The Full Belmonte, 5/7/2022
“The U.S. economy added 428,000 jobs in April. The jobless rate remained at 3.6%, just a touch above the prepandemic level of 3.5%, the Labor Department said. Employers have added at least 400,000 jobs to their payrolls for 12 consecutive months as they scramble to accommodate waves of consumers returning to the marketplace amid fading pandemic-related restrictions.” Read more at Wall Street Journal
“A third group of civilians was evacuated from Mariupol’s Azovstal steel plant. The U.N. said almost 500 civilians were evacuated in two previous operations with its assistance. Russian state newswire RIA Novosti reported that two buses carrying 25 civilians, including five children, had left the Azovstal plant. Ukrainian soldiers continued to hold out as Russia stepped up its bombing of the site. One of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s advisers said Russia was seeking to seize the last part of Mariupol by Monday, when Moscow celebrates the anniversary of the victory over the Nazis in World War II.” Read more at Wall Street Journal
“President Vladimir Putin may divulge his next steps in the invasion of Ukraine on Monday when he is due to speak at Russia’s May 9 Victory Day parade marking the anniversary of Nazi Germany’s surrender in 1945.
By most Western accounts, the offensive isn’t going well for Moscow, with its forces making slow progress and taking heavy casualties in a grinding conflict and NATO allies pushing to send state-of-the-art weapons to Kyiv.
The European Union tried to reach agreement on its planned Russia oil sanctions ban by proposing to give Hungary and Slovakia an extra year, until the end of 2024, to comply, sources say.
In the U.S., a draft Supreme Court opinion striking down the 1973 Roe v. Wade ruling granting women a constitutional right to abortion sent shockwaves across the nation.
China continued to battle to stifle a Covid-19 outbreak that’s prompted the authorities to impose strict measures in Shanghai and Beijing.
Delve into these and other top political stories in this edition of Weekend Reads.” — Karl Maier Read more at Bloomberg
“Decades of Women’s Economic Gains at Risk in U.S. Abortion Shift
Overturning Roe v. Wade risks threatening decades of gains for American women in places where abortion could be all but banned. Katia Dmitrievaand Olivia Rockeman report that access to abortion is credited with expanding women’s roles in economies and labor markets around the world.” Read more at Bloomberg“Abortion advocacy groups said donations for them soared after the draft opinion to overturn the 1973 ruling that legalized the procedure was leaked by Politico.” Read more at Bloomberg
Broad support for abortion to be legal if the mother’s life or health are at risk or the pregnancy is a result of rape is a potential political risk for Republican lawmakers backing bans with no exceptions.” Read more at Bloomberg
“Abortion by pill is used to terminate at least 54% of pregnancies in the United States. The number has grown rapidly since the process became easier to access in 2016 and during the COVID-19 pandemic and is anticipated to rise even higher if Roe v Wade is overturned.
The two pills, mifepristone and misoprostol, are taken about two days apart. In many areas only a telemedicine visit is required to get them from a pharmacy. Cheaper and less invasive than a procedure abortion, when used within the first 10 weeks of gestation they safely terminated 99.6% of pregnancies with very low complication rates.” Read more at USA Today
The Fox News host Sean Hannity greets Donald Trump at a Make America Great Again rally in Cape Girardeau, Missouri, in 2018. Photograph: Jim Watson/AFP/Getty Images
“Messages show a staggering level of coordination between hosts such as Sean Hannity and Maria Bartiromo with the White House after the 2020 election
Through the end of 2020 and the early part of 2021, as Donald Trump’s political world fell apart in the wake of his election loss, the former US president was receiving advice and aid from a range of sources.
As Trump raged against non-existent election fraud, he took counsel from his actual staff. He also had help from acquaintances and associates like Rudy Giuliani.
But, less conventionally, Trump’s White House was also getting guidance from some of Fox News’ best-known personalities, in a level of coordination rarely, if ever, seen in top-level politics.
The direct interactions between Trump’s administration and the Fox hosts Sean Hannity and Maria Bartiromo were revealed in leaked text messages from the phone of Mark Meadows, Trump’s chief of staff during the November election and the January 6 insurrection.” Read more at The Guardian
“The Georgia secretary of state, Brad Raffensperger, has accepted a judge’s findings and said the far-right Republican congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene is qualified to run for re-election.
A group of voters filed a challenge saying Greene should be barred under a seldom-invoked provision of the 14th amendment concerning insurrection, over her links to the January 6 attack on the US Capitol by supporters of Donald Trump.
A state administrative law judge, Charles Beaudrot, last month held a hearing on the matter and found that Green was eligible. He sent his findings to Raffensperger, who was responsible for the final decision.
It was an awkward position to be in for the secretary of state who drew the ire of Trump after he resisted pressure to overturn Joe Biden’s victory in Georgia.” Read more at The Guardian
“This swing state, which voted for Republican Donald Trump in 2016 and Democrat Joe Biden in 2020, is on the precipice of becoming either a state with some of the tightest abortion restrictions or one that provides robust access to the procedure. Michigan’s Democratic governor, Gretchen Whitmer, and Republican leaders are gearing up before the U.S. Supreme Court possibly overturns Roe v. Wade. It’s one of at least a handful of states including Wisconsin, Kansas and Pennsylvania where the GOP and Dems are deadlocked over the issue. The future could hang on ballot initiatives and the results of the next gubernatorial and statehouse elections.” Read more at Wall Street Journal
“Nancy Pelosi plans to raise the minimum wage for House staffers to $45,000 a year. The House speaker also wants a vote next week on unionization, a first for the Democratic-led body, adding that she expects the bill to pass. Current salaries for some staff positions can be as low as $23,000, according to the Congressional Research Service; workers complain about low wages and tough working conditions. The pay increase would go into effect by Sept. 1.” Read more at Wall Street Journal
“A large blast tore through an iconic hotel in downtown Havana, killing at least eight people and injuring more than 30. Rescue workers and passersby dug frantically through the rubble of the Hotel Saratoga, searching for more victims, according to Cuba’s government. Local officials blamed a gas explosion, state media reported.” Read more at Wall Street Journal
“Xi Moves to Silence Covid Zero Critics in Sign of Brewing Tumult
China’s top leaders warned against questioning President Xi Jinping’s Covid Zero strategy as pressure builds to relax virus curbs and protect the economic growth that’s long been a source of Communist Party strength.” Read more at BloombergResidents behind a barrier during a lockdown in Shanghai. Source: Bloomberg
“China Orders Government, State Firms to Dump Foreign PCs
Beijing told central government agencies and state-backed companies to replace foreign-branded personal computers with domestic alternatives within two years. It marks one of China’s most aggressive efforts to eradicate key overseas technology from within its most sensitive organs.The fate of a Chinese technology giant at risk of unprecedented U.S. sanctions will show whether the President Joe Biden’s administration intends to significantly ramp up tensions with Beijing.” Read more at Bloomberg
“Chinese tech giants are quietly retreating from doing business with Russia. Under pressure from U.S. sanctions and suppliers, many are balking at Beijing’s calls for companies to resist overseas coercion. Other countries circumventing Moscow include Poland and Lithuania, which are in talks with Ukraine about exporting its summer grain harvest through their ports to avoid Russia’s Black Sea blockade and help relieve what the U.N. predicts will be the worst global food crisis since World War II. Meanwhile, Hungary was holding up the EU deal to sanction Russian oil.” Read more at Wall Street Journal
“Johnson Avoids Poll Disaster Even as ‘Partygate’ Hits Tories
The ‘Partygate’ scandal resulted in Boris Johnson’s Conservatives shedding seats across England and losing three London strongholds. Yet as Kitty Donaldson writes, the British prime minister appears to have avoided the scale of disaster in Thursday’s local elections that might have triggered a fresh bid by members of his party to replace him.” Read more at Bloomberg“Sri Lanka Imposes Emergency Again as Inflation Anger Rises
President Gotabaya Rajapaksa declared a public emergency for the second time in two months in Sri Lanka as protests against spiraling inflation escalated. Asantha Sirimanne reports that the measure gives Rajapaksa sweeping powers to suspend laws, detain people and seize property as a 24-hour general strike by workers ground the country to a near halt.” Read more at BloombergPolice use water canons and tear gas near the parliament building in Colombo Friday. Photographer: Ishara S. Kodikara/AFP/Getty Images
“Rich Nations Scramble to Seal Coal Transition Deals Before COP27
As they prepare for global climate talks in November, officials from rich countries are trying to pull together multibillion-dollar packages to help poor countries phase out coal. But as Jess Shankleman, Jennifer A Dlouhyand Archana Chaudhary explain, negotiations have been snarled by national politics and Russia’s war in Ukraine.” Read more at Bloomberg“Billions at Stake for Marcos Jr. in Vote Over Dictator’s Legacy
For decades, successive Philippine leaders have fought to recoup as much as $10 billion siphoned during the dictatorship of Ferdinand Marcos. Barring a last-minute upset at May 9 elections, Andreo Calonzo writes, his only son, Ferdinand Marcos Jr., is set to oversee the search for the loot.” Read more at Bloomberg
Members of the surgical team at the University of Maryland School of Medicine show the pig heart for transplant into patient David Bennett in Baltimore in January. PHOTO: MARK TESKE/ASSOCIATED PRESS
“A common pig virus was detected in the first genetically modified pig heart transplanted into a man, but doctors involved in the groundbreaking surgery said they don’t know yet if the virus contributed to the patient’s death.
The presence of the virus was detected about 20 days after David Bennett, a 57-year-old handyman and father of two, received the heart in an experimental surgery, according to Bartley P. Griffith, a professor of transplant surgery who performed the operation at the University of Maryland Medical Center in Baltimore.
Mr. Bennett seemed to be doing well despite the presence of the virus, but on day 45, took a turn for the worse and appeared very sick, Dr. Griffith said, adding it was unclear why.
Mr. Bennett, who died in March two months after the surgery, had been ineligible to receive a human-heart transplant because he didn’t comply with doctors’ orders or attend follow up visits. The Food and Drug Administration had to grant a special emergency authorization for the doctors to perform the surgery.
The donor pig had been screened before the procedure and was found free of the virus, Dr. Griffith said during a webinar hosted by the American Society of Transplantation last month.
MIT Technology Review earlier reported on the webinar.
Mr. Bennett’s case has been closely watched by the wider transplant community, which has struggled for years to address the shortage of organs. More than 100,000 patients are on the waiting list for a donor organ at any given time, and more than 6,000 patients die every year before getting one, according to the United Network for Organ Sharing, the nonprofit under contract with the federal government that helps allocate organs.
In an effort to address the longstanding shortage, researchers have been trying for decades to develop the transplantation of an organ between different species, or xenotransplantation.” Read more at Wall Street Journal
“The deaths of five children and what may be an unusual group of more than 100 hepatitis cases in young children in the United States are under investigation by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the agency said on Friday.
The C.D.C. said it was examining cases involving 109 children in 25 states and territories who had or have what the agency is calling ‘hepatitis of unknown cause.’
Dr. Jay Butler, deputy director for infectious diseases at the C.D.C., said most of the children had fully recovered. But more than 90 percent were hospitalized, 14 percent received liver transplants and more than half had adenovirus infections, he said.
The C.D.C. and experts overseas are exploring whether a type of adenovirus, a common virus that causes intestinal symptoms like vomiting and diarrhea, may be a factor in these cases. But the agency has not determined a cause for the cases or a common link among all of them, and it cautioned against drawing conclusions.” Read more at New York Times
“WASHINGTON (AP) — John Roberts is heading a Supreme Court in crisis.
The chief justice has already ordered an investigation of the leak this week of a draft opinion suggesting the court could be poised to overturn Roe v. Wade, the 1973 case legalizing abortion nationwide. What comes next could further test Roberts’ leadership of a court where his vote already appears less crucial in determining the outcome in contentious cases.” Read more at AP News
“ATLANTA — Justice Clarence Thomas said Friday that the judiciary is threatened if people are unwilling to ‘live with outcomes we don’t agree with’ and that recent events at the Supreme Court might be ‘one symptom of that.’
Thomas, speaking to judges and lawyers at the 11th Circuit Judicial Conference, did not speak directly about the leak of a draft opinion that would overturn Roe v. Wade, a colossal breach of the court’s procedures.
But he referred a couple of times to the ‘unfortunate events’ of the past week, and in a question-and-answer session led by a former clerk, he said he worried about declining respect for institutions and the rule of law.
‘It bodes ill for a free society,’ he said. It can’t be that institutions ‘give you only the outcome you want, or can be bullied’ to do the same, he said.
The court’s longest-serving justice said he also worried about a ‘different attitude of the young’ that might not show the same respect for the law as past generations did. ‘Recent events have shown this major change,’ he said.
The leaked February draft opinion, written by Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. and published by Politico, made the case for overturning Roe and the subsequent case that affirmed the constitutional right to obtain an abortion, Planned Parenthood v. Casey.
Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr., who spoke to the same group Thursday, had said this week that the opinion was far from a final decision and announced an investigation of the leak, which has shaken a court known for keeping its deliberations private.
In the friendly questioning, Thomas was not asked about his own most recent controversy. That involves his wife, Virginia ‘Ginni’ Thomas, and her ties to the Trump White House and activism regarding challenges to the 2020 election results.
Thomas is the member of the court least likely to adhere to stare decisis, the principle of letting past decisions stand. In past cases, including Casey, he called for Roe to be overturned.” Read more at Washington Post
“Fred Savage has been removed as director and executive producer of ‘The Wonder Years’ following an investigation into his alleged inappropriate conduct.
A spokesman for 20th Television confirmed the news in a statement provided to USA TODAY Friday.
‘Recently, we were made aware of allegations of inappropriate conduct by Fred Savage, and as is policy, an investigation was launched,’ reads the statement. ‘Upon its completion, the decision was made to terminate his employment as an executive producer and director of The Wonder Years.’
‘The Wonders Years’ has yet to be renewed for a second season.
Savage starred in the original ‘Wonder Years’ from 1988 to 1993 as the precocious Kevin Arnold growing up in the late ’60s and early ’70s suburbs. He became director and executive producer of ABC's reboot of the show, which premiered last year. Produced by Lee Daniels (creator of ‘Empire’) and Saladin K. Patterson (‘Psych’), the new series captures the nostalgia and wistful tone of the original while highlighting a thriving, middle-class Black family in Montgomery, Alabama, in 1968.
This isn't the first time Savage has faced misconduct allegations. In 2018, a crew member of the former Fox comedy series ‘The Grinder,’ which starred Savage and Rob Lowe, levied assault and intimidation allegations against Savage, which he denied. 20th Century Fox Television, which produced the series, also pushed back, saying an investigation found no wrongdoing.
Youngjoo Hwang, who worked as a costume designer on the show, accused the actor/director of assault, battery, gender discrimination and gender harassment.” Read more at USA Today
“For Allyson Jacobs, life in her 20s and 30s was about focusing on her career in health care and enjoying the social scene in New York City. It wasn’t until she turned 40 that she and her husband started trying to have children. They had a son when she was 42.
Over the past three decades, that has become increasingly common in the U.S., as birthrates have declined for women in their 20s and jumped for women in their late 30s and early 40s, according to a new report from the U.S. Census Bureau. The trend has pushed the median age of U.S. women giving birth from 27 to 30, the highest on record.” Read more at AP News
“Nearly 60% of children’s textiles labeled ‘waterproof’, ‘stain-resistant’, or ‘environmentally friendly’ that were tested as part of a new study contained toxic PFAS substances known as ‘forever chemicals’ due to their persistence in the environment.
Among products checked were clothing, pillow protectors, bedding and furniture.
‘It’s definitely a concern because these toxic chemicals can make their way into children’s bodies,’ said Laurel Schaider, one of the study’s authors.
PFAS, or per-and polyfluoroalkyl substances, are a class of more than 9,000 compounds typically used across dozens of industries to make products water-, stain- or heat-resistant. They’re in thousands of everyday consumer products such as stain guards, cookware, food packaging and waterproof clothing.” Read more at The Guardian
“Maggie Mayhem knows when she decided to become a reproductive rights activist. At around 13 she discovered two conditions in her southern California Catholic girls school’s manual:
If a student was found to have had an abortion, they would be expelled, because abortion was against the teaching of the Catholic church.
At the same time, the school would not accommodate a student who became pregnant.
‘It taught me my reproductive system was something I should be afraid of, that it could have negative consequences for my life,’ Mayhem says. ‘I saw: ‘there will be no sympathy for you. And anyone that you talk to about this poses a risk.’’
She also saw beautiful things: friends helping friends to the abortion clinic. Teenagers taking care of teenagers, keeping grownups at bahat solidarity led her to her current line of work.
Mayhem – a pseudonym – is just one of many US activists vouching for self-managed abortions outside the gaze of the medical establishment. With a growing slate of abortion restrictions and the recent leak of a supreme court draft opinion indicating justices have already voted to overturn the constitutional right to abortion, activists like Mayhem say such measures aren’t just necessary, they are also better than what’s currently on offer. They are saying: abortion is your right – and you don’t need to depend on doctors or the state for it.
When most people think of self-managed abortion, they think of back alleys, coat hangers or throwing oneself down the stairs; of last resorts, despair, shame. But that is no longer the reality. Today, self-managed abortion often means taking pills that are available over the counter in many countries, with little risk of death or serious complications. Other times, it means using herbs, or vacuum aspirators, like the Del-Em (a homemade suction device created by activists in the 70s), under the watchful eye of somebody experienced – like a midwife or a doula – who can advise if things go wrong.
Self-managed abortion is not a silver bullet. It carries with it the risk of prosecution, even though it is not illegal in most states. In April, a Texas woman was charged with murder for a self-induced abortion, even though there was no legal basis for the charges – as the district attorney admitted when he dropped the case. And not everybody wants to turn to a clandestine market for their abortion care. Some people feel more comfortable with a licensed practitioner. People want options. But for many, options are fast receding.” Read more at The Guardian
“The ‘Jeopardy!’ champion Mattea Roach ended her 23-game streak yesterday.” Read more at New York Times
“TULSA, Okla. — Visitors to the new Bob Dylan Center here will soon get, at the tap of a finger, what generations of the most avid Dylanologists have only dreamed of: a step-by-step, word-by-word map of how Dylan wrote a song.
In a room filled with artifacts like Dylan’s leather jacket from the 1965 Newport Folk Festival and a photograph of a 16-year-old Bobby Zimmerman posing with a guitar at a Jewish summer camp in Wisconsin, a digital display lets visitors sift through 10 of the 17 known drafts of Dylan’s cryptic 1983 song ‘Jokerman.’ The screen highlights typed and handwritten changes Dylan made throughout the manuscripts, showing, for example, how the line ‘You a son of the angels/You a man of the clouds’ in the song’s earliest iteration was tweaked, little by little, to end up as ‘You’re a man of the mountains, you can walk on the clouds.’
The ‘Jokerman’ exhibit is one instance of how the organizers of the $10 million Dylan Center — which opens on Tuesday, after a long weekend of inaugural events featuring Elvis Costello, Patti Smith and Mavis Staples — have tried to bring Dylan’s paper-heavy archives to life and entice newcomers and experts alike.
It also points to the center’s larger aim of using Dylan’s vast archive, with documents and artifacts from nearly his entire career, to illuminate the creative process itself. In addition to exhibits focused on Dylan’s work, the two-floor, 29,000-square-foot facility will have a rotating gallery featuring the work of other creators. First up is Jerry Schatzberg, the filmmaker and photographer who shot the cover of Dylan’s 1966 album ‘Blonde on Blonde.’
‘We’re really hoping that visitors walk away with a sense that they can tap into their own creative instincts, their own impulse for artistic expression, in whatever medium that might be,’ Steven Jenkins, the center’s director, said on a recent tour.
The Dylan Center, located at one end of a century-old brick industrial building in downtown Tulsa — the Woody Guthrie Center, devoted to Dylan’s early hero, is at the other — is the museum-like space founded to display items from the Bob Dylan Archive, which was acquired in 2016 by the George Kaiser Family Foundation and the University of Tulsa for around $20 million. (The Kaiser foundation later bought out the university’s share.)
The full archive, with about 100,000 items, is available only to credentialed researchers. It includes huge amounts of paperwork as well as films, recordings, photographs, books, musical instruments and curiosities like matchbooks on which Dylan scrawled a few words. (For fire safety reasons, the matchbooks are kept elsewhere.) Among the many highlights: a newly discovered film soundtrack from 1961 and four typewritten drafts of “Tarantula,” the book of disjointed prose poetry that Dylan wrote in the mid-60s.
The archive has already begun to reshape Dylan studies, a subject now fully embraced by academia, said Douglas Brinkley, the Rice University history professor who, with his wife, Anne, is a donor and adviser to the Dylan Center.
In characteristic fashion, Dylan — fully active at 80, with a tour on the road and a new book coming out in the fall — has stubbornly avoided engaging with attempts to examine his own work, and had no involvement in the center that bears his name, aside from contributing one of his ironwork gates for the entryway. (His business office in New York, however, has been closely involved.) When he performed in Tulsa last month, at a theater just a few blocks away, the Nobel laureate made no acknowledgment of the institution in his honor about to open just down the street.” Read more at New York Times