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https://kesq.com/news/crime/2022/02/01/palm-springs-marijuana-dispensary-shot-at-overnight/

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Police are investigating a shooting that damaged a Palm Springs marijuana dispensary early Tuesday morning.

The shooting happened at approximately 12:43 p.m. at One Plant, which is located on 2739 N Palm Canyon Drive.

PSPD's Lt. William Hutchinson told News Channel 3 that a vehicle drove by the location and fired several rounds toward the business.

There was window damage but no one was injured in the shooting, Hutchinson confirmed. Investigators are currently examining video surveillance.

There was no other information at this time.

"My first priority is to ensure that all of our personnel feels safe returning to work and given all the support required at this time," said Ryan Bishara, vice president of One Plant.

The owner of One Plant added that the dispensary just opened last month.

Stay with News Channel 3 for any updates.

If you have any information, call the Palm Springs Police Department at 760-323-8116. If you wish to submit info anonymously, call Valley CrimeStoppers at 760-341-7867, you may be eligible for a cash reward.

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Palm Springs marijuana dispensary shot at overnight - KESQ

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Police are investigating a shooting that damaged a Palm Springs marijuana dispensary early Tuesday morning. The shooting happened at approximately 12:43 p.m. at One Plant, which is located on 2739 N Palm Canyon Drive. PSPD's Lt. William Hutchinson told News Channel 3 that a vehicle drove by the location and fired several rounds toward the business.

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Ghislaine Maxwell's legal team has argued in court papers that the juror who might not have disclosed prior sexual abuse during the jury selection process "violated" her right to a fair trial.

Maxwell's attorneys have implored Alison Nathan, the judge, "to right a grievous wrong that deprived Ms Maxwell of a fundamental constitutional right - her right to be tried by a fair and impartial jury". They are requesting a retrial.

Maxwell was convicted on 29 December of sex trafficking and related charges for facilitating the late financier Jeffrey Epstein's sexual abuse of girls, some as young as 14. Epstein, a convicted sex offender, was arrested in July 2019 for sex trafficking underage teens; he killed himself in a Manhattan jail about one month later, while awaiting his own trial.

The controversy over Juror 50, later identified as Scotty David, stems from post-trial interviews where he publicly claimed to have suffered sexual abuse as a child. David reportedly said that he told other jurors about this abuse - and helped his cohorts see things from a victim's perspective.

David's comments prompted questions because potential jurors filled out questionnaires as part of the selection process - which directly asked about sexual abuse. One of the questions asked: "Have you or a friend or family member ever been the victim of sexual harassment, sexual abuse, or sexual assault?"

David reportedly claimed that he did not remember the query on abuse but that he had responded to every question honestly. After David's interviews, prosecutors asked Nathan to investigate his comments; shortly thereafter, Maxwell's lawyers asked for a hearing on the issue.

The new filing from Maxwell's attorneys is part of their push to keep their detailed arguments for a new trial under seal, for the time being. Their argument for sealing itself was initially filed under wraps, but Nathan ruled on 26 January that it must be filed publicly.

Maxwell's lawyers argued that releasing their detailed arguments before Nathan makes a decision on retrial, or before a hearing on this issue concludes, "will provide a roadmap of the defense's examination of Juror 50 and will allow him to plan out and tailor his responses, or even potentially spoliate evidence, to paint himself and his conduct in the best light possible".

"There is also a significant risk that the publicity that will undoubtedly surround the unsealing of the motion will influence the memories of other potential witnesses," they said. "All of this will frustrate the truth-seeking process of any factual inquiry ordered by the court and jeopardize Ms. Maxwell's one chance to vindicate her right to a fair trial."

They claim that Maxwell "does not seek to seal the motion indefinitely" and "seeks only a temporary sealing to protect the integrity of any fact-finding process ordered by the court".

David's lawyer said "no comment" when asked about the new filings.

Maxwell's trial has once again ramped up scrutiny of Prince Andrew. The Duke of York once counted Maxwell and Epstein as associates.

Virginia Giuffre, a longtime Epstein accuser, filed suit against Andrew in Manhattan federal court. Giuffre claims that Epstein and Maxwell forced her into a sexual encounter with the royal some 20 years ago, when she was 17.

She has alleged that Andrew engaged in sexual misconduct with her on other occasions. Andrew denies wrongdoing.

The legal proceedings have proved disastrous for Andrew. Buckingham Palace remarked in a 13 January statement: "With the Queen's approval and agreement, the Duke of York's military affiliations and royal patronages have been returned to the Queen. The Duke of York will continue not to undertake any public duties and is defending this case as a private citizen."

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Ghislaine Maxwell's right to a fair trial was 'violated', lawyers argue

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Ghislaine Maxwell's legal team has argued in court papers that the juror who might not have disclosed prior sexual abuse during the jury selection process "violated" her right to a fair trial. Maxwell's attorneys have implored Alison Nathan, the judge, "to right a grievous wrong that deprived Ms Maxwell of a fundamental constitutional right - her right to be tried by a fair and impartial jury".

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CNN President Jeff Zucker resigns over consensual relationship with key lieutenant | CNN Business

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CNN Worldwide president Jeff Zucker, the influential news executive who reshaped the iconic network, announced Wednesday morning that he has resigned from his position effective immediately.

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https://nypost.com/2022/02/02/trump-blasts-lindsey-graham-for-opposing-rioters-pardons/

https://boston.cbslocal.com/2022/02/02/karen-read-arrested-john-okeefe-boston-police-officer-death-canton/

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Donald Trump was asked about Lindsey Graham's statement that pardoning rioters was "inappropriate." Newsmax

Former President Donald Trump labeled Sen. Lindsey Graham - a staunch supporter of the 45th president - a "RINO" Tuesday night for disagreeing with him on potentially pardoning those involved in last year's Capitol riot.

During an interview with Newsmax, Trump was pressed on a statement by Graham (R-SC) that pardoning defendants held in connection with the riot was "inappropriate."

"You talked about the potential, if it's appropriate, of pardoning some of the January 6ers," said Newsmax host Rob Schmitt. "Lindsey Graham said a couple days later he thinks that's inappropriate. What do you think?"

"Well, Lindsey Graham's wrong," Trump began. "I mean, Lindsey's a nice guy, but he's a RINO. Lindsey's wrong."

"Lindsey Graham doesn't know what the hell he's talking about if he says that," the former president added.

Trump has often labeled members of his party who disagree with him "RINOs," for "Republicans in Name Only."

Graham responded to Trump in a statement Wednesday, saying: "As a conservative, I firmly believe in law and order and support the police. I reject politically motivated violence in all forms. Those who take the law into their own hands for political reasons - whether they are antifa, Black Lives Matter protestors [sic], the Proud Boys, or others - must be held accountable.

"I was in the Capitol on Jan. 6 and know it was one of the darkest days in American history," Graham added. "I stand with the police officers who protect our streets, federal courthouses, and the United States Capitol against rioters. They deserve our respect and support and I will not second-guess the decisions they made under dire circumstances.

"For us to remain a nation of laws, not men, we must speak with one voice when it comes to politically motivated violence," the senator concluded. "All Americans are entitled to have a speedy trial and their day in court, but those who actively engage in violence for whatever political cause must be held accountable and not be forgiven."

During a Saturday rally in Texas, Trump hinted that if he decides to run for president again in 2024 and wins back the White House, he will pardon those who are facing charges related to the violence of Jan. 6, 2021.

"If I run, and if I win, we will treat those people from Jan. 6 fairly," Trump said.

"And if it requires pardons, we will give them pardons," he added. "Because they are being treated so unfairly."

The Department of Justice has charged more than 700 people in connection with the riot. Many face charges of disorderly conduct, entering a restricted building, obstructing law enforcement or assaulting police officers.

Graham, who has repeatedly supported the 45th president in his potential 2024 White House bid, slammed the idea of pardoning the defendants on Sunday.

"No, I don't want to send any signal that it was OK to defile the Capitol," he told CBS's "Face the Nation" when asked if he agreed with the move. "There are other groups with causes that may want to go down to the violent path [if] these people get pardoned."

When pressed by host Margaret Brennan about whether Trump's comments were "dangerous," Graham hesitated.

Yeah, well, I think it's inappropriate," he answered. "I - I don't want to reinforce that defiling the Capitol was OK. I don't want to do anything that would make this more likely in the future."

"I don't want to do anything, from raising bail to pardoning people who take the law into their own hands, because it will make more violence more likely ... I hope they go to jail and get the book thrown at them because they deserve it," Graham added.

Several other Republicans have criticized Trump's comments, including Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.).

"I would not be in favor of shortening any of the sentences for any of the people who pleaded guilty to crimes," he told reporters Tuesday, according to The Hill.

"The election of 2020 was decided December 14 of 2020 when the Electoral College certified the winner of the election. What we saw here, on January the 6th, was an effort to prevent the peaceful transfer of power from one administration to another, which has never happened before in our country."

While Trump has not officially decided if he will run again for president, he is expected to make a decision following the November midterm elections.

In May of last year, Graham warned that the GOP cannot "move forward" or "grow" without Trump being a leader in the party.

"The most popular Republican in America - it's not Lindsey Graham, it's not [Rep.] Liz Cheney, it's Donald Trump," Graham said at the time. "People on our side of the aisle believe the Trump policies worked. They're disappointed that he lost, and to try to erase Donald Trump from the Republican Party is insane, and the people who try to erase him are going to wind up getting erased."

"It's impossible for this party to move forward without President Trump being its leader, because the people who are conservative have chosen him as their leader," he added. "And you know why they chose him? Because he delivered. He was the most consequential president for national security since Ronald Reagan. He secured the border. He cut our taxes, brought a new attitude of being an American, and the people have chosen him, not the pundits."

The South Carolina Republican doubled down on his support last month after the former president slammed McConnell again, calling him an "Old Crow."

Graham insisted that whoever the Republican leader in the House or Senate following the midterms will be, they must have a "working relationship" with Trump.

"Elections are about the future," Graham said. "If you want to be a Republican leader in the House or the Senate, you have to have a working relationship with President Donald Trump."

While the senator did not confirm if Trump will run for president again, Graham said the GOP nomination in 2024 is "his ... if he wants it."

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Trump blasts 'RINO' Lindsey Graham for opposing pardons for Jan. 6 rioters

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Former President Donald Trump labeled Sen. Lindsey Graham - a staunch supporter of the 45th president - a "RINO" Tuesday night for disagreeing with him on potentially pardoning those involved in last year's Capitol riot. During an interview with Newsmax, Trump was pressed on a statement by Graham (R-SC) that pardoning defendants held in connection with the riot was "inappropriate."

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Credit... Gaetan Bally/Keystone, via Redux

Ms. Bazelon is a staff writer for The New York Times Magazine and author of "Charged: The New Movement to Transform Prosecution and End Mass Incarceration."

After he was sworn into office last month, the new district attorney for Manhattan, Alvin Bragg, issued a memo that caused widespread confusion and great consternation among police unions, the city's new police commissioner and conservative politicians. The widow of one of two police officers killed in January called him out in her eulogy last week.

Mr. Bragg's memo suggested he would downgrade certain felonies, including many robberies, to misdemeanors. It also suggested prosecutors would largely stop seeking jail or prison for some crimes, including certain assaults and criminal possession of a gun unless the law requires them to do otherwise. Prosecutors were told to consider whether someone posed a threat or created a "genuine risk of physical harm" when they decide whether a felony charge is warranted. But in general an exception to the rule of leniency appeared to require extraordinary circumstances.

Mr. Bragg has since acknowledged the confusion caused by his memo and to a degree walked himself back. His goal for prosecuting store robberies, he said, was to move away from prison sentences for what he called "shoplifting gone bad" - a situation in which someone steals from a store while carrying a weapon like a knife or a screwdriver, but doesn't display it. Mr. Bragg also said that his office would continue to seek incarceration for "walking around Manhattan with a gun." In other words, it would be business as usual for the ordinary gun case.

The uproar was similar to the blowback progressive prosecutors have faced in Philadelphia and San Francisco, for example, as they have tried to reduce the use of jail and prison. What's been drowned out in the clamor is strong evidence that less prosecution and incarceration pays off in improvements in public safety.

In the end, given Mr. Bragg's retreat, his policies may have less impact than progressives hope for or his critics fear. But there is no doubt that New York is especially fertile ground to pursue these progressive approaches because it has a head start on mental health and substance abuse counseling programs and diversion efforts to keep offenders out of jail and in jobs or school.

Accumulating research in well-designed studies supports the idea, counterintuitive though it may seem, that prosecuting fewer people can actually reduce crime. Last year, for instance, researchers looked at more than 67,000 misdemeanor cases in Suffolk County, Mass., which includes Boston, and found that people arrested but not charged for offenses like drug possession and shoplifting were less than half as likely as those who were prosecuted to be arrested again two years later for a new crime.

Another study from Harris County, Texas, which includes Houston, found that people charged for the first time with felonies, including drug possession and theft, were almost half as likely to reoffend over 10 years if they were offered an alternative to prison, supervision while they live in their communities, which upon completion led to dismissal of the charges against them. A third study published last month found that diversion for young people for some felonies in San Francisco reduced the probability of a subsequent conviction by a third over two years.

This research measures what's called specific deterrence - the chance that a person directly affected by a policy will be deterred from future crime. One key motivation for success for offenders is to avoid a major barrier to employment, a criminal record. In the Harris County study, those diverted from prison were almost twice as likely to be employed later as those who were not. People with jobs have a better shot at leading a stable life, and that discourages crime.

None of these studies found an overall increase in crime. This is called general deterrence - the effect a policy has on the crime rate. In another study from 2021, the researchers who conducted the study in Suffolk County looked at the effect on local crime rates of so-called progressive prosecutors, who rely less on jail and prison. In 35 jurisdictions, a progressive district attorney had no significant effect on the rate of serious crimes. A modicum of mercy, it turned out, did not lead to lawlessness.

Since the 18th century, the concept of deterrence has been based on the swiftness, certainty and severity of punishment. The research backs up district attorneys like Mr. Bragg who are betting that their predecessors overrated the effectiveness of severe penalties.

On the other hand, swiftness and certainty of punishment, which hinge on the probability that a crime is detected, are important in holding down crime. The evidence shows, not surprisingly, that when more police officers are around, people are more likely to believe they'll be caught if they commit a crime. But, more important, police presence can deter crime without increasing arrests overall.

Increasing misdemeanor arrests produces little value in public safety while disproportionally affecting Black residents, which helps explain why far more Black than white people report fearing the police - even to the point that some say they'd rather be robbed than questioned by an officer without good reason.

Relying on the police and prosecutors to prevent crime, as many cities have more or less done for decades, is a mistake, argue some public safety experts. City governments "can provide as much, if not more, safety as police, without the unavoidable toxicity that comes with force" when they work with residents and local organizations to strengthen the social fabric of neighborhoods, according to Elizabeth Glazer, a director of Mayor Bill de Blasio's Office of Criminal Justice, and Patrick Sharkey, a sociologist at Princeton, in a 2021 report for the Square One Project, a justice reform group.

They call for continuing efforts to expand youth employment programs, mental-health services, the deployment of neighborhood workers trained to stop disputes from escalating into violence, and the redesign of public spaces. Studies have shown that planting grass and trees on vacant lots is associated with significant drops in gun violence. If people feel safe, then they're more likely to be out and about, serving as eyes on the street. And the stronger the connections are among residents, the more likely they are to look out for one another.

New York had a rough 2020 and 2021, when homicides and shootings rose, as they did across the country in the pandemic. The fatal shootings so far this year, including the killing of two police officers who were responding to a 911 call in Harlem and a teenager working at Burger King, have prompted the new mayor, Eric Adams, to pick up the old law-and-order tools - a police crackdown and a call for prosecuting 16- and 17-year-olds caught with illegal guns as adults if they don't disclose where they got the weapon. (The New York Legislature raised the age of criminal responsibility to 18 in 2017.)

But Mayor Adams is ignoring the lessons of his own city. The Brooklyn district attorney's office under Eric Gonzalez, another progressive, runs a voluntary diversion program for young people caught with guns that has lowered the rate of rearrest and conviction for those in the program compared to their peers who went to prison. Participants plead guilty and then, instead of being locked up, get the help of a social worker to find a job or go to school.

Around the city, courts in partnership with nonprofit organizations have developed other successful diversion programs. Almost 25,000 people a year participate in programs through the Center for Court Innovation that offer mental-health and substance-abuse counseling and "restorative-justice circles" where offenders must reckon with the impact of their wrongdoing and how to rectify it. Officials from other cities routinely visit New York to see how its programs operate, according to Chidinma Ume and Brett Taylor of the Center for Court Innovation.

President Biden is coming to the city this week to meet with Mayor Adams about gun violence - a sign the White House wants to align with the mayor. It's a good sign that Mr. Bragg and Mr. Gonzalez are scheduled to be part of the event as well, according to their offices, and Mr. Biden should showcase the record and the research that support their approach. Both point the way to making the city safer and more vital.

Emily Bazelon is a staff writer for The New York Times Magazine and author of "Charged: The New Movement to Transform Prosecution and End Mass Incarceration."

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Opinion | Give the Manhattan D.A.'s Crime-Fighting Policies a Chance

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Ms. Bazelon is a staff writer for The New York Times Magazine and author of "Charged: The New Movement to Transform Prosecution and End Mass Incarceration." After he was sworn into office last month, the new district attorney for Manhattan, Alvin Bragg, issued a memo that caused widespread confusion and great consternation among police unions, the city's new police commissioner and conservative politicians.

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When scientists in South Africa noticed an uptick in Covid-19 cases in the Gauteng Province last November, they began investigating the source. These researchers and others in Botswana quickly discovered the Omicron variant and heroically shared their discovery with the rest of the world. And yet it was still too late - Omicron was already rapidly infecting people across the globe.

The question for a world enduring the variant's astonishing surge is how can we discover the next one early enough to stop its spread. Currently, the hunt for coronavirus variants is too slow and sporadic. Scientists in a handful of countries - South Africa, Botswana the United States and others - monitor patterns in case counts and regularly sequence samples of the virus from infected people to see whether there are notable genetic changes. The results of these analyses can be shared within a global network, such as GISAID, an international community of scientists who openly share data on disease variants, to compare coronavirus sequences from around the world.

By the time this happens, variants are often already spreading in a community and most likely beyond it. This analysis process is like testing every piece of hay in a stack to see whether it's a needle - or, really, the equivalent of choosing and testing just 1 percent of the haystack.

But there are places to look that may help scientists find new variants even faster: sewage and the air. People can shed the coronavirus in their feces and their exhaled breath. As a result, the virus can be spotted before people have been tested or developed symptoms.

Wastewater monitoring has been used throughout the Omicron surge by scientists in New York City, Boston and elsewhere. They have been able to identify impending surges of cases in certain neighborhoods even before a variant has been identified from test swabs. The opposite is also true: In Minneapolis and St. Paul, Minn., for example, officials who witnessed a drop in the amount of virus in wastewater were able to predict that Omicron's peak had passed.

Far less attention has been paid to testing air samples, at least until recently. Chinese officials have developed a detection system they will reportedly use to collect and test air samples from venues at the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics. In the United States, a partnership between the city of Davis, Calif., and the University of California at Davis is monitoring air filters in elementary schools for the virus.

So far scientists have mostly used environmental samples like these to track trends in coronavirus concentrations and identify hot spots for response. But these samples can also provide a window into the dynamics of a concerning new variant in the broader community, quicker and more accurately than any sample from a single person. A virus sample from a nasal or saliva swab offers information on one person; a single wastewater or air sample offers information on many people, and in the case of the former, up to thousands of people. Leaning more heavily on these methods could provide the world additional time to respond before variants become widespread.

Still, some practical challenges remain. Environmental samples can contain a lot of background noise, including myriad other viruses, bacteria and fungi found in human waste. Determining what's important and what isn't can be tough. Coordination is another issue; the world needs to develop a consensus on how to analyze environmental sequences and create a hub that, as GISAID does for clinical sequencing, enables near-real-time information sharing and insights across countries.

As these initiatives are pursued and funded, it's also important that the public be made aware of how environmental testing and sequencing works in order to avoid some of the misinformation and misunderstandings that have affected other tools like vaccines. Organizers must make clear that environmental samples are anonymous: They do not confirm who shed the virus, only that the coronavirus is in a community.

Testing and sequencing virus samples found in sewage or the air is not a singular solution; it is best used alongside other data sources to construct a broader, more holistic view of a pathogen's spread across a community and around the world. But because it is the quickest way to detect variants, it can help leaders prepare for and potentially prevent the next coronavirus surge, and hopefully, the next pandemic.

Dr. Rick Bright is the chief executive of the Pandemic Prevention Institute and the senior vice president of pandemic prevention and response at the Rockefeller Foundation.
The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We'd like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some . And here's our email: letters@nytimes.com.

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Opinion | Clues to the Next Variant Are All Around Us

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When scientists in South Africa noticed an uptick in Covid-19 cases in the Gauteng Province last November, they began investigating the source. These researchers and others in Botswana quickly discovered the Omicron variant and heroically shared their discovery with the rest of the world.

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(Michelle Rohn / For The Times)

According to the usual rhythms of Oscar season, Hollywood's awards machinery should be running at full steam right now. With Academy Award nominations set to be announced on Feb. 8, stars and industry power players should be swanning from one glamorous cocktail party and glitzy banquet to another. Contenders' schedules should be packed with screenings, Q&As and gown fittings. Academy voters should be excitedly making their lists and checking them twice.

But these days, there is little joy in buzz-ville.

For the second year in a row, the COVID-19 pandemic has choked much of the life out of Hollywood's all-important awards season. With movies facing what feels to many like an existential crisis and the box office for adult-oriented films all but decimated, few in the business are in a celebratory mood.

Compounding the industry's woes, the Golden Globe Awards, which for decades have offered a crucial marketing springboard for Oscar hopefuls, were pulled off the air by NBC in the wake of months of blistering controversy sparked by last year's L.A. Times investigation of ethical lapses and representation issues inside the Hollywood Foreign Press Assn., which puts on the awards. In the place of "Hollywood's Party of the Year," there was just an untelevised private ceremony accompanied by a string of often ham-fisted social media postings.

With most in-person events canceled due to the Omicron variant, awards consultants have been left struggling to find ways to drum up critically important chatter about this year's Oscar hopefuls.

"What's missing is the conversations that happen inside rooms," said veteran awards consultant Tony Angellotti. "You know, 'What have you seen? What have you loved?' That's largely gone. And because of that, people just aren't as engaged as they have been before the pandemic."

Coming off a difficult year that saw Oscars ratings plummet to an all-time low, Hollywood entered this awards season with a sense of guarded optimism that things were bouncing back. Table-setting fall festivals in Telluride, Venice and New York were held in-person once again. Pandemic-delayed contenders like Steven Spielberg's new take on "West Side Story" and the crowd-pleasing "King Richard" were back on the release schedule.

(Courtesy of Warner Bros. Pictures/Courtesy of Warner Bros. Pictures)

Heading into this year with a handful of Oscar hopefuls, including the Princess Diana mood piece "Spencer," Neon co-founder and chief executive Tom Quinn felt the familiar gears of awards season starting to turn again. Quinn attended festivals in Cannes, Telluride, New York and London and warmly recalls a screening of his company's "Memoria," starring Tilda Swinton, at Lincoln Center's Alice Tully Hall in October before a sold-out audience of 1,100 people.

"I remember soaking it up thinking these kinds of things are not to be taken for granted," said Quinn, whose company scored a historic Oscar victory just before the pandemic shutdowns in 2020 with Bong Joon Ho's best picture-winning "Parasite."

Then in late November came the Omicron variant, which crushed the theatrical market for adult-oriented fare just as it was struggling to rebound and forced in-person events to be postponed, scaled back or held virtually once again.

"To return to this sort of shutdown, it's both unexpected and disheartening in a way," Quinn said. "Because all the fringe benefits of going to a movie - the human connection you get from standing in line, going to dinner afterward, the discussion about the film - all that's gone."

"Just when things were sort of returning to a kind of normal, Omicron wiped out the Palm Springs film festival and other events that typically reinvigorate people after the new year," said awards campaigner Lea Yardum. "So you're just not feeling that excitement, which is understandable. I hate to say it, but I think voters are bored. Academy members are social creatures, and the last two years of isolation have sapped some of their interest and enthusiasm."

With the usual awards season horse race more muted than ever, Angellotti believes film critics might have an undue influence on Oscar nominations this year. "They're the only ones really talking about films," he said with a rueful laugh.

The collapse of the Golden Globes has hardly helped matters. While the Globes have long been treated as something of an inside joke by Hollywood, mocked even by the show's own hosts, the star-studded telecast represents serious business to the studios, which pump tens of millions of dollars annually into trying to secure nominations and wins. Heading into this year, some in Hollywood believed that the Critics Choice Awards, which had moved onto the Globes' Jan. 9 date, could serve as a kind of stopgap. But those hopes quickly faded when the show was postponed due to the Omicron surge.

"Realistically, there's not a lot of commercial viability for adult movies without the marketing prowess of the awards circuit," said one longtime awards consultant, who declined to be named because of involvement with a number of Oscar contenders this year. "Regardless of what you think of the Globes, the loss of a show with 20 million global viewers is a huge loss for a certain kind of movie. There's no swap for that. It's a huge hole."

Smaller, more idiosyncratic awards hopefuls that have stuck to traditional theatrical releases, like A24's "C'Mon C'Mon" and "Red Rocket," have been particularly hurt by this year's dampened awards season. Yet splashier Oscar contenders have struggled to make a significant dent at the box office as well.

Despite starry casts and A-list-director pedigrees, Ridley Scott's "House of Gucci" has grossed just $52 million, while Spielberg's "West Side Story" has pulled in just $35 million and Guillermo del Toro's noir "Nightmare Alley" has made only $10 million. Only one of this year's likely best picture nominees, the sci-fi epic "Dune," has grossed more than $100 million domestically, down from five 2020 best picture nominees that cleared that benchmark. (None of last year's eight nominees came close to that number since theaters were closed for most of 2020.)

(Courtesy of Metro Goldwyn Mayer / Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Pictures )

In this challenging theatrical environment, insiders say, streaming releases have a distinct advantage. "Compared to something that's streaming and readily available, those linear movies - particularly the movies that skew older - are really struggling to create conversation," said one awards consultant who is working on both types of films this year. "It's one thing to turn on Hulu or Amazon or Netflix after dinner and watch 'Don't Look Up' or 'Being the Ricardos.' That feels very different than saying, 'I'm going to go to this virtual screening followed by a virtual Q&A.' "

As difficult as the last two years have been for Hollywood, some see signs of green shoots coming up from the parched soil.

Sony Pictures Classics co-President Michael Barker recently went to the AMC Lincoln Square multiplex in New York to attend a Q&A for his company's documentary "Who We Are: A Chronicle of Racism in America." Afterward, Barker popped into a theater playing "Spider Man: No Way Home," which has been one of the few bright spots at the otherwise grim box office, pulling in more than $720 million domestically to date.

"It felt like the Super Bowl in there," Barker said. "I think it's nonsense, this idea that people aren't going to go back to the movies. People love the experience of going to the movie theater, just as they love the experience of going to live theater. It's going to come back. I'm convinced of it."

Barker says his company's leading awards contender, Pedro Almodóvar's "Parallel Mothers," starring Penélope Cruz, has been widely seen by academy members, including recent sold-out screenings at the Landmark in West Los Angeles at which Cruz participated in Q&As afterward.

Cruz, who has won lead actress prizes for the film from the Los Angeles Film Critics Assn. and National Society of Film Critics, was told she didn't have to attend, given the spike in COVID cases. She went ahead and afterward sent Barker a text, telling him, "It was electric in there."

"She was so turned on, she wanted to do more," Barker said, adding that they immediately scheduled an additional event with the actress. "When you love cinema, you want to be around others that share that same love."

Other celebrations that are happening - like one for "Spencer" lead Kristen Stewart at the San Vicente Bungalows last week - have been reduced to low-key, small-scale parties, with attendees submitting their vaccination cards and COVID tests.

For now, while they yearn for the day when they can return to their usual campaign playbooks, weary awards consultants are soldiering on and hoping for the best. As one veteran strategist said, "You throw everything at it and see what sticks."

"Usually, at this time of year I have a pretty good finger on the pulse of where everybody's brains are at, and right now it's hard to say," Yardum said. "There's a lot of great work and we're doing everything we can to make sure that people see that great work. But still, being in a bit of a vacuum, you just have to hope academy members are taking the time to see it."

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No Globes. Omicron. Dismal box office. Awards pros on the Oscar season from hell

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According to the usual rhythms of Oscar season, Hollywood's awards machinery should be running at full steam right now. With Academy Award nominations set to be announced on Feb. 8, stars and industry power players should be swanning from one glamorous cocktail party and glitzy banquet to another.

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GenZ goes back to the bygone era for older fashion styles and makeup looks. Insipirations from Marilyn Manroe as well as other screen stars are shown to come back on the popular app Tik Tok.

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he gen-Z demographic who use TikTok may be too young to remember a time before smartphones, but one of the most popular fashion trends on the app harks back to a bygone era. Opera gloves - as worn by screen stars such as Marilyn Monroe, Audrey Hepburn and Rita Hayworth - are taking off. Videos with the hashtag have had 275,000 views on TikTok. According to a study carried out by Clothes2Order, that represents a Google search increase of 84% in the second half of 2021.

Marilyn Monroe in a publicity shot for Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, 1953. Photograph: Alamy

The surging interest in a clothing item that would once have been worn to an elite cultural event, the opera, has been repurposed over the years and is now being sported by popular musicians and actors. Adele, Olivia Rodrigo and Cardi B and Megan Thee Stallion have worn them in videos, while Julia Fox and Euphoria's Sydney Sweeney have worn them to events. The red carpet at the Fashion Awards in December saw attenders get behind the trend - Demi Moore, Alexa Chung and Kristen McMenamy wore opera gloves. Beyoncé, meanwhile, has made them something of a signature. At the Grammys last year, she sported leather opera gloves with matching dress.

Opera gloves are on the catwalk too - at brands ranging from Valentino to Marc Jacobs, Fendi and Richard Quinn. More accessible labels, often aimed at a younger demographic, are also selling them. Heaven by Marc Jacobs, typically a collection inspired by 1990s club kids, sells dresses with gloves. Kai Collective, a brand established in London in 2016 by fashion blogger Fisayo Longe, has its popular Gaia gloves for £45. And Miscreants, set up by 29-year-old Central Saint Martins graduate Lillie Hand in 2019, has designs using velvet, feathers and bows, worn by women ranging from singer Lizzo to Joan Collins.

In 2022's iteration of this look, gloves are paired with dresses, made in matching prints. When Hand launched Miscreants, the first design was the Cupid little black dress and matching gloves. "Since then, a lot of magazines would just request the gloves," she says. "We built on that, did detachable bows and puffs and the feathers, and it's just got a bit out of control."

Audrey Hepburn as Holly Golightly in Breakfast At Tiffany's, 1961. Photograph: Paramount Pictures/Allstar

Hand believes the popularity on the red carpet has had its impact on the trend: "They're so fashionable at the moment. And obviously every time you see a red carpet then celebrities are mainly wearing gloves. I think they're elegant, they're classy."

It's this classiness - a nod to the glamour of Hollywood's golden age - which gives them a big tick. While gloves have been worn by women for hundreds of years, opera gloves were particularly fashionable in the 1950s. Not only were they worn to the opera, but also by movie stars, and debutantes at their coming out ball and a young Princess Margaret.

"I have an affinity with 50s and 60s couture and gloves are so integral to this look," says designer Richard Quinn. "They are so elegant ... it's an interesting way to extend and finish the silhouette."

Boxsets such as The Crown and Bridgerton have also probably had their part to play in these gloves becoming popular. "They are borderline costume," says Hand. "Since I've started Miscreants, I've noticed everybody likes to dress up."

Hand is fond of dressing up - and praises opera gloves for their adaptability, a surefire plus point for a generation not known for its attention span. "They complete the outfit," she says. "And if you want to dress down, you can just take them off, put them in your bag."

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In love with the glove: the TikTok generation falls for a classic look

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he gen-Z demographic who use TikTok may be too young to remember a time before smartphones, but one of the most popular fashion trends on the app harks back to a bygone era. Opera gloves - as worn by screen stars such as Marilyn Monroe, Audrey Hepburn and Rita Hayworth - are taking off.

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https://www.nytimes.com/live/2022/01/27/arts/pop-culture-entertainment-news#botticelli-sothebys-auction

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Botticelli Valued at $40 Million to Be Sold at Sotheby's Auction

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The painting, which last sold in 1963 for $26,000, is part of a sale of works by old masters Thursday.

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https://www.foxnews.com/politics/video-westchester-new-york-migrants-night-contractors

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Leaked video shows migrants being transported on secret charter flights under the cover of night from southern border states to Westchester, New York.

"The government is betraying the American people," a federal contractor told a Westchester County police officer in a conversation recorded on the officer's body camera on the tarmac of a Westchester airport on Aug. 13, 2021.

The footage was obtained via a Freedom of Information Act request by former Westchester County Executive Rob Astorino. Reports first surfaced of such flights back in October when the New York Post captured video of the scene at the airport in White Plains, New York.

"Our government is completely out of control right now. They have lied to us. They've lied to the American people," Astorino, who is running as a Republican for the governor of New York, said Wednesday on Fox News' "Tucker Carlson Tonight."

Astorino said he personally saw the migrants being put on a bus to a Costco, where they were "then released into cars into the community."

The 51-minute footage of the August incident shows Westchester Police Sgt. Michael Hamborsky peppering federal contractors early in the morning with questions about the after-hours flights and why local police were not provided details.

"You're on a secure facility here; we really don't know anything and we're in charge of security," he told one of the contractors.

"This is anti all our security stuff," Hamborsky said.

Such flights first streamed into the suburban airport from places such as McAllen, and Houston, Texas, last August, according to the New York Post. They only stopped after the outlet captured footage of the scenes back in October.

Employees of MVM Inc., a private security firm that signed a $136 million contract with the federal government last year to transport migrants around the country, were also onboard the flight, the New York Post reported.

"I'm just trying to figure out what's what, who's who and how I'm supposed to keep this secure," Hamborsky told the contractors as he continued asking questions.

"We're not allowed to have our picture taken when we get on base," one contractor told the officer as they began showing him lanyards around their necks.

"Un-f-king-believable," Hamborsky responded. "And who's that by? DHS [Department of Homeland Security]?"

"Yes, and the United States Army," the contractor responded. "You're on a federal installation but DHS wants everything on the down low."

Another contractor told Hamborsky: "Listen, my thing is I like to comply but technically we're not supposed to show IDs or anything. Like I said, everything is supposed to be hush hush."

Hamborsky asked one contractor why they were coming to suburban Westchester, which is about 35 miles outside of New York City.

"You don't want to be in somewhere the spotlight is," the contractor replied. "You want to try and be as down low as possible. A lot of this is just down-low stuff that we don't tell people because what we don't want to do is attract attention. We don't want the media. Like we don't even know where we're going when they tell us."

One of the contractors told the officer later in the video: "I get the whole secrecy and all that s-t but this is even above my f-king pay grade . . . the f- -k, you know what I mean?"

"And why? You know why?" Hamborsky asked.

"You know why, look who's in office. That's why, come on," the contractor said.

"But what's the big secret?" the cop asked.

"You know why. Because if this gets out, the government is betraying the American people," the contractor said.

Hamborsky also asked a bus driver where he is taking the migrants, but the driver said he isn't sure.

"They didn't tell you where it's going?" he asked the bus driver.

"They never do," the driver responded.

Hamborsky later learned that some of the buses were headed to Delaware, Virginia and New Jersey.

"We're a family-owned business," one driver explained. "We're subcontractors of a government contractor . . . It's one of those things you can't turn down because once you sign the contract, you're a slave to the grind."

Astorino told Fox News' Tucker Carlson this video shows a "complete breakdown of our system."

"Now they keep saying 'it's just unaccompanied kids.' Completely a lie. And that these kids were not going to go into our own area. Completely a lie. [They're being put] into schools in Westchester, Long Island, the surrounding suburbs. So it is a complete breakdown of our system. It is a betrayal, as that gentleman said, a betrayal to the American people."

The White House did not immediately respond to Fox News' request for comment on the video.

White House press secretary Jen Psaki said in October that, "It is our legal responsibility to safely care for unaccompanied children until they can be swiftly reunited with a parent or a vetted sponsor."

About 2,000 children flew into the Westchester airport from June to late October, NBC New York reported in the fall. About two million migrants overall came across the Mexico-U.S. border in 2021, according to the New York Post.

President Biden has faced repeated criticism and outrage over his administration's handling of immigration and the migrant crisis at the southern border. Conservatives have slammed the president for ending construction of the border, limiting the ability of ICE to arrest and deport illegal immigrants and terminating asylum cooperative agreements.

The Biden administration also ended the Trump-era Migrant Protection Protocols, which returned migrants to Mexico as they awaited hearings. The program was later restored after the Supreme Court ruled the Biden administration ended it unlawfully.

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Leaked video shows federal contractors flying migrants to suburban NY: 'Betraying the American people'

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Leaked video shows migrants being transported on secret charter flights under the cover of night from southern border states to Westchester, New York. "The government is betraying the American people," a federal contractor told a Westchester County police officer in a conversation recorded on the officer's body camera on the tarmac of a Westchester airport on Aug.

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Breyer’s retirement gives Senate Democrats a chance to show their base they can deliver | CNN Politics

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Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer’s decision to retire arrived like a shot of adrenaline to beleaguered Democrats searching for a way to reanimate a frustrated base that they need to show up in November if they’re to have a chance at keeping control of the Senate.

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https://kesq.com/news/coronavirus/2022/01/25/eisenhower-health-restricts-visitation-amid-covid-surge-no-visitors-allowed-in-emergency-department-and-inpatient-areas/

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Eisenhower Health in Rancho Mirage will be further restricting visitation to hospital patients due to high transmission rates of the COVID cases in the area.

The new guidelines go into effect Wednesday.

A statement on the new visitation guidelines from Eisenhower Health reads:

"To address the ongoing changes with the pandemic, Eisenhower Health has updated its visitation guidelines to change according to current Covid-19 transmission levels in the Coachella Valley. Community transmission levels will be reviewed and Eisenhower's visitation guidelines will be adjusted (or remain the same) each Monday accordingly. Eisenhower Health encourages patients to connect with their loved ones electronically via video chat, phone, or text when the visitation restrictions are most restricted as we know that communicating with loved ones is an important part of a patient's healing and recovery. We thank our incredibly supportive community for their cooperation and understanding as we continue to provide the very best care for our patients."

As you can see in the chart below, the temporary changes include 'no general visitation' for patients in Adult Inpatient, Surgery, the Emergency Department, and other areas.

There are exceptions, of course, and limited caregivers allowed in Pediatric and Birth Center areas.
LEVEL 4 (High Transmission): Inpatient Areas and ED

Adult Inpatient

No general visitation

Pediatric Inpatient

One (1) healthy caregiver

All hours

Two (2) primary caregivers on visitor list for duration of hospitalization. Caregivers can switch twice per day in the hospital lobby.

The Family Birth Center (LDRP)

One (1) healthy visitor

All hours

Visitor is one of the two primary visitors on visitor list. Doulas allowed during the labor phase of admission only.

NICU*

One (1) healthy caregiver

All hours

Overnight caregiver.

Surgery Patients

No general visitation

Escort must wait off-site. Necessary visitation granted by exception.

Special Procedures Unit (Cath Lab & EP Lab)

No general visitation

Escort must wait off-site. Necessary visitation granted by exception.

Emergency Department

No general visitation

All hours

Two (2) visitors are allowed only for patients with specific caregiving needs. Patients with disabilities (physical, intellectual, cognitive impairments and/or developmental disabilities).

Officials said the visitation guidelines will be updated weekly, every Monday. Additional updates will be addressed for any significant shifts impacting visitation.
Go to https://eisenhowerhealth.org/visit/ to get the latest visitation guidelines.
Hospital officials said the hospital has reached a high transmission level. The hospital metrics take into account the Valley's case rate & percent positivity, as well as the hospital's own percent positivity.

According to the hospital, its percent positivity is at 40.6% as of Monday.

According to the hospital, as of last Tuesday, the Coachella Valley's percent positivity was 11.3%.

The hospital has reported between 80-90 COVID patients within the last week and a half.

All visitors to Eisenhower Health are required to wear a face mask when entering the building. The hospital also requires proof of vaccination. Unvaccinated or partially vaccinated visitors will need to present proof of a negative SARS-CoV-2 test collected within 72-hours before each visit, which is in line with CDPH guidelines.

All visitors will be asked to have their temperature taken and asked some COVID-19 health screening questions upon arrival. Visitors who present with visible signs of respiratory illness, COVID-19 symptoms, or present with fever when screened will not be permitted to visit.

Visitor Restrictions for Desert Care Network Hospitals

(Desert Regional Medical Center, JFK Memorial Hospital, Hi-Desert Medical Center)
Click here for latest info on Visitations at Desert Care Network hospitals
The following visitor policy is currently in place at all Desert Care Network hospitals:

Labor & Delivery, Postpartum Patients: One visitor permitted; no substitutions

NICU, Pediatric Patients: Two designated visitors permitted through duration of stay; no substitutions

Surgery Patients: May have one visitor in pre-op/post-op

Emergency Room Patients: No visitors unless medically necessary

COVID-19 Positive Patients: No visitors unless end-of-life

End of Life Patients: Limit of two visitors per patient at a time

All Others: Limit of one visitor at a time; shared occupancy with face shield (issued on unit)

Acute Rehab: No visitation from 9 p.m. to 8 a.m. daily

All visitors and vendors must show proof of being fully vaccinated for COVID-19 (includes booster) or documentation of a negative test in the preceding 24 hours.

Other Guidance for Visitors:

Keep the provided mask on at all times

Gel and wash hands frequently

Restrooms are located at the east end of the main lobby

No gathering in hallways or waiting areas

Proceed directly to and from your friend/family member's room

Maintain social distancing of at least six-feet while moving through the hospital

Limit four people per elevator

Gel in and out of your friend/family member's room

Have your friend/family member wear a mask while you are at the bedside

Refrain from accessing the cafeteria

For those who cannot visit loved ones, Desert Care Network offers online Cheer Cards with customized messages. Click here for more information.

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Eisenhower Health restricts visitation amid COVID surge: No visitors allowed in Emergency Department and inpatient areas - KESQ

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Eisenhower Health in Rancho Mirage will be further restricting visitation to hospital patients due to high transmission rates of the COVID cases in the area. The new guidelines go into effect Wednesday.

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https://www.foxnews.com/politics/squad-black-woman-supreme-court

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Breyer’s retirement from Supreme Court prompts ‘Squad’ to call for Black woman nominee: Biden, ‘you promised’

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Members of the progressive squad called on President Biden to replace Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer with a Black woman.

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https://www.desertsun.com/story/news/2022/01/25/neighborhood-group-protest-palm-springs-homeless-center-plan/9213016002/

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A neighborhood group is organizing a community demonstration protesting the city's plan to locate a center that will provide services to homeless Palm Springs residents near their neighborhood.

The Desert Highland Gateway Estates Community Action Association said the planned protest will take place on Thursday at 4 p.m. at Palm Springs City Hall.

The Palm Springs City Council is scheduled to meet in a closed session at 3:30 p.m. before its regular open session begins at 5:30 p.m. While city council meetings typically are held at city hall, the council has been holding meetings remotely as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic.

On Nov. 4, the council voted 4-1 to move forward with purchasing a 3.64-acre site at 3589 McCarthy Road to convert into a homeless navigation center that would provide a variety of services to homeless residents, including housing, food, mental health services and help securing employment and permanent housing.

Grace Garner, whose District 1 includes Desert Highland Gateway Estates and the McCarthy Road site, cast the sole vote against moving forward with the purchase.

Garner repeatedly said she was concerned about how the city was communicating about the proposed center and the McCarthy Road site with residents. She said she believed the city was rushing to move on the Desert Highland site without knowing what services were going to be provided at the facility.

During the Nov. 4 meeting, several residents of nearby neighborhoods called in to say they were concerned about the decision locate the center in the area, which many residents said struggles with poverty, crime and other problems that they are working hard to address.

That sentiment was also voiced in a letter from the organization announcing the planned demonstration and explaining why it doesn't think the site is a good fit for the center.

"As a community we have our own problems with substance abuse, mental health and violence," read the letter. "Locating a Homeless Navigation Center within our neighborhood would negatively impact our quality of life."

The letter also notes that the center would be immediately adjacent to both single-family and multi-family communities and have potential impacts on residents and businesses nearby.

The Palm Springs View Apartment community is located across McCarthy Road from the proposed site while the Palm Springs Villas 2 gated community is located to the southwest. Palm Springs Villas 1, which is not gated, is located across San Rafael Road.

Garages containing several car-related businesses are also located across McCarthy Road. Desert Highland Gateway Estates, a historically Black neighborhood, is located to the north and east.
Following the meeting, some people who live and work nearby said they supported locating the center in their neighborhood, while others expressed concerns about issues like the impact it could have on kids in the neighborhood.
Palm Springs City Manager Justin Clifton has repeatedly argued that the center will be a much-needed positive for the entire community and that there is not evidence that neighborhood residents should be worried about the location of it within their community.

He said the Palm Springs Access Center and United Methodist Church, which both currently provide more limited services to homeless residents than would be provided at the center, have not led to negative impacts on their surrounding neighborhoods. He said that is likely because the population that would seek services at the center is made up of people who are interested in getting help, not causing trouble, and would be living at the center while they get that help.

"I think that's really evidence that there is a large unhoused population that just needs help and are engaged in getting that help and don't bring about the same kind of secondary impacts you see at Baristo Park," Clifton said in October.

Clifton has also said that having a center available would allow the city to take steps to remove homeless residents from city streets and visible locations such as Baristo Park, which have become associated with public drug use and dealing.

At Thursday's meeting, the city council is set to consider several agreements related to the center, including one with Riverside County to jointly fund the purchase of the McCarthy Road property and a second with Coachella Valley homelessness services provider Martha's Kitchen to operate the center.

That meeting comes after the county approved $5.74 million in initial funding toward the center Tuesday. The county is expected to contribute a total of $7 million to the center, with the initial $5.74 million going toward the purchase of the center and the remaining county money going to convert the property and buildings into the center.

The city of Palm Springs, meanwhile, will contribute $5.3 million to fund the rest of the purchase and the initial operation of the center. The city and county are also seeking grant funds to help fund the continued operation of the site.

The city is currently in escrow to buy the property but must close the deal by Jan. 28, according to a memo by City Attorney Jeffrey Ballinger outlining the current agreement.

During the Jan. 13 council meeting, Clifton said the city was exploring securing an extension of the escrow with the owner of the property. However, it does not appear that an extension was secured and was unclear whether the city had continued to pursue one once it became clear it and the county would have funds in place to complete the property purchase by the deadline.
Previous reporting from The Desert Sun reporter Tom Coulter was included in this story. Paul Albani-Burgio covers breaking news and the City of Palm Springs. Follow him on Twitter at @albaniburgiop and via email at paul.albani-burgio@desertsun.com.

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Desert Highland neighborhood group organizing protest of Palm Springs homeless center plan

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A neighborhood group is organizing a community demonstration protesting the city's plan to locate a center that will provide services to homeless Palm Springs residents near their neighborhood. The Desert Highland Gateway Estates Community Action Association said the planned protest will take place on Thursday at 4 p.m.

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KYIV, Ukraine (AP) -- Ukraine's leaders sought Tuesday to reassure the nation that an invasion from neighboring Russia was not imminent, even as they acknowledged the threat is real and received a shipment of U.S. military equipment to shore up their defenses.

Moscow has denied it is planning an assault, but it has massed an estimated 100,000 troops near Ukraine in recent weeks and is holding military drills at multiple locations in Russia. That has led the United States and its NATO allies to rush to prepare for a possible war.

U.S. President Joe Biden told reporters that Russian President Vladimir Putin "continues to build forces along Ukraine's border," and an attack "would be the largest invasion since World War II. It would change the world."

Several rounds of high stakes diplomacy have failed to yield any breakthroughs, and tensions escalated further this week. NATO said it was bolstering its deterrence in the Baltic Sea region, and the U.S. ordered 8,500 troops on higher alert for potential deployment to Europe as part of an alliance "response force" if necessary. British Prime Minister Boris Johnson also said he is prepared to send troops to protect NATO allies in Europe.

"We have no intention of putting American forces or NATO forces in Ukraine," Biden said, adding that there would be serious economic consequences for Putin, including personal sanctions, in the event of an invasion.

In a show of European unity in Berlin, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz and French President Emmanuel Macron called for an easing of the crisis.

"We ... expect clear steps from Russia that will contribute to a de-escalation of the situation," Scholz said.

Macron, who said he would talk with President Vladimir Putin by phone Friday, added: "If there is aggression, there will be retaliation and the cost will be very high."

The U.S. and its allies have vowed to hit Russia with sanctions like never before if Moscow sends its military into Ukraine but they have provided few details, saying it's best to keep Putin guessing.

The U.S. State Department has ordered the families of all American personnel at the U.S. Embassy in Kyiv to leave the country, and it said that nonessential embassy staff could leave. Britain said it, too, was withdrawing some diplomats and dependents from its embassy, and families of Canadian diplomatic staff also have been told to leave.

In Ukraine, however, authorities have sought to project calm in order not to destabilize the situation and avoid panic -- and many citizens have expressed skepticism that there will be an invasion soon.

Speaking in the second televised speech to the nation in as many days, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy urged Ukrainians not to panic.

"We are strong enough to keep everything under control and derail any attempts at destabilization," he said.

The decision by the U.S., Britain, Australia, Germany and Canada to withdraw some of their diplomats and dependents from Kyiv "doesn't necessarily signal an inevitable escalation and is part of a complex diplomatic game," he said. "We are working together with our partners as a single team."

Defense Minister Oleksii Reznikov told parliament that "as of today, there are no grounds to believe" Russia is preparing to invade imminently, noting that its troops have not formed what he called a battle group that could force its way through the border.

"Don't worry, sleep well," he said. "No need to have your bags packed."

In an interview late Monday, however, he acknowledged that "there are risky scenarios" that "are possible and probable in the future."

Russia has said Western accusations it is planning an attack are merely a cover for NATO's own planned provocations. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov again accused the U.S. of "fomenting tensions" around Ukraine, a former Soviet state that has been in a conflict with Russia for almost eight years.

Moscow has rejected Western demands to pull its troops back from areas near Ukraine, saying it will deploy and train them wherever necessary on its territory as a response to what it called "hostile" moves by the U.S. and its allies. Thousands of troops from Russia's Southern and Western Military Districts took part Tuesday in readiness drills in those regions in maneuvers involving Iskander missiles and dozens of warplanes.

In 2014, following the ouster of a Kremlin-friendly president in Kyiv, Moscow annexed Ukraine's Crimean Peninsula and threw its weight behind a separatist insurgency in the country's eastern industrial heartland. Fighting between Ukrainian forces and Russia-backed rebels has killed over 14,000 people, and efforts to reach a settlement have stalled.

In the latest standoff, Russia wants guarantees from the West that NATO will never admit Ukraine as a member and that the alliance would curtail other actions, such as stationing troops in former Soviet bloc countries. Some of these, like the membership pledge, are nonstarters for NATO, creating a seemingly intractable stalemate that many fear can only end in a war.

Moscow has accused Ukraine of massing troops near rebel-controlled regions to retake them by force -- accusations Kyiv has rejected.

Analysts say Ukraine's leaders are caught between trying to calm the nation and ensuring it gets sufficient assistance from the West in case of an invasion.

"Ukrainian authorities are trying to prevent destabilization and panic inside the country, hence the calming statements saying there is no threat of an imminent Russian invasion," political analyst Volodymyr Fesenko said.

"The Kremlin's plans include undermining the situation inside Ukraine, fomenting hysteria and fear among Ukrainians, and the authorities in Kyiv find it increasingly difficult to contain this snowball," he added.

The crisis didn't stop a large group of people from rallying in front of the parliament in Kyiv, demanding changes to the country's tax regulations and even clashing with police at one point.

Other Ukrainians watched warily.

"Of course we fear Russia's aggression and a war, which will lead to the further impoverishment of Ukrainians. But we will be forced to fight and defend ourselves," said Dmytro Ugol, a 46-year-old construction worker in Kyiv. "I am prepared to fight, but my entire family doesn't want it and lives in tension. Every day, the news scares us more and more."

Putting U.S.-based troops on heightened alert for Europe on Monday suggested diminishing hope in the West that Putin will back away from what U.S. President Joe Biden himself has said looks like a threat to invade Ukraine.

The Pentagon said Tuesday it is still identifying the roughly 8,500 U.S. troops being placed on higher alert for possible deployment to Europe, and said that more could be tapped if needed. The U.S. is still in "active consultation" with allies about the capabilities they might need, said press secretary John Kirby.

As part of a new $200 million in security assistance directed to Ukraine from the United States, a shipment including equipment and munitions arrived Tuesday in Ukraine, according to Deputy Defense Minister Hanna Maliar.

If Russia invades, "we will provide additional defensive material to the Ukrainians, above and beyond what we have already sent," U.S. Chargé d'Affaires in Ukraine Kristina Kvien said at the airport.

"And let me underscore that Russian soldiers sent to Ukraine at the behest of the Kremlin will face fierce resistance. The losses to Russia will be heavy," Kvien said.

The U.S. moves are being done in tandem with actions by other NATO members to bolster a defensive presence in Eastern Europe. Denmark is sending a frigate and F-16 warplanes to Lithuania; Spain is sending four fighter jets to Bulgaria and three ships to the Black Sea to join NATO naval forces, and France stands ready to send troops to Romania.

Biden's national security team has been working with several European nations, the European Commission, and global suppliers on contingency plans if Russia cuts off energy, according to two senior administration officials who briefed reporters about efforts to mitigate spillover effects from potential military action. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the deliberations.

If needed, Europe would look to natural gas supplies in North Africa, the Middle East, Asia and the U.S. The effort would require "rather smaller volumes from a multitude of sources" to make up for a Russian cutoff, according to one official.

---

Ellen Knickmeyer, Lolita Baldor and Aamer Madhani in Washington, Dasha Litvinova and Vladimir Isachenkov in Moscow, Kirsten Grieshaber in Berlin, Barbara Surk in Nice, France, and Sylvia Hui in London contributed.

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Ukrainian leaders: Stay calm, Russian invasion not imminent

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KYIV, Ukraine (AP) -- Ukraine's leaders sought Tuesday to reassure the nation that an invasion from neighboring Russia was not imminent, even as they acknowledged the threat is real and received a shipment of U.S. military equipment to shore up their defenses.

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https://www.cnn.com/2022/01/25/asia/us-f-35-crash-recovery-south-china-sea-intl-hnk-ml/index.html

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The United States Navy is trying to retrieve its most advanced fighter jet from the depths of the South China Sea, an extremely complex operation that analysts say will be closely monitored by Beijing.

The F-35C, a single-engine stealth fighter and the newest jet in the US Navy fleet, crash-landed on the aircraft carrier USS Carl Vinson during routine operations on Monday, the Navy said.

The $100 million warplane impacted the flight deck of the 100,000-ton aircraft carrier and then fell into the sea as its pilot ejected, Navy officials said. The pilot and six sailors aboard the Vinson were injured.

While damage to the Vinson was only superficial, and it and the carrier's air wing have resumed normal operations, the Navy faces the daunting task of attempting to pull the F-35 off the ocean floor in some of the most contested waters on the planet.

The Navy is giving scant details on its recovery plans for the F-35C, the first of which only became operational in 2019.

"The US Navy is making recovery operations arrangements for the F-35C aircraft involved in the mishap aboard USS Carl Vinson" is all a spokesman for the US 7th Fleet, Lt. Nicholas Lingo, would tell CNN on Wednesday.

Though the Navy has not revealed where in the South China Sea the crash occurred, Beijing claims almost all of the 1.3 million square mile (3.3 million square kilometer) waterway as its territory and has bolstered its claims by building up and militarizing reefs and islands there.

Chinese naval and coast guard vessels maintain a constant presence in South China Sea waters.

The US disputes those Chinese territorial claims and uses deployments like the one the Vinson was on to push its case for a "free and open Indo-Pacific."

There has been no official Chinese comment on the crash, with state media reporting it only citing "foreign media."

But China will almost certainly want to get a look at the lost F-35, analysts said.

"China will try to locate and survey it thoroughly using submarines and one of its deep diving submersibles," said Carl Schuster, a former director of operations at the US Pacific Command's Joint Intelligence Center in Hawaii.

Schuster, a former US Navy captain, said it's possible China could make a claim for the salvage rights based on its territorial claims in the South China Sea.

"Salvaging the plane with commercial and coast guard assets will enable Beijing to claim it is recovering a potential environmental hazard or foreign military equipment from its territorial waters," Schuster said.

But such an operation would present political risks, said Collin Koh, research fellow at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies in Singapore.

"To overtly go about doing this may risk worsening tensions with the US. I don't believe Beijing has stomach for that," he said.

"However, we can expect the Chinese to shadow, hang around and keep tabs on any such American salvage and recovery operation," Koh said.

Schuster said the US Navy will likely keep some presence in the area where the wreckage is believed to be in an operation that could take months, depending upon how deep under the South China Sea the F-35 is.

US salvage vessels are 10 to 15 days transit time to the site, Schuster said, and recovery once there could take up to 120 days.

Asked whether the US could just destroy the wreckage with a torpedo or an explosive charge, analysts said that was unlikely.

"My question is whether you truly leave behind nothing of potentially consequential intelligence bonanza amongst the scattered smithereens on the seabed - which any interested party with the capability may still retrieve after all?" Koh said.

This US Navy recovery effort will mark the third time a country flying the F-35 has tried to pull one from the depths.

Last November, a British F-35B crashed on takeoff from the deck of its aircraft carrier HMS Queen Elizabeth into the Mediterranean Sea. Britain's Defense Ministry confirmed to news outlets in early January that it had been recovered in December amid worries the sunken aircraft could have been a target for Russian intelligence.

And after a Japanese F-35A crashed into the Pacific in 2019, worries emerged that it could be a target for Russian and Chinese intelligence.

But only small pieces of the Japanese aircraft were recovered by Japan as that plane is thought to have hit the water at full speed.

In the case of the Mediterranean crash and this week's mishap, the planes were moving more slowly, so more of the wreckage is be expected to be found.

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US Navy wants to get crashed stealth fighter back -- before China can | CNN

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The United States Navy is trying to retrieve its most advanced fighter jet from the depths of the South China Sea, an extremely complex operation that analysts say will be closely monitored by Beijing. The F-35C, a single-engine stealth fighter and the newest jet in the US Navy fleet, crash-landed on the aircraft carrier USS Carl Vinson during routine operations on Monday, the Navy said.

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https://www.nytimes.com/2022/01/26/learning/lesson-plans/lesson-of-the-day-can-the-west-stop-russia-from-invading-ukraine.html

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Lesson of the Day: ‘How the Ukraine Crisis Developed, and Where It Might Be Headed’

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In this lesson, students will learn about the unfolding conflict between Russia and Ukraine, and consider what is at stake for the rest of the world.

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Updated 1/25/2022 10:25 PM

MIAMI -- The U.S. Coast Guard searched on Tuesday for 39 people missing for several days after a boat believed to be used for human smuggling capsized off Florida's coast en route from the Bahamas.

A good Samaritan called the Coast Guard early Tuesday after rescuing a man clinging to the boat 45 miles (72 kilometers) east of Fort Pierce, the maritime security agency reported on Twitter.

The man said he was with a group of 39 others that left the island of Bimini in the Bahamas on Saturday night. He said the boat capsized in severe weather and that no one was wearing life jackets.

The survivor was brought to a hospital for symptoms of dehydration and sun exposure.

The Coast Guard is calling it a suspected human smuggling case. Officials said on Twitter that they are searching by both air and sea over a roughly 135-mile (218-kilometer) area extending from Bimini to the Fort Pierce Inlet.

A cold front late Saturday brought rough weather to the Bimini area. Tommy Sewell, a local bonefishing guide, said there were 20-mph (32-kph) winds and fierce squalls of rain on Sunday into Monday.

Migrants have long used the islands of the Bahamas as a steppingstone to reach Florida and the United States. They typically try to take advantage of breaks in the weather to make the crossing, but the vessels are often dangerously overloaded and prone to capsizing. There have been thousands of deaths over the years.

The Coast Guard patrols the waters around Haiti, the Dominican Republic, Cuba and the Bahamas.

For the most part, the migrants are from Haiti and Cuba but the Royal Bahamas Defense Force has reported apprehending migrants from other parts of the world, including from Colombia and Ecuador earlier this month.

On Friday, the Coast Guard found 88 Haitians in an overloaded sail freighter west of Great Inagua, Bahamas.

'œNavigating the Florida straits, Windward and Mona Passages ... is extremely dangerous and can result in loss of life,' the Coast Guard said in a statement last weekend.

Last July, the Coast Guard rescued 13 people after their boat capsized off of Key West as Tropical Storm Elsa approached.

The survivors said they had left Cuba with 22 people aboard. Nine went missing in the water.

___

Associated Press writer Ben Fox in Washington contributed to this report.

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Capsized boat found near Florida; 39 people missing

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Updated 1/25/2022 10:25 PM MIAMI -- The U.S. Coast Guard searched on Tuesday for 39 people missing for several days after a boat believed to be used for human smuggling capsized off Florida's coast en route from the Bahamas.

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LONDON - Police officers in England arrested two more men on Wednesday in connection with a hostage situation at a Texas synagogue earlier this month.

A British man, Malik Faisal Akram, 44, who took four people hostage at the synagogue in Colleyville, Texas, was killed during the rescue that helped free the hostages unharmed.

Mr. Akram lived in Blackburn in northern England. The men arrested on Wednesday were taken into custody in the nearby city of Manchester as part of a local investigation by counterterrorism officers from the region, the police said in a statement, adding that they were "working closely with" the authorities in the United States. The men arrested on Wednesday were not identified, but the police said they remained in custody "for questioning."

The arrests came after revelations from British and American officials that Mr. Akram, 44, had been "a subject of interest" on a security watch list of MI5, Britain's domestic counterintelligence service. An investigation in 2020 by the agency concluded that Mr. Akram was not a terrorist threat at that time.

Many details remain unclear about why Mr. Akram decided to travel to the United States before the New Year and why he targeted the Congregation Beth Israel synagogue in Colleyville on Jan. 15. Mr. Akram's brother, Gulbar Akram, described him after the hostage-taking as a deeply troubled man with mental health issues, but did not provide more details.

During an hourslong standoff, the F.B.I. said that Mr. Akram referred to Aafia Siddiqui, a Pakistani neuroscientist who was sentenced to 86 years in prison in 2010 for trying to kill American military officers in Afghanistan.

Experts have said that opposition to Ms. Siddiqui's imprisonment has become a cause cited by jihadist militants in several countries. She is serving her sentence at a prison in Fort Worth, 24 miles from the synagogue that Mr. Akram targeted.

He was killed in the ensuing gunfire, after the last of the hostages emerged and a F.B.I. team entered the synagogue.

Local British police have made several previous arrests in relation to the standoff in Texas. Two teenagers were arrested on Jan. 16. in Manchester and later released without charge. The police said they had also searched an address in Manchester.

Two other men from the cities of Birmingham and Manchester were arrested for questioning on Jan 20. The police have appealed to the public to "remain vigilant" and to report any suspicious behavior.

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2 More Arrested in U.K. in Case Linked to Texas Synagogue Standoff

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LONDON - Police officers in England arrested two more men on Wednesday in connection with a hostage situation at a Texas synagogue earlier this month. A British man, Malik Faisal Akram, 44, who took four people hostage at the synagogue in Colleyville, Texas, was killed during the rescue that helped free the hostages unharmed.

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WASHINGTON - Justice Stephen Breyer will step down from the Supreme Court at the end of the current term, according to people familiar with his thinking.

President Joe Biden and Breyer are scheduled to appear together at the White House Thursday as the Supreme Court justice is set to announce his retirement, a source familiar with the matter confirmed to NBC News.

Breyer is one of the three remaining liberal justices, and his decision to retire after more than 27 years on the court allows Biden to appoint a successor who could serve for decades and, in the short term, maintain the current 6-3 split between conservative and liberal justices.

At 83, Breyer is the court's oldest member. Liberal activists have urged him for months to retire while Democrats hold both the White House and the Senate - a position that could change after the midterm elections in November. They contended that Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg stayed too long despite her history of health problems and should have stepped down during the Obama administration.

Ginsburg's death from cancer at 87 allowed then-President Donald Trump to appoint her successor, Amy Coney Barrett, moving the court further to the right. An appointment by Biden could keep Breyer's seat on the liberal side of the court for years or decades to come.

Biden said in brief remarks to the press on Wednesday that he will leave it to Breyer to formally announce the retirement.

"Let him make whatever statement he's going to make and I'll be happy to talk about it later," he said.

White House press secretary Jen Psaki had earlier tweeted a statement, saying, "It has always been the decision of any Supreme Court Justice if and when they decide to retire, and how they want to announce it, and that remains the case today." The White House had no additional details or information to share, she added.

Erwin Chemerinsky, dean of the University of California Berkeley School of Law, urged Breyer to retire in a Washington Post op-ed article in May, writing that there are times "when the stewards of our system must put the good of an institution they love, and of the country they love, above their own interests. They have to recognize that no one, not even a brilliant justice, is irreplaceable, and that the risks presented by remaining are more than hypothetical."

Biden promised on the campaign trail to nominate a Black woman to the court. In the wake of Breyer's announcement, there was an outpouring of statements calling for him to follow through. The progressive group Demand Justice hired a truck last year to drive around Washington with the sign: "Breyer Retire. It's time for a Black woman Supreme Court justice."

Among likely contenders are U.S. Circuit Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson of the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia, a former Breyer law clerk; and Leondra Kruger, a justice on California's Supreme Court.

Jackson, formerly a district court judge in Washington, was nominated by Biden to the U.S. Circuit Court and was confirmed by the Senate in mid-June on a 53-44 vote, including three Republicans. She succeeded Merrick Garland, who left the appeals court to become Biden's attorney general.

Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., was among those who issued a statement soon after the news of Breyer's impending retirement, calling on Biden to uphold his pledge to nominate a Black woman as the next justice.

"The court should reflect the diversity of our country, and it is unacceptable that we have never in our nation's history had a Black woman sit on the Supreme Court of the United States - I want to change that," she said.

Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin, D-Ill., echoed those sentiments in a tweet, saying Biden has the opportunity to bring "diversity, experience, and an evenhanded approach to the administration of justice."

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said Biden's nominee will "receive a prompt hearing in the Senate Judiciary Committee, and will be considered and confirmed by the full United States Senate with all deliberate speed."

"America owes Justice Breyer an enormous debt of gratitude," Schumer added.

Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, who voted for Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan, said if Democrats "hang together," as he expects, they will have the power to replace Breyer without one Republican vote.

"Elections have consequences, and that is most evident when it comes to fulfilling vacancies on the Supreme Court," Graham said in a statement.

Despite calls from some Biden supporters to add more seats to the Supreme Court to counter its current conservative lean, Breyer said in March that such a move would risk undermining confidence in the court. Advocates of court packing, he said, should "think long and hard before embodying those changes in law."

Appointed by President Bill Clinton, Breyer came to the Supreme Court in 1994 and became one of the court's moderate-to-liberal members, though he often said it was misleading to label justices with such terms.

Breyer believed that interpreting the Constitution should be based on practical considerations, changing with the times. That put him at odds with conservative justices who said the court must be guided by the original intent of the founders.

"The reason that I do that is because law in general, I think, grows out of communities of people who have some problems they want to solve," he said in an interview.

Breyer wrote the court's opinion striking down a state law that banned some late-term abortions in 2000 and dissented seven years later, when the Supreme Court upheld a similar federal law passed by Congress. He supported affirmative action and other civil rights measures. And in a widely noted dissent in 2015, he said the death penalty in America had become so arbitrary that it was probably unconstitutional.

Biden is expected to act quickly to nominate a successor who can be ready to serve when the court's new term begins Oct. 3. A former chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Biden knows firsthand how the confirmation process works.

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Justice Stephen Breyer to retire from Supreme Court, paving way for Biden appointment

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WASHINGTON - Justice Stephen Breyer will step down from the Supreme Court at the end of the current term, according to people familiar with his thinking. President Joe Biden and Breyer are scheduled to appear together at the White House Thursday as the Supreme Court justice is set to announce his retirement, a source familiar with the matter confirmed to NBC News.

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Nestling among pastures and streams on the shores of a New England lake, Bradford, New Hampshire (population: 1,662), is a place where nothing much of note ever happens. It has a single set of traffic lights and one of the lowest crime rates in America.

So when the noise of two small planes flying high overhead broke the peaceful dawn one summer morning in 2020, puzzled residents soon realised something was afoot.

Dick Morris, a carpenter, first heard a buzzing noise at 5am. 'At first I thought it was a paraplane - basically an engine with a seat and parachute, which is common around here. You hear one for ten minutes and it's gone. But this went on and on.

'I went out to load my truck at 7am and the plane was still going. I thought, 'What the heck is this guy doing? Then I noticed another high-altitude plane, so there were two buzzing round and round.'

Another local came across a queue of 15 vehicles stationary in the main road, and demanded to know who the drivers were and what they were doing. He was told they were from the New England Aerial Map Society. Unfortunately for those who were trying to hide their identities that July morning, the man was an expert on geology and maps - and he knew the New England Aerial Map Society didn't exist.

Becoming very suspicious, he asked to look inside one of the vans but was brusquely told it was off-limits. At this point, seriously alarmed, he asked his wife to call the police.

By now, most of the town was awake, trading all kinds of theories about the sudden influx of strangers. No one, however, guessed the truth: that the convoy was gearing up to raid the well-hidden lair of Ghislaine Maxwell, former girlfriend and confidante of billionaire paedophile Jeffrey Epstein, while FBI spotter planes hovered above in case she tried to escape.

Maxwell had moved to Bradford seven months previously. She paid $1 million in cash for a four-bedroom, mountain-top property set in 156 acres of woodland.

The payment was made through a limited company to hide her identity. The broker who made the sale claimed that a British man attended the viewing and had put the company name Granite Reality LLC on the purchasing paperwork.

The firm was registered to an address in Boston shared by several companies, including a law firm that had previously acted on behalf of Ms Maxwell.

'They said they didn't want the buyer's name known, so I thought it must be a movie star,' said the broker. 'She wanted to know details of flight patterns over the house, which was very strange.'

The property was the perfect bolthole, with breathtaking views from every room to the Mount Sunapee foothills to the west, and described by Sotheby's estate agency arm as 'a stunning custom-designed timber-frame home and an amazing retreat for the nature lover who also wants total privacy'.

According to U.S. attorney Alison Moe, Maxwell posed as a journalist called Jen Marshall to secretly purchase the sprawling hideaway.

'The estate agent told the FBI agent that the buyers for the house introduced themselves as Scott and Jen Marshall. Both had British accents,' said Moe. 'Scott Marshall explained that he was retired from the British military and was currently working on a book. Jen Marshall described herself as a journalist.'

And there Ghislaine Maxwell lived quietly for seven months, minding her own business and sending her British bodyguards out to do her shopping.

Later, Lois Kilnapp, the boss of Bradford's recycling tip, recalled that a long-haired British man, aged around 40, had been coming there to dump materials since the previous December.

'I became very friendly with him,' she said. 'I used to joke with him that he was the Duke of Sussex because he led me to believe he owned [Ghislaine's] home.'

In March 2020, the man told Ms Kilnapp that he was heading back to the UK and introduced a second Brit to her, who took over recycling duties. Like the first man, he was 'big and rugged', said Ms Kilnapp. 'I'd guess they were ex-military.'

Maxwell was clearly taking no chances: she had been hiring security men with experience in the Special Forces, at an estimated cost of a quarter of a million dollars.

By July 2, 2020, the day of the FBI raid, she had been on the run for a year while wanted for her alleged role in disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein's child sex trafficking ring.

That morning, at 8.20am, the convoy of FBI agents set off into the New Hampshire woods. Heading a quarter of a mile up a steep dirt road, they passed a granite slab with the name 'Tuckedaway' carved in it and finally came to a halt in front of brand new metal security gates.

An FBI agent cut through the padlock. Then 24 agents stormed forward. Two officers from the Internet Crimes Against Children task force were also on hand.

Through a window, the approaching agents saw a woman wearing a T-shirt and jogging bottoms. She ignored their instructions to open the door and fled into an interior room, slamming a door behind her.

This was no courtesy call and the FBI did not knock politely on the front door. Instead, they used a battering ram to smash it down along with half the front wall, unhindered by Maxwell's security guards.

Bursting into the room where she had sought sanctuary, the FBI quickly handcuffed her.

'Strangely, she didn't seem to have much reaction. It was like it wasn't registering with her,' said an arresting officer.

By 8.38am, the socialite friend of Prince Andrew and former girlfriend and confidante of Jeffrey Epstein, who had died in jail the previous year, was in the custody of the FBI.

For almost 12 months, she had eluded them.

There had been rumours that she was in a hideaway in Brazil, a safe house in Israel or in Russia. She had also been reported as living in the quiet Massachusetts seaside town of Manchester-by-the-Sea, in the mansion of her husband Scott Borgerson, who denied any contact.

Then a picture emerged of her eating a burger and fries outside In-N-Out Burger in Los Angeles, while reading The Book Of Honour: The Secret Lives And Deaths Of CIA Operatives, but the photograph had clearly been set up.

Meanwhile, a Dutch investigator, Hank van Ess, had claimed on Twitter that he had mapped Maxwell's movements across the U.S. for 50 days from Doylestown, Pennsylvania, where she had visited a Dunkin' Donuts, to Bedford, New Hampshire, near where she was arrested.

He described how he had first managed to identify her computer's address by establishing that emails to her defunct non-profit environmental organisation, the TerraMar Project, and messages sent to another of her email addresses were being opened by the same mobile phone. This allowed him to establish which mobile phone mast she was near and plot her locations on a map.

During a search of her house, FBI agents found a mobile phone wrapped in tin foil - perhaps in the mistaken belief that the foil would shield it from detection.

On her bedside table they found a copy of the book Relentless Pursuit: My Fight For The Victims Of Jeffrey Epstein, by Bradley Edwards, a lawyer who represented 56 of Epstein's alleged victims.

As the holder of a French passport, Maxwell could easily have fled to France - the country of her birth 58 years previously - which has no extradition treaty with the U.S. Instead, although she moved up to 20 times during her year on the run, she didn't once leave America.

'I would say she moved around three times a month. She took flights as well,' a friend said. 'Ghislaine has been constantly on the move throughout the last year.'

The same friend claimed, somewhat implausibly: 'Security guards were by her side due to death threats. She was never running from the Feds. She was running from journalists and crazy people who wanted to kill her. It was a serious problem. Her location was on a need-to-know basis.'

Having eventually settled into her New Hampshire hideaway, along with a pet cat and two dogs, she spent her days cooking, exercising and reading books -including one by Boris Johnson, who had been a contemporary of hers at Oxford University.

'She did go out, but not often,' the friend said. 'Obviously, with coronavirus, people were wearing masks - it made things easier for her.'

A source familiar with the hunt for Maxwell said: 'This has taken millions of dollars and hundreds of man-hours. At least five million bucks, maybe more. The FBI has been tracking her for a year.

'They had her, then they lost her. She was in Colorado and Wyoming, then they lost her until she showed up in New Hampshire. It has been a high-stakes game of cat and mouse.

'They had to build a case and put it in front of a grand jury. These things take time. She slipped through the net once but as soon as the grand jury came back with an indictment, it was on.'

Meanwhile, Maxwell's cat had bolted just as the FBI broke in, and there were worries it might be killed by a bear or porcupine.

'There were security people and highly paid lawyers out there looking in the woods,' said a source close to the investigation. 'No one wanted any harm to come to this poor creature.'

The search went on for four days before the cat was found. It is highly unlikely ever to see its mistress again.

For her part, Maxwell had been taken from the comfort of her country retreat to Merrimack County Jail, 20 miles away.

The reception there was bleak. An insider at the prison said: 'The general opinion of her at Merrimack was that she's a snooty rich b****. Nobody wanted anything to do with her.'

After four days in the jail, she was transported in handcuffs and shackles to the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn, where she has been ever since.

Following her conviction last month on five out of six charges for sex trafficking, the woman who long ago cast aside morality for money, now aged 60, faces a life with neither freedom nor money.

Her lawyers have said they intend to appeal. But even if she escapes spending the rest of her life in prison, civil lawsuits brought by her victims are likely to drain what remains of her tainted fortune, estimated at nearly $30 million.

Adapted from Ghislaine Maxwell, by Nigel Cawthorne, published by Gibson Square, £9.99. © Nigel Cawthorne 2022. To order a copy for £8.99, go to mailshop.co.uk/books or call 020 3176 2937. Free UK delivery on orders over £20. Offer price valid until 31/01/2022.

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New book reveals how the FBI finally ran Ghislaine Maxwell to ground

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Nestling among pastures and streams on the shores of a New England lake, Bradford, New Hampshire (population: 1,662), is a place where nothing much of note ever happens. It has a single set of traffic lights and one of the lowest crime rates in America.

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ancient arab temple art reveals hybrid camels - cnn

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Ancient temple art reveals how a small kingdom demonstrated its might

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Evidence of ancient hybrid camels has been uncovered by archaeologists who were working to restore a temple in Iraq damaged by ISIS. Although this husbandry practice has been associated with powerful empires, camel breeding also occurred in smaller kingdoms.

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Written by Sana Noor Haq, CNN

A 12-year-old illustrator has signed a deal with Nike, his agency confirmed to CNN on Wednesday.

Joe Whale, who goes by the name "The Doodle Boy" on social media, will be collaborating with the global sports brand "on some special projects."

"We are so very excited to confirm that Joe is now part of the Nike Family," his agency, Loveblood Creative, told CNN in a written statement.

"It really is a unique relationship that puts Joe's talent and love of sport together to inspire others to have fun and do what they love."

"Joe is really excited to join the Nike Family, he absolutely loves the Brand," Joe's father, Gregory Whale, told CNN via email.

"It is a dream come true for him as he loves both Sport and creativity and partnering with Nike will give him the opportunity to embrace both."

Joe posts his illustrations to his 119,000 followers on Instagram. Last year he had his first solo show at the Soden Collection, an art gallery in his home town of Shrewsbury, central England, according to the gallery's website.

His artwork was endorsed by Prince William and Catherine, the Duchess of Cambridge, after he drew an illustration of their royal train tour in December 2020.

In a post on their official Twitter account at the time they thanked him saying, "keep up the great work!"

Joe's favorite things to illustrate are aliens, monsters and food, according to his website. He has created characters including the "Praying Turtle," "Cool Dog" and "Backpack kid."

CNN has reached out to Nike for comment.

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'The Doodle Boy,' a 12-year-old illustrator, lands deal with Nike

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Written by Sana Noor Haq, CNN A 12-year-old illustrator has signed a deal with Nike, his agency confirmed to CNN on Wednesday. Joe Whale, who goes by the name "The Doodle Boy" on social media, will be collaborating with the global sports brand "on some special projects."

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Axel Barragan

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Nearly a week after the Biden administration announced it will deploy 400 million free N95 masks to the public, the high-quality face coverings are starting to arrive at pharmacies and grocery stores.

"Every person is allowed up to 3 free masks pending availability," the Department of Health and Human Services states.

The White House launched its latest effort to combat COVID-19 following new recommendations from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The CDC now says cloth masks are no longer as effective in preventing the spread of the highly contagious omicron variant of the coronavirus and that people should wear an N95 or KN95 mask.

The coveted nonsurgical N95 masks are coming from the Strategic National Stockpile, which has more than 750 million of them on hand. The program, which is also distributing the free masks to community health centers around the country, is ramping up in coming days and should be up and fully operational by early February.

Where can I get mine?

On Monday, Meijer, which operates more than 250 groceries and pharmacies throughout the Midwest, said the stores had received an estimated 3 million masks.

"The N95 masks will be in boxes set on a table near the Meijer Greeter stand of the grocery entrance," the company said. "The Greeter, who will be wearing gloves, will place the N95 masks in piles of three for the customers to take."

Kroger stores with pharmacies will also be doling out the masks throughout the chain's Midwest and Southwest locations. Spokeswoman Kristal Howard said the first allotment of masks is expected to arrive on Thursday.

Walgreens is also participating in the distribution program, and on Tuesday, spokesman Scott Goldberg told NPR the masks will be made available for free while supplies last.

"We expect the first stores to begin offering masks on Friday, Jan. 28 and will continue on a rolling basis in the days and weeks following," Goldberg said, explaining that customers are limited to three masks per person. "Participating stores will have signage indicating mask availability."

Similarly, CVS Pharmacy locations will also be offering free N95 masks in the coming weeks, spokesman Matt Blanchette told NPR.

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Free N95 masks are arriving at pharmacies and grocery stores. Here's how to get yours

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Nearly a week after the Biden administration announced it will deploy 400 million free N95 masks to the public, the high-quality face coverings are starting to arrive at pharmacies and grocery stores. "Every person is allowed up to 3 free masks pending availability," the Department of Health and Human Services states.

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Omar Rawlings/Getty Images
The National Baseball Hall of Fame will welcome David Ortiz as part of its class of 2022.

The Baseball Writers' Association of America's decisions were announced on Tuesday, and the official induction ceremony will occur on Sunday, July 24 from Cooperstown, New York.

A player needs to land on 75 percent of total writer ballots to get in.

Prior to the announcement, Ryan Thibodeaux's Baseball Hall of Fame Vote Tracker, which compiles tallies for all publicly known ballots, had Ortiz earning 83.3 percent of the vote. Barry Bonds (77.8 percent) and Roger Clemens (76.8 percent) also met that threshold.

However, as ESPN's David Schoenfield wrote, "the percentages for the pre-result ballots are always higher and steroid-associated players usually take an even bigger hit."

Therefore, any players who got more than half the votes such as Scott Rolen (70.6 percent), Curt Schilling (61.7 percent), Todd Helton (56.7 percent) and Billy Wagner (51.2 percent) appeared to be long shots to get in.

In sum, it appeared to be a matter of whether Ortiz, Bonds and Clemens would make it into the Hall.

In the end, only Ortiz made it to Cooperstown. He'll join a HOF Class of 2022 that includes Buck O'Neil, Bud Fowler, Minnie Miñoso, Gil Hodges, Jim Kaat, and Tony Oliva, who were all elected through the Era Committee System.

Ortiz made 10 All-Star Games during his 20-year career. He's a seven-time Silver Slugger who won the 2004, 2007 and 2013 World Series with the Boston Red Sox.

The left-handed designated hitter had a dominant four-year stretch from 2004-2007, posting a 162-game average of 44 home runs and 135 RBI while managing a .304 batting average and 1.024 OPS, per Baseball Reference. He won the Silver Slugger and finished top four in the AL MVP voting each season.

Ortiz played the first six years of his career with the Minnesota Twins, who released him after the 2002 season. The Red Sox signed him as a free agent in January 2003, and the rest is history for a slugger who finished his career with 541 home runs, including 38 during his final MLB season in 2016 in his age-40 campaign.

The most notable Hall of Fame omissions were Bonds and Clemens.

Bonds' 22-year career included seven National League MVP awards, 14 All-Star Game appearances, 12 Silver Sluggers and eight Gold Gloves. He is Major League Baseball's career home run leader (762) as well as its single-season leader (73, in 2001). Bonds' 1.422 OPS in 2004 also stands as an MLB single-season record.

Bonds began his career with the Pittsburgh Pirates in 1986, and he stayed there until 1992. In between, Bonds led Pittsburgh to three NL East titles (1990-1992). He won the NL MVP in 1990 and 1992. After the latter season, Bonds left in free agency for the Giants, a team that his father (Bobby Bonds) and godfather (Willie Mays) both played for. Bonds led the Giants to the 2002 NL pennant, its first league title in 13 years.

Clemens' 24-year MLB stint consisted of six American League Cy Young award wins, the 1986 AL MVP, 11 All-Star Game appearances, seven ERA titles. The two-time Triple Crown winner led the majors in strikeouts from 1996-1998. He finished his career with 354 wins, 4,672 strikeouts and a 3.12 ERA.

Clemens was part of five AL pennant-winning teams and earned the 1999 and 2000 World Series titles with the New York Yankees. He played a decade with the Boston Red Sox before spending two seasons with the Toronto Blue Jays, five with the Yankees and three with the Houston Astros before capping his career back with New York in 2007.

On paper alone, both Bonds and Clemens are clear first-ballot Hall of Famers.

However, both were linked to steroid use through the 2007 Mitchell Report. Neither man ever failed an MLB test.

Of note, Bonds told a grand jury in 2004 that he used steroids but said trainer Greg Anderson told him that he was taking flaxseed oil and a pain-relieving balm for arthritis.

Clemens' former trainer, Brian McNamee, said he injected his ex-client with steroids and human growth hormone. Clemens denied the allegations.

Steroids have been banned in baseball since 1991, but the league did not begin testing until 2003. Neither Bonds nor Clemens ever failed an MLB drug test.

The PED links have led to both men being held out of the Hall of Fame despite their resumes. Prominent baseball writers such as Sports Illustrated's Tom Verducci, the Boston Globe's Dan Shaughnessy and more have left them off their ballots.

Bonds and Clemens' future Hall of Fame fates will now rest in the hands of the Era Committee system. Players are eligible to be voted into the Hall of Fame by the BBWAA for their first 10 years on the ballot. Bonds and Clemens have now been shut out of Cooperstown for a decade now.

Ortiz's election avoids a second straight year where the BBWAA did not elect anyone into the Hall of Fame.

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David Ortiz Selected to 2022 Baseball HOF Class; Barry Bonds Falls Short

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Omar Rawlings/Getty Images The National Baseball Hall of Fame will welcome David Ortiz as part of its class of 2022. The Baseball Writers' Association of America's decisions were announced on Tuesday, and the official induction ceremony will occur on Sunday, July 24 from Cooperstown, New York.

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Axel Barragan

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A California redwood forest has officially been returned to a group of Native tribes

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Save the Redwoods League purchased and donated the 523-acre area to the InterTribal Sinkyone Wildnerness Council, a group of 10 tribes that have been connected to the land for thousands of years.

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Elijah covarrubias

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How Has Omicron Affected Your School and Community?

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A new coronavirus variant has sent case counts soaring across the United States. Has it disrupted your life?

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white house to announce us has shipped 400 million vaccine doses globally - cnnpolitics

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White House to announce US has shipped 400 million vaccine doses globally

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The Biden administration will mark a milestone of vaccines shipped abroad, announcing Wednesday that the US has shared 400 million doses of Covid-19 vaccine with the world.

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Old songs now represent 70 percent of the U.S. music market. Even worse: The new-music market is actually shrinking.

About the author: Ted Gioia writes the influential music and popular culture column The Honest Broker on Substack. He is also the author of 11 books, including, most recently, Music: A Subversive History.

Old songs now represent 70 percent of the U.S. music market, according to the latest numbers from MRC Data, a music-analytics firm. Those who make a living from new music-especially that endangered species known as the working musician -should look at these figures with fear and trembling. But the news gets worse: The new-music market is actually shrinking. All the growth in the market is coming from old songs.

The 200 most popular new tracks now regularly account for less than 5 percent of total streams. That rate was twice as high just three years ago. The mix of songs actually purchased by consumers is even more tilted toward older music. The current list of most-downloaded tracks on iTunes is filled with the names of bands from the previous century, such as Creedence Clearwater Revival and The Police.

I encountered this phenomenon myself recently at a retail store, where the youngster at the cash register was singing along with Sting on "Message in a Bottle" (a hit from 1979) as it blasted on the radio. A few days earlier, I had a similar experience at a local diner, where the entire staff was under 30 but every song was more than 40 years old. I asked my server: "Why are you playing this old music?" She looked at me in surprise before answering: "Oh, I like these songs."

Never before in history have new tracks attained hit status while generating so little cultural impact. In fact, the audience seems to be embracing the hits of decades past instead. Success was always short-lived in the music business, but now even new songs that become bona fide hits can pass unnoticed by much of the population.

Only songs released in the past 18 months get classified as "new" in the MRC database, so people could conceivably be listening to a lot of two-year-old songs, rather than 60-year-old ones. But I doubt these old playlists consist of songs from the year before last. Even if they did, that fact would still represent a repudiation of the pop-culture industry, which is almost entirely focused on what's happening right now.

Every week I hear from hundreds of publicists, record labels, band managers, and other professionals who want to hype the newest new thing. Their livelihoods depend on it. The entire business model of the music industry is built on promoting new songs. As a music writer, I'm expected to do the same, as are radio stations, retailers, DJs, nightclub owners, editors, playlist curators, and everyone else with skin in the game. Yet all the evidence indicates that few listeners are paying attention.

Consider the recent reaction when the Grammy Awards were postponed. Perhaps I should say the lack of reaction, because the cultural response was little more than a yawn. I follow thousands of music professionals on social media, and I didn't encounter a single expression of annoyance or regret that the biggest annual event in new music had been put on hold. That's ominous.

Can you imagine how angry fans would be if the Super Bowl or NBA Finals were delayed? People would riot in the streets. But the Grammy Awards go missing in action, and hardly anyone notices.

The declining TV audience for the Grammy show underscores this shift. In 2021, viewership for the ceremony collapsed 53 percent from the previous year-from 18.7 million to 8.8 million. It was the least-watched Grammy broadcast of all time. Even the core audience for new music couldn't be bothered-about 98 percent of people ages 18 to 49 had something better to do than watch the biggest music celebration of the year.

A decade ago, 40 million people watched the Grammy Awards. That's a meaningful audience, but now the devoted fans of this event are starting to resemble a tiny subculture. More people pay attention to streams of video games on Twitch (which now gets 30 million daily visitors) or the latest reality-TV show. In fact, musicians would probably do better getting placement in Fortnite than signing a record deal in 2022. At least they would have access to a growing demographic.

Some would like to believe that this trend is just a short-term blip, perhaps caused by the pandemic. When clubs open up again, and DJs start spinning new records at parties, the world will return to normal, or so we're told. The hottest songs will again be the newest songs. I'm not so optimistic.
Read: Why aren't there more women working in audio?
A series of unfortunate events are conspiring to marginalize new music. The pandemic is one of these ugly facts, but hardly the only contributor to the growing crisis.

Consider these other trends:

The leading area of investment in the music business is old songs. Investment firms are getting into bidding wars to buy publishing catalogs from aging rock and pop stars.

The song catalogs in most demand are by musicians who are in their 70s or 80s (Bob Dylan, Paul Simon, Bruce Springsteen) or already dead (David Bowie, James Brown).

Even major record labels are participating in the rush to old music: Universal Music, Sony Music, Warner Music, and others are buying up publishing catalogs and investing huge sums in old tunes. In a previous time, that money would have been used to launch new artists.

The best-selling physical format in music is the vinyl LP, which is more than 70 years old. I've seen no signs that the record labels are investing in a newer, better alternative-because, here too, old is viewed as superior to new.

In fact, record labels-once a source of innovation in consumer products-don't spend any money on research and development to revitalize their business, although every other industry looks to innovation for growth and consumer excitement.

Record stores are caught up in the same time warp. In an earlier era, they aggressively marketed new music, but now they make more money from vinyl reissues and used LPs.

Radio stations are contributing to the stagnation, putting fewer new songs into their rotation, or-judging by the offerings on my satellite-radio lineup-completely ignoring new music in favor of old hits.

When a new song overcomes these obstacles and actually becomes a hit, the risk of copyright lawsuits is greater than ever before. The risks have increased enormously since the "Blurred Lines" jury decision of 2015, and the result is that additional cash gets transferred from today's musicians to old (or deceased) artists.

Adding to the nightmare, dead musicians are now coming back to life in virtual form-via holograms and "deepfake" music-making it all the harder for young, living artists to compete in the marketplace.

As record labels lose interest in new music, emerging performers desperately search for other ways to get exposure. They hope to place their self-produced tracks on a curated streaming playlist, or license their songs for use in advertising or the closing credits of a TV show. Those options might generate some royalty income, but they do little to build name recognition. You might hear a cool song on a TV commercial, but do you even know the name of the artist? You love your workout playlist at the health club, but how many song titles and band names do you remember? You stream a Spotify new-music playlist in the background while you work, but did you bother to learn who's singing the songs?

Decades ago, the composer Erik Satie warned of the arrival of "furniture music," a kind of song that would blend seamlessly into the background of our lives. His vision seems closer to reality than ever.

Some people-especially Baby Boomers-tell me that this decline in the popularity of new music is simply the result of lousy new songs. Music used to be better, or so they say. The old songs had better melodies, more interesting harmonies, and demonstrated genuine musicianship, not just software loops, Auto-Tuned vocals, and regurgitated samples.

There will never be another Sondheim, they tell me. Or Joni Mitchell. Or Bob Dylan. Or Cole Porter. Or Brian Wilson. I almost expect these doomsayers to break out in a stirring rendition of "Old Time Rock and Roll," much like Tom Cruise in his underpants.
Just take those old records off the shelf I'll sit and listen to 'em by myself ...
I can understand the frustrations of music lovers who get no satisfaction from current mainstream songs, though they try and they try. I also lament the lack of imagination on many modern hits. But I disagree with my Boomer friends' larger verdict. I listen to two to three hours of new music every day, and I know that plenty of exceptional young musicians are out there trying to make it. They exist. But the music industry has lost its ability to discover and nurture their talents.

Music-industry bigwigs have plenty of excuses for their inability to discover and adequately promote great new artists. The fear of copyright lawsuits has made many in the industry deathly afraid of listening to unsolicited demo recordings. If you hear a demo today, you might get sued for stealing its melody-or maybe just its rhythmic groove-five years from now. Try mailing a demo to a label or producer, and watch it return unopened.

The people whose livelihood depends on discovering new musical talent face legal risks if they take their job seriously. That's only one of the deleterious results of the music industry's overreliance on lawyers and litigation, a hard-ass approach they once hoped would cure all their problems, but now does more harm than good. Everybody suffers in this litigious environment except for the partners at the entertainment-law firms, who enjoy the abundant fruits of all these lawsuits and legal threats.

The problem goes deeper than just copyright concerns. The people running the music industry have lost confidence in new music. They won't admit it publicly-that would be like the priests of Jupiter and Apollo in ancient Rome admitting that their gods are dead. Even if they know it's true, their job titles won't allow such a humble and abject confession. Yet that is exactly what's happening. The moguls have lost their faith in the redemptive and life-changing power of new music. How sad is that? Of course, the decision makers need to pretend that they still believe in the future of their business, and want to discover the next revolutionary talent. But that's not what they really think. Their actions speak much louder than their empty words.

In fact, nothing is less interesting to music executives than a completely radical new kind of music. Who can blame them for feeling this way? The radio stations will play only songs that fit the dominant formulas, which haven't changed much in decades. The algorithms curating so much of our new music are even worse. Music algorithms are designed to be feedback loops, ensuring that the promoted new songs are virtually identical to your favorite old songs. Anything that genuinely breaks the mold is excluded from consideration almost as a rule. That's actually how the current system has been designed to work.

Even the music genres famous for shaking up the world-rock or jazz or hip-hop-face this same deadening industry mindset. I love jazz, but many of the radio stations focused on that genre play songs that sound almost the same as what they featured 10 or 20 years ago. In many instances, they actually are the same songs.
Read: BTS's 'Dynamite' could upend the music industry
This state of affairs is not inevitable. A lot of musicians around the world-especially in Los Angeles and London-are conducting a bold dialogue between jazz and other contemporary styles. They are even bringing jazz back as dance music. But the songs they release sound dangerously different from older jazz, and are thus excluded from many radio stations for that same reason. The very boldness with which they embrace the future becomes the reason they get rejected by the gatekeepers.

A country record needs to sound a certain way to get played on most country radio stations or playlists, and the sound those DJs and algorithms are looking for dates back to the prior century. And don't even get me started on the classical-music industry, which works hard to avoid showcasing the creativity of the current generation. We are living in an amazing era of classical composition, with one tiny problem: The institutions controlling the genre don't want you to hear it.

The problem isn't a lack of good new music. It's an institutional failure to discover and nurture it.

I learned the danger of excessive caution long ago, when I consulted for huge Fortune 500 companies. The single biggest problem I encountered-shared by virtually every large company I analyzed-was investing too much of their time and money into defending old ways of doing business, rather than building new ones. We even had a proprietary tool for quantifying this misallocation of resources that spelled out the mistakes in precise dollars and cents.

Senior management hated hearing this, and always insisted that defending the old business units was their safest bet. After I encountered this embedded mindset again and again and saw its consequences, I reached the painful conclusion that the safest path is usually the most dangerous. If you pursue a strategy-whether in business or your personal life-that avoids all risk, you might flourish in the short run, but you flounder over the long term. That's what is now happening in the music business.

Even so, I refuse to accept that we are in some grim endgame, witnessing the death throes of new music. And I say that because I know how much people crave something that sounds fresh and exciting and different. If they don't find it from a major record label or algorithm-driven playlist, they will find it somewhere else. Songs can go viral nowadays without the entertainment industry even noticing until it has already happened. That will be how this story ends: not with the marginalization of new music, but with something radical emerging from an unexpected place.

The apparent dead ends of the past were circumvented the same way. Music-company execs in 1955 had no idea that rock and roll would soon sweep away everything in its path. When Elvis took over the culture-coming from the poorest state in America, lowly Mississippi-they were more shocked than anybody. It happened again the following decade, with the arrival of the British Invasion from lowly Liverpool (again, a working-class place, unnoticed by the entertainment industry). And it happened again when hip-hop, a true grassroots movement that didn't give a damn how the close-minded CEOs of Sony or Universal viewed the marketplace, emerged from the Bronx and South Central and other impoverished neighborhoods.

If we had the time, I would tell you more about how the same thing has always happened. The troubadours of the 11th century, Sappho, the lyric singers of ancient Greece, and the artisan performers of the Middle Kingdom in ancient Egypt transformed their own cultures in a similar way. Musical revolutions come from the bottom up, not the top down. The CEOs are the last to know. That's what gives me solace. New music always arises in the least expected place, and when the power brokers aren't even paying attention. It will happen again. It certainly needs to. The decision makers controlling our music institutions have lost the thread. We're lucky that the music is too powerful for them to kill.
This story was adapted from a post on Ted Gioia's Substack, The Honest Broker. ​​When you buy a book using a link on this page, we receive a commission. Thank you for supporting The Atlantic.

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entire business model of the music industry

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Old songs now represent 70 percent of the U.S. music market. Even worse: The new-music market is actually shrinking. About the author: Ted Gioia writes the influential music and popular culture column The Honest Broker on Substack. He is also the author of 11 books, including, most recently, Music: A Subversive History .

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Alexander Renteria

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Lesson of the Day: ‘How the Ukraine Crisis Developed, and Where It Might Be Headed’

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In this lesson, students will learn about the unfolding conflict between Russia and Ukraine, and consider what is at stake for the rest of the world.

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https://kesq.com/news/2022/01/26/riverside-county-covid-cases-starting-to-plateau-according-to-health-officials/

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Riverside County COVID-19 cases have started to plateau according to the county's Deputy Public Health Officer, Dr. Shunling Tsang.

Riverside County reports Wednesday the COVID case rate is 225 per 100,00 residents. That's the lowest case rate in two weeks. The peak case rate this month in the county was 259 per 100,000 residents.

Case Rate:

The positivity rate has remained in the 30s over the last week.

Positivity Rate:

We are seeing, you know, an improvement, although, you know, the positivity rate continues to be quite high," said Dr. Tsang. "So if you think about that one in three people are positive for COVID-19 who test. That's a lot of people."

The number of COVID viral copies found in the Palm Springs Wastewater Treatment Plant has had a sharp decrease within the past week or so. The omicron variant continues to be the variant most detected.

The wastewater report has been a useful resource that Palm Springs officials have used to get a sense of upcoming COVID-19 trends

Riverside County's latest data is falling in line with California, which has seen COVID infection rates fall within the past few days.

The California Department of Public Health in a Wednesday update reported the daily COVID-19 case rate at 212 per 100,000 residents. Its peak this month was reported on Jan.10: the COVID-19 case rate was 292 per 100,000 residents.

The positivity rate in California is at 18.7% which is a 2.7% decrease from 7 days ago.
Coming up at 5 p.m. and 6 p.m., News Channel Three's Marian Bouchot speaks with county health officials about local COVID-19 trends and when we can start to see cases trending downward.

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Riverside County COVID cases starting to plateau according to health officials - KESQ

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Riverside County COVID-19 cases have started to plateau according to the county's Deputy Public Health Officer, Dr. Shunling Tsang. Riverside County reports Wednesday the COVID case rate is 225 per 100,00 residents. That's the lowest case rate in two weeks. The peak case rate this month in the county was 259 per 100,000 residents.

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https://www.cnn.com/2022/01/26/weather/noreaster-bomb-cyclone-weekend-storm/index.html

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A bomb cyclone with the power of a hurricane will unleash snow and blizzard-like conditions this weekend

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Confidence is growing that a winter storm with the intensity of a hurricane, snow measured in feet and blizzard-like conditions will impact major Northeast cities this weekend.

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https://www.cnn.com/2022/01/26/weather/noreaster-bomb-cyclone-weekend-storm/index.html

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A bomb cyclone with the power of a hurricane will unleash snow and blizzard-like conditions this weekend

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Confidence is growing that a winter storm with the intensity of a hurricane, snow measured in feet and blizzard-like conditions will impact major Northeast cities this weekend.

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https://www.nytimes.com/2022/01/26/world/europe/texas-synagogue-hostage-arrests.html

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LONDON - Police officers in England arrested two more men on Wednesday in connection with a hostage situation at a Texas synagogue earlier this month.

A British man, Malik Faisal Akram, 44, who took four people hostage at the synagogue in Colleyville, Texas, was killed during the rescue that helped free the hostages unharmed.

Mr. Akram lived in Blackburn in northern England. The men arrested on Wednesday were taken into custody in the nearby city of Manchester as part of a local investigation by counterterrorism officers from the region, the police said in a statement, adding that they were "working closely with" the authorities in the United States. The men arrested on Wednesday were not identified, but the police said they remained in custody "for questioning."

The arrests came after revelations from British and American officials that Mr. Akram, 44, had been "a subject of interest" on a security watch list of MI5, Britain's domestic counterintelligence service. An investigation in 2020 by the agency concluded that Mr. Akram was not a terrorist threat at that time.

Many details remain unclear about why Mr. Akram decided to travel to the United States before the New Year and why he targeted the Congregation Beth Israel synagogue in Colleyville on Jan. 15. Mr. Akram's brother, Gulbar Akram, described him after the hostage-taking as a deeply troubled man with mental health issues, but did not provide more details.

During an hourslong standoff, the F.B.I. said that Mr. Akram referred to Aafia Siddiqui, a Pakistani neuroscientist who was sentenced to 86 years in prison in 2010 for trying to kill American military officers in Afghanistan.

Experts have said that opposition to Ms. Siddiqui's imprisonment has become a cause cited by jihadist militants in several countries. She is serving her sentence at a prison in Fort Worth, 24 miles from the synagogue that Mr. Akram targeted.

He was killed in the ensuing gunfire, after the last of the hostages emerged and a F.B.I. team entered the synagogue.

Local British police have made several previous arrests in relation to the standoff in Texas. Two teenagers were arrested on Jan. 16. in Manchester and later released without charge. The police said they had also searched an address in Manchester.

Two other men from the cities of Birmingham and Manchester were arrested for questioning on Jan 20. The police have appealed to the public to "remain vigilant" and to report any suspicious behavior.

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2 More Arrested in U.K. in Case Linked to Texas Synagogue Standoff

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LONDON - Police officers in England arrested two more men on Wednesday in connection with a hostage situation at a Texas synagogue earlier this month. A British man, Malik Faisal Akram, 44, who took four people hostage at the synagogue in Colleyville, Texas, was killed during the rescue that helped free the hostages unharmed.

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US Navy races to recover F-35 jet from South China Sea

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US Navy races to recover F-35 jet from South China Sea before China - CNN Video

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The US Navy is scrambling to recover an F-35C stealth fighter jet that crashed in the South China Sea to protect its "sensitive technology" from China.

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Exclusive: Oscar Mayer hot dogs and Velveeta cheese will get more expensive | CNN Business

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The makers of top food and consumer goods brands plan to raise prices in the spring, dashing shoppers’ hopes for a quick drop in their grocery bills.

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the fed is getting ready to raise interest rates - cnn

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The Fed is getting ready to raise interest rates

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The Federal Reserve is getting ready to raise interest rates, the central bank said in its monetary policy update Wednesday. But it kept rates near zero for now.

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Grand Theft Auto online is home to real-life cartel members, not just the virtual kind.
LEON NEAL/AFP via Getty Images

Mexico's drug mafias are finding meth mules inside one of the world's most popular games, as indicated by a previously unreported case in Arizona.

Grand Theft Auto players know what it's like working for a Mexican cartel. But they do so from the comfort of their own bedroom.

What many don't realize is that real-life cartel recruiters are playing the game and recruiting players for real-life work. Last year, Mexican police revealed youngsters were being recruited by drug cartels over popular video games, including Grand Theft Auto Online, though there was little in the way of evidence.

According to a case unearthed by Forbes, it appears the U.S. has gathered evidence that GTA Online really is a recruitment tool for Mexico's narcotics cartels.

In November last year, Customs and Border Protection officials in Arizona were inspecting a Jeep Cherokee when they found nearly 60kg of methamphetamine, the government said. When they asked the driver, Alyssa Navarro, what her story was, she said that in January that year she had been playing Grand Theft Auto Online when she met a man who called himself "George," according to a search warrant unsealed late last week. After getting to know each other within the game, Navarro said they eventually started talking on Snapchat and later met in person in Phoenix, investigators claimed.

The suspect said that George asked her over Snapchat whether she'd like some work as a "runner," shipping electronics so they could be sold in Mexico, telling her she could be paid as much as $2,000 a trip depending on how big the load was, according to the government filing.

Federal investigators obtained Snapchat messages from Navarro's phone in which George promises "a lot of money" and offered the use of a truck, believed to be the same Jeep in which she was apprehended.

Sometimes, drug cartels try to hide narcotics in electronics equipment when shifting them across the border. But, per Navarro's narrative as described in a criminal complaint against her, she was told to meet a contact in Mexico called Alfredo, who gave her the Jeep and said she should fill up the tank at certain gas stations along the way and take the vehicle to another unidentified individual. The methamphetamine was not hidden in electronics but in the fuel tank, CBP officers found. According to the complaint, when investigators asked if she didn't think the job offer was odd, or too good to be true, she agreed it did seem strange, and when she was on the bus to Mexico, even asked herself, "What am I doing?" but still went ahead and met her mysterious contact.

Whatever the government thinks happened in Navarro's case is unclear, but she has been charged with conspiracy to import and sell methamphetamine, as well as possession. Earlier this month, she pleaded not guilty. The Department of Justice had not responded to a request for comment.

Last October, Mexican law enforcement in Oaxaca said three minors had been recruited over popular mobile battle royal game Free Fire. The kids had been offered around $200 a week as cartel lookouts, according to media reports. At the time, it was also reported individuals claiming to belong to various narcotics crews, including the Sinaloa Cartel, were reaching out to children late at night on games including the online multiplayer version of Grand Theft Auto V.

Computer games have proven increasingly popular for other kinds of grooming. The explosion in the popularity of online gaming has led to platforms like Minecraft, XBox Live, or games like GTA Online and Fortnite becoming spots where many children spend time with existing friends and make new ones. The anonymity of an online gaming handle has, however, attracted predators, and the Justice Department has prosecuted multiple men who tried to hide behind online personas to coerce minors.
This story is part of The Wire IRL feature in my newsletter, The Wiretap. Out every Monday, it's a mix of strange true crime and real-world surveillance, with all the relevant search warrants and court documents for you to pore over. There's also all the cybersecurity and privacy news you need to read. Sign up .

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How Mexico's Real Life Cartels Recruit Drug Mules On Grand Theft Auto Online

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Grand Theft Auto players know what it's like working for a Mexican cartel. But they do so from the comfort of their own bedroom. What many don't realize is that real-life cartel recruiters are playing the game and recruiting players for real-life work.

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https://www.cnn.com/2022/01/26/politics/us-russia-ukraine/index.html

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biden admin to send russia written responses as soon as wednesday - cnnpolitics

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Biden admin to send Russia written responses as soon as Wednesday

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The Biden administration is set to send Russia a written response to concerns Moscow has publicly released and US proposals on a path forward as soon as Wednesday, according to administration officials, but the response is unlikely to characterize the likelihood of Ukraine joining NATO in the short term or show any room for negotiation on NATO's open door policy -- which is Russian President Vladimir Putin's central grievance.

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***This article originally appeared in the March '22 issue of Animation Magazine (No. 318)***

Animated shows based on video games have come a long way since the early days of Pac-Man and Donkey Kong. The success of Riot Games' Arcane on Netflix (which became a runaway hit and earned nine Annie nominations) has certainly opened a new chapter in the history of gaming-inspired animated content .

Based on the multiplayer online battle arena game League of Legends, launched in 2009, Arcane is Riot Games' first animated series, produced in partnership with Paris-based Fortiche Productions. The nine-episode series debuted last November with a rare 100 percent approval rating on aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, and earned an immediate second season order.

The series' complex setting is divided between the utopian Piltover and the oppressed Zaun, and tells the tale of two sisters whose loyalty to each other is tested on the way to becoming iconic champions. It stars Hailee Steinfeld and Ella Purnell as the sisters Vi and Jinx; Kevin Alejandro as Jayce and Katie Leung as Caitlyn.

Riot veterans Christian Linke and Alex Yee created and wrote the story, with Linke serving as showrunner and executive producer and Yee as co-executive producer. Both have extensive experience in video games, but Arcane - for which they were nominated for an Annie for outstanding writing in an animated TV or broadcast episode - is the first animation project for each.
High-Fidelity World
Inspiration for Arcane came from a desire to delve into the storytelling potential of League of Legends in ways that the game could not. "It's just a game where you don't really get a chance to actually experience the story for any of the characters," Yee says. "We always felt this responsibility to deliver a higher-fidelity version of the world for those players."

Arcane's first season has nine episodes, each running about 40 minutes - requiring six hours of story. The game's depth, however, prompted the producers to both pack each episode with story and to find ways to get into the story the characters fans most wanted to see.

Yee says they ended up focusing on Vi and Jinx because the story of how the sisters became enemies had not been told. "There was this mystery that we came to the table with," he says. "Then we built around there, starting in that same region, looking at the other characters who are available."

"We knew that there was going to be an expectation that every game character that we involved needs to have a satisfying arc and storyline - even if they're side characters," says Linke. "We worked very, very hard to give all of them a true progression - not just utilize them as tools in a story. I think it was very important to us."

Heading up Arcane 's animation direction at Fortiche is Barthélémy Maunoury - nominated for the Annie along with Fortiche co-founders Pascal Charrue and Arnaud Delord for outstanding direction in a TV or broadcast episode - who was skeptical about the project until Linke pitched the project. "I was just blown away by his vision, his ambition - and that changed the whole thing for me," Maunoury says.

Linke's clear vision helped define how the show ended up being made. "His idea was to find the right balance between realistic animation and cartoon animation," says Maunoury. "Since we're dealing with semi-realistic characters, we wanted to convey weight. And also, it's a drama, so it's important for the characters to feel real."

Eschewing motion-capture as a solution, they researched live-action films to define the characters and develop a style of animation that matched the vision, Maunoury says. "Having said that, we don't hesitate to sometimes bend our rules," he says. "Sometimes we go for something a little bit more extreme, a little bit more animated or a bit more stylized. And sometimes we go for something a bit more real."

Maunoury says animators were each given a lot of freedom to bring their own ideas to each shot or sequence. Since there were about 80 or 90 animators working on the team, their preferences on creating or using reference varied quite a bit. Sequences were typically brainstormed into storyboards and animatics, and assigned to teams of five to seven animators, working under a lead animator, he says.

Animators had access to a reference room with cameras and props, and could shoot as much or as little reference as they needed. Shots went to layout and approved blocking shots were then turned into final animation, with team members set a quota of producing 0.8 seconds of animation per day, Maunoury says.

Since League of Legends is a battle game, the series required plenty of fight sequences that had to fulfill fans' expectations. That was an area where Maunoury says they were able to play more with the medium, and develop fighting styles for each character. For example, Jinx is a fast and sharp fighter, so the animators took some cues from anime, using smears and multiple arms to make it snappy and fun. Vi, meanwhile, is more of a boxer, and her fight sequences were animated in a more realistic way, Maunoury says.

Fortiche also mixed 2D and 3D animation to give Arcane a detailed and textured look. Maunoury says the characters are all animated using 3D models and rigs, with 2D animation used to add texture and effects like smoke, water, fire, dust, etc. The backgrounds are painted in 2D, he says, and he cites the efforts of the show's compositing team for bringing it all together seamlessly.

"When you're working in games, your job is more to support the experience of the player, and make sure that everything creatively that happens with the world and the characters is built in service of the connection between the game and that player," Yee points out.

Adjusting to animation pipelines and solving production problems also required the crew to find its own solutions wherever possible, Linke says. "It was a very elaborate process, because we really always had to find our own answer," he says. "It just didn't really work out-of-the-box for production on Arcane."

Linke says Fortiche was a clear choice for an animation partner, citing their previous collaborations, the look of the studio's work, and the attention its work shows to aspects like camera work. "Their choices for camera were always a bit more daring," Linke says. The result ran counter to the traditional animation approach of prioritizing clarity, but opened things up to other possibilities. "Can we do more here? Can we have a certain choice, especially for the camera, where it says more about the characters, or it adds a certain dynamic feeling to it, or has a certain kind of creative statement? That was always very, very important to (Fortiche), and was something that I think a good amount of people that we had in L.A. had to get used to, but also started to fall in love with over time."

And there's no more proof that the animation field has taken to that approach than the nine Annie noms and other accolades the show has received. For Linke and Yee, it couldn't be a better introduction to the animation world. "It feels like the chill side of Hollywood," Yee says. "It's a really fun community to be engaged with."
The first season of Arcane is currently streaming on Netflix. Season two is currently in production.

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Legendary Artistry: How 'Arcane' Became a Popular and Critical Hit of the Moment

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This article originally appeared in the March '22 issue of Animation Magazine (No. 318)*** Animated shows based on video games have come a long way since the early days of Pac-Man and Donkey Kong. The success of Riot Games' Arcane on Netflix (which became a runaway hit and earned nine Annie nominations) has certainly opened a new chapter in the history of gaming-inspired animated content .

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Push SquareBaiken Brings Her Blade to Guilty Gear Strive on 28th January

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Push SquareBaiken Brings Her Blade to Guilty Gear Strive on 28th January

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https://www.pushsquare.com/news/2022/01/baiken-brings-her-blade-to-guilty-gear-strive-on-28th-january

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A flick of the wrist

It's official: Baiken arrives in Guilty Gear Strive later this week, on the 28th January for season pass owners. She's out on the 31st as a separate purchase.

A returning fighter and fan-favourite, Baiken is Strive's fourth DLC character, and she comes along with an incredibly pretty new stage called Lap of the Kami. Veteran Guilty Gear players will notice that she plays a similar kind of game to her previous incarnations - but with a couple of key changes. Namely a tether that keeps her close to her opponent, and a more straightforward counter move that works against anything that's not a throw or a projectile.

In any case, she looks great. Are you a big Baiken fan? Flip a tatami mat in the comments section below.

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Baiken Brings Her Blade to Guilty Gear Strive on 28th January

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A flick of the wrist It's official: Baiken arrives in Guilty Gear Strive later this week, on the 28th January for season pass owners. She's out on the 31st as a separate purchase. A returning fighter and fan-favourite, Baiken is Strive's fourth DLC character, and she comes along with an incredibly pretty new stage called Lap of the Kami.

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Crunchyroll announced it will release the highly-anticipated feature JUJUTSU KAISEN 0 in theaters for fans on March 18 in the United States and Canada, with tickets on sale February 25. The dark fantasy film from TOHO Animation will be available in both English dub and subtitled and will arrive in more than 1,500 theaters nationwide. The film will also be released in select U.S. based IMAX theaters.

The movie is also coming soon to theaters in the United Kingdom, Ireland, Australia, New Zealand, France with CRG events; Germany, Belgium, Luxembourg, Austria, Switzerland, Sweden, Finland, Netherlands, French-speaking Africa and Latin America. Additional territories to be announced soon.

JUJUTSU KAISEN 0 follows Yuta Okkotsu, a nervous high school student, who enrolls in the mysterious Tokyo Jujutsu High School under the guidance of Satoru Gojo after being haunted by the curse of his childhood friend. The film is based on the manga of the same name published by JUMP COMICS / Shueisha, a prequel to the smash hit supernatural adventure series from Gege Akutami.

The anime series JUJUTSU KAISEN is based on the best-selling manga of the same title, serialized in Shueisha's Weekly Shonen Jump, which has sold over 60 million copies in Japan. In the U.S., the series is published by VIZ Media. The series was named Anime of the Year by the Crunchyroll Anime Awards in 2021. Both Crunchyroll and Funimation have the entire series on their platforms, both subbed and dubbed, for fans to catch up on before seeing the theatrical experience.

JUJUTSU KAISEN 0 is animated by MAPPA and directed by Sunghoo Park. The film is being distributed in the U.S., Canada, United Kingdom, Ireland, Australia and New Zealand by Crunchyroll in association with Funimation and in additional European countries by Crunchyroll and Wakanim.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WGiUXKgdIu4
Official synopsis: When they were children, Rika Orimoto (voiced by Kana Hanazawa) was killed in a traffic accident right before the eyes of Yuta Okkotsu (Megumi Ogata), the close friend she with whom she'd made a pact to marry as adults. Rika became an apparition, and Yuta longed for his own death after suffering under her curse, but the greatest Jujutsu sorcerer, Satoru Gojo (Yuichi Nakamure), welcomed him into Jujutsu High. There, Yuta meets classmates Maki Zen'in (Mikako Komatsu), Toge Inumaki (Koki Uchiyama) and Panda (Tomokazu Seki), and finally finds his determination to break Rika-chan's curse.

Meanwhile, the vile curse user Suguru Geto (Takahiro Sakurai), who was expelled from the school for massacring ordinary people, appears before Yuta and the others and promises to carry out "the Night Parade of a Hundred Demons" on December 24. While Geto advocates for creating a paradise for only jujutsu sorcerers, he unleashes a thousand curses upon Shinjuku and Kyoto to exterminate all non-sorcerers. Will Yuta be able to stop Geto in the end? And will he finally break Rika's curse...?

The official motion picture soundtrack to JUJUTSU KAISEN 0 is available now on Spotify.

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Crunchyroll Slates 'JUJUTSU KAISEN 0' Movie for March 18

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Crunchyroll announced it will release the highly-anticipated feature JUJUTSU KAISEN 0 in theaters for fans on March 18 in the United States and Canada, with tickets on sale February 25. The dark fantasy film from TOHO Animation will be available in both English dub and subtitled and will arrive in more than 1,500 theaters nationwide.

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All third-round stimulus checks have been sent out, the IRS announced Wednesday. If you haven't received all of the money you are eligible for, you will need to claim the Recovery Rebate Credit on your 2021 tax return.

The third stimulus checks were technically advance payments of that credit. The agency began disbursing them in March of last year, after President Joe Biden signed off on the American Rescue Plan. The last of the payments were sent in December.

But there are a few categories of people who will need to claim the credit to get their stimulus money, for a variety of reasons. The main group is parents of children born in 2021, or families who added another eligible dependent, such as a parents or grandchild, to their 2021 return. Assuming the parents or guardians were eligible for stimulus money, their dependent is, as well.

Most other eligible taxpayers have already received the full amount they are entitled to and won't need to claim the credit, according to the IRS. That said, some people who qualified for the payments may not have received them at all, or may have received less than they are eligible for.

That could have been a miscalculation on the part of the IRS, or your income could have fallen between 2020 and 2021, making you eligible for more. If that's the case, they can claim the remainder of the payment on their tax return.

The 2021 Recovery Rebate Credit is based on the income and number of dependents on a taxpayer's 2021 return, which can be filed now. Filers will need to know the total amount of their third-round stimulus payments, including any Plus-Up Payments. This total can be viewed on their IRS account, or in a physical letter from the IRS. The IRS notes that some third-round stimulus checks may still be in the mail.

If you're using tax preparation software, it should ask you questions to determine how much you can claim, if anything. Otherwise, you can use this Recovery Rebate Credit worksheet.

In addition to the third stimulus payment, parents of children born in 2021 can likely claim the enhanced child tax credit on their return. That can be worth up to $3,600 per child born last year.
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All $1,400 stimulus checks have been issued. Here's what to do if you didn't get one

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All third-round stimulus checks have been sent out, the IRS announced Wednesday. If you haven't received all of the money you are eligible for, you will need to claim the Recovery Rebate Credit on your 2021 tax return. The third stimulus checks were technically advance payments of that credit.

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California tsunami advisories triggered Saturday morning by an underwater volcanic eruption near the South Pacific nation of Tonga had been largely lifted by 9 p.m. after authorities spent much of the day urging people to stay away from beaches and harbors and out of ocean waters churning with powerful currents.

The advisories were cancelled in coastal communities including those in Los Angeles, San Diego, Santa Cruz, San Francisco, and Newport and Huntington Beaches.

Many beaches and marinas from Orange County to the Bay Area were temporarily closed Saturday morning as a precaution because of higher than normal waves, officials said.

On Sunday, it was reported that two people drowned off the coast of northern Peru due to unusually high waves but elsewhere there were no reports of deaths, serious injuries or widespread property damage. The hardest-hit area of California appeared to be Santa Cruz Harbor, where the tsunami waves rushed in at high tide, flooding a parking lot and streets.

Kristan Lund, a National Weather Service meteorologist in Oxnard, distinguished the advisory issued Saturday morning from a more severe "warning," in which residents are urged to evacuate to higher ground immediately.

"We are advising people to stay out of the water and off the beaches," she said.

She said the advisory was "fairly uncommon" because it was due to a volcanic eruption and not an underwater earthquake, and because it extended to the entire West Coast. The entire coast was at risk, she said, including portions of islands that face away from the volcano, such as Avalon Harbor.

The water surge can "bend around the island and it can also bounce off the shores," she said. As of 8:30 a.m., Port San Luis Harbor in San Luis Obispo County was registering a surge of more than 1 foot, she said.

Earlier Saturday, the National Weather Service said the tsunami activity was supposed to hit Monterey around 7:30 a.m. and San Francisco around 8:10 a.m. Beaches in Southern California were supposed to see impacts beginning around 7:50 a.m. Many beaches and piers were closed. Berkeley closed its marina and urged people to seek higher ground.

Officials said some coastal areas could see wave heights of 1 to 2 feet. The main impacts are expected to be strong rip currents and coastal flooding, and inundation of low lying areas is possible.

"If you are located in this coastal area," NWS said, "move off the beach and out of harbors and marinas. Do not go to the coast to watch the tsunami. Be alert to instructions from your local emergency officials."

The Orange County Sheriff's Department said in a morning advisory that although major flooding was not expected, the tsunami could produce dangerous currents and tidal surges through the day that would make swimming hazardous. Strong currents were expected in harbors and bays for several hours.

"The ocean is rather calm right now," said Seal Beach Police Lt. Nick Nicholas shortly after 10 a.m.

Officers and lifeguards were patrolling the shore for signs of flooding and to keep people out of the water, Nicholas said. The city closed beaches, parking lots and the pier before sunrise and few surfers or swimmers were out at that hour, he said.

"Fortunately we got there pretty early ... and I don't think we had to chase anybody away," Nicholas said.

Newport Beach also appeared at mid-morning to have escaped damage with the surge remaining below a foot and no sign of flooding, according to the Sheriff's Department.

Harbor patrols and local authorities were going boat to boat on the water to warn mariners about remaining dangers from the tsunami.

"The major point of concern is for currents, particularly strong riptide currents," said Carrie Braun, the sheriff's director of public affairs and community engagement.

Newport Beach resident Bob Baeyens, 61, was surprised to run into a locked gate halfway along the pier.

"I've never seen it closed off this way. But then you usually don't get word of tsunami danger, not really here," he said, looking below at surfers flocking to the shimmering waters.

"They're still coming," he added, pointing toward the bobbing bodies in wetsuits, which he estimated at about 100.

Baeyens said his son alerted him about the undersea volcano near Tonga, texting him pictures. During his beach walk around 11 a.m. Saturday, he noticed higher than normal waves.

"We're a long way from that volcano, yet things can connect," he said. "I just don't think it will affect the amount of people coming to the beach because we all like Southern California for a reason. I mean, just the other day it was 81 degrees in January - yeah, January - there's only a few places in the world where that can happen."

Monica Chan and her family left their home in Bakersfield at 7 a.m. Saturday, heading to Newport Beach for a day of relaxation. By late morning, her husband was still waiting for access to the city's pier to cast his pole, as he was hoping to catch their dinner.

Despite the advisory, Chan said her family planned to enjoy their day.

"We didn't know about the tsunami," she said. "We would have come anyway."

Los Angeles County officials issued the following advisory for coastal areas:

Move out of the water, off the beach, and away from harbors, marinas, breakwaters, bays and inlets.

Do not go to the shore to observe the tsunami.

Do not return to the coast until local emergency officials indicate it is safe.

Some Southern California beachgoers took it all in stride. As a light rain fell, it seemed like a typical Saturday morning at Venice Beach as joggers ran along Ocean Front Walk and surfers caught waves at the pier and breakwater. County parking lots and the pier were open.

People were aware of the tsunami advisory but said they weren't going to let that ruin their plans.

"We were hoping for a little bump [in the surf size], but that didn't happen," said Glen Alder, 58, as he peeled off his wetsuit at the Venice Pier. He and several friends caught 2- to 3-foot waves on the north side of the pier.

David Solomon, 52, also didn't let the advisory stop him from getting into the water.

"I'm either going to get destroyed by Omicron or go out here," said Solomon, as he put on his wetsuit and looked toward the waves lining up at the Venice breakwater.

For Solomon, his biggest worry wasn't a tsunami but which of his two short boards he was going to use.

"I thought it was so funny that I grabbed a screenshot for my friends," he said of the tsunami advisory on his phone.

Venice resident Damon Tolstoy said he was being extra careful as he walked Bubba, his British bulldog, on the Venice Pier.

"You just gotta be on alert," he said of the advisory. "You never know."

Farther north, the surge swept into Santa Cruz Harbor early Saturday, causing flooding and jostling boats, said Ashley Keehn, public information officer for the Santa Cruz County Sheriff's Office. Deputies and the Harbor Patrol evacuated people from the harbor, including some people who live aboard boats.

(Nic Coury / Associated Press)

"We went boat to boat evacuating the docks and making sure there wasn't anyone inside that could potentially be in danger," Keehn said.

The water level rose several feet in the harbor, she said.

"There have been some minor waves rolling in," Keehn said. "We have seen some boats getting knocked around a little bit."

One car was submerged in seawater up to the tops of the tires, she said. No injuries were reported.

The authorities planned to assess any damage once the water receded, Keehn said. "With the water still being a pretty high level, it's hard to assess the damage right now."

Gordon Rudy, a Realtor who keeps a 28-foot cabin cruiser boat at the harbor's U-Dock, watched the surge from the harbor parking lot after being evacuated and said, "There are no boats being damaged at this point."

A decade ago, a tsunami caused by a Japanese earthquake left the harbor with damage estimated in excess of $20 million. People present for both events said Saturday's surge was relatively mild.

"We saw very little debris floating in the channel. Nothing compared to 2011," said contractor Scott Sommers, who spent the night on his 32-foot power boat to be ready for early morning crabbing. When the tsunami advisory was issued before dawn, boat owners roused sleeping neighbors.

Some opted to take their boats out of the harbor to the open sea for safety while others decided to leave their vessels in place and watch from land or a railroad bridge overlooking the harbor. The surge arrived shortly after 8 a.m., they said, and was markedly different from the violent waves of the 2011 tsunami.

"There were no big waves. It would just surge in and surge back out," Sommers said. He and Rudy estimated the water rose quickly as much as 8 feet and then flowed out just as rapidly.

"Like high tide and low tide happened in two or three minutes," Sommers said.

While the boats seemed to survive the surge, water breached the embankment, flooding parking lots and streets. As of 11 a.m. the harbor remained closed and inaccessible to owners to inspect boats for damage.

Rudy, whose boat had nearly $30,000 in damage in the 2011 tsunami, said he purchased a new boat in October and was relieved that it appeared to have escaped harm.

"You have an absolutely perfect boat; you hope you can keep it that way," he said.

The surge of seawater almost reached some Santa Cruz streets, and police said they had closed Beach Street as a precaution.

"It's since receded but we're still seeing occasional surges," Deputy Police Chief Jon Bush said. Police officers were in the area making sure people stayed off the beach, he said, just in case the water surged higher again.

Dustin Mulvaney, a professor of environmental studies at San Jose State University who lives in Santa Cruz, shared short video clips on Twitter of the waves sloshing against the cliffs and inundating steps on the shore.

"The waves are just coming from everywhere, it seems like," Mulvaney said. "The water's bouncing around a lot."

The tsunami swell coincided with a high tide, and the breakers sloshed about 15 feet above the sand onto the stairs at Mitchell's Cove Beach, Mulvaney said.

Mulvaney said he walks along West Cliff Drive every day, often with his two kids and walking the dog. The waves were some of the biggest he's seen in the last year, but no surfers were out in the water. This time, he said, the waves looked different.

"It definitely is choppy," Mulvaney said. "You're not able to read these waves because they're coming from different angles."

Between wave sets, the water receded unusually far, posing potential danger for any unsuspecting people who might venture down onto the beaches, Mulvaney said. "That's why I stayed up on the cliff."

Beyond the immediate hazards in the harbor and elsewhere, Mulvaney said looking at the crashing waves made him think about the need to prepare for sea-level rise and worsening storm surges.

"We have areas prone to earthquakes and fires, and just having a tsunami added on top of all that," he said, "makes you realize that we all live in kind of vulnerable places."

National Weather Service meteorologist Brian Garcia said in a morning briefing that surges along the California coast were expected to continue throughout "the vast majority of the daylight hours."

"But we should see the amplitude start to come down as we get into the afternoon and late afternoon hours," he said. When the surge falls below 1 foot and remains there for three hours, the advisory will be lifted, he said.

Officials at the National Tsunami Warning Center in Palmer, Alaska, issued Saturday's tsunami alert after tracking the surge of water in Tonga, American Samoa and finally Hawaii, where it was measured at more than 2 feet.

"Our teams have been watching the entire time," said Dave Snider, the center's tsunami warning coordinator. "This is a really significant event."

He said the tsunami is markedly different - and possibly unprecedented - than previous alerts because it was caused by a volcano rather than an earthquake. That made it hard to predict the effects and their duration, he said, as waves "sloshed" around harbors and jostled live-aboard boats.

Shortly before 9 a.m., the highest surge recorded was more than 2 feet in Monterey, he said.

In Hawaii, the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center reported waves slamming ashore from a foot in Nawiliwili, Kauai, to 2.7 feet in Hanalei. "We are relieved that there is no reported damage and only minor flooding throughout the islands," the center said, describing the situation in Hawaii.

On Tonga, video posted to social media showed large waves washing ashore in coastal areas, swirling around homes and buildings.

In Hawaii, Alaska and along the U.S. Pacific coast, residents were asked to move away from the coastline to higher ground and pay attention to specific instructions from their local emergency management officials, said Dave Snider, tsunami warning coordinator for the National Tsunami Warning Center in Palmer, Alaska.

"We don't issue an advisory for this length of coastline as we've done - I'm not sure when the last time was - but it really isn't an everyday experience," he said. "I hope that elevates the importance and severity for our citizens."
The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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Tsunami from Pacific volcano hits California coast with small waves, scattered flooding

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California tsunami advisories triggered Saturday morning by an underwater volcanic eruption near the South Pacific nation of Tonga had been largely lifted by 9 p.m. after authorities spent much of the day urging people to stay away from beaches and harbors and out of ocean waters churning with powerful currents.

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https://www.desertsun.com/story/news/crime_courts/2022/01/23/13-year-olds-rob-teen-bicycle-gunpoint-coachella/6629530001/

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Palm Springs police are seeking information about a shooting early Sunday in the Desert Highland Gateway Estates neighborhood.

Drivers in two different vehicles told police they had been followed by a white or silver Nissan Sentra at about 2:50 a.m. in the vicinity of West Sunview and North Granada Avenues.

One vehicle was struck by gunfire, according to a statement Palm Springs Police Department posted on Facebook. There were no injuries reported.

The people in the two vehicles who reported being followed were not together and could not provide any additional information, police said.

Anyone with information was urged to contact Palm Springs Police dispatch at 760-327-1441, or report information anonymously on the Palm Springs Police Department app or via CrimeStoppers at 760-341-7867.

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Palm Springs police probing shooting in Desert Highland Gateway Estates

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Palm Springs police are seeking information about a shooting early Sunday in the Desert Highland Gateway Estates neighborhood. Drivers in two different vehicles told police they had been followed by a white or silver Nissan Sentra at about 2:50 a.m. in the vicinity of West Sunview and North Granada Avenues.

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frogs can regrow amputated limbs with new mix of drugs - cnn

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Frogs can regrow amputated limbs after being treated with mix of drugs

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Researchers in the US said Wednesday they were able to trigger the regrowth of an amputated leg in a type of African clawed frog (Xenopus laevis), in what they described as a "step closer to the goal of regenerative medicine."

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The Federal Reserve is widely expected Wednesday at the conclusion of its monetary policymaking meeting to telegraph plans that it is ready to start raising interest rates for the first time since 2017.

The central bank is likely to make the move in March, at the conclusion of its next policymaking meeting - and almost exactly two years to the day after it slashed rates to zero in response to the emergence of a fast-spreading novel coronavirus that threatened to destabilize the entire financial system.

Fast-forward to 2022 and the macroeconomic climate has changed markedly: Today, the greatest economic worry for many is rapidly escalating prices of food, fuel, housing and a host of other goods and services.

"It's a very important meeting, because the next meeting is within six weeks, and the hawkish pivot from the Fed was quite substantial," said David Norris, partner and head of U.S. credit at TwentyFour Asset Management.

When conditions change quickly, it can leave the Fed playing catch-up - a position that gives Wall Street heartburn.

Fed officials will release a policy statement Wednesday afternoon, followed by a press conference with Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell. According to the CME's FedWatch Tool, market participants expect a quarter-percentage-point (25-basis-point) rate hike at that March meeting with near-90 percent probability.

In addition to interest rates - its best-known policy tool - the Fed also kept monetary policy loose over the past two years by buying billions of dollars in Treasuries and mortgage-backed bonds every month, a process it has begun winding down. These purchases have nearly doubled the Fed's balance sheet over the past two years, and Wall Street is also looking for Fed officials to offer guidance on when and how fast they will begin paring back the amount of those holdings, either by letting them drop off as they mature or by selling them.

"What took the market by surprise in December was the notion that they made quantitative tightening a near-term issue," said Keith Buchanan, portfolio manager at Globalt Investments. "That introduced to the market the idea of those simultaneous measures, which set the stage for what we saw in January" - specifically, the dramatic market swings and elevated volatility as traders tried to game out the financial impact of policymakers growing more worried about inflation marring economic growth in 2022.

A slow trajectory is generally in keeping with the Fed's measured, deliberate pace of monetary policy adjustment. As an institution, the central bank tends to adopt a long run-up of communication before taking action. But when conditions change quickly, this can leave the Fed playing catch-up - a position that gives Wall Street heartburn, and is one of the culprits market observers blame for the wild gyrations the major indices have undergone in recent days.

"Historically, the Fed is really looking to calm markets... but calming markets after such an intense bout of volatility is going to be difficult," Norris said.

The Fed realized - too late, according to Norris - that the price inflation plaguing American businesses and consumers alike was both broader and longer-lasting than it had anticipated.

"I would have liked to have seen the Fed announce an end to quantitative easing in the last quarter as well as begin starting to raise rates, just because they're so far behind the curve and quite a long ways from neutral," Norris said.

As such, some argue that initiating policy normalization won't necessarily calm market jitters. "If they do indicate that they will begin tightening sooner than the market anticipates, that would indicate that they need to be more aggressive about stopping inflation - that would not be comforting," Buchanan said. "The initiation of quantitative tightening sooner than the market expects would cause them to feel like the Federal Reserve is becoming desperate."

"It's a tricky situation. You want to listen to the market, but you don't want to cater to the market because you'll just end up trying to please the investor population, and that leads to all sorts of negative consequences," said Mike Zigmont, head of trading and research at Harvest Volatility Management. "You don't want to be totally focused on making the market happy," he said, since an overly accommodative stance that is out of sync with economic fundamentals can lead to asset bubbles.

Mona Mahajan, a senior investment strategist at Edward Jones, said that shrinking the Fed's balance sheet will help unwind those kinds of distortions. "In removing liquidity from the system, where we've really seen that play out in markets is giving less air to the more speculative, higher valuation parts of the market," she said.

The biggest key for the Fed is to show it is taking inflation seriously.

Even without a pandemic in the mix, the Fed has a delicate balancing act. "There's a lot of other moving parts that are coming in to the discussion," said Charlie Ripley, senior investment strategist for Allianz Investment Management. "Higher wages could continue to make inflation more persistent as we go through 2022."

Markets today need reassurance that the Fed can and will take aim at inflation, lest it escalate further. "The big key for them is to say they're taking this seriously," Gillum said.

A big part of the challenge is that the central bank is tasked with a dual mandate of achieving full employment and price stability (that is, low inflation) - and in circumstances such as the economy is facing today, there is tension between those two aims.

The pandemic triggered the highest spike in the unemployment rate since the Great Depression and destroyed some 22 million jobs. While the employment picture has improved markedly since then, labor participation remains puzzlingly sluggish. Economists have identified a number of possible reasons, including disruptive school closures that have relegated many former workers to unpaid child care duties, a growing segment of the nation's aging population opting for early retirement, higher personal savings rates that have given workers more flexibility in their job searches and lower levels of immigration.

With so many potential workers sidelined, companies have been raising pay - which is good news for job-seekers but adds to the cost pressures companies are facing on top of supply chain bottlenecks.

"We think generally inflation is set to fall, but set to remain elevated compared to pre-pandemic trends," Mahajan said. "We're starting to see early signals that the supply chain disruptions may be starting to ease. Where we're still watching for improvement is the labor shortages."

"It's going to be tough to engineer a soft landing," Gillum said - but he also said that clear communication from Fed officials could help soothe a nervous Wall Street. "Rate hikes in and of themselves don't mean equity markets are going to sell off, it just means that we're mid-cycle. It doesn't mean the economy's on the brink of recession."

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Federal Reserve expected to signal March interest rate hike - with more to come

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The Federal Reserve is widely expected Wednesday at the conclusion of its monetary policymaking meeting to telegraph plans that it is ready to start raising interest rates for the first time since 2017.

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biden admin to send russia written responses as soon as wednesday - cnnpolitics

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Biden admin to send Russia written responses as soon as Wednesday

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The Biden administration is set to send Russia a written response to concerns Moscow has publicly released and US proposals on a path forward as soon as Wednesday, according to administration officials, but the response is unlikely to characterize the likelihood of Ukraine joining NATO in the short term or show any room for negotiation on NATO's open door policy -- which is Russian President Vladimir Putin's central grievance.

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When you have already created one of the most artistically innovative (not to mention critically acclaimed and fan-sational) animated movies ever to grace the big screen, how do you top it in a feverishly anticipated sequel? According to Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse (2018) producers Phil Lord and Chris Miller, you give your artists whole new worlds to play in.

Per the official synopsis, the first of two planned sequels will "transport Brooklyn's full-time, friendly neighborhood Spider-Man across the Multiverse to join forces with Gwen Stacy and a new team of Spider-People to face off with a villain more powerful than anything they have encountered."

The Academy Award-winning Lord and Miller, whose credits also cover The Mitchells vs. the Machines and The LEGO Movie, told Collider 's Steven Weintraub in a recent interview that the "ambitious" second outing for Miles Morales (voiced again by Shameik Moore) will expand the aesthetic concept of the "Spider-verse," giving each facet of the multiverse its own unique style.

Audiences got a taste of this in the first Sony PIctures Animation/Marvel movie, which saw a slew of Spideys from different dimensions drop in on Morales, each rendered with a distinct style: from the classically cartoony anthropomorphism of Peter Porker/Spider-Ham (John Mulaney) to the anime inspired look of Peni Parker/SP//der (Kimiko Glenn) to the monochromatic 1930s cast of Spider-Man Noir (Nicolas Cage).

"... We didn't want to just sort of do the same thing again. And so the idea that we'd be going to different dimensions really opened up an opportunity artistically to have each world have its own art style, and to be able to push the folks at ImageWorks to develop a way to have each dimension feel like it was drawn by a different artist's hand," Miller said. "Seeing the development of that stuff is breathtaking, and really, it's the reason we keep doing it, because it's so hard to get it right."

Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse (Part One) is being directed by Kemp Powers ( Soul), Joaquim Dos Santos ( The Legend of Korra) and Justin K. Thompson (production designers, Into the Spider-Verse), written by Lord & Miller with Dave Callaham ( Wonder Woman 1984). Issa Rae ( Insecure, Hair Love) is joining the cast as 1977 Spider-Woman, Jessica Drew.

In a first-look clip released last month, we are reintroduced to Miles Morales as Gwen Stacy (Hailee Steinfeld) pops in through a dimensional portal, then taken along as Spider-Man swings on through, catching a tussle with futuristic version Spider-Man 2099 (Oscar Isaac), who was teased at the end of Into the Spider-Verse.

Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse (Part On) is slated for release October 7.

[Source: Collider]

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'Across the Spider-Verse' Renders New Dimensions in Multiple Styles, Says Chris Miller

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When you have already created one of the most artistically innovative (not to mention critically acclaimed and fan-sational) animated movies ever to grace the big screen, how do you top it in a feverishly anticipated sequel? According to Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse (2018) producers Phil Lord and Chris Miller, you give your artists whole new worlds to play in.

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Amazon, which has posed formidable challenges to booksellers, big-box chains and grocers, has a new kind of retailer in its sights: physical clothing stores.

The company said on Thursday that it planned to open a clothing store called Amazon Style this year in Glendale, Calif., at a shopping center called The Americana at Brand. Renderings of Amazon Style shared by the company call to mind a department-store chain like Nordstrom or an off-price chain like T.J. Maxx.

Items will range in price from $10 to $400, the company said in an email, and the store will be about 30,000 square feet, which is several times larger than a typical specialty mall store. The shopping complex also has an Amazon 4-Star store and a Nordstrom, along with other clothing chains like Anthropologie, Lululemon and Tory Burch.

Amazon said store customers would be able to use an Amazon Shopping app to send items to a fitting room or the pickup counter. They will also be able to scan an item's QR code to see additional sizes, colors and customer ratings. Amazon said it planned to provide real-time recommendations to customers as they shopped, incorporating their physical browsing behavior and preferences on the Amazon Shopping app.

Amazon also said it would have new technology in fitting rooms. Customers will find additional recommendations in fitting rooms once they are ready to try on garments - something that sales associates usually do in most clothing stores. Using technology from Amazon fulfillment centers, shoppers will also be able to request additional styles and recommendations, which will arrive in "minutes," the company said.

Thirty-four percent of millennial consumers surveyed by Cowen analysts last year said they had begun with Amazon when shopping for clothing. About 17 percent said they had started their search in multi-line stores like department store chains or warehouse clubs, while 15 percent started on Google. The analysts noted that Generation Z and millennial consumers remained reliant on Amazon last year even as traditional retailers reopened.

The pandemic upended the apparel industry and shopping centers, making Amazon's move particularly timely. Amazon, which is populated with many private label clothing brands, did not specify the names of labels it plans to carry in the store.

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Amazon plans a new rival for retailers: a physical clothing store.

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Amazon, which has posed formidable challenges to booksellers, big-box chains and grocers, has a new kind of retailer in its sights: physical clothing stores. The company said on Thursday that it planned to open a clothing store called Amazon Style this year in Glendale, Calif., at a shopping center called The Americana at Brand.

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https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/supreme-court/justice-stephen-breyer-retire-supreme-court-paving-way-biden-appointment-n1288042

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Cathedral City Police are investigating a non-fatal shooting in the parking lot of the Stater Bros. Market in Cathedral City Monday.

Officers were dispatched to the parking lot in the shopping center at Vista Chino and Landau Boulevard at just before 6:15 p.m. after receiving reports of a shooting, police said. They said the shooting occurred "between two vehicles," although it was unclear if that meant occupants of one or both vehicles had fired guns.

Officers arrived in the lot and found one victim, who was transported to a local hospital with non-life-threatening gunshot injuries. The man has not been publicly identified by police.

The department is seeking further assistance from the community - anyone with information related to this incident or who believes they may have information should call the Cathedral City Police Detectives at 760-770-0300 or Detective Commander Dane Dickson at 760-202-242.

Tips can be emailed to tips@cathedralcitypolice.com or provided by the WeTip hotline at 1-800-782-7463.

The shooting is the third to occur in a shopping center parking lot in the western Coachella Valley in recent weeks. On Jan. 11, a man was found dead in the parking lot of the Palm Springs Walmart, which is located in the 5200 block of East Ramon Road. His death is being investigated as a homicide.

On Jan. 17, two men were filmed on camera exchanging gunshots outside the Smart & Final store located in the same shopping center. The men fled and no injuries were reported.
Paul Albani-Burgio covers breaking news and the City of Palm Springs. Follow him on Twitter at @albaniburgiop and via email at paul.albani-burgio@desertsun.com.

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Cathedral City police: Man shot in Stater Bros. parking lot Monday night

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Cathedral City Police are investigating a non-fatal shooting in the parking lot of the Stater Bros. Market in Cathedral City Monday. Officers were dispatched to the parking lot in the shopping center at Vista Chino and Landau Boulevard at just before 6:15 p.m. after receiving reports of a shooting, police said.

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https://www.nbcboston.com/news/local/timing-expected-snowfall-totals-from-saturdays-big-snowstorm/2624081/

https://kesq.com/news/coronavirus/2022/01/25/eisenhower-health-restricts-visitation-amid-covid-surge-no-visitors-allowed-in-emergency-department-and-inpatient-areas/

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Timing, Expected Snowfall Totals From Saturday’s Big Snowstorm

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We continue with a First Alert for Saturday as a major coastal storm is more likely to impact New England. Keep in mind that the track may shift several times with each model run between now and Saturday, but this storm is so large it will be hard for us to get a miss. Here are some early thoughts o…

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https://www.nytimes.com/2022/01/25/us/politics/ruy-teixeira-democrats.html

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The On Politics Newsletter

Ruy Teixeira was co-author of one of the most influential political books of the 21st century. Now, he says, Democrats are getting its lessons all wrong.

In a 2002 book, Ruy Teixeira and John B. Judis argued that the Democratic Party was poised to dominate American politics. Teixeira now believes party strategists are leading Democrats astray. Credit... Matthew Busch for The New York Times

A funny thing happened on the way to the emerging Democratic majority. Twenty years on, the co-authors of a hugely influential work on the subject acknowledge that their party took a detour.

In 2002, the political scientist Ruy Teixeira and the journalist John B. Judis published a book that struck a chord among liberals despondent over the success of George W. Bush, a president who was then so popular that he gained seats in that year's midterm election.

"The Emerging Democratic Majority" took note of the demographic change pulsing through the country, and boldly predicted that the Democratic Party was poised to dominate American politics for the foreseeable future.

"Over the next decade, this bloc of voters is expected to continue to increase and, extrapolating from recent trends, could make up nearly a quarter of the electorate," Teixeira and Judis wrote. "If these voters remain solidly Democratic, they will constitute a formidable advantage for any Democratic candidate. Democrats could suffer from an embarrassment of political riches."

Six years later, the American public elected Barack Obama, an African American president whose rainbow coalition seemed to vindicate the thesis. A Time magazine cover from May 2009 pictured an elephant below the headline "Endangered Species," capturing the feeling that Republicans' demographic reckoning had finally arrived.

But it unraveled quickly with the election of Donald Trump, who not only discovered pockets of white working-class voters that few knew existed, but also appealed to more voters of color than anyone had expected.

Now, as President Biden sinks in the polls, Teixeira finds himself fighting against what he says is a caricature of his famous book. His Substack newsletter, The Liberal Patriot, delivers "no-holds-barred, reality-based analysis," unafraid to take on what he calls a "race-essentialist" dogma that is dominating the Democratic Party.

Teixeira is unsparing about the party strategists who he believes are leading Democrats astray - and unapologetic about offending many on his own side. His newsletter has become a kind of samizdat for like-minded liberals who aren't as willing to speak their minds.

"There are some people who think I've completely lost it," he told us in a wide-ranging interview about his book, his party and lessons not yet learned. "But I feel like we're making some progress."

The following excerpts have been edited for length and clarity: There's lots of nuance that gets lost in translation, but the narrative that a lot of people took from your book was that the Democratic Party would benefit from the inevitable growth of people of color, young people, this new cadre of voters who at the time seemed ready to join the party and put the Republican Party in the rearview mirror. And the narrative has been complicated since then, hasn't it?
Well, it was even complicated back then. You fairly summarized what is a bowdlerized version of what we said. That was only part of what we were saying. Demographic change was inevitably shifting the political terrain. It did not make it inevitable that Democrats would benefit.

And even on this raw demographic basis, it's not crazy that there's a natural popular-vote Democratic majority in the country. However, that does not translate into political power. We very specifically said - and this is widely ignored - that for this majority to attain and exercise political power, you have to retain a significant fraction of the white working class. The country was changing, but it wasn't changing that fast.

The second thing we didn't anticipate was the eventual effect of professional-class hegemony in the Democratic Party - that it would tilt the Democrats so far to the left on sociocultural issues that it would actually make the Democratic Party significantly unattractive to working-class voters.

It's a huge liability for the Democrats, because the people who staff the party, the people who staff the think tanks, the advocacy groups, the foundations, the staffers, they're all singing from the same hymnal to some extent. They live in this liberal cultural bubble, particularly the younger members.
Can you give an example of that?
Sure. Go back to the 2020 Democratic primaries. It was remarkable the extent to which things that were alienating to the average voter, particularly your average working-class voter, were gaily promulgated, with no apparent second thoughts about how it might appear to people outside the bubble. Things like open borders; basically, let's decriminalize the border. Anybody who knows anything about immigration and public opinion in the United States realizes that will not play well.

Arguably, Democrats would have been better off from the beginning saying, "Yeah, we believe in being humane to immigrants. We also believe in border security, and we're going to enforce it." You know, take a page out of the old Obama playbook. Obama got a lot of stuff right on some of these issues, which the party is now insisting on forgetting.

You had a lot of stuff about mass incarceration, but almost nothing about crime. Democrats now fit this profile of being relatively soft on crime, more interested in not putting people in jail than in putting them in jail when it's appropriate. That's really wound up hurting them.

In the aftermath of the George Floyd murder, there was a distinct, almost inflection point in the intensity of this professional-class hegemony on race, to the point where it became completely routine for people in and around the party to talk about white supremacy, systemic racism, how America has always been a benighted country and still is, we haven't made any progress, everybody who is white has work to do in terms of discarding their racism.
You write about something you call "the Fox News Fallacy," which you say is "blinding Democrats to real problems."
The basic idea is when one of these criticisms appears - like, Democrats are allowing the intrusion of race-essentialist ideology into curriculum and teacher training - the first reaction is to deny it and just to say it's simply a racist dog whistle to constituencies who aren't that happy about the way the country has changed.
The base of the Democratic Party in many ways is older Black voters who are quite conservative on a lot of issues. And those are the people who elected Joe Biden.
The same thing goes for crime. I mean, who wants to be tough on crime? Well, no one could possibly want to be tough on crime except for people who want to put a lot of Black people in jail; whereas actually, this is a huge matter of concern for people across races, and particularly in poor Black and Hispanic communities. The idea that concern about crime and a desire to be tough on criminals is simply a reflection of a bigoted, reactionary type of politics is completely ridiculous.

Right. And the extent to which this is completely ignored by the dominant liberal Democratic discourse, to me, is completely astonishing. Do they really believe that the Black voters who formed the base of the Democratic Party think like Ibram X. Kendi, or the leaders of BLM? Are they crazy? I mean, how can they not understand there's enormous sort of diversity among the worldviews of people within the Black community? They vary by class, they vary by age, they vary in all kinds of ways. And the idea that they are sort of all on board with this crusade against the superficial aspects of so-called systemic racism, that that's really what they care about, is fanciful, really.

What would you recommend the Democratic Party do?
Well, it won't be easy. You try to be productive, you try to get the Electoral Count Act and associated reforms done. You try to get some sort of Build Back Better thing through Congress with Joe Manchin's support, or you break it up into pieces that are popular and try to get them through. These are the kinds of things you have to do to convince people you're effective, and you can govern.

The second thing is, whatever you haven't done to try to get the country back to normal, do it. We're fast approaching the end of this pandemic. A Democrat should be ready to reopen the country. You've just got to send the message that what you want is for people to be happy and for things to be back to normal.

A third thing here that's related to any elections: They've got to try to lift the ceiling on their support levels, which I think will necessitate some drawing of lines within the party, where you say, "No, no, we believe in being tough on crime. We think it is an absolutely atrocious idea to defund the police."

You've got to win, and when you win, you've got to do stuff for the people who elected you. It's not much more complicated than that.

Democrats are searching for a new message on the coronavirus, as warning signs grow that voters are fed up with the pandemic and frustrated by President Biden's handling of it.

American officials are scrambling to find additional alternative sources of energy for Europe, in what David E. Sanger describes as an effort to pre-empt possible efforts by Russia to cut off gas supplies to European markets amid a showdown over Ukraine.

Neil MacFarquhar examines the "sprawling" prosecution of the armed men who were accused of plotting to kidnap Gov. Gretchen Whitmer of Michigan.

pulse

President Biden encouraged shopping at small businesses during a visit to Jeni's Splendid Ice Creams in Washington. Credit... Sarahbeth Maney/The New York Times

Over the last six months, Biden's job approval has slipped by 20 percentage points among Democrats and independents who lean Democratic - from 88 to 68 percent. Just 29 percent of Democrats say they are satisfied with the way things are going in the country, a decline of 18 percentage points since March.

Biden has lost ground with one group in particular, Pew found: Only 60 percent of Black adults now approve of his job performance. That's down from 67 percent in September.
Is there anything you think we're missing? Anything you want to see more of? We'd love to hear from you. Email us at onpolitics@nytimes.com.

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The On Politics Newsletter Ruy Teixeira was co-author of one of the most influential political books of the 21st century. Now, he says, Democrats are getting its lessons all wrong. A funny thing happened on the way to the emerging Democratic majority.

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biden admin to send russia written responses as soon as wednesday - cnnpolitics

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Biden admin to send Russia written responses as soon as Wednesday

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The Biden administration is set to send Russia a written response to concerns Moscow has publicly released and US proposals on a path forward as soon as Wednesday, according to administration officials, but the response is unlikely to characterize the likelihood of Ukraine joining NATO in the short term or show any room for negotiation on NATO's open door policy -- which is Russian President Vladimir Putin's central grievance.

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https://www.cnbc.com/2022/01/26/what-to-do-if-you-never-received-the-third-stimulus-check.html

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State authorities are investigating after members of a Riverside County gang task force shot and killed a man suspected of selling fentanyl in Hemet last week.

The California attorney general's office announced Tuesday that it would independently investigate the shooting, which occurred at 11:36 p.m. on Jan. 18.

Deputies and officers from the Gang Impact Team of the Riverside County district attorney's office were surveilling the man, who was at a business in the 2600 block of West Florida Avenue, according to a statement from the Riverside County Sheriff's Department.

Task force members tried to contact the man, who was armed with a gun, but he fled on foot through the parking lot, according to the statement.

Officers and deputies used less-lethal weapons to try to disarm the man but weren't successful, Sheriff's Department officials said. They opened fire, hitting the suspect, and started first aid.

Paramedics arrived and continued first aid, but the man was pronounced dead at the scene, according to the statement. The man's gun was recovered.

His identity was not released by authorities as of Tuesday.

Authorities said Riverside County sheriff's deputies and police officers from Hemet and Riverside were involved in the shooting, but they did not specify which law enforcement officers fired the fatal shots.

Their names were not released.

"The involved deputies and officers will be placed on paid administrative leave per their department policies," according to the Sheriff's Department statement.

Further information about the shooting and investigation was not available Tuesday.

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State to investigate killing of suspected fentanyl dealer by Riverside County gang task force

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State authorities are investigating after members of a Riverside County gang task force shot and killed a man suspected of selling fentanyl in Hemet last week. The California attorney general's office announced Tuesday that it would independently investigate the shooting, which occurred at 11:36 p.m. on Jan. 18.

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https://www.nytimes.com/2022/01/26/science/spacex-rocket-crash-moon.html

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The four-ton piece of the rocket hasn't been heard from since it launched an American satellite called DSCOVR. It could make a 65-foot crater on the far side of the moon.

A SpaceX Falcon 9, carrying the Deep Space Climate Observatory, launching from Cape Canaveral in Florida in 2015. A piece of that rocket is expected to crash into the moon in March. Credit... SpaceX

Feb. 14, 2020, Editor's Note: This article misidentifies the object that is expected to collide with the moon on March 4. The astronomers' calculations about the object's trajectory and expected impact are accurate. But new information from a NASA engineer suggested that the identification of the object as part of SpaceX rocket was wrong, and it is now believed to be part of a Chinese rocket that launched a few months earlier. Additional reporting on the expected collision can be read here.
SpaceX will be getting to the moon a bit more than a month from now, far earlier than expected.

But it's all by accident, and it'll cause a bit of a mess.

SpaceX, the rocket company started by Elon Musk, has been selected by NASA to provide the spaceship that will take its astronauts back to the surface of the moon. That is still years away.

Instead, it is the four-ton upper stage of a SpaceX rocket launched seven years ago that is to crash into the moon on March 4, based on recent observations and calculations by amateur astronomers.

Impact is predicted for 7:25 a.m. Eastern time, and while there is still some uncertainty in the exact time and place, the rocket piece is not going to miss the moon, said Bill Gray, developer of Project Pluto, a suite of astronomical software used to calculate the orbits of asteroids and comets.

"It is quite certain it's going to hit, and it will hit within a few minutes of when it was predicted and probably within a few kilometers," Mr. Gray said.

Since the beginning of the space age, various human-made artifacts have headed off into the solar system, not necessarily expected to be seen again. That includes Mr. Musk's Tesla Roadster, which was sent on the first launch of SpaceX's Falcon Heavy rocket in 2018 to an orbit passing Mars. But sometimes they come back around, like in 2020 when a newly discovered mystery object turned out to be part of a rocket launched in 1966 during NASA's Surveyor missions to the moon.

Mr. Gray has for years followed this particular piece of SpaceX detritus, which helped launch the Deep Space Climate Observatory for the National Oceanic and the Atmospheric Administration on Feb. 11, 2015.

That observatory, also known by the shortened name DSCOVR, was headed to a spot about a million miles from Earth where it can provide early warning of potentially destructive eruptions of energetic particles from the sun.

DSCOVR was originally called Triana, an earth observation mission championed by Al Gore when he was vice president. The spacecraft, derisively called GoreSat, was put into storage for years until it was adapted for use as a solar storm warning system. Today it regularly captures images of the whole of planet Earth from space, the original purpose of Triana, including instances when the moon crosses in front of the planet.

Most of the time, the upper stage of a Falcon 9 rocket is pushed back into Earth's atmosphere after it has delivered its payload to orbit, a tidy way to avoid cluttering space.

But this upper stage needed all of its propellant to send DSCOVR on its way to its distant destination, and it ended up in a very high, elongated orbit around Earth, passing the orbit of the moon.

That opened the possibility of a collision someday. The motion of the Falcon 9 stage, dead and uncontrolled, is determined primarily by the gravitational pull of the Earth, the moon and the sun and a nudge of pressure from sunlight.

A composite of 30 images showing the Falcon 9 booster, traveling from lower right to upper left, on Jan. 20. Because the booster piece is spinning, it appears to fade in and out. Credit... Peter Birtwhistle

Debris in low-Earth orbit is closely tracked because of the danger to satellites and the International Space Station, but more distant objects like the DSCOVR rocket are mostly forgotten.

"As far as I know, I am the only person tracking these things," Mr. Gray said.

While numerous spacecraft sent to the moon have crashed there, this appears to be the first time that something from Earth not aimed at the moon will end up there.

On Jan. 5, the rocket stage passed less than 6,000 miles from the moon. The moon's gravity swung it on a course that looked like it might later cross paths with the moon.

Mr. Gray put out a request to amateur astronomers to take a look when the object zipped past Earth last week.

One of the people who answered the call was Peter Birtwhistle, a retired information technology professional who lives about 50 miles west of London. On Thursday last week, the domed 16-inch telescope in his garden, grandly named the Great Shefford Observatory, pointed at the part of the sky where the rocket stage zipped past in a few minutes.

"This thing's moving pretty fast," Mr. Birtwhistle said.

The observations pinned down the trajectory enough to predict an impact. Astronomers will have a chance to take one more look next month before the rocket stage swings out beyond the moon one last time. It should then come in to hit the far side of the moon, out of sight of anyone from Earth.

NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter will not be in a position to see the impact live. But it will later pass over the expected impact site and take photographs of the freshly excavated crater.

Mark Robinson, a professor of earth and space exploration at Arizona State University who serves as the principal investigator for the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter's camera, said he expected four tons of metal, hitting at a speed of some 5,700 miles per hour, would carve out a divot 10 to 20 meters wide, or up to 65 feet in diameter.

That will give a scientists a look at what lies below the surface, and unlike meteor strikes, they will know exactly the size and time of the impact.

India's Chandrayaan-2 spacecraft, also in orbit around the moon, might also be able to photograph the impact site.

Other spacecraft headed toward the moon this year might get a chance to spot the impact site - if they don't also end up making unintended craters.

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SpaceX Rocket Part to Crash Into Moon 7 Years After Launch

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The four-ton piece of the rocket hasn't been heard from since it launched an American satellite called DSCOVR. It could make a 65-foot crater on the far side of the moon. Feb. 14, 2020, Editor's Note: This article misidentifies the object that is expected to collide with the moon on March 4.

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Ukrainian Foreign Minister says Russian troops ‘insufficient’ for full invasion

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Russia has not assembled sufficient forces to launch an imminent full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba said Wednesday, as Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov threatened “appropriate response measures” if the West continues its “aggressive line.”

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Microsoft is acquiring Activision blizzard for $68.7 billion dollars.

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Microsoft is acquiring Activision blizzard for $68.7 billion dollars.

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Microsoft's $68.7 billion acquisition of Activision Blizzard doesn't give the maker of Xbox and the home of Halo control of everything significant in console gaming. Sony still stands apart with its strong stable of PlayStation exclusives, while Electronic Arts, Take-Two, and Ubisoft continue to jockey for position across all platforms.

But it's damn close to everything. Since 2014, when Redmond shook $2.5 billion from its piggy bank to acquire Mojang and Minecraft, the company has been on an escalating buying spree that has brought a who's-who directory of AAA gaming to its Xbox Game Pass library, now 25 million subscribers strong.

Pilloried at the beginning of the Xbox One console generation in 2013 for a supposedly wavering interest in video games, Microsoft soon vowed - under then-new head of Xbox Phil Spencer - that it would adopt a renewed, diamond-hard focus on the games, the good games, and nothing but the games. So help him, God, he's made good on that. Here are all the major franchises, developers, and names in games that Microsoft now controls.

Halo

The sci-fi shooter series has always been a Microsoft-owned, Xbox-exclusive franchise. But if only for posterity's sake, it's worth pointing out the company owns and controls this blockbuster intellectual property, just as strong and relevant with the launch of Halo Infiniteas it was when Halo: Combat Evolved debuted 20 years ago. Microsoft acquired series creator Bungie in 2000, then created 343 Industries to take control of Halo after Bungie split from Microsoft and fulfilled its remaining obligations to the series.

Gears of War

Likewise an Xbox/Windows PC exclusive, Cliff Bleszinski's Gears of War franchise was owned by Epic Games until Microsoft bought the property in early 2014. The company handed the series to Black Tusk Studios, later renamed The Coalition, and hired industry heavy hitter Rod Fergusson to oversee a remaster of the first Gears of War, plus Gears of War 4 and Gears 5. Like Halo, Gears has been a big-name IP anchor for Xbox Game Pass since that service launched in 2017. Fergusson left The Coalition for Blizzard Entertainment in 2020, to bring Diablo 4 to term. With Tuesday's news, Fergusson is officially a Microsoft employee again.

Minecraft

Xbox's first big acquisition of a games franchise that was not exclusive to its platforms was for Minecraft and its maker, Sweden-based Mojang, seven months after the Gears of War deal went through. Although Microsoft spent $2.5 billion - its 10th largest acquisition since 2007 - for what began as an indie sandbox-and-survival game on PC, the company picked up Mojang with cash it literally had sitting in the bank, doing nothing. Since 2014, Minecraft has seen 19 major revisions and has remained a centerpiece, for both console and PC, of the Xbox and PC Game Pass library.

Hellblade, State of Decay, Wasteland, Double Fine, and Obsidian's adventures

At E3 2018, Microsoft announced it had acquired Ninja Theory, makers of Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice (and DmC: Devil May Cryfor Capcom before that), and Undead Labs, makers of the State of Decay zombie-survival series, plus two other studios (Compulsion Games, known for 2018's We Happy Few, and Playground Games, which has developed the Forza Horizon series since it began in 2012).

Five months later, during its X018 showcase, Microsoft announced it had added Obsidian Entertainment - the makers of Baldur's Gate, Fallout: New Vegas, and Pillars of Eternity and its sequel - as well as InXile Entertainment, the studio behind the Wasteland RPG series and the most recent adaptations of The Bard's Tale.

Since then, the sequels State of Decay 3, Wasteland 3, The Outer Worlds 2, and Senua's Saga: Hellblade 2 have all been announced as exclusives on PC and Xbox.

Microsoft followed this buying spree a year later by announcing, at E3 2019, that it had picked up Tim Schafer's Double Fine Productions, known for a fan-favorite catalog that includes Brutal Legend, Costume Quest, and Broken Age. Since Microsoft acquired Double Fine, Psychonauts 2, a sequel to the 2005 cult hit Psychonauts that began life as a crowdfunded project, was published by Xbox Game Studios.

Like Halo, Gears of War, and Minecraft before, all of these titles and franchises are in the Xbox Game Pass library.

Until Tuesday, it was hard to imagine a bigger takeover than 2020's deal bringing ZeniMax Media's parade of AAA franchises and developers to the home of Xbox. Microsoft's $8.1 billion acquisition of privately held ZeniMax - barely one-eighth of Tuesday's deal for Activision - landed Redmond a back catalog comprising Dishonored, Prey and The Evil Within; heavyweight franchises such as The Elder Scrolls, Fallout, Doom, and Wolfenstein; a landmark gaming brand in Quake; and Todd Howard's next zillion-hour RPG, Starfield, which is scheduled to launch this November.

Microsoft's acquisition of Bethesda Softworks' parent company did not disrupt plans to deliver two PlayStation console exclusives, Deathloop (September 2021) and GhostWire: Tokyo (delayed to 2022). But those deals were made before the acquisition; afterward, Xbox boss Phil Spencer said the company would decide on a case-by-case basis whether new games from the ZeniMax family would launch on third-party platforms like PlayStation 5 and Nintendo Switch. Then, at E3 2021, Howard announced that Starfield would indeed be an Xbox/PC exclusive, launching day-and-date on Xbox Game Pass to drive even more attention to that service. It's likely that The Elder Scrolls 6, announced alongside Starfield in 2018, will follow the same path.

Tuesday's $68.7 billion deal would bring Microsoft's number of internal game development studios to 30. With them would come billion-dollar cornerstones like the annual Call of Duty series and the landmark MMO World of Warcraft. Blizzard Entertainment's Diablo and Overwatch franchises, both due for new releases in 2023, could be the first games published by Microsoft once the deal closes. That's to say nothing of King, the mobile game maker behind massively popular franchises such as Candy Crush.

And that's not all. Activision's back catalog includes the remasters Spyro Reignited Trilogy, Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 1+2, and Crash Bandicoot 4: It's About Time, as well as the franchises preceding them. The company was also one of the last heavy hitters to do licensed nonsports video games, with remakes of GoldenEye 007, Transformers, Spider-Man, and the Cabela's outdoors series. Guitar Hero and Skylanders, which the company shut down in recent years, are still there if the music gaming or toys-to-life genres, respectively, ever make a comeback. And hell, Pitfall! - the first blockbuster video game IP developed specifically for consoles - is an Activision product.

Although Microsoft has acquired a year-in-year-out bestseller like Call of Duty, and two A-list franchises for which any development is breaking news, buying Activision gives the company control of a video game history going back to the dawn of console gaming itself.

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Here's everything Microsoft owns after the Activision Blizzard deal

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Microsoft's $68.7 billion purchase of Activision brings Xbox's stable of internal game development studios to 30 and gives Microsoft control of billion-dollar franchises like Call of Duty and World of Warcraft in addition to IPs like Minecraft, Halo, and The Elder Scrolls. Here's a list of everything the company has acquired since 2014.

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Lasagna meets macaroni in new Nestle meal mashup Eric Steele

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Lasagna meets macaroni in new Nestle meal mashup Eric Steele

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https://www.nytimes.com/2022/01/26/climate/iceberg-a68a-antarctica.html

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A chunk of Antarctic ice that was one of the biggest icebergs ever seen has met its end near South Georgia. Scientists will be studying its effects on the ecosystem around the island for some time.

The iceberg A68a in the South Atlantic near South Georgia in December 2020. Credit... Corporal Phil Dye/RAF/Ministry of Defense, via Associated Press

Perhaps you remember iceberg A68a, which enjoyed a few minutes of fame back in 2017 when it broke off an ice shelf on the Antarctic Peninsula. Hardly your everyday iceberg, it was one of the biggest ever seen, more than 100 miles long and 30 miles wide.

The iceberg drifted slowly through the icy Weddell Sea for a few years, before picking up steam as it entered the Southern Ocean. When last we heard from it, in 2020, it was bearing down on the island of South Georgia in the South Atlantic, a bit shrunken and battered from a journey of more than a thousand miles.

Alas, ol' A68a is no more. Last year, some 100 miles from South Georgia, it finally did what all icebergs eventually do: thinned so much that it broke up into small pieces that eventually drifted off to nothingness.

In its prime, A68a was nearly 800 feet thick, though all but 120 feet of that was hidden below the waterline.

Ecologists and others had feared that during its journey the iceberg might become grounded near South Georgia. That could have kept the millions of penguins and seals that live and breed there from reaching their feeding areas in the ocean.

That didn't happen. New research shows that A68a performed more of a drive-by and most likely only struck a feature on the seafloor briefly as it turned and kept going until it broke up.

But the research also revealed another potential threat from the iceberg to ecosystems around South Georgia. As it traveled through the relatively warm waters of the Southern Ocean into the South Atlantic, it melted from below, eventually releasing a huge quantity of fresh water into the sea near the island. The influx of so much fresh water could affect plankton and other organisms in the marine food chain.

The scientists, led by Anne Braakmann-Folgmann, a doctoral student at the Center for Polar Observation and Modeling at the University of Leeds in Britain, used satellite imagery to monitor the shape and location of the iceberg over the course of its journey. (Like other large Antarctic icebergs, it was named according to a convention established by the U.S. National Ice Center, which is a bit less flashy than the one used for hurricanes.)

The imagery showed how the area of the iceberg changed over time. The researchers also determined its thickness using data from satellites that measure ice height. By the time it broke up, Ms. Braakmann-Folgmann said, A68a was more than 200 feet thinner overall.

A68a left its mark. The researchers, whose findings were published in the journal Remote Sensing of Environment, estimated that melting in the vicinity of South Georgia resulted in the release of about 150 billion tons of fresh water. That's enough to fill an Olympic-size swimming pool 61 million times over, the researchers said, although because the ice was already floating its melting did not contribute to sea-level rise.

Not only is the water fresh, not salty, but it also contains a large amount of iron and other nutrients. Ms. Braakmann-Folgmann is helping another group of researchers, from the British Antarctic Survey, who are trying to determine the ecological effects of the iceberg and the meltwater.

A satellite image showed a piece breaking off the end of A68a in 2020. At its biggest, the iceberg was about the size of Delaware. Credit... European Space Agency, via Reuters

When the iceberg was near South Georgia, scientists with the survey were able to deploy autonomous underwater gliders to take water samples. On the island, they used tracking devices on some gentoo penguins and fur seals, to see whether the presence of the iceberg affected their foraging behavior.

Understand the Latest News on Climate Change

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Geraint Tarling, a biological oceanographer with the survey, said that preliminary findings from the tracking data showed that the penguins and seals did not alter foraging routes, as they might have had the iceberg blocked their way or affected their prey.

"At least in the areas of the colonies that we saw, the impacts from the iceberg itself are not as devastating as we first feared," Dr. Tarling said.

But there is still much data to analyze, Dr. Tarling suggested, especially the water samples. A large influx of fresh water on the surface could affect the growth of phytoplankton, at the lower end of the food change, or it could alter the mix of phytoplankton species available, he said.

Complicating the analysis is that 2020, when the iceberg was nearing South Georgia, also happened to be a bad year for krill, the small crustaceans that are just above phytoplankton in the food chain.

Dr. Tarling said that although A68a did not become grounded, a few other large icebergs have in recent decades. Grounding and dragging of an iceberg can wreak havoc on ecosystems on or near the seafloor, he said.

And climate change could potentially lead to more grounding episodes. Warming is causing parts of the huge Antarctic ice sheets to flow faster toward the ocean, leading to more calving of icebergs that then travel north.

"What we're looking at is a lot more movement of icebergs that could actually gouge these areas of the sea floor," Dr. Tarling said.

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An Extraordinary Iceberg Is Gone, but Not Forgotten

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A chunk of Antarctic ice that was one of the biggest icebergs ever seen has met its end near South Georgia. Scientists will be studying its effects on the ecosystem around the island for some time. Perhaps you remember iceberg A68a, which enjoyed a few minutes of fame back in 2017 when it broke off an ice shelf on the Antarctic Peninsula.

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NFL’s Odell Beckham Jr. took his $750,000 salary in bitcoin — how much did that end up costing him?

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NFL’s Odell Beckham Jr. took his $750,000 salary in bitcoin — how much did that end up costing him?

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Los Angeles Rams wide receiver Odell Beckham Jr. made headlines last November when he announced he would be converting his 2021 NFL salary into bitcoin.

The problem for Beckham: bitcoin prices are plummeting.

Cryptocurrencies including bitcoin and ethereum extended their downward slide on Monday. Ether was down 8% over the past 24 hours, and bitcoin prices fell below 35,000, including a 4% drop in the past 24 hours.

This is bad news for crypto investors and Beckham, who claimed to be converting $750,000 into bitcoin in a deal with Square's payment company Cash App.

The Action Network is reporting that the deal was made on Nov. 12, a day when bitcoin prices were at 64,158, according to CoinDesk - bitcoin prices are down 46.55% since that time.

Based on Monday's bitcoin prices, and assuming that Beckham put the entire $750,000 in bitcoin when the deal was made in November, his salary would now be worth about $401,500. Despite the drop in value for Beckham's salary, he will still have to pay taxes on his income as it was given to him, at the $750,000 value.

In addition to federal income tax, Beckham will have to pay state income tax in California, where the Rams play, which has one of the highest state rates in the country. His income qualifies him for a 12.3% tax rate, according to the state's income bracket.

Because we do not know if Beckham put all of his $750,000 in all at once or spread it apart over multiple conversions, it's difficult to know the exact dollar figure of Beckham's losses. If the deposit was made on November 12, that investment is now worth around $35,000 after taxes.

What can be determined for sure, though, is that Beckham would have been better off accepting his salary in U.S. dollars than in bitcoin.

Representatives for Beckham did not verify the terms of Beckham's bitcoin investment to MarketWatch.
See also: 'Are you guys into crypto?'- Kim Kardashian, Floyd Mayweather Jr. sued in alleged crypto scam
Beckham joins a long list of NFL players who have accepted deals in crypto or who have converted a portion of their salary into cryptocurrency, including Saquon Barkley, Trevor Lawrence and Russell Okung.

The sliding prices for cryptocurrencies come as panic-like selling emerged on Monday with the stock market tumbling and the Dow dropping over 1,000 points as of mid-afternoon.

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NFL's Odell Beckham Jr. took his $750,000 salary in bitcoin --- how much did it end up costing him?

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Los Angeles Rams wide receiver Odell Beckham Jr. made headlines last November when he announced he would be converting his 2021 NFL salary into bitcoin. The problem for Beckham: bitcoin prices are plummeting. Cryptocurrencies including bitcoin and ethereum extended their downward slide on Monday.

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https://www.bbc.com/news/health-60132096

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Two-thirds of people recently infected with the Omicron variant say they had already had Covid previously.

The findings come from a large, continuing study, React, swab-testing thousands of volunteers in England.

More work is needed to know how many are true reinfections - but the results reveal the groups that appear to be more likely to catch Covid again.

They include healthcare workers and households with children or lots of members under one roof.

Winter wave

More than two million people have been tested in the study.

The latest findings, for the first two weeks of 2022 - round 17 - are based on about 100,000 polymerase chain reaction (PCR) tests posted to volunteers and then returned.

About 4,000 were positive, by far the highest rate seen since the pandemic began.

And when a selection of them were sequenced to check what type of Covid was to blame, virtually all were Omicron - the highly infectious variant, first identified in South Africa, causing a big winter wave of infections in the UK.

Severe disease

It is not yet clear how many of the volunteers who tested positive had been fully vaccinated.

Two shots offer little protection against catching Omicron, although protection against severe disease wanes less.

But booster doses have been rolled out at speed since Omicron hit, to top up people's protection.

Two out of every three (65%) of the infected volunteers said they had already previously tested positive for Covid.

Many of these could have been reinfected.

Although, in some instances, the latest PCR tests might be picking up old traces of virus.

Other estimates have suggested one in every 10 Omicron case is a possible reinfection.

Currently, daily Covid case figures reported by the government - which reflect the number of infections picked up by people coming forward for testing - do not include reinfections for all countries of the UK.

Coronavirus infections have slowed recently but remain high, particularly among children and young teenagers, the React findings also suggest.

React programme director Prof Paul Elliott, from Imperial College London, said: "There is rapidly increasing prevalence among children now they are mixing more following the start of the school term and, compared with December, prevalence in older people, aged 65 plus, has increased... which may lead to increased hospitalisations.

"It's therefore vital that we continue to monitor the situation closely."

'Get boosted'

UK Health Security Agency chief executive Dr Jenny Harries said although vaccines may not stop every infection, they were doing a great job at protecting lives.

"Vaccination remains the best way to protect yourself from severe disease and hospitalisation from Omicron, and I would urge anyone who has not done so to come forward for their primary and booster doses as soon as possible," she said.

"The impact the vaccination is having on preventing severe disease and hospitalisations is clear to see.

"To ensure we continue on the downward trend and protect our communities, it is still important for us all to follow public-health advice, particularly in crowded spaces and areas of poor ventilation.

"If you are visiting friends and family, make sure to take a test before going out."

Health and Social Care Secretary Sajid Javid said: "It's reassuring to see Covid-19 infections beginning to slow across the country, as we move back to Plan A.

"Rates are still high, so as we learn to live with the virus it is vital we continue to be vigilant - wash your hands, let in fresh air, get tested and, if you haven't already, get boosted."

More on this story

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Two-thirds with Omicron say they have had Covid before

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Two-thirds of people recently infected with the Omicron variant say they had already had Covid previously. The findings come from a large, continuing study, React, swab-testing thousands of volunteers in England. More work is needed to know how many are true reinfections - but the results reveal the groups that appear to be more likely to catch Covid again.

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Q: What happened to the little boy statue that was at the center of Freedom Park in Palm Desert? It has been missing for over a year.

- Joy Jones

A: The boy is one of two pieces of the poignant "For Our Freedom" bronze sculpture that has been in the park since 2007.

The sculpture includes a woman, on her knees, the apparent mother of the boy. The boy - which is looking back at the woman - is holding a toy airplane in one hand and an American flag in the other and casts a shadow of himself as a young man in a military uniform.

"For Our Freedom" was created by artists Jesus and Adam Romo of Romo Studios LLC in Sacramento and was dedicated on Veterans Day 2007.

The sculpture of the boy was reported stolen on May 6, 2021, city spokesman Thomas Soule said. Staff received notification from the Public Works department that the boy had been stolen sometime that morning.

It weighed about 275 pounds, and city officials don't know how it was removed, Soule said.

A police report was filed along with an insurance claim.

City council members are expected to consider replacing the sculpture at their Jan. 27 meeting, at an estimated cost of $188,390, Soule said.

Romo Studios will replace the stolen sculpture and include a theft preventative device - a rod that will be placed inside the sculpture to make it more secure and difficult to remove from the site, Amy Lawrence, special programs manager for the city, states in a staff report.

The city has received an insurance check for $164,970, Lawrence said, leaving a balance of $23,600 to be paid from the city's Public Art fund.

The city's Cultural Arts Committee is recommending the council approve replacing the piece.

- Sherry Barkas, mid-valley reporter

Q. Prior to moving to the Coachella Valley, I do not recall seeing utility boxes painted in such a beautiful manner. Most of them are amazing works of art and essentially go without acknowledgment. I've often wondered about the artists and if their art is done on a voluntary basis.

- Paula Hansen

A: According to Palm Springs Public Arts Commissioner Russell Pritchard and Desert Hot Springs spokesperson Doria Wilms, artists are commissioned to paint these boxes as part of their public art programs.

Pritchard credited Palm Springs' utility boxes project titled "Stop In The Name of Love" to Commissioner Shawnda Faveau, adding several have been completed through a call to local artists and more are planned for the future. Artists are paid between $500 to $750.

Amy Lawrence, special programs manager for the City of Palm Desert, said they put out the occasional call for artists to beautify utility boxes and are paid $500 through their Cultural Arts Committee.

Last spring, the City of Indio put out a call for artists to submit entries for 15 boxes and were paid $750 per selected entry through the city's Arts in Public Places Fund.

- Brian Blueskye, arts and entertainment reporter

Q: When you get your PCR COVID test, which city is assigned that positive stat? The city where you got the test? Or the city on your license? I'm talking about the daily counts we see in the paper ... How is it tallied?

- Marie Lyons

A: If an Indio resident goes to Palm Springs to get a COVID-19 test and it comes back positive, that result will go to the patient's city of residence.

"The address of the person being tested is used, not the city where the test takes place," said county spokesperson Jose Arballo Jr.

Riverside County Public Health updates its city-by-city COVID-19 metrics, which include cases, deaths and recoveries, every Monday at www.rivcoph.org/coronavirus.

Testing breakdowns by city are also available under the "Summary reports" section of the COVID-19 dashboard. That document also states that "testing data includes only those tests with verified address information for the test recipient."

- Ema Sasic, health reporter

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Ask The Desert Sun: What happened to the little boy statue at Freedom Park in Palm Desert?

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A: The boy is one of two pieces of the poignant "For Our Freedom" bronze sculpture that has been in the park since 2007. The sculpture includes a woman, on her knees, the apparent mother of the boy.

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https://www.cnn.com/2022/01/25/us/coast-guard-florida-boat-capsize-search/index.html

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us coast guard searching for 39 people after their boat reportedly capsized on saturday - cnn

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Coast Guard searching for 39 people after their boat reportedly capsized on Saturday

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US Coast Guard rescue crews are searching for 39 people whose boat reportedly capsized on Saturday night near Fort Pierce, Florida, the agency said on Tuesday.

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Cases of omicron BA.2 have been reported in at least four states - California, New Mexico, Texas and Washington - and on three other continents.

The newer variant, like the original omicron, has lots of mutations, including about 20 in the region targeted by most COVID-19 vaccines.

Yes, a new variant of omicron is spreading on at least four continents. But, no, it shouldn't be a cause for panic, Massachusetts scientists said Tuesday.

Unlike two years ago when everyone was first learning about COVID-19, there are now many tools to combat the disease, and, like its cousin, omicron BA.2 is expected to remain relatively mild.

"I don't think it's going to cause the degree of chaos and disruption, morbidity and mortality that BA.1 did," said Dr. Jacob Lemieux, an infectious disease specialist at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston. "I'm cautiously optimistic that we're going to continue to move to a better place and, hopefully, one where each new variant on the horizon isn't news."
'STAYING VIGILANT AGAINST THE VIRUS':Pfizer and BioNTech announce plans to test omicron-specific COVID-19 vaccine in adult trials
While COVID-19 cases have begun to decline in places like Massachusetts, where omicron hit hard late last year, cases of BA.2 are on the rise in the Philippines, India, Denmark and South Africa, Lemieux said. Cases have been reported in the United States, too - so far in California, New Mexico, Texas and Washington state.

It's not clear yet whether BA.2 is pushing out the original omicron variant, now referred to as BA.1, he said.

In Denmark, for instance, the rise of BA.2 is coming as BA.1 falls, but they're currently split about 50-50, so "it's not clear which of these variants is driving the outbreak," Lemieux said.

Meanwhile, in South Africa, where cases had fallen dramatically after a huge surge around Thanksgiving, BA.2 is now more prevalent than BA.1.

"What we don't know and still have almost no information on is what impact this will have on case counts, on hospitalizations, on deaths," he said.
'TIRED, BURNED OUT, FRUSTRATED':Omicron surge hits nursing homes as vaccine mandate looms
Scientists still know very little about the transmissibility of BA.2 compared to BA.1, said Jeremy Luban, a professor of molecular medicine, biochemistry & molecular pharmacology at UMass Medical School.

Lemieux, Luban and other medical experts made their comments Tuesday on a weekly call with media organized by the Massachusetts Consortium on Pathogen Readiness.

It's also too early to say whether BA.2 will escape the protection provided by vaccines or existing medications, Luban said.

The newer variant, like the original omicron, has lots of mutations, including about 20 in the region targeted by most vaccines. BA.2 also has mutations not found in BA.1, which could limit the effectiveness of monoclonal antibodies, he said.

"We don't know what the significance of these mutations are going to be, especially in a population that has already encountered BA.1," said Luban, adding that BA.2 may acquire its own Greek name, to distinguish it from omicron.

Many people caught omicron even after being infected with the delta variant, but it's not clear whether someone who caught omicron remains vulnerable to BA.2, said Dr. Daniel Kuritzkes, chief of the division of infectious diseases at Brigham and Women's Hospital and a professor at Harvard Medical School.

T cells, the immune soldiers that seem to prevent severe disease after vaccination, will likely still be effective against BA.2, said Dr. Bruce Walker, director of the Ragon Institute of MGH, MIT and Harvard, which focuses on immunology research.

"It's T cells that probably have a major effect on the disease course once somebody does become infected," he said. "It's encouraging that at least from the T cell side - they may not be protected from getting infected but (vaccines) should help mitigate disease."

It's not known when or where first BA.2 emerged, though it appears to have diverged from BA.1 a number of months ago, Lemieux said.

Although both variants first appeared in southern Africa, it's not clear whether they originated there or simply came to public attention in that region, which has provided extensive genetic sequencing during the pandemic to track variants.
FACT CHECK: Omicron coronavirus variant is not the common cold
In order to spread, a new variant must be more transmissible - or just get lucky.

"We don't know what the factors are that are promoting the spread of BA.2, whether it's chance, whether it's intrinsically more transmissible, whether it's more transmissible in the context of natural immunity against BA.1 - those are answers we'll start to get over the coming weeks," Lemieux said.
Contact Karen Weintraub at kweintraub@usatoday.com Health and patient safety coverage at USA TODAY is made possible in part by a grant from the Masimo Foundation for Ethics, Innovation and Competition in Healthcare. The Masimo Foundation does not provide editorial input.
"It will take time to figure out as we watch it in different contexts as it spreads," Luban added.

The reality, Lemieux said, is that while BA.2 is likely to keep spreading at least for a few weeks in places around the world, "we have an ability to combat the virus that is orders of magnitudes different from where we were two years ago."

"Yes, we have some hard decisions. We have some evidence to collect. We can't predict the future," said Lemieux, noting that vaccines and drugs like monoclonal antibodies and antivirals have reduced the risk tenfold of becoming severely ill or dying from COVID-19. "But I think we are in a tremendously optimistic place, despite all the transmission, despite all the challenges ahead."

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Omicron's new variant cousin, BA.2, has arrived in the US. But don't panic yet, experts say.

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Cases of omicron BA.2 have been reported in at least four states - California, New Mexico, Texas and Washington - and on three other continents. The newer variant, like the original omicron, has lots of mutations, including about 20 in the region targeted by most COVID-19 vaccines.

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Latest sports news, videos, interviews and comment | CNN

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Latest sports news from around the world with in-depth analysis, features, photos and videos covering football, tennis, motorsport, golf, rugby, sailing, skiing, horse racing and equestrian.

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Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer to step down, giving Biden a chance to make his mark

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Associate Justice Stephen Breyer has served nearly three decades on the Supreme Court. His retirement will set off a fight over his replacement.

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https://www.desertsun.com/story/news/2022/01/25/covid-19-sick-pay-california-would-return-under-new-deal-omicron-rises/9215371002/

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SACRAMENTO, Calif. - California Gov. Gavin Newsom and state lawmakers reached an agreement Tuesday to again require employers to provide workers with up to two weeks of supplemental paid sick leave to recover from COVID-19 or care for a family member with the virus.

The legislation, which lawmakers would likely fast-track to the governor in the coming weeks, would apply to all businesses with 26 or more employees. A similar law from 2021 that provided 80 hours of supplemental paid sick leave expired Sept. 30.

Labor unions pushed the new proposal at the Capitol as California grapples with the rapid spread of the omicron variant. State officials hope the deal, which also boosts early budget funding for COVID-19 response to $1.8 billion, will encourage workers with the virus to stay home and help slow transmission.
More: You've tested positive or were exposed to COVID-19. Now what?
Companies across California would have to absorb the costs of additional paid time off for workers. In an attempt to help some businesses, the agreement includes separate proposals to restore tax credits that were suspended and capped two years ago when state officials feared the pandemic would cause California's economy to collapse.

"By extending sick leave to frontline workers with COVID and providing support for California businesses, we can help protect the health of our workforce, while also ensuring that businesses and our economy are able to thrive," Newsom, Assembly Speaker Anthony Rendon (D-Lakewood) and Senate Pro Tem Toni Atkins (D-San Diego) said in a statement. "We will continue to work to address additional needs of small businesses through the budget - they are the backbone of our communities and continue to be impacted by COVID-19."

The proposal would require employers to provide up to 40 hours of flexible paid leave to full-time workers who are sick or caring for an ill loved one, and requires proof of a positive test to qualify for an additional 40 hours of paid time off. Part-time workers would be eligible for sick leave equal to the number of hours they typically work in a week or twice that amount with a positive test.

Under the deal agreed upon Tuesday, the sick leave would be retroactive to cover coronavirus-related absences since Jan. 1 and extends until Sept. 30. That provision is likely to be particularly helpful for workers since cases linked to the omicron variant have surged over the past several weeks, prompting increased interest in ensuring sick employees are able to take time off.

Last year's paid leave plan did not require a positive test to use all of the benefit. When it expired in September, workers were left with a state-minimum of three paid sick days.

Labor groups have been lobbying to add back additional days for this year, arguing that three days is not enough time to recover or quarantine and leaves lower-wage workers forced to chose between going to work sick or falling behind on paying bills.
More: Is long COVID a syndrome or a series of coronavirus complications?
"From the first day of this pandemic, working people have been on the front lines protecting our families, communities and economy," said Art Pulaski, executive-secretary treasurer of the California Labor Federation. "Paid sick leave is one of the most potent weapons we have in the arsenal to protect these brave workers and slow the spread of this deadly disease."

The paid time off also allows parents to stay home when their children are sent home from school due to illness or after being exposed to COVID-19. The omicron variant has been spreading rapidly through schools over the past three weeks after students returned from winter break.

Employees could use up to three days of the sick leave to attend a vaccination appointment for themselves or a family member and to recover from any symptoms after vaccination, a provision intended to make it easier for parents to immunize their children against the virus.

Workers in the state first qualified for an additional two weeks of COVID-19-related sick leave in 2020 through a combination of state and federal laws and tax credits. Last year, California extended the 80 hours of sick leave for businesses with 26 or more employees.

"This supplemental paid leave is what has allowed workers to stay home while sick and keep sick children at home without having to worry about being fired or losing their income," said Katherine Wutchiett, a staff attorney at Legal Aid at Work in San Francisco.

During the first two years, workers in the state did not have to show a doctor's note or positive COVID-19 test in order to access paid leave, which Wutchiett said allowed for necessary flexibility during the pandemic.

"People need COVID leave for so many reasons right now - for themselves, for vaccination, or to care for kids who are sent home following an exposure or school closure," she said.

Business interests at the Capitol lobbied for the requirement of a positive test to qualify for 40 additional hours as insurance that workers cannot take more time than they need. The test could be taken by the worker or a family member in their care.

The agreement between lawmakers and the governor includes several proposals Newsom introduced earlier this month in his 2022-2023 budget plan that might help some businesses as they shoulder the cost of providing sick leave to workers.

The agreement would restore net operating loss deductions for corporate and individual taxpayers with business income of $1 million or more, which had been paused for tax years 2020, 2021 and 2022 and extended by three years. The state would also lift a $5-million limit on several other business tax credits for those same tax years.

The governor's budget also calls for tax conformity with federal grant programs that helped keep restaurants afloat during the pandemic and provided assistance to venues that were forced to shutter.

Lawmakers agreed to another Newsom budget proposal that called for the state to quickly authorize $1.4 billion for testing, vaccinations and COVID-19 response in state prisons. Under the deal, legislators will increase that funding by $400 million and authorize another $600 million in additional early spending for COVID-19 response as needed.

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COVID-19 sick pay in California would return under deal between Newsom, lawmakers

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SACRAMENTO, Calif. - California Gov. Gavin Newsom and state lawmakers reached an agreement Tuesday to again require employers to provide workers with up to two weeks of supplemental paid sick leave to recover from COVID-19 or care for a family member with the virus.

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https://www.cnn.com/2022/01/26/politics/robert-packer-camp-auschwitz-sweatshirt-us-capitol-riot/index.html

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Man who wore ‘Camp Auschwitz’ sweatshirt during US Capitol riot pleads guilty

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The man who was photographed inside the US Capitol wearing a “Camp Auschwitz” sweatshirt on January 6, 2021, pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor trespassing charge on Wednesday.

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In Los Angeles, Glimpses of an Oasis With Deep Immigrant Roots’

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In Los Angeles, Glimpses of an Oasis With Deep Immigrant Roots’

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Featured Article: "In Los Angeles, Glimpses of an Oasis With Deep Immigrant Roots." Photographs and text by Stella Kalinina.
At the onset of the coronavirus pandemic, with travel restrictions in place worldwide, The New York Times started a new series, The World Through a Lens, in which photojournalists transport you, virtually, to some of our planet's most beautiful and intriguing places. In the featured article, Stella Kalinina shares a collection of images from a community garden in Los Angeles, a place that has provided physical and spiritual nourishment for the past half a century to multiple generations of immigrant Angelenos.

Describe your relationship with nature: What role does it play in your life? Do you have a favorite place? How has nature positively affected your life?

What experiences have you had growing plants, vegetables, flowers or fruits? Have you ever grown something in your home or backyard? Have you contributed to a community garden or a farm at your school or in your neighborhood?

How accessible is the natural world where you live? Are there many gardens or parks available to stroll through or sit in? Do you have any plants in your school or home? Do you spend as much time in nature as you would like?

Do you think humans need some contact with nature to be healthy? Why or why not?

Read the article, and then answer the following questions:

What do you notice? What can you learn about the San Pedro Community Gardens and the people who garden and farm there?

What questions do you have about the gardens?

Taken together, what story do these images tell?

In this lesson, you will learn about the power of community gardens and consider the importance of nature in our lives. Then, you will act as a photojournalist to document an oasis in your own life.

Before reading the article, reflect on your experiences with nature by responding to one or more of the following prompts in writing or in discussion with a partner:

1. Look at the photographs and their captions throughout the article:

2. Now choose one photograph from the article that feels meaningful to you. What draws you to this image? What does it make you feel or think? What do you find fascinating, informative or moving?

3. The article features many wonderful and expressive photographs, but it also includes vivid language and thoughtful personal reflections and insights. How does Ms. Kalinina place the reader in the San Pedro Community Gardens in the opening paragraphs? What words, images and details are particularly evocative?
Option 1: Imagine your dream garden.
4. Why have many immigrants, like Raúl Laly Fernández, joined the community gardens? How have they become a "connection to home and a means of preserving and passing on their cultural heritage" for Mr. Fernández and other gardeners?

5. Ms. Kalinina said the project had grown out of her interest in "stories of migration, severed connections, longing for one's culture and the making of new homes." Which personal story in the article do you find most memorable or moving? What connections can you make to your own life? Have you ever sought out your own cultural heritage or needed to make a new home?
Option 2: What's your oasis? Document your place of refuge through photography.
6. The goal of the World Through a Lens series is to transport readers to some of our planet's most beautiful and intriguing places. In what ways did the featured article succeed in doing that? What does seeing and learning about another community teach you about your own? Does reading the article and viewing the photographs make you want to join a community garden or seek out nature more?

If you could plant a dream garden, what would it look like? What types of fruits, vegetables, flowers and other plants would you include? What smells, tastes and flavors would you hope for? Why? In what ways do these choices represent your own interests, culture or family history? Would it be open to the public or be a place of solitude and reflection for you and your family?

Now draw, label and caption your dream garden. Be creative and think big - it's your own garden oasis.

Where do you go to relax and find peace when you are feeling stressed or down? Is there a place you go for physical and spiritual nourishment, to find connection to your cultural heritage or simply to appreciate the beauty of the world?

Now, capture your oasis through photography. Use the photos featured in the article as inspiration, whether it's Ms. Kalinina's close-up shot of a gardener's hand delicately tending to a flower or her low-angle wide shot to capture the gratitude and pride of a garden member.

How would you reveal your special place to others? Whom or what would you photograph? What details would you show? When would you use wide, medium or close-up shots?

After you have captured at least three photographs, write a short artist's statement that explains why you chose them and what they reveal about your oasis.

Want more Lessons of the Day? You can find them all here.

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Lesson of the Day: 'In Los Angeles, Glimpses of an Oasis With Deep Immigrant Roots'

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Featured Article: " In Los Angeles, Glimpses of an Oasis With Deep Immigrant Roots ." Photographs and text by Stella Kalinina. At the onset of the coronavirus pandemic, with travel restrictions in place worldwide, The New York Times started a new series, The World Through a Lens, in which photojournalists transport you, virtually, to some of our planet's most beautiful and intriguing places.

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Apple Tops China for First Time in Six Years After Huawei Fades

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Apple Inc. was China’s top-selling smartphone brand in 2021’s final quarter, industry research showed, taking top spot in the world’s largest mobile market for the first time since 2015.

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Elon Musk tweeted on Tuesday that he would eat a Happy Meal if McDonald's begins accepting Dogecoin as a form of payment.

Dogecoin's value shot up about 6.5% as of Tuesday afternoon, starting at $0.127 when the market opened and reaching a high of $0.141, according to the Nasdaq.

Musk has been a longtime champion of the cryptocurrency, tweeting, "Dogecoin is the people's crypto," last February. Dogecoin started as a spoof coin featuring the face of a Shiba Inu and has steadily risen in value, reaching over ten cents in April of 2021.

Dogecoin was inspired by the popular Doge meme of a Shiba Inu staring sideways at the camera with raised eyebrows, according to the website Know Your Meme.
Dogecoin's value goes up: The price of Dogecoin, created to poke fun at cryptocurrency, is above 10 cents
When asked why he supports Dogecoin, Musk responded on Twitter: "Lots of people I talked to on the production lines at Tesla or building rockets at SpaceX own Doge. They aren't financial experts or Silicon Valley technologists. That's why I decided to support Doge - it felt like the people's crypto."

While McDonald's did not respond to the tweet, competitors like Burger King and Jack-in-the-Box touted their brands in the comments section.

Musk himself owns Dogecoin, along with other cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin and Ethereum, according to a tweet he posted in October 2021.
Michelle Shen is a Money & Tech Digital Reporter for USA TODAY. You can reach her @michelle_shen10 on Twitter.
Despite his tweets on cryptocurrency, Musk encouraged building value over investing heavily in cryptocurrencies, saying in an October 2021 tweet, "True value is building products & providing services to your fellow human beings, not money in any form."

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Elon Musk says he'll eat a Happy Meal if McDonald's accepts Dogecoin

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Elon Musk tweeted on Tuesday that he would eat a Happy Meal if McDonald's begins accepting Dogecoin as a form of payment. Dogecoin's value shot up about 6.5% as of Tuesday afternoon, starting at $0.127 when the market opened and reaching a high of $0.141, according to the Nasdaq.

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https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2022-01-26/with-killing-of-lapd-officer-florencia-13-gang-is-thrust-into-spotlight

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Seven decades ago, Latino youths in South Los Angeles banded together to form a gang. They called themselves Florencia, after the east-west thoroughfare that ran through the heart of their territory. Years of violent conflict over that territory with other gangs lent Florencia an identity and reason for being.

Over the years, demographic and social shifts have weakened many street gangs and caused some to die out altogether. Florencia did the opposite, law enforcement officials say, absorbing smaller gangs and expanding their extortion and drug dealing rackets on the orders of its leaders, who are incarcerated many hundreds of miles away.

The gang is now at the center of the killing earlier this month of an off-duty Los Angeles police officer.

Officer Fernando Arroyos, 27, was shot to death the night of Jan. 10 near the intersection of 87th and Beach streets. Police say he was with his girlfriend, looking at a house that he was thinking of buying, when two men robbed him at gunpoint of his wallet and jewelry. Arroyos and his assailants exchanged gunfire. The officer collapsed in an alley, mortally wounded.

Luis De La Rosa Rios, Jesse Contreras, Ernesto Cisneros and Haylee Grisham have been charged in federal court with Arroyos' killing. The three men are members of Florencia-13, according to the FBI. Grisham, the girlfriend of Rios, is described as a gang associate. None could be reached for comment, and they have yet to enter pleas.

The particular charge that prosecutors have brought against the four - violent crime in aid of racketeering - means they must make the case that the defendants robbed and murdered Arroyos to maintain or increase their standing within Florencia-13.

Juries have found in a number of recent trials that Florencia-13 amounts to a racketeering enterprise, but in those cases, prosecutors had evidence - recorded calls, intercepted letters and jailhouse notes - that its leaders had directed the drug deals, shakedowns and murders that formed a pattern of racketeering activity.

In this case, the crime seems more opportunistic.

According to an FBI agent's affidavit, one of the defendants has admitted that they were driving around, looking for someone to rob, when Rios spotted Arroyos and remarked, "He has a nice chain, let's get it."

::

The historic core of Florencia's territory is bounded by Slauson Avenue to the north, 101st Street to the south, Central Avenue to the west and State Street to the east, Lt. Hector Velasquez of the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department testified in 2016. In time it absorbed smaller gangs, many of which became cliques, or subsets, of Florencia-13. The gang now has at least two dozen cliques across South Los Angeles, Huntington Park, South Gate and Maywood.

Its ranks are knitted together by blood. It's common, authorities say, for members of the gang to have followed an uncle, a father or a grandfather into it.

The gang appended the "13" to its name in the 1990s, signaling its allegiance to the Mexican Mafia. The prison-based syndicate is also known as La Eme, Spanish for 'M,' the 13th letter of the alphabet. The organization is made up of about 140 men, all but a handful of them imprisoned, who rose through the hierarchies of local street gangs and the penal system by displaying a readiness to commit violence or an ability to make large amounts of money, according to law enforcement sources.

Four Florencia-13 members have gone on to join the Mexican Mafia, law enforcement officials have testified in prosecutions of the gang: Arturo Castellanos, known as "Tablas"; his brother Braulio, nicknamed "Babo"; Juan "Topo" Garcia and Leonel "Wizard" Laredo.

Arturo Castellanos has been incarcerated since 1979 for a murder conviction. Braulio Castellanos has been serving a life sentence since 1988 for two counts of second-degree murder. Garcia was released from federal prison in 2020 after serving a 17-year sentence for racketeering.

In 2018, prosecutors indicted Laredo and 25 other alleged members and associates of Florencia-13, charging that Laredo was collecting a percentage of the money made from drug deals, extortion and other crimes committed by the gang. He has pleaded not guilty, and the case has yet to go to trial.

A document seized by law enforcement in 2004 indicated the degree to which members of the Mexican Mafia controlled Florencia-13. Inside a home on 81st Street in South L.A., detectives found taped to the underside of a dresser a list of reglas - rules - assembled from various handwritten notes that had been pieced together, Velasquez, the sheriff's lieutenant, testified.

The notes, he said, were written by Arturo Castellanos in his cell at Pelican Bay State Prison, where he was - and still is - serving a life sentence for murder.

(Luis Sinco / Los Angeles Times)

The rules, written in a cramped hand, state that every Florencia-13 clique should elect by majority vote a president and vice president, who were to hold weekly meetings. Any gang member who had an issue with another was to bring it up at the clique meeting. "If an understanding cannot be reached, the pres from those [cliques] are to set a date for those two to box it out like real Florencianos," the rules say. "And after they agree it's over, it's a dead issue."

All cliques must "make sure you don't get infested by rats, P.C.'s, or 25¢-debriefers" - gang members who cooperate with law enforcement - by checking the "paperwork," or court files, of every Florencia-13 member coming out of jail. "It is the hood's responsibility to clean the hood of such trash," the rules state.

Florencia-13 members were forbidden from extorting " paisas slanging in the hood" - a reference, Velasquez testified, to Mexican nationals selling drugs in the gang's territory. The dealers were already paying off the Florencia-13 leadership and supplying them with cocaine, he testified. "So all you homies doing so," the rules say, "get a job!"

The document lays out which drugs can be sold where: Jailed Florencia-13 members in need of money were permitted to sell heroin in the county jail, but not "speed, glass, crank, or crystal." No heroin was to be sold in gang territory on the streets. "Let those who use, get it on the outskirts."

Gangs whose members have gone on to join the Mexican Mafia are less likely to be extorted or targeted for violence - "green-lighted" - than gangs that lack representation in the Mexican Mafia. In the rules seized by law enforcement, Arturo Castellanos allegedly told his gang that he and his brother "have shown you all our love for the barrio by making sure you homies never get taxed or green lighted by no one."

But to hear prosecutors tell it, Arturo Castellanos' grip on Florencia-13 led to a series of racially motivated attacks. In an indictment brought in 2007, authorities accused the gang of attacking members of rival Black gangs in an attempt to drive them from the Florence-Firestone area.

According to evidence presented at a racketeering trial in 2008, Arturo Castellanos, through a series of letters sent from prison, ordered his gang to attack members of the East Coast Crips, who claim a strip of South Los Angeles east of the 110 freeway.

The edict led to i ndiscriminate shootings of Black and Latino residents, as Florencia-13 members prowled the streets for targets and East Coast Crips committed retaliatory shootings of their own, witnesses testified. Many of the victims, Black and Latino, had no gang affiliations.

In recent years, however, Florencia-13 members have been directed to eschew violent inter-gang rivalries in favor of pursuing new rackets, said a former member of the gang, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

Florencia-13 has opened unlicensed dispensaries in South Los Angeles, selling not just marijuana out of the storefronts but cocaine and methamphetamine as well, the former member said. The indictment that prosecutors brought in 2018 charges that Florencia-13 members discussed collecting taxes from a marijuana shop.

The gang also operates casitas, underground casinos hidden inside South Los Angeles homes and apartments, which each generated about $300 a week in taxes for the gang, the indictment says. Patrons can play slot machines and other electronic games, buy and use narcotics, and meet sex workers at the establishments, according to testimony at an earlier racketeering trial.

Florencia-13 members also collect protection money from local merchants who seek help in keeping gang members from hurting their business, the former member of the gang said. A liquor store whose supply cases are being robbed of beer, a shopkeeper whose business is being graffitied, a barkeep whose patrons are being harassed, will sometimes offer to pay a Mexican Mafia member for protection, the former gang member said. For a monthly payment, typically between $200 and $250, he said, members of Florencia-13 and other gangs are warned that the business is under the auspices of a Mexican Mafia member.

There is no reliable estimate of how much money Florencia-13 generates for its Mexican Mafia overlords. But Laredo, an alleged member of the Mexican Mafia who has been incarcerated since 2000, was recorded in a call from prison telling an associate on the street that 40% of the money collected from the gang's rackets was owed to the four Mexican Mafia members from Florencia-13, according to an indictment charging him with racketeering. He has pleaded not guilty.

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Killing of LAPD officer brings scrutiny on one of L.A.'s oldest and largest gangs

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Seven decades ago, Latino youths in South Los Angeles banded together to form a gang. They called themselves Florencia, after the east-west thoroughfare that ran through the heart of their territory. Years of violent conflict over that territory with other gangs lent Florencia an identity and reason for being.

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uae intercept houthi ballistic missiles over abu dhabi - cnn

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US, UAE intercept Houthi ballistic missiles over Abu Dhabi

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The US military joined with the United Arab Emirates on Monday to counter a missile attack by Yemen's Houthis on an air base near its capital Abu Dhabi, where approximately 2,000 American service members and personnel are stationed, US officials said.

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https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/national-security/defense-secretary-presents-biden-options-us-response-russia-rcna13240

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The United States is discussing the deployment of American military forces to Eastern Europe with its NATO allies, a senior administration official said Monday, as President Joe Biden weighs options for responding to Russian threats against Ukraine.

Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin has placed 8,500 troops on "heightened alert" to assist with the defense of NATO allies, Pentagon spokesman John Kirby said during a news briefing Monday. He said no deployment orders have been given.

"I want to reinforce that as of now, the decision has been made to put these units on higher alert and higher alert only," said Kirby. "No decisions have been made to deploy forces from the United States at this time."

With Moscow massing more than 100,000 troops at its neighbor's border and no diplomatic breakthrough in sight, the West is stepping up its response amid mounting fears an invasion could be imminent.

Conversations are underway with NATO countries that could receive U.S. military forces as part of a plan to deter Russian President Vladimir Putin's aggression, the official said.

NATO said Monday that it was sending ships and fighter jets to Eastern Europe and that Washington "has also made clear that it is considering increasing its military presence in the eastern part of the Alliance."

Biden participated in a roughly 90-minute video conference with European leaders Monday afternoon to discuss Russia's military buildup on Ukraine's borders, the White House said. NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, Polish President Andrzej Duda, French President Emmanuel Macron, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, Italian Prime Minister Mario Draghi and other leaders participated in the call.

Following the video conference, Biden told reporters it was a "very, very, very good meeting," adding that there was "total unanimity with all the European leaders." The president said he would have more to say on the issue later.

In a statement, the White House said Biden and European leaders "reiterated their continued concern about the Russian military build-up on Ukraine's borders and expressed their support for Ukraine's sovereignty and territorial integrity."

The White House said the leaders "underscored their shared desire for a diplomatic resolution"and also discussed "their joint efforts to deter further Russian aggression against Ukraine."

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., has asked the White House for a briefing for all House members on the situation, a source familiar with the matter said. A separate source said Senate Majority Leader Schumer, D-N.Y., has requested a classified briefing next week for all senators.

Biden was briefed by Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin on Saturday about U.S. options for responding if Russia invades Ukraine, as well as options for U.S. military movements in advance of an invasion, according to a defense official and a senior administration official.

Among the options presented for the U.S. military in advance of an invasion were bomber flights over the region, ship visits into the Black Sea and the moving of troops and some equipment from other parts of Europe into Poland, Romania and other countries neighboring Ukraine.

Austin presented options to reassure NATO allies and reinforce their defenses, specifically the defenses of those countries bordering Ukraine, the officials said. The goal is to show unity and strength within NATO and deter Russian aggression against allies in the region, the officials said.

Biden was at the presidential retreat at Camp David, Maryland, and Austin briefed him via a secure video teleconference. Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Gen. Mark Milley, was on the call. Generally the secretary briefs the president and then the chairman provides more operational specifics.

Some details of the briefing were previously reported by The New York Times.

Russia has repeatedly denied planning to invade and has blamed the West for stoking tensions.

"All this is happening not because of what we, Russia, are doing. This is happening because of what NATO, the U.S. are doing," Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said during a conference call with reporters on Monday.

As Biden weighed his options, the State Department ordered family members of embassy employees in Kyiv to leave Sunday and authorized nonemergency diplomatic employees in Ukraine to depart. It also warned Americans not to travel to Ukraine or Russia, citing the possibility of Russian military action.

Ukraine criticized the move to withdraw diplomats' families as "premature," while U.S. allies were split on whether to immediately follow America's lead, with the U.K. doing so but the European Union saying it would not for now.

The briefing for Biden included the latest intelligence that the Russian military has not stopped building up forces around Ukraine, the officials said.

Another defense official said Putin continues to add more military units and flow forces to the border areas around Ukraine. "He's getting stronger, literally by the day," the defense official said.

The officials would not say whether Biden approved any movements. The senior administration official did say some troops and assets could be repositioned "in the coming days."

Air Force Gen. Tod Wolters, the commander of U.S. European Command and supreme allied commander Europe, has been preparing options for weeks, the defense official and the senior administration official said. Wolters has the authority to move some forces around his theater, but he is keeping Austin and military leaders informed given the gravity of the situation, the officials said.

Meanwhile, NATO said early Monday that it was putting extra forces on standby and sending more ships and fighter jets to the region, including beefing up its "deterrence" presence in the Baltic Sea.

"NATO will continue to take all necessary measures to protect and defend all Allies, including by reinforcing the eastern part of the Alliance. We will always respond to any deterioration of our security environment, including through strengthening our collective defense," Stoltenberg said.

Russian navy vessels began drills in the Baltic Sea focused on naval and anti-aircraft defense on Monday, the Russian state news agency RIA Novosti reported, according to Reuters.

Also Monday, the U.S. military and NATO begin Exercise Neptune Strike '22 , which includes training with NATO allies for capabilities that could be used against Russia. As part of the exercise, the USS Harry S. Truman carrier strike group will conduct long-range strike training and anti-submarine warfare training from the Mediterranean.

Pentagon press secretary John Kirby said the exercise is "designed to demonstrate NATO's ability to integrate the high-end maritime strike capabilities of an aircraft carrier strike group, to support the deterrence and defense of the alliance."

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Pentagon puts 8,500 troops on 'heightened alert' as U.S. weighs military action against Russia

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The United States is discussing the deployment of American military forces to Eastern Europe with its NATO allies, a senior administration official said Monday, as President Joe Biden weighs options for responding to Russian threats against Ukraine.

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https://www.npr.org/2022/01/25/1075558463/a-veteran-won-a-4-million-lottery-prize-using-the-numbers-from-a-fortune-cookie

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/01/24/learning/lesson-plans/lesson-of-the-day-inflation-has-arrived-heres-what-you-need-to-know.html

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3. Why is a little bit of consumer price inflation generally viewed as desirable, according to the article? What roles does the Federal Reserve, America's central bank, play in keeping prices from increasing too rapidly?

4. What are typical causes of inflation? What does Ms. Smialek mean when she writes: "The inflationary burst America has experienced this year has been driven partly by quirks and partly by demand." Give an example of each.

5. Economic forecasters are divided about the future of inflation in the United States. Give one example to support the idea that "the price burst will fade," as Ms. Smialek writes, and one to support the view that there are "concerning signs that inflation is becoming stickier."

6. How does inflation impact different groups and institutions, such as borrowers, lenders, workers, banks and the stock market? Why can inflation be particularly hard on lower income households, according to the article?

7. What new things did you learn about inflation by reading the article? What details, lines or statistics stand out?Return to your prediction in the warm-up activity?Do you think prices will continue to increase and perhaps become a permanent feature of the economy or is inflation a transitory phenomenon? What evidence in the article leads you to this conclusion?
Option 1: Learn more about inflation and the state of the U.S. economy.
Inflation is high and has been for months. It's weighing on consumer confidence, making Washington and policymakers nervous, and threatening to eat away at household paychecks well into 2022. What questions do you still have about inflation and the state of the U.S. economy? What else do you want to know?

You might begin by looking at The Times's Economy topics page, or by reading one of the articles on inflation and its impacts below. Then, write or discuss with a partner: What is your reaction to the article? How did it add to or change your understanding of inflation? What was the most fascinating, provocative or memorable thing you learned? What questions do you still have about inflation?
Option 2: Interview a family member about the prices of goods when they were young.

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Lesson of the Day: 'Inflation Has Arrived. Here's What You Need to Know.'

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3. Why is a little bit of consumer price inflation generally viewed as desirable, according to the article? What roles does the Federal Reserve, America's central bank, play in keeping prices from increasing too rapidly? 4. What are typical causes of inflation?

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https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/wireStory/california-city-approves-1st-us-insurance-law-gun-82479307

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A California city has voted to require gun owners to carry liability insurance in what's believed to be the first measure of its kind in the United States

SAN JOSE, Calif. -- A California city voted Tuesday night to require gun owners to carry liability insurance in what's believed to be the first measure of its kind in the United States.

The San Jose City Council overwhelmingly approved the measure despite opposition from gun owners who said it would violate their Second Amendment rights and promised to sue.

The Silicon Valley city of about 1 million followed a trend of other Democratic-led cities that have sought to rein in violence through stricter rules. But while similar laws have been proposed, San Jose is the first city to pass one, according to Brady United, a national nonprofit that advocates against gun violence.

Council members, including several who had lost friends to gun violence, said it was a step toward dealing with gun violence that Councilman Sergio Jimenez called "a scourge on our society."

Having liability insurance would encourage people in the 55,000 households in San Jose who legally own at least one registered gun to have gun safes, install trigger locks and take gun safety classes, Mayor Sam Liccardo said.

The liability insurance would cover losses or damages resulting from any accidental use of the firearm, including death, injury, or property damage, according to the ordinance. If a gun is stolen or lost, the owner of the firearm would be considered liable until the theft or loss is reported to authorities.

However, gun owners who don't have insurance won't lose their guns or face any criminal charges, the mayor said.

The council also voted to require gun owners to pay an estimated $25 fee, which would be collected by a yet-to-be-named nonprofit and doled out to community groups to be used for firearm safety education and training, suicide prevention, domestic violence, and mental health services.

The proposed ordinance is part of a broad gun control plan that Liccardo announced following the May 26 mass shooting at the Santa Clara Valley Transportation Authority rail yard that left nine people dead, including the employee who opened fire on his colleagues then killed himself.

At an hours-long meeting, critics argued that the fee and liability requirements violated their right to bear arms and would do nothing to stop gun crimes, including the use of untraceable, build-it-yourself "ghost guns."

"You cannot tax a constitutional right. This does nothing to reduce crime," one speaker said.

The measure didn't address the massive problem of illegally obtained weapons that are stolen or purchased without background checks.

Liccardo acknowledged those concerns.

"This won't stop mass shootings and keep bad people from committing violent crime," the mayor said, but added most gun deaths nationally are from suicide, accidental shootings or other causes and even many homicides stem from domestic violence.

Liccardo also said gun violence costs San Jose taxpayers $40 million a year in emergency response services.

Some speakers argued that the law would face costly and lengthy court challenges.

Before the vote, Sam Paredes, executive director of Gun Owners of California, said his group would sue if the proposal takes effect, calling it "totally unconstitutional in any configuration."

However, Liccardo said some attorneys had already offered to defend the city pro bono.

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California city approves 1st US insurance law for gun owners

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A California city has voted to require gun owners to carry liability insurance in what's believed to be the first measure of its kind in the United States SAN JOSE, Calif. -- A California city voted Tuesday night to require gun owners to carry liability insurance in what's believed to be the first measure of its kind in the United States.

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https://www.desertsun.com/story/news/2022/01/25/cathedral-city-police-man-shot-stater-bros-parking-lot-monday-night/9211953002/

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Cathedral City Police are investigating a non-fatal shooting in the parking lot of the Stater Bros. Market in Cathedral City Monday.

Officers were dispatched to the parking lot in the shopping center at Vista Chino and Landau Boulevard at just before 6:15 p.m. after receiving reports of a shooting, police said. They said the shooting occurred "between two vehicles," although it was unclear if that meant occupants of one or both vehicles had fired guns.

Officers arrived in the lot and found one victim, who was transported to a local hospital with non-life-threatening gunshot injuries. The man has not been publicly identified by police.

The department is seeking further assistance from the community - anyone with information related to this incident or who believes they may have information should call the Cathedral City Police Detectives at 760-770-0300 or Detective Commander Dane Dickson at 760-202-242.

Tips can be emailed to tips@cathedralcitypolice.com or provided by the WeTip hotline at 1-800-782-7463.

The shooting is the third to occur in a shopping center parking lot in the western Coachella Valley in recent weeks. On Jan. 11, a man was found dead in the parking lot of the Palm Springs Walmart, which is located in the 5200 block of East Ramon Road. His death is being investigated as a homicide.

On Jan. 17, two men were filmed on camera exchanging gunshots outside the Smart & Final store located in the same shopping center. The men fled and no injuries were reported.
Paul Albani-Burgio covers breaking news and the City of Palm Springs. Follow him on Twitter at @albaniburgiop and via email at paul.albani-burgio@desertsun.com.

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Cathedral City police: Man shot in Stater Bros. parking lot Monday night

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Cathedral City Police are investigating a non-fatal shooting in the parking lot of the Stater Bros. Market in Cathedral City Monday. Officers were dispatched to the parking lot in the shopping center at Vista Chino and Landau Boulevard at just before 6:15 p.m. after receiving reports of a shooting, police said.

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Supreme Court Justice Stephen G. Breyer to retire, giving Biden his first appointment

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Supreme Court Justice Stephen G. Breyer to retire, giving Biden his first appointment

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-Eduardo Talamantes

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Justice Stephen G. Breyer, the Supreme Court's 83-year-old liberal pragmatist, plans to retire this year, clearing the way for President Biden to make his first appointment to the high court.

Breyer, a 1994 appointee of President Clinton, is the senior member of the three-justice liberal bloc, and his retirement is unlikely to change the court's ideological balance.

But it should allow Democrats to replace him with a younger and possibly more assertive progressive. The confirmation process is likely to dominate Democrats' agenda in 2022.

"President Biden's nominee will receive a prompt hearing in the Senate Judiciary Committee, and will be considered and confirmed by the full United States Senate with all deliberate speed," said Senate Majority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.)

Breyer's plans were first reported Wednesday by NBC News. Court officials had no immediate comment.

Biden has pledged to appoint the first Black woman to the court, and the leading candidates are Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson, 50, and California Supreme Court Justice Leondra Kruger, 44.

Jackson, who serves as a federal appeals court judge in Washington, was a Supreme Court clerk for Breyer in 1999 and 2000. In March, Biden nominated her to serve on the U.S. court of appeals for the District of Columbia to fill the seat vacated by Atty. Gen. Merrick Garland.

Kruger served as a law clerk for the late Justice John Paul Stevens in 2003 and 2004.

(Matt McClain / Washington Post)

The timing of Breyer's departure was likely affected by the Democrats' narrow hold on control in the Senate. By leaving well before the 2022 midterm, Breyer ensures Democrats will have plenty of time to replace him before the next election, when Republicans hope to recapture control of the Senate.

The last time Republicans held the Senate under a Democratic president, Senate GOP leaders simply declined to act on the nominee. In 2016, then-Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) refused to hold hearings or a vote on Garland, President Obama's nominee to fill the seat of Justice Antonin Scalia, who had died suddenly.

Breyer has been under heavy pressure to resign from liberals pointing to the example of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. She declined to step down when Democrats held the White House and Senate during the Obama administration, and died when President Trump and Republicans were in control, shifting the court's ideological balance.

And even before the 2022 election, with a Senate split 50-50, some progressives worry that an unexpected shift of one seat due to death or resignation on the Democratic side could restore control to McConnell.

Breyer replaced Justice Harry Blackmun, the author of the Roe vs. Wade decision that legalized abortion. He reliably joined Ginsburg and the court's liberals on the major issues that divided the justices. He supported abortion rights, college affirmative action and gay rights, and he dissented when the conservative majority struck down the limits on campaign spending and severely restricted the Voting Rights Act.

However, Breyer never achieved great prominence on a high court that was dominated by its conservatives and the right-leaning moderates who cast the deciding votes, including Justices Sandra Day O'Connor and Anthony M. Kennedy. Meanwhile, liberals cheered for Ginsburg and the more outspoken Justice Sonia Sotomayor, Obama's first appointee.

Breyer is a California native, having grown up in San Francisco, and attended Stanford University as an undergraduate. But he spent most of his working life shuttling between Boston and Washington. He taught law at Harvard University and became a protege of Massachusetts Sen. Edward M. Kennedy and served for a time as one of Kennedy's top aides in the Senate. Kennedy played a key role in winning him an appeals court seat in Boston in 1980 and a Supreme Court appointment in 1994.

Breyer brought to the high court his belief in government as a force for good, and he saw the court's role as helping to make government work effectively. He has been the justice most likely to uphold the laws passed by Congress and regulations that were issued by federal agencies. He also focused more on the practical impact of a decision rather than on how it fit into an ideological approach to the law.

Despite his low public profile, Breyer had influence within the court because he could work with O'Connor and other moderate conservatives to shape middle-ground decisions or to limit the reach of a conservative ruling.

In 2019, for example, Breyer joined a court opinion that upheld as constitutional a 40-foot Latin cross that stood for nearly a century in a Maryland suburb as a memorial to local soldiers who died in World War I. As a condition for joining the opinion, Breyer had insisted the court not endorse erecting new religious symbols on public property, but instead accept long-standing monuments whose purpose was to honor soldiers, not to promote a religious viewpoint.

Breyer was particularly fond of O'Connor, a former state legislator, and like her, he brought a pragmatic approach to the law.

He spoke for the court in 2016 to strike down a Texas law that would have shut down most of the state's abortion clinics because their physicians did not have admitting privileges at a local hospital and because their facilities did not have the wide hallways of an ambulatory surgical center.

Breyer's opinion carefully explained that the evidence showed these restrictions would hurt, not help to protect, the health of the patients, some of whom would be forced to drive hundreds of miles in search of an open clinic. The approach was the kind of opinion that would appeal to swing-vote Kennedy, who joined to form the majority.

Breyer's openness to compromise did not always work. He was dejected by the 5-4 ruling in Bush vs. Gore, which halted the hand recount of punch-card ballots in Florida and preserved a narrow presidential win for then-Gov. George W. Bush.

"The court was wrong to take this case. It was wrong to grant a stay" that halted the recount, Breyer wrote in dissent. While he agreed that ballots should be recounted under a "uniform standard" for deciding whether it was a legal vote, he said it was a mistake for the court to end the recount. "We do risk a self-inflicted wound - a wound that may harm not just the court, but the nation," he wrote on Dec. 12, 2000.

Breyer was the only justice to have worked for years in Congress, and he argued for interpreting the law in a way that carried out the intent of the legislators who wrote them. As an aide to Sen. Kennedy, he played a key role in the passage of the Airline Deregulation Act of 1978. He also helped shape the federal sentencing guidelines with the aim that prison terms should reflect the severity of the crime, not the judge who handled down the sentence.

At the court, he and Scalia were regular sparring partners, and the two carried on a long-running debate over how to decide cases that turned on the meaning of a federal law. Scalia, a conservative who was skeptical of Congress, said the court should rely strictly on the words of a statute.

Breyer, by contrast, insisted the court should be guided by the purpose of the law and interpret its provisions in line with what Congress intended. He was the justice mostly likely to uphold a law and the federal regulations that enforced it. Where conservatives complained of "unelected bureaucrats" and an all-powerful "administrative state," Breyer spoke of agency officials as smart, serious-minded experts who were seeking to implement the law that came from Congress.

"The hardest problem in real cases is that the words 'life,' 'liberty' or 'property' do not explain themselves. Nor does the freedom of speech say specifically what counts as 'the freedom of speech,'" he said in 2011. While Scalia thought money spent on political campaigns was fully protected as speech, Breyer disagreed and voted to uphold the limits on spending and contributions set by Congress.

Breyer voiced despair over the lingering challenge of capital punishment. Writing in dissent in the 2015 case of Glossip vs. Gross, Breyer argued that recent decades had revealed the death penalty system was broken beyond repair. He said DNA testing had shown that a significant number of defendants were wrongly convicted and some were sentenced to death for crimes they did not commit.

Breyer concluded that the death penalty had proven to be arbitrary, unreliable and unworkable, and he said the court should declare it is "cruel and unusual punishment." Only Ginsburg signed on to his dissent.

Breyer's usual tone was hopeful and optimistic. In a 2010 book called "Making Our Democracy Work," Breyer said informed citizens, elected officials and judges must constantly work together with the aim of improving government. Yet from his Supreme Court chamber, he watched each year as Congress grew ever more divided, with members unwilling to work with or even speak with those on the other side of the aisle.

Over the years, several justices - but not Breyer - quit attending the annual State of the Union speech in which the president addresses the House and Senate in a joint session. His colleagues complained the speeches had turned into partisan pep rallies. Breyer believed that attending was a symbol of the different branches of government joining to work together in the year ahead.

Though he was often on the losing side when the justices were closely split, Breyer disputed the view that the outcomes turned on the political views of the justices. Asked in a 2020 interview about what most people get wrong about the court, he replied: "I think the most common perception, which is wrong, in my opinion, is they think that we're just junior-league politicians and they think that all these cases are decided on political grounds. We won't always get it right, but we're trying to do our best to figure out how law applies in this situation. And that's sometimes pretty tough. And the decisions people think are so obvious, they're not so obvious."

Stephen Gerald Breyer was born Aug. 15, 1938, in San Francisco, where his father, Irving, served as the legal counsel for the San Francisco Board of Education. He graduated from Lowell High School in 1955 and earned an undergraduate degree from Stanford University. He was awarded a Marshall scholarship to study at Oxford and then returned to the U.S., where he earned a Harvard law degree.

He first came to Washington in 1964 to be a Supreme Court clerk for Justice Arthur Goldberg and then joined the Justice Department in the antitrust division. In 1967, he married Joanna Freda Hare, a child psychologist who was a member of the British aristocracy. They had three children: Chloe, Nell and Michael. Breyer's younger brother Charles was a federal district judge in San Francisco.

Breyer missed his first shot at the Supreme Court. In 1993, shortly after Clinton moved into the White House, Justice Byron White announced his plan to retire. Democrats were eager to fill their first Supreme Court seat in 26 years. Clinton set out to select a prominent Democrat with experience in the political world, but New York Gov. Mario Cuomo and Senate Majority Leader George Mitchell, a former federal judge, declined the offer. He had initially declined to consider Judge Ruth Bader Ginsburg because she had given speeches in which she criticized the Roe vs. Wade ruling.

Breyer had the support of top White House lawyers as well as Sen. Kennedy, and Clinton invited him to the White House. But Breyer had been badly injured in a bicycle accident and suffered broken ribs and punctured lung. Nonetheless, he traveled to Washington for what turned out to be a difficult and painful interview. Clinton and Breyer had differing views on antitrust law, and the president did not come away impressed. After more weeks of delay, Clinton invited Ginsburg for an interview and immediately decided to nominate her to the court.

A year later, however, Justice Harry Blackmun retired. And while Clinton again reached out to several prominent figures, he relented and nominated Breyer, who appeared to face no real challenge in the Senate. He won confirmation on an 87-9 vote.

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Supreme Court Justice Stephen G. Breyer to retire, giving Biden his first appointment

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Justice Stephen G. Breyer, the Supreme Court's 83-year-old liberal pragmatist, plans to retire this year, clearing the way for President Biden to make his first appointment to the high court. Breyer, a 1994 appointee of President Clinton, is the senior member of the three-justice liberal bloc, and his retirement is unlikely to change the court's ideological balance.

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The latest patch brings back Fortnite’s most popular location

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Fed Signals Liftoff ‘Soon,’ Sees Asset-Reduction Start Afterward

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Fed Signals Liftoff ‘Soon,’ Sees Asset-Reduction Start Afterward

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https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-01-26/fed-signals-liftoff-soon-sees-asset-reduction-start-afterward?srnd=premium

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'It is dire': 1 body found as search goes on for 38 others on capsized boat off Florida coast

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'It is dire': 1 body found as search goes on for 38 others on capsized boat off Florida coast

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‘It is dire’: 1 body found as search goes on for 38 others on capsized boat off Florida coast

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A Coast Guard official said human smuggling is suspected in capsized-boat tragedy off Florida coast.

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The couple who fell in love in Antarctica

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The couple who fell in love in Antarctica

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https://www.cnn.com/travel/article/chance-encounters-antarctica-romance/index.html

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(CNN) - "I've come to Antarctica to find a husband," Nicole McGrath told Cole Heinz, mock serious.

Heinz laughed. The two were eating lunch at McMurdo Station, a US research facility built on volcanic rock on Ross Island, surrounded by mountains, snow and ice.

It was 2013. McGrath, then 25, had graduated college in the midst of the recession, she was unsure what she wanted to do and job prospects were grim.

When she heard that the US government employed people to work in dining and janitorial roles at McMurdo, McGrath was intrigued and immediately applied.

It was a couple of years before she was accepted, but then before she knew it, McGrath was boarding a military flight from New Zealand to the planet's southernmost continent.

"Who gets to say they go to Antarctica?" McGrath tells CNN Travel today. "That's just like something I've never even heard of. I'm from Florida originally, so I'd never even lived anywhere cold ever."

Upon arrival, she was informed of her duties as a dining agent: working the galley, washing dishes and serving food for the McMurdo team.

Heinz, a McMurdo veteran who'd just turned 29, was set to train McGrath, along with several other new recruits. He recalls the moment he first saw her.

"I walked in, and I was just like, 'Woah,'" he says.

McGrath was equally taken with Heinz.

"I remember like seeing this redheaded Texan with a baseball cap and just being like, 'Oh, he's cute,'" says McGrath.

Still, she was only kidding about heading to Antarctica to husband-hunt, her joke referred to the fact McMurdo was roughly 75% men.

The two strangers quickly realized they shared this dry sense of humor.

"I think what drew us to each other that first day was that we joked around a lot, and we made each other laugh," says McGrath.

There were other new recruits joining that day, and McMurdo was always a hive of activity. It was hard to find much privacy. But McGrath and Heinz happened to eat lunch alone on day one.

"We had kind of our own little -- not really a date -- but just a little private lunch together that first day," says Heinz.

As McGrath settled into her work, she found herself comparing McMurdo's atmosphere to that of a college campus. Everyone lived in dorms. There were organized movie nights and events. There was a friendly, welcoming vibe.

There was also patchy Wi-Fi, communal computers and no cell phone signal, so connections were forged quickly and strongly.

"They're really big on community there, because everyone is in the same position, you're 10,000 miles away from home and family," says Heinz.

The only downside of the buzzy environment was it was difficult to be alone with a potential love interest. But amid their busy work days, Heinz and McGrath found time to chat one on one, with Heinz often stopping by McGrath's work station in the dining room.

On day three of her Antarctic adventure, McGrath asked Heinz out on their first official date. She suggested they hike to Hut Point to see the abandoned Discovery Hut, once used by British explorer Robert F. Scott during a 1901-1904 Antarctic expedition, and later by Ernest Shackleton.

"It's just exactly the way it was over 100 years ago, because of the cold and the lack of humidity, everything's perfectly preserved," explains McGrath.

The two chatted the whole way, marveling at the spectacular, ethereal landscape as they carved a path in the snow.

"It's like this very beautiful, cold, desolate place," says McGrath, recalling the icy terrain.

Back at McMurdo, the two headed to the coffee house and spent the rest of the day chatting and playing board games together. They shared their first kiss, and were inseparable from that day forward.

"That was that," says McGrath.

The two soon realized dating at McMurdo Station was slightly different from dating in Florida or Texas. For one, there was the privacy issue.

"You kind of have to just be creative with dates," says Heinz.

They'd go out on hikes together with no one but Antarctica's penguins for company, looking out for seals or whales en route. Back at the station, they'd watch movies in the communal lounge.

Evenings were spent sharing a drink with their friends, or playing games in the coffee hut. The McMurdo workers put on events, like banjo lessons or language classes, for one another. Often the scientists based at the station gave fascinating talks about their Antarctic research.

On the eve of 2014, the station hosted its annual New Year's Eve festival, dubbed Icestock. Heinz and McGrath attended the live concert, along with all their friends at McMurdo.

"It's the southern hemisphere, so the sun's out for 24 hours, the snow around the station has melted. So they'll build this big platform and people can sign up to play music," explains Heinz.

One hut at McMurdo is reserved for visiting VIPs, but when not occupied by congressional delegates, it's available for the residents to hire out for 24-hour periods. On one of their days off, Heinz rented out the spot and used the opportunity to cook McGrath a special steak dinner.

McGrath called her parents from the McMurdo landline each day. She didn't mention Heinz until she'd been at the station for a few months, but her mom had already guessed her daughter had met someone. Whenever McGrath was able to grab a turn at the communal computer, she'd send her family photos of her adventures, and her mother noticed a red haired man popping up in almost every picture.

In January 2014, the couple told one another they loved each other for the first time. They were hanging out together, stealing some rare alone time.

"I heard her whisper something," recalls Heinz.

"What did you say?" he remembers asking.

McGrath repeated the three words, softly.

"When she finally said it a little bit louder, I was like, 'I've been thinking for the past week I wanted to say this to you. But I've never said it to a girl before,'" recalls Heinz today.

"I said it first. And I knew I was in love with him," says McGrath. "But part of it was always like, I don't know, sometimes McMurdo felt like a bit of a fantasy world, like a reality show."

She wasn't sure how their relationship would translate to the "real" world.

"Maybe it's easy to be in love because we're in this beautifully protected space," she remembers thinking.

The summer season at McMurdo came to an end in February and McGrath had planned to travel around New Zealand for the six months following, while Heinz was set to stay on for the winter. The two hadn't really talked about what that meant for their relationship.

"I knew I still wanted to be with her," says Heinz. As February edged closer, he decided he needed to be honest.

"What if I came to New Zealand with you?" he suggested to McGrath one day.

McGrath hesitated. She didn't want Heinz to give up the opportunity to work the winter season -- those winter roles were coveted, as there were fewer jobs than there were in summer. Plus, she was still worried that their relationship may only work in this specific Antarctic bubble.

McGrath said she thought it was best if Heinz didn't join her.

"I was just like, 'Okay, I mean, I love you, I want you to be happy and do whatever you want to do and if we crossed paths again, that's great," Heinz recalls.

"After that, things were sad and tense between us. It was hard to know how to be around each other knowing our relationship would be coming to an end soon," says McGrath.

But a couple days later, she says she found herself alone in her room, thinking about Heinz.

"It hit me that once I left, I wouldn't get to see him every day and it made me so sad," says McGrath.

Her mind made up, she went to find him, and reopened the discussion.

"I told him if he was really OK with giving up his winter contract then I wanted him to come travel New Zealand with me," McGrath recalls.

A plan started to form, and the two set about organizing working holiday visas in New Zealand. Once they were there, they bought a converted camper van and toured the country together.

"It was a little bit nerve wracking at the beginning," says McGrath. "But I feel like we just had so much fun. We had already fallen in love in Antarctica. But that trip is what made me realize, 'Okay, I really do love this guy.'"

On a Skype call from the New Zealand van, McGrath meant Heinz's parent's in Texas for the first time. Meanwhile, her parents flew out to join the couple on the last two weeks of their trip.

"Weird way to meet my parents for the first time," laughs McGrath. "Like, 'Here's my parents and now we're going on a two week road trip with them!'"

The couple grew even closer as they navigated the ups and downs of their camper van odyssey. When the six months came to an end, McGrath geared up to return to Antarctica.

"Originally, I was going to be one and done in Antarctica, I was just going to do one season, but then I loved it so much, I signed up for a second season," she says.

Heinz wasn't able to join her, so the couple were going to be long-distance for five months. Neither of them were sure how this would pan out.

"We had just spent literally almost a year together of always being around each other -- living in the van together, seeing each other 24/7. And then me going to Antarctica and doing long distance for five months where we couldn't even FaceTime or Skype or anything -- it was just phone calls," says McGrath.

"But we made it through and I figured, 'Well, if I can live in a van with this guy, and also do long distance with this guy, then we must be able to make it long term because we've been through both extremes.'"

When McGrath came back to the US after her second Antarctic season, she'd also settled on a career -- she wanted to work in urban planning and she'd lined up an internship in Florida.

Meanwhile, Heinz had a job working for the National Park Service and was about to move to Colorado. The couple were still long-distance, but it was a lot easier now they were in the same country, and they organized regular trips back and forth.

On one of McGrath's visits, the two were hiking the canyons of the Colorado National Monument together, when Heinz proposed.

"I was actually a little panicked when he asked me, because I knew I loved him, I knew I wanted to marry him. But at that time, I was just like, 'How is this even going to work, our lives are so apart?'" recalls McGrath.

"And again, he was the one that was like, 'We'll just make it work. We love each other.' So after some slight panicking, I said 'Yes.'"

The two decided to do one more trip to Antarctica to celebrate this new chapter. This time, they'd work at McMurdo for the summer and winter season, enjoying the opportunity to see the last sunset before the darkness of winter 2016 took hold, and getting an opportunity to visit the South Pole.

Back home in the US, the two got married in McGrath's home city of Miami in January 2017. Florida felt like a world away from Antarctica, but the couple still found ways to incorporate the continent into the celebrations.

The color scheme was blue and silver, evoking the polar ice. Heinz made a miniature replica of Scott's Discovery Hut, into which the guests dropped their wedding cards. Rather than a guest book, loved ones signed a mounted map of Antarctica. On top of the cake were two miniature penguins. And Heinz's cufflinks were engraved with the coordinates for McMurdo Station.

McGrath wore a wedding dress once worn by her late Chilean grandmother, and later passed on to her mother.

"We also had pictures of my grandmother and mother in the dress at our reception, so our guests knew the backstory of the dress," she says.

After their wedding, the couple moved to Texas, where McGrath had been accepted into graduate school for city planning.

She graduated while seven months pregnant with the couple's first child, Samantha. McGrath and Heinz say a bit of Antarctica has already found its way into Samantha's day-to-day life.

"She gets lots of penguin stuff all the time, she was dressed as a penguin for her first Halloween, and she has penguin decorations in her room," says Heinz.

Today, the family lives in upstate New York. McGrath and Heinz say they moved north partly because of McGrath's job, and partly because they missed the cold.

As for Heinz, he now works in the aerospace industry -- he developed a fascination with air transportation and logistics during his final season at McMurdo.

The couple are still close with many of the people they met during their time in Antarctica, and they're always encouraging others to seize the chance to work there.

"I'm always trying to push people to go for a season because I mean, it obviously was very life changing for both of us because we met there -- but even just the experience of being there is life changing," says McGrath.

The couple always mark Antarctica's winter solstice, which takes place in June, with a reunion with friends from McMurdo. The celebration was virtual in 2021, but in previous years friends from Antarctica have flown in from across the US to celebrate.

"It's a holiday that we consider very special to us and then it just keeps us connected back to the place that we fell in love," says McGrath.

McGrath and Heinz, who recently celebrated their five year wedding anniversary, say they've enjoyed embarking on new challenges and a new phase of life together over the past half decade.

"Over the years of marriage, just being around each other, you learn so much more," says Heinz, who says it's inspiring to witness McGrath's "motivation and the intelligence, and just the passion she has for everything."

"From the beginning, I always knew that he was a really kind, sweet person. And so I knew he was always going to be there," says McGrath of Heinz. "Now we have a kid, and parenthood has opened up this whole new set of challenges and I'm continually impressed with the father that he is and, and just how dedicated he is to being a great dad and to being a great partner."

The couple say they would love to return to McMurdo when they retire, and ponder if a grown-up Samantha, and any future children they may have, might be interested in joining them.

When the pandemic allows, they also hope to take Samantha to South America, where McGrath's mother is from, and to Switzerland, where she also has family.

Whatever the future holds, McGrath and Heinz are excited to experience it together.

"Every day is still just like that first day in Antarctica, everyday is exciting, different and fun," says Heinz.

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the couple who fell in love in antarctica - cnn

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The couple who fell in love in Antarctica

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(CNN) - "I've come to Antarctica to find a husband," Nicole McGrath told Cole Heinz, mock serious. Heinz laughed. The two were eating lunch at McMurdo Station, a US research facility built on volcanic rock on Ross Island, surrounded by mountains, snow and ice. It was 2013.

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U.S. Offers ‘Diplomatic Path’ in Answer to Russian Demands

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The U.S. response was not made public but Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken said it contained “core principles” on Ukraine’s sovereignty.

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batman gone be fire

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With great power comes great responsibility. Yes, we know that's a different superhero, but how is the director of The Batman feeling?

"Terrified," says Matt Reeves.

The journey to the screen of the new Batman movie has been a long and gruelling one. Almost a decade ago, Ben Affleck was cast as the Caped Crusader in Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice. It is Affleck's most successful film at the box-office. By every other metric it was a disaster: critics hated it, fans hated it more and it launched DC down a route of superhero ensemble movies ( Suicide Squad; Justice League) that got worse and worse. For every new star in an ever-more-twinkling Marvel Cinematic Universe, rival DC couldn't catch a break. The memory of Christopher Nolan's benchmark The Dark Knight trilogy appeared to be going gently into that good night. The best bet for Bat fans looked like another outing for Lego Batman, which at least was funny. But DC wanted another Batman movie.

They put in a call to Matt Reeves, director of the acclaimed monster movie Cloverfield (2008), as well as Dawn of the Planet of the Apes (2014) and War for the Planet of the Apes (2017). "Ben [Affleck] had been working on a version of the script," Reeves says, "and I said, 'Here's the thing: I respect that the DC Universe has become an extended universe and all the movies were kind of connected. But another Batman film, it shouldn't have to carry the weight of connecting the characters from all those other movies. I didn't want them in there."

A Batman movie without Aquaman (he can control sea life), Cyborg (he's a cyborg) or any of the rest of the corny Justice League characters already sounded like a 100 per cent improvement. As Robert Pattinson - we'll get to him - says in a two-minute promotional showreel for the new film, "Batman has stood out as one of the major characters of the 20th century, and so many people connect with it on such a deep level for so many reasons." He deserved better.

Reeves's next issue was this. Sure, you could reboot Batman - it's been done dozens of times since he first appeared in Detective Comics in 1939, almost certainly more. But would anyone have the stomach for yet another retelling of his origin story, from a slightly different angle? "We've seen it so many times," Reeves says. "It's been done too much. I knew we couldn't do that."

He set about a ton of reading and was blown away by the comic Batman: Year One, the 1987 four-issue run by writer Frank Miller and artist David Mazzucchelli, that showed a young and in-turmoil Bruce Wayne figuring out how to be a be a vigilante. The tone is detective noir, the violence is street-level and nasty, and you will search in vain for a feat of superhero derring-do or a groaning Mr Freeze "Allow-me-to-break-the-ice"-style pun. Calling Batman: Year One realistic would be a stretch. But it is somewhere near as realistic as a comic book about a mentally dubious loner who puts on a disguise and begins hunting criminals come night. This proto-Batman underestimates his opponents, gets shot by the police, and his costume doesn't fit. (It's great, and it happens to be my favourite comic book.) Other influences on Reeves included New Hollywood classics from the 1970s: The French Connection, Chinatown and Taxi Driver. Also, Kurt Cobain.

"Early on, when I was writing, I started listening to Nirvana, and there was something about [ Nevermind song] 'Something in the Way', which is in the first trailer, which is part of the voice of that character. When I considered, 'How do you do Bruce Wayne in a way that hasn't been seen before?' I started thinking, 'What if some tragedy happened [ie: Wayne sees his parents murdered] and this guy becomes so reclusive, we don't know what he's doing? Is this guy some kind of wayward, reckless, drug addict?' And the truth is that he is a kind of drug addict. His drug is his addiction to this drive for revenge. He's like a Batman Kurt Cobain."

Batman's main opponent in The Batman is The Riddler. Not the Jim Carrey version in the lime-green catsuit covered in question marks from Val Kilmer's Batman Forever (1995). But a costume-less, schlubby Paul Dano interpretation, who communicates with the police via cyphers, based on the Zodiac Killer. Batman is one superhero without superpowers - but he is "the world's greatest detective". Reeves's Batman, to the shock and awe of The Internet when it was announced in 2019, is Robert Pattinson.

"Of course, the idea [to fit with the Year One story] was to make him a younger actor," he says. "And in the process of writing the movie, I watched [the fantastic 2017 Safdie brothers film] Good Time, and I thought, 'Okay, he's got an inner kind of rage that connects with this character and a dangerousness, and I can feel this desperation.' And I became dead-set on it being Rob. And I had no idea if Rob had any interest! Because, of course, he had done all of these indie movies after he established himself in Twilight."

Unbeknownst to Reeves - or presumably anyone at DC - he had one thing on his side: Pattinson was a huge Batman fan. "He'd heard that we were doing this and got excited about the idea that there was going to be another version of this character," Reeves says. "And so when I met him, and he read the script, we talked for a long, long time and I realised, 'This guy is a massive fan'."

Pattinson fit the part - but he still had to audition. Ridiculously, he did so in Val Kilmer's old Batsuit. "Warner Brothers are like, 'Look, we're not going to make anything for somebody for a screentest'. But you go there [into WB] and they've got all the suits, going back to Michael Keaton. They said, 'Look, we've done this on every single one. [Christian] Bale came in and he put on one of the original suits.'

"I'm not going to say it fitted well," Reeves continues. "But it fitted the best. It was sort of old, and as he started acting, he started heating up the cowl and the cowl started to sag on his face. You could see him thinking, 'How am I going to act in this suit?' But putting on a Batman suit is also transformative. You start to feel the power of having that armour on."

Completing the Grunge Gotham vibe, as the 31m people who saw The Batman trailer in its first 24 hours noticed, Pattinson's Batman is wearing emo-eyeliner. What's up with that?

"You can't wear a cowl and not wear that. All of the Batmen wear that," says Reeves, not entirely convincingly. "I just loved the idea of taking off [the mask] and under that there's the sweating and the dripping and the whole theatricality of becoming this character."

One of the things that makes the Batman character so interesting is that he's so malleable. He can be campy Adam West from the 1960s or angry Christian Bale from the 2000s - and both are equally valid. By an overwhelming majority, the YouTube comments section is going crazy for the "I'm vengeance!" this-guy's-nuts punchiness of Pattinson's 2020s version, based on two or three trailers. But it's fair to say that not everyone thought the skinny guy from Twilight was a stroke of genius casting.

"There has been no actor, when his announcement that he was going to be playing Batman in one of the feature films was announced, that has not received a backlash," Reeves says.

"The people who were excited, I knew it was because they knew Rob's work post- Twilight. The people who weren't excited, I knew it was because they didn't know Rob's work post- Twilight."

What about the other iconography that comes with the character, however you choose tell his story? In The Batman, Wayne Manor is depicted as falling to bits - "He doesn't care about any of the trappings of being a [millionaire] Wayne at this point," Reeves says, citing Gus Van Sant's Last Days, the 2005 fictionalised version of Kurt Cobain's sad, slow demise (just like that film, we'll apparently see amps stacked up in a storage room).

The new Batcave is based on a secret underground railway that still exists in New York. "The idea being that some of these wealthy industrialist families had private train cars at the turn of the century. So the Batcave is actually in the foundation of this tower. It was [another] way of saying, 'How can we root all these things in things that feel real, but also extraordinary?'"

And finally, a new Batmobile. "The Nolan films established the Batmobile as a tank, which was a brilliant idea," Reeves says. "But I thought, 'Wouldn't it be cool if this guy is a loner and a gearhead and fashioning these things by himself, taking parts of other cars and kit cars?' So it's recognisable as a car this time. But it's like a muscle car. One that he's made himself."

Reeves says it's daunting but also hugely exciting to see his Batman come to life - he is days away from finishing the film when this interview takes place in late 2021.

"I'm very proud of it. I felt it was the best version of the story that we could possibly do to justify having another Batman," he says. "You always have to have a reason, and from the beginning that was the mission for me." Sequels and Gotham City-based spin-offs are being planned. It's safe to assume they will remain Aquaman-free. At least for now. "It will obviously have a lot to do with how people receive this film," Reeves says. "But a lot of things are in the works."

When Bruce Wayne/Batman first goes looking for criminals in Batman: Year One, there is one frame in which Reeves noted that "he's dressed in what I thought looked like an image out of Taxi Driver". Some of Frank Miller's notes to David Mazzucchelli are included at the back of a commemorative edition of Year One, published a few years ago. Of that same frame, Miller writes he wanted Batman "to basically look like he's won a Taxi Driver-lookalike competition". Reeves laughed out loud when he read that. They were literally on the same page.

At the start of this article, there was one DC film we overlooked. One that bucked its run of rum luck - and did so in spectacular style. That film was 2019's double-Oscar-winning Joker. A key influence on that? Also Taxi Driver. Don't bet that Batman isn't about to rise again.
The Batman is released in cinemas on 4 March

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Director Matt Reeves Says 'The Batman' Is Inspired by 1970s Cinema, 1980s Comic Books and... Nirvana

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With great power comes great responsibility. Yes, we know that's a different superhero, but how is the director of The Batman feeling? "Terrified," says Matt Reeves. The journey to the screen of the new Batman movie has been a long and gruelling one.

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‘The Doodle Boy,’ a 12-year-old illustrator, lands deal with Nike

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‘The Doodle Boy,’ a 12-year-old illustrator, lands deal with Nike

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https://kesq.com/entertainment/cnn-style/2022/01/26/the-doodle-boy-a-12-year-old-illustrator-lands-deal-with-nike/
-Madison Miller

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Sana Noor Haq, CNN

A 12-year-old illustrator has signed a deal with Nike, his agency confirmed to CNN on Wednesday.

Joe Whale, who goes by the name "The Doodle Boy" on social media, will be collaborating with the global sports brand "on some special projects."

"We are so very excited to confirm that Joe is now part of the Nike Family," his agency, Loveblood Creative, told CNN in a written statement.

"It really is a unique relationship that puts Joe's talent and love of sport together to inspire others to have fun and do what they love."

"Joe is really excited to join the Nike Family, he absolutely loves the Brand," Joe's father, Gregory Whale, told CNN via email.

"It is a dream come true for him as he loves both Sport and creativity and partnering with Nike will give him the opportunity to embrace both."

Joe posts his illustrations to his 119,000 followers on Instagram. Last year he had his first solo show at the Soden Collection, an art gallery in his home town of Shrewsbury, central England, according to the gallery's website.

His artwork was endorsed by Prince William and Catherine, the Duchess of Cambridge, after he drew an illustration of their royal train tour in December 2020.

In a post on their official Twitter account at the time they thanked him saying, "keep up the great work!"

Joe's favorite things to illustrate are aliens, monsters and food, according to his website. He has created characters including the "Praying Turtle," "Cool Dog" and "Backpack kid."

CNN has reached out to Nike for comment.

The-CNN-Wire
™ & © 2022 Cable News Network, Inc., a WarnerMedia Company. All rights reserved.

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'The Doodle Boy,' a 12-year-old illustrator, lands deal with Nike - KESQ

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Sana Noor Haq, CNN A 12-year-old illustrator has signed a deal with Nike, his agency confirmed to CNN on Wednesday. Joe Whale, who goes by the name "The Doodle Boy" on social media, will be collaborating with the global sports brand "on some special projects."

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Find breaking news, features and analysis on the NFL, NBA, MLB, golf, tennis, soccer, NCAA, NHL, World Series, Super Bowl, Olympics, World Cup and more.

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https://www.cnn.com/videos/world/2022/01/25/burkina-faso-military-coup-busari-lkl-ovn-intl-hnk-vpx.cnn

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video shows some citizens celebrate overthrow of burkina faso government  - cnn video

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Video shows some citizens celebrate overthrow of Burkina Faso government - CNN Video

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Burkina Faso's army said it took control of the country, deposing President Roch Kabore, dissolving the government and parliament, suspending the constitution and shuttering its borders. CNN's Stephanie Busari reports.

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https://www.cnn.com/style/article/india-wedding-metaverse/index.html

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Couple plan India’s ‘first metaverse marriage’ | CNN

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As Covid-19 forces families across India to downsize or cancel their traditionally large-scale weddings, one couple has found a venue unaffected by restrictions: the metaverse.

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CE 2

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Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer is retiring, Fox News confirmed, setting President Biden up with the first opportunity to fill a vacancy on the high court.

A source close to Breyer told Fox News that the justice will step down at the end of the current Supreme Court term early this summer.
JUSTICE SOTOMAYOR ON PUBLIC OUTRAGE OVER SCOTUS DECISIONS: 'NO EASY ANSWERS'

Breyer, who is 83, has been the subject of rampant speculation about his retirement. Liberal activists were calling for the justice to retire soon after Biden was inaugurated.

Breyer was appointed by former President Bill Clinton, a Democrat. Breyer's replacement will need to be confirmed by the Senate, which is currently split 50-50 between Democrats and Republicans, with Democrats technically holding the majority because Vice President Harris can break ties.

White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki said Wednesday that the White House won't be commenting, at least for now, about Breyer stepping down.
CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP
"It has always been the decision of any Supreme Court Justice if and when they decide to retire, and how they want to announce it, and that remains the case today. We have no additional details or information to share from @WhiteHouse," she tweeted.

During his campaign, Biden promised that he would nominate a Black woman to the Supreme Court. One potential option is D.C. Circuit Judge Kentanji Brown Jackson - a progressive favorite who Biden nominated last year.
Fox News' James Levinson contributed to this report.

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Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer to retire

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Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer is retiring, Fox News confirmed, setting President Biden up with the first opportunity to fill a vacancy on the high court. A source close to Breyer told Fox News that the justice will step down at the end of the current Supreme Court term early this summer.

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New York's mask mandate has been temporarily restored by an appeal's judge. 

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New York's mask mandate has been temporarily restored by an appeal's judge. 

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An appeals judge temporarily restored New York's mask mandate Tuesday, a day after a judge in a lower court ruled that Gov. Kathy Hochul's administration lacked the constitutional authority to order people to wear face coverings.

Judge Robert Miller in New York City granted the state's request for a stay of a Long Island judge's ruling while the governor's administration pursues an appeal.

Arguing before Miller on Tuesday, Judith Vale, an attorney for the state, said judge Thomas Rademaker's earlier ruling would "radically disrupt the status quo" and endanger the health of students and staff at schools.

"The order, if not stayed will allow individuals to refuse to wear face coverings in indoor public settings where the risk of COVID-19 spread is high, including in schools where many children remain unvaccinated against COVID-19," the state's court filing said.

Attorney Chad Laveglia, who brought the challenge on behalf of a group of parents, vowed to take the challenge "as far as it needs to go."

"The judge got it wrong entirely. It's so blatantly unconstitutional to grant a stay whatsoever," he said.

Monday's ruling overturning the mask mandate caused a day of confusion for school districts and parents, with some administrators quickly announcing masks would be optional and others continuing to enforce them.

"While it is certain this decision will face legal challenges, until otherwise litigated, mask wearing will be optional for students and staff in the Massapequa Schools beginning Tuesday," the Massapequa School District, in the New York City suburbs of Long Island, said on its website.

The state had initially instituted a mandate in April 2020 that required people to wear masks in most indoor settings outside their home. That rule ended in June 2021 for vaccinated people. Hochul announced in mid-December, as COVID-19 infections surged in the state, that it would go back into effect for at least a month. Earlier this month, the state health department said the mandate would be in place until Feb 1.

Hochul, a Democrat, said she was confident the mandate would be upheld.

"As Governor, my top priority is protecting the people of this state. These measures are critical tools to prevent the spread of COVID-19, make schools and businesses safe, and save lives," she said after Miller's ruling.

Senate Republican Leader Rob Ortt criticized Hochul for relying on mandates and said she should instead send a bill to the Legislature for debate.

"We are two years into this pandemic, and it's absurd that this administration is still ruling by mandates - which continue to cause confusion, frustration and division among New Yorkers," he said.

The Long Island judge's ruling did not stop school districts from implementing their own rules on masks.

It came as the omicron wave that gripped New York state appears to be easing. The state averaged just under 22,000 new cases of the virus per day in the seven-day period that ended Monday, down from 74,600 per day during the wave's peak in early January. Hospitalizations are dropping, too, declining 17% statewide in the past seven days.

New York State United Teachers President Andy Pallotta cited current public health guidance that favored masks at a time of elevated infection rates.

"In the meantime, we're looking to state health officials to set a clear off-ramp for when mask requirements in schools can be relaxed," Pallotta said, "so students, families and educators have some certainty that there is light at the end of this long tunnel."

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New York's mask mandate temporarily restored by appeals judge

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An appeals judge temporarily restored New York's mask mandate Tuesday, a day after a judge in a lower court ruled that Gov. Kathy Hochul's administration lacked the constitutional authority to order people to wear face coverings. Judge Robert Miller in New York City granted the state's request for a stay of a Long Island judge's ruling while the governor's administration pursues an appeal.

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Woman tries to buy another woman's baby at Walmart, police say

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Woman tries to buy another woman's baby at Walmart, police say

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https://www.cnn.com/videos/us/2022/01/26/woman-tries-to-buy-baby-at-walmart-newsroom-vpx.cnn

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woman tried to buy another woman's baby at walmart  - cnn video

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Woman tried to buy another woman's baby at Walmart - CNN Video

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A woman was arrested after allegedly offering to buy another woman's baby for $500,000 at a Texas Walmart. CNN's Rosa Flores has the story.

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Local fifth grader wins NFL's super kid contest

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Local fifth grader wins NFL's super kid contest

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https://kesq.com/news/2022/01/25/local-5th-grader-in-nfls-super-kid-contest-will-be-featured-on-good-morning-america-wednesday/
-Madison Miller

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Aubrey Anaya, a 5th grader at Dr. Carreon Academy in Indio, is the winner of the NFL's PLAY 60 Super Kid competition!

She was surprised with the news during an interview on Good Morning America Wednesday morning.

The 11-year-old had been told she was a semi-finalist and that the winner would be announced during the Super Bowl.

However, Anaya will attend and be recognized during the second half of the Super Bowl LVI on Sunday February 13 in Los Angeles at SoFi Stadium.

She will also participate in community events leading up to the game and will be GMA kid correspondent for the week!

Anaya said her favorite team is the Las Vegas Raiders and quarterback Dereck Carr taped a special message congratulating her during her GMA appearance.

Aubrey Anaya

Anaya participates in the school's Fuel Up to Play 60 ( FUTP 60) program, which is a youth wellness program that empowers students, parents, and educators to work together to build healthier communities.

As an active member of Dr. Carreon's Fuel Up to Play 60 team, Aubrey submits videos, participates in assisting. students in the running club, and helps kindergarten students in PE.

She even participated in an exercise video for the American Heart Association.

Aubrey recently volunteered to set up equipment, take stats, and help the Dr. Carreon intramural flag football league this year, rather than playing herself. She is also a buddy during physical education classes as she works with students who have mild/moderate learning disabilities.

"Dr. Carreon Academy is so excited for Aubrey. She is definitely our Comets NFL SuperKid," said Jory Kirchhevel, FUTP 60 program advisor.

In addition to her participation in the school's Fuel Up to Play 60 program, Aubrey is active outside of school as well with gymnastics and dance. When she's not physically active herself she enjoys watching her favorite NFL team, the Las Vegas Raiders and Derek Carr.

Aubrey is also busy with community service activities. She participates in feeding the hungry by packing boxes at the local food bank for needy families in the local community.

Next month, for the Super Bowl, Dr. Carreon will have a "Soup"er Bowl canned food drive. Aubrey will again participate in this community service event as a part of our Fuel Up team.

Aubrey was presented with a FUTP 60 football signed by Dr. Carreon program advisors as the Comets "SuperKid." Alyssa McClelland, California FUTP 60, announced via Zoom that Audrey was an NFL FUTP 60 SuperKid Semi-Finalist.

The entire FUTP 60 team of 35 students, the program advisors, Jory Kirchhevel, Bethany Marinez, Ralph Gutierrez (Aubrey's fifth grade teacher), and Principal Lisa McColl, Ed.D, were all in attendance to hear the exciting news and Audrey's about her upcoming interview with Good Morning America.

Aubrey loves FUTP 60! She loves being physically active while still helping her community. Aubrey's healthy lifestyle motivates her family, family, and other Dr. Carreon Comet students.

"Aubrey's healthy message to other students is: "Students should join FUTP 60 because it is fun to be a part of the club! There are so many different things to do like creating videos, help start a running club, exercise and staying active and healthy. You get to help the community too!"

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Local 5th grader named winner of NFL's 'Super Kid contest' on Good Morning America - KESQ

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Aubrey Anaya, a 5th grader at Dr. Carreon Academy in Indio, is the winner of the NFL's PLAY 60 Super Kid competition! She was surprised with the news during an interview on Good Morning America Wednesday morning.

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Get the latest news about politics, the economy, health care, the environment, education, Congress and state, local and federal government.

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Confidence is growing that a winter storm with the intensity of a hurricane, snow measured in feet and blizzard-like conditions will impact major Northeast cities this weekend

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Confidence is growing that a winter storm with the intensity of a hurricane, snow measured in feet and blizzard-like conditions will impact major Northeast cities this weekend

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A bomb cyclone with the power of a hurricane will unleash snow and blizzard-like conditions this weekend

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Confidence is growing that a winter storm with the intensity of a hurricane, snow measured in feet and blizzard-like conditions will impact major Northeast cities this weekend.

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Explosion damages offices, stores in Athens; 3 hurt

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Explosion damages offices, stores in Athens; 3 hurt

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An explosion has left three people injured and seriously damaged an office block and smashed nearby storefronts in a busy part of central Athens

ATHENS, Greece -- An explosion left three people injured and seriously damaged an office building while shattering nearby storefronts in a busy part of central Athens early Wednesday.

Fire department officials said a 77-year-old man was hospitalized with burns. Two others received medical attention for smoke inhalation.

The pre-dawn blast occurred 200 meters from the ancient Temple of Olympian Zeus on the busy Syngrou Avenue.

Firefighters were using aerial ladders to look for anyone possibly trapped inside the damaged buildings. As dawn broke, they forced their way into damaged stores to free several people trapped inside.

The cause of the blast wasn't immediately clear.

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Explosion damages offices, stores in Athens; 3 hurt

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An explosion has left three people injured and seriously damaged an office block and smashed nearby storefronts in a busy part of central Athens ATHENS, Greece -- An explosion left three people injured and seriously damaged an office building while shattering nearby storefronts in a busy part of central Athens early Wednesday.

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Exclusive: Oscar Mayer hot dogs and Velveeta cheese will get more expensive

Some of our favorite food just got more expennsive
CE 1

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Exclusive: Oscar Mayer hot dogs and Velveeta cheese will get more expensive | CNN Business

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The makers of top food and consumer goods brands plan to raise prices in the spring, dashing shoppers’ hopes for a quick drop in their grocery bills.

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The Fed unveils a tougher plan to fight stubbornly high inflation.

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Faced with mounting pressure from rapidly rising consumer prices, the Federal Reserve is preparing to raise interest rates sooner - and perhaps more aggressively - than had been expected just a few months ago.

The central bank is trying to prevent stubbornly high inflation from becoming a permanent feature of the economy. Prices in December were up 7% from a year ago - the sharpest jump in nearly four decades.

At the conclusion of a two-day meeting Wednesday, Fed policymakers signaled that the labor market has neared the "maximum employment" threshold, which it has identified as a pre-condition for raising interest rates.

"With inflation well above 2% and a strong labor market, the [rate-setting] Committee expects it will soon be appropriate to raise the target range for the federal funds rate," policymakers said in a statement.

Forecasters expect the central bank to begin raising rates from their current level of near zero as early as March.

Maximum employment is a moving target. There are about 3.6 million fewer workers on payrolls now than there were before the pandemic.

But with job growth slowing in recent months and millions of people on the sidelines not actively looking for work, Fed Chairman Jerome Powell said the central bank cannot afford to leave inflation unchecked.

"To get the kind of very strong labor market we want with high participation, it's going to take a long expansion," Powell told lawmakers earlier this month. "And to get a long expansion, we're going to need price stability."

Why inflation is on the rise

Prices during the pandemic have been far from stable.

Consumers have spent freely, thanks in part to generous government relief payments. But with workers and supplies often scarce, many businesses have struggled to keep pace with that demand. The resulting price hikes have proven to be much more persistent than the Fed initially expected, much like the pandemic itself.

The price of new cars, for example, has jumped 12% in the last year as automakers struggle with a shortage of semiconductors. That's had a spillover effect in the used car market, where prices have soared by 37%.

The Commerce Department warned this week it does not expect the semiconductor shortage to ease in the near future.

Gasoline and groceries have also gotten more expensive. Price-checkers point to elevated inflation in more than two out of three categories the government tracks. Powell, who's been nominated for a second term as Fed chair, insists the central bank will not allow that continue indefinitely.

"We know that high inflation exacts a toll, particularly for those less able to meet the higher costs of essentials like food, housing and transportation," Powell told Senators during his confirmation hearing. "We will use our tools to support the economy and a strong labor market and to prevent higher inflation from becoming entrenched."

Raising interest rates would not solve the supply chain woes, but are intended to tamp down consumer demand.

The Fed is also pursuing other actions to fight inflation

In addition to raising interest rates, the Fed is expected to gradually begin shrinking its portfolio of government debt and mortgage-backed securities later this year. Doing so is another way to fight inflation, by pushing up long-term borrowing costs across the economy.

Mortgage rates have already risen to their highest level since the start of the pandemic, in anticipation of the central bank's moves.

Investors' concern about rising prices and the Fed's response has contributed to extreme volatility in the stock market this week.

The Fed expects inflation will cool this year, provided the public health outlook improves, easing shortages of both workers and supplies.

But Powell acknowledged that similar hopes have been dashed in the past.

"I don't think two years ago, we thought we'd still be having record levels of cases," Powell told lawmakers at the height of the omicron wave. "Getting past the pandemic is the single most important thing we can do."

Fed policymakers predicted in December that inflation would fall to around 2.6% by the end of this year, less than half its current rate. (The Fed's preferred yardstick for inflation is the Commerce Department's index of personal consumption expenditures, which was 5.7% in November.)

The central bank says it's prepared to adjust interest rates more - or less - aggressively, if actual inflation turns out to be higher or lower than forecast.

"We're going to have to be just very attentive to what's happening in the economy and willing to adapt pretty nimbly our policy as we go through the year," Powell said this month.

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Game time: The Fed unveils a tougher plan to fight stubbornly high inflation

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Faced with mounting pressure from rapidly rising consumer prices, the Federal Reserve is preparing to raise interest rates sooner - and perhaps more aggressively - than had been expected just a few months ago. The central bank is trying to prevent stubbornly high inflation from becoming a permanent feature of the economy.

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There's one population that gets overlooked by an 'everyone will get COVID' mentality

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There's one population that gets overlooked by an 'everyone will get COVID' mentality

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-Eduardo Talamantes

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Ten-year-old Chase and 11-year-old Carson have alert minds and radiant smiles, but very uncooperative bodies. The two brothers have a rare genetic disorder called MEPAN syndrome. They can't sit, stand, walk or talk. For their parents, Danny and Nikki Miller, this means wheelchairs, electric lifts, diaper changes and spoon feeding.

Before the pandemic, the Marin, Calif., family relied heavily on several types of therapists and individual aids - and the boys' skills were slowly improving. But when COVID struck, all that support went online or stopped entirely. Danny and Nikki struggled to balance their own careers with homeschooling their boys.

"We were taxed," says Danny. "I tried to teach the boys physical therapy while it was being demonstrated over Zoom. We had a lot more responsibility, a lot more on our shoulders. You know, as if we didn't have enough already."

Every new surge of the virus sends the family into chaos, escalating Danny and Nikki's fears that their boys might get infected. Doctors have warned that the incredibly rare neurological disease (there are fewer than 30 known cases worldwide) puts them at higher risk - and their parents now dread a future riddled with variants.

"We don't want anything else to potentially compromise their already fragile situation," says Miller.

Even after the omicron surge ends, COVID-19 will still be with us, and learning to live with it will be a challenge for everyone.

But that challenge will be especially difficult for the roughly 7 million immunocompromised Americans who remain especially vulnerable and will have to keep their guard up much higher than the rest of us.

Among them is Sassy Outwater-Wright. Her 37-year-old body is also very fragile. Right when COVID hit in the spring of 2020, the Berkeley, Calif., resident started feeling an agonizing pain in her head and face. Doctors discovered a very aggressive soft-tissue cancer creeping toward her brain. Radiation and chemotherapy treatment wiped out her white blood cells, and therefore her immune system.

Leaving the house, let alone taking an Uber to and from the hospital for screenings and check-ups, was and still is terrifying for her. Public transportation is still out of the question.

Outwater-Wright has fought cancer her entire life. When she was a baby, a rare cancer attacked her eyes leaving her blind.

"My superhero name is Tumor Killer Girl," she says. "I just went through my 100th surgery in November."

If Outwater-Wright gets a sniffle, taking a rapid COVID test isn't an option because she can't see the results. As a disability advocate she's trying to fight for better access to home tests and ensure that vaccine messaging is accessible to people with disabilities. But that's hard to do over Zoom.

"I do not have that face-to-face gravitas of me walking into a room anymore," she says.

Outwater-Wright would also like to sit in a cafe, take a vacation, and ditch her N95 mask, which presses into the sensitive scar on her face where her tumor was. But she can't do any of those things - and that's unlikely to change for the foreseeable future.

"There's an element of risk no matter where I go," she says. "I can't step out into public and not assume that there's somebody unvaccinated nearby."

Alice Wong, a prominent disability rights activist and author, also weighs life or death every time she goes outside. The San Francisco resident has a neuromuscular disability and uses a ventilator to breathe.

"There is a casual acceptance that the pandemic will turn into something endemic, an inevitability that 'everyone' will get COVID eventually," writes Wong in an email. "Leaders, medical professionals and public health experts have said something along those lines with zero acknowledgement that people will still die and those deaths will be disproportionately from high-risk groups."

Wong has been pushing for additional funds to pay for more delivery services to administer boosters, masks and test kits to people who can't leave their homes. She is also advocating for stricter vaccine mandates, extended paid sick leave and free personal protective equipment for home health care workers and employees of long-term care facilities.

Wong says it's hard to see small glimmers of access - like online events, priority shopping hours, curbside pickup, and even flexible work schedules - slowly receding. It's exhausting, she says, defending one's very existence at a time when being immunocompromised has never been more terrifying.

"Their vulnerability is very much dependent on community case rates," says Bob Wachter, chair of the Department of Medicine at UCSF. "They're probably going to have to modify their behavior based on that level of threat."

But he stresses that people who are immunocompromised are not a monolithic group. Some patients are responding well to the vaccine. And, even for those who are not, like people who have undergone organ transplants, there's hope in new medications like Paxlovid, Pfizer's pill.

"It attacks the virus in a way that's not dependent on your immune system," says Wachter. "If you get COVID, it lowers the chance of hospitalization by 90%. If you can lower your risk by nine tenths through a pill, you take twice a day for five days, that makes the world a lot safer."

Supplies of Paxlovid and other antivirals are currently scarce, but Wachter says that should change over time as pharmaceutical companies ramp up production and scientists race to develop more drugs.

Danny Miller, the father of the two boys with MEPAN syndrome, is frustrated so many people are choosing not to get vaccinated. He says those decisions are threatening his sons' lives, and he would like to see politicians and judges take stronger steps to ensure higher vaccine rates.

"You have parts of the country where two-thirds of the people are not vaccinated or boosted," says Miller. "That means things are going to drag on much longer than they should because we are not all in this together."

Miller says time is critical for his sons. He doesn't know how long they have because very little is known about the boy's rare disease.

"COVID has taken 12 to 18 months away from us in terms of growth, development and treatments to help the boys on their journey," says Miller. "And with that delay, we're sort of trying to make up for lost time."

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There's one population that gets overlooked by an 'everyone will get COVID' mentality

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Ten-year-old Chase and 11-year-old Carson have alert minds and radiant smiles, but very uncooperative bodies. The two brothers have a rare genetic disorder called MEPAN syndrome. They can't sit, stand, walk or talk. For their parents, Danny and Nikki Miller, this means wheelchairs, electric lifts, diaper changes and spoon feeding.