The Ledes

Saturday, September 28, 2024

Washington Post: “Rescue teams raced to submerged homes, scoured collapsed buildings and steered thousands from overflowing dams as Helene carved a destructive path Friday, knocking out power and flooding a vast arc of communities across the southeastern United States. At least 40 people were confirmed killed in five states since the storm made landfall late Thursday as a Category 4 behemoth, unleashing record-breaking storm surge and tree-snapping gusts. 4 million homes and businesses have lost electricity across Florida, Georgia and the Carolinas, prompting concerns that outages could drag on for weeks. Mudslides closed highways. Water swept over roofs and snapped phone lines. Houses vanished from their foundations. Tornadoes added to the chaos. The mayor of hard-hit Canton, N.C., called the scene 'apocalyptic.'” An AP report is here.

The Wires
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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 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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Thursday
Oct132011

The Commentariat -- October 14

Paul Krugman on the GOP presidential candidates: "... since economic policy has to deal with the world we live in, not the fantasy world of the G.O.P.’s imagination, the prospect that one of these people may well be our next president is, frankly, terrifying." ...

... I've set up a page on Off Times Square for readers to comment on Krugman's column. Or whatever. ...

... On his blog, Krugman juxtaposes these two stories:

     ... "More than Anything Else, I'm Sorry for Myself...." Max Abelson of Bloomberg News: "An era of decline and disappointment for bankers may not end for years, according to interviews with more than two dozen executives and investors. Blaming government interference and persecution, they say there isn’t enough global stability, leverage or risk appetite to triumph in the current slump." ...

     "... Because I Only Make 5-1/2 Times What You Do." Catherine Rampell of the New York Times: "... the average salary in the [banking] industry in 2010 was $361,330 — five and a half times the average salary in the rest of the private sector in the city ($66,120). By contrast, 30 years ago such salaries were only twice as high as in the rest of the private sector. Here's the point, graphically put:

Karen Garcia is withering in her criticism of Democratic efforts to co-opt Occupy Wall Street. ...

... AND after listing some top Democrats who are big Wall Street beneficiaries -- either in campaign contributions or fat incomes, Glenn Greenwald asks,

... does the Center for American Progress really believe that the protest movement named OccupyWallStreet was begun — and that people are being arrested and pepper-sprayed and ready to endure harsh winters and marching to Jamie Dimon’s house — in order to devote themselves to ensuring that these people remain in power? Does CAP and the DCCC really believe that most of the protesters are motivated — or can be motivated — to turn themselves into a get-out-the-vote machine for Obama’s re-election and the empowerment of Chuck Schumer and the Democratic Party?"

Prof. Mark Barenberg, et al., in a New York Times op-ed: "In the past month, the National Labor Relations Board has come under furious attack from Republicans in Congress, and decades-old workers’ rights are at risk. Backed by a well-financed lobbying and publicity offensive, Republicans are using a recent labor-law complaint against Boeing to achieve a radical goal that goes far beyond the legal issues in the case: unraveling workers’ rights that have been part of the fabric of our social contract since the Great Depression."

Jeff Zeleny & Monica Davie of the New York Times on President Obama's trip to Michigan today -- his ninth since becoming president: "As the presidential race intensifies, Michigan will become more than a trove of 16 electoral votes. It will be a virtual laboratory for some of the most central themes of the campaign in a state that embodies the changing face of the nation’s economy." ...

... BUT. Irony Alert. Steve Rattner, Obama's former car czar, writes, "The small car that is being made at the Lake Orion plant – the Chevrolet Sonic – was originally scheduled to be made in South Korea.... That was because with a traditional Detroit cost structure, cars like the Sonic cannot be made profitably in the U.S. But as part of the new agreement with the United Auto Workers in connection with the 2009 auto rescue, the U.A.W. agreed to permit 40% of the workers in the facility to be paid so-called 'Tier II' wages, roughly half of what a traditional U.A.W. member earns.... So while the U.S. gained 1,800 jobs, they came at a significant price." Via Ben Smith.

Amy Chozick & Tanzina Vega of the New York Times: "The European edition of The Wall Street Journal accounts for less than 1 percent of total business at its parent company, the News Corporation. But the controversy this week over an unorthodox circulation deal that resulted in the resignation of the newspaper’s publisher could carry outsize influence among investors already concerned about ethical practices at the [Murdoch] company, analysts said Thursday." News Corp's annual shareholders meeting is next Friday.

Thomas Hargrove of Scripps Howard News: "The Social Security Administration has failed to inform tens of thousands of Americans it accidentally released their names, dates of birth and Social Security numbers in an electronic database widely used by U.S. business groups. The federal agency has kept silent about a potentially harmful security breach of the personal data of about 14,000 people each year, ignoring recommended reporting guidelines for such confidentiality breaches and violating the intent, at least, of the U.S. Privacy Act, which protects personal information of private citizens." Those whose data the SSA releases are individuals the agency erroneously thinks are dead. Forty-six states require entities who have breached privacy to inform the victims; the federal government has no such law. "Most of those erroneously listed as dead who were contacted for this story said they only found out about the agency's mistakes when they suffered adverse events like frozen bank accounts, canceled cellphones..., etc."

Nobel Peace Prize winner Leymah Gbowee speaks to NBC News's Andrea Mitchell. What a woman! (and no, I don't mean Mrs. Greenspan):

Right Wing World

CW Note to Self: must continue to pick on $9.99 Pizza Plan. ...

     ... ** Which sometimes forces me to go to the HuffPost -- where Amanda Terkel notes that Cain's 999 plan looks suspiciously like the tax code for the old video game SimCity. And some say the GOP is no longer a serious party. ...

     ... Tim Egan is always a good read: "By almost any measure — social, political, economic, logical — Herman Cain’s 9-9-9 tax plan is nuts, nuts, nuts.... Cain is proposing the largest shift in tax burden from the wealthy to the poor and middle class in the nation’s history. Oh, and he apparently would scrap the two great government programs that keep millions clinging to fragile middle-class status — Social Security and Medicare...." ...

     ... Ezra Klein asks Prof. Edward Kleinbard, a tax law expert, to run the 999 numbers. The post even includes longish (by my standards) formulas to explain the calculations. Bottom line: for a family of four earning $50,000/year "Cain’s plan would increase the family’s tax bill by thousands of dollars.... The poor and middle class will face a big tax hike ... and the rich will get a huge tax cut." ...

... I don't run ads. BUt. Here's a 999 plan I might be able to get with. Via Ben Smith:

Mitt Romney, front row 2nd from left, and his Bain Capital buddies have fun raking in the dough (at the expense of companies it liquidated & of employees it put out of work), ca. 1970s. Bain Capital photo via Boston Globe. ... Jim Newell of Gawker: "If this does not appear in an attack ad at some point in the next year, then various rival campaigns will have failed."

News Ledes

CNN: "Protests swelled in cities nationwide Friday as police forces struggled to either corral or remove demonstrators from downtown parks and plazas in the latest development of the monthlong Occupy Wall Street movement. Scores of protesters were arrested in Denver, Seattle, San Diego and New York, while similar demonstrations were scheduled to take place in Washington, Orlando and Atlanta. CNN iReporters sent in photos and video from 'occupy' protests across several American cities."

Reuters: "A U.S. appeals court on Friday temporarily blocked Alabama from enforcing part of its tough new immigration law but allowed some disputed portions to remain in effect. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit, based in Atlanta, halted the controversial provision that permits Alabama to require public schools to determine the legal residency of children upon enrollment. But the court ruled the state could continue to authorize police to detain people suspected of being in the country illegally if they cannot produce proper documentation when stopped for any reason."

AP: "Kansas City's Catholic bishop was charged Friday with not telling police about child pornography found on a priest's computer, making him the highest-ranking U.S. Catholic official indicted on a charge of failing to protect children. Kansas City-St. Joseph Catholic Diocese Bishop Robert Finn, the first U.S. bishop criminally charged with sheltering an abusive clergyman, pleaded not guilty to one misdemeanor count of failing to report suspected child abuse."

President Obama & Republic of Korea President Lee toured GM's Orion assembly plant in Lake Orion, Michigan, & made remarks afterwards. Detroit Free Press story here. See also today's Commentariat.

Politico: "House Republicans are doing an about-face, breathing life into expensive legislation long considered dead in Congress, showing that, yes, they do believe the federal government should be spending money on domestic programs. Speaker John Boehner is starting with the mother of all public works bills — directing top aides to work with the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee on a six-year highway bill to rebuild the nation’s transportation infrastructure. The last such highway bill cost $286 billion — House Republicans have not released cost projections for a new one."

New York Times: "The cleanup of the Lower Manhattan park that has been occupied by protesters for nearly a month was canceled Friday shortly before it was supposed to begin, averting a feared showdown between the police and demonstrators who had vowed to resist any efforts to evict them from their encampment. The announcement was made by the Bloomberg administration around 6:20 a.m., about 40 minutes before workers were scheduled to enter Zuccotti Park...." More expansive AP story here. ...

... Seattle Times: "Seattle police Thursday night arrested several Occupy Seattle protesters who refused to leave a tentlike structure set up in Seattle's Westlake Park. Amid chanting and beating drums, saxophone music, cheers and jeers, 10 protesters were removed from the tent and hauled into paddy wagons."

New York Times: "... hedge fund billionaire Raj Rajaratnam received the longest prison sentence ever for insider trading on Thursday, capping an aggressive government campaign that has ensnared dozens and may help deter the illegal use of confidential information on Wall Street. Judge Richard J. Holwell of Federal District Court in Manhattan sentenced Mr. Rajaratnam, 54, the former head of the Galleon Group hedge fund, to 11 years in prison. A jury convicted Mr. Rajaratnam of securities fraud and conspiracy in May after a two-month trial."

New York Times: "The trial of a man accused of trying to blow up a commercial airliner with a bomb sewed into his underwear ended Wednesday, just a day after it had begun, when Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, the accused, abruptly announced that he would plead guilty to all of the federal counts against him. Prosecutors and federal agents seemed stunned, if pleased, and declared that the plea was evidence that the American court system, as opposed to a military tribunal, could bring a suitable outcome to a terrorism case."

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