The Full Belmonte, 8/22/2023
Biden met with grief over relief efforts in Maui after wildfires devastate the island
READ FULL STORY→ at USA Today
Photo: Evan Vucci/AP
Aboard Marine One, President Biden takes an aerial tour yesterday of Lahaina, Hawai'i, which was devastated by the Maui wildfires.
Photo: Mandel Ngan/AFP via Getty Images
Trump
“Former President Donald Trump plans to turn himself in at the Fulton County jail on Thursday following his agreement Monday to a $200,000 bond and other release conditions. ‘I'll be going to Atlanta, Georgia, on Thursday to be ARRESTED,’ Trump wrote in a post on his social media platform. According to an unsealed indictment last week, Trump is accused of being the head of a ‘criminal enterprise’ that was part of a broad conspiracy to overturn his 2020 election defeat. Trump and 18 co-defendants have until noon ET Friday to voluntarily surrender to Georgia authorities after being criminally charged. Meanwhile, the former president is accelerating his 2024 presidential campaign despite four indictments. He has repeatedly denied any wrongdoing and continues to slam the cases as politically motivated.” [CNN]
News Alert: First Trump co-defendant in Georgia case surrenders
“Scott Hall, one of former President Donald Trump’s 18 co-defendants, has turned himself in to the Fulton County jail, according to the jail’s online database.
Hall, who works as a bail bondsman in Atlanta, was charged by Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis with crimes related to his alleged involvement in the Coffee County, Georgia, voting systems breach.
This is the first known defendant in the Trump case to surrender.” [CNN]
Hilary moving north after battering Southern California
The San Gabriel Mountains near Santa Clarita, Calif., yesterday.Alisha Jucevic for The New York Times
“The remnants of Tropical Storm Hilary are moving north into Nevada, and headed for Oregon and Idaho, after bringing record-breaking rain to Southern California.
Hilary, once a Category 4 hurricane, has brought life-threatening flooding and mudslides to the Southwest, and prompted water rescues, after making landfall in Mexico over the weekend.
It’s the first tropical storm to cross into California in 25 years.
San Bernardino County was hit with more than a foot of rain. The city of Palm Springs has been completely cut off by flooding, officials said, after getting a year’s worth of rain in less than a day.
‘Right now we have flooding on all of our roads. There’s no way in or out of Palm Springs and that's the case for the majority of the Coachella valley,’ Palm Springs Mayor Grace Garner said today in an interview. ‘We're all stuck.’
States of emergency have been declared by the governors of California and Nevada, with more flash flooding and urban flooding possible across parts of the West today, according to the National Weather Service.” [NBC News]
Deadly wildfires in Washington state force evacuations
“Multiple fast-moving wildfires burning across Washington state have killed at least two people, forced thousands of evacuations, and scorched tens of thousands of acres, according to authorities.
The Oregon Road Fire has burned more than 10,000 acres near the town of Elk in northern Spokane County, and is zero percent contained, according to fire officials. One person has been found dead in a home inside the evacuation area, officials said.
Also in Spokane County, the Gray Fire has burned more than 10,000 acres and is 10 percent contained. One person has died and 185 structures have been destroyed by the inferno, fire officials said.
And farther to the south, a fire in Whitman County has burned more than 5,000 acres and is zero percent contained, the Washington State Department of Natural Resources said.” [NBC News]
Donald Trump’s bond is set at $200,000 in Georgia case over efforts to overturn 2020 election
FILE - Former President Donald Trump is escorted to a courtroom, April 4, 2023, in New York. Trump’s bond has been set at $200,000 in the Georgia case accusing the former president of scheming to overturn his 2020 election loss. The bond agreement was outlined in a court filing signed by Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis and Trump’s defense attorneys. (AP Photo/Mary Altaffer, File)
“Donald Trump’s bond has been set at $200,000 in the Georgia case accusing the former president of illegally scheming to overturn his 2020 election loss, according to court papers filed Monday.
Trump is also barred from intimidating co-defendants, witnesses or victims in the case — including on social media — according to the bond agreement signed by Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis, Trump’s defense attorneys and the judge. It explicitly includes ‘posts on social media or reposts of posts made by another individual on social media.’
The order says the former president cannot make any ‘direct or indirect threat of any nature’ against witnesses or co-defendants. He is also prohibited from communicating in any way about the facts of the case with any co-defendant or witness, except through attorneys.
The order sets Trump’s bond for the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations— or RICO — charge at $80,000, and adds $10,000 for each of the 12 other counts he is facing. Bond is the amount defendants must pay as a form of collateral to ensure they show up in court ahead of trial….” Read more at AP News
Hundreds of Students Protest WVU’s Proposed Program and Faculty Cuts
West Virginia University students staged a walkout Monday to oppose the university’s significant proposed employee layoffs and program cuts.
West Virginia University students protested outside the Mountainlair Monday.
Ryan Quinn/Inside Higher Ed
“MORGANTOWN, W.Va.—West Virginia University’s proposal to eliminate nearly a 10th of its majors and 169 full-time faculty positions from its flagship campus led hundreds of students to protest Monday, as a student union’s organizing power added volume to the online employee protestations and national media coverage that’s been buffeting the institution for more than a week.
Pressure on the administration to reverse its recommended cuts is growing as the WVU Board of Governors’ Sept. 15 vote on the proposals nears. The suggested cuts—not the first in recent years at West Virginia—were discussed around the end of the spring and through the summer, but WVU’s big reveal of how extensive the proposed layoffs and degree reductions would be didn’t come until Aug. 11.
“Stop the Cuts!” was students’ first chant outside the Mountainlair student union Monday, followed by “Hey hey, ho ho, Gordon Gee has got to go!”…. Read more at Inside Higher Ed
Florida’s restrictive sex ed rules are causing back-to-school mayhem
Thomas Simonetti/Washington Post via Getty Images
“Ron DeSantis’s next culture war victim: AP Psychology. Thanks to a vague law and even vaguer directions from Florida’s education department, some school district leaders remain unsure if the course is even legal to teach. For the 30,000 students who were registered for the class, they’ll have to look for alternatives.
The lowdown: Earlier this year, Florida’s Department of Education asked the College Board — the body that organizes AP classes — for an audit of the course and to make potential changes.
The state argued that the course needed to comply with the new House Bill 1096, otherwise known as the ‘Don’t Say Period’ law, which states that high school lessons on gender identity and sexual orientation must be ‘age appropriate.’
The course includes teachings on sexual orientation and gender identity.
The College Board didn’t cave to the state’s request, unlike its actions for the AP African American Studies course.
The stakes: The situation highlights how difficult and confusing it has become for schools to navigate the state’s increasingly restrictive education policies. The Don’t Say Period act follows the Stop WOKE Act and the Parental Rights in Education law, colloquially known as the Don’t Say Gay law.
I spoke with race and policy reporter Fabiola Cineas about how the AP saga is a bellwether of what’s to come in education.
‘Essentially every course can be a violation under Florida’s tapestry of restrictive classroom laws,’ Fabiola said. ‘These laws are all vague and serve to restrict what can be taught in a variety of subjects from history and literature to science and psychology. Teachers are working in fear — they can face felony charges for teaching something that is restricted — and school leaders are struggling to give them direction.’
The takeaway: Beyond the state of Florida, the education culture war debacle also indicates ways the 2024 election could go.
‘Ron DeSantis is running for president and has made anti-trans legislation and anti-wokeness a part of his platform,’ Fabiola added. ‘Nationally, Republicans are railing against sex and gender as a way to bring the country back to what they say are traditional American values.” [Vox]
What to know about new COVID variant Pirola
“The World Health Organization (WHO) and Centers for Disease Control (CDC) have announced another addition to their lists tracking variants of COVID-19 — and this one may be a little different. Described by the CDC as a new lineage of the virus that causes COVID-19, BA.2.86, nicknamed Pirola, has over 30 mutations, more than other variants currently circulating. Pirola has been detected in multiple countries, including Denmark, Israel, the U.S. and U.K. With many states and countries no longer reporting to a centralized COVID tracking system, cases are now generally tracked by less reliable standards, largely hospitalizations and wastewater data. Read more at USA Today
Scientists have yet to determine if these mutations of BA.2.86 may result in a higher rate of transmissions.
NiseriN, Getty Images/iStockphoto
Russia's Putin stays away over arrest warrant as leaders of emerging economies meet in South Africa
“Russian President Vladimir Putin will be notably absent when Chinese President Xi Jinping and other leaders from the BRICS economic bloc begin a three-day summit in South Africa on Tuesday. Putin must participate via video call after his travel was complicated by an International Criminal Court arrest warrant issued for him in March over the abduction of children from Ukraine. The U.S. and Europe are paying attention to the meeting, too, as leaders from Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa will likely address potential growth of BRICS and their criticism of the dominance of the U.S. dollar as the world's currency for international trade.” Read more at USA Today
The BRICS countries, an acronym of the five members Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa, meet for three days for a summit in Johannesburg starting August 22, 2023.
GIANLUIGI GUERCIA, AFP via Getty Images
Ukraine
“Ukraine is in talks with some of the world's biggest insurance companies to cover ships traveling to and from its ports in the Black Sea — a crucial step toward a full resumption of vital grain exports around the globe. Work on an insurance mechanism follows Russia's withdrawal from the Black Sea Grain deal last month, which threatens the safe passage of ships carrying grain from Ukrainian ports. The collapse of the deal has already pushed up global food prices and could tip millions in poor countries into hunger. To keep grain shipments moving, Ukraine's government will share potential losses with insurers, which should make cover for travel through risky Ukrainian watersmore affordable for commercial shipping companies.” [CNN]
A British nurse who killed seven babies was sentenced to life in prison.
What happened? Neonatal nurse Lucy Letby, 33, murdered the newborns and attempted to kill six others between 2015 and 2016. She was sentenced yesterday.
What’s next? The U.K. government will lead an inquiry into how Letby was able to continue working despite alarms raised by her colleagues. She will never be released.
Read this story at Washington Post
“Xi Jinping’s quest to rewrite the playbook that drove China’s economic miracle for a generation is facing its sternest test yet. The $18 trillion economy is decelerating, consumers are downbeat, exports are struggling, prices are falling and more than one in five young people are out of work.” [Bloomberg]
Xi Jinping is presiding over a decelerating Chinese economy Photographer: Bloomberg
Looking for a new car under $20,000? Good luck. Your choice has dwindled to just one vehicle
BY TOM KRISHER
“DETROIT (AP) — Just five years ago, a price-conscious auto shopper in the United States could choose from among a dozen new small cars selling for under $20,000. Now, there’s just one: The Mitsubishi Mirage. And even the Mirage appears headed for the scrap yard.
At a time when Americans increasingly want pricey SUVs and trucks rather than small cars, the Mirage remains the lone new vehicle whose average sale price is under 20 grand — a figure that once marked a kind of unofficial threshold of affordability. With prices — new and used — having soared since the pandemic, $20,000 is no longer much of a starting point for a new car.
This current version of the Mirage, which reached U.S. dealerships a decade ago, sold for an average of $19,205 last month, according to data from Cox Automotive. (Though a few other new models have starting prices under $20,000, their actual purchase prices, with options and shipping, exceed that figure.)
The Mirage, with hatchback and sedan versions, costs less than half of what the average U.S. new vehicle does. That average is now just above $48,000 — 25% more than before the pandemic struck three years ago….” Read more at AP News
Voice of Mario retires
Photo: Stephen Kelly/PA Images via Getty Images
“The iconic English-language voice behind Mario, Luigi, Wario and other Nintendo protagonists is ‘stepping back’ from playing those roles, Axios Gaming author Stephen Totilo reports.
Why it matters: Anyone who has played a Mario game since the late '90s has probably had Charles Martinet's ‘wa-hoos’ imprinted in their brain.
Zoom in: Mario never said much in his various Nintendo games, but Martinet made the most out of the character's exuberant exhortations as he bounced through various interactive obstacle courses.
Nintendo isn't saying who will take over as Mario going forward, telling Axios that players can check the credits of the next game in October.” [Axios]
SPORTS NEWS
“World’s fastest woman: Sha’Carri Richardson, an American sprinter who missed the Tokyo Olympics because she tested positive for marijuana, won her first world championship title in the 100 meters.
Luis Rubiales: The head of Spain’s soccer federation offered a halfhearted apology for kissing a player on the lips during the Women’s World Cup medal ceremony. “Probably I made a mistake,” he said.
Riveting finish: The Commanders beat the Ravens, 29-28, on a field goal in the final seconds to end Baltimore’s 24-game preseason winning streak. The ESPN analyst Troy Aikman called it ‘the greatest preseason game I’ve ever been a part of.’
Another first: The Mariners’ Julio Rodríguez has reached base safely 17 times in a row when putting the ball in play, a major-league baseball first. The young star is fueling a seven-game Seattle winning streak.” [New York Times]
Oliver Anthony@radiowv, via YouTube
“Going viral: A little-known musician, Oliver Anthony, topped the latest Billboard singles chart with “Rich Men From North of Richmond,” a country song infused with right-wing messages. The song is part of a summer of conservative pop-culture hits, including the Jason Aldean song “Try That in a Small Town” and the anti-child-trafficking film “Sound of Freedom.” Social media attention helped the song find an audience, but its sudden rise was partly thanks to savvy fans who used a quirk of the charts to boost its position — a tactic that K-pop fans also use.” [New York Times]
”Lives Lived: Bob Jones was a folk singer in the early 1960s when he volunteered to work at the Newport Folk Festival. He soon became a force behind that festival and one for jazz. He died at 86.” [New York Times]