The Ledes

Thursday, October 10, 2024

CNBC: “The pace of price increases over the past year was higher than forecast in September while jobless claims posted an unexpected jump following Hurricane Helene and the Boeing strike, the Labor Department reported Thursday. The consumer price index, a broad gauge measuring the costs of goods and services across the U.S. economy, increased a seasonally adjusted 0.2% for the month, putting the annual inflation rate at 2.4%. Both readings were 0.1 percentage point above the Dow Jones consensus. The annual inflation rate was 0.1 percentage point lower than August and is the lowest since February 2021.”

The New York Times' live updates of Hurrucane Milton consequences Thursday are here: “Milton was still producing damaging hurricane-force winds and heavy rainfall to parts of East and Central Florida, forecasters said early Thursday, even as the powerful storm roared away from the Atlantic coast and left deaths and widespread damage across the state. Cities along Florida’s east coast are now facing flash flooding, damaging winds and storm surges. Some had already been battered by powerful tornadoes spun out by the storm before it made landfall on the Gulf Coast on Wednesday as a Category 3 hurricane. In [St. Lucie] county [Fort Pierce], several people in a retirement community were killed by a tornado, the police said.... More than three million customers were without power in Florida as of early Thursday.” ~~~

     ~~~ Here are the Weater Channel's live updates.

CNN: “The 2024 Nobel Prize in literature has been awarded to Han Kang, a South Korean author, for her 'intense poetic prose that confronts historical traumas and exposes the fragility of human life.' Han, 53, began her career with a group of poems in a South Korean magazine, before making her prose debut in 1995 with a short story collection. She later began writing longer prose works, most notably 'The Vegetarian,' one of her first books to be translated into English. The novel, which won the Man Booker International Prize in 2016, charts a young woman’s attempt to live a more 'plant-like' existence after suffering macabre nightmares about human cruelty. Han is the first South Korean author to win the literature prize, and just the 18th woman out of the 117 prizes awarded since 1901.” The New York Times story is here.

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The Ledes

Wednesday, October 9, 2024

Washington Post: “Hours before Hurricane Milton made landfall in Florida, a spate of unusually strong and long-lived tornadoes touched down across the state, flipping tractor-trailers and ripping off roofs. The twisters surprised anxious residents, even as the storm’s eye still loomed. Authorities said there had been 'multiple' deaths after the intense and destructive tornadoes.” MB: I'm still on Florida's emergency-call list, and I received several calls from Lee County, urging me to shelter in place.

The Washington Post's live updates of Hurricane Milton developments are here: “Hurricane Milton, which has strengthened to a 'catastrophic' Category 5 storm, is closing in on Florida’s west coast and is expected to make landfall Wednesday night or early Thursday, the National Hurricane Center said. The hurricane, which could bring maximum sustained winds of nearly 160 mph with bigger gusts, poses a dire threat to the densely populated zone that includes Tampa, Sarasota and Fort Myers. As well as 'damaging hurricane-force winds,' coastal communities face a 'life-threatening' storm surge, the center said.” ~~~

     ~~~ The New York Times' live updates are here: “Milton carved a path of destruction after crashing ashore Wednesday evening on Florida’s Gulf Coast, making landfall near Sarasota as the second powerful hurricane to pound the region in less than two weeks. The storm battered the state for much of the day, with heavy winds, pelting rain and a spate of tornadoes.... By around midnight, the storm had destroyed more than 100 homes, killed several people in a retirement community and ripped the roof off Tropicana Field, the home of the Tampa Bay Rays.”

Washington Post: “The Nobel Prize in chemistry was awarded to David Baker at the University of Washington and Demis Hassabis and John M. Jumper of Google DeepMind.... The prize was awarded to scientists who cracked the code of proteins. Hassabis and Jumper used artificial intelligence to predict the structure of proteins, one of the toughest problems in biology. Baker created computational tools to design novel proteins with shapes and functions that can be used in drugs, vaccines and sensors.”

Sorry, forgot this yesterday: ~~~

Reuters: “U.S. scientist John Hopfield and British-Canadian Geoffrey Hinton won the 2024 Nobel Prize in Physics on Tuesday for discoveries and inventions in machine learning that paved the way for the artificial intelligence boom. Heralded for its revolutionary potential in areas ranging from cutting-edge scientific discovery to more efficient admin, the emerging technology on which the duo worked has also raised fears humankind may soon be outsmarted and outcompeted by its own creation.”

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Public Service Announcement

Washington Post: "Americans can again order free rapid coronavirus tests by mail, the Biden administration announced Thursday. People can request four free at-home tests per household through covidtests.gov. They will begin shipping Monday. The move comes ahead of an expected winter wave of coronavirus cases. The September revival of the free testing program is in line with the Biden administration’s strategy to respond to the coronavirus as part of a broader public health campaign to protect Americans from respiratory viruses, including influenza and respiratory syncytial virus (RSV), that surge every fall and winter. But free tests were not mailed during the summer wave, which wastewater surveillance data shows is now receding."

Washington Post: “Comedy news outlet the Onion — reinvigorated by new ownership over this year — is bringing back its once-popular video parodies of cable news. But this time, there’s someone with real news anchor experience in the chair. When the first episodes appear online Monday, former WAMU and MSNBC host Joshua Johnson will be the face of the resurrected 'Onion News Network.' Playing an ONN anchor character named Dwight Richmond, Johnson says he’s bringing a real anchor’s sense of clarity — and self-importance — to the job. 'If ONN is anything, it’s a news organization that is so unaware of its own ridiculousness that it has the confidence of a serial killer,' says Johnson, 44.” ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: I'll be darned if I can figured out how to watch ONN. If anybody knows, do tell. Thanks.

Washington Post: “First came the surprising discovery that Earth’s atmosphere is leaking. But for roughly 60 years, the reason remained a mystery. Since the late 1960s, satellites over the poles detected an extremely fast flow of particles escaping into space — at speeds of 20 kilometers per second. Scientists suspected that gravity and the magnetic field alone could not fully explain the stream. There had to be another source creating this leaky faucet. It turns out the mysterious force is a previously undiscovered global electric field, a recent study found. The field is only about the strength of a watch battery — but it’s enough to thrust lighter ions from our atmosphere into space. It’s also generated unlike other electric fields on Earth. This newly discovered aspect of our planet provides clues about the evolution of our atmosphere, perhaps explaining why Earth is habitable. The electric field is 'an agent of chaos,' said Glyn Collinson, a NASA rocket scientist and lead author of the study. 'It undoes gravity.... Without it, Earth would be very different.'”

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.”

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The Commentariat -- December 26, 2020

A Very Old-fashioned Snowball Fight. Sam Anderson in the New York Times Magazine: "The footage [above] was captured in Lyon, [France,] in 1897, by the Lumière brothers, who were among the world's first filmmakers. It was originally black and white, of course, and herky-jerky because of the low frame rate. But this snowball fight has recently been colorized and smoothed, and the result is shockingly modern":

President-elect Joe Biden & Dr. Jill Biden share a Christmas message:

Britain's Queen Elizabeth II's Christmas Message:

Elisabetta Povoledo & Marc Santoro of the New York Times: "Pope Francis on Friday called on world leaders, businesses and international organizations to help ensure that the most vulnerable and needy have access to newly developed coronavirus vaccines. Instead of speaking to the tens of thousands usually gathered on St. Peter's Square, Francis made his annual Christmas address from a grandiose hall inside the Apostolic Palace of the Vatican. In a year in which the pandemic plunged the world into economic and social uncertainty, the pope was only one of many Christian leaders and pastors around the globe who issued big, weighty messages to small, in-person audiences. Francis used his traditional Christmas address to argue that widespread suffering should compel people to reflect on their common humanity, and apply those principles to how vaccine rollouts are handled." See also Peter Goodman's NYT story, linked under "TheTrumpidemic," on international inequality worsened by Covid-19.

A Christmas Eve Message from Donald Trump. Jeffrey Martin of Newsweek: "... Donald Trump lashed out at some Republican lawmakers Thursday on social media for not embracing his baseless allegations of election fraud.... 'I saved at least 8 Republican Senators, including Mitch, from losing in the last Rigged (for President) Election,' Trump tweeted Thursday. 'Now they (almost all) sit back and watch me fight against a crooked and vicious foe, the Radical Left Democrats. I will NEVER FORGET!'" ~~~

~~~ John Amato of Crooks & Liars publishes more Christmas Eve messages from Trump in the same vein.

Upon Leaving the Country Mired in Chaos, Illness & Death, Trump Goes Golfing. AP: "After tossing a grenade that threatens to blow up a massive Covid relief and government funding bill and force a government shutdown in the midst of a pandemic, Donald Trump was golfing on Christmas for a second straight day. Failure to agree on the bill could deny checks to millions of Americans on the brink. Trump had no events on his public schedule on the first day of his winter vacation on Thursday, but travelled to his Palm Beach golf club, where he was spotted by CNN cameras on the links. Reporters were given no details of his schedule for the day, but told that, 'As the Holiday season approaches, President Trump will continue to work tirelessly for the American People. His schedule includes many meetings and calls.'"

Michelle Goldberg of the New York Times (Dec. 24): "Until Tuesday, the American system worked to give [the families of the Blackwater massacre victims] a modicum of justice. Blackwater settled.... The guards were prosecuted criminally. The process was torturous..., but powerful figures in the United States were determined to see it through. After a judge dismissed the charges on procedural grounds, Vice President Joe Biden promised ... that there would be an appeal.... Eventually three of the Blackwater guards, Paul Slough, Evan Liberty and Dustin Heard, were convicted of voluntary manslaughter and other charges. A fourth, Nicholas Slatten, was convicted of murder and last year war crimes is well known, and last year he pardoned three men accused or convicted of them. Because of Biden's words in 2010, some conservatives called the perpetrators of the Nisour Square massacre the 'Biden four,' giving Trump an extra incentive to let them go. Erik Prince, who founded Blackwater, is a close Trump ally and the brother of his education secretary, Betsy DeVos."

Joe Walsh of Forbes: “A federal judge dismissed a defamation lawsuit against the Washington Post from Rep. Devin Nunes (R-Calif.) on Thursday, the latest development in a string of legal battles waged by Nunes against mainstream media outlets.... Nunes filed the suit in March, claiming a story by the Post mischaracterized a supposed conversation between Nunes and Trump about Joseph Maguire, a former acting director of national intelligence who later fell out of favor with the president. But on Thursday, D.C. District Court judge Amit Mehta ruled Nunes couldn't demonstrate the Post acted with 'actual malice,' or reckless disregard for the truth, a high standard for defamation cases waged by public figures in the United States."

Michael Balsamo of the AP: "A federal judge said the Justice Department unlawfully rescheduled the execution of the only woman on federal death row, potentially setting up the Trump administration to schedule the execution after president-elect Joe Biden takes office. U.S. District Court Judge Randolph Moss also vacated an order from the director of the Bureau of Prisons that had set Lisa Montgomery's execution date for Jan. 12. Montgomery had previously been scheduled to be put to death at the Federal Correctional Complex in Terre Haute, Indiana, this month, but Moss delayed the execution after her attorneys contracted coronavirus visiting their client and asked him to extend the amount of time to file a clemency petition. Moss prohibited the Bureau of Prisons from carrying out Lisa Montgomery's execution before the end of the year and officials rescheduled her execution date for Jan. 12. But Moss ruled on Wednesday that the agency was also prohibited from rescheduling the date while a stay was in place."

Thanks, Trump! Larry Elliott of the Guardian: "China will overtake the US as the world's biggest economy before the end of the decade after outperforming its rival during the global Covid-19 pandemic, according to a report. The Centre for Economics and Business Research said that it now expected the value of China's economy when measured in dollars to exceed that of the US by 2028, half a decade sooner than it expected a year ago. In its annual league table of the growth prospects of 193 countries, the UK-based consultancy group said China had bounced back quickly from the effects of Covid-19 and would grow by 2% in 2020, as the one major global economy to expand." ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: Trump thinks Covid-19 is a Chinese plot against him. (On Christmas Day, Trump again blamed China for the virus -- see Alan Rappeport's NYT story, linked below.) If so, the plot went something like this: let's eradicate the virus in China with strict lockdown measures and just wait for Trump to screw up the virus response in the U.S., sickening huge numbers of Americans & crippling the U.S. economy. Well, that did work like a dream, albeit a very predictable one.

The Trumpidemic, Ctd.

Alan Rappeport of the New York Times: "Expanded unemployment benefits were set to lapse for millions of struggling Americans on Saturday, a day after President Trump expressed more criticism of a $900 billion pandemic relief bill that was awaiting his signature and would extend them. The sprawling economic relief package that Congress passed with overwhelming bipartisan support would extend the amount of time that people can collect unemployment benefits until March and revive supplemental unemployment benefits for millions of Americans at $300 a week on top of the usual state benefit.... 'Why would politicians not want to give people $2000, rather than only $600?' he said on Twitter Friday afternoon], possibly referring to his own party's move on Thursday to block a House Democratic bill that would have increased the size of direct payments to $2,000. 'It wasn't their fault, it was China. Give our people the money!'" The Hill's story is here.

Jaclyn Diaz of NPR: "The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announced Thursday that all travelers coming from the United Kingdom must present a negative coronavirus test no more than 72 hours before taking a flight to the U.S. The new mandate comes after a new variant of the coronavirus spread across England. So far, the new variant, which contains 17 mutations, appears more transmissible and harder to control. England reported a new record of confirmed COVID-19 cases, now reaching more than 2.1 million cases on Thursday, according to Johns Hopkins University."

The New York Times' live updates of Covid-19 developments Friday are here.

Peter Goodman of the New York Times: "As Covid vaccines enter the bloodstream, recovery has become reality. But the benefits will be far from equally apportioned. Wealthy nations in Europe and North America have secured the bulk of limited stocks of vaccines, positioning themselves for starkly improved economic fortunes. Developing countries -- home to most of humanity -- are left to secure their own doses. The lopsided distribution of vaccines appears certain to worsen a defining economic reality: The world that emerges from this terrifying chapter in history will be more unequal than ever. Poor countries will continue to be ravaged by the pandemic, forcing them to expend meager resources that are already stretched by growing debts to lenders in the United States, Europe and China." MB: As the CDC & state health agencies reckon with "fair" & sensible distribution of vaccines in the U.S., none has given consideration to fair world distribution.

Beyond the Beltway

Tennessee. Jamie McGee, et al., of the New York Times: "First came the warning, then came the blast, shattering the Christmas morning silence in the heart of [Nashville's] tourist district. Before dawn on Friday, Nashville police officers rushed to calls of gunfire on Second Avenue, a strip of honky tonks, restaurants and boot shops. Instead of gunfire, they found an R.V., blaring a strange and unsettling message: There was a bomb. It would detonate in 15 minutes. When it did, the explosion sent plumes of smoke billowing above the city, blew out windows in shops and offices for several blocks, left three people hospitalized -- and Nashville shaken. Police said the explosion was intentional. It was also deeply unsettling, coming in an area that draws thousands of people nightly. But who set it off and why remained unknown.... The police released a photo of the R.V. on Friday afternoon.... The R.V. was parked outside an AT&T transmission building.... It is still unclear if a person was inside the R.V. when it exploded, officials said.... The F.B.I. field office in Memphis was taking the lead in the investigation, working with state and local law enforcement agencies, as well as the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives." The Washington Post's story is here.~~~

     ~~~ Kimberlee Kruesi, et al., of the AP: "A recreational vehicle parked in the deserted streets of downtown Nashville exploded early Christmas morning, causing widespread communications outages that took down police emergency systems and grounded holiday travel at the city's airport. Authorities said they believe the blast was intentional.... Human remains were found in the vicinity of the explosion, two law enforcement officials told The Associated Press. It was unclear how the remains were related to the explosion or whether they might belong to the person believed to be responsible or a victim."

Way Beyond

Rebecca Kheel of the Hill: "An Australian expeditioner has been successfully evacuated from Antarctica after a five-day operation that included U.S. and Chinese help, the Australian Antarctic Division said.... A Chinese icebreaker happened to already be in transit to a nearby station and deployed its helicopters to take a team of Australians from Davis to a site where they built a glacial runway to allow a U.S. aircraft to land, according to the release. Meanwhile, a U.S ski-equipped Basler aircraft flew from the U.S. McMurdo station to the Australian-operated Wilkins Aerodrome, a terminal for intercontinental air service, to pick up an Australian doctor, according to the release.... Citing medical confidentiality, the news release did not disclose the expeditioner's condition other than to say the emergency was not COVID-19 related."

News Lede

New York Times: "George Blake, a notorious British double agent who betrayed Cold War secrets and Western spies to the Soviet Union in the 1950s and, after being caught, staged a spectacular escape to live out his life as a K.G.B. colonel in Moscow, has died. He was 98.... 'Colonel Blake was a brilliant professional of a special kind and courage,' President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia said in a statement. 'In the years of his difficult and intense service, he made a truly invaluable contribution to ensuring strategic parity and preserving peace on the planet.'"

Comments Off

Reader Comments (7)

Some years ago I was coming back from a walk and getting the mail from our box when a neighbor with whom I had only waved to on occasion stopped on her walk to chat. It was the week before Christmas and we hadn't put the lone wreath up on the side of the house per usual. The neighbor, after the usual wishes for a happy holiday, mentioned all the many Christmas decorations on the houses and lawns–-wan't that just lovely–-and then she said:

"I notice you don't have ANY––are you Jewish?" I told her: "Only in my heart."

I thought of this exchange yesterday when for the first time this holiday–- always experienced in a secular , albeit special way––-seemed void of almost all of the warmth and family conviviality since we could not be with them in person. It has made me even more sensitive to those of different faiths being bombarded with all the Christian hoopla every year. But, of course, the message of Christmas is universal in its love and care for others. Something all presidents offer up each year. This president, however, true to form, is concentrating on his holes in one and going off half cocked.

I hope others here––and I thank Marie for all the videos–-had more enlightened days and nights–--mine reflected the sorrow of these terrible times even though my home is closeted in love and a full pantry.

December 26, 2020 | Unregistered CommenterPD Pepe

See another entry in my morning inbox stoking outrage (likely leading to a donation request) about speculation the Pretender will leave the links in the next few weeks long enough to pardon himself.

Don't know if he will, and I don't know if a self-pardon will hold up in court, though I think it unlikely. I do kinda wish he'd try it just so we could find out how the Supremes would rule. Would they get behind the idea that one person in our polity is absolutely above the law, that is, even above them?

At base, though, if I had to lay odds, I'd say the Pretender will give it a try. It's a why not? proposition. Nothing ventured, nothing gained, and when one examines the Pretender's life course, a self-pardon seems inevitable.

After all, isn't that what sociopathic narcissists do?

They pardon themselves for everything they do, no matter how mean or harmful their actions toward others might be. Since others don't count for anything in their tight-wrapped, self-referential view of the world, everything they do is by definition fine and dandy.

Any criticism of them is not just misplaced; it is fundamentally wrong, the product of an envious deep state that wants to take real winners down or the irritating whine of fake news.

For the Pretender, a formal self pardon is just another five minutes in the office and a little quick work with a Sharpie.

I think we'll see one before long.

December 26, 2020 | Unregistered CommenterKen Winkes

Thanks, Marie, for giving us a holiday from *****(he who shall not be named).

December 26, 2020 | Unregistered CommenterVictoria

Forgot to say that, like PD, I hope all RC Christmases were at least pleasant, if not overfilled with joy. We zoomed with family for a virtually distant gift unwrapping, and I got (what else?) more books.

Expect an in-person, masked and socially distanced, visit from the Seattle son and family tomorrow to pick up the unicycle we didn't wish to ship. The boys will be delighted. Possible downside? One unicycle, two boys, but they do already have the concept, if not yet the consistent behavior of sharing. More teaching moments to come, I'm sure. The best part? They will take place fifty miles away.

Will save my solstice thoughts for tomorrow.

December 26, 2020 | Unregistered CommenterKen Winkes

White House Disinformation dispenser McEnany states that Twitter has become a publisher by the act of fact checking and should not be immune to lawsuits

Perhaps instead of fact checking Twitter should split into two separate forums, one for fiction and the other for non-fiction. There would be a slight delay while a twit/tweet is classified just as comments are here.

December 26, 2020 | Unregistered CommenterBobby Lee

Donny's moving day. Can't get here soon enough.

December 26, 2020 | Unregistered CommenterRAS

This is why Mike Pence should be thought of as the Dan Quayle of this millennium: https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2020/12/if-trump-uses-martial-law-pence-should-use-25th-amendment.html. As far as I can tell, they don't make 'em with much backbone there in Indiana.

December 26, 2020 | Unregistered Commentercitizen625
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