The Full Belmonte, 7/6/2023
“Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen is in Beijing today to meet with senior government officials on the heels of a trip from Secretary of State Antony Blinken last month. Her visit comes amid rising tensions around trade restrictions, national security concerns, Taiwan and the South China Sea.” [NPR]
Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images
Biden maps big spending plans
Data: Interior Department. Map: Axios Visuals
“The Biden administration is beginning to map out billions of dollars in infrastructure, green technology and chips money it muscled through Congress.
Why it matters: President Biden is trying to convince a skeptical public that Bidenomics is working for them, Axios' Hans Nichols reports.
What's happening: In the second leg of his "Investing in America" tour, Biden and his Cabinet are buzzing across the country this week. They're carrying an upbeat message about the economy — topped with a jab at Republicans.
They're trying to draw a direct link between a booming jobs market and the trillions of dollars in new government spending Biden signed into law.
At the same time, they'll highlight Republican votes against many of those stimulus bills.
Maps showing the reach of Biden's programs — including one the Interior Department is releasing today — are central to both efforts.
It shows how the $7.3 billion in interior grants are spread across the country in more than 1,300 projects.
Big winners include the West and swing state Pennsylvania, where Biden was born.
Biden heads to West Columbia, S.C., today to tout a new investment from Enphase Energy, a solar technology company, to partner with Flex LTD, a global manufacturer, to create 600 jobs in one of the country's reddest states.
He also will mark a milestone the White House is eager to promote: By the administration's count, private companies have announced more than $500 billion in investment in U.S. manufacturing and infrastructure projects that are directly related to Biden's new federal spending.
Between the lines: The Interior Department is the first agency to release its own interactive map of projects — joining the White House, which has diligently updated its database of public and private investments in manufacturing.
Other departments — including Commerce and Transportation, which have much bigger shares of the spending pie — are expected to follow suit.
‘You aren't done hearing about Bidenomics,’ White House communications director Ben LaBolt said.
‘Following his major address in Chicago [last week], the president, vice president, Cabinet members and senior administration officials will continue to make a full-court press on Bidenomics this week.’” [Axios]
Philadelphia
“New details have emerged about the man facing murder charges for a shooting rampage in Philadelphia on Monday that killed five people, the youngest of whom was a 15-year-old boy. The gunman allegedly told police that he carried out the shooting to clean up the neighborhood, two law enforcement sources told CNN. The suspect's social media activity featured a series of posts about guns, the Second Amendment and the ‘loss of freedoms,’ according to a law enforcement source. The 40-year-old was arraigned Wednesday on charges of murder, attempted murder, assault, reckless endangerment and weapons charges, and was ordered held without bail. He ‘obviously planned’ the shooting, a district attorney said, but the investigation into other factors of the case could take months.” [CNN]
Passport delays
“The State Department says it is not expecting to reduce passport processing times to pre-pandemic levels until the end of the year. This comes as many frustrated travelers have had their summer plans disrupted by having to factor in waiting months to get a new passport before going abroad. In March, the agency increased the processing time for new passports to 10 to 13 weeks for routine processing and seven to nine weeks for expedited processing, which costs an additional $60. The wait time before the pandemic was two to three weeks for expedited cases and six to eight weeks for routine passport applications. Secretary of State Antony Blinken told Congress earlier this year that the department is ‘getting 500,000 applications a week for passports,’ which is around 40% more applicants this year than last year.” [CNN]
Russian attack on Ukraine city of Lviv kills 4 people
“Russia has fired cruise missiles at a western Ukraine city far from the front line of the war, killing at least four people in an apartment building. On Thursday, Ukrainian officials said it was the heaviest attack on civilian areas of Lviv since the Kremlin’s forces invaded Ukraine last year. Mayor Andriy Sadovyi said around 60 apartments and 50 cars were damaged. Meanwhile, the president of Belarus, Alexander Lukashenko, says Russian mercenary chief Yevgeny Prigozhin is in St. Petersburg and his Wagner troops have remained at the camps they stayed in before an attempted mutiny against Moscow. Lukashenko said last week that Prigozhin was in Belarus.” Read more at USA Today
Rescuers stand in front of a apartment building partially destroyed by a missile strike in the western Ukrainian city of Lviv on July 6, 2023, amid Russian military invasion on Ukraine.
YURIY DYACHYSHYN, AFP via Getty Images
Toxic gas leak in South Africa kills 16 people
“At least 16 people, including three children, were killed by a leak of a toxic nitrate gas being used by illegal miners to process gold in a settlement of closely packed metal shacks in Boksburg, South African police and local officials said late Wednesday. Read more.
Why this matters:
Illegal mining is rife in the gold-rich areas around Johannesburg. Wednesday’s tragedy will likely stoke more anger at the miners, who are often migrants from neighboring countries and operate in organized gangs.” [AP News]
Japan can release Fukushima water with radioactive material, UN says
“Twelve years after an earthquake and tsunami destroyed parts of the Fukushima nuclear plant and contaminated water supplies, the United Nations has approved Japan's highly anticipated waste disposal plan, which includes slowly discharging treated, radioactive water into the ocean. The U.N. atomic energy agency says the initiative, first announced in 2021, meets international standards and will have negligible effects on the sea environment and people's health. But the discharge method has drawn criticism from fisheries and and nearby countries, leading to a spike in seafood costs.” Read more at USA Today
Rafael Mariano Grossi, Director General of the International Atomic Energy Agency, after he fed flounder in a fish tank filled with treated wastewater at a lab, while visiting the damaged Fukushima nuclear power plant in Okuma, Japan, Wednesday, July 5, 2023.
Hiro Komae, AP
“Angry and disillusioned youth in blighted suburbs around Paris, known as the banlieues, coupled with an increasingly ill-trained police force have created a volatile mix that fueled the fierce clashes last week in France’s worst riots in nearly two decades. Ania Nussbaum, Tara Patel and William Horobin look at how the failure of government plans to uplift the areas and a breakdown in the residents’ trust in state institutions, from the police to mayors, have turned the areas into tinderboxes.” [Bloomberg]
Riot police face protesters during clashes in Nanterre, near Paris on June 29. Photographer: Christophe Ena/AP Photo
“President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva is aiming to put one of his darlings, Gabriel Galipolo, on track to be the next head of Brazil’s central bank. The Senate approved the appointments of Galipolo and Ailton Aquino to open seats on the nine-member board of directors in the opening step of Lula’s drive to shape the future of the bank that he’s been feuding with and is dominated by the appointments of his predecessor, Jair Bolsonaro.” [Bloomberg]
“Australia’s home affairs minister deleted a tweet where she called Trump’s son a ‘big baby’ and a ‘sore loser’ over suggestions his Australia tour had been postponed due to visa delays.” [Bloomberg]
“ The southwestern-most tip of England once boasted the richest mines in the world, with copper and tin extracted in Cornwall since ancient times. The last tin mine closed in 1998, but now there are efforts to reopen it as part of a flurry of sub-surface activity that includes exploration for lithium and tungsten as well as tapping geothermal energy. As Alan Crawford reports, the renewed push is due to US-China tensions over clean tech and the rush for critical minerals — but many fear the UK risks getting left behind without a concerted strategy and funding from the government.” [Bloomberg]
Workers drill cores in the South Crofty mine near Redruth on June 6. Photographer: Tom Skipp/Bloomberg
Threads launches
Photo illustration: Chesnot/Getty Images
“Just four hours after Instagram Threads — Meta's clone of Twitter — dropped in the Apple App Store last night, Mark Zuckerberg announced on the app that more than 5 million people had signed up.
In the next three hours, that doubled.
Between the lines: Twitter owner Elon Musk challenged Zuckerberg to a literal cage match last month. This is the digital cage match, Axios' Ryan Heath and Sara Fischer write.
What's happening: Meta has achieved massive success buying up and borrowing ideas from elsewhere, including Messenger, WhatsApp and Instagram.
Now the playbook is being used to claim a potentially lucrative market from Musk, who's severely annoyed both users and advertisers since taking ownership of the platform in late 2022.
How it works: Threads lets you use your Instagram credentials to log in.
You can automatically import all your Instagram follows.
Everyone under 16 who joins Threads in the U.S. will have their account set to "private" by default.
Thread users can share posts up to 500 characters long — in addition to links, photos, and videos up to 5 minutes in length.
The bottom line: Meta is aiming for something in between LinkedIn and Twitter as a place for you to share your views with the world.” [Axios]
NYC's new ‘Odd Couple’
Today's New York Post cover
“Former New York Mayor Bill de Blasio and his wife, Chirlane McCray, are calling it quits on their marriage — and announced the move via a nearly three-hour kitchen-table interview with the N.Y. Times' Matt Flegenheimer.
They're not planning to divorce and will continue to share their Brooklyn townhouse for now — but will date other people.
‘I just want to have fun,’ McCray said — adding, as de Blasio turned to her: ‘It’s not that we haven’t had fun.’
‘Thank you, honey,’ he said.
McCray told Flegenheimer the breakup convos began one Saturday night about two months ago, when he asked her while binge-watching TV: ‘Why aren't you lovey-dovey anymore?’” [Axios]
Novak Djokovic makes history at Wimbledon
“Novak Djokovic made history on Wednesday when he won his second-round match at Wimbledon. After beating Australia's Jordan Thompson in straight sets, the Serbian star and No. 2 seed captured his 350th singles victory in a Grand Slam tournament. Djokovic joins Serena Williams and Roger Federer as the only players in tennis history to win at least 350 Grand Slam matches. Williams has 367 and Federer has 369.” Read more at USA Today
Serbia's Novak Djokovic celebrates after winning against Australia's Jordan Thompson in the Wimbledon Championships on July 5, 2023.
SEBASTIEN BOZON, AFP via Getty Images
Director of New Women’s History Museum Withdraws, Citing Family Issues
Nancy Yao was to lead a Smithsonian museum about the influence of American women. Her withdrawal came amid a review of how she had handled sexual harassment complaints in an earlier post.
By Julia Jacobs
July 5, 2023
“The Smithsonian’s choice for the founding director of its developing American Women’s History Museum has withdrawn from the role, the institution said Wednesday.
A Smithsonian spokeswoman, Linda St. Thomas, said that the new director, Nancy Yao, had cited ‘family issues that require her attention’ in deciding to withdraw. The announcement came after the completion of an investigation into how Yao had handled sexual harassment claims in her previous role as the leader of the Museum of Chinese in America, in Manhattan’s Chinatown neighborhood, for eight years.
The Smithsonian declined to elaborate on the findings of the outside firm hired to investigate the sexual harassment issue and it did not detail the family issues Yao cited. But in a post on LinkedIn, Yao said her father is in hospice care, her two teenage children need her support and that the family situation meant she would not be able to give the museum the attention it deserved….” Read more at New York Times
SPORTS NEWS FROM THE ATHLETIC
“Tension: A year after Wimbledon banned Russian and Belarusian players, those returning to the competition have been met with a frosty reception in locker rooms.
An unusual end: Once ranked No. 2 in the world, Anett Kontaveit is retiring after this year’s Wimbledon — with Netflix cameras documenting every second of her career’s last days.
Golf wunderkind: Rose Zhang, the 20-year-old phenom, is the favorite in this weekend’s Women’s U.S. Open in just her third tournament as a professional.” [New York Times]
CoCo Lee, the singer and Disney star, has died.
CoCo Lee in 2016. (Tyrone Siu/Reuters)
“How she’s best known: For selling millions of albums in Cantonese, Mandarin and English. Lee also voiced the lead character in the Mandarin version of the 1998 Disney animated film “Mulan.”
What we know: The 48-year-old was hospitalized after an attempted suicide this weekend and had struggled with her mental health for years, her family said. She died yesterday.”
Read this story at Washington Post