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The New York Times lists Emmy winners. The AP has an overview story here.

New York Times: “Hvaldimir, a beluga whale who had captured the public’s imagination since 2019 after he was spotted wearing a harness seemingly designed for a camera, was found dead on Saturday in Norway, according to a nonprofit that worked to protect the whale.... [Hvaldimir] was wearing a harness that identified it as “equipment” from St. Petersburg. There also appeared to be a camera mount. Some wondered if the whale was on a Russian reconnaissance mission. Russia has never claimed ownership of the whale. If Hvaldimir was a spy, he was an exceptionally friendly one. The whale showed signs of domestication, and was comfortable around people. He remained in busier waters than are typical for belugas....” ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: Oh, Lord, do not let Bobby Kennedy, Jr., near that carcass. ~~~

     ~~~ AP Update: “There’s no evidence that a well-known beluga whale that lived off Norway’s coast and whose harness ignited speculation it was a Russian spy was shot to death last month as claimed by animal rights groups, Norwegian police said Monday.... Police said that the Norwegian Veterinary Institute conducted a preliminary autopsy on the animal, which was become known as 'Hvaldimir,' combining the Norwegian word for whale — hval — and the first name of Russian President Vladimir Putin. 'There are no findings from the autopsy that indicate that Hvaldimir has been shot,' police said in a statement.”

New York Times: Botswana's “President Mokgweetsi Masisi grinned as he lifted the diamond, a 2,492-carat stone that is the biggest diamond unearthed in more than a century and the second-largest ever found, according to the Vancouver-based mining operator Lucara, which owns the mine where it was found. This exceptional discovery could bring back the luster of the natural diamond mining industry, mining companies and experts say. The diamond was discovered in the same relatively small mine in northeastern Botswana that has produced several of the largest such stones in living memory. Such gemstones typically surface as a result of volcanic activity.... The diamond will likely sell in the range of tens of millions of dollars....”

Click on photo to enlarge.

~~~ Guardian: "On a distant reef 16,000km from Paris, surfer Gabriel Medina has given Olympic viewers one of the most memorable images of the Games yet, with an airborne celebration so well poised it looked too good to be true. The Brazilian took off a thundering wave at Teahupo’o in Tahiti on Monday, emerging from a barrelling section before soaring into the air and appearing to settle on a Pacific cloud, pointing to the sky with biblical serenity, his movements mirrored precisely by his surfboard. The shot was taken by Agence France-Presse photographer Jérôme Brouillet, who said “the conditions were perfect, the waves were taller than we expected”. He took the photo while aboard a boat nearby, capturing the surreal image with such accuracy that at first some suspected Photoshop or AI." 

Washington Post: “'Mary Cassatt at Work' is a large and mostly satisfying exhibition devoted to the career of the great American artist beloved for her sensitive and often sentimental views of family life. The 'at work' in the title of the Philadelphia Museum of Art show references the curators’ interest in Cassatt’s pioneering effort to establish herself as a professional artist within a male-dominated field. Throughout the show, which includes some 130 paintings, pastels, prints and drawings, the wall text and the art on view stresses Cassatt’s fixation on art as a career rather than a pastime.... Mary Cassatt at Work is on view at the Philadelphia Museum of Art through Sept. 8. philamuseum.org”

New York Times: “Bob Newhart, who died on Thursday at the age of 94, has been such a beloved giant of popular culture for so long that it’s easy to forget how unlikely it was that he became one of the founding fathers of stand-up comedy. Before basically inventing the hit stand-up special, with the 1960 Grammy-winning album 'The Button-Down Mind of Bob Newhart' — that doesn’t even count his pay-per-view event broadcast on Canadian television that some cite as the first filmed special — he was a soft-spoken accountant who had never done a set in a nightclub. That he made a classic with so little preparation is one of the great miracles in the history of comedy.... Bob Newhart holds up. In fact, it’s hard to think of a stand-up from that era who is a better argument against the commonplace idea that comedy does not age well.”

Washington Post: “An early Titian masterpiece — once looted by Napolean’s troops and a part of royal collections for centuries — caused a stir when it was stolen from the home of a British marquess in 1995. Seven years later, it was found inside an unassuming white and blue plastic bag at a bus stop in southwest London by an art detective, and returned. This week, the oil painting 'The Rest on the Flight into Egypt' sold for more than $22 million at Christie’s. It was a record for the Renaissance artist, whom museums describe as the greatest painter of 16th-century Venice. Ahead of the sale in April, the auction house billed it as 'the most important work by Titian to come to the auction market in more than a generation.'”

Washington Post: The Folger Shakespeare Library in Washington, D.C., which houses the world's largest collection of Shakespeare material, has undergone a major renovation. "The change to the building is pervasive, both subtle and transformational."

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August 23, 2022

Katie Glueck of the New York Times: "A series of high-profile races will unfold on Tuesday in New York and Florida as the 2022 midterm primaries arrive in two of the nation's most populous states." Politico's story is here.

The Democrats are trying to overturn the Supreme Court's West Virginia vs. E.P.A. victory. -- Sen. Ted Cruz, on Fox Business, ahead of the Senate vote on amendments to the Clean Air Act

Ted was right. -- Marie ~~~

~~~ Lisa Friedman of the New York Times: "When the Supreme Court restricted the ability of the Environmental Protection Agency to fight climate change this year, the reason it gave was that Congress had never granted the agency the broad authority to shift America away from burning fossil fuels. Now it has. Throughout the landmark climate law, passed this month, is language written specifically to address the Supreme Court's justification for reining in the E.P.A., a ruling that was one of the court's most consequential of the term. The new law amends the Clean Air Act, the country's bedrock air-quality legislation, to define the carbon dioxide produced by the burning of fossil fuels as an 'air pollutant.' That language, according to legal experts as well as the Democrats who worked it into the legislation, explicitly gives the E.P.A. the authority to regulate greenhouse gases and to use its power to push the adoption of wind, solar and other renewable energy sources.... This month, in the hours before the bill passed the Senate, Republicans waged a last-minute, mostly unsuccessful predawn battle to remove the language from the legislation." ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: I recall reading, on occasion, some confederate Supreme saying of a particular decision, "Well, if Congress doesn't like the ruling, they can change the law." Such remarks were made with a big helping of snide, inasmuch as the justice knew full well that Democrats would not be able to get 60 votes to override a GOP Senate filibuster. They didn't get 60 votes in this EPA matter, either, but it passed under reconciliation, which requires only a simple majority.

Katie Shepherd, et al., of the Washington Post: "Two months after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, about 20.9 million women have lost access to nearly all elective abortions in their home states, and a slate of strict new trigger laws expected to take effect in the coming days will shut out even more. Texas, Tennessee and Idaho all have existing restrictions on abortion, but the laws slated to begin Thursday will either outlaw the procedure entirely or heighten penalties for doctors who perform an abortion, contributing to a seismic shift in who can access abortion in their home states. At least 11 other states have banned most abortions, prohibiting the procedure with narrow exceptions.... Five more states have similar bans temporarily blocked by the courts. If those injunctions are lifted, abortion could soon be inaccessible for millions more -- in total, 36 percent of U.S. women between the ages of 15 and 44 would be largely unable to obtain an elective abortion in the state where they live."

I am particularly proud to have served as the Chief Medical Advisor to President Joe Biden since the very first day of his administration. -- Dr. Anthony Fauci, in a statement, Monday

Funny, no mention of Trump. -- Marie ~~~

~~~ Yasmeen Abutaleb of the Washington Post: "Anthony S. Fauci, the nation's preeminent infectious-disease expert who achieved unprecedented fame while enduring withering political attacks as the face of the coronavirus pandemic response under two presidents, plans to step down in December after more than a half-century of public service, he announced Monday. Fauci, 81, has led the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases since 1984. He joined the parent agency, the National Institutes of Health, in 1968 as a 27-year-old doctor who had just finished medical residency and was quickly identified as a rising star. Most recently, Fauci has also served as President Biden's chief medical adviser since the start of his administration." The Hill's report is here. Dr. Fauci's statement is here. (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

Joseph Menn, et al., of the Washington Post: "Twitter executives deceived federal regulators and the company's own board of directors about 'extreme, egregious deficiencies' in its defenses against hackers, as well as its meager efforts to fight spam, according to an explosive whistleblower complaint from its former security chief. The complaint from former head of security Peiter Zatko, a widely admired hacker known as 'Mudge,' depicts Twitter as a chaotic and rudderless company beset by infighting, unable to properly protect its 238 million daily users including government agencies, heads of state and other influential public figures. Among the most serious accusations in the complaint, a copy of which was obtained by The Washington Post, is that Twitter violated the terms of an 11-year-old settlement with the Federal Trade Commission by falsely claiming that it had a solid security plan. Zatko's complaint alleges he had warned colleagues that half the company's servers were running out-of-date and vulnerable software and that executives withheld dire facts about the number of breaches and lack of protection for user data, instead presenting directors with rosy charts measuring unimportant changes." CNN's report is here. ~~~

~~~ Faiz Saddiqui & Elizabeth Dwoskin of the Washington Post: "Elon Musk alleges Twitter is vastly undercounting the number of spam and bot accounts on its platform. A new whistleblower complaint from a recently fired top Twitter executive could add ammunition to that argument, though it provides little hard evidence to back up a key assertion.... And [the whistleblower] lays out another argument that could give Musk a potential boost in his fight to prove Twitter broke its contract when he agreed to acquire the company for $44 billion: that Twitter deceived regulators regarding its defenses against hackers.... Any new allegations that Twitter misled shareholders and regulators could bolster Musk's case in Delaware Chancery Court in October, according to half a dozen legal experts....

Beyond the Beltway

Arkansas. Andy Rose, et al., of CNN: "Three Arkansas law enforcement officers have been removed from duty and are under investigation, their departments confirmed, after bystander video captured at least two of them punching and kneeing a suspect during an arrest Sunday. At one point in the 34-second video, one of the officers also appears to lift the suspect's head and slam it into the pavement. A Crawford County Sheriff's Department Facebook post identifies the law enforcement personnel involved in the arrest as sheriff's deputies Zack King and Levi White and officer Thell Riddle of the Mulberry Police Department. CNN has reached out to the deputies and officer." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

Colorado. Brad Reed of the Raw Story: "Republican Colorado State Sen. Kevin Priola on Monday announced that he was leaving the GOP to become a Democrat -- and he said that ... Donald Trump's lies about the 2020 election were a major factor. In a letter Priola released on Monday, the one-time Colorado Republican said that his former party's reaction to the January 6 riots at the United States Capitol made it impossible for him to continue identifying with it. 'I cannot continue to be a part of a political party that is okay with a violent attempt to overturn a free and fair election and continues to peddle claims that the 2020 election was stolen,' he wrote. He also said he's been dismayed by the way that the GOP has tried to hound out anyone within the party who has tried to hold Trump accountable." Update: A Guardian story is here.

Georgia Senate Race. "Enough Trees." John Wagner of the Washington Post: "In an appearance Sunday..., [Republican Senate nominee Herschel] Walker reiterated his opposition to the Inflation Reduction Act, signed by [President] Biden last week, that invests in curbing global warming, among other things. 'They continue to try to fool you that they are helping you out. But they're not,' Walker said. 'Because a lot of money, it's going to trees. Don't we have enough trees around here?' It's possible Walker might have been referring to a provision in the law that allocates $1.5 billion to the U.S. Forest Service's Urban and Community Forestry Program." MB: Well, Georgia does have more privately-ownered timberland than any other U.S. state, and it's a global leader in the forest industry. And a couple of national forests, too. So yeah, lots of trees around there.

Way Beyond

Ukraine, et al. The New York Times' live updates of developments Tuesday in Russia's war on Ukraine are here. The Guardian's live updates for Tuesday are here. ~~~

     ~~~ The Washington Post's live briefings for Tuesday are here: "Russia is preparing to launch more strikes against Ukraine's civilian infrastructure and government facilities in the coming days, the U.S. Embassy in Kyiv warned ahead of Ukrainian Independence Day on Wednesday. The Pentagon is set to send more weapons to Ukraine to help fight Russian troops at closer ranges.... [The father of Daria Dugina -- who was killed in a car explosion last week --] Alexander Dugin, an ally of ... Vladimir Putin, called for 'more than just revenge' after his daughter's killing. Hundreds attended a memorial ceremony Tuesday, and Dugina's father said her 'ultimate sacrifice, the highest price we pay, can only be justified by victory' in Ukraine."

News Ledes

New York Times: "A woman shot and killed two people and injured a third in Midtown Atlanta on Monday, prompting an extensive search by multiple law enforcement agencies that led to her arrest at Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport, the police said. The daytime shooting drew heavily armed police officers to busy midtown on Monday afternoon and briefly led the police to urge residents to stay off the streets as they searched for the person responsible for the shooting. About two hours after shooting, the Atlanta Police said that a woman had been arrested at Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport and that officers had recovered a handgun. The police did not immediately release the woman's name or a possible motive."

Washington Post: "Streets and highways around Dallas[, Texas,] remained waterlogged Monday afternoon after flash floods struck the Dallas-Fort Worth area overnight, leaving at least one person dead. Signs of flooding lingered even after the rain mostly cleared from the metroplex."

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