The Full Belmonte, 4/22/2023
Frequent shootings put US mass killings on a record pace
By STEFANIE DAZIO and LARRY FENN
FILE - Students at a nearby school pay respects at a memorial for the people who were killed, at an entry to Covenant School, Tuesday, March 28, 2023, in Nashville, Tenn. Six people were killed at the private school and church yesterday by a shooter. The U.S. is setting a record pace for mass killings in 2023, replaying the horror in a deadly loop roughly once a week so far this year. The bloodshed overall represents just a fraction of the deadly violence that occurs in the U.S. annually. (AP Photo/John Amis, File)
“LOS ANGELES (AP) — The U.S. is setting a record pace for mass killings in 2023, replaying the horror on a loop roughly once a week so far this year.
The carnage has taken 88 lives in 17 mass killings over 111 days. Each time, the killers wielded firearms. Only 2009 was marked by as many such tragedies in the same period of time.
Children at a Nashville grade school, gunned down on an ordinary Monday. Farmworkers in Northern California, sprayed with bullets over a workplace grudge. Dancers at a ballroom outside Los Angeles, massacred as they celebrated the Lunar New Year.
In just the last week, four partygoers were slain and 32 injured in Dadeville, Alabama, when bullets rained down on a Sweet 16 celebration. And a man just released from prison fatally shot four people, including his parents, in Bowdoin, Maine, before opening fire on motorists traveling a busy interstate highway….” Read more at AP News
Airman Shared Sensitive Intelligence More Widely and for Longer Than Previously Known
A Discord user matching the profile of Jack Teixeira distributed intelligence to a larger chat group, days after the beginning of the Ukraine war.
By Aric Toler, Malachy Browne and Julian E. Barnes
“The Air National Guardsman accused of leaking classified documents to a small group of gamers had been posting sensitive information months earlier than previously known and to a much larger chat group, according to online postings reviewed by The New York Times.
In February 2022, soon after the invasion of Ukraine, a user profile matching that of Airman Jack Teixeira began posting secret intelligence on the Russian war effort on a previously undisclosed chat group on Discord, a social media platform popular among gamers. The chat group contained about 600 members.
The case against Airman Teixeira, 21, who was arrested on April 13, pertains to the leaking of classified documents on another Discord group of about 50 members, called Thug Shaker Central. There, he began posting sensitive information in October 2022, members of the group told The Times. His job as an information technology specialist at an Air Force base in Massachusetts gave him top secret clearance.
It is not clear whether authorities are aware of the classified material posted on this additional Discord chat group….” Read more at New York Times
Executive action for polluted communities
Drew Angerer/Getty Images
“President Joe Biden on Friday signed an executive order establishing a White House office of environmental justice to help tackle pollution impacts.” [Vox] [CNN / Ella Nilsen]
“The order directs federal agencies to work with overburdened communities and fill gaps in scientific data to understand how pollution is harming people’s health.” [Vox] [NBC News]
“Communities of color face higher levels of pollution because of discriminatory housing policies; Black Americans are three times as likely to die from exposure to harmful air than their white counterparts.” [Vox] [CNBC / Emma Newberger]
“As part of the announcement, Vice President Kamala Harris pledged $562 million to help communities prepare for climate change impacts.” [Vox] [Reuters / Steve Holland]
“Friday’s order follows the creation of the Office of Environmental Justice and External Civil Rights, which will deliver $60 billion in grants to polluted communities.” [Vox] [Associated Press / Josh Boak and Drew Costley]
FDA's opioid dilemma
Illustration: Shoshana Gordon/Axios
“The FDA's attempts to manage the overdose crisis by limiting narcotics use are weighing on patients with chronic pain, Axios' Sabrina Moreno reports.
The FDA is proposing a new study of opioids' long-term effectiveness in treating chronic pain.
But patient groups say they're not being given enough input. Pain care specialists have criticized the planned study for failing to address addiction potential or to improve care.
FDA outside advisers also recommended that the agency reconsider pursuing the study.
Zoom out: The FDA has encouraged the development of alternative pain control methods. But safety concerns and insurer resistance have hindered adoption.
The result: More opioids have been approved in the last five years than non-opioid options.” [Axios]
Tennessee Republican lawmaker resigns after ethics violation
By JONATHAN MATTISE
Republican Rep. Scotty Campbell, sits in session in the House Chambers at the Tennessee State Capitol Building in Nashville, Tenn., Monday, March 20, 2023. Campbell, a Republican lawmaker in Tennessee resigned Thursday, April 20, 2023 due to an ethics violation involving the Legislature’s workplace discrimination and harassment policy.(Nicole Hester/The Tennessean via AP)
“NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — A state lawmaker in Tennessee resigned suddenly for an ethics violation that became public Thursday, two weeks after he joined fellow Republicans in expelling two Black Democratic legislators for protesting in support of gun control on the state House floor.
Rep. Scotty Campbell, vice chair of the House Republican Caucus, violated the Legislature’s workplace discrimination and harassment policy. The brief Ethics Subcommittee findings document from late March did not provide specifics and said no more information would be released.
Campbell’s resignation came hours after a Nashville TV station confronted him about sexual harassment allegations involving legislative interns.
Campbell declined to provide a detailed account of what happened. Asked by WTVF-TV on Thursday about the ethics panel’s decision, Campbell said, ‘I had consensual, adult conversations with two adults off property.’….” Read more at AP News
Indiana woman charged with federal hate crime in bus attack
This photo provided by Bloomington Police Department shows Billie Davis. Davis now faces a federal hate crime charge in addition to attempted murder in the stabbing of an Indiana University student of Chinese descent on a public bus. Davis was indicted by a federal grand jury in Evansville Thursday, April 20, 2023 on a charge of willfully causing injuries to the victim due to her race and national origin, the Justice Department said.(Bloomington Police Department via AP)
“BLOOMINGTON, Ind. (AP) — A southern Indiana woman now faces a federal hate crime charge in addition to attempted murder in the stabbing of an Indiana University student of Chinese descent on a public bus.
Billie R. Davis, 56, of Bloomington, was indicted by a federal grand jury in Evansville Thursday on a charge of willfully causing injuries to the victim due to her race and national origin, the Justice Department said. Her lawyer said she’s mentally ill.
Davis, who is white, is accused of repeatedly stabbing the 18-year-old woman with a folding knife on Jan. 11 as the victim, from Carmel, Indiana, waited to get off a bus in downtown Bloomington.
Citing court records, WRTV-TV has reported that Davis told police she stabbed the woman multiple times in the head with a folding knife, because it ‘would be one less person to blow up our country.’
Asian Americans have increasingly been the target of racially motivated harassment and assaults in recent years, particularly since the coronavirus pandemic began, with many worrying that anti-Asian rhetoric linked to fraught relations between the U.S. and China could lead to more violence….” Read more at AP News
A Russian city's accidental bombing
“Thursday, the Russian Defense Ministry said one of its warplanes accidentally dropped a bomb on a Russian city, injuring three people.” [Vox] [New York Times / Ivan Nechepurenko and Jeffrey Gettleman]
“The powerful explosion left a 65-foot wide crater in a residential street in Belgorod, a city of more than 400,000 people located 25 miles from the Ukraine border.” [Vox] [CNN]
“It’s unclear exactly how the weapon deployed, but experts say it was likely a 1,000-pound bomb capable of striking underground facilities.” [Vox] [AP]
“Russian jets fly over Belgorod to get to Ukraine, increasing the risk of accidents. A Russian warplane crashed in another Russian city last October, killing at least 13 people.” [Vox] [BBC / Steve Rosenberg]
The U.S. will send 31 M1 Abrams tanks to Germany next month and begin training Ukrainian forces on how to operate them.
“These tanks, combined with other U.S.-provided battlefield vehicles, could reshape how Kyiv fights, said Army Gen. Mark Milley, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. The Abrams can close in on targets, blast them with its cannon and machine guns and then speed away. It also allows troops to fire at night from longer ranges than Russian tanks.” [Wall Street Journal]
“India, now the world’s most populous country after surpassing China, has a college problem. While business is booming in India’s $117 billion education industry, thousands of young Indians find themselves with limited or no skills when they graduate. And India isn’t alone. In China, the urban jobless rate for those between the ages of 16-24 hit 19.6%. And in the US, where college tuition has skyrocketed, the “system is beginning to molder,” Adrian Wooldridge writes in Bloomberg Opinion. “ [Bloomberg]
“These Are the Key Foreign Power Brokers in the Sudan Conflict
Any escalation in the conflict would reverberate across northeast Africa and further afield given that Sudan borders on seven other countries and the Red Sea, and has drawn a number of foreign companies intent on tapping its abundant mineral and oil reserves. Michael Cohen and Simon Marks provide a sketch of the key international power brokers.” [Bloomberg]
“Taiwan Quietly Urges US to Calm Rhetoric on China Chip Risk
Taiwanese officials are quietly urging their US counterparts to tone down their rhetoric about the dangers of relying on supplies from the nation’s industry-leading producer of high-end chips. Debby Wu and Jenny Leonard write that Taipei is getting nervous American warnings about the risk of a Chinese attack could hurt the island’s business environment.
Biden aims to sign an executive order in the coming weeks that will limit American investment in key parts of China’s economy, sources say.” [Bloomberg]
“Russian Memo Said War Leaves Moscow Too Reliant on Chinese Tech
Is Russia becoming too dependent on Chinese technologies? It’s a concern raised privately by some senior officials in Moscow after sanctions by the US and the European Union shut off access to alternative suppliers, Alberto Nardelli reports.
Russia sentenced a prominent critic, Vladimir Kara-Murza, to 25 years in prison in the harshest judgment yet handed down to an opposition activist.” [Bloomberg]
Kara-Murza in Moscow on Sunday. Photographer: Kirill Kudryavtsev/AFP/Getty Images
“Italy Rethinks Its Close China Ties as US Backs Stronger Break
Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni is getting dragged into the escalating tensions between Washington and Beijing as she tries to disentangle Italy from its close relationship with China. Chiara Albanese reports that Rome may pull out of an agreement to join China’s controversial Belt and Road Initiative.” [Bloomberg]
“A top American lawyer, a couple of fraudsters and a pariah government joined forces to sue the world’s largest commodities trading firms over allegations the auctions Venezuela uses to sell its oil had been systematically rigged for a decade or more. Liam Vaughan and Lucia Kassai report that while the evidence is explosive, so far the bungled lawsuit has come to nothing.” [Bloomberg]
A dilapidated PDVSA oil tank on Lake Maracaibo in Cabimas, Venezuela, in 2021. Photographer: Gaby Oraa/Bloomberg
“Ukraine Allies Consider Near-Total Ban on Exports to Russia
Key Ukrainian allies including the US are considering moving toward banning most exports to Russia, tightening economic pressure on President Vladimir Putin over his war. Group of Seven officials are discussing the idea ahead of a summit in Japan in May, sources say. The aim would be to include EU member states in the crackdown.” [Bloomberg]
America's favorite grocery stores
Data: Chain Store Guide. (Stores under the same brand name have been combined, such as Walmart and Walmart Supercenter.) Chart: Axios Visuals
“Walmart is the most popular grocery store chain nationwide, with 25% of the market share as of last year, Axios' Alex Fitzpatrick and Erin Davis report.
That's according to new data from Chain Store Guide, which tracks the retail and food service industries.
The big picture: Walmart and other national behemoths are often the most popular grocers in any given city. But local and regional favorites can give them a run for their money.
At a time when politics divides opinion nationally on many big brands, grocery brands have been able to retain loyalty and trust across demographics by maintaining a steady presence in their communities, Axios' Sara Fischer and Emily Peck write.
By the numbers: The amount consumers spend on groceries is getting crushed by the amount we spend dining out in the post-pandemic era.
People spent 21% more at restaurants than they spent on groceries in 2022 — and that figure rose to 29.5% in the first two months of the year.
What's next: Amazon — which acquired Whole Foods in 2017 for $13.4 billion — is looking to dramatically expand the grocery wing of its empire.” [Axios]
Twitter Scraps ‘Government-Funded’ Labels on News Outlets
“It’s all change at Twitter at the moment. After CEO Elon Musk celebrated 4/20 by purging the platform of ‘legacy blue checks,’ it now appears that ‘government-funded” labels applied to media organizations have also disappeared as of Friday morning. Outlets including NPR and Canada’s CBC—which expressed outrage when the description was first applied to their accounts—are no longer marked with the label. The BBC, which had been slapped with a ‘publicly funded’ label, is also now unlabeled. Even accounts for China’s Xinhua News and Russia’s RT no longer appear to be labeled—a move welcomed by Tiananmen-protester-turned-Beijing-propagandist Hu Xijin, a commentator with the Chinese Communist Party’s Global Times newspaper. ‘I support Twitter’s removal of all ‘State-affiliated media’ labels,’ Hu wrote in a tweet that was later deleted.” [Daily Beast] Read it at Reuters
‘The Champagne of Beers’ leaves French producers frothing
By SAMUEL PETREQUIN
“BRUSSELS (AP) — The guardians of Champagne will let no one take the name of the bubbly beverage in vain, not even a U.S. beer behemoth.
For years, Miller High Life has used the ‘Champagne of Beers’ slogan. This week, that appropriation became impossible to swallow.
At the request of the trade body defending the interests of houses and growers of the northeastern French sparkling wine, Belgian customs crushed more than 2,000 cans of Miller High Life advertised as such.
The Comité Champagne asked for the destruction of a shipment of 2,352 cans on the grounds that the century-old motto used by the American brewery infringes the protected designation of origin ‘Champagne.’
The consignment was intercepted in the Belgian port of Antwerp in early February, a spokesperson at the Belgian Customs Administration said on Friday, and was destined for Germany….” Read more at AP News
THE WEEK IN CULTURE
A church set in Montana, where Alec Baldwin resumed filming “Rust.”Todd Heisler/The New York Times
“Alec Baldwin returned to the set of “Rust” as the charges he faced in the shooting death of a cinematographer were dropped.
Stars of the Netflix series “Beef” called a story of sexual assault by another actor on the show “undeniably hurtful.” He has said he made it up.
By settling a defamation lawsuit, Fox News made clear it would keep its audience in a bubble at all costs, The Times’s James Poniewozik writes.
After social media users panned Frank Ocean’s Coachella set and shared a fake hit from Drake and The Weeknd, The Ringer asked: What is artistry in the age of A.I.?
Outside a stadium in Tampa, Fla., hundreds of Taylor Swift fans waited overnight in the rain for Eras Tour merch.
The choreographer Benjamin Millepied remade “Carmen” to capture her essence and tell a modern story. (Read The Times’s review.)
Naomi Watts and Elle Fanning: 40 female artists share the younger women who inspire them.
A descendant of the painter Camille Pissarro teaches life drawing in New York.
The future of social media is full of ads and influencers, Brian X. Chen writes.
Book bans are rising rapidly in U.S. schools, driven largely by organized efforts and new legislation.
A star of “Kokomo City,” a documentary about Black transgender sex workers that won awards at the Sundance Film Festival, was shot to death.
A former member of the boy band Menudo said he was sexually assaulted by Jose Menendez, whose sons gave a similar rationale before they were convicted of killing him in the 1990s.
The death of the singer Aaron Carter in November was ruled accidental: He drowned in his bathtub after taking sedatives and inhaling a spray cleaner, officials said.” [New York Times]
GAME OF THE WEEKEND
Warriors guard Stephen Curry shoots over Kings forward Domantas Sabonis, right.Cary Edmondson/USA TODAY Sports
“Sacramento Kings vs. Golden State Warriors, N.B.A. Playoffs: The Kings are in the playoffs for the first time in 17 years, while the Warriors’ stars — Stephen Curry, Klay Thompson, Draymond Green — have won four titles together. But the youthful Kings dominated the aging Warriors for the first two games. The Warriors won Game 3, thanks to Curry’s 36 points. Game 4 is crucial: If the Warriors lose, they face an elimination game on the road, where they have been dreadful all season. 3:30 p.m. Eastern tomorrow on ABC.” [New York Times]
NFL Suspends Five Players for Sports Gambling
The suspensions, including four Detroit Lions, are the biggest crackdown yet since betting on sports became widely legal across the U.S.
Detroit Lions wide receiver Jameson Williams was a first-round pick in 2022. Photo: Paul Sancya/Associated Press
“The NFL has suspended five players, including four on the Detroit Lions, for violating the league’s gambling policy in the league’s biggest crackdown since the widespread proliferation of legal sports betting across the U.S.
The unprecedented bans coming down at once from the NFL reflects the growing challenge the entire sports world faces as betting becomes increasingly prevalent. Like anyone else these days, professional athletes can now place legal wagers with a few taps on a smartphone. Leagues such as the NFL face the thorny task of both preventing their own personnel from engaging in the practice while also embracing the new revenue streams it offers.
Three players—the Lions’ Quintez Cephus and C.J. Moore, along with Shaka Toney of the Washington Commanders—were suspended indefinitely, through at least 2023, for betting on NFL games this past season. Detroit released Cephus and Moore when their suspensions were announced.
Two others, Lions wide receivers Jameson Williams and Stanley Berryhill received six-game bans. Although the league didn’t specify their violations, the team said their suspensions were due to ‘other gambling policy violations, including betting from an NFL facility on non-NFL games.’”…. Read more at Wall Street Journal
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NFL players are prohibited from betting on anything related to the NFL, and while they are allowed to bet on non-NFL games, they cannot do so while in any club facility.
Barry Humphries, Australian comedian and creator of Dame Edna Everage, dies aged 89
Famed for personas that also included the vulgar Sir Les Patterson, Humphries became a household name in a seven-decade career
“Barry Humphries, the Australian comedian and actor best known for his creations Dame Edna Everage and Sir Les Patterson, has died aged 89.
In a seven-decade career spanning theatre, television, books and film, Humphries was famed for his absurdist, discomfiting and transgressive humour, poking fun at Australian culture with his cast of personas, some of which would rank among the best-loved comedic creations of all time: Dame Edna Everage, the gaudy, waspish housewife from Moonee Ponds; Sir Les Patterson, the vulgar and boozy Australian cultural attaché; the fundamentally decent and senile Sandy Stone; and archetypal Aussie bloke Barry McKenzie.
Everage, in particular, took on a life of her own, landing several talkshows, an appearance on Saturday Night Live and a recurring role on the 1990s drama Ally McBeal. Humphries described Everage and Patterson in particular as ‘wonderful outlets. I’m very careful myself about what I might say. Edna and Sir Les, on the other hand, can point to the nudity of the emperor.’
A statement from his family read: ’He was completely himself until the very end, never losing his brilliant mind, his unique wit and generosity of spirit.’” Read more at The Guardian