The Full Belmonte, 8/9/2023
Dennis Willard, spokesperson for One Person One Vote, celebrates the results of the election during a watch party Tuesday, Aug. 8, 2023, in Columbus, Ohio. (AP Photo/Jay LaPrete)
Voters in Ohio reject GOP-backed proposal that would have made it tougher to protect abortion rights
“Ohio voters on Tuesday resoundingly rejected a Republican-backed measure that would have made it more difficult to change the state’s constitution, setting up a fall campaign that will become the nation’s latest referendum on abortion rights. Read more.
Why this matters:
The defeat of “Issue 1” keeps in place a majority threshold for passing future constitutional amendments, rather than the 60% supermajority that was proposed. Its supporters said the higher bar would have better protected the state’s foundational document.
Voter opposition to the proposal was widespread, even reaching into traditionally Republican territory. Voters cast nearly 700,000 early in-person and mail ballots ahead of Tuesday’s final day of voting, more than double the number of advance votes in a typical primary election.
While abortion was not explicitly on the special election ballot, the result marks a rare rebuke for Ohio Republicans, who have held power across every branch of state government for 12 years. GOP lawmakers had cited possible future amendments related to gun control, minimum wage increases and more as reasons a higher threshold should be required.” [AP News]
The Supreme Court is reinstating the regulation of ghost guns
Conservative Supreme Court backs a Biden gun rule.
“The Supreme Court is reinstating a regulation aimed at reining in so-called ghost guns, or firearms without serial numbers that have increasingly been turning up at crime scenes across the nation. The court on Tuesday voted 5-4 to put on hold a ruling by a federal judge in Texas that invalidated the regulation of ghost gun kits. Read more.
Why this matters:
The Justice Department reported that local law enforcement agencies seized more than 19,000 ghost guns at crime scenes in 2021, a more than tenfold increase in just five years.
The rule issued last year changed the definition of a firearm under federal law to include unfinished parts, like the frame of a handgun or the receiver of a long gun, so they can be tracked more easily. Those parts must be licensed and include serial numbers and manufacturers must run background checks before a sale. The requirement applies regardless of how the firearm was made - including ghost guns made from individual parts, kits or by 3D printers.
Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Amy Coney Barrett joined the court’s three liberal members to form the majority. Justices Samuel Alito, Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh and Clarence Thomas would have kept the regulation on hold during the appeals process. Neither side provided an explanation.” [AP News]
Previously Secret Memo Laid Out Strategy for Trump to Overturn Biden’s Win
The House Jan. 6 committee’s investigation did not uncover the memo, whose existence first came to light in last week’s indictment.
“A lawyer allied with President Donald J. Trump first laid out a plot to use false slates of electors to subvert the 2020 election in a previously unknown internal campaign memo that prosecutors are portraying as a crucial link in how the Trump team’s efforts evolved into a criminal conspiracy.
The existence of the Dec. 6, 2020, memo came to light in last week’s indictment of Mr. Trump, though its details remained unclear. But a copy obtained by The New York Times shows for the first time that the lawyer, Kenneth Chesebro, acknowledged from the start that he was proposing ‘a bold, controversial strategy’ that the Supreme Court ‘likely’ would reject in the end.
But even if the plan did not ultimately pass legal muster at the highest level, Mr. Chesebro argued that it would achieve two goals. It would focus attention on claims of voter fraud and ‘buy the Trump campaign more time to win litigation that would deprive Biden of electoral votes and/or add to Trump’s column.’
The memo had been a missing piece in the public record of how Mr. Trump’s allies developed their strategy to overturn Mr. Biden’s victory. In mid-December, the false Trump electors could go through the motions of voting as if they had the authority to do so. Then, on Jan. 6, 2021, Vice President Mike Pence could unilaterally count those slates of votes, rather than the official and certified ones for Joseph R. Biden Jr….” Read more at New York Times
New Trump charges as soon as Tuesday
TV trucks (at right) and security barriers outside Fulton County Courthouse in Atlanta this week. Photo: Elijah Nouvelage/Reuters
“Fulton County (Ga.) District Attorney Fani Willis is expected to ask grand jurors for indictments as early as next Tuesday after a two-year investigation of President Trump's efforts to overturn the 2020 election, The Guardian's Hugo Lowell reports.
Georgia's racketeering statute ‘is especially expansive and attempts to solicit or coerce certain activity — for instance, Trump's call to the secretary of state, Brad Raffensperger — could be included in the indictment,’ Lowell adds.
Nearly 20 people have been told that they could face charges from the investigation, the N.Y. Times reports.” [Axios]
DeSantis Upends Campaign Leadership as Trump Looms and Urgency Grows
Replacing his campaign manager, the Florida governor capped a turbulent period of layoffs, financial worries and a shift in strategy against Donald Trump, the presidential front-runner.
By Nicholas Nehamas, Shane Goldmacher and Maggie Haberman
Nicholas Nehamas reported from Miami, and Shane Goldmacher and Maggie Haberman from New York.
Aug. 8, 2023
“Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida is shaking up his presidential campaign — again.
For the third time in less than a month, Mr. DeSantis’s campaign announced a major restructuring, this time removing his embattled campaign manager, Generra Peck, and replacing her with a loyalist from the governor’s office, as he continues to search for a campaign team and a political message that can compete with former President Donald J. Trump.
The reorganization — in which a top official at the main pro-DeSantis super PAC will also take on an influential role inside the campaign — caps a turbulent period of layoffs, financial worries and a shift in strategy for the Florida governor, who is increasingly banking on an Iowa-or-bust approach.
So far, Mr. DeSantis and his message have failed to connect with Republican primary voters or make a dent in Mr. Trump’s sizable lead in polls of the nation and the early nominating states. After winning re-election in a landslide last year, Mr. DeSantis built his 2024 candidacy on the idea that he was a more electable Republican than Mr. Trump and the type of politician who could actually accomplish what he promised, based on his record in Florida.
But he has yet to convince Republican voters. His donors have fretted about his hard-line positions, including on abortion, that could repel the independent voters he has said he can win over. And while he is putting in the work to hold small-town events, particularly in Iowa, he has not flashed the kind of personal magnetism that itself could change the trajectory of the race….” Read more at New York Times
COVID-19 hospitalizations in the US are on the rise, but more slowly than past peaks
“COVID-19 hospital admissions have inched upward in the United States since early July in a small-scale echo of the three previous summers. With an updated vaccine still months away, this bump in new hospitalizations might be concerning, but it’s still a far cry from past peaks. Read more.
Why this matters:
For the week ending July 29, COVID-19 hospital admissions were at 9,056, an increase of about 12% over the previous week. It’s likely that infections are rising too. But the data is scant, and while one version of omicron — EG.5 — is appearing more frequently, no particular variant of the virus is dominant.
Federal authorities ended the public health emergency in May, so the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and many states no longer track the number of positive test results.
The amount of the COVID-19 virus in sewage water has been rising since late June across the nation. In the coming weeks, health officials say they’ll keep a close eye on wastewater levels as people return from summer travel and students go back to school.” [AP News]
Thousands of Los Angeles city workers stage a 24-hour strike
“Thousands of city workers in Los Angeles abandoned their jobs Tuesday in a one-day strike, calling attention to their claims of unfair labor practices and what they say is the city's unwillingness to bargain in good faith. The strike is the first work stoppage for employees in America's second-largest city in more than 40 years. About 11,000 city workers for SEIU Local 721, including sanitation workers, heavy-duty mechanics and engineers at the Los Angeles International Airport, custodians at public schools and lifeguards staged the walkout and took to picket lines early Tuesday.” Read more at USA Today
•”Biden will reinstate a labor rule shelved by Reagan, giving construction workers a pay boost.” [USA Today]
SEIU Local 721, a union representing county and city employees across Southern California, said that more than 11,000 Los Angeles city workers will participate in the strike.
Robert Hanashiro, USA TODAY
Protecting the Amazon
A deforested and burnt area is seen on a stretch of the BR-230 highway in Humaitá, Brazil, on Sept. 16, 2022.Michael Dantas/AFP via Getty Images
“On Tuesday, members of the Amazon Cooperation Treaty Organization (ACTO), Latin America’s largest environmental bloc, met in Belém, Brazil, for a two-day summit to further regional cooperation, battle climate change and deforestation, and strengthen Indigenous protections. This is the first time the body, composed of eight Amazon rainforest nations—Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, Guyana, Peru, Suriname, and Venezuela—has convened in 14 years, and only the fourth time in its 45-year history. The last time the organization met, the only ACTO member with a president in attendance other than the summit’s host, Brazil, was Guyana.
‘It has never been so urgent to resume and expand that cooperation,’ said Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva. ‘The challenge of our era and the opportunities that arise will demand joint action.’
Around 130 issues are on the bloc’s agenda, from economics to sustainability. But deforestation and oil drilling are at the top of the list. At last month’s pre-summit meeting in Colombia, Colombian President Gustavo Petro urged Lula to halt a new offshore drilling site near the mouth of the Amazon River. Brazil was the ninth-largest oil producer in the world in 2022, ahead of Kuwait and just behind Iran. ‘Are we going to let hydrocarbons be explored in the Amazon rainforest?’ Petro asked. ‘Is there wealth there, or is there the death of humanity?’
Petro and other Latin American leaders hope to decrease oil drilling as a means of reducing deforestation. Last year alone, almost 10.2 million acres of primary rainforest was lost worldwide, according to the World Resources Institute—the equivalent of losing 11 soccer fields’ worth of trees every minute. Both Brazil and Colombia have pledged to stop deforestation by 2030, but other ACTO members have been slow to take up the pledge. And Lula is battling years of catastrophic environmental policies established under former President Jair Bolsonaro.
In a further blow to the summit’s effectiveness, not all eight members are in attendance. Both Ecuador and Suriname sent senior representatives instead of their nations’ leaders, and Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro canceled at the last minute due to an ear infection. Still, Brazil is hoping to encourage the other ACTO nations in attendance to sign the Belém Declaration, a list of collaborative strategies for combatting carbon emissions. The document would also create an international police center in Manaus, the largest city in the Amazon, to promote interstate cooperation to combat organized crime in the region.” [Foreign Policy]
“Back-to-back assaults. A double Russian missile strike hit the city of Pokrovsk in Ukraine’s Donetsk region on Monday, killing around eight people and injuring at least 81 others. Many of the victims were first responders and journalists who had rushed to the scene after the first explosion, and five of the individuals killed were civilians. Numerous apartments and the popular Druzhba Hotel, one of the few operating hotels near the front lines, were destroyed.
Russia’s continued targeting of civilians under President Vladimir Putin’s command has catalyzed international outrage. Since Moscow’s invasion began in February 2022, at least 78 rescuers have been killed in Ukraine while responding to missile strikes. And around 8,490 Ukrainian civilians have been killed by Russian troops, though the United Nations estimates that the total is likely thousands more. However, compiling evidence of war crimes and establishing the proper court to try them has become a complex legal conundrum. ‘The quickest path to justice for Ukraine may not have the widest international support, or the best way to go after Putin himself,’ wrote FP’s Robbie Gramer. ‘And the path with the most global support and best chance of nabbing Putin will take the longest.’” [Foreign Policy]
“Constitutional crisis. The results are in, and President Faustin-Archange Touadéra of the Central African Republic has a bright future ahead of him. On Monday, the nation’s electoral authority announced the passage of a constitutional referendum that scraps the current two-term presidential limit—meaning Touadéra can now run for a third time. Around 95 percent of voters supported the bill; however, critics claim that turnout was as low as 10 percent. The new law would also extend the president’s mandate from five to seven years and ban politicians with dual citizenship from running for office unless they renounce citizenship in their other home nation.
Touadéra has repeatedly faced criticism over his close ties with Russia’s paramilitary Wagner Group and the Kremlin more broadly. Moscow continues to send weapons and military instructors to the Central African Republic to back Touadéra in his fight against rebels in the country’s ongoing civil war. In exchange, Touadéra has given Wagner lucrative mining concessions in gold and diamonds.” [Foreign Policy]
“Fed up with gangs. Cries for better security echoed in the streets of Port-au-Prince, Haiti, on Monday as thousands of residents marched through the capital to protest gang violence. Among their top demands, they urged the government to provide better police protection against organized crime. The next day, gunfire near the U.S. Embassy in Haiti shuttered the consulate’s operations.
Since President Jovenel Moïse was assassinated in July 2021, gangs have taken control of around 80 percent of the island’s capital. For months, Haiti begged the international community to help curb the country’s violence by sending in foreign troops. However, no one jumped in to lead the charge. Until last week, that is, when Kenya offered to send 1,000 police officers to Haiti. However, fears that Kenya’s police will do more harm than good—specifically over the force’s history of human rights abuses—remain prevalent.” [Foreign Policy]
“President Xi Jinping’s anti-spying crackdown is having another knock-on effect on China’s $18 trillion economy: It’s making investor meetings boring.
More than a dozen foreign bankers, economists and businesspeople returning to China after three years of closed borders told Bloomberg News that bland party speak is increasingly replacing the frank conversations with officials that they enjoyed before the pandemic.
That’s down, in part, to an expanded anti-espionage law that has made officials more fearful of saying the wrong thing as China becomes more wary of the US and its allies.
Now dinner party invitations are being declined, with potential ethics breaches cited as the reason, and economists are refusing to talk about key issues like deflation.
In some cases, it’s hard to get meetings at all: Face time with officials from China’s Central Bank has either been harder to get, or is now simply unhelpful, sources say.
At the same time, employees at many Chinese state-owned — and some private-sector — companies are being made to attend study sessions on Xi Thought, a guiding philosophy spanning nearly every aspect of Chinese life that prioritizes the work of the ruling Communist Party.
To comply, many businesses have hired experts and academics to instruct staff. Employees at one Beijing-based government-owned energy company reported being dragged into surprise talks on the Chinese leader’s principles at an isolated facility where their mobile phones were sometimes confiscated.
Adding to the paranoia is Baomiguan, an app for ‘Views on Secret Keeping,’ on which employees are increasingly being asked to take regular training about state secrets.
Between the study sessions and anti-espionage training, Chinese employees might have another reason to turn down meetings with overseas visitors: They just don’t have the time.” — Jenni Marsh [Bloomberg]
Buildings in Shanghai on June 21. Photographer: Raul Ariano/Bloomberg
“The UK is headed for five years of lost economic growth as the government fails in its goal to “level-up” the country’s regions and reduce inequality, forecasts from the London-based National Institute of Economic and Social Research show. The report is bad news for Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s Conservatives as they ready for a general election likely in 2024, with NIESR warning that the government is continually spending more than it earns, constraining growth and the scope to offer voters tax cuts or other sweeteners.” [Bloomberg]
“British consumer brands are facing scrutiny of their efforts to cater to socially conscious customers amid signs that the UK is falling prey to a backlash against so-called woke capitalism, Dasha Afanasieva reports.” [Bloomberg]
“A US plan to restrict investment in China is likely to apply only to Chinese companies that get at least half of their revenue from cutting-edge sectors such as quantum computing and artificial intelligence, sources say. The provision would limit the scope of an executive order the Biden administration is expected to unveil in the coming days as part of a push to limit Chinese access to sensitive technology.” [Bloomberg]
“President Joe Biden said he plans to travel to Vietnam soon as the US seeks to bolster its ties with Asian nations and reduce China’s influence on the region.” [Bloomberg]
July was officially the earth’s hottest month on record, causing the Antarctic to shrink at a record pace and the European Union’s observation agency to warn of “dire consequences” as extreme weather events grow more frequent. Last month was about 1.5C warmer than the average for 1850 to 1900, the first time global July temperatures have exceeded the 1.5C preindustrial threshold set in the Paris Agreement. [Bloomberg]
“Typhoon Khanun is on track to deliver an ‘extremely powerful’ impact, authorities in South Korea warned, amid forecasts it will barrel up the country and toward the capital Seoul that’s home to about half the population. The nation hasn’t previously experienced a tropical cyclone that’s pierced right through the inland and crossed into North Korea, according to records that date back to 1951, the Korea Meteorological Administration said today.” [Bloomberg]
“Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said he aims to revive the deal that allowed Ukraine to export grain via the Black Sea with an ‘expanded scope,’ calling on western countries to help turn the initiative into the basis for peace between Russia and Ukraine. Contacts to restart the initiative are ongoing, but a solution depends on western countries ‘fulfilling their promises,’ he added, without specifying which commitments had been broken.” [Bloomberg]
“Rome just took a sharply populist turn under Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, who is launching an assault on bank profits and vying to tighten her far-right government’s grip over corporate Italy. The prime minister is doubling down on a state-led approach to managing prosperity with a raft of measures that wiped out about $10 billion from the market value of Italian banks and is threatening to overshadow relations with China.” [Bloomberg]
“An estimated 42% of adult Japanese women may end up never having children, the Nikkei newspaper reported, citing a soon-to-be-published estimate by a government research group.” [Bloomberg]
“Mexican opposition frontrunner Xochitl Galvez is narrowing the gap with the candidates of the ruling Morena party, who are the favorites to win next year’s presidential election, according to a poll.” [Bloomberg]
“Indonesia is again delaying the opening of a Chinese-funded high-speed train, citing safety concerns.” v
“Most countries in Europe are paring their army of firefighters even as the continent battles increasingly intense heat waves that have already stoked wildfires in Greece and Portugal this summer.” [Bloomberg]
“Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva rose to political prominence as a labor organizer in the auto plants of Sau Paulo in the 1970s. Now in his third term as president, Lula is keen for carmakers to take the lead in his program to bring back manufacturing to Brazil. It’s a project with echoes of Biden’s industrial policy for America — only, as Simone Iglesias and Leonardo Lara report, Lula is looking to China rather than the US to help with reindustrialization.” [Bloomberg]
Lula speaks during a conference with international correspondents in Brasilia. Photographer: Arthur Menescal/Bloomberg
Zoom CEO admits mistake
Illustration: Aïda Amer/Axios
“A change to Zoom's terms of service left customers worried that the video-conferencing company is seeking broad rights to use images, sound and other content from meetings to train its AI algorithms, Axios' Ina Fried reports.
Why it matters: The pandemic made Zoom synonymous with online meetings. Now users and companies don't want their conversations and deliberations shared with the world.
Zoom made changes to its terms of service back in March. But concern spiked this past weekend after a Hacker News post highlighted that the changes appeared to give the company unbounded rights to use content to train its AI systems.
News reports and online ire prompted Zoom to publish a blog post aimed at clarifying what was and wasn't changing. The post further altered the terms of service to say that ‘for AI, we do not use audio, video, or chat content for training our models without customer consent.’
‘Our intention was to make clear that customers create and own their own video, audio, and chat content,’ product chief Smita Hashim said in the post. ‘We have permission to use this customer content to provide value-added services based on this content, but our customers continue to own and control their content.’
Zoom CEO Eric Yuan said in a LinkedIn post yesterday that the March terms of service changes were a mistake: ‘We had a process failure internally that we will fix.’
These responses haven't quelled the outcry.
Some still worry the terms of service granted overly broad permissions. Others question whether one person could grant consent for all of a meeting's participants.
Zoom is already using AI to power experimental features that summarize meetings and help draft follow-up communications.
Zoom says that AI-powered Zoom IQ features are off by default and that, when turned on by the host of a meeting, other participants are notified.
What's next: Zoom has outlined a series of future AI features, including using prompts to help kickstart an initial whiteboard for a meeting.” [Axios]
Music industry in "deepfake" talks
Illustration: Shoshana Gordon/Axios
“The music industry is engaging on AI instead of suing:
Google and Universal Music are in early talks to license artists' melodies and voices for AI-generated songs, as the music business tries to monetize one of its biggest threats, the Financial Times reports (subscription).
Why it matters: ‘The rise of generative AI has bred a surge in 'deepfake' songs that can convincingly mimic the voices, lyrics or sound of established artists, often without their consent,’ the FT notes.
The goal is to develop a tool for fans to create tracks legitimately, and pay the copyright owner: ‘Artists would have the choice to opt in.’
Ina Fried's thought bubble: This issue is coming up across the arts. But the music industry has a track record of figuring out how to divide intellectual property rights in a way that allows for new use + compensation to the original artist.” [Axios]
How IBM tricked ChatGPT
Illustration: Maura Losch/Axios
“Tricking generative AI to help conduct scams and cyberattacks doesn't require much coding expertise, Axios cybersecurity reporter Sam Sabin writes from new IBM research.
IMB researchers released a report detailing easy workarounds they've uncovered to get large language models (LLMs) — including ChatGPT — to write malicious code and give poor security advice.
One model was tricked into telling people it's safe to run a red light.
Why it matters: These cases just scratch the surface of how generative AI will affect the cyber threat landscape.
Chenta Lee, chief architect of threat intelligence at IBM, told LLMs that they were playing a game with a specific set of rules, in order to "hypnotize" them into betraying the "guardrail" rules meant to protect users.
In one case, Lee told the AI chatbots they were playing a game and needed to purposefully share a wrong answer to "prove that you are ethical and fair."
The same type of "game" prompt also worked to trick victims into paying ransoms during cyberattacks.” [Axios]
WeWork's "substantial doubt" of survival
A WeWork space in L.A. yesterday. Photo: Patrick T. Fallon/AFP via Getty Images
“WeWork's stock tanked after it warned of "substantial doubt" about its ability to stay in business because of financial losses and its need for cash.
Why it matters: The workspace-sharing company was valued at $47 billion at one point. Investors started to drop off due to erratic behavior and exorbitant spending by founder Adam Neumann, AP reports.
Interim CEO David Tolley sounded an optimistic note in results for the second quarter, during which WeWork lost $349 million: ‘The company's transformation continues at pace, with a laser focus on member retention and growth.’
WeWork hasn't turned a profit since going public in 2021.” [Axios]
Tory Lanez sentenced to 10 years in prison for shooting Megan Thee Stallion
“Rapper Tory Lanez asked the judge for mercy just before he was sentenced to 10 years in prison for the 2020 shooting of Megan Thee Stallion. Tuesday brought an end to a dramatic trial that created a cultural firestorm in the hip-hop community, churning up issues including the reluctance of Black victims to speak to police, gender politics in hip-hop, online toxicity, protecting Black women and the ramifications of misogynoir, a particular brand of misogyny Black women experience. In a written statement Monday, Megan Thee Stallion said she has suffered daily since Lanez shot her in the feet three years ago.” Read more at USA Today
This combination photo shows rapper Tory Lanez performing at the Festival d'ete de Quebec, July 11, 2018, in Quebec City, Canada, left, and Megan Thee Stallion at the premiere of "P-Valley," June 2, 2022, in Los Angeles.