The Ledes

Thursday, September 19, 2024

New York Times: “A body believed to be of the suspect in a Kentucky highway shooting that left five people seriously injured this month was found on Wednesday, the authorities said, ending a manhunt that stretched into a second week and set the local community on edge. The Kentucky State Police commissioner, Phillip Burnett Jr., said in a Wednesday night news conference that at approximately 3:30 p.m., two troopers and two civilians found an unidentified body in the brush behind the highway exit where the shooting occurred.... The police have identified the suspect of the shooting as Joseph A. Couch, 32. They said that on Sept. 7, Mr. Couch perched on a cliff overlooking Interstate 75 about eight miles north of London, Ky., and opened fire. One of the wounded was shot in the face, and another was shot in the chest. A dozen vehicles were riddled with gunfire.”

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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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May152016

The Commentariat -- May 16, 2016

CW: Looks as if somebody completely deleted this day's page. What makes this super-weird is that some of the comments from May 16 ended up in the May 17 Commentariat. Here's some of what was in the page for the 16th:

Greg Jaffe of the Washington Post: "President Obama delivered a commencement address at Rutgers University on Sunday that ... sounded a lot like a tough, aggressive takedown of [Donald Trump].... The 45-minute-long address was filled with obvious jabs at ... Donald Trump, whom the president didn't name but who was a foil for the graduation speech's most cutting applause lines." -- CW

Presidential Race

Philip Bump of the Washington Post on "what happened at Saturday's dramatic Nevada Democratic convention." -- CW

TMZ: "'The Wire' star Wendell Pierce was arrested Saturday after allegedly physically assaulting a woman supporting Bernie Sanders. Sources at the Loews Hotel in Atlanta tell us the actor struck up a convo with the woman and her boyfriend at around 3:30 AM. The talk turned political and Wendell -- a big Hillary Clinton supporter -- got upset when the woman declared her support for Bernie. We're told Wendell -- who played Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas in the HBO drama, 'Confirmation' -- became enraged, pushed the boyfriend and then went after his girlfriend ... grabbing her hair and smacking her in the head." -- CW

Liz Kruetz of ABC News: "During a campaign event in Fort Mitchell, [Kentucky, Sunday, Hillary Clinton] was more blunt than ever about what her husband's role could be in a future Clinton administration -- saying she plans to to put the former president 'in charge of economic revitalization.' 'My husband, who I'm going to put in charge of revitalizing the economy, cause you know he knows how to do it,' Clinton told the crowd at an outdoor organizing rally. 'And especially in places like coal country and inner cities and other parts of our country that have really been left out.'" CW

Elise Viebeck of the Washington Post: "The head of the Republican National Committee denounced efforts to draft an independent candidate to run against Donald Trump as a 'suicide mission' that could 'wreck' the United States for generations. RNC Chairman Reince Priebus did not mince words as he urged party figures laying the groundwork for a third-party bid to suspend their operation." -- CW

Elise Viebeck of the Washington Post: "The head of the Republican National Committee played down criticism of Donald Trump's character after new reports chronicled his troubling behavior toward dozens of women and his past habit of impersonating a publicist to boast about his private life. A visibly uncomfortable Reince Priebus defended Trump in three Sunday talk show interviews, arguing that questions about Trump's integrity do not matter to supporters of the presumptive GOP presidential nominee and refusing to say whether they should." -- CW

Andrew Kaczynski of BuzzFeed: "Donald Trump said Sunday that he believes refugees will launch a terrorist attack against the United States comparable in size to the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks.... Trump said refugees coming into the U.S. had cellphones with ISIS flags on them, and questioned how refugees could afford cell phones, suggesting ISIS paid the monthly fees." -- CW

Emily Schultheis of CBS News: "Former Defense Secretary Bob Gates has worked with eight presidents, Republican and Democrat -- and the biggest difference between them and presumptive GOP nominee Donald Trump is that they all were 'willing to listen,' he said in an interview airing Sunday.... 'I guess one of the things that makes it challenging for me is that he seems to think that he has all the answers and that he doesn't need advice from staff or anybody else,' he said." With video. -- CW

Veepstakes! Ben Terris of the Washington Post: "The most favorably regarded contenders [for Trump's running mate, Ben Carson told a reporter,] after himself..., were John Kasich, Marco Rubio, Ted Cruz, Sarah Palin and Chris Christie. 'Those are all people on our list,' he said.... That the Trump campaign might want its potential VP picks held close to the vest didn't seem to occur to Carson. He's not the type to keep his candid thoughts to himself." -- CW

Poor Drumpf! Annie Laurie of Balloon Juice: Donald Trump can't self-fund his general election campaign because he doesn't have the money. The Wall Street Journal reports, "When his campaign began last summer, a financial disclosure Mr. Trump filed said he had between about $78 million and $232 million in cash and relatively liquid assets such as stocks and bonds. That would go fast if Mr. Trump spent an amount close to the $721 million President Barack Obama spent in 2012 up to Election Day.... Mr. Trump's businesses don't produce that much in a year, a Wall Street Journal analysis shows. His 2016 pretax income, according to the analysis, is likely to be around $160 million...." Laurie observes, "While $160 million (more or less) would be a more-than-satisfactory income to you or me..., it's nowhere near enough to qualify Trump for 'Really Rich Person' status." -- CW

Michael Crowley of Politico on "How a 2013 beauty pageant explains Trump's love for Russia and obsession with Vladimir Putin.... Trump has said his understanding of Russia is based in part on the 2013 Miss Universe event in Moscow..., for what he would call 'the world's biggest and most iconic beauty contest.' 'I know Russia well,' Trump told Fox News on May 6. 'I had a major event in Russia two or three years ago, which was a big, big incredible event.' Asked whether he had met with Putin there, Trump declined to say, though he added: 'I got to meet a lot of people.'" -- CW

Trump's Family Values. 1. Paul Krugman: "The state of child care in America is cruel and shameful -- and even more shameful because we could make things much better without radical change or huge spending. And one candidate [that would be Clinton] has a reasonable, feasible plan to do something about this shame, while the other [that's Drumpf] couldn't care less." -- CW ...

... 2. Benjamin Wallace-Wells in the New Yorker: "... during George W. Bush's Administration..., better-educated people (often men) lectured less-educated ones (usually women) about the importance of abstinence and marriage. Against that backdrop, there must be something refreshing in Trump's message that the problems of American communities are located not within them but in China, and that they can be solved by appointing a new ambassador." -- CW

Alan Rappeport & Patrick Healy of the New York Times: "Donald J. Trump plans to attack the character, honesty and authenticity of Hillary and Bill Clinton in the months ahead, in hopes of increasing their unpopularity among voters and deflecting attention from his vulnerabilities. Here are some of his lines of attack against the Clintons, which he described in a recent interview with The New York Times." -- CW

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