money with families and museums but they know it's weed and red light that keep the city running.’: [BBC]
Paris trash strike ends
“Paris authorities are cleaning up debris from the French capital's streets following fresh anti-pension reform protests that appear to be winding down, as striking sanitation workers are set to return to work. The union representing Paris sanitation workers said its members will return to their jobs Wednesday, ending strike action that lasted for more than three weeks and resulted in heaps of uncollected trash that became a visual symbol of opposition to French President Emmanuel Macron’s pension bill.” Read more at USA Today
Protesters gather during a demonstration in Toulouse, southern France, on March 28, 2023. CHARLY TRIBALLEAU, AFP via Getty Images
Prince Harry case continues in London court
“A hearing involving Prince Harry is expected to continue for a third day in High Court in London Wednesday. This is one of several lawsuits the Duke of Sussex has brought against the media and alleges Associated Newspapers Ltd., which publishes titles including the Daily Mail, commissioned the ‘breaking and entry into private property.’ The case, which involves several other celebrities including Elton John, alleges the company engaged in unlawful acts that included hiring private investigators to bug homes and cars and record private phone conversations. The hearing is expected to last until Thursday.” Read more at USA Today
Prince Harry, Duke of Sussex returned to the Royal Courts of Justice, Britain's High Court, in London on March 28, 2023. DANIEL LEAL, AFP via Getty Images
“Last resort | China has become the go-to lender for poorer nations seeking to speed their development by tapping Beijing’s Belt and Road Initiative. Yet with a growing number struggling to pay their debts, China is bailing out those same nations it’s been lending to. A study released today shows how Beijing has channeled at least $240 billion into 22 countries since 2000.” [Bloomberg]
“Diversifying Britain | Humza Yousaf’s election as Scotland’s new leader means that three of the UK’s top positions are held by men who are people of color, joining Prime Minister Rishi Sunak and London Mayor Sadiq Khan. Yousaf will become the first Muslim to be appointed First Minister today, and his rise to power comes at a time of increasing political participation for ethnic minorities across the UK.” [Bloomberg]
“Nearly 8% of the record $58 billion that Mexicans mainly living in the US sent home last year appears to be linked to illegal activities, including money laundering, according to a new report.” [Bloomberg]
“Alibaba Group’s US shares surged after China’s online commerce leader announced plans to split its $220 billion empire into six business units. It frees up the company’s divisions—from e-commerce and media to the cloud—to pursue initial public offerings. Beijing criticized the influence of online platforms like Alibaba at the height of its tech crackdown, and the restructuring addresses, at-least in part, some of the concerns.” [Bloomberg]
Jack Ma, chairman of Alibaba Group. Photographer: Qilai Shen/Bloomberg
“After fleeing poverty and hunger in North Korea, defectors to South Korea often struggle to survive when government support runs out. Sangmi Cha and Jon Herskovitz explain that, while resettlement should be easy in theory because they’re moving to a country with a common language, culture and traditions, some from North Korea experience deep isolation — and even starvation — in cases that end in tragedy.” [Bloomberg]
A makeshift shrine for North Korean defector Han Sung-ok and her son, who are believed to have died from starvation, in Seoul in 2019. Photographer: Jung Yeon-je/AFP/Getty Images
“Germany sends tanks to Ukraine. Germany’s defense minister said his country has sent the first batch of Leopard 2 tanks to Ukraine. The tanks “could make a decisive contribution,” said Boris Pistorius, the relatively new German defense chief. Challenger 2 tanks from the United Kingdom have also reportedly arrived. Leopards are generally regarded as Europe’s best battle tanks, and Germany was reluctant to send them to Ukraine, before finally agreeing to do so earlier this year. Germany was also originally hesitant to permit other countries to send their German-made tanks to Ukraine (German law says that the export of Leopard 2s from other countries must be approved) before eventually relenting.” [Foreign Policy]
By David Leonhardt
Good morning. Obamacare’s win in North Carolina is a sign of larger changes.
Gov. Roy Cooper in Raleigh, N.C.Eamon Queeney for The New York Times
What it once was like
“The government benefits began their existence as objects of partisan rancor and harsh criticism. Eventually, though, they became so popular that politicians of both parties promised to protect them.
It was true of Social Security and Medicare. And now the pattern seems to be repeating itself with Obamacare.
Consider what has happened recently in North Carolina: Only a decade after the state’s Republican politicians described the law as dangerous and refused to sign up for its expansion of Medicaid, Republicans and Democrats came together to pass such an expansion. The Republican-controlled House in North Carolina passed the bill 87 to 24, while the Republican-controlled Senate passed it 44 to 2.
‘Wow, have things changed,’ Jonathan Cohn wrote in a HuffPost piece explaining how the turnabout happened.
Obamacare — the country’s largest expansion of health insurance since Medicare and Medicaid in 1965 — is still not as widely accepted as those programs. North Carolina became the 40th state to agree to expand Medicaid under Obamacare, which means that 10 states still have not, including two of the largest, Texas and Florida. In those states, more than 3.5 million adults lack health insurance as a result.
But the list of states signing up for the program seems to be moving in only one direction: It keeps growing.
Source: Kaiser Family Foundation
‘Humiliation’
In its growing acceptance, Obamacare resembles other major parts of the federal safety net:
When Congress was considering Social Security in 1935, conservatives and many business executives bitterly criticized it. One Texas newspaper described Social Security as ‘a huge sales tax on everybody on behalf of the oldsters.’ A Wall Street Journal editorial predicted that the law would eventually be reason for Congress to look back in ‘humiliation.’ Not exactly: Social Security is so popular that it is known as a third rail in American politics.
When Congress was debating Medicare in the 1960s, Ronald Reagan — then an actor with a rising political profile — attacked the program as a step toward socialism. If it passed, Reagan warned, ‘We are going to spend our sunset years telling our children and our children’s children, what it once was like in America when men were free.’ As president, Reagan praised and supported the program.
After Congress created Medicaid — a health-insurance program primarily for low-income households — in 1965, some states did not initially join it. Arizona became the last to do so, in 1982.
Roberts and McCain
In the initial years after Obamacare’s passage in 2010, it was similarly divisive. Blue states embraced it, while many red states rejected its voluntary Medicaid expansion. In Washington, congressional Republicans and Donald Trump tried to repeal it. Some Republican-appointed judges invalidated parts of it, and every Republican appointee on the Supreme Court except Chief Justice John Roberts voted to scrap the law.
Twice, it survived by a single vote — first, by Roberts’s 2012 Supreme Court vote, and then by Senator John McCain’s late-night vote against its repeal in 2017. Since then, however, Obamacare has been gaining Republican support.
The next year, voters in Idaho, Nebraska and Utah — red states, all — passed ballot initiatives expanding Medicaid. Oklahoma, Missouri and South Dakota have since done so. Montana’s state legislature has also approved an expansion.
American Medical Association Communications Division
In 2019, Gov. Andy Beshear of Kentucky, a Democrat, narrowly won election in a Republican state by pledging to protect an earlier Medicaid expansion. In North Carolina, Roy Cooper, also a Democrat, became governor in a 2016 upset partly by campaigning in favor of an expansion — and was able to sign one this week.
(Before it takes effect, Cooper and the legislature must agree on a state budget.)
These developments are a sign of the law’s growing popularity. And that popularity isn’t especially mysterious: In a country with high levels of economic inequality and large numbers of people without health insurance, Obamacare has increased taxes on the affluent to subsidize health care for poor and middle-class families. At root, it is an effort to reduce inequality.
Winning the middle
Even with its flaws — including its often complicated process for signing up for insurance — the law has achieved many of its aims. The number of Americans without health insurance has plummeted. In states that have refused the Medicaid expansion, by contrast, rural hospitals are struggling even more than elsewhere because they do not receive the law’s subsidies for care.
Greenwood Leflore Hospital — in the Mississippi Delta — is an example. It recently closed its intensive-care unit and maternity ward, as our colleague Sharon LaFraniere has reported. Nationwide, states that did not quickly accept Medicaid expansion have accounted for almost three-quarters of rural hospital closures between 2010 and 2021, according to the American Hospital Association.
Similar problems in North Carolina were a reason that Republicans there reconsidered their opposition to Medicaid expansion. ‘We had these people coming down to Raleigh, farmers, business owners, people from rural areas, they were advocating, telling stories,’ one Republican state representative told HuffPost.
Many Republicans still oppose Obamacare, and some hard-right members of Congress also favor cuts to Medicaid — as well as to Medicare and Social Security. In a country as polarized as the United States, there isn’t much true political consensus. But Obamacare has won over the political middle more quickly than seemed likely not so long ago.
Related: The number of people signing up for insurance through Obamacare has surged over the past two years, partly because of a new subsidies signed by President Biden.” [New York Times]
New remote-work normal
Data: Bureau of Labor Statistics. Chart: Tory Lysik/Axios Visuals
“Millions fewer Americans worked remotely last year, Axios' Emily Peck writes from a new survey from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Why it matters: The work world is returning to a new normal, with some working from home — more than pre-COVID — but less than at the height of the Zoom-and-sweatpants moment.
🧮 By the numbers: The share of establishments with employees rarelyor never working remotely rose to 72.5% last year, up from 60.1% in 2021.
White-collar sectors still have a large share of employees working from home. In the information sector (including tech and media companies), 67% of firms had people working from home sometimes or always last year.
🥊 Reality check: Before the pandemic, only about 5% of workers were remote, according to data from Nicholas Bloom, a Stanford economics professor who has tracked the trend for years.” [Axios]
Pepsi's new look
“Pepsi is updating the soft drink's logo ahead of its 125th anniversary – while paying tribute to the pop in the brand's classic labeling. The new logo, which replaces one used since 2008, has a bold "PEPSI," centered in a black-bordered circle over red, white and blue stripes.” Read more at USA Today
Pepsi has introduced a new logo ahead of the cola's 125th anniversary in August 2023. It's a bolder take on earlier iterations and designed for use on social media and other interactive media. PepsiCo
A crescent moon rises along with planets Venus, Mars and Jupiter last year in Toronto. Photo: Gary Hershorn/Getty Images
“A rare planetary parade of five planets will be visible for the next few weeks. Here's how to see it.” [Axios]
“Lives Lived: Born into poverty in the segregated South, Randall Robinson galvanized Americans against South African apartheid and advocated on behalf of Haitian refugees. He died at 81.” [New York Times]