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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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Friday
Jun252021

The Commentariat -- June 26, 2021

Afternoon Update:

Mike Baker & Anjali Singhvi of the New York Times: "Three years before the deadly collapse of the Champlain Towers South condominium complex near Miami, a consultant found alarming evidence of 'major structural damage' to the concrete slab below the pool deck and 'abundant' cracking and crumbling of the columns, beams and walls of the parking garage under the 13-story building. The engineer's report helped shape plans for a multimillion-dollar repair project that was set to get underway soon -- more than two and a half years after the building managers were warned -- but the building suffered a catastrophic collapse in the middle of the night on Thursday, trapping sleeping residents in a massive heap of debris. The complex's management association had disclosed some of the problems in the wake of the collapse, but it was not until city officials released the 2018 report late Friday that the full nature of the concrete and rebar damage -- most of it probably caused by years of exposure to the corrosive salt air along the South Florida coast -- became chillingly apparent." The AP's story is here.

Luke Broadwater of the New York Times: "For weeks, Michael Fanone, a Washington police officer who was seriously injured during the Jan. 6 Capitol riot, had asked to meet privately with Representative Kevin McCarthy of California, the top House Republican, to discuss the assault, to no avail. So on Friday, when Officer Fanone finally got his session with Mr. McCarthy at the Capitol, he had a clear request at the ready: for the minority leader to publicly denounce the lies Republican lawmakers have been telling about the deadly attack.... He wanted Mr. McCarthy to push them to stop downplaying the storming of the building, blaming left-wing extremists for an assault carried out by ... Donald J. Trump's right-wing supporters and spreading the baseless conspiracy theory that the F.B.I. secretly planned it. He came away disappointed. 'He said he would address it at a personal level, with some of those members,' Officer Fanone told reporters after the roughly hourlong meeting. 'I think that as the leader of the House Republican Party, it's important to hear those denouncements publicly.' Mr. McCarthy who phoned Mr. Trump during the riot to plead with him to call off the mob and days later said the president bore responsibility for the rampage, has since swung wildly in the other direction." The AP's story is here.

Sarah Nir of the New York Times: "Johnson & Johnson will pay New York State more than $230 million in a settlement that also ensures the company will permanently get out of the opioid business in the United States, the state attorney general's office announced on Saturday. The settlement comes at a time when the opioid industry is facing over 3,000 lawsuits across the nation for its contribution to an epidemic of prescription and street opioid abuse that has killed more than 800,000 Americans in the last 20 years, according to the United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. And it came just days before opening arguments in a sweeping New York trial in which the company was to be a defendant. That trial will be the first of its kind to go before a jury, and the first targeting the entire opioid supply chain, from the drugmakers who manufactured the pills, to the distributors that supplied them, and a pharmacy chain that filled prescriptions for them."

Berkeley Lovelace of CNBC: "The World Health Organization on Friday urged fully vaccinated people to continue to wear masks, social distance and practice other Covid-19 pandemic safety measures as the highly contagious delta variant spreads rapidly across the globe."

Carl Zimmer of the New York Times: "Researchers have found evidence that a coronavirus epidemic swept East Asia some 20,000 years ago and was devastating enough to leave an evolutionary imprint on the DNA of people alive today. The new study suggests that an ancient coronavirus plagued the region for many years, researchers say. The finding could have dire implications for the Covid-19 pandemic if it's not brought under control soon through vaccination.... 'What is going on right now might be going on for generations and generations,' ... said David Enard, an evolutionary biologist at the University of Arizona.... Scientists looking for drugs to fight the new coronavirus might want to scrutinize the 42 genes that evolved in response to the ancient epidemic, Dr. [Yassine] Souilmi [of the University of Adelaide in Australia] said." ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: Scientists make really amazing discoveries. I hope a lot of them will get to work on a cure for the stupid gene, the one that makes people denigrate science & scientists.

~~~~~~~~~~

Marie: I've set up this page as a sort of skeleton Commentariat. I should be back sometime Saturday afternoon to somewhat fill in the blanks. Anything you want to contribute in the Comments section will be appreciated.

Jeff Stein & Seung Min Kim of the Washington Post: "Congressional Republicans erupted on Friday after President Biden pledged to reject a bipartisan infrastructure deal unless Congress also approves a broader Democratic spending package.... Republicans said Friday that the White House's stance came as a surprise to them and could unravel the entire bipartisan agreement.... Still, the White House has been clear on its intentions for months that it hoped to pass both the bipartisan deal and the Democratic reconciliation package, and Republicans have known both bills were likely coming. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) said earlier this month: 'We are anticipating at some point getting a reconciliation bill.'" The AP's story is here. ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: I'm not sure it's the best strategy to holler, "We've been snookered!" especially when Democrats have been talking about this "two-track" package for at least a month. If they chose not to ask, I can see how these senators might have been confused about what was going on with the proposed reconciliation bill -- I know I was. But it seems to me that when you're playing with a trillion dollars and more of taxpayer money, you want to have some idea of the rules of the game. Purposely signaling you have no idea what you're doing seems like self-inflicted harm.

Friday in Photo Ops. Brett Samuels & Rafael Bernal of the Hill: "Vice President Harris on Friday made a closely watched trip to the southern border, where she met with border agents and young migrants and doubled down on the need to focus on the reason people are making the journey to the U.S. from Mexico and Central America.... Harris met with border agents at a central processing center and received a briefing on the facility's operations and the technology being used to combat transnational crime."

Katie Benner, et al., of the New York Times: "The Justice Department sued Georgia on Friday over a sweeping voting law passed by the state's Republican-led legislature, the first significant move by the Biden administration to challenge state-level ballot restrictions enacted since the 2020 election. 'The rights of all eligible citizens to vote are the central pillars of our democracy,' Attorney General Merrick B. Garland said in a news conference at the Justice Department. 'They are the rights from which all other rights ultimately flow.' The complaint accuses the Georgia law of effectively discriminating against Black voters and seeks to show that state lawmakers intended to violate their rights. It says that several of the law's provisions 'were passed with a discriminatory purpose,' Kristen Clarke, the head of the department's civil rights division, said at the news conference." The AP's story is here. See also Patrick's commentary in yesterday's thread.

Joshua Kaplan & Joaquin Sapien of ProPublica: "ProPublica has obtained new details about the Trump White House's knowledge of the gathering storm [before the January 6 insurrection], after interviewing more than 50 people involved in the events .. and reviewing months of private correspondence. Taken together, these accounts suggest that senior Trump aides had been warned the Jan. 6 events could turn chaotic, with tens of thousands of people potentially overwhelming ill-prepared law enforcement officials. Rather than trying to halt the march, Trump and his allies accommodated its leaders, according to text messages and interviews with Republican operatives and officials."

Michael Schmidt & Maggie Haberman of the New York Times: "Responding to interest from ... Donald J. Trump, White House aides drafted a proclamation last year to invoke the Insurrection Act in case Mr. Trump moved to take the extraordinary step of deploying active-duty troops in Washington to quell the protests that followed the killing of George Floyd, two senior Trump administration officials said. The aides drafted the proclamation on June 1, 2020, during a heated debate inside the administration over how to respond to the protests. Mr. Trump, enraged by the demonstrations, had told the attorney general, William P. Barr, the defense secretary, Mark T. Esper, and the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of staff, Gen. Mark A. Milley, that he wanted thousands of active-duty troops on the streets of the nation's capital, one of the officials said." A CNN story is here.

William Rashbaum, et al., of the New York Times: "The Manhattan district attorney's office has informed Donald J. Trump's lawyers that it is considering criminal charges against his family business, the Trump Organization, in connection with fringe benefits the company awarded a top executive, according to several people with knowledge of the matter. The prosecutors had been building a case for months against the executive, Allen H. Weisselberg, as part of an effort to pressure him to cooperate with a broader inquiry into Mr. Trump's business dealings. But it was not previously known that the Trump Organization also might face charges. If the case moves ahead, the district attorney, Cyrus R. Vance Jr., could announce charges as soon as next week..."

Michelle Boorstein of the Washington Post:"... leading U.S. Catholic bishops working on an upcoming document about the sacrament are now de-emphasizing direct confrontation with President Biden or other Catholic politicians who support abortion rights. Seventy-five percent of members of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops voted during their annual spring meeting on June 17 to go ahead with the drafting of a position paper on the 'meaning of the Eucharist.'... The idea for the document came from a committee the USCCB created after the November election in order to deal with the 'problem' of Biden and his abortion policy, and what some bishops see as a confusing scandal for other Catholics watching the country's most prominent member of their faith.... Four days after the vote, on June 21, the USCCB released a Q&A excising past mention of Biden, a national policy or a focus on abortion. 'There will be no national policy on withholding Communion from politicians.'"

The Pandemic, Ctd.

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

Beyond the Beltway

Florida. Joshua Partlow, et al., of the Washington Post: "The 12-story condominium tower that crashed down early Thursday near Miami Beach was built on reclaimed wetlands and is perched on a barrier island facing an ocean that has risen about a foot in the past century because of climate change. Underneath its foundation is sand and organic fill -- over a plateau of porous limestone -- brought in from the bay after the mangroves were deforested. The fill sinks naturally, and the subsidence worsens as the water table rises.... Experts on sea-level rise and climate change caution that it is too soon to speculate whether rising seas helped destabilize the oceanfront structure.... But it is already clear that South Florida has been on the front lines of sea-level rise and that the effects of climate change on the infrastructure of the region -- from septic systems to aquifers to shoreline erosion -- will be a management problem for years."

Minnesota. Tim Arango of the New York Times: "The killing of George Floyd on a Minneapolis corner led to nationwide protests, a reckoning over racial injustice touching on virtually every aspect of American life and, on Friday, a substantial prison sentence -- 22 and a half years -- for the former police officer, Derek Chauvin, who ignored Mr. Floyd's desperate cries for help and pressed his knee into Mr. Floyd's neck for what seemed an eternity.... In delivering Mr. Chauvin's sentence on Friday, Judge Peter A. Cahill referred to the 'particular cruelty' of the crime, which was captured in a widely shared cellphone video, as Mr. Chauvin held Mr. Floyd down for more than nine minutes in May 2020. Mr. Floyd could be heard crying out more than 20 times that he could not breathe." The AP's story is here.

News Lede

The New York Times is live-updating developments in the condo collapse near Miami Beach, Florida. The Washington Post's live updates for Saturday are here. Related stories in today's Commentariat.

Comments Off

Reader Comments (5)

Michael Breen, a former Connecticut police officer and adjunct Community College professor and who is now New Hampshire's "No Left Turn In Education" leader has found his way back to Ct. in order to stir up a group of parents at a Guilford Community Center this week. Read how he is blasting local schools for allegedly teaching students the latest misinformation about Critical Race Theory. Many are not having it and counter him with facts––not that it would stop these people from spouting this nonsense.
https://www.courant.com/news/connecticut/hc-news-connecticut-guilford-critical-race-theory-forum-20210625-2nkt2wfeindd3e334qpc57zrti-story.html

"The world is full of dangerous ideas, and if we set out to protect young people against them we will produce gullible innocents, not tough minded realists who know what they believe because they have faced the enemies of their beliefs." Reinhold Niebuhr

June 26, 2021 | Unregistered CommenterPD Pepe

@PD Pepe: Thanks for holding down the fort.

@Forrest Morris: Ha ha. No, I did not go down to Bedminster to examine the Former Guy in his unnatural habitat. But those were good questions you proposed. Unfortunately, if asked, guaranteed B.S. answers.

June 26, 2021 | Registered CommenterMarie Burns

Re the FL collapse: it seems not a bit unusual that people build huge buildings on less-than-stable grounds-- Builders always push the envelopes when it comes to development, especially coastal development. (We constantly worry about the Outer Banks, a thin strip of sand continually undulating.) I find it heartbreaking that there are innocents under all that concrete and their families are watching in horror and can do nothing. While it is unlikely anyone survived that has not be rescued, it isn't beyond people's imaginations to picture their loved ones expiring under there. I hope most died instantly. What a tragedy. The photos remind me of Oklahoma City. Some dingdong on another thread said that people would be brought out, "just like under the WTC collapse." I don't recall survivors there at all...

Re the dog show: it turns out that a local philanthropist from our town was a part owner of the Peke who won. I guess she was tired of buying hospital floors, pavilions and other buildings and wanted to put some money in a fun project. Personally, I was all in for the samoyed, so I was disappointed that the moving robo sweeper/dog won, and I thought Wasabi looked just like Malachy. I am stunned that it was 9 years ago M won. Time just whisks along.

Went to my first party in sooooo long last night. Everyone was vaxxed and no masks-- it felt (gasp!) normal. We tried to NOT discuss politics although we were all liberal Dems/Unitarians, and it felt so good. Also good: omigod, bacon dipped in dark chocolate...!

Have a good weekend and try not to stress. Here and there, a glimpse of a regular summer is peeking through. Aaaah, so good.

June 26, 2021 | Unregistered CommenterJeanne

Iowa public radio had this bit of news. Apologies if this has been discussed.

https://www.iowapublicradio.org/health/2021-06-24/nearly-all-covid-19-deaths-in-u-s-are-now-among-unvaccinated

"Nearly all COVID-19 deaths in the United States now are in people who weren’t vaccinated, a staggering demonstration of how effective the shots have been and an indication that deaths per day — now down to under 300 — could be practically zero if everyone eligible got the vaccine.

An Associated Press analysis of available government data from May shows that “breakthrough” infections in fully vaccinated people accounted for fewer than 1,200 of more than 853,000 COVID-19 hospitalizations. That’s about 0.1 percent.

And only about 150 of the more than 18,000 COVID-19 deaths in May were in fully vaccinated people. That translates to about 0.8 percent or five deaths per day on average.

The AP analyzed figures provided by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The CDC itself has not estimated what percentage of hospitalizations and deaths are in fully vaccinated people, citing limitations in the data."

June 26, 2021 | Unregistered CommenterAnIowaCitizen

AnIowa: thanks for pointing that story out. I'm here near some big reservations and our Native neighbors bear out that report, i.e. because they aggressively vaxxed, they're much better off now in terms of Covid.

By the way RAS: when I read: “coverage of BLM protests incited Trump to order Americans killed” what kind of mischief has the manager of cattle rangeland got up to? Thanks for expanding my thinking.

Forrest: sorry, but he really is that stupid. And, Oh my! His followers….!

June 26, 2021 | Unregistered Commentercitizen625
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