The Full Belmonte, 6/11/2022
FILE - High gas prices are shown in Los Angeles, on May 24, 2022. The nationwide average price for a gallon of gasoline has topped $5 for the first time ever. Auto club AAA said the average price on Saturday, June 11, was $5.00. Motorists in some parts of the country, especially California, are paying far above that.(AP Photo/Jae C. Hong, File)
“NEW YORK (AP) — The nationwide average price for a gallon of gasoline has topped $5 for the first time ever.
Auto club AAA said the average price on Saturday was $5.00. Motorists in some parts of the country, especially California, are paying far above that.
The national average price has jumped 19 cents in just the past week, and it’s up $1.93 from this time last year.
There are several reasons for the surge in gasoline prices.
Americans typically drive more starting around Memorial Day, so demand is up. Global oil prices are rising, compounded by sanctions against Russia, a leading oil producer, because of its war against Ukraine. And there are limits on refining capacity in the United States because some refineries shut down during the pandemic.
Add it all up, and the cost of filling up is draining money from Americans who are facing the highest rate of inflation in 40 years.
California has the highest average price, at $6.43, according to AAA. The lowest average is Mississippi, at $4.52.
While this is the first time breaking the $5 barrier, it’s still not a record when inflation is taken into account. Gas peaked at $4.11 a gallon in July 2008, which would be equal to about $5.40 a gallon today.” Read more at AP News
“WASHINGTON (AP) — Thousands of protestors are expected to rally in Washington, D.C., Saturday and in separate demonstrations around the country as part of a renewed push for nationwide gun control. Motivated by a fresh surge in mass shootings, from Uvalde, Texas, to Buffalo, New York, protestors say lawmakers must take note of shifting public opinion and finally enact sweeping reforms.
Organizers expect the second March for Our Lives rally to draw around 50,000 demonstrators to the Washington Monument. That’s far less than the original 2018 march, which filled downtown Washington with more than 200,000 people. This time, organizers are focusing on holding smaller marches at an estimated 300 locations.” Read more at AP News
A Ukrainian tank firing at Russian positions on Friday in the Donetsk region of eastern Ukraine. Ammunition shortages are forcing troops to substitute tanks for howitzers.Credit...Tyler Hicks/The New York Times “DONETSK REGION, Ukraine — Nearly four months after Russia invaded, the Ukrainian military is running low on ammunition for its Soviet-era artillery and has not received enough supplies from its allies to keep the Russians at bay, Ukrainian officials and artillery officers in the field say.
The shortage has put Ukrainian troops at a growing disadvantage in the artillery-driven war of attrition in the country’s east, with Russia’s batteries now firing several times as many rounds as Ukraine’s. While the West is sending in weapons, they are not arriving fast enough or in sufficient numbers to make up for Ukraine’s dwindling arsenal.
The Western weapons, heavy, long-range artillery pieces and multiple-launch rocket systems, are more accurate and highly mobile, but it takes time to deploy them and train soldiers to use them. In the meantime, Ukraine is running out of ammunition for the older weapons.” Read more at New York Times
“Starting Sunday, air travelers will no longer have to take Covid-19 tests to fly to the U.S.
Until now, they needed to test negative a day before their departures. The CDC will reassess the decision in 90 days and on a continuing basis after that. It might reinstate the testing requirement for international travelers to the U.S. as needed, such as if a more virulent Covid strain emerges.” Read more at Wall Street Journal
“WASHINGTON — Former President Donald J. Trump, long known for distancing himself from or tossing aside staff members who contradicted him while he was in the White House, discovered a new target on Friday: his elder daughter.
The morning after the House committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol played recorded video testimony of his daughter, Ivanka Trump, at its prime-time public hearing, Mr. Trump used his social media website to separate himself from what she had said and to say she was ‘checked out’ during the final days of his administration.
In the testimony, Ms. Trump said she was influenced by a Dec. 1, 2020, statement by William P. Barr, then the attorney general, that there was no widespread fraud that had altered the outcome of the election. She testified that she respected Mr. Barr and ‘accepted what he was saying.’
‘Ivanka Trump was not involved in looking at, or studying, Election results,’ Mr. Trump wrote on his social media website, Truth Social, in one of eight messages he posted there in response to the hearing. ‘She had long since checked out and was, in my opinion, only trying to be respectful to Bill Barr and his position as Attorney General (he sucked!).’
Ms. Trump was a senior adviser in the White House, and she continued to work in the administration until the end. Her colleagues have recalled her being among those urging White House staff members on election night to ‘fight’ even as it became clear that her father would most likely lose. Her husband, Jared Kushner, who was also a senior adviser in the White House, attended several meetings about postelection strategy with a range of political and West Wing advisers, as well as lawyers like Rudolph W. Giuliani.
Pushing back on his daughter’s comments was only one way in which Mr. Trump assailed the hearing, the first in a series of sessions to be held by the House committee this month.
He denied having responded approvingly to the ‘Hang Mike Pence!’ chants bellowed about the vice president by some of the rioters at the Capitol on Jan. 6, an account shared during the hearing by Representative Liz Cheney, Republican of Wyoming and the panel’s vice chairwoman.
‘I NEVER said, or even thought of saying, ‘Hang Mike Pence,’ Mr. Trump wrote on the social media site. ‘This is either a made up story by somebody looking to become a star, or FAKE NEWS!’
Ms. Cheney did not say he had used those words, but she quoted testimony that Mr. Trump had responded to the chants by saying that ‘maybe our supporters have the right idea’ and that Mr. Pence ‘deserves it.’
In another post on the site, Mr. Trump described the committee as a ‘totally partisan, POLITICAL WITCH HUNT!’ And in two other posts, he attacked Mr. Barr, calling him a “coward,” “weak and frightened,” “stupid” and “scared stiff of being impeached.”” Read more at New York Times
“WASHINGTON (AP) — A man armed with a machete once broke into Stephen Breyer’s vacation home in the Caribbean and took $1,000. Ruth Bader Ginsburg had her purse snatched on a Washington street. David Souter was assaulted by several men while jogging.
Supreme Court justices have not been immune to violent crime. But this week’s late-night incident at Justice Brett Kavanaugh’s suburban Washington home, where authorities said a man armed with a gun and knife threatened to kill the justice, reflects a heightened level of potential danger not just for members of the nation’s highest court, but all judges.
One proposal pending in Congress would provide additional security measures for the justices, and another would offer more privacy and protection for all federal judges.
Round-the-clock security given to the justices after the leak of the draft opinion in a major abortion case may well have averted a tragedy.
But the situation had much in common with other recent incidents that ended with the shooting death of a former judge in Wisconsin last week and the killing in 2020 of the son of a federal judge at their home in New Jersey.Troubled men, harboring a warped desire for vengeance and equipped with guns, turned their threats into action.
“We’re seeing these threats increase in number and intensity. That’s a sign. That’s a signal,” said U.S. District Judge Esther Salas, whose son was killed nearly two years ago in the attack that also wounded her husband.
Kavanaugh’s would-be attacker is Nicholas John Roske, 26, of Simi Valley, California, authorities said in charging him with the attempted murder of a justice. Clad in black, he arrived by taxi outside Kavanaugh’s Maryland home around 1 a.m. Wednesday.
He spotted two U.S. Marshals who were guarding the house and walked in the other direction, calling 911 to say he was having suicidal thoughts and also planned to kill Kavanaugh, according to court documents. Roske said he found the justice’s address on the internet.
When police searched a backpack and suitcase he was carrying, they said they found a Glock 17 pistol, ammunition, a knife, zip ties, duct tape and other items Roske said he was going to use to break into the house. He said he bought the gun to kill Kavanaugh.
Last week, Wisconsin authorities said Douglas Uhde, 56, shot John Roemer, a former county judge, in a targeted attack against a judge who had once sentenced him to prison. Roemer was found zip-tied to a chair. Uhde had shot himself and later died.
In July 2020, lawyer Roy Den Hollander showed up at Salas’ home posing as a FedEx delivery person. Den Hollander fatally shot Salas’ 20-year-old son, Daniel Anderl, and wounded her husband, Mark Anderl. Salas was in another part of the home at the time and was not injured.
Den Hollander, 72, was a men’s rights lawyer with a history of anti-feminist writings. He was found dead of a self-inflicted gunshot wound the day after the ambush, when police said they found a document with information about a dozen female judges from across the country, half of whom are Latina, including Salas.” Read more at AP News
“As the U.S. House select committee begins its public hearings on the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol, here’s what we know about the 824 people charged so far with crimes related to the riot.
The Department of Justice dragnet pulled in people from all walks of life – grandparents, socialites, elected officials, blue-collar workers, first responders and teenagers – and from across the nation. Only two states haven’t had a resident arrested: North Dakota and Vermont.
And it isn’t over. Photos of 363 unidentified people remain on a website of the FBI’s most wanted violent offenders that day.
At least 286 of the Capitol rioters have pleaded guilty, and 174 have been sentenced. Of those, five were convicted by trial and 65 must serve jail time.” Read more at USA Today
“About 40 million people from California to Texas are sweltering amid a dangerous heat wave that threatens to match or eclipse daily high-temperature records through the weekend.
Phoenix and Las Vegas reported record daily highs on Friday, according to the National Weather Service. Arizona's capital city reached 113 degrees, surpassing its previous record of 111 set in 1978. Las Vegas hit 109, breaking the previous record, set in 1996, by 1 degree.
And, in New Mexico, Albuquerque reached 100 degrees for the first time this year.” Read more at USA Today
“WASHINGTON — Even before the start of the war in Ukraine, an international alliance to rally the world against a Russian invasion came together so quickly that President Biden later marveled at the ‘purpose and unity found in months that we’d once taken years to accomplish.’
Now, with the conflict in its fourth month, U.S. officials are facing the disappointing reality that the powerful coalition of nations — stretching from North America across Europe and into East Asia — may not be enough to break the looming stalemate in Ukraine.
With growing urgency, the Biden administration is trying to coax or cajole countries that have declared themselves neutral in the conflict — including India, Brazil, Israel and the Gulf Arab states — to join the campaign of economic sanctions, military support and diplomatic pressure to further isolate Russia and bring a decisive end to the war. So far, few if any of them have been willing, despite their partnerships with Washington on other major security matters.” Read more at New York Times
“BOSTON (AP) — He stomped his feet, waved his arms, flexed his muscles and talked back to the crowd.
And Stephen Curry also made baskets. Plenty of those, too.
In a demonstrative and dominating performance that was one of the best of his postseason career, Curry scored 43 points to lead the Golden State Warriors to a 107-97 victory over the Boston Celtics in Game 4 of the NBA Finals on Friday night, sending the series back to San Francisco knotted at two games apiece.
Two nights after shaking off a foot injury in a Game 3 loss, the two-time league MVP stomped and shot his way to his third-highest scoring total in the postseason, adding 10 rebounds and making a pair of baskets during a 10-0 fourth-quarter run that turned a four-point Boston edge into a 100-94 Golden State lead. It was the second-most points he’s scored in the NBA Finals.” Read more at AP News
“Meta is scrutinizing Sheryl Sandberg’s use of Facebook resources over several years.
Lawyers investigating the outgoing COO are focusing on the extent to which staffers worked on her personal projects, including her Lean In foundation and the writing and promotion of her second book, people familiar with the matter said. A Meta spokeswoman declined to comment. Sandberg has previously denied allegations that she misused company resources.” Read more at Wall Street Journal
“Former Fox News editor Chris Stirewalt, now with NewsNation, will testify at a Jan. 6 committee hearing next week. Stirewalt did not elaborate on what his testimony would be about. Go deeper.” Read more at Axios
“President Biden scrapped former President Trump's red, white and blue design for Air Force One after a review warned it would delay delivery and raise costs for new planes. Go deeper.” Read more at Axios
FILE - Justin Bieber attends The Metropolitan Museum of Art's Costume Institute benefit gala on Sept. 13, 2021, in New York. Bieber leads the iHeartRadio Music Award nominations. Justin Bieber says a rare disorder that paralyzed half of the superstar performer’s face is the reason behind his tour postponement. The Grammy winner said he’s suffering from Ramsey Hunt syndrome in video he posed Friday, June 10, 2022 on Instagram. The syndrome causes facial paralysis and affects nerves in the face through a shingles outbreak.(Photo by Evan Agostini/Invision/AP, File)
“LOS ANGELES (AP) — Justin Bieber says a rare disorder that paralyzed half of the superstar performer’s face is the reason behind his tour postponement.
The multi-Grammy winner is suffering from Ramsay Hunt syndrome, he said in video he posted Friday on Instagram. The syndrome causes facial paralysis and affects nerves in the face through a shingles outbreak.
Bieber’s post comes after he cancelled his shows in Toronto and Washington, D.C. The singer demonstrated in the video that he could barely move one side of his face, calling the ailment ‘pretty serious.’
‘For those frustrated by my cancellations of the next shows, I’m just physically, obviously not capable of doing them,’ he said. The singer added, ‘My body’s telling me I’ve got to slow down. I hope you guys understand.’
Bieber said he’s unsure how long he’ll take to heal. But he appeared positive about making a full recovery through rest and therapy.
‘I’ll be using this time to just rest and relax and get back to a hundred percent, so that I can do what I was born to do,’ he said.
In March, Biebers’ wife, Hailey Bieber, was hospitalized for a blood clot to her brain.” Read more at AP News
“LONDON (AP) — Explorers and historians are telling the world about the discovery of the wreck of a royal warship that sank in 1682 while carrying a future king of England, Ireland and Scotland.
The HMS Gloucester, traveling from southern England to Scotland, ran aground while navigating sandbanks off the town of Great Yarmouth on the eastern English coast. It sank within an hour, killing an estimated 130 to 250 crew and passengers.
James Stuart, the son of King Charles I, survived. He went on to reign as King James II of England and Ireland, and as James VII of Scotland from 1685 to 1688, when he was deposed by the Glorious Revolution.
The wreck of the Gloucester was found in 2007 by brothers Julian and Lincoln Barnwell and others after a four-year search. It was firmly identified in 2012 with discovery of the ship’s bell.
The discovery was only made public Friday because of the time it took to confirm the identity of the ship and the need to protect the historical site.” Read more at AP News