The Ledes

Friday, September 27, 2024

New York Times: “Maggie Smith, one of the finest British stage and screen actors of her generation, whose award-winning roles ranged from a freethinking Scottish schoolteacher in 'The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie' to the acid-tongued dowager countess on 'Downton Abbey,' died on Friday in London. She was 89.”

The Washington Post's live updates of developments related to Hurricane Helene are here: “Hurricane Helene left one person dead in Florida and two in Georgia as it sped north. One of the biggest storms on record to hit the Gulf Coast, Helene slammed into Florida’s Big Bend area on Thursday night as a Category 4 colossus with winds of up to 140 mph before weakening to Category 1. Catastrophic winds and torrential rain from the storm — which the National Hurricane Center forecast would eventually slow over the Tennessee Valley — were expected to continue Friday across the Southeast and southern Appalachians.” ~~~

     ~~~ The New York Times' live updates are here.

Mediaite: “Fox Weather’s Bob Van Dillen was reporting live on Fox & Friends about flooding in Atlanta from Hurricane Helene when he was interrupted by the screams of a woman trapped in her car. During the 7 a.m. hour, Van Dillen was filing a live report on the massive flooding in the area. Fox News viewers could clearly hear the urgent screams for help emerging from a car stuck on a flooded road in the background of the live shot. Van Dillen ... told Fox & Friends that 911 had been called and that the local Fire Department was on its way. But as he continued to file the report, the screams did not stop, so Van Dillen cut the live shot short.... Some 10 minutes later, Fox & Friends aired live footage of Van Dillen carrying the woman to safety, waking through chest-deep water while the flooding engulfed her car in the background[.]”

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The Ledes

Thursday, September 26, 2024

The New York Times:' live updates of Hurricane Helene developments today are here. “Hurricane Helene was barreling through the Gulf of Mexico on Thursday en route to Florida, where residents were bracing for extreme rain, destructive winds and deadly storm surge ahead of the storm’s expected landfall. The storm could intensify to a Category 4, if not higher, before making landfall late Thursday, and forecasters warned Helene’s anticipated large size could make its impacts felt across an extensive area. Areas as distant as Atlanta and the Appalachians are at risk for heavy rains.... Many forecast models show the storm making landfall late Thursday near Florida’s Big Bend Coast, a sparsely populated stretch....” ~~~

     ~~~ The Washington Post has forecasts for some cites in Florida, Georgia, North Carolina & Tennessee that are in or near the probable path of Helene. ~~~

     ~~~ This morning, an MSNBC weatherperson said Tallahassee (which is inland) would experience wind gusts of up to 120 m.p.h. and that the National Weather Service said expected 20-foot storm surges near the coast would be “unsurvivable.”

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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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Sunday
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May 7, 2023

Afternoon Update:

Marie: I don't do polls, but this is shocking: ~~~

~~~ Presidential Race 2024. Today, a Majority of American Voters Are Fascists. Lauren Sforza of the Hill: "Former President Trump leads President Biden by 7 points in a hypothetical 2024 matchup between the two, according to a new survey. The Washington Post-ABC News poll found that 49 percent of Americans said they would definitely or probably vote for Trump or are leaning toward casting their ballots for him in a hypothetical matchup with Biden in 2024 if Trump and Biden are the Republican and Democratic nominees. About 42 percent said they would definitely or probably vote for Biden or are leaning toward supporting him in 2024. When asked who they would vote for if Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis were the Republican nominee instead of Trump in a matchup with Biden, the governor also led the president by 7 points."

Jack Douglas, et al., of the Washington Post: "The 33-year-old gunman who opened fire on an outlet mall in a Dallas suburb Saturday, killing at least eight people, had an apparent fascination with white supremacist or neo-Nazi beliefs that are now being examined by investigators as a possible motive for the attack, people familiar with the investigation said Sunday. Mauricio Garcia, a local resident, had multiple weapons on him and five additional guns in his car nearby, said people familiar with the investigation who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the ongoing probe. Authorities have not released a motive, but a patch on his chest said 'RWDS,' an acronym that stands for Right Wing Death Squad, according to people familiar with the investigation. The phrase is popular among right wing extremists, neo-Nazis and white supremacists, they said...." An AP report is here. ~~~

     ~~~ Ken Dilanian & Jonathan Dienst of NBC News: "Texas mall shooting suspect Mauricio Garcia interacted with neo-Nazi and white supremacist content online, two senior law enforcement officials said." This is part of a liveblog.

~~~ President Biden, in a statement: "Yesterday, an assailant in tactical gear armed with an AR-15 style assault weapon gunned down innocent people in a shopping mall, and not for the first time.... Republican Members of Congress cannot continue to meet this epidemic with a shrug.... Once again I ask Congress to send me a bill banning assault weapons and high-capacity magazines. Enacting universal background checks. Requiring safe storage. Ending immunity for gun manufacturers. I will sign it immediately. We need nothing less to keep our streets safe."

Aileen Graef of CNN: “Senate Judiciary Chair Dick Durbin said Sunday that 'everything is on the table' as the panel scrutinizes new ethics concerns around Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas. 'The bottom line is this: Everything is on the table. Day after day, week after week, more and more disclosures about Justice Thomas -- we cannot ignore them,' the Illinois Democrat told CNN's Jake Tapper on 'State of the Union.' 'The thing we're going to do first, obviously, is to gather the evidence, the information that we need to draw our conclusions. I'm not ruling out anything,' he added.... Durbin made clear Sunday that he hasn't reached 'any conclusion' on pursuing subpoenas in relation to Supreme Court ethics issues, but he acknowledged that the absence of Democratic Sen. Diane Feinstein of California would pose a challenge to the committee 'if we go down that path.... Right now, with her absence, it's a 10-to-10 Committee, and the majority is not there, and a proxy vote doesn't count in this circumstance,' Durbin said." MB: Yeah, "the table" is where everything is going to sit until Feinstein resigns & Gov. Gavin Newsom can appoint a new Democrat.

~~~~~~~~~~

Trump Can't Remember Affair with Marla Maples. Aaron Blake of the Washington Post: "Even for a former president known to tell the occasional whopper or 30,000, it's hard to top this one.... At one point [during his deposition in the E. Jean Carroll rape case], Carroll's attorney asked Trump a basic factual question: 'Isn't it true that you were seeing Ms. Maples before you were divorced from Ivana Trump?' Trump responded, amazingly, 'I don't know,' in the sworn deposition. 'It was towards the end of the marriage. So I don't know, really. It could be a lapover, but I don't really know.' (It is not clear what a 'lapover' means, but we're guessing it refers to overlap.) Trump was also asked more generally if he had been seeing women outside of his first marriage, and he responded, 'I don't know.' So the man who engaged in one of the most famous and widely reported-upon affairs in American history apparently isn't sure whether the timeline qualifies it as an extramarital affair."

Maureen Dowd of the New York Times mocks the whiney boys on the Supreme Court, with special shoutouts to Gorsuch, Thomas and Suffering Sam. (Also linked yesterday.)

Aric Toler of Bellingcat & the New York Times & New York Times Reporters: "Jack Teixeira, the Air National Guardsman implicated in a vast leak of classified documents, was fixated on weapons, mass shootings, shadowy conspiracy theories -- and proving he was in the right, and in the know. Even as he relished the respectability and access to intelligence he gained through his military service and top secret clearance, he seethed with contempt about the government, accusing the United States of a host of secret, nefarious activities: making biological and chemical weapons in Ukrainian labs, creating the Islamic State, even orchestrating mass shootings.... The posts are part of a huge trove of previously unreported chat logs obtained by The New York Times. The Discord server, exclusively reviewed by The Times, is one of at least two in which Airman Teixeira shared U.S. intelligence...."

Presidential Race 2024. Slicker and Worser Than Trump. Jonathan Weisman of the New York Times: Vivek "Ramaswamy, [a candidate for the GOP presidential nomination and] a lavishly wealthy 37-year-old entrepreneur and author pitching himself as a new face of intellectual conservatism, is promising to go farther down the road of ruling by fiat than Mr. Trump would or could." (Also linked yesterday.)

Way Beyond the Beltway

Arizona, et al. What Trump Did. Yvonne Sanchez of the Washington Post: "Bill Gates, 51, a lifelong Republican elected to the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors[, whom election deniers targeted and threatened..., has experienced] classic signs of post-traumatic stress disorder, a condition typically associated with wartime veterans and violent assaults. Gates is among many election officials whose lives were upended as they became high-profile targets under the false notion that widespread fraud had tainted the 2020 election. It is an idea that continues to be promoted by ... Donald Trump and his allies.... Even today, more than two years after the election, it is not unusual for election workers to take different routes to their homes and offices to avoid being tailed, train in de-escalation techniques and bolster their home security systems. Conferences for election officials now double as group therapy sessions...."

Ukraine, et al.

The Washington Post's live briefing of developments Sunday in Russia's war on Ukraine is here: "The head of the U.N. nuclear watchdog said the situation around the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant, Europe's largest, is again becoming 'increasingly unpredictable and potentially dangerous' due to increased military activity in the area, which is near the front lines.... Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky welcomed the return of 45 Azov Brigade fighters -- hailed for their defense of the besieged city of Mariupol last year. The 42 men and three women were released in an apparent prisoner swap."

Marc Santora, et al., of the New York Times: "An American-made Patriot air-defense missile successfully intercepted one of the most sophisticated conventional weapons in Russia's arsenal for the first time over Kyiv on Thursday night, the Ukrainian air force claimed on Saturday. The downing of a Russian hypersonic Kinzhal missile by a Patriot missile, confirmed by three senior U.S. officials, appeared to offer the first proof that Russia's hypersonic missiles -- presented as invulnerable by President Vladimir V. Putin -- could be defeated by current Western missile defense systems. 'I congratulate the Ukrainian people on a historic event,' Lt. Gen. Mykola Oleshchuk, the commander of the Ukrainian air force, said in a statement posted on the Telegram messaging app. 'Yes, we have shot down the "unparalleled" 'Kinzhal.'"' (Also linked yesterday.)

U.K. Mark Landler of the New York Times: "Anointed with holy oil and enthroned on St. Edward's chair, King Charles III was crowned on Saturday in a solemn ritual that stretches back more than a millennium but unfolded with multiple concessions to the modern age. The coronation, the first since Queen Elizabeth II's in 1953, was a royal spectacle of the kind that only Britain still stages: four hours of pageantry that began with the clip-clop of horses' hooves on Pall Mall and ended with the vaporous trails of acrobatic jets streaking above Buckingham Palace, as Charles watched from the balcony with Queen Camilla, who had been crowned shortly after him." ~~~

     ~~~ The Washington Post has a visual comparison, in photos & video clips, of the coronations of King Charles III & Queen Elizabeth II.

News Ledes

Another Mass Murder in Hateful America. KTSM El Paso: "Brownsville police say seven people are dead Sunday morning and it appears they were intentionally run over by a motorist. The incident happened at 8:30 a.m. near Minnesota Road and North Bernal Road in front of the Ozanam Center, which is a shelter for migrants and homeless. The victims were sitting on the curb near a bus stop. Lt. Martin Sandoval said seven victims died at the scene who died and another four to six victims were taken to area hospitals. Sandoval said the driver was arrested on charged with reckless driving. Sandoval said more charges will likely be filed. He said it is looking more and more like an intentional act."

Another Mass Murder in Guns America. New York Times: "A gunman opened fire at a crowded mall outside Dallas on Saturday, killing at least eight people and injuring at least seven before a police officer killed him, the authorities said, turning a busy afternoon of shopping into a chaotic and tragic scene. At a news conference Saturday night, Brian E. Harvey, the chief of police in Allen, Texas, did not identify a gunman but said the person acted alone. Chief Harvey said a police officer, who was on an unrelated assignment at the mall at the time of the shooting, heard gunfire, rushed toward it and killed the gunman. A spokesman for Medical City Healthcare, which was treating several victims at three trauma facilities, said the ages of the injured ranged from 5 to 61.... A video circulating on social media appeared to show the gunman, lying on the ground, clad in black and equipped with what appeared to be a tactical vest, multiple rounds of ammunition and a long gun." An ABC News report is here.

Washington Post: "Newton N. Minow, the Federal Communications Commission chairman who in 1961 memorably assailed TV as a 'vast wasteland' and went on to have a towering impact on broadcasting by helping shape public television, satellite communications and presidential debates, died May 6 at his home in Chicago. He was 97."

Comments Off

Reader Comments (4)

As I learned late yesterday of another shooting the words of that iconic broadway show years ago came back to me–--"Another opening, another show.." and the fact that this shooting was once again in
Texas will not change its non-existing gun laws.

"We gots rain comin in the kitchen, Pa. we gots to fix that roof!"

"Nah, son, jest hand me that towel over thar and we can soak it dry–-cover it up soos yer Ma don't see it."

May 7, 2023 | Unregistered CommenterP.D.Pepe

…Someone decided to run over TX immigrants a few minutes ago. At least seven killed. Tots/pears…. After all, Abbott tells us they aren’t people so it’s okay…

May 7, 2023 | Unregistered CommenterJeanne

@Jeanne: Yes, and the Gun Lobby & Co. will use this murder by vehicle as "proof" that gun control won't stop mass murderers. So fageddaboudit.

May 7, 2023 | Registered CommenterMarie Burns

Yes, of course. Daughter says twits are whining about libruls wanting to ban SUVs now…

May 7, 2023 | Unregistered CommenterJeanne
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